1558-9. affection to the memory of King Edward the Sixth'. The AN. REG.1, be so closely carried, but that such lords and gentlemen as 1558-9. New Acts. AN. REG.1, his axe to the root of the tree1; and though it was not hard to guess at how high a mark the wretch's malice seemed to aim, and what he meant by laying his axe to the root of the tree, yet passed he unpunished for the present, though Divine vengeance brought him in conclusion to his just reward?. Others there were-and doubtless many others also in the House of Commons, who had as great zeal as he to the Papal interess, but either had more modesty in the conduct of it, or preferred their duty and allegiance to their natural Prince before their zeal to the concernments of the Church of Rome. 11. In this Parliament there passed an Act for recognizing the Queen's just title to the Crown3; but without any Act for the validity of her mother's marriage, on which her title most depended. For which neglect most men condemned the new Lord Keeper, on whose judgment she relied especially in point of law; in whom it could not but be looked on as a great incogitancy, to be less careful of her own and her mother's honour than the Ministers of the late Queen Mary had been of hers1. But Bacon was not to be told of an old law maxim, that "the Crown takes away all defects and stops in blood, and that, from the time that the Queen did assume the Crown, the fountain was cleared, and all attainders and corruption of blood discharged 5." Which maxim, how unsafe soever it may seem to others, yet, since it goes for a known rule 1 Fox, vi. 554; Hayw. 25 ; Strype, Ann. i. 70. Camden, Annal. p. 13, ed. 1615, refers Story's speech to the reign of Mary. "Ea tempestate, dum in minoris notæ Protestantes sæviretur, J. Storius, Legum D. et alii ingenio immiti [cf. p. 261] per circulos passim dictitarunt, Haeresis radicem (illam innuentes) exscindendam, non ramusculos amputandos." He fled to Brabant, and was appointed searcher for English goods at Antwerp. Having been decoyed on board an English vessel in 1569, he was brought back, and committed to prison. In 1571 he was tried for having conspired the Queen's death, having advised the Duke of Alva how to invade England, and other such offences. He refused to submit to a trial, declaring himself a subject not of Elizabeth, but of the king of Spain; and denying that he was accountable in England for what he had done abroad. The judges, however, condemned him, and he was executed at Tyburn. Fuller, iv. 349. Camden in Kennett, ii. 417, 437. Burnet, 11. ii. 555. Fox, viii. 743. Speed, 870. 3 1 Eliz. c. 3. 4 Camd. 25, ed. 1615. 5 "Licet jurisprudentia Anglicana jam olim pronuntiarit Coronam semel susceptam omnes omnino defectus tollere." Ibid. 1558-9. amongst our lawyers, could not be questioned at that present. AN. REG. 1, 3 And possible it is that he conceived it better for the mar) riage of the Queen's mother to pass unquestioned, as a matter justly subject unto no dispute, than to build the validity of it on no better ground than an Act of Parliament, which might be as easily reversed as it was agreed to. There passed an Act also for restoring to the Crown the tenths and firstfruits', first settled thereon in the time of King Henry the Eighth, and afterwards given back by Queen Mary, as before was said. For the better drawing on of which concession, it was pretended that the patrimony of the Crown had been much dilapidated, and that it could not be supported with such honour as it ought to be, if restitution were not made of such rents and profits as were of late dismembered from it. Upon which ground they also passed an Act for the dissolution of all such monasteries, convents, and religious orders, as had been founded and established by the Queen deceased3. By virtue of which Act the Queen was repossessed again of all those lands which had been granted by her sister to the Monks of Westminster and Shene, the Knights Hospitalers, the Nuns of Sion, together with the mansion-houses re-edified for the Observants at Greenwich, and the Black Friars in Smithfield. Which last, being planted in a house near the dissolved Priory of Great St Bartholomew's, had again fitted and prepared the church belonging thereunto for religious offices; but had scarce fitted and prepared it when dissolved again, and the church afterwards made a parochial church for the use of the Close and such as lived within the verge and precincts thereof. How she disposed of Sion House, hath been shewn already; and what she did with the rich Abbey of Westminster, we shall see hereafter". 4 3 1 Eliz. c. 24. Stow, 640. Holinshed, iv. 185. Sup. 191. The nuns of Sion retired to the continent, and, after various movements, settled at Lisbon. Fuller, iii. 493. There the convent was kept up until 1810, when its members were driven from Portugal by the war, and sought a refuge in England. "Two or three, advanced in years, were in 1825 living in the vicinity of the Potteries in Staffordshire, the last remnant of an English community dissolved in the reign of Henry VIII." Monast. Angl. vi. 540. 5 Eliz. ii. 26. AN. REG. 1, 1558-9. Act of Supremacy. 12. In the passing of these Acts there was little trouble; in the next, there was. For when the Act of the Supremacy1 came to be debated, it seemed to be a thing abhorrent even in nature and polity, that a woman should be declared to be the Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England. But those of the reformed party meant nothing less than to contend about words and phrases, so they might gain the point they aimed at, which was the stripping of the Pope of all authority within these dominions, and fixing the supreme power over all persons and estates, of what rank soever, in the Crown Imperial, -not by the name of Supreme Head, which they perceived night be made liable to some just exceptions; but, which comes all to one, of the Supreme Governess2. Which, when it gave occasion of discourse and descant amongst many of the captious Papists, Queen Mary helped her sister unto one good argument for her justification, and the Queen helped herself to another, which took off the cavil. In the third Session of Parliament in Queen Mary's time, there passed an Act declaring, "That the Regal power was in the Queen's Majesty, as fully as it had been in any of her predecessors3." In the body whereof it is expressed and declared, “That the law of the realm is, and ever hath been, and ought to be, understood, that the kingly or regal office of the realm, and all dignities, prerogatives royal, power, preeminences, privileges, authorities, and jurisdictions thereunto annexed, united, or belonging, being invested either in male or female, are, be, and ought to be, as fully, wholly, absolutely and entirely, deemed, adjudged, accepted, invested, and taken, in the one as1 in the other. So that whatsoever statute or law doth limit or appoint that the King of this realm may or shall have, execute, and do any thing as King, &c., the same the Queen (being Supreme Governess, possessor, and inheritor to the Imperial Crown of this realm) may by the same power have and execute, to all intents, constructions, and purposes, without 1 Eliz. c. 1. Fuller, iv. 264. Rishton (in Sanders, 275) will not admit that there was any real amendment. Sandys states, in a letter to Parker, that a scruple as to the title of Supreme Head' was put into the Queen's mind by Lever. Burnet, 11. ii. 465. 31 Mar. Sess. iii. c. 1. 4 * Edd. 1, 2, "or." 1559. doubt, ambiguity, scruple, or question, any custom, use, or any AN. REG. 1, other thing to the contrary notwithstanding." By the very tenor of which Act Queen Mary grants unto her sister as much authority in all Church-concernments as had been exercised and enjoyed by her father and brother according to any Act or Acts of Parliament in their several times. Which Acts of Parliament, as our learned lawyers have declared upon these occasions, were not to be considered as introductory of a new power which was not in the Crown before, but only declaratory 09 of an old, which naturally belonged to all Christian princes, and 281 amongst others to the Kings and Queens of the realm of England'. 13. And to this purpose it is pleaded by the Queen in her 2 Wilkins, iv. 188. |