English Historical Documents 1485-1558 (English Historical Documents, 1485-1558)

ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS General Editor DAVID C.DOUGLAS M.A., F.B.A. ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS General Editor...

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ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

General Editor DAVID C.DOUGLAS M.A., F.B.A.

ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS General Editor: DAVID C.DOUGLAS, M.A., D.LITT., F.B.A.

VOLUMES

ANTIQUITY TO EARLY MEDIEVAL I c. 500–1042 DOROTHY WHITELOCK II 1042–1189 DAVID C.DOUGLAS AND GEORGE W.GREENAWAY III 1189–1327 HARRY ROTHWELL LATE MEDIEVAL IV 1327–1485 A.R.MYERS V 1485–1558 C.H.WILLIAMS EARLY MODERN VI 1660–1714 ANDREW BROWNING VII 1714–1783 D.B.HORN AND MARY RANSOME MODERN VIII 1783–1832 A.ASPINALL AND E.ANTHONY SMITH IX 1833–1874 G.M.YOUNG AND W.D.HANDCOCK X 1874–1914 W.D.HANDCOCK

GENERAL PREFACE

E

NGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS is a work designed to meet a present need. Its purpose is to make generally accessible a wide selection of the fundamental sources of English history. During the past half-century there has been an immense accumulation of historical material, but only a fraction of this has been made readily available to the majority of those who teach or who study history. The transcendent importance of the original authorities is recognized, but direct approach to them remains difficult, and even some of the basic texts (which are frequently quoted) are hard to consult. A gulf has thus opened between the work of the specialist scholar and those students, both at schools and universities, who best can profit by his labours. Historical studies tend too often today to consist of a commentary on documents which are not included in the available books; and, in the absence of any representative and accessible collection of the sources, the formation of opinion proceeds without that direct study of the evidence which alone can give validity to historical judgment. The editors of these volumes consider that this situation calls for a remedy. They have striven to supply one by providing what they hope can be regarded as an authoritative work of primary reference. An enterprise of this nature could be effective only if planned on a large scale. In scope and content, therefore, these volumes differ materially from the conventional “source-books” which usually contain only a restricted number of selected extracts. Here, within much wider limits, the editors have sought to produce a comprehensive corpus of evidence relating generally to the period with which they deal. Their aim, in each case, has been to present the material with scholarly accuracy, and without bias. Editorial comment has thus been directed, in the main, towards making the evidence intelligible, and not to drawing conclusions from it. Full account has been taken of modern textual criticism to compile a reliable collection of authentic testimony, but the reader has in general been left to pass his own judgment upon it, and to appraise for himself the value of current historical verdicts. Critical bibliographies have been added to assist further investigation. The material to be included in each volume naturally varies according to the needs of each period as assessed by the editors. The period 1485–1558 is by common consent regarded as having been of critical importance in the political and religious history of England; and one of the objects of this book has been to illustrate the interconnexion between the constitutional, the ecclesiastical and the social movements which marked the age, which so notably influenced the English future. The scope of the volume, the unity of the period iii

iv

GENERAL PREFACE

with which it deals, and the principles upon which the documents have been selected are explained by the editor in his general introduction. All concerned in this Series are fully aware of the magnitude of the undertaking to which they have addressed themselves. They are conscious of the hazards of selecting from the inexhaustible store of historical material. They realize also the difficulties involved in editing so large a mass of very varied texts in accordance with the exigent demands of modern scholarship. They believe, however, that the essential prerequisite for the healthy development of English historical studies is wider acquaintance with the original authorities for English history. And they are content that their work should be judged by the degree to which they have succeeded in promoting this object. DAVID DOUGLAS

ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 1485–1558 Edited by

C.H.WILLIAMS M.A.

London and New York

First published in 1967 by Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd Reissued in 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 © 1967 Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-19575-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-19578-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-14370-5 (Print Edition) Complete set

0-415-14361-6

Boxed set 1 Boxed set 2 Boxed set 3 Boxed set 4

0-415-14362-4 0-415-14363-2 0-415-14364-0 0-415-14365-9

Vol. I Vol. II Vol. III Vol. IV Vol. V Vol. VI Vol. VII Vol. VIII Vol. IX Vol. X

0-415-14366-7 0-415-14367-5 0-415-14368-3 0-415-14369-1 0-415-14370-5 0-415-14371-3 0-415-14372-1 0-415-14373-X 0-415-14374-8 0-415-14375-6

VOLUME V

ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 1485–1558

To Clare

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

HE editor wishes to thank Professor A.G.Dickens for permission to print his text of Sir John Gostwick’s advice on household management (no. 143). He is also obliged to the following authors and editors whose texts have been used in preparing this volume: W.G.Clark Maxwell, Archaeologia, XXXIII (1933), 167–170; Hitchcock and Chambers, Harpsfield’s Life of More; C.F.Malfatti, Two Italian Accounts of Tudor England; Professor K.Muir, Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt; J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner; W.T.Mellows, Last Days of Peterborough Monastery, A.L.Merson, Third Book of Remembrances of Southampton, A.Raine, York Civic Records; Sir A.Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry. If by a mischance any work which should have been acknowledged has been omitted from this list the editor takes this opportunity to express his regret for what would be an entirely unintentional discourtesy.

x

CONTENTS GENERAL PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION I. The Period II. The Land III. Population IV. The Dynasty V. Government VI. Society VII. The Church VIII. The Sources

page iii x 1 1 5 7 9 18 26 35 64

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY: The more important secondary and original sources of English history between 1485 and 1558

70

Part I. THE WRITING OF HISTORY, 1485–1558 INTRODUCTION TO PART I SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHRONICLES AND HISTORIES

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Select passages from The Great Chronicle of London Select passages from Wriothesley’s Chronicle Select passages from Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia Lord Berners on the study of history Select passages from Edward Hall’s Chronicle The antiquarian interests of John Leland described in a letter to Henry VIII (1546) Select passages from the writings of John Bale John Foxe on historical method The diary as a narrative source The new biographical narrative

87 93 109 123 130 138 141 153 157 162 167 174

Part II. THE LAND INTRODUCTION TO PART II SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

An impression of England by an Italian visitor (17 November 1497) A description of England in an early Italian “Relation” (c. 1500) A Scottish impression of England (1521) A Spanish impression of England. From a private letter (1554) Descriptions of the English countryside, by John Leland xi

181 184 187 192 202 207 210

xii

CONTENTS

Part III. THE COMMONWEAL INTRODUCTION TO PART III SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

page 223 230

A. THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY Social structure defined by statute (1510) The social effects of procedure by attainder. Illustrated from statutes The Heralds and ennoblement, illustrated from various sources The rise of new families, illustrated from various sources The gentry: good and bad. Described by Thomas Becon Two descriptions of the yeoman The enfranchisement of villeins. Some examples Select documents on wardship and marriage from various sources

B. THE THEORY OF THE COMMONWEAL 24. A supplication of the Poore Commons, 1546 25. Thoughts on social responsibilities from the Works of William Tyndale 26. The nature of the Commonweal. From Thomas Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset 27. Selections from the writings of Robert Crowley 28. Criticism of society in the writing of Henry Brinkelowe 29. The Church and the Commonweal. Selections from The Primer 30. Latimer’s Social Teaching illustrated from his sermons 31. Thomas Lever’s Social Theory illustrated from his sermons 32. Denunciation of rebellion by Cranmer (1549) 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

C. LEADERS IN SOCIETY Character sketch of Henry VII. From Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia Impressions of Henry VIII. From various sources Some impressions of Edward VI. From various sources Mary Tudor described by a Venetian ambassador (1557) Empson and Dudley. From Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia Two impressions of Wolsey Impressions of Thomas Cromwell An impression of Protector Somerset Reminiscences of Cranmer by his secretary (c. 1565) Impressions of Stephen Gardiner. From various sources An impression of Cardinal Pole

249 252 255 259 268 272 273 274 276 292 295 303 325 336 338 356 361 387 388 394 397 400 402 412 413 418 422 426

Part IV. GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION INTRODUCTION TO PART IV SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. THE CROWN 44. The problem of the succession. Illustrated from various sources

429 429 445

CONTENTS

xiii

45. Arrangements for the coronation of Edward VI. From the Council Records page 466 46. Arrangements for a royal minority 470 47. The king’s style defined by statute 474 48. The law of treason. From statutes and other sources 475 B. THE SECRETARIAT 49. Development of the office of King’s Secretary. From various sources 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

C. CHAMBER AND HOUSEHOLD An impression of Henry VII’s financial policy. From Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia Commissions illustrating Henry VII’s exploitation of feudal dues and other sources of revenue. From the Patent Rolls The new officials for exploiting revenue. Illustrated from the Patent Rolls The Surveyor of the King’s Prerogative. From the Patent Rolls Legislation on financial organization Reform of the Royal Household. Illustrated from the Eltham Ordinances (1526)

489

493 495 497 500 500 510

56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

D. THE KING’S COUNCIL Henry VII’s Council. Described by Polydore Vergil The King’s Council before 1540 The statute of proclamations The emergence of the Privy Council. Illustrated from Council Records Reorganization of the Privy Council

515 516 521 524 527

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

E. THE CONCILIAR COURTS The problem of lawlessness. From a law report (1485) Conciliar Jurisdiction. Illustrated from the Patent Rolls, etc. The Court of Star Chamber. Some typical proceedings The Court of Requests The Council of the North The Council in the Marches of Wales England and Wales. Towards the Act of Union

532 535 539 546 549 552 554

F. THE COMMON LAW 68. A description of legal education with proposals for reform 69. (a) Example of a law reading (b) Example of a law report (c) Legislation affecting the Common Law

563 573 577 580

G. PARLIAMENT 70. Records of Parliament. From the Journals 71. Speeches in Parliament. From various sources

583 597

xiv

CONTENTS

72. Parliamentary Privilege 73. Parliamentary Procedure

page 605 608

H. LOCAL GOVERNMENT 74. The Justice of the Peace. Illustrated from various sources 75. The Lords Lieutenant

613 617

I. THEORY OF GOVERNMENT 76. Illustrations of political and constitutional theory. From various sources 618

Part V. RELIGION SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

633 635

A. THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION An act for bishops to punish priests and other religious men for dishonest life An act to take away the benefit of clergy from certain persons A criticism of the English clergy (1511) The case of Richard Hunne A satire on the clergy Selections from the writings of William Tyndale Latimer on “The New Learning”

651 651 652 660 669 677 694

INTRODUCTION TO PART V

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

B. THE KING’S PRIVATE MATTER Negotiations for the marriage of Prince Henry and Catherine of Aragon (1503) The letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn (c. 1527–28) Henry VIII’s “Scrupulous Conscience” Stages in the “Divorce” proceedings. From various sources The trial and execution of Anne Boleyn (1536). From Wriothesley’s Chronicle The Seymour marriage and the birth of Prince Edward. From Wriothesley’s Chronicle

697 699 706 709 723 725

C. THE BREACH WITH ROME 90. An act concerning fines and sums of money to be taken by the ministers of bishops and other ordinaries of Holy Church for the probate of testaments 727 91. An act concerning the taking of mortuaries 728 92. An act concerning the pardon granted to the king’s spiritual subjects of the province of Canterbury for the Praemunire 730

CONTENTS

xv

93. An act concerning the pardon granted to the king’s temporal subjects for the praemunire page 731 94. The supplication of the commons against the ordinaries (1532) 732 95. An act for restraint of payment of annates to the see of Rome (1532) 737 96. An act in restraint of appeals (1533) 738 97. An act for the submission of the clergy to the king’s majesty (1534) 741 98. An act restraining the payment of annates (1534) 743 99. An act for the exoneration from exactions paid to the see of Rome (1534) 744 100. An act for the king’s highness to be supreme head of the Church of England and to have authority to reform and redress all errors, heresies and abuses in the same (1534) 745 101. An act concerning the payment of first fruits and tenths (1534) 746 102. Returns of Church property. From the Valor Ecclesiasticus 748 103. An act against papal authority (1536) 759 104. An act for the king to make bishops (1539) 760

105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

D. CONFISCATION OF CHURCH WEALTH Precedents for the dissolution of religious houses. From the Patent Rolls Conditions in religious houses, c. 1518. Illustrated from episcopal visitations The dissolution of the monasteries. Illustrated from various sources Sidelights on the dissolution of the monasteries. From various sources Monastic lands after the dissolution Inventories of Church goods

761 762 770 777 788 789

111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

E. DOCTRINE UNDER HENRY VIII Henry VIII and theology. Described by Cranmer The Ten Articles Cromwell’s First Injunctions (1536) The Institution of a Christian Man (1537) The second Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII (1538) An act abolishing diversity in opinions (1539) The King’s Book (1543)

794 795 805 809 811 814 817

118. 119. 120. 121. 122.

F. THE ENGLISH BIBLE The pioneer work of William Tyndale Petition for the Bible in English (1534) The Coverdale Bible Matthew’s Bible The Great Bible

820 823 823 824 825

G. HERESY 123. Licence for Thomas More to keep and read heretical books (1528) 124. Proclamation against erroneous books and heresies (1530) 125. An act for punishment of heresy (1534)

828 829 832

xvi

CONTENTS

126. An act for he renewing of three statutes made for the punishment of heresies (1554) page 834 127. Examples of heresy trials 835 128. The Marian persecution 839 129.

130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.

H. THE CHURCH UNDER EDWARD VI (i) An act against such as shall irreverently speak against the sacrament (1547) (ii) Proclamation concerning the irreverent talkers of the sacrament (1547) (iii) Cranmer to John à Lasco (1548) The Order of the Communion (1548) The first Act of Uniformity (1548) An act enjoining abstinence (1548) An act for the abolishing and putting away of divers books and images (1550) An act that the king may nominate thirty-two persons to peruse and make ecclesiastical laws (1550) An act for the ordering of ecclesiastical ministers (1550) Second Act of Uniformity (1552) An act for the keeping of holy days and fasting days (1552)

I. THE CHURCH UNDER MARY 138. Mary’s first proclamation on religion (1553) 139. An act for the repeal of certain statutes made in the time of the reign of King Edward VI (1553) 140. Second statute of repeal (1554) 141. Reconciliation with Rome 142. The last days of Thomas Cranmer. From various sources (1555)

839 840 842 844 849 851 853 854 854 855 857

858 860 862 865 869

Part VI. DAILY LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY INTRODUCTION TO PART VI SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

893 896

A. LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 143. Select documents illustrating estate and household management 144. Materials concerning enclosures. Illustrated from various sources (I) Legislation relating to enclosures (II) Documents concerning the Commissions on Enclosures (1517) 145. Select examples of the literature on enclosures

905 926 926 929 940

B. LIFE IN THE TOWNS 146. The central government and the towns 147. Town life illustrated from town records

954 964

CONTENTS

C. INDUSTRY AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 148. Industrial organization illustrated from statutes and other sources 149. Types of industry illustrated from various sources

xvii

page 995 1003

D. MONEY 150. A selection of documents relating to usury 151. Documents illustrating the debasement of the coinage

1009 1013

E. POVERTY AND THE POOR LAW 152. Stages in the growth of the Poor Law 153. Examples of private charity for relief of the poor. From London wills 154. The local authorities and the poor. Illustrated from various sources

1023 1034 1035

155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161.

F. BRINGING UP THE YOUNG Dean Colet’s statutes for his foundation, St. Paul’s School (1518) Education for the sons of gentlemen Foundation of schools A tutor’s report, c. 1530 Foreign travel (1541) Sir Thomas Wyatt’s advice to his son (1537) Life at the universities

INDEX TO TEXTS

1039 1046 1063 1065 1066 1066 1070 1077

GENERAL INTRODUCTION I. THE PERIOD

G

ERMAN historians have an industry they call “periodisierung”, and they take it very seriously. It is not unknown to English scholars but they, with typical Anglo-Saxon levity, treat it with less reverence, for they look upon it as a recreation rather than as a science, and when they engage in it they do not consider they are on oath. They are right: periodisation, this splitting up of Time into neatly balanced divisions is, after all, a very arbitrary proceeding and should not be looked upon as permanent. The utility of such dividing lines comes from their experimental and tentative nature, for if they are accepted as easily removable signposts along the road of Time periodisation itself becomes an agent of criticism by forcing historians to vindicate their own selections of dates, thereby providing a powerful stimulus to new ideas. The vitality of historical writing derives strength from constant revisions caused by the discoveries of research, and very often some suggestions inspired by periodisation provide a new approach. This is certainly what has happened as a result of such experiments for the early Tudor period. Until about 1874, when J.R.Green developed his thesis of a “new monarchy” suggesting that it came into being with the accession of Edward IV, the conventional dividing line between medieval and modern English history was usually drawn at 1485. In recent years Green’s theme has been exploited in greater detail because of an increased interest in the history of the fifteenth century, and an attempt to find the precedents for early Tudor policy in ideas of government sponsored by the Yorkist kings. The time seems to have come for a more critical look at this thesis. It is extremely doubtful whether this concept of a new type of kingship originating with Edward IV and continuing under the Tudors is acceptable today. This is not the place to explore claims made on behalf of the Yorkists: what can be asserted here is that Henry VII was essentially a medieval king, medieval in the great traditions of the masters of kingcraft in the Middle Ages, not particularly indebted, save perhaps by coincidence, to his immediate predecessors, except in so far as any king must be influenced to some extent by the achievement, failures, and examples of those he is directly following. As will be discussed later, the revolution in government in the Tudor period came about half way through Henry VIII’s reign, when ideas were developed which could have owed little to Yorkist precedents. When all the cards are out the ultimate test of a monarchy is its success in establishing continuity, and this can only be done by creating a dynasty. This, by the way, explains a feature appearing so consistently and 1

2

ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS (1485–1558)

with such emphasis in this collection of documents: the anxiety of Henry VIII to ensure an unimpeachable succession to his Crown. If this standard is to be applied to the shortlived Yorkist effort at kingship then it must be adjudged a failure: the Tudor achievement, on the other hand, despite all the anxieties and troubles accompanying it was a success. There is, then, something to be said for the traditional ideas: 1485 is a date of considerable significance in English history: it is the birthday of a new dynasty. The second dividing line need arouse little controversy: 1558 is suitable and indeed desirable. The last of the Tudors left too clear an impression on her reign for it to be known as anything other than The Elizabethan Age, and for that, and several other reasons, what has come to be known as the early Tudor period must end in 1558. For one thing, with the death of Mary in that year the swing of the pendulum in politics and religion from one extreme to the other between 1547 and 1558 was checked, and the way was opened for a settlement in Elizabeth’s via media. There is another, no less powerful justification for this dividing line. The historian of the sixteenth century is compelled on practical grounds to make a division at this point. Both the great number of significant problems and events which have to be examined as well as the enormous wealth of historical evidence needing study makes imperative some distribution of labour among sixteenth century historians, and 1558 is the suitable point at which a division can be made. With the chronological limits 1485–1558 thus settled, something needs to be said about the general features of the early Tudor period. First, it can be described, with little fear of contradiction, as a time of great upheaval and violent change: and if the study of change is accepted as a major interest for the historian then the attractions offered him are tempting. It was a time of change more challenging, more radical, than any which had been seen in England since the Norman Conquest. Politics is the struggle for power: it is also the means for getting things done. Judged by both these tests the political history of these years is of more than ordinary interest. The full meaning of change as it was seen by contemporaries is best realized by an example which is also an opportunity for another exercise in periodisation. Let it be put quite simply. A man born in 1485 might possibly even in those dangerous days have had an expectation of life of seventy-five years, so that two years after the accession of Elizabeth I, he could have looked back upon a life which had begun when Henry VII ascended the throne. Over those years he would have seen a succession of outstanding events. For one thing, he would have been a subject of five Tudor sovereigns. This in itself would have been no mean triumph, especially if he happened to be a subject of some importance, for if this Tudor age was exciting to all who were living through it, it could also be a time of great uncertainty, and indeed of physical

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

3

insecurity for anyone save the meanest and most inconspicuous of subjects. Those who had any share in public affairs needed great suppleness if they were to pass unscathed through the hazards of the time. Quite a few of them, no doubt, would have subscribed to the worldly wisdom of William Paulet, first marquis of Winchester (?1485–1572), who, when asked how he managed to live through all the crises of his long life, replied, “Ortus sum e salice, non e quercu”.1 Insecurity was not the only factor likely to cause disturbance for our sixteenth-century citizen. He would have found grounds for anxiety in the rapidly increasing tempo of change during his lifetime. Towards the end of his days he might well have thought of its significance by indulging in an exercise of periodisation. The successive divisions into which he could split up the history of his own times were not unlike the phases of his own life. For the first fortyfive years, that is from his birth until he was approaching middle age (1485– 1529), he would have been living in a world of comparative peace, when the grave civil strife about which his father might have spoken to him had been stamped out, the Yorkists had been defeated, and a strong king had taken firm grip of the government and the country. Life was not, on the whole, strenuous during those years, and even if there were a risk that too-efficient government officials might enforce excessive demands upon him in addition to rigorous normal taxation there were, by and large, compensating advantages in living in a country where the great landmarks in Church and State still remained very much as he had known them when he was a boy at school. In the decade when he passed from forty-five to fifty-five (1530–40) there had been a period of violent revolutionary change. Life for him, as for everyone else in England, had been more exciting and more perilous. These were years on which he would look back wondering how he had managed to live through them without getting into trouble: years full of sensational events, the tragic disgrace and death of the arrogant statesman-cleric Wolsey, the king’s repudiation of his wife Catherine, and his scandalous liaison with the upstart Anne Boleyn, the crowded, exciting, and revolutionary sessions of the Reformation Parliament, when no man could guess what new-fangled device the king and his advisers, especially Thomas Cromwell, might be putting into a statute, the elevation of this second Tudor monarch to heights of supremacy under God in Church and State, the wholesale nationalization of church property, the pensioning off of men and women of religion, and the destruction of their monastic homes which, over the years, had grown old with the English countryside and had become an accepted though not necessarily an approved 1 In addition to William Paulet some other near examples from real life chosen at random can be cited: George Cavendish, biographer of Wolsey, 1500–61; Sir Thomas Smith, 1513–77; Sir William Petre, 1505–1572; Bishop Thomas Thirlby, 1500–70.

4


feature of the church life of the country, the rapid rise and surprisingly sudden fall of Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, draftsman of so many of Henry VIII’s spectacular designs in Church and State, the death of Henry VIII’s first Queen and the judicial murder of her successor, Anne Boleyn, the King’s ignoble vengeance on John Fisher and Thomas More. They had been stirring, dangerous years, when a man could count himself lucky if he did not end his days at Tyburn or the Tower. As he began to leave middle age behind him, between his fifty-fifth and sixty-second years (1540–47) his energies would no doubt be beginning to flag, and he would be losing the fire of youth just as his king, too, was showing signs of age and decrepitude, and as if to keep company with them the rhythm of national life was also easing, until by the end of this phase he would have heard with some relief, but with more misgivings, that the awe-inspiring author of so much disturbance, the master of England for the last thirty-eight years had gone to his last rest. Le Roy est mort: Vive le Roy. When the old king’s son became Edward VI another stirring phase in the life of this man of sixty-two would be opening. By the time he was sixty-eight he would have lived through a period (1547–53) of yet more violent change and shattering iconoclasm, in which the full force of what neighbouring continental countries knew as the Reformation struck this country. To a man of his age and experience it is likely that this would not be a phase with which he would find himself in sympathy. As he saw and heard of the innovations in religion and politics accompanying the intrigues and fierce struggle for power in which upstarts, nobles, and scheming politicians fought for their lives he must have looked back nostalgically to the comparatively peaceful days of his youth. He would, however, still have seven more years to live, time enough for him to see Queen Mary’s obstinate attempt to put back the hands of the clock only to find that it could not be done, a conclusion her successor interpreted to mean that she would have to come to terms with reform. So much for the attempts at periodisation of an ageing Tudor citizen. A modern historian looking back over the same period is better equipped than the contemporary to reach some conclusions about the general features of the age. The first point he is likely to make is that it was an extremely tough age. He knows only too well that if he would take its full measure he must be prepared for many experiences. He will have to face some grim realities; be ready to rub shoulders with a tense crowd at Smithfield callously watching the death agonies of a martyr burning at the stake for a faith which authority had labelled heresy, or to stand on Tower Green as the head of a queen rolls from the executioner’s block. He must not be surprised, much less shocked, at the curious in-sensitivity he will meet with even in high places: Henry VII solemnly proposing himself as a husband for the mad queen Joanna of Castile, and again prepared to marry


5

his own daughter-in-law, Catherine of Aragon, rather than allow her dowry to leave the country after the death of her husband Prince Arthur: Henry VIII ready to bastardize by act of parliament his two daughters: Edward VI solemnly noting in his diary, apparently without a suspicion of emotion, that his uncle, Protector Somerset, had been put to death on that day. These and many other incidents woven into the pattern of those years combine to reveal the unlovely traits, and justify the succession of historians who have judged with severity the men and manners of this puzzling age. Our historian might make a second point, which would go some way towards explaining the first. If there is one feature of the early sixteenth century which impresses the observer more than any other it is that this was a time when men lived under a cloud of uncertainty and fear. Throughout those years from 1485– 1558 subjects of these Tudor kings, that is to say, those of them endowed with even a minimum of political acumen, must have been in constant dread of what the next step in government policy might have in store for them individually. Certainly, from 1529 onwards, at any rate, Englishmen were at the mercy of rulers wholly committed to great adventures in religion and politics, and in their determination to achieve their ends they had little regard for the rights or the liberty of the individual. Nor was this the only source of anxiety. Side by side with the kaleidescopic changes in religion and politics there was also going on a succession of social and economic disturbances, the causes of which were not understood, but the results were all too plainly felt in rising prices, unemployment, and poverty. These were additional factors accentuating the sensation of fear and uncertainty which were so marked a feature of the times. II. THE LAND

Before discussing some of the major historical problems of the early Tudor period there are some preliminary matters which ought to be noticed since conclusions about them play an important part in shaping historical interpretation. First of these is the land. What, the historian must ask, was the physical condition of the country during the first half of the sixteenth century? Simple as that question seems it is one which, for earlier periods, can cause great embarrassment since the lack of satisfactory contemporary descriptions of the landscape and the natural resources of the country means that the historian has little data upon which to work. The interest in topography shown by a Giraldus Cambrensis in the twelfth century, or a Ralph Higden in the fourteenth, or a William of Worcester in the fifteenth, genuine and praiseworthy as their efforts may be, can only be described as naïve, and certainly not sufficiently explicit to satisfy the demands of the modern student. The historian of early Tudor England is more fortunately placed. Although it would be an exaggeration

6


to suggest that the information available is anything like adequate, yet during this period there was revealed sufficient interest in the nature and appearance of the countryside to encourage some descriptive writing of a topographical nature. This, combined with some other material, provides a reasonable basis for conclusions about the main features of the English countryside. The foreign visitor to England is an important source of information. He was usually impressed by the prosperous look of the land as he saw it in his short journey through Kent on his way from Dover to London. This picture was one which produced a crescendo of praise as the visitor entered the city of London. Unfortunately the average foreigner does not seem to have travelled around the country to any great extent and so he was not qualified to speak about the interior, nor was he sufficiently interested in what he actually did see to set down his experiences in the detail which would be illuminating to the modern reader. A more general picture is that provided by English observers, and most particularly in the notes made by John Leland. Here, again, it must be remembered that Leland was primarily an antiquarian and that the main object of his extensive travels through England was to rescue manuscripts from destruction, and the notices of places of archaeological and antiquarian interest which he made appealed to him more than did the landscape through which he passed. Thus, while his descriptions of the towns and villages are invaluable, they were incidental to his main purpose, and they omit much of the detail it would be so good to know. Welcome as the results of his labour are, they would have been even more so if his mind had been as alert to the ordinary things of the present as it was to the relics of the past. Despite their shortcomings these materials provide sufficient data to justify some general comments. Firstly, it should be observed that the England with which this volume deals was predominantly a rural, and therefore an agricultural, country. In the main, life for most of its inhabitants was centred on the manor or the village. Apart from the very few concentrations of population deserving the name of cities (London, Bristol, Norwich, and York are the main examples) life in the small towns and cathedral cities was scarcely divorced from the open country, a fact which accounts for many features of early Tudor history, including the readiness with which the townsman tended to take his chance to convert his capital into land. The second point deserving emphasis is that the countryside was the scene of much activity, not to say unsettlement. This affected all kinds of people, from the new landlords coming in from the towns to take over country estates to the peasants often evicted from their homes to make way for new ideas of farming. As will appear later, it will not do to exaggerate the effects or the amount of social change taking place, but there can be little doubt that there was enough to play a considerable part in creating problems in the countryside, most of which are reflected in contemporary literature.


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A third point worth considering is that while the England of the period was essentially rural there were towns in which an important part of the population was actively engaged in trade and industry. Such towns were not large: their population probably ranged from five to fifteen thousand inhabitants, but they could lay claim to well-established institutions of government and more sophisticated standards of living than the villages, and they were characterized by their own variety of lively activities and interests. Nothing illustrates more vividly the contrast between these early Tudor communities and the urban life of modern England than the mention of them made by Leland. The towns he names as the most flourishing in the early sixteenth century are today for the most part small centres now languishing in the deep countryside, places like Lavenham in Suffolk or Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, while the Manchesters and Birminghams of today scarcely draw a mention from him, or if they do, are described as small villages or at most as very rudimentary towns. When it comes to giving an impression of the agricultural or industrial resources of the country the modern historian is confronted by several difficulties, not the least being the lack of anything in the nature of reliable statistics, so that he is reduced to generalizations which may be misleading or at best so devoid of detail as to be almost worthless. From the fairly detailed descriptions in the writings of Polydore Vergil, Leland, and the more comprehensive of the Italian Relations, it is possible to reach some firm conclusions about the features and the natural resources of the country at that time.1 When due allowance is made for the excessively eulogistic reports of some of these observers it would seem that, generally speaking, conditions were not unduly hard. Over a large area, south of a line from the Humber to the Bristol Channel, England was a fruitful land, well suited to the growth of wheat and other cereals, and even better adapted to the grazing of sheep and cattle, while in many parts of the country as a whole there were adequate supplies of mineral wealth including lead, tin, iron, and some silver. Even in the less favoured parts of the country to the north and west where mountain ranges made life more strenuous and less productive there were considerable areas where conditions not unlike those obtaining in the south could be found. The general conclusion must be that this was a country with plenty of native resources, but where life for most people was strenuous and standards of living, though in general they were bearable, could not be said to be high. III. POPULATION

Next in importance to the land come the people who live on it. Their numbers, characteristics, and distribution are topics of importance, but unfortunately, 1

Nos. 11–15.

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for the period under review, these are not subjects which can be discussed with any degree of assurance. In the absence of reliable statistics too much of what has been written about them is not far removed from guess work. True, the work of demographers in recent years has shown that here there is a field of study in which improvements in technique and possibly the discovery of fresh evidence may yield more accurate results, but at present it would seem that for some of these topics there is likely to be no more information. In the present state of knowledge, therefore, it is only possible to make some general comments with the warning that they must be regarded as most tentative. One thing can be said with some confidence: it is that the total population of England and Wales during the early Tudor period was small. Estimates vary from a figure of about 2,500,000 to something over 3,000,000. If this latter figure be accepted some appreciation of its significance will be realized by a comparison with modern standards. In 1965 a population of this size was living in the four cities of Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. Next, it should be observed that this total population of 3,000,000 was spread very thinly over the country. The larger cities did not account for a great proportion of that figure. London, capital city as it was, might be expected to show signs of growth, and this it certainly did, but in 1539 its population was, it has been suggested, something between 60,000 to 80,000. This figure had probably increased to 90,000 by 1559, but the great increase came after that date so that by 1605 a rough estimate has been suggested of 224,275. When these figures are compared with those for the population of Greater London in 1965, which was 8,151,750, it will be seen that this relatively small population figure for the early sixteenth century will have an influence over many features of the history of the country. The other major cities were Norwich, York, and Bristol (not, it should be noted, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, as it would be today) with population figures estimated as: Bristol 10,500, Norwich 8000–9000, York about 8000. Smaller towns were even less impressive, suggested figures ranging from Gloucester 4738, Leicester 4375, in 1461, Coventry 6600 in 1520, Worcester 6500, Cambridge in 1513 4000–5000, with probably an equal number of townsmen, and Oxford about the same. Without attempting to make too much of figures drawn from uncertain materials one would be justified in saying that excluding the population of the larger cities the majority of the people were distributed in a number of small towns of 3000–5000 persons, or in very small communities in the villages. From this it may be inferred that most Englishmen were by environment, instinct, and nurture countrymen at heart, and their most lively interests were concentrated within the narrow limits of the small communities to which they belonged.


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IV. THE DYNASTY

The Tudor dynasty came into existence at the will of Henry VII, when, in his first parliament, without explaining why, or how, he authorized a bill to the effect that the crown of England should rest and remain in the king, the heirs of his body and his successors.1 That is the most important fact about the year 1485: it is the first landmark in the history of the dynasty whose members were to control the destinies of Englishmen for more than a hundred years. The constitutional significance of Henry’s decree need not be discussed at this stage although it might be pointed out in passing that since the life of a dynasty derives from a regular undisputed succession it is easy to appreciate why a succession problem, or rather a series of succession problems, runs through the whole of the sixteenth century, providing a constant preoccupation for every Tudor sovereign and influencing directly or indirectly many of the crucial issues in the politics of the time. If an unquestioned succession means so much in the history of a dynasty, the personal contribution of each of its members is hardly less important. On that the quality of the dynasty as a whole depends: the strength and the weakness, the virtues and the vices of its individual members, these are the factors which will decide the verdict of the world upon the dynasty’s contribution to history. For this reason something should be said of the personal quality of each of the Tudor monarchs. First there is Henry VII. Much is known about the achievements of the founder of the dynasty: what still remains elusive is the character and personality of the king himself. There are several reasons for this. Although the source material for Henry’s reign is considerable there is a lack of the kind of evidence needed to bring his personality sharply before us. Henry does not reveal himself very clearly in his limited private correspondence, and the few attempts at a description and analysis of his character made by contemporaries are not clearcut enough to carry conviction. The image of the king was really established by one contemporary, the historian Polydore Vergil, who knew Henry personally, had been treated considerately by him, and was on the whole disposed to write in favourable terms about Henry and his work.2 Even so, the picture he provides is not altogether attractive. In particular Vergil is responsible for an interpretation of the reign which suggests that a serious deterioration in the king’s character and policy set in after about 1504 when, largely under the influence of two unprincipled advisers, Empson and Dudley, Henry indulged in an avaricious and extortionate financial policy which bore very heavily upon his subjects, and made Henry most unpopular during his later years.3 Important as Vergil’s interpretation was as a model for later writers, the next attempt to analyse the king was of greater influence. This was the classic 1

No. 44.

2

No. 33.

3

No. 50.

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biography written by Francis Bacon. Produced about 16211 by a man born half a century after Henry’s death this book has, of course, no authority as a contemporary source, but so powerful was its influence in later times that when William Busch wrote his history of Henry’s reign in 1892 he felt it necessary, after making a serious examination of Bacon’s technique and use of materials, to urge that Bacon’s work, outstanding as it was in style and perfection of narrative, ought to be expunged from the list of original authorities for the history of the reign. Serious study of the king and his reign, first set in motion by this German historian, was followed in the next few years by the publication of fresh records and other sources. These made possible studies more sympathetic to the king. In the light of these contributions Henry began to come to life. Justice was done to sides of his character ignored by earlier writers. Instead of the cold unattractive and unapproachable figure described by Polydore Vergil Henry now appeared in a new guise. Thus, for example, Gladys Temperley’s biography reflects this newer approach.2 Writing in 1914 she says that although the portrait Bacon drew still holds the field, his impression of the politic king drawn with a master hand, “remote from human feelings, guiltless of love or hatred, without pity and without resentment, without passion and without weakness”, is a striking figure, grey, relentless, and inhuman. Her own study, based on some materials not known by Bacon, modifies this impression. Royal letters, patent rolls, privy purse, and household accounts reveal a king who was generous and benevolent. In her pages the harsh and sinister despot yields place to a monarch both kindly and considerate. The royal accounts reveal a king with a taste for resplendent clothes and magnificent jewels, used to cultivate a popular image of the king’s personal dignity, surrounded by a court designed to impress foreign ambassadors as well as his own subjects with an impression of his wealth and the splendour of his bearing. Henry was not simply a symbol of kingship. He was as well a man of action, a keen sportsman, fond of the chase, and generous to those who served his entertainment. There was much that was old-world in his sympathies, and religion seems to have for him a deeper meaning than mere outward conformity. Such were some of the gentler, more human attributes introduced by this historian into her character study of the king. And yet, despite such modifications Henry stands out in her pages with some of the qualities of “the dark prince and infinitely suspicious” described by Bacon, a cautious, calculating, cold personality making his appeal to the head rather than to the heart, a lonely man with a strength of will and character 1 Although put into the form in which we now have it, at that date, Bacon had long contemplated such a work. See J.Spedding, Collected Works of Francis Bacon, VI, p. 17, for a fragment of such a history, which John Speed (1552–1629), whose History was published in 1609, knew and used. 2 G.Temperley, Henry VII, p. 376.


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which had won him success but not much sympathy. Not a miser, certainly— but here the old legend still lingers—when premature old age had gripped him then the darker shades of his character were accentuated and he forfeited the good opinion of his subjects by his ruthless financial policy. As the researches of more recent historians into the administrative and financial history of the reign have revealed the technical mastery of Henry’s achievement it has become possible to appreciate more thoroughly his great ability and skill as a ruler. His financial policy was masterly in conception and in timing. It was not, of course, carried out without assistance from expert ministers, who by their loyal service incurred unpopularity in their own day, and have only recently received the recognition to which their ability entitled them. These men were never more than Henry’s agents: behind them was the king, supervising and controlling their activities, and showing a patient devotion to duty which would be considered in these days exceptional in a dedicated accountant, but which was scarcely esteemed as one of the kingly virtues in the early sixteenth century. In recent opinion attention to this side of Henry’s work has led to a reconsideration of the pattern Polydore Vergil had imposed upon the reign. The first feature to go was the theme that Empson and Dudley, tyrannous oppressors of the king’s subjects, succeeded about 1504 in leading Henry to embark on an unscrupulous use of his powers in order to make exorbitant demands intended to humble overmighty subjects and fill the king’s coffers. These imputations against them are explained away: they were the victims of their own zeal: there was nothing illegal in this drive on the part of the king’s servants to collect all the revenue to which the king was legally entitled. The fact that this revenue was due to the king did not make its collection any the more popular, and inevitably the onus of responsibility for royal policy fell upon his agents. Later interpretation has gone even farther.1 A recent defence of the King, well documented and cogently argued has rejected this story of steady deterioration in his character, for which according to Bishop Fisher Henry himself expressed his remorse shortly before his death. Henry, it is now argued, pursued a financial policy which was perfectly consistent, quite legal, and although admittedly severe, especially towards the more important and wealthy of his subjects, could not fairly be described as unjust, nor is there satisfactory evidence that he either felt or expressed remorse. There is much to be said in favour of this general reaction away from the older view of Henry VII and his reign. And yet, it is extremely doubtful whether these newer views will ever succeed in making this king any more popular with the layman. Bacon was not far from the truth when he wrote that Henry was that best sort of wonder, a wonder for wise men. His appeal is to the intellect: he is best understood by experts in the strategy and tactics of finance and 1

Below, p. 493.

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administration. For those who can appreciate his work in these spheres his name stands high: they know that without his contribution there would not have been a Tudor dynasty. If the character and personality of the first Tudor king are difficult to assess what shall be said of his successor? The direct opposite of his father in nearly all respects he yet presents much the same problem when it comes to assessing his quality as a king and his character as a man. The difficulty is not entirely due to lack of material on which judgments can be based, although, of course, the historian could wish for more documents of a personal and intimate nature, in which the king unburdened himself of his innermost thoughts, motives, and emotions. There need be no controversy about the impression this king made upon his contemporaries: they have left their reactions on record in several lively descriptions. From his early years Henry won popular admiration for his fine physique and good looks while his passion for all kinds of open-air pursuits such as tilting, jousting, the chase and all kinds of field sports, his love of tennis, dancing, and the other recreations indulged in by a gay and brilliant court all combined to give the world an image of a monarch well equipped to be a formidable rival to the other kings in western Europe. The high regard in which his subjects held him seems to have lasted on even into the years after 1540 when ill-health and excessive corpulence had transformed him out of all recognition, and had led to a grave deterioration in his temper and character. While Henry’s destiny, like that of all men, was in the last resort shaped by forces over which he had no control, it is no less true that his own influence upon the events of his time was masterful and far-reaching in its consequences. This was the result of the combined effect of several personal qualities. He was by nature a man of high intelligence, quick and ready wit, and sound commonsense. These gifts were quickened by a good education. Even when due allowance has been made for the flattering comments of observers there is evidence pointing to reasonable linguistic knowledge, proficiency in Latin and French, with, a little Spanish, and possibly some Italian. In his early years his interest in things of the mind was reflected in the comments of Erasmus, Mountjoy, More, and others, while later on in the reign, when difficulties very largely of his own making involved him in legal and theological problems of deep complexity he showed himself quite able to come to grips with them in a way which sometimes surprised men who had every reason to think that they knew more about such things than he did. All these were facts that made the first twenty years of Henry’s reign on the whole easy years for his subjects, and interesting to his contemporaries in foreign courts discovering that he was the head of a state they could not afford to leave out of their diplomatic calculations. If Henry’s attractions in those early years must be summed up it is that he seems to have possessed a personal quality which clearly drew from some of


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those in close contact with him—More, Gardiner, and Cranmer are examples— a very sincere and respectful affection, and from many of his subjects a loyal recognition of his kingly bearing which could survive even when his leadership seemed to mean the destruction of many of the things they most deeply cherished. That this king could do no wrong would not have been a maxim acceptable to many of Henry’s subjects, but that there was hardly any wrong they would not overlook if done by his orders seems for some reason a consequence of a curious relationship binding subjects to their prince. A more concrete explanation may well be that the loyalty of the subject was willingly given to a king who, despite all the stresses of his reign, gave them peace and stood between them and the uncertainties of faction such as had blighted the lives of their fathers in the fifteenth century. There might even be general agreement, although from some critics it would be a grudging one, that Henry possessed some other qualities most useful when it came to establishing his position as master of the kingdom. He was undoubtedly a shrewd judge of men. It was not altogether good luck which ensured for him the services of men like Wolsey and Cromwell: and the evidence of Thomas More, Stephen Gardiner, or William Thomas is enough to show that contemporaries recognized the perfection of his technique in captivating and handling men. At the same time they were equally aware of the curiously irresponsible ease with which, if he thought fit to do so, Henry got rid of men to whose whole-hearted service he owed so much. This failing is to some extent explained by one of the gravest defects in this king’s character: a defect revealed only too clearly in many situations during his reign. When full acknowledgment has been made of all his kingly qualities they have to be weighed against a strain of vindictive cruelty which prompted him to so many ignoble actions and meanspirited revenges that detract from any claim to greatness. Thus far there is fairly general agreement concerning Henry VIII as a man: beyond this there is room for as great a variety of interpretations of his qualities as there are historians to make them. The reader seeking expert guidance has some classic alternatives from Lord Herbert of Cherbury to present-day scholars. They will give many answers to his questions. There are, in the first place, the severe condemnations of those early partisan writers who could find nothing good to say about him since they were completely out of sympathy with all the developments of the reign. They assume without question that Henry was himself the author of all policy and was, therefore, personally responsible for all the evil consequences they deplore. The vehemence of their strictures and the unscientific nature of their comments usually put them out of court as serious critics. Next, there is the qualified defence of Henry VIII forced on Froude by his study of the facts and against all his own preconceived notions. This view— and it is also to some extent the opinion of Henry’s earliest biographer, Lord

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Herbert of Cherbury—draws a clear cut distinction between Henry’s private character and his public acts.1 In defending the king Froude imagined that all he was doing was reinstating the judgment upon Henry’s motives and actions which had been held by all moderate Englishmen in Henry’s own generation, and which had been “displaced only by the calumnies of Catholic or Antinomian fanatics, when the true records were out of sight; and when in the establishment of a new order of things the hesitating movements, the inconsistencies and difficulties inevitable in a period of transition could no longer be understood without an effort”.2 Throughout his narrative Froude makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Henry’s personal flaws were great: but, assuming that he had complete control of policy, he argues that his position was one of unexampled difficulty, and that the greatness of the work he accomplished out-weighs his personal failings. In a word, Froude’s estimate of the King is favourable: it makes Henry master of his own and his country’s destiny, and concludes that the stupendous changes of the reign in religion and politics owe everything to the personal leadership of the King himself. Not very different is the judgment of an historian whose work has retained until the present day the respect of scholars.3 Like all works of art A.F.Pollard’s interpretation owes much of its success to skilful simplification. Here, too, the assumption is that Henry is in sole control of policy. In his admiration of Henry’s achievement Pollard is prepared to go farther than Froude in estimating favourably Henry’s personal character and morals. The architectonics of this study are not complicated: from 1514 to 1529 Henry is nominally in control while he is learning his craft from Wolsey who is in those years the King’s alter ego: from 1529–47 Henry is the supreme ruler and master of his policy. In the hands of a younger generation, and as a result of more intensive research into some aspects of administration during the reign, a more subtle interpretation has been gaining ground in recent years. Without denying completely Henry’s political abilities this view suggests that his powers and achievements have been greatly over-rated. The really important policy makers, it is maintained, were the king’s ministers Wolsey and Cromwell, and his reign from 1540–47, when Henry had got rid of the latter and had no one of similar calibre to take his place, reveals by contrast with earlier phases how badly the king could go astray when acting on his own initiative. Allowing that Henry took a personal interest in such matters as important political trials and the persecution of high-ranking individuals from whom he was alienated Henry was not, so the argument runs, in control of policy, and this is explained on several grounds. Firstly, Henry was not an active administrator in the way his father had been, for he disliked and 1 2 3

Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the eighth. Froude, History of England, IV, 236. A.F.Pollard, Henry VIII.


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shirked the hard work and concentration necessary for sustained clerical labour. Secondly, he was an opportunist, relying on others for the day-to-day conduct of affairs, and allowing them to provide him with his opinions. Thirdly, although he certainly read state papers the point is made that he relied on others to advise him as to the import of their contents and the action he should take upon them. In fine, then, this king was a man of full vigour, intelligence, shrewdness, and skill, but he was somewhat shallow, an opportunist whose sole concern was the advancement of his own interests by whatever means possible. He is described as lacking originality and foresight: his distinction being his ability to estimate rapidly and accurately the needs of the situation, in a dauntless determination, and in his shrewd choice of advisers, and it is doubtful if he was the architect of anything, least of all of the English Reformation.1 Not everyone will accept this interpretation without at any rate some modifications, for some will consider that it does Henry less than justice. They will find it difficult to accept this reduction in his status. What this estimate fails to take into account, they would argue, is the extraordinary change which took place in the character of government and administration between the reigns of Henry VII and of his son after 1529. While the father gained, and thoroughly deserved, a distinguished reputation as an administrator by his strict attention to what might be described as mainly clerical duties—do not his approving initials literally cross every page of his household accounts as a token of his audit?— such methods would have been quite impossible after the great changes in administration in his son’s reign. The sovereign then had a different part to play, and Henry VIII succeeded in adapting himself to the new conditions. He rose above the flood of administrative detail by leaving that work to subordinates while he kept control of his ministers and his subjects by consummate mastery of the art of delegation, and by keeping firm control over the essentials of policy. Surely this is the first lesson every administrator has to learn and some may well think that Henry VIII was anything but a novice in government.2 Such was Froude’s opinion, and he would go even farther, crediting the King with great application. In his opinion “as his [Henry VIII’s] life drew onwards his lighter tastes disappeared, and the whole energy of his intellect was pressed into the business of the commonwealth. Those who have examined the printed State Papers may form some impression of his industry from the documents which are his own composition, and the letters he wrote and received: but only persons who have seen the original manuscripts, who have observed the traces of his pen in sidenotes and corrections, and the handwritings of his secretaries in diplomatic 1 For the most recent concise statement of this estimate, G.R.Elton, Henry VIII. An Essay in Revision (Historical Association, 1962). For an opposite view, R.B.Wernham, E.H.R., 1959, p. 95. 2 Politicians of a later day seem to have acquired similar wisdom, but in the hard way. See Hugh Dalton, High Tide and After, pp. 20–21. For an example of Henry’s methods see No. 111.

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commissions, drafts of acts of Parliament, in expositions and formularies, in articles of faith, in proclamations, in the countless multitude of documents of all sorts, secular or ecclesiastical which contain the real history of this extraordinary reign, only they can realize the extent of labour to which he sacrificed himself, and which brought his life to a premature close.”1 Although the major contributions to the establishment of the dynasty were made by these first two kings it would not be right to ignore completely the distinctive though less significant results of the other two reigns. It might seem that the sickly boy who took Henry VIII’s place at the age of nine years, and died three months before his sixteenth birthday, can hardly claim a place in Tudor history. Such an estimate leaves out of account the indisputable fact of the young king’s precocity. Enough is known about him to justify the impression that he had all the qualities, good and bad, of his Tudor forbears, and he revealed their potentialities during his reign, brief as it was. The might-havebeens of history are not the lawful concern of the historian, and there would be little profit from speculation about what would have happened in England had this youth, who showed every sign of developing into a masterful, but most unattractive and bigoted autocrat, lived on into middle age. Keeping firmly to facts it can be said that Edward’s reign had a significance of its own for two reasons: firstly, because it was a minority, and secondly because it was so short. As a result of the minority, which put the Henrician kingship to the most severe test possible, conditions were created similar to those which had encouraged the faction fights of the fifteenth century. Ambitious politicians— and John Dudley, earl of Warwick and finally duke of Northumberland was the most unscrupulous of them—realized that the way to power was by winning control of the body and mind of the young king. Hence the extremely bitter feud between Protector Somerset and Northumberland, swinging the country back into faction and party strife, and threatening to bring about a recurrence of fifteenth-century conditions. The brevity of the king’s reign put an end to this menace, but it also cut short the millenial dreams of the reformers, who had seen in the young king their new Josiah, destined to lead them to victory. Instead, his early death meant for many of them a hasty retreat to the continent and the end of the Edwardian Reformation. For these reasons the young Edward has his niche in the story of the Tudor dynasty. Someone once summed up the significance of the reign of Mary Tudor in the specious epigram that it was a parenthesis in the Tudor period. Nothing could be more misleading. To ignore the essentially Tudor qualities in Mary’s character and personality is to miss the meaning of the problems with which she had to cope. The thin frail woman of thirty-seven, who had endured the ignominy of being bastardized by order of her own father, and obstinately 1

Froude, History of England, IV, 242.


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resisted in the reign of her brother the pettifogging efforts of the reformers to force her to deny her religion, at last triumphed over the ambition of the egregious Northumberland, and for five harassing years ruled over a people not very much in sympathy with the aims she had in mind. If Mary was in some ways the opposite of her spectacular father she was, nevertheless, a true daughter of the Tudor House, and the problems of her reign had much in common with those facing other members of her family: including her insistence on a marriage according to her own mind, regardless of the grudges of her people at the thought of further entanglement with the royal house of Spain, and their well-grounded fears of the consequences of a foreign Prince Consort, together with a disturbing succession problem due to her failure to produce an heir to the throne. There was nothing very novel about these issues. What was new was that they now had to be handled by Mary and not by Henry VIII. There was lacking, therefore, the deft touch with which he had steered the country around similar difficult situations. All the same she faced her problems in the true Tudor spirit. She was not without courage nor the instincts of regality, and her self will and determination to the point of stubbornness made her reign as true to Tudor traditions as those of her father or half-sister. Up to the time of her accession life had not been easy for her, and it is not surprising if she looked upon her accession as a divinely planned opportunity for her to fulfil her destiny. Well-educated she certainly was, her mother had seen to that, but intellect was not her strength, and she lacked the power of imagination so essential to statesmanship. Her religion meant everything to her, and her faith was such as left none of the doubts and questionings afflicting so many of her subjects. Sincerity and a naïvety approaching simplicity were the special features of her character. The circumstances of early life had kept her inexperienced in the ways of the court, and as queen she was a child in the hands of the astute politicians and place-seekers by whom she was surrounded. At a time when what was needed in the ruler was tact, subtle diplomacy, political understanding, and tolerance, Mary was rigid, fixed in her prejudices, self-willed and obstinate when she should have been conciliatory, and in many a crisis unable to make up her own mind when quick decision and firm action were imperative. While her subjects were bitterly antagonized by her insistence on the Spanish marriage the resentment aroused by the horrors of the burnings which disgraced her reign left the deepest impressionon later generations. Her immediate personal responsibility for the persecutions and the martyrdoms has often been questioned: but when all that can be said on her behalf has been taken into account there yet remains evidence not easy to rebut, making it difficult to acquit her wholly of blame. Her reign was in many respects the least attractive in Tudor history, and although her own personal tragedy must evoke deep sympathy the conclusion about her work as a queen must be that it was

18


disastrous. Her greatest contribution to the dynasty to which she belonged was her decision, made at the end of her reign, and even then with no great enthusiasm, to name as her successor her half-sister Elizabeth. V. GOVERNMENT

During Henry VII’s reign the rehabilitation of the kingship was a major problem of politics. The fifteenth century had been a time when that institution was weakened by being made the sport of faction. Even if it be conceded that the Yorkist kings were inspired by a wish to create more stable conditions of government their brief tenure of the throne combined with the weakness of character displayed both by Edward IV and Richard III was enough to justify the opportunism which brought the earl of Richmond to Bosworth Field. This first Tudor king was not greatly given to theorizing. As already noticed, he summoned Parliament at the opening of his reign in order to tell his newly acquired subjects that he had come to England to stay. The act for. the king’s title did two things with consummate brevity and efficiency: it created the Tudor dynasty, and made an entail of the Crown in its favour. By the very precision of its wording it conveyed a strong hint that the new king did not expect to have to answer any questions about his right to the inheritance. There was, it may be said, every reason for this defiant challenge. Henry was taking over what might be described as a very battered crown, and the need to refurbish it was urgent. The work of his reign was wholly dedicated to that end. By two essential contributions Henry went a long way towards achieving his designs. He made the kingship respectable, and the king a professional. The first of these plans he accomplished by virtue of the strong points in his own character: by the sincerity of his own personal and family life, unshadowed as they were by any suspicion of scandal: and by the undemonstrative but integrated achievements of his policy. By his keen attention to his kingly duties, by daily inspection of financial accounts, by keeping closely abreast of developments in government Henry impressed his courtiers as a king who knew his own mind, and would not be satisfied with inferior service from his officials. Another feature of his policy also affected the kingship. His energetic and skilful financial policy—some of the general outlines are illustrated in these documents1—produced great, really very great, wealth for the Crown. This enabled Henry to take farther his policy of making the kingship respectable. His display of dress, jewels, and brilliant court surroundings might appear ostentatious, but all this was deliberately calculated to give majesty and splendour to the kingship especially in the eyes of the representatives of foreign courts, and there are indications that this policy was not unsuccessful. 1

Nos. 50–53.


19

Henry VII’s contribution to the kingship was continued and exceeded by that of his son. Accident as well as design combined to enable Henry VIII in the early years of his reign to take still farther the process of rehabilitation. His own personal gifts were such as made the task easy. It would be a mistake, however, to think of the young Henry as an example of anything new in the practice of kingship, and those who are looking for signs of a “new monarchy” before 1530 are wasting their time. The young king’s idea of kingship lay in the past. He would be a king after the order of the greatest and most splendid of his medieval predecessors. Did he not in 1523 encourage Lord Berners, the literary genius of his court, to translate into unforgettable English prose the deeds of England’s soldiers recorded for all time in that text-book of chivalry, the chronicles of Sir John Froissart?1 And were not the pages of Edward Hall’s chronicle full of the pageantry and the dressing-up of Henry’s courtiers and their ladies in medieval costumes, and what of the tournaments in which the king himself so often took the leading part? And are not the royal account books crowded with entries testifying to the cost of all these extravagances which, thanks to the full treasury left him by his prudent father, Henry VIII could, during the early years of the reign at any rate, easily meet? Meanwhile officialdom took its cue from the general increase in respect for kingship. The word “majesty” takes on a special meaning: it implies that the king is different in nature from even the most exalted of his subjects. In the wording of statutes “the king’s own liege lord” of Henry VII’s first Parliament becomes in the year 1504 “the king our most dread sovereign lord” or “the king’s grace” while by 1530 it has changed to “the king’s royal majesty” and by 1533 “the most rightful and dreadful sovereign lord”. The most significant change comes in 1534 when Parliament decides that the king is not only head of the secular state but is also the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England. It would seem that by the early 1530’s the English kingship has taken on a new look for the king’s subjects. The breach with Rome, approved and achieved by the king in Parliament, has helped to create the image of the ruler as a high, solitary, and dedicated figure of majesty, far removed from his humble and obedient servants, many of whom must have looked on in awe, full of wonderment at where these unforeseen and unforeseeable happenings were likely to lead. The legislation of the Reformation Parliament made the king the residuary legatee of the Pope in England and Henry emerges as the sovereign lord of Church and State. The lawyers were swept off their feet by events, and once again in its history the law proved itself an ass. Maitland did not know where to look in the whole sum of our lawbooks for so marvellous a display of metaphysical—or we might say metaphysiological-nonsense. It is worth a quotation:2 1

No. 4.

2

Maitland, Collected Papers, III, p. 250, quoting Plowden, Reports, p. 213.

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So that the King has a body natural adorned and invested with the estate and dignity royal, and he has not a body natural distinct and divided by itself from the office and dignity royal, but a body natural and a body politic together indivisible, and these two bodies are incorporated in one person and make one body and not divers, that is, the body corporate in the body natural et e contra the body natural in the body corporate. So that the body natural by the conjunction of the body politic to it (which body politic contains the office government and majesty royal) is magnified, and by the said consolidation hath in it the body politic.1 Modern investigation has revealed the nature and the extent of government propaganda in the early sixteenth century. It is interesting to note what the leaders of political controversy made of the office of king as it acquired more and more power and dignity. Some of them spoke a different language from that of the lawyers but they travelled along the same road. They justified the breach with Rome, and accepted its consequences. The king was Head of the English Church, ergo he was supreme over the clergy of his realm, possessed of the powers and authority over the English Church which up to then had been exercised by the Pope alone. True, there were qualifications upon which they insisted. Some of them were not sure whether these powers were transferred to the king per se, or to the king in Parliament. All of them would have agreed on one point. However clearly the king emerged in their thought as the successor of the Pope they were none of them prepared to accept him as a priest-king. In the technicalities of the canon law they were prepared to concede that the king took over from the Pope the potestas jurisdictionis, the powers of jurisdiction, but he did not, and indeed could not, acquire the potestas ordinis, the spiritual functions of the priest. Henry could be a pope: he could not, and did not wish to, be a priest. Within these limits the thinkers of the period faced up to the problems of the king’s newly acquired powers. On one point there was a degree of unanimity amongst them which might, at first sight, seem difficult to explain. One and all they emphasized a doctrine of absolute non-resistance to the king’s authority. This was true of staunch Henricians like Stephen Gardiner and Fox: it was also true of men of quite different convictions like William Tyndale and Robert Barnes. And what the political pamphleteers discussed as theory was observed strictly in practice by the majority of the king’s subjects. One of the most puzzling features of English public life in this early Tudor period is the extent to which absolute passive obedience to the king was observed by his subjects, even by those about to suffer death at his command. Inexplicable as this attitude must appear to a modern observer it must be accepted as an un-questionable feature of the period. It can be accounted for on strictly historical grounds. To men of the 1530’s, and 1

See also No. 69, b.


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even of the 1540’s, the civil wars of the fifteenth century had as yet hardly sunk into the Past. They knew that much of the trouble of those years had arisen from the failure of both Lancastrian and Yorkist kings to exact full obedience from the nobility. Hence the faction of those years. There was, too, an uncomfortable reminder, much nearer in time, from Germany, where the rising of the peasants against their rulers in 1525 had a sobering effect upon some of the more reflective minds among the reformers, alarmed that other ideas besides Lutheran propaganda might be imported into this country from Germany. Lastly, from the point of view of the government, and its controlled propaganda, the need for absolute obedience from the subject was imperative for a dynasty as yet hardly established on a throne from which rebellion, perhaps with the help of foreign intervention, might so easily remove it. It was for these reasons, also, that the problem of the succession to the throne looms so large in the politics of the whole of the sixteenth century.1 In each of the five Tudor reigns there was a greater or lesser uncertainty concerning the inheritance of the throne. The dangers of such uncertainty were as obvious to the men of the time as they now are to the historian. They are in themselves enough to explain why the succession problem was a major issue throughout the period, and why it has been given such prominence in this collection. Insistence on complete obedience did not, of course, mean that the theorists were advocates of absolutism, still less that they contemplated any theory of the divine right of kings. Nor did the Tudor kings themselves hold any such ideas. The English kingship had a long history behind it, but whatever part of that history had been forgotten by the men of the early sixteenth century two principles established over the years were thoroughly appreciated by theorists and ordinary folk alike. The first was that the king had responsibilities as well as prerogatives. The second was that the king was under the law. The Tudor king most likely to challenge these principles was, one might have thought, Henry VIII: but in fact he showed no inclination to do so. For the greater part of his reign, certainly after 1529, he had too much at stake to allow himself to get at loggerheads with his subjects, especially on theoretical discussions. He needed their goodwill, and if needs be their co-operation. At this stage it will be useful to return to the question with which this section opened, that is, the contribution made by the Tudors to the institution of kingship. What has just been shown is that largely through the efforts of the first two of them, and more particularly by the achievements of Henry VIII, the kingship was appreciably changed before the middle of the century. So much was this so that there has always been difficulty in defining this “new monarchy”. The dictates of fashion are as arbitrary in historical criticism as in other spheres. No one today would presume to talk about a Tudor despotism. 1

No. 44.

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It needed a Victorian accent tuned to a nicely balanced mixture of limited monarchy, parliamentary democracy, representation of the people, bicameralism and the British Constitution according to Bagehot to convey the precise notation of contempt and patronage the term was originally intended to imply. Yet, fashions change: they even have a habit of repeating themselves sometimes. Is it possible that the day may yet come when historians alert to the subtleties of totalitarian dictatorships, one-party states, democratic elections with only government candidates, government propaganda, the prison and the concentration camp may interpret with deeper understanding the efforts of sixteenth-century statesmen forced to work with more primitive tools than those their modern successors have at hand? If so, the term Tudor despotism, or even Tudor dictatorship, may become more meaningful than they are today. Be that as it may, the position at present is that there is no satisfactory definition of the kind of government created by the early Tudor kings and their ministers. One suggestion, in favour of which much can be said is the phrase “personal monarchy”. Yet it has disadvantages, since by implication it makes insufficient allowance for the functions of the king’s ministers, and gives no indication of the place of the Council and Parliament within the framework of government. “Limited monarchy” is even less satisfactory, because it anticipates developments of a much later date in the history of the English kingship. No rule prevents the historian from using terms he believes convey his ideas accurately provided he makes clear the ideas he is attaching to them, and on that basis the suggestion is here put forward that a flexibility superior to that of the above definitions may be found in the term “responsible kingship”. It indicates that the kings of this dynasty were not despots, that they were prevented from governing arbitrarily by the responsibilities they owed to their subjects. Further, the term can be made to imply a secondary responsibility, that of the king’s ministers to himself. Whatever the outcome of a search for a satisfactory definition of the Tudor kingship may be, the essential fact about it is not in dispute: government was a co-operative process in which the king (acting more often than not in association with one minister whose powers were only limited by his ultimate responsibility to the king) gave effect to policy with the advice of his Council, and where legislation was needed, with the assent of his Parliament. The contribution of the master statesman in Tudor government has been too often described to need more than a passing reference here. Modern studies, for example, of Wolsey and Cromwell have revealed how much the energy and drive of such men contributed to the success of the reign. Their achievement deserves full recognition. Something, too, must be allowed to the two first Tudor kings for the way in which they used the outstanding ability so zealously devoted to their service. The rise to power of a Wolsey or a Cromwell may


23

have owed more to the ambition and pertinacity of the men themselves than it did to skill on the part of Henry VIII in selecting them on the promise of their qualities, but the wisdom the king displayed in giving them a free hand to work out their own ideas once they had proved their ability was his own. It is an asset in Henry’s character. On the other hand, the rapidity with which they could fall out of favour and be ruthlessly crushed is a sharp reminder of the minister’s responsibility to the king, as well as an illustration of the curious waywardness of judgment too often revealed in Henry’s actions. The importance of these outstanding ministers needs no elaboration. They were, under the king, the policy makers. Their work was as spectacular as it was decisive: but their efforts do not account entirely for the efficiency with which the administration worked. Beneath them there was a chain of officials upon whom they relied for the execution of their general designs. These men constituted a small army tending constantly to increase in number as a result of what has been aptly called the Tudor revolution in government. The advance made in recent years in research into this development has shown how ingenious the policy-makers were in devising new offices, departments, judicial courts like that of Star Chamber, and financial like that of Augmentations to deal with the legal and financial problems created by the political changes of the time. Success largely depended upon the efficient and conscientious labours of the officials, major and minor, appointed to cope with the ever-increasing weight of business. So considerable was the recruitment of staff for these purposes that a part of the revolution in government might well be described as the beginnings of a civil service in the modern sense of the term, for these new officials not only introduced new methods into their offices, but also established professional standards of conduct which, on the whole, seem to have been accepted by the majority of these newly appointed servants of the Crown. To complete this general picture of Tudor government something must be added concerning the Council and Parliament. Without attempting a detailed analysis of either institution a hint at some of the general tendencies in their development will indicate their relationship to the monarchy. Henry VII inherited in the King’s Council an institution with a long and complicated history, and although its efficient working during the Yorkist period is a subject of less certainty than its historians could wish, it is evident from the views of Sir John Fortescue that he, at any rate, fully appreciated the part it ought to play in the government of the country. Henry VII accepted the medieval precedent. His Council was a large and not very clearly defined body. Its history during his reign and in the early years of that of his successor has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, but although this has made many of the generalizations of earlier studies look rather unsophisticated no one has yet felt confident enough to survey in detail the subject of origins

24


between 1485 and 1540. Actually these problems are very complex: some of them are indicated in this collection. What has become very clear is the emergence in 1540 of the institution to which the name Privy Council has been attached. The crucial phase in its development was probably between 1534 and 1536, when Cromwell became actively interested. By 1540 the Privy Council had its Register, and from it some part of its activities can be analysed. It is clear that from that date until the end of this period the Privy Council was a powerful agent of the monarchy. It was the body in which were centralized the general supervisory powers of government. As a result it was beginning to assert an authority which went on increasing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries whereby it became the all-powerful institution for supervising on behalf of the Crown the duties and the shortcomings of its servants both central and local, and for controlling the affairs of the individual citizen in every aspect of his daily life. Next to the King in Council the other institution with a direct influence was the King in his Parliament. Here again the two first Tudors were dealing with a body with a long history, and again this was a time of lively experiments with important results upon the functions, composition, organization, and status of the two houses. The dividing line can be drawn through the year 1529, when Henry VIII summoned the Reformation Parliament. In the first phase, 1485– 1529 the institution was comparatively unimportant. Henry VII used it as earlier rulers had done, summoning parliaments on a few occasions and for special purposes as when he wished to make public announcement of his accession, for instance, or for seeking its approval when he was seeking money grants. In Henry VIII’s reign, during Wolsey’s regime, the government’s record in its dealings with parliaments was even less regular since Wolsey’s autocratic handling of them caused trouble, and led him to avoid contact with them so long as he could dispense with financial aid. After 1529 the situation was radically altered. Neither Henry VIII nor Cromwell was afraid to meet the representatives of the Commons in Parliament, and both were skilled in controlling the most active of all the parliaments of the reign, which they kept in being for seven sessions, from 1529–36. By careful supervision, although not without occasional spirited opposition from members of the lower house, they obtained from it legislation for all the momentous changes of the first phase of the English Reformation. It was with this same Parliament that great innovations were made in the status of the institution. From being looked upon as the highest court in the land, as it had been earlier (although of course even then its functions as a legislative body were not unrecognized) it emerged as the high court of Parliament but with a greater recognition of its law-making functions, and of its character as representing the whole realm. As Sir Thomas Smith wrote in 1565 every


25

Englishman was represented in it and was bound by its acts, for “the consent of the Parliament is taken to be everie man’s consent”.1 It was as a result of its increased responsibility acquired through Henry VIII’s emphasis both by word and deed, coupled with Cromwell’s dexterity in using it that Parliament emerged after 1536 as a legislative body which was the embryo of the institution as it would appear in more modern times. This position it retained for the rest of this period. It sat for a greater length of time during the short reign of Edward VI than Henry VII’s parliaments had done, and was responsible for the highly important reforms of the reign, while Mary had to cope with its strong reactions to her attempts to undo the legislation of the years from 1530–53. In several ways this was a crucial phase in the history of this institution. It was the time when the two components, Lords and Commons, definitely separated into the two Houses, when the Commons acquired a meeting place in St. Stephen’s in the Palace of Westminster, when both Houses underwent changes in composition, the House of Lords losing many of its ecclesiastical members and becoming secular in character, while the House of Commons entered on a period of considerable increase in size. Most significant change of all was the increasing importance the House of Commons now began to win for itself by asserting its rights to privileges such as much greater freedom of debate, free speech, and freedom from arrest for its members. This is an appropriate point at which to end these comments on government. They have, of necessity, been all too brief, but not much space is needed in which to stress the conclusion to which they lead. They should provide adequate reasons why an appreciation of the importance of government must be a priority in any study of these years. The fact that from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII the attention of statesmen was concentrated on schemes for providing efficient control, and on devising, reforming, adapting, and extending machinery for this purpose is the most noteworthy feature revealed in the records. That there were shortcomings and some downright failures cannot be ignored, but after these have been discounted there yet remains the solid creation of those years, a new type of monarchy, set within the framework of a bureaucratic state, differing in some essentials from the medieval pattern, and showing promise already of some of the developments which are associated with the England of more modern times. Other features of Tudor history, attractive though their problems are, must yield to this essential subject of government since its experiments provide the best possible introduction to those other features. The new monarchy prepared the way for them by giving the country peace and security, and by maintaining it even in the later years when a royal minority followed by the accession of a woman put its work to the severest of tests. Without those conditions it is 1

Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed, L.Alston, p. 49.

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probable that some of the achievements in other fields might never have emerged or, if they had, might not have commanded so high an importance in the life of the time. That is not the only significance of these developments in government. Its improved methods and increased efficiency provided the means whereby advances in other fields became possible. VI. SOCIETY

No historians today would write as if class distinctions did not exist in early Tudor England. The men of that time were not all born equal any more than their fathers had been in medieval England, and the lines of demarcation recognized in those earlier times still formed the basis of social distinction in these later days. Care must, however, be taken in interpreting the status symbols separating individuals, and it is especially important to avoid the crude error of reading back all the implications of nineteenth-century ideology into a period inspired by very different ways of thought. There, perhaps, lies the way to understand that society. A glance at the social thought of the time may explain the practice as well as the theory of society as it appeared to the men who were living within its framework. Early Tudor social theory was complex, made up of many traditions. Medieval thought contributed some fundamental ideas. It provided, in the first place, that conception of society so greatly favoured by its thinkers, and made the subject of numerous sermons on State occasions such as the opening of a parliament, a conception which might be described as the anthropomorphic theory of society. In an elaborate and detailed analogy exponents of this theory likened society to the human body, and individuals as part of that body, their importance to society varying as the members vary in the human body according to the nature, qualities, and functions of the individual. The idea behind this theory was the ultimate unity and harmony of society: being an organism its health depends upon every individual member performing his predestined functions with regularity and discipline. Closely associated with this view there was another, not greatly differing in concept, but because it was to a large degree popularized by the reformers it was more emphatic in its insistence on the importance of the Christian virtues of resignation and obedience. This is the teaching to be found in the writings of Tyndale, and in the sermons of most of the early reformers. According to these teachers the divine purpose for man was life in a society ensuring the good of all through the practice of these virtues. Society and the State were identical in this theory: these thinkers had a word which covered both: a term in common use in their works, “the common weal”. The achievement of the common weal was by way of observing one’s vocation. God had called every


27

man to his place and his work in the common weal, and every man fulfils his destiny by performing ungrudgingly the duties attached to that place to which he has been called. The tendency was for some of these teachers to make greater use of this term common weal as a synonym for the State. Until more research has been done on the subject it would be hazardous to speak of these “common wealth men”,1 as they have been sometimes called, as though they were a closely knit organized party, but enough is known already to make it clear that whether they were an organized group or not they were all thinking along very similar lines. Side by side with these ideas there can be discerned even more clearly a third concept of society. Again it owes much to the past. It is important because it translated theory into practice, for it was the continuation into practical life, through law and politics, of the ideas and institutions of feudal society. Thus, there grew out of the theory of “estates” of feudal society a view of human society divided into a hierarchy of classes. On the surface this would appear to be the most widely accepted concept since it dominated legal thought and action, but it would not be correct to think of it as conflicting with the other theories. The truth is that social theory in the early sixteenth century was not clear-cut: men were receptive to the variety of ideas in the air, but they were not as yet ready to weave them together into a closely patterned social theory. Such opinions were held and taught: but it did not follow that the closed society they advocated was wholly attained in practice. Desirable as the functional theory might seem it was not allowed to interfere with the activities of those who had the opportunities and the urge to throw off the responsibilities to which God had called them in favour of others more desirable to which they aspired. As a matter of fact this was a time of great mobility in the social order caused by the beginnings of great agrarian change. Under the influence of the developments in rural and urban life there was a considerable displacement of individuals. The increasing importance of capitalism in both town and country was having its effect upon the social structure. Rural England was experiencing the beginnings of a breakdown of the personal relationship of lord and man which had been a main feature of medieval organization: it was now being replaced by the less intimate relationship of landlord and tenant farmer, and farmer and hired labourer. Similar changes in the towns produced like effects: it was rapidly becoming the day of the wealthy city merchant, the large industrialist, and the worker fated never to rise out of the ranks of the wage-earners. It is against this background of theory that the actual social structure of early Tudor England must be viewed. The framework can be seen most clearly in documents connected with the law, since its innate conservatism made it a safe custodian of customary ways, and the traditional organization of society.2 So, too, 1

See below, p. 228.

2

Nos. 16, 17.

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it sometimes comes to light in legislation, for example, in several statutes for the regulation of dress.1 Perhaps even more directly powerful was the influence of the heralds, who, since the favour shown them by Richard III, were making themselves conspicuous during the reigns of the first two Tudors as arbiters of established titles of dignity, and sponsors of the new aristocracy.2 The whole situation was aptly summed up from the standpoint of law and the heralds by Sir Thomas Smith in 1565. Looking at the subject as a lawyer and a politician, the rigorous test of social status which he applies is to ask what part did an individual play in government, and what office did he bear in the commonwealth. From this point of view Smith divides society into the following groups: first, the greater nobility (nobilitas major), a rank which includes dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, barons: secondly, the lesser nobility (nobilitas minor), consisting of the knights, esquires, and gentlemen: thirdly, the citizens and burgesses of the towns, the yeomen; and lastly, there should be noticed a miscellaneous group, those who have no voice or authority in the commonwealth, and no account is made of them, but only to be ruled, and not to rule others. These are the day labourers, the poor husbandmen, and the wage-earning artificers.3 If this be accepted as the prevailing structure of early sixteenth-century society, life for the individual should not be described as excessively constricted. If he had the ability to advance his own fortunes so as to change to a position more attractive than that into which he had been born then the move was not difficult, and enough examples are forthcoming to show that social mobility was easy and common.4 It explains the rise of the “new men” in the political life of the time. Perhaps too much has been made of this feature of the social organization. There has been a tendency to attribute to the early Tudor kings, and especially to Henry VIII, a quite original policy creating a class of “new men” whom he trained and used as administrators. It is of course true that in all the Tudor reigns it was possible for a young man lacking worldly influence and resources, and not distinguished in lineage, to achieve a spectacular career in the royal service: but this was not a phenomenon peculiar to that age. At all times there have been able interlopers of this kind, in earlier centuries more often known as king’s favourites. All the same it can be accepted that in the early sixteenth century there was a clear line of demarcation between the old aristocracy whose titles went back before 1485, and new men holding titles and dignities bestowed after that date for their services. Some illustrations of the forces affecting both the old and new aristocracy are suggested in these documents, but a more detailed study of both types is needed before any conclusive generalizations can be made. Changes were undoubtedly taking place: but it is unsafe to jump to quick conclusions. New families did not always materialize: ministerial office 1 3

No. 16. Below p. 272, n.1.

2 4

No. 18. No. 19.


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was a hazardous profession, and not a few aspirants fell by the way. So too, it is inadvisable to stress at this stage the possibility of clashes between the two elements, the new and the old. Such rivalries did occur: there are some interesting examples: but how significant they were in the social history of the time is not easy to estimate. In the same way, opinion about another social group has been modified in recent years. Some half-century ago historians were obsessed by what they described as the emergence of a new element in sixteenth-century society, the “middle class”, which seemed to provide the stimulus for social and economic change, and was the inspiration for many of the improvements taking place. Second thoughts amongst historians all go in the direction of attaching a diminished importance to this group. In the first place, revisionists suggest a more precise definition of this “middle class”. Instead of bundling into this social group any and every individual just falling short of being identifiable as nobility, thus creating a fluid class about which all kinds of generalizations are risked, it is suggested that the term should be strictly limited to a group composed of merchants, financiers, industrialists, the rich men of the towns.1 Next, there has been a reassessment of the achievements formerly attributed to this class. The most widely accepted of these used to be the social results of inter-marriages between members of the landed aristocracy and widows and children of the rich merchant families of the towns, and the activities of members of this same middle class, especially the merchants, in the purchase of landed estates, thus setting themselves up as members of the landed gentry. While they are prepared to admit that both these tendencies can be observed during this period the revisionists claim that there is nothing novel about either of these processes, and that it happened in earlier centuries of English history. In any case, it is asserted, these processes were of far less significance than the advocates of the older view of the middle class maintained: that the influence of these new-rich merchants entering upon their country estates did not make such a great impact upon rural society: that, on the contrary, the tendency was for the newcomers to be taken captive by the social conventions and customs of the countryside into which they were, in most instances, only too anxious to be received. These re-assessments are salutary. They put the middle class in its proper perspective. They should not, however, be construed as a denial of the importance of these members of society, for within the limits as here described, they had a very distinct place in relation to the king and the common weal, and in practice the government knew only too well the importance of these wealthy members when it came to a question of taxation. One final thought on this subject may well return to the hint with which 1

Below, p. 231.

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this section opened. Enough has been said to indicate the existence of a class structure in these years, side by side with theory revealing its specific meaning. What is not found in contemporary literature is any indication of an ideological encouragement of class war between the social orders of the common weal. To read back into the period any such notions is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of the thought and practice of the early Tudor world. PROBLEMS OF DAILY LIFE A people whose prevailing characteristics were a passion for material prosperity and an absolute indifference to human suffering.1 These words were the considered verdict upon early Tudor society by one well qualified to give his opinion. Like all sweeping judgments it needs some reservations, but there is enough truth in it to justify a closer examination. The indictment cannot be entirely rebutted, but there are some forceful reasons why it can only be accepted as a partial character-reading of Tudor society. Briefly, and dispensing for the time being with the necessary explanatory commentary, what had happened was that a society experiencing some severe tensions in its economy was obsessed by the difficulties of the problems confronting it, and in its attempts to solve them and to achieve security it tended to stress as the means of salvation the amassing of wealth and the acquisition of material goods. In the process there were naturally those who exploited their opportunities regardless of the common good, but there was a lively opposition to them amongst the leaders of opinion who expressed disapproval of all such anti-social behaviour. The criticisms they offered, and the remedies they proposed were not as successful as they deserved to be, but they were at least an indication that sweeping generalizations about the materialism of the age need to be qualified. In the same way it is not true to indict Tudor society as being wholly indifferent to human suffering. While on the one hand it is a legitimate criticism that people were curiously callous in their toleration of severe punishment for heresy and opposition to government policy, it is also true that in the social and economic field they recognized the evils of poverty and tried to cope with some of the problems it raised. True, the attempts which were made did not go very far, and certainly did not lean to the side of generosity, but this should be attributed to factors over which society did not have control, rather than to indifference. Ignorance of the deep-seated causes of social maladjustment prevented men from arriving at the kind of action necessary for dealing with it. The key will be found in a tendency which set in early in the century, and was experienced by this country in common with the other nations of western Europe. Throughout the early sixteenth century there went on in the west a 1

A.F.Pollard, Henry VIII, p. 431.


31

steady rise in prices. The effects upon English life are not easy to calculate since tracing the trends with any approach to scientific accuracy would entail the making of a price index, an almost impossible task since the economic needs of early Tudor people are difficult to discover. What is clearly revealed in the complaints and debates of contemporary writers, and from those statistics which are available is that the general rise in prices was not balanced by a corresponding rise in wages. To the men of the time this was a puzzling, and indeed an unnatural, phenomenon. They could only explain it as the result of sin: it must be the direct result of human selfishness and greed. In this diagnosis they were, perhaps, nearer to fundamentals than economists of more sophisticated days allow to enter into their calculations. Be that as it may, their explanation did not get them very far, or rather, it would be more correct to say that it led them along the wrong track for, as these sources suggest, their remedy for all their difficulties was coercion by the government.1 There was a naïve belief that the profound social problems so closely linked to inflation could be solved by the passing of acts of Parliament. What was thought of as an infallible remedy did not do its work. Failure was in part due to the complexity of the problems. One which certainly had effects upon price levels was only slowly appreciated: that was the debasement of the coinage. The first steps on this primrose path were not taken irresponsibly but were attempts to keep in line with other European countries. That was why, in 1489, Henry VII carried out such a transaction. Then in 1526 Wolsey raised the price of gold from 40s. to 45s. an ounce and issued new lightweight coins. There was a further debasement in 1543 whereby the amount of alloy in the coins was increased. A wide extension of this practice took place two years later. By the end of his reign Henry VIII’s coinage was in a disgraceful condition. The full effects of this policy were hardly realized at the time, but soon would be. The precedent set was unfortunately followed by Edward VI’s ministers in 1551 with grave social and economic results, including a sharp movement of opinion against the government. There were other factors resulting in economic disturbances: they can best be appreciated by a closer examination. Such a survey may well begin in the countryside, since it was there that some of the most troublesome issues emerged. By the opening years of Henry VIII’s reign, if not earlier, the effects of a series of economic disturbances were making themselves felt. Whether their impact upon society was violent enough to justify their being labelled “the agrarian revolution” is a matter for argument amongst the experts, although it might be suggested in passing that there is probably more risk than profit in applying terms which have gained currency in one situation to a set of circumstances in another where the similarities are probably very superficial. Even if the processes of change were more gradual 1

Nos. 152–4.

32


than is suggested by this term there can be little doubt that contemporaries were fully aware of the working together of factors which were having serious effects upon their daily life. Changes consequent upon the Black Death and subsequent visitations of pestilence during the later Middle Ages had released forces which were having serious effects upon the rural economy, or to be more precise, upon the manorial organization which was the heritage of medieval England. Although that system would continue to be the framework of English rural society for many years to come, the fact was that already the pressure of new demands leading to the commutation of labour services, the introduction on an increasing scale of money rents, and the elimination of villeinage were all rapidly transforming the conditions of manorial life by making conditions of tenure harder for the copyholder and the customary tenant, and by encouraging the increase in the number of tenant farmers holding land for a term of years by fixed annual rents. At the same time the less fortunate peasantry, on the one hand free from the burden of personal services were, on the other hand, losing their old security of tenure and interest in the land, and were well on the way to becoming a landless group dependent for their livelihood on being engaged to work for the owner of the estate at a daily wage. These changes were to a large extent the result of what was happening at the top of rural society, where the pressure of high prices was being felt very keenly, and serious efforts were being made to counterbalance the economic discomforts they were causing. The infiltration into rural society of men from the towns, bringing with them into the running of their estates novel ideas they had learned in their world of trade, must have had some effect in revealing that the possession of land was not merely a status symbol, that it could also be a profitable form of investment. As a result there was coming into the countryside a fiercely competitive market in land, and this quickened the tendencies towards change in rural organization. These opportunities were beginning to be exploited before Henry VII came to the throne. They were increased by a development which shows how easily unrelated factors might, and did, affect the general economic structure. This was a fresh enterprise in English industry. Instead of exporting all her wool to Europe as had been done in the Middle Ages it was being realized that clothmaking was an even more profitable way of dealing with it, and a rapidly expanding clothmaking industry brought wealth and work to the country. The demand for increased quantities of wool became more urgent. Sheepbreeding was seen to be a profitable undertaking, but it needed space if it was to be carried on extensively. That space could best be provided by taking over land previously under the plough. Here, then, was a forceful reason for the competition for land, and the introduction of new methods on the farms. Here, too, lies the explanation of some of the unemployment and the depopulation of the countryside, where


33

the sheepfarmer and the cattle breeder were getting to work exploiting the growing demand for meat in the nearby urban markets. This sequence of events leads up to the subject of enclosures, which has long been and will probably continue to be for some time a topic for discussion among the experts. No one now would treat this as a simple subject. It would be as wrong to accept all the criticisms which have been levelled against the crusading pamphlets of the social theorists and the denunciatory sermons of the reformers as it would be to take for granted all the diatribes against enclosures which those contemporaries pronounced, often it must be admitted, out of the depths of their ignorance of the complex factors involved. On the other hand, it would be just as wrong to accept what they wrote without making allowance for the fact that they saw, and were frightened by, the results of some kinds of enclosure, although they had very little knowledge of the complications of the problem, or the relative importance of the various factors involved. Modern research has long since learnt to distinguish between the different kinds of enclosures, recognizing that some were beneficial, such as the approvement of waste lands and the consolidation of strip holdings, while some, such as imparking, and the transformation of arable into pasture were thoroughly pernicious, and the source of grave social evils. At all points enclosure is a subject the expert handles gingerly. The mass of official information arising from Wolsey’s inquisition1 seemed impressive enough when it was first made available, but the promise held out by the plentiful statistics it provided seems less reliable now that the critics have discovered their inadequacies. In a word, it seems that there is still room for discussion on this involved subject. Turning next to the development of industry, it will be found even less easy to substantiate the claim sometimes made that an “industrial revolution” was under way. True, there was change both in organization and, to some extent, in technique, in some of the industries, but this development was hardly on such a scale, in the early part of the century, that it could be called a revolution. While there was a considerable amount of industry of one kind or another, England can in no way be rightly called an industrial society during those years. Industry was largely centred in the towns, but even though they were town dwellers, the workers were never very far away from the fields, and even where industry had spread to the villages and the countryside one of the great reasons for that development was that gild restrictions were avoided, work could be done in the homes of the workers, and they could still eke out their wages by cultivating their own plots of land. Leland was not particularly interested in the state of the country’s industries, but he did not miss altogether the main features, and there are many references in his notes to what he saw when on his journeys. There are, for example, 1

No. 144.

34


several references to coal mines in various parts of the country, to stone and slate quarries, marble and alabaster, iron mining in the Mendips, the Forest of Dean, the Midlands: lead mining in Yorkshire and Wales, tin in Cornwall. References to the textile industries are numerous: Yorkshire has its smiths and cutlers: Birmingham is a hive of industries of a similar kind: the Wiches are the seat of,a flourishing salt-making industry: shipbuilding is common to most of the ports of the country; and building is naturally a general occupation. It is clear from sources other than Leland that textiles were the most widely distributed and the most flourishing of English industries. Here there were indications of important changes. The industry was in some parts being modernized, following the example of the tin and lead mining industries, by the injection of capital. There are some signs of a primitive factory organization at Malmesbury and elsewhere, while all over the country wealthy clothiers were taking the weight of a busy domestic industry by providing the materials and the tools, while their employees worked in their own homes. Fresh resources stimulated the introduction of some primitive types of machinery, and quickened a tendency for industry to escape from the towns into the countryside where water power was more easily procured, and where the restrictive regulations of the gilds could be avoided. In the towns the craft gilds continued to exercise their supervisory functions as they had done in former times for the protection of their members and of the consumer, but already in the fifteenth century and even earlier in some of them, great and far-reaching changes were having their effect. For one thing, the more prosperous and forceful members were taking control of their gilds with the result that many of these societies had become narrow oligarchies in which the powerful minority worked things to their own advantage. The old procedure whereby the apprentice who had served his term could easily rise into the hierarchy of masters and leaders in the gild had become more difficult, so that within many gilds there were members who could not expect to rise out of the inferior rank of the yeomanry of the gild, and many would spend their lives as wage-earners working for the wealthy master employers. These developments in agriculture and industry did not take place without creating considerable discontent among the workers, and many problems for the administrators. This is illustrated in the records by occasional hints of strikes and labour disputes,1 by statutes and proclamations against enclosures and the decay of towns,2 by regulations for dealing with apprenticeship and laws affecting industrial conditions.3 The outstanding social problem for the government was, undoubtedly, the problem of poverty. While it is difficult to estimate the intensity of the social evils of unemployment and poverty, the long sequence of efforts by the legislators to come to grips with them, and the 1

No. 149, ii. b.

2

No. 144.

3

No. 148.


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constant criticisms of the pamphleteers all go to show that there was here a very real problem to which there was no easy solution. Notice has been taken in another place of the stages in poor law legislation.1 It will be enough to state here that slowly and with much fumbling the legislators arrived at certain principles in that search. Of these the greatest was the distinction which was at last drawn between the two types of poor, those produced by unemployment and the workshy vagabond, on the one hand, and those victims of ill-health and weakness, the impotent poor, on the other hand. The treatment of the former, the able-bodied beggars reveals very clearly that there was some truth in the quotation with which this section began: that the age was callous to a degree in its attitude towards human suffering, but it is not wholly true. This very legislation bears witness to a genuine recognition of the duties of society towards those whose troubles were not of their own making. It might, indeed, be urged in defence of these legislators that in dealing with this serious problem they were beset with anxieties. They were dealing with matters they did not fully understand, with conditions for which they were unable to find a cause. In the circumstances they could hardly be expected to rule all their actions by reason, and it is understandable if on occasion they failed to temper their emotions with mercy. VII. THE CHURCH

It is only when the full extent and the far-reaching consequences of the reforms in government under the first two Tudor kings have been recognized that the real nature of the changes within the Church summed up in the phrase The English Reformation can be rightly appreciated. The term itself is worth a thought. It is revealing, for with this as with so many other landmarks in the history of England (for example, the reception of feudalism, the creation of English monarchy, the development of representative government) the English people went their own way, assimilating, rejecting, and transmuting ideas coming to them in strange ways and from many sources, combining them with ideas of their own, until finally they are seen to have created something distinguished by what can only be described as a unique English quality. Thus, implicit in the phrase The English Reformation, are many components, some indigenous, others extraneous, which combine to produce a unique religious experience. The term, therefore, epitomizes a series of changes in the institutions, doctrine, material possessions, and the personnel of the Church in England, resulting at first in schism, and ultimately in a complete severence of that Church from obedience to the papacy, and finally to the establishment of a Protestant Church with the distinguishing characteristic of being entirely and exclusively 1

No. 152 and p. 894.

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Anglican. These are revolutionary changes, and it is of some interest to discover how they could have happened. It is doubtful whether any historian could be expected to treat the history of these changes with complete detachment. Indeed, there is an established school of thought which would argue that such an attitude is undesirable, that a history of these changes written without bias can only display the smouldering embers of a dying past, and that it needs the angry words of passionate, even prejudiced, belief and proselytizing fervour to stir these embers into flame. Certainly, there has been no shortage of such stimulus in the writings of earlier historians, and probably the most serviceable method of indicating the bibliography of Reformation history is that which divides the literature into two sections, Roman Catholic and Protestant, according to whether the contributor’s views have been influenced by one or other of these two divisions of the Christian Church. The fact is, of course, that rare indeed are the historians to whom this test cannot be applied, down even to the present day, for of few European minds can it be said with certainty that they have not consciously or otherwise imbibed formative ideas from one or other of those sources. For this reason much in the works of earlier historians gives rise to more questions than they answer, and they have to be handled with great discrimination. In fact most of the works of earlier writers of this kind can now be ignored, save where they occasionally include transcriptions of original documents. Even these must be used with caution for they are only too often untrustworthy. It is a welcome sign of the spread of modern ideas of scientific method in historical studies that scholars of all trends of thought now recognize the need to keep their writings free from polemics, striving always to follow the facts, once they have been established, whitherso-ever they may lead. If such problems affect the modern observer’s outlook on the Reformation what shall be said of those men and women whose fortune it was to live through those times? Quite certainly, a decision had to be made by each of them as to their own individual attitude to what was happening, and for many the choice could not have been easy. There were, in the first place, those who looked upon the changes affecting the Church of England with favour. For such people they represented an important spiritual and intellectual advance, a freeing of the human spirit by a vindication of the exercise of private judgment in matters where a man’s conscience was involved, an assertion of the right to read and draw conclusions for oneself from the Scriptures, made available in an English translation, the detachment of the Church from what they considered as superstitions and corrupt practices, and the confiscation of its material wealth which, in their opinion, had been the prime cause of the decline in moral standards amongst both the regular and secular clergy by the end of the Middle Ages.


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Those, on the other hand, opposed to what appeared to them disastrous changes, could only see in these iconoclastic ideas an outrageous attack upon the doctrine and the practice of the Church in which they had been nurtured, and which they had been taught to revere, a challenge to a world of tradition, customs, and beliefs which they cherished as a rich inheritance preserved for them by Rome. If it could be said that this clear-cut division presented a complete picture of the religious situation on the eve of the Reformation then the interpretation of the first, that is, the Henrician, phase of the English Reformation would be simple. The fact that the King and his ministers were able to sever the links with Rome, and establish a royal supremacy in Church and State without having to coerce a whole nation would suggest that the majority in the country trusted their king and acquiesced in the changes as he had devised them. The situation was not quite as simple as this explanation suggests, for such an analysis leaves out of account what was probably an important but indeterminate part of the population. These were the people indifferent to the religious causes at issue, unprepared to take their stand either for or against the religious innovations. They cannot be counted by heads, but they were probably not a negligible part of the population. When the acquiescence of the country, not only to Henry VIII’s changes, but also to the violent swings to the left and the right respectively in the reigns of Edward VI and Mary is being considered, the presence of this hard core of Laodiceans is of real importance. Their indifference to religious changes coupled with the prevailing political idea that the duty of the subject to the prince should be one of unquestioning obedience may help to explain what is sometimes represented all too confidently as an enthusiastic complicity on the part of his subjects in the projects of Henry VIII and his advisers. Nor should it be forgotten that it needed determination bordering on the heroic or the foolhardy to come out in open opposition to a government as ruthless as that of the early Tudors; and this is not likely to have been an attribute of those indifferent to the principles at stake. These considerations should be a reminder of something too often forgotten in surveys of this period. In the reigns of Henry VIII and his son the English Reformation, especially in matters of doctrine, was the work of a small minority group consisting mainly of bishops instigated by the two men most confident of their objectives, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. Many of the ordinary people, even those moderately interested in these matters, could not have had a deep realization of what was implied in the controversy over doctrine. The people of England then, drifted along with the current change in all three reigns. Sporadic outbursts of revolt like the Pilgrimage of Grace can be read as indicating that there was no unanimity of popular enthusiasm for what was happening: but they suggest, too, that forces had been unleashed which were too overpowering to be influenced by what the ordinary subject said or did.

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The impression of popular approval for the Reformation is in part derived from the fact that policy on religious matters had to find expression in acts of Parliament. The statute book provides a blue print of the Edwardian Reformation and the Marian Counter-Reformation in just as great detail as it reveals the purposes of Henry VIII’s ecclesiastical policy. Now it is, of course, true that the English Reformation was established by acts of Parliament: but it does not follow that all the premises on which such legislation was based can be accepted as fact. Discrimination must be used in deducing royal policy from the statement by which it is justified in the preamble to a statute. For convenience of reference the essential texts illustrating legislation on Church matters have been brought together in a special section.1 Presented in that form, from the first act of the Reformation Parliament to the final Marian statute of repeal, they suggest a pattern more deliberate and logical in the drafting than should be credited to the government. To the historian the pattern may be clearly discernible, but when he explains ho wit was contrived he must put himself in the place of Henry VIII and the legislators. By so doing the whole historical process will present a different picture. The legislation was not so rationally planned as all that. There was quite an amount of uncertainty about it, much experimenting, much fumbling. They made a patchwork, and historians run a risk in calling it a design. To contemporaries, even to some of the legislators themselves, the whole process must have presented many perplexities. This process of getting the approval and support of Parliament for the changes contemplated was not done for the reason sometimes stated. It was not that the king sought the co-operation of Parliament as an equal in legislation, and as a guarantee that the country, represented by Parliament, was endorsing and approving the king’s policy. Approval by Parliament was essential on quite other grounds: it had to be obtained even if on occasion this could only be under strong pressure because without a statute the royal policy would have had no sanctions and could not have been enforced. That is the real meaning of Henry VIII’s close co-operation with Parliament, and what was true of the legislation of his reign is equally true of the reigns of his two successors. The statutes dealing with religion in the years between 1530 and 1558 are numerous and also formidable examples of circumlocution. They have their historical value, and considerable it is, providing evidence of a special kind, but they are not the only source on which the historian can draw for answers to the problems of religious history in the early sixteenth century. There are others, quite as important, some of them illustrated in this collection.2 One of the functions of the historian is to ensure that the relationship of each of these sources to the others is accurately determined, for upon this co-ordination will depend the nature of the historical pattern he seeks to interpret. 1

Nos. 90–104.

2

Nos. 129–140.


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There have been many interpretations of the English Reformation. Nearly all of them follow a method which puts Henry VIII, with or without his advisers, at the centre of events as the controlling factor responsible for all that went to the making of that movement, pursuing a well thought out and far-sighted policy, possible only to men certain of their ultimate objective and the way whereby it could be achieved. Now, instead of following traditional narrative it may be profitable to look at these things from a different point of view, by shifting attention away from the leaders on to the logic of events. Thus, the main interest will then centre on events rather than on personalities, and in the way in which these events occur in sequence, determining and making intelligible the reactions of the individuals concerned in them. From this point of view the first essential is to place in its proper perspective the affair usually referred to in contemporary sources as “the king’s private matter”.1 There has been a tendency among some historians to minimize it as a feature in the religious history of the time. This is a mistaken approach, for here was something which involved a great deal more than Henry VIII’s morals. The king’s private matter proved to be also very much of a public affair. The motives for the King’s decision can only be presented as hypothesis since none of them can at this date be discussed with any assurance. Historians have tried to read a priority among several, but whether it was a genuine desire for a legitimate son as his successor, or a reaction against his marriage (which he had not previously questioned throughout its long duration), or a deep infatuation for Anne Boleyn, or a serious scruple of conscience at the sinfulness of marriage with a deceased brother’s widow, these are all possible alternatives: but which was uppermost in Henry’s mind who can tell? Beyond reports of a few speeches by the king2 (to some extent suspect because they were made as a public justification of his own conduct) there is no more intimate expression of his own emotions than the letters he wrote over a brief period to Anne Boleyn.3 These, unfortunately, are undated so that they give no clues concerning the origins of the infatuation. Beyond revealing with damning clearness that Henry’s sentiments towards a young girl in her teens were not such as should have been entertained by a man sixteen years her senior, with eighteen years of married life behind him, these letters provide little if any worthwhile evidence of what was actually going on in the King’s mind. To discover how that complicated mechanism worked calls for an interpretation of evidence even more indirect in character, and a probing of motives which is largely conjectural. Henry’s reactions in this situation can only be understood in the light of the views of marriage obtaining in his day. Within established families, including not only those of the nobility, but also of well-to-do citizens, marriage was looked upon as a strict matter of business rather than of sentiment, and commonsense 1

Nos. 84–89.

2

Nos. 86–87.

3

No. 85.

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rather than romance governed its arrangements. The institution was primarily intended for the procreation of a family—and equally important—for adding to the status and material well-being of the families concerned. Any marriage which did not achieve these results was, generally speaking, looked upon as a failure. All this, of course, was especially true of marriages within a royal house. Here the giving and taking in marriage was a powerful instrument of policy, and rare indeed were the occasions when it was the spontaneous union of two self-chosen partners, rather than the product of some shrewd bargaining on the part of the elders of the respective families. For starkly realistic views of marriage such as these Henry VIII had no need to look beyond the actions of his own father. Henry VII’s own marriage had been an expert, and apparently a successful, essay in tactful policy. More revealing was his reaction to the situation caused by the untimely death of his eldest son, Prince Arthur. Faced by the risk that he might be asked to return Catherine of Aragon’s dowry to her parents he is credited with the scheme that he himself, recently become a widower, should marry his own daughter-in-law. It would not be difficult to add other examples illustrating the general attitude of royalty to the marriages of its sons and daughters. Henry VIII’s own marriage to Catherine, six years his senior, was a marriage for reasons of state if ever there was one, and rich indeed it was in its consequences for English history. The sacrifice of Henry VIII’s young sister Mary Tudor to the ageing King Louis of France is another: while the numerous attempts to get the Princess Mary married during the reign of her father is an almost classic example of the huckstering which went on over such transactions. Given these pragmatic ideas concerning marriage in sixteenth-century practice there should be no great difficulty in accepting as genuine Henry’s frequently revealed worries concerning the succession to his throne, and in understanding, without condoning, his behaviour in the Boleyn affair. The failure of his lawful wife to produce the desired heir, and the practical certainty that she never would be able to do so, left him free-every thing known about Henry indicates that he would have considered that it imposed upon him the solemn duty—to seek a solution of his problem elsewhere. It would have been quite in keeping with these ideas if Henry looked upon it as part of his royal prerogative to set aside a childless marriage in order to ensure the future of the dynasty. This suggestion, put forward as an explanation rather than as a justification of Henry’s conduct merits consideration since it makes intelligible much that is difficult to understand in his behaviour. Later on, a similar failure on the part of Anne Boleyn to produce the required heir left Henry with the same problem on his hands, and explains the ruthlessness with which she was cast aside, although it does not explain nor excuse the horrible vindictiveness with which Henry sanctioned her judicial murder. Throughout the Boleyn liaison there was quite clearly fixed in Henry’s mind


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one overriding condition. It was so important that it governed all the king’s actions, and was expressed in speech and writing on many occasions. It was that there must be no possible question about the legitimacy of the king’s heir. Hence Henry’s long-maintained insistence upon the formal procedure for separation from Catherine, and a lawful marriage with Anne Boleyn, for it was much more likely to have been Henry’s calculations of policy rather than Anne’s appraisal of her virtue which dictated the long course of events in “the king’s private matter”. Hence, too, the patience and persistence, over a period of nearly six years, with which he tried to obtain the acquiescence of the Pope, until finally, in January 1533, as the result of accident or design, Henry had to ensure the legitimacy of a prospective heir by a secret marriage with Anne. The long drawn-out negotiations with Rome had to be brought to an abrupt end. Without delay on 21 February 1533 Pope Clement granted bulls for the appointment of Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury. In March there was passed the bill forbidding Appeals to Rome, intended to checkmate Catherine. On 11 April Cranmer asked the king for permission to try the king’s cause of matrimony. It was granted, and he opened his court at Dunstable on 14 May 1533. On 23 May he gave judgment and Henry’s marriage to Catherine was dissolved. On 28 May he declared, after secret investigation, that Henry and Anne were legally married. On 1 June Anne was crowned Queen in Westminster Abbey. On 7 September Henry waiting for news of the birth of an heir was told that he had a daughter soon to be christened Elizabeth! The way in which Henry met these problems makes it possible to take more seriously than some historians have done his much-displayed conscience. On more than one occasion he claimed to be greatly distressed at the thought that by his first marriage he had in all probability sinned against God’s law. To brush on one side these scruples of his as hypocritical is to shirk a real issue. It must be remembered that there was a strong theological bent in Henry’s intellectual equipment, and there is every reason to believe that he was touched to the quick by the criticism that his first marriage was contrary to the law of God. It was Campeggio who said that all Henry wanted was for them to say whether his marriage was valid or not: he wanted nothing else because he was certain in his own mind that it was invalid. And Campeggio believed that if an angel descended from Heaven he would not be able to persuade his Majesty to the contrary, for it was the Cardinal’s firm opinion that in this case Henry knew more than any great theologian and jurist.1 Henry was not necessarily hypocritical when he said that his was a case which ought to be looked into: he could, however, afford to be complacent, since he was confident that all his difficulties could be resolved for him in England by Wolsey. 1 L.P. IV, ii, 4858. Campeggio to Sanga. London, 17 Oct. 1528. Also, S.Ehses, Römische Dokumente, No. 31, 26 Oct. 1528.

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The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that “the king’s private matter” should not be passed over lightly, it had too many grave consequences. There is, however, a real risk that it might be taken seriously for the wrong reason. In this human situation what is really important is not Henry’s rather sordid liaison with Anne Boleyn. The really significant matters came later: they are the consequences, immediate and indirect, of Henry’s misguided efforts to solve the dynastic problem by methods entirely selfish in aim and equivocal in practice. What had begun as a personal problem soon developed into a much wider issue. Looked at from Henry’s angle there would hardly seem to have been a problem at all. His case was such as might have been put forward by any ordinary member of the Roman Church. Henry VIII, however, was not such an ordinary person. A monarch such as he, a loyal son of the Church (had he not been named in 1521 Fidei Defensor by the Pope himself?), a king ranking in dignity with the most impressive European sovereigns might well expect to be heard by the Head of Christendom with exceptional grace and favour, especially since the relief he was seeking could be represented not as something sought for his own self-gratification but as a remedy for a misfortune threatening all his subjects. His knowledge of what was going on in the world around assured him his request would be granted. The procedure suggested on his behalf had immediate precedents even within his own family circle, and others could be cited from outside. In 1515 Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk was granted an annulment of his previous marriage to enable him to marry Henry’s sister, Mary Tudor, widow of King Louis of France. In 1527 Henry’s sister Margaret Queen of Scotland obtained a divorce from her second husband. The way to Henry’s own release seemed straightforward. On 17 May 1527 Wolsey as legate, in collusion with the king, summoned Henry and Catherine to appear before him and Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury. The plan was that Wolsey should declare the dispensation for Henry’s marriage to Catherine null and void, so that the king might make a fresh marriage with anyone he pleased, and that the Pope should confirm the verdict of the court. Such procedure might have been successful had Catherine not objected to Wolsey’s jurisdiction and appealed to the Pope. Naturally all looked very different from Pope Clement’s point of view. However sympathetic he might be to Henry’s situation—and there is evidence suggesting that he would have liked to help him if he could—he was, after all, Head of the Church Universal. He had to consider other sovereigns who were no less his subjects than Henry was. By the time the king’s envoys reached Italy, briefed to plead for a trial in England the Emperor’s troops had sacked Rome, the Pope was in deep distress at Orvieto, his relations with Henry took second place to his relations with the Emperor, and the Emperor was Catherine’s


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nephew. Events beyond the control of Henry and Clement had engulfed both of them. Assuredly Clement was wise in deciding to walk warily. This sequence of events makes sense if it is realized that both pope and king had in mind the same objective. Each wanted to bring to an end “the king’s private matter”: each was groping his way towards a plan for achieving that end. The irony of the situation was that their plans were utterly and diametrically opposed. Henry’s was clear-cut. What he and his advisers sought to do was to force Clement to a speedy decision in favour of hearing the case in England, followed by papal approval of the decision of the English court, which would of course be in Henry’s favour. There could then be a fresh marriage with Anne Boleyn, and in a not too distant future the arrival of a lawful heir. Clement saw things differently. He seems to have been sceptical about Henry’s arguments, thinking that they were merely excuses to make the king’s affair look respectable. He seems to have persuaded himself that if he could delay a decision for a sufficient length of time Henry’s passion would have burnt itself out, he would return to Catherine, and Clement would have kept the esteem of all parties to the dispute. It is hard to decide which of the two men made the greater miscalculation of the other’s motives and tactics. Instead of being able to win a decision in his favour by a series of menacing acts against the English Church and its clergy Henry had to suffer several years of futile negotiations which at last convinced him that nothing could be expected from papal diplomacy save duplicity and guile, while Clement was to discover that he had completely underestimated the intensity of Henry’s determination to persist in his design to marry Anne Boleyn. The real significance of the gulf thus opened up between these two men will be appreciated if attention is directed to the way in which the argument concerning the dispensing power of the Pope developed. Two phases can be discerned. In the first, which lasted until 1530, the question in dispute was over the original dispensation granted by Julius II for the marriage of Catherine and Henry. The main line of attack was directed against canonical defects in that document. After 1530 the nature of the attack changed. Basing their arguments now on scriptural texts some of Henry’s supporters took the line that the Pope was unable to use the dispensing power in the case of a marriage with the widow of a deceased brother since this prohibition was a divine law which could not be altered by a pope. In other words what was now being discussed was the question of the limitations on papal power. It is a reminder that more was at stake than the king’s private matter. Henry’s experiences in sueing for the annulment of his marriage provided strong grounds for criticism of the Church for the theory of marriage it had developed over the centuries, and the practice it had worked out in accordance with it. By the rules laid down regarding espousals (no masterpiece of human wisdom is one verdict1), by its multiplication of impediments to marriage based on consanguinity or

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affinity between the parties, and by the abuses, especially financial, which had grown up around the administration of dispensations the Church was already coming under heavy fire.2 Henry’s case drove home the suspicion in minds more hostile to the papacy than his that the papal claims to such powers were as much open to challenge as were some of its claims on the theological side which were being attacked by the Reformers. While the long drawn-out negotiations about the king’s marriage were being carried on, at the same time there was being worked out in England a policy designed to put pressure on the Pope so as to force him to agree to Henry’s demands. That policy was given shape in the English Parliament, and is on record in the legislation of the Reformation Parliament between 1530 and 1536.3 It is for this reason that foreign observers see such a striking contrast between the Reformation in England and that on the Continent. Unlike the course of events abroad the first phase of the English movement, the breach with Rome, was far less concerned with problems of religion than it was with questions of law and politics. The State seized control of the Church and decided its future by statute. By 1536 the breach with Rome had been fully achieved. The first step on the way was taken in January 1531 when the clergy admitted their transgression under praemunire and acknowledged the king as their supreme lord, and as far as the law of Christ allows even supreme head. Then came a spate of legislation. One pattern, that of the chronology within which the legislation was worked out, can be seen in this collection.4 Another may be suggested. First, legislation intended to intimidate the Pope included an act in conditional restraint of payment of annates to the see of Rome followed by an act forbidding appeals to Rome, and one relieving the king’s subjects from paying exactions to the See of Rome. Next come the acts for reorganizing the Church in England: one pardoning the clergy for all offences against the statutes of provisors, provisions, and praemunire, an act for the submission of the clergy, an act concerning the king’s highness to be supreme head of the Church in England and to have authority to reform and redress all errors, heresies, and abuses in the same, and finally an act which extinguished the authority of the bishop of Rome. Closely connected with this legislation went an act for the 1

Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law, II, 368. W.E.Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, I, 132: “In place of the one type of matrimonial dispensation which had required a composition early in the fifteenth century, there were at the end of the century five”. For a tariff of taxes for matrimonial dispensations in use 1492–1513, ibid. II, 525. Cf. Maitland, H.E.L., II, 389: “The men and women who are the pawns in this game may, if they be rich enough, evade some of the forfeits by obtaining papal dispensations: but then there must be another set of rules marking off the dispensable from the indispensable impediments. When we weigh the merits of the medieval church and have remembered all her good deeds, we have to put into the other scale as a weighty counterpoise the incalculable harm done by a marriage law which was a maze of flighty fancies and misapplied logic.” 3 4 Nos. 90–104. Part v, Sections C–E. 2


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establishment of the king’s succession, which was completed later by a statute providing an oath to be taken by subjects, and a treason act. The oath to the succession was taken by many of the king’s subjects, by some no doubt with misgivings they dared not express: but there were some brave exceptions, and the greatest of these were John Fisher and Thomas More. As far back as 16 May 1532 More, having by then realized the direction in which Henry’s mind was moving, and knowing that he would not be able to give his approval to the king’s policy, resigned from the Lord Chancellorship. For the next two years he had been closely watched by the government. He had a narrow escape in 1534 when he was involved in the affair of the Holy Maid of Kent, and his name was only removed from the bill of attainder at its third reading in the Lords. On 12 April 1534 he was warned to appear at Lambeth to take the oath. He refused it, as he did again on 17 April 1534. He was taken to the Tower. Parliament met in November and, as mentioned above, passed an act which made it high treason after 1 February 1535 to deprive the king, queen, and their heirs of any of their dignitaries and titles. The same Parliament passed an act of attainder against More.1 Later Henry decided to proceed further against both Fisher and More under the Treasons Act, and on 28 June 1535 a Grand Jury returned a true bill against More, and his trial began on 1 July 1535. By 6 July he had been found guilty and executed. The earliest evidence for the trial was the indictment, the legal record which presents the case for the prosecution. From it and from Nicholas Harpsfield’s Life of Thomas More the essentials can be reconstructed. This is not the place to enter into the textual problems connected with the evidence of the trial, but a brief summary of the conclusions suggested by More’s experiences will not be out of place.2 Why should this tragedy have happened? There is, of course, a quick answer that will satisfy many. It is that for Henry the submission to his will of so eminent a subject as an ex-Lord Chancellor would have had a great effect upon public opinion, but that once More’s refusal was made public Henry could not do other than let the law take its course. To this it might be said that this explanation exaggerates the influence More could have had in any clash with the royal policy. Henry had resources greater than this: his plans could go on regardless of More’s opinions. There is another explanation, one which is much less favourable to the king. This is yet another example of the vindictive strain in Henry’s character which showed itself on several occasions in his dealings with prominent subjects against whom fear or suspicion led him to bear a grudge. There may be truth in the assertion made by More’s biographers that Anne Boleyn did “by her importunate clamour so sore exasperate the King” that he sent More to the Tower. She may well have added fuel to the 1

St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 23.

2

No. 48, x.

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flames of Henry’s anger, but even if this were so it cannot take away from the king himself the sole responsibility for More’s death. Neither Anne Boleyn nor any minister would have dared to bring it about unless Henry gave his approval. Henry’s guilt is too clear to need much discussion. Of greater interest is the reaction of his victim to these questions. Why did he stand so firmly in opposition? From the time when he had first heard of Henry’s marriage project he had made no secret of his disapproval: but that was not the issue at his trial. He was tried because by refusing to recognize the king’s title of Supreme Head he was maliciously denying to the king his title and dignity and therefore came under the Treasons Act. It was this claim to supremacy in Church and State which appeared to him as so monstrous, an outrage of his whole conception of human institutions. He saw clearly, perhaps more clearly than any of his contemporaries, the ultimate and inevitable conclusion of these royal projects. Schism could only engender heresy, which for years More had been fighting with all his powers, for he realized that heresy in turn was bound to shatter the unity of Christendom, and bring down in ruins all that he, and Catholics like him, held dear. It is possible that to some readers this emphasis on the “king’s private matter” may have given the impression that the English Reformation was wholly contrived by Henry VIII and his ministers working through the Reformation Parliament. If so it is high time to correct such a misconception. This is best done by concentrating upon the logic of events, so that the king’s activities are seen merging into the background of contemporary ideas, the product of the intellectual and spiritual searchings of men into problems only incidentally connected with the personal issues with which Henry himself was so deeply concerned. Modern scholarship has recognized how shrewd a judge William Tyndale was when he emphasized in his writings that what his generation needed was an English translation of the Scriptures, and foretold how great an influence it would have in the spreading of ideas critical of the contemporary Church. The deep sense of urgency with which he settled down to provide such a work is impressive. In 1524 he left England for a self-imposed exile in Germany which only ended with his death. In 1526 the Worms edition of his first New Testament in English was in print, and copies of it were reaching England. Those in authority within the English Church were quick to realize the dangers. By October 1526 Bishop Tunstall was ordering his archdeacons to collect all the copies they could, threatening with excommunication any subjects who neglected to give them up. A month later Archbishop Warham followed his example, and copies were burned at Paul’s Cross, while Tunstall preached a sermon in which he challenged over two thousand errors he said he had found in the translation. Such measures did not prevent copies from circulating in England, nor was the scheme for buying up on the Continent as many copies


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as possible in order to destroy them a very practical idea since in all probability this only provided the printers with funds to print more copies. In 1528 Tunstall licensed Sir Thomas More to read heretical books in order to refute them. By June 1529 he had fired his first shots against Tyndale in a volume of some 180 closely printed folio pages.1 This opened a war of words between the two men which lasted for five or six years, growing more bitter as the struggle went on. More was answered by Tyndale in 1531.2 This produced a full-scale reply from More in the next year in three books,3 with a second part in five books in 1533.4 Tyndales’s answer contained some 90,000 words: More’s reply was nearly ten times that length. The merits of the writings of the two disputants have been discussed by many critics, and each of them has his supporters. The first of More’s books contains the best, and certainly the most readable of More’s writing, and a fair judgment would seem to be that in literary style it is superior to Tyndale’s Answer, but, on the other hand Tyndale is More’s master in controversy, and the more convincing in argument. In the Confutation More loses his way and his temper. In his Apology5 (1533) he has to admit that contemporaries complained of the length of the book, which became tedious, that scholars deny the force of its arguments. Modern critics condemn also the venomous vituperation which he hurls at his opponent. The controversy added nothing to More’s reputation, but Tyndale emerges from it with a greatly enhanced qualification to be regarded as the ablest of the controversialists on the side of the reformers. Although Tyndale did not live to complete the great enterprise to which he had devoted all his energies his enthusiasm was of the greatest importance both because it prepared the way for other workers and also because so much of his remarkable literary style left a lasting impression on later English translations of the Bible. Tyndale’s efforts soon bore fruit. In December 1534 Convocation petitioned the king for an English translation of the Bible which should be more reliable than his. Next year there appeared a folio volume with a dedication to Henry VIII by Miles Coverdale. The New Testament text was that of Tyndale. It seems likely that after his arrest in 1536 he had handed over to John Rogers a translation of the Old Testament on which he had been working, and in 1536 Rogers prepared an English version of the whole Bible in which he used Tyndale’s New Testament, and borrowed Coverdale’s Old Testament. This 1

More, Dialogue concerning Heresies, published by John Rastell, June 1529. Tyndale, An Answere unto Sir T.More’s Dialogue, 1531. More, The Confutacyon of Tyndales answere made by Syr Thomas More (published by William Rastell, 1532). 4 More, The Second part of the Confutacyon of Tyndale’s Answere…(published by William Rastell, 1533). 5 The apologye of syr T.More Knyght (published by William Rastell, 1533). 2 3

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translation, printed at the Antwerp press of Jacob van Meteren for Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch was attributed to Thomas Matthew, as also was the dedication to Henry VIII, and for that reason it is known as Matthew’s Bible. Cranmer commended it to Cromwell and in August 1537 the king authorized its circulation. On 5 September 1538 the second Royal Injunctions ordered that a copy of the largest size should be set up in all parish churches. Cromwell next decided on a new Bible, and in May 1538 Coverdale and Grafton went to Paris to carry out the work, writing on the 23 June 1538 they tell Cromwell that they are sending him what was later known as the Great Bible. The text was a revision of Rogers’ text. Owing to an edict forbidding the printing in Paris it was completed by Grafton in England. In 1540 Coverdale edited a second Great Bible which, because it contained a preface by Cranmer, came to be known as Cranmer’s Bible. The victory for an English Bible had not yet been won. In 1543 the king was persuaded to react away from this advance. A proclamation vetoed all Tyndale’s translations, the annotations and prologues in Matthew’s Bible were to be erased, Coverdale’s Bible was forbidden. The right to use the Great Bible, although restricted to members of the upper classes, was still officially recognized until the end of Henry VIII’s reign. In the first year of Edward VI’s reign the royal Injunctions of 1538 were re-issued, and orders were given for a Great Bible to be installed in every parish church. These arrangements remained in force throughout Mary’s reign. The Great Bible was reprinted in 1549, and again in 1553. Returning to Tyndale’s first New Testament, it can be said that by 1526 those who could read it could easily possess it. Soon they would be asking some curious questions. But who were they? This question involves one in a problem not yet adequately answered by the specialists. The records of the ecclesiastical courts contain accounts of many men and women in trouble for voicing heretical opinions. They are not, in the main, prosperous people, educated, and likely to be well read in such theological literature as was then current. On the contrary, they are usually quite simple folk, artisan and peasant types, and the homely language in which they express their opinions upon the teaching and doctrines of the Church often savours of unintentional blasphemy. Their views, if closely examined, are curiously reminiscent of ideas which had been current in England in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when they had been voiced by the followers of John Wycliffe, commonly known as Lollards. This will not surprise those who can recall what the Lollards could have gleaned from the teachings of their master. Wycliffe was indeed the herald of the English Reformation: he anticipated the reformers of the sixteenth century in so many of their views. Like them Wycliffe censured the papacy for grasping after temporal power, thought of the Pope as Anti-Christ, since he had departed from the simple faith and practice of Christ as revealed in the New Testament:


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disapproved as strongly as they did of the practices of excommunication and indulgences, auricular confession, and image worship: chastised the clergy for simony, pluralism, absenteeism. Like the reformers Wycliffe insisted on the ultimate authority of the Scriptures, and had, too, his own ideas about transubstantiation and the Real Presence. In the light of these similarities it is only to be expected that historians should look for traces of the continuity of Wycliffite teaching through the Lollards into the sixteenth century. It is not easily established. In the later Middle Ages the Lollards were a persecuted people, sharing their beliefs with their fellows in secret. It is not easy, if one may say so, to count heads when they have gone underground. Historians have, therefore, been unduly cautious in estimating the strength of Lollard opinion on the eve of the Reformation. That it existed is certain. There is evidence of heresy proceedings in London between 1489 and 1511, and again in 1528–29. Bishop Tunstall tried many Lollards from Essex, mainly in the area around Colchester, Braintree, and Steeple Bumstead, while the existence of members of the sect in theChilterns has long been known. Most interesting have been the results of researches in the records of the diocese of York, which have revealed surprising Lollard strength in these parts. Further studies are needed before firm conclusions for the country as a whole can be reached, but it is certainly safe at this stage to say that there was a strong enough stream of Lollard opinion to provide the inspiration for a movement hostile to the Roman Church, and receptive to criticism of its doctrine and practice. For the most part Lollard traditions lingered on among the simple folk. In the 1520’s more exciting ideas were making their appeal to the lively minds of the young in both universities, more especially at Cambridge. The material arrived in the numerous books of Lutheran propaganda which English merchants were finding a most profitable cargo on their return journeys from the continent. Some of this literature, no doubt, reached members of the group of young graduates who met at the White Horse Inn (nicknamed Little Germany) to discuss these novelties. There is just a chance that Tyndale, a postgraduate student from Oxford, may have been inspired here. It is quite certain that several of the leaders of the English Reformation were active members of the group. To what extent and in what ways these two currents of religious thought, the one the native-born Wycliffite tradition, the other the German thought of Lutheranism, came together is not very clear: but there is enough evidence from heresy trials and the controversial literature of the early reformers to indicate that some such processes did take place, from which there emerged a popular Protestantism giving the English Reformation its unique quality. These were all people with an interest in religious problems and their influence in providing a body of opinion in the country ready to support new ideas was great. There was also another element which must not be ignored. There were

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many Englishmen, especially among the citizens of London who were not particularly interested in theological issues, but who were always ready to exchange scandals about the clergy, be they parish priests, monks, or friars, and when occasion offered, as it did over the tragedy of Richard Hunne, were ready to start a disturbance which could be a menace to the clergy.1 They provided an ill-defined but potential source of trouble to any government when feelings were running high over matters of religion. Many characters of this kind must have derived great satisfaction from the most destructive and radical enterprise of the Henrician Reformation. So, too, did a considerable number of members of parliament who approved the policy initiated by Cromwell for confiscating to the use of the Crown the lands and other possessions of the religious houses, the monasteries, nunneries, chantries, and even the property of the parish churches of the country. An intelligent observer in the early 1530’s might well have anticipated that something of the kind was likely to happen. For one thing, the suggestion of such action was not a novelty. It had been canvassed as serious policy during the fifteenth century. There had, indeed, been closures of individual houses in the reign of Henry VII, and Wolsey’s ambitious project for his colleges at Ipswich and Oxford had been helped by papal consent for similar transactions on a wider scale. There were, also, the many attacks made by social reformers stressing the shortcomings of the religious and pointing out the advantages of using their wealth for worthier purposes than the maintenance of lazy monks. At last came signs of government action. In January 1535 Cromwell was appointed Vicar General. In July 1535 a commission was named to investigate the extent of Church wealth preparatory to an assessment of first fruits and tenths granted to the Crown in the previous year. It reported in the ValorEcclesiasticus,2 which provided a general survey of the property of the Church. Acting on the powers given to the king in the Act of Supremacy to inquire into the conduct of the clergy, Cromwell began making arrangements for a visitation of the monasteries. The consequence was the first act for the dissolution of all monasteries, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, not possessing property to the clear yearly value of £200: they, their sites, properties, and all possessions were to pass to the king, his heirs, and successors.3 The larger religious houses were, for the time being, spared but it was only for a season. During the next three years they were subjected to intimidation and pressure from Cromwell’s tough agents, and as a result many of them made “Voluntary” submissions. The whole process was wound up by a second act of dissolution.4 Further confiscation planned in Henry VIII’s reign, but delayed through the king’s death, resulted in the taking over of chantries, colleges, free chapels, and their properties in Edward VI’s 1

No. 80.

2

No. 102.

3

No. 107. ii.

4

No. 107. iii.

5

No. 107. iv.


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reign.5 In December 1547 Somerset ordered an inventory of Church property to save it from being scattered and sold. Under Northumberland much of this wealth was confiscated: elaborately ornamented vestments, jewels, gold and silver plate, altar cloths, and church furniture of all kinds were seized by the agents of the government and disposed of in most wasteful ways. A less spectacular, but by no means inconsiderable process of sequestration went on during the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI whereby bishops were, at the time of taking over their temporalities or later, manoeuvered into making exchanges, which more often than not, turned out to be “gifts” to the Crown of manors and other lands which belonged to their episcopal see. The effects upon public opinion of these wholesale confiscations of the wealth of the Church is indicated by the statement of grievances put forward by the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. While it is true that other factors, largely social and economic were the causes of that outbreak of popular resentment against the government, it is no less a fact that discontent with the dissolution of the monasteries ran high. The impression which the spoliation made upon later historians can be read in almost every account of the period written between the sixteenth century and the present day. Easily accessible modern studies provide more details of what happened than it is possible to give here, so that a summary indication of the kind of problem such research has raised is all that is needed. A great change has come over the attitude of modern historians in their handling of a difficult question. For their forerunners the dissolution of the monasteries could only be considered against the general background of the Reformation as a whole, and the emotional tension of their personal reactions to these wider issues were inevitably reflected in their treatment of the lesser problem. Hence, most of these earlier accounts of the dissolution are prejudiced, usually tending to concentrate attention upon the one issue of the morals of the monks as the test to justify the dissolution. The modern approach is different, while recognizing that in practice it is almost impossible to eliminate altogether the influence of environment and personal beliefs in the study of this subject, the modern aim is to reach an objective discussion so far as this is possible. Historians of all schools of thought have at last realized that there is no profit in a propagandist controversy. As a result the attention of students has shifted to other aspects of the subject. Discussion of the morality of the monks has been given far less prominence, and when it is being considered it is treated with much greater understanding. The evidence presented to Parliament and summarized in the first act of dissolution is now heavily discounted as the work of men by no means very reputable in character, who were quite clearly instructed to produce a brief for dissolution by a wholesale condemnation. The majority of historians today would agree that although a few of the accusations of gross

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immorality can be substantiated there is no reason for supposing that the monasteries in general were the hotbeds of vice described in some of the reports of the commissioners, and gloated over in unctuous hypocrisy by some historians and more Protestant propagandists. It can be allowed now that prejudiced as the commissioners were they had to admit that there were some religious houses with which they could find no fault. On the other hand, few historians today would be prepared to deny, without making reservations, the charge that monasticism in England at that time was in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condition. While it is difficult to collect reliable figures, and although some evidence can be produced showing that recruits were still joining the monasteries, the general impression must be that the monasteries and the religious life were making a much diminished appeal, that many houses were very much below strength, often containing as large or even a larger number of lay servants than of monks to whose wants they ministered. That the vitality of the institution as a whole was at a low ebb is revealed by tests other than morals. It does not escape notice, for example, that the traditions of monastic historiography, so splendid a feature of monastic culture in earlier days, were no longer being maintained, that the majority of foundations could no longer be regarded as educational centres, that there is little reason to believe that the monasteries of the time were the active dispensers of charity some of their more enthusiastic and less critical admirers have asserted. On the other hand, doubt is now thrown on the sweeping generalization sometimes made that the monks of the later Middle Ages were bad agriculturalists and had failed to keep abreast of changes in technique and estate administration. It has been found that more often than not they were as enterprising and (as many of their tenants were to discover) as ruthlessly efficient landlords as any of their lay neighbours. Most modern research would be prepared to accept these answers to the questions earlier writers emphasized: but their own interests have tended to be directed to different problems. Firstly, there is the important series concerned with the fate of the lands and other properties taken over by the Crown. It is not a subject on which it is safe to dogmatize: too much work still remains to be done before generalizations can be ventured, but there are already suggestions indicating the need for some revisions of long accepted views. Even so, whatever reassessments may come to be accepted one fact remains in support of older impressions. It is that for many who had advocated this policy of confiscation the actual results were a profound disappointment. Genuine social reformers had pressed for such a policy because they honestly believed that the huge resources of the Church could be put to better use for education, philanthropy, and the relief of poverty. They were to be bitterly disillusioned: the great opportunities presented by such wholesale confiscation were hardly noticed by those in control. Apart from the creation and endowment of six new bishoprics


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and seven new cathedral chapters with dean and secular canons instead of monastic chapters, together with a few professorships at Oxford and Cambridge, very little of the wealth of the Church was put to uses which these idealists could approve. The fate of so much of this property is summed up in that of the chantry lands after confiscation under Edward VI. Part of their endowments went towards the support of established schools or for the foundation of grammar schools: but most of the remainder was swallowed up by rapacious ministers and courtiers who, by gift, purchase, or illegal appropriation absorbed the greater portion of the chantry revenue before it ever reached the royal treasury. The extent to which the Crown benefited from the spoliation is, again, a subject calling for more detailed research before general conclusions can be safely formulated. The original motive for this wholesale confiscation was Cromwell’s determination to ensure the success of his administrative and religious policies by restingthem on sure financial foundations. The first act of dissolution made no provision for the monastic property which was to be confiscated, but before the end of the session an act was passed setting up the Court of Augmentations to which authority was given to receive and deal with all monastic lands and property.1 Once a monastery was surrendered and was taken over by the commissioners they surveyed and valued the lands and property, farm stock, ornaments, plate, jewels, household stuffs, lead, bells, stone, and miscellaneous equipment belonging to it, and placed them in safe keeping until they could be disposed of by the court. The more the work of the Court of Augmentations is studied the more impressive appears Cromwell’s foresight in planning the strategy of the dissolution, and the more praiseworthy seems the efficiency with which the officers of the Court carried out their responsibilities. The latest study of the subject reveals the conscientious way in which they worked. They seem on the whole to have done their work fairly although they had to put up with much sharp practice on the part of some of the heads of religious houses trying to conceal treasures and evade the due execution of the law. To what extent in actual practice did the Crown benefit from this tremendous transfer of land and moveable property? This, too, is difficult to assess. As Professor Richardson has shown, the actual receipts from a dissolved house often differ very considerably from the commissioner’s report. There may be a long inventory of moveable goods and impressive accounts of fertile estates and woodlands: but these may well be very deceptive. Such a report does not take into account the liabilities of the house: its debts, corrodies, pensions, annuities to servants, and the costs of administration, which have been estimated at about 5 per cent of the gross income. Then, again, only too often there has to be made an allowance for property which the head of the house may have 1 2

No. 54. iv. p. 34. W.C.Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536–1554. Baton Rouge, 1961, p. 34.

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alienated on the eve of the commissioner’s arrival. Even so, when due allowance has been made for wastages of this kind, the amount of property transferred to the Crown was very considerable and imposed a great strain on the staff dealing with it. Owing to the methods by which the transfers of land were made it is fairly clear that the Crown did not make the huge profits it should have done. The objective of the government had been to get the wealth of the Church into its own hands. The old impression that it squandered its resources by extravagant gifts to subjects is not borne out by the records. True, some gifts had to be made, but on the whole it would appear that the officials of the Court of Augmentations did the best they could to get an economic price for the lands which were being sold. The closely allied subject, which again has not yet been fully explored, concerns the working of the great land market thus created, the extent and nature of the activities of land speculators, the way in which officials, courtiers, and the landed gentry benefited by the transfer of lands, and the speed and enthusiasm with which professional men and merchants seized their opportunities to acquire landed estates. These are all questions to which researchers are only beginning to get the answers. In addition to the problem of the monastic lands is that of the disposal of the other types of monastic property, which included the rich treasures of the monastic libraries, the ornaments, the vestments, the works of art accumulated by the Church over the centuries, to say nothing of the valuable stores of lead, church bells, and other miscellaneous materials seized by the commissioners. The fate of much of this treasure is not in doubt. The confiscation resulted in the scattering into private hands on the continent as well as in England of these rich assets in a prodigality the extent of which it is now impossible to estimate. What happened to the dispossessed religious turned out of their homes? This question has been looked into afresh by several historians. Here again the conclusions arrived at have been largely critical of the old propagandists who described with emotional rhetoric how hordes of homeless monks and nuns roamed the highways, joining the bands of vagabonds, thereby creating a menace to the peace and security of the country and a problem for the poor law administrators. As a matter of fact many of the more capable of the monks found benefices and other positions within the Church, while the pension lists among the records of the Court of Augmentations show that most of the dispossessed religious were adequately provided for, compensation being in many cases on the generous side, although as might be expected the heads of houses and others in authority in the monasteries were treated more generously than were their less important brethren. The sums paid in pensions had increased to a heavy total by 1547, and did not decrease as much as they should have done during Edward’s reign. Abuses were not all on the side of officialdom.


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There are recorded instances of pensions continuing to be collected by friends of monks who had fled the country, and some seem to have been paid long after their rightful recipients were dead. One other question will surely not be missed by anyone concerned about the reactions of the laity. What effects must so devastating an assault upon tradition and the long established way of life in England have had upon the simple folk in the countryside whose contacts with the monasteries had always been very close? The answer is two-fold. On the one hand it would appear according to so determined a political protest as the Pilgrimage of Grace that the dissolution inflamed in many people a resentment so bitter that the results might have been very serious for the monarchy if the revolt had not been put down with ruthless severity. On the other hand, some minds already prejudiced by Lollard and Lutheran teaching were strengthened in their hostility to image worship and pilgrimages and the like by the rumours, and sometimes the visual demonstrations they received of the trickery behind miracle-working relics and the impedimenta of pilgrimage shrines. In a word, the destruction of the monasteries was seen by them as a triumphant assault upon the outworks of the citadel of Anti-Christ. These are some of the matters which have to be examined when trying to place the spoliation of the Church in its rightful place in the history of the English Reformation. The dissolution of the monasteries is one of several factors which went to the making of that movement. It was not the most significant, but it was certainly the most spectacular, and for that reason, and because of its attraction for the propagandist, it has received perhaps more attention than it deserves from the historians of the Church. There are, of course, other points of interest in this question of confiscation. It should not be overlooked when the social, economic, and financial history of this period is being studied. That it is now possible to look at the whole subject dispassionately, and with due regard to the complexities of the evidence is the result of the scientific technique of modern research. The stage has now been reached in this survey whan all the threads needed to weave the pattern of the English Reformation have been brought together, with one exception, and that the most important since it provides the material for the central feature of the design. It is the theme which explains how English theologians took advantage of the opportunities offered them in order to fashion doctrine for a Church no longer subject to the authority of Rome. The origins of these efforts have to be seen against the background of ideas which might have been discussed already as a feature of the 1520’s under the name of Lollard and Lutheran propaganda. In the early stages these teachings were described by opponents as “the new learning”. The phrase originally described the new attitude taken by critics of the Roman Church who believed

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in the Scriptures as the ultimate authority for the Christian way of life, and advocated the rejection of what they considered as the sophistications of contemporary Roman doctrine, ecclesiastical practice, and institutional religion, and a return to the primitive simplicity of the Christian faith as revealed in the New Testament. As time went on and opinion on religious questions hardened with the reception of more Lutheran propaganda the term tended to be pushed into the background: the English Reformation, still retaining its peculiarly English cast of thought on doctrinal issues approached closer to the religious ideology of the continental reformers. As they unfolded themselves the essentials of English reform thought may be summed up briefly on the following lines. First came the emphasis already mentioned on the importance of the Scriptures. Next, as a result of that emphasis came attacks on the practice of the Roman Church, and the condemnation of those features gathered together under the general description of superstitious practices, e.g. image worship, pilgrimage, auricular confession, indulgences, and purgatory. The crux of the criticism brought to bear on the doctrines of Rome centred on the Mass. Discussion of this was the dominant theme in the religious controversy in England as elsewhere. There were many stages in the discussions and a man—Cranmer is an outstanding example—might pass through several of them before taking a final stand. More clearly Lutheran in origin was the controversial doctrine of justification by faith, which again gave rise to many fierce discussions. For some historians of our own day the mere recital of these topics may be distasteful. They will even think it incredible that men in any age could find satisfaction in discussions so largely taken up with verbal quibbles about doctrine concerning hidden mysteries apparently so far removed from the realities of daily life. The obvious retort to such an attitude is that it scarcely befits the historian, whose function it is to understand the mind of the age he is seeking to interpret. And since these theological issues did loom large in sixteenth-century thought for the simple reason that they were matters of faith, and to the men of the time were the key to man’s destiny, it is essential that their ideas should be studied sympathetically. Far from being scholastic quiddities the topics of these controversies were concerned with symbols behind which were deep realities about which men were in conflict, freedom of the spirit, the right of private judgment, the real meaning of the Gospel message, the mysteries of the Christian faith, and the unity of Christendom. It is probable that the impact of such questions on the layman of the time was not at first very great, but as the pattern of events took shape the dangers confronting him began to be realized. As royal proclamations, statutes, injunctions, and formularies of faith followed on each other in quick succession, all designed to tell the layman what he must believe at his peril, it is obvious that an indiscreet word or act might easily lay him open to a charge of treason


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or heresy. For this cause the doctrinal controversies must be taken very seriously by the historian. While he may, quite justifiably, decide that these are questions best left to the theologian he must, at least, take notice of the effects such doctrinal controversies had upon practical politics. Notwithstanding his book against Luther, it is extremely doubtful whether Henry VIII would of his own free will have meddled with such high matters of doctrine as entered into the political controversies of the latter years of his reign. Despite his difference with the papacy, and even more so after its consequences were realized, he continued in a very real sense to think of himself still as Fidei Defensor, and his religious beliefs remained in essentials what they had been before political necessity forced him to reject the primacy of the Pope. As a result the Church of which he was the head after 1530 was not allowed to break away from Roman doctrine even though its independence had been so violently asserted. All the same, whether he wished it or not the king as Supreme Head had to accept the effects of changing circumstances, and conflicting opinions on questions of belief. These are questions, too, which the historian, even though he may be a layman, has to consider for the peculiar nature of the English Reformation resulted in doctrinal problems and questions of Church discipline becoming matters for discussion and legislation by Parliament. Between 1530 and 1547 they were political issues, decided by a lay parliament, and as such are essential features of the political history of England. The main responsibility for dealing with them naturally fell on the bishops, and in their debates in convocation, and in Parliament the pattern of new opinions was shaped: not without conflict. There were two groups. The first was in sympathy with Lutheran opinion, and was ready to introduce doctrinal changes of a protestant nature. When in 1535 Cromwell was made the king’s Vicar-General in Spiritual Matters he was in a position to implement his own ideas on doctrine and Church discipline. He was the leader of this group. His sympathies were with the New Learning, as was shown in his first Injunctions of 1536 which tilted at images, relics, and pilgrimages.1 His activity in promoting the publication of an English Bible has already been mentioned. His support for the ideas of the German reformers shaped his policy of trying to promote an understanding with them, and his plans to that end through a marriage between Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves was the ultimate cause of his fall in 1540. Working in close co-operation with him was Thomas Cranmer. From 1532, when he was appointed ambassador to the imperial court he was in close touch with the German reformers, and after 1533, when he became Archbishop of Canterbury he devoted himself to intensive study of the endless variations of doctrinal controversy taking place among the leaders of religious thought on the continent. What Cranmer’s own opinions were on these 1

No. 113.

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questions in the later years of Henry’s reign it is difficult for theologians, and much more so for laymen, to understand. What can be said with certainty is that he was prepared to follow the main lines of Cromwell’s policy. Between them these two men were able to control the appointment of new bishops, and it is not surprising to find on the episcopal bench a group of men who supported them in their plans. They included Latimer, bishop of Worcester, Shaxton of Salisbury, Goodrich of Ely, Foxe of Hereford, Barlow of St. David’s, and Hilsey of Rochester. In debate they acted as a well defined group, always on the side of advanced ideas. On the other side, always ready to put up a fight against doctrinal innovations was a group later known as the Henricians. The leaders were Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, Stokesley of London, Bonner of Hereford, and Tunstall of Durham. They had gone along with the king in the first stages of the break with Rome. They had supported the divorce, and agreed to the royal supremacy, but after that some of them, Gardiner in particular, had seen at close hand the dangerous political results which had followed religious novelties on the continent, and they were afraid that similar results might follow similar innovations in England. From 1536 to the end of Henry’s reign all attempts to formulate the doctrine and control the discipline of the English Church were made against the background of conflict between these two parties, with the king, his sympathies with the Henricians, acting as the final arbiter. The essential documents in which declarations of faith were put forward during this reign were the Ten Articles, the Institution of a Christian Man, and A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man. In addition, closely connected with the control of matters of faith and discipline were the Injunctions of 1536 and 1538.1 The Ten Articles (1536) were intended to establish concord and unity within the Church of England by distinguishing between those necessary things to salvation and expressly commanded by God, and other things which ought to be observed although they were not expressly commanded by God, and were not necessary to salvation. In the first category were the Bible, the three creeds, the four councils, and those traditions of the Fathers not contrary to God’s word: secondly, were the sacraments of baptism, penance, the altar, and finally Justification. In the second category those things to be retained although not necessary to salvation were images, veneration of saints, prayer to saints, rites and ceremonies, and purgatory. The Articles were a compromise between the old and the new learning. Injunctions issued in August 1536 ordered that they should be read from the pulpit at least once in three months, with comments on them twice quarterly. 1

Nos. 112–115, 117.


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Public reaction to the Articles was shown in the Pilgrimage of Grace (October 1536) with the result that in the following year The Institution of a Christian Man (1537) was produced.1 Known as the Bishops’ Book, it was more definitely orthodox than the Ten Articles. It was divided into four parts. In the preface the bishops asked the king to allow them to publish the work as a plain and sincere doctrine concerning the whole sum of things which appertain to the profession of a Christian man. The first part expounds the twelve articles of the Apostle’s Creed: the second deals with the seven sacraments; the third comments on the Ten Commandments, and the fourth with the seven petitions of the paternoster with the ave and the two articles on justification and purgatory. Henry’s answer to his prelates was to the effect that he had not yet had time to study their book, but in the trust that it was according to the Scriptures he was willing to order that it should be read in part each day for the next three years. Henry did have his own opinions on the book, as is indicated by the notes and criticisms by him, with comments on them by Cranmer which are still extant.2 The next attempt to establish a formulary which, as the title of the act said, should “abolish diversity of opinions”, was the notorious Act of Six Articles (1539).3 During the debates preceding the passing of the act the king appeared in Parliament in person. This Act reasserted the orthodox doctrines of transubstantiation, celibacy of the clergy, communion in one kind, monastic vows, private masses and auricular confession, declaring them necessary and enforcing them by threats of very severe pains and penalties. The act was a severe setback to the hopes of the advanced party. The last statement of faith for the reign came some years later. This was the formulary entitled “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, set forth by the King’s Majesty”4 (1543). The final draft of the document was submitted to the King, and he wrote a preface for it, hence it is generally known as the King’s Book. It was a revision of The Institution of a Christian Man. The interest of these last articles of the reign is that they reasserted the swing away from the principles of the New Learning. Thus, the doctrinal position at the end of Henry VIII’s reign can be said to have justified the king’s determination to keep the English Church on an even keel, and to ensure that in matters of doctrine the heady teachings and speculations of continental iconoclasts should not lead the English nation astray. These Articles maintained the essentials which were the objects of Lutheran attack, transubstantiation, communion under one kind, the Mass, purgatory, veneration of saints, clerical celibacy. The advanced party within the Church had been checked, but it was not broken. It was soon to be given fresh opportunities by the death of Henry VIII. 1 2 3

No. 114. J.E.Cox (ed.), Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, 83–114. 4 No. 116. No. 117.

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From 1547–53 with the new king a minor in the hands of men determined to take the English Church farther along the road towards Reformation than Henry VIII had permitted, the main interest in English religion and politics is concerned with questions of faith and doctrine. There was a growing realization amongst the laity that these were questions with an impact upon their own lives, and some of them were translating the technicalities of theological speculation into language they could more easily understand. As early as 24 May 1547 a royal proclamation was protesting against the divers lewd and light tales told, whispered and secretly spread abroad by uncertain authors in markets, fairs, and alehouses concerning innovations and changes in religion, and ceremonies of the Church purporting to be done by the king, the Lord Protector, and the Council which were quite untrue and would for the future be severely punished. This was followed by a statute against revilers of the Sacrament1 and enforcing communion in both kinds. In part, no doubt, the lively popular interest was due to the publicity such matters were receiving in debates in Parliament, in statutes, and in proclamations, but something must also be attributed to the fact that men were uncertain where they stood in matters of faith: the full effects of continental propaganda were being felt: and the heady novelties extremists were offering them were tempting subjects for discussion. In a word, the second phase of the English Reformation destined to rush the country into Protestantism was on the way. The practice established in Henry VIII’s reign continued to be observed: the essentials of the religious changes under Edward VI were carried out by legislation. Again, Parliament was the chief agent in bringing about the Reformation. So, too, the dynamics of politics, as in Henry’s reign, governed the movement towards Protestantism. The reign has an intense dramatic interest owing to the struggle for power between two personalities, Somerset and Warwick. This struggle decides the chronological landmarks of the reign, and dictates the speed and direction of the Reformation. Chronologically there are two phases: first, from 1547–52, the period of Somerset’s Protectorate (broken, it should be said, by his first fall from power in 1549), and secondly, from 1552–53 when Nothumberland, having manoeuvred Somerset’s final fall, trial, and execution between October 1551 and January 1552, took control of the young king and the government of the country until the death of the kng in July 1553, and the collapse of Northumberland’s foolhardy plan to secure the succession for his own family through the Lady Jane Grey. The character of these two phases are in as direct opposition to each other as are the personalities of the two men. The first, under Somerset, is a period of steady but discreet movement in the direction of Lutheranism. Moderate in temperament, and liberal in mind to the point of weakness Somerset was fairly advanced in his religious outlook, and during his tenure of office the movement 1

No. 129.


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towards reform was steady. The second phase, under Northumberland, was very different. His religious ideas and his policy cannot be described as based on anything other than expediency and his ambitions for the aggrandizement of his family. Once Somerset was out of the way Northumberland gambled on the chance of extreme revolution, got rid of Henrician bishops supplanting them by extremists, and accepted whatever plans Cranmer had to suggest. Important as the influence of these two men was upon the nature and rate of progress of the English Reformation they do not account for everything. There is another figure in some ways more important than either of them. Thomas Cranmer was the creative force behind the events of Edward’s reign. The skill with which he impressed his own theological beliefs upon the English Church was remarkable. What is a biographer to make of him? It is not for lack of trying that the question is still an open one. Many have examined the problems of his career, and their judgments are varied. Naturally there is a great disparity between impressions coming from Catholic critics and those put forward by Protestants. The former, as might be expected, have seen him as a heretic who was not even sincere in his beliefs, a hypocrite, and a traitor to Queen Mary through his support of Lady Jane Grey. To Protestants he has appeared otherwise: as an honest thinker, born and brought up a papist and believing the doctrines of the Roman Church until truth dawned. His most recent biographer1 will have neither the traditional Catholic nor the Protestant analysis. In his opinion a consistent personality only emerges if one essential can be accepted, namely Cranmer’s unswerving belief in royal absolutism and the obligation of the Christian to uphold the king by complete obedience. To this he adds another feature in Cranmer’s intellectual make-up, his intense dread of the consequences of revolution and faction, which probably does explain, and to some degree justifies the reliance he placed upon royal authority; There is much to be said for emphasizing Cranmer’s acceptance of the doctrine of passive obedience: but it will not explain everything that is perplexing in his character and actions. While obedience to the king’s commands rather than personal ambition may rightly explain his acceptance of the archbishopric, and even his subservience to Henry’s religious policy, it is not a satisfactory explanation of the discrepancy between his official actions and his personal beliefs, nor his ever-shifting attitude to fundamental questions of doctrine. A fuller understanding of these and other inconsistencies will be found by looking elsewhere. For one thing it is worth while to recall the quality of Cranmer’s scholarship. Throughout his life, from his university days onwards he showed all the instincts of the dedicated student and the habits formed in earlier days remained with him even when the administrative cares of his ecclesiastical office must have limited his opportunities for the literary pursuits he enjoyed. With a mind trained 1

J.Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, Oxford, 1962, 12.

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especially on theological studies he read widely, making it his business to keep in close touch with the latest products of advanced continental thought, testing them with an open mind, making copious notes of ideas which would later find a place in his own writings. Although receptive to new theology he was cautious to the point of conservatism, and he did not lightly put aside beliefs or practices which had served him well in the past. Here, surely, lies the clue to his hesitancy in coming to conclusions about the real nature of the Eucharist. He saw merits in the arguments of the continental leaders who were rejecting the doctrine of the Real Presence, but why the intellectual hesitations before his slow adoption of these doctrines as his own? The answer would seem to be that he could not bring himself to reject completely the orthodox teaching and practice of the Mass he had experienced over many years, and that he was ever hoping to find a formula which would combine the new theology of the reformers with enough of the traditional doctrine to retain the essential mystery of the Last Supper. For this will to compromise, as naïve as it is optimistic, was a distinct feature of Cranmer’s character. It came out strongly in his activities during Edward VI’s reign when he hoped to assemble in England some of the leading reformers in Europe in order to compose their differences especially concerning the Eucharist and bring unity into Protestantism. Needless to say his hopes were destined to be disappointed, while the presence of some of the foreigners he had at various times invited to England helped to lead him along the road of reform more quickly than he might otherwise have moved. The doctrinal changes of the Edwardian Reformation can be quickly summarized. The first phase, 1547–49, was marked by cautious change under the direction of Somerset, prompted by Cranmer. After the act against revilers of the sacrament, which also introduced communion in both kinds there appeared in the next year a proclamation authorizing a new communion office to be in use until a new Prayer Book should be published. The new Order of Communion introduced a novelty:1 the whole service was to be in English, a step in the Lutheran direction, and it allowed communion in both kinds. The Order was a compromise document designed to enable all parties to accept the moderate innovations introduced. Reformers saw in it some hope of progress, and it came in 1549 with the introduction of the First Book of Common Prayer and the first Act of Uniformity.2 Largely the work of Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer was, owing to the resistance of the Henrician bishops, more of a compromise than the reformers could have wished, but it did embody Lutheran ideas in so far as it aimed at substituting Holy Communion for the Mass, thereby destroying the sacrificial character of the service. After publication of the Prayer Book the Eucharist was referred to as the Holy Communion. Although submitted to the bishops the Prayer Book did not receive the sanction of Convocation. The Act 1

No. 130.

2

No. 131.


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of Uniformity, which received the royal assent on 14 March 1549, to come into force from 9 June, imposed uniformity in the order of service throughout the whole country under severe penalties for non-observance. The innovations made were not revolutionary, but they were accepted even by continental critics. More striking changes would soon be on the way. With the fall of Somerset between II October and 28 December 1549, and the rapid rise to power of Northumberland there were some important developments. Between 1549 and 1551 some significant comings and goings were noticeable. The comings were the work of Cranmer, who invited several continental reformers to settle in this country. He hoped, as already suggested, to find with their help, an Anglican formula which would be acceptable to all schools of reform thought. In the event, some of their influence took him more quickly towards an advanced doctrinal position than would have happened if they had not been near him. The goings, on the other hand, describes what happened to the Henrician bishops. They were forced out of their sees, and their places were given to men ready to subscribe to Cranmer’s doctrinal ideas. The way was now prepared for further advance. On 22 January 1552 Northumberland secured the execution of Somerset, and next day Parliament met. The result of its debate was a revised Prayer Book, and a second Act of Uniformity.1 Finally, in 1553, the last doctrinal achievement of the Edwardian Reformation appeared in the Forty-two Articles. With the accession of Queen Mary the history of doctrinal change is no longer a topic for the historian. Her own private wishes would have been to undo immediately the whole of the religious history of England since 1529, but this was not a simple matter. From the doctrinal point of view the reign falls into two phases, each dominated by one man, the first by Gardiner, the second by Pole. The former had protested strongly against the making of religious changes during the years when the king was a minor. He was, therefore, anxious to return to the state of things as they were at the end of Henry VIII’s reign, with the King as Supreme Head, the Pope and Roman authority rejected, and toleration practised. When Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury, 22 March 1556, his policy in doctrinal matters was like that of the queen, one of complete reconciliation with Rome, and to a point this policy was embodied in legislation.2 The same Parliament revived the heresy laws,3 and the last years of Mary’s reign sees the vain attempt to undo the work of a quarter of a century by the burning of believers in the new doctrines. Complete reconciliation with Rome could not be achieved. The struggle between new and old ideas, between the traditions of Rome and the innovations of Puritanism entered upon a new phase with the accession of Mary’s successor. 1

No. 136.

2

Nos. 139, 140.

3

No. 126.

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VIII. THE SOURCES

Those with interests centred on earlier periods of English history may well be impressed by the great wealth of original material at the disposal of the historians of the early sixteenth century. There are several reasons which account for this marked disparity, and some of them should be interesting as an introduction to the examples collected in this volume. The first will be found in the growing complexity of administration during the early sixteenth century. The creation of new government departments and agencies of administration, many of them instructed to keep records, and the singular increase in the paper work needed to cover their activities led to a sharp proliferation of official and semi-official records. Thus, to give one example, the financial reforms of the first two Tudor reigns greatly increased the records connected with the Chamber and the Household, and such financial courts as that of Augmentations, while the setting up of the conciliar courts produced the bulky files of the courts of Star Chamber and Requests. Next, it should be observed that with the early Tudors the diplomatic service of the European nation states was gaining in importance through the new practice of accrediting diplomatic representatives in the persons of ambassadors resident at the English court, one of their major duties being to send back to their own governments regular reports concerning the affairs of the English nation. In the same way the English kings had their own representatives charged with similar duties from the foreign courts. As a result there is available a quantity of diplomatic correspondence far exceeding that existing for any earlier period of English history. Another considerable collection of material comes from the activities of private individuals who are beginning in a quite novel way to put on paper the memoranda of their business transactions and the casual courtesies of their social relationships. For the early sixteenth century there exists, as a consequence of this new habit, an accumulation of private papers of varying interest and importance consisting of private correspondence, odd business papers, books and jottings, some autobiographical notes, essays in biography, and even some early forms of elementary diaries. This is the time when the printing press was beginning to make its influence felt. Controversial treatises discussing all kinds of problems of politics and religion were steadily increasing in quantity, and were being widely distributed for propaganda purposes. This provides a substantial addition to the original sources, but also adds to the worries of the historian upon whom falls the responsibility of assessing its reliability as evidence. This greatly increased material has had significant results. It has made possible a remarkable change in the content of historical writing. This is best seen by a


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comparison. Whereas, with a few exceptions, the historians of earlier periods find themselves hampered by the extreme scarcity of material of a personal nature, that is, material which brings to life individual character, and provides colour for their narrative, the sixteenth century, on the other hand is relatively rich in such material, with the result that it is possible to impart life and action to the historical scene and to provide an insight into the lives not only of the outstanding personalities but even of quite ordinary people. The cut and thrust of personal rivalries among politicians and publicists, the motives, actions, characters of individuals can be analysed and used to reveal the personal element in such a way as to bring out the fact that people are not the stereotyped figures they so often appear to be in earlier periods, and that history is not merely a study of institutions, but is the richer by the light it throws on the people by whom, and for whom, the institutions come into being. The next point worth making is that the use of this material presents new problems. The historian must cultivate to a high degree of sensitivity his awareness of dangers in the use of sources apparently quite straightforward, but which abound in snares for the unwary. He must be always on the lookout for the booby trap, for things that are not what they seem. This, of course, is only a way of saying that like historians of any period he has to be critical in his assessment and cautious in his use of evidence, but for this early Tudor period the need for such precautions is more urgent than it is for earlier times. An example will illustrate, taken from the above-mentioned diplomatic sources. On the surface these reports by ambassadors would seem to contain much valuable information not easily found in other sources. This is partly true, but it is only when the historian begins to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that he perceives how much of this information is the gossip of courtiers, and is about as reliable as that of any other rumour-mongering people. On the other hand, some of these foreign diplomatists were skilled observers, wellprimed with highly important information given them by men high in authority—Renard in Mary’s reign is a good example—and such witnesses provide valuable information not only on questions of foreign policy but also on many other aspects of domestic affairs in England. A similar question of the reliability of evidence is provided by parliamentary legislation. The use made of statutes in this collection is sufficiently great to indicate their importance for many aspects of English life, but they present many difficulties. First the long-winded text of even the simplest of them, seemingly contrived to conceal the purposes of the legislators in a cloud of words, makes it impossible to print in such a collection as this more than the bare essentials indicating the scope and nature of the particular statute. When it is recalled that the text of the legislation between 1485 and 1558 is contained in the greater part of four large folio volumes the impossibility of doing more

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than this will be appreciated. Even more important is a second problem. Obviously the text of a statute should normally indicate the intention of its draftsman, but the preamble of any Tudor statute is another matter. What weight should the historian attach to the statements included in this part of the text? Froude had no doubts on the subject: he accepted the preamble as an authentic narrative source. Later historians look at them differently. Recognizing that they were regarded as a powerful means of propaganda they attach as much importance to them as Froude did, but for totally different reasons. They suspect them as statements of fact, but find them greatly revealing as clues to the motives of government policy. It is as such that they are presented in this collection. Turning again to a consideration of the sources as a whole, emphasis should be placed upon two features: firstly, the considerable amount which has been made available in print, and secondly, the various techniques which have been developed in order to set out the material in the most convenient form possible for the use of historians. The great activity in publication is in itself an indication of the importance attached to the history of this period alike by scholars and less expert readers, since all of them realize that here can be found the origins of many modern problems. The nineteenth century was a time of great enthusiasm for editorial work upon the sources. It was largely done by H.M. Government, acting through the Master of the Rolls as head of the Public Record Office. Credit must, however, also be given to local history societies, and to private groups specializing in the publication of literary, religious, and various other kinds of texts and records. Great efforts have been made to develop the most efficient methods of putting this great wealth of material into use. Examples of most of them will be found in this collection: but mention ought to be made of three. These are the publication of state papers, the abstracts of the letters and papers of Henry VIII’s reign, and the calendars of the correspondence of foreign ambassadors from England. Of these the texts of state papers may be dismissed briefly. The object of this series was to give the full text of the state papers of Henry VIII in their original language and form. The series contains much important material, but the published volumes show how vast such an enterprise would have been if it had been completed. More practical was the adoption of a calendar form for the letters and papers of Henry VIII. This great series originally began as a calendar, that is, a set of summaries of the contents of documents preserved in the Public Record Office, but editors gradually aimed at completeness by including in the later volumes summaries of documents from the British Museum and other archives. This series of calendars contains the essence of many thousands of documents. The calendar form has also proved the most practical method of dealing with the foreign diplomatic documents mentioned above.


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While it is probably true to say that the historians of the early Tudor period, and especially of the reign of Henry VIII, are better supplied with printed materials for their work than historians of many other periods of English history, it is equally true that despite all this output nothing like all of the documents still extant and housed at present in the Public Record Office have as yet been published. There are still in manuscript large collections such as the bulky plea rolls of the common law courts, the rolls and other records of the Exchequer, much of the material derived from the conciliar courts, and many other records of a similar kind: and in addition there are documents of a less official nature in the various national libraries, and in private ownership which still await editors. Since the original material for a work such as this volume of Historical Documents must be selective allowances have perforce to be made for the prejudices of the editor. The principles on which he has worked will be revealed in the arrangement of the documents. The main objective he has had in mind has been to illustrate the various types of sources available for the history of this period. So far as possible examples have been given of most of the main records of the various institutions and departments of government, and of the various types of narrative sources. A display of such a nature is straightforward, and does not lend itself to prejudiced manipulation, save perhaps that it may give a slightly misleading picture by over emphasizing the importance of one or other kind of source. Next, wherever possible historical problems have been illustrated by bringing together more than one kind of material which, in combination, contribute to a full understanding of the problem. In so far as this method has been successful it illustrates one feature of historical method, the collation and comparison of all the relevant sources. In the third place, and here obviously the prejudices of an editor, conscious or otherwise, may well lay him open to a charge of bias, the documents naturally throw into relief what he regards as the main historical features of the time. Here the decisions must reflect his own initiative, and can only be his own responsibility. In constructing the historical framework he has aimed at conformity with general historical opinion, and his choice of topics is conservative rather than unconventional. In the last resort, it should be pointed out, this collection of sources is at the disposal of the student, and can be used in accordance with his own interpretation of their meaning, regardless of the emphasis the editor may have placed upon them. Enough has been said to show the extent of the available sources. Not everyone making use of them may realize what he owes to the labours of the pioneers, those translators, transcribers, and editors who worked on them. These men performed great tasks, often under difficulties hard to appreciate, and they have not always received the credit their devotion to scholarship

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deserves. To describe the work of all of them, even to list their names and achievements, would entail too great a digression to be permissible in this place, but an indication of the kind of work they did may be given from the way in which some of the foreign state papers were made available in print. Of all the European archives likely to be of service to historians of the sixteenth century those of the Spanish monarchy housed at Simancas are essential since at that time the Spanish monarchy dominated European politics and had contacts with all European states. In the early nineteenth century these archives were scarcely known, shut away as they were in the desolate village of Simancas, and in the keeping of archivists whose function seemed to be to hinder access to the documents in their charge. In 1860 Gustave Bergenroth (1813–69) arrived at Simancas. This colourful personality whose earlier adventures in the wilds of California, Mexico, and other parts of America held little of the promise of the scholarly recluse he was to become, settled there to collect materials for the history of Tudor England. With a marked tendency to elaborate original theories on the flimsiest foundations, and with too great a relish for the picturesque and the dramatic in history Bergenroth did not have the instincts of a reliable historian, but he proved himself an outstanding worker among manuscripts. At Simancas he had opportunities enough to keep him busy. According to his own account the archives there contained considerably more than 100,000 Legajos, or bundles: a Legajo might contain anything from 10 to 100 records. They were preserved in the forty-six rooms of the old castle, and he estimated them as amounting to some millions. His first investigations revealed a rich store of records bearing on English history, and a little later he was commissioned by the English government to produce a calendar of these documents. A description of his work, and of his problems and triumphs in the deciphering of secret passages (there were more than twelve ciphers with which the Spanish officials were either unacquainted or they refused to let him have the keys to them) is found in the preface of the first calendar he published, and in his letters to the Master of the Rolls.1 A second volume appeared in 1868, giving an analysis of the period 1509–25. After Bergenroth’s death his work was continued by a succession of editors by whom his standards were maintained. Another worker in the foreign field was Rawdon Lubbock Brown 1 J.S.Brewer visited Simancas in 1861. In a letter to the Master of the Rolls he wrote: “In Simancas all is as primitive, as native and as shameless as the days of Adam. None of the decencies of life are to be found there—not any, not so much as would be found in the poorest village in France—I say nothing of England. Simancas is a collection of wretched hovels, half buried in dust and sand. There is not a good house in the place…. Nothing but the strongest desire to do service to history could reconcile any man to so much hardship, and Mr. Bergenroth in speaking of his residence there does not exaggerate when he calls it the life of a hermit, and complains of his total isolation. I cannot but admire the perseverance and resolution which could set at defiance so many personal inconveniences, to say nothing of other obstructions, especially as Mr. Bergenroth undertook all in the first instance from his sole desire to advance the study of English history, without any prospect of remuneration for his labours.”


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(1803–1883) who settled in Venice in 1833, and worked there until his death. He was the first to appreciate the importance for English history of the Italian Relations, and in 1854 he produced an account of the English Court under Henry VIII based on the dispatches of Sebastian Giustiniani, Venetian ambassador in England in the early years of that king’s reign.1 The reception of this work in England persuaded the government to commission him in 1862 to calendar the Venetian state papers which throw light on English history, a work on which he was engaged for the rest of his life. He worked with scholarly thoroughness, and is said to have examined twelve million packets of documents, most of them in Venetian archives, but some coming from other towns of North Italy. His first volume of the calendar with an important introduction appeared in 1864, covering the years 1202–1509. Brown presented to the Public Record Office 126 volumes of transcripts from the Venetian archives: these have been used in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, and in the Calendar of State Papers, Venice. The work of these two men opened up great resources from foreign archives and acted as a great stimulus to historical studies: but it should be emphasized that they were only two among many whose devoted services in transcribing and editing sources in English as well as in foreign collections have lightened the labours of historians working on the sixteenth century. The student will meet some of these others when he consults some of the series of volumes for which they were responsible, and which are used in this book. These editions are the ultimate reference works to which this selection of Historical Documents will be, it is the editor’s hope, a useful introduction. 1

Rawdon Brown, Sebastian Giustiniani, Four years at the court of Henry VIII, 2 vols, 1854.

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY This Bibliography reviews the more important secondary and original sources of English history between 1485 and 1558. Further guides to more specialized literature will be given in the appropriate sections of this book.

A. SECONDARY WORKS For works published before 1956, Conyers Read, Bibliography of British History: Tudor Period (Oxford, 1959) is an indispensable guide. For works after that date the Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature (1930–) published by the Historical Association gives a catalogue raisonné of the most important historical publications of the year. The Association also publishes periodically bibliographies and pamphlets, some of which are concerned with this period. A useful guide to English history in general is A.T.Milne, Writings on British History (1937–60) 8 volumes have appeared dealing with publications between the years 1934 and 1945. With this work should be noticed The International Bibliography of Historical Sciences published by the International Committee of Historical Sciences, Lausanne (Paris, vol. I, for 1926 [1930] to vol. xxx for 1961 [1964], L.B.Frewer, Bibliography of Historical Writings published in Great Britain and the Empire 1940–45 (Oxford, 1947), and J.C.Lancaster, Bibliography of Historical Works issued in the United Kingdom 1946– 56 (1957) continued by C.W.Kellaway, 1957–60 (1962). Some earlier general bibliographical works still worth consulting are C.Gross, The Sources and Literature of English History (2nd ed., 1951) and A Bibliography of British Municipal History (Harvard Hist. Studies, v, 1897); F.W.Bateson, The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature I (Cambridge, 1940), and the bibliographies in the handbooks to the period mentioned below. For early printed books A.W.Pollard and G.R.Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books printed abroad, 1475–1640 (Bibliographical Society, 1926); C.E. Sayle, Early English Printed Books in the University Library, Cambridge, 1475–1640 (Cambridge, 4 vols., 1900–7), and A.W.Pollard, Hand Lists of Books printed by London Printers, 1501–56 (Bibliographical Society, 1913) are essential. There are many general introductions to the early Tudor period. Recent brief surveys are S.T.Bindoff, Tudor England (1950); C.Morris, The Tudors (1955); Conyers Read, The Tudors: Personalities and Politics in Sixteenth Century England (1936). The most recent handbooks are J.D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors 1485–1558, in The Oxford History of England (Oxford, 1952), and G.R.Elton, England under the Tudors, in the Methuen History of England (1955), while the two older volumes in the Longmans Political History of England, The History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the death of Henry VIII, by H.A.L.Fisher, and The History of England from the Accession of Edward VI to the Death of Elizabeth, by A.F.Pollard (1910, 1913) are still useful. The period is also covered in the first two volumes of The New Cambridge Modern History, I: The Renaissance, 1493–1520, ed. G.R.Potter (1957), and II: The Reformation, 1520–1559, ed. G.R.Elton (1958). Some reference works are essential. They should include the following: F.M.Powicke and E.B.Fryde, Handbook of British Chronology (2nd ed., 1961) provides lists of rulers, with their styles, regnal years, and brief bibliographical data, English officers of State, the succession of bishops, lists of dukes, marquises, and earls, lists of parliaments, and provincial and national councils of the Church of England; C.R.Cheney, ed., Handbook of Dates for Students of History (1945, rev. edn., 1955), covers some of the same ground, but adds valuable information, such as reckonings of time and the beginning of the year, saints days, and legal chronology; calendars for all possible dates of Easter, and a select bibliography. E.L.C.Mullins, Texts and 70

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Calendars. An analytical guide to serial publications (1958) gives information on works relating to English and Welsh history issued in general collections or in series by a public body or private society before the end of March 1957. Serious work on the personalities of the period should begin from The Dictionary of National Biography usually referred to as the D.N.B., ed. L.Stephen and S.Lee (63 vols., 1885–1900: repr. 22 vols., 1908–9) where many of them are discussed in scholarly articles, with brief bibliographies. Corrections and additions to some of these articles are published regularly in the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. For geographical data R.L.Poole, Historical Atlas of Modern Europe (Oxford, 1896– 1902), and H.C.Darby, ed., Historical Geography of England before 1800 (1936), should be used, and still useful for facts, S.Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England (4. vols., 1831, 7th edn. 1849). The coinage of the period is a difficult, but vital subject. Some useful information will be found in J.D.Mackie, Earlier Tudors, App. 604–608; G.C.Brooke, English Coins (4th edn., 1955); Sir C.Oman, The Coinage of England (1931); A.E.Feaveayear, The Pound Sterling (Oxford, 1931). For palaeography and diplomatic, H.Jenkinson, The Later Court Hands in England: from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century (Oxford, 1927), and Hubert Hall, Studies in English official historical documents (Cambridge, 1908), are standard reference works. Much general history and information on local, ecclesiastical, architectural, economic, and social history is presented in the monumental Victoria History of the Counties of England (the V.C.H.); well over 100 volumes have been produced, and the work is still in progress. The history of the early Tudor period was not scientifically studied prior to the nineteenth century, and the most important of the works produced by the earlier writers can be left to the specialist. When such writers were not obsessed by the religious upheaval as a feature to which all other matters were subordinated, they usually adopted a biographical approach limited to individual rulers. Francis Bacon, Historie of the raigne of King Henry the Seventh (1622) loses much of the authority earlier historians attributed to it when it is recalled that it was written over a century after Henry’s death, and was, therefore, no more a contemporary source than a life of Palmerston would be if written by a man of sixty-seven in 1964. Much the same comment holds good for Sir John Hayward, Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth (1630, 1636). More interesting is Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (1649, 1672, 1682, 1741), for his vigorous defence of the king was based on serious research amongst original documents. Richard Fiddes, Life of Wolsey (1724, 1726) was a work of considerable merit, based on serious investigations, and even now it is of use for its appendix of documents. The works of John Strype (1643–1737) are now mainly important for their collections of documents, and since his interests were, in the main, concentrated on the Reformation it will be advisable to discuss them elsewhere.1 In the nineteenth century serious historical study of the period began with the Roman Catholic priest, John Lingard (1771–1851). His History of England from the first invasion by the Romans to the Revolution of 1688 (8 vols., 1819–30: enlarged edn., 10 vols., 1849, the last revised by the author: latest ed. H.Belloc, II vols., 1915), is still treated with respect. Lingard’s most original work was contained in the fourth and fifth volumes, in which he dealt with the sixteenth century. He worked conscientiously from original authorities, and had the advantage of access to the Vatican archives. Although, of course, he made no secret of his Catholic affinities, he was moderate in his approach, and scholarly in his methods. The first treatment of the whole period in the grand manner was the contribution of J.A. Froude (1818–94). His main work was the History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the defeat of the Spanish Armada (12 vols., 1856–70: rev. edn., 12 vols., 1862–70: later edns., 1881–82, 1893, 1912), but he returned to the earlier period in The Divorce of Catherine 1

Below, p. 636.

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of Aragon (1891, 1897) without changing materially his earlier views, although he brought additional evidence from the Letters and Papers. It is not easy to do justice in a few words to Froude’s work. His claim to a high place among the great English stylists was quickly recognized by his contemporaries, and it is now assured, but his qualities as a historian have not been accepted without qualifications. In his own lifetime grievous damage was done to his reputation by the singularly vicious attacks upon his methods made by the historian Edward Freeman.1 When at long last Froude turned upon his critic with a disconcerting vindication the mischief had been done. As so often happens the words of Freeman had convinced a wider audience than Froude’s defence could reach. Everyone has heard that there were inaccuracies in Froude’s History, that he was disgracefully careless in his proofreading, that he made mistakes in copying documents, and that his method of making quotations from documents was lacking both in method and logic. What is not so well known is that he worked with exemplary industry among manuscripts in this country, was the first English historian to get to grips with the rich, but not very accessible, store of documents at Simancas and elsewhere, and that to the best of his powers he sought to provide contemporary evidence for what he thought was the truth. Scholars coming after him, their work made easier by the tremendous range of printed sources at their disposal, are in a better position than were Froude’s contemporaries to appreciate the industry behind his work. They can afford to be more generous in recognizing his achievement. Even though they cannot approve of the highly dramatic form in which his History is cast, nor accept wholly his interpretation of events, they can make allowance for the strength and honesty of Froude’s convictions, of which he made no secret, that the Reformation in England was a movement for the freedom of the human spirit, that Henry VIII was a great patriot, and that his subjects were wholeheartedly behind him in his struggle with Rome. In the light of later research they can see that some of his misconceptions were the natural consequence of the poor resources at his call: that, for example, much of his interpretation of government policy was coloured by his genuine belief that a great part of the domestic history of England could be written from the statute book. Only recently have modern scholars, with far greater resources of knowledge and technique at their command, been able to appreciate the efficiency of Tudor government propaganda, and they will understand how easy it was for Froude to be the unsuspecting victim of the special pleading in the preambles to Tudor statutes. It can be said that like every great classic of historical interpretation time has dealt hardly with Froude’s work: it no longer satisfies the standards or the tastes of later generations: but that should not prevent his History from being given its rightful place as a landmark in the history of early Tudor historical studies. Two men whose names are inseparable because of their co-operative work in making available the original sources for this period, also contributed some important writings of their own. The first was J.S.Brewer (1810–79). He buried much of his profound knowledge in the learned introductions he supplied to the first four volumes of the Letters and Papers. They were collected by his colleague, James Gairdner (1828–1912) with the title The Reign of Henry VIII from his accession to the death of Wolsey (2 vols., 1884). It was the first modern full-scale attempt at an appreciation of Wolsey’s policy. With his wide knowledge of the sources Gairdner carried on Brewer’s work on the Letters and Papers to its conclusion. He himself was no mean student of the period. In addition, to his numerous introductions to editions of texts, including a long introduction to his excellent edition of the Paston Letters (6 vols., 1904), his Life and Reign of Richard III (1878: a much revised and enlarged edition, Cambridge, 1898) threw much light on the obscure early years of Henry VII, and solved some of the problems connected with Perkin Warbeck. His Henry VII (1889) was the first concise summary of that king’s reign, while his numerous articles in the D.N.B. still 1 For an account of this attack, and Froude’s reply see W.H.Dunn, James Anthony Froude, II (1963), c. 28. “Freeman the Froude-Slayer”, 456–470, and H.Paul, Life of Froude (1905) 147–198.


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stand the tests of modern needs. His interest in the religious history of the period resulted in several books.1 Gairdner excelled in narrative history, and the elucidation of conflicting evidence in contemporary authorities: he was less happy in his discernment of character. In the work of A.F.Pollard (1869–1948) the great mass of printed material which was accumulating during the late nineteenth century was exploited with masterly skill. He had, it might almost be said, grown up with the edition of the Letters and Papers, reviewing many of the later volumes and other similar publications as they appeared, and his numerous contributions to the D.N.B., of which he was an assistant editor for many years, writing mainly on sixteenth-century characters, gave him a mastery of bibliographical, genealogical, and biographical information which enriched his own studies. These include England under Protector Somerset (1900), the first, and still the most valuable account of Edward’s reign; The Reformation under Edward VI (Cambridge Modern Hist., II, 474–511); Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation (1904:1926), Henry VIII (1902 in the Goupil illustra ted edition: 1905 with references added: 1913, 1953) The History of England, vol. VI of the Political History of England, Wolsey (1929:1953 illustr. edn.). His other books and specialist articles are noticed in the appropriate bibliographies of the various sections. The material available for the problems connected with war and peace in the early sixteenth century are numerous. It may conveniently be considered under the headings of (a) Diplomatic Relations, and (b) Military and Naval History.

(a) DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS A short scholarly survey by G.Mattingly (Renaissance Diplomacy, 1956) provides an excellent general introduction to this subject, whilst the starting point for the study of English diplomatic practice should be the standard reference histories such as The Oxford History of England and the Cambridge Modern History.2 To these may be added H.Hauser, Les Débuts de l’âge moderne. La Renaissance et la Réformation (Paris, 1929). All have good bibliographies. More specialized studies of phases of English foreign policy will be found in W.Busch, England under the Tudors; G. Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon; A.F.Pollard, Wolsey, and his Henry VIII; R.B.Merriman, Letters of Thomas Cromwell; A.D.Meyer, Die englische Diplomatie in Deutschland zur Zeit Eduard VI und Maria (Breslau) and E.H.Harbison, Rival ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary (1940). The French approach can be seen in E.Lavisse, Histoire de France (Paris, vol. V, i, ii,), and J.S.C.Bridge, A History of France from the death of Louis XI (Oxford, 5 vols.). More specialized studies are A.Dupuy, Histoire de la réunion de la Bretagne à la France (Paris, 2 vols., 1880), valuable for the early foreign policy of Henry VII; F.Decrue, Anne de Montmorency, grand maître et connétable de France à la cour (Paris, 1885), dealing with Anglo-French relations between 1526 and 1559; F.A.M.Mignet, La Rivalité de François 1er et de Charles Quint (2 vols., Paris, 1875), and C.Terrasse, François 1er (Paris, 2 vols., 1945–48). Of the many works describing the policy of Charles V, who dominated the European scene for the greater part of this period it will be sufficient to mention some key works from which references can be obtained. An excellent biography by Royall Tyler, The Emperor Charles the Fifth (1956) is the posthumously published work of one who had edited five volumes of the Spanish Calendar, and was an authority on the widely scattered Spanish and Imperial archives. It has a good bibliography. An earlier work by an eminent specialist on the history of Charles V’s reign is Karl Brandi’s Kaiser Karl V. The first volume (Munich, 1936) was translated by C.V. Wedgwood, Charles V (1939, repr. 1949). The second volume, Quellen und Erörterungen (Munich, 1941) is scarce and has not been translated into English. This is an elaborate apparatus of notes and bibliography. With these works at hand the English student is no longer dependent 1 See below, p. 635. A better approach is now possible in R.B.Wernham, Before the Armada, (1966), which describes in detail the growth of English foreign policy, 1485–1588. 2

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upon E.Armstrong, The Emperor Charles V (2 vols., 1902:1913) although this is still a serviceable biography. R.B.Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire (1918–34, 4 vols.) is the best general survey of Spanish development in the sixteenth century. England’s relations with the papacy down to the breach with Rome are adequately discussed in the histories of the English Reformation. The history of the papacy during the period can be studied in L.Pastor, The History of the Popes from the close of the Middle Ages (vols, V–XIV, 1898–1914) and A.Fliche and V.Martin (edd.), Histoire de l’Église (vol. XV. R.Aubenas and R.Ricard, L’Église et la Renaissance, 1449–1517, Paris, 1951, and E.du Moreau, P.Jourda and P.Janelle, La Crise religieuse du XVI siècle, 1950) Much may be gleaned from studies of some of the diplomatic envoys of the period. For English representatives see J.A.Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction, Jervis Wegg, Richard Pace (1933), G.L.Undreiner, Robert Wing field, enter ständiger englischer Gesandter am deutschen Hofe 1464?–1539 (Freiburg, 1932). G.Mattingly, “The reputation of Dr. De Puebla” (E.H.R., 1940, LV, 27–46) deals with that curious Spanish representative at Henry VII’s court, and in “A humanist ambassador” (Journ. Mod. History, 1932, IV, 175–185) he gives an account of the materials available for the life of Eustache Chapuys, Charles V’s ambassador in England, whose correspondence is calendared in Letters and Papers, and the Spanish Calendar, and whose lively dispatches have been so valuable for English historians of the period. There are several monographs on French diplomats, e.g. Pierre de Vaissière, Charles de Marillac (Paris, 1896), resident ambassador in England between 1539 and 1543; V.L.Bourrilly, Guillaume du Bellay, seigneur de Langay (Paris, 1905).

(b) MILITARY AND NAVAL HISTORY The military history of the period can be studied in Sir C.Oman, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (2 vols., enl. edn. 1924), and his History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (1937), and F.L.Taylor, The Art of War in Italy, 1494–1529 (Cambridge, 1921); E.M.Lloyd, A review of the history of infantry (1908); F.Lot, L’Art militaire et les armées au moyen âge en Europe (Paris, 2 vols., 1946). G.Dickinson, Les Instructions sur le Faict de la Guerre of Rougemont de Beccaire de Paire, sieur de Fourquevaux (1954) contains a good introduction dealing with the French army in the reign of Francis I. There are few English monographs dealing with the subject for the first half of the sixteenth century. J.Wake (ed.), A copy of Papers relating to Musters (Northants. Rec. Soc., in, 1926) contains an important introduction on the militia system for the later part of the century which is worth consulting, as also are G.Bruce, “The English expedition into Scotland in 1542” (Arch. Aeliana, 3rd Ser. III, 1907, 191–212), and T.Hodgkin, “The Battle of Flodden” (ibid., N.S., XVI, 1894, 1–45). For naval history, the following are important: M.Oppenheim, The Administration of the Royal Navy (1896); W.L.Clowes, A History of the Royal Navy from the earliest times to the death of Queen Victoria (7 vols., 1897–1903); G.S.Callendar, “The evolution of seapower under the first two Tudors” (History, V, 141–158); and C.S.Goldingham, “The Navy under Henry VII” (Eng. Hist. Rev., 1918, 72–88). The affairs of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland are of special interest in the early Tudor period not only because these countries, compared with England, reveal very different systems of social organization, but because each presented the English government with specific political problems. A survey of much of the relevant literature is in Read, op. cit. 410–544.

(a) WALES Reference may be made to R.T.Jenkins and W.Rees, A Bibliography of the History of Wales (Cardiff, 1931), and to J.F. and W.Rees, “A Select Bibliography of the Economic History of Wales” (Econ. Hist. Rev., II, 1930, 320–326). Indispensable for detailed study are the Bulletin of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales (Cardiff, 1923 f), the publications of the Cymmrodorion


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Society, Y Cymmrodor. (1877 f.), Transactions (1892 f.), and its Record Series (1892 f.); Archaeologia Cambrensis (1846). The main local societies responsible for transactions are the Anglesey Antiq. Soc. (1913), Cardiganshire Antiq. Soc. (1909), The Caermarthen Antiq. Soc. (1905), The Flintshire Hist. Soc. (1911), and The Historical Society of West Wales (1910). There is no complete survey of sixteenth-century Welsh history, but some attention is given to the period in general histories, D.Williams, A History of Modern Wales (1950) being the best recent survey. Special aspects are studied in J.F.Rees, Studies in Welsh History (1948); C.A.J. Skeel, “Wales under Henry VII” (Tudor Studies, 1–25); W.Ll.Williams, The Making of Modern Wales (1919); W.Garnon Jones, “Welsh Nationalism under Henry Tudor” (Soc.. of Cymmrodor, 1917–18, 1–59); J.B.Nevins, “Wales during the Tudor Period” (Liverpool, 1893). In constitutional history the problem of greatest interest is that which resulted in the Act of Union (1536). Several studies have been devoted to it, notably W.Rees, “The Union of England and Wales” (Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, 1937, 27–100), and W.Ll.Williams, “The Union of England and Wales” (ibid. 1907–8, 47–117). Closely connected with this subject is that of conciliar government in Wales. Earlier work on the subject was superseded by a scholarly monograph by C.A.J.Skeel, The Council in the Marches of Wales (1904). The relation of Wales to the English parliament has been examined by W.R.Williams, The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales, 1541–1895 (Brecknock, 1895), and by A.H.Dodd, “Wales’s parliamentary apprenticeship 1536–1625” (Trans. Soc. Cymmrodorion, 1944, XLII, 8–72). There is no detailed survey of the economic history of Wales as a whole during this period, but D.J.Davies, The economic history of South Wales prior to 1800 (Cardiff, 1935) may be consulted. The following specialist articles are important: E.A.Lewis, “A contribution to the commercial history of medieval Wales” (Y Cymmrodor, XXIV, 1913, 86–188); C.A.J.Steel “The cattle trade between England and Wales from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century” (R. Hist. Soc., 4th Ser., 1, 1926, 1–38); and (by the same author) “The Welsh woollen industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (Arch. Camb., 7th Ser., IV, 1924, 1–38). For Welsh ecclesiastical affairs, the nearest approach to a general survey is J.W.James, A Church history of Wales (1945), while a good special study is E.T.Davies, An ecclesiastical history of Monmouthshire (Risca, 1953). E.J.Newell, A History of the Welsh Church to the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1895) is still of value. There is much topographical information about Wales in L.T.Smith’s edition of Leland’s Itinerary (Vol. III), whilst useful maps are available in W.Rees, An Historical Atlas of Wales from early to modern times (2nd edn., 1959), and in H.N.Jerman, “A Map showing the territorial divisions of Wales before the Act of Union” (Arch. Cambr., XCII, 1937, 170–172).

(b) SCOTLAND In addition to articles in English historical periodicals many important articles and reviews appeared in The Scottish Historical Review (Glasgow, 1903–28, and the new Series which began in 1947). Also valuable are the publications of the Historical Association of Scotland, while the numerous Scottish local history societies (see below) often contain important monographs on special subjects. There are several introductory surveys of Scottish history, the best being P.Hume Brown, A Short History of Scotland (2nd ed. by H.W.Meikle, Edin., 1951), and A.Muir Mackenzie, The Rise of the Stewarts 1329–1513; The Scotland of Queen Mary and the Religious Wars 1513–1628 (Edin., 1957, 2 vols, of a reprint of a History of Scotland, Edin., 1936). Older and fuller narratives which are still the standard reference works are A.Lang, A History of Scotland (4 vols., Edin., 1900–7:2nd ed., 1900–3); J.H.Burton, History of Scotland (8 vols., Edin., 1853:1868–70: New York, 1898–1901) and F.P.Tytler, History of Scotland (9 vols., Edin., 1828–43; 5th ed., 4 vols., 1873–7). For Anglo-Scottish relations the narrative in J.D.Mackie, The Earlier Tudors is a helpful

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introduction. A.Conway, Henry VII’s Relations with Scotland and Ireland 1485–98 (Cambridge, 1932) is a scholarly monograph based on much fresh record material. Later phases are dealt with by G.Bruce, The English Expedition into Scotland in 1542 (Arch. Aeliana. 3rd Ser., in, 1907, 191–212); A.F.Pollard, The Protector Somerset and Scotland (E.H.R. XIII, 1898, 464–472, and his England under Protector Somerset. The only general survey of constitutional development is the not very satisfactory work by J.Mackinnon, The Constitutional History of Scotland from the early times to the Reformation (1924). An important monograph is R.S.Rait, The Parliaments of Scotland (Glasgow, 1924), while the studies of R.K.Hannay, General Council and convention of estates (Scot. Hist. Rev., 1922, XX, 98–116) and On parliament and general council (ibid., 1920, XVIII, 157–171) are pioneer works. J.D. Mackie and G.S.Pryde discuss Scottish borough representation in The estate of burgesses in the Scots parliament and its relation to the convention of royal boroughs (St Andrews, 1923). There is a good survey of economic history, I.F.Grant, Social and Economic Development of Scotland before 1603 (Edin., 1934), which replaces the old-fashioned work by J.Mackinnon, Social and Industrial History of Scotland from the earliest times to the Union (2 vols., 1920–21). There is some important material on trade, industry, and finance in Theodora Pagan, The Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland (Glasgow, 1926), while L.A.Barbé, Sidelights on the History, Industries, and Social Life of Scotland (1919) contains economic information derived from a study of the Lord High Treasurer’s accounts. Agriculture is represented in T.B.Franklin, History of Scottish Farming (Edin., 1952), and there is a general account of the Scottish mining industry in R.P.Arnot, History of the Scottish Miners from the earliest times (1955). For ecclesiastical history the general works noted above give good descriptive accounts. More specialized studies include C.S.Black, The Scottish Church: a short study in ecclesiastical history (Glasgow, 1953); D.G.Donaldson, The Scottish Church from Queen Margaret to the Reformation (1954); G.Grub, An Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (4 vols., Edin., 1861). Much information is packed into the notes and appendices to the classic edition by D.Laing of The Works of John Knox (6 vols., Edin., 1846). Strongly Protestant in outlook are the two books by D.Hay Fleming, The Reformation in Scotland (1910) and Mary Queen of Scots from her birth to the flight into England (1897), as is also A.R.Macewen, A History of the Church in Scotland (2 vols., 1918). The most weighty contribution from the Roman side, and it is still a standard work, is A.Bellesheim, Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Schottland (2 vols., Mainz, 1883: Engl. transl, and enlarged by Hunter Blair, 4 vols., Edin., 1887–90). The condition of the Scottish religious houses at the Reformation has been discussed by G.G.Coulton, Scottish Abbeys and Social Life (Cambridge, 1933).

(c) IRELAND Periodicals specially concerned with Irish problems are Studies (Dublin, 1912–f.) and Irish Historical Studies (1958–f.). Learned societies publishing work relative to Irish history in this period include The Royal Irish Academy Transactions (1786–1906) and Proceedings (1836–f.); The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1849–f.); the Irish Text Society; and the archaeological societies of Cork and Waterford. Among the numerous brief introductions to Irish history may be mentioned: J.C.Beckett, A short history of Ireland (1952); B.Ingles, The Story of Ireland (1956); and R.Dunlop, Ireland from the earliest times to the present day (1922). The standard general history for this period is R.Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., 1885–90). The background is admirably described in E.Curtis, A History of medieval Ireland, 1110–1573 (6th ed., 1950). Some interesting special studies include: A.Conway, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland 1485–98 (Cambridge, 1932); P. Wilson, The Beginnings of modern Ireland (Dublin, 1912); and R.Dunlop, “Some aspects of Henry VIII’s Irish policy” (Owens College Historical Essays, 1902,).


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The only attempt at a general survey of Irish constitutional history is J.G.S.Macneill, The Constitutional and Parliamentary History of Ireland till the Union (Dublin, 1917). T.Gilbert, History of the Viceroys of Ireland (Dublin, 1865) is a valuable work, but unfortunately although the author quotes freely from unprinted material, much of which is not now extant, he does not give adequate references. B.Fitzgerald, Geraldines: an experiment in Irish government (1951) is a general survey from 1169–1601, but it contains much important information for this period. Two studies in parliamentary history are C.L.Falkiner, “The Parliament of Ireland under the Tudors” (Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., xxv, Sect. C, x, 1905), and D.B.Quinn, “Parliaments and great councils in Ireland, 1461–1586” (Irish Hist. Studies, 1942, III, 60–77). The significance of Poynings law has been reconsidered by R.Dudley Edwards and T.W.Moody, “The History of Poyning’ Law, 1494–1615” (ibid., 1941, II, 415–424) and D.B.Quinn, “The early interpretation of Poyning’s Law, 1494–1534” (ibid., 241–254). The economic history of the period is still very largely un worked, and there is no satisfactory general handbook. W.F.Butler, Gleanings from Irish History (1925) is a scholarly work containing much information on Irish social life in the sixteenth century. A monograph of real worth is A.K.Longfield, Anglo-Irish Trade in the Sixteenth Century (1929). It is based on a close examination of the English customs accounts and the port books. The best modern survey of the history of the Church in Ireland in the period is R.D.Edwards, Church and State in Tudor Ireland, 1534–1603 (Dublin, 1935). The main works from the Roman side are A.Bellesheim, Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Irland (volume II covering the period 1509–1690), and M.V.Ronan, The Reformation in Dublin, 1536–58 (1926). J.T.Ball, The Reformed Church in Ireland, 1557–1886 (1886, rev. ed. 1890) is a good survey of ecclesiastical legislation.

B. PRIMARY SOURCES Some account has been given above of the basic secondary works for the history of England in this period. What follows is a guide to some of the chief categories of the original sources available in print.

I. THE PUBLIC RECORDS It is interesting to note the extent to which the Public Records for this period were available in print when Froude published the first volume of his History in 1856, and to observe the developments which have taken place since that date. Such a review not only emphasizes the limitations with which Froude had to cope, but it also indicates many of the activities which in this matter were so substantially to increase our knowledge during the second half of the nineteenth century and later. In 1856 the most important of the printed sources available were as follows. First, there was the great corpus of documents in Thomas Rymer, Foedera (20 vols., 1704–35; best edn. The Hague, 1739). This great work contained collections of treaties, diplomatic documents, selections from the patent and close rolls, etc. Although some parts are now superseded there still remains much important material that is worth consulting for this period. Next were The Statutes of the Realm (II vols., 1810–28). Other parliamentary records available were the Rolls of Parliament, vols, v and VI covering the period Edward IV to Henry VIII which appeared in 1771 and 1783 with an Index volume, 1832, the Journal of the House of Commons (1803) and the Journal of the House of Lords (1846). Records of the Council were represented by some brief records of 1540–42 in the seventh volume of N.H.Nicolas, Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (1834– 37). The great source of information about the wealth of the Church in the reign of Henry VIII the Valor Ecclesiasticus was available in the edition of J.Caley and J.Hunter (6 vols., 1810–34). There was one other important work which Froude had to hand: State Papers

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during the reign of Henry the Eighth (II vols., 1830–52). To appreciate what was still to be done a word must be said of this last experiment. Early in the sixteenth century, certainly during the first few years of Henry VIII’s reign, a change came over the nature of the public records, a change largely due to the new methods of administration then coming into use. It was not a complete transformation. The medieval system of government departments still functioned, producing the types of record familial to English medievalists. The close and patent rolls of the Chancery, for example, were still maintained, so too were the plea rolls of the courts of common law, and many of the records of the Exchequer, but the new machinery was beginning to put out new records. Most important development of all was the increase in the status of the king’s secretaries, through whose hands went correspondence of all kinds of business, domestic and foreign. There was produced a wholly new type of record, the State papers. They consist of a miscellaneous indefinable collection of records of the king’s business, drafts of letters, schedules, reports, and memoranda on all kinds of topics, which cannot be easily arranged save chronologically. These State papers provide the historian with many fresh possibilities, but making them available in print has given the archivists many difficult problems, leading them to make many experiments. The first of them was the edition of the State Papers during the reign of Henry the Eighth. In this edition, the documents printed in full were grouped in several sections. The first volume contained domestic correspondence: the second and third correspondence relating to Irish affairs, the fourth and fifth to Scottish affairs, and the remaining six volumes to correspondence of the English court and foreign countries. Admirable as this experiment was, it showed that treated on such a scale the publication would have become quite unmanageable. Another experiment was therefore made by publishing a Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547–80 (1856). It was not very successful, being little more than a catalogue of the papers, which gave the reader very little information on the contents of the documents. A Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, Edward VI, 1547–53 and of Mary, 1553–58, (1861) were on similar lines. At the same time there was published in the Master of the Rolls series of medieval chronicles, as if to illustrate the point that changes in the types of material were coming into view at the end of the Middle Ages, J.Gairdner’s Letters and Papers of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII (2 vols., 1861, 1863) a valuable but by no means exhaustive collection of State papers for the reign of Henry VII. A different approach was made in the publication of Facsimiles of National MSS. of England, Pt. I, William I–Henry VII (1865): Pt. II, Henry VIII to Edward VI (1866), Pt. III, Mary to Elizabeth (1867), in which, of course, only a limited selection of documents was presented. The next experiment was on more ambitious lines, nothing less than as full a calendar as possible of the State papers of Henry VIII’s reign, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII. Between 1862 and 1910 twenty-one volumes in 33 parts were issued covering the whole of that king’s reign. This magnificent collection contained State papers not only from the Public Record Office, but also from the British Museum Library, Lambeth, and the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. In addition there are included detailed summaries of the contents of the patent and close rolls, royal houshold books and various miscellaneous materials from the public records. These materials are arranged chronologically, in calendar form with elaborate indexes. The first volume was re-edited in 1920 in 3 parts (1509–13, 1513–14, and Index) when much additional material was incorporated. Two addenda volumes were added in 1929 and 1932, which included miscellaneous material covering the period 1509–47. This great collection is the working material for all students of the reign of Henry VIII. Materials for the other Tudor reigns in print are not so abundant. W.Campbell, Materials for the reign of Henry VII (2 vols., 1873–77) contains much that is still useful but the extracts from patent rolls has been superseded by the Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VII, 1485–94:494–1509 (1914, 1916), and Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VII, 1485– 1500:1500–09 (1955, 1963), the Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1485–1509 (1962), and the


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Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry VII (3 vols., 1898–1956). For the reign of Henry VIII the contents of these rolls are included in the Letters and Papers. For succeeding reigns they are separately published, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward VI (6 vols., 1924– 29), and Calendar of Patent Rolls, Philip and Mary (4 vols., 1936–39). An addition to the records of legislation in the Statutes of the Realm, were royal proclamations. They are of general interest for all kinds of topics in the history of the period. R.Steele, Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 1485–1714 (2 vols., Oxford, 1910) calendared them in chronological order, but a full text is now available in P.L.Hughes and J.F.Larkin, edd., Tudor Royal Proclamations, I: The Early Tudors, 1485–1553 (New Haven and London, 1964). The scanty records of the Council received an important addition by the publication of J.R.Dasent, ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England (vols. 1–6 cover the years 1542–58 (1890–93). This immense work does not exhaust the experiments in publication of sources undertaken from the public record office in the later part of the nineteenth century and after. A great mass of diplomatic documents were contained in the national archives in this country, and also in the archives of foreign states. The work of making them available was taken in hand. First came the Calendar of State Papers, Spain. These were followed by similar calendars of State papers, Venice, and also Milan. Many State papers and other official and private documents found their way into private hands. In 1869 the Historical Manuscripts Commission was set up to make known the whereabouts and contents of such material. The earlier reports of the Commission included very brief surveys of such collections, but later the appendices to the reports take the form of full calendars, and provide a great corpus of miscellaneous material. For a list of the Reports containing material for this period see Read, 10–22. The official Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office (H.M.Stationery Office, 2 vols., 1963) is an essential work of reference for any student undertaking work on the Public Records. Useful introductions to the subject are: V.H.Galbraith, Introduction to the use of the Public Records (Oxford, 1934); V.H.Galbraith, Studies in the Public Records (1934); and F.J.Weaver, The Materials of English History (1938).

II. LOCAL RECORDS In addition to the public records produced by the machinery of the central government, a large quantity of records came into being through other agencies, particularly those of local government. They present the historian with problems, for they are often difficult of access, being scattered in many depositaries, and their publication is not the responsibility of the central government: if it is done it has to be through the activity and resources of local initiative. Such records are of different types, and some of them, e.g. manorial and ecclesiastical documents, the records of city companies, etc., are best dealt with in other sections but one important kind, the municipal records, it will be convenient to deal with here, since they are of general interest, and being the product of the machinery of local government they display in miniature many of the features of the public records. Satisfactory bibliographies of the municipal records will be found in Read, and Gross, and note should be taken of Gross, A Bibliography of British Municipal History. One important type of municipal document is the town charter. There is an adequate collection of such documents in print. They include F.W.Maitland and Mary Bateson, edd., The Charters of the Borough of Cambridge, Cambridge (1901.) H.W.Gidden, Charters of the Borough of Southampton (Southampton Rec. Soc., 1909, 1910), S.P.H.Statham, Dover Charters (1902), W.G.Benham, The Charters and Letters Patent of Colchester (Colchester, 1904). For a general survey of this type of source, and the problems arising, see M.Weinbaum, British Borough Charters, 1307–1660 (Cambridge, 1943). Records of town governments are for the most part preserved in the borough archives. They usually conform to a common pattern, and if they are in a reasonably complete state of

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preservation they will contain the royal charters of the town, rolls recording the proceedings of the assembly or council, the town’s accounts, presented by the town chamberlain, court rolls of legal proceedings, and very often a book or books usually given a name such as the White Book, Red Book, Oath Book, etc., which will contain miscellaneous collections of borough customs, oaths of officials, ordinances, and other miscellanea connected with the government of the town. Such records are often of interest for national history; they are certainly of great importance for the history of the town. Several of the larger cities have published their records. Of the many in print the following are representative: Mary Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester, I (Cambridge, 1899); A.Raine, York Civic Records, II, 939, etc., Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser.; A.F.Leach, Beverley Town Documents, Seld. Soc., 1900; W.H.Stevenson, Records of the Borough of Nottingham (Nottingham, 1882); J.M.Guilding, Reading Records (1892) and J.C.Tingey, Records of the City of Norwich (Norwich, 1906– 1910); C.A.Markham and J.C.Cox, Records of the Borough of Northampton (Northampton, 1898); W.H.Turner, Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford (Oxford, 1880). Some examples of town books are A.B.W.Chapman, The Black Book of Southampton (South Rec. Soc., 1912); H.W.Gidden, Book of Remembrance of Southampton, 1440–1620 (3 vols., 1927– 28, 1930); A.L.Merson, The Third Book of Remembrance of Southampton (1514–40, 1540– 73, 1952); W.G.Benham, The Red Paper Book of Colchester (Colchester, 1902) and The Oath Book or Red Parchment Book of Colchester, 1327–1564. Many documents illustrating both national and local history have been published by the various societies both national and local which exist for the promotion of such work and their publications have been listed, E.L.C.Mullins, Texts and Calendars. An analytical guide to serial publications (Roy. Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks, No. 7, 1958).

III. SOURCES FOR DIPLOMATIC HISTORY The chief sources of English diplomatic history in this period consist of the letters of the king to foreign rulers, instructions to his diplomatic representatives abroad, reports home from such agents, reports from representatives of foreign rulers in England to their home governments, and finally the texts of truces and treaties. The amount of such material in print, either in the form of calendars, or printed in extenso, is considerable, much of it being produced under the authority of the various European governments. The contribution of the British government has been considerable. For the reign of Henry VII the Rolls Series provided J.Gairdner, Letters and Papers illustrative of the reign of Richard III and Henry VII (2 vols., 1861–63), and Memorials of King Henry the Seventh (1858), which includes the Journals of Roger Machado, describing an embassy to Spain in 1489, and two to Brittany in 1490. For the reign of Henry VIII, the Letters and Papers gives summaries of such papers and is essential for reference purposes, while the edition of State Papers Henry VIII (vols, VI–XI) provides the full text of many of the papers thus summarized. For the reigns of Edward VI and Mary there is an unsatisfactory Calendar of State Papers, Foreign 1547–58 (2 vols., 1861), edited by W.B.Turnbull. Even more important is the magnificent series of calendars of documents in foreign archives concerned with English affairs. The Calendar of State Papers, Spanish (1862–1954) is now complete in 13 volumes for the period 1485–1558 (vols. I, II, edited by G.A. Bergenroth; vols, III-VII by Don Pascual de Gayangos: vols, VII, VIII, by M.A.S.Hume: vol. IX by Hume and R.Tyler: vols, X–XIII by R.Tyler). In addition G.Mattingly has edited a supplement to vols, I, II, which adds some important material especially for the years 1521–25. The editing of the earlier volumes was of indifferent quality, but the later volumes maintain a high standard. The documents calendared were drawn from the archives at Simancas, Vienna, Brussels, Besançon, and elsewhere. The Calendar of State Papers, Venice (1867–84) consists of 6 vols, in 8 parts, running from 1202 to 1558. They were edited by Rawdon Brown from the Venetian archives, and the introductions to the earlier volumes are especially valuable. This Calendar is of


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particular importance for the period Sept. 1555–January 1558, a period for which reports sent from London by Philip’s agents, which should have appeared in the Spanish Calendar, seem to be lost. A Calendar of State Papers, Milan (vol, I, 1385–1618), edited by A.B.Hinds (1912) contains some interesting diplomatic material from the archives of Milan. France supplied some important texts in the great collection of Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France. They include N.Tommaseo, Relations des ambassadeurs vénitiens sur les affaires de France au XVIe. siècle (vols, I, II, 1838); C.Weiss, Papiers d’état du cardinal de Granvelle, I, 1516–32 (1841); J.J.Champillon Figeac, Lettres de rois, reines, et autres personnages des cours de France et d’Angleterre (2 vols., 1845–47); A.J.G.Le Glay, Négociations diplomatiques entre la France et l’Autriche durant les trente premières années du XVIe. siècle (1845). Other French collections, largely in the form of ambassadors’ papers, are V.L.Bourrilly and P.de Vaissière, Jean du Bellay, ambassades en Angleterre (1905), in England, Sept. 1527–29; J.Kaulek, De Castillon et de Marillac, correspondance politique (Paris, 1885), ambassadors to England 1537–41; R.A.de Vertot and C.Villaret, MM. de Noailles, ambassades en Angleterre 1553–59 (5 vols., Leyden, 1763) and G.Lefèvre-Pontalis, Odet de Selve, correspondance politique 1546–49 (Paris, 1888). For Spain and the Empire the most important collections are the great Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, edited by M.F.Navarrete and others (Madrid, 1842–1895), a vast collection of source material from the Spanish archives containing much that is valuable for English history: the Correspondencia de Gutierro Gómez de Fuensilida, edited by El Duque de Berwick y de Alba (Madrid, 1907), useful for the later years of Henry VII; I.Stich, G.Turba, and A.F.Pribram, Venetianische Depeschen vom Kaiserhof (3 vols., Vienna, 1889–95), covering the years 1538–76, and containing many important documents on Anglo-German relations not in the Venetian Calendar. W.Bradford, Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V and his ambassadors to the Court of England and France (1850) is a small collection of State papers in translation. From Italian archives come some important sources, including the valuable series of “Relations”, E.Albèri, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato, Ser. I–IV (Florence, 1839–63), and the Diarii de Marino Sanuto 1496–1535 (vols. I–VIII, Venice, 1879–1903). Rawdon Brown translated under the title Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII (2 vols., 1854) a selection from the dispatches of Sebastian Giustiniani to the Signory, 1515–19. P.Friedman edited, with a scholarly introduction, Les Dépêches de G.Michiel [Giovanni Micheli] (Venice, 1869) who was Venetian ambassador in England, 1554–57. For English diplomatic relations with the Papacy, especially in the affairs of Henry’s divorce there is an excellent collection of documents in Stefan Ehses, Römische Dokumente zur Geschichte der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII (1893), and J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1933) is also important.

IV. MATERIAL RELATING TO WALES, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND Much of the material for Welsh history will be found in the official records of the Public Record Office, and in MSS. in the British Museum, and the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, as well as in local libraries in Wales. Such materials as are dealt with in the calendars of close and patent rolls, the Letters and Papers, and the various collections of State papers contain numerous references to Welsh affairs. So also, do the registers of the Council as published in N.H.Nicolas, Acts and Proceedings of the Privy Council and J.R.Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council. The records of the Council of the Marches of Wales for this early period in its history have largely perished, but there is a detailed list of extant manuscripts and a discussion of such material in Skeel, Council of the Marches in Wales (1904). Royal proclamations affecting Wales are in R.Steele, Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, vol. II, and texts of statutes are in Statutes of the Realm, and in I.Bowen, The Statutes of Wales (1908). Guides to the records of the conciliar courts are available in I. ab. O.Evans,

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Catalogue of Star Chamber Proceedings relating to Wales (Cardiff, 1929), and E.A.Lewis and J.C.Davies, Records of the Court of Augmentations relating to Wales and Monmouthshire (Cardiff, 1954). Other important references are E.Owen, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts relating to Wales in the British Museum (Cymmrodorion Soc. Rec. Ser. IV, 4 pts., 1900–22), H.Owen, Calendar of the Public Records relating to Pembrokeshire (ibid., VII, 3 pts., 1911– 1918), and J.Ballinger, Calendar of the Wynn (of Gwydir) Papers, 1515–1690 (Aberystwyth 1926). Some interesting records of local administration are printed in W.O.Willis, Calendar of the Caernarvonshire Quarter Sessions, I (Caern. Hist. Soc., 1956), covering the years 1541– 58, and C.R.Straton, Survey of the Lands of William, first Earl of Pembroke (Roxburghe Club, 2 vols., Oxford, 1909). This survey was made in 1562, but it provides a trustworthy picture of agrarian conditions during the early Tudor period. The chief records available for ecclesiastical history are R.F.Isaacson and R.A.Roberts, The Episcopal Registers of St. David’s, 1397–1518 (Cymmrodorion Rec. Soc., 3 vols., 1916– 20), whilst A.I.Pryce, The Diocese ofBangor in the sixteenth century (Bangor, 1923) contains a summary of the episcopal registers from 1512 to 1646. For Scotland there are useful collections of documents relating to this period in W.C. Dickinson, A Source-book of Scottish history (Edinburgh, 1952–54), and in P.Hunter Blair, Scotland before 1700 from contemporary documents (Edinburgh, 1893). Much record material for Scottish history is preserved in the Public Record Office in London, and in the Register House, Edinburgh. An account of the latter collections will be found in M. Livingston, A Guide to the Public Records of Scotland deposited in His Majesty’s General Register House, Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1905); in J.M.Thomson, The Public Records of Scotland (Glasgow, 1922); and in J.R.N.Macpheil, “The National Records of Scotland” (Scot. Hist. Rev., XXIV 1926, 202–211). The printed calendars of the English sources contain much information on Scottish affairs, while from the Register House come some important publications. These include the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (vols, I–IV, 1814), The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (vols. I–IV, 1882–1886), The Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland (vols, I–V, 1908, 1957). The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland (vols, IX–XIX, 1886–98), and The Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (vols, I–IX, 1877–1911). The records of the Council in Scotland are available in a series of publications. First come The Acts of the Lords of the Council in Civil Causes (2 vols., 1839, 1943). These are mainly judicial records for the years 1478– 1501. A third volume, for the years 1501–3, was published by the Stair Society (1943). For the period 1513–45 the political business of the Council was entered with the records of its judicial business. This political material was extracted by R.K.Hannay, Acts of the Lords of Council in Public Affairs, 1501–54 (Scot. Rec. Public., 1932) to serve as an introduction to The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, which begins in 1545 (vol. I, 1877). Among the materials from the Public Record Office calendared in such publications as Campbell, Materials, and the Letters and Papers, there is much that is important for Scottish historians. There are also some specific Scottish volumes such as a Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots 1547–1603 (vol. I, 1898), and The Hamilton Papers, edited by J.Bain (2 vols., Edin., 1890–92) containing letters and papers illustrating the political relations of England and Scotland from materials originally in the archives of the Council of the North, now in the British Museum. Two valuable collections are The Letters of James IV, 1505–13, and The Letters of James V, 1513–42. Both were calendared by R.K.Hannay, and after his death were edited by R.L.Mackie and Anne Spelman (Scot. Hist. Soc., 1953), and D.Hay respectively (Edin., 1954). To these should be added The State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, edited by A.Clifford (2 vols., 1809). Some materials bearing on Scottish affairs which are in foreign archives should not be neglected. The most important are A.Teulet, Papiers d’état, pièces et documents inédits ou


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peu connus à l’histoire de l’Écosse au XVIe. siècle (3 vols., Bannatyne Club, 1852–60), and in a later edition with changes in content as Relations politiques de la France et de l’Espagne avec l’Écosse au XVIe. siècle (5 vols., Paris, 1862), and an Inventaire chronologique des documents relatifs à l’histoire d’Écosse (Abbots-ford Club, 1839). Documents from the papal registers are in A.Theiner, Vetusta Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia (Rome, 1864). The Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission contain much scattered material for Scottish history. A guide to some of it is C.S.Terry, An Index to the Papers relating to Scotland in the Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports (Aberdeen, 1908). The activities of the various Scottish historical societies have resulted in many important publications, which often contain in addition to important texts, some extremely interesting introductions on many topics of Scottish history. A guide to them is forthcoming in C.S.Terry, A Catalogue of the Publications of the Scottish historical and kindred clubs and societies, 1780–1908 (Glasgow, 1909). Both these guides were continued for the period 1908–27 by C.Matheson (Aberdeen, 1928). Some indication of the nature and variety of these publications may be seen from the following random selection: M.Wood, Foreign Correspondence with Marie de Lorraine, Queen of Scotland (Scot. Hist. Soc., 2 vols., 3rd Series, IV, VII, 1923–25); A.I.Cameron, The Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine, 1543–60 (ibid., 3rd Ser., X, 1927); M.Wood, Flodden Papers (ibid., 3rd Ser., 1933); A.I. Cameron and R.S.Rait, Warrender Papers (ibid., 3rd Ser., 1931), W.C.Dickinson, The Sheriff Court Book of Fife, 1515–22 (ibid., 3rd Ser., XII, 1928); J.Stuart, The Pittodrie Papers, 1524–1628, being the papers of Thomas Erskine, Secretary to James V (Spalding Club Misc., II, 1842); J.D. Marwick, Extracts from the Records of the burgh of Edinburgh (Scot. Burgh Rec. Soc., 1869–92). The most important contemporary narrative sources for this period are The History of Scotland from the death of James I…to 1561, edited by T.Thomson (Bannatyne Club, 1830), which is an English translation of part of John Leslie, De origine, moribus, et rebus gestis Scotorum (1578), and John Knox, The History of the Reformation in Scotland (1st edn., 1587: edited by D. Laing, Edin., 1846–48; another edn. by W.C.Dickinson (2 vols., Edin., 1949). A most informative contemporary description of Scotland is in John Major, De gestis Scotorum (Paris, 1521: English translation by A.Constable, Scot. Hist. Soc., X, 1892). For some other contemporary descriptions see P.Hume Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1891). For Ireland there is a useful selection of extracts from the original sources in Constantia Maxwell, Irish History from contemporary sources, 1509–1610 (1923). There are deplorable gaps in the official records of Ireland. Much that was formerly in the Irish Public Record Office was destroyed in the political troubles in 1922. Some impression of the loss may be gained from H.Wood, A Guide to the Records deposited in the Public Record Office in Ireland (Dublin, 1919) and from an article by the same author on “The Public Records of Ireland before and after 1922” (R. Hist. Soc., 4th Ser., XIII, 1930, 17– 48). Some of the material thus described had appeared in print before this destruction happened. The amount of material dealing with Irish affairs in the English Public Record Office is considerable. Valuable for Anglo-Irish relations are some of the documents in J.Gairdner, Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III and Henry VII (2 vols., R.S., 1861–63). For later years there are the State papers collected in the second and third volumes of State Papers, Henry VIII (1830–52) where the correspondence between the two governments, 1515–46, is printed in extenso. Summaries of numerous documents reflecting on Irish affairs are also published in Letters and Papers (passim), The Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, ed. H.C.Hamilton (1860–90) covers the years 1509–85 in the first two volumes, but unfortunately this is so brief as to be little more than a catalogue. The Calendar of the Carew MSS., 1515–1624, ed. by J.S.Brewer and W.Bullen (1867–73) is a

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curious miscellaneous collection of documents and memoranda concerned with Irish affairs. This material, consisting largely of copies rather than original pieces is preserved at Lambeth Palace. It is very fully calendared. A useful collection of documents for ecclesiastical history is E.P. Shirley, Original Letters and Papers in illustration of the history of the Church in Ireland during the reign of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth (1851). Royal proclamations affecting Ireland are in R.Steele, Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, vol. II. Legislation affecting Ireland is in J.G.Butler, The Statutes at Large passed in the parliaments held in Ireland (Dublin, 1786), the first volume covering this period. Although incomplete this work is of great value, since the original MSS. have been destroyed. The Acts of the Privy Council in Ireland are in H.M.C. Rep., XIII, and XIV, App. III, 1–296, but unfortunately they only begin in 1556. There is a calendar of fiants (i.e. warrants to the Court of Chancery for grants under the great seal) in the Rep. Dep. Keeper of the Public Records in Ireland (VII– IX, Dublin, 1875–90), and a rather brief collection of Patent and Close Rolls ed. J.Morrin (Dublin, 1861–63). The main narrative sources for Irish history in the sixteenth century comprise J.O’Donovan, Annals of the Four Masters (Dublin, 1851:1856); W.M.Hennessy, Annals of Loch Cé, 1014– 1590 (R.S., 2 vols., 1871), and W.M.Hennessy and B.MacCarthy, Annals of Ulster (Dublin, 1887–1901). W.Harris, Hibernica (Dublin, 1747:1770) contains an account of the voyage of Sir Richard Edgecombe into Ireland in 1488 to take new oaths of allegiance, and a “Breviat of the getting of Ireland”, by Patrick Finglas, Chief Justice of Ireland in the reign of Henry VIII.

Part I THE WRITING OF HISTORY

INTRODUCTION

T

HE historian’s first duty is to understand the intrinsic nature, quality, and reliability of the materials from which he expects to derive his information. When these sources consist of historical narrative something more is involved than textual criticism. Some estimate must also be made of the attitude towards the past of those who produced them, and the extent to which such narratives provide a general framework of the events of the period which is under consideration. When such tests are applied to the historical narrative of the early Tudor period some interesting results emerge. As in other spheres, it was a time of experiment in the writing of history. Developments are visible which were to have significant results; the way was being prepared for considerable changes. Some of the main tendencies can be illustrated by a few generalizations. In all periods of history there can be found individuals possessed of what may be described as a sense of news-value, which makes them responsive to the meaning and relative value of the events they experience. Such awareness is usually accompanied by an urge to make some note, however brief, which will retain an impression of the impact such events make upon the individual and the life of his time. Earlier volumes in this series provide ample evidence of the way in which, during the Middle Ages, such an urge resulted in the production of numerous monastic chronicles. From the seclusion of the monastery a writer, or more often a succession of writers, kept the chronicle of the house, recording in it the events and incidents of the daily life of the institution, and, where the writer’s interests were not too closely concentrated upon his immediate surroundings, incorporating in his manuscript notices of events of a more general character happening in the world outside his monastery. By the early fifteenth century, when their inferior quality reflected a general decline in the vigour of such religious foundations, monastic chronicles lost their importance. The initiative in recording events passed from the monk to the officials and citizens of London. In the several texts of London chronicles still extant there appear narratives very similar in form and content to those emanating earlier from the monasteries. The characteristics of these city chronicles have been closely studied. Briefly, they may be described as short notices of events of civic and national importance recorded under the mayoral year, headed annually with the name of the mayor and sheriffs, with sometimes a mention of the city company to which the mayor belonged. Taken as a whole these chronicles contain a mixed assortment of news-items in which notices of real historical significance, with now and again the text of an official document, sit side by side with tales of portents, reports about the weather, and other trivial matters. The general picture they suggest is that of a colourful, bustling city life, with its official banquets, civic processions, and the less spectacular, but more normal give and take of everyday life in the city. They provide useful sidelights on social life and reflect popular opinion. That such narratives were appreciated by contemporaries is suggested by the 87

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fact that several versions are still extant, written by anonymous scribes, who copied from each other or from a common source, in just the same way as the monastic chroniclers had done. The textual problems to which these different versions give rise have been the subject of some delicate scholarship, some of which is discussed below. While it is true that the greater part of the material in the London chronicles is concerned with the period before 1485, they cannot be entirely ignored by the historian dealing with the early Tudor period. Some important examples continued to be written during the period, and the information they provide is by no means negligible. What is even more noteworthy is the fact that the early sixteenth century saw the first printed texts of some of them, and these provided the inspiration for other experiments in the chronicle form. While such material has its value, it must not be exaggerated. The chronicle provides the framework of events in civic and national history which contemporary opinion considered significant. The information it provides is strictly contemporary evidence, and the picture it gives of city life has a warmth of colour lacking in some other types of material the historian of this period has to use. Here and there it contains information which might otherwise not be known, and it is often useful as corroborative evidence. Yet, when all is said on behalf of the chronicles, they still remain a minor part of the narrative material available for the period. What is more, they represent a type of source that was reminiscent of a world which was yielding to change. Despite the efforts of a little group of men like John Rastell, Reynold Wolfe, and, after the middle of the century, Stow, Holinshed, and Harrison, they had no real future as a narrative form. By the time of Queen Elizabeth even the best of them were beginning to look oldfashioned, and bright young men of the time were sharpening their wits on these “lay chronographers that write of Mayors and Sheriffs, and the dear year and the great frosts.”1 Only some stimulus from outside could break through the crust of convention imprisoning narrative history within the confines of the chronicle form. If the selfcentred complacency of the chronicles was to give place to a more profound realization of the past it could only be achieved by the reception of the new ideas about the past and its study which were already finding expression in the writings of the humanists of the Italian renaissance. These new ideas were introduced into England through the work of one man. It is hardly too much to claim that Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia revolutionized the writing of English history. Bringing to his studies the fresh eye of the foreigner, the training and culture acquired in youth in the Italy of the Renaissance, and the technique of scholarship which he had already shown in some reputable works of literary research, Vergil was well fitted to be the pioneer in a new form of English narrative history. Vergil saw English history as a whole, and his narrative was at once a work of literary art and according to his lights, of sound scholarship. His survey was planned on an impressive scale, nothing less than an account, in twenty-six books, of the history of the country from the earliest times down to Vergil’s own day. The earlier books do not call for notice here, save to mention that his account of the long period lying outside his 1

Nash, Pierce Pennilesse, Works II, 62.

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own personal experience was a bold, and to no small degree, a critical interpretation based on as firm a foundation of facts as he could gather from a wide range of authorities whose work he had studied. When he came to deal with events nearer his own day, and within his own experience, he spared no pains to get at the truth not only from the written word, but also from the first-hand evidence of contemporary witnesses, so that for the reign of Henry VII, and to a lesser degree for the reign of Henry VIII down to 1537 his book is a historical source of the greatest value. The challenge implicit in Vergil’s new methods did not fail to meet with a response. There were those who, while they found little to quarrel with in that part of his history dealing with contemporary events, were horrified by the ruthless iconoclasm with which he handled such hallowed themes of English history as the Arthurian “myth” and his sceptical reaction to so famous an authority as Geoffrey of Monmouth. First to be roused was John Leland, who devoted two works to refuting Vergil’s theories. His friend John Bale, fired as usual by his venomous anti-papal animosity, denounced him for polluting our English chronicles most shamefully with his Romish lies and other Italish beggaries, and even went so far as to write his own account of the life and trials of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, in opposition to Vergil’s history. A little later Sir John Price followed Leland’s example in his detailed defence of the traditional story of early British history against the new-fangled interpretation by Vergil. These men, and in particular Leland and Bale represent England’s native contribution to historical scholarship at this time. Their antiquarian interests merit a passing reference. Leland’s actual contribution to written history was small, but his indirect influence upon historical scholarship was certain, although it is not easy to assess. That he had an unrivalled knowledge of the earlier materials of English history is evident in the few writings he managed to complete, that he had ambitions as an historian is revealed in his “New Year’s Gift”, the report on his antiquarian researches he prepared for Henry VIII. Inspired by a deep love of the English past, and appalled by the wanton scattering of manuscript treasures which resulted from the closing of the religious houses, he did his best to save from the wreckage what he could, by acquiring manuscripts, and by laboriously copying them, and by accumulating information from them in copious notes he hoped eventually to work into a history. This he never did: he died with his notes only partly arranged: but he left behind him materials contemporary scholars and those coming after them were glad to use. Leland’s name stands high in the list of English antiquarians. He was not an historian. His attempt at a refutation of Vergil, despite the close intimacy it reveals with medieval historical literature shows a lack of critical sense sometimes bordering on the naïve, and a persistent special pleading reminiscent of the advocate rather than the historian. To dismiss Leland, with the remark that he is merely a superstition, is just silly. It shows a profound ignorance of his real importance. Granted that his creative historical work is negligible, that his attitude to the past is primarily that of an antiquarian, that in relation to the development of English historiography he is of far less importance than Poly dore Vergil, it still remains true that he has to be reckoned among the powerful influences of his day. His own special contribution was to English topography.

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In the notes he gathered during his great survey of England, notes which, incidentally, he made for his own use not for publication, he was blazing a new trail. The Itinerary is the work of a pioneer. History it most certainly is not, nor could such crude memoranda ever be regarded as literature, but as a contemporary example of the historical geography of early Tudor England as seen by an English antiquary it is unique. Leland’s importance, however, does not derive solely from his Itinerary. As early as 1536 he was encouraging his friend John Bale to continue the work he had begun in early life of making collections for a history of the Carmelite order in which Bale had been nurtured, and later Bale was to do much to foster that enthusiasm for manuscripts Leland did so much to stimulate. Even before Leland’s death Reynold Wolf, printer and publisher, with leanings towards historical scholarship, planned chronicle history on a new scale, to embrace universal history. Towards that end he acquired some of Leland’s manuscripts. Through his efforts a new generation of younger men like William Harrison, Raphael Holinshed, and others were to do something to infuse chronicle writing with new ideas. The use later writers were to make of Leland’s collections can be read in the works of the historians and antiquaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Returning to Vergil’s Anglica Historia, we may note one grave disadvantage from which it suffered. It was written in Latin. True, in the early sixteenth century this was still the language of scholars, and some English writers, Thomas More and Stephen Gardiner, for example, found it difficult to decide whether to risk giving the world their masterpieces in the vernacular. To Edward Hall must be given the credit of seeing the possibilities not only of the new form of history Vergil had introduced, but also the advantages of the new medium, English, in which it might be written. Hall’s English style, although it had many qualities, can hardly be described as limpid prose: but it showed, at any rate, what might be done. He wrote a history of his country from Lancastrian times down to his own day. A full appreciation of it must take account of several things. Hall was no renaissance scholar or man of letters. He was a Londoner, with all the civic pride of the average citizen, and he knew—he may even have owned— copies of the London chronicles. Like many of his countrymen he had seen with relief how the Tudor dynasty had succeeded in ending the civil strife of the fifteenth century. He did not set out to write the continuation of a London chronicle for he had a great theme to work out which gave a unity to his book. It was the story of the successful marriage of the first Tudor king and the benefits it had brought to England. There was a moral too: the dire consequences for any state where party rivalries were allowed to degenerate into civic strife. Because the Tudor kings had ended such strife he could write in magnificent praise of the new dynasty. He had at hand Vergil’s history, and he used it to the full, so much so that his own account of Henry VII’s reign seems at first sight little more than a free translation of that work. This is not quite true: Hall had other sources on which he also relied, and when he writes about Henry VIII’s reign he is a more authoritative guide than Vergil. Hall’s book is of great interest, for in it the two forms of historical writing, the chronicle and the history, can be seen coming together. Here is the bridge between the old world and the new. The relations between

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his work and that of Vergil were so close that they naturally give rise to some difficult problems in textual criticism. Some of them are indicated below. Whenever a writer’s interest in the past rises above the mere collection of facts, and he is prompted to analyse motives, estimate character, and judge achievement, whenever in a word chronicle is transformed into history, the point has been reached when that writer’s own opinions, prejudices, and methods of work call for careful scrutiny before his contribution as historical material can be assessed at its true value. This is particularly true of such a period as the sixteenth century, when the questions in dispute in religion and politics were a challenge to the most intimate beliefs of the individual, evoking emotions which quickly flared up into passion, and making it impossible for even the most ordinary topics to be treated objectively. All writers of the period were affected, the narrative historians no less than others, and the need for a searching test of their credentials is imperative. The extent to which the contemporary historian can be trusted will only be revealed after such tests are applied. They are complicated. It is not merely a question of veracity: a writer may quite honestly be of the opinion that what he says is the truth: but in an age in which governments and lesser associations were learning with incredible facility to create and exploit a machinery of propaganda, based to no small degree on the printed word, on a scale previously unimagined, it is always possible that the writer under examination is either the deliberate agent or the unsuspecting victim of propaganda: in either alternative the result will be the same: his evidence will be tainted, and although it may not be wholly useless it will need severe tests. Nor is that all. The violence with which opinions were held by all the conflicting parties justified in the opinion of all controversialists of the time the use of the most scandalous language against their opponents and an intolerance of opposition which turned into persecution whenever the possession of power made it practicable. In these circumstances even the most out-spoken had to be circumspect in their written words. Thus, moved by fear, discretion, prejudice, or partisanship a writer might (and frequently did) adopt expedients which eluded contemporaries and often baffle modern research by concealing their identity, withholding essential information, or deliberately twisting the facts to suit their arguments. With these, and similar devices, the historian of today has to cope. Sometimes he can do so successfully, as when he discounts Vergil’s anti-Wolsey prejudice, or takes at their real value Hall’s panegyric of Tudor kingship. There are times, however, when he faces problems which not even the technique of modern historical criticism can yet solve. What, for example, is he to make of the writings of John Foxe? The answer to that question is two-fold. For Foxe’s work can be looked at from two points of view. Firstly, his book may be regarded as itself a piece of historical evidence reflecting the thought-world of its author, and of the sixteenth century. Secondly, it may be considered as a repository of historical materials in the form of documents. These two points of view do not yield exactly the same results. The distinction needs a word of explanation. As itself a piece of historical evidence Foxe’s Acts and Monuments has a unique place in the historical literature of the early sixteenth century. It was not an ordinary book. Foxe did not write it for disinterested readers. He wrote for men whose religious

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sentiments were as passionate and as radical as his own. What he offered them was not an objective study of events, but a book of saints and martyrs. This was quickly realized. Almost at its first appearance it was popularly referred to as “The Book of Martyrs”, a title which it has retained in popular opinion even down to the present time. Others might fashion for the early reformers new forms of worship, restate for them their doctrines, and justify the innovations in religion they were ready to support: but it was to the pages of Foxe they went for the story, which transformed the immediate past into a golden legend. Naturally such a book will have little appeal for those who view the religious history of the period from the side opposite to that of Foxe. Such opponents have much to justify their attitude. Foxe was an avowed partisan, and his objective was to pillory the Roman Church and all its works. He did not weigh his words, and in language frequently going beyond the limits of good taste he scored all the points he could against his hated opponents. They in return, it is fair to mention, showed that neither he nor those who thought with him had a monopoly of the idiom of controversy. Some of Foxe’s critics seem to think they have disposed of his book when they discuss it as a vast essay in hagiography in the service of history. It would not matter if every sentence in Foxe’s book could be proved false. The work would yet remain a piece of evidence of the first importance, for in it there is mirrored for all time the conflict of ideas, the heroic impulses, the tragic errors of the English Reformation. Quite different must be the attitude of the historian to Foxe’s book seen as a great repository of historical documents. One thing is certain. The Acts and Monuments cannot be ignored. Here is a work, formidable in size, running to some thousands of pages, in which a good part of the religious history of England between the reigns of Henry VIII and Mary is described in considerable detail. The author was quite strictly a contemporary. He was a university student when the first attacks on papal supremacy were being made. He knew personally many of the prominent personalities he describes. He prints a great many of their letters and papers, which came into his hands. He was unwearied in seeking out public and private documents in support of his narrative, and some of that material is not now extant save in the form which Foxe gave to it. Here, then, if anywhere is contemporary evidence of the clearest kind. It has not gone unchallenged. The criticisms levelled against Foxe’s methods include charges of weighting the evidence by printing documents drawn almost exclusively from the side he supports, of careless and inaccurate statements, of omitting from his text important points which tell against his case, of ignoring or misrepresenting evidence when it suits his purpose. There has been a tendency in recent times for scholars to react away from the extreme criticism which brought Foxe into grave disrepute in the nineteenth century, but it cannot be said that he is completely cleared of all the charges. A friendly biographer has said that Foxe was temperamentally incapable of writing what is now called scientific history:1 and while that criticism remains in force no historian can use his work without applying to it the most rigorous standards of criticism. Enough has been said to show that the early Tudor period deserves attention from the student of the history of English historiography as one in which very considerable 1

Mozley, John Foxe and his Book, 153.

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development was taking place. That must not lead to an exaggerated estimate of the value of the narrative as a source for the history of the period. The most important feature of the source material available is the remarkable wealth of documentary evidence of all kinds that is provided for the historian. Some of these types are dealt with elsewhere in this volume. Their variety, as well as their quantity, sometimes almost embarrassing in their riches, is a welcome change from the materials available for the earlier years of the fifteenth century. They make it possible to answer questions it would not be worth asking if the historian had nowhere to look for the answers save in the historical narratives. These facts remind us of the limitations of the narrative sources. They should not prevent us from recognizing the debt we owe to the pioneers who, whatever the shortcomings of their efforts set the example, and provided the framework around which a greater and more accurate knowledge of the period can be constructed.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHRONICLES AND HISTORIES (A) CHRONICLES Questions of authorship, provenance and textual criticism of the manuscripts of the London chronicles have been the concern of several scholars, and the combined results of their work have established the relative value of the different versions. Much of that work has been concerned with manuscripts covering the period before 1485, and does not require notice here, but it is necessary to review that part of such researches which have a bearing on manuscripts of the early Tudor period. The arguments are complicated, but they are by no means without interest for they illustrate the skill whereby the scholar applies critical technique to the investigation of the reliability of the materials out of which he fashions his history. Scientific criticism of the chronicle sources for this period began with the German historian Wilhelm Busch, England under the Tudors (transl. A.M.Todd, 1895, pp. 400–415). Buschhad at his disposal two printed texts, Richard Arnold’s Customs of London (ed. F.Douce, 1811) and Robert Fabyan’s The New Chronicles of England and France (ed. Sir Henry Ellis, 1811). From these he made some deductions. Since the problems connected with Arnold’s work present no serious difficulties it can be quickly dismissed. Richard Arnold (d. 1521) was a London merchant with literary ambitions. He put into print (? at Amsterdam) a curious commonplace book. Among its contents, a miscellaneous jumble including copies of city charters, a statement of the difference between English and Flemish currencies, and the earliest known version of the “Ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid”, Arnold included a poor specimen of a London chronicle, only important because it was the earliest to get into print. In a second edition of his book this narrative was continued to January 1521. As a source for the period this continuation is of no value: it is important only for what it inspired. For this continuation was closely connected with The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, first edited by J.F.Nichols (C.S. 1st Ser., LIII, 1852), but a better text appeared in Monumenta Franciscana (R.S. 1853–82, II, 143–260). Since this chronicle had a connection with a Franciscan convent, it has sometimes been assumed that it is a late example of the monastic type of chronicle. In fact, down to 1501–2 this narrative is little more than a copy of Arnold, but from then on it is an independent work until its end in

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1556. A similar reliance on Arnold applies to the more important work of Charles Wriothesley (1 508–62). His Chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, edited by D.Hamilton (C.S., 1875, 2 vols.) is far more valuable. Wriothesley was a member of a well-known family closely connected with the Herald’s Office. His father, Sir Thomas Wrythe, or Wriothesley, was made Garter in 1505, having been created pursuivant to Arthur, Prince of Wales in 1489, while his uncle William was York Herald. Charles Wriothesley entered the office when under sixteen, in 1524, as Rouge Croix pursuivant. He was made Windsor Herald on Christmas Day 1534, an office he retained until his death on 25 January 1562. His working life was spent wholly within the City, and he had ample opportunities to know at first hand many of the events he recorded. His chronicle begins in 1485. He took as his model Arnold’s chronicle, and for the period 1485–1518 his work is virtually a copy of that work. After that it becomes wholly original work, and is the chronicle covering the whole of the years 1521–59. For this period the author seems to have depended entirely upon his own observation and knowledge. He is, therefore, a first-hand witness to the events of his time. Some indication of the original character of Wriothesley’s work may be gathered from the fact that in the printed edition only twelve out of three hundred and thirty-three pages of text contain material from Arnold’s chronicle. Carrying on the form he found in Arnold, Wriothesley made his entries under the mayoral years, so that the general effect is that of the traditional city chronicle, but his reporting is essentially personal. He seems to have kept his journal regularly, writing his account of events as they occurred. His reactions to the political and religious events of his day probably represent the feelings of the average London citizen. He seems to have accepted without scruples the changes of Henry VIII’s reign, but he was shocked at the sweeping away of age-old ceremonies by the Edwardian reformers, and he welcomed the return of what he thought was the old order under Mary until, like others of the queen’s subjects, he was alienated by the persecution, and sought refuge in reticence. His chronicle is an important source for the period. The original MS. is not known to be extant and the modern edition was printed from a transcript made early in the seventeenth century, probably for Henry Wriothesley, the third earl of Southampton 1573–1624. The editor preserved the seventeenth-century spelling as it is in the manuscript, but in places introduced modernizations. The problems connected with Fabyan’s chronicle presented Busch with much greater difficulties, but he arrived at some interesting conclusions. Robert Fabyan (d. 1513) was, like his father, a clothier and a member of the Drapers’ Company. He married the rich heiress of a London clothier, became sheriff of the City in 1493, played an active part in civic affairs, but withdrew from public life to avoid being chosen Lord Mayor, on the grounds that he could not afford the expense. Fabyan had a taste for historical studies. His chronicle was a compilation in which he attempted, not very cleverly, to harmonize various texts of the London chronicles. It was first printed in 1516 by Richard Pynson. It ended with the reign of Richard III. When it appeared again, in 1533, printed by John Rastell, it had a continuation from 1485 to 1509. It is this continuation which aroused Busch’s interest. In his investigations he closely examined a manuscript of a London chronicle (B.M.Cott. Vitellius A. XVI). This had been much used by historians but up to then had not been printed. Busch came to the conclusion that the printed continuation of Fabyan’s Chronicle and this Vitellius chronicle were derived independently from a common original, and that the continuation had been written by Fabyan himself. Now Busch also discovered the existence of another manuscript London Chronicle, which he suspected might have some connection with these works. Unfortunately it was in the possession of the Bromley Davenport family, and he was unable to get access to it. The Vitellius Chronicle was edited, with some other examples of London chronicles by C.L.Kingsford in Chronicles of London (Oxford, 1905). In his introduction the editor

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discussed the many textual problems connected with these city chronicles, including those which had interested Busch. He agreed that the continuation of Fabyan’s chronicle and the Vitellius version had links with a common original: but he produced arguments rejecting the theory that Fabyan was its author. When Kingsford returned to these problems in his English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913) he was in a position to take his arguments further. The manuscript Busch had not been able to see had been sold by the Bromley Davenport family in 1903, and when Kingsford was preparing his book the owners allowed him to examine it. He discovered that it was an important manuscript, the fullest and most valuable of all the versions of the London chronicles. Because it is exceptionally full he suggested that it should be called “The Great Chronicle”. In his opinion it is the best representative of the lost prototype of all these versions, from which they are all derived, and to which he gave the name “The Main City Chronicle”. Despite Kingsford’s statement that the “Great Chronicle” was soon to be printed (so confident was he that he included it in his bibliography of printed sources) the work did not appear. In 1933 the manuscript again came up for auction. It was acquired by Viscount Wakefield of Hythe, and presented to the Guildhall Library. In addition Lord Wakefield generously defrayed the cost of production of a de luxe edition of the chronicle limited to 500 copies. This beautiful example of modern book production, The Great Chronicle of London, edited by A.H.Thomas and I.D.Thornley (1938) contains a scholarly introduction which deals, in the light of new evidence, with the problems their predecessors had discussed. The intricate arguments by which they arrived at their conclusions cannot be considered here, but the main results may be indicated. They show that the problems of the interrelation of the various manuscripts is even more complex than Kingsford had realized, and they modify some of his conclusions. The “Great Chronicle” consists of two parts, the second being a separate chronicle for the period 1439–1512. They confirm Kingsford’s statement that there was a close relationship between the Vitellius chronicle, the continuation of Fabyan’s chronicle, and the “Great Chronicle”. All these are deeply indebted to the lost London chronicleto which Kingsford had given the title “The Main City Chronicle”. Assessing the relative value of the three versions they bring out very clearly the superiority of the “Great Chronicle”. For the period 1461–93 the “Great Chronicle” far surpasses the other two in substance and interest: from 1491–1503 its superiority over Vitellius A XVI is not so marked, and there is close verbal comparison, while the Fabyan continuation beginning in 1485 seems to repeat merely an abstract of the common sources. From 1503 to 1512 the “Great Chronicle” stands alone, a copious narrative of independent value. If the writing of civic chronicles tended to decrease in the sixteenth century it will not do to write their epitaph too soon. Two versions, one covering the years 1523–40, and the other the years 1548–55 are known to have been in the possession of the antiquary John Stow, and he used them in compiling his summary of English chronicles (1565). They were edited by C.L. Kingsford, “Two London Chronicles” (C.S. Misc. XII, 1910). Another brief specimen was edited by C.Hopper, “A London Chronicle during the years of Henry VII and Henry VIII” (C.S. Misc. IV, 1859). Mention must also be made of town chronicles from other places. Many are still in manuscript. They are discussed in R.Flenley, Six Town Chronicles (Oxford, 1911), where a version of a King’s Lynn chronicle is printed, pp. 184– 201. From Bristol comes an early specimen, forming part of The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, edited by L.T.Smith (C.S. 2nd Ser., V, 1872). Begun by Robert Ricart, town clerk of Bristol in the latter half of the fifteenth century this chronicle records events of both national and local interest, and although it does not seem to owe anything to the London chronicles it is not unlike them in form. References to other town chronicles of a like nature will be found in Flenley, op. cit. pp. 27–38. There are several minor narratives which, although they were

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independent works not always in the tradition of the London chronicles should nevertheless be included in this category of chronicle sources. The earliest of these writers is Bernard Andreas (d. 1521). Not much is known about him before 1485, when he seems to have come to England in the service of Henry VII. He was born at Toulon, and became a friar of the order of St Augustine. His main function at Henry VII’s court was to act as poet laureate, celebrating special events in French or Latin verse. He also did some teaching at Oxford, for which he was granted a pension of 10 marks a year from November 1486 until such time as he should obtain church preferment from the crown to a similar value. Such preferment came during the next few years. About 1496 he was made tutor to Arthur, Prince of Wales. In 1500 he retired from court in order to resume his studies, and he began writing a life of the king. In the preface he proposes to send the king every year some kind of literary work, a promise he carried out in the form of an annual chronicle of outstanding events. Only two are extant for Henry VII’s reign, but he wrote two others for 1515 and 1521, neither of them of any importance. Andreas was a good classical scholar, capable of respectable Latin verse, and the quotations in his prose writings suggest a very fair knowledge of classical literature. As a historian he was greatly handicapped by blindness. The last date at which it can be said with any certainty that he was alive is 1521. The historical works of Andreas were edited by J.Gairdner, Memorials of King Henry the Seventh (R.S., 1858). They consist of (i) the life of Henry VII (pp. 5–75), printed from B.M. MS. Cott. Domitian XVIII, f. 126–228; (ii) Annals of the year 20 Henry VII (1504–5) from B.M. MS.Cott.Julius A. IV, and for the year 23 Henry VII (1507–8) from B.M.MS.Cott.Julius A. in. Gairdner in Memorials, p. XVI, and Busch, England under the Tudors, pp. 393–395, have evaluated the historical work of Andreas. Neither rate the Life very highly, finding its effusive praise of the king no substitute for its lack of facts. Busch, indeed, is more severe, deploring the writer’s indifference to facts, his extreme carelessness, and lack of judgment, and says that the Life has produced more confusion than enlightenment. Of the Annals, those for 1504–5 are rough notes, and are not very valuable. Those for 1507–8, although fuller, are bare recitals of facts, with no reference to their political importance. An interesting example of an independent chronicle form is The Chronicle of Calais, edited by J.G.Nichols (C.S., XXXV, 1846). We owe the text to a transcript (B.M. Harl. MS. 542) made by Stow. The narrative extends from 1485–1540. At the head of the manuscript stands the name of one Richard Turpyn, burgess of Calais, but whether he was merely the owner of the manuscript or the author of the chronicle is uncertain. The editor has put together all that is known about two Richard Turpyns, closely related. The value of this text is enhanced by the valuable documents dealing with Calais, which the editor has printed in appendices. A work entitled The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of two years of Queen Mary, and especially of the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt written by a resident in the Tower of London, edited by J.G. Nichols (C.S. XLVIII, 1850) is a diary (B.M.Harl. MS. 194) extending from July 1553–October 1554 so wretchedly scribbled that even Stow, who printed some passages from it wrongly deciphered several words. It is the authority for the account given by Stow and Holinshed for the execution of Lord Guilford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, as well as for the greater part of their narrative of events during the period when the Council governed in the name of “Jane the Queen”. The writer was sufficiently important to be admitted to dine at Lady Jane’s table in the Tower. The editor conjectured from internal evidence that the author must have been an officer of the Mint. The chronicle itself, together with the copious appendices of illustrative documents is of considerable value for events from the time of Edward VI’s death to the arrival and marriage of Philip and Mary, and is especially full for Wyatt’s rebellion.

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(B) HISTORIANS When Polydore Vergil (c. 1470–1555) first landed in England in 1502 he was thirty years of age, a young man with considerable achievements to his credit. Born at Urbino into a family of some standing, he had passed through the university at Padua, had been secretary to the duke of Urbino, had taken orders, and had moved to Rome, where he entered the service of Pope Alexander VI. While at Padua he had already shown his bent for scholarship by editing a new edition of a popular commentary on Martial (1496), an original work, the Prouerbiorum Libellus or the Adagia (printed at Venice, 1498) and the De Inuentoribus Rerum (Venice, 1499). The Adagia, a collection of proverbs and obiter dicta from the classics, with brief comments, was the first book of quotations, and although it was soon outshadowed by a similar book by Erasmus credit for being first in the field must go to Vergil. The De Inuentoribus Rerum was a great success: over 30 editions appeared in Vergil’s lifetime. As an encyclopaedia treating of the origins of human institutions, and the history of inventors and inventions it is remarkable for the range of its scholarship. Some material rewards for his industry followed. In 1502 Adriano Castello, collector of Peter’s Pence, and Henry VII’s agent at Rome, sent Vergil to look after his affairs in England, with the status of deputy collector. He was, by his own account, most courteously received by the king. His enquiring mind naturally turned to examine the nature of the country to which he had been posted, and it may have been his own comments to Henry VII which led the king to encourage him to write the history of this country. He began by collecting materials: this seems to have been about 1506. By 1513 he had completed a first draft, in which he brought his narrative down to that year. In 1514 he visited Rome, taking his manuscript with him. On his return in the winter of 1514 he found himself in difficulties. Wolsey seems to have expected Vergil to support at Rome his attempt to obtain a nomination as cardinal. An Italian rival of Vergil in England, anxious to get his post for himself, intrigued against Vergil, intercepting his letters, and revealed to Wolsey some indiscreet reference made in them about himself. In April 1515 Vergil was put in the Tower where he was kept until the end of the year. He never forgave Wolsey for this insult, and later took his revenge by pillorying him in his history as the evil genius of Henry VIII’s reign, in language which would be repeated almost without a change by a succession of historians. Vergil’s literary achievements in England showed first fruits in 1525 when he produced, as a by-product of his historical studies, an edition of the works of Gildas. This first critical edition of an English historical text was a preparation for the daring critical treatment of the traditional story of early British history he was to work out in his history. The later years of Vergil’s residence in England were without incident. After a stay of fifty years in the country he decided in 1550 to return to his native city of Urbino. He probably left England about the time of Edward VI’s death. He died at Urbino on 18 April 1555. The textual history of Vergil’s book is complicated. The work appeared in four distinct versions during his lifetime: a manuscript version (now in the Vatican Library) written by 1513 and ending with events of that year; an edito princeps: Historiae Anglicae libri viginti sex (Basle, 1534), covering events to 1509: a second edition (Basle, 1546) also ending in 1509: and a third edition which brought the narrative down to 1537 (Basle, 1555). Professor D.Hay has edited, with a translation, The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, 1485–1537 (C.S. LXXIV, 1950) and has brought out very clearly the nature of the variations found in these different texts. He prints Books XXIV and XXV (i.e. from 1485–1513) from the text of the Vatican manuscript, collated with the printed versions, in which there are some important alternative readings. The remainder of the text, from 1513 when the Vatican manuscript ends, to 1537 is printed from the third edition.

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There exists a mid-sixteenth century English version of the 1546 edition (B.M.MS.Royal C. VIII and IX), but this only comes down to 1485. It was edited by Sir Henry Ellis, Polydore Vergil’s English History from an Early Translation: containing Books I–VIII (C.S. 1846), and Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History comprising the Reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, from an Early Translation (C.S. 1844). The introductions to these volumes contain useful information about Vergil and his history. Vergil dealt with the period 1485–1537 in the last four books of the Anglica Historia. He came to England in 1502, and with the exception of three short visits to Italy he lived in this country until 1553. During these years he was in close touch with prominent men of affairs, took a lively interest in political life, and made himself acquainted with the reactions of public opinion to the events of the time. His independent mind shaped his interpretation, and in the judgments he passed he was not always able to control his personal prejudices. Yet, open to criticism as his work undoubtedly is, it has rightly received high praise from historians. The first critical assessment of its authority was made by Wilhelm Busch, England under the Tudors, I, 395–398. His conclusions vindicated Vergil as the prime narrative source for the period 1485–1509, revealing that for some features in that period he was the only existing authority. In Busch’s opinion Vergil’s treatment of Henry VII’s reign was the most original part of his work: he hinted very strongly that the subsequent portion dealing with the period from 1509–1537 was not so valuable. Busch was at a disadvantage for he had to work from the uncritical edition of the Historia by Antonius Thysius (Leyden, 1651). His conclusions were confirmed by C.L.Kingsford, English Historical Literature (pp. 254–260). Cardinal Gasquet first drew attention to the significance of the Vatican manuscript in “Some Materials for a New Edition of Polydore Vergil’s History” (T.R.H.S., 2nd Ser., XVI, 1902, 1–17), while E.A.Whitney and P.P.Cram, “Polydore Vergil’s Will” (ibid. 4th Ser., XI, 1928, 117–136), and I.S.Leadam, “Polydore Vergil in the English Law Courts”, (ibid., New Ser., XIX, 1905, 279–294) contributed fresh information about the author himself. D.Hay’s scholarly edition of the Historia, and his monograph, Polydore Vergil: Renaissance Historian and Man of Letters (Oxford, 1952) threw much light on Vergil’s methods. They prove that the Vatican manuscript is in Vergil’s own handwriting, not as had been previously said, in that of Frederico Veterani, librarian to the duke of Urbino, while they bring out very clearly the important fact that in the printed editions of his book Vergil rewrote and modified the text, adding in the 1555 edition an extra book which brought the story down to 1537. On the important question of the relation between the works of Vergil and Hall, Hay disposes of the theory, based entirely on dates of publication, that Vergil’s narrative for the reign of Henry VIII depends on Hall. While accepting Busch’s view that Vergil is the better authority for the reign of Henry VII, he argues that for the later period Vergil deserves attention even though he may not be as good a source as Hall. Edward Hall (d. 1547) was born in the parish of St Mildred, Poulteney, and much of his active life was connected with the city. Educated at Eton, which he left in 1514, he took his B.A. degree from King’s College, Cambridge, in 1518, and then read law at Gray’s Inn. He was Autumn Reader there in 1533, and Lent Reader in 1540. In 1533 he was made Common Serjeant in the city, and was undersheriffin 1535. His political activities are first indicated by his return to the Parliament of 1529 as member for Wenlock. His legal training probably explains the part he played in drafting some of the bills before this Parliament, while he sat on a committee of which Cromwell was a member. His sympathies were evidently with the government. Foxe gives an abstract of a speech Hall made in 1539, in reply to Thomas Brooke’s attack on the bills for the Six Articles. If it reports him accurately, Hall argued that the command of the king was a sufficient discharge of the subject’s conscience before God for the observance thereof. It is not surprising to find that in the next few years he was on commissions connected with the Act of Six Articles, and in March 1544 was a witness to the confession of Anne Askew. Hall’s political and religious ideas come out very clearly in his

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history, which is a glorification of the Tudor dynasty. He represents the opinions of the average London citizen, his independence, his acceptance of the king’s policy and his intense dislike of Wolsey. In descriptions of tournaments, pageantry, and other ceremonial occasions he is at his best. Hall’s will was proved on 25 May 1547, and it has been suggested that he probably died on 15 April, his successor as under-sheriff being appointed on 19 April 1547. In his preface to the chronicle Grafton has a cryptic remark to the effect that in the later time of his life Hall was “not so painful and studious as before he had been”: he goes on to say that Hall did not continue his history beyond 1533: the rest he left in many different pamphlets and papers. These he (Grafton) has brought together in the printed book but without making any additions of his own. The full title of Hall’s history is The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families ofLancastre and Yorke. It was seen through the press after Hall’s death by Richard Grafton, who issued one edition in 1548, and had another printed for him by Richard Jugge in 1550. The standard edition is that of Sir Henry Ellis, Hall’s Chronicle (1809). Charles Whibley edited a modernized text beginning with the accession of Henry VIII (2 vols., 1904). Hall has not received the attention he deserves, partly because much of his history was incorporated into the later chronicles of Grafton, Holinshed, and Stow and their popularity tended to eclipse him. Busch naturally scrutinized his work, and concluded that while Hall is an entirely original authority for the reign of Henry VIII, the early portion is only a translation of Vergil for the reign of Henry VII. He was followed by Kingsford, English Hist. Lit., 261–265. Busch noticed an affinity between Hall’s history, and the two city chronicles, Rastell’s continuation of Fabyan and Vitellius A XVI. This hint was examined more closely by the editors of The Great Chronicle, p. xvii. They found passages in Hall’s work which showed a remarkable resemblance to the text of The Great Chronicle, resemblance so strong that they were tempted to suggest that Hall may have owned and used it for his book. Hall’s close official connection with the city would have given him access to city manuscripts, while it should be remembered that he might have known that common source, the lost Main Chronicle. Closer examination of Hall’s text would probably confirm the suspicion that even for the reign of Henry VII, where he borrowed freely from Vergil, he contributed something from other sources, and from his own personal experience. Some fresh information will be found in two papers. In the first, “Edward Hall’s Will and Chronicle” (Bull.I.H.R. IX, 1932, 171–177) A.F.Pollard prints the will, adding some brief biographical data collected from the Letters and Papers. His discovery that Hall sat in the Parliament of 1529 brings out the point, not previously recognized, that Hall’s account of that Parliament is the work of an eyewitness and an active participator in its proceedings, so that his description is in a sense a parliamentary journal. Pollard concludes that from about 1518 until 1533 Hall is a more independent and more strictly contemporary authority than has commonly been inferred. There has been confusion about the publication of Hall’s book. This question has been explored by G.Pollard in “The Bibliographical History of Hall’s Chronicle” (ibid. 12–17). Early copies of the history are often imperfect, and owing to its prohibition by the Marian government in 1550 they are also rare. Careful examination of them proves that the statement found in many places to the effect that the first edition was one printed by Berthelet in 1542 may be confidently set down as a myth. Grafton, working from Hall’s manuscripts and notes issued the first edition in 1548. There is room for a new edition in which these, and other questions, could be fully discussed. The antiquarian element in the early Tudor period has received some attention, interest centring mainly on John Leland (1506–52) and John Bale (1495–1563). Of Leland’s family and early life little is known, but from one of his Latin poems it would appear that he was at St Paul’s School under William Lilley. He was supported by a patron at Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree from Christ’s College in 1522. There is a tradition that he then migrated to Oxford, perhaps to All Souls. Going to Paris he studied under Francis Sylvius, and met some of the French humanists, including William Budé

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and Paolo Emilio. He returned with a fine knowledge of Latin, proficiency in Greek, and a working knowledge of French, Spanish, and Italian. He took holy orders before 1525. Some time before 1530 he was made keeper of the king’s library. In 1533, as Leland himself tells us in his “New Year’s Gift”, the king commissioned him to search the libraries of monasteries and colleges for the manuscripts of ancient writers. The commission itself has not been found. From 1534 until 1543 he toured large parts of England and Wales on the look-out for books for the king’s library, and also, making copious notes on matters of topographical and antiquarian interest. The dissolution of the monasteries caused him much distress. He saw great libraries being broken up, and manuscripts of all kinds scattered and destroyed. He did what he could to rescue some of them for the royal library. His travels seem to have ended in 1542 or 1543, when he settled in London to arrange his notes. In 1546, following the custom of the Court in making New Year gifts to the King, Leland sent him a brief account of his travels and his plans for the future. This is interesting for its insight into a mind soon to lose grip with reality. In the spring of 1547 Leland had a mental breakdown. He did not recover: on 21 March 1551 he and his property were put into the custody of his elder brother. He died on 18 April 1552. He was only forty-six. Very little of Leland’s historical and antiquarian material was put into print during his lifetime. After his death his manuscripts came into the hands of Sir John Cheke, and while they were in his keeping he allowed John Bale to use them. After Cheke’s death some of them went to Lord William Paget, and some to William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Four volumes of paper had been given by Cheke to Humphrey Purefoy, his son passed them to his cousin William Burton, the Leicestershire antiquary. From Burton they were acquired by the Bodleian Library. Leland’s manuscripts were much used by Bale, Stow, Harrison, Holinshed, Camden, Lambarde, Dugdale and other scholars. The first attempts to bring some kind of order into this mass of notes was made by Thomas Hearne (1678–1735), who published the topographical material under the title The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary (Oxford, 9 vols., 1710–23:2nd edn., revised with additions, 1744–45). The standard modern edition is that of Lucy Toulmin Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535–43 (1907–10, 5 vols.). Hearne also published the contents of three folio volumes of Leland’s manuscripts under the title Collectanea (Oxford, 1715:2nd edn., 1774). This was a collection of extracts from chronicles, public and private documents, genealogical notes, catalogues of manuscripts, etc. Some of this material is still only available in this form. Leland’s “New Year’s Gift” was first printed by Bale, with his own commentary, under the title The Laboryouse Journey and serche of Johan Leylandefor Englandes Antiquities, geven ofhym as a newe yearesgifte to Kynge Henry the VIII. in the XXXVII yeare of his Raygne (1549). Bale’s text has been reprinted several times, the last, not very scholarly, edition being that of W.A.Copinger, Bibliographiana: No. 1: Leland’s New Year’s Gift to King Henry VIII. (Privately printed, Manchester, 1895.) The text of the letter, without Bale’s commentary, is printed by L.T.Smith, op. cit. 1, xxxvii–xliii, from the manuscript copy in Leland’s hand at the end of vol. III of his Collectanea. Originally the letter had no title: that was supplied by Bale. Leland left in manuscript “De viris illustribus, sive De Scriptoribus Britannicis”, an account of British writers, in four books, chronologically arranged. Bale was working along the same lines, and his book undoubtedly owes some of its material to Leland’s work, which was not published until the eighteenth century. Leland’s anger at Poly dore Vergil’s strictures on the inaccuracies of Geoffery of Monmouth, and his scepticism in dealing with the history of King Arthur, fired him to put his ideas into writing. “Codrus sive Laus et Defensio Gallofridi Monumetensis contra Polydorum Vergilium”, first published by Hearne, Collectanea, vol. V, was an essay preliminary to his Assertio inclytissimi Arturij regis Britanniae, printed by John Herford,

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1544. The Latin text, together with an Elizabethan translation, or rather paraphrase, by Richard Robinson (1582) was printed by W.E. Mead in his edition of Christopher Middleton’s The Famous Historie of Chinon of England (E.E.T.S. Old series, 165, 1925, 87–150). Bale gave some impressions of Leland in his preface to The Laboryouse Journey. Longer accounts are in W.Huddesford, Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood (Oxford, 1772, 2 vols.), and E.Burton, Life of Leland with notes and bibliography (1896). The essential facts are in L.T.Smith’s introduction to The Itinerary, I, v–xxxv: III, v–xi. The activities of John Bale as dramatist and religious controversialist have long been recognized. What has not received sufficient emphasis is the nature of his antiquarian and historical studies. His close friendship with Foxe and Leland connects him directly with their interests, and his own studies in these fields deserves notice. Born on 21 November 1495, at Cove near Southwold, Suffolk, of a poor family, Bale at the age of twelve was placed by his parents with the Carmelite Friars at Norwich. He was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1514, where he studied until 1528, when he had a year’s leave to visit the universities of Toulouse and Louvain. After his return to Cambridge he took his B.D. degree and went to various houses of his order, until 1533 when he was made Prior of the Carmelite house at Ipswich. At this time he was interested in the history of his order, and collected information on the subject from manuscripts belonging to it. At Ipswich Bale came under the influence of Thomas, Lord Wentworth, whose religious opinions were advanced, and whose political opinions marched with those of Cromwell. The result was that Bale withdrew from his order about 1533, married, and became a secular priest. He was installed in the vicarage of Thornden, Suffolk. In his spare time, encouraged by Leland, Bale continued his researches into Carmelite history, and in a letter of 1536 he tells Leland of his keen interest in such work, and of his desire to preserve the manuscripts of English history. His growing interest in religious controversy was a hindrance to this work. Early in 1537 his advanced views brought him into conflict with authority, but largely through the influence of Cromwell he was released from detention. He repaid his assistance by writing propaganda plays for Cromwell. After that minister’s fall Bale’s position became difficult, and he fled abroad. His whereabouts between 1543 and 1545 are uncertain: but in 1546 he has been traced to Marburg, Hesse, and Wesel in the duchy of Cleves. His controversial writings at this time were numerous. The accession of Edward VI enabled him to return to England, where he found shelter with Mary, duchess of Richmond, the wife of Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond. Here he met Foxe, who encouraged him to continue antiquarian studies. He busied himself in visiting libraries and collecting materials for a catalogue of writers, and in publishing Leland’s “New Year’s Gift”. On 26 June 1551 Bishop Ponet made him rector of Bishopstoke, in Hampshire. Shortly afterwards the Council offered him the bishopric of Ossory in Ireland. Bale accepted, without enthusiasm, and he was consecrated at Dublin, 2 February 1553. It was a thoroughly bad appointment. Bale, with his advanced religious views, was hopelessly out of place in a country where religious innovation was, to put it mildly, looked upon with great suspicion. His strenuous fight for his views was made more difficult by the accession of Mary, and he was soon in great danger. He managed to escape, and after a series of exciting adventures he found himself in exile again, in Holland, by November 1553. Next year he was at Frankfurt, where he was involved in the famous controversy which split the ranks of the English religious exiles. Accompanied by Foxe he went to Basle, where he managed to publish the first part of his Catalogue. At Elizabeth’s accession Bale returned to England. He received a prebend at Canterbury, 1 January 1559–60. It was a disappointing preferment for one of his standing, and Bale’s thoughts turned to his earlier plans for writing a history of England. To that end he sought the queen’s help to get back the rich collection of books and manuscripts he had left behind

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him when he left Ireland. His plans did not materialize. He died at Canterbury, November 1563, at the age of sixty-eight. Bale’s main work in the field of literary history and bibliography is contained in his Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Scriptorum Summarium (Ipswich, really Wesel, 1548), and in the enlarged and revised edition, Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Britanniae… Catalogus (Basle, 1557–59). A large manuscript notebook, which he began about 1548, contains much of Bale’s research work on manuscripts and libraries. It was edited by R.L.Poole and M.Bateson, Index Britanniae Scriptorum…(Oxford, Anecdota Oxoniensia, 1902). These works reveal him as an erudite bibliographer. His historical interests are shown in A brefe chronycle: concerning the examination, and death of the blessedMarter Sir John Oldcastell: the Lord Cobham (1544), in which he attacked Polydore Vergil’s methods; The first Examinacon of Anne Askewe… (Marburg, 1546); The Lattre Examinacon of Anne Askewe… (Marburg, 1547), which illustrates his Protestant propaganda in the guise of contemporary history. All three works are in H.Christmas, Select Works of John Bale (Parker Soc., 1849). H.R.Luard printed a most interesting sidelight on Bale’s scholarship in a letter from Bale to Archbishop Parker, found in the Cambridge University Registry (Cambridge Antiquarian Communications: Cambridge Antiq. Soc., III, 1864–76, 157–173). Bale’s writings have received considerable attention from the historians of literature. Bibliography is dealt with in H.McCusker, “Books and MSS. formerly in the possession of John Bale” (The Library: XVI, 1935–36, 144–165); W.T.Davies, “A Bibliography of John Bale” (Oxford Bibl. Soc. Proc. and Papers, v, pt. 4, 1940). Two useful monographs discuss his career and works: J.W.Harris, John Bale: A study in the minor literature of the Reformation (Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, xxv, no. 4, Urbana, 1940) and H.McCusker, John Bale: Dramatist and Antiquary (Pennsylvania, 1942). C.E.Wright, in a paper on “The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Studies” (Trans. Cambridge Bibl. Soc.: 1953, I, 208–237), is primarily concerned with the antiquarian activities of Archbishop Parker and his circle in the reign of Elizabeth I, but he has some useful comments on the dispersal of manuscripts during the critical years, 1530–60. The minor antiquaries of the period include Reynold (or Reyner) Wolfe (d. 1573), a native of Strasburg, who settled in England about 1537, at Cranmer’s invitation, A man of scholarly interests, and a Protestant, he was a printer, and by Edward VI’s reign he achieved an appointment as printer to the king. He was Leland’s publisher, and before that scholar’s death in 1552, had acquired some of his manuscripts. As early as 1548 he planned a universal history or cosmography, with maps and illustrations, and collected materials for the British section. He employed William Harrison and Raphael Holinshed on the work, but he did not live to see any results. Thomas Lanquet (1521–45) was one of the early Tudor pioneers in the writing of a world chronicle but his early death occurred before he could complete his work. It was carried on by Thomas Cooper (1517?–94), who published it as an Epitome of Chronicles (1549). Of both it might be said that their intentions were laudable: but their achievement was not history. Robert Talbot (1505?–58) was a friend of Leland. Scholar at Winchester (1517), fellow of New College, Oxford (1521) he was one of the early reformers in the university, but he later renounced his extreme views. Talbot did not publish much, but he had the reputation of being an industrious antiquary, and after his death his collection of manuscripts was acquired by his college. Since the antiquarians, chroniclers, and historians who continued the work of Leland and Bale (men like Archbishop Parker, 1504–75), Raphael Holinshed (d. 1580), William Harrison (1534–93), John Stow (1525–1605), Richard Grafton (d. 1572), William Lambarde (1536–1601), and Sir Thomas Smith (1513–77), did most of their work after 1558 they are reserved for discussion in a future volume. How close John Foxe (1516–87) was to the events he put on record in his monumental work will emerge from a brief note on his career. Born in Boston, Lincolnshire, Foxe lost his

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father at an early age, and owed his chance of a university education to the generosity of friends. Not much is known with certainty about him until he became a probationer fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, in July 1538. His college was divided on religious questions, and Foxe, already a partisan of reform, joined others in resigning their fellowships in July 1545. After getting temporary employment as tutor to the son of William Lucy of Charlecote, Warwickshire, Foxe and the wife he married in 1547 went to London, when he became tutor to the orphan children of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who had been executed in July 1547. For some years Foxe lived with them at their grandfather’s manor of Reigate. During these years he wrote some theological tracts. On 24 June 1550 he was ordained deacon by Ridley, bishop of London. The accession of Mary brought him no luck. He lost his tutorship, and realizing the dangers a catholic reaction must bring him, he fled to Strasburg. In his baggage was the manuscript of a Latin book he was writing about persecution in Europe from the time of Wycliffe. At Strasburg he found a publisher. By the end of 1554 he was at Frankfurt where he was drawn into the sharp controversy concerning forms of worship which divided the English refugees there. Finding his position difficult he left with Bale in November 1555, and settled at Basle. Here he lived in poverty, glad to work for Johan Herbst, a well-known publisher of Protestant books. When the Marian persecution began Foxe received reports of events in England through his friend Grindal, and with his encouragement set to work to continue his history of persecution. By 1559 he had completed his account almost to the end of Mary’s reign. In September of that year there appeared a large Latin folio containing his account of the Marian martyrs. A month later Foxe came back to England. In January 1560 Grindal, now bishop of London, ordained him priest. His main occupation at this time was the translation of his book into English. He had obtained the papers of Ralph Morice, Cranmer’s secretary, and these, together with other information he was busily collecting gave him much additional material. On 20 March 1562–63, the printer John Day published The Acts and Monuments. It was an immediate success. Its author, on the suggestion of Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, received a prebend in Salisbury cathedral, and a vicarage at Shipton, but he soon took an individual line at Salisbury, refusing to conform to chapter rules, and expressing strong opinions about vestments. As a result, it is not surprising that he was not in very great favour with authority, and did not get advancement. Foxe’s later years fall outside the limits of this volume, and it will be enough to note that from 1563 until his death in 1587 he was mainly busy with work connected with his book. The prototype of the Acts and Monuments was the Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum… Liber primus (Strasburg, 1554). This rare work deals mainly with persecution in the time of Wycliffe and Hus and only comes down to 1500. Enlarged to contain an account of the later period it appeared as Rerum in ecclesia gestarum commentarii (Basle, 1559). The first edition in English of The Actes and Monuments of these latter andperillous dayes: touching matters of the Church …appeared in 1563. Four editions appeared during Foxe’s life-time, in 1563, 1570, 1576, and 1583. There were other editions in 1596, 1610, 1632, 1641, and 1684. Modern attempts to provide a standard text is a sad story of well-intentioned incompetency. First came what was described as a new and complete edition by S.R.Cattley, with a preliminary dissertation by G.Townsend (8 vols., 1837–41), a long memoir on Foxe, and an elaborate defence of the edition against criticisms directed against it while it was appearing (vol. I). Although it was stated that the text was prepared from the 1583 edition, collated with the Latin text and the three earliest English editions, the editorialwork was not scholarly. A revised edition by G.Townsend (8 vols., 1843–49) was little better. There was another revision by J. Pratt with an introduction by J.Stoughton (8 vols., 1877). The least unsatisfactory edition is that of J.Pratt in his series The Church Historians of England, Reformation Period (1853–70, 8 vols. in 16). Here some of the editorial mistakes of the earlier modern editions were corrected, and there are additional appendices of useful material.

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Foxe’s papers included much evidence sent him by those wishing either to support or to criticize statements in his book. Much of this he never used. After his death this collection remained with his family until about 1701, when John Strype, the historian, acquired it. He used some of it in his Life of Cranmer, and printed some papers in his Ecclesiastical Memorials. After Strype’s death they were bought by Edward Harley, earl of Oxford, and from him they finally passed into the British Museum (Harl. MSS., vols. 416–426, 590.) Some others are in the Lansdowne MSS., 335, 388–389, 819, and 1045. A selection from these papers, including two contemporary biographies of Cranmer, was edited by J.G.Nichols, Narratives of the Days of the Reformation (C.S., 1859). Materials for the life of Foxe raise difficulties. An early life appeared in English and Latin as a preface to Acts and Monuments (edn. 1641). It was attributed to Foxe’s eldest son, Samuel (1560–1630), but criticism based on internal evidence suggests that neither he nor his younger brother Simeon (1568–1642) was responsible for it. Its value has been questioned. Richard Day edited and translated Foxe’s Christus Triumphans (1579) and the preface has some biographical data. Townsend’s memoir in Acts and Monuments (1841, 1) was heavily criticized by S.R.Maitland. While the Acts and Monuments won instant popularity, which it retained amongst Protestant readers for a very long time, on the other hand, Roman Catholics, naturally, had nothing good to say about it. Criticism began in Foxe’s lifetime from Nicholas Harpsfield (?1519–75) writing under the pseudonym Alan Cope, in Dialogi Sex (Antwerp, 1566). Foxe’s methods came under heavy fire in the nineteenth century, and his reputation suffered severely. In a series of papers, S.R.Maitland not only criticized the work of Foxe’s modern editors, but also impugned Foxe himself for his inaccuracy and prejudice: Six Letters on Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1837), Twelve Letters on Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1841), Notes on the contributions of G.Townsend to the new edition of Foxe’s Martyrology (3 pts., 1841– 42), and Remarks on Cattley’s Defence of his edition of Foxe’s Martyrology (1842). As a result of these and later criticisms (e.g. J.Gairdner, History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, and Lollardy and the Reformation) historians found difficulty in assessing Foxe’s work at its true value. The difficulty is assuredly there. Obviously the first step should be a thorough check of all Foxe’s facts, but this is a task so exacting that none as yet has dared to attempt it. Specialists working out specific problems have analysed Foxe’s materials and methods for their own particular needs. On the whole, such experiments, so far as they have gone, have told in Foxe’s favour: but it is not merely the factual accuracy of Foxe’s work which is challenged. It is the use to which he puts the facts, the sources from which he draws them, the passion and coarseness of his attack on opponents that are in question. These are not easy to judge, and only too often are closely associated with the personal affinities of the critic engaged in assessing them. The problem then becomes one of conviction rather than science. Whither this leads may be briefly suggested. J.F.Mozley, John Foxe and his Book (1940), reinforces a whole-hearted defence of Foxe’s book by admitting some of its deficiencies, and by conceding that its author is temperamentally incapable of writing what is now called scientific history (p. 153). Considering this approach Fr Philip Hughes, The Reformation in England (II, 258, n.i.), for whom the book is, naturally, a mighty piece of anti-Catholic propaganda, with “all the qualities that will delight the partisan and that must torment the historian”, reacts with a question: “But what of the historical writer of today who must either use Foxe as though he were history, or else not use him at all, and who now, in order to protect his source from what criticism may do to it—in order that Foxe may still pass muster—disparages the discipline that alone gives historical writing any claim on men’s attention?” There is an answer to that question. It is given by one whose claims to be a scientific historian will not easily be challenged. J.A.Muller in Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (1926) had to follow Foxe’s tracks very closely. His considered opinion on Foxe’s authority

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he sums up thus (p. xiii) “(1) When he quotes letters, documents, books, or pamphlets, he usually does so with honesty and a fair degree of accuracy. (2) When he retails a rumour or story based on hearsay he usually indicates that it is such, which should be a warning to the student to apply to it the canons of historical criticism. (3) His animus towards Gardiner and his admiration for the reformers are so frank and obvious that they may readily be discounted. He remains, therefore, for those who use him with judgement and historical knowledge, an invaluable collection of material for Tudor history.” For a popular account of Foxe’s book studied against what the author “conceives to be the context of its own time” see William Haller, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation (1963). William Thomas (d. 1554) deserves a note in any account of Tudor historiography. By birth and extraction a Welshman, his ancestry and early years are not well documented. When he first leaves some traces, about 1540, he is evidently doing business relating to dissolved religious houses. By 1545 he was abroad, having got into difficulties through embezzling funds from his patron, Sir Anthony Brown. For the next five years he spent most of his time in Italy, and becomes one of the earliest Italianate Englishmen. By the summer of 1549 he was back in England. Next year he was appointed one of the clerks of the Privy Council, and began to accumulate grants. He seems to have ingratiated himself with Edward VI, for whom he wrote essays on political topics. The accession of Mary ended his career at court. Siding with the extremists he was active in Wyatt’s conspiracy. He was tried at Guildhall (8 May 1554) and ten days later was hanged and quartered at Tyburn. Setting on one side his Italian grammar and dictionary, and various essays, Thomas claims the attention of historians for two works. In The Historie of Italie (1549) he was the first Englishman to attempt a description of the Italian states and their forms of government, in a history largely modelled on Italian historians. It had an influence in stimulating interest in Italy amongst Englishmen. Another work of his worth notice is Il Pellegrino Inglese (1552). According to his account, if that is not a literary fiction, when news of Henry VIII’s death reached him at Bologna, Thomas was asked by some Italian noblemen to give his views on the dead king’s character. Later he drew up an account of the ensuing discussion, which was published in 1552. In 1774 this dialogue was published from an English translation, made but not published by Thomas, by Abraham D’Aubant in The Works of William Thomas. J.A.Froude edited it as The Pilgrim: a Dialogue of the Life and Actions of King Henry the Eighth (1861). The work is interesting. If Thomas is to be believed it was a brief history of his own times written from memory without any reference to authorities. This would account for some of its inaccuracies. If it cannot be accepted as scholarly history it should not be dismissed as brusquely as Adair suggests, as undiluted eulogy written to curry favour with the Edwardian government. It is of value because it gives a vivid picture of what was undoubtedly the impression of Henry VIII and his reign accepted by the average Englishman at the time of the king’s death. E.R.Adair has collected all that is known about Thomas in his paper, “William Thomas: A forgotten Clerk of the Privy Council” in Tudor Studies, ed. R.W.Seton Watson, 133–160.

(C) PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE From about the middle of the fifteenth century the practice of letter-writing, even by quite ordinary folk was far from being an exceptional accomplishment, but it was only in the sixteenth century that such private letters begin to appear on a scale unequalled in any earlier period of English history. Thus there was added to the narrative sources for the period a new type of document, which makes its own peculiar contribution to the historian’s resources. So heterogeneous a collection of personal interests as are represented in such material defies any simple system of classification. It may include, at one extreme, rough cryptic

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notes concerned with unimportant business matters, or simple messages of goodwill or condolences, to elaborate self conscious literary efforts at the other extreme, written with great care, and obviously intended by the writer to reach a wider circle of readers than the person to whom they were ostensibly addressed. They may sometimes, but only rarely, be beautiful specimens of calligraphy: more often they are in the vilest of illegible handwriting, and their orthography is often so archaic as to seem to be written in a foreign language. Whatever form the private letter may take, it is often a valuable historical source, from which much useful information may be extracted by the discerning historian on topics of social, and occasionally, of political history. The private letter is particularly likely to provide the historian with those touches of local colour which add reality to the historical scene, while it often reveals some bypath into the past that leads on to some unsuspected point of view. To attempt a representative selection of even the best specimens of this type of material would make demands on space not to be contemplated here, and yet it would be a serious omission if no notice were taken of such documents. A few have, therefore, been brought together almost at random. They will indicate the nature and quality of the contribution such material can make to the resources at the disposal of the historian. For some interesting comments on the value of private correspondence C.L.Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, c. viii, and J.Gairdner, The Paston Letters, Introduction, are worth consulting. There are some interesting general collections including H.Ellis, Original Letters illustrative of English History, 3 Series in II vols. (1824, 1827, 1846); J.O.Halliwell, Letters of the Kings of England (2 vols., 1846–48); M.A.E.Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain (3 vols., 1846); H.Robinson, Original Letters relating to the English Reformation, 1531–58 (Parker Soc., 1846–47), chiefly from the archives of Zürich, a collection of letters by various reformers, English and foreign, the Latin originals being printed as Epistolae Tigurinae (Cambridge, 1848). Many letters will be found in the several Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, the Letters and Papers, the State Papers of Henry VIII: P.F.Tytler, England under the reigns of Edward VI and Mary (2 vols., 1839), and in J.Foxe, Acts and Monuments. The most valuable collections of family letters of this period are T.Stapleton, Plumpton Correspondence (C.S., IV, 1839), the private letters of a family of country gentlemen in Yorkshire extending from the reign of Edward IV to that of Henry VIII, J.Gairdner, The Paston Letters (6 vols., 1904), ranging over the years 1422–1509; and J.Bruce, Letters and Papers of the Verney Family (C.S., LVI, 1853). In the Public Record Office, among the State papers supplementary there is a series of about a thousand letters written or received by John Johnson, a merchant of the Staple coming from the period 1542–52. They give a vivid picture of a merchant family of the period. Some of them, mainly from the year 1543, are calendared in Letters and Papers: but many are still only available in the originals. In Tudor Family Portrait (1955) Barbara Winchester presented (but without references) a few of the letters, enough alas! to show how much more valuable than her book would have been a full edition of the whole series. There are many important collections of the letters of prominent individuals of the period. Many of Wolsey’s more personal letters will be found with his official correspondence in State Papers Hen. VIII, vol. 1. A full collection of Cromwell’s correspondence was edited by R.B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., Oxford, 1902). Less important, but not without value, is T.N.Toller, The Correspondence of Edward: 3rd Earl of Derby (Chetham Soc., 1890). The correspondence of the religious leaders of the period is well represented in print. Some of the most important of these are P.S. and H.M.Allen, Letters of Richard Fox: 1486–1527 (Oxford, 1928); J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1933); J.E.Cox, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Cranmer (Parker Soc., 1846); G.E.Corrie, Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer (Parker Soc., 1845); H.Christmas, Works of Nicholas

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Ridley (Parker Soc., 1841); A.M.Quirini, Epistolae Reginaldi Poli (Brescia, 5 vols., 1744–57); J.Bruce and T.T.Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker: 1535–75 (Parker Soc., 1853). The prince of letter writers of the period was Erasmus, and many of them were to English friends. His letters can be read in the sumptuous edition by P.S. and H.M.Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (12 vols., Oxford, 1906–58). A handy English translation of some of the most important letters bearing on English topics is by F.M.Nichols, The Epistles of Erasmus, (3 vols., 1901–18) and the letters of one of his friends, Sir Thomas More, are available in an excellent edition by Elizabeth Frances Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (London: Cumberlege for Princeton Univ. Press, 1947). Some of More’s letters will also be found in a collection of the letters of a foreign humanist H.de Voecht, Literae virorum eruditorum ad Franciscum Craneveldium, 1522–8 (Louvain, 1928). The letters of a later humanist have been collected by J.A.Giles, Works of Roger Ascham (4 vols., 1865). It is difficult to separate the public correspondence of a king from his private letters. Only a few specimens of Henry VII’s intimate correspondence are known. Miss M.St Clare Byrne has attempted a collection for Henry VIII in The Letters of King Henry VIII (London, 1936). She included the famous series of letters from the King to Anne Boleyn. Earlier editions by T. Hearne (Oxford, 1730 and W.Gunn, 1813) were superseded by the scholarly edition by G.A. Crapelet (Paris, 1826). Miss Byrne makes some changes in the chronological order of the letters as adopted by Crapelet. Some interesting specimens of the letters of the young King Edward VI are printed in J.G.Nichols, Literary Remains of Edward VI (Roxburghe Club, 1857). There is no edition of Mary’s letters although several are printed by T.Hearne, Titi Livii Foro-Juliensis Vita Henrici Quinti. App. Sylloge epistolarum. (Oxford, 1716). The increasing variety of original sources available for this period in the form of State papers and other official records frees the historian from too close a dependence upon chronicles, histories, and other unofficial or narrative materials. The latter have their value, of course, as contemporary and highly individualistic impressions of persons and events, while they often supply the chronological framework within which the phases of the period are by convention contained. Narrative sources thus provide a starting point for the study of the general history of the period, and they are frequently used for this purpose in several Sections of this book. They can, however, be looked at from another point of view. They have an intrinsic value of their own, as examples illustrating changes in fashion and standards in the actual writing and study of history. It is to illustrate these tendencies that selections from some typical narrative sources have been brought together in this Section. The early Tudor period is a significant one in the development of historical writing in England and these examples, highly selective as they have to be are enough to show the nature of the fresh ideas and the experiments with new methods of writing contemporary history which are a feature of the period. Some of them have hardly as yet advanced beyond a primitive form. They are, therefore, all the more significant, the first indications of important changes in the attitude of Englishmen to the study and writing of history. The general lines of development are indicated in the following examples. Passages I, II, are specimens of the traditional chronicle type of historical writing at this time. Passages III, IV, show the revolutionary change resulting from the Italian influences introduced by Polydore Vergil. The awakening antiquarian interests of the period find some expression in passages VI, VII, and X, while the realization of the use of history as propaganda can be seen in passages VIII, XI, and XII. Extracts IX to X provide a few specimens of other types of narrative which, from the sixteenth century onwards will become of increasing importance. These are the diary and the biographical memoir. In view of what has been said about the great abundance and variety of letters, both official and private, examples of this kind of material should be included in this Section, but considerations of space and the fact that many examples appear in most of the other Sections makes it unnecessary to do more than emphasize their importance among the narrative sources available for this period.

1. Select passages from The Great Chronicle of London This is the best of the London chronicles dealing with the Tudor period. Its place in the development of this type of source is discussed above. The two following passages illustrate the style and method of the chronicle. The first gives a general account of events in the early years of Henry VII’s reign, and is a good example of the quality of the narrative and the miscellaneous information it records during the years from 1485 to 1512 when this chronicle ends. The first passage opens with a comment on the murder of the two young sons of Edward IV. This reference to the conflicting rumours concerning that crime, and the suggestion that it happened before Henry invaded England has not passed unnoticed by those who have tried to shift responsibility for the murder from Richard III to Henry VII. They see here a suggestion of government propaganda in Henry’s favour. There was a revival of interest in this problem in 1933 when bones discovered in the Tower in 1674, presumed to be those of the young princes were examined by L.E.Tanner and W.Wright. “Recent investigations regarding the fate of the Princes in the Tower” (Archaeologia, LXXXIV, 1934, pp. 1–26) set out the opinion that the victims were dead by the end of 1483 thereby absolving Henry VII from any responsibility for the deaths. There is, however, no sure evidence that these were the bones of the Princes, so the problem is still open to argument and rash theorizing. The most recent objective discussion is that by P.Kendall, Richard III, App. I, pp. 393–418. While not prepared to accept the arguments for Henry’s responsibility advanced by Sir Clements Markham, Richard III: his life and character, Professor Kendall supports the view that the crime was the work of Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham rather than of Richard III but he concludes that the available evidence admits of no decisive solution. The second passage describing the conspiracy of Perkin Warbeck is interesting because it includes in the narrative what is said to be his confession. According to Bernard André this confession was printed by order of Henry VII. It also appears in the other versions of the London chronicle, edited by C.L.Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 218–222, and in Hall’s Chronicle, 488–490. For a discussion of the evidential value of this document see J.Gairdner, Richard the Third, rev. edn., 1898, 265, and W.Busch, England under the Tudors, 335–337.

(i) The Accession of Henry VII (A.H.Thomas, The Great Chronicle of London, 236–245)

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hus passing this troublous and misordered world, word sprang quickly of a gentleman being in the parts of Brittany named Henry, and son unto the earl of Richmond that made speedy provision for to come into England to claim the Crown as his right, considering the death of King Edward’s children, of whom as then men feared not openly to say that they were rid out of this world, but of their death’s manner was many opinions, for some said they were murdered between ij feather beds, some said they were drowned in malmesy and some said that they were choked with a venemous potion. But howsoever they were put to death, certain it was that before that day they were departed from this world. Of which cruel deed Sir James Tyrell was reported to be the doer, but other put that wygth1 upon an old servant of King Richard’s named.2 When these tidings were thus blown about the world, the gentlemen and men of honour were in such a doubt that they wist not which party to lend unto, howbeit the more in number grudged so sore against the King for the death of the innocents that as gladly would they have been French, as to be under his subjection, and for that, some fled unto that other party, among whom Sir James [Blount] being then chief ruler of [Hammes] and having the earl of Oxford under his rule, took with him the said earl and sailed into Brittany unto the forenamed gentleman, also the Bishop of 1 2

Blame. There is no blank in the MS., the compiler evidently did not notice the omsssion. 109

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Ely, doctor Morton, that in the beginning of this King’s reign got by licence or otherwise over the sea, and by sundry times was again sent for, hearing of the King’s cruel dealings, held him off by fair and wise excuses, till he had more experience of the sequel. And thus passing the time, true knowledge came to the King, in the beginning of August,1 of the landing of the forenamed prince Henry, the which so soon as he was landed at Milford Haven in Wales kneeled down upon the bare ground, and holding his hands towards heaven meekly and devoutly said these words, Judica me deus et discerne causam meam, and after proceeded upon his journey. Then King Richard in all haste arrayed his people, and made quick provision for to meet his enemies, which at the beginning were but of small strength, but anon as his landing was known to many of the knights and esquires of this land, they gathered much people in the King’s name, and straight sped them unto that other party, by means whereof his power hugely increased. Then King Richard, being well accompanied sped him toward his said enemies till he came to Leicester, and that other party which in this while had proclaimed himself King Henry the vijth drew fast thitherward. But that night King Richard lost much of his people, for many gentlemen that held good countenance with master Brackenbury, then lieutenant of the Tower, and had for many of them done right kindly, took their leave of him in giving to him thanks for his kindness before shewed, and exhorted him to go with them, for they feared not to shew unto him that they would go unto that other party, and so departed, leaving him almost alone. In this while the earl of Derby and the earl of Northumberland, which had everyone of them great companies, made slow speed toward King Richard, so that he with the duke of Norfolk and the earl of Surrey, the lord Lovell and others departed from Leicester with great triumph and pomp upon the morn being the xxij day of August, and after continued his journey till he came unto a village called Bos worth where, in the fields ajoining, both hosts met, and fought there a sharp and long fight whereof in the end, the victory fell unto King Henry. In this battle was slain King Richard, the duke of Norfolk, the lord Lovell, with Brackenbury and many others, and incontinently, as it was said, Sir William Stanley, which won the possession of King Richard’s helmet with the Crown being upon it, came straight to King Henry, and set it upon his head saying, Sir here I make you King of England. In this field was taken the earl of Surrey with others, and thus by great fortune and grace, upon the aforesaid xxij day of August won this noble prince the possession of this land, and then was he conveyed to Leicester the same night, and there received with all honour and gladness, and Richard late King as gloriously as he by the morning departed from that town, so as irreverently was he that afternoon brought into that town, for his body despoiled to the skin, and nought being left about him, so much as would cover his privy member, he was trussed behind a pursuivant called Norrey as an hog or another vile beast, and so all to bespring with mire and filth was brought to a church in Leicester for all men to wonder upon, and there lastly, irreverently buried, and thus ended this man with dishonour as he that sought it, for had he continued still protector and have suffered the children to have prospered according to his allegiance and fidelity, he should have been honourably lauded over all, whereas now his fame is dirked and dishonoured as far as he was known, but God that is all mindful forgive him his misdeeds. 1

7 August, 1485.

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PASSAGES FROM “THE GREAT CHRONICLE OF LONDON”

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The names of Mayors and Sheriffs in the time of King Henry the Seventh, the which began his reign the xxijd. day of August in the year of our Lord God Mlcccclxxxvj. Anno domini 1485º Grocer (Thomas Breten) 1486º Thomas Hyll (Rauff Astry) anno primo.1 This mayor continued still his office till the xxvij day of September, in which time, that is to mean upon the xxvij day of August the King was received into London, the citizens being then again clothed in violet, and so brought unto Paul’s where at the Rood of the North door he offered up three standards, whereof one was of the arms of Saint George, the second a red fiery dragon, painted upon white and green sarcenet, and the third was a banner of tarteron belt with a dun cow, and that done he was conveyed into the bishop’s palace and there lodged, and the earl of Oxford was lodged at the Erber, to whom was then made great suit and labour as well for matters concerning himself as for causes touching soliciting of causes unto the King. For then such persons as had occupied his lands by gift of King Edward, or by purchase, were fain to restore it, with all such profits as they had perceived of the said lands by all the time of his absence. Then, shortly after, began the sweating sickness, whereof died much people suddenly for lack of good guiding, for they were kept so hot and close that many were smothered, that might have been saved with moderate keeping, of the which sickness died Thomas Hill, then mayor, upon the xxvij day of September. Anno domini 1486o draper (Thomas Breten) 1486o Sir William Stocker (Ralph Astry) Anno dicto Anon as Thomas Hill the mayor was departed out of this world, the aldermen and the commoners assembled at their place accustomed, and there after their ancient customs elected to occupy as mayor for the full of the old mayor’s year, the forenamed Sir William Stocker. The which Sir William, for so much as then the King was departed from the City, and the Barons of the King’s Exchequer were not then sitting, by reason that the term was not as yet begun, was conveyed with his brethren, the aldermen and the commoners of the City unto the Tower Gate, that leadeth toward Our Lady of Barking, where without the said gate sitting the lieutenant of the Tower with such learned men as he then had appointed, charged the said Sir William with such oath as he should have been charged in the King’s Exchequer and so, departed. But this mayor lived not over vij days after, but by occasion of the abovesaid sickness died, as in that season many more died, for from the time that Thomas Hill died unto this mayor’s departing died iiij aldermen, as Thomas Ilam, Richard Rawson, Thomas Norland, and John Stocker, brother to Sir William Stocker, beside many head commoners, which died the same season, by reason of which Sir William’s death, the aldermen with the commoners assembled them again at Guildhall upon the viij day of October, and there chose for their head officer this man following. Anno domini 1486o. Grocer (Thomas Breten) 1486o John Warde (Ralph Astry) Anno primo This mayor continued his office the full of Thomas Hill’s year, that is to mean till the feast of Simon and Jude, in which season, loving be to God, the sickness aforenamed 1

Hill was mayor 1484–85. The figures were originally written correctly (1484 to 1485) and altered.

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slackened by the sufferance of God and good and moderate keeping of such patients as then were vexed therewith. Also in this mayor’s time was made speedy provision for the King’s coronation. Anno domini 1486o. Goldsmith (John Tate) 1487o Hugh Bryse (John Swan) Anno dicto. The King upon the day following that this mayor had taken his charge before the Barons of the Exchequer, which was upon the xxxti day of October, was solemnly crowned at Westminster, and after that solemnisation within the monastery was finished, a royal and excellent feast with all circumstances to such a feast appertaining was holden within Westminster Hall the same day. And this year about [blank] the King sent my lord treasurer with Master Bray and other honourable personages unto the mayor, requiring him and his citizens of a prest of vj Ml. marks, wherefore the mayor assembled his brethren and the common council upon the Tuesday following, by whose authority was then granted to the King a prest of MlMl li., the which for him was shortly levied after, and this was assessed by the fellowships and not by the wards, for the more ease of the poor people. Of the which prest the fellowships of mercers, grocers, and drapers lent and forbare ixcxxxvij. pounds vj. shillings. The which prest was justly repaid in the year following. And in this mayor’s time fell great altercation among the merchant adventurers into Flanders for choosing of the master of the fellowship called adventurers, whereof the occasion was for so much as all fellowships of the City were discontented that the master of that company was most taken of the mercery, and by that reason it was thought unto all the other adventurers that the mercers had much more favour many and sundry ways than other merchants of other mysteries had. To appease this variance the mayor called before him to his dwelling place the wardens of as many companies or fellowships of the City as were adventurers into Flanders, and there before him heard all such reasons as the mercers made for them, and in likewise the reasoning of the others, and took thereabout more labour than thank, for in conclusion they departed from him unreconciled how well that at the next mart after, the companies of sundry mysteries held so fast their opinion that the master then being a mercer was discharged, and for an indifferency1 one named Robert Rydon, a learned man in the law civil, was admitted. But when he had a short season occupied, he was again discharged, and then a draper named Robert Drayton occupied that room for a time after, and so others, to the restfulness of the said adventurers. In this mayor’s time was wheat at iij.s. a bushel, Bay Salt also at ij.s. viij.d. and iij.s. a bushel. Anno domini 1487o mercer 1488o (John Percival) Sir Henry Colet (Hugh Clopton) Anno ijo. In this mayor’s time and [blank] was the King married unto dame Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of King Edward the fourth. And upon the xvjth day of June was the Field of Stoke. The which was by the force of the earl of Lincoln, son and heir of the duke of Suffolk, that late days before was fled this land, and so passed to the duchess of Burgundy, sister unto King Edward the IVth. The which duchess, as the fame went, 1

Absence of bias or prejudice.

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aided and excited the said earl to make war upon England, trusting to have great aid of some estates of the same, and so being furnished with a small company of Burgundians, having to their captain a fierce and strong soldier named Martin Swart, they to their sorrow landed at [blank] and so held on their journey till they came near unto the aforesaid town or village of Stoke, where they were encountered with the King’s host, and there fought a sore and sharp fight, for the while that it endured, upon the aforesaid xvjth day of June, the victory whereof fell unto the King, loved be God, howbeit that by subtle ways men were set between the place of the field, and many of the King’s subjects which were coming toward his grace, shewing unto them that the King had lost the field, and was fled, by which subtle means and report many a true man to the King turned back again, and some men of name for fear went into sanctuary and tarried there till to them was brought better tidings. This field was the sorer fought by reason that forenamed Martin Swart was deceived. For when he took this voyage upon him he was comforted and promised, by the earl of Lincoln, that great strength of this land after their landing would have resorted unto the said earl. But when he was far entered and saw no such resort, then he knew well he was deceived. Wherefore he said unto the earl, “Sir, now see I well that ye have deceived yourself and also me, but that notwithstanding, all such promise as I made unto my lady the duchess, I shall perform,” exhorting the earl to do the same. And upon this sped them toward the field with as good a courage as he had had xxMl men more than he had, and there held promise in such wise that he and the earl both were slain upon the field, with much of their people. And when the tidings of this victory was brought unto the mayor, anon he caused Te deum to be sung in the more part of all the churches of London. Also in the latter end of this mayor’s year,1 that is to say, the [blank] day of September was born the first child of the King and Queen, and named Arthur, at Winchester. Anno domini 1488o Salter William Horn (John Fenkyll) 1489o (William Romington) Anno3 In the beginning of this mayor’s time was Queen Elizabeth crowned at Westminster upon the day of Saint Katherine, or the xxvti day of November, whereof to tell all the circumstances with the royate2 of the Feast, it would ask a long leisure, but for I intend to set the Order of one Coronation in fine libri I pass over this as I have done many more.3 In the month of July following was another prest made unto the King by the City of iiij M1 li. which also was assessed by the crafts or fellowships, whereof the mercers, grocers, and drapers lent MlVjC and xv li and the goldsmiths, fish-mongers, and tailors lent IXC xlvj. li xiij.s. iiij.d., and the residue of this iiij Ml li which was MlCCCCxxxviij li. Vj.s. Viij.d. was lent by all the other crafts of the City. In the month of [blank] following was another or a third prest made to the King of MlMl li, which was levied after the manner of the other, the which were all paid again in the next year folowing. The which sums of money, with many more, which his grace borrowed of his 1 2 3

A year too late. Arthur was born at Winchester 20 Sept. 1486. splendour. This promise was not fulfilled.

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lords and other honourable men of this land was to aid the archduke of Burgundy against the duke of Brittany, as after more plainly shall appear. And in the end of this mayor’s time was John Ashley, the son of Sir John Ashley, knight, with ij others drawn from Westminster to the Tower Hill and there beheaded. Anno domini 1489o mercer Robert Tate (William Isaak) 1490o (Ralph Tynley) Anno iiijo This mayor’s time the commons of the north by the exciting of a yeoman named John of Chamber made an insurrection, the which the earl of Northumberland intending to appease by fair means, took with him his household men and drew toward them to have communed with them in peaceable manner, forasmuch as the said John of Chamber had before time refused to come unto the said earl at such time as he before sent for him. But so soon as the said earl approached near unto them they, owing unto him deadly malice for the disappointing of King Richard at Bosworth Field, set upon him and slew him and a certain [number] of his servants. Whereof, when the King had word, he sent thither the earl of Surrey with a band of men. The which earl the King had late before accepted unto his grace and delivered him from imprisonment of the Tower, where he had lain from the time of the aforesaid field of Bosworth. And that done, the King with a strong company sped him after, but ere the King was thither come, the earl had skirmished with them and slain and scaled of them the strength, and taken alive their head captain aforenamed, the which with others Was presented unto the King at York. Then the poor commons that had aided John of Chamber and his accessories in this riot, fearing grievous punishment, put halters about their necks, and in their shirts came into a great court of the palace where the King was lodged, and there kneeling cried lamentably for mercy and grace. To whom at length the King granted forgiveness and pardon. And shortly after was the said John of Chamber and a certain number with him of such as were found procurers of this riot hanged at the said City of York upon a foursquare gallows, and one gibbet made upon the iiij above the others, whereupon the said John was hanged as head captain, and the others hanged upon the lower gallows as his followers or lewd disciples. And when the King had set that country in a quietness, he then returned to London, where shortly after he called a Great Council, to the which was monished [summoned] certain persons of every city and head town of this land, by authority of which council was granted unto the King the Xth penny of men’s goods through this land, for the maintenance of the aforesaid war against the Bretons, which as now had put them under the French King’s protection, which lastly married the duchess of that land, that Before days was assured unto the archduke of Burgundy. By this grant of the tenth penny of men’s goods, as well of moveables as unmoveables, it was thought to the King’s council that huge sums of money should have been levied to the King’s great profit, but by the time it was levied and summed, what by the favour of the commissioners, and such charges as were spent in levying of the same, it amounted little over a fifteenth. With this money the King repaid such prests as before in the other mayor’s time he had borrowed of his subjects, and ordered other charges for the war abovesaid, which first and last cost the King far

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above the sum of an hundred thousand pounds. In this mayor’s days, also, the lord Daubeney, then lieutenant or deputy for the King at Calais, with a crew of ij M men made a voyage into Flanders, and besieged there a walled town called Dixmude, which at that time was strongly fortified with French men and Flemings. Notwithstanding, he assaulted that town so fiercely, that in the end he won that hold, and slew of his enemies above ij Ml, and won from them much ordnance, as great guns, crossbows, and other, which was sent unto Calais. In this skirmish was slain the lord Morley with other Englishmen to the number of an hundred or more. And when he had delivered that town to the archduke’s use, he then returned to Calais, and not without great danger, for a French captain named the lord Cordis1 being accompanied with a company of X Ml men or more, sped him fast to have stopped his way. But, as good fortune would, he came too short. Anno domini 1490o Draper (William Capell) 1491o William White ( ) Anno Vo (John Brook ) In this mayor’s time a tailor named Roger Shavelok dwelling within Ludgate and holding there a shop well stored with drapery, cut his own throat, whereof hearing, the sheriffs in all haste sped them thither, and albeit that much of his short stuff was by his wife and servants conveyed aside, yet they possessed much cloth and other stuff to the value of a thousand marks or near about. But while they were laying and searching of gutters and other places of these goods to Guydyrs2 cometh thither the King’s almoner, named Master Urswick, and assessed the said goods by virtue of his office, and so constrained the sheriffs to leave their further search, and such goods as they were possessed of, to put it in indifferent keeping till their title or his were justly determined. The which, in the end, was deemed his right, and so had he the said goods, and as it was reported, he after gave the said goods again unto the widow upon condition that she would marry with a servant of his named William Flower, the which shortly after was married unto her. Anno domini 1491o. mercer. (Henry Coot ) 1492º John Mathew (Robert Revell ) Anno vjo. (Hugh Pemberton) This mayor’s time, about Candlemas, died Robert Revell one of the sheriffs, for whom incontinently was chosen Hugh Pemberton. And shortly after Sir Robert Chamberlain, knight, that with one of his sons was going over into Flanders, for then was talking in secret wise that the duchess of Burgundy had in her keeping the duke of York, was after hard imprisonment within the Tower, and pining there upon the pine bank was arraigned with his said son at Stratford Langthorn, and there both adjudged to be drawn, hanged, and quartered, and then conveyed again unto the Tower, and from thence unto Westminster, whereupon the [blank] the sheriffs received the said ij persons with one named [blank] which iij. persons were drawn from thence unto the Tower Hill, where the said Sir Robert was only beheaded, and the other ij pardoned. This mayor’s time also the King, intending his royal voyage into France, attempted the 1

The Sieur des Querdes.

2

together.

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manner and way of King Edward in the time of Robert Drope being mayor, and after he had felt the good wills of his nobles, he sent for the mayor, and so handled him by his great policy, that he caused him to grant toward his good speed, if his grace [went] in proper person CC. pounds. By precedent whereof all the aldermen were fain to grant the same, albeit that sundry of them withheld the payment, term of their lives, and then paid by their executors, but ere that extreme way were used, or that such as withheld any part of the same CC. pounds were put in action, an act passed by authority of a parliament holden at Westminster in the time of Richard Chawry, mayor, in the Xth year of this King’s reign compelled them to pay it and every parcel thereof, as after more at large appeareth. When the King had thus used the aldermen, he committed the commoners of the City unto sundry lords spiritual and temporal, and joined unto them other honourable persons, the which lords, as chief commissioners, divided the mysteries or crafts of the City among them for the more speediness, so that my lord chancellor, then Doctor Morton, had to his lot the fellowships of drapers with other, the which he dealt with so sore that many of them were charged with lx. pounds a man, and none that escaped under X. pounds or near about, whereas my lord of Winchester, having the examination of the mercery with other worshipful crafts, suffered them to pass for xl. marks the best. This Benevolence was so chargeable unto the City that the whole sum thereof extended unto ixMlvjCiiijxx.ij pounds XVij.s. iiij.d. By reason whereof, and of the hard dealing of the lord chancellor and some others, it was named after for Benevolence malevolence. But yet the King did graciously in one thing, that where King Richard as before is shewed, borrowed many notable sums of the citizens and laid for them good pledges which, by his royal power, he might have caused to have been restored unto his Treasury without payment for them, yet he of his goodness allowed unto all such as had any of the said pledges, all such sums as they had laid for them, though some of them were not so much in value as the money which they lay for. Then the King visited many countries, and the commissioners the residue, in calling the people before them, and in such wise exhorted them that the King’s grace was well contented with the loving demeanour of his subjects. And so he had good cause, for by this way he levied more money than he should have done with four fifteenths, and also with less grudge of his commons, for to this charge paid none but men of good substance, where at every fifteenth are charged poor people, which makes more grudging for paying of vj.d than at this time many did for paying of vj. nobles. In this mayor’s time also was an act made by the Common Council that where in time passed the Chamberlain of London and the masters of the Bridge have been yearly chosen by the commonalty of the City upon the day of Saint Matthew, and every man there being at the time of the said election hath named for Chamberlain or Bridge master such as they have favoured, not regarding the common weal of the City, whereby many times needy men and unable for that office have been admitted, and done the City no good nor worship. Wherefore, in remedying of that misorder, it was now enacted by the mayor and aldermen, with the assent of the Common Council, that fromthence forth the mayor and his brethren shall name ij. persons, such as they shall think able for the office of the Chamberlain, of the which two, the Commons shall choose one for their Chamberlain, for the year

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following, and in like manner the mayor and his brethren shall name iiij persons such as they think most able for the Bridge masters. Of the which iiij the Commons shall choose two. In this mayor’s time also whete was at XXd. and xxij.d. a bushel, in London.

(ii) Perkin Warbeck’s Confession (Ibid. 281–288)

And in this month of September landed in an haven of Cornwall, Perkin Warbeck, with iij small ships only, as it was reported, and with him to the number of vj score persons or fewer, which rode unto a village named Bodmin whereas then drew unto him more people, so that, shortly after, his company was numbered at iij Ml. or above, whereof the most part were naked men and rascals, the whole flock. Then he, thus being accompanied, made his proclamations, and named himself King Richard the iiijth, and second son unto Edward IVth., late King, and so, being established with iij. noble captains and his chief counsellors, that is to mean John Heron, mercer, of London, which before days had fled the city of London for debt, Richard Skelton and John Asteley, a scrivener, of like authority, and dishonest, sped him towards Exeter, and upon the xvij. day of September assaulted the said town in ij places, that is to wit, at the East and North gates. But by the manly knighthood of the earl of Devonshire, and the help of the citizens, he was there put off, and upon CC. of his men there slain. Then, upon the morrow, they made another assault and then fired the gates and fought sharply for the while, but by the prowess of the forenamed earl, and good assistance of the said citizens, they were again beaten off, to their more shame and damage, at which said second assault the said earl was hurt in the arm with an arrow, and so were divers others, but few or none, thanked be God, slain. When Perkin with his rebels saw the mighty defence that of the city of Exeter was made, and the peril of him and his, if he there longer rested, he, as dismayed, considering the loss and hurt of his adherents, departed thence, and took his way toward Taunton where, upon the Wednesday following, being the xxth. day of September he, in the fields adjoining, mustered and counted the number of his adherents, the which he found diminished and somewhat decreased, for when the poor and needy people saw the rescue and defence made against him at the city of Exeter, and that no men of honour, nor yet of honesty, drew unto him as they before were put in comfort by him and by his lewd counsellors, anon they withdrew by sundry and secret companies from him, in providing their own safeguard. The which, he then perceiving, as a man comfortless, passed forth that day with dissembled countenance, and at night with lx. horsemen in a company, in the dead of the night, departed from that place and secretly came unto a sanctuary town besides Southampton, named Beaulieu, where he, with certain of his accomplices, were registered as John Heron and other for sanctuary men, upon the Friday after his foresaid departure from the poor commons, his adherents. Anon, as this was known, my lord chamberlain being sent towards him with a company of spears and others, sent in all possible wise then toward the seaside, v.C. of his spears to keep him from the sea, and to search the

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country, if they might hear of him, the which shortly after were informed that he was in the forenamed sanctuary town, whither forthwith were sent certain persons to see that he and his accomplices were surely kept till the King’s pleasure were further known. And in the time of the rage of this Perkin, a rebel and rover named James, the which upon the sea had gathered a company of rovers to the number of vij. or viij. C. and them at his retinue had led by a certain of time to the intent to have aided the said Perkin, met and took the provost of Penrhyn, and so brought him unto the foresaid town of Taunton, and there tyrannously dismembered him in the market place, and after shewed unto the people that he was one of the chief procurers and occasioners of the rebellion of the Cornish men by reason that he, being admitted for a commissioner in those parts, levied of them much more money than came unto the King’s use, which caused great murmur and grudge among the commons towards the King, and lastly rebellion as after ensued. Upon the xxv day of the said month came unto Westminster the lord chancellor of the said Perkin, a priest that before days had been steward with Sir Ralph Hastings, knight. This was named Sir William Lounde, whom his master trusted so well that he had the rule and guiding of his house, insomuch that plate and other jewels were wholly at his commandment, and thereupon, he having plenty of money in his hands of his said master’s, trussed certain plate with him and secretly departed from his said master, and sailed over unto Perkin, and there obtained of him such favour that he was named among his adherents his chancellor, for whose departure his said master was after in great danger, as after shall appear. Upon the Sunday following came a messenger from the King unto the mayor ascertaining him that Perkin was taken, wherefore the mayor assembled his brethren at Saint Paul’s and there caused Te Deum to be sung in most solemn wise. And upon the Wednesday following was tidings brought to the said mayor that the said Perkin, with certain of his accomplices as John Heron and others, were brought to the King’s presence at Taunton, where he of his abundant grace, after their confession of their malicious disposition to his grace uttered and shewed, clearly and liberally them pardoned and forgave, after which pardon thus to them granted, the said Perkin gave his attendance upon the King by all the time that he rode his progress westward. And upon Saint Luke’s eve, or on the xvij. day of October, came the Queen towards London from Walsingham, whereof the mayor, having knowledge, met with her grace at Bishopsgate, he with the aldermen being on horseback conveyed her grace from that place unto the King’s wardrobe, the streets being garnished with the crafts of the city standing in their best liveries as she passed by, and upon the morrow, being Saint Luke’s day, her grace after certain presents received from the mayor, departed that afternoon to Sheen, where upon the Saturday before the feast of Simon and Jude was presented to her grace the wife of the forenamed Perkin, which was a fair and goodly lady and daughter unto the lord Huntley, an earl of Scotland. Anno domini 1498o. mercer William Purchas (Bartholomew Rede) 1499o (Thomas Wyndowth) Anno 13o This year upon the Saturday, being the xviij.th. day of November, the King, after his journey done in the west country, came unto his manor of Sheen, and there rested till

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Wednesday following, upon the which day he came on horseback to Lambeth, and there took his barge and landed at Westminster Bridge, where the mayor, standing within the palace with his brethren the aldermen, and a great number of the citizens in order along Westminster Hall in their best liveries, received his grace with a short proposition to him made by the Recorder of the good exploit of his journey, and subduing of his rebels, before whom in his so passing towards his lodging rode the forenamed Perkin leading a gentleman by the arm, upon whom was not a little wondering, nor yet few curses cast at his head, that time and sundry days after. Upon a Tuesday being the xxviij. day of November the said Perkin was conveyed on horseback through the high streets of the City, and after him was also a tall and likely man conveyed on horseback, fast bound in an hermit’s habit, the which was then reported to be a servant of the King’s and his serjeant farrier before days, that falsely had withdrawn him out of the King’s service and stole over unto this Perkin, and became his servant, and so continued with him till he came into England. And when he perceived that all was otherwise than he before supposed, and that all his purpose was come to an ill effect or to nought, then he disguised him in an hermit’s habit, and so passed through sundry countries unsuspected, till lastly that he was taken and in his feigned habit so brought unto the King, whom, when the King had examined and known the effect of his mind and purpose, he commanded his said master Perkin to bring him unto the Tower for his faithful service whither with shame enough he was, as before is said, conveyed, and there left in hard and strong prison. And when the said Perkin had delivered his servant unto the guardians of the Tower, he then with such as were assigned to ride with him returned again by Candlewick street towards Westminster with much wondering and many a bitter curse. And upon the Saturday following, or the second day of December, was the said farrier and one named Edwards, which sometime had been a yeoman of the household of Queen Elizabeth, arraigned in the White Hall, and there judged to death. And upon the next Monday the said two persons were drawn from the Tower unto Tyburn and there hanged, beheaded, and quartered was the farrier, and that other only hanged till he was dead, whose bodies were after buried at the Friar Augustines within London, to whom God be merciful. Amen. In this past time to the end that this ungracious person Perkin might be notoriously known what a man he was, and how many men lacking grace had erred in him, in taking him for the second son of King Edward, to their confusion, the King, therefore, in avoiding the further harm of his subjects caused to be put in print the pedigree and all the conveyance of the past time of this unhappy Imp in taking upon him to be inheritor unto the crown of England, whereof the tenor ensueth, after his own confession. First is to be known that I was born in the town of Tournai in Flanders, and my father’s name is called John Osbek, which said John Osbek was controller of the said town of Tournai, and my mother’s name is Katherine de Faro, and one of my grandsires upon my father’s side was named Derrick Osbek, which died, after whose death my grandmother was married unto the within-named Peter Flamme, that was receiver of the forenamed town of Tournai, and dean of the boatmen that row upon the

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water, or river of Leyscow. And my grandsire upon my mother’s side was called Peter de Faro, the which had in his keeping the keys of the gate of St. John’s within the same town of Tournai. Also I had an uncle named Master John Stalyn dwelling in the parish of Saint Pyas within the same town, which had married my father’s sister, whose name was Joan or Jane, with whom I dwelt a certain season, and afterwards I was led by my mother to Antwerp for to learn Flemish in a house of a cousin of mine and officer of the said town called John Steinbeck, with whom I was the space of half a year, and after that I returned again unto Tournai, by reason of the wars that were in Flanders. And within a year following I was sent with a merchant of the said town of Tournai named Berlo and his master’s name Alexander, to the mart of Antwerp, whereas I fell sick, which sickness continued upon me V. months, and the said Berlo set me to board in a skinner’s house, that dwelt beside the house of the English nation, and by him I was thence carried to Barrow mart and lodged at the sign of the old man, were I abode the space of ij. months, and after this the said Berlo set me with a merchant in Middlesborough to service for to learn the language, whose name was John Strewe, with whom I dwelt from Christmas to Easter, and then I went into Portugal in the company of Sir Edward Brampton’s wife, in a ship which was called the Queen’s ship. And when I was come thither I was put in service to a knight that dwelt in Lushborn, which was called Peter Vacz de Cogna, with whom I dwelt a whole year, which said knight had but one eye. And then because I desired to see other countries I took licence of him, and then I put myself in service with a Breton called Pregent Meno, the which brought me with him into Ireland. And when we were there arrived in the town of Cork, they of the town, because I was arrayed with some clothes of silk of my said master’s, came unto me, and threeped upon me1 that I should be the duke of Clarence’s son, that was before time at Dublin. And forasmuch as I denied it, there was brought unto me the holy evangelist and the Cross by the mayor of the town, which was called John le Wellin, and there in the presence of him and other I took mine oath as the truth was that I was not the aforesaid duke’s son, neither of none of his blood. And after this came unto me an Englishman, whose name was Stephen Poytron, with one John Water, and said to me in swearing great oaths that they knew well I was King Richard’s bastard son. To whom I answered with like oaths that I was not, and then they advised me not to be afraid, but that I should take it upon me boldly, and if I would so do they would aid and assist me with all their power against the King of England, and not only they, but they were assured well that the earls of Desmond and Kildare should do the same, for they cared not what party they took so that they might be revenged upon the King of England. And so against my will made me to learn English, and taught me what I should do and say, and after this they called me duke of York, the second son of King Edward IVth, because King Richard’s bastard son was in the hands of the King of England. And upon this the said John Water, Stephen Poytron, John Tyler, Hubert Burgth, with many other, as the aforesaid Earls, entered into this false quarrel, and within short time after the French king sent unto me an embassy into Ireland whose names were Loyte Lucas and master Stephen Fryon to advertise me to come into 1

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France, and thence I went into France, and from thence into Flanders, and from Flanders into Ireland, and from Ireland into Scotland, and so into England. Of the which confession as before is rehearsed thus imprinted, many of them were sent into all places of England and elsewhere, that the truth of such covered malice and falsehood abominable might be known to the great rejoicing of all the King’s friends and true subjects, and utter discomfort and great agony unto all his enemies. Upon Saint Nicholas’ day, or the VIth day of December, in the forenoon was proclamation made through the City of a continual and stablished peace to be had between England and Scotland for the term of both King’s lives and a year after of them longest living. And shortly after was the weathercock of Paul’s taken down and again set up by a carpenter of London, called Godfrey [blank in MS] but it was the latter end of May or he had all finished his business about the same. The King this year holding his Christmas at his manor of Sheen, upon the night following Saint Thomas’ day the martyr, about IX of the clock began suddenly an huge fire within the King’s lodging, and so continued till midnight. By violence whereof much and great part of the old building of that place was burnt, and much more harm done upon costrings1 and hanging beds of cloth of gold and silk, and much other rich apparel with plate and other manifold jewels as belongeth to such a noble court. How well loving thereof be to God no Christian creature was there perished, which was to the singular comfort of the King, considering the notableness of the court there at that principal feast holden, at the which was at that time with his grace accompanied, the Queen, my lady the King’s mother, my lord of York, my lady Margaret, with divers other estates of this realm. Upon New Year’s day following died master John Brown, alderman, a father and profferer of the common weal, which left not his like behind him, considering his wisdom and good mind toward the common weal of the City, and for him was chosen alderman, John Wyngar, grocer. About the midst of April sprang certain tidings of the French king’s death. And in the beginning of May, the King then being at Canterbury, was burnt a priest for heresy, the which was so obstinate in his opinion that all the clerks and doctors then being there might not remove him from his error. Whereof the King being informed commanded him to be brought to his presence, and that done, his grace took so great pain, that after long argument and exhortation he caused him to refute his erronious opinions, and died in the faith of the Church, whereby the King won excelling honour and fame of great wisdom. Upon the Vth. day of May was kept a solemn exequy at Paul’s for the French king, and upon the morn a solemn mass, at the which was present the mayor with the aldermen and all the fellowships of the city in their liveries, and there offered. Ye have before heard of the taking of Perkin and his confession and pedigree, and how graciously it pleased the King’s grace to deal with him, and after kept him in his court at liberty with many other benefits, which would ask long time to write. But he, forgetting the goodness and gracious disposition of the King, upon the even of Trinity 1

curtains.

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Sunday being the IXth day of June about midnight, stole out of the court, the King then being at Westminster, for whom was made much search, albeit, he seeing he might not escape, in short time after rode unto the Charterhouse of Sheen, and there instanced the father of that house so lamentably, that he, after his putting him in a sure keeping, rode to the King in whose favour he stood greatly, and left not till he had gotten grant for his life, and so was brought again to the court. Then upon the Friday following was ordained a scaffold within the palace of Westminster, made of pipes and of other empty vessels, whereupon was Set a pair of stocks and he in them fast locked, and so there was wondered upon the more part of the forenoon. And upon the Monday following was a like scaffold made against the King’s Head in Cheap, whereupon stood the said Perkin from X. of the bell in the morning till three at afternoon, to his great shame, and that done he was with sure guides brought through Cornhill unto the Tower of London, and there left as prisoner. In the month of July was Henry Cote, alderman, discharged of his cloak after long suit and labour made to the Bench for the same, and for him was chosen Bartholomew Rede, one of the sheriffs for this year. And in the said month was repaid the iiij Ml li. before borrowed by the King, of the City in the time of master John Tate being mayor. This year was great drought, insomuch that from Easter to the beginning of August fell little rain, by reason whereof grass increased not, so that that year a load of hay, which before days was sold at London for V. or Vj. s., was this year sold for X. or Xij. s., and above. This year also, the King by means of a Venetian, which made himself very expert and cunning in knowledge of the circuit of the world and islands of the same, as by a chart and other demonstrations reasonable he showed, caused the King to man and victual a ship at Bristol to seek for an island which he said he knew was rich and replenished with rich commodities, which ship, thus manned and victualled at the King’s cost, divers merchants of London adventured in her small stocks, being in her as chief patron the said Venetian, and in the company of the said ship sailed also out of Bristow iij. or iiij. small ships fraught with slight and gross merchandise as coarse cloth, caps, laces, points, and other trifles. And so departed from Bristol in the beginning of May. Of whom this mayor’s time returned no tidings. Upon Saint Edward’s day after the mass of the Holy Ghost was sung, and the mayor, with his brethren, was come into the inner council chamber to commune of such matters as them liked, was shown by the mayor a letter sent from the King, whereof the effect was that the mayor and aldermen should, if that the commons laid Sir John Percival in the election to be mayor for the year following, that they should at the King’s request choose him to the said office, by means whereof and by a letter of request made lately before and directed from doctor Savage, then bishop of London, unto the mayor, aldermen, and commonalty of the City, the said Sir John Percival was that day chosen mayor of London, which by sundry years passed was put by, by the mayor and aldermen, forasmuch as it was thought by them that he was very desirous to have it, in other manner than other of his predecessors, mayors before him.

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SELECT PASSAGES FROM WRIOTHESLEY’S “CHRONICLE”

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2. Select passages from Wriothesley’s Chronicle (W.D.Hamilton, A Chronicle of England, II, 24) The following passages illustrate the peculiar nature of Wriothesley’s narrative. It is independent of the London chronicles, and has some of the characteristics of the diary form. It is, indeed, a link between the traditional chronicle form and the new historical technique of Polydore Vergil. Both of the following passages reveal the author as a well-informed observer of current affairs. The first gives a good account of the proceedings taken against Protector Somerset in 1549: the second describes Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion.

(i) Proceedings against Protector Somerset, 1549

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unday, the 6 of October, in the morning, the Earl of Warwick with other lords, of the Council sent for my Lord Mayor and the Aldermen to his place in Holborn where was declared to them by the Lord Chancellor and other of the King’s Majesty’s council divers abuses of the Lord Protector concerning the king’s majesty’s person and other his affairs, both in England and also in Scotland and other his parts beyond the seas. And that afternoon was kept a court of the aldermen in the Guildhall, where was shewed a letter from the King and my Lord Protector, for to have a M. men of the city well harnessed with weapons for the defence and surety of the king’s majesty’s person. And another letter also from the Lords to have 2000 men to aid them for the defence and surety of the king’s person also. And also that the city should be well kept with watches both day and night; whereupon the said Aldermen agreed that precepts should be sent forth to every Alderman in his ward, and also other precepts to certain persons of the chief companies of the city, to have 16 persons to watch at every gate of the city of every of their companies, and every person one servant with him in harness, all the day, and a double watch of the constables every night from 9. of the clock till 5, in the morning, which was begun the morrow after, And also that 2. of the aldermen should ride every night about the city to peruse the said watches. This day also the King’s majesty lying at Hampton Court, the Lord Protector caused proclamations to be made in divers towns near the Court for men to aid the King against the Lords and sent letters likewise to divers towns, whereupon great assembly of people gathered to Hampton Court; and in the night he conveyed the King’s Majesty to Windsor, with a great number of horsemen and footmen. Monday, the 7 of October, was kept a common council in the Guildhall, where was read both the letters of the King and the Lords aforementioned. And this day all the Lords of the Council sat in the forenoon at the Mercers Hall, and dined at my Lord Mayor’s, and sat there in council till night. And this day the warding of the gates began their watch in harness, and all the Lords lodged within the city, and set Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Domer, and another, to be aiding with the lieutenant of the Tower for the safeguard of the same to the use of the king. Tuesday the 8 of October was kept another common council in the Guildhall, whither all the lords came, and there by the mouth of the Lord Chancellor and other of the lords was declared the great abuses of the said Lord Protector, desiring all the citizens to be aiding and assisting with the lords for the preservation of the king’s majesty’s person, which they greatly feared being in his adversaries’ hands, and this day they dined at Mr. York’s, sheriff. This day in the afternoon about iiii. o’clock a proclamation was made in the city of

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London in divers places with two trumpets, iiii heralds, and 2 kings of arms, Norey and Clarentius, with their coats of arms, the sergeant of the trumpeters and the common crier riding with their maces afore them. Mr. Turcke, sheriff, and Mr. Chaliner, one of the clerks of the council, which read the proclamation, which proclamation contained the very truth of the Duke of Somerset’s evil government, false and detestable proceedings. The 9 of October was kept another common council, where was granted v.C. men of the city to be set forth to aid the lords for the safeguard of the king’s majesty’s person. The 10 of October was kept another common council in the forenoon, where was read a letter to have of the v.C. men ii.C. to be horsemen, but they granted to i.C. which should be ready on the morrow by two of the clock in the afternoon in Moorfield. Also this day in the afternoon was an assembly of all the commons of the city having liveries, where was read in the Guildhall a letter sent from the lords concerning the casting abroad of divers libels touching the lords, my Lord Mayor, and the aldermen, and all the city of London, exhorting all the citizens to be circumspect to search and find out such persons as wrote and endited them. And this day all the lords dined at Mr. Turkes, sheriff, and sat in his house in council from vii. of the clock in the morning till iiii in the afternoon, and then went to supper to my lord Great Master’s house by London Wall. The 11 of October in the afternoon the said v.C. persons well armed all in white coats mustered in Moorfields, whereof divers were bowmen, gunners, and i.C. horsemen, which after they had mustered went in at Moorgate, iii in a rank, every sort of weapons by themselves, and so through Coleman Street, through Cheap, and out at Newgate, and so into Smithfield, the sword bearer riding afore them as captain, with a trumpet and a drum in the midst of them, and there they broke off and were discharged by the commandment of the council for this time. This day the lords of the council sat in my Lord Great Master’s house. And Sir Anthony Wingfield, captain of the Guard, was sent to Windsor to the King, and severed my Lord Protector from his grace, and caused the Guard to watch him till the lords coming. The 12 of October my Lord Chancellor, with the rest of the lords of the council, rode to Windsor to the King, and this night the Lord Protector was put in ward within the castle of Windsor in Beauchamp’s Tower, and there was watched by the Guard and other. The 14 of October, in the afternoon, the Duke of Somerset was brought from Windsor to the Tower of London, riding through Holborn and in at Newgate, and so through all the high streets to the Tower, accompanied with divers lords, knights, and gentlemen with iii.C. horsemen, every band in their masters’ livery, my Lord Mayor, Sir Raufe Warreine, Sir John Gresham, Mr. Recorder, Sir William Lock, and both the sheriffs, Sir John Baker, chancellor of the tenths, Sir Richard Southwell, Sir Edmund Candish, and Sir Thomas Pope, knights, sitting all on their horses against Sooper-lane, with all the officers of the sheriffs standing by them with bills and halberds in their hands; and

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from Holborn bridge to the Tower certain Aldermen or their deputies sitting on horseback in every street, with a number of householders standing by them with bills in their hands, in every quarter, as he passed through the streets to the Tower hill, where he was delivered to the Constable of the Tower with these persons following. Names of the prisoners.

The Duke of Somerset. Sir Michael Stanhope, knight of the Privy Chamber. Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary. Sir John Thynne, knight. Edward Wolfe of the Privy Chamber. William Grey of Reading. The 17 of October at a court of aldermen the watches at the gates of the citizens in harness were discharged, and also the watches of the aldermen at nights.

(ii) Wyatt’s Rebellion 1 The 25 day of January [1554] tidings were brought to the Lord Mayor, by Sir John Gage, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, that Sir Thomas Wyatt, with certain rebels, were up in Kent, about Maidstone. Whereupon a court of Aldermen was called immediately in the afternoon; and that night the Lord Mayor rode to peruse the watch of the city, and so every night after two aldermen to ride to peruse the said watches. Also, that night, by the Council’s commandment, the Lord Mayor secretly with the sheriffs apprehended the Lord Marquis of Northampton, lying in Mr. Warner’s house, by Carter Lane, and brought him to his own house, where he lay that night; and Mr. Warner lay with Mr. Huet, sheriff. The 26 of January the Lord Marquis was sent from the Lord Mayor’s house to the Tower of London by the Sword-bearer, and Mr. Warner was sent thither likewise by Mr. Huet’s officers, by the council’s commandment. Also, this day the gates of the city began to be warded by the citizens. The 27 of January the Lord Treasurer came to the Guildhall from the council to declare that the city should make out 500 footmen, well harnessed, to go against the rebels, whereupon a Common Council was called in the afternoon to have their assents thereunto, which they granted, and had them ready that night among the Companies of the city; which was put off till the morrow. And the 28 of January, being Sunday, the said 500 men were assembled at Leadenhall, and there delivered to the Captains, and sent by water to Gravesend. The Lo. Warner, being Captain of one hundred, with other-captains for every 100 men, appointed by the Council. The 29 of January the Duke of Norfolk, with the Captain of the guard that were sent from the Queen, with certain other soldiers and yeomen of the guard, with the captains and soldiers that went out of the city, offered to assault Rochester Castle 1 D.M.Loades, Two Tudor Conspiracies (Cambridge, 1965) is a detailed study of Wyatt’s rebellion in 1554, and the Dudley Conspiracy of 1556, based on the Wyatt MSS. and other original sources.

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where the traitor Wyatt and his rebels lay, and the captains of the city with their soldiers fled to the rebels over Rochester Bridge and drew up the bridge, so that the Duke was fain to fly, and then the rebels took the Queen’s ordnance and treasure. The 30th of January Wyatt removed with his rebels from Rochester and came to Blackheath, and there camped with the Queen’s ordnance and lay in the town of Greenwich and there about. This day also ordnance was laid at every gate of the city. The 31 January Wyatt removed to Greenwich and Deptford with his camp. The first day of February a proclamation was made in the city of London with an herald, a trumpet, and the Common Crier, the knight marshal riding with them; which was the traitor the Duke of Suffolk, which was fled westward, was discomforted, and his horesmen and baggage taken, and he and his two brethren fled in servingmen’s coats. And also that Peter Carew and his uncle Gawain Carew and Gibbes were fled into France, and that certain of their adherents were taken and kept in Exeter. And, further, that whosoever should take the traitor Wyatt should have a 100.l. lands to him and his heirs for ever. The same day in the afternoon, being Candlemas Even, all the Commons of the City were assembled in their liveries at the Guildhall. The Queen’s Majesty, with her Lords and Ladies riding from Westminster to the said Guildhall, came thither by 3 of the clock the same afternoon. First she went up to the Council Chamber, where the Aldermen use to sit, and there paused a little, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen receiving her Majesty at the steps, going up to the Mayor’s Court. Then her Majesty came down into the great hall up into the place of the hustings, where was hanged a rich cloth of estate, she, standing under it, with her own mouth declared to the audience there assembled the wicked pretence of the traitor Wyatt, which was utterly to deprive her of her crown, and to spoil the City; which was so nobly and with so good spirit declared, and with so loud a voice, that all the people might hear her Majesty, and comforting their hearts with so sweet words that made them weep for joy to hear her Majesty speak. This done she came down and went up again into the Council Chamber and drank, and then departed and rode through Bucklersbury to the Crane in the Vintry, and there took her barge, and so to Westminster by water. The 2 of February, being Candlemas day, the citizens made preparation for a 1000 men of the householders of the said City, well harnessed, to defend the City, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen every one in his ward taking the muster of them. Wherefore, this day the going to Paul’s in the afternoon was left; and also that day the Lord Mayor’s officers served him at dinner in harness. The 3 day of February, being Saturday, in the afternoon, the traitor Wyatt with his rebels came into Southwark, and there trenched at the bridge foot, and set two pieces of ordnance against the gate at London Bridge. And then came the Lord William Howard, Lord Admiral, to the Lord Mayor, with a commission from the Queen, and made a proclamation against the said Wyatt, and that the Queen had sent him to be Captain General, with the Lord Mayor, for the defence of the City, declaring to the citizens that he would die in the defence of it. And that night the said Lord Admiral watched the bridge with 300 men, and brake the drawbridge, and set rampeers with great ordnance there.

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Sunday the 4 of February the Lord Admiral made strong defence on the bridge and warded with 300 of the citizens with him all the day till 8 of the clock at night; and then relieved them with other 300 men to ward all the night, and by 5 in the morning other 300 fresh men came to relieve them, and every morning and evening fresh relief was set. The 6 of February, being Shrove Tuesday, afore six of the clock in the morning, Wyatt with his rebels went out of Southwark, and went to Kingston, over the bridge, and came toward Brentford; and that afternoon were 2 men hanged on a gibbet, in Paul’s Churchyard, by martial law, one being the Duke of Suffolk’s servant a rich man, and undersheriff of Leicester, and the other a baker, one of the rebels. Also the same day tidings came that the Duke of Suffolk and his brother were taken by the Earl of Huntingdon. And that day also the Lord Cobham and Harper were committed to the Tower. The 7th. of February, being Ash-Wednesday, early in the morning, the Earl of Pembroke, Lieutenant of the Queen’s army, with the horsemen and footmen of the noblemen, gathered their armies together with the Queen’s ordnance, and pitched their field by St. James beyond Charing Cross, to abide the said traitor Wyatt and his rebels. The Lord Mayor and the Lord Admiral set the citizens in good array at Ludgate, Newgate, and from Cripplegate to Bishopsgate, lest the rebels would draw to Finsbury field, they to defend that side. Then Wyatt with his rebels came to the park pale by St. James about 2 of the clock in the afternoon, and Knevett, one of his captains with his rebels went by Tothill, through Westminster, and shot at the Court gates. But Wyatt, perceiving the great army of the Queen’s camp, and ordnance bent against him, suddenly returned by the wall of the park at St. James, towards Charing Cross, with the lightest of his soldiers, where the Earl of Pembroke’s men cut offhis train and slew divers of the rebels; but Wyatt himself with divers other came in at Temple Bar, and so through Fleet Street to the Bell Savage, crying “a Wyatt! a Wyatt! God save Queen Mary!” But when he saw that Ludgate was shut against him, and the ordnance bent, he fled back again saying, “I have kept touch”; and by Temple Bar was taken, with the lord Cobham’s son, and other of his captains and rebels, and brought to the court gate, and from thence sent by water to the Tower of London. And then all the Queen’s host came through London in goodly array, and Te Deum was sung in the Queen’s Chapel for joy of said victory, and so few slain. The 10th, of February the Lord Mayor with other justices sat on the rebels by commission of Oyer and determiner at the justice hall in the Old Bailey, where that day were condemned of treason 82 persons of Kent and other places; and 32 were condemned to be drawn, hanged, and quartered. Also the same day in the afternoon the Duke of Suffolk, which was taken in Leicestershire, was brought through the City of London by the Earl of Huntingdon, and one of his brethren with 200 light horsemen, and so had to the Tower. The 12 of February was beheaded at the Tower hill. And Lady Jane his wife was immediately after his death beheaded within the Tower upon the green. The 14 of February divers of the rebels were put to death, that is to say, Bothe, one

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of the Queen’s footmen, one Vicars, a Yeoman of the Guard, great John Norton, and one King, were hanged at Charing Cross. And three of the rebels, one called Pollard, were hanged at the park pale by Hyde Park; three also in Fleet Street, one at Ludgate, one at Bishopsgate, one at Newgate, one at Aldgate, three at the Cross in Cheap, three at Soper Lane end in Cheap, and three in Smithfield, which persons hanged still all that day and night till the next morning, and then cut down. And the bodies of them that were hanged at the gates were quartered at Newgate, and the heads and bodies hanged over the gates where they suffered. The 15 of February were hanged of the rebels 3 against St. Magnus Church, 3 at Billingsgate, 3 at Leadenhall, one at Moorgate, one at Cripplegate, one at Aldersgate, two at Paul’s, 3 in Holborn, 3 at Tower Hill, 2 at Tyburn, and at 4 places in Southwark 14. And divers others were executed at Kingston and other places. Also this day about 9 of the clock in the forenoon was seen in London in the midst of the Element a rainbow like fire, the ends upward, and two suns, by the space of an hour and a half. The 17 of February the Duke of Suffolk was arraigned at Westminster and there condemned of treason. The same day a proclamation was made in London for strangers, not being denizens and merchants known, using the trade of merchandise, should depart and avoid the realm within 24 days after this proclamation, upon pain to forfeit all their goods movable, and also upon pain of imprisonment. The 18 of February Bright, one of the captains of the Londoners that fled to Wyatt, and 22 persons more of the Kentish men were delivered to the sheriff of Kent, to be executed in divers places in Kent appointed by the Queen’s Council. The 22 of February certain of the rebels which lay in Newgate, both of the Counters, the King’s Bench, the Marshalsea, and Westminster, to the number of 400 and more, were led to Westminster to the Court, coupled together with collars and halters about their necks, and there in the Tiltyard kneeled afore the Queen looking out at the gallery by the gate, and cried for mercy, who most graciously gave to them their pardon. Friday, the 23 of February Lord Gray, Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded at the Tower Hill. The first day of March, the parsons and curates of the City of London that were wedded were cited to appear in the Consistory in Paul’s afore the Bishop of London’s commissioners, and there deprived from their benefices. And those that were and had been religious men were deprived both from their wives and benefices also. The 9 of March one Fermer, a woodmonger, was set on the pillory in Cheap with 4 billets hanging at his shoulders, 2 before him and 2 behind him, for buying wood at 8.s.4.d. the thousand and selling it again for 18.s. the thousand, which penance was enjoined him by a Court of Aldermen the 8 of March. The 15 March Wyatt, captain of the rebels, was arraigned at Westminster and there condemned of high treason. And the same day the Earl of Devonshire was committed again to the Tower. The 18 of March, being Palm Sunday, the Lady Elizabeth was had to the Tower

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from Westminster by water privily, after the Queen had gone a procession, which was about 10 of the clock in the forenoon. The same Palm Sunday the old service after the use of Sarum in Latin was begun again and kept in Paul’s and other parishes within the City of London, with also bearing of Palms, and creeping to the Cross on Good Friday, with the Sepulchre lights and the Resurrection on Easter Day. Also the Scriptures written on roodlofts and about the churches in London, with the arms of England was washed out against the feast of Easter in most parts of all the parish churches of the diocese of London. And Dr. Feckenham was made Dean of Paul’s, and Dr. May put out, and the sacrament of the altar hanged or set on the altar in every parish church. The first day of April was consecrated in Southwark six new bishops after the old sort, the Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester singing the mass, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Durham assisting him. Monday the 2 of April, 1554, the Parliament began at Westminster, which should have been kept at Oxford, the Queen’s Majesty riding in her parliament robes from her palace of Whitehall to St. Peter’s church with all her lords spiritual and temporal in their robes, and there heard mass of the Holy Ghost and a sermon. And that afternoon the Common House did choose Mr. Robert Brooke, esquire, and serjeant at law and Recorder of London, for their speaker in this parliament. Sunday the 8 of April was a villainous fact done in Cheap early or day1. A dead cat having a cloth like a vestment of the priest at mass with a cross on it afore, and another behind put on it; the crown of the cat shorn, a piece of paper like a singing cake out between the forefeet of the said cat bound together, which cat was hanged on the post of the gallows in Cheap beyond the Cross in the parish of St. Matthew, and a bottle hanged by it; which cat was taken down at 6 of the clock in the morning and carried to the Bishop of London, and he caused it to be shewed openly in the sermon time at Paul’s Cross in the sight of all the audience there present. The Lord Mayor, with his brethren the aldermen of the City of London, caused a proclamation to be made that afternoon that whosoever could utter or shew the author of the said fact should have £6.13.s.4.d. for his pains, and a better reward, with hearty thanks. But at that time, after much enquiry and search made, it could not be known, but divers persons were had to prison for suspicions of it. The 11th day of April Sir Thomas Wyatt, chief captain of the late rebellion in Kent, was beheaded at Tower Hill at nine of the clock in the forenoon, and his body after quartered on the scaffold. His head was set on the gallows at the park pale beyond St. James, where Pollard and two other were hanged in chains. And his four quarters were hanged on gibbets in chains at four several places without the Liberties of the City. 1

Before daybreak.

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3. Select passages from Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia The significance of Polydore Vergil’s contribution to English historical writing has already been discussed. The following passages are typical of his methods. In the first he describes the steps by which Henry VII established his authority after his victory at Bosworth Field, with a digression on the outbreak of the sweating sickness. The second passage describes the change which came over Henry’s domestic policy after 1502.

(i) Henry VII’s policy after Bosworth Field (Anglica Historia, ed. D.Hay, 2–12)

I

n the previous book we have recounted Richard’s actions after the death of Edward, the defection of the nobles, and, further, his own death. Now we shall set out at length what followed afterwards. Henry, the master of events, determined from the beginning of his reign to wipe out sedition. So, before he left Leicester, he sent Robert Willoughby into Yorkshire to bring in Edward, earl of Warwick, the only surviving son of George, duke of Clarence, a lad of fifteen, whom Richard had up to then detained in a fortress called Sheriff Hutton. For, indeed, Henry feared that if this lad were to escape, at some time or another, owing to a change in circumstances he might stir up other troubles, for he was not unaware of the habits of the mob, which is always keen for change. Reaching the fortress without delay, Robert received the lad from the governor of the place and brought him to London, where the wretched boy, born to trouble, remained in the Tower until his death, as will be told elsewhere. In the same fortress was the lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of King Edward, whom Richard had kept safely with the idea of making her his wife. This the young woman utterly loathed, and for this reason weighed down by her sorrow she daily mourned saying, “I will not be thus married, but miserable creature that I am, I will rather endure the torments which, so they say, St. Catherine bore for love of Christ, than be joined to a man who is the enemy of my family.” This young woman, too, was brought to her mother in London, attended by noblewomen. Meanwhile, Henry set out for London, like an emperor on triumph, receiving wherever he went the greatest rejoicing from everyone. For everywhere the people lined the roads to greet him as king, and filled his journey all the way with groaning tables and overflowing cups, so that the weary conquerors might refresh themselves. And when he drew near to the capital, the chief magistrate, known as the “Mayor”, and all the citizens came out to meet him and ceremoniously accompanied him as he entered the city, trumpeters leading the way with the spoils of the enemy and sounding martial airs. Thus Henry came into his kingdom after his labours, welcomed by everyone. And afterwards, he called a parliament, according to custom, in which he might receive the crown of the kingdom by popular assent. His first care was to arrange affairs of the state well, and in order that the English people should not be further torn by rival parties, he publicly proclaimed that (as he had already promised) he would take to wife Elizabeth, the daughter of King Edward, and that he would give complete pardon and forgiveness to all who swore obedience to his name. And so, at last, having won the goodwill of all men, he was made King by the will of the nobles and the people, on the 31 October, at Westminster, and he was called Henry, the seventh of that name. These things took place in the year 1486 after the birth of our Saviour.

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Thus Henry gained the kingdom of England, an event which had been foretold centuries earlier, and also soon after his birth. For 797 years before, there appeared one night to Cadwallader, the last king of the Britons (as we have recorded in the third book of this history) a spirit of some kind with a divine appearance. It prophesied that long afterwards it would come to pass that his descendants would recover the country. That prophecy, men say, was fulfilled in Henry, who traced his descent back to Cadwallader. Henry VI made the same prediction to Henry when he was a lad (as we have mentioned in the life of Edward). But we must get back to our task. Immediately afterwards the king created his uncle Jasper, to whom he owed much, duke of Bedford: Thomas Stanley he made earl of Derby, Giles Daubeney lord Daubeney, Robert Willoughby lord of Broke; and many others he made lords. To others he restored their rank and estates. Upon others he bestowed office or preferment, or gave them grants of money according to what he thought they deserved. Further he ransomed and summoned home Thomas, marquis of Dorset and John Bourchier, lord Fenewary, who (as we have related in the life of Richard) had been left behind at Paris as sureties or guarantees for the money which had been advanced there as a loan. At the same time he called to his side John Morton, Bishop of Ely, from Flanders. To his mother Margaret, a most worthy woman whom none can ever praise too greatly or too often for her commonsense and holy life, Henry allotted a part of his private and public resources, whereby he lightened her old age. Also, he was the first English king to appoint retainers to the number of about two hundred as a bodyguard: these he made part of his household so that they should never leave his side, in this copying the French kings so that henceforth he might be the better protected from treachery. When he had done these things the king straightway granted his pardon for all past offences to all regardless of party provided they swore allegiance to him, thus deserving well both of friends and enemies. Then he took to wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward, a woman shrewd indeed above all others, and at the same time, beautiful. This must be regarded as the work of providence, for by this union all the causes of the two most deadly factions were completely destroyed, whereby the two houses of Lancaster and York became one, and from it sprang the true and established royal line which now reigns. In the same year immediately after Henry’s landing in this island, a new type of sickness swept the whole country: a dreadful affliction which no previous age had experienced. For suddenly a deadly sweating attacked the body, and at the same time head and stomach were in pain owing to the violence of the sweating. When attacked by the disease some could not bear the heat and threw off the bedclothes if they were in bed, or took off their clothes if they were dressed: other slaked their thirst with cold drinks, while others put up with the heat and the smell (for the sweat stank foully) and by adding more bedclothes increased the sweating. But all alike died (either as soon as they had begun to sweat or not long after), so that of all those infected scarcely one in a hundred escaped death. And those who survived for twenty-four hours after the sweating ended (for such was the period when the fever raged) were not then rid of it, since they continually relapsed and many thereby perished. At last, however, the disease itself revealed the cure. For those who had the sweat once, when they had another

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attack, took notice of what had relieved the first attack, and used these as a cure, each time adding something useful to the remedy. So those who fell victims to the disease a third time learnt how to cure themselves and easily escaped the full force of the sweat thereby profiting from their previous experience. Thus it came about (although after a terrible mortality) that an effective remedy was discovered for everyone, and it was this: anyone attacked by the sweat in the daytime should go to bed dressed just as he is: if he begins to sweat at night while he lies in bed, he should keep quiet and not get out of bed for exactly twenty-four hours. Meanwhile he should keep himself well covered not in order to bring on the sweat, but so as to perspire gently and naturally. He should take nothing to eat if he can put up with hunger for so long, but may drink enough of his usual drink warmed as will quench his thirst. In this treatment care should above all be taken that not even an arm is exposed outside the bedclothes to get cool, for this is fatal. This remedy was discovered for the new sickness by which England was gravely stricken at that time and by which it is again somewhat troubled today. It certainly ought not to pass unnoticed that this disease, hitherto unknown, only began to rage at the opening of Henry’s reign: although shortly afterwards it died down, it flared up again at the end of his reign, four years ago: and still continues, but it is fatal to none save those who neglect to carry out the cure. It was popularly supposed to be a warning of the severity Henry would employ in governing. But maybe the sweating sickness portended something else: namely that Henry would only rule by the sweat of his brow, because that certainly was true. For from the very start of his reign he began to be harassed by the treachery of his opponents and, frequently attacked thereafter by the forces of his enemies and the rebellions of his own subjects, he did not escape dangers without effort. But let us return whence we digressed. After Henry had well ordered all his affairs in London he set out for York to keep in control the people of the north, wild and readier than others for rebellion. He broke journey at Lincoln, where he kept the feast of Easter. While he lingered there, he was informed that Francis lord Lovell, together with Humphrey Stafford, had gone out of sanctuary at Colchester but none could say for certain where they had gone. Making light of the matter the king set out for York according to plan. But no sooner was he there than the whole city was suddenly full of the news that Francis Lovell had collected a large force in Yorkshire itself, a little beyond the castle of Middleham, to march with hostile intent on the city itself, and further that Humphrey Stafford was provoking a major rebellion in Gloucestershire. At first, as the news lacked confirmation, the king was not greatly disturbed, but when he learned from the letters of his own servants that what at first had been rumour was indeed true, he was greatly troubled, for he had neither an army nor arms ready for his followers, and he did not know where he could get together a reliable force at that time in a town not conspicuously loyal to himself, which up to then had cherished the name of king Richard. But since speedy action was essential for fear of giving his opponents the chance to increase their numbers, he sent against his enemies his whole retinue, including his own bodyguard, a total force of 3,000 men, though ill equipped, for the greater part had made shields for themselves out of leather. Meanwhile he scraped together soldiers from every possible source. The

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extemporised force which had been sent forward speedily advanced until they approached the camp of the enemy where they forthwith announced the royal terms: that the king would freely grant his pardon to those who would lay down their arms. This proved to be the king’s salvation. For Francis, whether he had less faith in his troops because of this, or because his lack of purpose brought on a vain fear, fled by night secretly from his men. When the flight of their leader was known, they all without delay submitted themselves to the king’s power. Francis, who had not attempted a fight owing to his lack of courage betook himself with all speed into the district or county of Lancaster, and turned to Thomas Broughton, a knight of great authority in those parts, with whom he hid for some months. Humphrey, frightened by the flight of Francis, fled from his troops to the sanctuary called Culham, not far from the place called Abingdon. But since this sanctuary does not protect those accused of lèse-majesté, Humphrey was taken out from there and beheaded: but his brother Thomas sued a pardon. When he had thus subdued these rebellions which had filled his heart with great fear, and after he had cleared up all matters among the northern folk, the king returned to London. From there he went in a few days to Winchester where Queen Elizabeth, his wife, gave birth to a son whom he named Arthur. Shortly afterwards he returned to London.

(ii) The Cornish Revolt, 1498 (Ibid. 90–103)

When King Henry learnt that King James had entered his territory and that the English nobles in the north parts remained loyal, he cancelled the preparations he had begun to meet the impending threat. But in order to prevent the enemy from being encouraged by their evil deed, he decided to avenge his injury by arms, invading Scotland with a force sufficient to punish that country and its subjects for the crimes which had been committed. So, having summoned a meeting of nobles, he told them his plans, and with many arguments urged the need to continue the war begun by the enemy. It was agreed by all the nobles, who no less than himself, were infuriated by such effrontery of the Scots that war should be waged, and that it should be financed by a general tax. Thereupon the king, with the support of all, ordered the people to pay a tax assessed on every individual, and then, having dismissed the council, he prepared anew for war. Meanwhile, the Scottish king, seeing that the English would not remain inactive for long, prepared his own forces with no less energy so that he could either march against the enemy and hold them up, or else he might enter England again on a plundering raid. So now the kings were under arms. But King Henry, stung by the wrongs done to him, was so furious against the Scots that he had ready a most formidable army long before them. This he ordered to take the field against Scotland under the leadership of Giles Daubeney. Giles, delighted to have under his command troops as mature in age as they were experienced in all kinds of arms, was all ready to set out on a major campaign over the border, when suddenly there broke out at home, where it might least have been expected, a very serious rebellion.

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For the men of Cornwall, who live in a part of the island as small in area as it is poor in resources, began to complain that they could not carry the burden of taxation imposed for the Scottish war. First, they accused the king, grumbling at the cruelty and malice of his counsellors: then they began to get completely out of hand, threatening the authors of this great oppression with death, and daring to seek them out for punishment. While the people were thus in a ferment, two men out of the scum of the people, namely Thomas Flammock, a lawyer, and Michael Joseph, a blacksmith, two bold rascals, put themselves at the head of the rising. When they saw that the mob was aroused they kept on shouting that it was a scandalous crime that the king in order to make a small expedition against the Scots, should burden with taxes the wretched men of Cornwall, who either cultivated a barren soil, or with difficulty sought a living by digging tin, that is, white and black lead, of which a great quantity is found in that region, from the bowels of the earth. They put the blame especially on John Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, and Reginald Bray, and some other counsellors. And so they urged the people that having promptly taken up arms they should not hesitate to follow their leaders, promising that from then on no taxes should be paid, and that the people should for retribution drag to execution these particular evil counsellors who were plotting against the poor. Spurred on by such talk the people took these two men as their leaders, and pledged themselves to follow them wherever they might lead. Praising this decision of the people, their leaders prepared to march, leading the disorderly mob towards Wells, on the road to London, where they had heard the king was. When this news reached the king, he was moved by sorrow and anxiety that simultaneously he should be suddenly confronted by a double attack, that is, by a foreign and a civil war. And since the danger seemed equally menacing from each direction, he was for some time uncertain which he should deal with first. Meanwhile, he learnt that James Touchet, lord Audley, and some other nobles had joined the Cornishmen, and were speedily marching on London. Realizing then that civil war was already upon him, Henry decided to turn all his forces against it, so that once the rebellion was quashed he could the more effectively deal with the Scottish business. So he recalled Giles Daubeney, who was marching against the Scots with his army, and having levied fresh troops, he increased Giles’ forces. Also, in case the Scots should learn that he was fully engaged in dealing with a rebellion of his subjects at that time, and might be the more daring in raiding the English border, he sent Thomas, earl of Surrey, into the county of Durham to gather together a band of soldiers there, with which, together with some of the nobles of the district, he could keep back the enemy from the border until Henry could send Giles and his army back to the north after he had repressed the Cornish fury, which the king thought could be easily done. During this time Charles, king of France, returned from his Neapolitan expedition, sent an embassy to Henry in order to tell him about his doings in Italy, and to conclude other business designed to preserve peaceful relations: for Charles, involved as he was with his Italian projects, was particularly anxious to remain for ever at peace with England. When he heard that the ambassadors had arrived at Calais, Henry sent Christopher Urswick to meet them on their way to Dover, to hold them there until the

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rebellion had been suppressed, and to take steps to prevent them from hearing anything about the affair. All this Christopher diligently carried out. In the meantime the Cornishmen had left Wells, where they had accepted with enthusiasm James, lord Audley, as their leader, and first came to Salisbury, then Winchester, and finally turned towards Kent, hoping to link up with the Kentish mob. They were, however, unsuccessful in this, for the Kentish men were not keen on rebellion, remembering only too well that their fathers had often paid the penalty for such rashness. This failure so cooled the enthusiasm of the cowardly Cornish mob that soon afterwards a goodly number of them secretly deserted the ranks and returned to their homes by night. When the leaders of the band saw that the Kentish men would not rise, they marshalled their forces and led the whole mob to a hill about four miles from London, called commonly Blackheath. They pitched their camp on the wide plain there, and prepared for a battle so that they could either resist the king if he came against them, or else could attack the city. For they judged that the king must have been overwhelmed by fear since so far he had not opposed their progress, therefore they had no qualms, they were so full of confidence about attacking the city, believing as they did that the king had shut himself in there. Throughout the king acted with great prudence. He decided not to go out to meet the approaching mob, but to cut them off and surround them suddenly with troops in some place where, far from their homes, and weary from their march, the rebels had no hope of reinforcements, and when their enthusiasm had cooled and they regretted their rashness. This he soon did. Meanwhile, there was great alarm in the city. There was a general call to arms, the gates were manned, guards and sentries were posted everywhere for fear lest by any chance that rascally host suddenly descending on the city to despoil it of its wealth should attempt to force an entry without effort or danger. But the king at once calmed the panic, for when he learnt that the Cornishmen were drawn up on the nearby hill determined to fight, he sent at once a large force of archers and horsemen to move behind the hill, so that when all ways were blocked, the wretched mob would be without any hope of safety. Afterwards, when his army had been posted, the king himself left London and marched towards the hill. Giles Daubeney with the vanguard went ahead, and began to engage the rebels. The cowardly and badly armed mob could not stand up to the attack: at the first onslaught and tumult their ranks were pierced. Then, when their line everywhere broke up, all of them turned tail. Some, terror-stricken, sought safety in flight, others laid down their arms and surrendered. Thus, while many were killed, the number of prisoners was very great. All the leaders were taken, one of whom, that is to say, James, lord Audley, was beheaded since he was a nobleman. The other two, Thomas Flammock and Michael Joseph, the blacksmith, were hanged. The other captives had their lives spared out of consideration for their rustic simplicity. Later the king would have ordered that the dismembered corpses of Thomas Flammock and Michael Joseph should be displayed in various places throughout Cornwall, in order that the penalties for treason might be more widely known and seen: but when he heard that those who had stayed at home were not cowed by the catastrophe which had befallen their fellows, but were still keen to begin a rebellion if they were roused in any way, Henry changed his mind

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for fear he might embarrass himself with even greater burdens at a time when he considered it enough to end civil strife so as to be able to undertake the Scottish campaign more readily, and was satisfied that the matter had been so successfully settled for the time being. While the English were taken up with these affairs news reached James, king of Scots, that no English army had been prepared against him, and that king Henry and some nobles with the men of Cornwall were waging civil war amongst themselves. James, thinking a splendid chance had been provided for a successful operation, once again hurriedly invaded the English border territory, laying waste everything with slaughter, fire, and pillage. While part of his forces laid waste the county of Durham James himself, with the rest of his forces began a siege of the strongest castle on the Anglo-Scottish border, called locally Norham, which belongs to the bishop of Durham. Shortly before the Scottish attack Richard Fox, bishop of Durham, had provided the castle with a strong guard, for he had anticipated that once the Scottish king heard of the rising in England he would break through the English borders on a sudden raid. This same Richard, whom we mentioned above as bishop of Exeter was later, on account of his great loyalty, honesty, and discretion called to the see of Bath and Wells, and was afterwards translated from that see to Durham. He at once, by frequent messengers, informed the king (who was then in London) of everything that had happened. Other messengers he sent to summon as quickly as possible Thomas, earl of Surrey, who had collected a strong force in Yorkshire, to come by forced marches to the relief of Norham. Thomas, realizing the urgency, went quickly, as did the other magnates of the region, each of them collecting, according to his resources, a small or large band of troops. In the meantime the Scots, after spending many days besieging the castle and incurring great losses without breaching the fortifications, decided of their own will to withdraw. When, shortly afterwards, they discovered that earl Thomas was drawing near with his troops, and that the English were gathering around in various places, they raised the siege and withdrew into Scotland, taking with them as much loot as they could. When Thomas heard of the flight of the enemy he invaded Scotland in pursuit, and laid waste the land. Since, however, he could nowhere come upon the enemy, and owing to the speed with which he had made his pursuit, he had not taken with him provisions for more than a few days, he was forced, as a result, to return in haste to Durham county. Pitching his camp there he decided to await a more favourable chance to get to grips with the enemy. In the middle of these events Pedro de Ayala, a man not learned, but very clever, and extremely discreet, came to Scotland, sent by Ferdinand, king of Spain to king James, to negotiate a peace between the kings of England and Scotland. For Ferdinand and his wife Isabella, a most remarkable woman of our time, whose virtues will ever be the admiration of posterity, had the most friendly feelings towards king Henry, wishing him well, and anxious to make a marriage alliance with him. They had in their family a marriageable daughter Catherine, whom they sought to marry to Henry’s elder son, Arthur, shortly before this created Prince of Wales. Ferdinand therefore was all the more willing to put himself forward to each king as a peacemaker. Pedro at once began

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to discuss peace terms with king James: and when he discovered that the king was not unfavourably inclined, he wrote at once to king Henry suggesting that he should entrust the task of making peace to one of his subjects, with whom he might negotiate the terms for a treaty with the Scottish king. Henry was a lover of peace so long as it could be gained without disadvantage to himself, and he particularly wanted it at this time when he was troubled by sedition amongst his subjects. He at once entrusted the negotiations to Richard, bishop of Durham, to whom he usually left the conduct of all his affairs. So Richard and Pedro as an impartial mediator met the Scottish envoys and proceeded to discuss the business of a treaty. After long discussions it was found impossible to agree upon any peace terms. This was because king Henry insisted that Peter Warbeck should be handed over to him. On the other hand, king James specially urged that he could not hand Peter over into the hands of his enemy: although James was at last beginning to be aware of Margaret’s deceit, but because he was related to the young man by marriage he deemed it dishonourable to deliver him up to his death. At last, after many days of discussion, a treaty of lasting friendship was agreed, which they preferred to call a truce for a period of years. Among other clauses in this treaty or truce the most important clause was that James should expel Peter Warbeck from his kingdom. And so peace was established between the two kings. While these negotiations were being carried on in the north Henry in the meantime received in London the ambassadors of king Charles whom we have described above as being deliberately held up at Dover lest the upheaval in the country should reach their ears. Henry congratulated them on the safe return of Charles, and shortly afterwards dismissed them, giving them rich gifts. Henry also received with courtesy the ambassadors of the archduke Philip sent to him at the same time, or a little earlier or later, to negotiate a treaty, and after long discussions with them a treaty of perpetual friendship was made with Philip. Having thus established friendly relations with neighbouring princes Henry then wrote to king Ferdinand, sending him his most sincere thanks for acting as intermediary for peace between him and the Scottish king. Pedro de Ayala, Ferdinand’s envoy, was indeed considered so deserving that he was first presented with many gifts, and then promoted to several valuable ecclesiastical preferments in England. These agreements between the kings were arrived at in that year which was 1498, after the birth of our Saviour, and the twelfth from the beginning of Henry’s reign.

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4. Lord Berners on the study of history (From his translation of Froissart’s Chronicles, 1523–25) An important influence upon historical writing during this period came from the translations of medieval works done by Lord Berners. John Bourchier, second Lord Berners (1467–1533), was one of the more cultured members of Henry VIII’s court during the early years of that king’s reign. In September 1520 he was made Deputy of Calais, and for the rest of his life was actively engaged there in strengthening the defences of the town. His leisure was given up to literary pursuits. Chief among his preferences was the reading of histories. Between 1523 and 1525 he published his translation of Sir John Froissart’s brilliant chronicles of the early years of the Hundred Years War. According to Berners’ own account this work was undertaken at the suggestion of Henry VIII himself, to whom, indeed, the work is dedicated. As a translation of Froissart’s text Berners’ work won its popularity not so much as a faithful rendering of the original (it was, indeed, a very free translation), as for its rendering into clear, idiomatic English of the ideals of chivalry which made a powerful appeal to Henry VIII and his contemporaries, since it reflected that cult of the tournament and the theatrical side of an idealized chivalry which was a lively part of court fashions in these years. There was, too, a more political consideration. At a time when Henry VIII, constantly reminded as he was by his “style” that he was king of France, was seriously considering the chances of the reconquest of that country, it was useful for him to have in print a work which recalled to Englishmen the great days of the fourteenth century, and fixed in their minds the brilliant achievements of the English armies at Crécy and Poitiers. On another plane, top, this work made an appeal to intellectuals. Together with Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, it acted as a stimulus for the growth of interest in antiquarian studies, such as were exemplified in the works of a Leland, a Stow, or a Camden, and aroused a taste for historical writing which is reflected in the writings of Fabyan, Hall, Holinshed, and other chroniclers of the period. The following example of Berners’ writing is the Preface to his translation of Froissart’s Chronicles. The standard text is that edited by W.P.Ker, Tudor Translations, 6 vols., 1901–3: repr. in 8 vols., Oxford, 1927–28. Other translations of romances of chivalry by Berners include Huon of Burdeux, a Carolingian romance in French prose, (ed.) S.Lee, E.E.T.S., 4 pts., 1882– 87; modernized R.Steele, 1895: Arthur of lytell Brytayne, (ed.) E.V.Utterson, 1814.

W.P.Ker (ed.). Berners’ Froissart. Preface

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hat condign graces and thanks ought men to give to the writers of histories, who with their great labours have done so much profit to the human life. They show, open, manifest and declare to the reader, by example of old antiquity, what we should enquire, desire and follow, and also what we should eschew, avoid, and utterly fly: for when we, being unexpert of chances, see, behold, and read the ancient acts gests and deeds, how and with what labours, dangers and perils they were gested and done, they right greatly admonish, ensign and teach us how we may lead forth our lives. And farther he that hath the perfect knowledge of others’joy, wealth and high prosperity, and also trouble, sorrow, and great adversity, hath the expert doctrine of all perils. And albeit that mortal folk are marvellously separated, both by land and water, and right wondrously situate, yet are they and their acts done per-adventure by the space of a thousand year, compact together by the historiographier, as it were the deeds of one self city and in one man’s life. Wherefore I say that history may well be called a divine providence; for as the celestial bodies above complect all and at every time the universal world, the creatures therein contained and all their deeds, semblably so doth history. Is it not a right noble thing for us by the faults and errors of other to amend and erect our

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life into better? We should not seek and acquire that others did, but what thing was most best, laudable and worthily done, we should put before our eyes to follow. Be not the sage counsels of two or three old fathers in a city, town or country, whom long age hath made wise, discreet and prudent, far more praised, lauded and dearly loved than of the young men? How much more then ought histories to be commended, praised and loved, in whom is included so many sage counsels, great reasons, and high wisdoms of so innumerable persons of sundry nations and of every age, and that in so long space as four or five hundred year. The most profitable thing in this world for the institution of the human life is history. One, the continual reading thereof maketh young men equal in prudence to old men, and to old fathers stricken in age it ministereth experience of things. More, it yieldeth private persons worthy of dignity, rule and governance: it compelleth the emperors, high rulers and governors to do noble deeds to the end they may obtain immortal glory: it exciteth, moveth and stirreth the strong, hardy warriors for the great laud that they have after they be dead, promptly to go in hand with great and hard perils in defence of their country. And it prohibiteth reprovable persons to do mischievous deeds for fear of infamy and shame. So thus through the monuments of writing, which is the testimony unto virtue, many men have been moved, some to build cities, some to devise and establish laws right profitable, necessary and behoveful for the human life, some other to find new arts, crafts, and sciences, very requisite to the use of mankind. But above all things whereby man’s wealth riseth, special laud and cause ought to be given to history: it is the keeper of such things as have been virtuously done, and the witness of evil deeds; and by the benefit of history all noble, high and virtuous acts be immortal. What moved the strong and fierce Hercules to enterprise in his life so many great incomparable labours and perils? Certainly nought else but that for his merit immortality might be given to him of all folk. In semblablewise did his imitator, noble duke Theseus, and many other innumerable worthy princes and famous men whose virtues be redeemed from oblivion and shine by history. And whereas other monuments in process of time by variable chances are confused and lost, the virtue of history diffused and spread through the universal world hath to her custos and keeper it (that is to say, time) which consumeth the other writings. And albeit that those men are right worthy of great laud and praise, who by their writings show and lead us the way to virtue, yet nevertheless the poems, laws and other acts that they found devised and writ be mixed with some damage, and sometime for the truth they ensign a man to lie. But only history, truly with words representing the acts, gests and deeds done, complecteth all profit. It moveth, stirreth and compelleth to honesty; detesteth, irketh and abhorreth vices. It extolleth, enhanceth and lifteth up such as be noble and virtuous; depresseth, poistereth and thrusteth down such as be wicked, evil and reprovable. What knowledge should we have of ancient things past an history were not, which is the testimony thereof, the light of truth, the master of the life human, the president of remembrance and the messenger of antiquity? Why moved and stirred Phalerius the King Ptolemy oft and diligently to read books? Forsooth for none other cause but that those things are found written in books that the friends dare not show to the prince.

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Much more I would fain write of the incomparable profit of history, but I fear me that I should too sore torment the reader of this my preface; and also I doubt not but that the great utility thereof is better known than I could declare; wherefore I shall briefly come to a point. Thus, when I advertised and remembered the manifold commodities of history, how beneficial it is to mortal folk, and eke how laudable and meritorious a deed it is to write histories, fixed my mind to do something therein; and ever when this imagination came to me I volved, turned, and read many volumes and books containing famous histories. And among all other I read diligently the four volumes or books of Sir John Froissart of the country of Hainault, written in the French tongue, which I judged commodious, necessary and profitable to be had in English, since they treat of the famous acts done in our parts, that is to say in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Brittany, Flanders and other places adjoining; and specially they redound to the honour of Englishmen. What pleasure shall it be to the noble gentlemen of England to see, behold, and read the high enterprises, famous acts and glorious deeds done and achieved by their valiant ancestors? Forsooth and God, this hath moved me at the high commandment of my most redoubted sovereign lord King Henry the Eighth, King of England and of France, and high defender of the Christian faith etc., under his gracious supportation to do my devoir to translate out of French into our maternal English tongue the said volumes of Sir John Froissart; which chronicle beginneth at the reign of the most noble and valiant King Edward the Third, the year of our Lord a thousand three hundred and twenty-six and continueth to the beginning of the reign of King Henry the Fourth, the year of our Lord God a thousand and four hundred: the space between is threescore and fourteen years; requiring all the readers and hearers thereof to take this my rude translation in gre. And in that I have not followed mine author word by word, yet I trust I have ensued the true report of the sentence of the matter. And as for the true naming of all manner of personages, countries, cities, towns, rivers or fields, whereas I could not name them properly or aptly in English, I have written them according as I found them in French. And though I have not given every lord, knight or squire his true addition, yet I trust I have not swerved from the true sentence of the matter. And there as I have named the distance between places by miles and leagues they must be understood according to the customs of the countries whereas they be named, for in some place they be longer than in some other. In England a league or a mile is well known. In France a league is two miles, and in some place three, and in other country is more or less: every nation hath sundry customs. And if any fault be in this my rude translation, I remit the correction thereof to them that discreetly shall find any reasonable default, and in their so doing I shall pray God to send them the bliss of heaven. Amen.

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SELECT PASSAGES FROM EDWARD HALL’S “CHRONICLE”

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5. Select passages from Edward Hall’s Chronicle Edward Hall’s account of early Tudor history is probably better known than Polydore Vergil’s historical writing. This is partly because Hall, unlike Vergil, wrote in English, in a prose style which, despite Ascham’s criticism of it, is vigorous, picturesque, and clear. While it is true that Hall was deeply influenced by Vergil’s work, following the text of the Anglica Historia so closely that in some places his own is a free translation of it, he cannot be brushed aside as a slavish copyist. Hall had his own sources of information, while through his official position in the city of London and as a member of parliament he could write with an intimate and independent knowledge of many important events. Hall’s contribution to the writing of narrative history in England is significant. His work combines some of the characteristic features of the London chronicles with a technique he must have acquired from Vergil. Something of this duality is suggested by the fact that although his history is, through long usage, referred to as a chronicle, its original title was very different. The following passages illustrate the most important features of Hall’s writing. The first and second indicate his approach to history, and his deliberate objective, which was unqualified praise of the achievements of the Tudor dynasty. The third passage is a typical example of his mastery of descriptive narrative, and his zest for reporting national and civic festivities and pageantry.

(i) Oblivion and the Historian (Hall, Chronicle, v–vii)

O

blivion the cankered enemy to Fame and renown the sucking serpent of ancient memory, the deadly dart to the glory of princes, and the defacer of all conquests and notable acts, so much bare rule in the first and second age of the world, that nothing was set out to men’s knowledge either how the world was made either how man and beasts were created, or how the world was destroyed by water till father Moses had by divine inspiration in the third age, invented letters, the treasury of memory, and set forth five notable books, to the great comfort of all people living at this day. Likewise Mercury in Egypt invented letters and writing, which Cadmus after brought into Greece. So every nation was desirous to enhance lady Fame, and to suppress that deadly beast Oblivion. For what diversity is between a noble prince and a poor beggar, ye a reasonable man and a brute beast, if after their death there be left of them no remembrance or token. So that evidently it appeareth that Fame is the triumph of glory, and memory by literature is the very dilator and setter forth of Fame. How much therefore are princes, governors, and noble men bound to them which have so lively set forth the lives and acts of their parents, that although they be dead by mortal death, yet they by writing and Fame live and be continually present. If no man had written the goodness of noble Augustus, nor the pity of merciful Trajan, how should their successors have followed their steps in virtue and princely qualities: on the contrary part, if the cruelty of Nero, the ungracious life of Caligula had not been put in remembrance, young princes and frail governors might likewise have fallen in a like pit, but by reading their vices and seeing their mischievous end, they be compelled to leave their evil ways, and embrace the good qualities of notable princes and prudent governors: thus, writing

1 The work is dedicated “To the most mighty, virtuous, and excellent prince Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Catholic faith and under God supreme head of the Churches of England and Ireland, your most humble subject Edward Halle wisheth health, honour, and felicity”.

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is the key to induce virtue, and repress vice: thus memory maketh men dead many a thousand year still to live as though they were present; thus Fame triumpheth upon death, and renown upon Oblivion, and all by reason of writing and history. Alas my sovereign lord,1 my heart lamenteth to know and remember what rule this tyrant Oblivion bare in this realm, in the time of the Britons. For from the first habitation of this land, no man of the Britons either set forth history of their beginning, or wrote the whole lives of their princes and kings, except Gildas which inveighed against the evil doings of a few tyrants and evil governors. In so much that Caesar writeth, that when he was in this realm, the people could not tell their lineage, nor their beginning. But one Geoffrey of Monmouth a thousand year and more after Julius Caesar, translated a certain British or Welsh book, containing the coming of Brute with the sequel of his lineage, till the time of Cadwalader, which British book if it had slept a little longer, Brute with all his posterity had been buried in the poke of Oblivion, for lack of writing. The strong Saxons, after they had gained this land, set up the banner of Fame, and had their lives notably written by divers and sundry famous clerks, even from their first entry into this land, till the first Monarchy, and so successively. In the Norman’s time many notable works hath been set forth, some of one prince particularly, and some of more: so that in fine, all the stories of kings, from king William the first, to king Edward the third, be set forth at length by divers authors in the Latin tongue, as by Matthew of Paris sometime religious in Saint Albans and other. After whom John Froissart wrote the lives of king Edward the third, and king Richard the second, so compendiously and so largely, that if there were not so many things spoken of in his long works, I might believe all written in his great volumes to be as true as the Gospel. But I have read an old proverb which saith, that in many words, a lie or twain soon may escape. Since the end of Froissart, which endeth at the beginning of king Henry the fourth, no man in the English tongue, hath either set forth their honours according to their deserts, nor yet declared many notable acts worthy of memory done in the time of seven kings, which after king Richard succeeded: except Robert Fabian and one without name, which wrote the common English Chronicle, men worthy to be praised for their diligence, but far shooting wide from the butt of an history. Wherefore most dread and benign sovereign lord, lest cankered Oblivion should deface the glory of these seven princes, to whom you be of all sides lineal heir and very inheritor, I have compiled and gathered (and not made) out of divers writers, as well foreign as English, this simple treatise which I have named the union of the noble houses of Lancaster and York, conjoined together by the godly marriage of your most noble grandfather, and your virtuous grandmother. For as king Henry the fourth was the beginning and root of the great discord and division: so was the godly matrimony, the final end of all dissensions, titles and debates. Beseeching your high majesty, to take this my simple and rude work, according to your accustomed goodness in good part, not regarding the thing, but my good will to my native country, whose fame for lack of writing may much be darkened and defaced, and thus I pray to the celestial Lord to send you victory over your enemies, peace with your confederates, love of your subjects: and in conclusion, perpetual joy and eternal felicity.

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(ii) The Union of the Houses of Lancaster and York (Ibid. 1–2)

What mischief hath insurged in realms by intestine division, what depopulation hath ensued in countries by civil dissension, what detestable murder hath been committed in cities by separate factions, and what calamity hath ensued in famous regions by domestical discord and unnatural controversy: Rome hath felt, Italy can testify, France can bear witness, Beame [Bohemia] can tell, Scotland may write, Denmark can shew, and especially this noble realm of England can apparently declare and make demonstration. For who abhorreth not to express the heinous facts committed in Rome, by the civil war between Julius Caesar and hardy Pompey, by whose discord the bright glory of the triumphant Rome was eclipsed and shadowed? Who can rehearse what mischiefs and what plagues the pleasant country of Italy hath tasted and suffered by the seditious factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines? Who can report the misery that daily hath ensued in France, by the discord of the houses of Burgoyne [Burgundy] and Orleans: Or in Scotland between the brother and brother, the uncle and the nephew? Who can curiously endite the manifold battles that were fought in the realm of Beame, between the catholics and the pestiferous sects of the Adamites and others? What damage dissension hath done in Germany and Denmark, all christians at this day can well declare. And the Turk can bear good testimony, which by the discord of Christian princes hath amplified greatly his seigniory and dominion. But what misery, what murder, and what execrable plagues this famous region hath suffered by the division and dissension of the renowned houses of Lancaster and York, my wit cannot comprehend nor my tongue declare neither yet my pen fully set forth. For what noble man liveth at this day, or what gentleman of any ancient stock or progeny is clear, whose lineage hath not been infested and plagued with this unnatural division. All the other discords, sects, and factions almost lively flourish and continue at this present time, to the great displeasure and prejudice of all the Christian public wealth. But the old divided controversy between the forenamed families of Lancaster and York, by the union of matrimony celebrate and consummate between the high and mighty prince king Henry the seventh and the lady Elizabeth his most worthy queen, the one being indubitate heir of the house of Lancaster, and the other of York was suspended and appalled in the person of their most noble, puissant and mighty heir king Henry the eight, and by him clearly buried and perpetually extinct. So that all men (more clearer than the sun) may apparently perceive, that as by discord great things decay and fall to ruin, so the same by concord be revived and erected. In likewise also all regions which by division and dissension be vexed, molested and troubled, be by union and agreement relieved, pacified and enriched. By union of the Godhead to the manhood, man was joined to God which before by the temptation of the subtle serpent, was from him segregate and divided. By the union of the catholic church and the outworn synagogue, not only the hard ceremonies and deadly pains of the Mosaical law were clearly abolished and made frustrate, but also Christian liberty is inferred and Christ’s religion stablished and erected. By the union

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of man and woman in the holy sacrament of matrimony the generation is blessed, and the sin of the body clean extinct and put away. By the union of marriage peace between realm and realm is exalted, and love between country and country is nourished. By conjunction of matrimony, malice is extinct, amity is embraced, and indissoluble alliance and consanguinity is procured. What profit, what comfort, what joy succeeded in the realm of England by the union of the forenamed two noble families, you shall apparently perceive by the sequel of this rude and unlearned history. And because there can be no union or agreement but in respect of a division, it is consequent to reason that I manifest to you not only the original cause and fountain of the same, but also declare the calamities, troubles, and miseries which happened and chanced during the time of the said contentious dissension. For the which you shall understand (according as it is in an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the reign of king Edward the fourth specified and declared) that the high and mighty prince king Henry the third of that name, had issue Edward his first begotten son born at Westminster the eleventh kalends of July in the vigil of Saint Mark and Marcilian in the year of our Lord a thousand two hundred twenty-nine. And Edmund his second begotten son born on the day of Saint Marcell in the year of our Lord a thousand two hundred forty-five. Which Edward after the death of king Henry his father, was entitled and called king Edward the first, and had issue his first begotten son entitled and called after the death of his father king Edward the second, which had issue the right noble and honourable prince king Edward the third which king Edward had issue Edward his first begotten son prince of Wales, William of Hatfield the second begotten son, Lionel duke of Clarence the third begotten son, John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster the fourth begotten son, Edmund of Langley duke of York the fifth begotten son, Thomas of Woodstock duke of Gloucester the sixth begotten son, and William of Windsor the seventh begotten son. The said prince Edward died in the life of his father king Edward the third and had issue Richard born at Bordeaux, which after the death of king Edward the third as cousin and heir to him, that is to say son to the said Edward prince of Wales son to the said king Edward the third succeeded him in royal estate and dignity, lawfully entitled and called king Richard the second and died without issue, Lionel duke of Clarence the third begotten son of the said king Edward the third had issue Philippa his only daughter which was married to Edmund Mortimer earl of March and had issue Roger Mortimer earl of March: which Roger had issue Edmund Mortimer earl of March, Anne, and Eleanor, which Edmund and Eleanor died without issue. And the said Anne was married to Richard earl of Cambridge, son to Edmund of Langley duke of York, the fifth begotten son of the said king Edward the third which Richard had issue the famous prince Richard Plantagenet duke of York, which had issue that noble prince king Edward the fourth, father to Queen Elizabeth united in matrimony to the high and sage prince king Henry the Seventh. John duke of Lancaster had issue Henry earl of Derby, and John earl of Somerset. This Henry earl of Derby had issue king Henry the fifth, father to king Henry the sixth which begat prince Edward that was slain at Tewkesbury, and deceased without issue. John the earl of Somerset before-named, son to John duke of Lancaster, engendered

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John duke of Somerset, father to the lady Margaret, countess of Richmond mother to the noble and high prince king Henry the seventh, which espoused lady Elizabeth the heir of the illustrious family of York, by the which marriage the device or badge of the house of Lancaster, which was the red rose, was united and joined with the white rose, which was the cognisance and ensign of the noble progeny of York as by the genealogy contained in the end of this work more plainly shall appear.

(iii) The Accession of Henry VIII (Ibid. 505–512)

Now after the death of this noble prince, Henry the VIII. son to King Henry the VII. began his reign the 22nd. day of April in the year of our Lord 1509, and in the 18th. year of his bodily age: Maximilian then being emperor, and Louis the XII reigning in France. And Fernando being the king of Aragon and Castille and king James the fourth then ruling over the Scots: whose style was proclaimed by the blast of a trumpet in the city of London, the 23rd. day of the said month, with much gladness and rejoicing of the people. And the same day he departed from his manor of Richmond to the Tower of London, where he remained closely and secret with his council till the funeral of his father was finished and ended. The same day also Sir Richard Empson, knight, and Edmund Dudley, esquire, great counsellors to the late king were attached and brought to the Tower, not to the little rejoicing of many persons, which by them were grieved, which attachment was thought to be procured by malice of them, that with their authority in the late king’s days were offended, or else to shift the noise of the straight execution of penal statutes in the late king’s days, by a punishment of those persons and other promoters, for to satisfy and appease the people. The same day also was attached the lord Henry Stafford, brother to the duke of Buckingham and sent to the Tower, the cause was not thought to be great, because he was so soon delivered, and the same year was created earl of Wiltshire. And the same day also Doctor Ruthall was named Bishop of Durham. Soon after were apprehended divers called promoters, belonging to Empson and Dudley, as Canby, Page, Smith and divers others, as Derby, Wright, Simpson, and Stockton, of the which the most part wore papers, and stood on the Pillory. Howbeit, the most craftiest knave of all, called John Baptist Brimald, escaped and came to Westminster, and there took sanctuary. The 25th. day of April was proclaimed that the king’s grace ratified all the pardons granted by his father, and also pardoned all such persons as was then in suit for any offence whatsoever it was, treason, murder, and felony only excepted. After that all things necessary for the interment and funeral pomp of the late king were sumptuously prepared and done: the corpse of the said defunct was brought out of his privy chamber into the great chamber, where he rested three days, and every day had there Dirige and Mass sung by a prelate mitred: and from thence he was conveyed into the hall, where he was also three days, and had like service there, and so three days in the chapel, and in every of these three places was a hearse of wax, garnished with banners,

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and 9. mourners giving their attendance all the service time: and every day they offered, and every place hanged with black cloth. Upon Wednesday, the 9th. day of May, the corpse was put into a chariot, covered with black cloth of gold drawn with 5. great coursers, covered with black velvet, garnished with cushions of fine gold: and over the corpse was an image or a representation of the late king, laid on cushions of gold, and the said image was apparelled in the king’s rich robes of estate with a crown on the head, and ball and sceptre in the hands: and the chariot was garnished with banners and pencels1 of the arms of his dominions, titles, and genealogies. When the chariot was thus ordered, the king’s chapel, and a great number of prelates set forward praying: then followed all the king’s servants in black, then followed the chariot: and after the chariot 9. mourners, and on every side were carried long torches and short to the number of 600, and in this order they came to Saint George’s field, from Richmond. There met with them all the priests and clerks and religious men within the city and without, which went foremost before the king’s chapel, the Mayor and his brethren, with many commoners, all clothed in black, met with the corpse at London Bridge, and so gave their attendance on the same through the city: and in good order the company passed through the city, whereof the streets on every side were set with long torches, and on the stalls stood young children holding tapers, and so with great reverence the chariot was brought to the cathedral church of Saint Paul, where the body was taken out and carried into the Quire, and set under a goodly hearse of wax, garnished with banners, pencels, and cushions, where was sung a solemn Dirige, and a Mass, with a sermon made by the bishop of Rochester: during which time the king’s household and the mourners reposed them in the bishop’s palace. The next day the corpse in like order was removed towards Westminster, Sir Edward Haward bearing the king’s banner, on a courser trapped in the arms of the defunct. In Westminster was a curious hearse, made of 9. principals, full of lights, which were lighted at the coming of the corpse, which was taken out of the chariot by six lords, and set under the hearse, the image or the representation lying upon the cushion on a large pall of gold. The hearse was double railed: within the first rails sat the mourners, and within the second rail stood knights bearing banners of saints, and without the same stood officers of arms. When the mourners were set, Garter King at Arms cried for the soul of the noble prince king Henry the VII., late king of this realm: then the choir began Placebo and so sung Dirige, which being finished, the mourners departed into the Palace, where they had a void, and so reposed for that night. The next day were three Masses solemnly sung by bishops, and at the last Mass was offered the king’s banner and courser, his coat of arms, his sword, his target, and his helm, and at the end of Mass the mourners offered up rich palls of cloth of gold and baudekin2, and when the Choir sang Libera me, the body was put into the earth, and then the lord treasurer, lord steward, lord chamberlain, the treasurer, and comptroller of the king’s household broke their staves and cast them into the grave. Then Garter cried with a loud voice, Vive le Roy Henry le huitiesme, Roy Dangliter et de Fraunce, sire Dirland. Then all the mourners, and all other that had given their attendance on this funeral obsequy departed to the Palace, where they had a great and a sumptuous feast, 1

A small pennon or streamer.

2

rich brocade.

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Wonder it were to write of the lamentation that was made for this Prince amongst his servants, and other of the wisest sort, and the joy that was made for his death by such as were troubled by rigour of his law: yet the toward hope, which in all points appeared in the young king did both repair and comfort the heavy hearts of them which had lost so wise and sage a prince: and also did put out of the minds of such as were relieved by the said king’s death, all their old grudge and rancour, and confirmed their new joy by the new grant of his pardon. When the funeral of this late king was thus honourably finished, great preparation was made for the coronation of this new king, which was appointed on Midsummer Day next ensuing: during which preparation the king was moved, by some of his council, that it should be honourable and profitable to his realm to take to wife the lady Katherine, late wife to Prince Arthur, his brother deceased, lest she having so great a dowry, might marry out of the realm, which should be unprofitable to him: by reason of which motion, the king being young, and not understanding the law of God, espoused the said lady Katherine, the third day of June, the which marriage was dispensed with by Pope Julius, at the request of her father, King Ferdinand, contrary to the opinion of all the cardinals of Rome, being divines. This marriage of the brother’s wife was much murmured against in the beginning and ever more and more searched out by learning and scripture, so that at the last by the determination of the best universities of Christendom it was adjudged detestable, and plain contrary to God’s law, as you shall hear, after 20. years. If I should declare what pain, labour, and diligence the tailors, embroiderers, and goldsmiths took, both to make and devise garments for lords, ladies, knights and esquires, and also for decking, trapping, and adorning of coursers, jennets, and palfries it were too long to rehearse, but for a surety, more rich, nor more strange, nor more curious works hath not been seen than were prepared against this coronation. On the 21. day of this month of June, the king came from Greenwich to the Tower, over London Bridge, and so by Gracechurch, with whom came many a well apparelled gentleman, but in especial the Duke of Buckingham, which had a gown all of goldsmith’s work, very costly, and there the king rested till Saturday next ensuing. Friday, the twenty and two day of June, everything being in readiness for his coronation, his grace with the queen, being in the Tower of London, made there Knights of the Bath, to the number of twenty and four, with all the observances and ceremonies to the same belonging. And the morrow following, being Saturday, the 23. day of the said month, his grace with the Queen, departed from the Tower through the city of London, against whose coming the streets where his grace should pass were hanged with tapestry and cloth of Arras. And the great part of the south side of Cheap, with cloth of gold and some part of Cornhill also. And the streets railed and barred, on the one side, from over against Gracechurch unto Bread Street, in Cheapside, where every occupation stood, in their liveries in order, beginning with base and mean occupations, and so ascending to the worshipful crafts: highest and lastly stood the Mayor with the Aldermen. The Goldsmiths’ stalls unto the end of the Old Change, being replenished with Virgins in

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white, with branches of white wax: the priests and clerks in rich copes, with crosses and censers of silver, with censing his grace and the queen also as they passed. The features of his body, his goodly personage, his amiable visage, princely countenance, with the noble qualities of his royal estate to every man known, needeth no rehearsal, considering that for lack of cunning I cannot express the gifts of grace and of nature that God hath endowed him withal: yet partly, to describe his apparel, it is to be noted his grace wore in his uppermost apparel a robe of crimson velvet, furred with ermine, his jacket or coat of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, great pearls, and other rich stones, a great baldrick about his neck, of great balasses. The trapper of his horse, damask gold, with a deep pursel of ermine, his knights and esquires for his body in crimson velvet, and all the gentlemen, with other of his chapel, and all his officers and household servants were apparelled in scarlet. The Barons of the Five Ports bore the canopy, or cloth of estate: For to recite unto you the great estates by name, the order of their going, the number of the lords spiritual and temporal, knights, esquires, and gentlemen, and of their costly and rich apparel, of several devices and fashions, who took up his horse best, or who was the richest beseen, it would ask long time, and yet I should omit many things, and fail of the number, for they were very many: wherefore I pass over, but this I dare well say, there was no lack or scarcity of cloth of tissue, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, broderie, or of goldsmiths’ works: but in more plenty and abundance than hath been seen or read of at any time before, and thereto many and a great number of chains of gold and baldrics, both massy and great. Also before the king’s highness rode two gentlemen, richly apparelled, and about their bodies traverse, they did bear two robes, the one of the duchy of Guienne and the other for the duchy of Normandy, with hats on their heads, powdered with ermine for the estate of the same. Next followed two persons of good estate, the one bearing his cloak, the other his hat, apparelled both in goldsmiths work, and embroidery, their horses trapped, in burned silver, drawn over with cords of green silk and gold, the edges and borders of their apparel being fretted with gold of damask. After them came Sir Thomas Brandon, Master of the king’s horse, clothed in tissue, embroidered with roses of fine gold, and traverse his body a great baldric of gold, great and massy, his horse trapped in gold, leading by a rein of silk the king’s spare horse, trapped bardwise, with harness embroidered with bullion gold, curiously wrought by goldsmiths. Then next followed the nine children of honour, upon great coursers, apparelled on their bodies in blue velvet, powdered with fleur de lys of gold, and chains of goldsmiths’ work, every one of their horses trapped with a trapper of the king’s title, as of England, and France, Gascony, Guienne, Normandy, Anjou, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, &c. wrought upon velvets, with embroidery and goldsmiths work. Then next following in order came the Queen’s retinue, as lords, knights, esquires, and gentlemen in their degrees, well mounted, and richly apparelled in tissues, cloth of gold, of silver, tinsels, and velvets embroidered, fresh and goodly to behold. The Queen then by name Katherine, sitting in her litter, borne by two white palfreys, the litter covered and richly apparelled, and the palfreys trapped in white cloth of gold, her person apparelled in white satin embroidered, her hair hanging down to her back, of a very great length,

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beautiful and goodly to behold, and on her head a coronal, set with many rich orient stones. Next after, six honourable personages on white palfreys, all apparelled in cloth of gold, and then a chariot covered, and the ladies therein all apparelled in cloth of gold. And another sort of ladies, and then another chariot, then the ladies next the chariot, and so in order, every after their degrees, in cloth of gold, cloth of silver, tinsels, and velvet, with embroideries, every complement of the said chariots, and the draught harnesses, were powdered with ermine, mixed with cloth of gold: and with much joy and honour came to Westminster, where was high preparation made, as well for the said coronation, as also for the solemn feast and jousts thereupon to be had and done. The morrow following being Sunday, and also Midsummer Day, this noble prince with his queen, at time convenient, under their canopies borne by the Barons of the Five Ports, went from the said Palace to Westminster Abbey upon cloth, called vulgarly cloth of Ray, the which cloth was cut and spoiled by the rude and common people, immediately after their repair into the Abbey, where, according to the sacred observance and ancient custom, his grace with the queen were anointed and crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with other prelates of the realm there present, and the nobility, with a great multitude of commons of the same. It was demanded of the people whether they would receive, obey, and take the same most noble Prince for their king, who with great reverence, love, and desire, said and cried, yea, yea. After the which solemnity and coronation finished, the lords spiritual and temporal did to him homage, and returned to Westminster Hall, with the Queen’s grace, every one under their canopies, where by the lord marshall and his tip-staffs was made room, and every lord and other nobleman, according to their tenures, before claimed and viewed, seen, and allowed by the lords and others of his grace’s council, entered into such room and office that day, to execute their services accordingly. The king’s estate on the right hand, and the Queen’s on the left hand, the cupboard of 9. stages, their noble personages being set: first, at the bringing of the first course, the trumpets blew up. And in came the Duke of Buckingham, mounted upon a great courser, richly trapped, and embroidered, and the Lord Steward, in likewise on an horse, trapped in cloth of gold, riding before the service, which was sumptuous, with many subtleties, strange devices, with several poses, and many dainty dishes. At the king’s feet, under the table, were certain gentlemen. And in like wise with the queen, who there continued during that long and royal feast. What should I speak, or write, of the sumptuous, fine, and delicate meats prepared for this high and honourable coronation, provided for as well in the parts beyond the sea as in many and sundry places within this realm, where God so abundantly hath sent such plenty and foison.1 Or of the honourable order of the services, the clean handling and the breaking of meats, the ordering of the dishes, with the plentiful abundance. So that none of any estate being there did lack, nor no honourable or worshipful person went unfeasted. The second course being served, in at the hall door entered a knight, armed at all points, his bases rich tissue embroidered, a great plume and a sumptuous of ostrich feathers on his helmet, sitting on a great courser trapped in tissue and embroidered with the arms of England, and of France, and an herald of arms before him. And passing through the hall, presented himself with humble 1

Foison, plenty.

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reverence before the king’s majesty, to whom Garter King of Heralds cried and said with a loud voice, Sir Knight, from whence come you, and what is your pretence. This knight’s name was Sir Robert Dymmock, champion to the king by tenure of his inheritance, who answered the said King of Arms in effect after this manner: Sir, the place that I come from is not material, nor the cause of my repair hither is not concerning any matter, of any place or country, but only this. And therewithal, commanded his herald to make an Oyez. Then said the knight to the king of arms, Now shall ye hear the cause of my coming and pretence. Then he commanded his own herald by proclamation to say: If there be any person, of what estate or degree soever he be, that will say or prove that King Henry the Eight is not the rightful inheritor and king of this realm, I, Sir Robert Dymmock, here his champion, offer my glove, to fight in his quarrel with any person to the utterance, which proclamation was made in sundry places of the hall: and at every time his gauntlet cast down, in the maintenance thereof. After which several proclamations done, and offers made, the said knight or champion eftsoons repaired to the king’s presence, demanding drink, to whom the king’s grace sent a cup of gold, with wine, whereof after this knight had drunk, he demanded the cover of the said cup, which to him was also delivered. That done, he departed out of the hall with the said cup and cover as his own. The manner of his tenure is this, that at the coronation of the king, he should go to the armoury, and there take the king’s best harness, save one, the best and rich bases saving one, then of the plumes, or other things, for the garnishing of his crest or helm, and so to the stable, there taking the next courser or horse to the best, with like trapper, and so furnished, to enter ut supra, and his office done, to have all these things, with the cup of gold and cover, to his own use. After the departure of the said champion, the King of Arms, with all the heralds, and other officers of arms, made proclamations in several places of the hall, crying largess. Briefly to pass over, this high and long solemnity of this honourable coronation and feast, more honourable than of the great Caesar, whom many historiographers so high set out and magnified, if the Latins of England were not promoted or advanced to dignities and promotions unless they first should (as other poor clerks in the parts beyond the sea, exalt and set forth the gests and chronicles of their native countries, with high laud and praise and in some part more than truth, for small mede or reward do) put in writing, either in English or Latin tongue, the noble triumphs, chivalrous feats, valiant acts, victorious battles, and other noble gests of this realm, and in especial of our time and knowledge, of this most valiant and goodly prince, it should appear much more honourable than any other stories. But promotion and benefices put away labour and pain, albeit the greater part of them will say that the high cure and charge is to edify the people with the word of God, taking cure of the souls. There against I will not reply, but no displeasure, I perceive that they take as great cure for the profit of their purses, with pleasure of hunting and hawking, besides other their pastimes, after they come to the best of their promotion, with small keeping of hospitality: as other which were their predecessors, and much worse, so that part of their pastimes spent in writing, and setting forth the gests, acts, and deeds of the nobility of England, with the manifold commodities of the same, should much ennoble the princes thereof, seeing by

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daily experience bishops, archbishops, abbots, and other clerks in the parts beyond the sea, as well learned as of high knowledge, and better lineage, and as virtuous as they, daily enforce themselves to advance their princes, their realms, and native countries as well in Latin as in their vulgar tongue. But to return to the end of this honourable feast, the tables avoided, the wafers were brought. Then Sir Stephen Jenyns, that time Mayor of London, whom the king before he sat down to dinner had dubbed knight, which began the Earls’ table that day, arose from the place where he sat, to serve the King with Hippocras, in a cup of gold, which cup, after his grace had drunken thereof, was with the cover, given unto the said Sir Stephen, like as other his predecessors, mayors of the said city, were wont to have at the coronation of the king. Then after the surnap laid, and that the king’s grace, and the queen, had washed, every of them under their cloths of estate, the tables being avoided, went unto their chambers. For the more honour and ennobling of this triumphant coronation, there were prepared both jousts and tourneys to be done in the Palace of Westminster, where, for the king’s grace and the queen was framed a fair house, covered with tapestry, and hanged with rich cloths of Arras, and in the said palace was made a curious fountain, and over it a castle: on the top thereof a great crown imperial, all the embattling with roses and pomegranates gilded: and under and about the said castle, a curious vine, the leaves and grapes thereof gilded with fine gold, the walls of the same castle coloured white and green lozenges. And in every lozenge either a rose or a pomegranate, or a sheaf of arrows, or else H. and K. gilded with fine gold, with certain arches or turrets gilded to support the same castle. And the targets of the arms of the defendants appointed for the said jousts thereupon-sumptuously set. And out at several places of the same castle, as well the day of the coronation as at the said days of the jousts and tourney, out of the mouths of certain beasts, or gargoyles, did run red, white, and claret wine. The enterprisers of these jousts was Thomas, lord Howard, heir apparent to the earl of Surrey, Sir Edward Howard, Admiral, his brother, the lord Richard, brother to the Marquis Dorset, Sir Edmund Howard, Sir Thomas Knevet, and Charles Brandon, esquire. The trumpets blew to the field, the fresh young gallants and noblemen gorgeously apparelled, with curious devices, of cuts and of embroideries, as well in their coats as in trappers for their horses, some of gold, some in silver, some in tinsels, and divers other in goldsmiths work, goodly to behold, first entered the field in taking up and turning their horses, neatly and freshly. Then followed a device (carried by strength of men and other provision) framed like a castle or a turret, wrought with fine cloth of gold: the top whereof was spread with roses and pomegranates hanging down on every side of the said device, wherein was a lady, bearing a shield of crystal, named Pallas. After whom, the said Lord Howard with his companions followed, armed at all points, their basses and bards or trappers were of green velvet, beaten with roses and pomegranates of gold, embroidery with fringes of damask gold. The said device or turret, being brought before the king, the lady Pallas presented the said persons, whom she named her scholars, to the king’s highness, beseeching the same to accept them as her scholars, who were desirous to serve him to the increase of their honours, which said scholars had about them on foot, to the number of an hundred persons, freshly apparelled in velvets of

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sundry colours, with hose and bonnets according to the same. And further, the said lady desired the king that it might please his grace that her said scholars might be defendants to all comers, which request was granted. Then came in another band of horsemen, freshly and well apparelled in cloth of gold, in silver, in goldsmiths work, and embroidery, to the number of three score, with trappers according to their garments, with great baldrics, collars, and chains of gold about their necks, and traverse their bodies, every man with a coif of gold on his head, and a great plume of feathers thereupon, some of one colour and some of another, entering before into the field, with drums and fifes a great number, every man taking up his horse in his best manner, as well for their ladies as also for laud or praise to be given them. After whom followed a good number of footmen in velvets and other silks, cut and embroidered, with hose to the same accordingly, and bonnets and other furniture, after a fresh and lusty fashion. Next to them came on horse back eight persons, whose names were Sir John Pechy, Sir Edward Neville, Sir Edward Guildford, Sir John Carr, Sir William Parr, Sir Giles Capell, Sir Griffith Dun, and Sir Roland, armed also at all points, with shields of their own arms, with rich plumes, and other devices on their headpieces, their bases, and trappers of tissue, cloth of gold, silver, and velvet, and next before them, a gentleman on horseback, in a coat of blue velvet, embroidered with gold, and his horse trapped in the same suit, with a spear of gold on his thigh, and the same presented to the queen: saying, that it was informed those knights of his company how that Dame Pallas had presented six of her scholars to the king, but whether they came to learn or to teach feats of arms they knew not. And further declared that his knights were come to do feats of arms for the love of ladies, wherefore he besought her grace to license those knights to prove themselves against Dame Pallas’ scholars: and that in case her scholars brake more spears on the said knights, by the view of the judges, and the report of the heralds, than the same knights should do on them, then the said scholars of Pallas’ knights to have the spear of gold for their prize. And if the knights broke more spears than Dame Pallas’ scholars, the said knights to have the crystal shield. The which request to them granted, the jousts began, where every man did acquit himself well and valiantly, but who had the prize of other I know not, the night coming on, the jousts ended. The next day approached the foresaid defenders, scholars to Pallas, on horseback armed cap a pie, the one side of their bases, and bards of their horses white velvet, embroidered with roses of gold and other embroideries, the other side green velvet embroidered with pomegranates of gold, every one of them on his headpiece had a hair of flat gold of damask, presented themselves before the King ready to tourney. Then immediately on the other part came in the forenamed eight knights ready armed, their bases and barees of their horse green satin, embroidered with fresh devices, of bramble branches, of fine gold curiously wrought, powdered over-all. And after them a great number of horns blown by men apparelled in green cloth, with caps and hose of like suit, as foresters or keepers, and a pageant made like a park, paled with pales of white and green, wherein were certain fallow deer, and in the same park curious trees made by craft, with bushes, ferns, and other things in likewise wrought, goodly to behold. The which park or device, being brought before the queen, had certain gates thereof opened, the deer

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ran out thereof into the palace, the greyhounds were let slip and killed the deer: the which deer so killed were presented to the queen and the ladies by the foresaid knights. Crocheman, which the day before brought in the spear of gold, there declared that the same knights were servants to Diana, and being in their pastime of hunting, news were brought unto them that Dame Pallas’ knights were come into those parts to do deeds of arms: wherefore they had left their hunting and chase, and repaired also thither to encounter with the knights of Pallas, and so to fight with them for the love of ladies to the utterance: saying that if Pallas’ knights vanquished the other, or made them to leave the field, then they to have the deer killed, and the greyhounds that slew them. And in case Diana’s knights overcame the other, they to have their swords, and none other thing more. Whereupon the queen and ladies sent to the king to have his advice and pleasure in this behalf, his grace conceiving that there was some grudge and displeasure between them, thinking if such request were to them granted some inconvenience might ensue, would not thereunto agree, so that for the appeasing thereof it was awarded that both parties should tourney together, giving but a certain strokes, which done they departed. And so these jousts broke up, and the prizes given to every man after his deserts.

6. The antiquarian interests of John Leland described in a letter to Henry VIII 1546 This letter, in Leland’s handwriting, originally had no heading, but when Bale published it in 1549 he gave it the title “The Laboriouse Journey and Serche of Johan Leylande for Englandes Antiquitees, geven of hym as a Newe Yeares Gyfte to King Henry the VIII. in the XXXVII yeare of his Raygne”. It is likely that this letter really was a New Year’s gift to the King in 1546. It has been reprinted several times, by Bale (1549), by R.Brooke in Discoverie of Certaine Errours (1596), by J.Weever, Funerale Monuments (1631), by J.Hearne, in his edition of the Itinerary (1710), and by W.A.Coppinger (1895). The best text is that by L.T.Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, I, xxxvii-xliii.

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hereas it pleased your Highness upon very just considerations to encourage me, by the authority of your most gracious commission in the twenty-fifth year of your prosperous reign, to peruse and diligently to search all the libraries of monasteries and colleges of this your noble realm, to the intent that the monuments of ancient writers as well of other nations, as of this your own province might be brought out of deadly darkness to lively light, and to receive like thanks of the posterity, as they hoped for at such time as they employed their long and great studies to the public wealth; yea and farthermore that the holy Scripture of God might both be sincerely taught and learned, all manner of superstition and craftily coloured doctrine of a rout of the Roman bishops totally expelled out of this your most catholic realm: I think it now no less than my very duty briefly to declare to your Majesty what fruit hath sprung of my laborious journey and costly enterprise, both rooted upon your infinite goodness and liberality, qualities right highly to be esteemed in all princes, and most especially in you as naturally your own well known proprieties. First I have conserved many good authors, the which otherwise had been like to

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have perished to no small incommodity of good letters, of the which part remain in the most magnificent libraries of your royal palaces. Part also remain in my custody. Whereby I trust right shortly so to describe your most noble realm, and to publish the majesty and the excellent acts of your progenitors (hitherto sore obscured both for lack of printing of such works as lay secretly in corners, and also because men of eloquence have not enterprised to set them forth in a flourishing style, in some times past not commonly used in England of writers, otherwise well learned, and now in such estimation that except truth be delicately clothed in purple her written verities can scant find a reader;) that all the world shall evidently perceive that no particular region may justly be more extolled than yours for true nobility and virtues at all points renowned. Furthermore part of the exemplaries curiously sought by me, and fortunately found in sundry places of this your dominion, have been printed in Germany, and now be in the presses chiefly of Frobenius that not only the Germans, but also the Italians themselves, that count, as the Greeks did full arrogantly, all other nations to be barbarous and unlettered saving their own, shall have a direct occasion openly of force to say that “Britannia prima fuit par ens, altrix” (addo hoc etiam &jure quodam optimo) “conservatrix” cum virorum magnorum, tum maxime ingeniorum. And that profit has arisen by the aforesaid journey in bringing full many things to light as concerning the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome and his accomplices, to the manifest and violent derogation of kingly dignity, I refer myself most humbly to your most prudent, learned and high judgment to discern my diligence in the long volume1 wherein I have made answer for the defence of your supreme dignity, only leaning to the strong pillar of holy Scripture against the whole College of the Romanists, cloaking their crafty assertions and arguments under the name of one poor Pighius of Ultrajecte in Germany, and standing to them as to their only anchor-hold against tempests that they know will rise if truth may be by licence let in to have a voice in the general council. Yet herein only I have not pitched the supreme mark of my labour whereunto your Grace most like a princely patron of all good learning did animate me: but also considering and expending with myself how great a number of excellent goodly wits and writers, learned with the best, as the times served, hath been in this your region, not only at such times as the Roman Emperors had recourse to it, but also in those days that the Saxons prevailed of the Britons, and the Normans of the Saxons, could not but with a fervent zeal and an honest courage commend them to memory, else, alas, like to have been perpetually obscured, or to have been lightly remembered, as uncertain shadows. Wherefore I, knowing by infinite variety of books and assiduous reading of them who have been learned, and have written from time to time in this realm, have digested into four books the names of them with their lives and monuments of learning and to them added this title, “De viris illustribus,” following the profitable example of Hieronyme, Gennadie, Cassiodore, Severiane, and Trittemie a late writer: but always 1 A reference to Leland’s antipapal treatise in 45 chapters, “Dialogus cui titulus Antiphilarchia: inter-locutores Philalethes et Tranotes”, written in defence of Henry VIII against the book Hierarchiae ecclesiasticae Assertio (Cologne, 1538), by Albertus Pighius, a canon of Utrecht The MS, of Leland’s work, which was not printed, is in Cambridge University Library.

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so handling the matter that I have more expatiated in this camp than they did as in a thing that desired to be somewhat at large, and to have ornature. The first book beginning at the Druids is deducted unto the time of the coming of St. Augustine into England. The second is from the time of Augustine unto the advent of the Normans. The third from the Normans to the end of the most honourable reign of the mighty, famous, and prudent Prince Henry the VII. your father. The fourth begins with the name of your Majesty, whose glory in learning is to the world so clearly known, that though amongst the lives of other learned men I have accurately celebrated the names of Bladudus, Molmutius, Costantinus Magnus, Sigebertus, Alfridus, Alfridus Magnus, Aethelstanus and Henry the first, kings and your progenitors; and also Ethelward, second son to Alfred the Great, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and Tiptoft Earl of Worcester; yet compared with your grace they seem as small lights (if I may freely say my judgment, your high modesty not offended,) in respect of the day-star. Now farther to insinuate to your Grace of what matters the writers, whose lives I have congested into four books, have treated of, I may right boldly say, that beside the cognition of the three tongues, in the which part of them have excelled, that there is no kind of liberal science, or any feat concerning learning, in the which they have not shown certain arguments of great felicity of wit; yea and concerning the interpretation of holy Scripture, both after the ancient form, and since in the scholastic trade, they have reigned as in a certain excellency. And as touching historical knowledge there have been to the number of a full hundred, or more, that from time to time, have with great diligence, and no less faith, would to God with like eloquence, described the acts of your most noble predecessors, and the fortunes of this your realm, so incredibly great, that he that has not seen and thoroughly read their works can little pronounce in this part. Wherefore after that I had pondered the honest and profitable studies of these historiographs, I was totally inflamed with a love to see thoroughly all those parts of this your opulent and ample realm, that I had read of in the aforesaid writers: in so much that, all my other occupations intermitted, I have so travelled in your dominions both by the sea coasts and the middle parts, sparing neither labour nor costs, by the space of these six years past, that there is almost neither cape, nor bay, haven, creek or pier, river or confluence of rivers, breches, washes, lakes, meres, fenny waters, mountains, valleys, moors, heaths, forests, woods, cities, boroughs, castles, principal manor places, monasteries, and colleges, but I have seen them; and noted in so doing a whole world of things very memorable. Thus instructed I trust shortly to see the time that like as Carolus Magnus had among his treasures three large and notable tables of silver richly enamelled, one of the site and description of Constantinople, another of the site and figure of the magnificent city of Rome, and the third of the description of the world; so shall your Majesty have this your world and empire of England so set forth in a quadrate table of silver, if God send me life to accomplish my beginnings, that your grace shall have ready knowledge at the first sight of many right delectable, fruitful, and necessary pleasures, by the contemplation thereof, as often as occasion shall move you to the sight of it.

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And because that it may be more permanent, and farther known than to have it engraved in silver or brass, I intend (by the leave of God) within the space of twelve months following, such a description to make of your realm in writing, that it shall be no mastery after for the graver or painter to make a like by a perfect example. Yea and to wade farther in this matter, whereas now almost no man can well guess at the shadow of the ancient names of havens, rivers, promontories, hills, woods, cities, towns, castles, and variety of kindreds of people, that Caesar, Livy, Strabo, Diodorus, Fabius Pictor, Pomponius Mela, Plinius, Cornelius, Tacitus, Ptolemaeus, Sextus Rufus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Solinus, Antoninus, and divers others make mention of, I trust so to open this window that the light shall be seen so long, that is to say, by the space of a whole thousand years, stopped up, and the old glory of your renowned Britain to reflourish through the world. This done I have matter at plenty all ready prepared to this purpose, that is to say, to write an history, to the which I intend to adscribe this title, De Antiquitate Britannica, or else Civilis Historia. And this work I intend to divide into so many books as there be shires in England, and shires and great dominions in Wales. So that I esteem that this volume will include a fifty books, whereof each one severally shall contain the beginnings, increases and memorable acts of the chief towns and castles of the province allotted to it. Then I intend to distribute into six books such matter as I have already collected concerning the isles adjacent to your noble realm and under your subjection. Whereof three shall be of these isles, Vecta, Mona and Menauia, sometime kingdoms.1 And to superadd a work as an ornament and a right comely garland to the enterprises aforesaid, I have selected stuff to be distributed into three books, the which I purpose thus to entitle, De Nobilitate Britannica. Whereof the first shall declare the names of kings, queens, with their children, dukes, earls, lords, captains and rulers in this realm to the coming of the Saxons and their conquest. The second shall be of the Saxons and Danes to the victory of King William the Great. The third from the Normans to the reign of your most noble grace, descending lineally of the British, Saxon and Norman kings. So that all noble men shall clearly perceive their lineal parentage. Now if it shall be the pleasure of Almighty God that I may live to perform these things that be already begun and in a great forwardness, I trust that this your realm shall so well be known, once painted with his native colours, that the renown thereof shall give place to the glory of no other region; and my great labours and costs, proceeding from the most abundant fountain of your infinite goodness towards me, your poor scholar and most humble servant, shall be evidently seen to have not only pleased but also profited the studious, gentle, and equal readers. This is the brief declaration of my laborious journey, taken by motion of your highness, so much studying at all hours the fruitful preferment of good letters and ancient virtues. Christ continue your most royal estate, and the prosperity with succession in kingly dignity of your dear and worthily beloved son Prince Edward, granting you a number of princely sons by the most gracious, benign, and modest lady your Queen. Joannes Lelandius Antiquarius scripsit. 1

The Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, and Anglesey.

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7. Select passages from the writings of John Bale The following passages from his writings indicate Bale’s antiquarian interests. In the first passage he laments the dispersal of manuscripts from the monastic libraries after the Dissolution, and pays a tribute to the work of John Leland. In the second he gives further information about the monastic libraries.

(i) John Leland, antiquarian (Bale’s preface to Leland’s New Year’s Gift, ed. W.A.Copinger, privately printed, Manchester, 1895, 13–30)

John Bale to the Reader. n what estimation antiquities have been had among men of grave wits and judgments, the histories which are, as testifieth Cicero, the mistresses of life and expositors of times, have not omitted to declare. The most ancient and authorizable antiquities are those, which Moses left to the Hebrews, and Berosus to the Caldeanes, as most precious treasure, and lively memorials in writing, that both the Jews and the Gentiles, and in them all nations of the world might thereby know their original beginnings. What hath been done besides in the particular kingdoms abroad by their antique writers, it is known to them which have of long time been exercised in the reading of their most ancient chronicles. Though Gyldas Badonicus do report on the one side, in his first treatise de exicidio Britanniae,1 that all the old monuments of the Britons had perished afore his time, and were partly burnt by the enemies, and partly conveyed into other lands by them that fled from hence. And although that Bedas Girwinus also on the other side, in setting forth the history of the English Saxons, doth omit the antiquities of the said Britons their predecessors, partly of hate, as it is supposed, and partly for want of their old writings, yet remained there of late years in certain libraries of this realm (I have seen part of them) the most worthy monuments, concerning antiquity, of Ninianus, Patricius, Ambrosius Merlinus, Gildas Albanius, Merlinus Syluester, Thelesmus, Melkinus, Kentigernus, Nennius, Samuel and other like, of whom the more part wrote long afore them. But this is highly to be lamented, of all them that hath a natural love to their country, either yet to learned antiquity, which is a most singular beauty to the same. That in turning over of the superstitious monasteries, so little respect was had to their libraries for the safeguard of those noble and precious monuments. I do not deny it, but the monks, canons, and friars, were wicked both ways, as the oiled2 bishops and priests for the more part are yet still. First for so much as they were the professed soldiers of antichrist, and next to that, for so much as they were most execrable livers. For these causes, I must confess them most justly suppressed. Yet this would I have wished (and I scarcely utter it without tears) that the profitable corn had not so unadvisedly and

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1 Gildas, De excidio et conquestu Britanniae, ed. T.Mommsen, Anct. Antiq. XIII. Chronica Minora, vol. III, pt. i, Monum. Germ. Hist. 2 anointed.

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ungodly perished with the unprofitable chaff, nor the wholesome herbs with the unwholesome weeds, I mean the worthy works of men godly minded, and lively memorials of our nation, with those lazy lubbers and popish belly-gods. But diverse were the workers of this desolation, like as the things dissipated were diverse. The verity and promise of our eternal God, made an end of the pope’s disguised rabble, as it will do his remnant, which are well known by their fruits. All plants (saith Christ) which my heavenly father hath not planted, shall be plucked up by the roots, lest any longer the blind leaders should lead the blind multitude. Math. xi. Avarice was the other dispatcher, which hath made an end both of our libraries and books without respect like as of other most honest commodities, to no small decay of the common wealth. Cyrus the king of Persians (as testifieth Esdras) had a noble library in Babylon, for the conservation both of the land’s antiquities and also of the prince’s acts, laws, and commandments, that when necessity should require it, the certainty of things might there be sought and found out. I.Esdre. vi. Nehemias the Prophet made a library also, and gathered into it books from all countries, specially the books of the prophets and of David, the epistles and acts of the kings, with certain annotations and writings, Judas Machabeus adding diverse victories to the same. II. Macha. ii. Thus are builders of libraries commended in the scriptures, then must their destroyers have of the same, their justly deserved infamies, namely when covetousness is found the most busy doer, whose works are always to be detested. Wherefore Salomon saith: A discreet and just ruler much profiteth a land, where a covetous ravenor destroyeth it again. Prover. xxix. O most wicked avarice, Saint Paul calleth thee a worshipping of idols, which is a taking away of all godly honour, Collos. iii. He saith, thou art such a temptation and snare of the devil, as bringeth all to perdition. Yea, he reporteth thee to be the root of all mischief. I.Timot. vi. Nothing upon earth (saith Jesus Syrach) is so evil, as a covetous man. Eccles. x. Never had we been offended for the loss of our libraries, being so many in number, and in so desolate places for the more part, if the chief monuments and most notable works of our excellent writers, had been reserved. If there had been in every shire of England, but one solemn library, to the preservation of those noble works, and preferment of good learnings in our posterity, it had been yet somewhat. But to destroy all without consideration, is and will be unto England for ever, a most horrible infamy among the grave seniors of other nations. A great number of them which purchased those superstitious mansions, reserved of those library books, some to serve their jakes, some to scour their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots. Some they sold to the grocers and soap sellers, and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small number, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of the foreign nations. Yea, the universities of this realm, are not all clear in this detestable fact. But cursed is that belly, which seeketh to be fed with such ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his natural country. I know a merchant man, which shall at this time be nameless, that bought the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings price, a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied in the stead of grey paper by the space of more than these ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. A prodigious example is this, and to be abhorred of all men which love their nation as they should do.

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O cities of England, whose glory standeth more in belly cheer, than in the search of wisdom godly. How cometh it, that neither you, nor yet your idle mass mongers, have regarded this most worthy commodity of your country? I mean the conservation of your antiquities, and of the worthy labours of your learned men: I think the renown of such a notable act, would have much longer endured, than of all your belly banquets and table triumphs, either yet of your newly purchased halls to keep St. George’s feast in. What else made the ancient Greeks and Romans famous to the world, but such virtuous and necessary provisions in their common wealths? What else hath made the Jews now an obscure nation, but the decay of their kingdom and continual destructions besides. Yea, what may bring our realm to more shame and rebuke, than to have it noised abroad, that we are despisers of learning? I judge this to be true, and utter it with heaviness, that neither the Britons under the Romans and Saxons, nor yet the English people under the Danes and Normans, had ever such damage of their learned monuments, as we have seen in our time. Our posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of England’s most noble antiquities, unless they be stayed in time, and by the art of printing be brought into a number of copies. The monks kept them under dust, the idle headed priests regarded them not, their latter owners have most shamefully abused them, and the covetous merchants have sold them away into foreign nations for money. Step you forth now last of all, ye noble men and women (as there are in these days a great number of you most nobly learned, praise be to God for it) and shew your natural noble hearts to your nation. Tread under your feet the unworthy examples of these Herostrates or abominable destroyers. And bring you into the light, that they kept long in the darkness, or else in these days seeketh utterly to destroy. As ye find a notable antiquity such as are the histories of Gildas and Nennius among the Britons, Stephanides and Asserius among the English Saxons, let them anon be imprinted, and so bring them into a number of copies, both to their and your own perpetual fame. For a more notable point of nobility can ye not shew, than in such sort to beautify your country, and so to restore us to such a truth in histories, as we have long wanted. We have the fable of Diocletian and his 33 daughters and how this realm was called Albion ab albis rupibus, with lie and all, but the verity as yet we have not, how this land was first inhabited. If we find them mixed with superstitions, we shall measure them by the scriptures, and somewhat bear with the corruption of their times. Unknown is it not unto you, but that the most noble conquerors of the world, have evermore had in much price the antiquities of stories, and have learned of them the thing which hath most increased their worthy fame. Now come we to the author of this present treatise, which plenteously hath declared the abundance of a noble heart to his country. This was John Leyland, an excellent orator and poet, moreover a man learned in many sundry languages, as Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, British, Saxon, Welsh, English, and Scottish. A most fervent favourer was this man, and a most diligent searcher of the antiquities of this our English or British nation, as will appear not only by this treatise following, but also by many other notable works which he hath learnedly compiled. Because I will not stand alone in the praise of him and his worthy acts, I will now bring forth another witness, a man

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learned and loving his country also, which wrote unto me three years ago, dolorously lamenting his sudden fall. Master Leyland (saith he) whose printed works I have sent you, is in such a frenzy at this present, that little hope I have of his recovery, whereby he might finish such things as he began, and would have ended, if life, health, and right reason had served him thereunto. There be divers which (by report of his enemies, as Polydore Vergil and others) say, that he would never have set forth such things as he promised, affirming him to be a vainglorious person, which would promise more than ever he was able or intended to perform. I much do fear it that he was vainglorious, and that he had a poetical wit, which I lament, for I judge it one of the chief things that caused him to fall besides his right discernings. But this dare I be bolde to say, as one that knoweth it (for I saw and read of them in his study, divers and many times) that he never promised to set forth so many works as he had digested in an order, and had in a forward readiness to have set forth. And surely in such a sort he handled the matters by him treated of, that (by my simple judgment) if he had so finished them and set them forth according as he then intended and would have done. Truly I suppose no less, but it would have been a wonder (yea, a miracle to the world) to have read them. And that all other authors, which have written of us and of ours in times past, concerning things memorable, to be chronicled either yet put in writing, should have been counted but as shadows, or of small estimation in respect of him. So learnedly, lively, evidently, and groundedly, and with such authorities (yea, and as it were with a certain majesty) would he have fully and wholly painted, described, or set forth this our realm and all things therein, with all the dominions thereof, and with all such things as have from time to time been done in them. I was as familiarly acquainted with him, as with whom I am best acquainted, and do know certainly, that he from his youth was so earnestly studious and desirous of our antiquities, that always his whole studies were directed to that end. And for the true and full attaining thereunto, he not only applied himself to the knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, wherein he was (I might say) excellently learned. But also to the study of the British, Saxon, and Welsh tongues, and so much profited therein, that he most perfectly understood them. And yet not herewith all content, he did fully and wholly both labour and travail in his own person through this our realm and certain of the dominions thereof, because he would have the perfect and full knowledge of all things that might be gathered or learned, both for things memorable, and for the situation of the same. And as for all authors of Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, British, Saxon, Welsh, English, or Scottish, touching in any wise the understanding of our antiquities, he had so fully read and applied them, that they were in a manner grafted in him as of nature. So that he might well call himself Antiquarius. Surely my friend, I can not therefore but lament this his estate, boldly affirming, that England never saw (nor as I believe, shall see, except God say Amen thereto) a man to him herein in all things to be compared. For undoubted he was in these matters wonderful and peerless, so that as concerning them, England had yet never a greater loss. But what shall we say? It hath pleased God that he should thus be deprived of his wits, that Lord knoweth best what he hath to do, his name be for evermore blessed. But this shall be my

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prayer still, that if the Lord will not give him his right understanding again, that it may yet please his goodness, to put in the minds of some that best may, to do it. That not only such things as master Leyland intended to have set forth by his own, but also such old authors as he hath gathered together into his libraries (and as yet not printed) may (and that with speed) be set forth in print, for the necessary knowledge of all men touching antiquities. But after such rate and sort as Master Leyland himself (if his right reason had served him) would have set them forth, for that do I never look. But hereof once to make an end as Terence feately saith, ut quimus, quando ut volumus non licet. We must do as we may, when we cannot do as we would. All these are the testimonies of my friend. Thus am I not alone in opinion concerning John Leyland and such other for antiquities’ sake, but have so many more with their good wills to assist me as naturally favoureth England. By this worthy property (saith Cassiodorus) is a noble citizen known. He seeketh the commodity, praise and advancement of his country, sweet is the remembrance of a man’s natural land, to him that is absent. The birds that fly abroad, do love their own nests. The beasts that run astray, seeketh their accustomed couches. And the fishes within the water, resorteth to their hollow dens. Right notably was it alleged of Plato, that we are not born only to our own commodities. But we ought to have respect both to our country and kindred. Of our natural country we have our parents, our food, our nourishment, friendship, friends, acquaintance, house, wife, children, with such like. The fathers in the old law, had such an inward love to their native soil, that they would no where else be buried. Though Christ our most loving master said it. That a prophet is not without honour but in his own country and kindred. Matth. xiii. Yet beautified it he above all nations, both with his doctrine and miracles, alleging many of their noble antiquities in Noah, Loth, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Salomon, Elias, Eliseus, and other to confirm them in the true faith. He that naturally loveth his land, obeyeth therewith the commandments of God concerning the love of his neighbour, and the faithful obedience of kings. Which I instantly desire all godly subjects to follow, to the praise of him which gave those necessary commandments.

So be it. (ii) The Dissolution of the monasteries and the dispersal of libraries (Letter from Bale to Archbishop Parker, edited by H.R.Luard, Camb. Antiq. Soc. Communications, III (1867–68), 157–173).

Most reverend father in God, and my special good lord: I received your grace’s letters the 18th. day of this month, with no small rejoice, etc. And as concerning books of antiquity, not printed: when I was in Ireland I had great plenty of them, whom I obtained in time of the lamentable spoil of the libraries of England, through much friendship, labour, and expenses. Some I found in stationers and book binders store houses, some in grocers, soap-sellers, tailors, and other occupiers shops, some in ships ready to be carried over the sea into Flanders to be sold—for in those uncircumspect and careless days, there was no quicker merchandise than library books, and all to the destruction of learning and knowledge of things necessary in this fall of antichrist to be known—but the devil is a knave, they

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say—well, only conscience with a fervent love to my country moved me to save that might be saved. And how I have been rewarded of my country hitherto for my pains, the Lord well knoweth, Since that time, I was in Ireland, deprived of all that I had, by the papists under queen Mary, and havoc was made of the books, by another work of the devil, that they should not yet come to light. I send unto your grace a register of their titles, imprinted at the request of Gesnerus, Lycosthenes, Simlerus, and other learned men at Zurich and Basle. I desire your grace at your leisure, to send it me again, lest I lose the whole volume by the want thereof. Sir Anthony Sellenger,1 being then deputy of Ireland, had for his part, a great dry vessel full of those books: and at his deathly departure, left them to his brother master Robert Sellenger in Kent and to his son master Warham Sellenger also. These men received now of late, a letter from the queen’s majesty’s council in my behalf, to deliver them, for performance of an English chronicle, which I have begun and not finished: either else to tell me where they are. But their mocking excuse is, that they never had them, neither yet know they where they are become. And yet do I know that they have dispersed and distributed them among the most obstinate papists of all the whole country, to bring them to naught. And this is the third device of the devil, to have them destroyed. One Glazier, in queen Mary’s time a prebendar of Canterbury, had a great number of them, and dispersed them among his companions, the Pope’s sworn soldiers. In Ireland are more than 4 score of them, as I am credibly informed, in the keeping of master Nicolas Hearne captain of Lechlyne bridge, and another sort of them at Dublin, besides them that remain at Kilkenny, among the prebendars there: for I had in Ireland more than 2 great wainloads of them. If it would please your grace to send for the vicar of Yealdinge in Kent, called Robert Cage, dwelling but 4 miles from Maidstone: he would not only inform your grace of the whole history, but also recover a great number of them: for why, he knoweth the persons, places, books and all. My miserable state and poverty is and hath been such, that I am able to do nothing as yet, towards the recover of them. Now to the answering of your register….

8. John Foxe on historical method (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, III, 348–349; 373–393) The value of Foxe’s historical writing is a highly controversial subject. The following passage shows that he was not wholly lacking in a sense of historical criticism, nor entirely ignorant of the standards by which historical sources should be tested. There still remains however the formidable question whether, and to what extent, he respected those standards in the writing of his own history. To this problem Catholic and Protestant historians have given widely different answers.2 As is suggested in the opening paragraph of this passage, Foxe was led to make these comments because of the attack made upon his writings by Nicholas Harpsfield (1519?–75). While in prison in the Tower Harpsfield wrote Dialogi Sex—in which he attacked some of Foxe’s accounts of martyrs. He sent the MS to his friend Alan Cope who, anxious to protect Harpsfield, published the work under his own name. See R.W.Chambers, Harpsfield’s Life of More, CXCVI. 1 Sir Anthony St. Leger (?1496–1559). Lord deputy of Ireland, 7 July 1540. His second son, Sir Warham, may have served in Ireland under his father during Mary’s reign. About 1559 he was named as a commissioner to transfer to England Bale’s MSS. and books. 2 Above, p. 104.

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s I was entering into this story of the lord Cobham, after the tractation of all the A former histories hitherto passed, having next set upon this present matter, luckily, and as God would, in such opportunity of season as God may seem to work himself for the defence of his saints, cometh to my hands a certain book of new-found dialogues, compiled in Latin, by Nicholas Harpsfield, set out by Alanus Copus, an Englishman, a person to me unknown, and obscure, hitherto, unto the world, but who now to purchase himself a name with Erostratus, or with the sons of Anakim, cometh out, not with his five eggs, but with his six railing dialogues; in which dialogues the said Alanus Copus Anglus (whether he, under the armour of another, or another under title of his name, I know not, nor pass not), uncourteously behaving himself, intemperately abusing his time, study, and pen, forgetting himself, neglecting all respect of honesty, and mild modesty, neither dreading the stroke of God, nor caring for shame, neither favouring the living, nor sparing the dead, who, when alive as they never offended him, so now cannot answer for themselves, being gone; thus, provoking both God and man against him, after an unseemly sort, and with a foul mouth, and a stinking breath, rageth and fareth against dead men’s ashes, taking now the spoil of their good name, after their bodies lie slain in the field; his gall and choler being so bitter against them, that he cannot abide any memory after them to remain upon earth; insomuch that for the hatred of them he spurneth also against me, and flieth in my face, for that in my Acts and Monuments, describing the history of the church, I would say anything in favour of them, whom the Romish Catholics have so unmercifully put to death. The answer to whose book, although it would require a several tractation by itself, (as, if Christ grant space and leisure, hereafter it shall not be forgotten), yet, because such opportunity of the book is offered to me at this present, coming now to the matter of the lord Cobham, sir Roger Acton, and others, with whom he beginneth first to quarrel, it shall be requisite a little by the way to cope with this Cope, whatsoever he be, so much as truth shall give me for their defence to say something… [After a lengthy discussion of the problem whether Lord Cobham is to be judged a traitor or a martyr based on an examination of St. 2, Hen. V, c. 7, and the evidence supplied in the English chroniclers, Fabyan, Hall, Polydore Vergil, &c. whose accounts Foxe seriously criticises he proceeds:] As touching the order and ground of writing among these chroniclers, ye must consider, and cannot be ignorant, that as none of all these by you forenamed was present at the deed, nor witness of the fact, so have they nothing of themselves herein certainly to affirm, but either must follow public rumour and hearsay for their author, or else one of them must borrow of another: whereof neither seemeth to me sufficient; for, as public rumour is never certain, so one author may soon deceive another; by reason whereof it cometh oft to pass, that as these story writers hit many times the truth, so again all is not gospel that they do write; wherefore great respect is here to be had, either not to credit rashly everyone that writeth stories, or else to see what grounds they have whom we do follow. Now to demand, Master Cope, of you, what authority or foundation hath your Robert Fabyan, have Polydore Vergil, Edward Hall and other of your authors, to prove

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these men to be traitors? What authority do they avouch? What acts, what registers, what records, or out of what court do they show, or what demonstration do they make?… Wherefore you see, Master Cope, how it is not sufficient, nor sure, to stick only to the names and authorities of chronographers, unless the ground be found substantial whereupon they stand themselves, which yet in none of these whom you have produced doth appear. Secondly, In alleging and writing of chronicles, it is to be considered to what place and effect they serve. If ye would shew out of them the order and course of times, what years were of dearth and of plenty, where kings kept their Christmas, what conduits were made, what mayors and sheriffs were in London, what battles were fought, what triumphs and great feasts were holden, when kings began their reign, and when they ended, &c; in such vulgar and popular affairs the narration of the chronicler serveth to good purpose, and may have his credit, wherein the matter forceth not much whether it be true or false, or whether any listeth to believe them. But where a thing is denied, and in cases of judgment and in controversies doubtful, which are to be decided and bolted out by evidence of just demonstration; I take them neither forj udges of the bench, nor for arbiters of the cause, nor as witnesses of themselves sufficient necessarily to be sticked unto: albeit I deny not but histories are taken many times, and so termed for witnesses of times, and glasses of antiquity, &c., yet not such witnesses as whose testimony beareth always a necessary truth, and bindeth belief… …But, certes, Master Cope, your mastership must first understand, that if ye think so to depress me, and disprove me of untruth in my history, you must go more groundly to work, and bring against me other authors than Edward Hall. You must consider, Master Cope, if you will be a controller in story-matters, it is not enough for you to bring a railing spirit, or a mind disposed to carp and cavil where any matter may be picked: diligence is required, and great searching out of books and authors, not only of our time, but of all ages. And especially where matters of religion are touched pertaining to the church, it is not sufficient to see what “Fabian” or what “Hall” saith; but the records must be sought, the registers must be turned over, letters also and ancient instruments ought to be perused, and authors with the same compared; finally, the writers amongst themselves one to be conferred with another; and so with judgment matters are to be weighed; with diligence to be laboured; and with simplicity, pure from all addition and partiality, to be uttered. [After a critical examination of Hall’s account of Oldcastle and Cobham.] But I cease here, and temper myself, considering not what Master Cope deserveth to be said unto, nor how far the pen here could run, if it had its scope; but considering what the tractation rather of such a serious cause requireth; and therefore seriously to say unto you, Master Cope, in this matter: where you charge my history of Acts and Monuments so cruelly, to be full of untruths, false lies, impudent forgeries, depravations, fraudulent corruptions, and feigned fables; briefly, and in one word, to answer you, not as the Lacones answered to the letters of their adversary, with “si”, but with “osi”: would God, Master Cope, that in all the whole Acts and Monuments, from the beginning to the latter end of the same, were never a true story, but that all were false, all were

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lies, and all were fables!—would God the cruelty of your catholics had suffered all them to live, of whose death ye say now, that I do lie! Although I deny not but in that book of Acts and Monuments, containing such diversity of matter, something might overscape me, yet I have bestowed my poor diligence. My intent was to profit all men, to hurt none. If you, Master Cope, or any other, can better my rude doings, and find things out more finely and truly, with all my heart I shall rejoice with you and the common wealth; taking profit by you. In perfection of writing, of wit, cunning, dexterity, fineness, or other endowments required in a perfect writer, I contend neither with you nor any other. I grant that in a laboured story, such as you seem to require, containing such infinite variety of matter, as this doth, much more time would be required: but such time as I had, that I did bestow; if not so laboriously as others could, yet as diligently as I might. But here partly I hear what you will say—I should have taken more leisure and done it better. I grant and confess my fault; such is my vice, I cannot sit all the day, Master Cope, fining and mincing my letters, and combing my head, and smoothing myself all the day at the glass of Cicero; yet, notwithstanding, doing what I can, and doing my good will, me thinks I should not be reprehended, at least not so much be railed on at Master Cope’s hand; who if he be so pregnant in finding fault with other men’s labours, which is an easy thing to do, it were to be wished that he had enterprised himself upon the matter; and so should he have proved what faults might have been found in him. Not that I herein do utterly excuse myself, yea rather am ready to accuse myself, but yet, notwithstanding, think myself ungently dealt withal at Master Cope’s hand, who, being mine own countryman, an Englishman, as he saith, also of the same university, yea, college and school that I was of; knowing that the first edition of these Acts and Monuments was begun in the far parts of Germany, where few friends, no conference, small information could be had; and that the same edition was afterwards translated out of Latin into English by others, while I, in the mean time was occupied about other registers; and now the said Cope, hearing moreover and knowing that I was about a new edition of the same Acts and Monuments, at this present time to be set forth, for the amending of divers things therein to be reformed, if he had known any fault needful to be corrected, he might gently, by letters, have admonished me thereof: gentleness would so have required it, time would well have suffered it. Neither was he so far off, but he might sooner have written a letter to me, than a book against me; neither was I so ungrateful and inhuman, but I would have thanked him for his monition; neither yet so obstinate, but being admonished, I would have corrected willingly, where any fault had been committed. [Foxe defends the Calendar of Martyrs prefixed to his book.] … Leaving, therefore, the consideration of your ungrateful doings, I will now consider only the points wherein you charge me in your book, answering briefly unto the same: briefly, I say, because the greatness of this volume, and abundance of other more fruitful matter, give me little leisure at this present to stand about brawling words. First, he seemeth to be highly grieved with me for my Calendar prefixed before the Book of Monuments: wherein he hath no cause either to be offended with me, or to

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chafe with himself. As touching that calendar I have sufficiently and expressly declared before so much as might quickly satisfy this scruple of Master Cope, if he either would have taken the pains, or else had the leisure to read the words contained in the Latin preface before the book prefixed, which are thus: “Quanquam a me quidem non aliter Calendarium hoc institutum est, nisi ut pro indice duntaxat suum cujusque Martyris mensem et annum designante, ad privatum lectoris serviret usum,” &c.: in which words preventing beforehand the cavilling objection of the adversary, I forewarned the reader touching the calendar, wherefore it was ordained and prefixed; for no other purpose, but only to serve the use of the reader, instead of a table, showing the year and month of every martyr, what time he suffered, &c. What hurt, I pray you, is in this calendar, prefixed before the Book of Monuments, more than in the table of Master Cope’s book, set after his Dialogues? But Master Cope had no leisure to pursue this place; it made not for his humour. But this grieveth him in the calendar, and that very sorely: for that I place in this calendar, sir John Oldcastle, sir Roger Acton, Brown, Beverly and others, for martyrs: and displace for them other holy ancient martyrs and saints, as Anatholius, Sother, Dorothea, Clarus, Lucianus, Severinus, &c.—Answer: If Master Cope cannot abide the lord Cobham, sir Roger Acton, Brown, and Beverly, who were hanged (as he saith, for treason), to have the name of martyrs, then let them bear the name of witnessbearers, or “testes” of the truth, because they were also burned for the testimony of their faith: seeing there is no difference in the said names, all is one to me, by which they are called… … And if ye think it much, that I would exemplify these whom ye call traitors in the Book of Martyrs; first, ye must understand, that I wrote no such book bearing the title of the “Book of Martyrs”; I wrote a book called the “Acts and Monuments of things passed in the Church”, &c. wherein many other matters be contained beside the martyrs of Christ. But this, peradventure, moveth your choler, that in the calendar I name them for martyrs. And why may I not, in my calendar, call them by the name of martyrs who were faithful witnesses of Christ’s truth and testament, for which they were also chiefly brought to that end? or why may I not call them holy saints, whom Christ hath sanctified with his blessed blood? And what if I should also call the thief and murderer, hanging on the right side of the Lord, by the name of a holy saint and confessor, for his witnessing of the Lord? what can Master Cope say against it? And as for colouring the names of certain martyrs in the said calendar in red or scarlet letters (although that pertaineth nothing to me, which was as pleased the painter or printer), yet, if that be it, that so much breaketh patience, why rather doth he not expostulate in this behalf with the great saint-maker of Rome, who hath redded them much more than ever did I? for he did red and dye them with their own blood, whereas I did but only colour them, with red letters. And thus for matter of my calendar enough.

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9. The diary as a narrative source. Two specimens The personal diary does not figure prominently among the source materials for English history before 1500. In the early sixteenth century examples became more common. Their value for the historian is illustrated in these two early specimens. Edward VI’s Journal is not only an historical source, it is also a literary curiosity, and a revealing illustration of the young king’s precocity. He began it, probably at the instigation of his tutor Sir John Cheke, when in his thirteenth year, and the last entries were made in it at the end of November 1552, some seven months before his death. Burnet produced an inferior version of the Journal in his History of the Reformation, but the standard text is that in J.G.Nichols, Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth. Both editors took the view that there was enough internal evidence to justify them in accepting it as Edward’s own work. The first passage describes the young king’s reactions to Ket’s rebellion, and to the first attack on Protector Somerset. There is a more detailed account of these events in Norfolk in F.W. Russell, Kett’s rebellion in Norfolk (1859), based primarily on an unprinted manuscript by Nicholas Sotherton (1549) and Alexander Neville, Defuroribus Norfolcensium, Ketto duce (1575). The second passage is a curiously unemotional reference to the trial and death of the King’s uncle, Protector Somerset. That the Journal is evidence of Edward’s intellectual ability, and is a useful source for the events of his reign cannot be questioned, but many readers will be inclined to agree with Hallam’s regret that the work was genuine, for “the manner in which Edward speaks of his uncle’s death does not show a good heart”.1

(i) (a) Edward VI’s Journal (J.G.Nichols, Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, II, 209)

T

he people began to rise in Wiltshire, where Sir William Herbert did put them down, over-run, and slay them. Then they rose in Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, a piece of Leicestershire, Worcestershire, and Rutlandshire, where by fair persuasions, partly of honest men among themselves, and partly by gentlemen, they were often appeased, and again, because certain commissions were sent down to pluck down inclosures, then did rise again. The French king, perceiving this, caused war to be proclaimed, and, hearing that our ships lay at Jersey, sent a great number of his galleys, and certain ships to surprise our ships; but they lying at anchor beat the French, that they were fain to retire with the loss of a 1,000 of their men. At the same time the French king passed by Boulogne to Newhaven with his army, and took Blakeness by treason, and the Almaine Camp; which done, Newhaven surrendered. There were also, in a skirmish between three hundred English footmen and 700 French horsemen, six noblemen slain. Then the French king came with his army to Boulogne, which they seeing raised Boulogne berg. But because of the plague he was compelled to retire, and Chastilion was left behind as governor of the army. In the mean season, because there was a rumour that I was dead, I passed through London. After that, they rose in Oxfordshire, Devonshire, Norfolk, and Yorkshire. To Oxfordshire the lord Grey of Wilton was sent with 1500 horsemen and footmen; whose coming, with the assembling of the gentlemen of the country, did so abash the rebels, that more than half of them ran their ways, and other that tarried were some slain, some taken, and some hanged… 1

H.Hallam, Constitutional History (1829), I, 116.

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…Now to Norfolk. The people suddenly gathered together in Norfolk, and increased to a great number; against whom was the lord marquis Northampton sent, with the number of 1060 horsemen, who winning the town of Norwich, kept it one day and one night, and the next day in the morning with loss of 100 departed out of the town; among whom the lord Sheffield was slain. There were taken divers gentlemen and serving men to the number of 30, with which victory the rebels were very glad. But afterwards, hearing that the earl of Warwick came against them, they began to stay upon a strong plat of ground upon a hill near to the town of Norwich, having the town confederate with them. The earl of Warwick came with the number of 6000 men and 1500 horsemen, and entered into the town of Norwich, which having won, it was so weak that he could scarcely defend it, and oftentimes the rebels came into the streets killing divers of his men, and were repulsed again; yea, and the townsmen were given to mischief themselves. So, having endured their assaults three days, and stopped their victuals, the rebels were constrained for lack of meat to remove, whom the earl of Warwick followed with 1000 Almains and all his horsemen, leaving the English footmen in the town, and overcame them in plain battle, killing 2000 of them and taking Ket their captain, who in January following was hanged at Norwich, and his head hanged out. Ket’s brother was taken also, and punished alike…. In the mean season in England rose great stirs, like to increase much if it had not been well foreseen. The council, about 19 of them, were gathered in London, thinking to meet with the lord Protector, and to make him amend some of his disorders. He, fearing his state, caused the secretary in my name to be sent to the lords, to know for what cause they gathered their powers together, and, if they meant to talk with him that they should come in peaceable manner. The next morning, being the 6. of October, and Saturday, he commanded the armour to be brought down out of the armoury of Hampton Court, about 500 harnesses, to arm both his and my men withal, the gates of the house to be repaired; people to be raised. People came abundantly to the house. That night, with all the people, at 9 or 10 o’clock at night, I went to Windsor, and there was watch and ward kept every night. The lords sat in open places of London, calling for gentlemen before them, and declaring the causes of accusation of the lord Protector, and caused the same to be proclaimed. After which time few came to Windsor, but only mine own men of the guard, whom the lords willed, fearing the rage of the people so lately quieted. Then began the Protector to treat by letters, sending Sir Philip Hoby, lately come from his embassy in Flanders to see to his family, who brought in his return a letter to the Protector very gentle, which he delivered to him, another to me, another to my house, to declare his faults, ambition, vain glory, entering into rash wars in mine youth, negligent looking on Newhaven, enriching of himself of my treasure, following his own opinion, and doing all by his own authority, etc.; which letters were openly read, and immediately the lords came to Windsor, took him, and brought him through Holborn to the Tower. Afterwards I came to Hampton Court, where they appointed by my consent six lords of the council to be attendant on me,—at least two, and four knights; lords, the marquis Northampton, the earls of Warwick and Arundel, lords Russell, St. John, and Wentworth; knights Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Edward Rogers, Sir Thomas Darcy, Sir Thomas Wroth. After I came through London to

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Westminster. The lord of Warwick made Admiral of England. Sir Thomas Cheney sent to the emperor for relief, which he could not obtain. Mr. Wotton made secretary. The lord Protector, by his own agreement and submission, lost his protectorship, treasureship, marshalship, all his moveables, and near 2000 pound land, by act of parliament.

(b) Trial and Death of Somerset (Ibid. 370)

1551. The duke of Somerset came to his trial at Westminster Hall. The lord treasurer sat as high steward of England, under the cloth of estate, on a bench between two posts, 3 degrees high: all the lords, to the number of 26…sat a degree under, and heard the matter debated… The lawyers rehearsed how to raise men at his house for an ill intent, as to kill the duke of Northumberland, was treason by an Act 3. anno of my reign against unlawful assemblies; for to devise the death of the lords was felony; to mind resisting his attachment was felony; to raise London was treason; and to assault the lords was felony. He answered that he did not intend to raise London, and swore that the witnesses were not there. His assembling of men was but for his own defence. He did not determine to kill the duke of Northumberland, the marquis, etc., but spake of it and determined after the contrary; and yet seemed to confess he went about their death. The lords went together. The duke of Northumberland would not agree that any searching of his death should be treason. So the lords acquitted him of high treason, and condemned him of treason felonious, and so he was adjudged to be hanged. He gave thanks to the lords for their open trial, and cried mercy of the duke of Northumberland, the marquis of Northampton, and the earl of Pembroke for his ill meaning against them, and made suit for his life, wife and children, servants and debts, and so departed without the axe of the Tower. The people, knowing not the matter, shouted half a dozen times, so loud that from the hall door it was heard at Charing Cross plainly, and rumours went that he was quit of all…. The duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.

(ii) The Diary of Henry Machyn (Ed. J.G.Nichols, Camden Soc., xlii, 1848, 37–43) Henry Machyn was a citizen of London who specialized in arranging funerals. Beginning in 1550 to make notes on the funerals in which he took part professionally, he made a note in February 1550/1551 of Bishop Gardiner’s committal to the Tower, and after that he kept up the practice of commenting on all kinds of events down to 1563. He took a keen interest in recording City pageantry such as the show on Lord Mayor’s Day, May day celebrations and the like, although his main concern was with the funerals. His diary is an early example of this form of writing. Strype made copious extracts from it.

The 19th. day of July was Queen Mary proclaimed queen of England, France and Ireland, and all dominions, as the sister of the late king Edward the VI, and daughter unto the noble king Henry the VIII, between 5 and 6 of the clock at night, and there were at [the] proclamation four trumpeters and two heralds of arms, and the earl of Arundel, the earl

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of Shrewsbury, the earl Pembroke, my lord Treasurer, my lord Privy Seal, my lord Cobham, my lord Warden, master Mason, and my lord Mayor, and divers other noblemen; and this was done at the cross in Cheap, and from that place they went unto Paul’s and there was Te Deum Laudamus, with song, and the organs playing, and all the bells ringing through London, and bonfires, and tables in every street, and wine and beer and ale, and every street full of bonfires, and there was money cast away. The 21st day of July was taken in Cambridge the duke of Northumberland, with divers lords and knights; and that day queen Mary was proclaimed in Cambridge, and incontinent through England. ***

The 29th day of July was a fellow set in the pillory for speaking against the good queen Mary. The same day came riding through London my lady Elizabeth’s grace, and through Fleet Street, and so to my lord of Somerset’s place that was, and it is my lady grace’s place; attended with 2000 horse, with spears and bows and guns, and other…1and special sir John William, sir John Brygys, master Chamberlain, all in green garded with white velvet satin taffety…. The 25th day of July, the which was St. James, there came into London, and so to the Tower, certain traitors; the first was Doctor Sandes, a priest; and next him sir Thomas Palmer, sir Harry Gattes, sir John Gattes, sir Andrew Dudley, lord Harry Dudley, lord Ambrose Dudley, lord Hastings, the earl of Huntingdon, the earl of Warwick, the duke of Northumberland attended by 4000 men beside the guard with guidons and trumpeters, and with spears and guns to the Tower. The 26th day of July came unto the Tower my lord marquis of Northampton, by and my lord Robert Dudley, and the bishop of London2 and sir Richard Corbett; and after came into the Tower my lord chief justice Chamley, the lord Montague, at 5 of the clock at night. The 27th day of July the duke of Suffolk, master Cheke the king’s schoolmaster, Master Coke, and sir John York, to the Tower. The 31st day of July was delivered out of the Tower the duke of Suffolk; and the same day rode through London my lady Elizabeth to Aldgate, and so to the queen’s grace, her sister, with a 1000 horse with a 100 velvet coats. The same time came to the Fleet the earl of Rutland and my lord Russell, in hold. The queen’s grace made Sir Thomas Jarningham vice-chamberlain and captain of the guard, and sir Edward Hastings her grace made him the master of the horse the same time. The 3rd day of August the Queen came riding to London, and so to the Tower; making her entrance at Aldgate, which was hanged, and a great number of streamers 1

This was one of the Cotton MSS. damaged by fire in 1731. From here on dots indicate gaps in the text. Edmund Bonner was consecrated Bishop of London, 4 April 1540. On 1 October 1549 he was deprived of his see, and imprisoned in the Marshalsea. Nicholas Ridley was given his place, being instituted in April, 1550. On 26 July 1553, after Mary’s accession, Ridley was deprived of his see and imprisoned in the Tower. On 5 August 1553 Bonner was released from the Marshalsea, and restored to his see. He was again deprived, 30 May 1559. 2

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hanging about the said gate; and all the street unto Leadenhall and unto the Tower were laid with gravel, and all the crafts of London stood in a row, with their banners and streamers hanged over their heads. Her grace came, and before her a 1000 velvet coats and cloaks embroidered and the Mayor of London bore the mace, and the earl of Arundel bore the sword, and all the trumpets blowing; and next her my lady Elizabeth, and next her the duchess of Norfolk, and next her the marchioness of Exeter, and other ladies; and after her the aldermen, and then the guard with bows and javelins, and all the residue departed at Aldgate in green and white, and red and white, and blue and green, to the number of 3000. horse and spears and javelins. The funeral, the 4th day of August, of my lady Brown, the which she died in childbed; with a herald and four banners of arms, and many scutcheons; and a great doll, and many mourners, and a great dinner to the poor and rich; the wife of sir Antony Brown in Sussex. The 5th day of August came to the Tower doctor dean of Westminster, master Cokes. The same day came out of the Marshalsea, the old bishop of London, Bonar1, and divers bishops bring him home unto his place at Paul’s; and doctor Cokes went to the same place in the Marshalsea that the bishop was in. The 5th day of August came into the Tower my lord Ferrys by…at 9 of the clock, and so went he before the Council, and so within an hour he was delivered unto sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, and so he had the custody of my lord for that time. The queen released from prison the lord Courtenay, soon after created earl of Devonshire, and many others. And the queen’s grace made sir Edward Hastings master of the horse, and sir Thomas Jerningham vice-chamberlain and captain of the guard, and master Rochester master controller; my lord marquis of Winchester lord treasurer of England, and divers other officers, and divers other. The 6th day of August came into the Tower, from Calais, sir Hare Dudley, that was going into France. The 8th day of August was buried the noble king Edward VI, and seventh year of his reign; and at his burying was the greatest moan made for him of his death as ever was heard or seen, both of all sorts of people, weeping and lamenting; and first of all went a great company of children in their surplices, and clerks singing, and then his father’s bedemen, and then two heralds, and then a standard with a dragon, and then a great number of his servants in black, and then another standard with a white greyhound, and then after a great number of his officers, and after them comes more heralds, and then a standard with the head officers of his house; and then heralds, Norey bore the helmet and the crest on horseback, and then his great banner of arms inbrodery2, and with divers other banners, and then came riding Master Clarencieux with his target, with his garter, and his sword gorgeously and rich, and after Garter with his coat armour in brodery, and then more heralds of arms; and then came the chariot with great horses trapped with velvet to the ground, and every horse having a man on his back in black, and everyone bearing a banner-roll of divers kings’ arms, and with 1

Sup. 170, n.

2, 2 Embroidery.

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scutcheons on their horses, and then the chariot covered with cloth of gold, and on the chariot lay a picture lying piteously with a crown of gold, and a great collar, and his sceptre in his hand, lying in his robes and the garter about his leg, and a coat in embroidery of gold; about the corpse were borne four banners, a banner of the order, another of the red rose, another of queen Jane (Seymour), another of the queen’s mother. After him went a goodly horse, covered with cloth of gold unto the ground, and the master of the horse, with a man of arms in armour, which was offered, both the man and the horse. There was set up a goodly hearse in Westminster Abbey with bannerrolls and pensells, and hung with velvet about. The same day, the which was the 8th day of August, came to London the good earl of Derby with 80 in coats of velvet and other 218 yeomen in a livery, and so to Westminster. The 9th day of August came the bishop of Winchester out of the Tower (conducted) by the earl of Arundel to his own parish of St. Mary Overy’s, and from thence with my lord of Arundel to dinner to Bath place. The 10th day of August were drowned seven men at London Bridge by folly; one was master Thomas of Brygys (Bridges), the Lieutenant’s son and heir, and three gentlemen more, besides other; and one…. The 13th day of August did preach at Paul’s cross doctor Bourn, parson of High Ongar, in Essex, the queen’s chaplain, and there was a great up-roar and shouting at his sermon, as it were like mad people, what young people and women as ever was heard, as hurly-burly, and casting up of caps; if my lord Mayor and my lord Courtenay had not been there, there had been great mischief done. The 16th day of August was a man set on the pillory for forging of false letters in other men’s name(s). The 17th day of August was made a great scaffold in Westminster hall against the morrow, for the duke of Northumberland coming to be arraigned, with other, as the marquis of Northampton and the earl of Warwick. The 18th day of August was arraigned at Westminster hall the marquis of Northampton, the duke, and the earl of Warwick, and so they were condemned to be had to the place that they came from, and from thence to be drawn through London unto Tyburn, and there to be hanged, and then to be cut down, and their bowels to be burnt, and their heads to be set on London Bridge and other places. The 19th day were arraigned at Westminster hall sir Andrew Dudley, sir John Gates, sir Harry Gates, sir Thomas Palmer, and cast to be hanged and quartered. The same day was a great fire at Chelsea beyond Westminster, and there were divers houses burnt, and divers barns with corn burnt, to the number…. The 20th day of August did preach at Paul’s cross master Watson, chaplain unto (blank), and there were present all the crafts of London in their best livery, sitting on forms, every craft by themselves, and my lord Mayor and the aldermen, and two hundred of the guard, to see no disquiet done. The same day was buried master Kyrtun, alderman and merchant tailor, and merchant of the Staple of Calais, aforenoon. The 21st of August was, by 8 of the clock in the morning, on the Tower hill about

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10000. men and women for to have seen the execution of the duke of Northumberland, for the scaffold was made ready, and sand and straw was brought, and all the men that belong to the Tower, as Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bow, Ratcliffe, Limehouse, St. Katherine’s, and the waiters of the Tower, and the guard and the sheriffs’ officers, and every man stood in order with their halberds, and lanes made, and the hangman was there, and suddenly they were commanded to depart. And the same time after was sent for my lord mayor and the aldermen and chiefs of the crafts in London, and divers of the Council, and there was said mass for the Duke and the rest of the prisoners. The 21st day of August was set on the pillory, two men, one a priest and another a barber, and both their ears nailed to the pillory, the parson of St. Ethelburga within Bishopsgate for heinous words and seditious words against the queen’s majesty’s highness at the sermon at Paul’s cross, that was the Sunday the 13th day of August, and for the up-roar that was there done. The priest…twice. The 21st day of August was a proclamation that no man should reason against her grace’s majesty and her council, doing the which she will do to the honour of God and his mother. The 23rd day of August was the same priest set on the pillory again for more words. The same day began the mass at St. Nicholas Colabay, goodly sung in Latin, and tapers, and set on the altar, and a cross in old Fish Street. Item, the next day a goodly mass sung at St. Nicholas Wyllyms, in Latin, in Bread Street. The 25th day of August was burned the Great Harry, the greatest ship in the world, and it was pity and if it had pleased God, at Woolwich, by negligence and for lack of over-sight; the first year of queen Mary. The 28th day of August died sir John Harrington knight, of Rutlandshire, within St. Helen’s Bishopsgate street, and from that day that he died till he was carried into his country, was mass and dirge every day sung; and Monday the 4th day of September, he went into the country in a horse litter, with his standard and his pennant of arms, and after his horse…with four pennants of arms borne about him, and with a goodly helmet gilt, with target, sword, and crest, and a ten dozen of scutcheons, and ten dozen of pensells for a hearse, and staff torches, and a hearse of wax, and a fair mageste, and the vallance gilded and fringed, and so to Ware, and so forwards. The 6th day of September came out of the Tower my lord Ferrys, my lord chief justice Cholmley, and my lord Montague, unto the dean’s place, for there sat the council, and there they were delivered and discharged of the Tower with a great fine. The 3rd day of August, at Richmond, was my lord Courtnay created the earl of Devonshire of our noble queen Mary. The 12th day of September the citizens began to adorn the city against the Queen’s coronation; to hang the streets, and prepare pageants at Fenchurch and Gracechurch and Leaden-hall, and in Gracechurch street, and at conduit at Cornhill, and the great conduit in Cheap, at standard in Cheap, the cross repaired at the little conduit, a pageant in Paul’s church yard, another pageant and many speeches, and Ludgate newly repaired, and many children; at the conduit in Fleet Street a pageant, and newly trimmed very

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gorgeously, and the street hanged, and places for every craft to stand severally, made with timber from every craft there standing, and so to remain unto every hall for ever when they shall have need for such doing.

10. The new biographical narrative While fresh ideas were transforming the writing of narrative history, similar experiments were producing interesting results in the related field of biography. Much of this work was closely associated with Sir Thomas More. He was himself the author of a life of Richard III, and one scholar has gone so far as to group together the writings of William Roper, Nicholas Harpsfield, and John Rastell as the work of “the school of More”.1 There was one exponent of this new literary form who was outside this circle, and his work was an outstanding achievement. George Cavendish, author of a memoir on Wolsey was in the Cardinal’s service as a gentleman usher until Wolsey’s death. He wrote his recollections some time between 1554 and 1558.2 Strictly speaking, none of these early memoirs are biographies in the modern sense of the word. They are impressionistic eulogies which contain much first-hand information but omit a great deal of the factual material provided in a modern biography. They are important as a link between the hagiographical lives of saints common in the Middle Ages and the complete factual biography of later times. While these authors certainly broke fresh ground it is doubtful whether the suggestion that they were consciously attempting to create a new type of literature can be accepted.3

(i) A Biographer’s Motives R.S.Sylvester (ed.), Cavendish’s Life of Wohey, E.E.T.S. Orig. Ser. No. 243, 1959,) pp. 1–3 and 187–188)

M

e seems it were no wisdom to credit every light tale, blazed by the blasphemous mouths of rude commonalty, for we daily hear how with their blasphemous trump they spread abroad innumerable lies, without either shame or honesty, which (prima facie) sheweth forth a visage of truth, as though it were a perfect verity, and matter indeed, wherein there is nothing more untrue. And among the wise sort so it is esteemed, with whom these babblings be of small force and effect. Forsooth, I have read the exclamations of divers worthy and notable authors made against such false rumours and fond opinions of the phantastical commonalty, who delighteth nothing more than to hear strange things, and to see new alterations of authorities, rejoicing sometimes in such new phantasies, which afterwards giveth them more occasion of repentance than of joyfulness. Thus may all men of wisdom and discretion understand the temerous madness of the rude commonalty and not giving to them too hasty credit of every sudden rumour, until the truth be perfectly known by the report of some approved and credible person, that ought to have thereoftrue intelligence. I have heard and also seen set forth in divers printed books some untrue imaginations after the death of divers persons, which, in their life, were of great estimation, that were invented rather to bring their honest names into infamy and perpetual slander of the common multitude than otherwise. The occasion thereof that maketh me to rehearse all these things is this, that forasmuch 1 2 3

Hitchcock and Chambers, Harpsfield s Life of More, CLVII. See below p. 242. R S.Sylvester and D.P.Harding, Two Early Tudor Lives, p. vii.

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as I intend, God willing, to write here some part of the proceedings of the said Legate and Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and of his ascending and descending to and from honourable estate, whereof some part shall be of mine own knowledge, and some of other persons’ information. Forsooth, this Cardinal was my lord and master, whom in his life I served, and so remained with him after his fall continually during the term of all his trouble until he died, as well in the south as in the north parts, and noted all his demeanour and usage in all that time, as also in his wealthy triumph and glorious estate. And since his death I have heard divers sundry surmises and imagined tales made of his proceedings and doings, which I myself have perfectly known to be most untrue, unto the which I could have sufficiently answered according to the truth, but as me seemeth then, it was much better for me to suffer and dissemble the matter and the same to remain still as lies, than to reply against their untruth, of whom I might for my boldness sooner have kindled a great flame of displeasures than to quench one spark of their malicious untruth. Therefore I commit the truth to Him that knoweth all truth. For whatsoever any man hath conceived in him when he lived or since his death, thus much I dare be bold to say without displeasure to any person or of affection, that in my judgment I never saw this realm in better order, quietness, and obedience than it was in the time of his authority and rule, nor justice better ministered with impartiality, as I could evidently prove if I should not be accused of too much affection or else that I set forth more than truth. I will, therefore, here desist to speak any more in his commendation, and proceed first to his original beginning, ascending by fortune’s favour to high honours, dignities, promotions, and riches…. Who list to read and consider with an indifferent eye this history may behold the wondrous mutability of vain honours, the brittle assurance of abundance, the uncertainty of dignities, the flattering of feigned friends, and the uncertain trust to worldly princes, whereof this Lord Cardinal hath felt both of the sweet and the sour in each degrees, as fleeting from honours, losing of riches, deposed from dignities, forsaken of friends, and the inconstancy of princes’ favour, of all which things he hath had in this world the full felicity as long as that fortune smiled upon him, but when she began to frown how soon was he deprived of all these dreaming joys and vain pleasures, the which in twenty years with great travail, study, and pains obtained, were in one year and less (with heaviness, care and sorrow) lost and consumed. O madness, O foolish desire, O fond hope, O greedy desire of vain honours, dignities and riches, O what inconstant trust and assurance is in rolling fortune! Wherefore the prophet said full well, Thesaurizat et ignorat cui congregabit ea.1 Who is certain to whom he shall leave his treasure and riches that he hath gathered together in this world? It may chance him to leave it unto such as he hath purposed, but the wise man2 saith “that another person who peradventure he hated in his life shall spend it out and consume it”.

(ii) The School of Thomas More (E.V.Hitchcock (ed.), The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knighte, E.E.T.S. Orig. Ser. No. 197, 1935, pp. 3–5 and 21–25)

Forasmuch as Sir Thomas More, knight, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, a man of singular virtue and of a clear unspotted conscience, as witnesseth Erasmus, more 1

Psalms xxxviii, 7.

2

Eccles. vi, 2.

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pure and white than the whitest snow, and of such an angelical wit as England (he saith) never had the like before, nor never shall again, universally, as well in the laws of our own realm, a study in effect able to occupy the whole life of a man, as in all other sciences right well studied, was in his days accounted a man worthy perpetual famous memory: I, William Roper, though most unworthy, his son-in-law by marriage of his eldest daughter, knowing—at this day—no one man living that of him and of his doings understood so much as myself, for that I was continually resident in his house by the space of sixteen years and more, thought it therefore my part to set forth such matters touching his life as I could at this present call to remembrance. Among which things, very many notable things (not meet to have been forgotten) through negligence and long continuance of time are slipped out of my mind. Yet to the intent the same should not all utterly perish, I have at the desire of divers worshipful friends of mine, though very far from the grace and worthiness of them, nevertheless as far forth as my mean wit, memory, and knowledge would serve me, declared so much thereof as in my poor judgment seemed worthy to be remembered. This Sir Thomas More, after he had been brought up in the Latin tongue at Saint Anthony’s in London, was by his father’s procurement received into the house of the right reverend, wise, and learned prelate Cardinal Morton. Where, though he was young of years, yet would he at Christmas-tide suddenly sometimes step in among the players, and never studying for the matter, make a part of his own there presently among them, which made the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside. In whose wit and towardness the Cardinal much delighting would often say of him unto the nobles that divers times dined with him, “This child here waiting at the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a marvellous man.”… This Sir Thomas More, among all other his virtues, was of such meekness that, if it had fortuned him with any learned men resorting to him from Oxford, Cambridge, or elsewhere, as there did divers, some for desire of his acquaintance, some for the famous report of his wisdom and learning, and some for suits of the universities, to have entered into argument (wherein few were comparable unto him) and so far to have discoursed with them therein that he might perceive they could not, without some inconvenience, hold out much further disputation against him, then lest he should discomfort them— as he that sought not his own glory but rather would seem conquered than to discourage students in their studies, ever showing himself more desirous to learn than to teach— would he by some witty device courteously break off into some other matter and give over. Of whom for his wisdom and learning had the king such an opinion that at such time as he attended upon his highness, taking his progress either to Oxford or Cambridge, where he was received with very eloquent orations, his grace would always assign him, as one that was prompt and ready therein, ex tempore to make answer thereunto. Whose manner was, whensoever he had occasion either here or beyond the sea to be in any university, not only to be present at the readings and disputations there commonly used, but also learnedly to dispute among them himself. Who being Chancellor of the Duchy

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was made ambassador twice, joined in commission with Cardinal Wolsey—once to the Emperor Charles into Flanders, the other time to the French king into France. Not long after this, the Water-bailiff of London, sometime his servant, hearing (where he had been at dinner) certain merchants liberally to rail against his old master, waxed so discontented therewith that he hastily came to him and told him what he had heard. “And were I, sir,” quoth he, “in such favour and authority with my prince as you are, such men surely should not be suffered so villainously and falsely to misreport and slander me. Wherefore I would wish you to call them before you, and to their shame for their lewd malice to punish them.” Who, smiling upon him. said: “Why, Master Water-bailiff, would you have me punish those by whom I receive more benefit than by all you that be my friends? Let them, a God’s name, speak as lewdly as they list of me and shoot never so many arrows at me. As long as they do not hit me, what am I the worse? But if they should once hit me, then would it indeed not a little trouble me. Howbeit I trust, by God’s help, there shall none of them all once be able to touch me. I have more cause, I assure thee, Master Waterbailiff, to pity them than to be angry with them.” Such fruitful communications had he oft-times with his familiar friends. So on a time, walking with me along the Thames-side at Chelsea, in talking of other things he said unto me: “Now would to our Lord, son Roper, upon condition that three things were well established in Christendom, I were put in a sack and here presently cast into the Thames.” “What great things be those, sir,” quoth I, “that should move you so to wish?” “Wouldst thou know what they be, son Roper?” quoth he. “Yea, marry, with good will, sir, if it please you,” quoth I. “In faith, son, they be these,” said he. “The first is that where the most part of Christian princes be at mortal war, they were all at an universal peace. The second, that where the Church of Christ, is at this present sore afflicted with many errors and heresies, it were settled in a perfect uniformity of religion. The third, that where the King’s matter of his marriage is now come in question, it were to the glory of God and quietness of all parts brought to a good conclusion.” Whereby, as I could gather, he judged that otherwise it would be a disturbance to a great part of Christendom. Thus did it by his doings throughout the whole course of his life appear that all his travail and pains, without respect of earthly commodities either to himself or any of his, were only upon the service of God, the prince, and the realm, wholly bestowed and employed. Whom I heard in his later time to say that he never asked the King for himself the value of one penny.

Part II THE LAND

INTRODUCTION

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NE of the most fruitful results of co-operation in the social sciences has been the steady, if somewhat tardy, recognition of the contribution which can be made to historical understanding by the investigations of the historical geographer. Fortunate, indeed, is the historian who is able to borrow the results of the scientific study of the physical features and natural environment of the region with which he is concerned. The greater the knowledge of this kind he has at his disposal the better he will appreciate the nature of the framework within which a society is contained, for without that knowledge many of the problems, political, social, and economic, with which that society has to contend will not be fully appreciated. The key to many of them may well be found in the keeping of the historical geographers. The materials with which such studies are concerned consist mainly of historical data, and modern work has revealed how the historical geographer, coming to such evidence with a fresh eye and specialist knowledge, may extract a new meaning from historical materials by an independent interpretation of the evidence, or, more revealing still, by presenting on a map coincidences and interrelationships between facts which might otherwise not be noticed. The application of these new methods is not yet as fully advanced as could be wished, and for many periods of English history the historian will seek in vain the guidance of such expert interpreters. In their absence he has to fall back upon such descriptions of physical phenomena as he can find in contemporary sources. For the earlier centuries such material is not very satisfactory, since it was produced by men for whom the questions which occur to modern investigators had not yet been formulated, while the poverty of the resources available to medieval pioneers is revealed in the naïve credulity of a Giraldus Cambrensis (whose work as a pioneer topographer, nevertheless, ought not to be despised), or the crude efforts at an Itinerarium of a William of Worcester. With the early Tudor period the historian is moving on to surer ground. Contemporary interest in the physical world is beginning to be reflected in sources more abundant and more thorough than any which had appeared earlier. True, the resources available to observers were still far from adequate, men had not yet mastered the art of translating their facts into maps (it would be 1593 before John Norden engraved his map of Middlesex), but they were at any rate beginning to realize the significance of man’s physical environment, and were finding their observations sufficiently interesting to encourage them to write detailed accounts of what they had learnt. To no small degree these developments were unquestionably the result of the new humanist attitude towards the external world. When Polydore Vergil wrote his history he thought it necessary to begin with a description of the physical features and natural resources of the country, and his account set the fashion and provided the information for many later writers and travellers. His work first appeared in print in 1513. Vergil was not entirely original. He had earlier models on which to base his topographical chapter. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (A.D. 731) was prefaced by a description of England 181

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to which Vergil’s account bears a strong resemblance, and there was the fourteenth century example, Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon, made available in print by Caxton (1480), and by Wynkyn de Worde (1498). In 1521 John Major’s history of Britain followed. Although the description of Scotland in that work was obviously written from a close personal knowledge, and contained many individual touches drawn from personal experience, when dealing with the southern part of the country there is a similarity in the general approach which would almost suggest the possibility of influence from Vergil’s example. Whether this be so or not, between them, Vergil and Major provided a very competent survey of the country, the nature and habits of its peoples, and the extent and quality of its resources. Very different from their approach is that of the antiquarian Leland. His love of the past and his fondness for manuscripts has already been mentioned. It must not be forgotten that he was an indefatigable and observant traveller. He claimed to have visited in his six years of journeying nearly every cape, bay, haven, creek, and river in the country, and to have omitted very few of the striking physical features of the country from his notebooks. These copious notes he intended to organize into what would have been, had he achieved his project, the first thorough topographical description of the country. Even in the untidy and incomplete shape in which it has come down to us, this account of his wanderings is a precious collection, and the first serious contribution to the historical geography of England and Wales. There were others besides Leland who were looking across the English landscape in the early sixteenth century. They were gathering different impressions, for unlike him, they were foreigners, and most of what they saw was strange and unfamiliar to them. Of these, some of the Italian visitors to the country contributed most to the resources of the modern historian. That it should be so was partly the result of a curious piece of bureaucratic efficiency. As early as the thirteenth century the Grand Council of State at Venice gave orders that all ambassadors, on completing their diplomatic missions, should present a written report of their activities to the city authorities. Out of this order arose a class of documents known as “Relazioni”, or as they have been known in England, “Italian Relations”. In the course of time it became the practice to add to these reports a description of the country to which the representative had been posted, with comments on its climate, products, manufactures, the general character of its people, their manners, customs, laws, with descriptions of the rulers and prominent personalities, together with any other information likely to be of interest to the home government at Venice. As these “Relations” were read before the Council, they were treated seriously and considerable trouble was taken over their composition. Since it was the rule (not, however, constantly observed in practice) that the ambassador’s tour of duty should be two years, it will be seen that a considerable number of these reports ought to have survived. In actual fact they are not as numerous as might have been expected: but the total is quite impressive and the “Relations” have long been recognized as valuable records of foreign impressions of England. They have, of course, their limitations. They do not profess to be more than impressions gleaned by foreign observers who were not always completely at home with the language nor with English ways of life. As time

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went on the reports tended to become stereotyped. Yet, notwithstanding these defects they remain an invaluable series of the impressions of England formed by foreigners. No other European state had so regular or formal a system of reporting, but naturally other states with representatives in England received from time to time examples of this kind of information. Some of them will be found incorporated in foreign state papers in the printed Calendars. From these sources it is possible to get a reasonably clear picture of some of the outstanding features of early Tudor England. Most observers seem to have found it an attractive country, with many novelties they did not know in their own homes. Like travellers in every age, of course, they were enthusiastic rather than skilled observers, and they tended to visit and describe the obvious, while they often missed the significance of some of the things they saw. There is, too, the probability that some of them used, without acknowledgment, the information available in a writer like Polydore Vergil. Few of them penetrated far into the English countryside. The places they knew best were towns like Dover, and Canterbury, through which they passed on their way to London, and most of their impressions were limited to the south-eastern corner of England which these places suggest. They had too little knowledge of the English countryside to appreciate how change was already cutting deep furrows into some of the features they were noticing as typical of the country. They can hardly be blamed: even the mature observer, Leland, is hardly more certain in his observations. His comments on the English landscape reveal a real interest, but they tend to be brief, and they are not always informative. He is, it is true, aware of the changing scenes through which his journeys take him, but his normal practice is to make the cryptic comment “champaign” (i.e. open country), or to note that it is plentiful of wood, pasture, meadow, corn. It needs the expert to read between the lines of his brief notes, and to deduce more, probably, than Leland could have realised about the steady transformation taking place in land utilization, the growth of animal husbandry, and the real nature and progress of enclosure. With his respect for antiquity, Leland’s eye was ever on the watch for castle and monastery, so often he comments on the melancholy fact that they are far gone in decay: but did he fully appreciate that the fair new mansions he found springing up in so many places were the symbols of a new age in which his ruinous sites would but serve as lingering memories of a world that would never return? These, certainly, were not the reflections likely to occur to the average traveller from the continent. For him the sights of London with its great houses, shops, and people provided the real attraction, and most accounts give full appreciation to these noteworthy signs of England’s wealth and historic tradition. It is for the enthusiasm with which the average foreigner greets these things that his accounts are worth at least a passing glance. They serve as a reminder that England in the early sixteenth century had resources of which her citizens had no cause for diffidence.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY The historical geographers have not yet given the problems of this period the consideration they deserve. There is no detailed survey of the historical geography of the country, as a whole, and there are few regional studies, or monographs on special problems. Professor E.G.R.Taylor provides a light introduction in an essay on “Leland’s England” in An Historical Geography of England before A.D. 1800, edited by R.C.Darby (Cambridge, 1936, c. iv) but it is hardly more than a suggestion of what is involved in such studies. Her larger work on Tudor Geography 1485–1583 (1930) is mainly concerned with English geographical thought in relation to overseas expansion, but it contains a survey of English geographical literature to 1550, which reveals how little contemporary interest had been aroused for the study of the geography of this country in the early sixteenth century. Some good work in this field has been done by the social and economic historians. Useful information on specific problems of historical geography can often be found in the Victoria County History, but no special chapters are devoted to the subject. A historian whose work is always distinguished by his strong sense of the bearing of geographical factors upon local history, and whose interpretation of documents is often illuminated by field studies is Dr W.G. Hoskins. His Essays in Leicestershire History (Univ. of Liverpool Press, 1950) contains an interesting study of two Leicestershire villages, “Galby and Frisby” (pp. 24–66) and another on “The Deserted Villages of Leicestershire” (pp. 67–107) which have a bearing on this period. His Local History in England (1959) is an admirable introduction to historical geography, and it contains helpful bibliographical information. His Midland History (1949) should also be consulted, and his Devonshire Studies (in association with H.P.R.Finberg, 1952), which contains an essay on “The Making of the Agrarian Landscape” (pp. 289–332). Regional studies concerned with this period which are worth notice are H.C.Darby, The Draining of the Fens (Cambridge, 1940), and Joan Thirsk, Fenland Farming in the Sixteenth Century (Univ. College Leicester, Dept. of English Local History, Occasional Papers, III, 1953, 3–45). Some of the problems of historical geography relating to Wales are discussed in E.G.Bowen, A Study in Geography and History (Univ. of Wales Press, 1941). For Scottish problems consult Sir A.Mitchell and C.G.Cash, A Contribution to the Bibliography of Scottish Topography (Edinburgh, 1917), and P.H.Brown, Early Travellers in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1891). The literature of foreign travellers in England is considerable. It is best approached through E.G.Cox, A Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel in, Great Britain (U.S.A., Seattle, 1949), an exhaustive bibliographical guide; W.D.Robson-Scott, German Travellers in England, 1400–1800 (Modern Language Studies Series, ed. J.Boyd and J.Seznec, Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), a careful monograph which summarizes the accounts of German visitors to England in the early sixteenth century; Clare Williams, Thomas Platter’s Travels in England (1937), which has a valuable introduction tracing the development of travel literature concerning England; E.G.Salter, Tudor England through Venetian Eyes (1930), a brief popular account of the Italian “Relations”, which should be supplemented by the introduction by Rawdon Brown to Calendar of State Papers: Venetian, vol. 1, xlii–lx. H.Cust, Gentlemen Errant (1909) deserves credit for being an early recognition of the importance of travellers’ descriptions of England, some of which are summarized, but its scholarship is not beyond reproach. The main collection of the Italian Relations is Eugenio Albèri, Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al senato durante il secolo decimasexto, Ser. 1, vols, II, III (Florence, 1838–53). The earliest of the English “Relations”, probably written by the secretary of Francesco Capello, the earliest known resident Venetian ambassador to England, has been edited (with translation) by C.A. Sneyd, Italian Relation of England (C.S. 1847). The most important 184

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Italian Relations for the early Tudor period, with dates and particulars of publication are the following: 1506. By Vincenzo Quirini, Venetian ambassador to the archduke Philip and Queen Joanna of Castile, whom he accompanied to England where he wrote this account (Florence, 1839, 1, 8–22). 1515–19. By Sebastiano Giustiniani. His lively and extremely valuable reports are summarized in Cal St. Pap. Venetian: II, 557–563. A selection was published by Rawdon Brown as Few Years at the Court of Henry VIII (2 vols., 1854). 1529. By Marcantonio Verrier, summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, IV, 205. Sanuto curtly dismissed it as “very unskilful”. 1531. By Ludovico Falier. Printed incompletely in Alberi, III, 3–28, and summarized fully in Cal St. Pap. Venetian, IV, 292–301. 1535. By Carlo Capello. The brevity of his account is attributed to illness. Summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, v, 25–27. 1551. By Daniele Barbaro. Printed in Alberi, II, 227–271. Summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, v, 338–362. Part printed for George, earl of Macartney (1804, 36 pp.). 1554. By Giacomo Soranzo. Printed in Alberi, III, 31–87, and summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, v, 532–563. 1557. By Giovanni Michiel. Printed in Alberi, II, 291–380, and summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, VI, ii, 1043–1085. The earliest private description of this country by an Italian visitor is in the form of a letter from one Andreas Franciscius to a friend describing a journey from Trento to London in 1497. It was published, with a translation, by the owner of the manuscript, Baron C.V.Malfatti, together with another description of England, giving a picture of English life in the reign of Mary. (Privately printed, Barcelona, 1953.) There is an interesting impression of a visit to this country in 1531 sketched by Mario Savororagno, a Venetian scholar and military engineer, summarized in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, IV, 285–289. A curious description of a journey to England about the end of Henry VIII’s reign is in Greek, edited with a translation by J.A.Cramer, The second book of the Travels ofNicander Nucius of Corcyra (C.S. 1841). The impressions of German visitors are not as numerous nor as important. The earliest description is that of Wilwolt von Schaumburg, a knight captain of mercenaries, who visited this country in 1489. His brief account was edited by A. von Keller, Die Geschichten und Taten Wilwolt von Schaumburg (Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, 1, 1859). Herbertus Thomas Leodius (1495–1555), secretary and counsellor to Frederick II of the Palatinate visited England in 1533 and 1539. His description, Ein Fürstenspiegel: Denkwürdigkeiten des PfalzgrafenKurfürsten Friedrich II beim Rhein, was edited by E. von Bülow (Breslau, 1849). Joshua Maler (1529–99) came to study theology in England in 1551. For a description of this little-known visitor see Robson Scott, German Travellers in England, p. 23, and his fuller account, “Joshua Maler’s visit to England in 1551” in Mod. Lang. Rev. (XLV, July 1950, pp. 346–351). German and Swiss students and reformers in England during the reign of Edward VI frequently made some comments on the country in their letters home, but their impressions tended to be limited to the reactions of English people towards the religious changes of the time. They will be found in Original Letters, ed. Hastings Robinson (P.S. 1846–47). French descriptions of England are not numerous. A useful introduction is G.Ascoli, La Grande-Bretagne devant l’opinion française (Paris, 1927). The best examples are Estienne Perlin, Description des royaulmes d’Angleterre et d’Écosse (Paris, 1558. Another edn. by R.Gough, 1775) and G.Paradin, Angliae Descriptionis Compendium (1545). The Spanish government had no organized system of reports similar to those arranged by

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the Venetian government: but there were regular dispatches from its diplomatic representatives in England during the period. These are available in Cal. St. Pap. Spain. Amongst this correspondence will be found some letters containing impressions of the country and its inhabitants not unlike the Venetian Relations. This is particularly true of the volumes covering the reign of Mary. English writers to whom we are indebted for accounts of the country based on their own personal observations are Poly dore Vergil, John Major, and John Leland. Their works have been described above (pp. 97–101).

11. An impression of England by an Italian visitor, 17 November 1497 This early description of a journey to England from Trento in Italy comes from a private letter written by one Andreas Franciscius to his friend Jacobus Sansonus. It is dated from London, 17 November 1497. The editor has not succeeded in identifying the writer of the letter, but suggests that he may have been connected with a legation from one of the Italian states. There were two in London in 1497, one headed by Andrea Trevisano, Venetian ambassador to Henry VII from 1497–1502, and one from Milan, which was at court during August and September 1497. The manuscript is in the possession of C.V.Malfatti, who has printed it (with an English translation) in Two Italian Accounts of Tudor England (privately printed, Barcelona, 1953). The other text he printed was a “Ritratti del regno de Inghilterra” from the manuscripts of the Escorial Library, a description in Italian of English institutions and customs round about 1550.

B

efore leaving you, my dearest friend, to set out for the western countries, I recollect that I frequently used to remark to you, when, as we often do, we were discussing all sorts of different subjects, that this journey of ours would be a wonderful experience, because we should have the pleasure of seeing many interesting things of various kinds such as a traveller delights in. But since arriving at our destination, which is a very long way away, indeed, I realize that this legation has proved far more enjoyable than I could ever imagine when living near you. For, even leaving out several towns in the German province and celebrated cities in the Low Countries, we were able to observe so many, varied and different sorts of people, so many ways of life of both men and women, that I doubt if I shall ever obtain a more comprehensive survey. And the result of seeing such a variety of things and disparity of customs is that even men of low intelligence soon become quick-witted and clever. In fact there can be scarcely anyone who, by picking out the best and worst of all he sees, will not quickly form sensible habits of life and improved virtues. And so, having come to the conclusion that I shall never again visit any more enjoyable countries, I have decided to compile a little book containing descriptions of every town or fort that I visited, together with the ways of life and government characteristic of them, in the hope that it may provide some pleasure to our friends and to readers in general. And, as I consider you to be far more deserving than anyone else, not only because of your excellent qualities, but also in view of our mutual friendship and the exceptional affection I have been entertaining for you for a number of years, I have decided to dedicate to you this book of mine, written in my leisure hours, being convinced that it should not be entrusted to better hands, since you are well known to be particularly interested in subjects such as these. I am therefore sending it to you, and I want you to read it over and over again; for, if you have not had the opportunity to see for yourself and study all that this report describes, you may get the same pleasure from reading it as if you had been on the spot with us. You must realize, by the way, that I have avoided the use of any art in the writing, or beauty of style. I merely jotted down daily, while on my journey, a few remarks, as I did not want you to miss anything. So, if you find anything rough or badly written such as offends your ears, please put it right or improve it. I shall not be at all annoyed. On the contrary I shall be glad to know that you are getting a fair idea of what we saw, even if it has not been neatly described…. [Then follows a description through the towns of Germany and Flanders until the party came to Calais]. 187

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…which is called “Calisia” in our language, and is fifty-four miles from Bruges. Its circumference is scarcely more than a mile. It stands on the sea coast just opposite the island of Britain, and is carefully guarded by a very large garrison, as Henry, King of England, hardly possesses any other land on the continent. Every day in the afternoon, when the inhabitants take their rest, the gates are closed; and this also happens on holidays, only, instead of once, as on working days, it is done twice, the first time when services are being held in the churches, and the second time, as before, when the people are having lunch. At these times sentries and guards keep watch from the town’s walls on all sides, so much so that I never heard of a guard being kept anywhere else with such care. The town’s harbour is very capacious and convenient. Every twelve hours the ocean’s tides ebb and flow, and in this period the sea generally rises and falls twenty-five feet, so that at low water, ships lying in the harbour are forced to go aground. And, for this reason, they can only enter the harbour on the flood tide as it flows faster than in any other sea. From Britain, which rises out of the sea at a distance of thirty miles, they import a vast quantity of wool, which is later conveyed to Italy, or into France or anywhere else by land. In fact, if merchants want to buy English wool, and do not want to go to the island themselves, they have to buy it at Calais. We spent fifteen days in this town, because the wind was blowing from the West, which was quite the opposite direction to the one we wanted, and was very strong. At last, having chartered a big ship, and put on board our horses and luggage, we set sail on the 23rd. of August with a light wind, and reached Britain in eight hours, though the wind had dropped at noon for nearly three. We landed at a port called Dover, in Latin “Doveria”, mounted our horses and rode on to Canterbury, which is called “Cantuaria” town. There seems to me nothing to be said about this town, unless anyone would like to know that it has a big cathedral dedicated to St. Thomas, which is very expensively and elaborately constructed, and contains a stone tomb housing the body of the said Saint, which is decorated with many varied precious stones, brocades and gold in great quantity. There are also several objects of worship made of pure gold inlaid with many jewels, and a large number of sacred vestments also, made of silk interwoven with gold and brocade. Everyone considers these very wonderful, owing to the lavish use of gold and precious stones, which all Englishmen boast of continually. The Bishop of this town is the Cardinal, with the title of St. Anastasius, and ranks first of all at the English Court in dignity and authority. He has a very large income from the bishopric of Canterbury. After leaving Canterbury and visiting some other places of small importance, we entered London at last with a great retinue of all kinds of people, so that two hundred horses could be counted. Now I must write somewhat more fully about the town of London, since it is the capital of the whole kingdom. First of all its position is so pleasant and delightful that it would be hard to find one more convenient and attractive. It stands on the banks of the river Thames, the biggest river in the whole island, which divides the town into two parts and forms the border of Kent, the country and district which extends from Dover

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to London. The town itself stretches from east to west, and is three miles in circumference. However, its suburbs are so large that they greatly increase its circuit. It is defended by handsome walls, especially on the northern side, where they have recently been rebuilt. Within these stands a very strongly defended castle on the banks of the river, where the King of England and his Queen sometimes have their residence. There are also other great buildings, and especially a beautiful and convenient bridge over the Thames, of many marble arches, which has on it many shops built of stone and mansions and even a church of considerable size. Nowhere have I seen a finer or more richly built bridge. Throughout the town are to be seen many workshops of craftsmen in all sorts of mechanical arts, to such an extent that there is hardly a street which is not graced by some shop or the like, which can also be observed by everyone at Milan. This makes the town exceedingly prosperous and well-stocked, as well as having the immediate effect of adding to its splendour. The working in wrought silver, tin or white lead is very expert here, and perhaps the finest I have ever seen. There are also very many mansions, which do not, however, seem very large from the outside, but inside they contain a great number of rooms and garrets and are quite considerable. Six inch oak beams are inserted in the walls the same distance apart as their own breadth, and walls built in this way turn out to be made of the same material as the houses I described at Maastrich. All the streets are so badly paved that they get wet at the slightest quantity of water, and this happens very frequently owing to the large numbers of cattle carrying water, as well as on account of the rain, of which there is a great deal in this island. Then a vast amount of evil-smelling mud is formed, which does not disappear quickly but lasts a long time, in fact nearly the whole year round. The citizens, therefore, in order to remove this mud and filth from their boots, are accustomed to spread fresh rushes on the floors of all houses, on which they clean the soles of their shoes when they come in. This system is widely practised not only by Londoners but also by all the rest of the island’s inhabitants, who, it seems, suffer from similar trouble from mud. There are a great many churches, but the most important of them is St Paul’s Cathedral, which is very magnificent and was built at great expense. Its roof is all made of lead, a practice that can be seen in many other buildings also. Merchants from not only Venice but also Florence and Lucca, and many from Genoa and Pisa, from Spain, Germany, the Rhine valley and other countries meet here to handle business with the utmost keenness, having come from the different parts of the world. But the chief exports from this island are wool and fabrics, considered the best in the world, and white lead, for the island is more freely endowed with these commodities than any other country. By sea and the Thames goods of all kinds can be brought into London and taken from the city to other destinations; and nature, the maker of all things, has facilitated this with the most convenient arrangement. The ocean is sixty miles away from the city, but notwithstanding this, its high tide is so strong and flows up the Thames with such power that it not only stops the river’s current, but even pushes it back and forces it to return upstream, which is a wonderful sight and quite contrary to

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the nature of rivers. This we can see happening every day during the six hours of high tide; then for an equal period the ocean’s level descends, and so allows the river to flow freely again. In spite of this the sea’s saltness does not reach the town, but only a spot twenty miles short, otherwise the town’s position would not be so favourable and worthy of admiration. As regards the town’s appearance, then, its position and the benefits to be derived from it especially with regard to trade, I shall leave it at what I have written so far. Now I shall say something about the inhabitants, their culture and methods of government, thinking that readers will find no less entertainment in these. Londoners have such fierce tempers and wicked dispositions that they not only despise the way in which Italians live, but actually pursue them with uncontrolled hatred, and whereas at Bruges foreigners are hospitably received and complimented and treated with consideration by everybody, here the Englishmen use them with the utmost contempt and arrogance, and make them the object of insults. At Bruges we could do as we liked by day as well as by night. But here they look askance at us by day, and at night they sometimes drive us off with kicks and blows of the truncheon. Some of the men are exceptionally tall. All exercise themselves in a marvellous way with great bows made of yew wood, with which they practise continually outside the walls. They also fight with them on foot in such a way as to show that they have been enthusiastically trained in this from their earliest youth. They dress in the French fashion, except that their suits are more full, and, accordingly, more out of shape. They show no trace of schooling (I am talking of the common people): but they delight in banquets and variety of meat and food, and they excel everyone in preparing them with an excessive abundance. They eat very frequently, at times more than is suitable, and are particularly fond of young swans, rabbits, deer, and sea birds. They often eat mutton and beef, which is generally considered to be better here than anywhere else in the world. This is due to the excellence of their pastures. They have all kinds offish in plenty and great quantities of oysters which come from the sea-shore. The majority, not to say everyone, drink that beverage I have spoken of before, and prepare it in various ways. For wine is very expensive, as the vine does not grow in the island; nor does the olive, and the products of both are imported from France and Spain. In certain places, mainly inland, silver and iron are found. But although there is abundance of these, gold is very scarce, and copper scarcer still: they import it from Germany. The first governor of this town is an Englishman and is called Mayor, and has great power and authority; this dignity cannot be bestowed on a man unless he has served the apprenticeship in the trade guilds, a rule said to be established by law among them. The town is also divided into twenty-four districts, at the head of each of which is set a magistrate whose term of office is unlimited: these are called, in their language, Aldermen, and the Mayor is chosen from their number. When a new Mayor is elected for the yearly term of office, on the same day that he swears to do his duty with integrity, he entertains not only all the Aldermen but also all the tradesmen of London to a solemn and magnificent banquet, which nearly two thousand people attend: as if nothing else

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could show their rejoicing than one of these banquets, which are so popular with them. But, since the Mayor cannot attend satisfactorily to everything himself, they appoint two magistrates of a different class, whose term of office is also one year; they are called Sheriffs and try cases of lesser importance than the Mayor. But the Mayor and Aldermen come first of all in the city and surpass everyone in dignity. There are also other Judges chosen by the King, who have very great authority. They have their residence in the Monastery of the West, which is a pleasant spot on the bank of the Thames, and is called Westminster, because it lies to the west. It is a mile from the town and there is also the palace of the King. In this place there is the higher right of asylum, and nobody can be carried off from it, even, if he be guilty of “lèse majesté”. Similar asylums and shelters exist in the city of London as well as at other places in the island, and not even the King is allowed to infringe their privileges and dignity. The last magistrates I mentioned are far superior in dignity and authority to all others in the town, and, indeed, all citizens of England apply to them. They have several harsh laws and customs, one of which, still in force today, we would consider the most severe of all. This lays down that, at death, a man must leave all his property to his wife, completely excluding the children, for whom they show no affection, lavishing all their love on their wives. And consequently since the wives have the same dislikes for their children, they choose in the end a husband from among the servants and ignore the children. This custom, apart from being contrary to nature, may also be objected to as impious and profane. There are also other habits in this style, very different from our own customs; but from what I have said it can easily be guessed what they are. Now it seems necessary to add some information on the island and its coasts. The whole island is divided into two parts, one of which is called England, and,the other, at the North, Scotland. At the head of Scotland is a King who rules very fierce and courageous tribes, who are always the enemies of the English, and ver/y frequently at war with them. At the head of England is a King, Henry by name (VII), of whom I have already spoken. I refer, therefore, to England, which is undoubtedly, in spite of this division, together with Scotland called Britain. It seems that it does not breed wolves, wild boars nor any other wild animal. It has many oak forests. There are many towns in the island, one of which we visited called Oxford, where people devote themselves especially to learning, and where a great number of books can be seen. There are also numerous villages. The farmers are so lazy and slow that they do not bother to sow more wheat than is necessary for their own consumption; they prefer to let the ground be transformed into pasture for the use of the sheep that they breed in large numbers. They harvest their corn in the autumn, because the heat, if it comes, is specially great at that time, and because it does not get enough heat from the sun. In many places they preserve in the ear that part which is not fully dried; thus it is known to keep better. Throughout the island there are plenty of hills, many of them being of chalk, so that many people have even thought that the whole island might be made of chalk. Fruits are scarce,

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because they lack the great heat of summer. The shape of the island, as Caesar notes, is that of a triangle, and it measures all round, to reproduce his own words, “two million paces”. Nothing else remains to be said on this subject. Anyone who goes further will perhaps see and describe more things. As regards Ireland, which is not very far from Britain on the western side, I could say a few things: such as that their life is crude and coarse and that men’s clothing is made from rough and greasy cloths, and other suchlike things. But I fear that I should appear to fail in the duty of a good friend if I put in writing what I had not seen with my own eyes. Therefore I shall leave it to those who have the chance to travel further. Let them write of these things as they please, for my part I have decided to make an end here.

12. A description of England in an early Italian “Relation”, c. 1500 (Charlotte A.Sneyd (ed.), A Relation of the Island of England (Camden Soc., 1847).) This is the earliest Italian “Relation” at present in print. It was probably the report on the country sent to the Venetian Senate by a special mission headed by Andrea Trevisano, sent to complete the treaty of Ayton (September 1497), by which Henry VII agreed to join a league of Italian states against France.

M

agnificent and most illustrious Lord! The Kingdom of England is situated in the island named Britain, which, as your Magnificence has seen, is in the Ocean, between the north and the west. Her form is triangular, like that of Sicily, and she lies, though at a considerable distance, over against Germany, France, and Spain; Germany being opposite to her to the north, France to the east and south, and Spain to the south, a little to the west; but the boundaries to the actual north, i.e. without anything intervening, are the Orcades islands, which, it is said, are one hundred and eighty in number; and Ireland would be the real boundary to the west, were it not for the Menanian isles, two of which are named Man and Anglesey; but these are so small that Ireland may fairly be called the western boundary of Britain. I cannot say what the circumference of this island is, because the Islanders of our day do not care to understand such matters, and I find that writers differ on the subject. Julius Caesar, counting the three sides of the island, sets it at 2,000 miles; Bede, an English priest who had read the Commentaries, at 3,600 miles. There is also another difference in their statements; Caesar affirming that the shortest way to cross from the continent to Britain is 30 miles, and Bede calling it 50; and, as all the navigators of our time say that from Calais, a town in Picardy, which according to my opinion is the Portus Iceius of Caesar, to Dobla (Dover), a place in Britain, where the passage is the shortest, it is 30 miles, I believe both measurements to be correct, but that the computation of Caesar, which agrees with that of the present day, was, together with other things, altered when Bede wrote, which was about the year of grace 731, and this may also be the case with the circumference of the Island. The climate, as your Magnificence knows, is very healthy, and free from many complaints with which Isola1 is afflicted; and, though so far to the north-west, the

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cold in winter is much less severe than in Italy, and the heat proportionately less in summer. This is owing to the rain, which falls almost every day during the months of June, July, and August; they have never any spring here, according to the report of the Islanders. In addition to this equality of temperature, they have, as I have read, and which has been confirmed to me by the inhabitants themselves, a great abundance of large rivers, springs, and streams, in which are found every species of Italian fish, excepting, however, carp, tench, and perch; but on the other hand they have a quantity of salmon, a most delicate fish, which they seem to hold in great estimation, because these people greatly prefer sea-fish; of which, indeed, they have many more than we have. Nor are they without springs of hot water, wholesome and salutary for various disorders. They abound also in every description of tree, though, according to Caesar, they have not the beech, or the fir. They have laurels, and myrtles, and all our fruit trees, with the exception, however, of the olive, and the class of the orange. They are not without vines; and I have eaten ripe grapes from one, and wine might be made in the southern parts, but it would probably be harsh. This natural deficiency of the country is supplied by a great quantity of excellent wines from Candia, Germany, France, and Spain; besides which the common people make two beverages from wheat, barley, and oats, one of which is called beer, and the other ale; and these liquors are much liked by them, nor are they disliked by foreigners, after they have drunk them four or six times; they are most agreeable to the palate, when a person is by some chance rather heated. Agriculture is not practised in this island beyond what is required for the consumption of the people; because were they to plough and sow all the land that was capable of cultivation, they might sell a quantity of grain to the surrounding countries. This negligence is, however, atoned for, by an immense profusion of every comestible animal, such as stags, goats, fallow-deer, hares, rabbits, pigs, and an infinity of oxen, which have much larger horns than ours, which proves the mildness of the climate, as horns cannot bear excessive cold; whence, according to Strabo, in some northern countries, the cattle are without horns. But above all, they have an enormous number of sheep, which yield them quantities of wool of the best quality. They have no wolves, because they would immediately be hunted down by the people; it is said, however, that they still exist in Scotland, as well as in the forest of Caledonia at the extremity of the island, towards the north. Common fowls, pea-fowls, partridges, pheasants, and other small birds abound here above measure, and it is truly a beautiful thing to behold one or two thousand tame swans upon the river Thames, as I, and also your Magnificence have seen, which are eaten by the English like ducks and geese. Nor do they dislike what we so much abominate, i.e. crows, rooks, and jackdaws; and the raven may croak at his pleasure, for no one cares for the omen; there is even a penalty attached to destroying them, as they say that they keep the streets of the towns free from all filth. It is the same case with the kites, which are so tame, that they often take out of the hands of little children, the bread smeared with butter, in the Flemish fashion, given to 1

?Italia.

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them by their mothers. And although this is general throughout the island, it is more observed in the kingdom of England, than elsewhere. This island also produces a quantity of iron and silver, and an infinity of lead and tin; of the latter, which is of the purest quality, they make vessels as brilliant as if they were of fine silver; and these are held in great estimation. A certainshell fish is taken in the sea, called by the inhabitants Mussels, in which many, though small, pearls are found; and I myself, dining one morning with the Milanese Ambassador, discovered several; but, as I have said, they were very minute, and not round like oriental pearls. I believe that what has been written concerning the extreme shortness of the nights in summer is true; for many persons of veracity tell me, and assure me that it is a positive fact, that at the farthest extremity of Scotland, at the time of the summer solstice, one may see to read and write at any hour of the night, and that the days in winter are short in the same proportion. But this cannot be the case all over the island, because during the whole winter that I found myself there with your Magnificence, I observed the length of the daylight with great attention, and there were never less than seven hours together, in which one could see to read and write. How many hours the sun might be above the horizon, however, I cannot say, he is so rarely to be seen in the winter, and never but at mid-day: but our Italian merchants say, that in London also, the nights in summer are much shorter than the days in winter; and as London, where your Lordship resided, is a place in the south of the island, and more than 600 miles from the highest point of Scotland, the nights there may possibly be much shorter; but English authors never touch upon these subjects. The form of the island is triangular, as we have said before, and it is divided into three parts, thus: Scotland, Wales, and England. Scotland lies to the north, and is separated from England by two arms of the sea, which penetrate very far inland, one to the east, and the other to the west. These do not, however, meet, for there is about 60 miles of mountainous country between them; and there are some who say that two rivers rise in these mountains, one of which falls into the eastern, and the other into the western sea. And as the tide rises and ebbs every six hours with great vehemence, and affects these rivers throughout their course, it is the common opinion that they themselves are the two arms of the sea. This is the modern opinion, for Bede does not positively say so. Wales is in the western part of the island, and wherever it is not surrounded by the sea, it is bounded by England; from which it is separated to the north, by a river called by these inhabitants Da (the Dee) and to the south by another named Offa.1 All the rest, which comprises the most beautiful, the best, and the most fertile part of the whole island, is called England…. The English are, for the most part, both men and women of all ages, handsome and well proportioned; though not quite so much so, in my opinion, as it had been asserted to me, before your Magnificence went to that kingdom; and I have understood from persons acquainted with these countries, that the Scotch are much handsomer; and that the English are great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; 1

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they think that there are no other men than themselves, and no other world but England; and whenever they see a handsome foreigner they say that “he looks like an Englishman”, and that “it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishman”; and when they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner, they ask him, “whether such a thing is made in their country?” They take great pleasure in having a quantity of excellent victuals, and also in remaining a long time at table, being very sparing of wine when they drink it at their own expense. And this, it is said, they do in order to induce their other English guests to drink wine in moderation also; not considering it any inconvenience for three or four persons to drink out of the same cup. Few people keep wine in their own houses, but buy it, for the most part, at a tavern; and when they mean to drink a great deal, they go to the tavern, and this is done not only by the men, but by ladies of distinction. The deficiency of wine, however, is amply supplied by the abundance of ale and beer, to the use of which these people are become so habituated, that, at an entertainment where there is plenty of wine, they will drink them in preference to it, and in great quantities. Like discreet people, however, they do not offer them to Italians, unless they should ask for them; and they think that no greater honour can be conferred, or received, than to invite others to eat with them, or to be invited themselves; and they would sooner give five or six ducats to provide an entertainment for a person, than a groat to assist him in any distress. They all from time immemorial wear very fine clothes, and are extremely polite in their language; which, although it is, as well as the Flemish, derived from the German, has lost its natural harshness, and is pleasing enough as they pronounce it. In addition to their civil speeches, they have the incredible courtesy of remaining with their heads uncovered, with an admirable grace, whilst they talk to each other. They are gifted with good understandings, and are very quick at every thing they apply their minds to; few, however, excepting the clergy, are addicted to the study of letters; and this is the reason why any one who has learning, though he may be a layman, is called by them a Clerk. And yet they have great advantages for study, there being two general Universities in the kingdom, Oxford, and Cambridge; in which are many colleges founded for the maintenance of poor scholars. And your Magnificence lodged at one named Magdalen, in the University of Oxford, of which the founders having been prelates, so the scholars are also ecclesiastics. The common people apply themselves to trade, or to fishing, or else they practise navigation; and they are so diligent in mercantile pursuits, that they do not fear to make contracts on usury. Although they all attend Mass every day, and say many Paternosters in public, (the women carrying long rosaries in their hands, and any who can read taking the office of our Lady with them, and with some companion reciting it in the church verse by verse, in a low voice, after the manner of churchmen,) they always hear mass on Sunday in their parish church, and give liberal alms, because they may not offer less than a piece of money, of which fourteen are equal to a golden ducat; nor do they omit any form incumbent upon good Christians; there are, however, many who have various opinions concerning religion.

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They have a very high reputation in arms; and from the great fear the French entertain of them, one must believe it to be justly acquired. But I have it on the best information, that when the war is raging most furiously, they will seek for good eating, and all their other comforts without thinking of what harm might befall them. They have an antipathy to foreigners, and imagine that they never come into their island, but to make themselves masters of it, and to usurp their goods; neither have they any sincere and solid friendships amongst themselves, insomuch that they do not trust each other to discuss either public or private affairs together, in the confidential manner we do in Italy. And although their dispositions are somewhat licentious, I never have noticed any one, either at court or amongst the lower orders, to be in love; whence one must necessarily conclude, either that the English are the most discreet lovers in the world, or that they are incapable of love. I say this of the men, for I understand it is quite the contrary with the women, who are very violent in their passions. Howbeit, the English keep a very jealous guard over their wives, though any thing may be compensated in the end, by the power of money. The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children; for after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of 7 or 9 years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another 7 or 9 years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial of offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their reason for this severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners. But I, for my part, believe that they do it because they like to enjoy all their comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers than they would be by their own children. Besides which the English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature, indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great abundance. That if they had their own children at home, they would be obliged to give them the same food they made use of for themselves. That if the English sent their children away from home to learn virtue and good manners, and took them back again when their apprenticeship was over, they might, perhaps be excused; but they never return, for the girls are settled by their patrons, and the boys make the best marriages they can, and, assisted by their patrons, not by their fathers, they also open a house and strive diligently by this means to make some fortune for themselves; whence it proceeds that, having no hope of their paternal inheritance, they all become so greedy of gain that they feel no shame in asking, almost “for the love of God”, for the smallest sums of money; and to this it may be attributed, that there is no injury that can be committed against the lower orders of the English, that may not be atoned for by money. Nevertheless, the apprentices for the most part make good fortunes, some by one means and some by another; but, above all, those who happen to be in the good graces

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of the mistress of the house in which they are domiciliated at the time of the death of the master; because, by the ancient custom of the country, every inheritance is divided into three parts; for the Church and funeral expenses, for the wife, and for the children. But the lady takes care to secure a good portion for herself in secret, first, and then the residue being divided into three parts as aforesaid, she being in possession of what she has robbed, of her own third, and that of her children besides, (and if she have no children, the two-thirds belong to her by right) usually bestows herself in marriage upon the one of those apprentices living in the house who is most pleasing to her, and who was probably not displeasing to her in the lifetime of her husband; and in his power she places all her own fortune, as well as that of her children, who are sent away as apprentices into other houses. Then, when the boys are of age, their fortunes are restored to them by their mother’s husband, who has enjoyed them for many years, but never to the full amount; and these boys in process of time enact to others the same part that their step-fathers performed to them. No Englishman can complain of this corrupt practice, it being universal throughout the kingdom; nor does any one, arrived at years of discretion, find fault with his mother for marrying again during his childhood, because, from very ancient custom, this license has become so sanctioned, that it is not considered any discredit to a woman to marry again every time that she is left a widow, however unsuitable the match may be as to age, rank, and fortune. I saw, one day, that I was with your Magnificence at court, a very handsome young man of about 18 years of age, the brother of the Duke of Suffolk, who, as I understood, had been left very poor, the whole of the paternal inheritance amongst the nobility descending to the eldest son; this youth, I say, was boarded out to a widow of fifty, with a fortune as I was informed, of 50,000 crowns; and this old woman knew how to play her cards so well, that he was content to become her husband, and patiently to waste the flower of his beauty with her, hoping soon to enjoy her great wealth with some handsome young lady: because when there are no children, the husband succeeds to the whole of the wife’s property, and the wife in like manner to her husband’s, as I said before; the part, however, belonging to the Church always remaining untouched. Nor must your Magnificence imagine that these successions may be of small value, for the riches of England are greater than those of any other country in Europe, as I have been told by the oldest and most experienced merchants, and also as I myself can vouch, from what I have seen. This is owing, in the first place, to the great fertility of the soil, which is such, that, with the exception of wine, they import nothing from abroad for their subsistence. Next, the sale of their valuable tin brings in a large sum of money to the kingdom; but still more do they derive from their extraordinary abundance of wool, which bears such a high price and reputation throughout Europe. And in order to keep the gold and silver in the country, when once it has entered, they have made a law, which has been in operation for a long time now, that no money, nor gold, nor silver plate should be carried out of England under a very heavy penalty. And everyone who makes a tour in the island will soon become aware of this great wealth, as will have been the case with your Magnificence, for there is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his table with silver dishes and drinking

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cups; and no one, who has not in his house silver plate to the amount of at least £100 sterling, which is equivalent to 500 golden crowns with us, is considered by the English to be a person of any consequence. But above all are their riches displayed in the church treasures; for there is not a parish church in the kingdom so mean as not to possess crucifixes, candlesticks, censers, patens, and cups of silver; nor is there a convent of mendicant friars so poor, as not to have all these same articles in silver, besides many other ornaments worthy of a cathedral church in the same metal. Your Magnificence may therefore imagine what the decorations of those enormously rich Benedictine, Carthusian, and Cistercian monasteries must be. These are, indeed, more like baronial palaces than religious houses, as your Magnificence may have perceived at that of St. Thomas of Canterbury. And I have been informed that amongst other things, many of these monasteries possess unicorn’s horns, of an extraordinary size. I have also been told that they have some splendid tombs of English saints, such as St. Oswald, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, all kings and martyrs. I saw, one day, being with your Magnificence at Westminster, a place out of London, the tomb of the Saint King Edward the Confessor, in the church of the aforesaid place Westminster; and, indeed, neither St. Martin of Tours, a church in France, which I have heard is one of the richest in existence, nor anything else that I have ever seen, can be put into any sort of comparison with it. But the magnificence of the tomb of St. Thomas the Martyr, Archbishop of Canterbury, is that which surpasses all belief. This, notwithstanding its great size is entirely covered over with plates of pure gold; but the gold is scarcely visible from the variety of precious stones with which it is studded, such as sapphires, diamonds, rubies, balas-rubies and emeralds; and on every side that the eye turns, something more beautiful than the other appears. And these beauties of nature are enhanced by human skill, for the gold is carved and engraved in beautiful designs, both large and small, and agates, jaspers, and cornelians set in relievo, some of the cameos being of such a size, that I do not dare to mention it: but every thing is left far behind by a ruby, not larger than a man’s thumb-nail, which is set to the right of the altar. The church is rather dark, and particularly so where the shrine is placed, and when we went to see it the sun was nearly gone down, and the weather was cloudy; yet I saw that ruby as well as if I had it in my hand; they say that it was the gift of a king of France. The population of this island does not appear to me to bear any proportion to her fertility and riches. I rode, as your Magnificence knows, from Dover to London, and from London to Oxford, a distance of more than 200 Italian miles, and it seemed to me to be very thinly inhabited; but, lest the way I went with your Magnificence should have differed from the other parts of the country, I enquired of those who rode to the north of the kingdom, i.e. to the borders of Scotland, and was told that it was the same case there; nor was there any variety in the report of those who went to Bristol and into Cornwall, where there is the promontary that looks to the south-west (The Land’s End). The same thing is asserted bythose who wrote the history of King Richard the 2nd; for they state, that England being threatened with an invasion by the French, about the year of grace 1390, the number of men capable of bearing arms was computed,

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and found to be 200,000 archers. And the bow being as decidedly the weapon of the English, as the pike is that of the Germans, I apprehend that there were not many more soldiers in England, at that time. The English, however, could muster a very large army, were they as devoted to their crown as the Scotch are; but from what I understand few of them are very loyal. They generally hate their present, and extol their dead sovereigns. Nevertheless, they reject the Cesarean code of laws, and adopt those given to them by their own kings. Nor are proceedings carried on in this country by the deposition of any one, or by writing, but by the opinion of men, both in criminal and civil causes. And if any one should claim a certain sum from another, and the debtor denies it, the civil judge would order that each of them should make choice of six arbitrators, and when the twelve are elected, the case they are to judge is propounded to them; after they have heard both parties, they are shut up in a room, without food or fire, or means of sitting down, and there they remain till the greater number have agreed upon their common verdict. But before it is pronounced each of them endeavours to defend the cause of him who named him, whether just or unjust; and those who cannot bear the discomfort, yield to the more determined, for the sake of getting out sooner. And therefore the Italian merchants are gainers by this bad custom every time that they have a dispute with the English; for although the native arbitrators chosen by the English are very anxious to support the cause of their principal, before they are shut up, yet they cannot stand out as the Italians can, who are accustomed to fasting and privations, so that the final judgment is generally given in favour of the latter. This practice extends also to criminal causes, and any one may be accused of great and glaring crimes, and be put to the torture, though he may openly deny the truth of the accusation. But when the chief magistrate of the place has received notice of any such malefactor, he causes him immediately to be thrown into prison, and then twelve men of that place are elected, who must decide according to their consciences, whether the prisoner has or has not committed the crime of which he is accused, and if the greater number vote that he has, he is considered to be guilty. He is not, however, punished at that time; but it is necessary that twelve other men should be chosen, who must hear the cause over again; and if their verdict should agree with the former one, the days of the delinquent are brought to a close. It is the easiest thing in the world to get a person thrown into prison in this country; for every officer of justice, both civil and criminal, has the power of arresting any one, at the request of a private individual, and the accused person cannot be liberated without giving security, unless he be acquitted by the judgment of the twelve men above named; nor is there any punishment awarded for making a slanderous accusation. Such severe measures against criminals ought to keep the English in check, but, for all this, there is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as in England; insomuch, that few venture to go alone in the country, excepting in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night, and least of all in London. Such is the bad effect that has arisen from an excellent cause. There are three estates in England, the popular, the military, and the ecclesiastical. The people are held in little more esteem than if they were slaves…. Although the Church of England is so rich, there are not more than two archbishops,

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Canterbury and York. In the province of the former, there are thirteen English and four Welsh bishops; in that of the latter, only two. But the number of religious houses in England, both for men and women is prodigious, and the greater proportion are of royal foundation. Nor can I omit to mention here, that in the diocese of Bath, there are two convents, not above twelve miles distant from each other; the one for monks, named Glasberi [Glastonbury], and the other for nuns, named Santsberi [Shaftesbury], both of the order of St. Benedict. The abbot of the former has an annual income of more than 25,000 crowns, and the abbess of the other above 10,000; and the English say amongst themselves, that “the finest match that could be made in all England, would be between that abbot and abbess!” However, there are few of the monasteries of England that send to Rome for their bulls; nor are the deaneries, or canonries, or even the parochial livings, of which it is said that there are 52,000, in the gift of the crown. I, for my part, believe that the English priests would desire nothing better than what they have got, were it not that they are obliged to assist the crown in time of war, and also to keep many poor gentlemen, who are left beggars in consequence of the inheritance devolving to the eldest son. And if the bishops were to decline this expense, they would be considered infamous, nor do I believe that they would be safe in their own churches; which churches, although so rich as I have already mentioned, are not in fine cities, for there are scarcely any towns of importance in the kingdom, excepting these two: Bristol, a seaport to the west, and Boraco (Eboracum) otherwise York, which is on the borders of Scotland; besides London to the south. Eboracum was in ancient times the principal city of the island, and was adorned with many buildings by the Romans, in their elegant style; but, having been sacked and burnt in the reign of King William the Conqueror, she never afterwards could recover her former splendour; so that, at present, all the beauty of this island is confined to London; which, although sixty miles distant from the sea, possesses all the advantages to be desired in a maritime town; being situated on the river Thames, which is very much affected by the tide, for many miles (I do not know the exact number) above it; and London is so much benefited by this ebb and flow of the river, that vessels of 100 tons burden can come up to the city, and ships of any size to within five miles of it; yet the water in this river is fresh for twenty miles below London. Although this city has no buildings in the Italian style, but of timber or brick like the French, the Londoners live comfortably, and, it appears to me, that there are not fewer inhabitants than at Florence or Rome. It abounds with every article of luxury, as well as with the necessaries of life; but the most remarkable thing in London is the wonderful quantity of wrought silver. I do not allude to that in private houses, though the landlord of the house in which the Milanese ambassador lived, had plate to the amount of 100 crowns, but to the shops of London. In one single street, named the Strand,1 leading to St. Paul’s, there are fiftytwo goldsmith’s shops, so rich and full of silver vessels, great and small, that in all the shops in Milan, Rome, Venice, and Florence put together, I do not think there would be found so many of the magnifi cence that are to be seen in London. And these vessels are 1 E.Jeffries Davis, History, vol. XVII (1932), p. 47 corrects this as a mistranslation of la Strada, suggesting that the street leading to St. Paul’s must be Cheapside.

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all either salt cellars, or drinking cups, or basins to hold water for the hands; for they eat off that fine tin, which is little inferior to silver (pewter). These great riches of London are not occasioned by its inhabitants being noblemen or gentlemen; being all, on the contrary, persons of low degree, and artificers who have congregated there from all parts of the island, and from Flanders, and from every other place. No one can be mayor or alderman of London, who has not been an apprentice in his youth; that is, who has not passed the seven or nine years in that hard service described before. Still, the citizens of London are thought quite as highly of there, as the Venetian gentlemen are at Venice, as I think your Magnificence may have perceived. The city is divided into several wards, each of which has six officers; but superior to these are twenty-four gentlemen whom they call aldermen, which in their language signifies old or experienced men; and, of these aldermen, one is elected every year by themselves, to be a magistrate named the mayor, who is in no less estimation with the Londoners, than the person of our most serene lord [the Doge] is with us, or than the Gonfaloniero at Florence; and the day on which he enters upon his office, he is obliged to give a sumptuous entertainment to all the principal people in London, as well as to foreigners of distinction; and I, being one of the guests, together with your Magnificence, carefully observed every room and hall, and the court, where the company were all seated, and was of opinion that there must have been 1,000 or more persons at table. This dinner lasted four hours or more; but it is true the dishes were not served with that assiduity and frequency that is the custom with us in Italy; there being long pauses between each course, the company conversing the while. A no less magnificent banquet is given when two other officers named sheriffs are appointed; to which I went; being anxious to see everything well; your Magnificence also was invited, but did not go in consequence of the invitation having come from the Lord Privy Seal. At this feast, I observed the infinite profusion of victuals, and of plate, which was for the most part gilt; and amongst other things, I noticed how punctiliously they sat in their order, and the extraordinary silence of every one, insomuch that I could have imagined it one of those public repasts of the Lacedemonians that I have read of. In imitation of London, which is truly the metropolis of England, every town, however small, elects its mayor, and the least towns their bailiff, and the shires their sheriff. I believe that the same is done in the island of Jersey, one of the Menanian isles, lying near the kingdom of England to the south; and in other small islands appertaining to Normandy, but nevertheless under the dominion of England.

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13. A Scottish impression of England, 1521 John Major or Mair (1469–1550) was the author of the first critical history of Scotland. Educated at Cambridge and Paris, where he took his first degree in 1496, he spent some years teaching scholastic philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1518 he returned to Glasgow as a professor of philosophy. Four years later he moved to the University of St Andrews, where he taught logic and theology. In 1525 he went back to Paris. Returning to St Andrews in 1531 he became dean of the theological faculty, and remained there until his death. His theological writings were considerable, but he is best known for his history of Scotland, first published in Paris in 1521. The Latin text was edited and translated by Archibald Constable, A History of Greater Britain as well England as Scotland (Scottish Hist. Soc. Publics., x, 1892).

Chapter II (p. 5), Bk. I

Of the description of Britain and its extent: that is, its breadth, length, and circumference; also of its fruitfulness, alike in things material and infamous men

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n the preceding chapter we have spoken of the origin of the names of Albion and Britain as applied to our island. We have now to speak of the island itself. Britain is a many-angled island of the ocean, separated by the sea from the whole continent—as Virgil has it in his verse: Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos.

To the east lie Gaul, Belgium, and Germany. Between Calais or Isius and Dover is a great strait of thirty miles, which a ship under a fair wind may cross in two hours. In other parts it is separated by a greater breadth of ocean from every land. To the southwest lies Hesperia, to the west Ireland, which is likewise an island, to the north the islands of the Orkneys. From south to north its length is eight hundred miles. The point of departure you may take in this way:—from Penwichstreit, fifteen miles beyond Michaelstow in Cornwall, to the furthest point of Caithness. We may put the matter more clearly thus:—the length extends from the furthest harbour of Wales in England to the end of Caithness in Scotland, which we now call Wick of Caithness. Whatever former writers have said of the breadth of the island, this I would have you know: that it presents a great diversity. In some places, as from St. Davids, the extreme point of Wales, to Yarmouth in Norfolk, we find a breadth of two hundred miles; in most places, however, the breadth is less—say eighty, seventy, or sixty leagues. We must, therefore, reduce this variety of breadth to a mean measure, as the philosophers would say. I conceive the whole island to have a mean breadth of seventy leagues. I mean that it is equal in size to another country four hundred leagues in length and seventy leagues in breadth. Ptolemy, in his Geography, gives it after Ceylon the first place among islands, and Solinus calls it another world, and its renown is evident from the records of Greek and Latin writers. And though Cicero, in a letter to Trebatius, calls Britain barren, and affirms that it yields no grain of gold, or of silver, or of brass, while it is wanting too in every liberal art, some allowance must be made for a man whose attention was engaged by other matters, and who had not, like the second Pliny, and Ptolemy, and other writers of their kind, made an exhaustive study of cosmography and of the fertility or barrenness of various countries. For more than most does Britain abound in minerals, such as gold in Crawford Moor in Scotland, while silver, brass, and iron are found

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almost everywhere. It yields, too, a sulphurous and bituminous kind of earth, whose fire is hotter and more active than a fire obtained from wood. This is no matter for wonder, since in denser matter there is more of form than there is in rarer. Now as, according to the philosophers, vigour of action proceeds from form, there must of necessity be greater vigour of action where there is more form. Now earth is denser than wood, for which reason this substance, rather than wood, is used by smelters of iron. It produces, however, more smoke than is the case with wood, but of the latter fuel there is no scarcity. The island has, further, a sufficiency for its own needs of soil fitted for the culture of wheat, winter wheat, pease, oats; an abundance too of pleasant rivers, well-watered meadows, rich pastures for its herds of cattle; nowhere shall you find softer or finer wool. The woods are well stocked with stags, hinds, and wild boars; and nowhere, it is thought, do rabbits swarm as they do here. The inhabitants of all Britain are of a proud temper and given to fighting, and though many may come by their death within the island in civil war, they are still in force sufficient not only to resist a foreign invader, but even to carry the struggle into his country. This matter has been fully treated by foreign historians, and with them I leave it. Wheat will not grow in every part of the island; and for this reason the common people use barley and oaten bread. And as many Britons are inclined to be ashamed of things nowise to be ashamed of, I will here insist a little. And first I say this: that though the soil of all Britain were barren, no Briton need blush for that—if we approve the answer made to a certain Greek by Anacharsis the Scythian. For when this Greek was taunting Anacharsis with the barrenness of Scythia, well did Anacharsis answer: “Thou indeed art a disgrace to thy country, but my country it is that disgraces me.” And I go further: I say that he should not have said “my country disgraces me”; unless in the opinion of the unthinking. In both Hesperiae, in several provinces of both Gauls, nay further, in the Promised Land in the fourth zone, bread made from barley is in common use. Just such bread were Christ and his apostles wont to eat, as may be seen from the fourteenth chapter of Matthew and the sixth chapter of John. Pliny, too, makes mention in his thirtieth book of meal made from oats, and there is in Normandy, near to Argentolium, a village called Pain d’Aveine. But you may object that it is so called in derision, and because such meal is an un-common thing among the Gauls. I say, for my part, that I would rather eat that British oaten bread than bread made of barley or of wheat. I nowhere remember to have seen on the other side of the water such good oats as in Britain, and the people make their bread in the most ingenious fashion. For those who may be driven to use it, I will explain their method. The oats having been grown in a soil of a middling richness, they roast the grain thus: a house is built in the manner of a dovecot, and in the centre thereof/cross wise from the wall, they fix beams twelve feet in height. Upon these beams they lay straw, and upon the straw the oats. A fire is then kindled in the lower part of the building, care being taken that the straw, and all else in the house, be not burnt up. Thus the oats are dried, and thereafter carried to the mill, where, by a slight elevation of the upper millstone the outer husk gets shaken out. The flour alone then remains, dried, and in good condition, more excellent by far than the flour that is used by confectioners in any part of the world. From this dried grain, which

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from its resemblance to lentil flour they call by that name, after it has been ground small in the manner of meal, the oaten bread is made. As the common people use it both leavened and unleavened, oats are very largely grown. Just eat this bread once, and you shall find it far from bad. It is the food of almost all the inhabitants of Wales, of the northern English (as I learned some seven years back), and of the Scottish peasantry; and yet the main strength of the Scottish and English armies is in men who have been tillers of the soil—a proof that oaten bread is not a thing to be laughed at. But that you may know how to get good oats, observe this rule. If from a fixed quantity of oats, even with the outer husk, you get an equal or greater quantity of flour, your oats are good and fullbodied; but if the quantity of flour be less, then the oats are not good. In Britain the quantity of flour thus obtained is often greater than that of its oats. From a smaller quantity of compact and firm meal, you shall get, because of its rarity, a larger quantity of flour; and from equal quantities of meal you shall often get unequal quantities of flour. Bakers often find this to be the case with corn; and a purchaser will pay a different price for the same quantity of wheat in two villages not far distant from one another. Chapter V, pp. 19–27

Of the situation of Britain In England there are, further, three chief rivers, the first of which, the Severn, or, by its British name, Habern, is in mid Wales. This river has its source to the east, making towards Shrewsbury; afterwards, flowing southwards, by Bridgenorth, Worcester, and Gloucester, it turns westward by Bristol, and in some parts is the boundary between England from Wales. The second river is the Humber, which winds its way toward the southern part of Yorkshire; into it flow Trent and Ouse, making of the Humber a mighty stream, who then carries them with him into the Northern Ocean. The third river is the Thames, which takes part of its name from an Oxfordshire streamlet, and flows by London. ’Tis a river of no great size, save when it is increased by the flowing tide. In Britain you need not look for a large river—and the reason is this: that its streams flow across the island—following not its length, but its breadth, which is not great. The sea on one side or other is at hand, and soon swallows them. For in their course rivers tend to join one with another, and lose their old names as they receive tributary streams. Not otherwise does the Metro1 increase—not otherwise the king of European rivers, the Danube himself; for in his long course the Danube receives the waters of sixty large streams. In Britain, however, you shall find rivers equal to the Marne, or the Seine before its union with the Marne; only, as there is in parts but small depth of water, they are not well fitted for navigation. Full of fish they are, and fair to see, since they flow for the most part over pebbles and sand. The Thames at London is three times as large as the Seine at Paris, because further up even than London Bridge the ocean rushes, under agitation of the moon; and so it happens that the largest vessels in Europe can make their way to London Bridge. Londinum is called by the Britons London, and is the capital of England, and of all the cities of Britain the largest and the 1

Metanus in Umbria.

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fairest in its situation. There shall you find merchant vessels from every part of Europe. The city is adorned with a right noble bridge, on which are houses richly built, and likewise a church. One mile beyond the city westward you reach Westminster, that is, the Western Monastery. The king’s palace is there, likewise monuments of kings, and the supreme courts of justice in constant session. Between the monastery and the city, on the banks of the river, are the palaces of the bishops and nobles; while near them are the dwellings of the handicraftsmen—and so the whole city in all its length lies along the river. Three miles eastward, likewise on the Thames, is Greenwich, the common dockyard of the kings of England. There you shall find ships (which they call “barges”) in great numbers, ascending the river to London, and descending to its seaport—not drawn, as in the Seine, by horses, but either answering to the action of the wind, or simply to the flow and ebb of the tide without wind. Every year is chosen one of a craft, opulent and up in years, as prefect. Him they call mayor of the city, and before him is borne a sword, in symbol of justice. Of the royal prerogatives it is the king’s Justice that falls to his share. If there shall chance a scarcity of provisions in the city, it falls to him to send to foreign countries and find a remedy for such scarcity. In point of population I place London before Rouen, the second city of both Gauls. In wealth it surpasses Rouen by much, for three things go chiefly to the enriching of this city: the supreme courts of justice; the almost constant presence of the king, who at his own expense provides for a great household and supplies to them all their food; and-what is the strongest element of all—a great concurrence of merchants. Yet, in the judgment of some Englishmen—and this is my own judgment too—Paris has a population three times greater than that of London; but I do not reckon the wealth of Paris to be three times greater than the wealth of London. There are to be found on the Thames three or four thousand tame swans; but though I have seen many swans there, I did not count them; I merely report what I heard. The second city is York, the seat of an archbishop, and fifty leagues distant from Scotland. In circuit it is great, but not in population or in wealth; in respect of these matters it falls much behind London. It has no duke apart from the king, nor a resident archbishop, by whose favour the city might be enriched. The third city is Norwich, an episcopal see, in which is made that kind of cloth which is called “ostade”,1 both double and single. Other cities there are and wealthy, such as Bristol; Coventry—it has no river, and that is worth noting, but ’tis a goodly city; Lincoln, of renown in old days, and many other cities and villages. There are, further, in England, two illustrious universities: of which one—I mean Oxford—is famous even among foreigners. Into it, as I have heard, the kings of England dare not set foot, lest they should meet with insult, on account of insolence which was offered to a certain holy virgin by one of the kings of the English. In ancient times this university has produced philosophers and theologians of renown—such as Alexander Hales, Richard Middleton, John Duns, that subtle doctor, Ockam, Adam of Ireland, Robert Holkot, Bokinham, Eliphat, Climito Langley, John Roditon, an English monk, Suiset, a most ingenious mathematician, Hentisbery, a very skilful dialectician, Strode, Bravardinus, and many more. Famous colleges there are too in that university, founded 1

Worsted.

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by kings, queens, bishops, and princes, and from their revenues provision is made for the education of many scholars, whom at Paris we call “bursars”. Some colleges are of a reputation beyond the others, the new college of the blessed Magdalene, and a college founded by a bishop of Winchester (who was once a fellow of New College). Each of these colleges has a hundred bursars, of whom some give themselves to the study of divinity and the hearing of lectures, and others continuously to letters. There is yet another university, that of Cambridge, somewhat inferior to Oxford, both in the number of its scholars and in reputation for letters. It too possesses very fair foundations of kings and queens. One of these, and indeed the chief, is King’s college, worthy to be placed along with New college in Oxford. There is too the Queen’s college (that is, founded by a queen), a very fair building, and the King’s hall, in revenues and in bursars not inferior to Queen’s college. Another college is Christ’s (in which I formerly heard lectures for three months—for this reason, that I found it to be situated within the parish of Saint Andrew). A certain convent for women was changed into Jesus college, by the counsel of a most learned and worthy man, Stubbs, a doctor in theology. Those women refused to keep their enclosure, and added to their own a society of students of the other sex; and this was a scandal to men of serious mind. Wherefore, when these had been turned out, and other foundations for the common life had been prepared, there were admitted in their place poor students, who should give themselves to letters and the practice of virtue, and bear fruit in their season. This expulsion of women, I approve. For if, from being nurseries of religion, these houses become nurseries of prostitution, honest foundations must be put into their place. There are besides many other colleges in which lectures are given daily. The course of study in the arts is in these universities of seven or eight years before the taking of the Master’s degree. A Chancellor (whom in Paris they call a Rector)—a man always of grave repute—is every year elected from the highest faculty. The Chancellor of Oxford was Thomas Bradwardine. Two proctors are chosen yearly; in their hands are all the functions of justice—for their authority extends over every layman in the city. And though in number the laymen be equal to or more than the scholars, as a matter of fact they dare not rise against them; for they would be crushed forthwith by the scholars. In either university you shall find four thousand or five thousand scholars; they are all of them no longer boys; they carry swords and bows, and in large part are of gentle birth. In the colleges however they do not give themselves to the study of grammar. In England every village, be it only of twelve or thirteen houses, has a parish church; their places of worship are most richly adorned, and in the art of music they stand, in my opinion, first in all Europe. For though in France or in Scotland you may meet with some musicians of such absolute accomplishment as in England, yet ’tis not in such numbers. Their churchmen are of an honest walk and conversation, and should they be taken in adultery or fornication, yea, though they were benefited priests, from their place they are compelled to go. In courage, in prudence, in all virtues of this nature, Englishmen do not think themselves the lowest of mankind; and if, in a foreign land, they happen upon a man of parts and spirit, “’tis pity,” they say, “he’s not an Englishman.”

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14. A Spanish impression of England. From a private letter, 1554 This lively account of England and the English people was given in a letter to a friend at Salamanca by a courtier who accompanied Prince Philip to England in 1554. Spanish text in Pascual de Gayangos, Viage de Felippe II en Inglaterra (Madrid, 1877): English summary in Cal. St. Pap. Spain, XIII, 30–34, and for a second letter, pp. 60–2.

I

wrote to you from Southampton, but have had no time or place to do so since, so have had to leave it. You will have heard that at Winchester his Highness met the Queen, who had been waiting for him there two weeks, and also that the wedding ceremonies were a fine sight, for there were six bishops in their pontificals with crosiers and mitres, and I have never seen so many at any wedding. Their Majesties are the happiest couple in the world, and more in love than words can say. His Highness never leaves her, and when we are on the road he is ever by her side, helping her to mount and dismount. They sometimes dine together in public, and go to mass together on holidays. The Queen, however, is not at all beautiful: small, and rather flabby than fat, she is of white complexion and fair, and has no eyebrows. She is a perfect saint, and dresses badly. All the women here wear petticoats of coloured cloth without admixture of silk, and above come coloured robes of damask, satin or velvet, very badly cut. Their shoes are sometimes of velvet, but more often of leather, and they wear black stockings and show their legs up to the knee when walking. As their skirts are not long they are passably immodest when walking, and even when seated. They are neither beautiful nor graceful when dancing, and their dances only consist in strutting or trotting about. Not a single Spanish gentleman has fallen in love with one of them nor takes any interest in them, and their feelings for us are the same. They are not the sort of women for whom Spaniards feel inclined to take much trouble or spend their substance, which is an excellent thing for the Spaniards. There are no distractions here except eating and drinking, the only variety they understand. The Queen spends over 300,000 ducats a year on her table, for all the thirteen councillors eat in the palace, as well as the household officers, the master of the horse, the master of the household, the Queen’s as well as our own—for we also have English officers—and the wives of all these gentlemen into the bargain. The Queen’s ladies also eat by themselves in the palace, and their servants, as well as all the councillors, governors and household officials. And then there are the 200 men of the guard. So all these ladies and gentlemen have their private quarters in the palace, and each gentleman has his cook in the Queen’s kitchens, which cook only looks after his master. There are usually eighteen kitchens in full blast, and they seem veritable hells, such is the stir and bustle in them. The palaces here are enormous, for the smallest of the four we have seen is certainly much bigger, and has more and larger apartments, than the Alcazar of Madrid, but the throng of people is such that they are full to bursting. The usual daily consumption is eighty to one hundred sheep—and the sheep here are very big and fat—, a dozen fat beeves, a dozen and a half calves, without mentioning poultry, game, deer, boars and great numbers of rabbits. There is plenty of beer here, and they drink more than would fill the Valladolid

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river. In summer the ladies and some gentlemen put sugar in their wine, with the result that there are great goings on in the palace. Now, in spite of all the room there is here, they have never offered apartments in the palace to the Duchess of Alva—they are the most selfish people ever seen—and even in the country estates we have stopped at, for each man here has one, they have only given the Duke and Duchess a house in the village, and a poor one at that. Our lords have great trouble in finding lodgings for the English are not satisfied with preventing them from serving the King, but must inflict other miseries upon them. The English hate us Spaniards worse than they hate the Devil, and treat us accordingly. They rob us in town and on the road; no one ventures to stray two miles but they rob him; and a company of Englishmen have recently robbed and beaten over fifty Spaniards. The best of it is that the councillors know all about it and say not a word. There are incredible numbers of robbers here; they go about in bands of twenty, and neither justice nor fear of God avail to hold them back. Mass is rarely celebrated, and meagrely attended by a few who seem to hear it unwillingly; though wherever the Queen is the Christian religion is kept up in all its dignity, for she is most holy and God-fearing. We have justice of our own; for his Majesty has commanded that while we are here no one shall say a word, but put up in silence with all the provocations of the English; so they ill-treat us without fear. We have complained to Briviesca and the ambassadors, who tell us that in order to serve his Majesty we must continue to dissemble. This match will have been a fine business if the Queen does not have a child, and I am sure she will not. They were saying in Castile that once his Highness was King of England we would lord it over France; and the very opposite has happened, for the French are stronger than ever, and are gaining ground and burning in Flanders every day. Yesterday his Highness received news that the King of France’s forces had occupied a Flemish town called Renty, and his Majesty was going to try to retake it, so it was supposed a battle would take place near there. The lords and gentlemen who came with his Highness have therefore asked leave to accompany his Majesty in this campaign, so as to be able to do their duty if there is a battle. The first to apply was the Duke of Medinaceli; then came Don Antonio de Toledo, the Count of Chinchón, Gutierre López, the Marquis de Las Navas, both sons of the Duke of Alva, the Marquis de Aguilar and the Count of Fuensalida. When Don Diego de Acevedo, who was at a place in the country three miles hence, heard the news, he came with thirty gentlemen, and all requested his Highness to let them go. He consented, and since then other gentlemen have been coming in day and night to ask for leave, with the result that over eighty have gone off to his Majesty’s camp. All the Flemings who were here have also gone, and the Italians have accompanied the Marquis of Pescara, who is going to camp and if there is not going to be a battle will depart for Naples, where he is to take possession of that kingdom on his Highness’s behalf. There are thirty-three leagues from here to the Emperor’s camp, so it is a two days’ and a half or three days’journey. The finest company of gentlemen that ever was seen has gone thither, and all well-equipped. His highness is now alone, save only for the Duke of Alva, the

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counts of Feria and Olivares, Don Pedro de Cordova and three household officers to whom he refused leave to go; and since the day before yesterday almost all the gentlemen who came with him have departed, and they had better never come back to be treated as they are treated here.1 Last night there came a servant of the Duke of Florence, with news that the Marquis of Marignano had broken up 5,000 French and Gascons, and had skirmished with the Germans and Italians on their way to relieve Siena to such good effect that our men routed them, took their artillery and baggage, killed over 1,500 and chased them two miles. Letters from Italy say that the King of France’s partisans who are defending Siena will not be able to hold out much longer because their munitions and stores are running short. These were good news. A courier has also come from his Majesty’s camp with the report that the Spaniards have seized a hill overlooking Renty and routed more than 600 French, killing 150 and more; and now this hill has been taken the King of France will no longer be able to occupy Renty because the artillery has been hoisted upon the hill, and if the King does not retire his camp will greatly suffer from our fire. These good tidings have also arrived. The King and Queen have no more authority in this realm than if they were vassals, for the Councillors govern, and are lords of the kingdom and even of the King and Queen. Some of these gentlemen are self-made, enriched by the rents torn from the Church, which has been utterly overthrown, others were born to their estate, and they are much more obeyed and looked up to than the King and Queen. They are saying publicly that they intend to see to it in this gathering of theirs (i.e. Parliament) that his Highness be not allowed to leave the kingdom without the Queen’s and their consent; for they think this realm good enough for its King to be able to do without another. The English being as they are, I should not be at all surprised to see them do it, for they rejoice to see Flanders in the sorry condition it has found its way into, and would not stir a finger were matters much worse, or even if the Low Countries were lost, and the Emperor with them. They are certainly more like Frenchmen than Spaniards. We went to London last Saturday, which we ought not to have done, seeing the way Spaniards are treated there. The kind of welcome that is good enough for them is to refuse to give them lodgings and insult them as if they were savages; and even in inns they are ill-treated and robbed. It would have been well to excuse the friars his Highness brought with him from coming hither, for the English are so bad and fear God so little that they handle the friars shamefully, and the poor men do not dare to leave their quarters. The English tried to tear their cloaks off the backs of Don Pedro de Gordova and Don Antonio, his nephew, who are commendadores (i.e. of Spanish Military Orders), asking what they meant by wearing crosses and jeering at them; and everything else goes to the same tune. Doña Hierónima de Navarra and Doña Francisca de Córdova, who came over here, have not yet seen the Queen, and are not going to see her, for they have not joined the Court because they would have no one 1 Ten days later they were all back in London again: see Pedro de Hoyo to Juan Vázquez de Molina, 27 August 1554, p. 39.

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to talk with, as the English ladies are of evil conversation. The Duchess of Alva1 has been once to the palace, and I do not believe she will go again. In London, they say, we shall not stay more than ten days, and then we shall come back to remain here until the middle of October, when we shall go to another pleasure-house about four miles hence, called Hampton Court, one of the finest and most commodious in the land. All the Queen’s houses are well furnished with tapestries, and most of the tapestries are adorned with sacred subjects, for they come from churches and monasteries which were burnt down in order to seize their revenues; and so the monks and nuns perished. It is said that on certain days two hundred monks and nuns were beheaded because they obeyed the Pope; and although that is a thing of the past, property from the churches and monasteries found its way into the exchequer to the amount of double the former royal revenues. From the way things are going here, these godless folk do not seem to be at all firm in matters of faith, and will not make their sub-mission to the Pope, but die stiff-necked heretics. Queen Mary—blessings on her—is beginning, to set matters right, however, and a month before we arrived here she created a bishop because he had always been a good Christian; though it was done without obeisance being paid to the Pope, an obligation rarely complied with here. The man who wrote Amadis and other books of chivalry, with all the flowery meads, pleasure-houses and enchantments, must first have visited England and seen the strange customs of the country. For who, in any other land, ever saw women riding forth alone as they do here, where many of them manage their horses with consummate skill and are as firm in the saddle as any man? You may be certain that there are more sights to be seen here in England than are described in any book of chivalry: country-houses, river-banks, woods, forests, delicious meadows, strong and beautiful castles, and everywhere fresh springs; for all these things abound here, and make the country well worth a visit and most delightful, especially in summer-time. I might give you many more details of life here, but to avoid tiring you I will only say that we would rather be in Spain than see England or the sea, and we are all desiring to be off with such longing that we think of Flanders as paradise. So now you may reflect on the way things are going in this realm.

15. Descriptions of the English countryside, by John Leland (i) Description of Gloucester (Leland, The Itinerary, Pt. v, 57–59)

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rom Cheltenham to Gloucester a 6. miles all by low ground, corn, pasture and meadow. All the quarters thereabout from Winchcombe to Evesham and to Tewkesbury, and all the way from Cheltenham to Gloucester, and thence to Tewkesbury, and partly down from Gloucester on Severn ripes [banks] to Newnham much low ground, subject to all sudden risings of Severn: so that after rains it is very 1

Doña María Enríquez de Alva de Aliste.

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foul to travel in. I passed over 2. or 3. small becks1 going betwixt Cheltenham and Gloucester, and they resort to Severn. The town of Gloucester is ancient, well builded of timber, and large, and strongly defended with walls, where it is not fortified with a deep stream of Severn water. In the wall be 4 gates by east, west, north and south, and so bear the names, but that the east gate is commonly called Aillesgate. The ancient castle standing south on the town by Severn left ripe. The quay on Severn left ripe, whither picards and small ships come, is almost by the castle. I learned there that the old quay on Severn stood hard by St. Oswald’s, and for strife between the town and the house of St. Oswald it was thence removed. When the quay was by St. Oswald’s, there were divers pretty streets that now be clean decayed, as St. Bride’s Street, and Silver Girdle Street. The truth is [that] those streets stood not most wholesomely, and were subject to the raging flood of Severn, therefore men desired more to inhabit in the higher places of the town. The beauty of the town lieth in two crossing streets, as the gates of the town lie; and at the place of the middle meeting, or quarterfois of these streets is aquaduklyd encastled. There be suburbs without the east, north, and south gates of Gloucester. The bridge only with the causeway lieth at the West gate. The bridge that is on the chief arm of Severn, that runneth hard by the town, is of 7. great arches of stone. There is another a little more west of it, that hath an arch or 2, and serveth at a time for a ditch or drain of the meadows. A little way farther is another bridge, hard without the west gate, and this bridge hath 5. great arches. From this bridge there goeth a great causeway of stone, forced up through the low meads of Severn by the length of a quarter of a mile. In this causeway be divers double arched bridges, to drain the meadows at floods. At the end of this causeway is a bridge of 8. arches not yet finished. Bell a merchant of Gloucester [now living, considering to a commonwealth bridges and causeways be, and to the town of Gloucester]2 hath given x.li. lands the year toward the maintenance of these bridges. There be a II parish churches in Gloucester town. In the…suburb is St. Ewins. I cannot tell surely whether this be one of the II. The Greyfriars college stood without the town not far from the south gate. One of the Lord Berkeleys was founder of it. It is now a brewhouse. King Henry the 3. and one Stephen dominus de Harnshull miles were founders of the Blackfriars about the year of our Lord 1239. The Blackfriars stood within the town not far from the castle. This house is by one Bell made a draping house. The Whitefriars college stood in the suburb without the north gate. There is in that suburb somewhat more by north an hosptial for poor folks endowed with lands dedicate to St. Margaret. The township hath the order of this. Not far from that is another poor hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, somewhat more by north than St. Margaret’s. The prior of Lanthony was taken founder there, and was wont to maintain it with certain charity of bread. There is an hospital of St. Bartholomew a little within the west-gate. This hospital 1

brooks or streams.

2

Omission in MS.

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had once a master and 52. poor men, and now it hath a master and 32. poor men and women. The bishop of Worcester doth give this hospital. Some say it was of the king’s foundation. One Pancefoote, that was living in the mind of old men, is buried in the chapel of this hospital. Whitmaster, a suffragan, now ruler of this house, raised this hospital that before was very subject to the rising of Severn, and built a fair lodging for himself in the hospital.

(ii) Tudor building (Ibid. Pt. 1, 105)

Thence I passed by hilly, woody, and much barren ground to Chenies a V. miles off. And or I came very near Chenies I passed over a little brook, and even in the valley by Chenies over another, and they resort about Rickmansworth to the moor water. The old house of the Chenies is so translated by my Lord Russell, that hath that house on the right of his wife, that little or nothing of it in a manner remaineth untranslated: and a great deal of the house is even newly set up made of brick and timber: and fair lodgings be new erected in the garden. The house is within divers places richly painted with antique works of white and black. And there be about the house 2 parks, as I remember. The manor place standeth at the west end of the parish church.

(iii) Bewdley. A new town (Ibid. Pt. v, 87–89)

The town of Bewdley is set on the side of a hill, so cunningly that a man cannot wish to set a town better. It riseth from Severn bank by east upon the hill by west; so that a man standing on the hill trans pontem by east may describe almost every house in the town, and at the rising of the sun from east the whole town glittereth, being all of new building, as it were of gold. There be but 3. streets memorable in the town. One from north to south, all along Severn bank. The second is the market place, a fair large thing and well built. The third runneth in length from north to south on the hillside, as the first doth in the valley by Severn. In the town is but a chapel of ease, and that is of timber in the heart of the town. The parish church standeth a mile lower at Ripley in dextra ripa Sabrinae, as Bewdley doth. Mr. Acton hath a goodly manor place at Ripley, ut aqua defluit ripa dextra. By the distance of the parish church I gather that Bewdley is but a very new town, and that of old time there was but some poor hamlet, and that upon the building of a bridge there upon Severn, and resort of people unto it, and commodity of the pleasant site, men began to inhabit there, and because that the-plot of it seemed fair to the lookers it took a French name Bewdley quasi bellus locus. I asked a merchant there of the ancientness of the town, and he answered me that it was but a new town, adding that they had liberties granted by King Edward.

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There is a fair manor place by west of the town standing in a goodly park well wooded, on the very knap of a hill that the town standeth in. This place is called Ticknell. Whether there were any ancient house there in times past or no I am not assured; but this that now is there seemeth but new, and, as I heard, was in a manner totally erected by King Henry the 7. for Prince Arthur. It was repaired for the Lady Mary. [Since, I heard that Richard Earl of March and Duke of York builded there. It was Mortimer’s Earl of March’s land.] There was privilege of sanctuary given to this town that now is revoked and abrogated.

(iv) Birmingham. An industrial centre (Ibid. Pt. v, 96–97)

I came through a pretty street or ever I entered into Bremischam [Birmingham] town. This street, as I remember, is called Deritend, in it dwell smiths and cutlers, and there is a brook that divideth this street from Birmingham. Deritend is but a hamlet or member belonging to…parish thereby and is clean separated from Birmingham parish. There is at the end of Deritend a proper chapel and mansion house of timber, hard on the bank as the brook cometh down, and as I went through the ford by the bridge, the water ran down on the right hand, and a few miles lower goeth into Thame ripa dextra. This brook riseth, as some say, a 4. or 5. miles above Birmingham toward the Black hills in Worcestershire. This brook above Deritend breaketh into 2. arms that a little beneath the bridge close again. The beauty of Birmingham, a good market town in the extreme parts that way of Warwickshire, is in one street going up along almost from the left bank of the brook up a mean hill by the length of a quarter of a mile. I saw but one parish church in the town. There be many smiths in the town that use to make knives and all manner of cutting tools and many lorimers that make bits, and a great many nailers. So that a great part of the town is maintained by smiths. The smiths there have iron out of Staffordshire and Warwickshire and sea coal out of Staffordshire.

(v) Droitwich and the salt industry (Ibid. Pt. v, 92–95)

From Worcester I rode to the Wiche [Droitwich] by enclosed ground, having meetly good corn, sufficient wood, and good pasture, about a 6. miles of. The Wiche [Droitwich] standeth somewhat in a valley or low ground betwixt 2 small hills on the left bank of a pretty river that not far beneath Droitwich is called Salwarpe brook. The beauty of the town in a manner standeth in one street. Yet be there many lanes in the town beside. There is a mean church in the chief street, and in the town is once a week a meetly celebrate market. The town of itself is somewhat foul and dirty when any rain falleth, with much carriage through the streets, being over ill paved or not paved. The great advancement of the town is by making of salt; and yet though the commodity thereof be singular great, yet the burgesses be poor for the most part; because

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gentlemen have for the most part the great gain of it, and the burgesses have all the labour. I saw on a hill hard by the town of Droitwich, a little or I entered into it, a parish church. I saw also another church on a hillet a little beyond the town in dextra ripafluvii, beyond the wood bridge, and a little above the principal salt spring. There be at this present time 3. salt springs in the town of Droitwich, whereof the principal is within a butt shot of the right bank of the river, that there cometh down; and this spring is double as profitable in yielding of salt liquor as both the other. Some say that this salt spring did fail in the time of Richard de la Wiche Bishop of Chichester, and that after by his intercession it was restored to the profit of the old course. [Such is the superstition of the people. In token whereof, or for the honour that the Wichemen and salters bare unto this Richard their countryman, they used of late times on his day to hang about this salt spring or well once a year with tapestry, and to have drinking games and revels at it.] There be a great number of salt coots or furnaces about this well, wherein the salt water is decocted and brought to the perfection of pure white salt. The other 2. salt springs be on the left ripe of the river, lower a pretty way than the other great spring and at the very town’s end; and at these springs be also divers furnaces to make salt; but the profit and plenty of these 2. springs be nothing comparable to the great spring. I asked a salter how many furnaces they had at all the 3. springs, and he numbered them to an 18 score, that is 360, saying that every one of them paid yearly 6.s. 8.d. to the King. The truth is that of old they had liberties given them for 300 furnaces or more; and thereupon they give a fee farm [or vectigal] of £100 yearly. The vectigal is as it was; but the number of furnaces is now increased to a 400. There was of late search made for another salt spring at Droitwich, by the means of one Mr. Newport, a gentleman dwelling in Droitwich; and the place where it was appeared, and the wood and timber that had been set about it for holding up the earth for falling in it. But this pit was not occupied since, whether it were for lack of plenty of the salt spring, or for letting the profit of the other three. Men think that if wood and sale of salt would serve, they might dig and find more salt springs about Droitwich. I heard that of late years a salt spring was found in another quarter of Worcestershire; but the Wichemen have such privilege that they alone in those quarters shall make salt. The Wichemen use the commodity of their salt springs in drawing and decocting the water of them only by 6. months in the year, that is from Midsummer to Christmas; as I guess, to maintain the price of their salt, or for saving of wood, the which I think to be their principal reason. For making of salt is a great and notable destruction of wood, and hath been, and shall be hereafter, except men use much coppices of young wood. The lack of wood is now perceived in places near the Wich. For whereas in places near about they used to buy and take their wood, the wonted places are now sore decayed in wood. They be forced to seek wood as far as Worcester town, and all the parts about Bromsgrove, Alvechurch, and Alcester.

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I asked a salter how much wood he supposed yearly to be spent at the furnaces, and he answered that by estimation there was spent a 6000 loads by year. And it is young pole wood for the most part, easy to be divided in pieces. The people that be about the furnaces be very ill coloured. The just rate of every furnace is to make 4. loads of salt yearly; and to every load goeth…quarters. If the furnace-men make more in one furnace than four loads it is, as it is said, their own avail. Going out of the town’s end I saw a fair new house of timber, belonging to one Mr. Newport, on the right hand. And on the left hand I saw a bridge of 4. arches of stone over the brook that runneth by the Wich, and at the hither end of this bridge was a fair new chapel of timber. I rode from the Wich [Droitwich] to Bromsgrove a 4 miles by enclosed ground, having some good corn, meetly wooded and well pastured; and in this way I passed over 2. or 3. times over the water that cometh on Droitwich; and as far as I could gather, either Bromsgrove water goeth a little beneath Bromsgrove into the Wich water, or else it is the very same brook that goeth to Droitwich.

(vi) Bolton and mining (Ibid. Pt. XI, 139)

Bolton village and castle is 4. miles from Middleham. The castle standeth on a rock side, and all the substance of the lodgings in it be included in 4 principal towers. It was an 18 years in building, and the expenses of every year came to 1000 marks. It was finished or King Richard the 2. died. One thing I much noted in the hall of Bolton, how chimneys were conveyed by tunnels made on the sides of the walls betwixt the lights in the hall; and by this means, and by no louvers, is the smoke of the hearth in the hall wonder strangely conveyed. Most part of the timber that was occupied in building of this castle was fetched out of the forest of Engleby in Cumberland, and Richard Lord Scrope for conveyance of it had laid by the way divers draughts of oxen to carry it from place to place till it came to Bolton. There is a very fair clock at Bolton ’cum motu solis et Lunae, and other conclusions. There is a park walled with stone at Bolton. There is a hill with a lead mine 2 miles beyond Bolton. There be some veins of coals found in the upper part of the west mountains of Richmondshire, but they be not used for incommodity of carriage to the lower part. Most of the coal that be occupied about the quarters of Richmond town be fetched from Rayle Pitts towards the quarters of Akeland. The veins of the sea coals lie sometime open upon cliffs of the sea, as around about Coket Island and other shores; and they, as some will, be properly called sea coal; but they be not so good as the coals that are digged in the upper part of the land. The vein of coals sometimes lieth as a yard deep of the substance of the coal. Sometimes the vein itself is an ell in depth, sometimes the whole height of a man, and that is a principal vein.

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The craft is to come to it with the least pain in deep digging. Some veins of coal lie under rocks and heads of stones: as some suppose that coals lie under the very rocks that the minster close of Durham standeth on.

(vii) Bath and the antique (Ibid. Pt. II, 139)

Or ever I came to the bridge of Bath that is over Avon I came down by a rocky hill full of fair springs of water: and on this rocky hill is set a long street as a suburb to the city of Bath: and in this street is a chapel of S. Mary Magdalen. There is a great gate with a stone arch at the entry of the bridge. The bridge hath 5 fair stone arches. Betwixt the bridge and the south gate of Bath I marked fair meadows on each hand, but especially on the left hand, and they lie by south west on the town. The city of Bath is set both in a fruitful and pleasant bottom, the which is environed on every side with great hills, out of the which come many springs of pure water that be conveyed by divers ways to serve the city. Insomuch that lead being made there at hand many houses in the town have pipes of lead to convey water from place to place. There be 4 gates in the town by the names of east, west, north and south. The town wall within the town is of no great height to the eyes: but without it is a fundamentis of a reasonable height and it standeth almost all, lacking but a piece about Gascoyn’s tower. In the walls at this time be no towers saving over the town gates. One Gascoyne an inhabitant of the town in hominum memoria made a little piece of the wall that was in decay, as for a fine for a fault that he had committed in the city: whereof one part as at a corner riseth higher than the residue of the wall, whereby it is commonly called Gascoyne-tower. There be divers notable antiquities engraved in stone that yet be seen in the walls of Bath betwixt the south gate and the west gate: and again betwixt the west gate and the north gate. The first was an antique head of a man made all flat and having great locks of hair as I have in a coin of C.Antius. The second that I did see between the south and north gate was an image, as I took it, of Hercules: for he held in each hand a serpent. Then I saw the image of a foot man vibrato gladio & praetenso clypeo. Then I saw a branch with leaves folded and wrethin into circles. Then I saw 2 naked images lying along, the one embracing the other. Then I saw 2 antique heads with hair as ruffled in locks. Then I saw a grey-hound as running, and at the tail of him was a stone engraved with great Roman letters, but I could pick no sentence out of it. Then I saw another inscription, but the weather hath except a few letters clear defaced. Then I saw toward the west gate an image of a man embraced with 2 serpents. I took it for Laocoon.

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Betwixt the west and the north gate. I saw 2 inscriptions, of the which some words were evident to the reader, the residue clean defaced. Then I saw the image of a naked man. Then I saw a stone having cupidines & labruscas intercurrentes. Then I saw a table having at each end an image vivid and flourished above and beneath. In this table was an inscription of a tomb or burial wherein I saw plainly these words: vixit annos xxx. This inscription was meetly whole but very diffusely written, as letters for whole words, and 2. or 3. letters conveyed in one. Then I saw 2 images, whereof one was of a naked man grasping a serpent in each hand, as I took it; and this image was not far from the north gate. Such antiquities as were in the walls from the north gate to the east, and from the east gate to the south, hath been defaced by the building of the monastery, and making new walls. I much doubt whether these antique works were set in the time of the Romans’ dominion in Britain in the walls of Bath, as they stand now: or whether they were gathered of old ruins there, and since set up in the walls reedified in testimony of the antiquity of the town. There be 2 springs of hot water in the west south west part of the town. Whereof the bigger is called the Cross Bath, because it hath a cross erected in the middle of it, This bath is much frequented of people diseased with leprosy, pocks, scabs, and great aches, and is temperate and pleasant, having 11 or 12 arches of stone in the sides for men to stand under in time of rain. Many be helped by this bath from scabs and aches. The other bath is 200 feet off, and is less in compass within the wall than the other, having but 7 arches in the wall. This is called the Hot Bath; for at coming into it men think that it would scald the flesh at the first, but after that the flesh is warmed it is more tolerable and pleasant. Both these baths be in the middle of a little street, and join to S.John’s hospital: so that it may be thought that Reginald Bishop of Bath made this hospital near these 2 common baths to succour poor people resorting to them. The King’s Bath is very fair and large standing almost in the middle of the town, and at the west end of the cathedral church. The area that this bath is in is compassed with a high stone wall. The brims of this bath hath a little wall encompassing them, and in this wall be 32 arches for men and women to stand separately in. To this bath do gentlemen resort. There goeth a sluice out of this bath, and served in times past with water derived out of it 2 places in Bath priory used for baths: else void; for in them be no springs. The colour of the water of the baths is as it were a deep blue sea water, and reeketh like a seething pot continually, having somewhat a sulphurous and somewhat unpleasant savour. The water that runneth from the 2 small baths goeth by a dyke into Avon by west beneath the bridge.

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The water that goeth from the King’s Bath turneth a mill, and after goeth into Avon above Bath-bridge. In all the 3 baths a man may evidently see how the water bubbleth up from the springs. There be within the walls of Bath…parish churches, of the which the towered steeple of the parish church at the north gate seemeth to be ancient. There is a parish church and a suburb without the north-gate. There is an hospital of S.John hard by the Cross Bath, of the foundation of Reginald Bishop of Bath. The town hath of a long time since been continually most maintained by making of cloth. There were in hominum memoria 3 clothiers at one time, thus named, Style, Kent and Chapman, by whom the town of Bath then flourished. Since the death of them it hath somewhat decayed. It appeareth in the book of the antiquities of the late monastery of Bath that King Osric in the year of our Lord 676, Theodore then being Archbishop of Canterbury, did erect a monastery of nuns at Bath, and Bertane was the first abbess thereof. It appeareth by a charter that one Ethelmod, a great man, gave, by the leave of King Ædelrede in Theodore the archbishop of Canterbury’s time, lands to one Bernguid abbess of Bath, and to one Foulcburc. The book of the antiquity of the abbey of Bath maketh no great mention of any great notable doing of Offa King of the Merches at Bath. The prior of Bath told me that after the nuns time there were secular canons in S.Peter’s church at Bath; peradventure Offa King of Merches set them there, for I have read that Offa did a notable act at S.Peter’s in Bath. Or else the canons came in after that the Danes had rased the nunnery there. Eadgar was a great doer and benefactor to S.Peter’s at Bath, in whose time monks were in Bath, and since; except Alfarus Earl of Merch, that was a scourge of monks, expelled them for a time. John a physician, born at Tours in France, and made Bishop of Wells, did obtain of Henry the first to set his see at Bath; and so he had the abbey lands given unto him, and then he made a monk prior there, dividing the old possessions of the monastery with him. This John pulled down the old church of S.Peter at Bath, and erected a new, much fairer, and was buried in the middle of the presbytery thereof, whose image I saw lying there 9 years since, at the which time all the church that he made lay to waste, and was unroofed, and weeds grew about this John of Tours’ sepulchre. This John of Tours erected a palace at Bath in the south west side of the monastery of S.Peter’s at Bath; one great square tower of it with other ruins yet appear. I saw at the same time a fair great marble tomb there of a bishop of Bath, out of the which they said that oil did distil: and likely; for his body was embalmed plentifully. There were other divers bishops buried there. Oliver King Bishop of Bath began of late days a right goodly new church at the west

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part of the old church of S.Peter, and finished a great piece of it. The residue of it was since made by the priors of Bath: and especially by Gibbes the last prior there, that spent a great sum of money on that fabric. Oliver King let almost all the old church of S.Peter’s in Bath to go to ruin. The walls yet stand. King Eadgar was crowned with much joy and honour at S.Peter’s in Bath; whereupon he bore a great zeal to the town, and gave very great franchises and privileges unto it. In knowledge whereof they pray in all their ceremonies for the soul of King Eadgar. And at Whitsunday tide, at the which time men say that Eadgar there was crowned, there is a king elected at Bath every year of the townsmen in the joyful remembrance of King Eadgar and the privileges given to the town by him. This king is feasted and his adherents by the richest men of the town.

Part III THE COMMONWEAL

INTRODUCTION

T

HE selection of documents in this section illustrates the nature and structure of early Tudor society. The documents have been arranged in three groups. The first is concerned with the relationships forming the framework and actual structure of society during the period. The second indicates the nature of contemporary social thought, both in justification and in criticism of that pattern of society. The third group gives some impressions of personalities providing the leadership on which the achievements of that society depended. Of all the features of early sixteenth-century society, that which is most difficult to assess, and the least satisfactory to illustrate in a selection of documents, is the nature and actual structure of that society. This is not due to lack of information, although it is true that the subject has not received full attention and that much still remains to be done before anything like a complete picture can be forthcoming, nor does it result from a dearth of suitable documents from which it may be observed. The problem is almost entirely one of presentation. The complex of relationships out of which a society is formed can only be described as it exists at a given moment in time: but such relationships are rarely, if ever, static. They are always subjected to change, so that the general structure of the society can never be observed at rest. It is, indeed, this process of change which has a special interest and challenge for the social historian. His task is really a twofold one: he has to construct out of a series of changing relationships an outline of the structure of society which will give an impression of stability, but he must do so in such a way as to avoid the suggestion of a complete rigidity. Thus, while society in the early Tudor period must be presented as a complex of relationships inherited from the Middle Ages and therefore, to a large degree, stereotyped by custom and tradition, it must never be forgotten that this pattern was being subjected to the modifying influences of change, in part the result of late medieval factors, in part the direct product of the political, religious, and economic transformations which were the distinctive features of early sixteenth century conditions. The difficult task of suggesting these different elements is the theme of the first section. They must be considered in the light of some important historical facts. The rigid legal framework of that society is well represented at the outset in a document1 where, for legal and administrative purposes, the picture given is that of a hierarchical society whose pattern is the legacy of centuries of historical development. Early Tudor society was, in essence, based upon two principles which had dominated feudal society. These were the principles of nobility of blood as the test of social status, and of land tenure as the nexus of a series of estates and the nucleus of an agrarian economy. From the first of these principles came the great social distinction between those of gentle birth and the base-born, to which must be added varying degrees of complication based upon the accident of birth and the nature of family relationships. From the second came the supreme importance of land as a source not only of wealth, 1

No. 16. 223

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but also, what was more important in such a society, of power. While both these principles continued to dominate early Tudor society, they were both subjected to important modifications, the effects of which went a long way towards breaking through the rigidity of the social framework as it appeared to the legislator. What happened to the principle of nobility of blood during the early sixteenth century is significant. Some tendencies which can be traced back into the later Middle Ages now took on a much greater meaning. During the political upheavals of the fifteenth century, when the crown of England was the prize of contesting factions, the need for the victor to take action against his political opponents was imperative. A technique for the purpose was found in the bill of attainder, whereby opponents could be burdened with the full consequences of a conviction for treason. These were serious: more than death for the victim was implied. The lands of the attainted man were forfeited to the king. His blood was corrupted, which meant not only that members of his family were unable to inherit from him, but also that the attainted man himself could not inherit from an ancestor. His incapacity to do so had direct results for his family, since his heirs could not derive a title through him from a more remote ancestor. This technique was further developed by the Tudors. During the fifteenth century the full effects of attainder and forfeiture had been mitigated to some extent by the creation of estates tail, for when a tenant in tail was attainted, the forfeiture extended only to the term of his life— as he did not possess the fee simple he could not forfeit it—and so the lands of such attainted persons remained with the family even though there was no reversal of the attainder. An act of 15341 took away this relief by bringing estates tail within the law of treason and forfeiture. Much use was made of the process of attainder during the early sixteenth century, and the effects upon the social structure were considerable. There resulted much mobility in the higher ranks of society through the disfranchisement of old and powerful families, and the rise of new unknown ones benefiting from the generosity with which the Crown bestowed upon them these forfeited estates and dignities. On the other hand, these results must not be exaggerated. If the process of attainder was much used, so too was the process of reversal of attainder, whereby after petition by the heir of an attainted man the Crown rescinded the attainder, granting a restoration in blood to the heir, accompanied usually by a return of forfeited estates. Examples of both these processes will be found below. Nor was this the only way in which the higher ranks of society were recruited. Throughout the period the government was active in creating fresh titles or resuscitating old ones by the use of letters patent of creation.2 This was the way in which the services of new men to the demands the Tudor state was making for administrators could most easily be recognized: it was the way, too, in which new blood was introduced into the older and higher ranks of society. There have, of course, been new men in all periods of history: but there is assuredly, something to be said in recognition of the extent to which they appeared on the Tudor scene. Equally important in its effects upon the social structure was the way in which the principle of ennoblement was extended during the early Tudor period. This development 1

St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sect. 5. See below, No. 48, iii.

2

No. 18. iii.

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was closely connected with the rise in importance and authority during this period of the College of Heralds. As usual, this cannot be claimed as a Tudor innovation. There is ample evidence to show that the heralds had been exercising control over grants of arms throughout the fifteenth century, if not earlier: but it is a document of 1530 which enables the historian of heraldry to speak with certainty about established practice. By a grant of letters patent of that year, to the heralds, the Crown recognized some important principles. The power of the heralds to grant and regulate the use of arms by the issue of letters and by visitation was confirmed. More significant was the recognition of the principle that such a grant of arms was open to any-one who had done service to the king, and had the wealth necessary to maintain his dignity, provided such a person was not of vile blood, a rebel against the King, or a heretic against the faith. With the confirmation of these conditions the way to social advancement was open to all who had their career to make unsupported by long family trees and inherited titles. Once that first step had been taken, and the aspirant to social distinction had crossed the great dividing line of gentility, the heralds could be relied upon to throw the mantle of chivalry over his obscure origins, and, indeed, provide him and his descendants with a pedigree which, with more ingenuity than genealogical accuracy, enabled the lowliest upstart to mingle on terms of social equality with those of more fortunate birth upon whom had descended titles and distinctions which had been within their families for generations. Great indeed in the social history of this period (and later) was the power of the heralds. Using all the language and science of an age of chivalry which was rapidly becoming only a memory they contrived to maintain its forms long after its spirit was dead, and, decking out with his blazon, helm, and crest the new aspirant to the renown of ancient nobility, they acted as conservators of a framework of society which was beginning to take many strains. Their formal, high sounding documents may have concealed from contemporaries the real significance of what was taking place. They have not deceived the modern scientific genealogist, who has so ruthlessly stripped off the trappings of nobility from more than one Tudor upstart, and discovered in not a few Tudor mansions the cupboard in which the family skeleton was concealed. In short, they have uncovered the truths which the unscrupulous fictions and falsifications of the herald Wriothesley and his successors had been intended to conceal: that despite all their pedigree making, what was going on was a social revolution, and that under cover of their letters patent of nobility a feudal hierarchy was being transformed into a landed aristocracy. A landed aristocracy. The term is a reminder that land tenure, the second great principle of feudal society had lost none of its importance by the opening of the sixteenth century, despite the great changes which had begun to undermine the feudal character of late medieval English society. In what was pre-eminently an agrarian society the ownership of land was accompanied by a control of power in the state in general and over a local community in particular, and with the fresh opportunities open for the exercise of power in the Tudor state the urge for the acquisition of land became a major feature of the period. Political and religious change provided openings on a scale

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unparalleled in England since the time when William the Conqueror made England “terra regis”. The ruthless policy of confiscation and forfeiture enforced by the first two Tudor kings against political offenders had caused much land to fall into the king’s hands. This was, however, a mere bagatelle, compared with what happened as a result of the spoliation of the religious houses by Henry VIII. The dead hand of the Church was lifted from hundreds of thousands of acres of land, much of it comprising some of the most fully developed farming land in the country. All of this was now at the disposal of the government. How efficiently, in the interests of the Crown, that vast accumulation of property was distributed, is not, for the moment, the question under discussion here. What is important as affecting the social structure of the country is the manner in which it changed hands, and the type of people who benefited from the re-distribution. The immediate effect was, of course, that much of it went to increase the estates of established noblemen, courtiers, and some of the land-hungry administrators whose sedulous devotion in the royal service had as incentive the sure prospect of rapid and satisfying social promotion: but the changes did not end with them. By the early forties the land jobbers were getting active. The splitting up of large estates, and the sale and re-sale of relatively small parcels of land scattered over the whole country brought opportunities for the lesser nobility and the gentry to consolidate their estates, and changes affecting the whole of society were soon set in train. Whereas at the opening of the century many English villages had no resident squire, by the middle of the century a new type of local magnate was beginning to appear: the lawyer, the merchant, even the prosperous yeoman were investing in landed estate and joining the ranks of the gentry. They were types likely to want a material profit from their investments, and it is not surprising if their appearance gave rise to dissatisfaction in some of the rural communities where they settled. With the play of such forces as these the framework of early Tudor society was being subjected to some powerful tensions which, as will be seen later, did not pass unnoticed by contemporary observers. It will be well to bear this in mind as a corrective against the temptation to define in too rigid terms the structure of that society. Examination of the sources used in Division A. below will show that no single type of historical document reveals the full nature of early sixteenth-century society. Valuable information may be forthcoming from the most unpromising materials. To stress this fact every opportunity has been taken to bring together, whenever possible, evidence from a variety of types of document. They may not always be very significant in themselves, but when dove-tailed together they shape into a definite pattern, contributing towards an understanding of some of the more important features of the society of the period. There are, however, some special sources deserving a little more comment. The first feature of early Tudor society inviting illustration is, of course, the framework of social ranks, dignities, estates, and groups within which that society was contained. Since much of this classification was a result of political and legal requirements, the value of the main political, legal, and administrative records will be obvious. From them can be gained an impression of the forms and descriptions of social rank, examples of the machinery of the process of attainder, and the methods for

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the creation of new titles and dignities, together with much miscellaneous information concerning the status of individuals in society. Since all such sources are fully described elsewhere,1 they need not be specifically dealt with here. Closely connected with this aspect of society is the material provided by the activities of the College of Heralds. It takes the form of information on the powers, functions, and authority of the heralds themselves, in the records they made of their visitations, their grants of arms, and the pedigrees they provided. Much of this material is among the muniments of the College of Heralds and has not been published, a considerable amount that is better known to scholars is among the manuscripts in the British Museum and elsewhere, but there are available in print enough specimens of these types of sources on which conclusions can be based concerning the work of the heralds, and its importance for the historian of society. Valuable as it is in itself, such an anatomical description of the rigid framework of social ranks, dignities, and degrees is not, by itself, an adequate account of society. More information is needed on other important features, on the way of life, the social habits, and the environment of the various groups comprised in society. Obvious, even commonplace, as much of this information may seem, it is not always easily obtained, especially for periods earlier than the sixteenth century. On the whole, it may be said that the early Tudor period is reasonably well supplied with material of this kind. One extremely useful source for such information is provided in a few admirable examples of Household Books, consisting of regulations ordering the organization and administration of the royal and some of the larger households of the nobility, while less elaborate books of accounts from smaller household establishments contain detailed records of income and expenditure, which give invaluable information on the consumption and cost of food, fuel, clothing and many other particulars of domestic life. The early Tudor period is more fully supplied than previous centuries with material giving evidence about the possessions and the social environment of various individuals. First in importance and quantity is the large bulk of individual wills still extant, many of them easily accessible in print. Closely connected with them are numerous inventories of household effects. These are of various kinds, ranging from elaborate inventories of the contents of substantial possessions belonging to important victims of sequestrations by the State to the humble lists of contents of cottages, drawn up by simple villagers after the death of one of their neighbours. The latter type of inventory has only recently received the attention it merits. Already the indications are that when more have been brought to light they will add appreciably to the data now available for reconstructing the way of life and the social environment of the lesser gentry and groups further down in the social scale.2 The selection of documents in Division B illustrates the contemporary attitude towards questions which changes in the social structure were beginning to suggest. These changes did not occur without creating many problems. The new emphasis placed on wealth, the ever-widening gulf opening up between rich and poor, government extravagance, 1

See p. 230–33.

2

W.G.Hoskins, Local History in England, pp. 57, 101,

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the debasement of the coinage, the steady pressure of ever increasing inflationary movements, these and other disturbing factors reacting upon a society rapidly being swept away from its moorings in immemorial custom and tradition, were causing some of the more reflective minds of the age to ponder some pertinent questions. Such men were sensitive enough to appreciate that all was not well with their society, that “the common weal” was being badly served. Slowly they were arriving at opinions which would ultimately find expression in concepts of social and economic theory, although the day of such a consummation was not, as yet, at hand. Already, in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign there can be discerned some elements common to all the criticisms of a widely miscellaneous group of publicists, which comprised so sensitive and cultured an intellect as Thomas More, the serious-minded—perhaps from the standpoint of the social theorist, the simple-minded-bible enthusiast, William Tyndale, agitators like Simon Fish and Henry Brinkelowe, government agents and pamphleteers like Robert Starkey, Richard Morison, and Richard Taverner. They make up a heterogeneous collection of individuals exercised in mind and conscience concerning “the common weal”, but not organized as a self-conscious group, nor bound together as a political party. That term “common weal” was soon to become closely associated with a later group of critics who were fully active in the reign of Edward VI. These were the men who would soon be referred to as “Commonwealth men”, and were much nearer to being a coherent party. This group included popular preachers like Hugh Latimer, their most eloquent spokesman, Thomas Lever, and Thomas Becon; the pamphleteer, preacher, poet Robert Crowley, and John Hales, of Coventry, an experienced administrator, with more than a shade of skill in matters social and economic. None of them, not even Hales, was an expert in the modern sense of the word. With the exception of More and Starkey, both of whom had caught something of the spirit of the ancient Greek philosophers, and applied their reading to the solution of contemporary problems, none of them wrote treatises on social theory, or fully grasped the complexity of the problems for which each thought he had a simple remedy. They expressed their opinions in many forms, in sermons, pamphlets, scriptural commentaries, and even in the crudest of doggerel verse. The impression left by these efforts is that they were more successful in diagnosing symptoms than they were in prescribing effective remedies. Even the best of them were only groping after answers to questions troubling their consciences and baffling their intelligence. It is not easy to decide how best to give an impression of this literature. Lack of space prevents the assembly of a complete canon of such writings. The alternatives are to provide a limited number of complete texts, or to make an anthology of selected passages representing some of the main features of their thought. There are disadvantages in both methods, but the scales seem tipped in favour of the anthology. The main themes can be indicated briefly. Most of these critics of early Tudor society were equipped with a few clear notions in the traditions of medieval thought. They took for granted the concept of a functional society, sometimes repeating with approval the well-worn analogy of the human body so frequently stated in medieval texts. From this followed two conclusions, which most of them accepted. The first was the

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individual’s duty of obedience to authority, and the second was insistence on the idea of vocation, that every man had his “calling”, his allotted place and his function in society, with which he should be content and from which he should not expect to move. On these foundations the best of these thinkers proceeded to build. They had many suggestions to offer: to the wealthy the responsibilities of steward-ship of their wealth and the duties of charity, to the poor contentment with their lot, to all the need for greater production and the dignity of work, the redistribution of wealth, the elimination of covetousness and greed from human life, in a word the achievement of the Christian society. All were admirable ideals, but they involved the acceptance of the rigid social framework of the Christian society at a time when its essentials were under challenge and social movement, not rigidity, was the order of the day. Even the partial realization of some of the remedies only brought disappointment. The dissolution of the monasteries certainly achieved redistribution of wealth, but before the end of this period its advocates were disillusioned: it had not brought about the results they had hoped. Only towards the end of the period is there a more realistic approach. It is to be found in the Discourse of the Common Weal: when the first whispers of something that might almost be called economic science are beginning to be heard. The documents in Division C are the logical successors of those in the first two. They bring together some contemporary assessments of the personalities upon whom fell the responsibilities of leadership, both in thought and action, in the society of early Tudor England. The material includes examples of studied character-drawing (we have arrived at an age when men are consciously feeling their way towards the writing of biography as the modern world would understand it), and angry vituperation born of religious and political controversy, the sympathetic tributes of friendship often expressed in a brief, unstudied private letter, and the professional assessments of astute foreign diplomats whose duty it was to give their own rulers shrewd advice about the quality of the actual leaders of English society with whom they had to deal. Taken together such materials provide a portrait gallery of the age on a scale impossible for any earlier period of English history. This fact is, in itself, a forceful illustration of the remarkable developments taking place: men are beginning to show greater interest than their predecessors had done in individual personality: they are acquiring more skill in depicting character: they are bolder in the expression of their own unrepressed observations. The extracts themselves call for little comment. They will be read as interesting reflections of a period and a society remarkable as much for the complex problems confronting them, and the need for leadership, as for the number of able men ready to put their talents at the service of the church, the state, and the Tudor dynasty. Let it not pass unobserved, also, how many of them were men to whom life in a flexible, far from static, society offered opportunities of advancement from the lowliest of origins to the highest positions of responsibility and dignity.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY There is no general work devoted exclusively to the study of early Tudor society, but historians in several fields are concerned with it, and much information can be collected from their works. Some of the literature discussed in other sections will be found useful. Early Tudor society is best approached from the background of the late Middle Ages. Some of the older works dealing with that social framework are indispensable. They include Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (Cambridge, 2nd ed., 1911), L.O.Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords (1894); A.F.Pollard, The Evolution of Parliament (1926); Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward and the trial of Peers (1907); F.B.Palmer, Peerage Law in England (1907). Modern scholars have been interested in the development of a society in which the process of change was producing features which could not be adequately fitted into the feudal framework, and for which it has not been easy to invent a name (neither neo-feudalism nor bastard feudalism are precise enough although they do indicate the nature of the change). Some suggestions about such transformation are made in F.M.Stenton, “The Changing Feudalism of the Middle Ages” (History: XIX, N.S., 76, 289–301); H.M.Cam, “The Decline and Fall of English Feudalism” (History, xxv, 1940,216–230) and in Law-Finders and Law-Makers in Medieval England, pp. 44–58; K.B.McFarlane, “Parliament and Bastard Feudalism” (T.R.H.S. 4th Ser., Ser., XXVI, 1944, 53–79) and idem, “The Lancastrian Kings”, and C.H.Williams, “The Yorkist Kings” (Camb. Med. Hist, VII, c. XI and XII). An interesting monograph dealing with some neo-feudal aspects of late medieval society is W.H.Dunham, “Lord Hastings’ Indentured Retainers 1461–83” (Trans. Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences, New Haven, VII, 39, 1955, 175 pp.), a study of the practice of livery and retaining under the Yorkists and the Tudors. Not much guidance is available concerning the effects of development in politics, religion, and economic life upon the framework of society in the first half of the sixteenth century. The question raised by T.L.K.Oliphant, “Was the old English Aristocracy destroyed by the Wars of the Roses?” (T.R.H.S. 1, 1868, 437–463) is still not satisfactorily closed. It has been discussed again, all too briefly, by K.B.McFarlane, “The Wars of the Roses” (Proc. Brit. Acad., vol. L, 1965, pp. 87–119). The effects upon society of the redistribution of church property by the dissolution of the monasteries has only received a very general treatment in S.B.Liljegren, The Fall of the Monasteries and the Social Changes in England leading up to the Great Revolution (Lunds Univ. Arsskrift. N.F. Avd. 1, Bd. 19,1924), but the results indicate how valuable more detailed studies would be. A work of the utmost importance both as an investigation into problems of social history and also as a work of reference on individuals in sixteenth-century society is a trilogy by W.K.Jordan, Philanthropy in England: 1480–1660 (1959); The Charities of London: 1480–1660 (1960); The Charities of Rural England, 1480–1660 (1961). Further results have been published for separate counties in the publications of the appropriate local history society, e.g., Kent, Lancashire. The technique involved an exhaustive analysis of wills with a view to discovering from the legacies and bequests left for charitable purposes the nature of the changing pattern of social aspirations, and the results upon the problem of poverty. The most illuminating and amusing in-sight into the early Tudor aristocracy, old and new, is presented in the devastating criticisms by J.H.Round, that acknowledged master of genealogical scholarship. His essays break through the mystique of the Tudor heralds, and reveal how some of the families rising to high rank in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had their origins in very lowly circumstances in the fifteenth century, and tried to conceal the facts with the aid of the science of heraldry. Round’s main work in this field will be found in Peerage and Pedigree (2 vols., 1910), Studies in Peerage and Family History (1901), Family Origins (1930), a posthumous selection 230

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of his papers, together with a full bibliography of Round’s writings, edited by W.Page. Work on similar lines will be found in O.Barron, Northamptonshire Families (1906). A lively introduction to some of the problems of social history dealt with in these books will be found in some stimulating and witty essays by J.H.Hexter, Reappraisals in History (1961). Of special importance are the essays on “A New Framework for Social History” (pp. 14–25), “The Myth of the Middle Class in Tudor England” (pp. 71–116), and “The Education of the Aristocracy in the Renaissance” (pp. 45–70). This leads naturally to the doings of the heralds. Their activities in the period give them significance. The most scholarly brief account of the evolution of their office is A.R.Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1939, 2nd edn,, rev. 1956). This enquiry into the growth of the armorial functions of the herald is concerned primarily with the later Middle Ages, but there is considerable discussion of the commission of 1530, and the powers then given to the heralds, as well as with the records of early sixteenth-century heralds’ visitations. See also his Records and Collections of the College of Arms (1952). Useful, too, is the enlarged and illustrated catalogue of the Herald’s Commemorative Exhibition 1484–1934 (1936). For the greater nobles there is no composite study in print, and impressions must be based on the biographies of individuals. The following standard reference books are indispensable: G.E.Cockayne, Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, extant, extinct, and dormant (Rev. Edn. by Hon.V.Gibbs and others. 13 vols., 1910–49); J.E.Doyle, The Official Baronage of England 1066–1885 (3 vols., 1886); A Collins, The Peerage of England (1709, best edn. by S.E. Brydges, 9 vols., 1812); W.Dugdale, The Baronage of England (3 vols., 1675–76). The social environment of members of this group is described by P.V.B.Jones, The Household of a Tudor Nobleman (Urbana, 1917), which has a useful bibliography. J.M.W.Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family: 1416–1537 (Oxford, 1958) is a scientific analysis of the possessions and revenues of this important family. The powerful Howard Dukes of Norfolk have been studied in two rewarding biographies: Melvin J.Tucker, Thomas Howard Earl of Surrey and 2nd Duke of Norfolk, 1443–1524 (1964, The Hague), and Neville Williams, Thomas Howard 1538–72 Fourth Duke of Norfolk (1964). The lesser nobility, comprising all those from the knight upwards, who could pass successfully the tests of gentility, formed an element in English society which was particularly sensitive to the impact of new social forces during this period. Contemporaries and later historians alike concerned themselves with the group. The former asked questions about the standing of the gentleman and the ideals implicit in the word: the latter have tried to analyse the answers to create a tidy scheme. Unfortunately the answers were not framed in the precise language of the lawyer, and the social group which emerges is bound to appear somewhat vague. The problem forms the theme of two good monographs: Ruth Kelso, The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century (Urbana, 1929), and J.E.Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making (Philadelphia, 1935). For a realistic picture based on facts, P.A.Kennedy, “A gentleman’s home in the reign of Henry VII” (Northampton Past and Present, II, 1954, pp. 17–28), the home of Henry de Vese of Addington. The education of the English gentleman is discussed by D.Bush, The Renaissance and English Humanism (Toronto, 1939), P.N.Siegel, “English Humanism and the New Tudor Aristocracy” (Journ. Hist. Ideas: XIII, 1952, pp. 450–468), and Fritz Caspari, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1954). For the most part, these works are based on literary sources. They can be supplemented by more technical studies dealing with documents. The best is W.G.Hoskin’s “The Leicestershire Farmer in the Sixteenth Century”, in Essays in Leicestershire History (1950). This essay is of special interest because of the use made of evidence from wills and inventories, and it can be said that many of the conclusions reached have relevance for other parts of the country. It brings out very clearly the difficulty of defining the limits between the country squire, well within the social group, and the yeoman, often as well-to-do in material wealth,

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who was beginning to take his opportunities to acquire landed property, but had not as yet arrived among the gentry. The situation suggests that some of the questions which have been asked about the gentry in the later sixteenth century need to be applied to the fifteenth century, and the early Tudor period. Similar questions are considered in M.E.Finch, The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families 1540–1640 (Northampton Rec. Soc., 1956). Since the family was as significant an institution as social rank and distinction, much may be learnt about the nobility (both the greater and the lesser) through the histories of individual families. There is no lack of such studies, but they must be used discreetly. The best of them often contain special illustrative material from public and private archives, the worst often produce neat, but fictitious pedigrees, and doubtful genealogical guesses. A guide to this literature is T.R. Thomas, Catalogue of British Family Histories: 2nd edn., 1933. A strictly limited selection might include some of the following: John Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeleys, edited by Sir J.Maclean (Bristol and Glouc. Arch. Soc., 1883–85); E.Harrison, Annals of an Old Manor House (1893–99), an admirable survey of the Westons, an average Tudor country gentry family, and the history of their house, Sutton Place, Guildford; G.Scott-Thomson, Two Centuries of Family History (1930), describing the rising fortunes of the Russell family; H.S.Bennett, The Pastons and their England (1922); J.Conyers Reed, Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (1955, c. 1) for the origin of the Cecil family; G.H.Ryan and L.J.Redstone, Timperley of Hintlesham (1930), a study of a Suffolk family; H.P.R.Finberg, “The Gostwicks of Willington”, (Bedford Hist. Rec. Soc. XXXVI); E.A.Barnard, The Sheldons (Cambridge, 1936), a Warwickshire family; J.E.Jackson, Wulfhall and the Seymours (Wilts. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Mag. XV, 1875, pp. 140–207), for the family origins of Protector Somerset. Considerable information can be gathered about the prosperous and rising group of individuals whose wealth was being acquired in trade. The starting point for such study should be S.Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300–1500 (1948). T.S.Willan, The Muscovy Merchants of 1555 (Manchester, 1953), is an unpretentious, but extremely useful analysis, with much biographical data, of all the merchants mentioned in the Company’s charter, many of whom were in business for the greater part of the early Tudor period. B.Winchester, Tudor Family Portrait (1955), is something of a missed opportunity. Many readers would have spared much of the commentary in exchange for the publication of the complete text, or at least a generous selection, of the letters on which the book is based. John Johnston (c. 1514–90) was a merchant of the Staple. He was an exemplary correspondent, and his letters to and from relations, and business acquaintances—nearly a thousand have survived from the period February 1542 to March 1552—give a lively picture of the social life of the community to which this group belonged. Another such picture is given in the model study by G.C.Moore Smith, The Family of Withypoll (Walthamstow Antiq. Soc. Monographs, 1936), while an older work, J.W. Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham (2 vols., 1839), is a well-known study of a family conspicuous in the financial and commercial circles of the period. A good account of the activities of a provincial merchant, based largely on materials drawn from his account book, is by John Webb, Great Tooley of Ipswich (Suffolk Rec. Soc. Public., 1962). Studies of the inferior social groups, the peasants and labourers are not so plentiful. The most authoritative account is still R.H.Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912). Although concerned with the later period, M.Campbell, The English Yeoman under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts (New Haven, 1942) has some comments on the position of the yeoman in the early sixteenth century. The problem of the personal and legal status of the peasant was looked at very closely in F.G.Davenport, “The Decay of Villeinage in East Anglia” (T.R.H.S. 2nd Ser., XIV, 1900, pp. 123–141); T.W.Page, “Villeinage in England” (Amer. Econ. Assoc. 3rd Ser., 1, No. 2, N.Y., 1900); E.P.Cheyney, “Disappearance of English Serdom” (E.H.R. xv, 1900, pp. 20–37); I.S.Leadam, “The last days of bondage in England”

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(L.Q.R. IX, 1893, pp. 348–365); H.E.Maiden, “Bondmen in Surrey under the Tudors” (T.R.H.S. 2nd Ser. XIX, 1905, pp. 305–307); A.Savine, “Bondmen under the Tudors” (T.R.H.S. 2nd Ser., XVII, 1903, pp. 235–289). A good picture of the Midland conditions is supplied in Hoskins, Essays in Leicestershire History, “The Husbandman”, p. 146 f., and “The Yeoman”, p. 150 f. For a contemporary study of conditions in Europe on the eve of the sixteenth century, see E.Power, “Peasant Life and Rural Conditions” (Camb. Med. Hist, VII, c. 24); H.Nabholz, “Medieval Agrarian Society in Transition” (Camb. Econ. Hist, 1, viii); and G.G.Coulton, The Medieval Village (Camb., 1925). A large part of the original authorities connected with the heralds is still in manuscript, particularly that part which forms the muniments of the College of Heralds. Enough, however, has been printed from other archives to indicate their functions and methods. The commission to which the heralds owed their powers in the early Tudor period is printed in Wagner, op. cit. 9–10. In App. D. (pp. 139–146) the author prints a visitation made by Thomas Hawley, Carlisle Herald, of St Paul’s, London, and of twelve other City churches (28 July to 3 September 1530), and of six churches on the eastern side of the City, made by Clarencieux 27 March 1532–33. The special interest of the manuscript is the evidence it gives of the powers exercised by Clarencieux after the commission of 1530. Heraldic authority was rapidly coming into its own. Some other visitations in print are C.H.Hunter Blair (ed.), A Visitation of the North of England c. 1480–1500 (Surtees Soc., 1930, vol. 144), containing pedigrees of the royal house, and of north-country gentry, most of them of the time of Henry VII: Heraldic Visitation of the Northern Counties in 1530, by Thomas Tonge, Norroy King of Arms: ed. W.H.D.Longstaffe (Surtees Soc., 1862, xli) with north-country grants of arms, 1470–1650, and F.W.Dendy (ed.), Visitations of the North (Surt. Soc., 122, Pt. 1, 1912) containing William Harvey’s visitation of 1552, and Lawrence Walton’s of 1557. Various commissions to the heralds will be found on the patent rolls for Edward VI and Mary. Important for the light they throw on the organization and running of noble households are some extant household books and accounts. The most important is T.Percy (ed.), The Northumberland Household Book (1770; 1827). This exceptionally fine specimen contains the regulations governing the elaborate establishment of the great household of Henry Algernon Percy, 5th earl of Northumberland, together with interesting details of the daily catering within the establishment. It was begun in 1512. For the historical background of this family there is a careful study by J.M.W.Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416– 1537 (Oxford, 1958). J.P.Collier edited The Household Books of John, duke of Norfolk and Thomas, earl of Surrey: 1481–90 (Roxburgh Club, 1844),1 while J.Gage edited “Selections from the Household Books of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, 1507–8” (Archaeologia, XXV, 1834, pp. 311–314). Similar documents from the accounts of Richard Bertie and his Lady are in H.M.C. Rep. Ancaster MSS., pp. 459–472). Materials of a similar kind for royal households are privy purse accounts. Several are in print, e.g. S.Bentley, Excerpta Historical Privy Purse expenses of King Henry VII, 1491–1505 (1831, 85–132); N.H.Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (1830); N.H.Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth: Nov. 1529–Dec. 1532 (1827); F.Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (1831); P.C.S.Smythe, Household Expenses of the Princess Elizabeth (C.S. Misc. II, 1853). Interest in the social theory of the early Tudor period was greatly stimulated during the nineteenth century by the publication of some of the works of the lesser known pamphleteers, moralists, and preachers in the series of texts published by various learned societies. The editors of such texts were not primarily concerned with social problems or economic conditions: they studied their texts as specimens of philology and orthography, or as materials illustrating the nature of religious controversy. They were inclined to accept at their face 1 Melvin J.Tucker, Household Accounts (1490–91) of John de Vere, earl of Oxford (E.H.R. LXXV, 1960 pp. 468–474), corrects Collier’s edition.

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value generalizations they found in them about contemporary society, with the result that their impressions of the period had few bright spots to relieve the prevailing gloom. With the growing interest in economic history characteristic of the nineteenth century, and the close study of economic conditions as revealed in official records, doubts began to be cast upon some of the generalizations of the pamphleteers, and the denunciations of the moralists. It was realized that not all their criticisms could be supported by facts, and that on such subjects as enclosures, for example, much they said was too crude a simplification of the evidence. Like most revisions of accepted opinions, some of these later criticisms went too far, and further reflection led to a more cautious approach. It had to be admitted that although some of the sixteenth-century criticisms could not be accepted as they stood, there was much in the evidence which could not be wholly rejected. Allowance had to be made for the fact that these contemporary critics knew their world, and that although they sometimes made their points by exaggeration going to the length of caricature, this did not wholly destroy the value of the evidence they provided: it only made the task of the historian more delicate. While social problems attracted considerable attention, contemporary interest in the nature of political obligation and in constitutional theory was less sustained. As might be expected, the problems stimulating the liveliest discussion were those concerned with the relations of Church and State; the nature of monarchy, and the mutual duties and responsibilities of king and subject. The best short introduction to these questions is C.Morris, English political thought from Tyndale to Hooker (Oxford, 1954), while the ground is covered in greater detail in J.W.Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (1928). A thorough study of some of these problems is F.L.Van Baumer, The Early Tudor Theory of Kingship (Yale Univ. Press, 1940), while the constitutional issues are stated by R.W.K Hinton, “English constitutional doctrines from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries: Theories from Sir John Fortescue to Sir John Elyot” (E.H.R. LXXV, 1960, pp. 410–425). Essential texts include Edmund Dudley, The Tree of Commonwealth (1509: first published Manchester, 1859, new edition D.M.Brodie, Cambridge, 1948); Sir Thomas More, Utopia; William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man and how rulers ought to govern (ed. H.Walter, Doctrinal Treatises…by William Tyndale (P. S., 1848, pp. 129–344); Christopher St Germain, Dialogus defundamentis legum Anglie et de conscientia (1523: many reprints under title Doctor and Student, e.g. ed. W.Muchall, Cincinnati, 1874; Treatise concernynge the division betwene the spiritualite and temporaltie (1532: reprinted by A.I.Taft, The Apologye of Syr Thomas More); Thomas Elyot, The boke named the governour (1531: ed. H.H.S.Croft, 1883: Everyman Lib., 1907); Stephen Gardiner, De vera obedientia oratio (1535: ed. P.Janelle, Obedience in Church and State, Cambridge, 1930); W.S.Hudson, John Ponet (?1516–1556), advocate of limited monarchy (Chicago, 1942); Sir Thomas Smith, De republica Anglorum (1583: ed. L.Alston, Cambridge, 1906). For a more elaborate handlist of early Tudor political literature consult Baumer (cited above, App. B, pp. 225–243). Attempts to arrive at the real meaning of early Tudor thought about contemporary society led to some interesting work. An early sketch in which this material was set against the back-ground of prevailing social conditions was made by E.P.Cheyney in Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century as reflected in contemporary literature (Univ. of Penn. Publns. Philosophy, Literature, Archaeology, IV, 2, 1895), but the book was on a small scale, and could not be exhaustive. A fine attempt to analyse the ideals, and interpret the significance of some of the more important minds such as More, Starkey, and Crowley, was made by J.W.Allen, Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (pp. 121–156). The subject was considered in more detail by Helen C.White in Social Criticism in Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth Century (N.Y. Macmillan, 1944), a conscientious, scholarly, but uninspired analysis of the several elements which went to the making of early Tudor social thought. Two recent works bearing on the subject are W.G.Zeeveld, Foundations of Tudor

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Policy (Harvard Univ. Press, 1948) and Fritz Caspari, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1954). The former is the more original. Its subject is the continuity of the humanist movement in England during the first half of the sixteenth century. In developing this theme the author produces some evidence for the view that a small group of humanists, largely influenced by contacts with Reginald Pole’s household in Italy, was of greater significance than has been realized, and that two, at least, of the number, Thomas Starkey and Richard Morison, came back to England, and used their knowledge and experience as government propagandists. If the evidence is accepted, Starkey’s two books may have exerted a more direct influence on government policy than earlier historians imagined. Caspari’s book deals with a slightly different problem. Its thesis is that the treatises on education produced by humanists in England (especially by Erasmus, More, Elyot, and Starkey) were prompted by the desire to provide an educational programme whereby the sons of the gentry, now rising to power, could be trained to undertake the responsibilities of government devolving upon them in the new Tudor state. The book is more useful for its summaries of the educational treatises than for its analysis of the social group of the gentry and its place in the social order, but it is a competent monograph. The main texts available for the study of these problems are best displayed in a rough chronological order, and some impressions of the authors may be suggested by brief bibliographical notes: Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)1 More’s masterpiece of social theory, the Utopia, first appeared, in Latin, with the title Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quamfestiuus de optimo reip. statu: deque nova Insula Utopiae authore clarissimo viro Thoma Moro inclytae ciuitatis Londonensis due et vicecomiti cura M.Petri Ægidii Antuerpiensis: et arte Theodorici Martini Alustensis: Typography almae Louaniensium Academiae nunc primum accuratissime editus (1516). The best critical edition of this text is by Marie Delcourt, L’Utopie ou le traité de la meilleure forme de gouvernement (Paris, 1936), based on the three earliest editions, Louvain, 1516, Paris, 1517, Basel, 1518. For most readers the Utopia is best known in the English version made by Ralph Robinson in 1551, with the title A fruteful andpleasaunt worke of the best state ofapublyque weale: and of the new yle called Utopia: written in Latine by Syr Thomas More Knyght: and translated into Englyshe by Raphe Robynson Citizein and Goldsmythe of London: at the procurement: and earnest request of George Tadlowe Citizein and Haberdassher of the same Citie. Imprinted at London by Abraham Vele: dwelling in Pauls churchyarde at the sygne of the Lambe. Anno 1551. Although somewhat verbose in style, Robinson’s translation has retained its popularity. A second edition appeared in 1556, a third in 1597, and others in 1624 and 1639. Later editions of this text have been numerous. It was edited by T.F.Dibden (1808), E.Arber (1869), J.R.Lumby (1879), J.H.Lupton published the Latin text together with this translation (Oxford, 1895), as did G.Sampson and A.Guthkelch (1910) in an edition to which they appended a good bibliography. Handy editions are those by J. Churton Collins (Oxford, 1904), the one published in the Everyman Library (1935), and P.E. Hallett (1937). An independent translation by Gilbert Burnet (1684) was reprinted by H.Morley (1885), and by Sir Sidney Lee (1906). Translations by A.Cayley (1808), by V.Paget (1908), and G.C. Richards (1923) have not superseded Robinson’s text. The Utopia has been the subject of infinite commentary and critical exposition, good, bad, and indifferent. A fairly representative assortment should include the following: G.Dudok, Sir Thomas More and his Utopia (Amsterdam, 1923), a useful survey of More’s theories and the influences bearing upon them; G.E.Dermenghem’s discussion of More in relation to contemporary thought, Thomas Morus et les utopistes de la Renaissance (Paris, 1

For further bibliographical material concerning Sir Thomas More, see below, p. 246–7.

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1927); W.E.Campbell, More’s Utopia and his Social Teaching (1930); and H.W.Donner, Introduction to Utopia (Uppsala, 1945), a concise, critical survey. The most recent scholarly addition to this body of criticism is J.H.Hexter’s admirable commentary, More’s Utopia: the biography of an idea (Princeton, 1952). More’s views have received considerable attention from enthusiasts thinking along special lines. His communistic theories have naturally been closely scrutinized, and the Marxist reaction to them was ably stated by Karl Kautsky, Thomas More und seine Utopia (Stuttgart, 1887:2nd edn., 1907: English translation, 1927) in which he argues that More’s project of communism was the result of, and the reaction to, the rise of capitalism. If later exponents of the same theme, including perhaps the best of them, Russell Ames, Citizen Thomas More and his Utopia (1949), have contributed any new scholarship worthy of serious consideration great intellectual acumen will be necessary to perceive it. Simon Fish (d. 1531) This shadowy figure was an early, vehement, rather than subtle, critic of Tudor society. Nothing is known of his early life save that he studied at Oxford and Gray’s Inn about 1525. In London he was a member of a circle of young men hostile to Wolsey. As a consequence he had to flee to the Low Countries, where he consorted with Tyndale and Roye. After his return to England he acted as agent for the sale of Tyndale’s New Testament. At the end of 1527 he was again in the Low Countries, where he wrote his Supplication. It arrived in England in 1529, on the eve of the meeting of the Reformation Parliament, and the fact that copies were available has led to the suggestion that the government found it useful as propaganda against the clergy. Towards the end of the year Fish was back in England, where he soon came under suspicion of heresy, and his book was condemned by Archbishop Warham. Fish died of plague early in 1531. A Supplicacyon for the Beggers (1529) was first published in England in 1546. It was edited by F.J.Furnivall, and printed in the same volume as three similar supplications edited by J.M. Cowper (E.E.T.S., Ext. Ser., xiii, 1871). William Roy or Roye (fl. 1527) Another obscure satirist. He may have been the son of William Roye, a native of Brabant, who obtained letters of denization in London in 1512. Roye studied at Cambridge, and became a friar observant in the Franciscan convent at Greenwich. He joined Tyndale at Cologne in 1525, and for a time helped him in his translation work. More says, on hearsay, that Roye was burnt in Portugal. Foxe repeats the story, dating it 1531. (Acts and Mon, 1837, IV, p. 696.) The texts containing Roye’s attacks on society are, “Rede me and be nott wrothe, for I say no thynge but trothe” (Worms, 1526). A proper dyalogue betwene agentillman and a husbandman: eche complaynynge to other their miserable calamitie through the ambicion of the clergy (Marburg, 1530: a facsimile edn. by Francis Fry. London and Bristol, 1863). Some information about him is in A.Wolf’s introduction to his reprint, William Roye s Dialogue between a Christian Father and his stubborn son (Vienna, Akad. der Wissenschaft, 1874). Roye’s relations with Tyndale are discussed by J.F.Mozley, William Tyndale (1937, pp. 51–60). Thomas Starkey (?1499–1538) Thomas Starkey is worth a place by the side of More as a writer on social problems. He was born somewhere between 1495 and 1499, into a Cheshire family. He took his first degree from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1516, and after graduation lectured at Oxford. His close connection with Renaissance culture through his friendship with Reginald Pole has been stressed by Zeeveld. In 1529 he seems to have been Pole’s secretary in Paris, but he returned to England and in 1530 was presented by Archbishop Warham to the living of

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Great Mongeham, Kent, which he held until his death. After spending some time in retreat at the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, he accompanied Pole, in the spring of 1532, to Paris, whence they went to Avignon. Here Starkey stayed to study civil law. In July 1533 he rejoined Pole’s household at Padua, where he continued his legal studies. His hopes of getting employment under Henry VIII are indicated in a letter of April 1533, offering his opinions about the divorce and advocating reference of the question to a general council. By the end of 1534 Starkey was back in England as chaplain in the household of Pole’s mother, the Countess of Salisbury. By this time he was in touch with Cromwell, who probably gave him his chance. He became a royal chaplain, and was used by the king as a go-between to persuade Pole to come out on the king’s side on the question of the royal supremacy and the Boleyn affair. In May 1536, Pole’s treatise “Pro ecclesiasticae mutatis defensione” reached England. Its bitter attack on the king horrified Starkey. Zeeveld has collected evidence to show that during the Pilgrimage of Grace Starkey was used by the government as a propagandist against the rebels. In December 1536 he was appointed to the collegiate chapel of Corpus Christi, Candlewick Street, London, but afterwards does not seem to have been very active in public affairs. He died in August 1538. Starkey’s best known work was his Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, written between 1533 and 1536. It was printed for the first time by J.M.Cowper (E.E.T.S., 1871) from the only known MS. (P.R.O. St. Pap. 1/90), which was presumably the one sent to Henry VIII by Starkey. A modernized edition (there is no substantial modification in the text) was edited by Kathleen M.Burton (1948). Starkey’s other treatise was an Exhortation to Christian Unity (1534), published by the King’s printer in 1536. Several of Starkey’s letters, which throw light on his relations both with Henry VIII and with Pole, were printed by S.J.Herrtage, England in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, 1, Life of Starkey (E.E.T.S., 1878), and some others are described in Macray, Register of Magdalen College (1894), 1, 159–163. Starkey has been closely studied in recent years. Zeeveld, Foundations of Tudor Government, has gathered new evidence about his relations with Pole, and about his employment by the government. If his thesis is accepted it would seem that Starkey’s Dialogue may have had more influence in government circles than was thought by earlier critics who considered it was unknown until its publication in 1871. Zeeveld’s claim for Starkey as the first advocate of an Anglican via media does not come up for discussion here. Miss Burton provides a fairly full biographical sketch, but Zeeveld should also be consulted. There is a sane appraisal of Starkey’s thought in J.W.Allen, Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century. The problem of dating the Dialogue is considered by J.A.Gee, Life and Works of Thomas Lupset (New Haven, 1928, 150–152), and by Burton op. cit. App. William Tyndale (?1490–1536)1 Tyndale’s observations on society and social problems are found scattered in his various writings. A workmanlike text is provided in the edition by H.Walter, including Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures (containing “The Parable of the Wicked Mammon and The Obedience of a Christian Man”), Tyndale’ s Expositions and Practice of Prelates: and An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, the Supper of the Lord, and William Tracy’s Testament expounded (Parker Soc., 3 vols. 1848; 1849, 1850). Henry Brinkelowe (d. 1546) The eldest son of a farmer of Kintbury, Berks, he knew something of the religious life, for he was a friar who married and settled down as a citizen and mercer of London. Not much is known of his later career save that he was an extreme reformer. His will, proved 24 November 1546, suggests that he became a man of some substance. His pen name was Roderick Mors. The two works by which Brinkelowe is known are his Complaynt of Roderyck Mors: 1

Below, p. 243.

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sometime agrayfryre: unto the parliament house of England his natural country: For the redresse of certen wicked lawes: euel customs and euel decreys (c. 1548) and The Lamentacyon of a Christian Agaynst the Cytye of London made by Roderigo Moss (1542). Both were edited by J.M.Cowper (E.E.T.S., 1874, Extr. Ser., xxii). Robert Crowley (?1518–1588) An important critic of society from the side of the religious reformers. He does not emerge very clearly until about 1534, when he was a student at Magdalen College, Oxford. He took an M.A. in 1542. Not much is known of his activities until 1549, when he set up a printing press at Ely Rents, Holborn, where he produced reform literature until 1551. In that year Bishop Ridley ordained him deacon. At Mary’s accession Crowley joined the religious refugees at Frankfurt, where he remained until Elizabeth’s accession made his return possible. In 1559 he was made archdeacon of Hereford. Further promotion was impeded by his obstinacy over the Vestments problem. His career ended in 1588. The most important of Crowley’s writings were edited by J.M.Cowper, The Select Works of Robert Crowley (E.E.T.S., 1872, Extra. Ser., xv). They comprise: “One and thyrtye Epigrammes, wherein are briefly touched so many abuses, that maybe and ought to be put away” (1550); “The Voyce of the laste trumpet, blowen by the seventh Angel (as is mentioned in the eleuenth of the Apocalips) callyng al estats of men to the ryght path of theyr vocation, wherin are conteyned xii. Lessons to twelue seueral estats of men, which if thei learne and folowe, al shall be wel, and nothing amis” (1550); “Pleasure and Payne, Heauen and Hell: Remembre these foure, and all shall be well” (1551); “The Way to Wealth, wherein is plainly taught a most present Remedy for Sedicion” (1550); “An Informacion and Peticion agaynst the oppressours of the pore Commons of this Realme, compiled and Imprinted for this onley purpose that amongest them that haue to doe in the Parliamente, some godlye mynded men, may hereat take occacion to speake more in the matter then the Authoure was able to write” (1549). Hugh Latimer (?1485–1555)1 The most convenient edition of Latimer’s sermons is that edited by G.E.Corrie, vol. 1, Sermons, II, Sermons and Remains (Parker Soc., 1844, 1845). There is a popular selection, Latimer s Sermons, ed. H.C.Beeching (Everyman Library, 1906). It is important to notice, from the point of view of Latimer’s opinions on social problems, that the greater part of his extant sermons come from the years 1549–53. Thomas Lever (1521–1577) Lever was a Lancashire man, who took his degree from St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1541–42. He was an acquaintance of Ascham at Cambridge, and was prominent among the extreme reformers at the University. He was admitted fellow of his college in July 1548: later in the year he joined Roger Hutchinson in debate with Roman Catholics on the Mass. In June 1550 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Ridley, and was well known as an eloquent preacher, specializing in denunciations of society. In December 1551 he became Master of St John’s. He made the political blunder of supporting Lady Jane Grey, and after Mary’s accession he resigned his mastership and fled to Zurich and Geneva, where he attended sermons and lectures by Calvin. On Elizabeth’s accession he returned to England. He did not get the recognition he might have hoped, and in his later years he had many difficulties. He died in July 1577. Not many of Lever’s sermons are available. Three which he preached in 1550 (at St Paul’s in the Shrouds; before Edward VI: and at Paul’s Cross) were printed separately in 1550, and were collected by Lever and reprinted together in 1572. These were edited by E.Arber, Lever’s Sermons (British Classics, 1870). 1

See below, p. 245.

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John Hales (d. 1571) Belief that Hales was the author of the Discourse of the Commonweal still commands general acceptance, and indeed, the known facts about his career fit very neatly with that conclusion. The younger son of Thomas Hales of Halden, Kent, he was not apparently educated at either university, although he somehow acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, and German. He seems to have profited from the dissolution of the monasteries, and may well have been the first founder of a free school in Edward VI’s reign by his conversion of St John’s Hospital, Coventry (which he received by grant in 1548) into a free school. Somerset used Hales on the commission for dealing with enclosures. He sat as M.P. for Preston, Lancs., in Edward VI’s first Parliament, when he was responsible for bills in support of the poor, for rebuilding decayed towns, for the maintenance of tillage, and against regrators. All were rejected. After Somerset’s fall Hales encountered hostility from Warwick, and left for the continent. He was a conspicuous member of the refugee colony at Frankfurt. He returned to England after Elizabeth’s accession, and sat in the Parliament of 1562. In 1564 he was in difficulty owing to the expression of views about the succession to the throne, and he spent some time in the Tower. He died 28 December 1571. The work edited by Miss E.Lamond as A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England (Cambridge, 1893) has an interesting history. It was first printed in 1581 under the tide A Briefe Conceipte ofEnglishe Policie: and was assumed to be an original work by one W.S. This text was reprinted in 1751, 1808, 1813, 1876, one of these later publishers hazarding the guess that the initials concealed William Shakespeare! William Lambarde had known better. In his manuscript copy of the treatise (a transcript he had caused to be made as early as 1565) he made a note attributing the work to John Hales or William Smith. Working on this statement Miss Lamond stated a strong case for Hales, and produced a text of the Discourse earlier than, and differing from, that of W.S., which, she claimed, could be accepted as a social survey of England in 1549. While this section is devoted mainly to the sources available for the study of the leading personalities of the period, the opportunity has been taken to make a selective survey of the biographical literature, and it includes, therefore, some of the lesser figures who may, for one reason or another, have attracted the attention of a biographer, although the attainments of such men may not justify their inclusion among the leaders of that society. The standard biographical dictionaries and reference works1 should be consulted. Most of the important characters are noticed in them, and guidance is often given to other relevant literature. Estimates of some of the leaders are available in collections of essays, e.g. W.Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History (Oxford, 1886); A.D.Innes, Ten Tudor Statesmen (1906, new and rev. edn., 1934); K.Garvin (ed.), The Great Tudors (1935, new edn., 1956); Conyers Reed, The Tudors: Personalities and Politics in SixteenthCentury England (1936); C.Morris, The Tudors (1956). The development of biographical writing at this time is discussed by R.W.Chambers in his introduction to Harpsfield’s Life of More, and D.A.Stauffer, English Biography before 1700 (Camb., Mass., 1950). It must not be forgotten that this is the first time in our history when it is possible to see a number of the leading personalities as they really appeared to their contemporaries. The portraits and drawings of Hans Holbein the Younger, Hans Eworth, and other unknown artists are as important as historical evidence as are the literary witnesses. The bibliography is too specialized to be dealt with at length here, but E.Auerbach, Tudor Artists (1954) is a useful introduction. There are numerous reproductions of Holbein’s work. The best are H.A.Schmid, Hans Holbein derJünger: seinAufstieg zur Meisterschaft undsein englischer Stil (Basle, 1948,3 vols.), magnificently illustrated; the standard reference work, P.Ganz, The Paintings of Hans Holbein (1956); K.T. Parker, The Drawings of Hans Holbein in the Collection of H.M. the King at Windsor Castle (Oxford and London, 1945); The Windsor 1

See above, p. 70.

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Collection of Holbein Portraits of the Court of Henry VIII (Arundel Society, 5 pts., 80 plates, 1877); R.R.Holmes, Portraits of Illustrious Personages of the Court of Henry VIII (I, II); A.B.Chamberlain, Hans Holbein the Younger (2 vols., 1913); C.R.L.Fletcher and E.Walker, Historical Portraits 1400–1600 (Oxford, 1909). More’s iconography over three centuries has been studied by Stanley Morison (ed.), The Likeness of Thomas More (new edn., supplemented, by N.Barker, 1963). The early Tudor sovereigns have, of course, been described in all the general histories. The following works consist of those concerned primarily with their private lives and characters so far as they can be separated from their public actions as heads of the State. Historians have begun to recognize that Henry VII was a personality in his own right, and not merely a prototype of his own dynasty. This fresh appraisal has not yet found expression in a full-length study but there has been a lively skirmish: G.R.Elton, “Henry VII: Rapacity and Remorse” (Hist. Journ. 1 (1958) pp 21–39); J.R.Cooper, “Henry VII’s last years reconsidered” (Ibid, II, 1959, pp 103–129); and Elton, “Henry VII: A Restatement” (Ibid, IV, 1961, pp 1–29). The best of older biographies is that by G.Temperley, Henry VII (1914:1918). J.Gairdner’s short study, Henry the Seventh (1889) and Richard III (Cambridge, rev. edn., 1898) are by a leading authority and are still useful. Of contemporary descriptions that by Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, was written from first-hand knowledge, and is, on the whole favourable, as also (although obviously bound to be a eulogy) is Bishop Fisher’s funeral oration, Works, ed. J.F.B. Mayor (E.E.T.S., XXVII, 1878). There are several brief descriptions by foreign observers in the calendars of State papers (Spanish, Venetian, and Milanese). Francis Bacon’s Historie of the raigne of King Henry the Seventh (1622, standard edn., J.R.Lumby, Cambridge, 1885) is interesting, but must not be quoted as a primary authority. The private life and character of Henry VIII has naturally excited great interest, although it is surprising how few were the attempts made to deal with the subject seriously before the nineteenth century. A.F.Pollard’s fine study, Henry VIII (first published in a sumptuously illustrated Goupil edition in 1902, and then in a simpler format with references (1905:1913) has not been superseded by a more recent popular study, J.Bowle, Henry VIII (1964), although Pollard’s favourable verdict on the King’s ability and achievement has been challenged somewhat indecisively by G.R.Elton, Henry VIII. An essay in revision (Hist. Assoc. Gen. Ser., 51, 1962). Contemporary descriptions are numerous. The shrewdest judge, and certainly the most loyal admirer of the king was Stephen Gardiner, in whose letters will be found several pithy reminiscences of his conversations with him. Foreign observers sent home several descriptions, which will be found in L.P. and the calendars of state papers. The earliest serious estimate of the King’s character was made by William Thomas, whose forthright defence probably reflects the opinion of the ordinary Englishman of the time.1 In the seventeenth century Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury made a spirited and able defence in The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (1649. Later editions, 1672, 1682, 1741). W.S.Brewer, whose knowledge of the unprinted sources was unrivalled, assembled much fresh information in his introductions to the volumes of L.P. he edited: these were collected by J.Gairdner, The reign of Henry VIII from his accession to the death of Wolsey (2 vols., 1884). The shrewd comments of that great judge of human character, Bishop Stubbs, make his witty and penetrating estimate of the king in Seventeen Lectures well worth consideration. Attempts have been made to diagnose Henry’s ailments, in the expectation that his character, and actions might be explained by a knowledge of his medical history. They have not been very successful. Why should they? The evidence available is slight, much of it the merest gossip of laymen, not the precise language of medical men, and what modern doctor would hazard diagnosis of a patient he was not allowed to see? There is danger in this line 1

See above, p. 105.

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of research. The conclusion arrived at by some of these writers is that Henry was a syphilitic, hence the running sore on his leg, hence, too, the failure of Catherine to produce an heir. The modern mind, affected by the anti-social implications of this disease, if not by moral considerations, is forthwith influenced by these medical opinions towards a tendentious judgment upon Henry’s character. Despite its façade of references there is nothing substantial in F.Chamberlain, The Private Character of Henry VIII (1932), nor in A.S.McNalty, Henry VIII: a difficult patient (1952). The most scientifically restrained examination of this kind is J.F.D.Shrewsbury, “Henry VIII: A medical study” (Journ. Hist. Medicine, VII, 2, pp. 142– 185). The author concludes that most of the king’s physical troubles were due to gout, and the doleful story of Catherine’s miscarriages might be explained by medical factors less concerned with Henry than that mentioned above. From time to time there appear foolish individuals with a little knowledge of the facts of life, a smattering of Freudian jargon, and a sublime confidence in their own ability to reveal the secret of Henry’s complex psychology. They die unmourned by bibliographers. It is difficult to distinguish between Henry’s public and private correspondence, and not much of the latter reveals his innermost thoughts, still less his motives. Many of his letters of both kinds are in print in extenso in the State Papers Henry VIII (Record Comm., 11 vols.) and in summaries in L.P. A selection of these letters more strictly personal and private was carefully edited by M.St Clair Byrne, Letters of Henry VIII (1936). All that needs to be known about Edward VI was brought together by J.G.Nichols in his elaborate introduction to the Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth (Roxburgh Club, 1857) This monograph is not only a detailed survey of the reign; it is also a sure guide to the source material, much of which is printed in full or in extracts in the text and footnotes. This is a work on a much fuller and more scholarly scale than the earlier biography by Sir John Hay ward, Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth (1630). Sir C.R.Markham, King Edward VI: his Life and Character (1907) adds nothing new except some eccentric theories. The young king’s precocity is staggering, even when due allowance is made for the flattery of courtiers. Evidence for it is the diary he kept from his accession until 28 November 1552, his letters, and a few original papers, all of which are printed by Nichols, with a discussion of their authenticity. Nichol’s work provided the material for the latest popularization of the young king, Hester W.Chapman, The Last Tudor King (1958), a study which substitutes for the conventional portrait of a sickly helpless tool in the hands of unscrupulous politicians the theme that Edward was a vigorous high spirited youth who was, to a considerable degree, himself responsible for creating the forces by which he was destroyed. Queen Mary I has been well served by modern biographers. There have been three: J.M. Stone, The History of Mary I: Queen of England (1901); B.White, Mary Tudor (1935); and H.F.M.Prescott, Mary Tudor (1952). The last named is a revised edition, with a new introductory chapter on the social background, of a book originally published as Spanish Tudor (1940). It is the best of the three. A sympathetic study by F.Madden forms the introduction to his edition of Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (1831) which gives many interesting sidelights on Mary’s tastes and way of life. There are descriptions of the Queen in J.Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance politique de MM. de Castillon et de Marillac (Paris, 1885), and in the calendars of State papers (Spanish and Venetian). Mary’s letters are printed in T.Hearne, Sylloge Epistolarum (Oxford, 1716), and many are summarized in calendars of State papers (Spain), and some interesting materials from Spanish sources were edited by C.V.Malfatti, The Accession, Coronation, and Marriage of Mary Tudor (Barcelona, 1956). The chief ministers of Henry VII were Reginald Bray, Edmund Dudley, and Richard Empson. There is a good short account of Bray in W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 451–458, with a bibliography. Dudley has been studied by D.M.Brodie, “Edmund Dudley, Minister of King Henry VII” (T.R.H.S.: 4th Ser., vol. xv, 133–161), and

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in the introduction to her edition of his treatise on The Tree of Commonwealth (Cambridge, 1948). There is no satisfactory account of Empson, although most students of Henry VII’s reign would now support the view that it is time for a revision of the old, unfavourable accounts of his character, and activities. So far as is known there is no contemporary biography of any one of these statesmen, but references to them, usually unfavourable, will be found in the obvious authorities, e.g. Polydore Vergil, The Great Chronicle, etc. For the reign of Henry VIII, until 1529, the political scene was dominated by Wolsey. The authoritative biography is by A.F.Pollard, Wolsey (1929:1953), which does ample justice to his home policy, a feature barely recognized in earlier estimates. Scholarly interest in the cardinal may be said to have begun with R.Fiddes, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (1724:1726), still to be consulted for its appendix of documents. Mandell Creighton’s short study, Cardinal Wolsey 1898), is too favourable, and concentrates too closely on his foreign policy. H.Belloc, Wolsey (1930), is a vigorous piece of writing, but due allowance must be made for the author’s prejudices, and all its facts are in Pollard. A life was written by George Cavendish (1500–1561). Cavendish entered Wolsey’s service as gentleman usher, about 1526, and was with him constantly until the cardinal’s death. It would appear from internal evidence that his book was written by 1557, but Cavendish probably thought it imprudent to print it during his lifetime, although several manuscript copies were in circulation during the sixteenth century. A garbled version, produced for political purposes, was printed in 1641 (reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany (1744–46)). A better text, printed from two Lambeth MSS., was published by C.Wordsworth in his Ecclesiastical Biography (1810). A text with some pretensions to scholarship was edited by S.W.Singer, Cavendish’ s Life of Cardinal Wolsey (1815, 2nd edn., 1827). Three later versions in private press editions (Kelmscott Press 1893; Alcuin Press, Chipping Campden, 1930; and Folio Society, 1961) are inadequate. A, definitive text was edited by R.S.Sylvester (E.E.T.S., 1959) and a modernized edition of that text was published by R.S.Sylvester and D.P.Harding (Yale Univ. Press, 1962). For the significance of Cavendish in early sixteenth century biographical writing consult R.W.Chambers, Harpsfield’s Life of More. Descriptions bitterly hostile to Wolsey are in Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, and in the poems of John Skelton, Works, ed. A.Dyce (2 vols., 1843): “Colin Cloute”, “Why come ye not to Court?”, and “Speke Parrot”. Also in William Roy, “Rede me and be not wrothe”. Lively personal impressions and comments by foreign diplomats are in the calendars of state papers. To what extent Wolsey’s place was taken by Thomas Cromwell is still a question for discussion. The first full scale study was R.B.Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (Oxford, 2 vols., 1902), which, while it is very thorough did not break with the older tradition of hostility to its subject. A provocative short study by P.Van Dyke in Renascence Portraits (N.Y., 1905), did make that break and stated some of the evidence in favour of Cromwell’s character. Two historians have, in recent times, approached the subject from this standpoint, and have been much more in sympathy with Cromwell and favourable in their judgment of his importance. First came the work of G.R.Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (1953),which he followed with a series of articles developing his arguments. They include: “King or Minister? The Man behind the Henrician Reformation” (History, XXXIX, 1954, pp. 216–232); “The Political Creed of Thomas Cromwell” (T.R.H.S., Ser. V, 1956, pp. 69–92); “Thomas Cromwell’s Decline and Fall” (Camb. H.J., x (1951), pp. 150– 185. Further support for this interpretation was provided by A.G.Dickens, Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation (1959), a sensitive study which emphasizes the religious ideas behind Cromwell’s policy. Merriman prints the text of many of Cromwell’s letters, and the large mass of his papers are calendared in L.P. vols, IV, V, while there are some sidelights in Cavendish’s Wolsey. The

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sources for his career are difficult. A letter from Chapuys to Granvelle (21 November 1535: L.P. v, 228) gives the commonly accepted account of his origins and early struggles: but the most damaging estimate was that of Cardinal Pole in his “Apologia ad Carolum Quintum Caesarem” in Quirini Epistolae, 1744 I. p. 133). Statesmen coming to the political scene in the later years of this period have been studied in three examples of modern scientific biography: F.G.Emmison, Tudor Secretary (1961), a definitive life of Sir William Petre (1505–72), based on family papers now in the Essex Record Office; Mary Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith 1513–77 (1964), replaces the life by J.Strype (1698: Oxford edn., 1820), and S.E.Lehmberg, Sir Walter Mildmay and Tudor Government (Univ. of Texas, 1964), using family papers now in the Northamptonshire Record Office. There was no dearth of commanding figures and leaders of opinion in the Church, many of them, of course, active as well in affairs of State. The ablest of Henry VII’s ecclesiastical advisers was, undoubtedly, John Morton. There is a rather pedestrian biography by R.L.K.Woodhouse (1895), a short essay by C.Jenkins, “Cardinal Morton’s Register”, in Tudor Studies. Contemporary estimates are in Polydore Vergil, and Hall, while Sir Thomas More, who livedin Morton’s household as a youth, gives some impressions of him in Utopia. The close relations existing between Morton and More have given rise to doubts as to which of them really wrote the Life of Richard III, usually attributed to More. The problem is discussed by R.W.Chambers and A.F.Pollard, “Sir Thomas More’s ‘Richard III’” (History, XVII, 317–323); “The Making of Sir Thomas More’s Richard III” (Hist. Essays in honour of James Tait, 1933, pp. 223–228). The man who gave the sixteenth century the Scriptures in English can hardly be omitted from a list of those who shaped the opinions of his generation, but William Tyndale (?1490– 1536) did most of his work outside England, and was not prominent in affairs. His concentrated dedication to the work of translation was well described by R.Demaus, William Tyndale: A Biography (1871, rev. edn., R.Lovett, 1886), and this is still an important reference work. J.F. Mozley, William Tyndale (1937), while it examines afresh some of the controversial problems, does not supplant it. Complementary to this book is C.C.Butterworth and A.G.Chester, George Joye 1495?–1533 (1962, Philadelphia), a scholarly monograph on the translator of parts of the Bible who had a serious quarrel with Tyndale. Tyndale can be studied in his own writings, the most important are available in H.Walter (ed.), Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to different parts of the Holy Scriptures; Expositions and Practice of Prelates; An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue (P.S., 1848:1849:1850). A selection from these texts is edited, with an introduction, by G.E.Duffield, The Work of William Tyndale (Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics. Appleford, 1964). There is an excellent appraisal of the man and his work in S.L. Greenslade’s anthology, The Works of William Tyndale (1938). John Fisher, bishop of Rochester (1459–1535) deserves attention not only as a tragic victim of the claims of royal supremacy (he was a zealous advocate of Catherine’s cause), but also because the sources for his biography have given rise to some neat problems in textual criticism. The study of his career was long hampered by some curious obscurities. Two things are certain. At some point in the sixteenth century someone wrote, in English, a life of the bishop, and a little later this life was translated into Latin. From the early seventeenth century the English life was attributed to a Dr Richard Hall, a teacher at Douai, who died in 1604. This work remained in manuscript until 1655, when a Thomas Bayly produced The Life and Death of that renowned John Fisher: Bishop of Rochester. This was not quite what it seemed, a biography of Fisher by Bayly, but a work in which Bayly, using a copy of the English life, and hacking it about as he pleased, passed off his strangely garbled version as an original work of his own. When John Lewis attempted a serious biography he worked from some orginal materials but he did not get behind Bayly’s text. Although Lewis’s M.S. is dated 1730, it was not published until T.H. Turner edited it (2 vols., 1855).

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The first biography with any claim to scholarship was T.E.Bridgett, Life of the Blessed John Fisher (1888), and it has remained the most reliable authority down to the present time. Bridgett went back to the manuscript English life, and he also had the advantage of the edition of Letters and Papers. Even so, he did not solve all the problems. The next step forward was taken by a Bollandist Father, Van Ortroy in Vie du bienheureux martyr Jean Fisher: cardinal évêque de Rochester (Brussels, 1893: reprinted from Analecta Bollandiana, ix. (1891) and xii (1893). Here was polished scholarship, which provided a definitive text of the sixteenth century English life, together with the Latin translation, and an introduction in which the textual problems were dissected with delicate skill. Van Ortroy based his conclusions on a study of eleven manuscripts of the English life, and five of the Latin translation. He concluded that Richard Hall did not write the English life, but that he was responsible for the Latin translation, which he made about 1599. While unable to fix the identity of the author of the English life he very tentatively suggested that it may have been Dr. John Young. His textual criticism revealed that the unknown author had received much information from men who had known Fisher, and that he worked into his text some precious extracts from the last life of Thomas More, by Rastell. From the notes he collected during Mary’s reign, the author wrote his narrative in the early years of Elizabeth. An edition of Fisher’s works was begun by J.E.B.Mayor, Bishop Fisher’s English Works (E.E.T.S., Extra Ser., XXVII, 1876), in which appeared a funeral oration on Henry VII, a memorial sermon on Lady Margaret Beaufort, a sermon against Luther, etc. After a long interval R.Bayne added The Life of Fisher (E.E.T.S., Extra Ser., CXVII, 1921), the text of Harl. MS. 6382, another MS. of the early English life, but he added nothing by way of editorial comment. Another edition of the earliest English life is by Fr. Philip Hughes (1935). E.E.Reynolds, St John Fisher (1955), has used these various contributions to produce a competent biography, but it is not the definitive life which Fisher undoubtedly deserves. Further information may be obtained from J.F.McMahon’s bibliography of Fisher (Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1955). No figure in the English Reformation is more important than Thomas Cranmer, and none has been the object of such opposing estimates. Foxe in his Acts and Monuments incorporated much contemporary evidence, and amongst his papers was some biographical material given to him by Cranmer’s secretary, Ralph Morice. This was edited by J.G.Nichols, Narratives of the Reformation (C.S. 1859). The first biographical study of any significance was J.Strype, Memorials of Thomas Cranmer (1694: Oxford, 3 vols. 1848–54), which is still useful for its documents. A detailed, but not very important biography was H.J.Todd, Life of Cranmer (2 vols., 1831), much of which was put more compactly in A.J.Mason, Thomas Cranmer (1898). The first biography to take advantage of the materials made available in the nineteenth century was A.F. Pollard, Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation (1926), still in many ways a most reliable guide. C.H.Smythe, Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI (1926), is less concerned with Cranmer’s life than with the development of his doctrinal opinions and is a, technical and difficult theological monograph. A.C.Deane, Life of Cranmer (1927), and H.Belloc, Cranmer (1931), are popular restatements from opposite points of view, the latter, of course, utterly hostile to everything connected with Cranmer and his opinions. A scholarly, and altogether admirable survey is F.E.Hutchinson, Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation (1951). G.W.Bromily has written a short, readable biography, Thomas Cranmer (1955), and a concise, useful monograph, Thomas Cranmer: Theologian (1956), an explanation in non-technical language of the reformer’s doctrinal position. The most recent comprehensive study, based on sound scholar-ship, but somewhat conventional in its interpretation, is Jasper Ridley, Thomas Cranmer (1962). Cranmer is easily studied in his own writings. There are two editions between which

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there is not much to choose, H.Jenkyns, The Remains of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford, 4 vols., 1833), and J.E.Cox, The Works of Thomas Cromwell (P.S., 1844–1846). After a long period of complete neglect, Cranmer’s rival, the powerful Stephen Gardiner, has received justice at the hands of modern scholars. J.A.Muller wrote a judicious, exhaustive biography, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (1926), with an admirable critical apparatus which makes it an indispensable reference book for the religious history of the early Tudor period. It is a sympathetic study, on the whole, very favourable to Gardiner. He completed his work with a fine edition of The Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1933), a most important addition to the sources for this period. Valuable work has also been done by a French historian, P.Janelle, who edited, in Obedience in Church and State (Cambridge, 1930), three of Gardiner’s political tracts. There is a valuable introduction on Gardiner’s political thought. He also edited a contemporary poem on Gardiner by one William Palmer (B.I.H.R., 1928). Nicholas Ridley (?1503–1555) was an important figure in the English Reformation mainly because of the influence he exerted in shaping Cranmer’s doctrinal opinions, while his martyrdom, in company with Latimer, was stamped on the English Protestant conscience through the account in Foxe, Acts and Monuments. The first biography was by a kinsman, Gloucester Ridley, Life of Dr. Nicholas Ridley (1763), a solid contribution from the “prescientific age”. J.H.Moule brought together some useful material in his introduction to Bishop Ridley on the Lord’s Supper (1895), a treatise which is Ridley’s best contribution to that great controversy. Another descendant, J.C.Ridley, has written a full-length study, Nicholas Ridley (1957); based on close research, it is a thorough, competent work. As usual Foxe, Acts and Monuments is indispensable. Much of his text is incorporated in Ridley’s Works, edited by H.Christmas (P.S., 1843). This contains letters and treatises, and Ridley’s “Last Farewell”, a remarkable piece of autobiography well worth reading. Hugh Latimer (?1485–1555) has been much studied. Among contemporaries Foxe, who knew him personally, uses materials he obtained from various acquaintances, and Thomas Becon, who came under his spell at Cambridge speaks in praise of him in The Jewel of Joye (Parker Soc.). R.Demaus, Hugh Latimer: a Biography (1869: rev. edn., 1903) long remained the classic reference work, but recent studies by A.G.Chester, Hugh Latimer: Apostle to the English (Phil., 1954), and H.S.Darby, Hugh Latimer (1953), now take its place. Latimer’s own works were edited by G.E.Corrie, Sermons: and Sermons and Remains (Parker Soc., 1844 and 1845). There is a handy selection of his Sermons, edited by H.C.Beeching (Everyman Library, 1916). The part played by Reginald Pole both in English affairs as well as in the Roman Church makes him a figure of outstanding importance. Yet his career and influence, extending over so wide a field, seems to have made biographers chary of such a large subject. The pioneer work was T.Phillips, Life of Reginald Pole (Oxford, 1761; 2nd edn., 1767), a sympathetic and fairly accurate interpretation by a Jesuit father. Later attempts were A.Zimmermann, S.J., Kardinal Pole: sein Leben und seine Schriften, Regensburg, 1893); and R.Biron and J.Barennes, Reginald Pole (Paris, 1923). They are inferior to a short study by W.Schenk, Reginald Pole: Cardinal of England (1950), which is a concise and reliable guide so far as it goes. Pole was a prolific letter writer, verbose to the point of weariness: but his letters contain much autobiographical material. A great many of them were brought together by Cardinal A.M.Quirini, Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli… Collectio (Brescia, 5 vols., 1744–57). Here will also be found the earliest life in Italian by Ludovico Beccadelli, Pole’s secretary (English translation by B.Pye, 1776). These and additional correspondence are summarized in L.P.Hen. VIII: the Calendar of State Papers Venetian (especially vols, V and VI), and the Calendar of State Papers Spanish. Cardinal F.A.Gasquet introduced historians to a Vatican MS. containing correspondence between Pole and a circle of humanist friends, Cardinal Pole and his Early Friends (1927). He edited the manuscript in a way which leaves much to be desired, printing only translations of some of the letters with a running commentary.

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Few would dispute Sir Thomas More’s right to be regarded as an outstanding figure in the intellectual life of his age. Yet, paradoxically enough, despite his great reputation More did not have fulljustice done to him until very modern days. The background to recent studies is provided in an elaborate survey compiled by R.W.Gibson (with a bibliography of Utopiana by J.M. Patrick), St Thomas More, a preliminary bibliography of his work and of Moreana to the year 1750 (Yale, 1961). Some idea of the trends of recent scholarship may be gathered from the following notes. More’s works were available at an early date: a collected edition of his English works appeared in 1557, and of his Latin works in 1566. The earliest form of a biography consisted of some notes written about 1556 by William Roper for the use of Nicholas Harpsfield, who was planning a biography. Roper’s notes were not published until 1626. Harpsfield’s life of More was probably completed before 1557, but it remained in manuscript. In 1588 there was printed at Douai a Latin work by Thomas Stapleton, Tres Thomae, biographical essays on St Thomas the Apostle, St Thomas of Canterbury, and Sir Thomas More, the last being based to some extent on the testimony of More’s contemporaries. A life written by More’s nephew, William Rastell, disappeared. About 1600 a biography was written by one “Ro. Ba.” (his identity has never been discovered), but this, too, remained in manuscript. About 1631 Cresacre More, great-grandson of More, published at Paris a biography which long remained the main account of his career. This was the position until the nineteenth century. Then, in 1810, C.Wordsworth printed in his Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. II, the biography of More written by “Ro. Ba.” With the opening up of source material through the publication of Letters and Papers. Henry VIII it became easier to deal with More, and to take to heart a comment made by Lord Acton in 1877.1 Some time still had to elapse before the first attempt at a life which included study of some of the sources came in Fr. T.E.Bridgett, Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More (1891). This was to be the standard biography for a long time, until, in fact, much work was done in making available fresh source material. The publication of the first volumes of P.S.Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford, 1906, etc.), threw much fresh light on the relations of the great humanist with More and his circle in England, and F.M.Nichols, The Epistles of D.Erasmus (1901– 18) made available an English translation of a considerable n umber of these letters. Some time later scholarly editions of the primary sources began to appear. Mgr P.E.Hallett produced an English translation of Stapleton, Tres Thomae, under the title The Life and Illustrius Martyrdom of Sir Thomas More (1928), and A.I.Taft in The Apologye of Syr Thomas More: Knyght (E.E.T.S., 1930) provided a scholarly text of the work published in 1533, in which More defended his opinions against attacks from St Germain and others. In 1931 a plan was made for publication of an edition, in seven volumes, of More’s English works, under the direction of W.E.Campbell, A.W.Reed, and others. It was to contain a facsimile of Rastell’s black letter text, together with a modernized version. Unfortunately, only two volumes were completed, the first containing early poems, the translation of Pico, Richard III, and Four Last Things; the second, the Dialogue against Tyndale (1931). Each volume has useful introductions. Important work was now beginning to appear. Dr E.V.Hitchcock and Professor R.W. Chambers edited, with all the subtlety of modern textual criticism, Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore: Knight (E.E.T.S., O.S., 186, 1932). This is indispensable for any serious study of More. In addition to the text and introduction there are important appen dices containing some fragments of the lost Rastell Life of More, a 1 “Some progress may be looked for in biography: for the early lives of Gardiner, Tunstall, and Cromwell have not been studied; nobody has taken the pains to restore the true text of the original life of Fisher, and not one of More’s fifteen biographers has worked from manuscripts.” Lord Acton, Historical Essays (1908), p. 2.

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Paris newsletter describing More’s trial and death, widely circulated abroad immediately after the event, and a transcript of the official record of the indictment. Dr Hitchcock next edited The Mirror of Virtue in Worldly Greatness: or the Life of Sir Thomas More, the work Roper published in 1625 (E.E.T.S., O.S. 197 1935), The Life by “Ro.Ba.” was edited by Hitchcock, Hallett and Reed (E.E.T.S., O.S.2221950). The way was now open for fresh assessments of More’s career. The first contribution came from E.M.G.Routh, Sir Thomas More and his Friends (1934), a competent study, particularly useful for drawing attention to More’s City connections. It was, however, quickly superseded by R.W.Chambers, Thomas More (1935), a work that must long remain a classic to be read in close reference to the same author’s comments and notes in the edition of Harpsfield’s Life. Meanwhile, more materials continued to appear. With Miss E.F.Rogers, The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton, 1947), a long-awaited corpus of More’s letters appeared. This gives in one volume all More’s letters (Latin or English) save those to Erasmus which had been printed by P.S.Allen, and references are given to them. Professor Henry de Vocht, whose splendid volume Literae Virorum Eruditorum adFranciscum Craneveldium, 1522–8 (Louvain, 1928) contains much information about the English humanists, and some of More’s letters, produced a significant study in textual criticism, Acta Thomae Mori (Louvain, 1947), in which he published a document (“Ordo Condemnationis Thomae Mori”), which is linked with the documents connected with the trial printed in Hitchcock and Chambers’ edition of Harpsfield.L.Bradner and C.A.Lynch, The Latin Epigrams of Thomas More (Chicago, 1953) made accessible in translations some interesting poetical pieces written by More. The writing of books about More continued. A.Cecil, A Portrait of Sir Thomas More (1937), is, as the title suggests, only an exercise in interpretation, adding no new facts, and the same may be said of W.E.Campbell, Erasmus, Tyndale, and More (1949). E.E.Reynolds, St. Thomas More (1953) is a more serious contribution, written from the Roman Catholic point of view, as an attempt to replace Bridgett’s Life, by making available the results of modern research, with special emphasis on the religious rather than the literary or political influence of More. In another book, The Trial of St. Thomas More (1964), he has brought together the results of some later specialist articles, especially concerned with the trial and death of More. Closely connected with Erasmus and More, and influential in the religious and cultural life of England on the eve of the Reformation was John Colet (?1467–1519). The first full biography was S.Knight, The Life of Dr. John Colet (1724: Oxford, 1823), still useful, but largely superseded by J.H.Lupton, Life of John Colet (1887:1909). A slight biography by J.A.R.Marriott (1932) adds nothing to this work. Lupton did much to make known Colet’s works, editing a “Sermon before Convocation” (in Life, 293–304), Two Treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius (1869); An Exposition of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (1873); An exposition of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (1874); and a Letter to Radulphus on the Mosaic Account of the Creation (1876). Lupton also translated The Lives of John Vitrier and John Colet (1883), written by Erasmus. An illuminating technical introduction to Colet’s teaching is E.W.Hunt, Dean Colet and his Theology (1956). Among the lesser known intellectuals of the period the following have received attention. Thomas Lupset (1495–1530) was well studied by J.A.Gee, Life and Works of Thomas Lupset (Yale Univ. Press, 1928). This is a scholarly biography, and includes a critical text of his original treatises and letters, together with a bibliography and canon of Lupset’s writings. Thomas Linacre (1460?–1524) has been described by J.N.Johnson, The Life of Thomas Linacre (ed. R. Graves, 1835), and W.Osler, Thomas Linacre (Cambridge, 1908). The life and works of Sir Thomas Elyot (1490?–1546) were the subject of an exhaustive examination by H.H.S.Croft in his edition of The Boke named The Governor (2 vols., 1880). F.Caspari,

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Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England, has an interesting chapter on Elyot’s social and political ideas, and S.E. Lehmberg, Sir Thomas Elyot. Tudor Humanist (1960), is a painstaking monograph based on solid research. There is a handy text of The Governor, by F.Watson (Everyman Library). Richard Pace (1482?–1536) is the subject of a short biography by Jervis Wegg (1932). Sir John Cheke (1514–57) has been undeservedly neglected. J.Strype, The Life of the learned Sir John Cheke (1705: standard text, Oxford, 1821) still remains the best authority, although there is a slight modern monograph by W.L.Nathan, Sir John Cheke und der englische Humanismus (Bonn, 1928), but it does not go very deeply into the subject. There is a good study of Roger Ascham (1515–68) by L.V.Ryan (California, 1963). His writings are available in the Works of Roger Ascham, edited indifferently by J.A.Giles (4 vols., 1865), and more efficiently, the texts of Toxophilus Report of the Affaires of Germany, and The Scholemaster, by W.Aldis Wright (Cambridge, 1904).

A. THE STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY 16. Social structure defined by Statute (1510) Early Tudor legislation provides a detailed survey of the ranks and orders of society in the statutes passed for the regulation of dress. This sumptuary legislation was not new: the earliest examples come from the fourteenth century. When first introduced such legislation was intended to curb extravagance in dress, to encourage the use of English products, and to some extent to preserve distinctions between the various orders of society. All these considerations were in the minds of Tudor legislators, and four acts dealing with such regulation were passed in Henry VIII’s reign.1 There was no legislation on the subject in Edward VI’s reign, and only one statute in that of Mary. The act of 1510 was the first example of Tudor sumptuary legislation, and it was the model for all later acts. It defined the degrees in great detail, and was prohibitive rather than permissive. While this legislation had an important place in the regulation of economic matters by the government2 it is introduced into this section because of the light it throws on the official interpretation of the structure of early Tudor society. The general history of sumptuary legislation in its various aspects has been traced by F.Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England, while there is a special study of the sixteenth century legislation by W.Hooper, “The Tudor sumptuary laws”, E.H.R, xxx (1915), 433–449.

An Act against wearing of costly apparell. St. 1 Hen. VIII, c. 14, 1510 (Stat. Realm, III, 8)

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orasmuch as the great and costly array and apparell used within this realm contrary to good statutes thereof made hath been the occasion of great impoverishing of divers of the king’s subjects and provoked many of them to rob and to do extortion and other unlawful deeds to maintain thereby their costly array: in eschewing whereof, be it ordained by the authority of this present parliament that no person of what estate condition or degree that he be use in his apparell any cloth of gold of purple colour or silk of purple colour but only the King the Queen the King’s Mother the King’s Children the King’s Brothers and Sisters upon pain to forfeit the said apparell wherewith soever it be mixed, and for using the same to forfeit xx. pound: and that no man under the estate of a Duke use in any apparell of his body or upon his horses any cloth of gold of tissue upon pain to forfeit the same apparell wherewith soever it be mixed and for using the same to forfeit xx. mark; and that no man under the degree of an Earl wear in his apparell any sables upon pain to forfeit the same apparell. And that no man under the degree of a Baron use in his apparell of his body or of his horses any cloth of gold or cloth of silver or tinsel satin nor no other silk or cloth mixed or broidered with gold or silver upon pain of forfeiture of the same apparell, albeit that it be mixed with any other silk or cloth, and for using of the same to forfeit x. mark. And that no man under the degree of a Lord or a Knight of the Garter wear any woollen cloth made out of this realm of England Ireland Wales Calais or the Marches of the same or Berwick, upon pain to forfeit the said cloth and for using of the same to forfeit x. pound. And that no man under the degree of a Knight of the Garter wear in his gown or coat or any other his apparell any velvet of the 1 St. 1 Hen. VIII, c. 14; St. 6 Hen. VIII, c. 1; St. 7 Hen. VIII, c. 6; St. 24 Hen. VIII, c. 13; St. 1/2 P. 2 and M, c. 2. St. See below, p. 958.

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colour of crimson or blue upon pain to forfeit the same gown or coat or other apparell and for using of the same to forfeit xl. shillings. And that any of the Ushers of the King’s Chamber for the time being that first sueth his action of detinue for the same apparell have the said forfeitures of the said apparell, and if none of the said Ushers commence their action thereof within xv. days in the term next after the said forfeiture, then the King’s Chamberlain for the time being to have thereof his like action. And the King our sovereign lord and his heirs to have the one half of the said forfeitures of the said money so forfeited, and the said Chamberlain of the King for the time being to have the said other half of the money. Provided that if there be any like forfeiture committed or done by any of the Queen’s servants being in her checker roll that then any of the Ushers of her Chamber, and in their default the Queen’s Chamberlain for the time being have like action for the said forfeitures as is aforesaid for the King’s Ushers and his Chamberlain. And that no man under the degree of a Knight, except Esquires for the King’s body, his cupbearers carvers and sewers having the ordinary fee for the same and all other Esquires for the body having posession of lands and tenements—or other hereditaments in their hands or other to their use to the yearly value of CCC. mark and Lords’ sons and heirs, Justices of the one Bench or of the other, the Master of the Rolls, and Barons of the King’s Exchequer and all other of the King’s Council and Mayors of the city of London for the time being, use or wear any velvet in their gowns or riding coats or furs of marten in their apparell upon pain to forfeit the same fur and apparell wherewith soever it be mixed and for using of the same to forfeit xl. shillings. Nor no person other than the above named wear velvet in their doublets nor satin nor damask in their gowns nor coats, except he be a Lord’s son or a Gentleman having in his possession or other to his use lands or tenements or annuities at the least for term of life to the yearly value of an hundred pound above all reprises, upon pain to forfeit the same apparell wherewith soever it be mixed and for using of the same to forfeit xl. shillings. Nor no person use or wear satin or damask in their doublets nor silk or camlet in their gowns or coats not having lands or tenements in his possession or other to his use office or fee for term of life or lives to the yearly value of xx. pound, except he be a Yeoman of the Crown or of the King’s guard or grooms of the King’s Chamber or the Queen’s having therefor the king’s fee or the queen’s upon pain to forfeit the same apparell wherewith so ever it be mixed and for using of the same to forfeit xl. shillings. And that no man under the degree of a Gentleman except Graduates of the Universities and except yeomen grooms and pages of the King’s Chamber and of our sovereign lady the queen’s, and except such men as have lands tenements or fees or annuities to the yearly value of x.li. for term of life or an hundred pound in goods use or wear any furs, whereof there is no like kind growing in this land of England Ireland Wales or in any land under the king’s obeisance, upon pain to forfeit the same furs and for using of the same to forfeit xl. shillings. The value of their goods to be tried by their own oaths. And that no man under the degree of a Knight except spiritual men and sergeants at the law or graduates of universities use any more cloth in any long gown than four broad yards, and in a riding gown or coat above three yards upon pain of forfeiture of the same. And that no serving man under the degree of a gentleman use or wear any gown or coat or such like apparell of more cloth than two broad yards and an half in a short gown and three broad yards in a long gown, and that in the said gown or coat they wear no manner fur upon pain of forfeiture of the said apparell or the value

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thereof. And that no serving man waiting upon his master under the degree of a Gentleman use or wear any guarded hose or any cloth above the price of xx.d. the yard in his hose except it be of his master’s wearing hose upon pain of forfeiture of iii.s. iiii.d. And that no man under the degree of a Knight wear any guarded or pinched shirt or pinched [partlet] of linen cloth upon pain of forfeiture of the same shirt or [partlet] and for using of the same to forfeit x. shillings. And that no servant of husbandry nor shepherd nor common labourer nor servant unto any artificer out of city or borough nor husbandman having no goods of his own above the value of x. pound use or wear any cloth whereof the broad yard passeth in price two shillings nor that any of the said servants of husbandry shepherds nor labourers wear any hose above the price of x.d. the yard upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks by three days. And that he that will sue for any of the said forfeitures of the said apparell forfeited by any person under the degree of a Lord or a Knight of the Garter have the said apparell so forfeited by way of detinue. And the king our sovereign lord to have the one half of the forfeiture of the said money so forfeited, or the lord of the franchise if it be recovered or presented within a franchise or leet, and the party that will sue have the other half; and the suit to be by action of debt; and that in any wise of all the said actions the defendant shall not wage his law nor by protection no essoin nor the party to be barred by the king’s pardon nor be delayed by any plea to the disablement of his person. And that the Lord Steward of the King’s House for the time being within the Verge and Justices of Assize and Justices of the Peace, Stewards in leets or lawdays and every of them have also power to inquire and hold plea of every default of the premises as well by examination of the party as after the course of the common law. And to determine the same as well at the king’s suit as at the suit of the party. Provided always that this act be not prejudicial nor hurtful to any spiritual nor temporal man in wearing any ornaments or the Church in executing divine service nor to any merchant strangers. Provided also that it shall be lawful to all mayors recorders aldermen sheriffs and bailiffs and all other head officers of cities or boroughs or towns corporate that now be or hereafter shall be to use and wear like apparell in their gown, doublets, cloaks, and other apparell as their predecessors have done in times past, this act in any wise notwithstanding. Provided also that this act be not prejudicial nor hurtful to any woman or to any ambassadors henchmen heralds of arms minstrals players in interludes, nor to any man wearing any apparell of the king’s livery given him by the king, for the time being of his attendance about the king’s grace. Also be it enacted by authority aforesaid that all other statutes of array made before the making of this present statute, and all penalties or forfeitures to be levied or demanded by reason of them or any of them be utterly void repelled and of none effect and discharged. And that this act of array made in this present parliament begin to take his effect at the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel next coming and not before, and to endure unto the next parliament. Provided also that this act extend not to any person nor persons using any manner of apparell as well upon himself as upon his horse, being in the king’s service in time of war. Provided always that the king’s grace by this present act be not letted nor restrained of his liberty but that his highness at his pleasure by his placard or his letter or his bill assigned with his most gracious hand may grant and give licence and authority to such of his subjects as his grace shall think convenient to wear all and such singular apparell on his body or his

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horses as shall stand with the pleasure of the king’s grace, without damage or forfeiture to him or them that so doeth of any apparell or other pain contained in this statute.

17. The social effects of procedure by attainder. Illustrated from statutes (i) An act for the reversal of attainders. St. 19 Hen. VII, c. 28, 1503–4 (Stat. Realm, II, 669)

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he King our sovereign lord, considering that divers and many persons whereof some of them, and some of their ancestors, were and be attainted of high treason for divers offences by them committed and done against their natural duty of their allegiance, make and have made instant and diligent pursuit in their most humble wise to his Highness of his mercy and pity to have the said attainders reversed and the same persons so attainted to be severally restored1…the King’s highness of his especial grace, mercy, and pity, being sorry for any such untruth and fall of any of his subjects in such case, is therefore inclined to hear and speed reasonably the said petitioners, so, if there were convenient time and space in this present parliament, as it is not, for the great and weighty matters concerning the common weal of this land treated in the same, and that the said parliament draweth so near to the end, and that after the same his Highness is not minded, for the ease of his subjects, without great, necessary and urgent causes, of long time to call and summon a new parliament, by which long tract of time the said suitors and petitioners were and should be discomforted and in despair of expedition of their suits, petitions and causes, unless convenient remedy for them were purveyed in this behalf: Wherefore, and in consideration of the premises the King’s Highness is agreed and contented that it be enacted… that the King’s Highness, from henceforth during his life, shall have plain and full authority and power by his letters patent under his great seal, to reverse, annul, repeal and avoid all the attainders of the said persons and every of them and the heirs of every of them, and of all other persons and the heirs of such persons and every of them as hath been attainted of high treason by act of parliament or by the common law, at any time from the 22nd day of August the first year of his most noble reign to the first day of this present parliament; And also of all persons attainted in and by this present parliament; and also of all other persons attainted of treason at any time during the reign of King Richard the Third as well by the course and order of the common laws as by authority of parliament or otherwise: And furthermore the king’s grace by his letters patent under his said great seal to have full authority and power to restore the same persons so attainted and their heirs and every of them, and so to enable them in name, blood and inheritance as if the said attainders or any of them had never been had nor made; and that the said letters patent rehearsing the said reversal, repeal, annulation and avoidance of this said act of attainders or any of them, and the restitutions and enablements of the said persons or any of them, and the inheritance contained in any of the King’s said letters patent at any time hereafter to be made according to the effect of this act, be as good, effectual and available in the law to every of the same persons to whom they shall be made, according to the effect, tenor, purport, grant and words in the same so made according to the effect of this act, as if the same matters, words, tenors, and purports, contained in any of the 1 The following are mentioned: Humfrey Stafford, John Baynton, Robert Ratclyff, Thomas Mountford, Thomas Wyndham, Thomas Tyrrell, John Charleton, Charles Clyfforde, John Mallory.

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said letters patent so made, were fully enacted, established, and authorized by authority of parliament.

(ii) Act of attainder of Edward, late Duke of Buckingham. St. 14/15, Hen. VIII, c. 20, 1523 (Ibid, in, 246)

Forasmuch as Edward, late Duke of Buckingham, late of Thornbury in the county of Gloucester, the 24th day of April in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign Lord the King that now is and divers times after, imagined and compassed traitorously and unnaturally the destruction of the most royal person of our said sovereign lord and subversion of this his realm, and then traitorously committed and did divers and many treasons against our said sovereign lord the King, contrary to his allegiance, in the counties of Gloucester and Somerset, the City of London, the counties of Kent and Surrey, of the which treasons and offences the said late Duke…was severally indicted. And afterward for and upon the same treasons the 13th day of May the 13th. year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the King at Westminster in the county of Middlesex before Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, for that time only being Great Steward of England by the King’s letters patent, by verdict of his peers and by judgment of the said Steward against the said late Duke then and there given after the due order of the law and custom of England, was attainted of high treason, as by records thereof more plainly appeareth. Wherefore be it ordained, enacted, and established …that the said late Duke for the offences above rehearsed stand and be convicted, adjudged, and attainted of high treason, and forfeit to the King our sovereign lord and his heirs for ever all honours, castles, manors, lordships, hundreds, franchises, liberties, privileges, advowsons, nominations, knight’s fees, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions, remainders, portions, annuities, pensions, rights, possessions, and other hereditaments whatsoever, in England, Ireland, Wales, Calais, and Marches of the same, or elsewhere whereof the said late Duke or any other person or persons to his use were seised or possessed in fee simple, fee tail, or for term of any other man’s life or lives, or any estate of inheritance or otherwise the said 24th. day of April or any time since, or in the which the said late Duke or any other person or persons seised to his use had then or any time since lawful cause of entry within England, Ireland, Wales, Calais, and Marches of the same, or elsewhere; And over that, the said Edward to forfeit unto our said sovereign lord all goods and chattels, as well real as personal, whatsoever, whereof the said Edward was possessed to his own use, or any other person or persons was possessed to the use of the same late Duke, the said 13th. day of May, or whereof the said late Duke had lawful cause of seisure to his own proper use the said 13th. day of May; And also to forfeit unto our said sovereign lord all debts which were owing by any person or persons unto the said late Duke or unto any other person or persons to the use of the said late Duke the said 13th. day of May.

(iii) The act of authority. St. 14/15 Hen. VIII, c. 21, 1523 (Ibid, in, 259)

The King our Sovereign Lord considering that divers and many persons whereof some of them be deceased and some of them be on life have been attainted of high treason for divers treasons by them committed and done against their natural duty of their allegiance,

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yet nevertheless the King’s Highness of his most goodly and blessed mind and of his especial grace inclined to mercy and pity considering the merits and deserts of the said offenders or such as should have been their heirs if the said attainders had not been had, is agreed and contented that it be enacted…that his said Highness from henceforth during his life shall at his pleasure have full authority and power by his letters patent under his great seal to reverse annul repeal and avoid the attainders of all and singular persons and every of them as have been attainted of high treason by authority of parliament or by the common law at any time from the xxii day of June the first year of the reign of King Richard the Third or any time since or any time during this present parliament. And furthermore that the King’s Grace by his said letters patent under his great seal have full authority and power to enable the said persons so attainted and every of them and such as should have been their heirs if the said attainders had not been, in name blood pre-eminence and dignity and to restore the same persons and every of them to all such castles manors lands tenements rents reversions possessions and hereditaments as at the time of the said restitution shall rest or be in the hands or possession of our said Sovereign Lord by reason of the said attainders or any of them, as if the said persons attainted had not been attainted nor any such attainders had never been had or made; And that the said letters patent rehearsing the said reversal repeal annulation and avoidance of the said act or acts of attainder or of the said judgment or judgments of attainders and the enablements of the said persons or any of them that it shall please the King’s Highness so to enable and the restitution of the inheritance contained in any of our said Sovereign Lord the King’s letters patent at any time hereafter to be made according to the effect of this act shall be as good effectual and available in the law to every of the same persons to whom they shall be made and to their heirs and assigns after the effect tenour purport grants and words of the same, as if the same matters words tenours and purports contained in any of the said letters patent so made were fully enacted established and authorised by authority of parliament.

(iv) An act for Henry Stafford. St. 14/15 Hen. VIII, c. 23, 1523 (Ibid. III, 269) This Act confirmed letters patent of 20 September 1522 by which some of Buckingham’s manors were restored to his son. A petition by the son for restitution in blood, made after Wolsey’s fall, was rejected, but he was restored by an Act of the Parliament which met in November 1547, when he was declared to be Baron Stafford by a new creation, and as such he received a summons to the next Parliament.

In the most humble wise sheweth unto your Highness your humble true and faithful subjects: and daily orators Henry Stafford son of Edward Stafford late Duke of Buckingham deceased and Ursula his wife: that where the said late Duke was attainted of high treason before Thomas Duke of Norfolk great steward of England thereunto by your letters patent deputed and assigned for that time only and by him thereupon judgment was given against the same late Duke at Westminster the [1] day off [1] in the [1] year of your most noble reign as by the record thereof appeareth. Since which time it hath pleased your highness of your most noble and abundant grace and charitable disposition by your letters patent under your great seal whereof the date is the 20th day of December in the 1

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fourteenth year of your most noble reign to give and grant unto your subjects Henry and Ursula his wife and to the heirs of their two bodies lawfully begotten certain castles manors lordships boroughs lands tenements rents services reversions and with other hereditaments in the same letters patent specified and contained [Prayer that it shall be enacted that the petitioners may hold and enjoy their possessions] given and granted according to the tenour form and effect of the said letters patents: any act of attainder of treason of or against the said late Duke or any act or acts other than this present act in this present parliament made or to be made or anything in them contained the contrary notwithstanding, and as if the same act of attainder or any other act or acts in this present parliament made or to be made had never been had nor made.

(v) An example of a transfer of forfeited estates. 1486 (C.P.R. 1485–94, 121)

Grant to John de Veer, earl of Oxford, the great chamberlain, and his heirs male, of the castle, lordship, and manor of Framlyngham and the manors of Kelshale, Haccheston, Pesanhale, Walton cum Trymley and the hundred of Loose, co. Suffolk, and the manor of Willington co. Bedford, late of John duke of Norfolk which by his for-feiture on the act of I Henry VII came into the king’s hands; also the manors of Borham, Walkefare and Powers in Little Waltham co. Essex, late of Francis, viscount Lovell, which by his forfeiture and an act of parliament came into the king’s hands: also the manor of Botesworth, co. Northampton, and all lands there, which were of William Catesby esquire, which by his forfeiture and the said act came into the king’s hands; also a great inn called “le Herber” in the parish of St. Mary Bothowe, in the ward of Dowgate, London, and another messuage in the same parish and ward, and four messuages in “Busshelane”, in the aforesaid parish and ward, late of George, duke of Clarence; with knights’ fees &c, and all issues from Michaelmas last. Further grant to him and the heirs male of his body of the manor or lordship of Busshy, co. Hertford, as above; to hold until the king provides for him in lands or rents in the realm of the same value.

18. The Heralds and ennoblement, illustrated from various sources (i) A Grant of Arms by Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King, 1510 This document is an early example of the way in which the authority of the heralds was sought by those anxious to scale the social ladder. John Mundy, born about 1465, came from High Wycombe, where he acquired property. In 1482 he was apprenticed to Sir John Shaa, goldsmith, the wellknown London citizen who was Lord Mayor in 1501–2. Mundy was his executor in 1509–10. About that time he married his second wife, Juliana, daughter of William Browne, gold-smith, and Lord Mayor in 1513. By his first wife Mundy had a daughter Margaret, who married as her second husband (and his third wife) Lord Edmund Howard, son of the duke of Norfolk, the father of Queen Catherine Howard. In 1516 Mundy was an alderman of Calais. In 1518 he became Sheriff, and in 1522 Lord Mayor of London. He was knighted in 1529. He died in 1537, and was buried in St Peter’s, Cheapside. His name appears in L.P. as supplying New Year’s gifts for the court, and he had financial dealings with Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the duke of Buckingham, and Lord Audely. These suggest that as a moneylender he benefited by the extravagance of Henry VIII’s courtiers.

(Printed by W.G.Clark-Maxwell, “A grant of arms, 1510”, in Archaeologia, LXXXIII (1933), pp. 167–170)

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o all present and to come who shall see or hear these presents, Thomas Wriothesley otherwise called Garter King of English arms, greetings with humble recommendation. Equity wills and reason ordains that men of virtue of noble spirit should be rewarded for their merits and good renown, and not only their own persons, in this brief and transitory mortal life, but after them, those who should issue and be procreated of their bodies may be renowned in all places perpetually with others by certain signs and tokens of honour and nobility: to wit, with blazon, helm, and crest, so that by their example others will be induced to use their days in feats and works of arms, to acquire the renown of ancient nobility in their line and posterity. And forasmuch as I, Garter King of English arms aforesaid; not only by common report, but also by the testimony and witness of several trustworthy noble men know by true information that John Mundy of Chakenden in the county of Oxford, gentleman, has long pursued deeds of virtue so that he has well deserved and is worthy that hence-forth for ever he and his posterity should be in all places honourably admitted, renowned, counted, numbered, and received into the number and company of other ancient gentle and noble men. And for the remembrance of this his nobliity by virtue of the authority and power annexed and attributed to my said office of King of Arms I have devised, ordained, and assigned to the said John Mundy for him and his said posterity with their due difference the blazon, helm, and crest in manner as follows, to wit: of gules and of sable party per pale to a cross in grail silver, on the cross five lozenges of purple to a chief of gold, on the chief three crow’s legs rasus in pale of azure: for his crest a panther’s head of sable bezants halaunt of gules set in a torse of gold and azure mantle of gules double silver, as is shown in the drawing in the margin herewith: to have and to hold for him and his said posterity….1 In witness of this I, Garter of English arms aforesaid here sign with my hand and seal with the seal of my arms together with the seal of my office of Garter these presents. Made and given at London, the eighth day of November the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and ten. And the second year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, our very dread and sovereign lord.

(ii) Royal Commission for Heraldic Visitation (Letters Patent, 19 April 1530) This significant document, illustrating the rise of the heralds to a position of authority, was issued by Henry VIII to Thomas Benolt, Clarencieux. It is important for the following reasons. First, its terms indicate that the regulation of arms, and their use by royal authority was not an innovation at this date: there was clearly a well-developed system already in being, and a register in which they were recorded. Secondly, visitation by the heralds was also accepted practice. Thirdly, the principle is now established that a grant of arms is open to anyone who has done service to the king, and has the wealth necessary to maintain his position, provided he is not of servile blood, a rebel against the king, nor a heretic. This Commission, in the form of letters patent, was not entered on the Patent Roll: but its contents are known from a privy seal warrant of 6 April 1530, and from a contemporary certified copy in the College of Arms. It is printed in A.R.Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages, 9–10, where the historical importance of the document is fully discussed.

Henry by the grace of God King of England and of France, Defender of the faith, and Lord of Ireland. To all manner noble estates, as well spiritual as temporal, of what estate, 1

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degree, or condition, they or any of them be, bearing arms. And to all mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and all other our officers, ministers, and subjects, these our letters hearing or seeing, and to every of them, greeting. Forasmuch as our trusty and well beloved Thomas Benolt, otherwise called Clarencieux King at Arms of the south, east, and west, parts of this our realm from the river of Trent southward, now by our especial licence, entendeth by way of nobleness to visit among other your arms and cognisances, and to reform the same if it be necessary and requisite, and to reform all false armoury and arms devised without authority, marks unlawfully set or made in escutcheons, squares, or lozenges, which escutcheons, squares, or lozenges, be tokens of nobleness and them to deface and take away wheresoever they be set, and the same to take for his own behoof, whether it be in stone, windows, plate, or any other manner of wise set, and all such as set upon churches, or other places, banners, standards, pennons, or coats of arms, not having authority so to do, and also over this to take the note of your descents according to his oath and bond made at his creation in this part. And also the said King at arms to give to any person or persons spiritual, the which be preferred by grace, virtue, or cunning, to rooms and degrees of honour and worship, arms according to their merits: and likewise to any person or persons temporal, the which by the service done to us or to other, that be increased or augmented to possessions and riches able to maintain the same, so that they be not issued of vile blood, rebels to our person, not heretics contrary to the faith, but men of good honest reputation. And all such which shall be enobled to have their arms registered in the Earl Marshal’s book, and his seal to be put to every patent which shall be granted at all times. We therefore will, and not only exhort you, but also command you and every of you, that unto our said servant in full execution of that which belongeth to this his affairs and authority in all and singular the premisses ye will shew unto him all the favour with your aid and assistance if he require you in all that you goodly may, as ye tender our favour and the honour and weal of noblesse in this behalf, inhibiting by this our present writing all other our officers of arms, what degree soever they be, not to meddle nor intromit them with none of these his affairs in any of the things aforesaid nor to meddle with any interments or funerals at any time from henceforth nor with the liberties, profits, nor other emoluments appertaining to the said King at arms within his said province, without his especial licence and authority by him granted in that behalf and that apparently to appear willing and granting by these our letters that the same shall be at all times in full power, strength, and effect now and hereafter while our said servant liveth, and to execute his visitations in his said province whensoever he thinketh best to employ him thereunto. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patents. Witness ourself at Windsor the nineteenth day of April the one and twenty year of our reign.

(iii) Creation of peers, 1547 Charter of the creation of the King’s uncle, Edward earl of Hertford, as duke of Somerset, whom the King invests with that name, etc., by girding on the sword, putting on his head the cap and circle of gold and handing him the golden rod. To hold the dignity to him and the heirs male of his body and of Anne, now his wife, already begotten and to be begotten; with remainder, in default of such heirs, to Edward

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Seymour, esquire, son of the said duke by Katharine, deceased, his first wife, and the heirs male of his body, who shall enjoy the dignity of duke of Somerset with all the honours to the said duke appendant and annexed, and shall be invested also by girding on the sword, putting on his head the cap and circle of gold, and handing the golden rod; and if Edward Seymour chance to die without heir male of his body the heirs male of the body of the present duke by any future wife shall in like manner succeed. And, that the rank of duke may be the more honourably maintained, the King hereby grants to the foresaid duke of Somerset and his successors a yearly rent of £40. from his manors of Crickern alias Crokhorne, Stokegorsey and Wykeffitzpane, Soms., which came to Henry VIII’s hands by the attainder of Henry late marquess of Exeter. Witnesses Thomas archbishop of Canterbury, the King’s councillors Lord Seynt John and Lord Russell, his kinsmen the earls of Arundel and Shrewsbury, the bishops of Durham and Ely, the councillors Paget and Petre, chief secretaries, and others. 16 Feb. 1547 (C.P.R., Edward VI, 1547–48, 173) Appointment of the King’s uncle Edward earl of Hertford, protector of his realms and governor of his person, as Treasurer of the Exchequer; from 29 Jan. 1 Edw. VI as long as the King pleases, as amply as John Dynham, Knight, lord Dynham, or Thomas duke of Norfolk father of Thomas late Duke of Norfolk, attainted, or the said late Duke held the office. 10 Feb. 1547 (Ibid. 180) Grant for life to the King’s uncle Edward, duke of Somerset, of the office of Earl Marshal of England as amply as John Mowbray formerly duke of Norfolk or Thomas duke of Norfolk, lately attainted, held the office, and grant that the said Earl Marshal or his deputy shall bear as well in the King’s absence (presentia has apparently been altered to absencia) as in the King’s absence (sic) a golden stick ringed with black at each end, graven with the seal of the King’s arms in the upper end and the duke’s in the lower end: and that he may bear himself the more honourably the King grants him £20 yearly for life out of the profits of the Hanaper of Chancery. 17 Feb. 1547 (Ibid. 180) Whereas the King desires to increase the weakened forces of the baronage, the number of barons having been diminished by the expulsion of abbots and priors and death of other barons: Charter of creation of William Herbert, Knight, councillor, and Master of the Horse, as a baron of Parliament with the title of Baron Herbert of Cardyff, co. Glamorgan; to hold to him and the heirs male of his body. This without fine or fee. 10 Oct. 1551 (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1550–55, 122) Whereas those whom Divine Providence has set in monarchy and the regal throne (as it were vicars on earth of that Celestial Majesty) rule what is committed to them and therein represent what the eyes do in the body, whose office is to direct all its members; so, monarchs and princes, as the eyes of the state, ought to look into all the estates and orders of their empire without which no civil administration can exist, and when they see the nobility of the estates and orders weakened increase their number in order that,

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others whom virtue and glorious ancestry ennoble being called to honour, the glory of the orders and estates may be perpetuated: Now therefore the King seeing one of the orders suffering from its fewness and knowing that his councillor William Herbert, K.G., lord Herbert of Cardyff, president of the Council of Wales, and Master of the Horse, both in Henry VIII’s time served well in wars against France and in offices at home and also served the King many times especially in that rebellion raised by desperate men in Devon which put the realm in danger, when the said William at grave risk gave such aid that partly through his leadership the rebels were reduced to obedience: Creation of the said lord Herbert as earl of Pembroke; to him and the heirs male of his body. And grant towards the support of their rank of an annuity of £20. out of the custom and subsidy within the port of Bristol. II Oct. 1551 (Ibid. 128)

19. The rise of new families, illustrated from various sources No analysis of early Tudor society would be complete without some account of the rise of new men who, profiting from their opportunities amassed riches and acquired positions which enabled them to equip their children for life at a higher social level than they themselves enjoyed. The following documents show some of the ways by which such a result was achieved.

(a) The Bertie Family The rise of this family was remarkable. The son of a working mason married a duchess: the grandson sat among the peers of the realm as the holder of a feudal barony: while the great grand-son received an earldom and established his right to the ancient office of Great Chamberlain of England. By the reign of Elizabeth there was in existence a family pedigree which provided the fitting background for such distinctions. Its myths did not survive the devastating criticisms of Horace Round. The following selection of references will indicate the way in which the genealogist set to work, while at the same time will provide an illuminating picture of the possibilities of advancement in early Tudor England. For the full story the indispensable material is contained in J.H.Round, Peerage and Pedigree, 1., 1–54; Georgina Bertie, Five Generations of a Loyal House. The fortunes of Richard Bertie and Catherine, dower duchess of Suffolk, are described by Evelyn Read, Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk.

(i) Family origins The humble origins of the Bertie family is suggested in the will of Robert Bertie. 4 October 1501.

T

his is the last will of me Robert Bertie aforesaid made the day and year of our Lord God aforewritten and the seventeenth year of King Henry the Seventh of and in all my lands and tenements with all their appurtenance lying in the parishes of Berghsted and Maydeston in the which William Hadsole and Robert Carter by me of confidence are infeoffed as by a deed to them by me made more plainly appeareth. First I will that my said Feoffees after my decease shall let Marion my wife to have enjoy and occupy my messuage which I dwell in with all the lands to the same messuage pertaining unto the time that Thomas my son come to the age of 21 year in keeping upon the same competent reparations. And when the said Thomas cometh to the age of 21. year then I will my wife shall have half my said messuage, that is to say, the north part, with the barn and garden, which was late one John Bartie, and a croft of land called Hawkes Land, a piece of land called Helfeld with all their appurtenances to have and to hold the aforesaid half messuage

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with all their appurtenances to the said Marion during the life of the same Marion. Also I will that Marion my wife shall pay to Johane my daughter 5. marks to her marriage and 5. marks within the space of a year after her marriage. Also I will my executors shortly after my decease shall sell my messuage with all the appurtances lying in Maidstone next to a street called Yerlys Lane. And the money thereof coming to be delivered to Marion my wife to the intent to perform my bequests afore written. And if it happen that the said Johane die or she be married then I will that the said 10. marks shall be disposed for me in the church of Bersted in form following, that is to say every year during 20. years 6s. 8.d.. to be disposed for anniversaries for me. Also I will that Thomas my son shall have when he cometh to the said age of 20. year the south part of my dwelling house with the stable, barn, and further house and all the lands and tenements to the same pertaining except and reserved always such lands and tenements as is afore bequeathed and willed to Marion my wife during her life. And after decease of Marion my wife I will that all my said lands and tenements unbequeathed hole1 shall remain unto Thomas my son and to the heirs of his body lawfully begotten under form and condition following, that is to say that Thomas my son or his executors shall pay to William my son when he cometh to the age of 21. years 10.li. And if it happen the said Thomas my son die without heir of his body lawfully begotten then I will all my said lands and tenements hole shall remain to William my son and to his heirs of his body lawfully begotten. And if it happen the said William my son die without heir of his body lawfully begotten then I will all my said lands and tenements hole shall remain to Johane my daughter and to her heirs and assigns for ever. Also I will that the longest liver of Thomas and William and Johane shall have enjoy and possess all my lands and tenements in fee simple. Also I will that William my son shall have half my cottage garden and croft lying in the plain at Berghsted to him and to his heirs for ever. Also I will that Marion my wife shall dispose for me at the day of my year’s mind 6.s. 8.d. and so she in like manner 40.s. to dispose for me at every year’s mind unto the said Thomas my son come to the said age of 21. years. Also I will that my sons Thomas and William shall have my working tools for such as be for mason’s craft. (Bertie, Five Generations of a Loyal House, App. 464–467)

(ii) The rise of Thomas Bertie The following documents shew Thomas carrying on his father’s craft, but steadily bettering himself. Beginning as a stonemason at Winchester, and carrying on in a similar capacity for the earl of Southampton at his new house at Titchfield, Hants., Bertie was next employed by the King building forts in the Solent, at Calshot, and Hurst Castle. His rise to office at Hurst was soon followed by a grant of arms.

(i) [1532–3]. And in payment to Guy the stonemason working on the pointing of the windows of the aforesaid vault by bill of Thomas Bartewe, 5.s.; and to the same likewise for the pointing of eight arches in the church, 5.s. 6.d.: and for making a scaffold over the shrine of St. Swithin and removing the tomb of a bishop before the shrine, and for fixing the same tomb again, 10.s. Total 20.s 6.d. And in payment to Thomas Bartewe for an agreement made with him for the repair of the said vault on his part, 100.s. (Compotus Rolls of the Obedientaries of St. Swithin’s Priory, Winchester, Ed. G.W.Kitchen, Hampshire Record Soc., 1892, 219, Latin) 1

wholly.

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(ii) [1539]. Please it your good lordship, this bearer my fellow, Mills, came hither to have spoken with you. The cause of whose coming, in your lordship’s absence, I have declared to the King, which resteth in these two points. The one for the works at Calshorispoynte, touching which his saying is, that the Barbican of the Tower will be ready by Michaelmas, if they may know where to have covering for it, and in that the King’s majesty is resolved that there shall be lead taken, as well for the said Barbican, as the Tower itself, of the leads that are at Beaulieu: so that for delivery of the same, Master Wriothesley must make a warrant, and his grace will sign it. The other point is touching money and charges of the said works, and also the work at the Cowe in the Isle, concerning which this said bearer saith that by the next pay day, the money already received will be spent: so that he thinketh, and also it appeareth by the declaration of Bartine,1 that it will ask at both places no less than one thousand marks more. And that by estimation the said thousand marks, with the money now remaining in his hands, will perform the works…. (Earl of Southampton to Cromwell (LP., XIV, i, 152: transcribed in Ellis, Orig. Letters, 2 Ser., ii, 86)) (iii) Warrant to—to deliver to Thomas Bartrie Captain of Hurst £17. 15. 0. for 230 quarters of lime by him sent to Sir Hugh Powlet to Jersey, and more to him for 63 quarters of lime, which maketh £23. 6. 3. (A.P.C. 1550–52,141) (iv) To all nobles and gentles these present letters reading hearing or seeing, Thomas Hawley alias Clarencieulx principal Herald and King of Arms of the south-east and west parts of this realm from the river of Trent southward, sendeth humble commendation and greeting. Equity willeth and reason ordaineth that men virtuous and of noble courage be by their merits and good renown rewarded not only their persons in this mortal life so brief and transitory, but also after them those that shall be of their bodies descended to be in all places of honour with other nobles and gentles accepted and taken by certain ensigns and demonstrances of honour and noblesse, that is to say blason healme and timber, to the end that by their examples others may the more enforce themselves to have perseverance to use their days in feats of arms and works virtuous to get the renown of ancient noblesse in their lines and posterities. And therefore, I Clarencieulx, not only by the common renown, but also by the report and witness of divers worthy to be taken of word and credence, am plainly advertised and informed that Thomas Bertie of Berested in the county of Kent gentleman is descended of an house undefamed and being at this present time Captain of Hurst Castle for the King’s Majesty and hath of long time used himself in feats of arms and good works so that he is well worthy to be in all places of honour admitted numbered and taken in the company of other nobles and gentles, and for the remembrance of the same by the virtue authority and power annexed, attributed given and granted by the King our sovereign lord’s highness to me and to my office of Clarencieulx King of Arms by express words under his majesty’s most noble great seal, have devised ordained given and granted to the said Thomas Bertie gentleman, and for his posterity the arms and crest as hereafter followeth, that is to say, silver three faulcys of muttons the bodies of timber headed, armed, horned, azure upon the timber a ring of the same two above one. Upon his healme on a torse silver and sable on a hussock vert a date 1

?Bartiue.

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tree and the dates in their proper colour levied vert, mantelled gules doubled silver, as more plainly appeareth depicted in this margent. To have and to hold for him and his posterity and they it to use and enjoy for evermore. In witness whereof I, the said Clarencieulx King of Arms have signed these presents with my hand, and set thereunto the seal of my Arms with the seal of my office of Clarencieulx King of Arms. Given and granted at London the xth. day of July in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord Edward the Sixt by the grace of God King of England France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England and Ireland, under Christ in earth the supreme head. 10 July 1550 (W.A.Littledale (ed.), Miscellaneous Grants of Arms, Pt. 1, p. 26 (Harl. Soc., LXXVI, 1925); G.Bertie. Five Generations, 448)

(v) The career of Richard Bertie Thomas Bertie’s son, Richard (1517–82), was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1533–34, and is said to have become fellow of his College. Later he joined the household of Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor. About the end of 1552 he married Catherine, duchess dowager of Suffolk, who was in her own right Baroness Willoughby of Eresby. Her Protestant sympathies and indiscreet tongue brought her under Gardiner’s suspicion in Mary’s reign, and she and Bertie fled the country. The story of their wanderings until their return to England in Elizabeth’s reign, and the further advancement of the Bertie fortunes lie outside the limits of our period, they can be traced in the references given above.

1555. A letter to Sir Edward Mountague and certain other Commissioners in Lincolnshire for the finding of an office of all such lands, goods, and chattels as the Lady Katherine, duchess dowager of Suffolk and Bartue her husband, being contemptuously without licence departed the realm, had before their departure within the said shire… A.P.C. 1554–56, 180 1558. Whereas by inquisition taken by commission at Estgrenewiche, co. Kent, 18 January 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, before William Roper, Nicholas Rookewood, and John Beare, esquires, it was found that Richard Bartue and Lady Katherine duchess of Suffolk, his wife, on 5 Feb. 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, quitted the realm for parts beyond the seas without licence and at the time of the inquisition were living at the city of Basel in Germany, and there adhering to the enemies of the King and queen, and that on the said 5 February they were possessed of the custody of the body and marriage of Agnes Woodhill, daughter and heir of Anthony Woodhill, esquire, deceased: by which inquisition the said custody and marriage and all the goods and chattels of Bartue and Lady Katherine were forfeited to the Crown, and because from Lady day next after the said 5 Feb., for 2 years until Lady day the payment of £40 (sic) from the Court of Wards, which Bartue and lady Katherine had for the bringing up of the said Agnes had ceased. Grant to Agnes of the entire sum of £53. 6. 8. for the said 2 years at the rate of 4C marks a year to be paid by the receiver general of the said court: and further grant of an annuity of 40 marks to be paid from the issues of the lands late of the said Anthony from Ladyday last so long as the lands shall remain in the Crown’s hands for default of sueing for livery of the same. C.P.R. 1557–8. p 101

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(b) The Wriothesley family The most direct way of acquiring wealth and position was through office under the government. Many examples of the rise of new families by this means could be cited. The career of Thomas Wriothesley (1505–50) illustrates the process. The origin of his family is obscure although, of course, there is a pedigree which traces it back into the thirteenth century. In actual fact it emerges into the light with Sir John Wry the (d. 1504), who was Falcon herald under Henry VI. His two sons, William and Thomas, both followed their father’s profession but changed the family name to Wriothesley. William’s eldest son, Thomas, was the member of the family whose career as an administrator was especially successful. He seems to have devoted himself to a ruthless policy of self-aggrandisement. After a spectacular rise to power and wealth Wriothesley over-reached himself in the intrigues of Edward VI’s court and ultimately lost the battle of wits to Warwick. His failure and death did not, however, mean the end of the family. Wi th Wriothesley’s grandson Henry, the third earl of Southampton (1573–1624), the patron of Shakespeare, it was again a prominent feature of Elizabethan society. Thomas Wriothesley’s career is suggested by the following documents.

(i) Thomas Wriothesley, clerk of the Signet. Grant in reversion of the office of bailiff of the towns or lordships of Warwyk and Snyterfield, Warwick, with custody of the warren there, and a certain ground or soil with houses thereon built in War-wick, called “le Bothe hall” and the herbage of a pasture called “le marsshes Pakimore and Tappingclose” Warwick; all which offices &c. were granted by patent, 7 Oct., I Hen. VIII. to Edward Ferrys, one of the king’s stewards. (Grants in August 1530, L.P. IV, 6600, II) (ii) Thomas Wriothesley, one of the clerks of the Signet. Reversion of the offices of coroner and attorney in the King’s Bench, which was granted by patent, 1 June 1 Hen. VIII. to Thomas Fermour. (1536, ibid, x, 12,) (iii) Thomas Wriothesley. Grant in fee of the house and site of the late monastery of Beaulieu alias de Bello Loco Regis, Hants., the church, steeple, and churchyard of the same; the manor of Beaulieu and the great close of Beaulieu, also a close called [blank] lying near “the great close of Beaulieu” and the three chapels of Boverey, Througham, and St. Leonard’s within the limits of the said great close…which came into the King’s hand by grant of the abbot and convent of Beaulieu. Rent. £10..5.s..8.d. (29 July 1538, ibid, XIII, i, 1519, g. 67) (iv) 1540. This year in April, my cousin Mr. Thomas Wriothesley, was made the King’s Secretary, and Mr. Sadler, of the Privy Chamber joined with him, and were both made knights also. (Wriothesley, Chronicle, 1, 115) (v) Sir Thomas Wriothesley, one of the King’s secretaries. Grant, in fee, of the great mansion late in tenure of Sir Richard Rich, within the close of the Augustinian Friars in London, with a great hall, a bakehouse, a stable, and 2 gardens adjoining, and tenements near, in the several tenures of the said Sir Richard, Will.Shurland, and Ric.Duke; and all the messuages. &c. within the site of the said Augustinian Friars, which belonged to Thomas, earl of Essex, attainted. To hold to the said Sir Thomas and his heirs by a rent of 5.s. (July 1540, L.P. xv, 942, g. 113) (vi) Sir Thomas Wriothesley, one of the King’s principal secretaries. Licence to build walls and towers around and within the late abbey of Tychefeld, Hants., and the site and grounds &c, thereof, and to embattle and fortify the said walls. Also pardon to the

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said Sir Thomas for having, without licence, transformed the said late abbey and the manor-house of Tychefeld &c. into a chief messuage of the manor or great and solemn place, and decorated it with towers and battlements; and licence to hold the same to him and his heirs and assigns for ever. (February 1542, ibid, XVII, 137, g. 54) (vii) Thomas Wriothesley, one of the king’s primary secretaries. Creation as baron Wryothesley, with succession in tail male. (1 January 1544, ibid, XIX, i, 80, g. i) (viii) The 30 day of April, 1544, Sir Thomas Audley, knight, Lord of Walden and Chancellor of England, my late lord and master, departed this worldly life at his place of Christ’s Church, in London. The second day of May, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, knight, Lord Wriothesley, was sworn Chancellor of England, in the Chancery at Westminster Hall. (Wriothesley, Chronicle 1, 147) (ix) 28 June, 1550. That because the earl of Southampton is very sick and therefore hath need of the air of the country, he therefore shall repair down into Hampshire, and not to depart out of the compass of that shire, but to be ready to answer and to appear before the Council upon any reasonable warning, upon pain of forfeiture of five thousand marks taken by recognisance.1 (Dasent, A.P.C. 1550–52, 59) (x) Memorandum: the 30 of July Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Lord Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and knight of the garter, and one of the executors of King Henry VIII. departed out of this transitory life at his place in Holborn, called Lincoln’s place, about midnight: he had been long sick, and the 3 of August in the forenoon he was buried in St. Andrew’s Church in Holborn, at the right hand of the high altar, Mr. Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester preaching there at the burial. (1550, Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, 41) (c) The Spencer family The Spencer family, living in south-east Warwickshire on the Northamptonshire border, is an interesting example of the rise of a new family. It reached nobility in Robert Spencer, first baron of Wormleighton (d. 1627). The pedigree which linked it with the baronial Despencer house is described by Round as a deliberate invention by herald Clarencieux Lee in 1595. In actual fact the Spencers emerge from obscurity in the reign of Henry VII. The founder of the family fortunes was John Spencer (d. 1522), described in a deed of 26 November 1497 as a grazier. He rose to be High Sheriff of Northants in 1511, L.P. 1, i, 969, g. 23, and was knighted c. 1519. Round considers this a rare example of a family which owed its riches and its rise neither to the favour of a court, nor to the spoils of monasteries, nor to a fortune made in trade, but to successful farming. But successful marriages may have helped: Sir John Spencer (d. 1586) had as his mother the daughter of Sir Thomas Kytson, the rich London mercer. The following documents throw some light on the rise of the family: J.H.Round, Studies in Peerage and Family History, 279– 329; V.C.H. Northants, II, 293.

7 May 1498. Grant to the King’s servant William Coope, esquire, cofferer of the 1 In September and October 1549, Wriothesley took a leading part in the plot which led to the down-fall of the Protector: but he did not regain position or influence for himself. By February 1550 he was no longer a member of the Council, and soon after was placed under house-arrest.

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household, his heirs and assigns, of the manors of Wormleighton, alias Wilmeleghton and Fenny Compton, co. Warwick, and all the lands of Simon Mountfort, Knight, in Wormeleghton and Fenny Compton forfeited by the attainder passed on the said Simon in the parliament held 14 October, 11 Henry VII., with all issues from Michael-mas last, to hold in socage, to wit, by fealty and a rent of 20 marks a year. (C.P.R. 1494–1509, p. 133) November, 1512. John Spencer of Olthorp. Licence to impark lands in Olthorp and Wykehamond, Northampton, and grant of free warren in all his lands and several fishery and vivary in all his waters in Olthorp, Brynketon Magna, Wykehamond, and Bodyngton Superior, Northampton: and licence to castellate the manors of Olthorp, Northampton and Wormeleighton, Warwickshire. (L.P. 1, i, 1494, g. 28) And the jurors say that John Spencer was of late, and still is, seised in his demesne as of fee of 40 acres of arable land and of 40 acres of land and wood with appurtenances in Wykedyve and Wykhamond in the aforesaid county, and thus thereof seised on the fourth day of December in the fourth year of the reign of the present lord King, enclosed the aforesaid lands with hedges and ditches, and caused these lands to be joined to and included in his park in Wicken, and imparked them, and enlarged his park with these lands and converted them to pasture for animals whereby a half plough is lost…. And these tenements were worth 20/- per annum. And they are held of the lord King. And further, the same jurors say that Thomas late Marquis of Dorset was of late seised in his demesne as of fee of 30 acres of arable land accustomed to be tilled, with appurtenances in Wykedyve and Wykehamond in the aforesaid county, and thus thereof seised on the 4th day of September in the 6th year of the reign of the aforesaid late King, he converted the aforesaid lands from their original cultivation and use into pasture for sheep and other animals whereby half a plough is lost, and four persons were rendered idle. And one John Spencer now has the estate of the late Marquis of and in these aforesaid lands. And these lands are worth 30/- per annum. And they are held of the lord King. And they say that John Spencer was of late, and still is, seised in his demesne as of fee of one messuage and forty acres of arable land suitable for cultivation and with that messuage accustomed to be occupied in Wykedyve and Wykehamond in the county aforesaid. And being thus seised thereof, on the 20th. day of February in the fourth year of the reign of the present lord king he freely caused the aforesaid messuage to be knocked down and wasted and so allowed it to fall into ruin and decay, and four persons who up to then had been living and working there to their great loss were driven into vagrancy. And these lands are worth 13/4 per annum. And these tenements are held of the lord King. (Leadam, Domesday of Enclosures, 1, 285–286) c. 1519. In most humble wise sheweth unto your grace your daily Orator John Spencer of Wormeleighton in the county of Warwick that where one sir Symond Mountford knight was seised of the manor of Wormeleighton aforesaid, and so seised was attainted for treason done against the noble prince king Henry the VIIth. by reason whereof the said manor with all other lands and tenements which were the said Symond’s were forfeit to his grace, and he so being thereof seised, by his letters patent granted the said manor of Wormeleighton to one William Cope then being Cofferer to his grace, to

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have to him his heirs and assigns for ever, paying therefor to the king and to his heirs yearly 20 marks, which was then but of the value of £8., and so the rent was increased to the king by the said William when he enclosed the said manor to 20 marks a year, and so duly paid yearly, and the same William Cope afore the time of enclosure purchased of the mesne lords within the same lordship all the rest of the lands and tenements within the said lordship. And so the said William Cope enclosed the same lordship of Wormeleighton long time before the said John Spencer bought the said lordship of the said William Cope to his great cost and charge which hath cost him to the said William and his executors 20 hundred pounds. Whereupon he made him a dwelling place, where he had none to inhabit himself in his country where he was born, for at Hodnell where he dwelt before he had it no longer but during the nonage of his uncle’s son which now there dwelleth and hath done this 3 years, and so this 3 years the said John Spencer hath been in building in Wormeleighton to his great cost and charge. And first in building and maintaining of the church and bought all ornaments, as cross, books, cope, vestments, chalices and censers, for all the church gear that was within the church at the time when husbandmen were there inhabited was not worth £6. for they had never service by note for they were so poor and lived so poorly that they had no books to sing service on in the church. And where they never had but one priest, I have had and intend to have 2 or 3. And also he hath builded and in-habited 4 houses. And men women and children dwelling in them. And so what with his own house, and the other 4 houses there is within 20 persons, as much people as was in the town before. And where there is no wood nor timber growing within 12 or 13 miles of the same lordship the said John Spencer hath there set trees and sown acorns for timber and wood, and double dyked and set with all manner of wood both in the hedgerows, and also betwixt the hedges adjoining to the old hedges that William Cope made before in the said lordship, whereupon now groweth much wood which is already grown to the profit of all them that should dwell in the said lordship, as also to the country adjoining thereunto, for in those parts there is no wood, so that the poor men of the country are fain to burn the straw that their cattle should live by, therefore it were a great loss to destroy those hedges for it is a greater commodity than either corn or grass in those parts, for they were set to the most increase of wood that might be devised at the great cost and charge of the said John Spencer as first in purchasing, building, hedging, and ditching of the same which hath been to him a marvellous charge above all men, and most loss shall have if ye be not good and gracious lord to him in the same, for he hath none other pasture left him now in his country but the same. Which if now should be put in tillage and none of that reserved that when tillage for pasture several reserved for his cattle it should be to his utter undoing for his living is and hath been by the breed[ing] of cattle in his pastures, for he is neither buyer nor seller in common markets as other grasiers be, but liveth by his own breed of the same pastures, and sold it when it was fat to the City of London and other places yearly as good cheap in all this 5 or 6 years past as he did in other years when they were best cheap within 2.s. in a beast and 2.d. in a sheep, and he hath bred and fed within the said lordship which was never good for corn as the country will testify, more cattle this 6. years than was bred in the lordship when the town was inhabit[ed] in 20 years before or shall be in 20 years after it shall be inhabited. (Ibid. 485–487)

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(d) Cloth and status The following documents again illustrate the flexibility of the social structure of the period: (i) John Bonde was a wealthy clothier in Coventry, and a merchant of the Staple. The park which he made was of thirty acres, on which he put down deer. (Dugdale, Warwickshire, 647.) (ii) While the career of William Stumpe was exceptionally successful, it shows what could happen in early Tudor society. His father is said to have been a weaver before he rose to be a clothier, and at one time was parish clerk at North Nibley in Gloucestershire. The son had acquired wealth as early as 1524, and in Leland’s day he was a power in Malmesbury. His will suggests that he intended his eldest son James, knighted during his father’s lifetime, to be the founder of a county family, while his other sons carried on his business. This happened. His son James married the daughter of Sir Edward Baynton, and James’ three granddaughters, co-heiresses of the Stumpe fortune, married the earls of Suffolk, Lincoln, and Rutland. For a fuller account of this family see Wilts. N. & Q., VIII, 1916, 385, and G.D.Ramsay, Wiltshire Woollen Industry, 32–37.

(i) John Bonde. And the aforesaid Jurors say that John Bonde of Coventry Draper, was and still is, seised in his demesne as of fee, of 30 acres of pasture and woods with appurtenances in Little Bromwich in the aforesaid county, and thereof so seised on the sixth day of March in the sixth year of the reign of the present lord king he inclosed and imparked those lands with ditches, hedges, and palings around, and caused to be made there a new park for breeding beasts there, and placed, and still places, cattle in the same park, and still holds these lands thus imparked, and changed them from their former use. And these lands are held from [blank in MS.] and they are worth 46. shillings and 8. pence, per annum. (I.S.Leadam, Domesday of Inclosures, II, 400) (ii) William Stumpe. Malmesbury. The whole lodgings of the abbey belong now to one Stumpe, an exceeding rich clothier that bought them of the King. This Stumpe’s son hath married Sir Edward Baynton’s daughter. This Stumpe was the chief causer and contributer to have the abbey church made a parish church. At this present time every corner of the vast houses of office that belonged to the abbey be full of looms to weave cloth in, and this Stumpe intendeth to make a street or two for clothiers in the back vacant ground of the abbey that is within the town walls. There be made now every year in the town a 3000 cloths. (Leland, Itinerary, 1, 132) In the name of God, Amen. I, William Stumpe, do make my Testament and last will etc. 15 Oct. in 4th. year of Edward VI. etc. I give thanks to God that I am in good mind and memory as ever I was and not sick in body… I bequeath my soul to our lord Jesus Christ, etc., and my body to be buried wheresoever that God will have the body as he please… I bequeath to John Stumpe, my second son, my leases that I have of Gale’s house, John Wyndowe’s house and Richard Smith’s house at Charleton with ten broad looms and in money £500, all this to be delivered after my departing, when he will have it. I bequeath to Richard, William, and Thomas Stumpe, my brother John’s children £10 apiece, to be delivered to them when they come to age of 21…. I bequeath to every woman servant 20.s. above their wages and to every man servant in my house 40.s. that is John Chappell 40.s. and to Robert Samson £4, my debts paid, all the rest of my goods unbequeathed to be given to James Stumpe, my son, whom I do make my executor. (Abstract by Canon F.H.Manley, Wilts. Notes and Queries, VIII (1916), 385)

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20. The Gentry: good and bad. Described by Thomas Becon (T.Becon, Works (“The Fortress of the Faithful”), II, 597)

P

hilemon. Ye have heard my mind of preachers, which were slandered (I speak of P the godly) in this behalf: I will now speak somewhat of gentlemen. As I do not allow all that be called preachers, so do I not approve the doings of all them that be called gentlemen. And as I do not condemn all preachers, so do I not dispraise all gentlemen. For as there are which are true preachers indeed, so likewise are there which are true gentlemen indeed. But some abuse the name of preachers, by teaching papistry, anabaptistry, epicurism, &c., and are no preachers indeed, but rather praters and deceivers of the people: so likewise are there many which are called gentlemen and are no gentlemen, indeed, but pollers and pillers, rakers and catchers, bribers and extortioners, yea, and very caterpillars of the commonweal. For they abuse the name of a gentleman, which is unfeignedly a name of much worship and great honour, and worthy to be had in reverence and high estimation. Without the true gentleman the commonweal can no more safely be than the body without eyes. For as the eyes are the principal comfort of an whole body, so likewise are the true gentlemen of the commonweal. And look, what the nose is without smelling, the tongue without speaking, the hands without feeling, the feet without going, the very same is a commonweal without them that are true gentlemen, as the wise man saith1: “Where no good counsel is, there the people decay; but where as many are that can give good counsel, there is wealth.” For such as are true gentlemen are fathers of the country, maintainers of the poor, defenders of the widows and fatherless, succourers of the needy, comforters of the comfortless, and upholders of the commonweal, in fine, gentlemen both in name and deed. These be pearls and jewels to a realm, and as necessary for the conservation of a public weal as fire, water, and heat is for the health of man’s body. For their principal respect is not unto their own private lucre and singular commodity but their whole study is how they may profit the commonweal and do good to many as Salamon saith:2 “The righteous laboureth to do good; but the ungodly useth his increase unto sin”. Not only their goods, but their very life also will they bestow to do good to other; so far it is off that for their own advantage they will impoverish or hinder any man. Eusebius. Would God we had many such gentlemen! Philemon. We have without all doubt many, although not so many as I would wish; for of good things we can never have enough. Then there is another sort which glory in the title of gentlemen also, and they are such as this common proverb noteth: As riseth my good So riseth my blood. They think all nobility to consist in the abundance of worldly goods, in wearing of golden chains and costly apparel, in having fair houses and pleasant gardens. And to set forth this their gentlemanry they poll, they pill, they wake they rake, they sweat, they fret, they gripe, they nip, they face, they brase, they semble, they dissemble: yea, they move every stone, as they say, to maintain and set forth their unnoble nobility, not 1

Prov. xi.

2

Prov. x.

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caring how they come by it, so they have it. All is fish that cometh to the net: it is good to be taking. Bonus est odor lucri ex re qualibet.1 These study not, as the true gentlemen do, to profit many, to do good to the country, to maintain the poor, to relieve the succourless, to nourish the weak, to cherish their needy tenants; neither seek they the commodity of the commonweal, but their own private advantage. They labour to possess much, but they distribute nothing. Their hand is stretched out to receive, but shut when they should give. If they once creep into a town or village, they for the most part never cease, till they have devoured and eaten up the whole town. Whatsoever is pleasant or profitable must be theirs, by hook or by crook; it lieth handsomely for them, and so near their nose, though it be a mile off. If there be either farm or sheep-ground, upon the which some honest poor man liveth, both he and his family, out he must. Had it must be, whatsoever it cost, though the poor man and all his should go a-begging, it lieth so commodiously for our new-come gentle-man. If they buy any tenement, and let it out again to the poor man, O how they do rack it and stretch out the rents thereof, almost from a penny to a pound! yea, and some of them, buying house and land in a town, suffer the houses to fall down, and turn the ground into pasture, the poor man not having where to hide his head. Who will be troubled, say they, with such a sort of shake-ragged slaves in a town, which do nothing but burn up our hedges, eat up the common, fill the town full of beggar’s brawls? Who? No man, I trow, namely where such fine and long-nosed gentlemen dwell. Some, buying the lordship of a town, handle the inhabitants thereof on such sort, that they lose divers of their liberties, being in much worse case than they were afore. Thus the poor people be so wrung of these ungentle gentlemen, that the silly souls are like unto dry haddocks. Some Irishman, beholding them, might well think that they came lately out of St. Patrick’s purgatory: they are so withered away, even to the hard bones, for cold and hunger. Against such churlish gentlemen speaketh God by the prophet, saying2: “O ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye leaders of the house of Israel…should not ye know what were lawful and right? But ye hate the good, and love the evil: ye pluck off men’s skins and the flesh from their bones: ye eat the flesh of my people, and flay off their skin: ye break their bones; ye chop them in pieces as it were into a cauldron, and as flesh into a pot.” Theophilus. These greedy gripes and hungry horse-leeches, by usurping the name of gentlemen, do much obscure the renown, worship and honour of true gentlemen, and cause the name of a gentleman to be much disdained among the common people: as we have both heard and seen now of late days. And though they challenge to themselves never so much the name of a gentleman, by their goods, by their ancestors, by antiquity, by the worthiness of their stock, and many good morrows; yet, if they do degenerate and grow out of kind from the natural manners of a true gentleman, they are no gentlemen indeed, but carles and churls, yea, and in hurting their neighbours they are tyrants and murderers, as the holy scripture calleth them; and in polling and pilling them they are thieves, lions, and wolves, as the prophets term them. An ape shall be an ape, though she be clad in purple and gold. Esop’s crow was still a crow, even when he had decked himself with the pleasant and goodly feathers of other birds. 1

Juv. xiv, 204–5.

2

Mac. iii

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It is virtue and not gross flesh and blood, which thing we all are, that maketh the true noble and gentleman. It is a mind disposed to do good, yea, and doth good in deed when occasion serveth, and not sumptuous apparel and golden chains, that setteth forth true nobility. It is justice, mercy, liberality, kindness, gentleness, hospitality for the poor, and such other godly gifts of the mind, and not the multitude of riches, that declare who is a gentleman and who a churl, who is noble, who unnoble. He that can nighest approach unto lady virtue, and most lively set forth her natural disposition in his conversation and behaviour, he is the best gentleman, be his parents never so base, and his kindred never so vile in the judgment of the world…. Eusebius. Would God all they which will be taken for gentlemen were gentlemen in deed! Then should it go much better with this realm of England. Christopher. This endless encroaching of worldly possessions shew evidently that they which use it are not friendly to the commonweal, seeing through it the poor commons are brought to beggary. Salomon hath a notable saying, and would God all men would learn it! It is this:1 “The increase and prosperity of the commons is the King’s honour; but the decay of the people is the confusion of the prince.” Theophilus. Friendly to the commonweal? Marry, Sir, they are not friendly to the king, by Salomon’s saying, that impoverish the commons: if the commons increase, wealth and prosperity be the honour of the king, and if the decay and impoverishment of the commons be the confusion and destruction of the prince, then are they extreme enemies to the king, which, without any respect had to the commonweal, seek through their unsatiable covetousness to beggar the king’s subjects, whereby they shall be the less able both to serve the king, and to bear for their portion the charges of the realm when time requireth. Philemon. Certes a king can never be poor so long as his subjects be wealthy. And better it is to have many that should help in time of need, than few; and easier is the burden and the gladlier it is borne, that many bear than few. Christopher. If that same gentleness and liberality were found at this present among the rich men of this world, that hath been heretofore in men of like degree, the commons should not only at all times be quiet, but also the realm should flourish with great wealth, yea, and that universally; whereas now it resteth in few men’s hands. Gentlemen to be encroachers of farms, notable sheepmongers, graziers, butchers, clothiers, weavers, brewers, &c, as I may speak nothing of their parsonages, vicarages, prebends, &c., having otherwise whereof abundantly to live! O unworthy act! O unseemly sight! O abomination! What is it to beggar the realm, to famish the king’s subjects, to bring slavery into this realm, if this be not? Do they not suck the poor men’s blood, that suffer them not to have whereof to live? The wise man saith:2 “The bread of the needy is the life of the poor: he that defraudeth him of it is a murderer.” Philemon. Well, neighbours, although I doubt not but that the king’s majesty and his most honourable council will see redress in these things when they have convenient leisure, yet, if the world should go forth and continue as it is, and the rich worldlings more miserably oppress the poor than they heretofore have done, 1

Prov. xiv.

2

Eccles. xxxiv.

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God forbid that the common people, or any kind of people, should raise up tumults, stir up seditions, lift up their hand against the high powers! For that is a sin which by no means can escape unplagued; yea, they that so do run into the danger of eternal damnation, as ye have heard afore. Christopher. I say, God forbid also! but ye know the common proverbs: “The belly hath no ears:” “Hunger is sharper than thorn:” “Necessity is an hard dart:” “Need maketh the old wife trot.” Philemon.St. Paul had rather never to eat flesh nor drink wine, than he should offend his weak brother. Would he then, think you, trouble an whole commonweal, make uproars, raise up commotions, come armed in the field, assemble a sort of idle brains and brainless people together, rob men’s houses, spoil their goods, break up their hedges, make several pastures common to all men, hunt carnal liberty, make a communion, yea, confusion of all things, and all for the belly? Paul would rather, like unto the poor Lazar, have died for hunger, than once violently and unjustly to take away other men’s goods. Christopher. Ye see the unmercifulness of the rich: what, would ye have the poor people starve, and die for hunger? Philemon. Rather starve and die for hunger, as poor Lazar died, than to trouble a commonweal. As riches, so likewise poverty, cometh from God: and both are to be taken thankfully, and not to be grudged at. If oppression be done to the poor of the rich worldlings, shall they avenge themselves? God forbid! yea, rather take that cross patiently, and think that they have deserved far worser things, which have so oft deserved hell; and pray to God to give these rich men merciful hearts, that according to their duty they may be moved with pity and compassion toward the poor. Again, if they have injuries done unto them, if they cannot otherwise be redressed, let them complain to the magistrates and officers of the commonweal, which are appointed to hear men’s causes. Christopher. If the poor oppressed complain to the justices of peace or such-like in the country where he dwelleth, that hath the injury done unto him, little redress, as I hear, can be had, one so serveth another’s turn, even as the mules scratch one another’s back. Philemon. If there be any such partial officers, which are not indifferent, but judge for favour, yet remaineth there another refuge, and that is to complain unto the king’s majesty and his most honourable council, which without all doubt, will both gladly hear their lamentable complaints, and redress their matters according to justice. But whoso leaveth godly means and attempteth wicked wayes, both he and his enterprise must needs come to naught, as we have seen of late days. The Lord himself hath spoken it: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword”. All they that are private men, and go about with force and violence to avenge their own cause, and to redress their own matters, shall surely come unto destruction. For they be order-breakers and despisers of God’s holy ordinance, which hath appointed magistrates and head rulers justly to judge between man and man in all matters of controversy, that peace and quietness may be maintained in a commonweal.

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THE COMMONWEAL

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21. Two descriptions of the yeoman The first of these descriptions of the yeoman is Latimer’s sketch of his father, which he brought into the first sermon he preached before Edward VI. It has been quoted so often that its appearance here would call for an apology were it not that until some other contemporary document is found which performs the miracle of saying in a more felicitous way all that Latimer says, this will remain the classic description of the early Tudor yeoman. The second description suggests a prosperous member of the yeoman class, a sheep farmer on a considerable scale, whose fortunes have clearly not suffered as a consequence of the political and social changes of the time. This lease was enrolled on the patent roll 1540,.1

(i) A typical yeoman (G.E.Currie (ed.), Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Parker Soc.), 101)

… My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep; and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king’s wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now. He married my sisters with five pound, or twenty nobles apiece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm, where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pound by year, or more, and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor. Thus all the enhancing and rearing goeth to your private commodity and wealth. So that where ye had a single too much, you have that; and since the same, ye have enhanced the rent, and so have increased another too much: so now ye have double too much, which is too too much. But let the preacher preach till his tongue be worn to the stumps, nothing is amended. We have good statutes made for the common-wealth, as touching commoners and inclosers; many meetings and sessions; but in the end of the matter there cometh nothing forth. Well, well, this is one thing I will say unto you: from whence it cometh I know, even from the devil. I know his intent in it. For if ye bring it to pass that the yeomanry be not able to put their sons to school, (as indeed universities do wonderously decay already,) and that they be not able to marry their daughters to the avoiding of whoredom; I say, ye pluck salvation from the people, and utterly destroy the realm. For by yeomen’s sons the faith of Christ is and hath been 1 These two descriptions confirm the view of the yeoman taken by Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (ed. L.Alston, p. 42), written in 1565: “This sort of people confess themselves to be no gentlemen, but give the honour to all which be or take upon them to be gentlemen, and yet they have a certain preeminence and more estimacion than labourers and artificers, and commonly live wealthily, keep good houses, and do their business, and travail to acquire riches: these be (for the most part) farmers unto gentlemen, which with grazing frequenting of markets, and keeping servants not idle as the gentleman doth, but such as get both their own living and part of their masters’: by these means do come to such wealth that they are able and daily do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and after setting their sons to the school at the Universities, to the law of the realm, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereon they may live without labour, do make their said sons by those means gentlemen.”

[22]

THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF VILLEINS

273

maintained chiefly. Is this realm taught by rich men’s sons? No, no; read the chronicles: ye shall find sometime noblemen’s sons which have been unpreaching bishops and prelates, but ye shall find none of them learned men. But verily they that should look to the redress of these things be the greatest against them. In this realm are a great many folks, and amongst many I know but one of tender zeal, who at the motion of his poor tenants hath let down his lands to the old rents for their relief. For God’s love let not him be a phoenix, let him not be alone, let him not be an hermit closed in a wall; some good man follow him, and do as he giveth example.

(ii) Nicholas Jenney, yeoman. (27 Nov. 32 Hen. VIII, 1540. L.P. XVI (1540–41), 305, g. 70)

Nic. Jenney, yeoman. Lease of the site of the late monastery of Lewes, Sussex (except the cloister called “Le Frater” and other buildings, which the King has ordered to be destroyed within three years, and some other reservations), with the brew-house, watermill, and horse-mill, in the said site, and 100 cart-loads of wood for burning yearly in the said brew-house; and divers parcels of land in the parish of Bercombe, Sussex, with reservations; and pasture and herbage for 1,840 sheep in the sheep-courses in the lordship of Falmer, except pastures for certain numbers of sheep in different enclosures, and, among others, herbage for 250 sheep in that of Will. Awsten; also tithes of corn arising from the parish of Kyngeston next Lewes, with the portion of tithes of the land called Dyggyns lands, with reservations. All which premises the said Nicholas held to farm of Thomas, late earl of Essex, attainted, for 21 years, by indenture dated 21 June 31 Hen. VIII. Also herbage for 100 sheep and 12 cows among the cattle of the tenants of Kyngeston near Lewes, and carriage for 600 cart-loads of wood which the tenants of the manor of Balneth used of old to carry from the woods of the said late priory in said county to the site of the same late priory; and the King’s rent (“locagium”) in Kyngeston, Boroughmer, and Langney, Sussex, viz., 16 hens, four cocks, and 60 sheep yearly from the tenants in Kyngeston, and the same from the tenants in Boroughmer and Langney; and the customs on the carriage of dung without the precincts of the said late priory. For 21 years at the yearly rent of £84. 13.s. 4.d.

22. The enfranchisement of villeins. Some examples The following examples taken from the patent rolls and state papers serve as a reminder that villeinage was still a reality in the social system at this time.

(i) Manumission of Henry Aleyns, bondman, of the manor of Borowe by Aylesham, co. Norfolk which is in the king’s hands by the forfeiture of Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk: to the intent that the said Henry may take priest’s orders. (1 December 1503, C.P.R. Hen. VII, II, 340) (ii) I have received your letters desiring me, at the instance of Sir Edm. Walsingham, to manumit a bondman of mine, named Thomas Goodfreye. He is in truth my bondman, as all his progenitors have been, and if I made him free it would be to the prejudice of my inheritance for ever. I should be glad to gratify you otherwise in a better thing. (26 June 1538, William, Earl of Arundel to Cromwell, L.P. XIII, i. 1263.)

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(iii) Whereas William Cuckoo, “bocher” and John Cuckoo, his brother both of Ersham, Norf., are villeins regardant to the king’s manor of Ersham: Now, by advice of Richard Sackville, knight, chancellor of augmentations, for fines of £3.6.s.8.d. each paid in the Augmentations by the said William and John the king manumits the said William and John and their sequela and grants them all their goods and lands. (20 August 1550, C.P.R. Edward VI (1549–51), p. 316)

23. Select documents on wardship and marriage from various sources (i) Appointment during pleasure of the king’s servant John Husee, knight for the body, as chief immediate officer for over seeing, managing and selling the wardships of all lands which may be in the king’s hands. (9 December 1503, C.P.R. 1494–1509, 334) (ii) Pardon and release to Walter Devereux for marrying while within marriageable age, during the life of his father John Devereux knight, lord of Ferrers, Mary the daughter of Thomas late marquess of Dorset, the same Walter being at the death of his said father a minor and under marriageable age, whereby his wardship and marriage belonged to the king. (15 December 1503, C.P.R. 1494–1509, p. 334) (iii) Thomas duke of Norfolk. Custody of the lands of John Veer, Earl of Oxford, a minor, kinsman and heir of John Veer, late Earl of Oxford, viz., son of Sir George brother of the said late Earl; with reversion of that portion of the possessions of the said late Earl which Elizabeth his widow holds in dower. Also, during Veer’s minority, the offices of Great Chamberlain of England, steward of the forest of Essex or forest of Waltham in co. Essex, and constable of the castle of Colchester. And whereas the espousals between the said earl and Anne his wife were, during the life of the said late earl, celebrated according to the laws of the Church, the said earl then and after the late earl’s death being within marriageable age, viz., within 14 years, it pertains to the King’s prerogative to offer him another woman for wife, and the King lately offered him Margaret Courtenay, whom he utterly refused, the King hereby grants to the Duke the value and double value of the Earl’s marriage forfeited thereby. (29 May 1514, Patent Roll, 6 Hen. VIII, p. 2, m. 2; L.P. 1, ii, 2964 (80)) (iv) There was never such marrying in England as is now. I hear tell of stealing of wards to marry the children to. This is a strange kind of stealing: but it is not the wards, it is the lands that they steal. And some there be that knit up marriage together, not for any love, or godliness in the parties, but to get friendship, and make them strong in the realm, to increase their possessions, and to join land to land. And other there be that inveigle mens’ daughters, in the contempt of their fathers, and go about to marry them without their consent: this marrying is ungodly. And many parents constrain their sons and daughters to marry where they love not, and some are beaten and compulsed. And they that marry thus, marry in a forgetfulness and obliviousness of God’s commandments. But as in the time of Noe suddenly a clap fell in their bosoms; so it shall be with us at the latter day, when Christ shall come.

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275

We have as little conscience as may be; and when he shall come, he shall lack lady Faith. Well is them that shall be of that little flock, that shall be set on the right hand &c. (Fourth Sermon preached before Edward VI, 29 March 1549. G.E.Currie (ed.), Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Parker Soc.), 101) (v) An act for the punishment of such as shall take away maidens that be inheritors, being with the age of xvi. years, or that marry them without consent of their parents. Where maidens and women children of noblemen gentlemen and others, as well such as be heirs apparent to their ancestors, as others having left unto them by their father or other ancestor and friends lands tenements and hereditaments or other great substances in goods and chattels moveable, for and to the intent to advance them in marriage somewhat like according to their degrees and as might be most for their surety and comfort as well for themselves as of all their friends and kinsfolk, be oftentimes unawares to their said friends and kinsfolk, by flattery trifling gifts and fair promises of many unthrifty and light personages, and thereto by the entreaty of persons of lewd demeanour and others, that for rewards buy and sell the said maidens and children, secretly allured and won to contract matrimony with the said unthrifty and light personages, and thereupon either with sleight or force oftentimes be taken and conveyed away from their said parents friends or kinsfolk, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, disparagement of the said children and the extreme continual heaviness of all their friends; which ungodly dealing for lack of wholesome laws to the redress thereof remaineth a great familiar and common mischief in this our common wealth: for remedy whereof be it enacted…that it shall not be lawful to any person or persons to take or convey away or cause to be taken or conveyed away, any maid or woman child unmarried, being under the age of sixteen years, out of or from the possession custody or governance and against the will of the father of such maiden or woman child, or of such person or persons to whom the father of such maid or woman child by his last will and testament or by any other act in his life time hath or shall appoint assign bequeath give or grant the order keeping education or governance of such maid or woman child, except such taking and conveying away as shall be had made or done by or for such person or persons as without fraud or covin be or then shall be the master or mistress of such maid or woman child or the guardian in socage or guardian in chivalry of or to such maiden or woman child. ii.…every such person and persons so offending, being thereof lawfully attainted or convicted by the order and due course of the laws of this realm, (other than such of whom such person taken away shall hold any lands or tenements by knight service,) shall have and suffer imprisonment of his or their bodies by the space of two whole years without bail or mainprise, or else shall pay such fine for his or their offence as shall be assessed by the council of the queen’s highness, her heirs or successors in the star chamber at Westminster. v. And further be it enacted…that if any woman child or maiden, being above the age of twelve years and under the age of sixteen years, do at any time consent and agree to such person that so shall make any contract of matrimony contrary to the form and effect of this statute, that then the next of the kin of the same woman child or maid, to

276

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whom the inheritance should descend return or come after the decease of the same woman child or maid, shall from the time of such assent and agreement have hold and enjoy all such lands tenements and hereditaments, as the same woman child and maiden had in possession reversion or remainder at the time of such consent and agreement, during the life of such person that so shall contract matrimony; and after the decease of such person so contracting matrimony, that then the said lands tenements and hereditaments shall descend revert remain and come to such person or persons as they should have done in case this act had never been had nor made, other than to him only that so shall contract matrimony. (St. 4/5. P. and M. c. 8, Stat. Realm, IV, i, 329)

B. THE THEORY OF THE COMMONWEAL 24. A supplication of the Poore Commons, 1546 (J.M.Cowper (ed.), Four Supplications, 61–92) True to the form of earlier examples of this type of literature, e.g. Simon Fish, Supplication for the Beggars, below p. 661, there is the usual criticism of society with the conventional attacks on the clergy for their lack of faith and their neglect of preaching, faults which are condemned as the cause of the unrest of the times. But in this later example there can also be detected some traces of the disappointment with the actual results of the social and religious changes of Henry VIII’s reign. In the new order the monk has gone, but his place has been taken by the sturdy extortioner and the possessioners.

P

iteously complaineth the poor commons of this your Majesty’s realm, greatly lamenting their own miserable poverty; and yet much more the most lamentable and more than wretched estate of their children and posterity. Whose misery, foreseen and thoroughly considered, is and ought of very nature, to be more dolorous and sorrowful unto every natural heart than that which we ourselves feel and sustain. Not many years before, your highness’s poor subjects, the lame and impotent creatures of this realm, presented your highness with a pitiful and lamentable complaint, imputing the head and chief cause of their penury and lack of relief unto the great and infinite number of valiant and sturdy beggars which had, by their subtle and crafty demeanour in begging, gotten into their hands more than the third part of the yearly revenues and possessions of this your highness’ realm. Whereupon (as it seemed) your highness (seeking a redress and reformation of this great and intolerable enormity,—as a merciful father over this your natural country; moved with pity towards the miserable and pitiful number of blind, lame, lazar, and other the impotent creatures of this your realm) hath, with most earnest diligence, supplanted and, as it were, weeded out a great number of valiant and sturdy monks, friars, canons, hermits, and nuns. Which disguised hypocrites, under the name of the contempt of this world wallowed in the sea in the world’s wealth. And to the intent your loving and obedient subjects might the better be able to relieve the needy and impotent creatures, you took from them the great number of gilded

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beggars whose holiness was so fast rooted in the hearts of us your poor commons, through the false delusions of the foresaid sturdy and valiant beggars, that we would not stick to go an hundred miles on our bare feet to seek one of them, that we might not only bestow our alms upon them, but also do them reverence and honour none otherwise than if they had been very gods. Yea, when your highness had ordained that all these foresaid beggars should be utterly abolished never to deceive us of our alms any more, we, like men always brought up in foolish superstition of these false Pharisees and flattering hypocrites, knew not the obedience that we owe to you, our natural and most rightful prince, but incontinent, fell in an uproar crying, “Our holydays, abbeys, and pilgrimages!” None otherwise than the Ephesians did against the elect vessel of God, Saint Paul, when he said, “They are not gods, which be made with hands,” and as the Jews did against holy Stephen when he said that “God dwelleth not in an house made with man’s hand”. Yea, had not God wrought on your part, in appeasing that sturdy throng, this realm had even then, been like to have been utterly decayed. For even those whom your highness had called together to assist you in that dangerous time were (for the most part) so bent to the opinion of the other that many of them would not stick to say, “When we shall come to the battle,—we know what we have to do.” But now (the Lord be thanked therefor) that your highness hath finished that your godly purpose without bloodshed of your poor commons, and that the word of God hath been so set forth and taught by your commandment, that every man that listeth may therein learn his duty and office; we are fully persuaded that all such as resist the powers whom God hath ordained and appointed to rule and govern the multitude of this world do not resist man but God. Be you certain, therefore, (most gracious Prince) that we (your most obedient subjects) walking in the fear of the Lord, will not from henceforth (so long as the knowledge of God’s Word shall reign amongst us) attempt any such so devilish enterprise as to rebel against your highness, our most natural sovereign and liege lord; either for our forefathers’ popish traditions, or other our own fantastical dreams; notwithstanding that the remnant of the sturdy beggars not yet weeded out) do daily in their writings, counsels, and preachings, stir us thereunto. For what mean they in their sermons when they lament the great discord and miserable estate of this our time, wishing that everything was now as it was twenty years since, but that they would have a Pope, pardons, lighting of candles to images, knocking and kneeling to them, with running hither and thither on pilgrimage; besides the infinite number of purgatory horseleeches on whom the vengeance of God is so manifestly declared for their beastly buggery, that the very places where they dwelt are not thought worthy to be the dwellings of men, but the caves of brute beasts and venemous worms. They tell us what vice, uncharitableness, lack of mercy, diversity of opinions, and other like enormities have reigned ever since men had the Scripture in English. And what is this other than to cause men’s conscience to abhor the same, as the only cause and original of all this? They say that it sufficeth a layman to believe as they teach, and not to meddle with the interpretation of the Scriptures. And what meaneth that but that they would have us so blind again as we were when we would have fought against our natural Prince for the maintenance of their popish traditions and purgatory patrimony?

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They cannot abide this name, “the Word of God”; but they would have the Scripture called the commandment of God. And what meaneth this, but that they are the same enemies of God whom that two-edged sword shall destroy? Finally, they have procured a law that none shall so hardy have the Scripture in his house unless he may spend ten pounds by year. And what meaneth this, but that they would famish the souls of the residue, withholding their food from them? We appeal to your highness’ judgment in this behalf whether this law be indifferent or not. If none should be allowed meat in your highness’ house but such as were clothed in velvet with chains of gold about their necks, what servants would your majesty have shortly? What starvelings would your servants be above all other! For no man within your realm may refuse to do your grace service. Hath God put immortal souls in none other but in such as be possessioners of this world? Did not Christ send word to John the Baptist that the poor received the Gospel? And the Gospel that they shut up from us, was it not the writings of poor fishermen and simple creatures, even taken for the dregs of the world? Were not the setters forth of it and the prophets also persecuted, tormented, and slain? And why do these men disable them for readers of the Scriptures, that are not endued with the possessions of this world? Undoubtedly (most gracious Sovereign) because they are the very same that shut up the kingdom of God before men; they enter not themselves, neither suffer they them to enter that would. They are like to a cur dog lying in a cock of hay. For he will eat none of the hay himself nor suffer any other beast that cometh to eat thereof. But some will peradventure say they were not all sturdy beggars that were in the Parliament when this law was established. For many of them, and the most part, were secular men, and not of such ability that this law would permit them to have the Scripture in their houses. Wherefore, this law is indifferent, and taketh not the Word of God from us; but we with our full consent have committed it to them, in the said law limited. Whereunto we answer that if we have given it over from us to the possessioners of this world we may well be likened to the Gedarites, Mark, 5. which desired Christ to depart from their country, and the lurking night birds which cannot abide the bright beams of the sun. We may boldly affirm that what man soever doth wittingly and willingly for-sake the knowledge of the lively Word of God (the food of our souls, and light of our footsteps) is none of the flock of Christ, forasmuch as his sheep hear his voice, and rejoice in the same. Did they that took their names of any philosopher shut up their master’s doctrine from themselves? Did they not think themselves unworthy to be named after their masters, unless they knew their precepts and rules? Did not the monks, friars, and other the superstitious religious, employ all their study to know their rules and statutes? Do not the Coelginers1 at this day set the book of their statutes at liberty, straightly commanding each fellow under pain of punishment to employ them to have the thorough knowledge of the same? And should we glory to be the flock of Christ, and to be called of him Christians, when we do willingly and wittingly exclude ourselves from the knowledge of the rule which he hath commanded us to follow on pain of damnation of our souls? Would your highness think that man were willing to do your commandment that would not diligently read over your highness’s 1

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letters sent from you to certify him of your will and pleasure in his office? And what other thing is the whole Scripture than the declaration of the will of God? Were it likely therfore that we, excluding ourselves from the knowledge thereof, should be willing to do his will? If we have therefore rejected this merciful proffer of our most merciful Father when he used your highness as his instrument to publish and set forth his most living Word, wherein is declared the inestimable love that he bear towards us, in that he gave his only Son to be an acceptable sacrifice for our sins; and the unspeakable mercy which caused him to accept us as just, even for his Son’s sake, without our works or deservings; let us now humbly fall down prostrate before his majesty with perfect repentance of this, the contempt of his merciful gift; most humbly beseeching him of his infinite goodness tenderly to behold the dolours of our hearts for that we neglected so merciful a proffer; and to forget our obstinacy therein, giving your highness such desire of our salvation that you will as favourably restore unto us the Scripture in our English tongue as you did at the first translation thereof set it abroad. Let not the adversaries take occasion to say, the Bible was of a traitor’s setting forth, and not of your highness’s own doing. For so they report, that Thomas Cromwell, late Earl of Essex, was the chief doer and not your highness, but as led by him. All this they do to withdraw the minds of us, your highness’s subjects, from the reading and study thereof. Which thing doth easily appear by the diligence they show in setting forth and execution of your highness’s proclamations and injunctions concerning the same. For when your highness gave commandment that they should see that there were in every parish church within this your highness’s realm one Bible at the least set at liberty so that every man might freely come to it and read therein such things as should be for his consolation, many of this wicked generation, as well priests as other their faithful adherents would pluck it either into the quire or else into some pew where poor men durst not presume to come. Yea, there is no small number of churches that hath no Bible at all. And yet not sufficed with the with-holding of it from the poor of their own parishes they never rested till they had a commandment from your highness that no man, of what degree soever he were, should read the Bible in the time of God’s service (as they call it); as though the hearing of their Latin lies, and conjuring of water and salt were rather the service of God than the study of his most Holy Word, the only food of our souls and light of our foot-steps; without which no man can walk uprightly in perfect life worthy our name and profession. This was their diligence in setting forth the Bible at your highness’s commandment. But when your highness had devised a proclamation for the burning of certain translations of the New Testament they were so bold to burn the whole Bibles because they were of those mens’ translations. And if your highness would enquire of them who took the pains in translating the Great Bible that your highness hath authorised we think they could not, for very shame, deny but even against their wills grant that those poor men whose pains and great travail they have rewarded with fire and banishment were the doers thereof. See, gracious Prince, how they play bo-peep with your highness’s commandments, suppressing in all that they dare the thing that your highness hath authorised; even as it were men that looked for a fair day which we trust

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in the Lord Jesu they shall never see. As we heard say, they profferred your highness that if it would please you to call in the Bible again (forasmuch as it was not faithfully translated in all parts) they would oversee it, and within seven years set it forth again. A wiles; we think they have read the story of a certain man who, being condemned to die, profferred that if he might have his life, he would do his prince such a pleasure as never man did, for he would within the space of fourteen years teach him an ass to dance. Whereupon he had his life granted him upon condition that if he did not perform his promised enterprise that then he should nevertheless suffer death. This done, he was demanded of one of his familiars why he was so mad to take upon him such an enterprise so far beyond all reason and possibility? He answered, “my friend, hold thee content; I have wrought wisely, for within these fourteen years either the king, I, or the ass shall be dead; so that by this means I shall escape this reproachful and shameful death”. So your bishops, most victorious Prince, if they might have gotten in the Bible for seven years they would have trusted that by that time either your highness should have been dead, or the Bible forgotten, or else they themselves out of your highness’s reach, so that you should not have had like power over them as you have now. Well, go to, we trust ere the seven years be past God shall reveal unto your highness much more of their subtle imaginations than we are worthy to know of. Moreover, will your highness see how faithfully they did your commandment when you appointed two of them to overlook the translation of the Bible? They said they had done your highness’s commandment therein, yea, they set their names thereunto; but when they saw the world somewhat like to wring on the other side, they denied it, and said they never meddled therewith, causing the printer to take out their names which were erst set before the Bible to certify all men that they had diligently perused it according as your highness had commanded. One other point of their diligence your highness may note in the setting forth and using of your highness’s Primer both in English and Latin. And in the diligent reading unto the people the exhortation to prayer, which you ordained and commanded to be read always before the Procession in English. We think no man can blameless say that ever he heard one of them read it twice over. Yea, when your highness was returned from your victory done at Boulogne they did what they could to have called it in again. Insomuch that they caused all such parishes as they might command to use their old Kyrie Eleison again. And yet to this day they use on solemn feasts to follow their old ordinary notwithstanding your highness’s commandment. But when they catch anything that soundeth to the contrary it shall not escape so we warrant you. It shall be swinged in every pulpit with, “this is the King’s gracious will; and yet these heretics will be still doing in the Scriptures. A shoemaker, a cobbler, a tailor, a boy not yet twenty years of age shall not stick to reprove that a learned man of forty years study shall affirm in the declaration of God’s Word. O how godly were the people disposed when they knew nothing of the Scripture, but as they were taught by pro-found clerks and well learned men! Then were there hospitals builded for the poor. Then were there colleges builded for the maintenance of learning.” Yea, if they durst they would say “Then were abbeys and chantries founded for the relief of the poor souls in the bitter pains of purgatory. Then were our purses filled with the offerings of

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the devout people that used to seek the blessed images and relics of our Saviour Christ and of his blessed Mother Mary with the residue of his saints.” If your highness would raise up but one abbey, chantry, or pilgrimage you should easily perceive which way they are bent. We doubt not but for these seven years following, masons occupation with others belonging to building would be the best handicrafts within this your realm. We pray God their subtle imaginations may always come to light before they prevail to the hindrance of God’s verity. And that it may please him always to assist your highness in the defending and setting forth of the same to his glory and the soul health of us, your highness’s most faithful and obedient subjects. And that you leave not off till you have rooted out all these sturdy beggars, that the poor members of Christ may have that portion to live upon which was from the beginning appointed for them. We mean the tenth part of every man’s yearly increase. For though at the coming of Christ, and long before, these tenths were given to the priests of the law, yet was it not so from the beginning; for at the first because the world was not so replenished with people, but that every man was a great possessioner, it was thought good to take of the best of their increase and to offer it to the living God in sacrifice, as it appeareth by the story of Abel and Cain. But when the people grew to so great a number that every man could not have a sufficient portion to live upon unless he were able to labour and till the ground then was it provided that every possessioner should set the tenth of his yearly increase in the porch of his house, that the lame, blind, sick, and diseased might be there relieved. This order continued till the time that Moses, by the commandment of God, gave a law to the Israelites, and appointed that a certain kindred amongst them, that is, the Levites, should be always their priests and ministers of the Tabernacle; unto whom he appointed certain parts of every sacrifice, that they might live thereby. For as yet there was no tenths to be paid, for then they were in their journey from Egypt, which journey continued full forty years; but after that they were once settled in the land of Promise and gathered the fruits of the ground, they thought good to give the tenths of their increase to the priests that ministered in the Tabernacle that they might live thereupon, according to the words of the prophet Mal. 3.:—“Bring in every tenth into my barn, that there may be meat in my house.” But then there was another provision for the poor, Levi. 23. For no man might lease, rake, or glean his ground after he had gathered of his crop. No, they might not gather their grapes nor fruits twice, but must leave the lateward fruit, with the scattering of their corn, for the poor to gather, that they might have some relief thereby; this order continued to the coming of Christ. After whose coming the Christian sort had all things common, so that no man knew of any increase, forasmuch as no man took any thing for his own, Acts. 4. But when the number of Christians increased so much that they possessed whole cities, countries, and kingdoms, it was thought good that every man should know his own to the intent that such as otherwise would have lived idly should thereby be provoked to labour, as appeareth by the rule that Saint Paul gave to the Thessalonians, 2. 3. which was this:—“Whoso laboureth not, let him not eat”. Yet was there no tenths paid to the ministers, for Paul writing to the Corinthians, I, Corinthians, 9. desireth them to be good to such as labour in the ministration of the Gospel, affirming that it is but meet that such as serve the altar

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should have a living thereby; and that it were far indecent to muzzle the ox that travaileth all the day in treading the corn out of the straw, Deutro. 25. Which thing he needed not to have done if the tenths of each man’s increase had as then been given to them; for that might have sufficed them well enough (unless they had been as greedy as our ministers be, which be never satisfied). Yet after this, when the Christian religion was thoroughly established in many congregations, and many men had laboured over the Scriptures, they thought good to provide for the poor impotent creatures according to the example of the ancient fathers of the old law. And because they were persuaded that Christ, offering up himself upon the cross had ended all sacrifice, Hebr. 10., so that the ministers among them needed not to be pestered with any other thing than preaching, they agreed to add unto the preachers another sort of ministers which might supply the office of holy Steven, and the other which, in the primitive church, were appointed to distribute the goods of the congregation according as every man should stand in need, Acts. 6. To these men they gave the tenth of their yearly increase, to the intent that they should thereupon minister all necessaries, as well to the preachers as to the poor impotent members of the church. But after that persecution began to cease and the preachers of the word of God lived in peace, and that the people were fully bent to learn and follow the doctrine of Christ; they did by the preachers as the Israelites would have done by Christ when he had fed so many of them with so little bread, John 6. They made them their rulers, thinking that those men which had brought them out of the darkness of error and instructed them in the true knowledge of God could best govern the public weal. And would walk most uprightly in example of life, compelling the people thereby to embrace all godly and honest living, and to detest and abhor the contrary. This was their intent, most gracious Prince, when they gave rule to the preachers of God’s truth and verity. And in very deed the thing proved according to their expectation for a season. But alas, after the true shepherds were departed out of this life there entered into the fold most ravening wolves, of whom Saint Paul gave us warning when he said “I know for a certainty that immediately after my departing from you there shall enter in among you certain in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves”, Acts. 20. The like thing did Saint Peter foresee when he admonished the elders that they should not behave themselves toward the people as men having dominion over them, I Pe. 5. These hirelings intended not to maintain and increase the spiritual treasure of the congregation but to fill their own coffers with gold and vain treasure; to bring themselves above kings and emperors, yea, to be taken for God’s vicars upon earth. And that they might the sooner bring this their purpose to pass, they persuaded the people that it should be much more convenient that they had the tenths and patrimony of the church, as they call it, than the deacons, whom the people had elected thereunto. And that it should be more beseeming that the deacons were at their finding than that they should be at the deacons finding; for they would keep hospitality for the poor according as the institution of Apostles was that they should; which thing they could not do unless they had wherewithal to maintain it. By these means were the people soon persuaded to give

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unto them not only the tenth, but certain possessions also, to the intent they might maintain the more liberal hospitality for the relief of the poor. This done, all their study was to set themselves so high in the conscience of the people that they should take all their traditions to be of no less authority than the commandment of God. To do this they could find none so ready a way as to name their traditions the laws of the church. For if we believe that Christ is the head of the church, and that he is God, then must we needs grant that the laws of the church be God’s laws. O devilish subtlety, more than serpentical! What subtle fowler could have devised a more subtle train to bring the poor simple birds into his net? Certes, if all the devils in hell had been of their counsel (as we think they were) they could not have concluded upon a more subtle imagination. Now have they enough, what needeth them to seek any further? Now may they command us to build them goodly churches with high steeples and great bells to ring our pence into their purses when our friends be dead. Now may they make us believe that their masses be helpful sacrifices, both for the quick and the dead. Now must we believe that the Pope’s pardons do release us both from pain and fault, but Christ releaseth the fault only. Now must we believe they can make of two creatures one, that is to say, conjure water and salt that it be made a medicine both for body and soul; and of such force that it may be able to root out the devil himself with all his angels and ministers. Now must we believe that repentance availeth us not, unless we declare all our sins, with the circumstance thereof to one of them, and do such satisfaction as they shall appoint us to do. Now can we not deny but that the outrageous bellowing of a sort of sodomitical bulls, mingled with the proud piping of organs is the service of God, and worthy to be preferred before the reading and preaching of God’s Word. Now must we believe that God will not hear our prayer unless we be in favour with some of the dead saints which will be our advocate. Now must we believe that the making and gilding of images, building of abbeys, churches, chantries, gilds, hermitages, and giving of book, bell, candlestick, basin, ewer, cruets, pax, chalice, corporas, vestments, altar cloths, curtains, hangings, towels, torches, tapers, ship, censers, pixes, copes, canopies, and running on pilgrimage, is more acceptable to God than the seven works of mercy. Now must we believe that they can not err, though they set up the blood of a duck to be honoured for the very blood of Christ, though they made the Rood of Kent to wag his eyes, though they were bawds and fornicators with the holy whore of Kent. We may not think they ought to marry wives, though we take them daily abusing other men’s wives. We must not say that they are ravening wolves, but the true shepherds of Christ; although we see them both buy and sell the congregations of Christ; and when they have them look for nought else but what yearly rents may be clearly raised thereof. Your highness knoweth right well what desire they have to feed the flock, for it is not yet many years since your highness, in your high Court and Parliament, was by their negligence, constrained to establish a law that under pain of a forfeit they should preach in every of their parishes four times in a year at the least, and that none should have more benefices than one, whereupon he should be resident. But here they put your highness in mind of all such chaplains as do service to your highness, and to other your nobles of this your realm, besides other, certain graduates of the universities. Whereupon it was provided by the

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authority of the said parliament, that every such chaplain might have many benefices and be non-resident, to lie at the university, or elsewhere, at his pleasure, so he were in any of your nobles’ service. Oh gracious Prince, here are we your natural and most obedient liege people constrained to forget (with all humble subjection we speak it) that we are of nature and by the ordinance of God your most bounden subjects, and to call to remembrance that by our second birth we are your brothers and fellow servants (although in a much inferior ministry) in the household of the Lord our God. Most humbly beseeching your highness to forget also in this point that you are our liege lord and sovereign, taking our words as a token of the fervent desire that we (your most faithful subjects) have of your soul’s salvation. Ahab king of Israel, when he intended to make a voyage and to take by force the country and inhabitants of Ramoth Gilead, he caused his prophets to the number of four hundred false prophets to be brought before him that he might know by them whether the Lord would prosper his journey or not. These false prophets, standing in the sight of the king, and being demanded of him whether he should make expedition against Ramoth or not, answered with one voice, “Make expedition, the Lord shall give it into the hands of the king,” 3 Reg. 22. In like manner (most dread sovereign) your highness and your most noble predecessors have always consulted a great number of false prophets which, as Ahab’s prophets did, prophesied unto you lies; wringing and wresting the Scriptures to establish your highness in all such things as they perceived you bent unto. And if at any time any true Micheas have prophesied unto you the truth of God’s Word, one Sedechias or other boxeth him on the cheek that he runneth straight into the fire. So that hitherto they have led your highness in this detestable error, that you think it lawful for you and your nobles to reward those false flattering Babilonical prophets with that portion which, by the ordinance of God, is due to the poor impotent creatures, the lame, blind, lazer, and sore members of Christ. We beseech you, most dear sovereign, even for the hope you have in the redemption by Christ, that you call to remembrance that dreadful day when your highness shall stand before the judgment seat of God in no more reputation than one of those miserable creatures, which do now daily die in the streets for lack of their due portion wherewith you and your nobles do reward those gnatonical elbowhangers, your chaplains. If their ministry be so necessary to your highness that you cannot lack them, yet let not the insatiable dogs devour the bread that was prepared for the children; let them be appointed livings worthy their ministration. What reason is it that a surveyor of buildings or lands, an alchemist, or a goldsmith, should be rewarded with benefice upon benefice, which of very reason ought to be committed to none other but such as, through godly learning and conversation were able, and would apply themselves, to walk amidst their flock in all godly example and purity of life? How great a number is there of them that under the name of your chaplains may dispend yearly by benefices some one hundred, some two hundred, some three hundred, some four hundred some five hundred, yea, some one thousand marks and more! It is a common saying among us, your highness’s poor commons, that one of your highness’s chaplains, not many years since, used when he listed to ride abroad for his repast to carry with him a scroll wherein were written the names of the parishes whereof he was

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parson. As it fortuned in his journey he espied a church standing upon a fair hill, pleasantly beset with groves and plain fields, the goodly green meadows lying beneath by the banks of a crystalline river garnished with willows, poplars, palm trees, and alders, most beautiful to behold. This vigilant pastor, taken with the sight of this terrestrial paradise, said unto a servant of his (the clerk of his signet no doubt it was, for he used to carry his master’s ring in his mouth) “Robin”, said he, “yonder benefice standeth very pleasantly, I would it were mine.” The servant answered, “Why, sir,” quoth he, “it is your own benefice;” and named the parish. “Is it so?” quoth your chaplain. And with that he pulled out his scroll to see for certainty whether it were so or not. See, most dread sovereign, what care they take for the flock. When they see their parish churches they know them not by the situation. If your highness had so many swine in your realm as you have men, would ye commit them to the keeping and feeding of such swineherds as did not know their swinescots when they saw them? Oh merciful God, how far wide is this our time from the primitive church! Defer not, most dear sovereign, the reformation of this miss, for the day of the Lord is at hand, and shall come upon us as a thief in the night, 2 Peter, 3. Deceive not yourself through the false glosses of these flattering hypocrites. Turn them out after their brethren, the pied purgatory patriarchs; and restore to the poor members of Christ their due portion, which they trusted to have received when they saw your highness turn out the other sturdy beggars. But alas! they failed of their expectation, and are now in more penury than ever they were. For although the sturdy beggars got all the devotion of the good charitable people from them, yet had the poor impotent creatures some relief of their scraps, whereas now they have nothing. Then had they hospitals, and almshouses to be lodged in, but now they lie and starve in the streets. Then was their number great, but now much greater. And no marvel for there is instead of these sturdy beggars crept in a sturdy sort of extortioners. These men cease not to oppress us, your highness’s poor commons, in such sort that many thousands of us which herebefore lived honestly upon our sore labour and travail, bringing up our children in the exercise of honest labour, are now constrained some to beg, some to borrow, and some to rob and steal, to get food for us and our poor wives and children. And that which is most like to grow to inconvenience, we are constrained to suffer our children to spend the flower of their youth in idleness, bringing them up either to bear wallets, or else, if they be sturdy, to stuff prisons and garnish gallow trees. For such of us as have no possessions left to us by our predecessors and elders departed this life can now get no farm, tenement, or cottage at these mens’ hands without we pay unto them more than we are able to make. Yea, this was tolerable so long as, after this extreme exaction, we were not for the residue of our years oppressed with much greater rents than hath of ancient time been paid for the same grounds; for then a man might within a few years be able to recover his fine, and afterwards live honestly by his travail. But now these extortioners have so improved their lands that they make of forty shillings fine forty pound, and of five nobles rent five pound, yea, not sufficed with this oppression within their own inheritance they buy at your highness’s hand such abbey lands as you appoint to be sold. And when they stand once full seised therein they make us, your poor commons

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so in doubt of their threatenings that we dare do none other but bring into their courts our copies taken of the convents of the late dissolved monasteries and confirmed by your High Court of Parliament they make us believe that by the virtue of your highness’s sale all our former writings are void and of none effect. And that if we will not take new leases of them we must then forthwith avoid the grounds as having therein none interest. Moreover, when they can espy no commodious thing to be bought at your highness’s hand they labour for, and obtain, certain leases for twentyone years in and upon such abbey lands as lie commodiously for them. Then do they dash us out of countenance with your highness’s authority, making us believe that by the virtue of your highness’s lease our copies are void. So that they compel us to surrender all our former writings whereby we ought to hold some for two, and some for three lives, and to take by indenture for twenty-one years, overing both fines and rents beyond all reason and conscience. This thing causeth that such possessioners as heretofore were able and used to maintain their own children and some of ours to learning and such other qualities as are necessary to be had in this your highness’s realm are now of necessity compelled to set their own children to labour, and all is little enough to pay the lord’s rent and to take the house anew at the end of the years. So that we your poor commons, which have no grounds, nor are able to take any at these extortioners’ hands, can find no way to set our children on work, no, though we proffer them for meat and drink and poor clothes to cover their bodies. Help, merciful Prince, in this extremity; suffer not the hope of so noble a realm utterly to perish through the insatiable desire of the possessioners. Remember that you shall not leave this kingdom to a stranger, but to that child of great towardness our most natural Prince Edward; employ your study to leave him a Common Weal to govern, and not an island of brute beasts, amongst whom the strongest devour the weaker. Remember that your office is to defend the innocent and to punish the oppressor. God hath not suffered all your nobles to distain 1 their consciences with this most ungodly oppression. If your highness would take in hand the redress of these great oppressions doubt ye not you could lack no aid, for he is faithful that hath promised to prosper all them that seek his glory and the wealth of his poor members in this church militant. Contrariwise, if you suffer his poor members to be thus oppressed, look for none other than the rightful judgment of God, for your negligence in your office and ministry. For the blood of all them that through your negligence shall perish shall be required at your hand. Be merciful therefore to yourself and us your most obedient subjects. Endanger not your soul by the suffering of us, your poor commons, to be brought all to the names of beggars and most miserable wretches. Let us be unto your highness as the inferior members of the body to their head. Remember that your hoary hairs are a token that nature maketh haste to absolve the course of your life; prevent the subtle imaginations of them that gape and look after the crown of this realm after your days. For what greater hope can they have as concerning that detestable and devilish imagination than that they might win the hearts of us, your highness’s commons, by the delivering us from the captivity and misery that we are in? We beseech God your 1

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highness may live to put away all such occasions, and to see the confusion of all such traiterous hearts, and that your grace may see that worthy Prince Edward able to govern and defend this your realm, vanquishing all his enemies both far and near as your highness, by the aid of Almighty God, hath done hitherto. Defer not, most dread sovereign lord, the reformation of these so great enormities; for the wound is even unto death if it continue any while longer. A prince wellbeloved of his people is much more rich than he that hath houses full of gold. And yet is he much more rich that is beloved of God. For if God be on your part, who can prevail against your highness? By this we mean the great and mighty abomination of vice that now reigneth within this your highness’s realm this day. For whoredom is more esteemed than wedlock, although not universally, yet amongst a great number of licentious persons. Simony hath lost his name, and usury is lawful gains. These things, unless they be redressed, will bring the ire of God upon the realm. For what doth it less than declare us to be clean fallen from the doctrine of Christ, who taught us to lend looking to have no gain thereby? What example of life is in us this day to declare that we rather be the people of God than the Jews or Mahometans? Certes, most renowned Prince, none but that we confess him to be God. And that were sufficient if our deeds did not deny him. If the rulers have given the occasion of these things, alas for them; they had been better to have had millstones hanged about their necks, and have been cast into the sea. But if the people have taken it of themselves, and be not punished of the rulers, but be permitted freely to use it, the blood of them that perish shall be required at the watchman’s hand, Ezechi. 33. Thus princes are punished when the people offend. But now, most dear sovereign, your highness may in this matter try your prelates whether they be of God or not; for if they were of God they would, according to the words of the prophet never cease but openly and with a crying voice declare unto the people their faults, Isaiah, 58. and not be hushed with an act in parliament; for that declareth them to be the setters forth of man’s traditions and not of God’s laws, so that this saying of our Saviour Christ is verified in them:—“This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me: they teach the doctrines and commandments of men,” Math. 15. But here they think to stop our mouths with the fear of your highness’s displeasure; they say your highness’s laws are God’s laws, and that we are much bound to observe them as the law of God given by Moses. Truth it is, most dear lord, that we are bound by the commandment of God to obey your highness and all your laws set forth by your High Court of Parliament, but if they dissent from or be contrary to any iota of the Scripture we must, with John and Peter say, Acts. 4. “Judge you whether it be better for us to obey God or man.” We speak not this because we think by this that we may rebel against you, our natural Prince. But that if your highness would enforce us by a law to do anything contrary to that God hath commanded us, that then we ought manfully to cleave to the truth of God’s word, boldly confessing the truth thereof, fearing nothing the death of this body; and yet most humbly submitting ourselves unto you, ready to abide and patiently to suffer what kind of torment soever should be laid upon us, knowing for certainty that we are happy when we suffer persecution for the truth’s sake, and that he is faithful

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that hath promised to be revenged of our injuries. But these dumb dogs have learned to feign upon them that use to bring them bread, and to be wonderful hasty when they be maintained and cherished; but if they be but once bid couch they know their liripope so well that they draw the tail between the legs, and get themselves straight to the kennel. And then come who so will and do what they will, these dogs will stir no more till they hear their master say “high cut and long tail”. So afraid are they of stripes, and lest they should be tied up so short, that they might not range abroad and worry now and then a simple lamb or two. Before it was passed by Act of Parliament that men might take ten pounds by year for an hundred pound loan, how vehement were they in the matter? All their sermons were little other than invectives against usury. Then they could allege both Christ and the Psalmist to prove that Christian men ought to lend what they may spare, and to look for no gains thereof. But now they do not only hold themselves still as concerning this matter, but also they endeavour to imitate, yea, and to pass the example of the extortioners and usurers. For even the last year they obtained by their importunate suit a grant which, if it be not revoked, will in continuance of time be the greatest impoverishment of us your poor commons, (and chiefly in the city of London) that ever chanced since the first beginning thereof. They have obtained, and it is enacted, that every man within the said city shall yearly pay unto them according to the rents they are charged with sixteen pence ha’penny of every ten shillings, So that if the lords of the grounds do double and triple the rents (as they do indeed) then must the poor tenants pay also double and triple tenths as due increase of their riches: this is not unlike unto that which is practised in the country amongst us your highness’s poor commons. For when it hath pleased God to punish us with the rot of our sheep, so that perhaps some one of us hath hylded1 one hundred sheep, then have some of the parsons constrained us to give them ten of the fells, for they call it increase so long as we sell them. And therefore must they (as God’s deputies) take the tenth thereof. Have compassion upon us (most gracious sovereign); suffer not these insatiable dogs thus to eat us out of all that we have; consider that it is against all reason and conscience that we, your poor commons, should be thus oppressed; that where the landlord taketh of us double and triple rent, that then we shall pay also to the parson double or triple tenths. But see (most dear sovereign) how craftily they have wrought this feat; they require not the tenths of the landlords that have the increase, but of the tenants, which of necessity are constrained to pay to the lords their asking, or else to be without dwellingplaces. They know right well that if they should have matched themselves with the landlords they haply should have been too weak for them at the length. But they were in good hope that we, your poor commons, should never be able to stand in their hands, as in very deed we shall not unless your highness will vouchsafe to take our cause in hand; for if we have not wherewith to pay them, they may, by the virtue of the act distress2 such implements as they shall find in our houses. They know our conditions of old, since they took their mortuaries. We had rather, in manner, famish ourselves for lack of food, and to make right hard shift besides, than that we would be troubled for any such thing. And doubtless, most renowned Prince, if 1

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the oppression were not too much beyond all reason and conscience, we would never have troubled your highness withal. Yea, if there were any hope that they would be satisfied by this, we would rather fast three days every week than we would seem to be slack in doing all such things as the law bindeth us to. But we see daily so great increase of their insatiable desire that we fear lest in process of time they will make us all beg and bring to them all that we can get. It is no rare thing to see the poor impotent creatures beg at Easter to pay for the Sacrament when they receive it. And it is no less common to see men beg for such dead corpses as have nothing to pay the priest’s duty. Yea, it is not long since there was in your highness’s city of London a dead corpse brought to the church to be buried, being so poor that it was naked without any cloth to cover it. But these charitable men, which teach us that it is one of the works of mercy to bury the dead, would not take the pains to bury the dead corpse unless they had their duty as they call it. In fine, they caused the dead corpse to be carried into the street again, and there to remain till the poor people which dwelled in the place where the poor creature died had begged so much as the priests call their due. O merciful Lord, who can be able worthily to lament the miserable estate of this time? When those men which in all things profess to be the light of the world, the teachers of the ignorant, and the leaders of the blind, are so far without mercy (which Christ preferred before sacrifice) that they will not do so much as waste a little of their breath in reading over a few psalms at the burial of one of the poor members of Christ, unless they have money for their labour! And when those persons whom the other, called spiritual, do count but as brute beasts calling them temporal, shall show more mercy, the badge of the Christian soldiers towards the poor members of Christ, than they which glory to be the true prophets of Christ and successors of the Apostles! Yea, when those painted sepulchres be so merciless that they pity not them whom the very infidels would pity! Where is there so little mercy showed as amongst them? Insomuch that their covetousness is grown into this proverb, “No penny, no pater noster”. For they will not do that thing which every Christian is bound to do for other unless they may be waged for money; they wed and bury, and sing full merry, but all for money. If your highness would call a count of them, and cause them to show the books of the names of them that have been buried and married within this year, conferring1 that number with the sum of money they take for every such burial and marriage, you should easily perceive how little need they have to oppress us with double and triple tenths. Judge then, most victorious Prince, what an unreasonable sum the whole and gross sum of these enhanced tenths with other their petty bribery draweth to. They receive of every hundred pounds thirteen pounds fifteen shillings, and of the thousand one hundred and thirty-seven pounds ten shillings. Then may your highness soon be certified what they receive of the whole rents of the city. No doubt, gracious Prince, they receive of us yearly more than your highness did at any timewhen you were beset on every side with mortal enemies. And yet their conscience would serve them well enough to take three times as much as they do if your highness would suffer them. For they use to say that forasmuch as it is established by a law they may, with good conscience, take it if it were 1

comparing.

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more. Yea, if your highness would suffer them, their conscience would serve them to lie with our wives every tenth night or else to have every tenth wife in the parish at their pleasure. But our trust is that your highness will tie them shorter, and to say the truth it is time; for if you suffer them a while they will attempt to make your highness pay the tenths unto them as long at they have paid them to you. For they have already sought out our warehouses, storehouses, stables, wharves, and barns, causing us to pay, not only the tenth for that we never paid before, but also the seventh penny of the whole rents raised throughout the whole city. Who can judge other therefore, most dread sovereign, but that they would, if they wist how, cause your highness to pay unto them not only the tenth of your yearly revenues, but also the tenth penny of all such spoils as your highness shall take in wars; for they carp much upon Abraham’s giving of the tenth of his spoil to Melchisedech. Wherefore, most merciful Prince, consider with mercy this pitiful complaint of us your most faithful servants, delivering us from the mouths of these insatiable beasts, which do daily employ themselves to devour us, our wives and children, even as we were food prepared for them to devour. Let the order that Paul took with the faithful of the primitive church take effect in these our days, the last days of this miserable world. Let none eat that laboureth not, 2 Thessal. 3. Let them also that be called to be preachers have the reward of preachers; overload them not with the possessions and riches of this world, for the cares thereof do choke the word. Let not each ravening wolf that cometh with a sheephook in his hand be received as a shepherd. Let not the simple lambs of Christ be committed to the tuition of these so ravening wolves. Let not the portion of the poor be committed to them that distribute not, but rather gather and heap up, counting all fish that cometh to the net. Let the worthy prophets that walk diligently in their vocation be called to the governance of the spiritual flock of Christ, and let them be repelled that come uncalled, we mean such as sue to bear the name of your highness’s chaplains only because they trust to obtain thereby lordly livings out of the portion of the poor. Take pity, most merciful Prince, upon us your poor and faithful liege people; take pity upon your own soul which shall at the last day be charged with all abuses that your highness suffereth freely to reign. Believe not those gnatonical adherents that will not stick to affirm and deny, so that they may trust to please you thereby. Let them not persuade your highness that all is good that is concluded in your High Court of Parliament. Remember, O, how they led your highness when you sent forth your letters under your broad seal straightly commanding every and singular your highness’s subjects, under pain of your highness’s displeasure, to aid, support, and further all and singular proctors and pardoners. Remember in what case they had brought your highness when you thought it godliness to visit in your own person the graves, images, and relics of dead saints, doing to them divine honour and reverence. Let them not persuade you that God is or can be better served in the Latin tongue than in the English; consider what great folly Saint Paul counteth it for men to pray, which is to talk with almighty God, in a tongue they understand not, 1. Corinth. 13. Yea, and how much greater folly it is to think holiness in hearing a tale told in a strange tongue. Your highness commanded that none should receive the Sacrament at Easter but such as could and did use the Lord’s

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prayer with the articles of the faith in the English tongue. But they bid us use that which is most ready to us. They baptise our children in the Latin tongue, bidding us say, “Volo” and “Credo”, when we know not what it is that they demand of us. By this means is it brought to pass that we know not what we profess in our baptism, but superstitiously we think that the holiness of the words which sound so strangely in our ears, and of the water that is so oft crossed is the doing of all the matter. Yea, we think that if our children be well plunged in the font they shall be healthful in all their limbs ever after, but if they, by any misadventure, receive any hurt in any of their members, incontinent we lay the fault in the priest, saying that member was not well christened. Oh merciful God, what heart can be able worthily to lament this more than Judaical superstition? The thing that is mere spiritual we apply wholly to the flesh. Was there ever any vain idolaters that would honour their gods in a language they understood not? Were the monks, friars, and canons, with other superstitious religious, professed in a strange tongue? Is not the oath of obedience that we your liege people take unto you ministered in the English tongue? And for what other purpose but that we may thereby know our most bounden duty toward you our natural Prince and liege lord? Is it then beseeming that we, taking an oath of obedience to the King of all kings, the God of all the world, and Maker thereof, should not know what is demanded of us nor what we answer again? If we hold us still as concerning this more than hell darkness the very stones of your palace would make exclamation. Prevent, therefore, most gracious Prince, the ire of God which hangeth over this your realm. Remember that his long sufferance shall be recompensed with the extremity of the punishment. Wherefore, most worthy Prince, we humbly beseech our heavenly Father, the Giver of all goodness even for the Lord Jesu Christ’s sake our Saviour and Redeemer, that he preserve you always, giving you grace to walk circumspectly in your vocation and ministry, that, at the last day, you may receive the incorruptible crown of glory, and reign with our Elder Brother the first begotten Son of God the Father Almighty; to whom with the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory for ever and ever. All true English hearts say, Amen. Psalm 40. “Happy is the man that pitieth the poor; for in time of trouble the Lord shall deliver him.” Thus have we, your most obedient subjects, declared the fervent desire we have not only of your prosperous success in the affairs of this life, but also of your eternal reign with the Lord Jesus in the celestial kingdom, of whose faith ye are, in earth, Defender, and of the faithful congregation in this little angle of the earth congregate, the Supreme Head immediately next unto him, by whose mighty hand you have hitherto vanquished not only the external enemies of this most noble realm, but all such as have most devilishly imagined, conspired, and attempted treason against your highness, their most natural liege lord and governor. What histories should we read to know of so many and so dangerous conspiracies, so wonderfully detected and avoided? Who might so soon have wrought the most detestable purpose of treason as she that slept in your bosom? What mighty princes have been betrayed by them that they have loved above

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all creatures? And how wonderfully, even at the very point, and in the time of most danger hath the mighty hand of the Lord delivered you? Besides this, that most abominable idol of Rome, which sat so high not only in the consciences of us your most bounden subjects and poor commons, but also your nobles (even from the highest to the lowest) were all his faithful adherents; in so much that some of them would not stick to shed the best blood of their bodies in his quarrel. And yet how wonderfully hath the Lord our God made him your footstool? Rejoice, dear Sovereign, rejoice. The Lord is your right hand, he hath found you faithful in a little, and shall ordain you over much more. Only beware that you, putting your hand to the plough do not look backward. Go forth manfully to conquer, and turn not again till you have purged this vineyard of the Lord, so that there remain not one little imp besides those that our Heavenly Father hath planted. Let not that noble Prince Edward be oppressed in the days of his youth, with the cumbrous weeding out of such rotten and fruitless trees, lest perchance they take deeper root than that his tender youth may be able to move. Forget not your own youth, when these adulterine trees were too strong for you. Think not but that you shall leave behind you a great number that would be glad to see the old stumps of these fruitless trees spring again. The Lord bring them all to confusion, giving your highness long life, with assistance of his grace, to perform that which you have begun. The wisdom of the Lord our God lead you into all truth. Amen. Your most faithful and obedient subjects the Poor Commons of the Realm of England. Anno 1546.

25. Thoughts on social responsibilities from the Works of William Tyndale (i) The idea of vocation (Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises (ed. H.Walter, Parker Soc., 1848, 100–103. “The Parable of the Wicked Mammon”)

A

s pertaining to good works, understand that all works are good which are done within the law of God, in faith, and with thanksgiving to God; and understand that thou in doing them pleasest God, whatsoever thou doest within the law of God, as when thou makest water. And trust me, if either wind or water were stopped, thou shouldest feel what a precious thing it were to do either of both, and what thanks ought to be given to God therefore. Moreover, put no difference between works; but whatsoever cometh into thy hands that do, as time, place, and occasion giveth, and as God hath put thee in degree, high or low. For as touching to please God, there is no work better than another. God looketh not first on thy work as the world doth, as though the beautifulness of the work pleased him as it doth the world, or as though he had need of them. But God looketh first on thy heart, what faith thou hast to his words, how thou believest him, trustest him, and how thou lovest him for his mercy that he hath shewed thee: he looketh with what heart thou workest, and not what thou workest; how thou acceptest the degree that he hath put thee in, and not of what degree thou art, whether thou be an apostle or a shoemaker. Set this ensample before

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thine eyes. Thou art a kitchen-page, and washest thy master’s dishes; another is an apostle, and preacheth the word of God. Of this apostle hark what Paul saith, in the 1st. Cor. IX. “If I preach,” saith he, “I have nought to rejoice in, for necessity is put unto me;” as who should say, God hath made me so. “Woe is unto me if I preach not. If I do it willingly,” saith he, “then have I my reward”; that is, then am I sure that God’s spirit is in me, and that I am elect to eternal life. “If I do it against my will, an office is committed unto me;” that is, if I do it not of love to God, but to get a living thereby, and for a worldly purpose, and had rather otherwise live, then do I that office which God hath put me in, and yet please not God myself…. Now that thou ministerest in the kitchen, and art but a kitchen-page, receivest all things of the hand of God; knowest that God hath put thee in that office; submittest thyself to his will; and servest thy master not as a man, but as Christ himself, with a pure heart, according as Paul teacheth us; puttest thy trust in God, and with him seekest thy reward. Moreover, there is not a good deed done, but thy heart rejoiceth therein; yea, when thou hearest that the word of God is preached by this apostle, and seest the people turn to God, thou consentest unto the deed; thine heart breaketh out in joy, springeth and leapeth in thy breast, that God is honoured: and in thine heart doest the same that that apostle doth, and haply with greater delectation and a more fervent spirit. Now “he that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet;” that is, he that consenteth to the deed of a prophet, and maintaineth it, the same hath the same Spirit and earnest of everlasting life, which the prophet hath, and is elect as the prophet is. Now if thou compare deed to deed, there is difference betwixt washing of dishes, and preaching of the word of God: but as touching to please God, none at all: for neither that nor this pleaseth, but as far forth as God hath chosen a man, hath put his Spirit in him, and purified his heart by faith and trust in Christ. Let every man therefore wait on the office wherein Christ hath put him, and therein serve his brethren. If he be of low degree, let him patiently therein abide, till God promote him, and exalt him higher. Let kings and head officers seek Christ in their offices, and minister peace and quietness unto the brethren; punish sin, and that with mercy, even with the same sorrow and grief of mind as they would cut off a finger or joint, a leg or arm, of their own body, if there were such disease in them, that either they must be cut off, or else all the body must perish. Let every man, of whatsoever craft or occupation he be of, whether brewer, baker, tailor, victualler, merchant, or husbandman, refer his craft and occupation unto the commonwealth, and serve his brethren as he would do Christ himself. Let him buy and sell truly, and not set dice on his brethren; and so sheweth he mercy, and his occupation pleaseth God. And when thou receivest money for thy labour or ware, thou receivest thy duty. For wherein soever thou minister to thy brethren, thy brethren are debtors, to give thee wherewith to maintain thyself and household. And let your superfluities succour the poor, of which sort shall ever be some in all towns, and cities, and villages, and that I suppose the greatest number. Remember that we are members of one body, and ought to minister one to another mercifully: and remember that whatsoever we have, it is given us of God, to bestow it on our brethren. Let him that eateth, eat and give God

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thanks, only let not thy meat pull thine heart from God; and let him that drinketh do likewise. Let him that hath a wife, give God thanks for his liberty; only let not thy wife withdraw thine heart from God, and then pleasest thou God, and hast the word of God for thee. And in all things look on the word of God, and therein put thy trust, and not in a visor, in a disguised garment, and a cut shoe.

(ii) The office of a mastery and how he ought to rule (Ibid. 201 (“The Obedience of a Christian Man”))

Paul (Eph. vi th) saith: “Ye masters, do even the same things to them,” (that is, be masters after the ensample and doctrine of Christ, as he before taught the servants to obey to their masters as to Christ,) “putting away threatenings,” that is, give them fair words, and exhort them kindly to do their duty; yea, nurture them as thy own sons with the Lord’s nurture, that they may see in Christ a cause why they ought lovingly to obey: and “remember (saith he) that your master also is in heaven; neither is there any respect of persons with him;” that is, he is indifferent and not partial: as great in his sight is a servant as a master. And in the ivth chapter to the Colossians saith he: “Ye masters, do unto your servants that which is just and equal, remembering that ye also have a master in heaven.” Give your servants kind words, food, raiment, and learning. Be not bitter unto them, rail not on them, give them no cruel countenance: but according to the ensample and doctrine of Christ, deal with them. And when they labour sore, cherish them again. When ye correct them, let God’s word be by; and do it with such good manner, that they may see how that ye do it to amend them only, and to bring them to the way which God biddeth us walk in, and not to avenge yourselves, or to wreak your malice on them. If at a time through hastiness ye exceed measure in punishing, recompense it another way, and pardon them another time.

(iii) The duty of landlords (Ibid. 201 (“The Obedience of a Christian Man”))

Let Christian landlords be content with their rent and old customs; not raising the rent or fines, and bringing up new customs to oppress their tenants; neither letting two or three tenantries unto one man. Let them not take in their commons, neither make parks nor pastures of whole parishes: for God gave the earth to man to inhabit; and not unto sheep and wild deer. Be as fathers unto your tenants: yea, be unto them as Christ was unto us, and shew unto them all love and kindness. Whatsoever business is among them, be not partial, favouring one more than another. The complaints, quarrels, and strife that are among them, count diseases of sick people; and, as a merciful physician, heal them with wisdom and good counsel. Be pitiful and tender-hearted unto them, and let not one of thy tenants tear out another’s throat; but judge their causes indifferently, and compel them to make their ditches, hedges, gates, and ways. For even for such causes were ye made landlords: and for such causes paid men rent at the beginning. For if such an order were not, one should slay another, and all should go to waste. If thy tenant shall labour and toil all the year, to pay thee, thy rent, and when he hath bestowed all his labour, his

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neighbours’ cattle shall devour his fruits; how tedious and bitter should his life be! See therefore that ye do your duties again; and suffer no man to do them wrong, save the king only. If he do wrong, then must they abide God’s judgment.

26. The nature of the Common Weal. From Thomas Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset (J.W.Cowper, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, E.E.T.S. Extra Ser. XII, 1871, pp. 25, 45, 76, 82, 86, 185, 32) Although this remarkable book, written before 1539, was not printed until 1871 it ranks high in the social and political literature of the early sixteenth century. Whether the ideas it expounds are entirely those of Starkey, or a reflection of Cardinal Pole’s thought, the book is a searching analysis of the evils in contemporary society. It is, too, in its quest after “the very and true commonweal” and the methods whereby it might be established in early Tudor England, a representative example of the ideals of those writers of the 1530’s and ’40’s who merit the distinction of being grouped together as “the commonwealth men.” There is also a modernized version, by K.M.Burton, 1948. For Starkey and the commonwealth men see W.G.Zeeveld, Foundations of Tudor Policy.

(i) The preface of the Dialogue

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ole: Well, Master Lupset, if you like it well, after this manner we shall devise, because every man speaketh so much of the common weal, and many more, I fear me, do know it indeed. And forbecause the common weal is the end of all parliaments and common counsels, first therefore (to keep a certain process with order) we will search out, as near as we can, what is the very and true common weal, wherein it standeth, and when it most flourisheth, that we may, having this plainly set before our eyes, all our counsels to this point ever resolve and refer. Second, we will search out thereby the decay of our common weal, with all the common faults and misorders of the same. Thirdly, we will devise of the cause of this same decay, and of the remedy and mean to restore the common weal again. And this shall be the process of our communication. Lupset: Sir, this process liketh me well; but here of one thing, I pray you, take heed that in this your device of your communication you follow not the example of Plato, whose order of common weal no people upon earth to this day could ever yet attain. Wherefore it is reputed of many men but as a dream and vain imagination, which never can be brought to effect; and of some other it is compared to the Stoic philosopher, who never appeared yet to the light, such virtue and wisdom is attributed to him, that in no mortal man it can be found. Therefore, look you to the nature of our country, to the manner of our people, not without respect both of time and of place, that your device hereafter, by the help of our most noble prince, may the sooner obtain his fruit and effect.

ii) The functional theory of society Pole: First, this is certain: that like as in every man there is a body and also a soul, in whose flourishing and prosperous state both together standeth the weal and felicity of man: so likewise there is in every commonalty, city, and country, as it were, a politic

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body, and another thing also, resembling the soul of man, in whose flourishing both together resteth also the true common weal. This body is nothing else but the multitude of people, the number of citizens, in every commonalty, city or country. The thing which is resembled to the soul is civil order and politic law, administered by officers and rulers. For like as the body in every man receiveth his life by the virtue of the soul, and is governed thereby, so doth the multitude of people in every country receive, as it were, civil life by laws well administered by good officers and wise rulers, by whom they be governed and kept in politic order. Wherefore the one may, as me seemeth, right well be compared to the body, and the other to the soul.

Lupset: This similitude liketh me well. Pole: Then let us go forth with the same, and we shall find, by and by, that like as the weal of every man separately by himself riseth of the three principal things before declared, so the common weal of every country, city, or town, similarly riseth of other three things proportionable and like to the same, in the which all other particular things are comprehended. And the first of them, shortly to say, standeth in health, strength, and beauty of this body politic and multitude of people, wherein resteth the ground, and, as it were, the foundation of the common weal. For if the country be never so rich, fertile, and plentiful of all things necessary and pleasant to man’s life, yet if there be of people either too few or too many; or if they be, as it were, eaten away, daily devoured and consumed by common sickness and disease, there can be no image nor shadow of any common weal, to the which first is required a convenient multitude and conveniently to be nourished there in the country. For whereas there be either too many people in the country, inasmuch that the country by no diligence nor labour of man may be sufficient to nourish them and minister them food, there without doubt can be no common weal, but ever miserable penury and wretched poverty. Like as if there be of people overfew, insomuch that the country may not be well tilled and occupied, nor crafts well and diligently exercised, there shall also spring thereof great penury and scarceness of all things necessary for man’s life; and so then civil life and true common weal can in no case be there maintained. Wherefore a convenient multitude meet for the place, in every country and commonalty, as the matter and ground of the common weal, is first to be required of necessity. Further, also, though the number of people were never so meet to the place, city or town, yet if they flourished not in bodily health, but commonly were vexed with grievous sickness and contagious disease, by the reason whereof the people should be consumed, no man could say there to be any commonweal. But like as every particular man in bodily sickness, and in such specially whereof he himself is cause, lacketh the most prosperous state, so doth every country, city, and town likewise affected and disposed, want much of his perfect common weal. Therefore, to this multitude of people and politic body, first, as ground and foundation of the rest of his weal, is required a certain health, which also by strength must be maintained. For like as the body, if it be not strong, soon by outward occasions, as by intemperance of air, labour, and travail, is oppressed and overthrown and so loseth his health, so doth the multitude of people in every country, city, or town soon, by wars and injury of enemies, without strength, lose

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his wealth and soon is oppressed and brought into misery and wretched captivity. Wherefore to this politic body strength is also required, without the which his health long cannot be maintained; but shortly, of necessity it must decay. This strength standeth in this point chiefly: so to keep and maintain every part of this body, that they promptly and readily may do that thing which is required to the health of the whole. Like as we say, then every man’s body to be strong, when every part can execute quickly and well his office determined by the order of nature; as the heart then is strong when he, as fountain of all natural powers, ministereth them with due order to all other; and they then be strong when they be apt to receive their power of the heart and can use it according to the order of nature, as, the eye to see. the ear to hear, the foot to go, and hand to hold and reach, and so likewise of the rest. After such manner the strength of this politic body standeth in every part being able to do his office and duty. For this body hath his parts, which resemble also the parts of the body of man, of the which the most general to our purpose be these: the heart, head, hands and feet. The heart thereof is the king, prince and ruler of the state, whethersoever it be one or many, according to the governance of the commonalty and politic state. For some be governed by a prince alone, some by a council of certain wise men, and some by the whole people together, as hereafter, when occasion requireth, more plainly I will show. But now to our purpose. He or they which have authority upon the whole state right well may be resembled to the heart. For like as all wit, reason, and sense, feeling, life, and all other natural power, springeth out of the heart, so from the princes and rulers of the state cometh all laws, order and policy, all justice, virtue and honesty, to the rest of this politic body. To the head, with the eyes, ears and other senses therein, resembled may be right well the under-officers by princes appointed, forasmuch as they should ever observe and diligently wait for the weal of the rest of this body. To the hands are resembled both craftsmen and warriors which defend the rest of the body from injury of enemies outward, and work and make things necessary to the same. To the feet, the ploughmen and tillers of the ground, because they, by their labour, sustain and support the rest of the body, These are the most general parts of this politic body, which may justly be resembled after the manner declared, to those chief parts in man’s body. Now, as I said, the strength of these parts altogether is of necessity required, without the which the health of the whole cannot long be maintained.

(iii) Criticism of early Tudor society Lupset: Sir, indeed, as you say, when I look to the cities and towns and villages in the country, I cannot deny but there hath been more people here in our country than there is now. Wherefore, without further cavillation, agreeing upon this, let us go forward. Pole: Well, then, let us consider and behold how that, beside this lack of people there is, also, in this politic body another disease and sickness more grievous than this, and that is this, shortly to say:—A great part of these people which we have here in our country is either idle or ill-occupied, and a small number of them exerciseth themself in doing their office and duty pertaining to the maintenance of the common weal: by the

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reason whereof this body is replenished and over-fulfilled with many ill-humours, which I call idle and unprofitable persons, of whom you shall find a great number, if you will a little consider all states, orders and degrees here in our country. First, look what an idle rout our noblemen keep and nourish in their houses, which do nothing else but carry dishes to the table and eat them when they have done; and after, giving themselves to hunting, hawking, dicing, carding, and all other idle pastimes and vain, as though they were born to nothing else at all. Look to our bishops and prelates of the realm, whether they follow not the same trade in nourishing such an idle sort, spending their possessions and goods, which were to them given to be distributed among them which were oppressed with poverty and necessity. Look, furthermore to priests, monks, friars and canons with all their adherents and idle train, and you shall find also among them no small number idle and unprofitable, which be nothing but burdens to the earth; insomuch that if you, after this manner, examine the multitude in every order and degree, you shall find, as I think, the third part of our people living in idleness, as persons to the common weal utterly unprofitable; and to all good civility, much like unto the drone bees in a hive, which do nothing else but consume and devour all such thing as the busy and good bee, with diligence and labour, gathereth together. Lupset: Master Pole, me seemeth you examine this matter somewhat too shortly, as though you would have all men to labour, to go to the plough, and exercise some craft, which is not necessary, for our mother the ground is so plenteous and bountiful, by the goodness of God and of nature given to her, that with little labour and tillage she will sufficiently nourish mankind none otherwise than she doth all beasts, fishes, and fowls which are bred and brought up upon her, to whom we see she ministereth food with little labour or none, but of her own friendly benignity. Wherefore if a few of our people busy themselves and labour therein, it is sufficient; the rest may live in triumph, at liberty and ease, free from all bodily labour and pain. Pole: This is spoken, Master Lupset, even as though you judged man to be born for to live in idleness and pleasure, all thing referring and applying thereto. But, Sir, it is nothing so; but, contrary, he is born to labour and travail (after the opinion of the wise and ancient antiquity) none otherwise than a bird to fly, and not to live (as Homer saith some do) as an unprofitable weight and burden of the earth. For man is born to be as a governor, ruler and diligent tiller and inhabitant of this earth, as some, by labour of body, to procure things necessary for the maintenance of man’s life; some, by wisdom and policy, to keep the rest of the multitude in good order and civility. So that none be born to this idleness and vanity, to the which the most part of our people is much given and bent, but all to exercise themselves in some fashion of life convenient to the dignity and nature of man. Wherefore, though it be so that it is nothing necessary all to be labourers and tillers of the ground, but some to be priests and ministers of God’s Word, some to be gentlemen to the governance of the rest, and some servants to the same, yet this is certain, that over-great number of them, without due proportion to the other parts of the body, is superfluous in any commonalty. It is not to be doubted but that here in our country of those sorts be over-many, and specially of them which we call servingmen, which live in service to gentlemen, lords, and other of the nobility. If you

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look throughout the world, as I think, you shall not find in any one country proportionable to ours like number of that sort. Lupset: Marry, sir, that is truth; wherein, me seemeth, you praise our country very much, for in them standeth the royalty of the realm. If the yeomanry of England were not, in time of war we should be in shrewd case; for in them standeth the chief defence of England. Pole: O, Master Lupset, you take the matter amiss. In them standeth the beggary of England. By them is nourished the common theft therein, as hereafter at large I shall declare. Howbeit, if they were exercised in feats of arms, to the defence of the realm in time of war, they might yet be much better suffered. But you see how little they be exercised therein, insomuch that in time of war it is necessary for our plough-men and labourers of the country to take weapon in hand, or else we were not like long to enjoy England, so little trust is to be put in their feats and deeds. Wherefore doubt you no more but of them, like as of other that I have spoken of before (as of priests, friars, monks and other called religious), we have over-many, which altogether make our politic body unwieldy and heavy, and, as it were, to be grieved with gross humours, insomuch that this disease therein may well be compared to a dropsy in man’s body.

(iv) Division in society Pole: Sir, yet there is another disease remaining behind which greatly troubleth the state of the whole body, the which (though I somewhat stand in doubt whether I may well call it a disease of the body or no) yet because, as physicians say, the body and mind are so knit together by nature that all sickness and disease be common to them both, I will not now stand to reason much herein, but boldly call it a bodily disease, and, briefly to say, this it is: the parts of this body agree not together: the head agreeth not to the feet, nor feet to the hands: no one part agreeth to other: the temporalty grudgeth against the spiritualty, the commons against the nobles, and subjects against their rulers: one hath envy at another, one beareth malice against another, one complaineth of another. The parts of this body be not knit together as it were with spirit and life, in concord and unity, but dissevered asunder, as they were in no case parts of one body. This is so manifest it needeth no proof, for sure arguments thereof are daily among us, both seen and heard in every place. Wherefore of this disease we need not further to doubt, which is open to every man’s eye…. Pole: There is also likewise in the feet and in the hands which sustain the body and procure by labour things necessary for the same, as it were, a common disease. For both the feet and the hands (to whom I resembled ploughmen and labourers of the ground, with craftsmen and artificers in procuring of things necessary) are negligent and slow to the exercise thereof which pertaineth to their office and duty. Ploughmen do not diligently labour and till the ground for the bringing forth of fruits necessary for the food and sustenance of man; craftsmen also and all artificers show no less negligence in the use of their crafts, by the reason whereof here is in our country much dearth thereof, and penury. Lupset: Sir, this you do, as me seemeth, but only say; you neither prove it by argument nor reason.

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Pole: Me seemeth it need no more to do so than to show the light of the sun by a candle, this matter is so open to every man’s eye. For those many and great waste grounds here in our country, the great lack of victual and the scarceness thereof, and dearth of all things worked by man’s hand, do not only show the great negligence of the rest of our people, but in the ploughmen also and artificers doth argue and declare manifest lack of diligence. For this is sure, if our ploughmen here were as diligent as they be in other parts (in France, Italy, or in Spain) we should not have so much waste ground, void and unfilled, as there is now: and if our artificers applied themselves to labour as diligently as they do in other countries, we should not have things made by men’s hand so scarce and so dear as they be now here commonly. For this is a certain truth: that the people of England is more given to idle gluttony than any people of the world: which is, to all them that have experience of the manners of others manifest and plain…. That is truth, Master Lupset, without fail, as we shall see in our process more plain. For as physicians say, when they have removed the chief cause of the malady and disease in the body, by little and by little then Nature herself cureth the patient; even so now in our purpose, this fault that we have before spoken of, which was and is the cause of many other, once perfectly cured, shall minister unto us the most convenient mean to proceed to the cure of the rest. Among the which, as I remember, was there noted the fault of bringing up the nobility, which, for the most part, are nourished without cure, both of their parents, being alive, and much worse of them in whose ward commonly they do fall after their death: the which care for nothing but only to spoil their pupils and wards, or else to marry them after their pleasure, whereby the true love of matrimony was and is utterly taken away and destroyed; to the which, as every man knoweth, succeed infinite miseries and misorders of life. Wherefore this thing must be remedied, if we will proceed to our end and purpose. And, first as concerning the wards: of this we must begin all our old barbarous customs utterly to abrogate, without respect of the beginning in thereof, though they appear never so good. And ever they which have the nobility in ward must be bounden to make a reckoning and count before a judge appointed thereto, not only of all his income, rents, and revenues but much more of the ordering and institution of his ward both in virtue and learning. But here is, Master Lupset, not only in our country but also in all other which ever yet I knew, a great lack and negligence of them which rule in common policy, and that is this: that in no country there is any regard of the bringing up of youth in common discipline and public exercise, but every man privately in his own house hath his master to instruct his children in letters, without any respect of other exercise in other feats pertaining to nobility no less than learning and letters, as in all feats of chivalry. Therefore there would be some ordinance devised for the joining of these both together, which might be done after this manner, likewise as we have in our universities, colleges, and common places to nourish the children of poor men in letters, whereby, as you see, cometh no small profit to the common weal. So much more we should have, as it were, certain places appointed for the bringing up together of the nobility, to the which I would the nobles should be compelled to set forward their children

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and heirs, that in a number together they might the better profit. [To this use turn both Westminster and St. Albans, and many other.]1 And to this company I would have appointed rulers certain of the most virtuous and wise men of the realm, the which should instruct this youth to whom should come the governance, after, of their own common weal. [Prebends should be premia to young gentlemen married and larned in scripture; by this mean scripture should be more communed than it is.]1 Here they should be instructed not only in virtue and learning, but also in the feats of war pertaining to such as should be hereafter, in time of war, captains and governors of the common sort. This should be the most noble institution that ever was yet devised in any common weal; of this, surely, should spring the fountain of all civility and politic rule. Yea, and without such a thing, I cannot tell whether all the rest of our device will little avail. I think it will never be possible to institute our common weal without this ordinance brought to pass and put in effect. Our old fathers have been liberal in building great abbeys and monasteries for the exercise of a monastical life among religious men, which hath done much good to the virtuous living of Christian minds, whose example I would that we should now follow in building places for the institution of the nobility, or else in changing some of these to that use, because there be over-many of this sort now in our days; that, even like as these monks and religious men there living together exercise a certain monastical discipline and life, so the nobles, being brought up together, should learn there the discipline of the common weal. You see now how the nobles think themselves born only to triumph and spend such lands, the which their ancestors have provided for them, in their vain pleasures and pastimes. They never look to other end and purpose. But here I would have them in this discipline, first, to take heed and diligently to learn what they be, and what place they occupy in the common weal, and what is the office and duty pertaining to the same. Here they should learn how and after what manner they might be able and meet to do and put in exercise that thing which pertaineth to their office and authority, and so, plainly and fully, to be instruct in the administration of justice both public and private. And, as I said, at void times also convenient to the same, they should use to exercise themselves in feats of the body and chivalry, no less expedient for time of war than the other exercises be for time of peace. And thus they should be worthy of the name which we now unworthily give unto them commonly: then they should be nobles indeed: then they should be true lords and masters; then the people would be glad to be governed by them, when they perceived so plainly that they regarded the weal of them no less than their own privately. But, Master Lupset, the particular means of bringing this matter to pass requireth, as I said before, a whole book. It is enough for us now to show and touch the manner and means in general.

(v) The true Commonweal Lupset: Well, then, let us now, I pray you, return to our purpose; that we may the better, and easier also, avoid this ignorance (the fountain of all ill), and search out what 1

Marginal annotations.

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is the true common weal. For, indeed, I think this now to be truth: that if men knew what it were, they would not so little regard it as they do, they would not so highly esteem their own private pleasure and weal. Pole: This thing is, and ever hath been, yea, and I dare boldly affirm, ever shall be, the destruction of all true common weals, and so, consequently, the destruction also of them which so blindly esteem so much their own profit and pleasure, as we shall see more plainly herafter. But now to our purpose. After the mind of the ancient and most wise philosopher Aristotle, in the very same thing wherein standeth the wealth and prosperous state of every particular man by himself, resteth also of every city or country, the very and true common wealth: the which thing is to all men by common reason evident, forasmuch as the wealth and substance ever of the whole riseth of the wealth of every particular part. Wherefore, if we can first find out that thing which is the wealth of every particular man, we shall then consequently find out also what thing it is that in any city or country we call the very true common weal. And this let us take as a ground to the rest of our communication. Lupset: Marry, sir, but herein, me seemeth, lieth a doubt: for if it be thus, that the common weal rise of the particular weal of every one, then every man ought to study to maintain the particular weal, to the setting forward of the common. And so that thing which you noted before to be the destruction of every common weal, now by this reason and ground should maintain the same. Pole: Nay, Master Lupset, not so, for these two things agree very well. Overmuch regard of private and particular weal ever destroyeth the common, as mean and convenient regard thereof maintaineth the same. For this is truth, as it is commonly said: if every man would mend one, if every man would cure one, as he should do, we should have a very true common weal. But now whereas many, blinded with the love of themselves, regard their particular weal overmuch, it is necessary by politic persons, having regard of the common weal, to correct and amend such blindness and oversight grown into many men’s minds by the inordinate love of themselves; like as physicians now be necessary in cities and towns, seeing that men commonly give themselves to such inordinate diet, whereas, if men would govern themselves soberly by temperate diet, then physicians were not to be required of necessity in no common wealth nor policy. And so, I say, if every man would govern one well, nothing blinded with the love of himself, you should then see a true common weal. And this it is true, that even like as overmuch regard of particular weal destroyeth the common, so convenient and mean regard thereof maintaineth and setteth forward the same. And in this there is no controversy.

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27. Selections from the writings of Robert Crowley Robert Crowley may be taken as representative of the group of social reformers sometimes referred to as “the commonwealth school”. His writings were numerous, but the selections which follow provide a fair impression of the style and content of his work.

(i) The dangers of sedition (From “The Waie to Wealth”, 1550. J.M.Cowper (ed.), The Select Works of Robert Crowley, E.E.T.S. 1872. pp. 131–150)

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onsidering that all men may plainly perceive the great hurt that (of late days) Sedition hath done in this realm, and that all wise men may easily gather what greater hurt is like to ensue, if it be not speedily seen unto, it shall be every true Englishman’s duty forthwith to employ his whole study to the removing of so great an evil out of so noble a realm and commonwealth: lest, haply (if through negligence it grow and take deeper root) it be shortly too strong and more surely grounded than that it may be rooted out without the utter destruction of the whole realm. For what can be more true than that which the Truth itself hath spoken? “Every kingdom” (sayeth Christ) “that is divided in itself shall be brought to nought.” Intending, therefore, to play the part of a true Englishman, and to do all that in me shall lie to pluck this stinking weed up by the root, I shall in this good business do as, in their evil exercise, the dice-players (that gladly would, but have nothing to play for) do:—Hold the candle to them that have wherewith, and will set lustily to it. And so doing, I shall be no less worthy the name of a true-hearted Englishman than the trumpeter is worthy the name of a man of war, though he do not indeed fight, but animate and encourage other. Sedition therefore, being a dangerous disease in the body of a commonwealth, must be cured as the expert physicians do use to cure the dangerous diseases in a natural body. And as the most substantial way in curing diseases is by putting away the causes whereof they grew, so is it in the pulling up of Sedition. For if the cause be once taken away, then must the effect needs fail. If the root be cut off the branch must needs die. The boughs cannot bud if the tree have no sap. Give ear therefore (O my countrymen) give ear! And do not disdain to hear the advice of one of the least of your brethren, for the matter requireth every man’s counsel, and God revealed unto young Daniel that which the whole counsel of Babylon perceived not. Give ear, I say, and if I tell you truth, be not ashamed to do that I bid, though ye know me to be at your commandment. For Abraham was contented to do at the bidding of Sarah his wife, because he knew that her bidding was God’s will. And the Ninevites did, at the bidding of poor Jonas, sit in sackcloth and ashes because they perceived that he told them the truth. Yea, cruel Herod did not refuse to hear John Baptist, because the thing which he told him was true. Lest you therefore should be more lofty than the Babylonians, more shamefaced than Abraham, more stubborn than the Ninevites, and more cruel than Herod, give ear, and patiently hear what I shall say! The causes of Sedition must be rooted out. If I should demand of the poor man of the country what thing he thinketh to be the cause of Sedition, I know his answer. He would tell me that the great farmers, the graziers, the rich butchers, the men of law, the

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merchants, the gentlemen, the knights, the lords, and I cannot tell who; men that have no name because they are doers in all things that any gain hangeth upon. Men without conscience. Men utterly void of God’s fear. Yea, men that live as though there were no God at all! Men that would have all in their own hands; men that would leave nothing for others; men that would be alone on the earth; men that be never satisfied. Cormorants, greedy gulls; yea, men that would eat up men, women, and children, are the causes of Sedition! They take our houses over our heads, they buy our grounds out of our hands, they raise our rents, they levy great (yea unreasonable) fines, they enclose our commons! No custom, no law or statute can keep them from oppressing us in such sort that we know not which way to turn us to live. Very need therefore constraineth us to stand up against them! In the country we cannot tarry, but we must be their slaves and labour till our hearts burst, and then they must have all. And to go to the cities we have no hope, for there we hear that these insatiable beasts have all in their hands. Some have purchased, and some taken by leases, whole alleys, whole rents, whole rows, yea whole streets and lanes, so that the rents be raised, some double, some triple, and some four fold to that they were within these twelve years last past. Yea, there is not so much as a garden ground free from them. No remedy therefore, we must needs fight it out, or else be brought to the like slavery that the French men are in! These idle bellies will devour all that we shall get by our sore labour in our youth, and when we shall be old and impotent, then shall we be driven to beg and crave of them that will not give us so much as the crumbs that fall from their tables. Such is the pity we see in them! Better it were, therefore, for us to die like men than after so great misery in youth to die more miserably in age! Alas, poor man, it pitieth me to see the miserable estate that thou art in! Both for that thou art so oppressed of them by whom thou shouldest be defended from oppression, and also for that thou knowest not thy duty in this great misery. Thou art not so much oppressed on the one side, but thou art more destituted on the other side. They that should nourish and defend thy body in thy labour, do oppress thee; and they that should feed thy soul and strengthen thy mind to bear all this patiently, do leave that alone. If thy shepherd had been a diligent watchman, and had espied the wolf coming upon thee, before thou hadst been within his reach, he would have stepped between thee and thine enemy, and instructed thee in such sort, that, though he had come in nine sheepskins, yet he should not have deceived thy sight. The devil should never have persuaded thee that thou mightest revenge thine own wrong! The false prophets should never have caused thee to believe that thou shouldst prevail against them with the sword, under whose governance God hath appointed thee to be. He would have told thee that to revenge wrongs is, in a subject, to take and usurp the office of a king, and, consequently the office of God. For the king is God’s minister to revenge the wrongs done unto the innocent. As he that taketh in hand, therefore, or presumeth to do any office under a king, not being lawfully called unto it, presumeth to do the office of a king, so he that taketh in hand to do the office of a King taketh God’s office in hand. We read that our Saviour Christ, being in the estimation of the world but a private man, would not walk out of the bounds of that vocation. But when a certain man came

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unto him and desired that he would command his brother to divide the inheritance with him, he asked who had appointed him to be judge in such matters? And again, when the woman taken in adultery was brought unto him, he should not give sentence of the law against her, but asked her if any man had condemned her, and upon her denial let her go. If these examples, with the terrible stories of Corah, Dathan, Abiram and Absalom had been diligently beaten into thine head, thou wouldst (no doubt) have quieted thyself, and have suffered thyself rather to have been spoiled of altogether, yea, and thy body torn in pieces, rather than thou wouldest have taken on thee more than thou art called unto. For no cause can be so great to make it lawful for thee to do against God’s ordinance. But thy shepherd hath been negligent, as (alas the while!) all shepherds be at this day, and hath not instructed thee aright. He espied not the wolf before he had worried thee, or haply he knew him not from a sheep. But it is most like he was but an hireling, and cared for no more but to be fed with the milk and fatlings and clad with the wool, as the greatest number of them that bear the name of shepherd in England be at this day. Yea, perchance he had many flocks to keep, and therefore was absent from them all, leaving with every flock a dog that would rather worry a sheep than drive away the wolf. Well, brother, these be great plagues, and it behoveth the sins to be great that have deserved these so great and intolerable plagues at God’s hand. Return to thy conscience therefore, and see if thou have not deserved all this, and more too. Consider, first, if thou have loved thy neighbour as thyself; consider if thou have done nothing unto him that thou wouldest not that he should do unto thee. Look if thou have not gone about to prevent him in any bargain that thou hast seen him about; look if thou have not craftily undermined him to get something out of his hand, or to deceive him in some bargain. Look if thou have not laboured him out of his house or ground. See if thou have not accused him falsely or of malice, or else given false evidence against him. See if thou have not given evil counsel to his wife or servants, which might turn him to displeasure. Consider if thou have not desired and wished in thine heart to have his commodity from him if thou mightest, without blame of the world, have brought it about. For God looketh upon the heart, and if thine heart have been infected with any of these evils, then hast thou been abominable in the sight of God, and hast deserved these plagues at God’s hand. Now if you be found abominable in thy behaviour towards thy neighbour what shalt thou be found, trowest thou, in thy demeanour to God ward? God requireth thine whole heart, thine whole mind, and all the powers of thy body and soul. “Thou shalt love thy Lord God with all thy life, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” That is to say, there shall be nothing in the which thou shalt not apply wholly to the love of thy Lord God. But how was it possible for thee to love God (whom thou seest not), sith thou lovest not thy brother whom thou seest? God requireth thee to love him ever, and how often nast thou gone whole days together, whole weeks, yea whole years, and never thought once to love him aright? How many and how great benefits hast thou received at God’s hand, and how unthankful hast thou been for them, thinking that thou hast gotten them by thine own labour and not received them freely at God’s

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hand? As though God had not given thee thy life, thine health, and thy strength to labour! Yea, and as though it were not God only that giveth the increase of every man’s labour. But knowing by thine own creation and bringing up, and also by the young fruit that God sendeth thee of thy body, and further by the fruits that God sendeth, and causeth yearly to grow out of the earth, that there is a God Almighty. Yet thou hast not honoured him as God, but hast turned the glory of God into an image made after the shape, or similitude, of mortal man; running and riding from place to place to seek and to honour things of thine own making; crying and calling upon them in thy need and paying unto them thy vows, and thanking them for thine health received; doing them daily worship and reverence in the temples, and bestowing thine alms upon them in decking them and setting lights before them! Besides this thou hast put confidence of salvation in pardons that thou hast bought, in prayers that thou hast hired, or mumbled up thyself, in Masses that thou hast caused to be said, and in works that thou thyself hast fantasied; and hast not thankfully received the free mercy of God offered unto thee in Christ, in whom only thou mayest have remission of thy sins! And therefore God hath given thee up into a reprobate mind to do the thing that is not beseeming. Even to stand up against God and God’s ordinance, to refuse his Holy Word, to delight in lies and false fables, to credit false prophets, and to take weapon in hand against God’s chosen ministers: 1 say his chosen ministers, for be they good or bad, they are God’s chosen, if they be good, to defend the innocent, if they be evil, to plague the wicked. If thou wilt therefore that God shall deliver thee or thy children from the tyranny of them that oppress thee, lament thine old sins, and endeavour amendment of life. And then he that caused King Cyrus to send the Jews home to Jerusalem again, shall also stir up our young king Edward to restore, thee to thy liberty again, and to give straight charge that none shall be so bold as once to vex or trouble thee. “For the heart of a king is in God’s hand, and as he turneth the rivers of water, so turneth he it.” Be sure, therefore, that if thou keep thyself in obedience and suffer all this oppression patiently, not giving credit unto false prophecies that tell thee of victory, but to the word of God that telleth thee thy duty; thou shalt at the time, and after the manner, that God hath already appointed, be delivered. Perchance God will take from thine oppressors their hard stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh; for it is in his power so to do. Let him alone therefore. Read the prophecy of Jeremiah, and especially the seven and twenty chapter, the eight and twenty and the nine and twenty, and therein thou shalt learn thy duty in captivity, and how vain a thing it is to credit the prophets that prophesy victory to them that have, by their sins, deserved to be led away captive, yea, and to remain captive till such time as the time be complete during which God hath determined to punish them. And know thou for certainty, that if thou be still stubborn, God will not leave thee so. He will bring thee on thy knees; he will make thee stoop! If the gentlemen and rulers of thy country should be too weak for thee he would bring in strange nations to subdue thee (as the Babylonians did the Jews) and lead thee away captive. So that, refusing to serve in thine own country, thou shalt be made a slave in a strange country. Quiet thyself, therefore, and strive not against the stream. For thy sins have deserved this oppression, and God hath sent it thee as a just reward for thy sins;

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and be thou never so loth, yet needs sustain it thou must. Appoint thyself, therefore, to bear it. Let it not be laid upon thee in vain; let it do the thing that God hath sent it for; let it cause thee to acknowledge thy sin, repent it, and become altogether a new man. That in the day when God shall deliver thee, his name may be glorified in thee. And then God shall send thee plenty of true prophets that shall go before thee in purity of life and godly doctrine. They shall not come or send four times in a year and no more; neither shall they set one to gather up the tenth of thine increase to their behoof, and leave thee destitute of a diligent guide (as thy shepherds do nowadays)! But God hath promised by his prophet to take away these shepherds from thee, and to commit thee to the keeping of David, his faithful servant; that is to say, to such as will be as diligent in feeding thee as David was in governing the people of whom he had governance. Give ear, therefore, ye shepherds of this church of England! Ye Bishops, ye Deans, Archdeacons and Canons; ye Parsons and ye Vicars, whatsoever ye be that receive any part of the tenth of men’s yearly increase, or any other patrimony of preachers, give ear to the prophet Ezechiel! For the same Lord that bade him speak unto the shepherds of Judah biddeth him speak unto you now also. “Thou son of man,” saith the Lord, “prophesy against the shepherds of England, prophesy and say unto those shepherds: thus saith the Lord God: Woe be to the shepherds of England, that have fed themselves! What ought not those shepherds to have fed those flocks of England? Ye eat the fat and deck yourselves with the wool, and the mutton that is fat ye kill to feed upon, but these silly sheep ye feed not. The sorrowful and pensive ye have not comforted, the sick ye have not healed, the broken ye have not bound up, the stray sheep ye have not brought again nor sought for the lost. But with extreme cruelty ye have played the lords over them, &c.” I need not to rehearse more of this prophet’s saying unto you, for ye know where to have it, and have leisure enough to seek it, for aught that I see you busied withal; unless it be with purchasing lands for your heirs, and fine fingered ladies, whose womanlike behaviour and motherlike housewifery ought to be a light to all women that dwell about you, but is so far otherwise that, unless ye leave them lands to marry them withal, no man will set a pin by them when you be gone. Well, look to this gear betimes, lest perhaps it breed a scab among you. I would not your wives should be taken from you, but I would you should keep them to the furtherance of God’s truth whereof ye profess to be teachers. Let your wives therefore put off their fine frocks and French hoods, and furnish themselves with all points of honest housewifery, and so let them be an help to your study and not a let. S.Paul teacheth you not to make them ladies or gentlewomen. Neither doth he teach you to be so greedy upon livings that, for the living’s sake, ye will take upon you the duties of twenty men, and yet do not the duty of one; no, some of you be not able to do any part of one duty! If God’s word do allow it that one of you should be a dean in one place, a canon in another, a parson here and a parson there, a master of a house in Oxford or Cambridge and an officer in the king’s house, and yet to do none of the duties hereof thoroughly; then set your pens to the paper, and satisfy us by God’s Word, and we will also help you to our power to satisfy the consciences of them that be offended at your doings herein. If you cannot do so, then give over your pluralities and

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make your insatiable desires give place to God’s truth. Content yourselves with one competent living, and fail not to be diligent in doing the duty thereof. But if ye will do neither of both, trust to it ye shall hear more of it! Your checking of one or two in a corner can not stop every man’s mouth in a matter of truth, being so great an infamy to the Gospel of God which ye profess. And if ye will needs hold still your pluralities for your lordlike living sake, doubt ye not ye will be charged with that which ye would seem to be clear of. For a great number of your unworthy curates have been the stirrers up of the simple people in the late tumults that have been; whereas if you had not robbed them of that which they pay yearly to have a learned and godly teacher, they had been better instructed, as appeared by the quietness that was among them that had such shepherds. Well, brother, thou, I say, that art thus oppressed on the one side and destituted on the other, take mine advice with thee. Submit thyself wholly to the will of God. Do thy labour truly, call upon God continually. I mean not that thou shouldest be ever muttering on thy beads, or that thou shouldest have any beads, but my meaning is that thou shouldest ever have thine heart lifted up unto God; for so meaneth Saint Paul when he saith, “I would men should pray always and in all places, lifting up their pure hands, &c.” And in all thy doings let thy desire be that God’s will be ful-filled in thee, and whatsoever God sendeth thee, hold thee content withal, and render unto him most hearty thanks for that he dealeth so mercifully with thee; acknowledging that by his justice he might pour out upon thee more plagues than ever were heard of. And when thou comest to thy parish church, if thy curate be an evil liver, then remember what Christ said unto his disciples:—“When the Scribes and Pharisees do set them down upon Moses’ seat, then do all that they command you to do, but do not as they do; for they say and do not.” Remember this, I say, and whatsoever thy curate biddeth thee do when he sitteth on Christ’s seat, that is, when he readeth the Bible unto thee, that do thou. But follow not his example! Do not as thou seest him do; but at thy first entrance into the church lift up thine heart unto God, and desire of him that he will give thee his Holy Spirit to illumine and lighten the eyes of thine heart, that thou mayest see and perceive the true meaning of all the Scriptures that thou shalt hear read unto thee that day. And so shalt thou be sure that though thy curate were a devil and would not that any man should be the better for that which he readeth, yet thou shalt be edified and learn as much as shall be necessary for thy salvation. And for thy sake God shall make thy curate (that otherwise would mumble in the mouth and drown his words) to speak out plainly, or else he shall give thee such a gift that thou shalt understand him plainly. Of such power is God, for when the Apostles spake in the Hebrew tongue only, all that were present heard every man his own language. Doubt thou not, therefore, but if thou be desirous to learn thy duty out of that thy curate readeth to thee, God will make it plain unto thee though it be not plainly read. For he that could make the Hebrew tongue (which soundeth far otherwise than other tongues do) sound all manner of languages to every man his own language, can also make thine own language sound plain unto thee, though it were not spoken any thing plain. Thus seest thou that the cause of Sedition is not where thou layest it, for I have

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declared to thee that thine own sin is the cause that thou art seditious. For Sedition is poured upon thee to plague thy former sin withal. Because thou knewest God by his creatures, and yet didst not honour him as God, he hath given thee over into a reprobate sense to do the thing that is unseemly, even to stand up against God and God’s ordinance, as I have said before! Now if I should demand of the greedy cormorants what they think should be the cause of Sedition, they would say:—“The peasant knaves be too wealthy, provender pricketh them! They know not themselves, they know no obedience, they regard no laws, they would have no gentlemen, they would have all men like themselves, they would have all things common! They would not have us masters of that which is our own! They will appoint us what rent we shall take for our grounds! We must not make the best of our own! These are jolly fellows! They will cast down our parks, and lay our pastures open! They will have the law in their own hands! They will play the king! They will compel the king to grant their requests! But as they like their fare at the breakfast they had this last summer, so let them do again.1 They have been meetly well cooled, and shall be yet better cooled if they quiet not themselves. We will teach them to know their betters. And because they would have all common we will leave them nothing. And if they once stir again, or do but once cluster together, we will hang them at their own doors! Shall we suffer the villains to disprove our doings? No, we will be lords of our own, and use it as we shall think good!” Oh good masters, what should I call you? You that have no name, you that have so many occupations and trades that there is no one name meet for you! You ungentle gentlemen! You churl’s chickens, I say! Give me leave to make answer for the poor idiots over whom ye triumph in this sort. And this one thing I shall desire of you that ye report me not to be one that favoureth their evil doings (for I take God to witness I hate both their evil doings and yours also), but give me leave to tell you as freely of your faults, as I have already told them of theirs. And forasmuch as you be strong and they weak, I shall desire you to bear with me though I be more earnest in rebuking your faults than I was in rebuking theirs. True it is, the poor men (whom ye call peasant knaves) have deserved more than you can devise to lay upon them. And if every one of them were able and should sustain as much punishment as they all were able to sustain, yet could they not sustain the plagues that they have deserved. But yet if their offence were laid in an equal balance with yours (as no doubt they are in the sight of God) doubt not but you should soon be ashamed of your part. For what can you lay unto their charge, but they have had examples of the same in you? If you charge them with disobedience, you were first disobedient. For without a law to bear you, yea contrary to the law which forbiddeth all manner of oppression and extortion, and that more is contrary to conscience, the ground of all good laws, ye enclosed from the poor their due commons, levied greater fines than heretofore have been levied, put them from the liberties (and in a manner inheritance) that they held by custom, and raised their rents. Yea, when there was a law 1 A reference to the rising of the summer 1549, when the rebels in the West of England and East Anglia were dealt with severely.

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ratified to the contrary, you ceased not to find means either to compel your tenants to consent to your desire in enclosing, or else ye found such mastership that no man durst gainsay your doings for fear of displeasure. And what obedience shewed you, when the king’s proclamations were sent forth, and commissions directed for the laying open of your enclosures, and yet you left not off to enclose still? Yea, what obedience was this which ye shewed at such time as the king’s most honourable council, perceiving the grudging that was among the people, sent forth the second proclamation concerning your negligence, or rather contempt, in not laying open that which contrary to the good statutes made in Parliament you had enclosed? It appeareth by your doings that there was in you neither obedience to your prince and his laws, nor love to your country. For if there had been obedience in you, you would forthwith have put all his laws in execution to the uttermost of your power. And if you had loved your country, would you not have prevented the great destruction that chanced by the reason of your insatiable desire? I am sure you be not rulers in your country, but ye can see before what is likely to follow upon such oppression, and especially in a realm that hath heretofore had a noble and a valiant commonalty. But grant ye were so beastish, yet have you not lacked them that have told you of it both by words and writings. You have been told of it I say, and have had the threatenings of God laid plainly before your eyes, wherein you must needs see the vengeance of God hanging over your heads for your lack of mercy. There is not one story of the Bible that serveth to declare how ready God is to take vengeance for the oppression of his people, but the same hath been declared unto you to the uttermost; beside the notable histories and chronicles of this realm, wherein doth most plainly appear the justice of God in the revenging of his people at such time as they have kept themselves in quiet obedience to their prince and rulers, and their destruction when they have rebelled. Wittingly and willingly, therefore, ye have both disobeyed your king and his laws, and also brought your country into the misery it is in, by pulling upon yourselves that vengeance of God which of his justice he cannot hold back from such people as do willingly and wittingly oppress him in his members in such sort as ye have done. How you have obeyed the laws in raking together of farms, purchasing and prowling for benefices, robbing the people of good ministers thereby, all the world seeth, and all godly hearts lament. Look at the statutes made in the time of our late sovereign of famous memory Henry the VIII, and say, if ye may, by those statutes (taken in their true meaning) either being no priests nor students in the Universities, have benefices, or other spiritual promotions (as you call them, for ye are ashamed to call them ministrations because ye neither will nor can minister) or being priests have pluralities of such ministrations. Well, I will burden you no more with your faults, lest perhaps you cannot well bear them. But this I shall say unto you:—You shall never the sooner be gentlemen for your stout oppression, nor the later have things in private for that ye let your tenants live by you upon their labour. And think not to prosper the better in your insatiable desire, for that you triumph so lordlike over the poor caitiffs that, being seduced by the vain hope of victory, promised them in pious prophecies, have greatly offended God by rebellion: for the greater their offence is the greater shall your plague be when it cometh. For you have been the only cause of

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their offence. If he, therefore, that is the occasion of one man’s falling unto any kind of vice were better have a millstone tied about his neck and be cast into the deep sea withal, what shall be thought of you that have been the occasion of so many men falling into so detestable sin and trespass against God, as to disturb the whole estate of their country with the great peril and danger of their anointed king in his tender age, whose blood (if he had perished) should have been required at your hands, as the blood of all them that have perished shall? Oh merciful God, were it not that God’s mercy is more than your sins can be, there were no way but to despair of forgiveness! But God is not only mighty in mercy and able to forgive all the sins of the whole world, but he is also ready to forgive all that return from their wicked ways, and with a constant faith and sure belief to obtain, do call on him for mercy. I advertise you, therefore, and in the name of Christ (whose name you bear) I require you that without delay ye return to your hearts and acknowledge your grievous and manifold offences, committed in your behaviour towards the poor members of Christ (your brethren both by religion and nation) whom you have so cruelly oppressed, and wish even from the bottom of your hearts that you had never done it. Be fully determined to make restitution of that ye have miss-taken, though ye should leave yourselves nothing. For better is a clear conscience in the hour of death in a beggar’s bosom than mountains of gold with a conscience that is guilty. Wish that you had contented yourselves with that state wherein your fathers left you, and strive not to set your children above the same, lest God take vengeance on you both suddenly when ye be most hasty to climb. And if for your worthiness God have called you to office so that ye may with good conscience take upon you the state that ye be called unto, then see you deal justly in all points, and follow not filthy lucre to make your children lords, but study to furnish them with all knowledge and godly manners that they may worthily succeed you. Grudge not to see the people grow in wealth under you, neither do you invent ways to keep them bare, lest haply it chance unto you as it did to king Nebuchadnezzar1 and his servants when they devised ways to keep the Hebrews in slavery still. They rebelled not, but quietly did their labour, referring their cause to God. They prepared not for wars, neither had any confidence in their own strength, but when the Egyptians thought to have had a fair day at them, God drowned them all in the Red Sea, and drove their dead bodies on land in such sort that they, whom they thought to keep still in slavery, might easily take the spoil of them. Think not, therefore, but if the people quiet themselves in their oppression, and call unto God for deliverance he will by one means or other give them the spoil of their oppressors. He is as mighty now as he was in those days, and is now as able to slay both you and yours in one night as he was to slay all the firstborn of the Egyptians. And then who shall have the spoil? Be warned betimes, lest ye repent too late! Leave off your greedy desire to pull away the living from the clergy, and seek diligently to set such ministers in the church as be able and will instruct the people in all points of their duty, that you with them and they with you may escape the wrath of God that hangeth presently over you both. The king and citizens of Nineveh 1

Pharaoh.

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were not ashamed to sit in sackcloth and in ashes lamenting their sins, and thereupon found mercy. Wherefore, if ye will find mercy, ye must not be ashamed to do the like, for certainly the greatness of your sins importeth as present destruction to you as if ye were the same Ninevites that Jonas was sent unto. Be not ashamed, therefore, to proclaim a solemn fast throughout the whole realm, that all at once with one voice we may cry unto God for mercy. Leave offyour communions in a corner and come to the open temples, that men may see that ye regard the Lord’s institution. Break your bread to the poor, that all men may see that ye regard fasting. For that is the true fast, to refrain the meat and drink that accustomably we were wont to take, and give the same (or the value thereof) to the needy. So shall you both feel and know their disease, and ease it also. Trust not to your great number of valiant warriors, neither to your mighty provisions, but remember what befell to Holofernes the stout captain of king Nebuchadnezzar, when he would not hearken to the right advice of Achior, his undercaptain. For certainly I say unto you God was never more ready to deliver his people of Israel from oppression at all times when they, walking in his ways, committed their cause unto him, than he is now ready to deliver all Christian men that do with like confidence call upon him. If you, therefore, will not hearken unto Achior his counsel, but determine to torment him when ye shall triumph over the rest, doubt you not but Judith shall cut off all your heads one after another, and God shall strike your retinue with such a fear that none shall be so bold as once to turn his face. Yea, if there were no men left alive to put them in fear, they should be feared with shadows! And though there were no guns to shoot at them, yet the stones of the street should not cease to fly among them, by the mighty power of God, who will rather make of every grass in the field a man than such as trust in him should be overrun or kept in oppression. Be warned, therefore, and seek not to keep the commons of England in slavery, for that is the next way to destroy yourselves! For if they commit their cause to God and quiet themselves in their vocation, being contented with oppression, if God’s will be so, then shall ye be sure that God will fight for them, and so are ye overmatched. But if they will needs take in hand to revenge their own wrong, God will fight against you both, so that you both, consuming one the other, shall shortly be made a prey to them that ye doubt least of all the world. As you tender your own wealth, therefore, and the public wealth of this noble realm of England, which God hath enriched with so many and so great commodities, and as you desire to use and enjoy the same, and not to be led away captive into a strange nation, or else be cruelly murdered among your wives, kinsfolk, and children, and finally to be damned for ever; so look upon these causes of Sedition, and do your best endeavour to put them away. You that be oppressed, I say, refer your cause to God. And you that have oppressed, lament your so doing and do the office of your calling, in defending the innocent and feeding the needy, Let not covetousness contsrain you to rob the people of that portion which they pay to have godly ministers to instruct them in their duty, and to relieve the unwieldy that be not able to labour for their food. Be careful and diligent to seek for such ministers, and, when you have found them, let

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them have all that the people pay yearly out of their increase, that they may live thereon and minister unto the poor out of the same. Thus doing, ye shall not only escape the vengeance that hangeth presently over you but also be rewarded at God’s hand, both with exceeding plenty of all good things in this life, and also with life everlasting when nature shall end the same. Whereas, if ye will not take counsel but remain still in your wicked purpose, Pharaoh nor the Sodomites were never so hardened as you shall be, neither is the remembrance of their destruction so terrible to us as the destruction of you shall be to others that shall come after. The spirit of God work in your hearts, that ye, being admonished of the sword that is coming, may by repentance of your sin escape the danger thereof. So be it.

(ii) An information and Peticion agaynst the oppressors of the pore Commons of this Realme This work is cast in the form of a petition to the Parliament of Edward VI. The theme is that no subject needed speedier attention than the oppressions inflicted by clergy and laity alike upon the poor commons of the realm. Crowley launches a fierce attack on the possessioners, leasemongers landlords, who, through their unreasonable fines and rack rents, are the cause of great misery. (Crowley, Works, 153–176)

To the most honourable Lords of the Parliament with the commons of the same: their most humble and daily orator, Robert Crowley, wisheth the assistance of God’s Holy Spirit. Among the manifold and most weighty matters (most worthy counsellors) to be debated and communed of in this present Parliament,1 and by the advice, assent, and consent thereof speedily to be redressed, I think there is no one thing more needful to be spoken of than the great oppression of the poor commons by the possessioners, as well of Clergy as of the Laity. No doubt it is needful, and there ought to be a speedy redress of many matters of religion, as are these:—The use of the sacraments and ceremonies; the usurping of tenths to private commodity; the superfluous, unlearned, indiscreet, and vicious ministers of the church, and their superstitious and idolatrous administrations. Of these things, I say, ought there to be a speedy reformation. For they are now most like hastily to bring upon this noble realm the inevitable vengeance of God if they be not shortly reformed; forasmuch as it hath pleased the almighty and living God to open unto us those abominations, which have heretofore been kept secret and hid from us. These things, I say, are yet far out of joint, and had great need to be reformed. For notwithstanding the king’s majesty’s late visitation, the ignorant people, who have long been fostered and brought up in the superstition and wrong belief of these things, and are yet, no doubt, secretly instructed by their blind guides and by them holden still in blindness, will not be persuaded that their forefathers’ superstition was not the true faith of Christ, till such time as they have continuing among them such preachers as shall be able, and will, by the manifest Scriptures, prove unto them that both they and their fathers were deceived and knew not how to worship God aright; but shamefully seduced by the covetousness of the shepherds and guides, sought him where he was not; and when they thought they had been most high in his favour, by doing him such honour 1

Probably the Parliament which met in January 1549.

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as they thought most acceptable in his sight, then committed they most detestable blasphemy, and were abominable before him. This knowledge, I say, will not be beaten into the heads of the ignorant, so long as their shepherds be but hirelings and follow livings, for such minister not to the congregation but to their own bellies. They are not shepherds but butchers. They come not to feed, but to be fed. And doubtless, (most Christian counsellors) I think it not possible to amend this great enormity, otherwise than by reducing the order of choosing of the ministers unto the order that was in the primitive church, whereof is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. For so long as idle bellies may come to the bishop and be smeared for money, God shall say to them by his Prophet, “You did run but I sent you not.” They shall be called feeders of feeding themselves, and not of feeding the flock. They shall study to please men and not to please God. In fine, they shall differ nothing from the craftsmen which apply an occupation to get their living upon, and not to the intent to profit the common weal. The craftsman sueth for the freedom of a city, not because he intendeth to be a maintainer of the city, but because he hopeth that he shall live so much the more wealthily himself. And even for like causes do our ministers, and are like still to do (so long as they may be received when they come uncalled) apply themselves to priesting, because they like well the idleness of the life. I doubt not but the king’s majesty’s visitors know more of this matter than I can be able to write. And by them, I doubt not, you shall be moved to commune of this matter at the full. The sacraments they still abuse, using them as matters of merchandise, and chiefly the most worthy memory of our redemption; for that they sell both to the quick and to the dead, to the rich and to the poor. None shall receive it at their hands without he will pay the ordinary shot, and so are they ready to serve every man. They look upon the money only and nothing upon the mind. Whether it be taken to comfort of conscience or judgment, they pass not; they tell the money, they look for no more. If they will deny this to be true, let them say why they suffer the poor to beg money to pay for their housel, as they call it? Perchance they will answer that the money is not paid for the sacrament, but for the four offering days? Then ask I this question:— Why they appoint not another time to receive it in than that time which is too little to be occupied in declaring to the people the right use and profit of the sacraments, and to instruct them, so that they do not receive it to their judgment, but to their comfort and quietness of conscience, for which purpose it was first instituted? Undoubtedly (most Christian counsellors) they cannot deny but that they appoint to receive it then because they will be sure of it. Their doings will declare it though they would deny it, for none may receive the sacraments unless he do first pay the money. And then, with how little reverence it is ministered and received every Christian heart seeth and lamenteth. These things (I doubt not) are so evident and plain unto you that it needeth not to trouble you with many words concerning the abuses thereof. Many godly-minded men have both written and preached, and do daily write and preach, of and against those

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abuses; wherefore I am certain that you have just occasion and can do no less but seek a further redress hereof (which all Christian hearts do desire) in this present parliament. But as for the oppression of the poor, which is no less needful to be communed of and reformed than the other, I fear me will be passed over with silence, or if it be communed of, I can scarcely trust that any reformation can be had; unless God do now work in the hearts of the possessioners of this realm, as he did in the primitive church, when the possessioners were contented and very willing to sell their possessions and give the price thereof to be common to all the faithful believers. Take me not here that I should go about by these words to persuade men to make all things common; for if you do, you mistake me. For I take God to witness I mean no such thing. But with all mine heart I would wish that no man were suffered to eat but such as would labour in their vocation and calling according to the rule that Paul gave to the Thessalonians. But yet I would wish that the possessioners would consider who gave them their possessions, and how they ought to bestow them. And then (I doubt not) it should not need to have all things made common. For what needeth it the servants of the household to desire to have their master’s goods common, so long as the steward ministereth unto every man the thing that is needful for him? If the possessioners would consider themselves to be but stewards and not lords over their possessions this oppression would soon be redressed. But so long as this persuasion sticketh in their minds,—“It is mine own; who shall warn me to do with mine own as myself listeth?”—it shall not be possible to have any redress at all. For if I may do with mine own as me listeth, then may I suffer my brother, his wife, and his children to lie in the street, except he will give me more rent for mine house than ever he shall be able to pay. Then may I take his goods for that he oweth me, and keep his body in prison, turning out his wife and children to perish, if God will not move some man’s heart to pity them, and yet keep my coffers full of gold and silver. If there were no God, then would I think it lawful for men to use their possessions as they list. Or if God would not require an accompt of us for the bestowing of them I would not greatly gainsay, though they took their pleasure of them whilst they lived here. But forasmuch as we have a God, and he hath declared unto us by the Scriptures that he hath made the possessioners but stewards of his riches, and that he will hold a straight accompt with them for the occupying and bestowing of them; I think no Christian ears can abide to hear that more than Turkish opinion. The philosophers who knew nothing of the bond of friendship which Christ our Master and Redeemer left among us, affirmed that among friends all things are common, meaning that friendship would not suffer one friend to hold from another the thing that he hath need of. And what shall we say? Are we not friends? Surely if we be not friends, we bear the name of Christ and be called Christians in vain. Yea, if we have not a more perfect friendship than that whereof the philosophers speak, we are but feigned Christians, we bear the name only and are nothing less in deed. For this is the token that Christ gave whereby we should be known to be of him:—“If we love one another as he loved us”. How he loved us is declared by the words of the Apostle, saying that

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Christ gave himself for us. According to this example ought our friendship to be such that we will not spare to spend our life for the wealth of our brothers. Not to fight in their quarrel (for Christ bade Peter put up the sword into his place) but to teach the truth boldly, without any fear of death, and not to suffer our brothers to be led in error, though present death should ensue for so doing. Some, perchance, will think that this friendship is to be understood only of the pastors and shepherds toward their flock; because Christ sayeth that a good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. Forsooth, if the pastors or shepherds only were the flock of Christ, then might this friendship right well be understood of them only. But for-asmuch as the lay and private persons are as well of the flock of Christ as the other, this friendship pertaineth unto them no less than to the other. And this causeth me (most worthy counsellors) not to fear the displeasure of men in this behalf; knowing for certainty that the greatest number of this assembly are not free from this oppression that I speak of, and that it is far unlike that a private person, by no means worthy to be called to such an assembly, should be favourably heard and accepted of them whom God hath called to be counsellors of a realm; and chiefly in a cause taxing and blaming the judges before whom it is pleaded. I might well conjecture with myself that I should in this point be counted a busy body, and one that runneth before he is sent. But I am ready to suffer not only all such report, but even the very death also (if it shall please the almighty and everliving God to lay it upon me) for your sakes, most worthy counsellors, and the residue, my natural brothers of this noble realm. And here I protest unto you all that the same spirit that sent Jonas to the Ninevites, Daniel to the Babylonians, Nathan to King David, Achior unto Holofernes, Judith unto the Priests and Elders of the Jews, the prophet to Jeroboam in Bethel, John the Baptist unto Herod, and Christ unto the Jews, witnesseth with my conscience that I ran not unsent. For even the same spirit that said unto Isaiah, “Cry and cease not declare unto my people their wickedness;” crieth also in my conscience, bidding me not spare to tell the possessioners of this realm that unless they repent the oppression wherewith they vex the poor commons, and shew themselves, through love, to be brothers of one father and members of one body with them, they shall not at the last day inherit with them the kingdom of Christ, the eldest son of God the Father, which hath by his Word begotten him many brothers and coinheritors in his kingdom. Unless, I say, the possessioners of this realm will repent the violence done to the poor and needy members of the same, and become as hands, ministering unto every member his necessaries, they shall, at the day of their accompt, be bound hand and foot and cast into utter darkness, where shall be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth; that is, dolour and pain, the greatness whereof cannot be expressed with tongue nor thought with heart. And this much more saith the Spirit. Unless ye purge yourselves of this blood, and stop the mouths of the poor that the voice of their complaint come not unto mine ears, I will not prosper your counsels in the reformations of those abominations which I shewed unto you, but will leave you to the spirit of error, the prince of this world, whose darlings ye are so long as ye seek not the wealth of the needy, but your own private commodity. These things hath the Spirit of God spoken. Heaven and earth shall perish, but the

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words of the Spirit shall not perish, but be fulfilled. Now hearken, you possessioners, and you rich men lift up your ears; ye stewards of the Lord, mark what complaints are laid against you in the high court of the living God. “Lord” (saith the Prophet) “hast thou forsaken us? Dost thou hide thyself in the time of our trouble? Whilst the wicked wax proud the poor man is afflicted and troubled. Would to God the wicked might feel the same things that they invent for other. For the sinner praiseth himself in the desires of his soul, and he extolleth and setteth forth the covetous man. He provoketh the Lord and is so proud that he will not seek him. He never thinketh upon God. His ways be defiled at all times. He looketh not upon thy judgments, Lord, he will revenge him upon all his enemies. “He thinketh thus with himself, I will not remove from one generation unto another without mischief. His mouth is full of malediction and evil report, fraud and deceit, and under his tongue is affliction and iniquity. “He lieth in wait with the rich men of the villages or granges, in secret corners, to the intent to slay the innocent. His eyes are fixed upon the poor; he lieth await even as a lion in his den. He lieth await to take the poor man by force, and when he hath gotten him within his reach, then will he take him violently. In his net will he over-throw the poor, and through his strength shall the multitude of the oppressed be over-charged and fall. For in his heart he saith, God hath forgotten, God turneth away his face, and will never regard the oppression of the poor,” etc., to the end of the same Psalm. What sentence (think you) will the Lord give upon this evidence? No doubt (most worthy counsellors) even the same that we read in Isaiah the Prophet :—“I looked for judgment and righteous dealing amongst my people, and behold there is iniquity, I looked also for justice, and behold there is an outcry. Woe be unto you therefore that do join house unto house and couple one field to another, so long as there is any ground to be had. Think you that you shall dwell upon the earth alone? The Lord of hosts (saith the Prophet) hath spoken these words unto me. Many large and goodly houses shall be desert and without inhabitants; ten acres of vines shall yield but one quart of wine, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield but ten bushels again.” Behold, you engrossers of farms and tenements, behold, I say, the terrible threatenings of God, whose wrath you cannot escape. The voice of the poor (whom you have with money thrust out of house and home) is well accepted in the ears of the Lord, and hath stirred up his wrath against you. He threateneth you most horrible plagues. Ten acres of vines shall yield but one quart of wine, and thirty bushels of seed but ten bushels again. The seed of God’s Word sown in your hearts shall be barren and not bring forth fruit. For covetousness, the root of all evils, occupieth that ground so that the heavenly seed can by no means give increase. This is a plague, of all plagues most horrible. And doubt ye not, you lease-mongers, that take grounds by lease to the intent to let them out again for double and triple the rent, your part is in this plague. The Lord shall take his Spirit from you. He shall forbid the clouds of his mercy to rain upon you with the sweet dew of his grace. And you surveyors of lands, that often pound land can make twenty, you shall not be forgotten in the effusion of this plague. For when you have multiplied your rents to the highest, so that ye have made all

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your tenants your slaves to labour and toil and bring to you all that may be ploughed and dug out of your grounds, then shall death suddenly strike you, then shall God withdraw his comfortable grace from you, then shall your conscience prick you, then shall you think with desperate Cain that your sin is greater than that it may be forgiven. For your own conscience shall judge you worthy no mercy, because you have shewed no mercy. Yea, the same enemy that hath kindled and doth yet maintain in you this mischievous, outrageous, and insatiable covetousness, shall then be as busy to put you in mind of the words of Christ, saying, “the same measure that you have made unto other shall be now made unto you.” You have shewed no mercy, how can you then look for mercy? Oh noble counsellors, be merciful to yourselves. Destroy not your own souls to enrich your heirs. Enlarge not your earthly possessions with the loss of the eternal inheritance. Learn to know the estate that God hath called you unto, and to live according to your profession. Know that you are all ministers in the common weal, and that the portion which you are born unto, or that your prince giveth you, is your estate. Know that your office is to distribute and not to scrape together on heaps. God hath not set you to survey his lands, but to play the stewards in his household of this world, and to see that your poor fellow servants lack not their necessaries. Consider that you are but ministers and servants under the Lord our God, and that you shall render a straight accompt of your administration. Stand not too much in your own conceit, glorying in the worthiness of your blood; for we are all one man’s children, and have (by nature) like right to the riches and treasures of this world, whereof our natural father Adam was made Lord and King. Which of you can lay for himself any natural cause why he should possess the treasure of this world, but that the same cause may be found in him also whom you make your slave? By nature (therefore) you can claim nothing but that which you shall get with the sweat of your faces. That you are lords and governors therefore, cometh not by nature but by the ordinance and appointment of God. Know then that he hath not called you to the wealth and glory of this world, but hath charged you with the great and rede1 multitude. And if any of them perish through your default, know then for certainty that the blood of them shall be required at your hands. If the impotent creatures perish for lack of necessaries, you are the murderers, for you have their inheritance and do minister unto them. If the sturdy fall to stealing, robbing, and ravening, then are you the causers thereof, for you dig in, enclose, and withold from them the earth out of the which they should dig and plough their living. For as the Psalmist writeth:—“All the heaven is the Lords; but as for the earth he hath given to the children of men”. The whole earth therefore (by birth right) belongeth to the children of men. They are all inheritors thereof indifferently by nature. But because the sturdy should not oppress the weak and impotent, God hath appointed you stewards to give meat unto his household in due season. And if you be found faithful in this little, then know that he will prefer you to much greater things. 1

?scattered.

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But if ye be found oppressing your fellow servants, then know for certainty that the Lord your Master shall at his coming reward you with many stripes. Call to your remembrance the history of King Nebuchadnezzar, who, for his presumption became as a brute beast, feeding upon grass and hay as other beasts did. Consider Pharaoh with his great army, whom the Lord overwhelmed in the Red Sea for oppressing and persecuting his people. Yea, consider all the nobility that have possessed the earth even from the beginning; and then say how you be their successors, and by what title you may claim that which was theirs. Many hundred years since the noble Romans held all Europa and part of Africa and Asia in quiet possession; and where are they that succeed them in their empire? The brutish Goths invaded and vanquished the empire of Rome; and where are their successors? What should I stand in the rehearsal of the great possessioners that have heretofore possessed the earth, whose lineal descent cannot be found? It shall suffice me to remit you to the words of the Lord unto Nebuchadnezzar, which are written in the book of Daniel the Prophet. There shall you learn that it is God that giveth the empire to whom it pleaseth him, and that all power is from above, according to the answer that our saviour Christ made unto Pilate, when he bragged him with the power that he had to crucify him and to deliver him. “Thou shouldest,” said our Saviour “have no power over me at all were it not given thee from above.” Thus is it evident unto you (most worthy counsellors) that your power and estate cometh from above; and that by nature you can claim nothing of the possessions of this world more than that which you get with the sweat of your faces. I doubt not, therefore, but that your consciences do condescend and agree unto that which I have spoken concerning your office and ministry; knowing that God hath appointed you to minister necessaries to the impotent, and to defend the innocent. Do not, therefore, neglect this principal point of your duty, to seek in this parliament a redress of this great oppression wherewith the poor members of this noble realm are most unmercifully vexed on every side. The landlords for their parts, survey and make the uttermost penny of all their grounds, besides the unreasonable fines and incomes, and he that will not or can not give all that they demand shall not enter, be he never so honest, or stand he never so great need. Yea, though he have been an honest, true, faithful and quiet tenant many years, yet at the vacation of his copy, or indenture, he must pay almost as much as would purchase so much ground, or else void in haste, though he, his wife, and children should perish for lack of harbour. What a sea of mischiefs hath flowed out of this more than Turkish tyranny! What honest householders have been made followers of other not so honest men’s tables! What honest matrons have been brought to the needy rock and cards! What menchildren of good hope in the liberal sciences, and other honest qualities (whereof this realm hath great lack) have been compelled to fall, some to handicrafts, and some to

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day labour, to sustain their parents’ decrepit age and miserable poverty! What forward and stubborn children have hereby shaken off the yoke of godly chastisement, running headlong into all kinds of wickedness, and finally garnished gallow trees! What modest, chaste, and womanly virgins have, for lack of dowry, been compelled either to pass over the days of their youth in ungrate servitude, or else to marry to perpetual miserable poverty! What immodest and wanton girls have hereby been made sisters of the Bank (the stumbling stock of all frail youth) and finally, most miserable creatures, lying and dying in the streets full of all plagues and penury! What universal destruction chanceth to this noble realm by this outrageous and insatiable desire of the surveyors of lands! I report me to you (most Christian counsellors) which are here assembled from all parts of this noble realm to consult for the wealth of all the members of the same. On the other side there be certain tenants not able to be landlords, and yet, after a sort, they counterfeit landlords by obtaining leases in and upon grounds and tenements, and so raise fines, incomes, and rents; and by such pillage pick out a portion to maintain a proud port, and all by pilling and polling of the poor commons, that must of necessity seek habitations at their hands. That this is true, I report me to my Lord the Mayor, and other the head officers of the City of London, who (if they be not ignorant of the state of the City) can witness with me that the most part, yea, I think nine of the ten parts of the houses in London be set and let by them that have them by lease and not by the owners. How they poll the poor tenants would soon be tried if their leases were conferred with their rent-rolls. It is not to be thought contrary but that the great leasemongers have great gains by their leases, and the little ones, that hold but a piece of housing of twenty or thirty shillings by year, can find the means to hold and dwell upon the chief part thereof rent free, by letting out the residue for the whole yearly rent. I think not contrary, but these things do appear in the sight of many to be but very trifles, and not worthy to be spoken of in so noble an assembly as this most honourable Parliament. For they are no matters concerning the wealth of the nobility; yea, it is rather hindrance to many of them to have these things redressed than any increase of their wealth. Yea, even you (most Christian counsellors) which are here assembled to debate the weighty matters of this realm are not all so free from this kind of oppression but that you could be well contented to wink at it. And therefore, forasmuch as the in-ordinate love of men toward themselves is such that either they cannot see their own faults, or else if they do see them or be told of them, they take them not to be so great as they are indeed; I think it no marvel, though such of you (most worthy counsellors) as have any profit by this oppression do within themselves deride and laugh to scorn my foolhardiness and rash enterprise herein, knowing that it is not the use of them that be assembled to the intent to establish such things as shall be for the wealth of a whole realm to condescend and agree to those things which shall be unprofitable unto the chief members of the same. Truth it is (most worthy counsellors) I might well and worthily be laughed at if I

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would attempt any such thing. But the thing that hitherto I have spoken of is not to the disprofit of any, but to the great commodity and profit of all the whole realm. For what discommodity is it to the head, shoulders, the arms, and other the upper members of the body, being already sufficiently clothed, to put on the legs and feet a pair of hose and shoes to defend them also from the injuries of the weather, and other hurts that might chance unto them in their travelling to carry the body from place to place, for his commodity and pleasure? Verily, in mine opinion, that body is far unworthy to have either legs or feet that will let them go bare, having wherewith to cover them. Even so you, being the chief members of this noble realm, and having in your hands the wonderful and incomparable riches of the same, what should it grieve you to depart with some portion thereof, that the inferior members thereof may at all times be able to do their ministry and office accordingly. Once remember, that as the body without the inferior parts is but lame and as a block unwieldy, and must, if it will remove from place to place, creep upon the hands; even so you, if ye had not the poor members of this realm to till the ground and do your other drudgery, no remedy, you must needs do it yourselves. Use them therefore as the necessary members of the mystical body of this most noble realm, and be not in this point more unnatural than the heathen philosophers were. They in their writings declare no less than I have here written. This ought not a little to move you, being Christians (whose Redeemer, Jesu Christ, sitteth at the right hand of God his Father) to study, not only to be equal with, but to pass the heathen and unchristian in this matter, even as far as the excellence of the name and religion which we profess passeth theirs. Remember (most Christian counsellors) that you are not only naturally members of one body with the poor creatures of this realm, but also by religion you are members of the same mystical body of Christ, who is the head of us all (his members), and esteemeth all that is done to the least of us his members as done to himself. For he saith:— “Whatsoever ye do to one of the least of these little ones that believe in me, ye do it unto me.” If you, therefore, neither will yourselves oppress our Saviour Christ in his members, nor suffer other to do it, fail not to find a redress of this great oppression which I have declared to the same end. And then I doubt not but God shall so work with you that every man shall willingly embrace a reformation of all matters of religion. For the Spirit of God shall dwell in you and in us all, and Christ himself (as he hath promised) shall be in the midst among you. Whereas, contrariwise, if you suffer our loving Saviour thus to be oppressed he will forsake you, he will leave you to the spirit of error. Your reformations shall take no place. All your devices shall be abominable in his sight, because ye have not purged your hands from the blood of this oppression. Let the decrees which were established in this place by a Parliament assembled for a like purpose be your precedent, not to follow, but to beware by them that ye establish not the like.

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The intent of that assembly was no less to reform the abuses of our religion than this is. But because Christ was not delivered from oppression he would not be among them. They were not congregated in his name, but rather against him and his doctrine, for he himself is dear love, and (as his Apostle John writeth) where this dear love is not, there is not he. This thing is well proved by their proceedings in the same Parliament. For they established Articles1 even directly against God’s word forbidding to marry, and commanding to put asunder those that God hath joined together. If you will call these Articles into question again (as indeed you have just occasion to do) I doubt not but you shall be fully persuaded that they proceeded of the spirit of error, and not of the Spirit of God; because the charity of God was not among them in that assembly. Other things there be whereby the poor members of Christ in this noble realm are oppressed; whereof I have made no mention, partly because I am loth to offend with the multitude of my rude words and partly for that I know you cannot seek for a redress of these things whereof I have spoken. But the other will offer themselves unto you, I mean the great extortion and usury that reigneth freely in this realm, and seem to be authorised by Parliament within these three years last past. The clergy of the City of London have, for their part, obtained by Parliament authority to over tenths even after the example of the landlords and leasemongers, and may, by the virtue of the act, require for double rents double tenths. If the rent of any kind of housing or ground within the City of London be raised (as there is indeed very much) from ten shillings to twenty shillings then may the parson (who had before but sixteen pence ha’penny) by the virtue of this act demand two shillings and ninepence, the double. Besides this, the exactions that they take of the poor commons is too much beyond all reason and conscience. No couple can be married but these men must have a duty, as they call it. No woman may be purified but they and their idle ministers must have some duties of her. None can be buried but they will have a slice. Not three months before the beginning of this present Parliament I had just occasion to be at the payment of this duty for the burying of an honest poor man, whose friends were willing to have his body reverently laid in the ground; and, according to the custom, gave warning to the curate that they would bring the dead body to the church desiring him that he would do his duty, and to be there to receive it, and according to the custom to lay it in the ground. But this raven, smelling the carrion, could not but reveal it to the other carrion birds of the, same church, and so would needs come all together in a flock to fetch their prey, with cross and holy water as they were wont to do, notwithstanding the King’s Injunctions and late visitation. The friends of the dead man refused all this, and required to have no more but the common coffin to put the body in, agreeing to pay to the keeper thereof his accustomed duty, and in like manner to the grave maker, and the four poor men to carry the body, so that the whole charges had been but seven pence. But when the corpse was buried, without either cross or holy water stick, Dirige, or Mass, with prayers of as small devotion as any poor curate could say, yet must we 1

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needs pay seven pence more. That is to say one penny to the curate, which he called an head penny, and sixpence to two clerks that we had no need of. This was done in Sepulchre’s parish in the City of London. And if it shall please any of this noble assembly to try the truth of this, I will verify it wheresoever I shall be called, even in the presence of all the idle ministers of the same church. This have I written (most worthy counsellors) to give you occasion to set such an order in this and such other things that either we may have ministers found upon the tenths that we pay yearly to the churches, or else that it may be lawful for us to do such ministries ourselves, and not to be thus constrained to feed a sort of carrion crows, which are never so merry as when we lament the loss of our friends. This much have I spoken of the extortion that reigneth freely in the clergy. Now, with your patience, I will, with like brevity, speak of the great and intolerable usury which at this day reigneth so freely this realm over all, and chiefly in the City of London, that it is taken for most lawful gains. Yea, it is almost heresy to reprove it, for men say it is allowed by Parliament. Well, the most part, I am sure, of this most godly assembly and Parliament do know that the occasion of the act that passed here concerning usury1 was the insatiable desire of the usurers, who could not be contented with usury unless it were unreasonably much. To restrain this greedy desire of theirs, therefore, it was communed and agreed upon, and by the authority of Parliament decreed, that none should take over ten pounds by year for the loan of a hundred pounds. Alas, that ever any Christian assembly should be so void of God’s Holy Spirit that they should allow for lawful anything that God’s Word forbiddeth. Be not abashed (most worthy counsellors) to call this act into question again. Scan the words of the Psalmist concerning this matter. “Lord”, saith he, “who shall enter into thy tabernacle, and who shall rest in thy holy mountain?” He answereth: “That entereth without spot and worketh right. That speaketh truth in his heart, and hath not deceived with his tongue; that hath done his neighbour no harm, nor accepted any reproach against his neighbour. He regardeth not the wicked, but them that fear the Lord he glorifieth and praiseth. He that sweareth to his neighbour and deceiveth him not. He that hath not given his money unto usury, and hath not taken gifts and rewards against the innocent.” If you (most Christian counsellors) do glory in the knowledge of God’s Spirit, who hath spoken these words by the Prophet, how can you suffer this act to stand which shall be a witness against you in the latter day that you allow that which God’s Spirit forbiddeth? If he that giveth not his money to usury shall dwell in the Lord’s tabernacle, where shall he dwell that giveth his money to usury? Shall he not be shut out, and cast into utter darkness? Their works be contrary, and why should not their reward be also contrary? If the one be received in, the other must be shut out. Yea, and you that have made this law, unless you do revoke it and establish an act to the contrary, the Bridegroom, the only Son of God, shall at the last day deny you, and say that he never knew you; “Depart from me,” shall he say, “all ye workers of iniquity”. Scan the words of the Prophet, therefore, and scan the words of our Saviour Christ also, in the six of 1

St. 37, Hen. VIII, c. 9.

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Luke, where he saith thus:—“Do you lend looking for no gains thereof, and your reward shall be plenteous, and you shall be sons of the Highest, because he is gentle and liberal toward the unthankful and wicked.” I am not ignorant what glosses have been made upon this place, and how men have wrested and made it no precept but a counsel of our Saviour; and therefore not to infer necessity to Christians, but to leave them at liberty either to do it or leave it undone. Oh merciful Lord, what manner of religion is it that these men profess? They boast themselves to be the disciples of Christ and setters forth of his glory. They will bear the name of him and be called Christians, and yet will be at liberty to choose whether they list to follow his counsel or leave it undone. Our shepherd Christ, of whose flock they boast themselves to be, saith that his sheep hear his voice and follow him. And immediately before he sheweth the cause why the Jews did not credit his words to be none other but that they were not his sheep. And doubt ye not (most worthy counsellors) whatsoever he is that will defend or teach that any one little iota of the counsels of Christ should be so vainly spoken that any of his flock might refuse to practise the same in his living to the uttermost of his power, is no less than a member of the Devil, and a very Antichrist. For he that desireth not in his heart to practise in his living all the counsels of Christ our Master and Teacher, shall be numbered among the obstinate Jews for none of the flock of Christ, because he heareth not his voice nor followeth him. Thus I make an end. Wishing unto you (most worthy counsellors) the same Spirit that in the primitive church gave unto the multitude of believers one heart, one mind, and to esteem nothing of this world as their own, ministering unto everyone according to his necessities; that you, led by the same Spirit may at the least way ordain such a law that the oppression of the poor reign not freely among them that bear the name of Christians. But if they will be still oppressing the poor members of Christ, after once or twice admonition let them no more be named Christians after Christ whom they serve not, but Mammonists after Mammon whose badge they bear. And this reformation had, no doubt the majesty of God shall so appear in all your decrees that none so wicked a creature shall be found so bold as once to open his mouth against the order that you shall take in all matters of religion. Yea, the very enemies of David shall do homage unto Solomon for his wisdom. All the kings christened shall learn at you to reform their churches. You shall be even the light of all the world. But, if you let these things pass and regard them not, be ye sure the Lord shall confound your wisdom. Invent, decree, establish, and authorise what you can; all shall come to nought. The ways that you shall invent to establish unity and concord shall be the occasions of discord. The things whereby you shall think to win praise through all the world shall turn to your utter shame; and the ways that you shall invent to establish a kingdom shall be the utter subversion of the same. The merciful Father of our Lord Jesus Christ endue you with his Spirit, that you be not partakers of these plagues. Amen.

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28. Criticism of society in the writings of Henry Brinkelowe (J.M.Cowper (ed.), The Complaynt of Roderyck Mors (E.E.T.S., 1874 pp 5–14:16– 18:37:48–53.) Henry Brinkelowe’s satires on social and religious topics appeared under the pseudonym of Roderigo Mors. They bring together most of the grievances and criticisms of early Tudor society voiced by the pamphleteers of the period. Written towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign Brinkelowe’s Complaynt has another significance. It reflects the disillusion which was beginning to haunt the reformers.

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merciful Father, Almighty God, and everlasting, being without end or beginning, without whom nothing is, by whom alone all things have their being, both in heaven and earth. To thee, in whom only is all aid, to thee only do I cry for aid, inasmuch as thou hast the hearts of all men in thy hands (yea, even of princes), that it will please thee, of thy infinite mercy and for thy Son’s sake, Iesus Christ our only Redeemer, to send thy Holy Spirit into the hearts of all the degrees of men in the Parliament house: that this my complaint may receive favour in the sight of them that sit in the Parliament, whereby things needful may be redressed to the glory of thy name, the commodity of the commonwealth, and to the better provision for the poor; which is the thing that I only seek, as to thee, Oh Lord, it is not unknown.

Inasmuch as there is no power but of God, and whensoever any persons be grieved, oppressed, or over yoked, they must resort unto the higher powers for remedy, which be ordained of God only for the same cause; and inasmuch as the Council of Parliament is the head Council of all realms, for, it being done with the consent of the King, what laws soever be made thereby, being not against the Word of God, we be bound to observe them. And though they be against God’s Word, yet may we not bodily resist them with any war, violence, or insurrection, under pain of damnation. But now, contrariwise, as we may not resist the power of a prince, even so may we not observe nor walk in his wicked laws, if he make any against God’s word, but rather to suffer death; so that we may neither observe them, nor yet violently resist them in that case. Well then, inasmuch as the Parliament is of such power and strength, although I be a man banished my native country, only by the cruelty of the forked caps of England for speaking God’s truth, yet, seeing so many cruel laws and heavy yokes upon the shoulders of the people of my native country (especially upon the commons), and again considering how little the poor be regarded and provided for, I can but reckon myself bound to open and disclose unto the said Council of Parliament part of the aforesaid yokes. The ever-living God grant that they may be as ready to see them redressed as their predecessors were to bring the people into such calamity by the making of them! For the which cause I have made this little work, to cause them to have instruction, that they may see a reformation whereunto they be bound; and for such causes be they called together of God, and for no particular or private wealth to themselves, nor yet to the King’s grace. THE FIRST CHAPTER It is a laudable thing, that in the beginning of any council or assembly, the name of God should be called upon, that he of his mercy will send his Spirit to sanctify the hearts of

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them which bear any authority or stroke in the Council or Parliament, that they agree to such statutes and acts as be to the setting forth of God’s glory, the sanctifying of his name, and augmentation of his kingdom. For when we call upon God for such things, we either acknowledge, or should acknowledge, that we have need of his help, and that we cannot, without his assistance, neither determine nor yet assent to the determination of anything that may please God: for if we could, what need we to call upon him for any help? And it is certain and infallible, that if we, knock, seek and cry diligently, with earnest and hearty petitions, with true humbleness of our hearts, and without dissimulation, we shall be heard. Therefore, I say, it is both laudable and necessary, that all councils be begun with prayer unto our merciful Father, and in our prayers to open unto him our necessities, and to call upon him for aid to rule our hearts wholly to seek his glory. But this must be done earnestly with hearty mourning unto him; not slenderly, not for a face and custom only, as hath been hitherto used, to have an unholy Mass of the Holy Ghost rolled up with descant, pricksong, and organs, whereby men’s hearts be ravished clean both from God, and from the cogitation of all such things as they ought to pray for. Whereas it were more convenient, that they were diligently exhorted and put in mind to consider and ponder, whereunto they be called, and what a reckoning God will require of them. And, forasmuch as the most part of the lords and burgesses take it rather for an honour than for an office, wherefore they shall answer; and for a dignity, rather than for any burden, to be counted of the Parliament or Council house; and never ponder nor consider before, what things in the realm be amiss to be reformed by them, it were more necessary, in the stead of the mumbled and minced Mass (whereby neither God is glorified, nor the hearers edified), that some honest, well learned man, such one as would neither flatter lords, burgesses, commons, nor King, but frankly and freely speak the verity, should be appointed to preach not only at the beginning of the Parliament, but at the least 3 times every week so long as the Parliament endureth; and to stand in the pulpit an hour at the least, and not above an hour and a half, and there to tell the lords and burgesses their duties, and to open unto them such abuses as are to be reformed in the realm. And let all the lords and burgesses be bound to be present at every sermon, or else to be excluded the Parliament house. If ye will seek such ways, then will the Holy Ghost lighten your council, or else never, for all your piping and singing. And keep both lords and burgesses all in one house together; for it is not the riches or authority that bringeth wisdom. And what should one house make one act, and another shall break and disannul the same? That way is not after the doctrine of the Gospel. But now let us go to other matters. THE SECOND CHAPTER Of enhancing of rents by landlords, etc. Consider you, what a wickedness is commonly used through the realm unpunished, in the inordinate enhancing of rents, and taking of unreasonable fines, and every day worse than other; and even of them specially to whom the King hath given and sold the lands of those imps of Antichrist, abbeys and nunneries; which lands being in their hands, but only for that they led us in a false faith (as their companions the bishops still

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do)—but for the faith’s sake, I say (for the which they were justly suppressed), it had been more profitable, no doubt, for the commonwealth, that they had remained still in their hands. For why? They never enhanced their lands, nor took so cruel fines as do our temporal tyrants. For they cannot be content to let them at the old price, but raise them up daily, even to the clouds, either in the rent or in the fine, or else both; so that the poor man that laboureth and toileth upon it, and is his slave, is not able to live. And further, if another rich covetous carl, which hath too much already, will give anything more than he that dwelleth upon it, out he must, be he never so poor; though he should become a beggar, and after a thief, and so at length be hanged, by his outgoing: so little is the law of love regarded, oh cruel tyrannies! Yea, it is now a common use of the landlords, for every trifle, even for his friends pleasure, in case his tenant have not a lease, he shall put him out of his farm; which thing is both against the law of nature and of charity also, he being an honest man, paying his rent, and other duties well and honestly. I think there be no such wicked laws nor customs in the universal world again. What a shame is this to the whole realm, that we say we have received the Gospel of Christ, and yet is it worse now in this matter than it was over fifty or 60 years, when we had but the Pope’s law, as wicked as it was, for then leases were not known. And now the letting and engrossing of them (leases I mean) is one great cause of the enhancing of rents; wherefore I pray God these leases may have a fall, and come to an end shortly. Look well upon this, ye Christian burgesses; for this enhancing of rents is not only against the commonwealth, but also, at length, shall be the chiefest decay of the principal commodity of this realm. For why? This inordinate enhancing of rents, which is sprung up within few years past, must needs make all things dear, as well pertaining to the back as to the belly, to the most great damage of all the King’s subjects, landed men only except. Yea, and even they themselves were more wealthier when their lands went at the old price. For why? They buy all things the dearer, and yet the commonwealth is robbed thereby notwithstanding; as the godly which seeketh his brother’s wealth as his own, will soon judge. Howbeit this matter is so far gone, that there is no remedy to the redress of it but one, and that is this:—If the King’s grace, of his goodness, will consider whereunto God, hath calleth him, and for what purpose. A King is anointed, to be a defence unto the people, that they be not oppressed nor over-yoked, but by all godly and politic means to seek the common wealth of his people; so if his grace will call down the price of his own lands as they went over fifty, yea forty years, and compel all other landed men to the same, upon pain of forfeiting his whole lands, one part of them to the King’s grace, another to be employed to the common wealth, and the third to the presenter that can justify the matter, a reformation may be had, to the singular ease and commodity of the commonwealth, and that many ways. For this being reformed, above all other acts shall bring the cloth of England to a continual vent, and all victuals to a reasonable price, that all cloths of other countries shall stay, whereas English cloth shall come in place, as in times past hath done, which things old merchants and all clothiers can tell. Some will object, and say it is a common wealth to bring the commodities of the realm to an high price; which I utterly deny to be a common wealth;

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for what maketh riddance or good sale so much, as when a commodity is at a price reasonable? As afore is said, when English cloths were sold at a price reasonable, then all other foreign cloth stayed till that was sold. But now is English cloth brought to so high a price, that the cloth of many countries is sold before English cloth. And that causeth merchants to keep their cloths long upon their hands, many times to their great damage. I will say further. In case this matter be not well looked upon, the sooner it will be a greater decay than is yet perceived. For cloth will be brought to so high a price, that they will mar all. Above all things beware of extremity; for that ever seeketh a mischief for a remedy. For what with the abundance of wool, that goeth out by licences and by the staple, foreign realms mixing it with their coarse wools, they make better cheap cloth than English merchants can sell; yea and better for the price. Whether it be a common wealth to bring cloth to so high a price or not, first demand of the honest farmer. But I speak not of the extortioner, engrosser, encloser, or great shepherd, but of the honest, poor farmer, whether he lived not better when he sold his wool at an indifferent and mean price, than he doth now, selling it for half as much more? And I warrant you, if he be none of those destroyers aforesaid, he will say yea. Then demand the clothier, if he lived not better when he sold his cloths for a reasonable price the pack, and his kerseys for 22 or 23 pounds the pack, than he doth now, selling them for 30 pounds the pack? And except it be a few, which be inordinately rich, and eat out their neighbours, they will also say yea; and that they gained more in one pack than they do now in three. And as for the poor spinner and carder, though they have a little more for their pains, they pay double so much for all things that go both to back and belly, and scant can get a house to put in their heads; or, at least, not able to furnish it for their very necessaries. And thus everyone eateth out another. And the only cause of all these is the inordinate raising of rents. It is unreasonable to see how much they be enhanced in manner throughout the realm; except it be a few such, whereof the leases were given out over 20 or 30 years. And the chief cause of all this be even the landlords; for, as he increaseth his rent, so must the farmer the price of his wool, cattle, and all victuals, and likewise the merchant of his cloth; for else they could not maintain their living. And thus I say, the lords be the only cause of all the dearth in the realm. God grant, that the King’s grace look well upon this matter himself! for it is hard to have it redressed by Parliament, because it pricketh them chiefly which be chosen to be burgesses for the most part, except they would choose their burgesses only for their virtuous living, discretion, honest behaviour, and other godly qualities, be he never so poor; such as would his neighbour should live as himself. And would to God they would leave their old accustomed choosing of burgesses! for whom do they choose, but such as be rich, or bear some office in the country, etc., many times such as be boasters and braggers! Such have they ever hitherto chosen; be he never so very a fool, drunkard, extortioner, adulterer, never so covetous and crafty a person, yet if he be rich, bear any office, if he be a jolly cracker and bragger in the country, he must be a burgess of the parliament! Alas, how can any such study or give any godly council for the commonwealth? But and if any man put forth anything against Christ’s religion, or against the common wealth, so that it make for the profit of Antichrist’s Knights and temporal

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rulers of the realm, they shall be ready to give their consent with the first. And whether this be true or no, let the acts of few years past be judge. Every man perceiveth that there is a fault, and they be grieved, that all things be at so high a price, and some be offended at one degree of men, and some at another; as the merchant at the clothier, the clothier at the farmer, the farmer at the landlord, which is most just of all. In London and other places there be many offended with the great price of victuals, but few men consider the ground and original occasion thereof; that it is only by enhancing of rents, fines, &c., that maketh all things dear, which is an urgent damage to the common wealth. And till ye have a redress therein, look to have all things more dear, make what acts ye can devise to the contrary. As touching the King’s lands, some say that he enhanceth none; and whether it be true or not, I cannot tell, but this am I sure of, it is as evil or worse. For the chancellors and auditors take such unreasonable fines and other bribes, that the tenants were better pay yearly a greater rent; for the tenants are half undone in their incoming! Who hath the vantage, God knoweth; whether the King, or that the officers rob his grace, and poll and pill his liege subjects in his name, which is most likest. THE FOURTH CHAPTER Of the enclosing of parks, forests, chases, &c. Oh Lord God, that it would please thee to open the ears of the King, lords, and burgesses of the Parliament, that they may hear the crying of the people, that is made through the realm, for the enclosing of parks, forests, and chases, which is no small burden to the commons. How the corn and grass is destroyed by the deer many times, it is too pitiful to hear! It is often seen, that men, joining to the forests and chases, have not reaped half that they have sown, and yet sometime altogether is destroyed. And what land is your parks? Be not the most part of them the most fertile and fruitful ground in England? And now it is come to pass by wicked laws, that if a man kill one of those beasts which bear the mark of no one private person, but be in-different for all men, coming upon his own ground, devouring his corn or grass, which is his livelihood; and yet if he kill them upon his own ground, being chase or forest, it is felony, and he shall be hanged for it! But what saith the prophet to the makers of this wicked act, and such other like? “Woe be unto you which make wicked laws,” &c. To write of what unreasonable length and breadth they be it is superfluous: the thing is too manifest. God grant the King grace, to pull up a great part of his own parks, and to compel his lords, knights, and gentlemen to pull up all theirs by the roots, and to let out the ground to the people at such a reasonable price as they may live at their hands. And if they will needs have some deer for their vain pleasure, then let them take such heathy, woody, and moory ground, as is unfruitful for corn or pasture, so that the common wealth be not robbed; and let them make good defence, that their poor neighbours, joining unto them, be not devoured of their corn and grass. Thus should ye do, for the earth is the poor man’s as well as the rich. And ye lords, see that ye abuse not the blessing of the riches and power which God hath lent you, and remember that the earth is the Lord’s and not yours. For ye be but stewards, and be ye sure that ye shall give account unto the Lord for the

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bestowing of your riches. And to you burgesses, seeing such things will not be reformed, but only by your power and authority, I say to you, as in the beginning:—Consider whereunto ye be called and for what purpose; not for your own particular and private wealth, nor yet for the King’s in anything prejudicial to the common wealth. THE FIFTH CHAPTER Of the selling of wards for marriage, whereof ensueth adultery, which ought to be punished by death. Oh merciful God, what innumerable inconveniences come by selling of wards for marriage for lucre of goods and lands, although the parties never favour the one the other after they come to discretion, to the great increasing of the abominable vice of adultery, and of devilish divorcement, which hath of late been much used. Now God confound that wicked custom; for it is too abominable, and stinketh from the earth to heaven, it is so vile. What mischief hath come of it, it is too well known to many men, I need to write no further therein. But for Christ’s blood sake, seek a redress for it; and consider, that ye be called to the Parliament for such purposes. And further, ye that be godly burgesses, and of Christ’s congregation, consider that even the same God that sayeth “Thou shalt not steal,” the same God sayeth also, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” He that stealeth is hanged, and why ought not he also to be hanged that committeth adultery? Well, though that vice reigneth most abundantly in noble and rich men, and in the Pope’s shavelings most shamelessly, which shame to take them honest wives of their own, I say to you that be godly learned, although it reign chiefly in such persons, shame ye not, nor fear ye not, to make it felony indifferently to all men. Look you ever to your office whereunto ye be called, and seek to discharge your own conscience, that ye may give a good account at the day when ye shall be arraigned at the judgment seat of God, to receive judgment according to your deeds. THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER Of lords that are parsons and vicars. Ye that be lords and burgesses of the parliament house, I require of you, in the name of all my poor brethren, that are Englishmen and members of Christ’s body, that ye consider well (as ye will answer before the face of Almighty God in the day of judgment) this abuse, and see it amended. Whereas Antichrist of Rome durst openly, without any visor walk up and down throughout England, he had so great favour there, and his children had such crafty wits (“for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light”) that they had not only almost gotten all the best lands of England into their hands, but also the most part of the best benefices, both parsonages and vicarages, which were for the most part all impropriated unto them. And when they had the gifts of any not impropriated, they gave them unto their friends, of the which always some were learned; for the monks found of their friend’s children at school. And though they were not learned, yet they kept hospitality, and helped their poor friends. And if the parsonage were impropriated, the monks were bound to deal alms to the poor and to keep hospitality, as the writings of the gifts of such parsonages

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and lands do plainly declare in these words, “In puram elemosinam”. And as touching the alms that they dealt, and the hospitality that they kept, every man knoweth that many thousands were well relieved of them, and might have been better, if they had not had so many great men’s horses to feed, and had not been overcharged with such idle gentlemen as were never out of the abbeys. And if they had any vicarage in their hands they set in sometime some sufficient vicar (though it were but seldom) to preach and to teach. But now that all the abbeys with their lands, goods, and impropriated parsonages, be in temporal men’s hands, I do not hear tell that one halfpenny worth of alms or any other profit cometh unto the people of those parishes where such parsonages and vicarages be. Your pretence of putting down abbeys was to amend that was amiss in them. It was far amiss, that a great part of the lands of the abbeys (which were given to bring up learned men, that might be preachers afterwards, to keep hospitality, and to give alms to the poor) should be spent upon a few superstitious monks, which gave not forty pounds in alms, when they should have given two hundred. It was amiss, that the monks should have parsonages in their hands, and deal but the twentieth part thereof to the poor, and preached but once, in a year to them that paid the tithes of the parsonages. It was amiss that they scarcely among twenty set not one sufficient vicar to preach for the tithes that they received. But see now how it that was amiss is amended, for all the goodly pretence. It is amended, even as the devil mended his dame’s leg (as it is in the proverb): when he should have set it right, he broke it quite in pieces! The monks gave too little alms, and set unable parsons many times in their benefices. But now, where twenty pound was given yearly to the poor, in more than an hundred places in England, is not one meal’s meat given. This is a fair amendment. Where they had always one of other vicar, that either preached or hired some to preach; now is there no vicar at all, but the farmer is vicar and parson all together, and only an old castaway monk or friar, which can scarcely say his matins, is hired for twenty or thirty shillings, meat and drink; yea, in some place, for meat and drink alone without any wages. I know, and not I alone, but twenty thousand more know, more than five hundred vicarages and parsonages thus well and gospelly served, after the new gospel of England. And if a man say to the farmers, “Why have the people no preachers, seeing you have the tithes and offerings you should find preachers?” They will answer, “We have hired the parsonages of this or that lord, and he, or he, is parson or vicar; we pay for the tithes and offerings to the lord that is parson.” Well then, I say unto thee, my lord parson and vicar, thou doest wrong to have parsonages and vicarages, to have the tenth pig, the tenth sheaf, the tenth lamb, goose, fleece, and so of all other things, seeing that thou art no minister nor no priest of Christ’s church, and canst neither preach, teach, nor do any office of a parson or of a vicar, but poll and pill! What, canst thou say for thyself, my lord parson and vicar? Thou wilt say, peradventure “The King gave me the abbey and all that belongeth thereto, which had them given him by the parliament. Therefore, if thou speak against my being parson and vicar, though I neither preach nor teach, nor yet procure none to do it for me, thou art a traitor; for this is the thirteenth article of our creed added of late, that whatsoever the parliament

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doeth, must needs be well done, and the parliament, or any proclamation out of the parliament time, cannot err. Therefore let no man be so hardy in pain of death, to speak or complain for the redress of anything that is done amiss, either by the parliament or by any proclamation.” If this be so, my lord parson, then have ye brought Rome home to your own doors, and given the authority to the king and the parliament, that the cardinal bishops gave unto the pope; which was this:—“Si papa, etc.” If the pope through his fault should send infinite thousands to the devil, yet must no man speak against him! And if ye have given the same authority unto the parliament, that the papists gave to their general councils, that is, that they cannot err, and, whatsoever is once determined in a general council must needs be true, and of no less authority than the gospel:—if this be so, it is all in vain to look for any amendment of anything; and we be in as evil case as when we were under the bishop of Rome, if we have all the laws of him confirmed with fire and death. Surely the popish bishops, when they were robbed of the pope of Rome, they would needs have a pope; and therefore they would have made the King their pope, and they gave him authority to do all things in England that the pope did in Rome; as, to forbid marriage certain times in the year, and then to sell licences for the same; to sell licence to eat flesh in Lent, nonresidences, and such other. And even the pope’s proctor said (as it was told me) that he might make saints also! And lest there should want anything to a perfect popedom, the bishops caused a proclamation to be set out in the King’s name, that from henceforth the ceremonies of the church, that were of the pope’s making, should no more be taken for the pope’s ceremonies, but the King’s; and so they made the King father to the pope’s children. But I am sure, though the bishops would make the King pope, he would not take it upon him. And I trust, that every day more and more his grace shall spy their popish intents. But to you, my lord parsons, how can ye defend yourselves, if a man should bring this argument against you, and prove you all thieves, that have parsonages and vicarages in your hands and cannot preach? Christ sayeth, (John x.) “he that entereth not into the sheepfold by the door, but climbeth in another way, is a thief and a murderer;” but ye entered in another way, wherefore ye are thieves and murderers. That ye come not in by the door, I will prove it thus:—Christ is the door, but by Christ ye came not into the sheepfold; that is to say, to be parsons and vicars, for ye grant that ye came in by the act of parliament, and the act of parliament is not Christ, for it is not confirmed by Christ’s word; therefore ye came not by Christ, and so be ye thieves and murderers; as your works proved of late, in shedding of the blood of so many true preachers and shepherds, which spent their lives for their sheep. If this argument be not strong enough, what say ye by this? “All they that come before me (sayeth Christ) are thieves and robbers;” ye come into the sheepfold before Christ; ergo, ye be thieves and robbers. To come in before Christ is to be a parson or a vicar before Christ send him. And ye came in before Christ sent you, for he sendeth none to be shepherds, but such as he knoweth to be able to feed his flock: ergo, he never sent you; for he knoweth you unable to do that office. And thus to conclude, ye be thieves and robbers for a thief cometh not but to steal and to kill. Wherefore give over your parsonages to learned men, and enter not into other men’s vocations, to rob the

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ministers both of their office and of their living, that ye be not punished of God. But if ye will needs be parsons and vicars still, and have all the profits of the parsonages, and will have all, even to the tithe egg of a poor woman that hath but two hens, ye must have the pains that belong to such parsons as you be. Hear what Almighty God sayeth unto you my lords, which will be parsons and pastors, Ezekiel 33.:—“If I say unto the wicked, thou shalt die the death, and thou speak not unto him, to keep the wicked from his way, the wicked his own self shall die in his wickedness, but his blood shall I require of thy hand.” Mark well, lord parson, for this is said to all them that are parsons, and take wages and living of the people, as tithes and offerings, for feeding of then? with God’s word; or else by what title canst thou challenge the tithes? Look well upon this matter, and build thy conscience upon God’s word. THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER That one priest ought to have but one benefice, and one farmer, one farm. This thing is also to be looked upon, that even as one man may have but one wife, so let a priest have but one benefice; for if he have more flocks than one to keep, he will never feed them both well. And if that be not a living for a man, his wife, and his children, as some be not, then join him to the next parish, whereby the poor may be at less charge with the priest. The popish priests will make a mock at this, which hypocrites I send to the tenth chapter of Matthew, where Christ sayeth to his Apostles and ministers of his congregation, that they shall not possess gold, silver, nor brass, etc.; how much less then should they enjoy their inordinate possessions! And even as a priest should have but one benefice, so make that one man, of what degree soever he be, shall hold and keep in his own hands or occupying no more than one farm, manor, or lordship, being a competent living, as of twenty pounds yearly rent. So that it may be lawful for one man to keep two if they both together be not above twenty pounds; but no man to keep above three, be they never so small rent. This were a brotherly and godly act. For by your oppressors and extortioners, how be the towns and villages decayed? Whereas were eight, ten, twelve, yea, sixteen households and more, is now but a sheep house and two, or three shepherds. And one man shall have two or three such things, or more, in his hands, that a poor man scarcely have an hole to put in his head for these great extortioners. So if ye seek this godly redress, whereas ye have a few in a country, which be inordinately rich extortioners, and a great multitude of poor people, then shall ye have but a few poor and a great number of a mean and reasonable substance, and few poor, and less extortioners; which would be no small ease to the common wealth. Here shall all enclosers, grossers up of farms, extortioners, and oppressors of the common wealth, be offended at me and call me heretic and traitor. But all such I send unto the fifth chapter of the prophet Isaiah, where he sayeth:—“Woe be unto you which join one house to another, and bring one land so nigh unto another, till ye can get no more ground; will ye dwell upon the earth alone,” etc.? Ye extortioners! learn to fear God, and mark what, and how vehemently the Holy Ghost speaketh here in the prophet, “will ye dwell upon the earth alone?” Here is a fearful sentence for you !

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THE TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER Of the enhancing of the custom, which is against the commonwealth, etc. Another grievous burden, sprung up of a few years past, is the enhancing of the custom of wares inward, which was granted for certain years to help the King towards his wars; and yet but upon a condition, that the King should be a shield and defence of the merchant’s goods against all pirates and robbers upon the sea, and to make them good such goods as should be taken. And now it is not holden for certain years, but as it were for ever, and from a subsidy to a custom. And yet the merchants not defended according to the covenant neither, whereby many an honest merchant hath been undone. This burden is not prejudicial to the merchants only, but it is to the great damage of the whole realm also. For why? All wares to be raised thereby five in every hundred, and some much more; so that the commons buy all things so much the dearer. I think if the King’s grace knew what a burden it is to the commons, and with what evil will his merchants pay it, he would, I doubt not, be content with the old subsidy, that is to say, a certain of every fardel, chest, mawnd, bale, or whatsoever it be, as was in old time; and as it is in Flanders, and over all the Emperor’s lands at this day. Oh that men, which be about a King, would be as ready to give counsel to do righteousness, and to seek discharge of their prince’s conscience, and the wealth of his soul, as they be to enveigle him to yoke his commons, seeking the only profit of the body; as though there were no world after this, or as though the King of all Kings saw no further than a mortal prince! THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER A godly advisement how to bestow the goods and lands of the bishops, etc. Although there be many godly minded, I trust, in the parliament house, which can devise ways enough to employ the goods and lands of bishops, deans, canons, and chantries, to God’s glory, to the common wealth, and to the help of the poor (as there are ways full many, whoso listeth to study them); yet I think myself bound partly to write mine advice in some things which be most needful. First, part of them may be distributed to the poor, as well to poor maidens’ marriages and poor householders, as to the blind, sick, and lame; unless it be the one half of the plate to come to the King’s grace, for this purpose, that it be turned into the coin of the realm. And of their temporals, let eight or ten pound and not above of every hundred be granted to the King, that he thereof may have homage as chief lord and King, as reason is. And to ease the commons of subsidies, when need shall be, that the poor and middle sort of the people may be eased thereby, the rest to be employed upon poor cities and towns, and to the provision of the poor; as, part of it to be lent to poor occupiers, to every city according to the number of the occupiers in the same. And let every occupier have according to his need; and every one to be bound brotherly for another jointly to the King. That is to say, the whole town, as many as have any part of the money; and the first year to pay no entries, but every year after three pound of every hundred pound, that the sum may increase and not decay. And make a proviso, that

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no cloth be made but in cities and great towns, and the town seal to be upon every cloth, which town shall make good all such faults as shall be found in their cloths. And again also, that the clothiers shall keep no farms in the country, except it be one for his own provision. And thus shall ye have true cloth made, and every neighbour live by other. The lords and gentlemen by their lands; the merchant only by his merchandise; the clothier by making his cloth; the farmer by tilling his land and breeding, etc. Item, part of these aforesaid goods may be employed to this use, that in every hundred, good town, or city, certain houses be maintained to lodge and keep poor men in, such as be not able to labour, sick, sore, blind, and lame. And everyone of them to have wherewith to live, and to have poor whole women to minister unto them. And for Christ’s sake, ye rulers, look upon your hospitals, whether the poor have their right there, or no. I hear that the masters of your hospitals be so fat that the poor be kept lean and bare enough: the cry of the people is heard unto the Lord, though ye will not hear. Now to our former purpose again. Let physicians and surgeons be found in every such town or city, where such houses be, to look upon the poor in that town and in all other joining unto it; and they to live upon their stipend only, without taking any penny of their poor, upon pain of losing both his ears and his stipend also. Item, in divers head cities and good towns, let schools be maintained and lectures to be had in them of the three tongues,—Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; and the readers to have an honest stipend. Item, in every such city and town to have a certain number of poor men’s children found of free cost, till they be of good age and well learned. Item, the increase of the money, that is to say three pound of every hundred, to be bestowed upon poor couples at their marriages to begin the world withal. These ways and such like, may those goods and lands be bestowed, of another sort than to find such a sort of belly gods, and idle stout and strong lorels1 as ye have done, yea, a sort of drunken buzzards. And thus have the Germans (whereas the Gospel is received) bestowed the goods and lands of such abbeys as they have suppressed. And I think no godly heart can be against this device. Now therefore I exhort the higher powers, in the name of the everliving God, that if they will not look upon these spiritual extortioners (I mean bishops, canons, and chanterers2) for the zeal which they ought to bear to the congregation of God, neither for the love that they ought to have to the common wealth and to the poor; yet let them remember it for their own wealth’s sake. And let the King’s grace consider how tyrannously, by the virtue of their wicked mammon, they used part of his progenitors, Kings of England; as William Rufus, Henry the Second, and King John. Read the stories, and ye shall see part of their knavery; yet is the best made to cloak their wickedness. It were hard to say whether they were the authors of the commotion in the north or no. I think it is as well possible for the ocean sea to be without water, as it is for them to cease musing of mischief. 1

boors.

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chantry priests.

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29. The Church and the Commonweal. Selections from The Primer (From The Primer: or Book of Private Prayer needful to be used of all Christians, authorized and set forth by order of King Edward VI, 1553. J.Ketley (ed.), The Two Liturgies, A.D. 1549 and A.D. 1552, Parker Soc., 1844, 457–463)

(i) For gentlemen

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lbeit whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh, and all that we receive of our natural parents is earth, dust, ashes and corruption, so that no child of Adam hath any cause to boast himself of his birth and blood, seeing we have all one flesh and one blood, begotten in sin, conceived in uncleanness, and born by nature the children of wrath; yet forasmuch as some for their wisdom, godliness, virtue, valiantness, strength, eloquence, learning and policy, be advanced above the common sort of people unto dignities and temporal promotions, as men worthy to have superiority in a Christian commonwealth, and by this means have obtained among the people a more noble and worthy name: We most entirely beseech thee, from whom alone cometh the true nobility to so many as are born of thee and made thy sons through faith, whether they be rich or poor, noble or unnoble, to give a good spirit to our superiors, that as they be called gentle men in name, so they may shew themselves in all their doings gentle, courteous, loving, pitiful, and liberal unto their inferiors; living among them as natural fathers among their children, not polling, pilling, and oppressing them, but favouring, helping, and cherishing them: not destroyers, but fathers of the commonalty: not enemies to the poor, but aiders, helpers, and comforters of them: that when thou shalt call them from this vale of wretchedness, they afore shewing gentleness to the common people, may receive gentleness again at thy merciful hand, even everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(ii) For landlords The earth is thine, (O Lord) and all that is contained therein; notwithstanding thou hast given the possession thereof unto the children of men, to pass over the time of their short pilgrimage in this vale of misery: We heartily pray thee, to send thy holy Spirit into the hearts of them that possess the grounds, pastures, and dwelling places of the earth, that they remembering themselves to be thy tenants, may not rack and stretch out the rents of their houses and lands, nor yet take unreasonable fines and incomes after the manner of covetous worldlings, but so let them out to other, that the inhabitants thereof may both be able to pay the rents, and also honestly to live, to nourish their families, and to relieve the poor; give them grace also to consider, that they are but strangers and pilgrims in this world, having here no dwelling place, but seeking one to come; that they, remembering the short continuance of their life, may be content with that that is sufficient, and not join house to house, nor couple land to land, to the impoverishment of other, but so behave themselves in letting out their tenements, lands, and pastures, that after this life they may be received into everlasting dwelling places: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(iii) For labourers and men of occupations As the bird is born to fly, so is man born to labour: for thou, O Lord, hast commanded

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by thy holy word, that man shall eat his bread in the labour of his hands and in the sweat of his face: yea, thou hast given commandment that if any man will not labour, the same should not eat. Thou requirest of us also, that we withdraw ourselves from every brother that walketh inordinately, and giveth not his mind unto labour; so that thy godly pleasure is that no man be idle, but every man labour according to his vocation and calling: we most humbly beseech thee, to grave in the hearts of all labourers and workmen a willing disposition to travail for their living according to thy word, and to bless the labourer’s pains, and travails of all such as either till the earth, or exercise any other handicraft; that they studying to be quiet and to meddle with their own business, and to work with their own hand, and through thy blessing enjoying the fruits of their labours, may knowledge thee, the giver of all good things, and glorify thy holy name. Amen.

(iv) Of masters Thy commandment is by thine holy apostle, O most merciful Lord Christ, that masters should entreat their servants gently, putting away threatenings, and doing that unto them which is just and equal, forasmuch as we also have a master in heaven, with whom there is no respect of persons: Grant, I most heartily pray thee, that I may so order my servants, that I attempt no unrighteousness against them; but that I may so use my rule and authority over them, that I may alway remember that thou art the common Lord of all, and we all thy servants: again, that I may not forget, that we be all brethren, having one Father, which is in heaven, and look for one glorious kingdom, where thou, with the Father and Holy Ghost, livest and reignest true and everlasting God for ever. Amen.

(v) Of servants O Lord Jesu Christ, we are commanded by thy blessed apostles, that we should honour and obey our bodily masters in fear and trembling, not only if they be good and courteous, but also though they be froward, and serve them, not unto the eye as menpleasers, but with singleness of heart, not churlishly answering them again, nor picking, stealing, or conveying away any part of their goods, unjustly, but shewing all good faithfulness unto our masters, as though we served God and not men: Grant me grace, I most humbly beseech thee, so to serve my master and my superiors, that there may be found no fault in me, but that I, behaving myself uprightly, justly, faithfully, and truly in my vocation, may do worship to the doctrine of thee my God and Saviour in all things. Amen.

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30. Latimer’s Social Teaching illustrated from his sermons The sermons of Hugh Latimer (especially those preached before Edward VI) are worth reading on all counts, but particularly for the references in them to social problems. Latimer had a powerful appeal for the common man partly due to his shrewd judgment of the problems which worried his hearers. The following selection of passages, small as it is, should be enough to indicate why Latimer can be regarded as one of the most prominent of “the commonwealth men”.

(i) The essentials of the Christian Society (G.E.Corrie (ed.), Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Fifth Sermon on the Lord’s Prayer, 1552) Parker Soc., 1844, 406–410)

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emember this word “our”: what it meaneth I told you. And here I have occasion to speak of the proprieties of things: for I fear, if I should leave it so some of you would report me wrongfully, and affirm, that all things should be common. I say not so. Certain it is, that God hath ordained proprieties of things, so that that which is mine is not thine; and what thou hast I cannot take from thee. If all things were common, there could be no theft, and so this commandment, Non faciesfurtum, “Thou shalt not steal”, were in vain. But it is not so: the laws of the realm make meum et tuum, mine and thine. If I have things by those laws, then I have them well. But this you must not forget, that St. Paul saith, Sitis necessitates sanctorum communicantes; “Relieve the necessity of those which have need”. Things are not so common, that another man may take my goods from me, for this is theft; but they are so common, that we ought to distribute them unto the poor, to help them, and to comfort them with it. We ought one to help another; for this is a standing sentence: Qui habuerit substantiam hujus mundi, et viderit fratrem suum necessitatem habere, et clauserit viscera sua ab eo, quomodo caritas Dei manet in eo? “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother to have need, and shutteth up his entire affection from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” There was a certain manner of having things in common in the time of the apostles. For some good men, as Barnabas was, sold their lands and possessions, and brought the money unto the apostles: but that was done for this cause,—there was a great many of christian people at that time entreated very ill, insomuch that they left all their goods: now, such folk came unto the apostles for aid and help; therefore those which were faithful men, seeing the poverty of their brethren, went and sold that that they had, and spent the money amongst such poor which were newly made Christians. Amongst others which sold their goods there was one Ananias and Saphira his wife, two very subtle persons: they went and sold their goods too; but they played a wise part: they would not stand in danger of the losing of all their goods; therefore they agreed together, and took the one part from the money, and laid it up; with the other part they came to Peter, affirming that to be the whole money. For they thought in their hearts, like as all unfaithful men do, “We cannot tell how long this religion shall abide; it is good to be wise, and keep somewhat in store, whatsoever shall happen.” Now Peter, knowing by the Holy Ghost their falsehood, first slew him with one word, and after her too: which indeed is a fearful example, whereby we should be monished to beware of lies and falsehood. For though God punish thee not by and by, as he did this Ananias, yet he shall find thee; surely he will not forget thee. Therefore learn here to take heed of falsehood, and beware of lies.

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For this Ananias, this wilful Ananias, I say, because of this wilful lie, went to hell with his wife, and there shall be punished world without end. Where you see what a thing it is to make a lie. This Ananias needed not to sell his lands, he had no such commandment: but seeing he did so, and then came and brought but half the price, making a pretence as though he had brought all, for that he was punished so grievously. O what lies are made now-a-days in England, here and there in the markets! truly it is a pitiful thing that we nothing consider it. This one example of Ananias and Saphira, their punishment, is able to condemn the whole world. You have heard now, how men had things in common in the first church: but St. Paul he teacheth us how things ought to be in common amongst us, saying, Sitis necessitatibus sanctorum communicantes: “Help the necessity of those which be poor.” Our good is not so ours that we may do with it what us listeth; but we ought to distribute it unto them which have need. No man, as I told you before, ought to take away my goods from me; but I ought to distribute that that I may spare, and help the poor withal. Communicantes necessitatibus, saith St. Paul: “Distribute them unto the poor,” let them lack nothing; but help them with such things as you may spare. For so it is written, Cui plus datum est, plus requiretur ab illo; “He that hath much, must make account for much; and if he have not spent it well, he must make the heavier account.” But I speak not this to let poor folks from labour; for we must labour and do the works of our vocation, every one in his calling: for so it is written, Labores manuum tuarum manducabis, et bene tibi erit, “Thou shalt eat thy hand-labour, and it shall go well with thee.” That is to say, every man shall work for his living, and shall not be a sluggard, as a great many be; every man shall labour and pray: then God will send him his living. St. Paul saith, Qui non laborat, non comedat; “He that laboureth not, let him not eat.” Therefore those lubbers which will not labour, and might labour, it is a good thing to punish them according unto the king’s most godly statutes. For God himself saith, In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo; “In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread.” Then cometh in St. Paul, who saith, Magis autem laboret, ut det indigentibus; “Let him labour the sorer, that he may have wherewith to help the poor.” And Christ himself saith, Melius est dare quam accipere; “It is better to give than to take.” So Christ, and all his apostles, yea, the whole scripture admonisheth us ever of our neighbour, to take heed of him, to be pitiful unto him: but God knoweth there be a great many which care little for their neighbours. They do like as Cain did, when God asked him, “Cain, where is thy brother Abel?” “What”, saith he, “am I my brother’s keeper?” So these rich franklins, these covetous fellows, they scrape all to themselves, they think they should care for nobody else but for themselves: God commandeth the poor man to labour the sorer, to the end that he may be able to help his poor neighbour: how much more ought the rich to be liberal unto them! But you will say, “Here is a marvellous doctrine, which commandeth-nothing but ‘Give, give:’ if I shall follow this doctrine, I shall give so much, that at the length I shall have nothing left for myself.” These be words of infidelity; he that speaketh such words is a faithless man. And I pray you, tell me, have ye heard of any man that came to poverty, because he gave unto the poor? Have you heard tell of such a one? No, I am

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sure you have not. And I dare lay my head to pledge for it, that no man living hath come, or shall hereafter come to poverty, because he hath been liberal in helping the poor. For God is a true God, and no liar: he promiseth us in his word, that we shall have the more by giving to the needy. Therefore the way to get is to scatter that that you have. Give, and you shall gain. If you ask me, “How shall I get riches?” I make thee this answer: “Scatter that that thou hast; for giving is gaining.” But you must take heed, and scatter it according unto God’s will and pleasure; that is, to relieve the poor withal, to scatter it amongst the flock of Christ. Whosoever giveth so shall surely gain: for Christ saith, Date, et dabitur vobis. “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Dabitur, “it shall be given unto you.” This is a sweet word, we can well away with that; but how shall we come by it? Date, “Give.” This is the way to get, to relieve the poor. Therefore this is a false and wicked proposition, to think that with giving unto the poor we shall come to poverty. What a giver was Loth, that good man: came he to poverty through giving? No, no; he was a great rich man. Abraham, the father of all believers, what a liberal man was he; insomuch that he sat by his door watching when anybody went by the way, that he might call him, and relieve his necessity! What, came he to poverty? No, no: he died a great rich man. Therefore let us follow the example of Loth and Abraham: let us be liberal, and then we shall augment our stock. For this is a most certain and true word, Date, et dabitur vobis; “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” But we believe it not; we cannot away with it. The most part of us are more given to take from the poor, than to relieve their poverty. They be so careful for their children, that they cannot tell when they be well. They purchase this house and that house; but what saith the prophet? Vae, qui conjungitis domum domui; “Woe be unto you that join house to house!” the curse of God hangeth over your heads. Christ saith, Qui diligit patrem vel matrem velfilios plus quam me non est me dignus; “He that loveth his father, or mother or children more than me, he is not meet for me.” Therefore those which scrape and gather ever for their children, and in the mean season forget the poor, whom God would have relieved; those, I say, regard their children more than God’s commandments: for their children must be set up, and the poor miserable people is forgotten in the mean season. There is a common saying amongst the worldlings, Happy is that child whose father goeth to the devil: but this is a worldly happiness. The same is seen when the child can begin with two hundred pound, whereas his father began with nothing: it is a wicked happiness, if the father gat those goods wickedly. And there is no doubt but many a father goeth to the devil for his child’s sake; in that he neglected God’s commandment, scraped for his child, and forgot to relieve his poor miserable neighbour. We have in scripture, Qui miseretur pauperis, faeneratur Deo; “Whosoever hath pity over the poor, he lendeth unto God upon usury,” that is to say, God will give it unto him again with increase: this is a lawful and godly usury….

(ii) True obedience (G.E.Corrie (ed.), Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer (A Sermon preached on St John the Evangelist’s Day at Grimsthorpe, 1552), Parker Soc., 1845, 111–128)

Yesterday I entreated somewhat of the nativity of Christ our Saviour. And you have

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heard by what occasion Mary, his mother, came to Bethlehem with her husband Joseph, namely, to shew obedience, as all subjects ought to do, to their governors. You heard what good chance she had in that she was obedient; and so all those that be obedient to their rulers and governors, according to the ordinance of God, they shall have good speed. Now what happened unto Mary? She brought forth the Saviour of the world. Oh, what good chance was this! And here we learn, that it is a good thing for every one to keep him in that order as God hath appointed him. Mary with her husband Joseph were subjects, and therefore, in doing their duties, in obeying the magistrate, they pleased God: which ensample of Mary and Joseph should occasion all us to follow them in their doing; and if we do so, we shall please God. There is one thing I did forget, the last time when I spake of obedience, which is, an objection that some do make, when they are required to do their duties to the magistrates. I told you at that time that we must bear willingly those burdens which are laid upon us, considering that God commanded us so to do: and then, again, that he hath delivered us from that great burden of our sins, which should have thrust us into everlasting damnation; willing and commanding us to bear, with a good will, such little burdens as the magistrates shall lay upon us. Again, I told you at the same time, that whosoever beareth with a good will the common burden of this realm, they shall be blessed in all things: it shall not be a diminishing of their stocks, but it shall be rather an increase than a diminishing. Now cometh the objection that some make: they say, “To bear the common burden is not an increase, but a diminishing and hurt; for there hath been many burdens in England, as the burdens of the fall of money: therefore that is not so as you say; for I know that some have lost so much that they cannot recover the same again so long as they live.” And indeed, I know myself a man that lost eight score pounds by the fall of money; yet as for that man, he took it well, and I doubt not but God will work with him, so that it shall be nothing to his hurt. But to answer this carnal man which maketh such a carnal objection against the promise of God: I deny not but that there be some, which indeed shall never recover that which they have lost. But I tell you what is the cause: the cause is not in God, or in his promises or fidelity, but the fault is in themselves. As thus: you must understand that where God requireth a thing to be done, he will have it done with a good-will, with a merry heart, with a loving countenance. Now there be many of us which do it indeed, but with cursing and banning: so that, though they be no rebels outwardly, yet they rebel in their hearts. Unto such fellows God is not bound to keep his promise, for he made them no promise; but unto them that do it with a willing heart and loving countenance he hath promised increase. And they that do it with an ill will, they rather provoke God to anger than that they should receive any benefit of him. For St. Paul commandeth us to obey the magistrates, Non propter iram, sed propter conscientiam, “Not for fear of their punishment but rather for conscience sake, for God’s sake, in respect of God, of whom we have all things, who willeth us to do so”. So that they that do it with an ill will, and afterward having no increase, are not able to recover again, the fault is in themselves, and not in God; for they obey not for conscience sake, as St. Paul would have them do, but rather for fear of punishment.

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Yesterday, also, I shewed you the commodities which we receive by the coming of Christ; and, again, the discommodities if he should not have come; namely, that we should have been lost for ever, world without end. To this end I spake of such things, to give you occasion to consider his goodness and wonderful benefits, and to shew yourselves thankful towards him. Further, I shewed you what he was before he took our vile nature upon him; namely, the eternal Son of God the Father; begotten before the world began; equal to his Father in power and dignity: he took our vile nature upon him, was made very man, to the end that he might deliver man from the curse of God and eternal damnation. Then, I shewed you what we be without God, without this Saviour; namely, cursed and banished out from everlasting life to ever-lasting damnation. This we are, without him, of our own nature; for we can do nothing but commit sin, and are not able to make amends for the least sin that we commit: but he, our Saviour, I say, hath made satisfaction upon the cross for the sins of all mankind. Then, again, I told you how we should follow the ensample of David, which when he considered the great benefits of God, burst out in these words, saying, Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae tribuit mihi? “What shall I give unto the Lord for all that which he hath given unto me?” Then he concludeth and saith, Accipiam calicem salutaris, “I will take the chalice of health;” that is, I will bear all the crosses which the Lord shall lay upon me. And so we must do when we consider the great benefits which God hath done unto us: then we must be content with all our hearts to bear such crosses as he shall lay upon us, and to shew ourselves thankful with a godly and honest life, for that he suffered for us; which passion he suffered, not compelled thereunto, but willingly he suffered it, moved by that great love which he bare towards us. Therefore, let us shew ourselves thankful: let us take all calamities and miseries that he shall lay upon us willingly: and in all these crosses let us call upon him, and take in good worth whatsoever it shall please him to lay upon us. This is the chiefest honour that we can do unto him. Now let us a little better consider his poverty, which he suffered as soon as he was born. We read not that Mary his mother had any midwife when she was delivered of him. And here we have occasion to speak of midwives. The same office of a midwife is a necessary office; but I would wish the bishops would see better unto them, that they might be better instructed in God’s word: for no doubt these midwives are the occasion of much superstition and dishonouring of God. The fault is because they are not instructed in the word of God; and therefore, when the women be in travailing, and so in peril of their lives, they cause them to call upon our Lady: which no doubt is very idolatry, and dishonouring of God; for we ought not to call upon any creature; we must call only upon God alone; unto him only pertaineth that honour. Further, I told you that our Saviour Christ was formed and framed of the most poorest flesh; and he became the natural son of Mary, and she also was his natural mother. I told you, the last time, of one Joan of Kent, which was in this foolish opinion, that she should say our Saviour was not very man, and had not received flesh of his mother Mary: and yet she could shew no reason why she should believe so. Her opinion was this, as I told you before. The Son of God, said she, penetrated through her, as through a glass, taking no substance of her. But our creed teacheth us contrariwise; for

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we say, Natus ex Maria Virgine, “Born of the Virgin Mary:” so this foolish woman denied the common creed, and said that our Saviour had a phantastical body; which is most untrue, as it appeareth evidently in the epistle to the Hebrews, where St. Paul plainly saith that Christ was made of the woman, that he took his flesh from the woman. And though Mary had a prerogative, as she had indeed, namely, that she knew no man, that she was a virgin; yet her prerogative took not away the very humanity of Christ. She alone, above all other women, had this prerogative, to be a virgin, and yet to bring forth a child: the Holy Ghost did supply the office of a father; she was filled with the Holy Ghost: but he was her natural son in all other points; but yet this his humanity was preserved from all sin and wickedness. In all other things he was very man, and she his very natural mother. And no doubt she had a great belly, as it appeared in the first chapter of Matthew, where the evangelist saith, Inventa est gravida, “She was found with child;” and so Joseph seeing it, could not but suspect her, and therefore was minded to go away from her, if he had not been admonished by the angel: but being in this perplexity, the angel came unto him, saying, Ne timeas, “Fear not, Joseph, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.” So here appeared plainly that Mary was big with child, after the manner of all other women: for we may not make him a phantastical body, but a very body, having flesh, blood, and bones, as our bodies have; and I think that Mary travailed after the manner of other women. I doubt not but she had pains as other women have; for I think she was obedient unto that law, which was made by God himself, In dolore paries filios tuos, “In sorrow and pain thou shalt bring forth thy children”. For she kept other laws too, to which she was not bound, to which she had no need; as of purification; and he of circumcision: so that it is to be presupposed, seeing she obeyed other laws, she obeyed this law too, to shew and to signify unto the whole world her obedience. Therefore they that will go about and say that she brought him forth without pain, not after the manner of other women, they seem to do more hurt than good: for so we might come in doubt whether he had a very body or not. Now the evangelist saith there was no place in the inn, they had no room to refresh themselves: for the innkeepers took only those which were able to pay for their good cheer; they would not meddle with such beggarly folk as Joseph and Mary his wife were. And here we may learn by the example of Joseph and Mary to take all things in good part, and to be content with poverty and miseries. Let us follow their example. We read not that they grudged or murmured against God; but they were content to take all things in good worth, though they could get never a lodging in the whole city; so that they were fain to take a stable there, to repose themselves. And, as some writers say, it was a common stable in the market-set, as some towns have common stables for the folk that come to the market; for they are not able to spend money in the inn, and therefore they set their cattle there. But this is no certainty, whether it was such a common stable or not; but this is certain that they were in great poverty and misery; no doubt of that. Therefore, you poor folk, comfort yourselves with this example, though you have no houses after your mind: consider that Mary, the mother of Christ, lacked a lodging, and that in her greatest need. But I tell you where you may have houses

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enough, and that good cheap; for little money you may have them. In domo Patris mei sunt multae habitationes; “In the house of my Father be many dwelling-places.” There you may have them, they are offered you in Christ, and through Christ; ye need not to give money for them. Therefore, I would not have you in any wise to grudge or murmur because ye lack houses; for no doubt, if we will be content with that that God sendeth unto us, and be thankful unto him, houses or no houses in this world, we shall be sure that we shall lack no houses in the other world…. Now followeth in the text, “And there were shepherds in the same region,” &c. You know there is a common saying, Ignoti nulla cupido; “When a body knoweth not a thing, he desireth it not greatly:” so it had been with us, if this birth of our Saviour should have been hid from us; we should not have desired the same, and he had done unto us no good at all. Therefore it must needs be known; it must needs be opened. Now here the evangelist beginneth to shew to whom this birth was opened at the first, and through whom it was first published; who were the first preachers; which were the angels of God, they were the first preachers. And here you may perceive what is the office of the angels of God, namely, to serve, to keep us; and therefore St. Paul calleth them, administratorios spiritus, “serving spirits”. But now you will say, how chanced it that the angels teach not us as well as they did the shepherds? Sirs, you must understand that God hath appointed another office, other officers, which shall teach us the way to heaven; which way to heaven was opened first by the angel. He told the shepherds that Christ the Saviour was born: but now God sheweth unto us the self-same sermon of the angel by and through his ministers, which teach us the same. But, I pray you, to whom was the nativity of Christ first opened? To the bishops, or great lords which were at that time at Bethlehem? or to those jolly damsels with their vardingals, with their roundabouts, or with their bracelets? No, no; they had so many lets to trim and dress themselves that they could have no time to hear of the nativity of Christ; their minds were so occupied otherwise that they were not allowed to hear of them. But his nativity was revealed first to the shepherds: and it was revealed unto them in the night-time, when everybody was at rest; then they heard the joyful tidings of the Saviour of the world. For these shepherds were keeping their sheep in the night-season from the wolf or other beasts, and from the fox: for the sheep in that country do lamb two times in the year, and therefore it was needful for the sheep to have a shepherd to keep them. And here note the diligence of these shepherds: for whether the sheep were their own, or whether they were servants, I cannot tell, for it is not expressed in the book; but it is most likely they were servants, and their masters had put them in trust to keep their sheep. Now if these shepherds had been deceitful fellows, that when their masters had put them in trust to keep their sheep, they had been drinking in the ale-house all night, as some of our servants do now-a-days, surely the angels had not appeared unto them, to have told them this great joy and good tidings. And here all servants may learn by these shepherds to serve truly and diligently unto their masters: in what business soever they are set to do, let them be painful and diligent, like as Jacob was unto his master Laban. Oh, what a painful, faithful, and trusty man was he! He was day and night at his work, keeping his sheep truly, as he was put in trust to do: and when any chance

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happened that any thing was lost, he made it good, and restored it again of his own. So likewise was Eleazarus a painful man, a faithful and trusty servant. Such a servant was Joseph in Egypt to his master Potiphar. So likewise was Daniel unto his master, the king. But, I pray you, where are these servants now-a-days? Indeed I fear me, there be but very few of such faithful servants. Now these shepherds, I say, they watch the whole night, they attend upon their vocation; they do according to their calling: they keep their sheep: they run not hither and thither, spending the time in vain, and neglecting their office and calling. No, they did not so. Here, by these shepherds, all men may learn to attend upon their offices and callings. I would wish that clergymen,—the curates, parsons, and vicars, the bishops, and all other spiritual persons, would learn this lesson by these poor shepherds; which is this, to abide by their flocks and by their sheep, to tarry amongst them, to be careful over them; not to run hither and thither after their own pleasure, but to tarry by their benefices and feed their sheep with the food of God’s word; and to keep hospitality, and so to feed them both soul and body. For I tell you these poor unlearned shepherds shall condemn many a stout and great learned clerk: for these shepherds had but the care and charge over brute beasts, and yet were diligent to keep them, and to feed them; and the other have the cure over God’s lambs, which he bought with the death of his Son, and yet they are so careless, so negligent, so slothful over them: yea, and the most part intendeth not to feed the sheep, but they long to be fed of the sheep. They seek only their own pleasures, their own pastimes, they care for no more. But what said Christ to Peter? What said he? Peter, amas me? “Peter, lovest thou me?” Peter made answer, “Yes”: “Then feed my sheep”. And so the third time he commanded Peter to feed his sheep. But our clergymen do declare plainly that they love not Christ, because they feed not his flock. If they had an earnest love to Christ, no doubt they would shew their love; they would feed his sheep. But it is a thing to be lamented that the prelates and other spiritual persons will not attend upon their offices: they will not be amongst their flocks, but rather will run hither and thither, here and there, where they are not called; and, in the mean season, leave them at adventure of whom they take their living. Yea, and furthermore, some will rather be clerks of kitchens, or take other offices upon them besides that which they have already: but with what conscience these same do so, I cannot tell. I fear they shall not be able to make answer at the last day for their follies, as concerning that matter; for this office is such a heavy and weighty office that it requireth a whole man. Yea, and let every curate or parson keep his cure to which God hath appointed him, and let him do the best that he can; yet, I tell you, he cannot choose but the devil will have some; for the devil sleepeth not; he goeth about day and night to seek whom he may devour. Therefore it is need for every godly minister to abide by his sheep, seeing that the wolf is so near; and to keep them, and withstand the wolf. Indeed, there be some ministers here in England which do no good at all; and, therefore, it were better for them to leave their benefices and give room unto others. Again, I will not be so precise, but I say a man may be away from his benefice for a little while, having urgent and lawful causes; yet I would not allow him to tarry long:

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for a curate or whatsoever he be, having a cure committed unto him of God to feed, cannot be from them with a safe conscience. He may not run hither and thither after his own pleasure, but must wait upon his office: for, no doubt, the devil will be wonderful busy when the preacher or curate is from his cure. Moses, that worthy man, and faithful minister of God, was away from his people, which was to him committed, but two days; but what came of it? Marry, they committed idolatry in his absence: this came of it; which, no doubt, they would not have done, if he had been present: yet, he was not faulty, for he was called by God himself. I would wish all curates and parsons would tarry at their cures, till they be called from it as Moses was called: for certain it is, that as many as perish in his absence, he must make answer for them before God. Si non locutusfueris; “If thou dost not reprove them, if thou dost not teach them, they shall die, but I will require their blood at thy hand,” saith God. Again, if thy parish be stout and hard-necked, and will not hear the word of God, nor pass of it, yet the curate doing that which pertaineth unto him to do, he is discharged before God; and their blood shall be upon their own heads. But it is required of a curate to be with them, to exhort and admonish them. Therefore St. Peter saith, Pascite quantum in vobis est gregem Christi, “Feed as much as in you lieth the flock of Christ”. Then they may not be from their flock, for they cannot feed them being absent: and therefore those fellows that neglect or set aside their own cures, and run here and there before they be called, are no doubt in great danger; and they do against the ordinance of God. Therefore let them not be ashamed to learn of these shepherds here, to abide by their flock till such time as God shall call them, like as he called these shepherds. I will not say but they may be from it, but no longer than these shepherds; that is to say, no longer than they have lawful business. And here God doth consecrate every man’s vocation; that he that feareth God loveth his word, and liveth according unto the same, he shall be acceptable unto God; though he be a poor shepherd, or cobbler, that is not the matter.` The evangelist saith, “And there were in that same region shepherds abiding in the field”. Oh, what fidelity was in these men! They would not deceive their masters or put their sheep in jeopardy, but they were content to watch all the whole night. And lo! the angel of the Lord stood hard by them. The angel of God was a preacher at that time; the people and audience were the shepherds: but they were greatly astonished: they knew not what God intended to do. But the angel said unto them, Nolite timere, “Fear not,” As who say, “Ye have no cause to be afraid when you know how the matter goeth; for I come to bring you word that the light is come into the world”. For Christ is the light, the life, the resurrection, the way to heaven; when we believe in him, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. The sermon of the angel was this, Ecce, “Lo!” When this word, Ecce, “Lo”, is set in scripture then ever followeth a great and weighty matter after it. And therefore he required audience and silence. He would have them to bear it away and note it well, what he would say unto them: Annuncio vobis gaudium magnum; “I bring you tidings of great joy, that shall come to all people.” I bring you good news, which pertaineth unto all the world, if they will receive it: but they that will not, if they refuse the offer of God, then they themselves are the cause of their own damnation. The let is not in God, but in themselves.

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Quia vobis natus est hodie, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour.” This was a good angel, and he was already in the state of salvation. Therefore he saith, “Unto you is born a Saviour.” He saith not, Unto us; for the good angels of God are in the state of salvation already. Therefore Christ suffered not for them, nor saved them, but us. As for the other angels, the angels of darkness, the devil I say, they are without hope of salvation: and therefore Christ suffered not for them, but only for mankind, which was lost by the craft of the old serpent the devil. The fall of the devil was this. When Lucifer, which was at the same season the greatest angel in heaven, when he perceived that the Son of God would become man, he fell into such an enviousness against man, and in such a hatred and proudness against God, because the Son of God would not take his nature upon him; he fell therefore into such a pride, that he would set his seat above God, or like God, saying, Similis ero Altissimo, “I will be like unto the Highest.” But what was his end? He was cast down from heaven, he and all his fellows with all their whole company. And here they be amongst us, to let us of our salvation, and to occasion us to sin and to do wickedly before the face of the Lord. And no doubt this is a great matter, if we had grace to consider it, and to beware of his distinctions; for he knoweth that it is the will of God that we should be saved, and this grieveth him: but the good angels they rejoice when we do well, when we receive the word of God and follow it; but the devil waxeth sorry, he cannot abide that, in no wise; for he knoweth that if we should receive God’s word, it should be to the destruction and hindrance of his kingdom. After that when Christ was born into the world, he did what he could to rid him out of the way; therefore he stirred up all the Jews against him: but after that he perceived that his death should be our deliverance from our everlasting death, he did what he could to let his death; and therefore he stirred up Mistress Pilate, which took a nap in the morning, as such fine damsels are wont to do, that she should not suffer her husband to give sentence against Christ. For, as I told you, when he perceived that it was to his destruction, he would let it, and did what he could with hand and foot to stop it. But yet he was not able to disannul the counsel and purpose of God. Further, it is not enough to believe Christ to be a Saviour, but you must know what manner of Saviour he is; how far forth he saveth: and therefore you must understand that he was not such a Saviour as Moses was, which saved the people of Israel from hunger and thirst in the wilderness, but could not deliver them from everlasting death. Christ, therefore, our Saviour, is such a Saviour which saved us from eternal damnation, from the power of the devil, and all our enemies. The angel of God himself shewed us what manner of Saviour Christ is, in the first of Matthew, saying, Quia salvum faciet populum suum a peccatis suis; “For he shall save his people from their sins.” So we must believe him to be such a Saviour which released us from our sins; as well our original as actual wickedness. But the papists, as is most manifest, make him but half a Saviour: for they think that they with their good works must help him to save them half. So they blaspheme him, and take away his dignity; for he only hath merited with his painful passion to be a Saviour of the whole world, that is, to deliver all them that believe in him from their sins and wickedness. This we must believe undoubtedly, that

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he was born into this world to save mankind from their sins. Again, we must not only believe that he is a Saviour of mankind, but also that he is my Saviour, and thy Saviour. I must have such a trust and hope in him, that he will save me from all my sin and wickedness: so every man must have a special faith. We must apply his passion unto us, every one to himself. For when it is not applied unto us with a special faith, it is to no purpose: for what commodity have I when I believe Christ saved St. Peter, and St. Paul, and other good men, and go no further? Therefore I must have a special faith; I must believe that he saved them, and also will save me, and forgive me my sins. The Jews, that same obstinate people, think that the Messias, the Saviour, for whom they long, shall be a great ruler in this world, shall have the swing in this world; no man shall be able to withstand him: so they believe that their Saviour shall be a great king in the world; which is contrary to the most holy, infallible word of God. Again, the papists, as I told you before, make him but a half Saviour: for they think and believe that Christ is a Saviour; but how? Marry, thus: they say that all they that have lived well in this world, have deserved heaven with their good works; with almsgiving, and other such works merited everlasting life: and therefore, when they die, they shall be received of Christ, and he shall give them everlasting life, which they in their lifetime have deserved with their own deeds: so that our Saviour shall be, after their sayings, only a judge. He shall judge which be those which have deserved heaven, and them he shall receive into everlasting life; and so he shall give unto every one according to his merits. Such a Saviour the papists make him. But, I pray you, if it should be so as they say, which of us should be saved? Whose works are so perfect that they should be able to deserve heaven? For, I tell you, heaven and everlasting life is a more precious thing than can be deserved with our doings, with our outward works. And therefore the papists deprave Christ, and spoil him of his honour and dignity: for he is another manner of Saviour than they fantasy him to be; for he reputeth all them for just, holy, and acceptable before God, which believe in him, which put their trust, hope, and confidence in him: for by his passion, which he hath suffered, he merited that as many as believe in him shall be as well justified by him, as though they themselves had never done any sin, and as though they themselves had fulfilled the law to the uttermost. For we, without him, are under the curse of the law; the law condemneth us; the law is not able to help us; and yet the imperfection is not in the law, but in us: for the law itself is holy and good, but we are not able to keep it, and so the law condemneth us; but Christ with his death hath delivered us from the curse of the law. He hath set us at liberty, and promiseth that when we believe in him, we shall not perish; the law shall not condemn us. Therefore let us study to believe in Christ. Let us put all our hope, trust, and confidence only in him; let us patch him with nothing: for, as I told you before, our merits are not able to deserve everlasting life: it is too precious a thing to be merited by man. It is his doing only. God hath given him unto us to be our deliverer, and to give us everlasting life. O what a joyful thing was this! What a comfortable thing is it, that we know now that neither the devil, hell, or any thing in heaven or earth, shall be able to condemn us when we believe in Christ ! Now to our matter. The angel, after he had told them these good tidings, how the

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King of all kings was born, he gave them a sign or token whereby they should know him; and saith, Reperietis infantem jacentem in praesepe, “Ye shall find the babe lying in a manger.” This was a goodly sign. Indeed, if we consider the matter well, it was enough to make them astonished, and to cast down their belief, to tell them first of a great Saviour, and then to say, that they should find him in a stable, lying in a manger. But the wisdom of God is not according to the wisdom of this world. He went not about to please the foolish of this world, but his counsel was to deliver the world by his Son; which should not come in riches and great pomp, but in poverty and in rags. His kingdom in this world should be a weak kingdom. And so his disciples afterward were taken out of the lowest sort of men. They were poor fishers, and the most vilest men in this world; as St. Paul saith, Excrementa mundi, “Outcasts of the world”. And so shall all his disciples be, all they that will be saved by him; and specially the preachers of his holy word shall be excrementa, they shall be outcasts. When they will go about to reprove sin, as a preacher should do, as their office requireth, arguere mundum de peccato, “to rebuke the world of sin”; I warrant you that man shall have little favour in this world. So, I say, God hath no respect of persons: though they be vile before this world, and counted for nothing, yet he is content to work his will with them and through them, as here in these shepherds appeared: though they were poor, yet the angel opened unto them such things which were hidden from these glorious prelates and stubborn bishops, which in all time do but little good, for they disdain to preach Jesum crucifixum. Now, like as he was born in rags, so the converting of the whole world is by rags, by things which are most vile in this world. For to go to the matter: what is so common as water? Every foul ditch is full of it: yet we wash our remission of our sins by baptism: for like as he was found in rags, so we must find him by baptism. There we begin; we are washed with water; and then the words are added: for we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, whereby the baptism receiveth his strength. Now this sacrament of baptism is a thing of great weight; for it ascertaineth and assureth us, that like as the water washeth the body and cleanseth it, so the blood of Christ our Saviour cleanseth and washeth it from all filth and uncleanness of sins. So likewise go to the Lord’s supper: when the bread is consecrated, when the words are spoken over it, then it is such an office that it beareth the name of the body and blood of Christ. Like as the magistrates because of their office are called Dii, “Gods”; so the bread presenteth his body, so that we go unto it worthily, and receive it with a good faith. Then we be assured that we feed upon him spiritually. And like as the bread nourisheth the body, so the soul feedeth upon the very body and blood of Christ by faith, by believing him to be a Saviour which delivered man from his sin. And so it appeareth that we may not seek Christ in the glistering of this world: for what is so common as water? what is so common as bread and wine? Yet he promised to be found there, when he is sought with a faithful heart. So will you have Christ? Where shall you find him? Not in the jollities of this world, but in rags, in the poor people. Have you any poor people amongst you in your town or city? Seek him there amongst the rags, there shall you find him. And I will prove it on this wise. He saith

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himself with his own mouth, “Whatsoever ye do to these little ones, minimis, that do ye unto me.” By these words appeareth manifestly, that whatsoever ye do unto the poor people which are despised in this world, ye do it to himself. Therefore I say yet again, when ye will seek Christ, seek him in the rags, seek him in the manger amongst the poor folk: there you shall find him. But you must understand that when I speak of poverty, I speak not of this wilful poverty of the monks and friars; for that same was an hypocritical poverty; that same poverty was full of all manner of delicate things. Nihil habeant, et tamen omnia habeant; “They had nothing, and yet they had all.” They were wise enough; they could make shift for themselves, I warrant you: therefore I speak not of that poverty; for it was a wicked, abominable, and hypocritical poverty. But I speak of the very poor and needy flocks of Christ, which have not wherewith to live in this world. Those I would have you to refresh, to cherish, to help them with your superfluity. Amongst that poor company seek Christ, and no doubt you shall find him. Now to make an end: consider what I have said, how Christ was born, in what poverty, and in what misery. Remember what manner of Saviour he is; namely, a perfect Saviour, which saveth and healeth all our sorrows, when we believe in him. I told you where you should seek him, namely, amongst the poor; there he will be found. The Almighty God give us grace to live and believe so, that we may attain to that felicity which he hath promised by his Son, our Saviour! To whom, with God the Father and the Holy Ghost, be honour world without end! Amen.

(iii) Social justice (G.E.Corrie (ed.). Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Sermons preached in Lincolnshire, 1552), 503–504)

Now the second weapon is to be just, to give every man that which we owe unto him: to the king that which pertaineth unto him; to our landlords what we owe unto them; to our curate or parson what pertaineth unto him; and though the curate be unlearned, and not able to do his duty, yet we may not withdraw from him, of private authority, that thing which is appointed unto him by common authority. No, not so: we ought to let him have his duty; but when he is naught, or unapt to be in the place of a curate, then we may complain to the ordinary, and desire a better for him. So likewise between married folks, there shall be justice: that is to say, they shall do their duties: the man shall love his wife, shall honour her, shall not be rigorous, but admonish her lovingly: again, the wife shall be obedient, loving, and kind towards her husband; not provoking him to anger, with ill and naughty words. Further, the parents ought to do justice towards their children, to bring them up in godliness and virtue; to correct them when they do naught: likewise the children ought to be obedient unto their parents, and be willing to do according unto their commandment. Item, the masters ought to do justice unto their servants, to let them have their meat and drink, and their wages: again, the servants ought to be diligent in their master’s businesses; to do them truly, not to be eye-servants. Likewise, the subjects ought to be obedient to their king and magistrate: again, the king ought to do justice, to see that justice have place. Finally, one neighbour

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ought to have justice with another; that is, to give him what pertaineth unto him; not to deceive him in any thing, but to love him, and to make much of him. When we do so, then are we sure we have the second part of this armour of God….

(iv) The idea of vocation (G.E.Corrie (ed.), Sermons and Remains of Hugh Latimer (Sermon preached on Christmas Day, 1552), 94)

(a) “And the shepherds returned lauding and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen” &c. They were not made religious men, nor monks; but returned again to their business and to their occupation. Where we learn every man to follow his occupation and vocation, and not to leave the same, except God call him from it to another: for God would have every man to live in that order that he hath ordained for him. And no doubt the man that plieth his occupation truly, without any fraud or deceit, the same is acceptable to God, and he shall have everlasting life. (Ibid. (Sermon preached on Sexagesima Sunday, 21 February 1552), 214–215) (b) And here peradventure, you will say, that it is not lawful for a Christian man to have riches nor to have honours, neither to bear high dignities. But I answer, We are not bounden by the commandment of God to cast away our substance and riches that God sendeth us, neither to refuse such honours as we shall be lawfully called unto. But we may not do, as many do, that greedily and covetously seek for it day and night: for some there are that have no rest, but still study and muse how they may get riches and honours. We must not do so; neither may seek for it after that sort. But if God call thee to honours, if our vocation requireth us so to do, then follow thy vocation with all humbleness and gentleness. Seek not for it; for it is the greatest madness that may be, to seek for honours or riches. If God sendeth them, refuse them not, as the scripture teacheth us, saying, Divitiae si affluant, nolite cor opponere “If riches come unto you, set not your hearts upon them; neither put your trust in them.” So St. Paul commandeth the rich men, saying, “Ye rich men, be not proud-hearted, nor trust in your uncertain riches.” Surely St. Paul giveth them a very apt name: for there is nothing so uncertain in this world as riches is, as we see daily by experience; but specially in these our days, where we daily see that men of great riches and honour are by the mighty hand of God made humble and of base estate. Therefore let us lift up our hearts unto Almighty God, and trust in him, and leave all ambition and covetousness. We subjects think in this manner, and say, “Oh, if I were a great man, or a rich man, as some men be, I would do much good; I would relieve the poor, and minister justice to them that have wrong.” So the sick man thinketh, “If I had my health and might go abroad, I would live after the will of God, and keep me from all sin and wickedness,” &c. Such foolish reasoning some have with themselves, not considering that the best service that any man can do unto God, is to apply his business in such state and order, as God hath appointed and ordered them. For thou canst do God no better service, being a poor man, than to live uprightly in thine estate. And so the sick man pleaseth God as well in his sickness, if he bear the same patiently and willingly, as another doth

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in his health. Therefore these studies to come aloft, and such other vain desires, are naught and foolish: and every good Christian must beware of them, and study to live in his order, as God hath appointed him.

(c) Obedience and its limits (G.E.Corrie (ed.), Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Third Sermon preached before Edward VI, 22 March 1549), 148)

A word or two more, and I commit you to God. I will monish you of a thing. I hear say ye walk inordinately, ye talk unseemly, otherwise than it becometh Christian subjects: ye take upon you to judge the judgments of judges. I will not make the King a pope; for the pope will have all things that he doth taken for an article of our faith. I will not say but that the king and his council may err; the parliament houses, both the high and the low, may err; I pray daily that they may not err. It becometh us, whatsoever they decree, to stand unto it, and receive it obediently, as far forth as it is not manifest wicked, and directly against the word of God. It pertaineth unto us to think the best, though we cannot render a cause for the doing of everything; for caritas omnia credit, omnia sperat, “Charity doth believe and trust all things.” We ought to expound to the best all things, although we cannot yield a reason. Therefore I exhort you, good people, pronounce in good part all the facts and deeds of the magistrates and judges. Charity judgeth the best of all men, and specially of magistrates. St. Paul saith, Nolite judicare ante tempus donec Dominus advenerit, “Judge not before the time of the Lord’s coming.” Pravum cor hominis, “Man’s heart is unsearchable”; it is a ragged piece of work; no man knoweth his own heart; and therefore David prayeth, and saith Ab occultis meis menda me, “Deliver me from my unknown faults:” I am a further offender than I can see. A man shall be blinded in love of himself, and cannot see so much in himself as in other men. Let us not therefore judge judges. We are accountable to God, and so be they: let them alone, they have their accounts to make.

(v) The place of labour in the Christian society (G.E.Corrie, Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Sixth Sermon preached before Edward VI, 12 April 1549), 213–215)

There be some, again, impute all to their labours and works. Yea, on the holy day they cannot find in their hearts to come to the temple to the blessed communion; they must be working at home. These are wide again on the other side. And some there be that think, if they work nothing at all, they shall have enough: they will have no good exercise, but gape, and think God will send meat into their mouths. And these are as far wide: they must work. He bade the fishers work: our Saviour Christ bade Peter work: and he that said so to them, says the same to us, every man in his art. Benedictio Deifacit divitem; “The blessing of God maketh a man rich.” He lets his sun shine upon the wicked, as well as upon the good; he sends riches both to good and bad. But this blessing turns to them into a malediction and a curse; it increaseth their damnation. St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, did put an order how every man should work in his

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vocation: Cum essemus apud vos, hocpraecipiebamus vobis, ut si quis nollet operari is nec edat; which in our English tongue is: “When I was among you,” saith he, “I made this ordinance, that whosoever would not do the work of his vocation should have no meat.” It were a good ordinance in a commonweal, that every man should be set on work, every man in his vocation. “Let him have no meat.” Now he, saith furthermore, Audivimus quosdam inter vos versantes inordinate nihil operis facientes, “I hear say there be some amongst you that live inordinately.” What is that word inordinately? Idly, giving themselves to no occupation for their living: curiose agentes, curious men, given to curiosity, to searching what other men do. St. Paul saith, “he heard say;” he could not tell whether it were so or no. But he took occasion of hearing say, to set out a good and wholesome doctrine: His autem qui sunt ejusmodi praecipimus et obsecramus: “We command and desire you for the reverence of God, if there be any such, that they will do the works of their vocation, and go quietly to their occupation, and so eat their own bread:” else it is not their own, it is other men’s meat. Our Saviour Christ, before he began his preaching, lived of his occupation; he was a carpenter, and gat his living with great labour. Therefore let no man disdain or think scorn to follow him in a mean living, a mean vocation, or a common calling and occupation. For as he blessed our nature with taking upon him the shape of man, so in his doing he blessed all occupations and arts. This is a notable example to signify that he abhors all idleness. When he was a carpenter, then he went and did the work of his calling: and when he was a preacher, he did the works of that calling. He was no unpreaching prelate. The bishop of Rome should have learned that at him. And these gainers with false arts, what be they? They are never content with what they have, though it be never so much. And they that are true dealers are satisfied with that that God sends, though it be never so little. Quaestus magnus pietas cum animo sua sorte contento; “Godliness is great gain, it is lucre enough, it is vantage enough, to be content with that that God sends.” The faithful cannot lack; the unfaithful is ever lacking, though he have never so much. I will now make an end. Labores manuum tuarum, let us all labour. Christ teacheth us to labour, yea, the bishop of Rome himself, he teacheth him to labour, rather than to be head of the church. Let us put our trust in God, Labores manuum tuarum, “Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he will nourish thee and feed thee.” Again the prophet saith, Nunquam vidi justum derelictum, nec semen ejus quaerens panem; “I never saw the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed to seek his bread.” It is infidelity, infidelity that mars all together. Well, to my text: Labores manuum tuarum quia manducabis, beatus es, et bene tibi erit; “Because thou eatest the labours of thy hands, that God sends thee of thy labour.” Every man must labour; yea, though he be a king, yet he must labour: for I know no man hath a greater labour than a king. What is his labour? To study God’s book, to see that there be no unpreaching prelates in his realm, nor bribing judges; to see to all estates; to provide for the poor; to see victuals good cheap. Is not this a labour, trow ye? Thus if thou dost labour, exercising the works of thy vocation, thou eatest the meat that God sends thee; and then it followeth Beatus es, “Thou art a blessed man in God’s favour,” et bene tibi erit, “and it shall go well with thee in this world,” both in body

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and soul, for God provideth for both. How shalt thou provide for thy soul? Go hear sermons. How for the body? Labour in thy vocation, and then shall it be well with thee, both here and in the world to come, through the faith and merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ: to whom with the father and the Holy Ghost be praise for ever and ever, world without end. Amen.

(vi) The causes of rebellion (Ibid. (Latimer’s last sermon preached before Edward VI, Lent 1550), 246–250) With this explanation of the troubles of 1549 compare the views of Cranmer.1

Therefore, to return to my matter, I say as I said at the beginning, Videte et cavete ab avaritia. Videte, “see it:” first see it, and then amend it. For I promise you, great complaint there is of it, and much crying out, and much preaching, but none amendment that I see. But cavete ab avaritia, “Beware of covetousness” And why of covetousness? Quia radix est omnium malorum avaritia et cupiditas, “For covetousness is the root of all evil and of all mischief.” This saying of Paul took me away from the gospel that is read in the church this day, and it took me from the epistle, that I would preach upon neither of them both at this time. I cannot tell what ailed me; but (to tell you my imperfection) when I was appointed to preach here, I was new come out of a sickness, whereof I looked to have died, and weak I was: yet nevertheless, when I was appointed unto it, I took it upon me, howbeit I repented afterward that I had so done. I was displeased with myself: I was testy, as Jonas was when he should go preach to the Ninivites. Well, I looked on the gospel that is read this day: but it liked me not. I looked on the epistle: tush, I could not away with that neither. And yet I remember I had preached upon this epistle once afore king Henry the Eighth; but now I could not frame with it, nor it liked me not in no sauce. Well, this saying of Paul came into my mind, and at last I considered and weighed the matter deeply, and then thought I thus with myself: Is covetousness the root of all mischief and of all evil? Then have at the root, and down with all covetousness. So this place of Paul brought me to this text of Luke, “See and beware of covetousness”. Therefore, you preachers, out with your swords and strike at the root. Speak against covetousness, and cry out upon it. Stand not ticking and toying at the branches nor at the boughs, for then there will new boughs and branches spring again of them; but strike at the root, and fear not these giants of England, these great men and men of power, these men that are oppressors of the poor; fear them not, but strike at the root of all evil, which is mischievous covetousness. For covetousness is the cause of rebellion. I have forgotten my logic, but yet I can jumble at a syllogism, and make an argument of it, to prove it by. Covetousness is the root of all evil: rebellion is an evil: ergo covetousness is the root of rebellion. And so it was indeed. Covetousness was the cause of rebellion this last summer; and both parties had covetousness, as well the gentlemen as the commons Both parties had covetousness for both parties had an inordinate desire to have that, they had not: and that is covetousness, an inordinate desire to have that one hath not. The commons would have had from the gentlemen such things as they desired: the 1

Below, No. 32.

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gentlemen would none of it; and so was there covetousness on both sides. The commons thought they had a right to the things that they inordinately sought to have. But what then? They must not come to it that way. Now on the other side, the gentlemen had a desire to keep that they had, and so they rebelled too against the king’s commandment, and against such good order as he and his council would have set in the realm. And thus both parties had covetousness, and both parties did rebel. I heard say that there were godly ordinances devised for the redress of it. But the giants would none of it in no sauce. I remember mine own self a certain giant, a great man, who sat in commission about such matters; and when the townsmen should bring in what had been inclosed, he frowned and chafed, and so near looked, and threatened the poor men, that they durst not ask their right. I read of late in an Act of Parliament; and this act made mention of an Act that was in king Henry’s days, the third I trow it was; yea, and such another business there was in king Edward’s time, the second also. In this parliament that I speak of, the gentlemen and the commons were at variance, as they were now of late. And there the gentlemen that were landlords would needs have away much lands from their tenants; and would needs have an Act of Parliament that it might be lawful for them to inclose and make several from their tenants, and from the commons, such portions of their lands as they thought good. Much ado there was about this Act: at last it was concluded and granted that they might do so; provided alway, that they should leave sufficient to the tenant. Well; it was well that they were bound to leave sufficient for them. But who should be the judge to limit what was sufficient for them? Or who shall now judge what is sufficient? Well; I for my part cannot tell what is sufficient. But methought it was well that the tenants and poor commons should have sufficient. For if they had sufficient, thought I, they had cause to be quiet. And then fell I to make this argument within myself: if at that time it were put in their will and power that they might inclose, leaving to the tenant that were sufficient for him; if they had it then in their power, thought I, that they might this do, they would leave no more than sufficient. If they left to the tenants and poor commons no more in those days but sufficient; then if they had any more taken from them since that time, then had they now not sufficient. They in Christ are equal with you. Peers of the realm must needs be. The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is. Let them, therefore, have sufficient to maintain them, and to find them their necessaries. A plough-land must have sheep; yea, they must have sheep to dung their ground for bearing of corn; for if they have no sheep to help to fat the ground, they shall have but bare corn and thin. They must have swine for their food, to make their veneries or bacon of: their bacon is their venison, for they shall now have hangum tuum, if they get any other venison; so that bacon is their necessary meat to feed on, which they may not lack. They must have other cattle: as horses to draw their plough, and for carriage of things to the markets; and kine for their milk and cheese, which they must live upon and pay their rents. These cattle must have pasture, which pasture if they lack, the rest must needs fail them: and pasture they cannot have; if the land be taken in, and inclosed from them. So, as I said, there was in both parts rebellion. Therefore, for God’s love, restore their

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sufficient unto them, and search no more what is the cause of rebellion. Well now, if covetousness be the cause of rebellion, then preaching against covetousness is not the cause of rebellion. Some say that the preaching now-a-days is the cause of all sedition and rebellion: for since this new preaching hath come in, there hath been much sedition; and therefore it must needs be that the preaching is the cause of rebellion here in England. Forsooth, our preaching is the cause of rebellion much like as Christ was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem. For, saith Christ, Si non venissem et locutus fuissem eis, peccatum non haberent, &c, “If I had not come,” saith Christ, “and spoken to them, they should have no sin.” So we preachers have come and spoken to you: we have drawn our swords of God’s word, and stricken at the roots of all evil to have them cut down; and if ye will not amend, what can we do more? And preaching is the cause of sedition here in England, much like as Elias was the cause of trouble in Israel; for he was a preacher there, and told the people of all degrees their faults, and so they winced and kicked at him, and accused him to Achab the king, that he was a seditious fellow, and a troublous preacher, and made much uproar in the realm. So the king sent for him, and he was brought to Achab the king, who said unto him, “Art thou he that troubleth all Israel?” And Elias answered, and said, “Nay, thou and thy father’s house are they that trouble all Israel.” Elias had preached God’s word; he had plainly told the people of their evil doings; he had shewed them God’s threatenings. In God’s behalf I speak: there is neither king, nor emperor, be they never in so great estate, but they are subject to God’s word; and therefore he was not afraid to say to Achab, “It is thou and thy father’s house that causeth all the trouble in Israel”. Was not this presumptuously spoken to a king? Was not this a seditious fellow? Was not this fellow’s preaching a cause of all the trouble in Israel? Was he not worthy to be cast in Bocardo or Littleease? No, but he had used God’s sword, which is his word, and done nothing else that was evil; but they could not abide it. He never disobeyed Achab’s sword, which was the regal power: but Achab disobeyed his sword, which was the word of God. And therefore by the punishment of God much trouble arose in the realm for the sins of Achab and the people. But God’s preacher, God’s prophet, was not the cause of the trouble. Then is it not we preachers that trouble England.

31. Thomas Lever’s Social Theory illustrated from his sermons (i) Obedience (A sermon preached at St Paul’s, 2 February 1550. E.Arber (ed.), The Sermons of Thomas Lever, 26–28)

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hose powers which be are ordained of God. As is the power of the father over his children, of the husband over his wife, of the master over his servants, and of the King over his land and subjects: with all kinds of magistrates in their offices over their charge. Now to prove that these be the ordinances of God, we have by God’s word both in the old testament and in the new, their names rehearsed, their offices described, and their duties commanded. Yet that notwithstanding some there be that labour by wresting

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of the scripture to pull themselves from under due obedience: saying that it appeareth in the acts of the Apostles how that they had all things common, and therefore none more goods or riches, power or authority, than other, but all alike. Truth it is, that the Apostles had all things common, yea and that Christian men, in that they are christian men rather than covetous men, have all things common, even unto this day. How be it there can be nothing more contrary or further dis-agreeing from that phantastical commonness, or rather from that devilish disorder, and unrighteous robbery, whereas idle lubbers might live of honest men’s labours, than to have all things common as the Apostles had, as christian men have, and as I do mean. And this is their usage, and my meaning: that rich men should keep to themselves no more than they need, and give unto the poor so much as they need. For so Paul writeth to the Corinthians. I mean not (saith Paul, speaking to the rich) to have other so eased, that you thereby should be brought in trouble of need, but after an indifferency, that at this time your abundance, might help their need. And so did the Apostles take order as appeareth in the fourth of the Acts. Quotquot habebant agros et possessions, etc.1 As many as had lands and possessions did sell them, and brought the prices unto the feet of the Apostles, and division was made unto every one according unto every man’s need. So they which might spare did freely give, and they which had need did thankfully receive For so is it meet, that christian mens’ goods should be common unto every man’s weal, and private to no man’s lust. And these common goods to be disposed by liberal givers, and not spoiled by greedy catchers. So that every man may have according to his need sufficient, and not according to his spoil so much as he can catch, no nor according to the value of the thing, every man a penny, a groat, or a shilling. For they that imagine, covet, or wish to have all things common, in such sort that every man might take what him lust, would have all things common and open unto every man’s lust, and nothing reserved or kept for any man’s need. And they that would have like quantity of every thing to be given to every man, intending thereby to make all alike, do utterly destroy the congregation, the mystical body of Christ, whereas there must needs be divers members in divers places, having divers duties. For as St. Paul saith: if all the body be an eye, where is then hearing? or if all be an ear, where is then smelling? meaning thereby, that if all be of one sort, estate, and room in the common wealth, how can then divers duties of divers necessary offices be done? So that the free heart, and liberal gift of the rich, must make all that he may spare, common to relieve the need of the poor: yea, if there be great necessity, he must sell both lands and goods, to maintain charity. And thus to have all things common, doth derogate or take away nothing from the authority of rulers. But to will to have all things common, in such sort that idle lubbers (as I said) might take and waste the gains of labourers without restraint of authority, or to have like quantity of every thing to be given to every man, is under a pretence to mend all, purposely to mar all. For those same men pretending to hate covetousness, would be as rich as the richest: and saying that they hate pride, would be as highly taken as the best, and seeming to abhor envy, 1

Acts iv. 34.

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can not be contented to see any other richer or better than they themselves be. Now I hear some say that this error is the fruit of the scripture in English. No, neither this, nor no other error cometh because the scripture is set forth in the English tongue, but because the rude people lacking the counsel of learned men to teach them the true meaning when they read it, or hear it, must needs follow their own imagination in taking of it. And the chieftest cause that maketh them to imagine this abominable error, that there should be no rich men nor rulers, cometh because some rich men and rulers (mark that I say some, for all be not such) but I say some rich men, and rulers by the abuse of their riches and authority, doth more harm than good unto the common wealth, and more grief than comfort unto the people. For nowadays rich men and rulers do catch, purchase, and procure unto themselves great commodities from many men, and do few and small pleasures unto any men.

(ii) The merchants of London (Ibid. 29–30)

As for example of rich men, look at the merchants of London, and ye shall see, when as by their honest vocation, and trade of merchandise God hath endowed them with great abundance of riches, then can they not be content with the prosperous wealth of that vocation to satisfy themselves, and to help other, but their riches must abroad in the country to buy farms out of the hands of worshipful gentlemen, honest yeomen, and poor labouring husbands. Yea, now also to buy parsonages and benefices, whereas they do not only buy lands and goods, but also lives and souls of men, from God and the common wealth, unto the devil and themselves. A mischievous mart of merchantry is this, and yet now so commonly used, that thereby shepherds be turned to thieves, dogs into wolves, and the poor flock of Christ, redeemed with his precious blood, most miserably pilled, and spoiled, yea, cruelly devoured. Be thou merchant of the city, or be thou gentlemen in the country, be thou lawyer, be thou courtier, or what manner of man soever thou be, that can not, yea if thou be master doctor of divinity, that will not do thy duty, it is not lawful for thee to have parsonage, benefice, or any such living, except thou do feed the flock spiritually with God’s word, and bodily with honest hospitality.

(iii) The Dissolution of the monasteries (Ibid. 31)

Do not think that I mean anything against that which the King’s majesty by act of Parliament hath done: no nor that I will cover in silence, or allow by flattery that which covetous officers (some as I suppose now being present) contrary to God’s laws, the King’s honour, and the common wealth use to do. For in suppressing of abbeys, cloisters, colleges, and chantries, the intent of the King’s majesty that dead is, was, and of this our King now, is very godly, and the purpose or else the pretence of either, wondrous goodly: that thereby such abundance of goods as was superstitiously spent upon vain ceremonies, or voluptuously upon idle bellies, might come to the King’s hands to bear

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his great charges, necessarily bestowed in the common wealth, or partly unto other mens’ hands, for the better relief of the poor, the maintenance of learning, and the setting forth of God’s word. Howbeit covetous officers have so used this matter, that even those goods which did seem to the relief of the poor, the maintenance of learning, and to comfortable necessary hospitality in the common wealth, be now turned to maintain worldly, wicked, covetous ambition.

(iv) Social justice (A sermon preached at St Paul’s, 14 December 1550. Ibid. 106–108)

The rich man by liberality, must dispose relief and comfort unto the poor and needy. The merchant by buying and selling, and the craftsman by his occupation, must provide unto the common wealth of necessary wares, sufficient plenty. The landlord by letting of farms must dispose unto the tenants necessary lands, and houses of an indifferent rent. The husbandman by tilling of the ground and keeping of cattle, must dispose unto their landlords due rents, and unto themselves the other, both corn and other victuals. So every man by doing of his duty must dispose unto other that commodity and benefit which is committed of God unto them to be disposed unto other by the faithful and diligent doing of their duties…. O brethren, God hath given great plenty, and we in England find great lack: therefore the stewards of God be unfaithful. Who be God’s stewards? They that have God’s gifts. Surely no man hath all the gifts of God, and every man hath some gifts of God. Then if all things be lacking, yet can no one man deserve all the blame, but every man shall be found faulty for that which is amiss for lack of his duty. Do ye perceive that the laity is either altogether ignorant and blind, or else having knowledge to speak fair, hath no learning to do well? Then surely the clergy hath not been faithful in preaching of God’s word earnestly, in season and out of season to reprove, beseech and blame, in all patience and token, or discipline. Do ye see the clergy hath not wherewithal to maintain learning, to relieve the poor, to keep hospitality, and to find themselves? Then truly hath not the laity sufficiently provided that they which preach the Gospel should live on the Gospel, and that they which sow spiritual treasures might reap corporal necessaries. Do ye see that they which be in authority have not been regarded and obediently served? Then the common people have not done their duties, disobeying any men placed in authority by God’s ordinance. Do ye see the people have had injuries and yet their complaints negligently heard and long delayed? then have the higher powers omitted righteousness and judgment, which will be required at their hands of the Lord.

(v) Enemies of the Commonweal (Ibid. 128–131)

O wicked servants of Mammon, always both enemies and traitors to God and the King and the common wealth. Is it God or Mammon that hath made the corn to spring, and given you plenty? If ye say Mammon, then ye confess plainly whose servants ye be,

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what idolatry ye use. If ye say God, how dare ye confess him in your words and deny him in your deeds? Why do ye not bring forth God’s corn unto God’s people at God’s commandment? Why be ye not faithful disposers of God’s treasures? Well, he that hath no corn thinketh he hath no part, nor is not guilty in this matter, but I can tell that there is many of them that neither hath nor will have corn, which make corn most dear. I have heard how that even this last year there was certain acres of corn growing on the ground bought for 8 pounds: he that bought it for 8 sold it for 10. He that gave 10 pounds, sold it to another above 12 pounds: and at last, he that carried it off the ground paid 14 pounds. Likewise I heard that certain quarters of malt were bought after the price of 3 shillings 4 pence a quarter to be delivered in a certain market town upon a certain day. This bargain was so oft bought and sold before the day of deliverance came, that the same malt was sold to him that should receive it there and carry it away, after 6.s. a quarter. Look and see how much a craftsman or any other honest man that must spend corn in his house, by this manner of bargaining, payeth, and how little the husbandman that tilleth the ground, and payeth the rent, receiveth: then ye may see and perceive it must needs be hard for either of them to keep a house, the craftsman paying so much, and the husbandman taking so little. There is a like manner of bargaining of them that be leasemongers, for leasemongers make the tenants to pay so much, and the landlords to take so little that neither of them is well able to keep house. I hear say that within a few miles of London an honest gentleman did let his ground by lease unto poor honest men after 2.s. 4.d. an acre: then cometh a leasemonger, a thief, and extortioner, deceiving the tenants, buyeth their leases, put them from the grounds, and causeth them that have it at him now, to pay after 9.s. or as I heard say 19.s. but I am ashamed to name so much. Howbeit covetous extortioners be ashamed of no deed be it never so evil. And as I hear say, there be many leasemongers in London, that heighten the rent of bare houses: and as corn, lands, tenements and houses, so in all manner of wares, there be such buyers and sellers as cause the providers and makers of the wares to take so little and the occupiers of the wares to pay so much, that neither of them both is able to live. All the merchants of mischief that go betwixt the bark and the tree. Betwixt the husbandman that getteth the corn, and householder that occupieth corn, betwixt the landlord that letteth farms, and the tenants that dwell in the farms. And betwixt the craftsmen that maketh, or the merchant that provideth, wares, and other men that occupieth wares. I say these merchants of mischief coming betwixt the bark and the tree, do make all things dear to the buyers, and yet wonderful vile and of small price to many that must needs set or sell that which is their own honestly come by. These be far worse than any other that hath been mentioned heretofore: for although beneficed men and officers have many men’s livings, yet they do some men’s duties. But these have every man’s living, and do no man’s duty. For they have that which is indeed the living of craftsmen, merchantmen, husbandmen, landlords and tenants, and do never a one of these men’s duties. These be idle vagabonds, living upon other men’s labours: these be named honest bargainers, and be indeed crafty covetous extortioners. For they that be true merchantmen to buy and sell indeed, should and do provide great plenty and good cheap by honest buying and selling of

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their wares. But these having the names of true merchants, and being indeed crafty thieves, do make a scarcity and dearth of all things that cometh through their hands. Take away all merchantmen from any town or city, and ye shall leave almost no provision of things that be necessary. Take away leasemongers, regrators, and all such as by buying and selling make things more dear, and when they be gone all things will be more plenty and better cheap. Now may ye see who they be that make a great dearth in a great plenty. For who is it that heighteneth the price of corn, the husbandman that getteth plenty of corn by tilling of the ground.? No: the regrator that buyeth corn to make it dear, growing upon the ground. Who raiseth the rents, joineth house to house, and heapeth farms together? The gentlemen, that by giving of leases, letteth forth his own lands into other men’s hands? No, the leasemongers, that by selling leases, buyeth and bringeth other men’s lands into their own hands. Who maketh all manner of wares and merchandises to be very dear? the merchant venturer, which with faithful diligence to provide for the common wealth carrieth forth such things as may well be spared, and bringeth home such wares as must needs be occupied in this realm? No, the merchant of mischief that by crafty conveyance for his own gain, carrieth away such things as may not be spared, and bringeth again such wares as are not needful. Take heed, you merchants of London that ye be not merchants of mischief, conveying away too much old lead, wood, leather, and such substantial wares as would set many Englishmen to work, and do every man good service, and bringing home silks and sables, cattails and foolish feathers to fill the realm full of such baggage as will never do rich or poor good, and necessary service. Be ye sure, if this realm be rich, ye shall not need to be poor, if this realm be poor you shall not be able to keep and enjoy your riches.

32. Denunciation of rebellion by Cranmer, 1549 His answer to the Fifteen Articles of the rebels of Devon (J.E.Cox, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Parker Soc., 1846, 163–187) At Whitsun 1549 the Book of Common Prayer came into force. Immediately, there were risings in Devonshire, which were soon followed by a more general conservative religious revolt in the West country, an agrarian rising in Norfolk, and riots against enclosures in various parts of S.E. England. Russel, Lord Privy Seal, in charge of operations against the Devon rebels, offered to receive their grievances, which were sent to him in fifteen articles. Cranmer drew up an answer in which he denounced the wickedness of rebellion. The text is also printed in Strype, Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, 1, 264.

W

hen I first read your request, O ignorant men of Devonshire and Cornwall, straightways came to my mind a request, which James and John made unto Christ; to whom Christ answered: “You ask you wot not what”. Even so thought I of you, as soon as ever I heard your articles, that you were deceived by some crafty papist, which devised those articles for you, to make you ask you wist not what. As for the devisers of your articles, if they understand them, I may not call them ignorant persons, but, as they be indeed most rank papists and wilful traitors and adversaries both to God and to our sovereign lord the king, and to the whole realm.

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But I cannot be persuaded so to think of you, that in your hearts willingly you be papists and traitors; but that those that be such have craftily seduced you, being simple and unlearned people, to ask you wot not what. Wherefore my duty unto God, and the pity that I have of your ignorance, move me now at this time to open plainly and particularly your own articles unto you, that you may understand them, and no longer be deceived. In your first article you require, that all the general councils and holy decrees of our forefathers may be observed and kept, and whosoever shall againsay them to be holden as heretics. This you all ask; but what you ask, I dare say, very few or none of you understand. For how many of you, I pray you, do know certainly which be called the general councils and holy decrees of the fathers, and what is in them contained? The holy decrees, as they call them, be nothing else but the laws and ordinances of the bishop of Rome: whereof the most part be made for his own advancement, glory, and lucre, and to make him and his clergy governors of the whole world, and to be exempted from all princes’ laws, and to do what they list. And would you ask, if you knew what you asked, that we should put away the laws of our own realm, and be governed by the bishop of Rome’s laws? If you mean this, then be you traitors to the king, and enemies to your own realm: and if you mean it not, consider what persons they be, and how they have deceived you, that make you ask you wot not what. And as for the general councils, you say you will have them all kept: but you be not so destitute of all reason that you would have spoken such words, if you had known what you had said. For a great number of the councils repugn one against another. How should they then be all kept, when one is contrary to another, and the keeping of one is the breaking of another? And among your own articles you say, you will have divers things observed, which be not only contrary to the general councils, but also contrary to the law of this realm, and also to God’s laws, as it shall be plainly declared when we come to the articles. And all reason is contrary that you should have asked such things, if you had known what you had asked. I have this opinion of the great number of you, that you would fain walk in the right way, if you could find it. And forasmuch as I perceive that wicked and false guides, under pretence to bring you to the high way, have brought you clean out of it, my good-will shall be, seeing you so far wandering out of the way, and so blindfolded with evil persuasions, that you cannot see where you go, to open your eyes that you may see, and to set you again into the right way. And when your eyes be so opened that you may see, and the right way shewed unto you, wherein you should walk; then if you will still wink, and not see, and run headlong in error, and not come to the right way, you may no longer be called simple and ignorant people, but perverse, froward, and wicked papists and traitors, enemies to God and your own realm. But now I will come to your articles particularly, opening every one of them by himself, that you may see the bowels thereof, and what is contained in the same; that when you shall understand the whole, you may judge whether you knew before what you asked, or you were deceived by subtle and wily papistical traitors.

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YOUR FIRST ARTICLE IS THIS: “We will have all the general councils and holy decrees of our forefathers observed, kept, and performed: and whosoever shall againsay them, we hold them as heretics.” First, to begin with the manner of your phrase. Is this the fashion of subjects to speak unto their prince, “We will have?” Was this manner of speech at any time used of the subjects to their prince since the beginning of the world? Have not all true subjects ever used to their sovereign lord this form of speaking, “Most humbly beseecheth your faithful and obedient subjects?” Although the papists have abused your ignorance in propounding such articles, which you understand not, yet you should not have suffered yourselves so much to be led by the nose and bridled by them, that you should clearly forget your duty of allegiance unto your sovereign lord saying unto him, “This we will have;” and that saying with armour upon your backs and swords in your hands. Would any of you that be householders be content that your servants should come upon you with harness unto their backs, and swords in their hands, and say unto you “This we will have?” If then you would abhor and detest this in your servants towards yourselves, how can you allow your fact? With what conscience can you, being but subjects, do to your king that thing which you would condemn in your servants towards yourselves? But answer me this: Be you subjects or no? If you be subjects, then I admonish you, as St. Paul taught Titus, saying: “Warn them to be subject to princes and rulers, obeying them at a word.” But tell me again: Pertaineth this to subjection and obedience to say, “This we will have?” St. Peter saith “Be subject unto kings, as unto chief heads, and to other rulers sent by them. For so is the will of God.” God’s will is that you should be ruled by your princes. But whether is this to be ruled by your king, or to rule your king, to say, “Thus we will have the realm governed?” Your servants be by the scripture commanded, as they fear God, to be obedient to their masters, whether their masters be good or evil. And can you think it meet and lawful for you to disobey your undoubted king, being a prince most innocent, most godly, and most careful for your surety and wealth? If any thing can declare disobedience, what can declare it more than subjects to come with force of arms to their natural king and prince, and say, “This we will have?” But now, leaving your rude and unhandsome manner of speech to your most sovereign lord, I will come to the point, and join with you in the effect of your first article. You say, you will have all the holy decrees observed and kept. But do you know what they be? The holy decrees, as I told you before, be called the bishop of Rome’s ordinances and laws: which how holy and godly soever they be called, they be indeed so wicked, so ungodly, so full of tyranny, and so partial, that since the beginning of the world were never devised or invented the like. I shall rehearse a certain of them, whereby you may judge of the rest, to the intent that yourselves may see how holy they be, and may say your minds, whether you would have them kept or no. And at the hearing of them, if you shall not think them meet to be kept here in this realm, then you may see how they deceived you, that moved you to ask this article. And if you like them, and would have them kept, after you know what they be, then I say assuredly, that you be not only

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wicked papists, but also heretics and most heinous traitors to the king and this his realm. And yet how an absolute papist varieth from an heretic or traitor, I know not; but that a papist is also both a heretic and a traitor withal. One decree saith, that “whosoever doth not acknowledge himself to be under the obedience of the bishop of Rome is an heretic”. Now answer me to this question, Whether be you under the obedience of the bishop of Rome or not? If you say that you be under his obedience, then be you traitors by the laws of this realm; and if you deny it then be you heretics by this decree. And shift is there none to save you from treason, but to renounce this decree, that commandeth you to be under the bishop of Rome; and so to confess, contrary to your own first article, that all decrees are not to be kept. Yet a great many other decrees be as evil and worse than this. One saith that “all princes’ laws which be against a decree of the bishop of Rome be void and of no strength”. Another decree saith that “all the decrees of the bishop of Rome ought forever to be kept of all men as God’s word”. Another decree there is that “whosoever receiveth not the laws of the bishop of Rome availeth neither him the catholic faith nor the four evangelists. For his sin shall never be forgiven.” Yet is there a worse and more detestable decree that “all kings and princes that suffer the bishop of Rome’s decrees to be broken in any point are to be taken as infidels.” Another is there also “that the bishop of Rome is bound to no manner of decrees, but he may constrain all other persons, both spiritual and temporal, to receive all his decrees and canons”. Another is yet more devilish than any before rehearsed, that “although the bishop of Rome neither regard his own salvation nor no man’s else, but put down with himself headlong innumerable people by heaps unto hell, yet may no mortal man presume to reprove him therefore”. But what should I tarry, and make you weary in rehearsing a number? For a thousand other like canons and decrees there be to the advancement of the bishop of Rome his usurped power and authority. I cannot think of you that you be so far from all godliness from all wit and discretion, that you would have these decrees observed within this realm, which be so blasphemous to God, so injurious to all princes and realms, and so far from all equity and reason. But here you may easily perceive what wily foxes you met withal, which persuaded you to arm yourselves, to make sedition in your own country, to stand against your princes and the laws of your realm, for such articles as you understand not, and to ask you wist not what. For I dare say for you that the subtle papists, when they moved you to stand in this article “that all the holy decrees should be observed” they shewed you nothing of these decrees, that they were taken for holy decrees: for if they had they knew right well that you would never have consented unto this article; but would have taken them for traitors that first moved you thereto. For now shall I shew you what miserable case you should bring yourselves unto if the king’s majesty should assent unto this first article “that all the decrees should be kept and observed”. For among other partial decrees made in the favour of the clergy, this is one: “That none of the clergy shall be called or sued before any temporal judge for any manner of cause, either for debt, suit of lands, felony, murder, or for any other cause or crime; nor shall have any other judge, but his bishop only”. Another is: “That

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a spiritual man may sue a temporal man before a temporal or spiritual judge at his pleasure, but a temporal man cannot sue a spiritual but only before his ordinary”. I cannot deny but these be good and beneficial laws for the liberty of the clergy. But for your own part, I suppose, you do not think it any indifferent law that a priest shall sue you where he list, with the licence of his ordinary; and you shall sue him for no manner of cause, but only before his own ordinary; or if a priest had slain one of your sons or brethren, that you should have no remedy against him, but only before the bishop. What mean those papistical priests, that stirred you to ask and will such decrees and laws to be observed in this realm, but covertly and craftily to bring you under their subjection; and that you yourselves, ignorantly asking you wist not what, should put your own heads under their girdles? For surely, if you had known these decrees when you consented to this article, you would have torn the article in pieces, and they that moved you thereto also. For these decrees be not only partial, and against all equity and reason, made only for the favour of the clergy, and the suppression of the laity; but also they be, and ever have been, clearly contrary to the laws and customs of this realm. And yet by this article you will have the old ancient laws and customs of this realm (which have ever been used in all kings’ times hitherto) to be void and to cease, and these decrees to come in their place and be observed of all men, and againsaid of no man: for whosoever speaketh against them, you will hold them for heretics. And in so saying, look what sentence to give of yourselves. Although your article say it, yet I am sure you be not so much enemies to your own realm that you would have the old ancient laws and customs of this realm (for the defence whereof all the noble kings of this realm have so valiantly and so justly stood against the bishops of Rome) now to be taken away and give place unto Romish decrees. And then by your own article you hold and condemn yourselves to be heretics. How be you bewitched by these false papists? Why do you suffer them thus to abuse you by their subtlety to make you condemn yourselves of heresy? Why do you not send them unto the king’s majesty like errant traitors, as indeed they be, saying unto him, “Most mighty prince, and most dread sovereign lord, we present here unto you most heinous traitors against your majesty and realm, and greatest dissemblers and false deceivers of us, your simple and ignorant people, and yet in our own hearts your true and faithful subjects. We have erred, we have grievously offended your majesty, but by ignorance, being so seduced and provoked by the crafty persuasions of these most heinous traitors, that we wist not what we did. But pardon us, sovereign lord, have pity upon our simplicity and ignorance; and these abominable traitors punish according to their deservings. Have mercy, most merciful prince, of us, your poor flock, which were ignorantly led out of the way; and strike with the sword those malicious guides that purposely would have led us to our utter destruction.” If you did thus, then would you do the parts of true, faithful and loyal subjects, and should declare to the world that all that you have hitherto done was done by error and ignorance. And I would nothing doubt of the king’s majesty his clemency and mercy towards you. But yet, to the intent that you may further know how unreasonable your first article

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is, I will yet rehearse another sort of the holy laws and decrees. One is: “That no layman may have a benefice to farm.” Another is: “That none of the clergy may give any thing to the relief of the commonweal and necessity of their own realm, without the consent of the bishop of Rome.” Another is: “That no layman may meddle with election or any other thing that pertaineth unto any of the clergy.” Another is: “That none of the clergy ought to give any oath of fidelity to their princes except they have temporal lands of them.” Another is: “That princes ought to obey the bishops and the decrees of the church, and to submit their heads unto their bishops, and not to be judges over the bishops.” Another is this: “Whosoever offendeth the liberties of the church or doth break any interdiction that cometh from Rome, or conspireth against the person or estate of the bishop or see of Rome, or by any ways offendeth, disobeyeth, or rebelleth against the same bishop or see, or that killeth a priest, or offendeth personally against a bishop or other prelate, or invadeth, spoileth, withholdeth, or wasteth lands belonging to the church of Rome, or to any other church immediately subject unto Rome; or whosoever invadeth any pilgrims that go to Rome, or any suitors to the court of Rome, or that let the devolution of causes unto that court, or that put any new charges or impositions real or personal, upon a church or ecclesiastical person; and generally, all others that offend in the cases contained in the bull which is usually published by the bishops of Rome upon Maundy Thursday; all these can be assoiled by no priest, bishop, archbishop, nor by none other, but only by the bishop of Rome, or by his express licence.” These, with an infinite number of like sort, be the godly and holy decrees which you long so sore for, and so much desire. Now would I know, whether you think that these decrees were made for the common wealth of all realms, or only for the private weal of the bishop of Rome and of his bishops and clergy; and whether you like and long for these laws; or now, at the hearing of them, your longing is done? If you like them, well: for my part I would you had them practised among you for a while, (so that the rest of the realm were not troubled, neither with you nor with your decrees,) until you repented yourselves of your foolish demands. I think within a year you would kneel on your knees to the king’s majesty, desiring him to take from your necks the yokes and halters which you had made for yourselves. But to conclude the sum of the first article in few words: it is nothing else but a clear subversion of the whole state and laws of this realm; and to make this realm to be wholly governed by Romish laws, and to crown the idol and antichrist of Rome king of this realm, and to make our most undoubted and natural king his vile subject and slave. Oh! what was in your minds to ask such a thing, and so presumptuously to say, that you will have it? I trust there be not in you so much malice and devilishness, as the article containeth, but that you were craftily subornate by subtle papists to ask and demand you wist not what. If you had asked, that the word of God might be duly observed and kept everywhere within this realm, and whosoever would gainsay God’s word, to be holden as a heretic; if you had declared yourselves to be godly men; all that be godly would have commended and furthered your request. But forasmuch as you ask Romish canons and decrees to

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be observed and kept here in England, and whosoever shall againsay them, to be holden as heretics, there is neither godly nor truly English man, that will allow you, or consent to your articles. But clean contrary to your articles, a great number of godly persons within this realm, for the very love that they have to God, that his name may be glorified above all things, be daily humble suitors to the king’s majesty, that he, following the steps of his father, will study and travail to weed out of this his realm all popish decrees, laws, and canons, and Whatsoever else is contrary to God’s word; and that the speakers against God’s word may be taken (as they be indeed) for heretics. And is any of you so far from reason, that he thinketh the king’s majesty ought to hearken to you, that by force and stubbornness say, you will have Romish laws and decrees kept in this realm, and to turn his ears from them that with all humility be suitors for God’s word? But now will I come to your other articles, wherein I will be brief, forasmuch as in the first I have been long and tedious. YOUR SECOND ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have the law of our sovereign lord king Henry VIII. concerning the Six Articles to be used again, as in his time they were.” Letting pass your rude style, nothing becoming subjects to say, “You will have”: First, I examine you of the cause of your wilful will, wherefore you will have these six articles: which never were laws in no region but this; nor in this realm also, until the 31 st. year of King Henry VIII; and in some things so enforced by the evil counsel of certain papists, against the truth, and common judgment both of divines and lawyers, that if the king’s majesty himself had not come personally into the parliament house, those laws had never passed. And yet within a year or little more the same most noble prince was fain to temper his said laws, and moderate them in divers points: so that the statute of Six Articles continued in his force little above the space of one year. Is this then so great a matter to make these uproars, and to arise against the whole realm? Will you take away the present laws of this realm, (which be and ever have been the laws of all other countries also,) and set up new laws, which never were but in this realm only, and were here in force not fully thirteen months? And how chanceth it, that you be so earnest in this article, which is directly contrary to your first article, but you know not what neither of the articles meaneth, but be persuaded by perverse papists to ask you wot not what? But now here is the repugnance of the two articles: by your first you will have all general councils and decrees observed and kept; and by your second article you will have the Six Articles used again. Then let us compare the general councils and decrees with the Six Articles; and you shall see them agree as well together as black and white. First, it is contained in the canons of the apostles that a priest under no pretence of holiness may put away his wife; and, if he do, he shall be excommunicated: and the Six Articles say that if a priest put not away his wife, he shall be taken for a felon. If he keep her not still, he must be excommunicated by the canon of the apostles: and if he keep her still, he must suffer death by the Six Articles. You be cunning men, if you can

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set these two together. Also the council of Nice, which was the chief of all the general councils, and was celebrated more than twelve hundred years past, decreed clean directly contrary to the Six Articles. For where the Six Articles command all priests to be separate from their wives, Nicene council determined clean contrary, that they should not be separated, confessing such copulation to be holy and godly. And the council Gangrense, which was about the same time, so much allowed the marriage of priests, that they accursed them that would abstain from the ministration of priests, because they were married. These councils vary so far from the Six Articles that either you must put the general councils out of your book, or else the Six Articles. Likewise concerning private masses, the law of Six Articles far differeth from the canon of the apostles, and from the councils Nicene and Antioch, as shall be declared in the next article. Other things there be divers also in the Six Articles, which cannot stand with sundry old canons, decrees, and councils: so that if you will stand to the canons, decrees, and councils you must of force be constrained utterly to put out of your book your second article, which requireth the usage of the Six Articles. But now for shortness of time I will come to your third article, which is this: THE THIRD ARTICLE

“We will have the mass in Latin, as was before, and celebrated by the priest, without any man or woman communicating with him.” Forasmuch as there is nothing with you but “will”, let your will be conferred with reason and God’s word; and then you shall see how far your will differeth from them both. First, as touching the Latin masses, whatsoever the priest saith in the old masses, whether he pray and ask anything of God, or give thanks to God, or make the true profession of the faith, or whatsoever he doth besides, all he doth in your persons and in your names; and you answer unto that which he saith, sometime Amen, sometime Et cum spiritu tuo, and sometime other things, as the matter serveth. For all the whole that is done should be the act of the people and pertain to the people, as well as to the priest. And standeth it with reason, that the priest should speak for you, and in your name, and you answer him again in your own person; and yet you understand never a word, neither what he saith nor what you say yourselves? The priest prayeth to God for you, and you answer Amen, you wot not whereto. Is there any reason herein? Will you not understand what the priest prayeth for you, what thanks he giveth for you, what he asketh for you? Will you neither understand what he saith, nor let your hearts understand what your own tongues answer? Then must you needs confess yourselves to be such people as Christ spake of when he said, “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts be far from me”. Had you rather be like pies or parrots, that be taught to speak, and yet understand not one word what they say, than be true Christian men that pray unto God in heart and in faith? The priest is your proctor and attorney to plead your cause and to speak for you all; and had you rather not know than know what he saith for you? I have heard

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suitors murmur at the bar because their attornies have pleaded their cases in the French tongue which they understood not. Why then be you offended that the priests, which plead your cause before God, should speak such language as you may understand? If you were before the king’s highness and should choose one to speak for you all, I am sure you would not choose one that should speak Greek or Hebrew, French or Italian; no, nor one that should speak Latin neither. But you would be glad to provide such one as should speak your own language, and speak so loud, that you might both hear him, and understand him; that you might allow or disallow that that he said in your names. Why do you then refuse to do the like unto God? When the priest desireth anything of God for you, or giveth thanks for you, how can you in your heart confirm his sayings, when you know not one word what he saith? For the heart is not moved with words that be not understood. But if reason will not persuade you, I will prove what God’s word will do unto you. St. Paul, in the first epistle to the Corinthians saith, that whosoever shall speak to the people in the church to their edification, must speak such language as the people may understand; or else he willeth him to hold his peace, and speak softly to himself and to God. For he which speaketh a strange language which the people understand not, doth not edify them, as St. Paul saith. And he giveth an example of the trumpet in the field, which when it giveth such a sound that the soldier understandeth, it availeth much: for every soldier thereby knoweth what to do. But if such a blast be blown as no man understandeth, then the blast is utterly in vain: for no man knoweth thereby, whether the horsemen shall make them ready, or leap upon horseback, or go to their standard; or whether the footmen shall make them ready, or set themselves in array, or set upon the enemy, or retire to the standard. Even so should the priests be God’s trump in his church: so that if he blow such a certain blast that the people may understand, they be much edified thereby; but if he give such a sound as is to the people unknown, it is clearly in vain, saith St. Paul: for he speaks to the air; but no man is the better or edified thereby, nor knoweth what he should do by that he heareth. Furthermore, in the same place St. Paul saith that if a man giveth thanks to God in a language to the people unknown, how can they say Amen to that they understand not? He doth well in giving thanks to God; but that nothing availeth or edifieth the people, that know not what he saith. And St. Paul in one brief sentence concludeth his whole disputation of that matter, saying: “I had rather have five words spoken in the church to the instruction and edifying of the people than ten thousand in a language unknown that edifieth not”. And for this purpose allegeth the prophet Esay, who saith, that “God will speak to his people in other tongues, and in other languages;” meaning thereby that he would speak to every country in their, own language. So have the Greeks the mass in the Greek tongue, the Syrians in the Syry tongue, the Armenians in their tongue, and the Indians in their own tongue. And be you so much addict to the Romish tongue (which is the Latin tongue), that you will have your mass in none other language but the Romish language? Christ himself used among the Jews the Jews’ language, and willed his apostles to do the like in every country wheresoever they came. And be you such enemies to your own country that you will not suffer us to laud God, to thank him, and to use his

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sacraments in our own tongue; but will enforce us contrary, as well to all reason as to the word of God? So many as be godly, or have reason, will be satisfied with this. But the mere papist will be satisfied with nothing. Wherefore I will no longer tarry to satisfy them that never will be satisfied, but will proceed to the second part of this article, wherein you say that you will have neither men nor women communicate with the priest. Alas, good simple souls! how be you blinded with the papists! How contrary be your articles one to another! You say in your first article that you will have all general councils and decrees observed, and now you go from them yourselves. You say you will have nobody to communicate with the priest. Hear then what divers canons, decrees, and general councils say clean against you. There is one decree which saith thus: “When the consecration is done, let all the people receive the communion, except they will be put out of the church”. And in the canons of the apostles, in the eighth chapter, is contained “That whensoever there is any mass or communion, if any bishop, priest, deacon, or any other of the clergy being there present, do not communicate, except he can shew some reasonable cause to the contrary, he shall be put out of the communion, as one that giveth occasion to the people to think evil of the ministers”. And in the ninth chapter of the same canons of the apostles, and in the general council held at Antioch, is thus written: “That all Christian people that come into the church and hear the holy scriptures read and after will not tarry to pray and to receive the holy communion with the rest of the people, but for some misordering of themselves will abstain therefrom, let them be put out of the church until by humble knowledging of their fault, and by the fruits of penance and prayers they obtain pardon and forgiveness.” And the council Nicene also sheweth the order how men should sit in receiving the communion, and who should receive first. All these decrees and general councils utterly condemn your third article, wherein you will that the priest shall receive the communion alone, without any man or woman communicating with him. And the whole church of Christ also, both Greeks and Latins, many hundred years after Christ and the apostles do also condemn this your article; which ever received the communion in flocks and numbers together, and not the priest alone. And besides this, the very words of the mass (as it is called) shew plainly that it was ordained not only for the priest, but for other also to communicate with the priest. For in the very canon, which they so much extol, and which is so holy that no man may know what it is (and therefore is read so softly that no man can hear it) in that same canon I say, is a prayer containing this; that “not only the priest, but also as many beside as communicate with him, may be fulfilled with grace and heavenly benediction”. How agreeth this prayer with your article, wherein you say that neither man nor woman shall communicate with the priest? In another place also of the said canon the priest prayeth for himself, and “for all that receive the communion with him, that it may be a preparation for them unto everlasting life”. Which prayer were but a very fond prayer, and a very mocking with God, if nobody should communicate with the priest. And the communion concludes with two prayers made in the name of the priest and them that communicate with him, wherein they pray thus: “O Lord, that thing which we have

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taken in our mouth, let us take it also with pure minds, that this communion may purge us from our sins, and make us partakers of heavenly remedy”. And beside all this, there be an infinite sort of post-communions in the mass-books; which all do evidently shew, that in the masses the people did communicate with the priest. And although I would exhort every good Christian man often to receive the holy communion, yet I do not recite all these things to the intent that I would in this corrupt world, when men live so ungodly as they do, that the old canons should be restored again, which command every man present to receive the communion with the priest: which canons, if they were now used, I fear that many would receive it unworthily. But I speak them to condemn your article, which would have nobody, neither man nor woman, to be communicated with the priest: which your article condemneth the old decrees, canons, and general councils, condemneth all the old primitive church, all the old ancient holy doctors and martyrs, and all the forms and manner of masses that ever were made, both new and old. Therefore eat again this article, if you will not be condemned of the whole world, and of yourselves also by your first article; wherein you will all decrees and general councils to be observed. But forasmuch as I have been so tedious in this article, I will endeavour myself to be shorter in the next. YOUR FOURTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have the sacrament hang over the high altar, and there to be worshipped, as it was wont to be; and they which will not thereto consent, we will have them die like heretics against the holy catholic faith.” What say you, O ignorant people in things pertaining to God? Is this the holy catholic faith, that the sacrament should be hanged over the altar and worshipped? and be they heretics that will not consent thereto? I pray you, who made this faith? Any other but the bishops of Rome? and that more than a thousand years after the faith of Christ was full, and perfect! Innocent III about 1215 years after Christ, did ordain that the sacrament and chrism should be kept under lock and key. But yet no motion is made of hanging the sacrament over the high altar, nor of the worshipping of it. After him came Honorius III and he added further, commanding that the sacrament should be devoutly kept in a clean place, and sealed, and that the priest should often teach the people reverently to bow down to the host when it was lifted up in the mass time, and when the priest should carry it to the sick folks. And although this Honorius added the worshipping of the sacrament, yet he made no mention of the hanging thereof over the high altar, as your article purporteth. Nor how long after, or by what means, that came first up into this realm, I think no man can tell. And in Italy it is not yet used until this day. And in the beginning of the church it was not only not used to be hanged up, but also it was utterly forbid to be kept. And will you have all them that will not consent to your article to die like heretics that hold against the catholic faith? Were the apostles and evangelists heretics? Were the martyrs and confessors heretics? Were all the old doctors of the church heretics? Were all Christian people heretics, until within three or four hundred years last past,

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that the bishops of Rome taught them what they should do and believe? All they before rehearsed neither hanged the sacrament over the altar, neither worshipped it, nor not one of them all spake any one word, either of the hanging up, or worshipping of the sacrament. Marry, they speak very much of the worshipping of Christ himself, sitting in heaven at the right hand of his Father. And no man doth duly receive the sacrament except he so, after that manner, do worship Christ, whom he spiritually receiveth, spiritually feedeth and nourisheth upon, and by whom spiritually he liveth, and continueth that life that is towards God. And this the sacrament teacheth us. Now to knit up this article shortly. Here is the issue of this matter: that you must either condemn of heresy the apostles, martyrs, confessors, doctors, and all the holy church of Christ, until the time of Innocentius and Honorius, because they hanged not the sacrament over the altar to be worshipped; or else you must be condemned yourselves by your own article, to die like heretics against the holy catholic faith. Now to your fifth article. YOUR FIFTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have the sacrament of the altar but at Easter delivered to the lay-people; and then but in one kind.” Methinks you be like a man that were brought up in a dark dungeon that never saw light, nor knew nothing that is abroad in the world. And if a friend of his, pitying his ignorance and state, would bring him out of his dungeon, that he might see the light and come to knowledge, he, being from his youth used to darkness, could not abide the light, but would wilfully shut his eyes and be offended both with the light and with his friend also. A most godly prince of famous memory, king Henry VIII. our late sovereign lord, pitying to see his subjects many years so brought up in darkness and ignorance of God by the erroneous doctrine and superstitions of the bishop of Rome, with the counsel of all his nobles and learned men, studied by all means, and that to his no little danger and charges, to bring you out of your said ignorance and darkness unto the true light and knowledge of God’s word. And our most dread sovereign lord that now is, succeeding his father, as well in this godly intent as in his realms and dominions, hath with no less care and diligence studied to perform his father’s godly intent and purpose. And you, like men that wilfully shut their own eyes, refuse to receive the light saying, you will remain in your darkness. Or rather you be like men that be so far wandered out of the right way that they can never come to it again without good and expert guides: and yet when the guides would tell them the truth, they would not be ordered by them, but would say unto them, We will have and follow our own ways. And that you may understand how far you be wandered from the right way in this one article, wherein you will have the sacrament of the altar delivered to the lay-people but once in the year, and then but under one kind; be you assured that there was never such law nor such request made among Christian people until this day. What injury do you to many godly persons which would devoutly receive it many times, and you command the priest to deliver it them but at Easter! All learned men and godly have

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exhorted Christian people (although they have not commanded them) often to receive the communion. And in the apostles’ time the people at Jerusalem received it every day, as it appears by the manifest word of the scripture. And after, they received it in some places every day; in some places four times in the week; in some three times; some twice; commonly everywhere at the least once in the week. In the beginning, when men were most godly and most fervent in the Holy Spirit then they received the communion daily. But when the Spirit of God began to be more cold in men’s hearts, and they waxed more worldly than godly, then their desire was not so hot to receive the communion as it was before. And ever from time to time, as the world waxed more wicked, the more the people withdrew themselves from the holy communion. For it is so holy a thing, and the threatenings of God be so sore against them that come thereto unworthily, that an ungodly man abhorreth it, and not without cause dare in no wise approach thereunto. But to them that live godly it is the greatest comfort that in this world can be imagined. And the more godly a man is, the more sweetness and spiritual pleasure and desire he shall have often to receive it. And will you be so ungodly to command the priest that he shall not deliver it to him but at Easter, and then but only in one kind? when Christ ordained both the kinds, as well for the laymen as for the priests; and that to be eaten and drunken at all times. What enemies be you to all laymen, and to yourselves also, to refuse to drink of Christ’s cup, which he commanded all men to drink upon, saying, “Take and divide this among you;” and, “Drink ye all of it.” But what need any more be brought for the reproving of this article than your own first article, where you will have kept all decrees and councils? Now in the decrees, De Consecrat. Di. 2, there is one decree that commandeth all men to receive the communion at the least thrice in the year, at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas. Another commandeth every man to receive the same upon Shere-Thursday. The council Agathenses saith, that all laymen which receive not the communion at Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide shall not be taken for catholics: and the decree of Gelasius, that the receiving under one kind is great sacrilege. Then by your first article you do not only condemn this your fifth article, but also you shew yourselves not to be catholics, except you receive the communion at the least three times in the year, and that under both the kinds, which is clean repugnant to this article. And yet I pray God you may receive it worthily once in your life: which you shall never do, except you wonderfully repent this your misbehaviour; and all your life-time study to amend and redress that you have now offended. Now to your sixth article. YOUR SIXTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will that our curates shall minister the sacrament of baptism at all times, as well in the weekday as on the holy-day.” Who letteth your ministers to baptize your children every day, if any cause of necessity so do require? But commonly it is more convenient that baptism should not be ministered but upon the holy-day when the most number of people be together; as well for that the

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whole church there present may rejoice together of the receiving of new members of Christ into the same church, as also, that all men being present may remember, and the better know, what they promised themselves by their godfathers and godmothers in their own baptism; and be the more earnestly stirred in their hearts to perform the same; and also may all together pray for them that be baptized, that they may have grace to perform their profession. St. Gregory Nazianzene, as great a clerk as ever was in Christ’s church, and master to St. Hierome, counselled that children should not be christened until they came to three years of age or thereabout, except they were in danger of life. And it was thought sufficient to our forefathers to be done two times in the year, at Easter and Whitsuntide; as it appeareth by divers of their councils and decrees, which forbid baptism to be administered at any other time than Easter and Whitsuntide, except in case of necessity. And there remained lately divers signs and tokens thereof. For every Easter and Whitsun-even until this time the fonts were hallowed in every church, and many collects and other prayers were read for them that were baptized. But alas! in vain, and as it were a mocking with God: for at those times, except it were by chance, none were baptized, but all were baptized before. For as vigils, otherwise called watchings, remained in the calendars upon certain saints’ evens, because in old times the people watched all those nights; and Vigilantius, because he speaketh against these watchings, was condemned of heresy; but now these many years those vigils remained in vain in the books, for no man did watch: even so until this day the order and form of christening was read and kept every year at Easter and Whitsuntide, but none was then christened. Wherein it appeareth how far we be swerved from our forefathers. And, to conclude this article shortly, if you will needs have baptism ministered no more at one time than another, then must you needs renounce your first article; which willeth the councils and decrees of the forefathers to be observed and kept. And this briefly sufficeth for the sixth article. YOUR SEVENTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have holy bread and holy water every Sunday, palms and ashes at the times accustomed; images to be set up again in every church; and all other ancient old ceremonies used heretofore by our mother holy church.” Oh! superstition and idolatry, how they prevail among you. The very true heavenly bread of life, the food of everlasting life, offered unto you in the sacrament of the holy communion, you refuse to eat, but only at Easter. And the cup of the most holy blood, wherewith you were redeemed and washed from your sins, you refuse utterly to drink of at any time. And yet in the stead of these you will eat often of the unsavoury and poisoned bread of the bishop of Rome, and drink of his stinking puddles, which he nameth holy bread and holy water. Consider, O ignorant people, the authors and intents of the makers of them both. The water of baptism, and the holy bread and wine of the holy communion, none other person did ordain, but Christ himself. The other, that is called holy bread, holy water, holy ashes, holy palms, and all other like ceremonies

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ordained the bishops of Rome; adversaries to Christ, and therefore rightly called antichrist. And Christ ordained his bread and his wine and his water to our great comfort, to instruct us and teach us what things we have only by him. But antichrist on the other side hath set up his superstitions under the name of holiness to none other intent but as the devil seeketh all means to draw us from Christ, so doth antichrist advance his holy superstitions to the intent that we should take him in the stead of Christ, and believe that we have by him such things as we have only by Christ; that is to say, spiritual food, remission of our sins, and salvation. First, our Saviour Christ ordained the water of baptism to signify unto us that as that water washeth our bodies outwardly so be we spiritually within washed by Christ from all our sins. And as the water is called water of regeneration, or new birth, so it declareth unto us that through Christ we be born anew, and begin a new life towards God; and that Christ is the beginning of this new life. And as the body that is new born although it have life within it, yet can it not continue without meat and drink; even so can we not continue in the spiritual life towards God except we be continually nourished with spiritual food: and that spiritual food is Christ also. For as he is the first beginning of our spiritual life, so is he the continuance and ending thereof. And for this cause did Christ ordain in the holy communion to be eaten bread, and drunken wine, that we should surely believe that as our bodies be fed with bread and wine in these holy mysteries so be we out of doubt that our souls be fed spiritually with the lively food of Christ’s body and blood; whereby we have remission of our sins and salvation. But the bishop of Rome invented new devices of his own making, and by them promised remission of sins and salvation, that he might be set up and honoured for a saviour equal to Christ; and so to be esteemed above all creatures, and to sit in the temple of God, that is to say, in the church of Christ, as he were God. And to bring this to pass he hath horribly abused holy scriptures, altering them to his purpose, in the stead of Christ’s most holy blood putting in his holy water: as it appeareth evidently in this sentence of St. Paul written in the ninth chapter of the Hebrews “If the blood of oxen and goats,” saith St. Paul, “and the ashes of a young cow purified the unclean, as touching the purifying of the flesh, how much more the blood of Christ, which through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God shall purge your consciences from dead works for to serve the living God! And for this cause he is the Mediator of the new covenant.” Consider well this sentence of Paul and you shall find two purifyings, one of the body, and another of the soul or conscience. You shall find also two mediators: one was the priest of Moses’ law, and the other is Christ. The priests of the old law, with the blood of oxen and goats and other their sacrifices, purged only the bodies of them that were defiled; but the soul or conscience they could not help. But our Saviour Christ by his own blood purged both body and soul. And for that cause he, and none other, is the Mediator of the new covenant. But the bishop of Rome, to make himself also a mediator with Christ hath taken upon him to purify the soul and conscience with holy water, holy salt, and other his holy creatures of his own devising, to the intolerable injury of Christ’s blood, which only hath the effect. And to bring this to pass he hath most shamefully changed the words of the

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scripture and wrested them to his own purpose; some words putting out, and also in the stead of Christ’s blood putting in his own holy water and salt. For whereas St. Paul saith, “If the blood of oxen and goats and the ashes of a cow purified the unclean, as touching the purifying of the flesh:” here the bishop of Rome leaveth out these words “as touching the purifying of the flesh”. And where St. Paul, extolling the effects of Christ’s blood in comparison of the blood of oxen and goats saith, “How much more the blood of Christ, which through the eternal Spirit offered himself, being without spot, unto God, shall purge your consciences:” here the bishop of Rome, extolling his water and salt, puts out Christ’s blood, and in the place thereof puts his holy water and salt, saying “How much more water, which is sprinkled with salt and hallowed with godly prayers shall sanctify and purify the people!” O intolerable blasphemy against the most precious blood of Christ! O shameless audacity and boldness, so to corrupt and pervert God’s holy word! If he by his holy water presume to purify our souls as Christ did by his blood, what is that else but to make himself equal and another mediator with Christ? And what is it to tread under foot the Son of God, and to make the blood of the new testament, whereby he was sanctified, like other common things, and to dishonour the Spirit of grace, if this be not? And yet, not contented with this blaspheming the blood of Christ he preferreth his holy creatures far above the blood of Christ, promising by them many benefits which by the blood of Christ be not promised. For in the same place he promiseth by his holy ceremonies to take away from us dearth and scarcity of all worldly things, and to multiply and increase us with the same; also to defend us from the assaults of the devil, and all his deceits, and to give us health both of body and soul. But all men see him so shamefully to lie in these worldly things that no man that wise is will trust him in the rest. Nor no man that is godly will desire such things to remain still, which so much have deceived simple people and dishonoured God and been contumelious to the blood of Christ. But now to your images which, you say, you will have set up again in every church. What moved you to require this article but only ignorance? For if you had known the laws of God and the use of godly religion, as well before the incarnation of Christ as four or five hundred years next after, and by whom images were first brought into Christ’s church, and how much idolatry was every where committed by the means of the same; it could not have been that ever you would have desired this article except you had more affection to idolatry than to true religion. For Almighty God among the ten commandments rehearsed this for the second, as one of the chief: “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.” This commandment was diligently kept in the old Testament, so long as the people pleased God. For in their tabernacle was not one image, less nor more, that the people might see: although upon the propitiatory were two cherubims of gold by the commandment of God; and that was in such a place as the people never came near nor saw. But when the people, forgetting this commandment, began to make them images and to set them up in the place of adoration, by and by they provoked God’s indignation against them, and were grievously punished therefore.

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The church of Christ likewise in the new Testament, for the space of four or five hundred years after Christ’s ascension utterly refused to have images in the church, a place of adoration; as it may plainly appear by all the old ancient authors that lived and wrote in that time: insomuch that above four hundred years after Christ, when some superstitious and ignorant people in some places began to bring painted images, not into the church, but to the church-doors, the great clerk Epiphanius, bishop at Cyprus, finding such a painted image of Christ, or some other saint, hanging at the church-door in a town called Anablatha, he cut it in pieces, saying that “it was against the authority of scripture that in the church of Christ should hang the image of a man.” And the same Epiphanius wrote unto the bishop of Jerusalem that he should command the priests that in no wise they should suffer such images to be hanged in the church of Christ, which were contrary to our religion. But peradventure you will marvel, and ask me the question, how it was brought to pass that of late years all churches were so full of images and so much offering and pilgrimages done unto them, if it were against the commandment of God, against the usage of all godly people in the old Testament, and also against the custom of Christ’s church in the new Testament, so long as it was pure and holy, and kept from idolatry? Who was able to bring this to effect, contrary both to God’s express commandment and the custom of all godly people from the beginning of the world until four or five hundred years after Christ? No man surely could have wrought this thing so much contrary to God but antichrist himself, that is to say, the bishop of Rome; to whom God hath given great power to work great wonders, to bring into error those that will not believe the truth. But by what means did he compass this matter? By such means as were most meet for himself, and as he hath commonly practised in all other matters; that is to say, by sedition and murder, by confederacies and persecutions, by raising the son against the father, the children against their mother, and the subjects against their rulers; by deposing of emperors and princes, and murdering of learned men saints, and martyrs. For thus he wrought against the emperor of the east parties from Gregory II’s time until Gregory III; who at length, after this condition had endured above five hundred years, in a council held at Lyons, by feigned promises persuaded the emperor of the east to condescend to his purpose, as well to receive images into the churches as to other his requests. But nevertheless the bishop of Rome failed of his purpose. For yet to this day the Christian men in the east do not allow images to stand in their churches; neither the Greeks, nor the Armenians, nor the Indians, nor none other Christian men. And, that more is, search all the world throughout, of what religion soever they be, whether they be Jews, Turks, Saracens, Tartaries, or Christian people, and you shall not find an image in none of their churches but that was brought in by the bishop of Rome, and where the bishop of Rome is, or within these forty years was taken for the head of the church and Christ’s vicar in earth. And at the beginning the bishop of Rome, to cloak their idolatry, pretended to have images set up only for a remembrance to laymen, and to be, as it were, laymen’s books. But after, they defined plainly that these should be worshipped. And so it increased at length that images were kneeled unto, offered unto, prayed unto, sought unto, incensed

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and pilgrimages done unto them, and all manner of superstition and idolatry that could be devised. Almighty God knoweth our corrupt nature better than we do ourselves. He knoweth well the inclinations of man, how much he is given to worship creatures and the works of his own hands; and specially fond women, which commonly follow superstition rather than true religion. And therefore he utterly forbade the people the use of graven images, specially in places dedicated to the honour of God, knowing assuredly that of the having would follow the worshipping of them. Now (thanks be to God!) in this realm we be clearly delivered from that kind of idolatry which most highly offended God, and we do according to the council Elebertine, which ordained that no images should be in churches. And this council is so ancient that it was about the same year that Nicene council was. What should then move you to ask again your images in the church, being not only against God’s commandments and the use of God’s church evermore since the beginning of the world, when it was pure from idolatry, but also being chargeable to the realm, and great occasion of heinous idolatry, but that some papistical and covetous priests have persuaded you hereto? which care neither for God’s honour nor your damnation, so that they may have any commodity or profit thereby. I have been very long in this article, and yet the matter is so large that it requireth much more to be spoken therein, which for shortness of time I am constrained to leave until a more occasion; and to come to your eighth article. YOUR EIGHTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will not receive the new service, because it is but like a Christmas game; but we will have our old service of matins, mass, even-song, and procession in Latin, as it was before. And so we the Cornish men, whereof certain of us understand no English, utterly refuse this new English.” As concerning the having of the service in the Latin tongue, is sufficiently spoken of in the answer to your third article. But I would gladly know the reason why the Cornish men refuse utterly the new English, as you call it, because certain of you understand it not; and yet you will have the service in Latin, which almost none of you understand. If this be a sufficient cause for Cornwall to refuse the English service because some of you understand none English, a much greater cause have they, both of Cornwall and Devonshire to refuse utterly the late service; forasmuch as fewer of them know the Latin tongue than they of Cornwall the English tongue. But where you say that you will have the old service because the new is “like a Christmas game”, you declare yourselves what spirit you be led withal, or rather what spirit leadeth them that persuaded you that the word of God is but like a Christmas game. It is more like a game and a fond play to be laughed at of all men to hear the priest speak aloud to the people in Latin, and the people listen with their ears to hear; and some walking up and down in the church, some saying other prayers in Latin, and none understandeth other. Neither the priest nor his parish wot what they say. And many times the thing that the priest sayeth in Latin is so fond of itself, that it is more like a play than a godly prayer. But in the English service appointed to be read there is nothing else but the eternal

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word of God: the new and the old Testament is read, that hath power to save your souls; which, as St. Paul saith, “is the power of God to the salvation of all that believe;” the clear light to our eyes, without the which we cannot see; and a lantern unto our feet, without which we should stumble in darkness. It is in itself the wisdom of God, and yet “to the Jews it is a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles it is but foolishness: but to such as be called of God, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Then unto you if it be but foolishness and a Christmas game, you may discern yourselves what miserable state you be in, and how far you be from God. For St. Paul saith plainly that the word of God is foolishness only to them that perish; but to them that shall be saved it is God’s might and power. To some it is a lively savour unto life, and to some it is a deadly savour unto death. If it be to you but a Christmas game, it is then a savour of death unto death. And surely persuade yourselves that you be not led with the Spirit of God so long as the word of God savoureth no better unto you, but seemeth unto you a Christmas pastime and foolishness. And therefore the old service pleaseth you better: which in many things is so foolish and so ungodly that it seems rather to be old wives’ tales and lies than to sound to any godliness. The devil is a liar, and the author of lies; and they may think themselves governed rather of his spirit than of God when lies delight more than God’s most true word. But this I judge rather of your leaders than of yourselves who by ignorance be carried away by others, you wot not whither. For when the service was in the Latin tongue, which you understand not, they might read to you truth or fables, godly or ungodly things as they pleased; but you could not judge that you understood not. And what was the cause why St. Paul would have such languages spoken in the church as that people might understand? that they might learn and be edified thereby, and judge of that which should be spoken, whether it were according to God’s word or not. But forasmuch as you understand not the old Latin service I shall rehearse some things in English that were wont to be read in Latin, that when you understand them, you may judge them whether they seem to be true tales or fables; and whether they or God’s word seem to be more like plays and Christmas games. “The devil entered into a certain person, in whose mouth St. Martin put his finger: and because the devil could not get out at his mouth, the man blew him out behind.” This is one of the tales that was wont to be read in the Latin service, that you will needs have again. As though the devil had a body, and that so crass that he could not pass out by the small pores of the flesh, but must needs have a wide hole to go out at. Is this a grave and godly matter to be read in the church, or rather a foolish Christmas tale, or an old wives’ fable, worthy to be laughed at and scorned of every man that hath either wit or godly judgment? Yet more foolish, erroneous, and superstitious things be read in the feasts of St. Blase, St. Valentine, St. Margaret, St. Peter, of the visitation of Our Lady, and the Conception, of the Transfiguration of Christ, and in the feast of Corpus Christi, and a great number more: whereof some be most vain fables, some very superstitious, some directly against God’s word, and the laws of this realm; and all together be full of error and superstition. But as Christ commonly excused the simple people because of their ignorance, and justly condemned the scribes and Pharisees, which by their crafty persuasions led the

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people out of the right way; so I think not you so much to be blamed as those Pharisees and papistical priests which, abusing your simplicity, caused you to ask you wist not what, desiring rather to drink of the dregs of corrupt error, which you knew not, than of the pure and sweet wine of God’s word, which you may and ought to understand. But now have I sufficiently spoke of your eighth article: I will go forward unto the ninth. YOUR NINTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have every preacher in his sermon, and every priest at the mass, pray specially by name for the souls in purgatory, as our forefathers did.” To reason with you by learning, which be unlearned, it were but folly: therefore I will convince your article with very reason. First, tell me, I pray, if you can, whether there be a purgatory or no; and where, or what it is. And if you cannot tell then I may tell you that you ask you wot not what. The scripture maketh mention of two places where the dead be received after this life, of heaven and of hell; but of purgatory is not one word spoken. Purgatory was wont to be called a fire as hot as hell, but not so long during. But now the defenders of purgatory within this realm be ashamed so to say; nevertheless they say it is a third place; but where or what it is, they confess themselves, they cannot tell. And of God’s word they have nothing to shew, neither where it is, nor what it is, nor that it is. But all is feigned of their own brains, without authority of scripture. I would ask of them then, wherefore it is, and to what use it serveth? For if it be to no use, then it is a thing frustrate and in vain. Marry, say they, it is a place of punishment, whereby they be purged from their sins, that depart out of this life not fully purged before. I cannot tell whether this saying be more foolish or more contumelious to Christ. For what can be more foolish than to say that pains can wash sins out of the soul? I do not deny but that corrections and punishments in this life is a calling of men to repentance and amendment, and so to be purged by the blood of Christ. But correction without repentance can nothing avail; and they that be dead be past the time of repentance; and so no correction or torments in purgatory can avail them. And what a contumely and injury is this to Christ, to affirm that all have not full and perfect purgation by his blood, that die in his faith! Is not all our trust in the blood of Christ, that we be cleansed, purged and washed thereby? And will you have us now to forsake our faith in Christ and bring us to the pope’s purgatory to be washed therein: thinking that Christ’s blood is an imperfect lee or soap that washeth not clean? If he shall die without mercy that treadeth Christ’s blood under his feet, what is treading of his blood under our feet, if this be not? But if according to the catholic faith, which the holy scripture teacheth and the prophets, apostles, and martyrs confirmed with their blood, all the faithful that die in the Lord be pardoned of all their offences by Christ, and their sins be clearly sponged and washed away by his blood, shall they after be cast into another strong and grievous prison of purgatory, there to be punished again for that which was pardoned before? God hath promised by his word that the souls of the just be in God’s

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hand and no pain shall touch them: and again he saith “Blessed be they that die in the Lord, for the Spirit of God saith that from henceforth they shall rest from their pains.” And Christ himself saith: “He that believeth in him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come to judgment, but shall pass from death unto life.” And is God no truer of his promises but to punish that which he promiseth to pardon? Consider the matter by your own cases. If the king’s majesty should pardon your offences, and after would cast you into prison, would you think that he had well observed his promise? For what is to pardon your offences but to pardon the punishment for the same? If the king would punish you, would you take that for a pardon? Would you not allege your pardon, and say that you ought not to be punished? Who can then, that hath but a crumb of reason in his head, imagine of God that he will after our death punish those things that he pardoned in our life-time? Truth it is that scripture maketh mention of paradise and Abraham’s bosom after this life; but those be places of joy and consolation, not of pains and torments. But yet I know what subtle sophisters use to mutter in men’s ears to deceive them withal. David, say they, with many other were pardoned of their offences, and yet were they sore punished after for the same of God; and some of them so long as they lived. Well, be it were so. Yet after their lives they were not punished in purgatory therefore: but the end of their lives was the end of their punishment. And likewise it is of original sin after baptism, which although it be pardoned yet after-pains thereof continue so long as we live. But this punishment in this lifetime is not to revenge our original sin, which is pardoned in baptism, but to make us humble, penitent, obedient to God, fearful to offend, to know ourselves, and ever to stand in fear and awe; as if a father that hath beaten a wilful child for his faults should hang the rod continually at the child’s girdle, it should be no small pain and grief to the child, ever hanging by his side: and yet the father doth it not to beat the child for that which is past and forgiven, but to make him beware hereafter that he offend not again, and to be gentle, tractable, obedient, and loth to do anything amiss. But after this life there is no such cause of punishment; where no rod nor whip can force any man to go any faster or farther, being already at the end of his journey. Likewise a master that hath an unthrifty servant, which out of his master’s sight doth nothing but riot and disorder himself, if he forgive his servant, and for the love he beareth to him, and the desire to see him corrected and reformed, he will command him never to be out of his sight, this command, although indeed it be a great pain to the servant, yet the master doth it not to punish those faults, which before he had pardoned and forgiven, but to keep him in stay that he fall no more to like disorder. But these examples and cases of punishment here in this life can in no wise be wrested and drawn to the life to come; and so in no wise can serve for purgatory. And furthermore, seeing that the scriptures so often and so diligently teach us, almost in every place, to relieve all them that be in necessity, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick and the prisoner, to comfort the sorrowful, and so to all others that have need of our help; and the same in no place make mention either of such pains in purgatory or what comfort we may do them, it is certain that the same is feigned for lucre, and not grounded upon God’s word. For else the scripture in some place would

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have told us plainly what case they stood in that be in purgatory, and what relief and help we might do unto them. But forasmuch as God’s words speaketh not one word of neither of them both, my counsel shall be that you keep not the bishop of Rome’s decrees that you may come to purgatory, but keep God’s laws that you may come to heaven: or else I promise you assuredly that you shall never escape hell. Now to your next article. YOUR TENTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have the bible and all books of scripture in English, to be called in again. For we be informed that otherwise the clergy shall not of long time confound the heretics.” Alas! it grieveth me to hear your articles; and much I rue and lament your ignorance; praying God most earnestly once to lighten your eyes that you may see the truth. What Christian heart would not be grieved to see you so ignorant, (for willingly and wilfully, I trust, you did it not,) that you refuse Christ, and join yourselves with anti christ? You refuse the holy bible and all holy scriptures so much, that you will have them called in again; and the bishop of Rome’s decrees you will have advanced and observed. I may well say to you as Christ said to Peter, “Turn back again, for you savour not godly things.” As many of you as understand no Latin cannot know God’s word but in English, except it be the Cornish men, which cannot understand likewise none but their own speech. Then you must be content to have it in English, which you know, or else you must confess that you refuse utterly the knowledge thereof. And wherefore did the Holy Ghost come down among the apostles in fiery tongues and gave them knowledge of all languages, but that all nations might hear, speak and learn God’s word in their mother-tongue? And can you name me any Christians in all the world but they have and ever had God’s word in their own tongue? And the Jews, to whom God gave his scriptures in the Hebrew tongue, after their long captivity among the Chaldees, so that more of them knew the Chaldee rather than the Hebrew tongue, they caused the scripture to be turned into the Chaldee tongue that they might understand it: which until this day is called Targum. And Ptolemy, king of Egypt, caused sixty of the greatest clerks that might be gotten to translate the scripture out of Hebrew into Greek. And until this day the Greeks have it in the Greek tongue, the Latins in the Latin tongue, and all other nations in their own tongue. And will you have God farther from us than from all other countries; that he shall speak to every man in his own language that he understandeth and was born in, and to us shall speak a strange language that we understand not? And will you that all other realms shall laud God in their own speech, and we shall say to him we know not what? Although you savour so little of godliness that you list not to read his word yourselves, you ought not to be so malicious and envious to let them that be more godly and would gladly read it to their comfort and edification. And if there be an English heretic, how will you have him confuted but in English? and whereby else but by God’s word? Then it followeth that to confute English heretics we must needs have God’s word in English,

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as all other nations have it in their own native language. St. Paul to the Ephesians teacheth all men, as well laymen as priests, to arm themselves and to fight against all adversaries with God’s word; without the which we cannot be able to prevail neither against subtle heretics, puissant devils, this deceitful world, nor our own sinful flesh. And therefore, until God’s word came to light, the bishop of Rome, under the prince of darkness reigned quietly in the world, and his heresies were received and allowed for the true catholic faith. And it can none otherwise be but that heresies must reign where the light of God’s word driveth not away our darkness. YOUR ELEVENTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will have Dr. Moreman and Dr. Crispin, which hold our opinions to be safely sent unto us; and to them we require the king’s majesty to give some certain livings, to preach among us our catholic faith.” If you be of Moreman’s and Crispin’s faith I like you much the worse. For “like lettuce, like lips.” And to declare you plainly the qualities of Crispin and Moreman, and how unmeet men they be to be your teachers, they be persons very ignorant in God’s word, and yet thereto very wilful, crafty, and full of dissimulation. For if they were profoundly learned and of sincere judgments, as they be not, they might be godly teachers of you. Or if they were not toto wilful, and standing wholly in their own conceits, they might learn and be taught of others. But now they be so wilful that they will not learn, and so ignorant that they cannot teach, and so full of craft and hypocrisy that they be able to deceive you all and to lead you into error after themselves. So that if you ask them you ask your own poison. Now if a man were in such a sickness that he longed for poison, (as many diseases desire things most noyful1 unto them), yet it were not the part of a good physician to give it unto them. No more is it the office of a most godly prince to give you such teachers (although you long never so sore for them) as he knoweth would corrupt you, feeding you rather with sour and unwholesome leaven of Romish pharisaical doctrine than with the sweet, pure, and wholesome bread of God’s heavenly word. And where you would have God’s word in English destroyed and Crispin and Moreman delivered unto you, you do even as the people of the Jews did which cried out that Christ might be crucified, and that Barabbas, the strong thief, might be delivered unto them. YOUR TWELFTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We think it very meet, because the lord cardinal Pole is of the king’s blood, that he should not only have his pardon, but also be sent for to Rome, and promoted to be of the king’s council.” In this article I will answer no more but this: If ever any cardinal or legate were beneficial unto this realm, we may have some hope of some other to follow his steps: but if all that ever were in this realm were pernicious and hurtful unto the same, I know not why we should be with child to long for any more. For by the experience of them that have 1

Hurtful.

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been heretofore, we may conjecture of them that be to come. And I fear me that cardinal Pole would follow rather the whole race of the rest than to begin a better of himself. Surely I have read a book of his making, which whosoever shall read, if he have a true heart to our late sovereign lord king Henry VIII, or to this realm, he will judge cardinal Pole neither worthy to dwell in this realm nor yet to live. For he doth extend all his wits and eloquence in that book to persuade the bishop of Rome, the emperor, the French king, and all other princes, to invade this realm by force. And sure I am that if you have him you must have the bishop of Rome also: for the cardinal cannot be a subject but where the other is his head. This sufficeth briefly to this article. YOUR THIRTEENTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will that no gentleman shall have any more servants than one to wait upon him, except he may dispend one hundred mark land. And for every hundred mark we think it reasonable he should have a man.” Yet have you not foreseen one thing, you wise disposers of the commonwealth. For if a gentleman of an hundred mark land (who by your order must have but one servant, except he might spend two hundred marks) should send that one servant to London, you have not provided who shall wait upon him until his servant come home again. Nor you have not provided where every gentleman may have one servant that can do all things necessary for him. I fear me the most part of you that devised this article, (whom I take to be loiterers and idle unthrifts), if you should serve a gentleman, he should be fain to do all things himself, for any thing that you could or would do for him. But one thing methink very strange: for where much complaint is made of divers gentlemen because they keep not houses you provide by your order that no gentleman shall keep house, but all shall sojourn with other men. For who can keep an household with one servant, or with two servants, after the rate of two hundred marks, or with three, after the rate of three hundred, and so upward? For here, it seems, you be very desirous to make gentlemen rich: for after this proportion every gentleman may lay up clearly in his coffers at the least the one half of his yearly revenue, and much more. But it was not for good mind that you bare to the gentlemen that you devised this article; but it appeareth plainly that you devised it to diminish their strength, and to take away their friends, that you might command gentlemen at your pleasures. But you be much deceived in your account. For although by your appointment they lacked household servants, yet shall they not lack tenants and farmers: which if they do their duties, will be as assured to their lords as their own household servants. For of those lands which they have or hold of their lords they have their whole livings for themselves, their wives, children, and servants. And for all these they attend their own business, and wait upon their lords but when they be called thereto. But the household servant, leaving all his own business, waiteth daily and continually upon his master’s service; and for the same hath no more but meat and drink and apparel for himself only; so that all tenants and farmers, which know their duties, and be kind to their lords, will die and live with them, no less than their own household servants. Therefore I would wish

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you to put this phantasy out of your heads, and this article out of your book, as well for the unreasonableness as for the ungodliness thereof. For was it ever seen in any country since the world began that the commons did appoint the nobles and gentlemen the number of their servants? Standeth it with any reason to turn upside down the good order of the whole world, that is everywhere, and ever hath been, that is to say, the commoners to be governed by the nobles and the servants by their masters? Will you now have the subjects to govern their king, the villeins to rule the gentlemen, and the servants their masters? If men would suffer this, God will not; but will take vengeance of all them that will break his order, as he did of Dathan and Abiram: although for a time he be a God of much sufferance, and hideth his indignation under his mercy, that the evil of themselves may repent, and see their own folly. YOUR FOURTEENTH ARTICLE IS THIS:

“We will that the half-part of the abbey-lands and chantry-lands in every man’s possession, however he came by them, be given again to two places, where two of the chief abbeys were within every county; where such half part shall be taken out, and there be established a place for devout persons, which shall pray for the king and the commonwealth. And to the same we will have all the alms of the churchbox given for these seven years.” At the beginning you pretended that you meant nothing against the king’s majesty, but now you open yourselves plainly to the world that you go about to pluck the crown from his head; and against all justice and equity, not only to take from him such lands as be annexed unto his crown and be parcel of the same, but also against all right and reason to take from all other men such lands as they came to by most just title, by gift, by sale, by exchange, or otherwise. There is no respect nor difference had amongst you, whether they came to them by right or by wrong. Be you so blind that you cannot see how justly you proceed to take the sword in your hands against your prince, and to dispossess just inheritors without any cause? Christ would not take upon him to judge the right and title of lands between two brethren; and you arrogantly presume not only to judge, but unjustly to take away all men’s right titles; yea, even from the king himself. And do you not tremble for fear that the vengeance of God shall fall upon you before you have grace to repent? And yet you, not contented with this your rebellion, would have your shameful act celebrated with a perpetual memory, as it were to boast and glory of your iniquity. For, in memory of your fact, you would have established in every county two places to pray for the king and the commonwealth: whereby your abominable behaviour at this present may never be forgotten, but be remembered unto the world’s end; that when the king’s majesty was in wars both with Scotland and France, you, under pretence of the commonwealth, rebelled and made so great sedition against him within his own realm, as never before was heard of. And therefore you must be prayed for for ever in every county of this realm. It were more fit for you to make humble supplication upon your knees to the king’s

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majesty, desiring him not only to forgive you this fault, but also that the same may never be put in chronicle nor writing; and that neither shew nor mention may remain to your posterity, that ever subjects were so unkind to their prince, and so ungracious towards God that, contrary to God’s word, they should so use themselves against their sovereign lord and king. And this I assure you of, that if all the whole world should pray for you until doomsday their prayers should no more avail you than they should avail the devils in hell, if they prayed for them, unless you be so penitent and sorry for your disobedience that you will ever after, so long as you live, study to redub1 and recompense the same with all true and faithful obedience, not only yourselves, but also procuring all other, so much as lieth in you: and so much detesting such uproars and seditions, that if you see any man towards any such things, you will to your power resist him, and open him unto such governors and rulers as may straightway repress the same. As for your last article, thanks be to God, it needeth not to be answered, which is this. YOUR LAST ARTICLE IS THIS:

“For the particular griefs of our country, we will have them so ordered, as Humphry Arundel and Henry Bray, the king’s mayor of Bodman shall inform the king’s majesty if they may have safe conduct under the king’s great seal to pass and re-pass with an herald of arms.” Who ever heard such arrogancy in subjects, to require and will of their princes that their own particular causes may be ordered neither according to reason nor the laws of this realm, but according to the information of two most heinous traitors? Was it ever heard before this time that an information should be a judgment, although the informer were of never so great credit? and will you have suffice the information of two villainous papistical traitors? You will deprive the king of his lands pertaining to his crown, and other men of their just possessions and inheritance, and judge your own causes as you list yourselves. And what can you be called then but most wicked judges, and most errant traitors? except only ignorance or force may excuse you; that either you were constrained by your captains against your wills, or deceived by blind priests and other crafty persuaders, to ask you wist not what. How much then ought you to detest and abhor such men hereafter, and to beware of all such like, so long as you live; and to give most humble and hearty thanks unto God, who hath made an end of this article, and brought Arundel and Bray to that they have deserved, that is, perpetual shame, confusion, and death! Yet I beseech God so to extend his grace unto them that they may die well which have lived ill. Amen. 1

Repair, or make amends.

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C. LEADERS IN SOCIETY 33. Character sketch of Henry VII. By Polydore Vergil Polydore Vergil could write from personal knowledge of the king. His analysis of Henry’s character is more sophisticated than other contemporary accounts and has coloured the writings of most historians.

(D.Hay (ed.), Anglica Historia, 142–146)

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enry reigned twenty-three years and seven months. He lived fifty-two years. By his wife Elizabeth he had eight children, four boys and the same number of girls. Three survived him, an only son Henry, prince of Wales, and two daughters, Margaret married to James King of Scotland, and Mary betrothed to Charles, prince of Castile. His figure was slim, but well-built and strong: in height he was above the average. Extremely attractive in appearance, his face was cheerful, especially when he was speaking. He had small, blue eyes: a few poor black-stained teeth. His hair was thin and white: his complexion sallow. He was distinguished, wise, and prudent in character: and his spirit was so brave and resolute that never, even in moments of greatest danger, did it desert him. He had a most tenacious memory, and was, in addition, not devoid of scholarship. Further, in government he was shrewd and farseeing, so that none dared to get the better of him by deceit or sharp practice. He was gracious and kind, and as attractive to visitors as he was easy of access. His hospitality was splendidly generous: he liked having foreign visitors, and freely conferred favours on them. But to those of his subjects who did not do him the honour due to him, or who were only generous with promises, he was hard and harsh. He well knew how to maintain his royal dignity, and everything belonging to his kingship, at all times and places. He was most successful in war, although by nature he preferred peace to war. Above all else he cherished justice: and consequently he punished with the utmost vigour, robberies, murders, and every other kind of crime. He was for this reason greatly lamented by all his subjects, who had been able to conduct their lives in peace far removed from the wrongs and evil doings of bad men. He was a most zealous supporter of religion, daily taking part, with great devotion, in divine service. To those whom he knew were worthy priests, he often gave alms secretly in order that they might pray for his soul. He was especially attached to those Franciscan friars, known as Observants, for whom he founded many convents so that with his help this brotherhood should flourish for ever in his kingdom. But in his later days all these virtues were obscured by avarice, from which he suffered, as we have shown above. This is surely a bad enough vice in a private individual, whom it constantly tortures: but in a monarch it is, indeed, the worst form of all vices, since it hurts everyone, and distorts those qualities of trust, justice, and integrity with which a kingdom should be governed.

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34. Impressions of Henry VIII. From various sources The following are representative of the many contemporary descriptions of Henry VIII. The first comes from two dispatches written by the Venetian diplomat P.Pasqualigo in 1515. Here is the young King in the splendour of the early years of his reign. The second, recording a visit Henry VIII paid to More in 1524–25 reveals More’s realistic judgment of the King’s character. The third, from a letter from Stephen Gardiner to Protector Somerset, 6 June 1547, is one of several passages in his letters where Gardiner pays tribute to the qualities of his late master for whom he had a genuine respect. The fourth is a critical estimate of Henry by the French ambassador Marillac, who had many opportunities to form his judgment during the later years of the reign.

(i) Henry in 1515 (Rawdon Brown, Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII, 1, 85)

A

nd as the most serene King was at Richmond, a palace of his twelve miles hence, and as on St. George’s Day he celebrates the anniversary of the institution of the Garter, our audience was delayed until then to render it more pompous; and on that day, at about half-past nine, the two aforesaid came in the King’s name to escort us from our dwelling, and, accompanied by them and all our countrymen, we went down to the Thames, where a large barge had been prepared, precisely like a bucintor1 covered with the royal colours in cloth, the cabin being hung with arras. This vessel conveyed us to the said palace of Richmond, where they led us into a sort of hall, and though it was before mass, they made us breakfast, for fear we should faint; after which we were conducted to the presence, through sundry chambers all hung with most beautiful tapestry, figured in gold and silver, and in silk, passing down the ranks of the body-guard, which consists of three hundred halberdiers in silver breast-plates and pikes in their hands; and, by God, they were all as big as giants, so that the display was very grand. We at length reached the King, who was under a canopy of cloth of gold, embroidered at Florence, the most costly thing I ever witnessed: he was leaning against his gilt throne, on which was a large gold brocade cushion, where the long gold sword of state lay; he wore a cap of crimson velvet, in the French fashion, and the brim was looped up all round with lacets, which had gold enamelled tags. His doublet was in the Swiss fashion, striped alternately with white and crimson satin, and his hose were scarlet, and all slashed from the knee upwards. Very close round his neck he had a gold collar, from which there hung a round cut diamond, the size of the largest walnut I ever saw, and to this was suspended a most beautiful and very large round pearl. His mantle was of purple velvet, lined with white satin, the sleeves being open, and with a train verily more than four Venetian yards in length. This mantle was girt in front like a gown, with a thick gold cord, from which there hung large glands entirely of gold, like those suspended from the cardinals’ hats; over this mantle was a very handsome gold collar, with a pendant St. George, entirely of diamonds. On his left shoulder was the garter, which is a cincture buckled circular-wise, and bearing in its centre a cross gules on a field argent; and on his right shoulder was a hood, with a border entirely of crimson velvet. Beneath the mantle he had a pouch of cloth of gold, which covered a dagger; and his fingers were one mass of jewelled rings.

1 Bucentaur: the state barge in which the Doges of Venice went on Ascension Day to wed the Adriatic by dropping a ring into it.

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To the right of his majesty were eight noblemen, dressed like himself, they being his fellow knights. To the left were a number of prelates in their rochets. Then there were six men with six gold sceptres, besides ten heralds with their tabards of cloth of gold, wrought with the arms of England, and moreover a crowd of nobility, all arrayed in cloth of gold and silk. After Giustinian had addressed his Majesty for the space of half an hour, and been answered by Dr. Taylor aforesaid, the King made a move, and we being immediately in advance of him, went with all this pomp to church, returning also in procession. Subsequently we attended high mass, which was chanted by the Bishop of Durham, with a superb and noble descant choir; and afterwards we accompanied the King to table, where he chose us to see the service of the courses, contained in sixteen dishes of massive gold with sixteen covers. As soon as he had commenced eating, he sent us with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham into his chamber, where a very sumptuous and plentiful dinner had been prepared for us; and, by the King’s order, a repast was served in like manner for all our countrymen and attendants. After dinner, we were taken to the King, who embraced us, without ceremony, and conversed for a very long while very familiarly, on various topics, in good Latin and in French, which he speaks very well indeed, and he then dismissed us, and we were brought back here to London in the same bucinator by Mr. Russell and Dr. Taylor. His Majesty is the handsomest potentate I ever set eyes on; above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg, his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short, in the French fashion, and a round face so very beautiful, that it would become a pretty woman, his throat being rather long and thick. He was born on the 28th of June, 1491, so he will enter his twenty-fifth year the month after next. He speaks French, English, and Latin, and a little Italian, plays well on the lute and harpsichord, sings from book at sight, draws the bow with greater strength than any man in England, and jousts marvellously. Believe me, he is in every respect a most accomplished Prince; and I, who have now seen all the sovereigns in Christendom, and last of all these two of France and England in such great state, might well rest content, and with sufficient reason have it said to me, “abi viator, sat tuis oculis debes”; nor will I omit telling you how much I am comforted to see, that now after the loss of so much territory, and such exhaustion incurred by the most illustrious Signory, she is held in as great account as of yore by these two Kings, who are the first in the world, so her ambassadors must bear patiently the cost of their outfit and that of their attendants, and of so many preparatives, for it all redounds most immensely to your glory and repute, and indeed both in France and here, everybody vows that although you have lost territory, you have, nevertheless, gained so much honour by maintaining yourselves, and prevailing during so many years against so many enemies and such a tide of adverse fortune, that the like never befell any Sovereign in the world; and, therefore, I prophesy that the State will speedily resume her position, and even expand, in such wise that she will no longer have to fear any one, and this I trust to see very soon.

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The King has come hither to a place of his called Baynard’s Castle,1 and is going to Greenwich, where we are to have our private audience, and shall, moreover, visit the most serene Queen, I taking leave simultaneously, on my way back to France. We have been to see the Tower here, where besides the lions and leopards, they showed us the King’s bronze artillery, mounted on four hundred carriages, very fine and remarkable; also bows and arrows, and pikes for 40,000 infantry. They say they have an equal store of ammunition both at Calais, and in another place towards Scotland. You must know that on St. Mark’s Day, we gave a dinner to all our countrymen, in the English fashion, not one of them excepted. By my previous letters, you will have heard of the treaty made between France and this Kingdom, ad vitam istorum principum.2 Tournai remaining in possession of the King of England, who has named us as his confederates, to the exclusion of the King of Spain. His Majesty’s sister, the Queen Dowager of France, has reached Calais, and is expected here daily. A report circulates, and it is said publicly, that she is married again to the English Duke of Suffolk, which, if true, is important, and very surprising. Letter II.

London 3 May 1515.

On the first instant, Lord Magnifico, his Majesty, who had gone to Greenwich, five miles hence, sent to fetch us from our dwelling, at a very early hour indeed. Immediately on arriving there, we accompanied the most serene Queen, who was richly dressed in the Spanish fashion, mounted on a white hackney, with sixteen other ladies, into the country. After riding about a mile, we were met by a triumphal car, full of singers and musicians, drawn by griffins with human faces; then a little farther on, we found the King’s guard, all dressed in green, in the German fashion, with certain slashed hoods on their heads, and bows and arrows in their hands, and having divided into two bands, they being in number three hundred, each man shot an arrow. We next met his Majesty the King on a bay Frieslander, which had been sent him as a present by the Marquis of Mantua; he was dressed entirely in green velvet, cap, doublet, hose, shoes, and everything, and directly we came in sight, he commenced making his horse curvet, and performed such feats, that I fancied myself looking at Mars. He was accompanied by a number of noblemen, most capitally mounted, and richly clad, with all of whom we entered a wood, where a sort of labyrinth had been prepared beforehand with boughs, within which were some places surrounded by ditches, like bastions, destined for the company, according to their grade, and inside these bowers tables were laid, where we ate, and made what they call here, a proper good breakfast. His Majesty came into our arbour, and, addressing me in French, said: “Talk with me awhile! The King of France, is he as tall as I am?” I told him there was but little difference. He continued, “Is he as stout?” I said he was not; and he then inquired, “What sort of legs has he?” I replied “Spare.” Whereupon he opened the front of his 1

Baynard’s Castle was on the bank of the Thames immediately below St Paul’s. Rymer, Foed. XIII, 476. Treaty dated Westminster, 5 April 1515, signed by Wolsey, the duke of Norfolk, Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester. 2

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doublet, and placing his hand on his thigh, said “Look here! and I have also a good calf to my leg.” He then told me that he was very fond of this King of France, and that for the sake of seeing him, he went over there in person, and that on more than three occasions he was very near him with his army, but that he never would allow himself to be seen, and always retreated, which his Majesty attributed to deference for King Louis, who did not choose an engagement to take place; and he here commenced discussing in detail all the events of that war, and then took his departure. After this we mounted our horses, and marched in great state in pairs, with big drums, and to the sound of trumpets, returning thus to Greenwich, where we attended high mass with his Majesty, who changed his dress, covering his doublet with a handsome gown of green velvet, and wearing a collar of cut diamonds of immense value; and then, having withdrawn into a sort of hall, he gave us our private audience, when I stated what was necessary, and obtained a reply so favourable for us in every respect, that we could not have wished for a better. He then, for the second time, gave us a dinner, which was served with incredible pomp; and at our table there was an Archbishop, the Duke of Norfolk, the Treasurer, the Admiral, the Viceroy of Ireland, the Grand Prior of St. John’s, and others, who all wore very superb chains. After dinner, his Majesty and many others armed themselves cap-à-pie, and he chose us to see him joust, running upwards of thirty courses, in one of which he capsized his opponent (who is the finest jouster in the whole kingdom), horse and all. He then took off his helmet, and came under the windows where we were, and talked and laughed with us to our very great honour, and to the surprise of all beholders. After this he went to disarm, and in the mean while we visited the Queen, and there, in public, I addressed her in good Spanish, which pleased her more than I can tell you; and she commenced talking with me about Spanish affairs, and about her mother, making me all possible civil speeches. Meanwhile the King returned, and after becoming thanks, I took leave of all of them to return to France, and we came back to London. Yesterday, also, his Majesty caused us and all our countrymen to be invited by the Lord Mayor of London, who gave us a very sumptuous dinner. Infer, now that I am of opinion, no Embassy that ever went out of Venice, was more honoured or appreciated than this one of ours here, and in France, for which God be praised.

(ii) Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII (E.V.Hitchcock (ed.), The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knight, 20)

And such entire favour did the king bear him that he made him chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster upon the death of Sir Richard Wingfield, who had that office before. And for the pleasure he took in his company, would his grace suddenly sometimes come home to his house at Chelsea, to be merry with him; whither on a time, unlocked

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for, he came to dinner to him; and after dinner, in a fair garden of his, walked with him by the space of an hour, holding his arm about his neck. As soon as his grace was gone, I, rejoicing thereat, told Sir Thomas Moore how happy he was, whom the king had so familiarly entertained, as I never had seen him to do to any other except Cardinal Wolsey, whom I saw his grace once walk with, arm in arm. “I thank our Lord, son,” quoth he, “I find his grace my very good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject within this realm. Howbeit, son Roper, I may tell thee I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head could win him a castle in France (for then was there war between us) it should not fail to go.”

(iii) Stephen Gardiner and Henry VIII (J.A.Muller (ed.), Letters of Stephen Gardiner, 286)

After my most humble commendations to your good Grace: Upon the return of my servant Massy with your Grace’s letters, answering to such my letters wherein I signified the robbing of my secretary, I read the same gladly, as by the contents of the matter I had cause so to do; which was such a comfortative as I digested easily the rest of the great packet, having been accustomed thereunto in the King’s my late sovereign lord’s days; which fashion of writing his Highness (God pardon his soul) called “whetting”, which was not all the most pleasant unto me at all times. Yet when I saw in my doings was no hurt, and sometime by occasion thereof the matter amended, I was not so coy as always to reverse my argument; nor, so that his affairs went well, I never troubled myself whether he made me a wanton or not. And when such as were privy to his letters directed unto me were afraid I had been in high displeasure (for the terms of the letters sounded so), yet I myself feared it nothing at all. I esteemed him, as he was, a wise prince, and what so ever he wrote or said for the present, he would after consider the matter as wisely as any man, and neither hurt or inwardly disfavor him that had been bold with him; whereof I serve for a proof, for no man could do me hurt during his life. And when he gave me the bishopric of Winchester, he said he had often squared with me, but he loved me never the worse; and for a token thereof gave me the bishopric. And once when he had been vehement with me, in the presence of the Earl of Wiltshire, and saw me dismayed with it, he took me apart into his bedchamber and comforted me, and said that his displeasure was not so much to me, as I did take it, but he misliked the matter, and he durst more boldly direct his speech to me than to the Earl of Wiltshire. And from that day forward he could not put me out of courage; but if any displeasant words passed from him, as they did some time, I folded them up in the matter; which hindered me a little, for I was reported unto him that I stooped not and was stubborn. And he had commended unto me certain men’s gentle nature, as he called it, that wept at every of his words; and methought that my nature was a gentle as theirs, for I was sorry that he was moved. But else I know when the displeasure was not justly grounded in me, I had no cause to take thought, nor was not at any time in all my life miscontent or grudging at any thing done by him, I thank God of it.

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(iv) Marillac’s impression of Henry VIII, 1540 (6 Aug., Marillac to Montmorency, L.P.Hen. VIII, xv, 954)

… The fine ordinance newly forged here, for judging men without hearing them or letting them know their accusation, is as unhappy in its result as wicked in its origin. Another has been added to it, by which the Estates have entirely transferred their authority to the King, whose sole opinion will henceforth have the force of an act of Parliament. Although formerly everyone condescended to his wishes, still there was some form of justice, but now will be only the King’s pleasure. Thus Parliament, so often prorogued and re-assembled in years past, has now been closed, and it is thought that for this reign there will be no meeting of estates, except that which is ordinary every year for the expedition of matters of justice. Will not speak of the pamphlets and books which these bishops print daily, in which, to be found faithful and good servants in treating of true obedience, they permit their King to interpret, add to, take away and make, more divine law than the apostles or their vicars and successors ever dared to attempt. They make of him not only a King to be obeyed, but an idol to be worshipped. Thus a climax of evils has arisen and all sorts of unhappiness are registered in England. And though Montmorency understands matters better than he can write, will, for once, state briefly what he has seen and can learn about this. First, to commence with the head, this Prince seems tainted, among other vices with three which in a King may be called plagues. The first is that he is so covetous that all the riches in the world would not satisfy him. Hence the ruin of the abbeys, spoil of all churches that had anything to take, suppression of the knights of St. John of Rhodes, from whom has been taken not only their ancient revenue, but the moveables which they had acquired which they have not been able to leave by will. Hence, too, the accusation of so many rich men, who, whether condemned or acquitted, are always plucked; and it is unlikely that he should pardon the living who troubles even the dead, without fearing the offence to the religion of the world which reveres them as saints, witness St. Thomas of Canterbury, who, because his relics and bones were adorned with gold and jewels, has been declared traitor. Everything is good prize, and he does not reflect that to make himself rich he has impoverished his people, and does not gain in goods what he loses in renown. As it seemed difficult to attain his desires after withdrawing obedience from the Holy See, he got preachers and ministers to persuade the people that it was better to employ the Church revenue on hospitals, colleges, and other foundations tending to the public good than to fatten lazy and useless monks. Having under this pretext taken to himself what had been consecrated to God, when the same preachers and ministers exhorted him to fulfil his duty and remit it to better uses they have been condemned and burnt as heretics, as they said at their execution, to the scandal of everyone. And although they well deserved to be the end of that of which they had been the beginning, still, those who commanded them are not free from blame, for, if they showed repentance for what was done, they should restore what they have demolished; but they easily find a thousand ways to take things to themselves and not a single one to give them up. Thence proceeds the second plague, distrust and fear. This King, knowing how many

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changes he has made, and what tragedies and scandals he has created, would fain keep in favour with everybody, but does not trust a single man, expecting to see them all offended, and he will not cease to dip his hand in blood as long as he doubts his people. Hence every day edicts are published so sanguinary that with a thousand guards one would scarce be safe. Hence too it is that now with us, as affairs incline, he makes alliances which last as long as it makes for him to keep them. The third plague, lightness and inconstancy, proceeds partly from the other two and partly from the nature of the nation, and has perverted the rights of religion, marriage, faith and promise, as softened wax can be altered to any form. The subjects take example from the Prince, and the ministers seek only to undo each other to gain credit, and under colour of their master’s good each attends to his own. For all the fine words of which they are full they will act only as necessity and interest compel them.

35. Some impressions of Edward VI. From various sources For modern readers the precocity of the young king who ascended the throne in 1547 when he was little more than nine years old is a cause for wonder. For his subjects, especially the reformers eager to advance from the position in which Henry VIII’s policy had left the Church, he was a symbol for wishful thinking, the new Josias from, whom they hoped so much. These three examples illustrate their expectations. The first, by Foxe, includes a well-known description of the young king by Girolamo Cardano, Italian doctor and astrologer, who was called in to report on Edward’s health. His character sketch was written after the king’s death, when the doctor had returned to Italy. The second, highly favourable, account is by Edward’s tutor Sir John Cheke in a letter to Henry Bullinger. The third, also eulogistic, in a letter from Roger Ascham to John Sturmius is interesting for its sidelight on Cheke’s tutorial methods and for its glimpse of the Lady Jane Grey.

(i) A description of Edward VI, by John Foxe (S.R.Cattley (ed.), Acts and Monuments, V, 698–703)

Of the excellent virtues and singular graces of king Edward, wrought in him by the gift of God, although nothing can be said enough in his commendation, yet, because the renowned fame of such a worthy prince shall not utterly pass our story without some grateful remembrance, I thought, in a few words, to touch some little portion of his praise, taken out of the great heaps of matter, which might be inferred. For, to stand upon all that might be said of him, it would be too long; and yet to say nothing, it were too much unkind. If kings and princes, who have wisely and virtuously governed, have found in all ages writers to solemnize and celebrate their acts and memory, such as never knew them, nor were subject unto them, how much then are we Englishmen bound not to forget our duty to king Edward: a prince, although but tender in years, yet for his sage and mature ripeness in wit and all princely ornaments, as I see but few to whom he may not be equal, so, again, I see not many, to whom he may not justly be preferred. And here, to use the example of Plutarch, in comparing kings and rulers, the Latins with the Greeks together, if I should seek with whom to match this noble Edward, I find not with whom to make my match more aptly, than with good Josias: for, as the

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one began his reign at eight years of age, so the other began at nine. Neither were their acts and zealous proceedings in God’s cause much discrepant: for as mild Josias plucked down the hill altars, cut down the groves, and destroyed all monuments of idolatry in the temple, the like corruptions, dross, and deformities of popish idolatry (crept into the church of Christ of long time), this evangelical Josias, king Edward, removed and purged out of the true temple of the Lord. Josias restored the true worship and service of God in Jerusalem, and destroyed the idolatrous priests! King Edward likewise, in England, abolishing idolatrous masses and false invocation, reduced again religion to a right sincerity; and more would have brought to perfection, if life and time had answered to his godly purpose. And though he killed not, as Josias did, the idolatrous sacrificers, yet he put them to silence, and removed them out of their places. Moreover, in king Josias’s days the holy Scripture and book of God’s Word was utterly neglected and cast aside, which he most graciously repaired and restored again. And did not King Edward the like, with the selfsame book of God’s blessed word, and with other wholesome books of Christian doctrine, which before were decayed and extinguished in his father’s days, by sharp laws and severe punishments, here in England? Briefly, in all points and respects, between him and this our godly king no odds are to be found, but only in length of time and reign; who, if he might have reached (by the sufferance of God) to the continuance of Josias’s reign; proceeding in those beginnings which in his youth appeared, no doubt but of his acts and doings some great perfection would have ensued to this church and realm. But the manifold iniquities of Englishmen deserved another plague, as after fell among us; as in sequel of the story hereafter (God willing) shall be declared.

(ii) Sir John Cheke to Henry Bullinger, 1553 (H.Robinson (ed.), Zurich Letters, 1, 141)

The books which you have written to the King’s majesty, have been as acceptable to him as they deserved to be. A large portion of them I delivered to him myself, and am able therefore to inform you how kindly and courteously he received them, and how greatly he esteems them; and I can offer you my congratulations upon the subject. But since the King’s majesty, debilitated by long illness, is scarcely yet restored to health, I cannot venture to make you any promise of obtaining a letter from him to yourself. But should a longer life be allowed him, (and I hope that he may very long enjoy it,) I prophesy indeed, that, with the Lord’s blessing, he will prove such a king, as neither to yield to Josiah in the maintenance of true religion, nor to Solomon in the management of the state, nor to David in the encouragement of godliness. And whatever may be effected by nature or grace, or father by God the source of both, whose providence is not even contained within the limits of the universe, it is probable that he will not only contribute very greatly to the preservation of the church, but also that he will distinguish learned men by every kind of encouragement. He has long since given evidence of these things, and has accomplished at this early period of his life more numerous and important objects, than others have been able to do when their age was more settled and matured.

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He has repealed the act of the six articles; he has removed images from the churches; he has overthrown idolatry; he has abolished the mass, and destroyed almost every kind of superstition. He has put forth by his authority an excellent form of common prayer; he has published good and pious homilies to lessen the ignorance of uneducated ministers. He has invited the most learned men to teach at the universities, and has done many other things of the same kind, every one of which would be considered as a great action in other men, but as nothing in him, by reason of the magnitude of what he has accomplished. Besides this, he has lately recommended to the schools by his authority the catechism of John, bishop of Winchester, and has published the articles of the synod at London, which if you will compare with those of Trent, you will understand how the spirit of the one exceeds that of the other. Why should I say more? I send you the book itself as a token of my regard, and believe me yours in Christ. Fare thee well.

(iii) Roger Aschams description, 1550 (J.A.Giles (ed.), Roger Ascham. Works, II, pp. 224–229)

… The ability of our Prince equals his fortune, and his virtue surpasses both: or rather, as is fitting for a Christian to say, such is the manifold grace of God, that in eagerness for the best literature, in pursuit of the most strict religion, in willingness, in j udgment, and in perseverance—the quality you most value in study—he is wonderfully in advance of his years. And in hardly any other particular do I consider him more fortunate than that he has had John Cheke as the instructor of his youth in sound learning and true religion. Latin he understands, and speaks, and writes with accuracy, propriety and ease. In Greek he has learned Aristotle’s Dialectic, and now is learning his Ethics. He has made such progress in that language that he translates quite easily the Latin of Cicero’s philosophy into Greek. On the day before I left England, when I was in London, talking to Sir John Cheke, I asked him why it was that the King was reading Aristotle’s Ethics rather than Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. He answered, with the greatest wisdom and learning (as he always does): “In order that his mind, instructed first of all in all these infinite examinations and dissections of the virtues and vices, may bring a sound judgment to bear on each of those examples of character and conduct that appear everywhere in history: and because it is scarcely possible that his natural perceptions, amused and led astray by the charm of history should at once form such conclusions as are of an abstruse and recondite nature, although very necessary to conform the judgment. I am anxious to give him no precept unless it is accompanied by a striking example. How fortunate is England, my dear Sturm, when the youth of its Prince (for he is only just over thirteen) is being moulded by such excellent training, no one is better able to judge than yourself. He will shortly finish the Ethics, which will be followed by Aristotle’s Rhetoric, so that this work you have undertaken seems to offer you not merely a favourable, but also a providential opportunity. For I believe that it has not happened without God’s special providence that this highest exercise of your ability, judgment, and learning should be employed in polishing to the highest degree this peak of royal majesty. If I had a little more leisure I would have had more to say about our

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royal majesty, more, too, about my exalted Lady Elizabeth, and about the exalted daughter of the Duke of Somerset, trained with the best education in letters. Yet I cannot pass over two English women, nor would I wish, my dear Sturmius, to pass over anything if you are thinking about friends to be borne in mind in England, than which nothing is more desirable to me. One is Jane Grey, daughter of the noble marquis of Dorset. Since she had Mary, queen of France as grandmother she was related very closely to our King Edward. She is fifteen years of age. At court I was very friendly with her, and she wrote learned letters to me: Last summer when I was visiting my friends in Yorkshire and was summoned from them by letters from John Cheke that I should come to court, I broke my journey on the way at Leicester where Jane Grey was residing with her father. I was straightway shown into her chamber: I found the noble young lady reading (By Jupiter!) in Greek, Plato’s Phaedo, and with such understanding as to win my highest admiration. She so speaks and writes Greek that one would hardly credit it. She has as tutor John Aylmer, one well versed in both tongues, and most dear to me for his humanity, wisdom, habits, pure religion, and many other bonds of the truest friendship. As I left she promised to write to me in Greek provided I would send her my letters written from the Emperor’s court. I am awaiting daily a Greek letter from her: when it comes I will send it on to you immediately. The other is Mildred Cecil, who understands and speaks Greek as well as she speaks English; so that it is doubtful whether she is more fortunate for this outstanding knowledge, or because she is the daughter of that noble man Anthony Cooke, her father and teacher who has been associated with John Cheke as a tutor to the King, on account of his very outstanding learning; or rather because she is married to Wm. Cecil a young man indeed, but with such a developed shrewdness, so great skill in literature and affairs and endowed with that self-restraint in politics that to him the united voice of the English might bestow on him that solid fourfold tribute which Thucydides bestows on Pericles, his equal… After my departure from England he was made the King’s first secretary.

36. Mary Tudor described by a Venetian ambassador, 1557 (Cal. St. Pap. Venice, VI, no. 884. 1043–1085) This studied impression of the queen was written by Giovanni Michiel, Venetian ambassador in England, as part of his “Relation”.

A

s known to your Serenity, England is now ruled by Queen Mary and by her husband, Philip of Austria, King of Spain. To commence with her, as mistress of the kingdom, she was born (of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand the Catholic, his first and legitimate wife) in the month of February 1516, so she entered her 43rd. year last February. Besides her noble descent, she in our times is a very great and rare example of virtue and magnanimity, a real portrait of patience and humility, and of the true fear of God, by whom (it may be supposed) she was miraculously reserved, after so many troubles and perils, for no other cause than to be raised to so high a grade from one so very abject (to use that term) and very vile in which she was kept for so long a course of years. Few other women in the world of her rank ever lived

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more wretchedly, as must be known to your Serenity and to every one, not only owing to the divorce, which, with such great impiety, solely from violent and rabid lust, she saw her father effect from the Queen her mother, after she had lived with her husband for 20 years, and borne him besides herself, a son, who died three months after his birth, but from seeing herself, with the same impiety, disinherited, and declared a bastard, instead of legitimate, and only daughter and heiress of the kingdom, as she was. But yet worse treatment awaited her, for with very great indignity she had to serve as her mistress a public strumpet, her father’s concubine, that famous Anne Boleyn, whom she saw not only succeed to her mother’s place, but also, during that mother’s lifetime, raised to the crown of England. Besides this and to other degradations, the injuries, the threats, and the affronts endured by her after the change of the religion, and the spoliation of the churches, and their final ruin, from her never having chosen to apostatize, nor to adhere to the heretical opinions of those who ruled in the time of her brother King Edward, her life having then been often in danger, she subsequently, on his death, saw herself excluded from the succession by the act of one of her own subjects, that no less daring than impious Duke of Northumberland, she being also abandoned by everybody, and miserably put to flight, together with her forces, her enemies, intending to annihilate her completely: and, last of all, after her coronation from the insurrections to which during three years she has several times been exposed, it is evident that from the commencement of her life until now she has never been free from sorrows and dangers, against which it seems impossible for her to have been able to struggle had she not been assisted by some great favour from God, and by some especial care which He has of her innocence. She is of low rather than of middling stature, but, although short, she has no personal defect in her limbs, nor is any part of her body deformed. She is of spare and delicate frame, quite unlike her father, who was tall and stout; nor does she resemble her mother, who, if not tall, was nevertheless bulky. Her face is well formed, as shown by her features and lineaments, and as seen by her portraits. When younger she was considered, not merely tolerably handsome, but of beauty exceeding mediocrity. At present, with the exception of some wrinkles, caused more by anxieties than by age, which makes her appear some years older, her aspect, for the rest, is very grave. Her eyes are so piercing that they inspire not only respect, but fear in those on whom she fixes them, although she is very shortsighted, being unable to read or do anything else unless she has her sight quite close to what she wishes to peruse or to see distinctly. Her voice is rough and loud, almost like a man’s, so that when she speaks she is always heard a long way off. In short, she is a seemly woman, and never to be loathed for ugliness, even at her present age, without considering her degree of queen. But whatever may be the amount deducted from her physical endowments, as much more may with truth, and without flattery, be added to those of her mind, as, besides the facility and quickness of her understanding, which comprehends whatever is intelligible to others, even to those who are not of her own sex (a marvellous gift for a woman), she is skilled in five languages, not merely understanding, but speaking four of them fluently, viz., English, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian, in which last, however, she does not venture to converse, although it is well

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known to her; but the replies she gives in Latin, and her very intelligent remarks made in that tongue surprise everybody. Besides woman’s work, such as embroidery of every sort with the needle, she also practises music, playing especially on the claricorde and on the lute so excellently that, when intent on it (though now she plays rarely), she surprised the best performers, both by the rapidity of her hand and by her style of playing. Such are her virtues and external accomplishments. Internally, with the exception of certain trifles, in which, to say the truth, she is like other women, being sudden and passionate, and close and miserly, rather more so than would become a bountiful and generous queen, she in other respects has no notable imperfections; whilst in certain things she is singular and without an equal, for not only is she brave and valiant, unlike other timid and spiritless women, but so courageous and resolute that neither in adversity nor peril did she ever even display or commit any act of cowardice or pusillanimity, maintaining always, on the contrary, a wonderful grandeur and dignity, knowing what became the dignity of a sovereign as well as any of the most consummate statesmen in her service; so that from her way of proceeding and from the method observed by her (and in which she still perseveres), it cannot be denied that she shows herself to have been born of truly royal lineage. Of her humility, piety and religion it is unnecessary to speak, or bear witness to them, as they are not only universally acknowledged, but recently blazoned by proofs and facts which fell little short of martyrdom by reason of the persecutions she endured; so that it may be said of her, as Cardinal Pole says with truth, that in the darkness and obscurity of that kingdom she remained precisely like a feeble light buffeted by raging winds for its utter extinction, but always kept burning and defended by her innocence and lively faith, that it might shine in the world as it now does shine. It is certain that few women in the world (I do not speak of princesses or queens, but of private women) are known to be more assiduous at their prayers than she is, never choosing to suspend them for any impediment whatever, going at the canonical hours with her chaplains either to church in public or to her private chapel, doing the like with regard to the communions and fast days, and, finally, to all the other Christian works, precisely like a nun and a religious. Respecting the government and public business she is compelled (being of a sex which cannot becomingly take more than a moderate part in them), according to the custom of other sovereigns, to refer many matters to her councillors and ministers. The truth is that knowing the divisions which exist amongst them, her Majesty, in order not to be deceived, and for the prevention of scandal, willed (with the King’s consent) that Cardinal Pole should hear and have everything referred to him, it being evident that whilst showing the utmost confidence in him, she distrusts almost all the others; and she says freely that in government affairs, most especially in cases of conscience and of offence against God (about which she shows herself beyond measure sensitive) she refers herself to the Cardinal, protesting that should errors be committed they will be attributed to him. In this she is most judicious and most fortunate, God having provided her with a minister so much in conformity with herself, and of such great qualities (as your Serenity will hear in full when I come to speak of him) that she might live with her mind at ease, and quite consoled, were she likewise undisturbed by her own thoughts

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and passions, both public and private, which often subject her to a very deep melancholy, much greater than that to which she is constitutionally liable, from menstruous retention and suffocation of the matrix to which, for many years, she has been often subject, so that the remedy of tears and weeping, to which from childhood she has been accustomed, and still often used by her, is not sufficient; she requires to be blooded either from the foot or elsewhere, which keeps her always pale and emaciated.

37. Empson and Dudley. Described by Polydore Vergil. (i) D.Hay (ed.), “Anglica Historia”, 150–152 This severe condemnation, copied by the chroniclers and improved by Bacon,1 provided the theme for the traditional view of these two men, which lasted until a recent date. Now historians are less ready to accept it without modifications. See B.H.Putnam, Early Treatises on the Practice of the Justices of the Peace, 133 n. 4; D.M.Brodie, “Edmund Dudley: Minister of Henry VII” (T.R.H.S. 4th Ser., 1932, xv, 133–161); W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 152, n. 257.

… But Henry, before he was crowned, hearing that his subjects everywhere cursed Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, charging these two lawyers with being the most savage extortioners, who eagerly plundered (as we described in the previous book) all secular and ecclesiastical wealth, and seeking to have both of them and their accomplices brought to summary justice, consulted his counsellors on this matter before he undertook any other business. Then, as his own opinion agreed with that of his advisers, he ordered the wretched extortioners and their accomplices to be arrested, so that they might pay the deserved penalty: so that by granting the first favour sought of him, he might please his subjects, who were already well disposed towards him. When the news spread that Henry was punishing informers and those who had perjured themselves in lawsuits, and that Richard and Edmund were already in chains, then, at once, all that sort of wretch was either captured or took refuge in sanctuary. You could have seen a crowd of these creatures being led daily into London. But ultimately they were treated quite leniently for they were considered less guilty. Some of the perjurers who paraded through the centre of the city were punished by being disgraced: nearly all of them perished soon afterwards, through shame at their exposure. But Richard and Edmund, after being convicted of many crimes, were convicted and beheaded. By this act all the wrath of the people was appeased, and everyone was grateful to the monarch for the punishment of the evil-doers.2

(ii) Thomas and Thornley, “The Great Chronicle” 334.

A

ND this year sprang much sorrow through the land, for by means of a few ungracious persons which named themselves the king’s promoters many unlawful and forgotten statutes and acts made hundreds of years passed were now quickened 1 G.Bacon, Henry VII (ed. J.R.Lumby), 190. Henry “had gotten for his purpose, or beyond his purpose two instruments, Empson and Dudley, whom the people esteemed as his horse-leeches and shearers, bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master’s grist…. These two persons being lawyers in science and privy counsellors in authority, as the corruption of the best things is the 2 worst, turned law and justice into wormwood rapine.” See also No. 50.

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and sharply called upon to the great inquietness of many of the king’s subjects as well the rich as the other that had any competent substance. And albeit that other years before passed since the time of Sir William Capell’s trouble which was in the tenth year of our sovereign lord’s reign, many betimes were called to sundry reckonings, and were fain to seek their ends to their charge. Yet now and specially since Empson and Dudley were set in athority, many more in number were called before them for many sur-mised causes, of the which none escaped without paying of fines little or much, and if it were such a matter as some would abide the trial of the law, then had they their false juries so fixed unto them that they were well assured that they would not pass meyndis against their minds, for all was done in the king’s name and yet the most profit came to their coffers. Now statutes for hunting, for selling or buying of wools, for trysting of strangers over six months, for paying of gold to strangers, for buying or selling of silks raw, or other merchandise contrary ordinances of long time and out of mind made, for escape of felons, for old recognisances and bonds for peace or other sureties that any man stood bound to the king in his chancery or star chamber, or other of the king’s courts, with other many forfeitures as escheats and other innumerable to rehearse. And over all these were lastly sought out all outlawries since the beginning of the king’s reign which were called in and caused to fine right grievously, and such parties as were dead, their executors were called and caused to agree for them, and some time one man was taken for another, and caused to clear himself to his great charge, so that what by one means and other almost none that ought had Was without trouble in these days. And this perverse trouble was not only laid unto the temporalty, but also bishops and many other of the spiritualty were also vexed full uncharitably and full grievously so that it might be said that Omnes declinaverunt and inclinaverunt simul, for all men were fain to bow and crouch unto the forenamed tormentors and to their servants and adherents, and that as well the noble men of the realm as other of low degrees, and if any man came to ask counsel of the learned men sergeants and other, they would say that the best counsel they could give them was for to fall to agreement, for they durst not speak in their causes, by means whereof many a murmurous and grudging heart was these days in this land as it might well be known by the open exclamations and clerkly monitions which sundry times at Paul’s Cross and other places in sermons was shewed of them, But yet had they no grace to know their error, but ay as Herod was stricken the more with plagues of God the faster he persecuted the children of Israel right so they the more they were preached against the more they vexed the king’s true subjects…. And upon the Tuesday being the even of St. Mark or the 24th. day of April, king Henry VIIIth of that name upon 18 years of age was proclaimed king of this land. And the same afternoon his Grace came unto the Tower and there was lodged for a season. In which time Empson and Dudley were by a politic means brought unto the said Tower where they were accused of Treason and so remained there as prisoners to the great rejoicing of many a true Englishman. And shortly after were many of their disciples promoters of all ill, called to a reckoning and cast in sundry prisons as Page Mychell and Canby servants of Dudley Henry Toft Smyth and sundry other which long after

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were holden in sundry prisons. But the most cruel and subtlest wretch of them all so soon as he heard of the imprisonment of Empson with whom he was retained John Baptist by name he secretly went unto Westminster and there registered him for a sanctuary man, and there so rested long after. Here is to be noted that the king’s grace was long sick or he died, in which season he by some well disposed persons being informed of the exclamations made of the dealing of the forenamed promoters in sermons and otherwise, of his most blessed disposition granted to all men general pardons, a certain excepted, the which pardons were fastly and quickly purchased, so that many were had or he died.

38. Two impressions of Wolsey. By (i) Polydore Vergil, (ii) George Cavendish These two estimates of Wolsey provide a striking contrast. Polydore Vergil is entirely hostile. This is not surprising. Early in Henry VIII’s reign he had fallen foul of the Cardinal, and for some months in 1515 he was actually imprisoned in the Tower on Wolsey’s orders. His subsequent hatred of Wolsey comes out whenever he has occasion to mention him in his History. Cavendish’s description, on the other hand, is wholly favourable, as might be expected from a trusted servant, but it is the tribute of an honest man, and it should weigh in Wolsey’s favour that he could inspire such loyalty in one who knew him well.

(i) Polydore Vergil’s description of Wolsey (D.Hay (ed.), Anglica Historia, 230–232:254–256)

N

ow, not long afterwards, Christopher, cardinal of York, died at Rome, and Wolsey, bishop of Lincoln was next made archbishop of York, and shortly afterwards chancellor of the realm, from which office William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury resigned of his own accord. To have this abundant good fortune must be regarded as most estimable if it is showered upon sober, moderate, and self-controlled men, who are not puffed-up by power, do not become arrogant with wealth, and do not give themselves airs because of their good fortune. None of these qualities appeared in Wolsey. Acquiring so many offices at almost the same time, he became so proud that he began to regard himself as the equal of kings. Soon he began to use a golden seat, a golden cushion, a golden cloth on his table, and when he went on foot, he had his hat—the symbol of his cardinal’s rank—carried before him by a servant, and raised aloft like a holy idol, and he had it put upon the very altar in the king’s chapel during divine service. Thus Wolsey, with his arrogance and ambition aroused against himself the hatred of the whole country, and by his hostility towards the nobility and the common people, caused them the greatest irritation through his vainglory. He was, indeed, detested by everyone, because he assumed that he could undertake nearly all the offices of state by himself. It was, indeed, a fine sight to watch this fellow, untrained in the law, sitting in court, and giving judgment. Although he was at first assisted by lawyers, who by custom were his assessors, he began to hear and determine many cases which were neither completed nor properly conducted: he forbade the settlement of other cases, in which the law was not in doubt, he cut short disputes, and rigorously punished litigants who brought false suits before the judges, while at the same time he severely rebuked the negligence of judges who had

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heard them and had not assessed damages fairly. Thus, the government of Wolsey at first had a specious appearance of justice for the common people, but this impression quickly disappeared, since it was only a shadow: and Wolsey carried on all business at his own will, since no one was of more value to the king. It was, indeed, as a result of this that some of the leading counsellors, when they saw so much power falling into the hands of one man, gradually withdrew from the court. Canterbury and Winchester were among the first to leave, going into their dioceses. But before they left, like loyal statesmen, they earnestly urged the king not to allow any servant to become greater than his lord: they borrowed this saying from Christ who, in the gospel according to St. John says to his disciples: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord.” To this Henry, quite aware that it was aimed against Wolsey, replied that he would make it his prime business to see that any servant of his was obedient, and was not an autocrat. Then Thomas, duke of Norfolk returned to his estates, and afterwards, even Charles duke of Suffolk, followed the others…. …Then at length, he carefully arranged that Cardinal Lorenzo should at last cross over to England, three months after his arrival at Calais, and from him he received the dignity of apostolic legate. One can scarcely believe how greatly his arrogance was increased as soon as he was invested with the new dignity, how much he began to scheme the means of satisfying his grandiose plans, seeing that nothing pleased him so much as worldly vanity compared with which he considered true glory of little worth. And so, when he saw himself raised to the highest dignity his first consideration was to emphasise his superiority in rank over other people by some outstanding token. And because there was scarcely any kind of ceremony which he did not usurp, he was pleased to parade the honour he had acquired by means of the divine office, by the Cross of Christ. When a holy day occurred, and the King with all his retinue was present, he now began to celebrate divine office with pontifical rites more frequently than he had been wont to do, employing as ministers to wait upon him not only bishops and abbots, but also dukes and earls, to hand him the water and napkins for his hands. Further, he was not satisfied with the one cross which had served him when archbishop of York, but had to have another one carried before him by two splendidly proportioned priests on great horses, who rode bare-headed whatever the season of the year. This vanity, more pointless than any known before, aroused both amusement and irritation in everyone, so that all his ostentation was greeted without any applause, without any acclamation. For the commons were irritated and took it badly that Wolsey should behave so arrogantly in his good fortune. More discreet men, on the other hand, mocked the inconsistency of the fellow, and in their censure of him facetiously remarked: “Now, indeed, it is clear that Wolsey is well aware of his guilt, for on account of it he has two crosses in his processions, since one alone would not be enough to expiate his sins.” While Wolsey, thus puffed up with pride, was enjoying his triumph, and behaving indiscreetly, it chanced that William, archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to him in the familiar way he was accustomed to use, and signed his name in this way: “Brother William of Canterbury.” When Wolsey opened the letter, and as he read it, came across that word “brother” (so full of politeness, duty and goodwill) he took umbrage and

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began to bawl out, just as if Canterbury had made a serious attack on him, saying that he would soon see that Canterbury should learn that he was not even his equal let alone his “brother”. When he heard from his messenger that Wolsey had taken this for a most serious offence in his letter, and had angrily protested against it, Canterbury, who was a worthy and unassuming man replied in these words: “Peace. Can’t you see that the man has lost his wits because of his extraordinary good luck.” And thus Wolsey, not knowing how to pursue the true path of glory seemed to prefer to be feared rather than admired by men of discrimination….

(ii) Description of Wolsey by George Cavendish (R.S.Sylvester (ed.), The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, 4–11:11–13:18–21:22–25)

Truth it is, Cardinal Wolsey sometime Archbishop of York, was an honest poor man’s son born in Ipswich within the county of Suffolk. And being but a child was very apt to learning, by means whereof his parents or his good friends and masters conveyed him to the university of Oxford, where he prospered so in learning that (as he told me his own person)1 he was called the boy bachelor, forasmuch as he was made bachelor of art at fifteen years of age, which was a rare thing and seldom seen. Thus prospering and increasing in learning, was made fellow of Magdalen College, and after appointed for his learning to be schoolmaster there. At which time the lord Marquis Dorset had three of his sons at school there with him, committing as well unto him their virtuous education as their instruction and learning. It pleased the said Marquis against a Christmas season to send as well for the schoolmaster as for his children, home to his house for their recreation in that pleasant and honourable feast. They being then there, my lord their father perceived them to be right well employed in learning for their time, which contented him so well, that he having a benefice in his gift, being at that time void, gave the same to the schoolmaster in reward for his diligence, at his departing after Christmas upon his return to the University. And having the presentation thereof repaired to the Ordinary for his institution and induction, then being fully furnished of all necessary instruments at the Ordinary’s hands for his preferment, made speed without any further delay to the said benefice to take thereof possession. And being there for that intent, one Sir Amyas Pawlet, knight, dwelling in that country thereabout, took an occasion of displeasure against him, upon what ground I know not, but, sir, by your leave, he was so bold to set the schoolmaster by the feet during his pleasure, the which was afterward neither forgotten nor forgiven. For when the schoolmaster mounted the dignity to be Chancellor of England, he was not oblivious of the old displeasure ministered unto him by Master Pawlet, but sent for him, and after many sharp and heinous words, enjoined him to attend upon the council until he were by them dismissed, and not to depart without licence, upon an urgent pain and forfeiture, so that he continued within the Middle Temple the space of five or six years, or more; whose lodging there was in the Gate-house next the street, the which he reedified very sumptuously, garnishing the same on the outside thereof, with cardinals’ hats and arms, badges and cognisances of the cardinal’s with divers other devices in so glorious a sort that he thought thereby to appease his old unkind displeasure. 1

I.e. himself.

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Now may this be a good example and precedent to men in authority (which will sometimes work their will without wit) to remember in their authority, how authority may decay; and whom they punish of will more than of justice may after be advanced in the public weal to high dignities and governance, and they based as low, who will then seek the means to be revenged of old wrongs sustained wrongfully before. Who would have thought then that when Sir Amyas Pawlet punished this poor scholar, that ever he should have attained to be Chancellor of England, considering his baseness in every condition. These be wonderful works of God and fortune. Therefore I would wish all men in authority and dignity to know and fear God in all their triumphs and glory, considering in all their doings, that authorities be not permanent, but may slide and vanish, as princes’ pleasures do alter and change. Then as all living things must of very necessity pay the due debt of nature, which no earthly creature can resist, it chanced the lord Marquis to depart out of this present life. After whose death the schoolmaster, considering then with himself to be but a small beneficed man, and to have lost his fellowship in the College (for, as I understand, if a fellow of that College be once promoted to a benefice, he shall by the rules of the house be dismissed of his fellowship), and perceiving himself to be also destitute of his singular good lord, thought not to be long unprovided of some other succours or staff to defend him from all such harms as he lately sustained. And in his travail thereabout, he fell in acquaintance with one Sir John Nanfant, a very grave and ancient knight, who had a great room1 in Calais under King Henry the Seventh. This knight he served, and behaved him so discreetly and justly that he obtained the special favour of his said master, insomuch that for his wit, gravity, and just behaviour, he committed all the charge of his office unto his chaplain. And, as I understand, the office was the treasureship of Calais, who was in consideration of his great age, discharged of his chargeable room, and returned again into England, intending to live at more quiet. And through his instant labour and especial favour, his chaplain was promoted to the King’s service, and made his chaplain. And when he had once cast anchor in the port of promotion, how he wrought I shall somewhat declare. He, having then a just occasion to be in present sight of the King daily, by reason he attended and said mass before his grace in his privy closet, and that done he spent not the day forth in vain idleness, but gave his attendance upon those whom he thought to bear most rule in the council, and to be most in favour with the King, the which at that time were Doctor Foxe, bishop of Winchester, then secretary and lord privy seal, and also Sir Thomas Lovell, knight, a very sage counsellor and witty, being master of the King’s wards, and constable of the Tower. These ancient and grave counsellors in process of time after often resort perceived this chaplain to have a very fine wit, and what wisdom was packed in his head, thought a meet and an apt person to be preferred to witty affairs. It chanced at a certain season that the King had an urgent occasion to send an ambassador unto the emperor Maximilian, who lay at that present in the low country of Flanders not far from Calais. The Bishop of Winchester and Sir Thomas Lovell, whom the King most highly esteemed as chief among his counsellors, the King consulting 1

office, position.

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and debating with them upon this embassy, saw that they had a convenient occasion to prefer the King’s chaplain, whose excellent wit, eloquence, and learning they highly commended to the King. The King, giving ear unto them, and being a prince of an excellent judgment and modesty, commanded to bring his chaplain, whom they so much commended, before his grace’s presence, to prove the wit of his chaplain. At whose repair the King fell in communication with him in matters of weighty gravity, and perceiving his wit to be very fine thought him sufficient to be put in authority and trust with this embassy, commanded him thereupon to prepare himself to this enterprised journey, and for his dispatch to repair to his grace and his trusty counsellors aforesaid, of whom he should receive his commission and instructions, by means whereof he had then a due occasion to repair from time to time into the King’s presence, who perceived him more and more to be a very wise man, and of good intendment. And having his dispatch took his leave of the King at Richmond about noon, and so came to London with speed, where then the barge of Gravesend was ready to launch forth, both with a prosperous tide and wind. Without any further abode he entered the barge, and so passed forth. His happy speed was such that he arrived at Gravesend within little more than three hours; where he tarried no longer than his post horses were provided; and travelling so speedily with post horses that he came to Dover the next morning early, whereas the passengers were ready under sail displayed to sail to Calais. Into which passenger without further abode he entered and sailed forth with them, that he arrived at Calais within three hours, and having there post horses in readiness departed incontinent, making such hasty speed that he was that night with the Emperor, who, having understanding of the coming of the King of England’s ambassador, would in no wise defer the time, but sent incontinent for him (his affection unto King Henry the Seventh was such that he rejoiced when he had an occasion to shew him pleasure). The ambassador having opportunity, disclosed the sum of his embassy unto the Emperor, of whom he desired speedy expedition, the which was granted, so that the next day he was clearly dispatched with all the King’s requests fully accomplished. At which time he made no further tarriance, but with post horses rode incontinent that night toward Calais again, conducted thither with such number of horsemen as the emperor had appointed, and at the opening of the gates there, where the passengers were as ready to return into England as they were before in his advancing, insomuch that he arrived at Dover before ten of clock before noon, and having post horses in a readiness came to the court at Richmond that night, where he, taking his rest for that time until the morning, at which time after he was ready, repaired to the King at his first coming out of his grace’s bedchamber toward his closet to hear mass. Whom, when he saw, checked him for that he was not past on his journey, “Sir,” quoth he, “if it may stand with your highness’ pleasure, I have already been with the emperor, and dispatched your affairs, (I trust) to your grace’s contentation.” And with that delivered unto the King the emperor’s letter of credence. The King being in a great confusion and wonder of his hasty speed with ready furniture of all his proceedings, dissembled all his imagination and wonder in that matter, and demanded of him, whether he encountered with his pursuivant, the which he sent unto him (supposing him not to

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be scantly out of London) with letters concerning a very necessary cause neglected in his commission and instructions, the which the King coveted much to be sped. “Yes, forsooth, Sire,” quoth he, “I encountered him yesterday by the way, and having understanding by your grace’s letters of your pleasure therein, have, notwithstanding, been so bold upon mine own discretion (perceiving that matter to be very necessary in that behalf) to dispatch the same. And forasmuch as I have exceeded your grace’s commission, I most humbly require your grace’s remission and pardon.” The King rejoicing inwardly not a little, said again, “We do not only pardon you thereof, but also give you our princely thanks, both for the proceeding therein, and also for your good speedy exploit,” commanding him for that time to take his rest and to repair again after dinner for the further relation of his embassy. The King then went to mass, and after at convenient time he went to dinner. It is not to be doubted but that this ambassador hath been since his return with his great friends, the Bishop of Winchester, and Sir Thomas Lovell, to whom he hath declared the effect of all his speedy progress, nor yet what joy they conceived thereof. And after his departure from the King in the morning, his highness sent for the bishop and Sir Thomas Lovell, to whom he declared the wonderful expedition of his ambassador, commending therewith his excellent wit, and in especial the invention and advancing of the matter left out of his commission and instructions. The King’s words rejoiced these worthy counsellors not a little, forasmuch as he was of their preferment. Then when this ambassador remembered the King’s commandment, and saw the time draw fast on of his repair before the King and his council, prepared him in a readiness, and resorted unto the place assigned by the King to declare his embassy. Without all doubt he reported the effect of all his affairs and proceedings so exactly, with such gravity and eloquence, that all the council that heard him could do no less but commend him, esteeming his expedition to be almost beyond the capacity of man. The King of his mere motion and gracious consideration gave him at that time for his diligent and faithful service the deanery of Lincoln, which at that time was one of the worthiest spiritual promotions that he gave under the degree of a bishopric. And thus from thence forward he grew more and more into estimation and authority, and after promoted by the King to be his almoner. Here may all men note the chances of fortune, that followeth some whom she listeth to promote, and even so to some her favour is contrary, though they should travail never so much, with urgent diligence, and painful study, that they could devise or imagine: whereof for my part, I have tasted of the experience. Now ye shall understand that all this tale that I have declared of his good expedition in the King’s embassy, I received it of his own mouth and report, after his fall, lying at that time in the great park of Richmond, I being then there attending upon him; taking an occasion upon divers communications to tell me this journey with all the circumstances as I have here before rehearsed. When death that favoureth none estate, king or kaiser, had taken that prudent prince King Henry the Seventh out of this present life (on whose soul Jesu have mercy) who for his inestimable wisdom was noted and called in every Christian region the second

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Solomon, what practices, inventions, and compasses were then used about that young prince, King Henry the Eighth, his only son, and the great provision made for the funerals of the one, and the costly devices for the coronation of the other, with that virtuous Queen Katherine, then the King’s wife newly married, I omit, and leave the circumstances thereof to historiographers of chronicles of princes, the which is no part mine intendment…. Now let us return again unto the almoner (of whom I have taken upon me to write), whose head was full of subtle wit and policy. Perceiving a plain path to walk in towards promotion [he] handled himself so politicly, that he found the means to be one of the king’s Council, and to grow in good estimation and favour with the king, to whom the king gave an house at Bridewell, in Fleet Street, sometime Sir Richard Empson’s, where he kept house for his family, and he daily attended upon the king in the Court, being in his especial grace and favour who had then great suit made unto him as counsellors most commonly have that be in favour. His sentences and witty persuasions in the council chamber were always so pithy that they always, as occasion moved them, assigned him for his filed tongue and ornate eloquence to be their expositor unto the king’s majesty in all their proceedings. In whom the king conceived such a loving fancy, especially for that he was most earnest and readiest among all the Council to advance the king’s only will and pleasure without any respect to the case. The king, therefore, perceived him to be a meet instrument for the accomplishment of his devised will and pleasure, called him more near unto him, and esteemed him so highly that his estimation and favour put all other ancient counsellors out of their accustomed favour, that they were in before, insomuch as the king committed all his will and pleasure unto his disposition and order. Who wrought so all his matters that all his endeavour was only to satisfy the king’s mind, knowing right well that it was the very vein and right course to bring him to high promotion. The king was young and lusty, disposed all to mirth and pleasure, and to follow his desire and appetite, nothing minding to travail in the busy affairs of this realm. The which the almoner perceived very well, took upon him therefore to disburden the king of so weighty a charge and troublesome business, putting the king in comfort that he shall not need to spare any time of his pleasure for any business that should necessarily happen in the Council, as long as he being there having the king’s authority and commandment doubted not to see all things sufficiently furnished and perfected; the which would first make the king privy of all such matters as should pass through their hands before he would proceed to the finishing or determining of the same, whose mind and pleasure he would fulfill and follow to the uttermost, wherewith the king was wonderly pleased. And whereas the other ancient counsellors would (according to the office of good counsellors) divers times persuade the king to have sometime an intercourse into the Council, there to hear what was done in weighty matters, the which pleased the king nothing at all, for he loved nothing worse than to be constrained to do anything contrary to his royal will and pleasure. And that knew the almoner very well, having a secret intelligence of the king’s natural inclination, and so fast as the other counsellors advised the king to leave his pleasure, and to attend to the affairs of his realm, so busily did the almoner persuade him to the

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contrary, which delighted him much, and caused him to have the greater affection and love to the almoner. Thus the almoner ruled all them that before ruled him, such did his policy and wit bring to pass. Who was now in high favour but Master Almoner? Who had all the suit but Master Almoner? And who ruled all under the king, but Master Almoner? Thus he persevered still in favour. At last in came presents, gifts, and rewards so plentifully that (I dare say) he lacked nothing that might either please his fancy or enrich his coffers; fortune smiled so upon him; but to what end she brought him, ye shall hear after…. Now to speak of the order of his house and officers, I think it necessary here to be remembered. First, ye shall understand that he had in his hall, daily, three especial tables furnished with three principal officers; that is to say, a steward, which was always a doctor or a priest; a treasurer, a knight; a controller, an esquire; which bare always within his house their white staves. Then had he a cofferer, three marshalls two yeomen ushers, two grooms, and an almoner. He had also in the hall-kitchen two clerks of his kitchen, a clerk controller, a surveyor of the dresser, a clerk of his spicery. Also there in his hall-kitchen he had two master cooks, and twelve of other labourers and children as they called them; a yeoman of his scullery, with two other in his silver scullery; two yeomen of his pastry, and two grooms. Now in his privy kitchen he had a master cook who went daily in damask, satin, or velvet with a chain of gold about his neck; and two grooms, with six labourers and children to serve in that place. In the larder there a yeoman and a groom; in the scalding house a yeoman and two grooms; in the scullery there two persons; in the buttery two yeomen and two grooms with two other pages; in the pantry two yeomen, two grooms, and two pages; and in the ewery likewise; in the cellar three yeomen, two grooms and two pages, besides a gentleman for the mouth; in the chandlery three persons; in the wafery two; in his wardrobe of beds a master and ten other persons; in the laundry a yeoman, a groom, and three pages; of purveyors two, and one groom; in the bakehouse a yeoman and two grooms; in the woodyard a yeoman and a groom; in the garner one; in the garden a yeoman and two labourers. Now at the gate he had of porters two tall yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman of his barge. In the stable he had a master of his horses, a clerk of the stable, a yeoman of the same, a sadler, a farrier, a yeoman of his chariot, a sumpter-man, a yeoman of his stirrup, a muleteer, sixteen grooms of his stable, every of them keeping four great geldings; in the almonry a yeoman and a groom. Now will I declare to you the officers of his chapel and singing men of the same. First he had there a dean, who was always a great clerk and a divine, a sub-dean, a repeater of the choir, a gospeller, a pistoler, and twelve singing priests; of seculars he had first a master of his children, twelve singing children, sixteen singing men, a servant to attend upon the said children. In the vestry a yeoman and two grooms; then were there divers retainers of cunning singing men, that came at divers sundry principal feasts. But to speak of the furniture of his chapel passeth my capacity to declare the number of the costly ornaments and rich jewels that were occupied in the same continually. I have seen there in a procession worn forty-four copes of one suit, very rich, besides the sumptuous crosses, candlesticks, and other necessary ornaments to the

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comely furniture of the same. Now shall ye understand that he had two cross-bearers, and two pillar-bearers; and in his chamber all these persons, that is to say: his high chamberlain, his vice-chamberlain; twelve gentlemen ushers daily waiters; besides two in his privy chamber; and of gentlemen waiters in his privy chamber he had six; and also he had of lords nine or ten, who had each of them allowed two servants, and the Earl of Derby had allowed five men. Then had he of gentlemen, as cup-bearers, carvers, sewers, and gentlemen daily waiters forty persons, of yeomen ushers he had six, of grooms in his chamber he had eight, of yeomen of his chamber he had forty-six daily to attend upon his person. He had also a priest there, which was his almoner, to attend upon his table at dinner. Of doctors and chaplains attending in his closet to say daily mass before him, he had sixteen persons, a clerk of his closet, also he had two secretaries, and two clerks of his signet, and four counsellors learned in the laws of this realm. And forasmuch as he was Chancellor of England, it was necessary for him to have divers officers of the Chancery to attend daily upon him for the better furniture of the same: that is to say, he had a clerk of the crown, a riding clerk, a clerk of the hanaper, a chafer of wax. Then had he a clerk of the check as well to check his chaplains as his yeomen of the chamber; he had also four footmen who were apparelled in rich running coats whensoever he rode any journey. Then had he an herald at arms, also a serjeant at arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper of his tents, an armourer, an instructor of his wards, two yeomen in his wardrobes, and a keeper of his chamber in the court. He had also daily in his house the surveyor of York, and a clerk of the green cloth, and an auditor. All this number of persons were daily attendant upon him in his house, down-lying and up-rising, and at meals. There was continually in his chamber a board kept for his chamberlains and gentlemen ushers, having with them a mess of the young lords, and another for gentlemen. Besides all this there was never an officer and gentleman, or any other worthy person in his house, but he was allowed some three, some two servants, and all other one at the least, which amounted to a great number of persons. Now have I shewed you the order of his house, and what officers and servants he had, according to his checker roll, attending daily upon him, besides his retainers and other persons being suitors, that most commonly were fed in his hall. And whensoever we shall see any more such subjects within this realm that shall maintain any such estate and household, I am content he be advanced above him in honour and estimation. Therefore here I make an end of his household, whereof the number were about the sum of five hundred persons according to his checker roll…. Now will I declare unto you his order in going to Westminster Hall daily in the term season. First before his coming out of his privy chamber he heard most commonly every day two masses in his privy closet, and there then said his daily service with his chaplain (and as I heard his chaplain say, being a man of credence, and of excellent learning) that the Cardinal what business or weighty matters so ever he had in the day he never went to his bed with any part of his divine service unsaid, yea not so much as one Collect. Wherein I doubt not but he deceived the opinion of divers persons. And after mass he would return in his privy chamber again and being advertised of the

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furniture of his chambers without with noblemen and gentlemen, with other persons, would issue out into them apparelled all in red in the habit of a Cardinal, which was either of fine scarlet or else of crimson satin, taffeta, damask, or caffa, the best that he could get for money, and upon his head a round pillion with a neck of black velvet set to the same in the inner side. He had also a tippet of fine sables about his neck, holding in his hand a very fair orange whereof the meat or substance within was taken out and filled up again with the part of a sponge wherein was vinegar and other confections against the pestilent airs to the which he most commonly smelt unto, passing among the press or else when he was pestered with many suitors. There was also borne before him first the Great Seal of England, and then his cardinal’s hat by a nobleman or some worthy gentleman right solemnly bareheaded. And as soon as he was entered into his chamber of presence where was attending his coming to await upon him to Westminster Hall as well noblemen and other worthy gentlemen, as noblemen and gentlemen of his own family. Thus passing forth with two great crosses of silver borne before him with also two great pillars of silver, and his serjeant at arms with a great mace of silver gilt. Then his gentlemen ushers cried and said, “On my lords and masters, make way for my lord’s grace.” Thus passed he down from his chambers through the hall. And when he came to the hall door there was attendant for him his mule trapped all together in crimson velvet and gilt stirrups. When he was mounted with his cross-bearers and pillar-bearers also upon great horses trapped with red scarlet then marched he forward with his train and furniture in manner as I have declared, having about him four footmen with gilt poleaxes in their hands. And thus he went until he came to Westminster Hall door, and there alighted and went after this manner up through the hall into the Chancery, howbeit he would most commonly stay a while at a bar made for him a little beneath the Chancery, and there commune some time with the Judges and sometime with other persons. And that done he would repair into the Chancery, and sitting there until eleven of the clock hearing suitors and determining of divers matters. And from thence he would divers times go into the Star Chamber as occasion did serve, where he spared neither high nor low, but judged every estate according to their merits and deserts. He used every Sunday to repair to the Court being then for the most part at Greenwich in the term, with all his former order taking his barge at his privy stairs furnished with tall yeomen standing upon the bulwarks and all gentlemen being within with him. And landed at the Crane in the Vintry, and from thence he rode upon his mule with his Crosses, his pillars, his hat, and the Great Seal, through Thames Street until he came to Billingsgate or thereabouts. And there took his barge again and rowed to Greenwich, where he was nobly received of the lords and chief officers of the king’s house, as the Treasurer and Controllers with other, and conveyed unto the king’s chamber, his Crosses commonly standing (for the time of his abode in the Court) on the one side of the king’s cloth of estate. He being thus in the Court, it was wonderfully furnished with noblemen and gentlemen much otherwise than it was before his coming. And after dinner among the lords having some consultation with the king or with the Council he would depart homeward with like sort. And this order he used continually as opportunity did serve.

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Thus in great honour, triumph, and glory he reigned a long season ruling all things within this realm appertaining unto the king by his wisdom, and also all other weighty matters of foreign regions with whom the king and this realm had any occasion to intermeddle.

39. Impressions of Thomas Cromwell Reliable contemporary impressions of Thomas Cromwell are rare. The most hostile and least authoritative is that by Reginald Pole, written about 1538 in his Apologia ad Carolum Quintum Caesarem (Quirini (ed.), Epist. Reg. Poli, I, 133). The long account in Acts and Monuments, v, 362– 404, was based to a large extent on materials given to Foxe by Ralph Morice, secretary to Cranmer.1 This sketch by Eustace Chapuys was sent at the request of his chief, the Imperial chancellor, Granvelle. As Charles V’s ambassador in England Chapuys had close dealings with Cromwell. He was a shrewd observer and was well informed although he was capable of making grave errors of judgment. Between Gardiner and Cromwell no love was lost. Their uneasy relationship is suggested in this letter from Gardiner to Somerset, 4 October 1547.

(i) Cromwell seen by Eustace Chapuys, 1535. L.P. ix. 862. (Text of a deciphered copy from the Brussels archives as in Froude, The Pilgrim, 106–108)

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ir, Master Cromwell, of whose origin and antecedents your Secretary Antoine tells me you desire to be informed, is the son of a poor blacksmith, who lived in a small village four miles from this place, and is buried in a common grave in the parish churchyard. His uncle, the father of a cousin whom he has since enriched, was cook to the late Archbishop of Canterbury. The said Cromwell, in his youth, was an ill-conditioned scapegrace. For some offence he was thrown into prison, and was obliged afterwards to leave the country. He went to Flanders, and thence to Rome, and other places in Italy. Returning after a time to England, he married the daughter of a woolcomber, and lived in his father-in-law’s house, carrying on the business. Afterwards he was a law-pleader, and thus became known to the Cardinal of York, who, perceiving his talents and industry, and finding him ready at all things, evil or good, took him into his service, and employed him in the demolition of five or six religious houses. On the cardinal’s downfall Cromwell acquitted himself towards him with marked fidelity, and afterwards fell under the displeasure of Sir John Wallop, now ambassador in France, who threatened him with violence. Not knowing how else to defend himself, Cromwell contrived with presents and entreaties to obtain an audience of the King, whom he undertook to make the richest sovereign that ever reigned in England. He promised so fairly that the King at once retained him upon the council, although his promotion was for several months kept a secret from the rest. Since that time he has risen above every one, except it be the lady,2 and the world says he has more credit with his master than ever the cardinal had. The cardinal shared his influence with the Duke of Suffolk and several others. Now there is not a person who does anything except Cromwell. The Chancellor is only his tool; and although he has, so far, refused to take the Great Seal himself, people say he will be persuaded to catch at it before long.

He can speak his own language remarkably well, and Latin and French, and 1

J.G.Nichols, Narratives of the Reformation, 236.

2

Anne Boleyn.

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Italian tolerably. For the rest, he is a person of good cheer, gracious in words and generous in actions; his equipage and his palace are magnificent. My servant can tell you more if you wish for further information. (ii) Gardiner and Cromwell (J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, 399)

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recedents be dangerous; for I have seen it almost for a rule, that whatsoever hath been once done, may then, without question, be done again. In our late sovereign lord’s time I have seen the Council much astonished when the King would have done somewhat against an act of Parliament. It was made then a great matter. The Lord Cromwell had once put in the King’s, our late sovereign lord’s head to take upon him to have his will and pleasure regarded for a law; for that, he said, was to be a very king. And thereupon I was called for at Hampton Court. And as the Lord Cromwell was very stout, “Come on my Lord of Winchester,” quod he (for that conceit he had, whatsoever he talked with me, he knew ever as much as I, Greek or Latin and all), “Answer the King here,” quod he, “but speak plainly and directly, and shrink not, man! Is not that,” quod he, “that pleaseth the King, a law? Have ye not there in the Civil Law,” quod he, “quodprincipiplacuit, and so forth?” quod he, “I have somewhat forgotten it now.” I stood still and wondered in my mind to what conclusion this should tend. The King saw me musing, and with earnest gentleness, said, “Answer him whether it be so or no.” I would not answer my Lord Cromwell, but delivered my speech to the King, and told him I had read indeed of kings that had their will always received for a law, but, I told him, the form of his reign, to make the laws his will, was more sure and quiet. “And by this form of government ye be established,” quod I, “and it is agreeable with the nature of your people. If ye begin a new manner of policy, how it will frame, no man can tell; and how this frameth ye can tell; and I would never advise your Grace to leave a certain for an uncertain.” The King turned his back and left the matter after, till the Lord Cromwell turned the cat in the pan afore company, when he was angry with me, and charged me as though I had played his part. This tale is true, and not without purpose to be remembered, how I have been tossed to and fro in this kind of matter.

40. An impression of Protector Somerset (Francis Bourgoyne to John Calvin. London, 22nd Jan. 1552. Zurich Letters, II. 731–737.)

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reeting. Unless complaint afforded relief to distress of mind, and especially such complaint as is poured into the bosom of a Christian friend, I should far rather choose, my very dear sir, with Timon, to hide myself in some silent corner than to give utterance to a single word; or, if I must make the attempt, I should employ my pen in writing an elegy rather than a letter. But as I entertain such an opinion of you, that I think there is no one who sympathizes in a more Christian manner with the misfortunes of the distressed, and as I am, too, in some measure apprehensive on my now recalling

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you to my remembrance, that I have hitherto been more tardy in the duty of writing to you than I ought to have been, I have determined to be no longer silent. Therefore, that I may in the first place explain to you the cause of my grief, hence arise our tears, hence arises the all but universal distress, that on this very day, about 9 o’clock, the duke of Somerset of pious memory, when hardly any person looked for or suspected such an event, was lead out publicly to execution. I myself, for certain reasons, was not present at the sight; but many of our friends, with whom you are well acquainted, met me in the street immediately after the event had taken place, and related to me in order, but not with dry eyes, what they had seen and heard. Among them was our godly preacher master Richard,1 Utenhovius, and very many of that class: some of whom, understanding English, carefully noted almost every word of the dying nobleman. They tell me, among other things, that he said to the people standing around him, “I am about to die, good people, and confess that I justly deserve to die for having offended against the laws of my country and the King’s commands; from obedience to which, as they are made for all, it was neither just nor reasonable that I should be exempted. But I profess that by the goodness of God there remains to me this testimony of commendation and innocence, that I have hitherto conducted myself without blame in the cause of religion, and in my duty to my king and country: for God and my conscience is witness, that I have used all my endeavours and exertions to this end, that the cause of religion, the education of the king, the welfare and security of the realm might be consulted and provided for in the best possible way. Whence it is that I shall undergo this death with an undisturbed and ready mind, feeling assured, as I now heartily implore my God, that the crimes which I have acknowledged are forgiven me, as I now freely forgive all persons all their offences against me. But let it be the care of you all, and which I earnestly entreat from every one of you, to pray the Lord for me, and not through grief and excitement at this my punishment to raise any disturbance, or even to wish that my life could be restored, which I do not myself desire to be prolonged; and besides I would rather that each one of you would bear this with the same equanimity and fortitude, as I am now content to have myself and my case thus dealt with. Moreover, obey the king and his nobles and councillors in all things. Let God and the gospel of Jesus Christ hold, as is fitting, the chief place in your regard; and if at least you would profit by my example, shew careful obedience to the laws of your country, civil and political, and never violate them.” They state that he spake all this, and whatever else he said, with a look and gesture becoming the firmness of a hero, and the modesty of a Christian; that he was splendidly attired, as he used to be when about to attend upon the king, or to appear in public on any especial occasion; that he gave the executioner some gold rings which he drew from his fingers, together with all his clothes; only to a certain gentleman, the lieutenant of the Tower of London, in which he had been confined, he gave his sword and upper garment. What weeping, and wailing, and lamentation, followed upon the death of this nobleman, is as difficult to describe as to believe. It is stated by some persons who belong to the household of some of the councillors, and who are not altogether unacquainted with the affairs of court, that by the royal indulgence the capital 1

Richard Vauville: minister of a London church where French was spoken.

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punishment had been remitted, with a free pardon, while the duke was yet in prison, and that the whole council sent to inform him of it more than once; but when he rejected with contempt the grace and kindness that was offered him, (I know not whether in reliance on his own innocence, or on the favour of the king and of some other parties, or on his own influence, and wealth, and rank, or on some other delusive persuasion,) the whole council were at length so irritated by this conduct, that they determined that they would no longer endure that excessive arrogance of the man, which made it quite evident that should he be released from imprisonment, he would not, for the sake of avenging himself, refrain from raising disturbances and tumults, and intestine commotions that would endanger the whole kingdom. Besides, as it is probable that none of them would be so safe and secure, as not hereafter to apprehend some impending mischief from a prisoner whom they had unanimously condemned to death, especially the primary authors of this calamity, their minds could never be satisfied unless by the removal of one whom they were afraid of when he was alive. And thus was realised the saying of Sinon in the poet1 “On one devoted head They seek to launch the vengeance that they dread.” But however this might be, it is quite evident, in my opinion, that the deceased nobleman, like other men, was not without his faults, and those perhaps more grievous than could be passed over by God without punishment in this life: wherefore I conclude from hence that God would have the wonderful mystery of his hidden judgment to be made known; and upon a more accurate consideration of the subject, I can scarcely doubt but that you and all godly persons will be of the same opinion. This man was endowed and enriched with most excellent gifts of God both in body and mind, as I am well aware you have in great measure been informed by others. But is not that, I ask, the best gift, that God has chosen the light of the gospel to shine forth by his instrumentality throughout this kingdom, that the Son of God has presented himself to the people of Britain, as it were by his hand? I do not now mention how God had so exalted him, from being born in a private station, that as the late king’s brother-in-law, the brother of a queen, the uncle of the present king, he had no one here superior to him in any degree of honour; and then especially, when appointed lord protector of the realm, he was all but king, or rather esteemed by everyone as the king of the king. I omit to tell you how wonderfully God preserved him from capital punishment, when those great disturbances, of which you have heard, were stirred up against him. Though I am acquainted with many other circumstances of the same kind, for the sake of brevity I pass them over. I know assuredly and have ascertained in many ways, that he did not always use these mercies of God as a Christian should do, but rather, that he grievously and wickedly abused them, although I think that you never knew any of these things, or could have any suspicion of them. Master à Lasco himself, with whom you are acquainted, can bear sufficient testimony, among others, that during almost the whole time when we were both of us here together, he had become so lukewarm in the service of Christ as scarcely to have anything less at heart than the state of religion 1

Virg. Æn. II, 130.

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in this country. Nor indeed did he retain in this respect anything worthy of commendation, excepting that, as far as words go, he always professed himself a gospeller when occasion required such acknowledgement; but yet so that he could not in reality be found fault with by any one, for shewing himself opposed to good and Christian actions. But not even this can be allowed him from the time I have now mentioned, that he seriously and heartily employed his authority for the advancement of godliness; and I fear, as far as I have been able to discover the disposition of the man, that if it had been more for his interest to have followed a different course, he would some time or other have made his recantation. For when he manifested certain instances of his liberality and munificence both to yourself, and also very lately to your friend Nicolas for your sake, and to many other persons professing godliness, I know with greater certainty than I could wish, that this was done more for the sake of pleasing man than God; and that it was rather on this ground, that he was unwilling to lose the reputation which he had acquired, than from a sincere regard to godliness. This indeed was not altogether unknown to me, when I was lately with you at Geneva; but as I did not yet despair but that, while he was living, Christ would be preached on every opportunity by his authority more than he had ever been before; and even that he might be induced to reform his life, and repent, which I always believed would be effected rather by you than by any other person, so greatly did he esteem you, (for which reason also I exhorted you the more to write to him, particularly as I suspected that, having been somewhat estranged from him through that messenger of mine, you no longer thought proper to do so,) I considered it best to be silent with you on the subject. It was notorious to everyone in this kingdom that he was the occasion of his brother’s death, who, having been convicted on a charge of treason which no one could prove against him by legal evidence, and of which when brought to execution he perseveringly denied the truth, was beheaded owing to his information, instigated by I know not what hatred and rivalry against his brother. Who is there, that, knowing this to be the case, must not forthwith conclude that the awful denunciations and judgments of God against Cain in the fourth chapter of Genesis may be applied in the present instance? And, as I have diligently been informed by those who saw and heard these things, after that murder had been perpetrated, our duke was no longer like himself, but began to labour under those misfortunes which I have above hinted at. And not long after there followed those disturbances which made him, from being the lord protector of the kingdom, a miserable prisoner universally detested and despised. And a certain godly and honourable lady of this country, with whom I am acquainted, is reported to have exclaimed on that occasion, “Where is thy brother? Lo! his blood crieth against thee unto God from the ground.” In fine, that very act for which he was last of all thrown into prison, was both unworthy of a Christian such as he professed himself to be, and also sufficiently shews that the most part of the crimes, which I have laid to his charge, have their foundation in truth. For he was himself the head and author of a certain conspiracy against the whole of the royal council, and more particularly against the duke of Northumberland, lately called the earl of Warwick, whom he pursued with the

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most unrelenting hatred, as having been foremost in depriving him of the rank of protector, and being himself regarded from that time by the king’s councillors as occupying that office; the duke of Somerset, I say, gained over some accomplices in this conspiracy even from among the council itself (who are now in prison awaiting the king’s pleasure respecting them,) by which it was agreed among them, that on the duke of Northumberland being dispatched (together with any of his friends who should oppose their views) either by violence, or in secret, or in any other way, they should place the entire administration of the kingdom in their own hands, but that the duke of Somerset should be invested with the chief authority, or even be restored to the office of protector. I know there is now no occasion for me to follow up the details of this and of his other actions to greater length, and shew you how diametrically opposite they are to the word of God, and the profession of Christianity. For you will yourself, with your usual discrimination, not only understand this, but likewise all my feelings, and the object of all that I have said. I think, therefore that, for the sake of brevity, I must now conclude, that though I look upon this punishment to have been inflicted upon this deceased nobleman by a certain necessity for divine judgment, yet, since at his death he manifested some favourable marks of Christian penitence, I consider that God has not only chosen in this case to make known to us the mystery of his judgment, but also that of his infinite mercy, by which he kills and makes alive, brings down to the grave and brings back; whereby he would have the body to be destroyed for the salvation of the soul, and that one should be cast down in this life, whom he chooses to be exalted in a future one. And the consideration indeed of this circumstance, though it should afford no small comfort to me and to every one, yet cannot at once divest me of all sorrow at his death. And indeed I should be more than ordinarily cruel and unfeeling, could I bury so recent a calamity in immediate oblivion. Yet two reasons are presented to my mind which increase my regret: one of them is that we have lost so great a man, and one who was not so entirely corrupted but that there remained some hope both of his reformation, and also that the interest of the gospel would in any case be advanced by his authority and protection, since there is certainly the greatest scarcity and want of such characters in this country. Then, also, it seems to me to be a cause of the greatest lamentation and sorrow, that his life, imprisonment, and execution, were, and are, and will be, a stumbling block to many persons, to the great contempt and injury of the gospel and of godliness.

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41. Reminiscences of Cranmer by his secretary, c. 1565 (J.G.Nichols, Narratives of the Days of the Reformation, 234–272) The memoir of Cranmer from which this extract is taken is the primary source for his biography. It was written, at the request of Archbishop Parker, about 1565, by Ralph Morice, who became Cranmer’s secretary in 1528. Parker must have passed the MS. to Foxe some time after the publication of the first edition of Acts and Monuments (1563) and prior to the second edition (1576). Foxe made great use of the text, but made many changes in arrangement and language. Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, c. 30, 31, inserted a great part of Morice’s text verbatim, not realizing that Foxe had used it.

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irst, it is to be considered that the said Thomas Cranmer was born in a village named Aslacton, in the county of Nottingham, and the son of one Thomas Cranmer, gentleman, descending of ancient and famous family and progeny. Insomuch as there yet remaineth an ancient mansion house of antiquity called Cranmer hall, in Lincolnshire; whose arms at this present remain there in the glass windows of the same house to be seen. And as it is thought by some men, the first of that family and name was one of the gentlemen that came into this realm with William Conqueror; which seemeth something true, in that a gentleman being a Norman born, and in King Henry the VIIIth’s time associated in commission with a certain ambassador of France, gave the self-same arms in part that the Cranmers do here in England, who was of the same name, which occasioned the same archbishop to invite that noble gentleman unto his house at Lambeth, where he did banquet him, so that after dinner there was conference of both their arms together, in divers points nothing at all discrepant. Secondly as touching his education and bringing up in his youth. I have heard himself report that his father did set him to school with a marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster. Whose tyranny towards youth was such, that, as he thought, the said schoolmaster so appalled, dulled, and daunted the tender and fine wits of his scholars, that they commonly more hated and abhorred good literature than favoured or embraced the same, whose memories were also thereby so mutilated and wounded, that for his part he lost much of that benefit of memory and audacity in his youth that by nature was given unto him, which he could never recover, as he divers times reported. And albeit his father was very desirous to have him learned, yet would he not that he should be ignorant in civil and gentlemanlike exercises, insomuch that he used him to shoot, and many times permitted him to hunt and hawk and to exercise and to rid rough horses. So that now being archbishop, he feared not to ride the roughest horse that came into his stable. Which he would do very comely, as otherwise at all times there was none in his house that would become his horse better. And when time served for recreation after study he would both hawk and hunt, the game being prepared for him beforehand. And would sometime shoot in the long bow, but many times kill his deer with the crossbow, and yet his sight was not perfect, for he was purblind. Now, as touching his qualities wherewithal he was specially endowed, like as some of them were very rare and notable, so ought they not to be put in oblivion. Wherefore among other things it is to be noted that he was a man of such temperature of nature, or rather so mortified, that no manner of prosperity or adversity could alter or change

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his accustomed conditions: for, being the storms never so terrible or odious, nor the prosperous estate of the time never so pleasant, joyous, or acceptable, to the face of [the] world, his countenance, diet, or sleep commonly never altered or changed, so that they which were most nearest and conversant about him never or seldom perceived by no sign or token of countenance how the affairs of the prince or the realm went. Notwithstanding privately with his secret and special friends he would shed forth many bitter tears, lamenting the miseries and calamities of the world. Again, he so behaved himself to the whole world, that in no manner of condition he would seem to have any enemy, although in very deed he had both many great and secret enemies, whom he always bare with such countenance and benevolence that they could never take good opportunity to practise their malice against him but to their great displeasure and hindrance in the end. And as concerning his own regard towards slanders and reproach by any man to him imputed or impinged, such as entirely knew him can testify that very little he esteemed or regarded the bruit thereof, because he altogether travailed evermore from giving of just occasion of detraction. Whereupon grew and proceeded that notable quality or virtue he had: to be beneficial unto his enemies, so that in that respect he would not be known to have any enemy at all. For whosoever he had been that had reported evil of him, or otherwise wrought or done to him displeasure, were the reconciliation never so mean or simple on the behalf of his adversary, if he had anything at all relented, the matter was both pardoned and clearly forgotten, and so voluntarily cast into the satchel of oblivion behind the back part, that it was more clear now out of memory, than it was in mind before it was either commenced or committed; insomuch that if any such person should have had any suit unto him afterwards, he might well reckon and be as sure to obtain (if by any means he might lawfully do it) as any other of his special friends. So that on a time I do remember that D.Heath late archbishop of York, partly misliking this his overmuch lenity by him used, said unto him, “My lord, I now know how to win all things at your hands well enough”. “How so?” quoth my lord. “Marry” said D.Heath, “I perceive that I must first attempt to do unto you some notable displeasure, and then by a little relenting obtain of you what I can desire.” Whereat my lord bit his lip, as his manner was when he was moved, and said: “You say well: but yet you may be deceived. Howbeit, having some consideration so to do, I may not alter my mind and accustomed condition, as some would have me to do”. Again, one thing he commonly used wherein many did discommend him, which was this: he always bare a good face and countenance unto the papists, and would both in word and deed do very much for them, pardoning their offences; and on the other side, somewhat over severe against the protestants; which being perceived not to be done but upon some purpose, on a time a friend of his declared unto him that he therein did very much harm, encouraging thereby the papists, and also thereby in discouraging the protestants. Whereunto he made this answer and said, “What will ye have a man do to him that is not yet come to the knowledge of the truth of the gospel, nor peradventure as yet called, and whose vocation is to me uncertain? Shall we perhaps, in his journey coming towards us, by severity and cruel behaviour overthrow him, and

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as it were in his viage stop him? I take not this the way to allure men to embrace the doctrine of the gospel. And if it be a true rule of our Saviour Christ to do good for evil, then let such as are not yet come to favour our religion learn to follow the doctrine of the gospel by our example in using them friendly and charitably. On the other side, such as have tasted of sincere religion, and as it were taken hold of the gospel, and seem in words to maintain the true doctrine thereof, and then by the evil example of their lives most perniciously become stumbling blocks unto such as are weak, and not at all as yet entered into this voyage, what would you have me do with them? bear with them and wink at their faults, and so willingly suffer the gospel (by their outrageous doings) to be trodden under our feet? neglecting herewith another notable saying of our Saviour out of our memory, which saith, The servant knowing his Lord and Master’s pleasure and commandment, if he regardeth not the same is (as a man might say, of all other) worthy of many plagues.” And thus with these two scriptures or doctrines of our Saviour Christ he answered mine eldest brother, who was earnest with him for the amendment of this his quality. Mr. Isaac, yet living, is a witness of the matter. Again, if any matter of weight (besides his own cause, wherein evermore with all kind of persons he was ready to relent and give place, according to the quality of the matter, more than became his estate,) which touched God’s cause or his prince, there was no man more stout or more inexorable, so far forth that neither fear of losing promotion, nor hope of gain or winning of favour, could move him to relent or give place unto the truth of his conscience. As experience thereof well appeared, as well in the defence of the true religion against the Six Articles in the parliament, as when he offered to combat with the duke of Northumberland in King Edward’s time, speaking then on the behalf of his prince for the staying of the chantries until his highness had come unto lawful age, and that especially for the better maintenance of his estate then. But if at the prince’s pleasure in cause of religion at any time he was forced to give place, that was done with such humble protestation, and so knit up for the safeguard of his faith and conscience, that it had been better his good will had never been requested, than so to relent or give over. Which most dangerously (besides sundry times else) he specially attempted when the Six Articles by parliament passed, and when my lord Cromwell was in the Tower, at what time the book of articles of our religion was newly penned; for even at that season, the whole rabble, which he took to be his friends, being commissioners with him, forsook him, and his opinion in doctrine, and so, leaving him post alone, revolted altogether on the part of Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, as by name bishop Heath, Shaxton, Thirleby, Day, and all other of the meaner sort, by whom these so named were chiefly advanced and preserved unto their dignities. And yet, this sudden inversion notwithstanding, God gave him such favour with his prince, that the book altogether passed by his assertion against all their minds, more to be marvelled at, the time considered, than by any reason to compass how it should so come to pass: for then would there have been laid thousands of pounds to hundreds in London, that he should have, before that synod had been ended, been set up in the Tower beside his friend the lord Cromwell. Howbeit, the King’s majesty, having an

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assured and approved affiance of his both deep knowledge in religion and fidelity both to God and him, suspected in that time other men in their judgments not to walk uprightly nor sincerely, for that some of them swerved from their former opinion in doctrine. And having great experience of the constancy of the Lord Cranmer, it drove him all alone to join with the said lord Cranmer in the confirmation of his opinion and doctrine against all the rest, to their great admiration. For at all times when the King’s majesty would be resolved in any doubt or question he would but send word to my lord overnight, and by the next day the King should have in writing brief notes of the doctors’ minds, as well divines as lawyers, both ancient, old, and new, with a conclusion of his own mind; which he could never get in such a readiness of none, no not of all his chaplains and clergy about him, in so short a time. For, being thoroughly seen in all kinds of expositors, he could incontinently lay open thirty, forty, sixty or more sometimes of authors, and so, reducing the notes of them altogether, would advertise [advise] the King more in one day than all his learned men could do in a month. And it was no marvel: for it was well known that commonly, if he had not business of the prince’s, or special urgent causes before him, he spent three parts of the day in study as effectively as [if] he had been at Cambridge, and therefore it was that the King said on a time [once] to the bishop of Winchester (the King and my said lord of W. defending together that the canons of the apostles were of as good authority as the four evangelists, contrary to my lord Cranmer’s assertion) “My lord of Canterbury (said the King) is too old a Trewante1 for us twain.” And amongst other things, this is to be noted: that the King, beforehand perceiving that the said lord Cranmer should have much done in the defence of Christian religion, did alter his arms, changing the three cranes which were parcel of his ancestors’ arms into three pelicans, declaring unto the archbishop that those birds should signify to him that he ought to be ready as the pelican is to shed blood for his young ones brought up in the faith of Christ; for (said the King) you are like to be tested if you stand to your tackling at length; as in very deed many and sundry times he was shouldered at by his secret enemies the papists, as well such as were of the council as gentlemen and justices of the shire of Kent, and elsewhere, insomuch that the prebendaries and certain gentlemen of Kent at one time conspired against him, complaining of him unto the King’s majesty of the doctrine by him and his chaplains taught in Kent. Another time one Sir John Gostwick knight of Bedfordshire, a man of great service in his time, but yet papistical, accused him openly in a parliament for his preaching and reading at Sandwich and at Canterbury. At length the confederacy of papists in the council (as King Henry the Eighth had of both sects as well papists as protestants,) accused him most grievously unto the King, that he with his learned men had infected so the whole realm with their unsavoury doctrine, that three parts of the realm were become abominable heretics. And therefore desired of the King that he might come to examination and trial, and to be committed unto the Tower for that purpose. But the said Lord Cranmer was so grown in estimation with the King’s highness, that none of these complaints could prevail. 1

? truant, rogue.

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42. Impressions of Stephen Gardiner. From various sources Stephen Gardiner was one of the best letter writers of the time. In his lively personal correspondence he often indulged in self-analysis to a degree unusual in this period. The following extracts from his letters build up into a clear picture of Gardiner’s estimate of himself. The bitter hatred he aroused among reformers is reflected in the passages from the writings of Ponet and Becon.

(i) Gardiner. A, self-portrait (J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, passim)

I

could only wish that everyone possessed self-knowledge. Now that you may not seize upon this remark as in any way an insult, or regard me as a sarcastic person, let me say that I do not exempt even myself from the criticism implied; I do not claim immunity in the slightest degree from the limitations of human nature, as if I were some rare sort of creature. But whatever kind of person I may be, it is not because of any distinction of my own, whether of character or ability or even of learning, but because of the privileges of my office…(101) And although I go not about to prove myself a saint, for I have made no such outward visage of hypocrisy, yet it shall appear I am not utterly a devil. And if I be a devil, I am not of that kind of devils that be noteth me of, and such other as have pleasure to have me so spoken of. (163) I am resolved to be plain, as becometh a true Christian bishop, and as my conscience and truth leadeth me to open it unto you, calling everything by his right name, that ye may understand me. And whatsoever fault I have besides, to declare that I am not wily Winchester, but plain, humble, and obedient, with as much affection to the preservation of the King’s Majesty and this realm, as my duty bindeth me, which is a very sore bond. (372) As to myself, of what spirit I am, a great mistake has been made by many; certainly I have never thought of returning evil upon anyone. Moreover I have never been meddlesome; yet to me so many things have been presented by accident, that things which I learned by chance, when I was not in the least desirous of learning them, seemed to some people fished out by zeal, which was far from the fact. (327) For I say as I think; and if I think like a fool and cannot say otherwise, then it should be accompted as my punishment and I to be reckoned among the indurate, who nevertheless heretofore had used myself, when no man impeached me for religion, as friends to friends. And although I were not (as it is of some now thought) a good Christian man, yet I was none evil civil man. And your Grace, at our being with the Emperor, had ever experience of me that I was a good English man. (416) And whatsoever opinion I have given men occasion, by mine outward life, to conceive of me, I trust to declare in effect that I esteem my conscience above any other thing, and shall as faithfully shew your Grace the truth in these matters, as my learning and conscience telleth me, as any other; wherein I have and do as much travail also as any other, with less fruit percase, but for the proportion of my capacity. And as there is no man that for many respects wisheth your Grace better success in all your enterprises than I do, so shall there no man in his manner and behaviour openly and secretly use himself like a more humble, quiet subject in all points than I shall do, whatsoever tales

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shall be feigned or devised of me to the contrary, only to inquiet and molest me, as indeed they do not for myself, but only for other, who by occasion whereof use me for a tale and speak they wot not. No man is without fault, but if it shall never be tried that I deceived your expectation. I will have no such manner of fault to be double of word or in behaviour a dissembler…. (436) I do not trifle with my wit to undo myself, but travail with mine honesty to preserve my country, to preserve my prince, to preserve religion…. (422) For your Grace may be assured no man can charge me with breach of any law, proclamation or commandment, whatsoever hath been otherwise noised. (436) Honesty and truth are more lief to me than all the possessions of the realm, and in these two, so say and do frankly as I might, I never forbore yet; and in these two, honesty and truth, I take such pleasure and comfort as I will never leave them for no respect; for they will abide by a man, and so will nothing else. (376) For though some accompt me a Papist, yet I cannot play the pope holy, as the old term was. (419) These of some will be called witty reasons, but they be indeed truth’s children, and so is all the eloquence, which some (to dispraise me) say I have, whatsoever they say of me. (280) My Lord of Canterbury would fall to arguing, to overcome me that am called the sophister, by sophistry. (397) For justification whereof, I will omit nothing that shall become a Christian bishop and a humble servant, with declaration unto you that I care more for the truth (as my duty is) than for all the rest I have in the world. (365) I bring to your remembrance all the circumstances of me, who never offended any law of this realm willingly, was never in suit with any, and at this time in enmity with none. (427) For I am not factious, and use only to say as I am bound to say, as occasion serveth; for that is my duty, having no other thing purposed but truth and honesty, whatsoever any man shall otherwise say of me. (296) And fish is the great treasure of this realm and food inestimable. And these good words I give, although I love it not myself. For such as love not fish should nevertheless commend it to other, to the intent the flesh by them forborn might be to such as love it only the more plenty. (280)

(ii) A description ofGardiner (By John Ponet, A Shorte Treatise of politike power, 135)

For albeit this doctor be now (but too late) thoroughly known, yet it shall be requisite that our posterity know what he was, and by his description see how nature had shaped the outward parts to declare what was within. This doctor had a swart colour, an hanging look, frowning brows, eyes an inch within the head, a nose hooked like a buzzard, wide nostrils like a horse, ever snuffing into the wind, a sparrow mouth, great paws like the devil, talauntes on his feet like a grype, two inches larger than the natural toes, and so tied to with sinews that he could not abide to be touched, nor scarce suffer them to touch the stones.

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And nature having thus shaped the form of an outward monster, it gave him a vengeable wit, which at Cambridge by labour and diligence he had made a great deal worse, and brought up many in that faculty: Wriothesley, Germain Gardiner1 (whom he caused speedily to be hanged, lest he should have too much disclosed his master’s art) and among many other…. This doctor to give some significance of his nature and cunning to come aloft, that he might do the more mischief, betrayeth his master Cardinal Wolsey: and more than any other laboureth the divorce between King Henry and the dowager. And by and by he earnestly sought to have ridden in the King’s boots: worse could not content him. But when he saw that would not be, and considered it better to have store than one only pair (for so perchance he might have found them sometimes not all clean when he would have used them, and also it should be a lot to bring to pass that he purposed) he changeth his purpose: and because none should remember his practices before, nor suspect the rest to come, he shaveth his crown as broad as a saucer, and decketh himself with a white smock like a porter of the Steelyard. But what needeth such circumlocution when everybody knoweth this doctor of practices was called D.Stephen Gardiner? After this his luck was to be committed to the Tower, when Tyburn had been a place more worthy his deserts. His scholar the master or proctor of practices, remembering how much he had prospered by means of the doctor, and bending his disposition to make thankful requital of part of his received benefits, putteth the doctor in memory of an old lesson he had taught him: that is, to give back two foot with the ram, that he might win the third. But whether this D.Gardiner was offended with his scholar the proctor for his over-rank practising, or how it happened, I cannot tell, I am sure that in this one he answered honestly: let my scholar go on as he hath begun (saith he) for Gardiner cannot play the knave so. Words of Gardiner: but he was not unskilled (I say) in the art of practices. No indeed he was excellent in that fact, as it well appeared. For when he had wrought and made sure the great marriage to avoid the hatred of the people, he made his scholar to father it, and to have the outward thanks. And so marvel of his cunning. For he was his master, and had studied longer the art than the proctor, and had a better wit, and spent yearly the half of his bishopric in bribing, or else he had lost his head long before: for his treasons were not altogether unknown, albeit they were covered and hidden.

(iii) Reflections on Gardiner (By Thomas Becon, Works, III. 236)

Heretofore we had such shepherds as were tender fosters of thy flock. They cherished and made much of the sheep. For such as were weak they tenderly cherished, the sick they healed, the broken they bound up together, the outcastes and such as ran astray they lovingly brought home again, the lost they diligently sought, and restored them to the sheep-fold. None of thy sheep did they willingly suffer to perish. Even as a nurse among her children, so lived they among thy people. Not with the sour leaven of the 1 Secretary to Gardiner, and probably a kinsman, for many years a member of the bishop’s household, was executed on 7 March 1544 for denying the royal supremacy.

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Pharisees, but with the heavenly manna of thy blessed word, did they feed thy flock. Neither did they give thy sheep drink of the stinking and dirty puddles of men’s traditions, but of the fountain of that “living water which springeth unto everlasting life.” But now the shepherds, yea, rather the wolves, which are burst into thy sheep-fold, and with violence have unjustly thrust out the faithful and fatherly pastors out of their cures, are lordly, cruel, blood-thirsty, malicious, and spiteful against thy sheep. They are such “wolves” as “spare not the flock,” but scatter and destroy the flock. They are “thieves, robbers,” murderers and soul-slayers. “They feed themselves with the fattest, and clothe themselves with the finest wool; but thy flock they nourish not.” The food wherewith they pasture thy sheep is the drowsy dreams and idle imaginations of antichrist. Instead of the preaching of thy lively word, they feed thy flock with Latin mumblings, with dumb images, with heathenish ceremonies, with vain sights, and such other apeish toys. Instead of the ministration of the holy and blessed communion, they feed thy sheep with vile, stinking, abominable, devilish, blasphemous, and idolatrous masses. And unto these unwholesome and pestilent and poisonful pastures they drive the sheep, will they, nil they; and if any of thy flock refuse to come and to taste of those their pestilent poisons and poisons full of pestilences, him they accite1 to appear before that great wolf,2 whose face is like unto the face of a she-bear that is robbed of her young ones, whose eyes continually burn with the unquenchable flames of the deadly cockatrice, whose teeth are like to the venemous toshes3 of the ramping lion, whose mouth is full of cursed speaking and bitterness, whose tongue speaketh extreme blasphemies against thee and thy holy Anointed, whose lips are full of deadly poison, whose throat is an open sepulchre, whose breath foameth and bloweth out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, whose heart without ceasing imagineth wickedness, whose hands have a delight to be inbrued with the blood of the saints, whose feet are swift to shed blood, whose whole man both body and soul, go always up and down musing of mischief. This wolf, O Lord, is so arrogant, haughty and proud, seeing the government of the whole realm is committed unto him, that he hath cast away all fear of thee. He maketh boast of his own wit, learning, and policy. “His ways are always filthy: thy judgments are far out of his sight: he defieth all his enemies. For he saith in his heart, Tush, I shall never be cast down: there shall no harm happen unto me.” “He sitteth lurking like a lion in his den, that he may privily murder the innocent, and suck his blood.” When such, O Lord God, as will not obey their popish and devilish proceedings, are brought before that grievous wolf, they are miserably taunted, mocked, scorned, blasphemed, as thy dearly-beloved Son was in bishop Caiphas’ house, and afterward cruelly committed to prison, to the Tower, to the Fleet, to the Marshalseas, to the King’s Bench, to the Counters, to Lollards’ Tower, to Newgate, &c., where they are kept as sheep in a pinfold appointed to be slain. And as this cruel and bloody wolf dealeth with the poor lambs, even so do the residue of that lecherous litter. He with all other of that wolfish kind hunger and thirst nothing so greatly, as the devouring of the bodies and the sucking of the blood of thy poor and innocent lambs. 1

summon.

2

Gardiner is undoubtedly intended.

3

tusks.

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43. An impression of Cardinal Pole (Latimer’s fifth sermon, preached before Edward VI, 5 April 1549. G.E.Corrie (ed.); Sermons by Hugh Latimer (Parker Soc., 172)) Latimer is speaking of Pole’s book, Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione (Rome, 1536; Strasbourg, 1555), written partly in answer to Henry VIII’s demand that Pole should give his opinion upon the title of the Supreme Head of the Church, and partly as a reply to Richard Sampson’s Oratio de dignitate et potestate regis (1533), a violent attack upon papal jurisdiction.

T

his little rehearsal I have made of the things I spake in my last sermon. I will now for this day return to my question and dissolve it, whether God’s people may be governed by a governor that beareth the name of a king, or no? The Jews had a law, that when they should have a king, they should have him according to the election of God: he would not leave the election of a King to their own brains. There be some busy brains, wanton wits, that say, the name of a king is an odious name; and wrest this text of the scripture, where God seemeth to be angry and displeased with the Israelites for asking a king: expounding it very evil and odiously as who would say, a king were an odious thing. I coming riding in my way, and calling to remembrance wherefore I was sent, that I must preach, and preach before the king’s majesty, I thought it meet to frame my preaching according to a king. Musing of this, I remembered of myself a book that came from cardinal Pole, master Pole, the king’s traitor, which he sent to the king’s majesty. I never remember that man, methink, but I remember him with a heavy heart: a witty man, a learned man, a man of a noble house; so in favour, that if he had tarried in the realm, and would have conformed himself to the king’s proceedings, I heard say, and I believe it verily, that he had been bishop of York at this day. To be bidden by, he would have done much good in that part of the realm; for those quarters have always had great need of a learned man and a preaching prelate. A thing to be much lamented, that such a man should take such a way. I hear say, he readeth much S.Hierome’s works, and is well seen in them; but I would he would follow St. Hierome, where he expoundeth this place of scripture, “Exite de illa, populus meus:” Almighty God saith “Get you from it, get you from Rome;” he calleth it the purple whore of Babylon. It had been more commendable to go from it, than to come to it. What his sayings be in his book, I do not well remember; it is in the farthest end of my memory. He declareth himself in it to have a corrupt judgment. I have but a glimmering of it, yet in general I remember the scope of it. He goeth about to dissuade the king from his supremacy. In his persuasions he is very homely, very quick, and sharp with the king, as these cardinals will take well upon them. He saith, that a King is an odious word, and toucheth the place how God was offended with the Israelites for calling for a king. Very lightly he seemeth to set forth the title of a king as though he should mean: What is a king? What should a king take upon him to redress matters of religion? It pertaineth to our holy father of Rome. A king is a name and a title rather suffered of God as an evil thing than allowed as a good thing. Calling this to remembrance, it was an occasion that I spake altogether before. Now I will answer to this. For the answer I must somewhat rip the eighth chapter of the first book of the Kings.

Part IV GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

INTRODUCTION

S

OME of the main problems arising from the documents in this Section have already been discussed.1 All that is needed here is a brief indication of the plan on which these sources have been arranged. The documents in Division A illustrate special questions concerned with the kingship. Of these, the ever-present problem of the succession to the throne is of special importance. Other documents are concerned with such topics as the accession and coronation of the monarch, the expedients devised for a royal minority, and changes in the sovereign’s style. Since the king was closely concerned in matters of treason, changes in the treason laws are also placed here. All these matters gave the government constant concern, a fact which has been emphasized in this Division, at the risk of some repetition, by reference to successive statutes dealing with these subjects. Division B indicates stages in the growth of an administrative office of steadily increasing significance, that of the king’s secretariate. Division C illustrates (so far as it is possible to manipulate very intractable material) the great activity during these years in the organization of the country’s finances, and experiments in the creation of machinery for administration in the Household and Chamber. Divisions D and E are concerned with a special feature of early Tudor government, the King’s Council and the conciliar courts. Here, too, it has seemed appropriate to add material showing the extension of the control exercised by the council in the Marches of Wales by legislation resulting in the Act of Union. Section F illustrates some special features of the common law jurisdiction, which was being challenged by the competition of the conciliar courts. The place assigned to Parliament, Division G, accords more with early Tudor concepts than with modern ideas concerning the character of that institution. This Division has been placed after that dealing with the common law courts in order to emphasize the fact that this institution was still looked upon as “the highest and most authenticall court of Englande”, although, at the same time, it must not be forgotten that contemporaries also recognized it as “the most high and absolute power of the realme of England”.2 Division H illustrates the machinery of local government, while Division I recalls the slight advances made towards the evolution of political and Constitutional theory during this period.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY While much attention has been focused upon various problems of early Tudor government, resulting in a considerable specialist literature, there is no adequate synthesis of the results of such work in a convenient handbook. The best simple textbooks only treat the period as part of a wider survey, and have neither the space nor the purpose to be more than broad outline sketches. Of such works the most reliable is D.L.Keir, Constitutional History of 1 Above, pp. 18. f. For more detailed commentaries on all aspects of the constitutional history of the period, G.R.Elton, The Tudor Constitution should be consulted. 2 L.Alston (ed.), Sir Thomas Smith’s De Republica Anglorum, p. 48.

429

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Modern Britain (1938:6th edn., 1960). With it should be classed an older book by a master hand, F.W.Maitland, Constitutional History of England (Cambridge, 1908). Despite the fact that this was a course of lectures published posthumously, and is badly in need of revision, it is still in many ways the clearest and most stimulating of the short guides. The earliest study on the development of government giving serious attention to the early sixteenth century was H.Hallam, Constitutional History of England (2 vols., 1827: several later editions of which that of 1846 was the last corrected by the author). This was in use until quite recently, but its Whig outlook, and the radical revisionmade necessary by modern research, have now out-moded it. The first serious attempt to incorporate the results of modern scholarship was the synthesis on Tudor government in W.S.Holdsworth, History of English Law (vols, I, IV, and V, 1922–24). This is narrowly legalistic in conception, and it has the shortcomings inevitable in any such attempt to write, solely from printed sources, a general description of government as a series of digressions from the main theme of the book, which is the history of the theory and practice of the English legal system. With these reservations it is an indispensable work of reference for many problems. K.Pickthorn began a detailed account of Early Tudor Government (2 vols., Cambridge, 1934), but he only covered the reigns of the first two Tudor kings. It is a far more satisfying survey than any which had preceded it, but it has its shortcomings. Its author did not decide whether to treat the subject analytically, or as a politico-constitutional narrative history, and he ended with a mixed method, largely analytical for Henry VII’s reign and mainly narrative for that of Henry VIII, and the result is not satisfactory. This is, however, a scholarly study based on the printed sources, and is a safe guide. Many of the essential documents are available in collections of sources. Most important is G.R.Elton, The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge, 1960), which replaces J.R.Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents 1485–1603 (Cambridge, 1922). The editor contributes a series of informative introductions to the various sections, which are admirable expositions of constitutional problems, and guides to further study indispensable for all serious students of the period. It can be consulted with profit on most of the topics illustrated in this Section. C.Stephenson and F.G. Marcham, Sources of English Constitutional History (1938), has a short representative selection of documents in the section devoted to the Tudors. There are useful materials in A.F.Pollard, The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources (1914) and C.H.Williams, England under the Early Tudors (1925). A profitable method for the study of government in this period is by way of two books, neither of which is, strictly speaking, a contemporary source. Sir John Fortescue, Governance of England, edited by C.Plummer (Oxford, 1885), gives an impression of English government as it appeared to an eyewitness about 1470. It indicates the foundations on which the Tudor system of government rested, and states very clearly some of the problems which would confront Henry VII at his accession. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum: or a discourse on the commonwealth of England (1583: best edition by L.Alston, Cambridge, 1906), is a detailed description of government in England as Smith saw it in the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign. The contrast between these two books will suggest many problems, and although it would be dangerous to take too much for granted, much that Smith says holds good for the earlier half of the sixteenth century. The most serviceable method of dealing with the numerous specialist monographs and the variety of sources on which they depend will be to group them around the different departments of government, provided the need for constant cross-reference is kept in mind.

I. THE KING No single book deals with the office in all its respects, but some important monographs treat of special problems. The nature of the royal succession is, of course, crucial throughout

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the period. Its general significance was discussed by an early writer, R.Brady, A true and exact history of the succession of the crown of England (2nd edn., 1684), and by A.Bailey, The Succession to the English Crown (1879). Closely connected are the developments in the definition and extension of the offence of treason, since much of this extension was made part of the legislation on the succession. For reference to the literature on the subject see below p. 441. For the constitutional problems arising from Edward VI’s minority, consult A.F.Pollard, England under Protector Somerset (1900), J.G.Nichols, “The second patent appointing Edw. duke of Somerset protector…” (Archaelogia, xxx, 1844, 463–489) and the introduction in J.R.Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council, II. The main questions connected with the coronation rites are discussed by P.E.Schramm, A History of the English Coronation (trans. from the German, by L.G.Wickham Legge. Oxford, 1937), while the relevant documents are printed by L.G.Wickham Legge, English Coronation Records (1901). This contains the “Little Device” for the coronation of Henry VII and for that of Henry VIII, and the English translation of the expanded coronation oath revised by Henry VIII between 1509 and 1543. Regulations for the coronation of Edward VI are in Acts of the Privy Council (ed. Dasent, 1547–50, II, 29–33), and areport of Mary’s coronation is in Cal. St. Pap. Venetian 1534–54, v, 431. The early Tudor kingship was a new experience for subjects as well as rulers. It owed its great prestige and unique position among contemporary monarchs to a variety of causes. There is a discerning analysis of this new position of the king in Holdsworth, History of English Law, IV, 190–207. Government policy did much to foster the new spirit by the use of high-sounding language in statutes and other official documents, and by deliberate propaganda. Frequent discussion in the courts of questions touching the royal prerogative led even the common lawyers to strange flights of fancy. Henry VIII’s own opinions on the subject of his imperial station are discussed in a learned paper by R.Koebner “The Imperial Crown of this Realm, Henry VIII, Constantine the Great, and Polydore Vergil” (B.I.H.R., XXVI, 1953, 29–52). What Maitland thought of the lawyers’ “metaphysiological nonsense” can be read in “The Crown as Corporation” (Collected Papers, 1911, III, 244–270, repr. Select Essays: 1936,104–127), and the results upon contemporary thought in the literature of political thought mentioned below.1 The realities of the royal prerogative were the subject of a popular treatise, Sir William Staunforde or Stanford, An exposicion of the Kinges prerogative (1567), and was later discussed in a book which had a long life, J.Allen, Inquiry into the rise and growth of the royal prerogative in England (1830:1849).

II. THE ADMINISTRATION (i) THE KING’S SECRETARY Closely connected with the king was the Secretary. With the declining importance during this period of the Chancery on its administrative side, the secretariat grew in importance. The subject has a small literature of its own. An early sketch of the office was given by N.H.Nicolas, in his introduction to Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (vol. VI). Although primarily concerned with the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries M.F.G.Evans looked back at the earlier history of the secretary, the signet office, and the French secretaries in The Principal Secretary of State (Manchester, 1923), and in “The Pre-Tudor Secretary” in Essays in medieval history presented to T.F.Tout (Manchester, 1925). A useful study for developments down to Henry VII’s reign is J.Otway Ruthven, The King’s Secretary and the Signet Office in the XVth. Century (Cambridge, 1939), while A.F.Pollard, Wolsey, J.A.Muller, Letters of Stephen 1

No. 76. Elton, 126: The secretaryship during Cromwell’s tenure “is an outstanding part of the administrative revolution of the century, comprising as it does a far-reaching alteration in the bureaucratic organization and the whole attitude to government”. 2

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Gardiner, and G.R.Elton, Tudor Revolution in Government, have much information on early Tudor developments. The latter is particularly important because of the special emphasis it places upon Cromwell’s activities in the office.2

(ii) THE COUNCIL AND THE PRIVY COUNCIL The essential feature in Tudor administration was the Council, and it has been closely studied by modern historians. There is an excellent bibliographical essay by E.R.Adair, The Sources for the History of the Council (S.P.C.K. Helps for Students of History, No. 51, 1924). The main stages in the study of this institution can be indicated briefly. Interest was first aroused by F.Palgrave, An Essay upon the original authority of the Kings Council (1834), which, although concerned only with developments down to the reign of Henry VII, established the main foundations upon which the author considered that conciliar authority was based. It was followed by two short essays, by A.V.Dicey, The Privy Council (Oxford, 1860, 1887), and by Lord Eustace Percy, The Privy Council under the Tudors (Oxford, 1907). Neither does more than sketch in bare outline the nature of conciliar development in the sixteenth century. A.F.Pollard showed some interest in the subject in a careful analysis of the composition and functions of the privy council under Edward VI in England under Protector Somerset (1900). With J.F.Baldwin, The Kings Council in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1913), the origins and early development of the Council were studied in a conscientious piece of scholarship based on an investigation of the original sources, and many of the problems of its early history were solved. The author brought his study down to the reign of Henry VIII, but the latter part of his book was somewhat perfunctory, and the difficult questions were left unsolved. Some of them were taken up by D.M. Gladish, The Tudor Privy Council (Retford, 1915), a monograph in which much useful information was collected. The next landmark in conciliar studies was a series of essays by A.F.Pollard, “Council, star chamber, and privy council under the Tudors” (E.H.R. XXXVII, 1922, 337–360; 516–539; and XXXVIII, 1923, 42–60), which challenged all earlier work on the subject. These subtle and highly technical interpretations are not easy reading, but they reveal an expert, moving with ease in a no-man’s land where the original materials out of which institutional history has to be written are scanty, fragmentary, and enigmatic. Pollard’s problem was, how to explain clearly the remarkable transformation which took place in the organization of the Council between 1485 and 1540. In the early years of Henry VII’s reign the King’s Council, which had emerged from the Middle Ages, was a large, illdefined body of advisers, with a small inner ring of executive officers and legal advisers, without much organization, and with little evidence of regularly kept records of its activities. The methods of Henry VII’s campaign against the over-mighty subject involved the use of the powers of jurisdiction inherent in the medieval Council, and this, largely through the initiative of Wolsey, led to the development of the Court of Star Chamber. There were further complications. By 1540 there was in being a body calling itself the Privy Council, which was at that date given power to keep a record of its proceedings. This body became the distinctive Tudor agency for the centralization and supervision of all government authority. Its relation to the vague Council of Henry VII’s reign was one of the problems Pollard examined. His conclusions suggested that the direct line of revolution was from the council to the court of star chamber rather than to the privy council, and that the inter-relationship of the various forms of the council was far more involved than earlier writers had appreciated. Some of these conclusions were criticized, though not very constructively, by E.R.Turner, The Privy Council 1603–1784 (1, c. 2 and 3). The main work of later students has been the discovery of fresh source material. Most important are some papers by W.H.Dunham, Jr., “The Ellesmere Extracts from the ‘Acta Consilii’ of King Henry VIII” (E.H.R. LVIII, 1943, 301–318) “Henry VIII’s Whole Council and its Parts” (Huntington Lib. Quart, VII, 1943, 7–46); “Wolsey’s Rule of the King’s Whole Council” (Amer. H.R. XLIX, 1943–1944, 644–662), and “The Members of Hen. VIII’s Whole Council, 1509–27” (E.H.R. LIX, 187–210). In these essays the author was

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able, through the discovery among transcripts made for Lord Keeper Egerton in Elizabeth I’s reign of some extracts from a “Book of the Council”, to throw fresh light on the history of the Council in the period when Wolsey was in power, a dark period about which Pollard had been cautious in making generalizations. This work strengthened the opinion that the privy council came into being a few years prior to 1540. With these papers should be included C.G.Bayne and W.H.Dunham (ed.), Select Cases in the Council of Henry VII (Seldon Soc., 1958), where the Ellesmere transcripts are printed. The part played by Cromwell in such developments is discussed by G.R.Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (c. v, 316–369). The researches of Dunham and Elton in particular have added considerably to knowledge of conciliar history, but much still remains to be done if the problems connected with it are to be solved, and what would be particularly valuable would be the discovery of new source material. It is difficult to make a short summary of the original materials for conciliar history, since its work as a general advisory and supervisory body brought it into contact with almost every department of government so that traces of its activities may be found in almost every type of record. There are, however, some records connected with it, which must be noticed. The difficult years from 1485–1540, when the Council was a rather nebulous institution, and the privy council was not yet clearly discernible, are lacking in records: the curious evidence of the agenda of a few meetings in the reign of Henry VII contained in a book of transcripts known as the Liber Intracionum, are discussed and printed in C.Scofield, The Court of Star Chamber, and the above-mentioned transcripts. The privy council registers begin in 1540. A small part (1540–42) was printed by Sir H.Nicolas, Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England (vol. VII, 1837). Then the work was taken up in a new series, edited by J.R.Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council of England (vols, I–VI, 1890–93). The first six volumes cover the years 1542–1558. Each has a valuable introduction discussing the nature of the register and allied manuscripts, questions of organization, personnel, and business. For some further information the articles by E.R. Adair, “The Privy Council Registers” (E.H.R. XXX, 1915, 698–704), “The Rough Copies of the Privy Council Register” (ibid. 1923, XXXVIII, 410–422), “The First Clerk of the Privy Council” (Law Quarterly Rev., 1923, XXXIX, 240–244), and “William Thomas, a forgotten clerk of the Privy Council” (Tudor Studies, 133–160) are worth notice. Valuable as the Register is, it cannot be too strongly emphasized, that this material has serious limitations. It is not a complete record of all that happened at a meeting of the privy council: no report is given of discussions on policy: there are several occasions (when probably important discussions took place) for which nothing more was recorded than the date, place of meeting, and a list of members in attendance, without any note of business transacted. Further, there is a gap in the Register from July 1543 until May 1545. A glance at the references in the books mentioned above will show that other important information often comes from the general sources, e.g. from the Letters and Papers, the State Papers, and the several calendars of State papers, foreign, while many of the privy council’s letters and orders will be found scattered in the archives listed in the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, in town records, and in other sources. For these, consult Adair, Sources.

(iii) THE CONCILIAR COURTS The close connection between the older council and the conciliar courts means that much of the literature mentioned above is also relevant for the history of these courts, but some other work must also be consulted. Much of the attention given to the Court of Star Chamber, and the Court of Requests by writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries originated in an attempt to emphasize the legality of institutions which had been the creations of the royal prerogative, and from a wish to prove the precedence in age and authority of one or other of these courts. A useful list of printed and manuscript materials of this nature will be found in C.Scofield’s monograph

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mentioned below. Only the specialist is likely to refer to them now, and a select list of the more important will be enough to indicate their nature. They include Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum or a discourse on the commonwealth of England (1583: best edition, L.Alston, 1905); William Lambarde, Archeion, or a commentary upon the High Court of Justice (1635, but completed in 1591, there is a modern edition by C.H.McIlwain and P.L.Ward, Cambridge, U.S.A., 1957); Richard Crompton, L’Authorité de jurisdiction des Courts de la majesté de la royaume (1594); Sir Julius Caesar, The ancient state, authoritie and proceedings of the court of requests (1597: part printed in Leadam, see below); Sir Edward Coke, Fourth Institute (1644: probably written 1631); William Hudson, Treatise on the court of star chamber (written before 1635, was first printed in Francis Hargrave, Collectanea Juridica, 2 vols., 1792). Before 1900 most writers on the Court of Star Chamber accepted (although some of them had doubts) the view that the court was created by an act of 1487. Miss C.L.Scofield, A Study of the Court of Star Chamber (Chicago, 1900), a monograph based on unpublished sources, confirmed the sceptics, and emphasized the importance of the judicial powers inherent in the medieval council as the real origin of the authority of the later Court of Star Chamber. Her views tallied with those of I.S.Leadam, Select Cases (see below), and were strengthened by the discovery that the title pro camera stellata found as the title of the act of 1487 on the statute roll was a late sixteenth century interpolation. For a facsimile which makes this point clear see B.I.H.R. 1925, III, 115, and Bayne and Dunham, Select Cases in the Council of Henry VII, XLIX f. The bearing of Pollard’s articles on this point will be obvious. For a survey of these questions, C.H.Williams, “The so-called star chamber act” (History, 1930, 129–135). The main contributions to the early history of the court of requests are I.S.Leadam, Select Cases (see below), and A.F.Pollard, “The court of requests”, “The Growth of the Court of Requests” (E.H.R. LVI, 1941, 300–303). While the students of institutions wrestled with these problems other historians were realizing the value of the records of these courts for historical purposes. Proceedings in both the courts of Star Chamber and of Requests were initiated by bill, in which the petitioner rehearsed his complaint, explaining why it could not be dealt with in the ordinary courts of common law. The statements contained in such documents illustrate many sides of social life in the period. They are, it may be added, more useful for such purposes than they are as materials for the study of the practice and procedure of the courts, for in most cases little more than the original bill has been preserved, the subsequent pleadings and decisions are often missing. Search among these records has been facilitated by the publication of a List of Proceedings in the Court of Star Chamber (P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, 13, 1901), and List of Proceedings in the Court of Requests (Lists and Indexes, 21, 1906). Welsh cases have been collected in a Catalogue of Star Chamber Proceedings relating to Wales by I. ab O.Edwards (Univ. of Wales Board of Celtic Studies, History and Law, Ser. I, Cardiff, 1929). Many of these Star Chamber proceedings have been printed, particularly in the publications of local history societies. A select list of some of the better known examples should include: I.S.Leadam, Select Cases in the Star Chamber (Selden Soc., 1903, 1911, 1, 1477–1509:II, 1509–44) (a pioneer collection of records in its day important for the commentary in the editor’s introductions, but they have been largely superseded by later researches, although, of course, the text of cases remains highly important); W.Brown, H.B.McColl, J.Lister, Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Record Soc., XLI, XLV, li, lxx, 1909–27); G.Bradford, Proceedings in the Court of Star Chamber in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Somerset Rec. Soc., XXVII, 1911); P.D.Mundy, Abstracts of Star Chamber Proceedings relating to the county of Sussex. Henry VII–Philip and Mary (Sussex Rec. Soc., XVI, 1913); R. Stewart Brown, Lancashire and Cheshire Cases in the Court of Star Chamber, Pt. I (Lanes, and Ches. Rec. Soc., LXXI, 1916). The way in which the material in Star Chamber proceedings can be used by experts to illustrate features of contemporary life is well exemplified in the essays by G.R.Elton, Star Chamber Stories (1958).

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There is less material in print for the Court of Requests. An early survey was that by Sir Julius Caesar, The ancient state, authority and proceedings of the Court of Requests (1597), which discussed the origins and functions of the court and included a collection of illustrative records. I.S. Leadam, Select Cases in the Court of Requests: 1497–1569 (Selden Soc., XII, 1898) contains a representative collection of cases, and the editor’s introduction is a comprehensive survey of the early history of the court, but it must be read in the light of more recent research by Pollard. The other institutions connected with the judicial activities of the Council have all received attention. The Council of the North was well studied by R.R.Reid, The Kings Council in the North (1921). It deals with origins and contains some important documents, while C.Sturge, Cuthbert Tunstall (1938) has some fresh material bearing on the period when Tunstall served as president. The monograph by C.A.J.Skeel, The Council in the Marches of Wales: a study of local government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1904) and “The Council of the West” (T.R.H.S., 4th ser., IV, 1921, 62–80) and Joyce A.Youings (ed.), “The Council of the West” (ibid. 5th Ser., x, 1959, 41–59) deal with these institutions. P.Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth I (Cardiff, 1958) is a definitive study: an introductory chapter outlines the history of the council from its tentative beginnings under Edward IV. The actions of the privy council as a controlling and supervisory organ of the central government cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of the local agents through whom its orders were executed. During the early Tudor period the links were being forged between it and two of its most important agents. For these there are some good studies. The first of them is fully described in G.Scott Thomson, Lords lieutenants in the sixteenth century: a study in Tudor local administration (1923). This work shows how a few Yorkist precedents were developed in the early Tudor period and the way was prepared for the efficient system of the Elizabethan age. The complete history of the part played by the second of these officials, the Justice of the Peace, in early sixteenth century government is as yet unwritten, but some important pioneer work has been done since the publication by C.A.Beard’s Office of the Justice of the Peace in England (New York, 1904). This is still in use as a general introduction, but the summary in Holdsworth, History of English Law (IV, 115–119, 137–151), is a better survey. The important contribution was made by Miss B.H.Putnam, Early treatises on the practice of the Justices of the Peace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. P.Vinogradoff, VII, Oxford, 1924). The great value of this work lies in the information it supplies about the justices in the formative period of their history, just before Tudor statutes were beginning to load additional burdens on their shoulders.

(iv) CHAMBER AND HOUSEHOLD The main contributions in this field have been made in the following works. A.P.Newton pioneered the way in some important articles: “Tudor Reforms in the Royal Household” (Tudor Studies: ed. R.W.Seton-Watson, 231–256); “The King’s Chamber under the early Tudors” (E.H.R. xxxii, 1917, 348–372); “A list of records of the Greencloth extent in 1610” (ibid, XXXIV, 1919, 237–241). About the same time F.C.Dietz explored the general trends of financial policy in English Government Finance 1485–1558 (Univ. of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, IX, 3, 1920), and Finances of Edward VI and Mary (Smith College Studies in History, III, 2, 1918). These scholars were followed by W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration 1485–1547 (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1952), “The Court of Commonweal” (Mich. Acad. of Science, Art, Letters, XIX, 1933, 459–476); “The Surveyor of the King’s Prerogative” (E.H.R. LVI, 1941, 52–75), and by G.R.Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge, 1953). While Newton explored the sources and pointed the way to the problems, Dietz analysed the financial situation, and sketched in broad outlines the bearing of taxation and other forms of revenue upon the political conditions of the period. He prepared the way for

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Richardson who, in a fine balanced monograph, made the most important contribution of recent scholarship towards an understanding of early Tudor administration. He proved what earlier historians had suspected, that the achievements of early Tudor administration, and the contribution of Henry VII in particular, were nothing short of a revolution in financial methods. While his immediate predecessors had made some attempts to cope with the problems arising from the failure of medieval financial machinery, Henry VII produced the desired results by improvising new methods. He carried his policy through with a ruthless efficiency which explains both the constrained respect in which he was held by his subjects, and his success in providing the means whereby the country was enabled to take the strains resulting from the revolution in Church and State set in motion by his more flamboyant son. Richardson’s work showed how Henry VII met the situation by developing the Chamber as an agency for supervising not only the collection of revenues from crown lands, but also of most other forms of royal revenue. The work he began was continued by the administrators of his son’s reign, until there was created a new series of offices, with the Chamber as the centre, which controlled the finances of the country. This Chamber system reached the peak of its development by the last decade of Henry VIII’s reign: later in the sixteenth century it was to lead to further changes. Working independently at the same time in this field Elton’s contribution led to somewhat different conclusions. For him the crucial phase in early Tudor administrative history was the 1530’s, and the dominant figure Thomas Cromwell. The difference between his interpretation and that of Richardson is that whereas the latter emphasizes the importance of Henry VII’s work and sees a unity in the development of administrative history throughout the period 1485–1555, Elton regards the years before 1530 as lacking in definition and credits Cromwell with the creative drive which produced the Tudor revolution in government. Both books are important. While Richardson and Elton have emphasized the importance of this period in the history of the civil service they have left room for further study of the actual working of the financial courts. Something has already been done for the Court of Wards in H.E.Bell, Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries (Cambridge Studies in English Legal History, 1953), and J.Hurstfield, The Queens Wards: Wardship and Marriage under Elizabeth I (1958), “Corruption and Reform under Edward VI and Mary” (E.H.R. LXVIII, 25), and “The Greenwich Tenures of the reign of Edward VI” (L.Q.R. LXI, 72–82). The Court of Augmentations was established in 1536 for the receipt and administration of the monastic possessions acquired by the Crown. For some eighteen years it was the controlling factor in central and local government. Its development and functions have been the subject of a massive study by W.C.Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536–1554 (Louisiana State Univ. Press, Baton Rouge, 1961). This is a major contribution to the administrative history of the early sixteenth century. The same author’s short monograph, Stephen Vaughan, Financial Agent of Henry VIII (Baton Rouge, 1953), may be noticed here as an illuminating account of that king’s financial relations with the Low Countries. The other important prerogative courts concerned mainly with finance, viz. the Court of First Fruits and Tenths, and the Court of Surveyors, have not yet received adequate treatment. Nothing like the detailed studies available for the organization of the royal household during the Middle Ages has been attempted for the earlier sixteenth century. A.P.Newton’s paper, “Tudor reforms in the royal household” (Tudor Studies, 231–256), supplies the foundation for such work. Allegra Woodworth, “Purveyance for the Royal Household in the reign of Queen Elizabeth” (Trans. Amer. Phil Soc., N.S., XXXV, Pt. 1, Philadelphia, 1945), is a clear and scholarly description of the personnel, organization, and actual working of the royal household in the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign; much of her account is relevant for the first half of the century. The source material for the history of the Chamber and the Household is considerable, but it is widely scattered, and consists largely of financial documents which are not easily

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put into print on a large scale. An admirable description of these varied sources is given in Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration: App., 491–506. The main records are in the Public Record Office, among the records of the chancery, exchequer, chamber, and the proceedings of the courts of General Surveyors, First Fruits and Tenths, Wards and Liveries, and Augmentations. The duchy of Lancaster was an important agency of early Tudor administration, and its financial and administrative records are important for the history of the crown revenues: but the duchy was not incorporated into the Chamber system. Its history, and an account of its records, are given by R.Somervill, History of the Duchy of Lancaster (1953), and in “The Duchy of Lancaster Records” (T.R.H.S. 4th Ser., XXIX, 1947, 1–17). Much information about the appointments of Chamber officials, transfers of land, escheats or inquests held by Crown officials on the death of a tenant in chief of the king will be found in the calendars of patent rolls and of inquisitions post mortem for Henry VII’s reign, in Campbell, Materials, and in the Letters and Papers for the reign of Henry VIII, and in the Calendars of Patent rolls for Edward VI and Mary. It is possible to get some impression of the nature of the financial records from materials in print, of which the following is a select list. Some excerpts from the king’s book of payments between 1491–1505 are in S.Bentley, “Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VII”, Excerpta Historica: 85–133, and the contents of various books of accounts for Henry VIII’s reign are summarized in the Letters and Papers: passim. Some other specimens of accounts are printed in N.H.Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth: being the accounts of Sir Brian Tuke between November 1529 and December 1532 (1827); C.T.Martin (ed.), Sir John Daunce’s accounts of money received from the treasurer of the King’s Chamber temp. Hen. VIII (Archaeologia, XLVII, 1883, 295–336); F.Madden (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of the princess Mary: daughter of King Henry the Eighth afterwards Queen Mary (1831); two books of receipts and payments of Sir William Cavendish, treasurer of the Chamber from 1547 and 1548 are extracted in J.P.Collier (ed.), Trevelyan Papers (C.S.Old Ser., 67, 84, 105); Richardson, op. cit. 466–478 printed “A partial list of the Crown Revenues in 1500”, and (from a schedule to St. 14/15 Hen. VIII, c. 15) “the Kynges revenues for 1523–4” (ibid. 478–483), while G.R.Elton, op. cit., printed “Account A.A.Specimen of Cromwell’s Accounts” and “The Financial Machinery when Cromwell came into Power” (Appendix II). For the organization and reforms of the Household an indispensable source is A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (ed. Sort, Gough, Topham & Brand: published by the Society of Antiquaries, 1790). The most important modern work is G.R.Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government, c. vi. A useful introduction to the organization and records of the royal household is provided in A.R.Myers, The Household of Edward IV (Manchester, 1959), which prints the texts of household ordinances of Edward IV’s reign, and in the introduction has much information which is relevant for the early Tudor period.

III. JUDICATURE The literature of the common law is copious and technical. It is not necessary to enter into its intricacies here, but since every historian of this period may, sooner or later, find himself involved in legal problems of one kind or another, some guidance to the more important works of reference will not be out of place. The best textbook on legal history is T.F.T.Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common Law (5th edn., 1956). For close work on all subjects W.S.Holdsworth, Hist. Engl. Law (vols. IV and v) is indispensable. Of the earlier classics W.Blackstone, Commentaries of the Laws of England (4 vols., 1765–69), and Edward Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England (4 vols., 1628–44) are still relevant. Although largely out of date, J.Reeves, History of English Law, edited by W.F. Finlason (3 vols., 1869) is still enlightening on some topics. The land law is treated historically in K.E.Digby, An Introduction to the History of the Law of Real

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Property, edited by W.M. Harrison (Oxford, 1897). For the criminal law J.F.Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England (3 vols., 1883) and L.O.Pike, A History of Crime in England (2 vols., 1873–76), although not wholly adequate, are useful for reference. For the difficult question of the threat to the common law from a reception of Roman law during this period a beginning might be made from F.W.Maitland, English Law and the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1901), which, even if it may seem to make too much of the dangers, scatters with generous hands much wisdom and learning. The subject can be pursued further in Holdsworth, op. cit. IV, 217–293; T.E.Scrutton, The Influence of Roman Law in the law of England (Cambridge, 1885) and idem., “Roman law influence in chancery, church courts, admiralty, and law merchant” in Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History (Boston, 1907–9, 1). There is no satisfactory history of the system of common law courts in this period. The best general account is in Holdsworth, op. cit. 1, c. 3. A monograph by M.Hastings, The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England (Cornell, 1948) collects some interesting information on that court. For the Court of Exchequer Chamber, where some cases of constitutional interest came up for discussion by the judges there is material in the introductions to M.Hemmant’s volumes mentioned below, and a paper by P.Vinogradoff, “Constitutional History and the Year Books” in Collected Papers (I.192–206) is worth a notice. The best account of Chancery as a law-court is in Holdsworth, op. cit. v, 215–238; also valuable are D.M.Kirby, An Historical Sketch of the Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (Cambridge, 1890); G.Spencer, The Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (2 vols., 1846); F.W.Maitland, Equity (1909; 2nd edn. revised by J.Branyate (Cambridge, 1936), and P.Vinogradoff, “Reason and Conscience in Sixteenth Century Jurisprudence” (Collected Papers). Works dealing with the legal profession are numerous. There is a good general outline in Holdsworth, II, 484–512. Although concerned entirely with medieval problems, H.Cohen, A History of the English Bar (1929) is worth consulting for its collection of facts (not very attractively presented) on the historical background. By the early sixteenth century the methods of legal education, and the organization of the Inns of Court are becoming clear. A brief account is given by W.B.Odgers, “A Sketch of the History of the Four Inns of Court” in Essays in Legal History, ed. P.Vinogradoff (Oxford, 1914, 233–260), and there is a more detailed account in Holdsworth, II, 484–512. Special studies on the Inns are H.L.L.Bellot, The Inner and Middle Temple (1902), J.B.Williamson, A History of the Temple (1924), W.R.Douthwaite, Gray’s Inn: its history and associations (1886), G.Hurst, A Short History of Lincoln’s Inn (1946), while there is much historical and antiquarian learning especially of a topographical nature in E.Williams, Early Holborn and the Legal Quarter of London (2 vols., 1927). The classic description of the main features of legal education was written about 1470 by Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae (first Latin edn., 1537; various English translations by R.Mulcaster, 1567; F.Grigor, 1737; A.Amos, 1825; and a modern edition by S.B.Chrimes, Cambridge, 1942). A description of the Inns made by Nicholas Bacon and others at the request of Henry VIII was printed by E.W.Waterhouse, Fortescutus Illustratus (1663). Much information about the members of the Inns, and the organization of legal education can be gleaned from the records, of which the following are in print: J.D.Walker and W.P. Baildon (ed.), The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn: The Black Books 1422– 1845 (4 vols., 1897–1902), and Admissions (1420–1893) and Chapel Register (2 vols., 1896); C.H. Hopwood, A Calendar of Middle Temple Records (1902); C.T.Martin (ed.), Middle Temple Records (4 vols., 1904–5); A.R.Ingpen, The Middle Temple Bench Books (1912); F.A.Inderwick, A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records (3 vols., 1896–1901). The technical literature of the law is intricate, and the following are essential guides. A general survey is W.S.Holdsworth, Sources and Literature of English Law (1928). A more thorough account is P.H.Winfield, The Chief Sources of English Legal History (Cambridge,

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U.S.A., 1926). For special bibliographical work J.H.Beale, A Bibliography of Early English Law Books (Cambridge, U.S.A., 1926) and J.D.Cowley, A Bibliography of Abridgments, Digests, Dictionaries and Indexes of English Law (Selden Soc., 1932) are the standard authorities. The chief sources for legal history are the law reports, the abridgments of cases, books of precedents of procedure and pleading, contemporary treatises, law readings, collections of statutes, and the official records of the courts. The year-books, so valuable for reports of law cases in the medieval period, came to an end early in the sixteenth century: those printed in the standard black-letter edition, Les Reports de Cases, edited by John Maynard (1678– 80) end in 1536. The important development of the early sixteenth century is the appearance of the individual law reporters, but they are not numerous before the middle of the century. The best known to historians is Robert Keilway, Reports, which contains some important material for the period 1496–1531. There have been some doubts about the authenticity of some of it (cf. A.F. Pollard, Wolsey, 44 n. 2); the most recent discussion is A.W.B.Simpson, “Keilway’s Reports, temp. Hen. VII” (Law. Quart. Rev., vol. 73, January 1957, 89–105). Other law reports for this period are the Reports by Sir Robert Brook (covering the years 1515–58), by Edmund Plowden (1549–80), and Sir James Dyer (1513–82). The best known abridgement is Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, La Graunde Abridgement (1516:1565). For precedents there is the Registrum Omnium Brevium (1531: various later edns.), and A.Fitz-herbert, La nouel natura breuium (1534) and Thomas Phaer, A Newe Boke of Presidentes (1543). The outstanding legal treatises are Sir Thomas Littleton, Tenures (1st edn., 1481–82; best modern edition ed. E.Wamburgh), Littleton s Tenures in English (Washington, 1903); John Perkins, A Profitable Book treating of the lawes of England (1528: Engl. transl., 1555); William Lambarde, Archion: or a commentary upon the high courts of justice in England (1591, first published 1635); Sir William Stanford, Lesplees del coron (1557). Much of the education at the Inns of Court was done through law-readings, courses of lectures given by rising barristers, chosen as Autumn and Lent Readers. Pioneer work in the study of some of the extant manuscript readings was done by B.H.Putnam, Early Treatises on the practice of the Justices of the Peace, in which she edited the text of Thomas Marowe’s reading on St Westminster I. This work was continued by S.E.Thorne, Prerogitiva Regis: tertia lectura Roberti Constable de Lyncolnis Inne Anno 11 H.7. (Yale Univ. Press, 1949) which contains, in addition to Constable’s readings, extracts from six other readings on the same subject, including one by Thomas Frowyke. With his Readings and Moots at the Inns of Court in the Fifteenth Century (Selden Soc., 71, 1955, 1964) Professor Thorne completed his editions of the earliest readings. For the historian the early printed editions and collections of the statutes are not a prime concern: they can be left to bibliographers. For all practical purposes the text given in The Statutes of the Realm is accepted as the standard. The official records of the common law courts, the plea rolls, are extremely bulky, and no complete example of an early sixteenth century de Banco or coram Rege rolls (records of the Court of Common Pleas and King’s Bench respectively) has been printed. For a description of such material the Guide to the Contents of the Public Records Office should be consulted. The key to their use is the List of Plea Rolls (P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, IV, 1910). A collection of records pertaining to important State trials (usually cases of treason) was set apart in special custody in the Baga de Secretis. There is a descriptive inventory and calendar of some of these cases in Reports of the Deputy Keeper, III, IV, V (1842–43). Some specimens of cases heard in some other special courts are in print, and the introductions to such collections are often the best accounts of these jurisdictions. Notice should be taken of the following: M.Hemmant, Select Cases in the Exchequer Chamber before all the Justices of England (Selden Soc., LXIV, II, 1461–1509, 1948); R.G.Marsham,

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Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty (Selden Soc., VI, XI, 1892, 1897); C.Cross and H.Hall, Select Cases in the Law Merchant (Selden Soc., XXIII, 1908, 1930); H.Fishwick, Pleadings and Depositions in the Duchy Court of Lancaster (Record Soc. for Lancs, and Cheshire, 3 vols., 1896–99). Examples of the records kept in civic courts will be found in most of the volumes of town records in print. For the Chancery on its judicial side there is considerable manuscript material available, but very little of it has been printed. These sources are described in the Guides to the Contents of the Public Record Office, and in Holdsworth, V, 261. Early Chancery proceedings consisting of bills of complaint, depositions, etc., have been calendared in List of Early Chancery Proceedings (P.R.O., Lists and Indexes, XX, XXIX, XXXVIII, XLVIII, L, LI, LIV, LV; vols, III–X, 1906–36).

IV. LEGISLATURE For a general statement of the main problems in parliamentary history during this period Elton, The Tudor Constitution, is a sure guide, while Pickthorn, Early Tudor Government supplies a careful narrative for an important part of the way. Some general surveys are helpful as introductions. Of the older commentators, Bishop Stubbs, “Parliament under Henry VIII” in Seventeen Lectures, makes some shrewd comments, and is a triumph in compression. A.F.Pollard, Evolution of Parliament (1920:2nd edn., 1934), interpretative rather than factual, shows what a lively mind can make of long accepted facts and theories, and although C.H.McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (New Haven, 1910) is not specially concerned with the early sixteenth century, its main theme, the judicial character of parliament, has relevance for this period. For the upper house of Parliament nothing has yet supplemented L.O.Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords (1894). The most significant work by later scholars has been largely concerned with examining the nature of its records, and will most suitably be noticed below in the discussion of sources. An interesting piece of pioneer analysis is H.Miller, “The Early Tudor Peerage, 1485–1547” (Bull. I.H.R., XXIV (1951), 88 f.). For the lower house of Parliament there is as yet no adequate study, although most of the important problems have attracted attention. For such questions as the composition and personnel of the house, parliamentary elections, the independence of members, and the like there is material in E.Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (1903). For the office of Speaker of the House of Commons, J.S.Roskell, The Commons and their Speakers in English Parliaments 1376–1523 (Manchester, 1965) should be consulted. The starting point of all investigation of personnel must be the Official Return of Members of Parliament (Cmd. Paper, 1878). This is a chronological series of lists of names of the members returned to each parliament from the shires and boroughs. Useful as these lists are, they are by no means complete, and serious efforts have been made to add to this information. Much of this work has taken the shape of biographical notices of members for individual counties, and they have usually been published in the transactions of the local history society of the county concerned. Some examples are: A.Gooder, The Parliamentary Representation of Yorkshire (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Ser., XCVI, 1938); H.Hornyold-Strickland, Biographical Sketches of the Members of Parliament of Lancashire, 1290–1550 (Chetham Soc., N.S., 93, 1935). An ambitious plan for an official history of Parliament was introduced by the publication of a History of Parliament. Biographies of Members of the Commons House 1439–1509, by J.C. Wedgwood and A.D.Holt (1936), and Register of the Ministers and of the Members of both Houses, 1439–1509 (1938). This work contains much information about Parliament and members, but it must be read with caution. After Colonel Wedgwood’s death a committee of historians drastically revised the whole scheme, and a new series of volumes is now in preparation.

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The history of the development of the procedure and privileges of Parliament is a difficult subject. The descriptions nearest in point of time are those given by Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, and by John Hooker (or Vowell), The order and usage of the keeping of a Parlement in England (etc.) (?1575: repr. in Holinshed). They probably reflect practice in the earlier part of the century, but it would be unwise to make dogmatic assumptions without other confirmatory evidence. The classic handbook for all procedural questions is T.Erskine May, Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage of Parliament (1844: various later editions), and J.Redlich, Procedure of the House of Commons (transl, from German by A.E.Steinthal, 3 vols., 1908) although mainly concerned with a later period has some useful references. An important attempt was made by H.L.Gray, The Influence of the Commons on Early Legislation (Harv. Hist. Studies, Cambr., Mass., 1932), to define the procedure of fifteenth-century parliaments by close study of the original petitions of the Commons, and although some of his conclusions have been received unfavourably, there is much original and valuable research in the book. Some of the problems left unsolved by certain historians have been discussed in papers, of which the following are outstanding: J.E.Neale, “The Commons Privilege of Free Speech in Parliament” (Tudor Studies, ed, R.W.Seton Watson, 257–286); A.F.Pollard, “The Reformation Parliament as a Matrimonial Agency and its National Effects” (History N.S., XXI, 83, 219–229, 1936), which illustrates how the longer and more frequent sessions of that Parliament enabled members to establish close social ties amongst themselves, and strengthened the sense of corporate unity among members within Parliament; G.R.Elton, “The Commons’ Supplication against the Ordinaries” (E.H.R., LXVI, 1951, 507–534), which presents a revealing picture of parliamentary manœuvres in Henry VIII’s reign. For a different interpretation see J.P.Cooper, “The Supplication against the Ordinaries reconsidered” (ibid. LXXII, 1957, 616–641). Some of the statutes enacted during this period have been scrutinized both for their significance in the evolution of legislative policy, and for the light they throw on the technique of legislative practice. The highly important acts making wide extensions in the law of treason were closely examined by Miss I.D.Thornley, “The Treason Legislation of Henry VIII” (T.R.H.S., 3rd Ser., XI, 1917, 87–124) and in “Treason by words in the fifteenth century” (E.H.R., XXXII, 1917, 556–61), also by S.Rezneck, “Trial of Treason in Tudor England” (in Essays presented to C.H.McIlwain, 1936, 258–288). There is a good brief discussion of the subject in Holdsworth, III, 287–293:IV, 190–217. The legislation of the Reformation Parliament was discussed in an old book which is still valuable, A.Amos, Observations on the Statutes of the Reformation Parliament (1859). Commentaries on individual acts will be found in A.F.Pollard, “The ‘de facto’ Act of Henry VII” (B.I.H.R., VII, 1930). The act in restraint of appeals to Rome, St. 24 Hen. VIII, c. 12, was the subject of an interesting paper by G.R.Elton, “The Evolution of a Reformation, Statute” (E.H.R. LXIV, 174–197); and further light was thrown on Tudor legislation in his papers, “Parliamentary Drafts, 1529– 40” (B.I.H.R. XXV, 1952, 117 and ibid, XXVII, 1954, 198–200). The Statute of Proclamations (1539) was examined by E.R.Adair, “The Statute of Proclamations” (E.H.R. XXXII, 1917, 34) and by G.R.Elton (ibid. LXXV, 1960, 208). In “Some Proposed Legislation of Henry VIII” (T.R.H.S. 4th Ser., XIX, 1936, 119–144) T.F.T. Plucknett examined the social implications of the Statute of Uses (St. Hen. VIII) and of a draft act for the creation of a Court of Justices or Conservators of the Common Weal, c. 1534. The above-mentioned Statute of Uses is the most far-reaching piece of legislation of the period in the secular field. Its significance was realized by Stubbs (Seventeen Lectures: 321) and some of its implications were explored by R.G.Usher, The significance and early interpretation of the Statute of Uses (Washington Univ. Studies, 1, ii, 1919). The most satisfying exposition of this technical subject is that in Holdsworth, IV, 572–586, with the material documents in the appendices. This account brings out very clearly the methods whereby Henry VIII bargained with the greater nobles and with the common lawyers in

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order to get his plans translated into legislation. T.F.T.Plucknett, in his paper mentioned above, brings out the subtle political and social consequences which would have ensued if the king had been able to achieve all he planned. The printed sources for the history of Parliament in the early sixteenth century are voluminous. The most important are the rolls of Parliament, the journals of the two houses, and the acts of Parliament or the statutes. The rolls of Parliament continue the medieval practice of recording proceedings in Parliament. They will be found in the Rotuli Parliamentorum (vol. VI 1832). In that form the record extends from 1485–1510: but the roll of Parliament did not end at that date. It continued in being although rapidly diminishing in content, as may be seen from extracts for the period 1510–15 prefixed to some copies of the first volume of the Lords’ Journal (vols. I, II, 1510–1614, 1846). As the rolls decrease in importance they become little more than statute tolls, while much of the material omitted from them was transferred to the Lords’ Journals. How defective these printed sources are, and how hazardous it is to make generalizations from them concerning the procedure and practice of Parliament during the period 1485– 1558 was indicated by A.F.Pollard, “The authenticity of the Lords’Journals in the sixteenth century” (T.R.H.S. 3rd Ser., VIII, 1914, 17–39). He gave instances of inaccuracies in the printed text of the rolls of Parliament, the statute rolls, and the two journals, and came to the conclusion that while we have in this country an absolutely unique series of parliamentary records, the editions in which they have to be used are little short of a scandal. Proceeding to an examination of the printed list of the Lords’ Journal he showed how incomplete the early journals were. Between January 1509–10, when they begin, and 1559, there are about as many sessions without a record as with one. The journals are missing for the sessions 1512, 1514, 1523. There is no journal for six out of the seven sessions of the Reformation Parliament, and none for the first session of Mary’s reign. It is suggested that at some date between 1630 and 1680 (possibly in 1649 when the House of Lords was abolished) the original journals of the lords were lost or scattered. It might even have happened earlier, since their importance as official records were not greatly appreciated. Pollard suggests that the manuscripts now extant are the result of a partially successful effort made after the Restoration to make up as complete a set as possible from originals or from faithful contemporary transcripts. The disorderly condition of the early journals, in which irrelevant and extraneous matter appears, suggests that private manuscripts were used. A further interesting point made is that the learned antiquary Robert Cotton seems to have known a fragment of a genuine journal for the year 12 Henry VII. The discussion rested here until a manuscript which had been discovered by Professor Wallace Notestein was published by W.H.Dunham, Jr., The Fane Fragment of the 1461 Lords’ Journal (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1935). This manuscript is quite clearly a fragment of a lords’journal for the first Parliament of Edward IV (1461). It is not an original, nor a contemporary copy, and it probably dates from the late sixteenth century. There is, therefore, extant a journal for a date earlier than had previously been suspected. This discovery strengthens some of Pollard’s arguments. It also has an important bearing on the nature of Parliament in the early sixteenth century. It reveals the important fact that some of the parliamentary practice and procedure which, for lack of explicit evidence, had previously been attributed to the first Parliament of Henry VIII, were in use in the Yorkist period, and indeed may even refer back to the Lancastrian period. This discovery shows the need for restraint in generalizing about so little known a period in the history of Parliament as the early sixteenth century. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that we are no nearer a modern text of the lords’journals than we were when Pollard made his criticisms. The problem of the commons’ journals (vol. I, 1547–1628, 1803) is not so complicated. They begin in 1547 in a very rudimentary form, at first being nothing more than notes of bills without anything in the nature of reports of debates or procedure: there is not even a mention of the election of the Speaker.

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For historical purposes the text of the statutes is in the Statutes of the Realm, edited A.Luders. T.E.Tomlins, and J.Raithby (1810–28, vols., II–IV). For particulars of early printed editions consult the introduction to vol. 1, J.H.Beale, Bibliography of early printed law books; P.H. Winfield, The Chief Sources of English Legal History (Cambridge, Harvard U.P., 1925, XVIII, 374), and Holdsworth, IV, 307–313. Closely connected with the legislation by statutes is the other type of legislation through proclamations. R.Steele, Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, 1485–1714 (2 vols., Oxford, 1910) gives a list of nearly all extant proclamations together with a brief summary of each of them. This should now be used in conjunction with P.L.Hughes and J.F.Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I. The Early Tudors, 1485–1553 (Yale Univ. Press, 1964) which contains the full text of 388 proclamations (two-thirds of them printed here for the first time) from the reigns of Henry VII to Edward VI. There is a useful introduction.

A. THE CROWN 44. The problem of the succession. Illustrated from various sources (i) Henry VII’s title 1485 (Rot. Parl., VI, 270 b)

A

lso a certain bill was shown to the lord King in the present parliament by the Commons of the realm of England in the same parliament containing these words:

To the pleasure of Almighty God, the wealth, prosperity and surety of this realm of England, to the singular comfort of all the king’s subjects of the same, and in avoiding of all ambiguities and questions, be it ordained, established and enacted, by authority of this present parliament that the inheritance of the crowns of the realms of England and France, with all the preeminence and dignity royal to the same pertaining, and all other seigniories to the king belonging beyond the sea, with the appurtenances thereto in any wise due or pertaining, be, rest, remain, and abide in the most royal person of our now sovereign lord King Harry the VIIth, and in the heirs of his body lawfully come, perpetually with the grace of God so to endure and in none other. And when this bill had been read, heard, and understood in mature deliberation in the aforesaid Parliament answer was given in the following form, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal in the said parliament and at the request of the aforesaid Commons and also with the authority of the same parliament. Our lord the King, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal in this parliament and at the request of the aforesaid Commons, wills it in all points.

(ii) Bull of Innocent VIII sent at the order of Hen. VII for publication in the province of. Canterbury, 1490 (R.F.Isaacson (ed.). The Episcopal Registers of the Diocese of St David’s (Cymmrodorion Record Series, VI, 1917, II, 585))

Our Holy Father Pope Innocent the VIIIth. To the perpetual memory of this hereafter to be had of his proper motion without any procurement of our sovereign lord the king or of any other person for conservation of the universal peace and eschewing of slanders as should gender the contrary of the same, understanding the long and grievous variance and debates that have been in this realm of England between the house of the duchy of Lancaster of that one party and the house of the duchy of York of that other party willing all such divisions in time following to be put apart by the counsel and consent of his college of cardinals approveth confirmeth and stablisheth the matrimony and conjunction made between our sovereign lord King Henry VIIth of the house of Lancaster of that one party and the noble princess Elizabeth of the house of York of that other party with all their issue lawfully born between the same. 445

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And in likewise his holiness confirmeth stablisheth and approveth the right and title of the crown of the said our sovereign lord Henry VIIth and the heirs of his body lawfully begotten to him and them pertaining as well by reason of his nighest and undoubted title of succession as the right of his noble victory and election of lords spiritual and temporal and other nobles of his realm and the act ordinance and authority of parliament made by the third estate of this land. Also our said holy father the pope of his proper motion by high and holy commandment chargeth and requireth every inhabitant in this land and every subject in the same of what degree estate and condition that he be that none of them by occasion of any succession or by any other colour or cause within this realm by himself or other mediate person attempt in word or deed against the said our sovereign lord the heirs of his body lawfully begotten contrary to the peace of him and of his realm upon the pain of his great curse and anathema the which they and every of them that so attempteth falleth in forthright by the self deed doing from the which curse and anathema no man hath power to assoil them but our holy father himself or his several depute to the same. Furthermore he approveth confirmeth and declareth that if it pleased God that the said Elizabeth the which God forbid should decease without issue between our sovereign lord and her of their bodies born that then such issue as between him and her whom after that God should join him to shall be had and born right inheritors to the same crown and realm of England commanding that no man attempt the contrary upon the pain of his great curse which they and every of them so doing falleth in in the self deed doing nor may not be assoiled but by him or his deputy. Over this the same our holy father giveth his blessing to all princes nobles and other inhabitants of this realm or outward that favoureth aideth and assisteth the said our sovereign lord and his heirs against his or their rebels giving them that die in his and their quarrels full and plenary pardon and remission of all their sins. Finally commandeth all metropolitans and bishops upon pain of interdiction and entering the church abbots priors archdeacons parsons perpetual vicars priors and wardens of the priors and all other men of the church exempt and non-exempt upon the pain of his great curse which that they falleth in if that they do not denounce and declare or cause to be denounced and declared all such contrary doers and rebels accursed at such time as they to the same in the name of the said our sovereign lord shall be required with aggravation of the same curse if the case shall so require all gain-sayers and rebels by the censure of the church and other remedies of the law punishing: notwithstanding any appeal calling thereto if need be aid and assistance of the secular power. And as touching the articles of this bull the pope’s holiness by this present bull derogateth and maketh void all manner grants privileges and exemptions made by him or his predecessors to any person or place where as they should or might be prejudicial to the execution of these presents and hath all such as expressly revoked by the same as though they were written by word within this present bull as by it under lead more largely doth appear.

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THE PROBLEM OF THE SUCCESSION

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(iii) An act for the establishment of the kings succession. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 22, 1534 (Stat. Realm, III, 471)

In their most humble wise shew unto your majesty your most humble and obedient subjects, the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present parliament assembled, that since it is the natural inclination of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the surety of both his title and succession, although it touch his only private cause; We therefore, most rightful and dreadful sovereign lord, reckon ourselves much more bounden to beseech and instant your Highness, although we doubt not of your princely heart and wisdom, mixed with a natural affection to the same, to foresee and provide for the perfect surety of both you and your most lawful succession and heirs, upon which dependeth all our joy and wealth, in whom also is united and knit the only mere true inheritance and title of this realm without any contradiction: Wherefore we your said most humble and obedient subjects in this present parliament assembled, calling to our remembrance the great divisions which in times past hath been in this realm by reason of several titles pretended to the imperial crown of the same, which sometimes and for the most part ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every man’s sinister appetite and affection after their sense, contrary to the right legality of the succession and posterity of the lawful kings and emperors of this realm, whereof hath ensued great effusion and destruction of man’s blood, as well of a great number of the nobles as of other the subjects and specially inheritors of the same; And the greatest occasion thereof hath been because no perfect and substantial provision by law hath been made within this realm of itself, when doubts and questions have been moved and proponed of the certainty and legality of the succession and posterity of the crown; By reason whereof the bishop of Rome and See Apostolic, contrary to the great and inviolable grants of jurisdictions given by God immediately to emperors, kings, and princes in succession to their heirs, hath presumed in times past to invest who should please them to inherit in other men’s kingdoms and dominions, which thing we your most humble subjects both spiritual and temporal do most abhor and detest; And sometimes other foreign princes and potentates of sundry degrees, minding rather dissension and discord to continue in the realm to the utter desolation thereof than charity, equity, or unity, have many times supported wrong titles, whereby they might the more easily and facilely aspire to the superiority of the same; The continuance and sufferance whereof deeply considered and pondered, were too dangerous and perilous to be suffered any longer within this realm, and too much contrary to the unity, peace, and tranquillity of the same, being greatly reproachable and dishonourable to the whole realm. In consideration whereof your said most humble and obedient subjects the nobles and commons of this realm, calling further to their remembrance that the good unity, peace, and wealth of this realm and the succession of the subjects of the same most specially and principally above all worldly things consisteth and resteth in the certainty and surety of the procreation and posterity of your Highness, in whose most royal person at this present time is no manner of doubt nor question, do therefore most

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humbly beseech your Highness, that it may please your Majesty that it may be enacted…that the marriage heretofore solemnised between your Highness and the Lady Katherine, being before lawful wife to Prince Arthur your elder brother, which by him was carnally known, as doth duly appear by sufficient proof in a lawful process had and made before Thomas, by the sufferance of God now archbishop of Canterbury and metropolitan and primate of all this realm, shall be by authority of this present parliament definitively, clearly, and absolutely declared, deemed, and adjudged to be against the laws of Almighty God, and also accepted, reputed, and taken of no value nor effect, but utterly void and adnichiled,1 and the separation thereof made by the said archbishop shall be good and effectual to all intents and purposes, any license, dispensation, or any other act or acts going afore or ensuing the same to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding; And that every such license, dispensation, act or acts, thing or things, heretofore had, made, done, or to be done, to the contrary thereof shall be void and of none effect; and that the said Lady Katherine shall be from henceforth called and reputed only dowager to Prince Arthur and not queen of this realm. And that the lawful matrimony had and solemnized between your Highness and your most dear and entirely beloved wife queen Anne2 shall be established, and taken for undoubtful, true, sincere, and perfect ever hereafter, according to the just judgment of the said Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, metropolitan and primate of all this realm, whose grounds of judgment have been confirmed as well by the whole clergy of this realm in both the Convocations, and by both the Universities thereof, as by the Universities of Bologna, Padua, Paris, Orleans, Toulouse, Angers, and divers others, and also by the private writings of many right excellent well-learned men; which grounds so confirmed and judgment of the said archbishop ensuing the same, together with your marriage solemnized between your Highness and your said lawful wife queen Anne, We your said subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do purely, plainly, constantly, and firmly accept, approve, and ratify for good, and consonant to the laws of Almighty God, without error or default, most humbly beseeching your Majesty that it may be so established for ever by your most gracious and royal assent. c.4. And also be it enacted by authority aforesaid that all the issue had and procreate, or hereafter to be had and procreate, between your Highness and your said most dear and entirely beloved wife queen Anne, shall be your lawful children, and be inheritable and inherit according to the course of inheritance and laws of this realm, the imperial crown of the same, with all dignities, honours, pre-eminences, prerogatives, authorities, and jurisdictions to the same annexed or belonging, in as large and ample manner as your Highness to this present time hath the same as king of this realm, the inheritance thereof to be and remain to your said children and right heirs in manner and form as hereafter shall be declared: That is to say, first the said imperial crown and other the premises shall be to your majesty and to your heirs of your body lawfully begotten, that is to say to the first son of your body between your Highness and your said lawful wife queen Anne begotten, and to the heirs of the body of the same first son lawfully begotten; and for default of such heirs, then to the second son of your body and of the 1

annulled.

2

Anne Boleyn.

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body of the said queen Anne begotten, and to the heirs of the body of the said second son lawfully begotten; and so to every son of your body and of the body of the said queen Anne begotten, and to the heirs of the body of every such son begotten, according to the course of inheritance in that behalf. And if it shall happen your said dear and entirely beloved wife queen Anne to decease without issue male of the body of your Highness to be gotten (which God defend) then the same imperial crown and all other the premises to be to your majesty as is aforesaid, and to the son and heir male of your body lawfully begotten and to the heirs of the body of the same son and heir male lawfully begotten; And for default of such issue then to your second son of your body lawfully begotten and to the heirs of the body of the same second son lawfully begotten; and so from son and heir male to son and heir male, and to the heirs of the several bodies of every such son and heir male to be gotten, according to the course of inheritance in like manner and form as is above said: And for default of such sons of your body begotten, and of the heirs of the several bodies of every such sons lawfully begotten, that then the said imperial crown and other the premises shall be to the issue female between your majesty and your said most dear and entirely beloved wife queen Anne begotten, that is to say: first to the eldest issue female, which is the Lady Elizabeth, now princess, and to the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, and for default of such issue then to the second issue female and to the heirs of her body lawfully begotten; and so from issue female to issue female and to their heirs of their bodies one after another by course of inheritance according to their ages, as the crown of England hath been accustomed and ought to go in cases when there be heirs females to the same: And for default of such issue then the said imperial crown and all other the premises shall be in the right heirs of your Highness for ever. c. 5. And be it further enacted by authority aforesaid that on this side the first day of May next coming, proclamations shall be made in all shires within this realm of the tenour and contents of this act: And if any person or persons, of what estate, dignity, or condition soever they be, subject or resiant within this realm or elsewhere within any of the king’s dominions, after the said first day of May by writing or imprinting or by any exterior act or deed maliciously procure or do, or cause to be procured or done, anything or things to the peril of your most royal person, or maliciously give occasion by writing, print, deed, or act whereby your highness might be disturbed or interrupted of the crown of this realm, or by writing, print, deed, or act procure or do, or cause to be procured or done, anything or things to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the said lawful matrimony solemnized between your majesty and the said queen Anne, or to the peril, slander, or disherison of any the issues and heirs of your Highness being limited by this act to inherit and to be inheritable to the crown of this realm in such form as is aforesaid, whereby any such issues or heirs of your Highness might be destroyed, disturbed, or interrupted in body or title of inheritance to the crown of this realm as to them is limited in this act in form above rehearsed, that then every such person and persons, of what estate, degree, or condition they be of, subject or resiant within this realm, and their aiders, counsellors, maintainers, and abettors, and every of them, for every such offence shall be adjudged high traitors, and every

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such offence shall be adjudged high treason, and the offender and their aiders, counsellors, maintainers, and abettors, and every of them, being lawfully convict of such offence by presentment, verdict, confession, or process according to the laws and customs of this realm, shall suffer pains of death as in cases of high treason. And that also every such offender, being convict as is aforesaid, shall lose and forfeit to your Highness and to your heirs, kings of this realm, all such manors, lands, tenements, rents, annuities, and hereditaments, which they had in possession as owners or were sole seised of by or in any right, title, or means, or any other person or persons had to their use, of any estate of inheritance at the day of such treasons and offences by them committed and done; and shall also lose and forfeit to your Highness and to your said heirs as well all manner such estates of freehold and interests for years of lands and rents as all their goods, chattels, and debts which they had at the time of conviction or attainder of any such offence: Saving always to every person and persons and bodies politic, to their heirs, assigns, and successors and every of them other than such persons as shall be so convict and their heirs and successors and all other claiming to their uses, all such right, title, use, interest, possession, condition, rents, fees, offices, annuities, and commons which they or any of them shall happen to have in, to, or upon any such manors, lands, tenements, rents, annuities, or hereditaments that shall so happen to be lost and forfeit by reason of attainder for any the treasons and offences above rehearsed at any time before the said treasons and offences committed. c. 6. And it be further enacted by authority aforesaid, that if any person or persons, after the said 1st day of May, by any words without writing, or any exterior deed or act, maliciously and obstinately publish, divulge, or utter any thing or things to the peril of your Highness, or to the slander or prejudice of the said matrimony solemnized between your Highness and the said queen Anne, or to the slander or disherison of the issue and heirs of your body begotten and to be gotten of the said queen Anne or any other your lawful heirs which shall be inheritable to the crown of this realm as is afore limited by this act, that then every such offence shall be taken and adjudged for misprision of treason; and that every person and persons, of what estate, degree, or condition soever they be, subject or resiant within this realm or in any the king’s dominions, so doing and offending and being thereof lawfully convict by presentment, verdict, process, or confession, shall suffer imprisonment of their bodies at the king’s will, and shall lose as well all their goods, chattels, and debts, as all such interests and estates of freehold or for years which any such offenders shall have of or in any lands, rents, or hereditaments whatsoever at the time of conviction and attainder of such offence. c. 9. And for the more sure establishment of the succession of your most royal majesty according to the tenour and form of this act, be it further enacted by authority aforesaid, that as well all the nobles of your realm spiritual and temporal, as all other your subjects now living and being, or that hereafter shall be at their ages, by the commandment of your majesty or of your heirs at all times hereafter from time to time when it shall please your highness or your heirs to appoint, shall make a corporal oath in the presence of your Highness or your heirs, or before such other as your majesty will depute for the same, that they shall truly firmly and constantly without fraud or

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guile observe, fulfil, maintain, defend, and keep to their cunning, wit, and uttermost of their powers the whole effects and contents of this present act; and that all manner your subjects as well spiritual and temporal, sueing livery restitutions or oter le main out of the hands of your highness or of your heirs or doing any fealty to your highness or to your heirs by reason of tenure of their lands, shall swear a like corporal oath that they and every of them without fraud or guile to their cunning, wit, and uttermost of their powers shall truly firmly and constantly observe, fulfil, maintain, defend, and keep the effects and contents contained and specified in this act or in any part thereof: and that they nor any of them shall hereafter have any liveries oter le main or restitution out of your hands nor out of the hands of your heirs, till they have made the said corporal oath in form above rehearsed. And if any person or persons, being commanded by authority of this act to take the said oath before limited, obstinately refuse that to do in contempt of this act, that then every such person so doing to be taken and accepted for offender in misprision of high treason; and that every such refusal shall be deemed and adjudged misprision of high treason, and the offender therein to suffer such pain and imprisonment, losses and forfeitures, and also lose privileges and sanctuaries, in like manner and form as is above mentioned for the misprisions of treasons before limited by this act.

(iv) An act ratifying the oath that every of the king’s subjects hath taken and shall hereafter be bound to take for due observance of the act made for the surety of the succession of the king’s Highness in the crown of the realm. St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 2. (Stat. Realm, III, 492)

Whereat the last session of this present parliament in the act then made for the establishment of the succession of the heirs of the king’s Highness in the imperial crown of this realm, it is contained amongst other things that all and singular the king’s subjects as well the nobles spiritual and temporal as other should make and take a corporal oath, whensoever it should please the king’s majority or his heirs to appoint, that they should truly firmly and constantly without fraud or guile observe fulfil maintain defend and keep to their cunning wit and uttermost of their powers the whole effects and contents of the said act, as in the same act among other things more plainly appeareth; and at the day of the last prorogation of this present parliament as well the nobles spiritual as temporal as other the commons of this present parliament then assembled in the high house of parliament most lovingly accepted and took such oath as then was devised in writing for maintenance and defence of the said act, and meant and intended at that time that every other the king’s subjects should be bound to accept and take the same upon the pains contained in the said act, the tenour of which oath hereafter ensueth: Ye shall swear to bear faith truth and obedience alone to the king’s majesty and to his heirs of his body of his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife Queen Anne begotten and to be begotten, and further to the heirs of our said sovereign lord according to the limitation in the statute made for surety of his succession in the crown of this

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realm mentioned and contained, and not to any other within this realm nor foreign authority or potentate; and in case any oath be made or hath been made by you to any person or persons, that then ye to repute the same as vain and annihilate; and that to your cunning wit and uttermost of your power without guile fraud or other undue mean you shall observe keep maintain and defend the said act of succession, and all the whole effects and contents thereof, and all other acts and statutes made in confirmation or for execution of the same or of anything therein contained; and this ye shall do against all manner of persons of what estate dignity degree or condition soever they be, and in no wise do or attempt, nor to your power suffer to be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any thing or things privily or appartly to the let hindrance damage or derogation thereof or of any part of the same by any manner of means or for any manner of pretence, so help you God all saints and the holy evangelists. And forasmuch as it is convenient for the sure maintenance and defence of the same act that the said oath should not only be authorised by authority of parliament, but also be interpreted and expounded by the whole assent of this present parliament that it was meant and intended by the king’s majesty the lords and commons of the parliament, at the said day of the said last prorogation, that every subject should be bound to take the same oath according to the tenour and effect thereof upon the pains and penalties contained in the said act, therefore be it enacted…that the said oath above rehearsed shall be interpreted expounded reputed accepted and adjudged the very oath that the king’s highness the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons of this present parliament meant and intended that every subject of this realm should be obliged and bound to take and accept for maintenance and defence of the same act, upon the pains contained in the said act, and that every of the king’s subjects upon the said pains shall be obliged to accept and take the said oath.

(v) The second succession act, 1536. St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 7 (Stat. Realm, III, 655)

[Recites and repeals 25 Hen. VIII, c. 22 and 26 Hen. VIII, c. 2.] c. 5. And over this, most gracious sovereign lord, forasmuch as it hath pleased your most royal majesty, notwithstanding the great and intolerable perils and occasions which your Highness hath suffered and sustained, as well by occasion of your first unlawful marriage solemnized between your Highness and the lady Katherine, late Princess Dowager, as by occasion of the said unlawful marriage between your Highness and the said late Queen Anne, at the most humble petition and intercession of us your nobles of this realm, for the ardent love and fervent affection which your Highness beareth to the conservation of the peace and unity of the same and for the good and quiet governance thereof, of your most excellent goodness to enter into marriage again, and have chosen and taken a right noble, virtuous, and excellent lady, Queen Jane, to your true and lawful wife, and have lawfully celebrated and solemnized marriage with her according to the laws of Holy Church, who for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of flesh and blood is apt (God willing) to conceive issue by your

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Highness, which marriage is so pure and sincere, without spot, doubt, or impediment, that the issue procreated under the same, when it shall please Almighty God to send it, cannot be lawfully, truly, nor justly interrupted or disturbed of the right and title in the succession of your crown; It may therefore now please your most gracious majesty, at the most humble petition and intercession of us your nobles and commons in this present parliament assembled, as well for the clear extinguishment of all ambiguities and doubts as for a pure and perfect unity of us your most humble and obedient subjects and of all our posterities, that it may be enacted…. First…that the said marriage heretofore had and solemnized between your Highness and the said lady Katherine…shall be by authority of this present parliament definitively, clearly, and absolutely declared, deemed, and adjudged to be against the laws of almighty God, and also accepted, reputed, and taken of no value nor effect, but utterly void and annihilate…and that the issue born and procreated under the same unlawful marriage…shall be taken, deemed and accepted illegitimate to all intents and purposes, and shall be utterly foreclosed, excluded, and barred to claim, challenge, or demand any inheritance as lawful heir to your Highness by lineal descent. c. 6. And also…be it enacted…that the same marriage between your Highness and the said late Queen Anne shall be taken reputed deemed and adjudged to be of no force strength virtue or effect;…and that all the issues and children, born and procreated under the same marriage…shall be taken reputed and accepted to be illegitimate to all intents and purposes, and utterly foreclosed excluded and barred to claim challenge or demand any inheritance as lawful heir or heirs to your highness by lineal descent; the said former act made in the last parliament for the establishment of your succession, or anything therein contained or any other thing or things to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding. c. 8. And also be it enacted…that all the issue, hereafter to be had and procreate between your highness and your said most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife queen Jane, shall be your lawful children and heirs, and be inheritable and inherit according to the course of inheritance and laws of this realm, the imperial crown of the same, with all dignities, honours, pre-eminences, prerogatives, authorities, and jurisdictions to the same annexed or belonging, in as large and ample manner as your highness at this present time hath the same as king of this realm, the inheritance thereof to be and remain to your said children and right heirs in manner and form as hereafter shall be declared; that is to say, First, the said imperial crown and other the premises shall be to your majesty and to your heirs of your body lawfully begotten, that is to say, to the first son of your body between your highness and your said lawful wife queen Jane begotten and to the heirs of the body of the same first son lawfully begotten; and for default of such heirs then to the second son of your body and of the body of the said queen Jane begotten and to the heirs of the body of the same second son lawfully begotten as is aforesaid; c. 9. And forasmuch as it standeth at this present time in the only pleasure and will of Almighty God whether your majesty shall have heirs begotten and procreated between your Highness and your said most dear and entirely beloved wife Queen Jane, or else

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any lawful heirs and issues hereafter of your own body begotten by any other lawful wife, and if such heirs should fail (as God defend) and no provision made in your life who should rule and govern this realm for lack of such heirs, that then this realm after your transitory life shall be destitute of a Governor, or else percase encumbered with such a person that would covet to aspire to the same whom the subjects of this realm shall not find in their hearts to love, dread, and obediently serve as their sovereign lord; And if your grace, afore it may be certainly known whether ye shall have heirs or no, should suddenly name and declare any person or persons to succeed after your decease and for lack of heirs of your body lawfully begotten into the royal estate of the imperial crown of this realm, then it is to be doubted that such person that should be so named might happen to take great heart and courage and by presumption fall to inobedience and rebellion; By occasion of which premises great division and dissension may be and is very likely to arise and spring in this realm, to the great peril and destruction of us your most humble and obedient subjects and of all our posterities, if remedy for the same should not be provided: For reformation and remedy whereof, we your most bounden and loving subjects, most obediently knowledging that your majesty most victoriously, prudently, politicly, and indifferently hath maintained, defended, governed, and ruled this realm in good peace, rest, quietness, and obedience during all the time of your most gracious reign, which we most heartily desire might continue for ever, putting all our whole trust and confidence in your Highness and nothing doubting but your majesty, if ye should fail of heirs of your body lawfully begotten (which God defend), for the hearty love and fervent affection that ye bear to this realm, and for avoiding all the occasions of division afore rehearsed, so earnestly mindeth the wealth of the same that ye can best and most prudently provide such a Governor for us and this your realm as shall and will succeed and follow in the just and right tract of all your proceedings, and maintain, keep, and defend the same, and all the laws and ordinances established in your gracious time for the wealth of this realm, which all we desire, whereby we your most loving and obedient subjects and our heirs and successors shall and may live, as near as may be, in as good peace, unity, and obedience after your decease as we have lived in the time of your most gracious reign; do therefore most humbly beseech your highness that it may be enacted…that your Highness shall have full and plenar1 power and authority to give, dispose, appoint, assign, declare, and limit, by your letters patents under your great seal or else by your last Will made in writing and signed with your most gracious hand, at your only pleasure from time to time hereafter, the imperial crown of this realm and all other the premises thereunto belonging, to be, remain, succeed, and come after your decease, and for lack of lawful heirs of your body to be procreated and begotten as is afore limited by this Act, to such person or persons in possession and remainder as shall please your Highness, and according to such estate and after such manner, form, fashion, order, and condition, as shall be expressed, declared, named, and limited in your said letters patents or by your said last Will. And we your most humble and obedient subjects do faithfully promise to your majesty, by one common assent, that after your decease and for lack of heirs of 1

complete.

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your body lawfully begotten as is afore rehearsed, we, our heirs and successors shall accept and take, love, dread, serve, and allonly1 obey such person and persons, males or females, as your majesty shall give your said imperial crown unto by authority of this Act, and to none other, and wholly to stick to them, as true and faithful subjects ought to do to their regal rulers, governors, and supreme heads. c. 10. …Be it further enacted…that such person and persons, as to whom it shall please your majesty to dispose, limit, and assign your said crown and other the premises thereto appertaining by your letters patents or by your last Will as is aforesaid, shall have and enjoy the same, after your decease and for lack of heirs of your body lawfully begotten, according to such estate and after such manner, form, fashion, order, and condition, as shall be thereof expressed, mentioned, and contained in your said letters patents or in your said last Will, in as large and ample manner as if such person and persons had been your lawful heirs to the imperial crown of this realm, and as if the same crown of this realm had been given and limited to them plainly and particularly by special names and sufficient terms and words by the full and immediate authority of this your most High Court of Parliament. c. 11. And it is further enacted…that if any of your heirs or children hereafter do usurp the one of them upon the other in the crown of this realm, or claim or challenge your said imperial crown in any other form or degree of descent or succession than is afore limited by this Act, or if any person or persons to whom it shall please your Highness of your most excellent goodness by authority of this Act to give and dispose your said crown and dignity of this realm, or the heirs of any of them, do at any time hereafter demand, challenge, or claim your said crown… otherwise or in any other course, form, degree, or condition than the same shall be given, disposed, and limited unto them by your Highness by virtue and authority of this Act; or if any such person or persons to whom your majesty shall hereafter give or dispose your said crown by authority of this Act, or any of their heirs, do interrupt or let any of the heirs of your majesty that is or shall be begotten, born, and procreated under your lawful, pure, sincere, and undoubted marriage now had and solemnized between your Highness and your said most dear and entirely beloved wife Queen Jane, or any other your lawful heirs hereafter to be begotten of your body by any other lawful marriage, peaceably and quietly to keep, have, and enjoy the said imperial crown and other the premises by course of inheritance according to the limitation thereof expressed and declared by this Act, that then all and singular the offenders in any of the premises contrary to this Act, and all their abettors, maintainers, fautors, counsellors, and aiders therein shall be deemed and adjudged high traitors to the realm; And that every such offence shall be accepted, reputed, and taken to be high treason, and the offenders therein, their aiders, maintainers, fautors, counsellors, abettors, and every of them, for every such offence shall suffer such judgment and pains of death, losses, and forfeitures of lands, goods, and privileges of sanctuary as in any cases of high treason; And over that, as well your said heirs and children, as every such person and persons to whom your Highness shall limit your said crown in form as is aforesaid, and every of their heirs, for every such offence above specified by them or any of them to be committed, shall lose and forfeit as well all such right, title, 1

Emphatic form of “only”.

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and interest that they may claim or challenge in or to the crown of this realm, as heirs by descent, or by reason of any gift or act that shall be done by your Highness for his or their advancement by authority of this Act, or otherwise by any manner of means or pretence, whatsoever it be.

(vi) The third succession act, 1543–44. St. 35 Hen. VIII, c. 1 (Stat. Realm, III, 955)

c. 1. [After reciting St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 7 this Act points out the uncertainty of the succession in the event of the decease of Prince Edward and states the King’s wish to exercise his power of limitation of the succession with the knowledge and consent of parliament. It continues:] …Be it enacted…that in case it shall happen to the king’s majesty and the said excellent prince his yet only son prince Edward and heir apparent, to decease without heir of either of their bodies lawfully begotten (as God defend), so that there be no such heir male or female of any of their two bodies to have and inherit the said imperial crown…that then the said imperial crown and all other the premises shall be to the Lady Mary the king’s highness’ daughter and to the heirs of the body of the same Lady Mary lawfully begotten, with such conditions as by his Highness shall be limited by his letters patents under his great seal, or by his majesty’s last Will in writing signed with his gracious hand; and for default of such issue the said imperial crown and other the premises shall be to the Lady Elizabeth the king’s second daughter and to the heirs of the body of the said Lady Elizabeth lawfully begotten, with such conditions as by his highness shall be limited. [c. 2. On breach of these conditions by the Lady Mary, the Crown shall come “to the Lady Elizabeth and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, in such like manner and form as though the said Lady Mary were then dead without any heir of her body begotten”]. [c.3. On breach of the conditions by the Lady Elizabeth the Crown shall come “to such person and persons and of such estate and estates as the King’s highness by his letters patent sealed under his great seal, or by his last will in writing signed with his majesty’s hand, shall limit and appoint.”]

(vii) Arrangements for the succession and a council of regency in Hen. VIII’s will. 30 Dec. 1546 (Rymer. Foed XV, 110 117) The original is in the Public Record Office (Royal Wills, E. 23 (4). Calendared in L.P. XXI, ii, 634 (i). Discussed in “The Last Will and Testament of Henry VIII” (Journ. Brit. Studies, II, Nov. 1962).

And as concerning the order and disposition of the imperial crown of this realm of England and Ireland, with our title of France, and all dignities honours preeminences prerogatives authorities and jurisdictions to the same annexed or belonging, and for the sure establishment of the succession of the same. And also for a full and plain gift disposition assignment declaration limitation and

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appointment with what conditions our daughters Mary and Elizabeth shall severally have hold and enjoy the said imperial crown and other the premises after our decease, and for default of issue and heirs of the several bodies of us and of our son Prince Edward lawfully begotten and his heirs, And also for a full gift disposition assignment declaration limitation and appointment to whom, and of what estate, and in what manner form and condition the said imperial crown and other the premises shall remain and come after our decease, and for default of issue and heirs of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward, and of our said daughters Mary and Elizabeth lawfully begotten, we by these presents do make and declare our last will and testament concerning the said imperial crown and all other the premises in manner and form following; That is to say we will by these presents, that immediately after our departure out of this present life, our said son Edward shall have and enjoy the said imperial crown and realm of England and Ireland, our title to France, with all dignities, honours, preeminences, prerogatives, authorities and jurisdictions, lands and possessions to the same annexed or belonging, to him and to his heirs of his body lawfully begotten; and for default of such issue of our said son Prince Edward’s body lawfully begotten, we will the said imperial crown and other the premises, after our two deceases, shall wholly remain and come to the heirs of our body lawfully begotten of the body of our entirely beloved wife Queen Catherine that now is, or of any other our lawful wife that we shall hereafter marry, and for lack of such issue and heirs, we will also that after our decease, and for default of heirs of the several bodies of us and of our said son Prince Edward lawfully begotten, the said imperial crown and all other the premises shall wholly remain and come to our said daughter Mary and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, upon condition that our said daughter Mary, after our decease, shall not marry nor take any person to her husband without the assent and consent of the privy counsellors and others appointed by us to our dearest son Prince Edward aforesaid to be of counsel, or of the most part of them, or the most part of such as shall then be alive, thereunto before the said marriage, had in writing sealed with their seals. All which condition we declare limit appoint and will by these presents shall be knit and invested to the said estate of our said daughter Mary in the said imperial crown and other the premises. And if it fortune our said daughter Mary to die without issue of her body lawfully begotten; we will that after our decease, and for default of issue of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward lawfully begotten, and of our daughter, Mary, the said imperial crown and other the premises shall wholly remain and come to our said daughter Elizabeth, and to the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, upon condition that our said daughter Elizabeth after our decease shall not marry nor take any person to her husband without the assent and consent of the privy counsellors and others appointed by us to be of counsel with our said dearest son Prince Edward, or the most part of them, or the most part of such of them as shall be then alive thereunto, before the same marriage had in writing sealed with their seals; which condition we declare limit appoint and will by these presents, shall be to the said estate of our said daughter Elizabeth in the said imperial crown and other the premises knit and invested;

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And if it shall fortune our said daughter Elizabeth to die without issue of her body lawfully begotten, we will that after our decease, and for default of issue of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward, and of our said daughters Mary and Elizabeth, the said imperial crown and other the premises after our decease for default of the issue of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward, and of our said daughters Mary and Elizabeth lawfully begotten, shall wholly remain and come to the heirs of the body of the lady Frances our niece, eldest daughter to our late sister the French Queen lawfully begotten; and for default of such issue of the body of the said Lady Frances, we will that the said imperial crown and other the premises after our decease, and for default of issue of the several bodies of us, and of our son Prince Edward, and of our daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and of the Lady Frances lawfully begotten, shall wholly remain and come to the heirs of the body of the Lady Eleanor, our niece, second daughter to our said late sister the French Queen lawfully begotten; And if it happen the said Lady Eleanor to die without issue of her body lawfully begotten, we will that after our decease, and for default of issue of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward, and of our said daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and of the said Lady Frances, and of the said Lady Eleanor lawfully begotten, the said imperial crown and other the premises shall wholly remain and come to the next rightful heirs: Also we will, that if our said daughter Mary do marry, without the consent and agreement of the privy counsellors, and others appointed by us to be of counsel to our said son Prince Edward or the most part of them, or the most part of such of them as shall then be alive, thereunto, before the said marriage, had in writing sealed with their seals as is aforesaid, that then and from thenceforth for lack of heirs of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward lawfully begotten, the said imperial crown and other the premises shall wholly remain be and come to our said daughter Elizabeth and to the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, in such manner and form as though our said daughter Mary were then dead without any issue of the body of our said daughter Mary lawfully begotten; anything contained in this our will, or in any act of parliament or statute to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding and in case our said daughter the Lady Mary do not keep and perform the said condition expressed declared and limited to her estate in the said imperial crown and other the premises by this our last will declared; And that if our said daughter Elizabeth for her part do not keep and perform the said condition declared and limited by this our last will to the estate of the said Lady Elizabeth in the said imperial crown of this realm of England and Ireland and other the premises, we will that then and from thenceforth after our decease, and for lack of heirs of the several bodies of us, and of our said son Prince Edward, and of our said daughter Mary lawfully begotten, the said imperial crown and other the premises shall wholly remain and come to the next heirs lawfully begotten of the body of the said Lady Frances, in such manner and form as though the said Lady Elizabeth were then dead without any heir of her body lawfully begotten; Anything contained in this will,

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or in any act or statute to the contrary notwithstanding: The remainders over for lack of issue of the said Lady Frances lawfully begotten, to be and continue to such persons like remainders and estates as is before limited and declared. Also We being now at this time, thanks be to Almighty God, of perfect memory, do constitute and ordain these personages following our executors and performers of our last will and testament, willing commanding and praying them to take upon them the occupation and performance of the same as Executors, That is to say: The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Lord Wriothesley, Chancellor of England The Lord St. John, Great Master of our House. The Earl of Hertford, Great Chamberlain of England. The Lord Russell Lord Privy Seal The Viscount Lisle High Admiral of England The Bishop Tunstall of Durham Sir Anthony Brown knight Master of our Horse Sir Edward Montagu knight Chief Judge of the Common Pleas. Justice Bromley. Sir Edward North knight Chancellor of the Augmentations Sir William Paget knight our Chief Secretary. Sir Anthony Denny, Sir William Harbard, knights, Chief Gentlemen of our Privy Chamber. Sir Edward Wootton knight. And Mr. Doctor Wootton his brother. And all these we will to be our executors and counsellors of the Privy Counsel with our said son Prince Edward in all matters both concerning his private affairs and public affairs of the realm, willing and charging them and every of them, as they must and shall answer at the day of judgment, truly and fully to see this my last will performed in all things with as much speed and diligence as may be, and that none of them presume to meddle with any of our treasure, or to do anything appointed by our said will alone unless the most part of the whole number of their co-executors do consent and by writing agree to the same, and will that our said executors or the most part of them may lawfully do what they shall think most convenient for the execution of this our will, without being troubled by our said son or any others for the same….

(viii) The succession under Edward VI (a) Edward’s Devise for the Succession This attempt to control the succession after Edward VI was a foolhardy gamble by Northumberland planned to secure power through the Lady Jane Grey after Edward’s death. The problems connected with this document are discussed in J.F.Nichols, Literary Remains of Edward VI, II, 571. It is difficult to reproduce in print the nature of the numerous emendations in the draft. The text will be better understood if it is collated with the facsimile of the first five clauses as they are reproduced from the Inner Temple MS. in H.Chapman, The Last Tudor King, 272.

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My deuise for the succession. 1. For lakke of issu1 of my body2 [cumming of thissu femal. To the L.Fraunceses heires masles3 such issu4 to the L.Janes5 heires masles, To the L.Katerins heires masles, To the L.Maries heires masles, To the heires masles of the daughters wich she shal haue hereafter. Then to the L.Margets heires masles. For lakke of such issue, To th’eires masles of the L.Janes daughters. To th’eires masles of the L.Katerins daughters, and so forth til you come to the L.Margets6 heires masles. 2. If after my death theire masle be entred into 18 yere old, then he to have the hole rule and gouernaunce therof. 3. But if he be under 18, then his mother to be gouuernres til he entre 18 yere old, But to doe nothing wt out th’auise7 of 6 parcel of a counsel to be pointed by my last will to the nombre of 20. 4. If the mother die befor th’eire entre into 18 the realme to be gouuerned by the counsel Prouided that after he be 14 yere al great matters of importaunce be opened to him. 5. If i died wt out issu, and there were none heire masle, then the L.Fraunces to be 8 gouuernres. For lakke of her, the 9 her eldest daughters, and for lakke of them the L.Marget to be gouuernres after as is aforsaid, til summe heire masle be borne, and then the mother of that child to be gouuernres. 6. And if during the rule of the gouuernres ther die 4 of the counsel, then shal she by her letters cal an assemble of the counsel wtin on month folowing and chose 4 more, wherin she shal haue thre uoices. But after her death the 16 shal chose emong themselfes til th’eire come to 10 14 yeare olde, and then he by ther advice shal chose them. (ix) The succession problem in Mary’s reign (a) An act declaring the Queen’s Highness to have been born in a most just and lawful matrimony and also repealing all acts of parliament and sentences of divorce had and made to the contrary. St. 1 Mary, St. 2, c. 1, 1553. (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 201) Forasmuch as Truth, being of her own nature of a most excellent virtue, efficacy, force and working, cannot but by process of time break out and shew herself, howsoever for a while she may by the iniquity and frailty of Man be suppressed and kept close; and being revealed and manifested, ought to be embraced, acknowledged, confessed and professed in all cases and matters whatsoever and whomsoever they touch or concern, without respect of persons, but in such cases and matters specially, as whereby the glory and 1

masle inserted above the line, but afterwards erased. to the issue (masle inserted above the line). 3 4 for lakke of deleted: if she have any inserted. befor my death inserted. 5 6 and her inserted. daughters inserted. 7 8 and agreement inserted. regent deleted. 9 then her eldest daughter, i.e. the Lady Jane. The whole of this clause deleted. 10 18 deleted. 2

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honour of God in Heaven (who is the author of truth and truth itself) is to be specially set forth, and whereby also the honour, dignity, surety and preservation of the Prince and Ruler (under God) in earth dependeth, and the welfare, profit, and special benefit of the universal people and body of a realm is to be continued and maintained: We your highness’ most loving, faithful, and obedient subjects, understanding the very truth of the state of matrimony between the two most excellent princes of most worthy memory, King Henry the Eight and Queen Katherine, his loving, godly, and lawful wife, your highness’ lawful father and mother, cannot but think ourselves most bounden both by our duty of allegiance to your majesty and of conscience toward God, to shew unto your highness, first, how that the same matrimony being contracted, solemnised and consummated by the agreement and assent of both their most noble parents, by the counsel and advice of the most wise and gravest men of both their realms, by the deliberate and mature consideration and consent of the best and most notable men in learning in those days of Christendom, did even so continue by the space of twenty years and more between them, to the pleasure of Almighty God, the satisfaction of the world, the joy and comfort of all the subjects of this realm, and to their own repose and good contentment, God giving for a sure token and testimony of his good acceptation of the same not only godly fruit (your Highness’ most noble person) whom we beseech the almighty and ever living God long to prosper and preserve here amongst us, and other issue also, whom it hath pleased God to take out of this transitory life unto his eternal glory, but also sending us a happy, flourishing, and most prosperous commonwealth in all things: And then afterwards how that the malicious and perverse affections of some a very few persons, envying the great felicity wherein, by the goodness of God, your said most noble father and mother and all their good subjects lived and continued in many years, did for their own singular glory and vain reputation, conceive sundry subtle and disloyal practices for the interruption and breach of the said most lawful and godly concord, and travailing to put the same in use, devised first to insinuate a scruple into the King your father’s conscience of an unlawful marriage between him and his most lawful wife, the Queen, your highness’ mother, pretending for the ground thereof that the same was against the word of God; And thereupon ceased not to persuade continually unto the said King your father that he could not without danger of the loss of his soul continue with his said most lawful wife, but must be separated and divorced from her; and to this intent caused the seals as well of certain universities in Italy and France to be got as it were for a testimony, by the corruption with money of a few light persons, scholars of the same universities, as also the seals of the universities of this realm to be obtained by great travail, sinister workings, secret threatenings and entreatings of some men of authority specially sent thither at that time for the same purposes; And how that finally Thomas Cranmer, then newly made Archbishop of Canterbury, most ungodly and against all laws, equity and conscience prosecuting the said wicked device of divorce and separation of the said King your father and queen your mother, called before him, ex officio, the hearing of the said matter of marriage, and taking his foundation partly upon his own unadvised judgment of the scripture, joining therewith the pretended testimonies of the said universities, and partly upon bare and most untrue conjectures, gathered and admitted by him upon matters of no strength or effect, but only by supposal

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and without admitting or hearing anything that could be said by the Queen your mother, or by any other on her behalf, in the absence of the said late Queen your mother, proceeded, pronounced, decerned, declared and gave sentence the same most lawful and undoubted matrimony to be nought, and to be contracted against God’s law and of no value, but lacking the strength of the law: And the said most noble King your father and the said noble queen your mother so married together, did separate and divorce, and the same your most noble father King Henry the Eighth and the said noble Queen your mother, from the bands of the same most lawful matrimony did pronounce and declare by the same his unlawful sentence to be free, discharged, and set at liberty: which sentence and judgment so given by unlawful and corrupt means and ways by the said Archbishop of Canterbury, was afterwards upon certain affections ratified and confirmed by two several acts, the one made in the 25th. year of the reign of the said King your highness’ father, and entitled an act declaring the establishment of the succession of the King’s most royal majesty of the imperial crown of this realm; the other act of parliament made in the 28th. year of the reign of the said King your highness’ father entitled an act for the establishment of the succession of the imperial crown of the realm: in the which said two acts was contained the illegitimations of your most noble person, which your said most noble person, being born in so solemn a marriage so openly approved in the world, and with so good a faith both first contracted, and also by so many years continued between your most noble parents, and the same marriage in very deed not being prohibited by the law of God, could not by any reason or equity in this case be so spotted: And now we your highness’ said most loving, faithful, and obedient subjects, of a goodly heart and true meaning, freely and frankly, without fear, fancy, or any other corrupt motion or sensual affection, considering that this foresaid marriage had its beginning of God and by him was continued, and therefore was ever, and is to be taken, for a most true, just, lawful, and to all respects a sincere and perfect marriage, nor could nor ought by any man’s power, authority, or jurisdiction be dissolved, broken, or separated (for whom God joineth no man can nor ought to put asunder) and considering also how during the same marriage in godly concord, the realm in all degrees flourished, to the glory of God, the honour of the Prince, and the great reputation of the subjects of the same, And, on the other side, understanding manifestly that the ground of the said devise and practice for the Divorce, proceeded first of malice and vain glory, and afterwards was prosecuted and followed of fond affection and sensual phantasy, and finally executed and put in effect by corruption, ignorance, and flattery: And feeling to our great sorrow, domage, and regret how shameful ignominies, rebukes, slanders, contempts, yea what death, pestilence, wars, disobediences, rebellions, insurrections and divers other great and grievous plagues God of his Justice hath sent upon us, ever since this said ungodly purpose was first begun and practised, but also seeing evidently before our eyes that unless so great an injustice as this hath been and yet continueth be redubbed, and that the said false and wrongful process, judgment, and sentence with their dependences be repealed and revoked, nothing is less to be doubted than that greater plagues and strokes are like to increase and continue daily more and more within this realm: do beseech your most excellent majesty, as well in respect of your own honour, dignity, and just title, as for truth’s sake, wherewith the entire love favour

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and affection which your majesty beareth to the commonwealth of this your realm, and for the good peace, unity, and rest of us your most bounden subjects and our posterity, that it may be enacted by your highness with the consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons in this present parliament assembled, and be it enacted by the authority of the present parliament, that all and every decree, sentence, and judgment of divorce and separation between the said King your father, and the said late Queen your mother, and all the process commenced, followed, made, given or promulgated by the said Thomas Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, or by any other person or persons whatsoever, whereby the same most just, pure, and lawful marriage between the said late King your father and the said late queen your mother was or is pronounced or in any wise declared to be unlawful or unjust, or against the law of God, be and shall be from the beginning, and from henceforth, of no force, validity, or effect, but be utterly nought, void, frustrate, and annihilate, to all intents, constructions, and purposes, as if the same had never been given or pronounced. c.11. And be it also enacted…that as well the said act of parliament entitled An Act declaring the establishment of the succession of the King’s most royal majesty of the imperial crown of this realm, made in the 25th. year of the reign of the King your father, be repealed and be void and of none effect, as also all and every such clauses, articles, branches, and matters contained and expressed in the aforesaid act of parliament made in the said 28th. year of the reign of the said late King your father, or in any other act or acts of parliament, as whereby your highness is named and declared to be illegitimate, or the said marriage between the said King your father and the said Queen your mother is declared to be against the word of God, or by any means unlawful, shall be and be repealed and be void and of no force nor effect, to all intents, constructions and purposes as if the same sentence or acts of parliament had never been had nor made: and that the said marriage, had and solemnised between your said most noble father King Henry and your said most noble mother Queen Katherine, shall be definitively, clearly, and absolutely declared, deemed, and adjudged to be and stand within God’s law and his most holy word, and to be accepted, reputed, and taken of good effect and validity to all intents and purposes. (b) An act declaring that the regal power of this realm is in the Queen’s Majesty as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her most noble progenitors Kings of this realm. St. 1 Mary, St. 3, c. 1, 1554. (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 222) Forasmuch as the imperial crown of this realm, with all dignities, honours, prerogatives, authorities, jurisdictions, and pre-eminences thereunto annexed, united, and belonging, by the divine providence of Almighty God is most lawfully, justly, and rightfully descended and come unto the Queen’s Highness that now is, being the very true and undoubted heir and inheritrix thereof, and invested in her most royal person, according unto the laws of this realm; And by force and virtue of the same all regal power dignity honour authority prerogative pre-eminence and jurisdictions doth appertain, and of right ought to appertain and belong unto her highness, as to the sovereign supreme

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Governor and Queen of this realm and the dominions thereof, in as full large and ample manner as it hath done heretofore to any other her most noble progenitors, Kings of this realm: Nevertheless the most ancient statutes of this realm being made by kings then reigning, do not only attribute and refer all prerogative pre-eminence power and jurisdiction royal unto the name of King, but also do give assign and appoint the correction and punishment of all offenders against the regality and dignity of the Crown and the laws of this realm unto the King; By occasion whereof the malicious and ignorant persons may be hereafter induced and persuaded unto this error and folly, to think that her Highness could nor should have enjoy and use such like royal authority power preeminence prerogative and jurisdiction, nor do nor execute and use all things concerning the said statutes, and take the benefit and privilege of the same, nor correct and punish offenders against her most royal person and the regality and dignity of the crown of this realm and the dominions thereof, as the kings of this realm her most noble progenitors have heretofore done enjoyed used and exercised: For the avoiding and clear extinguishment of which said error or doubt, and for a plain declaration of the laws of this realm in that behalf; Be it declared and enacted by the authority of this present parliament, that the law of this realm is and ever hath been and ought to be understood, that the kingly or regal office of the realm, and all dignities prerogative royal power pre-eminences privileges authorities and jurisdictions thereunto annexed united or belonging, being invested either in male or female, are and be and ought to be as fully wholly absolutely and entirely deemed judged accepted invested and taken in the one as in the other: so that what or whensoever statute or law doth limit and appoint that the King of this realm may or shall have execute and done any thing as King, or doth give any profit or commodity to the King, or doth limit or appoint any pains or punishment for the correction of offenders or transgressors against the regality and dignity of the King or of the crown, the same the Queen, (being supreme governess possessor and inheritor to the Imperial Crown of this realm as our said sovereign lady the Queen most justly presently is) may by the same authority and power likewise have exercise execute punish correct and do to all intents constructions and purposes without doubt ambiguity scruple or question: any custom use or scruple or any other thing whatsoever to be made to the contrary notwithstanding. (c) Letter from Licentiate Gamiz to the King of the Romans. Brussels, 29 Sept., 1555. (Cal. St. Pap. Spanish, XIII, no. 249, 251–252) As there is no hope of fruit from the English marriage, discussions are going on everywhere about the consort to be given to Elizabeth, who is and will continue to be lawful heir unless the King and Queen have issue. Now, the great lords of England who might have aimed at marrying their sons to Elizabeth, with an eye to the crown, have been afraid of what might happen to them and their sons, whom they have hastened to marry off in the country, as for instance the Earl of Arundel and two other great nobles have done, believing that thus they were making their sons’ heads safe. Thus there seems to be no one open to suspicion at present, unless there be something extraordinary in the offing, which may indeed be the case, given the importance of the issue. Courtenay,

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who is here (i.e. in Brussels), has no heart for the undertaking, nor does it appear that Elizabeth would accept him, for she has big ideas. In view of all this, people’s eyes in England and at this Court turn towards one of three points. It is recognised that the best solution in the interest of your Majesties and these countries would unquestionably be a match with Prince (i.e. Archduke) Ferdinand.1 If he were to give up whatever he might be entitled to as your son, he might go to England never to leave that country, which is that the English desire. Some persons, moved by their private interests, say that as Elizabeth is only 22, she might wait 5 or 6 years for Don Carlos (born 1545) to grow up and then marry him; for in that case the present King and Queen would reign undisturbed, whether they stayed in the country or left it. The third solution discussed concerns the Duke of Savoy, whose father was a great Prince and who is now in reduced circumstances, as everyone knows. It is argued that the Emperor could do him no greater favour than to marry him to Elizabeth. This is the line taken by those who believe that sufficient offers are being made to him by the French to lure him away from here (i.e. from the Emperor). I am aware that this matter will be settled between the principals. However, as your Majesty may dispassionately consider, the first solution mentioned would be far the best for Christendom, the authority of the House of Austria and the welfare of England itself; so much so that no one can reasonably think otherwise. The Don Carlos idea, besides other drawbacks, would be open to the dangers that attend delay, for it takes far less time (than 5 or 6 years) for changes and revolutions to happen. The Duke of Savoy solution would not be the right one, either, for it would mean war, which is what the English most dread; they realise how vulnerable they are from Scotland, as the French have long since known. I have often asked myself whether it would not be well for your Majesty to raise the matter. But I know from experience that your doing so would not avail if any other plan were being harboured here (at the Emperor’s court). Indeed, I suspect that if you were to raise it, the result might be exactly the opposite. So it seems best and safest to leave it to God, to do as He will. No doubt, if your Majesty could come here in person and confer with the Emperor and his son, the first solution would gain acceptance, as it is so just and reasonable. I am appalled that the Emperor should not have consulted you about this, or about the affairs of the Duchess of Lorraine. This is a further argument against raising it…. (d) Letter from Christophe d’Assonleville to Philip, Westminster, 7 Nov. 1558. (Ibid. no. 498, 437–438) As the Queen continues to be ill, the Privy Council spoke to her yesterday with a view to persuading her to make certain declarations in favour of the Lady Elizabeth concerning the succession. Her Majesty consented; and the Comptroller and the Master of the Rolls are being sent today on her behalf and that of the Council to visit the Lady Elizabeth and inform her that the Queen is willing that she succeed in the event of her 1

The younger son of the King of the Romans.

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own death, but that she asks two things of her: one, that she will maintain the old religion as the Queen has restored it; and the other that she will pay the Queen’s debts. These officers of state are expected to come back immediately they have carried out their mission. I thought I had better send off this courier at once to report this to your Majesty, and also to tell you that fears about the outcome of the Queen’s illness are increasing from day to day.

45. Arrangements for the coronation of Edward VI. From the Council Records There was no break with tradition in the order of the coronation service for Henry VII: nothing important was altered from that in use in the fifteenth century. So too, for Henry VIII’s coronation a form of service agreeing in every significant detail with that of his father’s coronation was used. Later in his reign, somewhere between 1509 and 1543, Henry VIII experimented with the drafting of a coronation oath which should represent his own exalted views of the kingly office. Since he did nothing to bind his successors to take that revised form of oath his draft was of no effect, but it is of interest as an indication of Henry’s own views. For a comment see P.E.Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, 213–216. Edward VI’s coronation, as the first after the breach with Rome, might be expected to reflect new ideas. Some of the changes made were omissions designed to shorten the elaborate service for so young a King, but there were also some modifications which were significant, although not revolutionary. The subject is dealt with by Schramm, op. cit. 88, 98, 139, 175, 213–219. The speech attributed to Cranmer at Edward’s coronation is interesting for the views expressed on the place of anointing, and on the nature of the coronation oath. It is printed in H.Jenkyns (4th ed.), The Remains of Thomas Cranmer (II. 118) and J.E.Cox, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer (p. 5, 126–127). It was first printed by Robert Ware in Foxes and Firebrands, Pt. II, 2. Strype copied it in his Cranmer, 144, with the comment that at this coronation there was no sermon, so far as he could find, but a speech by the Archbishop, found among the collections of Archbishop Usher, but Jenkyns failed to find it among Usher’s papers. He printed it from Ware’s text.

(i) Arrangements for Edward VI’ s coronation (Dasent, A.P.C., N.S., II, 1547–50, 29–33)

T

his day the Lord Protector and others his co-executors whose names be hereunto subscribed upon mature and deep deliberation had amongst them, did finally resolve that forasmuch as divers of the old observances and ceremonies to foretimes used at the coronations of the kings of this realm were by them thought meet for sundry respects to be corrected, and name for the tedious length of the same which should weary and be hurtsome peradventure to the king’s majesty being yet of tender age fully to endure and bide out; and also for that many points of the same were such as by the laws of the realm at this present were not allowable; the king’s majesty’s coronation should be done and celebrated upon Shrove Sunday next ensuing in the cathedral church of Westminster after the form and order ensuing:— First, the archbishop of Canterbury shall shew the king to the people at four parts of a great pulpit or stage to be made for the king, and shall say in this wise:—Sirs, here I present King Edward, rightful and undoubted inheritor by the laws of God and men to the royal dignity and crown imperial of this realm, whose consecration, enunction, and

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coronation is appointed by all the nobles and peers of this land to be this day. Will you serve at this time and give your good wills and assents to the said consecration, enunction, and coronation as by your duties of allegiance ye be bound to do? The people to answer; yea, yea, yea King Edward, King Edward, King Edward! This done, the archbishop of Canterbury being revested as he should go to Mass, with the bishops of London and Winchester on both sides, with other bishops and the dean of Westminster in the bishop’s absence, to go in order before the King. The King shall be brought from his seat by them that assisted him to the church to the high altar, where after his prayer made to God for his grace he shall offer a pall and a pound of gold, xxiiij li. in coin, which shall be to him delivered by the Lord Great Chamberlain. Then shall the King fall grovelling before the Altar, and over him the archbishop shall say this Collect, Deus humilium. Then the King shall rise and go to his chair to be prepared before the altar, his face to the Altar. And standing one shall hold him a book, and the archbishop standing before the King shall ask with a loud and distinct voice in manner and form following:— “Will ye grant to keep to the people of England and others your realms and dominions the laws and liberties of this realm and others your realms and dominions?” “I grant and promise.” “You shall keep to your strength and power to the Church of God and to all the people holy peace and concord.” “I shall keep.” “You shall make to be done after your strength and power equal and rightful justice in all your dooms and judgments with mercy and truth.” “I shall do.” “Do ye grant to make no new laws but such as shall be to the honour and glory of God, and to the good of the common wealth, and that the same shall be made by the consent of your people as hath been accustomed.” “I grant and promise.” Then shall the King rise out of his chair and by them that before assisted him be led to the High Altar, where he shall make a solemn oath upon the Sacrament laid upon the said Altar, in the sight of all the people to observe the premisses, and laying his hand again on the book shall say, “The things which I have before promised I shall observe and keep; so God help me and these Holy Evangelists by me bodily touched upon this holy altar.” That done, the King shall fall again grovelling before the High Altar, and the said archbishop kneeling before him shall with a loud voicebegin Veni Creator Spiritus, &c. Which done, the said archbishop standing shall say over the King, Te invocamus, and at the end shall kneel again. And then shall the King rise and be set in the chair

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again, and after a little pause he shall rise, and, assisted with those that did before that office, go again to the High Altar, where he shall be unclothed by his Great Chamberlain unto his coat of crimson satin, which and also his shirt shall be opened before and behind on the shoulders and the both of the arms by the said Great Chamberlain, to the intent that on those places he be anointed, and while he is in the anointing Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert must hold a pall over him. And first the said archbishop shall anoint the King, kneeling, in the palms of his hands, saying these words Ungas manus, with this Collect Respice Omnipotens Deus. After he shall anoint him in the breast, in the middle of his back, on his two boths of his arms and on his head, making a Cross, and after making another Cross on his head with holy cream, saying as he anointeth the places aforesaid Ungatur caput, Ungantur scapula [sic], &c. During which time of unction the Quire shall continually sing Ungerunt [sic] Regem and the psalm Domine in virtute tua letabitur Rex. And it is to be remembered that the bishop or dean of Westminster after the King’s enunction shall dry all the places of his body where he was anointed with cotton or some linen cloth, which is to be burnt; and forthwith the places opened for the same are to be clothed by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and on the King’s hands shall be put by the said archbishop of Canterbury a pair of linen gloves which the Lord Great Chamberlain shall before see prepared. This done the King shall rise and the archbishop of Canterbury shall put on the King a tarberd of tarteron white, shaped in manner of a dalmatic; and he shall put upon the King’s head a coif, the same to be brought by the Great Chamberlain. Then the King shall take the sword he was girt withal and offer it himself to God, laying it on the altar in token that his strength and power should first come from God. And the same sword he shall take again from the Altar and deliver it to some great earl to be redeemed of the bishop or dean of Westminster for cs, which sword shall be borne naked afterwards before the King. Then the King being set in his chair before the Altar shall be crowned with St. Edward’s Crown, and there shall be brought by the bishop or dean of Westminster the royal sandals and spurs to be presently put on by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and the spurs again immediately taken off that they do not encumber him. Then the archbishop with all the peers and nobles shall convey the King sustained as before again into the pulpit, setting him in his Siege Royal. And then shall the archbishop begin Te deum laudamus, which done the archbishop shall say unto the King Sta et retine immodo locum. And being the King thus set all the peers of the realm and bishops holding up their hands shall make unto him homage as followeth:—First the Lord Protector alone: then the archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor; so two and two as they be placed. “I, M. become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship, and faith and truth I shall bear unto you against all manner of folks, as I am bound by my allegiance and by the laws and statutes of his realm, so help us God and Allhallows”. And then every shall kiss the King’s left cheek. Which done, all they holding up their hands together in token of their fidelity which with one voice on their knees say—“We

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offer to sustain and defend you and your crown with our lives, lands, and goods against all the world.” And then with one voice to cry “God save King Edward”, which the people shall cry accordingly. Then shall the King be led to his traverse to hear the High Mass, and so depart home crowned in order as he set forth accordingly.

(ii) Cranmer’s speech at the Coronation (J.E.Cox (ed.), Cranmer’s Miscellaneous Writings, 126)

Most dread and royal sovereign: The promises your Highness hath made here at your coronation to forsake the devil and all his works, are not to be taken in the bishop of Rome’s sense, when you commit anything distasteful to that see, to hit your majesty in the teeth, as Pope Paul the third, late bishop of Rome, sent to your royal father, saying, “Didst thou not promise, at our permission of thy coronation, to forsake the devil and all his works, and dost thou turn to heresy? for the breach of this thy promise, knowest thou not, that it is in our power to dispose of thy sword and sceptre to whom we please?” We, your Majesty’s clergy, do humbly conceive, that this promise reacheth not at your highness’s sword, spiritual or temporal, or in the least at your highness swaying the sceptre of this your dominion, as you and your predecessors have had them from God. Neither could your ancestors lawfully resign up their crowns to the bishop of Rome or his legates, according to their ancient oaths then taken upon that ceremony. The bishops of Canterbury for the most part have crowned your predecessors, and anointed them kings of this land: yet it was not in their power to receive or reject them, neither did it give them authority to prescribe them conditions to take or to leave their crowns, although the bishops of Rome would encroach upon your predecessors by his bishops’ act and oil, that in the end they might possess those bishops with an interest to dispose of their crowns at their pleasure. But the wiser sort will look to their claws and clip them. The solemn rites of coronation have their ends and utility, yet neither direct force or necessity: they be good admonitions to put kings in mind of their duty to God, but no increasement of their dignity. For they be God’s anointed, not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in consideration of their power which is ordained, of the sword which is authorized, of their persons which are elected by God, and endued with the gifts of his Spirit for the better ruling and guiding of his people. The oil, if added, is but a ceremony; if it be wanting, that king is yet a perfect monarch notwithstanding, and God’s anointed, as well as if he was inoiled. Now for the person or bishop that doth anoint a king, it is proper to be done by the chiefest; but if they cannot, or will not, any bishop may perform this ceremony. To condition with monarchs upon these ceremonies, the bishop of Rome (or other bishops owning his supremacy) hath no authority: but he may faithfully declare what God requires at the hands of kings and rulers, that is, religion and virtue. Therefore not from the bishop of Rome, but as a messenger from my Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall most humbly admonish your royal majesty, what things your highness is to perform. Your majesty is God’s vicegerent and Christ’s vicar within your own dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josiah, God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed,

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the tyranny of the bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed. These acts be signs of a second Josiah, who reformed the church of God in his days. You are to reward virtue, to revenge sin, to justify the innocent, to relieve the poor, to procure peace, to repress violence, and to execute justice throughout your realms. For precedents on those kings who performed not these things, the old law shews how the Lord revenged his quarrel; and on those kings who fulfilled these things, he poured forth his blessings in abundance. For example, it is written of Josiah in the book of the Kings thus; “Like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, according to all the law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him” This was to that prince a perpetual fame of dignity, to remain to the end of days. Being bound by my function to lay these things before your royal highness, the one as a reward, if you fulfil, the other as a judgment from God, if you neglect them: yet I openly declare, before the living God, and before these nobles of the land, that I have no commission to denounce your majesty deprived, if your highness miss in part, or in whole, of these performances, much less to draw up indentures between God and your majesty, or to say you forfeit your crown with a clause, for the bishop of Rome, as have been done by your majesty’s predecessors, King John and his son Henry of this land. The Almighty God of his mercy let the light of his countenance shine upon your majesty, grant you a prosperous and happy reign, defend you and save you; and let your subjects say, Amen! God save the King.

46. Arrangements for a royal minority (i) An act giving authority to such as shall succeed to the crown of this realm when they shall come to the age of24 years to make frustrate such acts as shall be made before in their time. St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 17, 1536 (Stat. Realm, III, 673)

F

orasmuch as laws and statutes may happen hereafter to be made within this realm at parliaments holden at such times as the kings of the same shall happen to be within age, having small knowledge and experience of their affairs, to the great hindrance and derogation of the imperial crown of this realm, and to the universal damage of the common wealth of the subjects of the same: Be it therefore enacted…that if the imperial crown of this realm, after the decease of the king’s most royal majesty, whose life our Lord long preserve, descend come or remain to the heirs of our said sovereign lord or to any person to be limited by his Highness, as of very right it must and ought to do according to the laws of this realm established for the same, the said heirs or such person being within the age of 24 years, and that then any act or acts of parliament shall happen to be made and established in any parliament that then shall be holden before such heir or heirs, person or persons, then being in possesion of the said crown shall be of their full ages of 24 years, that then every such heir or heirs of our said sovereign lord, or such person so possessed of the crown and being within the same age of 24 years, shall have full power and authority at all times, after they shall come to

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their said full ages of 24 years, by their letters patent under the Great Seal of England, to revoke annul and repeal all and singular such acts made and established by their royal assents, in any parliament holden during the time that they were within their said age of 24 years; their royal assents had to the same during the time that they were within the said age of 24 years or any act or acts hereafter to be made to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. II. And be it also enacted…that every such repeal annulment and revocation, of any act or acts that shall be made and established in any parliament holden before the time that such heirs or persons possessed of the crown shall be of the said age of 24 years, shall be as good and effectual to all intents and purposes as though it had been done by authority of parliament.

(ii) Arrangements for minority of Edward VI (A.P.C. II, 3 31 January 1546–47)

Where it hath pleased our late sovereign lord and master King Henry the Eighth of most noble and famous memory, father to our most gracious sovereign lord King Edward the Sixth that now is, by his last will and testament, bearing date the thirtieth day of December in the 3 8th year of his most fortunate and victorious reign, to constitute and ordain us, the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lord Wriothesley, Chancellor of England; the Lord Saint John, Great Master of his Household; the Lord Russell, the Lord Privy Seal; the Earl of Hertford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England; the Viscount Lisle, High Admiral of England; the Lord Bishop Tunstall of Durham; Sir Anthony Brown, Knight of his Order and Master of his Horses; Sir William Paget, knight, his Chief Secretary; Sir Edward North, knight, Chancellor of the augmentations of the revenues of his Crown; Sir Edward Montague, knight, Chief Justice of Common Pleas;—Bromley, one of the Justices of his Bench; Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert, knights, Chief Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber; Sir Edward Wotton, knight, Treasurer of Calais, and Mr. Doctor Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, his ambassador resident with the French King, to be his executors, and to be of the Privy Council with our said sovereign lord that now is until he shall be of the full age of eighteen years; giving unto us and the more part of us, or to the more part of the survivors of us, full power and authority not only to take the charge upon us of the order and governance of our said sovereign lord’s person that now is till he come to the age aforesaid, with the order of all his affairs in all his realms, dominions and countries, but also to do any act or acts whatsoever that may tend to the honour and surety of our said sovereign lord’s person, or to the advancement of his affairs, with many other points of great trust both touching his succession in the imperial crown of this realm and sundry other things in the same will more at large contained; We, the said Archbishop; Thomas lord Wriothesley, Chancellor of England; William lord St. John; John, lord Russell; Edward, earl of Hertford; John, Viscount Lisle; Cuthbert Bishop of Durham; Sir Anthony Brown; Sir William Paget; Sir Edward North; Sir Edward Montague; Sir Anthony Denny and Sir William Herbert, knights, being all assembled together in the Tower of London the last

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day of January in the first year of the reign of our said sovereign lord King Edward the vith that now is, have reverently and diligently considered the great charge committed unto us, and calling to Almighty God, the only giver of all grace, for his aid and assistance in all our proceedings, have fully resolved and agreed with one voice and consent not only to stand to and maintain the said last will and testament of our said Master and every part and article of the same to the uttermost of our powers, wits and cunning, but also that every of us present, and the rest named executors with us which be now absent, if they will likewise take the execution of the said will and testament upon them according to the earnest and hearty desire of our said late sovereign lord and master, shall take a corporal oath upon a book for the more assured and effectual accomplishment of the same. And forasmuch as in the consideration and debating of the several points of the charge by the said will committed unto us, and of the great accompt which we have to render to God, to our sovereign lord that now is, and to the whole world for the same, it appeared unto us as well upon the occasion of the dispatch of sundry letters which were thought meet to be sent to the Emperor, the French King, the Regent of Flanders and others for the declaration of the decease of our said late Master, with request for the conservation of their amities, as upon sundry other great and urgent things to be presently dispatched within the realm and other the king’s majesty’s realms and dominions, that being a great number appointed to be executors with like and equal charge, it should be more than necessary as well for the honour, surety and government of the most royal person of the king our sovereign lord that now is, as for the more certain and assured order and direction of his affairs, that some special man of the number and company aforesaid should be preferred in name and place before others, to whom as to the state and head of the rest all strangers and others might have access, and who for his virtue, wisdom and experience in things were meet and able to be a special Remembrancer and to keep a most certain account of all our proceedings, which otherwise could not chose within short time but grow into much disorder and confusion; We, therefore, the Archbishop and others whose names be hereunto subscribed, by one whole assent, concord and agreement, upon mature consideration of the tenderness and proximity of blood between our sovereign lord that now is and the said Earl of Hertford, being his uncle, and of the great experience which he hath in all affairs of this realm and all other the king’s majesty’s realms, dominions and countries, have by virtue of the authority given unto us by the said will and testament of our said late sovereign lord and master for the doing of any act or acts that may tend to the honour and surety of our sovereign lord that now is, or for the advancement of his affairs, given unto him the first and chief place amongst us, and also the name and title of the Protector of all the realms and dominions of the king’s majesty that now is, and of the Governor of his most royal person; with this special and express condition, that he shall not do any act but with the advice and consent of the rest of the co-executors in such manner, order and form, as in the said will of our said late sovereign lord and most gracious master is appointed and prescribed; which the said Earl hath promised to perform accordingly. And to the intent we might the more assuredly answer and

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satisfy the charge committed unto us, it was ordered also this day that we should forbear the taking of our oaths to the performance of the will till the next morrow, and then upon another deliberate reading of it to proceed first to the giving of our oaths to the king’s majesty, and then to swear to the observation of the will as is aforesaid. And being this point agreed upon in manner and form expressed, it was then considered that forasmuch as all the offices of the Justices of the realm were determined by the death of our late master, whereby all process did cease which was necessary for the good direction of the realm and the stay of the people to have his course and order, it was also agreed by the whole number of executors whose names be here subscribed that the Lord Wriothesley should, for avoiding of all questions and doubts of such process as should pass hereafter, yield up the Seal and Office of the Chancellorship of England unto the king’s majesty’s hands, and the same presently resume and take again of his Highness to to (sic) the intent he might execute the office of the Chancellor of England by good and sure authority in the same manner and form as hath been accustomed; which in the presence of all the executors underwritten, and of sundry others whose names appear in the act made thereof, was delivered into the king’s majesty’s hands, and by his Highness redelivered unto the said Lord Wriothesley, with his nomination and appointment to the office of the Lord Chancellor of England, with the fees, profits and commodities to the same belonging or in any wise appertaining; which being done it was ordered by the king’s majesty, with the advice and consent of all the said executors then present, that the said Lord Wriothesley should immediately make out new patents to all the Justices of the realm and of Wales, to the Barons of the Exchequer, to the Presidents of the Councils in the North and in Wales, Justices of the Peace, to all the king’s Sergeants, Attorneys, Clerks of the Crown and Solicitors, and the same swear to the king our sovereign lord that now is the next morrow or as soon after as might be conveniently, to the intent they might execute their rooms and places for the quiet order of the realm and the due administration of Justice as appertaineth…. The first day of February, being Tuesday, all the said executors before written assembled again together in the said Tower of London and there according to their former appointment heard the will eftsoons deliberately read from the beginning to the ending, and concluding with one voice to adhere and stick to the performance of it, did first take their oaths to the king’s majesty, our sovereign lord, and after immediately swore to the due and faithful observation of the said will as the day before they had resolved. And forasmuch as this day all the lords spiritual and temporal and all others appointed by the king’s majesty our late sovereign lord (whom God absolve) to be of counsel with our sovereign lord that now is, for the aid and assistance of the executors and Privy Councillors in all cases wherein the same should have need of advice and counsel, were appointed to have their access to the king’s majesty’s presence, it was also ordered that the whole number of executors present should repair to the king’s majesty and declare to him what they had done touching the naming and placing of the said Earl of Hertford, his uncle, to be Protector of his realms and dominions and Governor of his person, and to require his consent to the same; and that done we should declare the same first to the Council not being executors, and after to all the

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lords in the presence of the king’s majesty, which was done in every point as was determined. And first the king’s majesty by the advice and consent of all the said executors being present with him gave his royal assent that the said Earl of Hertford should be Protector of his realms and dominions and Governor of his person, next it was declared to the Council, and thirdly to all the lords, being the same declared unto them by the said Lord Chancellor, who with one voice gave their consents to the same….

47. The king’s style defined by statute The royal style underwent some significant changes during this period. Henry VII used the traditional form “…dei gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae et Dominus Hiberniae”. Although Henry VIII was given the title of “His Most Christian Majesty” by Pope Julius II in 1513 he does not seem to have included it in his style, but he was often so addressed by foreign rulers and by his own subjects. In 1521 he received from Pope Leo X the title “Defender of the Faith” in recognition of his book against Luther (Rymer, Foed., XIII, 756–757; L.P. III. ii, no. 1659). From about 1526 he added the word Octavus after his name. By St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. i1 the king was declared “Supreme Head of the Church of England”, and that addition was made to his style at a Council, 15 January, 26 Hen. VIII. In 1542 a statute was passed in the Irish Parliament declaring that the king of England, his heirs and successors, should for the future be kings of Ireland (Irish Stats., 33, Hen. VIII, c. 1). This was confirmed by an English act of 1543–44. No change was introduced for Edward VI, and Mary assumed a similar style at the opening of her reign. After her marriage to Philip the royal style was proclaimed as: “Philip and Mary, by the grace of God King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Princes of Spain and Sicily, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy, and Brabant, Counts of Habsburg, Flanders, and Tyrol” (Pat. Roll. 2 Mary, p. 2, m. 5).

The kings style. St. 35 Hen.. VIII, c. 3, 1543 (Stat. Realm, III, 958)

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here our most dread natural and gracious sovereign liege lord the king hath heretofore been and is justly lawfully and notoriously known named published and declared to be King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in earth Supreme Head, and hath justly and lawfully used the title and name thereof as to his grace appertaineth; Be it enacted …that all and singular his grace’s subjects and residents of or within this his realm of England Ireland and elsewhere within other his majesty’s dominions, shall from henceforth accept and take the same his majesty’s style, as it is declared and set forth in manner and form following, that is to say, in the Latin tongue by these words; Henricus Octavus Dei gratia Anglie Francie et Hibernie Rex, fidei defensor et in terra Ecclesie Anglicane et Hibernie supremum caput; and in the English tongue by these words: Henry the Eight by the grace of God King of England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in earth the Supreme Head: and that the said style declared and set forth by this act in manner and form as is above mentioned shall be form henceforth by the authority aforesaid united and annexed for ever to the Imperial Crown of this his highness’ realm of England. c. 2. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons of what estate dignity degree or condition soever he or they be, at any time after the feast of Easter next 1

Above No. 100,

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coming, craftily imagine invent or attempt by colour of any pretence to deprive the king’s highness the queen the prince or the heirs of the body of the king’s majesty lawfully begotten, or the heirs of the body of the prince lawfully begotten, or any person or persons to whom the imperial crown of this realm is limited in this present session of parliament, or at any time hereafter shall be limited and disposed by the king’s highness by his gracious letters patents or by his highness’ last will in writing signed with his most gracious hand, of any of their titles styles names degrees or royal estate or regal power, which as is abovesaid is limited united or appointed to the Imperial Crown of this his realm, or that hereafter by authority of parliament shall be set forth limited united or appointed to the said Imperial Crown, that then every such offence and contempt shall be deemed and adjudged high treason, and the offender and offenders therein and their aiders counsellors maintainers and abbettors and every of them being thereof lawfully convicted, shall be deemed and adjudged high traitors and shall suffer pains of death and other forfeitures penalties and losses as is accustomed and limited any law or statute in this realm heretofore had or made for or in cases of high treason. Saving to every such person and persons and bodies politic to their heirs and assigns and successors and to their assigns and successors of every of them, other than such persons as shall be convicted or attainted and their heirs and successors and all other claiming to their use, all such right title interest use possession condition rents fees offices annuities and commons which they or any of them shall have in or upon any manors lands tenements rents fees offices annuities or hereditaments that shall so happen to be lost and forfeit by reason of any conviction or attainder for any of the treasons or offences above rehearsed, at any time before the said treasons and offences committed.

48. The law of treason. From statutes and other sources Changes in the law of treason are very important during this period. The statutory additions and modifications which were made were the result of the profound changes taking place in Church and State. They are not all of equal significance, and have, indeed, been classified into three groups according to their importance: (i) Statutes making it treason to meddle with the succession to the throne as established from time to time by statute; (ii) Statutes making it treason to recognize the authority of the Pope or to do certain other acts hostile to the new religious settlement; (iii) Extension of the Treason Act of Edward III. Of these three categories the third is the more important. For a discussion along these lines see Holdsworth, Hist. Engl. Law, IV, 492–500. For an analysis and revision of the interpretation of this Act see A.F.Pollard, “The ‘de facto’ Act of Henry VII”, Bull. Inst. Hist. Res. VII, I.

(i) An act declaring obedience to a de facto king not to be treason. St. II Hen. VII, c.1, 1495 (Stat. Realm, II, 568)

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he King our sovereign lord, calling to his remembrance the duty of allegiance of his subjects of this his realm, and that they by reason of the same are bounden to serve their prince and sovereign lord for the time being in his wars for the defence of him and the land against every rebellion, power, and might reared against him, and with him to enter and abide in service in battle if the cause so require; and that for the same service what fortune ever fall

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by chance in the same battle against the mind and weal of the prince, as in this land some time past hath been seen, that it is not reasonable but against all laws, reason, and good conscience that the said subjects going with their sovereign lord in wars, attending upon him in his person, or being in other places by his commandment within this land or without, any thing should lose or forfeit for doing their true duty and service of allegiance: It be therefore ordained enacted and established…that from henceforth no manner of person nor persons, whatsoever he or they be, that attend upon the king and sovereign lord of this land for the time being in his person, and do him true and faithful service of allegiance in the same, or be in other places by his commandment, in his wars within this land or without, that for the same deed and true service of allegiance he or they be in no wise convict or attaint of high treason nor of other offences for that cause by act of parliament or otherwise by any process of law, whereby he or any of them shall or may forfeit life, lands, tenements, rents, possessions, hereditaments, goods, chattels, or any other things, but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any vexation, trouble, or loss; and if any act or acts or other process of the law hereafter thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this ordinance, that then that act or acts or other processes of the law, whatsoever they shall be, stand and be utterly void. II. Provided alway that no person nor persons shall take any benefit or advantage by this act which shall hereafter decline from his or their said allegiance.

(ii) An act against poisoners. St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 9, 1531 (Stat. Realm, III. 326.) A case of poisoning which occurred in the household of the bishop of Rochester led to this Act. It did not have a long life for by St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 12, § 12 it was enacted that poisoning should be treated like any other kind of murder. After relating the circumstances of the case the Act continued:

Our said Sovereign lord the King of his blessed disposition inwardly abhorring all such abominable offences because that in manner no person can live in surety out of danger of death by that mean if practice thereof should not be eschewed, hath ordained and enacted by authority of this present parliament that the said poisoning be adjudged and deemed as high treason and…that the said Richard Roose shall be therefor boiled to death without having any advantage of his clergy. And that from henceforth every wilful murder of any person or persons by any whatsoever person or persons hereafter to be committed and done by mean or way of poisoning shall be reputed, deemed, and judged in the law to be high treason; And that all and every person or persons which hereafter shall be lawfully indicted or appealed, and attainted or condemned by order of the law of such treason for any manner poisoning of any person shall not be admitted to the benefit of his or their clergy, but shall be immediately after such attainder or condemnation committed to execution of death by boiling for the same.

(iii) An act whereby divers offences be made high treason. St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 13, 1534 (Stat. Realm, III, 508)

Forasmuch as it is most necessary, both for common policy and duty of subjects, above all things to prohibit, provide, restrain, and extinct all manner of shameful slanders,

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perils, or imminent danger or dangers which might grow, happen, or arise to their sovereign lord the King, the Queen, or their heirs, which when they be heard, seen, or understood cannot be but odible and also abhorred of all those sorts that be true and loving subjects, if in any point they may, do, or shall touch the King, his Queen, their heirs or successors, upon which dependeth the whole unity and universal weal of this realm, without providing wherefor too great a scope of unreasonable liberty should be given to all cankered and traiterous hearts, willers and workers of the same; And also the King’s loving subjects should not declare unto their sovereign lord now being which unto them hath been and is most entirely both beloved and esteemed, their undoubted sincerity and truth; Be it therefore enacted…that if any person or persons, after the first day of February next coming, do maliciously wish, will, or desire by words or writing, or by craft imagine invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the King’s most royal person, the Queen’s, or their heirs apparent, or to deprive them or any of them of the dignity, title, or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and maliciously publish and pronounce, by express writing or words that the King our sovereign lord should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the Crown, or rebelliously do detain, keep, or withhold, from our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, any of his or their castles, fortresses, fortalices, or holds, within this realm or in any other the King’s dominions or marches, or rebelliously detain, keep, or withhold from the king’s said highness, his heirs or successors, any of his or their ships, ordnance, artillery, or other munitions or fortifications of war, and do not humbly render and give up to our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, or to such persons as shall be deputed by them, such castles, fortresses, fortalices, holds, ships, ordnance, artillery, and other munitions and fortifications of war rebelliously kept or detained, within 6 days next after they shall be commanded by our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, by open proclamation under the Great Seal, that then every such person and persons so offending in any the premises after the said first day of February, their aiders, counsellors, consenters, and abettors being thereof lawfully convict according to the laws and customs of this realm, shall be adjudged traitors; and that every such offence in any the premises that shall be committed, or done after the said first day of February, shall be reputed and accepted, and adjudged high treason, and the offenders therein, and their aiders, consenters, counsellors, and abettors, being lawfully convict of any such offence as is aforesaid, shall have and suffer such pains of death and other penalties as is limited and accustomed in cases of high treason. c. 2. And to the intent that all treasons should be the more dread, hated, and detested to be done by any person or persons, and also because it is a great boldness and an occasion to ill-disposed persons to adventure and embrace their malicious intents and enterprizes, which all true subjects ought to study to eschew; Be it therefore enacted…that none offender in any kinds of high treasons, whatsoever they be, their aiders, consenters, counsellors, nor abettors, shall be admitted to have the benefit or privilege of any manner of sanctuary; considering that matters of treasons toucheth so nigh both the surety of the king our sovereign lord’s person and his heirs and successors.

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(iv) An act concerning the forging of the kings sign manual, signet and privy seal. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 2, 1536 (Stat. Realm, in, 532)

…Be it enacted…that if any person or persons at any time hereafter falsely forge and counterfeit the King’s sign manual, privy signet or privy seal, that then every such offence shall be deemed and adjudged high treason, and the offenders therein, their counsellors, procurers, aiders and abettors, being convict of any such offence according to the laws of this realm, shall be deemed and adjudged traitors against the King and the realm; and shall suffer and have such pains of death, forfeiture of lands, goods and chattels, and also lose the privilege of all sanctuaries, as in cases of high treason it is ordained.

(v) An act for the repeal of certain statutes concerning treasons, felonies, etc. St. I. Edw. VI, c. 12, 1547 (Stat. Realm, IV, 18–22)

Nothing being more godly, more sure, more to be wished and desired, betwixt a prince the supreme head and ruler and the subjects whose governor and head he is, than on the prince’s part great clemency and indulgency, and rather too much forgiveness and remission of his royal power and just punishment than exact severity and justice to be shewed, and on the subjects’ behalf that they should obey rather for love, and for the necessity and love of a king and prince, than for fear of his strait and severe laws; yet such times at some time cometh in the commonwealth that it is necessary and expedient for the repressing of the insolency and unruliness of men and for the foreseeing and providing of remedies against rebellion, insurrection, or such mischiefs as God, sometime with us displeased, for our punishment doth inflict and lay upon us, or the Devil at God’s permission, to assay the good and God’s elect, doth sow and set amongst us, the which Almighty God with his help and man’s policy hath always been content and pleased to have stayed that sharper laws as a harder bridle should be made to stay those men and facts that might else be occasion, cause, and authors of further inconvenience; the which thing caused the prince of most famous memory King Henry the Eighth…to make and enact certain laws and statutes which might seem and appear to men of exterior realms and many of the King’s Majesty’s subjects very strait, sore, extreme, and terrible, although they were then when they were made not without great consideration and policy moved and established, and for the time to the avoidance of further inconvenience very expedient and necessary; but, as in tempest or winter one course and garment is convenient, in calm or warm weather a more liberal race or lighter garment both may and ought to be followed and used, so we have seen divers strait and sore laws made in one parliament, the time so requiring, in a more calm and quiet reign of another prince by like authority and parliament repealed and taken away; the which most high clemency and royal example of his Majesty’s most noble progenitors, the King’s Highness, of his tender and godly nature most given to mercy and love of his subjects, willing to follow, and perceiving the hearty and sincere love

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that his most loving subjects, both the lords and commons, doth bear unto his Highness now in this his Majesty’s tender age, willing also to gratify the same therefore, and minding further to provoke his said subjects with great indulgency and clemency shewed on his Highness’s behalf to more love and kindness towards his Majesty (if it may be) and upon trust that they will not abuse the same, but rather be encouraged thereby more faithfully and with more diligence (if it may be) and care for his Majesty to serve his Highness now in this his tender age, is contented and pleased that the severity of certain laws here following be mitigated and remitted; Be it therefore ordained and enacted…that from henceforth none act, deed, or offence being by act of parliament or statute made treason or petit treason by words, writing, ciphering, deeds, or otherwise whatsoever shall be taken, had, deemed, or adjudged to be high treason or petit treason, but only such as be treason or petit treason in or by the act of parliament or statute made in the 25th year of the reign of the most noble king of famous memory King Edward the Third1 touching or concerning treason or the declaration of treason, and such offences as hereafter shall by this present act be expressed and declared to be treason or petit treason, and none other; nor that any pains of death, penalty, or forfeiture, in any wise ensue or be to any of the offenders for the doing or committing any treason or petit treason other than such as be in the said statute made in the said 25th year of the reign of the said king Edward the Third or by this present statute ordained or provided any act or acts of parliament, statute, or statutes had or made at any time heretofore, or after the said 25th year of the reign of the said late king Edward the Third, or any other declaration or matter to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. [c.2. Repeals all acts dealing with religion: St. 5 Rich. II, 2, c. 5; St. 2 Hen. V, i, c.7; St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 14; St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 14; St. 34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 1; St. 35 Hen. VIII, c. 5.] [c.3. Repeals new felonies created by statute since the beginning of Hen. VIII’s reign.] [c.4. Repeals St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 8, and St. 34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c.23 which gave statutory authority to royal proclamations.] c. 5. And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any person or persons at any time after the first day of March next coming, by open preaching, express words or sayings, do affirm or set forth that the king, his heirs or successors, kings of this realm for the time being, is not or ought not to be supreme head in earth of the Church of England and Ireland or of any of them immediately under God, or that the bishop of Rome or any other person or persons other than the King of England for the time being is or ought to be by the laws of God supreme head of the same Churches or of any of them, or that the King, his heirs or successors kings of this realm, is not or ought not to be King of England, France, and Ireland, or of any of them, or, after the said first day of March, do compass or imagine by open preaching, express words or sayings, to depose or deprive the King, his heirs or successors, kings of this realm, from his or their royal estate or titles to or of the realms aforesaid, or do openly publish or say by express words or sayings that any other person or persons other than the King, his heirs or successors kings of this realm, of right ought to be kings of the realms aforesaid or of any of them, or to have and enjoy the same or any of them; that then every such offender, being thereof duly convicted or 1

St. 25 Edward III, St. 5, c. 2.

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attainted by the laws of this realm, their aiders, comforters, abettors, procurers, and counsellors… shall [suffer forfeiture of goods and imprisonment during the King’s pleasure for the first offence: forfeiture of lands and imprisonment for life for the second: and the penalties of high treason for the third].

(vi) An act for the punishment of divers treasons. St. 5 & 6 Edw. VI, c. 11, 1552 (Stat, Realm, IV, 144.)

Forasmuch as it is most necessary for common policy and duty of subjects above all things to prohibit, restrain and extinct all manner of shameful slanders which might grow, happen, or arise to their sovereign lord the King’s Majesty, which when they be heard, seen, or understood cannot but be odible and also abhorred of all those sorts that be true and loving subjects, if in any point they may, do, or shall touch his Majesty, upon whom dependeth the whole unity and universal weal of this realm, without providing wherefor too great a scope of unreasonable liberty should be given to all cankered and traiterous hearts, and the King’s loving subjects should not declare unto their sovereign lord now being, which unto them hath been and is most entirely both beloved and esteemed, their undoubted sincerity and truth: Be it therefore enacted…that if any person or persons, after the first day of June next coming, by open preaching, express words, or sayings do expressly, directly, and advisedly set forth and affirm that the King that now is is an heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown, or that any his heirs or successors to whom the crown of this realm is limited, being in lawful possession of the crown, is an heretic etc. that then every such offender, being thereof duly convicted or attainted by the laws of this realm, their abettors, procurers, and counsellors, and all and every their aiders and comforters, knowing the said offences or any of them to be done [shall suffer forfeiture of goods and imprisonment during the King’s pleasure for the first offence: forfeiture of profits of lands and spiritual promotions for life, and of all goods, and perpetual imprisonment for the second offence: and the penalties of high treason with forfeiture of lands and goods for the third offence.]. [c.2. It shall be adjudged high treason for anyone to publish by writing, printing, painting, carving, or graving that the King or his heirs is a heretic.]

(vii) An act repealing certain treasons, felonies, and praemunire. St. 1 Mary, St. 1, c.1, 1553 (Stat. Realm, IV, 198)

Forasmuch as the state of every king, ruler, and governor, of any realm dominion, or commonalty standeth and consisteth more assured by the love and favour of the subject toward their sovereign ruler and governor than in the dread and fear of laws made with rigorous pains and extreme punishment for not obeying of their sovereign ruler and governor; And laws also justly made for the preservation of the commonweal, without extreme punishment or great penalty, are more often for the most part obeyed and kept than laws and statutes made with great and extreme punishments, and in especial such laws and statutes so made whereby not only the ignorant and rude,

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unlearned people, but also learned and expert people minding honesty are often and many times trapped and snared, yea, many times for words only, without other fact or deed done or perpetrated: the Queen’s most excellent majesty, calling to remembrance that many, as well honourable and noble persons as other of good reputation within this her Grace’s realm of England have of late, for words only without other opinion, fact, or deed, suffered shameful death not accustomed to nobles; her Highness, therefore, of her accustomed clemency and mercy, minding to avoid and put away the occasion and cause of like chances hereafter to ensue, trusting her loving subjects will, for her clemency to them shewed, love, serve and obey her Grace the more heartily and faithfully than for dread or fear of pains of body, is contented and pleased that the severity of suchlike extreme dangerous and painful laws shall be abolished, annulled, and made frustrate and void. [It is therefore enacted that henceforth only acts or offences so declared by 25 Edward III. St. V. c.2. shall be treason, petty treason, or misprision of treason.]

(viii) An act for the punishment of traitorous words against the Queens Majesty. St. 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c.9, 1554 (Stat. Realm, IV, 254)

Forasmuch as now of late divers naughty, seditious, malicious, and heretical persons, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but in a devilish sort, contrary to the duty of their allegiance, have congregated themselves together in conventicles in divers and sundry profane places within the city of London, esteeming themselves to be in the true faith where indeed they are in errors and heresies and out of the true trade of Christ’s catholic religion, and in the same places at several times using their fantastical and schismatical services lately taken away and abolished by authority of Parliament, have of their most malicious and cankered stomachs prayed against the Queen’s Majesty that God would turn her heart from idolatry to the true faith or else to shorten her days or take her quickly out of the way: which prayer was never heard nor read to have been used by any good Christian man against any Prince, though he were a pagan and infidel, and much less against any Christian Prince, and especially so virtuous a princess as our sovereign lady that now is is known to be, whose faith is and always hath been most true and catholic, and consonant and agreeing Christ’s Catholic Church throughout the world dispersed: for reformation whereof be it enacted…that every such person and persons which, since the beginning of this present Parliament have by express words and sayings prayed, required, or desired as is aforesaid, or hereafter shall pray by express words or sayings that God should shorten her days or take her out of the way (whose life Almighty God long preserve), or any such like, malicious prayer amounting to the same effect, their procurers and abettors therein, shall be taken, reputed, and judged traitors, and every such praying, requiring, or desiring shall be judged, taken, and reputed high treason, and the offenders therein, their procurers and abettors, being thereof lawfully convict according to the laws of this realm shall have, suffer, and forfeit as in cases of high treason.

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(ix) An Act whereby certain offences be made treasons. St. 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c.10, 1554 (Stat. Realm, IV, 255)

Forasmuch as the great mercy and clemency heretofore declared by the Queen’s Highness in releasing the penal laws made by her progenitors hath given occasion to many cankered and traitorous hearts to imagine, practise, and attempt things stirring the people to disobedience and rebellion against her Highness, common policy and duty of subjects require that some law be eftsoons established to restrain the malice of such wicked and evil doers whereby they may be prohibited to blow abroad such shameful slanders and lies as they daily invent and imagine of her Highness and of the King’s majesty her most lawful husband, which when they be heard cannot be but odible and detested of all good men considering they touch their majesties, upon whom dependeth the whole unity and universal wealth of this realm: in consideration whereof be it…enacted…. That if any person or persons, after the first day of February next to come, during the marriage between the King and the Queen’s majesties, do compass or imagine to deprive the King’s Majesty that now is from the having and enjoying jointly together with the Queen’s Highness the style, honour, and kingly name of the realms and dominions unto our said Sovereign Lady the Queen’s Highness appertaining, or to destroy the King that now is during the said matrimony, or to destroy the Queen’s Majesty that now is, or the heirs of her body begotten being kings or queens of this realm, or to levy war…[against the King the Queen or her heirs, or to depose the Queen or her heirs from the imperial crown]. And the same compasses or imaginations, or any of them, maliciously, advisedly, and directly shall or do utter by open preaching, express words or sayings; or if any person or persons after the said first day of February, by preaching, express words or sayings, shall maliciously, advisedly, and directly say, publish, declare, maintain, or hold opinion that the King’s Majesty that now is, during the said matrimony, ought not to have or enjoy jointly together with the Queen’s Majesty the style, honour, and kingly name of this realm, or that any person or persons, being neither the King’s or the Queen’s Majesty that now are, during the said matrimony between them, ought to have or enjoy the style, honour, and kingly name of this realm, or that the Queen’s Majesty that now is during her life is not or of right ought not to be queen of this realm, or after her death that the heirs of her Highness’s body being kings or queens of this realm of right ought not to be kings or queens of this realm or to have and enjoy the same, or that any person or persons other than the Queen’s Majesty that now is, during her life, ought to be queen of this realm, or after her death other than the heirs of her body being kings or queens of this realm, as long as any of her said heirs of her body begotten shall be in life, of right ought to have and enjoy the imperial crown of this realm; That then every such offender, being thereof duly convicted or attainted by the laws of this realm, their abettors, procurers, and counsellors, and all and every their comforters knowing the said offences or any of them be done, and being thereof convicted or attainted as is abovesaid, for his or their such offence shall forfeit and lose to the Queen’s Highness, her heirs and successors, all his and their goods and chattels and the whole issues and profits of his and their lands, tenements,

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and other hereditaments for term of the life of every such offender or offenders, and also shall have and suffer during his or their lives perpetual imprisonment. [c. 2. Persons guilty of offending for a second time shall be deemed guilty of high treason, while any ecclesiastic guilty of offence shall be deprived of their benefices and of all promotions.] c. 3. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons at any time after the said first day of February next to come, during the said marriage, compass or imagine the death of the King’s Majesty that now is, and the same maliciously, advisedly, and directly shall utter and attempt by any writing, printing, overt deed or act; or if any person or persons at any time after the said first day of February next coming shall maliciously, advisedly, and directly, by writing etc. shall deny the title of the King or the Queen or their issue they shall be deemed guilty of high treason.] [c. 4. Makes arrangements for the custody of the kingdom and of the heirs of the King and Queen during their minority, under the protection of the King.] [c. 5. If any person, during the time when the present king has charge of such heirs attempts to destroy the said king or to remove him from the government of such minors, and is lawfully convicted by the laws of this realm, then he shall be adjudged a high traitor.]

(x) The Indictment of Sir Thomas More (Hitchcock and Chambers, Harpsfield’s Life of More, 269–276) Proceedings against Sir Thomas More under the Act of Supremacy. Latin text (from the Baga de Secretis, Pouch 7, Bdle. 3, m. 7 in the Public Record Office). Although More’s early biographers made reference to the trial there is no adequate contemporary report, although some interesting discoveries have been made in recent years. An extended examination of the trial, bringing together the literature on these sources is E.E.Reynold, The Trial of St. Thomas More (1964).

MIDDLESEX. The Jurors present on behalf of the lord King that whereas by a certain act in this parliament of our lord the present King begun at London on the third day of the month of November in the twenty-first year of his reign, and thence prorogued on the same third day of November to the vill of Westminster in the County of Middlesex, and afterwards by various prorogations continued up to and into the third day of November in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, and then held at the said vill of Westminster, amongst the things it was enacted by authority of the same parliament that the same lord King, his heirs and successors accepted as kings of the kingdom were accepted and reputed the one supreme head on earth of the English Church, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the Imperial Crown of this kingdom as well the title and style thereof as all honours, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, advantages belonging and pertaining to the said dignity of supreme head of the same Church, just as is contained, together with other matters, more fully in the same Act.1 And whereas also by a certain other Act,2 passed in the 1 2

St. 26 Henry VIII, c. I. The Act of Supremacy. See below No. 100. St. 26 Henry VIII, c. 13. Treasons Act. See above. No. 48 (iii).

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said parliament held in the said twenty-sixth year, it was enacted, amongst other things, that if any person or persons shall have maliciously sought, wished, or desired, after the first day of February next following, by words or writing or shall be, act, have imagined, invented, practised, or attempted to do or commit any bodily harm to the most royal person of the lord King, of the Queen, or their heirs apparent, or to deprive them or one of them of the dignity, title, or name of their royal estate, that then every such person or persons, thus offending in any one of the premises after the said first day of February, and the accessories, supporters, advisers, and abettors being thereof lawfully convicted according to the laws and customs of this kingdom shall be adjudged to be traitors: And that every such offence in any of the premises which shall be committed or done after the said first day of February shall be reputed, received, and adjudged high treason: and offenders in the same, and their accessories, supporters, and abettors being lawfully convicted of any such offence as is aforesaid shall each have and suffer such pains of death and other penalties as are defined and accustomed in cases of high treason, just as is clearly laid down in the said other act. Nevertheless, one Thomas More, late of Chelsea Heath in the county of Middlesex, knight, not having God before his eyes, but seduced by the wiles of the devil, on the 7th day of May in the 27th year of the reign of the said lord King, fully cognisant of the aforesaid statutes, falsely, traitorously, and maliciously, at the Tower of London in the aforesaid county, contrary to his allegiance imagining, inventing, practising and attempting as well as willing and desiring to deprive the aforesaid most serene lord our King of the dignity, title, and name of his royal estate, viz. of his dignity, title, and name of supreme head on earth of the English Church, on the said 7th day of May, at the said Tower of London, in the aforesaid county, being examined and interrogated before Thomas Cromwell, knight, first secretary of the lord King, Thomas Bedyll, clerk, John Tregonell, doctor of laws, counsellors of the said lord king, and before divers other persons, true subjects of the said lord king, as to whether he received, accepted, and considered the same lord king as supreme head on earth of the English Church, and would be willing to receive, accept, and consider him so according to the form and effect of the statute aforesaid, already recited. Straightway the same Thomas maliciously held his peace and refused to make a direct answer to that question, and there and then uttered to the said true subjects of the lord king the following words in English, viz., “I will not meddle with any such matters. For I am fully determined to serve God, and to think upon his passion and my passage out of this world.” And afterwards, viz., on the 12th day of the said month of May in the aforesaid 27th year, the aforesaid Thomas More, knowing that one John Fisher, clerk, was then and for a long time previously had been incarcerated and detained in the said Tower of London for divers great misprisions committed by the same John against the royal majesty of the said lord our king, and that he had been examined by the said true subjects of the lord King concerning his receiving, acceptance, and consideration of the same lord King in the premises, and that the same John falsely, traitorously and maliciously had expressly refused thus to receive, accept and consider the aforesaid lord king as supreme head on earth of the English Church. And the same Thomas More, seeing that he himself and the aforesaid

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John Fisher would be examined and questioned about the premises, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously, wrote various letters on the said 12th day of May at the said Tower of London in the aforesaid county of Middlesex, continuing his malice aforesaid, and these he sent to the aforesaid John Fisher, then in the said Tower of London, and transmitted and caused them to be delivered by one George Gold, on the said day, year, and place. And by these his letters the aforesaid Thomas More falsely, maliciously, and traitorously advised and agreed with the aforesaid John Fisher in his said false treason, and by the same intimating to the same John the said silence which the same Thomas More maintained, as has been said, when he was questioned, and revealing in express written words his negative answer in English words, as written above. And further, by these same letters falsely, traiterously, and maliciously writing and asserting these English words, viz. “The act of Parliament” (meaning the said act recited above) “is like a sword with two edges. For if a man answer one way it will confound his soul, and if he answer the other way, it will confound his body”: And afterwards, the aforesaid Thomas More, fearing that it might chance that the aforesaid John Fisher in his answer on a repeat examination of the same John might utter the aforesaid words, written as is shown by the same Thomas to the same John Fisher, to the counsellors of the said lord King, the same Thomas More, at the aforesaid Tower, on the 26th day of May in the aforesaid 27th year by other his letters written and directed to the aforesaid John Fisher, and delivered at the aforesaid Tower, besought the same John Fisher, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously, that the same John should make his answer according to his own mind, and on no account to have anything to do with any such answer as the same Thomas had previously written to the aforesaid John Fisher lest perchance he would give the said counsellors of the lord king an opportunity for thinking that there was some kind of collusion between the same Thomas and John. Nevertheless, from the said letters of the aforesaid Thomas More previously written and sent and delivered to the said John Fisher as is stated it followed thus, viz. that the same John Fisher, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously taught and instructed by the said letters of the aforesaid Thomas More, and thence to some extent encouraged, afterwards, to wit on the 3rd day of June in the aforesaid 27th year, at the Tower aforesaid, when examined and questioned afresh on the premises by Thomas Audeley, knight, chancellor of England, Charles duke of Suffolk, Thomas earl of Wiltshire, noble subjects and counsellors of the said lord king, and other venerable subjects and counsellors of the same lord king remained quite silent, and refused to make a direct answer to this, but there and then uttered these following English words to the said nobles and venerable subjects and counsellors of the lord king, traitorously and maliciously, viz. “I will not meddle with that matter. For the Statute is like a two edged sword. And, if I should answer one way, I should offend my conscience. And if I should answer the other Way, I should put my life in jeopardy: wherefore, I will make no answer to that matter.” And the aforesaid Thomas More likewise on the said 3rd day of June in the aforesaid 27th year, at the Tower aforesaid, being again questioned about the premises by the said nobles and venerable subjects and counsellors of the lord king falsely, traitorously, and maliciously there and then persisted in his said silence,

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and refused to make a direct answer to the premises. Nay, falsely, traitorously, and maliciously there and then imagining, inventing, practising, and attempting and willing and seeking to deprive our aforesaid lord king of the dignity, title, and name of his royal estate aforesaid, and to sow and engender sedition and malignity in the hearts of true subjects of the lord king towards the same lord king, spoke openly the following words in English to the aforesaid nobles and venerable subjects and counsellors of the said lord king, viz., “The law and statute whereby the king is made supreme head, as is aforesaid, is like a sword with two edges: for, if a man say that the same laws are good, then it is dangerous to the soul: and if he say contrary to the said statute, then it is death to the body. Wherefore I will make none other answer thereunto, because I will not be the occasion of the shortening of my life.” And further, the aforesaid Jurors say that the aforesaid Thomas More and John Fisher, in order to conceal their aforesaid false and most damnable proposed treason, burned all the letters written and delivered one to the other immediately after reading them. And after all these and singular premises as shown had been said and done as described, viz., on the 12th day of June in the aforesaid 27th year, there came to the aforesaid Thomas More at the aforesaid Tower of London, Richard Rich, solicitor-general to the said lord king, and after an interview there and then had between the same Thomas More and Richard Rich on various points touching the premises the same Richard Rich charitably sounded the aforesaid Thomas More as to how far he would conform to the above-written acts and laws. To that the same Thomas said by way of answer to the aforesaid Richard Rich, “Your conscience will save you and my conscience will save me.” And the aforesaid Richard Rich protesting that he had no commission or mandate then to treat or communicate with the same Thomas More on that affair, asked the same Thomas More outright, if it were enacted by the authority of parliament that the same Richard Rich should be King, and that if anyone were to deny this it would be treason, of what offence would the aforesaid Thomas More be guilty if the said Thomas were to say that the aforesaid Richard Rich was King? Further, the same Richard said that certainly there would be no offence in his conscience: but that the same Thomas More was bound to say so and to accept the same Richard inasmuch as that the consent of the aforesaid Thomas More was imposed by act of parliament. To this the aforesaid Thomas More straightway said in reply that he would give offence if he were to say no, because he had been bound by an act inasmuch as he could show his consent to it. But he said this example would be a trifling one. Whereupon the aforesaid Thomas More straightway said to the aforesaid Richard Rich that he would put forward another example which was more powerful, saying: “Suppose it were enacted by parliament that God was not God, and that if anyone were to deny this it would be treason. If the question were put to you, Richard Rich, would you want to say that God was not God according to the statute. And if you were to say this, would younot give offence?” To this the same Richard, answering the aforesaid Thomas More straightway said, “No certainly not: for it is quite impossible that God should not be God. And since your example is so exalted I will put to you this ordinary example, viz. “Since you have known that our lord King is constituted supreme head on earth of the English Church why should you not, Master More, so affirm and

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accept him, as in the case in which I was created King, in which case you granted that we should be obliged thus to affirm and accept me as King?” To this the aforesaid Thomas More falsely, traitorously, and maliciously persisting in his sayings, treason, malice, and wishing to support and defend his aforesaid traiterous and malicious proportion straightly answered the aforesaid Richard Rich thus, viz. “that these cases were not alike, because a king can be made by parliament, and can be deposed by parliament, and to this act each subject can signify his agreement in parliament. But in the matter of the primacy a subject cannot be bound because his consent cannot be shown by him in parliament. And although a King may be thus accepted in England, yet in very many places abroad men would not accept it.” And so the aforesaid Jurors say that the aforesaid Thomas More falsely, traitorously, and maliciously by art imagined, invented, practised, and attempted to deprive completely the aforesaid most serene lord our King of his said dignity, title, and name of his aforesaid royal estate, viz. of his dignity, title, and name of supreme head on earth of the English Church in manifest contempt of the same lord King and to the derogation of his royal crown, against the form and effect of the aforesaid statutes. And against the peace of the same lord King.

(xi) Bill of attainder of Thomas Cromwell (L.P. XV, 498; Burnet, IV, 415)

Attainder of Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, whom the King has raised from a very base and low degree to the state of an earl, and who nevertheless, as is proved by many “personages of great honour, worship, and discretion,” has been the most detestable traitor that has been seen during the King’s reign, and has of his own authority set at liberty divers persons convicted of misprision of treason and others apprehended upon suspicion of treason; and also has, for sums of money, granted licences for the export of money, corn, &c., contrary to the King’s proclamations; and also has appointed commissioners in important affairs without the King’s knowledge; and also “being a person of as poor and low degree as few be” within this realm, has said publicly, “That he was sure of you” (i.e. the King), and it is detestable that any subject should speak so of his sovereign; and also has given passports to divers persons to go over sea without search; and also, being a detestable heretic, has dispersed into all shires false and erroneous books, many of which were printed beyond seas, tending to the discredit of the blessed sacrament of the altar and other articles of religion declared by the King by the authority of Parliament, and has caused parts of the said books to be translated into English, and although the report made by the translator thereof has been that the matter was expressly against the sacrament of the altar, has, after reading the translation, affirmed the heresy so translated to be good; and also has obstinately maintained that every Christian may be a minister of the said sacrament as well as a priest; and also, being the King’s vicegerent to reform errors and direct ecclesiastical causes, has, without the King’s knowledge, licensed heretics to preach and teach, and has actually written to sheriffs in sundry shires, as if it were the King’s pleasure, to set at large many false heretics; and also upon complaints

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being made to him of heretics, has defended the said heretics, and rebuked the credible persons, their accusers, &c.; and moreover, 31 March 30 Hen. VIII., in the parish of St. Peter the Poor in London, upon information made to him against certain new preachers, as Robert Barnes and other, whereof part be now in the Tower for preaching against the King’s proclamations, did arrogantly say in defence of their preaching, “That if the King would turn from it, yet I would not turn; and if the King did turn and all his people I would fight in the field in my own person with my sword in my hand against him and all other,” and held up his dagger saying, “Or else this dagger thrust me to the heart if I would not die in that quarrel against them all; and I trust if I live one year or two it shall not lie in the King’s power to resist or let it if he would,” and affirming the words by a great oath &c.; and moreover by bribery and extortion he obtained innumerable sums of money, and, being so enriched, has held the nobles of the Realm in great disdain, “and being put in remembrance of others of his estate which your Highness hath called him unto offending in like treasons,” said, 31 Jan. 31 Hen. VIII., in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, Midd., “That if the lords would handle him so, that he would give them such a breakfast as never was made in England, and that the proudest of them should know.” To suffer as a heretic or traitor, at the King’s pleasure, and forfeit all property held since 31 March, 30 Hen. VIII.

(xii) The bill of attainder of Queen Katherine Howard. St. 33 Hen. VIII, c. 21, 1542 (Stat. Realm, III, 857)

…It may therefore please your highness of your most excellent and accustomable goodness, and for the entire love favour and hearty affection that your majesty hath always heretofore borne and yet beareth to the commonwealth of this your realm of England, and for the conservation of your most excellent Highness and posterity, and of the good peace unity and rest of us your most bounden and obedient subjects, to grant and assent at the most humble desire and petition of your loving and obedient subjects the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in this present parliament assembled, that this their lawful indictments and attainders of such as have lately suffered may be approved by the authority of this present parliament: and that it may be enacted that the said Queen Katherine and Jane Lady Rochford for their said abominable and detestable treasons by them and every of them most abominably and traitorously committed and done against your majesty and this your realm shall be by the authority of this present parliament convicted and attainted of High Treason; and that…they…shall have and suffer pains of death, loss of goods, chattels, debts, farms, and all other things as in cases of high treason by the laws of this your realm hath been accustomed granted and given to the Crown…. III. And…forasmuch as these aforesaid most abominable and detestable high treasons have so much touched the peril of your most royal person, the danger and trouble of this your whole realm, and in respect thereof it were requisite that condign punishment should be had and speedily provided for for the rest of them which yet have not suffered, and not to be delayed nor protracted to the end or prorogation of this present parliament, which is most chiefly called and summoned for other general causes and matters for the wealth of

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this realm, therefore your most humble and obedient subjects…most humbly beseech your most royal majesty that when they with one assent be agreed and accorded upon this act, for that it should not be requisite to trouble your majesty for access in your most royal person to the upper house to assent to the same, nor convenient that your majesty’s royal assent should be protracted to the end or prorogation of this parliament, that then it may please your majesty for example of speedy punishment of such detestable and abominable treasons, to grant your most royal assent to the said act by your letters patent to be signed with your most gracious hand, and to be put unto your great seal of England, and so to be notified and published in the higher house to the lords spiritual and temporal and your commons in this parliament there to be assembled for that purpose, and after that to be and stand as a perfect act, and to be put in due execution accordingly with convenient speed.

B. THE SECRETARIAT 49. Development of the office of King’s Secretary, From various sources The office of King’s Secretary underwent considerable changes during this period. In the later medieval period the office was of little political or administrative importance, the holder being little more than a confidential clerk with responsibility for dealing with the king’s correspondence and the custody of the signet. In the early years of Henry VIII’s reign men like Ruth all, Pace, Knight, and Gardiner increased the prestige of the office, but it remained for Cromwell to transform both the functions-and the powers of the Secretary during the years he held that office, from 1534 to 1540. After his fall an important change was made by the appointment of two principal secretaries. The following documents illustrate some of these developments.

(i) A letter from Pace to Wolsey, 1518 Ellis, Orig. Lett. 3rd. Ser. i. 187.

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lease it your Grace this is to certify the same that this same hour I have received your Grace’s letters dated the 17. of this present month with a packet directed unto the king’s highness which I shall immediately deliver unto his grace after dinner, and then demand licence according to your grace’s commandment to repair unto the same in all convenient haste. And where your grace’s pleasure is that I should move the king’s highness to read himself such letters as be come out of Spain, your grace shall understand that no letters be sent unto his highness under your grace’s packet, but his highness doth read them every word….

(ii) A letter from Pace to Wolsey, 1521 (State Papers, 1, 79)

Please it Your Grace. I understand, by the relation of Sir Thomas More, to my great discomfort, that ye are displeased with me for three causes; whereof one is the rehearsal of your letters directed to the king’s grace, diminutely, and that I do not well inform the king of the same; the other, the obtaining of the king’s letters in favour of a canon of Yorkshire;

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and the third, a bill signed by the king, for a servant of the Master of the Rolls to be preferred by my procurement, to an office in the Chancery lately vacant. In the sorrow that I have for this your grace’s displeasure, I have also this comfort, that the truth plainly known in all the premises, ye neither can, nor will, of your honour and wisdom, persevere in your said displeasure; for I will evidently prove that I have, in no part of the same, offended your grace, in deed or thought. And as to the first, I never rehearsed your grace’s letters, diminutely or fully, but by the king’s express commandment, who readeth all your letters with great diligence, and mine answers made to the same, not by my device, but by his instructions. And as for one of my letters which was unto your grace very displeasing, as it appeared by your answer to the same, I had at that time devised a letter in the same matter far discrepant from that ye received; but the king would not approve the same, and said that he would himself devise an answer to your grace’s letters sent to him at that time; and commanded me to bring your said letters into his privy chamber, with pen and ink, and there he would declare unto me what I should write. And when his grace had your said letters, he read the same three times, and marked such places as it pleased him to make answer unto, and commanded me to write and to rehearse, as liked him, and not further to meddle with that answer. So that I herein nothing did but obeyed the king’s commandment, as to my duty pertaineth, and especially at such time as he would, upon good grounds, be obeyed, whosoever spake to the contrary. As touching untrue information, to be made by me to the king of your grace’s letters, I am sorry ye do lay that to my charge; for if I did untruly inform his highness of any part of the same letters, which be of so great weight and importance, I should not only deal unkindly and falsely with your grace, but also be a manifest traitor to the king; which crime in me, by the grace of God, shall never be found: for though I lack wit, yet for faith and truth, I dare compare with any servant the king hath. Furthermore, if I would inform the king otherwise of your grace’s letters than the truth is, I could not so do without great shame, and to mine own evident ruin; for his grace doth read them all himself, and examine the same at leisure with great deliberation and hath better wit to understand them than I to inform him. As to the said canon, he sued here to the king, by a bill put up unto his grace, without mine assent or knowledge, the contents whereof his highness commanded me to declare unto him; and when I had so done, he said his petition was reasonable, and commanded me to make him a letter, directed to your grace’s dean of your cathedral church of York, comformable to your grace’s own letters, the copy whereof he shewed here; comprising nothing but that he or one of the same house, being able and meet, and not otherwise, might be preferred before a stranger, in the new election of a prior there. For which letters I never made suit, for the said canon is to me utterly unknown; but the king himself because he made suit to his grace as founder, granted unto him his petition, approving the same to be just and honest. I perceive by your said dean’s letters to me directed, in this cause, that he hath been untruly informed that I shewed great favour to the said canon, at his being here; and, upon such information, he hath otherwise written unto you than the truth is: which I am sure he would not have done, if he had received mine answer, before he had to your grace so written. Finally, the Master of the Rolls’ chaplain came lately hither to me, in his master’s

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name, and shewed unto me of the vacation of an office of little value, vacant in the Chancery, and that his said master was desirous to prefer one of his trusty servants, meet for the same, thereunto, as 4 of his predecessors had done successively by the king’s grant, and desired me, as friend to his said master, to move the king herein. And upon the said information I did so, and his grace was contented to give the said office to the said Master of the Rolls’ servant, and signed his bill. And whereas I now understand, by the said Sir Thomas More, that the said office is in your grace’s gift, that was to me utterly unknown; and the contrary appeared, by the king’s grant of the said office, made to him that last had enjoyed the same, which grant is forthcoming; and he, being in life, reported that he obtained the signature of his bill by your grace’s aid and procurement, then being Almoner. And thus I have nothing done in this cause, but upon some substantial ground, at the instance of my faithful friend, in his absence, who hath deserved of the king’s grace, for his long and acceptable service, as great favour as his predecessors hath had in that room, aforetime. And for to return to relation and information made by me to the king of your grace’s writings and acts there, I have so ordered myself therein, that I have deserved thanks, and no blame, as the king’s grace can well testify and I could and would particularly declare, if the matter touched not myself. And as I have done, so I will continue; desiring your grace to accept my poor but faithful service, as it is indeed; setting apart all other men’s untrue relation made to the contrary, and also your own suspicion, if any such be; for ye have no servant or friend living, that could have served your grace more faithfully than I have done, during this your absence, with continual study to do and procure, with all diligence, that that might be to your contentation and pleasure. And this, in most humble manner, I desire your grace to accept and take in good part these my rude letters, written in the defence of myself, and comprising nothing but plain truth. And thus Jesu preserve your grace in long health and continual prosperity. From Windsor, this 29 of October, by your grace’s most humble and faithful servant.

(signed) Ri. Pace (iii) Letter of Stephen Gardiner to Wolsey, 28 July 1529 1 (J.A.Muller (ed.). Letters of Stephen Gardiner, 21)

Pleaseth it your Grace to understand that at my repair unto the King’s Highness this morning, I shewed unto his Grace the pollicitacion conceived by my Lord Campegius, which liked his Highness very well; insomuch as he said it could not be better devised, nor with more ample words. I should have come unto your Grace, to have declared this by mouth, but that his Highness, having before my coming appointed me a chamber and spoken for mine allowance, gave me special commandment not to depart hence, with this addition, nescitis neque diem neque horam. So as looking this night that his Highness will call for me ut experiatur et cognoscat how I will follow his Grace’s commandment in that behalf, I dare not depart hence; trusting that your Grace will consider this accordingly. Thus I pray Almighty God to preserve your good Grace. 1

Gardiner entered on his duties as Principal Secretary on this day.

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(iv) Warrant for the appointment of two Secretaries of State (State Papers, 1540, 1, 623)

First, that Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph Sadleir, and every of them, shall have the name and office of the king’s majesty’s Principal Secretaries during his highness’ pleasure; and shall receive, to be equally divided between them, all such fees, droits, duties, and commodities, not hereafter specially limited, as have do, or ought to belong to the office of his majesty’s Principal Secretary. Item, his highness hath resolved, that every of the said Thomas Wriothesley, and Ralph Sadleir shall, for the time of their being in the said office, have and keep two his grace’s seals, called his Signets; and with the same, seal all such things, warrants, and writings, both for inward and outward parties, as have been accustomed to be passed heretofore by the same; every of the said Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph Sadleir, nevertheless, to keep a book containing all such things as shall pass by either of their hands, and the one to be made ever privy to the other’s register. Item, his majesty is contented that every of the said Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph Sadleir shall have an ordinary chamber or lodging within the gates of his grace’s house, in all places where the same may be, conveniently furnished; and every of them to have like bouge of court, in all things as is appointed to the Secretary. Item, his majesty is pleased and ordaineth, that all such times as the lord privy seal shall be present in the court, the said Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph Sadleir shall accompany him at his table; and when he shall be absent out of the court, then they to have his diet for themselves and such other as be appointed to that table. Item, his majesty ordaineth, that in all councils, as well in his majesty’s household as in the Star Chamber and elsewhere, all lords, both of the temporalty and clergy, shall sit above them; and likewise the treasurer, comptroller, Master of the Horse, and Vicechamberlain of his highness’ household; then next after to be placed the said Principal Secretaries, and so, after them, all such other councillors as shall resort and have place in any of the said councils. And albeit that by a statute lately made the office of the Principal Secretary should be and sit continually in the Upper House of the Parliament, upon one of the woolsacks, yet his highness, considering the good service that the said Thomas Wriothesley and Ralph Sadleir may do him in the Nether House, where they have now places, doth ordain that during his pleasure they shall use themselves as hereafter ensueth; that is to say, on all such days as the Speaker shall be present, or that the king’s majesty shall be present in person, they shall attend on his highness and shall both have their places upon the said woolsack according to the said statute; and at all other times, the one of them to be one week in the High House, and the other in the Low House, and so he that was in the Lower House, to be the next week in the Higher House; changing their places by course, unless it be upon some special day for matters to be treated in the Nether House; at which time they shall may (sic) both be present there together accordingly and in all other places within his grace’s household, and elsewhere, his pleasure is that they, and every of them, shall have, enjoy, and use the place of the Principal Secretary as heretofore hath been accustomed.

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C. CHAMBER AND HOUSEHOLD 50. An impression of Henry VII’s financial policy. From Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia (D.Hay (ed.), Anglica Historia, 127–131) This interpretation of Henry VII’s financial policy has left an impression upon most later accounts of the reign. Most of them suggest that as Henry became more firmly established on the throne his financial policy, largely through the oppressive practices for which Empson and Dudley were responsible, degenerated into an unscrupulous exploitation of the subject for the gratification of the king’s miserly instincts. For some time now there has been a tendency to modify the severity of this criticism of Henry’s agents. There should now be support for a revised estimate of Henry VII’s general financial policy along more generous lines such as is indicated in G.R.Elton, “Henry VII: rapacity and remorse” (The Historical Journal, 1, 1958, 21–39). There the view is expressed that throughout his reign Henry exploited his legal rights to the full, but that “none of his activities can fairly be described as rapacious, that there was no deterioration in 1504, or at any time, and that the remorse he is said to have expressed meant nothing”. This opinion has been controverted by J.P.Cooper, “Henry VII’s last years reconsidered”, ibid., II, 1959; and see also G.R.Elton, “Henry VII: A Restatement”, ibid., IV, 1961.

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enry, after he had subdued in this way the final conspiracy made against him, and established peaceful relations with all neighbouring kings, could now after many anxieties and dangers relax his mind in peace when, while he was enjoying his deserved quiet, he became at once preoccupied by a fresh care. For he began to treat his people with more harshness and severity than had been his custom, in order (as he himself asserted) to ensure they remained more thoroughly and entirely in obedience to him. The people themselves had another explanation for his action, for they considered they were suffering not on account of their own sins but on account of the greed of their monarch. It is not, indeed, clear whether at the start it was greed; but afterwards greed did become apparent, so irresolute, vacillating and corrupted are all human purposes. Indeed nothing could certainly be found wanting in King Henry which should be found in the best of princes. But, lest he alone of all men should have been universally blessed, behold, while employing harshness against his people, he gradually laid aside all moderation and sank into a state of avarice, which—since it is itself without limits—torments beyond all bounds those whom it once preoccupies. Evil fortune blighted Henry in this manner so that he, who already excelled other princes in his many virtues, should not also be pre-eminent in subduing all vices. The king wished (as he said) to keep all Englishmen obedient through fear, and he considered that whenever they gave him offence they were actuated by their great wealth. He began severely to punish all offenders who had committed any crime prohibited and forbidden by the laws of the realm or municipal regulations. All of his subjects who were men of substance, when found guilty of whatever fault, he harshly fined in order, by a penalty which especially deprives of their fortunes not only the men themselves but even their descendants, to make the population less well able to undertake any upheaval and so discourage at the same time all offences. This drastic method of inflicting punishment was so rapidly applied that all

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people, in terror of losing their wealth, at once began to behave themselves and (as the saying goes) to withdraw into their shells. But, lo and behold, no sooner had Henry embarked on this course of action than at once a multitude of informers, a type of creature always most ruinous in any state, converged from all directions on the court. They dangled before the king’s eyes ways of making money, and poured into his ears the crimes of many, by which the treasury could be filled with enormous spoils. At first the king, on the urgent advice of his faithful counsellors, refused to listen, but later attracted by the chance of advancing his private interest, he began gradually to pay attention to the informers, and at length to listen to them eagerly. Thus the good prince by degrees lost all sense of moderation and was led into avarice. The informers when they saw they could easily approach the king, thereupon indiscriminately and dishonourably entrapped and accused men of all sorts and conditions, and charged them with a variety of crimes. While the informers were thus trying to twist the king’s severity into brutality, there then came on the scene two astute lawyers, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley. They very soon claimed great weight with the monarch and, since they were educated men, he rapidly appointed them as judges to pronounce judicial sentence on wrongdoers. The pair, probably realising that they had been given the job by the king not so much to administer justice as to strip the population of its wealth, without respite and by every means fair and foul vied with each other in extorting money. Whomsoever, whether a nobleman or a man of the people, the informers charged with the flimsiest or vaguest false accusations, Empson and Dudley condemned and deprived of their property. Every day even laws which had been anciently revoked and invalidated they called into use again, brought into the light of day and at their discretion whom they would they judged to have offended against these old laws. And they proceeded against not the poor but the wealthy, churchmen, rich magnates, even the intimates of the king himself, and any and every individual of fortune—not only the living, but the dying, and those who were long since dead, if by chance they had left property. Moreover they devised many fresh ways of satisfying the king’s avarice while they were eagerly serving as the ministers of their own private fortunes. In addition, they dabbled in religious as well as secular matters and considered that everything had its price, so that some were promoted to dignities who were most unworthy of the position. While such methods were in vogue, you could have seen daily in the halls of Empson’s and Dudley’s houses a host of convicted persons awaiting sentence, to whom wretchedly evasive replies were given, so that they were exhausted by the duration of their anxiety and voluntarily gave up their money. For many preferred to do this, rather than remain longer in that sort of agony. Thus through the agency of these two men, who behaved as if they were plotting to snatch all lay and ecclesiastical wealth, the most savage harshness was made complete. In the meantime serious men who were unwilling to tolerate this state of affairs urgently entreated the two judges to refrain from plotting damage for wretched mortals and from conspiring their deaths (for many indeed died, stricken by grief at the loss of their possessions). Some important clergymen also publicly preached their disgust at such proceedings and at the same time exposed the king’s avarice. But these remonstrances were of no avail. Shortly afterwards the king died and the two extortioners

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(as we shall presently mention in the life of Henry VIII) were deprived of their lives, just as they had deprived others of their possessions. While this state of affairs persisted no one dared to complain, at all events openly, but all greatly feared for themselves and their interests, since the king claimed that he tolerated these exactions of set plan, in order thereby to maintain the population in obedience. Thus we mortals, relying on our reason, are accustomed to excuse our sins to God, who is the most unerring witness of our minds and who cannot be deceived. For the rest, avarice (as we have showed) now so dominated and penetrated into all activities, that it was truly burdensome to his people and brought no profit to the monarch. For although the king was not unaware that, as a result of this ruthless extortion, there were many who rather dreaded than loved him, his sole interest was to ensure his safety by supervising all details of government; through which preoccupation he at last so wore out his mind andbody that his energies gradually declined, he fell into a state of weakness and from that, not long after, came to his death. Had he been spared to live a little longer it may be believed that he would have established a more moderate manner of conducting all his affairs. For in the year prior to his death, learning that there was widespread complaint concerning the plundering in which the two judges daily indulged, he is said to have decided to restrain them, to deal more gently with his people and to restore what the two had illegally seized, so that thereafter justice and mercy might flourish throughout his kingdom. But even while he was contemplating this reform death cut him off. When he realised he was not to be allowed to live longer he laid down in his will that all were to be given back such possessions as had been illegally carried off to the treasury by those two most brutal extortioners.

51. Commissions illustrating Henry VII’s exploitation of feudal dues and other sources of revenue. From the Patent Rolls

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ommission to John Venables, esquire, and Bartholemew Westby, learned in the law, to enquire of all lands in the counties of Northampton, Leicester, Somerset, Dorset, Kent, and Middlesex, which have, or ought to have come to the king’s hands by reason of any attaint or forfeiture, and are not granted away; and to seize such lands into the king’s hands and to make returns of the inquisitions into Chancery. (C.P.R. Hen. VII, 1, 71, 15 January 1486)

Commission to John Fissher, serjeant-at-law, John Mordaunte, Richard Godfrey, Richard Sheldon, John Stanford and William Collet, to enquire in the county of Bedford of all concealed lands, goods and chattels, and of lands given in mortmain without licence, and of all lands held in chief, purchased, alienated or entered into without licence; and of all lands acquired by Edward IV and Richard III, and who were enfeoffed of them to the use of those kings; and of the goods and chattels forfeited to the king by Richard, late duke of Gloucester, John, late duke of Norfolk, Thomas late earl of Surrey, Francis Lovell, late Viscount Lovell, Walter Devereux, late lord of Ferres, knight, John Zouche, knight,…and to certify the king hereof in the Exchequer; also of all lands which the persons named in a schedule annexed held at their death in the said county. (Ibid. 1, 133, 7 August 1486)

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Commission to Richard Welby, William Paynell, Reynold Gayton, and John Paynell to enquire by jury of the county of Lincoln, whether Thomas Markham of Stradbroke, co. Lincoln, is a lunatic. Grant to John, archbishop of Canterbury, the pope’s legate, of the keeping of all the lands of Thomas Markham, a lunatic, in the counties of Norfolk, Lincoln, Bedford, Bucks., Rutland, Northampton, Leicester, Cambridge and Exeter, and elsewhere in England, with the wardship and marriage of his son John Markham, a minor, and so from heir to heir. (Ibid. I, 213, 226, 29 August 1487, 18 June 1488) Commission to Henry Wentworth, knight, Thomas Fitzwilliam, knight, John Savell, knight, John Pykerying, knight, Ralph Langford, knight, Thomas Wrytteley, knight, Ralph Shirley, knight, Thomas Babyngton, knight, Thomas Weteley, knight, Thomas de Kyme, John Cutte, Andrew Dymmok, John Luthyngton, Thomas Welby, Nicholas Knyston, Richard Chomley, Nicholas Linthorp, John Agard, Reynold Gayton, John Etton and Thurstan Alyn to enquire of all the lordships, manors, lands, tenements and advowsons of churches in the counties of Lincoln, York, Leicester, Rutland, Stafford and Derby which ought to belong to the king, and are concealed, and of the value thereof; and of all wards, marriages, reliefs, escheats, goods of outlaws, felons and fugitives, forfeitures and concealments of offices, lands given in mortmain, lands in chief acquired or alienated without licence, intrusions upon lands held in chief and acquisitions of lands of Edward IV, Richard III, and natural fools, and to supervise and approve the same. (C.P.R. Hen. VII, II, 33, 18 July 1495) Commission to Arthur prince of Wales, William bishop of Lichfield, and Coventry, Thomas earl of Derby, George Stanley, knight, lord Strange, John Arundell, chancellor of the said prince, Edward Stanley, knight, Richard Pole, knight, chamberlain of the said prince, Richard Crofte, knight, steward of the household of the said prince, Henry Vernon, knight, comptroller of the household of the said prince, Edward Pykeryng, knight, David Philipp, esquire, vice-chamberlain of the said prince, Robert Froste, clerk, almoner of the said prince, John Mordaunt, Thomas Inglefeld, Thomas Poyntz, esquire, and Henry Wyotte to inquire of the lands and possessions in North Wales and the marches thereof, and the counties of Chester, Flint and Salop, of William Stanley, knight, attainted of high treason, and to take charge of the same. (Ibid, II, 29, 8 February 1495) Henry VII’s use of fines, obligations, and recognisances for augmenting the royal revenue was the subject of severe criticism by contemporaries, and the cause of the unpopularity of Empson and Dudley who were largely responsible for collecting them. Obligations were bonds, with specific conditions annexed, for the payment of money, fulfilment of a covenant, or the performance of a specific duty such as keeping the peace. Recognizances were obligations acknowledging a previously authorised debt or stipulated agreement of record frequently contingent upon future behaviour. The arbitrary use of these instruments was recognized early in Henry VIII’s reign, when many which had been contracted in his father’s reign were cancelled. W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration; F.C.Dietz, English Government Finance, 1485–1558.

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John Young, Master of the Rolls. Warrant to cancel 11 recognisances, amounting to 5,100 marks, made by Sir George Hastynges, 23 Henry VII to Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Richard Emson, Sir John Huse, Edmund Dudley and John Ernley, the king’s attorney. (L. P. 1, pt. i, 289, g. 6, December 1509) Henry, earl of Northumberland. Pardon and release of 10,000 l. which Henry VII recovered against the said earl, in the Common Pleas, for the abduction of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir John Hastynges; and release of a recognizance of 5,000 l. made by the said earl 20 Nov. 23 Hen. VII. (L. P. 1, i, 414, g. 58, March 1510) Sir Nicholas Vaux and Sir Thomas Parre. Warrant to Sir Thomas Lovell, councillor, treasurer of the Household to make a release and discharge of the arrears of 9,000 marks (2,400 being paid) due to the King by Sir Nicholas Vaux and Sir Thomas Parre (then esquire), by indenture of 10 July 22 Hen. VII made with Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Henry Wyot, and Edmund Dudley for a pardon to be granted to Anne and Maud Grene, daughters of Sir Thomas Grene, dec., now wives to the said Vaux and Parre. (L. P. 1, i, 218, g. 53, October 1509) John Young, Master of the Rolls. To cancel two recognizances of 160 l., made by William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, on 28 Nov. last, to Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Robert Southwell and Edward Belknap, for Henry VII., for two sums of 75 l. each, which the said Lord owed to John Chesylden, who died outlawed. Lord Mountjoy to be bound in another recognizance for 60 l. to Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Henry Marney, and Sir Thomas Inglefield, for payment of 50 l. to the King at the Feast of All Saints next. (L. P. 1, i, 257, g. 80, November 1509)

52. The new officials for exploiting revenue. Illustrated from the Patent Rolls Appointment of Richard Sheldon and John Clerk as auditors of the accounts of bailiffs, farmers, reeves, and other ministers of the possessions late of George, duke of Clarence, in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, Stafford, Salop, Oxford, Berks, Gloucester, Hertford, Northampton, Rutland, Essex, Hereford, Kent, Devon, Southampton, Wilts., Somerset and Dorset, and in the Isle of Wight, such as during the minority of Edward, son of the said duke, with the ancient wages & c. Henry Harper or John Toke took, and their reasonable expenses on those days when they go to the said possessions to make their audit. (C.P.R. Hen. VII, 1, 9, 20 September 1485) Appointment of John Dawney, Nicholas Leventhorp, and Richard Fitzwilliam to survey, approve, and let to farm for one year all lands late of Thomas, late lord of Roos, in the counties of York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland, as well as all other lands in those counties in the king’s hands by reason of minority of heirs or forfeiture: and to be receivers-general of such lands. (Ibid. I, 56, 3 January 1486)

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Appointment during pleasure of William Mystilbroke and Richard Grenewey as auditors of accounts of the principality of North Wales, in the counties of Caernarvon, Anglesea, and Merioneth, and the earldom of Chester in the counties of Flynt and Chester from Michaelmas last (Ibid. I, 219, 4 August 1488) Grant for life in reversion to Robert Suthwell of the office of feodary of the honour of Clare and of all honours, castles, manors and lordships in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Essex and Hertford now in possession of Cecily, duchess of York, and which on her death should come to the king’s hands; with 10 l. a year, to wit, 40 s. for each county. (Ibid. 11, 9, 10 February 1495) Appointment during pleasure, of Benedict Davy, as feodary of all the possessions held of the king in Bucks., Beds., with authority to take into the king’s hands the persons of heirs within age, and deliver them to Sir Thomas Lovell, Treasurer of the Household and master of such heirs: and, after inquisition before escheators or other commissioners to take lands into the king’s hands, and to be general receiver of such lands. (L.P. 1, ii, 2684, g. 17, 1514) Grant during pleasure to the king’s servitor, Richard Bedenne, of the office of searcher and surveyor of all hides tanned and to be tanned in England, with power to enter houses, dwellings, and tanneries or bercarias of all whitesawyers and tanners or cordwainers and bercariorum, and all fairs, markets, and places within liberties and without, and seize all hides improperly tanned; with a grant of a moiety of all forfeitures seized for bad or insufficient tanning, according to the form of the act hereupon. (C.P.R. Hen. VII. 1, 121, 20 July 1486) Commission to Robert Willoughby, knight, lord of Broke, John Byconell, knight, Amias Paulet, knight, Walter Enderby, Morgan Kidwelly, Thomas Grenvyle, Roger Holand, John Heyron, John More, William Twyneho, Richard Eliot, and John Michell to enquire by juries of the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, and Wilts, touching concealed manors, lands, and advowsons, wardships, marriages, reliefs, escheats, forfeited goods of outlawed persons, felons, and fugitives, concealments of officers, lands given in mortmain, and lands held in chief of the crown bought or alienated and entered without licence: and touching all lands purchased, by Edward IV and Richard III in the said counties; and to return the inquisitions into Chancery on the quinzain of Easter next. (Ibid, 1, 476, 10 November 1493) William, bishop of Lincoln, Master Charles Bothe, clerk. Sir William Uvedale, Sir Ranulph Brereton, Edward Guldeford…and John Wren one of the King’s auditors to be commissioners for the lordships and manors of Denbigh and Denbighland, the town Ruthyn, the lordship or manor of Deffrynclod, and the lordship of Chirk and Chirkland with Kenlleth Owen; to take fealties, conclude for recognisances, mises, tallages and

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other dues, and to be surveyors and appraisers, with power to examine letters patent of all officers and ministers there, and cancel such as are insufficient, and also to determine accounts, levy fines, let farms &c. (L.P. 1, i, 414, g. 48, March 1510) Appointment of William Mistilbroke to be auditor of all accounts of receivers, bailiffs, reeves, collectors, warreners, foresters, bedels and other ministers and officers of the king of the castle and lordship of Cardiff and the county of Glamorgan and of the castle and lordship of Bergevenny with all members, issues and profits pertaining to the foregoing; and of all manors, lordships and lands in the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, and Southampton called “Salesbury londes” and “Spenser londs,” so long as these are in the king’s hands; to hold by himself or deputy, for whom he will be responsible, during good behaviour, from Michaelmas last, with the ancient and accustomed wages at the hands of the said receivers, &c. (C.P.R. Henry VII, 1, 6, 24 September 1485) Appointment of Thomas Rogiers and John Knyght, as auditors of all lands in England and the marches of Wales, late of Henry, duke of Buckingham, which are in the king’s hands, except those assigned in jointure and dower to Katharine, duchess of Buckingham: to hold the said office during the minority of Edward son of the said duke, with 20 marks a year and other profits belonging to the said office. (Ibid. 48, 29 December 1485) (a) Keeper of the Jewels Grant, during pleasure, to the king’s servant William Tyler, knight, of the office of keeper of the king’s jewels with 50 l. a year and 20 l. a year for two yeomen under him at the receipt of the Exchequer, from Michaelmas last, from which day he has exercised the office. (Ibid., 1, 110, 3 July 1486) (b) Clerk of the Jewels Grant for life from Michaelmas last to Henry Wyot, clerk of the king’s jewels for his service done in England and beyond seas, of the office of constable of the castle of Norwich, and keeper of the said castle and of the gaol there; with wages, fees and profits due to the office of ancient time in as ample manner as John Cray had in the time of Richard II, out of the issues of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, on surrender by him of letters patent dated 11 October, in the first year, granting to him for life, the office of keeper of the castle and gaol of Norwich, with wages by the hands of the sheriff of Norfolk. (Ibid, 1, 126, 14 September 1486)

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53. The Surveyor of the King’s Prerogative. From the Patent Rolls The significance of this record (C.P.R. Hen. VII, II, 591, 19 Aug. 1508) was discussed by W.C. Richardson, “The Surveyor of the King’s Prerogative”, E.H.R. LVI, 1941, 52–75). By it Henry VII regularized his activities under the prerogative through the creation of an office totally unprecedented in English history. It did not last long (1508–13), but Richardson maintains that it was instrumental in paving the way for the increased prerogative power and absolutism of the Tudors. (W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 195.)

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ppointment of the king’s servant Edward Belknap, esquire for the body, with power to enquire for, and seize for the king, all lands of persons convicted, attainted, outlawed or waived for felony, murder, or like offence, and also the king’s widows, who have married without licence and their lands; also power to deal with the revenues of the above without accounting in the exchequer or other court, but only before two auditors to be assigned thereto by the king’s letter missive under his signet, according to indentures of 1 July last made between Thomas Lovell, knight, Richard Emson, knight, Edmund Dudley and Henry Wyatt for the king on the one part, and the said Belknap on the other; with power also to lease and dispose of such lands, to levy the issues of lands of outlawed or waived persons, to seize and sell goods and chattels of persons put in exigent for felony or murder, or outlawed or waived, and to assess and levy fines touching marriage of widows and outlawries and waivers, without accounting save before the said two auditors. Also, the chancellor shall make powers, without further warrant, for such as Belknap shall nominate to act for him in the several counties, and the chancellor and justices shall deliver writs and make searches when required without fee; and Belknap is empowered to direct the sheriffs to assist the taking of inquisitions. Belknap and his successors in the office shall have the name of surveyor of the king’s prerogative and take for his fee the ninth parts of all lands and profits forfeited as above, the aforesaid county surveyors having as their fee a tenth part of the residue.

54. Legislation on financial organization (i) An act concerning receivers. St. 1 Hen. VIII, c.3 1509 (Stat. Realm, III, 2) This has been described as the first step taken in Henry VIII’s reign towards departmentalizing the chamber system of financial machinery. The act established the Chamber as a regular office of receipt comparable in authority with the older receipt department of the Exchequer, and gave parliamentary recognition to the King’s official receiver-general. (W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 217.)

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hereas the king our sovereign lord intendeth that divers revenues and duties due and to be due to his highness shall be paid to his trusty servant John Heron his general receiver and to other persons by his highness hereafter in like office to be deputed and assigned as in the time of the late king of famous memory Henry the VIIth hath been used, and for that that his subjects may be truly and lawfully discharged of payments made or to be made by them of every of the premises to the said John Heron or to other persons thereto to be limited and appointed in form aforesaid; Be it therefore…enacted…that all acquittances and bills of receipt heretofore made by the

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said John Heron, in the time of the said late noble king, and in the time of our sovereign lord that now is and hereafter to be made by the said John Heron, and all other the said persons by our said sovereign lord to the said offices to be appointed, and of every of them of any his revenues or duties whatsoever they be, be a sufficient discharge to every such person against the king our sovereign lord his heirs and successors, as well in the king’s exchequer as in any other of the king’s courts without any other warrant tally or private seal thereof to be had obtained or shewed. And that the treasurer chamberlain and barons of the said exchequer and every of them, and all other judges auditors and officers accept take and allow the said acquittances and bills for a sufficient discharge of the said payments; and this act only to endure to the next parliament….

(ii) The Office of Audit To make the Chamber organization independent of the exchequer a special board of audit was needed within the Chamber. During a period of experiment in Henry VII’s reign permanent offices of audit with fairly well-defined units of jurisdiction were instituted. These examined the accounts of the ministers in charge of property falling to the Crown by right of royal prerogative. This period of experiment was concluded in 1512 by this Act which enlarged the powers of the auditors and created a legally constituted Court. Later, the status of the principal Crown auditors was clarified by a series of statutes which regulated the work of the King’s general surveyors, as the principal auditors came to be called, and extended their powers. This Act of 1512 was renewed, modified, and extended in 1512, 1514, and 1515 (St. 4 Hen. VIII, c. 18; St. 6 Hen. VIII, c. 24; St. 7 Hen. VIII, c. 7). The office was again renewed in 1523 (St. 14–15 Hen. VIII, c. 15) and was made permanent in 1535 (St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 62). In 1542 the office of general surveyor became the Court of general surveyors (St. 33 Hen. VIII, c. 39). For all this see W.C.Richardson, Tudor Chamber Administration, 177.

For Robert Southwell knight and Bartholomew Westby. St. 3 Hen. VIII, c. 23, 1512 (Stat. Realm, III, 45) Forasmuch as in the time of the late right noble and famous prince king Henry the seventh father unto the right noble king that now is by his high wisdom providence and circumspection divers and many his chamberlains of his principalities of Wales and other receivers feodaries bailiffs reeves farmers fee farmers and other officers and occupiers of divers his honours castles lordships manors lands tenements and other hereditaments as well in England and in Wales and in Calais and in the Marches of the same which then were in his hands and possession as well by the ancient inheritance of his crown as by reason of rebellion or forfeiture of divers and sundry persons or by reason of the nonage of all and singular his wards, or by purchase of himself or of any other his noble progenitors, or by intrusion of any person or persons, or by any other means or occasion of his prerogative royal, did accompt by his commandment by mouth afore then his trusty servants and counsellors Sir Reynold Bray Sir Robert Southwell, knights, and other whom the said late king in that behalf at several and divers times appointed, as well for, the more speedy payments of his revenues to be had and for the accompts of the same more speedily to be taken than his grace could or might have been answered after the course of his exchequer, as for the greater ease and less charge of all and singular the foresaid accomptants farmers fee farmers and other officers and occupiers whatsoever of any of the premisses; and that divers and many sums of money which were then due by

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divers and sundry the foresaid accomptants farmers fee farmers officers and occupiers upon the determination of their accompts were paid unto the said late king into his chamber, either to his own hands or to some other person or persons to his use as it may appear by bills or books signed with his sign manual, or to the hands of then his trusty servant John Heron, as also it may appear by bills signed with the hand of the same John Heron; and that neither those said accompts nor any of them so by the foresaid sir Reynold Bray sir Robert South well or by any other taken and determined, nor the said bills or books signed with the hand of the said late king or with the hand of the said John Heron, for any sum or sums of money concerning the premises received, be of any effect or acceptable in the said exchequer for any record for the discharge of any of the said accomptants farmers fee farmers officers and occupiers; by reason whereof all and singular the said accomptants farmers fee farmers officers and occupiers be yet chargeable to accompt and to make their payments in the said exchequer, as divers and many of the said accomptants farmers fee farmers officers and occupiers have been and as hereafter shall be like to be continually vexed and troubled by process made and to be made out of the said exchequer against them and every of them their heirs executors or terre-tenants, not only personally to come and appear in the said exchequer, and thereupon to be compelled there to render their said accompts of new for the premisses, but also there to be compelled to make new payments for the same in the king’s receipt of the said exchequer as if they never had accompted nor had made payments or their said duties to their great importable loss trouble hurt and damage against all right reason and good conscience: the high and mighty prince the king that now is the premises well considering and intending not only the same and similar order of accompt to continue to be had and used by sufficient and lawful authority from henceforth both before the said sir Robert Southwell his trusty knight and counsellor and other by his grace appointed and at his pleasure hereafter to be appointed, and to be answered of his revenues in his chamber in manner and form above said but also of his godly and gracious disposition intending all and singular the said accomptants farmers fee farmers officers and occupiers to be sufficiently discharged for ever for any thing concerning the premisses according to right equity and good conscience did of late direct as well to the said sir Robert Southwell and also to Bartholomew Westby one of the barons of his exchequer his special commission to survey and approve his lands and possessions with other divers authorities contained in the same commission as also divers privy seals to the treasurer and barons of his said exchequer for the discharge of the said accomptants and every of them, nevertheless for a further and stronger authority in that behalf to be had and given to the said sir Robert and Bartholomew and to other persons hereafter to be deputed and assigned in the same room and authority; Be it therefore ordained established and enacted…that the said sir Robert Southwell knight and Bartholomew Westby be from henceforth general surveyors and approvers of all and singular the king’s honours castles lordships manors lands tenements farms possessions and other hereditaments whatsoever that now be in his hands or that hereafter may come into his hands by any like or such means or occasion as before is rehearsed; and that approvement of the premisses by them be made whereof the king may lawfully approve himself and that they and every of them by the name of

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general surveyors and approvers of the king’s lands be taken accepted named and called; And also that they and either of them by the authority aforesaid have full power and authority to survey and approve by themselves jointly and severally or by the sufficient assign or assigns of them or of either of them by their writing under their seals or under the seal of either of them, all and singular honours castles lordships manors lands tenements farms possessions and other hereditaments whatsoever now being in the hands of the king that now is or that hereafter lawfully shall come to his hands or to the hands of any person or persons to his use contained and expressed in the same commission whereof the king may lawfully approve himself, which commission beareth date the vith day of February the second year of the reign of the said king that now is to the said sir Robert Southwell and Bartholomew Westby….

(iii) The kings surveyors. St. 7 Hen. VIII, c. 7 1515 (Stat. Realm, III, 182)

Forasmuch as in the time of the late right noble and famous prince King Henry VIIth, father unto the right noble king that now is, by his high wisdom, providence and circumspection divers and many his chamberlains of his principalities of Wales, and other receivers, bailiffs, feodaries, reeves, farmers, fee farmers, and other officers and occupiers of divers his honours, castles, lordships, manors, lands, tenements and other hereditaments as well in England and Wales as in Calais and the marches of the same, which then were in his hands and possession as well by the ancient inheritance of his crown as by rebellion or forfeiture of divers and sundry persons, as by reason of the nonage of all and singular his wards, or by purchase of himself, or by any other means or occasion of his prerogative royal, accompted by his commandment by mouth before then by his most trusty servants and counsellors Sir Reynold Bray, Sir Robert Southwell, knights, and other whom the said late king in that behalf at several and divers times appointed, as well for the more speedy payment of his revenues to be had, and for the accompts of the same more speedily to be taken than his Grace could or might have been answered of after the course of his exchequer, as for the greater ease and less charge of all and singular the foresaid accomptants [etc.]…. And that divers and many sums of money, which were then due by divers and sundry the foresaid accomptants [etc.]…upon the determination of their accompts were paid unto the said late king in his Chamber, either to his own hands or to some other person or persons to his use…and that neither those said accompts nor any of them…be of any effect or acceptable in the same exchequer for any record for the discharge the said accomptants (etc.)…. By reason whereof all and singular the said accomptants…have been and hereafter shall like to be continually vexed and troubled, by process made or to be made out of the said exchequer against them… not only to come and personally appear in the said exchequer and thereupon to be compelled there to render their said accompts anew…but also there to be compelled to make new payments for the same in the king’s Receipt of the said Exchequer, as if they never had accompted nor had made payment of their said duties…. Our sovereign lord the king that now is…hath ordained…that the said persons that hereafter shall be executors of this act…shall have full power and authority to call before them, and every of them, all and singular officers accomptable…of anything comprised or contained in a

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schedule…to this act annexed…and that the said executors of this act…shall take the accompts of all things contained in the said schedule…and that the said officers and other persons nor any of them shall never be chargeable to accompt before the Barons of the said Exchequer nor in none other court or place… An act for the king’s general surveyors. St. 14/15 Hen. VIII, c. 15, 1523 (Stat. Realm, in, 219) [After recital of St. 7 Hen. VIII c. 7 it was enacted]…that the persons which by commission of our said sovereign lord now be assigned to be executors of this said former act…be, and from henceforth shall be, called and named the General Surveyors of the king’s lands, and that they shall have full power and authority to call before them all and singular receivers, bailiffs, and all other officers and ministers accomptable to the king’s highness, and every of them, all and every other person or persons that now be, or hereafter shall be, accomptable chargeable or answerable to the king’s highness of any thing comprised or contained in a schedule signed by the king’s most gracious hand to this act annexed…of any such lands tenements or other hereditaments, sums of money for debts, prests, or other charge…whereunto his highness shall be lawfully entitled, to the said General Surveyors to be directed, shall be contained. And that the said surveyors shall take accompts of all things contained, or to be contained, in the said schedules. c. 2. And be it also enacted that the said receivers bailiffs and other officers ministers and personal nor any of them shall not at any time be chargeable or called to accompt before the Barons of the king’s exchequer…. An act establishing the Court of Surveyors. St. 33 Hen. VIII c. 39 1542 (Stat. Realm. III. 879) c. 1. [After reciting St. 14–15 Hen. VIII, c. 15, and St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 62 it is enacted]…. First, the king our sovereign lord…erecteth a certain court commonly to be called the Court of the General Surveyors of the king’s lands, which court by authority aforesaid continually shall be a court of record, and shall have one privy seal…which said seal shall remain and be in the order and keeping of the same surveyor that shall be first named in the king’s letters patents…. c. 2. …there shall be certain persons…called the King’s General Surveyors of the king’s lands and they so named by the king’s highness…shall be one entire officer and shall be the first and principal officer of the said court. Also it is ordained that such person as now is and hereafter shall be Treasurer of the King’s Chamber shall be always Treasurer of the revenues of the said court, and shall be officer of the same court next unto the said surveyors. Also there shall be one other person learned in the laws of the land…called the King’s Attorney of the said court, and shall be the third officer of the said court. Also there shall be one person…called the Master of the Woods coming growing and being in and upon the premisses, or any part parcel of member thereof, and shall be the fourth officer of the same court. Also there shall be… Auditors of the revenues of the said court. Also there shall be likewise… Receivers of such revenues as to them shall be appointed by the king’s letters patents….

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(iv) An act establishing the Court of Augmentations, 1536. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 27 (Stat. Realm, III, 569–574) In the seventh and last session of the Reformation Parliament (4 Feb.–14 April 1536), amongst the many acts passed were the first act for the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Act establishing the Court of Augmentations. By the former act the Crown acquired lands, revenues, and profits belonging to the religious houses. The latter act established a new court to administer this wealth. Its functions were: (1) to manage Crown revenues resulting from the dissolution and other revenues coming to the Crown; (2) to exercise judicial authority for determining all disputes arising over monastic property; (3) to retain permanent custody of all records relating to the religious houses. After reciting St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 28, which annexed the lesser monasteries, the act continues:

For the more surety and establishment whereof, and to the intent that the king’s majesty, his heirs and successors shall be yearly as well truly and justly answered, contented, and paid of the rents, farms, issues, revenues and profits rising, coming, and growing of the said manors, lands, tenements, and other hereditaments before specified, as of the goods, chattels, plate, stuff of household, debts, money, stock, store and other whatsoever profit and commodity given, granted, or appointed to the king’s majesty by the same, in such court, place, form, manner, and condition as hereafter shall be limited, declared, and appointed, Be it enacted…in manner and form as hereafter followeth in articles, that is to say: I. First, the king our sovereign lord, by authority aforesaid, ordaineth, maketh, establisheth and erecteth a certain court commonly to be called the Court of the Augmentations of the Revenues of the King’s Crown: which court by authority aforesaid continually shall be a court of record and shall have one great seal and one privy seal to be engraved and made after such form, fashion, and manner as shall be appointed by the king’s highness, and shall remain and be ordered as hereafter shall be declared. II. Also be it enacted…that there shall be one certain person to be named and assigned by the king’s highness which shall be chancellor of the said court and shall be chief and principal officer of the same court…and shall have the keeping of the said great seal and privy seal to be assigned for the said court. Also that there shall be one person to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called the king’s treasurer of the Court of the Augmentations…and shall be the second officer of the same court. III.Also it is ordained by authority aforesaid that there shall be one person learned in the laws of the land to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called the king’s attorney of the said court and shall be the third officer of the same court. Also that there shall be one person…called the king’s solicitor of the said court and shall be the fourth officer of the said court. Also that there shall be ten particular auditors to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called auditors of the revenues of the said Augmentations. Also there shall be sixteen particular receivers to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called receivers of the said revenues. Also that there shall be one person to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called clerk of the said court: and one other person which shall be

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usher of the same court: and one other person which shall be called messenger of the same court: which usher and messenger shall be named by the king’s highness: and every of them shall have such yearly fees, rewards, and profits as the usher and messenger of the Duchy Chamber of Westminster have and perceive.

(v) The reorganization of the Court of Augmentations, January 1547 (L. P. XXI, ii 771, g.i. Grants in January 1547)

1. The Court of the Augmentations and Revenues of the King’s Crown. Suppression of the two courts called the Court of the Augmentations of the Revenues of the King’s Crown and the Court of the General Surveyors of the King’s Lands, in which there has been great disorder: And establishment of a Court to be called for ever the Court of the Augmentations and Revenues of the King’s Crown, furnished with a great seal and a privy seal, to take the governance of all that was under the survey of the said two suppressed courts and all that shall hereafter come to the Crown, by any Act of Parliament heretofore made or otherwise, in England, Wales, Calais and their marches, except such as are within the survey of the Exchequer and the Duchy of Lancaster. An officer, to be called the Chancellor, to be chief officer and have the keeping of the said great seal and privy seal; two persons, to be called General Surveyors of the said Court, to be the second officer; a treasurer to be third officer; two masters of the woods, viz., on this side and beyond Trent, to be fourth officer; an attorney to be fifth officer; a solicitor to be sixth officer. There shall also be two surveyors of the woods, viz., beyond and on this side Trent, a clerk of the court, ten auditors, two auditors of prests and foreign accounts, and eleven receivers. In every county there shall be stewards of the courts of all manors, lordships and liberties, a particular surveyor of lands and a woodward. Also there shall be a keeper of the records, an usher, and three messengers of the said court. The chancellor and the two general surveyors shall take oath before the Lord Chancellor of England (form given, to dispense equal justice, be diligent for the King’s profit, avoid delays, and take no rewards to the King’s detriment); and the treasurer and the rest shall take their oaths (forms for each given) before the chancellor of the court. Many further provisions and ordinances for recovery of debts, grants of lands, keeping of books, etc., set forth. Appointment of Sir Edward North as chancellor, Sir Thomas Moyle and Walter Myldemaye as the two surveyors, Sir John Williams as treasurer, Sir Thos.Pope as master of woods on this side Trent, Robert Hennage as master of woods beyond Trent, Ric.Goderyke as attorney, John Gosnolde as solicitor, Geoff. Gate as surveyor of woods on this side Trent, John Arscote as surveyor of woods beyond Trent, and Ric. Duke as clerk of the court; these appointments being made for life.

(vi) The dissolution of the Court of Augmentations (C.P.R., P. & M., 1553–54, 73, 19 January 1554)

Whereas under the authority of an act of parliament, 1 Mary, second session, the queen purposes to dissolve the Courts of Augmentations and of First Fruits and Tenths; Command to Stephen, bishop of Winchester, chancellor of England, to make out

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writs of certiorari under the great seal to the officers of the said courts to deliver and certify to the Court of Chancery all the records of the said courts; also letters patent to declare the dissolution of the said courts and their annexation to the court of Exchequer; and also writs of mittimus whereby the said records may be delivered to the Court of Exchequer without delay.

(vii. a) The Court of First Fruits and Tenths. St. 32 Hen. VIII, c. 45, 1540 (Stat. Realm, III, 798) The confiscation of first fruits and tenths resulted in a further increase in revenue, which the existing administrative machinery could not handle. Accordingly, another treasury was set up, the office of the receiver-general of first fruits and tenths, with an experienced official as treasurer. This new treasury was given parliamentary approval in 1540, when it was established as a permanent court of record. It soon fell into disrepute, and complaints of exploitation by its officials became common. It was dissolved by letters patent by Mary in the first year of her reign; when its organization was annexed to the Exchequer.

Be it enacted…first, the king our sovereign lord by the authority aforesaid maketh erecteth and establisheth a certain court commonly to be called for ever the Court of the First Fruits and Tenth, which court by authority aforesaid continually and for ever shall be a court of record, and shall have one seal to be engraven and made after such form fashion and manneras shall be appointed by the king’s highness, and shall remain and be ordered as hereafter shall be declared. c. 2. And also be it enacted…that there shall be one certain person…which shall be Chancellor of the same Court, and shall be chief and principal officer of the same court and shall be called the chancellor of the first fruits and tenths and shall have the keeping of the said seal assigned for the said court. c. 3. And also be it enacted…that there shall be one person…called the King’s Treasurer of the first fruits and tenth, and shall be the second officer of the same court; and that there shall be one person to be learned in the law of this land…which shall be the King’s Attorney of the first fruits and tenth and shall be the third officer of the same court; and that there shall be two persons…named the King’s Auditors of the first fruits and tenths…and…one clerk…to be clerk of that court, which shall make all bonds writings and other ordinary process and entries out and from the same court….

(vii. b) C.P.R., P. & M, 1553–54, 164, 13 February 1554)

Whereas by patent, 20 Oct. 3 Edw., VI, the office of treasurer of the Court of First Fruits and Tenths was granted for life to William Petre, knight, with £120 yearly for the exercise of the same and all other allowances for the diets of him and his clerks, for chests, boxes, (capsulis), bags, parchments, paper, ink, green wax, cloth boat and carriage hire with other necessaries: And the said Petre has now surrendered the said office and patent to be cancelled; and the said Court has been dissolved by patent of 23 Jan., 1 Mary, and by patent of 24 Jan. annexed to the Court of Exchequer; Grant to Petre from Christmas last for life, in consideration of his service to Henry VIII,

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Edward VI and the queen, and in accordance with the Act of Parliament of 1 Mary, of an annuity of £266. 13s. 4d. payable at the four yearly terms at the Receipt of the Exchequer.

(viii) An act establishing the Court of Wards. St. 32 Hen. VII, c. 46, 1540 (Stat. Realm, III, 802) Before 1503 it was the usual practice for Henry VII to dispose personally of wardships and marriages either by distributing them as royal gifts, or by selling them outright. As exploitation of this source of royal revenue increased it became necessary to appoint a special officer to supervise royal wardships and administer the lands and revenues of wards during the period when they were in the king’s control. This was done in 1503 by the appointment of a master or surveyor of the king’s wards. This statute set up no new department. It simply enlarged the scope and personnel of the office of wards which now became a statutory court of record.

For asmuch as the king’s highness hath been heretofore and hereafter is like to be yearly answered of great rents revenues and profits, which to his majesty hath or shall grow as well by reason of such persons as have been or hereafter shall be in ward to his highness, as also by means of idiots and fools natural now remaining or being or that hereafter shall remain or be in his grace’s custody, and also for licences to marry, made or to be made to women being his grace’s widows, and fines made by them for marrying without his highness’ licence, all which the premises of right appertaineth to his majesty in the right of the imperial crown of this realm; For the more surety and establishment whereof, and to the intent the king’s majesty, his heirs and successors shall be the better served in the obtaining or having of the custody of the body of his highness’ wards, and their honours, manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments into his grace’s custody and governance during the minority of such wards, and also shall be yearly as well truly contented, answered, and paid of and for the sales of the bodies of the wards of the lands bargained for them during the said minority and of other the premises, and of the rents, farms, issues, and profits, rising coming and growing or which hereafter shall rise come or grow of all and singular the castles, manors, lands, tenements, and other hereditaments belonging, and which hereafter shall rise and belong to the king, his heirs and successors, by reason of the said wards and other the premises, in such court, place, manner, form, and condition as hereafter shall be limited declared and appointed; Be it enacted…. First, the king our sovereign lord by the authority aforesaid ordaineth, maketh stablisheth and erecteth a certain court commonly to be called for ever the Court of the King’s Wards, which court by the authority aforesaid continually and for ever shall be a court of record, and shall have one seal to be engraven and made after such form, fashion, and manner as shall be appointed by the king’s highness, and shall remain and be ordered as hereafter shall be declared. II. And also be it enacted…that there shall be one certain person to be named and assigned by the king’s highness his heirs and successors which shall be Master of the same court, and shall be chief and principal officer of the same court, and shall be called the Master of the Wards and shall have the keeping of the said seal to be assigned for the said court. III. Also be it enacted…that there shall be one person to be learned in the laws of this land to be named and assigned by the king’s highness which shall be called the King’s Attorney of the said court, and shall be the second officer of the same court.

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IV. Also be it enacted…that there shall be one person to be named and assigned by the king’s highness which shall be called the King’s Receiver General of the lands of his wards, and shall be the third officer of the same court. V. Also be it enacted…that there shall be two persons to be named by the king’s highness which shall be called the Auditors of the lands of his grace’s wards, and shall be called the fourth officer of the same court. VI. Also be itenacted…that there shall be two clerks to be named and assigned by the king’s highness to be Clerks of the said court, which shall make all indentures, bargains, and leases to be made and granted of the king’s wards’ lands, record all appearances, and make all ordinary process and entries out and from the same court.

(ix) An act for the Court of Wards and Liveries. St. 33 Hen. VIII, c. 22, 1542 (Stat. Realm, III. 860) The office of liveries was closely connected with that of wards. The former was concerned with the control by the Crown of the lands of a tenant-in-chief pending recognition and acceptance of his heir, his performance of homage, and the payment of a fine or relief. Henry VII’s exploitation of these and other feudal rights had proved very profitable to the Crown, but it could (and did) lead to serious abuses. While his son continued to exercise a close control over liveries, he did try to check some of the abuses. After 1514 Sir Thomas Neville began to assume a general supervision over liveries. By 1529 when Neville was formally authorized to supervise liveries it was clear that the time was opportune for setting up an independent office for liveries similar to the mastership of Wards. After the creation of the Court of Wards in 1540 the need for this division no longer existed for all wards were then brought under the control of the Court of Wards, and since no liveries of land or other property could be approved by the Surveyor of Liveries until the Court of Wards had authorized the grant the surveyorship of liveries could be passed over. In 1542, therefore, the office of liveries was formally united to the Court of Wards by Act of Parliament. The name of the court became The King’s Court of his Wards and Liveries, and the former Surveyor of Liveries became the head of a special department within the court. This court existed until 1660, when it was brought to an end with the extinction of feudal tenure and incidents.

[After reciting the Act which established the Court of Wards [St. 32 Hen. VIII, c. 46.] this Act proceeds as follows:] …To the which court it seemeth to the king’s majesty to be necessary and very expedient to have the liveries which shall be sued within this his realm and other his dominions incorporated and united, and also all indentures, schedules, bonds, and writings to be made in, for, and upon liveries to be registered and enrolled in the said court, being a court of record, to the intent that such indentures, schedules, bonds, and writings may be there surely and certainly known, searched, and used, as well for the king as the party as case shall require:…[Be it enacted]…that the office of the Master or Masters of the Liveries, with the circumstances thereof, shall be united, annexed, and kept unto the said Court of the King’s Wards, and that the authority and office to compound for any liveries with the proceedings therein shall be from henceforth in the rule, power, and governance of the said court, in manner and form hereafter declared; any law, custom, patent, grant, or usage heretofore had or used to the contrary notwithstanding: and that the Master of the King’s Wards for the time being, which is the chief and principal head officer of the same court, shall from henceforth for ever be Master of the King’s Wards and of the Liveries; and that all other officers and ministers appointed or hereafter to be appointed in the

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same Court of King’s Wards by authority of the statute made of the erection of the same court, shall be called officers and ministers of the King’s Court of his Wards and Liveries.

55. Reform of the Royal Household. Illustrated from the Eltham Ordinances, 1526 (Ordinances of the Royal Household (1790), passim) Wolsey took in hand the work of modernizing the Royal Household about 1519. The results appeared in January 1526 in these ordinances. His work was taken further by Cromwell. On the arguments that the general trend of Cromwell’s reforms can be seen in The MS of William Dunche, being The Book of the New Ordinary of the King’s Most Honourable Household Anno 31 Hen. VIII (ed. A.G.W.Murray and E.F.Bosanquet (repr. from The Genealogist N.S. XXIX and XXX), see G.R.Elton, Tudor Revolution in Government. The following selection contains the main features of the Ordinances.

The Proheme irst, it is not unknown how the King’s highness soon after his first assumption of his crown and dignity royal, for the defence of the church, and for sundry other great and notable respects and causes, was enforced and brought unto the wars wherein his Grace, not for any inordinate appetite or desire, but for the weal of Christendom, the honour, tuition, and defence of this his realm and subjects of the same, hath much travailed and been occupied, in such wise as many of the officers and ministers of his household being employed and appointed to the making of provisions and other things concerning the wars, the accustomed good order of his household hath been greatly hindered and in manner subverted; which by little and little is now come more and more unto an indirect cause, far from the good constitutions of old time, and sundry seasons now of late provided in that behalf: Wherefore seeing that it hath pleased Almighty God now to send unto his Grace right honourable and profitable peace with all outward regions his highness, among other his gracious intents and purposes, is minded and determined to see a reformation of the said errors, and establish such an order, both in his household and chamber aforesaid, as the same being duly fulfilled and observed, all the said errors shall in brief time be totally removed and extinct.

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Provisions of Household Cap. 1. And forasmuch as the King’s mind and pleasure is at this present time sufficiently notified to the head officers of his said household by a book signed of his most gracious hand, what number of personages of every degree, estate, and condition, his highness will admit to be lodged and entertained in his house at Bouche of Court, and what number of servants shall also be allowed to them and every of them, with the specialities of their liveries; it is therefore to the King’s mind and pleasure that his said head officers shall not only order his said household accordingly, but also see provisions to be made and proportioned thereafter as shall appertain. For Store Cap. 2. And to the intent the same provisions may be the more convenably, honourably, truly, and politiquely made, it is the King’s commandment and pleasure that in times convenient the head officers, that is to say the Lord Steward, Treasurer, and Comptroller,

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or two of them at the least, calling to them the Cofferer and all other such officers of the household as they shall think good, assemble themselves in the compting house, not only to see and consider the state of the King’s house, but also substantially to reason, debate, and foresee, how all manner of provisions, especially in gross, that is to say, wheat, wines, beefs, muttons, lings, cods, salmons, and other salt store, wax, spices, and fuel, may politiquely, substantially and in most available manner, for the King’s honour and advantage, be provided for that year following: reasoning, devising, and concluding, then and there, sad advice and good deliberation, of and upon the rate, proportion, quantity and qualities, of all and singular such provisions in gross as shall by estimation suffice to serve the King’s house for that year, registering the same in some books to remain of record in the said comptinghouse; which thing being substantially accomplished, then the King’s said officers shall devise, ensearch, and practise, the ways and means how, and in what wise, the said provisions for the King’s most profit and advantage may be made; and that done, then to consider what personages shall be most meet and able to take upon them the charge of the said provisions; dividing particularly the charge of such provisions to those persons as shall be thought to be most meet to execute the same, and not only to deliver unto them in writing their rates and proportions, with such a convenient prest of money for making the said provisions as the said officers shall think good; but also instructions by way of remembrance how they shall order and see themselves substantially, lawfully, and profitably, in the execution of their said charge, without transgression of the King’s laws, charging also them and every of them by express article in the said instructions, to make certificate unto the said officers by a certain day then to be by them prefixed, and limited, what they and every of them have or shall do in the effectual execution of their said charge; and upon the same certificate so made, and knowledge of their doings and demeanings in that behalf, the staff by them and every of them provided shall be by the said officers viewed, seen, and comptrolled, whether the same be in substance, goodness, prizes, rate, and proportions, according to their charges and instructions, and thereupon to allow or disallow, as they shall find cause reasonable; and over this, in avoiding, changing, or embezzling, of such stuff so provided by the personage and the King rightly chargeth, that all favour and affection, corruption and partiality, be set aside; the said viewers admit no manner of meat, but only such as shall be meet and seasonable and of convenient price: and over this straight charge to be given by the said head officers, to all and singular the cooks in every kitchen, to do their duties in dressing, seasoning, and preparing the said victuals and fresh acates, so that it be not appeyred1 nor lost in default of not doing their duties. And after the same victuals shall be so dressed, the King’s express commandment is, that the clerk of the green-cloth shall from day to day view and see that the said meat be served forth wholly and entirely, and in due proportion, to such places as it is provided for, without fraud, embezzling, or diminution, of any part thereof, as they will answer to their uttermost perils; and the sewers and surveyors to have semblably charge to foresee that no part of the fruit so set forth at the dresser, be in any wise purloined, taken away, or embezzled, but wholly served as it is set forth. 1

impaired.

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Attendance of Officers and Ministers of Household Cap. 4. Item, it is the King’s commandment and pleasure, that as well the head officers as all other officers and ministers of household, as also all such persons as be appointed to attend and wait in the King’s chamber, daily or quarterly, whose names be comprised in a book signed with the King’s hand, give their attendance, every man in his room accordingly; and the said attendours in no wise depart from the court, unless they be licensed by the King, my Lord Chamberlain, or the Vicechamberlain, for the King’s chamber; and by the Lord Steward, Treasurer, and Comptroller for the household; or by others to be authorized by the King’s Grace to give such licence; and that not only substantial comptrolment be daily made of the said attendance, but also offenders in not doing their duties to be corrected by the discretion of the said officers, as well by the checking and defalcation of their wages, and otherwise accordingly. Compting-House Cap. 5. Item, it is the King’s pleasure that views and declarations shall be quarterly taken and made of and upon the employment of such money as shall be advanced and delivered by the Treasurer of his Chamber, to the Cofferer or other officers and purveyors of the household; to the intent his Grace may know certainly, whether his said money be spent and laid out truly and profitably as it is appointed; and that the said cofferer shall in most effectual, politique, and available manner, cause the said provisions to be made in due time and season, and of the last and most seasonable victuals, of every sort appertaining to the King’s said household; and that the provisions so made, be converted to the King’s use, and brought into his house: and over that to see that the King’s money be only employed to that use and no other. Item, it is ordained that the clerks of the Greencloth, or one of them, be daily attendant in the compting-house for the engrossment of daily books of the expenses of the day before, in the time of the household keeping; according to the old usage and ancient customs of the King’s house. Item, the chief clerk of comptrolment to be there in like-wise, for the oversight and comptrolling of the said book…. Cap. 28. Item, it is ordained that the King’s gentlemen ushers, and the Queen’s, being in daily wages, do make daily records at meal times of bread, ale, and wine, as it is spent in the said chamber; and the said records daily to bring into the comptinghouse, according to the old custom of the King’s house; and that they do fetch livery for Allnight for the King and the Queen, between eight of the clock and nine…. Cap. 29. Item, it is ordained that all lords, ladies, and knights, and others being lodged within the King’s house, have no livery nor bouche of court to their chambers nor carriage after they be departed the court, they being absent the space of fourteen days, till they return again. Despoil of Pleasures and Commodities in Noblemen s and Gentlemen s Houses to be left Cap. 30. And, because it is often and in manner daily seen that as well in the King’s own houses, as in the places of other noblemen and gentlemen, where the King’s Grace doth

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fortune to lie or come unto, not only locks of doors, tables, forms, cupboards, trestles, and other implements of household, be carried, purloined, and taken away, by such servants and others as be lodged in the same houses and places; but also such pleasures and commodities as they have about their houses, that is to say, deer, fish, orchards, hay, corn, grass, pasture, and other store belonging to the same noblemen and gentlemen, or to others dwelling near abouts, is by ravine taken, despoiled, wasted and spent, without licence or consent of the owner, or any money paid for the same, to the King’s great dishonour, and the no little damage and displeasure of those to whose houses the King’s highness doth fortune to repair: It is therefore the King’s pleasure and straight commandment, that the gentlemen ushers and yeomen ushers, making lodgings from time to time within the King’s court, shall see and note substantially what locks, keys, and other such implements as be before mentioned, they do find in the chambers where they make lodging, giving straight charge unto such persons whom they do put and lodge in the same, that every parcel thereof be safely left in the same chamber, and redelivered with the key of the chambers to the keeper of the house, or other person deputed to receive the same, at their departing; without embezzling, purloining, or carrying away any part thereof, upon pain of imprisonment, and making restitution to the party of double the value of the thing so embezzled or purloined. And that the harbingers give semblable charge unto those to whom they shall give lodging or appoint in the towns, houses, and places, near unto and about the court, that no person presume to take by high words, ravine, violent countenance, or other undue means, any victuals, hay, corn, grass, pasture, or any other thing, without money; and put their horses into closes, fields, or pastures, without consent of the owner, and paying the same after the King’s price; not destroy any man’s deer, conies, fish in their ponds and waters; or despoil or intermeddle in their orchards, or other their pleasures or commodities, upon pain of imprisonment, and restoring the double to the party, as its aforesaid. And furthermore, in avoiding these inconveniences and divers others, that more of the said gentlemen ushers give lodging or chamber in the King’s house to any person, but such as ordinarily be appointed to have bouche of court, and lodging within the same; nor also the harbingers to give lodging in the town to strangers, except they shall be appointed by the King’s highness or his council to the contrary, till such time as first the ordinary to them assigned be fully and entirely served, so as for the particular lucre, thanks, or profit, strangers be not preferred in lodging and harbingage, and those which he allowed to have the same the worse lodged, or totally disappointed as they will avoid the loss of their offices, and further punishment at the King’s pleasure; for which purpose a book is made at this present time, signed with the King’s hand, to remain with the ushers and harbingers, describing the number that every person, of what estate, degree, or condition he be, shall have and keep about him, either within the court, or in the town and place near the same, at his coming or repairing thereunto; which order the said ushers and harbingers shall observe, and follow accordingly, upon pain of loss of their offices, as is abovesaid. Appointment of Officers and Ministers in the Household of good quality Cap. 31. And, to the intent the King’s highness may be substantially served in his chamber

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and household, by such personages as be both honest in their gesture and behaviour, and also expert in such rooms and offices as be deputed unto them; considering also the great confusion, annoyance, infection, trouble, and dishonour, that ensueth by the numbers as well of sickly, impotent, inable and unmeet persons, as of rascals and vagabonds, now spread, remaining and being in all the court; whereby all such noblemen and others of good behaviour as be allowed to have bouche of court be oftentimes disappointed of the same; the King’s Highness therefore hath given charge unto his vice-chamberlain and captain of his guard, for his utter chamber; and to Sir Henry Guildford knight, comptroller of his household, for the same his household; and semblably to the Queen’s chamberlain, and vice-chamberlain for the Queen’s side and chambers; to make view, search, and report of the sufficiency, ability, demeanour, and qualities, of all such persons as be officers, ministers, and servants in the said household and chambers; to the intent that such of them as shall be found impotent, sickly, unable or unmeet persons, to occupy the same rooms, may be known; and their names and defaults put in writing; which done, the King’s highness not willing any of his old servants to be rejected, and left without some competent living, unless their demerits should so require, is of his gracious disposition minded to give order that some convenient entertainment shall be assigned for every one of them, towards their living; and to be discharged from attendance in his household; and other able, meet, honest, and sufficient persons, to be subrogate and put in their rooms and places; which said entertainment, upon the death of any of the said persons discharged, the King’s pleasure is, shall cease and be extinct, and not to be of new granted to any other person; wherein the King’s highness chargeth the said persons deputed to make search and report thereof, to put apart all favour, affection, hate, and partiality; and, as well now as from henceforth, to name, prefer, and present, unto the King’s highness, and the officers to whom it shall appertain, none other to be admitted into any room, office, or place within the King’s said household or chamber, and especially those which, beginning in low rooms, be accustomed by cause to ascend unto higher; but such as be of good towardness, likelihood, behaviour, demeanour, and conversation; and as nigh as they can, to have respect that they be personages of good gesture, countenance, fashion, and stature; so as the King’s house, which is requisite to be the mirror and example of all other this realm, may be furnished of ministers and officers, elect, tried, and picked for the King’s house, as to good reason and congruence doth appertain.1 An order for the observance of all the premises Cap. 79. Finally, for the due observance of all which premises, the King’s Highness hath commanded a book to be made over and besides all such other honourable constitutions and orders as heretofore been devised for the King’s household and chambers in other books mentioned; which book of the present ordinances, signed with the King’s hand, shall remain and be kept in the compting house, for the better information of the head officers of the Church and household, how they shall from time to time see the same put in effectual execution. And to the intent the premises shall not be neglected or pretermitted, it is the King’s pleasure that his said counsellors 1

For c. 74 and 75 concerning the Council see below No. 57. ii.

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appointed to attend upon his Grace, shall from time to time, as they shall think convenient, send for the said book, and by their discretions note, search, and examine, whether any fault be in the due execution of the premises; which found shall proceed to the reformation, correction, or punishment of such as shall be found culpable or negligent therein, or by their wisdoms and discretions they shall think expedient; and if the default be in any of the said council, being head officers of the King’s chamber or household, the residue of them shall make relation thereof unto the King’s highness, for knowledge of his further pleasure in that behalf; laying apart all dread, favour, affection, and partiality, as the King’s especial trust and confidence is in them, and as they will have the continuance of his singular favour accordingly. And it is ordained that the Lord Cardinal, Chancellor of England, with the residue of the King’s council attending upon his person, shall quarterly at the least, examine whether the said articles be put in due execution or not, proceeding to the reformation thereof, if any fault be found, without exception of persons, as is aforesaid.

D. THE KING’S COUNCIL 56. Henry VII’s Council. Described by Polydore Vergil (Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, 6)

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lso he established a council in his household by whose opinion all things should be justly and rightly governed, and causes brought to it to be decided without the bitterness of lawsuits. And for this council he chose from the beginning men renowned for their singular shrewdness, loyalty and reliability, John, earl of Oxford; Jasper, duke of Bedford; Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby; George, Lord Strange’s son; and William his brother, steward of the royal bedchamber; Robert Broke, steward of the royal household; Reginald Bray; John Morton, bishop of Ely; Richard Fox; John Dynham, who later became treasurer of England; Giles Daubeney; Richard Guilford; John Cheney; Richard Tunstall; Richard Edgecombe; Thomas Lovell; Edward Ponynges; and then he chose other wise men as counsellors and added them continually to counsel for specific business among whom were Richard Thomas, a Welshman, Morgan Kidwelly, Thomas Gray, Marquis of Dorset, a good and prudent man, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, a nobleman, wise and moderate in all things, John Risely, Thomas earl of Ormond, an Irishman, Henry Marney, William Say, a prominent knight, William Ody, Gilbert Talbot, William Udal, Thomas Troys, Richard Nanfant, some time governor of Calais, Robert Poyntz, James Hubert, Charles Somerset, an experienced and noble man, Thomas Howard, earl of Surry, a man of the greatest wisdom, reliability and loyalty, Henry Bourgchier, earl of Essex, highborn, gracious, and endowed with singular virtue, wisdom and modesty, William Blount Lord Mountjoy, very well spoken and cultered, John Bourghcier, John Fyneux, Piers Edgecombe, Hugh Conway, Thomas Tyrrell, Henry Wyat, Robert Throgmorton, Thomas Brandon, a man of courage and experience, John

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Wingfield, alike renowned for his nobility, justice and virtue, Edmund Dudley, Edward Belknap, Richard Empson, and many other good counsellors, and the chief bishops Henry Deane of Canterbury, Oliver King, Bath and Wells, William Barons who lived for a few months after being made Bishop of London, William Warham, who succeeded Henry Deane as Archbishop, Richard Fitzjames of London, a distinguished theologian, and Richard Nix, bishop of Norwich.

57. The King’s Council before 1540 (i) Some Council meetings, 1509–13

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yer and terminer. Order in Council to revoke the commissioners of oyer and terminer lately issued. All causes remaining undetermined to be brought into the King’s Bench or Common Pleas. Proclamations to this effect to be made throughout England. Teste, 26 Nov. 1 Hen. VIII. S.B. (countersigned: T.Surrey, Ri.Wynton, G.Shrousebury, T.Englefild, J.Fyneux, R.Rede, Conygesby, Botiller, Joh’es Ernley, John Porte. Nov. 1509. (L. P. 1, i, 257, g. 85)

Latin memorandum that, in Suffolk, William Flatman, alias Flakman, has been indicted and found guilty of murder. Subscribed with note that, as a common murderer and arrant thief, “it is thought by us of the King’s Council that he should have no general pardon.” Signed: T.Surrey, Ri.Wynton, T.Duresme, T.Docwra, [R.] Rede, Thomas Lovell, T.Englefield, H.Wiat. Not signed by the King. 1509. (Ibid, I, i, 313) Order in Council to Sir Hugh Conway, treasurer of Calais, to deliver to Thomas Deacon £200 to repair the fortifications of Rysbanke. Greenwich, 12 March, 2 Hen. VIII. Signed above by the King; be low by Surrey, Shrewsbury, the bishop of Durham, Sir Charles Somerset, Sir Thomas Lovell, and Sir Harry Marny. 12 March 1511. (Ibid. 1, i, 716) John Young, Keeper of the Rolls and Records in Chancery. To cancel a recognizance of £2,100, made by Giles lord Daubney, chamberlain to Henry VII., 5 Dec. 22 Hen. VII., to Sir Thomas Lovell and others; it being found before executors of Henry VII’s will to have been unjustly obtained. Greenwich, 12 April, 2 Henry VIII. S.B. (counter signed: Ri.Wynton, Ric. London., T.Duresme, Jo.Roff., T.Surrey, Jo.Fyneux, Thomas Lovell, Jo.Yong. In the presence of Harry Marny, John Heron. April 1511. (Ibid, 1, i, 749, g. 24) Thomas lord Dacre. Warrant to John Yong, master of the Rolls, to cancel a recognizance of 10,000 marks, made by Thomas lord Dacre of Gillyslande, 13 May 2 Hen. VIII for his appearance before the King and Council on the morrow of All Souls Day then next and attendance on the King till licensed to depart; at which day he appeared and continued attendance till 19 Feb. following when he received licence to depart and an injunction (also hereby to be cancelled) to appear again at All Souls then following.

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Greenwich, 10 Dec. 3 Hen. VIII. S.B. (countersigned: T.Surrey, Ri. Wynton, T.Duresme, Thomas Lovell, Harry Marny, T.Englefild, Thomas Wuley. Dec. 1511. (Ibid. I, i, 1003, g.15) The Council’s order to the Warden of the Fleet to receive four Bretons, prisoners, and he shall receive 16.d. a week for the board of each. Richmond, 12 Nov. Signed: William Cantuar, Ric.Wynton, T.Surrey, C.Somerset, Thomas Lovell, Thomas Wulcy. 12 Nov. 1513. (Ibid. I, ii, 2441

(ii) Eltham Ordinances, 1526 (A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (1790), 159)

Establishment of a Council Cap. 74. And to the intent that as well matters of justice and complaints touching the griefs of the king’s subjects and disorder of his realm and otherwise which shall fortune to be made, brought, and presented unto his Highness by his said subjects in his demurre1 or passing from place to place within the same, as also other great occurrences concerning his own particular affairs, may be the better ordered and with his Grace more ripely debated, digested, and resolved, from time to time, as the case shall require: It is ordered and appointed by his Highness, that a good number of honourable, virtuous, sad, wise, expert, and discreet persons of his Council shall give their attendance upon his most royal person, whose names hereafter follow: that is to say, the Lord Cardinal, Chancellor of England; the Duke of Norfolk, Treasurer of England; the Bishop of London, Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal; the Duke of Suffolk, Marshal of England; the Marquis Dorset; the Marquis Exeter; the Earl of Shrewsbury, Steward of the King’s Household; the Lord Chamberlain; the Bishop of Bath; the Bishop of Lincoln; the Lord Sandys; Sir William Fitz-William, Treasurer of the King’s Household; Sir Henry Guilford, Comptroller; the Secretary; Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of the Duchy; the Dean of the King’s Chapel; Sir Henry Wyat, Treasurer of the King’s Chamber; the ViceChamberlain; the Captain of the Guard; Doctor Wolman. Cap. 75. And forasmuch as the said Lord Cardinal, the Lord Treasurer of England, Lord Privy Seal, Lord Steward, and divers other lords and personages before mentioned, by reason of their attendance at the Terms for administration of justice and exercising of their offices, and other reasonable impediments, shall many seasons fortune to be absent from the King’s Court, and specially in term times; to the intent the King’s Highness shall not be at any season unfurnished of an honourable presence of counsellors about his Grace, with whom his Highness may confer upon the premises at his pleasure; It is ordered that the persons hereafter mentioned shall give their continual attendance in the causes of his said Council, unto what place soever his Highness shall resort: that is to say, the Lord Chamberlain, the Bishop of Bath, the Treasurer and Comptroller of the King’s Household, the Secretary, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the 1

residence.

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Dean of the King’s Chapel, the Vice-Chamberlain, the Captain of the Guard; and for ordering of poor mens’ complaints and causes, Dr. Wolman And because, per case, it may chance some of these aforenamed persons to be absent for some reasonable cause, be it always provided and foreseen that either the Bishop of Bath, the Secretary, Sir Thomas More, and the Dean of the Chapel, or two of them at least, always be present, except the King’s Grace give licence to any of them of the contrary; which said counsellors being appointed for continual attendance shall apply themselves effectually, diligently, uprightly, and justly in the premises, being every day in the forenoon by ten of the clock at the furthest, and at afternoon by two of the clock, in the King’s dining chamber, or in such other place as shall fortune to be appointed for the Council chamber, there to be in readiness, not only in case the King’s pleasure shall be to commune or confer with them upon any cause or matter, but also for hearing and direction of poor men’s complaints on matters of justice; which direction well-observed, the King’s Highness shall always be well furnished of an honourable presence of counsellors about his Grace, as to his high honour doth appertain.

(iii) Henry VIII and his Council, 1536 Sadleir to Cromwell, 27 Sept. 1536 (State Papers I, 459)

Mine humble duty premised unto to your good lordship. It may please the same to be advertised that, upon the arrival here of your servant, Mr. Rowse, with your letters, having first perused such as it pleased your lordship to direct unto me, I did after deliver the other unto the King’s majesty, who did not only read them over thoroughly but also, as soon as His Grace had over read them, delivered them unto me, and bade me keep them, till His Grace had supped; being then ready to go to supper. And in his going to the Queen’s chamber to supper, I waited on His Majesty, and, by the way, shewed him that your lordship had written to me, that the Father of Syon was departed; and that because your lordship would righty gladly have such a one to supply in his place, as both for honesty, learning, discretion, and good conversation should be meet for that room, you would yourself, if it so stood with His Grace’s pleasure, repair thither for the election of another. Whereunto His Grace answered, that it were well done ye did so. “Howbeit,” quod he, “the Charterhouse in London is not ordered, as I would have had it. I commanded,” quod he, “my Lord Privy Seal a great while ago, to put the monks out of the House, and now he wrote to you,” quod he, “that they be reconciled; but seeing that they have been so long obstinate, I will not now,” quod he, “admit their obedience; and so write to my Lord Privy Seal.” This His Grace commanded me to write unto your lorship (as I do), which, as you shall have opportunity, ye may temper with His Grace, as by your wisdom shall be thought convenient. I shewed His Highness, also, that your lordship had committed to the Fleet Ralph Shelton; and how he could not deny the setting up of the ladder, nor that he had said heretofore, that he had killed deer; and that your lordship thought, that there would be

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other things proved against him, very dishonest. His Grace answered to that, that your lordship had done well in committing him to the Fleet; and said he doubted not, but ye would try him sufficiently, or ye left him. By this communication finished, His Grace was in the Queen’s Chamber, ready to wash, and sit down to supper. After supper, His Grace returned into his chamber, and immediately called me unto him; saying, that he had digested and revolved in his heart the contents of your letters, and perceiving how the plague had reigned in Westminster, and in the Abbey itself, His Grace said, that he stood in a suspense, whether it were best to put off the time of the Coronation,1 for a season. “Wherefore”, quod he, “it were good, that all my Council were assembled here, that we might consult, and determine upon everything, touching the same accordingly. And so” quod he, “write to my Lord Privy Seal, and send him word that my Lord Admiral is here, Mr. Comptroller, and the Bishop of Hereford be here, and pray him, also,” quod he,” to come hither indelayedly; and then,” quod he, “we shall soon be at a point. And” quod he, “in case my Lord Chancellor be near London, and all that be there of the Privy Council, pray my Lord Privy Seal to bring them with him.” Thus His Grace commanded me to write unto your lordship, assuring the same, that, as I perceive, His Grace would gladly have ye here; whereupon I despatched this with the more speed. Nevertheless, when His Majesty bade me send for you, I said that it would be tomorrow afternoon, or ye could have word of the same, and then it would be too late for your lordship to set forth hitherward that day, “and the next day, Sir,” quod I, “is Michaelmas day.” “What then,” quod his Grace, “Michaelmas day is not so high a day.” So that I perceive His Highness will look for you on Michaelmas day, at night, or the next morning after, at the furtherest; the sooner the better. It may please your lordship to bring with you such as be there, of the Privy Council, and my Lord Chancellor, also, if he be near London, for so is the King’s pleasure. To all the rest of the contents of your letter, the King’s Highness sayeth, he will make you answer himself, at your coming. I have sent your lordship all the letters stamped; nevertheless ye may now defer the sending of them forth, till your lordship shall know further of the King’s pleasure. And thus the Holy Trinity send your lordship long life and good health, with much honour. At London, the 27 day of September, at 12 o’clock of the night, which is our accustomed hour in the Court to go to bed; with the rude and hasty hand of

Your lordship’s old servant, and daily Bedesman, (signed) Rafe Sadler. (iv) The matters treated in Council at Westminster, 3 April 1537 (State Papers, I, 545)

First, that letters should be incontinently despatched to the Deputy of Calais, to see the town victualled, put in such order for defence as the same may be in surety against sudden enterprises that might be attempted against the same; and like letters to be sent to the Lieutenant of Guisnes for the castle there. 1

of Jane Seymour whom Henry married 20 May 1536.

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Item, an order to be taken for the surety of the towns of Carlisle and Berwick, and for the speedy victualling of the same. Item, to note specially the state of the world, and there withal the state of the king’s affairs; and standing the case as it doth between the Emperor and the French King, with the practices of the Bishop of Rome, to bring them to an unity for his own purpose, chiefly as it is to be thought, against us, to devise so that His Majesty may without delay retain at the least one friend that he may be the better able to withstand the malice of his enemies and so to preserve his realm in perfect quiet; which thing it is thought may be conduced by these means ensuing. First, whereas his highness hath two daughters (though not lawful, yet king’s daughters), considering that all amities are commonly concluded either upon the frankness of the parties and the entire love that sometime chanceth to be between prince and prince, or upon conjunctions and alliances in blood and consanguinity; it is thought necessary that these two daughters should be made of some estimation, without the which no man will have any great respect or desire unto them. And forasmuch as the one of them is of more age than the other, and more apt thereby to make a present alliance than the other, for want of age, is; if it might please the king’s highness to declare her according to his laws, which to her estimation is thought will be a great thing, or else otherwise to advance her to some certain living decent for such an estate; it is thought the same would bring her to that reputation that the more suit would be made for her, and that, perchance, with some acceleration: and then a like direction to be taken for my Lady Elizabeth. Whereby as his grace with the one may provide him of a present friend, so, having the other in store, and in that estimation that is declared, his highness may with her also, at his pleasure, provide him of another friend hereafter as, the state of his affairs and the time shall then require. For we think that the only sheet anchor that the French King hath is to compass a marriage between the Duke of Orleans and the Duchess of Milan; who, in estate, were not to be compared to any of the king’s daughters, the deprivation of her father from his kingdom considered, if she wanted that endowment of Milan, which the French King thinketh by that means to get into his hands. And if that should chance, then of likelihood, the Emperor and the French King should by the Bishop of Rome’s mediation so join together that, as the King’s highness should be barren of friends on all sides, so, though he would then put his daughters in such estimation as is specified, there shall be no prince of honour left to desire his grace’s amity by the means of either of the same. And albeit we do all trust in God that the Queen’s Grace is now pregnant and shall bring forth many fair children, to the consolation and comfort of the king’s majesty, and of his whole realm, yet we think the devise before mentioned should be necessary, as well for the causes specified and therewith to provide the said daughters of such endowments, as for his Grace’s daughters, though not his lawful daughters, were expedient; as to take away the remainder hanging upon the King of Scots, and the hope which perchance he hath of the same: the suspense whereof might both give him courage daily to practise to that end and purpose and move other lewd persons, if there should be any such, upon like trust to repair unto him; who, by the execution of this matter, shall be utterly deciphered for that he shall see his hope utterly frustrated in the same;

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whose alliance with France is, in this matter, much to be considered, for that he may be from thence furnished with money for any such enterprise. Item, that all the king’s navy may be, out of hand, put in such order as it may be ready to do his grace present service if the case should so require. Item, that an order may be taken that no man be suffered to remain in commissions of the peace, but such as be men of worship and wisdom, meet for the same. Item, that letters be written to all the Justices of the Peace, of all parts, who have vigilant regard to all the parts about them, specially for the apprehension of seditious persons; and that certain noble men may, for a time, reside in their countries.

58. The statute of proclamations An act that proclamations made by the king shall be obeyed. St. 31 Henry VIII, c. 8, 1539 (Stat. Realm, III, 726–728) This act has been the target for commentary. Earlier, it was read by historians as yet another indication that Henry VIII intended to set up an absolute monarchy. Here was a statute which seemed to confer on the king wide powers of legislation independent of Parliament. This interpretation is not now accepted. The act provided that in an emergency the king, with the advice of the Council, “should make and set forth proclamations for the good and politic order and governance of this his realm”. It prescribed how these were to be published, set limits to the nature of such proclamations, so as to safeguard the subject from oppression, and arranged for offenders to be tried by members of the Council, specified in the act, who would form a special tribunal for this purpose. There was nothing novel in this use of the proclamation; it formed a part of the common law prerogative of the Crown. What was new was the increasing need for some such expedient as the proclamation in order to cope with the heavy burden of administration consequent upon the growing activity of the central government. There is no evidence that Henry VIII and his Council abused the act, nor is there any indication that the king sought to use it in order to establish absolutism, or to undermine the powers and functions of Parliament. The act does not seem to have been wholly successful. The clause setting up a special tribunal had to be amended in 1543 (St. 34–35 Hen. VIII, c. 23), and proclamations continued to be enforced in Star Chamber. The act was repealed in 1547. Historians have been puzzled as to its real significance. What it seems to have done was to give statutory authority to an existing prerogative power. On the other hand, attention has been drawn to the fact that the first proposals for the act encountered considerable opposition in Parliament where it may have been suspect as an attempt to increase the king’s powers, and it has been suggested that as a result of debate, and the process of re-drafting, the act may have been modified and lost some of its clarity. The main discussions can be followed in: E.R.Adair, “The Statute of Proclamations”, E.H.R. XXXII, 1917, 34; Holdsworth, Hist. Engl. Law, IV, 102; Pickthorn, Early Tudor Government, II, 414–418; G.R.Elton, “Henry VIII’s Act of Proclamations”, E.H.R. LXXV, 1960, 208.

F

orasmuch as the King’s most royal Majesty for divers considerations by the advice of his Council, hath heretofore set forth divers and sundry his Grace’s proclamations, as well for and concerning divers and sundry articles of Christ’s religion, as for an unity and concord to be had amongst the loving and obedient subjects of this his realm and other his dominions, and also concerning the advancement of his common wealth and good quiet of his people, which nevertheless divers and many froward, wilful, and obstinate persons have wilfully contemned and broken, not considering what a King by his royal power may do, and for lack of a direct statute and law to coarct1 offenders to obey the 1

compel.

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said proclamations, which being still suffered should not only encourage offenders to the disobedience of the precepts and laws of Almighty God, but also sin too much to the great dishonour of the King’s most royal Majesty, who may full ill bear it, and also give too great heart and boldness to all malefactors and offenders; considering also that sudden causes and occasions fortune many times which do require speedy remedies, and that by abiding for a parliament in the mean time might happen great prejudice to ensue to the realm; and weighing also that his Majesty (which by the kingly and regal power given him by God may do many things in such cases) should not be driven to extend the liberty and supremacy of his regal power and dignity by wilfulness of froward subjects; It is therefore thought in manner more than necessary that the King’s Highness of this realm for the time being, with the advice of his honourable Council should make and set forth proclamations for the good and politic order and governance of this his realm of England, Wales, and other his dominions from time to time for the defence of his regal dignity and the advancement of his common wealth and good quiet of his people, as the cases of necessity shall require, and that an ordinary law should be provided by the assent of his Majesty and Parliament, for the due punishment, correction, and reformation of such offences and disobediences; Be it therefore enacted…that always the King for the time being, with the advice of his honourable Council, whose names hereafter followeth, or with the advice of the more part of them, may set forth at all times by authority of this act his proclamations, under such penalties and pains and of such sort as to his Highness and his said honourable Council or the more part of them shall seem necessary and requisite; and that those same shall be obeyed, observed, and kept as though they were made by act of parliament for the time in them limited, unless the King’s Highness dispense with them or any of them under his great seal. II. Provided always that the words, meaning, and intent of this act be not understood, interpreted, construed or extended, that by virtue of it any of the king’s liege people, of what estate, degree, or condition soever he or they be, bodies politic or corporate, their heirs or successors, should have any of his or their inheritances, lawful possessions, offices, liberties, privileges, franchises, goods, or chattels taken from them or any of them, nor by virtue of the said act suffer any pains of death, other than shall be hereafter in this act declared, nor that by any proclamation to be made by virtue of this act, any acts, common laws, standing at this present time in strength and force, nor yet any lawful or laudable customs of this realm or other his dominions nor any of them, shall be infringed, broken, or subverted: and specially all those acts standing this hour in force which have been made in the King’s Highness’ time; but that every such person and persons, bodies politic and corporate, their heirs and successors, and the heirs and successors of every of them, their inheritances, lawful possessions, offices, liberties, privileges, franchises, goods, and chattels shall stand and be in the same state and condition, to every respect and purpose, as if this act or proviso had never been had or made; except such forfeitures, pains, and penalties as in this act and in every proclamation which hereafter shall be set forth by authority of the same, shall be declared and expressed; and except such persons which shall offend any proclamation to be made by the King’s Highness, his heirs or successors, for and concerning any kind of heresies against Christian religion.

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[IV. Any persons who do not observe such proclamations, convicted by confession or lawful witness and proofs in the Star Chamber or elsewhere, before the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor and the lord treasurer of England, the president of the King’s Council, the lord privy seal, the great chamberlain, the lord admiral, the lord steward, the lord chamberlain of the King’s household, two other bishops being of the King’s Council, the Secretary, the treasurer and comptroller of the King’s household, the master ofthe Horse, the two chief judges, and the master of the Rolls, the chancellor of the Augmentations, the chancellor of the Duchy, the chief baron of the exchequer, the two general surveyors, the chancellor and the under-treasurer of the exchequer, the treasurer of the King’s chamber, or at least before half of them, of which number the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord president of the Council, the lord privy seal, the chamberlain, the lord admiral, the two chief judges, or two of them shall be two, shall pay such penalties and forfeitures, and suffer such imprisonments as shall be declared in any such proclamation.] [V. The lord chancellor, the lord privy seal, and either of them with the assent of six of the above-named shall have power, upon information given them, to cause process against such offenders by writs under the great or privy seal in the following form: “first by proclamation under a pain or a penalty by the discretion of the aforesaid councillors appointed for the awarding of process, and if he appear not to the same without a lawful excuse, then the said councillors to award out another proclamation upon allegiance of the same offender, for the due examination, trial, and conviction of every such person and persons as shall offend contrary to this act, for the due execution to be had of and for the same in manner and form as is above remembered.”…] [VI. Offenders who leave the realm in order to avoid answering such offences shall suffer death as traitors and forfeit their lands and goods.]

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59. The emergence of the Privy Council. Illustrated from Council Records The early stages in the development of the Privy Council has long been seen as a difficult problem, and it still needs further research. Nothing more can be attempted here than a brief statement of the main lines along which investigation has so far been made. In 1924 E.R.Adair considered that “it is now almost certain that the Privy Council took its rise as a definite entity from within the body of the King’s Council somewhere about 1538, and it is extremely unlikely that any continuous record of the activities either of the ordinary Council or of the Privy Council was kept before the commencement of the Privy Council Register in 1540”. He considered the appearance of Thomas Derby as clerk of the Privy Council in 1538 as “the first evidence that we have of their existence as an organised entity” (Sourcesfor the History of the Council, 13: “The First Clerk of the Privy Council”, L.Q.R. XXXIX, 240–244). About the same time A.F.Pollard put forward the view that the Privy Council was definitely brought into being in 1540, although he was prepared to accept the existence of an inner Council with an identical personnel from about 1537 (“Council, Star Chamber, and Privy Council under the Tudors”, E.H.R. XXXVII: and XXXVIII, espec. 42 f). In 1943 W.H.Dunham, basing his conclusions on the fresh evidence provided in the Ellesmere Transcripts, suggested that the Privy Council was the result of a gradual evolution, and that although it may have existed earlier it became clear soon after the fall of Wolsey. (“Henry VIII’s Whole Council and its Parts”, Huntington Lib. Quart., VII (1943), 7f. and “The Ellesmere Extracts” from the “Acta Consilii” of King Henry VIII, E.H.R. LVIII, 1943, 301) Elton supported some of Dunham’s views (though condemning his invention of a new institutional term—the “Whole” Council), recognized the need for further research, and put forward a tentative theory to the effect that “there was no Privy Council in 1532, but that there was one in 1540, and that the Privy Council was deliberately and consciously organized some time between 1534 and 1536” (Tudor Revolution in Government, 317f). The decision, made in 1540, to keep a Register of the transactions of the Privy Council has provided the historian with a considerable amount of evidence from which to provide a picture of that institution at work. How best to make use of some of it here presents a problem. To print from the Register a number of unconnected items of high historical interest in themselves might easily give a false impression of the nature and importance of the Council’s day-to-day routine. It has seemed, therefore, less misleading to give a consecutive series of daily proceedings, which contain routine entries as well as matters of more general importance. One point must, however, be emphasized. The Register has shortcomings as a record of the Council’s work. The clerk was only ordered to register “such decrees, determinations, letters and other such things as he should be appointed to enter”. As one commentator has pointed out, this means “that the formal account of the proceedings of the Privy Council and its cognate bodies is, after all, often very unsatisfactory. At many meetings—and those usually of the greatest importance— no clerks were allowed to be present, and consequently no minutes of them appear in the Register; and even when the clerks were present, many of the orders which they were called upon to write were not considered of sufficient importance to be entered in the Council records. Moreover, the Register shows little or nothing of the discussions in the Council, the parties into which it was divided, or the inner groups which grew up in its midst. For this, other sources of information must be sought.” 1

(i) Appointment of a Clerk to the Privy Council, 1540 (Nicholas, Proc. and Ord. VII, 3)

T

th

he 10 day of August in the 32nd year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Henry VIII…an order was taken and determined by his Majesty by the advice of his Highness’ Privy Council, whose names hereafter ensue: Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Audeley of Walden, Chancellor of England Thomas Duke of Norfolk, High Treasurer of England 1

E.R.Adair, Sources for the History of the Council, 14. For the other Sources see ibid. 15 f.

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Charles Duke of Suffolk, Great Master of the King’s Household and President of the Council William Earl of Southampton, Lord Privy Seal Robert Earl of Sussex, Great Chamberlain of England Edward Earl of Hertford John Lord Russell, Great Admiral of England Cuthbert Bishop of Durham Stephen Bishop of Winchester William Lord Sandys, the King’s Chamberlain Sir Thomas Cheyney, knight, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Treasurer of the King’s Household Sir William Kingston, knight, Comptroller of the King’s Household Sir Anthony Browne, knight, Master of the King’s Horse Sir Anthony Wingfield, knight, the King’s Vice-chamberlain Sir Thomas Wriothesley, knight, the King’s Secretary Sir Ralph Sadler, knight, the King’s Secretary Sir Richard Riche, knight, Chancellor of the augmentations of the revenues of the crown. Sir John Baker, knight, Chancellor of the tenths and first fruits. That there should be a clerk attendant upon the said Council to write, enter, and register all such decrees, determinations, letters and other such things as he should be appointed to enter in a book, to remain always as a ledger, as well for the discharge of the said councillors touching such things as they should pass from time to time, as also for a memorial unto them of their own proceedings; unto the which office William Paget, late the Queen’s Secretary was appointed by the King’s Highness, and sworn in the presence of the said Council the day and year abovesaid.

(ii) Proceedings in the Privy Council, 1 January–31 January 1541 (Ibid. 103)

At Hampton Court, the first day of January, being present the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Lord Privy Seal, the Great Chamberlain of England, the Earl of Hertford, the Great Admiral of England, the Bishop of Durham, the Treasurer of Household, the Comptroller of Household, the Master of the Horse, the Vice-chamberlain, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Secretary, Sir Ralph Sadleir, Secretary, the Chancellor of the augmentations, the Chancellor of the tenths.1 At Hampton Court, the second day of January, being present the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Lord Privy Seal, the Great Chamberlain of England, the Earl of Hertford, the Great Admiral of England, the Bishop of Durham, the Treasurer of Household, the Comptroller of Household, the Master of the Horse, the Vice-chamberlain, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Secretary, Sir Ralph Sadleir, Secretary, the Chancellor of the augmentations, the Chancellor of the tenths. 1

There is no note of any business done on this day.

2

Blank in MS.

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Thomas Cottisford, priest, Chaplain to the Bishop of Ely and Derrick ( )2 a Fleming, servant to the said Bishop, were brought before the Council by Sir Giles Alington, knight, and Philip Parys, esquire, accused by one Thomas Walpole for the setting forth and publishing of a seditious epistle written by Melancthon against the act of the six articles; and upon their examination the said Derrick, confessing that he had the copy of the said epistle of the said Cottisford, was committed to the Marshal’s ward; And Cottisford, confessing that he had the copy of the said epistle of Blaze’s wife, a grocer in Cheap in London, was committed to the porter’s ward until the matters were further tried. Whereupon letters were sent to the Recorder of London and William Lock, mercer, to examine the said Blaze’s wife, and to search her house for the said epistle, and thereupon to send her hither with her confession and also the epistle if they could come by it with diligence. A letter was sent to the Mayor of London to call unto him five or six merchants of experience and to enquire how sugar and spices were sold at Lisbon and Antwerp, and how the same might be sold at London, and thereof to advertise the Council to the intent order might be taken for the setting price of certain sugar and spices brought to London by Portuguese in 4 sundry ships. At Hampton Court, the third day of December,1 being present the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Lord Privy Seal, the Great Chamberlain of England, the Earl of Hertford, the Great Admiral of England, the Bishop of Durham, the Treasurer of the Household, the Comptroller of Household, the Master of the Horse, the Vicechamberlain, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Secretary, Sir Ralph Sadleir, Secretary, the Chancellor of the augmentations, the Chancellor of the tenths. A proclamation under the stamp and signet was proclaimed with trumpet, that whosoever had or should have by any means any of the money, jewels, or goods of one Albert, spoiled and taken away of late from the said Albert at the burning of his tent at the Court Gate, should bring and restore again the same before Twelfth day then next following unto the said Albert upon pain for keeping of the same still in their hands without the said restitution, to be taken for felons. Sir John Fawel of Ashburton in the county of Devon, priest, being sent for by privy seal at the suit of Sir Thomas Denys, the Queen’s Chancellor, appeared and was commanded to give his attendance. Thomas Smith, clerk of the Queen’s Council, and William Gray, sometime servant to the late Lord Cromwell, were examined of the cause of their writing invectives one against another, and after long examination of them they were commanded to attend upon the Council the next morning at 7 of the clock. Richard Banks noted to be the printer of the said invectives and examined thereof, denied the same, and laid the fault to Robert Redman, deceased, and Richard Grafton, the which Richard Grafton confessing that he had not only printed part of the said invectives, but also had in his keeping a certain seditious epistle in the English tongue written by Melancthon, contrary to the act of six articles for Christian religion, was committed to the porter’s ward. 1

Sic, should be January.

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60. Reorganization of the Privy Council During the reign of Edward VI some attempts were made to reorganize the Privy Council, a step made necessary by the heavy burden of work falling upon its members. The main features of the changes are suggested in the following documents: (i) On 3 March 1552 Edward VI noted in his Journal the first move in the policy of easing the burdens of individual councillors by the organization of committees (Dot. A. below). (ii) Among papers in the king’s handwriting is one of uncertain date, giving a list of 31councillors together with 9 others called into commission, who were to be posted to committees (Dot. B. below). (iii) On 15 January 1553, again in the king’s hand, in another document of uncertain date, is a set of articles suggesting further reforms for promoting efficiency in the Council (Dot. C.below). The significance of this last document has been emphasized by F. G. Emmison, “A Plan of Edward VI and Secretary Petre for Reorganizing the Privy Council’s Work” (B.I.H.R. XXXI, 1958, 203-210). This article shows that another document, described in the printed Calendar of State Papers as “Orders and regulations for the despatch of public business, and for matters to be brought before the King and Privy Council. In Sir Wm. Petre’s hand”, was there misdated 15 February 1547, a date accepted by A.F.Pollard, England under Protector Somerset, 80, 8889. Mr Emmison corrects the date of the document to January 1552–53, and shows by comparing it with Dot. C. that it is really a redrafting of that document by Secretary Petre. Thus Edward’s suggestions need not be dismissed as an isolated composition or royal scholar’s essay on relations between King and Council. In the revised form in which the king’s suggestions were drafted by Petre they were clearly intended to be put into force.

(i) Committees of the Privy Council A. An entry from Edward VI’s Journal, March 1551–52. (J.G.Nichols, Lit. Rem. King Edward VI, II, 403) It was agreed that for better dispatch of things, certain of the Council, with others joined with them, should overlook the penal laws, and put certain of them in execution. Others should answer suitors; others should over see my revenues, and the order of them; and also the superfluous, and the payments heretofore made; others should have commission for taking away superfluous bulwarks. B. A method for the Proceedings in the Council. (Ibid. II, 498) The names of the whole council 1. The bishop of Canterbury 2. The bishop of Ely, L.Chancellor 3. The L.treasurer 4. The duke of Northumberland 5. The L.privy seal 6. The duke of Suffolk 7. The Marquis of Northampton 8. The earl of Shrewsbury 9. The earl Of Westmoreland 20. Mr. secretary Petre 21. Mr. secretary Cecil 22. Sir Philip Hoby 23. Sir Robert Bowes 24. Sir John Gage 25. Sir John Mason

10. The earl of Huntington 11. The earl of Pembroke 12.The viscount Hereford 13. The L.admiral 14.The L.chamberlain 15.The L.Cobham 16. The L.Rich 17. Mr. Controller 18. Mr. Treasurer 19. Mr. Vicechamberlain 26. Sir Ralph Sadleir 27. Sir John Baker 28. Judge Bromley 29. Judge Montague 30. Mr. Wotton 31. Mr. North

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Those that be now called into commission The bishop of London The bishop of Norwich SirThomas Wrothe Sir Richard Cotton Sir Walter Mildmay

Mr. Solicitor Mr. Gosnold Mr. Coke Mr. Lucas

The councillors above named to be thus divided into several commissions and charges. First, for hearing of those suits which were wont to be board. The Lord Privy Seal. The L.chamberlain The bishop of London The L. Cobham Mr. Hoby

Sir John Mason Sir Ralph Sadleir Mr. Wotton

These persons to hear the suits, to answer the parties, to make certificate (at the fortnight end)1 what suits they think meet to be granted, and upon answer received of their certificate to dispatch the parties. Also to give full answer of denial to those suits that be not reasonable, nor convenient. Also to dispatch all matters ofjustice, and to send to the common courts those suits that be for them. For calling of forfeits done against the laws, [and] for punishing the offenders and breakers of proclamations, that now stand in force. The L. Privy Seal The Earl of Pembroke The L. chamberlain Sir Thomas Wrothe Sir Robert Bowes Mr. Secretary Petre

Mr. Hoby Mr. Wotton Sir John Baker Mr. Solicitor Mr. Gosnold

These shall first see what laws penal and what proclamations standing now in force are most meet to be executed, and’shall bring a certificate thereof. Then they shall inquire in the countries how they are disobeyed, and first shall begin with the greatest offenders, and so afterward punish the rest according to the pains set forth. They shall receive also the letters out of the shires of disorders there done, and punish the offenders. [I would wish a proclamation to be set forth, to declare the laws penal, and to set forth the offenders shall be punished.] 2 [For seeing the state of the courts of Exchequer, Augmentations, Wards, first fruits, and tenths, the duchy etc. For seeing also the payments how they have been paid since the time the King that dead is went to Boulogne. These that be now in commission for the debts, after they have called them in, shall look with what superfluous charges the courts be oppressed, what disorders be in the courts, where there be too many officers, and where too few, and thereof shall make certmcate. Also they shall overlook the accounts, and make a book thereof.]3 1

2 These words are defaced. This passage is defaced in the MS. 3 All the text within brackets struck through by the king’s pen.

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For the State. The bishop of Canterbury The L.Chancellor The L.Treasurer The duke of Northumberland The duke of Suffolk The L.Privy Seal The Marquis of Northampton The earl of Shrewsbury The earl of Pembroke The earl of Westmoreland The L.admiral

The Viscount Hereford The L.Chamberlain Mr. Vicechamberlain Mr. treasurer and controller Mr. Cecil Mr. Petre Mr. Wotton Sir Philip Hoby Sir Robert Bowes Mr. Gosnold1

These (only erased) to attend the matters of the state. I will sit with them once a week [upon Tuesday at afternoon, 6th to hear the certificate of things past, and]2 to hear the debating of things of most importance. These persons underwritten shall look to the state of all the courts, especially of the new erected courts, as the augmentations, the first fruits and tenths, the wards, etc. and shall see the revenues answered at the half year’s end, and shall consider with what superfluous charges they be burdened, and thereof shall make certificate, which they shall deliver: The L.Chamberlain Sir Richard Cotton The bishop of Norwich Sir Waiter Mildmay BowesSir Thomas Wroth Mr. Gosnold Sir Robert Bowes I understand it is a member of the commission that followeth, but yet these shall do well to do it for the present, because the other shall have no leisure till they have called in the debts, after which done they may sit with them. Those that now be in commission for the debts to take accounts of all payments since the 35 of the King that dead is, after that they have done this commission they are now in hand with. Likewise for the Bulwarks. The L.Chamberlain, Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Controller to be in commission in their several jurisdictions. The rest of the council, some go home to their countries straight after the parliament, some be sore sick, that they shall not be able to attend anything (and for that cause are out, erased) which when they come (may, altered to) shall be admitted of the council. Also that these councils shall sit apart. Also that those of the Council that have these several commissions3 C. Certain articles devised and delivered by the King’s majesty, for the quicker, better, and more orderly dispatch of causes, by his majesty’s privy council, IS January 1553 (Ibid. II, 552) 1 Erased. 2 Struck through. 3 End of the leaf and what follows is not preserved.

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First, his Majesty willeth, that all suits, petitions, and common warrants, delivered to his privy council, be considered by them (on the Mondays in the morning),1 and answered also on the Mondays,2 and that that3 day, and none others, be assigned to that purpose. Secondly, that on answering of these suits, and bills of petition, heed to be taken that so many of them as pertain to any court of his Majesty’s laws, be as much as may be referred to those courts where by order they are triable.4 Thirdly, that in making of these warrants for money that pass by them, it beforeseen that those warrants be not such as may already be dispatched by warrant dormant, lest by means of such warrants the accounts should be uncertain. Fourthly, his Majesty’s pleasure is, that on the Sundays5 they intend the public affairs of this realm, they dispatch answers to letters for the good order of the realm, and make full dispatches of all things concluded the week before. Fifthly, that on the Monday in the morning6 the secretaries, or one of them, shall deliver to his Majesty a memorial of such things as are to be debated by his privy council and then his Majesty to appoint certain of them to be debated on several days vide licet7 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.8 Sixthly, that on Saturday9 in the morning9 they shall make a collection of such things as have been done for four days past, how many of these articles they have concluded, how many they have debated but not ended, and how many the time suffered not to peruse, and also the principal reasons that moved them to conclude on such matters as seemeth doubtful. Seventhly, that on Saturday morning10 they shall present this collection to his Majesty, and know his pleasure upon such things as they have concluded.11 Eightly, that on Sunday12 nightagain his Majesty having received of the secretaries such new matters as hath arisen upon new occasion, with such matters as his council have left, some not determined, and some not debated, shall point out what matters, and on which days, shall be delivered the next week following. Ninthly, that none of them depart the13 court for longer than two days, without there be left here at the least eight of the council, and that not without giving notice thereof to the King’s Majesty. Tenthly, that they shall make no manner of assembly or meeting in council without there be to the number of four at the least. 11. Furthermore, if they be assembled to the number of 4 and under the number of six, then they shall reason and debate things, examine all inconveniences and damages, and also commodities on each side, make these things plain which seem diffuse at the first opening, and if they agree amongst themselves, then at the next full assembly of six they shall make a perfect conclusion and end with them. 12. Also, if there rise such matter of weight as it shall please the King’s Majesty 1

2 3 Inserted. Altered to Saturdays at afternoon. Altered to these. Addition: such as cannot be ended without them be with expedition delivered. 5 Sidenote added in the King’s current hand: Provided that on Sundays they be present at common prayer. 6 7 Altered to: afternoon; and then to Sunday night. Inserted: Monday afternoon. 8 9 And Saturday morning added, but struck out. Altered to: Friday at afternoon. 10 11 Altered from: at afternoon. Add: and also upon all the private suits. 12 13 Altered: from Monday. Altered to: his. 4

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himself to be at the debating of, then warning shall be given, whereby the more may be at the debating of it. 13. If such matter happen to rise as shall require long debating and reasoning, or ere it come to a full conclusion or end, then his Majesty’s council shall not intermeddle other causes, nor fall to other matters for that day, until they have brought it to some good1 end. 14. When matters for lack of time be only debated, and yet brought to no2 end, then it shall be noted how far and to what point the matter is brought, and which have been the principal reasons on each side, to the intent when the matter is treated or spoken of again, it may be sooner and easier come to conclusion. 15. In matters that be long, tedious, and busy, there may be appointed or chosen two or three, or more, or less, as the case shall seem to require, to prepare, set forth, and make plain those matters, and to bring report thereof, whereby the things being less cumbrous and diffuse, may the easier be dispatched. 16. Finally, if upon advertisements, letters, or other occasions whatsoever, there arise matters of great expedition3 importance that require haste, his Majesty’s meaning is not but that such matters be weighed, considered, and determined, notwithstanding the articles pointed to several days, so that nevertheles their order be not generally or commonly broken. (The following were afterwards added in the King’s running hand:—) 17. That all warrants for reward above 40 li. and for his business or affairs above 100 li., pass not but under his signature. 18. That no private suit be intermeddled with the great affairs, but heard on the Mondays alone. 19. If there be under 4, and a matter of expedition arise, they shall declare it to the King’s Majesty and before him debate it, but not send answer without it require wonderful haste. (Indorsed, apparently by the King himself:) For the council 15 January, 1552. R.R.E. 6. 6°

(ii) A Commission for hearing suits (J.P.Collier (ed.), The Egerton Papers (C.S, 1840, 23)) This commission to the earl of Bedford and nine others was to relieve the king and the Privy Council from the duty of hearing and determining many suits preferred to them, which interfered with the despatch of more important public business.

Edward the Sixt, &c. to our right trusty and right well beloved cousin and counsellor John earl of Bedford, keeper of our privy seal, our right trusty and right well beloved counsellor Sir Thomas Darcy, lord chamberlain of our house, Sir George Brooke knight of our order, lord Cobham, the right revered father in God, Nicholas Bishop of London, our trusty and right well beloved counsellors Sir John Mason and Sir Philip Hoby, knights, and our trusty and well beloved John Cockes and John Lucas, masters of our requests 1

Struck out.

2

goo erased.

3

Erased.

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ordinary, greeting. Whereas through the great number of suits and requests which be daily exhibited unto us, and the importune calling on of the suitors of all sorts, the counsellors of our Privy Council have heretofore and yet be oftentimes so encumbered, overcharged, as they cannot so well attend the great and weighty causes of our estate royal as were requisite; We minding the redress thereof, and being also desirous that suitors of all sorts, as well our own subjects as strangers making their suits unto us, our council of estate, may have speedy answers and be reasonably despatched without long delay, trusting in your approved wisdoms, discretions and uprightness, have appointed you our special commissioners for the hearing, examining and ordering of all the suits and requests aforesaid, and such other suits as to you altogether, eight, seven, six, five, or four of you shall be exhibited. And because the suits and requests commonly exhibited be of such several natures as doth require several orders and directions, we have caused several instructions signed with our hand to be made for the manner of the proceedings and ordering of all sorts of matters according to their several natures. Wherefore our pleasure and express commandment is that, following the order which we have by our said instructions appointed, you eight, seven, six, five, or four of you shall from henceforth diligently apply the order and speedy despatch, as well of all such suits and requests as remain not yet ordered, as also of all others as from henceforth shall be made in form aforesaid; straitly charging and commanding all justices, mayors, bailiffs and sheriffs, and all other our officers, ministers and subjects, that they and every of them to be to you aiding and assisting in the execution of this our commission as they tender our pleasure and will, and will answer to the contrary. In witness whereof, &c. T R apud Westminster, IX die Martii, anno regni regis Edwardi Sexti sexto Per ipsum Regem.

E. THE CONCILIAR COURTS 61. The problem of lawlessness. From a law report, 1485 (Year Book, I Hen. VII, Mich. p. 3, pl. 3)

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nd after dinner, all the Justices were at Blackfriars to discuss the king’s business for the parliament. And several good statutes were mentioned, very advantageous for the kingdom if they could be carried out, These were the statutes compiled in the time of Edward IV. and sent into each county to the justices of the peace, to be proclaimed and enforced, viz., Winchester and Westminster, for robberies and felonies, the statute of riots, routs, and forcible entry, the statute of labourers and vagabonds, of tokens and liveries, maintenance and embracery. And now they agreed that the Statute 23 Henry VI. concerning sheriffs &c. should be sent to them and then they would have enough, and if they were properly carried out, the law would run its course well. But the question was, would they be carried out. And the Chief Justice said that the law would never be carried out properly until the lords spiritual and temporal are of one mind for the love and fear they have of God, or the king, or both, to carry them out

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effectively. Thus when the king on his side, and the lords on theirs, will do this every one else will quickly do it, and if they do not they will be punished, and then all will be warned by their example. For he said that in the time of Edward IV., when he was Attorney, he saw all the lords sworn to keep and execute diligently that statute which they with others had just drawn up by command of the king himself. And within an hour, while they were still in the Star Chamber, he saw the lords making retainers by oath, and swearing, and doing other things contrary to their above mentioned promises and oaths. Consequently oaths and swearing are of no use until they are in the aforesaid mind. And he said that he had told this to the King himself. Memorandum, that for the reform of certain enormous and unheard of crimes committed in the kingdom of England, and also for the correction of those perpetrating the same, a certain Article to be sworn and promised in the aforesaid parliament was considered, the tenour of the articles of which follows in these words:— Ye shall swear, that ye from henceforth shall not receive aid, nor comfort any person openly cursed murderer, felon, or outlawed man of felony, by you known so to be, or any such person let to be attached or taken therefor by the order of law, nor retain any man by indenture or oath, nor give livery, sign, or token, contrary to the law, nor any maintenance, imbracery, riots, or unlawful assembly make, cause to be made, or assent thereto, nor let nor cause to be letted the execution of any of the king’s writs or precepts, directed to such lawful ministers and officers as ought to have execution of the same, nor let any man to bail or mainprise knowing and deeming him to be felon, upon your honour and worship. So God you help and his Saints. Whereupon very many notable knights and gentlemen, as well of the Household of the said lord king as of the house of commons summoned to come to the present parliament, on the 19th. November before the lord king, the lords spiritual and temporal then present, called into the Parliament Chamber, when the aforesaid Article had first been publicly recited before them, swore and promised separately on the sacred gospels to observe and keep that article. And subsequently, on the same day, after the departure of the said knights and gentlemen from the Parliament Chamber, the Venerable Father John, Bishop of Winchester, chancellor of England, showed to the lords spiritual and temporal then present, how the aforesaid knights, and other gentry took their oath just as appointed among all those lords: and asked them whether they wished to do the same. They answering as with one voice said “We are ready to do the same”. After a while the aforesaid Article was again recited in the presence of the said lord king and by his command. And when it had been heard, all the aforesaid lords then present swore and promised freely to keep, observe, and perform that Article in all points, each lord spiritual placing his right hand on his breast, and each temporal lord placing his right hand on the sacred gospels. The names of the lords spiritual taking the aforesaid oath:— The archbishop of York, the bishops of London, Bangor, Chichester, Hereford, Llandaff, Lincoln, Exeter, Ely, Rochester, Worcester, Norwich, and St. Davids. The abbots of Westminster, Gloucester, St. Augustine’s Canterbury, Glastonbury, Ramsey, Cirencester, Winchcomb, St. Albans, Battle, Bury St. Edmunds, Waltham, St.

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Mary’s York, Malmesbury, Evesham, Peterborough, Shropshire, and the prior of Coventry. The names of the lords temporal taking the aforesaid oath:— The dukes of Bedford, and Suffolk. The earls of Lincoln, Arundel, Derby, Salop, Nottingham, Rivers, Devon, and Wiltshire. The viscount of Beaumont. Barons Grey, Dudley, Bergavenny, Fitzwalter, Grey of Wilton, Beauchamp, and Hastings.

(ii) An Act against liveries. St. 19 Henry VII, c. 14, 1504 (Stat. Realm, II, 658–660)

The King our sovereign lord calleth to his remembrance that where before this time divers statutes for punishment of such persons that give or receive liveries, or that retain any person or persons or be retained with any person or persons…have been made and established, and that notwithstanding divers persons have taken upon them some to give and some to receive liveries and to retain and be retained…and little or nothing is or hath been done for the punishment of the offenders in that behalf, wherefore our sovereign lord the King…hath…enacted that all his statutes and ordinances afore this time made against such as make unlawful retainers and such as so be retained, or that give or receive livery, be plainly observed and kept and put in due execution. 2. And over that, our said sovereign lord the King…enacteth…that no person, of what estate or degree or condition he be…give any livery or sign to retain any person, other than such as he giveth household wages unto without fraud or colour, or that he be his manual servant or his officer or man learned in the one law or in the other, by any writing, oath, promise, livery, sign, badge, token, or in any other manner wise unlawfully retain; and if any do the contrary, that then he run and fall in the pain and forfeiture for every such livery and sign, badge or token, so accepted, 100.s., and the taker and acceptor of every such livery, badge, token, or sign, to forfeit and pay for every such livery and sign, badge or token, so accepted, 100.s., and for every month that he useth or keepeth such livery or sign, badge or token, after that he hath taken or accepted the same, to forfeit and pay 100.s., and every person that by oath, writing, or promise, or in any other wise, unlawfully retain, privily or openly, and also every such person that is so retained, to forfeit and pay for every such time 100.s., and as well every person that so retaineth as every person that is so retained to forfeit and pay for every month that such retainer is continued 100.s. 3. And also it is…enacted…that no person…name or cause himself to be named servant or retained to or with any person, or buy or cause to be bought or wear any gown as a livery gown, sign or token of the suit or livery of any person, or any badge, token, or sign of any person, upon pain of forfeiture for every day or time that he doth, 40.s., and also to have imprisonment by the discretion of the judges or persons afore whom he shall be thereof convicted, and that without bail or mainprise. 6. Moreover, the King our sovereign lord…hath ordained…that every person that will sue or complain before the chancellor of England or the keeper of the king’s great

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seal in the star chamber, or before the king in his Bench, or before the king and his council attending upon his most royal person wheresoever he be, so that there be three of the same council at the least, of the which two shall be lords spiritual or temporal, against any person or persons offending or doing against the form of this ordinance or any other of the premises, be admitted by their discretion to give information…. And the said chancellor or keeper of the seal, the king in his Bench, or the said council to have power to examine all persons defendants and every of them, as well by oath as otherwise, and to adjudge him or them convict or attaint, as well by such examination as otherwise, in such penalties as is aforesaid as the case shall require. [The party plaintiff or informer to have reasonable reward at the discretion of the chancellor, keeper of the great seal, justices or council…].

62. Conciliar Jurisdiction. Illustrated from the Patent Rolls, etc. (i) The Council as a Court

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ommission to all sheriffs, mayors, stewards, bailiffs, reeves, customers, controllers, searchers, and others, and William Myles, king’s serjeant-at-arms, and Thomas Bambroke, yeoman of the crown, reciting that whereas in the month of August last some pirates of the realm of France, contrary to the treaties between France and Venice, took four galleys laden with merchandise of great value belonging to merchants of Venice, which were lying at anchor off the Spanish coast, brought them to France, and spoiling, selling and distributing at their will great part of the cargo as well to divers merchants of this realm as to others, and now on behalf of the plundered merchants, petition has been made to the king for restitution of the stolen goods, the king has appointed them to find by inquisition by whom and to whom the goods were sold; to arrest and detain such of them as may be found, and to fix a day for the parties concerned to appear before the council to answer touching the premises; and to certify all their proceedings to the council. (C.P.R. 1485–94, 104, 10 February 1486)

Commission to John, viscount Welles, and the sheriff of Lincoln, to arrest Edward Bernaby, John Lorymer, William Portyngton, Thomas Cleesby, and John Grome, and bring them before the council to answer touching matters which will be objected against them. (Ibid. 104, 23 February 1486) Commission to Richard Harecourt, knight, John Verney, knight, Thomas Rokes, John Cottismore, Thomas Restwold, Richard Halle, Drew Barantyne and John Eggecombe, to inquire in the counties of Oxford and Buckingham of riots and other offences committed by Giles Wellesborne and Christopher Wellesborne and their adherents; to arrest the said Giles and Christopher and others, and bring them before the king and council; and to certify the king and council of their inquisition and of all that they do in this. (Ibid. 105, 6 March 1486)

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(ii) The Council in the Star Chamber Exemplifications at the request of the society of “merchauntes adventurers” of:— (1)The tenor of a judgement given by the king and council, in the “Sterre Chambre” at Westminster, 26 November last, as to certain disputes between the said merchants adventurers and the merchants of the staple of Calais, whereby either party making any use of the privileges of the other, should be subject to all the regulations and penalties by which that other is bound. (2)The names of the lords spiritual and temporal and others who were present with the king in council at the giving of the above judgement, to wit: The archbishop of Canterbury, chancellor, the archbishop of York, treasurer of England, the bishop of Winchester, the archbishop of Dublin, the bishop of Lincoln, the bishop of Norwich, the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, the bishop of Carlisle, the bishop of Rochester, the duke of Buckingham, the marquis of Dorset, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Derby, the earl of Ormond, lord Daubeney, the king’s chamberlain, lord Bergevenny, lord Dudley, lord Hastings, lord Herbert, lord Darcy, lord Willoughby, lord Dacre, of “le South,” lord Fyneux, chief justice of the King’s Bench, lord Frowik, chief justice of the Common Pleas, Master Rowthale, the king’s secretary, Thomas Lovell, knight, Richard Guldeford, knight, Edward Ponynges, knight, Thomas Bourgchier, knight, Edmund Dudley, Master West, doctor of laws, Robert Drury, knight, Robert Lytton, knight, Gilbert Talbot, knight, Walter Hungerford, knight, Master James Stanley, clerk, John Rysley, knight, Henry Wyot, Master Hatton, doctor of laws, Master Vaughan, doctor of laws, Master Meautis, the king’s secretary in the French tongue. (C.P.R. 1494–1509, 388, 17 December 1504)

(iii) The Council in the Star Chamber Exemplification at the request of the burgesses and inhabitants of the town of Tewkesbury of the following documents:— (1)a writ of certiorari, dated 17th February, 21 Hen. VII, directed to Robert Rydon, clerk of the king’s council, relative to a decree given with the assent of the mayor and burgesses of Gloucester, the mayor and citizens of Coventry and the burgesses and inhabitants of Bewdley and Tewkesbury, 29 April, 20 Henry VII, by virtue of an act passed in the parliament held at Westminster 25 February, 19 Henry VII. (2)return by Rydon that he has searched the acts and decrees of the king’s council in the Star Chamber at Westminster, of Easter term, 20 Henry VII, and found the decree in question of which he sends a copy…made in the term of Easter, 29 April, 20 Henry VII, in the Sterre Chamber at Westminster before William archbishop of Canterbury, chancellor of England, and other lords of the king’s council, to wit, the bishop of Winchester, keeper of the privy seal, and secretary Routhal, John West, doctor of laws, the earl of Surrey, treasurer of England, the chief justices, Emson and Coningsby and Rydon, clerk of the council; which decree determined that the mayor and burgesses of Gloucester shall take of all citizens of Coventry

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towards their fee farm and repair of their bridge “for every tonne wyne and every tonne weight of all other marchaundise carried in troghe, bote or vessell passyng by the water of Severne,” from or by Gloucester towards Worcester 3d., and for every such “tonne” laid upon the wharf, quay or land of Gloucester 3d., without taking anything for carriage of the goods by wains, carts, horses or otherwise…. (C.P.R. 1494–1509, 461 27 February 1506)

(iv) Decree in the Star Chamber, 1533 (A.Raine, York Civic Records, in, 164)

Assembled in the council chamber in the common hall where and when Master Gaylle declared before this presence and the Common Council the decree of the deposition of Ralph Pullayn and Ralph Symson of their aldermanship, made by the king’s most honourable council forth of the star chamber, which decree and the presents at the same hereafter doth appear. Assembly of the king’s most honourable council within the star chamber at Westminster the Monday the 24th. day of November, 25 Henry VIII. Lord Chancellor of England Lord Duke of Norfolk’s grace Lord Earl of Wiltshire Lord Earl of Oxford, Lord Chamberlain of England Lord Earl of Sussex Lord Burgane Lord Windsor Master Cromwell, esquire, Master of the King’s Jewelhouse Sir William Kingston, knight, Vice-Chamberlain of the King’s Chamber Sir James Boleyn, knight, Chancellor to the Queen’s good grace Sir Henry Wyatt, knight Sir Brian Tuke, knight, Treasurer of the King’s Chamber Master Doctor Sampson, Dean of the King’s Chapel Lord Fitzjames, Chief Justice of England Lord Norwich, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, knight, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas Whereupon the examination of the truth and by good deliberation have confirmed the deposition of Ralph Pullayn and Ralph Symson of their rooms of aldermanship within the city of York quousque etc. upon their good behaviour.

(v) An act giving the Court of Star Chamber authority to punish divers misdemeanours. St. 3 Hen. VII, c. 1, 1487 (Stat. Realm, II, 509) Most earlier speculation concerning the significance of this Act in the history of the Court of Star Chamber is no longer relevant. To get things into proper perspective one should consult Pollard, E.H.R. XXXVII, 521; C.H.Williams, “The So-Called Star Chamber Act”, History, N.S. XV, 1930–1931, 129; Dunham and Bayne, Council of Henry VII (S.S. xlix).

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The King our sovereign lord remembereth how by unlawful maintenances, giving of liveries signs and tokens, and retainders by indenture promises oaths writing or otherwise, embraceries of his subjects, untrue demeanings of sheriffs in making of panels and other untrue returns, by taking of money by juries, by great riots and unlawful assemblies, the policy and good rule of this realm is almost subdued, and for the nonpunishment of this inconvenience and by occasion of the premises nothing or little may be found by inquiry, whereby the laws of the land in execution may take little effect, to the increase of murders, robberies, perjuries, and unsureties of all men living and losses of their lands and goods, to the great displeasure of Almighty God; Be it therefore ordained for reformation of the premises by the authority of this Parliament, that the chancellor and treasurer of England for the time being and keeper of the King’s privy seal, or two of them, calling to them a bishop and a temporal lord of the King’s most honourable council and the two chief justices of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas for the time being, or other two justices in their absence, upon bill or information put to the said chancellor for the King or any other against any person for any misbehaving afore rehearsed, have authority to call before them by writ or privy seal the said misdoers, and them and other by their discretions to whom the truth may be known to examine, and such as they find therein defective to punish them after their demerits, after the form and effect of statutes thereof made, in like manner and form as they should and ought to be punished if they were thereof convict after the due order of the law.

(vi) An act that the President of the King’s Council shall be associate with the Chancellor and Treasurer of England and the Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal. St. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 20, 1529 (Stat Realm, in, 304)

[After rehearsing St. 3 Hen. VII, c. I, the Act proceeds:—] Nevertheless in the same good and profitable statute the President of the king’s most honourable Council for the time being attending upon his most noble and royal person is omitted and not named in the said former statutes…to be one of the said persons that should have authority to call before them such misdoers so offending the king’s laws in any of the premises as is before rehearsed. Be it therefore…enacted, that from henceforth the Chancellor, Treasurer of England, and the President of the king’s most honourable Council attending upon his most honourable person for the time being, and the keeper of the King’s Privy Seal, or two of them, calling unto them one bishop and one temporal lord of the king’s most honourable Council, and the two Chief Justices of the King’s Bench and the Common Pleas for the time being, or other two of the king’s justices in their absence, upon any bill or information hereafter to be put in, the Chancellor of England, Treasurer, President of the king’s said most honourable Council, or keeper of the king’s privy seal for the time being, for any misbehaving before rehearsed, from henceforth shall have full power and authority to call before them by writ of privy seal such misdoers, and them and other by their discretion by whom the truth may be known to examine, and such as they shall find defective to punish them after their

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demerits after the form and effect of the said former statute and of all other statutes thereof tofore made and not repealed nor expired, in like manner and form as they should and ought to be punished if they were thereof convicted after the due order in the king’s laws.

63. The Court of Star Chamber. Some typical proceedings Goryng v. Earl of Northumberland. Wardship, c. 1500 (P.D.Mundy, Star Chamber Proceedings relating to Sussex, 1)

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o the King our sovereign lord. John Goryng sheweth that Henry Algernon Percy Earl of Northumberland claims to have the ward and marriage of the complainant and hath seized his body and keeps him as his ward at his place at Saint Martins in London, and hath so kept him more like a prisoner than a ward from the Ascension Even last past unto this time and the said Earl hath committed the matter to be in examination of two of your Justices and to make report to Sir Reynold Bray, Knt., who is to direct and order as to him shall seem good whereunto the complainant is agreed, but the Earl delayeth the matter and hath entered into the lands of the complainant and taken the rents of his farmers and hath seized part of his goods to his great impoverishment. And also, Thomas, Earl of Surrey, Thomas, Lord Laware, Edward Storey, Bishop of Chichester, and others claim your complainant to be ward to them, and the said Thomas, Earl of Surrey, hath taken a suit against him. And forasmuch as the complainant is in such a ward and keeping although he be of sufficient age to answer the said suits he cannot defend them according to his right because of his retention in ward and is utterly undone, remediless, unless your gracious pity and comfort to him be shewed in this behalf. Wherefore he prays for an examination before you and your most honourable Council. By his answer, the Earl of Northumberland admits the seizure of the complainant as was lawful for him, for John Goryng, grandfather to the complainant, held of the said Earl as of his honour of Petworth in Sussex divers parcels of grounds by knight service and died in his homage, after whose death all the said parcels descended to the said complainant as cousin and heir to the said John Goryng, that is to say son of John son of the said John, the grandfather. And he admits that the examination of the matter was committed to two of the King’s Justices which were Mr. Wood and Mr. Tremaile who were attended by counsel for the said Earl and for the complainant, but alleges that when his complainant found that they were about to report to Mr. Bray he said that he would find a prick whereby the hands of the said Justices should be closed, but the Earl is agreeable to have the matter examined by the King’s Council if done without delay for the complainant shall be at his full age at Michaelmas next. And he admits that he entered into all the lands which John Goryng the grandfather held of him by knight service and took the rents. And says that the said John Goryng the grandfather held of him 8 several portions of land for each of which he ought to have by death of his tenant a mownter [mortuary] and a heriot as it plainly appears by the customaries of the said honour of Petworth. And for part of the said heriots and mownters the said

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Earl took 6 oxen and a horse which were the chattels of John Goryng the grandfather. And where the complainant alleges that he is claimed to be in ward by divers other persons as by the Earl of Surrey, the Lord lawarre, and the bishop of Chichester, the said Earl saith that that is one of the special causes for the which he hath kept him in his own possession so that none of these lords should be possessed of him and put the said Earl to his action. By his replication the complainant alleges that he knoweth not that his grandfather held any lands of the said Earl within the county of Sussex by knight service, and denies that his grandfather died seised of 8 portions of land or any other holden of the said Earl, and says that two of his tenants since the seizure by the said Earl have departed from their farms.

Clutton v. Bolton. Riotous Entry [1531] (R.Stewart Brown, Lancashire and Cheshire Cases in the Star Chamber, 125)

To the king our sovereign lord. Humbly sheweth Mary Clutton, widow, administratrix of her late husband Henry Clutton, that whereas he exhibited a bill in the Star Chamber against one Hugh Bolton of Hankelowe and others for riotous entry into his land at Bureton, which he occupied of the demise of Sir William Tyrhyll and Dame Jane, his wife, and produced witnesses whose depositions were taken in the said court, the said Henry afterwards died; and the said Bolton, by the bearing supportation and unlawful maintenance of Sir Randulph Pole, clerk, being a man of great possessions, kin and alliance in the said county of Chester, in March and April 22 Henry VIII [1531], after the decease of the said Henry, forcibly entered again and expulsed your oratrix, being a very poor widow, with nothing to live upon but only the said farm; wherefore etc.

Dyon v. Sotheby. Forced Marriage [uncertain date] (W.Brown, Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings, 118)

To the King’s highness. In most humble wise sheweth and complaineth unto your excellent highness your poor faithful subject, Robert Dyon, yeoman, that when your said subject and one Margaret Normanton were affyed and contracted in lawful matrimony at Caister in your Grace’s county of Lincoln in the presence of divers persons there being: and your said subject so being contracted and affyed with the said Margaret departed then from here, leaving her in service with one Sir Edward Madison, knight, at Caister aforesaid, promising here then the said Margaret that he, your said subject, would shortly after make repair to her and appoint a time to be married according to the laws of Holy Church. And shortly afterward, that is to say, about the first day of October last past, one Guy Sotheby of Halton in your Grace’s county of Lincoln, and Thomas Sotheby, his son, of their malicious and devilish purpose, privily procured and conveyed the said Margaret from the place where she was in service into Holderness in your county of York, and privily without any asking of any banns of matrimony in any church, at Kingston upon Hull privily the said Thomas by advice of the said Guy married the said

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Margaret, and hath had carnal knowledge of the said Margaret, she being not over xiij years of age, which is not only against God’s laws but also to the most perilous example of all other, and unless condign punishment be had for the same offenders. And your said subject being a poor serving man, hath sustained and had hereby great losses and great expenses to his nigh utter undoing unless your Grace’s succour be to him shewed in this behalf. In consideration whereof it may please your highness to grant your most gracious writ of sub penaye to be directed unto the said Guy, Thomas, and Margaret, and every of them, commanding them and every one of them, by the same personally to appear before your highness and your most honourable Council in your most honorable Court of Star Chamber at Westminster at a certain day.

Dene v. Banaster. Maintenance. 1522 (W.Brown, Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings, I,101)

To the most reverend father in God, Thomas, lord cardinal legate a latere, archbishop of York and chancellor of England. Sheweth unto your good and gracious lordship your daily oratrix, Alice Dene, widow, late wife to George Dene of Stirton in the county of Nottingham, gentleman, that, whereas one Roger Banaster, late of Stirton beforesaid, gentleman, of his prepensed malice, violently and with force and arms, in right heinous manner, the xv day of October in the xiith. year of the reign of our sovereign lord the king that now is, at a place called the Hall Wood in the parish of Stirton beforesaid, in the said county, made assault upon the said George Dene and there the same Roger the said George feloniously, violently, and heiniously slew and murdered, whereof the same Roger according to the King’s laws is indicted before one of the coroners of the same shire. And forthwith upon the said murder, thus by the same Roger committed and done in the said shire of Nottingham, Roger fled into Yorkshire, and there is received, maintained, and borne by one John Banaster, gentleman, father to the said murderer, dwelling in the lordship of Hatfield in the county of York. And forasmuch, good and gracious lord, that the said heinous and violent murder was thus committed and done in Nottinghamshire, and the said murderer is received, maintained, and borne in Yorkshire, therefore your said oratrix can have no appeal of murder against the said John Banaster receiver and aider of the said Roger, would it therefore please your grace, the premisses tenderly considered, and inasmuch as the said John Banaster is daily here present in Westminster hall, to call him before your grace and other the King’s most honourable council by a serjeant at arms, there to answer to the said felonies and other misdemeanours. And your said oratrix shall daily pray to God for the preservation of your grace long to endure. Dorso. Let the within complained of John Banaster be summoned by writ of Privy Seal to appear before the King and his Council at Westminster on the morrow of St. John the Baptist next to come under a penalty of £100. By command of the Cardinal Legate, Chancellor of England.

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Bolton v. Shirley. Illegal Detention, [uncertain date] (P.D.Mundy, Star Chamber Proceedings relating to Sussex, 45)

To the King. Complaint of Robert Bolton, who states that he lately departed from Cambridge, where he was a student, and came to Lewes, co. Sussex, to the intent to get him a farm in those parts, “Bringing with him such arrangement and stuff as he had,” where a gentleman called Raufe Shirley, then sheriffof the county,1 supposing him to be a felon and to have stolen his said arayment, took him and his goods, to the value of £20, and carried him to his own place called Wiston, keeping him there by the space of five weeks, and caused him to be indicted of felony, whereof he was acquitted, and forced him to make him a general acquittance and to be bound to his son-in-law Edward Elderton in an obligation of £10. Complainant asks for a writ to direct the Sheriff and the said Elderton to restore his goods.

Massey v. Hough. Murder and Maintenance, [uncertain date] (R.Stewart Brown, Lancashire and Cheshire Cases in the Star Chamber, 113)

To the King our most sovereign liege lord. Lamentably complaineth John Massey, esquire, that where he heretofore complained not only to your Grace and the lords of your council, but also to your commissioners in the Marches of Wales, how that Richard Houghe, esquire, with a great number of evil doers, lay in wait to murder your said subject and his servants as he was going home out of your city of Chester, about five of the clock at afternoon, leaving him lying for dead, and also shamefully murdered one Randolph Davenport, gentleman, servant and kinsman unto your said subject, and wounded and mangled others of his servants, who were left for dead, whereupon the said misdoers fled out of the shire and country. The King’s commandments by advice of his council were thereupon directed to all his officers in the county of Chester and the said commissioners likewise sent the King’s commandments and theirs to the sheriff and all the officers of the county and to the coroner of the hundred of Wirral, where the murder was so heinously committed, for the finding thereof according to the truth. An inquest was sworn before the same coroner, but by the maintenance of divers gentlemen, being near kinsmen to the said Hough, who caused their own tenants and servants to be put upon the said inquest, the jurors followed the wicked minds of the said gentlemen; and the coroner and his inquest were after before the commissioners, where evidence eftsones was given to the said inquest and put in writing indented, whereupon they were agreed to find the truth accordingly. Albeit, after their departure from the commissioners, the coroner and said gentlemen laboured the same inquest to find contrary to the said writing indented and their own agreement; and because two persons of the same inquest would not vary from the truth and their agreement, the coroner returned his inquest subtly, leaving out the same two persons, in great deceit to your Grace, for the intent to obtain lightly the pardon of the said Hough, and to save his lands, which be yearly 20 marks in lands and above. The said gentlemen do openly maintain 1 P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, List of Sheriffs. Richard Shirley was Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1513 and 1526.

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and give evidence in favour of the murderers, and company with the said Richard: and by their labours Edward Fitton, your sheriff there, doth craftily excuse himself in the matter. He prays writs of privy seal directed to the coroner and to the gentlemen whose names be written in a schedule attached…. Articles of complaint of misdemeanours committed by Henry Hookenhall, coroner of Wirral, against the King’s peace, and crown concerning the death of Randell Davenport. Of the special favour he had to Richard Hough, which shamefully murdered the said Randell, he empanelled an inquest to inquire thereupon of foreign townships, and put thereupon such light persons as were servants and friends to the murderer and his kinsmen. He would not suffer one William Clay ton, one of the King’s serjeants in those quarters to give evidence for the King nor to challenge the inquest. In derogation of the King’s crown he suffered Edward Mynshull, Hugh Calveley, Thomas Gravenor, and divers other maintainers of the said murderer to give evidence against the King in excuse of the said murderer. He said upon his own mind wilfully that it had not been seen aforetime that any such challenges should be made at a coroner’s inquest, and would put thereupon whom it pleaseth him and abide the jeopardy thereof. He presumptuously did read a letter to the inquest that came from Richard Hough, the murderer, in excusing himself of the said murder against the King, in hurt of his laws and contrary to his said office. The said serjeant required the said coroner that he might go into the house where the inquest was put after it was charged, and he would not suffer him to come where they were to inform them of nothing upon the King’s behalf; nor would he suffer him to hear and be by at the taking of the verdict for the King, to the intent to make it in form of the law, but did cause him to avoid the church where he sat, and locked the church door to keep him out, that he should not be privy to the same. He procured the said inquest to follow his mind in giving such verdicts as were given, and caused them to find the said Garatt as principal with the said Hough, because he was present, and said it was the law that they must needs so do. Whereupon they found that he was present, and the coroner hath returned the said inquest otherwise upon his own mind, and left out two of them that would not agree to him. Item, where before the King’s commissioners a bill was agreed upon by the inquest to be found, the said coroner concealed that bill and would not suffer them to find that bill so agreed upon, but procured them sinisterly to find another bill contrary to the truth in preserving the King’s laws.

Alderson etc. v. Constable. Forcible Entry. 1532 (W.Brown, Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings, 21)

To the King our sovereign lord. In most lamentable wise complaining shew unto your highness your daily orators and poor subjects, Thomas Alderson of Arras, in your county of York, husbandman, Thomas Rauson of the same husbandman, William Snell of the same husbandman,

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James Sharpe of the same husbandman, That where one Sir Thomas Johnson Knight, servant unto the right honourable lord Henry, Earl of Northumberland, in the name of the said Earl, demised, granted, and to farm let unto your said subjects about four years past or thereupon, iiij. messuages, xxxijti oxgangs of arable land, and certain other pastures with their appurtenances, set lying and being in the said town and fields of Arras aforesaid, in your foresaid county of York, to have and to hold to your said subjects at will, yielding and paying therefor yearly to the said Earl the sum of Xli. sterling at two terms in the year, that is to say, at the feast of Pentecost and Saint Martin in winter by even portions. By force whereof your said subjects entered into the said iiij. messuages, xxxijti. oxgangs of land with their appurtenances, and thereof were peaceably possessed unto the xij. day of August in the xxxijti. year of your most noble reign. That Sir Robert Constable, Knight, with force and arms, that is to say with swords, bucklers, bows, arrows, and other defensible weapons, accompanied with him to the number of xxiijti. persons, into the said iiij. messuages xxviijti. (sic) oxgangs of land with their appurtenances, riotously did enter, and the barley, oats, and peas, being upon the said ground, reaped and set in shocks, by estimation to the value of cccc quarters, or thereupon wrongfully with force and arms and in riotous manner took from your said subjects, which barley, oats, and peas amounted to the clear value of lxxx li. And also, most dread sovereign lord, the said Sir Robert, not being contented with the said riot and misdemeanour, as is aforesaid, but of his further covetous mind and extortionate power, the said xiith day of August aforesaid, expelled and put forth your said subjects, out of the same iiij. messuages and xxxijti. oxgangs of land without any warning to them given by the said Earl or other his officers, by reason whereof your said subjects, which had neither house nor ground to pasture their cattle, the most part of their said cattle died and was for lack of meat. And furthermore, most dread sovereign lord, your said subjects have now of late sown with oats ten acres of arable land within the fields of Arras aforesaid; and the said Sir Robert wrongfully and against your laws with his sheep, to the number of cccc hath eaten, consumed, and destroyed, and yet daily consume and destroy with his said sheep to the great damage and hurt of your said poor subjects. And where before your said poor subjects were able to live and find their selves, their wives, and children, are now constrained to ask their living of other well disposed persons, whereby your said poor subjects are utterly impoverished for ever, unless your highness moved with pity provide some remedy in this behalf. In consideration whereof pleaseth it your highness of your most abundant goodness the premisses considered to grant your writ of Subpena to be directed to the said Sir Robert, commanding etc.

A’ Wood v. Clymho [uncertain date] (P.D.Mundy, Abstracts of Star Chamber Proceedings… Sussex, 77)

To the King. Complaint of William a Wood of Maghfelde, county Sussex, stating that one Thomas Asteley, a broker of London, came to his mansion house at Maghfeld and promised to lend him £20. and bade him come up to London for it, upon which promises

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Complainant resorted up to London to the said Astley’s and desired of him to lend him the money, and the said Astley said if he would be bound for the repayment within a year next following he should have it and Complainant was accordinly so bound in the sum of £100, whereupon the said Astley gave Complainant a noble and said “take that towarde your costs and my servant shall ryde downe with you for the sauf conduct of your money in the country and paye you at home in your house.” And so the said Astley sent his servant with your said orator, and when he came there the said servant by the subtle craft of his master, intending to deceive your orator, said unto him, “I hear in the country that your land standeth accombered with you, wherefore I will pay you no money, and if ye will ride to London to my master there ye shall have your money.” Upon which Complainant resorted to London again to the said Astley trusting to have had his said ££20, whereupon the said Astley caused [your] orator to be bound by another statute of the staple to one John Clymhoo of London, organ maker, in 200 marks, and that so done your poor orator asked of the said Astley his said £20, and the said Astley said he would send down his servant and a clerk with him to see his evidence, and they should pay him his money there. And so the servant of the said Astley and a clerk went home with the said Complainant and saw his evidences; and having seen them took them away with them, and then said to him he should have no money because he wanted his “stok deed”, and so departed away with the said evidences and paid your orator but forty pence in gold and bade him bring up to London his “stok deeds”, and then he should have his money. And thereupon Complainant resorted to London to the said Astley for his said £20, and brought such “stok deeds” as he had and delivered them to the said Astley, and the said Astley, John Clymhoo, and one George Carleton, citizen and grocer of London, contrived and had made ready a pair of indentures, in which indentures it was contained that your orator should bargain and sell all his lands and tenements in Mayfield or elsewhere within the county of Sussex, to the said Clymhoo and Carleton for a sum of £100, by the said Astley the broker by the commandment of your poor orator contented and paid to the said Clymhoo and Carleton. Complainant states he is a “laye man and not lettered”, and therefore could not read the indentures, and that he was most shamefully deceived. The answers of John Clymhoo and Thomas Astley to the bill of complaint of “William Wodd” [sic] deny the charges.

Star Chamber Punishment and Pardon, 1546 (L.P. XXI, i, 504, g. 38)

Giles Crowe of Westram, Kent, yeoman, who on 29 Nov. 36 Hen. VIII was condemned by-the Council in the Star Chamber, to be set on the pillory in London and in his own country, have one of his ears cut off, and be branded on both cheeks with the letter “p” for perjuror, and pay a fine of £200, suffering imprisonment until he should find sureties for this payment, and for certain damages to the king’s subjects. Pardon of all poachings of game, burnings of woodstacks, seditious rhymes, fishing in several waters, destroying dykes and trees, taking nests of hawks or heron shawes, burnings of coal carts and wood for making coal, housebreaking, cutting off ears and tails of horses or other

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stock, cutting off the wool of sheep or other stock, cutting off ears of the king’s subjects, perjuries, concealments, etc., committed before the said 29 November.

64. The Court of Requests (i) Organization of the court (a) Order in Council for “poor men’s causes” c. 1516. (Leadam, Select Cases in the Court of Requests, lxxxi)

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or the expedition of poor men’s causes depending in the starred Chamber, It is ordered by the most reverend father etc., Thomas, lord cardinal, chancellor of England, and the other lords of the King’s most honourable [Council] that these causes here mentioned shall be heard and determined by the King’s councillors here-under named. The which councillors have appointed to sit for the same in the White Hall here at Westminster, unto the which place the pleasure of the said most reverend father etc. and the other etc., is that the said poor suitors shall resort before the said commissioners for the decision and determination of their said causes as appertaineth, where they shall have hearing with expedition.

(b) Appointment of Commissioners for Court of Requests, 9 March 1552 (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1550–53, 353) (b) Commission to John, earl of Bedford, keeper of the Privy Seal, Sir Thomas Darcy, K.G., lord Darcy of Chichey, lord chamberlain of the King’s house, Sir George Broke, K.G., lord Cobham, Nicholas bishop of London, Sir John Mason and Sir Philip Hobbye, Knights, John Cockes and John Lucas, esquires, masters of the Requests, (whereas through the great number of suits and requests which be daily exhibited unto us and the importune calling on of the suitors of all sorts the councillors of our Privy Council have heretofore been and yet be oftentimes so encumbered and overcharged as they cannot so well attend the great and weighty causes of our estate royal as were requisite, and the King would not have the suits either of his own subjects or of strangers unreasonably delayed) to be special commissioners for the hearing, examining, and ordering of all the suits and requests aforesaid, and such other suits as to them (at least four of them) shall be exhibited. And because suits are commonly of several natures and require several ordering the

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King has signed certain instructions for their proceedings, and thereupon requires them to use diligence for the speedy despatch of all suits. (c) Regulations for the Commissioners of Requests (J.F.Nichols Literary Remains of Hing Edward VI, II 502) Certain things which the commissioners for the requests shall not meddle withal. 1. Suits for lands. 2. Suits for forfeits amounting (to more than, inserted) 40 li. value. 3. Suits for pensions. 4. Reversions of farms, which have more than (two altered to) one year to come. 5. Leases of manors. 6. Leases for more than 21 years. 7. No offices of special trust in reckonings of money, as customers, controllers, surveyors, receivers, auditors, treasurers, and chancellors, etc. to be given otherwise than durante beneplacito. Also all mintmasters, and others that have a doing in the mint, and such like. The bishops, judges, and other officers of judgment, quam diu se bene gesserit. Bailiwicks, stewardships, keeping of parks and houses etc: to be granted during life. 8. Suits for forgivement of debts. 9. Releasing of rent to be paid. 10. Suits for money to the intent to pay debts they owe elsewhere. 11. Suits to buy land. 12. Suits for licences to carry over gold, silver, lead, leather, corn, wood etc. that be things unlawful. 13. Unresidence upon benefices. They shall meddle with bailiwicks and stewardships during life, leases for 21 year, profits under 40 li. receiverships, woodwardships, surveyorships, etc. during pleasure, instalments of days for debts. To those gentlemen that have well served feefarms to them and their heirs males of their body, paying the rent, and discharging the annuities due to all officers touching the same, keeping of houses and parks, ordinary offices, or yeomen of the crown, the household offices etc.

(ii) Court of Requests. Example of proceedings Myddlewod v. Abbot of Whitby, 1531 (Leadam, Select Cases, 31)

To the King our Sovereign Lord. In most humble and lamentably wise complaining sheweth unto your Highness your true subject and daily orator Roger Myddlewod gentleman, That where your said orator being a poor serving man and also having but few friends to trust unto for his living, to his great costs and charges did apparel himself meet and convenient for a serving man and also endeavoured himself to the best and uttermost of his power to be with some

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honourable man or other substantial and honest man in service to the intent he thereby might have some honest living and also be well brought up in his youth. By reason whereof your said orator had great offers and request of divers worshipful men and was required to be in service of divers of them promising him great wages for his service. So it is most gracious sovereign lord one John Hexham abbot of the monastery of Whitby in the county of York hearing that your said orator was minded to go unto service and also perceiving that he had many great offers of wages tended unto him by divers and sundry worshipful and honest persons and that he the said abbot had great need of a servant, the same abbot about v. years past required your said orator to be retained in service with him for certain years saying and faithfully promising unto your said orator that he would give and pay unto your said orator iiij marks yearly for his wages as long as your said orator would abide in service with him. Whereupon your said orator trusting to the said fair promises and agreement of the said Abbot was content and agreed to be in service with the said Abbot for the said yearly wages of iiij. marks and then and there at Whitby aforesaid came and entered into the service of the said Abbot accordingly and was so retained with the said abbot in service and served him by the space of iiij. years and above during all which time your said orator could receive nor get of the said abbot any part of his said yearly wages but at all such times that your said orator did require of the said abbot his said wages the said abbot with flattering and deceitful words did at all times promise and say unto your said orator that he should be pleased and well paid every penny thereof and much more for his good service, yet notwithstanding your said orator during all the said iiij. years could not have nor receive of the said abbot any part of his said wages. By occasion whereof your said orator was run far in debt, and his raiment and apparel sore worn and spent and thereupon for great necessity your said orator after the said iiij. years expired and ended departed and went out of and from the service of the said abbot and albeit that your said orator hath often and sundry times desired and instantly required the said abbot to content and pay unto your said orator his said yearly wages of iiij. marks amounting in the whole to the sum of £10. 13s. 4d. which to do the said abbot hath at all times contrary to his said promise of his malicious and cruel mind wrongfully refused and denied and yet doth contrary to all right and good conscience, and forasmuch as your said orator is a poor serving man and of very small substance and in manner brought unto great poverty by the unlawful means of the said abbot, and the said abbot being a man of great substance and power and also greatly born and friended within the said county and also perceiveth that your, said orator hath no especialty nor writing proving the said contract nor that he can have any indifferent trial there, Wherefore your said orator is without remedy for the obtaining of his said wages by the due course and order of the common law and otherwise unless your most gracious aid and succour be unto him shewed in this behalf. In consideration whereof it may please your grace the premisses considered to grant unto your said orator your most dread writ of private seal to be directed unto the said abbot commanding him by the same personally to appear before your highness and your most honourable Council at a certain day and upon a certain pain by your highness to be limited then and there to

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make answer to the premisses and further to be ordered therein as shall accord with right and good conscience. And your said orator shall daily pray to Jhesu for the preservation of your most royal grace long to endure….

Hide v. Catesby, 1508–29 (Leadam, Select Cases, 10)

To the King our Sovereign Lord. In most humble wise sheweth and complaineth unto your highness your poor subject and daily orator Nicholas Hide late household servant to John Catesby of Thorp Ludenham squire at the wages of xxvj.s. viij.d. by the year with one livery containing three yards broad cloth, at ij.s. viij.d. the yard: so it is gracious Lord that your orator at the time of his departure from his said late master by his licence, was behind unpaid of his wages for one half year, that is to say, xiij.s. iiij.d. and of his said livery for the whole year to the value of viij.s., which sums of money he hath divers and many times demanded of him, and at all seasons by facings and bracings1 hath been kept from the same and so as yet is and ever shall be unless your grace provide his remedy in that behalf. Wherefore the premisses graciously considered, and inasmuch as your orator is and shall be without remedy herein by course of the common laws, it may please your highness that by one of your officers at arms or otherwise as shall please your grace, the said John Catesby being daily the most part of this term in your palace at Westminster may be called before your honourable Council and not to depart from the same to such season as your orator shall be ascertained how to be answered and paid the said money and for his livery accordingly. And the same your orator shall especially pray to God for your blessed preservation and most royal estate long to endure.

65. The Council of the North (i) Commission, 1530 (R.Reid Council of the North, App. IV, 502–503)

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he King to the reverend father in Christ, Cuthbert, bishop of Durham, and to his beloved Brian Higden, clerk, dean of York, Thomas Magnus, archdeacon of the East Riding, William Tate, clerk, and to his beloved etc. greeting. Know that we, greatly trusting in your faithfulness, industry, and foresight, have assigned you twelve, eleven, etc. or four, of whom we wish you the aforesaid Cuthbert, Brian, Thomas Magnus, Thomas Tempest, Thomas Fairfax, Robert Bowes, and William Babthorp to be one, to be our Justices of the Peace, and also our commissioners to inquire and cause to be inquired by the oath of proven and lawful men within the county and city of York our town and port of Kingston on Hull and the county of the same, and by other ways and means whereby you can best cause the truth to be known concerning all kinds of unlawful congregations and conventicles, meetings, confederations of Lollards, misprisions, false allegations, trespasses, riots, routs, 1

Brace, to swagger.

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retainders, contempts, deceptions, maintenance, oppressions, violence, extortions, and other misdeeds, offences, and injuries whatsoever, whereby the peace and tranquility of our subjects in the counties and places aforesaid are endangered or may be endangered, by whomsoever and by whatsoever deeds done or perpetrated or henceforth to be done or perpetrated, and by whom and to whom, when, how, and in what manner and expressing more fully the truth concerning the other articles and circumstances aforesaid. And we wish these same congregations, unlawful conventicles, meetings, confederacies, and all other the premises to be prosecuted as well at our suit as at that of any of our subjects and for us or for them to be heard, discussed, decided, and ended according to the laws and customs of our kingdom of England, or otherwise, according to your wise discretions. And also all kinds of real actions concerning free tenements and personal actions for debt, or any other demands whatsoever, in the counties and places aforesaid, where both parties or one of them is so oppressed by poverty that he cannot otherwise prosecute his due rights according to the common law of our kingdom, finally to hear, discuss, decide, and end according to the laws and customs of our kingdom of England, or otherwise according to your wise discretion. And to cause to be performed the opinions, precepts, decrees and orders made by you, and to cause to be taken and attached those who do not put in an appearance, or are disobedient or hostile to your opinions, precepts, decrees or ordinances, and to castigate and punish them according to your wise discretion. And also to cause fines to be levied on all over the number of twenty persons, up to any number for routs, riots, or other things aforesaid, saving to us the amercements and other things pertaining to us from the premises. For we command by the tenour of these presents, to our sheriffs of the aforesaid counties and places and to each of them that at each day and place which you twelve, etc. or four of you (of whom you the aforesaid Cuthbert, Brian, etc. we wish to be one) cause to be known to them from time to time, that they cause to come before you as many and such proved and lawful men of their bailiwicks, as well within liberties as without, by whom the truth of the matter can best be known and inquired. Accordingly, we give to all and singular dukes, earls, barons, knights, mayors, bailiffs, seneschals, constables and other officers, our ministers and our faithful lieges, as well within liberties as without, by tenour of these presents, our command that they shall be assistant, helpful, and obedient in all things diligently. And we will likewise that all and singular other our commissions of this kind for inquiring, hearing, and determining in the aforesaid counties and places, to whatsoever persons they have before this been directed, and also all and singular commissions of our peace which were separately made, or in future shall be made to our justices of the peace in the counties and places aforesaid, and all and singular things contained in these commissions, and each of them, or in future shall be contained, shall remain in their force and effect, these our letters patent notwithstanding. And that these letters shall remain in all their force and effect notwithstanding other commissions, as well for inquiry, hearing, and ending, as other commissions for keeping our peace in the same counties and places aforesaid, or any of them, to whatsoever persons before this time made or conceded, or in future to be made or directed. In witness whereof, etc.

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(ii) Devices for a Council to be established in the North parts, June 1537 (Reid, Council of the North, App. V, 505)

Forasmuch as the Duke of Norfolk being at this present lieutenant in the North parts shall be revoked home and that it hath pleased the King’s majesty to determine the creation of a Council to reside there and thereof to make and ordain the bishop of Durham to be his Grace’s president for the better establishment of the same in such sort as they may…the more acceptable and ready service these things following be specially to be remembered. [Imprimis if it please the King’s highness to have my lord of Norfolk to establish a council there of the inhabitants of those parties] Then it…be two commissions, whereof the one [shall] must be to hear and determine…murder felony and other like. And the other to hear and determine all ca…by bill witness examination or otherwise by their discretions. And the…into the shires of York, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, the bishopric…shires of the city of York, Kingston upon Hull and the Newcastle upon Tyne. Item in the said commission of oier and determiner of criminal causes to the intent the same may be had in more reputation it is thought necessary, if it stand with the King’s pleasure that there be named my lord Chancellor, my lord of Northfolk, my lord of Suff. [and] my lord Privy Seal, my lord of Sussex, [Bishop of Durham] also my lord Admiral as chief commissioners in the same commission and the Justices of assise in these parts to be in both the said commissions and such number of other discreet persons inhabiting within divers parts of the aforesaid shires as it shall please the King’s highness to appoint. Item that [of the aforesaid commissioners, one to be president, unto whom] all bills of complaint may be exhibited [and with him] to the president and there may all ways to remain with him one clerk of the Council with a signet of the King’s highness, for directing of precepts and a pursuivant for [sending messages] to go with letters in matters of great importance and at every [of the aforesaid] sessions five of the aforesaid commissioners whereof two to be of the quorum at the least to be present. Item one of the aforesaid commissioners to be a Master of the Chancery, and to be present at every council to take recognisances as the case shall require. Item that there may be a place appointed for a prison of like sort as the Fleet is for punishment of contempts riots and other offences. Item it is thought necessary that [the aforesaid] commissioners do keep their sessions four times in the year at the least and after as the case shall require by their discretions and the most usual place of the said sessions to be at the city of York. Albeit for because that the greatest matters now apparent are within the county of Northumberland, it is thought good that the first sessions be at the Newcastle upon Tyne and hereafter other sessions to be appointed in other places at the discretion of the said commissioners as the necessity of the causes shall require. Item that all the King’s officers stewards and all other stewards and head officers of great lordships within the aforesaid shires be resident within the said offices, or else

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make such sufficient deputy there as will see the country kept in good order and as they will answer for and also see the King’s precepts served accordingly as they ought to be. Item that letters be sent from the King’s Majesty to such personages of the nobility and worship as be inhabiting within the said North parts and not named in the aforesaid commissions to be assistant and obedient and aiding to the said commissioners in execution of their authority as the case shall require. Item that if it fortune any matter to be before the aforesaid commissioners which shall appear unto them to be doubtful in the law that the said matter shall be certified at the next term then following unto the Chancellor of England and to the King’s Justices at Westminster, and after their opinions known therein to proceed to the order of the same accordingly. Item that [so oft] as oft as any weighty or urgent causes shall happen to be before the aforesaid commissioners [then the said Com.] when they shall think mete to [find out] know the King’s highnesses’ pleasure the same shall then certify the same unto his Majesty and his most honourable council to the intent [as well to] they may be certified of his grace’s mind therein and he signify from his said council of such new instructions as from time to time shall be requisite for their) proceeding in every such case.

66. The Council in the Marches of Wales The early history of this Council is obscure owing to the disappearance of most of its records prior to the reign of Henry VIII. It is probable that a Council in the Marches was originally set up during the reign of Edward IV as a development out of the Council of the Prince of Wales, which had existed to administer the Prince’s estates in Wales since the time of the first Prince of Wales, but this was not made a permanent institution until the reign of Henry VII, when a Prince’s Council was set up for his son Arthur. After the Prince’s death in 1502 this became the Council in the Marches of Wales. Statutory powers were conferred on this institution in 1534, and its jurisdiction was confirmed by another statute in 1543.

(i) Powers for the Prince of Wales in the Marches, 1493 Power during pleasure to Arthur prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall, and earl of Chester and Flynt, to appoint the King’s justices of oyer and terminer in the counties of Salop, Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester, and the marches of Wales adjoining those counties, and in Wales; to array men at arms, archers and other fensible men there for the defence of his person and the resistence of illdoers and for coming to the King if he sends for them, for putting the laws in execution. Power to him also to have retainers by livery of cloths or badges, or by oaths, notwithstanding the statutes. Commission to him also to enquire what offices ought to be forfeited because of the non-lawful discharge thereof, with power to appoint to the same when so forfeited. Power to him also to substitute others under him to execute the premises, provided that some Justices of one or other bench be one to hear and determine matters in the counties of Salop, Hereford, Gloucester, and Worcester; and all persons are commanded to be advising and aiding to such substitutes. The King also wills that the general commissions of the peace continue in full force in the said counties as well as the present commission during pleasure. Commission during pleasure to Arthur prince of Wales to be the King’s Justice to

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enquire by jury of the marches of Wales, of all liberties, privileges and franchises in the possession of any person soever which in future from any causes or defects ought to be seized into the King’s hands: of all usurpations of liberties, privileges, and franchises; and of all escapes of thieves and felons in the said marches, with power to substitute others. (C.P.R. 1485–94, 438, 20 March 1493)

(ii) The King’s Council in the Marches, 1502 Commission of oyer and terminer and of array to William bishop of Lincoln, president of the council in the principality of Wales, Robert Froste, clerk, Gilbert Talbot, knight, Richard Pole, knight, William Uvedale, knight, Thomas Inglefeld, knight, Peter Neweton, esquire, and William Grevyll, esquire, in South Wales, North Wales and the counties of Salop, Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester and the marches of Wales. (C.P.R. 1494–1509, 295, 18 June 1502)

(iii) The Council of the West. Commission. 12 April 153 (L.P. XIV, i, 743)

Instructions to lord Russell, the bishops of Exeter and Bath, the dean of Exeter, Sir Piers Egecombe, Sir Thomas Denys, Sir John Arundel, the elder, Sir Giles Strangways, Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir Hugh Pollarde, Sir John Horssey, Sir William Godolphin, Sir Hugh Poulet, John Roo, sergeant-at-law, Richard Pollerd, Lewes Fortescue, William Portman, and Thomas Derbye, who are to form a council in the West parts, i.e. the shires of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, and Dorset. Lord Russell to be President, with power to assemble and direct the council, and a voice negative and to be treated in all respects (kneeling excepted) like the King himself. With him are to be joined the bishops of Exeter and Bath, the dean of Exeter, Dr. Heynes the King’s Chaplain, and the others aforenamed. Thomas Derbye to be the secretary, and keeper of the signet, and either to be sworn a master of the Chancery, or to have a dedimus potestatem. The bishop of Bath, Egecombe, the Arundels, Strangwayes, Horsey, Godolphin, Poulet, Richard Pollerd and Portman, shall attend at their pleasure, or when summoned. The bishop and dean of Exeter, Denys, Sir Hugh Pollard, Roo, Fortescue and Derby, or three of them, must give continual attendance, and shall not be absent without licence, or longer than 6 weeks at one time. The president to have 1,000 l., a year for the diets of himself and council. Directions as to the number of servants the councillors may keep. Fees:—Sir Thomas Denys, Sir Hugh Pollard, Lewes Fortescue, and Thomas Derby, 26.1.13,s,4.d. each; Strangwayes, Sir Thomas Arundel, Horsey, Godolphin, Poulet, Richard Pollerd, and Portman, 13.l.6.s.8.d.: Sergeant Roo, 30.l. Directions for the conduct of business. Matters to be put in by bill of complaint, and answer without replication. No attorney to take more than 12.d. for a sitting, and no councillor more than 20.d. To punish contempt of the council or seditious words by the pillory, cutting off of ears, wearing of papers or otherwise at discretion. Fines, damages, decrees. A table of fees for recognizances, entering decrees, &c, to hang openly,

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wherever the council shall sit, and in the secretary’s office. Gaol delivery, retainers, enforcement of Acts against the bishop of Rome, &c &c.

67. England and Wales. Towards the Act of Union The early sixteenth century was distinguished by some revolutionary changes in Welsh political and social life as a consequence of the policy of unification developed under Henry VIII. Thus the history of conciliar government in Wales forms only a part of this wider topic. At the end of the fifteenth century the legacy of Edward I’s “settlement” of Wales was still controlling Welsh life. The great territorial divisions which had been confirmed by the Statute of Wales (1284) remained in force. The country remained divided into three great areas. First, there was the territory transferred to the Crown in 1283 through the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and his supporters. These lands had been divided into shires. They did not form part of the English realm but were part of the private estates of the Crown. Secondly came the lordship of Glamorgan and the County Palatine of Pembroke, again private estates of the Crown. The rest of Wales consisted of some 140 Marcher Lordships held from the English Crown according to feudal right, each being a separate unit of government with its own court and officials. The disadvantages and dangers of such disunity were revealed in the general lawlessness characteristic of fifteenth-century Wales: but the remedy was not easy to find. Only after the Wars of the Roses had resulted in the forfeiture of many of the Lordships to the Crown did it become possible to establish in 1471 the Council of the Marches of Wales with the objective (by no means fully realized!) of curbing lawlessness on the Border. Contrary to what might have been expected Henry VII did not initiate any distinctive policy for dealing with these problems. It can be assumed that for the greater part of his reign he was too busy winning and keeping control over England to have time for elaborate plans for Wales. The sudden death of Prince Arthur in 1502 possibly prevented him from developing to the full the potentialities of the Prince’s Council: at any rate that institution only functioned intermittently during his reign. A change occurred in the early years of his son’s reign, when some highly creative political thinking expressed in important statutes produced results which, it is no exaggeration to say, forms the starting point for the history of modern Wales. The first indications of this new approach came about 1534, when in May, largely on Cromwell’s initiative, Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, succeeded John Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, as President of the Council of the Marches, a post Voysey had held since 1525. In office he had been singularly ineffective: Lee was soon to show very different qualities. The exact nature of his commission is not known. At irregular intervals in the early years of Henry VIII’s reign instructions were issued to the President of the Council of the Marches, with the result that there slowly emerged an effective conciliar or prerogative court. Its function in its early years is difficult to discover owing to the paucity of its records, so that it is not easy to outline the early stages of its development. One point, however, seems quite clear: it soon became a powerful instrument for the maintenance of law and order, and it was an effective link between the central government at Westminster and the local officials in Wales. Lee held office from 1534–43. So ruthlessly efficient was his administration that the Council became during these years fully established as the means of administering Welsh affairs, and a way was opened for further developments. Bishop Lee’s appointment coincided with legislation designed to enforce law and order in Wales and the Marches. This took the form of acts designed to punish perjury by Welsh jurors, orders for the prevention of escapes by felons over the waters of Severn by night: enforcing attendance at courts of sessions and the punishment of serious crimes there: punishment of Welshmen guilty of assaults or affrays on the inhabitants of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Shropshire.1 The purpose of this legislation was to deal vigorously with crime and lawlessness across the Border. It 1 St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 4, 5, 6, 11, 12. Some impression of the problem is suggested in cl. 6 designed to punish “divers and manifold thefts, murders, rebellions, wilful burnings of houses and other scelerous deeds and abominable malefacts”. 2 St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 5. In addition see St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 7, “An Act for the abuses in the Forests of Wales”; St. 27 Hen VIII, c. 24, “An Act for re-continuing Liberties in the Crown”.

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did not, however, introduce any new legal or administrative principles nor did it attempt to take away the powers or privileges of the Lords Marchers. A change of policy was foreshadowed by an act of 1535, which empowered the Lord Chancellor to appoint Justices of the Peace, with full powers and authority to inquire, hear, and determine all manner of cases and have the same authority in the administration of justice as Justices of the Peace had in England.2 The way was being prepared for more drastic changes which were to find expression in an act of 1536. This act treated with boldness the problem of government in Wales, embodying the government’s proposals in some 39 clauses, which aimed at a complete overhaul of administration, an extension of the shire system in Wales at the expense of the remaining Lords Marchers, and the introduction of parliamentary representation for the Welsh shires and boroughs. Far-reaching as such proposals were, they only provided the broad outlines of government policy; much still remained to be done.1 This was finally achieved by an act of 1542. This great consolidating act—it runs to 130 sections—completed the work which had been begun in 1536.2 What had been achieved may be summed up briefly. By this legislation Welshmen became citizens of the new kingdom of England and Wales, acquiring constitutional rights and liberties implied in such citizenship: the English system of shires and hundreds became the units of local government in Wales as in England: the remaining Marcher Lordships were grouped to form new shires: the Lords Marchers lost their special privileges but were allowed to retain their ordinary rights of lordship: special public courts, the high courts of Great Sessions, were extended beyond the principality to all the rest of Wales, and the lesser courts of shire and hundred took the place of the private courts of the lords: English law and procedure was adopted throughout Wales although some Welsh customs were retained: English became the only official language in the courts: and each shire and borough was given one-member representation in the English Parliament.

An act for making of Justices of Peace in Wales, 1535. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 5 (Stat. Realm, III. 534.)

T

he King’s Highness considering the manifold robberies murders thefts trespasses riots routs embraceries maintenances oppressions ruptures of his peace and many other malefacts which be daily practised perpetrated committed and done within his counties and county palatines of Chester and Flintshire in Wales adjoining to the said county of Chester, and also in his counties of Anglesea otherwise called Anglesey Kaernarvon and Merioneth within his Principality of North Wales, and also in his counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, and Glamorgan in South Wales, by reason that common justice hath not been indifferently ministered there like and in such form as it is in other places of this his realm; By reason whereof the said murders robberies thefts trespasses and breaking of the peace have remained unpunished to the great animation of evil doers in the same counties: For redress and amputation whereof and to the intent that one order of ministering of his laws should be had observed and used in the same as in other places of this realm of England is had and used, It is ordained and enacted…that the Lord Chancellor of England or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for the time being from time to time and at all times shall have full power and authority by his discretion to nominate and appoint Justices of Peace, Justices of the Quorum and Justices of Gaol Delivery in the said counties…by commission under the King’s Great Seal; which shall have full power and authority to inquire hear and determine all manner of thing and things inquirable presentable or determinable before Justices of Peace, Justices of Quorum and Justices of Gaol Delivery in 1 Some matters were dealt with by legislation of 1536: St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 3; also St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. II; St. 32 Hen. VIII, c. 4. 2 St. 34–35 Hen. VIII, c. 26.

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other shires of this realm of England, by force or virtue of any statute or statutes made and to be made or by the course of the common laws of this realm; and that the said Justices of Peace…and every of them shall have like power and authority within the said counties of Chester Flint Anglesey Carnarvon Merioneth Cardigan Carmarthen Pembroke and Glamorgan to do use and execute every thing and things as other Justices of Peace…have within any other of the shires of this realm of England and also shall be sworn astricted and obliged to the keeping of their sessions of the peace, and to the due execution of all and singular statutes and ordinances made and to be made in like manner and form and under like pains and penalties as Justices of the Peace…in other shires of this realm of England be and shall be bounden and obliged; any act statute prescription usage custom liberty or privilege had made accustomed or used to the contrary notwithstanding.

An act for re-continuing Liberties in the Crown. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 24, 1535. (Stat. Realm, III. 555)

Where divers of the most ancient prerogatives and authorities of justice appertaining to the Imperial Crown of this realm have been severed and taken from the same by sundry gifts of the King’s most noble progenitors, kings of this realm, to the great diminution and detriment of the royal estate of the same, and to the hindrance and great delay of justice: for reformation whereof be it enacted…that no person or persons, of what estate or degree soever they be, from the first day of July, which shall be in the year of Our Lord God 1536, shall have any power or authority to pardon or remit any treasons, murders, manslaughters, or any kinds of felonies whatsoever they be; nor any accessories to any treasons, murders, manslaughters, or felonies; or any outlawries for any such offences afore rehearsed, committed, perpetrated, done or divulged or hereafter to be committed done or divulged by or against any person or persons in any part of this realm, Wales, or to the Marches of the same; but that the King’s Highness, his heirs and successors kings of this realm shall have the whole and sole power and authority, thereof united and knit to the imperial crown of this realm as of good right and equity it appertaineth; any grants, usages, prescriptions, allowances, act or acts of parliament or any other thing to the contrary hereof notwithstanding. [II. Similarly, no person to have power to make Justices of Eyre, Assise, Justices of the Peace or of Gaol Delivery except the King’s Great Seal.] [III. All original writs, judicial writs, indictments of treason, felony, and trespass to be made only in the King’s name.]

An act for laws and justice to be ministered in Wales in like form as it is in this realm. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 26 1535 (Stat. Realm, III. 563)

Albeit the dominion principality and country of Wales justly and righteously is and ever hath been incorporated annexed united and subject to and under the Imperial Crown of this realm, as a very member and joint of the same, whereof the King’s most royal majesty of mere droit, and very right, is very head king lord and ruler; yet notwithstanding, because that in the same country principality and dominion divers rights usages laws and customs be far discrepant from the laws and customs of this realm, and also because that

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the people of the same dominion have and do daily use a speech nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm, some rude and ignorant people have made distinction and diversity between the king’s subjects of this realm and his subjects of the said dominion and principality of Wales, whereby great discord variance debate division murmur and sedition hath grown between his said subjects; His Highness therefore of a singular zeal love and favour that he beareth towards his subjects of his said dominion of Wales, minding and intending to reduce them to the perfect order notice and knowledge of his laws of this his realm, and utterly to extirp all and singular the sinister usages and customs differing from the same, and to bring the said subjects of this his realm and of his said dominion of Wales to an amicable concord and unity hath… enacted and established that his said country or dominion of Wales shall be, stand and continue for ever from henceforth incorporated united and annexed to and with this his realm of England; and that all and singular person and persons, born or to be born in the said principality country or dominion of Wales shall have enjoy and inherit all and singular freedoms liberties rights privileges and laws within this his realm, and other the king’s dominions, as other the king’s subjects naturally born within the same have, enjoy and inherit. II. And that all and singular person and persons inheritable to any manor lands tenements rents reversions services or other hereditaments which shall descend after the Feast of All Saints next coming, within the said principality country or dominion of Wales, or within any particular lordship, part or parcel of the said country or dominion of Wales, shall for ever, from and after the said feast of All Saints, inherit and be inheritable to the same manors lands rents tenements reversions and hereditaments after the English tenure, without division or partition, and after the form of the laws of this realm of England, and not after any Welsh tenure, nor after the form of any Welsh laws or customs; and that the laws ordinances and statutes of this realm of England, for ever, and none other laws ordinances nor statutes from and after the said feast of All Saints next coming, shall be had used practised and executed in the said country or dominion of Wales, and every part thereof, in like manner form and order as they be and shall be had, used, practised and executed in this realm, and in such like manner and form as hereafter by this Act shall be further established and ordained; any Act statute usage custom precedent liberty privilege or other thing had made used granted or suffered to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. III. And forasmuch as there be many and divers Lordships Marchers within the said country or dominion of Wales, lying between the shires of England and the shires of the said country or dominion of Wales, and being no parcel of any other shires where the laws and due correction is used and had, by reason whereof hath ensued, and hath been practised perpetrated committed and done within and among the said lordships and countries to them adjoining, manifold and divers detestable murders burning of houses robberies thefts trespasses routs riots unlawful assemblies embraceries maintenances receiving of felons oppressions ruptures of the peace and manifold other malefacts contrary to all laws and justice; and the said offenders thereupon making their refuge from lordship to lordship, were and continued without punishment or correction; for due reformation whereof, and forasmuch as divers and many of the said Lordships Marchers be now in the hands and possession of our sovereign lord the King and the smallest number of them

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in the possession of other lords, It is therefore enacted…that divers of the said Lordships Marchers shall be united annexed and joined to divers of the shires of England, and divers of the said Lordships Marchers shall be united annexed and joined to divers of the shires of the said country or dominion of Wales in manner and form hereinafter following; and that all the residue of the said Lordships Marchers within the said country or dominion of Wales shall be severed and divided into certain particular counties or shires, that is to say the county or shire of Monmouth, the county or shire of Brecknock, the county or shire of Radnor, the county or shire of Montgomery, the county or shire of Denbigh; and that the lordships townships parishes commotes and cantreds of Monmouth, Chepstow, Matherne, Llanvihangel, Magour, Goldecliffe, Newport, Wenllonge, Llanwerne, Caerlion, Usk, Treleck, Tintern, Skynfreth, Grousmont, Witecastle, Reglan, Calicote, Biston, Abergevenny, Penrose, Greenfield, Maghen, and Hochnyslade in the country of Wales, and all and singular honours, lordships castles, manors, lands, tenements and hereditaments lying or being within the compass or precinct of the said lordships townships, hamlets, parishes, commotes, and cantreds, and every of them, in whose possession soever they be or shall be, and every part thereof, shall stand and be from and after the said Feast of All-Saints guildable, and shall be reputed accepted named and taken as parts and members of the said shire of Monmouth; and that the said town of Monmouth shall be named accepted reputed used had and taken head and shire town of the said county or shire of Monmouth; and that the sheriff’s county or shire court of and for the said shire and county of Monmouth shall be holden and kept one time at the said town of Monmouth, and the next time at the town of Newport in the same county or shire, and so to be kept in the same two towns alternis vicibus and according to the laws of this realm of England for ever, and in none other places. 3. And it is further enacted…that all actions real that hereafter shall be conceived perpetrated or sued for any lands tenements hereditaments or any other thing within the said county or shire of Monmouth, and all actions personal within the same shire or county of the sum of 40.s. or above, and all actions mixed, shall be sued by original writ out of the King’s high court of chancery in England, and heard determined and tried before the King’s Justices in England, or by Assise or Nisi Prius within the said county of Monmouth, in such like manner form and wise as all other actions real personal and actions mixed be sued heard determined and tried in or for any shire of this realm of England; and that the King’s Justices of his Bench, or of his Common Bench of Westminster, shall have full power and authority to direct all manner process to the sheriff and all other officers of the said county of Monmouth, and also to direct writs of Venire facias to the same sheriff for the trial of every issue joined before them; and also to award commissions of Nisi prius into the said county of Monmouth for the trial of such issues joined before them in like manner and form as they do into every shire of this realm of England; and all and every the king’s subjects and inhabitants within the said county of Monmouth shall be for ever, from and after the said Feast of All-Saints, obliged and bounden to be obedient and attendant to the Lord Chancellor of England, the King’s Justices, and other of the King’s most honourable Council, and unto all laws customs ordinances and statutes of this realm of England, in like manner form and wise as all other the King’s subjects, within every shire of this realm of

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England be obliged and bounden; any act statute usage custom liberty privilege or any other thing to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding; and that the sheriff of the said county shall hold plea of Replegiare and all other suits and plaints under forty shillings in his county or shire-court, in like manner and form as all other sheriffs do within this realm of England; and that the sheriff escheators and coroners that hereafter shall be within the said county or shire of Monmouth shall be obliged and bounden to execute all the king’s processes, and to make due returns thereof, and to use and exercise their offices according to the laws and statutes of this realm of England, in all and every thing as the sheriffs escheators and coroners be obliged and bounden to do in all and every other shire of this realm of England; and that the sheriffs and escheators of the said shire or county of Monmouth that hereafter shall be appointed by our sovereign lord the King, make their accounts for their said offices in the king’s Exchequer in England, in like manner and form as other sheriffs and escheators do within this realm of England, and upon such like pain and penalty as is upon other sheriffs and escheators in every other shire within this realm of England. [Clauses 5–8, 11–14, 16–19 make arrangements for allocating certain lordships, parishes, commotes, and cantreds to the shires of Wales.] 17. Also be it enacted…that all Justices, commissioners sheriffs coroners escheators stewards and their lieutenants and all other officers and ministers of the law shall proclaim and keep the sessions courts hundreds leets sheriffs courts and all other courts in the English tongue; and all oaths of officers juries and inquests and all other affidavits verdicts and wagers of law to be given and done in the English tongue; and also that from henceforth no person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have or enjoy any manner office or fees within this realm of England, Wales, or other the King’s dominions upon pain of forfeiting the same offices or fees unless he or they use and exercise the English speech or language. 20. Be it further enacted…that immediately upon the prorogation or dissolution of this present Parliament the Lord Chancellor of England shall direct the King’s commission under His Grace’s Great Seal to such persons as to him shall be thought convenient to enquire and view all the said shires of Carmarthen Pembroke, Cardigan, Monmouth, Brecknock, Radnor, Montgomery, Glamorgan, and Denbigh and every part and parcel of them; and upon such view and search to divide them and every of them into so many Hundreds as they shall think most meet and convenient; and the Hundreds so divided shall return and certify with the said Commission into the High Court of Chancery before the said Feast of All-Saints, and the same to remain of record, and to be of such force and effect as it were by Act of Parliament; and that the said Hundreds, after the said certificate, shall be used and taken as other Hundreds be in every other shire within this realm of England. 21. Furthermore it is enacted…that immediately after the prorogation or dissolution of this present parliament, the Lord Chancellor of England shall direct the King’s Commission under His Grace’s Great Seal to such persons as to him shall be thought convenient, to enquire and search out, by all ways and means that they can, all and singular laws usages and customs used within the said dominion and country of Wales; and the same shall return and certify to the King’s Highness and his most honourable

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Council before the said Feast of All-Saints next coming; and that upon deliberate advice thereof had and taken, all such laws usages and customs as the King’s Highness and his said most honourable Council shall think expedient requisite and necessary to be had used and exercised in the before rehearsed shires, or any of them, or in any other shire of the dominion or country of Wales, shall stand and be of full strength virtue and effect, and shall be for ever inviolably observed had used and executed in the same shires as if this Act had never been had nor made; any thing in the same Act contained to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. 22. And it is further enacted…that for this present Parliament and all other Parliaments to be holden and kept for this realm, two knights shall be chosen and elected to the same parliament for the shire of Monmouth, and one Burgess for the borough of Monmouth, in like manner form and order as knights and burgesses of the parliament be elected and chosen in all other shires of this realm of England, and that the same knights and burgesses shall have like dignity pre-eminence and privilege, and shall be allowed such fees as other knights and burgesses of the Parliament have been allowed; and the knight’s fees to be levied, perceived received gathered and paid in such manner form and order as such fees be gathered levied perceived received and paid in other shires of this realm of England; and the Burgesses’ fees to be levied as well within the borough of Monmouth as within all other ancient boroughs within the said shire of Monmouth. [Similarly one Knight to be chosen to the same Parliaments for each of the shires of Brecknock, Radnor, Montgomery, and Denbigh and for every other shire within the said country or dominion of Wales; and for every borough being a shire town within the said country or Dominion of Wales.]

An act for certain ordinances in the king’s dominion and principality of Wales. St. 34/35 Hen. VIII, c. 26, 1542–43 (Stat. Realm, III 926)

Our sovereign lord the king’s majesty, of his tender zeal and affection that he beareth towards his loving and obedient subjects of his dominion, principality, and country of Wales, for good rule and order to be from henceforth kept and maintained within the same, whereby his said subjects may grow and rise to more wealth and prosperity, hath devised and made divers sundry good and necessary ordinances which his majesty of his most abundant goodness, at the humble suit and petition of his said subjects of Wales is pleased and contented to be enacted by the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, in manner and form as hereafter ensueth. 2. First, that his Grace’s said dominion, principality, and country of Wales be from henceforth divided into twelve shires; of the which eight have been shires of long and ancient time: that is to say, the shires of Glamorgan, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan, Flint, Caernarvon, Anglesey, and Merioneth; and four of the said twelve shires to be newly made and ordained to be shires by an Act made at the Parliament holden at Westminster in the twenty-seventh year of our said sovereign lord’s most noble reign, that is to say, the shires of Radnor, Brecknock, Montgomery and Denbigh, over and

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besides the shire of Monmouth and divers other dominions, lordships, and manors in the Marches of Wales, united and annexed to the shires of Salop, Hereford, and Gloucester, as by the said late Act more plainly appeareth. c2. Item, that the limitations of the Hundreds of late made within the said shires by virtue of his Grace’s commissions directed out of his Highness Court of Chancery, and again returned into the same, shall stand in full strength, force, and effect, according to the said limitation; except such of the same as sith that time hath been altered or changed by virtue of any Act or Acts of Parliament already made, or that shall be altered or changed by any Act or Acts in this present session to be made. c3. Item, that there shall be and remain a President and Council in the said dominion and principality of Wales and the Marches of the same, with all officers, clerks, and incidents to the same, in manner and form as hath been heretofore used and accustomed; which President and Council shall have power and authority to hear and determine by their wisdoms and discretions such causes and matters as be or hereafter shall be assigned to them by the King’s majesty as heretofore hath been accustomed and used. c4. Item, that there shall be holden and kept Sessions twice in every year in every of the said shires in the said dominion and principality of Wales, that is to say, in the shires of Glamorgan, Brecknock, Radnor, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan, Montgomery, Denbigh, Flint, Caernarvon, Merioneth and Anglesey; the which sessions shall be called the King’s great Sessions in Wales. c5. That every of the said Justices within the limits of their commissions and authorities to them appointed as is aforesaid, shall hold all manner of pleas of the crown at and in the said Sessions, in as large and ample manner as the King’s Chief Justice in England and other the King’s Justices of the King’s Bench there, or any of them, may do in their places, or elsewhere within the realm of England; and also to hold pleas of assises, and all other pleas and actions real, personal, and mixed, in as large and ample manner as the King’s Chief Justice of the Common Place in England, and other Justices of the same Place, or any of them, may do in the realm of England. c6. Item, that every of the said Justices of Wales shall have power and authority to enquire of all treasons, murders, felonies, riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, extortions, embraceries, maintenances, retainers, concealments, contempts, and all other offences and evil deeds, of what natures, names or qualities soever they be, done, committed or perpetrated within the limits of their commissions and authorities, against the form of the Common Law of the realm of England, or of any statutes of the same, and to hear and determine the premisses, and every of them, and generally to minister common justice to all and singular the king’s subjects within the limits of their commissions and authorities, according to the laws, statutes, and customs of the realm of England, and according to this present ordinance. c21. Item, over and besides the said President and Council, and Justices there shall be Justices of Peace and Quorum, and also one Custos Rotulorum in every of the said twelve shires. c22. Item, that there shall be Sheriffs in every of the said shires yearly appointed by the King’s Majesty; and that none of the said Sheriffs shall have their said office of sheriffwick any longer time than is used by the laws and statutes of England….

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c23. Item, that all Mayors, Sheriffs, Stewards, Bailiffs, and other ministers and officers of justice of every county, lordship, town and place within the said dominion of Wales and all and singular the king’s subjects of the same shall be always obedient attendant and assisting to the said President Council and Justices of Wales, and every of them, and shall obey the King’s commandments and process from them or any of them directed, and all the reasonable and lawful precepts of the said President, Council, and Justices, and every of them, and also shall be obedient to all the said Justices of Peace, Sheriffs, and Escheators within the limits of their said authorities, as well for common administration and due execution of justice as in all other things appertaining to their duties and offices.

F. THE COMMON LAW The English common law system was very old.1 By the beginning of the sixteenth century the deeply entrenched position of privilege it occupied within the State was being challenged by critics who were less impressed by its elaborate machinery than they were by the manifest failure of the system to function smoothly. Facts had to be faced. Despite their long history and their established position the common law courts were not doing their work efficiently. Hampered by complicated and timewasting rules of procedure, and a highly developed but esoteric technique of pleading, the system had got out of touch with the realities of everyday life. The rise in importance of the conciliar courts was one indication of the need that was being felt for remedy against the law’s grievous delays. There were signs, too, that the profession itself was beginning to think of setting its house in order. The documents which follow do not illustrate all the legal problems coming to the surface during this period. They do, however, provide a useful method of approach to the study of the common law during the early sixteenth century. The points they illustrate are as follows: I. The Legal Profession and the Inns of Court. The first documents illustrate the organization and something of the nature of the legal profession during this period, and give a picture of the Inns of Court. At some time in his reign Henry VIII addressed to Thomas Denton, Nicholas Bacon, and Robert Cary an inquiry touching the methods of legal education. They replied with two memoranda. The first described the Inns of Court, the second was a plan of reform envisaging the creation of a royal college of law in which students could be trained as assistants to ambassadors. II. Law Readings. A feature of legal education was the series of lectures given in the Lent and Autumn terms by rising lawyers in the Inns of Court to a professional audience which included serjeants, utter barristers, and apprentices of the law. The lecturers, or Readers as they were called, usually selected as their subject some particular statute which they expounded clause by clause in a course of several Readings. The passages given below are taken from the Reading given by Thomas Marowe, Reader for Lent Term, 18 Hen. VII (1503), on the Statute of Westminster I, c. i. This is one of the few law readings of this period in print, B.H.Putnam, Early Treatises on the Practice of the Justices of the Peace… App. III. To get a full impression of the technicalities of this text it should be examined in its original law-French. See also, S.E.Thorne, Readings and Moots at the Inns of Court, I, Seld. Soc., lxxi, 1955; and also his Robert Constable Tertia lectura on Presigativa Regis. U.S.A., New Haven, 1949. III. Law Reports. The reports of pleadings in the courts are too technical and lengthy to be given in detail here. This short extract will be enough to suggest the degree of subtlety of pleading as it had developed by the early sixteenth century. IV. Legislation affecting the Common Law. The Statute of Uses. This is one of the most important 1 So, too, were some of its officers. See Plowden, Reports, 190:— And in the said term of Hilary it was argued by the Court, viz., by Weston then being a Judge, and by Anthony Brown, Justice, and Dyer, Chief Justice, but Sir Humphrey Brown who was then one of the Justices did not argue at all, because he was so old that his senses were decayed, and his voice could not be heard.

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statutes affecting the common law enacted during this period. It is primarily important for the legal historian, but since it had profound implications for social and economic historians as well, and since it illustrates Henry VIII’s methods in his dealings with Parliament it is worth some attention. The subject is highly technical, and cannot be dealt with adequately here, but a short note may serve to show the nature of the problem. The historian of English medieval law has much to say about the development of the Use, a type of conveyance whereby land could be passed by a tenant to be held by one person, or persons, to the use of another. As it developed the Use was found valuable as a means whereby the tenant could get a firmer control over his property through the power to devise. On the other hand, it also became a device for circumventing some of the rules of feudal tenure: conveyances to uses of lands or goods in order to defraud creditors: a means of defeating the Statute of Mortmain. More important still, the Use could be employed to evade the incidents of tenure (e.g. wardships, marriages, reliefs, fines, for alienation, and escheats) by the simple device of enfeoffing several persons as joint tenants to the use of the feoffor. The greatest loser by this procedure was, of course, the king, since as the ultimate lord he was being deprived of his rights. This is what interested Henry VIII. After the great legislative work of the Reformation Parliament the king was uncertain whether Parliament would respond to demands for taxation. The exploitation of the prerogative sources of revenue under Henry VII and his successor had revealed the extent to which the Crown was being deprived of its feudal incidents through the Use. The matter came to a head in 1529 when Henry VIII made a deal with the peers, the result of which was expressed in two draft bills. The first proposed a revolutionary simplification of the land law. All entails were to be abolished, and for the future all possessions were to be in fee simple: no uses of lands were to be valid unless they were recorded in the Court of Common Pleas, where a special officer of the court would keep a separate roll for each shire: and for avoidance of forgeries all purchases of land or completion of the conveyance were to be published in the parish church where the land was situated. This last provision was a blow at the secret arrangements which were the great advantage of the Use. The bait for all nobles above the degree of baron was that entails were still to be permissible for them, and they would gain other advantages. In return, they made important concessions to the king, included in a second draft bill of 23 articles. By these concessions the king was to have the wardships of all his tenants of an estate of inheritance by knight service in chief and leaving an infant heir, whether that land had the Use or the legal estate. When these proposals came to Parliament they met with strong opposition from the large landholders below the rank of baron, since they would be deprived of the power of making family settlements and secret conveyances, and from the common lawyers who saw themselves losing some of their most lucrative conveyancing business. Faced by this combination in Parliament Henry’s admirable plans came to nothing. He tried again, and his change of tactics is a revealing example of his skill in negotiation. He now proposed to deal with the lawyers. To put them in the right frame of mind he made it known that he was giving serious attention to a petition against abuses in the administration of the common law. Two years went by, and a list of grievances suffered by the country from Uses, three draft bills concerning Uses and Wills, and a draft bill on the enrolment of covenants and contracts made with reference to the Uses of land were introduced into Parliament. Out of this material was drawn up the Statute of Uses, and the complementary Statute of Enrolment. The purpose of the Statute of Uses was not to abolish the Use, but to turn into legal estates the uses to which it applied in order that the various evils which, according to the preamble of the act, were due to the division between the legal and equitable ownership, might be avoided. There is a good discussion of this legislation in Holdsworth, IV, 450–480, and in App. III. (572– 586) containing documents connected with the Statute of Uses.

68. A description of legal education with proposals for reform. From a report temp. Hen. VIII (E.Waterhouse, Fortescutus illustratus, 1663, 543–546)

(a) A Report of a Select Commission

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o the most high and most excellent Prince our most gracious and most redoubted sovereign lord and King Henry the Eight, by the grace of God, King of England and of France, Defender of the faith, Lord of Ireland, and Supreme Head on Earth immediately under Christ of the Church of England, Tho. Denton, Nic. Bacon, and Robert Cary, his grace’s most humble and faithful servants, wish prosperous health and continuance of felicity. Pleaseth your most royal majesty to understand, that whereas your most godly disposition and tender zeal impressed in your most noble heart, both towards the advancement of the common-wealth of this our realm, and also towards the furtherance and maintenance of good learning, and the study thereof hereafter to be used in the same, your highness now of late commanded us, to our inestimable comfort and consolation, to assemble ourselves together, and upon the diligent search and perusing of all the orders of the house of court, compendiously to set forth unto your grace the best form and order practised therein, and all their orders and rules meet to be useful and observed amongst them that profess study and learning: We immediately considering the godly effect and intent of this your meaning, tending only to the right institution and education of your subjects of this your gracious realm, whereby they shall be undoubtedly as much unto your grace as to these natural parents, did not only render hearty thanks to Almighty God the only author of this your princely purpose, in that it hath pleased him to send us such a king and head to reign over us, that is not only endued and adorned himself with all kinds and sorts of good learning as well divine as profane, and exact judgment in the same, but also to send us one that most endeavoureth purposeth to set forward, and as it were to revive the study and perfect knowledge thereof of long time detested and almost trodden under foot, that this his realm in short time shall not be equal with other but far excel them, whereby not only we that are in this present age, but the whole realm for ever, and all our posterities shall be most bound to him therefor. For in times past, yea in our days (alas for pity) how many good and gentle wits within this your grace’s realm have perished, partly for that in their youth (the chief time to plant or graft good learning in) they have not been conversant nor trained in the study thereof; but chiefly for that the most of them in their tender years, indifferent to receive both good and bad, were so rooted and seasoned as it were in barbarous authors very enemies to good learning, that hard it was, yea almost impossible to reduce them to goodness, but even like a fertile ground overgrown with thorns and briars produced no good fruit at all. The redress therefore undoubtedly, most gracious sovereign lord, shall be the noblest and princeliest act that ever was enterprised or attempted in this realm. We therefore according to our most bounden duties have endeavoured ourselves with all our wits and power to satisfy your Highness’ said desired purpose and expectation. And now having concluded your grace’s commandment in all things as nigh as we can, we do offer the same here unto your most excellent majesty, most humbly beseeching the same to accept in good part this rude thing, submitting it to the most excellent wisdom of your majesty, whereunto we do and shall conform ourselves, as to our most bounden duty appertaineth. The manner of the fellowship and their ordinary charges, besides their commons. First, it is to be considered, that none of the four houses of Courts have any corporation,

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whereby they are enabled to purchase, receive, or take lands or tenements or any other revenue, nor have anything towards the maintenance of the house, saving that every one that is admitted fellow, after that he is called to the masters commons, payeth yearly 3 shillings, 4 pence, which they call the pension money, and in some houses, every man for his admittance, payeth 20 pence, and also besides that yearly for his chamber 3 shillings, 4. [pence] all which money is the only thing they have towards the reparations and rent of their house, and the wages of their officers. The whole company and fellowship of learners, is divided and sorted into three parts and degrees; that it to say, into benchers, or as they call them in some of the houses, readers, utter-barristers and inner-barristers. Benchers, or readers, are called such as before-time have openly read, which form and kind of reading shall hereafter be declared, and to them is chiefly committed the government and ordering of the house, as to men meetest, both for their age, discretion, and wisdoms, and of these is one yearly chosen, which is called the treasurer, or in some house pensioner, who receiveth yearly the said pension money, and therewith dischargeth such charges as above written; and of the receipt and payment of the same is yearly accountable. Utter-barristers are such, that for their learning and continuance, are called by the said readers to plead and argue in the said house, doubtful cases and questions, which amongst them are called moots, at certain times propounded, and brought in before the said benchers, as readers, and are called utter-barristers, for that they, when they argue the said moots, they sit uttermost on the forms, which they call the Bar, and this degree is the chieftest degree for learners in the house next the benchers; for of these be chosen and made the readers of all the Inns of Chancery, and also of the most ancient of these is one elected yearly to read amongst them, who after his reading, is called a bencher, or reader. All the residue of learners are called inner-benchers, which are the youngest men, that for lack of learning, and continuance are not able to argue and reason in these motes, nevertheless whensoever any of the said motes be brought in before any of the said benchers, then two of the said inner-benchers sitting on the said form with the utter-benchers, do for their exercises recite by heart the pleading of the same mote-case, in Law-French, which pleading is the declaration at large of the said motecase, the one of them taking the part of the plaintiff, and the other the part of the defendant. The whole year amongst them is divided into three parts; that is to say the learningvacation, the term-times, and the mean and dead vacation. They have yearly two learning-vacations, that is to say, Lent-vacation, which begins the first Monday in Lent, and continueth three weeks, and three days, the other vacation is called summer-vacation, which beginneth the Monday after Lammas-day, and continueth as the other, in these vacations are the greatest conferences, and exercises of study that they have in all the year; for in them these are the orders. First, the reader and ancients appoint the eldest utter-barrister in continuance, as one that they think most able for that room; to read amongst them openly in the house, during the summer-vacation, and of this appointment he hath always knowledge about half a year before he shall read, that in the mean time he may provide therefore, and then the first day after vacation, about 8 of the clock, he that is so chosen to read

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openly in the Hall before the company, shall read some one such act, or statute as shall please him to ground his whole reading on for all that vacation, and that done, doth declare such inconveniences and mischiefs as were unprovided for, and now by the same Statute be amended and then reciteth certain doubts, and questions which he hath devised, that may grow upon the said statute, and declareth his judgment therein, that done, one of the younger utter-barristers rehearseth one question propounded by the Reader, and doth by way of argument labour to prove the Reader’s opinion to be against the law, and after him the rest of the utter-benchers and Readers one after another in their ancienties, do declare their opinions and judgments in the same, and then the Reader who did put the case, endeavoureth himself to confute the objections laid against him, and to confirm his own opinion, after whom the judges and the serjeants, if any be present, declare their opinions, and after they have done, the youngest utter-barrister again rehearseth another case, which is ordered as the other was; thus the reading ends for that day; and this manner of reading and disputations continue daily two hours, or thereabouts. And besides this, daily in some houses after dinner, one at the Readers board, before they rise propoundeth another of his cases to him, put the same day at his reading, which case is debated by them all in like form, as the cases are used to be argued at his reading, and like order is observed at every mess, at the other tables, and the same manner always observed at supper, when they have no motes. Of those that have read once in the summer-vacation, and be benchers, is chosen always one to read in Lent, who observeth the like form of reading, as is before expressed in the summer-vacation, and of these Readers in these vacations, for the most part are appointed those that shall be serjeants. In these vacations every night after supper, and every fasting day immediately after six of the clock, supper ended (festival days and their evens only accepted) the Reader, with two benchers, or one at the least, cometh into the Hall to the cupboard, and there most commonly one of the utter-barristers propoundeth unto them some doubtful case, the which every of the benchers in their ancienties argue, and last of all he that moved; this done, the readers and the benchers sit down in the bench in the end of the Hall; whereof they take their name, and on a form toward the midst of the Hall sitteth down two inner-barristers, and of the other side of them on the same form, two utter-barristers, and the inner-barristers do in French openly declare unto the benchers, (even as the serjeants do at the Bar in the king’s courts, to the judges) some kind of action, the one being as it were retained with the plaintiff in the action, and the other with the defendant, after which things done, the utter-barristers argue such questions as be disputable within the case (as there must always be one at the least) and this ended, the benchers do likewise declare their opinions, how they think the law to be in the same questions, and this manner of exercise of mooting, is daily used, during the said vacations. This is always observed amongst them that in all their open disputations, the youngest of continuance argueth first; whether he be inner-barrister, or utter-barrister, or bencher, according to the form used amongst the judges and serjeants. And also that at their Motes, the inner-barristers and utter-barristers do plead and

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reason in French, and the benchers in English, and at their reading the readers’ cases are put in English, and so argued unto. Also in the learning-vacations, the utter-barristers which are Readers in the Inns of Chancery, go to the house whereunto they read, either of the said Readers taking with them two learners of the house they are of, and there meet them for the most part two of every house of court, who sitting as benchers (do in court at their mootes) hear and argues such mootes as are brought in, and pleaded by the gentlemen of the same houses of Chancery, which be nine in number, four being in Holborn, which be read of, GraysInn, and Lincoln-Inn, and Lincolns-Inn have moots daily, for the most part before noon, which begin at nine of the clock, and continue until twelve, or thereabouts, and the other five which are within Temple-bar, which are the two Temples, have their moots at three of the clock in the afternoon. The only exercises of learning in the term-time, is arguing and debating of cases after dinner, and the mooting after supper, used and kept in like form, as is heretofore prescribed in the vacation-time, and the Reader of the Inns of Chancery to read three times a week, to keep moots, during all the term, to which moots none of the other houses of court come, as they do in the learning-vacations, but only to come with the Reader of the same house. The whole time out of the learning-vacation and term, is called the mean-vacation, during which time, every day after dinner, cases are argued, in like manner as they be in other times, and after supper moots are brought in and pleaded by the inner-barristers, before the utter-barristers, which sit there, and occupy the room of benchers, and argued by them in like form as the benchers do in the term time, or learning-vacation. The Readers and benchers at a parliament or pension held before Christmas, if it seem unto them that there be no dangerous time of sickness, neither dearth of victuals, and that they are furnished of such a company, as both for their number and appertains are meet to keep a solemn Christmas, then do they appoint and choose certain of the house to be officers, and bear certain rules in the house during the said time, which officers for the most part are such as are exercised in the king’s highness’ house, and other noblemen, and this is done only to the intent, that they should in time to come know how to use themselves. In this Christmas time, they have all manner of pastimes, as singing and dancing, and in some of the houses ordinarily they have some interlude or tragedy played by the gentlemen of the same house, the ground, the matter whereof, is devised by some of the gentlemen of the house. Every quarter, once or more if need shall require, the Readers and Benchers cause one of the officers to summon the whole company openly in the Hall at dinner, that such a night the pension, or as some houses call it the parliament, shall be holden, which pension, or parliament in some houses, is nothing else but a conference and assembly of their benchers and utter-barristers only, and in some other of the houses, it is an assembly of benchers, and such of the utter-barristers and other ancient and wise men of the house, as the benchers have elected to them before time, and these together are named the sage company, and meet in a place therefore appointed, and there treat of such matters as shall seem expedient for the good ordering of the house, and the

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reformation of such things as seem meet to be reformed. In these are the Readers both for the Lent and the Summer vacation chosen; and also if the treasurer of the house leave of his office, in this is a new chosen. And always at the parliament holden after Michaelmas, two auditors appointed there, to hear, and take the accounts for the year of the treasurer, and in some house, he accounts before the whole company at the pension, and out of these pensions all misdemeanours and offences done by any Fellow of the house, are reformed and ordered according to the discretion of certain of the most ancient of the house, which are in commons at the time of the offence done. First they have one called the Steward, whose office is to provide the victual of the house, and hath for his wages five mark. They have three butlers, whereof the chief butler hath 40 shillings, every of the other hath for their wages 20 shillings. They have three cooks, of which the chief cook hath yearly 10 pounds. The manciple, or stewards servant, whose office is to convey the provision of the house home from the market, and hath yearly 26 shillings 8 pence. The under-cook hath yearly for his wages 20 shillings. The laundress of the clothes for the buttery, hath by the year 6 shillings 8 pence. And besides this wages, the three butlers have in reward at Christmas of every gentleman of the house 12 pence, and some more. And at Easter, the cooks and manciple have in reward, of every gentleman 12 pence, or more amongst them. The whole Fellowship is divided into two several Commons, the one is called the Masters Commons, and there is the Clerks Commons. The Masters Commons amounteth yearly to 20 nobles, or thereabouts, which is after the rate of 2 shillings 8 pence the week. The Clerks Commons amounteth by the year to five pounds six shillings eight pence, which is after the rate of 2 shillings 2 pence a week. These, most redoubted sovereign lord, are the most universal and general things concerning the orders and exercises of learning in the houses of court, which we thought meet to describe, and to present unto your grace’s hands, and having regard to other particular or private things, we thought it not convenient to trouble your highness with them, partly, because of the multitude of them, and partly, because they are things of no great importance, or weight.

(b) A New Experiment Proposed (Ibid. 539–542)

Whereas, most dread sovereign lord, after that we had, according to your grace’s commandment, delivered unto your highness a book of Articles, containing the chieftest exercises of learning, and orders now used in the houses of Court, amongst the students of your grace’s laws, your royal majesty of a most princely purpose and godly zeal minding to erect an house of students, wherein the knowledge as well of the pure French and Latin tongues, as of your grace’s laws of this your realm should be attained, whereby your grace hereafter might be the better served of your grace’s own students

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of the law as well in foreign countries as within this your grace’s realm: your highness therefore gave us further in commandment, that we with our most diligent endeavours should set forth, and describe unto your highness in writing certain other rules and exercises whereby your said students might, besides the knowledge of the laws, be also expert and learned in the knowledge of the said tongues. We therefore, according to our most bounden duties, for the satisfying of your grace’s expectation in this behalf, have in articles set forth herein such orders and rules both concerning the corporation of the same houses, and also the exercises as we think convenient to be put in ure and practice by your grace’s students. And this our rude and simple device we herewith offer unto your grace’s hands, most humbly beseeching your highness to accept the same in good part. And we further again most humbly beseech your majesty not to take it any wise as the doings of them that will presume or attempt to prescribe or appoint unto your grace’s incomparable wisdom and judgment, any rules or orders in this your grace’s most godly purpose: But we most humbly beseech your majesty to take it only as a testimony or witness of our readiness and promptitude, according to our most bounden duties, in the diligent accomplishment of such things as your royal majesty shall will us to attempt or take in hand, submitting the correction and alteration thereof to the censure and most expert judgment of your grace’s most royal majesty. Hereafter followeth in Articles the manner of the Corporation and Elections, and of Exercises of Learning, together with certain Rules to be observed in the King’s Grace’s House. First, The certain number of such as shall be the King’s students, and of his grace’s exhibition to be limited by his highness. Secondly, One ancient, grave, and learned man, and of no small authority, which either hath the knowledge, or at the least is a factor and furtherer of all such knowledges as are studied and professed there, to be named of the king’s grace to be chief and headgovernor over them; and his name of corporation to be appointed by his highness. Item, One in his absence to be a Vice-Governor, who also would be one as should procure the furtherance of all the studies indifferently, and be bounden perpetually to be resident, saving every year to have liberty of absence two months, but never passing three weeks together; and that but at certain times when the least exercise of learning is in the house, except the Governor be there. Item, That the Vice-Governor in the time of his absence shall always appoint one of the company to supply his room. Item, That of the three, that is to say, the Governor, Vice-Governor and students, or by such other names as shall please the King’s grace, a Corporation to be made by the King’s letters patents, and for a further and perpetual establishment thereof, that it be confirmed by act of parliament. The election and nomination of the Governor, Vice-Governor, and students to belong to the King’s grace. Item, His Grace shall elect ten. or as many as his Grace shall think meet, of the most

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sage, discreet, and learned of all the students, to whom with the Governor and ViceGovernor, the ordering and execution of all the rules and ordinances shall pertain, which shall be called the Company, or such like name. Item, That all ordinances hereafter to be made concerning this house by them, and signed by the King’s grace, shall be as good and effectual as if it had been made upon the foundation and passed by act of parliament. Item, That all the King’s students be sworn to observe the rules and orders of the house. Item, that it shall be lawful for them or any two of them to admit to study, besides the number of the King’s students, as many other young men which shall not have the King’s stipend, as to them shall seem meet, undertaking to the Governor or ViceGovernor for their good behaviour. So that they may be twenty years of age. Item, That such shall be at a table and commons by themselves, and shall be bound to observe all the rules and learnings in the house, and also be sworn at their admittance there unto. Item, That none be admitted the King’s students under the age of two and twenty years. Item, that whensoever the Vice-Governor chance to die or be otherwise removed, the Governor and company shall choose and appoint three out of the same house, or the other houses of court, as men most towards; and the King’s grace of the three to appoint one to be his student. Item, That at elections and ordinances to be made as aforesaid concerning this house, there be present the Governor or Vice-Governor, and six of the company at the least. Item, If any of the ten, which is before called the Company, chance to die or otherwise to be removed, the Governor and Company to elect another of the King’s students into his room; and he to be ready the next vacation after his election, if he be elected one quarter of a year before the vacation, or else the next vacation after. Item, That in all elections and ordinances thereafter to be made, the content of the greatest number to bind, and if they be equal, then that part that the Governor taketh, or in his absence the Vice-Governor. Item, That it shall be lawful to the Governor and Vice-Governor and five of the Company at the least, to admit any young man of the age of eighteen years and under twenty to be a student, they being thereunto moved by some singular quality or excellency of knowledge that appeareth in him. Item, That the King’s grace shall appoint every of his students his anciency, and after his anciency to go by continuance. First, That every week three times, that is to say, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, except festival days and their vigils, a moot be had in the house. Item, That the inner barristers shall plead in Latin, and the other barristers reason in French; and that either of them shall do what they can to banish the corruption of both tongues. Item, That three by the course of the company which shall be the most ancient, shall sit at the motes as benchers and argue unto them,

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Item, That every man in Commons shall keep his course in mote, as well as the King’s students; and this course once appointed by the Governor to continue for ever. Item, That none of the ten, called the Company, shall be bound to mote, but as benchers to argue in them. Item, That the moot be always after supper, as is used in court. Item, That after dinner every three, as they sit, to have a case propounded and argued unto, before they rise. Item, That after supper, if there be no motes, three cases shall be propounded to the company by the other learners, and the puisne shall choose which of the three cases he will argue thereunto, and after him three at the least of the company. The first reading-vacation the Vice-Governor shall read, and after him every of the rest in his anciency. Item, That none be called to be a Reader, but only the King’s students. Item, That after the ten have read, one after another, then he that read first to read in the Lent-vacation; and so every Lent, one to read that hath read before: and every Summer-vacation one that never read. Item, That any Reader during his vacation shall deliver to them whose course is to moot, such cases as shall be mooted, new questions or old at his pleasure. Item, If any the King’s students refuse to read being thereunto called, except he have such reasonable excuse as the Governor and Company shall accept, to lose the King’s exhibitions. The exercises are to be observed in manner and form as they here appear by the space of two years, and after in somethings to be altered in manner as hereafter shall be declared. In term-time and vacations, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, (festival days only excepted) one of the excellent knowledge in the Latin and Greek tongue to read some orator or book of rhetoric, or else some other author which treateth of the government of a common-wealth, openly to all the company, and to all other that will come for the knowledge of both the said languages; and therefore it seemeth convenient that there be two of these. Item, That this lecture be in the afternoon between three and four of the clock. Item, That every Friday and Saturday in term, and vacation at the same hour, one learned in the French, read some introduction, to teach the true pronounciation of the French tongue. Item, That the first two years past, every moot that shall be brought in, shall in order to go after this sort, that is to say, the first in good Latin, and the utter barristers to argue in good Latin so much as they can, and the second in good French, and this to continue alternatim: and the benchers to argue in like manner after three years past. Item, That the mean vacations after two years past, instead of moots, to have daily declamations at the same hour in Latin; Proviso, that none of the company shall be bound to be at this. Item, We think it very convenient that they should have some house not far from the

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city, where they might lie together and continue their study at such time as the infection of the pestilence or other contagious sickness shall chance amongst them or nigh their house. Item, That during the Lent season the Latin lecture to cease, and instead thereof from Thursday after Shrove Sunday till Palm Sunday, even the same man to read to an open lecture of scripture. First, keeping of concubines in the house to be the loss of his stipend: fighting in the house, expulsion of his part beginneth the quarrel, and finable for the other. If any be known for a notorious whore-hunter or common quarreller to be expulsed: playing at dice or cards in the house out of the twelve days in Christmas to be expulsion. Absence of any one, one week, at times appointed to be resident, without special licence to be expulsion, except he have a cause thought and judged reasonable by the Governor, Vice-Governor and Company. Item, If any of the King’s students convey or steal any books out of the library, or be privy or consenting thereunto, that he shall be expulsed and lose the King’s exhibition. Item, If any other of the house, consent or be privy to any such act, to be expulsed and committed to the Fleet; there to remain without bail or mainprize as long as it shall please the Governor and Company. Item, All other offences to be punished by the discretion of the Governor or ViceGovernor and Company; and that they shall have power to commit any of the house to the Fleet, there to remain during their pleasure. Item, That one of the butlers every Saturday make clean the library, and clasp the books, and lay them in their places. Item, That the Governor, or Vice-Governor and Company, shall have power to call counsel in the house as oft as they shall think fit for the preferment of good order, and reformation of offences. Item, Forasmuch as we think it meet, that such as should be the King’s students should be seen expert in all civil things that are requisite to be known to do good and faithful service to the King’s highness in the affairs of his grace’s realms and dominions; we most humbly desire that it would please the King’s majesty, that when his grace doth send any ambassadors into any foreign realm, that his grace would associate or send to wait upon the same ambassador one or two of his grace’s said students to be assigned by his highness, to the intent that thereby they may be more expert and meet to serve the King’s majesty in such affairs, when occasion shall serve. Item, Forasmuch as it seemeth no wise convenient, that neither the politic government of this imperial realm, and the noble acts of the governors of the same, which are undoubtedly worthy of eternal memory and fame; neither on the other side the detestable and devilish acts attempted against the common-wealth contrary to the express laws of God and nature, and the due and just punishment for the same sustained, should in any wise either by negligence or lack of knowledge be drowned in forgetfulness or buried in ignorance, but that they should be rather chronicled and remain in histories for ever, whereby our posterity seeing (as it were before their eyes) the goodly access of so noble a government, should better provide for the security of this realm: We therefore most humbly desire, that it would please the King’s most

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excellent majesty to appoint two of his greatest students to put forth in writing the history and chronicle of this realm; and they that shall be so appointed, to take an oath before the Chancellor of England and the King’s most honourable Council truly and indifferently to do the same without respect of any person, or any other corrupt affection; and also that those two or one of them when any notable arraignment or high treason shall be, to give openly evidence for the King’s highness by the Council’s appointment, whereby they being so made privy to the matter, may the more truly and lively in their chronicles set forth the same. And whereas we think it very expedient, that such men should also besides their studies aforesaid, have some knowledge and practice in martial feats, whereby they may be able to do the King’s grace and the realm service both in time of peace and war also, First therefore, That it shall be lawful for every the King’s students to occupy and exercise at his pleasure shooting in a cross-bow and long-bow without licence and placard; so that it be not prejudicial to the King’s highness’ games. Item, That whatsoever war shall hereafter chance between any foreign prince, that a certain number of the activest young men, and of no small discretion and soberness, to be appointed by the King’s Majesty, which shall amongst others repair into those parts not only to view themselves the order and fashion of their camps, and assaulting and defending, but also to set forth in writing all the whole order of the battle, and this to be registered in their house and to remain there for ever.

69. The Literature of the Law. (a) Example of a Law Reading. Thomas Marowe’s Reading on the Peace, 1503 (Text in B.H.Putnam, Early Treatises on the Practice of the Justices of the Peace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, App. III, 286–414)

3rd Reading. Of the Peace of the land and keepers of the same. The statute1 speaks of the peace of the land but the statute does not speak of keepers of the peace of the land. But every Justice of the Peace is a keeper of the peace, but not to the contrary: for one can be a keeper and not a Justice of the Peace and this is proved by the words of the commission, viz. “We have assigned” And also the statute of I Edward III proves that there were keepers before there was any Justice of the Peace in England. For at common law before the statute of 18 Edward III there were no Justices of the Peace, as appears by the same statute; from which three things are to be seen: First, how one can be a keeper of the peace, and not a Justice of the Peace; secondly, how one can be a Justice of the Peace, and in what manner: thirdly, to what person the authority of Justice of the Peace will be committed. In the first place, one can be a keeper of the peace and not a Justice in five ways: first, by virtue or office or dignity: secondly, by prescription: thirdly, by letters patent: fourthly, by writ: and fifthly, by tenure…. 1

St. 3 Edward I, c. 1.

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4th Reading. On the Justices of the Peace. Now it must be seen how the Justices of the Peace have their authority and in what manner. The statute of 18 Edward III first says that Justices of the Peace shall be made, and before this statute there were no Justices of the Peace, but only keepers as is aforesaid. But the Justices of the Peace are those who ought to see to the execution of this statute by express words of their commission, viz. “We have assigned you to the statutes made at Westminster, etc.” And yet this statute was made a long time before there were any Justices of the Peace. But notwithstanding this the King can grant to other persons to be executors of this statute. Just as the statute of Winchester was made long before any Justices of the Peace were made, viz. before the statute 18 Edward III, as is aforesaid, was made, which provides a commission of oyez and terminer. But at this time the Justices of the Peace were not so necessary as they are now, because at that time they had Justices of oyez and terminer and Justices in Eyre. Then it must be understood that at the first making of Justices of the Peace they were made in two ways, and so they are now, viz. one by special letters patent which the King grants to him alone, and the other by general commission made to him and to others. And the first, Justices by special patent, are called Justices in themselves, like the abbot of St. Albans and the abbot of Bury St. Edmunds, and the others by grant of the King. And these Justices the King cannot discharge afterwards. But the general Justices of the Peace, who are made by general commission the King can discharge at his pleasure, because it refers to a certainty. And note the first, who is Justice by special patent ought to claim his liberty in Eyre if there are any, but the others Justices by commission, not. The Justices by special patents were in this manner just as if the King were to grant to me to be a Justice of the Peace within a county for term of life, this is a good grant. But if the King were to grant to me and to my heirs, this is void, for the ability and discretion of my heir cannot be known at the time of the grant. But if the King grants for term of life, although I am not skilled nor learned in the law, this is good if the patent is “to hear only”. But if it is granted for term of life to me, “to hear and determine” then I must be learned in the law or else the patent is void. Also, if the King grants a man to be Justice of the Peace for term of life and to hold sessions by himself or his sufficient deputy the grant is good…. The second kind is by commission, which contains two things which the special patents do not. And one is that they can be made for persons who cannot take special letters patent, like professed monks and other religious persons who are persons disabled. And the other point is that the Justices who have their authority by commission are determinable at the King’s will, and the others not, as if it is granted to them for term of life or years. Also if a commission is made to an infant over the age of 14 years it is good. But if he be within age and joined with others of discretion, query etc. Also a commission made to a married woman is good, and she will make warrants by virtue of this in her own name. And if the commission comes to the husband and his wife to be Justices, the husband can make warrants in his own name or in the name of

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both. And in this last case if the husband is named in the Quorum the husband and his wife can release a man on bail for suspicion of felony: note this. And if the husband in this case dies still this commission remains good for his wife as it was before in his life…. 5th Reading. Now it must be seen what persons shall be put in commissions of the peace, and what not. Note the statute 18 Henry VI. First, in the year 1 Edward III keepers of the Peace were authorized by the same statute, as it appears. And in the second year of the same King [the statute] gives power to hear and determine all kinds of felony. And afterwards in the 18th year of the same king the statute says that two or three of the powerful men of each county shall be assigned Justices of the Peace in the same county, and that they together with other learned men of law should hear and determine all kinds of felony, and notwithstanding this, they wished viz. the chancellor who makes the commission should put several other than those that were comprized by the statute in the commissions. For afterwards, viz. in 12 Richard II c. 11, a statute was made to the effect that there shall only be 6 Justices of the Peace at most besides the Justices of Assize, and then besides that no patent of association shall be made to the Justices of the Peace in any county. And then afterwards the same statute was confirmed by a statute made afterwards, viz. 14 Richard II, c. 10 which says that there shall not be more Justices of the Peace in a county than 8 besides the lords. But notwithstanding this, the aforesaid 6 Justices of the Peace who were in addition to the Justices of Assize to that day were not learned in the law. For that another statute was made, viz. 17 Richard II, c. 10, whereby it was ordained that in every commission of the peace there should be two men, proficient in law, from the same county, and that they should proceed as often as necessary to gaol delivery within the same county: and yet notwithstanding all the aforesaid facts they wished to put insufficient persons into the commissions by labour or favour of their friends, and also they wished to put into the commissions divers persons dwelling in foreign counties. For that a statute was made 2 Hen. V. c. 1, whereby it was established that the sufficient persons within the same county should be assigned to be Justices of the Peace and none from foreign counties except the Justices of Assize and the Steward of the Duchy. But of what sufficiency in certain they shall be was not put in certain by this statute. But afterwards by a statute made 18 Hen. VI. c. 11, the sufficiency was put in certain in such form, viz. that everyone who shall be made Justice of the Peace in any county shall have lands or tenements to the value of £20. a year at least as appears in the statute and words thereof. The statute speaks of land and tenements to the value of £20. a year, but this will be construed more widely than the words say: for lands, tenements, rents, and other inheritances which are annual to the value of £20. clear and can have continuance to all intents for ever will be included by equity. But yet if a man have a common ing ross

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or an advowson or annuity or the like to the value of £20. a year, yet he will not be said to be sufficient by such things for they are not of value certain…. 6th Reading. Of surety of the peace, and how it shall be done. The words of the statute of Westminster the first are: Let the peace be kept. And note that those words together with the words following in the same statute comprize the entire authority of the Justices of the Peace, the which authority rests on three things. First, in those actual things which they can do without sessions or enquiry, as of things done in their presence against the peace, they can commit to ward without any inquiry and also they can certify into the Bench without further inquiry and this is by matter of fact, and the power for this act is given by the first clause of the commissions where it says: “We have assigned you to the peace” and does not say Justice, etc. The second is what things they can do by inquiry etc. and the power of inquiry is given by the second clause of the commission where it says: “We have assigned you our Justices to inquire”: for by these words of the commission they are made Justices of the Peace, and not by the words immediately before in the commission: for this gives no power to them in any way save as keepers of the peace, etc. The third is of those things of which the Justices of the Peace should not only inquire but also determine, and this power is given to them by another clause in the commission where it says: “We have assigned you twenty and others, of whom two of you are,” etc. to hearing and determining all and singular felonies and trespasses, etc. and note that these three authorities are comprised within the aforesaid statute of Westminster the First, c. 1: for in these words of the statute “Let the peace be well kept” is implied all the acts that the Justices of the Peace should do without inquiry. And by those words: “And maintain in all points” is implied all those acts which they should do by inquiry. And by those words: “That common right should be done as well to poor as to rich” are implied all acts which they can inquire before them in their sessions and determine by this commission. And thus from the first words of the statute of Westminster the First and the first clause of the commission four things emerge: first how the parties shall be put under surety of the peace for risk of breach of the peace in doing this act. Second, what things shall be said to be breach of the peace, and what not, and how it shall be pacified after breach of it. Third, if such breach is with a multitude of people what further punishment the Justices can award for this breach than for others. And, fourth, if anyone is by reason of such breach of the peace with a multitude of people, evicted from his possession of lands or tenements, how and in what way the Justices ought to overcome this force and restore the aggrieved party into his possession. And note that these four things are the principal things belonging to the keeping of the peace without inquiry, etc. And as to the first of these points, viz. how a man will be put under surety with damages of breach of the peace, five things are to be examined about this: first, how this surety will be demanded and in what way: second, how this, surety will be granted. Third, how the process of such surety of the peace will be done to the one against

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whom it is demanded by the party. Fourth, how the surety shall be found. And the fifth is how this surety of the peace that is once taken can be afterwards discharged, etc…. 10th Reading. Of the way sessions of the peace are to be held. The statute of Westminster the first is: “And maintained in all points.” In these words of the statute is comprised the authority that Justices of the Peace have of inquiry, and of what points they can inquire: And these points will appear in the second clause of the commission of the Justices of the Peace, where it says: “We have assigned you our Justices, etc. to inquire, etc.” Whereby it must first be seen how the Sessions shall be held: secondly, what things are to be inquired by force of the commission: thirdly, how the presentments shall be made: fourthly, what process they shall make on these presentments. And all these points appear by express words in the second clause of the aforesaid commission, etc. And as to the first point, the statute of 36 Edward III. c. 12, says that in every commission of the peace mention shall be made that the Session shall be held four times a year, viz. once in the octaves of Epiphany: the second time in the second week of Easter: the third between the feasts of Pentecost and St. John the Baptist: the fourth in the octaves of St. Michael. And then afterwards by a statute made 12 Richard II it is said that the Justices of the Peace shall hold their sessions every quarter of the year on pain of punishment by the advice of the King’s Council: in which statute the Justices and the serjeants at law are excepted. And then afterwards by another statute made in 2 Henry V. c. 4 it says that they shall hold their Sessions four times a year, viz. the first week after St. Michael, the first week after the Translation St. Thomas, the first week after Epiphany, the first week after the close of Easter.

(b) Example of a Law Report. Hill v. Grange. Common Pleas, Mich. 2–3. P. and M. (Plowden, Reports, 176–78)

…The fifth point also arose upon this statute; and it was whether or no the plaintiff, being the grantee of King Edward 6 of the reversion of the meadow which belonged to the monastery, might by the said statute enter into the meadow for the condition broken, as well as he might if he had been the grantee of King Henry 8. And it was said by those who argued for the defendant that he might not. For in the preamble and in the purview, and in the end of the act mention is made only of the patentees of the then King, which was King Henry 8 and no mention is made of his heirs or successors, and therefore the act shall not here extend to the patentees of his heirs or successors. And yet it was said, when a thing is spoken by the King, or names the King, in many cases it shall contain his heirs or successors. As the statute de religiosis, which prohibits mortmain, says, that if the lords immediate do not enter within the time limited, we will immediately take such lands and tenements into our hands, and thereof infeoff others. So the statute of Magna Charta cap. 17. says, No sheriff etc. nor any other our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our

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crown…. And so the statute of Magna Charta cap.11 which says, Common pleas shall not follow our Court, etc. and such other statutes, whereof there are an infinite number that speak of the King only, have been expounded to extend to his heirs and successors, to give them benefit or to bind them. And the reason is because the King is a body politic, and when an act says, the King, or says, we, it is always spoken in the person of him as King, and in his dignity royal, and therefore it includes all those who enjoy his function. But in our case here the act first names the King in the preamble with a special mark of distinction adapted to himself, for it says, as also all grantees and patentees of the King our Sovereign Lord, of sundry manors, etc. later belonging to monasteries, etc. come to the hands of the King’s Majesty after the 4th day of February in the 27 year of his reign; where this addition of the monasteries coming to his hands is as strong and lively a demonstration of King Henry 8 as if a man was to point him out with his finger. And then in the purview afterwards, when it speaks of the patentees of the King, it says in every place, our said sovereign Lord, and concludes in like manner and form as if the reversion of such lands had not come to the hands of our said sovereign Lord, which word (said) has relation to the King before mentioned, and that is the King to whose hands the monasteries came after the 4th day of February in the 27th year of his reign, which is King Henry 8 only. So that the said words added to the King mentioned in the act is a demonstration what King is intended. As the statute of 37 H.8. which gave power to the King to make commissions to persons by him to be appointed to enter upon chauntries, colleges, and such like, and them to suppress to his own use, did not extend to his heirs or successors, for if it had, it would have been in vain to have made a new act in the 1 Edw. 6 for the preamble and the rest of the words in the act declare that it was the intent of the makers of the act to give King Henry 8 alone the power of suppressing them. So here the words of the act give everyone good cause to say that both the words and intent of the act of 32 H. 8. extend to the patentee of King Henry 8 but not to the patentees of his successors. Wherefore the patentees of King Edward 6 cannot be contained under the patentees of the King mentioned in the act. And perhaps it will be said that although the patentees of King Edward 6 might not be contained in the words aforesaid, yet King Edward may be contained in the other words, namely, in the clause coming in the purview under the (as also) concerning other persons; for (perhaps it may be said) King Edward was another person, and as such contained under those words, and so since the meadow in our case was belonging to a monastery, the plaintiff is here by that means enabled to take benefit of the condition by deed. In answer to this it may be said, that King Edward 6 cannot be contained under the words (other persons), for those words contain only a body natural, and the King, as King, is a body politic, which cannot be contained under the term of a body natural. Also in the said clause the words are, as also all other persons being grantees or assignees to or by our said Sovereign Lord the King, or to or by any other person or persons than the King’s Highness, etc. So that in the clause of other persons the King is excepted. And, Sir, this exception extends to the heirs and successors of the King, for the heir or successor of the King is King, and this term (Highness) may well be added to him, for Grace, Majesty, Highness, and such like terms, may be well applied to the predecessor, or to the heir or successor of the King, and in

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speaking now they may properly enough be applied to him who shall be successor; wherefore the heir or successor shall be excepted. But if the act had said, “others than the King’s Highness aforesaid,” then the said King Henry 8 only had been excepted, but as it is it is general, and may extend to the heir, and so out of the general words (other persons) King Edward 6 was excepted. And therefore his patentee in our case is not within the purview of the act, and consequently might not enter into the meadow for the condition broken. On the contrary it was argued by the said Serjeants on the part of the plaintiff, and also by Staunford, Saunders, and Brown, Justices that the patentees of King Edward 6 are contained within the letter of the act, and that in the first part of the purview coming under the (as well) viz. as well all persons who shall have any gift or grant of our said Sovereign Lord, by his letters patent of any lordships, etc. which words (our said Sovereign Lord) may well be referred to the heir or successor of the King. For the heir or successor may have the term of Sovereign Lord, and may be called Our Sovereign Lord, and although the word (said) is referred to King Henry 8 yet it is referred to him as King. And King is a name of continuance, which shall always endure as the Head and Governor of the people (as the Law presumes) as long as the people continue, quia ubi non est gubernator, ibi dissipabitur populus, and in this name the King never dies. And therefore the death of him who is the King is in Law called the demise of the King, and not the death of the King, because thereby he demises the kingdom to another, and lets another enjoy the function, so that the dignity always continues. And then when the act gives remedy to the patentees of our said sovereign lord, and Henry 8 is mentioned before to be the King, and so the relation is to him as King, he as King never dies, although his natural body dies, but the King in which name it has relation to him does ever continue, and therefore (and the rather because it seems to be the intent of the legislature by the rest of the act to have the purview continue always) the word (King) shall extend to King Edward 6. And the statute of Purveyors made in 25 Ed. 3 has the style thus, that the parliament was summoned in the year of his reign of England the 25 and of France the 12 and contains, that our said Sovereign Lord by the assent etc. hath ordained and established the things under written; and when the treasons are there recited, the act says and of such treason the forfeiture of the escheats belongs to our sovereign Lord, as well of the lands and tenements holden of others as of himself; and although the act there and in divers other places says, our Sovereign Lord, the King is before named in whose reign it was of England the 25 and of France the 12 which was only King Edward 3 yet it extends to all his heirs and successors, and so has it ever been put in use. From whence we may see that where a thing is referred to a particular King by the name of King, in that case it may extend to his heirs or successors, where the intent was that the thing should always continue. And so here the patentees of King Edward 6 shall be contained under the said words; and herein the said three Justices agree. And some held, that if King Edward 6 should not be contained in the words supra, he should be contained in the other words, viz. (to or by any other person or persons) well enough, and then the exception in the act should extend to Henry 8 only. And Staunford Justice said, that if he was not within the words he should not be within the

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equity of it, because the condition is to take away another’s entry, which shall be taken strictly. As the statute of Pernors of Profits by which it was enacted that a recovery in Assize against the cestuy que use should be good, was not extended by equity to a writ of entry, because it was to take away the land of another, viz. the land of the feoffee. But Saunders was against him in this point, because the act was pro bono publico. Brook Chief Justice argued that the words (the patentees of our said Sovereign Lord) could not extend to the patentees of other kings than Henry 8 and that the other clause could not contain the patentees of Edward 6 and that the patentees of Edward 6 were out of the words of the said statute. But he argued that the patentees of Edward 6 should be taken within the equity of the said statute. For, he said, the statute was made to remedy the mischief generally, and there is no reason to say that the patentees of King Henry 8 and the grantees of all other persons should be aided by this statute, and not the patentees of the heirs or successors of the King, for it is to be presumed that Henry 8 would permit a great part of the lands to descend to his heirs or successors, who might be supposed to part with some of them; and therefore there is no colour of reason to induce one to believe but that the makers of the act intended to aid the patentees of the heirs of Henry 8 as well as his own patentees, and to make the provision general, and not to suffer a mischief in equal degree to remain unremedied…. To conclude then, forasmuch as statutes heretofore made to relieve the people from trouble, and to take away mischief from them, have been enlarged by equity, so that one action has been extended further, or taken for another, one thing for another, one place for another, and one person for another, why then should not our act here, being made to relieve the people from trouble, and to remove a mischief that was suffered at the common law, be extended by equity? And why shall not the issue of the King be taken within the equity of this statute which speaks of his father, as well as the issue of the donee in tail is taken within the equity of the statute de donis conditionalibus which speaks of his father? And why shall not all persons, patentees of the son of the King, and their termors, as well as all persons contained within the equity of the said statute of 25 Ed. 3 made touching the King and his incumbents? Certainly (he said) I know no reason to the contrary, for there is as great cause for them to be taken within the equity of the said statute, as there are in the other cases. For which reason it seems to me that Hill the patentee of King Edward 6 may have benefit of this statute. And he held that he should be aided by equity, and not by the words, and the other three Justices held that he should be aided by the words of the act. So that all of them agreed in this, that the plaintiff was within the remedy of the statute….

(c) Legislation affecting the Common Law An Act concerning uses and wills. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 10, 1536 (Stat. Realm, III, 539) Whereby the common laws of this realm lands tenements and hereditaments be not devisable by testament, nor ought to be transferred from one to another but by solemn livery and seisin matter of record writing sufficient made bona fide without covin or fraud, yet nevertheless divers and sundry imaginations subtle inventions and practices

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have been used, whereby the hereditaments of this realm have been conveyed from one to another by fraudulent feoffments fines recoveries and other assurances craftily made to secret uses intents and trusts, and also by wills and testaments sometime made by nude parole and words sometime by signs and tokens and sometime by writing, and for the most part made by such persons as be visited with sickness, in their extreme agonies and pains or at such time as they have had scantly any good memory or remembrance; at which times they being provoked by greedy covetous persons lying in await about them do many times dispose indiscreetly and unadvisedly their lands and inheritances; by reason whereof and by occasions of which fraudulent feoffments fines recoveries and other like assurances to uses confidences and trusts divers and many heirs have been unjustly at sundry times disinherited, the lords have lost their wards marriages reliefs heriots escheats aides pur fayre fitz chivaler et pur file maryer, and scantly any person can be certainly assured of any lands by them purchased nor known surely again whom they shall use their actions or executions for their rights titles and duties; also men married have lost their tenancies by the curtesy women their dowers, manifest perjuries by trial of such secret wills and uses, have been committed, the King’s highness hath lost the profits and advantages of the lands of persons attainted, and of the lands craftily put in feoffment to the uses of aliens born, and also the profits of waste for a year and a day of lands of felons attainted, and the lords their escheats thereof, and many other inconveniencies have happened and daily do increase among the King’s subjects, to their great trouble and inquietness, to the utter subversion of the ancient common laws of this realm; for the extirping and extinguishment of all such subtle practised feoffments fine recoveries abuses and errors heretofore used and accustomed in this realm, to the subversion of the good and ancient laws of the same, and to the intent that the King’s highness or any other his subjects of this realm shall not in any wise hereafter by any means or inventions be deceived damaged or hurted by reasons of such trusts uses or confidences, it may please the king’s most royal majesty that it may be enacted…that where any person or persons stand or be seised or at any time hereafter shall happen to be seised, of and in any honours castles manors lands tenements rents services reversions remainders or other hereditaments, to the use confidence or trust of any other person or persons or of any body politic, by reason of any bargain sale feoffment fine recovery covenant contract agreement will or otherwise by any manner means whatsoever it be, that in every such case all and every such person and persons and bodies politic that have or hereafter shall have any such use confidence or trust in fee simple fee tail for term of life or for years or otherwise, or any use confidence or trust in remainder or reverter, shall from henceforth stand and be seised deemed and adjudged in lawful seisin estate and possession of and in the same honours castles manors lands tenements rents services reversions remainders and hereditaments with their appurtenances to all intents constructions and purposes in the law, of and in such like estates as they had or shall have in use trust or confidence of or in the same. And that the estate right title and possession that was in such person or persons that were or shall be hereafter seised of any lands tenements or hereditaments, to the use confidence or trust of any such person or persons or of any body politic, be

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from henceforth clearly deemed and adjudged to be in him or them that have or hereafter shall have such use confidence or trust, after such quality manner form and condition as they had before in or to the use confidence or trust that was in them. c. 2. And be it further enacted…that where divers and many persons be or hereafter shall happen to be jointly seised, of and in any lands tenements rents reversions remainders or other hereditaments, to the use confidence or trust of any of them that be so jointly seised, that in every such case that or those person or persons which have or hereafter shall have any such use confidence or trust in any such lands tenements rents reversions remainders or hereditaments, shall from henceforth have and be deemed and adjudged to have, only to him or them that have or hereafter shall have such use confidence or trust, such estate possession and seisin of and in the same lands tenements rents reversions remainders or other hereditaments, in like nature manner and form condition and course as he or they had before in the use confidence or trust of the same lands tenements or hereditaments: saving and reserving to all and singular persons and bodies politic their heirs and successors, other than those person or persons which be seised or hereafter shall be seised of any lands tenements or hereditaments to any use confidence or trust all such right title entry interest possession rents and action as they or any of them had or might have had before the making of this act. And also saving to all and singular those persons and to their heirs which be or hereafter shall be seised to any use, all such former right title entry interest possession rents customs services and action as they or any of them might have had to his or their proper use in or to any manors lands tenements rents or hereditaments whereof they be or hereafter shall be seised to any other use, as if this present act had never been had or made; anything contained in this act to the contrary notwithstanding. An act concerning enrolments of bargains and contracts of lands and tenements. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 16, 1536 (Stat. Realm, III, 549) Be it enacted…that [from 31 July 1536] no manors lands tenements or other hereditaments shall pass alter or change from one to another, whereby any estate of inheritance or freehold shall be made or take effect in any person or persons or any use thereof to be made by reason only of any bargain and sale thereof, except the same bargain and sale be made by writing indented sealed and enrolled in one of the King’s courts of record at Westminster; or else within the same county or counties where the same manors lands or tenements so bargained and sold lie or be, before the Custos Rotulorum and two justices of the peace and the clerk of the peace of the same county or counties or two of them at the least whereof the clerk of the peace to be one; and the same enrolment to be had and made within six months next after the date of the same writings indented; the same Custos Rotulorum or justices of the peace and clerk, taking for the enrolment of every such writing indented before them, where the land comprised in the same writing exceed not the yearly value of forty shillings, two shillings, that is to say, 12d. to the justices and 12d. to the clerk; and for the enrolment of every such writing indented before them wherein the land comprised exceed the sum of 40s. in yearly value, 5s. that is to say 2s. 6d. to the said justices and 2s. 6d. to the said clerk for

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the enrolment of the same; and that the clerk of the peace for the time being within every such county shall sufficiently enrol and ingross in parchment the same deeds or writing indented as is aforesaid, and the rolls thereof at the end of every year shall deliver unto the said Custos Rotulorum of the same county for the time being there to remain in the custody of the said Custos Rotulorum for the time being amongst other records of every of the same counties where any such enrolments shall be so made, to the intent that every party that hath to do therewith may resort and see the effect and tenour of every such writing so enrolled. Provided always that this act nor any thing therein contained extend to any manor lands tenements or hereditaments lying or being within any city borough or town corporate within this realm, wherein the mayors recorders chamberlains bailiffs or other officer or officers have authority or have lawfully used to enrol any evidences deeds or other writings within their precincts or limits; anything in this act contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

G. PARLIAMENT 70. Records of Parliament. From the Journals The official reports of parliamentary proceedings during the early sixteenth century are in the Journals of the Lords and of the Commons, which take the place of the medieval record, The Rolls of Parliament. (a) The extant series of the Lords’ Journals begin with the first Parliament of Henry VIII. Pollard and others doubted whether this was the first of such records for Sir Robert Cotton had seen a fragmentary journal of earlier date, but this apparently disappeared during the Civil War. The discovery of “The Fane Fragment”, of a journal for the first Parliament of Edward IV, which, its editor suggests, is the manuscript or its copy seen by Cotton, confirms these doubts. The connecting link between the Rolls of Parliament and the Journals is supplied by the first document printed below. The Fane Fragment is important. It means that parliamentary procedure formerly attributed to the first Parliament of Henry VIII is now antedated by half a century. For these problems see A.F.Pollard, “The Authenticity of the Lords Journals in the Sixteenth Century” (Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. 3rd Ser, VIII, 17–40; W.H.Dunham, The Fane Fragment of the 1461 Lords journal.) (b) The Commons’ Journals present less difficulty. Pollard held that the meagre entries which begin with Edward VI’s reign and with the removal of the Commons House to St. Stephens, was the real beginning of the Commons Journals: “there can hardly have been a more rudimentary record: here we begin ab ovo”. Pollard, op. cit.

(i) Parliamentary proceedings, 1503–4 (Rot. Parl. VI, 520)

M

emorandum that on Thursday the 25th. day of January in the nineteenth year of the year of the reign of King Henry the seventh after the conquest, with the lord king himself sitting in royal state in the great chamber commonly called “of the cross” next to his chapel and oratory within his palace of Westminster, in the presence of very many lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons of the realm of England then summoned to parliament by the king’s command, the most reverend in Christ Father William,

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Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor of England, notably pronounced and declared the reason for the summoning of the aforesaid parliament, by order of the lord king himself, taking for his theme this text “Choose justice, ye who judge the world”. [Here follows a summary of his sermon.] And after the conclusion of this pronouncement and declaration, the same chancellor in the king’s name, gave firm orders to the Commons of the realm then present, to meet together on the morrow in their common and accustomed house to choose their speaker and present him so elected to the lord king. And in order that justice should the more speedily be shown to those seeking to complain, he constituted and assigned certain receivers and triers of the petitions which were to be presented in the aforesaid parliament, in the following form: Receivers of petitions from England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland: Sir William Barons Sir Geoffrey Simeon Sir Richard Hatton Receivers of petitions from Gascony, and other lands and countries overseas and the isles: Sir Richard Mayhew James Hubert Sir Robert Blakewall And let those who wish to deliver their petitions submit them within the next seven days. And there was assigned as triers of petitions for England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland: The Archbishop of Canterbuty The Archbishop of York The Duke of Buckingham The Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Exeter The Bishop of Rochester The Earl of Shrewsbury The Earl of Surrey The Abbot of Westminster The Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds The Abbot of Abingdon The Lord Daubeney The Lord Hastings The Lord Herbert John Fyneux Thomas Frowyke Robert Reed All together, or six of the prelates and lords aforesaid, calling to them the Chancellor and Treasurer, and also the King’s Serjeants, as needed, And they shall take their place in the Chamberlain’s Chamber.

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And there were assigned as triers of petitions for Gascony, and other lands and countries overseas, and the isles: The Bishop of Durham The Bishop of Norwich The Earl of Arundel The Earl of Northumberland The Abbot of Reading The Abbot of Borough St. Pierre The Lord Bergavenny The Lord Dacre of Dacre The Lord Mountjoy Thomas Tremayle John Vavisour John Fisher All together, or four of the prelates and lords aforesaid, calling to them the Chancellor and Treasurer, and also the King’s Serjeants as needed. And they shall take their place in the Treasurer’s Chamber. Item, on Friday, the second day of parliament, the aforesaid Commons declared through some of their number to the lords spiritual and temporal in the present parliament, that they carrying out with all diligence the order of the lord king enjoined on them on the previous day, had chosen their Speaker, but not naming anyone, and humbly praying the same lords to deign to inform the king’s highness, and to find out when it would please the lord king that the said Speaker should be presented. Whereupon, after consultation with the king, a reply was given to the deputed Commons that the lord king wished the presentation of the Speaker to be made on the next Monday. Item, on Monday, the fifth day of parliament, the aforesaid Commons appearing in full parliament before the said lord king, presented to the said lord king Edmund Dudley, their Speaker, with whom the same lord king was well content. And the same Edmund, after making his excuses before the said lord king, inasmuch as the same his excuse could not be admitted on behalf of the said lord king, humbly prayed the said lord king that all and singular things put forward and declared by him in the aforesaid parliament in the name of the said Commons he might put forward and declare under this Protestation, that if he should declare anything enjoined on him by his aforesaid colleagues otherwise than they had agreed, either by adding to it or by leaving out, it might be possible for his aforesaid colleagues to correct or amend that which was thus declared, and that this his Protestation should be entered on the roll of the parliament. To which a reply was given by the king’s orders through the Lord Chancellor that the said Edmund should enjoy such a Protestation just as other Speakers were accustomed to have and enjoy in similar parliaments in the time of the noble progenitors of the said lord king, the kings of England. Item, a certain bill containing the form of an act and concerning a certain feoffment to be made by the said lord king to the lord archbishop of Canterbury and others, was shown in the aforesaid parliament under this form:—

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Whereas in the parliament holden at Westminster the 20th. day of February, the seventh year of the king our sovereign lord’s reign, his highness, for the profit, execution, stablishment and performing of his last Will, by the advice of his lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons in the said parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, ordained and enacted that John, then Archbishop of Canterbury, primate and chancellor of all England, Thomas Archbishop of York and Jasper then Duke of Bedford, and other with them named in the same act, should from the same 20th. day of February, have hold and enjoy and possess the honours, castles, and lordships of Lancaster and Clitheroe, with the members and appurtenances of the same, and all manors, lordships, lands, tenements, rents, reversions, services, possessions and hereditaments, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster, within the county of Lancaster, with their appurtenances, and the county Palatine of Lancaster with their appurtenances, and all liberties, franchises, jurisdictions, privileges, laws, customs, and all other things in the same county palatine and other the premises, and every parcel of them, belonging and appertaining, or parcel of the same; the honours, castles, lordships, and manors of Pontefract, Tikhull, Knaresborough, and Pickering, with the members and appurtenances, and all manors, lordships, lands, tenements, rents, reversions, and services, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster in the counties of York and Nottingham, with their appurtenances: the honour, castle, lordship, and manor of Tutbury with the appurtenances…to the intent that the same feoffees, their heirs, and the heirs of every of them should be and stand feoffees, of the premises, and of every parcel of them, to the performing and executing of the last Will that his said highness should make and ordain to be done with the same honours, castles, manors, lands, and tenements, and other the premises, and every parcel of them, under certain form, with divers ordinances, authorities, provisions, orders and intents, in the same act limited, expressed, specified, ordained and declared. And over that, it was ordained by the same authority, that after the same Will were performed and executed, or else if his said highness declared and made no Will concerning the premises, that then the said John then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas then Archbishop of York, Jasper then Duke of Bedford, and other with them named in the said act, and their heirs, should be and stand seised and feoffed of and in the said honours, castles, lordships, manors, lands, tenements, and other the premises, to the use of his highness and his heirs for ever, as in the same act more at large it is contained. And forasmuch as divers of the greatest number of the said persons named in the same act, since the making of the same be deceased, and the casualty of this world is such, and life is uncertain to such as survive, as was to them now departed, and for that it is fitting to the king’s honour, and requisite for the better and more sure performance and execution of his said Will, to renew and increase a more number of honourable personages, to have joint, and as full and plain and large authority and power with the said persons rehearsed over living, and to be with them adjoined in the premises, and every part thereof, as the said persons deceased had. Be it therefore enacted… that William now Archbishop of Canterbury1…stand and be seised jointly with the said persons surviving, of and in all the castles, manors, lordships, lands, tenements, rents, 1

Together with several others.

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reversions, services, possessions and hereditaments, with other premises before remembered, and to be and stand in like estate, authority and power, and under like manner, form and condition of the premises, and every part of them, and to the same uses and intents as the said persons now being dead, had, should or might have had in the premises, and every part thereof if they had continued in plain life, and as if the said persons now new named, had had a joint estate, and had been jointly named with the said survivors in the said act, with the persons that now survive. And over this, be it enacted…that what time and whensoever the said William Archbishop of Canterbury…or any of them, hereafter shall fortune to decease, or any of their sees to be void by any other ways: that then they that so shall succeed them, or any of them, in the said sees and bishoprics, and every of them, and their successors, and the successors of every of them, shall have successively for ever, like authority and power to do, order, execute, and perform the king’s said Will, and every part thereof, jointly with the other that shall survive, as the same self bishops should, ought, or might do in, to, and for the same, if they continued in plain life, and as if the said persons that so shall succeed, had their plain possessions in their said sees and the bishoprics at this present time, and were well and perfectly named in this present act. And when this Bill had been read and fully understood with the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and of the Commons in the aforesaid parliament assembled and with the authority of the same parliament the king’s answer to the same Bill was this:— Le Roy le veult. 2. Item, another Bill, containing the form of an Act, on behalf of Prince Henry, of late Duke of York, was shown in the aforesaid parliament in this form: Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God to call the king’s dearest son Henry Duke of York to be now the king’s heir apparent, and Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester, by reason whereof he hath great and notable possessions: Wherefore it is for him convenient to leave and be discharged of the said name of Duke of York, dignity and preeminence thereof, and of all such annuities, fees, offices, and other possessions and hereditaments, by the king’s highness to him given and granted, before the first day of this present parliament, Be it therefore enacted…that the said erection and creation to the king’s said son, made to him as to the Duke of York, and all his estate, dignity, and preeminence by reason of the same, and the annuity to him granted by the king our sovereign lord, of, for, and upon the same creation, and the lands, tenements, possessions, hereditaments, offices or other things, whatsoever they be, to him heretofore given and granted by the king’s letters patent, act of parliament or otherwise, be from henceforth utterly void, and of none effect; any grants made by the king our sovereign lord, or any acts of parliament heretofore made of and for the same, or any part or parcel thereof, to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. And when this Bill had been read and fully understood, with the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and of the Commons in the said parliament assembled, and with the authority of the same parliament, the king’s answer was as follows:— Le Roy le veult.

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(ii) Parliamentary proceedings, 1509 (Lords’ Journals, I, 3)

On Monday the twenty-first day of January in the year of the reign of King Henry VIII after the Conquest the first, on the first day of parliament, the same lord king being in his Great Chamber near his Chapel and Oratory within his palace of Westminster, there being then present as well the lords spiritual and temporal of the whole kingdom of England and also the Commons then summoned and called by royal commandment to Parliament, the very reverend Father in Christ Lord William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor of England, by commandment of the lord king himself, not only elegantly and with distinction, but also seriously, wisely, and learnedly, and with the approval of all who were present, pronounced, declared, and published the cause of the summons of the aforesaid parliament, taking for his text the following words: “Fear God, honour the King”, In pursuance of the first part, or process, of this theme he declared with distinction and wisdom how fear was manifold, and how all men everywhere and especially kings and rulers ought to fear God. And by neglect or lack of this not only kings and people, but cities, communities and kingdoms were afflicted, punished, destroyed and wholly overthrown because the fear of God was not before their eyes, and he gave faithful examples culled from this kingdom in recent times (which was to be lamented) for this cause alone that the fear of God was not before men’s eyes. In the second part of his sermon he clearly shewed the king ought to be honoured in his kingdom by his subjects, and that honour of the king delights in judgment; and in explanation or declaration of this he succinctly and in general terms explained many kinds of judgment concluding that this is the most powerful judgment that chooses the honour of the king when subjects themselves judge well of the royal majesty and when needs be, wisely reform themselves: and when judges under the royal majesty justly and uprightly administer natural and human justice to others; shewing how necessary good laws are for the right government of any kingdom because, as he eloquently said, laws are truly established norms of the republic, and by the just observance of them the republic is kept safe. And he praised most strongly the fathers and wise ancestors, both for the laws they had established, promulgated and bequeathed to posterity, as for the diligent and indifferent observance of them: whence he prayed Almighty God that not only should good and fruitful laws be established in this Parliament (which he aptly called the political stomach of the kingdom) but should be observed and justly carried out by all. On justice he spoke much, especially that shewing that it is necessary to kings for ruling kingdoms uprightly. Then he introduced various officers of the republic some of whom he called the eyes of the republic like the judges, who judge justly and uprightly: some the tongues of the republic like wise lawyers: some the ambassadors of the republic like the heads of provinces and shires whom we commonly call sheriffs who in the performance of their duties ought not to act as though it were a burden: some as searchers of the republic like the taxgatherers who are called escheators, few of whom are found honest: some pillars of the republic like the twelve men of the jury, and he

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explained in suitable terms the characteristics of each office separately. Afterwards to the great applause of his audience he shewed how the estates of the whole kingdom there present viz. the spiritualty, temporalty, and commonalty were present by the orders of his royal majesty, in order that his kingdom and justice (queen of all virtues) should be preserved and that under his leadership things badly done in previous times should now be reformed, unjust laws be abolished, harsh or rigorous ones should be tempered or mitigated, and good laws, fruitful and useful for the republic, should be established and decreed and so published should be observed, with the greatest reverence, sacrosanct and inviolable. And if these things should be done (as he hoped) in this Parliament, then he affirmed and considered that there would then be no doubt that God would be feared, the king would be honoured, and all things for the future would be prosperous for the republic, the king, and his kingdom. After the end of this sermon and declaration the same Lord Chancellor, in the name of the king, ordered the aforesaid commons to come together next day in their common accustomed house to choose one as their Speaker and to present the same, when chosen, to the same lord king. And in order that justice might be had and done the more speedily and diligently to those wishing to submit complaints and petitions, he constituted and assigned certain receivers and examiners or triers of these same petitions in the following form. Receivers of petitions from England Ireland Wales and Scotland Sir John Yonge Sir Roger Lupton Sir John Taylor And those who wish to deliver their petitions should deliver them within seven days next ensuing. Receivers of petitions from Gascony and from other lands and countries overseas and from the Isles Sir Nicholas West Sir William Lichfield Sir Jakes Whetstons Sir Richard Rawson And there are assigned Triers of Petitions from England Ireland Wales and likewise from Scotland: The Archbishop of Canterbury The Duke of Buckingham. The Bishop of Winchester. The Bishop of Exeter. The Bishop of Rochester. The Earl of Shrewsbury. The Earl of Surrey. The Abbot of Westminster. The Abbot of Bury Saint Edmund.

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The Abbot of Abingdon. The Lord Herbert. The Lord Hastings. All together, or five of the prelates and lords aforesaid at least, calling to them the Chancellor and Treasurer or such other officers of the king as shall be necessary shall take their place in the Chamber of the Chamberlain. And there are assigned Triers of Petitions of Gascony and of the other lands and countries overseas and of the isles. All together, or three of the prelates and lords aforesaid, calling to themselves the Chancellor and Treasurer, and also, when necessary, the King’s Serjeant and they shall take their place in the Chamber of the Treasurer. On this day a certain letter was received signed by the king’s hand, excusing the absence of the Bishop of St. Asaph, having written above in the margin, by the king. Also on the same day there was received a letter of proxy on behalf of Thomas, abbot of the monastery of St. Peter, Gloucester, by which he named as his proctor the Reverend Father in Christ the Lord Thomas, Bishop of Durham, his proctor for consenting. Also on the same day was received a letter of proxy of Richard, abbot of the monastery of the Blessed Mary and of St. Botolph of Thorney, who named as his proctors James, Bishop of Ely, and the abbots of Bury St. Edmund, of Peterborough, and of St. Guthlac of Croyland, jointly and separately. Tuesday, 22 January, on the second day of Parliament. Robert Drury, knight, and others from the commons house announced to the Lord Chancellor and Treasurer, and to the other lords here present, that they executing with all diligence the command of the Lord Chamberlain enjoined on them by the Lord Chancellor have chosen their Speaker, humbly praying that they should announce this forthwith to his Royal Highness, and that they should inform them of his Royal Highness’ will, when he would wish the same Speaker to be presented to his Majesty: Whereupon the said Lord Chancellor, The Treasurer, and others, having previously consulted the lord king, congratulated them on his behalf for their speedy carrying out of the election, commanding them that they should come together in their usual house about ten o’clock on the morrow, at which hour his Royal Majesty would make known to them the time when he wished their aforesaid Speaker to be presented. Also on this day a letter of proxy was received for the Bishop of St. Asaph, who named as his proctors the Reverend Fathers the Bishops of St. David’s and Bangor, and Lord Charles Somerset, jointly and separately to consent.

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Wednesday, 23 January, on the third day of Parliament. The Commons aforesaid, appearing before the lord king in full Parliament, presented to the same lord king Thomas Inglefield, their Speaker, whom the lord king admitted as fittest and best for the execution of this office. And the same Thomas, after humbly offering before the king his excuse of his insufficiency, because his same excuse was not approved or admitted by his sacred royal Majesty, sued from the same Majesty by his supplication that all and singular things which should be said proffered and declared by him in the aforesaid Parliament in the name of the said Commons he might say, proffer, and declare on this condition, that if he himself should declare any things enjoined on him by his aforesaid colleagues of the Lower House otherwise than by the assent and unanimous agreement of them, or addition or omission, it would be free for his aforesaid colleagues to correct and amend such things so declared, and that his protestation should be enrolled on the parliament roll; To him reply was made by the Reverend Lord Chancellor by command of the said lord king that the same Thomas Inglefield should enjoy such a protestation just as other Speakers had been accustomed to enjoy it in the time of his noble progenitors. Also on that day it was ordained and agreed by the unanimous consent of all the Lords that on the next day, and on other days, during the time of Parliament, all the Lords as well spiritual as temporal, should be present in the Parliament House at the hour of nine, to treat and conclude causes there. Thursday, 24 January, on the fourth day of Parliament. Four bills were received and read. One for the liberties of the English Church: one for False Returns: one for Patents granting Fortresses for life: one for Reform of Apparel. The bill for the reform of the liberties of the English Church, read twice, was handed to the King’s Attorney and Solicitor to be re-drafted, and amended, and so also the Bill of False Returns, and the bill of Apparel. Friday, on the fifth day of Parliament. The bill concerning ecclesiastical liberties was read, and now was read the second time. Also the bill of false returns of escheators and commissioners was now read the second time. Also the bill concerning letters patent made concerning castles and other fortresses on the Borders and Marches of England, was now read for the first time, and was handed to the King’s Attorney to be re-drafted. The bill concerning apparel, on paper, was now read for the first time and was handed to the King’s Attorney and Solicitor to be amended. On Saturday, on the 6th day of Parliament. The Lord Treasurer, by command of the lord king, the Lord Chancellor and others Lords Spiritul being absent and busied in Convocation, adjourned the present Parliament until Monday next following at the usual hour.

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On Monday, on the 7th day after the beginning of Parliament. A letter of proxy was received for John, Abbot of St. Augustine’s of Canterbury, who named as his proctors the Abbot of Westminster, the Abbot of Winchcombe, and the Lord of Bergavenney, jointly and separately, for consenting. Also on this same day was then read for the third time the bill concerning the liberties of the English Church, which was approved, and admitted with the unanimous consent of all the Lords then present. Also the bill for the certification, or returns of escheators or commissioners, then read for the third time, was approved by all. Also the bill for resuming into the hands of the king concessions or patents of castles and fortresses made for life or for a period within the whole of England, was then read for a second time. Also the bill concerning the reform of apparel or clothes, now read for the third time, was approved. Also the Lords ordered the Clerk of the Parliament and the King’s Attorney and the Solicitor to send down next day to the lower house the bills about ecclesiastical liberties, returns of escheators, and the bill for reforming apparel. Tuesday, on the eighth day of Parliament. A bill for sending better wools to the staple of Calais was now read for the first time. Also the bill for ecclesiastical liberties, and the bill against escheators and commissioners, and the bill for reforming the wearing of clothes were sent to the common house, the Clerk of the Parliament and the King’s Attorney being the messengers. Also a bill of repeal or revocation of a statute of 8 Henry VI for English merchants going to the kingdom and dominions of the King of Denmark was now read for the first time. Also a bill for punishing perjury was now read for the first time. Also a bill concerning Coroners performing their duties badly was now read for the first time. Also a bill of forests, and for hunting and killing game outside their closes or parks, was now read for the first time. Wednesday, the ninth day of Parliament. A certain bill was read in which were recited the gist of certain letters patent containing lands, tenements, and other liberties, and other privileges granted to the queen with many other privileges, now read for the first time. Also the bill about the office of Coroner was now read for the third time. Also the bill of the statute against merchants going to the kingdoms of the King of Denmark putting in at a port other than Norberum was now read for a third time. Also the bill about checking perjury was now read for the third time. Also a bill that poor persons should have freely advocates and scribes and counsellors for prosecuting their cases in the lord king’s secular courts was now read for a first time. Also a bill for unloading ships not only in ports but also in other places called creeks was now read for a first time.

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Also a bill for not exporting gold, silver cups, bullion, jewels, gold or silver vases, &c., out of the kingdom of England and Wales was now read for the first time. Also a bill to amend the statute which punishes merchants for listing in the customs books their merchandise in a name other than that of the master or owner was now read for the first time. Also it was decided by the lords that on the morrow the bill concerning coroners, the bill for punishing perjury, the bill against the statute about going into the kingdom of the King of Denmark &c., should be taken by the Clerk of the Parliament and the King’s Attorney to the common or lower house. Thursday, the tenth day of Parliament. The Lord Treasurer at the command of the lord king, adjourned the present parliament until tomorrow at the usual time, because the lord Chancellor and other lords spiritual were absent being busied in Convocation. Also on the same day the bill for the punishment of perjury, the bill for the office of Coroner, the bill for repealing the statute about merchants going into the dominions of the King of Denmark, were sent into the Lower House by the clerk of Parliament. Friday, the eleventh day of Parliament. The Queen’s bill was now read for the second time. Also the bill for the entering of merchandise in the books of the Customers in another name was now read for the second time. Also the bill concerning the loading or unloading of merchandise in harbours, and not in private places called creeks, was now read a second time; and the lords ordered this bill to be written on parchment and to be read on Monday for a third time and to be sent to the Lower House, having been read for a second time. Also the bill about gold, silver, and other jewels, gold and silver cups, bullion &c., not to be carried out of the kingdom of England having been handed to the King’s Attorney and Solicitor for amendment was read for a second time. Also on the same day four bills were brought from the common house, one concerning Justices of Assize, which was read before the lords once. 2. A bill concerning popular actions and information which the lords considered should be re-drafted so that his royal Majesty might have three or four years in which to prosecute such actions, but party against party one year; and it was now read once. 3. A bill concerning the sueing of letters of privy seal was handed to Porter as the lords thought it ought to be amplified in certain words, and was read once. 4. A bill for the repeal of a statute against merchants going to the dominions of the king of Denmark and Iceland was read once. The Lord Chancellor, by command of the lord king, owing to the celebration of the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary the Virgin on the morrow, adjourned the present parliament until Monday at the usual time. Monday, the twelfth day of Parliament. The bill concerning the loading and unloading of merchandise not only in ports, but also in creeks, read a third time, and the lords gave it their assent and ordered that it

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should be taken to the Lower House by the hands of the King’s Attorney and the clerk of Parliament. Also the bill about popular actions and informations was read a second time, and was sent by command of the lords to be re-drafted in the Lower House because the lords did not consider it just or equitable that a royal action should be extinguished in one year only but decided that a fourth year should be conceeded to his royal Majesty for prosecuting his action, but other things were left as they were in the bill. Also the bill about Justices of Assize and commission of gaol delivery having been read a second time was referred to the Lower House for re-drafting because the lords thought that mention should be made in that bill not only of those who dwell in such places but also of those who were born in those places. Also a bill for annulling letters or writs of privy seal was read a second time after which the lords thought it ought to be delivered. Also the bill concerning the queen having been read a third time was agreed to by the lords and they ordered that it should be sent to the Lower House. Also the bill for inscribing in the books of customers merchandise in a strange name having been read a third time received the assent of the lords. Also the bill about forests and the killing of game outside of parks and forests was now read a second time. Tuesday, the thirteenth day of Parliament and the fifth day of February. The lord treasurer at the command of the lord king, adjourned the present parliament until tomorrow at the usual time, the lord chancellor, and other lords spiritual being absent and busied in Convocation. Also on this same day the Queen’s bill, and the bill for merchants’ entries were sent into the Lower House by the clerk of the Parliament. Wednesday, the fourteenth day of Parliament, the sixth day of February. The bill for transporting wool to Calais was read a second time. Also the bill for the making and sealing of woollen cloths was now read for the first time. Also the bill about patents conceded by the king about fortresses and castles, past or present, was read for the third time. Also the bill about the hunting and killing of game (and in the custody of Porter) was now read for a third time and all the lords gave their assent. Also the bill for removing promotors and commissioners from office was now read for the first time, and the lords decreed that the names of these should be recited on the morrow, and should be inscribed in the acts of parliament as a perpetual memory of the affair and to the greatest infamy of these men. Thursday, the fifteenth day of Parliament, the seventh of February. The bill for not taking gold and silver out of the kingdom was read a second time. Also the bill about hunting game was sent to the Lower House by the clerk of the Parliament.

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Friday, the sixteenth day of Parliament, the eighth of February. A bill was received about Tanners Corriours and Suters. Also a bill about Robert Plumpton, knight, with a certain process attached to it, was received. Also the bill about not taking gold and silver out of the kingdom was read a third time, and was given to the King’s attorney to be amended. Also there were brought from the common house bills of Justices of Assize, Nisi Prius, and Gaol Delivery and having been read before the lords they decreed that they should be taken back again to the Lower House to be amended. The bill about the liberties of the church, read before the lords did not satisfy them, and it was handed to Collyngborn. The bill about popular actions received the assent of the lords. The bill about Merchant’s Entries the lords decreed should be sent back to the Lower House for amendment. Saturday, the seventeenth day of Parliament, the 9th of Feb. The lord treasurer, by command of the lord king, adjourned the present parliament until next Monday at the usual time, the Lord Chancellor and other lords spiritual being busied in Convocation. The bill about Justices of Assize and Merchants’ Entries was sent back to the Lower House by the King’s Attorney and the clerk of Parliament. A bill was received concerning Dover pier, and let it be examined. A bill was received about the buying of wool and the making of cloth. Porter has it. Also a bill about promoters was read a first time, and Porter has it for redrafting. A bill was received concerning broiderers. Also on the same day the dean of the Chapel reported that his royal Majesty for certain reasons moving his Majesty had given permission to William abbot of Bardney to return to his diocese of Lincoln, and he made as his proctors Lord Willoughby and Richard, abbot of Croyland, jointly and separately for consenting. Also on the same day the Lord Chancellor at the command of the lord king with the express agreement of all the Lords, for certain reasons adjourned the present parliament until Thursday at the usual time. Saturday, the twenty-ninth day of Parliament, 23 February. On this same day at about five o’clock in the afternoon, the lord king sitting on his throne of majesty in the chamber commonly called the Chamber of the Cross within his palace of Westminster, together with the lords spiritual and temporal in their parliamentary robes, and present also all the Commons from the Common or Lower House, Thomas Inglefield knight, their speaker or leader (after silence had been prayed) gravely eloquently and with a great show of humility and modesty thus addressed his royal Majesty, praising him with the greatest reverence: he spoke most fulsomely of the gifts of nature, fortune, and grace granted to his majesty by Almighty God; declaring by many examples the prompt agility of strength, the wonderful moderation of temperance, divine ardour of justice, mercy joined to

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clemency towards his subjects, and the obedience of old observed by his subjects towards his same majesty, and he offered as proof of the fealty of his subjects and the excellence of their love certain letters indented containing certain sums of many thousands of pounds offered to his royal majesty, which was truly a clear proof of their liberality and generosity towards their king. When this excellent speech on the part of the aforesaid speaker was concluded, the Reverend Father in God, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor of England, after having consulted the lord king, answered all these points. When this had been done the same Lord Chancellor ordered all the acts made and done for the public good in the present parliament to be recited and published at the King’s command and when these had been recited and read in order by the clerk of the Crown and to each an answer according to the notes of the royal will were written on the dorse by the clerk of the Parliament, declaring the king’s will in these words “Le Roi le veult”; “Le Roi se advisera;” “Soit fait come il est desire.” The bill for a Subsidy was endorsed: “The King thanks his Commons for their good will in making their grants and accepts the aforesaid grants and approves everything specified in the aforesaid indenture with the act and the provision annexed to this indenture.” When all these things had been duly and solemnly done, the Lord Chancellor, rehearsing those acts which have been done in the present Parliament for the good estate and advantage of the republic, and exhorting and advising in the king’s name all lords and others holding office in various parts of England that they should observe diligently the ordinances and statutes made for the public good in this Parliament, and should cause them to be observed by other people. After the proposition of all these things he thanked on behalf of the lord king the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons for their laborious perseverance in expediting the aforesaid things, and declared the parliament finished and dissolved, granting to all a free privilege for their return home. In the year of Our Lord fifteen hundred and nine according to the computation of the English Church. John Taylor clerk of the Parliaments. There followed the contents of those rolls or bills and acts of Parliament with their answers which are to be enrolled. Also the commons of the realm of England in the aforesaid parliament with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal likewise present in the same parliament granted to the aforesaid lord king two fifteenths and tenths to be paid on certain conditions specified in a certain indenture, the tenor of which indenture with the answer made follows thus: “We your humble subjects”. The King. “Our lord the King thanks his commons, &c.” by bill or petition. When this had been read through and fully understood the following answer was given to it by the said lord king with the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons present in the aforesaid parliament, and by the authority of the same Parliament, “Le Roi le veult”.

[71]

SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT

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71. Speeches in Parliament. From various sources (i) Sir Thomas More’s Opposition in Parliament, 1504 (Harpsfield, Life of More, 14)

A

bout this time he was chosen a Burgess of the Parliament, in the later days of king Henry, the seventh. At which time was there concluded a marriage between James, the king of Scots, and Lady Margaret, eldest daughter to the said king. And because great charges would grow to the king by reason of setting and sending forth the said Lady, he demanded of the Parliament about three fifteenths, as it hath been reported. Now considering the continual custom almost of all times and of all Princes at least from Henry the first (who gave his daughter, called commonly Maud the Empress, in marriage to Henry the Emperor, with no small charges put upon the commons for the same) and as well the great and present as the long durable commodity as it was then likely that should ensue to this realm by the marriage, it was thought there would be small reluctation or repining against this Parliament. Howbeit Master More, upon some apparent ground, as there is good likelihood (for he was no rash, wilful man, and was easy to be intreated to yield to reason) disliked upon the said payment, and shewed openly his mind therein, and with such reasons and arguments debated and inforced the matter that the residue of the lower house condescended to his mind, and thereby was the Bill overthrown. And forthwith Master Tyler, one of the King’s privy chamber that was present in the said house, resorted to the king, declaring unto him that a beardless boy had disappointed and dashed all his purpose. The remembrance of this displeasure sank deeply into the king’s heart, and bred great and heavy indignation against Master More, ready upon any small occasion to burst out against him. But yet did the king forbear, as well lest he might seem thereby to infringe and break the ancient liberty of the Parliament house for free speaking touching the public affairs (which would have been taken odiously)1 as also for that Master More had then little or nothing to lose. But yet was there a causeless quarrel devised against his father, whereby he was committed to the Tower, from whence he could not get himself out until the king had got out of his purse a fine of one hundred pounds.

(ii) The opening of the Reformation Parliament, 3 November 1529 (Hall, Chronicle, 764–766)

According to the summons the king of England began his high court of parliament the third day of November. On which day he came by water to his place of Bridewell, and there he and his nobles put on their robes of parliament, and so came to the Blackfriars church, where a Mass of the Holy Ghost was solemnly sung by the king’s chapel, and after the Mass, the king with all the lords of the parliament and Commons which were summoned to appear at that day came into the parliament chamber, where the king sat in his throne or seat royal, and Sir Thomas More his Chancellor standing on the right hand of the king behind the bar, made an eloquent oration, declaring that like as a 1

This is an addition to Roper’s account, added by Harpsfield, who was writing in Mary’s reign.

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good shepherd which not alonely keepeth and attendeth well his sheep, but also foreseeth and provideth for all things, which either may be hurtful or noisome to his flock, or may preserve and defend the same against all perils that may chance to come, so the king which was the shepherd, ruler, and governor of his realm, vigilantly foreseeing things to come considered how divers laws before this time were made now by long continuance of time and mutation of things, very insufficient and imperfect, and also by the frail condition of man, divers new enormities were sprung amongst the people, for the which no law was yet made to reform the same, which was the very cause why at that time the king had summoned his high court of parliament: and he resembled the king to a shepherd, or herdman for this cause, for if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man, if a prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man: but compare him to the multitude of his people and the number of his flock, then he is a ruler, a governor of might and puissance, so that his people maketh him a prince, as of the multitude of sheep, cometh the name of a shepherd: and as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and faulty which the good shepherd sendeth from the good sheep, so the great wether which is of late fallen as you all know, so craftily, so scabbedly, yea and so untruly juggled with the king, that all men must needs guess and think that he thought in himself that he had no wit to perceive his crafty doing, or else that he presumed that the king would not see nor know his fraudulent juggling and attempts: but he was deceived, for his grace’s sight was so quick and penetrable, that he saw him, yea, and saw through him, both within and without, so that all things to him was open, and according to his desert he hath had a gentle correction, which small punishment the king will not to be an example to other offenders, but clearly declareth that whosoever hereafter shall make like attempt or commit like offence, shall not escape with like punishment: and because you of the common house be a gross multitude, and cannot speak all at one time: Therefore the king’s pleasure is that you shall resort to the nether house, and there amongst yourselves according to the old and ancient custom to choose an able person to be your common mouth and speaker, and after your election so made to advertise his grace thereof, which will declare to you his pleasure what day he will have him present in this place. After this done, the commons resorted to the nether house, and they chose for their Speaker Thomas Audeley, esquire and attorney of the duchy of Lancaster, and the same day was the parliament adjourned to Westminster. On the sixth day of the same month the king came into the parliament chamber and all the lords in their robes, and there the commons of the nether house presented their Speaker, which there made an eloquent oration, which consisted in two points, the first point was that he much praised the king for his equity and justice, mixed with mercy and pity, so that none offence was forgotten and left unpunished nor in the punishment the extremity nor the rigour of the law not cruelly extended, which should be a cause to bridle all men from doing like offences, and also a comfort to offenders to confess their crime and offence, and an occasion of amendment and reconciliation. The second point was that he disabled himself, both for lack of wit, learning and

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discretion to so high an office, beseeching the king to cause his commons to resort eftsoons to their common house, and there to choose another speaker for that parliament. To this the king (by the mouth of the Lord Chancellor) answered that where he disabled himself in wit and learning, his own ornate oration there made testified the contrary, and as touching his discretion and other qualities, the king himself had well known him and his doings, sith he was in his service, to be both wise and discreet, and so for an able man he accepted him, and for the Speaker he him admitted. When the commons were assembled in the nether house, they began to commune of their griefs wherewith the spiritualty had before time grievously oppressed them, both contrary to the law of the realm, and contrary to all right, and in especial they were sore moved with six great causes. The first for the excess fines, which the ordinaries took for probate of testaments, insomuch that Sir Henry Guilford, knight of the garter and comptroller of the king’s house, declared in the open parliament on his fidelity that he and others, being executors to Sir William Compton, knight, paid for the probate of his will to the Cardinal and the Archbishop of Canterbury a thousand mark sterling: after this declaration were shewed so many extortions done by ordinaries for probates of wills that it were too much to rehearse. The second cause was the great polling and extreme exaction, which the spiritual men used in taking of corpse presents or mortuaries, for the children of the defunct should all die for hunger and go a-begging rather than they would of charity give to them the sely cow which the dead man ought if he had but only one, such was the charity then. The third cause was that priests being surveyors, stewards, and officers to bishops, abbots, and other spiritual heads, had and occupied farms, granges, and grazing in every country, so that the poor husbandman could have nothing but of them, and yet for that they should pay dearly. The fourth cause was that abbots, priors, and spiritual men kept tan-houses and bought and sold wool, cloth, and all manner of merchandise as other temporal merchants did. The fifth cause was because that spiritual persons promoted to great benefices, and having there living of their flock, were lying in the court in lords’ houses, and took all of the parishioners, and nothing spent on them at all, so that for lack of residence both the poor of the parish lacked refreshing, and universally all the parishioners lacked preaching and true instruction of God’s word, to the great peril of their souls. The sixth cause was to see one priest being little learned to have ten or twelve benefices and to be resident on none, and to know many well learned scholars in the university which were able to preach and teach, to have neither benefice nor exhibition. These things before this time might in nowise be touched nor yet talked of by no man except he would be made an heretic, or lose all that he had, for the bishops were chancellors, and had all the rule about the king, so that no man durst once presume to attempt anything contrary to their profit or commodity. But now when God had illuminated the eyes of the king, and that their subtle doings

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was once espied: then men began charitably to desire a reformation, and so at this Parliament men began to shew their grudges. Whereupon the burgesses of the Parliament appointed such as were learned in the law, being of the common house, to draw one bill of the probates of testaments, another for mortuaries, and the third for non-residence, pluralities, and taking of farms by spiritual men. The learned men took much pain, and first set forth the bill of mortuaries, which passed the common house, and was sent up to the Lords. To this bill the spiritual lords made a fair face, saying that surely priests and curates took more than they should, and therefore it were well done to take some reasonable order, thus they spake because it touched them little. But within two days after was sent up the bill concerning probates of testaments, at the which the Archbishop of Canterbury in especial, and all other bishops in general both frowned and grunted, for that touched their profit, insomuch as Doctor John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, said openly in the Parliament chamber these words: My Lords, you see daily what bills come hither from the common house and all is to the destruction of the Church, for God’s sake see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was, and when the Church went down then fell the glory of the kingdom, now with the Commons is nothing but down with the Church, and all this me seemeth is for lack of faith only. When these words were reported to the Commons of the nether house, that the bishop should say that all their doings were for lack of faith, they took the matter grievously, for they imagined that the bishop esteemed them as heretics, and so by his slanderous words would have persuaded the temporal lords to have restrained their consent from the said two bills, which they before had passed, as you have heard before. Wherefore the Commons after long debate, determined to send the Speaker of the Parliament to the king’s highness with a grievous complaint against the bishop of Rochester, and so on a day when the king was at leisure, Thomas Audeley, the Speaker, for the commons, and thirty of the chief of the common house came to the king’s presence in his palace at Westminster, which before was called York place, and there very eloquently declared what a dishonour to the king and the realm it was to say that they which were elected for the wisest men of all the shires, cities, and boroughs within the realm of England should be declared in so noble and open presence to lack faith, which was equivalent to say that they were infidels and no Christians, as ill as Turks or Saracens, so that what pain or study soever they took for the common wealth, or what acts or laws soever they made or established, should be taken as laws made by Paynims and heathen people, and not worthy to be kept by christian men: wherefore he most humbly besought the king’s highness to call the said bishop before him and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in the common house. The king was not well contented with the saying of the bishop, yet he gently answered the Speaker that he would send for the bishop and send them word what answer he made, and so they departed again. After this the king sent for the Archbishop of

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Canterbury and six other bishops, and for the bishop of Rochester also, and there declared to him the grudge of the Commons, to the which the bishop answered that he meant the doings of the Bohemians was for lack of faith, and not the doings of them that were in the common house, which saying was confirmed by the bishops being present, which had him in great reputation, and so by that only saying the king accepted his excuse, and therefore sent word to the Commons by Sir William Fitzwilliam, knight, treasurer of his household, which blind excuse pleased the Commons nothing at all. After this divers assemblies were kept between certain of the lords and certain of the commons, for the bills of probates of testaments and the mortuaries: the temporalty laid to the spiritualty their own laws and constitutions, and the spiritualty sore defended them by prescription and usage, to whom an answer was made by a gentleman of Gray’s Inn: the usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter’s Hill, ergo is it lawful: with which answer the spiritual men were sore offended, because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men stood still by their sayings, insomuch the said gentleman said to the Archbishop of Canterbury that both the exaction of probates of testaments and the taking of mortuaries, as they were used, were open robbery and theft: after long disputation the temporal lords began to lean to the Commons, but for all that, the bills remained unconcluded awhile. In the mean season there was a bill assented by the Lords, and sent down to the Commons, the effect whereof was that the whole realm by the said act did release to the king all such sums of money as he had borrowed of them at the loan in the fifteenth year of his reign (as you have heard before). This bill was sore argued in the common house, but the most part of the Commons were the king’s servants, and the other were so laboured to by the other that the bill was assented to. When this release of the loan was known to the commons of the realm, Lord, so they grudged, and spake ill of the whole Parliament, for almost every man counted it his debt, and reckoned surely of the payment of the same, and therefore some made their wills of the same, and some other did set it over to other for debt, and so many men had loss by it, which caused them sore to murmur, but there was no remedy. The king, like a good and discreet prince, seeing that his Commons in the Parliament house had released the loan, intending somewhat to requite the same, granted to them a general pardon, of all offences, certain great offences and debts only except: also he aided them for the redress of their griefs against the spiritualty, and caused two new bills to be made indifferently, both for the probate of testaments and mortuaries, which bills were so reasonable that the spiritual lords assented to them although they were sore against their minds, and in especial the probate of testaments sore displeased the bishops, and the mortuaries sore displeased the parsons and vicars. After these Acts thus agreed, the Commons made another Act for pluralities of benefices, non-residence, buying and selling and taking of farms by spiritual persons, which Act so displeased the spiritualty that the priests railed on the Commons of the common house, and called them heretics and schismatics, for the which divers priests were punished, This Act was sore debated above in the parliament chamber, and the Lords spiritual would in nowise consent. Wherefore the king, perceiving the grudge of

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his Commons, caused eight lords and eight of his Commons to meet in the star chamber at an afternoon, and there was sore debating of the cause, insomuch that the temporal Lords of the upper house which were there took part with the Commons against the spiritual lords, and by force of reason caused them to assent to the bill with a little qualifying, which bill the next day was wholly agreed to in the lords’ house, to the great rejoicing of the lay people, and to the great displeasure of the spiritual persons. During this Parliament was brought down to the Commons the book of articles which the Lords had put to the king against the Cardinal. The chief articles were these:— First, that he, without the king’s assent, had procured to be a Legate, by reason whereof he took away the right of all bishops and spiritual persons. Item, in all writings which he wrote to Rome or any other foreign Prince, he wrote Ego et Rex meus, I and my king, as who would say that the king were his servant. Item, that he hath slandered the Church of England in the Court of Rome, for his suggestion to be legate was to reform the Church of England, which as he wrote was Facta in reprobum censum. Item, he without the king’s assent, carried the king’s Great Seal with him into Flanders when he was sent ambassador to the Emperor. Item, he without the king’s assent, sent a commission to Sir Gregory de Cassado, knight, to conclude a league between the king and the duke of Ferrara, without the king’s knowledge. Item, that he, having the French pox, presumed to come and breathe on the king. Item, that he caused the Cardinal’s hat to be put on the king’s coin. Item, that he would not suffer the king’s clerk of the market to sit at Saint Albans. Item, that he had sent innumerable substance to Rome for the obtaining of his dignities, to the great impoverishment of the realm. These articles, with many more, read in the common house, and signed with the Cardinal’s hand, was confessed by him, and also there was shewed a writing sealed with his seal, by the which he gave to the king all his moveables and immoveables. On the day of the Conception of Our Lady, the king at York place at Westminster, in the parliament time, created the Viscount Rochforth, Earl of Wiltshire, and the Viscount Fitzwater was created Earl of Sussex, and the Lord Hastings was created Earl of Huntington. When all things were concluded in the Parliament house, the king came to the Parliament chamber, the seventeenth day of December, and there put his royal assent to all things done by the Lords and Commons, and so prorogued his Court of Parliament till the next year.

(iii) Henry VIII’s last speech in Parliament, 24 Dec. 1545 (Hall, Chronicle, 864)

The 24th. day of December, the king’s majesty came into the parliament house to give his royal assent to such acts as there had passed, where was made unto him by the Speaker, an eloquent oration, to the which it hath ever been accustomed that the lord

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chancellor made answer, but at this time it was the king’s pleasure that it should be otherwise, for the king himself made him answer, as followeth word for word, as near as I was able to report it. “Although my Chancellor for the time being hath before this time used very eloquently and substantially to make answer to such orations as hath been set forth in this high court of parliament, yet is he not so able to open and set forth my mind and meaning, and the secrets of my heart, in so plain and ample manner as I myself am and can do: wherefore I taking upon me to answer your eloquent oration, master Speaker, say that where you, in the name of our well beloved commons, hath both praised and extolled me for the notable qualities that you have conceived to be in me, I most heartily thank you all, that you have put me in remembrance of my duty, which is to endeavour myself to obtain and get such excellent qualities and necessary virtues as a prince or governor should or ought to have, of which gifts I recognise myself both bare and barren: but of such small qualities as God hath endued me withal, I render to his goodness my most humble thanks, entending with all my wit and diligence to get and acquire to me such notable virtues and princely qualities as you have alleged to be incorporate in my person. These thanks for your loving admonition and good counsel first remembered, I eftsoons thank you again, because that you, considering our great charges, (not for our pleasure, but for your defence, not for our gain, but to our great cost) which we have lately sustained, as well in defence of our and your enemies, as for the conquest of that fortress, which was to this realm most displeasant and noisome, and shall be, by God’s grace hereafter, to our nation most profitable and pleasant, have freely of your own mind granted to us a certain subsidy, here in an act specified, which verily we take in good part, regarding more your kindness than the profit thereof, as he that setteth more by your loving hearts than by your substance. Besides this hearty kindness, I cannot a little rejoice when I consider the perfect trust and sure confidence which you have put in me, as men having undoubted hope and unfeigned belief in my good doings and just proceedings for you, without my desire or request, have committed to mine order and disposition all chantries, colleges, hospitals, and other places specified in a certain act, firmly trusting that I will order them to the glory of God and the profit of the common wealth. Surely if I, contrary to your expectation, should suffer the ministers of the Church to decay, or learning (which is so great a jewel) to be minished, or poor and miserable people to be unrelieved, you might say that I being put in so special a trust, as I am in this case, were no trusty friend to you, nor charitable man to mine even Christian, neither a lover of the public wealth, nor yet one that feared God, to whom accompt must be rendered of all our doings. Doubt not, I pray you, but your expectation shall be served more godly and goodly than you will wish or desire, as hereafter you shall plainly perceive. Now, since I find such kindness on your part toward me, I cannot choose but love and favour you, affirming that no prince in the world more favoureth his subjects than I do you, nor no subjects or commons more love and obey their sovereign lord than I perceive you do me, for whose defence my treasure shall not be hidden, nor, if necessity require, my person shall not be unadventured: yet although I with you, and you with

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me, be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except both you my lords temporal and you, my lords spiritual, and you my loving subjects, study and take pain to amend one thing, which surely is amiss, and far out of order, to the which I most heartily require you; which is that charity and concord is not amongst you, but discord and dissension beareth rule in every place. St. Paul sayeth to the Corinthians, in the 13th. chapter, Charity is gentle, Charity is not envious, Charity is not proud and so forth in the said chapter: Behold then what love and charity is amongst you, when the one calleth the other heretic and Anabaptist, and he calleth him again Papist, hypocrite, and Pharisee. Be these tokens of charity amongst you? are these the signs of fraternal love between you? No, no, I assure you that this lack of charity amongst yourselves will be the hindrance and assuaging of the fervent love between us, as I said before, except this would be salved, and clearly made whole. I must needs judge the fault and occasion of this discord to be partly by negligence of you, the fathers and preachers of the spiritualty. For if I know a man which liveth in adultery, I must judge him a lecherous and a carnal person: if I see a man boast and brag himself, I cannot but deem him a proud man. I see and hear daily that you of the clergy preach one against another, teach one contrary to another, inveigh one against another without charity or discretion. Some be too stiff in their old Mumpsimus, other be too busy and curious in their new Sumpsimus. Thus all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none preach truly and sincerely the word of God according as they ought to do. Shall I now judge you charitable persons doing this? No, no, I cannot do so. Alas, how can the poor souls live in concord when you preachers sow amongst them in your sermons, debate and discord: of you they look for light, and you bring them to darkness. Amend these crimes I exhort you, and set forth God’s word, both by true preaching, and good example giving, or else I, whom God hath appointed his Vicar, and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct, and these enormities corrected, according to my very duty, or else I am an unprofitable servant and untrue officer. Although, as I say, the spiritual men be in some fault, that charity is not kept amongst you, yet you of the temporalty be not clean and unspotted of malice and envy, for you rail on bishops, speak slanderously of priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers, both contrary to good order and Christian fraternity. If you know surely that a bishop or preacher erreth or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and declare it to some of our Council or to us, to whom is committed by God the high authority to reform and order such causes and behaviours: and be not judges yourselves of your own phantastical opinions and vain expositions, for in such high causes ye may lightly err. And although you be permitted to read holy scripture, and to have the word of God in your mother tongue, you must understand that it is licensed you so to do, only to inform your own conscience, and to instruct your children and family, and not to dispute and make scripture a railing and a taunting stock against priests and preachers (as many light persons do). I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same. And yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and coldly: for of this I am sure, that

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charity was never so faint amongst you, and virtuous and godly living was never less used, nor God himself amongst Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, or served. Therefore, as I said before, be in charity one with another, like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve God (to the which I, as your supreme head, and sovereign lord, exhort and require you) and then I doubt not but that love and league, that I spoke of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broken between us. And the making of laws, which be now made and concluded, I exhort you, the makers, to be as diligent in putting them in execution as you were in making and furthering the same, or else your labour shall be in vain, and your commonwealth nothing relieved. Now to your petition concerning our royal assent to be given to such acts as hath passed both houses. They shall be read openly, that ye may hear them. Then they were openly read, and to many his grace assented, and divers he assented not unto. This the king’s oration was to his subjects there present such comfort that the like joy could not be unto them in this world. And thus the acts read, as the manner is, and his assent given, his grace rose and departed.

72. Parliamentary Privilege (i) The Speaker 1523 (Hitchcock and Chambers, Harpsfield’s Life of More, 26)

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he said year which was the fourteenth year of the King’s reign a Parliament was summoned, where the Commons chose for their Speaker Sir Thomas More, and presented him the Saturday after in the Parliament chamber, where he disabled himself as a man not meet for that office. Among other things he brought forth a story of the notable captain Hannibal, to whom at a certain time Phormio commenced a solemn declaration touching chivalry and the feats of war, which was well liked and praised of many; but Hannibal, being demanded what he thought thereof, answered: “I never heard a more proud, arrogant fool, that durst take upon him to instruct the flower and master of chivalry in the feats and affairs of war.” “So,” saith Sir Thomas, “I may well look for and fear the like rebuke at the King’s hands, if I should arrogate so much to myself as to speak before a King of such learning, wisdom and experience in public affairs, of the manuring, welding and ordering of the same. Wherefore my humble petition is, that the Commons may freely choose some other for their Speaker.” But the Cardinal answered that the King by good proof and experience knew his wit, learning and discretion to be such as he might well bear and satisfy the office, and that the Commons could not choose a meeter. In the end, when the King would not consent to the election of any other, he spake to his grace in form following:— “Sith I perceive, most redoubted Sovereign, that it standeth not with your high pleasure to reform this election, and cause it to be changed, but have by the mouth of the most reverend father in God, the Legate, your high Chancellor, thereunto given your most royal assent, and have of your benignity determined, far above that I may

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bear, to enable me and for this office to repute me meet, rather than ye should seem to impute unto your Commons that they had unmeetly chosen; I am therefore, and always shall be, ready obediently to conform myself to the accomplishment of your high commandment, in my most humble wise beseeching your most noble majesty that I may, with your grace’s favour, before I farther enter thereinto, make my humble intercession unto your highness for two lowly petitions: the one privately concerning myself, the other the whole assembly of your common house. “For myself, gracious Sovereign, that if it mishap me, in any thing hereafter that is on the behalf of your Commons in your high presence to be declared, to mistake my message, and in the lack of good utterance by my misrehearsal to pervert or impair their prudent instructions, it may then like your most noble majesty, of your abundant grace, with the eye of your accustomed pity, to pardon my simpleness, giving me leave to repair again unto the common house, and there to confer with them, and to take their substantial advice what thing, and in what wise, I shall on their behalf utter and speak before your noble grace, to the intent their prudent devises and affairs be not by my simpleness and folly hindered or impaired. Which thing, if it should mishap, as it were well likely to mishap me, if your gracious benignity relieved not my oversight, it could not fail to be, during my life, a perpetual grudge and heaviness to my heart; the help and remedy whereof, in manner afore remembered is, most gracious Sovereign, my first lowly suit and humble petition unto your most noble grace. “Mine other humble request, most excellent Prince, is this: That forasmuch as there be of your Commons, here by your high commandment assembled, of your Parliament, a great number, which are, after the accustomed manner, appointed in the common house to treat and devise of the common affairs among themselves apart; And albeit, most dear liege Lord, that according to your most prudent devise, by your honourable writs everywhere declared, there hath been as due diligence used in sending up to your highness Court of Parliament the most discreet persons out of every quarter that men could esteem meet thereunto, whereby it is not to be doubted but that there is a very substantial assembly of right wise and politic persons; yet, most victorious Prince, sith among so many wise men neither is every man wise alike, nor, among so many men all like well witted, every man like well spoken, and it often happeneth that likewise as much folly is uttered with painted, polished speech, so many men boisterous and rude in language, see deep indeed, and give right substantial counsel; And sith also in matters of great importance the mind is often so occupied in the matter, that a man rather studieth what to say than how; by reason whereof the wisest man, and the best spoken, in a whole country fortuneth among, while his mind is fervent in the matter, somewhat to speak in such wise as he would afterwards wish to have been uttered otherwise, and yet no worse will had when he spake it, than he hath when he would so gladly change it; Therefore, most gracious Sovereign, considering that in your high Court of Parliament is nothing intreated but matter of weight and importance concerning your realm and your own royal estate, it could not fail but to let and put to silence from the giving of their advice and counsel many of your discreet Commons, to the great hindrance of the common affairs, except that every of your Commons were utterly discharged of all

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doubt and fear how anything that it should happen them to speak, should happen of your highness to be taken. And in this point, though your well known and proved benignity putteth every man in right good hope, yet such is the weight of the matter, such is the reverend dread that the timerous hearts of your natural subjects conceive towards your high majesty, our most redoubted King and undoubted Sovereign, that they cannot in this point find themselves satisfied, except your gracious bounty therein declared put away the scruple of their timerous minds, and animate and encourage them, and put them out of doubt. It may therefore like your most abundant grace, our most benign and godly King, to give to all your Commons here assembled your most gracious licence and pardon, freely, without doubt of your dreadful displeasure, every man to discharge his conscience, and boldly in any thing incident among us to declare his advice; and whatsoever happen any man to say, that it may like your noble majesty of your inestimable goodness to take all in good part, interpreting every man’s words, how uncomely soever they be couched, to proceed yet of good zeal toward the profit of your realm and honour of your royal person; the prosperous estate and preservation whereof, most excellent Sovereign, is the thing which we all, your most humble loving subjects, according to the most bounden duty of our natural allegiance, most highly desire and pray for.”

(ii) An act for Richard Strode. St. 4 Hen. VIII, c. 8, 1512 (Stat. Realm, III, 53)

Lamentably complaineth and sheweth unto your most discreet wisdoms in this present Parliament assembled Richard Strode, gentleman, of the county of Devonshire, one of the burgesses of this honourable House for the borough of Plympton… that where the said Richard condescended and agreed with other of this House to put forth certain bills in this present Parliament against certain persons named tinners in the county aforesaid for the reformation of the perishing, hurting, and destroying of divers ports, havens, and creeks, and other bills for the common weal of the said county, the which here in this high court of Parliament should and ought to be commended and treated of; And for because the said Richard is a tinner, for the causes and matters afore rehearsed one John Fursse, tinner, Under-Steward of the Stannary in the said county, in and at four courts of the said Stannary at divers places and times before him severally holden in the said county, he and other hath condemned the said Richard in the sum of £160, that is to wit, at every court £40… [and] the said Richard was taken and imprisoned in a dungeon and a deep pit underground in the Castle of Lidford…and there and elsewhere remained by the space of three weeks and more, unto such time he was delivered by a writ of privilege out of the King’s Exchequer at Westminster, for that he was one of the collectors in the said county for the first of the two quindecims granted at and in this present parliament …so that by reason of the same imprisonment he was put in great jeopardy and peril of his life…. Wherefore the premises by your great wisdoms tenderly considered, the said Richard humbly prayeth that it may be…enacted…that the said condemnation…to be utterly void against the said Richard, and of none effect.

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II. And over that, be it enacted…that suits, accusements, condemnations, executions, fines, amerciaments, punishments, corrections, grievances, charges, and impositions, put or had, or hereafter to be put or had, unto or upon the said Richard, and to every other of the person or persons aforespecified that now be of this present Parliament or that of any Parliament hereafter shall be, for any bill, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters concerning the Parliament to be communed and treated of, be utterly void and of none effect. And over that, be it enacted…that if the said Richard Strode or any or all the said other person or persons hereafter be vexed, troubled, or otherwise charged for any causes as is aforesaid, that then he or they…to have action upon the case against every such person…so vexing or troubling any, contrary to this ordinance and provision, in the which action the party grieved shall recover treble damages and costs.

73. Parliamentary Procedure (i) An act concerning burgesses of the Parliament, 1515. St. 6 Hen. VIII, c. 16 (Stat. Realm, III, 134)

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orsomuch as commonly in the end of every Parliament divers and many great and weighty matters as well touching the pleasure weal and surety of our sovereign lord the king as the common weal of this his realm and subjects are to be treated communed of and by authority of parliament to be concluded, so it is that divers knights of shires, citizens for cities, burgesses for boroughs, and barons for the Cinque Ports, long time before the end of the said Parliament, of their own authorities depart and goeth home into their countries, whereby the said great and weighty matters are many times greatly delayed, in consideration whereof…. Be it enacted …that from henceforth none of the said knights, citizens, burgesses, and barons, nor any of them that hereafter shall be elected to come or be in any parliament do not depart from the same parliament nor absent himself from the same till the same parliament be fully finished, ended, or prorogued, except he or they so departing have licence of the Speaker and Commons in the same parliament assembled, and the same licence be entered of record in the book of the clerk of the parliament appointed or to be appointed for the Common House: upon pain to every of them so departing or absenting themselves in any other manner to lose all those sums of money which he or they should or ought to have had for his or their wages, and that all the counties, cities, and boroughs whereof any such person shall be so elected and the inhabitants of the same shall be clearly discharged of all the said wages against the said person and persons and their executors for evermore.

(ii) An act for the placing of the lords in the Parliament. St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 10, 1539 (Stat. Realm, III, 729)

Forasmuch as in all great councils and congregations of men having sundry degrees and offices in the common wealth, it is very requisite and convenient that an order

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should be had and taken for the placing and sitting of such persons as be bound to resort to the same, to the intent that they knowing their places may use the same without displeasure or let of the Council; Therefore the King’s most royal majesty, although it appertaineth unto his prerogative royal to give such honour, reputation, and placing to his counsellors and other his subjects as shall be seeming to his most excellent wisdom, is nevertheless pleased and contented for an order to be had and taken in this his most high court of parliament, that it shall be enacted…. First… that no person or persons of what estate, degree, or condition soever he or they be of, except only the king’s children, shall at any time hereafter attempt or presume to sit or have place at any side of the cloth of estate in the parliament chamber, neither of the one hand of the king’s highness nor of the other, whether the king’s majesty be there personally present or absent. II. And forasmuch as the king’s majesty is justly and lawfully supreme head in earth under God, of the Church of England, and for the good exercise of the said most royal dignity and office, hath made Thomas, lord Cromwell and lord privy seal, his Viceregent, for good and true ministration of justice to be had in all causes and cases touching the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and for the godly reformation and redress of all errors heresies and abuses in the said Church, It is therefore also enacted …that the said lord Cromwell having the said office of Viceregent, and all other persons which hereafter shall have the said office of the grant of the king’s highness, his heirs or successors, shall sit and be placed, as well in this present parliament as in all parliaments to be holden hereafter, on the right side of the Parliament Chamber and upon the same form that the Archbishop of Canterbury sitteth on, and above the same Archbishop and his successors; and shall have voice in every parliament to assent or dissent as other the lords of the parliament. III. And it is also enacted that next to the said Viceregent shall sit the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then next him on the same form and side shall sit the Archbishop of York, and next to him on the same form and side the Bishop of London, and next to him on the same side and form the Bishop of Durham, and next to him on the same side and form the Bishop of Winchester; and then all the other bishops of both provinces of Canterbury and York shall sit, and be placed, on the same side after their ancients as it hath been accustomed. IV. And forasmuch as such other personages which now have and hereafter shall happen to have other great offices of the realm, that is to say, the offices of the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord president of the king’s most honourable council, the lord privy seal, the great chamberlain of England, the constable of England, the marshall of England, the lord admiral, the grand master or lord steward of the king’s most honourable household, the king’s chamberlain, and the king’s secretary, hath not heretofore been appointed and ordered for the placing and sitting in the king’s most high court of parliament by reason of their offices, It is therefore now…enacted…that the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord president of the king’s council and the lord privy seal being of the degree of barons of the parliament, or above, shall sit and be placed, as well in this present parliament as in all other parliaments hereafter to be holden, on the left side of the said parliament chamber on the higher part of the form of the same side,

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above all dukes, except only such as shall happen to be the king’s son, the king’s brother, the king’s uncle, the king’s nephew or the king’s brother’s or sister’s sons. V. And it is also…enacted, that the great chamberlain, the constable, the marshall, the lord admiral, the great master or lord steward and the king’s chamberlain, shall sit and be placed after the lord privy seal in manner and form following that is to say; every of them shall sit and be placed above all other personages being of the same estates and degrees that they shall happen to be; that is to say, the great chamberlain first, the constable next, the marshall third, the lord admiral the fourth, the grand master or lord steward the fifth, and the king’s chamberlain the sixth. VI. And it is also enacted…that the king’s chief secretary being of the degree of a baron of the parliament shall sit and be placed before and above all barons not having any of the offices aforementioned; and if he be a bishop that then he shall sit and be placed above all other bishops not having any of the offices above remembered. VII. And it is also…enacted…that all dukes not afore mentioned, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons, not having any of the offices aforesaid, shall sit and be placed after their ancients as it hath been accustomed. VIII. And it is further enacted…that if any person or persons which at any time hereafter shall happen to have any of the said offices of lord chancellor, lord treasurer, lord president of the king’s council, lord privy seal, or chief secretary, shall be under the degree of a baron of the parliament, by reason whereof they can have no interest to give any assent or dissent in the said house, that then in every such case such of them as shall happen to be under the said degree of a baron, shall sit and be placed at the uppermost part of the sacks in the midst of the said parliament chamber, either there to sit upon one form or upon the uppermost sack, the one of them above the other in order as is above rehearsed. IX. Be it also enacted…that in all trials of treason by peers of the realm, if any of the peers that shall be called hereafter to the triers of such treasons, shall happen to have any of the offices aforesaid, that then they having such offices shall sit and be placed according to their offices, above all the other peers that shall be called to such trials in manner and form as is above mentioned and rehearsed. X. And it is also enacted…that as well in all parliaments as in the Star Chamber, and in all other assemblies and conferences of Council, the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the lord president, the lord privy seal, the great chamberlain, the constable, the marshall, the lord admiral, the grand master or lord steward, the king’s chamberlain, and the king’s chief secretary, shall sit and be placed in such order and fashion as is above rehearsed, and not in any other place by authority of this present parliament.

(iii) Discussion of bills in Parliament, 21 Dec 1554 (C.S.P. Spanish) XIII, 124–126)

Since then Parliament has been discussing several bills, among them one confirming the titles of holders of church property, which the English lawyers asserted to be unnecessary because since the earliest times the Kings of England have held absolute

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and immediate jurisdiction over church lands. The holders, however, desired to be reassured, which caused a difficulty in that Parliament wished the dispensation to be included in the statute of obedience to the Pope, and the Cardinal would not have this, lest it should seem that the realm’s obedience had been bought, though he was willing to agree that the dispensation should be included in two other acts or statutes. This difficulty proved so serious that the Cardinal declared he would go back to Rome without having accomplished that for which he came rather than make a concession so prejudicial to the rights of holy see; whereupon the King approached the Privy Council and certain private individuals with a view to persuading them to accept the concession of the two statutes on some other controversial point. No decision has yet been reached, but it is hoped that Parliament will arrange matters. Moreover, several of the members of the Lower House who possess no church property, influenced by envy of the holders, political passion or conscientious scruples, have moved that no dispensation be granted, the question thus being left to the holders’ consciences; but they will not prevail, because of the promise the King and Queen have given to obtain the dispensation. Another bill has been brought forward, a measure for the punishment of heretics that had already been through Parliament under Henry IV and Richard II. The Lower House passed it without difficulty, but there is some opposition in the Upper, because the jurisdiction of bishops is once more established by it, and the penalties appear too heavy; but it is thought that a majority will be found to support it. Yet another bill, of which a copy is here inclosed, has passed the Upper House, but intrigues in the Lower succeeded in throwing it out and having a different measure adopted in its stead, which is to be sent up once more to the House of Lords. It was suspected that the bill had been devised by wicked authors to an evil end, with the object of reversing the provisions of the marriage-treaty as to the succession to the hurt of the King and the realm. A member called Pollard, who was Speaker of the last Parliament, protested vehemently that the realm had a debt of gratitude toward the King, to serve whom was his object, and that the bill contained some obscure matter. Then one Brown, a lawyer, spoke to the same purpose, and their opinion prevailed. Baker, a Treasury official, was of opinion that the Upper House ought to be consulted before a new bill was framed, but the majority went against him and the new measure, containing three heads, was passed. The first article is designed to provide for the safety of the King, Queen and their heirs; and the second stipulates that the guardianship of the heirs shall always remain in the hands of the King because it is his due by civil law, because of the abuses committed by recent protectors and of other considerations of importance to the realm. And if the King is absent, he may name whom he chooses to act in his stead. The third article states that if the Queen dies without issue, the King’s person shall be guarded with all honour as long as he is pleased to remain in England, and that any man who conspires or directs any act of violence against him shall be guilty of high treason. Some private members proposed that in case of the Queen’s death without issue the King should remain absolute sovereign for life, but this was not adopted. The bill has been submitted to the King and Queen and is soon to be sent up to the House of Lords. It appears to have been devised because several persons who backed Courtenay last year were still trying to obtain (the succession to) the crown for him, especially as the

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Chancellor has insisted on the Lady Elizabeth being declared a bastard during this session, and on having the bill recast for that purpose. However one may look at it, this bill from the Lower House is a good measure, especially because of the manner in which it institutes the King perpetual guardian (of his children) and enables him to leave them in whose hands he pleases in case of his own absence. As for the declara-tion of bastardy, i t does not seem wise to attempt to get it through during this session, for besides the fact that it is almost superfluous, it would certainly arouse opposition in the country, and the King means only to bring forward popular measures.

(iv) Payment of members (A. Raine, York Civic Records, IV, 76)

18 April, 1542. Master Hogeson and Master Gayle plainly declared at length the whole circumstances of such pains as they took at the Court of Parliament according to their instructions, and also otherwise of their own minds as they thought best for the common weal of this City. Wherefore it is fully agreed that the said Citizens shall be allowed the ancient wages and clothing of [ ]1 for their 4. servants. And their wages only amounteth unto £35. 4.s. after the rate of either of them 4.s. the day. And the said Citizens disbursed and paid for the preferment of the common matters and for the common weal of this City as it appears by a bill of parcels shewed and declared by the said Citizens amounting unto £12. o.s. 8.d. The sum of the days that the said Citizens was at the said Parliament with going and coming from the same is 88 days, and in their coming home to this City the Common Chamber were indebted unto them in £14. 5.s., that is to say, to either of them £7. 2.s.6.d. which the said presence agreed that the Chamberlains shall pay unto them forthwith.

(v) Constitutional result of the dissolution of the monasteries According to the Lords’ Journal, 17 July 1536 the following abbots were present (p) or voted by proxy: p. Abbas West. p. Abbas de Selby. p. Abbas sancti Albani. Abbas Bardeney. Abbas sancti Augustini Cant. p. Abbas de Bello. p. Abbas Burgi sancti Edmundi. p. Abbas de Thorney. Abbas sancti Marie Ebor. p. Abbas de Wynchecombe. Abbas Glaston. p. Abbas de Waltham. p. Abbas de Abyndon. p. Abbas Cirencest. Abbas Glocestre. p. Prior de Coventre. Abbas de Ramesey. p. Abbas de Tewkesbury. Abbas de Evesham. Abbas Salopie. Abbas Burgi sancti Petri. Abbas de Hyde. p. Abbas de Redyng. Abbas sancti Benedicti. p. Abbas de Malmesbury. Abbas Colchestrie. p. Abbas de Crowlande. Abbas Tavestok, 1

Blank in MS.

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In the parliament which opened 28 April, 1539 they were reduced to: p. Abbas Westm. p. Abbas de Glocestrie. p. Abbas sancti Albani. p. Abbas de Ramsey. p. Abbas Burgi sancti Edmundi. p. Abbas de Evesham. p. Abbas beate Marie Ehor. p. Abbas Burgi sancti Petri. Abbas de Glaston. Abbas sancti Johannis Colces. p. Abbas de Redyng. p. Abbas de Wynchcombe. p. Abbas de Malmesbury. p. Abbas de Waltham. p. Abbas de Crowlande. p. Abbas Cirencestrie. p. Abbas de Selby. p. Abbas Tewkysbury. p. Abbas de Thorney. Abbas Tavestock. When this parliament held its second session, beginning 12 April 1540, all the abbots had disappeared from the house.

H. LOCAL GOVERNMENT 74. The Justice of the Peace. Illustrated from various sources (i) An act that theJustices of Peace may take bail. St. 3 Henry VII, c. 4, 1487 (Stat. Realm, II, 512)

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fter reciting St. 1 Richard III, which had given the Justice of the Peace power to grant bail for light offences, the preamble of this act explains that advantage had been taken of this power to bail persons not entitled to it, with the result that many murderers and felons had escaped punishment. It goes on to enact] that the Justices of the Peace in every shire, city, and town, or two of them at the least whereof one to be of the Quorum, have authority and power to let any such prisoners or persons mainpernable by the law that be imprisoned within their several counties, city, or town, to bail or mainprize unto their next general Sessions or unto the next general Gaol Delivery of the same gaols in every shire, city, or town…and that the said Justices of the-Peace, or one of them, so taking any such bail or mainprize do certify the same at the next general Sessions of the Peace or at the next general Gaol Deliverance…next following after any such bail or mainprize so taken; upon pain to forfeit unto the King for every default thereupon recorded £10. And over that, to be enacted …that every sheriff, bailiff of franchise, and every other person having authority or power of keeping of gaols or of prisoners for felony, in like manner and form do certify the names of every such prisoner in their keeping and of every prisoner unto them committed for any such cause, at the next general GaoI Delivery in any county or franchise where any such gaol or gaols be or hereafter shall be, there to be calendared before the Justices of the deliverance of the same gaol, whereby they may, as well for the King as for the party, proceed to make deliverance of such prisoners according to

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the law; upon pain to forfeit unto the King, for every default thereof recorded, 100.s. And that the aforesaid Act [1 Rich. III, c. 3.] giving authority and power in the premises to any one Justice of the Peace by himself, be in that behalf utterly void and of none effect by the said authority of this present Parliament.

(ii) An act for Justices of Peace for the due execution of their Commissions. St. 4 Hen. VII, c. 12, 1489 (Stat. Realm, II, 536)

The King our Soverign Lord considereth that by the negligence and misdemeaning, favour, and other inordinate causes of the Justice of Peace in every shire of this his realm, the laws and ordinances made for the political weal, peace, and good rule of the same, and for perfect security and restful living of his subjects of the same, be not duly executed according to the tenor and effect that they were made and ordained for: wherefore his subjects be grievously hurt and out of surety of their bodies and goods to his great displeasure; for to him is nothing more joyous than to know his subjects to live peaceably under his laws and to increase in wealth and prosperity, and to avoid such enormities and injuries, so that his said subjects may live more restful under his peace and laws to their increase: He will that it be…enacted…that every Justice of the Peace within every shire of this his said realm, within the shire where he is Justice of the Peace, do cause openly and solemnly to be proclaimed yearly 4 times in a year in four principal Sessions the tenor of this proclamation to this bill annexed; and that every Justice of Peace being present at any of the said Sessions, if they cause not the said proclamation to be made in form abovesaid, shall forfeit to our said Sovereign Lord at every time 20.s. Henricus Dei gratia, etc., The King our Sovereign Lord considereth how daily within this realm his coin is traiterously counterfeited, murders, robberies, felonies, be grievously committed and done, and also unlawful retainers, idleness, unlawful plays, extortions, misdemeanings of sheriffs, escheators, and many other enormities and unlawful demeanings daily groweth and increaseth within this his realm, to the great displeasure of God, hurt and impoverishing of his subjects, and to the subversion of the policy and good governance of this his realm; for by these said enormities and mischiefs his peace is broken, his subjects inquieted and impoverished, the husbandry of this land decayed, whereby the Church of England is upholden, the service of God continued, every man thereby hath sustenance, every inheritor his rent for his land: for repressing and avoiding of the said mischiefs sufficient laws and ordinances be made by authority of many and divers parliaments holden within this realm, to the great cost of the King, his Lords and Commons of the same, and lacketh nothing but that the said laws be not put in due execution, which laws ought to be put in due execution by the Justice of Peace in every shire of this realm, to whom his Grace hath put and given full authority so to do since the beginning of his reign. And now it is come to his knowledge that his subjects be little eased of the said mischiefs by the said Justices, but by many of them rather hurt than helped. And if his subjects complain to these Justices of Peace of any wrongs done to them they have thereby no remedy, and the said mischiefs do increase and not subdued. And his Grace considereth

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that a great part of the wealth and prosperity of this land standeth in that, that his subjects may live in surety under his peace in their bodies and goods, and that the husbandry of this land may increase and be upholden, which must be had by due execution of the said laws and ordinances, chargeth and commandeth all the Justices of the Peace of this his shire to endeavour them to execute the tenor of their Commission the said laws and ordinances ordained for subduing of the premises, as they will stand in the love and favour of his Grace, and in avoiding the pains that be ordained if they do the contrary. And over that, he chargeth and commandeth that every man what degree or condition that he be of, that let them in word or deed to execute their said authorities in any manner form abovesaid, that they shew it to his Grace; and if they do it not and it come to his knowledge by other than by them, they shall not be in his favour but taken as men out of credence and be put out of Commission for ever. And over this, he chargeth and commandeth all manner of men, as well the poor as the rich, which be to him all one in due ministration of justice, that is hurt or grieved in anything that the said Justice of Peace may hear or determine or execute in any wise, that he so grieved make his complaint to the Justice of the Peace that next dwelleth unto him, or to any of his fellows, and desire a remedy; and if he then have no remedy, if it be nigh such time as his Justices of Assizes come into that shire, that then he so grieved shew his complaint to the same Justices, and if he then have no remedy, or if the complaint be made long after the coming of the Justices of Assizes, then he so grieved come to the King’s Highness or to his Chancellor for the time being and shew his grief; and his said Highness then shall send for the said Justices to know the cause why his said subjects be not eased and his laws executed, whereupon if he find any of them in default of executing of his laws in these premises according to this his high commandment, he shall do him so offending to be put out of the Commission, and further to be punished according to his demerits. And over that, his said Highness shall not let for any favour, affection, cost, charge, nor none other cause, but that he shall see his laws to have plain and due execution, and his subjects to live in surety of their lands, bodies, and goods, according to his said laws, and the said mischiefs to be avoided, that his said subjects may increase in wealth and prosperity to the pleasure of God.

(iii) Commissions of the peace, 1547 (C.P.R. Edward VI. 1547–48, 80)

[The commissioners are assigned, jointly and severally, to keep the king’s peace and enforce the statutes and ordinances made for its preservation at Winchester, Northampton and Westminster and also the statutes and ordinances made there and at Cambridge concerning hunters, workmen, artificers, servants, innkeepers, beggars and vagabonds, and the other begging men who call themselves “traveling men”, and likewise the statutes and ordinances at Westminster, 1 and 2 Henry IV., against giving or using liveries or badges of fellowship to knights, esquires or yeomen and other liveries of cloth, and a certain statute against Lollards made in the parliament of Henry V. at

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Leicester and also another statute made in the parliament of Henry V. at Westminster about counterfeiting, clipping, washing and other falsification of money; as well within liberties as without; to punish delinqents and take sureties of such as threaten the king’s people with bodily violence or burning of their houses. And the king appoints them as his justices to enquire by oath of the good men of the county about all felonies, trespasses, forestallings, regratings and extortions, and about such as go or ride armed in assemblies against the king’s peace and in disturbance of his people, and such as lie in wait to maim or kill people, and such as use caps and other livery of one suit contrary to the statutes aforesaid, about innkeepers and others, in measures and weights and sale of victuals, and workmen, etc., who break the statutes aforesaid, and about sheriffs, bailiffs, stewards, constables and keepers of gaols who are lukewarm, remiss or negligent in enforcing such statutes; and to inspect indictments taken before them or the late keepers of the peace and justices of Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III. and Henry VII. the king’s grandfather, and make and continue processes. And the commissioners or at least two of them, of whom (quorum) one of certain of them (about one quarter) named must always be one, are to hear and determine the felonies aforesaid and the offences of innkeepers, workmen, etc., and the extortions and regrating, and also the trespasses and forestallings, and other matters not above declared. Provided always that difficult cases of extortion are not decided except in the presence of one of the king’s justices at the county assizes. The commission ends with a precept to one of the commissioners named to produce the writs, records and processes at their sessions.]

(iv) Examples of the use of the Justices of the Peace Upon advertisement from the Lord Russell that Richard Grace and Guy Hickson of Buckinghamshire, had brought up certain false news of great importance against the King’s Majesty and the realm, letters were written to the said Lord Russell, the Lord Windsor and the rest of the Justices of the Peace of that shire to confer together upon the Statute last made in this case, and if the same require death of the parties, then accordingly to see them executed: if not, then to put them on the Pillory, there each of them to lose an ear, and then to return to the gaol till the Council’s further pleasure be known. (A.P.C. 1550–52, 50, 20 June 1550) Letters addressed to certain Justices of Peace within every county to be diligent for the setting forth of the Proclamation for victuals. (Ibid. 135, September 1550) Three several letters to the Justices of Peace in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge to aid Mountford in the provision of wheat and malt appointed to be taken up for the King’s Majesty’s service. (Ibid. 201, January 1551) Letters to the Justices of Peace in all shires to put in execution the laws against vagabonds, and for watches, unlawful games, seditious rumours, and such like; and have regard to

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the quiet of the realm, and the repressing of lewd attempts, with promise to send shortly of Oyer and Determiner, &c. (Ibid. 260, 15 April 1551) Letters of thanks to Sir Thomas Dennys and the other Justices of Devonshire for their diligence used in the setting forth of the Proclamation for victuals, praying them to advertise the Lords what prices they have set upon the victuals, and how the country liketh the same. (Ibid. 334, August 1551) A letter to the earl of Sussex, to Sir Robert Townshend and other Justices of Peace of Norfolk, requiring them if they can by any good means or authority redress the fault they find with the enhancement of the prices of beef and lack of butter and cheese out of Suffolk, that they proceed to take such order therein as they shall think convenient. (Ibid. 376, October 1551) To the Justices of Peace of Kent to help the purveyors of grain for Colchester to Ve quarters of grain within that shire at prices reasonable, taking bonds of them to convey the same to none other part than to Colchester only. (Ibid. 429, November 1551)

75. The Lords Lieutenants (i) Notice of commission of lieutenancy for the duke of Somerset, May, 5 Edward VI (G.Scott Thomson, Lords Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century, App. B, 149)

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Commission to Edward, Duke of Somerset to be the King’s Justice to inquire of all treasons, misprisions of treasons, insurrections, rebellions, unlawful assemblies and conventicles, unlawful speaking of words, confederates, conspiracies, false allegations, contempt, falsehoods, negligence, concealments, oppressions, riot, routs, murders, felonies and other evil deeds whatsoever they be. And also of all accessories of the same within the Counties of Bucks, and Berks. And to appoint certain days and places for the inquiry thereof. And to be the King’s Lieutenant within the said Counties for levying of men, and to fight against the king’s enemies and rebels and to execute upon them the martial law and to subdue all invasions, insurrections, etc., as shall chance to be moved in any place as he shall repair to the limits of the said shires, with a commandment to all officers to assist him. And that the said Commission be not prejudicial to the former Commissions of Oyer and Determiner within the said Counties.

(ii) Commission of lieutenancy for Edward, earl of Derby, 8 Feb. 1 Mary (G.Scott Thomson, Lords Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century, App. B, 150)

Mary by the grace of God etc., to our dear cousin and counsellor Edward, Earl of Derby, greeting. Know ye that for the singular trust and great confidence which we have in your approved wisdom, fidelity and discretion, we have assigned, constituted and ordained

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you to be our Lieutenant within our counties of Lancaster, Chester, Salop, Flint, and Denbigh, and by these do give full power and authority unto you, that you from time to time may levy, gather and call together all and singular our subjects, of what degree, estate, or dignity they or any of them be, dwelling and inhabiting within our said counties or in any of them, meet and apt for the wars. And them to try, array and put in readiness, and them also and any of them, after their abilities, degrees and faculties, well and sufficiently to cause to be armed and sufficiently weaponed. And to take the musters of them from time to time in places most meet for that purpose after your good discretion. And also the same our subjects so arrayed, tried and armed, as well men of arms as other horsemen, archers, and footmen to send and conduct as well against all and singular our enemies as against all and singular rebels, traitors and other offenders and their adherents against us, our crown and dignity within our said counties, or in any of them, from time to time as often as need shall require by your discretion, and with the said enemies, rebels, and traitors to fight and them to invade, repress, subdue, slay and put to execution of death by all ways and means, by your said good discretion. And to do, fulfil and execute all and singular other things which shall be requisite for the levying and government of our said subjects, conservation of our person and peace, so by you in form aforesaid levied and to be led. Wherefore we will and command you that with all diligence you do execute the premisses with effect. And further we will and command all and singular our Justices of Peace, Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Constables, Headboroughs, and all other our officers, ministers, and subjects, of what estate, degree, or dignity soever they be, within our said counties, and any of them to whom it shall appertain, that they and any of them from time to time shall be attendant, aiding, assisting, counselling, helping, and at your commandment in the due execution thereof, as they and any of them tender our pleasure and will answer to the contrary at their utmost peril. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent and to endure and continue during our pleasure. Witness ourself at Westminster the 8th. day of February, the first year of our reign.

I. THEORY OF GOVERNMENT 76. Illustrations of political and constitutional theory from various sources (i) Primitive Theory (D.M.Brodie (ed.), The Tree of Commonwealth, pp. 21–28, 31–37, 40–42)

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his book, named the tree of common wealth, was by Edmund Dudley, esquire, late counsellor to king Henry the VII, the same Edmund at the compiling hereof being prisoner in the Tower in the first year of the reign of king Henry the eight. The effect of this treatise consisteth in three special points, that is to say: First in the remembrance of God and of the faith of his holy Church, with the which thing every Christian prince hath need to begin, Secondly of some conditions and demeanours necessary in every

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prince both for his honour and for the surety of his continuance, Thirdly of the tree of common wealth, which toucheth people of every degree, of the conditions and demeanours which they should be of. Forasmuch as every man is naturally bound not only most heartily to pray for the prosperous continuance of his liege sovereign lord and the increase of the commonwealth of his native country, but also to the uttermost of his power to do all things that might further or sound to the increase and help of the same, And because I am an Englishman born, who sometime was a servant to the king of most famous memory Henry the VIIth, late king of this most noble realm of England, natural father to my most redoubted sovereign lord, king Henry of that name the VIIIth, whom our saviour Jesu Christ safely guide with the long continuance of virtue and honour, for he is the Prince that shall revive the common wealth within this his realm (the which long time hath been in sore decay). And for that I bear my hearty good will and love towards the prosperous estate of my natural country, I intend (God willing) to write a remembrance, (albeit perchance both rude and unlearned) the which, if man be so pleased, may be called the tree of common wealth. But or the manner of this tree be spoken of, first I shall briefly touch the remembrance of God and of the faith of holy church, with the which thing every Christian king hath most need to begin; Secondly a word or twain of some conditions or demeanours necessary in every Prince as well for his honour as for his assurance; Lastly I will treat of this tree of common wealth. Not for that I will presume or think it worthy to be seen or looked upon by my said sovereign lord, or by any of his honourable council, or yet by any other noble person of this realm, but by some other person that will look thereon for a light pastime, humbly desiring all the readers or hearers thereof not to impute any article therein to my presumption or temerity, but to take in gree and accept my power mind and true intent, and to deem, interpret and expound the same as they by their discretions should see cause, for I mean not by any word therein that I know need of reformation in any particular person, but only in myself, the most wretched of all wretches, or that I have any ability or any condition to counsel or advertise any living creature, my own life being so wicked, as it is openly known. But my full purpose, prayer and intent, is that all things well ordered may so continue and increase to the better. And if anything be amiss, or out of order, let every man therein examine his own conscience and remember the shortness of this careful and transitory life, and pray for grace to amend, and let every person charitably help to reform whereas need doeth require: for he that so doeth is a counsellor and a friend of all worldly friends, and full happy is he that hath, and wisely can keep, such a friend and consider him. First, to the most worldly joy and comfort of all the inhabitants of this realm of England, I understand that my said sovereign lord, in plain proof, beginneth his most noble reign at the remembrance of God and hath fully determined himself not only to reform all such things as in times past have been disordered and abused within this his realm, but also to his greatest merit to restore his subjects from divers wrongs and injuries, and as an obedient child and willing the comfort and relief of the soul of his father, to see the will of his said father and king to be truly performed, to his marvellous great meed and honour, which seldom hath been seen within this his realm. But sure

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may his grace be, he dealeth not so charitably and honourably for his said father, but that God will cause his noble issue and successors to do as well and as lovingly for him, and by this his doing God will increase his grace singularly to set his affection in his love and honour, as to a christian prince necessary it belongeth. And over this he shall order himself with his great grace to be that catholic king that shall not only support and maintain his church and the true faith thereof in all rights as far as in him lieth: but also to see that such as he shall promote and set in Christ’s church, specially within this his realm, be both cunning and virtuous, and specially virtuous, for without that cunning profiteth but little to the honour of Christ’s church. And for the more part such as are promoted and set in the church of Christ, and specially in the high dignity thereof, for any manner of affection, be it for blood, service, or any otherwise, without they be therewith virtuous and cunning, able to rule their church, shall do therein more harm than good. And perilous it is, and utterly to be eschewed, to promote any man that will labour therefore, and specially such as will adventure the danger of simony, mental or actual, to have promotion. They shall never do good in their cures, and be but the destroyers of the church of Christ. And it is no harm to beware of the promoting of folk at the special labour or desire of any person, be he of the Council or the king’s servant, for else there shall be often and many times set in Christ’s church full unable men for the only profit or affection of the labourers. And it is unfitting and inconvenient to advance to promotion any defamed persons of their bodies, or any man to have divers promotions with cure, except great cause require it. And when they are promoted it were a meritorious deed to send them home to their cures and specially the prelates and such other as have great cures, unless their presence may not be foreborne about the king’s person for his great honour or for the common wealth of the realm; else they ought to be enforced to keep home for the discharge of the king’s conscience and theirs, although their appetite were to the contrary. This should be a good deed and moreover that none of them be in any temporal office, nor executors thereof, for thereby most commonly is destroyed the church and the office. Also it were a gracious and a noble act that the Church of England were restored to her free election after the old manner, and not to be letted thereof by means of you, our sovereign lord, nor by means of any of your subjects as far forth as you may help it, and to foresee that no comfort be given to any person that laboureth any such to the contrary. For therein shall your highness be opposed by divers ways whereof the very truth shall not appear unto you: for they will tell you, your letter shall be but a courteous letter of recommendation: but consider you well, your request to any of your subjects is a strait commandment. Also for the honour of God let your grace refrain yourself from the appropriation of benefices or to unite any house of religion to another for if this do continue it shall by all likelihood destroy the honour of the Church of England. Also your progenitors used much to write to their subjects, spiritual and temporal, to have the dispositions of their promotions, which was a great discouragement for clerks, and God be thanked, their own promotions were honourable and sufficient for their own chaplains. And for the good increase of virtue amongst the clergy of your realm it shall be a great furtherance to have in your remembrance to protect and also to comfort

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your universities and also the students therein, and specially divines, for they decay fast, for they be needful for certain conditions or demeanours to every noble prince, right necessary as well for his honour as surety. My daily prayer shall be during my short life for that thing which I doubt not your noble grace will remember a thousand times better than I can consider, and that is, that your grace will truly keep and observe all leagues and promises to outward princes and strangers made by you or to your own subjects promised, and that all such leagues and promises be done by good advice and deliberation; And when they are made, firmly to hold them though they should be to your loss, for of all worldly losses, and specially in a prince, honour and credence is the most. And, in the reverence of God, somewhat beware of dangerous sports for casualties that might befall, and the rather for that in your only person dependeth the whole wealth and honour of this your realm. And sure I am your grace will use, as ever you have used, to let as few idle words, and specially of slander and of untruth, to pass your mouth, as you may, nor to give your ears nor your eyes over often to fantasies in the which standeth but vanity, nor to be light of credence. And ye of your great wisdom in all weighty causes take counsel of good and wise men, for they that dread not God seldom give good counsel, and seldom it profiteth a prince to give confidence to young counsel, for experience is one of the chief parts of counsel. Let never Christian prince follow the counsel of cruel men nor covetous men, for the cruel counsel ever provoketh the ire of God and the covetous counsel shall lose the hearts of the subjects. The cruel counsel shall instruct their sovereign that his surety resteth in cruelty, and such counsel was given to King Saul in the beginning of his reign, but he at that time being the child of God, refused utterly to revenge his own quarrels by cruelty because he came into his realm peaceably. The covetous counsel will show their sovereign his surety standeth much in plenty of treasure but both these counsels are but fallible fantasies, for the profit of every Christian prince dependeth in the grace of God which is won by mercy and liberality. The wrath of almighty God is given by cruelty and covetousness. Therefore it is most necessary for a Christian king to have the love and fear of God before his eyes before whom all things do reign, for the devil, the world and the flesh will continually fight and make battle against all mankind, and peradventure more fervently against a prince than a poor man. The devil also will bring the prince of this world to his own property if he can, which is to follow rigour and cruelty, for so doth he, without mercy or pity. The world will induce them to follow his property, which is to set all their felicity in worldly treasure, and therein to be insatiable and not to force of the means how it shall be had. The flesh, if he may by any means, would make princes to follow his beastly appetite, for that is the beast of all beasts if his frailty be followed…. And now to speak of the tree of common wealth. It is that thing for the which all true Englishmen have great need to pray to God that our lord and king will have a singular regard and favour thereon, for principally by God and him it must be holpen. Therefore God hath ordained him to be our king, and thereto is every king bounden, for that is his charge, for, as the subjects are bounden to their prince, so be all kings bounden to their subjects by the commandment of God them to maintain and support as far as in him is

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his power. His wealth and prosperity standeth in the wealth of his true subjects, for though the people be subjects to the king yet are they the people of God, and God hath ordained their prince to protect them and they to obey their prince. The common wealth of this realm or of the subjects or inhabitants thereof may be resembled to a fair and mighty tree growing in a fair field or pasture, under the covert or shade whereof all beasts, both fat and lean, are protected and comforted from heat and cold as the time requireth. In like manner all the subjects of that realm where this tree of common wealth doth surely grow are thereby holpen and relieved from the highest degree to the lowest. But for a truth this tree will never long stand or grow upright in this realm, or in any other, without divers strong roots, and fastened sure in the ground. The principal and chief root of this tree in every Christian realm must be the love of God, and the love of God is nothing else but to know him and gladly to observe his laws and commandments as his true and faithful people. Ye will say percase the bishops and they of the spiritualty have special charge of this root and not the prince. Yes, verily, the prince is the ground out of the which this root must chiefly grow, for it is he that doth appoint and make the bishops, and if the prince in these rooms ordain virtuous men this root will keep, and if he ordain thereto vicious men or negligent persons it will wither and decay. And though the bishops would be negligent and not punish the misdoers in their dioceses, yet let the prince warn them thereof. And if there be any sturdy or obstinate persons in his realm that will frowardly disobey their ordinaries, in the cause of God, the prince must put to his mighty hand to the help and reformation thereof. Whom then doth that prince assist? The bishops, curates or preachers? Forsooth none of them. He assisteth his maker and redeemer of whom he hath all his power and authority. And such as be known for open sinners within this realm, as open murderers, adulterers, blasphemers, extortioners, and oppressors of his subjects, let not the prince be familiar with them, nor show unto them his loving countenance: but let them be rather by themselves alone that men may know the cause why, and that shall cause them not only to amend, percase much rather than all the monitions of their curates or ordinaries, and also it shall cause others to beware of like offences, to the great merit of the prince. Then the root of the love of God, which is to know him with good works within this realm must chiefly grow by our sovereign lord the king. And for the sure and perfect fastening of this root in the king one thing is very necessary, and it is that all his subjects, spiritual and temporal, may see in their prince that he himself setteth his principal delight and affection in the love of God, keeping his laws and commandments. How much shall that enforce and encourage the bishops and other of the spiritualty to be the very lanterns of light, and to shew good examples to the temporalty, and they to follow the same. And how much shame and rebuke should it be to all those that would use the contrary. And then is this principal root, the love of God, so surely fastened, in so noble and perfect ground rooted, that, with the grace of God, he shall do his endeavour to bear up this tree of common wealth in this realm of England ever. Besides this principal root, this tree surely to be borne up must have other four roots, that is to say, justice, truth, concord and peace. First ye must have the root of Justice without the which the tree of common wealth cannot continue. And this root

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of justice must needs come of our sovereign lord himself, for the whole authority thereof is given to him by God, to minister by himself or by his deputies to his subjects. And though it be suffered or permitted that a prince make or ordain his deputies in every part of this realm to minister justice, as his Chancellor, his Justices of both Benches, and other general and special commissioners in every county and shire, yet the chief charge is his own. Wherefore, for the honour of God, let it be foreseen that his grace may make his Justices of them that be well learned men and specially of good conscience, or else they will be corrupted with meed or affection so that they minister to his subjects great wrongs and sinister justice under the colour of justice, and long peradventure or it shall be known to the prince. Also there would be a straight charge given to the Chancellor to appoint in every country and shire wise men, and specially good men and such as will deal indifferently between the subjects, and in no wise to put in authority those which are great bearers of matters. And when the judges resort unto the king’s grace let him give them a great charge to minister justice truly and indifferently upon pain of his high and great displeasure, besides the danger of their conscience. Yet by him they must be informed and put in courage so to do, and that they let not for fear or displeasure of any of his own servants or counsellors to do true justice nor for fear of any great persons in his realm, for that that they do is done by his authority, and not by their own. And though the cause touch himself, yet he must put them in comfort not to spare to minister justice without fear: and this to do he shall have great need, for without doubt fear is a great impediment of justice amongst the judges and commissioners. Also of necessity the prince must bear and support them in all the ministering and executing of justice, as well against the noblest as other, or else it will not be in their power to do their true duties. Also it were a good deed to command the privy council and secretary that no letters pass them in stopping of justice, for by such letters oftimes justice is greatly troubled and letted, and under the colour of petition by special labour and affection. Also a singular furtherance to good and indifferent justice to be had, and to the conscience of the king a great discharge, shall be to appoint good sheriffs and such as will not be affectionate or bribers, for in them lieth much to make or mar the conclusion of justice, and that there be had a special rule to punish perjury, for persons perjured be the uttermost mischief of all good right and justice. Yet must the prince punish and oppress all maintainers and embracers, and that must be his own act, for it is done most commonly by men of great power and authority. Furthermore, besides all the common ordering of justice to be done and ministered within this realm, whether it be between the king and his subjects or between subjects and subjects, his grace himself must have a singular zeal and regard to protect and defend his subjects that they be not oppressed by great men and their superiors. For out of doubt if his grace look not marvellously well thereto, the poor people of his realm shall be oppressed with their letters, and oftentimes by his servants by the colour of his service. And specially in this root of justice let it not be seen that the prince himself, for any cause of his own, enforce or oppress any of his subjects by imprisonment or sinister vexation, by privy seal or letters missives, or

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otherwise by any of his particular counsellors, but to draw them or entreat them by due order of his laws. For though the matter be never so true that they be called for, though their pain or punishment should be sorer by the due order of the law, yet will they murmur and grudge because they are called by the way of extraordinary justice. Wherefore the most honourable and sure way for the prince to have his right of his subjects, or to punish them for their offences, shall be by the due order and course of his laws. And let the subjects never be letted or interrupted by his writing, tokens, messages, or commandments to his judges or other officers, to have the straight course of his laws, be it traverse, trial, process, judgment, sueing of livery, or otherwise. Yet peradventure oftimes the prince shall have counsellors and servants that in his own causes will do further than conscience requireth, and further than himself would should be done, oftimes to win a special thank of the king, and sometimes for their proper advantage and sometimes for avenging of their own quarrels, grudges or malice. Let these servants or councellors take heed that they do the party no wrong, for the rod of punishment dieth not. Thus the grace of Jesus Christ, the king of heaven, will help and support the root of justice that being thus rooted in himself shall hold and stay the one quarter of this tree of commonwealth within this realm…. The third root of the four roots is the root of concord or unity. This root is much necessary to help and maintain this tree of common wealth, for where discord and division is it will be hard and almost impossible to have this tree to increase and continue. Discord bringeth in consideration of conspiracy and retention, which for the more part engendereth murder, extortion and riot, and oftimes rebellion, of whom for a surety cometh Idleness, the very mother of all vice both in man and woman, both noble and unnoble, and the lineal grandame of poverty and misery, and the deadly enemy to this tree of common wealth. This root of concord is none other thing but a good agreement and conformity amongst the people or the inhabitants of a realm, city, town or fellowship, and every man to be content to do his duty in the office, room, or condition that he is set in, and not to malign or disdain any other. Where must this noble and necessary root begin to sustain himself or to grow? Forsooth in our sovereign lord most principal, and then in his subjects, spiritual and temporal, nobles and other. Thus it must grow and fasten in our sovereign lord when he seeth justice ministered to his subjects truly and indifferently as well to the poor as to the rich, and doth favour and cherish good men and punish the ill, and in causes touching himself to minister his Justice discreetly meddled with mercy, or else his justice will be sore, that it will oftimes appear to be cruelty rather than justice. And I suppose there is no Christian king hath more need so to do than our prince and sovereign lord, considering the great number of penal laws and statutes made in his realm for the hard and straight punishment of his subjects. Also the prince must specially see that the nobles of his realm be not at variance one with another otherwise than by complaints to himself or sueing his laws, but in any wise suffer not them to revenge their own quarrels old or new, by force or by violence; for if men be at their own liberties therein beware the prince in a while. Also he must see that his subjects be not oppressed by

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their superiors. And if there be any manner of grudge between his subjects of the spiritualty and his subjects of the temporalty for privilege or liberties that were a great help to this noble root of concord to have it stablished and reformed: and no man can do it but the prince, and so all the laud shall be his and by likelihood a great merit to godwards. And when his grace seeth justice thus ministered and suffereth not cruel debates or oppression amongst his subjects then is this root of concord royally stablished in him. And for the comfort of this root of concord mightily to bear this tree of common wealth, the prince hath need to see his officers, purveyors and takers to pay his subjects truly, according to the good ordinance thereof made, and not to use their office to the contrary, and therewith all to keep his honourable household in plenteous manner, and to exhort, see and constrain the nobles of his realm, both spiritual and temporal, to keep good hospitality, and that shall be both for him and his realm great honour and surety. And that were time it were holpen, for it is in this realm sore decayed, and shall never increase but by the precedent of the prince and nobles of the realm, and then will every man after his degree follow the same. But then must servants have competent wages and clothing with true payments of the same, so as they shall not need to be thieves, bribers, pollers or extortioners. And for the study, pain, diligence and labour that the prince thus taketh for his subjects to keep them in quietness and surety they must, from the highest degree to the lowest, owe unto him their true fidelity, allegiance, honour and reverence, and to be obedient to all his royal, lawful commandments and precepts, and be ready and diligent to the uttermost of their powers, with body and goods, in the rescue of him and of his realm, and to yield and pay to him truly all rights, revenues and casualties, without fraud or covin. And this done, this root of concord is well fixed between the prince and his subjects.

(ii) The Source of Authority John Ponet: A Short Treatise of Politike Power, and of the True Obedience which subjects owe to Kings and other Civil Governors, with an Exhortation to all true natural Englishman, 1556.

Whereof politike power groweth, wherefor it was ordained, and the right use and duty of the same: etc. As oxen, sheep, goats, and such other unreasonable creatures cannot for lack of reason rule themselves, but must be ruled by a more excellent creature, that is man: so man, albeit he have reason, yet because through the fall of the first man, his reason is wonderfully corrupt, and sensualty hath goten the over hand, is not able by himself to rule himself, but must have a more excellent governor. The worldlings thought, this governor was their own reason. They thought they might by their own reason do what them lusted, not only in private things, but also in public. Reason they thought to be the only cause that men first assembled together in companies, that common wealths were made, that policies were well governed and long continued: but men see that such were utterly blinded and deceived in their imaginations, their doings and inventions (seemed they never so wise) were so easily and so soon (contrary to their expectations) overthrown.

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Where is the wisdom of the Grecians? Where is the fortitude of the Assyrians? Where is both the wisdom and force of the Romans become? All is vanished away, nothing almost left to testify that they were, but that which well declareth that their reason was not able to govern them. Therefore were such as were desirous to know the perfect and only governor of all, constrained to seek further than themselves, and so at length to confess that it was one God that ruled all. By him we live, we have our being, and be moved. He made us, and not we ourselves. We be his people, and the sheep of his pasture. He made all things for man: and man he made for himself, to serve and glorify him. He hath taken upon him the order and government of man his chief creature, and prescribed him a rule, how he should behave himself, what he should do, and what he may not do. This rule is the law of nature, first planted and grafted only in the mind of man, that after for that his mind was through sin defiled, filled with darkness and encumbered with many doubts set forth in writing in the Decalogue or ten commandments: and after reduced by Christ our saviour into these two words: Thou shalt love thy lord God above all things, and thy neighbour as thyself. The later part whereof he also thus expoundeth: Whatsoever ye will that men do unto you, do ye even so to them. In this law is comprehended all justice, the perfect way to serve and glorify God, and the right mean to rule every man particularly, and all men generally: and the only stay to maintain every commonwealth. This is the touchstone to try every man’s doings (be he king or beggar) whether they be good or evil. By this all men’s laws be discerned, whether they be just or unjust, godly or wicked…. Against the offenders of this law there was no corporal punishment ordained in this world till after the destruction of the world with the great flood. For albeit Cain and Iamech had committed horrible murders, yet were they not corporally punished, but had a protection of God, that none should lawfully hurt them. But after the flood, when God saw his gentleness and patience could not work his creatures to do their duties unforced, but iniquity prevailed and mischief daily increased, and one murdered and destroyed another, then was he constrained to change his levity into severity, and to add corporal pains to those that would not follow, but transgress his ordinances. And so he made this law, which he declared to Noah: He that sheddeth the blood of man, his blood shall be shed by man. For man is made after the image of God. By this ordinance and law he instituteth politike power and giveth authority to men to make more laws. For he that giveth man authority over the body and life of man, because he would have man to live quietly with man, that all might serve him quietly in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life it cannot be denied, but he gave him authority over goods, lands, possessions and all such things as might breed controversies and discords and so hinder and let that he might not be served and glorified as he requireth. This ordinance also teacheth makers of laws how they should behave themselves in making laws; that is, to set apart all affections, and to observe an equality in pains, that they be not greater or less than the fault deserveth, and that they

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punish not the innocent or small offender for malice, and let the mighty and great these escape for affection. And out of this ordinance growethandis grounded the authority for Magistrates to execute laws: for laws without execution be no more profitable than bells without clappers. But whether this authority to make laws, or the power to execute the same, shall be and remain in one person alone, or in many, it is not expressed, but left to the discretion of the people to make so many and so few, as they think necessary for the maintenance of the state. Whether Kings princes and other governors have an absolute power and authority over their subjects. Forasmuch as those that be the Rulers in the world, and would be taken for Gods (that is, the ministers and images of God here in earth, the examples and mirrors of all godliness, justice, equity, and other virtues) claim and exercise an absolute power, which also they call a fulness of power, or prerogative to do what they lust, and none may gainsay them: to dispense with the laws as pleaseth them and freely and without correction or offence do contrary to the law of nature, and other God’s laws, and the positive laws and customs of their countries, or break them: and use their subjects as men do their beasts, and as lords do their villeins and bondmen, getting their goods from them by hook or by crook, with Sic volo, Sic iubeo, and spending it to the destruction of their subjects: the misery of this time requireth to examine whether they do it rightfully or wrongfully, that if it be rightful the people may the more willingly obey and receive the same: if it be wrongful, that then those that use it may the rather for the fear of God leave it. For (no doubt) God will come, and judge the world with equity, and revenge the cause of the oppressed. Of the pope’s power (who compteth himself one, yea the chief of these kind of Gods, yea above them all, and fellow to the God of Gods) we mind not now to treat: neither is it requisite. For all men, yea halfwise women and babes can well judge that his power is worthy to be laughed at: and were it not bolstered and propped up with sword and faggot it would (as it will notwithstanding) shortly lie in the mire, for it is not built on the rock, but on the sand, not planted by the father of heaven, but by the devil of hell, as the fruits do manifestly declare. But we will speak of the power of kings and princes, and such-like potentates, rulers, and governors of commonwealths…. Now since kings, princes, and governors of commonwealths have not nor can justly claim any absolute authority, but that the end of their authority is determined and certain to maintain justice, to defend the innocent, to punish the evil. And that so many evils and mischiefs may follow where such absolute and (indeed) tyrannical power is usurped: let us pray that they may know their duty, and discharge themselves to God and to the world, or else that those which have the authority to reform them may know and do their duty, that the people finding and acknowledging the benefit of good rulers, may thank God for them, and labour every one to do their duty: and that seeing the head is not spared, but evils in it punished, they may the more willingly abstain from tyranny and other evil things, and do their duties and so all glorify God.

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(iii) Gardiner on constitutional matters (a) Gardiner to Sir John Godsalve, 1547 (Muller, Letters of Stephen Gardiner, 377) And of what strength an act of Parliament is, the realm was taught in the case of her that we called Queen Anne; where all such as spake against her in the Parliament House, although they did it by special commandment of the King, and spake that was truth, yet they were fain to have a pardon, because that speaking was against an act of Parliament. Did ye never know or hear tell of any man, that for doing that the King our late sovereign lord willed, devised, and required to be done, he that took pains and was commanded to do it, was fain to sue for his pardon, and such other also as were doers in it? And I could tell who it were. Sure there hath been such a case; and I have been present when it hath been reasoned that the doing against an act of Parliament excuseth not a man even from the case of treason, although a man did it by the King’s commandment. Ye can call this to your remembrance when ye think further of it; and when it cometh to your remembrance ye will not be best content with yourself, I believe, to have advised me to enter the breach of an act of Parliament, without surety of pardon, although the King commanded it, and were such indeed as it were no matter to do it at all. (b) Gardiner to Somerset, 1547 (Ibid. 390) Now whether the King may command against an act of Parliament, and what danger they may fall in that break a law with the King’s consent, I dare say no man alive at this day hath had more experience what the judges and lawyers have said than I. First I had experience in mine old master the Lord Cardinal, who obtained his legacy by our late sovereign lord’s request at Rome; and in his sight and knowledge occupied the same, with his two crosses and maces borne before him, many years. Yet because it was against the laws of the realm, the judges concluded the offence of the premunire; which conclusion I bare away, and take it for a law of the realm, because the lawyers so said, but my reason digested it not. The lawyers, for confirmation of their doings, brought in a case of the Lord Tiptoft, as I remember (a jolly civilian he was Chancellor to the King), who, because in execution of the King’s commission he had offended the laws of the realm, he suffered on Tower Hill. They brought in examples of many judges that had fines set on their heads in like cases for doing against the laws of the realm by the King’s commandment. And then was brought in the judges oath, not to stay any process or judgment for any commandment from the King’s Majesty. And one article against my Lord Cardinal was that he had granted injunctions to stay the Common Laws. And upon that occasion Magna Charta was spoken of, and it was made a great matter, the stay of the Common Law. And this I learned in that case. Since that time, being of the Council, when many proclamations were devised against the carriers out of corn, at such time as the transgressors should be punished, the

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judges would answer, it might not be by the laws; whereupon ensued the Act of Proclamations, in the passing of which act many liberal words were spoken, and a plain promise that by authority of the Act for Proclamations, nothing should be made contrary to an act of Parliament or Common Law. When the Bishop of Exeter and his Chancellor were by one Body brought in a premunire (which matter my Lord Privy Seal cannot forget), I reasoned with the Lord Audeley, then Chancellor, so far as he bade me hold my peace for fear of entering into a premunire myself. Whereupon I stayed, but concluded it seemed to me strange that a man authorised by the King (as, since the King’s Majesty hath taken upon him the supremacy, every bishop is such one) could fall in a premunire. After, I had reasoned the matter once in the Parliament House where was free speech without danger; and there the Lord Audeley, then Chancellor, to satisfy me familiarly, because I was in some secret estimation, as he then knew—“Thou art a good fellow, Bishop,” quod he (which was the manner of his familiar speech), “look the Act of Supremacy, and there the King’s doings be restrained to spiritual jurisdiction: and in another act it is provided that no Spiritual Law shall have place contrary to a Common Law or Act of Parliament. And this were not,” quod he, “you bishops would enter in with the King and, by means of his supremacy order the laity as ye listed. But we will provide,” quod he, “that the premunire shall ever hang over your heads, and so we laymen shall be sure to enjoy our inheritance by the Common Laws and acts of Parliament.”

Part V RELIGION

INTRODUCTION

T

HE documents in this Section illustrate the essential changes affecting the structure, organization, and profession of faith of the Church in England during some of the most critical years in its history. They represent, of course, only a fraction of the contemporary evidence in which these changes are reflected, and although this selection contains examples of the most significant of such documents it should be accepted as a muster of representative witnesses rather than as an attempt to assemble anything like a comprehensive body of evidence in which the process of change is completely revealed. The most useful purpose such a collection can serve is to emphasize the wide diversity of these types of source material, and to indicate the methods whereby the rich variety of information they contain can be collated and combined to yield a deeper understanding of the problems disturbing the Church during the first half of the sixteenth century. The arrangement of this material is partly chronological and partly topical. Chronologically the ecclesiastical history of these years can be broken down into four clearly defined periods, and within each of them there are important subjects on which the selected documents throw light. The first of these periods extends from 1485 to 1530. Its general features might well be indicated by the label “The Approach to the Reformation”, for it was in these years that the first indication of things to come put intelligent observers on the alert, and forced those in positions of responsibility with-in the Church to take the measure of their critics. In Division A will be found some evidence of the nature and force of these attacks. They were formidable, unlikely to be passed unnoticed, for they concerned matters that were common knowledge. Making their assault on the Church as an institution the critics condemned it for its exploitation of privileges which were anachronisms in a changing world, and for its anti-social monopoly of an undue proportion of the wealth of the country. Aiming their sarcasms at the clergy, both religious and secular, they pilloried them for their deplorable lack of standards in education and morals, for their absenteeism, and for their general failure to discharge the responsibilities of their high calling. Singling out the hierarchy of the Church for their bitterest censure they made plain their shortcomings as leaders, and riddled with criticism their obscurantist excuses for their veto on an English translation of the Bible. Here were all the portents of the coming storm. If the documents in Division B seem, at first sight, more relevant to the political history of the period than they do to the history of the Church, a closer study of their contents will soon modify such an impression. They have to do with what contemporary opinion often found it discreet to refer to as the king’s private matter, which was in fact a matter of very general public concern. It was, indeed, the ganglion of problems created by Henry VIII’s determination to challenge the validity of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the subsequent negotiations for the annulment of that marriage, and the far-reaching consequences in Church and State. Such affairs might be personal for a private individual: they could 633

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not be so for a king. Henry’s “private matter” was the concern of all his subjects, and for not a few it became a question of life and death. That it had special significance for the Church needs little demonstration. For one thing, this was first and foremost a question of canon law, and the competent authority to decide it was the Pope. His failure to give the king satisfaction opened the way for criticism of the Roman Curia and the judicial system of the Church. Nor was this all. Henry VIII’s reaction to the failure of the nullity proceedings was the direct cause of the policy which was to revolutionize the status of the Church in England during the king’s reign. It is for these reasons that some documents concerned with Henry’s “private matter” and its consequences have a claim to be included in this division. The second period, from 1530 to 1547, has been called “The Henrician Schism”. It was an eventful period, crowded with special problems having a bearing on Church affairs. This is the first phase of the Reformation in England, a time when steps were taken which would never be retraced, a period of intense activity, both destructive and creative, with an abiding influence upon the future of the English Church. Some of the most important of these features are illustrated in Divisions C to F. They deal with the proceedings which led to a severance of relations between the Church in England and the Papacy, and cover a variety of topics, from the confiscation of Church property and the dissolution of the monasteries to enforcement of discipline and reform of administration within the Church, the steps by which an English translation of the Bible was finally authorized, and the efforts made to arrive at a formula of faith which would satisfy the needs of a Church no longer in obedience to Rome but yet uncertain what it should ask its members to believe. The third phase, from 1547 to 1553, is a no less dynamic period, but because it was shorter, and the problems arising in it were more concentrated, the arrangement of the documents in Division G is less complicated. Its general contents are suggested by the phrase “The Edwardian Reformation”. In this selection of documents attention is mainly directed towards the controversies inspired by the ideals and aspirations of the party of reform, and the legislation whereby churchmen in England were pushed forward with ever-increasing speed along the road to Protestantism. The fourth phase, from 1553 to 1558, which is covered in Division H, is concerned with “The Return to Rome”. Although the sources here are less bulky than in some earlier divisions they are not less important. For the Church in England this is an-other period of violent change, this time in the opposite direction. The innovations in religion of Edward’s reign were swept away, and a return was made, within limits, to the status quo of Henry VIII’s reign. In the main, this result was achieved through legislation, so that the chief material used here takes the form of statutes, although some of the religious difficulties of the period are best seen through some other types of source material.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY The historical literature dealing with the Church at this critical period in its history is formidable. Religion and politics are so closely related that many of the general political narratives are virtually accounts of the religious changes, and for this reason the bibliography in other Sections contains several important works which should be consulted. To avoid repetition they will not be listed here. The notes which follow will be concerned with the literature dealing specifically with problems in the institutional history of the Church in England. In addition to Conyers Read, there are good bibliographies of Church history in several of the works listed below. Especially useful are those in Constant, Hughes, and Muller. For articles and reviews note should be made of The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (1950–), and the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique (Louvain, 1900–65). For reference on theological problems see A.Vacant and E.Mangenot, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1909); H.J.Wetzer and B.Welte, Kirchenlexicon oder Encyklopädie der Katholischen Theologie (12 vols., Freiburg, 1847–60; 2nd edn., Wetzer-Kaulen, 13 vols., 1882–1903; French transl., I.Goschler, 26 vols., Paris, 1869). There is no lack of simple introductions to the history of the Church in the sixteenth century. T.M.Parker, The English Reformation to 1558 (1950) is a concise, scholarly statement of the main problems; F.M.Powicke, The Reformation in England (1941), repr. from E.Eyre (ed.), European Civilisation: its origin and development (1926), is a subtle analysis of ideas, not a simple factual account. In the comprehensive syndicate work, Histoire de l’Église depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours: ed. A.Fliche and V.Martin, vol. XVI, La Crise religieuse du XVIe Siècle (Paris, 1950); P.Janelle contributed four chapters on Le Schisme anglican; L’Angleterre protestante, Renaissance et fin du Catholicisme en Angleterre; and La Réforme en Écosse et en Irlande (311–452); a clear exposition. A more substantial but older handbook, which still supplies a useful frame-work of essential facts, is J.Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century from the accession of Henry VII to the death of Mary (A History of the English Church, vol. IV, ed. W.Hunt and W.R.W.Stephens, 1902). Intensive research into many problems in the religious history of the early sixteenth century has shown the inadequacy of these earlier surveys. A highly successful presentation of the results of such research has been made by A.G.Dickens, The English Reformation (1964). It is particularly revealing on the origins of the religious changes, and on the nature of early English protestantism. For those who prefer the more personal approach through biography there are a few good studies. Several of the leaders in Church affairs lived through the early Tudor period, and their biographies inevitably contain accounts of the main events. A list of the more important will be found in other Sections, but special note should be made of A.F.Pollard, Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation (1904); Joseph Ridley, Thomas Cranmer (1962), and the same author’s Nicholas Ridley (1957); J.A.Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (1926); C.Sturge, Cuthbert Tunstal (1938); D.S.Bailey, Thomas Becon and the Reformation of the Church in England (Edinburgh, 1952); and L.B.Smith, Tudor Prelates and Politics, 1536–38 (Princeton, 1953). Reading in this subject is complicated by the existence of a long list of Church histories written between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They present a difficult problem. These works neednot be read for their narrative, now sadly out of date, but they cannot be wholly ignored, for apart from the insight they give on changing attitudes to the events of the sixteenth century, they often contain important documents not elsewhere accessible in print. Such works include the early narrative by a contemporary Catholic controversialist, Nicholas Sanders, De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani liber (Cologne, 1585), translated with introduction

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and notes by D.Lewis, under title Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism (London, 1877); Thomas Fuller, Church History of Britain from the birth of Jesus Christ until the year 1648 (1655: best edition, J.S.Brewer, Oxford, 6 vols., 1845); Gilbert Burnet, History of the Reformation (1679–1715: best edition N.Pocock, 7 vols., Oxford, 1865), once regarded as the authoritative account, and still valuable for its solid appendices of documents; Jeremy Collier, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain (1708–14: best edition T.Lathbury, 9 vols., 1852); C.Dodd, The Church History of England from 1500–1688 (1737: best edition M.A.Tierney, 5 vols., 1839–43); and the works of John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials: relating chiefly to religion and the reformation ofit and the emergencies of the Church of England , under Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary (1721, 1733, best edition, 3 vols. Oxford 1820–40 and Memorials of Thomas Cranmer (1694, best edition, 3 vols. Oxford 1848–54). Strype was in possession of valuable sixteenth-century MSS., which he is suspected of having acquired in a very questionable way. They included the MSS. of John Foxe. Most of them later arrived in the Harleian and Lansdowne collections in the British Museum. Strype used this material freely in his own works, and despite the fact that he was not very accurate in deciphering them (especially if they were in Latin) later students have drawn heavily on the texts he included in his books. Some of this material, not used by Foxe or Strype was edited by J.G.Nichols, Narratives of the Days of the Reformation (Camden Soc., 77, 1859). From the later years of the nineteenth century ecclesiastical historians, writing from either Catholic or Protestant standpoint tried, with varying degrees of success, to treat the history of the English Reformation without the violent rancour so characteristic of all the earlier historians. Even so, however, the fact remains that each of them is bound to start from assumptions that must affect his interpretation of events. Allowance for this fact must be made in any assessment of even the most modern scientific histories of ecclesiastical affairs during this period. While Protestant scholars have been active in recent years in studying special problems of Church history few have undertaken a large-scale narrative embracing the whole of the early Tudor period. R.W.Dixon, History of the Church of England from the abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (6 vols., Oxford, 1878–1902) was a pioneer, with a work of solid scholarship written to modify the extreme Protestant views expressed by Froude in his History. Accepting that there was need for reform in the English Church at the opening of the sixteenth century, Dixon argued that it was accomplished through unworthy agents, who brought many disasters upon the Church in England. J.H.Blunt, The Reformation in the Church of England (2 vols., 1878), once a much-quoted account, was primarily a defence of the Anglican position rather than a sustained objective narrative. The most recent attempt to give a picture of the English Church in the early sixteenth century was that of Canon H.Maynard Smith, Pre-Reformation England (1938), and Henry VIII and the Reformation (1948). The author planned an account of the Reformation in England to the reign of Elizabeth I, but did not get beyond 1547. He was widely read in the printed sources, both primary and secondary, but did not claim to have made any original discoveries. From the Catholic side one of the more serious general surveys stressing the significance of the English schism under Henry VIII was J.Trésal, Les Origines du schisme anglican 1509–71 (Paris, 1908). The theme was developed by G.Constant, La Réforme en Angleterre (3 vols., Paris, 1930). There is an English translation, vol. I, by R.E.Scantlebury, The Reformation in England. The English Schism. Henry VIII: 1509–47 (1939), vol. II, by E.I.Watkin, Introduction of the Reformation into England. Edward VI (1547–53) (1941). This detailed narrative, covering all aspects of the English Reformation, is an interpretation by a conscientious worker, well read in the subject, acquainted with the problems and methods of modern scholarship, and concerned to give a straightforward summary of the results of recent research. Somewhat pedestrian in style, a compilation rather than a synthesis, this work received high tributes on its first appearance, but these have given place to more

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critical estimates as the work has been more closely studied. In the first volume the theme— not exactly an original one—is that the reign of Henry VIII was not the origin of the Protestant Reformation in England, but was a phase when England was in schism, when an experiment was made by the king to set up a national church, which denied papal jurisdiction but refused to accept the doctrinal heresies of the continental reformers. In the second volume the reign of Edward VI is described as the period when England moved from schism into Protestant doctrine, a phase beginning with the acceptance of Lutheran ideas, and ending in a fanatical Calvinism. The third volume deals with the reaction in Mary’s reign. P. Hughes, The Reformation in England (3 vols., 1950, 1953, 1954) goes over much the same ground in the first two volumes, but in a different way, and in the third volume is concerned with the Elizabethan Settlement. While his survey is on broad lines, and takes into account the influence of social and economic factors, he is especially interested, as a Catholic theologian, in doctrinal questions, and his discussion of them is particularly helpful. A rich monograph literature has dealt with many of the controversial problems, and some of the special aspects of the ecclesiastical history of the period. Naturally, considerable attention has been directed to the condition of the Church in England, the quality of its clergy, the attitude of the laity towards religion, and the general effects of the innovations as they became apparent in Edward VI’s reign. J.Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation (4 vols., 1908–13) explored the question of the survival of heretical opinions from the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. It is a book which, although it contains much interesting information, is not the most successful of this historian’s work. A fresh approach to these problems is that of A.G.Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York (1959), who, by considering the large area north of Trent, and digging deeply into the York archives, aims at showing, with as many concrete examples as possible, how the Reformation made its initial impact upon a regional society. This study reveals the significance of what the author describes as “a diffused but inveterate Lollardy revivified by contact with continental Protestantism”. See also his paper on “Heresy and the Origins of English Protestantism” in Britain and the Netherlands, ed. J.S.Bromley (1964, 47–66). Two later works dealing with similar problems are J.A.F.Thomson, The Later Lollards 1414–1520 (Oxford 1965) and J.E.Oxley, The Reformation in Essex to the death of Mary (Manchester, 1965). Other books dealing with conditions within the Church are F.A.Gasquet The Eve of the Reformation (1900), and J.H.Lupton, The Influence of Dean Colet upon the Reformation of the English Church (1893), while more recently, in a work of precise research, P.Janelle, L’Angleterre catholique à la veille du schisme (Paris, 1935) brought to light much fresh and interesting material for some of these problems. A pioneer study of the attitude of the English humanists towards the Church was that by F.Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers (1867). This theme has been treated more fully in the light of modern research by J.K.McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965). A study with a wider appeal than its title suggests is H.C.Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge, 1958). For the period after the breach with Rome until the Marian reaction, there is no adequate study of conditions within the Church, but some observations by N.Pocock, “The condition of morals and religious belief in the reign of Edward VI” (E.H.R. x, 1895, 417–444), are useful, while a picture of affairs in the diocese of Gloucester under Bishop Hooper can be gathered from J.Gairdner, “Bishop Hooper’s Visitation of Gloucester, 1551” (E.H.R.. xix, 1904, 98–121); G.Baskerville, “Elections to Convocation in the Diocese of Gloucester” (ibid. XLIX, 1929, 1–32); and F.D.Price, “Gloucester diocese under Bishop Hooper, 1551–3” (Trans. of the Bristol and Glouces. Archaeol. Society, LX, 1939, 51–151). The organization of the Church has not been as fully described for this period as could be wished. For the general background, F.Makower, Constitutional History of the Church of England (Engl. transl., 1895) and Irene J.Churchill, Canterbury Administration (2 vols., 1933) are necessary reference works. The most instructive description of the organization of

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the Church in England on the eve of the Reformation is A.Hamilton Thompson, The English Clergy and their Organization in the later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), in which a great authority describes the late medieval episcopate, the organization and administration of the diocese and the cathedral and collegiate churches and chapters, the personnel (parsons, vicars, and curates), the chantries and colleges of chantry-priests, and the state of the monasteries. The relation of the higher clergy to the State is the theme in E.T.Davies, Episcopacy and the Royal Supremacy in the Church of England in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1950) and L.B.Smith, Tudor Prelates and Politics (1953). T.F.Shirley, Thomas Thirlby: Tudor Bishop (1964), studies a typical Tudor prelate whose promotion to high ecclesiastical office was due to his successful career as an administrator and diplomat. A good account of the ecclesiastical courts and their jurisdiction will be found in Holdsworth, History of English Law, 1, 580–621, and B.L.Woodcock, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (1952). The problem of clerical immunity before the common law is the subject of a monograph by L.C.Gabel, Benefit of Clergy in the Middle Ages (Smith’s College Studies in History, XIV, i–iv, 1928–29, Northampton, Mass.) and I.D.Thornley deals with “The Destruction of Sanctuary” in Tudor Studies, 182–208. Henry VIII’s matrimonial difficulties, and especially the negotiations leading to the putting away of Catherine and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, were not mere incidents in the king’s private life. They opened up wide issues of public policy, led directly to the fall of Wolsey, challenged the principles of the canon law of marriage, the dispensing power of the Pope, and the nature and extent of papal jurisdiction in England. The tragedy of the human story has been told many times: by J.A.Froude, The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon (1891), in which are displayed all the historian’s prejudices and eloquence; W.H.Dixon, History of Two Queens: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn (4 vols., 3rd edn., 1873–74); P.Friedmann, Anne Boleyn, a chapter of English history (1884), a scholarly study based largely on Chapuy’s correspondence to the Emperor Charles V from the Vienna archives; and again in a finely balanced piece of scholarship, based on close knowledge of the emperor’s correspondence and other documents in the Vienna and Spanish archives and elsewhere, by G.Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon (1942). The legal aspects of the affair have not been examined very systematically, but some approach was made by J.Gairdner, “New light on the Divorce of Henry VIII” (E.H.R. XI, 1896, 673–702; XII, 1897, 1–16, 237–253); H.Thurston, “The canon law of the divorce” (E.H.R. XIX, 1904, 632–645). P.Crabites had the intelligence to realize that the legal problems were important, but in Clement VII and Henry VIII (tr. 1936) he showed little capacity for treating the subject adequately. G.Constant put together some useful notes in answer to one question: “Could Clement VII annul Henry VIII’s marriage?” in The Reformation in England, 1, App, II, 469–477. Another problem which had great possibilities was raised by E.Doernberg, Henry VIII and Luther (Stanford Univ. Press, 1961). This was nothing less than the personal relations of these two men, and their reactions one to the other. Unfortunately the author did not realize his opportunity and his book is disappointing although the question it raises is well worth consideration. Few topics have given such controversy as the question of the dissolution of the monasteries, and the confiscation of Church wealth. The main points in dispute have been whether the religious houses had outlived their usefulness, what truth there is in the charges of scandalous living brought against their inmates, and what were the effects upon English society and culture of such a large-scale re-distribution of monastic lands, and the squandering of artistic treasures. All these questions have been discussed in modern monographs. In treating them the tendency has been a steady progress towards objective analysis of the facts, and a general recognition of the complex interactions of such problems. Earlier opinion, expressed in such works as John Spelman, History of Sacrilege (written in 1632, but not published until 1698), T.Fuller, Church History (ed. 1845, III, 241–514), and summed up in what was long regarded as a definitive account by G.Burnet, History of

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the Reformation, was that the suppression was the result of public hostility against the religious, whose scandalous living was amply attested in the reports of the government agents sent into the country to investigate conditions in the religious houses. Reaction against this too-simplified view set in amongst nineteenth-century historians. F.A.Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (2 vols., 1888: other edns., 1902, 1906), and The Last Abbot of Glastonbury and his Companions (1895) made, what seemed for a time, a brilliantly successful effort to clear the religious houses of all those charges, but later research cast some dark shadows across the cardinal’s path. Gairdner, who was far better informed than Gasquet about the sources, both printed and manuscript, took up a more cautious position, although he was not on the side of the older writers. In Lollardy and the Reformation (II, Bk. 2, c. 2.) he gave his considered opinion that the reports of the government visitors were deliberate inventions to justify the spoiliation. He was sceptical about the possibility of getting exact evidence for the moral condition of the monasteries, although he considered that the information from the reports of episcopal visitations held a few years prior to the suppression was likely to be more reliable than the reports of the official visitors. In his opinion, while vice did on occasion make an appearance in religious houses, there was no clear evidence in the episcopal visitations that any house was seriously corrupted, or that the ecclesiastical authorities would have allowed such corruption to continue unchecked. Something of the old bitterness of controversy was revived in the writings of G.G.Coulton e.g. Medieval Studies (1915), Sectarian History (Taunton, 1937), Five Centuries of Religion (Cambridge, vol. IV, 1950). Great as Coulton’s learning undoubtedly was, his use of it was warped by personal animus against Gasquet and by the idiosyncrasies of his own historical technique, so that his conclusions on these problems of monastic life must be read with caution. The attitude of recent students of monastic history is more objective. They tend to reflect a feeling that too much attention has been devoted to the question of monastic morality: that the exigencies of government policy determined the fate of the monasteries, that one charge was as good as another to procure their destruction: that the question of the morals of the monks is only part of a larger problem, and that there are others still in need of close study. The best example of this modern approach is the outstanding full-scale study of monastic institutions in England, D.Knowles, The Religious Orders in England vol. II, The End of the Middle Ages: vol. III, The Tudor Age (Cambridge, 1955, 1959)., This is an indispensable reference work. Much that was formerly believed about the disposal of Church property, and the social implications of the dissolution of the monasteries, has been modified in the light of modern studies. The work of a Russian scholar, A Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, ed. P.VinogradofF, 1909) led the way, followed by G.Baskerville, English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries (1937) and “The dispossessed religious after the suppression of the monasteries” in Essays in History presented to R.L. Poole (Oxford, 1927), H.E.P.Grieve, “The Deprived Married Clergy in Essex 1553–61” (T.R.H.S. 4th series, xxii, 1940). Savine based his work on a scientific analysis of Church wealth as revealed in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, and the statistical evidence he presented was most illuminating. Baskerville interested himself in the fortunes of the religious after the dissolution, and, argued, perhaps optimistically, that they were not so hardly treated as some earlier writers had asserted. See modified view by A.G.Dickens (E.H.R. LV, 1940, 412) and also G.A.J.Hodgett, “The unpensioned ex-religious in Tudor England” (Journ. Eccl. Hist., 1962, 195–202), and Lincoln Rec. Soc. LIII, xvii-xix. An interesting study of some of the general tendencies of the land market as affected by the dissolution was made by S.B.Liljegren, The Fall of the Monasteries and the Social Changes in England leading up to the Great Rebellion (Lund, 1924). Similar but more limited studies are F.A.Hibbert, The Dissolution of the Monasteries as illustrated by the Suppression of the Religious Houses of Staffordshire (1910), G.A.J.Hodgett, “The dissolution of the religious

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houses in Lincolnshire, and the changing structure of society” (Lincs. Architect, and Arch. Soc. Rep. and Papers, N.S., IV, 1951, 83–99), Joyce A.Youings, Devon Monastic Lands: Calendar of Particulars for Grants (Devon and Cornwall Rec. Soc., N.S., 1) H.J.Habakkuk, “The Market for Monastic Property” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 2 Ser., X, 362–380). Some revealing glimpses of the process of dissolution in individual houses are given in J.W.Westlake, The Life and Times of Abbot John Islip of Westminster Abbey: the last days of the monastery, 1464–1532 (1921), E.Jeffries Davis, “The beginning of the dissolution: Christ Church, Aldgate, 1532” (T.R.H.S. 4th Ser., VIII, 1925, 127–150); W.A.J.Archbold, The Somerset Religious Houses (Cambridge, 1892); F.B. Andrew, “Pershore on the Eve of the Suppression, 1534–9” (Birmingham Arch. Soc. Trans. LVI, 1932 (1934), 77–101). The effects of the dissolution on cultural and intellectual life have not been fully discussed, but an interesting contribution is that of C.E.Wright, “The dispersal of the monastic libraries and the beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Studies” (Cambridge Bibliog. Soc. Trans. III, 1951, 208–237). The literature concerned with ritual, doctrine, and theological controversy is considerable. Only specialists need wrestle with the more technical works, but the layman cannot avoid all the issues. He must make acquaintance with some of the more general studies if he is to be in a position to judge the nature and extent of the innovations made within the Church in England during these years. Accounts of these changes form a goodly part of the general Church histories mentioned above, but special notice may be made of P.Hughes, op. cit. for a critical analysis from the Catholic side, while a more sympathetic exposition will be found in the works of Dixon and Gairdner. C.W.Dugmore, The Mass and the English Reformers (1958) is a fresh, authoritative study, tracing the doctrine and development of the Mass as it was inherited by the English Reformers. While not ignoring the influence upon them of the continental Reformers Dr Dugmore brings out more clearly than earlier writers have done the elements of originality in their ideas. This is a useful guide. Also worth notice are J.Wickham Legge, Cranmer’s Liturgical Projects (Henry Bradshaw Soc., 1915) and C.S.Cobb, The Rationale of Ceremonies 1540–43 (Alcuin Club, 1910), which contains an essay on ceremonial during the reign of Henry VIII. Among recent studies a distinctive contribution is that of E.G.Rupp, Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition (Cambridge, 1947), a scholarly work on the origins of the English reform movement, and the influence of the continental reformers upon developments in England. E.C.Messenger, The Reformation, the Mass, and the Priesthood (2 vols., 1936) deals with a highly controversial subject, that of Anglican orders, and touched off some violent criticisms on its first appearance. H.F.Woodhouse, The Doctrine of the Church in Anglican Theology, 1547–1603 (1954) is a good study of one aspect of the thought of the early reformers, although it applies more to the later part of the century. In this field, the work of Cranmer is, of course, of paramount importance. It is described, not always satisfactorily by most of his biographers, but their accounts need to be supplemented by C.H.Smyth, Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI (Cambridge, 1926), a provocative study by an Anglican theologian. His classification of Cranmer as a Suvermerian (a term which caused some confusion among critics until it was found to be evolved out of the German word Schwärmer) must not be held against him. His book is an able exposition of the influence of the continental reformers upon the development of Cranmer’s theological views. For a general background to Church services, H.B.Swete, Church Services and Service Books before the Reformation (1905) is a clear introduction, and F.E.Brightman, The English Rite (2 vols., 1915) is the authoritative reference work. Of the many books dealing with the formularies of Henry VIII’s reign, the analysis in Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation is workmanlike, but the standard reference work, with its useful collection of texts is C.Hardwick, A History of the Articles of Religion (Cambridge, 1851: London, 1904). Also worth consulting are E.C.S. Gibson, The Thirty-Nine Articles (1898), and E.H.Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1850).

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There is a large literature on the making of the Prayer Book. The most recent scholarly studies are E.C.Ratcliff, The Book of Common Prayer, its making and revising (1949), and his study of “The Liturgical Work of Cranmer” (Journ. Eccles. Hist, VII, 1956, 189–203); S.Morison, English Prayer Books: an introduction to the literature of Christian Public Worship (Cambridge, 1943:1949:3rd edn., 1949); and chapters by C.W.Dugmore and T.M.Parker in The English Prayer Books, 1549–1662 Alcuin Club, 1963). With these should be noticed a section on “The History of the Book of Common Prayer down to 1662”, by F.E.Brightman and K.D.MacKenzie, in a syndicate work Liturgy and Worship, ed. Lowther Clarke and C.H.Harris (1932), a companion to the Prayer Books of the Anglican communion. Earlier works which are still indispensable are W.H.Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer (1901: rev. edn., 1905. This work superseded F.Procter, History of the Book of Common Prayer, with a rationale of its offices (1855:11th edn., 1874) on which it is based; and the authoritative monograph with highly important illustrative source material, A.Gasquet and E.Bishop, Edward VI, and the Book of Common Prayer (1890; 1928). Some of the best of the older studies are J.H.Plumb, Annotated Book of Common Prayer (1866), a historical, ritual, and theological commentary; E.Daniel, The Prayer Book, its history, language, and contents (1877: rev,edns., 1885, 1888, 1913); J.I.Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles, and Homilies, some of the forgotten facts in their history (1897); J.Wickham Legg, Some Principles and Services of the Prayer Book historically considered (1890); J.Dowden, The Workmanship of the Prayer Book in its literary and liturgical aspects (1899), and Further Studies in the Prayer Book (1906), and J.H.Bainton, The Book of Common Prayer: Its origin and growth (Boston, 1910). The private devotional life of the period has been the subject of recent studies, notably through the Primers, those religious handbooks from which the young received their earliest education and religious instruction. The results can be seen in H.C.White, The Tudor Books of Private Devotion (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1951), and, more fully, in C.C.Butterworth, The English Primers, 1529–45 (Univ. of Penn., 1953). The literature of religious controversy is far too wide to be dealt with adequately here. The best that can be done is to indicate some of the main disputes of the period. The subject is discussed in a general way by J.P.Whitney, “Reformation Literature in England” (Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., III, 1909), and C.S.Lewis, Oxford Hist. Eng. Lit., vol. 1 (1954). Most of the questions at issue in the early years of the century, veneration and worship of images and relics, pilgrimages, clerical marriages, heresies, the Bible in English, and the like were summed up in the great battle of words between Tyndale and More. Accounts of this duel will be found in J. Mozley, Life of Tyndale, and R.W.Chambers, Thomas More, while the relevant texts are in the published works of the two writers. The much heralded, seldom read, and not very significant controversial effort against Luther, which is placed to the credit of Henry VIII himself, and for which he received the title of Fidei Defensor, is available in L.O’Donovan, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (New York, 1908). A monograph on the personal relations between that monarch and the reformer is E.Doernberg, Henry VIII and Luther (1961). Far more important was the long-drawn controversy on questions of doctrine, and indeed on general Church matters and policy, between Stephen Gardiner and Thomas Cranmer.J.A. Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction, J.Ridley, Thomas Cranmer, C.H.Smyth, Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI, and the various other biographies of Cranmer give the essentials. Gardiner’s spirited dispute with Martin Bucer on the question of clerical celibacy (in which Gardiner characteristically did not mince his words, calling Bucer a liar, and making contemptuous comments on his learning, later justifying himself with the plea that only the strongest language would pierce Bucer’s thick skin) is described in Muller, op. cit. Throughout the period the question which aroused the deepest feelings and produced the most weighty treatises and impassioned discussions was that on the nature of the sacrament of the altar. Some account of this controversy will be found in most of the secondary works

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dealing with the doctrine and thought of the English reformers, especially the detailed and fully documented survey by C.W.Dugmore, The Mass and the English Reformers (1958). Other reference works are Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1909); F.E.Brightman, The English Rite (1915); and F.Clark, S.J., Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (1960). Much more vivid is the impression which can be gained from the actual treatises themselves. The texts of some of the most important are listed below amongst the original sources. The period was an important one in the history of preaching. It produced some outstanding pulpit personalities, of whom the best known were Latimer, Gardiner, Lever, and Becon. While there is a considerable sermon literature available (see below), there has not been an adequate discussion of the subject by any modern writer. The following works supply some information. For the medieval background, and the debt the reformers owed to their medieval precursors, G.R.Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1926), and Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933) are the standard works. J.O.W.Haweis, Sketches of the Reformation (1844), an old-fashioned compilation, is inadequate, its only merit being its generous extracts from the sermons of the period. There is a good discussion of Latimer as a preacher in H.Chester, Life of Latimer (1953). The outdoor sermon, addressed to all estates in a public place (notably the pulpit of Paul’s Cross, London), was an important medieval institution. In M. Maclure, The Paul’s Cross Sermons, 1534–1642 (Univ. of Toronto Press, 1958) the author shows how theological conflict and government propaganda affected this institution during and after the Reformation. A subject of no small importance for the religious history of the period, on which the last word has not yet been said, is that of the relations between the English reformers and the leaders of continental thought, especially during the reign of Edward VI, when foreign reformers found a warm welcome in this country, and in the reign of Mary, when they and many of the English reformers had to flee to the Continent. The subject was slightly sketched by F.J.Smithen, Continental Protestantism and the English Reformation (1927), and more seriously in C.H.Smyth, Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI. The influence of Martin Bucer is considered by Constantin Hopf, Martin Bucer and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1946), which contains some important documents. The other side of the story came in Mary’s reign, but the full history of the exodus of the reformers, and the sorry sequel of adventures and tribulations of the several colonies of English refugees abroad, has not yet been fully told. The best collection of facts concerning them is C.H.Garrett, The Marian Exiles, 1553–59 (Cambridge, 1938). A lively impression of some of the reformers, and incidentally much interesting evidence on English life during the reign of Edward VI and Mary, is supplied in H.Robinson, Original Letters relative to the English Reformation (Parker Soc., 1846), a collection of letters translated from originals in the Zürich archives. The Latin texts were printed as Epistolae Tigurinae (Parker Soc., 1848). Not the least achievement of this period was the making of the English Bible. The subject has a considerable bibliography, from which the following are selected as adequate guides for further reading: H.W.Robinson (ed.), The Bible in its Ancient and English Versions (Oxford, 1950), contains an admirable survey of the work done by the earlier translators, in a chapter by J.Isaacs on the sixteenth-century English versions (146–195); B.F.Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible, is a standard work (1868; 1872: rev. edition by W.Aldis Wright, 1905). Studies also worth consulting are F.Fry, A Description of the Great Bible, 1539, and the editions of Cranmer’s Bible: 1540 and 1541 (1865); H.Guppy, William Tyndale and the Earlier Translations of the Bible into English (Manchester, 1928); and A Brief Sketch of the History of the Transmission of the Bible (1926); J.F.Mozley, William Tyndale (1937) and Coverdale and his Bibles (1953); F.F.Bruce, The English Bible. A history of translations (1961); and H.R. Willoughby The First Authorized English Bible and the Cranmer Preface (Chicago, 1942).

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ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES The history of the Church during the early Tudor period has not been illustrated by a representative collection of documents similar to those available for constitutional or economic history. The nearest approach to such a collection is H.Gee and W.J.Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History (1896), but this is a general collection with space for only a few essential documents from the sixteenth century. The main legislation connected with the Church is represented in G.R.Elton. The Tudor Constitution. Of the older collections of material still used by historians the most important are those in the works of Burnet and Strype. Two important collections of documents illustrating special topics of Church history are N.Pocock, Records of the Reformation (2 vols., Oxford, 1870) and the same editor’s Troubles connected with the Prayer Book of 1549 (C. S. New Ser. 37, 1884).

I. OFFICIAL RECORDS (a) SECULAR Since some of the most significant changes of the English Reformation were instituted through legislation in Parliament, or by royal proclamation, all parliamentary records, e.g. the statutes, the journals of both houses, and royal proclamations, are indispensable. For a description of such records see p. 440. Some of the legislation resulted in administrative action, records of which, in the form of inquisitions and returns, are amongst the public records. Some examples will show the inter-relationships of such records. Thus, in accordance with the St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 3, by which first-fruits and tithes were taken over by the Crown, orders were given for a survey of the wealth of all benefices in England and Wales. The information thus obtained was sent into Chancery. This collection of returns, edited in the nineteenth century by J.Caley and J. Hunter, was published under the title Valor Ecclesiasticus (1810–34). Although not complete for the whole country this material, which may well be described as a “Domesday Book” of Church property, is of great significance. It formed the basis of A.Savine’s study of the monasteries, and frequent references to it will be found in modern monographs. So, too, the legislation which brought about the dissolution of the monasteries and of the chantries gave rise to various types of public records. Some of them have been printed. Much detailed information about the lands and buildings belonging to the monasteries, and the names of the new owners by whom they were acquired, will be found in the enrolments of the deeds whereby they changed hands, entered on the close and patent rolls. These are available in the Calendars and in the Letters and Papers. Other records with a bearing on these topics have been published. Some interesting evidence is contained in J.W.Clay, Yorkshire Monasteries, Suppression Papers (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Series, XLVIII, 1912); M.E.C.Walcott, “Inventories and Valuations of Religious Houses at the time of the Dissolution” (Archaeologia, XLIII, 1871, 201–249); J.Youings, Devon Monastic Lands. Calendar of Particulars for Grants, 1536–58 (Devon and Cornwall Rec. Soc., N.S., 1, 1955). Some revealing correspondence comprising about 150 letters from the commissions appointed to superintend the dissolution of the religious houses, which gives an insight into the methods of the commissioners, and throws light on conditions within some houses, was printed by T. Wright, Three Chapters of Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries (C.S., XXVI, 1843). The policy of spoliation of Church property, continued by the legislation against the chantries, produced another type of record of considerable interest for Church history, the Chantry certificates and the Inventories of Church Goods. The inventories, in the form of indentures between the king’s commisioners and the churchwardens, exist in considerable numbers for the reign of Edward VI. They are of the greatest value for the information they give on the progress and nature of the religious innovations of the Reformation, and they

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have no equivalent in the records of any other country. There are several collections in print. W.Page, Inventories of Church Goods for Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland (Surtees Soc., 97, 1897), and R.Graham, The Edwardian Inventories for Oxfordshire (Alcuin Club Coll., XXIII, 1920), both have excellent introductions. The Alcuin Club also published the inventories for Bedfordshire (vol. VI, 1905), for Huntingdonshire (VII, 1906), and for Buckinghamshire (IX, 1908). Enough has been said to suggest the importance of the public records for material bearing on most aspects of Church history. To list all such sources would result in much repetition, so a general reference to the Sections in which such sources are described must suffice. In what follows attention will be concentrated on the main types of source material provided by the working of ecclesiastical institutions.

(b) ECCLESIASTICAL RECORDS (i) General The most important general collection of ecclesiastical records consists of reports of the proceedings of the clergy in Convocation. They are collected in D.Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae (4 vols., 1737). Valuable as the texts in this work are, the standards of editing hardly conform to the requirements of modern scholarship, and a new edition is needed. With this work should be linked G.W.Kitchen, Records of the Northern Convocation (Surtees Soc., 113, 1907), which contains records taken from the archiepiscopal registers at York, and material from the episcopal registers of Durham and Carlisle. A standard reference work for the identification of members of the hierarchy of the Church of England is still John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1716), ed. T.D.Hardy, 3 vols., Oxford, 1854. A new edition is being published (University of London, Institute of Historical Research) in a series of parts, the first series being devoted to the higher clergy of the period 1300–1541.

(ii) Diocesan Records ’

(a) Bishops Registers. For this, as for earlier periods, episcopal registers are still an important source for ecclesiastical affairs, but unfortunately only a few are in print, mainly as publications of the Canterbury and York Society. The best descriptive guide to them is R.C.Fowler, Episcopal Registers of England and Wales (1918). Registers in print include: Durham: M.Howden, Register of Richard Fox, 1494–1501 (Surtees Soc., 147, 1932); G.Hinde, The Registers of Cuthbert Tunstall, 1530–59 (Surtees Soc., 161, 1952). Winchester: H.Chitty, Registers of Thomas Wolsey, 1529–30 (Canterbury and York Soc., 1926); of Stephen Gardiner and John Poynet, 1531–55 (1930); of John White, 1556–59 (1915). Hereford: A.T.Bannister, Register of Richard Mayew, 1504–16 (1921); of Charles Bothe, 1516–1535; of Edward Fox, 1535–38; and of Edmund Bonner, 1538–39 (1921). Bath and Wells: E.C.Batten, Register of Richard Fox, 1492–4 (1889), and The Registers of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1466–1491, and Richard Fox…1492–96, and of Oliver King, 1503–18, ed. H.C.Maxwell Lyte (Somerset Rec. Soc., 52, 54, 1937). A short description of Cardinal Morton’s register as Archbishop is given by Claude Jenkins in Tudor Studies (26–74). (b) Cathedral Statutes. The effects of the religious changes upon some of the cathedrals can be seen in two collections of documents. The first by W.T.Mellows, Peterborough Local Administration. II. The Foundation of Peterborough Cathedral, 1541 (Northants. Rec. Soc., XIII, 1941), comprises a series of documents relating to the surrender of the monastery, the administration of its temporalties during the interregnum before the establishment of the cathedral, and the early government of the cathedral by the Dean and Chapter. The second

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by A.H.Thompson, The Statutes of the Cathedral Church of Durham with other documents relating to its foundation and endowment by King Henry the Eighth and Queen Mary (Surtees Soc., 143, 1929), deals with similar problems at Durham. See also R.E.G.Cole, Chapter Acts of the Cathedral Church of St. Mary of Lincoln, 1520–59 (3 vols., Lincoln Rec. Soc., 1915, 1917–1920). (c) Visitations and Injunctions. Episcopal visitations and injunctions are indispensable for all studies of the conditions prevailing in the religious houses, and for the general state of religious life in the country. A representative collection of such documents is edited by W.H.Frere and W.M.Kennedy, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the period of the Reformation (Alcuin Club Coll., 11, 1910). This contains a useful introduction on the theory, history, and practice of episcopal and other visitations. Also important are A.Hamilton Thompson, Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–31 (Lincs. Rec. Soc., 3 vols., 1940, 1944, 1947); A.F.Leach, Visitations and Memorials of Southwell Minster (C.S., 1891); A.Jessop, Visitations of the Diocese of Norwich, 1492–1532 (C.S., N.S., XLIII, 1888); F.A.Gasquet, Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia (C.S., 3rd Ser., VI, X, XII, 1904–06). These episcopal visitations must not be confused with the reports on monasteries sent to Cromwell by the special visitors responsible for preparing their surrenders. The former were the product of the regular routine of episcopal duties long established within the medieval church, the latter, masquerading under the same title of Comperta, contained highly tendentious matter, and were in every sense of the word, extraordinary documents. (d) Records of Ecclesiastical Courts. Records of proceedings in ecclesiastical courts would be of considerable value if they were complete for the period, but few examples are available in print. The best-known collection of cases, although it is not a large one, is W.H.Hale, Precedents in Criminal Cases (1847). This consists of extracts from the act-books of ecclesiastical courts in the London diocese for the period 1475–1600. A mixed collection of similar documents, some of which are for the period, is J.Raine, Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham (Surtees Soc., XXI, 1845), while A.Clark, Lincoln Diocese Documents (E.E.T.S., CXLIX, 1914), contains specimens of documents illustrating the archidiaconal courts, and proceedings against heretics.

(iii) Parish Records (a) Churchwardens’ Accounts. Regular statements of expenses connected with the upkeep of the parish church were not a novelty in the early sixteenth century, although they increase in number and size during this period. They provide a valuable source of varied information, for the details they often give reflect the progress of religious innovations, details about the state of the Church fabric and furniture, and some data illustrating social and economic life. The best description of them is J.C.Cox, Churchwardens’ Accounts from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century (1913), and there is a list of them in print to date by E.Phelips, E.H.R., XV, 1900, 335–341, but since then many others have been published. W.T.Mellows, Peterborough Local Administration. I. Parochial Government before the Reformation (Northants. Rec. Soc., 1939) is an admirable collection of documents illustrating the administrative history of the period It includes a typical set of churchwardens’ accounts: J.H.Parker and W.H.St John Hope Records of Buckinghamshire (1899, 103–145), contains a remarkable series of inventories of the parish church of High Wycombe, which give a striking picture of the contents of a medieval parish church in a way that no Edwardian inventories can do. They were made for the guardians of the property with a view to preservation, and not, as the Edwardian inventories were, under outside pressure and with the intention of confiscation. The series consists of inventories from 1475, 1503, 1518–19, 1552, and one list late in the reign of Edward VI or Mary. These documents were reprinted in F.C.Eeles, The Edwardian Inventories for Buckinghamshire (Alcuin Club Coll., IX, 1905, App. V). So, too, a detailed picture of the administration of a country parish during the

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period is revealed in J.S.Purvis, “The Churchwardens’ Book of Sheriff Hutton, 1524–68” (Yorks. Arch.Journ. XXXV, 1945, ii, 178–189). Beginning with a copious inventory of church goods (1524) the yearly statements of accounts go on to reflect the changes under Henry VIII, the sweeping destruction of vestments and ornaments under Edward VI, and the provision of a Communion Table and other necessaries according to the reforms of that reign. Then under Mary the churchwardens have to refit their church replacing most of what had been removed and destroyed. As Mr Peyton remarks: “The Reformation may be studied in the legislation enacted by Parliament, or in the controversial literature of the time, but here it may be studied in a brilliant light, in its actual impact on a typical parish.”

II. ARTICLES OF RELIGION AND FORMULARIES OF FAITH The experiments in doctrinal change during the period can be followed in the several formularies of faith and the articles of religion. The most useful collection is that of C.Lloyd, Formularies of Faith put forth by authority during the reign of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1825). This contains the Ten Articles (1536); the Institutes of a Christian Man (the Bishop’s Book, 1537); and A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man (the King’s Book, 1543). E.Cardwell, Synodalia (Oxford, 2 vols., 1842), is a collection of articles of religion, canons, and proceedings of convocation in the province of Canterbury, 1547–1717. Some useful texts are appended to C.Hardwick, A History of the Articles of Religion (Cambridge, 1851: London, 1904). The Homilies were edited by J.Griffith, The Two Books of Homilies appointed to be read in Churches (Oxford, 1859). For changes in the liturgy the following texts are essential: C.S.Cobb, The Rationale of Ceremonial, 1540–43 (Alcuin Club, 1910), which contains notes, appendices, and an essay on the regulation of ceremonial during the reign of Henry VIII; J.W.Legg, Cranmer’s Liturgical Projects (Henry Bradshaw Soc., 1, 1915) valuable for its scholarly introduction and notes; J.Ketley, The Two Liturgies. A.D. 1549 and A.D. 1552, with other documents set forth by authority in the reign of Edward VI (Parker Soc., 1844); and H.A.Wilson, The Order of Communion of 1548 (Henry Bradshaw Soc., 1908), a facsimile edition. For study of the Primers some texts are in E.Burton, Three Primers put forth in the reign of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1834), which contains I.A Goodly Primer, 1535; II. The Manual of Prayers or the Prymer in English, 1539; and III. King Henry’s Primer, 1545. The stages in the Edwardian innovations can be seen by a comparison of the two Prayer Books. There are several editions. For general purposes the following are the most convenient. E.Cardwell, The Two Books of Common Prayer set forth by authority of Parliament in the reign of Edward the Sixth compared with each other (Oxford, 1838:1841); J.Ketley, The Two Liturgies, A.D. 1549 and 1552 (Parker Soc., 1844). There is also additional material, viz., The Order of Communion, 1548; The Primer, 1553; the Catechism and Articles, 1553; the Catechism Brevis, 1553. Convenient editions are The First Prayer Book of King Edward VI, 1549, and The Second Prayer Book of King Edward VI, 1552 (The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature, 2 vols., n.d.), and one by E.C.S.Gibson, in the Everyman Library (1910).

III. THEOLOGICAL TREATISES, SERMONS, ETC. There is no lack of printed texts containing the theological writings, sermons, and letters of the religious leaders of the time. Much of this material has been produced for special societies. The Parker Society, working between 1840 and 1855 was founded, in the words of the Society’s prospectus, “to republish the entire mass of the printed works of the leading divines of our reformed church, who flourished in the age when the Roman yoke, which pressed so grievously upon our forefathers, was broken, and to add the pieces from their pens, if any such could be found, that were still lying in manuscript unpublished”. Despite the tendentious language of

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this prospectus, the work of the editors was, in the main, carried out in a scholarly manner. Although the Society did not fully achieve its plans, it did good work: some 54 volumes were published, covering the works of the best-known reformers, and an Index volume to the whole series was published (Parker Soc., Cambridge, 1855). The Henry Bradshaw Society, founded in 1890 for the editing of rare liturgical texts, has published some texts and facsimiles valuable for the early Reformation. The Alcuin Club, founded in 1899 for the promotion of the study of the history and use of the Book of Common Prayer, has also produced some important texts. Other societies which have contributed materially to this type of material are the Camden Society, the Surtees Society, and the Early English Text Society. A recent society publication of great interest is A.G.Dickens (ed.), Tudor Treatises (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser., 125, 1959), which contains three works with a bearing on Reformation problems. The first is “A Treatise concerning Impropriations of Benefices” by Sir Francis Bigod, written about 1535. It is critical of monastic standards, calls for the seizure of appropriated benefices to provide for the institution and adequate endowment of a preaching and teaching clergy. The second consists of some treatises by Robert Parkyn, priest, which “clearly belong to the contemplative or mystical tradition of Christianity”. The third is a discourse on “The Fall of Religious Houses” by Michael Sherbrook written somewhere between 1567 and 1591, in which he aimed at justifying the monasteries and exposing the selfishness and the social evils attendant upon their dissolution. From all these societies, augmented by the contributions of private scholars, there has been made available a considerable corpus of early sixteenth century theological literature. The following is a representative selection: John Colet (?1467–1519). His works are valuable as an illustration of religious thought and of conditions within the English Church on the eve of the Reformation. His much-quoted sermon to the clergy in Convocation (1511) was printed by J.H.Lupton, Life of Colet (1887). Lupton also translated the following works by Colet: Two Treatises on the Hierarchies of Dionysius (1869); An Exposition of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (1873); An Exposition of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (1874). John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (?1459–1533). Some of his works were edited by J.E.B. Mayor, Fisher’s English Works (E.E.T.S., XXVII, 1876). They include the well-known funeral sermons on Lady Margaret Beaufort, and Henry VII. William Tyndale (?1490–1536). The most important of his writings were edited for the Parker Society by A.Walter. They include Doctrinal Treatises and Introductions to different portions of the Holy Scriptures (1846), which contain “The Parable of the Wicked Mammon” and “The Obedience of a Christian Man”; Tyndale’s Expositions, and Practice of Prelates (1849); An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue, etc. (1850). Sir ThomasMore (1478–1535). For bibliography see p. 246–7. Of special importance for theological controversy is The Apologye of Syr T.More (1533), edited by A.I.Taft (E.E.T.S., 1939). Christopher St Germain (?1460–1540). His Dialogus de fundamentis legum Anglie et de conscientia (1523) has been reprinted many times in English as Doctor and Student. His Treatise concernynge the division between the spiritualite and temporaltie (1532) was reprinted by A.I.Taft, The Apologye (ut sup.). There are no modern editions of A Dialogue betwixte two englyshemen, whereof one was called Salem and the other Bizance (1533); A treaty se concerninge the power of the clergye: and the lawes of the realm (1535?). Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559). His chief theological work was his defence of the sacramental doctrine of the Roman Church, the De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi in Eucharistia (1554). There is no English version of the complete book, but the preface was promptly translated and used as an introduction to John Bullingham’s Oration in Defence of the Sacrament of the Altar (1537). Hugh Latimer (?1485–1555). The best known of all the preachers of the period, frequently

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quoted for his revealing sidelights on social conditions. Not specially significant as a theologian, although his stand with Ridley and Cranmer in 1553, described in his works, is important. His sermons and letters were edited for the Parker Society by H.E.Coxe, Latimer’s Sermons (1844), Sermons and Remains (1845). There is a handy selection from his sermons edited by H.C.Beeching (Everyman Library, 1906). Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556). There are two equally valuable editions of his main writings, and both are used by modern historians: The Remains of Thomas Cranmer, edited by H. Jenkyns (Oxford, 4 vols., 1837), and Works, edited by J.F.Cox (Parker Society, 2 vols., 1844). Nicholas Ridley (?1500–1555). One of the leading exponents of the new religious thought, especially concerning the sacrament of the altar. The Parker Society edition of his treatises, sermons, and letters was edited by H.Christmas, Works (1843). Included in this is a long report of the famous disputation at Oxford in which Ridley, Cranmer, and Latimer were questioned concerning their opinions on the Lord’s Supper. There is an independent edition of one of his most significant treatises by F.H.Moule, A Brief Declaration of the Lord’s Supper (1895). John Bale (1495–1563). There is a short selection of his theological writings in H.Christmas, Select Works (Parker Soc., 1849). Myles Coverdale (1488–1568). A good selection from his numerous writings, and nearly all his letters, was edited for the Parker Society by G.Pearson (2 vols., 1844). John Hooper (d. 1555). Representative selections of his works are in the Parker Society, Early Writings, edited by S.Carr (1843), and Later Writings, edited by C.Nevinson (1852). Thomas Becon (1512–1567). This popular preacher and writer was handsomely treated by the Parker Society in J.Ayre’s edition, Works (3 vols., 1843–44). His various writings contain much material illustrating social customs, and many aspects of the life and religious thought of the time. Thomas Lever (1521–1577). His popularity as a preacher was great, but not many of his sermons are in print. He revised for publication three of his sermons preached at St Paul’s Cross in 1550 (1570). They were reprinted by E.Arber (1871).

IV. THE ENGLISH BIBLE The original materials concerned with the translation of the Bible into English are considerable. It will be enough to select some of the most important. A useful collection of documents, which has long since become a standard reference book is A.W.Pollard, Records of the English Bible (Oxford, 1911). It contains documents relating to the translation and publication of the Bible in English during the period 1525–61. For a comprehensive list of editions of the English Bible down to 1640, A.W.Pollard and G.R.Redgrave, Short Title Catalogue is indispensable. Tyndale’s earliest translation of the New Testament, the Cologne fragment (1525), represented by the Grenville copy in the British Museum, consists of 31 leaves (sigs. A–H), and ends at Matthew xxii. A facsimile reprint was issued by E.Arber (1871), and another by A.W.Pollard (Oxford, 1926). Tyndale’s first complete New Testament, printed by P.Schoeffer at Worms 1525 or 1526 (of which there are two copies, one in the library of the Baptist College, Bristol, lacking only the titleleaf, and one in the library of St Paul’s Cathedral (imperfect), was edited by G.Offer, with a memoir (1856), and a facsimile reprint was edited by F.Fry (Bristol, 1862). Coverdale’s Bible, the first complete English Bible (1535) was reprinted by S.Bagster (1838), and again, with a memoir (1847). There is a facsimile edition, F.Fry, The Bible by Coverdale 1535 (1867). Matthew’s Bible, printed at Antwerp for Richard Grafton and E.Whitchurch, 1537,

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combined the work of Tyndale and Coverdale, and is regarded as the real primary version of the English Bible. Taverner’s English version of the Bible, printed by John Byddell for Thomas Berthelet (1539), was a revised edition of Matthew’s Bible, in which the marginal notes by Matthew were incorporated together with additional annotations by Taverner. The Great Bible, printed by Richard Grafton and E.Whitchurch (1539), was a revision of Matthew’s Bible by Coverdale. A facsimile edition was made by F.Fry, A Description of the Great Bible (1539) and the six editions of Cranmer’s Bible (1865). The English Hexapla (1841) contains Tyndale’s New Testament (1534), Coverdale’s (1539), the Genevan Bible of 1557, and the Rheims Bible (1583). J.I.Mombert, English Versions of the Bible (1883), contains collected texts including, amongst others, those of Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew, Taverner, and the Great Bible.

A. THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION 77. An act for bishops to punish priests and other religious men for dishonest life. St. 1 Hen. VII, c. 4, 1485 (Stat. Realm, II, 500, 1485)

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or the more sure and likely reformation of priests, clerks, and religious men culpable, or by their demerits openly noised of incontinent living in their bodies contrary to their order Be it enacted…that it be lawful to all archbishops and bishops and other ordinaries having episcopal jurisdiction, to punish and chastise such priests, clerks, and religious men being within the bounds of their jurisdiction, as shall be convict before them, by examination and other lawful proof requisite by the law of the Church, of avowtry, fornication, incest, or any other fleshly incontinency, by committing them to ward and prison, there to abide for such time as shall be thought to their discretions convenient for the quality and quantity of their trespasses; and that none of the said archbishops, bishops or other ordinaries be therefor chargeable of, to, or upon any action of false or wrongful imprisonment, but that they be utterly thereof discharged in any of the cases aforesaid by virtue of this act.

78. An act to take away the benefit of clergy from certain persons. St. 4 Hen. VII, c. 13, 1489 (Stat. Realm, II, 538)

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hereas upon trust of privilege of the Church divers persons lettered hath been the more bold to commit murder rape robbery theft and all other mischivous deeds, because they have been continually admitted to the benefice of the clergy as oft as they did offend in any of the premisses: In avoiding of such presumptuous boldness, be it enacted…that every person not being within orders, which once hath been admitted to the benefice of his clergy, eftsoons arraigned of any such offence, be not admitted to have the benefice or privilege of his clergy; and that every such person so convicted of murder, to be marked with a M. upon the brawn of the left thumb, and if he he for any other felony, the same person to be marked with a T. in the same place of the thumb, and these marks to be made by the gaoler openly in the court before the judge, ere that such person be delivered to the Ordinary. Provided always that if any person at the second time of asking his clergy, because he is within orders, hath not then and there ready his letters of his orders or a certificate of his Ordinary witnessing the same, that then the justice before whom he is so arraigned shall give him a day by his discretion to bring in his said letters or certificate; and if he fail and bring not in at such day his said letters nor certificate, then the same person to lose the benefice of his clergy as he shall do that is without orders.

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[79]

79. A Ccriticism of the English clergy, 1511 (J.H.Lupton, Life of John Colet, App. C, 293–304) This sermon is remarkable not merely for its theme, but even more so for the circumstances under which it was delivered. Convocation had been summoned to consider means for suppressing heresy. Colet, Dean of St Paul’s, better known at this time as a commentator on the Scriptures, and as the founder of a school than as a critic of morals, was chosen to preach the opening sermon. Instead of preparing the way for a debate on heresy he launched this attack on the ignorance and other shortcomings of the clergy, and advocated the urgent need for reform of the Church from within. His remarks aroused much resentment, and led to charges of heresy against him, but these Archbishop Warham refused to accept. Colet’s sermon was immediately printed as Oratio habita ad Clerum in Convocatione (1511). An English translation, attributed to Colet, also appeared.

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e are come together today, fathers and right wise men, to enter council; in the which, what ye will do, and what matters ye will handle, yet we understand not. But we wish that once, remembering your name and profession, ye would mind the reformation of the Church’s matter. For it was never more need, and the state of the church did never desire more your endeavours. For the spouse of Christ, the Church, whom ye would should be without spot or wrinkle, is made foul and evil-favoured, as saith Esaias: The faithful city is made an harlot. And as said Hieremias: She hath done lechery with many lovers, whereby she hath conceived many seeds of wickedness, and daily bringeth forth very foul fruit. Wherefore I came hither today, fathers, to warn you that in this your council, with all your mind, ye think upon the reformation of the church. But forsooth I came not willingly, for I knew mine unworthiness. I saw beside how hard it was to please the precise judgment of so many men. For I judged it utterly unworthy and unmeet, yea and almost too malapert, that I, a servant, should counsel my lords; that I, a son, should teach you, my fathers. Truly it had been meeter for some one of the fathers; that is to say, you prelates might have done it with more grave authority and greater wisdom. But the commandment was to be obeyed of the most reverend father and lord the archbishop, president of this council, which laid upon me this burden, truly too heavy for me. We read that the prophet Samuel said: Obedience is better than sacrifice. Wherefore, fathers and right worthy men, I pray you and beseech you that this day ye would sustain my weakness with your goodness and patience; furthermore, to help me at the beginning with your good prayers. And before all things let us pray unto God the Father Almighty: first remembering our most holy father the pope, and all spiritual pastors, with all Christian people; furthermore, the most reverend father and lord the archbishop, president of this council, and all bishops, and all the clergy, and all the people of England; remembering finally this your congregation, desiring God to inspire your minds so accordingly to agree, to such profit and fruit of the church, that ye seem not, after the council finished, to have been gathered together in vain and without cause. Let us all say Pater Master. To exhort you, reverend fathers, to the endeavour of reformation of the church’s estate, (because that nothing hath so disfigured the face of the Church as hath the fashion of secular and worldly living in clerks and priests) I know not where more conveniently to take beginning of my tale than of the apostle Paul, in whose temple ye are gathered

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together. For he, writing unto the Romans, and under their name unto you, saith: Be you not conformed to this world, but be you reformed in the newness of your understanding; that ye may prove what is the goodwill of God, well pleasing and perfect. This did the apostle write to all Christian men, but most chiefly unto priests and bishops. Priests and bishops are the light of the world. For unto them said our Saviour: You are the light of the world. And he said also: If the light that is in thee be darkness, how dark shall the darkness be? That is to say, if priests and bishops, that should be as lights, run in the dark way of the world, how dark then shall the secular people be? Wherefore Saint Paul said chiefly unto priests and bishops: Be you not comformable to this world, but be ye reformed. In the which words the apostle doeth two things. First, he doth forbid that we be not conformable to the world and be made carnal. Furthermore he doth command that we be reformed in the spirit of God, whereby we are spiritual. I intending to follow this order, I will speak first of confirmation, then after of reformation. Be you not (saith he) conformable to this world. The apostle calleth the world the ways and manner of secular living, the which chiefly doth rest in four evils of this world: that is to say, in devilish pride, in carnal concupiscence, in worldly covetousness, in secular business. These are in the world, as saint John the apostle witnesseth in his epistle canonical. For he saith: All thing that is in the world is either the concupiscence of the flesh or the concupiscence of the eyes, or pride of life. The same are now and reign in the church, and in men of the church; that we may seem truly to say, all thing that is in the church is either concupiscence of flesh, or eyes, or pride of life. And first for to speak of pride of life: how much greediness and appetite of honour and dignity is nowadays in men of the Church? How run they, yea, almost out of breath, from one benefice to another; from the less to the more, from the lower to the higher? Who seeth not this? Who seeing this sorroweth not? Moreover, these that are in the same dignities, the most part of them doth go with so stately a countenance and with so high looks, that they seem not to be put in the humble bishopric of Christ, but rather in the high lordship and power of the world, not knowing nor advertising what Christ the master of all meekness said unto his disciples, whom he called to be bishops and priests: The princes of people (saith he) have lordship of them, and those that be in authority have power: but do ye not so: but he that is greater among you, let him be minister; he that is highest in dignity, be he the servant of all men. The son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister. By which words our Saviour doth plainly teach that the mastery in the church is none other thing than a ministration, and the high dignity in a man of the church to be none other thing than a meek service. The second secular evil is carnal concupiscence. Hath not this vice so grown and waxen in the Church as a flood of their lust, so that there is nothing looked for more diligently in this most busy time of the most part of priests than that that doth delight and please the senses? They give themselves to feasts and banqueting; they spend themselves in vain babbling; they give themselves to sports and plays; they apply themselves to hunting and hawking; they drown themselves in the delights of this world. Procurers and finders of lusts they set by. Against the which kind of men Judas the apostle crieth out in his epistle saying: Woe unto them which have gone the way of

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Cain. They are foul and beastly, feasting in their meats, without fear feeding themselves; floods of the wild sea, forming out their confusions: unto whom the storm of darkness is reserved for everlasting. Covetousness is the third secular evil, the which Saint John the apostle calleth concupiscence of the eyes. Saint Paul calleth it idolatry. This abominable pestilence hath so entered in the mind almost of all priests, and so hath blinded the eyes of the mind, that we are blind to all things but only unto those which seem to bring unto us some gains. For what other thing seek we nowadays in the Church than fat benefices and high promotions? Yea, and in the same promotions, of what other thing do we pass upon than of our tithes and rents? that we care not how many, how chargeful, how great benefices we take, so that they be of great value. O covetousness! St. Paul justly called thee the root of all evil. Of thee cometh this heaping of benefices upon benefices. Of thee so great pensions assigned of many benefices resigned. Of thee, all the sueing for tithes, for offering, for mortuaries, for dilapidations, by the right and title of the church. For the which thing we strive no less than for our own life. O covetousness! of thee cometh these chargeful visitations of bishops. Of thee cometh the corruptness of courts, and these daily new inventions wherewith the silly people are so sore vexed. Of thee cometh the besyte (?) and wantonness of officials. O covetousness! mother of all iniquity, of thee cometh this fervent study of ordinaries to dilate their jurisdictions. Of thee cometh this mad and raging contention in ordinaries; of thee, insinuation of testaments; of thee cometh the undue sequestration of fruits; of thee cometh the superstitious observing of all those laws that sound to any lucre, setting aside and despising those that concern the amendment of manners. What should I rehearse the rest? To be short, and to conclude at one word: all corruptness, all the decay of the Church, all the offences of the world, come of the covetousness of priests; according to that of Saint Paul, that here I repeat again and beat into your ears: covetousness is the root of all evil. The fourth secular evil that spotteth and maketh ill favoured the face of the church, is the continual secular occupation, wherein priests and bishops nowadays doth busy themselves, the servants rather of men than of God; the warriors rather of this world than of Christ. For the apostle Paul writeth unto Timothy: No man, being God’s soldier, turmoil himself with secular business. The warring of them is not carnal but spiritual. For our warring is to pray, to read, and study scriptures, to preach the word of God, to minister the sacraments of health, to do sacrifice for the people, and to offer hosts for their sins. For we are mediators and means unto God for men. The which saint Paul witnesseth, writing to the Hebrews: Every bishop (saith he) taken of men, is ordained for men in those things that be unto God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Wherefore those apostles that were the first priests and bishops did so much abhor from all manner of meddling of secular things, that they would not minister the meat that was necessary to poor people, although that were a great work of virtue; but they said: it is not meet that we should leave the word of God and serve tables; we will be continually in prayer, and preaching the word of God. And Saint Paul crieth unto the Corinthians: If you have any secular business, ordain them to be judges that be most in contempt in the

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church. Without doubt, of this secularity, and that clerks and priests, leaving all spiritualness, do turmoil themselves with earthly occupations, many evils do follow. First, the dignity of priesthood is dishonoured; the which is greater than either the king’s or emperor’s: it is equal with the dignity of angels. But the brightness of this great dignity is sore shadowed, when priests are occupied in earthly things, whose conversation ought to be in heaven. Secondarily, priesthood is despised, when there is no difference betwixt such priests and lay people, but, according to the prophecy of Ozee: as the people be, so are the priests. Thirdly, the beautiful order and holy dignity in the Church is confused when the highest in the Church do meddle with vile and earthly things, and in their stead vile and abject persons do exercise high and heavenly things. Fourthly, the lay people have great occasion of evils, and cause to fall, when those men whose duty is to draw men from the affection of this world, by their continual conversation in this world teach men to love this world, and of the love of the world cast them down headlong into hell. Moreover in such priests that are so busied there must needs follow hypocrisy. For when they be so mixed and confused with the lay people, under the garment and habit of a priest they live plainly after the lay fashion. Also by spiritual weakness and bondage fear, when they are made weak with the waters of this world, they dare neither do nor say but such things as they know to be pleasant and thankful to their princes. At last, ignorance and blindness: when they are blinded with the darkness of this world, they see nothing but earthly things. Wherefore our Saviour Christ, not without cause, did warn the prelates of his Church: Take heed, said he, lest your hearts be grieved with gluttony, and drunkenness, and with the cares of this world. With the cares, saith he, of this world, wherewith the hearts of priests being sore charged they cannot hold and lift up their minds to high and heavenly things. Many other evils there be beside those, that follow of the secularity of priests, which were long here to rehearse. But I make an end. These be the four evils that I have spoken of, O Fathers, O priests, by the which we are conformable to this world, by the which the face of the Church is made evil favoured, by the which the state of it is destroyed truly much more than it was in the beginning by the persecution of tyrants, or afterward by the invasion that followed of heretics. For, in the persecution of tyrants, the Church being vexed was made stronger and brighter. In the invasion of heretics, the Church being shaken was made wiser and more cunning in holy writ. But since this secularity was brought in after that the secular manner of living crept in in the men of the church, the root of all spiritual life—that is to say, charity—was extinct. The which taken away, there can neither wise nor strong Church be in God. In this time also we perceive contradiction of the lay people. But they are not so much contrary unto us, as we are ourselves; nor their contrariness hurteth not us so much as the contrariness of our evil life, the which is contrary both to God and Christ. For he said: Who that is not with me, is against me.

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We are also nowadays grieved of heretics, men mad with marvellous foolishness. But the heresies of them are not so pestilent and pernicious unto us and the people as the evil and wicked life of priests; the which, if we believe Saint Bernard, is a certain kind of heresy, and chief of all and most perilous. For that same holy father, in a certain convocation, preaching unto the priests of his time, in a certain sermon so he said by these words: “There be many catholic and faithful men in speaking and preaching, the which same men are heretics in working. For that that heretics do by evil teaching, that same do they through evil example: they lead the people out of the right way, and bring them into error of life. And so much they are worse than heretics, how much their works prevail their words.” This that holy father Saint Bernard, with a great and a fervent spirit, said against the sect of evil priests in his time. By which words he sheweth plainly to be two manner of heresies; the one to be of perverse teaching, and the other of naughty life: of which this latter is worse and more perilous. The which reigneth now in the Church in priests not living priestly but secularly, to the utter and miserable destruction of the church. Wherefore, you fathers, you priests, and all you of the clergy, at the last look up and awake from this your sleep in this forgetful world; and at the last being well awaked hear Paul crying unto you: Be you not conformable unto this world. And this for the first part. Now let us come to the second. The second party of Reformation. But be you reformed in the newness of your understanding. The second thing that Saint Paul commandeth, is that we be reformed into a new understanding; that we smell those things that be of God. Be we reformed unto those things that are contrary to those I spoke of even now: that is to say, to meekness, to soberness, to charity, to spiritual occupation; that, as the said Paul writeth unto Titus, renouncing all wickedness and worldly desires, we live in this world soberly, truly, and virtuously. This reformation and restoring of the Church’s estate must needs begin of you our fathers, and so follow in us your priests and in all the clergy. You are our heads, you are an example of living unto us. Unto you we look as unto marks of our direction. In you and in your life we desire to read, as in lively books, how and after what fashion we may live. Wherefore, if you will ponder and look upon our motes, first take away the blocks out of your eyes. It is an old proverb: Physician, heal thyself. You spiritual physicians, first taste you this medicine of purgation of manners, and then after offer us the same to taste. The way whereby the Church may be reformed into better fashion is not for to make new laws. For there be laws many enough and out of number, as Solomon saith: nothing is new under the sun. For the evils that are now in the Church were before in time past; and there is no fault but that fathers have provided very good remedies for it. There are no trespasses, but that there be laws against them in the body of the canon law. Therefore it is no need that new laws and constitutions be made, but that those that are made already be kept. Wherefore in this your assembly let those laws that are made be called before you and rehearsed: those laws, I say, that restrain vice, and those that further virtue.

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First, let those laws be rehearsed, that do warn you fathers that ye put not over soon your hands on every man, or admit unto holy orders. For there is the well of evils, that, the broad gate of holy orders opened, every man that offereth himself is all where admitted without pulling back. Thereof springeth and cometh out the people that are in the Church both of unlearned and evil priests. It is not enough for a priest, after my judgment, to construe a collect, to put forth a question, or to answer to a sophism; but much more a good, a pure, and a holy life, approved manners, meetly learning of holy scripture, some knowledge of the sacraments; chiefly and above all things, the fear of God and love of the heavenly life. Let the laws be rehearsed, that command that benefices of the Church be given to those that are worthy; and that promotions be made in the church by the right balance of virtue, not by carnal affection, not by the acceptance of persons; whereby it happeneth nowadays that boys for old men, fools for wise men, evil for good, do reign and rule. Let the laws be rehearsed, that warreth against the spot of Simony. The which corruption, the which infection, the which cruel and odious pestilence, so creepeth now abroad as the canker evil in the minds of priests, that many of them are not afraid nowadays both by prayer and service, rewards and promises, to get them great dignities. Let the laws be rehearsed that command personal residence of curates in their churches. For of this many evils grow, because all things nowadays are done by vicars and parish priests; yea, and those foolish also and unmeet, and often times wicked; that seek none other thing in the people than foul lucre, whereof cometh occasion of evil heresies and ill Christendom in the people. Let be rehearsed the laws and holy rules given of fathers, of the life and honesty of clerks; that forbid that a clerk be no merchant, that he be no usurer, that he be no hunter, that he be no common player, that he bear no weapon; the laws that forbid clerks to haunt taverns, that forbid them to have suspect familiarity with women; the laws that command soberness, and a measurableness in apparel, and temperance in adorning of the body. Let be rehearsed also to my lords these monks, canons, and religious men, the laws that command them to go the strait way that leadeth unto heaven, leaving the broad way of the world; that commandeth them not to turmoil themselves in business, neither secular nor other; that command that they sue not in princes’ courts for earthly things. For it is in the Council of Chalcedon that monks ought only to give themselves to prayer and fasting, and to the chastening of their flesh, and observing of their rules. Above all things, let the laws be rehearsed that pertain and concern you my reverend fathers and lords bishops, laws of your just and canonical election, in the chapters of your churches, with the calling of the Holy Ghost. For because that is not done nowadays, and because prelates are chosen oftentimes more by favour of men than by the grace of God; therefore truly have we not a few times bishops full little spiritual men, rather worldly than heavenly, savouring more the spirit of this world than the spirit of Christ. Let the laws be rehearsed of the residence of bishops in their dioceses; that command,

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that they look diligently, and take heed to the health of souls; that they sow the word of God; that they show themselves in their churches, at the least on great holy days; that they do sacrifice for their people; that they hear the causes and matters of poor men; that they sustain fatherless children and widows; that they exercise themselves in works of virtue. Let the laws be rehearsed of the good bestowing of the patrimony of Christ; the laws that command that the goods of the Church be spent, not in costly building, not in sumptuous apparel and pomps, not in feasting and banqueting, not in excess and wantonness, not in enriching of kinsfolk, not in keeping of dogs, but in things profitable and necessary to the Church. For when St. Augustine, sometime bishop of England, did ask the Pope Gregory how that the bishops and prelates of England should spend their goods, that were the offerings of faithful people, the said Pope answered (and his answer is put in the Decrees, in the twelfth chapter and second question), that the goods of bishops ought to be divided into four parts; whereof one part ought to be to the bishop and his household, another to his clerks, the third to repair and uphold his tenements, and the fourth to the poor people. Let the laws be rehearsed, yea, and that oftentimes, that take away the filths and uncleanliness of courts; that take away those daily newfound crafts for lucre: that busy them to pull away this foul covetousness, the which is the spring and cause of all evils, the which is the well of all iniquity. At the last let be renewed those laws and constitutions of fathers of the celebration of councils, that command provincial councils to be oftener used for the reformation of the church. For there never happeneth nothing more hurtful to the Church of Christ than the lack both of council general and provincial. When these laws and such other are rehearsed, that be for us, and that concern the correction of manners, there lacketh nothing but that the same be put in execution with all authority and power; that once, seeing we have a law, we live after the law. For the which things, with all due reverence, I call chiefly upon you fathers. For this execution of the laws and observing of the constitutions must needs begin of you, that ye may teach us priests to follow you by lively examples; or else truly it will be said of you: They lay grievous burdens upon other men s backs, and they themselves will not as much as touch it with their little finger. For sooth, if you keep the laws, and if you reform first your life to the rules of the canon laws, then shall ye give us light, in the which we may see what is to be done of our part; that is to say, the light of your good example. And we, seeing our fathers so keeping the laws, will gladly follow the steps of our fathers. The clergy and spiritual parts once reformed in the Church, then may we with a just order proceed to the reformation of the lay part; the which truly will be very easy to do if we first be reformed. For the body followeth the soul; and, such rulers as are in the city, like dwellers be in it. Wherefore if priests that have the charge of souls be good, straight the people will be good. Our goodness shall teach them more clearly to be good than all other teachings and preachings. Our goodness shall compel them into the right way truly more effectually than all your suspendings and cursings.

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Wherefore, if ye will have the lay people to live after your wish and will, first live you yourselves after the will of God; and so, trust me, ye shall get in them whatsoever ye will. Ye will be obeyed of them; and right it is. For in the epistle to the Hebrews these are the words of Saint Paul to the lay people: Obey, saith he, to your rulers, and be you under them. But if ye will have this obedience, first perform in you the reason and cause of obedience: the which the said Paul doth teach, and it followeth in the text: that is, Take you heed also diligently, as though ye should give a reckoning for their souls: and they will obey you. You will be honoured of the people. It is reason. For Saint Paul writeth unto Timothy: Priests that rule well are worthy double honours, chiefly those that labour in word and teaching. Therefore, if ye desire to be honoured, first look that ye rule well, and that ye labour in word and teaching; and then shall the people have you in all honour. You will reap their carnal things, and gather tithes and offerings without any striving. Right it is. For Saint Paul, writing unto the Romans, saith: They are debtors, and ought to minister unto you in carnal things. First sow you your spiritual things, and then ye shall reap plentifully their carnal things. For truly that man is very hard and unjust that will reap where he never did sow, and that will gather where he never scattered. Ye will have the church’s liberty, and not to be drawn before secular judges: and that also is right. For it is in the Psalms: Touch ye not mine anointed. But if ye desire this liberty, first unloose yourselves from the worldly bondage, and from the services of men; and lift up yourselves into the true liberty, the spiritual liberty of Christ, into grace from sins; and serve you God, and reign in him. And then, believe me, the people will not touch the anointed of their Lord God. Ye would be out of business in rest and peace: and that is convenient. But if ye will have peace, come again to the God of peace and love. Come again to Christ, in whom is the very true peace of the Ghost, the which passeth all wit. Come again to yourselves, and to your priestly living. And, to make an end, as Saint Paul saith: Be you reformed in the newness of your understanding, that you savour those things that are of God; and the peace of God shall be with you. These are they, reverend fathers and right famous men, that I thought to be said for the reformation of the church’s estate. I trust ye will take them of your gentleness to the best. And if peradventure it be thought that I have passed my bounds in this sermon, or have said anything out of temper, forgive it me; and ye shall forgive a man speaking of very zeal, [to] a man sorrowing the decay of the church. And consider the thing itself, not regarding any1 foolishness. Consider the miserable form and state of the Church, and endeavour yourselves with all your minds to reform it. Suffer not, fathers, this your so great a gathering to depart in vain. Suffer not this your congregation to slip for naught. Truly ye are gathered oftentimes together; but, by your favour to speak the truth, yet I see not what fruit cometh of your assembling, namely to the Church. 1

Sic. The Latin text makes it clear that this is a misprint for “my”.

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Go ye now in the spirit that ye have called on, that, by the help of it, ye may in this your council find out, discern, and ordain those things that may be profitable to the Church, praise unto you, and honour unto God. Unto whom be all honour and glory for evermore. Amen.

80. The case of Richard Hunne (i) The case of Richard Hunne as related by Hall, “Chronicle”, 573 The case of Richard Hunne aroused considerable anti-clerical feeling in London around 1515, and has been the subject of discussion by modern historians. The following references will suggest the nature of the discussion: E.J.Davis, “The Authorities for the case of Richard Hunne”, E.H.R. XXX (1915), 477–488, and V.C.H. London 1, 236–238; A.F.Pollard, Wolsey, 31–42; A.Ogle, The Tragedy of the Lollard’s Tower, Oxford, 1949; S.F.C.Milson, Richard Hunne’s Praemunire, E.H.R. LXXVI, 81; J.Fines, “The Post-Mortem Condemnation for Heresy of Richard Hunne”, E.H.R. LXXVIII, 528.

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his year in December there was one Richard Hun, a merchant tailor of London in Lollers Tower by the commandment of the Bishop of London, called Richard Fitzjames, and Doctor Horsey, his chancellor, which was a man more of wit to prefer the bishop’s jurisdiction and the clergy than the truth of the Gospel; but so it was that the said Hun was found dead hanging by the neck in a girdle of silk within the said tower. The beginning of this matter must be showed for the following of the consequence: for this Hun had a child that died in his house: being an infant, the curate claimed the bearing sheet for a mortuary. Hun answered that the infant had no property in the sheet, whereupon the priest cited him in the spiritual court. He, taking to him good counsel, sued the curate in a praemunire, and when the priests heard of this, they did so much of malice that they accused him of heresy, and brought him to the Lollers Tower, and there was found dead, as you heard. This man was counted of honest reputation, no man to the sight of people more virtuous, wherefore upon this matter a great matter followed: for the Bishop and his Chancellor Doctor Horsey said that he hanged himself, and all the temporally said that he was murdered, and thereupon twelve men were charged before the coroner, which twelve were elected by great discretion. And many times they were with the king’s council and heard their opinions, but in the mean season the Bishop of London burned the dead carcase of the said Richard Hun in Smithfield to the abomination of the people. But after that the matter had been heard by the judges, and after by the king’s council, his grace being present and hearing the cause openly debated, and much borne by the spiritualty, yet at the last he remitted it to the trial of the law, and so upon good evidence Doctor Horsey the Chancellor, and Bellringer, with Charles Joseph, the summoner, were indicted of the murder: but afterwards by the means of the spiritualty and money, Doctor Horsey caused the king’s attorney to confess on his arraignment him not to be guilty, and so he escaped and went to Exeter, and for very shame durst never come after to London. But yet for a further truth to be declared in the abominable and detestable murder, here shall follow the whole inquiry and verdict of the inquest, word for word.

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The fifth and the sixth day of December in the sixth year of the reign of our sovereign lord king Henry the VIII. William Barnewell, coroner of London, the day and year abovesaid, within the ward of Castle Barnard of London, assembled a quest, whose names afterward do appear, and hath sworn them truly to enquire of the death of one Richard Hun, which lately was found dead in the Lollers Tower within Paul’s Church of London. Whereupon all we of the inquest together went up into the said tower, where we found the body of the said Hun hanging upon a staple of iron in a girdle of silk, with fair countenance, his head fair combed, and his bonnet right sitting upon his head, with his eyes and mouth fair closed, without any staring, gaping, or frowning. Also, without any drivelling or spurging in any place of his body. Whereupon, by one assent all we agreed to take down the body of the said Hun; and as soon as we began to heave the body it was loose, whereby by good advisement we perceived that the girdle had no knot above the staple, but it was double cast, and the links of an iron chain which did hang on the same staple were laid upon the same girdle whereby he did hang. Also the knot of the girdle that went about his neck stood under his left ear, which caused his head to lean toward his right shoulder. Notwithstanding, there came out of his nostrils two small streams of blood to the quantity of four drops, save only these four drops of blood, the face, lips, chin, doublet, collar, and shirt of the said Hun was clean from any blood. Also we find that the skin both of his neck and throat beneath the girdle of silk was fret and fased away, with that thing which the murderers had broken his neck withal. Also the hands of the said Hun were wrung in the wrists, whereby we perceived that his hands had been bound. Moreover we find that within the said prison was no means whereby any man might hang himself, but only a stool, which stool stood upon a bolster of a bed, so tyckle that any man or beast might not touch it so little but it was ready to fall, whereby we perceived that it was not possible that Hun might hang himself the stool so standing. Also all the girdle from the staple to his neck, as well as the part which went about his neck was too little for his head to come out thereat. Also it was not possible that the soft silken girdle should break his neck or skin beneath the girdle. Also we find in a corner somewhat beyond the place where he did hang, a great persell of blood, also we find that upon the left side of Hun’s jacket from the breast downward two great streams of blood. Also within the flap of the left side of his jacket we find a great cluster of blood, and the jacket folden down thereupon, which thing the said Hun could never fold nor do after he was hanged. Whereby it appeareth plainly to us all that the neck of Hun was broken, and the great plenty of blood was shed before he was hanged. Wherefore all we find by God and all our consciences that Richard Hun was murdered: also we acquit the said Richard Hun of his own death. Also an end of a wax candle which as John Bellringer sayeth he left in the prison burning with Hun that same Sunday at night that Hun was murdered, which wax candle we found sticking upon the stocks fair put out, about seven or eight foot from the place where Hun was hanged, which candle after our opinion was never, put out by him, for many likelihoods which we have perceived. Also at the going up of Master Chancellor into the Lollers Tower, we have good proof that there lay on the stocks a

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gown either of murrey or crimson in grain furred with shanks; whose gown it was we could never prove, neither who bare it away. All we find that Master William Horsey, chancellor to my lord of London hath had at his commandment both the rule and guiding of the said prisoner. Moreover, all we find that the Said Master Horsey, chancellor, hath put Charles Joseph out of his office, as the said Charles hath confessed, because he would not deal and use the said prisoner so cruelly and do to him as the chancellor would have had him to do. Notwithstanding the keys deliverance to the chancellor by Charles on the Saturday at night before Hun’s death and Charles riding out of the town on the Sunday in the morning ensuing was but a convention made betwixt Charles and the chancellor for to colour the murder, for the same Sunday that Charles rode forth, he came again to town the Sunday at night, and killed Richard Hun, as in the depositions of Julian Litell, Thomas Chitcheley, Thomas Symondes, and Peter Turner doth appear. After colouring of the murder betwixt Charles and the chancellor conspired, the chancellor called to him one John Spalding, bellringer of Paul’s, and delivered to the same bellringer the keys of the Lollers Tower, giving to the said bellringer a great charge saying, “I charge thee to keep Hun more straitly than he hath been kept, and let him have but one meal a day. Moreover, I charge thee, let nobody come to him without my licence, neither to bring him shirt, cap, kerchief, or any other thing, but that I see it before it come to him.” Also before Hun was carried to Fulham, the chancellor commanded to be put upon Hun’s neck a great collar of iron with a great chain which is too heavy for any man or beast to wear and long to endure. Moreover it is well proved that before Hun’s death the said chancellor came up into the said Lollers Tower, and kneeled down before Hun holding up his hands to him, praying him of forgiveness of all that he had done to him and must do to him. And on the Sunday following the chancellor commanded the penitentiary of Paul’s to go up to him and say a gospel, and make for him holy water and holy bread, and give it to him, which so did. And also the chancellor commanded that Hun should have his dinner. And the same dinner time Charles’ boy was shut in prison with Hun, which was never so before. And after dinner when the bellringer set out the boy, the bellringer said to the same boy, “Come no more hither with meat for him until tomorrow at noon, for my master chancellor hath commanded that he shall have but one meal a day”. And the same night following Richard Hun was murdered, which murder could not have been done without consent and licence of the chancellor, and also by the witting and knowledge of John Spalding, bellringer, for there could no man come into the prison but by the keys being in John Bellringer’s keeping. Also as by my lord of London’s book doth appear, John Bellringer is a poor innocent man, wherefore all we do perceive that this murder could not be done but by the commandment of the chancellor, and by the witting and knowing of John Bellringer…. Also Charles Joseph sayeth, that when Richard Hun was slain John Bellringer bare up the stair into Lollers Tower a wax candle, having the keys of the doors hanging on his arm, and I Charles went next to him, and master Chancellor came up last, and when all we came up, we found Hun lying on his bed, and then master chancellor said,

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“Lay hands on the thief, and so all we murdered Hun and then I, Charles, put the girdle about Hun’s neck, and then John Bellringer and I, Charles, did heave up Hun and Master Chancellor pulled the girdle over the staple, and so Hun was hanged…. The copy of my Lord of London’s letter sent to my Lord Cardinal. I beseech your good lordship to stand so good lord unto my poor chancellor now in ward, and indicted by an untrue quest for the death of Richard Hun, upon the only accusation of Charles Joseph made by pain and durance, that by your intercession it may please the king’s grace to have the matter duly and sufficiently examined by indifferent persons of his discreet council in the presence of the parties, or there be any more done in that cause, and that upon the innocency of my said chancellor declared, it may further please the king’s grace to award a placard unto his attorney to confess the said indictment to be untrue when the time shall require it, for assured am I if my chancellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set Infavorem heretice pravitatis that they will cast and condemn my clerk, though he were as innocent as Abell…. Over this in most humble wise I beseech you that I may have the king’s gracious favour, whom I never offended willingly, and that by your good means I might speak with his grace and you, and I with all mine shall pray for your prosperous estate long to continue…. The sentence of the quest, subscribed by the coroner. The inquisition intended and taken at the city of London, in the parish of Saint Gregory, in the ward of Baynard Castle in London the 6th day of December, in the year and reign of king Henry the VIII. the 6th year, before Thomas Barnewell, coroner of our sovereign lord the king, within the city of London aforesaid. Also before James Yarford and John Mondey, sheriffs of the said city, upon the sight of the body of Richard Hun, late of London, tailor, which was found hanged in the Lollers Tower, and by the oath and proof of lawful men of the same ward, and of other 3 wards next adjoining as it ought to be after the custom in the city aforesaid, to enquire how, and in what manner wise the said Richard Hun came unto his death, and upon the oath of [here follow the names of the twelve jurymen]…the which said upon their oaths that where the said Richard Hun, by the commandment of Richard bishop of London, was imprisoned and brought to hold in a prison of the said bishop, called Lollers Tower, lying in the cathedral church of Saint Paul in London, in the parish of Saint Gregory in the ward of Baynard Castle aforesaid, William Horsley of London, clerk, otherwise called William Heresy, chancellor to Richard, bishop of London, and one Charles Joseph, late of London, summoner, and John Spalding of London, otherwise called John Bellringer, feloniously as felons to our lord the king, with force and arms against the peace of our sovereign lord the king, and dignity of his crown, the 4th. day of December, the year of the reign of our sovereign lord the sixth aforesaid, of their great malice, at the parish of Saint Gregory aforesaid, upon the said Richard Hun made affray, and the same Richard Hun feloniously strangled and smothered, and also the neck they did break of the said Richard Hun, and there feloniously slew him and murdered him: and also the body of the said Richard Hun afterwards the same 4th. day, year, place, parish, and ward aforesaid with the proper girdle of the same Richard Hun of silk, black of colour, of the value of 12.d. after his death upon a hook driven into a piece of timber in

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the wall of the prison aforesaid made fast, and so hanged him, against the peace of our sovereign lord the king, and the dignity of his crown, and so the said Jury hath sworn upon the Holy Evangelist, that the said William Horsey, clerk, Charles Joseph, and John Spalding of their set malice then and there, feloniously killed and murdered the said Richard Hun, in manner and form abovesaid, against the peace of our sovereign lord the king, his crown, and dignity.

(ii) Hunne’s case. A Sequel (Keilwey, Reports d’ascuns Cases, 180–185) Hunne’s case led to further complications. A sermon in Convocation by the abbot of Winchcombe in which he, firstly, denounced the St. 4 Hen. VII, c. 2 taking away benefit of clergy from those in minor orders, and secondly, quoted a recent papal decree to the effect that all clerks in orders, greater or lesser, were exempt from temporal punishment for criminal causes before the temporal judge. This was a direct challenge to common law practice. The sermon aroused the hostility of the Commons, and the subject was brought for discussion before the Council. Knowledge of these proceedings comes from a law report by Robert Keilwey, first published in 1602. Some doubts have been thrown on the value of Keilwey’s narrative, but see A.F.Pollard, Wolsey, 44, n. 2, for a discussion in its favour.

Note that where it was enacted by authority of Parliament held at Westminster the 4th day of February, the fourth year of our lord King Henry VIII. cap. 2. that murderers and robbers in churches and highways, and of men in their houses, should be deprived of their clergy, those in holy orders only excepted: and this act of Parliament to continue until the Parliament then next following, as by the same statute more fully appears, by force of which good act many common and horrible murderers and robbers were deprived of their clergy and executed, to the great increase and advancement of the public good of the whole realm, and to the great discomfort and fear of all such common murderers and robbers: And then, in the time of the next Parliament, that is, in the time of the Parliament held at Westminster in the 7th year of our said lord King, the abbot of Winchcombe, in his service at St. Paul’s Cross, London, declared openly that the said act was made directly contrary to God’s law and the liberties of Holy Church; and said that all the makers of the same act, that is, both spiritual and temporal, who were parties to the act, had incurred the censure of Holy Church. And he produced a book of a decree in support of his opinion, and further said that by the same decree all clerks who have received any kind of Orders, greater or lesser, are exempt from temporal punishment for criminal causes before the temporal judge, for he said that minor as well as major Orders are sacred. And on this matter our said lord the King, at the special request of his temporal lords, and in particular, at the diligent and effectual instance and labour of several honourable knights and divers other influential persons of the common house of Parliament, took to his spiritual counsel divers Doctors both divines and canonists. And this spiritual counsel of the King, and also the spiritual counsel of the clergy, on a certain day assigned for this by our said lord the King, at the house called Blackfriars in London argued the matter before the Justices and temporal counsel of the King, at which time the case was rehearsed. And Doctor Henry Standish, doctor of divinity,

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and also Warden of the Mendicant Friars in London, said for the King that the said act, and also the bringing of clerks before the temporal judge for criminal causes, as had always been the custom by the law of the land could well stand with the law of God and with the liberties of Holy Church, and they are not in any way discordant, for they are the things which promote the public good of all the realm, which public good ought to be favoured in all the laws of the world. Doctor—for the spiritualty, to the contrary, said that there was a decree made expressly to the contrary, and by this decree all persons of the Christian religion are required to obey on pain of mortal sin: and so the convening of clerks before a temporal judge for criminal causes is sin in itself. Standish. Sir, God forbid; for there is a decree that all bishops should be resident in their cathedral church on each feast of the year. And we see well that the greater part of all the bishops of England practise the opposite. And, besides, this decree of exemption of clerks was never received here in England, for the contrary has always been done, both at the time when the decree was made and before, and after. And so, inasmuch as that the decree was never received here in England therefore it is not binding, etc. To which, as regards the said decree, no answer was given. Nevertheless, the said Doctor for the clergy, said that exemption of clerks was made by the express command of our Saviour Jesus Christ in these words, “Nolite tangere Christos meos”, and to this commandment no usage to the contrary can stand, for if any law be made or used which cannot stand with the law of God that law stands self-condemned. And therefore the custom of convening clerks before the temporal judge for criminal causes is clean contrary to God’s commandment. So that it is sin in itself. Standish. These words “Nolite tangere Christos meos” were spoken by the prophet David in his Psalter, which was made more than a thousand years before the Incarnation of our Saviour: but I assure you that you never found in your life, nor will ever find in any book that these words were uttered or spoken by the mouth of our Saviour Jesus. And the reason moving King David to put these words in the Psalter was that the greater part of the people at that time were unbelievers, and there was only a small number who were of his sect, that is, who believed in the law of Moses and in the Old Testament. And those who were of his sect he called Christs; and for this reason he ordered the rest, who were unbelievers not to touch or harm his Christs. To this the said Doctor gave no answer. And yet it was he who was the chief cause of the schism between the Spiritualty and Temporally touching the convening of clerks before the temporal judge, and took upon himself to confound all those who held any opinion to the contrary. But yet when he came to the arguments he could say nothing to the purpose. Whereupon certain of the said knights, when they had heard and perceived the said reasons of the one party and the other, they moved divers of the bishops that they should cause the said abbot to repair to the said St. Paul’s Cross, and openly renounce his said first sermon. The bishops openly refused to do this, and said that they were held by the law of holy church to maintain the said opinion of the said

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abbot in every point of his said sermon according to their power. And so the matter rested for the time being, and further until Michaelmas term next following. And in the mean time a Doctor Horsey, chancellor to the bishop of London found means whereby one Jo. Hunne of London, merchant, was arrested on suspicion of heresy. Whereupon the same Doctor, by authority of his said office committed this same Hunne to the ward and custody of one Joseph, in the said bishop’s prison called the Lollard’s Tower, at Paul’s in London aforesaid: and between this Doctor Horsey and Hunne there was bad blood previously because of a Praemunire then pending against the said Doctor at the suit of this same Hunne. And then, one day in the morning, the said Hunne was found hanging dead in his chamber in the said Tower. Whereupon the said Doctor and Joseph put it about that the said Hunne had hanged himself with his silk girdle. Nevertheless, within a short time after the said Joseph the gaoler, realising that he and the said Doctor were suspected of the murder of the said Hunne, took sanctuary at Westminster. For this taking of sanctuary by the gaoler, and also for many other great presumptions both the said Doctor and the said Joseph the gaoler were indicted as principals for the murder of the said Hunne, and that after great and long deliberation by a very substantial inquest taken by one of the Coroners of London on the view of the body of the said Hunne. And in the meantime, that is, between the time that the said Inquest was charged on view of the body of the said Hunne, and before their said verdict, the bishops, perceiving that the said Jury intended to indict the said Doctor and Joseph for the murder of the said Hunne, notwithstanding that the same bishops had given them great deliberation and exhortation to the contrary. And with these many great circumstances, in the said Michaelmas term, anno 7 H. 8. the said Doctor Standish was summoned and compelled to appear before all the clergy in the court of their general convocation on a certain day, by virtue of a citation addressed to him out of the same court. On the day when he appeared they objected against him certain articles solely by word of mouth according to the following form: First, whether it is lawful for a temporal judge to summon clerks into his judicial court? Secondly, whether first orders are sacred orders or not? Thirdly, whether a constitution ordained by the Pope and clergy binds a region where a contrary custom has always prevailed? Fourthly, whether a temporal Prince can call bishops to account when they fail to punish in the proper way? And then, on another day W. archbishop of Canterbury, with his own hands delivered to him in their full court of convocation a bill of conclusions containing in itself the effect of the said first articles, and gave him a day to answer to the said conclusions specified in the said bill. And the said Doctor Standish, perceiving by the bill and by the manner of their demeanour that they were hostile to him, and that their principal cause was no other than his opinion in maintenance of the temporal jurisdiction of our lord the King against the opinion of the said abbot in his said sermon: and also he perceived further that their intention was to use their great power to convict him of heresy, and that he was unable to resist their malice, wherefore he came for help to our lord the King.

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And as soon as the clergy perceived this they made their excuse to our lord the King that they did not intend to do anything against him for anything that he had said or done against the said sermon when he was of counsel of our lord the King, but they pretended that their quarrel and cause was because of certain lectures he gave long after the said time when he was of counsel of the King, that is, at Paul’s and elsewhere: in the which lectures he held opinions according to the form specified in the said bill of conclusions: the which were quite contrary to the law and the liberties of Holy Church, and this they were bound to repress according to their power. And they prayed the King’s assistance according to his oath made at his coronation and also to avoid the danger of the censures of Holy Church. And then the temporal lords and the justices, at the prompting of those of the said Common House of Parliament made like instance to the King to maintain his temporal jurisdiction according to his oath made at his coronation. And also to aid the said Doctor Standish in his grave danger against the hostility of the said clergy, for the principal matter of their bill against him, and the matter of which the abbot spoke in his said sermon were all one in effect, for both were on the exemption of clerks. Whereupon, when our lord the King had heard and perceived the said requests of both parties, the King called for Doctor Veisey, Dean of his Chapel, commanding him upon his faith and allegiance to tell him the truth impartially of his knowledge and conscience as to whether the convening of clerks here in England before the temporal judges for criminal causes was plainly against the law of God, and against the liberties of Holy Church, as those of the spiritualty said, or not. Whereupon the said Doctor Veisey, after full consideration, answered our lord and King and said, on his faith and conscience and on his allegiance, that the convening of clerks before the temporal judges according to the form which had always been followed in the realm of England might well stand with the law of God and with the liberties of Holy Church, and showed the King divers considerations and reasons in support of his opinion. And then the Justices and all the King’s counsel spiritual and temporal, and also certain persons of the said Parliament House assembled by command of the King at the said house called Blackfriars in Ludgate for the same cause. And there the said bill of conclusions against the said Doctor Standish was read in the following words. [There follows a statement of the charges which Standish has to answer with a summary of his replies, and the speech of Doctor Veisey.] And then, that is, after the Justices had heard and fully considered all the reasons and arguments of both parties, to wit, both of the party of our said lord the King in maintenance of his temporal jurisdiction and of the party of the clergy in maintenance of their spiritual jurisdiction, they made a full decision that all those of the said convocation who were concerned in the said citation against the said Doctor Standish were in the case of Praemunire facias etc. And further the Justices said that our lord the King could quite well hold his Parliament by himself and his temporal lords, and by his Commons quite without the spiritual lords, for the spiritual lords have no place in the Parliament Chamber by reason of their spiritualty, but only by reason of their temporal possessions, etc. And then virtually

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all the Lords spiritual and temporal and several of the Knights and others of the Common House of Parliament, and also all the Justices and King’s counsel spiritual and temporal assembled by command of the King at Baynard’s Castle before the King himself to deal with the said cause. At that time the Cardinal Archbishop of York kneeled before the King, and said on behalf of the clergy that to his knowledge none of the clergy had ever intended to do anything in derogation of the King’s prerogative, and for his own part he said that he owed all his advancement solely to our lord the King: wherefore he said that he would not for all the world assent to anything that would tend to annul or derogate from his royal authority. Nevertheless, to all the clergy this matter of convening clerks before the temporal judge seems clearly against the laws of God and the liberties of Holy Church, the which he himself and all the prelates of Holy Church are held by their oath to maintain according to their power. Wherefore, in the name of all the clergy, he prayed the King to be content, in order to avoid the danger of the censures of Holy Church, that the matter should be determined by our Holy Father the Pope and his counsel at the Court of Rome. To this our lord the King answered and said, it seems to us that Doctor Standish and others of our spiritual counsel have answered you sufficiently in all points. To this the bishop of Winchester answered our lord the King in these English words: “Sir, I warrant you Dr. Standish will not abide by his opinion at his peril.” To this the said Doctor answered in these words. “What should one poor Friar do alone against all the bishops and the clergy of England?” As if to say that it was more for fear of their ill-will than for any good reason that they had or could have to the contrary. And after some deliberation the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the name of the clergy, made like instance to the King, and said that in ancient times divers holy fathers of holy church had withstood the usage of the law of the land on this point, and some of them had suffered martyrdom in that dispute. And Fineux opposing said that the convening of clerks had been maintained by divers holy Kings, and many good holy fathers of the Church had been obedient and content with the usage of the law of the land on this point, which it is not to be presumed they would have done had they believed, or thought that it would be clean contrary to the law of God, as you say nowadays. And for another thing, you have no authority by your law to bring anyone to answer for felony before you, etc. To this the Archbishop said that they had sufficient authority to bring them to answer: but he did not say when or by what law. And Fineux, opposing, said further that in case a clerk should be arrested by the secular hand for murder or felony, and then the temporal judge were to commit him to you according to your wish, when he comes before you you have no authority by your law to make determination for this murder or felony: wherefore, to commit him to you, and when he comes you cannot deal with him, what intent or purpose would there be in sending him to you? To which no answer was made. Whereupon our Lord the King spoke as follows: “By the ordinance and sufferance of God We are King of England, and the Kings of England in time past have never had any superior but God alone. Wherefore, know ye well that we will maintain the right

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of our Crown and of our temporal jurisdiction, as well on this point as on all others, in as ample a way as any of our progenitors have done before our time. And as to your decrees, we are well informed that you yourselves of the spiritualty do exactly the opposite of the words of many of them, as has been well shown to you by some of our spiritual counsel: yet you interpret your decrees at your pleasure. Wherefore we will not consent to your wish any more than our progenitors have done in times past!” Whereupon the said Archbishop of Canterbury, in the name of the clergy made humble instance to the King, that the matter might be held over until they could have a solution from the Court of Rome at their own costs and charges: and if it might stand with the laws of God, they would be well content to be conformable to the common law of the land etc. And to this the King made no reply. Nevertheless, by reason of this motion they found means that the said Dr. Horsey should be kept out of the temporal hand: and he was in the hostel of the said Arch-bishop of Canterbury, nominally at liberty but in practice a prisoner until the great scandal of the said Hunne had to some extent died down, and they had made his peace with the King for the said murder: And then he came privily into the King’s Bench and surrendered himself prisoner to the Court. And on that he was arraigned on the said indictment “on the view of the body” for the death of the said Hunne, and pleaded not guilty. And Erneley, the King’s attorney allowed the plea, where-upon he was discharged. And as to the said Dr. Standish, at the said last assembly before the King at Baynard’s Castle, the said bishops promised the King, partly by his command and partly to do him pleasure, that he should be dismissed from their said Court of Convocation, and so it was done. And note that each time the bishops came before the King for the said matter, the said Dr. Standish was put aside, save at the very end of the last day.

81. A satire on the clergy, c. 1528. (Simon Fish, A Supplication for the Beggars, 1–15) This satire voiced many of the discontents of the laity on the eve of the Reformation. If Foxe’s account can be accepted (Acts and Mon, IV, 656) Fish wrote it in the Low Countries in 1528, and it was put into Henry VIII’s hands early in 1529. Many copies seem to have been distributed in London just before the opening of the Reformation Parliament, when feelings in the city ran high against the clergy. Sir Thomas More certainly regarded it as a dangerous work, and wrote a reply to it, The Supplycacyon of Soulys…(?1529, William Ras tell).

T

o the King our sovereign lord. Most lamentably complaineth their woeful misery unto your highness your poor daily bedemen, the wretched hideous monsters (on whom scarcely for horror any eye dare look,) the foul, unhappy sort of lepers, and other sore people, needy, impotent, blind, lame, and sick, that live only by alms, how that their number is daily so sore increased, that all the alms of all the well-disposed people of this your realm is not half enough for to sustain them, but that for very constraint they die for hunger. And this most pestilent mischief is come upon your said poor bedemen by the reason that there is, in the times of your noble predecessors passed, craftily crept into this your realm another sort (not of impotent, but) of strong, puissant, and counterfeit holy, and idle beggars and

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vagabonds, which, since the time of their first entry, by all the craft and wiliness of Satan, are now increased under your sight, not only into a great number, but also into a Kingdom. These are (not the herds, but the ravenous wolves going in herds clothing, devouring the flock), the bishops, abbots, priors, deacons, archdeacons, suffragans, priests, monks, canons, friars, pardoners and summoners. And who is able to number this idle, ravenous sort, which (setting all labour aside) have begged so importunately that they have gotten into their hands more than the third part of all your realm. The goodliest lordships, manors, lands, and territories are theirs. Besides this, they have the tenth part of all the corn, meadow, pasture, grass, wool, colts, calves, lambs, pigs, geese, and chickens. Over and besides, the tenth part of every servant’s wages, the tenth part of the wool, milk, honey, wax, cheese and butter. Yea, and they look so narrowly upon their profits that the poor wives must be accountable to them of every tenth egg, or else she getteth not her rights at Easter, shall be taken as a heretic. Hereto have they their four offering days. What money pull they in by probates of testaments, privy tithes, and by men’s offerings to their pilgrimages, and at their first masses? Every man and child that is buried, must pay somewhat for masses and dirges to be sung for him, or else they will accuse the dead’s friends and executors of heresy. What money get they by mortuaries, by hearing of confessions (and yet they will keep thereof no counsel) by hallowing of churches, altars, superaltars, chapels, and bells, by cursing of men, and absolving them again for money? What a multitude of money gather the pardoners in a year? how much money get the summoners by extortion in a year, by asciting1 the people to the commissaries court, and afterwards releasing the appearance for money? Finally, the infinite number of begging friars: what get they in a year? Here, if it please your grace to mark, ye shall see a thing far out of joint. There are within your realm of England 52 thousand parish churches. And this standing, that there be but ten households in every parish, yet are there five hundred thousand and twenty thousand households. And of every of these households hath every of the five orders of friars a penny a quarter for every order, that is for all the five orders, five pence a quarter for every house. That is, for all the five orders 20.d., a year of every house. Summa, five hundred thousand and twenty thousand quarters of angels. That is, 260 thousand half angels. Summa 130 thousand angels. Summa totalis 43 thousand pounds and 333.li. 6.s. 8.d. sterling whereof not four hundred years passed they had not one penny. Oh! grievous and painful exactions thus yearly to be paid! from the which the people of your noble predecessors, the kings of the ancient Britons, ever stood free. And this will they have, or else they will procure him that will not give it them to be taken as an heretic. What tyrant ever oppressed the people like this cruel and vengeable question? What subjects shall be able to help their prince that be after this fashion yearly polled? What good Christian people can be able to succour us poor lepers, blind, sore, and lame that be thus yearly oppressed? Is it any marvel that your people so complain of poverty? Is it any marvel that the taxes, fifteens, and subsidies that your grace most tenderly of great compassion hath taken among our people, to defend them from the threatened ruin of 1

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their common wealth have been so sloughtfully,1ye, painfully levied? Seeing that almost the utmost penny that might have been levied hath been gathered before yearly by this ravenous, cruel, and insatiable generation. The Danes, neither the Saxons, in the time of the ancient Britons should never have been able to have brought their armies from so far hither into your land to have conquered it if they had had at that time such a sort of idle gluttons to find at home. The noble King Arthur had never been able to have carried his army to the foot of the mountains to resist the coming down of Lucius the Emperor if such yearly exactions had been taken of his people. The Greeks had never been able to have so long continued at the siege of Troy if they had had at home such an idle sort of cormorants to find. The ancient Romans had never been able to have put all the whole world under their obeisance if their people had been thus yearly oppressed. The Turk now, in your time, should never be able to get so much ground of Christendom if he had in his empire such a sort of locusts to devour his substance. Lay then these sums to the aforesaid third part of the possessions of the realm that ye may see whether it draw nigh unto the half of the whole substance of the realm or not: so shall ye find that it draweth far above. Now let us then compare the number of this unkind idle sort, unto the number of the lay people, and we shall see whether it be indifferently shifted or not that they should have half. Compare them to the number of men, so are they not the C. person. Compare them to men, women, and children; then are they not the. CCCC. person in number. One part, therefore, in four hundred parts divided, were too much for them except they did labour. What an unequal burden is it, that they have half with the multitude and are not the C.C.C.C. person of their number! What tongue is able to tell that ever there was any common wealth so sore oppressed since the world first began? And what do all these greedy sort of sturdy, idle, holy thieves, with these yearly exactions that they take of the people? Truly nothing but exempt themselves from the obedience of your grace. Nothing but translate all rule, power, lordship, authority, obedience and dignity from your grace unto them. Nothing but that all your subjects should fall into disobedience and rebellion against your grace and be under them. As they did unto your noble predecessor king John: which, forbecause that he would have punished certain traitors that had conspired with the French king to have deposed him from his crown and dignity, (among the which a clerk called Stephen, whom afterwards against the king’s will the Pope made Bishop of Canterbury, was one) interdicted his land. For the which matter your most noble realm wrongfully (alas, for shame!) had stood tributary (not unto any kind temporal prince, but unto a cruel, devilish bloodsupper, drunken in the blood of the saints and martyrs of Christ) ever since. Here were an holy sort of prelates that thus cruelly could punish such a righteous king, all his realm and succession, for doing right! Here were a charitable sort of holy men, that could thus interdict an whole realm, and pluck away the obedience of the people from their natural liege lord and king, for none other cause but for his righteousness! Here were a blessed sort, not of meek herds, but of blood-suppers, that could set the French king upon such a righteous 1

murderously.

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prince, to cause him to lose his crown and dignity, to make effusion of the blood of his people, unless this good and blessed king of great compassion, more fearing and lamenting the shedding of the blood of his people, than the loss of his crown and dignity, against all right and conscience had submitted himself unto them! O case most horrible! that ever so noble a king, realm, and succession, should thus be made to stoop to such a sort of blood-suppers! Where was his sword, power, crown, and dignity become, whereby he might have done justice in this manner? Where was their obedience become, that should have been subject under his high power in this matter? Yea, where was the obedience of all his subjects become, that for maintenance of the common wealth should have helped him manfully to have resisted these blood-suppers to the shedding of their blood? Was not all together by their policy translated from this good king unto them? Yea, and what do they more? Truly nothing but apply themselves, by all the sleights they may, to have to do with every man’s wife, every man’s daughter, and every man’s maid, that cuckoldry and bawdry should reign over all among your subjects, that no man should know his own child, that their bastards might inherit the possessions of every man, to put the right begotten children clear beside their inheritance, in subversion of all estates and godly order. These be they that by their abstaining from marriage do let the generation of the people, whereby all the realm at length, if it should be continued, shall be made desert and inhabitable. These be they that have made an hundred thousand idle whores in your realm, which would have gotten their living honestly, in the sweat of their faces had not their superfluous riches illected1 them to unclean lust and idleness. These be they that corrupt the whole generation of mankind in your realm; that catch the pox of one woman and bear them to another: that be burned with one woman and bear it to another: that catch the leprosy of one woman and bear it to another: yea, some one of them shall boast among his fellows that he hath meddled with an hundred women. These be they that when they have once drawn men’s wives to such incontinency, spend away their husband’s goods, make the women to run away from their husbands, yea, run away themselves both with wife and goods, bring both man, wife, and children to idleness, theft, and beggary. Yea, who is able to number the great and broad bottomless ocean sea, full of evils, that this mischievous and sinful generation may lawfully bring upon us un-punished? Where is your sword, power, crown, and dignity become, that should punish (by punishment of death, even as other men are punished) the felonies, rapes, murders, and treasons committed by this sinful generation? Where is their obedience become, that should be under your high power in this matter? Is not all together translated and exempt from your grace unto them? Yes, truly. What an infinite number of people might have been increased, to have peopled the realm, if these sort of people had been married like other men? What breach of matrimony is there brought in by them? Such truly as was never, since the world began, among the whole multitude of the heathen. 1

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Who is she that will set her hands to work to get 3.d. a day, and may have at least 20.d. a day to sleep an hour with a friar, a monk, or a priest? What is he that would labour for a groat a day, and may have at least 12.d. a day to be bawd to a priest, a monk, or a friar? What a sort are there of them that marry priests’ sovereign ladies, but to cloak the priests’ incontinency, and that they may have a living of the priest themselves for their labour? How many thousands doth such lubricity bring to beggary, theft, and idleness, which should have kept their good name, and have set themselves to work, had not been this excess treasure of the spiritualty? What honest man dare take any man or woman in his service that hath been at such a school with a spiritual man? Oh the grievous shipwreck of the common wealth, which in ancient time, before the coming in of these ravenous wolves, was so prosperous that then there were but few thieves! Ye, theft was at that time so rare that Caesar was not compelled to make penalty of death upon felony, as your grace may well perceive in his institutes. There was also at that time but few poor people, and yet they did not beg, but there was given them enough unasked; for there was at that time none of these ravenous wolves to ask it from them, as it appeareth in the acts of the apostles. Is it any marvel though there be now so many beggars, thieves, and idle people? Nay, truly. What remedy: make laws against them? I am in doubt whether ye be able: are they not stronger in your own parliament house than yourself? What a number of bishops, abbots, and priors are lords of your parliament? Are not all the learned men in your realm in fee with them, to speak in your parliament house for them against your crown, dignity, and common wealth of your realm; a few of your own learned counsel only excepted? What law can be made against them that may be available? Who is he (though he be grieved never so sore) for the murder of his ancestor, ravishment of his wife, of his daughter, robbery, trespass, mayhem, debt, or any other offence, dare lay it to their charge by any way of action? And if he do, then is he, by and by, by their wiliness, accused of heresy. Yea, they will so handle him or he pass, that except he will bear a faggot for their pleasure, he shall be excommunicate, and then be all his actions dashed. So captive are your laws unto them that no man that they list to excommunicate may be admitted to sue any action in any of your courts. If any man in your sessions dare be so hardy to indict a priest of any such crime, he hath, or the year go out, such a yoke of heresy laid in his neck, that it maketh him wish that he had not done it. Your grace may see what a work there is in London, how the bishop rageth for indicting of certain curates of extortion and incontinency, the last year in the warmmell quest.1 Had not Richard Hunne commenced action of premunire against a priest, he had been yet alive, and none heretic at all, but an honest man. Did not divers of your noble progenitors—seeing their crown and dignity run into ruin, and to be thus craftily translated into the hands of this mischievous generation— make divers statutes for the reformation thereof, among which the statute of mortmain was one? To the intent that after that time they should have no more given unto them. 1

A yearly inquisition in the City of London for the redress of vice.

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But what availeth it? Have they not gotten into their hands more lands since than any duke in England hath, the statute notwithstanding? Yea, have they not for all that translated into their hands, from your grace, half your kingdom thoroughly? The whole name, as reason is, for the ancienty of your kingdom, which was before theirs, and out of the which theirs is grown, only abiding with your grace? and of one kingdom made twain: the spiritual kingdom (as they call it), for they will be named first, and your temporal kingdom. And which of these 2 kingdoms (suppose ye) is like to over-grow the other? yea, to put the other clear out of memory? Truly the kingdom of the blood-suppers; for to whom is given daily out of your kingdom. And that that is once given them cometh never from them again. Such laws have they that none of them may neither give nor sell nothing. What law can be made so strong against them that they, either with money, or else with other policy, will not break and set at nought? What kingdom can endure, that ever giveth thus from him, and receiveth nothing again? O, how all the substance of your realm forthwith, your sword, power, crown, dignity, and obedience of your people runneth headlong into the insatiable whirlpool of these greedy goulafreys,1 to be swallowed and devoured! Neither have they any other colour to gather these yearly exactions into their hands, but that they say they pray for us to God, to deliver our souls out of the pains of purgatory; without whose prayer, they say, or at least without the pope’s pardon, we could never be delivered thence; which, if it be true, then is it good reason that we give them all these things, all were it C. times as much. But there be many men of great literature and judgment that, for the love they have unto the truth and unto the common wealth, have not feared to put themselves into the greatest infamy that may be, in abjection of all the world, yea, in peril of death, to declare their opinion in this matter, which is, that there is no purgatory, but that it is a thing invented by the covetousness of the spiritualty, only to translate all kingdoms from other princes unto them, and that there is not one word spoken of it in all holy scripture. They say also that if there were a purgatory, and also if that the pope with his pardons for money may deliver one soul thence, he may deliver him as well without money: if he may deliver one, he may deliver a thousand: if he may deliver a thousand, he may deliver them all, and so destroy purgatory. And then he is a cruel tyrant without all charity, if he keep them there in prison and in pain, till men will give him money. Likewise say they of all the whole sort of the spiritualty, that if they will not pray for no man but for them that give them money, they are tyrants and lack charity, and suffer those souls to be punished and pained uncharitably, for lack of their prayers. These sort of folks they call heretics, these they burn, these they rage against, put to open shame, and make them bear faggots. But whether they be heretics or no, well I wot that this purgatory and the pope’s pardons, is all the cause of translation of your kingdom so fast into their hands; wherefore it is manifest it cannot be of Christ, for he gave more to the temporal kingdom, he himself paid tribute to Caesar, he took nothing from him, but taught that the high powers should always be obeyed: yea, he himself (although he were most free lord of all, and innocent) was obedient unto the high powers unto 1

gulf, or deep hole.

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death. This is the great scab why they will not let the New Testament go abroad in your mother tongue, lest men should espy that they, by their crooked hypocrisy, do translate thus fast your kingdom into their hands, that they are not obedient unto your high power, that they are cruel, unclean, unmerciful, and hypocrites, that they seek not the honour of Christ, but their own, that remission of sins are not given by the pope’s pardon, but by Christ, for the sure faith and trust that we have in him. Here may your grace well perceive that except ye suffer their hypocrisy to be disclosed, all is like to run into their hands: and as long as it is covered, so long shall it seem to every man to be a great impiety not to give them. For this I am sure your grace thinketh, (as the truth is) I am as good a man as my father, why may I not as well give them as much as my father did? And of this mind I am sure are all the lords, knights, squires, gentlemen, and yeomen in England. Yea, and until it be disclosed, all your people will think that your statute of mortmain was never made with no good conscience, seeing that it taketh away the liberty of your people, in that they may not as lawfully buy their souls out of purgatory by giving to the spiritualty, as their predecessors did in time past. Wherefore, if ye will eschew the ruin of your crown and dignity, let their hypocrisy be uttered, and that shall be more speedful in this matter than all the laws that may be made, be they never so strong. For to make a law for to punish any offender, except it were more for to give other men an ensample to beware to commit such like offence, what should it avail? Did not Doctor Allen, most presumptuously, now in your time, against all his allegiance, all that ever he could, to pull from you the knowledge of such pleas as belong unto your high courts, unto another court, in derogation of your crown and dignity? Did not also Doctor Horsey and his accomplices most heinously, as all the world knoweth, murder in prison that honest merchant Richard Hunne for that he sued your writ of premunire against a priest that wrongfully held him in plea in a spiritual court, for a matter whereof the knowledge belonged unto your high courts? And what punishment was there done, that any man make take example of to beware of like offence? Truly none, but that the one paid five hundred pounds (as it is said) to the building of your star chamber; and when that payment was once passed, the captains of his kingdom (because he fought so manfully against your crown and dignity) have heaped to him benefice upon benefice, so that he is rewarded ten times as much. The other (as it is said) paid six hundred pounds for him and his accomplices, which, for because that he had likewise fought so manfully against your crown and dignity, was immediately (as he had obtained your most gracious pardon) promoted by the captains of his kingdom with benefice upon benefice, to the value of 4 times as much. Who can take example of this punishment to beware of such like offence? Who is he of their kingdom that will not rather take courage to commit like offence, seeing the promotions that fill to these men for their so offending? So weak and blunt is your sword to strike at one of the offenders of this crooked and perverse generation. And this is by the reason that the chief instrument of your law, yea, the chief of your council, and he which hath your sword in his hand, to whom also all the other instruments are obedient, is always a spiritual man, which hath ever such an inordinate love unto his own kingdom that he will maintain that, though all the temporal kingdoms

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and common wealth of the world should therefore utterly be undone. Here leave we out the greatest matter of all, lest that we, declaring such an horrible carnage of evil against the ministers of iniquity, should seem to declare the one only fault, or rather the ignorance, of our best beloved minister of righteousness, which is to be hid till he may be learned by these small enormities that we have spoken of, to know it plainly himself. But what remedy to relieve us your poor, sick, lame, and sore bedesmen? To make many hospitals for the relief of the poor people? Nay, truly. The more the worse; for ever the fat of the whole foundation hangeth on the priests’ beards. Divers of your noble predecessors, kings of this realm, have given lands to monasteries to give a certain sum of money yearly to the poor people, whereof for the ancient of the time, they give never one penny. They have likewise given to them to have a certain masses said daily for them, whereof they say never one. If the Abbot of Westminster should sing every day as many masses for his founders as he is bound to do by his foundation, M. monks were too few. Wherefore, if your grace will build a sure hospital that never shall fail to relieve us, all your poor bedemen, so take from them all these things. Set these sturdy lobies abroad in the world, to get them wives of their own, to get their living with their labour in the sweat of their faces, according to the commandment of God. Genesis. III. to give other idle people, by their example, occasion to go to labour. Tie these holy idle thieves to the carts, to be whipped naked about every market town till they will fall to labour, that day, by their importunate begging, take not away the alms that the good Christian people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people, your bedemen. Then shall as well the number of our aforesaid monstrous sort, as of the bawds, whores, thieves, and idle people, decrease. Then shall these great yearly exactions cease. Then shall not your sword, power, crown, dignity, and obedience of your people, be translated from you. Then shall you have full obedience of your people. Then shall the idle people be set to work. Then shall matrimony be much better kept. Then shall the generation of your people be increased. Then shall your commons increase in riches. Then shall the gospel be preached. Then shall none beg our alms from us. Then shall we have enough, and more than shall suffice us, which shall be the best hospital that ever was founded for us. Then shall we daily pray to God for your most noble estate long to endure.

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82. Selections from the writings of William Tyndale The following passages are representative of Tyndale’s style and methods in religious controversy. He was the most powerful advocate of the need for reform in England in the early sixteenth century. The first two passages are selected from his Obedience of a Christian Man. This was the most ambitious of his original writings. In it he defended the reformers against the charge that their teachings encouraged disobedience against the secular power. Tyndale insists on the subject’s duty of complete submission to the king. His book is the first clear statement of two important principles of the English Reformation: first, the supreme authority of the Scriptures in the Church, and secondly, the supreme authority of the king in the State. In developing his arguments Tyndale was an unsparing critic of the Church of Rome and its head, the Pope, and also of the shortcomings of the English clergy. In the first of the following passages Tyndale argues the case for an English translation of the Scriptures, and has some caustic witticisms at the expense of the methods of theological education practised at the Universities. In the second he criticizes the privileged position of the English clergy. The third passage, from The Practice of Prelates, is an example of Tyndndale’s bitter reaction towards papal claims. The book as a whole is open to serious criticism. Tyndale was too far removed from the English political scene to be competent to comment on recent events there with any accuracy, while his main theme, an historical exposition of the rise of the papacy and of the methods whereby the Roman clergy achieved power, interesting as it may be as an example of historical narrative used as propaganda, is too extreme in its violence to be wholly convincing. The last passage, from Tyndale’s Answer to More, introduces the famous literary controversy between these two men carried on in More’s Dialogue (1529), Tyndale’s Answer to More (1531), and More’s Confutation (1532). In the Answer Tyndale deals with More’s attack on his translation of the New Testament, with his arguments in support of the thesis that the Church cannot err, and with his defence of image and relics worship, pilgrimages, and religious ceremonies in general.

(i) Priests and the Bible (Obedience of a Christian Man: Works, 144–162)

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hat thou mayest perceive how that the scripture ought to be in the mother tongue, and that the reasons which our spirits make for the contrary, are but sophistry and false wiles to fear thee from the light, that thou mightest follow them blindfold, and be their captive to honour their ceremonies, and to offer to their belly: First, God gave the children of Israel a law by the hand of Moses in their mother tongue; and all the prophets wrote in their mother tongue, and all the psalms were in their mother tongue. And there was Christ but figured, and described in ceremonies, in riddles, and parables, and in dark prophecies. What is the cause that we may not have the old Testament, with the new also, which is the light of the old, and wherein is openly declared, before the eyes, that which there was darkly prophesied? I can imagine no cause verily, except it be that we should not see the work of antichrist and juggling of hypocrites. What should be the cause that we, which walk in the broad day, should not see as well as they that walked in the night; or that we should not see as well at noon, as they did in the twilight? Came Christ to make the world more blind? By this means Christ is the darkness of the world, and not the light, as he saith himself. Moreover Moses saith, Deut. vi. “Hear, Israel; let these words which I command thee this day stick fast in thine heart, and whet them on thy children, and talk of them as thou sittest in thine house, and as thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up; and bind them for a token to thine hand, and let them be a remembrance

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between thine eyes, and write them on the posts and gates of thine house.” This was commanded generally unto all men. How cometh it that God’s word pertaineth less unto us than unto them? Yea, how cometh it, our Moseses forbid us, and command us the contrary; and threaten us if we do, and will not that we once speak of God’s word? How can we whet God’s word (that is, to put it in practice, use and exercise) upon our children and house-hold, when we are violently kept from it and know it not? How can we (as Peter commandeth) give a reason of our hope; when we wot not what it is that God hath promised, or what to hope? Moses also commandeth in the said chapter, if the son ask what the testimonies, laws, and observances of the Lord mean, that the father teach him. If our children ask what our ceremonies (which are more than the Jews’ were) mean; no father can tell his son. And in the eleventh chapter he repeateth all again, for fear of forgetting. They will say haply, the scripture requireth a pure mind and a quiet mind: and therefore the lay-man, because he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot understand them. If that be the cause, then it is a plain case that our prelates understand not the scriptures themselves: for no lay-man is so tangled with worldly business as they are. The great things of the world are ministered by them; neither do the laypeople any great thing, but at their assignment. “If the scripture were in the mother tongue”, they will say, “then would the lay-people understand it, every man after his own ways”. Wherefore serveth the curate, but to teach him the right way? Wherefore were the holy days made, but that the people should come and learn? Are ye not abominable schoolmasters, in that ye take so great wages, if ye will not teach? If ye would teach, how could ye do it so well, and with so great profit, as when the lay-people have the scripture before them in their mother tongue? For then should they see, by the order of the text, whether thou jugglest or not: and then would they believe it, because it is the scripture of God, though thy living be never so abominable. Where now, because your living and your preaching are so contrary, and because they grope out in every sermon your open and manifest lies, and smell your unsatiable covetousness, they believe you not when you preach truth. But, alas! the curates themselves (for the most part) wot no more what the new or old Testament meaneth, than do the Turks: neither know they of any more than what they read at mass, matins, and evensong, which yet they understand not: neither care they, but even to mumble up so much every day, as the pie and popinjay speak, they wot not what, to fill their bellies withal. If they will not let the lay-man have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it; which for a great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing, and say, and patter all day, with the lips only, that which the heart understandeth not. Christ commandeth to search the scriptures. John v. Though that miracles bare record unto his doctrine, yet desired he no faith to be given either to his doctrine, or to his miracles, without record of the scripture. When Paul preached, Acts xvii. the other searched the scriptures daily, whether they were as he alleged them. Why shall not I likewise see whether it be the scripture that thou allegest? Yea, why shall I not see the scripture, and the circumstances, and what goeth before and after; that I may know whether thine interpretation be the right sense, or whether thou jugglest, and drawest the scripture violently unto thy carnal and fleshly purpose; or whether thou be about to teach me, or to deceive me?

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Christ saith, that there shall come false prophets in his name, and say that they themselves are Christ; that is, they shall so preach Christ that men must believe in them, in their holiness, and things of their imagination, without God’s word: yea, and that Against-Christ, or Antichrist, that shall come, is nothing but such false prophets, that shall juggle with the scripture, and beguile the people with false interpretations, as all the false prophets, scribes, and Pharisees did in the old testament. How shall I know whether ye are that Against-Christ, or false prophets, or no, seeing ye will not let me see how ye allege the scriptures? Christ saith, “By their deeds ye shall know them”. Now when we look on your deeds, we see that ye are all sworn together, and have separated yourselves from the lay-people, and have a several kingdom among yourselves, and several laws of your own making: wherewith ye violently bind the lay-people, that never consented unto the making of them. A thousand things forbid ye, which Christ made free; and dispense with them again for money: neither is there any exception at all, but lack of money. Ye have a secret council by yourselves. All other men’s secrets and counsels know ye; and no man yours. Ye seek but honour, riches, promotion, authority, and to reign over all, and will obey no man. If the father give you ought of courtesy, ye will compel the son to give it violently, whether he will or not, by craft of your own laws. These deeds are against Christ. When a whole parish of us hire a schoolmaster to teach our children, what reason is it that we should be compelled to pay this schoolmaster his wages, and he should have licence to go where he will, and to dwell in another country, and to leave our children untaught? Doth not the pope so? Have we not given our tithes of courtesy unto one, for to teach us God’s word; and cometh not the pope, and compelleth us to pay it violently, to them that never teach? Maketh he not one parson, which never cometh at us? Yea, one shall have five or six, or as many as he can get, and wotteth oftentimes where never one of them standeth. Another is made vicar, to whom he giveth a dispensation to go where he will, and to set in a parish priest, which can but minister a sort of dumb ceremonies. And he, because he hath most labour and least profit, polleth on his part; and setteth here a mass-penny, there a trental, yonder dirige-money, and for his beadroll, with a confessionpenny and such like. And thus are we never taught, and are yet nevertheless compelled; yea, compelled to hire many costly schoolmasters. These deeds are verily against Christ. Shall we therefore judge you by your deeds, as Christ commandeth? So are ye false prophets, and the disciples of Antichrist, or Against-Christ. The sermons which thou readest in the Acts of the apostles, and all that the apostles preached, were no doubt preached in the mother tongue. Why then might they not be written in the mother tongue? As, if one of us preach a good sermon, why may it not be written? Saint Jerom also translated the bible into his mother tongue: why may not we also? They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one; so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the English, word for word; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet shall have much work to translate

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it well-favouredly, so that it have the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin, and as it hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it be translated into the English than into the Latin. Yea, and except my memory fail me, and that I have forgotten what I read when I was a child, thou shalt find in the English chronicle, how that king Adelstone caused the holy scripture to be translated into the tongue that then was in England, and how the prelates exhorted him thereto. Moreover, seeing that one of you ever preacheth contrary to another; and when two of you meet, the one disputeth and brawleth with the other, as it were two scolds; and forasmuch as one holdeth this doctor, and another that; one followeth Duns, another St. Thomas, another Bonaventure, Alexander de Hales, Raymond, Lyre, Brygot, Dorbel, Holcot, Gorram, Trumbett, Hugo de Sancto Victore, De Monte Regio, De Nova Villa, De Media Villa, and such like out of number; so that if thou hadst but of every author one book, thou couldst not pile them up in any warehouse in London, and every author is one contrary unto another. In so great diversity of spirits, how shall I know who lieth, and who sayeth truth? Whereby shall I try and judge them? Verily by God’s word, which only is true. But how shall I that do, when thou wilt not let me see scripture? Nay, say they, the scripture is so hard, that thou couldst never understand it but by the doctors. That is, I must measure the meteyard by the cloth. Here be twenty cloths of divers lengths and of divers breadths: how shall I be sure of the length of the meteyard by them? I suppose, rather, I must be first sure of the length of the meteyard, and thereby measure and judge of the cloths. If I must first believe the doctor, then is the doctor first true, and the truth of the scripture dependeth of his truth; and so the truth of God springeth of the truth of man. Thus antichrist turneth the roots of the trees upward. What is the cause that we damn some of Origen’s works, and allow some? How know we that some is heresy and some not? By the scripture, I trow. How know we that St. Augustine (which is the best, or one of the best, that ever wrote upon the scripture) wrote many things amiss at the beginning, as many other doctors do? Verily, by the scriptures; as he himself well perceived afterward, when he looked more diligently upon them, and revoked many things again. He wrote of many things which he understood not when he was newly converted, ere he had thoroughly seen the scriptures; and followed the opinions of Plato, and the common persuasions of man’s wisdom that were then famous. They will say yet more shamefully, that no man can understand the scriptures without philautia, that is to say, philosophy. A man must be first well seen in Aristotle, ere he can understand the scripture, say they. Aristotle’s doctrine is, that the world was without beginning, and shall be without end; and that the first man never was, and the last shall never be; and that God doth all of necessity, neither careth what we do, neither will ask any accounts of that we do. Without this doctrine, how could we understand the scripture, that saith, God created the world of nought; and God worketh all things of his free will, and for a secret purpose; and that we shall all rise again, and that God will have accounts of all that we have done in this life! Aristotle saith, Give a man a law,

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and he hath power of himself to do or fulfil the law, and becometh righteous with working righteously. But Paul, and all the scripture saith, That the law doth but utter sin only, and helpeth not: neither hath any man power to do the law, till the Spirit of God be given him through faith in Christ. Is it not a madness then to say, that we could not understand the scripture without Aristotle? Aristotle’s righteousness, and all his virtues, spring of man’s free will. And a Turk, and every infidel and idolater, may be righteous and virtuous with that righteousness and those virtues. Moreover, Aristotle’s felicity and blessedness standeth in avoiding of all tribulations; and in riches, health, honour, worship, friends, and authority; which felicity pleaseth our spiritualty well. Now, without these, and a thousand such like points, couldst thou not understand scripture which saith, That righteousness cometh by Christ, and not of man’s will; and how that virtues are the fruits and the gift of God’s spirit; and that Christ blesseth us in tribulations, persecution, and adversity! How, I say, couldst thou understand the scripture without philosophy, inasmuch as Paul, in the second to the Colossians, warned them to “beware lest any man should spoil them” (that is to say, rob them of their faith in Christ) “through philosophy and deceitful vanities, and through the traditions of men, and ordinances after the world, and not after Christ?” By this means, then, thou wilt that no man teach another; but that every man take the scripture, and learn by himself. Nay, verily, so say I not. Nevertheless, seeing that ye will not teach, if any man thirst for the truth, and read the scripture by himself, desiring God to open the door of knowledge unto him, God for his truth’s sake will and must teach him. Howbeit, my meaning is, that as a master teacheth his apprentice to know all the points of the meteyard; first, how many inches, how many feet, and the halfyard, the quarter, and the nail; and then teacheth him to mete other things thereby: even so will I that ye teach the people God’s law, and what obedience God requireth of us to father and mother, master, lord, king, and all superiors, and with what friendly love he commandeth one to love another; and teach them to know that natural venom and birth-poison, which moveth the very hearts of us to rebel against the ordinances and will of God; and prove that no man is righteous in the sight of God, but that we are all damned by the law: and then, when thou hast meeked them and feared them with the law, teach them the testament and promises which God hath made unto us in Christ, and how much he loveth us in Christ; and teach them the principles and the ground of the faith, and what the sacraments signify: and then shall the Spirit work with thy preaching, and make them feel. So would it come to pass, that as we know by natural wit what followeth of a true principle of natural reason; even so, by the principles of the faith, and by the plain scriptures, and by the circumstances of the text, should we judge all men’s exposition, and all men’s doctrine, and should receive the best, and refuse the worst. I would have you to teach them also the properties and manner of speakings of the scripture, and how to expound proverbs and similitudes. And then, if they go abroad and walk by the fields and meadows of all manner doctors and philosophers, they could catch no harm: they should discern the poison from the honey, and bring home nothing but that which is wholesome. But now do ye clean contrary: ye drive them from God’s word, and will let no man

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come thereto until he have been two years master of art. First, they nosel them in sophistry, and in benefundatum. And there corrupt they their judgments with apparent arguments, and with alleging unto them texts of logic, of natural philautia, of metaphysic, and moral philosophy, and of all manner books of Aristotle, and of all manner doctors which they yet never saw. Moreover, one holdeth this, another that; one is a Real, another a Nominal. What wonderful dreams have they of their predicaments, universals, second intentions, quiddities, haecceities, and relatives; and whether species fundata in chimera be vera species; and whether this proposition be true, Non ens est aliquid; whether ens be acquivocum, or univocum. Ens is a voice only, say some. Ens is univocum, saith another, and descendeth into ens creatum, and into ens increatum, per modos intrinsecos. When they have thiswise brawled eight, ten, or twelve or more years, and after that their judgments are utterly corrupt, then they begin their divinity; not at the scripture, but every man taketh a sundry doctor; which doctors are as sundry and as divers, the one contrary unto the other, as there are divers fashions and monstrous shapes, none like another, among our sects of religion. Every religion, every university, and almost every man, hath a sundry divinity. Now whatsoever opinions every man findeth with his doctor, that is his gospel, and that only is true with him; and that holdeth he all his life long: and every man, to maintain his doctor withal, corrupteth the scripture, and fashioneth it after his own imagination, as a potter doth his clay. Of what text thou pro vest hell, will another prove purgatory; another limbo patrum; and another the assumption of our lady: and another shall prove of the same text that an ape hath a tail. And of what text the gray friar proveth that our lady was without original sin, of the same shall the black friar prove that she was conceived in original sin. And all this do they with apparent reasons, with false similitudes and likenesses, and with arguments and persuasions of man’s wisdom. Now there is no other division or heresy in the world save man’s wisdom, and when man’s foolish wisdom interpreteth the scripture. Man’s wisdom scattereth, divideth, and maketh sects; while the wisdom of one is that a white coat is best to serve God in, and another saith a black, and another a gray, another a blue; and while one saith that God will hear your prayer in this place, another saith in that place; and while one saith this place is holier, and another that place is holier; and this religion is holier than that; and this saint is greater with God than that; and an hundred thousand like things. Man’s wisdom is plain idolatry: neither is there any other idolatry than to imagine of God after man’s wisdom. God is not man’s imagination; but that only which he saith of himself. God is nothing but his law and his promises; that is to say, that which he biddeth thee to do, and that which he biddeth thee believe and hope. God is but his word, as Christ saith, John viii. “I am that I say unto you”; that is to say, That which I preach am I; my words are spirit and life. God is that only which he testifieth of himself; and to imagine any other thing of God than that, is damnable idolatry. Therefore saith the hundred and eighteenth psalm, “Happy are they which search the testimonies of the Lord”; that is to say, that which God testifieth and witnesseth unto us. But how shall I that do, when ye will not let me have his testimonies, or witnesses, in a tongue which I understand? Will ye resist God? Will ye forbid him to give his Spirit unto the lay as well as unto you? Hath he not

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made the English tongue? Why forbid ye him to speak in the English tongue then, as well as in the Latin? Finally, that this threatening and forbidding the lay people to read the scripture is not for the love of your souls (which they care for as the fox doth for the geese), is evident, and clearer than the sun; inasmuch as they permit and suffer you to read Robin Hood, and Bevis of Hampton, Hercules, Hector and Troilus, with a thousand histories and fables of love and wantonness, and of ribaldry, as filthy as heart can think, to corrupt the minds of youth withal, clean contrary to the doctrine of Christ and of his apostles: for Paul saith, “See that fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, be not once named among you, as it becometh saints; neither filthiness, neither foolish talking nor jesting, which are not comely: for this ye know, that no whoremonger, either unclean person, or covetous person, which is the worshipper of images, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God”. And after saith he, “Through such things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of un-belief”. Now seeing they permit you freely to read those things which corrupt your minds and rob you of the kingdom of God and Christ, and bring the wrath of God upon you, how is this forbidding for love of your souls? A thousand reasons more might be made, as you mayest see in Paraclesis Erasmi, and in his preface to the Paraphrase of Matthew, unto which they should be compelled to hold their peace, or to give shameful answers. But I hope that these are sufficient unto them that thirst the truth. God for his mercy and truth shall well open them more, yea, and other secrets of his godly wisdom, if they be diligent to cry unto him; which grace grant God. Amen.

(ii) The English clergy (Ibid. 236)

Mark well how many parsonages or vicarages are there in the realm, which at the least have a plow-land apiece. Then note the lands of bishops, abbots, priors, nuns, Knights of St. John’s, cathedral churches, colleges, chauntries, and free chapels. For though the house fall in decay, and the ordinance of the founder be lost, yet will not they lose the lands. What cometh once in, may never more out. They make a free-chapel of it; so that he which enjoyeth it shall do nought there-for. Besides all this, how many chaplains do gentlemen find at their own cost, in their houses? How many sing for souls, by testaments? Then the proving of testaments, the prizing of goods, the bishop of Canterbury’s prerogative; is that not much through the realm in a year? Four offering days, and privy tithes. There is no servant, but that he shall pay some-what of his wages. None shall receive the body of Christ at Easter, be he never so poor a beggar, or never so young a lad or maid, but they must pay somewhat for it. Then mortuaries for forgotten tithes, as they say. And yet what parson or vicar is there that will forget to have a pigeon-house, to peck up somewhat both at sowing-time and harvest, when corn is ripe? They will forget nothing. No man shall die in their debt; or if any man do, he shall pay it when he is dead. They will lose nothing. Why? It is God’s; it is not theirs. It is St. Hubert’s rents, St. Alban’s lands, St. Edmond’s right, St. Peter’s patrimony, say

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they, and none of ours. Item, if a man die in another man’s parish, besides that he must pay at home a mortuary for forgotten tithes, he must there pay also the best that he there hath; whether it be an horse of twenty pound, or how good so ever he be; either a chain of gold of an hundred marks, or five hundred pounds, if it so chance. It is much, verily, for so little pains-taking in confession, and in ministering the sacraments. Then bead-rolls. Item, chrysome, churchings, banns, weddings, offering at weddings, offering at buryings, offering to images, offering of wax and lights, which come to their vantage; besides the superstitious waste of wax in torches and tapers throughout the land. Then brotherhoods and pardoners. What get they also by confessions? Yea, and many enjoin penance, to give a certain sum for to have so many masses said, and desire to provide a chaplain themselves; soul-masses, dirges, month-minds, year-minds, Allsouls day, and trentals. The mother church, and the high altar, must have somewhat in every testament. Offerings at priests’ first masses. Item, no man is professed, of whatsoever religion it be, but he must bring somewhat. The hallowing, or rather conjuring of churches, chapels, altars, super-altars, chalice, vestments, and bells. Then book, bell, candlestick, organs, chalice, vestments, copes, altar-cloths, surplices, towels, basins, ewers, ship, censer, and all manner ornament must be found them freely; they will not give a mite thereunto. Last of all, what swarms of begging friars are there! The parson sheareth, the vicar shaveth, the parish priest polleth, the friar scrapeth, and the pardoner pareth; we lack but a butcher to pull off the skin. What get they in their spiritual law, as they call it, in a year, at the Arches and in every diocese? What get the commissaries, and officials with their somners and apparitors, by bawdery in a year? Shall ye not find curates enough which, to flatter the commissaries and officials withal, that they may go quit themselves, shall open unto them the confessions of the richest of their parishes; whom they cite privily, and lay to their charges secretly? If they desire to know their accusers, “Nay”, say they, “the matter is known well enough, and to more than ye are ware of. Come, lay your hand on the book; if ye forswear yourself, we shall bring proofs, we will handle you, we will make an ensample of you.” Oh, how terrible are they! “Come, and swear”, say they, “that you will be obedient unto our injunctions.” And by that craft wring they their purses, and make them drop, as long as there is a penny in them. In three or four years shall they in those offices get enough to pay for a bishop’s bull. What other thing are these in a realm save horse-leeches, and even very maggots, cankers, and caterpillars, which devour no more but all that is green; and those wolves which Paul prophesied should come, and should not spare the flock; and which Christ said should come in lamb’s skins; and bade us beware of them, and judge them by their works?

(iii) Tyndale on the rise of the papacy (H.Walter (ed.) Practice of Prelates, Works, 270. P.S. 1849)

A proper similitude to describe our holy Father. And to see how our holy father came up, mark the ensample of an ivy tree. First it springeth out of the earth, and then awhile creepeth along by the ground till it find a great tree. Then

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it joineth itself beneath below unto the body of the tree, and creepeth up a little and a little, fair and softly. And at the beginning while it is yet thin and small so that the burden is not perceived, it seemeth glorious to garnish the tree in the winter, and to bear off the tempests of the weather. But in the mean season it thrusteth roots into the bark of the tree, to hold fast withal: and ceaseth not to climb up till it be at the top and above all. And then it sendeth his branches along by the branches of the tree, and overgroweth all, and waxeth great, heavy, and thick; and sucketh the moisture so sore out of the tree and his branches that it choketh and stifleth them. And then the foul stinking ivy waxeth mighty in the stump of the tree, and becometh a seat and a nest for all unclean birds, and for blind owls, which hawk in the dark, and dare not come at the light. Even so the Bishop of Rome, now called pope, at the beginning crept along upon the earth; and every man trod upon him in this world. But as soon as there came a Christian emperor, he joined himself unto his feet and kissed them, and crept up a little with begging now this privilege, now that; now this city, now that; to find poor people withal, and the necessary ministers of God’s Word. And he entitled the emperor with choosing the pope and other bishops; and promoted in the spiritualty not whom virtue and learning, but whom the favour of great men commended; to flatter, to get friends, and defenders withal, And the alms of the congregation which was the food and patrimony of the poor and necessary preachers that he called St. Peter’s patrimony, St. Peter’s rent, St. Peter’s lands, St. Peter’s right; to cast a vain fear and a heathenish superstitiousness into the hearts of men, that no man should dare meddle with whatsoever came once into their hands for fear of St. Peter, though they ministered it never so evil; and that they which should think it none alms to give them any more, because they had too much already, should yet give St. Peter somewhat, as Nabuchodonesser gave his god Beel, to purchase an advocate and an intercessor of St. Peter, and that St. Peter should at the first knock let them in. And thus, with flattering and feigning, and vain superstition, under the name of St. Peter, he crept up and fastened his roots in the heart of the emperor, and with his sword climbed up above all his fellow bishops, and brought them under his feet. And as he subdued them with the emperor’s sword, even so by subtlety and help of them (after that they were sworn faithful) he climbed above the emperor and subdued him also, and made him stoop unto his feet and kiss them another while. Yea, Pope Coelestinus crowned the Emperor Henry the Fifth,1 holding the crown between his feet: and when he had put the crown on, he smote it off with his feet again, saying that he had might to make emperors and to put them down again…. And as the pope played with the emperor, so did his branches and his members, the bishops, play in every kingdom, dukedom, and lordship; insomuch that the very heirs of them by whom they came up hold now their lands of them, and take them for their chief lords. And as the emperor is sworn to the pope, even so every king is sworn to the bishops and prelates of his realm: and they are the chiefest in all parliaments; yea, they and their money, and they that be sworn to them, and come up by them, rule altogether. And thus the pope, the father of all hypocrites, hath with falsehood and guile perverted the order of the world, and turned the roots of the trees upward, and hath put down 1

Pope Celestine III, but the Emperor was Henry VI.

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the kingdom of Christ, and set up the kingdom of the devil, whose vicar he is; and hath put down the ministers of Christ, and hath set up the ministers of Satan, disguised yet in names and garments like unto the angels of light and ministers of righteousness. For Christ’s kingdom is not of the world (John xviii); and the pope’s kingdom is all the world. And Christ is neither judge nor divider in this world: (Luke xii) but the pope judgeth and divideth all the world, and taketh the empire and all kingdoms and giveth them to whom he lusteth. Christ saith, “Blessed are the poor in spirit:” so that the first step in the kingdom of Christ is humbleness, or humility; that thou canst find in thine heart to do service unto all men, and to suffer that all men tread thee. “The pope saith, ‘Blessed be the proud and high-minded, that can climb and subdue all under them, and maintain their right, and such as will suffer of no man’: so that he which was yesterday taken from the dung-hill and promoted this day by his prince, shall tomorrow, for the pope’s pleasure, curse him, and excommunicate him and interdict his realm. Christ saith, ‘Blessed be the meek’, or soft, that be harmless as doves. The pope blesseth them that can set all the world together by the ears, and fight, and slay manfully for his sake, that he may come hot from blood-shedding to a bishopric: as our cardinal did, and as St. Thomas of Canterbury did, which was made bishop in the field, in complete harness on his horseback, and his spear bloody in his hand. Christ hath neither holes for foxes, nor nests for birds, nor yet whereon to lay His head, nor promised aught in this world unto His disciples, nor took any to His disciple but him that had forsaken all. “The ivy-tree, the pope, hath under his roots throughout all Christendom, in every village, holes for foxes, and nests for unclean birds in all his branches, and promiseth unto his disciples all the promotions of the world. “The nearer unto Christ a man cometh, the lower he must descend, and the poorer he must wax. But the nearer unto the pope ye come, the higher ye must climb, and the more riches ye must gather, whencesoever ye can get them, to pay for your bulls, and to purchase a glorious name, and licence to wear a mitre, and a cross, and a pall, and goodly ornaments.”

(iv) Of worshipping of sacraments, ceremonies, images, relics, and so forth (Tyndale, Answer to More, 59–78)

Now let us come to the Worshipping or honouring of sacraments, ceremonies, images and relics. First, images be not God, and therefore no confidence is to be put in them. They be not made after the image of God, nor are the price of Christ’s blood; but the workmanship of the craftsman, and the price of money, and therefore inferiors to man. Wherefore of all right man is lord over them, and the honour of them is to do man service; and man’s dishonour it is to do them honourable service, as unto his better. Images, then, and relics, yea, and, as Christ saith, the holy day too, are servants unto

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man. And therefore it followeth, that we cannot, but unto our damnation, put on a coat worth an hundred coats upon a post’s back, and let the image of God and the price of Christ’s blood go up and down thereby naked. For if we care more to clothe the dead image made by man, and the price of silver, than the lively image of God, and price of Christ’s blood then we dishonour the image of God, and him that made him, and the price of Christ’s blood and him that bought him. Wherefore the right use, office, and honour of all creatures, inferiors unto man, is to do man service; whether they be images, relics, ornaments, signs, or sacraments, holy days, ceremonies or sacrifices. And that may be on this manner, and no doubt it so once was. If (for example) I take a piece of the cross of Christ, and make a little cross thereof, and bear it about me, to look thereon with a repenting heart at times when I am moved thereto, to put me in remembrance that the body of Christ was broken and his blood shed thereon for my sins; and believe stedfastly that the merciful truth of God shall forgive the sins of all that repent, for his death’s sake, and never think on them more: then it serveth me and I not it; and doth me the same service as if I read the testament in a book, or as if the preacher preached it unto me. And in like manner, if I make a cross in my forehead in a remembrance that God hath promised assistance unto all that believe in him, for his sake that died on the cross, then doth the cross serve me and I not it. And in like manner if I bear on me or look upon a cross, of whatsoever matter it be, or make a cross upon me, in remembrance that whosoever will be Christ’s disciple must suffer a cross of adversity, tribulations, and persecution, so doth the cross serve me, and I not it. And this was the use of the cross once; and for this cause it was, at the beginning, set up in the churches. And so, if I make an image of Christ, or of any thing that Christ hath done for me, in a memory, it is good, and not evil, until it be abused. And even so, if I take the true life of a saint and cause it to be painted or carved, to put me in remembrance of the saint’s life, to follow the saint as the saint did Christ, and to put me in remembrance of the great faith of the saint to God, and how true God was to help him out of all tribulation; and to see the saint’s love towards his neighbour, in that he so patiently suffered so painful a death and so cruel a martyrdom to testify the truth, for to save other, and all to strength my soul withal, and my faith to God and love to my neighbour, then doth the image serve me and I not it. And this was the use of images at the beginning, and of relics also. And to kneel before the cross unto the word of God, which the cross preacheth, is not evil. Neither to kneel down before an image, in a man’s meditations, to call the living of the saint to mind, for to desire God of like grace to follow the ensample is not an evil. But the abuse of the thing is evil, and to have a false faith: as to bear a piece of the cross about a man, thinking that so long as that is about him spirits shall not come at him, his enemies shall do him no bodily harm, all causes shall go on his side, even for bearing it about him; and to think that if it were not about him it would not be so; and to think, if any misfortune chance, that it came for leaving it off, or because this or that ceremony was left undone, and not rather because we have broken God’s commandments or that God tempteth us to prove our patience; this is plain idolatry: and here a man is captive, bond and servant unto a false faith, and

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a false imagination that is neither God nor his word. Now am I God’s only, and ought to serve nothing but God and his word. My body must serve the rulers of this world, and my neighbour, as God hath appointed it, and so must all my goods; but my soul must serve God only, to love his law and to trust in his promises of mercy in all my deeds. And in like manner it is that thousands, while the priest pattereth St. John’s gospel in Latin over their heads, cross themselves with, I trow, a legion of crosses behind and before; and (as Jack-of-napes, when he claweth himself) pluck up their legs, and cross so much as their heels and the very soles of their feet, and believe that if it be done in the time that he readeth the gospel (and else not), that there shall no mischance happen them that day, because only of those crosses. And where he should cross himself, to be armed and to make himself strong to bear the cross with Christ, he crosseth himself to drive the cross from him; and blesseth himself with a cross from the cross. And if he leave it undone he thinketh it no small sin, and that God is highly displeased with him, and if any misfortune chance, thinketh it is therefor; which is also idolatry, and not God’s word. And such is the confidence in the place or image or whatsoever bodily observance it be: such is St. Agathe’s letter written in the gospel time. And such are the crosses on palm-sunday, made in the passion time. And such is the bearing of holy wax about a man. And such is that some hang a piece of St. John’s gospel about their necks. And such is to bear the names of God, with crosses between each name, about them. Such is the saying of gospels unto women in child-bed. Such is the limiter’s saying of “In principle erat verbum”, from house to house. Such is the saying of gospels to the corn in the field, in the procession week, that it should the better grow. And such is holy bread, holy water, and serving of all ceremonies and sacraments in general, without signification. And, I pray you, how is it possible that the people can worship images, relics, ceremonies, and sacraments, save superstitiously; so long as they know not the true meaning, neither will the prelates suffer any man to tell them; yea, and the very meaning of some, and right use, no man can tell? And as for the riches that is bestowed on images and relics, they cannot prove but that it is abominable, as long as the poor are despised and uncared for, and not first served; for whose sakes, and to find preachers, offerings, tithes, lands, rents, and all that they have, was given the spiritualty. They will say we may do both. May or not may, I see that the one most necessary of both is not done; but the poor are bereaved of the spiritualty, of all that was in time past offered unto them. Moreover, though both were done, they shall never prove that the sight of gold and silver and of precious stones should move a man’s heart to despise such things, after the doctrine of Christ. Neither can the rich coat help to move thy mind to follow the ensample of the saint; but rather, if he were portrayed as he suffered in the most ungoodly wise. Which thing taken away, that such things with all other service, as sticking up candles, move not thy mind to follow the ensample of the saint, nor teach thy soul any godly learning, then the image serveth not thee, but thou the image; and so art thou an idolater, that is to say in English, a serve-image. And thus it appeareth that your ungodly and belly doctrine, wherewith ye so magnify the deeds of your ceremonies, and of your pilgrimages, and offering, for the deed itself, to please God, and to obtain the favour of dead saints (and

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not to move you and to put you in remembrance of the law of God, and of the promises which are in his Son, and to follow the ensample of the saint), is but an exhorting to serve images; and so are ye image-servers, that is, idolaters. And finally, the more devotion men have unto such deeds, the less they have unto God’s commandment; insomuch that they which be most wont to offer to images, and to shew them, be so cold in offering to the poor that they will scarce give them the scraps which must else be given dogs, or their old shoes, if they may have new brooms for them. Pilgrimages. To speak of pilgrimages, I say, that a Christian man, so that he leave nothing undone at home that he is bound to do, is free to go whither he will; only after the doctrine of the Lord, whose servant he is, and not his own. If he go and visit the poor, the sick, and the prisoner, it is well done, and a work that God commandeth. If he go to this or that place to hear a sermon, or because his mind is not quiet at home; or if, because his heart is too much occupied on his worldly businesses, by the reasons of occasions at home, he get him into a more quiet and still place, where his mind is more abstract, and pulled from worldly thoughts, it is well done. And in all these places, if whatsoever it be, whether lively preaching, ceremony, relic, or image stir up his heart to God, and preach the word of God, and the ensample of our Saviour Jesus, more in one place than in another, that he thither go, I am content. And yet he bideth a lord, and the things serve him, and he not them. Now whether his intent be so or no, his deeds will testify; as his virtuous governing of his house and loving demeanour toward his neighbours. Yea, and God’s word will be alway in his heart and in his mouth and he every day perfecter than other. For there can nothing edify man’s soul save that which preacheth him God’s word. Only the word of God worketh the health of the soul. And whatsoever preacheth him that cannot but make him perfecter. But to believe that God will be sought more in one place than in another, or that God will hear thee more in one place than in another, or more where the image is than where it is not is a false faith, and idolatry, or image-service. For first, God dwelleth not in temples made with hands (Acts xvii). Item, Stephen died for the contrary and proved it by the prophets. (Acts vii). And Salomon, in the eighth of the third of the Kings, when he had built his temple testified the same, and that he had not built it for God to dwell in; yea, and that God dwelleth not in the earth; but that he should out of heaven hear the prayers of them that prayed there. And the prophets did often testify unto the people that had such a false faith that God dwelt in the temple that he dwelt not there. Moreover, God in his testament bindeth himself unto no place, nor yet thee; but speaketh generally (concerning how and when) saying (Psalm xlix). “In the day of the tribulation thou shalt call on me, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” He setteth neither place nor time; but wheresoever and whensoever; to that the prayer of Job upon the dunghill was as good as Paul’s in the temple. And when our Saviour saith (John xvi.) “Whatsoever ye ask my Father in my name I will give it you”; he saith not in this or that place, or this or that day, but wheresoever and whensoever, as well in the fields as in the town, and on the Monday as on the Sunday. God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in the spirit (John iv.): that is, though he be present everywhere, yet he

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dwelleth lively and gloriously in the minds of angels only, and hearts of men that love his laws and trust in his promises. And wheresoever God findeth such an heart, there he heareth the prayer, in all places and times indifferently. So that the outward place neither helpeth or hindereth, except (as I said) that a man’s mind be more quiet and still from the rage of worldly businesses, or that something stir up the word of God and example of our Saviour more in one place than in another. … As for confirmation, it is no doubt but that it came this wise up, and that this was the use; which the word itself well declareth. We read in the stories that they which were converted unto the faith of the age of discretion, were full taught in the law of God (as right is), and in the faith of our Saviour Jesus ere they were baptized, and upon the profession or promising to keep that law and faith were baptized. And then for the succour and help of young children, baptized before the age of discretion, to know the law of God and faith of Christ, was confirmation instituted, that they should not be alway ignorant and faithless, but be taught the profession of their baptism. And this no doubt was the manner, as we may well gather by probable conjectures and evident tokens: when the children were of six or seven years old, their elders brought them unto the priest or deacon in every parish, which officer taught the children what their baptism meant, and what they had professed therein; that is to wit, the law of God, and their duty unto all degrees, and the faith of our Saviour. And then, because it should not be neglect or left undone, an higher officer, as the archdeacon (for it hath not been, as I suppose, in the bishop’s hands alway as now, neither were it meet), came about from parish to parish at times convenient: and the priests brought the children unto him at eleven or twelve years old, before they were admitted to receive the sacrament of Christ’s body haply; and he apposed them of the law of God and faith of Christ, and asked them whether they thought that law good, and whether their hearts were to follow it. And they answered, Yea. And he apposed them in the articles of our faith, and asked them whether they put their hope and trust in Christ to be saved through his death and merits? And they answered, Yea. Then confirmed he their baptism, saying, “I confirm you; that is, I denounce and declare, by the authority of God’s word, and doctrine of Christ, that ye be truly baptized within, in your hearts and in your spirits through professing the law of God and the faith of our Saviour Jesus which your outward baptism doth signify; and thereupon I put this cross in your foreheads that ye go and fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh, under the standard of our Saviour in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Which manner I would to God for his tender mercy were in use this day. But after that the devil was broken loose, and the bishops began to purchase, and the deacons to scratch all to them, and the spiritualty to climb on high; then, because the labour seemed too tedious and painful to appose the children one by one, they asked the priests that presented them only, Whether the children were taught the profession of their baptism? And they answered Yea: and so upon their words, they confirmed them without apposing. So when they no longer apposed them, the priests no longer taught them, but committed the charge to their godfathers and godmothers,

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and they to the father and mother, discharging themselves by their own authority within half an hour. And the father and mother taught them a monstrous Latin paternoster and an ave and a creed: which gibberish every popinjay speaketh with a sundry pronunciation and fashion; so that one paternoster seemeth as many languages almost, as there be tongues that speak it. Howbeit, it is all one as long as they understand it not. And in pro-cess, as the ignorance grew they brought them to confirmation straight from baptism, so that now oft-times be volowed and bishopped both in one day; that is, we be confirmed in blindness to be kept from knowledge for ever. And thus are we come into this damnable ignorance and fierce wrath of God through our own deserving; because when the truth was told us, we had no love thereto. And to declare the full and set wrath of God upon us, our prelates whom we have exalted over us, to whom we have given almost all we had, have persuaded the worldly princes (to whom we have submitted ourselves and given up our power) to devour up body and soul, and to keep us down in darkness, with violence of sword, and with all falsehood and guile; insomuch that if any do but lift up his nose to smell after the truth, they swap him in the face with a firebrand, to singe his smelling; or if he open one of his eyes once to look toward the light of God’s word, they blear and daze his sight with their false juggling: so that if it were possible, though he were God’s elect, he could not but be kept down, and perish for lack of knowledge of the truth. And in like manner, because Christ had instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, to keep us in remembrance of his body-breaking and blood-shedding for our sins, therefore went they and set up this fashion of the mass, and ordained sacraments in the ornaments thereof to signify and express all the rest of his passion. The amice on the head is the kerchief that Christ was blindfolded with when the soldiers buffeted him and mocked him saying, “Prophesy unto us, who smote thee?” But now it may well signify that he that putteth it on is blinded, and hath professed to lead us after him in darkness, according unto the beginning of his play. And the flap thereon is the crown of thorns: and the alb is the white garment that Herod put on him, saying he was a fool, because he held his peace and would not answer him. And the two flaps on the sleeves, and the other two on the alb beneath, over against his feet, behind and before, are the four nails; and the fanon on his hand, the cord that his hands were bound with; and the stole, the rope wherewith he was bound unto the pillar, when he was scourged; and the corporis-cloth the sindon wherein he was buried; and the altar is the cross, or haply the grave; and so forth: and the casting abroad of his hands, the splaying of Christ upon the cross; and the light and sticking up of candles, and bearing of candles or tapers in procession, haply signified this text. “Ye be the light of the world;” and, “let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” And the salt signifieth the wisdom of Christ’s doctrine; and that we should therewith salt our deeds, and do nothing without the authority of God’s word. So that in one thing or other, what in the garments, and what in the gestures, all is played; insomuch that before he will go to mass he will be sure to sell him, lest Judas’s part should be left out.

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And so throughout all the sacraments, ceremonies, or signs (three words of one signification) there were significations unto them at the beginning. And so long as it was understood what was meant by them and they did but serve the people, and preach one thing or another unto them, they hurted not greatly; though that the free servant of Christ ought not to be brought violently into captivity under the bondage of traditions of men: as St. Augustine complaineth in his days, how that the condition and state of the Jews was more easy than the Christians under traditions; so sore had the tyranny of the shepherds invaded the flock already in those days. And then what just cause have we to complain our captivity now; unto whose yoke from that time hitherto even twelve hundred years long hath ever somewhat more weight been added to, for to keep us down and to confirm us in blindness: howbeit, as long as the significations bode, they hurted not the soul, though they were painful unto the body. Nevertheless, I impute this our grievous fall into so extreme and horrible blindness (wherein we are so deep and so deadly brought asleep) unto nothing so much as unto the multitude of ceremonies. For as soon as the prelates had set up such a rabble of ceremonies they thought it superfluous to preach the plain text any longer, and the law of God, faith of Christ, love toward our neighbour, and the order of our justifying and salvation; (forasmuch as all such things were played before the people’s faces daily in the ceremonies, and every child wist the meaning); but got them unto allegories, feigning them every man after his own brain, without rule, almost on every syllable; and from thence unto disputing, and wasting their brains about words, not attending the significations until at the last the lay-people had lost the meaning of the ceremonies, and the prelates the understanding of the plain text, and of the Greek and Latin, and specially of the Hebrew, which is most of need to be known, and of all phrases, the proper manner of speakings, and borrowed speech of the Hebrews. Remember ye not how within this thirty years and far less, and yet dureth unto this day, the old barking curs, Duns’ disciples, and like draff called Scotists, the children of darkness, raged in every pulpit against Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; and what sorrow the schoolmasters, that taught the true Latin tongue, had with them; some beating the pulpit with their fists for madness and roaring out with open and foaming mouth, that if there were but one Terence or Virgil in the world, and that same in their sleeves, and a fire before them, they would burn them therein, though it should cost them their lives; affirming that all good learning decayed and was utterly lost since men gave them unto the Latin tongue? Yea, and I dare say that there be twenty thousand priests, curates, this day in England, and not so few, that cannot give you the right English unto this text in the Paternoster, Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo et in terra, and answer thereto. And as soon as the significance of the ceremonies was lost, and the priests preached Christ no longer, then the common people began to wax mad and out of their minds upon the ceremonies. And that trust and confidence which the ceremonies preached to be given unto God’s word and Christ’s blood, that same they turned unto the ceremony itself; as though a man were so mad to forget that the bush at the tavern-door did signify wine to be sold within, but would believe that the bush itself would quench his thirst. And so they became servants unto the ceremonies; ascribing their justifying and salvation

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unto them, supposing that it was nothing else to be a Christian man than to serve ceremonies, and him most Christian that most served them; and contrariwise, him that was not popish and ceremonial, no Christian man at all. For I pray you, for what cause worship we our spiritualty so highly, or wherefore think we their prayers better than the poor laymen’s than for their disguisings and ceremonies? Yea, and what other virtue see we in the holiest of them than to wait upon dumb superstitious ceremonies? Yea, and how cometh it that a poor layman, having wife and twenty children, and not able to find1 them, though all his neighbours know his necessity, shall not get with begging for Christ’s sake, in a long summer’s day enough to find them two days honestly; when if a disguised monster come, he shall, with an hour’s lying in the pulpit, get enough to find thirty or forty sturdy lubbers a month long, of which the weakest shall be as strong in the belly, when he cometh unto the manger, as the mightiest porter in the weigh-house, or best courser that is in the king’s stable? Is there any other cause than disguising and ceremonies? For the deeds of the ceremonies we count better than the deeds which God commandeth to be done to our neighbour at his need. Who thinketh it as good a deed to feed the poor as to stick up a candle before a post, or as to sprinkle himself with holy water? Neither is it possible to be otherwise as long as the signification is lost. For what other thing can the people think than that such deeds be ordained of God; and because as it is evident they serve not our neighbour’s need to be referred unto the person of God, and he, though he be a spirit yet served therewith? And then he cannot but forth on dispute, in his blind reason, that as God is greater than man so is that deed that is appointed to serve God greater than that which serveth man. And then when it is not possible to think them ordained for nought what can I otherwise think than that they were ordained to justify; and that I should be holy thereby according to the pope’s doctrine; as though God were better pleased when I sprinkled myself with water or set up a candle before a block than if I fed or clothed, or helped at his need him whom he so tenderly loveth that he gave his own Son unto the death for him and commanded me to love him as myself? And when the people began to run that way the prelates were glad, and helped to heave after with subtle allegories and falsifying the scripture; and went and hallowed the ceremonies to make them more worshipful, that the lay people should have them in greater estimation and honour, and to be afraid to touch them for reverence unto the holy charm that was said over them; and affirmed also that Christ’s death had purchased such grace unto the ceremonies to forgive sin and to justify. O monster! Christ’s death purchased grace for man’s soul, to repent of evil and to believe in Christ for remission of sin, and to love the law of God, and his neighbour as himself; which is the true worshipping of God in the spirit; and he died not to purchase such honour unto insensible things that man to his dishonour should do them honourable service, and receive his salvation of them. This I have declared unto you that ye might see and feel every thing sensibly. For I intend not to lead you in darkness. Neither though twice two cranes make not four wild geese would I therefore that ye should believe that twice two made not four. 1

i.e. provide for.

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Neither intend I to prove unto you that Paul’s steeple is the cause why Thames is broke in about Erith, or that Tenterden steeple is the cause of the decay of Sandwich haven, as Master More jesteth. Nevertheless, this I would were persuaded unto you (as it is true) that the building of them and such like, through the false faith that we have in them is the decay of all the havens in England, and of all the cities, towns, highways, and shortly of the whole commonwealth. For since these false monsters crept up into our consciences and robbed us of the knowledge of our Saviour Christ, making us believe in such pope-holy works, and to think that there was none other way unto heaven we have not ceased to build them abbeys, cloisters, colleges, chauntries, and cathedral churches with high steeples, striving and envying one an-other who should do most. And as for the deeds that pertain unto our neighbours and unto the commonwealth we have not regarded at all, as things which seemed no holy works or such as God would not once look upon. And therefore we left them unseen to, until they were past remedy, or past our power to remedy them; inasmuch as our slow bellies, with their false blessings, had juggled away from us that wherewith they might have been helped in due season. So that the silly poor man (though he had haply no wisdom to express his mind, or that he durst not, or that Master More fashioneth his tale as he doth other men’s, to jest out the truth) saw that neither Good-win Sands, nor any other cause alleged was the decay of Sandwich haven, so much as that the people had no lust to maintain the commonwealth for blind devotion which they have to pope-holy works.

83. Latimer on “The New Learning” (Latimer to Hubbardine. G.E.Corrie (ed.) Latimer. Sermons and Remains P.S. 317) In writing to Hubbardine this objection to the use of the term “New Learning” for the religious ideas of the reformers, Latimer was not addressing a friend. When Latimer preached at Bristol Hubbardine and Dr John Hilsey, Prior of the Dominicans, publicly assailed him for his views. He in turn could write: “As for Hubberdin, no doubt he is a man of no great learning, nor yet of stable wit. He is here servus hominum; for he will preach whatsoever the bishops will bid him preach. Verily, in my mind, they are more to be blamed than he. He doth magnify the pope more than enough….” (Ibid. 365.)

T

he Spirit of God be with you to seal the truth and follow the same! Amen. I doubt not, master Hubbardine, that you have read the saying of the Spirit by his prophet Isaiah: Voe qui dicunt malum bonum, et bonum malum, ponentes lucem tenebras, et tenebr as lucem, &c. which words, after mine understanding, be this much in English: “Woe,” or eternal damnation, “be unto them which say that good is evil and evil is good: calling light darkness, and darkness light, &c.” Take heed, Remember your-self well. Ye may mock and deceive us: Deus non irridetur, “God will not,” for all that, “be mocked”. It is not the saying of wise Aristotle, of godly Plato, of holy Thomas, nor yet of subtle Duns, (who for all their wisdom, godliness, holiness, and subtlety, deceived, were deceived, and lied,) but it is the eternal and perpetual word of God; who, as he deceiveth no man, so can he be deceived of no man, nor yet make any lie. God it is that saith, “Woe,” or eternal damnation, “be unto him that saith that good is evil, &c.” It is no threatening of man, but it is the sentence of God: wherefore it is the more to be

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feared, and undoubtedly to be looked for. For it is only the word of God that lasteth ever, and may sustain no change. Do you marvel wherefore I say this? It is only brotherly love, and my conscience, which compelleth me, as bounden, brotherly to admonish you not only of the grievous blasphemies against the truth which ye uttered here on the Ascension-day, but also to exhort you to desist of your proposed blasphemy and lies against God and his word, which ye have promised to prove in this same place this day. And that ye may know that ye have inexcusably blasphemed and belied the truth, and promised to do the same, partly here I will confute your blasphemies that be past, and partly that be promised. And so first to begin with that which is past. Ye said, that it was plain that this new learning (as ye call it) was not the truth, and so not of God: but contrariwise that it was lies, and so surely of the devil. This your assertion ye proved by two manner of conjectures: the one is, that the professors of it live naughtily; and the other is that priests be prosecuted of them. Which two persuasions, though they be in very deed lies, as I trust in God to shew them, yet though they were true, did but easily prove your intention. For after the same manner ye may as well openly improve Christ and all his doctrine, as ye do now under a colour, which I will entreat more largely hereafter. But to our purpose: that, as ye say, it is plain that this new learning (as ye call it) is not the truth, and so not of God: but contrariwise it is lies, and surely of the devil. Herein are contained three great blasphemies and abominable lies, injurious both to God and his word; and, I fear, sin against the Holy Ghost: for they are even the same words with the example of Christ, declaring the sin against the Holy Ghost. For to begin withal: ye call the scripture the new learning, which I am sure is older than any learning which ye wot to be the old. But if ye will say, that it is not the scripture that ye call new, but other books lately put in English: I answer, that the scripture was the first which you and your fautors condemned; besides that those other, for the most, teach nothing but that which is manifest in the scripture, and also plain in the ancient doctors. I speak not of your old doctors, Duns and St. Thomas, Halcot, Briget, and others, but of Augustine, Hierome, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Hilary, and such other; which, in like manner, be called new doctors, as the scriptures new learning; and as Tully, new Latin; as the text of Aristotle, new philosophy; and likewise of all sciences. And so in this appeareth your first lie, that ye call the scripture new doctrine; except that ye would call it new, either because it makes the receivers of it new men, or else that it was now newly received into the world, for the condemnation of them that reject it, and the salvation of the receivers: of which newness I am sure ye spake not. I pray you, was not the scripture, if ye would contend, before your most ancient doctors, that ye can allege to have written of it? Was it not, afore they wrote upon it, better received, more purely understood, of more mighty working, than it is now, or since they wrote upon it? In St. Paul’s time, when there was no writers upon the new Testament, but that the plain story was then newly put forth, were there not more converted by (I dare boldly say) two parties, than there be at this hour, I will not say Christian men, but that profess the name of Christ? Is it not now the same word as it was then? Is not the same schoolmaster, that taught them to understand it then (which, as St. Peter saith, is

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the Spirit of God) alive, as well as he was then? Doth he not favour us now as well as he did then? Have we him not now, as well as we had then? If we have not the spirit of Christ, St. Paul saith, so be we no Christian men. And if we be no Christian men, so be you deceivers and false prophets; preaching unto yourself your authority and your constitutions, without the word of God; which is only the rule of faith according to the saying of St. Paul, where he saith that “faith is of hearing”, and not of all manner hearing, but of hearing of the word of God: which faith, also, is the first fruit of the Spirit of God: which Spirit if we have not, so testify ye against us, that we be no Christian men; and against yourself, that ye be no ministers or stewards of Christ, but ministers of antichrist, and shepherds of your own bellies. Which Spirit if we have, so beareth us witness St. Paul that we be Christ’s men; and St. Peter, that we may understand the scripture. Which only is that the lay-people desire; utterly contemning all men’s draughts, and all men’s writings, how well learned soever they be; only contented with their old and new schoolmaster, the Holy Spirit of God, and the minister thereto of him elect, and of him sent. But you will say, that you condemn not the scripture, but Tyndal’s translation. Therein ye shew yourself contrary to your words: for ye have condemned it in all other common tongues, wherein they be approved in other countries. So that it is plain that it is the scripture, and not the translation, that ye bark against, calling it new learning. And this much for the first lie. And as for the two other, they be soon confuted, that it is not the truth, nor of God, but lies and of the devil. O Jesu, mercy! that ever such blasphemy against the Holy Ghost should proceed out of a Christian man’s mouth! Is it not all one to say that the doctrine of Christ is lies, and cometh of the devil, and that Christ is a liar, and the devil? What difference, I pray you, is here betwixt this blasphemy, and that which the Pharisees imputed unto Christ, when they said, “We know that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil within thee?” when that Christ said that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost should never be forgiven. If ye have said this of ignorance, I pray God bring you to knowledge and repentance. If ye spake it against your conscience, of malice against the truth, (as he knoweth qui scrutator cordium est), I fear me lest time of repentance (which God forbid!) shall ever be given you in this life. O Lord God! what a wresting of the scripture was it to interpret and […] those words of St. Paul, “Before the coming of antichrist, there shall be a departure from the pope;” when, as the text saith plainly, antichrist was come already, and that he then worked secretly, and that there should be a departing from the faith, and that he should be opened unto all men afore the coming of Christ. For shame, nay for conscience, either allege the scriptures aright, without any such wresting, or else abstain out of the pulpit. But now, to come to your conjectures by which you persuaded your assertions; that is, that the scripture was new learning, Christ a liar and the devil: which are, that the fautors and professors thereof live naughtily, and that they persecute priests. First, besides that it is manifest that your conjectures both be false; for the purenessof life of the favourers of it, (I speak of them that are of my only knowledge,) their virtuous living is so well known, that it is but folly for me to labour to confute it. And that they

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persecute priests, I would gladly hear of one priest so much as once imprisoned,—I mean not for whoredom, theft, and murders, with such their common practices, but for his faith’s sake; except it were such as you yourself persecuted, as ye do us for knowledging the truth. Need ye that I bring forth examples?

B. THE KING’S PRIVATE MATTER 84. Negotiations for the marriage of Prince Henry and Catherine of Aragon, 1503 (C.S.P. Spain, 1, 364) The marriage of Catherine of Aragon to Henry VII’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, took place on 14 November 1501. After the death of Prince Arthur (2 April 1502) negotiations were opened for the disposal of Catherine in marriage. Finally an agreement was made for her marriage to Prince Henry (23 June 1503). The Pope was to be asked to grant a dispensation from an impediment of the first degree of affinity, due to Catherine’s previous marriage. Ferdinand asked for the dispensation on 23 August 1503, but there was a delay owing to the death of Alexander VI (18 August), and of Pius III (18 October), and the matter awaited a decision from Julius II, who was elected on 1 November 1503. At first the new Pope doubted whether he had the power to grant such a dispensation. He did not grant it until November 1504, when he sent a Bull as a consolation to Queen Isabella, then on her deathbed. It was not until the spring of 1505 that a Bull for the dispensation was sent to Henry VII (C.S.P. Spain, I, 407–409; Rymer, Foed, XII, 89). Meanwhile changes in foreign policy led Henry VII to safeguard his position. On 27 June 1505 Prince Henry appeared before a committee of the Council protesting against his betrothal to Catherine, contracted during his minority, and declared he would not ratify it. Uncertainty about the marriage continued until after Henry VII’s death, when he soon announced his intention to fulfil treaty obligations and his father’s dying wish.

1. Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as Henry VII promise to employ all their influence with the Court of Rome, in order to obtain the dispensation of the Pope necessary for the marriage of the Princess Katharine with Henry, Prince of Wales. The Papal dispensation is required, because the said Princess Katharine had on a former occasion contracted a marriage with the late Prince Arthur, brother of the present Prince of Wales, whereby she became related to Henry, Prince of Wales, in the first degree of affinity, and because her marriage with Prince Arthur was solemnized according to the rites of the Catholic Church, and afterwards consummated. 2. If the aforesaid dispensation be obtained, Ferdinand and Isabella on the one side, and Henry VII on the other, promise that a marriage per verba de praesenti shall be contracted within two months after this treaty shall have been ratified by both the contracting parties. 3. When the Princess Katharine contracted her marriage with Prince Arthur, Ferdinand and Isabella promised to give her a marriage portion of 200,000 scudos, each scudo being worth 4s. 2d. of English money. Of this sum 100,000 scudos were paid into the hands of King Henry VII at the time when the said marriage was solemnized. Ferdinand and Isabella renounce in their name and in the name of the Princess Katharine, all right to demand restitution of this payment.

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4. Ferdinand and Isabella promise Henry VII to pay, on the marriage of their daughter to Henry, Prince of Wales, a marriage portion of 200,000 scudos, each scudo being worth 4s. 2d. of English money. Henry VII on the other hand, confesses that he has already received one half of the said 200,000 scudos. The remaining 100,000 scudos are to be paid in the following manner; viz. 65,000 scudos in coined gold, 15,000 scudos in plate, and vessels of gold and silver, according to the valuation of silversmiths in London, 20,000 scudos in jewels, pearls, ornaments etc. of the Princess of Wales, according to their prices in London, which is to be fixed by sworn valuers. All these payments are to be made in London, within ten days before or after the solemnization of the marriage. The marriage to be solemnized as soon as Prince Henry shall have completed the fourteenth year of his age, and as soon as Ferdinand and Isabella, or their successors, can show that the whole marriage portion is in London, ready for delivery. Ferdinand and Isabella pledge their and their subjects’ fortunes as security for the punctual execution of this clause of the treaty. 5. Prince Arthur had settled on the Princess of Wales her dowry, consisting of lands, manors etc, the revenues of which amount to the third part of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester. She is to give back, within ten days before or after the solemnization of her new marriage, all documents and title deeds respecting this dowry; and Prince Henry will endow her on the day of the solemnization of the marriage with a new dowry as great and as well secured as her first dowry was. Henry VII promises to ratify the constitution of the new dowry within one month after the solemnization of the marriage. The Princess Katharine renounces all other claims on the revenues of Wales, Cornwall and Chester, and promises to be content with her dowry. 6. In case the Princess Katharine become Queen of England, she is to have, besides her dowry as Princess of Wales, a dowry as Queen, consisting of the third part of all the revenues of the Crown of England. She is to hold both dowries for life. 7. The right of succession to the Crown of Spain is reserved to the Princess Katharine. 8. If the Princess Katharine become Queen of England, she is to enjoy, during the lifetime of her royal husband, all the privileges and revenues that other Queens of England have enjoyed before her. Henry VII pledges the whole of his fortune and the fortunes of his subjects as security for the punctual fulfilment of his obligation. 9. If Henry, Prince of Wales, should die before his father, and leave a son or sons born of the Princess Katharine, during her marriage with him, Henry VII promises to create such sons or the first born son, Prince of Wales, and to do all in his power to secure to the said son the succession to the throne after his death. 10. Both contracting parties promise to ratify this treaty within six months after the date of its conclusion.

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85. The letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, c. 1527–28 These letters deserve attention for at least two reasons. Firstly, they show a side of Henry’s character not revealed in more official correspondence in the king’s hand. Secondly, they throw some light, although it is regrettably uncertain, upon the relation in time between Henry’s doubts about the legality of his first marriage and his approaches to Anne Boleyn. Apart from their human interest the letters provide some puzzles in textual criticism. Nothing was heard of them during Henry’s lifetime, but when Lord Herbert of Cherbury was writing his History of Henry VIII in 1649 he had knowledge that some such correspondence had been taken to Rome, and Burnet, visiting the Vatican in 1685, was shown a collection which his acquaintance with Henry’s handwriting allowed him to accept as genuine. This collection consisted of seventeen letters (Codices Vaticani, II, 3731 A) nine of them in French and the rest in English. They were first copied imperfectly by a Dr Fell, precentor of York, in 1682. He offered them to Burnet for inclusion in his History of the Reformation, but Burnet had scruples about making them public. They were printed from this transcript, with the letters in French translated, in Love Letters from King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, for J.Churchill, 1714. Thomas Hearne used this text, without the translations in his edition of Roberti de Avesbury Historia de Mirabilibus gestis Edwardi III (Oxford, 1720, App. IV). The text of the 1714 edition was also reprinted in The Harleian Miscellany (ed. W.Oldys, vol. III, 1745) with a brief introduction strongly in favour of Henry and Anne. The letters aroused little more interest until the nineteenth century. After the Treaty of Tolentino in 1797 fifteen of the original letters formed part of a collection of five hundred MSS, which Napoleon arranged should be sent to Paris, and they remained in the Bibliothèque du Roi until 1815, when they were returned to the Vatican. While in Paris they were copied. In 1821 William Gunn thought he had made an original find in the Vatican, and oblivious of the earlier editions published his discovery in The Pamphleteer (1821, vols. XXI and XXII). His text was better than that of earlier editions, and was used by J.S.Brewer for his summaries of the letters in L.P. IV. Five years later an edition was published by G.A.Crapelet, Lettres de Henri VIII à Anne Boleyn (Paris, 1826:2nd edn., 1835). Crapelet worked from the Paris transcript, with some reference to Hearne’s text. With its scholarly annotations this has been accepted as the standard text, and was used by Miss St. C.Byrne for her translation of the letters in The Letters of Henry VIII (1936). The publication by H.Savage, The Love Letters of Henry VIII (1949), made a critical study of the text much easier, for in addition to his modernized text (the transcription is not beyond criticism), with English translations of the letters in French, his book contains excellent reproductions of photostat copies of all the Vatican letters. Although many of the textual problems can now be settled there remain some insoluble problems. Chief of these is the question of chronology. None of the letters is dated, and the text offers little help in settling the sequence. There is general agreement that the correspondence began in the summer of 1527, or possibly a little earlier, when it was already public knowledge that Henry was contemplating proceedings to free himself from Catherine, and Anne Boleyn had left the Court. It was continued into 1528, but must have ended in the late autumn of that year when she returned and the need for such correspondence ended. While the earlier editions retained the sequence of the Vatican originals there have been some attempts at re-arrangement, notably by J.S.Brewer and Miss Byrne. There can be no certainty about the traditional order nor these later suggestions. The sequence adopted here is that of the Vatican MSS.

I

M

y mistress and friend.

I and my heart put ourselves in your hands, begging you to have them suitors for your good favour, and that your affection for them should not grow less through absence. For it would be a great pity to increase their sorrow since absence does it sufficiently, and more than ever I could have thought possible reminding us of a point in astronomy, which is, that the longer the days are the farther off is the sun, and yet the more fierce.

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So it is with our love, for by absence we are parted, yet nevertheless it keeps its fervour, at least on my side, and I hope on yours also: assuring you that on my side the ennui of absence is already too much for me: and when I think of the increase of what I must needs suffer it would be well nigh unbearable for me were it not for the firm hope I have of your steadfast affection for me. So, to remind you of that sometimes, and as I cannot be with you in person, I am sending you the nearest possible thing to that, namely, my picture set in a bracelet, with the whole device which you already know. Wishing myself in their place when it shall please you. This by the hand of Your loyal servant and friend H.Rex. 2 To my mistress. Because the time seems to me very long since I have heard of your good health and of you, the great affection I have for you urges me to send this messenger to you to be better informed of your health and wishes: and because, since I parted from you, I have been told that the opinion in which I left you is now completely changed, and that you are unwilling to come to court, neither with madam your mother nor in any other way. If this report is true I cannot enough marvel at it, seeing that I have since made certain I have never offended you. And it seems to me a very small return for the great love I have for you to be kept apart both from the presence and the person of the woman whom I most esteem in the world. And if you love me with as great affection as I hope I am sure that this estrangement of our two selves must be a little vexing to you, though not so much to the mistress as to the servant. Consider well, my mistress, that your absence grieves me greatly, hoping that it is not your will that it should be so. But if I knew for certain that you wished it of your own will I could not do other than deplore my ill fortune while putting from me little by little my mad infatuation. And so, for lack of time, I make an end of my rude letter begging you to believe what the bearer will tell you on my behalf. Written with the hand of your entire servant H.Rex. 3 The anxiety I had about your health troubled me not a little and I should have had no peace unless I knew the truth, but since as yet have not felt anything I hope and take for granted that it will pass you by, as I hope it is doing with us: for when we were at Waltham two ushers, two grooms of the chamber, your brother, master treasurer, went sick, and are quite recovered. And since we have been well cared for at your house at Hunsdon, where we are well settled without any sickness up to now, God be praised! And I think that if you would come away from Surrey as we did you would escape unharmed. And there is also another thing you may find comforting, for it is true, so they say, that few women, if any, have this sickness, and moreover none of our Court, and few have died of it elsewhere. Wherefore, I beg of you, my wholly beloved, have no fear at all, and do not be uneasy at our absence for wherever I may be I am yours. And (yet) although one must sometimes submit to fate for he

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who will struggle against fate at such a point is very often the further away from his desire. Wherefore take comfort, and be brave and avoid this evil as far as you can, and I hope soon to rejoice with you in its dismissal. No more now for lack of time, except that I wish you in my arms that I might take away from you some of your un-reasonable thoughts. Written by the hand of him who is and always will be your un H.Rex changeable. 4 Turning over in my mind the contents of your letters I have been put to great distress, not knowing what to make of them, whether to my disadvantage as appears in some parts, or to my advantage, as I interpret them in other parts. I beg you with all my heart, to let me know definitely your whole mind touching the love between us both. For I must of necessity force you to reply, as I have been for more than a year now smitten by love’s dart, being uncertain either of failure or of finding a place in your heart and sure affection. This last point has kept me for some little time from naming you my mistress, for if you love me in no other way than with a common love that name is not suitable for you, seeing that it denotes a singular love far removed from the common: but if it please you to play the part of a true, loyal mistress and friend, giving yourself body and soul to me, who has been and will be your very loyal servant (if your coldness does not forbid me) I promise you not only that the title shall be yours, but also I will take you for my only mistress, casting out all others save yourself from my thoughts and affection to serve you and you alone. Begging you to make a full answer to this rude letter of mine as to how far and in what I can trust. And if you are unwilling to reply in writing, give me an assignation where I may have it by word of mouth and I shall be there with all my heart. No more for fear of wearying you. Written by the hand of him who would gladly remain your HR 5 For a present so beautiful that, (taking all in all) could not be surpassed, I thank you most warmly, not only for the fine diamond and the ship in which the lonely damsel is tossed about, but most of all for the fine interpretation and the too great humility used on this occasion through your charity: thinking indeed that it would be very difficult for me to find occasion to deserve it if I were not helped by your great good nature and favour, for which I have sought, do seek, and will seek by all means in my power to live where my hope has fixed its unchangeable intention saying aut illic aut nullibi. The proofs of your affection are such, the beautiful words of your letter are so cordially expressed that I am obliged to love, honour, and serve you truly for ever, begging you to continue in this same firm and steadfast purpose. Assuring you that for my part I will go one better rather than merely returning your devotion, if loyalty of heart, the desire to please you, and you alone without any other root in my heart, can further that end. Praying you also that if at any time I have offended you, you will give me the same absolution as you ask for, assuring you that from now on my heart shall be dedicated to you alone wishing very much that my body could be so too, which God can do if he pleases, to whom I pray every day to that end, hoping that at length

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my prayer may be heard, wishing the time short and thinking it long until we two meet again. Written with the hand of the secretary who in heart, body and will is Your loyal and most assured servant H. seeks

no other R.

6 The reasonable request of your last letter with the pleasure also that I take to know them true causeth me to send you now these news: the legate which we most desired arrived at Paris on Sunday or Monday last past so that I trust by the next Monday to hear of his arrival at Calais, and then I trust within a while after to enjoy that which I have so long longed for to God’s pleasure and our both comfort: no more to you at this present mine own darling for lack of time but that I would you were in my arms or I in yours for I think it long since I kissed you. Written after the killing of an hart at a xj. of the clock minding with God’s grace tomorrow mightily timely to kill another: by the hand of him which I trust shortly shall be yours. Henry R. 7 Darling, though I have scant leisure yet remembering my promise I thought it convenient to certify you briefly in what case our affairs stand. As touching a lodging for you we have gotten one by my lord cardinal’s means, the like whereof could not have been found here about for all causes, as this bearer shall more show you. As touching our other affairs I ensure you there can be no more done nor more diligence used nor all manner of dangers better both foreseen and provided for, so that I trust it shall be hereafter to both our comfort, the specialities whereof were both too long to be written and hardly by messenger to be declared. Wherefore till your repair hither I keep something in store, trusting it shall not be long before I have caused my lord your father to make his provisions with speed. And thus for lack of time darling, I make an end of my letter. Written with the hand of him which I would were yours H.R. 8 Although it is not fitting for a gentleman to take his lady in place of a servant, nevertheless, following your desires willingly, I grant them if thereby you find yourself less uncomfortable in the place of your choice than in the place given by me: at the same time thanking you very cordially if it please you still to have some remembrance of me. ONRI de ROMVER. Henry R. 9 The cause of my writing at this time (good sweetheart) is only to understand of your good health and prosperity; whereof to know I would be as glad as in manner mine

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own, praying God (that and it be his pleasure) to send us shortly together: for I promise you I long for it: howbeit trust it shall not be long so: And seeing my darling is absent I can no less do than to send her some flesh representing my name, which is hart flesh for Henry, prognosticating that hereafter, God willing, you must enjoy some of mine, which, He pleased, I would were now. As touching your sister’s matter I have caused Walter Welshe to write to my lord mine own mind therein, whereby I trust that Eve shall not have power to deceive Adam: for surely, whatsoever is said it cannot so stand with his honour but that he must needs take her his natural daughter now in her extreme necessity. No more to you at this time mine own darling but that with a wish I would we were together an evening. With the hand of yours H.R. 10 Although my mistress, it has not pleased you to remember the promise you made me when I was last with you, which was, to hear good news of you and to have an answer to my last letter, nevertheless it seems to me the duty of a true servant (seeing that otherwise he can know nothing) to send an inquiry about the health of his mistress, and so to carry out the duty of a true servant I send you this letter begging you to let me know of your well-being, which I pray God may last as long as I would my own. And to put you even more often in mind of me, I send you by this messenger, a buck killed very late yesterday evening by my own hand, hoping that when you eat it, it will remind you of the hunter. And so, for lack of space, I will make an end of my letter. Written by the hand of your servant, who often wishes you were here in your brother’s place H.Rex. 11 The approach of the time I have so long awaited rejoices me so much that it seems already here. Nevertheless, the complete fulfilment cannot be until the two persons meet, which meeting is more desired on my side than anything on earth: for what joy in this world can be so great as having the company of the one who is one’s dearest friend: knowing also that her choice is also the same, which thought gives me great pleasure. Judge then what her presence will do, whose absence has given me such pangs as neither tongue nor pen can express, and that never anything but that can remedy. Begging you, my mistress, to tell my lord your father, on my behalf, that I beg him to put forward by two days the time appointed so as to be in court, before the old date or at least on the day arranged, for otherwise I shall think that he will not serve the lovers’ turn as he said he would, nor come up to my expectations. No more now for lack of time, hoping quite soon to tell you by word of mouth the rest of the pangs I have suffered through your absence. Written by the hand of the secretary who wishes himself at this time with you privately, and who is and ever will be Your loyal and most assured servant [H. seeks

no other R.]

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12 News has come to me suddenly tonight, the most unpleasant that could reach me, which I must deplore for three reasons. The first, to hear of the illness of my mistress whom I treasure more than all the world, whose health I desire as if it were my own, and would willingly bear the half of your illness to have you cured. The second, the fear I have of being yet again depressed by my enemy, absence, which now has given me every possible anxiety, and so far as I can see is likely to do worse, though I pray God to rid me of so importunate a rebel. The third, because the physician in whom I have most faith is absent just when he could give me the greatest pleasure, for I was hoping through him and his skill to obtain one of my chief joys in this world, to wit, that my mistress should be cured. However, in his place I am sending you the second, the only one left, praying God that very soon he will be able to restore you to health. And then I shall love him more than ever. Begging you to be governed by his advice regarding your illness, by doing which I hope to see you again soon which will be for me a tonic worth all the precious stones in the world. Written by that secretary who is and always will be Your loyal and assured servant H 13 Since your last letters mine own darling Walter Welche master browne John Carr Yrion of Brearton John Coke the apothecary be fallen of the sweat in this house and, thanked be God, all well recovered, so that as yet the plague is not fully ceased here, but I trust shortly it shall by his mercy of God. The rest of us yet be well, and I trust shall pass it, or not to have it or at least as easily as the rest have done. As touching the matter of Wilton, my lord cardinal hath had the nuns before him and examined them, master Bell being present. Which hath certified me that for a truth that she hath confessed herself (which we would have had abbess) to have had two children by two sundry priests, and further since hath been kept by a servant of the lord Broke that was, and that not long ago. Wherefore I would not for all the gold in the world cloak your conscience nor mine to make her ruler of a house which is of so ungodly demeanour, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother nor sister I should so destain mine honour or conscience. And as touching the prioress or Dame Elleanor’s eldest sister though there is not any evident case proved against them, and that the prioress is so old that of many years she could not be as she was named, yet, notwithstanding, to do you pleasure I have done that neither of them shall have it, but that some other good and well-disposed woman shall have it, whereby the house shall be the better reformed (whereof I ensure you it had much need, and God much the better served). As touching your abode at Hever do therein as best shall like you, for you know best what air doth best with you; but I would it were come thereto (if it pleased God) that neither of us need care for that, for I ensure you I think it long. Suche1 is fallen side of the sweat and therefore I send you this bearer because I think you long to hear tidings from us as we do in like wise from you. Written with the hand de votre seulle H.R. 1

?One of Henry’s messengers.

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14 Darling these shall be only to advertise you that this bearer and his fellow be dispatched with as many things to compass our matter and to bring it to pass as our wits could imagine or devise: which brought to pass as I trust by their diligence it shall be shortly, you and I shall have our desired end, which should be more to my heart’s ease and more quietness to my mind than any other thing in this world (as with God’s grace shortly I trust shall be proved) but not so soon as I would it were; yet I will ensure you there shall be no time lost that may be won, and further cannot be done for vltra posse non est esse. Keep him not too long with you, but desire him for your sake to make the more speed, for the sooner we shall have word from him the sooner shall our matter come to pass. And thus upon trust of your short repair to London I make an end of my letter, mine own sweetheart. Written with the hand of him which desireth as much to be yours as you do to have him. H.R. 15 Darling I heartily recommend me to you, ascertaining you that I am not a little perplexed with such things as your brother shall, on my part, declare unto you, to whom I pray you give full credence for it were too long to write. In my last letters I wrote to you that I trusted shortly to see you, which is better known at London than with any that is about me, whereof I not a little marvel: but lack of discreet handling must needs be the cause thereof. No more to you at this time, but that I trust shortly our meetings shall not depend upon other men’s light handlings, but upon your own. Written with the hand of his that longeth to be yours. H.R. 16 Mine own sweetheart, these shall be to advertise you of the great elengenes1 that I find here since your departing, for I ensure you methinketh the time longer since your departing now last than I was wont to do a whole fortnight: I think your kindness and my fervents of love causeth it, for otherwise I would not have thought it possible that for so little a while it should have grieved me, but now that I am coming toward you methinketh my pains been half released, and also I am right well comforted, in so much that my book maketh substantially for my matter, in writing whereof I have spent above iiij. hours this day, which caused me now to write the shorter letter to you at this time because of some pain in my head. Wishing myself (specially an evening) in my sweetheart’s arms, whose pretty dukkys I trust shortly to kiss. Written with the hand of him that was, is, and shall be yours by his will. H.R. 17 To inform you what joy it is to me to understand of your conformableness to reason, and of the suppressing of your inutile and vain thoughts and fantasies, with the bridle of reason, I ensure you that all the good in this world could not counterpoise for my 1

Loneliness.

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satisfaction the knowledge and certainty thereof. Wherefore, good sweetheart, continue the same not only in this but in all your doings hereafter, for thereby shall come both to you and me the greatest quietness that may be in this world. The cause why this bearer tarrieth so long is the business that I have had to dress up gear for you, which I trust or long to see you occupy, and then I trust to occupy yours, which shall, be recompense enough to me for all my pains and labours. The unfeigned sickness of this well willing legate doth somewhat retard his access to your presence, but I trust verily when God shall send him health he will with diligence recompense his demur; for I know well where he hath said (lamenting the saying and bruit that he should be imperial) that it should be well known in this matter that he is not imperial. And thus for lack of time sweetheart, farewell. Written with the hand which fain would be yours, and so is the heart. H.R.

86. Henry VIII’s “Scrupulous Conscience” Henry’s speech to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London and other notables at Bridewell, 8 November 1528.

(Hall, Chronicle, 753–755)

N

ow let us return to the king of England which was in a great scruple of his conscience and not quiet in his mind, because that divers divines well learned secretly informed him that he lived in adultery with his brother’s wife, to the great peril of his soul, and told him farther that the court of Rome could not dispense with God’s commandment and precept. These things were talked among the common people since the first day of his marriage as you have heard before, insomuch that now the king’s counsellors advised him to know the truth. Wherefore, he like a wise prince, for quieting of his conscience called together the best learned of the realm, which were of several opinions, wherefore he thought to know the truth by in-different judges lest peradventure the Spaniards in favour of the queen would say that his own subjects were not indifferent judges, wherefore he wrote his cause to Rome because the best clerks in Christendom were there, and also he sent to all the universities of Italy and France and to the great clerks of all Christendom to know their opinions, and desired the court of Rome to send into his realm a legate to hear the cause debated which should be indifferent and of a great judgment. At whose request the whole consistory of the college of Rome sent thither Laurence Campeius, a priest Cardinal, a man of great wit and experience, but more learned in the papal law than in divinity, which was sent as legate into England in the 10th year of this king, as you have heard in the said year, and with him was joined in commission the Cardinal of York and legate of England. And so this Cardinal Campeius by long journeys came into England, and much preparation was made to receive him triumphantly into London, but he was so sore vexed with the gout that he refused all such solemnities, and desired heartily that he might without pomp be conveyed to his lodging for his more quiet and rest, and so the 9th. day of October he came from St. Mary Overeys by water to the bishop of Bath’s place without Temple Bar, where he lodged the last time he was in England, where he was visited of the Cardinal of York

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and divers other estates and prelates. And after he had rested him a season and was somewhat relieved of his pain, he was brought to the king’s presence, then living at Bridewell, by the Cardinal of York, and was carried in a chair of crimson velvet borne between four persons, for he was not able to stand, and the Cardinal of York and he sat both on the right hand of the king’s throne, and there one Francisco, secretary to Cardinal Campeius made an eloquent oration in the Latin tongue, in the which he rehearsed first, with what cruelty the Emperor’s soldiers had handled the Pope, what tyranny they had shewed to the Cardinals and priests, what sacrilege and spoil they had committed in St. Peter’s church, how they had violated virgins, ravished men’s wives, and in conclusion spoiled, robbed, and tormented all the Romans and inhabitants in the city of Rome: and farther, he shewed what friendship the college of Rome found at the king’s hands and the French king’s in the time of that tribulation, that if they had not joined together, the city of Rome with all their governors had been brought to utter ruin and decay, for the which he said that Pope Clement and all his college of cardinals and the senators of the city with all the citizens rendered to the king their hearty thanks, and promised him their love, favour, and amity perpetual. This oration (as concerning the trouble of Rome) was set forth with such lamentations, such abominable acts and tyrannies that the most part of the hearers thought it more eloquent than true. To the which oration Dr. Fox, provost of Cambridge, made a discreet answer, and as to the first point he declared that the king much lamented to hear his friends, yea, or any other Christian men to be ordered or handled with such tyranny and oppression: and as touching the second point, he said that the king did but the duty of a Christian prince to relieve his friends being in captivity, for the which he would that the whole city of Rome should give thanks to God and not to him. After which answer made the two legates communed secretly with the king a long space, and after, departed to their lodging. Of the coming of this Legate the common people, being ignorant of the truth, and in especial women, and others that favoured the queen, talked largely and said that the king would for his own pleasure have another wife, and had sent for this legate to be divorced from his queen, with many foolish words, insomuch that who-soever spoke against the marriage was of the common people abhorred and reproved, which common rumour and foolish communications were related to the king, wherefore he, like a prudent prince, and circumspect doer in all his affairs, and willing all men to know his intent and purpose, caused all his nobility, judges, and counsellors with divers other persons to come to his palace of Bridewell on Sunday the 8th. day of November, at afternoon, in his great chamber, and there to them said as near as my wit could bear away, these words following. Our trusty and wellbeloved subjects, both you of the nobility and you of the meaner sort, it is not unknown to you how that we, both by God’s provision and true and lawful inheritance have reigned over this realm of England almost the term of 20 years, during which time we have so ordered us, thanked be God, that no outward enemy hath oppressed you nor taken anything from us, nor we have invaded no realm but we have had victory and honour, so that we think that you nor none of your predecessors never lived more quietly, more wealthy, nor in more estimation under any of our noble progenitors: But when we remember our mortality and that we must die, then we think

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that all our doings in our lifetime are clearly defaced and worthy of no memory if we leave you in trouble at the time of our death. For if our true heir be not known at the time of our death, see what mischief and trouble shall succeed to you and your children. The experience thereof some of you have seen after the death of our noble grandfather king Edward IV. and some have heard what mischief and manslaughter continued in this realm between the houses of York and Lancaster, by the which dissension this realm was like to have been clearly destroyed. And although it hath pleased almighty God to send us a fair daughter of a noble woman and me begotten to our great comfort and joy, yet it hath been told us by divers great clerks that neither she is our lawful daughter nor her mother our lawful wife, but that we live together abominably and detestably in open adultery, insomuch that when our embassy was last in France and motion was made that the Duke of Orleans should marry our said daughter, one of the chief counsellors to the French king said, It were well done to know whether she be the king of England’s law-ful daughter or not, for well known it is that he begat her on his brother’s wife, which is directly against God’s law and his precept. Think you, my lords, that these words touch not my body and soul, think you that these doings do not daily and hourly trouble my conscience and vex my spirits, yes, we doubt not but and if it were your own cause every man would seek remedy when the peril of your soul and the loss of your inheritance is openly laid to you. For this only cause I protest before God and in the word of a prince, I have asked counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom, and for this cause I have sent for this legate as a man indifferent only to know the truth and to settle my conscience and for none other cause as God can judge. And as touching the queen, if it be adjudged by the law of God that she is my lawful wife, there was never thing more pleasant nor more acceptable to me in my life both for the discharge and clearing of my conscience and also for the good qualities and conditions the which I know to be in her. For I assure you all, that beside her noble parentage of the which she is descended (as all you know) she is a woman of most gentleness, of most humility, and buxomness, yea, and of all good qualities appertaining to nobility, she is without comparison, as I this 20. years almost have had the true experiment, so that if I were to marry again if the marriage might be good I would surely choose her above all other women. But if it be determined by judgment that our marriage was against God’s law and clearly void, then I shall not only sorrow the departing from so good a lady and loving companion, but much more lament and bewail my unfortunate chance that I have so long lived in adultery to God’s great displeasure, and have no true heir of my body to inherit this realm. These be the sores that vex my mind, these be the pangs that trouble my conscience, and for these griefs I seek a remedy. Therefore I require of you all as our trust and confidence is in you, to declare to our subjects our mind and intent according to our true meaning, and desire them to pray with us that the very truth may be known for the discharge of our conscience and saving of our soul, and for the declaration hereof I have assembled you together and now you may depart. To see what countenance was made amongst the hearers of this oration it was a strange sight, for some sighed and said nothing, other were sorry to hear the king so

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troubled in his conscience. Other that favoured the queen much sorrowed that this matter was now opened, and so every man spake as his heart served him, but the king ever laboured to know the truth for discharge of his conscience.

87. Stages in the “Divorce” proceedings. From various sources (i) Meeting of the Legatine Court, 18 June, 1529 (R.S.Sylvester, Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, 79)

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e shall understand, as I said before, that there was a court erected in the Black Friars in London, where these two Cardinals sat for judges. Now will I set you out the manner and order of the court there. First there was a court placed with tables, benches, and bars, like a consistory, a place judicial for the judges to sit on. There was also a cloth of estate under the which sat the King; and the Queen sat some distance beneath the King; under the judges’ feet sat the officers of the court. The chief scribe there was then Doctor Stephens (which was after Bishop of Winchester); the apparitor was one Cook most commonly called Cook of Winchester). Then sat there within the said court, directly before the King and judges, the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and all the other bishops. Then at both the ‘ends, with a bar made for them, the counsels on both sides. The doctors for the King was Doctor Sampson, which was after Bishop of Chichester, and Doctor Bell which after was Bishop of Worcester, with divers other. The proctors on the King’s part was Doctor Peter, which was after made the King’s chief secretary, and Doctor Tregonell, and divers other. Now on the other side stood the counsel for the Queen, Doctor Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Doctor Standish, sometime a grey friar, and then Bishop of Saint Asaph in Wales, two notable clerks in divinity, and in especial the Bishop of Rochester a very godly man and a devout person, who after suffered death at Tower Hill, the which was greatly lamented through all the foreign universities of Christendom. There was also another ancient doctor called, as I do remember, Doctor Ridley, a very small person in stature, but surely a great and an excellent clerk in divinity. The court being thus furnished and ordered, the judges commanded the crier to command silence. Then was the judges’ commission, which they had of the Pope, published and read openly before all the audience there assembled. That done, the crier called the King by the name of “King Harry of England come into the court etc.” With that the King answered and said “Here, my lords.” Then he called also the queen by the name of “Catherine Queen of England come into the court etc.”; who made no answer to the same, but rose up incontinent out of her chair whereas she sat and, because she could not come directly to the King, for the distance which severed them, she took pain to go about unto the King, kneeling down at his feet in the sight of all the court and assembly, to whom she said in effect, in broken English, as followeth: “Sir”, quod she, “I beseech you for all the loves that hath been between us and for the love of God, let me have justice and right; take of me some pity and compassion,

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for I am a poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friends, and much less indifferent counsel. I flee to you as to the head of justice within this realm. Alas, sir, wherein have I offended you, or what occasion of displeasure have I deserved against your will or pleasure? Intending, as I perceive, to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife, ever comformable to your will and pleasure, that never said or did anything to the contrary thereof, being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein ye had any delight or dalliance; whether it were in little or much, I never grudged in word or countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontentation. I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and whether they were my friends or my enemies. This twenty years I have been your true wife (or more), and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no default in me. “And when ye had me at the first (I take God to be myjudge) I was a true maid without touch of man; and whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience. If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment, to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart to my great shame and dishonour. And if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate and to receive justice at your princely hands. The King your father was in the time of his reign of such estimation through the world for his excellent wisdom that he was accompted and called of all men ‘the second Solomon’; and my father Ferdinand, King of Spain, who was esteemed to be one of the wittiest princes that reigned in Spain many years before who were both wise and excellent Kings in wisdom and princely behaviour. It is not therefore to be doubted but that they elected and gathered as wise counsellors about them as to their high discretions was thought meet. Also, as me seemeth, there was in those days as wise, as well learned men, and men of as good judgement as be at this present in both realms, who thought then the marriage between you and me good and lawful. Therefore it is a wonder to me what new inventions are now invented against me, that never intended but honesty. And cause me to stand to the order and judgment of this new court, wherein ye may do much wrong if ye intend any cruelty; for ye may condemn me for lack of sufficient answer, having no in-different counsel, but such as be assigned me, with whose wisdom and learning I am not acquainted. Ye must consider that they cannot be indifferent counsellors for my part which be your subjects and taken out of your own council before, wherein they be made privy, and dare not for your displeasure disobey your will and intent, being once made privy thereto. Therefore I most humbly require you in the way of charity and for the love of God (who is the just judge) to spare the extremity of this new court, until I may be advertised what way and order my friends in Spain will advise me to take. And if ye will not extend to me so much indifferent favour, your pleasure then be fulfilled, and to God I commit my case.” And even with that she rose up, making low curtsy to the King, and so departed from thence. They supposed that she would have resorted again to her former place,

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but she took her direct way out of the house, leaning (as she was wont always to do) upon the arm of her general receiver, called Master Griffith. And the King being advertised of her departure, commanded the crier to call her again, who called her by the name of “Catherine Queen of England, come into the court etc.” With that quod Griffith, “Madam, ye be called again”. “On, on,” quod she, “it makes no matter, for it is no indifferent court for me. Therefore I will not tarry, go on your ways.” And thus she departed out of that court without any further answer at that time or at any other, nor would never appear in any court after. The King, perceiving that she was departed in such sort, calling to his grace’s memory all her lamentable words that she had pronounced before him and all the audience, said thus in effect: “For as much,” quod he, “as the Queen is gone, I will in her absence declare unto you all my lords here presently assembled that she hath been to me as true, obedient, and as comformable a wife as I could in my fancy wish or desire. She hath all the virtuous qualities that ought to be in a woman of her dignity or in any other of baser estate. Surely she is also a noble woman born, if nothing were in her but only her conditions will well declare the same.” With that quod my Lord Cardinal, “Sir, I most humbly beseech your highness to declare me before all this audience whether I have been the chief inventor or first mover of this matter unto your majesty, for I am greatly suspected of all men here-in.” “My Lord Cardinal”, quod the King, “I can well excuse you herein. Marry indeed, ye have been rather against me in attempting or setting forth thereof. And to put you all out of doubt, I will declare unto you the especial cause that moved me hereunto. It was a certain scrupulosity that pricked my conscience upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the Bishop of Bayonne, the French King’s ambassador, who had lain here long upon the debating for the conclusion of a marriage to be concluded between the Princess our daughter Mary and the young Duke of Orleans, the French King’s second son. “And upon the resolution and determination thereof he desired respite to advertise the King his master thereof, whether our daughter Mary should be legitimate in respect of the marriage which was sometime between the Queen here and my brother late Prince Arthur. These words were so conceived within my scrupulous conscience that it bred a doubtful prick within my breast, which doubt pricked, vexed, and troubled so my mind, and so disquieted me, that I was in great doubt of God’s indignation; which, as seemed me, appeared right well, much the rather for that he hath not sent me any issue male; for all such issue males as I have received of the Queen died incontinent after they were born, so that I doubt that punishment of God in that behalf. Thus being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience, and partly in despair of any issue male by her, it drove me at last to consider the estate of this realm, and the danger it stood in for lack of issue male to succeed me in this imperial dignity. I thought it good therefore in the relief of the weighty burden of scrupulous conscience, and the quiet estate of this noble realm, to attempt the law therein, and whether I might take another wife in case that my first copulation with this gentlewoman were not lawful; which I intend not for any carnal concupiscence, nor

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for any displeasure or mislike of the Queen’s person or age, with whom I could be as well content to continue during my life, if our marriage may stand with God’s laws, as with any woman alive. In which point consisteth all this doubt that we go now about to try by the learned wisdom and judgments of you our prelates and pastors of this realm here assembled for that purpose, to whose conscience and judgment I have committed the charge, according to the which (God willing) we will be right well contented to submit ourself, to obey the same for my part. “Wherein after I once perceived my conscience wounded with the doubtful case herein, I moved first this matter in confession to you, my Lord of Lincoln, my ghostly father. And for as much as then yourself were in some doubt to give me counsel, moved me to ask further counsel of all you, my lords, wherein I moved you first my Lord of Canterbury, asking your license, for as much as you were our metro-politan, to put this matter in question. And so I did of all you, my lords, to the which ye have all granted by writing under all your seals, the which I have here to be showed.” “That is truth if it please your highness,” quod the Bishop of Canterbury, “I doubt not but all my brethren here present will affirm the same.” “No, sir, not I,” quod the Bishop of Rochester, “ye have not my consent thereto.” “No hath,” quod the King, “look here upon this, is not this your hand and seal?” And showed him the instrument with seals. “No, forsooth, sir,” quod the Bishop of Rochester, “it is not my hand nor seal.” To that quod the King to my Lord of Canterbury, “Sir, how say ye? Is it not his hand and seal?” “Yes, sir,” quod he. “That is not so,” quod the Bishop of Rochester, “for indeed you were in hand with me to have both my hand and seal, as other of my lords hath already done, but then I said to you that I would never consent to no such act for it were much against my conscience, nor my hand and seal should never be seen at any such instrument (God willing) with much more matter touching the same communication between us.” “You say truth,” quod the Bishop of Canterbury, “such words ye had unto me, but at the last ye were fully persuaded that I should for you subscribe your name and put to a seal myself, and ye would allow the same.” “All which words and matter,” quod the Bishop of Rochester, “under your correction, my lord, and supportation of this noble audience, there is nothing more untrue.” “Well, well,” quod the King, “it shall make no matter. We will not stand with you in argument herein, for you are but one man.” And with that the court was adjourned until the next day of their session. The next court day the Cardinals sat there again. At which time the counsels on both sides were there present. The King’s counsel alleged the marriage not good from the beginning because of the carnal knowledge committed between Prince Arthur, her first husband, the King’s brother, and her. This matter being very sorely touched and maintained by the King’s counsel, and the contrary being defended by such as took upon them to be on that other part with the good Queen; and to prove the same carnal copulation they alleged many coloured reasons and similitudes of truth. It was answered again negatively on the other side, by which it seemed that all their former allegations were very doubtful to be tried, so that it was said that no man could know the truth. “Yes” quod the Bishop of Rochester, “Ego nosco veritatem” “How know ye

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the truth?” quod my Lord Cardinal. “Forsooth,” quod he, “Ego sum professor veritatis, I know that God is truth itself, nor He never spake but truth; which said ‘Quod deus coniunxit, homo non separet.’ And for as much as this marriage was made and joined by God to a good intent, I say that I know the truth, the which cannot be broken or loosed by the power of man upon no one feigned occasion.” “So much doth all faithful men know,” quod my Lord Cardinal, “as well as you. Yet this reason is not sufficient in this case; for the King’s counsel doth allege divers presumptions to prove the marriage not good at the beginning. Ergo, say they, it was not joined by God at the beginning and therefore it is not lawful; for God ordaineth nor joineth nothing without a just order. Therefore it is not to be doubted but that their presumptions must be true, as it plainly appears; and nothing can be more true in case their allegations cannot be avoided. Therefore, to say that the matrimony was joined of God, ye must prove it further than by that text which ye have alleged for your matter; for ye must first avoid their presumptions.” Then quod one Doctor Ridley, “it is a shame and a great dishonour to these honourable persons that any such presumptions should be alleged in this open court, which be to all good and honest men most detestable to be rehearsed.” “What,” quod my Lord Cardinal, “Domine Doctor, magis reverenter.” “No, no, my lord,” quod he, “there belongeth no reverence to be given to these abominable presumptions, for an irreverent tale would be irreverently answered.” And there they left and proceeded no further at that time. Thus this court passed from session to session and day to day, in so much that a certain day the King sent for my lord at the breaking up one day of the court to come to him into Bridewell. And to accomplish his commandment he went unto him, and being there with him in communication in his grace’s privy chamber from eleven unto twelve of the clock and past at noon, my lord came out and departed from the King and took his barge at the Black Friars stairs and so went to his house at Westminster. The Bishop of Carlisle, being with him in his barge, said unto him, wiping the sweat from his face, “Sir,” quod he, “it is a very hot day.” “Yea,” quod my Lord Cardinal, “if ye had been as well chafed as I have been within this hour, ye would say it were very hot.” And as soon as he came home to his house at Westminster, he went incontinent to his naked bed, where he had not lain fully the space of two hours, but that my Lord of Wiltshire came to speak with him of a message from the King. My Lord, having understanding of his coming, caused him to be brought unto his bedside. And he, being there, showed that the King’s pleasure was that he should incontinent, accompanied with the other Cardinal, repair unto the Queen at Bridewell into her chamber, to persuade her by their wisdoms, advising her to surrender the whole matter into the King’s hands by her own will and consent; which should be much better to her honour than to stand to the trial of the law and to be condemned, which should be much to her slander and defamation. To fulfill the King’s pleasure, quod my lord, he was ready and would prepare him to go thither out of hand saying further to my Lord of Wiltshire, “ye and other of my lords of the council which be near unto the King are not a little to blame

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and misadvised to put any such fantasies into his head, whereby ye are the causers of great trouble to all this realm. And at length get you but small thanks either of God or of the world,” with many other vehement words and sentences that was like to ensue of this matter; which words caused my Lord of Wiltshire to water his eyes, kneeling all this while by my lord’s bedside, and in conclusion departed. And then my lord rose up and made him ready, taking his barge, and went straight to Bath Place to the other Cardinal, and so went together unto Bridewell, directly to the Queen’s lodging. And they, being in her chamber of presence, showed to the gentleman usher that they came to speak with the Queen’s grace. The gentleman usher advertised the Queen thereof. Incontinent with that she came out of her privy chamber with a skein of white thread about her neck into the chamber of presence, where the Cardinals were giving of attendance upon her coming. At whose coming quod she, “Alack, my lords, I am sorry to cause you to attend upon me. What is your pleasure with me?” “If it please you,” quod my Lord Cardinal, “to go into your chamber, we will show you the cause of our coming,” “My lord,” quod she, “if ye have anything to say, speak it openly before all these folk, for I fear nothing that ye can say or allege against me, but that I would all the world should both hear and see it. Therefore I pray you speak your mind openly.” Then began my lord to speak to her in Latin. “Nay, good my lord,” quod she, “speak to me in English, I beseech you, although I understand Latin.” “Forsooth then,” quod my lord, “Madam, if it please your grace, we come both to know your mind, how ye be disposed to do in this matter between the King and you, and also to declare secretly our opinions and our counsel, unto which we have intended of very zeal and obedience that we bear to your grace.” “My lords, I thank you then,” quod she, “of your good wills. But to make answer to your request I cannot so suddenly, for I was set among my maidens at work, thinking full little of any such matter, wherein there needeth a longer deliberation and a better head than mine to make answer to so noble wise men as ye be. I had need of good counsel in this case, which toucheth me so near, and for any counsel or friendship that I can find in England are nothing to my purpose or profit. Think you, I pray you, my lords, will any Englishman counsel or be friendly unto me against the King’s pleasure, they being his subjects? Nay forsooth, my lords! And for my counsel in whom I do intend to put my trust be not here, they be in Spain in my native country. Alas, my lords, I am a poor woman, lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to answer such approved wise men as ye be both in so weighty a matter. I pray you to extend your good and indifferent minds in your authority unto me, for I am a simple woman, destitute and barren of friendship and counsel here in a foreign region. And as for your counsel, I will not refuse but be glad to hear.” And with that she took my lord by the hand and led him into her privy chamber with the other Cardinal, where they were in long communication. We in the other chamber might sometime hear the Queen speak very loud, but what it was we could not understand. Their communication ended, the Cardinals departed and went directly to the King, making to him relation of their talk with the Queen. And after resorted home to their houses to supper.

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Thus went this strange case forward from court day to court day, until it came to judgment, so that every man expected the judgment to be given upon the case at the next court day. At which day the King came thither and sat within a gallery against the door of the same that looked unto the judges, where they sat, whom he might see and hear speak, to hear what judgment they would give in his suit. At which time all their proceedings were first openly read in Latin. And that done, the King’s learned counsel at the bar called fast for judgment. With that quod the Cardinal Campeggio, “I will give no judgment herein until I have made relation unto the Pope of all our proceedings, whose counsel and commandment in this high case I will observe. The case is too high, and notable known through all the world, for us to give any hasty judgment, considering the highness of the persons and the doubtful allegations. And also whose commissioners we be, under whose authority we sit here, it were therefore reason that we should make our chief head a counsel in the same before we proceed into judgment definitive. I come not so far to please any man for fear, meed, or favour, be he King or any other potentate. I have no such respect to the persons that I will offend my conscience. I will not for favour or displeasure of any high estate or mighty prince do that thing that should be against the law of God. I am an old man, both sick and impotent, looking daily for death. What should it then avail me to put my soul in danger of God’s displeasure to my utter damnation for the favour of any prince or high estate in this world? My coming and being here is only to see justice ministered according to my conscience, as I thought thereby the matter good or bad. “And for as much as I do understand and having perseverance by the allegations and negations in this matter laid for both the parties, that the truth in this case is very doubtful to be known, and also that the party defendant will make no answer there-unto, doth rather appeal from us, supposing that we be not indifferent, considering the King’s high dignity and authority within this his own realm, which he hath over his own subjects; and we being his subjects and having our livings and dignities in the same, she thinketh that we cannot minister true and indifferent justice for fear of his displeasure. Therefore, to avoid all these ambiguities and obscure doubts, I intend not to damn my soul for no prince or potentate alive. I would therefore, God willing, wade no further in this matter unless I have the just opinion and judgment with the assent of the Pope and such other of his council as hath more experience and better learning in such doubtful laws than I have. Wherefore I will adjourn this court for this time, according to the order of the court in Rome from whence this court and jurisdiction is derived. And if we should go further than our commission doth warrant us, it were folly, and vain, and much to our slander and blames, and might be for the same accompted breakers of the orders of the higher court, from whence we have, as I said, our original authorities.” With that the court was dissolved and no more plea holden. With that stepped forth the Duke of Suffolk from the King, and by his commandment spake these words with a stout and high countenance, “It was never,” quod he, “merry in England whilst we had Cardinals among us.” Which

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words were set forth with such a vehement countenance that all men marvelled what he intended. To whom no man made answer. The duke again spake those words in great despite. To the which words my Lord Cardinal perceiving his vehemency, soberly made answer and said, “Sir, of all men within this realm ye have least cause to dispraise or be offended with Cardinals, for if I, simple Cardinal, had not been, ye should have had at this present no head upon your shoulders wherein ye should have a tongue to make any such report in despite of us who intended you no manner of displeasure, nor we have given you any occasion with such despite to be revenged with your hault words. I would ye knew it, my lord, that I and my brother here intended the King and his realm as much honour, wealth, and quietness as ye or any other, of what estate or degree so ever he be within this realm, and would as gladly accomplish his lawful desire as the poorest subject he hath. But, my lord, I pray, show me what would ye do if ye were the King’s commissioner in a foreign region, having a weighty matter to treat upon and the conclusion being doubtful thereof, would ye not advertize the King’s majesty or ever ye went through with the same? Yes, yes, my lord, I doubt not. Therefore I would ye should banish your hasty malice and despite out of your heart, and consider that we be but commissioners for a time, and can, nor may not, by virtue of our commission proceed to judgment without the knowledge and consent of the chief head of our authority, and having his consent to the same, which is the Pope. Therefore we do no less nor otherwise than our warrant will bear us; and if any man will be offended with us therefor, he is an unwise man. Wherefore, my lord, hold your peace, and pacify yourself, and frame your tongue like a man of honour and of wisdom, and not to speak so quickly or so reproachfully by your friends; for ye know best what friendship ye have received at my hands, the which yet I never revealed to no person alive before now, neither to my glory nor to your dishonour.” And therewith the Duke gave over the matter without any words to reply, and so departed and followed after the King, which was gone into Bridewell at the beginning of the Duke’s first words. This matter continued long thus, and my Lord Cardinal was in displeasure with the King for that the matter in his suit took no better success, the fault whereof was ascribed much to my lord; notwithstanding my lord excused him always by his commission, which gave him no further authority to proceed in judgment without knowledge of the Pope, who reserved the same to himself. At the last they were advertised by their post that the Pope would take deliberation in respite of judgment until his courts were opened, which should not be before Bartholomew-tide next. The King considering the time to be very long or the matter should be determined, thought it good to send a new embassy to the Pope to persuade him to show such honourable favour unto his grace that the matter might be sooner ended than it was likely to be, or else at the next court in Rome to rule the matter over according to the King’s request. To this embassy was appointed Doctor Stephens, then Secretary, that after was made Bishop of Winchester, who went thither and there tarried until the latter end of summer.

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(ii) Letter from Henry VIII to Cranmer 1553 (Cox, Cranmer’s Misc. Writings, 238, n. 1) Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on 30 March 1533. On the 11 April he wrote offering to deal with the king’s cause. (J.E.Cox, ed., Cranmer’s Miscellaneous Writings, 238.) The following letter from Henry VIII authorized Cranmer to give a final decision concerning the marriage of Henry and Catherine.

Most Reverend Father, &c., we greet you well. Doing you to understand, that the 12th. day of this month of April we received letters from you, dated at Lambeth the 11th. day of the same month, in which letters ye write, that forasmuch as our great cause of matrimony, which hath long depended in question, is divulgated (as it is thought) throughout all Christendom, and it is communed of the mouths of no small number of our people, and that many of them fear not to say and report, that thereof is likelihood, hereafter, to ensue great inconveniences, dangers, and perils to this realm, and much uncertainty to our succession, whereby our said people is seen to be not a little offended: whereupon ye, whom God and we have ordained Arch-bishop of Canterbury, and Primate of all this our realm of England, to whose office it hath been, and is, appertaining, by the sufferance of us and our progenitors, as ye write yourself both justly and truly, to order, judge, and determine mere spiritual causes within this our realm, having due consideration to the said inconveniences, dangers, perils, and uncertainty, if the said cause of matrimony should be suffered still to continue in question, undecided; and, also, reducing to your remembrance the great blame that hath been arrected to the clergy of this our realm, and specially to the heads and presidents of the same, because they have not hitherto studied and travailed for remedies to exclude and put out of doubt such uncertainty, inconveniences, perils, and dangers; being moved in your conscience, by reason of the premises, to endeavour yourself as far as ye may, by reason of your said office of primacy, to set some direction and end in the said cause of matrimony, according to the pleasure of Almighty God. And thereupon ye, duly recognising that it becometh you not, being our subject, to enterprise any part of your said office, in so weighty and great a cause, pertaining to us, being your prince and sovereign, without our licence obtained so to do; and, therefore, in your most humble wise, ye supply unto us, in your said letters, to grant unto you our licence to proceed to the examination and final determination of the said cause, in exoneration of your conscience towards God, and for the satisfying of your bounden duty towards us, our realm, succession and posterity, in avoiding of the said inconveniences; and, finally, in the end of your said letters, ye beseech us to pardon your boldness and rude writing in that behalf, and to take the same in good sense and part, as ye do mean, calling God to your record, that only for the zeal that ye have to the premises, ye have written your said letters, and for none other intent, cause, or purpose. My lord, where ye write in the last part of your said letters, whereunto we make you first answer, that ye be moved only by the zeal that ye have to justice, and for the exoneration of your conscience against God, to write as ye do unto us, we cannot of reason be discontented therewith, but condignly praise you therein. And for that we perceive that ye have such a good mind and fervent zeal to do justice, according to your office, for the quieting of our realm, and for the excluding of

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such dangers and perils as be in your said letters mentioned, and also for putting our succession and posterity out of question, doubt, and uncertainty; we cannot but much commend and laud your good and virtuous intended purpose in that behalf. In consideration whereof, albeit we, being your king and sovereign, do recognize no superior in earth, but only God, and not being subject to the laws of any other earthly creature; yet, because ye be, under us, by God’s calling and ours, the most principal minister of our spiritual jurisdiction, within this our realm, who we think assuredly is so in the fear of God, and love towards the observance of his laws, to the which laws we, as a Christian king have always heretofore, and shall ever most obediently submit ourself, will not therefore refuse (our pre-eminent power and authority to us and our successors, in this behalf, nevertheless saved) your humble request, offer, and towardness; that is, to mean to make an end, according to the will and pleasure of Almighty God, in our said great cause of matrimony, which hath so long depended undetermined, to our great and grievous unquietness and burden of our conscience. Wherefore we, inclining to your humble petition, by these our letters, sealed with our seal, and signed with our sign manual, do license you to proceed in the said cause, and to the examination and final determination of the same; not doubting but that ye will have God, and the justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not to regard any earthly or worldly affection therein. For assuredly, the thing which we most covet in this world is so to proceed, in all our acts and doings, as may be most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God, our Creator, and to the wealth, honour of us, our succession, and posterity, and the surety of our realms, and subjects within the same.

(iii) Cranmer’s sentence of divorce (Text from Pat. Roll in Rymer, Foed., XIV, 462; Cox, Cranmer’s Misc. Writings, 243)

In the year of the Incarnation, 1533, the sixth indiction, the tenth of Pope Clement, the 23 May, in the conventual church of the monastery of St. Peter, Dunstable, of the order of St. Augustine, in the diocese of Lincoln, in our province of Canterbury. In the name of God, Amen. We, Thomas, by divine will archbishop of Canterbury primate and legate of the see apostolic, proceeding duly and legally in a certain cause of inquiry concerning the validity of the marriage contracted and consummated between the most illustrious and most mighty prince and lord Henry VIII., by the grace of God King of England and of France, defender of the Faith and lord of Ireland, and the most high lady Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand of noble memory, King of Spain, which by reason of our mere office, has for a long time been pending before us in judgment and still is undecided. And whereas, firstly, we have seen and diligently inspected the articles or capitula in the said cause, which have been submitted and put forward, together with the answers to them made and returned on behalf of the said most illustrious and most mighty prince Henry VIII: and likewise we have inspected the depositions of many nobles and other important witnesses, and also, in addition, we have seen and inspected the opinions or official conclusions of wellnigh the whole Christian world of academies as well as the answers and opinions of theologians and legal experts, and,

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lastly, the statements and testimony of each of the provincial councils of the English province and in addition other useful advice and learning concerning the said marriage: And likewise, we have also seen and inspected the pacts or treaties of peace and friendship made between Henry VII, of immortal memory, late King of England, and the said Ferdinand, of noble memory, late King of Spain; and all the acts, actions, letters, proceedings, instruments, writings, and memorials, and all other things in whatsoever ways made and done in the said cause, have been seen and inspected, weighed and considered by us with diligence and care: And further, so that justice should be done by us to the aforesaid parties, namely to the aforesaid most illustrious and most mighty prince Henry VIII, through his suitable proctor lawfully appearing before us in the said cause, while the said most high lady Catherine was absent through contumacy, (whose absence was made up for by the divine presence), we have been led to proceed, on the advice of legal experts and theologians, with whom we have communicated on this matter, to make our definitive sentence or our final decree in the said cause, and we proceed in this manner. And since, through actions put forward deduced, purposed, shown, and alleged, and also proved and confirmed, and by the articles, capitula, answers of the party, depositions of witnesses, and the said instruments, muniments, letters, writings, opinions, decisions of magistrates, opinions, counsels, statements, affidavits, treaties, processes, and other things submitted to us in the said cause, had, done, shown, and produced: and accordingly, from these and various other causes and constitutions and arguments and from various and multiple kinds of proof, valid and effective, by which we have fully and clearly found and discovered that the said marriage contracted and consummated, as is abovesaid, between the aforesaid our most illustrious and mighty prince and lord Henry VIII and the most high lady Catherine was and is null and absolutely void, and was contracted and consummated contrary to divine law: And accordingly, we, Thomas archbishop, primate, and legate aforesaid, having first invoked the name of Christ and with God alone before our eyes, pronounce decree and declare the nullity and invalidity of the said marriage, and that this same pretended marriage was and is null and void, and was contracted and consummated contrary to divine love, and is of no value or consequence but was lacking and lacks force and legal confirmation, and that the aforesaid most illustrious and most mighty prince Henry VIII, and the most high lady Catherine ought not to remain in the same pretended matrimony: and we pronounce, decree, and declare that as in turn the same most illustrious and most mighty prince Henry VIII and the most high lady Catherine contracted and consummated the said pretended marriage de facto and not de iure, and so in turn we separate and divorce them, and we pronounce, decree, and declare that by this our definitive sentence and this our final decree, which we make known and promulgate in these writings, they thus separated and divorced were and are free and immune from every bond of matrimony in respect of the said pretended marriage. And in guarantee and witness of these premisses, these our letters testimonial and present public instrument of sentence or decree subscribed and signed by our undersigned public notaries, scribes and secretaries specially charged with the business, we order and cause to be published with our seal thereto appended.

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(iv) Letter from Cranmer to Archdeacon Hawkyns, 17 June 1533 (Cox, Cranmer’s Misc. Writings, 244–247)

In my most hearty wise I commend me unto you, and even so would be right glad to hear of your welfare, &c. These be to advertise you, that inasmuch as you now and then take some pains in writing unto me, I would be loth you should think your labour utterly lost and forgotten for lack of writing again: therefore, and because I reckon you be some deal desirous of such news as hath been here with us of late in the King’s grace’s matters, I intend to inform you a part thereof, according to the tenor and purport used in that behalf. And first, as touching the final determination and concluding of the matter of divorce between my lady Katherine and the king’s grace, which said matter, after the convocation in that behalf had determined and agreed according to the former consent of the universities, it was thought convenient by the king and his learned counsel, that I should repair unto Dunstable, which is within four miles unto Ampthill, where the said lady Katherine keepeth her house, and there to call her before me to hear the final sentence in the said matter. Notwithstanding, she would not at all obey thereunto; for when she was by doctor Lee cited to appear by a day, she utterly refused the same, saying, that inasmuch as her cause was before the pope, she would have none other judge; and therefore would not take me for her judge. Nevertheless the 8th. day of May, according to the said appointment, I came unto Dunstable, my lord of Lincoln1 being assistant unto me, and my lord of Winchester, doctor Bell, Dr. Claybroke, Dr. Trygonnell, Dr. Hewis, Dr. Olyver, Dr. Brythen, Mr. Bedell, with divers others learned in the law, being counsellors in the law for the king’s part: and so there at our coming kept a court for the appearance of the said lady Katherine, where were examined certain witness which testified that she was lawfully cited and called to appear, whom for fault of appearance was declared contumax; proceeding in the said cause against her in poenam contumaciae, as the process of the law thereunto belongeth; which continued fifteen days after our coming thither. And the morrow after Ascension-day I gave final sentence therein, how that it was indispensable for the pope to license any such marriages. This done, and after our rejourneying home again, the king’s highness prepared all things convenient for the coronation of the queen, which also was after such a manner as followeth. The Thursday next before the feast of Pentecost, the king and the queen being at Greenwich, all the crafts of London thereunto well appointed, in several barges decked after the most gorgeous and sumptuous manner, with divers pageants thereunto belonging, repaired and waited all together upon the mayor of London; and so well furnished came all unto Greenwich, where they tarried and waited for the queen’s coming to her barge: which so done, they brought her unto the Tower, trumpets, shambes,2 and other divers instruments all the ways playing and making great melody, which, as is reported, was so comely done as never was like in any time nigh to our remembrance. 1 2

John Longland, the King’s Confessor. i.e. shawms, a musical instrument of the oboe class.

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And so her grace came to the Tower on Thursday at night, about five of the clock, where also was such a peal of guns as hath not been heard like a great while before. And the same night, and Friday all day, the king and queen tarried there; and on Friday at night the king’s grace made eighteen Knights of the Bath, whose creation was not only so strange to hear of, as also their garments stranger to behold or look on, which said knights the next day, which was Saturday, rode before the queen’s grace throughout the city of London towards Westminster palace, over and besides the most part of the nobles of the realm, which like accompanied her grace throughout the said city; she sitting in her hair upon a horse litter, richly apparelled, and four knights of the five ports bearing a canopy over her head. And after her came four rich chariots, one of them empty, and three other furnished with divers ancient old ladies; and after them came a great train of other ladies and gentlewomen; which said progress, from the beginning to the ending, extended half a mile in length by estimation, or thereabout. To whom also, as she came along the city, was shewed many costly pageants, with divers other encomies1 spoken of children to her. Wine also running at certain conduits plentifully. And so proceeding through the streets, passed forth unto Westminster-hall, where was a certain banquet prepared for her; which done, she was conveyed out of the back side of the palace into a barge, and so unto York-place, where the king’s grace was before her coming: for this you must ever pre-suppose, that his grace came always before her secretly in a barge, as well from Greenwich to the Tower, as from the Tower to York-place. Now then on Sunday was the coronation, which also was of such a manner. In the morning there assembled with me at Westminster church the bishop of York, the bishop of London, the bishop of Winchester, the bishop of Lincoln, the bishop of Bath, and the bishop of St. Asaph’s; the abbot of Westminster, with ten or twelve more abbots; which all revested ourselves in our pontificalibus, and so furnished with our crosses and crosiers, proceeded out of the abbey in a procession unto West-minster-hall, where we received the queen apparelled in a robe of purple velvet, and all the ladies and gentlemen in robes and gowns of scarlet, according to the manner used before time in such business; and so her grace sustained of each side with two bishops, the bishop of London and the bishop of Winchester, came forth in procession unto the church of Westminster, she in her hair, my lord of Suffolk bearing before her the crown, and two other Lords bearing also before her a sceptre and a white rod, and so entered up into the high altar, where divers ceremonies used about her, I did set the crown on her head, and then was sung Te Deum, &c. And after that was sung a solemn mass: all which while her grace sat crowned upon a scaffold, which was made between the high altar and the choir in Westminster church; which mass and ceremonies done and finished, all the assembly of noblemen brought her into Westminster-hall again, where was kept a great solemn feast all that day; the good order thereof were too long to write at this time to you. But now, sir, you may not imagine that this coronation was before her marriage; for she was married much about St. Paul’s day last,2 as the condition thereof doth well appear, by reason she is now somewhat big with child. Notwithstanding it hath been reported throughout a great part of the realm that I 1

panegyrics.

2

25th January.

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married her; which was plainly false, for I myself knew not thereof a fortnight after it was done. And many others things be also reported of me, which be mere lies and tales. Other news have we none notable, but that one Frith,1 which was in the Tower in prison, was appointed by the king’s grace to be examined before me, my lord of London, my lord of Winchester, my lord of Suffolk my lord Chancellor, and my lord of Wiltshire; whose opinion was so notably erroneous, that we could not dispatch him, but was fain to leave him to the determination of his ordinary, which is the bishop of London. His said opinion is of such nature, that he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host and sacrament of the altar, and holdeth of this point most after the opinion of OEcolampadius. And surely I myself sent for him three or four times to persuade him to leave that his imagination; but for all that we could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel, notwithstanding now he is at a final end with all examinations, for my lord of London hath given sentence and delivered him to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with him one Andrewe, a tailor of London, for the said selfsame opinion. If you have not heard of our ambassadors lately gone over, you shall understand that my lord of Norfolk, my lord of Rochford, master Paulet, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Anthony Browne, &c., Dr. Goodrich, Dr. Aldrich, and D. Thrylbey, be gone unto France to the French king. And, as I suppose, they go from him to the pope into [blank].2 Further, you shall understand, that there is many here which wish you to succeed your uncle;3 notwithstanding I would you should not think the contrary, but that there be a great sort which would it should not come to pass; nevertheless you be neither the nearer nor further off through such idle communication. Finally, I here send unto you a bill for the bank of four ducats de largo, which sum I would you should not take it up before you have need thereof, and therefore I send it for your commodity and necessity; for it is none of the king’s grace’s money, nor his said grace knoweth nothing thereof, but only of my benevolence to serve your purpose, in case, as I said, you should lack the same. And thus fare ye well. From my manor of Croydon, the 17th day of June, [1533]. 1

John Frith (1503–33), Protestant martyr; friend of William Tyndale. The interview between Pope Clement VII and King Francis I was at Marseilles. 3 Dr West, Bishop of Ely. 2

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88. The trial and execution of Anne Boleyn, 1536. From Wriothesley’s Chronicle (Wriothesley, Chronicle, I, 36) There was no precedent for the trial of an English Queen for treason. Anne Boleyn was arraigned before a Commission of Peers. After her sentence Archbishop Cranmer held an ecclesiastical court at Lambeth and pronounced her marriage to Henry null and void on the ground that there had been a previous contract of marriage with the earl of Northumberland, although this was denied by the earl. This had not been known at the time of Anne’s marriage to Henry, but she confessed it to the Archbishop. The proceedings in the ecclesiastical court were, after Anne’s execution, ratified by Convocation and Parliament. They were taken subsequent to Anne’s trial, for if a divorce had preceded the trial she could not have been convicted of adultery. Wriothesley’s account is obviously at first hand.

A

nd the second day of May, Mr. Norris and my Lord Rochford were brought to the Tower of London as prisoners, and the same day about five of the clock at night, the Queen Anne Boleyn was brought to the Tower of London by my Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Secretary, and Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower; and when she came to the court gate, entering in, she fell down on her knees before the said lords, beseeching God to help her as she was not guilty of her accusement, and also desired the said lords to beseech the king’s grace to be good unto her, and so they left her there prisoner. Item, the 12th day of May, 1536, being Friday, there were arraigned at Westminster Sir Francis Weston, knight, Henry Norris, esquire, Brereton, and Marks, being all four of the King’s Privy Chamber, and there condemned of high treason against the King for using fornication with Queen Anne, wife to the King, and also for conspiracy of the King’s death, and there judged to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, their members cut off and burnt before them, their heads cut off and quartered; my Lord Chancellor being the highest commissioner he giving there judgment, with other lords of the King’s Council being present at the same time. And the morrow after, being Saturday, and the thirteenth day of May, Master Fitzwilliam, Treasurer of the King’s house, and Mr. Comptroller, deposed and broke up the Queen’s household at Greenwich, and so discharged all her servants of their offices clearly. Item, on Monday, the 15th. of May, 1536, there was arraigned within the Tower of London Queen Anne, for treason against the King’s own person, and there was a great scaffold made in the King’s Hall within the Tower of London, and there were made benches and seats for the lords, my Lord of Norfolk sitting under the cloth of estate, representing the King’s person as High Steward of England and uncle to the Queen, he holding a long white staff in his hand, and the Earl of Surrey, his son and heir, sitting at his feet before him holding the golden staff for the Earl Marshall of England, which said office the said duke had in his hands; the Lord Audley, Chancellor of England, sitting on his right hand, and the Duke of Suffolk on his left hand, with other marquises, earls, and lords, every one after their degrees. And first the King’s commission was read, and then the Constable of the Tower and the Lieutenant brought forth the Queen to the bar, where was made a chair for her to

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sit down in, and then her indictment was read before her, whereunto she made so wise and discreet answers to all things laid against her, excusing herself with her words so clearly, as though she had never been faulty to the same, and at length put her to the trial of the peers of the realm, and then were 26 of the greatest peers there present chosen to pass on her, the Duke of Suffolk being highest, and, after they had communed together the youngest lord of the said inquest was called first to give verdict, who said guilty, and so every lord and earl after their degrees said guilty to the last and so condemned her. And then the Duke of Norfolk gave this sentence on her, saying: Because thou hast offended our Sovereign the King’s Grace, in committing treason against his person, and here attainted of the same, the law of the realm is this, that thou hast deserved death and thy judgment is this; That thou shalt be burnt here within the Tower of London on the Green, else to have thy head smitten off as the King’s pleasure shall be further known of the same; and so she was brought to ward again, and two ladies waited on her, which came in with her at the first, and waited still on her, whose names were the Lady Kingston and the Lady Boleyn, her aunt. After this, immediately, the Lord of Rochford, her brother, was arraigned for treason, which was for knowing the Queen, his sister, carnally, most detestable against the law of God and nature, also, and treason to his Prince, and also for conspiracy of the King’s death: whereunto he made answer so prudently and wisely to all articles laid against him, that marvel it was to hear, and never would confess anything, but made himself as clear as though he had never offended. Howbeit he was there condemned by 26 lords and barons of treason, and then my Lord of Norfolk gave him this judgment: That he should go again to prison in the Tower from whence he came, and to be drawn from the said Tower of London through the City of London to the place of execution called Tyburn, and there to be hanged, being alive cut down, and then his members cut off and his bowels taken out of his body and burnt before him, and then his head cut off and his body to be divided in 4 pieces, and his head and body to be set at such places as the King should assign; and after this the court brake up for that time. The Mayor of London with certain Aldermen were present at this arraignment of the Queen and her brother, with the wardens and 4 persons more of 12 of the principal crafts of London. Also the 17th. day of May, being Wednesday, the Lord of Rochford, Mr. Norris, Mr. Bruton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark were all beheaded at the Tower-hill; and the Lord of Rochford brother to Queen Anne, said these words following on the scaffold to the people with a loud voice: Masters all, I am come hither not to preach and make a sermon, but to die, as the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me, desiring you all and specially you my masters of the Court, that you will trust on God specially, and not on the vanities of the world, for if I had so done, I think I had been alive as ye be now; also I desire you to help to the setting forth of the true word of God; and whereas I am slandered by it, I have been diligent to read it and set it forth truly; but if I had been as diligent to observe it, and done and lived thereafter, as I was to read it and set it forth, I had not come hereto, wherefore I beseech you all to be workers and live thereafter, and not to read it and live not thereafter. As for mine offences, it cannot

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prevail you to hear them that I die here for, but I beseech God that I may be an example to you all, and that all you may beware by me, and heartily I require you all to pray for me, and to forgive me if I have offended you, and I forgive you all, and God save the King. Their bodies with their heads were buried within the Tower of London; the Lord of Rochford’s body and head within the chapel of the Tower, Mr. Weston and Norris in the churchyard of the same in one grave, Mr. Bruton and Marks in another grave in the same churchyard within the Tower of London. And the same day in the afternoon, at a solemn court kept at Lambeth by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and the doctors of the law, the King was divorced from his wife Queen Anne, and there at the same court was a privy contract approved that she had made to the Earl of Northumberland before the King’s time; and so she was discharged, and was never lawful Queen of England, and there it was approved the same. The Friday following, being the 19th. day of May, 1536, and the 28th. year of King Henry the VIIIth. at eight of the clock in the morning, Anne Boleyn, Queen, was brought to execution on the green within the Tower of London, by the Great White Tower; the Lord Chancellor of England, the Duke of Richmond, Duke of Suffolk, with the most of the King’s Council, as earls, lords, and nobles of this realm, being present at the same; also the Mayor of London, with the Aldermen and Sheriffs, and certain of the best crafts of London, being there present there also. On a scaffold made there for the said execution the said Queen Anne said thus; Masters I here humbly submit me to the law as the law hath judged me, and as for mine offences, I here accuse no man, God knoweth them; I remit them to God, beseeching him to have mercy on my soul, and I beseech Jesu save my sovereign and master the King, the most godly, noble, and gentle Prince that is, and long to reign over you; which words were spoken with a goodly smiling countenance; and this done, she kneeled down on her knees and said: To Jesu Christ I commend my soul: and suddenly the hangman smote off her head at a stroke with a sword; her body with the head was buried in the Chapel within the Tower of London, in the quire there, the same day at afternoon, when she had reigned as Queen three years lacking 14 days, from her coronation to her death.

89. The Seymour marriage and the birth of Prince Edward, described by Wriothesley (Wriothesley, Chronicle, I 43–44; 65–67; 67–70)

A

lso the 20th. day of May [1536] the King was married secretly at Chelsea, in Middlesex, to one Jane Seymour, daughter to Sir John Seymour, knight, in the county of Wiltshire, late departed from this life, which Jane was first a waiting gentlewoman to Queen Katherine, and after to Anne Boleyn, late Queen, also; and she was brought to White Hall, by Westminster, the 30th. day of May, and there set in the Queen’s seat under the canopy of estate royal. Also the 4th. day of June, being Whitsuntide, the said Jane Seymour was proclaimed Queen at Greenwich, and went in procession, after the King, with a great train of

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ladies following after her, and also offered at mass as Queen, and began her household that day, dining in her chamber of presence under the cloth of estate…. This year, the 11th. day of October, anno 1537, and the 29th. year of the reign of King Henry the Eight, being Thursday, there was a solemn general procession in London, with all the orders of friars, priests, and clerks going all in copes, the mayor and aldermen, with all the crafts of the city, following in their liveries, which was done to pray for the Queen that was then in labour of child. And the morrow after, being Friday and the even of Saint Edward, sometime King of England, at two of the clock in the morning the Queen was delivered of a man child at Hampton Court beside Kingston. And the same day, at eight of the clock in the morning, Te Deum was sung in every parish church throughout London, with all the bells ringing in every church, and great fires made in every street; and at 9 of the clock there was assembled at Paul’s all the orders of friars, monks, canons, priests, and clerks about London, standing all about Paul’s in rich copes, with the best crosses and candlesticks of every parish church in London; the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Chichester, Dean of Paul’s and the Abbot of Westminster being mitred, the said Bishop and Dean of Paul’s making a collation to the people at the quire door of Paul’s, the French King’s ambassador being present, the Lord Chancellor of England, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Marquis Dorset, with all the judges and sergeants of the law; the Mayor of London, with the aldermen and sheriffs, with all the crafts of London standing in their liveries: and after the said collation Paul’s quire sang an anthem of the Trinity, with Te Deum, and the 9th. respond of the Trinity, with the collect of the same. Then the King’s waits and the waits of London played with the shalms; and after that a great peal of guns were shot at the Tower of London, all which solemnity was done to give laud and praise to God for joy of our prince. Also, the same night, at five of the clock, there was new fires made in every street and lane, people sitting at them banquetting with fruits and wine, the shalms and waits playing in Cheapside, and hogsheads of wine set in divers places of the City for poor people to drink as long as they listed; the mayor and aldermen riding about the city thanking the people, and praying them to give laud and praise to God for our prince; also there was shot at the Tower that night above two thousand guns, and all the bells ringing in every parish church till it was ten at the clock at night; also the merchants of the Steelyard made great fires, and burnt a hundred staff torches at their place, and gave a hogshead of wine to poor people, and two barrels of beer also…. This year, the 25th. day of October, being Monday, the Prince was christened in the King’s chapel at Hampton Court, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of Norfolk godfathers at the font, and my Lady Mary’s grace, the King’s daughter by Queen Katherine, godmother, and the Duke of Suffolk godfather at the confirmation, the Prince’s name being Edward, proclaimed after his christening by the King of Heralds, “Edward, son and heir to the King of England, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.” The goodly solemnity of the lords and ladies done at the christening was a goodly sight to behold, every one after their office and degree; the Lady Elizabeth, the King’s daughter, bearing the chrisom on her breast, the Viscount Beauchamp, brother to the Queen, bearing her in his arms, the Earl of Essex, bearing the salt, the Lady Marquis of Exeter

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bearing the Prince to the church and home again, the Duke of Norfolk staying his head, as she bare him, and the Duke of Suffolk at his feet. Also, on Saint Luke’s day, being Thursday, the Prince was proclaimed at the court “Edward, son and heir to King Henry the Eight, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.” Also the King made that day two earls and six knights, that is to say: Mr. Fitzwilliam, Lord Admiral and Vice-Treasurer, was made Earl of Hampton, and the Queen’s brother, Viscount Beauchamp, was made Earl of Hertford, and Mr. Poulet was made Vice-Treasurer, and Sir John Russell, Comptroller of the King’s house, Mr. Heneage, Mr. Long, and Mr. Knevett of the King’s Privy Chamber, knights, and Mr. Coffin, and Mr. Lyster, knights, and Mr. Seymour, the Queen’s brother, knight. Also, the 19th. day of October, there was a solemn general procession in London, with all the orders of friars and canons, the monks of Tower Hill, with all the priests and clerks of-every church in London, with Paul’s quire, and the best cross of every parish in London, with the banner for the same borne in the same procession, all the friars, monks, canons, priests, and clerks, going in their best copes of every church, the Bishop of London following Paul’s quire with his mitre, the mayor and aldermen, with all the crafts of the city following in their liveries, which procession was done for the preservation and welfare of the Prince and the health of the Queen. This year, the 14 of October, being Wednesday, Queen Jane departed this life, lying in childbed, about 2 of the clock in the morning, when she had reigned as the King’s wife, being never crowned, one year and a quarter.

C. THE BREACH WITH ROME 90. An act concerning fines and sums of money to be taken by the ministers of bishops and other ordinaries of Holy Church for the probate of testaments. St. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 5, 1529 (Stat. Realm, III, 285)

W

here in the parliament holden at Westminster in the 31st. year of the reign of the noble king of famous memory Edward the Third, upon the complaint of his people for the outrageous and grievous fines and sums of money taken by the ministers of bishops and of other ordinaries of holy church for the probate of testaments, and for the acquittances by the said ordinaries to be made concerning the same, the said noble king in the same parliament openly charged and commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other bishops for the time being that amendment thereof should be had; and if none amendment were thereof had it was by the authority of the same parliament accorded that the king thereof should make inquiry by his justices of such oppression and extortions, and that the same justices should hear and determine them as well at the suit of the king as of the party as old time hath been used, as by the same statute plainly appeareth: and where at the parliament holden at Westminster in the

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third year of the reign of king Henry the Fifth it was recited that the commons of the realm had often complained them in divers parliaments of that, that divers ordinaries take for the probation of testaments and other things thereunto belonging sometime 40.s. sometime 60.s. and sometime more against right and justice, where in the time of king Edward the Third men were wont to pay for such causes but two shillings sixpence or five shillings at the most, by which unlawful exactions the testaments of the testators might not be executed according to their last wills; It was then enacted for the avoiding of such oppressions that no Ordinary from thenceforth should take for the probation of any testament and inventory or for other things to the same belonging any more than was accustomed and used in the time of the said noble king Edward the Third, upon pain to yield to the party so grieved three times as much as the said Ordinaries did so receive; which act did endure but to the next parliament following by reason that the Ordinaries did then promise to reform and amend the said oppressions and exactions; and for that, that the said unlawful exactions of the said Ordinaries and their ministers be nothing reformed nor amended but greatly augmented and increased, against right and justice and to the great impoverishment of the King’s subjects; the King our sovereign lord…hath ordained established and enacted that from the first day of April in the year of Our Lord God 1530 that nothing shall be demanded received nor taken by any bishop, ordinary, archdeacon chancellor, commissary official, nor any other manner of person or persons whatsoever they be, which now have or which at any time hereafter shall have authority or power to take or receive probation insinuation or approbation of testament or testaments, by himself or themselves, nor by his or their registrars, scribes, appraisers, summoners, apparitors, or by any other of their ministers for the probation, insinuation, and approbation of any testament or testaments, or for writing sealing appraising registering fine making of inventories giving of acquittances or for any other manner of cause concerning the same, where the goods of the testator of the said testament or person so dying do not amount clearly over and above the value of an hundred shillings sterling, except only to the scribe to have for writing of the probate of the testament of him deceased whose goods shall not be above the same clear value of an hundred shillings, 6.d; and for the commission of administration of the goods of any man deceasing intestate, not being above like value of 100.s. clear 6.d.

91. An act concerning the taking of mortuaries. St. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 6, 1529 (Stat. Realm, III, 288)

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orasmuch as question, ambiguity, and doubt is chanced and risen upon the order, manner and form of demanding receiving and claiming of mortuaries, otherwise called corpse presents, as well for the greatness and value of the same which as hath been lately taken is thought over excessive to the poor people and other persons of this realm, as also for that such mortuaries or corpse presents have been demanded and levied for such as at the time of their death have had no property in any goods or chattels, and many times for wayfaring travelling men in the places where they have

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fortuned to die; to the intent that all doubt contention and uncertainty herein may be removed, and as well the generality of the king’s people therein remedied, as also the parsons, vicars, parish priests, curates and others having interest in such mortuaries and corpse presents indifferently provided for: Be it therefore enacted…that from the first day of April in the year of Our Lord 1530 no parson, vicar, curate, nor parish priest, nor any other spiritual person, nor their farmers, bailiffs, nor lessees shall take, receive, or demand of any person or persons within this realm, for any person or persons dying within the same, any manner mortuary or corpse present nor any sum or sums of money nor any other thing for the same more than is hereafter mentioned: nor also shall convent or call any person or persons before any judge spiritual for the recovery of any such mortuaries or corpse presents or any other thing for the same, more than is hereafter mentioned; upon pain to forfeit for every time so demanding, receiving, taking, or conventing, or calling any such person or persons before any spiritual judge so much in value as they shall take above the sum limited by this act, and over that forty shillings to the party grieved contrary to this act, for the which forfeiture the party so grieved contrary to this act shall have an action of debt by writ, bill, plaint, or information in any of the king’s courts wherein no wager of law essoin nor protection shall be allowed. II. First it is ordained established and enacted that no manner of mortuary shall be taken or demanded of any person whatsoever he be, which at the time of his death hath in movable goods under the value of ten marks. Also that no mortuary shall be given asked or demanded from henceforth of any manner person but only in such place where heretofore mortuaries have been used to be paid and given, and in those places none otherwise but after the rate and form hereafter mentioned; nor that any person pay mortuaries in more places than one, that is to say, in the place of their most dwelling and habitation and there but one mortuary: nor no parson, vicar, curate, parish priest, or other shall for any person dying or dead and being at the time of his death of the value in movable goods of 10 marks or more clearly above his debts paid, and under the sum of £30 take for a mortuary above three shillings and fourpence in the whole; and for a person dying or dead being at the time of his death of the value of £30 or above clearly above his debts paid in movable goods, and under the value of £30 there shall no more be taken or demanded for a mortuary than 6.s. 8.d. in the whole; and for any person dying or dead being at the time of his death of the value in movable goods of £40 or above to any sum whatsoever it be clearly above his debts paid, there shall be no more taken paid or demanded for a mortuary than 10.s. in the whole. III. Provided always that for no woman being covert baron, nor child, nor for any person not keeping house any manner mortuary be paid; nor that any parson, vicar, curate, parish priest, or other ask demand or take for any such woman, child, or for any person not keeping house dying or dead, any manner thing or money by way of mortuary: nor also for any wayfaring man or other that dwelleth not nor maketh residence in that place where they shall happen to die, but that the mortuary of such wayfaring persons be answerable, in places where mortuaries be accustomed to be paid and in manner and form and after the rate before mentioned and none otherwise,

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in the place or places where such wayfaring persons at the time of their death had their most habitation house and dwelling places and nowhere else. IV. Provided always that it shall be lawful to all manner of parsons, vicars, curates, parish priests, and other spiritual persons to take and receive any manner sum of money or other thing which by any person dying shall fortune to be disposed given or bequeathed unto them or any of them, or to the high altar of the church; this act or anything therein mentioned notwithstanding.

92. An act concerning the pardon granted to the king’s spiritual subjects of the province of Canterbury for the praemunire.1 St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 15, 1531 (Stat. Realm, III, 334)

T

he King our sovereign lord, calling to his blessed and most gracious remembrance that his good and loving subjects the most reverend father in God the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops, suffragans, prelates and other spiritual persons of the province of the archbishopric of Canterbury of this his realm of England, and the ministers underwritten, which have exercised, practised, or executed in spiritual courts and other spiritual jurisdictions within the said province, have fallen and incurred into divers dangers of his laws by things done, perpetrated and committed contrary to the order of his laws, and specially contrary to the form of the statutes of Provisors, Provisions, and Praemunire; and his Highness, having alway tender eye with mercy and pity and compassion towards his said spiritual subjects, minding of his high goodness and great benignity so always to impart the same unto them as justice being daily administered all rigour be excluded, and the great and benevolent minds of his said subjects largely and many times approved towards his Highness, and specially in their Convocation and Synod now presently being in the chapter house of the monastery of Westminster, by correspondence of gratitude to them to be requited: Of his mere motion, benignity and liberality, by authority of this his Parliament, hath given and granted his liberal and free pardon to his said good and loving spiritual subjects and the said ministers and to every of them, to be had, taken and enjoyed to and by them and every of them by virtue of this present act in manner and form ensuing, that is to wit; The King’s Highness, of his said benignity and high liberality, in consideration that the said archbishop, bishops, and clergy of the said province of Canterbury in their said Convocation now being, have given and granted to him a Subsidy of one hundred thousand pounds of lawful money current in this realm, to be levied and collected by the said clergy at their proper costs and charges and to be paid in certain form specified in their said grant thereof, is fully and resolutely contented and pleased that it be ordained, established, and enacted by authority of this his said Parliament, that the most reverend father in God, William, archbishop of Canterbury, metropolitan and primate of all England, and all other bishops and suffragans, prelates, abbots, priors, and their convents and every person of the same convents, and convents corporate, and every person of the same convents corporate, abbesses, prioresses, and religious nuns, and all other religious and spiritual persons, deans and chapters and other dignities of cathedral 1

A similar act was passed for the clergy of the province of York: Stat. 23 Hen. VIII, c. 19.

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AN ACT CONCERNING THE PARDON TO THE CLERGY

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and collegiate churches, prebendaries, canons, and petty canons, vicars and clerks of the same and every person of the same, all archdeacons, masters, provosts, presidents, wardens of colleges and of collegiate churches, masters and wardens of hospitals, all fellows, brethren, scholars, priests and spiritual conductors, and every of the same, and all vicarsgeneral of dioceses, chancellors, commissaries, officials and deans rural, and all ministers hereafter generally rehearsed of any spiritual court or courts within the said province of Canterbury, that is to say; all judges, advocates, registers, and scribes, proctors constituted to judgments, and apparitors and all other which within the said province of the archbishopric of Canterbury at any time heretofore have administered, exercised, practised, or executed in any jurisdictions within the said province as officers or ministers of the said courts or have been ministers or executors to the exercise or administration of the same; and all and singular politic bodies spiritual in any manner wise corporated, and all parsons, vicars, curates, chantry priests, stipendiaries and all and every person and persons spiritual of the clergy of the said province of Canterbury in this present act of pardon hereafter not excepted or to the contrary not provided for, by whatsoever name or surname, name of dignity, preeminence, or office, they or any of them be or is named or called, the successors, heirs, executors, and administrators, of them and of every of them, shall be by authority of this present pardon acquitted, pardoned, released, and discharged, against his Highness, his heirs, successors and executors, and every of them, of all and all manner offences, contempts, and trespasses, committed or done against all and singular statute, and statutes, of Provisors Provisions and Praemunire and every of them, and of all forfeitures and titles that may grow to the King’s Highness by reason of any of the same statutes, and of all and singular trespasses, wrongs, deceits, misdemeanours, forfeitures, penalties, and profits, sums of money, pains of death, pains corporal and pecuniary, as generally of all other things, causes, quarrels, suits, judgments, and executions, in this present act hereafter not excepted nor foreprised, which may be or can be by his Highness in any wise or by any means pardoned, before and to the tenth day of the month of March in the twenty-second year of his most noble reign, to every of his said loving subjects.

93. An act concerning the pardon granted to the king’s temporal subjects for the praemunire. St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 16, 1531 (Stat. Realm, III, 338)

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he King our sovereign lord having always most tender zeal, favour, and affection unto his most loving temporal and lay subjects of this his realm of England and of Wales, Calais and Marches of the same, and inwardly remembering the manifold great offences, transgressions, and contempts perpetrated, committed, and done by divers and many of his said temporal and lay subjects against his Highness’ Crown, regality and jurisdiction royal contrary to the statutes of Provisions, Provisors, and Praemunire, by reason whereof they so offending have incurred into the dangers and penalties of the same statutes in such wise that if his Highness would attempt or pursue those his said temporal and lay subjects by the process and course of his laws they should thereby

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not only forfeit and lose their lands, tenements, goods, and chattels, but also they should be out of his gracious protection; his royal majesty moved with most tender pity, love, and compassion, and not minding to use and extend all and singular his penal laws upon his subjects, but as consideration shall move his Grace, so in part or in whole to remit and mitigate the rigour of the same, of his mere notion and of his high benignity special, grace, pity, and liberality, hath given and granted…his temporal and lay subjects and temporal bodies politic and corporated, and to every of them, his most gracious general and free pardon of, and for, all and all manner offences, transgressions, and contempts, committed, perpetrated, or done, against the said statutes of Provisors, Provisions, and Praemunire, or any of them before the thirtieth day of March in the twenty-second year of his most noble reign, and all forfeitures, penalties, judgments, executions, and pains, for the said offences, transgressions, and contempts, and every of them.

94. The Supplication of the commons against the ordinaries, 1532 (Text, from P.R.O. State Papers Henry VIII. Theological Tracts, Vol. I no. 22) (Printed in A.Ogle, The Tragedy of the Lollard’s Tower, 324–330) This document opened the attack which resulted in the destruction of the legislative independence of the English Church. It has prompted several questions, partly due to difficulties in dating the several extant versions, and also to uncertainty about the nature and extent of the past played by the Commons and the Government respectively in planning the attack. For these discussions see G.R.Elton, Engl. Hist. Rev. LXIV, 174: LXVI, 507 and P.Cooper, Ibid., LXXII, 616. The Supplication was met by a long Answer of the Ordinaries, printed in Gee and Hardy, Documents. 145–153: but the defences of the Church were soon destroyed, a result revealed by the Submission of the Clergy.1

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o the King our Sovereign Lord. In most humble wise shewen unto your excellent Highness and most prudent wisdom your faithful, loving and most humble and obedient subjects the Commons in this your present Parliament assembled: that where of late, as well through new fantastical and erroneous opinions grown by occasion of seditious and over-thwartly framed books compiled, imprinted and made in the English tongue in the parts of beyond the sea, contrary and against the very true Catholic and Christian faith, and published and sold within this your Realm: as also by the uncharitable behaviour and dealing of divers Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes in the common and often vexation of your said subjects in the spiritual courts of this realm: and also by other evil examples and misuses of spiritual persons, much discord, variance and debate hath risen, and more and more daily is like to increase and ensue amongst the universal sort of your said subjects, as well spiritual as temporal, either against other, in most uncharitable manner to the great inquietation and breach of your peace within this your most catholic realm: Some special particular griefs whereof, which most principally concern as well your Highness and jurisdiction royal as your said Commons and lay subjects: And which are, as they undoubtedly suppose, part of the chief fountains, occasions and causes that daily breedeth, fostereth, and nourisheth and maintaineth 1

No. 97.

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THE SUPPLICATION OF THE COMMONS

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the said uncharitable variances and part-taking, either part and sort of your said subjects spiritual and temporal against the other, hereafter followingly do ensue: First, the prelates and other of the clergy of this your realm, being your subjects, in their Convocations by them holden within this your realm, have made and daily make divers fashions of laws and ordinances concerning temporal things: and some of them be repugnant to the laws and statutes of your realm, not having ne requiring your most royal assent to the same laws by them so made, nor any assent or knowledge of your lay subjects is had to the same, nor to them published and known in the English tongue: Albeit divers and sundry of the said laws extend in certain cases to your excellent person, your liberty and prerogative royal, and to the interdiction of your lands and possessions: and some likewise to the goods and possessions of your lay subjects, declaring the infringers of the same laws so by them made not only to incur into the terrible censures of excommunication, but also into the detestable crime and sin of heresy: by the which divers of your most humble and obedient lay subjects be brought into this ambiguity, whether they may do and execute your laws according to your jurisdiction royal of this your realm for dread of the same pains and censures comprised in the said laws so by them made in their Convocations to the great trouble and inquietation of your said humble, loving, and obedient lay subjects: and as they suppose, under the supportation of your Majesty, the same laws so made are against your jurisdiction and prerogative royal. II. Also divers and many of your said most humble and obedient subjects, and specially those that be of the poorest sort within this your realm, be daily convented and called before the said spiritual Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, ex officio, sometimes at the pleasures of the said Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, for displeasure, without any provable cause: and sometimes at the only promotion and suggestion of their summoners and apparitors, being very light and indiscreet persons, without any other lawful accusation or credible fame first proved against them, and without any presentment in the visitation or other presentment according to your laws: and sometimes, upon their appearance ex officio at the only will and pleasure of the Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, they be committed to prison without bail or mainprize: and there some lie, as it is reported, half a year and some more or they can come to their declaration: And when there is none accuser, nor common fame lawfully proved, nor any presentment in the Visitation, yet divers so appearing ex officio shall be constrained to answer to many subtle questions and interrogatories only invented and exhibited at the pleasure of the said Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, by the which a simple, unlearned, or else a well-witted layman without learning sometime is, and commonly may be, trapped and induced by an ignorant answer to the peril of open penance to his shame, or else to redeem the same penance for money, as it is commonly used. And if it rest upon witnesses, be they but two in number, never so sore defamed, of little truth or credence, adversaries or enemies to the party, yet in many cases they may be allowed only by the discretion of the said Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, to put the party accused or infamed ex officio to open penance, and then to redemption for money: So that every your subjects, upon

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the only will and pleasure of the Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, without any accuser, proved fame or presentment, sometime is and may be infamed, vexed and troubled to the peril of their lives, their shames, costs and expenses. And it is not intended, most dread Sovereign Lord, by your most humble and obedient lay subjects, to take away from the said Ordinaries their authority to correct and punish sin, and in especial the detestable crime of heresy: for if the laws for punishment thereof be insufficient or too little punishment, your said humble and obedient lay subjects desire that with the assent of your Highness there may be devised and made more dreadful and terrible laws for the repress of the same than hath been in times past: so that some reasonable declaration may be known to your people how they may if they will eschew the peril of heresy: and also that some charitable fashion and mean may be devised by your most excellent wisdom for the calling of any of your subjects before them, so it shall not stand in the only will and pleasure of the Ordinaries, their commissaries and substitutes, to call any person ex officio at their own imaginations without lawful accusation, proved fame by honest witnesses, or presentment in the visition or other lawful presentment according to your laws: or by such other charitable mean as shall be thought by your most excellent wisdom reasonable in that behalf for the quietness of your subjects. III. Also divers and many of your most humble and obedient lay subjects be originally cited to appear out of the diocese that they dwell in, and many times be suspended and excommunicate for small and light causes upon the only certificate devised by the proctors of the adversaries made under a pretensed seal of an archdeacon, which any proctor hath at his pleasure: whereas the party suspended and excommunicate many times never had any warning: and yet, when he shall be absolved, if it be out of the court, he shall be compelled to pay to his own proctor twenty pence, and to the proctor which is against him other twenty pence, and twenty pence to the scribe, to the great impoverishing of your said poor lay subjects. IV. Also your said most humble and obedient subjects find them grieved with the great and excessive fees taken in the said spiritual courts, and in especial in the said courts of the Arches and Audience, where they take for every citation 2/6: for every Inhibition 6/8: for every proxy 16d: for every certificate 16d: for every libel 3/4: for every answer to any libel 3/4: for every act, if it be but two words, in the Register 4d: for every personal citation or decree 3/4: for every sentence or judgment, to the Judge 26/8: for every testimonial upon any such sentence or judgment 26/8: for every significavit 12/-: for every commission to examine witnesses 12/-. And also there is exacted for serving their process after the rate of the miles, for every mile 2d. V. Also in probate of testaments, notwithstanding the last statute thereof made, there is invented new fashions to charge your subjects for probate of testaments, that is to say, long delays and tracts or the proof thereon can be admitted: and also sometime the executors be put to travel to far places out of the shires they dwell in, although the probate thereof belong not to the prerogative. VI. And likewise, sithen the statute made for Mortuaries, there is exacted and demanded of your subjects in divers parishes of this your realm other manner of tithes

[94]

THE SUPPLICATION OF THE COMMONS

735

than they have been accustomed to pay this hundred years past: And in some parts of your realm there is exacted double tithes, that is to say, 3d or 2½d for the acre over and beside the tithe for the increase of the cattle that pastureth the same land: and daily vexation by citation for the same. VII. And where any Mortuary is due after the rate of the statute, sometime curates, before they will demand it, will bring citations for it, and then will not receive the mortuary till he may have such costs as he sayeth he hath laid out for suit for the same; when indeed, if he would have charitably first demanded it, he needed not to have sued for the same, and should have had it with good will. VIII. And if any spiritual person hath obtained the possession of any profit for the term of thirty or forty years against any lay person, albeit that such profit began sometime by sufferance and sometime by devotion, yet it is said that prescription in their law of such little term of thirty or forty years maketh for them a good title against every lay person: which things be used to the importable charge and vexations of your subjects, and necessary to have some charitable reformation. IX. And also, whereas divers spiritual persons, being presented as well by your Highness as by other patrons within this your realm to divers benefices and other spiritual promotions, the said Ordinaries and their ministers do not only take of them for their letters of institution and induction many great and large sums of money and rewards, but also do long delay them without reasonable cause before they will admit, institute, and induct them, by cause they will have the profits of the benefice during vacation unless they will pact and covenant with them by temporal bond after such fashions and conditions as they will: whereof some bonds contain that the Ordinaries should have part of the profits of the said benefice after their institution, so as they, being once presented or promoted as is aforesaid, be by the said Ordinaries sometime uncharitably handled, not only to the hurt of the lay patrons, but also to the hindrance and impoverishment of their clerks by them presented: which your said subjects suppose, not only to be against right and good conscience, but also seemeth to be simony and contrary to the laws of God. X. And also the said spiritual Ordinaries do daily confer and give sundry benefices unto certain young folk, calling them their nephews or kinsfolk, being in their minority and within age, apt nor able to serve the cure of any such benefice: whereby the said Ordinaries do keep and detain the fruits and profits of the same benefices in their own hands; and so the cures and other promotions given unto such infants be only employed to the enriching of the said Ordinaries, and the poor silly souls of your people and subjects which should be taught in the parishes given aforesaid, for lack of good curates do perish without good example, doctrine, or any good teaching. XI. And also where a great number of holy days, which now at this present time with very small devotion be solemnised and kept throughout this your realm: upon the which many great, abominable and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports, and plays of the stage be used and exercised: which holy days, if it may stand with your gracious pleasure, and specially such as fall in the harvest, might by your Majesty, by the advice of your most honourable Council, prelates and Ordinaries, be made fewer in number:

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and those that shall hereafter be ordained to stand and continue might and may be more devoutly, religiously and reverently observed to the laud of Almighty God and to the increase of your high honour and fame. XII. Also divers and many spiritual persons, not contented with the convenient living and promotion of the Church daily intromit and exercise themselves in secular offices and rooms, as stewards, receivers, auditors, bailiffs and other temporal offices, withdrawing themselves from the good contemplative life that they have professed in the service of God, not only to the great damage of all your said subjects, but also to the perilous example of your loving and obedient subjects. In consideration whereof, most gracious Sovereign Lord, and forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a few years past hath been, much misdemeanour and violence on the one part and much default and lack of patience, sufferance, charity, and goodwill on the other part, a marvellous discord of the goodly quiet, peace, and tranquillity that this your realm heretofore hath been in, ever hitherto through your politic wisdom in most honourable fame and catholic faith inviolably preserved: It may therefore, most benign Sovereign Lord, like your excellent goodness, for the tender and universally indifferent zeal, benign love and favour that your Highness beareth toward both the said parties, the said articles, if they or any of them shall be by your most clear and perfect judgment thought any instruments or causes of the said variance and disorder, or those and all other occasions whatsoever accompted by your Highness to make toward the said factions deeply and weightily after your accustomed ways and manner searched, weighed, and considered, graciously to provide, by the assent of the said prelates and other the temporal nobles of this your realm with the Commons in this your most high court of parliament assembled, all violence and uncharitable demeanours on both sides utterly and clearly set apart, some such necessary and behoveful remedies, laws and ordinances as may effectually declare and establish not only those things which to your jurisdiction and prerogative royal justly appertaineth, but also reconcile and bring into perpetual unity your said subjects spiritual and temporal. Whereunto your said Commons most humbly, heartily and entirely beseech your Grace, as the only Sovereign Lord, protector and defender of both the said parties, in whom and by whom the only and sole redress, reformation and remedy herein absolutely resteth and remaineth: By occasion whereof all your said Commons in their consciences surely accompt that besides the marvellous fervent love that your Highness shall thereby kindle and engender in their hearts towards your Grace, ye shall do the most princely feat, and shew the most honourable and charitable precedent, ensample, and mirror, that ever did Sovereign Lord upon his subjects: and therewithal merit and deserve of our merciful Lord eternal bliss: whose goodness grant your Grace in most godly, princely and honourable estate long to reign, prosper and continue and the Sovereign Lord over all your said most humble and obedient subjects.

[95]

AN ACT FOR RESTRAINT OF PAYMENT OF ANNATES

737

95. An act for restraint of payment of annates to the see of Rome. St. 23 Hen. VIII, c. 20, 1532 (Stat. Realm, III, 385)

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orasmuch as it is well perceived by long approved experience that great and inestimable sums of money be daily conveyed out of this realm to the impoverishment of the same, and specially such sums of money as the Pope’s Holiness, his predecessors, and the court of Rome by long time have heretofore taken of all and singular those spiritual persons which have been named, elected, presented, or postulated to be archbishops or bishops within this realm of England, under the title of annates, otherwise called first fruits; which annates or first fruits heretofore have been taken of every archbishopric or bishopric within this realm by restraint of the Pope’s bulls for confirmations, elections, admissions, postulations, provisions, collations, dispositions, institutions, installations, investitures, orders holy, benedictions, palls, or other things requisite and necessary to the attaining of those their promotions, and have been compelled to pay before they could attain the same great sums of money, before they might receive any part of the fruits of the said archbishopric or bishopric whereunto they were named, elected, presented or postulated; By occasion whereof not only the treasure of this realm hath been greatly conveyed out of the same, but also it hath happened many times by occasion of death unto such archbishops and bishops so newly promoted within two or three years after his or their consecration, that his or their friends by whom he or they have been holpen to advance and make payment of the said annates or first fruits have been thereby utterly undone and impoverished; And for because the said annates have risen, grown and increased by an uncharitable custom grounded upon no just or good title, and the payments thereof obtained by restraint of bulls until the same annates or first fruits have been paid or surety made for the same, which declareth the said payments to be exacted and taken by constraint, against all equity and justice; The noblemen therefore of this realm and the wise, sage, politic commons of the same assembled in this present parliament, considering that the court of Rome ceaseth not to tax, take, and exact the said great sums of money under the title of annates or first fruits as is aforesaid to the great damage of the said prelates and this realm, which annates or first fruits were first suffered to be taken within the same realm for the only defence of Christian people against the infidels, and now they be claimed and demanded as mere duty, only for lucre, against all right and conscience, insomuch that it is evidently known that there hath passed out of this realm unto the court of Rome since the second year of the reign of the most noble prince of famous memory King Henry the VIIth. unto this present time, under the name of annates or first fuits paid for the expedition of bulls of archbishoprics and bishoprics, the sum of eight hundred thousand ducats, amounting in sterling money at the least to eight score thousand pounds, besides other great and intolerable sums which have yearly been conveyed to the said court of Rome by many other ways and means, to the great impoverishment of this realm; And albeit that our said sovereign lord the King and all his natural subjects as well spiritual as temporal be as obedient, devout, catholic, and

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humble children of God and Holy Church as any people be within any realm christened, yet the said exactions of annates or first fruits be so intolerable and importable to any realm that it is considered and declared by the whole body of this realm now represented by all the estates of the same assembled in this present Parliament that the King’s Highness before Almighty God is bound as by the duty of a good Christian prince, for the conservation and preservation of the good estate and commonwealth of this his realm, to do all that in him is to obviate, repress, and redress the said abusions and exactions of annates or first fruits; And because that divers prelates of this realm be now in extreme age and in other debilities of their bodies, so that of likelihood bodily death in short time shall or may succeed unto them; by reason whereof great sums of money shall shortly after their deaths be conveyed unto the court of Rome for the unreasonable and uncharitable causes abovesaid, to the universal damage, prejudice, and impoverishment of this realm, if speedy remedy be not in due time provided; It is therefore ordained, established, and enacted…that the unlawful payments of annates or first fruits…shall from henceforth utterly cease…and that no manner person or persons hereafter to be named, elected, presented, or postulated to any archbishopric or bishopric within this realm shall pay the said annates or first fruits… upon pain to forfeit to our said sovereign lord the King, his heirs and successors, all manner his goods and chattels for ever, and all the temporal lands and possessions of the same archbishopric or bishopric during the time that he or they which shall offend contrary to this present act shall have, possess, or enjoy the archbishopric or bishopric wherefore he shall so offend contrary to the form aforesaid.

96. An act in restraint of appeals. St. 24 Hen. VIII, c. 12, 1533 (Stat. Realm, III, 427)

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here by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty, be bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience; he being also institute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God with plenary, whole, and entire power, preeminence, authority, prerogative, and jurisdiction to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of folk residents or subjects within this his realm, in all causes, matters, debates, and contentions happening to occur, insurge, or begin within the limits thereof, without restraint or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world, the body spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the law divine happened to come in question or of spiritual learning, then it was declared, interpreted, and shewed by that part of the said body politic called the spiritualty now being usually called the English Church, which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge, integrity, and sufficiency of number, it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient

[96]

AN ACT IN RESTRAINT OF APPEALS

739

and meet of itself, without the inter-meddling of any exterior person or persons, to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such offices and duties as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain; For the due administration whereof and to keep them from corruption and sinister affection the King’s most noble progenitors, and the antecessors of the nobles of this realm, have sufficiently endowed the said Church both with honour and possessions: and the laws temporal for trial of propriety of lands and goods, and for the conservation of the people of this realm in unity and peace without ravin or spoil, was and yet is administered, adjudged and executed by sundry judges and administrators of the other part of the said body politic called the temporally, and both their authorities and jurisdictions do conjoin together in the due administration of justice the one to help the other… [After recital of various earlier statutes against intrusions by the see of Rome the act continues] [It is enacted]…that all causes testamentary, causes of matrimony and divorces, rights of tithes, oblations and obventions, the knowledge whereof by the goodness of princes of this realm and by the laws and customs of the same appertaineth to the spiritual jurisdiction of this realm already commenced, moved, depending, being, happening, or hereafter coming in contention, debate, or question within this realm or within any the King’s dominions or marches of the same or elsewhere, whether they concern the King our sovereign lord, his heirs, or successors, or any other subjects or residents within the same of what degree soever they be, shall be from henceforth heard, examined, discussed, clearly finally and definitely adjudged and determined within the King’s jurisdiction and authority and not elsewhere, in such courts spiritual and temporal of the same as the natures, conditions, and qualities of the causes and matters aforesaid in contention or hereafter happening in contention shall require, without having any respect to any custom, use, or sufferance in hindrance, let, or prejudice of the same or to any other thing used or suffered to the contrary thereof by any other manner person or persons in any manner of wise; any foreign inhibitions, appeals, sentences, summons, citations, suspensions, interdictions, excommunications, restraints, judgments, or any other process or impediments of what natures, names, qualities, or conditions soever they be, from the See of Rome or any other foreign courts or potentates of the world, or from and out of this realm or any other the King’s dominions or marches of the same to the See of Rome or to any other foreign courts or potentates, to the let or impediment thereof in any wise notwithstanding. And that it shall be lawful to the King our sovereign lord and to his heirs and successors, and to all other subjects or residents within this realm or within any the King’s dominions or marches of the same, notwithstanding that hereafter it should happen any excommengement, excommunications, interdictions, citations, or any other censures or foreign process out of any outward parties, to be fulminate, provulged, declared or put in execution within this said realm or in any other place or places for any of the causes before rehearsed, in prejudice, derogation, or contempt of this said act and the very true meaning and execution thereof, may and shall nevertheless as well pursue, execute, have and enjoy the effects, profits, benefits, and commodities of all such processes, sentences, judgments, and determinations, done or hereafter to be done in any of the said

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courts spiritual or temporal as the cases shall require, within the limits, power, and authority of this the King’s said realm and dominions and marches of the same, and those only and none other to take place and to be firmly observed and obeyed within the same: As also that all spiritual prelates, pastors, ministers, and curates within this realm and the dominions of the same shall and may use, minister, execute, and do, or cause to be used, ministered, executed, and done, all sacraments, sacramentals, divine services, and all other things within the said realm and dominions unto all the subjects of the same as catholic and Christian men owen to do; any foreign citations, processes, inhibitions, suspensions, interdictions, excommunications, or appeals for or touching any of the causes aforesaid from or to the See of Rome or any other foreign prince or foreign courts to the let or contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding. And if any of the said spiritual persons, by the occasion of the said fulminations of any of the same interdictions, censures, inhibitions, excommunications, appeals, suspensions, summons, or other foreign citations for the causes beforesaid or for any of them, do at any time hereafter refuse to minister or to cause to be ministered the said sacraments and sacramentals and other divine services in form as is aforesaid, shall for every such time or times that they or any of them do refuse so to do or to cause to be done, have one year’s imprisonment and to make fine and ransom at the King’s pleasure. II. And it is further enacted…that if any person or persons, inhabiting or resident within this realm or within any the King’s said dominions or marches of the same, or any other person or persons of what estate, condition, or degree soever he or they be, at any time hereafter for or in any of the causes aforesaid do attempt, move, purchase, or procure from or to the See of Rome or from or to any other foreign court or courts out of this realm any manner foreign process, inhibitions, appeals, sentences, summons, citations, suspensions, interdictions, excommunications, restraints, or judgments of what nature, kind, or quality so ever they be, or execute any of the same process, or do any act or acts to the let, impediment, hindrance, or derogation of any process, sentence, judgment, or determination had, made, done, or hereafter to be had, done, or made in any courts of this realm or the King’s said dominions or marches of the same for any of the causes aforesaid, contrary to the true meaning of this present act and the execution of the same, that then every such person or persons so doing…being convict of the same for every such default shall incur and run in the same pains, penalties, and forfeitures ordained and provided by the statute of Provision and Praemunire, made in the sixteenth year of the reign of the right noble prince King Richard II against such as attempt, procure, or make provision to the See of Rome or elsewhere for any thing or things to the derogation, or contrary to the prerogative or jurisdiction of the crown and dignity of this realm. III. And furthermore in eschewing the said great enormities, inquietations, delays, charges, and expenses; hereafter to be sustained in pursuing of such appeals and foreign process for and concerning the causes aforesaid or any of them, do therefore by authority aforesaid ordain and enact that in such cases where heretofore any of the King’s subjects or residents have used to pursue, provoke, or procure any appeal to the See of Rome, and in all other cases of appeals in or for any of the causes aforesaid, they may and shall from henceforth take, have, and use their appeals within this realm and not

[97]

AN ACT FOR THE SUBMISSION OF THE CLERGY

741

elsewhere, in manner and form as hereafter ensueth and not otherwise; that is to say, first from the archdeacon or his official, if the matter or cause be there begun, to the bishop diocesan of the said see, if in case any of the parties be grieved; and likewise, if it be commenced before the bishop diocesan or his commissary, from the bishop diocesan or his commissary, within fifteen days next ensuing the judgment or sentence thereof there given, to the archbishop of the province of Canterbury, if it be within his province, and if it be within the province of York then to the archbishop of York; and so likewise to all other archbishops in other the King’s dominions as the case by the order of justice shall require; and there to be definitively and finally ordered, decreed, and adjudged according to justice, without any other appellation or provocation to any other person or persons, court or courts. And if the matter or contention for any of the causes aforesaid be or shall be commenced by any of the King’s subjects or residents before the archdeacon of any archbishop or his commissary, then the party grieved shall or may take his appeal within fifteen days next after judgment or sentence there given to the Court of the Arches or Audience of the same archbishop or archbishops, and from the said Court of the Arches or Audience, within fifteen days then next ensuing after judgment or sentence there given, to the archbishop of the same province, there to be definitively and finally determined without any other or further process or appeal thereupon to be had or sued.

97. An act for the submission of the clergy to the king’s majesty. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 19, 1534 (Stat. Realm, III, 460)

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here the King’s humble and obedient subjects the clergy of this realm of England have not only acknowledged according to the truth that the Convocations of the same clergy is always, hath been, and ought to be assembled only by the King’s writ, but also submitting themselves to the King’s Majesty hath promised in verbo Sacerdotii that they will never from henceforth presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure or enact, promulge or execute any new canons, constitutions, ordinance provincial, or other, or by whatsoever other name they shall be called in the Convocation, unless the King’s most royal assent and licence may to them be had to make, promulge, and execute the same, and that his Majesty do give his most royal assent and authority in that behalf: And where divers constitutions, ordinance and canons provincial or synodal, which heretofore have been enacted, and be thought not only to be much prejudicial to the King’s prerogative royal and repugnant to the laws and statutes of this realm, but also overmuch onerous to his Highness and his subjects, the said clergy hath most humbly besought the King’s Highness that the said constitutions and canons may be committed to the examination and judgment of his Highness and of thirty-two persons of the King’s subjects whereof sixteen to be of the Upper and Nether House of the Parliament of the temporalty, and the other sixteen to be of the clergy of the realm, and all the said thirty-two persons to be chosen and appointed by the King’s Majesty, and that such of the said constitutions and canons as shall be thought and determined by

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the said thirty-two persons or the more part of them worthy to be abrogated and annulled shall be abolished and made of no value accordingly, and such other of the same constitutions and canons as by the said thirty-two or the more part of them shall be approved to stand with the laws of God and consonant to the laws of this realm shall stand in their full strength and power, the King’s most royal assent first had and obtained to the same: Be it therefore now enacted by authority of this present Parliament, according to the said submission and petition of the said clergy, that they nor any of them from henceforth shall presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure any constitutions or ordinances provincial or synodal, or any other canons, nor shall enact, promulge, or execute any such canons, constitutions, or ordinance provincial, by whatsoever name or names they may be called, in their Convocations in time coming, which always shall be assembled by authority of the King’s writ, unless the same clergy shall have the King’s most royal assent and licence to make, promulge, and execute such canons, constitutions, and ordinances provincial or synodal; upon pain of every one of the said clergy doing contrary to this act and being thereof convict, to suffer imprisonment and make fine at the King’s will. II. And forasmuch as such canons, constitutions, and ordinances as heretofore hath been made by the clergy of this realm cannot now at the session of this present Parliament by reason of shortness of time be viewed, examined, and determined by the King’s Highness and thirty-two persons to be chosen and appointed according to the petition of the said clergy in form above rehearsed: Be it therefore enacted by authority aforesaid that the King’s Highness shall have power and authority to nominate and assign at his pleasure the said thirty-two persons of his subjects, whereof sixteen to be of the clergy and sixteen to be of the temporally of the Upper and Nether House of the Parliament. And if any of the said thirty-two persons so chosen shall happen to die before their full determination then his Highness to nominate other from time to time of the said two Houses of the Parliament to supply the number of the said thirty-two: and that the same thirty-two by his Highness so to be named, shall have power and authority to view, search, and examine the said canons, constitutions, and ordinance provincial and synodal heretofore made, and such of them as the King’s Highness and the said thirty-two or the more part of them shall deem and adjudge worthy to be continued, kept, and obeyed, shall be from thenceforth kept, obeyed, and executed within this realm, so that the King’s most royal assent under his great seal be first had to the same; and the residue of the said canons, constitutions, or ordinance provincial which the King’s Highness and the said thirty-two persons or the more part of them shall not approve, or deem and judge worthy to be abolished, abrogate and made frustrate, shall from thenceforth be void and of none effect and never be put in execution within this realm. Provided always that no canons, constitutions or ordinance shall be made or put in execution within this realm by authority of the Convocation of the clergy which shall be contrariant or repugnant to the King’s prerogative royal, or the customs, laws, or statutes of this realm; anything contained in this act to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.

[98]

AN ACT RESTRAINING THE PAYMENT OF ANNATES

743

98. An act restraining the payment of annates. St. 25 Hen VIII, c. 20., 1534. (Stat. Realm, III, 462)

[After rehearsing St. 23 Hen. VIII, c. 20, this Act continues:] nd albeit the said Bishop of Rome, otherwise called the Pope, hath been informed and certified of the effectual contents of the said act, to the intent that by some gentle ways the said exactions might have been redressed and reformed, yet nevertheless the said Bishop of Rome hitherto hath made none answer of his mind therein to the King’s Highness, nor devised or required any reasonable ways to and with our said sovereign lord for the same; wherefore his most royal majesty of his most excellent goodness for the wealth and profit of this his realm and subjects of the same, hath not only put his most gracious and royal assent to the foresaid act, but also hath ratified and confirmed the same and every clause and article therein contained, as by his letters patent under his great seal enrolled in the parliament roll of this present parliament more at large is contained. II. And forasmuch as in the said act it is not plainly and certainly expressed in what manner and fashion archbishops and bishops shall be elected, presented, invested and consecrated within this realm and in all other the King’s dominions: Be it now therefore enacted…that the said act and everything therein contained shall be and stand in strength, virtue, and effect; except only that no person nor persons hereafter shall be presented, nominated, or commended to the said Bishop of Rome, otherwise called the Pope, or to the See of Rome, to or for the dignity or office of any archbishop or bishop within this realm or in any other the King’s dominions, nor shall send nor procure there for any manner of bulls, breves, palls, or other things requisite for an archbishop or bishop, nor shall pay any sums of money for annates, first fruits, or otherwise for expedition of any such bulls, breves, or palls; but that by the authority of this act such presenting, nominating, or commending to the said Bishop of Rome or to the See of Rome, and such bulls, breves, palls, annates, first fruits and every other sums of money heretofore limited, accustomed, or used to be paid at the said See of Rome for procuration or expedition of any such bulls, breves, or palls or other thing concerning the same, shall utterly cease and no longer be used within this realm or within any the King’s dominions; anything contained in the said act aforementioned, or any use, custom, or prescription to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. III. And furthermore be it ordained and established by the authority aforesaid that at every avoidance of any archbishopric or bishopric within this realm or in any other the King’s dominions, the King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors may grant unto the prior and convent or the dean and chapter of the cathedral churches or monasteries where the see of such archbishopric or bishopric shall happen to be void, a licence under the great seal, as of old time hath been accustomed, to proceed to election of an archbishop or bishop of the see so being void, with a letter missive containing the name of the person which they shall elect and choose; by virtue of which licence the said dean and chapter or prior and convent to whom any such licence and letters missive shall be directed, shall with all speed and celerity in due form elect and choose the said person named in the said

A

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letters missive to the dignity and office of the archbishopric or bishopric so being void, and none other; and if they do defer or delay their election above twelve days after such licence and letters missive to them delivered, that then for every such default the King’s Highness, his heirs and successors, at their liberty and pleasure shall nominate and present, by their letters patent under their great seal, such a person to the said office and dignity so being void as they shall think able and convenient for the same.

99. An Act for the exoneration from exactions paid to the see of Rome, St. 25. Hen. VIII, c. 21, 1534. (Stat. Realm, III, 464)

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ost humbly beseech your most Royal Majesty your obedient and faithful subjects the Commons of this your present Parliament assembled by your most dread commandment; that where your subjects of this your realm, and of other countries and dominions being under your obeisance, by many years past have been and yet be greatly decayed and impoverished by such intolerable exactions of great sums of money as have been claimed and taken and yet continually be claimed to be taken out of this your realm and other your said countries and dominions, by the Bishop of Rome called the Pope, and the See of Rome, as well in pensions, censes, Peter’s-pence, procurations, fruits, suits for provisions and expeditions of bulls for archbishoprics and bishoprics, and for delegacies and rescripts in causes of contentions and appeals, jurisdictions legatine, and also for dispensations, licences, faculties, grants, relaxations, writs called perinde valere, rehabilitations, abolitions, and other infinite sorts of bulls, breves, and instruments of sundry natures, names and kinds in great numbers heretofore practised and obtained otherwise than by the laws, laudable uses, and customs of this realm should be permitted, the specialties whereof be overlong, large in number, and tedious here particularly to be inserted; wherein the Bishop of Rome aforesaid hath not been only to be blamed for his usurpation in the premises but also for his abusing and beguiling your subjects, pretending and persuading to them that he hath full power to dispense with all human laws, uses, and customs of all realms in all causes which be called spiritual, which matter hath been usurped and practised by him and his predecessors by many years in great derogation of your imperial crown and authority royal, contrary to right and conscience. For where this your Grace’s realm, recognizing no superior under God but only your Grace, hath been and is free from subjection to any man’s laws but only to such as have been devised, made, and ordained within this realm for the wealth of the same, or to such other as by sufferance of your Grace and your progenitors the people of this your realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used amongst them, and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same, not as to the observance of the laws of any foreign prince, potentate or prelate, but as to the accustomed and ancient laws of this realm originally established as laws of the same by the said sufferance, consents, and custom, and none otherwise: It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason that in all and every such laws human, made within this realm or induced into this

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ACT FOR KING’S HIGHNESS TO BE HEAD OF CHURCH

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realm by the said sufferance, consents, and custom, your Royal Majesty and your Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, representing the whole state of your realm in this your most High Court of Parliament, have full power and authority not only to dispense but also to authorize some elect person or persons to dispense with those and all other human laws of this your realm and with every one of them, as the quality of the persons and matter shall require; And also the said laws and every of them to abrogate, annul, amplify, or diminish, as it shall be seen unto your Majesty and the nobles and commons of your realm present in your Parliament meet and convenient for the wealth of your realm, as by divers good and wholesome acts of Parliament made and established as well in your time as in the time of your most noble progenitors it may plainly and evidently appear. And because that it is now in these days present seen that the state, dignity, superiority, reputation, and authority of the said imperial crown of this realm, by the long sufferance of the said unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions practised in the times of your most noble progenitors, is much and sore decayed and diminished, and the people of this realm thereby impoverished and so or worse be like to continue if remedy be not therefor shortly provided: It may therefore please your most noble Majesty for the honour of Almighty God and for the tender love, zeal, and affection that ye bear and always have borne to the wealth of this your realm and subjects of the same, forasmuch as your Majesty is supreme head of the Church of England, as the prelates and clergy of your realm representing the said Church in their synods and convocations have recognized, in whom consisteth full power and authority upon all such laws as have been made and used within this realm, to ordain and enact…that no person or persons of this your realm or of any other your dominions shall from henceforth pay any pensions, censes, portions, Peter-pence, or any other impositions to the use of the said Bishop or of the See of Rome, like as heretofore they have used by usurpation of the said Bishop of Rome and his predecessors and sufferance of your Highness and your most noble progenitors to do; but that all such pensions, censes, portions, and Peter-pence, which the said Bishop of Rome otherwise called the Pope hath heretofore taken and perceived or caused to be taken and perceived to his use and his chambers which he calleth apostolic by usurpation and sufferance as is abovesaid within this your realm or any other your dominions, shall from henceforth clearly surcease and never more be levied, taken, perceived, nor paid to any person or persons in any manner of wise; any constitution, use, prescription, or custom to the contrary thereof notwithstanding.

100. An act for the king’s highness to be supreme head of the Church of England and to have authority to reform and redress all errors, heresies, and abuses in the same, 1534. St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 1 (Stat. Realm, III, 492)

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lbeit the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and oweth to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations; yet nevertheless for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for

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increase of virtue in Christ’s religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirp all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, Be it enacted…that the King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm as well the title and style thereof, as all honours, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities, to the said dignity of supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining: And that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ’s religion, and for the conservancy of the peace, unity and tranquillity of this realm: any usage, custom, foreign laws foreign authority, prescription or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.

101. An act concerning the payment of first fruits and tenths, 1534. St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 3 (Stat. Realm, III, 493)

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orasmuch as it is and of very duty ought to be the natural inclination of all good people, like most faithful, loving and obedient subjects, sincerely and willingly to desire to provide not only for the public weal of their native country, but also for the supportation, maintenance and defence of the royal estate of their most dread, benign, and gracious Sovereign Lord, upon whom and in whom dependeth all their joy and wealth, in whom also is united and knit so princely a heart and courage, mixed with mercy, wisdom, and justice, and also a natural affection joined to the same, as by the great, inestimable, and benevolent arguments thereof being most bountifully, largely and many times shewed, ministered, and approved towards his loving and obedient subjects hath well appeared, which requireth a like correspondence of gratitude to be considered according to their most bounden duties; Wherefore his said humble and obedient subjects, as well the Lords spiritual and temporal as the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, calling to their remembrance not only the manifold and innumerable benefits daily administered by his Highness to them all, and to the residue of all other his subjects of this realm, but also how long time his Majesty hath most victoriously by his high wisdom and policy protected, defended, and governed this his realm and maintained his people and subjects of the same in tranquillity, peace, unity, quietness and wealth; And also considering what great, excessive, and inestimable charges his Highness hath heretofore been at and sustained by the space of five and twenty whole years, and also daily sustaineth for the maintenance, tuition and defence of this his realm and his loving subjects of the same, which cannot be sustained and

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ACT CONCERNING PAYMENT OF FIRST FRUITS AND TENTHS

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borne without some honourable provision and remedy may be found, provided, and ordained for maintenance thereof, do therefore desire and most humbly pray that for the more surety of continuance and augmentation of his Highness’ royal estate, being not only now recognized (as he always indeed heretofore hath been) the only supreme head on earth next and immediately under God of the Church of England, but also their most assured and undoubted natural sovereign liege lord and King, having the whole governance, tuition, defence, and maintenance of this his realm and most loving obedient subjects of the same: It may therefore be…enacted …that the King’s Highness, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall have and enjoy from time to time, to endure for ever, of every such person and persons which at any time after the first day of January next coming shall be nominated, elected, prefected, presented, collated, or by any other means appointed to have any archbishopric, bishopric, abbacy, monastery, priory, college, hospital, archdeaconry, deanery, provostship, prebend, parsonage, vicarage, chantry, free-chapel, or other dignity, benefice, office, or promotion spiritual within this realm or elsewhere within any of the King’s dominions, of what name, nature, or quality soever they be or to whose foundation, patronage, or gift soever they belong, the first fruits, revenues, and profits for one year of every such archbishopric, abbacy, monastery, priory, college, hospital, archdeaconery, deanery, provostship, prebend, parsonage, vicarage, chantry, free-chapel or other dignity, benefice, office, or promotion spiritual afore named, whereunto any such person or persons shall after the said first day of January be nominated, elected, prefected, presented, collated, or by any other means appointed; and that every such person and persons, before any actual or real possession or meddling with the profits of any such archbishopric [etc.]…shall satisfy, content, and pay, or compound or agree to pay, to the King’s use at reasonable days upon good sureties the said first fruits and profits for one year. VIII. And over this be it enacted by authority aforesaid that the King’s Majesty, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, for more augmentation and maintenance of the royal estate of his imperial crown and dignity of supreme head of the Church of England, shall yearly have, take, enjoy, and perceive, united and knit to his imperial crown for ever, one yearly rent or pension amounting to the value of the tenth part of all the revenues, rents, ferms, tithes, offerings, emoluments and of all other profits, as well called spiritual as temporal, now appertaining or belonging or that hereafter shall belong to any archbishopric, bishopric, abbacy, monastery, priory, archdeaconry, deanery, hospital, college, house collegiate, prebend, cathedral church, collegiate church, conventual church, parsonage, vicarage, chantry, free-chapel, or other benefice or promotion spiritual, of what name, nature, or quality soever they be, within any diocese of this realm or in Wales; the said pension or annual rent to be yearly paid for ever to our said Sovereign Lord.

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102. Returns of Church property. From the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Caley and Hunter, Valor Ecclesiasticus, I. vii–x: 27:IV. 145) The St. 26 Hen. VIII, c. 3 gave the Crown the right to assess clerical incomes. Early in 1535 commissions were issued to every shire empowering appointed persons to collect information about the value of every benefice together with particulars of all allowable deductions. The Commissioners were ordered to submit complete returns into the Exchequer by 30 May, but the work could not be completed by that date, and information is incomplete for several dioceses. These returns were brought together in a survey called the Valor Ecclesiasticus. This was published for the Record Commission by J.Caley and J.Hunter, Valor Ecclesiasticus tempore Henrici VIII (6 vols., 1810–34). The statistical material provided by this return in so far as it affected religious houses forms the basis of a study by A.Savine, English Monasteries on the Eve of the Reformation, and R.H. Snape, English Monastic Finances in the later Middle Ages.

(i) General Instructions to the Commissioners, I. vii–x.

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enry R. Instructions devised by the King’s highness by the advice of his council for knowledge to be had of the whole true and just yearly values of all the possessions manors lands tenements hereditaments and profits as well spiritual as temporal appertaining to any manner of dignity monastery priory church collegiate church conventual parsonage vicarage chantry free chapel or other dignity office or promotion spiritual within this realm Wales Calais Berwick and Marches of the same as well in places exempt as not exempt which his pleasure is that such as shall have charge by his commission to survey the same shall effectually with all uprightness and dexterity follow and ensue as they will answer unto his majesty at their perils. First it is ordained that several commissions shall be made unto every diocese shire and place within this realm and into Wales Calais Berwick and the Marches of the same where it shall please the King’s highness to limit and appoint and to such number of persons as shall please his majesty to assign and that to every of the same commissioners these articles assigned with his Grace’s hand shall be annexed. Item that the Commissioners after the sight of the commission with these articles annexed shall first send for such and so many of the bishops and archdeacons scribes and ministers within the limits of their commission as they shall think most convenient for knowledge to be had of the number and names of all deaneries rural within the limit of their commission and in whose diocese or jurisdiction the said deaneries be. And how many dignities cathedral churches collegiate churches colleges hospitals monasteries priories houses religious parsonages vicarages chantries free chapels or other promotions spiritual be within the limits of every deanery or elsewhere within the limits of their commission. Item, after the said commissioners by examination of the registers and other ministers shall have knowledge of the number and names of all the deaneries within the limits of their commission and in whose dioceses or jurisdiction they be and of the number and names of all the dignities monasteries priories benefices and promotions spiritual within the limits of every deanery or else where within the limits of their commission then the said commissioners shall divide themselves by three and three in number or by any other number above three by their discretions allotting to every number so divided so many deaneries rural and other distinct places within the limits of their commission as they by their assents shall think convenient. And that every such number so divided shall with all

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RETURNS OF CHURCH PROPERTY

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diligence without favour mede dread or corruption inquire search and know of the whole and yearly values of all dignities cathedral churches colleges churches collegiate houses conventual hospitals monasteries priories religious houses prebends parsonages vicarages chantries free chapels and all other cures offices and promotions spiritual what name or nature soever they be within the limits of their charge to them allotted as well in places exempt as not exempt. And in whose dioceses or jurisdictions they be and for true execution of their charge in this behalf shall examine such incumbents their receivers and auditors by their oaths and also see and view such registers books of account Easter books and all other writings as by their discretions shall be thought convenient and reasonable for sure declaration of the premisses and over that use all such other ways and means whereby the true and just yearly values of all the said dignities cathedral churches collegiate churches colleges hospitals houses conventual abbeys monasteries priories houses religious prebends parsonages vicarages benefices cures offices chantries free chapels and other promotions spiritual may plainly and distinctly appear without any manner concealment thereof using themselves after the order manner and form as in these articles next ensuing is mentioned and declared making a plain book thereof after the auditor’s fashion according as shall be expressed in the last of the said articles underwritten. Item is ordered that if the see of any archbishop or bishop be within the limits of their commission then the commissioners or three of them whereof the bishop shall be one shall first by such means and ways as is above mentioned, search and know the whole and entire yearly value of the archbishopric and bishopric where the commission is directed as well in spiritualties as temporalties whatsoever it be that is to say how much in yearly value belongeth to the said archbishopric or bishopric in castles honours manors lands tenements demesnes rents farms possessions and other temporal profits whatsoever it be and how much belongeth to the said archbishopric or bishopric by reason of the spiritualties and spiritual jurisdiction communibus annis and in what shires towns and places the castles honours manors lands tenements demesnes farms rents possessions and other temporal profits belonging to the said archbishopric or bishopric lie or be. And their distinct and several yearly values and the title name and nature of the yearly profits that appertain to the said archbishopric and bishopric by reason of his spiritualties and spiritual jurisdiction and their several yearly values communibus annis And what yearly and perpetual rents pensions and fees be paid out of the same that is to say such rents and pensions as be yearly paid to every person or body politic to their heirs and successors and none other and such fees as be yearly paid for receivers bailiffs auditors stewards chancellor master of the rolls justice sheriff or other officer of record for temporal justice and none other and the name of the persons to whom such annual and perpetual rents pensions and fees be yearly paid. Item to search enquire and know the number names and certainty of all the manors lands tenements demesnes farms rents possessions parsonages portions pensions tithes oblations and other profits whatsoever as well spiritual as temporal appertaining or belonging to the cathedral church or monastery where the see of the archbishop or bishop to whom the commission is directed is and in what shires towns hamlets and places the said manors lands tenements demesnes rents farms possessions parsonages

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portions pensions tithes oblations or other profits lie and be and the whole and entire distinct and several yearly values of them and the true certainty of the annual and perpetual rents pensions and alms and also fees for receivers bailiffs auditors and stewards and none other officers yearly given and paid out of the same. And the names of the said officers to whom such fees be appointed. And the names of the persons for whose souls such alms is yearly distributed and the names of the persons or places whereunto or to whom such annual and perpetual rents or pensions be yearly resolute or paid. Item to enquire search and know the names of the dean or prior of the said cathedral church or monastery of the names of the sub-deans and sub-prior treasurer residencer chanter sexton almoner hospitaller bowser and of every other person that hath any dignity prebend vicarship petty canonry or other office chantry cure or promotion spiritual in succession in the said cathedral church or monastery. And the distinct number and names of every such dignity prebend vicarship petty canonry office cure chantry and promotion spiritual which hath been accustomed to be and go in succession in the said church or monastery and the distinct yearly value and profit that belongeth and is limited to the dignity of office of the said dean prior sub-dean subprior treasurer residencer chanter sexton hospitaler bowser or to any other dignity prebendary vicarship petty canonry or other chantry cure or promotion spiritual that goeth in succession in the said cathedral church or monastery. Item to search and know the number and names of every archdeanery and deaneries rural within the limits of their commission as well in places exempt as not exempt and in whose diocese or jurisdiction they lie and the whole and entire yearly value of every of them as well in spiritualties as in temporalties if any be and the number names and certainty of the temporalties if any be and where they lie and their distinct and several yearly values and the names number and nature of the spiritualties and their several yearly values communibus annis and what annual and perpetual rents pensions and fees for receivers bailiffs auditors and stewards only and none other officers be yearly accustomed to be resolute and paid out of any of the said archdeaconeries or deaneries rural and the names of the persons to whom such rents pensions and fees be yearly paid. Item to search and know the number and names of every college founded and edified within every deanery rural or elsewhere within the limits of their commission as well in places exempt as not exempt and in whose diocese and jurisdiction they be. And the number names and certainty of the manors lands and tenements demesnes rents farms possessions parsonages portions pensions tithes oblations and all other profits as well spiritual as temporal appertaining to every such college and church collegiate. And in what shires towns hamlets or places the said manors lands tenements demesnes rents farms possessions portions pensions parsonages tithes oblations and other profits lie andbe. And the whole and entire distinct and several yearly values of them and the true certainty of the annual and perpetual rents pensions alms and fees for receivers bailiffs auditors stewards and none other officers yearly given and paid out of the same and the names of such officers to whom such fees be appointed. And the names of the persons for whose souls such alms is yearly given. And the names of the persons or places whereunto or whom such annual and perpetual rents or pensions be yearly paid.

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Item to know and search the names of the deans sub-deans masters provosts prebendaries fellows brethren chantry priests and every other spiritual person that hath any dignity prebend petty-canonry vicarage cure office or other promotion spiritual which goeth by succession in any such college or church collegiate. And the names of such dignities prebends vicarages petty-canonries chantries offices cures and promotions spiritual. And the distinct yearly value and profit that belongeth and is limited as well to the dean master provost or chief head of such college or church collegiate as to every other dignity prebend vicarage petty-canonry office fellowship chantry cure or promotion spiritual which hath succession in every such college or church collegiate. Item to search and know every hospital house and place conventual of any secular priests or lay brethren within every deanery or elsewhere within the limits of the commission as well in places exempt as not exempt. And in whose diocese and jurisdiction they be and the number names and certainty of all the manors lands and tenements demesnes farms rents possessions parsonages portions pensions tithes oblations and all other profits as well spiritual as temporal appertaining or belonging to every such hospital or place conventual. And in what shires towns hamlets and places the said manors lands tenements demesnes rent possessions parsonages portions pensions tithes offerings and other profits lie and be. And the whole and entire distinct and several yearly values and the true certainty of the annual and perpetual rents pensions alms and fees for receivers bailiffs auditors and stewards. And none other officers yearly given and paid out of the same. And the names of the said officers to whom such fees be assigned. And the names of the persons for whose souls such alms is yearly given. And the names of the persons or places whereunto or to whom such rents or pensions &c be yearly paid. Item to search and know the name of the master priest or other chief governor of such hospital or place conventual. And what yearly rent or profit to his dignity and office distinctly belongeth and is limited. And of every other person that hath any other dignity fellowship brothership sistership office chantry cure advantage or other promotion spiritual that runneth and goeth by succession within any such hospital or place conventual and the names and number of every such dignity fellowship brothership sistership office chantry cure advantage or promotion spiritual. And what yearly profit or advantage belongeth or is limited to every such dignity fellowship brothership sistership office cure or other promotion spiritual within every such hospital or place conventual. Item to search and know the number and names of every abbey monastery priory and house religious and conventual as well charterhouse as other founded and edified within every deanery or elsewhere within the limits of their commission as well in places exempt as not exempt and in whose dioceses and jurisdiction they be and the number names and certainty of all the manors lands tenements rents farms possessions parsonages portions pensions tithes oblations and all other profits as well spiritual as temporal appertaining or belonging to every such abbey monastery priory or house religious and in what shires towns hamlets and places the said manors lands tenements demesnes rents farms possessions personages portions pensions tithes oblations and other profits lie and be. And their whole and entire distinct and several yearly values.

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And the true certainty of such annual or perpetual rents pensions alms and fees for receivers bailiffs auditors and stewards only and none other officers yearly given and paid out of the same. And the several names of the said officers to whom such fees be limited. And the name of the persons for whose souls such alms is distributed and given and the names of the persons and places whereunto and to whom such annual and perpetual rents and pensions be yearly paid…. Item to search and know the number and names of every parsonage vicarage chantry as well mortized as other and free chapel within every deanery or elsewhere within the limits of their commission as well in places exempt as not exempt and in whose dioceses or jurisdiction they lie. And the true and entire yearly value of all the lands tenements glebes demesnes rents possessions tithes offerings portions pensions and all other profits as well spiritual as temporal belonging to every such parsonage vicarage chantry or else free chapel wheresoever such lands tenements rents possessions tithes offerings portions pensions or other such profits as is aforesaid lie or be either in the town where such parsonage vicarage chantry or free chapel is set and founded or elsewhere within any other town or place and in what shire town or place and their distinct several and yearly values and the true certainty of the annual and perpetual rents pensions and synods and prices paid and yearly going out of such parsonages vicarages chantries and free chapels and to whom such rents pensions synods and prices be yearly paid. Item finally after the true and just yearly values of all the dignities benefices offices cures and other promotions spiritual afore-examined and known then the said commissioners to whom commissions shall be directed shall cause to be made a fair book after the auditors fashion putting first in the head thereof the name of the archbishoprick or bishopric where the commission is directed if the see be within the limits of their commission and the whole and entire yearly value thereof like as before is mentioned in the article concerning the same with the deductions to be resolute that are mentioned in the said article and none other and then next after that to put the name of the cathedral church or monastery where the see of the archbishopric or bishopric is and the number or names of all such dignities prebends offices cures chantries and promotions spiritual which be in succession in the said cathedral church or monastery and as well the whole and entire yearly value of the said cathedral church or monastery as the particular yearly profit that belongeth to every of the said dignities prebends offices cures chantries and distinct promotions spiritual in the same with the deductions to be resolute out of the same, as is mentioned in the article above-specified concerning the same and then next after that to put the number and names of every such archdeaconry and deanery rural within the limits of their commission and in whose diocese or jurisdiction they be and their several and particular yearly values and deductions like as is mentioned in the article concerning the same and next after that to put every college, church collegiate, hospital abbey monastery priory house religious parsonage vicarage chantry free chapel and all other promotions spiritual under the title and name of the deanery rural where colleges churches collegiate hospitals abbevs monasteries, priories, parsonages vicarages chantries free chapels and promotions lie and be founded and their several and distinct yearly values with such deductions as is

[102]


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above mentioned in the articles aforewritten concerning such dignities monasteries priories houses religious churches benefices chantries free-chapels promotions spiritual and the number and names of all such prebends dignities offices chantries or other promotions spiritual whatsoever they be in any the said colleges churches collegiate hospitals abbeys monasteries priories or houses religious and their distinct several and yearly values as afore declared in the said articles. So that always under the title of every deanery rural there be contained all such dignities abbeys monasteries priories houses religious benefices churches offices cures and promotions spiritual wheresoever they lie or be in the deanery where they be founded and edified. And if any of them be out of the limits of all deaneries then so to put them by their selves rehearsing their names and the places where they lie and in whose diocese and jurisdiction with their whole values and deduction as is afore limited added to every of them distinct by themselves Foreseeing always that in the making of the yearly values of any manner dignities monasteries abbeys priories houses religious prebends benefices chantries free chapels or other promotions spiritual above rehearsed there be made an whole and entire value of every of them by themselves and nothing to be allowed nor deducted out thereof for reparations fees surveying of cures or any other causes or things whatsoever they be except only such annual and perpetual rents pensions alms synods prices and fees for offices as before specially is mentioned in the articles aforewritten and after that the said book be made then the said commissioners shall certify the same unto the King’s Exchequer under their seals according as is limited by the tenor of the commissions as they will answer unto the king’s highness at their uttermost peril to the intent that the tenth of the premises may be taxed and set to be levied to the king’s use according to the statute made and provided of the grant thereof.

(ii) Deanery of Canterbury (Ibid, 1, 27)

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[102]


755

(iii) County of Leicester (Ibid, IV, 145) Monastery of the Blessed Mary, Leicester. Domains, Manors, Lands, Tenements and other possessions as well spiritual as temporal of the Monastery of Leicester pertaining to John Bourcher Abbot there is worth In Spirituals in the County of Leicester: Profits rising from various rectories and chapels appropriated to the said monastery in the county viz:

756

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[102]

[102]


757

758

RELIGION

[102]

[103]

ACT AGAINST PAPAL AUTHORITY, 1536

759

103. Act against papal authority, 1536. St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 10 (Stat. Realm, III, 663)

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orasmuch as notwithstanding the good and wholesome laws, ordinances and statutes heretofore enacted…for the extirpation, abolition, and extinguishment, out of this realm and other his Grace’s dominions, seignories and countries, of the pretended power and usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome, by some called the Pope, used within the same or elsewhere concerning the same realm, dominions, seignories or countries, which did obfuscate and wrest God’s holy word and testament a long season from the spiritual and true meaning thereof, to his worldly and carnal affections as pomp, glory, avarice, ambition and tyranny, covering and shadowing the same with his human and politic devices, traditions and inventions, set forth to promote and establish his only dominion, both upon the souls and also the bodies and goods of all Christian people, excluding Christ out of his kingdom and rule of man’s soul as much as he may, and all other temporal kings and princes out of their dominions, which-they ought to have by God’s law, upon the bodies and goods of their subjects; whereby he did not only rob the King’s Majesty, being only the supreme head of this his realm of England immediately under God, of his honour, right, and pre-eminence due unto him by the law of God, but spoiled this his realm yearly of innumerable treasure, and with the loss of the same deceived the King’s loving and obedient subjects persuading to them, by his laws, bulls, and other his deceivable means, such dreams, vanities, and fantasies as by the same many of them were seduced and conveyed unto superstitious and erroneous opinions; so that the King’s Majesty, the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Commons in this realm, being over-wearied and fatigated with the experience of the infinite abominations and mischiefs proceeding of his impostures, and craftily colouring of his deceits, to the great damages of souls, bodies and goods, were forced of necessity for the public weal of this realm to exclude that foreign pretended power, jurisdiction and authority, used and usurped within this realm, and to devise such remedies for their relief in the same as doth not only redound to the honour of God, the high praise and advancement of the King’s Majesty and of his realm, but also to the great and inestimable utility of the same; and notwithstanding the said wholesome laws so made and heretofore established, yet it is come to the knowledge of the King’s Highness and also to divers and many his loving, faithful and obedient subjects, how that divers seditious and contentious persons, being imps of the said Bishop of Rome and his See, and in heart members of his pretended monarchy, do in corners and elsewhere, as they dare, whisper, inculcate, preach and persuade, and from time to time instil into the ears and heads of the poor, simple and unlettered people, the advancement and continuance of the said Bishop’s feigned and pretended authority, pretending the same to have his ground and original of God’s law, whereby the opinions of many be suspended, their judgments corrupted and deceived, and diversity in opinions augmented and increased, to the great displeasure of Almighty God, the high discontentation of our said most dread sovereign lord, and the interruption of the unity, love, charity, concord and agreement that ought to be in a Christian region and congregation: For avoiding whereof, and repression of the follies of such seditious

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persons as be the means and authors of such inconveniences, Be it enacted…that if any person or persons, dwelling, demurring, inhabiting or resiant within this realm or within any other the King’s dominions, seignories or countries, or the marches of the same, or elsewhere within or under his obeisance and power, of what estate, dignity, preeminence, order, degree or condition soever he or they be, after the last day of July which shall be in the year of our Lord God 1536 shall, by writing, ciphering, printing, preaching, or teaching, deed or act, obstinately or maliciously hold or stand with to extol, set forth, maintain or defend the authority, jurisdiction, or power of the Bishop of Rome or of his See, heretofore used, claimed, or usurped within this realm, or in any dominion or country being of, within or under the King’s power or obeisance, or by any pretence obstinately or maliciously invent anything for the extolling, advancement, setting forth, maintenance or defence of the same or any part thereof, or by any pretence obstinately or maliciously attribute any manner of jurisdiction, authority, or preeminence to the said See of Rome, or to any Bishop of the same See for the time being, within this realm or in any the King’s dominions or countries, that then every such person or persons so doing or offending, their aiders, assistants, comforters, abettors, procurers, maintainers, fautors, counsellors, concealers, and every of them, being thereof lawfully convicted according to the laws of this realm, for every such default and offence shall incur and run into the dangers, penalties, pains and forfeitures ordained and provided by the Statute of Provision and Praemunire, made in the sixteenth year of the reign of the noble and valiant prince King Richard the Second, against such as attempt, procure, or make provision to the See of Rome or elsewhere for any thing or things to the derogation, or contrary to the prerogative royal or jurisdiction, of the crown and dignity of this realm.

104. An act for the king to make bishops, 1539. St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 9 (Stat. Realm, III, 728)

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orasmuch as it is not unknown the slothful and ungodly life which hath been used amongst all those sort which have borne the name of religious folk, and to the intent that from henceforth many of them might be turned to better use as hereafter shall follow, whereby God’s word might the better be set forth, children brought up in learning, clerks nourished in the universities, old servants decayed to have livings, almshouses for poor folk to be sustained in, readers of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to have good stipend, daily alms to be ministered, mending of highways, exhibition for ministers of the church; It is thought therefore unto the King’s Highness most expedient and necessary that more bishoprics collegiate and cathedral churches shall be established, instead of these aforesaid religious houses, within the foundation whereof this other titles afore rehearsed shall be established; Be it therefore enacted… that his Highness shall have full power and authority from time to time to declare and nominate by his letters patent or other writings to be made under his great seal, such number of bishops, such number of cities, sees for bishops, cathedral churches and dioceses, by meets and bounds for the exercise and ministration of their episcopal offices and administration as shall appertain, and to endow them with such possessions after such manner form

[105]

PRECEDENTS FOR DISSOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES

761

and condition as to his most excellent wisdom shall be thought necessary and convenient; and also shall have power and authority to make and devise translations ordinances rules and statutes concerning them all and every of them, and further to do all and every other thing and things whatsoever it be which shall be devised and thought requisite convenient and necessary by his most excellent wisdom and discretion, for the good perfection and accomplishment of all and singular his said most godly and gracious purposes and intents touching the premises, or any other charitable or godly deeds, to be devised by his Highness concerning the same; and that all and singular such translations nominations of bishops cities sees and limitations of dioceses for bishops…and all and every other thing and things which shall be devised comprised and expressed, by his Grace’s sundry and several letters patent or other writings under his great seal…shall be of as good strength force value and effect to all intents and purposes, as if such things…had been done made and had by authority of parliament.

D. CONFISCATION OF CHURCH WEALTH 105. Precedents for the dissolution of religious houses. From the Patent Rolls These examples point the way towards the later attack on the religious houses (C.P.R. Henry VII II, 72, 543). Even more significant were the activities of Wolsey. In 1518, and again in 1525, he obtained faculties from Rome for the inspection and visitation of English monasteries (L.P., II, 4399; Rymer, Foed. XIV, 18). To finance his schemes for colleges at Oxford and Ipswich he dissolved 29 religious houses in Southern England between 1524–28. (For list, Gairdner, Hist. Engl. Church, 419.) For bulls granting permission to suppress religious houses for the benefit of Cardinal’s College, Oxford (L.P. IV, 15), and for Ipswich (ibid, IV, 5714). For Wolsey’s plans for further dis-solutions (bull of 14 Nov. 1528: Rymer, Foed. XIV, 272; bull of 4 January 1529, ibid, XIV, 291).

(i) 12 June 1497 (C.P.R. 1494–1509, 72)

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icence for John bishop of Ely to expel the prioress and nuns from the convent of St. Radegunde, which is of the foundation and patronage of the bishop and which has become reduced to poverty and decay by reason of the dissolute conduct and incontinence of the prioress and nuns, on account of their vicinity to the University of Cambridge, so that they cannot maintain divine service, hospitality or other works of mercy and piety according to their foundation or support themselves, which are reduced to two in number, one of whom is professed elsewhere and the other is an infant, and to found a college in its stead for one master, six fellows and a certain number of scholars to be instructed in grammar, to pray and celebrate divine service daily for the king, his queen Elizabeth, his mother Margaret, his son Arthur prince of Wales, and his second son the duke of York, his other children, the bishop of Ely and for the soul of the king’s father Edmund earl of Richmond; the college to be called the College of St. Mary the Virgin, St. John the Evangelist and St. Radegunde the Virgin by Cambridge, and to be put in possession of the said priory and its lands and former possessions, to hold in frankalmoin.

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(ii) 14 July 1507 (C.P.R. 1494–1509, 543)

Grant to Margaret countess of Richmond and Derby, the king’s mother, of the monastery or abbey of St. Mary de Pratis by Creke, co. Norfolk, with the buildings called the abbey and the lands, and licence for her to grant the said abbey and possessions in frank almoin to the master or warden and scholars of Christ’s College, Cambridge, first begun by Henry VI and by her increased, finished and established, and for the said college to appropriate the same; also grant to the college of all the issues since 25 April last. This without payment of any fees in chancery or the hanaper.

(iii) 25 July (L.P. 1, i, Grants, 158/24)

Executors of Margaret, Countess of Richmond. Licence to Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester, John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, Charles Somerset, Lord Herbert, Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Henry Marney, Sir John Seynt John, Harry Hornby, clerk, and Hugh Assheton clerk, executors of the Countess; to acquire the site and possessions of the priory of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, in the patronage of James, bishop of Ely, by right of his church, and now in a most impoverished and dilapi-dated condition, and convert the same into a college for a master, fellows, and scholars, (in pursuance of the wish of the said Countess), to be called “The College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge”. Also mortmain licence to the said college to acquire additional lands to the annual value of £50. Greenwich.

106. Conditions in religious houses, c. 1518. Illustrated from episcopal visitations (A.H.Thompson, Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1517–1531 III, 83 ff.)

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isitation of Ramsey carried out there, in the Chapter house on the 15th. day of June in the year of Our Lord 1518 by the Lord W. by the grace of God, bishop Lincoln in his own person. The gates of the monastery are not shut securely at night for the lord abbot, nor are the walls and closes of the monastery sufficient. The monks of the monastery can get out of the monastery at will in the night. And also outsiders and seculars can enter the monastery at night time, also the conventual church, so that recently there was furtively taken from the conventual church at night, a chalice, in what way or by whom is not known. The bishop charged the abbot and prior that the walls and enclosures of the monastery should be adequate by the feast of All Souls, and that the gates should be sufficiently shut so that no monks should in any way be able to leave nor outsiders to enter. The prior is indiscreet in corrections, is too rigorous and not impartial, but corrects his said brothers at the simple complaint of laymen and of people of low estate. Further, he abuses them in the sight and presence of laymen. The prior is charged to reform himself in this matter.

[106]

CONDITIONS IN RELIGIOUS HOUSES, C. 1518

763

William Calyner, serving the brethren in the refectory is not of honest conversation, nor does he show deference to the brethren of the monastery, but abuses them with censures. And he is supported in his pertinacity by the prior of the monastery, who favoured him more than any of the brethren of the monastery, whom the same prior frequently threatens too harshly. Richard Hart, father of the same William, is of the same condition. The prior is charged not to do this in future. The same prior was not elected by the convent, as he should be: but simply at the order of the lord abbot and 2 or 3 of his supporters. The same prior ought to busy himself with the lord abbot in the affairs of the convent, and should always speak up for the rights of the monks, but yet this present prior neither does nor wishes to do these things. Dominus John Ryngsted has the office of sacrist, steward, and keeper of Hurst, and yet, some other brothers as shrewd and skilled as he, have no office. Dominus Robert Houghton, late cellarer, owes dominus Stephen Bennet his stipend for the two years when he was cellarer: and is also so indebted to all the other brothers of the monastery in divers sums for their stipends, some for one and some for two years. It is sought that the number of monks should be increased for there used (and ought) to be in the monastery 50 monks and now there are there only 40 brethren. The Bishop enjoined that by the feast of St. Michael the Archangel next year the lord abbot should cause the number to be increased. Dominus John Stow is a blasphemer and great swearer. He reproves his fellows, and does not wish to be reproved by them. There is a refectorarius: he is not diligent in his office for he does not show the monks each day by the accustomed signs where they are to dine on that day, but when the dinner hour arrives the brethren do not know whether they will have their repast in the refectory or in the misericordia. He is ordered to amend his ways. The bishop reserved to himself the power of absolving him from his blasphemy. The lord bishop reserved absolution of all blasphemies of this kind to himself and his deputies and brings sentence of excommunication against all blasphemers of this kind to be absolved by him or his deputies. Dominus John Burwell camerarius, does not pay the stipends of the monks at the proper time. He is ordered to pay the pensions of the monks in future at the appointed time without any delay. The monks of the monastery holding offices in the monastery waste the wood belonging to their offices, and allow the tenements belonging to their office to fall into ruin: and they are dilapidators of their offices. One of them is sacrist, and seneschal, and another is elemosinarius. Also they sell the gross profits. It is enjoined that all officers, when they give up their offices, ought also to render up in those offices the moneys acquired in them from the sale of woods, waste, and the like. Let it be provided that at divine service several monks should attend in church psalmselling and singing, because for the most part there are not present in church at high mass more than 2 monks and sometimes only the prior by himself. Officers do not come into the choir. The prior of the monastery is not considered discreet. He is too credulous, and

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trusts more readily laymen than his brothers and favours laymen. Sometimes he gets drunk and reveals the secrets of the cloister to laymen. The same prior was charged to abstain in future and not be credulous of laymen nor favour them, and not to reveal the secrets of the brethren. The tenements of the monastery on the outside are in great decay through the neglect of the last abbot. In these days hospitality is less than it used to be: and the junior monks have no place where they can receive and feed their friends who come to the monastery; nor have they anything wherewith they can give pleasure to their friends. Outsiders of all kinds are in these days not received and no provision is made for them or their horse, as ought and used to be in that monastery. The lord bishop firmly ordered the lord abbot that he should increase hospitality and receive guests properly. Officers of the monastery enrich themselves and waste the rents belonging to their offices and allow tenements to decay. When, therefore, they give up such offices, let provision be made for them to leave in that office the moneys they have acquired in the same. It was enjoined that likewise that they should leave moneys which had been acquired in offices in the same offices when they give them up. Many of the monks of the monastery devote themselves more to hunting and other sports than is seemly, and sometimes some of them shoot arrows in the fields in unbecoming attire to the scandal of the house. The prior some time ago, made a door through which laymen could commonly enter into the secret dormitory, and they see and know what the young student monks are doing there. The prior is charged that for the future he should in no way allow any laymen to enter the secret dormitory through that door or in any other way. Some of the monks held many offices and some who are more prudent than these have no offices. It is sought therefore that offices shall be divided, single offices to separate brothers. A two or three days consultation should always be held for audit of every account. The bishop ordered the lord abbot and the whole convent that for the future this should be observed, and that the auditors should inquire diligently of waste done by officials and the ruin of official tenements and that they should cause all these things to be restored and remade by the lord abbot. The sub-prior is not discreet in corrections but is too favourably inclined to wrongdoers and when he does punish he is too severe. John Stowe, keeper of the shrine should by virtue of his office show two lights continually burning about the shrine, and yet this is sometimes not fully carried out. The present prior owes William Lyn 12.s. of his pension from the time when the same prior was in office. The prior of the monastery was elected contrary to the custom of the monastery: for he should be elected by the convent: this present prior was chosen by the abbot. The same prior is frequently drunk and then he will reveal and disclose even to laymen the secrets of the brethren and the penances he inflicted on the brothers. The said prior was peremptorily charged viz. for the first, second, and third time that he should for the

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future refrain from all the matters now complained against him under penalty of removal from office without any further warning, because this warning is peremp-tory and has the force of three warnings. The same prior admits this injunction. The lord abbot is firmly charged to provide an instructor in elementary science for the novices. Such an injunction had frequently been made to him previously but he did not trouble to observe it. This injunction is repeated in this visitation. The dormitory is in a state of disrepair so that rain falls on the beds of the brethren. Some other buildings are similarly defective as for instance, the church over the high alter and above the organ, so that the brothers cannot rest in the night time because of the rain dripping on their heads. The lord abbot is enjoined to do repairs inside and outside as is necessary. Monks do not rise to matins in the night as they should. Sometimes scarcely 8 monks rise for matins, although there are thirty monks in the monastery. The lord prior was charged to see that for the future many brethren should be present at matins. The present prior, by virtue of his office should stand up for the rights of the brethren before the lord abbot. Yet this prior does not dare to do so because the lord abbot asserts that the prior of the monastery can be set up and removed at his will. This is not true, but is in direct conflict with the custom and ordinances of the monastery. The lord prior is charged to stand up for the rights of the brethren against the said abbot as often as is necessary and suitably required. The present prior is not discreet. He is frequently drunk and then he will give away the secrets of the house and the brethren’s confessions so that the brothers are afraid to confess to him. It is enjoined as above. The cell of St. Ives is in great decay both in the church and in the other buildings. And there is there a certain newly made “Frame”, and since the carpenter has not been paid his money he does not get on with it, so it lies exposed to the elements and becomes damp. It was charged that this also should be put right. Dominus Robert Houghton has £40 of money belonging to the treasury. He and the lord abbot promised to restore this, yet these moneys have not been repaid to the treasury. There are in the monastery 8 officers who ought, every year before the feast of Our Lord’s birth, to do “Oes”.1 And then these officers ought to prepare food and drink by way of entertainment for the whole convent. This is not done in these days owing to the prior’s neglect. The lord abbot is charged to see that this is observed. The dormitory, refectory, and the convent church are greatly defective on the inside, hence the brothers believe that since the decay within the monastery is so great in everyone’s sight, there is also decay in the tenements on the outside. The senior brothers will not come to matins nor to other divine offices nor will they celebrate mass in their turn, but they compel the younger monks to celebrate mass and chant the divine office in their place. The abbot is charged to make the seniors, even the officers, to attend on choir at the divine hours. 1 The “Oes” were feasts provided on the seven days before Christmas Eve, so called from the antiphons O Sapientia, etc., appropriate to these days.

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Richard Hart, the servant of the refectory, does not do his office, but he makes a boy, William Alyn wait on the convent. John Hart, servant of the seyny hall, and barber, does his office as badly as possible, very often refusing to shave the junior brethren. The brothers of the monastery, especially the older ones, frequent and play tables and dice and other games of the same kind at night, and for money. And there they use great oaths swearing by the body of Our Lord and other of his members. They do not come to matins but play at such time. In choir they do not sing, but gossip and the juniors have to bear all the burden of the choir. This year the prior of the monastery compelled brother John London, who was then sick and said so to the prior, to rise at matins and come to church while sick. Whereupon the same dominus John suddenly fell at the door of the chapter house and gave up the ghost. The prior is charged that for the future he will not drive his sick brethren thus. Various sums of money were owed to some people in the district for some food bought by dominus Robert Houghton when he was cellarer, to the dishonour of the monastery. It was ordered that the money should be paid to the creditors and that the lord abbot should see that this was done. The lord abbot, the cellarer, the sacrist, the prior of St. Ives and the almoner should be made to account annually. The pittancer should also be held to account, and he is guilty of dilapidation of the houses and tenements of his office. The tenements of the office of Keeper of the shrine of St. Ives are also in a state of great decay. Visitation of Peterborough Abbey by Wm. Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, 19 June 1518. (Ibid. 76) The lands, tenements, and nemora pertaining to the office of sacrist are in great decay. The brethren living at Oxney for recreation are forced to rise for matins in the night. Previously they were not accustomed to do this, but had matins in the day. The warden of Oxney is chosen by the abbot and the majority of the convent. It used to be the custom for those brethren who were excused from the table of the three readings to be excused from the three psalms, fifteen psalms, six, nine, and compline. But in these days although they are excused from the said “tabula” they are forced to be present at the said psalms, six, nine, and compline. The senior brethren should have privileges according to their age, but the lord abbot will not allow the senior brethren to exercise them. The lord abbot has in his hands the offices of almoner, treasurer of the infirmary, and sub-cellarer, master of the works, and he will not depute brothers to do these offices although there are brothers quite fit to do so, against the custom of the monastery to the hurt of the brethren, so that when anything goes wrong in any office there is no official to whom the brethren can speak. For this reason the offices are in decay, especially the repair of windows in the house of the office of the master of the works.

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The lands and tenements belonging to the convent outside are in ruin. The lord abbot repairs the tenements belonging to himself quite satisfactorily, but he allows the tenements of the convent to decay. The lord abbot settles the officers at his own pleasure, although the majority of the convent disagree. He also sells wood every year without the consent of the convent, to the value of 100 marks and sometimes more. Let it be provided that in all important business he shall get the agreement of the convent. Item, those who are excused from the table of the three readings used to be relieved of the office of serving the brethren in the refectory, and of reading there, and also from the office of precentor in the conventual church, and from the office of “le Agitour”1 in the mass of the blessed virgin, and also from meals in the refectory; and each of these ought to have four gallons of beer from each brewing. The brother of the abbot is enriched with the goods of the monastery. The lord abbot does not choose studious brothers but looks for lazy ones. The church of Colingham was appropriated to the monastery for increasing the pittances of the convent for fish through the offices of Sir Reginald Bray, Knight: and the convent had the fruits of this church viz. as long as master Bray lived, yet now the lord abbot does not allow the convent to enjoy the privileges of that church. An injunction is made that the lord abbot should exercise patience with all, for his impatience is a hindrance of a hundred masses in the year and of friendship amongst the brethren. The same lord abbot was sworn at the time of his admission to observe all the laudable customs of this monastery; and yet the lord abbot infringes all these customs, and the same lord abbot has just sold wood belonging to the office of treasurer to the value of £50 for a trifling price and has kept the money for himself. Within the monastery there is a certain tavern in which the brethren drink in bad weather, sometimes too early, sometimes too late. Let it be provided that the subcellarer shall not allow any one of the brethren to have in future wine after the seventh hour after midday in winter or after eight in summer. There is much too frequent traffic by the brethren to Peterborough without licence. Let this be reformed. Let it be enjoined on all monks that they must not make themselves clothes of a new fashion, but that they shall observe the old form of clothing, especially the kirtles. For some monks in these days make new kinds of clothes. The bread and beer of the convent is not quite wholesome or good. Also the monks’ helpings of flesh in the refectory are too small, and they have very tasteless fish. It is through the negligence of the cellarer that the meat and fish are not wholesome. For the best bread is made from wheat that is not well ground and the beer is too weak. Brother John Lynfeld has no pension. The lord abbot slanders brothers John Bernwell and Christopher Barnewell. The lord abbot sells cattle and naifs of the monastery without the consent of the 1

Meaning not clear.

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convent, and keeps the money for himself. And the same lord abbot detains from the convent 6.s. 8d. given to one of the monks for the obit of William Ramsey formerly abbot there. And the same lord abbot oppresses the whole community of the vill of Peterborough with their chattels. The same lord abbot formerly betrayed the secrets of the monastery to outsiders. Also, he has the whole treasure of the monastery in his custody. The brothers used to have in a common chest money amounting to £300: now they have no such sum but the lord abbot has all of it. The sacrist is notorious for incontinency. The prior is credited with having taken certain jewels from the shrine of St. Oswald in the monastery. And the precentor is accused of going into the town and of levity in his office. And the prior was not chosen by the convent as he should be. The prior of the monastery ought (and used) to celebrate in the chapel above the charnel, for souls of the dead, but this he does not do in these days. Let provision be made that each year two of the brethren of the monastery should be deputed to supervise tenements and repairs of tenements belonging to the convent, which are, as has been said, in great ruin. The lord abbot does not render an annual account of his administration before the brethren. He founded a certain grammar school at Kyrkton, and he also left for the ordination and collation of the abbot of Swynested £10 per annum. Let scholars be assigned to continue their studies in the university, for sometimes they are in the university and sometimes they are not. The brothers who should have their seynies in Oxney should be assigned by the lord abbot about the seventh hour before midday, and now they are assigned too late, so that frequently the abbot does not arrive before the brothers ought to be at Oxney. The lord abbot for some time accepts monks who are too youthful and inexperienced, viz. boys, as a result of which there are not as many priests in the monastery as there would be if older men were received as monks. And the same lord abbot chides the brethren before outsiders and young men. The lord abbot, without the consent of the chapter, enclosed his park at the monastery, and as a result the brethren going to Oxney are compelled to go across by new paths, since the ancient path was through the said park. And the same lord abbot has in his hands a certain close of the annual value of 40.s. belonging to the office of sacrist, and he has enclosed a part of the cemetery in his park. The sacrist of the monastery had in his chamber secretly a certain maiden named Joan Turner and several times had relations with her, and he has also lived incontinently with many others. And the same sacrist and precentor are sowers of discord between the abbot and brothers. In the first years after they have entered religion, the novices are segregated from the convent in a certain house separated etc. as a result of which they have no instructor in religion. The dormitory, the conventual church, and the infirmary are ruinous, owing to the negligence of the lord abbot who had in his hand the office of master of the works, whose responsibility it is to repair the ruin of the monastic buildings.

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If brewing is not done for 2 or 3 days at any time, the brethren then at Oxney have no drink except from their own purses. Let provision be made for the lord abbot to render account of his administration and declare the state of the monastery every year before four or six of the senior brothers. And let him show them where the treasure is. Let provision be made for the sick, that in times of sickness they may have wholesome food and drink for in these days the sick has one penny only for his food. Sometimes the lord abbot denies the sacrament of the eucharist to sick brethren languishing in extremis. Food and drink are sternly refused to convalescent brethren, so they cannot drink from dinner to supper so that the brothers could not in any way at the time of refection have a draught of beer. The lord abbot forthwith said he wished to resign and wished the brethren to choose some more fit person for the dignity of abbot. Brother Robert Eston had certain jewels of the house. Brother Antonius Mores loaned 4 marks to the late brother John Overton. The lord abbot has all his goods. Let him therefore pay his debts, especially the said four marks. Memorandum for the presidents of religious. It is said that there is a certain bull by virtue of which an abbot who does not provide wholesome drink for the monks is excommunicate. The office of sacrist is in great disorder: he has been in that office for twenty years and never saw a tenth part of the lands belonging to his office. The sacrist is not considered suitable for that office. Stupid confessors are chosen and able men are slandered, and stupid officers are preferred to the best. Young men are preferred in offices and old ones are assigned to the cloister. No home is prepared for sick brethren, nor are beds prepared for individual patients in which they may lie separately. There are scholars in the hospital, to the hurt of the convent, and these scholars are always absent from their studies. The lord abbot provides scraggy sheep, diseased cows, and unwholesome pigs for the monastic table. The hostilar has no bread, beer, beds and other things for receiving guests. The prior of the monastery had £16 per annum for the supervision of lands and tenements. The present prior does not receive the said £16 nor does he supervise these lands, but he leaves all these things to the lord abbot, and he sits at table with the said lord abbot. The precentor has the office of keeper of the cross: he receives the emoluments and does nothing in the office. Memorandum that brother Thomas Darby who has been in religion for 49 years is now excused matins. The brethren of the monastery give their rations from the refectory to their friends living in the town to the detriment of the alms. Many of the senior brethren are lascivious and dissolute in choir at service time giving a wicked example. Brother Robert Beverley, resting in the infirmary, cannot eat with his fellows because of his infirmity. He is to have permission to eat in his room, and is to be excused choir

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duty and other tasks, especially from mass. There is no other house for lepers and others suffering from contagious diseases except the infirmary. The younger brethren, that is, the novices do not have breakfast. Sometimes it is past twelve before these juniors eat or drink, and thus they hardly drink until dinner on the following day. Hence it follows that these young men take too much at dinner whereby after dinner they give themselves up to slumber and not to study. Let the officers have their rights in the pastures of the monastery in the customary way. The lord abbot does not show clemency to the brethren, nor does he pay attention to them in their affairs, but he pays attention to seculars even in religious matters. And the same lord abbot is obstinately set against some of the brethren.

107. The dissolution of the monasteries. Illustrated from various sources (i) Appointment of commissioners for the examination of the monasteries, 24 April 1536 (J.W.Clay, Yorkshire Monasteries, Suppression Papers, 21)

H

enry the Eighth, by the grace of God etc., to his well beloved and trusty Sir Ralph Elarker the younger, knight, Sir Marmaduke Constable, knight, Sir George Lawson, knight, and Sir Roger Chomley the elder, knight, and to his well beloved William Babthorpe, esquire, Robert Challoner, esquire, Leonard Bekwith and Hugh Fuller greeting. Know ye that wholly relying on your faithfulness and prudent discretion we have appointed you 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 of you, of whom we will you the aforenamed Leonard and Hugh to be two, giving to you…full power and authority, to enquire, search and examine, in the ways and by the methods and means which you consider best and most convenient, as well within the county as the city of York and the county and town of Kingston upon Hull, both within the liberty and without, concerning all and singular the articles and instructions to these presents annexed, doing and carrying out what in those articles is contained. And therefore we command you, firmly enjoining that you take effective measures in the premises, and diligently do and execute them so that we may have the truth concerning these articles and each of them without favour, fraud, deceit, corruption, or artifice, as you shall answer to us therein. And whatsoever you shall do in the premises and in all points thereof you shall certify to us in the chancery of our court of the augmentations of our revenue, distinctly and openly written in due form on parchment, sealed with your seals…in the Octave of Michaelmas next to come, according as the said articles prescribe and require. And this you shall by no means omit under peril of what may befall…. Henry the VIIIth. to our trusty etc. Forasmuch as we understand that [ 1] is at this part in such state as the same is, neither used to the honour of God nor to the benefit of our common weal, we let you wit that therefore being minded to take the same into our own hands for a better purpose like as we doubt not, but the head of the same will be contented to make his surrender, accordingly we for the special trust and confidence that we have in your fidelities, wisdom and discretions have and by these presents do 1

Blank in MS.

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authorise, name, assign, and appoint you that immediately repairing to the said house you shall receive of the said head such a writing under the convent seal as to your discretions shall seem requisite, meet and convenient for the due surrender to our use of the same. And thereupon taking possession thereof, and of all the goods, chattels, plate, jewels, implements and stuff being within or appertaining thereunto; and further causing all the goods and implements to be indifferently sold either for ready money or at days upon sufficient sureties, so that the same day pass not one year and a half, ye shall deliver to the said head and brethren such part of the said money and goods as ye by your discretions shall think meet and convenient for their dispatch, and further to see them have convenient pensions by your wisdoms assigned, accordingly which done, and moreover seeing the rightful and due debts there paid and satisfied as well of the revenues as of the said stuff as to reason and good conscience appertaineth, and your own charges reasonably allowed, ye shall proceed to the dissolution of the said house. And further in our name taking possession of the same to be kept to our use and profit. Ye shall furthermore bring and convey to our Tower of London after your said discretions all the rest of the said money, plate, jewels, and ornaments that in any wise shall come to your hands by means of the premises or of any part thereof straitly charging and commanding all mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, and all other our officers, ministers, and subjects to whom in this case it shall appertain, that unto you and every of you in execution hereof they be keeping, aiding, favouring and assisting. And they will answer unto us to the contrary at their uttermost perils.

(ii) First Act for the Dissolution of the monasteries, 1536, St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 28 (Stat. Realm, III, 575)

Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living, is daily used and committed amongst the little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons, whereby the governors of such religious houses and their convent, spoil, destroy, consume, and utterly waste as well their churches, monasteries, priories, principal houses, farms, granges, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, as the ornaments of their churches and their goods and chattels to the high displeasure of Almighty God, slander of good religion, and to the great infamy of the King’s Highness and the realm if redress should not be had thereof, And albeit that many continual visitations hath been heretofore had by the space of two hundred years and more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal, and abominable living, yet nevertheless little or none amendment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamelessly increaseth and augmenteth, and by a cursed custom so rooted and infested that a great multitude of the religious persons in such small houses do rather choose to rove abroad in apostasy than to conform them to the observation of good religion; so that without such small houses be utterly suppressed and the religious persons therein committed to great and honourable monasteries of religion in this realm, where they may be compelled to live religiously for reforma-tion of their lives, there

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can else be no reformation in this behalf: In consideration whereof the King’s most royal Majesty, being supreme head in earth under God of the Church of England, daily finding and devising the increase, advancement, and exaltation of true doctrine and virtue in the said Church, to the only glory and honour of God and the total extirping and destruction of vice and sin, having knowledge that the premises be true, as well by the comperta of his late visitations as by sundry credible informations, considering also that divers and great solemn monasteries of this realm wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full numbers of religious persons as they ought and may keep, hath thought good that a plain declaration should be made of the premises as well to the Lord spiritual and temporal as to other his loving subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled; whereupon the said Lords and Commons by a great deliberation finally be resolved that it is and shall be much more to the pleasure of Almighty God and for the honour of this his realm that the possessions of such spiritual religious houses, now being spent, spoiled, and wasted for increase and maintenance of sin, should be used and converted to better uses, and the unthrifty religious persons so spending the same to be compelled to reform their lives; And thereupon most humbly desire the King’s Highness that it may be enacted…that his Majesty shall have and enjoy to him and to his heirs for ever all and singular such monasteries, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, of what kinds or diversities of habits, rules, or orders soever they be called or named, which have not in lands, tenements, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds; And in like manner shall have and enjoy all the sites and circuits of every such religious houses, and all and singular the manors, granges, meases, lands, tenements, reversions, rents, services, tithes, pensions, portions, churches, chapels, advowsons, patronages, annuities, rights, entries, conditions, and other hereditaments appertaining or belonging to every such monastery, priory, or other religious house not having, as is aforesaid, above the said clear yearly value of two hundred pounds, in as large and ample manner as the abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, or other governors of such monasteries, priories, and other religious houses now have or ought to have the same in the right of their houses; And that also his highness shall have to him and to his heirs all and singular such monasteries, abbeys, and priories which at any time within one year next afore the making of this act, hath been given and granted to his Majesty by any abbot, prior, abbess, or prioress, under their convent seals, or that otherwise hath been suppressed or dissolved; And all and singular the manors, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions, tithes, pensions, portions, churches, chapels advowsons, patronages, rights, entries, conditions, and all other interests and hereditaments to the same monasteries, abbeys, and priories, or to any of them appertaining or belonging; to have and to hold all and singular the premises with all their rights, profits, jurisdictions, and commodities, unto the King’s Majesty and to his heirs and assigns for ever, to do and use therewith his or their own wills to the pleasure of Almighty God, and to the honour and profit of this realm. c. V. And it is also enacted…that the King’s Highness shall have and enjoy to his own proper use all the ornaments, jewels, goods, chattels, and debts, which appertaineth

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to any of the chief governors of the said monasteries or religious houses in the right of their said monasteries or houses at the first day of March in the year of our Lord God 1535, or any time since, wheresoever and to whose possession soever they shall come or be found: Except only such beasts, grain, and woods, and such other like chattels and revenues, as have been sold in the said first day of March or since, for the necessary or reasonable expenses or charges of any of the said monasteries or houses. c. VII. And forasmuch as the clear yearly value of all the said monasteries, priories, and other religious houses in this realm is certified into the King’s Exchequer amongst the books of the yearly valuations of all the spiritual possessions of this realm, amongst which shall and may appear the certainty and number of such small and little religious houses as have not in lands, tenements, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments, above the said clear yearly value of two hundred pounds; Be it therefore enacted…that the king’s highness shall have and enjoy according to this act the actual and real possession of all and singular such monasteries, priories, and other religious houses as shall appear by the said certificate remaining in the King’s Exchequer, not to have in lands, tenements, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments above the said clear yearly value of two hundred pounds, so that his Highness may lawfully give, grant, and dispose them, or any of them at his will and pleasure, to the honour of God and the wealth of this realm, without further inquisition or office to be had or found for the same. c. VIII. In consideration of which premises…his Majesty is pleased and contented of his most excellent charity to provide to every chief head and governor of every such religious house during their lives such yearly pensions or benefices as for their degrees and qualities shall be reasonable and convenient; wherein his Highness will have most tender respect to such of the said chief governors as well and truly conserve and keep the goods and ornaments of their houses to the use of his Majesty, without spoil, waste, or embezzling the same; And also his Majesty will ordain and provide that the convents of every such religious house shall have their capacities, if they will, to live honestly and virtuously abroad, and some convenient charity disposed to them toward their living, or else shall be committed to such honourable great monasteries of this realm wherein good religion is observed as shall be limited by his Highness, there to live religiously during their lives. c. XVII. And further be it enacted…that all and singular persons, bodies politic and corporate, to whom the King’s Majesty, his heirs or successors, hereafter shall give, grant, let, or demise any site or precinct, with the houses thereupon builded, together with the demesnes of any monasteries, priories, or other religious houses that shall be dissolved or given to the King’s Highness by this act, and the heirs, successors, executors, and assigns of every such person, body politic and corporate, shall be bounden by authority of this act, under the penalties hereafter ensuing, to keep or cause to be kept an honest continual house and household in the same site or precinct, and to occupy yearly as much of the same demesnes in ploughing and tillage of husbandry, that is to say, as much of the said demesnes which hath been commonly used to be kept in tillage by the governors, abbots, or priors of the same houses, monasteries, or priories, or by

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their farmer or farmers occupying the same, within the time of twenty years next before this act; And if any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, that shall be bounden by this act do not keep an honest house, household, husbandry, and tillage in manner and form as is aforesaid, that then he or they so offending shall forfeit to the King’s Highness for every month so offending £6. 13. 4. to be recovered to his use in any of his courts of record.

(iii) Second act for the dissolution of the monasteries, 1539, St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 13 (Stat. Realm, III, 733)

Where divers and sundry abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, and other ecclesiastical governors and governesses of divers monasteries, abbacies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospitals, houses of friars, and other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places within this our sovereign lord the King’s realm of England and Wales, of their own free and voluntary minds, good wills and assents, without constraint, coaction, or compulsion of any manner of person or persons, since the fourth day of February, the 27th. year of the reign of our now most dread sovereign lord, by the due order and course of the common laws of this his realm of England, and by their sufficient writings of record under their convent and common seals, have severally given, granted, and by the same their writings severally confirmed all their said monasteries, abbacies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospitals, houses of friars, and other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places, and all their sites, circuits, and precincts of the same, and all and singular their manors, lordships, granges, messuages, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, rents, reversions, services, woods, tithes, pensions, portions, churches, chapels, advowsons, patronages, annuities, rights, entries, conditions, commons, leets, courts, liberties, privileges, and franchises, appertaining or in any wise belonging to any such monastery…and other religious and ecclesiastical houses…to have and to hold…to our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors for ever…and the same…voluntarily as is aforesaid, have renounced, left, and forsaken…. Be it therefore enacted…that the king our sovereign lord shall have, hold, possess, and enjoy to him, his heirs and successors, for ever, all and singular such late monasteries…and other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places…which since the said fourth day of February the 27th. year of the reign of our said sovereign lord, have been dissolved, suppressed, renounced, relinquished, forfeited, given up or by any other means come to his Highness; and by the same authority, and in like manner, shall have, hold, possess and enjoy all the sites…and other whatsoever hereditaments which appertaineth or belonged to the said late monasteries…in as large and ample manner and form as the late abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, and other ecclesiastical governors and governesses…had, held, or occupied, or of right ought to have had, holden, or occupied, in the rights of their said late monasteries…or other religious or ecclesiastical houses or places at the time of the said dissolution, suppression, renouncing, relinquishing, forfeiting, giving up, or by any other manner of means coming of the same to the King’s Highness since the fourth day of February above specified.

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[II All monasteries etc. which shall in future be dissolved or come to the king shall with all their sites etc., likewise be vested in and be deemed in the actual seisin of the king, his heirs, and successors.] III. And be it also enacted…that all the said late monasteries…and other religious and ecclesiastical houses which be dissolved, suppressed, renounced, relinquished, given up, or come to the king’s highness by any manner of means as is aforesaid… and all the manors, lordships, granges, lands, tenements [etc]…and other hereditaments whatsoever they be, belonging to the same or to any of them, except such thereof which shall happen to come to the King’s Highness by attainder or attainders of treason, shall be in the order, survey, and governance of our said sovereign lord the King’s Court of Augmentations of the Revenues of his Crown and of the chancellor, officers, and ministers of the same….

(iv) An act for the dissolution of chantries etc., 1547, St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 14 (Stat. Realm, IV, 24)

The King’s most loving subjects, the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, considering that a great part of superstition and errors in Christian religion hath been brought into the minds and estimation of men by reason of the ignorance of their very true and perfect salvation through the death of Jesus Christ, and by devising and phantasing vain opinions of purgatory and masses satisfactory1 to be done for them which be departed, the which doctrine and vain opinion by nothing more is maintained and upholden than by the abuse of trentals, chantries, and other provisions made for the continuance of the said blindness and ignorance; and further considering and understanding that the alteration, change, and amendment of the same, and converting to goodly and godly uses, as in erecting of grammar schools to the education of youth in virtue and godliness, the further augmenting of the universities, and better provision for the poor and needy, cannot in this present Parliament be provided and conveniently done, nor cannot nor ought to any other manner person be committed than to the King’s Highness, whose Majesty with and by the advice of his Highness’ most prudent Council can and will most wisely and beneficially, both for the honour of God and the weal of this his Majesty’s realm, order, alter, convert and dispose the same…. [After making reference to St. 37 Hen. VIII, c. 4, the act proceeds:] It is now ordained and enacted…that all manner of colleges, free-chapels and chantries, having being or in esse within five years next before the first day of this present Parliament, which were not in actual and real possession of the said late King, nor in the actual and real possession of the King our sovereign lord that now is, nor excepted in the said former act…and all manors, lands etc…belonging to them or any of them, and also all manors, lands etc…by any manner of assurance, conveyance, will, devise or otherwise had, made, suffered, knowledged, or declared, given, assigned, limited, or appointed to the finding of any priest to have continuance for ever, and wherewith or whereby any priest was sustained, maintained, or found within five years next before the first day of this present Parliament, which were not in the 1

i.e. Masses making satisfaction or atonement for sin.

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actual and real possession of the said late King nor in the actual and real possession of our sovereign lord the King that now is, and also all annual rents, profits, and emoluments at any time within five years next before the beginning of this present Parliament employed, paid, or bestowed toward or for the maintenance, supportation, or finding of any stipendiary priest intended by any act or writing to have continuance for ever, shall by authority of this present Parliament, immediately after the feast of Easter next coming, be adjudged and deemed and also be in the very actual and real possession and seisin of the King our sovereign lord and his heirs and successors for ever…. VII. And furthermore be it…enacted…that the King our sovereign lord shall from the said feast of Easter next coming have and enjoy to him, his heirs and successors for ever, all fraternities, brotherhoods, and guilds being within the realm of England and Wales and other the King’s dominions, and all manors, lands, tenements, and other hereditaments belonging to them or any of them, other than such corporations, guilds, fraternities, companies, and fellowships of mysteries or crafts, and the manors, lands, tenements, and other hereditaments pertaining to the said corporations, guilds, fraternities, companies, and fellowships of mysteries or crafts above mentioned, and shall by virtue of this act be judged and deemed in actual and real possession of our said sovereign lord and King, his heirs and successors, from the said feast of Easter next coming for ever, without any inquisitions or office thereof to be had or found. VIII. And also be it…enacted…that our said sovereign lord the King his heirs and successors…may direct his and their commission and commissions under the Great Seal of England to such persons as it shall please him, and that the same commissioners, or two of them at the least, shall have full power and authority…as well to survey all and singular lay corporations, guilds, fraternities, companies, and fellowships of Mysteries or Crafts incorporate and every of them…and all the evidences, compositions, books of accompts, and other writings of every of them, to the intent thereby to know what money and other things was paid or bestowed to the finding or maintenance of any priest or priests anniversary or obits or other like thing, light or lamp, by them or any of them; as also to enquire search and try, by all such ways and means as to them shall be thought meet and convenient, what manors, lands, tenements, rents, and other hereditaments, profits, commodities, emoluments, and other things be given, limited or appointed to our said sovereign lord the King by this act, within the limits of their commission: and also that the same commissioners or two of them at the least, by virtue of this act and of the commission to them directed, shall have full power and authority to assign, and shall appoint, in every such place where guild fraternity the priest or incumbent of any chantry in esse the first day of this present parliament by the foundation, ordinance, the first institution thereof should or ought to have kept a grammar school or a preacher, and so hath done since the feast of St. Michael the Archangel last past, lands, tenements, hereditaments, of every such chantry, guild, and fraternity to remain and continue in succession to a schoolmaster or preacher for ever, for and to

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all the keeping of a grammar school or preaching, and for such godly intents and purposes and in such manner and form as the same commissioners or two of them at the least shall assign or appoint…. XIX. And be it further enacted…that all and every of the said chantries, colleges, and free chapels, and other the premises given limited or appointed to the King by this act…which by authority and virtue of this act be vested adjudged and deemed or shall be in the King’s Majesty’s possession and hands…shall be in the order, survey, and governance of our Sovereign Lord the King’s Court of the Augmentations and Revenues of his Crown, or in such other court as the King at any time hereafter shall assign name or appoint…

108. Sidelights on the Dissolution of the monasteries. From various sources (i) The Last Days of Peterborough Monastery (1534) (W.T.Mellows, The Last Days of Peterborough Monastery, 1)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HENRY VIII AS SUPREME HEAD ON EARTH OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, BY THE ABBOT AND MONKS OF PETERBOROUGH MONASTERY

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hereas it is not only an obligation of the Christian religion and duty, but also a rule of our obedience, that we should not only display to our lord King Henry, the eighth of that name, (to whom alone and only after Christ Jesus our Saviour we owe everything), devotion of mind, fidelity, regard, honour, worship, and reverence of every kind in Christ, and that too sincere, entire, and perpetual, but that we should also render an account of the same fidelity and regard of ours (whenever it shall be demanded) and most willingly testify to all (if circumstances demand it) Know all men to whom this present writing shall come, that We, the Abbot and Convent of Burgh S.Peter, of the diocese of Lincoln, with one mouth and voice, and with unanimous consent and assent, by this our writing given under our common seal in our Chapter House, for us and our successors, all and singular, for ever profess, testify, and faithfully promise and vow, that we the said Abbot and Convent and our successors all and singular, will always display entire, inviolate, sincere, and perpetual, fidelity, regard and obedience towards our Lord King Henry the eighth, and towards Queen Anne his wife, and towards his offspring of the same Anne legitimately as well begotten as to be begotten. And that we will notify, preach, and persuade these same things to the people wherever place and opportunity shall be given. Also that we always hold it confirmed and established, and always will hold, that the aforesaid Henry our King is the head of the church of England. And also that the bishop of Rome, who in his bulls takes the name of Pope, and claims for himself the pre-eminence of chief pontiff, has no other greater jurisdiction assigned to him by God in this realm of England than any other foreign bishop: and also that no one of us in any sacred assembly to be held privately or publicly will call the same bishop of Rome by the name of pope, or chief pontiff, but by the name of

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bishop of Rome, or of the Church of Rome: and that no one of us will pray for him as pope, but as bishop of Rome. Also that we will adhere to the said Lord King only and his successors, and will maintain his laws and decrees, renouncing for ever the laws, decrees, and canons of the bishop of Rome which shall be found to be contrary to divine law and the Holy Scripture, or contrary to the laws of this realm. Also that no one of us in assembly either private or public will presume to twist anything taken from the Holy Scriptures into another sense, but each one will preach, in catholic and orthodox fashion, Christ, and His words and deeds, in simplicity, openness, and sincerity, and according to the practice and rule of the Holy Scriptures, and of the doctrine of the truly catholic and orthodox. Also that every one of us, in his prayers and supplications to be made according to custom, will commend to God, and to the people in their prayers, first of all the King as supreme head of the church of England, then Queen Anne and her offspring, and then lastly the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, with the other orders of the clergy as shall seem fit. Also that all and singular the aforesaid Abbot and Convent, and our successors, firmly bind ourselves with the solemn obligation of conscience and oath that we will faithfully observe for ever all and singular the aforesaid things. In testimony whereof we have caused to be put to this present writing our common seal. Given in our Chapter House in the aforesaid Monastery of Burgh S.Peter, July 27, 1534. John Abbot; John Walpole, Prior; John Alnewick; William Castor; William Bristow; Robert Bourne; Robert Kyrkton; William Melton; Wylliam Thornton; Antonye Morrys; William Clyffe; John Overton; Richard Glinton; John Pomfret; William Kyrkton; Robert Stow; William Hertford; Richard Grantham; Richard Deeping; Robert London; Humfrey Naturas; John Ryhall; Richard Nottyngham; Christopher Lincoln; Robert Coventry; John Morton; John Holbeach; William Ramsey; Christopher Croyland; Griffin Gloucester; Henry Sutton; John Borough; Ambrose Castor; William Wisbeche; Geoffrey Lynn; John Croyland; John Lessingham; William Exeter; Thomas Kettering; Roger Birde; Stephen Harlton. by me Edward Bardney [Seal]

(ii) List of Pensions, payable to the Monks and other Officers of the Dissolved Monastery of Peterborough, circa 1539–40 (Ibid. 50)

Peterborough in the county of Northampton. Hereafter ensueth the names of the late abbot and monks there, with their pensions assigned by the king’s commissioners, to be paid unto them yearly during their lives, at 2 terms of the year, that is to say at the feasts of the Annunciation of our lady and saint Michael th’arcangell by even portions, the first payment thereof to begin at the feast of the Annunciation of our lady next ensuing the date hereof, which late monastery was

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surrendered to the king’s use the 29th day of November in the 31.st. year of the reign of our sovereign lord king Henry the VIIIth, viz:— APPOINTED TO REMAIN IN THE SAID LATE MONASTERY

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by me Phylyp Parys. Jo. Tregonwell. Jo. Hughes. Master chancellor the king’s pleasure is, as you know, that you shall yearly content and pay unto these persons whose names be above written for their yearly pensions all such sums of money quarterly by even portions as be set upon their names amounting in the whole yearly for every yeoman £6. and for every groom yearly £4. to be accompted from the first day of January last past in the thirty first year of the reign of his most noble reign unto such time his grace hath otherwise determined for them. from Windsor, the twenty second day of November the thirty second year of his grace’s reign by your assured Antonie Browne. [COUNTERPART OF A ROLL OF PENSIONS PAID IN THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF PHILIP AND MARY 1555–6] PETERBOROUGH NUPER MONASTERIUM

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(iii) The monastery at Halesowen (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, W.Salt Arch. Soc., vol. XII, (1892) 686) This document provides a striking illustration of what was involved in the dissolution of the religious houses. What is happening here is the surrender of a religious house and its possessions to the king. The money payment mentioned is fictitious.

On the Quindene of Easter. 30 Hen. VIII. And afterwards recorded on the Octaves of Holy Trinity. 30.H.VIII. Between the Lord the King, complainant, and William Taylour, Abbot of the monastery of the Blessed Mary the Virgin, and St. John the Evangelist, of Halesowen, deforciant of the manors of Hales, Halesburg, Halesowen, and Hellegraunge, and of 1,000 messuages, 1,000 tofts, 1,000 cottages, 3,000 gardens, 4 dovecots, 3 watermills, 3 wind-mills, 16,000 acres of land, 6,000 acres of meadow, 12,000 acres of pasture, 1,000 acres of wood, 2,000 acres of furze and heath, 2,000 acres of marsh, 1,000 acres of alders, 1,000 acres of fishery, and £100 of rent, and a rent of 100 quarters of wheat, 100 quarters of barley, 100 quarters of beans, 20 quarters of oats, 20 quarters of peas, 4 quarters of salt, 6 lbs. of pepper, and 4 lbs. of cumin in Hales, Halesburg, Halesowen, and Hellegraunge, and of the rectories of Warley, Hales, etc., in co. Salop, and of the manors of Horneburne, Smythwyke, Womeburn, Swyndon, Rowley, Weddesbury, Westbromewiche, Walsall, Pessalle, and Lichefyld, and 2,000 messuages, 1,000 tofts, 1,000 cottages, 3,000 gardens, 4 dovecots, 4 water-mills, 4 wind-mills, 20,000 acres of land, 10,000 acres of meadow, 20,000 acres of pasture, 1,000 acres of wood, 2,000 acres of furze and heath, 2,000 acres of moor, 1,000 acres of alder wood, 1,000 acres of fishery and £60 of rent, and of the rent of 100 quarters of wheat, 100 quarters of barley, 100 quarters of beans, 20 quarters of oats, 20 quarters of peas, 4 quarters of salt, 6 lbs. of pepper, and 4 lbs. of cumin in Horneburne, Smythewyke, Womeburne, Swyndon, Rowley, Weddesbury, Westbromewyche, Walsall, Pessal, and Lichefyld, and of the rectories of Clent, Wodderbury, Rowley, Walsall, Ludley, and Cradley, and of the advowsons of the churches of Clent, Wodderbury, Rowley, and Walsall, in co. Stafford, and of the manors of Warley, Chirchlenche, Cradley, Dodford, and of the priory of Dodford, etc., in co. Wygorn. The Abbot acknowledged the right of the King, for which the King gave him £4,000.

(iv) Examples of reports of commissioners for the dissolution (Wright, Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries. C.S. 1843, 85) John Ap Rice to Cromwell. 5 November [1535].

Please it your mastership, forasmuch as I suppose ye shall have suit made unto you touching Bury ere we return, I thought convenient to advertise you of our proceedings

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there, and also of the compertes1 of the same. As for the abbot, we found nothing suspect as touching his living, but it was detected that he lay much forth in his granges, that he delighted much in playing at dice and cards, and therein spent much money, and in building for his pleasure. He did not preach openly. Also that he converted divers farms into copyholds, whereof poor men doth complain. Also he seemeth to be addict to the maintaining of such superstitious ceremonies as hath been used heretofore. As touching the convent, we could get little or no reports among them, although we did use much diligence in our examination, and thereby, with some other arguments gathered of their examinations, I firmly believe and suppose that they had confedered2 and compacted before our coming that they should disclose nothing. And yet it is confessed and proved, that there was here such frequence of women coming and resorting to this monastery as to no place more. Amongst the relics we found much vanity and superstition, as the coals that Saint Laurence was toasted withal, the pareing of St. Edmund’s nails, St. Thomas of Canterbury’s penknife and his boots, and divers skulls for the headache; pieces of the holy cross able to make a whole cross of; other relics for rain and certain other superstitious usages, for avoiding of weeds growing in corn, with such other. Here depart of them that be under age upon an eight, and of them that be above age upon a five, would depart if they might, and they be of the best sort in the house and of best learning and judgment. The whole number of the convent before we came was 60; saving one, beside 3 that were at Oxford. Of Ely I have written to your mastership by my fellow Richard a Lee. And thus Almighty God have you in his tuition. From Bury, 5th November. Your servant most bounden John Ap Rice. George Giffard to Cromwell. [19 June, 1536]. (Ibid. 136) George Giffard was one of the commissioners for the dissolution of the smaller religious houses, and was at this time on his progress through Staffordshire and Leicestershire. Right honourable sir, after mine humble recommendations, this shall be to advertise you that I have received your most comfortable letters, for the which in my right lowly wise I render unto you most hearty thanks; pleaseth it your mastership to be further advertised, that we have surveyed the house or priory of Brook, the certificate whereof I sent you by your farmer’s son and my nephew Roger Carell this present, the 18th. day of June, the priory of Bradley, the abbey of Wolneston, the priory of Kirby Bellers, the priory of Woolstrope, and now be at the abbey of Garrendon. And, sir, forasmuch as of late my fellows and I did write unto Mr. Chancellor of the Augmentations in the favour of the abbey of Saint James and the nunnery of Catesby in Northamptonshire, which letter he shewed unto the King’s highness in favour of these houses, where the King’s highness was displeased, as he said to my servant Thomas Harper, saying that it was like that we 1 comperta: reports on the state of morals within the religious houses made by the commissioners. They must be distinguished from the reports given the same title, made at episcopal visitations of the monasteries. 2 confederated.

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had received rewards, which caused us to write as we did, which might put me in fear to write, notwithstanding the sure knowledge that I have had always in your indifference giveth me boldness to write to you in the favour of the house of Woolstrope, the governor whereof is a very good husband for the house, and well beloved of all the inhabitants thereunto adjoining, a right honest man, having 8 religious persons being priests of right good conversation and living religiously, having such qualities of virtue as we have not found the like in no place; for there is not one religious person there but that can and doth use either embroidering, writing books with very fair hand, making their own garments, carving, painting or graffing.1 The house without any slander or evil fame, and stands in a waste ground very solitary, keeping such hospitality that except by singular good provision it could not be maintained with half so much lands more as they may spend, such a number of the poor inhabitants nigh thereunto daily relieved, that we have not seen the like, having no more lands than they have. God be even my judge, as I do write unto you the truth, and none otherwise to my knowledge, which very pity alone causeth me to write. The premises whereof considered, in most humble wise I beseech you to be a mean unto the King’s majesty for the standing of the said Woolstrope, whereby his grace shall do a much gracious and a meritorious act for the relief of his poor subjects there, and ye shall be sure not only to have the continual prayer of those religious persons there, but also the hearty prayer of all the inhabitants within 4. or 5. mile about that house. And this for lack of wit I am bold to write unto you the plainness of my heart, as unto him that of all living creatures I have most assured and faithful trust in, so knoweth our lord God, who have you in his most merciful tuition. The commissioners to Cromwell. 28 July [1536] (Ibid. 139) After our duties of humble recommendation unto your good lordship had, it may please the same to be advertised that we have surveyed the monastery or nunnery of Pollesworth in the county of Warwick, wherein is an abbess named dame Alice Fitzherbert, of the age of 60. years, a very sad, discreet, and religious woman, and hath been head and governor there 27. years, and in the same house under her rule are 12. virtuous and religious nuns, and of good conversation as far as we can hear or perceive, as well by our examinations as by the open fame and report of all the country, and never one of the nuns there will leave nor forsake their habit and religion. Wherefore in our opinions, if it might so stand with your lordship’s pleasure ye might do a right good and meritorious deed to be a mediator to the King’s highness for the said house to stand and remain unsuppressed, for, as we think, ye shall not speak in the preferment of a better nunnery nor of better women, And in the town of Pollesworth are 44. tenements, and never a plough but one, the residue be artificers, labourers, and victuallers, and live in effect by the said house, and the repair and resort there is made to the gentlemen’s children and sojourners that there do live to the number sometime of 30, and sometime 40 and more, that there be right virtuously brought up. And the town and nunnery standeth in a hard soil and barren ground, and to our estimations, if the nunnery be suppressed, 1

engraving.

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the town will shortly after fall to ruin and decay, and the people therein to the number of 6. or 7. score persons are not unlike to wander and to seek for their living, as our Lord God best knoweth, who preserve your lordship in good life and long, with increase of honour. Written at Maxtock beside Coventry the 28th. day of July. Sir Arthur Darcy to Cromwell. 8 June 1537. (J.W.Clay, Yorks. Monasteries Suppression Papers, 51–52) It shall like your honourable lordship to be advertised that I was with my lord Lieutenant at the suppression of Jervaulx, which house within the gate is covered wholly with lead, and there is one of the fairest churches that I have seen, fair meadows, and the river running by it, and a great demesne. The king’s highness is at great charge with his studs of mares at Thornbury and other places, which are fine grounds, and I think that at Jervaulx and in the granges incident, with the help of their great large commons, the king’s highness by good overseers should have there the most best pasture that should be in England, hard and sound of kind; for surely the breed of Jervaulx for horses was the tried breed in the north, the stallions and mares well assorted. I think in no realm should be found the likes to them, for there is large and high grounds for the summer, and in winter woods and low grounds to serve them. My lord, by my lord lieutenant I have restitution of a great part of my goods at Coverham. From Jervaulx I went to Sallay, where I inquired out a chalice that was bribed from the king before the suppression of the house, and also I have found a book of debts belonging to the house, and there is a barkhouse stored with leather. I require your lordship to send to me your pleasure what I shall do therein. My good lord, I require you to get me licences for 14 days to come up to dispatch me of debts that I owe. Of my faith I never brake so much credence as I have lately done. I have desired Mr. Jolyment to remember your lordship for my causes. Of truth, my lord, I do waste the king’s money here at Pontefract; for of a truth the countries in the north was never in a more dreadful and true obedience. My lord, I beseech you be good lord to me; it is shewed to me that the king’s highness would again survey my lands, and that further Mr. Chancellor did send to me that it was thought that I had deceived the king. My lord, ye know that I might have had saint Leonards, which is better by 300 marks than my lands in the first survey. I did refuse that, and on my faith I never knew what Salley was, till it was granted. M.Fermer and M.Montague would have given six hundred marks yearly for Grenesnorton; and in consideration thereof, and with my wife in marriage, the king’s highness gave me my lands unsurveyed. If it be the king’s pleasure to have my rentals, upon my life I shall not lie, but bring them myself, and his grace shall have all things at his conscience and pleasure, as knoweth God, who ever preserve you with much honour. Richard Pollard to Cromwell, 14 June 1537. (Ibid. 53–54) Pleaseth it your good lordship to be advertised that my lord of Norfolk had been at Bridlington before my coming into these parts, and there he had all the jewels of the

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church, the vestments, the plate, oxen and a great part of the sheep, so that at my coming thither there was but little stuff remaining. But notwithstanding I have gotten much more silver and some gold in the Church which I have sent to my lord of Norfolk’s grace to the intent that it may be sent to London with the residue that my lord of Norfolk hath. And such sheep, cattle, corn, and household stuff as did remain at Bridlington at my coming thither I have sold by the advice of Sir Marmaduke Constable the elder and Richard Bellasis, the which stuff I assure you was the worst that ever I saw in any house of reputation as it shall appear by my books, and a great part thereof was stolen by the poor people before my coming thither. And as for the church and the lands of the church and houses I have done nothing therewith as yet until I know what the king’s grace’s pleasure shall be done therein for that it standeth within half a mile of the sea. But I assure you the house and church is far in decay, the most profit thereof is to be made of the leads for there was offered to me for the leads of a barn five hundred marks over and besides the residue of the houses and church there the which will amount to a great sum of money. And there remaineth much glass as yet for I have sold no part thereof nor the bells for I can have no merchant for the same. And as concerning the demesnes I have offered the same unto the inhabitants of the town between this and Michaelmas and right so the corn in the field but they offer nothing like for the same. Wherefore as yet I have set no part thereof. And herewith I have sent to your good lordship a book whereby ye may perceive the description of the church and late monastery. I assure your lordship I never saw so needy people in my life as are in these parts, for they have made there before my coming great spoil and robbery. And to the intent your lordship shall perceive my doing in survey I have therefore also sent you herewith a survey that I have made of the manor of Bulmer, sometime the inheritance of Sir John Bulmer, to the intent that if it is not well and according to your mind, that then it will please your lordship to send me your pleasure. And to my power I shall do accordingly. I assure you your servant Mr. Lentall taketh great pains and doth the king’s majesty right good true and diligent service, as it shall appear at our return signifying your lordship that the country as far as I have laboured be in good obedience to our sovereign lord the king, and be right glad that they be the king’s grace’s tenants…. And as far as I have surveyed yet there shall be due to the king’s majesty at Michaelmas one whole year’s rent, and so is like to be in all Yorkshire, but they have not used to pay until Saint Martin’s day then next following. Dr. London to Cromwell. 18 Sep. 1538 (Wright, Suppression 225) In my most humble manner I have me commended unto your good lordship, with my assured prayer and service. I have sent up to your lordship the surrender of the Grey Friars of Reading, with their plate, such as it is. I have inwardly defaced the church and dorter; the residue of the house I have left whole till I know your further pleasure, and clearly despatched all the friars out of the doors in their secular apparel, and have given to every one of them money in their purses, and have clearly paid their debts, This is a town of much poor people, and they fell to stealing so fast in every corner of the house,

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that I have been fain to tarry a whole week here to set everything in due order, and have and shall receive to the King’s grace’s use I trust above £40. The mansion wholly reserved. I have sent up the principal relic of idolatry within this realm, an angel with one wing that brought to Caversham the spear head that pierced our Saviour’s side upon the cross. It was conveyed home to Notley, but I sent my servant purposely for it. I have sent also 3 coats of the image, with such things as I found upon them, with the dagger that they say slew King Henry the VI. and the knife that killed Saint Edward, with many other like holy things. I have defaced that chapel inward, and have sent home the canon to his master to Notley. I have required of my lord abbot the relics of his house, which he shewed unto me with good will. I have taken an inventory of them, and have locked them up behind their high altar and have the key in my keeping, and they be always ready at your lordship’s commandment. They have a good lecture in scripture daily read in their chapter house, both in English and Latin, to the which is good resort, and the abbot is at it himself. In any other thing I can do your lordship service I am and always shall be ready, God willing, who with increase of much honour, long preserve your good lordship. At Reading, 18 Septembris [1538] Your most bounden orator and servant John London. The Inventory of the Relics of the House of Reading. Imprimis, two pieces of the holy cross. Item, saint James’ hand. Item, saint Philip’s stole. Item, a bone of Mary Magdalene, with other more Item, saint Anastasius’s hand, with other more. Item, a piece of saint Pancrate’s arm. Item, a bone of saint Quintin’s arm. Item, a bone of saint David’s arm. Item, a bone of Mary Salome’s arm. Item, a bone of saint Edward the Martyr’s arm. Item, a bone of saint Hierome, with other more Item, bones of saint Stephen, with other more Item, a bone of Saint Blase, with other more…. There be a multitude of small bones, laces, stones, and arms, which would occupy four sheets of paper to make particularly an inventory of every part thereof. They be all at your lordships commandment. Richard Bellasys to Cromwell, 14 November [1537] (Ibid. 164) Pleaseth your good lordship to be advertised, I have taken down all the lead of Jervaux, and made it in pieces of half fodders, which lead amounteth to the number of eighteen score and five fodders, with thirty and four fodders and a half that were there before; and the said lead cannot be conveyed nor carried unto the next summer, for the ways in

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that country are so foul and deep that no carriage can pass in winter. And as concerning the rasing and taking down the house, if it be your lordships’ pleasure, I am minded to let it stand to the spring of the year, by reason the days are now so short, it would be double charges to do it now. And as concerning the selling of the bells, I cannot sell them above 15.s. the hundred, wherein I would gladly know your lordship’s pleasure whether I should sell them after that price, or send them up to London; and if they be sent up, surely the carriage will be costly from that place to the water. And as for Bridlington, I have done nothing there as yet, but spareth it to March next, because the days now are so short; and from such time as I begin, I trust shortly to dispatch it, after such fashion, that when all is finished, I trust your lordship shall think that I have been no evil husband in all such things as your lordship hath appointed me to do. And thus the Holy Ghost ever preserve your lordship in honour. At York, this 14th. day of November, by your most bounden beadman Richard Bellasys The Commissioners to Cromwell, 2 December 1538 (Ibid. 231) Our humble duties observed unto your good lordship, it may like the same to be advertised that we have taken the surrender of the late priory of Christ’s Church, Twynham, where we found the prior a very honest conformable person, and the house well furnished with jewels and plate, whereof some be meet for the King’s majesty’s use, as a little chalice of gold, a goodly large cross, double gilt, with the foot garnished with stone and pearl, two goodly basins, double gilt, having the King’s arms well enamelled, a goodly great pyx for the sacrament, double gilt; and there be also other things of silver right honest and of good value, as well for the church use as for the table, reserved and kept to the King’s use. In this church we found a chapel and monument curiously made of Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Raynold Pole for her burial, which we have caused to be defaced and all the arms and badges clearly to be deleted. The surveying of the demesne of this house, which be large and barren, and some part thereof twenty miles from the monastery, which we also do survey and measure, hath caused us to make longer abode at this place than we intended. And now we be in journey toward Amesbury, where we shall use like diligence for the accomplishing of the King’s highness’ commission, and as soon as we have done there we shall farther certify your lordships of our doings. And thus we beseech almighty Jesus long to preserve your good lordship with increase of much honour.

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109. Monastic lands after the dissolution The fate of the monastic lands at, and after, the Dissolution is a subject of considerable interest. Materials are in most cases extant for tracing their disposal, but they have to be brought together from various sources. The following specimen shows how such evidence can be assembled, and gives references to the kind of material used.

(i) July 1539 (L.P. XIV, i 1354. g. 37.)

37. Sir Richard Ryche, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations. Grant in fee of the manors of Magna Bursted, Westhouse, Whites, Gurneys, Bukwynes, Cowbrige and Chalwedon, Essex; the rectory and the advowson of the vicarage of Magna Bursted; and certain messuages, mills, lands, &c., in Magna Bursted, Parva Bursted, Billerica, Gyngmountney, Mountneysyng, Hoton, Stok, Buttesbury, Laynedon, Nevendon, Lachendon, Bastildon, and Langdon, Essex; which premises belonged to the late monastery of Stradford Langthorne, Essex; and all possessions of Stratford Langthorne in the above named places, in as full manner as Wm. Huddelston, the late abbot, held the same:—Also the great mansion or messuage now in the tenure of the said Richard within the close circuit, &c., of the late house of Augustine Friars, London, with a great hall, bakehouse, stable, &c., and certain places thereto adjoining, i.e. the messuage or tenement with garden, in which Wm. Shirlande now dwells, all those chambers and houses late in the tenure of Richard Duke, an enclosure and land called “le Cloyster”, the kitchen of the said late Friars near the said Cloyster, a curtilage and well therein between the said cloister and the said tenement of Wm. Shirlande, and the house situated on the South side of the said cartilage; To hold by the annual rent of £10. with liberties.

(ii) 14 February 1546 (L.P. XXI, i (1546), 302, g. 30)

… Commission to Wm. bp. of Norwich, Sir Rog. Townesend, Sir Wm. Paston, John Godsalve, John Gosnold, John Eire and Nich. Myn (in consideration that by Act of Parliament of 37 Hen. VIII. the king is empowered to take into his hands, at pleasure, all chantries, hospitals, colleges, free chapels, fraternities, brotherhoods, guilds and salaries of stipendiary priests “having perpetuity”, and all their possessions, and he wishes to act therein to the glory of Almighty God and the wealth of the realm) to enquire what chantries, etc., there are, to what intents they were founded, and how their revenues are expended, which of them are parish churches, and how far each stands from the parish church; that the King may determine which of them shall stand as they are or be dissolved, altered or reformed. Also to make a full survey of the lands which pertained to them at any time since 4 Feb. 27 Hen. VIII., what chantries, etc., have since that date been dissolved or acquired by any of the King’s subjects without special licence, what is the yearly value, what goods and ornaments there are, and what yearly deductions. And, to prevent embezzlement, to make inventories indented with the masters, rulers, governors or incumbents of the said chantries, etc., of all plate, jewels, ornaments, goods and chattels, commanding the same to be safely kept. The certificates, surveys and indentures made as above to be returned into the Court of Augmentations.

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110. Inventories of Church goods (i) Commission for the taking of an inventory of Church goods. Patent Roll, 6 Edward VI (F.C.Eeles (ed.), The Edwardian Inventories for Bedfordshire, IX)

E

dward the Sixth &c. To our dear cousin and counsellor William, Marquis of Northampton great chamberlain of England and to our trusty and right well beloved John, lord Braye, and to our trusty and well beloved John Saint John and Uryan Brereton, Knights, and to our well beloved Lewis Dyve and Richard Snow, esquires, greeting. Whereas we have at sundry times heretofore, by our special commission and otherwise, commanded that there should be taken and made a just view, survey, and inventory of all manner goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells and other ornaments within every parish belonging or in any wise appertaining to any church, chapel, brotherhood, gild, or fraternity within this our realm of England, and upon the same inventory so taken or made, our commandment was and hath been that all the same goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells and other ornaments should be safely kept and appointed to the charge of such persons as should keep the same safely and be ready to answer to the same at all times, according to the which our commissions and sundry commandments. We are advertised by our said commissioners then appointed and by other means also that the said goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells and other ornaments of the said churches, chapels, brotherhoods, gilds, fraternities and companies were not only viewed and duly surveyed, but also that the inventories thereof were made by indenture and the one part of the same remained with our Custos Rotulorum of that county or his deputy or clerk of the peace at that time being and the other part with the churchwardens and such men as had the charge of the same goods, and other inventories also made by our commandment by our bishops and their ecclesiastical officers were likewise by them returned hither to our council: yet nevertheless for that we be informed that some part of the said goods, plate, jewels, bells and ornaments of churches be in some places embezzled or removed contrary to our former express commandments, and manifestly to the contempt and derogation of our honour in that behalf, We have thought meet to have the very truth herein justly and duly known to the intent the same may be as is most necessary redeemed and forthwith reformed. And for that purpose for the good knowledge and experience had in your trustiness, faithfulness, wisdom, and uprightness we have appointed you to be our special commissioners and by authority hereof do name, appoint, and authorise you four or three of you to take and receive a due, full, and just view of all goods, plate, jewels, bells and ornaments of every church and chapel in whose hands soever the same be belonging or in any wise appertaining to any the said churches, chapels, gilds, brotherhoods, or fraternities within that our county of Bedford. And upon the said view so taken to cause a true, just, and full perfect inventory to be made of the same and to compare the same with the best of the former inventories heretofore made and remaining with the said churchwardens or such other as then had the same in charge, And for the defaults and wants if any shall be either of the said plate, jewels, bells, vestments or any other ornaments or any part of them any manner of wise to make diligent inquiry and search as well by the oaths of such honest

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men as ye shall think meet to swear therefor as any other convenient means to know and understand by whose default the same hath been removed, embezzled, aliened, or diminished. And also in whose possession the same things or any part thereof so spoiled, removed, embezzled, or diminished do remain, or to whose use the money and profit thereof is made, or is come according to the further meaning of certain instructions sent to you herewith and of your whole doings in this behalf to return unto us and our Privy Council in writing your answer accordingly. And if ye shall find any person or persons that wilfully or stubbornly will refuse to obey any precept or commandment which you our said commissioners, four or three of you, shall give unto them in or about the executions of the premises that there we give unto you full power, and authority to commit every such person or persons to ward and prison, there to remain without bail or mainprise until such time as you shall think the same imprisonment to be condign for his or their offences. Wherefore we will and command you and every of you to attend and execute the premises accordingly. And moreover We will and command all and singular mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, headboroughs, all curates, parsons, vicars, churchwardens and all other our officers, ministers, and faithful subjects that they and every of them be aiding, helping, counselling, assisting, and furthering you in and about the due execution hereof as they tender our pleasure, and will answer to the contrary at their extreme perils.

(ii) A return by commissioners for the taking of an inventory of Church goods (W.Page (ed.), The Inventories of Church Goods for the counties of York) Durham, and Northumberland (Surtees Soc., 1897, vol. XCVII) 8)

East Riding 1552. To the King’s most royal Majesty and his most honourable privy council. The certificate of William Babthorpe, Robert Constable, Ralph Ellerkar, knights, and John Eglesfield, esquire, commissioners for surveying of church goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells, and other ornaments, within the East Riding of the county of York. According to your Majesty’s commission and instructions unto us with the same direct, we, the said commissioners have repaired unto sundry places within the limits of the same, and there, according to the purport and effect thereof, hath as well by the oaths of the curates, churchwardens, and other honest persons of every parish within the limits of our commission, as by all other ways and means we could, not only taken and made a full and perfect inventory indented of all such goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells, and other ornaments within every parish in the East Riding aforesaid, the one part whereof, with the goods aforesaid, remaineth with the curate, churchwardens, and other honest persons of every parish by us assigned, to be kept in safe custody, according to your Majesty’s commission, and instructions with the same to us sent; and the other part of the said several inventories indented, remaineth with us, the said commissioners, the true copies whereof by this book indented, we certify unto your Majesty and most honourable council. And also have compared the same with inventory before taken by justice of peace, and delivered unto us by the custos rotulorum of those

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parts, and also certifieth unto your Majesty and Council the like of all such goods, plate, jewels, vestments, bells, and ornaments as before us upon examination and depositions of the same did appear, as in the end of this our certificate shall appear. East Luttone, Buckros. This bill indented and made the 16th day of August, anno regni regis Edwardi sexti, sexto, betwixt Sir William Babthorpe, Sir Robert Constable, and Ralph Ellerkar, knights, and John Eglesfeld, esquire, commissioners, by virtue of the King’s Majesty’s commission and Robert Skelton curate of East Luttone, John Davisone, Stevyn Morden (?), inhabitants of the same, of the ornaments and church goods belonging to the same, as hereafter followeth. First, one chalice of silver, taken away by Mr. Wandisford. Item, one vestment of dornix, with all things belonging to the same, remaining in the hands of John Davisone. Item, 2 bells and the lead, taken away by Richard Mansfeld, deputy surveyor, by virtue of the late Act of Parliament. Item, the stones and wood, taken by the said Mansfeld.

(iii) Commission of inquiry re Church goods, 12 December 1552 (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1550–53, 391)

Commission to John duke of Northumberland, Great Master of the Household, John earl of Bedford, lord keeper of the Privy Seal, Francis earl of Huntingdon, Thomas lord Darcye of Cheche, King’s chamberlain, Edward Lord Clynton, High Admiral of England, Sir Richard Cotton knight, comptroller of the Household, Sir Ralph Sadler, knight, Sir Philip Hobbye, knight, Sir Walter Myldmay, knight, one of the General Surveyors, Richard Goodrick, esquire, attorney of Augmentations, and Thomas Myldmay esquire; (whereas since 4 Feb. 27 Henry VIII. by reason of visitations and commissions, suppressions and surrenders of religious houses and attainders of persons the king is by law become entitled to “a great and notable quantity of lead, bell metal, plate, jewels, ornaments, stock and store, goods and chattels” which ought to have come to him and his father; whereas also since 1 Edward VI. by divers penal statutes the king is entitled to divers forfeitures of gold, silver, jewels, bullion, and other rich wares; and whereas also much bullion, plate, gold and silver, both coined and uncoined, has since the beginning of the reign been carried beyond sea without licence): To enquire what lead and bell metal ought to have come to the King and his father, how much of it has been sold and for what money and by what authority, how much remains unsold and where; also to call up and examine such as by commission or commandment have meddled with the receipt of the above plate, etc., since 4 Feb. 27 Henry VIII., and compel such as have not yet accounted to make a perfect account; also to enquire what gold, etc., has been seized at the ports; and to take proceedings against all persons, or their executors, who shall be found indebted to the King, as above. This commission to endure until revoked by writing under Great Seal. 2C2

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(iv) Commission for dealing with pensions etc., 20 June, 1548 (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1547–48, 417)

Commission to Walter Mildmay, knight, one of the general surveyors of the Court of Augmentations and Revenues, and Robert Keylwey, esquire, surveyor of liveries in the Court of Wards (under the act of Parliament of 1 Edward VI. for dissolution of colleges, etc., which provided for commissions to assign lands towards the maintenance of schoolmasters, preachers and other purposes, and whereas the king lately directed commissions to all places of England and Wales to enquire of lands which should come to him under the above Act and other matters, and means to erect grammar schools in every county and provide for relief of the poor and fully execute the said Act,) to assign to every dean, master, warden, provost and other incumbent and minister of colleges, free chapels, and chauntries dissolved by the said Act who had severally for their livings less than £20 yearly (and every stipendiary priest and other priest who had less than £20 yearly, and fellows and poor persons who had relief less than that yearly amount from the Same colleges, free chapels and chauntries) yearly pensions, to be granted to them under seal of the Augmentations and paid by the receivers of that court; their patents to contain a proviso to the effect that on promotion by the King to anything of equal value the pension shall cease. Where the person only enjoyed a living for term of years his pension shall only be for that term. Persons who had for living £5 yearly and under shall have pensions to the yearly value of the whole, those who had between £5 and £6. 13s. 4d. shall have £5, those who had between £6. 13s. 4d. and £10 shall have £6., those who had between £10 and £20, shall have £6. 13s. 4d. Also, upon the certificates to be made of the said commission for the land, which are come to the King, to cause any of the particular surveyors or of the auditors of the Augmentations “to make colleccion of the numbre of grammer scoles and prechinges” in every county maintained by any of the said lands, that upon declaration of the same the King may take order for their continuance or alteration. Also to obtain similar collections of such moneys and other yearly profits as have been employed towards the “finding” of poor persons within five years before the beginning of the said Parliament out of the said lands that upon declaration of the same the King may signify to them (the commissioners) how many grammar schools shall be erected and how many preachers of God’s word shall be appointed, and how many hospitals and places for relief of the poor shall be founded in every county and how these shall be endowed. And after the King has signified his pleasure in the premises they shall at discretion appoint lands for the purpose. And they shall appoint tithes, pensions and annuities for the endowment of vicars perpetual in parish churches which on the first day of the said Parliament were colleges, free chapels, or chauntries “appropried, united or annexed to any college, fre chapell

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or chauntrie” which is come to the King by the said Act; and endow such vicars with lands, etc. Also to assign lands to the maintenance of “peers, juthis, [jetties] walles, or bankes agenynst the rage of the see, havens or creekes” where necessary, upon certificates thereof by the particular surveyors. Also to make books and warrants of the premises. The attorney general, attorney of Augmentations, solicitor general, attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, attorney of the Court of Wards, attorney of the Court of First Fruits and solicitor and clerk of Augmentations will assist them in preparing the books, writings and warrants, which (signed by any two of the said persons) shall be their sufficient warrant and discharge; and they shall then sign and present them to the King and Council. Until further order may be taken, the commissioners shall, upon certificate by the auditors or particular surveyors, appoint the court of Augmentations to continue from Easter last such payments as have heretofore been made for schools, preaching, poor and sea banks. And the King authorizes them, by indenture between him and any of his subjects “or any other persone or persones or bodies politique or corporate having powre to accept the same”, or otherwise by their discretions, to sell any “leade, belles, bell mettall ornaments stokes stores superfluous buyldinges” or other goods or chattels coming to the King by the said act or which came or ought to have come to Henry VIII. by the act for the dissolution of chantries, etc., of 36 Henry VIII., appointing the payment to be made to the treasurer of Augmentations, the whole or the half in hand and the rest upon bond before 31 August next. And because divers auditors, particular surveyors and surveyors of woods of the Augmentations cannot make certificate of the lands appointed to be sold or of other things appointed by the King’s commission of 27 April last, by the present commission these certificates of their deputies shall be accepted. And where in consideration of the poverty of the chantry priests and others appointed to have pensions no fine or fee is to be taken by the King’s officers yet for the writing the treasurer of Augmentations shall pay the clerk of the same 4s. for the writing and enrolment of each patent of annuity, pension or recompense granted under seal of that Court to dean, warden, provost or other incumbent of colleges, free chapels or chantries, or any priest receiving such grant by virtue of this commission. Messengers and other expenses of the commissioners to be paid by the treasurer of Augmentations.

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E. DOCTRINE UNDER HENRY VIII 111. Henry VIII and theology. Described by Cranmer (J.E.Cox (ed., Works of Thomas Cranmer, P.S. 1846. II. 340) An interesting sidelight on Henry VIII’s methods of dealing with doctrinal questions. The letter is printed without place or date, but is assigned to 1537.

Archbishop Cranmer to Wolfgang Capito

T

he treatise,1 my friend Capito, which you had dedicated to the king’s majesty, I presented to him with my own hand. He received it, as I thought, with pleasure and satisfaction. I also hinted to him that he should reward your labours, and he promised to see to it. Not long afterwards, when the Bishop of Hereford2 and I were together in the company of Lord Cromwell (the Keeper of the privy seal, who is one of the king’s most intimate counsellors, and who has himself done more than all others together in whatever has hitherto been done respecting the reformation of religion and of the clergy) we joined in asking him to put his majesty again in mind of you. He has done so, and one hundred crowns are assigned to you as a gift which he has ordered the bearer of this letter to take with him. Do you still want to know whether your offering was acceptable? Well, I will state, not what I myself know to be the truth, but what I have heard from others who have been at court more recently than myself. The king, (who is most acute and vigilant in everything) is in the habit of handing over books of this kind, which have been presented to him, and especially those which he has not the patience to read himself, to one of his courtiers for perusal, from whom he may afterwards learn their contents. He then takes them back, and presently gives them to be examined by someone else, of an entirely opposite way of thinking from the former party. And when he has thus found out everything from them, and has ascertained both what they praise and what they condemn, then at length he openly gives his own opinion on the same points. And this, I understand, he has done with respect to your book. And while he was much pleased with many things in it, there were also some things which he could by no means stomach or approve. I suspect they were the statements you made about the mass. You now have everything about that book which I have been able either to hear and see in person, or to gather and collect, when absent, from the reports of others. As to myself, rest assured of this, that I love and reverence you from my heart, and look upon you as one who, by reason of your remarkable learning joined to a like integrity of manners, merits the friendly offices of all good men. Would that my ability equalled my will to serve you: for you should then perceive, my dear Capito, how much I esteem you. Meanwhile, I ask you to take in good part this trifling present from me, small, indeed, if regard be had to your deserts, but yet not to be spurned if you take 1 Responsum de Missa, Matrimonio, et jure magistrates in religione. 11 Martii, 1537, Henrico VIII inscriptum. 1540. 2 Edward Fox, Bishop of Hereford, 1535, d. 1538.

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into account either the feelings of the giver, or the necessary and numerous expenses by which I am burdened beyond my strength. In conclusion I beg you to favour and assist for my sake, as far as you can, this my friend Thomas Tybald, the bearer of this letter. Farewell. T.Cantuar.

112. The Ten Articles 1536 First printed by Berthelet (1536) with the title Articles deuised by the Kynges highnes maiestie, to stablyshe christen quietnes and unitie amonge us, and to avoyde contentious opinions, which articles be also approved by the consent and determination of the hole clergie of this realme. Anno MDXXXVI. Other edns: C.Lloyd, Formularies of Faith (Oxf. 1825); C.Hardwick, A History of the Articles of Religion (1895), 239–255.

H

enry the VIII, by the grace of God King of England and of France, defensor of the faith, lord of Ireland, and in earth supreme head of the Church of England, to all and singular our most loving, faithful and obedient subjects, greeting. Among other cures appertaining unto this our princely office, whereunto it hath pleased Almighty God of His infinite mercy and goodness to call us, we have always esteemed and thought, like as we also yet esteem and think, that it most chiefly belongeth unto our said charge diligently to foresee and cause, that not only the most holy word and commandments of God should most sincerely be believed, and most reverently be observed and kept of our subjects, but also that unity and concord in opinion, namely in such things as doth concern our religion, may increase and go forth ward, and all occasion of dissent and discord touching the same be repressed and utterly extinguished. For the which cause, we being of late, to our great regret, credibly advertised of such diversity in opinions, as have grown and sprung in this our realm, as well concerning certain articles necessary to our salvation, as also touching certain other honest and commendable ceremonies, rites, and usages now of long time used and accustomed in our churches, for conservation of an honest policy and decent and seemly order to be had therein, minding to have that unity and agreement established through our said Church concerning the premises, and being very desirous to eschew not only the dangers of souls, but also the outward unquietness which by occasion of the said diversity in opinions (if remedy were not provided) might perchance have ensued, have not only in our own person at many times taken great pains, study, labours, and travails, but also have caused our bishops, and other the most discreet and best learned men of our clergy of this our whole realm, to be assembled in our convocation, for the full debatement and quiet determination of the same. Where, after long and mature deliberation, and disputations had of and upon the premises, finally they have concluded and agreed upon the most special points and articles, as well such as be commanded of God, and are necessary to our salvation, as also divers other matters touching the honest ceremonies and good and politic orders, as is aforesaid; which their determination, debatement, and agreement, for so much as we think to have proceeded of a good, right, and true judgment, and to be agreeable to the laws and ordinances of God, and much profitable for the establishment of that charitable concord, andunity in our Church

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of England, which we most desire, we have caused the same to be published, willing, requiring, and commanding you, to accept, repute, and take them accordingly. And further we most heartily desire and pray Almighty God, that it may please Him so to illumine your hearts, that you and every of you may have no less desire, zeal, and love to the said unity and concord, in reading, divulging, and following the same, than we have had, and have in causing them to be thus devised, set forth, and published. And, for because we would the said Articles and every of them should be taken and understanden of you after such sort, order, and degree, as appertaineth accordingly, we have caused, by the like assent and agreement of our said bishops and other learned men, the said Articles to be divided into two sorts; whereof the one part containeth such as be commanded expressly by God, and be necessary to our salvation; and the other containeth such things as have been of a long continuance for a decent order and honest policy, prudently instituted and used in the churches of our realm, and be for that same purpose and end to be observed and kept accordingly, although they be not expressly commanded of God, nor necessary to our salvation. Wherefore we will and require you to accept the same, after such sort as we have here prescribed them unto you, and to conform yourselves obediently unto the same. Whereby you shall not only attain that most charitable unity and loving concord, whereof shall ensue your incomparable commodity, profit, and lucre, as well spiritual as other, but also you shall not a little encourage us to take further travails, pains, and labours for your commodities, in all such other matters as in time to come may happen to occur, and as it shall be most to the honour of God, the profit, tranquillity, and quietness of all you our most loving subjects. I. THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES CONCERNING OUR FAITH. First, As touching the chief and principal articles of our faith, sith it is thus agreed as hereafter followeth by the whole clergy of this our realm, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people, by us committed to their spiritual charge, that they ought and must most constantly believe and defend all those things to be true, which be comprehended in the whole body and canon of the Bible, and also in the three Creeds or symbols, whereof one was made by the apostles, and is the common creed, which every man useth; the second was made by the holy council of Nice, and is said daily in the mass; and the third was made by Athanasius, and is comprehended in the Psalm Quicunque vult: and that they ought and must take and interpret all the same things according to the selfsame sentence and interpretation, which the words of the selfsame creeds or symbols do purport, and the holy approved doctors of the Church do entreat and defend the same. Item, That they ought and must repute, hold, and take all the same things for the most holy, most sure, and most certain, and infallible words of God, and such as neither ought, ne can be altered or convelled, by any contrary opinion or authority. Item, That they ought and must believe, repute, and take all the articles of our faith contained in the said creeds to be so necessary to be believed for man’s salvation, that whosoever being taught will not believe them as is aforesaid, or will obstinately affirm the contrary of them, he or they cannot be the very members of Christ and his espouse

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the Church, but be very infidels or heretics, and members of the Devil, with whom they shall perpetually be damned. Item, That they ought and must most reverently and religiously observe and keep the selfsame words, according to the very same form and manner of speaking, as the articles of our faith be already contained and expressed in the said creeds, without altering in any wise, or varying from the same. Item, That they ought and must utterly refuse and condemn all those opinions contrary to the said Articles, which were of long time past condemned in the four holy councils, that is to say, in the Council of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedonense, and all other sith that time in any point consonant to the same. II. THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM. Secondly, As touching the holy sacrament of baptism, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that they ought and must of necessity believe certainly all those things, which hath been always by the whole consent of the Church approved, received, and used in the sacrament of baptism; that is to say, that the sacrament of baptism was instituted and ordained in the New Testament by our Saviour Jesu Christ, as a thing necessary for the attaining of everlasting life, according to the saying of Christ, Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, non potest intrare in regnum coelorum:1 that is to say, No man can enter into the kingdom of heaven, except he be born again of water and the Holy Ghost. Item, That it is offered unto all men, as well infants as such as have the use of reason, that by baptism they shall have remission of sins, and the grace and favour of God, according to the saying of Christ, Qui crediderit et baptizatus fuerit, salvus erit:2 that is to say, Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Item, That the promise of grace and everlasting life (which promise is adjoined unto this sacrament of baptism) pertaineth not only unto such as have the use of reason, but also to infants, innocents, and children; and that they ought therefore and must needs be baptized; and that by the sacrament of baptism, they do also obtain remission of their sins, the grace and favour of God, and be made thereby the very sons and children of God. Insomuch as infants and children dying in their infancy shall undoubtedly be saved thereby and else not. Item, That infants must needs be christened because they be born in original sin, which sin must needs be remitted; which cannot be done but by the sacrament of baptism, whereby they receive the Holy Ghost, which exerciseth His grace and efficacy in them, and cleanseth and purifieth them from sin by His most secret virtue and operation. Item, That children or men once baptized, can, nor ought ever to be baptized again. Item, That they ought to repute and take all the Anabaptists’ and the Pelagians’ opinions contrary to the premises, and every other man’s opinion agreeable unto the said Anabaptists’ or the Pelagians’ opinions in this behalf, for detestable heresies, and utterly to be condemned. 1

John iii.

2

Matthew xvi.

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Item, That men or children having the use of reason, and willing and desiring to be baptized, shall, by the virtue of that holy sacrament, obtain the grace and remission of all their sins, if they shall come thereunto perfectly and truly repentant and contrite of all their sins before committed, and also perfectly and constantly confessing and believing all the articles of our faith, according as it was mentioned in the first Article. And finally, if they shall also have firm credence and trust in the promise of God adjoined to the said sacrament, that is to say, that in and by this said sacrament, which they shall receive, God the Father giveth unto them, for His son Jesu Christ’s sake, remission of all their sins, and the grace of the Holy Ghost, whereby they be newly regenerated and made the very children of God, according to the saying of St. John and the apostle St. Peter, Delictorum poenitentiam agite, et baptizetur unusquisque vestrum in nomen Jesu Christi in remissionem peccatorum, et accipietis donum Spiritus Sancti;1 that is to say, Do penance for your sins, and be each of you baptized in the name of Jesu Christ, and you shall obtain remission of your sins, and shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And according also to the saying of St. Paul, Non ex operibus justitiae quaefecimus nos, sedsecundum suam misericordiam, salvos nos fecit per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti, quem effudit in nos opulente per Jesum Christum Servatorem nostrum, ut justificati illius gratia haeredes efficiamur juxta spem vitae aeternae; that is to say, God hath not saved us for the works of justice which we have done, but of His mercy by baptism, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured out upon us most plentifully, for the love of Jesu Christ our Saviour, to the intent that we, being justified by His grace, should be made the inheritors of everlasting life, according to our hope. III. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE. Thirdly, Concerning the sacrament of penance, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that they ought and must most constantly believe, that that sacrament was institute of Christ in the New Testament as a thing so necessary for man’s salvation, that no man, which after his baptism is fallen again, and hath committed deadly sin, can, without the same, be saved, or attain everlasting life. Item, That like as such men which after baptism do fall again into sin, if they do not penance in this life, shall undoubtedly be damned; even so whensoever the same men shall convert themselves from their naughty life, and do such penance for the same as Christ requireth of them, they shall without doubt attain remission of their sins, and shall be saved. Item, That the sacrament of perfect penance which Christ requireth of such manner persons consisteth of three parts, that is to say, contrition, confession, and the amendment of the former life, and a new obedient reconciliation unto the laws and will of God, that is to say, exterior acts in works of charity according as they be commanded of God, which be called in Scripture, fructus digni poenitentia, the worthy fruits of penance. Furthermore, as touching contrition, which is the first part, we will that all bishops 1

Matthew iii: Luke iii: Acts ii.

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and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that the said contrition consisteth in two special parts, which must always be conjoined together, and cannot be dissevered; that is to say, the penitent and contrite man must first knowledge the filthiness and abomination of his own sin, (unto which knowledge he is brought by hearing and considering of the will of God declared in His laws,) and feeling and perceiving in his own conscience that God is angry and displeased with him for the same; he must also conceive not only great sorrow and inward shame that he hath so grievously offended God, but also great fear of God’s displeasure towards him, considering he hath no works or merits of his own which he may worthily lay before God, as sufficient satisfaction for his sins; which done, then afterward with this fear, shame, and sorrow must needs succeed and be conjoined, the second part, that is to wit, a certain faith, trust, and confidence of the mercy and goodness of God, whereby the penitent must conceive certain hope and faith that God will forgive him his sins, and repute him justified, and of the number of His elect children, not for the worthiness of any merit or work done by the penitent, but for the only merits of the blood and passion of our Saviour Jesu Christ. Item, That this certain faith and hope is gotten, and also confirmed, and made more strong by the applying of Christ’s words and promises of His grace and favour, contained in His gospel, and the sacraments instituted by Him in the New Testament; and therefore to attain this certain faith, the second part of penance is necessary, that is to say, confession to a priest, if it may be had; for the absolution given by the priest was instituted of Christ to apply the promises of God’s grace and favour to the penitent. Wherefore as touching confession, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us to their spiritual charge, that they ought and must certainly believe that the words of absolution pronounced by the priest be spoken by authority given to him by Christ in the Gospel. Item, That they ought and must give no less faith and credence to the same words of absolution so pronounced by the ministers of the Church, than they would give unto the very words and voice of God himself if He should speak unto us out of heaven, according to the saying of Christ, Quorumcunque remiseritis peccata, remittuntur eis: quorumcunque retinueritis retenta sunt:1 that is to say, Whose sins soever ye do forgive, shall be forgiven; whose sins soever ye do retain, shall be retained. And again in another place Christ saith, Qui vos audit me audit, etc.2; that is to say, Whosoever heareth you heareth me, etc. Item, That in no wise they do contemn this auricular confession which is made unto the ministers of the Church; but that they ought to repute the same as a very expedient and necessary mean, whereby they may require and ask this absolution at the priest’s hands, at such time as they shall find their consciences grieved with mortal sin, and have occasion so to do, to the intent they may thereby attain certain comfort and consolation of their consciences. As touching the third part of penance, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us to their spiritual charge, that although 1

John xx: Luke x.

2

Luke x,

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Christ and His death be the sufficient oblation, sacrifice, satisfaction and recompense, for the which God the Father forgiveth and remitteth to all sinners not only their sin, but also eternal pain due for the same; yet all men truly penitent, contrite, and confessed, must needs also bring forth the fruits of penance, that is to say, prayer, fasting, alms deeds, and must make restitution or satisfaction in will and deed to their neighbours, in such things as they have done them wrong and injury in, and also must do all other good works of mercy and charity, and express their obedient will in the executing and fulfilling of God’s commandments outwardly, when time, power, and occasion shall be ministered unto them, or else they shall never be saved; for this is the express precept and commandment of God, Agite fructus dignos poenitentiae1; that is to say, Do you the worthy fruits of penance: and St. Paul saith, Quemadmodum praebuistis membra vestra serva immunditiae et iniquitati ad aliam atque aliam iniquitatem, sic et nunc praebete membra vestra serva justitiae ad sanctificationem, etc.2; that is to say, Like as in times past you have given and applied yourself and all the members of your body to all filthy living and wickedness, continually increasing the same, in like manner now you must give and apply yourself wholly to justice, increasing continually in purity and cleanness of life: and in another place he saith, Castigo corpus meum, et in servitutem redigo3; that is to say, I chastise and subdue my carnal body, and the affections of the same, and make them obedient unto the spirit. Item, That these precepts and works of charity be necessary works to our salvation, and God necessarily requireth that every penitent man shall perform the same, whensoever time, power, and occasion shall be ministered unto him so to do. Item, that by penance and such good works of the same, we shall not only obtain everlasting life, but also we shall deserve remission or mitigation of these present pains and afflictions in this world, according to the saying of St. Paul, Si nos ipsi judicaremus, non judicaremur a Domino4; that is to say, If we would correct and take punishment of ourselves, we should not be so grievously corrected of God: and Zacharias the prophet saith, Convertimini ad me et ego convertar ad vos5; that is to say, Turn yourselves unto me, and I will turn again unto you: and the prophet Esay saith, Frange esurienti panem tuum, et egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam. Cum videris nudum operi eum et carnem tuam ne despexeris: tunc erumpet quasi mane lumen tuum, et sanitas tua citius orietur, et anteibit faciem tuamjustitia tua, et gloria Dei colliget te: tunc invocabiset Dominus exaudiet te, clamabis, et dicet: Ecce adsum. Tunc orietur in tenebris lux tua et tenebrae tuae erunt sicut meridies, et requiem tibi dabit Dominus semper, et implebit splendoribus animam tuam, et ossa tua liberabit et eris quasi hortus irriguus et sicut fons aquarum cujus non deficient aquae, etc.6; that is to say, Break and deal thy bread unto the hungry, bring into thy house the poor man, and such as want harbour; when thou seest a naked man, give him clothes to cover him with, and refuse not to succour and help the poor and needy, for he is thine own flesh. And if thou wilt thus do then shall thy light glister out as bright as the sun in the morning, and thy health shall sooner arise unto thee, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of God shall gather thee up, that 1 4

Luke iii. I Cor. ii,

2 5

Rom. x. Zach. i.

3 6

I Cor. ix. Isaiah lviii.

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thou shalt not fall: and whensoever thou shalt call upon God, God shall hear thee; and whensoever thou shalt cry unto God, God shall say, Lo, here I am, ready to help thee. Then shall thy light overcome all darkness, and thy darkness shall be as bright as the sun at noon day; and then God shall give unto thee continual rest, and shall fulfil thy soul with brightness, and shall deliver thy body from adversity; and then, thou shalt be like a garden, that most plentifully bringeth forth all kinds of fruits, and like a wellspring that never shall want water. These things, and such other, should be continually taught and inculked into the ears of our people to the intent to stir and provoke them unto good works; and by the selfsame good works to exercise and confirm their faith and hope, and look for to receive at God’s hand mitigation and remission of the miseries, calamities, and grievous punishments, which God sendeth to men in this world for their sins. IV. THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR. Fourthly, As touching the sacrament of the altar, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that they ought and must constantly believe, that under the form and figure of bread and wine, which we there presently do see and perceive by outward senses, is verily, substantially, and really contained and comprehended the very selfsame body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which was born of the Virgin Mary, and suffered upon the cross for our redemption; and that under the same form and figure of bread and wine the very selfsame body and blood of Christ is corporally, really, and in the very substance exhibited, distributed, and received unto and of all them which receive the said sacrament; and that therefore the said sacrament is to be used with all due reverence and honour, and that every man ought first to prove and examine himself, and religiously to try and search his own conscience, before he shall receive the same: according to the saying of St. Paul, Quisquis ederit panem hunc aut biberit depoculo Domini indigne, reus erit corporis et sanguinis Domini: probet igitur seipsum homo, et sic de pane illo edat et de poculo illo bibat; nam qui edit aut bibit indigne judicium sibi ipsi manducat et bibit, non dijudicans corpus Domini1; that is to say, Whosoever eateth this body of Christ unworthily, or drinketh of this blood of Christ unworthily, shall be guilty of the very body and blood of Christ; wherefore let every man first prove himself, and so let him eat of this bread, and drink of this drink. For whosoever eateth it or drinketh it unworthily, he eateth and drinketh it to his own damnation; because he putteth no difference between the very body of Christ and other kinds of meat. V. JUSTIFICATION. Fifthly, As touching the order and cause of our justification, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us to their spiritual charge, that this word Justification signifieth remission of our sins, and our acceptation or reconciliation into the grace and favour of God, that is to say, our perfect renovation in Christ. Item, That sinners attain this justification by contrition and faith joined with charity, 1

I Cor. xi.

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after such sort and manner as we before mentioned and declared; not as though our contrition, or faith, or any works proceeding thereof, can worthily merit or deserve to attain the said justification; for the only mercy and grace of the Father, promised freely unto us for His Son’s sake, Jesu Christ, and the merits of His blood and passion, be the only sufficient and worthy causes thereof; and yet that notwithstanding, to the attaining of the same justification, God requireth to be in us not only inward contrition, perfect faith and charity, certain hope and confidence, with all other spiritual graces and motions, which, as we said before, must necessarily concur in remission of our sins, that is to say, our justification; but also he requireth and commandeth us, that after we be justified we must also have good works of charity and obedience towards God, in the observing and fulfilling outwardly of His laws and commandments: for although acceptation to everlasting life be conjoined with justification, yet our good works be necessarily required to the attaining of everlasting life; and we being justified, be necessarily bound, and it is our necessary duty to do good works, according to the saying of St. Paul, Debitores sumus non carni, ut secundum carnem vivamus. Nam si secundum carnem vixerimus, moriemur: sin autem spiritu facta corporis mortificaverimus, vivemus; etenim quicunque Spiritu Dei ducuntur, hi suntfilii Dei1; that is to say, We be bound not to live according to the flesh and to fleshly appetites; for if we live so, we shall undoubtedly be damned. And contrary, if we will mortify the deeds of our flesh, and live according to the Spirit, we shall be saved. For whosoever be led by the Spirit of God, they be the children of God. And Christ saith, Si vis ad vitam ingredi, serva mandata2; that is to say, If ye will come to heaven, keep the commandments. And St. Paul, speaking of evil works, saith, Qui talia agunt regnum Dei non possidebunt3; that is to say, Whosoever commit sinful deeds, shall never come to heaven. Wherefore we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that God necessarily requireth of us to do good works commanded by Him; and that not only outward and civil works, but also the inward spiritual motions and graces of the Holy Ghost; that is to say, to dread and fear God, to love God, to have firm confidence and trust in God, to invocate and call upon God, to have patience in all adversities, to hate sin, and to have certain purpose and will not to sin again, and such other like motions and virtues: for Christ saith Nisi abundaverit justitia vestra plusquam Scribarum et Pharisaeorum, non intrabitis in regnum coelorum4; that is to say, we must not only do outward civil good works, but also we must have these foresaid inward spiritual motions, consenting and agreeable to the law of God. Articles concerning laudable ceremonies used in the Church. VI. AND FIRST OF IMAGES. As touching images, truth it is that the same have been used in the Old Testament, and also for the great abuses of them sometime destroyed and put down; and in the New Testament they have been also allowed, as good authors do declare. Wherefore we will 1

Rom. x.

2

Matth. xix.

3

Gal v.

4

Matth. v.

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that all bishops, and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us to their spiritual charge, how they ought and may use them. And first that there may be attributed unto them, that they be representers of virtue and good example, and that they also be by occasion the kindlers and stirrers of men’s minds, and make men oft to remember and lament their sins and offences, especially the images of Christ and our Lady; and that therefore it is meet that they should stand in the churches, and none otherwise to be esteemed: and to the intent the rude people should not from henceforth take such superstition, as in time past it is thought that the same hath used to do, we will that our bishops and preachers diligently shall teach them, and according to this doctrine reform their abuses, for else there might fortune idolatry to ensue, which God forbid. And as for censing of them, and kneeling and offering unto them, with other like worshippings, although the same hath entered by devotion, and fallen to custom; yet the people ought to be diligently taught that they in no wise do it, nor think it meet to be done to the same images, but only to be done to God, and in His honour although it be done before the images, whether it be of Christ, of the Cross, of our Lady, or of any other saint beside. VII. OF HONOURING OF SAINTS. As touching the honouring of saints, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charges, that saints, now being with Christ in heaven be to be honoured of Christian people in earth; but not with that confidence and honour which are only due unto God, trusting to attain at their hands that which must be had only of God: but that they be thus to be honoured, because they be known the elect persons of Christ, because they be passed in godly life out of this transitory world, because they already do reign in glory with Christ; and most specially to laud and praise Christ in them for their excellent virtues which He planted in them, for example of and by them to such as yet are in this world to live in virtue and goodness, and also not to fear to die for Christ and His cause, as some of them did; and finally to take them, in that they may, to be advancers of our prayers and demands unto Christ. By these ways, and such like, be saints to be honoured and had in reverence, and by none other. VIII. OF PRAYING TO SAINTS. As touching praying to saints, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that albeit grace, remission of sin, and salvation, cannot be obtained but of God only by the mediation of our Saviour Christ, which is only sufficient Mediator for our sins: yet it is very laudable to pray to saints in heaven everlastingly living, whose charity is ever permanent, to be intercessors, and to pray for us and with us, unto Almighty God after this manner: “All holy angels and saints in heaven pray for us and with us, unto the Father, that for his dear Son Jesu Christ’s sake, we may have grace of Him and remission of our sins, with an earnest purpose, (not wanting ghostly strength) to observe and keep His holy commandments, and never to decline from the same again unto our lives’ end:” and in this manner we may pray to our blessed Lady, to St. John Baptist, to all and every of the Apostles or any other saint particularly, as our devotion

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doth serve us; so that it be done without any vain superstition, as to think that any saint is more merciful, or will hear us sooner than Christ, or that any saint doth serve for one thing more than another, or is patron of the same. And likewise we must keep holy-days unto God, in memory of Him and His saints, upon such days as the Church hath ordained their memories to be celebrated; except they be mitigated and moderated by the assent and commandment of us, the supreme head, to the ordinaries, and then the subjects ought to obey it. IX. OF RITES AND CEREMONIES. As concerning the rites and ceremonies of Christ’s Church, as to have such vestments in doing God’s service, as be and have been most part used, as sprinkling of holy water to put us in remembrance of our baptism and the blood of Christ sprinkled for our redemption upon the cross, giving of holy bread, to put us in remembrance of the sacrament of the altar, that all Christian men be one body mystical of Christ, as the bread is made of many grains, and yet but one loaf, and to put us in remembrance of the receiving of the holy sacrament and body of Christ, the which we ought to receive in right charity, which in the beginning of Christ’s Church men did more often receive than they use nowadays to do; bearing of candles on Candlemas-day in memory of Christ the Spiritual Light of whom Simeon did prophesy, as is read in the church that day: giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, to put in remembrance every Christian man in the beginning of Lent and penance, that he is but ashes and earth, and thereto shall return, which is right necessary to be uttered from henceforth in our mother-tongue always on the same day; bearing of palms on Palm-Sunday, in memory of the receiving of Christ into Jerusalem, a little before His death, that we may have the same desire to receive Him into our hearts; creeping to the cross, and humbling ourselves to Christ on Good Friday before the cross, and there offering unto Christ before the same, and kissing of it in memory of our redemption by Christ made upon the cross; setting up the sepulture of Christ, whose body after his death was buried; the hallowing of the font, and other like exorcisms and benedictions by the ministers of Christ’s Church; and all other like laudable customs, rites and ceremonies be not to be contemned and cast away, but to be used and continued as things good and laudable, to put us in remembrance of those spiritual things that they do signify: not suffering them to be forgot or to be put in oblivion, but renewing them in our memories from time to time. But none of these ceremonies have power to remit sin, but only to stir and lift up our minds unto God, by whom only our sins be forgiven. X. OF PURGATORY. Forasmuch as due order of charity requireth, and the Book of Maccabees, and divers ancient doctors plainly shew, that it is a very good and a charitable deed to pray for souls departed, and forasmuch also as such usage hath continued in the Church so many years, even from the beginning, we will that all bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people committed by us unto their spiritual charge, that no man

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ought to be grieved with the continuance of the same, and that it standeth with the very due order of charity, a Christian man to pray for souls departed, and to commit them in our prayers to God’s mercy, and also to cause other to pray for them in masses and exequies, and to give alms to other to pray for them, whereby they may be relieved and holpen of some part of their pain: but forasmuch as the place where they be, the name thereof, and kind of pains there, also be to us uncertain by Scripture; therefore this with all other things we remit to Almighty God, unto whose mercy it is meet and convenient for us to commend them, trusting that God accepteth our prayers for them, referring the rest wholly to God, to whom is known their estate and condition. Wherefore it is much necessary that such abuses be clearly put away, which under the name of purgatory hath been advanced, as to make men believe that through the bishop of Rome’s pardons souls might clearly be delivered out of purgatory, and all the pains of it, or that masses said at Scala Coeli, or otherwhere in any place, or before any image, might likewise deliver them from all their pain, and send them straight to heaven; and other like abuses.

113. Cromwell’s first Injunctions, 1536 (W.H.Frere and W.M.Kennedy, Visitation Articles and Injunctions II, 1536–58, 2–11)

I

n the name of God, Amen. In the year of our Lord God, 1536, and of the most noble reign of our sovereign lord Henry VIII, King of England and of France, the twentyeighth year, and the—day of—, I, Thomas Crumwel, Knight, Lord Crumwel, Keeper of the privy seal of our said sovereign lord the King, and vice-gerent unto the same, for and concerning all his jurisdiction ecclesiastical within this realm, visiting by the king’s highness’ supreme authority ecclesiastical the people and clergy of this deanery of—by my trusty commissary—lawfully deputed and constituted for this part, have to the glory of Almighty God, to the king’s highness’ honour, the public weal of this his realm, and increase of virtue in the same, appointed and assigned these injunctions ensuing, to be kept and observed of the dean, parsons, vicars, curates, and stipendiaries resident or having cure of souls, or any other spiritual administration within this deanery, under the pains hereafter limited and appointed. 1. The first is, that the dean, parsons, vicars, and others having cure of souls anywhere within this deanery, shall faithfully keep and observe, and as far as in them may lie, shall cause to be observed and kept of other, all and singular laws and statutes of this realm made for the abolishing and extirpation of the Bishop of Rome’s pretensed and usurped power and jurisdiction within this realm, and for the establishment and confirmation of the king’s authority and jurisdiction within the same, as of the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and shall to the uttermost of their wit, knowledge, and learning, purely, sincerely, and without any colour or dissimulation declare, manifest and open for the space of one quarter of a year now next ensuing, once every Sunday, and after that at leastwise twice every quarter, in their sermons and other collations, that the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power and jurisdiction, having no establishment nor ground by the law of God, was of most just causes taken away and abolished; and

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therefore they owe unto him no manner of obedience or subjection, and that the king’s power is within his dominion the highest power and potentate under God, to whom all men within the same dominion by God’s commandment owe most loyalty and obedience, afore and above all other powers and potentates in earth. 2. Item, Whereas certain Articles1 were lately devised and put forth by the king’s highness’ authority, and condescended upon by the prelates and clergy of this his realm in Convocation, whereof part are necessary to be holden and believed for our salvation, and the other part do concern and touch certain laudable ceremonies, rites and usages of the Church meet and convenient to be kept and used for a decent and politic order in the same; the said dean, parsons, vicars, and other curates shall so open and declare in their said sermons and other collations the said articles unto them that be under their cure, and they may plainly show and discern which of them be necessary to be believed and observed for their salvation; and which of them be not necessary, but only do concern the decent and politic order of the said Church, according to such commandment and admonition as has been given unto them heretofore by authority of the king’s highness in that behalf. 3. Moreover, that they shall declare unto all such as be under their cure, the Articles likewise devised, put forth, and authorized of late for and concerning the abrogation of certain superfluous holy-days, according to the effect and purport of the same articles, and persuade their parishioners to keep and observe the same inviolably, as things holily provided, decreed, and established, by common consent, and public authority, for the weal, commodity, and profit of all this realm. 4. Besides this, to the intent that all superstition and hypocrisy, crept into divers men’s hearts, may vanish away, they shall not set forth or extol any images, relics, or miracles for any superstition or lucre, nor allure the people by any enticements to the pilgrimage of any saint, otherwise than is permitted in the Articles lately put forth by the authority of the king’s majesty, and condescended upon by the prelates and clergy of this his realm in Convocation, as though it were proper or peculiar to that saint to give this commodity or that, seeing all goodness, health, and grace ought to be both asked and looked for only of God, as of the very Author of the same, and of none other, for without Him that cannot be given; but that they shall exhort as well their parishioners as other pilgrims, that they do rather apply themselves to the keeping of God’s commandments and fulfilling of His works of charity, persuading them that they shall please God more by the true exercising of their bodily labour, travail, or occupation, and providing for their families, than if they went about to the said pilgrimages; and that it shall profit more their soul’s health, if they do bestow that on the poor and needy, which they would have bestowed upon the said images or relics. 5. Also in the same their sermons, and other collations, the parsons, vicars, and other curates aforesaid shall diligently admonish the fathers and mothers, masters and governors of youth, being under their care, to teach, or cause to be taught, their children and servants, even from their infancy, their Pater Noster, the Articles of our Faith, and 1

The Ten Articles.

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the Ten Commandments, in their mother tongue; and the same so taught, shall cause the said youth oft to repeat and understand. And to the intent this may be more easily done, the said curates shall, in their sermons, deliberately and plainly recite of the said Pater Noster, the Articles of our Faith, and the Ten Commandments, one clause or article one day, and another another day, till the whole be taught and learned by little; and shall deliver the same in writing, or shew where printed books containing the same be to be sold, to them that can read or will desire the same. And thereto that the said fathers and mothers, masters and governors, do bestow their children and servants, even from their childhood, either to learning, or to some other honest exercise, occupation or husbandry: exhorting, counselling, and by all the ways and means they may, as well in their said sermons and collations, as other ways, persuading the said fathers, mothers, masters, and other governors, being under their cure and charge, diligently to provide and foresee that the said youth be in no manner wise kept or brought up in idleness, lest at any time afterward they be driven, for lack of some mystery or occupation to live by, to fall to begging, stealing, or some other unthriftiness; forasmuch as we may daily see, through sloth and idleness, divers valiant men fall, some to begging and some to theft and murder, which after, brought to calamity and misery, impute a great part thereof to their friends and governors, which suffered them to be brought up so idly in their youth; where if they had been well educated and brought up in some good literature, occupation, or mystery, they should, being rulers of their own family, have profited, as well themselves as divers other persons, to the great commodity and ornament of the Common-wealth. 6. Also, that the said parsons, vicars, and curates, shall diligently provide that the sacrament and sacramentals be duly and reverently ministered in their parishes; and if at any time it happen them, other in any of the cases expressed in the statutes of this realm, or of special licence given by the king’s majesty to be absent from their benefices, they shall leave their cure, not to a rude and unlearned person, but to an honest, well-learned, and expert curate, that may teach the rude and unlearned of their cure wholesome doctrine, and reduce them to the right way that do err; and always let them see, that neither they, nor their vicars, do seek more their own profit, promotion, or advantage, than the profit of the souls that they have under their cure, or the glory of God. 7. Item, that every parson, or proprietary of any parish church within this realm, shall on this side the feast of S.Peter ad Vincula next coming, provide a book of the whole Bible, both in Latin, and also in English, and lay the same in the choir, for every man that will to look and read thereon, and shall discourage no man from the reading of any part of the Bible, either in Latin or in English; but rather comfort, exhort and admonish every man to read the same as the very word of God, and the spiritual food of man’s soul, whereby they may the better know their duties to God, to their sovereign lord the King, and their neighbour: ever gently and charitably exhorting them that using a sober and a modest behaviour in the reading and inquisition of the true sense of the same, they do in no wise stiffly or eagerly contend or strive one with another about the same but refer the declaration of those places that be in controversy to the judgement of them that be better learned.

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8. Also, the said dean, parsons, vicars, curates and other priests, shall in no wise, at any unlawful time, nor for any other cause, than for their honest necessity, haunt or resort to any taverns or ale-houses; and after their dinner and supper, they shall not give themselves to drinking or riot, spending their time idly, by day, or by night, at tables or cards-playing, or any other unlawful game; but at such times as they shall have such leisure, they shall hear or read somewhat of Holy Scripture, or shall occupy themselves with some other honest exercise; and that they always do those things which appertain to good congruence and honesty, with profit of the commonweal, having always in mind, that they ought to excel all other in purity of life, and should be example to all other to live well and Christianly. 9. Furthermore, because the goods of the Church are called the goods of the poor, and at these days nothing is less seen than the poor to be sustained with the same; all parsons, vicars, pensioners, prebendaries, and other beneficed men within this deanery, not being resident upon their benefices, which may dispend yearly twenty pounds or above within this deanery or elsewhere, shall distribute hereafter yearly among their poor parishioners, or other inhabitants there, in the presence of the Churchwardens or some other honest men of the parish, the fortieth part of the fruits and revenues of their said benefices; lest they be worthily noted of ingratitude, which, reserving so many parts to themselves, cannot vouchsafe to impart the fortieth portion thereof amongst the poor people of that parish, that is so fruitful, and profitable unto them. 10. And to the intent that learned men may hereafter spring the more for the execution of the premisses; every parson, vicar, clerk, or beneficed man within this deanery, having yearly to dispend in benefices, and other promotions of the Church, an hundred pounds shall give competent exhibition to one scholar, and for as many hundred pounds more as he may dispend, to so many scholars more shall give like exhibition in the University of Oxford or Cambridge, or some grammar school; which after they have profited in good learning, may be partners of their patron’s cure and charge as well in preaching as otherwise, in the execution of their offices; or may, when need shall be, otherwise profit the commonwealth with their counsel and wisdom. 11. Also, that all parsons, vicars, and clerks, having churches, chapels, or mansions within this deanery, shall bestow yearly hereafter upon the same mansions, or chancels of their churches being in decay, the fifth part of their benefices till they be fully repaired: and the same so repaired, shall always keep and maintain in good state. ALL WHICH and singular injunctions shall be inviolably observed of the said dean, parsons, vicars, curates, stipendiaries, and other clerks and beneficed men, under the pain of suspension and sequestration of the fruits of their benefices, until they have done their duty according to these injunctions.

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114. The Institution of a Christian Man, 1537 This work, some 200 pages in length, was printed by Berthelet with the title The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man (1537). Text in C.Lloyd, Formularies of Faith, 21–211; it contains an exposition of the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Paternoster, the Ave-Maria, Justification, and Purgatory. Although Henry took a great interest in the drafting of the book he did not commit himself on the bishops’ conclusions, and although he ordered that it should be read every Sunday he limited the period to 3 years. The book was not submitted to Convocation or Parliament. It was signed by both archbishops, all the bishops, and by 25 representatives of the higher clergy. It was, therefore, attributed to the bishops and became known as “The Bishops Book”. The following letter expressing Henry’s cautious acceptance of the book was intended as a reply to a letter in which the bishops asked for the king’s approval.

(J.E.Cox, Works of Cranmer, II. 469)

A

lbeit that hitherto we have had no time convenient to overlook your great painstaking in the long search and diligent debating of this your book, entitled The Institution of a Christian Man, much less time to pound and weigh such things as you therein have written: yet, according to your humble suit and petition, we have caused your said book to be printed, and will the same to be conveyed into all the parts of our realm, nothing doubting but that you, being men of such learning and virtue, as we know you to be, have indeed performed in the whole work that you do promise in the preface. Our desire was (and ye say you have endeavoured yourselves to accomplish the same) to have a sure and certain kind of doctrine, not as made by men, but by them searched out of the holy scripture. And such things chiefly elected and chosen as were both best to be known, and also meetest to be observed, of men that profess Christ and his religion, you, as you say, thought this thing best contained in such parts of scripture as ye have here handled. We nothing mislike your judgment, so that ye have in such wise handled those places that every man may know both his whole duty towards God, his Creator and Saviour, and also know how he hath to govern himself in this political life, as a utile member of the same, and also toward God’s ministers, the heads and governors of states, and towards his neighbours, much better than they have done heretofore. Notwithstanding that we are otherwise occupied, we have taken as it were a taste of this your book, and have found therein nothing but that is both meet to come from you, and also worthy our praise and commendation. Wherefore as you have shewed yourselves very ready to accomplish our desire and request in the gathering of this wholesome doctrine, so we now do require you that ye be as earnest in setting of it forth to the people, as ye have been diligent in searching thereof, that they by your true teaching and virtuous example may learn to know the true service of God, and also their bounden duty to their prince, and diligently to be exercised in the same; expelling from them, and extinguishing for ever, as much as in you shall be all manner of idolatry, superstition, hypocrisy, with such other errors and abuses as ye have in this book reformed, or be worthy to be reformed, that they may be also amended among our subjects committed by us to your cure and charge. For experience hath taught us that it is much better no laws to be made, than, when many be well made, none to be kept. Even so it is much better nothing to be written concerning religion than, when many

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things be well written, nothing of them to be taught and observed. Wherefore our pleasure is, that all archbishops, and bishops, archdeacons, deans, abbots and priors, doctors, preachers, and, to be short, all that have any jurisdiction or cure in their hands under us, do their uttermost diligence that the people may have the contents of that book so oft declared and instilled into their ears, that all the points of their creed, the effects of the sacraments, the promises made to them that observe the ten commandments, what, of whom, and how they ought to desire, may well be fixed and graven in their hearts; which things, we doubt not, but if ye have gathered them well and godly, they will well agree in the setting of them forth truly. And forasmuch as we trust that the preachers agreeing in the true and sincere word of God, the diligent setting forth and declaring of this book, with other our commandments and injunctions before this, and faithfully following and observing of the same, shall be the occasion that all the rest of our subjects, as well our nobility and clergy, as the commons, shall establish their opinions, and willingly and gladly to hear God’s word, and each one according to his vocation to learn and practise it, following the same as the very rule of every Christian man’s life, much to the glory of God and also for our honour, with the maintenance and increase of the commonwealth, both by their virtuous exercise and good example: our commandment therefore is that you agree in your preachings, and that, vain praise of crafty wits and worldly estimation laid aside, and true religion sought for, you serve God in your calling, and not your own glory or vile profit. We will no wrestling of things, no glosses that take away the text: much desirous notwithstanding that if in any place you have not written so plainly or so plenteously as you with more leisure might have done, you in your sermons to the people utter all that is God’s word purely and plainly. For we will no more thwarting, no more contentions, whereby the people are much more set one against another than any taketh the profit by such indiscreet doctrine. We had much leaver to pray you than command you. And if the first will serve, we will leave out the second. Howbeit in any case we will that all preachers agree. For if any two shall dissent, let him that will defend the worser part assure himself that he shall run into our displeasure. Wherefore it shall be your parts whom we have chosen our bishops, not only to see this your book, with other our commandments and injunctions before this given, well taught to the people, but also you yourselves to teach them in the most part of your diocese. And also we charge you, that ye suffer no curate within your diocese that either will not or cannot set forth the contents of this book, with other our commandments and injunctions given heretofore unto you for that purpose: but that also ye command the said book, or some convenient part thereof, may every Sunday and every other festival day be at the least read unto our people in every parish church and other ecclesiastical place within this our realm, by the curates of the same, continually by the space of three whole years now next to come; to the intent that the same book and the whole contents thereof may, by the continual reading and preaching thereof in the hearts of our said people, reading and preaching thereof, be ingrave in the hearts of our said people.

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115. The second Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII, 1538 These Injunctions were drawn up by Cromwell in the autumn of 1538, and sent to Cranmer 30 September. On 11 October Cranmer issued his mandate for their publication. They are incorrectly assigned to 1536 by Wilkins, III, 837. Their chief interest lies in the fact that they form the basis of the Edwardian and Elizabethan Injunctions. W.H.Frere and W.M.Kennedy, Visitation Articles and Injunctions II, 34–43)

IN THE NAME OF GOD AMEN. BY THE AUTHORITY AND COMMISSION OF THE EXCELLENT PRINCE HENRY, BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF ENGLAND AND OF FRANCE, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, LORD OF IRELAND, AND IN EARTH SUPREME HEAD UNDER CHRIST OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. I, THOMAS LORD CRUMWEL, LORD PRIVY SEAL, VICE-GERENT TO THE KING’S SAID HIGHNESS FOR ALL HIS JURISDICTIONS ECCLESIASTICAL WITHIN HIS REALM, DO FOR THE TRUE HONOUR OF ALMIGHTY GOD, INCREASE OF VIRTUE, AND DISCHARGE OF THE KING’S MAJESTY, GIVE AND EXHIBIT UNTO YOU—THESE INJUNCTIONS FOLLOWING, TO BE KEPT, OBSERVED, AND FULFILLED, UPON THE PAINS HEREAFTER DECLARED. 1. First, That ye shall truly observe and keep all and singular the king’s highness’ Injunctions, given unto you heretofore in my name, by his grace’s authority; not only upon the pains therein expressed, but also in your default now after this second monition continued, upon further punishment to be straitly extended towards you by the king’s highness’ arbitrement, or his vice-gerent aforesaid. 2. Item, That ye shall provide on this side the feast of Easter next coming, one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have cure of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it; the charge of which book shall be ratably borne between you the parson and the parishioners aforesaid, that is to say, the one half by you, and the other half by them. 3. Item, That ye shall discourage no man privily or apertly from the reading or hearing of the said Bible, but shall expressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read the same, as that which is the very lively word of God, that every Christian man is bound to embrace, believe and follow, if he look to be saved; admonishing them nevertheless to avoid all contention and altercation therein, and to use an honest sobriety in the inquisition of the true sense of the same, and to refer the explanation of obscure places to men of higher judgement in Scripture. 4. Item, That ye shall every Sunday and holy-day through the year, openly and plainly recite to your parishioners, twice or thrice together, or oftener, if need require, one particle or sentence of the Pater Noster, or Creed, in English, to the intent that they may learn the same by heart; and so from day to day, to give them one like lesson or sentence of the same, till they have learned the whole Pater Noster and Creed in English, by rote. And as they may be taught every sentence of the same by rote, ye shall expound and declare the understanding of the same unto them, exhorting all parents and householders to teach their children and servants the same, as they are bound in

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conscience to do. And that done, ye shall declare unto them the Ten Commandments, one by one, every Sunday and holy-day, till they be likewise perfect in the same. 5. Item, That ye shall in confessions every Lent examine every person that cometh to confession unto you, whether they can recite the articles of our faith, and the Pater Noster in English, and hear them say the same particularly; wherein if they be not perfect, ye shall declare to the same that every Christian person ought to know the same before they should receive the blessed sacrament of the altar; and monish them to learn the same more perfectly by the next year following, or else, like as they ought not to presume to come to God’s board without perfect knowledge of the same, and if they do, it is to the great peril of their souls; so ye shall declare unto them that ye look for other injunctions from the king’s highness by that time, to stay and repel all such from God’s board as shall be found ignorant in the premises, whereof ye do thus admonish them, to the intent they should both eschew the peril of their souls, and also the worldly rebuke that they might incur hereafter by the same. 6. Item, That ye shall make or cause to be made, in the said church, and every other cure ye have, one sermon every quarter of a year at the least, wherein ye shall purely and sincerely declare the very Gospel of Christ, and in the same exhort your hearers to the works of charity, mercy, and faith, specially prescribed and commanded in Scripture, and not to repose their trust or affiance in any other works devised by men’s phantasies besides Scripture; as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same, saying over a number of beads, not understood or minded on, or in such-like superstition; for the doing whereof, ye not only have no promise of reward in Scripture, but contrariwise, great threats and maledictions of God, as things tending to idolatry and superstition, which of all other offences God Almighty doth most detest and abhor, for that the same diminisheth most His honour and glory. 7. Item, That such feigned images as ye know of in any of your cures to be so abused with pilgrimages or offerings of anything made thereunto, ye shall, for avoiding of that most detestable sin of idolatry, forthwith take down and delay, and shall suffer from henceforth no candles, tapers, or images of wax to be set afore any image or picture, but only the light that commonly goeth across the church by the rood-loft, the light afore the sacrament of the altar, and the light about the sepulchre; which for the adorning of the church and divine service ye shall suffer to remain; still admonishing your parishioners, that images serve for no other purpose but as to be books of unlearned men, that can no letters, whereby they might be otherwise admonished of the lives and conversation of them that the said images do represent; which images, if they abuse for any other intent than for such remembrances, they commit idolatry in the same, to the great danger of their souls; and therefore the king’s highness, graciously tendering the weal of his subjects’ souls, hath in part already, and more will hereafter, travail for the abolishing of such images as might be an occasion of so great an offence to God, and so great danger to the souls of his loving subjects. 8. Item, That in all such benefices or cures as ye have, whereupon ye be not yourselves resident, ye shall appoint such curates in your stead, as both can by their ability, and will also promptly, execute these injunctions, and do their duty; otherwise that ye are bound

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to do in every behalf accordingly, and may profit their cure, no less with good example of living, than with declaration of the word of God, or else their lack and defaults shall be imputed unto you, who shall straitly answer for the same if they do otherwise. 9. Item, That ye shall admit no man to preach within any of your benefices or cures, but such as shall appear unto you to be sufficiently licensed thereunto by the king’s highness, or his grace’s authority, by the archbishop of Canterbury, or the bishop of this diocese; and such as shall be so licensed, ye shall gladly receive to declare the word of God, without any resistance or contradiction. 10. Item, If ye have heretofore declared to your parishioners anything to the extolling or setting forth of pilgrimages, feigned relics, or images, or any such superstitions, ye shall now openly afore the same recant and reprove the same, shewing them (as the truth is) that ye did the same upon no ground of Scripture, but as one being led and seduced by a common error and abuse crept into the church through the sufferance and avarice of such as felt profit by the same. 11. Item. If ye do or shall know any man within your parish, or elsewhere, that is a letter of the word of God to be read in English, or sincerely preached, or of the execution of these Injunctions, or a favourer of the Bishop of Rome’s pretended power, now by the laws of this realm justly rejected and extirped, ye shall detect and present the same to the king’s highness, or his honourable council, or to his vice-gerent aforesaid, or to the justice of peace next adjoining. 12. Item, That you, and every parson, vicar, or curate within this diocese, shall for every church keep one book or register, wherein ye shall write the day and year of every wedding, christening, and burying, made within your parish for your time, and so every man succeeding you likewise; and shall there insert every person’s name that shall be so wedded, christened, or buried; and for the safe keeping of the same book, the parish shall be bound to provide, of their common charges, one sure coffer with two locks and keys, whereof the one to remain with you, and the other with the said wardens of every such parish wherein the said book shall be laid up; which book ye shall every Sunday take forth, and in the presence of the said wardens, or one of them, write and record in the same all the weddings, christenings, and buryings, made the whole week before; and that done, to lay up the book in the said coffer as before; and for every time that the same shall be omitted, the party that shall be in the fault thereof shall forfeit to the said church 3s—4d, to be employed on the reparation of the same church. 13. Item, That ye shall once every quarter of a year read these and the other former Injunctions given unto you by the authority of the king’s highness, openly and deliberately before all your parishioners, to the intent that both you by the same may be the better admonished of your duty, and your said parishioners the more incited to ensure the same for their part. 14. Item, Forasmuch as by a law established every man is bound to pay his tithes; no man shall by colour of duty omitted by their curates, retain their tithes and so redub one wrong with another, or be his own judge, but shall truly pay the same, as hath been accustomed, to their parsons and curates, without any restraint or diminution;1 and such lack and default as they can justly find in their parsons and curates, to call for

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reformation thereof at their ordinaries’ and other superiors’ hands, who upon complaints and due proof thereof shall reform the same accordingly. 15. Item, That no person shall from henceforth alter or change the order and manner of any fasting-day that is commanded and indicted by the Church, nor of any prayer, or Divine Service, otherwise than is specified in the said Injunctions, until such time as the same shall be so ordered and transposed by the King’s Highness’ authority; the eves of such saints, whose holy days be abrogated, only excepted, which shall be declared henceforth to be no fasting days; excepted, also the Commemoration of Thomas Becket, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury which shall be clean omitted, and instead thereof the ferial service used. 16. Item, That the knelling of the Aves after service, and certain other times, which hath been brought in and begun by the pretence of the Bishop of Rome’s pardon, henceforth be left and omitted, lest the people do hereafter trust to have pardon for the saying of their Aves, between the said knelling as they have done in time past. 17. Item, Where in times past men have used in divers places in their processions to sing Orapro nobis to so many saints, that they had no time to sing the good suffrages following, as Parce nobis Domine and Libera nos Domine, it must be taught and preached that better it were to omit Ora pro nobis, and to sing the other suffrages. ALL WHICH and singular Injunctions I minister unto you and your successors, by the king’s highness’ authority to me committed in this part, which I charge and command you by the same authority to observe and keep, upon pain of deprivation, sequestration of your fruits or other such coercion as to the king’s highness, or his vice-gerent for the time being, shall seem convenient.

116. An act abolishing diversity in opinions, 1539. St. 31 Hen. VIII, c. 14 (Stat. Realm, III, 739) More generally known as The Act of Six Articles. For a discussion of the making of the act see G.R.Elton, Camb. Hist. Journ. x, 165.

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here the king’s most excellent Majesty is by God’s law supreme head immediately under Him of this whole Church and Congregation of England, intending the conservation of the same Church and Congregation in a true, sincere and uniform doctrine of Christ’s religion, calling also to his blessed and most gracious remembrance as well the great and quiet assurance, prosperous increase and other innumerable commodities which have ever ensued, come and followed of concord, agreement and unity in opinions, as also the manifold perils, dangers and inconvenienceswhich have heretofore in many places and regions grown, sprung and arisen of the diversities of minds and opinions, especially of matters of Christian religion; and therefore desiring that such an unity might and should be charitably established in all things touching and concerning the same, as the same so being established might chiefly be to the honour of Almighty God, the very author and fountain of all true unity and sincere concord, and consequently redound to the common wealth of this his Highness’ most 1

St. 27 Henry VIII, c. 20.

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noble realm and of all his loving subjects and other resiants and inhabitants of or in the same: Hath therefore caused and commanded this his most high Court of Parliament for sundry and many urgent causes and considerations 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; and forasmuch as in, the said Parliament, Synod and Convocation there were certain articles, matters and questions proponed and set forth touching Christian religion… the King’s most royal Majesty, most prudently pondering and considering that by occasion of variable and sundry opinions and judgments of the said articles, great discord and variance hath arisen as well amongst the clergy of this his realm as amongst a great number of vulgar people his loving subjects of the same, and being in a full hope and trust that a full and perfect resolution of the said articles should make a perfect concord and unity generally amongst all his loving and obedient subjects; of his most excellent goodness not only commanded that the said articles should deliberately and advisedly by his said archbishops, bishops, and other learned men of his clergy be debated, argued and reasoned, and their opinions therein to be understood declared and known, but also most graciously vouchsafed in his own princely person to descend and come into his said high Court of Parliament and Council, and there like a prince of most high prudence and no less learning opened and declared many things of high learning and great knowledge touching the said articles, matters and questions, for an unity to be had in the same: Whereupon, after a great and long deliberate and advised disputation and consultation had and made concerning the said articles, as well by the consent of the King’s Highness as by the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and other learned men of his clergy in their Convocation and by the consent of the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, it was and is finally resolved, accorded, and agreed in manner and form following, that is to say: First, that in the most blessed sacrament of the altar, by the strength and efficacy of Christ’s mighty word, it being spoken by the priest, is present really, under the form of bread and wine, the natural body and blood of our Saviour Jesu Christ, conceived of the Virgin Mary, and that after the consecration there remaineth no substance of bread or wine, nor any other substance but the substance of Christ, God and man; Secondly, that communion in both kinds is not necessary ad salutem by the law of God to all persons, and that it is to be believed and not doubted of, but that in the flesh under form of bread is the very blood, and with the blood under form of wine is the very flesh, as well apart as though they were both together; Thirdly, that priests after the order of priesthood received as afore may not marry by the law of God; Fourthly, that vows of chastity or widowhood by man or woman made to God advisedly ought to be observed by the law of God, and that it exempteth them from other liberties of Christian people which without that they might enjoy; Fifthly, that it is meet and necessary that private masses be continued and admitted in this the King’s English Church and Congregation as whereby good Christian people ordering themselves accordingly do receive both godly and goodly consolations and benefits, and it is agreeable also to God’s law; Sixthly, that auricular confession is expedient and necessary to be retained and continued, used and frequented in the Church of God. For the which

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most godly study, pain and travail of his Majesty and determination and resolution of the premises, his most humble and obedient subjects, the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled not only render and give unto his Highness their most high and hearty thanks…but also being desirous that his most godly enterprise may be well accomplished and brought to a full end and perfection, and so established that the same, might be to the honour of God, and after to the common quiet, unity and concord to be had in the whole body of this realm for ever, most humbly beseechen his royal Majesty that the resolution and determination above written of the said articles may be established and perpetually perfected by authority of this present Parliament: It is therefore …enacted…that if any person or persons within this realm of England or any other the king’s dominions, after the twelfth day of July next coming, by word, writing, imprinting, ciphering, or in any other wise do publish, preach, teach, say, affirm, declare, dispute, argue, or hold any opinion that in the blessed sacrament of the altar under form of bread and wine, after the consecration thereof, there is not present really the natural body and blood of our Saviour Jesu Christ conceived of the Virgin Mary; or that after the said consecration there remaineth any substance of bread or wine or any other substance but the substance of Christ, God, and Man; or after the time abovesaid, publish preach, teach, say, affirm, declare, dispute, argue, or hold opinion that in the flesh under form of bread is not the very blood of Christ, or that with the blood under form of wine is not the very flesh of Christ, as well apart as though they were both together, or by any of the means abovesaid or otherwise teach, declare, or affirm the said sacrament to be of other substance than is abovesaid or by any means contempt deprive, or despise the said blessed sacrament, that then every such person and persons so offending, their aiders, comforters, counsellors, consenters, and abbettors therein, being thereof convicted in form underwritten, by the authority abovesaid, shall be deemed and adjudged heretics, and that every such offence shall be adjudged manifest heresy, and that every such offender and offenders shall therefor have and suffer judgment, execution, pain, and pains of death by way of burning, without any abjuration, clergy, or sanctuary to be therefor permitted, had, allowed, admitted, or suffered: And also shall therefor forfeit and lose to the king’s highness, his heirs and successors, all his or their honours, manors, castles, lands, tenements, rents, reversions, services, possessions, and all other his or their hereditaments, goods, and chattels, terms, and freeholds whatsoever they be, which any such offender or offenders shall have at the time of any such offence or offences committed or done, or at any time after, as in cases of high treason. [The succeeding clauses of the Act are here summarized:] c. II. Any person who, after 12 July 1539, shall preach, teach, or affirm contrary to the other five articles, and any priest who having vowed chastity shall marry, is declared to be a felon without benefit of clergy. The Patron may present to the living of a priest marrying, as though he had died. c. III. Anyone publishing or holding opinions contrary to the said five articles shall for the first offence be punished by loss of goods and lands for life, and imprisonment: and for the second offence be adjudged a felon without benefit of clergy.

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c. IV. Marriages of priests and professed persons are declared void. The Ordinary within the diocese shall arrange divorce. c. V. Priests, who after 12th July next, continue to live with women with whom they have contracted matrimony shall be declared felons. c. VI. Persons refusing to confess or to receive the sacrament shall be fined and imprisoned by the King’s Council. A second offence to be adjudged felony, punishable with death and forfeiture of goods and lands. c. VII. Bishops and others to be appointed commissioners in the several counties to proceed against offenders. c. VIII. Bishops shall have similar power for proceeding in their visitations, and Justices in their sessions. c. IX–XVII deal with procedure for examining and trying accused persons. c. XVIII. And it is also enacted…that every parson, vicar, or parish priest of every parish church within this realm or other the king’s dominions, or his or their deputy, upon the Sunday next after the first day of September next ensuing, and so from thenceforth once in every quarter of the year at the least, shall openly, plainly, and distinctly read this present act in the parish church where he is parson, vicar, curate, parish priest or deputy, unto his or their parishioners then assembled together to hear divine service; and that every such parson etc. making default of reading this act, contrary to the form aforesaid, shall forfeit unto our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, for every such default 40 shillings sterling.

117. The King’s Book, 1543 (C.Lloyd, Formularies of Faith, 213–337) Henry VIII did not accept the Bishops’ Book as a final settlement of doctrine. In 1540 he ordered a commission of bishops and theologians to revise it. Three years later, after much discussion, a new formulary was agreed. Berthelet printed it, with the title A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man; set forth by the Kings Majesty of England, 1543. The king wrote the preface. It became known as the King’s Book.

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enry the VIII. by the grace of God King of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and in earth of the church of England and also of Ireland supreme head, unto all his faithful and loving subjects, sendeth greeting. Like as in the time of darkness and ignorance, finding our people seduced and drawn from the truth by hypocrisy and superstition, we by the help of God and his word have travailed to purge and cleanse our realm from the apparent enormities of the same; wherein, by opening of God’s truth, with setting forth and publishing of the scriptures, our labours (thanks be to God) have not been void and frustrate: so now perceiving that in the time of knowledge the Devil (who ceaseth not in all times to vex the world) hath attempted to return again (as the parable in the gospel sheweth) into the house purged and cleansed, accompanied with seven worse spirits, and hypocrisy and superstition being excluded and put away, we find entered into some of our people’s hearts an inclination to sinister understanding of scripture, presumption, arrogancy, carnal liberty, and contention, we be therefore constrained, for the reformation of them

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in time, and for avoiding of such diversity of opinions as by the said evil spirits might be engendered, to set forth with the advice of our clergy, such a doctrine and declaration of the true knowledge of God and his word, with the principal articles of our religion, as whereby all men may uniformly be led and taught the true understanding of that which is necessary for every Christian man to know, for the ordering of himself in this life, agreeably to the will and pleasure of Almighty God. Which doctrine also the lords both spiritual and temporal, with the nether house of our parliament, have both seen and like very well. And for knowledge of the order of the matter in this book contained, forasmuch as we know not perfectly God but by faith, the declaration of Faith occupieth in this treatise the first place; whereunto is next adjoined the declaration of the Articles of our Creed, containing what we should believe. And incontinently after them followeth the explication of the Seven Sacraments, wherein God ordinarily worketh, and whereby he participateth unto us his special gifts and graces in this life: which matters so digested and set forth with simplicity and plainness, as the capacities and understandings of the multitude of our people may easily receive and comprehend the same, there followeth conveniently the declaration of the Ten Commandments, being by God ordained the high way, wherein each man should walk in this life to finish fruitfully his journey here, and after to rest eternally in joy with him; which because we cannot do of ourselves, but have need always of the grace of God, as without whom we can neither continue in this life, nor without his special grace do any thing to his pleasure, whereby to attain the life to come; we have, after declaration of the Commandments, expounded the seven petitions of our Paternoster, wherein be contained requests and suits for all things necessary to a Christian man in this present life; with declaration of the Ave Maria, as a prayer containing a joyful rehearsal, and magnifying of God in the work of the incarnation of Christ, which is the ground of our salvation, wherein the blessed virgin our lady, for the abundance of grace where-with God endued her, is also with this remembrance honoured and worshipped. And forasmuch as the heads and senses of our people have been embusied, and in these days travailed with the understanding of freewill, justification, good works, and praying for the souls departed; we have, by the advice of our clergy, for the purgation of erroneous doctrine, declared and set forth openly, plainly, and without ambiguity of speech, the more and certain truth in them. So as we verily trust, that to know God, and how to live after his pleasure, to the attaining of everlasting life in the end, this book containeth a perfect and sufficient doctrine, grounded and established in holy scriptures: wherefore we heartily exhort our people of all degrees willingly and earnestly both to read and print in their hearts the doctrine of this book, considering that God (who, as St. Paul saith, distributeth and divideth to his church his graces distinctly) hath ordered some sort of men to teach other, and some to be taught, that all things should be done seemly and in order, and hath beautified and set forth by distinction of ministers and officers the same church. And considering also, that for the one part, which should teach other, is necessary, not only knowledge, but also learning and cunning in the same knowledge, whereby they may be able conveniently to dispense and distribute to their audience the truth of God, according to their cunning, for the edification of other, and by true exposition of the

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scriptures, according to the apostolical doctrine received and maintained from the beginning, and by conferring and declaration of them, to convince, repel, and reprove all errors and untruths set forth to the contrary; and finally be also able to give an account, as St. Peter saith, of that they profess: it must be agreed then, that for the instruction of this part of the church, whose office is to teach other, the having, reading, and studying of holy scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is not only convenient, but also necessary: but for the other part of the church, ordained to be taught, it ought to be deemed certainly, that the reading of the Old and New Testament is not so necessary for all those folks, that of duty they ought and be bound to read it, but as the prince and the policy of the realm shall think convenient, so to be tolerated or taken from it. Consonant whereunto the politic law of our realm hath now restrained it from a great many, esteeming it sufficient for those so restrained to hear and truly bear away the doctrine of scripture taught by the preachers, and so imprint the lessons of the same, that they may observe and keep them inwardly in their heart, and as occasion serveth express them in their deeds outwardly, whereby they may be partakers of that bliss which the giver of blessedness, our Saviour Christ, spake of and promised to such, saying Beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt illud1: Blessed be they that hear the true doctrine of God, and keep it; which is the true sense of that text. Wherefore we exhort and desire all our loving subjects, that they, praying to God for the spirit of humility, do conform themselves, as good scholars and learners ought, to hear and bear away as afore, and willingly to observe such order as is by us and our laws prescribed, and to read and bear well away the true doctrine lately by us and our clergy set forth for their erudition; whereby presumption and arrogancy shall be withstanded, malice and contention expelled and carnal liberty refrained and tempered, and disdain clearly removed and taken away. So as endeavouring ourselves to live quietly and charitably together, each one in his vocation, we shall be so replenished with manifold graces and gifts of God, that after this life we shall reign in joy everlasting, with the only Head of the universal catholic church, our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Amen. 1

Luke xi.

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F. THE ENGLISH BIBLE 118. The pioneer work of William Tyndale (H.Walter, Tyndale’s Doctrinal Treatises, P.S., 392–397) Powerful among the influences responsible for the spread of ideas of reform in England was the assertion by the early reformers of a right to base their criticisms of the established order and their arguments for a return to the primitive church upon the study and interpretation of the text of the Bible. Such demands suggested, quite naturally, the need for an English translation of the Scriptures. No man saw this more clearly, or worked for it so whole-heartedly as William Tyndale.1 Although his martyrdom in 1535 brought to an end his great life-work, the translation of the whole Bible, his unfinished version was incorporated into the early editions of the English Bible, whence it has influenced the religious thought and the prose style of Englishmen over succeeding generations. In the Preface to his translation of Genesis (1530) Tyndale gave a brief account of the disappointment he experienced in 1523, when he was looking for a patron to support him while he made his translation of the Bible.

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hen I had translated the New Testament, I added an epistle unto the latter end, in which I desired them that were learned to amend if ought were found amiss. But our malicious and wily hypocrites, which are so stubborn and hard-hearted in their wicked abominations, that it is not possible for them to amend any thing at all, (as we see by daily experience, when both their livings and doings are rebuked with the truth,) say, some of them, that it is impossible to translate the scripture into English; some, that it is not lawful for the lay-people to have it in their mother-tongue; some, that it would make them all heretics; as it would, no doubt, from many things which they of long time have falsely taught; and that is the whole cause whereof they forbid it, though they other cloaks pretend: and some, or rather every one, say that it would make them rise against the king, whom they themselves (unto their damnation) never yet obeyed. And lest the temporal rulers should see their falsehood, if the scripture came to light, causeth them so to lie. And as for my translation, in which they affirm unto the lay-people (as I have heard say) to be I wot not how many thousand heresies, so that it cannot be mended or correct; they have yet taken so great pain to examine it, and to compare it unto that they would fain have it, and to their own imaginations and juggling terms, and to have somewhat to rail at, and under that cloak to blaspheme the truth; that they might with as little labour (as I suppose) have translated the most part of the bible. For they which in times past were wont to look on no more scripture than they found in their Duns2 or such like devilish doctrine, have yet now so narrowly looked on my translation, that there is not so much as one i therein, if it lack a tittle over his head, but they have noted it, and number it unto the ignorant people for an heresy. Finally, in this they be all agreed, to drive you from the knowledge of the scripture, and that ye shall not have the text thereof in the mother-tongue, and to keep the world still in darkness, to the intent 1

For other examples of Tyndale’s arguments see above No. 25. 2 The works of Duns Scotus.

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they might sit in the consciences of the people, through vain superstition and false doctrine, to satisfy their filthy lusts, their proud ambition, and unsatiable covetousness, and to exalt their own honour above king and emperor, yea, and above God himself. A thousand books had they lever to be put forth against their abominable doings and doctrine, than that the scripture should come to light. For as long as they may keep that down, they will so darken the right way with the mist of their sophistry, and so tangle them that either rebuke or despise their abominations, with arguments of philosophy, and with worldly similitudes and apparent reasons of natural wisdom, and with wresting the scripture unto their own purpose, clean contrary unto the process, order, and meaning of the text; and so delude them in descanting upon it with allegories, and amaze them, expounding it in many senses before the unlearned lay-people, (when it hath but one simple, literal sense, whose light the owls cannot abide) that, though thou feel in thine heart, and art sure, how that all is false that they say, yet couldst thou not solve their subtle riddles. Which thing only moved me to translate the new Testament. Because I had perceived by experience how that it was impossible to establish the lay-people in any truth, except the scripture were plain laid before their eyes in their mother-tongue, that they might see the process, order and meaning of the text: for else, whatsoever truth is taught them, these enemies of all truth quench it again, partly with the smoke of their bottomless pit, whereof thou readest in Apocalypse, chap. IX. (that is, with apparent reasons of sophistry, and traditions of their own making, founded without ground of scripture,) and partly in juggling with the text, expounding it in such a sense as it impossible to gather of the text, if thou see the process, order, and meaning thereof. And even in the bishop of London’s house I intended to have done it. For when I was so turmoiled in the country where I was, that I could no longer dwell there, (the process whereof were too long here to rehearse,) I this-wise thought in myself: This I suffer because the priests of the country be unlearned: as God it knoweth, there are a full ignorant sort, which have seen no more Latin than that they read in their portesses and missals, which yet many of them can scarcely read, (except it be Albertus de secretis mulierum, in which yet, though they be never so sorrily learned, they pore day and night, and make notes therein, and all to teach the midwives, as they say: and Linwode, a book of constitutions, to gather tythes, mortuaries, offerings, customs, and other pillage, which they call not theirs, but God’s part, and the duty of holy church, to discharge their consciences withal; for they are bound that they shall not diminish, but increase all things unto the uttermost of their powers;) and therefore, (because they are thus unlearned, thought I,) when they come together to the alehouse, which is their preaching-place, they affirm that my sayings are heresy. And besides that, they add to, of their own heads, which I never spake, as the manner is to prolong the tale to short the time withal, and accused me secretly tothe chancellor and other the bishop’s officers. And, indeed, when I came before the chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and reviled me, and rated me as though I had been a dog; and laid to my charge whereof there could be none accuser brought forth, (as their manner is not to bring forth the accuser,) and yet all the priests of the country were the same day there.

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As I this thought, the bishop of London came to my remembrance, whom Erasmus (whose tongue maketh of little gnats great elephants, and lifteth up above the stars whosoever giveth him a little exhibition,) praiseth exceedingly, among other, in his Annotations on the New Testament, for his great learning. Then thought I, if I might come to this man’s service, I were happy. And so I got me to London, and, through the acquaintance of my master, came to sir Harry Gilford, the King’s grace’s comptroller, and brought him an Oration of Isocrates, which I had translated out of Greek into English, and desired him to speak unto my lord of London for me; which he also did, as he shewed me, and willed me to write an epistle to my lord, and to go to him myself; which I also did, and delivered my epistle to a servant of his own, one William Hebilthwayte, a man of mine old acquaintance. But God (which knoweth what is within hypocrites,) saw that I was beguiled, and that that counsel was not the next way unto my purpose. And therefore he got me no favour in my lord’s sight. Whereupon my lord answered me, his house was full; he had more than he could well find; and advised me to seek in London, where he said I could not lack a service. And so in London I abode almost a year, and marked the course of the world, and heard our praters, (I would say our preachers,) how they boasted themselves and their high authority; and beheld the pomp of our prelates, and how busy they were, as they yet are, to set peace and unity in the world, (though it be not possible for them that walk in darkness to continue long in peace, for they cannot but either stumble or dash themselves at one thing or another that shall clean unquiet all together,) and saw things whereof I defer to speak at this time, and understood at the last not only that there was no room in my lord of London’s palace to translate the new Testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all England, as experience doth now openly declare. Under what manner, therefore, should I now submit this book to be corrected and amended of them, which can suffer nothing to be well? Or what protestation should I make in such a matter unto our prelates, those stubborn Nimrods which so mightily fight against God, and resist his Holy Spirit, enforcing with all craft and subtlety to quench the light of the everlasting testament, promises, and appointment made between God and us, and heaping the fierce wrath of God upon all princes and rulers; mocking them with false feigned names of hypocrisy, and serving their lusts at all points, and dispensing with them even of the very laws of God, of which Christ himself testifieth, Matt. V. that “not so much as one tittle thereof may perish, or be broken;” and of which the prophet saith, Psalm CXVIII; “Thou has commanded thy laws to be kept” meod, that is, in Hebrew, exceedingly, with all diligence, might, and power; and have made them so mad with their juggling charms and crafty persuasions, that they think it a full satisfaction for all their wicked lying to torment such as tell them truth, and to burn the word of their souls’ health, and slay whosoever believe thereon? Notwithstanding, yet I submit this book, and all other that I have either made or translated, or shall in time to come, (if it be God’s will that I shall further labour in his harvest,) unto all them that submit themselves unto the word of God, to be corrected of them; yea, and moreover to be disallowed and also burnt; if it seem worthy, when they

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have examined it with the Hebrew, so that they first put forth of their own translating another that is more correct.

119. Petition for the Bible in English, 1534 (Wilkins, Concilia, III 776; A.W.Pollard, Records of the English Bible, 177)

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n the 19th. day of December, in the year of the Lord [1534], the Bishops, Abbots, and Priors of the upper house of convocation, (that is, the sacred synod of the province of Canterbury) in the chapter house of the cathedral church of St. Paul, London, in the presence of the most reverend father in Christ and lord, the lord Thomas, by divine permission archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and metropolitan, lawfully assembled, agreed by consent and assent that the said most reverend father should make instance to the most illustrious prince in Christ and our lord, the lord Henry, by the grace of God, king [etc]…and (under God) supreme head of the English Church, that his royal majesty, for the increase of the faith of his subjects should think fit to decree and command that all and every his subjects, in whose keeping or possession are any books of suspected doctrine, especially in the vulgar tongue, whether printed here or overseas, be advised and compelled to show and actually produce these books of suspect doctrine within three months from the date of the warning being published in that district, before persons to be nominated by the king’s majesty, under a definite penalty to be controlled and limited by the king’s majesty. And that further his royal majesty should consider fit to decree that the holy scripture shall be translated into the vulgar English tongue by certain approved and learned men to be nominated by the said most illustrious king, and be given out and delivered to the people for their instruction. And further that his royal majesty should consider fit to forbid and command, with an assigned and imposed penalty, that no lay or secular subject of his should henceforth presume to dispute in public or to wrangle in any way about the catholic faith, or the articles of faith, or the holy scripture and its meaning.

120. The Coverdale Bible 1535 (Cromwell to the bishop of—, June 1536. Merriman, Life and Letters of Cromwell, II, 144) In 1535 Cromwell adopted Coverdale’s translation of the Bible, printed in London, October 1535, with a dedication to the King. In his Injunctions (1536) he ordered that a copy should be placed in every parish church before 1 August 1537. This version was largely based on that of Tyndale. It was not approved by Convocation.

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fter my right hearty commendations. Whereas the King’s highness, minding to set for the glory of God, and the truth of his word, hath as well in his own person as by other his ministers, travailed to bring the same plainly and sincerely to the knowledge of his subjects, and for that purpose not only in the late visitation exercised by authority of his majesty, but also at other times, and other ways both ordained many godly ordinances and injunctions, and given also sundry strait commandments as well to you as to all other persons ecclesiastical of all sorts and degrees within this his realm.

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Forasmuch as it is come to his grace’s knowledge that his said ordinances commandments and injunctions have been very remissly hitherto observed, kept, and obeyed within your diocese, and his highness’ people there for want of the sincere and true teaching of the word of God suffered to lie and dwell continually in their old ignorance and blindness, his grace’s pleasure and express commandments is that you, having a more vigilant eye, and better respect to his highness’ said commandments and ordinances cause the same, and every of them to be duly published and observed, foreseeing as well in your own persons as by your archdeacons, chancellors, officials, deans rural and other ministers that all such curates and other persons ecclesiastical as after this many callings on shall be found negligent, remiss, or stubborn in the fulfilling of them or any of them receive for their transgression in that behalf such punishment as in the said ordinances is contained and more as to your discretion shall be seen meet and convenient. And further his grace’s pleasure and high commandment is that you with no less circumspection and diligence cause the bible in English to be laid forth openly in your own houses and that the same be in like manner openly laid forth in every parish church at the charges and costs of the parsons and vicars, that every man having free access to it by reading of the same may both be the more apt to understand the declaration of it at the preacher’s mouth, and also the more able to teach and instruct his wife, children, and family at home, commanding nevertheless all curates and other preachers within that your diocese that they at all times, and specially now at the beginning exhort and require the people to use and read the bible so left amongst them according to the tenour of an instruction which ye shall receive herein enclosed to be sent to every curate with a certain day by you to be appointed within the which the bible in English be as is aforesaid laid forth in every church.

121. Matthew’s Bible 1537 Tyndale seems to have handed his incomplete translation of the Old Testament to John Rogers (?1500–55). Using this and some of Coverdale’s text he produced a Bible in which his own contribution was limited to the prefatory matter and the marginal notes, which are the first English commentary on the Bible. To avoid Tyndale’s fate Rogers issued his Bible under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew, by which name it is known. It was printed at Antwerp for Richard Grafton and E.Whitchurch, London, 1537. Grafton presented a copy to Cranmer (July 1537), and obtained permission to sell an edition of 1500 copies.

(i) Cranmer to Cromwell, 4 August 1537 (J.E.Cox, Works of Cranmer (P.S. II, 344))

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y especial good lord, after most hearty commendations unto your lordship; these shall be to signify unto the same, that you shall receive by the bringer thereof a bible in English, both of a new translation and of a new print, dedicated unto the king’s majesty, as farther appeareth by a pistle unto his grace in the beginning of the book, which in mine opinion is very well done, and therefore I pray your lordship to read the same. And as for the translation, so far as I have read thereof, I like it better than any other translation heretofore made; yet not doubting but that there may and will be found some fault therein, as you know no man ever did or can do so well, but it may be from

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time to time amended. And forasmuch as the book is dedicated unto the king’s grace, and also great pains and labour taken in setting forth of the same; I pray you, my lord, that you will exhibit the book unto the king’s highness, and to obtain of his grace, if you can, a licence that the same may be sold and read of every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary, until such time that we the bishops shall set forth a better translation, which I think will not be till a day after doomsday. And if you continue to take such pains for the setting forth of God’s word, as you do, although in the mean season you suffer some snubs and many slanders, lies, and reproaches for the same, yet one day he will requite altogether. And the same word (as St. John saith) which shall judge every man at the last day, must needs shew favour to them that now do favour it. Thus my lord, right heartily fare you well.

(ii) Cranmer to Cromwell, 13 August 1537 (Ibid. 345)

My very singular good lord, in my most hearty wise I commend me unto your lordship. And whereas I understand that your lordship, at my request, hath not only exhibited the bible which I sent unto you, to the king’s majesty, but also hath obtained of his grace that the same shall be allowed by his authority to be bought and read within this realm; my lord, for this your pain, taken in this behalf, I give unto you my most hearty thanks: assuring your lordship for the contentation of my mind you have shewed me more pleasure herein than if you had given me a thousand pound; and I doubt not but that hereby such fruit of good knowledge shall ensue that it shall well appear hereafter what high and acceptable service you have done unto God and the king; which shall so much redound to your honour that besides God’s reward you shall obtain perpetual memory for the same within this realm. And as for me, you may reckon me your bondman for the same. And I dare be bold to say, so may ye do my lord of Worcester. Thus, my lord, right heartily fare ye well.

122. The Great Bible 1539 (J.E.Cox, Works of Cranmer (P.S. II, 118–125)) Richard Grafton published in 1539 an edition of the Bible in folio (F.Regnault, Paris, and R. Grafton and E.Whitchurch, London, 1539), which became known as “the Great Bible”. A royal proclamation ordered every parish to purchase a copy before the feast of All Hallows, 1540. A small folio edition appeared in 1540, followed by six large folio editions, 1540–1. The first large folio edition was the first to include Cranmer’s preface, and so became known as “Cranmer’s Bible”.

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or two sundry sorts of people, it seemeth much necessary that something be said in the entry of this book, by the way of a preface or prologue; whereby hereafter it may be both the better accepted of them which hitherto could not well bear it, and also the better used of them which heretofore have misused it. For truly some there are that be too slow, and need the spur: some other seem too quick, and need more of the bridle: some lose their game by short shooting, some by overshooting: some walk too much on the left hand, some too much on the right. In the former sort be all they that

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refuse to read, or to hear read the scripture in the vulgar tongues; much worse they that also let or discourage the other from the reading or hearing thereof. In the latter sort be they, which by their inordinate reading, undiscreet speaking, contentious disputing, or otherwise, by their licentious living, slander and hinder the word of God most of all other, whereof they would seem to be greatest furtherers. These two sorts, albeit they be most far unlike the one to the other, yet they both deserve in effect like reproach. Neither can I well tell whether of them I may judge the more offender, him that doth obstinately refuse so godly and goodly knowledge, or him that so ungodly and so ungoodly doth abuse the same. And as touching the former, I would marvel much that any man should be so mad as to refuse in darkness light; in hunger, food; in cold, fire; for the word of God is light; lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum: food: non in solo pane vivit homo; sed in omni verbo Dei: fire; ignem veni mittere in terram, et quid volo, nisi ut ardeat? I would marvel (I say) at this, save that I consider how much custom and usage may do. So that if there were a people, as some write, De Cimmeriis, which never saw the sun by reason that they be situated far toward the north pole, and be inclosed and overshadowed with high mountains; it is credible and like enough that if, by the power and will of God, the mountains should sink down and give place, that the light of the sun might have entrance to them, at the first some of them would be offended therewith. And the old proverb affirmeth, that after tillage of corn was first found, many delighted more to feed of mast and acorns, wherewith they had been accustomed, than to eat bread made of good corn. Such is the nature of custom, that it causeth us to bear all things well and easily, wherewith we have been accustomed, and to be offended with all things thereunto contrary. And therefore I can well think them worthy pardon, which at the coming abroad of scripture doubted and drew back. But such as will persist still in their wilfulness, I must needs judge, not only foolish, froward, and obstinate, but also peevish, perverse, and indurate. And yet, if the matter should be tried by custom, we might also allege custom for the reading of the scripture in the vulgar tongues, and prescribe the more ancient custom. For it is not much above one hundred years ago, since scripture hath not been accustomed to be read in the vulgar tongues within this realm; and many hundred years before that it was translated and read in the Saxons’ tongue, which at that time was our mother’s tongue: whereof there remaineth yet divers copies found lately in old abbeys, of such antique manners of writing and speaking, that few men now been able to read and understand them. And when this language waxed old and out of common usage, because folk should not lack the fruit of reading, it was again translated in the newer language. Whereof yet also many copies remain and be daily found…. Hitherto all that I have said, I have taken and gathered out of the foresaid sermon of this holy doctor, St. John Chrysostom. Now if I should in like manner bring forth what the self-same doctor speaketh in other places, and what other doctors and writers say concerning the same purpose, I might seem to you to write another bible rather than to make a preface to the bible. Wherefore, in few words to comprehend the largeness and utility of the scripture, how it containeth fruitful instruction and erudition for every

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man; if any things be necessary to be learned, of the holy scripture we may learn it. If falsehood shall be reproved, thereof we may gather wherewithal. If any thing be to be corrected and amended, if there need any exhortation or consolation, of the scripture we may well learn. In the scriptures be the fat pastures of the soul; therein is no venomous meat, no unwholesome thing; they be the very dainty and pure feeding. He that is ignorant, shall find there what he should learn. He that is a perverse sinner, shall there find his damnation to make him to tremble for fear. He that laboureth to serve God, shall find there his glory, and the promissions of eternal life, exhorting him more diligently to labour. Herein may princes learn how to govern their subjects; subjects obedience, love and dread to their princes: husbands, how they should behave them unto their wives; how to educate their children and servants: and contrary the wives, children, and servants may know their duty to their husbands, parents and masters. Here may all manner of persons, men, women, young, old, learned, unlearned, rich, poor, priests, laymen, lords, ladies, officers, tenants, and mean men, virgins, wives, widows, lawyers, merchants, artificers, husbandmen, and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they be, may in this book learn all things what they ought to believe, what they ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty God, as also concerning themselves and all other. Briefly, to the reading of the scripture none can be enemy, but that either be so sick that they love not to hear of any medicine, or else that be so ignorant that they know not scripture to be the most healthful medicine. Therefore, as touching this former part, I will here conclude and take it as a conclusion sufficiently determined and approved, that it is convenient and good the scripture to be read of all sorts and kinds of people, and in the vulgar tongue, without further allegations and probations for the same; which shall not need, since that this one place of John Chrysosyom is enough and sufficient to persuade all them that be not frowardly and perversely set in their own wilful opinion; specially now that the king’s highness, being supreme head next under Christ of this church of England, hath approved with his royal assent the setting forth thereof, which only to all true and obedient subjects ought to be a sufficient reason for the allowance of the same, without farther delay, reclamation, or resistance, although there were no preface nor other reason herein expressed. Therefore now to come to the second and latter part of my purpose. There is nothing so good in this world, but it may be abused, and turned from fruitful and wholesome to hurtful and noisome. What is there above better than the sun, the moon, the stars? Yet was there that took occasion by the great beauty and virtue of them to dishonour God, and to defile themselves with idolatry, giving the honour of the living God and Creator of all things to such things as he had created. What is there here beneath better than fire, water, meats, drinks, metals of gold, silver, iron, and steel? Yet we see daily great harm and much mischief done by every one of these, as well for lack of wisdom and providence of them that suffer evil, as by the malice of them that worketh the evil. Thus to them that be evil of themselves everything setteth forward and increaseth their evil, be it of his own nature a thing never so good; like as contrarily, to them that studieth and endeavoureth themselves to goodness, everything prevaileth them, and profiteth unto good, be it of his own nature a thing never so bad. As St. Paul saith: His

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qui diligant Deum, omnia cooperantur in bonum: even as out of most venomous worms is made triacle, the most sovereign medicine for the preservation of man’s health in time of danger. Wherefore I would advise you all, that cometh to the reading or hearing of this book, which is the word of God, the most precious jewel, and most holy relic that remaineth upon earth, that ye bring with you the fear of God, and that ye do it with all due reverence, and use your knowledge thereof, not to vain-glory of frivolous disputation, but to the honour of God, increase of virtue, and edification both of yourselves and other….

G. HERESY 123. Licence for Sir Thomas More to keep and read heretical books, 7 March 1528 Latin text in Wilkins, Concilia, III, 711, from Tunstal’s London register f. 138.

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uthbert, by divine permission bishop of London to the very reverend and distinguished Sir Thomas More, his very dear brother and friend, greetings in the Lord and blessing. Since of late, after the Church of God throughout Germany has been infested with heretics, there have been some sons of iniquity who are trying to introduce into this country of ours the old and accursed Wycliffite heresy and its foster-child the Lutheran heresy, by translating into our mother tongue some of the most subversive of their pamphlets, and printing them in great quantity. They are, indeed, striving with all their might to defile and infect this country with these pestilential doctrines, which are most repugnant to the truth of the Catholic faith. It is greatly to be feared, therefore, that Catholic faith may be greatly imperilled if good and learned men do not strenuously resist the wickedness of the aforesaid persons. That can in no way be better and more suitably done than if the catholic truth, which entirely confutes these mad teachings, is in like manner set out in its own language. The result will be that men unskilled in sacred literature, picking up these new heretical books, and together with them these same catholic books which refute them, will be able either to discern the truth for themselves, or else will be correctly advised and taught by others whose judgment is more acute. And since you, dearest brother, are distinguished as a second Demosthenes in our native language as well as in Latin, and you are in the habit of championing catholic truth most keenly in every discussion, you cannot better occupy your spare time (if you can steal any from your duties) than in publishing something in English which will reveal to simple and uneducated men the crafty wickedness of the heretics, and will better equip such folk against such impious supplanters of the Church. In so doing you have a very distinguished example, that of our most illustrious lord, King Henry VIII, who stood up in defence of the sacraments of the Church against Luther, when he was

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doing all he could to under-mine them, and thus win for himself for all time the immortal title of Defender of the Church. And in order that you should not be wrestling with ghosts, after the manner of the Antabatae,1 ignorant of what you are fighting against, I am sending you their mad incantations in our tongue along with some of Luther’s books, whence those monstrous ideas have sprung. When you have studied them closely you will understand more easily in what hiding places these twisting serpents lurk, and by what quibbles they seek to slip away when they have been caught. For it is a great step towards victory if you can spy out the enemy’s plans, read his thoughts thoroughly and anticipate his aims. For if you set yourself to refute something which they will say they never meant, all your labour will be in vain. Go forth boldly, then, to such holy work, by which you will both benefit the Church of God and lay up for yourself an immortal name, and eternal glory in heaven. We beseech you in God’s name so to do, strengthening the Church of God with your support. And to that end we give and grant you facilities and licence to keep and read books of this kind. Given on the 7th. day of March Anno Domini MDXXVII [1528] and in the sixth year of our consecration.

124. Proclamation against erroneous books and heresies, June 1530 (Berthelet, 1530; Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1. 193, No. 129)

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he King our most dread sovereign lord, studying and providing daily for the weal, benefit, and honour of this his most noble realm, well and evidently perceiveth, that partly through the malicious suggestion of our ghostly enemy, partly by the evil and perverse inclination and seditious disposition of sundry persons, divers heresies and erroneous opinions have been late sown and spread among his subjects of this his said realm, by blasphemers and pestiferous English books, printed in other regions, and sent into this realm, to the intent as well to pervert and withdraw the people from the catholic and true faith of Christ, as also to stir and incense them to sedition, and disobedience against their princes, sovereigns, and heads, as also to cause them to contemn and neglect all good laws, customs, and virtuous manners, to the final subversion and desolation of this noble realm, if they might have prevailed (which God forbid) in their most cursed persuasions and malicious purposes. Whereupon the King’s highness, by his incomparable wisdom, foreseeing and most prudently considering, hath invited and called to him the primates of this his grace’s realm, and also a sufficient number of discreet virtuous and well learned personages in divinity, as well of either of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, as also hath chosen and taken out of other parts of his realm: giving unto them liberty to speak and declare plainly their advices, judgments, and determinations, concerning as well the approbation or rejecting of such books as be in any part suspected, as also the admission and divulgation of the old and new testament, translated into English. Whereupon his highness, in his own royal 1

They were supposed to have fought blind-fold.

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person, calling to him the said primates and divines, hath seriously and deeply, with great leisure and long deliberation, consulted, debated, insearched, and discussed, the premises: and finally, by all their free assents, consents, and agreements, concluded, resolved, and determined, that these books ensuing, that is to say, the book entitled the Wicked Mammon, the book named the Obedience of a Christian Man, the Supplication of beggars, and the book called the Revelation of Antichrist, the Summary of Scripture, and divers other books made in the English tongue, and imprinted beyond the sea, do contain in them pestiferous errors and blasphemies: and for that cause, shall from henceforth be reputed and taken of all men, for books of heresy, and worthy to be damned, and put in perpetual oblivion. The King’s said highness therefore straitly chargeth and commandeth, all and every his subjects, of what estate or condition soever he or they be, as they will avoid his high indignation and most grievous displeasure, that they from henceforth, do not buy, receive or have, any of the books before named, or any other book, being in the English tongue, and printed beyond the sea, of what manner soever it be, or any copy written, drawn out of the same, or the same books in the French or Dutch tongue. And to the intent that his highness will be ascertained what number of the said erroneous books shall be found from time to time within this his realm, his highness therefore chargeth and commandeth, that all and every person or persons, which hath or hereafter shall have, any book or books in the English tongue, printed beyond the sea, as is before written, or any of the said erroneous books in the French or Dutch tongue: that he or they, within fifteen days next after the publishing of this present proclamation, do actually deliver or send the same books and every of them, to the bishop of the diocese, wherein he or they dwelleth, or to his commissary, or else before good testimony, to their curate or parish priest, to be presented by the same curate or parish priest, to the said bishop or his commissary. And so doing, his highness freely pardoneth and acquitteth them, and every of them, of all penalties, forfeitures, and pains, wherein they have incurred or fallen, by reason of any statute, act, ordinance, or proclamation before this time made, concerning any offence or transgression by them committed or done, by or for the keeping or holding of the said books. Foreseen and provided always, that they from henceforth truly do observe, keep, and obey this his present gracious proclamation and commandment. Also his highness commandeth all mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, constables, burseholders, and other officers and ministers within this his realm, that if they shall happen by any means or ways to know that any person or persons do hereafter buy, receive, have, or detain any of the said erroneous books, printed or written anywhere, or any other books in English tongue printed beyond the sea, or the said erroneous books printed or written in the French or Dutch tongue, contrary to this present proclamation, that they being thereof well assured, do immediately attach the said person or persons, and bring him or them to the King’s highness and his most honourable council, where they shall be corrected and punished for their contempt and disobedience, to the terrible example of other like transgressors. Moreover his highness commandeth, that no manner of person or persons take

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upon him or them to print any book or books in English tongue, concerning holy scripture, not before this time printed within this his realm, until such time as the same book or books be examined, and approved by the ordinary of the diocese where the said books shall be printed: And that the printer thereof, upon every of the said books being so examined, do set the name of the examiner or examiners, with also his own name upon the said books, as he will answer to the King’s highness, at his uttermost peril. And furthermore, forasmuch as it is come to the hearing of our said sovereign lord the King, that report is made by divers and many of his subjects, that it were to all men not only expedient, but also necessary, to have in the English tongue both the New Testament and the Old: and that his highness, his noblemen, and prelates were bound to suffer them so to have it, His highness hath therefore similarly thereupon consulted with the said primates, and virtuous, discreet, and well learned personages in divinity aforesaid, and by them all it is thought that it is not necessary, the said scripture to be in the English tongue, and in the hands of the common people, but that the distribution of the said scripture, and the permitting or denying thereof, dependeth only upon the discretion of the superiors, as they shall think it convenient. And that having respect to the malignity of this present time, with the inclination of people to erroneous opinions, the translation of the New Testament and the Old into the vulgar tongue of English, should rather be the occasion of continuance or increase of errors among the said people, than any benefit or commodity toward the weal of their souls. And that it shall now be more convenient that the same people have the Holy Scripture expounded to them, by preachers in their sermons, according as it hath been of old time accustomed before this time. Albeit if it shall hereafter appear to the King’s highness, that his said people do utterly abandon and forsake all perverse, erroneous, and seditious opinions, with the New Testament and the Old, corruptly translated into the English tongue now being in print: And that the same books and all other books of heresy, as well in the French tongue as in the Dutch tongue, be clearly exterminate and exiled out of this realm of England for ever: his highness intendeth to provide that the Holy Scripture shall be by great learned and catholic persons, translated into the English tongue, if it shall then seem to his grace convenient so to be. Wherefore his highness at this time, by the whole advice and full determination of all the said primates and other discreet and substantial learned personages, of both universities, and other before expressed, and by the assent of his nobles and others of his most honourable Council, willeth and straitly commandeth, that all and every person and persons, of what estate, degree, or condition soever he or they be, which hath the New Testament or the Old translated into English, or any other book of Holy Scripture so translated, being in print, or copied out of the books now being in print, that he or they do immediately bring the same book or books, or cause the same to be brought to the bishop of the diocese, where he dwelleth, or to the hands of other the said persons, at the day afore limited, in form afore expressed and mentioned, as he will avoid the King’s high indignation and displeasure. And that no person or persons from henceforth do buy, receive, keep or have the New Testament or the Old, in the English tongue, or in the French or Dutch

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tongue, except such persons as be appointed by the King’s highness and the bishops of this his realm, for the correction or amending of the said translation, as they will answer to the King’s highness at their uttermost peril, and will avoid such punishment, as they doing contrary to the purport of this proclamation shall suffer, to the dreadful example of all other like offenders. And his highness further commandeth, that all such statutes, acts, and ordinances, as before this time have been made and enacted, as well in the time of his most gracious reign, as also in the time of his noble progenitors, concerning heresies, and having and detaining erroneous books, contrary and against the faith catholic, shall immediately be put in effectual and due execution over and beside this present proclamation.

125. An act for punishment of heresy, 1534. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 14 (Stat. Realm, III, 454)

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n most humble wise lamentably showeth unto your Highness your most humble loving and obedient subjects the commons of this your realm; That where the clergy of the same in the second year of King Henry the Fourth, one of your most noble progenitors, upon their suggestion, did impetrate and obtain by authority of parliament holden in the said second year, that it should be lawful for every ordinary to convent arrest and imprison any person or persons whom they thought defamed or suspect of heresy; and them to keep in their prisons till they were purged thereof, or abjured, or committed to lay power; to be burned after the determination of the holy church and canonical sanctions; as in an act made at the parliament holden in the said second year of King Henry the Fourth amongst other things more at large doth appear; Forasmuch as the said act doth not in any part thereof declare any certain cases of heresy contrary to the determination of holy scripture or the canonical sanctions therein expressed, whereby your most loving and obedient subjects might be learned to eschew the dangers and pains in the said act comprised and to abhor and detest that foul and detestable crime of heresy; and also because those words canonical sanctions and such other like contained in the said act are so general, that unless the most expert and best learned men of this your realm diligently lying in wait upon himself can eschew and avoid the penalty and danger of the same act and canonical sanctions if he should be examined upon such captious interrogataries as is and hath been accustomed to be ministered by the Ordinaries of this realm in cases where they will suspect any person or persons of heresy: and over this forasmuch as it standeth not with the right order of justice nor good equity that any person should be convict and put to the loss of his life, good name, or goods unless it were by due accusation and witness, or by presentment, verdict, confession, or process of outlawry; and also by the laws of your realm for treasons committed to the peril of your most royal majesty, upon whose surety dependeth the whole wealth of this realm, no person can nor may be put to death but by presentment, verdict, confession, or process, of outlawry as is aforesaid; wherefore it is not reasonable that any Ordinary by any suspicion conceived of his own fantasy without due accusation or presentment should put any subject of this realm in the infamy and slander of heresy

[125]

AN ACT FOR PUNISHMENT OF HERESY, 1534

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to the peril of life, loss of name, and goods; and that also there be many heresies and pains and punishments for heresies declared and ordained in and by the said canonical sanctions and by the laws and ordinances made by the Popes or Bishops of Rome and by their authorities, for holding, doing, preaching, or speaking of things contrary to the said canonical sanction, laws and ordinances which be but human being mere repugnant and contrarious to the prerogative of your imperial crown, regal jurisdiction, laws, statutes, and ordinances of this your realm; by reason whereof your people of the same, for observing maintaining defending and due executing of your said laws statutes and prerogative royal by authority of that act made in the said second year of King Henry the Fourth may be brought into slander of heresy to their great infamy and danger and peril of their lives: In consideration whereof it may please your Highness by the assent of your lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in this present parliament assembled and by authority of the same to annul, abrogate, frustrate, and make void the said act made in the second year of King Henry the Fourth and everything therein contained. 2. And nevertheless forasmuch as the most foul and detestable crime of heresy should not hereafter grow and increase but utterly be abhorred detested and eradicated, nor that any heretics should be favoured but that they should have condign and sufficient punishment, and for the repress of heretics and such erroneous opinions in time coming; Be it established ordained and enacted…that the statute made in the fifth year of your noble progenitor King Richard the Second, and the statute made in the second year of King Henry the Fifth concerning punishment and reformation of heretics and lollards and every provision therein contained, not being repugnant to this act, shall be and stand in their force strength and effect. 3. Provided always and be it enacted for speedy presentment to be had of heresies, that such person and persons as have in use or in possession to their own use in fee simple, fee tail, for term of their own lives, or of any other persons’ life, lands and tenements to the clear yearly value of 40.s. shall be enpanelled and have power and authority to enquire and present heresies, and that every presentment made by such persons shall be as good and effectual and be put in execution to all intents in like manner and form as if every the presenters had had lands and tenements to the yearly value of a hundred shillings according to the tenor of the said act of King Henry the Fifth, anything in the said act to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. 6. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that every person and persons being presented or indicted of heresy or duly accused or detected thereof by two lawful witnesses at the least to any Ordinaries of this realm having power to examine heresies, shall and may after every such accusation or presentment and none otherwise nor by any other means be cited, convented, arrested, taken, or apprehended by any the said Ordinaries or any other the king’s ministers and subjects whosoever; and after they shall be so taken and apprehended shall be committed to the Ordinaries to answer in open court and in an open place to their such accusation and presentments: and if they shall happen to be lawfully convict of the heresy whereof they are so accused or presented that then they shall abjure if they will refuse and renounce their said heresies whereof they shall be so

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accused or presented as is aforesaid, and do such reasonable penance for their offences as shall be limited by the discretion of the said Ordinaries; and if they after their lawful conviction refuse to abjure, or after abjuration fall in relapse and be duly accused or presented and convict thereof as is aforesaid, that then in such cases they shall be committed to lay power to be burned in open places for example of other as hath been accustomed; the king’s writ De heretico comburendo first had and obtained for the same. VII. And where the great number of the king’s subjects having little or no learning nor knowledge of letters have been put in opinion that by divers laws, decrees, ordinances, and constitutions heretofore made by the Bishop of Rome called the Pope and his predecessors or by their authorities for the advancement of their worldly glory and ambition, every man that in anything speaketh or doeth against the said pretensed power or authority of the same Bishop of Rome, or any the said laws decrees ordinances and constitutions, standeth in danger and is impeachable of heresy; which effect or matter nor any such laws decrees ordinances or constitutions not approved and confirmed by holy scripture was never commonly accepted or confirmed to be any law of God or man within this realm: Wherefore be it enacted… that no manner of speaking, doing communication, or holding against the said Bishop of Rome, or his pretensed power or authority made or given by human laws or policies and not by holy scripture, nor any speaking doing communication or holding against any laws called spiritual laws made by authority of the See of Rome by the policy of men, which be repugnant or contrariant to the laws and statutes of this realm or the king’s prerogative royal, shall be deemed, reputed, accepted, or taken to be heresy; nor that any subject or resiant of this realm shall be, for any such speaking doing communication or holding, impeached vexed or troubled for any point or matter of the said detestable crime of heresy; any whatsoever canon laws decrees ordinances constitutions or other thing heretofore made or being or hereafter to be made to the contrary thereof notwithstanding.

126. An act for the renewing of three statutes made for the punishment of heresies. St. I and 2 Ph. and M., c. 6, 1554 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 244)

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or the eschewing and avoiding of errors and heresies, which of late have risen, grown, and much increased within this realm, for that the ordinaries have wanted authority to proceed against those that were infected therewith: Be it therefore ordained and enacted…that the statute made in the fifth year of the reign of King Richard the Second, concerning the arresting and apprehension of erroneous and heretical preachers, and one other statute made in the second year of the reign of King Henry the Fourth, concerning the repressing of heresies and punishment of heretics, and also one other statute made in the second year of the reign of King Henry the Fifth, concerning the suppression of heresy and Lollardy, and every article, branch, and sentence contained in the same three several acts,1 and every of them, shall from the 20th day of January next coming be revived, and be in full force, strength, and effect to all intents, constructions, and purposes for ever. 1

St. 5 Rich. II. c. 5; St. 2 Hen. IV. c. 15; St. 2 Hen. V. c. 7.

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127. Examples of heresy trials (i) The trial of the Nun of Kent (J.E.Cox, Works of Cranmer, P.S. II, 272–274) The prophesyings of the Nun of Kent were of more than local interest for two reasons. In the first place her warning that the king would be dethroned a month after his divorce forced the government to take serious action against her. Secondly, Fisher and More came under heavy suspicion beause of the interest they took in this case. A.D.Cheney, “The Holy Maid of Kent”, Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. 2nd. Ser., XVIII (1904), 107–130.

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aster archdeacon, in my right hearty wise I commend me unto you. These be to ascertain you of such news as be here now in fame amongst us in England. And first ye shall understand, that at Canterbury within my diocese, about eight years past, there was wrought a great miracle in a maid by the power of God and our lady, named our lady of Courteupstret; by reason of the which miracle there is stablished a great pilgrimage, and ever since many devout people hath sought to that devout foresaid lady of Courte of Strett. The miracle was this: the maid was taken with a grievous and a continual sickness, and induring her said sickness she had divers and many trances, speaking of many high and godly things; telling also wondrously, by the power of the Holy Ghost as it was thought, things done and said in other places, where as neither she was herself nor yet heard no report thereof. She had also in her trances many strange visions and revelations, as of heaven, hell, and purgatory, and of the state of certain souls departed; and amongst all other visions one was, that she should be conveyed to our lady of Courte of Strett, where she was promised to be healed of her sickness, and that Almighty God should work wonders in her; and when she was brought thither and laid before the image of our lady, her face was wonderfully disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes being in a manner plucked out and laid upon her cheeks, and so greatly disordered. Then was there heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had been in a tun; her lips not greatly moving; she all that while continuing by the space of three hours and more in a trance: the which voice, when it told any thing of the joys of heaven, it spake so sweetly and so heavenly, that every man was ravished with the hearing thereof; and contrary, when it told any thing of hell, it spake so horribly and terribly, that it put the hearers in a great fear. It spake also many things for the confirmation of pilgrimages and trentals, hearing of masses, and confession, and many such other things. And after she had lain there a long time, she came to herself again, and was perfectly whole; and so this miracle was finished and solemnly rung, and a book written of all the whole story thereof, and put into print, which ever since that time hath been commonly sold and gone abroad amongst all people. After this miracle done, she had a commandment from God in a vision, as she said, to profess herself a nun. And so she was professed, and hath so continued, in a nunnery at Canterbury, called St. Sepulchre’s, ever since. And then she chose a monk of Christ’s Church, a doctor in divinity, to be ghostly father, whose counsel she hath used and evermore followed in all her doing: and evermore since from time to time hath had almost every week, or at the furthest every

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fortnight, new visions and revelations; and she hath had oftentimes trances and raptures, by reason whereof, and also of the great perfectness that was thought to be in her, divers and many as well great men of the realm as mean men, and many learned men, but specially divers and many religious men, had great confidence in her, and often resorted unto her and communed with her, to the intent they might by her know the will of God; and chiefly concerning the king’s marriage, the great heresies and schisms within the realm, and the taking away the liberties of the church: for in these three points standeth the great number of her visions, which were so many, that her ghostly father could scantly write them in three or four quires of paper. And surely I think, that she did marvellously stop the going forward of the king’s marriage by the reason of her visions, which she said was of God, persuading them that came unto her how highly God was displeased therewith, and what vengeance Almighty God would take upon all the favourers thereof: insomuch that she wrote letters to the pope, calling upon him in God’s behalf to stop and let the said marriage, and to use his high and heavenly power therein, as he would avoid the great stroke of God, which then hanged ready over his head, if he did the contrary. She had also communication with my lord Cardinal and with my lord of Canterbury, my predecessor, in the matter; and in mine opinion, with her feigned visions and godly threatenings, she stayed them very much in the matter. She had also secret knowledge of divers other things, and then she feigned that she had knowledge thereof from God; insomuch that she conceived letters and sent them forth, making divers people believe that those letters were written in heaven, and sent from thence to earthly creatures. Now about Midsummer last, I, hearing of these matters, sent for this holy maid, to examine her; and from me she was had to master Cromwell, to be further examined there. And now she hath confessed all, and uttered the very truth, which is this: that she never had vision in all her life, but all that ever she said was feigned of her own imagination, only to satisfy the minds of them the which resorted unto her, and to obtain worldly praise: by reason of the which her confession many and divers, both religious men and other, be now in trouble, forasmuch as they consented to her mischievous and feigned visions, which contained much perilous sedition and also treason, and would not utter it, but rather further the same to their power. She said that the king should not continue king a month after that he were married; and within six months after God would strike the realm with such a plague as never was seen, and then the king should be destroyed. She took upon her also to shew the condition and state of souls departed, as of my lord Cardinal, my late lord of Canterbury, with divers other. To shew you the whole story of all the matter, it were too long to write in two or three letters; you shall know further thereof at your coming home. As touching the bishoprics that be void, ye shall understand that doctor Salcott, the abbot of Hydde, is elect bishop of Bangor, doctor Lee, the lawyer, is elect bishop of Chester. There is as yet none elect bishop of Ely: you shall know at your coming home who shall be. The parliament is not holden this term, but is prorogued to the 15th day of January. The queen’s grace was brought to bed about the 13th or 14th day of September of a princess.1 I myself was godfather, the old duchess of Norfolk and my lady marquess

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Dorset were godmothers. The duke of Richmond hath married my lady Mary, the duke of Norfolk’s daughter. From Lambeth, the xx day of December Anno xxv.

(ii) The trial of Anne Askewe, 1546 (Wriothesley, Chronicle, I, 167–170)

The twenty-seventh day of June [1546] Dr. Crome preached at Paul’s Cross, and there recanted upon certain articles that he had set to his hand the 20th. of April last past, and should have recanted at a sermon that he made at Paul’s Cross the ninth day of May, which was the Sunday next after Low Sunday, and did not; whereupon he was examined before the King’s Council, and remained ever since in ward with one of the King’s Council till this day that he recanted and confessed that he had set his hand to the said articles. At which sermon was present Lord Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor of England, Duke of Norfolk, Lord Great Master of the King’s household, with divers other of the King’s Council, with the mayor and aldermen, and a great audience of people, and after his sermon he was discharged. This Doctor Crome, after his committing, while he was in ward at Greenwich, in the court, under my Lord Chancellor, accused divers persons as well of the court as of the city, with other persons in the country, which put many persons to great trouble, and some suffered death after…. The eighteenth day of June, 1546, were arraigned at the Guild Hall, for heresy, Doctor Nicholas Shaxton, sometime bishop of Salisbury; Nicholas White of London, gentleman; Anne Keme, alias Anne Askewe, gentlewoman, and wife of Thomas Keme, gentleman, of Lincolnshire; and John Hadlam, of Essex, tailor; and were this day first indicted of heresy and after arraigned on the same, and there confessed their heresies against the sacrament of the altar, without any trial of a jury, and so had judgment to be burnt. These persons being Justices, Sir Martin Bowes, Knight, lord mayor of London, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Great Master, the Bishop of London, Doctor Heath, Bishop of Worcester, the two Chief Justices of the King’s Bench and Common Peace, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the Master of the Rolls, the Recorder of London, the Bishop of London’s Archdeacon, Chancellor, and Commissary, and after judgment they were had to the prison of Newgate. The morning after, being the nineteenth day of June, Doctor Shaxton and Nicholas White, by the good exhortation and doctrine of the bishops of London and Worcester and divers other doctors, these two persons were converted from their heresy of the sacrament of the altar unto the true belief of the said sacrament; but Anne Askewe, alias Keme, was had to the Tower of London and there set on the rack, where she was sore tormented, but she would not convert for all the pain. The seventh day of July was proclamation made in the city of London with a trumpet and an herald-at-arms, with the serjeant-at-arms of the city and one of the clerks of the Papers, for certain English books which contain pernicious and detestable errors and heresies to be brought in by the last day of August next coming, the names be these: the 1

Princess Elizabeth was born Sunday, 7 September.

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text of the New Testament of Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s translation; the books of Frith, Tyndale, Wycliffe, Joy, Roy, Basiley, Barnes, Coverdale, Turner, and Tracy, which books after the bringing unto the mayor or bishop shall be burnt, as further by the said proclamation doth appear. The twelfth day of July were arraigned at the Guildhall for heresy, John Hemley, priest, de Essex, John Lascelles, gentleman, one of the sewers of the King’s Chamber, and George Blagge, gentleman, a man of fair lands, which said persons that day were first indicted of heresy against the sacrament of the altar, and immediately arraigned on the same, the priest and Lascelles not denying the same their opinions but confessing them guilty; and Mr. Blagge abode the trial of twelve men, for he was sent for to my Lord Chancellor’s but the night before, and this day sent to Newgate not half an hour or he was brought to the hall, nor knew not wherefore he was taken, for he was never examined before he came to his arraignment, where was witness against him Sir Hugh Calveley, knight, and Edward Littleton, gentleman, who accused him for words spoken against the sacrament of the altar in Paul’s Church the Sunday next after Low Sunday, which day Dr. Crome preached at Paul’s Cross, and so was condemned by twelve men, and all three had judgment to be burnt, and after judgment given they were commanded to Newgate; and this night Anne Askewe was brought by water from the Tower to Blackfriars, and from thence carried in a chair to Newgate by the sheriff’s officers. The sixteenth of July was burnt in Smithfield John Lascelles, gent., Anne Keme, alias Askewe, gentlewoman, John Hemley, priest, and John Hadlam, tailor, which four persons were before condemned by the King’s laws of heresy against the sacrament of the altar; and there was present at the execution my lord mayor, my Lord Chancellor of England, the Duke of Norfolk, with the most part of the lords, noblemen, and the King’s Council, with the aldermen of the city of London; and by the King’s commandment Doctor Shaxton, afore condemned as these persons were, preached there in Smithfield, declaring his error that he had been in of the said sacrament, and after his reconciliation had the King’s pardon; but these four persons died in their said erroneous opinions. Master Blagge, White, and Shaxton had their pardons of the King’s Majesty for lands, life, and goods. The first day of August, the day for the election of the sheriffs, and being Sunday Doctor Shaxton preached at Paul’s Cross, and there declared how he fell into the heretical opinion of the sacrament of the altar, and of his reconciliation, which he declared with weeping eyes, exhorting the people to beware by him, and to abolish such heretical books of English, which was the occasion of his fall. And because he preached that day at the Cross the election of the sheriff was put off till afternoon of the same day.

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128. The Marian persecution (Letter from Simon Renard to Philip II, 5 February 1555, C.S.P. Spain, XIII (1554–58), 138) imon Renard to Philip. Sire: The people of this town of London are murmuring about the cruel enforcement of the recent acts of Parliament on heresy which has now begun, as shown publicly when a certain Rogers was burnt yesterday. Some of the onlookers wept, others prayed God to give them strength, perseverance, and patience to bear the pain and not to recant, others gathered the ashes and bones and wrapped them up in paper to preserve them, yet others threatening the bishops. The haste with which the bishops have proceeded in this matter may well cause a revolt. Although it may seem necessary to apply exemplary punishment during your Majesty’s presence here and under your authority, and to do so before winter is over to intimidate others, I do not think it well that your Majesty should allow further executions to take place unless the reasons are overwhelmingly strong and the offences committed have been so scandalous as to render this course justifiable in the eyes of the people. I think your Majesty would be wise to show firmness and to tell the bishops that they are not to proceed to such lengths without having first consulted you and the Queen. Otherwise, I foresee that the people may be indisposed, although hitherto they have proved peaceable enough and well disposed towards your Majesty. If this were to happen, which God forbid, and if the people got the upper hand, not only would the cause of religion be again menaced, but the persons of your Majesty and the Queen might be in peril. Your Majesty will also consider that the Lady Elizabeth has her supporters, and that there are Englishmen who do not love foreigners. The nobility shows an altered countenance. The bishops have their enemies, and so has the Chancellor his. All these people grasp every occasion, especially with the approach of spring. Your Majesty might inform the bishops that there are other means of chastising the obstinate, at this early stage: such as secret executions, banishment and imprisonment. The watchword should be secure, caute et lente festinare. Indeed it is urgent to act in this sense, for I hear that the bishops intend to continue executions, and that other heretics are to be burnt this week, both in London and in the country.

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H. THE CHURCH UNDER EDWARD VI 129. Government Control of Religious Opinions. 1547. (i) An act against such as shall irreverently speak against the sacrament. St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 1, 1547 (Stat. Realm, IV, 2)

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he king’s most excellent majesty, minding the governance and order of his most loving subjects to be in most perfect unity and concord in all things, and in especial in the true faith and religion of God, and wishing the same to be brought to pass with all clemency and mercy on his highness’ part towards them, as his most princely serenity

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and majesty hath already declared by evident proofs, to the intent that his most loving subjects, provoked by clemency and goodness of their prince and king shall study, rather for love than for fear, to do their duties, first to Almighty God, and then to his highness and the commonwealth, nourishing concord and love among themselves; Yet considereth and perceiveth that in a multitude all be not on that sort that reason and the knowledge of their duties can move them from offence, but many which had need have some bridle of fear, and that the same be men most contentious and arrogant for the most part, or else most blind and ignorant; by the means of which sort of men many things well and godly instituted, and to the edification of many, be perverted and abused, and turned to their own and others’ great loss and hindrance, and sometime to extreme destruction, the which doth appear in nothing more or sooner than in matters of religion, and in the great and high mysteries thereof, as in the most comfortable Sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and in Scripture, the supper and table of the Lord, the communion and partaking of the body and blood of Christ; which Sacrament was instituted of no less author than of our Saviour both God and man…the institution of which Sacrament being ordained by Christ…being of eternal infallible and undoubted truth, yet the said Sacrament, all this notwithstanding, hath been of late marvellously abused by such manner of men before rehearsed, who of wickedness, or else of ignorance and want of learning, for certain abuses heretofore committed of some, in misusing thereof, have condemned in their hearts and speech the whole thing, and contemptuously depraved, despised, or reviled the same most holy and blessed Sacrament, and not only disputed and reasoned unreverently and ungodly of that most high mystery, but also, in their sermons, preachings, readings, lectures, communications, arguments, talks, rhymes, songs, plays, or gests name or called it by such vile and unseemly words as Christian ears do abhor to hear rehearsed: for reformation whereof be it enacted…that whatsoever person or persons, from and after the first day of May next coming, shall deprave, despise, or contemn the said most blessed Sacrament in contempt thereof, by any contemptuous words, or by any words of depraving, despising, or reviling, or what person or persons shall advisedly, in any other wise, contemn, despise, or revile the said most blessed Sacrament, contrary to the effect and declaration above said; that then he or they shall suffer imprisonment of his or their bodies and make fine and ransom at the King’s will and pleasure.

(ii) Proclamation concerning the irreverent talkers of the sacrament, 27 December 1547 (Wilkins, Concilia, IV, 18; Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, 1, 410)

Whereas the king’s highness hath of late, with the assent and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in the parliament held the fourth day of November, in the first year of his most gracious reign, made a good and godly act and statute against those who do contemn, despise, or with unseemly and ungodly words deprave and revile the holy sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar; and in the same statute hath most prudently declared, by all the words and terms which scripture speaketh of it, what is undoubtedly to be

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accepted, believed, taken and spoken by and of the said Sacrament: yet this notwithstanding, his majesty is advertised, that some of his subjects, not contented with such words and terms as scripture doth declare thereof, nor with that doctrine which the Holy Ghost by the evangelists and St. Paul hath taught us, do not cease to move contentions and superstitious questions of the said holy sacrament and supper of the Lord, entering rashly into the discussing of the high mystery thereof, and go about in their sermons or talks arrogantly to define the manner, nature, fashion, ways, possibility or impossibility, of those matters; which neither make to edification, nor God hath not by his holy word opened: Which persons,—not contented reverently and with obedient faith to accept that in the said sacrament according to the saying of St. Paul, The bread is the communion, or partaking, of the body of the Lord; the wine, likewise, the partaking of the blood of Christ, by the words instituted and taught of Christ; and that the body and blood of Jesus Christ is there; which is our comfort, thanksgiving, love-token of Christ’s love towards us, and of ours as his members within ourself,—search and strive irreverently, whether the body and blood aforesaid is there really or figuratively, locally or circumscriptly, and having quantity and greatness, or but substantially and by substance only, or else but in a figure and manner of speaking; whether his blessed body be there, head, legs, arms, toes and nails, or any other ways, shape, and manner, naked or clothed; whether He is broken or chewed, or He is always whole; whether the bread there remaineth, as we see, or how it departeth; whether the flesh be there alone, and the blood, or part, or each in other, or in the one both, in the other but only blood; and what blood, that only which did flow out of the side, or that which remained: with other such irreverent, superfluous, and curious questions, which, how and what, and by what means, and in what form may bring into them, which of human and corrupt curiosity hath desire to search out such mysteries as lieth hid in the infinite and bottomless depth of the wisdom and glory of God, and to the which our human imbecility cannot attain; and therefore ofttimes turneth the same to their own and others’ destruction, by contention and arrogant rashness; which simple and Christian affection reverently receiving, and obediently believing, without further search, taketh and useth to most great comfort and profit: For reformation whereof, and to the intent that further contention, tumult, and question, might not rise among the king’s subjects, the king’s highness, by the advice of the lord protector, and other his majesty’s council, straitly willeth and commandeth, that no manner person from henceforth do in any wise contentiously and openly argue, dispute, reason, preach or teach, affirming any more terms of the said blessed sacrament, than be expressly taught in the holy scripture, and mentioned in the foresaid act; nor deny none, which be therein contained and mentioned; until such time as the king’s majesty, by the advice of his highness’ council and the clergy of this realm, shall define, declare, and set forth an open doctrine thereof; and what terms and words may justly be spoken thereby, other than be expressly in the scripture contained in the act before rehearsed. In the meanwhile the king’s highness’ pleasure is, by the advice aforesaid, that every his loving subjects shall devoutly and reverently affirm and take that holy bread to be

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Christ’s body, and that cup to be the cup of his holy blood, according to the purport and effect of the holy scripture, contained in the act before expressed, and accommodate themselves rather to take the same sacrament worthily, than rashly to enter into the discussing of the high mystery thereof. Yet the king’s highness mindeth not hereby to let or stop the ignorant and willing to learn, quietly reverently and privately to demand of those, whom he thinketh knoweth more, the further instruction and teaching in the said blessed sacrament; so that the same be not done with contention, nor in open audience, with a company gathered together about them, nor with tumult; nor doth prohibit any man hereby likewise so quietly, devoutly, and reverently to teach or instruct the weak and unlearned, according to the more talent and learning given to him of God; but only, that all contention, strife and tumult, and irreverence might be avoided, and in open audience and preaching nothing taught, but which may have the holy scripture for warrant. Upon pain that whosoever shall openly, with contention or tumult, and in a company gathered together, either in churches, alehouses, markets, or elsewhere, contrary to the form and effect of this proclamation, defend and maintain, or irreverently and contentiously demand of any man, any of the questions before rehearsed, either on the one part or of the other, or any other such like, or do otherwise revile, contemn, or despise the said sacrament, by calling it an idol, or other such vile name, shall incur the king’s high indignation, and suffer imprisonment; or to be otherwise grievously punished at his majesty’s will and pleasure. Giving further in authority to all justices of peace within the shires where they dwell, to apprehend and take all such as contentiously and tumultuously, with companies or routs assembled about them, do dispute, argue, or reason, or stiffly maintain, or openly preach and define the questions before rehearsed, or any of them, or such like, either on the one part or the other; and to commit the same to prison, until such time as the king’s majesty’s pleasure herein be known; and that they immediately do certify the name or names of the party so offending, and of them who were there at the same time present, making the rout or assembly, to the king’s highness’ council: willing and commanding the said justices, with all diligence, to execute the premises, according to the purport, effect, and true meaning of the same, and their most bounden duties, as they tender his highness’ will and pleasure, and will answer to the contrary upon their peril.

(iii) Cranmer to John à Lasco, 4 July 1548 (Cox, Works of Cranmer, II, 420)

I am sorry that your visit to us has been prevented by the unexpected intervention of some other business; for I am certain I should easily have satisfied you about your invitation had I an opportunity to talk with you on the subject. But as you cannot come at present, but write saying you intend to come at some future date, if in the meantime you get a letter from me explaining the reason for your invitation from us, I will put it on paper, and briefly explain in a letter what I should perhaps have stated at greater length to you in person. We are anxious to set forth in our churches the true doctrine of

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God, and have no desire to be shifting and unstable, or to deal in ambiguities: but, putting on one side all carnal considerations, to transmit to posterity a true and explicit form of doctrine based on the rule of the sacred scriptures, so that there may not only be set forth among all nations an illustrious testimony of our doctrine, delivered by the weighty authority of learned and godly men, but also that all posterity may have a rule which it may follow. To carry out this great work we have thought it necessary to have the assistance of learned men, who after exchanging opinions with us, may do away with doctrinal controversies, and build up a complete system of true doctrine. We have, therefore, invited both yourself and some other scholars, and as they have come over to us quite willingly, so that we scarcely have to regret the absence of any of them, save yourself and Melanchthon we earnestly beg for you both to come yourself and bring Melanchthon with you if you possibly can. I am now sending a third letter to Melanchthon begging him to come to us: and if your exhortations are added to my letter I am sure he will be persuaded to accept an invitation repeated so many times. He need not, in my opinion, be afraid of any hostile attacks or dangers of the journey, which, if they exist at all, are less than those where he is at present. Add, too, that by undergoing a little inconvenience for a short time he will procure ease for himself for many years, and for the state everlasting benefit. For if I anticipated that his visit to us would be either useless or disagreeable, no one, indeed, would dissuade him from it more earnestly than I. But now, when I perceive that he can in no wise act more advantageously either for himself or for the state than by coming to me at this time, I am the more insistent on it, and beg you to exert all your diligence and influence to this end, namely, to make our friend, Philip, truly ours. A little while ago I explained to you what the situation of both of you would be, but I so explained it as wishing that you should learn to be pleased with England from your own experience rather than from my recommendation of it. Fare well and happily. Exceedingly desirous of your presence T.Cantuar.

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130. The Order of the Communion St. I Edward VI, c. 1 enacted that the sacrament should be administered under both kinds. The directions for this were issued on 8 March 1548 in The Order of the Communion. This instrument is an important landmark in the development of the policy of the reformers, for it marks the first occasion when English was used in the administration of the sacrament. But there were implications which were a more ominous threat to the doctrines of the Roman Church, giving a quite clear indication of the direction in which the government was intending to move. In the first place, a new rite was hereby introduced which was a challenge to the Roman doctrine that Holy Communion under one kind is sufficient for the sacrament, and secondly, this rite cut across the Roman doctrine that what is in the sacrament under the appearance of bread and wine and what is received under those appearances is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ there really and substantially present. The order was essentially the work of Cranmer who took for his model a rite lately devised by the Archbishop of Cologne who had become a Lutheran. The best text is H.A.Wilson, The Order of the Communion, 1548 (Henry Bradshaw Soc., 1908), which is a facsimile of the copy in the British Museum. For a discussion see the Introduction: and also C.W.Dugmore, The Mass and the English Reformers, 124; F.E.Brightman, The English Rite, LXXI; Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer, c. 6; G.Constant, Reformation in England, II, 57–64; P.Hughes, Reformation in England, II, 101.

THE PROCLAMATION

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dward by the grace of God king of England France and Ireland, defender of the faith, and of the church of England and Ireland in earth supreme head: to all and singular our loving subjects, Greeting: for so much as in our high Court of Parliament lately holden at Westminster it was by us with the consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons there assembled most godly and agreeable to Christ’s holy institution enacted, that the most blessed sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ should from thenceforth be commonly delivered and ministered unto all persons with in our realm of England and Ireland, and other our dominions under both kinds, that is to say, of bread and wine, (except necessity otherwise require) least every man phantasing and devising a sundry way by himself in the use of this most blessed Sacrament of unity, there might thereby arise any unseemly and ungodly diversity: Our pleasure is by the advice of our most dear uncle the Duke of Somerset, governor of our person, and Protector of all our Realms, dominions and subjects and other of our privy council, that the said Blessed Sacrament be ministered unto our people only after such form and manner as hereafter, by our authority, with the advice before mentioned is set forth and declared: willing every man with due reverence and Christian behaviour to come to this holy Sacrament and most blessed Communion, lest that by the unworthy receiving of so high mysteries, they become guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and so eat and drink their own damnation: but rather diligently trying themselves that they may so come to this holy table of Christ, and so be partakers of this holy Communion, that they may dwell in Christ, and have Christ dwelling in them: And also with such obedience and conformity to receive this our ordinance, and most godly direction, that we may be encouraged from time to time, further to travail for the reformation and setting forth of such godly orders as may be most to God’s glory, the edifying of our subjects, and for the advancement of true religion. Which thing, we (by the help of God) most earnestly

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intend to bring to effect: willing all our loving subjects in the meantime, to stay and quiet themselves with this our direction, as men content to follow authority (according to the bounden duty of subjects, and not enterprising to run afore and so by their rashness become the great hinderers of such things, as they more arrogantly than godly, would seem (by their own private authority) most hotly to set forward. We would not have our subjects so much to mistake our judgment, so much to mistrust our zeal, as though we either could not discern what were to be done, or would not do all things in due time: God be praised, we know both what by his word is meet to be redressed, and have an earnest mind by the advice of our most dear uncle, and other of our privy Council, with all diligence and convenient speed so to set forth the same, as it may most stand with God’s glory and edifying and quietness of our people: which we doubt not but all our obedient and loving subjects will quietly and reverently tarry for. God save the King. The Order of the Communion. First the parson, Vicar or curate, the next Sunday or holiday, or at the least, one day before he shall minister the Communion, shall give warning to his parishioners, or those which be present, that they prepare themselves thereto, saying to them openly and plainly as hereafter followeth, or such like. Dear friends, and you especially, upon whose souls I have cure and charge, upon (blank) day next I do intend by God’s grace to offer to all such as shall thereto godly disposed, the most comfortable sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to be taken of them in the remembrance of his most fruitful and glorious passion: By the which passion, we have obtained remission of our sins, and be made partakers of the kingdom of heaven, whereof we be assured and ascertained if we come to the said sacrament, with hearty repentance of our offences, steadfast faith in God’s mercy, and earnest mind to obey God’s Will, and to offend no more: wherefore our duty is, to come to these holy mysteries with most hearty thanks to be given to Almighty God, for his infinite mercy and benefits, given and bestowed upon us, his unworthy servants, for whom he hath not only given his body to death and shed his blood, but also doth vouchsafe in a sacrament and mystery, to give us his said body and blood spiritually, to feed and drink upon. The which Sacrament, being so divine and holy a thing, and so comfortable to them which receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them that will presume to take the same unworthily, my duty is to exhort you, in the mean season, to consider the greatness of the thing, and to search and examine your own consciences, and that not lightly, nor after the manner of dissimulers with God: but as they which should come to a most godly and heavenly banquet not to come, but in the marriage garment required of God in Scripture, that you may so much as lieth in you, be found worthy to come to such a table: The ways and means thereto is: First that you be truly repentant of your former evil life, and that you confess with an unfeigned heart to Almighty God your sins and unkindness towards His majesty committed either by will, word, or deed, infirmity or ignorance, and that with inward sorrow and tears, you bewail your offences, and require of Almighty God, mercy, and

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pardon, promising to Him, from the bottom of your hearts, the amendment of your former life, And amongst all others, I am commanded of God, especially to move and exhort you, to reconcile yourselves to your neighbours whom you have offended, or who have offended you, putting out of your hearts, all hatred and malice against them, and to be in love and charity with all the world and to forgive other, as you would that God should forgive you. And if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled and grieved in any thing, lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to me or to some other discreet and learned priest taught in the law of God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort that his conscience may be relieved, and that of us as a minister of God and of the Church, he may receive comfort and absolution, to the satisfaction of his mind and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness: requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession, not to be offended with them that doth use, to their further satisfying the auricular and secret confession to the priest, nor those also which think needful or convenient for the quietness of their own consciences, particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended, with them which are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church: but in all these things to follow and keep the rule of charity: and every man to be satisfied with his own conscience, not judging other men’s minds or acts, whereas he hath a warrant of God’s word for the same. The time of the Communion shall be immediately after that the priest himself hath received the Sacrament, without the varying of any other rite or ceremony in the Mass (until other order shall be provided) but as heretofore usually the priest hath done with the Sacrament of the body, to prepare, bless and consecrate so much as will serve the people: so it shall continue still after the same manner and form, save that he shall bless and consecrate the biggest chalice or some fair and convenient cup or cups full of wine, with some water put unto it. And that day, not drink it up all himself, but taking one only sup or draught, leave the rest upon the Altar covered, and turn to them that are disposed to be partakers of the Communion, and shall thus exhort them as followeth. Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye coming to this holy communion, must consider what Saint Paul writeth to the Corinthians, how he exhorted all persons diligently to try and examine themselves or ever they presume to eat of this bread or drink of this Cup, for as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart, and lively faith we receive this holy Sacrament (for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood: then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us, we be made one with Christ and Christ with us) so is the danger great, if we receive the same, unworthily, for then we become guilty of the body and blood of Christ our saviour, we eat and drink our own damnation (because we make no difference of the Lord’s body) we kindle God’s wrath over us, we provoke him to plague us with diverse diseases and sundry kinds of death, judge therefore yourselves, (brethren) that ye be not judged of the Lord: let your mind be without desire of sin: repent you truly for your sins past, have an earnest and lively faith in Christ, our saviour: be in perfect charity with all men, so shall ye be meet partakers of these holy mysteries: But above all things you must give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the world, by the death and passion

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of our saviour Christ, both God and man, who did humble Himself even to the death upon the cross for us miserable sinners, lying in darkness and the shadow of death, that he might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life. And to the end that we should always remember the exceeding love of our Master and only saviour Jesus Christ thus doing for us, and the innumerable benefits which by his precious bloodshedding he hath obtained to us, he hath left in these holy mysteries as a pledge of his love, and a continual remembrance of the same, his own blessed body and precious blood, for us spiritually to feed upon, to our endless comfort and consolation. To him therefore with the Father and the Holy Ghost, let us give, as we are most bounden, continual thanks, submitting ourselves wholly to His holy will and pleasure, and studying to serve Him in true holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. Amen. Then the priest shall say to them which be ready to take the Sacrament: If any man here be an open blasphemer, an adulterer, in malice or envy or any other notable crime, and be not truly sorry there for and earnestly minded to leave the same vices, or that doth not trust himself to be reconciled to Almighty God, and in charity with all the world, let him yet a while bewail his sins and not come to this holy table, lest after the taking of this most blessed bread, the devil enter into him as he did into Judas, to fulfil in him all iniquity, and to bring him to destruction, both of body and soul. Here the priest shall pause awhile, to see if any man will withdraw himself: and if he perceive any so to do, then let him common with him privately at convenient leisure and see whether he can with good exhortation, bring him to grace: and after a little pause the priest shall say: You that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins and offences committed to Almighty God, and be in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, and heartily to follow the commandments of God, and to walk from henceforth in His holy ways, draw near, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort, make your humble confession to Almighty God and to this holy Church, here gathered together, in His name, meekly kneeling upon your knees. Then shall a general confession be made in the name of all those that are minded to receive the holy Communion, either by one of them, or else by one of the ministers, or by the priest himself, all kneeling humbly upon their knees. Almighty God, father of our lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men, we knowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed by thought, word, and deed against thy divine Majesty, provoking most justly, thy wrath and indignation against us: we do earnestly repent, and be heartily sorry, for these our misdoings: the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable, have mercy upon us, most merciful father, for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake: forgive us all that is past, and grant that we may ever hereafter, serve and please thee, in newness of life, to the honour and glory of thy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then shall the priest, stand up and turning him to the people, say thus. Our Blessed Lord, who hath left power to his Church, to absolve penitent sinners from their sins, and to restore to the grace of the heavenly father such as truly believe in

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Christ, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life. Then shall the priest stand up, and turning him toward the people, say thus: Hear what comfortable words our saviour Christ saith to all that truly turn to Him. Come unto Me all that travail and be heavy laden, and I shall refresh you. So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him, should not perish, but have life everlasting. Hear also what S.Paul saith. This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced and received, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. Hear also what S.John saith. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, he it is that obtained grace for our sins. Then shall the priest kneel down and say in the name of all them that shall receive the Communion, this prayer following. We do not presume to come to this table (O merciful Lord) trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies: we be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table: But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always, to have mercy: Graunt us therefore gracious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood in these holy mysteries, that we may continually dwell in him, and He in us, that out sinful bodies, may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood. Amen. Then shall the priest rise, the people still reverently kneeling, and the priest shall deliver the Communion, first to the ministers, if any be there present, that they may be ready to help the priest and after to the other. And when he doth deliver the Sacrament of the body of Christ, he shall say to every one, these words following. The Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for Thee, preserve thy body unto everlasting life. And the priest delivering the Sacrament of the blood, and giving every one to drink once and no more, shall say: The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy soul unto everlasting life. If there be a deacon or other priest, then shall he follow with the Chalice, and as the priest ministreth the bread, so shall he for more expedition minister the wine, in form before written. Then shall the priest, turning him to the people let the people depart with this blessing: The peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. To the which the people shall answer. Amen. Note, that the bread that shall be consecrated shall be such as heretofore hath been accustomed. And every of the said consecrated breads shall be broken in two pieces, at

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the least, or more by the discretion of the minister, and so distributed. And men must not think less to be received in part, than in the whole, but in each of them the whole body of our saviour Jesu Christ. Note, that if it doth so chance, that the wine hallowed and consecrated doth not suffice or be enough for them that do take the Communion, the priest after the first cup or chalice be emptied, may go again to the altar, and reverently, and devoutly, prepare, and consecrate another, and so the third, or more likewise, beginning at these words, Simili modo, postquam cenatum est, and ending at these words, qui pro nobis & pro multis effundetur in remissionem pecatorum, and without any levation or lifting up. Imprinted at London, the 8th day of March, in the second year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Edward the VI: By Richard Grafton printer to his most royal Majesty. In the year of Our Lord 1548.

131. The first Act of Uniformity. St. 2/3 Edw. VI, c. 1, 1548 (Stat. Realm, IV, 37)

I. Where of long time there hath been had in this realm of England and Wales divers forms of common prayer commonly called the service of the Church, that is to say, the Use of Sarum, of York, of Bangor, and of Lincoln; and besides the same now of late much more diverse and sundry forms and fashions have been used in the cathedral and parish churches of England and Wales, as well concerning the Matins or morning prayer and the Evensong, as also concerning the Holy Communion commonly called the Mass, with divers and sundry rites and ceremonies concerning the same, and in the administration of other sacraments of the Church; and as the doers and executors of the said rites and ceremonies in other form than of late years they have been used were pleased therewith, so other not using the same rites and ceremonies were thereby greatly offended; And albeit the King’s Majesty, with the advice of his most entirely beloved uncle, the Lord Protector, and other of his Highness’ Council hath heretofore divers times assayed to stay innovations or new rites concerning the premises, yet the same hath not had such good success as his Highness required in that behalf; whereupon his Highness by the most prudent advice aforesaid, being pleased to bear with the frailty and weakness of his subjects in that behalf, of his great clemency hath not been only content to abstain from punishment of those who have offended in that behalf, for that his Highness taketh that they did it for a good zeal, but also to the intent a uniform, quiet and godly order should be had concerning the premises, hath appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury, and certain of the most learned and discreet bishops, and other learned men of this realm, to consider and ponder the premises, and thereupon having as well eye and respect to the most sincere and pure Christian religion taught by the Scripture as to the usages in the primitive Church, should draw and make one convenient and meet order, rite, and fashion of common and open prayer and administration of the sacraments, to be had and used in his Majesty’s realm of England and in Wales; the which at this time, by the aid of the Holy Ghost, with one uniform agreement is of them concluded, set forth, and delivered to his Highness, to his great

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comfort and quietness of mind, in a book entitled The Book of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, after the Use of the Church of England. Wherefore the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, considering as well the most godly travail of the King’s Highness, of the Lord Protector, and of other his Highness’ Council, in gathering and collecting the said archbishop, bishops, and learned men together, as the godly prayers, orders, rites, and ceremonies in the said book mentioned, and the considerations of altering those things which be altered and retaining those things which be retained in the said book, but also the honour of God and great quietness which by the grace of God shall ensue upon the one and uniform rite and order in such common prayer and rites and external ceremonies to be used throughout England and in Wales, at Calais and the Marches of the same, do give to his Highness most hearty and lowly thanks for the same; and humbly pray that it may be ordained and enacted…that all and singular person and persons that have offended concerning the premises, other than such person and persons as now be and remain in ward in the Tower of London or in the Fleet, may be pardoned thereof: and that all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church, or other place within this realm of England, Wales, Calais, and Marches of the same, or other the King’s dominions, shall from and after the feast of Pentecost next coming, be bound to say and use the Matins, Evensong, Celebration of the Lord’s Supper commonly called the Mass, and administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book and none other or otherwise. II. And albeit that the same be so godly and good that they give occasion to every honest and conformable man most willing to embrace them, yet lest any obstinate person who willingly would disturb so godly order and quiet in this realm should not go unpunished, that it may also be ordained and enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any manner of parson, vicar, or other whatsoever minister that ought or should sing or say common prayer mentioned in the said book or minister the sacraments, shall after the said feast of Pentecost next coming refuse to use the said common prayers or to minister the sacraments in such cathedral or parish church or other places as he should use or minister the same, in such order and form as they be mentioned and set forth in the said book, or shall use, wilfully and obstinately standing in the same, any other rite, ceremony, order, form, or manner of Mass, openly or privily, or Matins, Evensong, Administration of the Sacraments, or other open prayer than is mentioned and set forth in the said book; open prayer in and throughout this act is meant that prayer which is for other to come unto or hear, either in common churches or private chapels or oratories, commonly called the Service of the Church; or shall preach, declare, or speak anything in the derogation or depraving of the said book, or anything therein contained, or of any part thereof, and shall be thereof lawfully convicted according to the laws of this realm, by verdict of twelve men, or by his own confession, or by the notorious evidence of the fact, shall lose and forfeit to the King’s Highness, his heirs and successors, for his first offence the profit of such one of his spiritual benefices or promotions as it shall please the King’s Highness to assign or appoint, coming and

[132]

AN ACT ENJOINING ABSTINENCE

851

arising in one whole year next after his conviction: and also that the same person so convicted shall for the same offence suffer imprisonment by the space of six months, without bail or mainprise; and if any such person once convict of any offence concerning the premises shall after his first conviction eftsoons offend and be thereof in form aforesaid lawfully convict, that then the same person shall for his second offence suffer imprisonment by the space of one whole year, and also shall suffer therefor be deprived ipso facto of all his spiritual promotions; and that it shall be lawful to all patrons, donors, and grantees of all and singular the same spiritual promotions to present to the same any other able clerk in like manner and form as though the party so offending were dead. And that if any such person or persons, after he shall be twice convicted in form aforesaid, shall offend against any of the premises the third time and shall be thereof in form aforesaid lawfully convicted, that then the person so offending and convicted the third time shall suffer imprisonment during his life. And if the person that shall offend or be convict in form aforesaid concerning any of the premises shall not be beneficed nor have any spiritual promotion, that then the same person so offending and convict shall for the first offence suffer imprisonment during six months without bail or mainprise; and if any such person not having any spiritual promotion after his first conviction shall eftsoons offend in anything concerning the premises and shall in form aforesaid be thereof lawfully convicted, that then the same person shall for his second offence suffer imprisonment during his life. III. And it is ordained and enacted…that if any person or persons whatsoever, after the said Feast of Pentecost next coming, shall in any interludes, plays, songs, rhymes, or by other open words, declare or speak anything in the derogation, depraving, or despising of the same book or of anything therein contained, or any part thereof, or shall by open fact, deed, or by open threatenings compel or cause or otherwise procure or maintain any parson, vicar, or other minister, in any cathedral or parish church or in any chapel or other place, to sing or say common and open prayer or to minister any sacrament otherwise or in any other manner or form than is mentioned in the said book, or that by any of the said means shall unlawfully interrupt or let any parson, vicar, or other ministers in any cathedral or parish church, chapel, or any other place to sing or say common and open prayer or to minister the sacraments or any of them in any such manner and form as is mentioned in the said book. That then every person being thereof lawfully convicted in form abovesaid shall forfeit to the King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, for the first offence ten pounds: [penalty for a second offence, to forfeit twenty pounds: for the third offence forfeiture of all goods and chattels and life imprisonment].

132. An act enjoining abstinence. St. 2/3 Edw. VI, c. 19, 1548 (Stat. Realm, IV, 65)

A

lbeit the king’s subjects now having a more perfect and clear light of the gospel and true word of God, through the infinite clemency and mercy of Almighty God by the hands of the king’s majesty and his most noble father of famous memory

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RELIGION

[132]

promulgate shewed declared and opened, and thereby perceiving that one day or one kind of meat of itself is not more holy more pure or more clean than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity cleanness and holiness, and that all men should by them live to the glory of God and at all times and for all meats give thanks unto Him, of which meats none can defile christian men or make them unclean at any time, to whom all meats be lawful and pure, so that they be not used in disobedience or vice; Yet forasmuch as divers of the king’s subjects turning their knowledge therein to satisfy their sensuality where they should thereby increase in virtue, have of late time more than in times past, broken and contempned such abstinence which hath been used in this realm upon the Fridays and Saturdays, the Embering days and other days commonly called Vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent, and other accustomed times: The king’s majesty considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue and to subdue men’s bodies to their soul and spirit, and considering also specially that fishers and men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the rather be set on work, and that by eating offish, much flesh shall be saved and increased, and also for divers other considerations and commodities of this realm doth ordain and enact…that all manner of statutes laws constitutions and usages concerning any manner of fasting or abstinence from any kind of meat heretofore in this realm made or used, shall from the first day of May next ensuing, lose their force and strength and be void and of none effect. And also that no person or persons of what estate degree or condition he or she be shall at any time after the said first day of May in the year of our Lord God a thousand five hundred forty and nine, willingly and wittingly eat any manner of flesh after what manner of kind or sort it shall be ordered dressed or used, upon any Friday or Saturday, or the Embering days, or in any day in the time commonly called Lent, nor at any such other day as is or shall be at any time hereafter commonly accepted and reputed as a fish day within this realm of England, wherein it hath been commonly used for to eat fish and not flesh; upon pain that every person eating any manner of flesh upon any of the said days or times prohibited by this act, to forfeit for the same first offence ten shillings of lawful money of England, and also to suffer imprisonment by the space often days, and during the time of his or her said imprisonment, to abstain from eating any manner of flesh: and if any person after he shall be lawfully convict of any offence contrary to this act do eftsoons offend contrary to this act, and be thereof lawfully convict, that then every person so offending the second time, shall for his second offence forfeit twenty shillings of lawful money of England, and also suffer imprisonment by the space of twenty days and during the time of his or her said imprisonment to abstain from eating any manner of flesh; and so like pain and imprisonment as often as he or she afterward shall offend.

[133]

ABOLISHING AND PUTTING AWAY BOOKS AND IMAGES

853

133. An act for the abolishing and putting away of divers books and images. St. 3/4 Edw. VI, c. 10, 1550 (Stat. Realm, IV, 110)

W

here the king’s most excellent majesty hath of late set forth and established by authority of parliament an uniform, quiet, and godly order for common and open prayer, in a book entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church after the Church of England, to be used and observed in the said Church of England, agreeable to the order of the primitive Church, much more conformable unto his loving subjects than other diversity of service as heretofore of long time hath been used, being in the said book ordained nothing to be read but the very pure word of God, or which is evidently grounded upon the same, and in the other things corrupt, untrue, vain, and superstitious, and as it were a preparation to superstition, which for that they be not called in but permitted to remain undefaced, do not only give occasion to such perverse persons as do impugn the order and godly meaning of the king’s said Book of Common Prayer to continue in their old accustomed superstitious service, but also minister great occasion to diversity of opinions, rites, ceremonies, and services: Be it therefore enacted…that all books called antiphoners, missals, scrails, processionals, manuals, legends, pies, portuises, primers in Latin or English, couchers, journals, ordinals, or other books or writings whatsoever heretofore used for service of the church, written or printed in the English or Latin tongue, other than such as are or shall be set forth by the king’s majesty, shall be by authority of this present act clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden for ever to be used or kept in this realm or elsewhere within any the king’s dominions. II. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons of what estate, degree, or condition soever he, she, or they be, body politic or corporate, that now have or hereafter shall have in his, her, or their custody any the books or writings of the sort aforesaid, or any images of stone, timber, alabaster, or earth, graven, carved, or painted, which heretofore have been taken out of any church or chapel, or yet stand in any church or chapel, and do not before the last day of June next ensuing deface and destroy or cause to be defaced and destroyed the same images and every of them, and deliver or cause to be delivered all and every the same books to the mayor, bailiff, constable, or churchwardens of the town where such books shall then be, to be by them delivered over openly within three months next following after the said delivery to the archbishop, bishop, chancellor, or commissary of the same diocese, to the intent the said archbishop, bishop, chancellor, or commissary and every of them cause them immediately either to be openly burnt or otherways defaced and destroyed, shall for every such book or books willingly retained in his, her, or their hands or custody within this realm or elsewhere within any the king’s dominions, and not delivered as is aforesaid after the said last day of June, and be thereof lawfully convict, forfeit and lose to the king our sovereign lord for the first offence twenty shillings, and for the second offence shall forfeit and lose being thereof lawfully convict four pounds, and for the third offence shall suffer imprisonment at the king’s will.

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RELIGION

[135]

134. An act that the king may nominate thirty-two persons to peruse and make ecclesiastical laws, 1550. 3/4 Edw. VI, c. II (Stat. Realm, IV, 111)

A

lbeit the king’s most excellent majesty, governor and ruler under God of this realm ought most justly to have the government of his subjects and the determination of their causes, as well ecclesiastical as temporal, yet the same, as concerning ecclesiastical causes, having not of long time been put in ure nor exercised, by reason of the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome, be not perfectly understood nor known of his subjects, and therefore of necessity, as well for the abolishing and putting to utter oblivion the said usurped authority, as for the necessary administration of justice to his loving subjects, It may please his Highness that it may be enacted…that the king’s majesty shall from henceforth during three years have full power authority and liberty to nominate and assign by the advice of his highness’ council, sixteen persons of the clergy, whereof four to be bishops, and sixteen persons of the temporally, whereof four to be learned in the common laws of this realm, to peruse and examine the ecclesiastical laws of long time here used, and to gather, order and compile such laws ecclesiastical as shall be thought by his majesty his said council and them or the more part of them convenient to be used practised and set forth within this his realm and other his dominions, in all spiritual or ecclesiastical courts and conventions; and if after such nomination any of the persons so to be nominated, happen to die, that then his highness by the advice of his said council during the said three years, shall have full power and authority from time to time to nominate and assign other in their places to supply the said number of xxxii persons, and that the said xxxii persons so nominate as is aforesaid, at all times from time to time during the said three years, shall have full power and authority to assemble themselves by his highness’ commandment for the perfect collection, compiling and ordering of the said laws. II And be it also enacted…that such laws ecclesiastical so compiled gathered and ordered…and set forth, published and declared by the king’s majesty’s proclamation…shall by virtue of this present act be only taken, reputed, practised and put in ure for the king’s ecclesiastical laws of this realm and no other; any law, statute, usage or prescription to the contrary thereof notwithstanding.

135. An Act for the ordering of ecclesiastical ministers. St. 3/4 Edw. VI, c. 12, 1550 (Stat. Realm, IV, 112) This Statute initiated another important move in the direction of reform for it authorized a change in the rite by which deacons, priests, and bishops were made. The prelates and others appointed to draw up the new form were given two months in which to do the work: they completed it within a week. The effect of their changes was the production of a new rite which omitted all words and ceremonies of the old rite which enforced the catholic doctrine that the function of the priest in the Eucharist is to offer to God a real sacrifice. Two years later the ordinal was revised and incorporated into the Prayer Book of 1552, by the Act of Uniformity. W.Raynal, The Ordinal of King Edward VI: Its History, Theology, and Liturgy.

F

orasmuch as concord and unity to be had within the king’s majesty’s dominions, it is requisite to have one uniform fashion and manner for making and consecrating

[136]

SECOND ACT OF UNIFORMITY, 1552

855

of bishops, priests, deacons, or ministers of the Church: Be it therefore enacted… that such form and manner of making and consecrating of archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons, and other ministers of the Church as by six prelates and six other men of this realm learned in God’s law, by the king’s majesty to be appointed and assigned, or by the most number of them shall be devised for that purpose, and set forth under the Great Seal of England before the first day of April next coming, shall by virtue of this present act be lawfully exercised and used, and none other; any statute law or usage to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

136. Second Act of Uniformity, 1552. St. 5/6 Edw. VI, c. i (Stat. Realm, IV, 130)

W

here there hath been a very godly order set forth by authority of Parliament for common prayer and the administration of the sacraments, to be used in the mother tongue within the Church of England, agreeable to the word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation, and most profitable to the estate of this realm, upon the which the mercy, favour, and blessing of Almighty God is in no wise so readily and plenteously poured as by common prayers, due using of the sacraments, and often preaching of gospel, with the devotion of the hearers; and yet this notwithstanding, a great number of people in divers parts of this realm, following their own sensuality and living either without knowledge or due fear of God, do wilfully and damnably before Almighty God abstain and refuse to come to their parish churches and other places where common prayer, administration of the sacraments and preaching of the word of God is used, upon the Sundays and other days ordained to be holy days: for reformation hereof be it enacted…that from and after the feast of All Saints next coming, all and every person and persons inhabiting within this realm or any other the King’s Majesty’s dominions, shall diligently and faithfully, having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, endeavour themselves to resort to their parish church or chapel accustomed, or upon reasonable let thereof to some usual place where common prayer and such service of God shall be used in such time of let, upon every Sunday and other days ordained and used to be kept as holy days, and then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of the common prayer, preachings, or other service of God there to be used and ministered; upon pain of punishment by the censures of the Church. II. And for the due execution hereof the King’s most excellent Majesty, the Lords temporal, and all the Commons in this present assembled, doth in God’s name earnestly require and charge all the archbishops, bishops, and other ordinaries, that they shall endeavour themselves to the uttermost of their knowledgethat the due and true execution hereof may be had throughout their dioceses and charges as they will answer before God for such evils and plagues wherewith Almighty God may justly punish his people for neglecting thisgood and wholesome law. III. And for their authority in this behalf, be it further likewise enacted…that all and singular the same archbishops, bishops, and all other their officers exercising ecclesiastical

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jurisdiction, as well in place exempt as not exempt within their diocese, shall have full power and authority by this act to reform, correct, and punish by censures of the Church all and singular persons which shall offend within any their jurisdictions or dioceses after the said feast of All Saints next coming against this act and statute; any other law, statute, privilege, liberty, or provision heretofore made, had, or suffered to the contrary notwithstanding. IV. And because there hath arisen in the use and exercise of the foresaid common service in the Church heretofore set forth divers doubts for the fashion and manner of the ministration of the same, rather by the curiosity of the minister and mistakers than of any other worthy cause; therefore as well for the more plain and manifest explanation hereof as for the more perfection of the said order of common service, in some places where it is necessary to make the same prayers and fashion of service more earnest and fit to stir Christian people to the true honouring of Almighty God, the King’s most excellent Majesty…hath caused the foresaid order of common service entitled The Book of Common Prayer to be faithfully and godly perused, explained, and made fully perfect, and by the foresaid authority hath annexed and joined it so explained and perfected to this present statute, adding also a form and manner of making and consecrating archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, to be of like force, authority, and value as the same like foresaid book entitled The Book of Common Prayer was before, and to be accepted, received, used, and esteemed in like sort and manner, and with the same clauses of provisions and exceptions to all intents, constructions, and purposes, as by the act of Parliament made in the second year of the King’s Majesty’s reign was ordained and limited, expressed and appointed, for the Uniformity of Service and Administration of the Sacraments throughout the realm, upon such several pains as in the said act of Parliament is expressed; and the said former act to stand in full force and strength to all intents and constructions, and to be applied, practised, and put in ure to and for the establishing of the Book of Common Prayer now explained and hereunto annexed, and also the said form of making of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons hereunto annexed, as it was for the former book. V. And by the authority aforesaid it is now further enacted that if any manner of person or persons inhabiting and being within this realm or any other the King’s Majesty’s dominions shall after the said feast of All Saints willingly and wittingly hear and be present at any other manner or form of common prayer, of administration of the sacraments, of making of ministers in the churches, or of any other rites contained in the book annexed to this act than is mentioned and set forth in the said book or that is contrary to the form of sundry provisions and exceptions contained in the foresaid former statute, and shall be thereof convicted according to the laws of this realm before the justices of assise, justices of oyer and terminer, justices of peace in their sessions, or any of them, by the verdict of twelve men or by his or their own confession or otherwise, shall for the first offence suffer imprisonment for six months without bail or mainprise, and for the second offence being likewise convicted as is abovesaid imprisonment for one whole year, and for the third offence in like manner imprisonment during his or their lives.

[137]

KEEPING OF HOLY DAYS AND FASTING DAYS

857

VI. And for the more knowledge to be given hereof and better observation of this law, be it enacted…that all and singular curates shall upon one Sunday every quarter of the year, during one whole year next following the aforesaid feast of All Saints next coming, read this present act in the church at the time of the most assembly, and likewise once in every year following; at the same time declaring unto the people by the authority of the Scripture how the mercy and goodness of God hath in all ages been shewed to his people in their necessities and extremities by means of hearty and faithful prayers made to Almighty God, especially where people be gathered together with one faith and mind to offer up their hearts by prayer, as the best sacrifices that Christian men can yield.

137. An act for the keeping of holy days and fasting days. St. 5/6 Edw. VI, c. 3, 1552 (Stat. Realm, IV, 132)

F

orasmuch as at all times men be not as mindful to laud and praise God, so ready to resort and hear God’s holy word, and to come to the holy communion and other laudable rites which are to be observed in every Christian congregation, as their bounden duty doth require; Therefore, to call men to remembrance of their duty and to help their infirmity, it hath been wholesomely provided that there should be some certain times and days appointed, wherein the Christians should cease from all other kind of labours, and should apply themselves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works properly pertaining unto true religion, that is, to hear, to learn, and to remember Almighty God’s great benefits, his manifold mercies, his inestimable gracious goodness so plenteously poured upon all his creatures, and that of his infinite and unspeakable goodness without any man’s desert; And in remembrance hereof to render unto him most high and hearty thanks, with prayers and supplications for the relief of all our daily necessities; and because these be the chief and principal works wherein man is commanded to worship God and do properly pertain unto the first table, therefore as these works are both most commonly and also may well be called God’s service, so the times appointed specially for the same are called holy days, not for the matter and nature either of the time or day, nor for any of the saints’ sake whose memories are had on these days, for so all days and times considered are God’s creatures and all of like holiness, but for the nature and condition of those godly and holy works wherewith only God is to be honoured, and the congregation to be edified, whereunto such times and days are sanctified and hallowed, that is to say, separated from all profane uses, and dedicated and appointed not unto any saint or creature, but only unto God and his true worship; Neither it is to be thought that there is any certain time or definite number of days prescribed in holy scripture, but that the appointment both of the time, and also of the number of the days, is left by the authority of God’s word to the liberty of Christ’s church, to be determined and assigned orderly in every country by the discretion of the rulers and ministers thereof, as they shall judge most expedient, to the true setting forth of God’s glory and the edification of their people: Be it therefore enacted by the king our sovereign lord with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and

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[138]

the commons in this parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, that all the days hereafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy days and none other, that is to say; all Sundays in the year, the days of the feasts of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Epiphany, of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Matthew the Apostle, of the Anunciation of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Mark the Evangelist, of St. Philip and Jacob the Apostles, of the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Nativity of St. John Baptist, of St. Peter the Apostle, of St. James the Apostle, of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, of St. Matthew the Apostle, of St. Michael the Archangel, of St. Luke the Evangelist, of St. Simon andJude the Apostles, of All Saints, of St. Andrew the Apostle, of St. Thomas the Apostle, of the Nativity of our Lord, of St. Stephen the Martyr, of St. John the Evangelist, of the Holy Innocents, Monday and Tuesday in Easter week, and Monday and Tuesday in Whitsun week; and that no other day shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy day, or to abstain from lawful bodily labour. II. And it is also enacted by the authority aforesaid, that every evening or day next going before any of the aforesaid days of the Feasts of the Nativity of our Lord, of Easter, of the ascension of our Lord, Pentecost, of the Purification and the Annunciation of the aforesaid blessed Virgin, of All Saints, and of all of the said feasts of the Apostles, other than St. John the Evangelist, and Philip and Jacob, shall be fasted and commanded so to be kept and observed, and that no other evening or day shall be commanded to be fasted. III. And it is enacted by the authority aforesaid, that it shall be lawful to all archbishops, and bishops in their dioceses, and to all other having ecclesiastical or spiritual jurisdiction, to inquire of every person that shall offend in the premises, and to punish every such offender by the censures of the Church, and to enjoin him or them such penance as shall be to the spiritual judge of his discretion thought meet and convenient.

I. THE CHURCH UNDER MARY 138. Mary’s first Proclamation on religion, 1553 The first official declaration of Mary’s intentions. (Text from Bonner’s Register, f. 402. Printed in Gee and Hardy, 373)

T

he queen’s highness, well remembering what great inconvenience and dangers have grown to this her highness’s realm in times past through the diversity of opinions in questions of religion, and hearing also that how of late, since the beginning of her most gracious reign, the same contentions be again much renewed, through certain false and untrue reports and rumours spread by some light and evil-disposed persons, has thought good to do to understand to all her highness’s most loving and obedient subjects her most gracious pleasure in manner and form following.

[138]

MARY’S FIRST PROCLAMATION ON RELIGION, 1553

859

First, her majesty being presently by the only goodness of God settled in her just possession of the imperial crown of this realm, and other dominions thereunto belonging, cannot now hide that religion, which God and the world know she has ever professed from her infancy hitherto; which as her majesty is minded to observe and maintain for herself by God’s grace during her time, so doth her highness much desire, and would be glad, the same were of all her subjects quietly and charitably embraced. And yet she doth signify unto all her majesty’s loving subjects, that of her most gracious disposition and clemency, her highness minds not to compel any her said subjects thereunto, unto such time as further order, by common assent, may be taken therein; forbidding nevertheless all her subjects of all degrees, at their perils, to move seditions or stir unquietness in her people, by interrupting the laws of this realm after their brains and fancies, but quietly to continue for the time till, as before is said, further order may be taken; and therefore wills and straitly charges and commands all her said good loving subjects to live together in quiet sort and Christian charity, leaving those new-found devilish terms of papist or heretic and such like, and applying their whole care, study, and travail to live in the fear of God, exercising their conversations in such charitable and godly doing, as their lives may indeed express that great hunger and thirst of God’s glory and holy word, which by rash talk and words many have pretended; and in so doing as they shall best please God and live without dangers of the laws, and maintain the tranquillity of the realm, whereof her highness shall be most glad, so if any man shall rashly presume to make any assemblies of people, or at any public assemblies or otherwise shall go about to stir the people to disorder or disquiet, she minds, according to her duty, to see the same most severely reformed and punished, according to her highness’ laws. And furthermore, forasmuch also as it is well known that seditious and false rumours have been nourished and maintained in this realm by the subtlety and malice of some evil-disposed persons, which take upon them, without sufficient authority, to preach and interpret the word of God after their own brain in churches and other places, both public and private, and also by playing of interludes, and printing of false fond books and ballads, rhymes, and other lewd treatises in the English tongue, concerning doctrine in matters now in question and controversy touching the high points and mysteries of Christian religion, which books, ballads, rhymes, and treatises are chiefly by the printers and stationers set out to sale to her grace’s subjects, of an evil zeal for lucre, and covetous of vile gain; her highness therefore straitly charges and commands all and every of her said subjects, of whatsoever state, condition, or degree they be, that none of them presume from henceforth to preach, or by way of reading in churches or other public or private places, except in the schools of the University, to interpret or teach any Scriptures or any manner points of doctrine concerning religion; neither also to print any book, matter, ballad, rhyme, interlude, process, or treatise, nor to play any interlude, except they have her grace’s special licence in writing for the same, upon pain to incur her highness’s indignation and displeasure. And her highness also further straitly charges and commands all and every her said subjects that none of them of their own private authority do presume to punish or to rise against any offender in the

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causes abovesaid, or any other offender in words and deeds in the late rebellion committed or done by the Duke of Northumberland or his accomplices, or to seize any of their goods, or violently to use any such offender by striking or imprisoning or threatening the same; but wholly to reserve the punishment of all such offenders unto her highness and public authority, whereof her majesty minds to see due punishment according to the order of her highness’s laws. Nevertheless, as her highness minds not hereby to restrain and discourage any of her loving subjects to give from time to time true information against any such offenders in the causes abovesaid unto her grace or her council, for the punishment of every such offender, according to the effect of her highness’s laws provided in that part; so her said highness exhorts and straitly charges her said subjects to observe her commandment and pleasure in every part aforesaid, as they will avoid her highness’s said indignation and most grievous displeasure. The severity and rigour whereof, as her highness shall be most sorry to have cause to put the same in execution, so does she utterly determine not to permit such unlawful and rebellious doings of her subjects, whereof may ensue the danger of her royal estate, to remain unpunished; but to see her said laws touching these points to be thoroughly executed, which extremities she trusts all her said loving subjects will foresee, dread, and avoid; accordingly her said highness straitly charging and commanding all mayors, sheriffs, justices of peace, bailiffs, constables, and all other public officers and ministers diligently to see to the observing and executing of her said commandments and pleasure, and to apprehend all such as shall willingly offend in this part, committing the same to the next gaol, there to remain without bail or mainprize, till upon certificate made to her highness or her privy council of their names and doings, and upon examination had of their offences, some further order shall be taken for their punishment to the example of others, according to the effect and tenor of the laws aforesaid. Given at our manor of Richmond, the 18th. day of August, in the first year of our most prosperous reign. God save the Queen.

139. An act for the repeal of certain statutes made in the time of the reign of King Edward the Sixth. St. 1 Mary, St. 2, c. 2, 1553 (Stat. Realm, IV, 202)

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orasmuch as by divers and several acts hereafter mentioned, as well the divine service and good administration of the sacraments as divers other matters of religion which we and our forefathers found in this Church of England to us left by the authority of the Catholic Church, be partly altered and in some part taken from us, and in place thereof new things imagined and set forth by the said acts, such as a few of singularity have of themselves devised, whereof hath ensued amongst us in very short time numbers of divers and strange opinions and diversities of sects, and thereby grown great unquietness and much discord, to the great disturbance of the common wealth of this realm, and in very short time like to grow to extreme peril and utter confusion of the same unless some remedy be in that behalf provided, which thing all true, loving, and obedient subjects ought and are bounden to foresee and provide to the uttermost of

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their power: In consideration whereof Be it enacted… that an act made in the parliament began at Westminster the fourth day of November in the first year of the reign of the late King Edward the Sixth, and from thence continued to the 24th day of December from next ensuing, that is to say, in the first session of the same parliament, entitled An Act against such persons as should irreverently speak against the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, commonly called the Sacrament of the Altar, and for the receiving thereon in both kinds; and also one other act in the same session, which is entitled, An Act for the election of bishops, and what seals and styles they and other spiritual persons exercising jurisdiction ecclesiastical should use; and also one other act made in one other session of the said Parliament holden upon prorogation at Westminster the fourth day of November in the second year of the reign of the said late King Edward the Sixth and there continued and kept to the 14th day of March in the third year of the said late King’s reign, entitled An Act for the Uniformity of Service and Administration of the Sacraments throughout the realm; and also one other act made in the session last before named which is entitled An Act to take away all positive laws made against the marriage of priests; and also one other act made in one other session of the said Parliament holden upon prorogation at Westminster the fourth day of November in the third year of the reign of the said late King Edward the Sixth and there continued and kept to the first day of February in the fourth year of his reign entitled an Act for the abolishing and putting away of divers books and images; and also one other act made in the same session last before mentioned, entitled, An Act made for the ordering of the ecclesiastical ministers; and also one other act made in one other session of the said Parliament holden upon prorogation at Westminster the 23rd day of January in the fifth year of the reign of the said late King Edward the Sixth, and there continued and kept till the 15th. day of April in the sixth year of the reign of the said late King, entitled, An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and the Administration of the Sacraments; and one other act made in the same last session, entitled, An Act for the keeping of holy days and fasting days; and one other act made in the session last recited, entitled, An Act made for the declaration of a Statute made for the marriage of priests and for the legitimation of their children; and every clause, sentence, branch, article, and articles mentioned, expressed, or contained in the said statute and in every of them, shall be from henceforth utterly repelled, void, annihilate, and of none effect, to all purposes, constructions, and intents; any thing or things contained or specified in the said statutes or any of them to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that all such divine service and administration of sacraments as were most commonly used in the realm of England in the last year of the reign of our late sovereign lord King Henry the Eighth, shall be, from and after the 20th day of December in this present year of our Lord God one thousand five hundred fifty and three, used and frequented through the whole realm of England, and all other the Queen’s Majesty’s dominions; and that no other kind nor order of divine service nor administration of sacraments be after said the 20th day of December used or ministered in any other manner, form, or degree within the said realm of England or other the Queen’s dominions than was most commonly used,

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ministered, and frequented in the said last year of the reign of the said late King Henry the Eighth. III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no person shall be impeached or molested in body or goods, for using heretofore, or until the said 20th day of December, the divine service mentioned in the said acts or any of them, nor for the using of the old divine service and administration of sacraments, in such manner and form as was used in the Church of England before the making of any of the said acts.

140. Second statute of repeal. St. 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8, 1554 (Stat. Realm, IV, 246)

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hereas since the twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth of famous memory, father unto your Majesty our most natural sovereign and gracious lady and queen, much false and erroneous doctrine hath been taught, preached, and written, partly by divers the natural-born subjects of this realm, and partly being brought in hither from sundry other foreign countries, hath been sown and spread abroad within the same; by reason whereof as well the spiritualty as the temporalty of your Highness’ realms and dominions have swerved from the obedience of the See Apostolic, and declined from the unity of Christ’s Church, and so have continued, until such time as your Majesty being first raised up by God, and set in the seat royal over us, and then by His divine and gracious Providence knit in marriage with the most noble and virtuous prince the King our sovereign lord your husband, the Pope’s holiness and the See Apostolic sent hither unto your Majesties (as unto persons undefiled and by God’s goodness preserved from the common infection aforesaid) and to the whole realm, the most reverend father in God, the Lord Cardinal Pole, Legate de latere, to call us home again into the right way, from whence we have all this long while wandered and strayed abroad: and we after sundry long and grievous plagues and calamities, seeing by the goodness of God our own errors, have acknowledged the same unto the said most reverend father, and by him have been and are the rather at the contemplation of your Majesties, received and embraced into the unity and bosom of Christ’s Church; and upon our humble submission and promise made, for a declaration of our repentance, to repeal and abrogate such acts and statutes as had been made in Parliament since the said twentieth year of the said King Henry the Eighth, against the supremacy of the See Apostolic, as in our submission exhibited to the said most reverend father in God by your Majesties appeareth: the tenor whereof ensueth: We the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons assembled in this present Parliament, representing the whole body of the realm of England and the dominions of the same, in the name of ourselves particularly, and also of the said body universally, in this our supplication directed to your Majesties, with most humble suit, that it may by your Grace’s intercession and mean be exhibited to the most reverend father in God the Lord Cardinal Pole, legate, sent specially hither from our most holy father the Pope Julius III and the See Apostolic of Rome, do declare ourselves very

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sorry and repentant of the schism and disobedience committed in this realm and dominions aforesaid, against the said See Apostolic, either by making, agreeing, or executing any laws, ordinances, or commandments against the supremacy of the said See, or otherwise doing or speaking, that might impugn the same; offering ourselves, and promising by this our supplication that for a token and knowledge of our said repentance we be and shall be always ready, under and with the authorities of your Majesties, to the uttermost of our powers, to do that shall lie in us for the abrogation and repealing of the said laws and ordinances in this present Parliament, as well for ourselves as for the whole body whom we represent: whereupon we most humbly desire your Majesties, as personages undefiled in the offence of this body towards the said See, which nevertheless God by His Providence hath made subject to you, to set forth this our most humble suit, that we may obtain from the See Apostolic, by the said most reverend father, as well particularly as generally, absolution, release, and discharge from all danger of such censures and sentences as by the laws of the Church we be fallen into: and that we may as children repentant be received into the bosom and unity of Christ’s Church, so as this noble realm, with all the members thereof, may in this unity and perfect obedience to the See Apostolic and popes for the time being, serve God and your Majesties to the furtherance and advancement of His honour and glory, we are at the intercession of your Majesties, by the authority of our holy father Pope Julius III and of the See Apostolic, assoiled, discharged, and delivered from excommunication, interdictions, and other censures ecclesiastical, which hath hanged over our heads for our said defaults since the time of the said schism mentioned in our supplication. It may now like your Majesties that for the accomplishment of our promise made in the said supplication, that is, to repeal all laws and statutes made contrary to the said supremacy and See Apostolic during the said schism, the which is to be understood since the twentieth year of the reign of the said late king Henry the eighth, and so the said Lord Legate doth accept and recognize the same. [ii. Recites for repeal, St. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 13.] [iii. The following acts are all repealed 23 Hen. VIII, c. 9; 24 Hen. VIII, c. 12; 23 Hen. VIII, c. 20; 25 Hen. VIII, c. 19, 20, 21.] [iv. The following acts are repealed: 26 Hen. VIII, c. 1, c. 14; 27 Hen. VIII, c. 15; 28 Hen. VIII, c. 10, 16, 7, §7; 31 Hen. VIII, 9; 32 Hen. VIII, c. 38; 35 Hen. VIII, c. 3.] [v. Repeals St. 35 Hen. VIII, c. 1, §7.] [vi. Repeals 37 Hen. VIII, c. 17.] [vii. Repeals St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 12, §5, 6.] viii. And be it further enacted…that all clauses, sentences, and articles of every other statute or act of Parliament made since the said twentieth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, against the supreme authority of the Pope’s Holiness or See Apostolic of Rome, or containing any other matter of the same effect only that is repealed in any of the statutes aforesaid, shall be also by authority hereof from henceforth utterly void, frustrate, and of none effect. ix.… And finally where certain acts and statutes have been made in the time of the

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late schism, concerning the lands and hereditaments of archbishoprics and bishoprics, the suppression and dissolution of monasteries, abbeys, priories, chantries, colleges, and all other the goods and chattels of religious houses, since the which time the right and dominion of certain lands and hereditaments, goods, and chattels belonging to thesame be dispersed abroad, and come to the hands and possessions of divers and sundry persons, who by gift, purchase, exchange, and other means, according to the order of the laws and statutes of this realm for the time being, have the same: for the avoiding of all scruples that might grow by any the occasions aforesaid or by any other ways or means whatsoever, it may please your Majesties to be intercessors and mediators to the said most reverend Father Cardinal Pole, that all such causes and quarrels as by pretence of the said schism or by any other occasion or mean whatsoever might be moved, by the Pope’s Holiness or See Apostolic or by any other jurisdiction ecclesiastical, may be utterly removed and taken away; so as all persons having sufficient conveyance of the said lands and hereditaments, goods, and chattels as is aforesaid by the common laws, acts, or statutes of this realm, may without scruple or conscience enjoy them, without impeachment or trouble by pretence of any General Council, canons, or ecclesiastical laws, and clear from all dangers of the censures of the church. xviii. And that it may be further provided and enacted…that albeit the title or style of supremacy or Supreme Head of the Church of England and of Ireland or either of them, never was nor could be justly or lawfully attributed or acknowledged to any king or sovereign governor of this realm, nor in any wise could or might rightfully, justly, or lawfully by any king or sovereign governor of this realm, be claimed, challenged, or used, yet forasmuch as the said title and style, since the third day of November in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of the said King Henry VIII hath been used, and is mentioned and contained in divers and sundry writs, letters patent, records, exemplifications, court rolls, charters, deeds, instruments, evidences, books, and writings, it shall be lawful as well to and for your majesties and your sovereign lady’s heirs and successors, as to and for every other person and persons, bodies politic and corporate, at all time and times hereafter, to have, retain, and keep the said writs, letters patent, [etc.]…and them to show, exhibit, use, allege, and plead in all times and places requisite or needful, without any danger, penalty, loss, forfeiture, trouble, vexation, or impeachment for the same; anything in this act or in any other act or acts to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding. xxiv…. And be it enacted…that neither the making, exhibiting, nor inserting in this present statute, or in the preambles of the same, of the supplications or promise aforesaid, or either of them, nor any other thing or things, words, sentences, clauses, or articles in the preambles or body of the acts aforesaid, shall be construed, understanded, or expounded to derogate, diminish, or take away any the liberties, privileges, prerogatives, pre-eminences, authorities, or jurisdictions, or any part or parcel thereof, which were in your imperial crown of this realm, or did belong to your said imperial crown, the twentieth year of the reign of yours the queen’s majesty’s most noble father, or any other your most noble progenitors before the said twentieth year: And the Pope’s

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Holiness and See Apostolic to be restored, and to have and enjoy such authority, preeminence, and jurisdiction as his holiness used and exercised, or might lawfully have used and exercised, by authority of his supremacy the said twentieth year of the reign of the king, your father, within this your realm of England and other your dominions, without diminution or enlargement of the same, and none other; and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the archbishops, bishops, and ordinaries to be in the same state for process of suits, punishment of crimes, and execution of censures of the Church, with knowledge of causes belonging to the same, and as large in these points as the said jurisdiction was the said twentieth year.

141. Reconciliation with Rome. The difficulties (i) The Spanish ambassadors in England to the emperor, 8 August 1554 (C.S.P. Spain, XIII, 22–23)

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ire: We have talked over with the Chancellor and the Bishop of Ely Cardinal Pole’s demand to come over here at once as Papal Legate and set about the execution of his commission to establish once more the authority of the holy see, and put an end to religious disputes. After hearing the reply that your Majesty caused the Bishop of Arras to make, the Chancellor expressed the opinion that the Cardinal might come shortly, when the hot weather was over and there was less danger; say towards the end of September. His view is that the Cardinal, as a well-connected Englishman and honoured by many, would be more respected than another, and might be represented as coming to take possession of the archbishopric of Canterbury, to which he has been appointed, to congratulate their Highnesses on their marriage, or to take up the thread of his former endeavour to get the Queen to intervene in the cause of peace. Neither the Council nor Parliament, he thinks, ought to be allowed to dictate in this matter, for they would never consent to his coming at all; but means must be found, partly by the use of authority and partly by dexterity, to open the doors of the kingdom to him as Legate, and not as a prince. It is already known, he asserts, that the Queen created the last bishops by the Pope’s power, obtained a dispensation for the marriage and went to the Pope for advice on several points that troubled her conscience; and though Paget, who found this out at the time when he was in favour, made it known, there were no regrettable consequences. However, the Cardinal must come with ample powers to confirm the possessors of church property in their tenure, and with no thought whatever of recovering it for the Church. Their Highnesses were informed of the Chancellor’s views, but the King still disapproves, for the reasons stated in our last letter of hastening on the Cardinal’s coming. He does not think that it would be possible to explain it away in such a manner as to prevent the heretics from finding out the real reason; and it was decided that we should write to your Majesty that the Cardinal had better be persuaded to be patient for a little longer until we see how matters are going to turn out here. Above all, before coming to England he must clear up this business of the tenure of holders of Church-property in such a manner that the present

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possessors may be convinced that they will not be disturbed; for otherwise we shall never achieve the desired result. The Cardinal must realise that the only object aimed at here is to enable him successfully to execute his commission, and unless he takes this advice he will run great risks himself and render the whole religious question much more difficult of settlement, and perhaps even endanger their Highness’ persons.

(ii) Simon Renard to the emperor, 3 September 1554 (Ibid. 45)

Cardinal Pole presses for an answer whether or no he is to be received here as legate, and writes that he wants a definite reply so that he may either go back to Rome or proceed on his journey. Of course one must take it for granted that zeal for religion alone moves him, but still doubts assail me. Affairs are not settled here yet, and the King has only been a few days in the realm. The Spaniards are hated, as I have seen in the past and expect to see in the future. There was trouble at the last session of Parliament, and disagreeable incidents are of daily occurence. Only ten days ago the heretics tried to burn a church in Suffolk with the entire congregation that was hearing mass inside…. On examining the brief sent hither by the Cardinal and intended to dispense those who hold Church property, I have noticed that it is not drawn up in a suitable manner. The Pope expects submission to the Church to come first, and means afterwards to attend to the dispensations, considering each case separately, on its own merits, and also the nature of the Church property that has been taken possession of. He intends to grant the dispensation to those for whom the King and Queen intercede, though with a restrictive clause binding them to consult the Pope on cases that may appear to be of importance. Another feature of this document is that the King is mentioned as such in it, though it was dated last June when the marriage had not yet been consummated. It is my duty to inform your Majesty that the Catholics hold more Church property than do the heretics, and unless they obtain a general dispensation to satisfy them that their titles will never be contested they will not allow the Cardinal to execute his commission; and he certainly will not be able to do so until the question has been submitted to Parliament, former Acts of which have vested the title of Supreme Head of the Church in the Crown, the right of which to deal with all religious questions consequently stands firm. So if the Cardinal is to come here at all, his powers had better be clear and comprehensive. The Holy See’s contention is naturally that if it grants a dispensation for Church property before obeisance is offered, it will seem as if that same obeisance is being bought, and an evil and scandalous precedent would be created; but the loftier aims of religion ought to be considered in preference to a mere question of Church property especially in this realm where the abbeys have all been destroyed and overthrown by the King’s authority. However, this point is a difficult one, as your Majesty will readily appreciate; so I will leave it to your riper judgment….

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(iii) The emperor to Don Juan Manrique de Lara, 18 October 1554 (Ibid. 71)

The King and Queen of England, our son and daughter, are full of zeal for the restoration of that realm to the ancient and true religion. Since seeing Legate Pole’s brief, they have discussed the manner in which his most important negotiation may be handled with the best chances of success, for their and our aim is solely God’s service and the establishment of the authority of the apostolic see. They have several times consulted us, and have now come to the conclusion that it would be well to send hither some one to explain to the Legate how matters stand in England, and what medicine, in the opinion of those conversant with English symptoms, is required in order to cure so dangerous a wound. This envoy would then go on to Rome and beg his Highness to extend the powers given to the Legate, assuring him that no one could possibly desire to see the realm return to its obeisance more ardently than the King and Queen. This has ever been our aim, and it was certainly the main reason for which we arranged the marriage, so we replied to the effect that we agreed that this would be the best way to attain the hoped-for result. In the meantime we arrived here and gave audience to the Legate, who could find nothing better to say than that he had been here a long time, that the present was a very opportune moment for settling the religious question, and to beg us to allow him to go on to England and execute his commission. We were awaiting the arrival of the person who was to come from that country, as we have told you; and as we could not give the Legate any answer until then we thought it best to temporise. So we explained to him at some length how much we and our son desired the success of this undertaking, and that our reason for delaying it had been merely to avoid the irremediable disaster that would be sure to ensue were it pressed at an inopportune time. Two things, we said, were necessary. First, we must see what powers he had to negotiate and whether he could show us any further guarantees that he would be able to succeed; and second, he must write out a statement of the use to which he intended to put his powers, which statement should be examined here by persons who desired, no less than he himself could, to see English affairs remedied, and communicated to men of experience in England, of whose advice and assistance the King and Queen intended to avail themselves. The Cardinal has set about this task in the spirit of one who realises that it is the best way to make a beginning. Our son had decided, on the 16th. instant to send Richard hither to give a detailed account of the state of affairs in England and the aspects of the religious question; but Parliament is to meet on November 12th. and time is getting short as by that date it is absolutely necessary to have a reply from his Holiness about the extension of the Legate’s powers, for then will be the moment to bring the matter forward, so we are sending you this courier with instructions to speak to the Pope. You will tell him how zealous the King and Queen are, and explain that the main difficulty lies in the obstinacy of the holders of Church property, who care more for temporal riches than for their soul’s welfare, and fear to be dispossessed. They are very numerous and seduce the people by conjuring up false chimeras before their eyes to keep them

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from the accomplishment of their duty, wherefore may his Holiness be pleased to give the Legate wider powers to dissipate the suspicions of these folk….

(iv) Simon Renard to the emperor, 30 November 1554 (Ibid. 107)

…Cardinal Pole arrived here about two o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday last (November 24) accompanied by the lords and bishops who as I wrote to your Majesty had been sent to meet him at Dover and Gravesend, as well as other of his friends and relatives who had gone out to welcome him on the road. As he came by water the King received him at the river side, for the Thames flows past the royal house of Westminster, and there was no other ceremony than the carrying of the cross before him. On Monday he went to Court and agreed with the King, Queen and Council that on the following Wednesday (November 28) he should have audience of Parliament, which was for that purpose summoned to meet at the palace at two o’clock in the afternoon of the appointed day. The palace doors were guarded to prevent any persons from entering except those who represented Parliament, before whom, in the presence of the King and Queen, the Cardinal appeared. After thanking them for having repealed the measure of banishment of which he had been the object, he exposed the reason for his coming. The Pope and the apostolic see, he said, loved the kingdom, which had in the past been led into error with regard to heresy and disobedience to the Church, whence scandals, troubles and misfortunes had arisen. Some folk had proved stubborn in error, but God had warned and called them back through the Queen, whom he greatly lauded, while giving still higher praise to the King. The marriage was to be considered a miracle and the work of God, intended not only to benefit the kingdom but to bring about peace in the whole Christian commonwealth. He himself, an Englishman and a servant of the Church and his Holiness, had been glad to accept this mission in order to show the realm that he had not forgotten his mother-country, and offer to perform all offices in the power of a humble servitor of the King, Queen and country. If his mission were acceptable to them, might they be pleased to annul the laws and statutes against the Pope’s and the Church’s authority as being unreasonable and contrary to established truth; in which case he had powers so ample that Parliament would be well-satisfied. Before the laws had been repealed, however, or he had ascertained their will, he could not show his powers or make any use of them; so he added all the persuasions to be excogitated by a devoutly religious man wholly given over to God’s service, and ended by an appeal to the King and Queen, saying that a good reign ought always to be directed in its beginning a pietate, religione et justitia. This speech lasted three quarters of an hour, and Parliament after hearing it, asked for time to discuss and frame a reply. Yesterday, then, Parliament came to the unanimous decision that all the laws and statutes contrary to the Pope’s authority should be repealed, the Church’s authority be once more acknowledged, and the Cardinal admitted as Legate to carry out his mission, and play the part of a welcome mediator. Although about 500 persons were gathered together, there was only one dissident voice, belonging to a man who enjoys no consideration, and there was no hint of making conditions about the Church property, but only an expression of confidence that the King and Queen would not allow that question to be handled in a manner likely to compromise

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the attainment of the main object in view. Today this reply is to be given to the Legate, who will then proceed to execute his commission. I thought it my duty to write this at once to your Majesty, well knowing that this long-lookedfor, miraculous event, so big with consequences of the greatest importance to Christendom, will give you great pleasure. The courier returned so opportunely from Rome with his despatch and the corrected private power that he reached this place just one hour before the Legate had audience. Your Majesty too well understands how great was the joy felt by the King and all his Court for it to be necessary that I should describe it. Indeed he had good reason to render thanks to God that such fruit, fertile in increase of authority for him, should already have come of the match, encouraging us to hope that God means to incline the enemy’s heart to desire of lasting peace. I will not omit to quote the words spoken by the Cardinal when he saluted the Queen: benedicta inter mulieres, et benedictus fructus ventris tui. It is patent to all, and the heretics and erring are bound to admit that she has been preserved for the good of all Christendom and this realm’s tranquillity. Last Sunday the Dean of St. Paul’s preached a sermon on the restitution of church property, which was ill-received and scandalised many; for he arrived at the conclusion that the possessors, even though they obtained dispensation, were obliged to give back the property. There was a general opinion that the Cardinal had put the Dean up to this, but as the preacher has been sent for and reprimanded by the Council, it seems that he must have acted without the knowledge of that body or of the Cardinal. The Cardinal has behaved well so far and followed your Majesty’s advice; so he is very popular and welcome here.

142. The last days of Thomas Cranmer. From various sources On 12 September 1555 the trial of Archbishop Cranmer on a charge of heresy began at St Mary’s Church, Oxford. As a properly consecrated archbishop and metropolitan he should have been tried by the Pope himself. Paul IV delegated the conduct of the trial to Cardinal de Puteo, who, from Rome, appointed Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester, to act as judge in his place. The cut and thrust of the debate which took place between Cranmer and his accusers is suggested by the report which follows of the questions put to him by Martin, the Queen’s proctor. The two letters which follow, written by Cranmer immediately after his trial, reveal something of his mind in those hours when he must have realized what the end would ultimately be: but they are not easily interpreted. What they clearly foreshadow is that in the last resort, when all the pesterings of his opponents were over, and his own waverings ceased, he would be prepared to go to the stake rather than acknowledge papal supremacy and the doctrine of the Real Presence. The source material in print connected with Cranmer’s last years under Queen Mary is considerable, (i) For the disputation at Oxford in April 1554, in which Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were involved: Foxe, VI, 439–520; Cranmer, Works, II, 393–427; and Ridley, Works, 305. (ii) For the trial of Cranmer, 12 September 1555, at St Mary’s, Oxford: Cranmer, Works, II, 212–224, and for the official report, the Processus contra Thoma Cranmer, ibid. 541–562. (iii) For Cranmer’s recantations: Cranmer, Works, II, 563–565, and Houghton and Gairdner, Bishop Cranmer’s Recantacyons (Philobiblion Soc., 1885). (iv) For Cranmer’s last letters to Mary: Works, II, 447–454. (v) The most complete modern account is in J.Ridley, Thomas Cranmer.

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(i) The faith and profession of Doctor Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury before the Commissioners (Cox, Works of Cranmer, II, 212–21)

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his I do profess as touching my faith, and make my protestation, which I desire you to note. I will never consent that the bishop of Rome shall have any jurisdiction within this realm. Story: Take a note thereof.

Martin: Mark, M.Cranmer, how you answer for yourself. You refuse and deny him, by whose laws ye yet do remain in life, being otherwise attainted of high treason, and but a dead man by the laws of this realm. Cranmer: I protest before God I was no traitor; but indeed I confessed more at my arraignment than was true. Martin: That is not to be reasoned at this present. You know ye were condemned for a traitor, and res judicata pro veritate accipitur, But proceed to your matter. Cranmer: I will never consent to the bishop of Rome; for then should I give myself to the devil: for I have made an oath to the king, and I must obey the king by God’s laws. By the scripture the king is chief, and no foreign person in his own realm above him. There is no subject but to a king. I am a subject, I owe my fidelity to the crown. The pope is contrary to the crown. I cannot obey both: for no man can serve two masters at once, as you in the beginning of your oration declared by the sword and the keys, attributing the keys to the pope, and the sword to the king. But I say the king hath both. Therefore he that is subject to Rome and the laws of Rome, he is perjured; for the pope’s and the judge’s laws are contrary, they are uncertain and confounded. A priest indebted, by the laws of the realm, shall be sued before a temporal judge; by the pope’s laws, contrary. The pope doth the king injury, in that he hath his power from the pope. The king is head in his own realm: but the pope claimeth all bishops, priests, curates, &c. So the pope in every realm hath a realm. Again, by the laws of Rome the benefice must be given by the bishop; by the laws of the realm the patron giveth the benefice. Herein the laws be as contrary as fire and water. No man can by the laws of Rome proceed in a praemunire; and so is the law of the realm expelled, and the king standeth accursed in maintaining his own laws. Therefore, in consideration that the king and queen take their power of him, as though God should give it to them, there is no true subject unless he be abrogate, seeing the crown is holden of him, being out of the realm. The bishop of Rome is contrary to God, and injurious to his laws: for God commanded all men to be diligent in the knowledge of his law; and therefore hath appointed one holy-day in the week at the least, for the people to come to the church, and hear the word of God expounded unto them, and that they might the better understand it, to hear it in their mother tongue, which they know. The pope doth contrary: for he willeth the service to be had in the Latin tongue, which they

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do not understand. God would have it to be perceived: the pope will not. When the priest giveth thanks, God would that the people should do so too, and God will them to confess all together: the pope will not. Now as concerning the sacrament, I have taught no false doctrine of the sacrament of the altar: for if it can be proved by any doctor above a thousand years after Christ that Christ’s body is there really, I will give over. My book was made seven years ago, and no man hath brought any authors against it. I believe that whoso eateth and drinketh that sacrament, Christ is within them, whole Christ, his nativity, passion, resurrection, and ascension, but not that corporally that sitteth in heaven. Now Christ commanded all to drink of the cup: the pope taketh it away from the laymen: and yet one saith that if Christ had died for the devil, that he should drink thereof. Christ biddeth us to obey the king…the bishop of Rome biddeth us to obey him. Therefore, unless he be antichrist, I cannot tell what to make of him; Wherefore if I should obey him, I cannot obey Christ. He is like the devil in his doings, for the devil said to Christ: “If thou wilt fall down and worship me, I will give thee all the kingdoms of the world”. Thus he took upon him to give that which was not his own. Even so the bishop of Rome giveth princes their crowns, being none of his own: for where princes either by election, either by succession, either by inheritage, obtain their crown he saith that they should have it from him. Christ saith that antichrist shall be. And who shall he be? Forsooth, he that advanceth himself above all other creatures. Now if there be none already that hath advanced himself after such sort besides the pope, then in the mean time let him be antichrist. Story: Pleaseth it you to make an end? Cranmer: For he will be the vicar of Christ, he will dispense with the old and new Testament also, yea, and with apostasy. Now I have declared why I cannot with my conscience obey the pope. I speak not this for hatred I bear to him that now supplieth the room, for I know him not. I pray God give him grace not to follow his ancestors. Neither say I this for my defence, but to declare my conscience, for the zeal that I bear to God’s word, trodden under foot by the bishop of Rome. I cast fear apart; for Christ said to his apostles that in the latter days they should suffer much sorrow, and be put to death for his name’s sake: “Fear them not”, saith he, “but fear him which, when he hath killed the body, hath power to cast the soul into fire everlasting.” Also Christ saith that “he that will live shall die, and he that loseth his life for my name’s sake, he shall find it again.” Moreover he said: “Confess me before men, and be not afraid; for if you do so, I will stand with you: if you shrink from me, I will shrink from you.” This is a comfortable and a terrible saying: this maketh me to set all fear apart. I say therefore, the bishop of Rome treadeth under foot God’s laws and the king’s. The pope would give bishoprics; so would the king. But at the last the king gat the upper hand; and so are all bishops perjured, first to the pope, and then to the king.

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The crown hath nothing to do with the clergy. For if a clerk come before a judge, the judge shall make process against him, but not to execute any laws. For if the judge should put him to execution, then is the king accursed in maintaining his own laws. And therefore say I that he is neither true to God, neither to the king, that first received the pope. But I shall heartily pray for such councillors as may inform her the truth; for the king and queen, if they be well informed, will do well.” Martin: As you understand then, if they maintain the supremacy of Rome, they cannot maintain England too. Cranmer: I require you to declare to the king and queen what I have said, and how their oaths do stand with the realm and the pope. St. Gregory saith, “He that taketh upon him to be head of the universal church is worse than the antichrist.” If any man can shew me that it is not against God’s word to hold his stirrup when he taketh his horse, and kiss his feet, (as kings do) then will I kiss his feet also. And you, for your part, my lord, are perjured; for now ye sit judge for the pope, and yet did you receive your bishipric of the king. You have taken an oath to be adversary to this realm; for the pope’s laws are contrary to the laws of the realm. Gloucester: You were the cause that I did forsake the pope, and did swear that he ought not to be supreme head, and gave it to king Henry the eighth, that he ought to be it; and this you made me to do. Cranmer: To this I answer, you report me ill, and say not the truth, and I will prove it here before you all. The truth is that my predecessor, bishop Warham, gave the supremacy to king Henry the eighth, and said that he ought to have it before the bishop of Rome, and that God’s word would bear him. And upon the same was there sent to both the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, to know what the word of God would do touching the supremacy; and it was reasoned upon and argued at length. So at the last both the universities agreed, and set to their seals, and sent it to king Henry the eighth to the court, that he ought to be supreme head, and not the pope. Whereupon you were then doctor of divinity at that time, and your consent was thereunto, as by your hand doth appear. Therefore you misreport me, that I was the cause of your falling away from the pope, but it was yourself. All this was in bishop Warham’s time, and whilst he was alive; so that it was three quarters of a year after, ere ever I had the bishopric of Canterbury in my hands, and before I might do anything. So that here ye have reported of me that which ye cannot prove, which is evil done. Gloucester: We come to examine you, and you, methink, examine us. Talk between doctor Martin and the archbishop. Martin: Master Cranmer, ye have told here a long glorious tale, pretending some matter of conscience in appearance, but in verity you have no conscience at all. You say that you have sworn once to king Henry the eighth against the pope’s jurisdiction, and therefore you may never forswear the same; and so ye make a great matter of conscience in the breach of the said oath. Here will I ask you a question or two. What if ye made an oath to an harlot, to live with her in continual adultery, ought you to keep it?

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Cranmer: I think no. Martin: What if you did swear never to lend a poor man one penny, ought you to keep it? Cranmer: I think not. Martin: Herod did swear whatsoever his harlot asked of him he would give her, and he gave her John Baptist’s head. Did he well in keeping his oath? Cranmer: I think not. Martin: Jephthe, one of the judges of Israel, did swear unto God that if he would give him victory over his enemies, he would offer unto God the first soul that came forth of his house. It happened that his own daughter came first, and he slew her to save his oath. Did he well? Cranmer: I think not. Martin: So saith St. Ambrose. De Officiis: Miserabilis necessitas quae solviturparricidio; id est, “It is a miserable necessity which is paid with parricide.” Then, master Cranmer, you can no less confess by the premises but that you ought not to have conscience of every oath, but if it be just, lawful, and advisedly taken. Cranmer: So was that oath. Martin: That is not so. For first it was unjust, for it tended to the taking away of another man’s right. It was not lawful, for the laws of God and the church were against it. Besides, it was not voluntary; for every man and woman were compelled to take it. Cranmer: It pleaseth you to say so. Martin: Let all the world judge. But, sir, you that pretend to have such a conscience to break an oath; I pray you, did you never swear and break the same? Cranmer: I remember not. Martin: I will help your memory. Did you never swear obedience to the see of Rome? Cranmer: Indeed I did once swear unto the same. Martin: Yea, that you did twice, as appeareth by records and writings here ready to be shewed. Cranmer: But I remember I saved all by protestation that I made by the counsel of the best learned men I could get at that time. Martin: Hearken, good people, what this man saith. He made a protestation one day to keep never a whit of that which he would swear the next day. Was this the part of a christian man? If a christian man would bargain with a Turk, and before he maketh his bargain, solemnly before witness readeth in his paper that he holdeth secretly in hand, or peradventure protesteth before one or two, that he mindeth not to perform whatsoever he shall promise to the Turk; I say, if a christian man would serve a Turk in this manner, that the christian man were worse than the Turk. What would you then say to this man, that made a solemn oath and promise unto God and his church, and made a protestation before quite contrary? 874 RELIGION [142]

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Cranmer: That which I did, I did by the best learned men’s advice I could get at that time. Martin: I protest before all the learned men here, that there is no learning will save your perjury herein; for there be two rules of the civil law clean contrary against you: (and so brought forth his rules; which being done, he proceeded further.) But will you have the truth of the matter? King Henry the eighth even then meant the lamentable change which after you see came to pass: and to further his pitiful proceedings, from the divorcement of his most lawful wife to the detestable departing from the blessed unity of Christ’s church, this man made the foresaid protestation, and, on the other side, he letted not to make two solemn oaths quite contrary: and why? for otherwise, by the laws and canons of this realm, he could not aspire to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Cranmer: I protest before you all, there was never man came more unwillingly to a bishopric than I did to that: insomuch that when king Henry did send for me in post, that I should come over, I prolonged my journey by seven weeks at the least, thinking that he would be forgetful of me in the mean time. Martin: You declare well by the way that the king took you to be a man of good conscience, who could not find within all his realm any man that would set forth his strange attempts, but was enforced to send for you in post to come out of Germany. What may we conjecture hereby, but that there was a compact between you, being then queen Anne’s chaplain, and the king: “Give me the archbishopric of Canterbury, and I will give you licence to live in adultery?” Cranmer: You say not true. Martin: Let your protestation, joined with the rest of your talk, give judgment. Hinc prima mali labes. Of that your execrable perjury, and his coloured and too shamefully suffered adultery, came heresy and all mischief to this realm. And thus have I spoken as touching your conscience you make for breaking your heretical oath made to the king. But to break your former oath, made at two sundry times both to God and his church, you have no conscience at all. And now to answer another part of your oration, wherein you bring in God’s word, that you have it on your side, and no man else, and that the pope hath devised a new scripture, contrary to the scriptures of God; ye play herein as the Pharisees did, which cried always, verbum Domini, verbum Domini, “The word of the Lord, the word of the Lord,” when they meant nothing so. This bettereth not your cause, because you have God’s word for you; for so Basilides and Photinus the heretics said that they had God’s word to maintain their heresy. So Nestorius, so Macedonius, so Pelagius, and, briefly, all the heretics that ever were, pretended that they had God’s word for them; yea, and so the devil, being the father of heresies, alleged God’s word for him, saying, Scriptum-est, “It is written”. So said he to Christ, Mitte te deorsum, “Cast thyself backward;” which you applied most falsely against the pope. But if you mark the devil’s language well, it agreed with your proceedings most truly. For Mitte te deorsum, “Cast thyself downward,” said he; and so taught you to cast all things downward. Down with the sacrament! down with the mass!

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down with the altars! down with the arms of Christ, and up with a lion and a dog! down with the abbeys! down with the chauntries! down with hospitals and colleges! down with fasting and prayer! yea, down with all that good and godly is! All your proceedings and preachings tended to no other but to fulfil the devil’s request, Mitte te deorsum. And therefore tell not us that you have God’s word. For God hath given us by his word a mark to know that your teaching proceeded not of God, but of the devil, and that your doctrine came not of Christ, but of antichrist. For Christ said there should come against his church lupi rapaces, id est, “ravening wolves;” and pseudo-apostoli, id est, “false apostles”. But how should we know them? Christ teacheth us, saying, Ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos; id est, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Why, what be their fruits? St. Paul declareth: Post carnem in concupiscentia et immunditia ambulant: potestatem contemnunt, &c.: i.e. “After the flesh they walk in concupiscence and uncleanness; they contemn potestates” Again, In diebus novissimis erunt periculosa tempora, erunt seipsos amantes, cupidi, elati, immorigeri parentibus, proditores, &c.: i.e. “In the latter days there shall be perilous times: then shall there be men loving themselves, covetous, proud, disobedient to parents, treason-workers”. Whether these be not the fruits of your gospel, I refer me to this worshipful audience: whether the said gospel began not with perjury, proceeded with adultery, was maintained with heresy, and ended in conspiracy. Now, sir, two points more I marked in your raging discourse that you made here: the one against the holy sacrament; the other against the pope’s jurisdiction and the authority of the see apostolic. Touching the first, ye say you have God’s word with you, yea, and all the doctors. I would here ask but one question of you, whether God’s word be contrary to itself, and whether the doctors teach doctrine contrary to themselves, or no? For you, master Cranmer, have taught in this high sacrament of the altar three contrary doctrines, and yet you pretended in every one verbum Domini. Cranmer: Nay, I taught but two contrary doctrines in the same. Martin: What doctrine taught you when you condemned Lambert the sacramentary, in the king’s presence in Whitehall? Cranmer: I maintained then the papists’ doctrine. Martin: That is to say, the catholic and universal doctrine of Christ’s church. And how when king Henry died? Did you not translate Justus Jonas’s book? Cranmer: I did so. Martin: Then there you defended another doctrine touching the sacrament, by the same token that you sent to Lynne your printer; that whereas in the first print there was an affirmative, that is to say, Christ’s body really in the sacrament, you sent then to your printer to put in a “not”, whereby it came miraculously to pass that Christ’s body was clean conveyed out of the sacrament. Cranmer: I remember there were two printers of my said book; but where the same “not” was put in, I cannot tell. Martin: Then from a Lutheran ye became a Zwinglian, which is the vilest heresy of all

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in the high mystery of the sacrament; and for the same heresy you did help to burn Lambert the sacramentary, which you now call the catholic faith and God’s word. Cranmer: I grant that then I believed otherwise than I do now; and so I did until my lord of London, doctor Ridley did confer with me, and by sundry persuasions and authorities of doctors drew me quite from my opinion. Martin: Now, sir, as touching the last part of your oration, you denied that the pope’s holiness was supreme head of the church of Christ. Cranmer: I did so. Martin: Who say you then is supreme head? Cranmer: Christ. Martin: But whom hath Christ left here in earth his vicar and head of his church? Cranmer: Nobody. Martin: Ah! why told you not king Henry this when you made him supreme head? and now nobody is. This is treason against his own person, as you then made him. Cranmer: I mean not but every king in his own realm and dominion, is supreme head, and so-was he supreme head of the church of Christ in England. Martin: Is this always true? and was it ever so in Christ’s church? Cranmer: It was so. Martin: Then what say you by Nero? He was the mightiest prince of the earth after Christ was ascended. Was he head of Christ’s church? Cranmer: Nero was Peter’s head. Martin: I ask whether Nero was head of the church or no? If he were not, it is false that you said before, that all princes be, and ever were, heads of the church within their realms. Cranmer: Nay, it is true, for Nero was head of the church, that is, in worldly respect of the temporal bodies of men, of whom the church consisteth; for so he beheaded Peter and the apostles. And the Turk too is head of the church of Turkey. Martin: Then he that beheaded the heads of the church, and crucified the apostles, was head of Christ’s church; and he that was never member of the church is head of the church, by your new found understanding of God’s word. Interrogatories objected to the archbishop, with his Answers annexed to the same. 1. Interrog. First was objected, that he, the foresaid Thomas Cranmer, being yet free, and before he entered into holy orders, married one Joan, surnamed black, or brown, dwelling at the sign of the Dolphin, in Cambridge. Answ. Whereunto he answered that whether she was called black or brown he knew not; but that he married there one Joan, that he granted. 2. Interrog. That after the death of the foresaid wife, he entered into holy orders, and after that was made archbishop by the pope. Answ. He received (he said) a certain bull of the pope, which he delivered unto the king, and was archbishop by him.

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3. Interrog. Item, that he, being in holy orders, married another woman, as his second wife, named Anne; and so was twice married. Answ. To this he granted. 4. Interrog. Item, in the time of king Henry the eighth he kept the said wife secretly, and had children by her. Answ. Hereunto he also granted; affirming that it was better for him to have his own than to do like other priests, holding and keeping other men’s wives. 5. Interrog. Item, in the time of king Edward he brought out the said his wife openly, affirming and professing publicly the same to be his wife. Answ. He denied not but he so did, and lawfully might do the same, forasmuch as the laws of the realm did so permit him. 6. Interrog. Item, that he shamed not openly to glory himself to have had his wife in secret many years. Answ. And though he so did, (he said) there was no cause why he should be ashamed thereof. 7. Interrog. Item, that the said Thomas Cranmer, falling afterward into the deep bottom of errors, did fly and refuse the authority of the church; did hold and follow the heresy concerning the sacrament of the altar; and also did compile and caused to be set abroad divers books. Answ. Whereunto, when the names of the books were recited to him, he denied not such books which he was the author of. As touching the treatise of Peter Martyr upon the sacrament, he denied that he ever saw it before it was abroad, yet did approve and well like of the same. As for the Catechism, the book of Articles, with the other book against Winchester, he granted the same to be his doings. 8. Interrog. Item, that he compelled many, against their wills, to subscribe to the same articles. Answ. He exhorted (he said) such as were willing to subscribe: but against their wills he compelled none. 9. Interrog. Item, forsomuch as he surceased not to perpetrate enorme and inordinate crimes, he was therefore cast into the Tower, and from thence was brought to Oxford, at what time it was commonly thought that the parliament there should be holden. Answ. To this he said that he knew no such enorme and inordinate crimes that ever he committed. 10. Interrog. Item, that in the said city of Oxford he did openly maintain his heresy, and there was convicted upon the same. Answ. He defended (he said) there the cause of the sacrament; but to be convicted in the same, that he denied. 11. Interrog. Item, when he persevered still in the same, he was by the public censure of the university pronounced an heretic, and his books to be heretical. Answ. That he was so denounced he denied not; but that he was an heretic or his books heretical, that he denied. 12. Interrog. Item, that he was and is notoriously infamed with the note of schism, as

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who not only himself receded from the catholic church and see of Rome, but also moved the king and subjects of this realm to the same. Answ. As touching the receding, that he well granted; but that receding or departing (said he) was only from the see of Rome, and had in it no matter of any schism. 13. Interrog. Item, that he had been twice sworn to the pope.—And withal Dr. Martin brought out the instrument of the public notary, wherein was contained his protestation made when he should be consecrated, asking if he had any thing else protested. Answ. Whereunto he answered that he did nothing but by the laws of the realm. 14. Interrog. Item, that he, the said archbishop of Canterbury, did not only offend in the premises, but also in taking upon him the authority of the see of Rome, in that, without leave or licence from the said see, he consecrated bishops and priests. Answ. He granted that he did execute such things as were wont to be referred to the pope, at what time it was permitted to him by the public laws and determination of the realm. 15. Interrog. Item, that when the whole realm had subscribed to the authority of the pope, he only still persisted in his error. Answ. That he did not admit the pope’s authority, he confessed to be true: but that he erred in the same, that he denied. 16. Interrog. Item, that all and singular the premises be true. Answ. That likewise he granted, excepting those things whereunto he had now answered.

(ii) Thomas Cranmer to Queen Mary, September 1555 (Cox, Works of Cranmer, II, 447)

It may please your majesty to pardon my presumption that I dare be so bold to write to your highness; but very necessity constraineth me, that your majesty may know my mind rather by mine own writing than by other men’s reports. So it is, that upon Saturday, being the seventh day of this month, I was cited to appear at Rome the eightieth day after, there to make answer to such matters as should be objected against me upon the behalf of the king and your most excellent majesty: which matters the Thursday following were objected against me by Dr. Martin and Dr. Storie, your majesty’s proctors, before the bishop of Gloucester, sitting in judgment by commission from Rome. But alas! it cannot but grieve the heart of any natural subject to be accused of the king and queen of his own realm, and specially before an outward judge, or by authority coming from any person out of this realm: where the king and queen, as if they were subjects within their own realm shall complain and require justice at a stranger’s hands against their own subject being already condemned to death by their own laws. As though the king and queen could not do or have justice within their own realms against their own subjects, but they must seek it at a stranger’s hands in a strange land: the like whereof, I think, was never seen. I would have wished to have had some meaner adversaries: and I think that death shall not grieve me much more

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than to have my most dread and most gracious sovereign lord and lady (to whom under God I do owe all obedience) to be mine accusers in judgment within their own realm, before any stranger and outward power. But forasmuch as in the time of the prince of most famous memory, king Henry the Eighth, your grace’s father, I was sworn never to consent that the bishop of Rome should have or exercise any authority or jurisdiction in this realm of England; therefore, lest I should allow his authority contrary to mine oath, I refused to make answer to the bishop of Gloucester, sitting here in judgment by the pope’s authority, lest I should run into perjury. Another cause why I refused the pope’s authority is this, that his authority, as he claimeth it, repugneth to the crown imperial of this realm, and to the laws of the same, which every true subject is bounden to defend. First, for that the pope saith, that all manner of power, as well temporal as spiritual, is given first to him of God; and that the temporal power he giveth unto emperors and kings to use it under him, but so as it be always at his commandment and beck. But contrary to this claim, the imperial crown and jurisdiction temporal of this realm is taken immediately from God, to be used under him only, and is subject unto none but to God alone. Moreover, the imperial laws and customs of this realm the king in his coronation, and all justices when they receive their offices, be sworn, and all the whole realm is bounden, to defend and maintain. But contrary hereunto, the pope by his authority maketh void, and commandeth to blot out of our books all laws and customs, being repugnant to his laws; and declareth accursed all rulers and governors, all the makers, writers, and executors of such laws or customs; as it appeareth by many of the pope’s laws, whereof one or two I shall rehearse. In the Decrees, Dist. 10. is written thus, Constitutions contra canones et decreta praesulum Romanorum vel bonos mores nullius sunt momenti, that is, “The constitutions or statutes enacted against the canons and decrees of the bishops of Rome or their good customs are of none effect.” Also… “We excommunicate all heretics of both sexes, what name soever they be called by, and their favourers and receptors and defenders; and also them that shall hereafter cause to be observed the statutes and customs made against the liberty of the church, except they cause the same to be put out of their records and chapters within two months after the publication of this sentence. Also we excommunicate the statute-makers and writers of those statutes and all the potestates, consuls, governors and counsellors of places where such statutes and customs shall be made or kept; and also those that shall presume to give judgment according to them, or to write into public form the matters so adjudged.” Now by these laws, if the bishop of Rome’s authority, which he claimeth by God, be lawful, all your grace’s laws and customs of your realm, being contrary to the pope’s laws be naught: and as well your majesty as your judges, justices, and all other executors of the same, stand accursed among heretics; which God forbid! And yet this curse can never be avoided, if the pope have such power as he claimeth until such times as the laws and customs of this realm, being contrary to his laws, be taken away and blotted out of the law-books. And although there be many laws of this realm contrary to the laws of Rome, yet I named but a few; as to convict a clerk before any temporal judge of this realm for debt, felony, murder, or for any other crime; which clerks by the pope’s

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laws be so exempt from the king’s laws that they can be nowhere sued but before their ordinary. Also the pope by his laws may give all bishoprics and benefices spiritual, which by the laws of this realm can be given but only by the king and other patrons of the same, except they fall into the lapse. By the pope’s laws, “jus patronatus” shall be sued only before the ecclesiastical judge, but by the laws of this realm it shall be sued before the temporal judges. And to be short, the laws of this realm do agree with the pope’s laws like fire and water. And yet the kings of this realm have provided for their laws by the “praemunire;” so that if any man have let the execution of the laws of this realm by any authority from the see of Rome, he falleth into the praemunire. But to meet with this, the popes have provided for their laws by cursing. For whosoever letteth the pope’s laws to have full course within this realm, by the pope’s power standeth accursed. So that the pope’s power treadeth all the laws and customs of this realm under his feet, cursing all that execute them, until such time as they give place unto his laws. But it may be said that notwithstanding all the pope’s decrees, yet we do execute still the laws and customs of this realm. Nay, not all quietly without interruption of the pope. And where we do execute them, yet we do it unjustly, if the pope’s power be of force, and for the same we stand excommunicate, and shall do, until we leave the execution of our own laws and customs. Thus we be well reconciled to Rome, allowing such authority, whereby the realm standeth accursed before God, if the pope have any such authority. These things, as I suppose, were not fully opened in the parliament-house, when the pope’s authority was received again within this realm; for if they had, I do not believe that either the king or queen’s majesty, or the nobles of this realm, or the commons of the same, would ever have consented to receive again such a foreign authority, so injurious, hurtful, and prejudicial, as well to the crown as to the laws and customs and state of this realm, as whereby they must needs acknowledge themselves to be accursed. But none could open this matter well but the clergy, and that such of them as had read the pope’s laws, whereby the pope hath made himself as it were a god. These seek to maintain the pope, whom they desired to have their chief head, to the intent they might have as it were a kingdom and laws within themselves, distinct from the laws of the crown, and wherewith the crown may not meddle; and so being exempt from the laws of the realm, might live in this realm like lords and kings, without damage or fear of any man, so that they please their high and supreme head at Rome. For this consideration, I ween, some that knew the truth held their peace in the parliament; whereas if they had done their duties to the crown and whole realm, they should have opened their mouths, declared the truth, and shewed the perils and dangers that might ensue to the crown and realm. And if I should agree to allow such authority within this realm whereby I must needs confess that your most gracious highness, and also your realm, should ever continue accursed, until you shall cease from the execution of your own laws and

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customs of your realm; I could not think myself true either to your highness, or to this my natural country, knowing that I do know. Ignorance, I know, may excuse other men; but he that knoweth how prejudicial and injurious the power and authority, which he challengeth every where, is to the crown, laws, and customs of this realm, and yet will allow the same, I cannot see in any wise how he can keep his due allegiance, fidelity, and truth to the crown and state of this realm. Another cause I alleged why I could not allow the authority of the pope, which is this, that by his authority he subverteth not only the laws of this realm, but also the laws of God: so that whosoever be under his authority he suffereth them not to be under Christ’s religion purely, as Christ did command. And, for one example, I brought forth that whereas by God’s laws all christian people be bounden diligently to learn his word, that they may know how to believe and live accordingly, for that purpose he ordained holy days, when they ought, leaving apart all other business, to give themselves wholly to know and serve God. Therefore God’s will and commandment is that when the people be gathered together, ministers should use such language as the people may understand and take profit thereby, or else hold their peace. For as an harp or lute, if it give no certain sound, that men may know what is stricken, who can dance after it? for all the sound is in vain: so is it vain and profiteth nothing, saith Almighty God by the mouth of St. Paul, if the priest speak to the people in a language which they know not; “for else he may profit himself, but profiteth not the people,” saith St. Paul. But herein I was answered thus; that St. Paul spake only of preaching, that the preacher should preach in a tongue which the people did know, or else his preaching availeth nothing. This I would have spoken, and could not be suffered. But if the preaching availeth nothing, being spoken in a language which the people understand not, how should any other service avail them, being spoken in the same language? And yet that St. Paul meant not only of preaching, it appeareth plainly by his own words. For he speaketh by name expressly of praying, singing, lauding, and thanking of God, and of all other things which the priests say in the churches, whereunto the people say Amen; which they used not in preaching, but in other divine service: that whether the priests rehearse the wonderful works of God, or the great benefits of God unto mankind above all other creatures, or give thanks unto God, or make open profession of their faith, or humble confession of their sins, with earnest request of mercy and forgiveness, or make suit or request unto God for any thing; that then all the people, understanding what the priests say, might give their minds and voices with them, and say Amen, that is to say, allow what the priests say; that the rehearsal of God’s universal works and benefits, the giving of thanks, the profession of faith, the confession of sins, and the requests and petitions of the priests and the people might ascend up into the ears of God all together, and be as a sweet savour, odour, and incense in his nose: and thus was it used many hundred years after Christ’s ascension. But the aforesaid things cannot be done when the priests speak to the people in a language not known; and so they (or their clerk in their name) say Amen, but they cannot tell whereunto. Whereas St. Paul saith, “How can the people say Amen to thy well saying, when they understand not what thou sayest?” And thus was St. Paul understanden of all interpreters, both the Greeks and

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Latins, old and new, school-authors and others, that I have read, until about thirty years past: at which time one Eckius, with other of his sort, began to devise a new exposition, understanding St. Paul of preaching only. But when a good number of the best learned men reputed within this realm, some favouring the old, some the new learning, as they term it, (where indeed that which they call the old is the new, and that which they call the new is indeed the old;) but when a great number of such learned men of both sorts were gathered together at Windsor for the reformation of the service of the church, it was agreed by both, without controversy (not one saying contrary), that the service of the church ought to be in the mother tongue, and that St. Paul in the fourteenth chapter to the Corinthians was so to be understanden…. For so Paul teacheth also in the epistle to the Corinthians: “If the spirit do only bless (or say well), how shall he that occupieth the place of a private person say Amen to thy thanksgiving? for he perceiveth not what thou sayest. Thou dost give thanks well, but the other is not edified.” And not only the civil law and all other writers a thousand and five hundred years continually together have expounded St. Paul not of preaching only, but of other service said in the church; but also reason giveth the same, that if men be commanded to hear any-thing it must be spoken in a language which the hearers understand, or else, as St. Paul saith, what availeth it to hear? So that the pope giving a contrary commandment, that the people coming to the church shall hear they wot not what, and shall answer they know not whereto, taketh upon him to command not only against reason, but also directly against God. And again I said, whereas our Saviour Christ ordained the sacrament of his most precious body and blood to be received of all Christian people under the forms of both bread and wine, and said of the cup, “Drink ye all of this;” the pope giveth a clean contrary commandment, that no lay-man shall drink of the cup of their salvation; as though the cup of salvation by the blood of Christ pertained not to laymen. And whereas Theophilus Alexandrinus (whose works St. Jerome did translate about eleven hundred years past) saith, “That if Christ had been crucified for the devils, his cup should not be denied them”; yet the pope denieth the cup of Christ to Christian people for whom Christ was crucified. So that if I should obey the pope in these things I must needs disobey my Saviour Christ. But I was answered hereunto (as commonly the papists do answer), that under the form of bread is whole Christ’s flesh and blood: so that whosoever receiveth the form of bread receiveth as well Christ’s blood as his flesh. Let it be so: yet in the form of bread only Christ’s blood is not drunken, but eaten; nor is it received in the cup in the form of wine, as Christ commanded, but eaten with the flesh under the form of bread. And, moreover, the bread is not the sacrament of his blood, but of his flesh only; nor the cup is not the sacrament of his flesh, but of his blood only. And so the pope keepeth from all lay-persons the sacrament of their redemption by Christ’s blood, which Christ commandeth to be given unto them. And furthermore, Christ ordained the sacrament in two kinds the one separated from the other, to be a representation of his death, where his blood was separated from

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his flesh; which is not represented in one kind alone: so that the lay people receive not the whole sacrament whereby Christ’s death is represented, as he commanded. Moreover, as the pope taketh upon him to give the temporal sword, or royal and imperial power, to kings and princes; so doth he likewise take upon him to depose them from their imperial states if they be disobedient to him, and commandeth the subjects to disobey their princes, assoiling the subjects as well of their obedience as of their lawful oaths made unto their true kings and princes, directly contrary to God’s commandment, who commandeth all subjects to obey their kings, or their rulers under them. One John, patriarch of Constantinople in the time of St. Gregory, claimed superiority above all other bishops. To whom St. Gregory writeth that therein he did injury to his three brethren, which were equal with him, that is to say, the bishop of Rome, the bishop of Alexandria and of Antiochia: which three were patriarchal sees as well as Constantinople, and were brethren one to another, “But” saith St. Gregory, “if any one shall exalt himself above all the rest, to be the universal bishop, the same passeth in pride.” But now the bishop of Rome exalteth himself not only above all bishops, but also above all kings and emperors, and above all the whole world, taking upon him to give and take away, to set up and put down, as he shall think good. And as the devil, having no such authority yet took upon him to give unto Christ all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship him: in like manner the pope taketh upon him to give empires and kingdoms, being none of his, to such as will fall down and worship him and kiss his feet. And moreover his lawyers and glossers so flatter him that they feign he may command emperors and kings to hold his stirrup when he lighteth upon his horse, and to be his foot-men; and that, if any emperor and king gave him any thing, they give him nothing but that is his own; and that he may dispense against God’s word, against both the old and new Testament, against St. Paul’s epistles, and against the gospel. And furthermore whatsoever he doth, although he draw innumerable people by heaps with himself into hell, yet may no mortal man reprove him, because he, being judge of all men, may be judged of no man. And thus he sitteth in the temple of God, as if he were a God, and nameth himself God’s vicar, and yet he dispenseth against God. If this be not to play antichrist’s part, I cannot tell what is antichrist, which is no more to say but Christ’s enemy and adversary, who shall sit in the temple of God, advancing himself above all other, yet by hypocrisy and feigned religion shall subvert the true religion of Christ, and under pretence and colour of Christian religion shall work against Christ, and therefore hath the name of antichrist. Now if any man lift himself higher than the pope hath done, who lifteth himself above all the world; or can be more adversary to Christ than to dispense against God’s laws, and where Christ hath given any commandment, to command directly the contrary, that man must needs be taken for antichrist. But until the time that such a person may be found, men may easily conjecture where to find antichrist. Wherefore, seeing the pope thus (to overthrow both God’s laws and man’s laws) taketh upon him to make emperors and kings to be vassals and subjects unto him, and specially the crown of this realm, with the laws and customs of the same; I see no mean

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how I may consent to admit his usurped power within this realm, contrary to mine oath, mine obedience to God’s law, mine allegiance and duty to your majesty, and my love and affection to this realm. This that I have spoken against the power and authority of the pope, I have not spoken (I take God to record and judge) for any malice I owe to the pope’s person, whom I know not; but I shall pray to God to give him grace that he may seek above all things to promote God’s honour and glory, and not to follow the trade of his predecessors in these latter days. Nor I have not spoken it for fear of punishment, and to avoid the same, thinking it rather an occasion to aggravate than to diminish my trouble: but I have spoken it for my most bounden duty to the crown, liberties, laws, and customs of this realm of England; but most specially to discharge my conscience in uttering the truth to God’s glory, casting away all fear by the comfort which I have in Christ, who saith: “Fear not them that kill the body, and cannot kill the soul; but fear him that can cast both body and soul into hell-fire.” He that for fear to lose this life will forsake the truth, shall lose the everlasting life: and he that for the truth’s sake will spend his life, shall find everlasting life. And Christ promiseth to stand fast with them before his Father, which will stand fast with him here. Which comfort is so great that whosoever hath his eyes fixed upon Christ cannot greatly pass on this life, knowing that he may be sure to have Christ stand by him in the presence of his Father in heaven. And as touching the sacrament, I said: forasmuch as the whole matter standeth in the understanding of these words of Christ, “This is my body, This is my blood;” I said that Christ in these words made demonstration of the bread and wine, and spake figuratively, calling bread his body and wine his blood, because he ordained them to be sacraments of his body and blood. And where the papists say in these two points contrary unto me, that Christ called not bread his body, but a substance uncertain, nor spake figuratively: herein I said I would be judged by the old church; and which doctrine could be proved the elder, that I would stand unto. And forasmuch as I have alleged in my book many old authors, both Greeks and Latins, which above a thousand years after Christ continually taught as I do; if they could bring forth but one old author that saith in these two points as they say, I offered six or seven years ago, and do offer yet still, that I will give place unto them. But when I bring forth any author that saith in most plain terms as I do, yet saith the other party that the authors meant not so: as who should say that the authors spake one thing and meant clean contrary. And upon the other part, when they cannot find any one author that saith in words as they say; yet say they, that the authors meant as they say. Now, whether I or they speak more to the purpose herein I refer me to the judgment of all indifferent hearers: yea, the old church of Rome, above a thousand years together, neither believed nor used the sacrament as the church of Rome hath done of late years. For in the beginning the church of Rome taught a pure and a sound doctrine of the sacrament. But after that the church of Rome fell into a new doctrine of transubstantiation; with the doctrine they changed the use of the sacrament, contrary

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to that Christ commanded, and the old church of Rome used above a thousand years. And yet, to deface the old they say that the new is the old: herein for my part I am content to stand to the trial. But their doctrine is so fond and uncomfortable that I marvel that any man would allow it if he knew what it is. But, howsoever they bear the people in hand that which they write in their books hath neither truth nor comfort. For by their doctrine of one body of Christ is made two bodies; one natural, having distance of members, with form and proportion of man’s perfect body, and this body is in heaven; but the body of Christ in the sacrament, by their own doctrine must needs be a monstrous body, having neither distance of members, nor form, fashion, or proportion of a man’s natural body. And such a body is in the sacrament, teach they, and goeth into the mouth with the form of bread, and entereth no farther than the form of bread goeth, nor tarrieth no longer than the form of bread is by natural heat in digesting: so that when the form of bread is digested, that body of Christ is gone. And forasmuch as evil men be as long in digesting as good men, the body of Christ, by their doctrine, entereth as far and tarrieth as long in wicked men as in godly men. And what comfort can be herein to any Christian man to receive Christ’s unshapen body, and it to enter no farther than the stomach, and to depart by and bye as soon as the bread is consumed? It seemeth to me a more sound and comfortable doctrine that Christ hath but one body, and that hath form and fashion of a man’s true body; which body spiritually entereth into the whole man, body and soul: and though the sacrament be consumed, yet whole Christ remaineth, and feedeth the receiver unto eternal life, (if he continue in godliness,) and never departeth until the receiver forsake him. And as for the wicked, they have not Christ within them at all, who cannot be where Belial is. And this is my faith, and (as meseemeth) a sound doctrine, according to God’s word, and sufficient for a Christian to believe in that matter. And if it can be shewed unto me that the pope’s authority is not prejudicial to the things before mentioned, or that my doctrine in the sacrament is erroneous, which I think cannot be shewed, then I never was nor will be so perverse to stand wilfully in mine own opinion, but I shall with all humility submit myself unto the pope, not only to kiss his feet, but another part also. Another cause why I refused to take the bishop of Gloucester for my judge was the respect of his own person being more than once perjured. First, for that he being divers times sworn never to consent that the bishop of Rome should have any jurisdiction within this realm, but to take the king and his successors for supreme heads of this realm, as by God’s laws they be; contrary to that lawful oath the said bishop sat then in judgment by authority from Rome: wherein he was perjured and not worthy to sit as a judge. The second perjury was that he took his bishopric both of the queen’s majesty and of the pope, making to each of them a solemn oath: which oaths be so contrary that the one must needs be perjured. And furthermore in swearing to the pope to maintain his laws, decrees, constitutions, ordinances, reservations, and provisions, he declareth himself an enemy to the imperial crown and to the laws and state of this realm: whereby he declared himself not worthy to sit as a judge within this realm. And for these considerations I refused to take him for my judge.

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(iii) Thomas Cranmer to Queen Mary, Sept. 1555 (Ibid. 454)

I learned by doctor Martin, that at the day of your majesty’s coronation you took an oath of obedience to the pope of Rome, and the same time you took another oath to this realm, to maintain the laws, liberties, and customs of the same. And if your majesty did make an oath to the pope I think it was according to the other oaths which he useth to minister to princes; which is, to be obedient to him, to defend his person, to maintain his authority, honour, laws, lands, and privileges. And if it be so (which I know not but by report,) then I beseech your majesty to look upon your oath made to the crown and realm, and to expend and weigh the two oaths together, to see how they do agree, and then to do as your grace’s conscience shall give you: for I am surely persuaded that willingly your majesty will not offend, nor do against your conscience for nothing. But I fear me that there be contradictions in your oaths, and that those which should have informed your grace thoroughly, did not their duties therein. And if your majesty ponder the two oaths diligently, I think you shall perceive you were deceived; and then your highness may use the matter as God shall put in your heart. Furthermore, I am kept here from company of learned men, from books, from counsel, from pen and ink, saving at this time to write unto your majesty; which all were necessary for a man being in my case. Wherefore I beseech your majesty, that I may have such of these as may stand with your majesty’s pleasure. And as for mine appearance at Rome, if your majesty will give me leave, I will appear there: and I trust that God shall put in my mouth to defend his truth there as well as here. But I refer it wholly to your majesty’s pleasure.

(iv) Pole, Cardinal Legate, to Archbishop Cranmer, 6 November 1555 (Cox, Cranmer’s Misc. Writings, 534) Pole answers Cranmer’s letter to Queen Mary (above, ii) in a very long letter. The spirit of his reply will be clear from this extract.

Almighty God the Father, by the grace of his only Son, God and man, that died for our sins, may give you true and perfect repentance. This I daily pray for myself, being a sinner; but, I thank God, never obstinate sinner. And the same grace the more earnestly I do pray for to be given to them that be obstinate, the more need they have thereof, being otherwise past all man’s cure and admonition, to save them: as your open sayings, in open audience, doth shew of you. Which hath caused, that those judges, that hath sit upon the examination of your grievous faults, seeing no likelihood of repentance in you, hath utterly cast away all hope of your recovery: whereof doth follow the most horrible sentence of condemnation, both of your body and soul, both your temporal death and eternal. Which is to me so great an horror to hear, that if there were any way, or mean or fashion, that I might find to remove you from error, bringing you to the knowledge of the truth, for your salvation; this I testify to you afore God, upon the salvation of mine own soul, that I would rather choose to be that mean, that you might receive this benefit by me, than to receive the greatest benefit for myself, that can be given under heaven in this world: I esteem so much the salvation of one soul.

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And because it happened to me to see your private letters directed to the queen’s highness, sent by the same unto me, wherein you utter and express such apparent reasons that cause you to swerve from the rest of the church in these articles of the authority of the pope, and of the sacrament of the altar, concluding with these words: “That if any man can shew you by reason, that the authority of the pope be not prejudicial to the wealth of the realm, or that your doctrine in the sacrament be erroneous, then you would never be so perverse to stand wilfully in your own opinion; but shall with all humility submit yourself to the truth in all things, and gladly embrace the same: “these your words, written in that letter, giveth me some occasion, desiring your wealth, not utterly to despair thereof; but to attempt to recover you by the same way that you open unto me: which is, by reason to shew you the error of your opinion, and withal the light of the truth in both causes. But whether this may help you indeed, or bring you to revoke the same with true repentance, this I know not; and I fear much the contrary; for that I see the ground and beginning, how you fell into error in both these articles, not to be of that sort that maketh men commonly to fall into errors and heresies. Which sort and way is, by meddling with your wit and discourse natural, to examine the articles of the faith; making your reason judge thereof, which ought to be judged and ruled by the tradition of the faith: which abuse causeth men daily to fall into errors and heresies. And the same also is in you, and is joined with that you have done. But here standeth not the ground of your error; nor yet in this other common manner of falling from the truth, which St Paul noteth in the Gentiles, and is in all men commonly that followeth their sensual appetites, qui veritatem Dei in injustitia detinent: which thing also hath been occasion of your error. But yet not this is the very ground thereof, but a further fault: that you giving your oath to the truth, you mocked with the same, as the Jews mocked with Christ, when they saluted him saying, Ave Rex Judaeorum, and afterwards did crucify him. For so did you to the vicar of Christ, knowledging the pope of Rome by the words of your oath to be so, and in mind intending to crucify the same authority; whereof came the plague of deep ignorance and blindness unto you: which is now that bringeth you to this grievous peril, to perish both body and soul. From which peril no reason can deliver you. But you discovering yourself, touching the entry, when you should make the customable oath of all legitimate bishops in Christendom, which is the door for you to enter to the service of God, in the highest spiritual office within this realm, and seeing you made the same but for a countenance, nothing meaning to observe that you promised by the oath; this is a door that every thief may enter by. This is not the door that they enter by, that mean earnestly the service of God…. So that you now entering to the mountain of God, which was to that high archbishopric, and to the primacy in the realm, by a clean contrary way, which is, as you confess yourself, by a feigned oath, by fraud, and dissimulation; what more plain sentence can be against you, if you have a thousand reformations in your mind, than that all this doth not make that this should be the way to the true service of God, nor that you, using a false oath, should be of that generation, which with their heart sought God, but utterly

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concludeth against you, that if those that abstain from all deceit with their neighbour, specially in oath, be blessed of God, he that confesseth to have used such dissimulation in his oath, not with one neighbour or twain, but with the whole realm, with the whole church, what can he receive, but the malediction of God? What can more evidently shew that man to be none of that generation that seeketh God? As, if there were none other proof, that followed in your acts, such a deceitful and shameful entry doth manifestly declare: and most of all, one of the first acts you did after this; which was to pluck the rest of the realm, of whom you had chief cure, out of the house of God, bringing them forthwith into the schism…. …So that here now I have told you, whether you hear me, or no, the very cause of your blindness and ignorance: which is the vengeance of God against you for your dissimulation and perjury to him and to the whole church, at your entering to the high service thereof. Whereby you have deserved to be cast out of the house of God, which is the church, in tenebras exteriores, ubi estfletus et stridor dentium. Which is the place and state wherein I see you now lie; and the same I saw so evidently in your letters, from the beginning to the end, as nothing can be more plain: you shewing yourself in the same to be so ignorant, that you know not those things which be evident to every man; which every man, that hath any exterior light, by experience and knowledge of things past, doth know…. [Of the doctrine of the Real Presence. [ …And here may no new manner be taught. What a heinous pride is this, this doctrine passing a thousand year, and as many hundred beside as hath been since this sacrament was instituted, by the midst of the Jews and gentiles, with this slander and appearance of foolishness, never being found faulty in any one of the bishops and preachers of the word of God, that they confessed the real presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar; but all found faulty and condemned of heresy, which denied the same! And ever the doctrine of the presence, prevailing and triumphing above man’s reason or sense, may be capace of the same: which both God will have mortified and die utterly, when this mystery and meat of life is spoken and taken. For as that was the beginning of the destruction of man, when following the probability of reason, he would feed himself with meat prohibit unto him; so the counsel of God hath ordained this to be the beginning of the life of man, to take a sensible meat, wherein neither reason nor sense can find any probability, or make any judgment thereof. But because I have entreated this part more largely in another epistle that I send unto you, wherein I shew that standing, as you do, without repentance of the manner of your entry to the service of the church, you could never be neither good scholar of this doctrine, and much less a master; I will now proceed no further to reason with you herein, knowing all to be in vain, and no help nor mean to recover you, but only prayer. Which with all my heart, as I Would for mine own soul, I will not fail to use for you to him whom you have so greatly offended, as I never read of any bishop that ever was in the church. But the fountain of his mercy is never closed to tham that will call for it: as mine own entire prayer is to the infinite mercy of God, that you may have the grace so to do; sending you for obtaining of that, his holy spirit…that, seeing first your

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sore condemnation, you may therewith be stirred with all humility and contrite heart to demand some comfort; which cannot be hoped of without your former condemnation of yourself. Whereunto to bring you, it hath caused me by writing to set forth so earnestly some part of your grievous offences afore you; willing you no less comfort; than I would to mine own soul.

Part VI DAILY LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY

INTRODUCTION

T

HE documents in the two preceding Sections have illustrated the structure, organization, and functions of two great institutions, the State and the Church. The response of each of them to the challenge of high-powered spiritual and material forces provides a pattern of events which does not lend itself easily to simplification. Yet neither of these institutions can be absent for long from the mind of any observer of the sixteenth-century scene, for within the framework they provided were enclosed the men and women whose lives and experiences are the ultimate realities of early Tudor history. For the historian of these institutions the supreme relevance of such documents is in the evidence they provide of the effects of the process of change upon these same institutions and the many problems they reveal as the product of such change. Now, these were not the problems lying uppermost in the minds of those members of early Tudor society usually blanketed under the descriptive phrase “the common man”. If such ordinary folk gave any thought at all to such questions they approached them from a very different point of view. They could not, of course, be wholly indifferent to the tensions of their century. Even the least responsive amongst them must have sensed something of the dynamic quality of the period, although they may not have had the insight to perceive that out of the violence, the ruthless cruelty, and the tragedy they witnessed, and often they themselves had to endure, a new world was being shaped. Even the least intelligent among them could scarcely have failed to catch some echoes of the bitter controversies in Church and State raging in high places, even though they could not have understood their full significance, while those endowed with keener faculties would realize all too clearly the risks they were likely to run if they were to identify themselves too closely with one or other of the conflicting factions in religion and politics. So the wise among them refrained from too keen an interest in the issues of high politics or in the mysteries of the “new learning” threatening the foundations of their accustomed world. These were matters best left to more sophisticated minds. Nevertheless, these ordinary members of society had their own immediate problems to absorb their attention, problems personal to each yet common to all, problems each of them was bound to face if they were not to be overwhelmed by the stern realities of daily life. What concerned them most closely was the pressing need to find ways and means for meeting them. In the main these were material problems: how to be sure of satisfying simple physical needs: how to keep an intact roof over their heads and provide for the manifold wants of their families: how to use every opportunity for advancement in social status and wealth: how to protect themselves from the tricks of fraudulent traders, the extortions of monopolists, regrators, rack renters, and the numerous other types of parasite abroad in their world. These and similar problems were the primary concern of the common man of the time. To follow him as he grappled with them is to see more than the mere personal endeavours of the individual. These were matters 893

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calling for the resources of the whole community for their solution, and a whole network of economic organization in town and country was involved in the struggle for ways and means. Some sources have been collected here to give an impression of the methods which early Tudor society employed in solving these problems. In Division A are collected some illustrations of the problems of daily life as they presented themselves to people living in the country. These include some sources which throw light on the management of estates, on household organization, and the general problems connected with agriculture. Since the redistribution and utilization of land summed up in the term “the enclosure movement” plays so large a part both in the discussions of economic historians as well as in the lives of the people of the time, some materials are included to illustrate the general nature of the problems which have to be considered. Division B is concerned with daily life in the towns. The special feature of the documents in the section is that they are for the most part taken from the collections of town records available in print which form an important source for the history of the towns in the sixteenth century. Space is not sufficient for a proper display of such material; what is provided should, however, be enough to indicate the kind of questions affecting the lives of the citizens and the ways in which they dealt with them. Division C provides a few illustrations of the nature of industry and industrial conditions. Again they only skim the surface, but they are sufficient to suggest the direction in which industrial development was beginning to move in the new conditions which were beginning to be revealed. Division D directs attention to some important financial questions, two in particular, usury and the successive debasements of the coinage being such as loomed very considerably in the experience of the men of the period. Each of these topics leads on to many technicalities, and not all of them can be satisfactorily illustrated here. Enough, however, can be used to reveal the nature and importance of both of these subjects in early sixteenth century society. Division E provides materials to illustrate the efforts made during the early Tudor period to arrive at a method of dealing with one of the most disturbing problems of the time, the alarming increase in the number of those who, for one or other of a variety of reasons, were out of work and were unable to provide themselves with even the bare essentials of life. Prior to the sixteenth century the relief of poverty had not seemed so formidable, the handling of it being left very largely to private initiative, although some legislation of the reign of Richard II had shown some appreciation of the complexity of the problem. Private charity, of course, continued to play a part in the relief of poverty during the early sixteenth century, but it was not enough to meet all the demands, and quite early in the period the social implications of poverty were becoming obvious, forcing the authorities to experiment with new methods of control. By the middle of the century, as a result of about sixty years of Tudor government, much had been achieved: some important general principles had been worked out, and the first steps had been taken towards the creation of a poor law system. The main pattern of these developments is here suggested as an introduction to the more detailed information provided in the text of the statutes themselves.

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Following the example of medieval legislators, Tudor statesmen from the beginning accepted a principle to which they remained attached in all the legislation for which they were responsible. This was their rule for drawing a hard and fast distinction between the two types of poor: the able-bodied workshy vagrant and the weak and impotent poor. It was recognized that each represented a different problem and needed different treatment. The only remedy for the able-bodied vagrant was corporal punishment, and the main interest of the various acts dealing with him is the increasing severity of the treatment to which he was subjected, ranging from the three days and nights in the stocks of the act of 14951 to the whipping of that of 1531,2and the more savage punishment of Edwardian legislation.3 Treatment of the impotent poor was not so simple: the legislation of these years concerned with them must be looked upon as a series of experiments which established the line of later developments. An act of 1531,4 first introduced the principle that society had responsibilities for the weak and aged poor, and provided in somewhat halting fashion an arrangement whereby such needy poor should be allowed to beg under supervision, their names being noted by the local authority in a register. An act of 15365 tried more elaborate measures. It introduced a new principle: the legal responsibility of each parish for the relief of its own poor. Further, the local officials were to provide collecting boxes for voluntary alms on Sundays, holy days, and other festivals, the money thus obtained to be divided among the impotent poor so that they need not beg. An act of 1547,6 like that of 1536, relied upon the collection of voluntary alms, but added a proviso to the effect that the curate should exhort parishioners to be mindful of the poor. Further steps towards the increase and organization of this charitable fund was made in the act of 1552,7 which provided for the appointment of two collectors of alms in each parish and town yearly, who, on the Sunday after their election in Whitsun week, were to ask parishioners what sum they were prepared to give weekly by way of relief for the poor, such promises to be registered, and the collectors to make a weekly distribution to the needy. One other important practice may be noted. By an act of 1501 responsibility for the supervision of poor law administration was entrusted to the Justice of the Peace, a feature which was to remain true of all later poor law administration. Such was the general trend of poor law policy during this period. The ways in which the local authorities administered this legislation is revealed in some of the other documents in this Section. Finally, Division F touches lightly on a topic which surely deserves mention in any discussion of the features of the daily life of a society in any period. The bringing up of the young opens on that wide field for research. Here only the barest outline of the subject can be indicated, but something will have been achieved if the reader collects some impressions concerning the types of material which are available for a study of the theory and practice of education in a period undoubtedly aware of the significance of these matters. 1

St. 11 Hen. VII, c. 2. 2 St 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12. 4 St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 3; St. 6 Edw. VI, c. 2 St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12. 5 6 7 St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 25. St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 3. St. 6 Edw. VI, c. 2. 3

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY There is no adequate recent survey of the economic history of the early Tudor period. After the broad outlines had been drawn by the pioneers of this relatively new approach towards the end of the nineteenth century, research was concentrated upon special problems, and much of the literature consisted of monographs and technical articles, While the results of such work have emphasized the need for some important modifications of earlier views, there is not as yet enough certainty to justify a complete restatement of the economic history of the period, as a whole. Thus, much of the bibliography consists of specialist contributions in limited fields. Another point should be made. The early sixteenth-century interaction of political, religious, and other factors upon economic phenomena was particularly sharp, and some of the problems can now be seen for what they really were, the harbingers of economic change, bound in due course to lead to a transformation of the pattern of the medieval economy. Although, of course, no clearcut line can be drawn dividing the old from the new, there is some significance in the fact that economic historians today have been inclined to see the origins of some of the changes they have been studying somewhere around the early forties of the sixteenth century. Without stressing this fact too heavily, this does have some importance for the economic historian. It means that for the early Tudor period the bibliography of the later Middle Ages must be the framework within which must be fitted as well some of the books dealing with the late sixteenth century foreshadowing the changes beginning to emerge at that time. There is a detailed bibliography in Read, 213–264. Also useful are the select bibliographies in the works of Lipson, Unwin, and some of the other text books mentioned below. The Economic History Review has, since 1925, published annual lists of new writings in English economic history, and also occasional surveys of works dealing with European countries. A handy reference work for earlier bibliography is H.Hall, A Select Bibliography of the study, sources, and literature of English medieval economic history (1914). Periodicals specializing in articles and reviews of economic historical literature are: The Economic Journal (1891); Economica (1921); The Economic History Review (1927); Journ. of Econ. and Business History (U.S.A., Cambridge, 1928–32); and the Vierteljahrsschrift für Social- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1903); and Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (Paris, 1929).

SECONDARY WORKS There is no simple textbook devoted exclusively to the economic history of this period, although a most valuable short survey is S.T.Bindoff, Tudor England (1950), while G.Elton, England under the Tudors (1955), and L.F.Salzman, England in Tudor Times (Norwich, 1926), and R.J.Mitchell and M.D.R.Leys, A History of the English People (1950) are also helpful. More general textbooks of English economic history, which include sections on the sixteenth century are: J.Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain, edited J.Saltmarsh (Cambridge, 1949), and E.Lipson, Economic History of England (vol. I, 11th edn., II and III, 6th edn., 1956). There is some relevant material in the Cambridge Economic History (3 vols., Cambridge, 1941–63). Whatever the modifications made by modern research, all serious study for this period must be based on the work of the pioneers. Of these W.Cunningham (1849–1919) stands first. His Growth of English Industry and Commerce (2 vols., in 3 pts., Cambridge, 1882) was the first large-scale attempt to put the sixteenth century into proper perspective from the angle of economic problems. When due allowance has been made for necessary revisions, this work is still worth consulting, particularly for its references and bibliographies. Almost 896

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contemporary with Cunningham, W.J.Ashley (1850–1927) projected an ambitious economic history, which never got beyond two volumes of critical, and stimulating essays, Introduction to English Economic History and Theory (Pt. I, 1888, II, 1893). Discussing, among other topics, the history of the woollen industry, the agrarian revolution, and the relief of the poor, Ashley made many important comments and suggestions, while through his close acquaintance with the work being done abroad, especially in Germany, he was eminently equipped to bring the results of foreign scholarship within the reach of English students. Largely in response to this stimulus detailed research went on apace in monographs and papers, many of which will come up for notice in their appropriate sections below. The next generation of English economic historians were largely inspired by George Unwin (1870–1924). In his comparatively short working life Unwin achieved much. He applied the training he had received in Berlin—he was a pupil of the economist Gustav Schmoller—to researches in the English archives, and he was the author of some original contributions, especially in the economic history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The best of his shorter studies were republished with a memoir, by R.H.Tawney, Studies in Economic History: The Collected Papers of George Unwin (1927). His larger works will be mentioned below. Before dealing with some of the literature on special aspects of economic history it will be convenient to mention some useful collections of essays of general interest for this period. Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century, edited by E.Power and M.Postan (1933), contains essays by several hands. While not primarily concerned with the Tudor period, they contain some important information with a bearing on that period, and they provide an illuminating background. With them should be classed J.Saltmarsh, “Plague and economic decline in England in the later Middle Ages” (Camb. Hist. Journ., 1941, VII, 23–41); M.Postan, “Revisions in Economic History: The Fifteenth Century” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1938, IX, 160– 167); and Essays in Economic History, edited E.M.Carus-Wilson (1954), a serviceable reprint of some of the articles originally published in The Economic History Review. One of the most important problems of economic history, that of estimating the nature and extent of the control exercised by the State over the personal and economic life of its citizens, presents itself in several forms in the early sixteenth century. Government regulation on dues and personal display was not then a novelty. Attention was first drawn to this kind of government activity by W.Hooper, “The Tudor Sumptuary Laws” (E.H.R. 1915, XXX, 433–449), but a more searching examination was made by F.E.Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore, 1926), a study which sets Tudor policy against the background of medieval procedure. State control of food and drink was discussed by F.J. Nicholas, “The Assize of Bread in London during the Sixteenth Century” (Econ. Journ. Hist. Suppl, 1932, 323–348), and an interesting introductory sketch of the origins of the licensing laws was provided by H.J.Randall, “The evolution of the pub” (L.Q.R., 1904, XX, 316–321). The control of prices and wages, always a significant topic, is particularly important in this period, but it still awaits scientific treatment. Some general studies are valuable for background, especially Earl J.Hamilton, “American treasure and the rise of capitalism” (Economica, 1929, IX, 338–357), and American treasure and the price revolution in Spain (Camb., Mass., 1934), also J.U.Nef, “Prices and industrial capitalism in France and England, 1540–1640” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1937, VII, 155–185). The monumental work of J.E.Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England (7 vols., Oxford, 1866–1900; vols, IV, V) still remains the basic reference work. Speaking generally its statistics have been confirmed by W.Beveridge, Prices and Wages in England, vol. 1, Price Tables: Mercantile Era (1939), but the second volume, designed to cover the period 1550 has not yet been published. Some useful prices and wages statistics are provided in A.P.Usher, “Prices of wheat and commodity price indexes for England, 1259–1930” (Harvard. Rev. of Econ. Statistics, 1931, XIII, 103–113), N.S.B.Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market

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(Harv. Econ. Studies, XIII, 1915), and D.Knoop and G.P. Jones, The Medieval Mason (Manchester, 1933). Materials for wage statistics in the form of wage assessments are not available before 1560. The main lines of a study of this important subject are sketched by Y.S.Brenner, “The inflation of prices in early sixteenth century England” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd Ser., XIV, 1961, 218–239). Other important vital statistics are those for the population of the country. The subject has not been fully explored for this period. It is, of course, made difficult because of the absence of reliable figures. The best introduction to the subject is J.C.Russell, British Medieval Population (Albuquerque: 1948). The problem of poverty, and the efforts made both by the central and local authorities to control it attracted the attention of early writers, but their work was superseded by a scholarly monograph by E.M.Leonard, The Early History of English Poor Relief (Cambridge, 1900:2nd impression, 1965). This still remains the basic handbook, but some recent work, e.g. G.R. Elton, “An early Tudor poor law” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1953, vol. IV, 2nd ser., 55–67) suggests that there may be place for a fresh investigation of some aspects of this most important subject. In the sphere of agrarian history not all the problems have been examined with equal thoroughness. The pioneer monograph, and it is still indispensable, is R.H.Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912). Much, perhaps too much, attention has been concentrated upon one special problem, the nature and effects of enclosures. In early works most of the discussion centred on the difficult problem of adjusting the balance between two different types of historical evidence, that of the contemporary political pamphleteers on the one hand, and on the other the less sensational information derived from a statistical analysis of the data supplied in the returns to inquisitions concerning enclosures and depopulation Some of the more important monographs on the subject should be noted. The nature of the pamphlet literature was discussed and illustrated by E.P.Cheyney, Social Changes in England in the Sixteenth Century as reflected in contemporary literature (Univ. of Penn., 1895). The official documents, which revealed a different picture, were edited and discussed by I.S.Leadam, The Domesday of Inclosures, 1517–18 (Roy. Hist. Soc., 2 vols., 1897), and Domesday of Inclosures for Nottingham, 1517 (Thoroton Soc., Rec. Ser., II, 1904). Leadam’s conclusions were criticized by E.F.Gay, “Inclosures in England in the sixteenth century” (Quart. Journ. Econ., 1903, XVII, 576–597), and in two papers “The inquisitions of depopulation in 1517 and the Domesday of Inclosures” (T.R.H.S., 1900, 2nd Ser., XIV, 101, 231–267, 286–303), and “The midland revolt and the inquisitions of depopulation of 1607” (Ibid. 1904, 2nd Ser., XVIII, 195–237). There was further discussion by E.C.K.Conner, Common Land and Inclosure (1912), and H.L.Gray. English Field Systems (Harv. Studies, 1915, XXII). A general survey of the whole question was made by A.H.Johnson, in his Ford lectures on The Disappearance of the Small Landowner (Oxford, 1909), and by W.H.R.Curtler, The Enclosure and Redistribution of Our Land (Oxford, 1920). The subject has come up for serious discussion again through a paper by E.Kerridge, “Returns of the Inquisitions of Depopulation” (E.H.R. 70, 1955, 212–228). Much of the excellent work done in recent years in regional studies provides valuable illustrations of the wider problems of agrarian history. Not all of them deal specifically with the early sixteenth century, but the following are worth attention. They include W.G.Hoskins, Studies in Leicestershire Agrarian History (Leics. Arch, and Hist. Soc., 1948); Midland England (1949); Essays in Leicestershire History (Liverpool, 1950) (with H.P.R.Finberg); Devonshire Studies (1952); H.P.R.Finberg, Tavistock Abbey: a study in the social and economic history of Devon (1951); R.H.Hilton, The Economic Development of some Leicestershire estates in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Oxford, 1947); and L.Fleming, History of Pagham in Sussex (3 vols., 1949–50).

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Little work has been done on the nature and development of agricultural technique. The subject was touched upon by R.W.Prothero (Lord Ernle) in English Farming past and present (1912:1919), and W.G.Hoskins has shown in his several essays the considerable information available in wills and inventories. Other works which give some further information are G.E. Fussell, The Farmer’s Tools, 1500–1900 (1952), a history of British farm implements and machines, the same writer’s The Old English Farming Books from Fitzherbert to Tull, 1523–1730 (1947), and D.Macdonald, Agricultural Writers from Sir Walter Henley to Arthur Young (1908). Contemporary evidence is provided in the two interesting texts, The boke of husbandry, 1523, edited by W.W. Skeat (Engl. Dialect Soc., 1881, XIII), and The boke of surveying, 1523, reprinted by Robert Vansittart, Certain ancient tracts concerning the management of landed property (1767). Some important works on problems of agricultural production has been discussed by N.S.B.Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market, and a suggestive article by F.J.Fisher, “The Development of the London Food Market 1540–1640” (Econ. Hist. Rev., vol. 5, 1934–35, 46–64) indicates the possibilities of this line of work. While there is no comprehensive study of the history of industry during this period some important monographs deserve attention. A well-known introduction is L.F.Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1913:2nd edn., 1923). It was in this field that Unwin did some of his best work, including Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1904), The Gilds and Companies of London (1908:2nd edn., 1925); “The Industries of Suffolk” (V.C.H. Suffolk II, 1907) and the “Social and Economic History of Suffolk” (ibid. 1, 1911). Other noteworthy monographs in this field are S.Kramer The English Craft Gilds (1927), a study of gild organization in its progress and decline; J.U.Nef, “The progress of technology and the growth of large scale industry in Great Britain 1540– 1640” (Econ. Hist. Rev. V, 1934, 3–24). The woollen industry has been studied in several works. A valuable preliminary survey is Eileen Power, The Woollen Industry (Oxford, 1941), while her short essay on The Paycockes of Coggeshall (1920) together with E.McClenaghan, The Springs ofLavenham and the Suffolk cloth trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Ipswich, 1924) provide interesting descriptions of some East Anglian families connected with the industry. They should be read with G.Unwin, “Woollen Cloth—the Old Draperies” (V.C.H. Suffolk, II, 1907). Good accounts of the industry in other parts of the country are given by H.Heaton, The Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries (Oxford, 1920); M.Sellars “The Textile Industries” (V.C.H. Yorkshire, II, 1912); G.D. Ramsay, The Wiltshire Woollen Industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Oxford, 1943); K.G.Ponting, History of the West of England Cloth Industry (1957); and T.C.Mendenhall, The Shrewsbury Drapers and the Welsh Wool Trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Oxford, 1953). Valuable on the side of organization is F.Consitt, The London Weavers’ Company (Oxford, 1933), which covers the period from the twelfth to the end of the sixteenth century. For the mining and metallurgical industries some works worth consulting are J.U.Nef, The Rise of the British Coal Industry (2 vols., 1932); G.R.Lewis, The Stannaries: a study of the English Tin mines (Harv. Econ. Series, III, 1908); A.K.H.Jenkin, The Cornish Miner (1927:1948); and J.W.Gough, The Mines of Mendip (Oxford, 1930). The best early treatise in mining and metallurgy is G.Agricola, De re metallica (Basel, 1556). An English translation by H. and L.H. Hoover (1912) is available. Although this work is a description of German methods and conditions, much is relevant for English conditions. For the building industry there is much scattered material, but no adequate study. The best reference works are L.F.Salzman, Building in England to 1540 (1952), and D.Knoop and G.P. Jones, The Medieval Mason (Manchester, 1933). For trade, commerce, and overseas development there is a considerable survey of the literature and sources in Read, 249–264. The pioneer survey of early Tudor trade was G.

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Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters (2 vols., Leipzig, 1881), which contains much statistical information derived from unprinted sources. It still remains an authority, but note should be made of corrections in F.Schultz, Die Hanse und England von Edwards III bis auf Heinrichs VIII Zeit (Abhandlungen zur Verkehrs- und Seegeschichte, V, 1911), and some better statistical information in P.Ramsey, “Overseas Trade in the reign of Henry VII” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1954, VI, 173–182). Also useful are D.Burwash, English Merchant Shipping, 1460–1540 (Toronto, 1947) and G.D.Ramsay, English Overseas Trade during the centuries of emergence (1957). Anglo-Spanish commercial relations is the subject of a neatsurvey by G.Connell-Smith, Fore-runners of Drake (1954), based largely on unpublished Spanish sources, which is specially informative for the first two Tudor reigns. V.M.Shillington and A.B.W.Chapman, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal, is still the starting point for a study of commercial relations between these two countries. A.Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270–1600 (Southampton, 1951), describes the decline of the Italian trade with Southampton in the late Middle Ages, and A.R.Bridbury, England and the Salt Trade in the later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1955), is a competent monograph on an important subject, as also is A.L.Simon, The History of the Wine Trade in England (3 vols., 1906–9), the second volume dealing with the sixteenth century. A stimulating essay on sixteenth-century trade is that of F.J.Fisher, “Commercial Trends and Policy in sixteenth century England” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1940, X, 95–117: repr. Carus-Wilson, 152–172). For the trading companies information has to be gleaned from a number of short studies. There is an old-fashioned outline sketch by G.Cawston and A.H.Keane, The Early Chartered Companies, 1296–1458 (1896). Two valuable contributions are W.E.Lingelbach, The Merchant Adventurers of England (Univ. Penn., 1902), and E.M.Carus-Wilson, “The Origins and Early Development of the Merchant Adventurers’ Organisation in London as shown in their own Medieval Records” (Econ. Hist. Rev., April 1933, vol. IV (1932–34), 147–176). Reference should also be made to G.Unwin, “The Merchant Adventurer’s Company” (CollectedPapers, 133–220); A.L.Jenckes, The origin, organization, and the location of the Staple of England (Phil. 1908); and G.F.Ward, “The Early History of the Merchant Staplers” (E.H.R., 1918, XXXIII, 297–319). J.Latimer deals with the Bristol association in History of the Society of Merchant Adventurers in the City of Bristol (Bristol, 1903). The history of the Russia Company, the first fully incorporated joint stock company in England, has been studied by T.S.Willan, The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553–1603 (Manchester, 1956). In an earlier monograph, The Muscovy merchants of 1555 (Manchester, 1953), Mr Willan provides a rich collection of biographical data throwing much light on those merchants mentioned in the Charters granted to the Company in 1555. For the history of money, banking, and usury during this period, there is some scattered literature, but no adequate survey. A compact, all too brief introduction is supplied in G.N. Clark, The Wealth of England (Home Univ. Lib., 1946). For the history of the Tudor coinage, so important a subject for the economic historian, there is a useful summary in J.D.Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, App., 604–608. The main reference works are Sir C.Oman, The Coinage of England (1931); G.C.Brooke, English Coins (Methuen, 277 pp., 1932, 4th edn., 1955). A.E. Feaveayear, The Pound Sterling (Oxford, 1931) does justice to some of the financial problems of the period. Some important issues are raised in the provocative study by R.H.Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1926), and in the introduction to his edition of Thomas Wilson, A discourse uppon usurye (1925). To these should be added P.C.Gordon Walker, “Capitalism and the Reformation” (Econ. Hist. Rev., 1937, VIII, 1–19). The classic example of a Tudor financier was portrayed by J.W.Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham (2 vols., 1839). Some later studies can now be placed by its side. W.C.Richardson, Stephen Vaughan, Financial Agent of Henry VIII (Baton Rouge,

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Louisiana, 1954) is an interesting account of early Tudor financial methods, which throws much light on the financial relations existing between England and the Low Countries. While L.Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino (Oxford, 1956), is mainly concerned with a financier of the second half of the sixteenth century it may be consulted with profit as a guide to similar problems in the earlier years of the century. The general financial background to the early Tudor period should still be sought in R.Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger: Geld-Kapital und Credit-verkehr im 16. Jahrhundert (Jena, 2 vols., 1896:1922). There is an English translation, with some omissions, by H.M.Lucas, Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance (1928). For the Antwerp money market consult J.A.Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales à Anvers de 1482 à 1567 (Louvain, 1925).

SOURCE MATERIAL There is no lack of original material, in print and manuscript, for the economic history of this period. A general impression of the main types of such material can be obtained from R.H. Tawney and E.Power, Tudor Economic Documents (3 vols., Univ. of London Historical Series, No. 14, 1914: repr. 1935–37). Like all historians, those concerned with economic problems derive their material from the official records, letters, and other narrative sources, of the period. Most of these are discussed in other sections. The records of the central government, especially those concerned with financial and judicial matters are of special importance. Government policy, and other aspects of economic life and organization are illustrated in such records as the statutes and royal proclamations, the records of parliamentary proceedings and the registers of the Privy Council. A great quantity of relevant information on economic questions will be found in the Letters and Papers, the calendars of State papers, of diplomatic correspondence, and of the patent and close rolls. The records of the Courts of common law are bulky, and for the most part remain unprinted, but they are important, as also are the reports of cases heard in the Court of the Star Chamber. These are especially illuminating on enclosures, industrial and commercial legislation. As may be seen from the Sections dealing with these topics, a fair quantity of these documents is in print. A happy hunting ground for the economic historian is among the records of the towns, where so much is recorded, connected with municipal policy and the economic life of the citizens. A selection of the most important collections in print which are specially valuable for the early sixteenth century should include: R.H.Morris, Chester in the Plantagenet and Tudor reigns (Chester, 1893); M.D.Harris, Coventry Leet Books (Coventry, 1907–13); W.Cotton and H.Woolcombe, Gleanings from the municipal and cathedral records relating to the city of Exeter (Exeter, 1877); Enid M.Dance, Guildford Burgh Records, 1514–46 (Surrey Rec. Soc., XXIV, 1958); M.Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester (Cambridge, 1899–1905); C.A.Markham and J.C.Cox, Records of the Borough of Northampton (2 vols., Northampton, 1898); W.Hudson and J.C.Tingey, Records of the City of Norwich (2 vols., Norwich; 1906); W.H.Stevenson, Records of the Borough of Nottingham (Nottingham, 1882–1914); J.E.Thorold Rogers, Oxford City Documents (Oxford Hist. Soc., XVIII, 1891); W.H.Turner, Selections from the records of the city of Oxford, 1509–1583 (Oxford, 1880); J.M.Guilding, Reading Records 1431–1654 (1892–96); A.B.W.Chapman, Black Book of Southampton, 1440–1620 (Southampton Rec. Soc., XVII, 1915); H.W.Gidden, Book of Remembrance of Southampton (ibid, XXVII, XXVIII, xxx, 1927–30); R.C. Anderson, The Assize of Bread Book, 1477–1517 (ibid. 1923); A.L.Merson, The third book of remembrances of Southampton, 1524–1602, Pt.I, 1.1, 1514–40: II, 1540–73 (ibid. 1952, 1955); M.Hollings, RedBook of Worcester (Worcester Hist. Soc., Pt. I, 1934:II, 1937: III, 1939:IV, 1950); A.Raine, York Civic Records (Yorks. Arch. Soc., CIII, 1941 for 1487–1504; and succeeding vols, in 1942, 1945, and for 1548–58, cx, 1946).

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For London, R.R.Sharpe, Calendar of Wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Hustings (1889–90), yields much information about the citizens and their possessions, and R.R.Sharpe, Calendar of Letter Books. L. Edward IV–Henry VII (1912). For the records of the city companies, there is a good bibliography in G.Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London (1908, 3rd edn., 1938, repr. with new introd. by W.F.Kahl, 1963). Some of the most valuable records for this period are contained in W.Herbert, The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London (2 vols., 1837); A.H.Johnson, The History of the Worshipful Company of Drapers (5 vols., Oxford, 1914–22); Letitia Lyell and F.D.Watney, Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, 1453–1527 (1936); B.Mersh, Records of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters (Oxford, 1913–16), C.M.Clode, Memorials of the guild of Merchant Taylors (1875), and G.Parsloe, The Wardens Accounts of the Founders’ Company, 1497–1681 (1964). For the history of foreign trade there is a considerable amount of original material in print. The following select list only indicates the nature of such material. Naturally, much information on commercial matters will be found in the general sources, e.g. in the legislation and royal proclamations, in the records of the Privy Council, and in the calendars of state papers, both foreign and domestic. The archives of the city companies engaged in foreign trade are important. For a list of the London companies see Read, 226–232. For materials on the merchants of the staple, the merchant adventurers, and the merchants of the Hanse the following should be noted: H.E.Madden, The Cely Papers (Camden Soc., 3rd Ser., I, 1900); B.Winchester, Tudor Family Portrait (1955) based on the papers of John Johnson, merchant of the staple; E.E.Rich, The Ordinance Book of the Merchants of the Staple (Cambridge, 1937); and The Staple Court Books of Bristol (Bristol Rec. Soc., V, 1934); F.M.Fry, and R.T.D.Sayle, The Charters of the Merchant Taylors’ Company (1937); B.Johnson, Acts and Ordinances of the Company of Merchant Taylors in the City of York (York, 1949); M.Sellars, The York Mercers and Merchant Adventurers (Surtees Soc., 129, 1918); F.W.Dendy and J.R.Boyle, Extracts from the Records of the Merchant Adventurers ofNewcastle-upon-Tyne (Surtees Soc., 93 and 101, 1895, 1899); C.T.Carr, Select Charters of Trading Companies, 1530–1707 (Seld. Soc., 1913). The essential source material for the history of the Hanse in its relation with England will be found in D.Schäfer and F.Techen, Hanserecesse von 1477–1530 (9 vols., Verein für hänsische Geschichte. Leipzig, 1881–1913); K.Hohlbaum and others, Inventare hänsischer Archive des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 3 vols., 1896–1913); H.J.Smit, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den Hansel met Engeland, Schotland en Ierland, 1485–1585 (1950, The Hague). For the history of overseas expansion and early exploration the following works will provide a general introduction. The best broad survey is J.A.Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 1485–1558 (Oxford, 1913). For the considerable literature of the Cabot voyages G.P.Winship, Cabot Bibliography (New York, 1900) with its introductory essay on the careers of the Cabots is indispensable; also useful are J.A.Williamson, The Voyages of the Cabots and the English Discovery of North America under Henry VII and Henry VIII (1929) and H.Harrisse, John Cabot the discoverer of North America and Sebastian his son (1896). For the achievement of John Hawkins, earlier works have been superseded by J.A.Williamson, Sir John Hawkins, the times and the man (Oxford, 1927), with its valuable bibliography, and C.R.Markham, The Hawkins Voyages during the reign of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth and James I (Hakluyt Soc., 57, 1878). For the opening up of Africa the best general survey is J.W.Blake, European Beginnings in West Africa, 1454–1578 (1937) and for the sources, his Europeans in West Africa 1450–1560 (2 vols., Hakluyt Soc., 2nd Ser., 86–87, 1942). Much of the contemporary literature devoted to the criticism of social conditions, consisting of treatises, sermons, poems, has a direct bearing on economic problems. Such sources are dealt with above in Section III. A few texts of a more specific economic interest should be noted. They include John Hales, A discourse of the common weal of this realm of

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England, ed. E.Lamond Cambridge, 1893, 1929); R.Starkey, Dialogue between Pole andLupset; William Cholmeley, The request and suite of a true-hearted Englishman, ed. W.J.Thomas (Camden Soc., II, 1853); “A paper concerning a free mart in England”, and “A discourse about the reformation of abuses”, ed. J.F.Nichols; Literary Remains of Edward VI, II, 504–510, 475–476, attributed to the young King Edward VI. Three interesting examples of contemporary economic writing were edited by R.Pauli, Drei volkswirthschaftliche Denkschriften aus der Zeit Heinrichs VIII von England (Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Göttingen, 1878). These were (i) “A treatise concerning the staple and the commodities of this realm”; (ii) “How the common people may be set to work, an order of a commonwealth”; and (iii) “How to reforme the realme in settyng them to worke and to restore tillage”. For a discussion of possible authorship see S.T.Bindoff, “Clement Armstrong and his treatises of the commonweal” (Econ. Hist. Rev., XIV, 1944, 64–73. F.R.Salter, Some Early Tracts on Poor Relief (1926), contains some interesting early sixteenth-century pamphlets and other documents concerned with schemes for poor relief on the Continent. They are worth comparing with the English poor laws of 1531 and 1536.

A. LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 143. Select documents illustrating estate and household management. From various sources I. The Percy Household The fluctuating fortunes and standard of living of the old aristocratic families can be illustrated from documents connected with the house of Percy, earls of Northumberland. Under Edward IV this great earldom (much enlarged by estates in Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Somerset, and the baronies of Poynings, Fitzpaine, and Bryan, through the marriage of the third earl with Eleanor, granddaughter and heiress of Robert, Lord Poynings in 1446) was forfeited to the Crown and conferred upon John Neville, Lord Montague, but was restored again to Henry Percy, the fourth earl (1446–89). He was killed in the Yorkshire rebellion of 1489. His son, Henry Algernon (1478– 1527) the fifth earl, lived in great state, as is revealed in the household book which was begun in 1512, but he died leaving heavy debts. His son, Henry Algernon, the sixth earl (1502–37) had no issue. When two of his brothers became involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and one of them, Sir Thomas Percy, was attainted and executed, the sixth earl, fearing the result of this attainder upon the family fortunes, voluntarily surrendered his estates to the Crown, and on his death, 29 Jun 1537, the title fell into abeyance. The following documents give some indication of the organization and life of this family during the time of the fifth earl.

(a) A description of two of the main family seats of the house of Percy, Wresill and Leconfield (Leland, Itinerary, 1, 52, 45)

F

rom Hoveden to Wresill a 3 miles all by low meadow and pasture ground, whereof part is enclosed with hedges. Yet is the ground that the castle of Wresill standeth on somewhat high in respect of the very low ground thereabout. Most part of the base court of the castle of Wresill is all of timber. The castle itself is moted about on 3 parts. The 4. part is dry where the entry is into the castle. The castle is all of very fair and great squared stone both within and without, whereof (as some hold opinion) much was brought out of France. In the castle be only 5 towers, one at each corner almost of like bigness. The gate house is the 5, having five lodgings in height, 3 of the other towers have 4 highes in lodgings: the 4 containeth the buttery, pantry, pastry, lardery, and kitchen. The hall and the great chambers be fair, and so is the chapel and the closets. To conclude, the house is one of the most proper beyond Trent, and seemeth as newly made: yet was it made by a younger brother of the Percies, Earl of Worcester, that was in high favour with Richard the second, and bought the manor of Wresill, mounting at that time little above £30 by the year: and for lack of heirs of him, and by favour of the King, it came to the Earls of Northumberland. The base court is of a newer building. And the last Earl of Northumberland saving one made the brewhouse of stone without the castle wall, but hard adjoining to the kitchen of it. One thing I liked exceedingly in one of the towers, that was a study called Paradise, where was a closet in the middle of 8 squares latticed about: and at the top of every square was a desk ledged to set books on coffers within them, and these seemed as 905

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joined hard to the top of the closet: and yet by pulling one or all would come down, briste highe in rabettis and serve for desks to lay books on. The garde robe [wardrobe] in the castle was exceedingly fair. And so were the gardens within the moat, and the orchards without. And in the orchards were mounts opere topiario written about with degrees like turnings of cockleshells, to come to the top without pain. The river of Derwent runneth almost hard by the castle, and about a mile lower goeth into Ouse. This river at great rains rageth and overfloweth much of the ground there about being low meadows. There is a park hard by the castle. (Ibid. 45) Leconfield is a large house, and standeth within a great moat in one very spacious court. 3 parts of the house, saving the mean gate that is made of brick, is all of timber. The 4 part is fair made of stone and some brick. I saw in a little studying chamber there called Paradise the genealogy of the Percies. The park thereby is very fair and large and meetly well wooded. There is a fair tower of brick for a lodge in the park.

(b) The regulations and establishment of the household of Henry Algernon Percy 5th Earl of Northumberland (Northumberland Household Book, 43–49)

The list of those daily abiding in his household, Mich. 3 Henry VIII. First My Lord 1. My Lady 1. My Young Lord and his brothers 3 And their servants 2 as to say a yeoman and a groom. The Nursery 3 viz. 2 rockers and a child to attend in nursery. Gentlewomen for my Lady—3. Chamberers for my Lady—2. My Lord’s Brothers every of them with their servants 4 as to say if they be priests his chaplain his child and his horsekeeper and if he be otherwise his clerk his child of his chamber and his horsekeeper. My Lord’s head officers of household—4. First the chamberlain and his servants 7 viz. his chaplain, his clerk, two yeomen, a child of his chamber and his horsekeeper. The Steward and his servants 4 charged as to say his clerk, his child, and his horsekeeper, and uncharged—3 viz. his clerk, child, and his horsekeeper. The Treasurer and his servants 3 as to say his clerk and his horsekeeper. The Controller and his servants 3 charged viz. his clerk and his horsekeeper, and uncharged but his horsekeeper. The Dean of the Chapel and his servant 2. The Survisor and his servant 2. Two of My Lord’s Council and either of them a servant. 4. The Secretary and his servant. 2. My Lord’s Chaplains in household 6, viz. The Almoner and if he be a maker of interludes

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then he to have a servant to the intent for writing of the parts. And else to have none. The Master of Grammer 1. a Chaplain to ride with my lord 1. The Subdean 1. the Gospeller 1. The Lady-Mass Priest 1. Two Gentlemen Ushers and a servant betwixt them 3. Two Carvers for my Lord and a servant betwixt them 3—except they be at their friend’s finding and then either of them to have a servant. Two Servers for my Lord and a servant betwixt them 3—except they be at their friend’s finding and then either of them to have a servant. Two Cupbearers for my Lord and a servant betwixt them 3—except they be at their friend’s finding and then either of them to have a servant. Two Gentlemen Waiters for the board end and a servant betwixt them—3. Hansman and Young gentlemen at their friends finding 5. as to say Hansmen 3 and Young gentlemen 2. Officer of arms—1. Yeomen Ushers of the Chamber 2. Gentlemen of the Chapel—9 viz. The Master of the Children 1.—Tenors 2.— Countertenors 4—The Pistoler 2—and one for the Organs. Children of the Chapel—6. Two Marshalls of the hall and 1 servant betwixt them—3. Yeomen of the Chamber 6—Yeoman Usher of the Hall 1.—Yeomen Waiters 5. Yeomen Officers of Household 11—as to say Yeoman of the Robes 1.—Yeoman of the Horse 1.—Yeoman of the Vestry 1.—Yeoman of the Ewery 1.—Yeoman of the Pantry 1.— Yeoman of the Cellar 1.—Yeoman of the Buttery 1.—Yeoman Cook for the mouth 1.— Yeoman of the Bakehouse 1.—Yeoman of the Brewhouse 1.—And Yeoman Porter 1. Grooms and Groom Officers of Household 20—viz. Grooms of the Chamber 5. As to say 3 to ride with my Lord and one to bide at home and one for my Lady—Grooms of the Wardrobe 3 viz. Groom of the Robes 1. Groom of the Beds 1. Groom of the Wardrobe for my Lady 1.—Groom of the Ewery 1. Groom of the Pantry 1. Groom of the Cellar 1.—Groom of the Buttery 1.—Grooms of the Kitchen 2 viz. a Groom for the mouth and a Groom for the Larder Groom of the Hall 1. Groom Porter 1. Groom of the Stirrup 1.— Groom of the Palfreys 1. Groom Sumpterman 1. and Groom of the Chariot, 1. Children for Offices in Household 6 viz. The Wardrobe 1. The Kitchen 1. The Scullery 1. The Stable 1. The Chariot 1. The Bakehouse 1. The Arrasmender 1. The Butchery 1. The Catery 1. and the Armoury 1. Minstrells 3 viz. A Taboret a Lute and a Rebeck. Footman 1. Falconers 2. Painter 1. Joiner 1. Hunt.1. Gardener in House 1. viz. The Gardener of the place where my Lord lyeth for the time to have meat and drink within. Under Almoner of the Hall 1.—and to serve the Grooms of the Chamber with Wood. My Lord’s Clerks in Household 10. viz. A Clerk of the Kitchen 1.—A Clerk of the Signet 1.—Clerks of the foreign expenses 2—Clerk of the Brevements 1.—Clerk Avener 1.—Clerk of the Works 1.—Clerk of the Wearing Book 1.—Clerk to write under the Clerks of the foreign expenses 2. ? Milnar 1.

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The whole number of all the said persons in Household is 166. Which is ordained by my Lord and his Council and shall not be exceeded but kept, always provided how they shall enter to their wages at their quarter days, as to say Michaelmas, Christmas, Our Lady Day in Lent and Midsummer after the use and manner as is accustomed, that is to say, whosoever comes to my Lord’s service in houshold within a month before any of the said four quarter days or within a month after then they to enter wages at the said quarter day. And if they come not within a month before or after any of the said four quarter days then they to tarry and not to enter wages to the next quarter day that shall come after, without it shall please my Lord to reward them anything for it at his pleasure. Also whensoever the said number is not full then my Lord to be informed by his head officers that his Lordship may take in such as his Lordship shall think best for the fulfilling of the said number if the case so require.

(c) Regulations for diet in the Northumberland household (Northumberland Household Book, 73)

This is the order of all such breakfasts as shall be allowed daily in my Lord’s house every Lent, beginning at Shrovetide and ending at Easter. And what they shall have at their breakfasts, as to say Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, except my Lord’s children, which shall have breakfasts every day in the week in Lent: to the names of the persons, and what they be, and what they shall have the said days allowed them hereafter followeth in this book. Breakfast for my Lord and my Lady. First a loaf of bread in trenchers, 2 manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, 2 pieces of saltfish, 6 baconed herrings 4 white herrings or a dish of sprats.—1. Breakfast for my Lord Percy and Master Percy. Item half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, a pottel of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of saltfish, a dish of sprats or 3 white herrings—1. Breakfast for the Nursery for my Lady Margaret and Master Ingram Percy. Item a manchet, a quart of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of saltfish, a dish of sprats or 3 white herrings—1. Breakfast for my Lady’s Gentlewomen. Item a loaf of bread, a pottel of beer, a piece of saltfish or 3 white herrings.—1. Breakfasts for my Lord’s Brothers and Head Officers of Household. Item 2 loaves of bread, a manchet, a gallon of beer, 2 pieces of saltfish and 4 white herrings—2. Breakfast for Gentlemen Ushers and Marshals of the Hall. Item a loaf of bread, a pottel of beer, and a piece of saltfish. 1. Breakfasts for Gentlemen of Household, viz. Carvers, Cupbearers, Sewers, and Gentlemen Waiters for the Board-end. Item a loaf of bread, a pottel of beer, and a piece of saltfish—1. Breakfast for 2 Messes of Gentlemen of the Chapel and a Mess of Children. Item 3 loaves of bread, a gallon and a half of beer, and 3 pieces of saltfish or else 4 white herrings to a mess—3.

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Breakfast for my Lord’s Clerks viz. Clerk of the Kitchen, Clerks of household, Clerks of the Foreign expenses and Clerks of the Signet. Item a loaf of bread a pottel of beer and two pieces of saltfish—1. Breakfast for Yeomen Officers of Household, Yeomen of the Chamber and Yeomen Waiters. Item 2 loaves of bread, a gallon of beer and two pieces of saltfish—2 Drinkings for the Porter Lodge. Item a quarter of a loaf of bread and a quart of beer—1 Drinkings for the Stable. Item a quarter of a loaf of bread and a quart of beer—i

(II) A list of the yearly revenues of a north-country peer, 1526 (L.P. IV, 2527) Thomas, Lord Darcy (1457–1537) came of an old family long established in Lincolnshire and the North. The family seat was at Templehurst (Yorks.), but the family had by marriage alliances, and in other ways, acquired estates in several other northern counties. The summary list printed here provides some indications of the annual revenue Darcy received from his lands. It amounted to £1834. 4. 0. Equally significant is the fact that he was taxed for the first and second payments of the subsidy at £1050, a considerable contribution. (L.P. IV, 2527 and p. 1331.) This was at a time when his standing with the king was high. In later years there came a tragic turn in his fortunes. The independent line he took in 1532 on Henry VIII’s divorce began the decline. In 1536 he became involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and in 1537 he was arraigned with Lord Hussey, and both were condemned for treason. Darcy was beheaded on Tower Hill, 30 June 1537. L.P. IV, ii, 2527.

Names and yearly values of the possessions of Thomas lord Darcy in counties York, Lincs., Derby, Northumberland and elsewhere: viz., Tempilnewsum, value in rents, coal mines, &c. £190. 0.s. 10½: deducted for bailiff’s and other fees, £13. 1.s. 4.d. Rothewelhay, £112. 6.s. 8.d. fees, £8. 3.s. 4.d. Roundhey, rents, woodsale, and coalmines, £97. 6.s. 8.d.: fees, 43s. 4.d. Bekhey, rents, “drift of the more” and profits of the warren, £26. 13.s. 4.d.: fees £7. 6.s. 8.d. Assheforde, rents, profits of lead mines, and perquisites of court, £81. 17.s. 9.d.: fees, £12. 12.s. 4.d. Silkstone, rents, profits of ironstone and charcoal, £33. 6.s. 8.d.: deducted from the dower of Mrs…£20. Allerton, £13. 6.s. 8.d.: fees 106.s. 8.d. Templehirst, rents, perquisites of courts and profits of warren at Potterley, £68. 17.s. 7.d.: fees £13. 14.s. 5.d. Buttercamp and Kirkstall, £69. 10.s. 7½: fees, nil. Cottingham £122. 4.s. 11.d.: fees, £13. 5.s. 11.d. Knaith, £67. 19.s. 7½.: fees to Sir J.Hussey, head steward, 66.s. 8.d. and two others, in all £7. 10.s. Stretton, £18. 14.s. 3.d.: fees to Richard Clarke, “learned steward”, 40.s. Laurence Holyngworth, bailiff and receiver, 60.s.: and the Friars Observants in Newark, 66.s. 8.d. Torkesey, £20.: fee of Sir William Merynge, steward, 40.s. Stow Depinge and Caldecootes, £22. 10.s.: fees to Richard Shirshawe, receiver, 40.s.: and Master Chaloner, one of my Lord’s learned counsel, 66.s. 8.d. Beysby and Grymsby, £65. 6.s. 3½.: fees to John Wymper, bailiff and receiver, 60.s.: and Mr. Hennage, learned steward, 26.s. 8.d. Kirkby Morshed, £147. 15.s. 6.d.: fees to Sir William Ewre, head steward, 66.s. 8.d. Thomas Grice, learned steward, 13.s. 4.d. and six other officers. Biwell, £105. 17.s. 6.d.: fees to Sir Thomas Tempest, knight, learned steward, 66.s. 8.d., and others. Baumburgh, rents, profits of courts, price of tithe lambs, of “yelde malt”, and of certain barrels of fish, and farm of fishing at Berwick, £130. 15.s. 9.d.: fees (ordinary) to John Hoppyn, bailiff and receiver,

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£6.: and (extraordinary) to the lady Gray of Horton, 66.s. 8.d. Ellington and Gaitfurth, £21.: fees, (extraordinary) to Sir George Darcy, £10., Cuthbert Conyers, £8., and Gilbert Carnaby, 40.s., BasynStooke and Andever, £30.: annuities to lord Sandes and Sir Richard Sandes, £30. Devonshire, £173.: fees &c. to Sir Arthur Darcy, £40.: the Friars Observant of Richmond, Greenwich, Hampton, and Canterbury, 5 marks each: and Henry Brome, 20.s. Kaus, Tolworthe, Ormesby, and Iden, £57. 13.s. 4.d.: fees to my lord Cardinal, £10.: Richard Lister, the King’s attorney, 66.s. 8.d.: Mr. Larke and Mr. Hennage, 40.s.: Mr. More, 40.s.: and Thomas Darcy, £6. 13.s. 4.d. Fees and annuities granted to my Lord, £178: out of which are deducted fees &c. to Sir William Elleker, constable of Dunstanburgh, 40.s., and various others, amounting in all to £34. 6.s. 8.d. Total revenue, £1834. 4.s. Deductions: in fees &c, £330. 7.s. 4.d.: assignment to lady Nevill out of Kirkby Moreshedde, £131. 6.s. 4.d.

(III) Sir John Gostwick’s advice on household management A.G.Dickens, “Estate and Household Management in Bedfordshire c. 1540” (Bedf. Hist. Rec. Soc., vol. XXXVI, 1956, 38–45) This interesting document is of value for the sidelights it throws upon estate management in early Tudor Bedfordshire. It consists of a series of instructions written by Sir John Gostwick (fl. 1545) for the benefit of his son and heir. The original MS. is now in the Folger Library, Washington, D.C., having been acquired with other More family papers from Loxley. As the editor points out, the document is a striking revelation of the outlook of a gentleman-official, rising rapidly in the world through the unprecedented opportunities of the period. For an account of Sir John Gostwick and the rise of the family, see H.P.R.Finberg. “The Gostwicks of Milrington”, ibid. 46–131.

Item that your wife never come to London to tarry there past one week, for I perceive that she is much disposed to play at cards and all other games; for in case she should tarry much in London, she and you should come in acquaintance with some unthrifty company, by means whereof you should both repent it. Also provide that ye never be surety for no man above 20ti marks, nor to make no shift with no merchants for money, nor be not bound at the request of any man for any shift, for it ye be but utterly undone [sic]1 and it shall be the next way to make you to sell your land and to break up your household. Therefore in any wise look surely to these two articles. Also let your wife never have but one woman to wait upon her, but in any wise let the woman be both sad and discreet, or else she may do you and your wife much harm and displeasure. And let her have both honest wages and livery to live upon, but take heed that she be no light woman neither in countenance nor of her demeanour. Item you must have one man to keep your water and your warren, and in any wise let him have no wife and let his wages be not above four nobles at the most, with livery such as you give to your carters, and let him be a knitter of nets and a maker of leaps2 in any wise. Item ye must have a miller, but let him have no wife and so that he may be an honest man and a true, which will be hard to find, and let him have to wages four nobles by the year, and not above, with such livery as you give your carters. 1

Probably a mistranscription for some longer phrase like “for if ye do, ye shall be utterly undone”. 2 Baskets in which to catch or keep fish.

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Item I charge you to keep in your own hands your parsonage, the mill, the water and the warren, for these shall be very necessary for your household. Item I think you must keep two ploughs for corn for your household, but keep not in your hands past a good ploughland and a half, for your plough cattle must carry home your wood, they must carry out your dung, they must carry home your hay, your corn in harvest and your tithe corn, with much more carriage that I cannot rehearse. And as for wheat and peason ye shall not need to sow any, for there is a bargain made already with John West of Bedd, the tanner during your life and mine, both for wheat and peason, which bargain I charge you never to release at the request and suit of any man, for ye shall find it at length a special good bargain. And he may bear it very well, for he hath a goodly farm of you. Item ye must have some honest man to have the charge of your husbandry, with the wages of four or five nobles by the year and his livery as you give to your carters. This man if he be an honest man shall be the key of your husbandry and shall bring you and your wife much quietness. He may oversee your woods, your cattle in your pastures and buy your cattle to store your pastures, for expense of your household, and young colts for to maintain your stable. And if the young colts will not serve for your hackneys, then let them serve your plough or cart, but in any wise let your colts be chose large and great, and let them be well spread behind of the buttocks and small headed and then shall ye never have too evil horse. Item ye must have four men to go to your ploughs and carts, and let them be hired before the constable of the hundred. And let the bailiff of your husbandry hire them there and so you shall [have] good servants and cheap. Let them be men servants no boys by your will, for a boy shall never do but boy’s service. Item you must have two women for your dairy and to wash your napery, and also ye must have another woman to keep your napery, beddings and hangings. Let your napery, such as shall go abroad daily, let it be delivered her by an inventory and this woman may help your baker to mould, when you shall bake, because I have allowed him no help. Also ye had need to keep sixteen or twenty kine to your dairy, and let these women have such wages and liveries as ye can best agree with them for. Item ye must have a shepherd and let him keep you three or four hundred ewes in Willington fields, and in your pastures for to kill for your house three score wethers. And if he be a good herdman let him have good wages, for he may soon save his wages, and let him have livery such as you give carters. Let Sottill never go from you, if you will follow mine advice, for ye shall never have a better herdman. Item keep in your hands Mosbury with all such pastures as shall be about it, like as I shall leave them to you by God’s grace. And in them you may feed your beasts and muttons for your household, and bring up young cattle, and there may go your geldings in summer and winter, such as ye do not occupy. And let Henry Wild have the keeping of the pastures with certain milch kine which will help him, his wife and his children, for God knoweth he can make but little shift for himself. Item in any wise, take good heed to whom and how ye let your farms. I charge you never to let your farmer your woods nor underwoods, but to have certain loads of woods assigned to him, by you, or by your deputy for his fuel. But let him never have ploughbote

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not cartbote, for then you shall destroy your timber. And let your farmer be bound to keep your pastures without bushes and not to ayre up [plough] your pastures. And also to bind him that he shall neither set nor let no part nor parcel of yours without your consent and agreement. And also let your farmers keep and bare all manner of reparations as well timber and timberwork and all other, and to keep and maintain your quick hedges, with plashings and scourings of the ditches about your pastures. And let all your farmers be bound as well by covenant in their indentures to observe and keep all and singular these covenants beforesaid upon pain of forfeiture of their leases and grants, as also to be bound to you with sureties with them by obligation to observe and keep all and singular covenants, compacted and specified in the same indentures. Also let your farmers never have above twenty years. And take not above one year’s rent for a fine. And also I charge you never heighten no rent unless your farmers hath heightened to your hands, as the good squirell1 Hamelden hath done at More’s farm at Ravensden. Item I charge you of my blessing to get the good will and favour of all your neighbours, as well in Willington as in all the whole shire, and to do for them and help them in all other causes according to your power. And in your so doing you shall please God and also have the love of them. But in any wise bear with no false matters, for if you do ye shall take shame by them, and I charge you promise no more neither by word nor by deed but as much as ye may perform and fulfil. And be true to God, the king and your friend. And if your friend do open his mind and secret counsel to you, I charge you if it be to keep counsel, I charge you open it not, for if you do you are not to be trusted with no man, unless your friend should open to you felony or treason, then I charge you not to keep his counsel, but open it to two or three of the next Justices of Peace which dwelleth next unto you, or else to one or ij. of the King’s most honourable Council, if you may get unto them. But in any wise, utter it as soon as is possible, for the longer you keep it the worse it is for you, and the more danger toward God and the King’s Majesty.

IV. Advice on the building of a house (F.J.Furnivall (ed.), Andrew Boorde’s Introduction and Dyetary (E.E.T.S. Extra Set, x, 1870, 232–242)) Andrew Boorde, or Borde, or as he liked to describe himself, Andreas Perforatus, was, perhaps, the most disreputable, unconventional, and yet amusing figure amongst the less creditable creatures in the literary underworld of this period. If his somewhat tattered and ill-documented dossier provides even a semblance of truth about him and his doings, he may be said to have gleaned a smattering of medical knowledge, and a wide experience of the shadier sides of life from his wide travels through Europe as far afield as Jerusalem, and in his visits (they must have been brief) “to all the universities and schools approbated and being within the precincts of Christendom”, which seems to have meant Orleans, Poictiers, Toulouse, Montpelier, and Wittenberg. Writings accredited to Boorde are: (I) The fyrst boke of the introduction of knowledge (1542: publ. 1548); (2) A Compëdyous Regyment or a dyetary of helth (?1542); (3) The Peregrination of Doctor Boarde (edited by Thomas Hearne in De Vita et Gestis Henrici II) written c. 1542; (4) The book for to lente a man to be wyse in buylding of his house for the helth of body. When Boorde produced his Dyetary he incorporated this last work in it. It was published c. 1540 by Robert Wyer, and was either Boorde’s own work or he pirated it as his own work. A considerable part of Boorde’s writings, and a summary of what is known of his career is brought together in Furnivall’s edition. 1

? Diminutive of “squire”.

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The first chapter doth shew where a man should situate or set his mansion place or house for the health of his body. What man of honour or worship, or other estate, the which doth pretend to build a house or any mansion place to inhabit himself, or else doth pretend to alter his house, or to alter old building into commodious and pleasant building, not only for his own proper commodity, wealth, and health, but also for other men the which will resort to him, having also a respect to his posterity,—First, it is necessary and expedient for him to take heed what counsel God did give to Abraham; and after that to take heed what counsel God did give to Moses, and to the children of Israel, as it appeareth in the 13th chapter of Exodus, and the 20th. chapter of Numbers, and the 6th. chapter of Deuteronomy; and also in the book of Leviticus, saying first to Abraham: “Go thou forth to thy country, and from thy cognation or kindred, and come thou into the country the which I will shew to thee, a country abounding, or plentiful, of milk and honey”. Here is to be noted that where there is plenty of milk there is plenty of pasture, and no scarcity of water; and where there is plenty of honey there is no scarcity, but plentifulness, of woods, for there be more bees in woods (and so consequently abundance of honey), than there be bees or honey or wax in the hives in gardens or orchards; wherefore it appeareth that whosoever will build a mansion place or a house, he must situate and set it there where he must be sure to have both water and wood, except for pleasure he will build a house in or by some city or great town, the which be not destitute of such commodities. But he the which will dwell at pleasure, and for profit and health of his body, he must dwell at elbow-room, having water and wood annexed to his place or house; for if he be destituted of any of the principals, that is to say, first, of water for to wash and to wring, to bake and to brew, and divers other causes, especially for peril, the which might fall by fire, it were a great discommodious thing. And better it were to lack wood than to lack water, the premises considered, although that wood is a necessary thing, not only for fuel, but also for other urgent causes, especially concerning building and reparations. The second chapter doth shew a man how he should build his house or mansion, that the prospect be fair and good for the conservation of health. After that a man have chosen a convenient soil and place according to his mind and purpose to build his house or mansion on, he must have before cast in his mind, that the prospect to and fro the place be pleasant, fair, and good to the eye, to behold the woods, the waters, the fields, the vales, the hills and the plain ground, and that everything be decent and fair to the eye, not only within the precincts of the place appointed to build a mansion or a house, to see the commodities about it, but also that it may be pleasing to the eyes of all men to see and to behold when they be a good distance off from the place, that it do stand commodiously. For the commodious building of a place doth not only satisfy the mind of the inhabitant, but also it doth comfort and rejoice a man’s heart to see it, especially the beautiful prospect. For my conceit is such, that I had rather not to build a mansion or a house, than to build one without a good respect in it, to it, and from it. For and the eye be not satisfied, the mind can not be contented.

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And the mind can not be contented, the heart can not be pleased: if the heart and mind be not pleased, nature doth abhor. And if nature do abhor, mortification of the vital, and animal, and spiritual powers do consequently follow. The third chapter doth shew a man to build his house in a pure and a fresh air, to lengthen his life. There is nothing, except poison, that doth putrify or doth corrupt the blood of man, and also doth mortify the spirits of man, as doth a corrupt and a contagious air. For Galen, terapentice nono, saith “whether we will or will not, we must grant unto every man air; for without the air, no man can live.” The air can not be too clean and pure: considering it doth compass us round about, and we do receive it into us, we can not be without it, for we live by it as the fish liveth by the water. Good air, therefore, is to be praised. For if the air be fresh, pure, and clean about the mansion or house, it doth conserve the life of man, it doth comfort the brain. And the powers natural, animal, and spiritual, engendering and making good blood, in the which consisteth the life of man. And contrarily, evil and corrupt airs doth infect the blood, and doth engender many corrupt humours, and doth putrify the brain, and doth corrupt the heart; and therefore it doth breed many diseases and infirmities, through the which, man’s life is abbreviated and shortened. Many things doth infect, putrify, and corrupt the air, as the influence of sundry stars, and standing waters, stinking mists, and marshes, carrion lying long above the ground, much people in a small room lying uncleanly, and being filthy and sluttish; wherefore he that doth pretend to build his mansion or house, he must provide that he do not situate his house nigh to any marsh or marshy ground; that there be not, nigh to the place, stinking and putrified standing waters, pools, ponds, nor meres, but at leastwise that such waters do stand upon a stony or a gravel ground mixed with clay, and that some fresh spring have a recourse to nourish and to refresh the said standing waters. Also there must be circumspection had that there be not about the house or mansion no stinking ditches, gutters, nor canals, nor corrupt dunghills, nor sinks, except they be oft and divers times purified and made clean. Sweeping of houses and chambers ought not to be done as long as any honest man is within the precinct of the house, for the dust doth putrify the air, making it dense. Also, nigh to the place let neither flax nor hemp be watered; and beware of the snuff of candles and of the savour of apples, for these things be contagious and infected. Also, misty and cloudy days, impetuous and vehement winds, troublous and vaporous weather is not good to labour in it, to open the pores to let in infectious air. Furthermore, beware of pissing in draughts; and permit no common pissing place be about the house or mansion; and let the common house of easement be over some water, or else elongated from the house. And beware of emptying of pisspots and pissing in chimneys, so that all evil and contagious airs may be expelled, and clean air kept unputrified. And of all things let the buttery, the cellar, the kitchen, the larder-house, with all other houses of offices be kept clean, that there be no filth in them, but good and odiferous savours: and, to expel and expulse all corrupt and contagious air, look in the 27th. chapter of this book.

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The 4th. chapter doth shew under what manner and fashion a man should build his house or mansion, in eschewing things that shorteneth man’s life. When a man doth begin to build his house or mansion place, he must provide, (saith Jesus Christ), before that he begin to build, for all things necessary for the performance of it, lest that when he hath made his foundation, and cannot finish his work that he hath begun, every man will deride him, saying: “This man did begin to build, but he cannot finish or make an end of his purpose”: for a man must consider the expence before he do begin to build; for there goeth to building, many a nail, many pins, many laths, and many tiles, or slates, or straws, besides other great charges, as timber, boards, lime, sand, stones, or brick, besides the workmanship and the implements. But a man the which have provided, or hath in store, to accomplish his purpose, and hath chosen a good soil and place to situate his house or mansion, and that the prospect be good, and that the air be pure, fresh, and clean, then he that will build, let him make his foundation upon a gravel ground mixed with clay, or else let him build upon a rock of stone, or else upon a hill or a hillside, and order and edify the house so that the principal and chief prospects may be east and west, especially north-east, south-east, and southwest, for the meridial wind, of all winds is the worst, for the south wind doth corrupt and doth make evil vapours. The east wind is temperate, fresh, and fragrant. The west wind is mutable. The north wind purgeth ill vapours; wherefore, better it is, of the two worst, that the windows do open plain north than plain south, although that Jeremy saith, “from the north dependeth all evil;” and also it is written in the Song of Songs: “Rise up, north wind, and come, thou south wind, and perfect my garden”. Make the hall under such a fashion that the parlour be annexed to the head of the hall. And the buttery and pantry be at the lower end of the hall, the cellar under the pantry, set somewhat abase; the kitchen set somewhat abase from the buttery and pantry, coming with an entry by the wall of the buttery, the pastry house and the larder house annexed to the kitchen. Then divide the lodgings by the circuit of the quadrangular court, and let the gatehouse be opposite or against the hall door (not directly) but the hall door standing abase, and the gatehouse in the middle of the front entrance into the place: let the privy chamber be annexed to the chamber of state, with other chambers necessary for the building, so that many of the chambers may have a prospect into the chapel. If there be an outer court made, make it quadrangular, with houses of easement, and but one stable for horses of pleasure; and see no filth nor dung be within the court, nor cast at the back side, but see the dung to be carried far from the mansion. Also, the stables and the slaughter-house and a dairy (if any be kept) should be elongated the space of a quarter of a mile from the place. And alsothe bakehouse and brewhouse should be a distance from the place and from other building. When all the mansion is edified and built, if there be a moat made about it, there should some fresh spring come to it; and divers times the moat ought to be scoured and kept clean from mud and weeds. And in no wise let not the filth of the kitchen descend into the moat. Furthermore, it is a commodious and a pleasant thing to a mansion to have an orchard of sundry fruits; but it is more commodious to have a fair garden replete with herbs of aromatic and

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redolent savours. In the garden may be a pool or two for fish, if the pools be clean kept. Also, a park replete with deer and conies is a necessary and a pleasant thing to be annexed to a mansion. A dove house also is a necessary thing about a mansion place. And among other things, a pair of butts is a decent thing about a mansion; and otherwhile, for a great man, necessary it is for to pass his time with bowls in an alley: when all this is finished, and the mansion replenished with implements, there must be a fire kept continually for a space to dry up the contagious moistures of the walls, and the savour of the lime and sand. And after that a man may lie and dwell in the said mansion without taking any inconvenience of sickness. The fifth chapter doth shew how a man should order his house concerning the implements to comfort the spirits of man. When a man hath built his mansion, and hath his houses necessary about his place, if he have not household stuff or implements the which be needful, but must borrow of his neighbours, he then is put to a shift and to a great after deal; for “these men the which do brew in a bottle and bake in a wallet, it will be long or he can buy Jack a salet”; yet everything must have a beginning, and every man must do after his possessions or ability: this notwithstanding, better it is not to set up a household or hospitality, than to set up household, lacking the performance of it, as now to run for malt, and byand-by for salt; now to send for bread, and by-and-by to send for a sheep’s head; and now to send for this, and now to send for that; and by-and-by he doth send he cannot tell for what: such things is no provision, but it is a great abuse. Thus a man shall lose his thrift, and be put to a shift; his goods shall never increase, and he shall not be in rest nor peace, but ever in cark and care, for his purse will ever be bare; wherefore I do counsel every man to provide for himself as soon as he can; for if of implements he be destitute, men will call him light witted, to set up a great house, and is not able to keep man nor mouse: wherefore, let every man look or he leap, for many corns maketh a great heap. The sixth chapter doth shew how a man should order his house and to live quietly. Whosoever he be that will keep a house, he must order the expenses of his house according to the rent of his lands. And if he have no lands, he must order his house after his lucre winning or gains. For he that will spend more in his house than the rents of his lands, or his gains, doth attain to, he shall fall to poverty, and necessity will urge, cause, and compel him to sell his land, or to waste his stock; as it is daily seen by experience of many men; wherefore they the which will eschew such prodigality and inconvenience, must divide his rents, portion, and expenses, whereby that he doth live, into 3 equal portions or parts. The first part must serve to provide for meat and drink, and all other necessary things for the sustenance of the houshold. The second portion or part must be reserved for apparel, not only for a man’s own self, but for all his houshold, and for his servant’s wages, deducting somewhat of this portion in alms deed to poor neighbours and poor people, fulfilling one or other of the seven works of mercy. The third portion or part must be reserved for urgent causes

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in time of need, as in sickness, reparation of houses, with many other quotidial expences, beside rewards, and the charges of a man’s last end. If a man do exceed this order, he may soon fall in debt, the which is a dangerous thing many ways, beside the bringing a man to trouble. And he that is once behind hand and in trouble, he cannot be in quietness of mind, the which doth perturb the heart, and so consequently doth shorten a man’s life; wherefore there is no wise man but he will eschew this inconvenience, and will cast before what shall follow after. And in no wise to set up a household before he hath made provision to keep a house. For if a man shall buy every thing that belongeth to the keeping of his house with his penny, it will be long or he be rich, and long or that he can keep a good house. But he is wise, in my conceit, that will have, or he do set up his household, 2 or 3 years rent in his coffer. And if he have no lands, then he must provide for necessary things or that he begin household, lest that he repent himself after, through the which he do fall into pensiveness, and after that into sickness and diseases, living not quietly, whereby he shall abbreviate his life.

V. Rules for farming (Anthony Fitzherbert, The Boke of Husbandry, 1523) Considerable information on the practical problems of farming during this period is provided in two treatises: (1) The boke of husbandry, 1523 and (2) The boke of surveyenge, 1523. The first deals with the practical problems of farming, while the second is concerned with the law regulating to manors, and the legal relations of landlord and tenant. Both works were popular, appearing in second editions before 1600. Both were attributed to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470–1538), Justice of the Common Pleas, but this has been disputed in favour of his brother John Fitzherbert of Norbury (E.H.R. XII, 1897, 225; Quart. Journ. Econ. XVIII, 1903, 588– 593). The first edition of The boke of husbandry appeared in 1523, and is very rare. The text of the edition of 1534 was used by W.W. Skeat, The Book of Husbandry (Engl. Dialect Soc. XIII, 1882).

Here beginneth the book of husbandry, and first whereby husbandmen do live. The most general living that husbands1 can have, is by ploughing and sowing of their corns, and rearing or breeding of their cattle, and not the one without the other. Then is the plough the most necessary instrument that an husband can occupy. Wherefore it is convenient to be known, how a plough should be made. 2. Divers manners of ploughs. There be ploughs of divers makings in divers countries, and in like wise there be ploughs of iron of divers fashions. And that is because there be many manner of grounds and soils. Some white clay, some red clay, some gravel or chiltern, some sand, some mean earth, some meddled2 with marl, and in many places heath-ground, and one plough will not serve in all places. Wherefore it is necessary, to have divers manners of ploughs. In Somersetshire about Ilchester the sharebeam, that in many places is called the ploughhead, is four or five foot long, and it is broad and thin. And that is because the land is very tough, and would suck the plough into the 1

husbandmen.

2

mixed.

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earth, if the sharebeam were not long, broad, and thin. In Kent they have other manner of ploughs, some go with wheels, as they do in many other places, and some will turn the shieldboard at every land’s end, and plough all one way. In Buckinghamshire, are ploughs made of another manner, and also other manner of ploughing-irons, the which me-seemeth generally good and likely to serve in many places, and specially if the plough-beam and share-beam be four inches longer, between the sheath and the ploughtail, that the shield-board might come more aslope: for those ploughs give out too suddenly, and therefore they be the worse to draw, and for no cause else. In Leicestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Lincoln, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and many other countries, the plough be of divers makings, the which were too long process to declare how, etc. But howsoever they be made, if they be well tempered, and go well, they may be the better suffered. 3. To know the names of all the parts of the plough. Men that be no husbands may fortune to read this book, that know not which is the plough-beam, the share-beam, the plough-sheath, the plough-tail, the stilt, the rest, the shield-board, the fen-board,1 the rough staves, the plough-foot, the plough-car or coke, the share, the coulter, and plough-mal.2 Peradventure I give them these names here, as is used in my country, and yet in other countries they have other names: wherefore ye shall know that the plough-beam is the long-tree above, the which is a little bent. The share-beam is the tree underneath, where-upon the share is set; the plough-sheath is a thin piece of dry wood, made of oak, that is set fast in a mortice in the plough-beam, and also into the share-beam, the which is the key and the chief band of all the plough. The plough-tail is that the husband holdeth in his hand, and the hinder end of the plough-beam is put in a long slit, made in the same tail, and not set fast, but it may rise up and go down, and is pinned behind, and the same plough-tail is set fast in a mortice, in the hinder end of the sharebeam. The ploughstilt is on the right side of the plough, whereupon the rest is set; the rest is a little piece of wood, pinned fast upon the nether end of the stilt, and to the sharebeam in the further end. The shield-board is a broad piece of wood, fast pinned to the right side of the sheath in the farther end, and to the outer side of the stilt in the hinder end. The fen-board is a thin board, pinned or nailed most commonly to the left side of the sheath in the further end, and to the plough-tail in the hinder end. And the said shield-board would come over the said sheath and fenboard an inch, and to come past the middle of the share, made with a sharp edge, to receive and turn the earth when the coulter hath cut it. There be two rough staves in every plough in the hinder end, set aslope between the plough-tail and the stilt, to hold out and keep the plough abroad in the hinder end, and the one longer than the other. The plough-foot is a little piece of wood, with a crooked end set before in a mortice in the plough-beam, set fast with wedges, to drive up and down, and it is a stay to order of what deepness the plough shall go. The plough-car is made of three pieces of iron, nailed fast unto the right side of the plough-beam. And poor men have a crooked piece of wood pinned fast to the plough-beam. The share is a piece of iron, sharp before and 1

mudboard.

2

ploughhammer or mallet.

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broad behind, a foot long, made with a socket to be set on the further end of the sharebeam. The coulter is a bent piece of iron set in a mortice in the middle of the ploughbeam, fastened with wedges on every side, and the back thereof is half an inch thick and more, and three inches broad, and made keen before to cut the earth clean, and it must be well steeled, and that shall cause the easier draught, and the irons to last much longer. The plough-mall is a piece of hard wood, with a pin put through, set in the plough-beam, in an auger’s bore…. 6. Whether is better, a plough of horses or a plough of oxen. It is to be known, whether is better, a plough of horses, or a plough of oxen, and therein me seemeth ought to be made a distinction. For in some places an ox-plough is better than a horse-plough, and in some places a horse-plough is better: that is to say, in every place where-as the husband hath several pastures to put his oxen in when they come from their work, then the ox-plough is better. For an ox may not endure his work, to labour all day, and then to be put to the commons, or before the herdmen, and to be set in a fold all night without meat, and go to his labour in the morning. But and he be put in a good pasture all night, he will labour much of all the day daily. And oxen will plough in tough clay, and upon hilly ground, where-as horses will stand still. And whereas is no several pastures, there the horse-plough is better, for the horses may be tethered or tied upon leys, balks, or hades,1 whereas oxen may not be kept: and it is not used to tether them, but in few places. And horses will go faster than oxen on even ground or light ground, and be quicker for carriage: but they be far more costly to keep in winter, for they must have both hay and corn to eat, and straw for litter; they must be well shod on all four feet, and the gear that they shall draw with is more costly than for the oxen, and shorter while it will last. And oxen will eat but straw, and a little hay, the which is not half the cost that horses must have, and they have no shoes as horses have. And if any sorance2 come to the horse, or he wax old, bruised, or blind, then he is little worth. And if any sorance come to an ox, and he wax old, bruised or blind, for 2.s. he may be fed, and then he is man’s meat, and as good or better than ever he was. And the horse, when he dieth is but carrion. And therefore me seemeth, all things considered, the plough of oxen is much more profitable than the plough of horses. 34. To sow wheat and rye. About Michaelmas it is time to sow both wheat and rye. Wheat is most commonly sown under the furrow, that is to say, cast it upon the fallow, and then plow it under. And in some places they sow their wheat upon their pease stubble, the which is never so good, as that that is sown upon the fallow: and that is used where they make fallow in a field every fourth year. And in Essex they used to have a child, to go in the furrow before the horses or oxen, with a bag or a hopper full of corn: and he taketh his hand full of corn, and by little and little casteth it in the said furrow. Me seemeth, that child ought to have much discretion. 1

strips of greensward.

2

injury.

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Howbeit there is much good corn, and rye is most commonly sown above and harrowed, and two London bushels of wheat and rye will sow an acre. Some ground is good for wheat, some for rye, and some is good for both: and upon that ground sow blend-corn, that is, both wheat and rye, the which is the surest corn of growing, and good for the husband’s household. And the wheat, that shall be meddled1 with rye, must be such as will soon be ripe, and that is flaxen wheat, pollard wheat, or white wheat. And ye shall understand, that there be divers manners of wheat. Flaxen wheat hath a yellow ear, and bare without awns, and is the brightest wheat in the bushel, and will make the whitest bread, and it will wear the ground sore, and is small straw, and will grow very thick, and is but small corn. Pollard wheat hath no awns thick set in the ear, and will soon fall out, and is greater corn, and will make white bread. White wheat is like pollard wheat in the bushel, but it hath awns and the ear is foursquare, and will make white bread: and in Essex they call flaxen wheat white wheat. Red wheat hath a flat ear, an inch broad, full of awns, and is the greatest corn, and the broadest blades, and the greatest straw, and will make white bread, and is the reddest of colour in the bushel. English wheat hath a dun ear, few awns or none, and is the worst wheat, save peekwheat. Peek-wheat hath a red ear, full of awns, thin set, and ofttimes it is fluttered, that is to say, small corn wrinkled and dried, and will not make white bread, but it will grow upon cold ground. 141. A Short information for a young gentleman, that intendeth to thrive. I advise him to get a copy of this present book, and to read it from the beginning to the ending, whereby he may perceive the chapters and contents of the same, and by reason of oft reading, he may wax perfect, what should be done at all season. For I learned two verses at grammar school, and they be these. Gutta cauat lapidem non vi, sea saepe cadendo: Sic homo fit sapiens non vi, sed saepe legendo: A drop of water pierceth a stone, not only by his own strength, but by his often falling. Right so a man shall be made wise, not only by himself, but by his oft reading. And so may this young gentleman, according to the season of the year, read to his servants what chapter he wilt. And also for any other manner of profit contained in the same, the which is necessary for a young husband, that hath not the experience of husbandry, nor other things contained in this present book, to take a good remembrance and credence thereunto, for there is an old saying, but of what authority I cannot tell: Quod melior estpractica rusticorum, quam scientia philosophorum. It is better the practice or knowledge of an husbandman well proved, than the science or cunning of a philosopher not proved, for there is nothing touching husbandry, and other profits contained in this present book, but I have had the experience thereof, and proved the same. And over and beside all this book, I will advise him to rise betime in the morning, according to the verse before spoke of, Sanat, sanctificat, et ditat surgere mane: And go about his closes, pastures, fields, and specially by the hedges, and to have in his purse a pair of tables, and when he seeth anything, that would be amended, to write it in his tables; as if he find any horses, mares, beasts, sheep, swine, or geese in his pastures, that be not his own: And 1

mixed.

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peradventure though they be his own, he would not have them to go there, or to find a gap, or a sherde1 in his hedge, or any water standing in his pastures upon his grass, whereby he may take double hurt, both loss of his grass, and rotting of his sheep and calves. And also of standing water in his corn fields at the lands ends or sides and how he would have his lands ploughed, dunged, stirred, or sown. And his own corn weeded or shorn or his cattle shifted out of one pasture into another, and to look what ditching, quick setting or plashing is necessary to be had, and to oversee his shepherd, how he handleth and ordereth his sheep, and his servants how they plough and do their works, or if any gate be broken down, or want any staves, and go not lightly to open and tyne,2 and that it do not trail, and that the winds blow it not open, with many more necessary things that are to be looked upon. For a man always wandering or going about somewhat, findeth or seeth that is amiss, and would be amended. And as soon as he seeth any such defaults, then let him take out his tables, and write the defaults. And when he cometh home to dinner, supper, or at night, then let him call his bailiff, or his head servant, and so show him the defaults, that they may be shortly amended. And when it is amended then let him put it out of his tables. For this used I to do x. or xii. years and more. And thus let him use daily, and in a short space he shall set much things in good order, but daily it will have mending. And if he can not write, let him pick the defaults upon a stick, and to shew his bailiff, as I said before. Also take heed both early and late, at all times, what manner of people resort and come to thy house, and the cause of their coming, and specially if they bring with them pitchers, cans, tankards, bottles, bags, wallets, or bushel-pokes.3 For if thy servants be not true, they may do thee great hurt, and themselves little advantage. Wherefore they would be well looked upon. And he that hath ii true servants, a man-servant, and another a womanservant, he hath a great treasure, for a true servant will do justly himself, and if he sees his fellows do amiss he will bid them do no more so, for if they do, he will shew his master thereof: and if he do not this, he is not a true servant. 142. A lesson made in English verses, to teach a gentleman’s servant, to say at every time when he taketh his horse, for his remembrance, that he shall not forget his gear in his inn behind him. Purse, dagger, cloak, night-cap, kerchief, shoeing horn, boget,4 and shoes. Spear, male,5 hode,6 halter, saddlecloth, spurs, hat, with thy horse-comb. Bow, arrows, sword, buckler, horn, leash, gloves, string, and thy bracer. Pen, paper, ink, parchment, red wax, pumice, books, thou remember. Penknife, comb, thimble, needle, thread, poynte,7 lest thy girth break, Bodkin, knife, lyngel,8 give thy horse meat, see he be shoed well. Make merry, sing and thou can: take heed to thy gear, that thou lose none. 143. A prologue for the wife’s occupation. Now thou husband, that hast done thy diligence and labour, that belongeth to an husband, to get thy living, thy wife’s, thy children’s, and thy servants’: yet there are 1 5

breach. bag.

6

2 shut hood,

3 7

4 bags or sack holding a bushel. wallet. 8 a tagged lace. a shoemaker’s thread.

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other things, that must need be done, or else thou shalt not thrive. For there is an old common saying, that seldom doth the husband thrive, without the leave of his wife. By this saying it should seem, that there be other occupations and labours, that be most convenient for the wives to do. And howbeit that I have not experience of all their occupations and works, as I have of husbandry, yet a little will I speak what they ought to do, though I tell them not how they should do and exercise their labours and occupations. 144. A lesson for the wife. But yet ere I begin to shew the wife, what works she shall do, I will first teach her a lesson of Solomon, as I did to her husband a lesson of the philosopher, and that is, that she should not be idle at no time: for Solomon saith, “Ociosus nongaudebit cum electis in caelo: sea lugebit in aeternum cum reprobis in inferno: That is to say, the idle folk shall not joy with the chosen folks in heaven, but they shall sorrow with the reproved and forsaken folks in hell. And saint Jerome saith “Semper boni operis aliquid facito, ut te diabolus inueniat occupatum: Quia sicut in aqua stante generantur vermes: sic in homine ocioso generantur malae cogitationes: That is to say, Always be doing of some good works, that the devil may find thee ever occupied: for as in standing water are engendered worms, right so in an idle body are engendered idle thoughts. Here mayest thou see, that of idleness cometh damnation, and of good works and labour cometh salvation. Now art thou at thy liberty, to choose whether way thou wilt, wherein is a great diversity. And it is an unhappy man or woman, that God hath given both wit and reason, and putteth him to choose, and wilt choose the worst part. Now thou wife, I trust to shew to thee divers occupations, works, and labours, that thou shalt not need to be idle no time of the yere. 145. What things the wife is bounden of right to do. First and principally the wife is bound of right to love her husband, above father and mother, and above all other men. For our Lord sayeth in his gospel: Relinquet patrem et matrem et adherebit uxori suae; A man should leave father and mother, and draw to his wife: and the same wise a wife should do to her husband. And are made by the virtue of the sacrament of holy scripture one flesh, one blood, one body, and two souls. Wherefore their hearts, their minds, their works, and occupations, should be all one, never to sever nor change during their natural lives, by any man’s act or deed, as it is said in the same gospel: Quod deus coniunxit, homo non separet: That thing that God hath joined together, no man may sever nor depart. Wherefore it is convenient that they love each other as effectually as they would do their own self, &c. 146. What works a wife should do in general. First in a morning when thou art waked, and purposed to rise, lift up thy hand, and bless thee, and make a sign of the holy cross, In nomine patris, etfilii, et spiritus sancti. Amen. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. And if thou say a Pater noster, an Ave, and a Credo, and remember thy maker, thou shalt speed much the better. And when thou art up and ready, then first sweep thy house, dress up thy dishboard, and set all things in good order within thy house: milk thy kye,1 suckle thy

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calves, syc up2 thy milk, take up thy children and array them,3 and provide for thy husband’s breakfast, dinner, supper, and for thy children and servants, and take thy part with them. And to ordain4 corn and malt to the mill, to bake and brew withal when need is. And meete it to the mill, and from the mill, and see that thou have thy measure again beside the toll, or else the miller dealeth not truly with thee, or else thy corn is not dry as it should be. Thou must make butter, and cheese when thou mayest, serve thy swine both morning and evening, and give thy poultry meat in the morning: and when time of the year cometh, thou must take heed how thy hens, ducks, and geese do lay, and to gather up their eggs, and when they wax broody, to set them there as no beasts, swine, nor other vermin hurt them. And thou must know, that all whole-footed fowls will sit a month, and all cloven footed fowls will sit but three weeks, except a pea-hen, and great fowls, as cranes, bustards, and such other. And when they have brought forth their birds, to see that they be well kept from the kite, crows, polecats, and other vermin. And in the beginning of March, or a little before, is time for a wife to make her garden, and to get as many good seeds and herbs as she can, and specially such as be good for the pot, and to eat: and as oft as need shall require, it must be weeded, for else the weeds will overgrow the herbs. And also in March is time to sow flax and hemp, for I have heard old housewives say, that better is March hurdes5 than April flax, the reason appeareth: but how it should be sown, weeded, pulled, rippled, watered, washed, dried, beaten, braked,6 tawed,7 heckled, spun, wound, wrapped and woven, it needeth not for me to show, for they be wise enough; and thereof may they make sheets, broadcloths, towels, shirts, smocks, and such other necessaries, and therefore let thy distaff be always ready for a pastime, that thou be not idle. And undoubted a woman cannot get her living honestly with spinning on the distaff, but it stoppeth a gap, and must needs be had. The bolles8 of flax when they be rippled off, must be rideled9 from the weeds, and made dry with the sun, to get out the seeds. Howbeit one manner of linseed, called loken10 seed, will not open by the sun: and therefore, when they be dry, they must be sore bruised and broken, the wives know how, and then winnowed and kept dry, till year-time come again. Thy female hemp must be pulled from the churl hemp, for that beareth no seed, and thou must do by it, as thou didst by the flax. The churl hemp beareth seed, and beware that birds eat it not, as it groweth: the hemp thereof is not so good as the female hemp, but yet it will do good service. May fortune sometime, that thou shalt have so many things to do, that thou shalt not well know where is best to begin. Then take heed, which thing should be the greatest loss, if it were not done, and in what space it would be done: then think what is the greatest loss, and there begin. But in case that thing, that is of greatest loss, will be long in doing, and thou mightest do three or four other things in the meanwhile, then look well, if all these things were set together, which of them were the greatest loss: and if all these things be of greater loss, and may be all done in as short space, as the other, then do thy many things first. 1

2 3 4 5 cows. strain. dress. send. coarse flax. 7 Bruised in a brake, a machine for crushing flax. dressed. 9 10 sifted. locked. 6

8

pods.

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It is convenient for a husband to have sheep of his own, for many causes, and then may his wife have part of the wool, to make her husband and herself some clothes. And at the least way, she may have the locks of the sheep, either to make clothes or blankets and coverlets, or both. And if she have no wool of her own, she may take wool to spin of cloth-makers, and by that means she may have a convenient living, and many times to do other works. It is a wife’s occupation, to winnow all manner of corns, to make malt, to wash and wring, to make hay, shear1 corn, and in time of need to help her husband to fill the muck-wain or dung cart, drive the plough, to load hay, corn, and such other. And to go or ride to the market, to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, capons, hens, pigs, geese, and all manner of corns. And also to buy all manner of necessary things belonging to household, and to make a true reckoning and accompt to her husband, what she hath paid. And if the husband go to the market, to buy or sell, as they oft do, he then to shew his wife in like manner. For if one of then should use to deceive the other, he deceiveth himself, and he is not like to thrive. And therefore they must be true either to other. I could peradventure shew the husband’s diverse points that the wives deceive them in: and in like manner, how husbands deceive their wives: but if I should do so, I should shew more subtle points of decit, than either of them knew of before. And therefore me seemeth best to hold my peace, lest I should do as the knight of the tower did, the which had many fair daughters, and of fatherly love that he owed to them, he made a book, to a good intent, that they might eschew and flee from vices, and follow virtues. In the which book he shewed, that if they were wooed, moved, or stirred by any man, after such a manner as he there shewed, that they should withstand it. In the which book he shewed so many ways, how a man should attain to his purpose, to bring a woman to vice, the which ways were so natural, and the ways to come to their purpose were so subtly contrived, and craftily shewn, that hard it would be for any woman to resist or deny their desire. And by the said book hath made both the men and the women to know more vices, subtlety, and craft, than ever they should have known, if the book had not been made; in the which book he named himself the knight of the tower. And thus I leave the wives to use their occupations at their own discretion. 151. Prodigality in outrageous and costly array. I have seen books of account of the yeomen of the wardrobes of noblemen, and also inventories made after their decease of their apparel, and I doubt not but at this day, it is twenty times more in value than it was to such a man of degree as he was a hundred years ago: and many times it is given away, ere it be half worn, to a simple man, the which causeth him to wear the same; and another simple man, or a little better, seeing him to wear such raiment, thinketh in his mind, that he may wear as good raiment as he, and so causeth him to buy such other, to his great cost and charge, above measure, and an ill example to all other: and also to see mens’ servants so absurd in their array, their coats to be so syde,2 that they be fain to tuck them up when they ride, as women do their kirtles when they go to the market or other places, the which is an inconvenient 1

reap.

2

long.

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sight. And furthermore, they have such plaits upon their breasts, and ruffs upon their sleeves, above their elbows, that if their master, or themselves had never so great need, they could not shoot one shot, to hurt their enemies, till they had cast off their coats, or cut off their sleeves. This is far above measure, or common weal of the realm. This began first with honour, worship, and honesty, and it endeth in pride, presumption, and poverty. Whereof speaketh saint Austin, Quemcunque superbum esse videris, diaboli filium esse ne dubites: That is to say, whosoever thou seest that is proud, doubt thee not, but he is the devil’s child. Wherefore against pride he biddeth thee remember: Quidfuisti, quid es, et qualis post mortem eris: That is to say, what thou were, what thou art, and what thou shalt be after thy death. And S. Bernard saith, Homo nihil aliud est, quam sperma fetidum, saccus stercorum, et esca verminum: That is to say, a man is nothing but stinking filth, a sack of dung, and worm’s meat. The which sayings would be remembered, and then me seemeth this is sufficient at this time for the first point of the three. 152. Of Delicious meats and drinks. How costly are the charges of delicious meats and drinks, that be now most commonly used, over that it hath been in times past, and how far above measure? For I have seen books of accompt of household, and brumentes1 upon the same, and I doubt not, but in delicacies meats, drinks, and spices, there is at this day four times so much spent, as was at these days, to a like man in degree: and yet at that time there was as much beef and mutton spent as is now, and as many good households kept, and as many yeomen waiters therein as be now. This began with love and charity when a lord, gentleman, or yeoman desired or prayed another to come to dinner or supper, and because of his coming he would have a dish or two more than he would have had, if he had been away. Then of very love he, remembering how lovingly he was bidden to dinner, and how well he fared, he thinketh of very kindness he must needs bid him to dinner again, and so ordaineth for him as many manner of such dishes and meats, as the other man did, and two or three more, and thus by little and little it is come far above measure. And begun of love and charity, and endeth in pride and gluttony, whereof saint Jerome saith: Qui post carnem ambulant, in ventrem et libidinem proni sunt, quasi irrationabilia iumenta reputantur. That is to say, They that walk, and be ready to fulfil the lust of the flesh and the belly, are taken as unreasonable beasts; and saint Gregory sayth, Dominante vicio gulae, omnes virtutes per luxuriam et vanam gloriam obruuntur: That is to say, where the vice of gluttony hath domination, all virtues by luxury and vain glory are cast under: the which sayings would in likewise be remembered; and this meseemeth sufficient for the second point of the three. 1

inventories.

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144. Materials concerning enclosures. Illustrated from various sources I. Legislation relating to enclosures. From the statutes (i) An act against pulling down of towns, 1489. St. 4 Hen. VII, c. 19 (Stat. Realm, II, 542)

T

he king our sovereign lord, having a singular pleasure above all things to avoid such enormities and mischiefs as be hurtful and prejudicial to the common weal of this his land and his subjects of the same, remember eth that among all other things great inconveniences daily doth increase by desolation and pulling down and wilful waste of houses and towns within this his realm, and laying to pasture lands which customably have been used in tilth, whereby idleness, ground and beginning of all mischiefs, daily do increase, for where in some towns two hundred persons were occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now be there occupied two or three herdmen and the residue fall in idleness, the husbandry which is one of the greatest commodities of this realm is greatly decayed, churches destroyed, the service of God withdrawn, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the patron and curates wronged, the defence of this land against our enemies outward feebled and impaired; to the great displeasure of God, to the subversion of the policy and good rule of this land, and remedy be not hastily therefor purveyed: Wherefore the king our soverign lord by the assent and advice of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons in this present parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, ordaineth, enacteth and establisheth that no person, what estate, degree, or condition that he be, that hath any house or houses, that any time within three years past hath been or that now is or hereafter shall be let to farm with twenty acres of land at least or more lying in tillage or husbandry, that the owner or owners of every such house or houses and land be bound to keep, sustain and maintain houses and buildings upon the said ground and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding of the said tillage and husbandry; and if any such owner or owners of any such house or houses and land take, keep and occupy any such house or houses and land in his or their own hands, that the owner or owners by the said authority be bound in likewise to keep and maintain houses and buildings upon the said ground and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding of the said tillage and husbandry: And if any man do contrary to the premises or any of them, that then it shall be lawful to the king, if any such lands or houses be holden of him immediately, or to the lords of the fees, if any such lands be holden of them immediately, to receive yearly half the value of the issues and profits of any such land, whereof the house or houses be not so maintained and sustained, and the same half of the issues and profits to have, hold and keep to his or their own use, without anything therefor to be paid or given, to such time as the same house or houses be sufficiently builded or repaired again, and that no manner of freehold be in the king, nor in any such lord or lords, by the taking of any such profits of or in any such land in no manner form; but only the king and the said lord or lords have power to take, receive and have the issues and profits as is above said, and therefore the king, or the said lord or lords, to have power to distrain for the same issues and profits to be had and perceived by them in form abovesaid by the authority of this present act.

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(ii) An act concerning farms and sheep, 1533–34. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13. (Stat. Realm, III, 451)

Forasmuch as divers and sundry persons of the King’s subjects of this realm, to whom God of his goodness hath disposed great plenty and abundance of moveable substance, now of late within few years have daily studied, practised, and invented ways and means how they might accumulate and gather together into few hands as well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle and in especial sheep, putting such lands as they can get to pasture and not to tillage, whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns and enhanced the old rates of the rents of the possessions of this realm, or else brought it to such excessive fines that no poor man is able to meddle with it, but also have raised and enhanced the prices of all manner of corn, cattle, wool, pigs, geese, hens, chickens, eggs and such other almost double above the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a marvellous multitude and number of the people of this realm be not able to provide meat, drink, and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives, and children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty that they fall daily to theft, robbery, and other inconvenience, or pitifully die for hunger and cold; And as it is thought by the King’s most humble and loving subjects that one of the greatest occasions that moveth and provoketh those greedy and covetous people so to accumulate and keep in their hands such great portions and parts of the grounds and lands of this realm from the occupying of the poor husbandmen, and so to use it in pasture and not in tillage, is only the great profit that cometh of sheep which now be come to a few persons hands of this realm in respect of the whole number of the King’s subjects, that some have 24 thousand some 20 thousand some 10 thousand some 6 thousand some 5 thousand and some more and some less, by which a good sheep for victual that was accustomed to be sold for 2.s. and 4.d. or 3.s. at the most, is now sold for 6.s. or 5.s. or 4.s. at the least, And a stone of clothing wool that in some shire of this realm was accustomed to be sold for 18.d. or 20.d. is now sold for 4.s. or 3.s. 4.d. at the least and in some countries where it hath been sold for 2.s. 4.d. or 2.s. 8.d. or 3.s. at the most, it is now sold for 5.s. or 4.s. 8.d. the least, And so raised in every part of this realm; which things thus used be principally to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to the decay of the hospitality of this realm, to the diminishing of the King’s people, and to the let of the clothmaking, whereby many poor people hath been accustomed to be set on work, and in conclusion, if remedy be not found, it may turn to the utter destruction and desolation of this realm, which God defend; It may therefore please the King’s highness… to ordain and enact…that no person nor persons from the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, which shall be in the year of our lord God [1535] shall keep occupy or have in his possession in his own proper lands, nor in the possession lands or grounds of any other which he shall have or occupy in farm, nor otherwise have of his own proper cattle in use, possession, or property by any manner of means, fraud, craft, or covin, above the number of two thousand sheep at one time within any part of this realm of all sorts and kinds, upon pain to lose and forfeit for every sheep that any person or persons shall have or keep above the number limited by this act

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3.d.4.d. The one half to the King our Sovereign lord and the other half to such person as will sue for the same by original writ of debt, bill, plaint, or information in any court of record in which the defendant shall not wage his law nor have any essoin or protection allowed. V. And it is further enacted that the Justices of Peace of every shire shall have power and authority to enquire of the offenders of this Act as well by the oaths of twelve men as by information of any of the King’s subjects; and to make such like process upon every presentment or information concerning this Act as they used commonly to do upon presentments before them of trespass: and that no person being convict by confession or otherwise that he hath done or attempted contrary to this Act shall be put to any less fine than after the rates of the forfeitures afore limited by this Act.

(iii) An act concerning decay of houses and enclosures, 1535–36. St. 27 Hen. viii, c. 22 (Stat. Realm, III, 553)

(After rehearsing St. 4 Hen. VII, c. 19.) By reason of which said statute and ordinance divers and many messuages, which be holden immediately of the king’s highness, within late years have been builded and reedified and the lands thereunto belonging converted again into their first nature of tillage and husbandry according to the tenor and purport of the said good and gracious act, and all other such messuages and lands as be holden immediate of any other lords, be and remain unto this present day prostrate, unbuilded, and the lands thereof converted and employed only into pasture and to none other purpose, to the great decay of all manner of victuals within this realm, and to the derogation and hindrance of the common weal of the same many ways: And forasmuch as in the said act was no other remedy provided for and against all those persons that do or should hold any manors, messuages, lands, or tenements of other lords, for not repairing and re-edifying of the houses and converting the said lands into tillage and husbandry according to the true and virtuous meaning of the same good act, but only every lord immediate might have and distrain for the moiety of the profits of all and every such messuage and lands decayed in form aforesaid, as in the same act among other things more at length it is declared; and also for that the lords immediate and the other mean lords have not put the said good act in due and plain execution, according to the tenor thereof as they ought and must have done, a great number of the houses, messuages, tenements, and acres of land which at the making of the said good act were in ruin and decay and the lands thereof converted from tillage into pasture, do yet remain unbuilded, unreedified and all the lands to them belonging hitherto be kept and used into pasture and not converted again into tillage according to the purport, true meaning, and intent of the said act, and so by this means divers and sundry persons which hold not their lands and tenements immediate of the king’s highness have and daily do from time to time decay and let fall down no small number of messuages and houses of husbandry, and also do convert the lands of the same from tillage and husbandry into pasture, to the most perilous example of all other being in like case and to the greatest abuse and disorder of the natural soil of the ground that by any manner of

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invention could be practised or imagined: Be it therefore enacted…that the king our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, from and after the feast of Saint Michael the archangel which shall be in the year of our Lord God [1538], shall take and have the one moiety of all issues, revenues, rents, and profits coming and growing of all and singular messuages, lands, and tenements now and then remaining enclosed, decayed, or converted from tillage into pasture, contrary to the tenor and true meaning of the said act made in the said fourth year of king Henry VII, and being at this present day so found already by office and verdict of twelve men, or which hereafter at any time by like office and verdict shall be found, of whomsoever they be holden, which have been decayed and converted from tillage into pasture since three years next before the aforesaid fourth year of the reign of the said noble king Henry VII, until such time as the said owners of the said messuages, lands, and tenements shall have builded and reedified again in and upon convenient places of the said messuages, lands, and tenements for every fifty acres forty acres or thirty acres of land, one sufficient tenement meet for an honest man to dwell in, and also until such time as the same owners have converted or cause all the said lands so misused to be converted from pasture into tillage again, according to the nature of the soil and course of husbandry used in the country where any such lands do lie, and according to the true intent and meaning of the said act. V. Provided always that this present act extend not nor be in any wise hurtful or prejudicial unto any owners of lands or tenements in any counties of this realm of England, but only unto all and every of the counties hereafter specified, that is to say, the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Rutland, Northampton, Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, the Isle of Wight, Worcester, Hertford, and Cambridge.

II. Documents concerning the commission on enclosures, 1517 (i) The Commission of Enclosures, 1517. Pat. Roll, 9 Hen. VIII, pt. 2. m6d. (I.S.Leadam, The Domesday of Inclosures, 1517–18, 1, 81) The king to his beloved and faithful servants John Veysey, dean of our chapel, Andrew Windsor, knight, and Roger Wigston, knight, late of Leicester, greeting. Whereas of late divers of our lieges having before their eyes neither God nor the needs nor advantage of our realm, nor the defence of the same, have enclosed with hedges and ditches and other enclosures sundry towns hamlets and other places within this our realm of England, where many of our subjects dwelt and there did use and exercise year by year husbandry and householding, and have evicted and cast out our same said subjects from their holdings and farms, and have reduced the areas of the aforesaid houses, towns and hamlets as well as the fields and lands within the same into pasture, grazing there flocks of sheep and other animals for their own private gain and profit, and have imparked certain great fields and pastures and woods into great and wide parks, and some to the increase of parks with a view to raising game there, whereby the said town, hamlets and places were not only reduced to desolation, but also the houses and buildings of the same were brought to such great ruin that no vestige of the same remains, and those our subjects

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who dwelt in the said places and practised and exercised husbandry and householding which is the step-mother of the virtues, are now reduced to idleness and hence are without work, and they did away with the grain and the breeding of cattle which was carried on for man’s needs by the same farmers and labourers living in the same towns, hamlets and places, who were forthwith evacuated from the same places. And the churches and chapels there hallowed have been destroyed and divine services ceased there, and the memory of the Christian souls buried there was forthwith absolutely destroyed, and very many other inestimable losses thereby accrued, and will in future accrue, to the very great desolation and loss of our realm and the damage of our subjects unless a suitable remedy for the reform of the same is not speedily found. We, as in duty bound, wishing to reform the aforesaid evils, and desiring to be better informed which and how many towns and hamlets, and how many houses and buildings have been destroyed since the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in the 4th year of the reign of the illustrious lord Henry VII late king of England, our dearly beloved father, and how many and how large the lands which were then in tillage and have now been put down and converted to pasture, and also how many and how large parks have been imparked since that feast for the preservation of game, and what lands have been enclosed in any parks or any park at that time made for the increase or enlarging of the same park or parks. Accordingly we have assigned you and two of you to inquire by the oath of proved and lawful men of the shires of Oxford, Berks., Warwick, Leicester, Beds., Bucks., and Northants., as well within liberties as without, and by other ways, methods and means whereby you may know what and how many towns, how many houses and buildings have been thrown down since the aforesaid feast, and what and how much land which was then in cultivation and now has been converted into pasture, and also what and how many parks have been enclosed for the protection of game since the same feast, and what lands have been enclosed for the enlarging of parks, and by whom, where, when, how, and in what way, and other articles and circumstances whatsoever concerning the premises according to the tenor and effect of certain articles specified in a certain bill attached to these presents. And so we command you that you should attend diligently to the premises, and do and carry out these things effectively. Moreover by tenor of these presents we command our sheriffs of the shires aforesaid that at certain days and places which you will cause them to know they should cause to come before you or two of you as many and such proved and lawful men of their bailiwicks by whom the truth of the matter can best be inquired into and known. And what you do in the premises you shall certify to us in our Chancery three weeks from Michaelmas day next to come, together with this commission. In witness of which &c. Witness the King at Westminster 28 May.

(ii) Wolsey s judgment in Chancery, 12 July 1518 (Ibid, II, 477)

It is decreed and adjudged by the most reverend father in God, my Lord Cardinal, Chancellor of England, and the Court of the King’s Chancery. That all manner of persons that hath pleaded the King’s general pardon or submitted themselves to the

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King’s mercy and grace for enclosures. That they within forty days next after this present proclamation made, pull down and lay abroad all such enclosures and ditches which were made and done since the first year of the reign of our late sovereign Lord King Henry the Seventh. And the land so laid abroad to convert to tillage as it was used before the said first year upon pain to every such person doing contrary hereunto to forfeit unto the King our sovereign lord £ 100 Except he or they which shall not pull down the said closure for their part within the time above prefixed shall bring sufficient proof before the King in his Chancery at the quindene of St. Michael next convenient that such enclosure and the standing of the same shall be more beneficial for the commonwealth of this realm than the pulling down thereof or that it may stand with the laws and statutes against the decay of houses and turning of tillage to pasture heretofore provided.

(iii) Example of a return to the commission (Ibid, I, 100–112)

BERKSHIRE The inquisition first endentured at Remenham in the aforesaid county on the seventh day of October in the ninth year of the reign of King Henry the eighth before John Veysey, Dean of the aforesaid king’s Chapel, Andrew Windsor, knight, and Roger Wyggeston, late of Leicester, commissioners of the said lord king by reason of letters patent of the same lord king drawn up and directed to them and to two of them to inquire by the oath of honest and lawful men of the aforesaid county as well within liberties as without what and how many vills, houses and buildings have been thrown down since the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in the fourth year of the reign of the most illustrious lord Henry the Seventh, late king of England, father of our present lord king, and how many and what lands which were then in cultivation have now been converted into pasture, and also how many parks have been enclosed since the same feast for the preservation of game, and how much land has been enclosed for enlarging such park or parks and by whom where when how and in what way and to assign the truth of other articles and circumstances concerning the premises by oath of Silvester Pek, gentleman, Richard Planner, Richard Whitelock, John Russell, John Crotall, Nicholas Barfoot, John Folkes, John ap Rice, Richard Radish, John Malthouse, John Hayward alias Clark, Richard Grove…and William Banaster honest and lawful men of the aforesaid county of Berkshire, and then with the assent and at the request of the aforesaid Jurors adjourned until the nineteenth day of October at Remenham aforesaid in the aforesaid shire and then before the aforesaid commissioners there by oath of the aforesaid Jurors received. And they say on their oath that Lionel Norreys, gentleman, was of late seised in his demesne as of fee of three messuages two hundred and forty acres of arable land with appurtenances in Fulscot in the aforesaid county, which land from the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, used to be ploughed and sown and with those messuages demised and occupied viz. with one of the same messuages one hundred and sixty acres of arable land and with each of the remaining messuages forty acres of arable land. And

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one John Angel now holds and for a long time has held the aforesaid three several farms and mansions from the same Lionel, and the same John by virtue of the demise of the aforesaid tenements made to him by the aforesaid Lionel was in possession, and caused the aforesaid messuages to be wasted, destroyed, and thrown down viz. on the tenth of May in the seventh year of the reign of the present lord king the aforesaid messuage with which the aforesaid hundred and sixty acres of land used to be leased and occupied, and on the 16th July in the 16th year of the reign of the lord Henry King of England, late the seventh, another messuage thereof and on the 11th of January in the 22nd year of the reign of the aforesaid late king, whereby 29 persons who used to dwell and work in those messuages were compelled to go away from there and find their living elsewhere. And they say that the aforesaid messuage and one hundred and forty acres of land is worth £8. a year and each remaining messuage and the land attached to it is worth 40 shillings per annum. And the aforesaid Lionel is still seised of those tenements in his demesne as of fee and those tenements are held of the lord king as of his honour of Wallingford. And they say on their oath that John Yong who on the sixth day of March in the first year of the present lord king held and still holds at farm the manor of Catmore with its appurtenances in the aforesaid county, together with one messuage and 40 acres of arable land, parcel of the same manor, from Thomas Eyleston, gentleman, by lease of the same Thomas for a term of some years still lasting, and in the same day and year he converted 200 acres of arable land, annually ploughed, into pasture for animals, and these he still holds whereby one plough team is out of use and 14 persons are deprived of their means of livelihood there and have gone away from there unemployed. And these tenements are worth per annum £10. and the aforesaid Thomas Eyleston is thereof seised in his demesne as of fee. And they are held of [blank in Ms.]. And they say that William Keyt who holds at farm and for a long time has held from the Rector or locum tenens of Edyngill one messuage and 40 acres of arable land with appurtenances in West Ilsley in the aforesaid county, which land used to be ploughed and sown and was attached to the aforesaid messuage from the time whereof the memory of man exists not to the contrary, on the 16th July in the 12th year of the reign of the lord Henry late king of England the seventh caused that messuage to be pulled down and destroyed, whereby 6 persons there are without houses, and those tenements are worth per annum 20 shillings, and the aforesaid Rector is thereof seised in his demesne as of fee etc. And they say that John Key te who holds and has long held at farm from the aforesaid Rector one messuage and [blank in Ms.] acres of arable land in West Ilsley aforesaid in the aforesaid shire, which land used to be ploughed and sown and was attached to that messuage from the time whereof the memory of man goeth not to the contrary, and on the 10th May in the seventh year of the reign of the present lord king he allowed the aforesaid messuage to become desolate and without habitation, whereby that messuage was laid waste and destroyed, and the people who used to live there are without homes. These tenements are worth per annum £3. whereof the aforesaid Rector is seised in his demesne as of fee etc.

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(iv) Two sides of the enclosure problem (Ibid, II, 403–404)

(a) WARWICKSHIRE And the aforesaid Jurors say on their oath that William Coope, gentleman, was of late seised in his demesne, as of fee, of twelve messuages, three cottages, and two hundred and forty acres of arable land in Wormleighton in the aforesaid county. These used to be ploughed from the time of which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. And with each of these 12 messuages went twenty acres of arable land and through the whole of the said time they used to be ploughed annually, and were occupied and put to farm. And thus seised thereof, on the sixth day of October in the fourteenth year of the reign of the aforesaid late king Henry VII, he enclosed those tenements with hedges and ditches on all sides, and those tenements still remain so enclosed, and he willingly allowed those messuages and cottages aforesaid to be wasted and fall into decay and ruin, and still they remain so; And he converted the aforesaid arable land from cultivation and arable into pasture for animals, and that land is still used as pasture for animals. And he still holds that land so enclosed in severalty, whereby twelve ploughs which were fully engaged in the cultivation of these lands are completely idle, and sixty persons who lived in the aforesaid houses while they were maintained and were occupied in cultivating the aforesaid land were compelled tearfully to depart, to wander and be brought to idleness and so presumably perished from want. And the aforesaid tenements, at the time when they were enclosed, were extended at an annual value of forty pounds and now at the time of the taking of this inquisition, these tenements are worth sixty pounds and they are held of the lord king. And they say that in Wormleighton aforesaid there still remains one chief messuage on the site of the manor there, and also six cottages. And the remainder, as has been said above, are waste. And they say that one John Spencer, armiger, now has the estate of the aforesaid William Coope in the aforesaid tenements in Wormleighton aforesaid.

(b) A supplication to Henry VIII by John Spencer of Wormleighton, ? 1519 (Ibid. II, 485–487. Repeated from p. 265 for convenience)

In most humble wise sheweth unto your grace your daily orator John Spencer of Wormleighton in the county of Warwick that where one Sir Symond Mountford, knight, was seised of the manor of Wormleighton aforesaid, and so seised was attainted for treason done against the noble prince King Henry the VIIth by reason whereof the said manor with all other lands and tenements which were the said Symond’s were forfeit to his grace, and he so being thereof seised, by his letters patents granted the said manor of Wormleighton to one William Coope, then being Cofferer to his grace, to have to him, his heirs and assigns for ever, paying therefor to the King and to his heirs yearly 20 marks, which was then but of the value of £8, and so the rent was increased to the King by the said William when he enclosed the said manor to 20 marks a year, and so duly paid yearly, and the same William Coope before the time of enclosure purchased of the mean lords within the same lordship all the rest of the lands and tenements within the

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said lordship. And so the said William Coope enclosed the same lordship of Wormleighton long time before the said John Spencer bought the said lordship of the said William Coope to his great cost and charge which hath cost him to the said William and his executors 20 hundred pounds whereupon he made him a dwelling place, where he had none to inhabit himself in his country where he was born, for at Hodnell where he dwelt before he had it no longer but during the nonage of his uncle’s son which now there dwelleth and hath done this three years, and so this three years the said John Spencer hath been in building in Wormleighton to his great cost and charge. And first in building and maintaining of the church and bought all ornaments, as cross, books, cope, vestments, chalices, and censers, for all the church gear that was within the church at the time when husbandmen were there inhabited was not worth £6. for they had never service by note for they were so poor and lived so poorly that they had no books to sing service on in the church. And where they never had but one priest, I have had and intend to have two or three. And also he hath built and inhabited four houses. And men, women, and children dwelling in them. And so what with his own house, and the other four houses there is within 20 persons as much people as was in the town before. And where there is no wood nor timber growing within twelve or fourteen mile of the same lordship the said John Spencer hath there set trees and sown acorns for timber and wood, and double diked and set with all manner of wood both in the hedgerows, and also betwixt the hedges adjoining to the old hedges that William Coope made before in the said lordship whereupon now groweth much wood which is all ready grown to the profit of all them that should dwell in the said lordship, as also to the country adjoining thereunto, for in those parts there is no wood, so that the poor men of the country are fain to burn the straw that their cattle should live by, therefore it were a great loss to destroy those hedges for it is a greater commodity than either corn or grass in those parts, for they were set to the most increase of wood that might be devised at the great cost and charge of the said John Spencer as first in purchasing, building, hedging and ditching of the same which hath been to him a marvellous charge above all men and most loss shall have if ye be not good and gracious lord to him in the same for he hath none other pasture left him now in his country but the same. Which if now should be put in tillage and none of that reserved that when tillage for pasture several reserved for his cattle it should be to his utter undoing for his living is and hath been by the breed of cattle in his pastures, for he is neither buyer nor seller in common markets as other graziers be, but liveth by his own breed of the same pastures, and sold it when it was fat to the city of London and other places yearly as good cheap in all this five or six years past as he did in other years when they were best cheap within 2.s. in a beast, and 2.d. in a sheep, and he hath bred and fed within the said lordship which was never good for corn as the country will testify more cattle this six years than was bred in the lordship when the town was inhabit in 20 years before, or shall be in 20 years after it shall be inhabited.

Petition of John Spencer of Wormleighton, c. 1522 (Ibid. 487–489)

In most humble wise shewith unto your grace John Spencer of Wormleighton in the

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county of Warwick beseecheth your grace in the way of charity that he put not his land all in tillage in so short space as your grace hath given injunction, which is by Candlemas next, and also to put down his hedges and ditches by the same day, which he cannot do in so short space to follow the injunction, but to his undoing, for he shall destroy all his cattle that is going on the same ground, for lack of meat, for if he should sell his cattle now in the dead time of winter he should lose and sell it for half the money that it is worth, for he hath no manner of fat cattle now left him at this time but his breed. And to put down his hedges that be now ready grown, which be now twenty years old, which be now grown full of all manner of wood, to great profit and one of the greatest commodity in that country, above corn or grass, And also to the great profit of the tenants that shall inhabit within the said lordship, for there is very little wood growing within fourteen mile of the same. And for that wood is one of the greatest commodities in those parts, the said John Spencer did set and double ditched and double hedged and set it with wood as well betwixt the ditches as also in the hedges, to his great cost and charge, which if now should be thrown down, should not be only a great loss to the said John Spencer but also to the country and also to the tenants that shall inhabit the same, for there is none other intercommoners within the said lordship, but only the Lord and tenants of the same. And if the hedges were thrown down it should cause much variance betwixt the tenants of the same lordship and towns adjoining thereunto, which have no right of common there. Therefore, the said John Spencer beseecheth your grace that the hedges may stand unto such time as your grace may have due proof whether it be to a more commodity and common weal for the country there that the said hedges to stand or to be thrown down, and also to have a reasonable time to put the land in tillage, that is, the one half betwixt this and Easter, and to make the one half of the housing betwixt this and Michaelmas, and the other half of the land to be put in tillage by Easter come twelve months, and the other half of the houses to be made by Michaelmas come twelve month. And to all as aforesaid the said John Spencer is content to follow and perform as your grace shall appoint him, trusting that your grace will consider him above all other insomuch as he never inclosed it, and bought it of a high price as William Coope improved it. And also hath been at great cost with the Church, which he found greatly in decay. And also builded him a manor place where was none before, but a sorry thatched house, to his great cost and charge wherein he now dwelleth with little lack of sixty persons. And that the land be not all put in tillage, but some to be reserved for certain cattle for the maintenance of his house. And he shall daily pray for the preservation of your noble grace.

(v) Commission of Inquiry concerning Enclosures (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1547–48, 419) On 1 June 1548 a Proclamation announced an inquiry into breaches of the acts and ordinances made against enclosures, the destruction of towns, etc. The following Commission for implementing the Proclamation contained instructions concerning the scope of the inquiry, and the nature of the questions to be put to witnesses. The text of the Proclamation is in Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations. I. 427 and in Lamond, A Discourse of the Common Weal, 148.

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Commission to Sir Francis Russell, Knight, Fulk Crewell, Knights John Hales, John Marsshe, William Pynnocke, and Roger Amys (where as in the years 4 Henry VII. and 7, 25 and 27 Henry VIII. laws were made for the maintenance of houses, husbandry, avoiding destruction of towns, enclosures, limiting numbers of sheep, plurality of farms, and maintenance of hospitality and tillage on the sites of monasteries dissolved by the Act of 27 Henry VIII., which have not wrought this expected effect because “the same for fear of displeasure and chiefly through the corruption and infection of private lucre grown universally amongst our subjects, were not put in execution”; by reason whereof the forces of the realm which was wont to be greatly feared of all foreign powers is decayed, the people “abated”, those who remain oppressed, prices increased), to enquire by oath of twelve good men of the counties of Oxford, Berks, Warwick, Lancaster, Bedford, Bucks and Northampton, “and every of them”, of all transgressors of the said statutes and other articles contained in instructions hereto annexed, and commit to ward all such as hinder the execution of this commission. And like commissions with the instructions shall be directed to such persons as the Protector and rest of the Council shall name in all other shires “returnable quindena Michaelis next coming.” [ii] “Instructions given by the King’s Majesty to his commissioners appointed for the execution of certain statutes made” etc. “First ye shall enquire what towns, villages, and hamlets have been decayed and laid down by enclosures into pastures within the shires contained in our commission since the fourth of the reign of King Henry the Seventh?” “Item what lands were then in tillage at the time of the said enclosure and what then in pasture?” “Item how many ploughs by reason of the said enclosure be laid down? How many meases, cottages, and dwelling houses are decayed and inhabitants gone, and what lands they had? By whom, and when and how, were the enclosures made?” Who has the inheritance and profits and of whom are they held? How many parks have been made since the said time? What “arable” land has been thus imparked? How many ploughs, houses and inhabitations are thereby decayed? Similarly, how many parks have been enlarged and ploughs, etc., decayed thereby? Who keeps above 2000 sheep besides lambs of one year’s age, and whether upon his own or his farm lands or otherwise by “covyn or fraud and how long he hath kept them?” How many sheep you think necessary for such persons’ households? If any person has let lands to farm or by copy of court roll reserving the sheep pasture or has taken from his tenants their commons so that they cannot breed cattle or maintain husbandry as heretofore? If any person has occupied more than two houses or tenements of husbandry in one town, village, hamlet, or tithing. And if such have been taken in farm for life, years, at will, by indenture or copy, since Christmas A.D. 1535.

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If every person body politic or corporate that has by grant or lease the site and demesnes of any religious house dissolved by the Act of 27 Henry VIII. keeps “an honest continual house and household” there and occupies as much of the demesnes in husbandry as was so occupied for twenty years before the dissolution. “Item, that you our said commissioners for your better instructions take with you the copies of all such offices as were found concerning the premises in the 9th. and 10th, years of the reign of our most noble father King Henry theight.”

(vi) Kett’s rebellion, 1549 These two documents illustrate events in Norfolk connected with Kett’s rising. The first is an account of the rising described by Somerset in a letter to Sir Philip Hoby, resident ambassador with the emperor, 1 September 1549 (F.W.Russel, Ket’s Rebellion in Norfolk, 213–215). The second is the official record of the trial of Robert and William Kett (ibid. 224–227). For a modern account, S.T.Bindoff, Ket’s Rebellion, 1549 (Hist. Assoc. Pubns. 1949).

(i) After our right hearty commendations, we have heretofore advertised you of the troublesome business, uproars, and tumults, practised in sundry places of the realm by a number of seditious and evil-disposed persons, to the great disquietness both of the king’s majesty and all other his highness’ quiet and loving subjects; which tumults and commotions, albeit at the beginning they were spread in many parts of the realm, yet in the end all places were well pacified and quieted, saving Devon and Cornwall and Norfolk, where they continued their rebellion so stubbornly as the king’s majesty was forced to send his highness’ lieutenant with a power both ways the sooner to repress them, and bring them to their duties, viz., my L.Privy Seal for Devonshire and Cornwall, and the earl of Warwick into Norfolk. And like as we have heretofore signified unto you the proceedings of my L.Privy Seal in his journey, which by his politic and wise handling of the matter, after the slaughter of more than one thousand of the rebels, and execution of some of the ringleaders, he hath (thanks be to God) so honourably achieved and finished, as not only the counties remain permanently in good order, but also the multitude so repent their former detestable and naughty doings as they abhor to hear them spoken of. So you shall understand that in Norfolk the living God hath so wrought by the wisdom and manliness of my L. of Warwick that they also are brought to subjection by such means as ensueth. The said rebels having travailed by the space of one month or more to allure to them such numbers of other light persons as they might, and partly by that means, and partly by force and violence, at the last had assembled together a great number, did after encamp themselves near the city of Norwich, which city they had also at their commandment, and therein had placed their victuals and other provisions, whereof they had gotten large furniture. My L. of Warwick coming to those parts, after he had thoroughly understood the state of the rebels, knowing the better part of them to be such simple persons as were either constrained by force, or otherwise seduced by those of the worser sort, thought best to use such means for subduing of them as might be with least effusion of blood and punishment only of the heads and captains. And for this cause, travailing first to cut off their victuals, did

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approach the city of Norwich, which within short time he obtained. And at the getting of it overthrew a good number of the rebels, by which means he so bridled them and cut off their victuals as they were fain to live 3 days with water for drink, and eat their meat without bread. Whereupon on Tuesday last, issuing out of their camp into a plain near adjoining, they determined to fight, and like mad and desperate men ran upon the sword, where a mort of them being slain, the rest were content to crave their pardon. One Kett, a tanner, being from the beginning the very chief doer among them fled, and the rest of the rebels, casting away their weapons and harness, and asking pardon on their knees with weeping eyes, were by my Lord of Warwick dismissed home without hurt and pardoned. The chief heads, ring-leaders, and posts excepted, Kett and three of his brethren with sundry other chief captains, all vile persons, were also taken, who now remain in hand to receive that which they have deserved. Thus are these vile wretches that have now of a long time troubled the realm, and as much as in them lay, gone about to destroy and utterly undo the same, come to confusion. So that we trust, verily, that these traiterous mutinies and rebellion hath now an end, lauded be God. (ii) Middlesex. Inquiry is to be made for the lord king that, whereas in the parliament of the lord Edward the Third, late king of England, progenitor of our present lord king in the 25th. year of his reign, amongst other things it is ordained and declared that when any one should have compassed or imagined the death of the lord king, or if anyone should levy war against the lord king within his realm, or adhere to the enemies of the lord the king in his realm, or give to them aid or comfort within his realm or elsewhere, and thereof be proveably attainted of open deed by their peers, which in the aforesaid cases has to be determined by the aforesaid, as in the said statute more fully is contained: Notwithstanding, one Robert surnamed Kete, late of Wymondham in the county of Norfolk, tanner, otherwise called Robert Knight, late of Wymondham in the said county of Norfolk, tanner, not having God before his eyes, but seduced by instigation of the devil, and not weighing his due allegiance, and also as a felonious and malicious traitor and public enemy, against our most mighty and serene lord, Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God king of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and on earth of the Church of England and Ireland Supreme Head, feloniously maliciously and traiterously intending and plotting utterly to destroy and annihilate that hearty love and obedience which all true and faithful subjects of our said lord the king that now is of this his realm of England, bear and are rightly held to bear towards the same lord the king; and to excite sedition, rebellion, and insurrection between the same our lord the king and his faithful subjects; and to deprive the same our lord the king of his dignity, honours, and preeminences; and in order to perfect and accomplish his said felonious and traiterous intention and wicked purposes, to the peril of our said lord the king that now is, and the subversion of this his realm of England, according to his power, contrary to his due allegiance, on the 20th. day of July in the third year of the reign of Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God, king of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the Faith, and on earth of the Church of England and Ireland Supreme

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Head; and continuously after the said 20th. day of July for six weeks then next ensuing, on Mousholde hethe in the parish of Thorpe, near Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, and at divers other places in the said county of Norfolk, by traitorous proclamations, hue and cry, and the ringing of bells, very many malefactors being adherent and joined with him, to the number of twenty thousand, did as felons, traitors, enemies, and public rebels against our said most dread and excellent lord the king that now is, Edward the Sixth, of their unanimous assent and consent, with banners unfurled, swords, shields, clubs, cannon, halberds, lances, bows, arrows, breast-plates coats of mail, caps, helmets, and other arms offensive and defensive, armed and arrayed in warlike manner, traitorously did make an insurrection and levy war against the same lord king that now is; and he traitorously caused some writings and bills then and there to be written and subscribed, as well to excite and procure the lieges of our said lord the king in the said county of Norfolk to levy open war against the same lord the king, as also to rob and spoil the true and faithful subjects of the said lord king. And the aforesaid Robert Kete with the aforesaid traitors and rebels during all the 20th. day of July and the six weeks then next ensuing to carry out their aforesaid traiterous intention, together on Mousholde hethe aforesaid, in the aforesaid county of Norfolk, and in divers other places in the same county of Norfolk, with the aforesaid force of arms, assembled themselves, confederated, and conspired together by war and in warlike manner to destroy the people of our said lord the king that now is, of this his realm of England; and very many faithful subjects of our said lord king that now is, viz., knights, esquires, and gentlemen of the said county of Norfolk, on Mount Surrey, in the said county of Norfolk did they feloniously and traitorously imprison, and in that prison for a long time feloniously and traitorously did detain, crying and shouting out with these words in English, “Kill the Gentlemen”. And very many faithful subjects of our said lord king that now is in the same county of Norfolk they did traitorously despoil of their goods and chattels the same 20th day of July, and during the said six weeks then next ensuing; and by force of arms they did traiterously take and carry them off, and very many faithful subjects of our said lord king that now is, who were under the rule and conduct of the most noble John, earl of Warwick, who was appointed Lieutenant of our said lord the king, to subdue, bind, and seize the said Robert Kete and the traitors aforesaid, they did at Dussingesdale, in the parishes of Thorpe and Sprowston in the said county of Norfolk, on the 27th. day of August in the said third year of our said lord king that now is, in the said county of Norfolk, with banners unfurled feloniously and traitorously murder and slay. And the same Robert Kete and the other said traitors, on the said 27th. day of August, by the favour of God, were by the leader the most noble earl of Warwick, and by other faithful subjects of the same our lord the king then and there, under the conduct of the same earl of Warwick, honourably subdued and conquered. And thereupon the same Robert Kete, as a felonious traitor of our said lord the king, did from the battle and place aforesaid, the same day and year, feloniously and traitorously betake himself as far as and towards Cawson in the said county of Norfolk and was there taken and arrested by the lieges of our said lord the king for his wicked treasons aforesaid, against his due allegiance and against

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the peace of our lord the king, his crown and dignity, and against the form of the statute in this case lately made and provided…. And then, to wit, on the same Tuesday, in the third year above-mentioned, at Westminster in the county of Middlesex, before the afore-mentioned commissioners, came the aforesaid Robert Kete and William Kete, being brought by John Gage, knight, constable of the Tower of London, into whose custody they had been committed previously for the causes aforesaid by the Council of our lord the king. And by command of our lord the king they were brought hither to the bar in their own persons, and concerning the premises above severally laid to their charge, straightway asked how they wished themselves to be acquitted thereof, they say that they cannot deny but that they themselves, and each of them, are guilty of the premises above severally laid to their charge, as is alleged above by the aforesaid several indictments, and thereof they and each of them place themselves in the mercy of the lord king. Whereupon the king’s serjeants at law and the king’s attorney, according to the due form of law forthwith sought against the aforesaid…Robert Kete and William Kete judgment and execution thereupon to be made upon their own several recognizances in this part made. And thereupon all and every the premisses having been seen and understood by the Court, it was determined that the aforesaid… Robert Kete and William Kete should be led by the Constable of the Tower aforesaid as far as to the said Tower, and from there be drawn through the midst of the city of London straight up to the gallows of Tyburn, and be hanged on the gallows, and while still alive that they should be laid on the ground, and the entrails of each one of them be taken out and burned before them while they are still alive, and their heads be cut off, and their bodies be divided into four parts, and that the heads and quarters of each of them be placed where our lord the king shall appoint, etc.

145. Select examples of the literature on enclosures (i) John Bayker’s Device to redress a commonwealth From the State Papers (L.P. XIII. ii, 1229. Full text in F.Aydelotte, Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds, 145–147)

Forasmuch as your grace at all times hath been ready to take intolerable pains, not only for the setting forth of God’s honour, but also for the common and public weal of your realm, I can do no less with discharge of my conscience toward God, and my obedience observed, which by the commandment of God I owe unto your princely majesty, but I must needs open and disclose such things as I thought dishonourous unto your grace, and tedious and discomfortable unto the commonweal of your people: yet, lest that I should be tedious or troublesome unto your grace, or hindrance of your most godly studies, I have drawn forth and written here the thing that at such time as your grace shall think convenient ye may look upon it. First, where that your most gracious noble and excellent majesty hath ordained and set forth many times good and wholesome statutes and laws for the condign punishment of all vagabonds and valiant beggars, that is to say, that none of them shall run from

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town to town, or place to place without a lawful licence or cause, but that they and all such shall be taken, and after your most gracious laws to be punished, yet nevertheless I cannot perceive but the multitude of them doth daily increase more and more: for where that your grace and your grace’s predecessors have given and put forth in fee farm lordship to your rulers and gentlemen of your realm, whom your grace puts in trust to the intent that they should aid and defend your poor subjects and commons in all right and justice: but, alas! I think your poor friends had never more need to complain unto your grace in any matter than they have in this, which, if it please your grace to pardon me, your subject, I shall shortly show. Now, whereupon that I am so bold to trouble or disquiet your grace’s majesty, your grace shall understand that I am a poor artificer, or craftsman, which hath travelled and gone through the most part of your realm to get and earn my living. I have been in the most part of the cities and great towns in England: I have also gone through many little towns and villages: but, alas, it did pity my heart to see in every place so many monuments where that houses and habitations hath been and now nothing but bare walls standing. Which thing, methinks, is very dishonerous unto your highness, and not that only, but by the occasion thereof much inconvenience doth increase among people: it causeth men to lie by the highway side and thereon to rob, and unto another it causeth also much murder and fornication to be within your realm. For if so were that every man might have in towns and villages but one little house or cottage to inhabit, and but a little garden ground withal they would so order it with their labour that they would earn their living, so should there no place be unfilled nor without inhabiters so that in towns or villages they should be always in a readiness at your grace’s call and commandment. Now, if it please your grace to hear what is the cause of such decay and ruin within your realm, your grace shall understand that in every place where that your graceious majesty hath given in fee farm and lordship to any gentleman or such as be your grace’s fee farmers, that being your grace’s fee farmers should let them again unto your poor subjects to inhabit and till, that they, paying their rent truly to their landlords, might have a sufficient and complete living by their labour: but alas! how far be these fee farmers or rulers wide in this point, for if so be that any of these fee farmers or rulers wide in this point, for if so be that any of these fee farmers have any tenement or farm in their hands, if a poor man come unto one of them desiring him to be good unto him in this tenement or farm, that he might have it to inhabit, paying the rent for it as it hath been beforetime, he answers and says, “if that thou wilt have this tenement of me thou must pay me so much money at thy coming in for a fine”: so that he raiseth that thing which never was at no fine before to a great sum of money, and the rent to be paid yearly besides: the poor man then seeing there is no remedy but either to have it, or to be destitute of a habitation, sells all that he hath from wife and children to pay the fine thereof. Then the landlord, perceiving the house in decay will not repair it tenantable although the tenant paid never so much for his fine: so that the tenant cometh to a decayed thing: then the landlord, perceiving that the house is ready to fall down doth call the tenant into the court, and there commands him to build up his

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house against a certain day in pain of forfeiting a certain sum of money. Then the poor man, because he paid so great a sum of money for the fine of it, is not able to build it up so shortly. Then, the second time is he called in again to the court and there commanded in pain of forfeiting his tenement to build it so that the poor man being not able to repair it doth forfeit it again unto the lord. Then, because it is so far in decay, and the fine so great withal, no man is desirous to take it, so that the house cometh down shortly after. “Yet” saith the landlord, “the lands shall raise me as much rent as they did before when the house was standing.” O good Lord! how much doth these men regard more their own peculiar and proper advantage than your grace’s honour, or having respect, where that your people should inhabit that so lets your grace’s habitations decay: is it not as right that they should forfeit unto your grace, who is lord and governor over all as the poor tenants unto them. Your grace may see how hard-hearted they be unto their tenants that they rather let fall than build. Is it not a pitiful case, to come into a little village or town where that there hath been twenty or thirty houses and now are half of them nothing but bare walls standing? Is it not a pitiful case to see one man have it in his hands which did suffice two or three men when the habitations were standing? No doubt this thing is the cause of much inconvenience within your realm. I think there were never more people and fewer habitations, which thing I would wish and desire that your grace would see a reformation in: but inasmuch that I have taken in hand to disquiet your gracious majesty as concerning this complaint, I would desire your most gracious pardon: and that your grace would accept the love and zeal that I have to your highness, and to your most gracious heir and prince that I would not see that his grace should enter into a decayed land. By your poor and faithful subject John Baker, in the county of Wiltshire, and lordship of Castle Combe.

(ii) A paper on the Causes of Dearth written in the autumn of 1548: the original draft in the Public Record Office appears to be in the hand of John Hales (Text in Lamond, A Discourse of the Common Weal, xlii–xlv. Another version in P.F.Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, I, 367)

T

here be three things that be the cause of the universal dearth of victuals in the realm. The first is lack of breeding and rearing of cattle and poultry ware. For it is not possible to have that good cheap that is not. The second is regrating when the most part of victuals be gathered into a few men’s hands who may defer to sell, but when they see their most profit. And the third is the King’s provisions, when victuals is taken from the poor people that be the breeders, against their wills, and have neither ready money for their wares nor yet so much as it is worth, which discourageth the people to breed and causeth the prices of all things (because there is not plenty of them) to be increased. Lack of good laws and statutes is not the cause of this hurt that cometh by provisions, for there be laws sufficient for that purpose, but because they cannot be put in execution, the let whereof is lack of money.

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So that if we mind to have no more provisions made as they have been, that is without money and for less price than other men pay, we must of necessity provide that the King may have money, and his revenues increased. The provision of money must needs be had, albeit the provisions cease not, for we see the King’s charges daily increase more and more and his revenues daily to decrease more and more, for that he selleth the same, so that the more he selleth, the greater at length shall be the burden of the Commons, for whose defence it is sold, and who must be compelled to satisfy that lacketh. So that our policy ought to be first to consider how much the Kings’ charges surmount his revenues and to devise and inquire how his grace’s revenues may be increased, with the least burden of his subjects. We must also consider that as the King’s revenues be greater than any of his predecessors, so be his charges far greater both in his household and also in his wars, than ever any kings of England were before. If some of his predecessors have had more in respect than the King hath, albeit they had neither monastery, college or chantry lands. Then must it be considered how the same was greater and where that revenue is become, and whether the thing whereof it grew as yet remaineth or is utterly decayed. It appeareth by the records of the exchequer that Edward the third had more revenue yearly by the custom of the staple, than the King that dead is had by all customs of the staple and clothes by £55202. 8.s. 4.d. at the least. To shew what hurt cometh by provisions to the poor men it shall not need, experience doth make it too plain. But for example, the purveyor alloweth for a lamb worth two shillings, but 12.d.; for a capon worth 12.d., six pence and so after that rate, so that after that rate there is not the poorest man that hath anything to sell but he loseth half in the price, besides tarrying for his money which sometime he hath after long suit to the officers, and great costs sueing for it, and many times he never hath it, so that he is driven to recover his losses, by selling dearer to the King’s subjects. And therefore far better it were for men to give some certainty yearly not to be cumbered with this yoke of provisions, than daily thus to be tormented and never to be in certainty of their own. This certainty might be thus gathered that the King might have of every sheep kept in the common fields one penny, of every ewe and lamb kept in several pasture two pence, and of every other sheer sheep kept in pasture, three half-pence. Suppose there be in the realm at this present the number of thirty hundred thousand sheep whereof 15 hundred thousand to be kept on the commons, and rated at one penny the piece, it will amount to £6250, and seven hundred and fifty thousand ewes with lambs rated at 2.d. the ewe and lamb it cometh to £6250, and seven hundred and fifty thousand other pasture sheep rated at 1¯½ d. the piece it cometh to £4687. 10.s. Summa totalis £17,187. 10.s., which is thought will do somewhat albeit not sufficient toward the provisions of the King’s household. Now since the wools grow daily, and be converted into cloth made within the realm, that were wont to be carried unwrought over the seas, whereby kings of England in

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time past have had so great revenues, and the commonalty have been the less charged with subsidies. The King’s charges daily increasing more and more, to the intent the King’s highness should have the less cause to trouble his subjects with requiring any subsidies, and that noblemen and gentlemen which be otherwise charged to serve his highness be not double charged, and the poor men that be not able to pay therewith charged, reason it were that an imposition were put on cloths, to be paid yearly, by the makers thereof and by the merchants that carry it over the sea, after this rate, that is of the clothier for a broad cloth 5.s., and a kersey 20.d., and of the merchant double custom. He that holdeth of the King in capite can be no loser for payment for his sheep that he spendeth in his house, for that he shall be allowed as much for the respite of homage. As for example if he pay yearly 20.s. for the respite of his homage after the rate of a penny the sheep, he may kill 240 sheep and shall pay no more than he did before. The clothier can have no loss thereby, for he will recover it in his sale, which is after the rate of two pence in the yard of cloth. And so selling it either to the King’s subjects, or to strangers they must bear the burden, which being so light they shall easily do. The merchants if they may have the cloth justly and truly made, shall be great gainers. And so shall all others that wear cloth, when one garment being made of good and true cloth shall last twice as long as garments do at this time. These things granted that it will please the King’s majesty, that his officers after Christmas next coming shall take nothing against the owners will but pay ready money, and as much as the common price is in the market. And that all manner of carriages, as well by sea as by land, shall be rated at such prices as other his grace’s subjects pay. And that shall be rated by two justices of peace and by the verdict of 12 men of the hundred, such as have carriages of their own. Also that it may please his majesty that the sheriffs for the time being may be discharged upon their accounts of such farms and rents as be not leviable. Also that all cities boroughs and towns may be discharged of their fee farms, and rents for their liberties paid to the King’s majesty. And that the profits that grow of such fee farms and rents, which may be justly and truly gathered shall be employed yearly toward a stock to be occupied by the inhabitants of the same cities boroughs and towns in setting the poor people of the same on work and in none other places according to such ordinances and devices as shall be set forth by the King’s majesty’s commissioners. Also that it will please the King’s majesty, that no sums of money shall be paid in the exchequer or elsewhere for respite of homage. Nor that any process hereafter shall be sent out of the exchequer against any person to do his homage. This grant and articles to be of force to the end of the next parliament that shall be holden after the King’s majesty shall come to his full age.

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(iii) Certayne causes gathered together, wherein is shewed the decaye of England, only by the great multitude ofshepe, to the utter decay of household keping, mayntenaunce of men, dearth of corne, and other notable dyscommodityes approved by Syxe olde Proverbes Proverbs 20. A King that sitteth in judgment and looketh well about him driveth away all evil. (J.M.Cowper (ed.), Four Supplications, E.E.T.S. 1871, 95–102) The probable date of this tract is 1550–53, but the name of the author is unknown. References to Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire suggest that he was in some way connected with these counties. Unlike other “supplications” of the time this one is concerned entirely with rural problems and contains no attack on the Church.

To the King’s most honourable Council, and the Lords of the Parliament House. The first article and point, as we do think, it is great pity (so the will of God it were) that there is not corn enough within this realm of England at all times necessary to certify and suffice the king’s subjects for the space of one year, two, or three, if there were no corn sown in this realm by the said space. We do say that the king’s Majesty, mercifully hearing the petition of these his grace’s poor subjects, may at all times remedy it when it shall please his Majesty, being for a common wealth for his grace’s subjects, and to the great increase of this noble realm of England. We say, as reason doth lead us, that sheep and sheepmasters doth cause scarcity of corn, which we do think it may be well approved, by reason of six proverbs; for and if all our livings and all our commodities were divided in parts, by reason of the same six proverbs, we that be the king’s Majesty’s poor subjects do lose six of our commodities, then have we three losses, which make nine; by reason of the same three losses we, the king’s Majesty’s subjects, do lose the third part of our living, then have we the tenth part, which we call a remedy, beseeching your noble grace to remedy when your Majesty shall please. As touching the first proverb of the six, we do think The more sheep, the dearer is the wool. The more sheep, the dearer is the mutton, The more sheep, the dearer is the beef. The more sheep, the dearer is the corn. The more sheep, the scanter is the white meat. The more sheep, the fewer eggs for a penny. In the first proverb, the more sheep, the dearer is the wool. Our complaint is for Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire; and as for all other shires, we refer it to the plaintiffs. We shall desire you and all other that read and see the true intents and meanings of this our doings, to pardon our ignorance; yet notwithstanding, we desire you somewhat to attend to the premises, seeing it is done and put forth for the commodity of the King’s majesty’s realm and for the wealth of his grace’s poor subjects. In the said Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire there be many

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men of worship dwelling within the said three shires, and hath great lands to live upon, the which we pray to God to give them joy of, and well to occupy it. Many of these worshipful men set no store nor price upon the maintenance of tillage of their lands, as before time hath been used, neither breeding nor feeding of cattle, but many of them doth keep the most substance of their lands in their own hands. And where tillage was wont to be, now is it stored with great number of sheep: and they that have great number of sheep must needs have great store of wool, and we cannot think who should make the price of wool but those that have great plenty of sheep. And we do partly know that there be some dwelling within these three shires rather than they will sell their wool at a low price they will keep it a year or twain, and all to make it dear, and to keep it a dear price, And by this means the first proverb to be true: The more sheep, the dearer is the wool. In the second proverb as we do think: the more sheep the dearer is the mutton. As by reason, the most substance of our feeding was wont to be on beef, and now it is on mutton. And so many mouths goeth to mutton, which causeth mutton to be dear. In the third proverb, as we do think: The more sheep the dearer is the beef. As by reason that breeding and feeding is not set by as it hath been in times past; and whereas sheep is kept upon the pasture grounds where breeding and feeding of beef was wont to be kept, and now there is nothing kept there but mutton. The fourth proverb: The more sheep, the dearer is the corn. By reason tillage is not used, occupied, and maintained as it hath been before time, but sheep kept upon the ground, where tillage was wont to be kept and maintained. The fifth proverb: The more sheep the scanter is the white meat. By reason tillage is not used, occupied, and maintained, neither maintenance of houses and hospitality, whereas cattle was wont to be fed and bred; by reason of keeping of cattle should increase white meat; and now there is nothing kept there but only sheep. The sixth proverb: The more sheep, the fewer eggs for a penny. By reason cottages go down in the country, whereas poultry was wont to be bred and fed, now there is nothing kept there but sheep, which cause the eggs to be sold for four a penny. Thus be the six proverbs true, as we do think, desiring you to give hearing unto them, and that it may be well amended for the common wealth of the king’s poor subjects. Then have we three losses, that maketh nine. The first loss, as we do think, there is not so many ploughs used, occupied, and maintained within Oxfordshire as was in King Henry the Seventh’s time, and since his first coming there lacketh forty ploughs, every plough was able to keep six persons, down lying and uprising in his house, the which draweth to twelve score persons in Oxfordshire. And where that the said twelve score persons were wont to have meat, drink, raiment and wages, paying scot and lot to God and to our King, now there is nothing kept there but only sheep. Now these twelve score persons had need to have living: whither shall they go? into Northamptonshire? and there is also the living of twelve score persons lost: whither shall then they go? forth from shire to shire, and to be scattered thus

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abroad, within the king’s majesty’s realm, where it shall please Almighty God; and for lack of masters, by compulsion driven, some of them to beg, and some to steal. The second loss, as we do think: that there is never a plough of the forty ploughs but he is able to till and plough to certify six persons, and every plough to sell thirty quarters of grain by the year, or else he can full ill pay six, seven, eight pound by the year. Forty ploughs thirty quarters every plough, draweth to two1 hundred quarters in Buckinghamshire, two hundred quarters in Oxfordshire, and two hundred quarters in Northamptonshire, and so forth from shire to shire in certain shires within the king’s majesty’s realm of England. What shall the twelve two hundred quarters of corn do in Oxfordshire? We do think it will maintain the king’s markets and sustain the king’s subjects; and likewise in Buckinghamshire, and also in Northamptonshire and so from shire to shire in certain shires within the king’s majesty’s realm. Furthermore it is to be considered what this twelve hundred quarters of corn is able to do within Oxfordshire, it is able to certify and suffice fifteen score people by the year, bread and drink, and allow to every person two quarters of wheat and two quarters of malt by the year; whereas in the first the whole living of twelve score persons, meat and drink and raiment, uprising and down lying, paying scot and lot to our God, and to our king. And the second loss, bread and drink for fifteen score persons by the year, which the whole number draweth to five hundred and forty persons in Oxfordshire; and so in Buckinghamshire, and so likewise in Northamptonshire, and so forth from shire to shire within the king’s majesty’s realm. And if it be as we do think, that there be four score ploughs in every one of these shires less than there was, then is there the living lost of a thousand and four score persons in every one of these foresaid shires. This is the second loss, as we do think, and call for remedy for it. The third loss, as we do think: We do lose in the said three shires keeping of household and hospitality, and maintaining of tillage and household keeping; we do lack corn, and also lose our cattle; for where any household is kept, there is kept kine and calves; and of our kine there cometh milk, butter, and cheese; and all this doth sustain the king’s majesty’s subjects; and for this we have nothing but sheep. And furthermore, where households be kept, there is hogs, pigs, and bacon, capons, hens, ducks, eggs, fruit, and many other commodities that is necessary and needful to be had for the maintenance and living of the king’s majesty’s poor subjects to live by; and for that we have nothing but sheep. This is the third loss. The tenth is, which we do call for remedy, and we desire of God and the king’s majesty, if it shall please his Highness to be so good and gracious unto his poor subjects that there might be in every shire and hundred as many ploughs used, occupied, and maintained, as many households kept, as was by king Henry the Seventh’s time, first coming. And then unfeigned, as we do think, we should have corn enough, cattle enough, and sheep enough; then will sheep and wool be in more men’s hands; we shall have also white meat enough, and all things necessary. And thus Jesus preserve our dread sovereign lord and king! As we do think, we have two losses more that we have not spoken: the first loss is for 1

Sic: but should be 1200.

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lack of household keeping and maintenance of tillage. It is great decay to artillery: for that we do reckon that shepherds be but ill archers. And as we do further think it loseth the king’s majesty in provision for his noble households, that is to say, in wheat, malt, beans, muttons, veals, hay and oats, and poultry, and all manner such provisions that belongeth to his majesty’s household, as we do think, five thousand marks by the year with the left. In a trial, as we do think, if it should please the king’s majesty’s officers to call in his grace’s purveyors, and examine them where they have had within their time for his grace’s provisions of his wars, and for his majesty’s household, whereas there is now nothing to be gotten: for they that keep the said lands hath put the foresaid lands to pastures, themselves buyeth all manner of grain and corn to keep their household withal. Furthermore, if it shall please the king’s highness, and his noble council for to have a further trial of this matter, and to assure it to be true, take all craftsmen dwelling in cities and towns, day labourers that laboureth by water or by land, cottagers and other householders, refusing none, but only them that hath all this abundance, that is to say, sheep or woolmasters, and inclosers, the lamentations of the king’s majesty’s subjects will make any true-hearted body to seek and call for remedy, which we beseech the lord to amend. Amen, Furthermore, as we do think, this realm doth decay by this means: It is to understand and be known that there is in England towns and villages to the number of fifty thousand and upward, and for every town and village—take them one with another throughout all—there is one plough decayed since the first year of the reign of king Henry the Seventh. And in some towns and villages all the whole town decayed since that time; and if there be for every town and village one plough decayed since the first year of the reign of king Henry the Seventh, then is there decayed fifty thousand ploughs and upwards. The which fifty thousand ploughs every plough were able to maintain six persons: that is to say, the man, the wife, and four other in his house, less and more. Fifty thousand ploughs, six persons to every plough draweth to the number of three hundred thousand persons were wont to have meat, drink, and raiment, uprising and down lying, paying scot and lot to God and to the king. And now they have nothing, but goeth about in England from door to door, and ask their alms for God’s sake. And because they will not beg some of them doth steal, and then they be hanged, and thus the realm doth decay, and by none other ways else, as we do think. Beseeching your highness (of your most noble grace) and honourable lordships, the premises tenderly considered before you in examination upon the premises, that we may have a remedy in this behalf. And we shall daily pray for the conservation of your highness and for your full noble lordships.

(IV) The consequences of enclosures (E.Lamond (ed.), A Discourse of the Common Weal of This Realm of England, 15–20)

Husbandman. Marry for these inclosures do undo us all, for they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy, and causes that we can have no land in manner for our money to put to tillage; all is taken up for pastures, either for sheep or for grazing of cattle. So that I have known of late a dozen ploughs within less compass than 6 miles

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about me laid down within these 7 years; and where 40 persons had their livings, now one man and his shepherd hath all. Which thing is not the least cause of these uproars, for by these inclosures men do lack livings and be idle; and therefore for very necessity they are desirous of a change, being in hope to come thereby to somewhat; and well assured, howsoever it befall with them, it can not be no harder with them than it was before. Moreover all things are so dear that by their daily labour they are not able to live. Capper. I have well experience thereof, for I am fain to give my journeymen 2.d. a day more than I was wont to do, and yet they say they cannot sufficiently live thereon. And I know for a truth that the best husband of them all can save but little at the year’s end; and by reason of such dearth as ye speak of, we that are artificers can keep few or no apprentices like as we were wont to do. Therefore the city, which was heretofore well inhabited and wealthy, (as ye know every one of you,) is fallen for lack of occupiers to great desolation and poverty. Merchant. So the most part of all the towns of England, London excepted; and not only the good towns are decayed sore in their houses, streets and other buildings, but also the country in their highways, and bridges; for such poverty reigneth everywhere that few men have so much to spare as they may give anything to the reparation of such ways, bridges, and other common easements. And albeit there be many things laid down now that before times were occasions of much expenses, as stageplays, interludes, may games, wakes, revels, wagers at shooting, wrestling, running, and throwing the stone or bar, and besides that pardons, pilgrimages, offerings, and many such other things, yet I perceive we be never the wealthier but rather the poorer; whereof it is long I cannot well tell, for there is such a general dearth of all things as I never knew the like, not only of things growing within this realm, but also of all other merchandise that we buy beyond the seas, as silks, wines, oils, wood, madder, iron, steel, wax, flax, linen cloth, fustians, worsteds, coverlets, carpets, and all arrasies and tapestry, spices of all sorts and all haberdashery wares as paper, both white and brown, glasses as well drinking and looking, as for glazing of windows, pins, needles, knives, daggers, hats, caps, brooches, buttons and laces; I wot well all these do cost me more now by the third part well, than they did but seven years ago. Then all kind of victual are as dear or dearer again, and no cause of God’s part thereof, as far as I can perceive: for I never saw more plenty of corn, grass, and cattle of all sort than we have at this present, and have had these 3 years past continually, thanked be our Lord. If these inclosures were the cause thereof, or any other thing else, it were pity but it were removed. Knight. Since ye have plenty of all things of corn and cattle as ye say, then it should not seem this dearth should be long of these inclosures; for it is not by scarceness of corn that we have this dearth, for thanks be to God corn is good cheap, and so hath been these 3 years past continually. It cannot be the occasion of the dearth of cattle; for inclosures is the thing that nourisheth most of any other; yet I confess there is a wonderful dearth of all things; and that do I, and all men of my sort, feel most grief in, which have no wares to sell, or occupation to live by, but only our lands. For you all three, I mean you my neighbours the husbandman, and you master merchant, and you goodman

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capper, and all sort of artificers may save themselves meetly well; forasmuch as all things are dearer than they were, so much do you arise in the price of your wares and occupations that you sell again; but we have nothing to sell, whereby we might advance the price thereof, to countervalue those things that we must buy again. Husbandman. Yes, you raise the price of your lands, and you take farms also and pastures into your hands, which was wont to be poor men’s livings, such as I am, and gentlemen ought to live only upon their lands. Merchant and Capper. On my soul ye say truth, quoth the merchant man, and the capper also said no less, adding thereto that it was never merry with poor craftsmen since gentlemen became graziers; for they can not nowadays find their prentises and servants meat and drink, but it cost them almost double as much as it did aforetime; wherefore where many of my occupation, and other like heretofore have died rich men, and been able to leave honestly behind them for their wives and children, and besides that leave some notable bequest for some good deed, as to make a bridge, to repair highways (which things go all to wreck everywhere) or to buy some lands to help the poor beginners of the occupation; yea sometime they had such superfluity as they could over such bequests leave another portion to find a priest or to found a chantry in some parish church. And now we are scant able to live without debt, or to keep any servants at all, except it be a prentise or two; and therefore the journeymen, what of our occupation, and what of clothiers or other occupations, being forced to be without work, are the most part of these rude people that make these uproars abroad, to the great disquiet not only of the King’s highness, and also of his people. And need as you know hath no boot. Merchant. It is true you know what notable acts men of my occupation likewise have done in this City before this; ye know the hospital at this town’s end; it was founded not very long ago by one of our occupation. And the custom of this city, how it was redeemed by my father-in-law of late, supposing thereby that the city should be much relieved, which then was in some decay. And yet it decayeth still more and more; whereof it should belong I cannot well tell. Knight. Sir, I know it is true ye complain not without a cause. So it is as true that I and my sort, I mean all gentlemen, have as great, yea a far greater, cause to complain than any of you have; for as I said now that the price of things were risen of all hands, you may better live after your degree than we, for you may and do raise the price of your wares, as the price of victuals and other necessaries do rise. And so cannot we so much; for though it be true that of such lands as come to our hands, either by purchase or by determination and ending of such terms of years or other estates that I or my ancester had granted therein in times past, I do either receive a better fine than of old was used, or enhance the rent thereof, being forced thereto for the charge of my household that is increased over that it was, yet in all my lifetime I look not that the third part of my land shall come to my disposition, that I may enhance the rent of the same; but it shall be in men’s holdings, either by lease or by copy, granted before my time, and still continuing, and yet like to continue in the same estate, for the most part during my life, and perchance my sons; so as we cannot raise all our wares, as you may yours, and

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methinks it were reason we did. And by reason we cannot, so many of us as have departed (as ye know) out of the country of late, have been driven to give over our household, and to keep either a chamber in London, or to wait on the court uncalled, with a man and a lackey after him, where he was wont to keep half a score clean men in his house, and 20 or 30 other persons besides, every day in the week. And such of us as do abide in the country still, cannot with £200 a year keep that house, that we might have done with 200 marks but 16 years ago. And therefore we are forced either to minish the third part of our household, or to raise the third part of our revenues. And for that we cannot so do of our lands, that is already in the hands of other men, many of us are forced either to keep part of their own lands when they fall into their own possessions, or to purchase some farm of other men’s lands, and to store it with sheep or some other cattle, to help to make up the decay of their revenues and to maintain their old estate withal. And yet all is little enough. Husbandman. Yea, those sheep is the cause of all these mischiefs, for they have driven husbandry out of the country, by the which was increased before all kind of victual, and now altogether sheep, sheep. It was far better when there was not only sheep enough, but also oxen, kine, swine, pigs, geese, and capons, eggs, butter, and cheese, yea, and bread, corn, and malt corn enough besides, and altogether reared upon the same land.

(v) The evils of enclosures (Thomas Becon, “The Jewel of Joy”, Works (Parker Soc. II, 432–434) The dialogue is set between four characters: Philemon, Eusebius, Theophile, and Christopher.

Theo. But covetousness reigneth not only in the spiritualty? Eus. In the spiritualty only! No, God knoweth. For the temporalty is not behind, for their part. If ever heretofore, in this our time specially, is this saying of the prophet found true; “From the least unto the most they hang upon covetousness, and from the prophet unto the priest they go all about with falsehood and lies.” How join they lordship to lordship, manor to manor, farm to farm, land to land, pasture to pasture, house to house, and house for a vantage! How do the rich men, and specially such as be sheepmongers, oppress the King’s liege people by devouring their common pastures with their sheep; so that the poor people are not able to keep a cow for the comfort of them and of their poor family, but are like to starve and perish for hunger, if there be not provision made shortly! What sheep-ground scapeth these caterpillars of the commonweal? How swarm they with abundance of flocks of sheep! and yet when was wool ever so dear, or mutton of so great price? If these sheepmongers go forth as they begin, the people shall both miserably die for cold, and wretchedly perish for hunger. For these greedy wolves and cumberous cormorants will either sell their wool and their sheep at their own price, or else they will sell none. Oh, what a diversity is this in the sale of wools, a stone of wool sometime to be sold at eight groats, and now for eight shillings! And so likewise of the sheep. God have mercy on us! If the king his majesty, with his most honourable council, do not provide for the

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redress of these things, God himself will surely see a remedy, as he saith by the psalmograph: “For the wretchedness of the needy, and the bewailing of the poor, even now will I rise, saith the Lord.” Again he saith: “Wo be to thee that spoilest! shalt not thou thyself be likewise spoiled? And thou that despisest the poverty, shalt not thou in like manner be despised? When thou hast made an end of polling and pilling, then shalt thou be polled and pilled thyself: and when thou ceasest to despise other, then shalt thou be despised and nought set by. O Lord, have mercy upon us: for all our whole trust is in thee. Be thou our defence, yea, and that shortly. Be thou our saving health in the time of our trouble.” Chris. Rich men were never so much estranged from all pity and compassion toward the poor people, as they be at this present time: “They devour the people as it were a morsel of bread.” If any piece of ground delight their eye, they must needs have it, either by hook or by crook. If the poor man will not satisfy their covetous desire, he is sure to be molested, troubled, and disquieted on such sort that, whether he will or will not (though both he, his careful wife, and miserable children, with his whole family, should perish for hunger), he shall forego it; or else it were as good for him to live among the furies of hell as to dwell by those rich carles and covetous churls. There is no end of enlarging their grounds, neither are they led with any fear of God’s indignation, expressed by the prophet, saying: “Wo and everlasting damnation be unto them that join house to house, and couple land to land so nigh together that the poor can get no more ground! Shall ye alone dwell in the midst of the earth? These things are in mine ears, saith the Lord of hosts. Surely, saith he, many great and fair houses shall be made so desert and waste, that no man shall dwell in them”… Eus. Satan, through covetousness, doth so possess the hearts of many men in these our days, that they do not only link house to house, but, when they have gotten many houses and tenements into their hands, yea, whole townships, they suffer the houses to fall into utter ruin and decay: so that by this means whole towns are become desolate, and like unto a wilderness, no man dwelling there, except it be the shepherd and his dog. Phil. Truth it is. For I myself know many towns and villages sore decayed; so that, whereas in times past there were in some towns an hundred households, there remain not now thirty: in some fifty, there are not now ten; yea (which is more to be lamented), I know towns so wholly decayed, that there is neither stick nor stone standing, as they use to say. Where many men had good livings, and maintained hospitality, able at all times to help the king in his wars, and to sustain other charges, able also to help their poor neighbours, and virtuously to bring up their children in godly letters and good sciences now sheep and conies devour altogether, no man inhabiting the aforesaid places. These beasts which were created of God for the nourishment of man do now devour man, the scripture saith that God made “both sheep and oxen with all the beasts of the field” subject unto man; but now man is subject unto them. Where man was wont to bear rule, there they now bear rule. Where man was wont to have his

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living, there they now only live. Where man was wont to inhabit, there they now range and graze. And the cause of all this wretchedness and beggary in the commonweal are the greedy gentlemen, which are sheepmongers and graziers. While they study for their own private commodity, the commonweal is like to decay. Since they began to be sheep-masters and feeders of cattle, we neither had victual nor cloth of any reasonable price. No marvel; for these forestallers of the market, as they use to say, have gotten all things so into their hands, that the poor man must either buy it at their price, or else miserably starve for hunger, and wretchedly die for cold: for they are touched with no pity toward the poor. It is found true in them that St. Paul writeth: “All seek their own advantage, and not those things which belong unto Jesu Christ.” They which in times past were wont to be fathers of the county, are now pollers and piliers of the country. They which in times past were wont to be defenders of the poor, are now become the destroyers of the same. They by whom the commonweal sometime was preserved, are now become the caterpillars of the commonweal, and such as seem by their manners to have made a solemn vow utterly to subvert the commonweal, and to procure the final destruction of the same. They are insatiable wolves. They know no measure. So they may reign, they care not who suffer pain. So they may abound, they care not who fall to the ground. So they may be enriched, they care not who be impoverished. They are right brothers of Cain, which had rather slay his brother Abel, than he should have any part with him of worldly possessions. The wise man saith: “The bread of the needy is the life of the poor: he that defraudeth him of it is a manslayer.” Do not these rich worldlings defraud the poor man of his bread, whereby is understood all things necessary for a man’s life, which, through their insatiable covetousness, sell all things at so high price, and suffer towns so to decay, that the poor hath not what to eat, nor yet where to dwell? What other are they then, but very manslayers? They abhor the names of monks, friars, canons, nuns, &c; but their goods they greedily gripe. And yet, where the cloisters kept hospitality, let out their farms at a reasonable price, nourished schools, brought up youth in good letters, they did none of all these things. They lightly esteem, and in a manner contemn priests, parsons, vicars, prebendaries, &c.; yet their possessions they gladly embrace and niggardly retain. So that now they are become in effect, although not in name, very monks, friars, canons, priests, parsons, vicars, prebendaries, and, at the last, what not? and yet how vainly those goods be spent, who seeth not? The state of England was never so miserable as it is at this present. Good Lord, have mercy upon us, and put in the hearts of the king, and of his council to redress these intolerable pestilences of the commonweal, or else make haste to dissolve this wretched world by thy glorious coming unto the judgment; where thou shalt “render to every man according to his deeds”; lest, if we long remain in this too much wretchedness, we be compelled through poverty to attempt unrighteous things, and forswear the name of thee, our Lord God.

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B. LIFE IN THE TOWNS 146. The central government and the towns (i) An act for re-edifying of towns. 1540 St. 32 Hen. VIII, c. 18. (Stat. Realm, III, 768)

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orasmuch as there have been in times past divers and many beautiful houses of habitation within the walls and liberties of the cities, boroughs, and towns of York, Lincoln, Canterbury, Coventry, Bath, Chichester, Salisbury, Winchester, Bristol, Scarborough, Hereford, Colchester, Rochester, Portsmouth, Poole, Lyme, Feversham, Worcester, Stafford, Buckingham, Pontefract, Grantham, Exeter, Ipswich, Southampton, Great Yarmouth, Oxford, Great Wycombe, Guildford, Stratford, Kingston upon Hull, Newcastle upon Tyne, Beverley, Bedford, Leicester, and Berwick, and now are fallen down, decayed, and at this day remain unreedified, and do lie as desolate and vacant grounds, many of them nigh adjoining to the high streets replenished with much uncleanness and filth, with pits, cellars, and vaults lying open and uncovered to the great peril and danger of the inhabitants and other the King’s subjects passing by the same, and some houses be feeble and very like to fall down dangerous to pass by, which decays are to the great impoverishing and hindrance of the same cities, boroughs, and towns: It may therefore please the King, our sovereign lord…that it may be enacted…that if any person or persons, or bodies politic, being owners or possessioners of any such desolate or void grounds that have been at any time within 25 years immediately past before the 12th. day of April in the 31st. year of his Majesty’s reign builded for houses of habitation, or of any other house or houses of habitation now or hereafter being in decay and not fully fallen down, within the liberties and precincts of any of the said cities, boroughs, or towns, do not sufficiently reedify, build, and repair, or cause to be reedified, builded, and repaired the said desolate void grounds or decayed houses convenient for habitation and dwelling, within three years next after proclamation thereof to be made in or upon the same void ground or grounds, decayed house or houses by the mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, or other head officers of every of the said cities, boroughs, or towns by what name or names soever they be incorporated every of them within the precinct of their own authority, that then it shall be lawful to the lord or lords of whom such desolate void grounds or decayed or ruinous houses be holden, after the said three years expired, to enter into the same and to have the same grounds or houses to them and to their heirs or successors to their own proper uses for ever, so that the said lord or lords so entering by authority of this Act do sufficiently reedify, build, and repair the same void grounds or decayed houses within two years next and immediately following the determination of the said three years: And in case such lord or lords as may enter by this Act do not enter and well and sufficiently reedify, build, or repair the same void grounds or decayed houses within the said two years to them limited by this Act, that then it shall be lawful to all such person, or persons, or bodies

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politic as then shall have any rent charge going severally out of any the said void ground or grounds or decayed house or houses…immediately after the said two years expired, to enter into the same and to have the same…for ever to their own proper use; so that…(they) do sufficiently build, reedify, and repair the same desolate and void ground and grounds or decayed house or houses within one year next and immediately following the determination of the said two years to the said lord or lords appointed by this Act…. [In their default the mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs etc. of the towns may enter and rebuild within three years then next following. And in their default the original owners may again reenter into their original estate.]

(ii) Town Government 1535. From the Beverley Records (A.F.Leach, Beverley Town Documents, Seld. Soc. XIV, 1900, 64–72) Disputes between the local gentry and the Archbishop of York concerning the election of the town governors in 1535 led to a riot, and consequent proceedings in Star Chamber. The settlement was recorded in The Great Gild Book of Beverley.

Articles of an order taken in the Star Chamber, the last day of November in the 27th. year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Henry the eight, by the lords of his most honourable council, concerning the yearly election of the 12 Governors of the town of Beverley, and for the quietness good order and peace within the said town. Item, first it is ordained and ordered that the Election of 12 Governors made of Saint Mark day shall be frustrate and void, and that upon the Vigil of Saint Thomas the apostle next coming, the tenants and inhabitants of the same town, which have, or ought to have, interest of the election of the same town, shall assemble themselves at the place accustomed, and come before the officer or officers of the Archbishop of York for a new Election of the 12 Governors peaceably to be made; and then and there shall elect 12 new Governors, discreet and honest persons, for the good order and rule of the said town; which 12 Governors shall continue Governors from that time of Election unto Saint Mark’s day following; And that those persons that were elected Governors at Saint Mark’s day last past shall make their true and just accompt before Saint Mark’s day next coming, to the 12 Governors which shall be elect in the said Vigil of Saint Thomas. Item, it is ordered also that no person that is Governor in the said town one year shall be Governor in the next year following, nor Governor there 2 years together; And that the Governors, being elect for one year, shall always for ever make their true accompt, after their year ended, to the new Governors that shall be elect within 6 months after their year ended. Item it is also ordered that none dwelling or inhabiting out of the same town shall be elect or chosen at any time to be any of the said Governors, not intromit or meddle with the election of the 12 Governors, the officers of the archbishop of York only except. Item, it is ordered that no gentleman now dwelling out of the same town, which from henceforth shall purchase or buy any tenement or lands within the said town of Beverley, shall be hereafter elect or chosen any of the said 12 Governors.

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Item, it is ordered that neither Sir Ralph Ellerker, nor one Oswyn Ogle, son-in-law to the said Sir Ralph, shall at any time hereafter be elect and chosen any of the said Governors within the said town. Item, it is ordered that neither Robert Gray nor Richard Brown shall be elect or chosen any of the said 12 Governors nor intermeddle with the said election. Item, it is ordered that the Archbishop of York for the time being shall have the order and rule of the said town of Beverley in like manner and form as his predecessors, archbishops of York, have before time had. An Injunction. An Injunction to old Sir Ralph Ellerker, knight, enjoining and commanding him, upon pain of five hundred marks, that neither he or any other person or persons for him, or in his name, or by his procuring, from henceforth shall intermeddle with the election of the 12 Governors of the town of Beverley; and that the same Sir Ralph observe, perform, and keep all and singular the Articles had, made, and devised by the King’s most honourable Council in the Star Chamber at Westminster, the last day of November in the 27th. year of the reign of King Henry the eight, concerning the said election and common wealth and quietness of the said town of Beverley. Item, another Injunction also to the tenants and inhabitants of the same town of Beverley that they and every of them shall observe, perform, and keep all and singular articles had, made, and devised by the King’s most honourable Council, ut supra, and this upon pain of one thousand marks.

(iii) The central government and the city of York, 1505–53 (a) 15 February 10 Hen. VII. (A.Raine (ed.), York Civic Records, Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Set., 103, 11, 115) The saying and commandment of the most high and mighty Christian prince, King Henry the VIIth. to George Kyrk, Mayor of the city of York, William White, Mitchell White, John Elwald, and John Stockdale and other, citizens of the said city, and commanded by his own mouth at Greenwich in the presence of the right honourable lord Thomas, Earl of Surrey, and many other lords, the 15th. day of February the 10th, year of his most prosperous reign. Master Mayor, true it is that my city of York is one of the most ancient, honourable cities within this my realm, and hath been in great honours, riches and prosperity in time past, and that appeareth by divers cases surely this prosperity and wealth growed by the wise and politic order and rule of the Mayor, his brethren and their council for the time ruling, and when this city thus flourished in prosperity the Mayor for the time and his brethren by advice of the said council executed the laws within the said city and liberties of the same according to the ancient customs and laws of the said city without favour or dread of any person. Sirs, ye be loth, I wot well, that other should rule within your franchise, which hath been granted you of old time, and I may not see the city go in utter ruin and decay in default of you that should rule, for rather of necessity I must and will

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put in other rulers that will rule and govern the city according to my laws. Sirs, I know none having governance and rule of any city or place within my realm may more boldly rule or govern than you may do that my city of York, for within your franchise and liberties ye may rule according to my laws as and I were there mine own person and so I will ye do; and if it require there be cause to ask help ye may shew the matter and cause to my lord of Surrey and be sure of his assistance. Wherefore, Master Mayor, I command and straitly charge you at your peril that ye during your time see good demeanour and peace be kept within my city there, and that ye minister and execute my laws there righteously according to the ancient customs of the said city, not letting for any person whatsoever he be, for saving that I would not that the cause were given, I would see you execute my laws and will who would or durst attempt to the contrary, for he that so did should be surely punished that other should take example and be adread so eftsoons to do. Sir, ye that be ruler of my city there order it wisely, politicly, and according to due justice to the increase and prosperity of my said city, and ye so doing shall be sure to content my citizens and inhabitants there in their reasonable desires at all times. (b) 12 July 1553 (Ibid, v, 89) Edward the Sixth…to our trusty and well beloved Sir William Babthorpe, knight, Sir Leonard Bekwith, knight, Sir Thomas Gargrave, knight, Sir Anthony Nevill, knight, and Robert Menyll, serjeant-at-law, greeting; whereas the Mayor and Commonalty of our city of York in consideration of the great charges that the inhabitants of the same have sustained for the service of our late wars, and also of the long and great decay of the said city and of the houses and dwellings within the same standing desolate and void of inhabitants, have made their humble suit and petition unto us to pardon release, and discharge some part or portion of the payment of two entire fifteenths and tenths granted unto us by our loving subjects in our last parliament whereunto the citizens and inhabitants of our said city be charged and chargeable forasmuch as we have thought it expedient to be duly ascertained of the decay of our said city, and trusting in your approved wisdoms, fidelities, and discretions have appointed you in be our commissioners and do give unto you full power not only to view the decay and ruin of the said city but also to know what portion the citizens may conveniently contribute towards the payment of the said two fifteenths and tenths. (c) 11 February 1 Mary (Ibid, v, 100) Trusty and well beloved we greet you well; and having by the assistance of Almighty God and the help from good and loving subjects discomfited Wyat and the other rebels of our county of Kent, who having passed by the river at Kingston and back again towards London, and were entered above Charing Cross, and there overthrown and the most number of them slain, Wyat, three of the Cobhams, Brett, Knivet, Rudstone, Isley and other of the chiefest of their captains taken prisoners, we have thought good as well to give knowledge hereof to the intent ye may with us and the rest of our loving subjects rejoice and God

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thank for this our victory, as also further to signify unto you that where the said rebels did always pretend the matter of our marriage to be the cause of their unlawful stir, it doth now plainly appear by good and substantial examination of divers of the said creatures that whatsoever their pretence their final meaning was to have deprived us from our estate and dignity royal, and consequently to have destroyed our person, which thing as we do assert you of our honour to be matter of truth. So we pray you to cause the same to be published in all places of that our city of York to the intent our good and loving subjects hereof be no more abused with such false pretences and other untrue rumour and tales by whomsoever the same shall be set forth. And now things being in this sort quieted we cannot but give you our hearty thanks for the readiness that you have been in, with the force of our said city, to have served us if need should have been, praying you and nevertheless we require you to continue the same still in like readiness to be employed for our further service upon one hour’s warning, whensoever we shall require the same: and in the meantime our pleasure is that you have good regard to the quietness and good order of our said city there specially to the apprehension of spreaders of false and untrue tales and rumours whereby you shall both deserve well of your whole country and also do us acceptable service, which we will not fail to remember accordingly.

(iv) The central government and economic controls (a) An act for flesh to be sold by weight. St. 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, 1533 (Stat. Realm, III, 420) Complaineth to your most excellent highness your poor subjects of this your realm, that where all manner of victuals before this time hath been sold to your said subjects at prices convenient, so that all your subjects and in especial the poor persons might with their craft or bodily labour buy sufficient for the necessity and sustentation of them their wives and children; but now gracious lord all victual and in especial beef mutton pork and veal which is the common feeding of the mean and poor persons are so sold at so excessive price that your said needy subjects cannot gain with their labour and salary sufficient to pay for their convenient victual and sustenance; For reformation whereof it may please your highness, that it may be enacted…that every person, which shall sell by himself, or any other, the carcases of beefs pork mutton or veal or any part or parcel thereof after the first day of August now next ensuing shall sell the same by lawful weight called haberdepayes [avoirdupois] and no otherwise; the said flesh to be cut out in reasonable pieces, according to the request of the buyer in like fashion as before this time hath been used, without fraud or covin. And that every person, which by himself or any other shall sell any flesh of the said carcases, shall have with him where he shall make sale of the said flesh sufficient beam scales and weights sealed called haberdepayes for true serving of the buyers. II. And furthermore, be it enacted…that after that day no person nor persons take nor cause to be taken, for any pound weight of flesh of the carcases of beef or pork by him or them to be sold above the price of one halfpenny, nor for any pound weight of flesh of the carcases of mutton or veal above the price of one halfpenny and half farthing

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without deceit or covin, upon pain to forfeit for every pound not sold by weight or above the said price limited and for every default done contrary to the true meaning of this act 3.s. 4.d. the one moiety thereof to be to the king our sovereign lord and the other moiety to the party that will sue for the same by bill, plaint or information, in which suit none essoin, wager of law, nor protection shall be allowed: provided always that the heads necks inwards purtenances legs nor feet shall not be counted no part of the carcases aforesaid, but such to be sold for a lower price. III. And furthermore be it enacted…that the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord Privy Seal and President of the King’s most honourable Council and the two chief Justices of either Bench or 5.4. or 3. of them, shall have full power and authority by their discretions, at all times hereafter for causes convenient to minish and abate the prices above rehearsed but in no wise to enhance the same. And that all Justices of Assises in their circuit and all Justices of Peace or two of them at the least within their limits, and all Mayors Bailiffs and other head officers of every city borough and town corporate, aldermen sheriffs elected stewards of franchises the mayors bailiffs elected and jurats of the ports, and all other persons having lawful authority before the making of this present act, to set price of flesh and every of them in their limits, shall have full power and authority to set a lower price of such flesh as is above remembered, and to inquire of such offenders and to award like process against them and set like fines as they may do in presentments or indictments of riot or trespass tried before them.

(b) An act concerning graziers and butchers. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 1, 1534 (Stat. Realm, III, 436) Whereas divers and sundry acts and statutes have lately been made and established within this realm for preservation of the commonwealth of the same, among which the act for selling of beef, mutton, veal, and pork by weight is so necessary for the preservation of the poverty of the same that it may in nowise be forborne, and forasmuch as sufficient authority is not given by the said act to the justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, sheriffs, and other officers rehearsed in the same act, for to punish offenders, and such other as will not sell by weight according to the force of the said act: And the butchers and other offenders perceiving the same, not dreading the violation of the said act nor the punishments contained in the same act have wilfully and obstinately contemned and offended the said act and will in no wise sell after the same, to the high displeasure of the king’s highness, in contempt of his said laws, and to the detriment of die common wealth of this realm: Be it therefore further enacted …that from the 20th. day of February in the year of our lord God 1533 it shall be lawful to all and every mayors, sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and other governors of cities, boroughs, and market towns, as well within liberties as without, to whom any complaint shall be made of or upon any butcher, his wife, servants, or other his ministers, refusing to sell the said victuals by true and lawful weight according to the tenor of the said act heretofore made, not only to commit every such butcher and such other offenders to ward, there to remain without bail or mainprise until such time as they and every of them shall have paid all the forfeits and penalties

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comprised in the said former act, but also every of the said mayors and other officers aforesaid, and their deputies, shall immediately sell and utter, or cause to be sold and uttered, for ready money, by true weight, all such victuals so refused to be retailed and sold by true and lawful weight, according to the effect of the said former act, delivering always the money thereof coming unto the owners of the same victuals; which owners shall be utterly and for ever excluded to have any action, suit, or demand, against any such mayor or other officers, or their deputies, for selling or uttering of the said victuals by true and lawful weight in form aforesaid, or for any other cause or thing concerning the same, except only for the money received for the same victuals, if it be not, upon reasonable request thereof to be made, paid or restored without delay.

(c) An act of proclamation to be made concerning victuals. St. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 2, 1534 (Stat. Realm, III, 438) Forasmuch as dearth scarcity good cheap and plenty of cheese butter capons hens chickens and other victuals necessary of mens’ sustinance happeneth riseth and chanceth of so many and divers occasions that it is very hard and difficult to put any certain prices to any such things, and yet nevertheless the prices of such victuals be many times enhanced and raised by the greedy covetousness and appetites of the owners of such victuals, by occasion of engrossing and regrating the same more than upon any reasonable or just ground or cause, to the great damage and impoverishing of the king’s subjects; for remedy whereof be it enacted…that upon every complaint made of any enhancing of prices of such victuals without ground or cause reasonable, in any part of this realm or in any other the king’s dominions, the Lord Chancellor of England, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the King’s most honourable Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, and all other lords of the King’s Council, the Treasurer and Comptroller of the King’s most honourable House, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the King’s Justices of either Bench, the Chancellor, Chamberlains, Under-Treasurer and the Barons of the King’s Exchequer, or 7 of them at the least whereof the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the King’s Council, or the Lord Privy Seal to be one, shall have power and authority from time to time, as the case shall require, to set and tax reasonable prices of all such kinds of victuals above specified how they shall be sold in gross or by retail for relief to the king’s subjects, and that after such prices set and taxed in form aforesaid, proclamation shall be made in the king’s name, under the Great Seal, of the said prices in such parts of this realm as shall be convenient for the same.

(d) An act limiting the prices of wines. St. 28 Hen. VIII, c. 14, 1536 (Stat. Realm, III, 670) Be it enacted…that no person or persons shall sell any Gascoign Guienne or French wines above 8d. the gallon, that is to say, a penny the pint, two pence the quart,

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fourpence the pottel, and 8d. the gallon, upon pain of forfeiture for every pint to be sold above the said price 4d. and for every quart sold above the said price 8d, and for every pottel so sold above the said price, 12d., and for every gallon so sold above the said price afore limited 2s. And that no Malmesays, Romneys, Sacks nor other sweet wines shall be sold by retail above 12d. the gallon, 6d. the pottel 3d. the quart and 1½ d. the pint, upon pain to lose and forfeit 3.s. 4.d. for every gallon, 20d. for every pottel, 12d. for every quart and 6d. for every pint that shall be sold contrary to this act.

(e) An act for the assise of wood and coal. St. 34/5 Hen. VIII, c. 3, 1543 (Stat. Realm, III, 899) Where of late years not only the king’s highness, but also all his loving subjects have been much deceived in their fuel that they have bought, by the greedy covetous minds of the sellers of the same as well by the untrue measures of coals, little and little continually minished, as also in the untrue length and quantity of faggot tall wood and billet, to the great deceit and loss as well of our said sovereign lord, as also of all his faithful and true subjects: for reformation whereof be it enacted…that no person from the feast of the Purification of our blessed Lady, that shall be in the year of Our Lord a thousand five hundred forty and three, shall bargain sell bring or convey to be uttered or sold, within the city of London or elsewhere within this realm of England, nor to Calais or the marches of the same, any coals faggots billets or tall wood but of the measures quantities lengths and assises hereafter ensuing, that is to say; that every quarter of coals shall contain in clean coals eight bushels at the least: and every shyde1 of tall wood to contain in length four foot of assise at the least beside the carfe, and every tall shyde of one to be in greatness in the midst twenty inches of assise at the least, and every tall shyde named of two, to contain in greatness in the midst 26. inches of assise at the least; and every tall shyde named of three, to contain in greatness 32. inches of assise at the least;… And that no piece of tall wood be made of any more shydes than only five; and that no half shyde be made but only of himself nor marked with another, and every faggot bed with all that belongeth thereto, to contain in length three foot of assise at the least, the bond of every which faggot to contain three quarters of a yard at the least, beside the knot; and every billet to be only of one cast and not above, and the half of every load of such billets to be singles, and every single billet to contain about the myddes nine inches of assise at the least and in length with the carfe three foot and a half of assise, and every double billet to be in greatness in the midst twelve inches of assise at the least: and every person that so shall bargain sell bring or convey to be uttered or sold, any coals faggot billet or tall wood contrary to the true meaning and intent of this present act shall forfeit all such coals faggot billet and tall wood or the value thereof…. [Offenders to be punished at the discretion of the Justices of the Peace.] 1

Half a cubic foot.

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(f) An act for buying and selling of butter and cheese. St. 3/4 Edw. VI, c. 21, 1550 (Stat. Realm, IV, 120) Be it enacted…that no person or persons after the feast of the Annunciation of our Lady next coming shall buy to sell again any butter or cheese, unless he or they sell the same again by retail in open shop, fair, or market, and not in gross: upon pain of forfeiture of the double value of the same butter and cheese so sold contrary to the tenor of this present act, the one moiety of all which forfeitures to be to our sovereign lord the king, his heirs and successors, and the other moiety to him or them that will sue for the same in any of the king’s courts of record, wherein no wager of law, essoin, or protection shall be allowed for the defendant or defendants. Provided always that this act or anything therein contained shall not extend to any innholder or victualler for such butter or cheese as shall be spent or uttered by retail in any of their houses, anything contained in this act to the contrary notwith-standing.1

(g) An act against regraters, forestalled and ingrossers. St. 5/6 Edw. VI, c. 14, 1552 (Stat. Realm, IV, 148) Albeit divers good statutes heretofore have been made against forestallers of merchandise and victuals, yet for that good laws and statutes against regraters and ingrossers of the same things have not been heretofore sufficiently made and provided, and also, for that it hath not been perfectly known what person should be taken for a forestaller, regrater, or ingrosser, the said statutes have not taken good effect according to the minds of the makers thereof: Therefore be it enacted…that whatsoever person or persons that after the first day of May next coming shall buy or cause to be bought any merchandise, victual, or any other thing whatsoever, coming by land or by water toward any market or fair to be sold in the same, or coming toward any city, port, haven, creek, or road of this realm or Wales from any parts beyond the sea to be sold, or make any bargain, contract, or promise for the having or buying of the same or any part thereof so coming as is aforesaid, before the said merchandise, victuals, or other things shall be in the market, fair, city, port, haven, creek, or road ready to be sold, or shall make any motion by word, letter, message, or otherwise to any person or persons for the enhancing of the price or dearer selling of any thing or things above mentioned, or else dissuade, move, or stir any person or persons coming to the market or fair to abstain or forbear to bring or convey any of the things above rehearsed to any market, fair, city, port, haven, creek, or road to be sold as is aforesaid, shall be deemed, taken, and adjudged a forestaller. II. Further be it enacted…that whatsoever person or persons that after the said first day of May shall by any means regrate, obtain, or get into his or their hands or possession, in any fair or market, any corn, wine, fish, butter, cheese, candles, tallow, sheep, lambs, calves, swine, pigs, geese, capons, hens, chickens, pigeons, conies, or other dead victual whatsoever, that shall be brought to any fair or market within this 1 Retailing is defined in the Act: where a wey of cheese or barrel of butter or less is sold at any one time to any person in open shop, fair, or market.

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realm or Wales to be sold, and do sell the same again, in any fair or market holden or kept in the same place, or in any other fair or market within four miles thereof, shall be accepted, reputed, and taken for a regrater or regraters. III. And be it also enacted…that whatsoever person or persons that after the said first day of May shall ingross or get into his or their hands by buying, contracting, or promise taking, other than by demise, grant, or lease of land or tithe, any corn growing in the fields, or any other corn or grain, butter, cheese, fish, or other dead victual whatsoever within the realm of England to the intent to sell the same again, shall be accepted reputed and taken an unlawful ingrosser or ingrossers. IV. [Penalities on all such offenders: first offence, two months imprisonment and forfeiture of the value of the goods: second offence, half a year’s imprisonment and forfeiture of double value of the goods: third offence, pillory, forfeiture of personal estate, and imprisonment during the king’s pleasure.]

(h) An act for keepers of ale houses to be bound by recognizances. St. 5/6Edw. VI, c. 25, 1552 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 157) Forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to the common wealth of this realm doth daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common alehouses and other houses called tippling houses; It is therefore enacted… that the Justices of Peace within every shire city borough town corporate franchise or liberty within this realm, or two of them at the least whereof one of them to be of the Quorum, shall have full power and authority by virtue of this act within every shire city borough town corporate franchise and liberty where they be Justices of Peace to remove discharge and put away common selling of ale and beer in the said common ale houses and tippling houses in such town or towns and places where they shall think meet and convenient; and that none after the first day of May next coming, shall be admitted or suffered to keep any common ale house or tippling house but such as shall be thereunto admitted and allowed in the open sessions of the Peace, or else by two Justices of the Peace, whereof the one to be of the Quorum: and that the said Justices of the Peace…shall take bond and surety from time to time by recognizance, of such as shall be admitted and allowed hereafter to keep any common alehouse or tippling house, as well for and against the using of unlawful games, as also for the using and maintenance of good order and rule to be had and used within the same, as by their discretion shall be thought necessary and convenient; for making of every which recognizance the party or parties that shall be so bound shall pay but twelve pence. And the said Justices shall certify the same recognizance at the next Quarter Sessions of the Peace to be holden within the same shire city borough town corporate franchise or liberty where such alehouse or tippling house shall be; the same recognizance there to remain of record before the Justices of Peace of that shire city borough town corporate franchise or liberty: upon pain of forfeiture to the King for every such recognizance taken and not certified, three pounds six shillings eight pence.

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147. Town life illustrated from town records The following documents have been selected to indicate some of the problems of daily life in the towns. An important source for this purpose are the official records of the various towns, many of them available in print. The following typical extracts indicate the kind of information found in these records. No attempt has been made to classify these entries which are merely given under headings of the various towns.

Regulations for the Sale of Bread, 1520 (i) Leicester (M.Bateson (ed.), Records of the Borough of Leicester, III, 15) or bread. At the common hall holden there the same day before William Wygston the elder by the whole assent and agreement of the foresaid mayor and his brethren, the 24 comburgesses and also of all the 48, then being present, in this manner and form, it is ordained and agreed, established, and enacted for the commonwealth of the town, that all bakers of the country that bring bread to sell make good bread and wholesome for man’s body, and weigh after the assise, and that no baker of the country bring in no manner of bread into the town but on the market days, that is, Wednesday, Friday, and to set their bread down at the High Cross, and there to sell to every man that will buy it, by the 1.d. worth or 2 pennyworth. Also that no foreign baker carry no bread to none of their customers on pain of forfeiting their bread to the King, and their bodies to be imprisoned at Mr. Mayor’s commandment: and the Saturday to bring their bread into the Saturday market and there to sell it. Also at the same common hall it is agreed by the whole consent before-named, and evermore hereafter that the first Friday in Clean Lent to have a common hall kept, and there the chamberlains accounts to be shewed, that it may be known in what degree the town stands in…. Also at the same common hall it is agreed by the whole consent before-named and evermore hereafter to be firm and stable; that all bakers that bake to sell make good bread and wholesome for man’s body according to the assise, and that bread that is not able paste the baker to forfeit the first time 3.s. 4.d. and the second time 6.s. 8.d. and so to double as oftentimes that pain as they make default. Also all that bake rye bread for poor people make good bread and wholesome and that it stand the more part be rye and the chesill of wheat [bran] according to the statute, and they that do not to forfeit the pain aforesaid and their bodies to be punished according to the law. Also all brewers that brew to sale make good ale and wholesome, and mighty, of the corn according to the old statute, and to sell 13 gallons for 2.s. 6.d., and those brewers that make default in making of ale, the first time to forfeit 3.s. 4.d., and the second time 6.s. 8.d. and so to double as often as they make default. Also to make good wholesome ale for the poor people of a halfpenny the gallon, that the poor may the better be relieved, and whosoever find them grieved with this act come to master mayor and they shall have remedy. Petition against Foreigners trading in the City, 1540 (Ibid. 43) To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Southampton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

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Sheweth and complaineth unto your good honorable lordship your orators, the mayor and burgesses of the king’s town of Leicester, parcel of the duchy of Lancaster, that where before this time it hath been used and accustomed within the said town that no foreigners dwelling out of the said town should sell by retail any manner of wares or merchandise but only victuallers for victuals within the said town of Leicester, except in the time of the fairs there, and then to sell by retail all things: By which good custom the said town was by long time well maintained in wealth until now of late within the space of forty years last past or thereabout, that foreigners dwelling out of the said town have been suffered to sell wares and merchandise within the said town by retail; and by reason that foreigners have such liberty many persons have withdrawn themselves from inhabiting within the said town and daily do more and more, since they have been suffered to sell by retail within the said town of Leicester, as the inhabitants thereof do, so that the greater part of the high street of the said town within the said 40 years is gone to ruin and decay, and other places of the said town likewise not only decayed but utterly desolate and now fallen in great poverty to the great loss of our sovereign lord the king and the decay of the said town, and more is like to do, unless your lordship’s favour and honourable goodness herein unto them be shewed:—May it please your good lordship, the premises considered, to move the king’s majesty that for a maintenance of the said town it may stand with his pleasure to grant unto the said mayor and burgesses his gracious letters patent under his seal of his duchy of Lancaster in due form to be made that the said mayor and burgesses and other inhabiting within the said town of Leicester shall sell all manner wares and victuals by retail or in gross as they have accustomed, and that no foreigner not dwelling and resident within the said town of Leicester shall sell by retail any wares or merchandise at any time within the said town of Leicester, the times and days of the fairs only except, but to sell their said wares and merchandise in gross; upon pain to forfeit to our said sovereign lord the king for every time the half value of the ware, stuff, and merchandise sold by retail; and your said orators shall daily pray unto God for the preservation of your good honorable lordship long in honour to endure. Ordinance against Destruction of Trees, 1551 (Ibid, III, 68) At the same common hall it was condescended and agreed by Thomas Wilcock mayor of the town of Leicester and his brethren named the 24 and the whole 48 in the name of the whole body of the same town, that if there be any man, woman, or child taken or known to have broken or cut down in the summer time or any other time any oak boughs, hawthorn boughs, or any other boughs, to set at their doors or windows, out of any close, garden, or orchard about this town of Leicester, or within the liberties of the same, to forfeit for every time taken or proved with such default, 12.d., and their bodies to prison, there to remain during Mr. Mayor’s will and pleasure. [Note to Thomas Jenkinson, M.P.:—“Mr. Jenkynson I praye you make this supplicacion in any wyse substancyall and yf you se cause to deliver yt to the quenes maiestie for

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otherwyse we thynke yt wyll in the parliament take no place.” Note that the earl of Southampton brought Anne of Cleves to England, 27 Dec. 1539.]

(ii) London A gild of bakers, 1486 (C.P.R. 1485–94, 126) Licence for Robert Broke, John Jenyns, John Parowe, William Bonde and John Milton, citizens and bakers of the art or mistery of bakers of London, to found a fraternity or gild in honour of the Virgin Mary and St. Clement, of a master and four wardens of the commonalty of freemen of the mistery of the said city and suburb, and of brethren and sisters, being free persons of the same mistery and others who wish to be members; and grant that they be a body corporate by the name of the master, wardens, and commonalty of free men of the mistery of bakers of London and its suburbs, to receive in mortmain possessions not held in chief, to the yearly value of 5 marks for the support of the poor men and women of that mistery for ever; and that they shall have a common seal and may plead and be impleaded in all courts; and that every Sunday after St. Clement they shall elect from themselves a master and four wardens. Selections from the City Letter Books (i) Election of City Officers (R.R.Sharpe, Cal. Lett. Bks., K. 225) Wednesday, the Feast of St. Matthew, 1 Henry VII., in the presence of Thomas Hylle, the Mayor, the Prior of Christchurch, Thomas Fitzwilliam the Recorder. Richard Gardyner, John Brown, William Heryot, Edmund Shaa, William Stocker, Richard Rawson, Henry Colet, Hugh Bryce, John Stocker, Robert Tate, William Horn, William White, William Martyn, John Swan, Robert Hardyng, John Tate, Thomas Breteyn, and Ralph Astry, Aldermen, and very many Commoners summond to the Guildhall for the election of Sheriffs—John Tate, Alderman and mercer, was elected one of the Sheriffs of the City of London and Middlesex by the Mayor, and John Swan, tailor and Alderman, was elected the other Sheriff by the Commonalty. The same day William Purches, mercer, was elected Chamberlain of the City for the year ensuing; William Galle, tailor, and Simon Harrys, grocer, were elected Wardens of the City bridge; Robert Tate, Alderman, Richard Chawry, Alderman, Hugh Pemberton, Roger Barlowe, tailors, John Pykeryng, mercer, and John Fenkell, draper, Commoners, were elected Auditors of the accounts of the Chamberlain and Wardens in arrear. (ii) Plague in the City (Ibid. 226) 24 Sept., I Henry VII at a Common Council attended by a multitude of Commoners, the Prior of Christchurch, the Recorder, Richard Gardyner, John Brown, Edmund Shaa, John Warde, Robert Tate, William White, William Home, William Martyn, John Swanne, John Tate, Ralph Astry—William Stocker, Knt., and John Warde, Aldermen were nominated by

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the Commonalty that one of them might be elected Mayor of the City for the residue of the year, viz., from the said 24th. day of September until the morrow of SS.Simon and Jude then next ensuing, in place of Thomas Hille, Knt., late Mayor, who died on the 23 Sept. last.1 Of these the said William Stocker was elected Mayor for the residue of the year, and was sworn the same day in the Guildhall; and afterwards, viz., on Monday, the 26th Sept., the said William Stocker was presented at the Tower of London before the Lieutenant there, by writ of the lord the King according to charter, and was there sworn. Afterwards, viz., on the 28th day of the same month, the said William Stocker died and went the way of all flesh.2 (iii) Marriage Settlements etc. (Ibid. 229) 4 April, 1 Henry VII came Katherine White, widow, Henry Somer, haberdasher, John Devereux, “plommer” and William Grey, fuller, and entered into bond in the sum of £30 for payment into the Chamber by the said Katherine of a like sum to the use of Agnes, Elizabeth, and Johanna, daughter of John White, late carpenter, when they come of age or marry. 6 April, 1 Henry VII. ordinance by the Common Council that thenceforth distresses taken for non-payment of fines imposed for negligence in cleansing the streets, etc., should be sold by the Chamberlain if not redeemed within a year and the fines paid, the Chamberlain retaining out of the proceeds the sums due, and keeping the residue to the use of the owners of the distresses. (iv) Refuse dumping, c. 1488 (Ibid. 259) Proclamation by the Mayor and Aldermen forbidding the casting of refuse into the Thames, and commanding that no manner person fisher nor other draw any net between Ratcliff Mill or Wapping Mill westward toward London Bridge nor from London Bridge unto the Nasshe3 against the Bishop of Durham’s place upon the pain that may fall thereof. Also that no manner person fish in the said water of Thames with any manner net from the Temple Bridge4 unto the Tower of London nigh any wharf on both sides of the same Thames by the space of 20 fathoms. Also that no manner person fish in the said water with any casting nets or angles or with any manner nets but if they hold the assise upon pain of imprisonment of their bodies and losing of the said nets and angles and the fishes taken with the same, and also the same nets and angles to be burnt in Chepe.5 (v) Morals (Ibid. 276) 21 Oct. 1490. Cristine Houghton, alias Stone, having been convicted as a common bawd and common strumpet, ordered to void the City, and having been found again 1

Thomas Hille had died that day of the sweating sickness. 3 He also died of the sweating sickness. ? Naze. 4 This was only a pier or jetty maintained on the riverside by the owners of the Temple. 5 Cheapside. 2

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therein, is condemned to be set on the pillory for an hour on two several days, and then be committed to prison for a year and a day. (vi) Sale of Bread, etc. (Ibid. 294) 16 April 8 Henry VII, ordinance by the Mayor and Aldermen that all bread hawked about the City for sale should be forfeited to the Chamber and be disposed of at the discretion of the Chamberlain, and not by the Sheriffs. Also it was ordained by the same Mayor and Aldermen that no foreign baker should thenceforth put to sale any bread within the City or liberties after the hour of 12 noon, under pain of forfeiting the said bread to the use of the Chamber if taken and presented by an officer of the Chamber; if taken and presented by freemen bakers, one half of the forfeiture shall go to the Craft of freemen bakers and the other to the Chamber: and further, that all foreign bakers bringing bread to the City in carts shall remove their carts by noon, on penalty of imprisonment and fine. 21 May 8 Henry VII. came the Wardens and other good men of the Art or Mistery of Skinners and presented a bill or supplication to the Mayor and Aldermen, complaining that journeymen, freemen of the Craft, were unable to obtain work owing to the great influx of strangers and foreign journeymen, and praying that it may be enacted as follows: That no stranger nor foreigner hereafter take upon him the occupation of the said Craft of Skinners nor take nor occupy any house or chamber and therein dwell or sojourn with any person within the said City or liberties aforesaid upon pain of 6.s. 8.d., the one half thereof to the Chamberlain of London to the use of the said City and that other half to the Fellowship of Skinners, and further, that they be not set on work by freemen. Their prayer granted. (vii) Petition of the Company of Beer-brewers (Ibid. 295) 24 Sept. 9 Hen. VII. came the Wardens and other good men of the Art or Mistery of Beer-brewers, before the Mayor and Aldermen, and presented a petition to the following effect: That two persons submitted to them may be admitted as Wardens of the Fellowship for the ensuing year, and be sworn in the Court of the Guildhall, called the Mayor’s Court, to rule the Craft and see that its ordinances are observed: and that henceforth the Rulers and Governors of the Fellowship before going out of office, calling unto them 6 or 8 honest members, shall choose Rulers and Governors for the following year; that any one so chosen and refusing to take office shall forfeit 40.s., one half to go to the Chamber and the other to the use of the Fellowship. That no one of the Craft send any wheat, malt, or other grain for brewing to the mill to be ground, nor put any hops in the brewing unless it be clean and sweet, under penalty of 20.s.

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That the said Rulers, with an officer of the Chamber appointed for the purpose, shall search all manner of hops and other grain four times a year or more and taste and assay all beer, as well as survey all vessels used for beer. That no member take or embezzle the vessels belonging to another member, under penalty. That no member take into his service any one who had been proved by the Fellowship to be an untrue or a deceivable servant in mis-scoring or mis-tallying between his master and his customers. Also that every person of the said Fellowship hereafter upon a lawful warning to him given appear at an hour and place to him assigned by the Rulers and Governors of the same Craft for the time being to the intent to commune of and in such causes and needs as shall concern the good rule of the said Craft and the common profit of this City and none other, under penalty. That the Rulers and Governors duly report to the Chamberlain the result of every search within 14 days. That they render their accounts to the new Rulers within a month of going out of office. Their petition granted. (viii) Inflation, 1551 (A.P.C. 1550–52, 272) This day the Lord Mayor of London with certain of the chief of the City, were before the Council touching the misdemeanour of the merchants within the same, who even now upon a kind of malice or greediness of gain, in contempt of the proclamation made for the reforming of the coin, because the shilling shall be abated to 9.d., they have suddenly raised the prices of all things to a marvellous reckoning; wherefore the said Lord Mayor and his brethren were commanded to call the Wardens of every Company and the Aldermen of every Ward to see this matter amended by their good wisdoms and diligence, in such sort as this enormity increaseth not, but rather be reformed of all hands.

(iii) Northampton Dr. John London to Cromwell Decay of Buildings, 1539 (L.P.Hen. VIII. XIV, i, 42) I see, in Northampton, notable decay, first, of the houses, whereof part belonged to the religious houses there lately suppressed, which were evil repairers of their lands, and part to gentlemen of the country, who extort as much rent as they can and leave all repairs to the tenants, who now let their housing fall in ruin, to the great deformity of the town. The fee farm is very big, so that the bailiffs, though they make great exactions, are themselves put to much charge. They have to maintain the town hall, prison, walls,

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highways, and bridges; yet at every entrance there is a several franchise or liberty, and the tollings and pollings make men loth to resort thither. It is pity such franchises should incommode so great a town for the benefit of one private person. Inclosures likewise in this shire have laid down houses and villages which used to repair to the markets and fairs here. There used to be much clothing here, but now is very little, and many are out of work; the artificers decrease, and the tipplers and ale houses increase daily, as they do in most other great towns of this realm. The worshipful inhabitants beg your succour to have the candle rents, which pertained to the abbeys now in the King’s hands. These candle rents are in much ruin, but if the town had them they would see them kept in repair. By your help these men would set up clothmaking, spinning, weaving, fulling, and dyeing. In the Friars’ are rooms meet for clothiers: it were pity strangers should get them if any of the worshipful of the town should offer for them, as I perceive some intend. Ordinance for the craft of butchers, 25 March 1535 (C.H.Markham, Records of the Borough of Northampton, I, 334) To all trusty Christian people to whom this present writing are to be hold, read, heard, or seen we, John Saye, mayor of the town of Northampton… Thomas Crown Thomas Crafeld there being Bailiffs with 24 co-burgesses and the 48 of the same town of Northampton there at their common assembly holden in the Guildhall the Monday next after the feast of St. Edward the King the 20th. year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh have granted, confirmed, and established this present ordinance with divers articles concerning the universal weal, to the whole craft of butchers in the said town, for the good sad rule and governance amongst them for ever under written doth appear: The first point and article is that there shall be chosen 2 masters by 12 men of the same craft within the said town to have oversight of the said craft as for one year: that is to say, the victual that they kill and slay be good and able to man’s meat. And if any man of the said craft do the contrary then it shall be lawful to the masters and wardens of the said craft to complain to the mayor of the town, then being, upon them. And that none of the said craft rebuke nor reprove none of the said two masters for the time being upon the pain of 3.s. 4.d. as oft as they do so offend to the said masters or to any of their successors. And the foresaid forfeit divided equally, the one half to the mayor then being, and the other half to profit of the said occupation. Item, that every man of the same craft be ready to come to the masters of the said craft by a reasonable warning whensoever the case shall require except that he have a reasonable excuse and cause that they may not attend upon the pain of every default 3.s. 4.d. the one half to the mayor and the other half to the occupation. Moreover, that no man of the said craft sue another man of the said craft for no manner of action real or personal without licence of the masters of the said craft upon the pain of every default 20.s. the one half to the mayor and the other half to the profit of the said occupation. Provided always that no man of the said craft dress none old sheep instead of a lamb to the deceit of the king’s people upon the pain of every default…12.d. Furthermore, that no man nor no man’s servant cast no manner of offal as lights,

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lungs, horns and other annoyable things behind the stalls nor on the pavement upon the pain of 12.d. And that no man wilfully slay no manner of swine one or other within the butchery or stalls openly upon the pain of 12.d. ut sup. And over that that no man lay forth none inwards of beasts on the stalls but that it be slain the same day, upon pain of every default 12.d…. Item, that they cut no flesh on the Friday but if they sell a quarter or a side or a whole beast, upon the pain…12.d. Provided always that none of the said fellowship call another of his fellowship knave in anger nor other unkind words speak among them false otherwise than they ought to do one to another upon the pain of every default 6.d…. And if he whatsoever he be so offending will not hold his peace at the commandment of the masters he to forfeit at every default…12.d. Furthermore, that no man nor none of their servants buy no calf coming towards the market of Northampton till it be in the market place where it shall be assigned, upon the pain of every default 6.d…. Item that no man carry no flesh in looms on the pain of 6.s. 8.d…nor cast it in the river, nor in none other place but there as it shall be assigned, upon the pain of every default 12.d…. And that every man lay out their skins and hides in the market place upon the pain of every default 6.s. 8.d…. Also that no man buy no manner of morte beast upon the pain of every default 20.d. And on that that none kill pocky sheep nor no sow bryme [?] upon the pain …of 20.s…. Moreover that no man slay or kill no manner of boar pig nor lay it on the stalls upon the pain…of 12.d…. And that no man lay no flesh out when the masters hath laid it in, upon the pain …6.d…. And also no man cut nor sell no flesh before 4. of the clock in the morning upon the pain…of 6.d…. Item that no man hold open his shop no longer than 9. of the clock at night in summer, and till 8. of the clock in winter upon pain…6.d. And that no man nor no man’s servant call no man, woman, nor child that comes to the stalls to buy victuals from his neighbour’s board to his board upon the pain… of 6.d…. Also the 12 men hath ordained that the old masters shall require the craft to come together on the Tuesday after Martilmas day, and they there to make the 12 men a true accompt for their time. And there the 12 men to choose two other men masters for that year that is to come. And if the old masters fail and come not to their assembly as upon this aforesaid above limited then the 12 men that ordained that the said old masters [? should come] shall lose to the mayor and to the occupation 20.s. Moreover that no man nor none other of their servants sell any manner of victuals on the Sunday upon pain of every default 3.s. 4.d. ut sup. Provided also that no man set another man’s man awork till he be clearly from his master upon pain…6.s. 8.d….

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Furthermore that no man have no common gatherer of calves but only their own servants upon the pain of 3.s. 4.d…. And that no man of the said occupation take no manner of house nor pasture over another of his brethren’s head upon pain…20.s…. Provided always that it is ordained that the masters and wardens of the said craft of butchers to raise, levy, and receive all manner of fines and trespasses as is above specified in the aforesaid ordinances and they to be accomptant for their said year that they occupied unto the masters and wardens that shall succeed them the next year after that, and to deliver their money and stock into their hands before the said 12 men of the said occupation, saving only the one half thereof for to be reserved and delivered to the mayor for the time being, upon the pain to pay to the said mayor, masters, and wardens for the time being 20.d. Also the masters for the time being do not execute and correct truly every default according to their oath upon every default thereof made to the mayor and to the light of the said occupation 20.s. This Act and ordinance to be registered and written in the register in the town of Northampton amongst other acts and ordinances there to remain in strength and effect for evermore to endure &c. 20 June 1553 Civic Responsibilities (Ibid. 341) To all the faithful servants of Christ to whom these present letters shall come, Henry Neale, mayor of the town of Northampton and the whole commonalty of the same town sends greeting in the Lord for ever. Whereas Edmund Frears, pewterer, our fellow-burgess disposed towards the help and relief of divers costs, and for the sustaining and making the pavement in the town aforesaid, now at last made by us, has given to us ten pounds of good and lawful money of England, and has bestowed it for the purpose, You must know that we the aforesaid mayor and commonalty wishing that due recompense should be made to the said Edmund Frears, pewterer… have granted to the same Edmund by these presents that he shall under no circumstances hereafter be elected to the office of mayor, bailiff, constable, or chamberlain of the town aforesaid for the same town by us and our successors, burgesses of the said town but that the same Edmund shall be for ever quit and altogether exonerated by these presents from the same and all other offices belonging to the said town. 26 November 1545 Control of the Bakers (Ibid. 350) At the common assembly holden at the Guildhall in the town of Northampton the 26th. day of November…1545…by the examination and the discreet discretion of Laurence Washington, mayor of the said town of Northampton, with the whole consent and agreement of his co-brethren the 24 co-burgesses, and the whole body of the said town, That where the bakers of this borough hath and doth send forth bread into the country

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to a great number on horseback every day, that which is thought to be a great dearthing of the corn that cometh to this market, it is therefore fully agreed by the mayor, his brethren the 24 co-burgesses, and the whole body of this said town that from the 7th. day of December next following that no baker of this said town shall send forth of this town into the country but one horse loaded with bread every day upon the pain of every default so taken to forfeit lose and pay 6.s. 8.d., the one half thereof to the mayor for the time being, and the other half to the use and profit of the chamber of the said town.

IV. Nottingham 1527. The Mickletorn jury complain of abuses in the government of Nottingham. As the chief officers of the town controlled the assize of bread and ale, it was politic to exclude all victuallers from such duties. St. 3 Hen. VIII, c. 8, provided that when a victualler filled the office of mayor, two assessors not interested in the trade should be elected to join him in holding the assize.

(Stevenson, Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III) To the Right Worshipful Master Mayor and his Brethren: Pray humbly your beseechers, the Jurors of the Middiltorn [Mickletorn] sworn for the body of this present town according to the ancient custom of the same, that Master John Howes, innholder, and Master Constant Picard, baker, which be victuallers and that lately were made and elect Aldermen by the minds of Master John Williamson, Master John Roose, and Master Thomas Mellers, Aldermen of the same, and of few other of their adherents to them consenting, the Burgesses and Commonalty of the said town not being made privy nor thereunto consenting, contrary to the corporation of the same town, and also contrary to the statute of free elections in such case ordained, issued and provided, and also contrary to the true effect of the Statute of Victuallers shewed and provided, ought not to have been chosen to the rooms of Aldermen of the said town for certain considerations hereafter ensuing. Where one is for the amytting, forfeiting, and losing of the liberties and franchises of free elections within this present borough, together with the liberties and franchises depending of such free elections for non using and misusing of the same. Another, for want of discretion and debility of reason, as it is well known by the Burgesses and Commonalty of the said town, and as the common voice and fame runneth through the same town and the shire. Also, where it is thought by us, the said jurors, that the most wisest and discreet men ought to have been chosen to such rooms by you and the burgesses and commonalty of the same town, for the increasing of the worship, weal, and common profit of the same town. Another, insomuch as they be victuallers and sit and be associate with you to see the good order of the assise of victual to be kept, and no victualler ought to be chosen to no such rooms as judges of victuals if other persons convenient may be found as within this present borough there be sufficient, both of good discretion and of great substance, and not being victuallers. And further, the jurors aforesaid humbly pray you to call to your remembrance that by all the time that Master John Rose, being an innholder and a victualler, occupied the Mayoralty of the said town, that is, to wit, from Michaelmas the 18th. year of the reign of our sovereign lord the King that now is, unto Michaelmas then next ensuing, that is, to wit, by the space of one whole year, in the default of the said Master Rose there was no verdict given of the jurors sworn for the body of this present town as we the above named jurors be, to inquire of things inquirable afore you Justices of record by force of our

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corporation; and also by all the said time and space the Assise of victuals was not put in due execution, by reason whereof the town hath been greatly disordered, not only to your great disworship, but also to the great fear and dread of losing and forfeiting of the liberties and franchises above expressed for non-using of the same. And further the said jurors humbly and in their most humble manner inform you that they be fully ascertained that the King our sovereign lord now of late time hath been deceived in the embezzling and withdrawing of a certain record as touching his subsidy, leviable within this present town, of men of the substance of fifty pounds and upward, that is to wit where certain Aldermen of this town as Master John Williamson, Master John Rose, and Master Thomas Mellers, Aldermen, and one John Revelle, of the same town, were assessed about Michaelmas last passed to be of the substance of £50. apiece, and some of the substance of £55 and above: the said record was after embezzled and “nichil” returned, to the great disworship and dread as well of you that were so assessed as of the embezzlers and withdrawers of the same record, and to the great detriment and hindrance of the weal and profit of this present borough, if the truth therein should be further opened, known, or disclosed. Pray also the jurors aforesaid, by the whole minds and agreements, that Thomas Revelle may use and continue the room of the learned counsel of this present borough, like as he unto the same was elect and sworn, and that according unto right and good conscience he may have his fees that is behind to him truly contented and paid; whereunto we, the foresaid jurors, in the name of the burgesses and commonalty of this town and borough are fully content and agreed. Town paving, 1501 (Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III, 309) Memorandum that the Wednesday the 12th. day of May, in the 16th, year of the reign of our sovereign lord king Henry the VIIth., it is agreed by William Hegyn, mayor of the town of Nottingham, Thomas Warner, John Selyok, Richard Mellours, and John Cost, aldermen and justices of peace, Hugh Smyth, being of the Common Council of the said town, William Tumour, mercer, being one of the sheriffs of the said town, and many other, that Henry Chetelle, paviour, shall enter into his service of the common paving within the town of Nottingham, from the feast of the Annunciation of our Lady last past unto the end of a year; and he to have in the year for his wages xxxiij.s. iiij.d. and a gown; and he to make and mend all the defaults in all places of the said town in the pavements, so that the chamberlains find him stones and sand; and he to set all his new work that he makes without the Cow Bar in his said wages, so that he may have the toll dish forthwith together in the market. Extracts from the Presentments at the Sessions 1493, July 15 (Records of the Borough of Nottingham, III) XIII. Sale of Faulty Tiles, 1493 The jurors for our Lord the King from the western side present that all is well.

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The jurors from the western side say, upon their oath, that John Howitt, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, vintner, and Robert Ratcliff, of the same town and County, barber, on the first day of August, in the 8th. year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon other days and occasions, here at Nottingham exposed for sale to divers lieges of our Lord the King certain tiles not well and sufficiently annealed by fire against the form of the Statute thereupon issued and provided,1 and to the grievous detriment of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. XIV. Action by the Wardens of the Gild of Weavers for a Levy upon Looms. 1494, October 1. John Catterick and Ranulph Buckley, Guardians of the Brotherhood of Weavers of the town of Nottingham, complain of Edward Hutchinson, otherwise Hogcheson, weaver, of Bunney, in a plea of debt upon a demand of 40.s. which he owes and unjustly detains from them, as they say, for the debt and levy of their looms, as appears by the writing of our Lord the King, etc, at the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in the 10th year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh. Damages 12.d. XV. Engagement by an Imagemaker of a Man to carry Images to London. 1494–5, January 7. Robert Tull, husbandman, complains of Nicholas Hill, alablasterman [sic] in a plea of debt upon a demand of 12.d. which he owes and unjustly detains. And whereupon the same plaintiff in his own proper person complains of the aforesaid Nicholas, who is in the care and charge of the Sheriffs, that whereas the aforesaid defendant, on the sixth day of June, in the eighth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, hired the aforesaid plaintiff to carry divers images and heads of Saint John the Baptist from Nottingham to London for the wages of 3.s. and he thereupon paid the aforesaid plaintiff 2.s. and so there remain 12.d. unpaid now in demand, and, although often, etc., which he has not yet, etc., whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 4.d. and therefore he brings suit, etc. XVI. Action for Rent of the King’s Meadow. 1494–5, January 21. Robert Alee, Valet of our Lord the King, complains of Thurstan Bird in a plea of debt upon a demand of 3.s. 5.d. which he owes and unjustly detains, as he says, for an acre of meadow in the King’s Meadow, due at the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry. And the defendant, by Robert Ratcliff his attorney says, that he owes him nothing by the country. The jury says that he owes 3.s. 5.d. Damages 2.d. costs 2.d. XVII. Action by the Prior of the White Friars for Trespass. 1494–5, March 18. Friar Thomas Gregg, Prior of the Order of Carmelites of the House of Nottingham, complains of Thomas Newton, draper in a plea of trespass against the peace of our Lord the present King, etc. And whereupon the same plaintiff, by Robert Bridgford, his attorney, complains that whereas, on the sixth day of November, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, the aforesaid defendant by force and arms, to wit, with clubs, knives, broke and entered the house and enclosure 1

St. 17 Edw. IV, c. 4 (Stat. Realm, II, 463).

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of the said plaintiff, and dug up his soil and land with the said plaintiff’s spades and pickaxes, and pulled down and threw to the ground a large tenter there found, and broke a furnace of lead, and did other damage to the grievous damage of the said plaintiff and against the peace of our Lord the King abovesaid: whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 40.s.; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant comes in his own proper person, (and defends) the force and injury when, etc; and he prays for a day to imparl1 until Monday next after Palm Sunday next to come, etc. Surety for the aforesaid Thomas Newton, Robert Oldham, shearman, to have him ready until the end of the action. XVIII. Action by the Prior of the White Friars for Breach of Agreement to repair his House. 1494–5, March 18. The same Friar Thomas Gregg, Prior of the House of the Friars of the Order of Carmelites of Nottingham, complains of the aforesaid Thomas Newton in a plea of deceit. Sureties for prosecuting: John Knawen and Richard Well. And whereupon the same plaintiff, by his aforesaid attorney, complains that whereas the aforesaid defendant, on the sixth day of November, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, within the jurisdiction of this Court, promised the aforesaid plaintiff that he would well and sufficiently repair the house or mansion wherein he (the prior) dwelt at the gates of the same house of the Friars aforesaid, within a certain time limited between them, and he has done no repair; whereby the plaintiff says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 20.s; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant has day as above. XIX. Appointment of a Labourer to dig stone for S.Peter’s Church. 1495, April 1. John Ward, of Gedling, labourer, complains of William Stark, mason, in a plea of Debt upon a demand of 3.s. 10.d, which he owes and unjustly detains, as he says. And whereupon the same plaintiff, in his own proper person, complains that whereas, on the 13th. day of May, in the ninth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here etc. the aforesaid William hired the aforesaid John Ward to dig stones for the Church of Saint Peter for the space of 14 days, taking by the day 3.d. finding himself, and, although often, etc. which he has not yet, etc: whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 12.d; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant comes in his own proper person, and defends the force and injury when, etc; and he says that he owes him nothing; and of this he puts himself upon the country: and the plaintiff does the like. Therefore they shall cause 12 jurors to come against Wednesday next before Our Lord’s Supper next to come, etc. The jurors say that he owes 3.s. 10.d. Damages 1.d. costs 1.d. XX. Action for neglecting to work a Quarry for Stone for S.Peter’s Church, 1495, April 15. William Stark, mason, complains of John Ward, of Gedling, of a plea of trespass upon his case. And he finds pledges to prosecute: Robert Roe and William Doe. And whereupon 1 Imparlance (licentia interloquendi) is the legal term denoting the continuance of an action until another day, granted by the court so that the defendant may consider his answer to the plaintiff or settle the case amicably by talking or imparlance.

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the same plaintiff in his own proper person complains, that the said defendant, on the 14th day of May, in the ninth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, etc, was engaged by John Eaton at the desire and for the use of the same plaintiff to find and clean a part of a stone quarry at Gedling for the Church of Saint Peter at Nottingham, within a certain period agreed upon between them; and the aforesaid defendant worked so lazily and carelessly at the same work that the said part was not cleaned nor bared by the time before limited; and so the said plaintiff had not nor could have the same stones when he could best have worked them, by reason of the lack of work of the said defendant; whereby the said plaintiff says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 20.s.; and therefore he brings suit etc. XXI. Action for Perjury against the Quarryman for S.Peter’s Church. William Stark, mason, complains of John Ward, of Gedling, labourer, in a plea of debt upon a demand for 4.s. which he owes and unjustly detains, as he says. And whereupon the same plaintiff in his own proper person complains that whereas the aforesaid defendant, on Wednesday next before the feast of Saint Ambrose, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, together with others, laid information and took an oath in Court upon a book to the defrauding and injury of the said plaintiff, against all conscience, saying and relating that the said plaintiff hired the said defendant to clean and dig that soil and land with stones for the Church of Saint Peter at Nottingham, and it was otherwise, for John Eaton hired him for the wages agreed upon between them, and thus the aforesaid defendant recovered the said 4.s. from the said plaintiff against all conscience, to the defrauding of the said plaintiff and to the peril of the souls of the jurors: whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 12.d; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant in his own proper person comes, and defends the force and injury when, etc; and he says that he owes him nothing; and of this he puts himself upon the country: and the plaintiff does the like. Therefore they shall cause 12 jurors to come against Wednesday next after the feast of Saint George next to come, etc. XXII. Action for Detinue of Goods. 1495, May 13. The same William Bott, cooper, complains of the aforesaid Joan Deacon, who is in the care of the Sheriffs, in a plea of detinue of divers the goods following, to the value of 3.s. 4.d. on the 16th day of May, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, to wit, of one sack, price 3.d. together with divers goods contained in the same sack, to wit, of one smock, two shirts, price 2.s.; and of a pocket, price 2.d., and a breastkerchief, price 7.d. delivered to her here at Nottingham, etc., the day, etc. abovesaid, and of a neckerchief, price 4.d. delivered by the hands of Thomas Marriott, of Blackwell, cartwright, to safely and securely guard. And the defendant says that she does not detain the goods abovesaid; and of this she puts herself upon the country. The jurors say that she detains goods to the value of 20.d. Damages 1.d. costs 1.d. XXIII. Extracts from the Presentments at the Sessions. 1495, October 10. And they say the Roger Torlaton, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, barber, William Chaworth, of the same town and County, hatmaker,

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George Bredon, of the same town and County, hatmaker, and William Johnson, of the same town and County, butcher, on Tuesday next after the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham aforesaid, were retained, and each of them was retained, with Henry, Lord Grey, knight, and they promised him to serve him and to take his part against all persons, our Lord the King excepted, against the form of the Statute in such case made and provided. And they say, that John Lambson, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, smith, on the said day, year and place, was likewise retained with Henry Willoughby, Knight, and plighted his troth to serve him and take his part against all persons, our Lord the King excepted, against the form of the Statute in such case made and provided. And they say that Joan Litster, of Basford, in the County of Nottingham, single woman, on Saturday next before the feast of Saint Michael, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon other days and occasions at Nottingham aforesaid, bought grain by a bushel-measure that was a peck too large and she would not sell by the same, against the form of the Statute in such case made and provided, and to the grievous detriment of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. XXIV. Action for Detinue of Household Goods. 1495–6, January 18. Elizabeth Spenser, single woman, complains of Emma Spenser, of Nottingham, widow, of a plea of detinue. Sureties for prosecuting: Richard East, John West. And whereupon the same plaintiff in her own proper person, protesting, complains that whereas the aforesaid Elizabeth, on the twenty-fourth day of March, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, within the jurisdiction of this Court, delivered to the aforesaid Emma the moiety of a third part of a salt-cellar with a cover of silver, containing in itself ten ounces, price of every ounce 3.s. 4.d. whereof the moiety of a third part comes to 6.s. 8.d; a maser bound round with silver, price 18.s; four silver spoons, price 13.s. 4.d; a moiety of a third part of a couch with the fittings pertaining to the same, to wit, with sheets, blankets, bolsters, coverlets, the testers and curtains, pertaining to the same, price 13.s. 4.d; two brazen pots, price 8.s. three brazen pans, price 15.s; a moiety of a set of pewter vessels, price 3.s. 4.d; five pairs of sheets of flax, price 16.s. 8.d; two pairs of sheets of harden, price 4.s; two mattresses, price 5.s; two basins of latten with the ewers pertaining to the same, price 5.s; four candlesticks of latten, price 2.d; a girdle mounted with silver, price 8.s; ten quarters of malt, price 30.s; divers images of alabaster price 20.s; a piece of woollen cloth of blue colour, price 13.s. 4.d; two pieces of linen cloth containing 40 yards, price 10.s; a chair with two little forms and two skavels, price 20.d; two furnaces of lead standing in a form, price 4.s; a chest of spruce, price 5.s; a spit with a cobberd, price 16.d; two looms for ale, price 10.d, to be safely and securely guarded and to be re-delivered to the same Elizabeth whensoever she should be afterwards required; and, although she has been often asked to re-deliver all the premises to the same plaintiff, etc., not yet, etc., but she has hitherto refused to redeliver them to her, and does still refuse: whereby she says that she is injured and has damage to the value of 10 marks; and therefore she brings suit etc.

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Alice Spenser, late of Nottingham, single woman, complains of Emma Spenser, of the same, widow, in a plea of detinue. Sureties for prosecuting: Richard Man, John Don. And whereupon the same plaintiff, by William Jeffrayson her attorney, protesting, complains that the said Alice, on the twenty-sixth day of March, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, within the jurisdiction of this Court, delivered to the aforesaid Emma five silver spoons price 16.s. 8.d; a woman’s gown of blue colour price 13.s. 4.d; a mounted girdle, price 6.s. 8.d; two veils of lawn, price 6.s. 8.d; two veils of linen, price 4.s; six neckerchiefs, price 2.s. 8.d; half a third part of a feather-bed, price 3.s. 4.d.; four pairs of linen sheets, price 13.s. 4.d; three pairs of sheets of harden, price six shillings; two pairs of blankets, price 5.s; two mattresses price 7.s; four bolsters, price 4.s; four towels, price six shillings and eightpence; six table-napkins, price 5.s; a dozen of napkins, price 4.s; twenty pieces of pewter vessels, price 4.s. 6.d; a table called “a counter”, price 6.s. 8.d; a standing cupboard of wainscot, price 10.s; two candlesticks, price 2.s; a chafer to heat water, price 6.s. 8.d; a chafing dish, price 20.d; an apron, price 6.s. 8.d; a hanging laver, price 6.s. 8.d; twelve quarters of malt, price 36.s; a banquer with six cushions, price 6.s. 8.d; a brazen mortar with the pestle pertaining to the same, price 6.s. 8.d; three looms for ale, price 12d; a stained hanging, price 3.s. 4.d.; a doser to hang above a bed with the curtains pertaining to the same of linen cloth, price 10.d; a chair called “a throwen chair”, to be safely and securely guarded and to be re-delivered to the same plaintiff whensoever she should be afterwards required etc; and although, etc. not yet, etc: and she has damage to the value often marks; and therefore she brings suit, etc. XXV. Action against the Prior of the White Friars for Repairing an East Window. 1495–6, February 3. William Stark, mason, complains of Thomas Gregg, Prior of the House of the Blessed Mary of the Order of Carmelites of the town of Nottingham, in a plea of debt upon a demand of 10.s. which he owes and unjustly detains from him, as he says. And whereupon the same plaintiff in his own proper person complains that whereas the said defendant, on the sixth day of August in the 10th, year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, etc. made an agreement with the aforesaid plaintiff and John Kirkham for the repairing of an eastern window in the Choir above the high altar for £3, and he satisfied them for 40.s. thereof, and so 10.s. remain unpaid to the same plaintiff for his share: and, although often, etc., which not yet etc: whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 20.d; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant comes, by William Jeffrayson his attorney, and prays for a day to imparl until the next Court after the feast of Easter next to come etc. XXVI. Action for Non-delivery of Wool. 1495–6, February 16. Edward Jackson and William Wilson, tailor, complain of Thomas Gregg, glover, in a plea of deceit. Sureties to prosecute: John North and William South. And whereupon the same plaintiffs in their own proper persons complain of the aforesaid Thomas Gregg that whereas the said plaintiffs, on the 22nd. day of June, in the tenth

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year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, within the jurisdiction of this Court, bought from the aforesaid defendant a hundred stones of fleece-wool and skin-wool, paying for the stone by the Halifax weight 2.s. 8.d. to be delivered to the said plaintiffs before the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary then next following, and thereof they received ten stones of fleece-wool and 22 stones of skin-wool, according to the weight aforesaid, and of the remainder he has delivered nothing to the plaintiffs of the said hundred stones, but has deceived them: whereby they say that they are injured and have damage to the value of 40.s; and therefore they bring suit, etc. And the defendant comes in his own proper person, and defends the force and injury when etc; and he says that he has not deceived them; and of this he puts himself upon the country: and the plaintiffs do the like. Therefore they shall cause 12 jurors to come against Monday next after the feast of Saint Gregory the pope next to come etc. XXVII. Action for Detinue of Household Goods. 1496, March 30. The same William Conington complains of the same Edward Wilson of a plea of detinue. Sureties to prosecute: Richard Roe and William Doe. And whereupon the said plaintiff in his own proper person complains that whereas the said plaintiff at the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, in the tenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham, etc. delivered to the aforesaid defendant a boltingvat, price 6.d; a verjuice barrel, price 8.d; a gyle-vat with cover and a pulley, price 40.d; a mash-vat, price 3.s. 4.d; a salt vat, price 10.d; a pair of querns, price 5.s; a bucket with a little cord and the chains pertaining to the same, price 2.s; a pair of mustard-querns, price 12.d; a wheelbarrow, price 4.d; to safely and securely keep and re-deliver to the same plaintiff whensoever he should be lawfully required by the said plaintiff so to do, and, although often, etc. and not yet, etc: whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 13.s. 4.d; and therefore he brings suit, etc. And the defendant has the day abovesaid granted to him, as in the action immediatley preceding, etc. The jurors say that he detains the goods abovesaid. Damages 1.d. and costs 1.d. XXVIII. Action by the Chamberlains of the Trinity Gild. 1496, April 13. Richard Pickard and Robert Tull, late Chamberlains of the Gild of the Holy Trinity, complain of Agnes Hamson, widow, in a plea of debt upon a demand of 8.s. 8.d., which she owes and unjustly detains from them, as they say; that is to say, for the rent of a tenement wherein she dwells, etc. And the defendant comes in her own proper person, and acknowledges the debt abovesaid. For which debt Thomas Waltham, chaplain, and Alexander Garnet became surety to Richard Pickard, John Shaw and Christopher Pickard, Sheriffs of Nottingham, for 4.s. 4.d, to be paid on Whitsun Eve, and at the feast of Saint Peter the Apostle ad Vincula 4.s. 4.d, next following. XXIX. Action for Money won in Shooting at Butts. 1496, June 22. The same John Walton complains of Thomas Belt, saddler, of a plea that he render him 5.s. 10.d, which he owes and unjustly detains, etc. which he won from the defendant

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in shooting at butts on the 23rd. day of May, here at Nottingham, etc. in the 11th. year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, etc. XXX. Presentments at the Sessions. 1496, July 18. And they say that the same John Catterick, of Nottingham aforesaid, weaver, on the fourth day of March, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, chopped down two ash trees growing upon the common soil between the ditch of Westcroft and the Chenybrigg at Nottingham aforesaid, of the value of eight pence, and converted them to his own use without the permission of the Mayor or Chamberlains of the town aforesaid, etc. And they say that Joan Trollopp, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, housewife, on the sixth day of July in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, unjustly and fraudulently took thievishly a chicken, of the value of a penny, of the goods of Henry Brantingham at Nottingham aforesaid, and converted it to her own use, against the peace of our Lord the King. And they say that Elizabeth Stafford, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, housewife, on the twelfth day of June, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon other days and occasions, at Nottingham aforesaid, exposed for sale to divers lieges of our said Lord the King, divers victuals to wit, meat and pies unwholesome and corrupt for human food, against the form of the Statute in such cases issued, and to the grievous nuisance of the said lieges of our Lord the King, and against his peace. The jurors from the western side say upon their oath that they have nothing at present to present. And they say that Joan Hunt, of Nottingham aforesaid, spinster on the twelfth day of July in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon divers other days and occasions at Nottingham aforesaid, is a common receiver of servants of the inhabitants of the town of Nottingham with their master’s goods in her houses at night time, and they there keep disorderly conduct and make outcries, so that her neighbours and other lieges of our said lord the King cannot sleep in their beds, to the grievous nuisance of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. And they say that John Rose, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, butcher, and Robert Wales of the same town and county, butcher, on the twentieth day of May in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham aforesaid, forestalled a great number of oxen and sheep that ought to have been led to and sold at divers markets of the town aforesaid, and sold them to butchers of the City of London, to the great enhancing of the market aforesaid, and to the grievous prejudice of the lieges of our Lord the King here inhabiting, and against the peace of our said Lord the King. XXXI. Action by a Schoolmaster for Contribution towards Tiling the Almshouse. 1496, September 15. Thomas Blackburn, schoolmaster, complains of Robert Oldham, shearman, of a plea that he render him sixpence which he owes and unjustly detains, as he says. And

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whereupon the same plaintiff in his own proper person complains that whereas the said defendant, on the sixth day of May, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham etc., agreed that he would pay by the hands of his wife 6.d. for tiling of the Almshouse to the said plaintiff whensoever etc., and, although often, etc. and not yet, etc; whereby he says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 4.d; and therefore he brings suit etc. And the defendant…. [entry incomplete] XXXII. Presentments at the Sessions. 1497, October 9. And they say that the same Henry Gorall, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, horseleech, on the 26th. day of September in the 13th year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, with force and arms, to wit, with a club and knife, threw out a dead and putrid horse into the streets of our said Lord the King at Nottingham aforesaid, to the grievous nuisance of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. And they say that John Clitherow, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, weaver, on the twentieth day of September, in the thirteenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon divers other days and nights, at Nottingham aforesaid, is a common listener at the windows and houses of his neighbours to sow strife and discord amongst his neighbours, to the nuisance of his neighbours, and against the peace of our said Lord the King. XXXIII. Action for Detinue of Goods. 1498, December 19. The same John Coke complains of Henry Thompson abovesaid in a plea of detinue of a shirt, price 8.d; and of an apron, price 5.d; and of a letter of Saint Robert of Knaresborough, price 4.d;1 and of a club, price 1.d, delivered to the same defendant on the 6th day of March, in the 11th year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, to be safely and securely guarded and to be re-delivered, etc. XXXIV. Action regarding the Closing of the Court at the Saracen’s Head. William Wymondswold complains of Thomas Willoughby of a plea that he close his court between the land of the said William and the land of the said Thomas, which he was wont to and ought to close. And whereupon the same William, by John Bower his attorney, complains that whereas the said Thomas, on the first day of January, in the 14th year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, let his court at his messuage called “the Saracen’s Head” within the jurisdiction of this court be open, which court the same Thomas and all others having estate in the same messuage were wont to close; the aforesaid Thomas, although he had been often asked refused to close his said court and does still refuse; whereby the same William says that he is injured and has damage to the value of 20.s; and therefore he brings suit. And the defendant comes by John Chapel his attorney, and prays day to imparl until Tuesday next after the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary the Virgin next to come, etc. 1 A Letter of Fraternity of the religious house of St. Robert, near Knaresborough. The recipients of such letters were regarded as brethren of the house or order by whom the letters were granted, and were supposed to participate in the benefits of the prayers of the house or order.

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At which day the aforesaid John Chapel comes; and he says that the aforesaid defendant ought not to close his aforesaid court; and of this he puts himself upon the country; and the plaintiff does the like. Therefore they shall cause 12 jurors to come hither etc. XXXV. Action for Detinue of Rosaries, Crucifix etc. 1499, March 27. Agnes Hart, widow, complains of James Bromfield and Elizabeth his wife in a plea of detinue of a pair of jet beads with gauds of jet,1 and of a crucifix of silver-gilt; and of a ring of silver; and of an Agnus Dei of silver-gilt, delivered to the same defendants to be safely etc., and to be re-delivered when so to do, etc. And the defendants—— The jurors say that they detain to the value of 20.d. And they assess for damages and costs 1.d. XXXVI. Action by a Physician against a Surety for a Patient. 1499, April 10. Patrick Fitz-Lions, physician, complains of Christopher Pal ton, of Teversall, husbandman, in a plea of debt upon a demand of 10.s. 1.d. which he owes and unjustly detains, as he says, for medicines and expenses incurred for the Rector of Teversall aforesaid, on the 12th. day of April, in the 14th year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, for which 10.s. 1.d. the aforesaid Christopher became surety to the same plaintiff, the money to be paid to him when he should be lawfully asked so, to do and, although, etc. and the defendant in his own proper person comes, and defends the force and injury when, etc.; and he says that he owes him nothing: and this he is ready to verify by his law. To whom it is granted that he shall come hither with his law etc., on Thursday in Whitsun week next to come, etc., himself with the fifth hand. At which day the defendant comes, and he brings with him Robert Innocent, Thomas Lowdham, Thomas Pickford, Thomas Hine and Robert Angyer. And they did not make law, because the plaintiff does not prosecute his plaint. Therefore he is in mercy. XXXVII. Selections from the Presentments at the Sessions. 1499, September 30. The jurors from the eastern side say, upon their oath, that Hugh Smith of Nottingham in the County of the town of Nottingham, tanner, on Saturday next after the feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle, in the fifteenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, and upon divers other days and occasions, commonly and usually, every market day, is a common forestaller of grain and especially of barley, buying every week eight or ten quarters at his door in the Little Marsh at Nottingham aforesaid, to the great enhancement of the price of grain in the same market, to the grievous detriment of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. And they say that Hugh Carrier, of Nottingham, in the County of the town of Nottingham, glover, on the last day of August in the fifteenth year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh and upon divers other days and occasions, at Nottingham aforesaid, is a common receiver and harbourer of divers thieves with other folks’ goods unjustly 1 Beads, or rosaries. Gauds was the name given to the large beads in the rosary which came after ten small beads. They mark the paternosters.

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taken by them, to the grievous detriment of the lieges of our said Lord the King, and against his peace. XXXVIII. Action by the Churchwardens of S. Mary’s for Burial Fees. 1499, October 14. Hugh Smith, tanner, and John Pearson, Wardens of the Fabric of the Church of the Blessed Mary of Nottingham, complain of Robert Butterwick, of Sneinton, of a plea of debt upon a demand of 6.s. 2.d., which he owes and unjustly detains from them, as they say, And whereupon the same plaintiffs in their own proper persons complain that the said defendant, at the feast of Saint Martin in Winter, in the 13th. year of the reign of King Henry the Seventh, here at Nottingham within the jurisdiction of this Court, agreed to pay the said 6.s. 2.d. to the aforesaid plaintiffs for the balance of the burial-fee of Margery, wife of Gregory Gonnell, to be paid to the said plaintiffs whensoever he should be afterwards required, and, although, etc., not yet, etc. and they have damage to the value of 6.d.; and therefore they bring suit etc. And the defendant has day for imparling until Tuesday next before the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude next to come, etc. At which day the aforesaid defendant says that he owes them nothing, etc; and of this he puts himself upon the country. Therefore, etc., 12 against Wednesday next before the feast of Saint Martin next to come etc. XXXIX. Action by the Weavers against a Weaver for Fine for exercising his Craft. 1499, October 16. Richard Wild and James Brasenby, weavers, Wardens of the Webbers or Weavers of the town of Nottingham, complain of Robert Parkin, weaver, of a plea of debt upon a demand of 3.s. 4.d., which he owes and unjustly detains from them, as they say. And whereupon the same plaintiffs complain in their own proper persons, that whereas by the royal grants of the progenitors of our Lord the present King, it is granted that “no one ought to work dyed cloths within a radius of ten leucae of Nottingham” unless he be contributory with the weavers of the town aforesaid both to the King’s farm and to all other charges pertaining to the same Gild: nevertheless the aforesaid defendant at the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, in the 14th year of the present King, here at Nottingham, within the jurisdiction of this Court, began and occupied the same occupation, and for using such occupation the same Robert should have paid 6.s. 8.d. to the same plaintiffs; and whereof he has satisfied them for 3.s. 4.d; and so there remain 3.s. 4.d. unsatisfied to them, which he should have paid to them whensoever he should be asked, and, although, etc. and not yet, etc; and they have damage to the value of 2.d; and therefore they bring suit. And the aforesaid defendant comes in his own proper person; and he acknowledges that he owes the aforesaid 3.s. 4.d. now in demand, etc. Therefore it is considered by the Court, that the aforesaid plaintiffs shall recover against him the said 3.s. 4.d., etc. and he shall remain inprison etc. Jury presentments at the Sessions. 1515–1516 (Ibid. III, 344–345) Item, we present the Common Serjeant for because that he looks not to the common muckhills and other common lanes, according to his oath: we often complain of his demeanour and hath no remedy.

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Item, we present the Pinder of the Woods and Corn Fields, that he takes not heed of the cornfields, but suffers the beasts destroy the corn. Item, we present Thomas Darbeshire for being retained to Master Strelley. Item, we present John Holl, walker, for a retainer to Master Perpoynt. Item, we present the Chamberlains that the Bridge in Hungate End is not made, and that the pavement is not mended in many places of the town…. Item, we present the Searchers of the Fishers because they suffer corrupt fish and nought to be sold in the market, contrary to their oaths. Item, we present Andrew Jackson, of Newark, for selling of stinking salmon in our market in Lent. Item, we present Harry Stepor for taking a livery coat of the Prior of Lenton. Item, we present the Prior of Lenton, for maintaining of Harry Stepor in wearing of his livery, contrary to the Statute. V. Southampton Sale of Meat, 1549 (Merson, Third Book of Remembrance, II, 19) It is agreed by Mr. Mayor and his brethren that the butchers and every of them shall from henceforth until 16 days before Midsummer next coming shall sell beef and mutton (veal) good and wholesome for man’s body after 1½.d. the pound and mutton of the same goodness after 2.d. the pound, and he that the contrary doth offend shall pay unto the town’s use 5.s. lawful money and his body to be committed to the prison at the discretion of Mr. Mayor. Orders for the Bargate Prison, 1553 (Ibid. 38) a. To be called the “Counter” and reserved for debtors and minor offenders. Memorandum that the 24th day of January anno regni regis Edwardi sexti sexto it was agreed by Mr. Mayor and divers others whose names are underwritten that for certain good considerations by them of one assent and consent thought meet and very expedient, that the town’s house lying in the west side of the Bargate shall be from henceforth a prison or place of punishment only for such as shall be committed by way of actions, and all others that shall be committed to ward by the mayor for the time being or any alderman for any offences, treason, felony, or piracy only excepted; and that the said house shall be from henceforth named and commonly called the Counter. b. The gaoler’s fees. And further it is agreed by the advice aforesaid for the better stablishment of the said Counter that the officer for the time being shall receive of every personage committed to his ward for debt, trespass, or any other thing, so that he be duly thither committed, then to pay for every meal to the keeper 6.d. and for his bed 2.d., and for the fine of his irons to pay 2.d. upon the pound as the action shall be entered, and appear for due debt: and for other persons that shall be thither committed for any other cause to pay for his first entry 6.d. over and beside the rest.

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Vagrancy, 1553 (Ibid. 40) Memorandum that the 22nd. day of March anno regni regis Edwardi sexti septimo Amye Williams was commanded by Mr. Caplyn, lieutenant to Mr. John Caplyn mayor, and his brethren here underwritten to avoid this town and the liberties of the same between this and tomorrow night upon the pains contained in the act of vagabonds1 and not hereafter to dwell within this said liberty upon the pains aforesaid. Evil livers, 1555 (Ibid. 51) Memorandum that the 25th. day of January anno 1554 it was agreed by Mr. Mayor and his brethren whose names are underwritten that Anys Borman the wife of Henry Borman who divers and sundry times for her most abominable and detestable living contrary to the laws of God and human orders hath received divers punishments for her said offences manifestly approved and taken also in the manner, which punishments hath been by the advice of the said Mr. Mayor and his brethren upon hope of amendment and reconcilement of her said former abominable life and the same hath nothing prevailed nor helped but that she hath returned to her said abomination to the great shame of the town and disworship of the same: Wherefore it is agreed by the said advice that the said Anys shall immediately upon warning to her given by the officer to avoid the said town and suburbs and never to resort to the same again, upon pain that if she be taken within the liberties of the said town at any time after that then she to be apprehended and to be burned in the cheek with a hot iron and also to be banished the said town at a cart’s tail with basons as a common harlot and strumpet. 1557 (Ibid. 58) The day and year aforesaid Elizabeth Fourde late of Sarum was by the said Mr. Mayor with the advice of his brethren underwritten banished out of this town, and James Collys the crier was commanded to bring her forth out of the same town with basons. And further the said Elizabeth Fourde was commanded never to come more to this town on pain to be whipped and burned in the face, and it was for whoredom. VI. Winchester 1519

Election of Mayor (W.H.B.Bird, The Black Book of Winchester, 132)

It is ordained, established, and enacted…that from henceforth that upon the same day that the said citizens be assembled for the election of the mayor for the year following all those that hath been mayors of the city aforesaid, and that be there present and of the company of the said citizens at the said assembly by themselves, they or the more part of 1 St. 3/4 Edw. VI, c. 16 (1550) had repealed St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 3, and revived 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12, which substituted whipping for enslavement (Stat. Realm, IV, 115).

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them, shall name two such able persons of the 24 which they in their conscience, and by the oath they have made to the city, they shall then think meet and able to the said office of the mayoralty for the year following, which two persons so by them named they or the more part of them shall put the names of them in writing, and so deliver them to the mayor then and there being, and that so done, the said mayor shall at his pleasure put out one of them, and he that remaineth shall be adjoined with him that remained in the election and unchosen the year preceding to be and stand in the election for the mayor for the year following, and if upon the said nomination there be variance among the said names and no more in the one part than in the other part, that then that part whereas that person is that been eldest mayor shall prevail and have the nomination as is aforesaid, and so to be delivered to the mayor as is aforesaid, and the mayor further to do as before said; all which done the said mayor and all other his brethren and citizens to proceed to the election of him that shall be mayor in manner and form as hath been used and accustomed within the same city, provided always that he that hath been mayor shall not without his own agreement be in the said office of mayoralty by the space of v. years after his year ended and determined, upon pain of them that so named him in the election to forfeit to the use of the city x.li. And this act to stand and be in effect and endure for ever. Miscellaneous City Business, 1523 (Ibid. 134) It is ordained and enacted…that every man of the said city shall make clean all the back streets against their houses and gardens, so that they may come to the gravel at this half the feast of Pentecost next coming, upon pain to forfeit 6.s. 8.d. that maketh default, the one half to the chamber and the other half to the bailiffs. 1524 (Ibid. 139) It is enacted and agreed that there shall be yearly 2 chamberlains of the city, one of the 24 and the other of the commons, to occupy the said office jointly, and none of them to discharge other upon pain of 40.s. to the use of the said city. 1529 (Ibid. 144) Also it is enacted that where Mr. Gilbert Lawrens, late Mayor of the city of Winchester, should have levied and determined the accompt of the city within the year of his said mayoralty, and for non-performance of the said act, the said Mr. Gilbert shall forfeit and lose his whole fee, as in the said act plainly it appeareth; but by the assent of Mr. Mayor and his brethren the said Mr. Gilbert shall pay 6.s. 8.d. to redeem his whole fee, or else to make new, cleanse, and make clean the glass windows in the Council house. 1531 (Ibid. 148) It is ordained…that from henceforth every mayor shall deliver by writing the next day after the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel to the mayor next following the seal of

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office of the mayoralty, with the seal of the Staple, the brazen bushel, the brazen gallon, the brazen yard, and the seal of measures with other, upon pain of forfeiting 20.s. to the use of the city. Also the same day and year it is ordained…that from henceforth every mayor for his time shall see the records and books of accompt that they be engrossed and put into the pipe in due order within 6 months next after the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, upon pain of forfeiture of 20.s. to the use of the city. 1535 (Ibid. 155) Item the same day and year it is ordained and agreed by all the whole assembly that Mr. Thomas Leghe shall be the assessor of the King’s subsidy within the city of Winchester, and other 2 low collectors of the same for gathering, William Haycroft and John Richardes, and the high collector of the same for the payment in to the King’s Exchequer, Edward Foster. 1535 (Ibid. 156) Also the same day and year it is ordained and fully agreed by all the said full assembly that every man having any ground adjoining to any of the brooks within the said city, that they and every of them scour and clean their part of the said brooks within 8 days next ensuing the feast of Mary Magdalene next coming upon forfeiture of every man so offending 10.s. 1535 (Ibid. 157) It is ordained…that from henceforth the mayor of the city for the time being shall weigh the bakers bread within the said city once every month during his mayoralty, and that he shall see every brewer within the city sell their ale according to the proclamation that the bailiffs do proclaim, and that no brewer shall be no tippler, upon pain every such mayor to forfeit at every third default duly proved by 2 sufficient witnesses 40.s., and the brewer for his default at every time as oft as they offend 6.s. 8.d. VII. York Ordinances of the Drapers, 1492 (A.Raine, York Civic Records, II, 90) Agreed that a bill of certain articles and ordinances put to my lord the Mayor and Common Council the 28 day of June last past at the humble petition and instance of the good men of the whole crafts and occupations of drapers and tailors within the city, for the public weal of the king’s liege people and worship of the city and honesty of the said crafts and occupations, should be registered and adjoined to the ancient ordinances of the same crafts and occupations firmly hereafter to be observed and kept. First it is ordained and established that from the feast of Saint Martin in Winter,

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Bishop, next ensuing, no foreign drapers of the country or any other person being unfranchised that customably cometh and bringeth to this city woollen cloth to sell by retail from the said feast of Saint Martin forward go hawking with their cloth within the city or suburbs of the same, but that they bring and have all such woollen cloth as they have unto the Thursday market within this city, and there lay it open upon tables or stalls or otherwise, and to sell it in gross or by retail as them please to the intent that the searchers of drapers and tailors within this city shall resort, view, and search all such woollen cloth whether they be able and wet, so that the king’s liege people be not deceived by the said foreigners, as in buying unable and unwet cloth for able and wet; and if any foreigner be found hawking and selling or proferring to sell by retail any woollen cloth in any other place within this city or suburbs of the same but in the said Thursday market, or if that any foreigner be found selling any unable or unwet cloth for able and wet then the same foreigner and seller to forfeit all the cloth so sold or profferred to be sold, whereof the one half to be employed to the common weal of this city, and that other half to the weal of the said crafts or occupations by even portions. Item, that the said foreigners that customably come to this city to sell woollen cloth by retail bring all their cloth or cloths to the said Thursday market, as is before said, and not to leave them in their inns, lodgings, or other places and hereafter bring them forth by parcels, upon pain of forfeiture of 40.d, as oft times as any of them is found defective, evenly to be divided as is above said. Item, that Kendall men that bringeth woollen cloth to this city to sell in gross or by retail, that they from henceforth sell in gross in their inns and lodgings and by retail in the said Thursday market, and not to go hawking and sell in any other place upon pain of forfeiture of their cloths, as is abovesaid etc., provided always that these ordinances before said or any article of the same be not prejudicial nor hindering to any husbandman or other poor creature of the country being unfranchised that maketh a piece or two of woollen cloth in a year within his own house and bringeth to the city to sell by retail, but that it be lawful to the said husbandman or other poor creature so that they be true and very owners of the cloth to sell the said cloth or cloths by retail upon the Payment or any other place within the city and suburbs of the same, these ordinances or any article thereof notwithstanding; so that every person that selleth any woollen cloth by retail or in gross and having over three yards of broad cloth and 6 yards of narrow pay yearly pageant silver unto the pageant masters and searchers of the said crafts and occupations of drapers and tailors as hath been accustomed of ancient time heretofore. Ordinances of the Spurriers andLorimers, 1493–94 (Ibid, II, 104) It is enacted at the especial request and humble supplication of the masters of the crafts of spurriers and lorimers of this city that from henceforth the said crafts shall be reputed and taken as one craft and to be equal of charges one without other rate like as they have been of old time past and to have of new certain articles added to their old ordinances as ensueth.

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First, it is ordained from henceforth to be observed and kept, if any foreigner of the said crafts hereafter set up and occupy as master within this city or the suburbs of the same before he be searched, abled, and admitted by the searchers of the said crafts or craft then he shall forfeit and pay 40.d. And if any such foreigner be admitted and abled by the searchers of the said crafts for the time being then he to pay for his upset 6.s. 8.d. If any person that have been apprentice within this city at the said crafts and will set up as master in the said crafts he shall pay for his upset 3.s. 4.d. It shall be lawful to the searchers of the said crafts to have search of all manner stirrups, bits, bridle, or any other stuff or ware pertaining to the said craftsman in this city or country and brought to this city to be sold so that the said ware or stuff be able and sufficiently wrought and not deceitful for the king’s people, and if it be sold unable, to be forfeit. Every master of the said crafts upon Corpus Christi day yearly shall attend upon the pageant from the matter of play be begun at the first place unto such time as the said play be played and finished through the town at the last place, and whosoever is absent at any place except he be sick or have other excuse reasonable shall forfeit and pay 2.s. Any foreigner or stranger bringing any manner of stuff or ware pertaining to the said crafts or either of them to this city to be sold shall pay yearly to the sustentation and bringing forth of the pageant of the said crafts 4.s. Civic Status, 1503–4 (Ibid, IV, 98) It was fully agreed by the said presence firmly hereafter to be observed for the worship of this city. First, that no alderman of this city from henceforth shall go out of his parish unless that he have a velvet tippet about his neck and either a man or a child for to attend of him in sign and token that he is an Alderman for the worship of this city according to the ancient ordinance of the said city, and that Alderman that useth him at any time hereafter in wanting of his velvet tippet, his servant or child to attend upon him, contrary this ordinance, to forfeit therefor 12.d. to be paid to the use of the Common Chamber of this city. And what Alderman of this city, Sheriff, or any of the 24, that shall ride out of this city without a man honestly appointed for to attend upon him shall pay therefor 6.s. 8.d. to the use of the said Common Chamber without any remission or forgiveness, provided always that none advantage of the said pains shall be taken of any of the said presence in going without a velvet tippet suddenly to any parish next adjoining to his own parish, nor for any of the said presence in wanting of his servant in riding to his fermald nor adjoining to this city, and that the Lord Mayor of this city and his successors shall put this ordinance in due execution according to the tenor, effect, and true meaning of the same upon pain of 20.s. to be taken and abated of his common fee of £50 by year. Item, for quietness and good order to continue within this city it is also concluded and agreed that none of the said presence nor their successors at any time hereafter shall nominate or call any of his brethren Aldermen, Sheriffs, or any of the 24 knave or

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false knave nor none other opprobrious or slanderous name to the rebuke and slander of any of the said persons, whereby any trouble, variance, or other inconvenience shall or may ensue thereby upon pain to forfeit for every such default and misdemeanour 20.s. to the said Common Chamber. It is agreed by the said presence that if any of them at any time hereafter make default of his or their appearance to the Council of this city without a lawful excuse, every Alderman to pay 12.d. for every such default, and either of the Sheriffs and every of the 24. to pay 8.d. for like default. And if that any of the common officers of this city at any time hereafter do not their duty in warning of the said Council, which of them as doth offend therein shall pay like fines to the said Common Chamber. Horse racing at York, 1529–30 (Ibid, III, 131)1 Whereas the running day of horses between William Malory esquire and Oswald Willesthorp, esquire, was the Tuesday after Saint George day, the 22 year of the reign of King Henry the VIII. at the city of York; thereupon it was concluded and agreed by both the said gentlemen, after that the aforesaid Oswald had won the silver bell before the right worshipful Robert Whitfield, alderman and lieutenant of the said city, at which day and place the said Oswald, having the said bell delivered by the said lieutenant to his custody, promised the same lieutenant to bring in the said bell that day 12 months, and to deliver it to the Mayor for that time being, and also to bring with him that said day a horse to run with any man both for the aforesaid bell and also a wager of 6.s. 8.d. or more money as they can agree. Sale of Goods within the City of York, 1543–4 (Ibid, IV, 104) Agreed that certain articles shall be devised and proclaimed for the common weal of this city. First, that all those that bringeth any corn to this city to be sold, shall sell the same corn in the market place of the said city, and in no common streets, nor within no house, upon pain of every one of them that doeth the contrary shall pay a fine thereof after the quantity of their trespass in that behalf. Also, that no cornseller by themselves nor yet by their servants nor factors at any time hereafter do take upon them to open any sack or poke to sell any manner of kind of grain within the market place of this city before that the corn bell hanging in the market place of the Payment be rung at 10. of the clock, and that none of the cornsellers nor their servants nor factors privily nor openly do take upon them to sell any manner of corn to any of the common bakers of this city, nor to any strangers or stranger before one of the clock be smitten of Ouse Bridge every market day in the week, upon pain of forfeiture of all such grain and corn so bought and sold contrary this proclamation. Also, that no franchise man of this city do take upon him or them from henceforth 1

This is the first recorded horse race at York.

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to set any stall within any market place of this said city, but that they shall sell their wares only in their shops; and who so that doth contrary this proclamation shall pay to the said Common Chamber for every such offence, 6.s. 8.d. Also, that no person nor persons which are common sellers of woollen cloth or linen cloth or of any other manner of wares or merchandise at any time after this proclamation shall put to sale any of the cloth or wares to any strangers or stranger within this city, which is commonly called—foreign bought and foreign sold—against the ancient grants, statutes, and ordinances of this said city; and by reason of such buying and selling the said cloth and all other merchandise, foreign bought and foreign sold, within this city, is to be taken and seized to the use of the Common Chamber of this said city, provided always that this proclamation shall not in any wise extend to the hurt or damage to any person or persons that hereafter shall bring to this city woollen cloth or linen cloth of their own proper making to sell, and being but of a small quantity or substance, but that it be lawful to all persons or person at all times hereafter when that they shall repair and come to this said city with any woollen cloth that they shall forthwith resort and go to the Thursday market of the said city, and there to put their said cloth to sale, without any penalty, forfeitures, or contradiction in that behalf. And if any person or persons go hawking about this city with their cloth or other ways to sell contrary the ancient custom and ordinance of this said city, that they shall pay to the Common Chamber for every such offence 3.s. 4.d. Also, that all franchise men of this city that dwelleth forth of this said city shall come to dwell and inhabit within the said city, or else to take a house within the same city before Whit Sunday next, and to bear and pay all manner of charges as a freeman ought to do, upon pain of losing of their freedom of this said city. Engrossing of Grain, 1549 (Ibid, v, 25) By the King. Trusty and well beloved we greet you well. And being informed that divers farmers having store of wheat and other grain do not only upon an insatiatable greediness against all charity forebear to bring any of the same to the markets for the sustentation of our people but also do buy themselves and engross to the intent they may hereafter make such unreasonable prices thereof as themselves listeth, which if it should be suffered must needs breed great dearth and be the destruction of a great number of our good and loving subjects; we therefore earnestly minded to provide for this great unconvenience and to punish such uncharitable and covetous persons as by their regrating and gathering of corn into their hands care not so they may have unreasonable gains though their neighbours perish and die by them for lack of convenient sustinance have thought meet upon a full confidence of your approved wisdoms, discretions, and indifferences as to require yourselves first to the intent ye may thereby understand our pleasure herein ye shall take such order and direction in the same as that ye fail not to see the instructions and articles which we send you herein closed to be in all things not only with all speed and diligence put in use and execution but also well and truly to be observed, obeyed and kept as ye tender our pleasure and the accomplishing of your duty in this behalf accordingly. Given under our signet at our city of York the 19th December 1549.

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Articles to be kept and observed in the city of York and county of the same. First that all justices of peace shall foresee that no person shall regrate and forestall any kind of grain, nor buy, obtain or get any of the same into his hands, having sufficient of his own for his household and family. Item, the same justices shall give charge to all mayors, bailiffs, constables and other officers of the cities, boroughs and towns that they shall see for the due execution of the same, and if any shall offend in any the premises then they shall make relation there to the justices of peace next adjoining and the same justices to cause offenders therein to be apprehended and committed to ward and thereupon to signify their demeanour in that behalf to the Lord President and Council in the North. Item, that no person nor persons shall by any unlawful means, craft, or policy attempt or go about to enhance the price of any grain or corn. Provided always that every person having sufficient grain for their families and seed may buy for the exchange of their seed and sustentation of their families so much of grain as shall serve for their seed and needful expenses in their houses being done without fraud or so that they bring any kind of their own grain so much to the market as they shall buy in the same market for the purpose aforesaid. Provided also that all such persons as commonly be called badgers [middlemen] shall not be molested for the buying of corn and grain in one place, county or market and to convey, carry and sell the same again in any other place county or market so they do not anything in fraud. Finally, that the justices of peace and all other persons shall execute, observe and obey the effect of the premises as they tender their obedience and duty towards the king’s majesty and will avoid the danger and peril that may ensue towards them for the not accomplishment hereof accordingly. Disrespect to an Alderman, 1551 (Ibid, v, 55) For so much that Richard Clidero hath behaved himself disobediently and unfittingly to Master John Lewis, one of the aldermen of this city, for that he would not avail his bonnet to him going by him in the street, but said he would not cap to such churls; and here now examined confesseth in manner the same self words and gesture, saying openly he called him churl and if he called him poller [extortioner] he had said but truth; and asked this audience whether he should cap to him whom he had rather fight with than otherwise or whom he cannot love. Therefore it is agreed that he shall be bound to good bearing and for his offence to be committed to ward and further to be ordered as my Lord Mayor shall think good. Precautions against Plague, 1552 (Ibid, v, 74) Agreed that for further good stay of the sickness within this City no tailors, weavers, shearmen, or any other of this City during the same shall receive any manner of apparel,

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cloth, yarns, bedding or other stuff to work, occupy or keep, but such only as they shall know perfectly not to come from any visited house. And also that no manner upholsterer shall sell any manner of old apparel or other stuff either openly in their shops or otherwise, nor go hawking therewith about in the town so long as it shall please God to visit the same, upon pain to every of them doing contrary to that ordinance to forfeit his franchise and be banished this City for ever. Item that such as shall chance hereafter to be visited shall keep both their doors and windows continually closed by the space of six weeks next after their said visitation, and then their doors and windows lawfully to be open, and so they to keep themselves quietly in their houses and not to go abroad amongst the whole by the space of other six weeks then next after upon the pain abovesaid. Item it is ordered that one meet and honest person, or more if need require, shall be appointed to minister to the said visited, meat, drink, water, and other necessaries, and have weekly of the Chamber 8.d. a piece. Item, that the pageant money of this year shall be received by the Chamberlains, and by my Lord Mayor’s discretion to be disposed, the one half to the keeping of the said visited people, and the other half to the use of the occupations. It is further agreed that there shall be four meet persons named and appointed to wind, bear, and bury all such corpses as hereafter shall chance to die from the plague within this city or suburbs and none other; and that they shall have for every corpse so winded, borne, and buried (blank in MS.). And also if it fortuneth the said 4 persons get not, burying as is aforesaid, every week 20.d. apiece, then they to be paid and made good so much weekly as shall want of the same 20.d. of the Chamber cost by discretion of my Lord Mayor. And that during all the said times the said 4 persons shall keep by themselves in a solitary place from company viz., in certain houses being of the common cost at Toft Green End; and to be ready at all times upon knowledge given them to bury the said corpses without delay: and also for their said wages shall sweep and cleanse all the said houses visited, and by discretion of my Lord Mayor the clothes and pelfe [rubbish] in the same shall be burnt. Item, to the intent the better to avoid assemblies of people at this present within the said City being dangerous for the said sickness, it is agreed that the billets lately delivered forth for Corpus Christi shall be incontinently called in again, and not to be played this year. Also the four persons that shall bury the said dead corpses shall in such time as they do go abroad, carry in their hands a white rod of a yard long and likewise upon the night to have a light before them bearing their said white rods to the intent they shall be known from others. And that every constable shall call unto him such honest persons as shall be thought meet to aid and assist him at all times for the executing of the premises, and other such good order as heretofore hath been appointed to be done.

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C. INDUSTRY AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS 148. Industrial organization illustrated from statutes and other sources (i) An act concerning artificers and labourers. St. 6 Hen. VIII, c. 3, 1514–15 (Stat. Realm, III, 124)

W

here divers statutes before this time have been made and ordained for servants of husbandry and also for labourers and artificers by divers and royal and noble progenitors unto our sovereign lord the King now being, and in especial a statute made by the right noble prince of blessed memory King Henry the vjth uncle unto our said sovereign lord 33rd year of his reign,1 which notwithstanding great and many defaults daily increase, rest and continue among labourers and artificers, some because of the said statutes be not executed and some because the remedy of the said statutes is not very perfect nor giveth certain nor hasty remedy, so that daily by their subtle imagination in defraud of the said statutes many of the King our sovereign lord’s subjects be hurt, deceived, let and damaged in their building and husbandry; Be it therefore enacted… First that no bailiff of husbandry shall take for his wages by year above 26.s. 8.d. for his clothing, 5.s. with meat and drink: no chief hind as a carter or chief shepherd above 20.s. by the year and for his clothing 5.s. with meat and drink; no common servant of husbandry above 16.s. 8.d. by year and his clothing 4.s. with meat and drink; no woman servant above 10.s. by year and for her clothing 4.s. with meat and drink; no child within age of 14 years above 6.s. 8.d. by year and for his clothing 4.s. with meat and drink; And that no artificer nor labourer hereafter named take no more nor greater wages than in this statute is limited upon the pain assessed as well to the taker as to the giver, that is to say, a freemason, master carpenter, rough mason, bricklayer, master tiler, plumber, glasier, carver nor joiner from Easter to Michaelmas every of these artificers aforesaid 6.d. by the day without meat and drink, and with meat and drink 4.d; and from Michaelmas to Easter 5.d. without meat and drink and with meat and drink 3.d.: And that the wages of a shipwright from the feast of Candlemas unto the feast of St Michael the archangel shall not exceed the form ensuing, that is to say, a master ship carpenter taking the charge of the work, having men under him, by the day 5.d. with meat and drink, and without meat and drink 7.d.; and other ship carpenter called an hewer by the day 4.d. with meat and drink, and without meat and drink 6.d: an able clincher by the day 3.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 5.d; an holder by the day 2.d. with meat and drink, without meat and drink 4.d. a master caulker by the day 4.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 6.d; another mean caulker by the day 3.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 5.d; a caulker labouring by the tide for as long time as he may labour above the water and beneath the water shall not exceed for his wages for every tide 4.d. with meat and drink: And from the feast of Michaelmas to Candlemas the wages of a master shipwright by the day 4.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 6.d: an hewer by the day 4.d. with meat and drink, and without 1

St. 23 Hen. VI, c. 12.

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meat and drink 5.d; an able clincher by the day 2½.d with meat and drink and without meat and drink 4½.d; an holder by the day 1½.d with meat and drink and without meat and drink 3.d; a master caulker by the day 3.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 5.d: another mesne (mean) caulker by the day 2½.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 4½.d. II. Be it also enacted that in such shires and countries that where it hath been and is now used to give less wages, that in those shires and countries they shall give and the taker of the wages be compelled according as they have less used to take, this act notwithstanding. And the master mason and master carpenter which shall take the charge of the work having under him of them 6 men, shall have 7.d. without meat and drink and 5.d. by day with meat and drink. And that every person and artificer specified in this statute being not retained in any service for any work be compelled to serve every other person for such wages as in this statute before is limited: And that no artificer retained in any service to work with the King’s highness or any other person depart not from his said Highness or from the said other person till such time as the work be finished if the person so retaining the artificer so long will have him and pay his wages, upon pain of imprisonment of any person so departing by the space of a month and to make fine of 20.s.; always provided and foreseen that if the same artificer be desired to the King’s service and work that then he may lawfully depart so that he enter and be in the King’s service and work. III. And it is further ordained by the said authority that every other labourer and artificer not before named shall take from Easter to Michaelmas for every day that he so laboureth except the season of harvest 4.d. without meat and drink and 2.d. with meat and drink; and from Michaelmas till Easter 3.d. without meat and drink and 1½.d. with meat and drink: and in the said time of harvest every mower shall take by the day 4.d. with meat and drink and without meat and drink 6.d.: a reaper and carter every of them 3.d. by the day with meat and drink and without meat and drink 5.d: a woman labourer and other labourers every of them 2½.d. by the day with meat and drink and without meat and drink 4½.d: And that no artificer nor labourer working but the half day take no wages but for the half day and nothing for the holy day. And if any bailiff of husbandry, hind, carter, shepherd, common servant, woman servant, or child servant above specified not retained in any service or work refuse to serve or work according to the ordinance above specified then the same person to be committed to ward by the constable or other head officer within the city, town, or village where the party so refusing is, at complaint of him that will receive such servant there to remain till he have found surety to serve according to the said ordinance; Furthermore, if any artificer or labourer being not retained in any service or work refuse to serve after the rate of his estate or to take greater or more wages than therein is limited for the same artificers and labourers, or if any artificer or labourer take wages for the holy day where he worketh but the half day, that then every artificer and labourer offending in any of the foresaid articles forfeit for every default as oft as they offend 20.s. and they to be committed for every such default by presentment before the Justices of Peace in the sessions according to the common law or by examination of the Justice of the same sessions or by examination of two Justices of Peace out of the

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sessions in any place within the shire wherein they be Justices and where such defaults shall be made; and that the said forfeiture of 20.s. to be levied of their lands, goods, and chattels so offending. IV. And furthermore, where divers artificers and labourers retained to work and serve waste most part of the day and do not deserve their wages some time in late coming to their work, early departing therefrom, long sitting at their breakfast, at their dinner, and at their noonmeat, and long time at sleeping at afternoon to the loss and hurt of such persons as the said artificers and labourers be retained with in service; It is therefore established, enacted, and ordained by authority aforesaid that every artificer and labourer be at work between the middle of the month of March and the middle of the month of September before five of the clock in the morning, and that he have but half an hour for his breakfast, and an hour and half for his dinner at such time as he hath season for sleep to him appointed by the said statute, and at such time as it is herein appointed that he shall not sleep then he to have but an hour for his dinner and half an hour for his noon meat; And that he depart not from his work between the middle of the said months of March and September till between 7 and 8 of the clock in the evening: And if they or any of them offend in any of these articles that then their defaults to be marked by him or his deputy that shall pay their wages and at the week’s end to be abated of such rate of time as they have offended: And that from the middle of September to the middle of March every artificer and labourer be at their work in the springing of the day and depart not till night of the same day; And that the said artificers and labourers sleep not by day but only from the middle of the month of May unto the middle of August. V. Also it is established and enacted by the said authority that if any artificer or labourer retained in service with any person for building or reparation do assault, or make, or cause to be made any assembly to assault, harm, or hurt any person assigned to control and oversee them in their working, that he or they so offending have imprisonment for a year without letting to bail or mainprise. And furthermore to make fine at the King’s will, the same assembly or assault to be tried by examination before the Justices of Peace as is aforesaid: This act to begin and take effect at the feast of Whitsuntide next coming, and in the meantime the same to be proclaimed in every good city, borough, and town of this realm. VI. Provided always that this Act or anything therein contained extend not, nor in anywise be hurtful or prejudicial to any miners, workers, or labourers for tin, lead, iron, or silver, or for any wages taking about the digging, getting, or fining of the same metals, this Act or anything therein contained notwithstanding. VII. Provided always that this Act nor anything therein contained extend not nor be prejudicial to any person or persons for mining or digging for any coal called sea coal otherwise called smith’s coal, or for making of any glass.

(ii) An act for true making of woollen cloths. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 12, 1535–36. (Stat. Realm, III, 544)

Forasmuch as great infamy and slander hath risen of late years in sundry outward parts beyond the sea of the untrue making of woollen cloths within this realm, to the great

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derogation of the common weal of the same, and to the no little hindrance of the sale of the said commodity;… Be it enacted…that after the feast of St. Michael the Archangel next coming, all and every clothier within this realm shall weave, or cause to be woven, his or their several token or mark in all and every cloth, kersey and other cloths whatsoever they be, made and wrought to be uttered and sold; and when any such cloth shall be ready made and dressed to be put to sale every of the same clothiers shall set his seal of lead unto every of the same his or their cloths and kerseys, in which seal of lead shall be contained the true and just length of every of the same cloths or kerseys, as it shall be duly found by every buyer of the same, upon due proof thereof to be tried by the water; And in case upon any such proof to be made by any buyer of them at the water there shall be found less or smaller content in length than is contained and specified in every of their said seals, then every of the said clothiers making such default shall lose and forfeit unto every such buyer of the same the double value of so much cloth as shall want and lack of his said content and length, at the only sight and judgment of any two indifferent persons that shall measure the same cloths and kerseys; And every clothier sending or putting any of their cloths to sale, before such time as all and every of the same cloths shall be sealed by the Aulnager of the same counties where it shall chance any of the said cloths so to be made, and also to be ordered and sealed by every of the said clothiers in form aforesaid, shall lose and forfeit his cloth or cloths whatsoever they be; the one half thereof shall be to the King’s highness, his heirs and successors, and the other half to him or them that will sue for the same by bill, plaint, action of debt or otherwise, in which action no wager of law, essoin, or protection shall be allowed.

(iii) An act for the continuance of making of worsted yarn in Norfolk. St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 6, 1547 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 11)

Where the greatest and almost the whole number of the poor inhabitants of the county of Norfolk and the city of Norwich be, and have been heretofore for a great time, maintained and gotten their living by spinning of the wools growing in the said county of Norfolk upon the rock into yarn, and by all the said time have used to have their access to common markets within the said county and city to buy their wools there to be spun, as is aforesaid, of certain persons called retailers of the same wools, by eight penny worth and twelve penny worth at one time or thereabout, and have not used to buy, nor can buy, their said wools of the breeders of the same wools by such small parcels, as well for that the said breeders of the said wools will not sell their said wools by such small parcels, as also for that the most part of the said poor persons dwell far off from the said breeders of the said wools: and forasmuch as by an act of parliament…[St. 37. Hen. VIII, c. 15]…all persons be restrained upon a great pain to buy any wools to sell the same again, except merchants of the staple for the only provision of the staple…by reason whereof the same poor persons inhabiting within the said county of Norfolk and city of Norwich…be now unoccupied and unset awork and a great number of them enforced to beg for lack of work, to the utter decay and

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ruin of the poor people… In consideration whereof it may please the King…that all and every person and persons dwelling and inhabiting within the said county…and city may lawfully from henceforth without pain, forfeiture, danger, or breach of any law or ordinance buy and bargain wools…growing… within the said county of Norfolk in as large and like manner and form as the same inhabitants within the said county and city might and did use to do before the making of the said Act of Parliament…so that the same person and persons…do sell and retail the same again in the common market or other open place within the said county…or city…to any person or persons…that will buy the same or any parcel thereof….

(iv) An act touching weavers. St. 2 & 3 Philip & Mary, c. 11, 1555 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 286)

Forasmuch as the weavers of this realm have, as well at this present parliament as at divers other times, complained that the rich and wealthy clothiers do many ways oppress them, some by setting up and keeping in their houses divers looms, and keeping and maintaining them by journeymen and persons unskilful, to the decay of a great number of artificers which were brought up in the said science of weaving, their families and household, some by ingrossing of looms into their hands and possession, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents as the poor artificers are not able to maintain themselves, much less their wives, family and children, some also by giving much less wages and hire for the weaving and workmanship of cloth than in times past they did, whereby they are enforced utterly to forsake their art and occupation wherein they have been brought up: It is therefore for remedy of the premises, and for the avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow (if in time it be not foreseen)…enacted… That no person using the feat or mystery of clothmaking and dwelling out of a city, borough, market town or corporate town, shall from the feast of St. Michael the Archangel now next ensuing, keep, retain, or have in his or their house or possession any more or above one woollen loom at one time, nor shall by any means directly or indirectly receive or take any manner profit, gain, or commodity by letting or setting any loom, or any house wherein any loom is or shall be used and occupied, which shall be together by him set or let, upon pain of forfeiture for every week that any person shall do contrary to the tenor and true meaning hereof 20s. II. And be it further ordained and enacted…that no woollen weaver using or exercising the feat or mystery of weaving, and dwelling out of city, borough, market town or town corporate, shall, after the said feast, have or keep at any one time above the number of two woollen looms, or receive any profit, gain, or commodity, directly or indirectly as is aforesaid, by any more than two looms at one time, upon pain to forfeit for every week that any person shall offend or do to the contrary, 20s. III. [No weaver to have a tucking mill.] IV. [No tucker or fuller to have a loom.] V. And it is further ordained and enacted…that no person whatsoever, which heretofore hath not used or exercised the feat, mystery, or art of cloth making, shall

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after the said feast, make or weave, or cause to be made or woven, any kind of broad white woollen cloths, but only in a city, borough, town corporate, or market town or else in such place or places where such cloths have been used to be commonly made by the space often years next before the making this Act; upon pain of forfeiture for every cloth otherwise made five pounds. VI. Provided always…that it shall not be lawful to any person or persons being a weaver, or that doth or shall use the art or mystery of a weaver or weaving, dwelling out of a city, borough, town corporate, or market town, to have in his and their service any more or above the number of two apprentices at one time; upon pain to forfeit for every time that he shall offend or do contrary to this branch or article the sum of ten pounds. vii. And further be it enacted…that it shall not be lawful to or for any person or persons to set up the art or mystery of weaving, after the said feast of St. Michael, unless the same person or persons so setting up the same art or mystery of weaving, have been apprentice to the same art or mystery, or exercised the same, by the space of 7 years at the least; upon pain of twenty pounds to be forfeited to the King and Queen’s majesties, her grace’s heirs or successors, the one moiety of all which forfeitures shall be to the King and Queen’s highness, her heirs and successors, and the other moiety to him or them that will sue for the same in any court of record…. viii. [This act not to apply to any persons dwelling in the counties of York Cumberland Northumberland or Westmoreland.]

(v) London Masons’ Ordinances, 1521 (Letter Book N. f. 175. b., printed D.Knoop and G.P.Jones, The Medieval Mason, 256)

To the right honourable lord the Mayor of this city of London and his worshipful brethren the Aldermen of the same. Humbly beseech your good lordship and masterships the wardens and company of the mistery of masons freemen of this city that where there be divers articles right necessary and expedient to be added to the ordinances of their mistery as well for the common weal of this as for the good politic governance rule and order to be had and continued of and in the said mistery. It may please your good lordship and masterships to grant unto them certain articles and ordinances ensuing if they appear unto you good and reasonable, and the same by authority of this honourable court to enact stablish and confirm. And to command that the same may be entered of record amongst other records of this court from henceforth firmly to be observed and kept for ever. First be it enacted that it shall not be lawful to any of the said Fellowship to take any apprentice by indenture unto the time that the master of such apprentice have first presented him to and before the wardens for the time being of the said Fellowship and six other being in the livery of the same. To the extent that by their wise discretions they may perceive whether the same apprentice have good capacity to practise and learn the said mistery, and have also his right limbs to exercise the manual feat thereof. And they perceive those good qualities to be in him that then they shall able him to be apprentice, and else not. And that then the master of that

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apprentice shall at the same presentment pay to the use of the common box of the said Fellowship 3s. 4.d. And if any of the said company do contrary to this act he shall forfeit and pay at every time that he so offendeth 20.s. to be divided the one half to the use of the Chamber of London, and the other half to the use of the common box of the said Fellowship. Also be it enacted that it shall not be lawful to any of the said Fellowship to take and have any more apprentices than one at once unto the time he be admitted and taken into the livery of the same Fellowship. And that then he may if he list take and have two apprentices together only and no more. And afterwards when he hath been two several times admitted Warden of the said Fellowship that then and not before it shall be lawful to him to take have and hold together three apprentices only and no more. And that none of the said Fellowship be he never so uncyent or substantial shall at any time pass or exceed the number of three apprentices at once, provided and always foreseen that when and as often hereafter as any apprentice in the said Fellowship have to serve of his apprenticehood but only one year, that then and so often it shall be lawful to every master of such apprentice to take and have another apprentice the said act notwithstanding. And he that doeth contrary to this act shall forfeit and pay as often as he so offendeth 40.s. to be divided in form aforesaid. Also be it enacted that no foreign mason hereafter take nor be suffered to take upon him any work of masonry to make or set up within the City or liberties of the same nor that any mason freeman of this City set any foreign mason awork within the same City or liberties as long and by all the time as there be sufficient and able men of cunning and workmanship enfranchised within this City to do as good and as profitable service for the good expedition of such works as be of any such foreigners: Provided always that if there be no sufficient in number of freemen of the said Fellowship to do and finish in covenable time such works and buildings as shall happen for the time within this City or liberties of the same, that then it shall be lawful to the master mason of any such work to take and receive into the same work as many foreign masons as shall be thought unto him good and sufficient for the expedition of the said work, so always that the same master mason cause every of the same foreign masons so for the time set awork to be contributaries to the said Fellowship, and to pay quarterly during the time they shall so work to the common box of the said Fellowship 3.d. as every other mason being a freeman useth to pay. And every master mason doing contrary to this act shall forfeit and pay at every time that he so doeth 40.s. to be divided in form aforesaid. Provided also that if when and so often hereafter as any bargain perchance be made with any foreign mason for any work of masonry to be wrought made and set up within this City or liberties of the same by any such foreign mason be it engrossed by the week or by the day if any such of the said fellowship will take upon him the said bargain and the same undertake to fulfil and perform in all things, that is to say as [work] workmanly as substantially as profitably and as good cheap as the said foreigner without fraud or male engine hath covenanted to do, and also in task work will undertake to keep his hours and werkes1 likewise as the said foreigner without fraud as is aforesaid 1

Altered from wekes.

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will covenant to do, that then the said freeman so taking upon him shall have the preferment of doing of the said work, and not the said foreign mason. Also be it enacted that from henceforth no freeman of the said Fellowship ask nor take for the wages of any of his apprentices the whole wages of a mason for his week’s work unto the time he hath served and wrought in the foresaid mistery fully the term of four, years of his apprenticehood. And over that, that every such apprentice after the said 4 years so expired be brought and presented to and before the Chamberlain of this City, and the Wardens of the said Fellowship for the time being. And by them thereunto abled and admitted. And as touching the wages of and for every such apprentice within the said term of 4 years and before the said admission the same wages to be rated and set by the Wardens of the said Fellowship for thetime being according to their sad and wise discretions and good consciences. And every master of such apprentice doing contrary to this act shall forfeit and pay at every time that he offendeth in that behalf 20.s. to be divided in form aforesaid.

(vi) Regulation of apprentices. An act concerning the avoiding of exactions levied upon apprentices. St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 4. 1531. (Stat. Realm, III, 321)

[Despite St. 19 Hen. VII, c. 7. forbidding the governors of gilds and fraternities from making acts and ordinances prejudicial to the king’s prerogative and against the common profit of the people, divers wardens and fellowships have made acts or ordinances whereby every apprentice must pay at his first entry into their common hall fees varying from forty shillings to three shillings and fourpence:] It is therefore now enacted…that no master, wardens, or fellowships of crafts or masters or any of them, nor any rulers of fraternities take from henceforth of any apprentice or of any other person or persons for the entry of any apprentice into their said fellowship above the sum of 2.s. 6.d., nor for his entry, when his years and term is expired and ended, above 3.s. 4.d., upon pain of forfeiture of £40 for every time that they do to the contrary, the one half to the King, our sovereign lord, the other half to the party that therefor shall sue by action of debt, information, or otherwise, and that in the action aforesaid no protection or essoin shall be allowed.

(vii) A bond of apprenticeship, 1531 (M.Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester, III, 29)

This indenture made the 24.th.day of February in the reign of our sovereign lord king Henry the VIII.th., the 22nd. witnesseth that John Harbard, late of Turweston, does bind himself prentice to William Tebbe, then being Mayor of Leicester, to the baker’s craft for the term of 7 years, and the 8th. year journeyman; also the said William does bind him by this indenture to give to the said John for the term of 7 years every year 8.d. and the 8th. year every week 6.d., and to be double arrayed both for the holyday and the work day at his coming forth, and to be kept as a prentice should be, that is to say, meat and drink, hose and shoes, linen, woollen, and his craft to be taught him and nothing to be hid from

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him thereof; also the said John does bind himself by this indenture to be true servant for those years, and that he shall not steal none of his master’s goods, not by 6.d. in the year, and that he shall not use no gaming, nor he shall not make no promise of wedlock except his master give him leave, nor he shall not buy nor sell except it be for his master’s profit, and he shall keep his master’s counsel in all manner of things that is lawful. In witness hereof William Tebbe, Thomas Kattelyn, bailiff, John Westes, Thomas Bette, justices of the peace, Thomas Howytt, William Fowler, clerk, with others more.

149. Types of industry, illustrated from various sources (i) Clothmaking (a) Sir Richard Ryche to Cromwell, 1538 (L.P. XIII, i, 332)

H

e and other officers have viewed the late monastery of Abingdon. The houses, except the church, “a great and goodly thing well repaired”, are decayed. The abbot’s lodging will not be fit for the King without great expense. No land either on the north-east side or on the south, where the meadows by the Thames lie, may be imparked without great hindrance to the town. Begs the King to send workmen to appoint what part of the church, &c. shall be defaced. A great part may be defaced and yet sufficient left for his Grace’s contentation. The town is like to decay unless the people be set to work to “drape cloth”. One Tuckar, clothmaker, of Burford promises, if the King will let him two fulling mills, the floodgates, the fishing, and the farm called the Rye, at rents as surveyed, to expend 100 marks a week in wages to clothmakers of the town during his life.1 (b) Thomas Cade to Cromwell, 1538 (Ibid. 415)

Recommends the bearer, who desires Cromwell to further his suit to Mr. Riche and the other Commissioners, for the farm of certain lands, mills, waters, &c. late of the abbey of Abingdon. The said bearer will always be ready to serve the King with 20 tall men, at Cromwell’s command. He is a just man both in word and deed, and daily employs 500 of the King’s subjects; if he had carding and spinning he would employ many more. With Cromwell’s favour he would set the inhabitants of Abingdon to work, if they will work, so that they would gain more wages in a few years coming than in 20 years past. Weekly need constrains him to send to Abingdon his cart laden with wool to be carded and spun, and likewise he sends to Strodwater. He will give you £20 to buy a saddle. (c) Summary of a petition from the weavers of Suffolk & Essex amongst the State Papers, 1539 (L.P. XIV, 874) Petition of the weavers of woollen cloth in Suffolk and Essex…that whereas by a statute “concerning the pure and true making of woollen cloths” every cloth must “keep the 1

For another example, see No. 19.d.

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full rate and size” their masters the clothiers will make no allowance for the same and have their own looms and weavers and fullers in their own houses so that the petitioners are rendered destitute; “for the rich men the clothiers be concluded and agreed among themselves to hold and pay one price for weaving of the said cloths”, which price is too little for the petitioners to sustain their households upon, even by working day and night, holy day and work day. Many of them are reduced to become other men’s servants. Have presented a bill into the Parliament house, but as yet have little comfort thereof. Beg Cromwell’s aid in furtherance of it.

(ii) Shoemaking (a) Petition by the Norwich Shoemakers, 1490 (Hudson and Tingey (eds.), Records of the City of Norwich, II, 104) It is agreed that the bill of the Shoemakers craft shall be enacted according to the effect of that bill. And whosoever of the said craft shall act to the contrary, he shall forfeit six shillings and eight pence, and they shall be divided in this form, viz., one part to the community and the other part to the craft. Which same bill, word for word, follows. To our right honourable Masters, the Mayor and his brethren aldermen, and to our good masters and wellwillers of the common counsel of the City, sheweth to your great discretions the poor artificers and craftsmen of shoemakers of the said City, that where divers journeymen and servants of the said craft greatly disposed to riot and idleness, whereby may succeed great poverty, so that divers days weekly when them lust to leave their bodily labour till a great part of the week be almost so expended and wasted, against the advantage and profit verily of themselves and of their Masters also. And also contrary to the law of God and good guiding temporal, they labour quickly toward the Sunday and festival days on the Saturdays and vigils from four of the clock at afternoon to the deepness and darkness of the night following. And not only that sinful disposition but much worse so offending in the mornings of such feasts, and omitting the hearing of their divine service; Wherefore prayeth the said artificers heartily, that the rather for God’s cause and also that virtuous and true labour might help to the sustentation of the said craft, that by your general assent may be ordained and enacted for a laudable custom, that none such servant or journeyman from henceforth presume to occupy nor work after the said hour in vigils and Saturdays aforesaid, upon pain by your discretions to be set for punishment as well of the said artificers for their favouring and supporting, as for the said journeymen so working and offending. (b) A strike of shoemakers, 1538. (Thomas, bishop of Ely to Cromwell. (L.P. XIII, i, 1454)) On 21 July there assembled 21 journeymen shoemakers at Wisbech at a mill hill without the town, on pretence to get more wages of their masters for a dozen shoes’ sewing. Sends depositions of a part of them:—Six were apprehended, among whom was a brother of Captain Cobbler, late of Lowth in Lincolnshire. The confession of Henry Leverett, of Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, shoemaker, before

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John Hynde, king’s serjeant-at-law, John Goderick, Geoffrey Colvyle, Thomas Rudston, Alexander Balam, and Richard Rede, justices, 22 July, 30 Henry VIII. i. That he joined in an assembly of 22 shoemakers, 21 July, at the mill hill called the Milfield, in Wisbech, for the purpose of raising their wages, and that none should work unless their masters gave them 18.d. for sewing every dozen pair of shoes, instead of 15.d. as before; that he took a primer out of his bosom, and one Edward, servant to Robert Smythe, administered to him an oath to that effect. ii. The confession of Thomas Drabbe, of Wisbech, shoemaker:—That after the assembly 17 of the persons came to his house, he being from home, and sent three of their company to all their masters to come thither and speak with them. On his coming home, Leverett told him their object, when he bade them go to their other masters, and if they were content he also would agree. Leverett said this was but a scorn, and he then said he would give his own servants their old wages, and if they would not stay he knew where to find others, Leverett then said, “And if they so do and depart the town there shall none come into the town to serve for that wages within a twelve-month and a day, but we woll have an harme or a legge of him, except they woll take an othe as we have done.”

(iii) Making of furnaces, 1557 (C.P.R., Philip & Mary, 1557–8, 132)

Whereas John Herdegen, Almain, citizen of Norrenberghe, has by his great travail attained unto such knowledge of a new fashion of making all sorts of furnaces meet for seething vessels in pans or kettles of beerbrewers, alebrewers, dyers, soapmakers, salt seethers and other like, not heretofore used in the realm, as may serve for the well doing of the premises with much less firewood than is presently expended; In consideration of the favour that should be given to the first finders of anything profitable for the commonwealth and of the commodity that may grow to those using the said crafts in the great scarcity of firewood:— Protection to Herdegen and grant that he, his servants, factors, etc., English and strangers, and no others, for 5 years from the present date, make or cause to be made within this realm of England or Ireland all sorts of new kinds or fashions for seething vessels, kettles, pans, leads or coppers for the purposes aforesaid and to sell and distribute the same; and no other person shall make furnaces for seething vessels of the new fashion under pain of imprisonment; offenders are to remain in ward without bail until they have made fine to the crown for their contempt and reasonable recompence to Herdegen.

(iv) Mining (a) Government Control of Metal Mines, 1486 (C.P.R. 1485–94, 69) Appointment as the king’s commissioners of his mines in England and Wales of tin, lead, copper, gold and silver of Jasper, duke of Bedford, the king’s uncle, Thomas, archbishop of York, John, bishop of Worcester, chancellor, Peter, bishop of Exeter, John, bishop of Ely, John, earl of Oxford, great chamberlain of England, Thomas, earl of Derby, Henry, earl of

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Northumberland, Edward, earl of Devon, Sir George Straunge, Sir Henry Gray of Cotoner, Sir William Stanley, the king’s chamberlain, Sir John Powes, Rhys ap Thomas, knight, Reynold Bray, knight, Richard Foxe, the king’s secretary, Thomas Lovell, Hugh Conway and Richard Eyre: of William Goderswyke, gentleman, and Henry Vanorle, merchant of Colayn, to be commissioners, governors, and orderers of the said mines to answer for the profits thereof; and of William Tyler, knight, to be commissioner and comptroller of the said mines and governors, the mines of the counties of Cornwall and Devon excepted, for twenty years from the Purification last; they rendering to the king a twelfth part of the gold and silver and paying to the lords of the soil wherein the mines are an eleventh part, and supporting all the expenses of the mines. They may search and dig for mines anywhere without impediment, but not under houses or castles without licence of the lord of the soil. They and their servants may take all wood, brushwood, and charcoal needed for the separation, proving, and purifying the metals and land and water carriage for the same at reasonable price to be agreed upon with the possessors; and may arrest the necessary labourers for the works of the said mines; and put them on the works at reasonable wages. All persons engaged in the said mines shall be free and quit of the plea of naifty and of all pleas and plaints pertaining to the king’s court, so that they shall not answer before any justices or ministers touching any plea or plaint arising within the limits of the said mines but only before the keepers of the said mines, pleas of land, life and limb excepted; and they shall not withdraw from the said works at the summons of any minister of the king, but only at the summons of the said keepers. They shall be quit of all tallages, tolls, aids, and other customs in towns, ports, fairs and markets “within the said parts as regards their own goods. The said keepers shall hold all pleas between the said artificers and others; and between them and foreigners touching all trespasses, plaints and contracts in places where they work and within the limits of the mines; and shall do justice therein. And if the said artificers and others commit any offence for which they ought to be imprisoned, they are to be arrested by the said keepers and kept in the nearest prison until they are delivered by law and the custom of the realm. And if any artificer, workman, or labourer shall in any matter within the limits of the mines not touching artificers, workmen, or labourers, put himself upon an inquisition of the country, one half of such inquisition shall consist of artificers, workmen and labourers, and the other half of foreigners; in any matter entirely touching themselves it shall consist of themselves without foreigners. The said commissioners, governors and comptrollers shall have power to appoint a steward to hold a court in the king’s name from time to time in the said mines touching all pleas and plaints, except pleas of land, life, and limb; and they shall have a seal to the use of the said mines. (b) Lease of Mining Rights, 1486 (C.P.R. 1485–94, 116) Indenture, whereby the king leases to Sir Robert Willoughby, knight, for the king’s body, all the gold, silver, lead and copper mines in the counties of Cornwall and Devon

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for the term of twelve years from Michaelmas last, yielding yearly to the king the twelfth bolle of the said ore, well washed, provided that it shall be lawful to the said Sir Robert to take and perceive to his proper use the tail of the said ore after the first washing as nigh as it shall like him to take it, and all such paring of the house, and “testwerke sloggys” as shall be made at the fining mill, as well the quick sloggys as the dead, during the said term; with power to compel and take, as well within liberties as without, within the said counties, all such labourers for the mines as shall be necessary, paying them such salary and wages as to them of right oweth and shall owe to be due and appertaining and agree. Also the said Robert and his assigns may buy all such stuff as to the said mines, workmen, and labourers shall be necessary, as iron, wool, ropes, canvas, stone, tallow for candles, wick, “yern, scoin”, pitch and tar, with all other stuff to the same belonging, therefor paying to the parties as they can agree. Also the king grants to him power to hold courts for all manner offences done within the said lordship where the said mines are occupied and to award all such processes and executions as to the same of old time have been accustomed and used. And Sir Robert promiseth and bindeth him unto our said sovereign lord to leave the mines as well apparelled and staffed and in as good condition as he findeth them the day of making of this indenture. (c) Proposals of Joachim Hochstater to the king for working the mines discovered in England 1528 (L.P. IV, ii, 5110.) Will go thither in person with six Germans who understand the work, and commence working with 1,000 men. States the best arrangements for paying the men, and deprecates unnecessary expense, to avoid which it would be advisable to adopt the agreement made between the Legate and himself. Advises the building of a foundry at Kumpmartin1 under the superintendance of Maistre Pierre and another German. Asks for power to levy men, if necessary, and for a prohibition of the men carrying weapons on pain of losing a finger.

(v) Glassmaking (a) Monopoly for the making of Normandy glass (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1550–3, p. 323 (26 April 1552)) Whereas Henry S my th of London, merchant, intends to bring certain strangers into the realm expert in making “broke glasse” such as is commonly called “Normandy glasse”, whereby divers of the King’s subjects ‘may be sett to worke and gett their ly vyng and in tyme learne and be hable to make the said glasse themselfes’ and instruct others: Licence to the said Henry Smyth to bring from beyond seas such persons as are expedient for making the said “grasse” (sic); and for twenty years to make the said “Normandy glasse” anywhere within the realm; and no person without his authority “shall attempte or presume to make any kynde of the said brode glasse commonly 1

Combe Martin.

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wount to be called Normandye glasse or any other fytte for wyndowes” on pain of forfeiture of all glass so made. (c) Motion made in the Council of Ten about Venetian glassmakers employed by Edward VI. (C.S.P. Venice, v, 669 (13 June 1550)) That to gratify the most Serene King of England it be conceded to the under-mentioned glassmakers there, who were summoned to return hither within the period of eight months, that notwithstanding the said proclamation they may continue working in England until the expiration of the term of their contract stipulated with the said most serene King, which will expire in about 18 months, as stated in the ambassador’s letter from England, dated the 24th. February last. On the expiration of that term of about 18 months, they must immediately return hither, under the penal ties in the proclamation aforesaid. And be the Signory’s ambassador in England written to accordingly, so that he may explain to the King, that for his Majesty’s satisfaction they have thus chosen to make this concession. The ambassador to act in such wise with his Majesty, that at the period assigne, leave be given them, and that he do also desire the said glassmakers to return at the time aforesaid.

(vi) Soapmaking (L. P. XXI, i, 302, g. 41[(February 1546))

John Pykes. Grant for 40 years, at 6s. 8d. rent, of all weeds called “see ore and kyppes” growing upon rocks along the seaside “within the full sea mark” from the point called Portishead, Soms., to the haven of Sainct Tyves, Cornw., and from the point called Pennart, co. Glam., to St. David’s head “in our marches of Wales.” The preamble runs “where our well beloved subject John Pykes, merchant of our city of Bristol, hath travelled the parts of beyond the sea and to his great costs and charges hath invented and attained the knowledge and experience for the making of white soap called “Civile sope,”1 which never heretofore hath been made within this our realm of England; and whereas certain weeds called “see ore and kippes” are very necessary for the making of the said soap, and for that he shall exercise and make the same, and instruct and bring up others under him to attain the knowledge thereof that the same may be a wealth and commodity to our subjects inhabiting within our said realm from henceforth.” 1

Seville soap.

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D. MONEY 150. A selection of documents relating to usury An act against usury and unlawful bargains. St. 3 Hen. VII, c. 6, 1487 (Stat. Realm, II, 514)

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orsomuch as importable damages, losses and impoverishing of this realm is had by damnable bargains grounded in usury, coloured by the name of newchevisance, contrary to the law of natural justice, to the common hurt of this land, and to the great displeasure of God: the King for the reformation thereof and of all corrupt and unlawful bargains, by the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present parliament assembled…enacteth that if hereafter any bargain, covenant by buying of any obligation or bill or by any pledge put for surety or by bill or otherwise, by the name of dry exchange or otherwise, whereby any certain sum shall be lost by any covenant or promise betwixt any person or persons, by themselves or any other to their knowledge within this realm, or of any bargain or loan whereby any of the parties shall lose or pay for any sum certain, that is to say for having £100 in money or in merchandise or otherwise, and therefor to pay or to find surety to pay £120 or more or less in and for any more or less sum after any manner rate, that all such bargains, covenants, promise and sureties therefor made, and all thing thereof depending, be utterly void and of none effect. And over this that it be ordained by the same authority that if any merchandises, obligations, bills or plate be promised to be delivered upon such corrupt bargains, and never delivered, or delivered and had again to him that ought such merchandises, obligations, bills or plate, or knoweth by any other man by assent, agreement or knowledge in any manner form of him or his factor or broker that such merchandises ought and are privy to such bargains, that all such bargains, covenants, promises and all sureties therefor made be utterly void; and seller and owner, bargainer or promiser of such corrupt bargains or goods lease for every such bargain made by him or his factor £100, and whosoever will sue therefor to have an action of debt, in which the party shall not wage his law, the King to have the one half and he that will sue the other half. And forsomuch as these corrupt bargains be most usually had within cities and boroughs having authority to try all matters and causes grown and had within the same cities and boroughs, and if any such defaults should there be tried, perjury by likeliness thereby should grow and little of the premises to be found, therefore it be ordained by the said authority that as well the Chancellor of England for the time being have authority and power to examine all manner corrupt bargains, promises, loans, or sales grown and had of any of the premises, and thereupon by his examination to hear and determine the same, and to give like judgement and make like execution thereof, as the matter were tried and found at the party’s suit in any such action of debt by course of the common law, as the Justices of the Peace of any shire next adjoining to

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any city or borough where such defaults be, of any of the premises, and they to make like process against any man thereof indicted afore them of any of the premises, as they should or owe to do against any man that were indicted afore them of any riot or trespass, and to determine it; and if any man be found guilty afore them of any of the premises to forfeit the foresaid pain of £100: reserving to the Church this punishment notwithstanding the correction of their souls according to the laws of the same.

An act against usury. St. 37 Hen. VIII, c. 9, 1545 (Stat. Realm, III, 996)

Where before this time divers and sundry acts, statutes, and laws have been ordained, had, and made within this realm for the avoiding and punishment of Usury, being a thing unlawful, and of other corrupt bargains, shifts, and chevisaunces, which acts, statutes, and laws be so obscure and dark in sentences, words, and terms, and upon the same so many doubts, ambiguities, and questions have risen and grown, and the same acts, statutes, and laws be of so little force and effect, that by reason thereof little or no punishment hath ensued to the offenders of the same, but rather hath encouraged them to use the same: for reformation whereof be it enacted…that all and every the said acts, statutes, and laws heretofore made of, for, or concerning usury, shifts, corrupt bargains, and chevisaunces, and every of them, and all pains, forfeitures, and penalties concerning the same and every part thereof, shall from henceforth be utterly void and of none effect to all intents, constructions, and purposes. II. And be it further enacted…that no person nor persons, of what estate, degree, or condition soever he or they be, from and after the last day of January next coming, shall by himself, factor, attorney, servant, or deputy, sell his merchandizes or wares to any person or persons, and within three months next after by himself, factor, attorney, deputy, or by any other person or persons to his use and behoof, buy the same merchandizes or wares, or any part or parcel thereof, upon a lower price, knowing them to be the same wares or merchandizes that he did before so bargain and sell, upon the pains and forfeitures hereafter limited in this statute. III. And be it also enacted…that no person or persons of what estate, degree, quality, or condition soever he or they be, at any time after the said last day of January next coming, by way or means of any corrupt bargain, loan, or exchange, chevisaunce, shift, interest of any wares, merchandizes or other thing or things whatsoever, or by any other corrupt or deceitful way or means, or by any covin, engine, or deceitful way or conveyance, shall have, receive, accept, or take, in lucre or gains, for the forbearing or giving day of payment of one whole year of and for his or their money or other things that shall be due for the same wares…above the sum often pounds in the hundred, and so after that rate, and not above, of, and for a more or less sum, or for a longer or shorter time, and no more or greater gain or sum thereupon to be had, upon the pains and forfeitures hereafter in this Act mentioned and contained. IV. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons…do bargain and sell or lay to mortgage by any way or means, any manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments to any person or persons, upon condition of payment or non-payment of any sum or

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sums of money to be had, paid, or made at any day certain, or before any such day, by him that shall so bargain, sell, or lay to mortgage the same manors, lands, tenements or hereditaments that the same person or persons to whom any such manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments shall be so bargained, sold, or laid to mortgage, shall not by reason thereof have nor take in lucre or gains of the issues, revenues, and profits of the same manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments, above the sum often pounds in the hundred for one whole year, and so after the rate abovesaid for a more or lesser sum or for a longer or shorter time, and no more nor otherwise, upon the pains, forfeitures, and penalties hereafter in this present statute limited and expressed. V. And be it further enacted…[that all offenders] shall forfeit and lose for every such offence the treble value of the wares and merchandizes and other thing or things so bargained, sold, exchanged, or shifted, and the treble value of the issues and profits of the said manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments so had, taken, or received by reason of any such bargain, sale, or mortgage, and also shall have and suffer imprisonment of his body, and make fine and ransom at the King’s will and pleasure; the moiety of which forfeiture of the said treble value shall be to the King, and the other moiety to him or them that will sue for the same, in any of the King’s courts by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in which action, bill, plaint, or information, no wager of law, essoin, or protection shall be admitted or allowed.

An act against usury. St. 5/6 Edward VI, c. 20, 1551 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 155) After reciting St. 37 Hen. VIII, c. 9, the act continues:

The which Act was not meant or intended for maintenance and allowance of Usury, as divers persons, blinded with inordinate love of themselves have and yet do mistake the same, but rather was made and intended against all sorts and kinds of Usury as a thing unlawful, as by the title and preamble of the said Act it doth plainly appear, And yet, nevertheless, the same was by the said Act permitted for the avoiding of a more ill and inconvenience that before that time was used and exercised: But, forasmuch as Usury is by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable, as in divers places of the holy Scripture it is evident to be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet by any terrible threatenings of God’s wrath and vengeance that justly hangeth over this realm for the great and open Usury therein daily used and practised they will forsake such filthy gain and lucre, unless some temporal punishment be provided and ordained in that behalf: For reformation whereof, be it enacted…that from the first day of May which shall be in the year of our Lord God a thousand five hundred fifty and two, the said Act and Statute concerning only Usury, lucre, or gains of or for the loan, forbearing or giving days of any sum or sums of money be utterly abrogate, void, and repealed. II. And furthermore be it enacted…that from and after the said first day of May next coming, no person nor persons of what estate, degree, quality or condition soever he or

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they be, by any corrupt, colourable, or deceitful conveyance, sleight, or engine, or by any way or mean, shall lend, give, set out, deliver, or forbear any sum or sums of money, to any person or persons, or to any corporation or body politic, to or for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest to be had, received, or hoped for, over and above the sum or sums so lent, given, set out, delivered, or forborne upon pain of forfeiture the value as well of the sum or sums so lent, given, set out, delivered, or forborne, as also of the usury increase, lucre, gain, or interest thereof, and also upon pain of imprisonment of the body or bodies of every such offender or offenders, and also to make fine and ransom at the king’s will and pleasure; the moiety of which forfeiture of the said value shall be to the king, and the other moiety to the party that will sue for the same in any of the king’s courts of record by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information wherein no wager of law, essoin, or protection shall be allowed or admitted. 10 Nov. 1558.

An Exception to the Rule (C.P.R. 1557–58, 434)

Licence to Thomas Whyte, knight, John Whyte and Roger Martyn, citizens and aldermen of London, and William Blackwell, gentleman, common clerk of the same, city, to receive interest at the rate of £12 in the hundred for one whole year for the sum of £1800 lent by them to the queen for her weighty affairs, notwithstanding the act of Edward VI.

17 June, 1548 Pawnbroking (C.P.R. 1548–49. P. 9)

Felix Verhoven, merchant of Andwerpe, in Brabant hath made supplication unto us, that he, intending with his own proper money to aid and help the poor of our realm and others who shall require the same at his hands in the time of their such necessity, upon convenient and sufficient gages, desireth therefore but such advantage as shall rather be commodity to borrower than to the lender, and as it shall please us to limit and assign; Forasmuch as we are advertised that divers and sundry other shifts are at this present time made contrary to all charity and conscience with such great lucre and advantage and such crafty and subtle conditions which often tendeth to great undoing of our subjects which be constrained either so to take money or else to want still and be in great and extreme necessity; We, thinking therefore this a more charitable way to moderate the unsatiable mind of them which lendeth money than to enforce men to seek other shifts and more costly and dangerous ways whereby they are often clearly undone and put from their substance and living, and having an especial eye to the supportation and aid of the poor who some time be constrained to borrow but small sums of money and knoweth not whither to go for the same, and willing to try and essay for a time the benevolence and practice of the said Verhoven whether it be convenient to be used and suffered within our realm, do grant:— Licence to the said Felix Verhoven to use in London or elsewhere “a table of exchange or loan” as he does in Andwerpe, taking weekly for “any sum of money” lent not

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above the rate of one halfpenny for the loan, and redelivering the gage or pledge when the loan is repaid; and protection for him, his factors and ministers, who shall have wrongs redressed and have their testaments and last wills respected, if they die as if they were Englishmen or denizens, or else if they die intestate their goods shall remain to the next of kin according to the law of their native country.

Loans to citizens, 1555 (York Civic Records, V, 111)

It is further agreed that forty pounds shall be taken forth of the common treasure now remaining in the coffers of this city with the chamberlains and delivered to my Lord Mayor for the time being and keep safely under two or three keys, whereof one to the custody of my said Lord Mayor and the other two keys of two other substantial discreet persons to be thereunto appointed to the intent that the said £10. [sic] may be used according to Girdlington’s will, that is to say, lent to citizens upon gages of plate, iron, wax, etc., as in the said Girdlington’s will is more plainly expressed.

151. Documents illustrating the debasement of the coinage An act against carrying out of this realm any coin, plate, or jewels. St. 1 Hen. VIII, c. 13, 1510 (Stat. Realm, III, 7)

W

here in a parliament begun and holden at Westminster the 16th. day of January in the 17th. year of King Edward the Fourth, amongst other it was ordained, by authority of the same parliament, that no person should carry nor make to be carried out of this realm or Wales nor from no part of the same, any manner money of the coin of this realm, nor money of the coin of other realms, lands, or lordships, nor plate, vessel, bullion nor jewel of gold, garnished or ungarnished, or of silver, without the king’s licence, but such persons as be dispensed within the statute made in the second year of King Henry the 6th. and other divers statutes made, upon pain of felony, as in the said statute and ordinance more plainly doth appear; the which statute and ordinance was made to endure from the feast of Easter in the 18th year of the said King Edward unto the end of 7 years then next ensuing; which statute and ordinance afore rehearsed by authority of parliament holden in the fourth year of the reign of [the late king] of most famous memory Henry the VIIIth. were affirmed and enacted to be good and effectual from the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady the year of our Lord God 1489, and to endure unto the end of 20 years then next ensuing; And forasmuch as the said statute, ordinance and act should expire and which is thought for the more part to be very good and necessary: Therefore be it enacted by authority of this present parliament that the said statutes, ordinances, and acts above rehearsed be and shall stand good and effectual from the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady in the year of our Lord God 1509 after the computation of England in everything therein contained, except only the penalty of felony in the said statute limited to. And that from the said 1

Confirmed and continued for 20 years by St. 7 Edw. VI, c. 6.

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Feast of the Purification of Our Lady in the year of Our Lord God 1509 every person that shall carry or do to be carried any money, coin, plate, vessel, bullion, jewels of gold, garnished or ungarnished, or of silver, contrary to the form of the said statutes shall forfeit the double value of the same, the one half thereof to the King, and the other half to him that shall seize it, or therefor sue by action of debt at common law. And this act to endure unto the next parliament.

The debasement of 1526 (Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters, II, 630–631)

Henry the 8, by the grace of God king of England and of France, defender of the faith, lord of Ireland, to the most reverend father in God our most trusty and most entirely beloved counsellor the lord Thomas, cardinal of York, archbishop, legate de latere of the see apostolic, primate of England and our chancellor of the same, greeting. Forasmuch as coins of moneys as well of gold as of silver be of late days raised and enhanced both in the realm of France and also in the emperor’s Low Countries and in other parts unto higher prices than the very poiz, weight, fineness, and valuation of the same, and otherwise than they were accustomed to be current, by means whereof the money of this our realm is daily and of long season hath been by sundry persons as well our subjects as strangers, for their particular gain and lucre conveyed out of this realm into the parts beyond the seas, and so is likely to continue more and more, to the great hindrance of the generality of our subjects and people and to the no little impoverishing of our said realm, if the same be not speedily remedied and foreseen: We after long debating of this matter with you and sundry other of our council, and after remission made unto outward princes for reformation thereof, and finding finally no manner of remedy to be had at their hands, have by mature deliberation determined, that our coins and moneys as well of gold as of silver shall be by our officers of our mint from henceforth made of such fineness, alloy, standard and value, as may be equivalent, correspondent and agreeable to the rates of the valuation enhanced and raised in outward parts, as is afore specified. Whereupon we have given commandment by our other letters under the great seal to our master warden, comptroller and other officers of our said mint and to either of them, to see this our determination put in execution of the said coins by proclamation or otherwise as in the print coin struck of the same. Wherefore by these patents we will and authorize you to proceed not only from time to time when you shall see conveniently by advice of such other our council as you shall think good to the limitation, description and devising, how and after what manner form our said moneys may be brought unto the rates and values, fineness, lay, standard and print by you and them to be thought requisite, but also to appoint our said officers of our mint duly to follow, execute, obey and fulfil the same in every point according. In which doing, these our letters patents under our great seal shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge, any act, statute, ordinance or law or other thing whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. In witness whereof we have caused these patents to be sealed with our great seal at Westminster the 24th day of July, the 18th year of the reign.

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Proclamation on coinage, 5 November 1526 (L.P. IV, 2609) For the lengthy text of which this is a summary see Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I. 158.163

Writ to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex to make the following proclamation touching the coinage, to check the exportation of specie arising from the increased value of the currency on the continent. Coins to be rated intrinsically, and pass current as follows:— The sovereign for 22.s. 6.d; the royal, 11.s. 3.d.; with its half and quarter; the angel noble, 7.s. 6.d; with its half; the crown of gold of the sun, and all other crowns of the same “weight and fineness”, not notably broken, as at present, 4.s.6.d; Another coin called the George noble to pass for 6.s. 8.d; “as the angel noble was accustomed”, with its half. A new coin, the crown of the double rose, 5.s. with its half. The silver coinage to pass at the present rates, and a new issue to be made, in which the ounce Troy shall be converted into 3.s. 9.d., in groats, half groats, pence, halfpence, and farthings. Sterling exchanged for the new currency will be worth 3.s. 8.d. the ounce, I penny being deducted for coinage. The pound ‘Towre weight’, i.e. II¼ oz., for which 2.s. 6.d. were formerly paid is to be no longer used. Troy weight to be adopted for the future. 2.s. 9.d. in the pound charged for coining gold; and for crowns and half crowns of the double rose, 3.s. No rate of exchange of foreign ducats is fixed, but such can be dealt with as bullion at the above rates. All rents to be paid in the new currency, but payments in the old coinage received previous to the date may be taken as current. All sums payable between the date of the last proclamation (22 August last)1 and the present shall pass at the rates mentioned there, but all future payments at the rates herein set forth.

The debasement of 1544. 16 May 1544 (L.P. XIX, i, 513) For full text, Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, I. 327–329

Proclamation that (whereas in Flanders and France the valuation of money is so enhanced that coin is daily carried out of the realm notwithstanding the King’s commands to the officers of the ports to enforce the statutes against this, so that the only remedy seems to be the enhancing of the value of gold and silver in this realm) the King, by advice of his Council fixes the value of the ounce of fine gold of 24 carats at 48s. and of the ounce of the finest sterling silver at 4s. The King has caused a piece of gold to be newly made which shall be called the “soveraigne” and shall be current for 20s. of lawful money; and a half sovereigne for 10s. The royal gold “being weight” shall henceforth be of the value of 12s. the angel 8s., half angel 4s. and quarter angel 2s. His Highness has also caused to be newly made certain pieces of silver viz., a “testorne” to be current for 12d. a groat, with a whole face current for 4d., a half groat of the same stamp 2d. Gold and silver brought to the Tower to be coined shall be paid for at the above prices, 48s. and 4s. the oz. All groats, pence, half-pence and farthings not clipped nor fully broken shall be lawful tender even though cracked, and persons refusing them are to be imprisoned. 1

L.P. IV, 2423. Proclamation fixing prices of certain coins.

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Provided always that debts due before the 1st day of this present month of May shall be paid after the rate of 7s. 6d. the angel.

A discussion on the Coinage, 1553 (W.A.J.Archbold, E.H.R. XIII. (1898), 709–710) Sir John Price (d. 1573?) gained a reputation as a visitor of the monasteries. This tract on the coinage was written in 1553, and was dedicated to Queen Mary. In it Price refers to a larger treatise on the same subject, but this has been lost. This shorter work, from which this extract is taken, consists of an address to the Queen, an exposition of general principles, a statement of the evils consequent upon debasement, and of the coinage in 1553, concluding with a series of suggestions for reform.

Things to be taken for sure grounds about the restitution of the coin: First: that like as no prince can set price of any wares to endure for any time, no more can he bring to pass that his coin shall be better esteemed specially any long time, than the goodness of the metal that the coin is made of doth require, because every realm must have traffic with other, and metals have their prices set certain, one above an other in their degrees through the whole world, as one portion of gold is worth twelve times as much as silver, one of silver is worth one hundred and forty parts of tin and quicksilver, and of brass two hundred and twenty parts, and of lead eight hundred parts and of iron one thousand two hundred and eighty parts or thereabout most commonly, but as the finer of every sort of these is somewhat dearer than the rest, so are they all better cheap where they be digged, and where they be plentiful than elsewhere. And albeit base coin of coarse metal hath for a season sometime been reputed as good as fine silver, that was like as a man that taketh a counterfeit groat as good as a true, or a counterfeit diamond for a true, till he know it, and then esteemeth it as it is worthy. And if a prince might value his money at his pleasure, then might he provide that there should never be dearth of anything in his realm, but as the price of corn, or other thing doth rise, he might rise likewise the price of his money. Then it must be confessed that money is the common measure of all things that are vendible and like as one metal is esteemed by an other as afore is declared, so are other things vendible esteemed and measured by the metal that the money which is given for it is made of. Also, that the coin or print of the money is but as a seal or a mark that should testify what quantity and goodness every piece should bear and contain, as some names of money, yet kept in use in the English tongue do declare as a pound of sterling money was also a pound in weight…. This must be taken also for confessed that as the coin is abased the price of all things that are vendible must and do arise after the same portion that the coin is so abased, if it be more, more, if it be less, less. And that there is two ways of abasing the coin one by mixture of base metal with fine, and to utter it as though it were all fine, which is the deceit that is imputed to these alchemists, The other is by giving less weight of good metal in the coin than the nature, name and credit of that coin doth require, which is much like as if the clerk of the market would put the King’s seal to a less bushel or to any other measure or weight than that which was used and allowed beforetime.

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Also it must be confessed that these two last faults are now deprehended and known universally to be in our coin both baseness of metal in the mixed coin and less weight in the fine than the name which it beareth doth require by one part in three. And yet besides that, one other fault as great as any of them, that is lack of equivalence in the coin current, forasmuch as one testoon is better than another, the fine new coin better than the base universally, and yet all at one estimate in the market, which inequality is cause of much robbing of the treasure of the realm, while the best money is ever picked and carried over, and the worst only left us…. It must be therefore confessed for the causes aforesaid that therefore there is given for our coin now of any wares outward or inward, not after that name that our coin doth bear, but after the value of the metal that is in it (as in things bought beyond sea doth well appear) for as in ten shillings of our money now, there is but two oz. of silver which was before in twenty groats sterling so ye have but so much ware for your ten shillings now as you had for twenty sterling groats before. And though it be so well of wares bought beyond sea, as of men that esteem things rightly yet for most things bought within the realm ye pay more than after that rate, over that ye were wont to pay when sterling was at ten groats the oz: as if ye peruse and confer the old and new price of a pig, goose, capon, chicken, and of all other victual for horse and man, ye shall soon perceive, which is by reason our people think our money yet worse than it is in deed. And so in more discredit with them than the right value of it doth require, which is long of the baseness of the said coin, which being depured would take away that discredit and bring all men to esteem the coin at the least ways at no less value than the stuff thereof did require. Also this can not be denied, but that it were better for all men to have this coin once called to his right name correspondent to his just value, though there were once some loss to be borne therein whereby men should be ever after assured that they should have no less therefor than the name thereof doth purport than as they be now to be daily and yearly deceived the third part in every piece or sum that they receive.

The harm done by debasement of the coinage (Lamond, Commonweal, 69–72:80–82:85–87)

Doctor…. And now I must come to that thing, that you, brother merchant, touched before; which I take to be the chief cause of all this dearth of things, and of the manifest impoverishment of this realm, and might in brief time be the destruction of the same, if it be not the rather remedied, that is the debasing or rather corrupting of our coin and treasure; whereby we have devised a way for the strangers not only to buy our gold and silver for brass, and not only to exhaust this realm of treasure, but also to buy our chief commodities in manner for nothing. It was thought it should have been a means, not only to bring our treasure home, but to bring much of others; but experience hath so plainly declared the contrary, so as it were a very dullard’s part to be in doubt thereof. Knight. Forsooth, such a dullard am I indeeed, that cannot perceive what hindrance it should be to the realm to have this metal, more than that, for our coins, seeing the coin is but a token to go from man to man. And since it is struck with the King’s seal to

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be current, what maketh it the matter what metal it be of, yea though it be but leather or paper? Doctor. You say but as most part of men do say; and yet they be far wide from the truth, as men that do not consider the thing thoroughly; for by that reason God could never send dearth amongst us, but the King might quickly remedy it; as if corn were at a crown the bushel, the King might provide crowns enough for himself and also his subjects, made of brass, to pay for the same. And so to make it as easy for him and his subjects, to pay a crown of such metal for a bushel, as it should be now for them to pay 1d. for the same. And as the price of corn did rise, the King might raise the estimation of his coin after the rate; and so keep the corn always at one stint in deed, though in name it did seem to rise. As for example, suppose wheat this year to be at a groat the bushel, the next year two groats, the King might cause the groat to be called 8.d; and if the bushel rose to 12.d. he might raise the estate of the groat to 12.d.; and so whether it were by making of coin of other metals than be of price received amongst all men, or by the enhancing the price of the only coin made in metal of estimation, the King might, if your reason were true, keep always, not only corn but also all other victuals and necessaries for man’s life, always at one price indeed, though in term they should vary. But you may see daily by experience the contrary hereunto; for when God sendeth dearth of corn, or of other things, there is neither emperor nor king can help it; which they would gladly do, if they might, as well for their own ease as for their subjects. And might soon do it if your reason touched before might take place; that is, if either they may make coin of what estimate they would of vile metals, or else enhance the value of coins made in metals of price to what sum they would. Yet a man at the first blush would think that a king in this realm might do this easily, and make what coin he would to be current, and of what estimation it pleased him. But he that so thinketh marketh but the terms, and not the things that are understood by them. As if a man made no difference between 6 groats that made an ounce of silver, and 12 groats that made an ounce of silver; by the groat of the first sort, the sixth part of an ounce, or by a groat of the other sort is the twelfth part of an ounce of silver understood. And so there must be as much difference between the one groat and the other as is between two and one, the whole thing and half; though either of them be called but under one name, that is a groat. We must consider, though gold and silver be the metals commonly wherein the coin is struck to be tokens in exchange of things between man and man, yet is it the wares that be necessary for man’s use that are exchanged indeed for the outward name of the coin, and it is the rarity and plenty thereof that maketh the price thereof base or higher. And because it were very cumbersome and chargeable to carry so much of the wares as we have abundance of to exchange for the wares that we want always; both for the weights of our wares, and also for that they could not be carried so far without perishing of the same; nor proportioned so even as there should be always neither more nor less brought of our wares than were equivalent with other wares that we can receive. Therefore were the metals of gold and silver devised, as wares in so small weight most in value, and least cumbersome to carry, and least subject to detriment or hurt in the carriage thereof, and may be cut and divided in most pieces

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and por-tions without any loss, to be as the means to exchange all other wares by. And if the thing were to be anew devised, necessity would cause us to devise the same way again…. Doctor. Ye have yourself declared the reason why things within the realm be so dear; for we must buy dear all things brought from beyond the seas, and therefore we must sell again as dear our things, or else we should make ill bargains for ourselves. And though that reason makes it plain, yet experience maketh it plainer; for where you say that everything brought beyond the sea is commonly dearer by the third part than it was, do ye not see the same proportion raised in our wares, if it be not more, yea in the old coin itself? Is not the angel that was before but twenty groats, now at thirty, and so all other old coin after the same rate? But I think there is no more silver given in the thirty groats now than was before in twenty, if it be so much. And so I think, setting our coin apart, that we shall have as much silk, wines, or oils from beyond the seas, for our tod of wool now as we might have had before the alteration of this coin. Merchant. I would undertake to serve you so. Knight. What loss have we by this, when we sell our commodities as dear as we buy theirs? Doctor. I grant, to one sort of men I count it no loss; yea to some other, gains more than loss; but yet to some other a greater loss than it is profit to the other; yea, generally to the impoverishing of the realm, and the weakening of the King’s majesty’s power exceedingly. Knight. I pray you, what be these sort that you mean; and first, of those that ye think have no loss thereby? Doctor. I mean all those that live by buying and selling: for as they buy dear, so they sell thereafter. Knight. What is the next sort that ye say wins by it? Doctor. Marry, all such as have takings, or farms in their own maintenance, at the old rent; for where they pay after the old rate, they sell after the new; that is, they pay for their land good cheap, and sell all things growing thereof dear. Knight. What sort is that which you said had greater loss thereby than those men had profit? Doctor. It is all noblemen and gentlemen, and all other that live by a stinted rent, or stipend, or do not [work] the ground, or do occupy no buying or selling. Knight. I pray you peruse those sorts as you did the other, one by one, and by course. Doctor. I will gladly. First, the noblemen and gentlemen live for the most on the yearly revenues of the lands and fees given them of the king. Then ye know, he that may spend £300 a year by such revenues and fees, may keep no better port than his father, or any other before him, that could spend but £200. And so ye may perceive, it is a great abatement of a man’s countenance to take away the third part of his living. And therefore gentlemen do so much study the increase of their lands, enhancing of their rents, and so take farms and pastures into their own hands, as ye see they do; and also to seek to maintain their countenance, as their predecessors did, and yet they come

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short therein. Others, seeing the charges of household so much as by no provision they can make can be helped, they give over their households, and get them chambers in London, or about the court: and there spend their time, some of them with a servant or two, where he was wont to keep thirty or forty persons daily in his house, and to do good in the country, in keeping good order and rule among his neighbours. The other sort be every serving man and men of war, that having but their old stinted wages, cannot find themselves therewith as they might aforetimes without ravine or spoil. Ye know 6.d. a day will not now go so far as 4.d. would aforetime: and therefore ye have men so unwilling to serve the king nowadays from that they were wont to be: also where 40.s. a year was good honest wages for a yeoman before this time, and 20.d. a week’s board wages was sufficient, now double as much will scarce bear their charges…. Knight. Then to return to the matter of the coin where we left; I have heard your conceit, how the alteration thereof doth some men no harm, as buyers and sellers: some others it doth good, as unto farmers that had land at the old rent; and some others, as gentlemen, men of war, serving men, and all others living by any rated and stinted rent or stipend are great losers by it. I heard you say it was so much withal to the loss of the King’s majesty, that it might be to the great peril, not only of this royal estate, but also to the whole realm in process of time; I marvel how it should be so, for I heard wise men say, that the King’s father did win inestimable great sums by the alteration of the coin. Doctor. So it was for the time; but I liken that gain to such as men have when men sell away their lands, to have the greater sum at one time, and ever after to lose the continual increase that should grow thereof. For ye know all the treasure of this realm must once in few years come to the King’s highness hands, by one means or other: and from him it should go abroad again to his subjects: as all springs run to the ocean sea, and out of it they spread abroad again. Then, as they came in of late in good metal, they came forth in such as ye see now. And albeit it seems at the first face to impoverish but the subjects only, at length it is to be feared lest it do impoverish the King’s highness: and then if his grace should want, in time of war, specially, sufficient treasure to pay for armour, weapons, tacklings of ships, guns, and other artillery, necessary for the war, that could by no means have of his subjects wherewith to buy the same, what case should his grace be in, and his realm? Surely very ill. And therefore these coins and treasures be no twithout cause called of wise men nervi bellorum, that is to say, sinews of war. And that is the greatest danger that, I consider, should grow for want of treasure to the King and his realm: for though the King’s highness may have what coin he will current within the realm, yet the strangers cannot be compelled to take them.

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Sir Thomas Gresham reviews early Tudor financial policy in a letter to Elizabeth I1558 (J.W.Burgon, Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, I, App. xxi, 483) This paper was first printed by Burgon from a transcript of a document found amongst Burghley’s papers. H.D.MacLeod, History of Economics (N.Y. 1876, p. 38) thought he saw evidence in it to justify the statement of what he called Gresham’s Law, relating to good and bad coinage. This view was contradicted by R.de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (Harvard, 1949, p. 91– 3). See also, H.Buckley, Sir Thomas Gresham and the Foreign Exchanges (Econ. Journ. XXXIV. 1924, 589–601). For another, contemporary, paper on currency problems by Humphrey Holt (Harl. MS. 660) see Froude, Hist. England, IV. 488–90.

It may please your majesty to understand that the first occasion of the fall of the exchange did grow by the king’s majesty, your late father, in abasing his coin from 6 ounces fine to 3 ounces fine. Whereupon the exchange fell from 26.s. 8.d. to 13.s.4.d. which was the occasion that all your fine gold was conveyed out of this your realm. Secondly, by reason of his wars, the king’s majesty fell into great debt in Flanders. And for the payment thereof they had no other device but pay it by exchange, and to carry over his fine gold for the payment of the same. Thirdly, the great freedom of the Steelyard and granting of licence for the carrying of your wool and other commodities out of your realm, which is now one of the chiefest points that your majesty hath to foresee in this your commonwealth; that you never restore the “steydes” called the Steelyard again to their privilege, whichhath been the chiefest point of the undoing of this your realm, and the merchants of the same. Now, for redress of these things, in anno 1551 the king’s majesty, your late brother, called me to be his agent, and reposed a more trust in me, as well for the payment of his debts beyond the seas, as for the raising of the exchange,—being then at 15.s. and 16.s. the pound; and your money current as it is at this present, being not in value 10.s. First, I practised with the king and my lord of Northumberland to overthrow the Steelyard, or else it could not be brought to pass, for that they would keep down the exchange by this consideration; whereas your own mere merchants payeth outwards 14.d. upon a cloth custom, they pay but 9.d.; and likewise, for all such wares as was brought into your realm, your own mere merchants payeth 12.d. upon the pound, the Steelyard paid but 3.d. upon the pound, which is 5.s. difference upon the hundred: and as they were men that rain all upon the exchange for the buying of their commodities, what did they pass to give a lower price than your own merchants, when they got £5 in the hundred by your custom; which in process of time would have undone your whole realm, and your merchants of the same. Secondarily, I practised with the king’s majesty, your brother, to come in credit with his own mere merchants: and when time served, I practised with them at a set shipping, the exchange being still at 16.s. that every man should pay the king 15.s. upon a cloth in Antwerp, to pay at double usance 20.s. in London; which the king’s majesty paid them royally, which did amount to the sum of £60,000. And so, 6 months after, I practised the like upon their commodities for the sum of £70,000 to pay for every pound sterling 22.s.: so by these means, I made plenty of money and scarcity, and brought into the king’s hands, which raised the exchange to 23.s. 4.d. And by these means I did not only bring the king’s majesty, your brother, out of debt, whereby I

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saved him 6 or 7.s. upon the pound, but saved his treasure within the realm, as therein Mr. Secretary Cecil was most privy unto. Thirdly, I did likewise cause all foreign coins to be unvalued, whereby it might be brought into the mint to his majesty’s most fordlle; [sic] at which time the king your brother died, and for my reward of service the Bishop of Winchester sought to undo me, and whatsoever I said in these matters I should not be credited; and against all wisdom, the said bishop went and valued the French crown at 6.s. 4.d., and the pistolet at 6.s. 2.d., and the silver riall at 6½.d. Whereupon, immediately, the exchange fell to 20.s. 6.d. and 21.s., and there hath kept ever since. And so, consequently, after this rate and manner I brought the queen’s majesty your sister out of debt of the sum of £455,000. Fourthly, by this it may plainly appear to your highness as the exchange is the thing that eats out all princes, to the whole destruction of their common weal, if it be not substantially looked unto; so likewise the exchange is the chiefest and richest thing only above all other, to restore your majesty and your realm to fine gold and silver, and is the mean that makes all foreign commodities and your own commodities with all kind of victuals good cheap, and likewise keeps your fine gold and silver within your realm. As, for example to your highness, the exchange being at this present at 22.s., all merchants seek to bring into your realm fine gold and silver; for if he should deliver it by exchange, he disburses 22.s. Flemish to have 20.s. sterling: and to bring it in gold and silver he shall make thereof 21.s. 4.d.—whereby he saves 8.d. in the pound: which profit, if the exchange should keep but after this rate of 22.s., in a few years you should have a wealthy realm, for here the treasure should continue for ever; for that all men should find more profit by £5 in the hundred to deliver it by exchange than to carry it over in money. So consequently the higher the exchange riseth, the more shall your majesty and your realm and common weal flourish, which thing is only kept up by art and God’s providence; for the coin of this your realm doth not correspond in fineness not 10.s. the pound. Finally, and it please your majesty to restore this your realm into such estate as heretofore it hath been; first, your highness hath none other ways, but when time and opportunity serveth, to bring your base money into fine of eleven ounces fine, and so gold after the rate. Secondly, not to restore the Steelyard to their usurped privileges. Thirdly, to grant as few licences as you can. Fourthly, to come in as small debt as you can beyond seas. Fifthly, to keep up your credit, and specially with your own merchants, for it is they must stand by you at all events in your necessity. And thus I shall most humbly beseech your majesty to accept this my poor writing in good part; wherein I shall from time, to time, as opportunity doth serve, put your highness in remembrance, according to the trust your majesty hath reposed in me; beseeching the Lord to give me the grace and fortune that my service may always be acceptable to your highness: as knoweth our Lord, whom preserve your noble majesty in health, and long to reign over us with increase of honour. By your majesty’s most humble and faithful obedient subject. Thomas Gresham, Mercer.

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E. POVERTY AND THE POOR LAW 152. Stages in the growth of the Poor Law An act against vagabonds and beggars. St. 11 Hen. VII, c. 2, 1495 (Stat. Realm, II, 569)

F

orasmuch as the king’s grace most entirely desireth amongst all earthly things the prosperity and restfulness of this his land and his subjects of the same to live quietly and surefully to the pleasure of God and according to his laws, willing and always of his pity intending to reduce them thereunto by softer means than by such extreme rigour therefor purveyed in a statute made in the time of King Richard the Second,1 considering also the great charges that should grow to his subjects for bringing of vagabonds to the gaols according to the same statute and the long abiding of them therein, whereby by likelihood many of them should lose their lives, in modering [moderating] of the said statute…be it enacted…that where such misdoers should be by examination committed to the common gaol there to remain as is aforesaid, that the sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, high constables, and petty constables, and all other governors and officers of cities, boroughs, towns, townships, villages, and other places, within three days after this act proclaimed, make due search, and take or cause to be taken all such vagabonds, idle, and suspect persons living suspiciously, and them so taken to set in stocks, there to remain by the space of three days and three nights, and there to have none other sustenance but bread and water; and after the said three days and three nights to be had out and set at large and then to be commanded to avoid the town; and if eftsoons he be taken in such default in the same town or township then he to be set in the like wise in stocks by the space of six days with like diet as is before rehearsed; and if any person or persons give any other meat or drink to the said misdoers being in stocks in form aforesaid, or the same prisoners favour in their misdoing, that then they forfeit for every time so doing 12.d. II. And also it is ordained…that all manner of beggars not able to work, within six weeks next after proclamation made of this act, go, rest, and abide in his hundred where he last dwelled, or there where he is best known or born, there to remain or abide without begging out of the said hundred, upon pain to be punished as is beforesaid. And that no man be excused by that he is a clerk of one university or of other, without he shew the letters of the Chancellor of the University from whence he saith he cometh, nor none other calling himself a soldier, shipman, or travelling man without he bring a letter from his captain or from the town where he landed, and that he then to be commanded to go the straight high way into his country. III. And over this it is ordained…that if any sheriff or other officer afore rehearsed execute not the premises as is abovesaid of every vagabond, hermit, or beggar able to labour, or clerk, pilgrim, or shipman, as oft as any such cometh in his sight, or that he hath thereof knowledge within the town where he hath authority, rule, or governance, 1

St. 7 Rich. II, c. 5.

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that as often as any such of the said misdoers abiding there by the space of a day depart unexamined and unpunished as is abovesaid, for every misdoer so departed he to lose 20.d. And that the lord of every leet within this realm, and the sheriff in his tourn have authority to enquire thereof in his leet and tourn, and the lord of the leet to have for every default found as is abovesaid 20.d; And the sheriff to enquire in his tourn of such escapes within the jurisdiction of his tourn and to have 20.d. for every such default found in his tourn; and that the penalty limited by this ordinance to be forfeited by any officer or any other person for non-punishment of vagabonds and other misruled persons within every city where mayor and aldermen be, that the profit of every such penalty be unto the alderman of every ward where such forfeiture is had or made to his own use and profit. V. And furthermore it is ordained…that no apprentice or servant of husbandry, labourer, or servant artificer play at the Tables from the 10th, day of January next coming, but only for meat and drink, nor at the tennis, closh, dice, cards, bowls, nor any other unlawful game in no wise out of Christmas, and in Christmas to play only in the dwelling house of his master, or where the master of any the said servants is present, upon pain of imprisonment by the space of a day in the stocks openly; And that the householder where dicing, carding, tennis playing, bowls, closh, or any other unlawful game afore rehearsed shall be used, otherwise than is afore rehearsed, and that lawfully be presented before Justices of Peace, the mayor, sheriff in his tourn, or steward in his leet, or by examination had afore the said Justices of Peace, that process be made upon the same as upon indictment of trespass against the King’s peace, and that the said misdoer be admitted to no fine under the sum of 6.s. 8.d. And that it be lawful to 2 of the Justices of the Peace, whereof one shall be of the Quorum, within their authority to reject and put away common ale selling in towns and places where they shall think convenient, and to take surety of the keepers of ale-houses of their good behaving, by the discretion of the said Justices, and in the same to be advised and agreed at the time of their sessions.

An act against vagabonds and beggars, 1503–4. St. 19 Hen. VII, c. 12 (Stat. Realm, II, 656)

V. And over this be it enacted by the said authority, that the Chancellor of England or Keeper of the King’s great seal, the Treasurer of England, the two Chief Judges, the Chief Baron of the King’s Exchequer for the time being, and also the Justices of Assise within their circuit, and every of them, shall have, within the shire or shires where they or any of them shall fortune to be, full power and authority to call before them and every of them the sheriff, mayors, constables, and all other officers of or within the same shire or shires, which hath power to put this statute in execution, and them and every of them to examine of the execution of this statute; and if it can be found by such examination that the said officers or any of them be defective in due execution thereof, that then the said officers and every of them so found defective shall have and suffer like pain and punishment as if the said officers or officer had been thereof duly convicted by the due process and course of the king’s laws.

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An act concerning punishment of beggars and vagabonds, 1531. St. 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12 (Stat. Realm, III, 328)

Where in all places throughout this realm of England vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased and daily do increase in great and excessive numbers, by the occasion of idleness, mother and root of all vices, whereby hath insurged and sprung and daily insurgeth and springeth continual thefts, murders, and other heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the inquietation and damage of the King’s people, and to the marvellous disturbance of the common weal of this realm. And whereas many and sundry good laws, strait statutes and ordinances, have been before this time devised and made, as well by the King our sovereign lord as also by divers his most noble progenitors, kings of England, for the most necessary and due reformation of the premises, yet that, notwithstanding, the said numbers of vagabonds and beggars be not seen in any party to be minished, but rather daily augmented and increased into great routs and companies, as evidently and manifestly it doth and may appear; Be it therefore enacted…that the Justices of the Peace… shall from time to time, as often as need shall require, by their discretions divide themselves within the said shires…and so being divided shall make diligent search and enquiry of all aged, poor and impotent persons which live or of necessity be compelled to live by alms of the charity of the people that be or shall be hereafter abiding…within the limits of their division, and after and upon such search made the said Justices of Peace…shall have power and authority by their discretions to enable to beg, within such…limits as they shall appoint, such of the said impotent persons which they shall find and think most convenient within the limits of their division to live of the charity and alms of the people, and to give in commandment to every such aged and impotent beggar (by them enabled) that none of them shall beg without the limits to them so appointed, and shall also register and write the names of every such impotent beggar (by them appointed) in a bill or roll indented, the one part thereof to remain with themselves and the other part by them to be certified before the Justices of Peace at the next sessions after such search had…there to remain under the keeping of the Custos Rotulorum; and that the said Justices of Peace …shall make and deliver to every such impotent person by them enabled to beg, a letter containing the name of such impotent person and witnessing that he is authorised to beg and the limits within which he is appointed to beg, the same letter to be sealed with such…seals as shall be engraved with the name of the limit wherein such impotent person shall be appointed to beg in, and to be subscribed with the name of one of the said Justices… And if any such impotent person so authorised to beg do beg in any other place than within such limits that he shall be assigned unto, that then the Justices of Peace…shall by their discretions punish all such persons by imprisonment in the stocks by the space of two days and two nights, giving them but only bread and water, and after that cause every such impotent person to be sworn to return again without delay…where they be authorised to beg in. II. And it is enacted that no such impotent person (as is abovesaid) after the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist next coming shall beg within any part of this realm

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except he be authorised by writing under seal as is abovesaid. And if any such impotent person…be vagrant and go a-begging having no such letter under seal as is above specified, that then the constables and all other inhabitants within such town or parish where such person shall beg shall cause every such beggar to be taken and brought to the next Justice of Peace or High Constable of the Hundred; and thereupon the said Justice of Peace or High Constable shall command the said constables and other inhabitants of the town or parish which shall bring before him any such beggar that they shall strip him naked from the middle upward and cause him to be whipped within the town where he was taken, or within some other town where the same Justice or High Constable shall appoint if it shall seem to the discretion of the said Justice of Peace or High Constable that it be convenient to punish such beggar to him brought; and if not, then to command such beggar to be set in the stocks in the same town or parish where he was taken by the space of three days and three nights, there to have only bread and water; and thereupon the said Justice or High Constable afore whom such beggar shall be brought shall limit to him a place to beg in, and give to him a letter under seal in form above remembered, and swear him to depart and repair thither immediately after his punishment to him executed. III. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons being whole and mighty in body and able to labour…or if any man or woman being whole and mighty in body and able to labour having no land, master, nor using any lawful merchandise, craft, or mystery, whereby he might get his living…be vagrant, and can give none reckoning how he doth lawfully get his living, that then it shall be lawful to the constables and all other the King’s officers, ministers, and subjects of every town, parish, and hamlet to arrest the said vagabonds and idle persons and them bring to any of the Justices of Peace of the same shire or liberty…and that every such Justice of Peace…shall cause every such idle person so to him brought to be had to the next market town or other place where the said Justices of Peace…shall think most convenient…and there to be tied to the end of a cart naked and be beaten with whips throughout the same market town or other place till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after such punishment and whipping had, the person so punished…shall be enjoined upon his oath to return forthwith without delay in the next and straight way to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the same punishment by the space of three years, and there put himself to labour like as a true man oweth to do; and after that done, every such person so punished and ordered shall have a letter sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, borough, town, liberty, or franchise wherein he shall be punished, witnessing that he hath been punished according to this statute, and containing the day and place of his punishment, and the place whereunto he is limited to go, and by what time he is limited to come thither, within which time he may lawfully beg by the way, shewing the same letter, and otherwise not; and if he do not accomplish the order to him appointed by the said letter, then to be eftsoons taken and whipped, and so as often as any default shall be found in him contrary to the order of this statute, in every place to be taken and whipped till he be repaired where he was born or where he last dwelled by the space of three year, and there put his body to

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labour for his living or otherwise truly get his living without begging as long as he is able so to do; and if the person so whipped be an idle person and no common beggar, then after such whipping he shall be kept in the stocks till he hath found surety to go to service or else to labour after the discretion of the said Justice of Peace…afore whom any such idle person being no common beggar shall be brought…or else to be ordered and sworn to repair to the place where he was born or where he last dwelled by the space of three years, and to have like letter and such further punishment if he eftsoons offend this statute as is above appointed to and for the common, strong and able beggars, and so from time to time to be ordered and punished till he put his body to labour or otherwise get his living truly according to the law: and that the Justices of the Peace of every shire…shall have power and authority within the limits of their commissions to enquire of all mayors, bailiffs, constables, and other officers and persons that shall be negligent in executing of this Act: and if the constables and inhabitants within any town or parish…be negligent…that then the township or parish …shall lose and forfeit for every such impotent beggar…3.s. 4.d. and for every strong beggar…6.s. 8.d…. And that all Justices of Peace…shall have full power and authority as well to hear and determine every such default by presentment as by such bill of information, and upon every presentment afore them and upon every such bill of information to make process by distress against the inhabitants of every such town and parish…. IV. And be it enacted…that scholars of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that go about begging, not being authorised under the seal of the said Universities by the Commissary, Chancellor, or Vice-Chancellor of the same, and all and singular shipmen pretending losses of their ships and goods of the sea going about the country begging without sufficient authority witnessing the same, shall be punished and ordered in manner and form as is above rehearsed of strong beggars; and that all proctors and pardoners going about in any country or countries without sufficient authority, and all other idle persons going about in any countries or abiding in any city, borough, or town, some of them using divers and subtle crafty and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves to have knowledge in physic, physiognomy, palmistry, or other crafty sciences, whereby they bear the people in hand that they can tell their destinies, deceases, and fortunes, and such other like fantastical imaginations, to the great deceit of the King’s subjects, shall upon examination had before two Justices of Peace, whereof the one shall be of the Quorum, if he by provable witness be found guilty of any such deceits, be punished by whipping at two days together after the manner before rehearsed: and if he eftsoons offend in the said offence or any like offence, then to be scourged two days, and the third day to be put upon the pillory from 9 of the clock till 11 before noon of the same day, and to have one of his ears cut off; and if he offend the third time, to have like punishment with whipping, standing on the pillory, and to have his other ear cut off; and that Justices of Peace have like authority in every liberty and franchise within their shires where they be Justices of Peace for the execution of this Act in every part thereof as they shall have without the liberty or franchise.

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An act for punishment of sturdy vagabonds and beggars. St. 27 Hen. VIII, c. 25, 1536 (Stat. Realm, III, 558)

[After reciting St. 22, Hen. VIII. c. 12]… And forasmuch as it was not provided in the said act how and in what wise the said poor people and sturdy vagabonds should be ordered at their repair and at their coming into their countries, nor how the inhabitants of every hundred should be charged for the relief of the same poor people, nor yet for the setting and keeping in work and labour of the aforesaid valiant vagabonds at their said repair into every hundred of this realm. It is therefore now ordained… that all and every…officers and ministers of every city, shire, towns and parishes of this realm, at the repair and coming thither of such poor creature or sturdy vagabond as is contained in the said act, shall most charitably receive the same and order the same in manner and form following, that is to say; that all the governors and ministers of every of the same cities, shires, towns…shall not only succour, find, and keep all and every of the same poor people by way of voluntary and charitable alms…as shall be thought meet by their discretions in such wise as none of them of very necessity shall be compelled to wander idly and go openly in begging to ask alms in any of the same cities, shires, towns, and parishes; but also to cause and to compel all and every the said sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars to be set and kept to continual labour, in such wise as by their said labours they and every of them may get their own livings with the continual labour of their own hands…upon pain that every parish shall lose and forfeit 20.s. for every month in which it is omitted and undone; And that to be enquired of at every Quarter Sessions and to be duly presented and found by the verdict of 12 men. II. Item, it is further enacted…that all and every person or persons being whipped or sent unto their countries in form aforesaid, at the end of every ten miles shall repair unto the constable of any parish, being directly in his way towards the county and place whereunto he is so appointed, and upon sight of his letters, given unto him at the time of his whipping, and sending of him into the same his country, every of the said constables and others the king’s subjects shall and may furnish him with competent meat, drink, and lodging for one night only or for one meal, and so he shall continue his daily journey of ten miles until such time as he shall come unto the hundred and place whereunto he is assigned to go. IV. Item, it is ordained and enacted…that all and every the mayors, governors, and head officers of every city, borough, and town corporate, and the churchwardens or two others of every parish of this realm shall in good and charitable wise take such discreet and convenient order, by gathering and procuring of such charitable and voluntary alms of the good Christian people within the same, with boxes every Sunday, holy day, and other festival day or otherwise among themselves, in such good and discreet wise as the poor impotent lame feeble sick and diseased people, being not able to work, may be provided, holpen, and relieved, so that in no wise they nor none of them be suffered to go openly in begging; and that such as be lusty or having their limbs strong enough to labour may be daily kept in continual labour, whereby everyone of them may get their own substance and living with their own hands; upon pain that

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all and every…the King’s officers and ministers…shall lose and forfeit for every month that it is omitted and undone, the sum of twenty shillings. VI. Item, it is also enacted…that the said governors, aldermen, justices of the peace [etc]…shall have authority…to take up all and singular children in every parish within their limits, that be not grieved with any notable disease or sickness, and being under the age of 14. years and above the age of five years in begging or idleness, and to appoint them to masters of husbandry or other crafts or labours to be taught, by the which they may get their livings when they shall come to age; giving to them of the said charitable collections as it may conveniently be sustained and borne, a raiment to enter into such service; And if any above the age of twelve years and under the age of sixteen years refuse such service or depart from the same without cause reasonable, then they to be arrested and apprehended by any of the said officers, and to be brought before the mayor, aldermen, justices of the peace…or other officers and ministers of that limit and circuit where they be taken; and if it shall appear by his or their confession or other sufficient testimony before the same officers and ministers, that he or they have refused to serve or have departed from their service without cause reasonable, he shall then in the parish where he was apprehended be openly whipped with rods…and…sent again unto his service, and so to be served as often as he shall be apprehended and convicted in form aforesaid… IX. Item, it is enacted…that every preacher, parson, vicar, curate of this realm, as well in all and every their sermons, collations, biddings of the beads as in time of all confessions, and at the making of the wills or testaments of any persons at all times of the year, shall exhort, move, stir, and provoke people to be liberal and bountifully to extend their good and charitable alms and contributions from time to time for and toward the comfort and relief of the said poor impotent decrepit indigent and needy people, as for the setting and keeping to continual work and labour of the foresaid rufflers, sturdy vagabonds, and valiant beggars in every city, ward, town, hundred and parish of this realm as well within liberties as without.

An act for the punishment of vagabonds and for the relief of the poor and impotent persons. St. 1 Edw. VI, c. 3, 1547 (Stat. Realm, IV, i 5)

[Be it enacted]… First that all statutes and acts of parliament heretofore made for the punishment of vagabonds and sturdy beggars and all articles comprised in the same shall be from henceforth repealed void and of none effect: secondly that whosoever after the first day of April next following man or woman being not lame impotent or so aged or diseased with sickness that he or she cannot work, not having lands or tenements fees annuities or any other yearly revenues or profits whereon they may find sufficiently their living, shall either like a serving man wanting a master or like a beggar or after any other such sort be lurking in any house or houses or loitering or idly wander by the highways’ side or in streets in cities towns or villages, not applying themselves to some honest and allowed art science service or labour, and so do continue by the space of

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three days or more together and not offer themselves to labour with any that will take them according to their faculty, And if no man otherwise will take them do not offer themselves to work for meat and drink, or after they be so taken to work for the space agreed betwixt them and their masters do leave their work out of convenient time or run away, that then every such person shall be taken for a vagabond and that it shall be lawful to every such master offering such idle person service and labour, and that being by him refused, or who hath agreed with such idle person and from whom within the space agreed of service the said loiterer hath run away or departed before the end of the covenant between them, and to any other person espying the same, to bring or cause to be brought the said person so living idly and loiteringly to two of the next Justices of Peace there resident or abiding, who hearing the proof of the idle living of the said person by the said space living idly as is aforesaid approved to them by two honest witnesses or confession of the party shall immediately cause the said loiterer to be marked with an hot iron in the breast the mark of V and adjudge the said person living so idly to such presenter to be his slave, to have and to hold the said slave to him his executors or assigns for the space of two years then next following and to order the said slave as followeth, that is to say; to take such person adjudged a slave with him and only giving the said slave bread and water or small drink and such refuse of meat as he shall think meet cause the said slave to work by beating chaining or otherwise in such work and labour how vile soever it be as he shall put him unto; And if any manner of slave either for loitering or for the cause before rehearsed so adjudged shall within the space of the said two years here appointed run away depart or absent him from his said master by the space of fourteen days together without licence it shall not only be lawful to his said master to pursue and fetch him again by virtue of this act but also to punish such fault by chains or beating as is aforesaid. And against the detainor, if any man do willingly detain him knowing him to be a slave as is aforesaid, to have an action of trespass and recover thereby in damages ten pounds besides the costs and charges of the suit for so detaining his said slave; and further every such master showing and proving by two sufficient witnesses the said offence or fault of his running away before two Justices of Peace…the same Justices shall cause such slave or loiterer to be marked on the forehead or the ball of the cheek with a hot iron with the sign of an S that he may be known for a loiterer and runaway and shall adjudge the loiterer and runaway to be the said master’s slave for ever… [For a second offence he shall be condemned to death as a felon.] III. And forasmuch as divers women and men goeth on begging wayfaring, of the which some be impotent and lame, and some able enough to labour which do carry children about with them some four or five years of age or younger or older, which brought up in idleness might be so rooted in it that hardly they may be brought after to good thrift and labour, or if any child above the age of five years and under the age of fourteen years go idly wandering about as a vagabond, Be it enacted… that if any manner of person will take any such child, be it male or female, of and from any such beggar being the mother thereof, nurse, or keeper whether they be willing or not…and bring the said child so taken away before one of the constables of the parish and two

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other honest and discreet neighbours witnesses and before any Justice of Peace there resident and abiding, and promise to bring the same child up in some honest labour or occupation till he or she come to the age of twenty years the woman child, or twentyfour the man child, that then and immediately the said Justice of Peace and Constable shall adjudge by virtue of this act the said child unto the ages before specified to be servants or apprentices to the said persons so taking and promising, to be used and ordered in all points according as the law and custom of this realm is of servants and apprentices, to what labour occupation or service soever the said master shall appoint him or her during the said time: [If they run away they shall be taken as slaves.] VI. Be it also enacted…that although there be no man which shall demand such loiterer or loiterers as before expressed into their service, yet nevertheless the Justice of Peace…by his or their office shall be hereafter bound by virtue of this act not only to enquire of all such idle persons, but also if they do espy any such vagabonds or idle person or if any such be detected unto them, to examine him or her of the time of their vagabondry, and if it shall appear to any Justice of Peace any such man or woman to have been a vagrant and vagabond or idle person by the space as is aforesaid to cause the same to be marked on the breast with a V made with a hot iron, and also to learn and inquire of him the town city or village wherein he was born, and then shall immediately give a writing in parchment sealed with his seal to the said loiterer of the tenour and form which here ensueth: A B Justice of Peace in the county of S to the mayor or chief officer of the city of Q if it be a city or to the head borough bailiff or constable or head officer of the town of Q if it be a town or to the constable or tithing man of the village of C if it be a village, greeting; According to a most godly statute made in the first year of the reign of our sovereign lord King Edward the Sixth, &c. We have taken this bearer I K vagrantly and to the evil example of others without master service or labour whereby to get his living going loitering idly about; and because the same saith he was born in C in the county of S whereof you are the head-officer or constable we have sent him to you to be ordered according to the purport and effect of the same statute: And with this writing shall deliver the same loiterer to the constable or other head officer of the said city town or village wherein such loiterer was taken to be safely conveyed by them to the next constable, and so from constables to constables and other head officers till he or she be brought to the place to which he or she hath named themselves to be born in, and then to be delivered to the head officer or constable or the same city borough or town village hamlet or parish, there to be nourished and kept of the same city town or village in chains or otherwise either at the common works in amending highways or other common work or from man to man in order till they which may bear there be equally charged, to be slave to the corporation of the city or to the inhabitants of the town or village that he or she were born in, after all such form condition space of years orders punishments for running away and all others as are expressed of a common or private person to whom any such loiterer is adjudged a slave; and the said city town or village shall see the said slave being able to labour set on work and not live idly within the said precincts, upon pain that for every such default that the said slave doth live idly by the default of the city borough or town or village by the space of three working days together the city to forfeit five pounds, a borough or town incorporate forty shillings and other

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town or village twenty shillings, whereof the one half to the king our sovereign lord the other to him that will sue for the same.

For the provision and relief of the poor, 1552. St. 5 & 6 Edw. VI, c. 2 (Stat. Realm, IV, i, 131)

To the intent that valiant beggars idle and loitering persons may be avoided, and the impotent feeble and lame provided for, which are poor in very deed, Be it enacted …that as well the statute made in the 22nd year of me late king of famous memory King Henry the eighth, as also the statute made in the third and fourth year of the reign of the king’s majesty that now is, concerning beggars, vagabonds, and idle persons…shall stand, remain, and be in their full force and effect, and shall be from henceforth justly and truly put in execution, according to the true meaning of the said several statutes and every of them. II. And further be it enacted…that yearly one holiday in Whitsun week, in every city, borough, and town corporate, the mayor, bailiffs, or other head officers for the time being, and in every other parish of the country, the parson, vicar, or curate and the churchwardens, having in a register or book as well all the names of the inhabitants and householders, as also the names of all such impotent, aged, and needy persons as being within their city, borough, town corporate, or parish, are not able to live of themselves, nor with their own labour, shall openly in the church and quietly after divine service, call the said householders and inhabitants together, among whom the mayor and two of his brethren in every city, the bailiffs or other head officers in boroughs and towns corporate, the parson vicar or curate and churchwardens in every other parish, shall elect, nominate, and appoint yearly two able persons or more to be gatherers and collectors of the charitable alms of all the residue of the people for the relief of the poor, which collectors the Sunday next after their election, (or the Sunday following if need require) when the people is at the church and hath heard God’s holy word, shall gently ask and demand of every man and woman what they of their charity will be contented to give weekly towards the relief of the poor; and the same to be written in the said register or book; and the said gatherers so being elected and chosen, shall justly gather and truly distribute the same charitable alms weekly (by themselves or their assigns) to the said poor and impotent persons of the said cities, boroughs, towns corporate, or parishes without fraud or covin, favour, or affection, and after such sort that the more impotent may have the more help, and such as can get part of their living to have the less, and by the discretion of the collectors to be put in such labour as they be fit and able to do, but none to go or sit openly abegging, upon pain limited in the aforesaid statutes. III. Be it also enacted…that no person or persons so elected…to be gatherer or gatherers as is aforesaid, shall refuse the said office, but shall justly and truly execute the same, by the space of one whole year next ensuing, upon pain of forfeiting 20.s. to the alms box of the poor, to be levied by the churchwardens where they or he dwelleth, of the goods of the said gatherer or gatherers so refusing, by distress. IV. And further be it enacted…that the said gatherers or collectors, shall make their just accompt quarterly to the mayor of the city, bailiffs, or head officers of the borough or town

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corporate, and in every parish of the country, to the parson, vicar, or curate and churchwardens of the parish, at which accompt such of the parish as will may be present; and when they go out of their office they shall deliver or cause to be delivered forthwith upon the end of their accompts, all such surplusage of money as then shall remain of their collection undistributed, to be put in the common chest of the church or in some other safe place to the use of the poor at the oversight and discretion of the said mayor or other the officers before mentioned: and if the said collectors or any of them do refuse to make their said accompt within 8 days, then the bishop of the diocese or ordinary shall have authority by virtue of this act, to compel the said person or persons by censures of the Church, to make their said accompts before such persons as the said bishop or ordinary shall appoint. V. And be it further enacted…that if any person or persons being able to further this charitable work, do obstinately and frowardly refuse to give towards the help of the poor, or do wilfully discourage others from so charitable a deed, the parson, vicar, or curate and churchwardens of the parish where he dwelleth, shall gently exhort him or them towards the relief of the poor, and if he or they will not so be persuaded, then upon the certificate of the parson, vicar, or curate of the parish to the bishop of the diocese, the same bishop shall send for him or them to induce and persuade him or them by charitable ways and means, and so according to his discretion to take order for the reformation thereof.

An act for the relief of the poor. St. 2 & 3. Philip & Mary, c. 5, 1555 (Stat. Realm, IV, i 280)

[St. 22 Hen. VIII. c. 12:3, 4 Edw. VI. c. 16: for relief of the poor confirmed] VII. And be it further enacted…if it shall chance any parish to have in it more poor and impotent folks not able to labour than the said parish is able to relieve, that then in every such parish, not standing in any city or town corporate, two or three of the chief inhabitants of the same parish, and in every city and town corporate the mayor or chief officers of the same city or town corporate, calling to them two or three of the chief parishioners of the same parish…shall certify unto the Justices of Peace of the county where the same parish is, the number and names of the persons with which they be surcharged, and upon such certificate the said Justices of the Peace in the same county, or two of them, whereof one to be of the Quorum, shall consider and examine the said certificate, and finding the same true, shall then grant, unto such and as many of the said poor folks as by their discretion they shall think good, a sufficient licence under the seal appointed for the limit, to go abroad to beg, get, and receive the charitable alms of the inhabitants of the country out of the said parishes, cities, and towns so surcharged; in which licence the places, towns, and parishes to which such poor folks are by that licence licensed to resort, shall in the same licence be named, limited, and appointed…and if any of the said poor folks so licensed shall transgress the limits to them appointed, and resort to beg at other places than is in the said licence named, the party so transgressing and offending to be taken for a valiant beggar, and punished according to the statute made in the said 22nd year of king Henry the eighth, and his or their licence to be taken from them.

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X. And be it also enacted that all and every such poor folks as by any such licence are to be licensed and authorised to resort out of the limits, liberties, and franchises of all and every such city, borough, and town corporate, into any of the said counties to beg…shall at all times when the same goeth abroad to beg, wear openly upon him or them, both on the breast and the back of his or their uttermost garment, some notable badge or token to be assigned unto him by the mayor or head officers of the same city, borough, and town corporate, or parish, with the assent of the Justices of the Peace that shall grant the same licence, upon pain to be taken for a valiant beggar, and to be punished…and shall also carry his licence with him upon like pain: This act to endure to the latter end of the first session of the next parliament.

153. Examples of private charity for relief of the poor. From London wills 1503–1552 (R.R.Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, Court of Hustings, II, 612, 643, 653, 655)

W

(i)

ill of John Long, chaplain, citizen and tailor and freeman of the city of London. (1503). To Master Peter Vasor, rector of the parish church of S.Edmund the King and Martyr, and successors of the same, certain messuages and rents, one of the said messuages being known as le Bell, in Birchenlane in the parish of S.Edmund aforesaid, of which he had become solely seised, charged with the distribution of forty shillings yearly in bread and coal among poor parishioners, and also with the maintainence of an obit and two chantry priests in manner as directed….

(ii)

Will of Stephen Hombull or Humble (1535). To Alice his wife his dwelling house in the parish of S.Bartholomew the Little for life, remainder to Richard, son of William his brother, in tail male, subject to certain charges, comprising the distribution of thirty shillings yearly in coal among the poor of the above parish; eight shillings to the poor of the Craft of Broderers, and thirteen shillings to poor householders who have been apprenticed to freeman of the said craft….

(iii)

Will of John Charley, cowper, of London. (1552). To the Master and Wardens or Keepers of the Commonalty of the Freemen of the Mistery of Cowpers of London and of the suburbs of the same he leaves a messuage and wharf called ‘the Olde Wollekey’, in the parish of All Saints, Barking, which he held in trust for fulfilment of the will of Nicholas Gibson, late grocer of London…to be held by the said master and wardens charged with the maintenance of a ‘mete and learned man in the letters of grammar’ to teach grammar and the knowledge of grammar, and also to instruct little children in the A.B.C. and such learning as should be most convenient, in the school or school-house erected at Radclyffe, co. Middlesex by the aforesaid Nicholas and also with the maintenance of an usher learned in Latin and grammar…. The master and wardens aforesaid are also, among other things, after the decease of Dame Alice Knyvet, widow,

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sometime wife of the aforesaid Nicholas, to main-tain fourteen poor men and women in the almshouse near the aforesaid school, seven of which are to be poor inhabitants of the parish of Stebbenheath [Stepney] and the other seven to be poor persons of the Mistery of the Cowpers or their wives, and to give to each of them yearly the sum of twenty-six shillings and eightpence…. (iv)

Will of Jasper Alleyn, draper (1548). …Bequests of money, clothes, coals &c. to the new hospital lately founded by King Henry VIII,1 to various prisons and for redemption of prisoners, to poor householders in the parish of S.Nicholas aforesaid, and others….

154. The local authorities and the poor. Illustrated from various sources (i) London orders of 1517 for restraining vagabonds and beggars (F.Aydelotte, Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds, App. A, 140–142)

A

rticles devised by the mayor and aldermen of the city of London at the commandment of the lords of the king’s most honourable Council for the avoiding and putting out of mighty beggars and vagabonds out of the same. First, it is certified by every alderman the number and the names of every person abiding within his ward being so impotent, aged, feeble, or blind, that they be not able to get their livings by labour and work, and also be in such extreme poverty that they may not live but only by alms and charity of the people, whose names appear in the Guildhall in the bills of certificates of every alderman more at large, which is and amounteth to the number of a thousand and above. Item, there is devised as many tokens to be made as be certified poor alms persons in the said bills, that is to say a pair of beads round with the arms of London in the midst, to be struck with a stamp in metal of pure white tin, and the tokens severally shall be delivered to every alderman according to the number of the said poor alms persons by him certified to the intent that he shall deliver to every such poor person impotent, aged, and feeble that can not get their living by labour or work as is above said, and to none other, one of the said tokens by the said alderman to be set upon their right shoulders of their gowns openly to be seen, which persons having the said tokens upon them shall be suffered to beg and ask alms of the people within the city and the suburbs of the same. Item, if it happen any of the said poor people having the said tokens to decease, that then the Constable or beadle, by the commandment of the alderman of the ward and parish, where the said poor person was admitted and had his token delivered shall cause the said token to be brought to the said alderman, and with him to remain till the time that some other like poor impotent, feeble, blind, or aged person by the same alderman be admitted to the same token. Item, that none other person as vagabond or mighty beggar nor any other be suffered to beg within the said city, but only such said persons as have the said tokens upon them as is aforesaid. 1

St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

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Item, if any such vagabond or mighty beggar come into the said city, that then the laws in such cases ordained and provided be duly executed upon them according to the statute thereof made in the time of king Henry the VIIth without any favour or forbearing of the whole punishment thereof. Item, it is further advised that certain persons, that is to say, Henry Barker, carpenter, principal, with two other persons under him, shall be assigned to survey as well the said beggars and poor folk having the said tokens as other vagabonds and mighty beggars repairing to the city, that they from time to time give notice and knowledge to the said alderman constable and beadle of every such vagabond and mighty beggar coming into the city to the intent that they may be avoided out of the same and to go to their countries there as they were born or to the place where as they last made their abode by the space of 3. years, according to the statute in that case ordained and provided. Item, that the said persons having their tokens do their lawful endeavour to expel and keep out the said vagabonds and mighty beggars out of the city by exclamations, expulsions and putting out of them, and if they be not able of themselves so to do, then they to resort to the said surveyors, constable, beadle, and to the alderman if need shall require, and of them to have help and assistance in that behalf upon the pain of losing and forfeiting of their said tokens. Item, it is further ordered that the said people having the said tokens be of good behaviour in asking their alms of the people, and if he or they be denied of alms of any person either by his word or countenance of his hand, that then the said poor person or persons so asking alms to cease of any farther craving of the said person so denying, and to depart from him for that time, and this from time to time as often as it shall so happen, upon the pain of losing and forfeiting of their said tokens, endeavour themselves diligently to observe and perform all the other premises afore rehearsed for and concerning the said avoidance of the said vagabonds and mighty beggars upon the pain aforesaid. Provided always that all such poor people as be visited with the great pox outwardly appearing or with other great sores or maladies tedious loathsome or abhorrent to be looked upon and seen to the great annoyance of the people, be not suffered to beg and ask alms in churches and other open places but that they be sent to the hospitals such number as the said hospitals may or ought to lodge according to their foundation there to tarry and abide upon the alms and charity of the worshipful and substantial persons of the city and suburbs of the same for whose relief and comfort there shall be a proctor admitted for every such hospital having as well one of the said tokens upon him as a token of the said hospital to gather and receive the alms of the people within the said city and suburbs of the same. Item, that a proclamation be made of the premises.

(ii) Orders for regulating begging at Southampton, c. 1536 (A.L.Merson (ed.), The Third Book of Remembrance of Southampton, 1, 52)

(a) An order devised by the said mayor and his brethren for the repressing of beggars and vagabonds.

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First, that a monition and warning be given to all beggars that none of them take upon them, young or old, to beg within the liberty of this town, but such as shall be assigned by Master Mayor. And the same person and persons to have a cognisance or badge delivered by the said mayor, that all the inhabitants may know that he is admitted to beg. And if any person beg without his badge, then the constables, serjeants, and bedells to set the same person in the stocks, except strangers and pilgrims, and they not tarry but one night within the said liberty upon pain aforesaid. Item, that no person inhabited within this town give any alms to any person not having his badge contrary to this ordinance, upon pain of 12.d. for every time. Item, it is thought good that Master Mayor with his brethren view every ward to see how many be meet to beg, and to compel the residue to labour, or to avoid the town and liberty of the same. Item, that one person be admitted to control and present all persons that shall beg or give alms contrary to this ordinance, and he to have yearly of the town 6.s. 8.d. (b) A proclamation for the said purpose. Forasmuch as a great number of beggars of late have resorted unto this town and daily do resort, as well men as women, and inhabit themselves here intending to live only by begging, to the great charge of all the dwellers within the said town, and contrary to many good acts and statutes made for the same: Wherefore My Master the Mayor straitly chargeth and commandeth in the King’s name that no manner of person take upon him or them to beg from henceforth within this town of Southampton and liberty of the same, but only according to the order of the King’s statutes and such as be admitted by Master Mayor and his brethren and hath writing, licence, and badges so to do, according to the form of the King’s said statute made for the repressing of beggars and vagabonds, upon pains comprised in the said statutes. Also My Master the Mayor with the advice of his said brethren straitly charge and command in the King’s name all householders within this liberty that they receive nor harbour any vagabonds or sturdy beggars contrary to the order of the King’s laws, neither give alms to any beggars dwelling within this liberty, but only to such as be admitted by Master Mayor to beg as is aforesaid, upon pain aforesaid. And because no man shall excuse him by ignorance, every dweller shall and may know all persons admitted to beg by a badge or token to them by Master Mayor delivered. And God save the King. (c) Appointment of a Controller of Beggars. Memorandum that for the maintenance of the order taken in the other side for repressing of beggars there is a scutcheon of silver and gilt made which is delivered unto Nicholas Hall, who is admitted to be constable over all beggars to see from time to time that the order in the other side be duly kept, who shall wear and keep the said scutcheon as long as he shall be in the office, and after to remain unto the town. Which scutcheon is in weight two ounces.

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Item there is delivered to every person admitted to beg one scutcheon of tin to wear as long as he or they shall beg, and if any such person depart this world or avoid the town or else go not about to beg, then the same person to cause his or their scochyn or scochyns to be redelivered unto Master Mayor for the time being or to the said controller of beggars to the intent it may serve for another beggar.

(iii) Hospital arrangements in London, 1551 (C.P.R. Edward VI, 1550–53, 130)

In view of the miserable state of the sick and infirm poor men lying begging in public streets and places of London and its suburbs to the infection and annoyance of the King’s subjects using these streets and places: Grant to the mayor and commonalty and the citizens of London of the house and site of the late hospital of Thomas Becket in Southwarke of late called “the hospitall of Saynt Thomas in Southwarke,” Surr., with the church, steeple, church yard and all buildings, barns, stables, dove-houses, ponds, yards, orchards, gardens and ground within the said site; also the rectory of Thomas Becket lately called “the parsonage of Saynt Thomas in Southwarke”; the yearly fair in Southwarke which belonged to the said hospital, and all possessions of the said hospital in the parish of the said Thomas Becket; also the messuages, lands, etc., in the several tenures of Humphrey Collet, William Kellet and William Chapman in the parish of Newyngton, Surr., and of Thomas Leper, Thomas Redyng, Christopher Hide, John Cowper, and the churchwardens of the parish church of St. George in Southwarke in the said parish of St. George, and of Edward Welshe, John Hogeson, Roger Laurence, Humphrey Stoode, Cornelius Mynstrell, Robert Smyth, and William Pecocke in the parish of St. Saviour in Southwark and the late parish of St. Mary Magdalen there, and the houses, etc., in the several tenures of John Lambeth, Thomas Wragges, Edward Tybenson, Anthony de la Rue, Richard Thompson, William Shorte, Thomas Symondes, James Picknall, John Cory, and John Gardyner in the said parish of St. Saviour and late parish of St. Margaret, all which belonged to the said late hospital of St. Thomas. Yearly value £154. 17s. 1d. To hold to the said mayor, commonalty, and citizens and their successors of the king as of his manor of Estgrenwich, Kent, by fealty only, in free socage and not in chief. And gift of the issues since Annunciation last and all the ornaments, bells, lead, clothes, beds, vessel and other chattels, implements and utensils remaining in the said hospital. Exoneration: except the fee of £6. yearly allowed for the bailiff of the premises. Grant further, that the said late hospital of Southwarke shall in future be the place and house for relieving and sustaining the poor there and shall be called the poorhouse in Southwarke next London of the king’s foundation; and the church within the site of the said hospital shall be the parish church as heretofore it was made for the inhabitants within the site of the hospital and the poor, officers and ministers there, and shall in future be called the parish church of St. Thomas in Southwarke next London. And appropriation of the said rectory to the said mayor and commonalty and their successors, and licence to them to convert the said rectory and all its appurtenances to

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their own use without accounting to the king for first fruits or tenths or anything else and without appointing any rector there. And the king wills that out of the issues of the premises shall be maintained not only two ministers for celebrating divine services and administering the sacraments both to the poor, the officers and the ministers of the poorhouse and to the parishioners of the parish of St. Thomas, but also two women or sisters to attend to the poor, and wash their clothes when necessary and convenient; also there shall be maintained in the said hospital and poorhouse one porter to open the gate to let the poor in and out, one expert surgeon to cure the diseased who are received therein, and one honest sober and pious man who from time to time may be the surveyor and deputy of the said mayor, etc., not only to survey the hospital and poorhouse but also to manage the revenues. And the king wills that the residue of the revenues aforesaid beyond the stipends and fees of the officers and ministers and the charge of necessary repairs shall be expended yearly, and from time to time in the maintenance of the sick and infirm poor of the said hospital and poorhouse. And that the said revenues may be thus expended, and not otherwise, it shall be lawful for the king and his successors from time to time as they see expedient to assign commissioners to visit the said hospital and poorhouse. The foresaid two ministers in the said church of St. Thomas shall be exempted from paying first fruits and tenths notwithstanding the Act of 26 Henry VIII. And (for the better support of the poor in the said poorhouse or hospital) the king licences any of his subjects to grant to the said mayor, etc., lands to the yearly value of £46. anywhere within his dominions over and above the lands hereby granted, whether held of the king in chief, or otherwise. This without fine “pro terris ad manum mortuam non ponendis”.

F. BRINGING UP THE YOUNG 155. Dean Colet’s statutes for his foundation, St. Paul’s School, 1518 (J.H.Lupton, Life of John Colet, App. A, 271–282)

I

John Colet have delivered this little book into the hands of Master Lilly on 18th June anno ten [1518] so that he shall keep and observe it in the school. PROLOGUE

John Colet, the son of Henry Colet, Dean of Paul’s, desiring nothing more than education and bringing up children in good manners and literature in the year of Our Lord one thousand five hundred and twelve built a school in the east end of Paul’s Church for 153 to be taught free in the same, and ordained there a Master and a Surmaster and a chaplain with sufficient and perpetual stipends ever to endure, And set patrons and defenders governors and rulers of that same School the most honest and faithful fellowship of the Mercers of London. And for because nothing can continue long and

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endure in good order without laws and statutes I, the said John, have expressed and shewed my mind what I would should be truly and diligently observed and kept of the said Master and Surmaster and Chaplain and of the Mercers, governors of the School, that in this book may appear to what intent I found this School. CHAPTER I. CONCERNING THE HIGH MASTER. In the Grammar School founded in the churchyard of Paul’s at the east end in the year of our lord one thousand five hundred and twelve by John Colet, dean of the same church, in the honour of Christ Jesu in pueritia and of his blessed Mother Mary, in that school shall be first an high master. This high master in doctrine, learning, and teaching shall direct all the school. This Master shall be chosen by the wardens and assistance of the Mercery. A man whole in body, honest and virtuous, and learned in the good and clean Latin literature and also in Greek, if such may be gotten, a wedded man, a single man, or a priest that hath no benefice with cure nor service that may let his due business in the school. The Mercers shall assemble together in the school house with such advice and counsel of well literature and learned men as they can get, they shall choose this master and give unto him his charge, saying unto him on this wise:— Sir, we have chosen you to be Master and teacher of this school, to teach the children of the same not only good literature, but also good manners, certifying you that this is no room of continuance and perpetuity but upon your duty in the school. And every year at Candlemas, when the Mercers be assembled in the schoolhouse, ye shall submit you to our examination, and found doing your duty according ye shall continue. Otherwise, reasonably warned, ye shall content you to depart, and you of your part not warned of us but of your mind in any season willing to depart, ye shall give us warning 12 months before without we can be shortlier well provided of another:— Also, being Master, ye shall not absent you but upon licence of the surveyors for the time being. Also if any controversy and strife shall be betwixt you and Surmaster or the Chaplain of the School, ye shall stand at the direction of the surveyors being for that year. And if the chosen Master will promise this, then admit him, and name him to it and instal him in his seat in the school, and shew him his lodging, that is to say, all the cellars beneath and the hall, the kitchen and buttery, and over that, the whole story and chambers and in the house roof, the little mid-chamber and the gallery in the southside. As touching all the story of chambers next underneath the galleries he shall nothing meddle withal, and they shall give him the implements of his house by indenture. All these belongings he shall have free without any payment and in this lodging he shall dwell and keep household to his power. His wages shall be a mark a week and a livery gown of four nobles delivered in cloth. His absence shall be but once in the year, and not above thirty days, which he shall take conjunctim or divisiim. If the Master be sick of sickness incurable, or fall into such age that he may not conveniently teach, and hath been a man that long and laudably hath taught in the

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school, then let another be chosen, and by the discreet charity of the Mercery let there be assigned to the old master a reasonable living of £10, or otherwise, as it shall seem convenient, so that the old master after his long labour in no wise be left destitute. If the Master be sick of sickness curable, yet nevertheless I will he shall have his wages, and in such sickness if he may not teach let him reward the under-master for his more labour somewhat according. If the under-master be in literature and in honest life according then, the high-master’s room vacant, let him be chosen before another. The high master shall have the tenement in Stepney heath now in the hands of Christopher Middleton to resort unto, which tenement the Mercers shall maintain and repair. CONCERNING THE SUR-MASTER. There shall be also a Sur-Master, some man virtuous in living and well-lettered, that shall teach under the Master as the high-master shall appoint him, some single man or wedded, or a priest that hath no benefice with cure nor service that may let his true diligence in the school. This sur-master the high master shall choose as often as the room shall be void, a man whole in body, and when the high master hath appointed him upon one, he shall call to the school the Surveyors of the school, and before them he shall say to the surmaster on this wiserSir, before these my masters here, the Surveyors of this school, I shew unto you that I have chosen you to be under-master of this school, and to teach always from time to time as I shall appoint you, and supply my room in my absence when it shall be granted me by my masters, the Mercers, Wardens, and Surveyors, and for such more labour in my absence I shall somewhat see to you as my masters here shall think best. Then the Surveyors shall exhort that sur-master diligently to do his duty, and shall say unto him on this wise: Your room is no perpetuity, but according to your labour and diligence ye shall continue, otherwise found not according and reasonably warned of us, ye shall depart. If it shall be so that at any time you will depart of your own mind ye shall give us a half year’s warning. If any controversy be betwixt you and the high master, ye shall stand at our discretion in every thing. If he will promise this, then let the Mercers approve the election of the sur-master, and assign him his lodging in the old change. His wages shall be 6.s. 8.d. a week, and a livery gown of four nobles, delivered in cloth: he shall go to commons with the high master if he may conveniently. He shall be absent in all the year not above thirty days, and yet then for cause reasonably and with licence had of the high master and also of the surveyors. In sickness curable as axis,1 or such sickness, for a time he shall be tolerated and have his full wages. 1

febris accessus, a fit of ague.

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If after his coming he shall fall sick with sickness incurable, as leprosy or French pox, or after his long labour in the school fall into age impotent, then I commit him to the charity of the Mercers, they of the coffer of the school to provide him a living as it may be possible, praying them to be charitable in that behalf. OF BOTH MASTERS AT ONCE. If both masters be sick at once then let the school cease for that while. If there be such sickness in the City contagious, that the school cannot continue, yet nevertheless both masters shall have their wages being always ready for to teach. Neither of these masters shall take office of executorship, or proctorship, or any such other business which shall let their diligence and their necessary labour in the school. If they do, and warned lawfully, if they will not cease from such business, then let them be warned to depart. Let the high master see the school to be kept clean by the poor child and be swept every Saturday, and also the leads, and from time to time to call upon the Mercers for necessary reparations. THE CHAPLAIN. There shall be also in the school a priest that daily, as he can be disposed, shall sing mass in the chapel of the school, and pray for the children to prosper in good life and in good literature to the honour of God and our lord Christ Jesu. At his mass when the bell in the school shall knell to sacring, then all the children in the school, kneeling in their seats, shall with uplifted hands pray in the time of sacring. After the sacring when the bell knelleth again, they shall sit down again to their learning. This priest, some good honest and virtuous man, shall be chosen from time to time by the wardens and assistance of the Mercery, he shall also learn or, if he be learned, help to teach in the school if it shall seem convenient to the high master or else not. He shall have no benefice with cure nor service nor no other office nor occupation, but attend only upon the school; he shall teach the children the catechism and instruction of the articles of the faith and the ten commandments in English. His wages shall be £8 by the year, and livery gown of 26s. 8d., delivered in cloth. His chamber and lodging shall be in the new house in the Old Change, or in the master’s lodging as shall be thought best. He shall not have his room by writing or seal but at liberty according to his deserving. His absence may be once in the year, if it be need, as it shall seem best to the Surveyors of the school for that year, and then with licence asked and obtained of the said Surveyors. In sickness he shall be nothing abridged of his wages, but let it be seen that he be whole in body when he is chosen. If he fall to unthriftiness and misbehaviour, after lawful warning, let him be repelled, and another chosen within 8 days, or as soon after as can be. THE CHILDREN. There shall be taught in the school children of all nations and countries indifferently to the number of 153, according to the number of the seats in the school.

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The master shall admit these children as they be offered from time to time, but first see that they can the catechism, and also that he can read and write competently, else let him not be admitted in no wise. A child at the first admission once for ever shall pay 4.d. for writing of his name. This money of the admissions shall the poor scholar have that sweepeth the school, and keepeth the school clean. In every form one principal child shall be placed in the chair, president of that form. The children shall come unto school in the morning at 7 of the clock, both winter and summer, and tarry there until 11, and return again at one of the clock, and depart at 5, and thrice in the day prostrate they shall say the prayers with due tract and pausing, as they be contained in a table in the school, that is to say, in the morning and at noon and at evening. In the school in no time in the year they shall use tallow candle in no wise, but only wax candle, at the cost of their friends. Also I will they bring no meat nor drink, nor bottles, nor use in the school no breakfasts nor drinkings in the time of learning in no wise; if they need drink let them be provided in some other place. I will they use no cockfighting, nor riding about of victory, nor disputing at St. Bartholomew’s, which is but foolish babbling and loss of time. I will also they shall have no remedies.1 If the Master granteth any remedies, he shall forfeit 40.s. tociens quociens, except the King or an archbishop, or a bishop present in his own person in the school, desire it. All these children shall every Childermass day come to St. Paul’s Church, and hear the Child Bishop’s sermon, and after be at the high mass, and each of them offer 1.d. to the Child Bishop, and with them the masters and surveyors of the school. In general processions when they be warned they shall go twain and twain together soberly and not sing out, but say devoutly twain and twain 7 psalms with the litany. To their urine they shall go thereby to a place appointed, and a poor child of the school shall see it conveyed away from time to time, and have the avail of the urine. For other causes if need be they shall go to the water-side. If any child after he is received and admitted into the school go to any other school to learn thereafter the manner of that school, then I will that such child for no man’s suit shall be hereafter received into our school, but go where him list, where his friends shall think shall be better learning. And this I will be shewed unto his friends or other that offer him at his first presenting into the school. WHAT SHALL BE TAUGHT. As touching in this school what shall be taught of the masters and learned of the scholars it passeth my wit to devise and determine in particular, but in general to speak and somewhat to say my mind, I would they were taught always in good literature, both Latin and Greek, and good authors such as have the very Roman eloquence joined 1 A “remedy” was an extra play-day, or half such a day, allowed in addition to the holy days of the calendar, which were the true holidays.

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with wisdom, especially Christian authors that wrote their wisdom with clean and chaste Latin either in verse or in prose, for my intent is by this school especially to increase knowledge and worshipping of God and Our Lord Christ Jesu and good Christian life and manners in the children. And for that intent I will the children learn first above all the catechism in English, and after, the accidence that I made, or some other if any be better to the purpose, to induce children more speedily to Latin speech. And then Institutum Christiani hominis, which that learned Erasmus made at my request, and the book called Copia Verborum of the same Erasmus. And then other authors Christian as Lactantius, Prudentius, and Proba and Sedulius and Juvencus and Baptista Mantuanus and such other as shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the true Latin speech all barbarism, all corruption, all Latin adulterate which ignorant blind fools brought into this world and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue, which in the time of Tully and Sallust and Virgil and Terence was used, which also Saint Jerome and Saint Ambrose and Saint Austin and many holy doctors learned in their times. I say that filthiness, and all such abuses which the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be called blotterature than literature, I utterly banish and exclude out of this school and charge the masters that they teach always that is the best, and instruct the children in Greek and Latin in reading unto them such authors that hath with wisdom joined the pure chaste eloquence. THE MERCERS’ CHARGE. The honourable Company of Mercers of London, that is to say the Master and all the Wardens and all the assistance of the fellowship, shall have all the cure and charge, rule and governance of the school, and they shall every year choose of their company two honest and substantial men called the Surveyors of the school, which in the name of the whole fellowship shall take all the charge and business about the school for that one year. They shall oversee and receive all the lands of the school and see them repaired from time to time by their officers. And such officer as they appoint to be renter or to other business of the school for his more labour in the school business I will he have 20. shillings a year and a gown price 13.s. 4.d. The Surveyors of the school shall come into the school 6 days before Christmas, 6 days before Easter, 6 days before Saint John Baptist day, and 6 days before Michaelmas, and pay the high master and the sur-master and the priest their quarter’s wages and, at the later end of the year, their liveries in cloth. And once in the year they shall give account to the masters, wardens, and assistance of the fellowship. Their account shall be about Candlemas, three days before or three days after Candlemas Day. In that day appointed shall be assembly, and a little dinner ordained by the Surveyors, not exceeding the price of 4 nobles. In that day they shall call to a reckoning all the estate of the school, and see the account, and discharge the old Surveyor, and to the younger choose another, and in that day after the account they shall give:—

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To the Master Warden a noble if he be present or else not, To each of the other Wardens 5.s. if they be present or else not, To the Surveyors each of them 40.s. for their labours for that year. For their riding and visiting of their lands to each of them 40.s. if they ride. The Clerk of the Mercery shall enact all things that day and have for his labour 3.s. 4.d. See that the steward bring in his court rolls or he have his fee. See that the bailiffs renew their rentals every 5 years. Let not the lands of the school but by the space of 5 years. That is spared that day in rewards and charges let it be put in the treasury of the school. They shall divers times in the quarter come to the school, and see how they do. Every year at the foot of the account all ordinary charges done, the overplus of money which at this day is computed this I wholly give to the fellowship of the Mercery to the maintaining and supporting and repairing of all that belongeth to the school, from time to time. And albeit my mind is that they shall have this surplusage for the intent abovesaid, Yet, nevertheless, I will the said surplusage, as much as shall be spared of it above reparations and casualties, at every account be brought and put in a coffer of iron given of me to the Mercery, standing in their hall, and there from year to year remain apart by itself that it may appear how the school by its own self maintaineth itself. And at length, over and above its own livelihood, if the said school shall grow to any further charge to the Mercery that then also that may appear to the laud and praise and merit of the said fellowship. LIBERTY TO DECLARE THE STATUTES. And notwithstanding these statutes and ordinances before written, in which I have declared my mind and will, yet because in time to come many things may and shall survive and grow by many occasions and causes, which, at the making of this book, was not possible to come to mind, in considering the assured truth and circumspect wisdom and faithfull goodness of the most honest and substantial fellowship of the Mercery of London to whom I have committed all the cure of the school, and trusting in their fidelity and love that they have to God, and man, and to the school, And also believing verily that they shall always dread the great wrath of God, both all this that is said, and all that yet is not said, which hereafter shall come into my mind while I live to be said, I leave it wholly to their discretion and charity, I mean of the Wardens and assistance of the fellowship with such other counsel as they shall call unto them, good lettered and learned men, they to add and diminish unto this book and to supply in it every default. And also to declare in it every obscurity and darkness as time and place and just occasion shall require, calling the dreadful God to look upon them in all such business. And exhorting them to fear the terrible judgment of God, which seeth in darkness and shall render to every man according to his works. And finally praying the great Lord of mercyfor their faithful dealing in this matter now and always to send unto them in this world much wealth and prosperity and after this life much joy and glory.

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156. Education for the sons of gentlemen (H.H.S.Croft (ed.), The Boke named the Governour, c. 4–6:9–13:15–16) Sir Thomas Elyot’s most important writing was The boke named Thegouernour (1531). It deals with a variety of topics, but the chapters devoted to the kind of education he considered most suitable for youths destined to take their part in the government of the country forms the most important part of the work. The significance of Elyot’s educational theories may be studied in the introduction and notes to Croft’s edition supplemented by the monograph by S.E.Lehmberg, Sir Thomas Elyot, Tudor Humanist.

T

he Education or form of bringing up of the child of a gentleman, which is to have authority in a public weal.

Forasmuch as all noble authors do conclude, and also common experience proveth, that where the governors of realms and cities be found adorned with virtues, and do employ their study and mind to the public weal, as well to the augmentation thereof as to the establishing and long continuance of the same: there a public weal must needs be both honourable and wealthy. To the intent that I will declare how such personages may be prepared, I will use the policy of a wise and cunning gardener: who purposing to have in his garden a fine and precious herb, that should be to him and all other repairing thereto, excellently commodious or pleasant, he will first search throughout his garden where he can find the most mellow and fertile earth: and therein will he put the seed of the herb to grow and be nourished: and in most diligent wise attend that no weed be suffered to grow or approach nigh unto it: and to the intent it may thrive the faster, as soon as the form of an herb once appeareth, he will set a vessel of water by it, in such wise that it may continually distil on the root sweet drops; and as it springeth in stalk, under set it with some thing that it break not, and always keep it clean from weeds. Similar order will I ensue in the forming the gentle wits of noblemen’s children, who, from the wombs of their mother, shall be made propitious or apt to the governance of a public weal. First, they, unto whom the bringing up of such children appertaineth, ought, against the time that their mother shall be of them delivered, to be sure of a nurse which should be of no servile condition or vice notable. For, as some ancient writers do suppose, oftentimes the child sucketh the vice of his nurse with the milk of her pap. And also observe that she be of mature or ripe age, not under twenty years, or above thirty, her body also being clean from all sickness or deformity, and having her complexion most of the right and pure sanguine. Forasmuch as the milk thereof coming excelleth all other both in sweetness and substance. Moreover to the nurse should be appointed another woman of approved virtue, discretion, and gravity, who shall not suffer, in the child’s presence, to be shewed any act or tache1 dishonest, or any wanton or unclean word to be spoken: and for that cause all men, except physicians only, should be excluded and kept out of the nursery. Perchance some will scorn me for that I am so serious, saying that there is no such damage to be feared in an infant, who for tenderness of years hath not the understanding to discern good from evil. And yet no man will deny, but in that innocence he will discern milk from butter, and bread from pap, and ere he can speak he will with his hand or countenance signify which he 1

spot or stain.

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desireth. And I verily do suppose that in the brains and hearts of children, which be members spiritual, whilst they be tender, and the little slips of reason begin in them to burgeon, there may hap by evil custom some pestiferous dew of vice to pierce the said members, and infect and corrupt the soft and tender buds, whereby the fruit may grow wild, and sometime contain in it fervent and mortal poison, to the utter destruction of a realm. And we have in daily experience that little infants essayeth to follow, not only the words, but also the faictes1 and gesture, of them that be advanced in years. For we daily hear, to our great heaviness, children swear great oaths and speak lascivious and unclean words, by the example of other whom they hear, whereat the lewd parents do rejoice, soon after, or in this world or elsewhere, to their great pain and torment. Contrarywise we behold some children, kneeling in their game before images, and holding up their little white hands, do move their pretty mouths, as they were praying: other going and singing as it were in procession: whereby they do express their disposition to the imitation of those things, be they good or evil, which they usually do see or hear. Wherefore not only princes, but also all other children, from their nurses’ paps, are to be kept diligently from the hearing or seeing of any vice or evil spot. And incontinent as soon as they can speak, it behoveth, with most pleasant allurings, to instil in them sweet manners and virtuous custom. Also to provide for them such companions and play fellows, which shall not do in his presence any reproachable act, or speak any unclean word or oath, nor to advaunt2 him with flattery, remembering his nobility, or any other like thing wherein he might glory: unless it be to persuade him to virtue, or to withdraw him from vice, in the remembering to him the danger of his evil example. For noble men more grievously offend by their example than by their deed. Yetoften remembrance to them of their estate may happen to eradicate in their hearts intolerable pride, the most dangerous poison to nobleness: wherefore there is required to be therein much caution and soberness. V. The order of learning that a nobleman should be trained in before he come to the age of seven years. Some old authors hold opinion that, before the age of seven years, a child should not be instructed in letters; but those writers were either Greeks or Latins, among whom all doctrine and sciences were in their maternal tongues; by reason whereof they saved all that long time which at this day is spent in understanding perfectly the Greek or Latin. Wherefore it requireth now a longer time to the understanding of both. Therefore that infelicity of our time and country compelleth us to encroach somewhat upon the years of children, and especially of noblemen, that they may sooner attain to wisdom and gravity than private persons, considering, as I have said, their charge and example, which, above all things, is most to be esteemed. Notwithstanding, I would not have them enforced by violence to learn, but according to the counsel of Quintilian, to be sweetly allured thereto with praises and such pretty gifts as children delight in. And their first letters to be painted or limned in a pleasant manner: wherein children of 1

acts.

2

make boastful.

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gentle courage have much delectation. And also there is no better allective to noble wits than to induce them into a contention with their inferior companions: they sometime purposely suffering the more noble children to vanquish, and, as it were, giving to them place and sovereignty, though indeed the inferior children have more learning. But there can be nothing more convenient than by little and little to train and exercise them in speaking of Latin: informing them to know first the names in Latin of all things that cometh in sight, and to name all the parts of their bodies: and giving them somewhat that they covet or desire, in most gentle manner to teach them to ask it again in Latin. And if by this means they may be induced to understand and speak Latin: it shall afterwards be less grief to them, in a manner, to learn anything, where they understand the language wherein it is written. And, as touching grammar, there is at this day better introductions, and more facile, than ever before were made, concerning as well Greek as Latin, if they be wisely chosen. And it shall be no reproach to a nobleman to instruct his own children, or at leastwise to examine them, by the way of dalliance or solace, considering that the emperor Octavius Augustus disdained not to read the works of Cicero and Virgil to his children and nephews. And why should not noblemen rather so do, than teach their children how at dice and cards, they may cunningly lose and consume their own treasure and substance? Moreover teaching representeth the authority of a prince: wherefore Dionysius, King of Sicily, when he was for tyranny expelled by his people, he came into Italy, and there in a common school taught grammar, wherewith, when he was of his enemies upbraided, and called a school-master, he answered them, that although Sicilians had exiled him, yet in despite of them all he reigned, noting thereby the authority that he had over his scholars. Also when it was of him demanded what availed him Plato or philosophy, wherein he had been studious: he answered that they caused him to sustain adversity patiently, and made his exile to be to him more facile and easy: which courage and wisdom considered of his people, they eftsoons restored him unto his realm and estate royal, where, if he had procured against them hostility or wars, or had returned into Sicily, with any violence, I suppose the people would have always resisted him, and have kept him in perpetual exile: as the Romans did the proud King Tarquin, whose son ravished Lucrece. But to return to my purpose, it shall be expedient that a nobleman’s son, in his infancy, have with him continually only such as may accustom him by little and little to speak pure and elegant Latin. Similarly the nurses and other women about him, if it be possible, to do the same: or, at the least way, that they speak no English but that which is clean, polite, perfectly and articulately pronounced, omitting no letter or syllable, as foolish women oftentimes do of a wantonness, whereby divers noblemen and gentlemen’s children, (as I do at this day know), have attained corrupt and foul pronounciation. This industry used in forming little infants, who shall doubt, but that they, (not lacking natural wit,) shall be apt to receive learning, when they come to more years? And in this wise may they be instructed, without any violence or enforcing: using the more part of the time, until they come to the age of seven years in such disports, as do appertain to children, wherein is no resemblance or similitude of vice.

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VI. At what age a tutor should be provided, and what shall appertain to his office to do. After that a child is come to seven years of age, I hold it expedient that he be taken from the company of women: saving that he may have, one year, or two at the most, an ancient and sad matron, attending on him in his chamber, which shall not have any young woman in her company: for though there be no peril of offence in that tender and innocent age, yet, in some children, nature is more prone to vice than to virtue, and in the tender wits be sparks of voluptuousness: which, nourished by any occasion or object, increase oftentimes into so terrible a fire, that therewith all virtue and reason is consumed. Wherefore, to eschew that danger, the most sure counsel is, to withdraw him from all company of women, and to assign unto him a tutor, which should be an ancient and worshipful man, in whom is approved to be much gentleness, mixed with gravity, and, as nigh as can be, such one as the child by imitation following may grow to be excellent. And if he be also learned, he is the more commendable. Peleus, the father of Achilles, committed the governance of his son to Phenix, which was a stranger born: who, as well in speaking elegantly as in doing valiantly, was master to Achilles (as Homer saith). How much profited it to King Philip, father to the great Alexander, that he was delivered in hostage to the Thebans? where he was kept and brought up under the governance of Epaminondas, a noble and valiant captain: of whom he received such learning, as well in acts martial as in other liberal sciences, that he excelled all other kings that were before his time in Greece, and finally, as well by wisdom as prowess, subdued all that country. Similarly, he ordained for his son Alexander a noble tutor called Leonidas, unto whom, for his wisdom, humanity, and learning, he committed the rule and pre-eminence over all the masters and servants of Alexander. In whom, notwithstanding, was such a familiar vice, which Alexander apprehending in childhood could never abandon: some suppose it to be fury and hastiness, others superfluous drinking of wine: which of them it were, it is a good warning for gentlemen to be the more serious, in searching, not only for the virtues, but also for the vices of them, unto whose tuition and governance they will commit their children. The office of a tutor is first to know the nature of his pupil, that is to say, whereto he is most inclined or disposed, and in what thing he setteth his most delectation or appetite. If he be of a nature courteous, piteous, and of a free and liberal heart, it is a principal token of grace, (as it is by all scripture determined). Then shall a wise tutor purposely commend those virtues, extolling also his pupil for having of them; and therewith he shall declare them to be of all men most fortunate, which shall happen to have such a master. And moreover shall declare to him what honour, what love, what commodity shall happen to him by these virtues. And, if any have been of disposition contrary, then to express the enormities of their vice, with as much detestation as may be. And if any danger have thereby ensued, misfortune or punishment, to aggrieve1 it in such wise, with so vehement words, as the child may abhor it, and fear the similar adventure. 1

declare its seriousness.

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IX. What exact diligence should be in choosing masters. After that the child hath been pleasantly trained, and induced to know the parts of speech, and can separate one of them from another, in his own language, it shall then be time that his tutor or governor do make diligent search for such a master as is excellently learned both in Greek and Latin, and therewithal is of sober and virtuous disposition, specially chaste of living, and of much affability and patience: lest by any unclean example the tender mind of the child may be infected, hard afterwards to be recovered. For the natures of children be not so much or soon advanced by things well done or spoken, as they be hindered and corrupted by that which in acts or words is wantonly expressed. Also by a cruel and irous1 master the wits of children be dulled; and that thing for the which children be oftentimes beaten is to them ever after fastidious: whereof we need no better author for witness than daily experience. Wherefore the most necessary things to be observed by a master in his disciples or scholars (as Licon the noble grammarian said) is shamfastnes2 and praise. By sham-fastnes, as it were with a bridle, they rule as well their deeds as their appetites. And desire of praise addeth to a sharp spur to their disposition towards learning and virtue. According thereunto Quintilian, instructing an orator, desireth such a child to be given unto him, whom commendation fervently steereth, glory provoketh, and being vanquished weepeth. That child (saith he) is to be fed with ambition, him a little chiding sore biteth, in him no part of sloth is to be feared. And if nature disposeth not the child’s wit to receive learning, but rather otherwise, it is to be applied with more diligence, and also policy, as choosing some book, whereof the argument or matter approacheth most nigh to the child’s inclination or fantasy, so that it be not extremely vicious, and therewith by little and little, as it were with a pleasant sauce, provoke him to have good appetite to study. And surely that child whatsoever he be, is well blessed and fortunate, that findeth a good instructor or master: which was considered by noble King Philip, father to the great King Alexander, who immediately after that his son was born wrote a letter to Aristotle, the prince of philosophers, the tenour whereof ensueth. Aristotle, we greet you well. Letting you wite that we have a son born, for the which we give due thanks unto God, not for that he is born only, but also forasmuch as it happeneth him to be born, you living. Trusting that it shall happen that he, by you taught and instructed, shall be hereafter worthy to be named our son, and to enjoy the honour and substance that we now have provided. Thus fare ye well. The same Alexander was wont to say openly, that he ought to give as great thanks to Aristotle his master as to King Philip his father, for of him he took, the occasion to live, of the other he received the reason and way to live well…. X. What order should be in learning and which authors should be first read. Now let us return to the order of learning apt for a gentleman. Wherein I am of the opinion of Quintilian that I would have him learn Greek and Latin authors both at one 1

irritable.

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modesty.

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time: or else to begin with Greek, forasmuch as that it is hardest to come by: by reason of the diversity of tongues which be five in number: and all must be known, or else scarcely any poet can be well understood. And if a child do begin therein at seven years of age, he may continually learn Greek authors three years, and in the meantime use the Latin tongue as a familiar language: which in a nobleman’s son may well come to pass, having none other persons to serve him or keeping him company, but such as can speak Latin elegantly. And what doubt is there but so may he as soon speak good Latin, as he may do pure French, which now is brought into as many rules and figures, and as long a grammar as is Latin or Greek. I will not contend who, among them that do write grammars of Greek, (which now be almost innumerable,) is the best: but that I refer to the discretion of a wise master. Always I would advise him not to detain the child too long in that tedious labour, either in the Greek or Latin grammar. For a gentle wit is therewith soon fatigued. Grammar being but an introduction to the understanding of authors, if it be made too long or exquisite to the learner, it in a manner mortifieth his courage: And by that time he cometh to the most sweet and pleasant reading of old authors the sparks of fervent desire of learning is extinct with the burden of grammar, like as a little fire is soon quenched with a great heap of small sticks: so that it can never come to the principal logs where it should long burn in a great pleasant fire. Now to follow my purpose: after a few and quick rules of grammar, immediately, or interlacing it therewith, would be read to the child Esop’s fables in Greek: in which argument children much do delight. And surely it is a much pleasant lesson and also profitable, as well for that it is elegant and brief (and notwithstanding it hath much variety in words, and therewith much helpeth to the understanding of Greek) as also in those fables is included much moral and politic wisdom. Wherefore, in the teaching of them, the master diligently must gather together those fables, which may be most accommodate to the advancement of some virtue, whereto he perceiveth the child inclined: or to the rebuke of some vice, whereto he findeth his nature disposed. And therein the master ought to exercise his wit, as well to make the child plainly to understand the fable, as also declaring the signification thereof compendiously and to the purpose, foreseen always, that as well this lesson, as all other authors which the child shall learn, either Greek or Latin, verse or prose, be perfectly had without the book: whereby he shall not only attain plenty of the tongues called Copy, [Latin, copias] but also increase and nourish remembrance wonderfully. The next lesson would be some quick and merry dialogues, elect out of Lucian, which be without ribaldry, or too much scorning, for either of them is exactly to be eschewed, specially for a nobleman, the one annoying the soul, the other his estimation concerning his gravity. The comedies of Aristophanes may be in the place of Lucian, and by reason that they be in metre they be the sooner learned by heart. I dare make none other comparison between them for offending the friends of them both; but thus much dare I say, that it were better that a child should never read any part of Lucian than all Lucian. I could rehearse divers other poets which for matter and eloquence be very necessary, but I fear me to be too long from noble Homer: from whom as from a fountain proceeded

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all eloquence and learning. For in his books be contained, and most perfectly expressed, not only the documents martial and discipline of arms, but also incomparable wisdom, and instructions for politic governance of people: with the worthy commendation and laud of noble princes: wherewith the readers shall be so all inflamed, that they most fervently shall desire and covet, by the imitation of their virtues, to acquire similar glory. For the which occasion, Aristotle, most sharpest witted and excellent learned Philosopher, as soon as he had received Alexander from King Philip his father, he before any other thing taught him the most noble works of Homer: wherein Alexander found such sweetness and fruit, that ever after he had Homer not only with him in all his journeys, but also laid him under his pillow when he went to rest: and oftimes would purposely wake some hours of the night to take as it were his pastime with that most noble poet…. Notwithstanding, forasmuch as the said works be very long, and do require therefore a great time to be all learned and kenned, some Latin authors would be therewith mixed, and specially Virgil: which in his work called Eneidos, is most like to Homer, and almost the same Homer in Latin. Also, by the joining together of those authors, the one shall be the better understood by the other. And verily (as I before said) no one author serveth to so divers wits as doth Virgil. For there is not that affection or desire, whereto any child’s fantasy is disposed, but in some of Virgil’s works may be found matter thereto apt and propitious. For what thing can be more familiar than his bucolics? nor no work so nigh approacheth to the common dalliance and manners of children, and the pretty controversies of the simple shepherds, therein contained, wonderfully rejoiceth the child that heareth it well declared, as I know by mine own experience. In his Georgics, Lord, what pleasant variety there is: the divers grains, herbs, and flowers that be there described, that, reading therein, it seemeth to a man to be in a delectable garden or paradise. What ploughman knoweth so much of husbandry as there is expressed? who, delighting in good horses, should not be thereto more inflamed, reading there of the breeding, choosing, and keeping of them? In the declaration whereof Virgil leaveth far behind him all breeders, hackneymen, and skosers. It there any astronomer that more exactly setteth out the order and course of the celestial bodies: or that more truly doth divine in his prognostications of the times of the year, in their qualities, with the future estate of all things provided by husbandry, than Virgil doth recite in that work? If the child have a delight in hunting, what pleasure shall he take of the fable of Aristeus: similarly in the hunting of Dido and Eneas, which is described most elegantly in his book of Eneidos. If he have pleasure in wrestling, running, or other like exercise, where shall he see any more pleasant diversions than that which was done by Euryalus and other Trojans, which accompanied Eneas? If he take solace in hearing minstrels, what minstrel may be compared to Jopas, which sang before Dido and Eneas? or to blind Demodocus, that played and sang most sweetly at the dinner that the King Alcinous made to Ulysses: whose ditties and melodies excelled as far the songs of our minstrels, as Homer and Virgil excel all other poets. If he be more desirous, (as the most part of children be,) to hear things marvellous

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and exquisite, which hath in it a visage of some things incredible, whereat shall he more wonder, than when he shall behold Eneas follow Sibell into hell? What shall he more dread, than the terrible visages of Cerberus, Gorgon, Megera, and other furies and monsters? How shall he abhor tyranny, fraud, and avarice, when he doth see the pains of duke Theseus, Prometheus, Sisiphus, and such other tormented for their dissolute and vicious living? How glad soon after shall he be, when he shall behold, in the pleasant fields of Elysium, the souls of nobles princes and captains which, for their virtue, and labours in advancing the public weals of their countries, do live eternally in pleasure inexplicable. And in the last books of Eneid shall he find matter to minister to him audacity, valiant courage, and policy, to take and sustain noble enterprises, if any shall be needful for the assailing of his enemies. Finally (as I have said) this noble Virgil, like to a good nurse, giveth to a child, if he will take it, everything apt for his wit and capacity: wherefore he is in the order of learning to be preferred before any other author Latin. I would set next unto him two books of Ovid, the one called Metamorphoses, which is as much to say as, changing of men into other figure or form: the other is entitled De Fastis: where the ceremonies of the Gentiles, and specially the Romans, be expressed: both right necessary for the understanding of other poets. But because there is little other learning in them, concerning either virtuous manners or policy, I suppose it were better that as fables and ceremonies happen to come in a lesson, it were declared abundantly by the master than that in the said two books a long time should be spent and almost lost: which might be better employed on such authors that do minister both eloquence, civil policy, and exhortation to virtue. Wherefore in his place let us bring in Horace, in whom is contained much variety of learning and quickness of sentence. This poet may be interlaced with the lesson of Odyssey of Homer, wherein is declared the wonderful prudence and fortitude of Ulysses in his passage from Troy. And if the child were induced to make verses by the imitation of Virgil and Homer, it should minister to him much delectation and courage to study: nor the making of verses is not discommended in a nobleman: since the noble Augustus and almost all the old emperors made books in verses. The two noble poets Silius and Lucan be very expedient to be learnt: for the one setteth out the emulation in qualities and prowess of two noble and valiant captains, one enemy to the other, that is to say, Silius writeth of Scipio the Roman, and Hannibal, duke of Carthagina: Lucan declareth a similar matter, but much more lamentable: forasmuch as the wars were civil, and, as it were, in the bowels of the Romans, that is to say, under the standards of Julius Caesar and Pompey. Hesiod, in Greek, is more brief than Virgil, where he writeth of husbandry, and doth not rise so high in philosophy, but is fuller of fables: and therefore is more alluring. And here I conclude to speak any more of poets, necessary for the childhood of a gentleman: forasmuch as these, I doubt not, will suffice until he pass the age of thirteen years. In which time childhood declineth, and reason waxeth ripe, and comprehendeth things with a more constant judgment. Here I would should be remembered, that I require not that all these works should be thoroughly read of a child in this time, which

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were almost impossible. But I only desire that they have, in every of the said books, so much instruction that they may take thereby some profit. Then the child’s courage, inflamed by the frequent reading of noble poets, daily more and more desireth to have experience in those things that they so vehemently do commend in them that they write of…. XI. The most commodious and necessary studies succeeding ordinately the lesson of poets. After that fourteen years be passed of a child’s age, his master if he can, or some other, studiously exercised in the art of an orator, shall first read to him somewhat of that part of logic that is called Topica, either in Cicero, or else of that noble clerk of Almaine, which late flowered, called Agricola: whose work prepareth invention, telling the places from whence an argument for the proof of any matter may be taken with little study: and that lesson, with much and diligent learning, having mixed therewith none other exercise, will in the space of half a year be perfectly kenned. Immediately after that, the art of Rhetoric would be similarly taught, either in Greek out of Hermogenes or of Quintilian in Latin, beginning at the third book, and instructing diligently the child in that part of rhetoric, principally, which concerneth persuasion: forasmuch as it is most apt for consultations. There can be no shorter instruction of Rhetoric than the treatise that Tully wrote unto his son, which book is named the partition of rhetoric. And in good faith, to speak boldly that I think: for him that needeth not, or doth not desire, to be an exquisite orator, the little book made by the famous Erasmus, (whom all gentle wits are bound to thank and support), which he calleth Copiam Verborum et Rerum, that is to say, plenty of words and matters, shall be sufficient. Isocrates, concerning the lesson of orators, is everywhere wonderful profitable, having almost as many wise sentences as he hath words: and with that it is so sweet and delectable to read, that, after him, almost all other seem unsavoury and tedious: and in persuading, as well a prince, as a private person, to virtue, in two very little and compendious works, whereof he made the one to King Nicocles, the other to his friend Demonicus would be perfectly kenned, and had in continual memory. Demosthenes and Tully, by the consent of all learned men, have pre-eminence and sovereignty over all orators: the one reigning in wonderful eloquence in the public weal of the Romans, who had the empire and dominion of all the world: the other, of no less estimation, in the city of Athens, which of long time was accounted the mother of Sapience and the palace of muses and all liberal sciences. Of which two orators may be attained, not only eloquence excellent and perfect, but also precepts of wisdom, and gentle manners: with most commodious examples of all noble virtues and policy. Wherefore, the master, in reading them, must well observe and express the parts and colours of rhetoric in them contained, according to the precepts of that art before learned. The utility that a nobleman shall have by reading these orators, is, that when he shall happen to reason in council, or shall speak in a great audience, or to strange ambassadors of great princes, he shall not be constrained to speak words sudden and

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disordered, but shall bestow them aptly and in their places. Wherefore the most noble emperor Octavius is highly commended, for that he never spoke in the Senate, or to the people of Rome, but in an oration prepared and purposely made. Also to prepare the child to understanding of histories, which, being replenished with the names of countries and towns unknown to the reader, do make the history tedious or else the less pleasant, so if they be in any wise unknown, it increaseth an inexplicable delectation. It shall be therefore, and also for refreshing the wit, a convenient lesson to behold the old tables of Ptolemy, wherein all the world is painted, having first some introduction into the sphere, whereof now of late be made very good treatises, and more plain and easy to learn than was wont to be. Albeit there is none so good learning as the demonstration of cosmography by material figures and instruments, having a good instructor. And surely this lesson is both pleasant and necessary. For what pleasure is it, in one hour, to behold those realms, cities, seas, rivers, and mountains, that scarcely in an old man’s life cannot be journeyed and pursued: what incredible delight is taken in beholding the diversities of people, beasts, fowls, fishes, trees, fruits, and herbs: to know the sundry manners and conditions of people, and the variety of their natures, and that in a warm study or parlour, without peril of the sea, or danger of long and painful journeys: I cannot tell what more pleasure should happen to a gentle wit, than to behold in his own house everything that within all the world is contained…. Cosmography being substantially perceived, it is then time to induce a child to the reading of histories: but first to set him in a fervent courage, the master in the most pleasant and elegant wise expressing what incomparable delectation, utility, and commodity, shall happen to emperors, kings, princes, and all other gentlemen by reading of histories: shewing to him that Demetrius Phalareus, a man of excellent wisdom and learning, and which in Athens had been long exercised in the public weal, exhorted Ptolemy, King of Egypt, chiefly above all other studies, to haunt and embrace histories, and such other books, wherein were contained precepts made to kings and princes: saying that in them he should read those things which no man durst report unto his person. Also Cicero, father of the latin eloquence, calleth an history the witness of times, mistress of life, the life of remembrance, of truth the light, and messenger of antiquity. Moreover, the sweet Isocrates exhorteth the King Nicocles, whom he instructeth, to leave behind him statutes and images, that shall represent rather the figure and similitude of his mind, than the features of his body, signifying thereby the remembrance of his acts written in histories. By similar advertisements shall a noble heart be trained to delight in histories. And then, according to the counsel of Quintilian, it is best that he begin with Titus Livius, not only for his elegance of writing, which floweth in him like a fountain of sweet milk: but also forasmuch as by reading that author he may know how the most noble city of Rome, of a small and poor beginning, by prowess and virtue, little and little came to the empire and dominion of all the world. Also in that city he may behold the form of a public weal: which, if the insolence

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and pride of Tarquin had not excluded kings out of the city, it had been the most noble and perfect of all other. Xenophon, being both a philosopher and an excellent captain, so invented and ordered his work named Paedia Cyri, which may be interpreted the Childhood or discipline of Cyrus, that he leaveth to the readers thereof an incomparable sweetness and example of living, specially for the conducting and well ordering of hosts or armies. And therefore the noble Scipio who was called Africanus, as well in peace as in war was never seen without his book of Xenophon. With him may be joined Quintus Curtius, who writeth the life of King Alexander elegantly and sweetly. In whom may be found the figure of an excellent prince, as he that incomparably excelled all other kings and emperors in wisdom, hardiness, strength, policy, agility, valiant courage, nobility, liberality and courtesy; wherein he was a spectacle or mark for all princes to look on. Contrariwise when he was once vanquished with voluptuousness and pride his tyranny and beastly cruelty abhorreth all readers. The comparison of the virtues of these two noble princes, equally described by two excellent writers, well expressed, shall provoke a gentle courage to contend to follow their virtues. Julius Caesar and Sallust for their compendious writing to the understanding whereof is required an exact and perfect judgment, and also for the exquisite order of battle and continuing history without any variety, whereby the pain of study should be alleviated, they two would be reserved until he that shall read them shall see some experience in similar matters. And then shall he find in them such pleasure and commodity as therewith a noble and gentle heart ought to be satisfied. For in them both it shall seem to a man that he is present and heareth the counsels and exhortations of captains, which be called Conciones, and that he seeeth the order of hosts when they be embattled, the fierce assaults and encounterings of both armies, the furious rage of that monster called war. And he shall ween that he heareth the terrible dints of sundry weapons and ordnance of battle, the conduct and policies of wise and expert captains, specially in the commentaries of Julius Caesar, which he made of his exploit in France and Britain, and other countries now reckoned among the provinces of Germany: which book is studiously to be read of the princes of this realm of England and their counsellors; considering that thereof may be taken necessary instructions concerning the wars against Irishmen or Scots who be of the same rude-ness and wild disposition that the Swiss and Britons were in the time of Caesar. Similarly utility shall be found in the history of Titus Livius, in his third Decades, where he writeth of the battles that the Romans had with Hannibal and the Cartha-ginians. Also there be divers orations as well in all the books of the said authors as in the history of Cornelius Tacitus, which be very delectable and for counsels very expedient to be had in memory. And in good faith I have often thought that the consultations and orations written by Tacitus do import a majesty with a compendious eloquence therein contained. In the learning of these authors, a young gentleman shall be taught to note and mark, not only the order and elegance in declaration of the history, but also the occasion

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of the wars, the counsels and preparations on either part, the estimation of the captains, the manner and form of their governance, the continuance of the battle, the fortune and success of the whole affairs. Similarly out of the wars in other daily affairs, the estate of the public weal, if it be prosperous or in decay, what is the very occasion of the one or of the other, the form and manner of the governance thereof, the good and evil qualities of them that be rulers, the commodities and good sequel of virtue, the discommodities and evil conclusion of vicious licence. Surely if a nobleman do thus seriously and diligently read histories, I dare affirm there is no study or science for him of equal commodity and pleasure, having regard to every time and age. By the time that the child do come to seventeen years of age, to the intent his courage be bridled with reason, it were needful to read unto him some works of philosophy; specially that part that may inform him unto virtuous manners, which part of philosophy is called moral. Wherefore there should be read to him, for an introduction, two the first books of the works of Aristotle called Ethica, wherein is contained the definitions and proper significations of every virtue; and that to be learned in Greek; for the translations that we yet have be but a rude and gross shadow of the eloquence and wisdom of Aristotle. Forthwith would follow the work of Cicero, called in Latin De Officiis, whereunto yet is no proper English word to be given; but to provide for it some manner of exposition it may be said in this form: “Of the duties and manners appertaining to men”. But above all other, the works of Plato would be most studiously read when the judgment of a man is come to perfection, and by the other studies is instructed in the form of speaking that philosophers used. Lord God, what incomparable sweetness of words and matter shall he find in the said works of Plato and Cicero; wherein is joined gravity with delectation, excellent wisdom with divine eloquence, absolute virtue with pleasure incredible, and every place is so infarced1 with profitable counsel, joined with honesty, that those three books be almost sufficient to make a perfect and excellent governor. The proverbs of Salomon with the books of Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus be very good lessons. All the historical parts of the bible be right necessary for to be read of a nobleman, after that he is mature in years. And the residue (with the New Testament) is to be reverently touched, as a celestial jewel or relic, having the chief interpreter of those books true and constant faith, and dreadfully to set hands thereon, remembering that Oza, for putting his hand to the holy shrine that was called Archa federis, when it was brought by King David from the city of Gaba, though it were wavering and in danger to fall, yet was he stricken of God, and fell dead immediately. It would not be forgotten that the little book of the most excellent doctor Erasmus Roterodamus, (which he wrote to Charles, now being Emperor and then prince of Castile) which book is entitled the Institution of a Christian Prince, would be as familiar always with gentlemen, at all times, and in every age, as was Homer with the great King Alexander, or Xenophon with Scipio; for as all men may judge that have read that work of Erasmus, that there was never book written in Latin that, in so little a portion contained of sentences, eloquence, and virtuous exhortation, a more 1

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compendious abundance. And here I make an end of the learning and study whereby noblemen may attain to be worthy to have authority in a public weal. Always I shall exhort tutors and governors of noble children, that they suffer them not to use ingurgitations of meat or drink, nor to sleep much, that is to say, above eight hours at the most. For undoubtedly both repletion and superfluous sleep be capital enemies to study, as they be similarly to health of body and soul. Aulus Gellius saith that children, if they use of meat and sleep overmuch be made therewith dull to learn and we see that thereof slowness is taken, and the children’s personages do wax uncomely, and less grow in stature. Galen will not permit that pure wine, without alay of water, should in any wise be given to children, forasmuch as it humecteth1 the body, or maketh it moister and hotter than is convenient, also it filleth the head with fume, in them specially, which be like as children of hot and moist temperature. These be well nigh the words of the noble Galen. XII. Why gentlemen in this present time be not equal in doctrine to the ancient noblemen. Now will I somewhat declare of the chief causes why, in our time, noble men be not as excellent in learning as they were in old time among the Romans and Greeks. Surely, as I have diligently marked in daily experience, the principal causes be these. The pride, avarice, and negligence of parents, and the lack or fewness of sufficient masters or teachers. As I said, pride is the first cause of this inconvenience. For of those persons be some which, without shame, dare affirm, that to a great gentleman it is a notable reproach to be well learned and to be called a great clerk: which name they account to be of so base estimation that they never have it in their mouths but when they speak anything in derision, which perchance they would not do if they had once leisure to read our own Chronicle of England, where they shall find that King Henry the first, son of William Conqueror, and one of the most noble princes that ever reigned in this realm, was openly called Henry Beauclerk, which is in English, fair clerk, and is yet at this day so named. And whether that name be to his honour or to his reproach, let them judge that do read and compare his life with his two brethren, William called Rouse, and Robert le courtoise, they both not having similar learning with the said Henry, the one for his dissolute living and tyranny being hated of all his nobles and people, finally was suddenly slain by the shot of an arrow, as he was hunting in a forest, which to make larger and to give his deer more liberty, he did cause the houses of fifty-two parishes to be pulled down, the people to be expelled, and all being desolate to be turned into desert, and made only pasture for beasts savage; which he would never have done if he had as much delighted in good learning as did his brother…. These persons that so much contemn learning, that they would that gentlemens’ children should have no part or very little thereof, but rather should spend their youth 1

moistens.

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always (I say not only in hunting and hawking, which moderately used as solaces ought to be, I intend not to dispraise) but in those idle pastimes, which, for the vice that is therein, the commandment of the prince, and the universal consent of the people, expressed in statutes and laws, do prohibit, I mean, playing at dice, and other games named unlawful. These persons, I say, I would should remember, or else now learn, if they never else heard it, that the noble Philip King of Macedonia, who subdued all Greece, above all the good fortunes that ever he had, most rejoiced that his son Alexander was born in the time that Aristotle the philosopher flourished, by whose instruction he might attain to most excellent learning…. XIII. The second and third decay of learning among gentlemen. The second occasion wherefore gentlemens’ children seldom have sufficient learning is avarice. For where their parents will not adventure to send them far out of their proper countries, partly for fear of death, which perchance dare not approach them at home with their father; partly for expense of money, which they suppose would be less in their own houses or in a village, with some of their tenants or friends; having seldom any regard to the teacher, whether he be well learned or ignorant. For if they hire a school master to teach in their houses, they chiefly inquire with how small a salary he will be contented, and never do search how much good learning he hath, and how among well learned men he is therein esteemed, using therein less diligence than in taking servants, whose service is of much less importance, and to a good schoolmaster is not in profit to be compared. A gentleman, ere he take a cook into his service, he will first diligently examine him, how many sorts of meats, pottages, and sauces, he can perfectly make, and how well he can season them, that they may be both pleasant and nourishing; yea and if it be but a falconer, he will scrupulously enquire what skill he hath in feeding, called diet, and keeping of his hawk from all sickness, also how he can reclaim her and prepare her to flight. And to such a cook or falconer, whom he findeth expert, he spared not to give much wages with other bounteous rewards. But of a schoolmaster, to whom he will commit his child, to be fed with learning and instructed in virtue, whose life shall be the principal monument of his name and honour, he never maketh further inquiry but where he may have a schoolmaster; and with how little charge; and if one be perchance found, well learned, but he will not take pains to teach without he may have a great salary, he then speaketh nothing more, or else saith, What shall so much wages be given to a schoolmaster which would keep me two servants? to whom may be said these words, that by his son being well learned he shall receive more commodity and also worship than by the service of a hundred cooks and falconers. The third cause of this hindrance is negligence of parents, which I do specially note in this point; there have been divers, as well gentlemen as of the nobility, that delighting to have their sons excellent in learning have provided for them cunning masters, who substantially have taught them grammar, and very well instructed them to speak Latin elegantly, whereof the parents have taken much delectation; but when they have had of grammar sufficient and be come to the age of fourteen years, and do approach and draw toward the estate of man, which age is called mature or ripe, (wherein not only

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the said learning continued by much experience should be perfectly digested, and confirmed in perpetual remembrance, but also more serious learning contained in other liberal sciences, and also philosophy, would then be learned) the parents, that thing nothing regarding, but being sufficed that their children can only speak Latin properly, or make verses without matter or sentence, they from thence forth do suffer them to live in idleness, or else, putting them to service, do, as it were, banish them from all virtuous study or exercise of that which they before learned; so that we may behold divers young gentlemen, who in their infancy and childhood were wondered at for their aptness to learning and prompt speaking of elegant Latin, which now, being men, not only have forgotten their congruity, (as in the common word), and scarcely can speak one whole sentence in true Latin, but, that worse is, hath all learning in derision, and in scorn thereof will, of wantonness, speak the most barbarously that they can imagine. Now some man will require me to shew mine opinion if it be necessary that gentlemen should after the age of fourteen years continue in study. And to be plain and true therein, I dare affirm that, if the elegant speaking of Latin be not added to other doctrine, little fruit may come of the tongue; since Latin is but a natural speech, and the fruit of speech is wise sentence, which is gathered and made of sundry learnings. And who that hath nothing but language only may be no more praised than a popinjay, a magpie, or a starling, when they speak featly. There be many nowadays in famous schools and universities which be so much given to the study of tongues only, that when they write epistles, they seem to the reader that, like a trumpet, they make a sound without any purpose, whereunto men do hearken more for the noise than for any delectation that thereby is roused. Wherefore they be much abused that suppose eloquence to be only in words or colours of Rhetoric, for, as Tully saith, what is so furious or mad a thing as a vain sound of words of the best sort and most ornate, containing neither cunning nor sentence? Undoubtedly very eloquence is in every tongue where any matter or act done or to be done is expressed in words clean, propitious, ornate, and comely: whereof sentences to be so aptly compact that they by a virtue inexplicable do draw unto them the minds and consent of the hearers, they being therewith either persuaded, moved, or to delectation induced. Also every man is not an orator that can write an epistle or a flattering oration in Latin: whereof the last, (as God help me,) is too much used. For a right orator may not be without a much better furniture…. XV. For what cause at this day there be in this realm few perfect schoolmasters. Lord God, how many good and clean wits of children be nowadays perished by ignorant schoolmasters. How little substantial doctrine is apprehended by the fewness of good grammarians? Notwithstanding I know that there be some well learned, which have taught, and also do teach, but God kenneth a few, and they with small effect, having thereto no comfort, their aptest and most proper scholars, after they be well instructed in speaking Latin, and understanding some poets, being taken from their school by their parents, and either be brought to the court and made lackeys or pages, or else are

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bound apprentices: whereby the worship that the master, above any reward, coveteth to have by the praise of his scholar, is utterly drowned; whereof I have heard schoolmasters, very well learned, of good right complain. But yet (as I said) the fewness of good grammarians is a great impediment of doctrine. (And here I would the readers should mark that I note to be few good grammarians, and not none.) I call not them grammarians, which only can teach or make rules, whereby a child should only learn to speak suitable Latin, or to make six verses standing in one foot, wherein perchance shall be neither sentence nor eloquence. But I name him a grammarian, by the authority of Quintilian, that speaking Latin elegantly, can expound good authors, expressing the invention and disposition of the matter, their style or form of eloquence, explicating the figures as well of sentences as words, leaving nothing, person, or place named by the author, undeclared or hid from his scholars. Wherefore Quintilian saith, it is not enough for him to have read poets, but all kinds of writing must also be sought for; not for the histories only, but also for the property of words, which commonly do receive their authority of noble authors. Moreover, without music grammar may not be perfect; forasmuch as therein must be spoken of metres and harmonies, called rythmi in Greek. Neither if he have not the knowledge of the stars, he may understand poets, which in description of times (I omit other things) they treat of the rising and going down of planets. Also he may not be ignorant in philosophy, for many places that be almost in every poet fetched out of the most subtle part of natural questions. These be well nigh the words of Quintilian. Then behold how few grammarians after this description be in this realm. Undoubtedly there be in this realm many well learned, which if the name of a schoolmaster were not so much had in contempt, and also if their labours with abundant salaries might be requited, were right sufficient and able to induce their hearers to excellent learning, so they be not plucked away green, and ere they be in doctrine sufficiently rooted. But nowadays, if to a bachelor or master of art study of philosophy waxeth tedious, if he have a spoonful of Latin, he will shew forth a hogshead without any learning, and offer to teach grammar and expound noble writers, and to be in the room of a master: he will, for a small salary, set a false colour of learning on proper wits, which will be washed away with one shower of rain. For if the children be absent from school for the space of one month, the best learned of them will scarcely tell whether Fato, whereby Aeneas was brought out of Italy, were either a man, a horse, a ship, or a wild goose. Although their master will perchance avaunt himself to be a good philosopher. Some men peradventure do think that, at the beginning of learning, it forceth not, although the masters have not so exact doctrine as I have rehearsed; but let them take good heed what Quintilian saith, that it is so much the better to be instructed by them that are best learned, forasmuch as it is difficult to put out of the mind that which is once settled, the double burden being painful to the masters that shall succeed, and verily much more to unteach than to teach. Wherefore, it is written that Timothy, the noble musician, demanded always a greater reward of them whom others had taught, than of them that never anything learned. These be the words of Quintilian or like.

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Also common experience teacheth that no man will put his son to a butcher to learn before he bind him prentice to a tailor: or if he will have him a cunning gold-smith, will bind him first prentice to a tinker: in these things poor men be circumspect, and the nobles and gentlemen, who would have their sons by excellent learning come unto honour, for sparing of cost or for lack of diligent search for a good schoolmaster wilfully destroy their children, causing them to be taught that learning, which would require six or seven years to be forgotten: by which time the more part of that age is spent, wherein is the chief sharpness of wit called in Latin acumen, and also then approacheth the stubborn age, where the child brought up in pleasure disdaineth correction. Now have I all declared (as I do suppose) the chief impeachments of excellent learning: of the reformation I need not to speak, since it is apparent, that by the contraries, men pursuing it earnestly with discreet judgment and liberality, it would soon be amended. XVI. Of sundry forms of exercise necessary for every gentleman. Although I have hitherto advanced the commendation of learning, specially in gentlemen, yet it is to be considered that continual study without some manner of exercise, shortly exhausteth the spirits vital, and hindereth natural decoction and digestion, whereby man’s body is the sooner corrupted and brought into divers sicknesses, and finally the life is thereby made shorter: where contrariwise by exercise, which is a vehement motion (as Galen prince of physicians defineth) the health of man is preserved, and his strength increased: forasmuch the members by moving and mutual touching do wax more hard, and natural heat in all the body is thereby augmented. Moreover it maketh the spirits of a man more strong and valiant, so that, by the hardness of the members, all labours be more tolerable; by natural heat the appetite is the more quick, the change of the substance received is the more ready; the nourishing of all parts of the body is the more sufficient and sure. By valiant motion of the spirits all things superfluous be expelled, and the conduits of the body purged Wherefore this part of physic is not to be contemned or neglected in the education of children, and specially from the age of fourteen years upward, in which time strength with courage increaseth. Moreover there be divers manners of exercises; whereof some only prepareth and helpeth digestion; some augmenteth also strength and hardness of body; other serveth for agility and nimbleness; some for celerity or speediness. There be also which ought to be used for necessity only. All these ought he that is a tutor to a nobleman to have in remembrance, and, as opportunity serveth, to put them in experience. And specially them which with health do join commodity (and as I might say) necessity: considering that be he never so noble or valiant, some time he is subject to peril, or (to speak it more pleasantly) servant to fortune. Touching such exercises, as many be used within the house, or in the shadow, (as is the old manner of speaking), as deambulations, labouring with poyses made of lead or other metal, called in Latin Alteres, lifting and throwing the heavy stone or bar, playing at tennis, and divers similar exercises, I will for this time pass over, exhorting them which do understand Latin, and do desire to know the commodities of sundry

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exercises to resort to the book of Galen, of the governance of health, called in Latin De Sanitate tuendâ, where they shall be in that matter abundantly satisfied, and find in the reading much delectation; which book is translated into Latin, wonderful eloquently by doctor Linacre, late most worthy physician to our most noble sovereign lord King Henry VIII. And I will now only speak of those exercises, apt to the furniture of a gentleman’s personage, adapting his body to hardness, strength, and agility, and to help therewith himself in peril, which may happen in wars or other necessity.

157. Foundation of schools Pioneer work on early Tudor schools and education was done by Foster Watson, The English Grammer Schools to 1960 (1908), and A.F.Leach, English Schools at theReformation (1896), Educational Charters and Documents (1911), and several articles on schools in the V.C.J.Leach’s contention that Edward VI’s reign was marked by the destruction rather than the foundation of grammar schools has been challenged by Joan Simon, Education and Society in Tudor England (Cambridge 1965). Other aspects of early Tudor education are dealt with by K.Charlton, Education in Renaissance England (1966).

(i) C.P.R. Edward VI, 1549–51, 436 (3 August 1550)

A

the petition of the inhabitants of the town of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, for the establishment of a grammar school there: Grant that there shall be for ever a grammar school in the said town, called the free grammar school of King Edward VI, for the instruction of children and youths in grammar, of one master (pedagogus) and one usher (hipodidasculus) or under-master, and it is hereby founded. And the king ordains that there shall be sixteen good men who shall be called governors of the possessions of the said school, and William Maye, clerk, doctor of laws, dean of St. Paul’s, London, Nicholas Bacon, esquire [and 14 others] are hereby named the first governors for life, and shall be a body corporate capable in law to receive the lands herewith specified. When governors die the surviving governors shall elect suitable inhabitants of the town in their places. And grant to the said Governors of the late chantry of Kirketon alias Shotley, Suff, and the lands called Hanslett, Strype, Hayles, Crowys Tenements and Cookes in Kirketon alias Shotley and in Chelympton, Suff., lands in the several tenures of John Fekylles and Margaret his wife, Nicholas Cherschers, John Fosdyke the younger, Robert Denny, Thomas Starling, Richard Burwell, Thomas Brandeston, Augustine Pelle and John Bull in Kirketon and Chelympton or elsewhere and all other possessions of the said chantry; also the late chantry called Cloptons Chauntrye in Melforde, Suff, the lands called Ives, Byrdes, Barners, Spycers, Mannyngs, Talbons, Pennycrofte, and Fayremans Close in Melforde, Waldingfelde, Semere and Carsey, Suff., lands in the several tenures of Simon Colman, Gilbert Butler, John Woode, John Mounson and Margaret Newman, widow, in these places and all other possessions of Cloptons chantry; the manor of Collyngham Hall, Suff., which belonged to the late chantry called Frey Chauntrie within the parish

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of St. Bartholomew the Little, London, and the lands in the several tenures of William Clopton, John Clopton, Thomas Higham the elder, Clement Higham and Richard Higham in Caundyshe and Glemysforde, Suff., pertaining to the said manor, and the capital messuage with a yard and a garden adjacent and other lands in tenure of John Davers in Shotley, Suff., in the king’s hands by an Act dissolving certain colleges etc., I Edward VI. Yearly value of £21. 8.s. To hold to the said Governors and their successors of the king as of his manor of Estgrenewiche, Kent, by fealty only in free socage, rendering yearly 28.s. at the Augmentations. Issues since Annunciation last. And grant of a common seal, and that they may plead and be impleaded by the name of governors of the possessions of the free grammar-school of Edward VI in Bury St. Edmunds, and may appoint the master and usher whenever their rooms are vacant, and, with the advice of the bishop of Norwich for the time being, may make statutes in writing for the order and direction of the master, usher, and scholars, the salaries of the master, and usher, and other matters concerning the school. And licence to acquire lands to the yearly value of £20, beyond the aforesaid lands. This without fine or fee.

(ii) Foundation by private initiative of a free grammar school at Brentwood, 1558 (C.P.R., Philip & Mary, 1557–58, 225) Whereas Antony Browne, one of the king and queen’s serjeants at law, is in mind to found a free grammar school in Brentwood, co. Essex, for the better instruction of the youth of the neighbouring country; Licence, upon his petition and that of many others of the said county, to the said Antony and Joan his wife and the heirs and executors of Antony to found a grammar school in Brentwood of a master (pedagogo) being a priest and two wardens of the lands and possessions of the school from the inhabitants of the parish of South-weld, co. Essex, to be appointed by them, according to the statutes and ordinances to be made in writing and corrected when it shall seem good by Antony or his executors. The school to be called the grammar school of Antony Browne, serjeant at law. The master and wardens to be a body corporate and politic with a perpetual succession, able to plead and be impleaded in all actions, real, personal and mixed, in any places and courts, and to have a common seal. And licence to Antony and Joan, etc. or to any other person or persons to be appointed by Antony in his last will, after the school shall have been founded, to grant lands to the clear yearly value of £36, whether held by knight service or other wise, to be held by the master and wardens and their successors in fee, for the carrying out of the statutes and ordinances to be made as aforesaid, without fine for licence to alienate, licence in mortmain, etc. and without writ of ad quod dampnum, etc. The school shall be of the patronage and free disposition of Antony Browne during his life and after his decease of the said Joan and then of the heirs of Antony. Every master after his appointment shall hold the school for life without other

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presentation or institution; and every warden shall be removable (remotativus) at the will of the patron. The school shall be wholly donative and not presentative; but in case of failure of the patron to appoint within two months of a vacancy a master or warden notification shall be made to him and the vacancy continuing for another month, it shall be lawful for the bishop of London for the time being as ordinary of the place to appoint for that time only.

158. A tutor’s report, c. 1530 (Ellis, Orig. Lett., 3rd Ser., i, 343) The subject of this report was Gregory, son of Thomas Cromwell (1513–57). His father treated his education very seriously, providing him with tutors responsible for his training both before he went to the University and while he was at Cambridge. Contemporary evidence does not suggest that they had very promising material on which to work, and after he was granted, in December 1540, the title baron Cromwell Gregory achieved little to attact the notice of historians. Reports on the educational progress of this uninspired young man can be seen in a series of letters to his father: L.P. IV, passim.

A

fter that it pleased your mastership to give me in charge not only to give diligent attendance upon master Gregory, but also to instruct him with good letters, honest manners, pastimes of instruments, and such other qualities as should be for him meet and convenient, pleaseth it you to understand that for the accomplishment thereof I have endeavoured myself by all ways possible to invent and excogitate how I might most profit him, in which behalf through his diligence the success is such as I trust shall be to your good contentation and pleasure, and his no small profit. But because summer was spent in the service of the wild gods it is so much to be regarded after what fashion youth is educated and brought up, in which time that that is learnt (for the most part) will not all wholely be forgotten in the older years, I think it my duty to ascertain your mastership how he spendeth his time, so that if there be anything contrary your good pleasure, after advertisement received in that behalf it may be amended. And first, after he hath heard Mass he taketh a lecture of a Dialogue of Erasmus Colloquium, called Pietas puerilis, wherein is described a very picture of one that should be virtuously brought up, and because it is so necessary for him I do not only cause him to read it over but also to practise the precepts of the same, and I have also translated it into English, so that he may confer them both together, whereof (as learned men affirm) cometh no small profit; which translation pleaseth it you to receive by the bringer hereof, that ye may judge how much profitable it is to be learned: after that, he exerciseth his hand in writing one or two hours, and readeth upon Fabian’s Chronicle as long: the residue of the day he doth spend upon the lute and virginals. When he rideth (as he doth very often) I tell him by the way some history of the Romans or the Greeks, which I cause him to rehearse again in a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawk and hunt, and shoot in his longbow, which trameth and succeedeth so well with him that he seemeth to be thereunto given by nature. My lord continueth, or rather daily augmenteth his goodness towards him. Also the gentlemen of the country, as Sir John Dawne, Sir Henry Delvis, Mr. Massey, Mr. Brereton, baron of the King’s Eschecker there, and

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divers others so gently have entertained him that they seem to strive who should shew him most pleasure; of all which things I thought it my duty to ascertain your good mastership, most humbly desiring the same to take in good part this my rude boldness. And thus I pray the Trinity long to preserve your good health with increase of much honour. At Chester the 6th. day of September [1533]. Your humble servant Henry Dowes. To his most worshipful Master Mr. Secretary.

159. Foreign travel, 1541 (L.P. Hen. VIII, XVI, 893, 4 June 1541)

LORD COBHAM’S SON. 1. Safe conduct for Wm.Broke, eldest son of lord Cobham, to pass into the parts beyond sea, “for his further increase of virtue and learning,” with two servants, three horses, £20 in money, bag and baggage. 2. Remembrances for Mr. William.1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

To say his prayers in the morning. To hear mass devoutly. To apply his learning diligently, viz., the civil law, rhetoric, and Greek. To obey his tutor. To keep himself chaste, remembering his promise of marriage.2 To send letters to my lord in England as often as possible. At vacant times to play on the lute and other instruments. To mark the best fashions and manners in the country. To take heed that he does not speak too thick. “I uyl performe aull thes thyngs bi the grace of God. By me your sonne, Wylliam Broke.”

160. Sir Thomas Wyatt’s advice to his son, 1537. From his Letters (Kenneth Muir, Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool, 1963), 38–43) Sit Thomas Wyatt’s son Thomas [?1521–54] was married early in 1537, when barely sixteen years old, to Jane, daughter of Sir William Hawte, of Bourne, Kent. His father, who had been appointed ambassador at the imperial court left England in April 1537. He broke his journey at Paris, and while there—possibly because of the failure of his own marriage—he wrote the first of these letters to the young bridegroom. Although the latter was wise enough to preserve this letter he did not send his father a reply, and later his father sent him the second letter from Spain.

I

n as much as now ye are come to some years of understanding, and that you should gather within yourself some frame of honesty, I thought that I should not lose my labour wholly if now I did something advertise you to take the sure foundations and established opinions that leadeth to honesty. And here I call not honesty that men 2

1 Son of George, Lord Cobham. William Broke, afterwards Lord Cobham, married Dorothy, daughter of George, Lord Abergavenny.

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commonly call honesty, as reputation for riches, for authority, or some like thing, but that honesty that I dare well say your grandfather (whose soul God pardon) had rather left to me than all the lands he did leave me—that was wisdom, gentleness, soberness, desire to do good, friendliness to get the love of many, and truth above all the rest. A great part to have all these things is to desire to have them: and although glory and honest name are not the very ends wherefor these things are to be followed, yet surely they must needs follow them, as light followeth fire, though it were kindled for warmth. Out of these things the chiefest and infallible ground is the dread and reverence of God, whereupon shall ensue the eschewing of the contraries of these said virtues,—that is to say, ignorance, unkindness, rashness, desire of harm, unquiet enmity, hatred, many and crafty falsehood, the very root of all shame and dishonesty. I say the only dread and reverence of God that seeth all things is the defence of the creeping in of all these mischiefs into you. And for my part, although I do not say there is no man that would his son better than I, yet on my faith I had rather have you lifeless than subject to these vices. Think and imagine always that you are in presence of some honest man that you know, as Sir John Russel, your father-in-law, your uncle, parson, or some other such, and ye shall, if at any time ye find a pleasure in naughty touches, remember what shame it were before these men to do naughtily. And sure this imagination shall cause you remember that the pleasure of a naughty deed is soon past, and that rebuke, shame, and the note thereof shall remain ever. Then if these things ye take for vain imaginations, yet remember that it is certain and no imagination that ye are always in the presence and sight of God: and though ye see him not, so much is the reverence the more to be had, for that he seeth and is not seen. Men punish with shame as greatest punishment on earth, yea greater than death, but his punishment is first the withdrawing of his favour and grace, and in leaving his hand to rule the stern, to let the ship run without guide to your own destruction, and suffereth so the man that he forsaketh to run headlong, as subject to all mishaps, and at last with shameful end to everlasting shame and death. Ye may see continual examples both of the one sort and the other, and the better if ye mark them well that yourself are come of. And consider well your good grandfather what things there were in him, and his end; and they that knew him noted him thus: first and chiefly to have a great reverence of God and good opinion of godly things, next that there was no man more pitiful, no man more true to his word, no man faster to his friend, no man diligenter nor more circumspect, which thing both the kings his masters noted in him greatly. And if these things, and specially the grace of God that the fear of God always kept with him, had not been, the chances of this troublesome world that he was in had long ago overwhelmed him. This preserved him in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find in his heart to see him racked, from two years and more imprisonment in Scotland, in irons and stocks, from the danger of sudden changes and commotions divers, till that wellbeloved of many, hated of none, in his fair age and good reputation godly and christianly he went to him that loved him for that he always had him in reverence. And of myself I may be a near example unto you of my folly and unthriftiness that hath as I well deserved brought me into a thousand dangers and hazards, enmities, hatreds, imprisonments, despites and

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indignations: but that God hath of his goodness chastised me and not cast me clean out of his favour, which thing I can impute to no thing but to the goodness of my good father, that I dare well say purchased with continual request of God his grace towards me more than I regarded or considered myself, and a little part to the small fear that I had of God in the most of my rage and the little delight that I had in mischief. You therefore, if ye be sure and have God in your sleeve, to call you to his grace at last, venture not hardily by mine example upon naughty unthriftiness in trust of his goodness; and besides the shame I dare lay ten to one ye shall perish in the adventure: for trust not that my wish or desire of God for you shall stand you in as much effect as I think my father’s did for me, we are not all accepted of him. Begin therefore betimes, make God and goodness your foundations. Make your examples of wise and honest men: shoot at the mark; be no mocker—mocks follow them that delight therein. He shall be sure of shame that feeleth no grief in other men’s shames. Have your friends in a reverence and think unkindness to be the greatest offence, and least punished amongst men, but so much the more to be dreaded, for God is Justicer upon that alone. Love well and agree with your wife, for where is noise and debate in the house, there is unquiet dwelling. And much more where it is in one bed. Frame well yourself to love, and rule well and honestly your wife as your fellow, and she shall love and reverence you as her head. Such as you are unto her such shall she be unto you. Obey and reverence your fatherin-law as you would me; and remember that long life followeth them that reverence their fathers and elders. And the blessing of God for good agreement between the wife and husband is fruit of many children, which I for the like thing do lack, and the fault is both in your mother and me, but chiefly in her. Read oft this my letter and it shall be as though I had often written unto you. And think that I have herein printed a fatherly affection to you. If I may see that I have not lost my pain, mine shall be the contentation and yours the profit. And upon condition that you follow my advertisement I send you God’s blessing and mine, and as well to come to honesty as to increase of years. At Paris, the 15th of April, your loving father, Thomas Wyat.

(ii) Wyatt to his son. Autumn I doubt not but long ere this time my letters are come to you. I remember I wrote to you in them that if you read them often it should be as though I had written often to you: for all that I can not so content me but still to call upon you with my letters. I would not for all that that if any thing be well warned in the other, that you should leave to remember it because of this new, for it is not like with advertisements as it is with apparel that with long wearing a man casteth away when he hath new. Honest teaching never were unless they were out of his remembrance that should keep and follow them to the shame and hurt of himself. Think not also that I have any new or change of advertisements to send you, but still it is one that I would: I have nothing to cry and call upon you for but honesty, honesty. It may be diversely named, but always it tendeth to one end. And as I wrote to you last,

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I mean not that honesty that the common sort calleth an honest man: Trust me that honest man is as common a name as the name of a good fellow, that is to say, a drunkard, a tavern haunter, a rioter, a gamer, a waster: so are among the common sort all men honest men that are not known for manifest naughty knaves. Seek not, I pray thee, my son, that honesty which appeareth and is not in deed. Be well assured it is no common thing nor no common man’s judgment to judge well of honesty, nor it is no common thing to come by: but so much it is the more goodly for that it is so rare and strange. Follow not therefore the common reputation of honesty: if you will seem honest, be honest, or else seem as you are. Seek not the name without the thing, nor let not the name be the only mark you shoot at: that will follow though you regard it not, yea and the more you regard it the less. I mean not by regard it not, esteem it not; for well I wot honest name is goodly, but he that hunteth only for that is like him that had rather seem warm than be warm, and edgeth a single coat about with a fur. Honest name is to be kept preserved and defended; and not to employ all a man’s wit about the study of that for it smelleth of a glorious and ambitious fool. I say as I wrote unto you in my last letters, get the thing and the other must of necessity follow as the shadow followeth the thing that it is of. And even so much is the very honest better than the name as the thing is better than the shadow. The coming to this point that I would so fain have you have is to consider a man’s own self, what he is and wherefore he is. And herein let him think verily that so goodly a work as man is, for whom all other things were wrought, was not wrought but for goodly things. After a man hath gotten a will and desire to them is first to avoid evil and learn that point alone never to do that that within yourself you find a certain grudging against. No doubt in any thing you do, if you ask yourself or examine the thing for yourself before you do it, you shall find, if it be evil, a repining against it. My son, for Our Lord’s love, keep well that repining: suffer it not to be darked and corrupted by naughty example, as though any thing were to you excusable because other men do the same. That same repining, if it did punish as he doth judge, there were no such justicer. And, of truth, so doth it punish, but not so apparently. Hear how we think it is no small grief of a conscience that condemneth itself, but be well assured after this life it is a continual gnawing. When there is a custom gotten of avoiding to do evil, then cannot a gentle courage be contented to be idle and to rest without doing anything. Then too had ye need to gather an heap of good opinions and to get them perfectly as it were on your fingers ends: Reason not greatly upon the approving of them, take them as already approved because they were of honest men’s leavings, of them of God there is no question. And it is no small help to them the good opinion of moral philosophers, among whom I would Seneca were your study and Epictetus, because it is little to be ever in your bosom. These things shall lead you to know goodly things, which when a man knoweth and taketh pleasure in them, he is a beast that followeth not them, no nor he can not but follow them. But take this for conclusion and sum of all, that if God and his grace be not the foundation, neither can ye avoid evil nor judge well, nor do any goodly thing. Let him be foundation of all, will these things, desire them earnestly, and seek them at

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his hands and acknowledge them to come of him, and questionless he will both give you the use and pleasure in using them, and also reward you for them that come of him, so liberal and good is he. I would fain see that my letters might work to frame you honest: And think that without that I esteem nothing of you, no not that you are my son; for I reckon it no small dishonesty to myself to have an unhonest taught child. But the fault shall not be in me. I shall do the part of a father: And if you answer not to that I look for at your hands, I shall as well study with that that I shall leave to make some honest man as you. I remit you wholly to your father-in-law. Recommend me to my daughter Jane and my daughter Bess; and write unto me, at the least to exercise your hand. And farewell, with God’s blessing.

161. Life at the universities (i) Roger Ascham to John Brandesby, Cambridge, 1542 (Ascham, Works, I, i, 25)

I

f you want to hear anything about Cambridge, here is something that will perhaps be news to you. The munificence of our best of kings has bestowed on this university a most noble and immortal aid to all kinds of learning. Wiggin (Divinity), Smith (Law), Cheke (Greek), Wakefield (Hebrew), and Blith—who married Cheke’s sister— (Medicine), have been appointed public professors: they are each to receive a yearly salary of forty pounds. Aristotle and Plato are read by the young men in the original, but that has been done among us at St. John’s for the last five years. Sophocles and Euripides are here better known than Plautus used to be when you were up. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, are more on the lips and in the hands of all now than Livy was then. What you used to hear about Cicero you now hear about Demosthenes. There are more copies of Isocrates in the hands of the young men than there were of Terence then. Meanwhile we do not despise the Latin authors, but we cherish the best of them, who flourished in the golden age of their literature. The labours and example of our friend Cheke lit and fanned this zeal for letters. Twice he publicly read through the whole of Homer, the whole of Sophocles, the whole of Euripides, and almost all of Herodotus, and that without taking any fee. He intended to do the same for all the Greek poets, historians, orators, and philosophers, if ill-luck had not prevented such a great advancement of learning. For when Cheke wished to increase his course of usefulness in the cause of learning by restoring the true and ancient pronunciation of Greek, lo! the right reverend the bishop of Winchester yielding to the request of certain envious men, issued a certain severe injunction forbidding the use of this new style, and thus not only stopped that pronunciation despite the remonstrances of nearly all the University, but almost completely extinguished all the zeal for learning which had been kindled among us. Do you think this a slight check to the learning of Greek? Everyone is aware that all knowledge of things comes to the mind through the agency of our senses. If, I say, we are thus deprived of the use of our ears, how can we distinguish between one word and another unless we keep our eyes constantly fixed upon the book? All the Greek vowels are now pronounced in so weak a way and so subject to

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the power of the one letter iota, that now you can discern in Greek letters nothing save a kind of piping of sparrows or the disgusting hissing of snakes. We deplore this check and decay of learning the more bitterly because the great patron of learning and of our University, who, (except on this one question) has been most distinguished for his prudence, counsel, and authority, has been the cause of it. On this question letters almost as big as books have passed to and fro between my lord of Winchester and Cheke. No one can defend the old barbarous pronunciation better than my lord of Winchester: but this only will I say: he has the stronger, we the better side of the argument. You could never believe how Cheke has risen to the occasion, and with what a wealth of reading, argument, and authority he has supported his case unless you had the opportunity to read the letters he has written on the subject. Farewell. Cheke, Madew, Seton, Tong, Langdale, and Bill send you their best wishes. I always have thought that the best letters are long ones, and I shall expect a long one from you.

(ii) Christopher Hales to Henry Bullinger. London, 10 December 1550 (H.Robinson, Original Letters (P.S. I, 189–190)

…I have delayed to write respecting the study of medicine at Oxford, and the expenses there, until I could give you a correct statement. I have however learned from a friend, who is resident there, that the university of Oxford is not to be compared with that of Paris or the schools of Italy; but still it is one in which a studious youth may be occupied with great advantage. The same is to be said of Cambridge, but I rather recommend Oxford on account of the greater salubrity of the air. Cambridge, by reason of the neighbouring fen, is much exposed to fever, as I have experienced more frequently than I could wish. With respect to expense, my friend informed me, that thirty French crowns would suffice tolerably well for a year; to which if other ten could be added, a man might expect to live very comfortably. In my time, ten years since, twenty crowns were a sufficient allowance; but in these latter days, when avarice is every where increasing, and charity growing cold, and this by a divine scourge, everything has become almost twice as dear as it was. And this I attribute to no other cause than our proud and Pharaoh-like rejection of the spiritual food of our souls so liberally and abundantly offered. May God have mercy on us, and give us better minds, that we may at length truly and heartily repent; lest, abusing the singular mercy of God, we should call down upon ourselves a more grievous retribution!

(iii) John ab Ulmis to Randolph Gualter, Oxford, 5 November 1550 (Ibid. (P.S. II, 419–421))

…But enough of this. You must learn from me a few connected particulars respecting our lectures on physic, and the study of medicine. In the morning then, immediately after morning prayer, namely, from six to seven o’clock, are read the eight books of Aristotle on Physics; from seven to eight, the common-places of Galen upon diseased parts; from eight to nine the books which he [Aristotle] wrote upon morals, and his Republic or treatise on civil government; from nine to ten Peter Martyr lectures upon

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the epistle to the Romans; from ten to eleven Galen’s treatise upon natural qualities is lectured upon. These subjects occupy us till dinner-time; but at twelve o’clock some questions in moral and natural philosophy are proposed for our discussion. On Mondays and Wednesdays the masters [of arts] hold disputations; and on Thursdays the students in divinity, physic and law dispute among themselves in regular and alternate turns. Lastly, on the Fridays and Saturdays the bachelors of arts exercise themselves in acts and declamations. Every disputation has a fixed moderator of its own to preside over it. In theology Peter Martyr presides; in physic or medicine Thomas Francis, a man of distinguished learning, and formerly an intimate friend and companion of yours, when you resided here; and in civil law Weston, a man of pleasing elocution and considerable erudition. The masters of arts choose their annual proctors, and the bachelors choose to themselves some leading man from among the masters. All their disputations take place in public, and may be heard and attended by any one. The private, or, as they call them, extraordinary lectures, are very numerous. There are, I think, sixteen colleges, which are distinguished by various studies and pursuits. Greek is taught in one, Hebrew in another. Here the mathematicians flourish, there the poets; here divines and physicians, there students of music and civilians: in all of them, however, the elements and rules of rhetoric and logic are impressed with especial diligence and accuracy upon the minds of the scholars. You will readily consider, with your usual discernment, from the above facts, what will be most expedient for your kinsman, I mean, that excellent young man Cellarius: for my own part, when I bear in mind the advantages of the place, the nature of the climate, and the distinguished character of our learned men, I cannot but most earnestly recommend him to come over as soon as possible. The English are really a good-natured and shrewd people, and very fond of strangers; though not a few of them are false and subtle knaves; but this is common to other nations as well as to them. For the expenses and all things necessary for him to pursue his studies with comfort, there will be required not less than fifty florins, unless a man choose to live in a very sordid and penurious manner. I conversed with some persons, a few days since, upon this very subject, and especially with an honest and worthy citizen of this place, who tells me that he will arrange with us on sufficiently moderate terms; and there is no doubt but that we shall meet with a good and comfortable lodging, provided he conies, or rather flies to us as soon as possible. As to myself, I am, and always shall be, ready to render him every service by my endeavours and assistance; nor will I ever desist from advancing and aiding him in his studies, whenever I can. But I had rather be seen to have performed these promises in reality, than content myself with mere professions.

(iv) Conrad ab Ulmis to John Wolfius. Oxford, 1 March 1552 (H.Robinson, Original Letters (P.S. II, 459–460))

Greeting. As I never entertained a doubt but that it was my duty to write to you, as my preceptor, some account of my studies; though I wrote last month at the house of Joshua Maler, my dear friend, and one too who has a great respect for you; yet as I have at this time changed my course of study, I have thought fit to write to you again.

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Receive therefore a brief account of my studies. I devote the hour from six to seven in the morning to Aristotle’s politics, from which I seem to derive a two-fold advantage, both a knowledge of Greek and an acquaintance with moral philosophy. The seventh hour I employ upon the first book of the Digests or Pandects of the Roman law, and the eighth in the reconsideration of this lecture. At nine I attend the lecture of that most eminent and learned divine, master doctor Peter Martyr. The tenth hour I devote to the rules of Dialectics of Philip Melancthon de locis argumentorum. Immediately after dinner I read Cicero’s Offices, a truly golden book, from which I derive no less than a two-fold enjoyment, both from the purity of the language and the knowledge of philosophy. From one to three I exercise my pen, chiefly in writing letters, wherein, as far as possible, I imitate Cicero, who is considered to have abundantly supplied us with all instructions relating to purity of style. At three I learn the institutes of civil law, which I so read aloud as to commit them to memory. At four are read privately, in a certain hall in which we live, the rules of law, which I hear, and learn by rote as I do the institutes. After supper the time is spent in various discourse: for either sitting in our chamber, or walking up and down some part of the college, we exercise ourselves in dialectical questions. You have now a brief account of my studies, with which I think you will be pleased. Do you take care, in the first place, to preserve your health, and in the next place, to address me occasionally by your letters; for you can hardly conceive how much pleasure I shall derive from their elegance and agreeableness. Salute for me those most honourable ladies, your wife and mother, Farewell.

(v) Henry VIII and the University of Cambridge A royal commission, 16 January 1545–46 (Bruce and Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker (P.S. 34–35))

By the King. Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well, and let you wit that whereas our most loving and obedient subjects, in this our last session of parliament, have freely given and granted unto us full power and authority to order, alter, change, and reform all the Colleges, Hospitals, Chantries, and Free Chapels within this our realm of England, and other our dominions, or otherwise to use the same at our pleasure, as in the act made for that purpose more at length may appear: We minding to take such direction therein as shall be to the honour of God, the increase of good learning, and the common wealth of this our realm; and considering that the good establishment of the colleges of our Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, wherein the great number of the youth of this our realm is nourished and educated in the exercise of all kinds of good literature, is specially to be provided for; have resolved to take such undelayed order with the same as may both encourage the students to continue their studies, and also answer to the special trust and confidence committed unto us by our said subjects. And forasmuch as we know you to be men of notable virtue, learning, and knowledge, have therefore appointed you, and by these our letters give unto you full power and authority, not only to call before you the masters and heads of every of the colleges and other houses endowed with any manner of possessions within that our University of

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Cambridge, and also such and as many other the officers and fellows of any of the said houses as to you shall be thought meet and convenient; but also to peruse all and every their Foundations, Statutes, and Ordinances, and as well by examinations as by all other ways and means that you shall think good, to learn the very truth, how the same Foundations, Statutes, and Ordinances be observed, of what values, kinds, and natures the whole possessions be which belong to every such College, Chantry, or other house of the sorts aforesaid, and in what shires the same do lie, with the deductions upon the same, the names of the founders and other things which your wisdoms shall think meet to be signified to us touching the state of every such house. And of all the premises to make unto us a certificate fair written in parchment, subscribed with your hands, with all goodly speed and diligence. Eftsoons desiring and praying you, and nevertheless commanding you, to use in the doings hereof such a dexterity as may be to your discharges in conscience and answer to the special trust which we have reposed in you. Given under our signet at our Honour of Hampton Court, the 16th, of January, in the 37th. year of our reign. To our trusty and well-beloved Doctor Parker, Vice-chancellor of our University of Cambridge, and to our trusty and well-beloved chaplains Dr. Redman and Dr. May, and to every of them. Parker’s minute of an interview with Henry VIII in connection with the above commission.

(Ibid. 34–36) The repair up of M.Parker and W.May, after survey, to the King’s Majesty. Memorandum. That where certain officers in the court and others then in authority under the King, importunately suing to him to have the lands and possessions of both Universities surveyed, they meaning afterwards to enjoy the best of their lands and possessions by exchange of impropered benefices and such other improved lands, certain friends of the University, perceiving the sequel like to turn to a mischief, sued to the King for avoiding the great charges that should be sustained therein, not to send any of his costly officers to that purpose; and thereupon sent his commission to Matthew Parker, then Vice-chancellor, to John Redman, master of Trinity College, and to William May, master of the Queen’s College, to survey them, and to make report to his highness what was the state of the revenues, and what number were sustained therewith. Which said commissioners, with the help of two clerks of the augmentation court, engrossed particularly the particular possessions of the University, Colleges and other spiritual lands there. In the end, the said commissioners resorted up to Hampton Court to present to the King a brief summary written in a fair sheet of vellum (which very book is yet reserved in the college of Corpus Christi) describing the revenues, the reprises, the allowances, and number and stipend of every College. Which book the King diligently perused; and in a certain admiration said to certain of his lords which stood by, that he thought he had not in his realm so many persons so honestly maintained in living, by so little land and rent: and where he asked of us what it meant that the most part of Colleges should seem to expend yearly more than their revenues amounted to; we

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answered that it rose partly of fines for leases and indentures of the farmers renewing their leases, partly of wood sales: whereupon he said to the lords that pity it were these lands should be altered to make them worse; (at which words some were grieved, for that they disappointed lupos quosdam hiantes). In fine, we sued to the King’s majesty to be so gracious lord that he would favour us in the continuance of our possessions such as they were, and that no man by his grace’s letters should require to permute with us to give us worse. He made answer and smiled, that he could not but write for his servants and others doing the service for the realm in wars and other affairs, but he said he would put us to our choice whether we should gratify them or no, and bade us hold our own, for after his writing he would force us no further. With which words we were well armed, and so departed. The following letter to Parker and his colleagues from Queen Katherine Parr (a copy of which is among the Parker MSS. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) reveals that they had approached her with a request that she should plead their cause with the king.

(Ibid. 36–37) To our right trusty, dear, and well beloved the Chancellor and Vice-chancellor of my lord the King’s Majesty’s University of Cambridge, and to the whole said University there. Your letters I have received, presented on all your behalfs by Mr. Doctor Smith, your discreet and learned advocate. And as they be Latinly written, which is so signified unto me by those that be learned in the Latin tongue, so (I know) you could have uttered your desires and opinions familiarly in your vulgar tongue, aptest for my intelligence: albeit you seem to have conceived rather partially than truly a favourable estimation both of my going forward and dedication to learning, which to advance, or at the least conserve, you by your letters move me diversely, shewing how agreeable it is to me, being in this worldly estate, not only for mine own part to be studious, but also a maintainer and a cherisher of the learned state, by bearing me in hand that I am endued and perfected with those qualities and respects which ought to be in a person of my vocation. Truly this your discreet and politic document I as thankfully accept as you desire that I should embrace it. And for as much (as I do hear) all kind of learning doth flourish amongst you in this age, as it did amongst the Greeks at Athens long ago, I desire you all not so to hunger for the exquisite knowledge of profane learning that it may be thought the Greeks’ University was but transposed, or now in England again renewed, forgetting our Christianity, since their excellency only did attain to moral and natural things: but rather I gently exhort you to study and apply those doctrines as means and apt degrees to the attaining and setting forth the better Christ’s reverent and most sacred doctrine: that it may not be laid against you in evidence at the tribunal seat of God, how you were ashamed of Christ’s doctrine: for this Latin lesson I am taught to say of Saint Paul, non me pudet evangelii; to the sincere setting forth whereof (I trust) universally in all your vocations and ministries you will apply and conform your sundry gifts, arts, and studies to such end and sort that Cambridge may be accounted rather an University of divine philosophy than of natural or moral, as Athens was.

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Upon the confidence of which your accomplishment to my expectation, zeal, and request, I (according to your desires) have attempted my lord the King’s Majesty, for the stablishment of your livelihood and possessions; in which, notwithstanding his Majesty’s property and interest, through the consent of the high court of parliament, his highness being such a patron to good learning, doth tender you so much that he will rather advance learning and erect new occasion thereof, than to confound those your ancient and godly institutions: so that learning may hereafter justly ascribe her very original, whole conservation, and sure stay to our Sovereign Lord, her only defence and worthy ornament: the prosperous estate and princely government of whom long to preserve, I doubt not but every of you will with daily invocation call upon him, who alone and only can dispose all to every creature. Scribbled with the hand of her that prayeth to the Lord and immortal God to send you all prosperous success in godly learning and knowledge. From my Lord the King’s Majesty’s manor of Greenwich, the 26th. of February. Kateryn the Quene. K.P.

(vi) Queen Mary and the universities, 2 May 1554 (C.P.R. Philip & Mary, 1553–54, 165–166)

As the queen has heard that the academy situated at Oxford, which was once one of the two most celebrated storehouses of learning of her whole realm, is so afflicted by the wrongs of the times that it lies almost uncultivated and in want of the means to sustain its dignity, its public schools, in which on fixed and solemn days there was wont to be crowded concourse of learners, are laid waste and converted into private gardens, its public treasury plundered, its ornaments carried off and its revenues reduced almost to nothing: And as the queen holds that it pertains to her royal office to raise up the academy, in which the orthodox faith overthrown by heretics cannot enter and be defended, the truth in controversy extracted, nor justice administered, and to cast off its squalor and remove its want by her munificence, so that afterwards it may have the where-withal to raise up its schools and to defend its privileges; Grant to the chancellor, masters and scholars of the said academy or university of the rectories and churches of Southpetherwyn, co. Cornwall, late belonging to the priory of St. Garmanus, Seyston, co. Leicester, late belonging to Olvescrofte alias Oulvescrofte priory, and Holme Coltrame with the chapel of Newton Arloche, co. Cumberland, late belonging to the monastery of Holme Coltram, with the advowsons of the vicarages of the said churches and all lands and privileges in Southpetherwyn, Trenaunte, Seyston, Holme, Coltrame, and Newton Arloche. Yearlye value £131. 19.s. To hold in fee in frankalmoign. Issues from Lady day last. Dispensation.

INDEX TO TEXTS The figures refer to the numbered documents. In a few cases when, for the sake of clarity, it has been found necessary to add a page reference, this has been placed within parentheses.

Anglica Historia. see Vergil Arms, Grant of, 18, 19 (p. 261) Articles of Religion: Ten (1536), 112; Six (1539), 116 Askewe, Anne. See under Trials Attainder, Bill of, 48 Augmentations. See under Courts Baker, John, Device to redress a Commonwealth, 145 Bale, John, Works, 7 Barton, Elizabeth. See under Trials Becon, Thomas, Works: The Fortress of theFaithful, 20; The Jewel of Joy, 145 Beggars. See under Supplication Bertie Family, 19 Bible, The English, 118, 119 The Coverdale, 120 Matthew’s, 121 The Great, 122 Cranmer and the, 122 Tyndale and the, 118 Biographies. See under Cavendish; More Boleyn, Anne, 85, 88 Boorde, Introduction and Dyetary, 143 IV Brinkelowe, Works: The Complaynt of Roderyck Mors, 28

Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, 10, 38, 87

Colet, John, Dean of St. Paul’s. See Schools; Sermons Commissions from Patent Rolls, 51, 52, 54, 62, 64, 66, 74, 75, 107, 110, 144 Common Prayer, Book of, 131, 133 Common Weal, Nature of the, 26, 31 Church and the, 29 Commons, of Supplication, 24 Communion, Order of the, 130 Coronation (Edward VI), 45 Council, The King’s, 47 Jurisdiction of, 62 The Privy, 59 Clerk of, 59 Reorganisation of, 60 Courts: Augmentations, 54; First Fruits and Tenths, 54; Inns of, 68; Requests, 64; Star Chamber, 63; Surveyors, 54. Wards and Liveries, 54. See also Statutes. Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop: 142 Works, 32, 45, 87, 111, 122, 142 Impression of, 41 Cromwell, Thomas, Impressions of, 39 Crowley, Robert, Works: The Waie to Wealth, 27 i An information and Peticion, 27 ii

Devise of Crown, 44 viii

Devon, Rebels of, 32 Chronicles and Narratives. See Great Chronicleof Diaries and Journals: London, Anglica Historia; Hall, Edward; Journal of Edward VI, 9, 44, 60 Major, John; Wriothesley, Charles Diary of Henry Machyn, 9 Church Goods, Inventories of: Discourse of the Common Weal, 145, 151 for Bedfordshire, 110 Doctrine: definition of. See Articles of for York, etc., 110 Religion; Injunctions; Prayer Book; Coinage, debasement of, 151 Uniformity: Gresham on, 151 The Ten Articles (1536), 112 Sir John Price on, 151 1077

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INDEX TO TEXTS

The Institution of a Christian Man (1537), Heralds. See under Arms; Visitations 114 Speeches of, 86 The King’s Book, 117 Heresy (pp. 828–839) The Six Articles (1539), 116 Trials for, 127 Dudley, Edmund. See Treatises Hitchcock, The Life of Thomas More, 10, 34 Household: Ordinances of Royal, 55, 57 Education, 1039–1076. For Legal. See Gostwick, 143 Waterhouse Northumberland, 143 Edward VI. See Devise; Diaries; Howard, Katherine, Attainder of, 48 Literary Remains of, 44, 60 Hunne, Richard, Case of, 80 Egerton Papers, The, 60 ii Eltham Ordinances (1526), 57 Industry, Types of, 149 Elyot, Sir Thomas. See Treatises Injunctions: (1536) 113, (1538) 115 Enclosures, Literature of. See Baker; Innocent VIII, Bull of, 44 Leadam; Treatises Institution of a Christian Man, (1537), 114 England, Impressions of. See Franciscius, Andreas; Italian Relation; Leland, John; Inventories. See under Church Goods Italian Relation of England, 12, 36 Major, John Exchanges, Gresham on, 151 Journals. See Diaries Faith, Formularies of. See Doctrine Families, Records of. See Bertie; Spencer; Keilwey, Robert, Reports, 80 Wriothesley Keme, Anne. See Trials, Anne Askewe First Fruits. See Courts Kent, Nun of. See Trials, Jane Boughton Fish, Simon. See under Supplication Kett (Kete) Robert. See under Trials Fitzherbert, Anthony. See under Treatises ‘King’s Book’, (1543), 117 Foxe, John: Acts and Monuments, 8, 35 Franciscius, Andreas, Italian Accounts of Latimer, William. See under Sermons Tudor England, 11 Law, The Common (p. 562) Froissart’s Chronicles, 4 Readings, 69 Reports, 69, 80 Gardiner, Stephen. See under Letters Literature of the (p. 573) Impressions of, 42 Leadam, The Domesday of Inclosures (pp. Gentry: 265– 267; pp. 929–35) Education of. See under Treatises, Elyot Leland, Itinerary, 6, 15, 19, 143 Prayer for, 29 i New Year’s Gift, 6, 7 Gostwick, Sir John. See under Letters Letters from and to: Government, theory of, 76 Ascham, Roger, 35, 161 Great Chronicle of London, 1, 37 Bale, John, 7 (ii) Bellasy, Richard, 108 Hales, John. See under Discourse Boleyn, Anne, 85 Hall, Edward, Chronicle of, 71, 80, 86 Bourgoyne, Francis, 40 Harpsfield, Life of More, 48, 72 Brandesby, John, 161 Henry VIII, Matrimonial Problems (pp. Bullinger, Henry, 35, 161 697– 727)

INDEX TO TEXTS

Cade, Thomas, 149 Calvin, John, 40 Capito, Wolfgang, 111 Cheke, John, 35 Cranmer, Thomas, 87, 111, 121, 127, 129, 142 (bis) Cromwell, Thomas (p. 261), 22, 57, 108, 120, 121, 149 Darcy, Sir Arthur, 108 Gardiner, Stephen, 34, 39, 49, 76 Giffard, Geoffrey, 108 Godsalve, Sir John, 76 Gostwick, Sir John (p. 910) Gualter, Randolph, 161 Hales, Christopher, 161 Hawkyns, Archdeacon, 87, 127 Henry VIII, 85, 87, 161 Hoby, Sir Philip, 144 Hubbardine, 83 Lasco, John á, 129 Latimer, William, 83 London, Dr., 108 Marillac, 34 Mary, Queen, 142 (bis) Montmorency, 34 Pace, Richard, 49 Parker, Archbishop, 7, 161 Parr, Queen Katherine, 161 Philip II, 44, 128 Pole, Cardinal, 49, 142 Pollard, Richard, 108 Renard, Simon, 128, 141 (bis) Rich, Sir Richard, 149 Sadleir, Ralph, 57 Somerset, Protector, 76, 144 Southampton, Earl of, (p. 261) Ulmis, John ab, 161 Conrad ab, 161 Wolfins, John, 161 Wolsey, 49 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 160 Lever, Thomas. See under Sermons Lords Lieutenants, 75

Machyn, Henry, Diary of, 169

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Major, John, History of Great Britain, 13 Marowe, Thomas, 69 Monasteries. Dissolution of, 105, 107, 108. See also Wright Visitations of, 106 More, Sir Thomas: Indictment of. See Trials Biographies of, 10, 34, 48, 72 Morice, Ralph, Reminiscences of Cranmer, 41

North, Council of the, 65 Northumberland Household Book, 143

Order of the Communion, 130 Ordinaries. See under Supplication

Pace, Richard, see Letters Parliament, Records of (pp. 583–613) Journals, 70 Members of, 73 Privilege of, 72 Proceedings in, 73 Patent Rolls. See Commissions Peace, Justice of the, 57 Peers, Creation of, 18 Percy Family, 74 Peterborough, Monastery, Records of, 108 Plowden. See under Law Reports Pole, Cardinal, Impression of, 43 Poverty (pp. 1023–1039) Prayer, Book of Common, 131, 133 Presentments. See under Towns, Nottingham Price, Sir John. See Coinage Primer, Selections from The, 29 Real Presence, discussion, 142 Reformation, Eve of (pp. 651–692) Regency, Council of, 44 Registers, episcopal, 44 ii Requests. See Courts Rome, Reconciliation with, 141

Schools: Brentwood, 157

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INDEX TO TEXTS

Bury St. Edmunds, 157 London, St. Paul’s, 155 Foundation Statutes, 155 Secretary, king’s, 49 Sermons by: Colet, John, 79 Latimer, William, 21, 23, 30, 43 Lever, Thomas, 31 Seymour, Jane, 89 Society, Criticism of, 26, 28, 30 Leaders in (pp. 387–426) Somerset, Protector, Impression of, 40 Spencer Family, 19 Star Chamber. See under Courts Starkey, Thomas, Works: Dialogue Between Pole and Lupset, 26 Statutes: 1. Henry VII c. 4 1485. Punishment of Priests, 77 3. Henry VII c. 1. 1487. Court of Star Chamber, 62 3. Henry VII c. 4. 1487. J.P.’s and Bail, 74 3. Henry VII c. 6. 1487. Usury, 150 4. Henry VII c. 12. 1489. J.P.’s Commissions, 74 4. Henry VII c. 13. 1489. Benefit of Clergy, 78 4. Henry VII c. 19. 1489. Towns, 144 11. Henry VII c. 1. 1495. De Facto Act, 48 11. Henry VII c. 2. 1495. Vagabonds, 152 19. Henry VII c.12. 1503. Vagabonds, 152 19. Henry VII c.14. 1503. Liveries, 61 19. Henry VII c. 28. 1503. Attainders, 17 1. Henry VIII c. 3. 1510. Receivers, 54 1. Henry VIII c. 13. 1510. Coin, 151 1. Henry VIII c. 14. 1510. Apparel, 16 3. Henry VIII c. 23. 1512. Audit, 54 4. Henry VIII c. 8. 1512. Richard Strode, 72 6. Henry VIII c. 1. 1515. Apparel (p. 249) 6. Henry VIII c. 3. 1515. Artificers, 148 6. Henry VIII c. 16. 1515. Burgesses in Parliament, 73 7. Henry VIII c. 7. 1515. Surveyors, 54

14/15. Henry VIII c. 15. 1523. Surveyors, 54 14/15. Henry VIII c. 20. 1523. Attainder, 17 ii 14/15. Henry VIII c. 21. 1523. Attainder, 17 iii 14/15. Henry VIII c. 23. 1523. Attainder, 17 iv 21. Henry VIII c. 5. 1529. Probate, 90 21. Henry VIII c. 6. 1529. Mortuaries, 91 21. Henry VIII c. 20. 1529. King’s Council, 62 vi 22. Henry VIII c. 4. 1531. Apprentices, 148 22. Henry VIII c. 9. 1531. Poisoners, 48 22. Henry VIII c. 12. 1531. Vagabonds, 152 22. Henry VIII c. 15. 1531. Pardon (Clergy), 92 22. Henry VIII c. 16. 1531. Pardon (Laity), 93 23. Henry VIII c. 20. 1531. Annates, 95 24. Henry VIII c. 3. 1533. Sale of Meat, 146 v 24. Henry VIII c. 12. 1533. Appeals, 96 25. Henry VIII c. 1. 1534. Graziers and Butchers, 146 iii 25. Henry VIII c. 2. 1534. Victuals, 146 25. Henry VIII c. 13. 1534. Farms and Sheep, 144 25. Henry VIII c. 14. 1534. Heresy, 125 25. Henry VIII c. 19. 1534. Submission of the Clergy, 97 25. Henry VIII c. 20. 1534. Annates, 98 25. Henry VIII c. 21. 1534. Payments to Rome, 99 25. Henry VIII c. 22. 1534. Succession, 44 26. Henry VIII c. 1. 1534. Supremacy,100 26. Henry VIII c. 2. 1534. Succession, 44 26. Henry VIII c. 3. 1534. 101 26. Henry VIII c. 13. 1534. Treason, 48 27. Henry VIII c. 2. 1536. Treason, 48 27. Henry VIII c. 8. 1536.Wales, 67 27. Henry VIII c. 10. 1536. Uses and Wills, 69

INDEX TO TEXTS

27. Henry VIII c. 12. 1536. Woollen Cloths, 148 27. Henry VIII c. 16. 1536. Contracts, 69 27. Henry VIII c. 22. 1536. Decay of Houses, 144 27. Henry VIII c. 24. 1536. Crown Liberties, 67 27. Henry VIII c. 25. 1536. Vagabonds, 152 27. Henry VIII c. 26. 1536. Wales, 67 27. Henry VIII c. 27. 1536. Augmentations, 54 iv 27. Henry VIII c. 28. 1536. Dissolution of Monasteries, 107 ii 28. Henry VIII c. 7. 1536. Second Succession Act, 44 28. Henry VIII c. 10. 1536. Against Papal Authority, 103 28. Henry VIII c. 14. 1536. Price of Wine, 146 28. Henry VIII c. 17. 1536. Royal Minority, 46 31. Henry VIII c. 8. 1539. Proclamations, 58 31. Henry VIII c. 9. 1539. Creation of Bishops, 104 31. Henry VIII c. 10. 1539. Lords in Parliament, 73 31. Henry VIII c. 13. 1539. Dissolution of Monasteries, 107 31. Henry VIII c. 14. 1539. Six Articles, 116 32. Henry VIII c. 18. 1540. Towns, 146 32. Henry VIII c. 45. 1540. First Fruits, 54 vii 32. Henry VIII c. 46. 1540. Wards, 54 viii 33. Henry VIII c. 22. 1542. Wards and Liveries, 54 ix 33. Henry VIII c. 39. 1542. General Surveyors, 54 iii 34/5. Henry VIII c. 3. 1543. Woods and Coal, 146 34/5. Henry VIII c. 26. 1543. Wales, 67 35. Henry VIII c. 1. 1543. Third Successions Act, 44 vi

1081

35. Henry VIII c. 3. 1543. King’s Style, 47 37. Henry VIII c. 9. 1545. Usury, 150 1. Edward VI c. 1. 1547. Speaking irreverently, 129 1. Edward VI c. 3. 1547. Poor Relief, 153 1. Edward VI c. 6. 1547. Worsted Yarn, 148 1. Edward VI c. 12. 1547. Treason, 48 1. Edward VI c. 14, 1547. Chantries, 107 2/3. Edward VI c. 1. 1548. First Uniformity Act, 131 2/3. Edward VI c. 19.1548. Abstinence, 132 3/4. Edward VI c. 10. 1550. Books and Images, 133 3/4. Edward VI c. 11. 1550. Ecclesiastical Law, 134 3/4. Edward VI c. 12. 1550. Ordination, 135 3/4. Edward VI c. 21. 1550. Prices, Butter, 146 5/6. Edward VI c. 1. 1552. Second Uniformity Act, 136 5/6. Edward VI c. 2. 1552. Poor Relief, 152 5/6. Edward VI c. 3. 1552. Holy Days, 137 5/6. Edward VI c. 11. 1552. Treason, 48 vi 5/6. Edward VI c. 14. 1552. Regraters, 146 5/6. Edward VI c. 20. 1552. Usury, 150 5/6. Edward VIc. 25.1552. Ale-Houses, 146 1. Mary St. I. c. 1. 1553. Treason (repeal), 48 vii 1. Mary St. 2. c. 1. 1553. Queen’s title, 44 1. Mary St. 2. c. 2. 1553. Repeal, 139 1. Mary St. 3. c. 1. 1554. Royal Powers, 44 (p. 463) 1/2. Philip and Mary c. 6.1554. Heresy, 126 1/2. Philip and Mary c. 8.1554. Repeal, 140 1/2. Philip and Mary c. 9. 1554. Treason, 48 viii 1/2. Philip and Mary c. 10. 1554. Treason, 48 ix 2/3. Philip and Mary c. 5. 1555. Poor Relief, 152 2/3. Philip and Mary c. 11. 1555. Weavers, 148

1082

INDEX TO TEXTS

4/5. Philip and Mary c. 8. 1556. Forced Marriages, 23 v Succession, Devise for, 44 viii Legislation on. See Statutes Supplication for the Beggars, 81 Supplication against the Ordinaries, 94

Kett (Kete), Robert, 144 More, Sir Thomas, 48 x Tyndale, William, Works. See Treatises and Bible

Uniformity, Acts of: (First), 131; (Second),

136 Union, Act of. See Wales Beverley Town Documents, 146 Universities, Life at, 161 Leicester, Records of the Borough of, 147 Usury, Legislation on, 150. See Statutes London: Calendar of Letter Books, 147, 148 Valor Ecclesiasticus, 102 Calendar of Wills, 153 Vergil, Polydore, Anglica Historia, 33, 37, Northampton, Records of the Borough of, 147 38, 50, 56 Norwich, Record of the City of, 149 Villeinage, 22 Nottingham, Records of the Borough of, 147 Visitations: Southampton, Book of Remembrance of, Episcopal, 106 147, 154 Heralds, 18 ii Winchester, Black Book of, 147 Vocation, 25 York Civic Records, 146, 147 Treason, Law of, 48 Wales, Council in, 66 Indictments, 48 Union of England and, 67 Treatises: Warbeck, Perkin, Confession of, 117 Dudley, Tree of Commonwealth, 76 Wards. See Courts; Statutes Elyot, The Boke named the Governour, 156 Wardship, Abuse of, 23 Fitzherbert, The Boke of husbandry, 143 Waterhouse, Fortescutus, illustrates, 68 Hales, Discourse of the Common Weal, West, Council on the, 66 145, 151 Wills of: Ponet, Short Treatise of Politic Power, 76 Bertie, Robert, 19 i Starkey, Dialogue between Pole and Lupset, 26 Henry VIII, 44 vii Tyndale: Stumpe, William, (p. 267) Parable of the Wicked Mammon, 25 Wolsey, Cardinal, Impression of, 38 Obedience of a Christian Man, 25, 82 Wright, Letters relating to the…Monasteries, Practice of Prelates, 82 108 Answer to More, 82 Wriothesley, Charles, Chronicle, 2, 88, 89, 127 Preface to Genesis, 118 Family, 19 Trials of: Wyatt, Sir Thomas, Letter of, 160 Askewe, Anne, 127 ii Barton, Elizabeth, 127 i Yearbook, 1 Henry VII, 61 Boleyn, Anne, 88 Yeomen, descriptions of, 21 Howard, Katherine, 48 xii

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