The peculiar genius-if such a word may be permitted -which breathes through it-the mingled tenderness and majesty the Saxon simplicity—the preternatural grandeur-unequalled, unapproached, in the attempted improvements of modern scholars-all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man-William Tyndal. Lying, while engaged in that great office, under the shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any moment to fall, he worked, under circumstances alone perhaps truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him-his spirit, as it were divorced from the world, moved in a purer element than common air.

His work was done. He lived to see the Bible no longer carried by stealth into his country, where the possession of it was a crime, but borne in by the solemn will of the King-solemnly recognized as the word of the Most High God. And then his occupation in this earth was gone. His eyes saw the salvation for which he had longed, and he might depart to his place. He was denounced to the Regent of Flanders; he was enticed by the suborned treachery of a miserable English fanatic beyond the town under whose liberties he had been secure; and with the reward which, at other times as well as those, has been held fitting by human justice for the earth's great ones, he passed away in smoke and flame to his rest.

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.

HE Nun of Kent's conspiracy, the recent humour

THE

of Convocation, the menaces of Reginald Pole, alike revealed a dangerous feeling in the country. A religious revolution in the midst of an armed population intensely interested in the event, could not be accomplished without an appeal being made at some period of its course to force; and religion was at this time but one out of many elements of confusion. Society, within and without, from the heart of its creed to its outward organization, was passing through a transition, and the records of the Pilgrimage of Grace cast their light far down into the structure and inmost constitution of English life.

The organic changes introduced by the Parliament of 1529 had been the work of the King and the second house in the legislature; and the Peers had not only seen measures pass into law which they would gladly have rejected had they dared, but their supremacy was slipping away from them; the Commons, who in times past had confined themselves to voting supplies and

passing without inquiry such measures as were sent down to them, had started suddenly into new proportions, and had taken upon themselves to discuss questions sacred hitherto to Convocation. The Upper House had been treated in the disputes which had arisen with significant disrespect; ancient and honoured customs had been discontinued among them against their desire;' and, constitutionally averse to change, they were hurried powerless along by a force which was bearing them they knew not where. Hating heretics with true English conservatism, they found men who but a few years before would have been in the dungeons of Lollards' Tower, now high in Court favour, high in office, and with seats in their own body. They had learnt to endure the presence of self-raised men when as ecclesiastics such men represented the respectable dignity of the Church; but the proud English nobles had now for the

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 touched the pre

rogative 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.

first time to tolerate the society and submit to the dictation of a lay peer who had been a tradesman's orphan and a homeless vagabond. The Reformation in their minds was associated with the exaltation of base blood, the levelling of ranks, the breaking down the old rule and order of the land. Eager to check so dangerous a movement, they had listened, some of them, to the revelations of the Nun. Fifteen great men and lords, Lord Darcy stated, had confederated secretly to force the Government to change their policy; and Darcy himself had been in communication for the same purpose with the Spanish ambassador, and was of course made aware of the intended invasion in the preceding winter. The discontent extended to the county families, who shared or imitated the prejudices of their feudal leaders; and those families had again their peculiar grievances. On the suppression of the abbeys the peers obtained grants, or expected to obtain them, from the forfeited estates. The country gentlemen saw only the desecration of the familiar scenes of their daily life, the violation of the tombs of their ancestors, and the buildings themselves, the beauty of which was the admiration of foreigners who visited England, reduced to ruins.3 The abbots had been their personal friends, 'the trustees

2

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

2 Richard Coren to Cromwell : State Papers, vol. i. p. 558.

.

3 The abbeys were one of the

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for their children and the executors of their wills; the monks had been the teachers of their children; the free tables and free lodgings in these houses had made them attractive and convenient places of resort in distant journeys; and in remote districts the trade of the neighbourhood, from the wholesale purchases of the corndealer to the huckstering of the wandering pedlar, had been mainly carried on within their walls.*

'The Statute of Uses,' again, an important but insufficient measure of reform, passed in the last session of Parliament but one, had created not unreasonable irritation. Previous to the modification of the feudal law in the year 1540, land was not subject to testamentary disposition; and it had been usual to evade the prohibition of direct bequest, in making provision for younger children, by leaving estates in use,' charged with payments so considerable as to amount virtually to a transfer of the property. The injustice of the common law was in this way remedied, but remedied so awkwardly as to embarrass and complicate the titles of estates beyond extrication. A 'use' might be erected on a 'use;' it might be extended to the descendants of those in whose behalf it first was made; it might be mortgaged,

beauties of the realm to all strangers 2 Strangers and buyers of corn passing through.'-Examination of were also greatly refreshed, horse Aske: Rolls House MS. A 2, 29. and man, at the abbeys; and mer1 Examination of Aske: MS.chandise was well carried on through ibid. I am glad to have discovered their help.'-Examination of Aske: this most considerable evidence in ibid. favour of some at least of the superiors of the religious houses.

3 27 Henry VIII. cap. 10.