James Froude - History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

Starkey to Pole: Strype’s Memorials , Vol. II. p. 282.

Tunstall to Pole: Rolls House MS. , Burnet’s Collectanea , p. 479.

Starkey to Pole: Rolls House MS.

Phillips’ Life of Cardinal Pole , Vol. I. p. 148. Reginald Pole to Edward VI.: Epist. Reg. Pol.

Wordsworth’s Excursion , Book V.

Sermons of Bishop Latimer , Parker Society’s edition, p. 33.

In the State Paper Office and the Rolls House there are numerous “depositions” as to language used by the clergy, showing their general temper.

Printed in Strype’s Memorials , Vol. II. p. 260. The complaints are not exaggerated. There is not one which could not be illustrated or strengthened from depositions among the Records .

This, again, was intended for Latimer. The illustration was said to be his; but he denied it.

Many of the clergy and even of the monks had already taken the permission of their own authority. Cranmer himself was said to be secretly married; and in some cases women, whom we find reported in this letter of Cromwell’s visitors as concubines of priests, were really and literally their wives, and had been formally married to them. I have discovered one singular instance of this kind.

Ap Rice, writing to Cromwell in the year 1535 or 6, says:

“As we were of late at Walden, the abbot, then being a man of good learning and right sincere judgment, as I examined him alone, shewed me secretly, upon stipulation of silence, but only unto you, as our judge, that he had contracted matrimony with a certain woman secretly, having present thereat but one trusty witness; because he, not being able, as he said, to contain, though he could not be suffered by the laws of man, saw he might do it lawfully by the laws of God; and for the avoiding of more inconvenience, which before he was provoked unto, he did thus, having confidence in you that this act should not be anything prejudicial unto him.” — MS. State Paper Office , temp. Henry VIII., second series, Vol. XXXV.

Cromwell acquiesced in the reasonableness of the abbot’s proceeding; he wrote to tell him “to use his remedy,” but to avoid, as far as possible, creating a scandal. — MS. ibid. Vol. XLVI.

The government, however, found generally a difficulty in knowing what to resolve in such cases. The king’s first declaration was a reasonable one, that all clergy who had taken wives should forfeit their orders, “and be had and reputed as lay persons to all purposes and intents.” – Royal Proclamation: Wilkins’s Concilia , Vol. III. p. 776.

Luther, by far the greatest man of the sixteenth century, was as rigid a believer in the real presence as Aquinas or St. Bernard.

We were constrained to put our own pen to the book, and to conceive certain articles which were by you, the bishops, and the whole of the clergy of this our realm agreed on as Catholic. – Henry VIII. to the Bishops and Clergy: Wilkins’s Concilia , Vol. III. p. 825.

Whether marriage and ordination were sacraments was thus left an open question. The sacramental character of confirmation and extreme unction is implicitly denied.

Formularies of Faith , temp. Henry VIII., Oxford edition, 1825. Articles devised by the King’s Majesty to stablish Christian quietness and unity, and to avoid contentious opinions.

Cromwell’s patent as lord privy seal is dated the 2d of July, 1536. On the 9th he was created Baron Cromwell, and in the same month vicegerent in rebus ecclesiasticis .

The judgment of the convocation concerning general councils, July 20, 28 Henry VIII: Burnet’s Collectanea , p. 88.

Burnet’s Collectanea , p. 89.

The Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula was on the 1st of August. These injunctions could hardly have been issued before August, 1536; nor could they have been later than September. The clergy were, therefore, allowed nearly a year to provide themselves.

Lewis’s History of the English Bible .

Lewis’s History of the English Bible .

The printing was completed in October, 1535.

There is an excellent copy of this edition in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Preface to Coverdale’s Bible .

“The Lord Darcy declared unto me that the custom among the Lords before that time had been that matters touching spiritual authority should always be referred unto the convocation house, and not for the parliament house: and that before this last parliament it was accustomed among the Lords, the first matter they always communed of, after the mass of the Holy Ghost, was to affirm and allow the first chapter of Magna Charta touching the rights and liberties of the church; and it was not so now. Also the Lord Darcy did say that in any matter which toucheth the prerogative of the king’s crown, or any matter that touched the prejudice of the same, the custom of the Lords’ house was that they should have, upon their requests, a copy of the bill of the same, to the intent that they might have their council learned to scan the same; or if it were betwixt party and party, if the bill were not prejudicial to the commonwealth. And now they could have no such copy upon their suit, or at the least so readily as they were wont to have in parliament before.” – Examination of Robert Aske in the Tower: Rolls House MS. , A 2, 29, p. 197.

“The said Aske saith he well remembereth that the Lord Darcy told him that there were divers great men and lords which before the time of the insurrection had promised to do their best to suppress heresies and the authors and maintainers of them, and he saith they were in number fifteen persons.” — Rolls House Miscellaneous MSS. , first series, 414.

Richard Coren to Cromwell: State Papers , Vol. I. p. 558.

“The abbeys were one of the beauties of the realm to all strangers passing through.” – Examination of Aske: Rolls House MS. , A 2, 29.

Examination of Aske; MS. ibid. I am glad to have discovered this most considerable evidence in favour of some at least of the superiors of the religious houses.

“Strangers and buyers of corn were also greatly refreshed, horse and man, at the abbeys; and merchandize was well carried on through their help.” – Examination of Aske: Rolls House MS. , A 2, 29.

27 Henry VIII. cap. 10.

Among the unarranged MSS. in the State Paper Office is a long and most elaborate explanation of the evils which had been created by the system of uses. It is a paper which ought to find its place in the history of English landed tenure; and when the arrangement of these MSS. now in progress is completed, it will be accessible to any inquirer.