XIX.

the 12th, in the 30th year of his reign, viz. 1538, to the CHAP. Archbishop of Canterbury for summoning a convocation,. to meet together at St. Paul's the second day of May. But Anno 1539. this assembly, by the King's letters to him, was prorogued till November the 4th. At this convocation, I suppose, these Articles were invented and propounded to the house. All this long book, in behalf of the ceremonies, did our laborious metropolitan put himself to the pains of answering, and thereby hindered the reception of it: for concerning this, I do interpret that passage of Fox, viz. That the Archbishop confuted eighty-eight articles devised by a convocation, and which were laboured to be received, but were not. But to return to the six Articles.

rejoice.

Great triumphing now there was on the papists' side, as The papists appears by a letter wrote from some Roman catholic member of the house of Lords to his friend: which may be read in the Appendix. But after some time, the King per- No. XXVI. ceiving that the said Archbishop and Bishops did this thing, not of malice or stubbornness, but out of a zeal they had to God's glory and the commonwealth, reformed in part the said six Articles, and somewhat blunted the edge of them. March 20, two commissions were sent to the Archbishop Two to take the surrender of two houses of religious persons; surrendered priories namely, that of Christ's Church, Canterbury, and that of to the Archbishop. Rochester.

the King

rics.

Towards the latter end of this year several new bishop- The Archbishop and rics were founded out of old monasteries; and several Crumwel deaneries and colleges of prebends out of divers priories labour with belonging to cathedral churches. Herein as Crumwel, so about the Cranmer had a great hand: who laboured with the King new bishopthat in these new foundations there should be readers of Divinity, Greek, and Hebrew, and students trained up in religion and learning; from whence, as a nursery, the bishops should supply their dioceses with honest and able ministers and so every bishop should have a college of clergymen under his eye, to be preferred according to their merits for it was our Archbishop's regret, that the prebendaries were bestowed as they were. This complaint Bishop Burnet tells us he saw in a long letter of Cranmer's Hist. Ref. P. i. p. 301 own hand.

BOOK

I.

Anno 1539.

Bishops this
year.
John Bell.

76

John Skyp.

Bishops confirmed.

In Archbishop Cranmer's register I find these bishops confirmed, their consecrations being omitted.

August the 11th, John Bell, LL. D. brought up in Balliol College, and Archdeacon of Glocester, was confirmed Bishop of Worcester, upon the resignation of Bishop Latimer, in the chapel of Lambeth. He is styled in the register, the King's Chaplain and Councellor.

November the

John Skyp, D. D. Archdeacon of Dorset, and once Chaplain to Queen Ann Bolen, was confirmed Bishop of Hereford. The King's letter to the Archbishop to consecrate him bears date November 8.

CHAP. XX.

The Archbishop in commission.

Anno 1540. THE next year, viz. 1540, the Archbishop lost his great

The Arch

bishop's enemies accuse him.

His honesty

in discharge

of a commission.

friend and assistant in carrying on the reformation; I mean the Lord Crumwel. And when he was, by popish craft and malice, taken off, their next work was to sacrifice Cranmer. And many were the accusations that were put up against him: and trial was made many ways to bring him to his death, or at least to bring him in disgrace with the King.

And first, they thought to compass their ends against him and courage by occasion of a commission now issued out from the King to a select number of bishops, whereof the Archbishop was one, (which commission was confirmed by act of parliament,) for inspecting into matters of religion, and explaining some of the chief doctrines of it. These commissioners had drawn up a set of articles, favouring the old popish superstitions and meeting together at Lambeth they produced them, and vehemently urged that they should be established, and that the Archbishop would yield to the allowance of them; especially seeing there was a signification, that it was the King's will and pleasure that the articles

XX.

should run in that tenor. But they could not win the CHAP. Archbishop neither by fear nor flattery; no, though the Lord Crumwel at this very time lay in the Tower. There Anno 1540. was not one commissioner now on his part, but all shrank away, and complied with the time: and even those he most trusted to, viz. Bishop Hethe of Rochester, and Bishop Skyp of Hereford. The Archbishop, as he disliked the book already drawn up by them, so he presented another book, wherein were divers amendments of theirs. After much arguing and disputing, nor could the Archbishop be brought off, Hethe and Skyp, with a friend or two more, walked down with him into his garden at Lambeth, and there used all the persuasion they could; urging to him, that the King was resolved to have it so, and the danger therefore of opposing it. But he honestly persisted in his constancy: telling them, "that there was but one truth in the Articles to "be concluded upon, which if they hid from his Majesty, "by consenting unto a contrary doctrine, his Highness "would in process of time perceive the truth, and see how colourably they had dealt with him. And he knew, he said, his Grace's nature so well, that he would never after “credit and trust them. And they being both his friends, 77 "he bad them beware in time, and discharge their con"sciences in maintenance of the truth." But though nothing of all this could stir them, yet what he said sufficiently confirmed the Archbishop to persist in his resolution.

66

success

The Archbishop, standing thus alone, went himself to the And his King, and so wrought with him, that his Majesty joined therein. with him against all the rest of them; and the book of Articles passed on his side. When indeed this stiffness of Canterbury was the very thing his enemies desired; thinking that for this opposition the King would certainly have thrown him into the Tower; and many wagers were laid in London about it. So that this ended in two good issues; that the Archbishop's enemies were clothed with shame and disappointment, and a very good book, chiefly of the Archbishop's composing, came forth for the instruction of the people, known by the name of A Necessary Erudition of any Christian Man: a particular account whereof may be read

in the History of the Reformation. This vexed Winchester Hist. Ref. P. i. p. 286.

I.

BOOK to the heart, that his plot took no better effect: but he put it up till he should find other opportunities to attack him, Anno 1540. which after happened, as we shall see in the sequel of this

Questions of religion

to be dis

story.

But this matter deserves to be a little more particularly treated of: the King had, as was said before, appointed cussed by several of the eminent divines of his realm to deliberate divines, by the King's about sundry points of religion then in controversy, and to command. give in their sentences distinctly. And that in regard of

The names

missioners.

the Germans, who the last year had sent over in writing the judgment of their divines respecting some articles of religion; and had offered his Majesty to appoint some of their divines to meet some others of the King's, in any place he should assign; or to come over into England to confer together. And also in regard of a more exact review of the Institution of a Christian Man, put forth about two or three years before, and now intended to be published again, as a more perfect piece of religious instruction for the people. The King therefore, being minded thoroughly to sift divers points of religion, then started and much controverted, commanded a particular number of bishops, and other his learned chaplains and dignitaries, to compare the rites and ceremonies, and tenets of the present Church, by the Scriptures, and by the most ancient writers; and to see how far the Scripture, or good antiquity, did allow of the same. And this I suppose he did by the instigation of Archbishop Cranmer.

The names of the commissioners were these; Cranmer of the com- Archbishop of Canterbury, Lee Archbishop of York, Boner Bishop of London, Tunstal Bishop of Durham, Barlow Bishop of St. David's, Aldrich Bishop of Carlisle, Skyp Bishop of Hereford, Hethe Bishop of Rochester, Thirleby Bishop elect of Westminster; Doctors, Cox, Robinson, Day, Oglethorp, Redman, Edgeworth, Symonds, Tresham, Leyghton, Curwen, Crayford; where we may wonder not to see the name of the Bishop of Winton: but if we con

Hist. Reform. vol. i. p. 274.

c Whereas I had said, that the Bishop of Winchester was not in a commission there specified; it appears by Crumwel's speech, set down by the Bishop of Sarum, that that Bishop was then indeed a commissioner. Here my MS. deceived me. But be it noted what the Lord Paget testified before the commissioners

XX.

sider the reason the King gave why he left him out of the CHAP. number of his executors, viz. because (as he told several noblemen then about him) that bishop was a turbulent Anno 1540. wilful man; and if he were joined with them, they should 78 have no quiet in their consultations: the same reason we may conclude moved the King now, in these deliberations about religion, to lay him aside. These persons were generally learned and moderate men, and such as we may conjecture the Archbishop had the nomination of to the King: however, we may be sure Winchester was not idle at this time.

questions

upon the

lect. xxi.

P. 201.

And first the doctrine of the sacraments was examined, Seventeen by propounding seventeen distinct questions, drawn up, as I have reason to conclude, by the Archbishop, on which sacrament. the divines were to consult: but each one was to set down in writing his sense of every of these questions singly and succinctly. These questions are the same with those in the History of the Reformation. The right reverend Author Part i. Colhath set down there the several answers that those bishops and divines, that he met with in Bishop Stillingfleet's manuscript, made to each question; which I shall not now repeat after him. But I find in a Cotton book a few pages Cleopatra that deserve (according to my poor judgment) to be tran- E. 5. p. 36. scribed, of something which is not in that history, being the answers of other bishops and divines in the same commission. The first is nameless; but for some reasons I believe him to be the Bishop of Durham. Each page consisteth of three columns; the middle column contains the questions. On one side-column is writ his answer to each question; on the other side-column are the King's notes upon the answer, wrote by his own hand. I refer the reader to the Appendix for this. There follow in the Cotton book, Numb. solutions of each of these questions by another, omitted by the Bishop of Sarum in his History. He is nameless also, but appears to have been some popishly affected bishop, but yet one that conversed much with the Archbishop, the

XXVII.

at that Bishop's trial in 1549; namely, that because he was so wilful in his Acts and opinion, and addicted to the popish part, the King left him out of the commis. Mon. first edit. p. 815. sion for compiling the last book of religion. And what that book was I know not, unless the Necessary Erudition. [From the Errata and Emendations to the first Edition.]