CHAPTER VII.

The Queen sends to Cardinal Pole.

THE queen, out of that great opinion she had of Cardinal Pole, either to make him her husband, or her archbishop in Cranmer's room, sent letters to him, one dated from London, October 28, written in Latin, conveyed to him from the emperor's court; probably brought thither by Commendone, who had been sent by the Pope's legate in that court a private agent unto her; and another, dated January 28. The cardinal was coming now from the Pope, as his legate, and in his journey stayed, for some reason of state, in the emperor's dominions. In this stay he thought fit, in answer to both her letters, to send his mind at large by his messenger Thomas Goldwel, who was once, if I mistake not, prior of the church of Canterbury, but long since fled out of England, and lived with Pole, and by the queen afterwards preferred to the bishopric of St. Asaph.

The contents of the queen's former letter consisted in two points; the one concerning the difficulty she feared in renouncing the title of the supremacy. For she writ him, that, when the Parliament yielded to the abolishing of the laws, wherein her mother's matrimony was made illegitimate, the lower house willingly agreed to the establishment of her right of succeeding to the crown, but made a great boggle of abolishing the title of the supremacy; thinking that might be a way to the introducing the Pope's authority again, which they could not gladly hear of; and therefore neither did they like to hear of a legate from the Pope. Hence the queen, who knew Pole was now commissioned by the Pope for his legate in this kingdom, and ready to come, did entreat him to stop for a while. And she desired his advice, in case the Parliament would not be brought to let go the law, wherein the supremacy was placed in the crown imperial of this land. The other point, wherein the queen desired information of the cardinal, was, how the commission she had privately given to Commendone was published in the consistory of Rome, as her ambassador, resident at Venice, had certified her.

The sum of her other letter to the cardinal was, concerning certain persons that she had in her intentions to make bishops in the void sees. They were Morgan, White, Parfew, Coates, Brooks, Holyman, and Bayne, how they might be put into those sees without derogation to the authority of the see apostolic. For she intended not to extend the power of the crown further than it was in use before the schism. She sent him also the two acts that had passed in the Parliament, the one of the legitimation of the matrimony of Queen Katherine with King Henry, and the other of the sacraments to be used in that manner as they were used the last year of King Henry VIII., which she sent to him, because she knew they would be matter of comfort and satisfaction to him.

were.

As to both these letters of the queen, he gave instructions to Goldwell to signify to her majesty what his thoughts As to the first, his advice was, "that the authority and acceptableness of the person goes a great way to make any proposition well entertained and received by the people. And that, seeing there were none, neither of the temporality nor spirituality, but that had either spoke or writ against the Pope's supremacy; therefore, he thought that her majesty herself would be the fittest person to propound it with her own mouth, which was the course the emperor took to justify his war with the French king. He did it by his own mouth before the Pope and cardinals. He would have her at the same time to let the Parliament know plainly, that he (Cardinal Pole), being the Pope's legate, was to be admitted and sent for. And therefore that, in order to this, the law of his banishment might be repealed, and he restored in blood." As to the second point, which seemed to offend the queen, that Commendone had revealed that in the consistory which she told him in much secrecy, Pole said, "that he kept her counsel, and told nothing that he heard from her mouth, but only what he had heard of certain devout Catholics that knew the queen's mind. Which was in general concerning the devout mind her majesty bare to God and the Church; but that nothing was spoken of that particular matter, that she would have none but the Pope made acquainted with." Which private matter, it [Cotton MSS.] Titus, B. 2 [fol. 170-177].

seems, was, that she desired the Pope to make Pole his legate to England.

But that he should be thus stopped in his journey, when the Pope had sent him upon such a weighty errand, the cardinal signified in the same letter his disgust of. And "he feared it might be so ill taken by the Pope and cardinals, that they might send for him back again to Rome, and not permit him to go on that intended charitable design. And that it was contrary to her first commission; when she showed more fervency to receive the obedience of the Church (as he took the confidence to tell her). And that, therefore, he was in some suspicion, that the next commission he should receive from the Pope should be to return back into Italy again, because the Pope might think that he had done his part touching his demonstration of his care of the queen and her realms, when he offered both so readily, all graces that tended to make a reconciliation of both to the Church. In which perhaps, said he, the cardinals would think his Holiness had been too liberal. And, that they might take his stop, without their consent, for a greater indignity. And this revocation he still more feared, if his stay should be deferred any longer space."

The cardinal, upon this his stay, sent a servant of his by post to Rome to make a fair excuse for this stop: namely, that the queen shortly trusted that the matters of the Parliament should have that satisfaction that the cardinal desired; which was the effect of a letter the queen writ to one Henry Pyning, his servant. He also let the Pope know, by the aforesaid messenger, that it was the emperor's advice that the queen should proceed in matters of religion warily and slowly, and not to be too hasty, until temporal matters were better settled.

He also wrote letters to the emperor, which he sent by his servant Pyning, to persuade him to remove this stop; and bade his said servant to repair to the emperor's confessor, that he should personally resort unto him, and by all means possible move the emperor to let the cardinal go forward.

As to the two acts of Parliament which the queen sent him, he wrote her, "that they were partly to his satisfaction, and partly not. For the act of ratification of the

matrimony was defective, in that the Parliament mentioning the wisdom of the parents in making the match, did make no mention of their wisdom; in that, besides their own consent, they procured the Pope's dispensation, and the authority of the see apostolic; whereby the impediments of conjunction, by the laws of the Church, were taken away; which, he added, ought by all means to have been mentioned. As to the other act for confirmation of the sacraments, the defect of that, he said, lay, in that this act made those capable of partaking of the sacraments that were not yet entered into the unity of the Church, and remained still in schism." But, to receive more full satisfaction in these matters, I refer the reader to the instructions given by the cardinal to Goldwell, as they may be read in the Appendix.1

CHAPTER VIII.

The Dealings with the Married Clergy.

THE marriage of the clergy gave great offence to those that were now uppermost. For many of both persuasions, Papists as well as Protestants, had taken wives; it being allowed by a law in King Edward's days; but would now no longer be endured, and was pretended to be against an oath they had taken, when they had received holy orders. For the queen sent a letter and instructions, dated March 4, to all the bishops; some of the contents whereof were, "to deprive all the married clergy, and to remove them from their benefices and promotions ecclesiastical; and besides this not to suffer them to abide with their wives, or women, as the Papists now chose rather to style them, but to divorce and punish them. But that such priests should be somewhat more favourably dealt withal, that, with the consent of their wives, did openly promise to abstain. These, nevertheless, were to be enjoined penance by the bishop, and then it lay in him to admit them again to their former

1 No. LXXV.

ministration; but not in the same place they were in before. Of which they were to be deprived; and a part of that benefice they were outed of was to be allowed them, according to the bishop's discretion." According to these instructions of the queen, a sad havoc was made among the clergy; some thousands being computed to be put out of their livings upon this account. And a good expedient it proved to get rid of the soberer clergy, that were not for the present turn.

That the reader may take some prospect of these transactions with the married clergy, I will here set down what was done with some of them under the jurisdiction of Canterbury by the dean and chapter, our archbishop being now laid aside.

Of those priests, beneficed in London, that pertained to the archbishop of Canterbury's jurisdiction there, nine were cited, by a citation, March 7, (that is, but three days after the queen's letter), from the dean and chapter, Sede Cant. tunc vacante (as it is said in the said citation), to appear in Bow Church, London, before Henry Harvey, LL.D., vicar-general, for being married men. The persons thus cited were these: John Joseph, rector of the church of St. Mary-le-Bow; Stephen Green, rector of St. Dionis' backchurch; Laurence Saunders, rector of the church of Allhallows, in Bread-street; Peter Alexander, rector of Allhallows, Lombard-street; Christopher Ashburn, rector of St. Michael's, Crooked-lane; Thomas Mountain, rector of St. Michael's, in Rio-lane; John Turner, rector of St. Leonard's, in Eastcheap; Richard Marsh, rector of St. Pancras; John Eliot, schoolmaster in the parish of St. Leonard, Eastcheap. It may not be amiss to set down the tenor, wherein the citation ran, viz. : 2

"That since it was (alas!) notoriously manifest, "Quod rectores et presbyteri, quorum nomina in pede hujus edicti specificantur, contra jura ecclesiæ, sanctorum patrum decreta, et laudabiles ecclesiæ catholicæ generatim observatas et usitatas consuetudines, sese prætextu fœderis conjugalis cum nonnullis fœminis illicite conjunxerint, sub falsa ma

1

[For these Articles, &c. sent from the queen to Bonner, bishop of London, see Fox's Acts and Monuments, vol. vi. pp. 426-429.] 2 Ex Regist. Eccl. Cant. [M. 14, fol. 40].