HISTORY OF THE PURITAN S.

CHAPTER I.

REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

England, or did receive or execute them, they were declared to be out of the king's protection, and should forfeit their goods and chattels to the KING William the Conqueror, having got pos- king, and should be attached by their bodies, if session of the crown of England by the assist- they may be found, and brought before the king ance of the See of Rome, and King John hav- and council to answer to the cases aforesaid; ing afterward sold it in his wars with the bar- or that process should be made against them, ons, the rights and privileges of the English by pramunire facias, in manner as it is ordained clergy were delivered up into the hands of the in other statutes of provisors; and other which pope, who taxed them at his pleasure, and in do sue in any other court in derogation of the process of time drained the kingdom of immense regality of the king."* From this time the archtreasures; for, besides all his other dues, arising bishops called no more convocations by their from annates, first-fruits, Peter-pence, &c., he sole authority, but by license from the king; extorted large sums of money from the clergy their synods being formed by writ or precept from for their preferments in the Church. He ad- the crown, directed to the archbishops, to asvanced foreigners to the richest bishoprics, who semble their clergy, in order to consult upon such never resided in their diocesses, nor so much affairs as his majesty should lay before them. as set foot upon English ground, but sent for all But still their canons were binding, though contheir profits to a foreign country; nay, so cov-firmed by no authority but their own, till the etous was his holiness, that, before livings became void, he sold them provisionally among his Italians, insomuch that neither the king nor the clergy had anything to dispose of, but everything was bargained for beforehand at Rome. This awakened the resentments of the Legislature, who, in the twenty-fifth year of Edward III., passed an act, called the statute of proviSee the very valuable Life of Wickliffe, publishsors, to establish "that the king and other ed by the Rev. Mr. Lewis, of Margate, which begins lords shall present unto benefices of their own, about the year 1324, in the parish of Wickliffe, near thus: "John de Wickliffe was born, very probably, or their ancestors' foundation, and not the Bishop Richmond, in Yorkshire, and was first admitted comof Rome." This act enacted "that all forestall-moner of Queen's College, Oxford, then newly founding of benefices to foreigners shall cease; and that the free elections, presentments, and collations of benefices, shall stand in right of the crown, or of any of his majesty's subjects, as they had formerly enjoyed them, notwithstanding any provisions from Rome."

But still the power of the court of Rome ran very high, for they brought all the trials of titles to advowsons into their own courts beyond sea; and though by the seventh of Richard II. the power of nomination to benefices, without the king's license, was taken from them, they still claimed the benefit of confirmations, of translations of bishops, and of excommunications; the Archbishops of Canterbury and York might still, by virtue of bulls from Rome, assemble the clergy of their several provinces, at what time and place they thought fit, without leave obtained from the crown; and all the canons and constitutions concluded upon in those synods were binding, without any farther ratification from the king; so that the power of the Church was independent of the civil government. This being represented to the Parliament of the sixteenth of Richard II., they passed the statute commonly called pramunire, by which it was enacted, "that if any did purchase translations to benefices, processes, sentences of excommunication, bulls, or any other instruments from the court of Rome, against the king or his crown; or whoever brought them into

act of submission of the clergy took place.

About this time flourished the famous John Wickliffe, the morning-star of the Reformation. He was born at Wickliffe, near Richmond, in Yorkshire,† about the year 1324, and was edu

*Fuller's Church History, book iv., p. 145-148.

ed by Robert Egglesfield, S.T.B., but was soon after removed to Merton College, where he was first probationer and afterward fellow. He was advanced to the professor's chair, 1372. It appears by this ingenious writer, as well as by the Catalogus Testium, that Wickliffe was for 'rejecting all human rites, and new shadows or traditions in religion; and with regard to the identity of the order of bishops and priests in the apostolic age, he is very positive. Unum audacter assero, one thing I boldly assert, that in the primitive Church, or in the time of the Apostle Paul, two orders of clergy were thought sufficient, viz., priest and deacon; and I do also say, that in the time and a bishop were one and the same for in those of Paul, fuit idem presbyter atque episcopus, a priest times the distinct orders of pope, cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, officials, and deans were not invented."

Mr. Neal's review of the first volume of the History of the Puritans, subjoined to the quarto edition of this history, vol. i., p. 890.-ED.

To Mr. Neal's account of Wickliffe's sentiments, it may be added, that he advanced some tenets which not only symbolize with, but directly led to, the peculiar opinions of those who, called Baptists, have in subsequent ages formed a large body of dissenters, viz., "that wise men leave that as impertinent which is not plainly expressed in Scripture; that those are fools and presumptuous which affirm such infants not to be saved which die without baptism; that baptism doth not confer, but only signify grace, which was given before. He also denied that all sins are abolished in baptism; and asserted that children may be saved without baptism; and that the baptism of water profiteth not, without the baptism of the Spir

vourable to Wickliffe, insomuch that he ventured out of his retirement, and returned to his parish at Lutterworth, where he quietly departed this life, in the year 1384. This Wickliffe was a wonderful man for the times in which he lived, which were overspread with the thickest darkness of anti-Christian idolatry; he was the first that translated the New Testament into English; but the art of printing not being then found out, it hardly escaped the inquisition of Tyndal translated it a second time in 1526. He preached and published the very same doctrines for substance that afterward obtained at the Reformation; he wrote near two hundred volumes, all which were called in, condemned, and ordered to be burned, together with his bones, by the Council of Constance, in the year 1425, fortyone years after his death; but his doctrine remained, and the number of his disciples, who were distinguished by the name of Lollards, increased after his decease,* which gave occasion to the making sundry other severe laws against heretics.

cated in Queen's College, Oxford, where he was divinity professor, and afterward pastor of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. He flourished in the latter end of the reign of King Edward III. and the beginning of Richard II., about one hundred and thirty years before the Reformation of Luther. The University gave this testimonial of him after his death: That, from his youth to the time of his death, his conversation was so praiseworthy, that there was never any spot or suspicion noised of him; that in his reading and preach-the prelates; at least, it was very scarce when ing he behaved like a stout and valiant champion of the faith; and that he had written in logic, philosophy, divinity, morality, and the speculative arts, without an equal." While he was divinity professor at Oxford, he published certain conclusions - against transubstantiation and against the infallibility of the pope; that the Church of Rome was not the head of all other churches; nor had St. Peter the power of the keys any more than the rest of the apostles; that the New Testament, or Gospel, is a perfect rule of life and manners, and ought to be read by the people.* He maintained, farther, most of those points by which the Puritans were afterward distinguished; as, that in the sacrament of orders there ought to be but two degrees, presbyters or bishops and deacons; that all human traditions are superfluous and sinful; that we must practise and teach only the laws of Christ; that mystical and significant ceremonies in religious worship are unlawful; and that to restrain men to a prescribed form of prayer is contrary to the liberty granted them by God. These, with some other of Wickliffe's doctrines against the temporal grandeur of the prelates and their usurped authority, were sent to Rome and condemned by Pope Gregory XI., in a consistory of twenty-three cardinals, in the year 1378. But the pope dying soon after, put a stop to the process. Urban, his successor, wrote to young King Richard II. and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the University of Oxford, to put a stop to the progress of Wickliffism; accordingly, Wickliffe was cited before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his brethren, the prelates, several times, but was always dismissed, either by the interest of the citizens of London, or the powerful interposition of some great lords at court, or some other uncommon providence, which terrified the bishops from passing a peremptory sentence against him for a considerable time; but at length his new doctrines, as they were called, were condemned, in a convocation of bishops, doctors, and bachelors, held at London by the commandment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1382, and he was deprived of his professorship, his books"that all that preached without license against and writings were ordered to be burned and himself to be imprisoned; but he kept out of the way, and in the time of his retirement wrote a confession of his faith to the pope, in which he declares himself willing to maintain his opinions at Rome, if God had not otherwise visited him with sickness and other infirmities: but it was well for this good man that there were two antipopes at this time at war with each other, one * Knighton, a canon of Leicester and a contempoat Rome, and the other at Avignon. In Eng-rary of Wickliffe, tells us that in the year 1382 "their land, also, there was a minority, which was fa- number very much increased, and that, starting like saplings from the root of a tree, they were multiplied, it."-Fuller's Church History, b. iv., p. 130. Trialo- and filled every place within the compass of the gus, lib. iv., cap. i.-ED. land."-Dr. Vaughan's Life of Wickliffe, vol. ii., p. 154. 2d edition.-C.

Fox's Martyrol. Pierce's Vindicat., p. 4, 5.

The clergy made their advantage of the contentions between the houses of York and Lancaster; both parties courting their assistance, which they did not fail to make use of for the support of the Catholic faith, as they called it, and the advancement of their spiritual tyranny over the consciences of men. In the primitive times there were no capital proceedings against heretics, the weapons of the Church being only spiritual; but when it was found that ecclesiastical censures were not sufficient to keep men in a blind subjection to the pope, a decree was obtained in the fourth Council of Lateran, A.D: 1215, "that all heretics should be delivered over to the civil magistrate to be burned." Here was the spring of that anti-Christian tyranny and oppression of the consciences of men which has since been attended with a sea of Christian blood: the papists learned it from the heathen emperors, and the most zealous Protestants of all nations have taken it up from them. Conscience cannot be convinced by fines and imprisonments, or by fire and fagot; all attempts of this kind serve only to make men hypocrites, and are deservedly branded with the name of persecution. There was no occasion for putting these sanguinary laws in execution among us till the latter end of the fourteenth century; but when the Lollards, or followers of Wickliffe, threatened the papal power, the clergy brought this Italian drug from Rome, and planted it in the Church of England. In the fifth year of Richard II., it was enacted

the Catholic faith, or against the laws of the land, should be arrested, and kept in prison till they justified themselves according to the law and reason of Holy Church. Their commitment was to be by writ from the chancellor, who was to issue forth commissions to the sheriffs and other the king's ministers, after the bishops had

returned the names of the delinquents into the Court of Chancery.

ing to the genius of the popish religion, exercised numberless cruelties upon the people. If any man denied them any degree of respect, or any of those profits they pretended was their due, he was immediately suspected of heresy, imprisoned, and, it may be, put to death; of which some hundreds of examples are upon record.*

Thus stood the laws with respect to religion, when King Henry VIII., second son of King Henry VII., came to the crown; he was born in the year 1491, and bred a scholar: he understood the purity of the Latin tongue, and was well acquainted with school divinity. No sort of flattery pleased him better than to have his wisdom and learning commended. In the be

When Richard II. was deposed, and the crown usurped by Henry IV., in order to gain the good-will of the clergy, it was farther enacted, in the second year of his reign, "that if any person were suspected of heresy, the ordinary might detain them in prison till they were canonically purged, or did abjure their errors; provided, always, that the proceedings against them were publicly and judicially ended within three months. If they were convicted, the diocesan, or his commissary, might imprison and fine them at discretion. Those that refused to abjure their error, or, after abjuration, relapsed, were to be delivered over to the secular power, and the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs, were to beginning he was a most obedient son of the papresent, if required, when the bishop, or his commissary, passed sentence, and after sentence they were to receive them, and in some high place burn them to death before the people." By this law the king's subjects were put from under his protection, and left to the mercy of the bishops in their spiritual courts, and might, upon suspicion of heresy, be imprisoned and put to death, without presentment or trial by jury, as is the practice in all other criminal

cases.

In the beginning of the reign of Henry V., who was a martial prince, a new law passed against the Lollards or Wickliffites,* "that they should forfeit all the lands they had in fee-simple, and all their goods and chattels to the king. All state officers, at their entrance into office, were sworn to use their best endeavours to discover them, and to assist the ordinaries in prosecuting and convicting them." I find no mention, in any of these acts, of a writ or warrant from the king, de hæretico comburendo; the sheriff might proceed to the burning of heretics without it; but it seems the king's learned counsel advised him to issue out a writ of this kind to the sheriff, by which his majesty took them, in some sort, under his protection again; but it was not as yet necessary by law, nor are there any of them to be found in the rolls before the reign of King Henry VIII.

pacy, and einployed his talents in writing against Luther in defence of the seven sacraments of the Church. This book was magnified by the clergy as the most learned performance of the age; and upon presenting it to the pope, his holiness conferred upon the King of England, and his successors, the glorious title of DEFENDER OF THE FAITH; it was voted in full consistory, and signed by twenty-seven cardinals, in the year 1521.

At the same time, Cardinal Wolsey, the king's favourite, exercised a sovereign power over the whole clergy and people of England in spiritual matters: he was made legate in the year 1519, and accepted of a bull from the pope, contrary to the statute of pramunire, empowering him to superintend and correct what he thought amiss in both the provinces of Canterbury and York, and to appoint all officers in the spiritual

* Thus, in the reign of Edward IV., John Keyser was committed to jail, by Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, on the suspicion of heresy, because, withstanding the archbishop or his commissary had having been excommunicated, he said " that, notexcommunicated him, yet before God he was not excommunicated, for his corn yielded as well as his neighbours.'" Thus, also, in the reign of Henry VII, Hillary Warner was arrested on the charge of heresy, because he said "that he was not bound to pay tithes to the curate of the parish where he lived."

Coke's Institutes, 3 inst., p. 42, quoted in a treatise on heresy as cognizable in the spiritual courts, p. 22, 23.-ED.

By virtue of these statutes, the clergy, accord* It inarks the profaneness, as well as cruelty of the act here quoted by Mr. Neal, that it was not di- † Mr. Fox observes, that though "this book carrected merely against the avowed followers of Wick-ried the king's name in the title, it was another who liffe, as such, but against the perusal of the Scriptures in English: for it enacted, "that whatsoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue (which was then called Wicleue's learning), they should forfeit land, catel, lif, and godes, for theyr heyres forever, and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and most arrant traitors to the lande."- Emlyn's Complete Collection of State Trials, p. 48, as quoted in Dr. Flemming's Palladium, p. 30, note.

So great an alarm did the doctrine of Wickliffe raise, and so high did the fear of its spread rise, that by the statute of 5 Rich. II. and 2 Hen. IV., c. 15, it was enacted, as part of the sheriff's oath, "that he should seek to redress all errors and heresies, commonly called Lollards." And it is a striking instance of the permanent footing which error and absurdity, and even iniquity gain, when once established by law, that this clause was preserved in the oath long after the Reformation, even to the first of Charles I., when Sir Edward Coke, on being appointed sheriff of the county of Buckingham, objected to it, and ever since it has been left out.-The Complete Sheriff, p. 17.-ED.

ministered the notion and framed the style. But, whoever had the labour of the book, the king had the thanks and the reward."-Acts and Monuments of Martyrs, vol. ii., p. 57. It has been said that the jester at the court, seeing Henry overcome with joy, asked the reason; and when told that it was because his holiness had conferred upon him this new title, he replied, "My good Harry, let me and thee defend each other, and let the faith alone to defend itself." If this was uttered as a serious joke," says a writer, "the fool was, undoubtedly, the wisest man of the two."-C.

"The extravagant praises which he received for this performance," observes Dr. Warner, “meeting with so much pride and conceitedness in his nature, made him from this time impatient of all contradictions on religious subjects, and to set up himself for the standard of truth, by which his people were to regulate their belief."-Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii., p. 228. We are surprised, in the event, to see this prince, who was now "the pride of popery, become its scourge." Such are the fluctuations in human characters and affairs, and so unsearchable are the ways of Providence!-ED.

courts. The king also granted him a full pow- | bulls for his legatine power, which for many er of disposing of all ecclesiastical benefices in years he had executed. The cardinal pleaded the gift of the crown; with a visitatorial power ignorance of the statute, and submitted to the over monasteries, colleges, and all his clergy, king's mercy upon which he was declared to exempt or not exempt. By virtue of these be out of the king's protection, to have forfeited vast powers a new court of justce was erected, his goods and chattels, and that his person called the legate's court, the jurisdiction where- might be seized. The haughty cardinal, not of extended to all actions relating to conscience, knowing how to bear his disgrace, soon after and numberless rapines and extortions were fell sick and died, declaring that if he had sercommitted by it under colour of reforming men's ved God as well as he had done his prince, he manners; all which his majesty connived at, would not have given him over in his gray out of zeal to the Church.

But at length, the king, being weary of his Queen Katharine, after he had lived with her almost twenty years, or being troubled in conscience because he had married his brother's wife, and the legitimacy of his daughter had been called in question by some foreign princes, he first separated from her bed, and then moved the pope for a divorce; but the court of Rome having held his majesty in suspense for two or three years for fear of offending the emperor the queen's nephew, the impatient king, by the advice of Dr. Cranmer, appealed to the principal universities of Europe, and desired their opinions upon these two questions :

1. "Whether it was agreeable to the law of God for a man to marry his brother's wife? 2. "Whether the pope could dispense with the law of God!"

hairs.

But the king, not satisfied with his resentments against the cardinal, resolved to be revenged on the pope himself, and accordingly, September 19th, a week before the cardinal's death, he published a proclamation forbidding all persons to purchase anything from Rome under the severest penalties, and resolved to annex the ecclesiastical supremacy to his own crown for the future. It was easy to foresee that the clergy would startle at the king's assuming to himself the pope's supremacy; but his majesty had them at his mercy, for they having acknowledged Cardinal Wolsey's legatine power, and submitted to his jurisdiction, his majesty caused an indictment to be preferred against them in Westminster Hall, and obtained judgment upon the statute of pramunire, whereby the whole body of the clergy were declared to be out of the king's protection, and to have forfeited all their goods and chattels.

:

All the universities, and most of the learned men of Europe, both Lutherans and papists, except those at Rome, declared for the negative In this condition they were glad to submit of the two questions. The king laid their de- upon the best terms they could get, but the terminations before the Parliament and convo- king would not pardon them but upon these cation, who agreed with the foreign universi- two conditions (1.) That the two provinces of ties. In the convocation of English clergy, two Canterbury and York should pay into the exhundred and fifty-three were for the divorce, chequer £118,840, a vast sum of money in those and but nineteen against it. Sundry learned times. (2.) That they should yield his majesty books were written for and against the lawful- the title of sole and supreme head of the Church ness of the marriage; one party being encour of England, next and immediately under Christ. aged by the king, and the other by the pope and The former they readily complied with, and emperor. The pope cited the king to Rome, promised for the future never to assemble in but his majesty ordered the Earl of Wiltshire convocation but by the king's writ; nor to to protest against the citation, as contrary to make or execute any canons or constitutions the prerogative of his crown; and sent a letter without his majesty's license; but to acknowlsigned by the cardinal, the Archbishop of Can-edge a layman to be supreme head of an eccleterbury, four bishops, two dukes, two marquis-siastical body, was such an absurdity, in their es, thirteen earls, two viscounts, twenty-three opinion, and so inconsistent with their allebarons, twenty-two abbots, and eleven common- giance to the pope, that they could not yield to ers, exhorting his holiness to confirm the judg- it without an additional clause, as far as is ment of the learned men, and of the universi- agreeable to the laws of Christ. The king acties of Europe, by annulling his marriage, or cepted it with the clause for the present, but a else he should be obliged to take other meas-year or two after obtained the confirmation of ures. The pope in his answer, after having ac- it in Parliament and convocation without the knowledged his majesty's favours, told him that clause. the queen's appeal and avocation of the cause The substance of the act of supremacy* is as to Rome must be granted. The king seeing follows: "Albeit the king's majesty justly and himself abused, and that the affair of his mar-rightfully is, and ought to be, supreme head of riage, which had been already determined by the Church of England, and is so recognised by the most learned men in Europe, and had been the clergy of this realm in their convocations; argued before the legates Campegio and Wol- yet, nevertheless, for confirmation and corrobosey, must commence again, began to suspect ration thereof, and for increase of virtue in Wolsey's sincerity; upon which his majesty Christ's religion within this realm of England, sent for the seals from him, and soon after com- &c., be it enacted by the authority of this presmanded his attorney-general to put in an in-ent Parliament, that the king, our sovereign formation against him in the King's Bench, because that, notwithstanding the statute of Richard II. against procuring bulls from Rome under the pains of a pramunire, he had received

* Burnet's Hist. Ref., vol. i., p. 8.

lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England; and shall have and enjoy, annexed

* 26 Henry VIII., cap. i.