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Nor did he declare any

BOOK thing, but rather the contrary.

III. such thing when he came to die. He said, indeed, that Anno 1553. he was deceived and misled, but no where that he dissembled. And if he were deceived, he dissembled not.

departs.

CHAP. IV.

Peter Martyr departs. A Parliament.

P. Martyr THE strangers had this piece of mercy shewn them, that they were suffered to depart the kingdom. Among the rest that went away this year was Peter Martyr, the famous and learned professor of divinity in Oxford. But with much ado; for at first he was not only forbid to read his lectures, but not to stir a foot out of the city of Oxon, nor to convey any of his goods away. He obeyed, and afterwards was permitted by the council to depart. He came first to Lambeth to the Archbishop; but, when he was committed to prison, Martyr went to London, where he remained in great danger, both for his religion, and for his great familiarity with the Archbishop, and other pious protestant bishops. However, he thought not fit to transport himself without leave from the government. signified to them, that he came not hither on his own head, but that he was sent for by King Edward, and sent from the town of Strasburgh: and produced his broadseals from both. And so, since there was no further need of him, he desired leave to depart: which he obtained by letters from the Queen herself. But the Papists, his fatal enemies, cried out, that such an enemy of the popish religion ought not to be dismissed, but to be fetched out of the ship, and carried to prison, and punished. He understood also by his friends, that, when he was got over the sea, the danger was not past: for there were snares for him in Flanders and Brabant; whereby they made no doubt to take him. But he used his wits to save

He

IV.

Anno 1553.

himself: for, when other congregations of protestant CHAP. strangers went straight, some for Freezland, and some for. Denmark, by vessels they had hired, (among which was John a Lasco's congregation,) he procured an honest and godly shipmaster, who kept him fourteen days in his own house, that so all might think he was gone with the other strangers, and his enemies cease making search for him in the vessels that were bound for foreign parts. And then the master sailed away with P. Martyr to Antwerp, going into that place by night for the more privacy. And by him he was brought to his friends; and by them, before day, conveyed in a waggon out of town, and so travelled safely, through countries that hated him, unto Strasburgh. And by God's goodness, and his own celerity, he arrived safe among his friends, who received him with the greatest 318 joy. And the senate conferred upon him his old place Vit. P. which he enjoyed before he went for England.

Mart. per

Simler.

And Martyr needed not to be discontented that he was Malice togotten out of England, considering how insufferably he wards him. was affronted, undermined, belied by the popish party in Oxon who, one would think, might have better entreated a man of quality by birth; a man, besides, of great learning, integrity, and reverence, and whom the King had thought good, for his great parts, to place for his professor of divinity in that university; and a man who also had always carried himself inoffensively unto all. The blame of this inhospitable usage might lie upon the English nation, and be a reflection upon the natives, were it not more truly to be laid to the furious spirit that popish principles inspire men with. This Peter Martyr did resent, and took notice of to the Archbishop of Canterbury in his epistle dedicatory, before his book of the Eucharist. There he writes, "That he could not have thought there were any in the "world, unless he had found it, that with such crafty wiles, "deceitful tricks, and bitter slanders, would rage so against

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a man that deserved no manner of evil of them, nor ever "hurt any one of them either in word or deed. And yet "they tore his name with most shameless lies; and would "never make an end." And if they did thus rudely carry themselves towards him in King Edward's time, what then

BOOK may we conclude they would do, when the government III. favoured them?

Anno 1553.

In this first year of Queen Mary, a very foul scandal was A scandal blown about of her, that she was with child by her Chancel

of the

Queen.

lor, Bishop Gardiner; however it was raised, whether of her enemies to render her odious, or of some zealous of popish religion, to shew the desire they had of her matching with him, or some other round Roman catholic, as he was, and for whom she carried a very great reverence. A great reflection upon her chastity, and might have spoiled her marriage. It fled as far as Norfolk, and there spread itself. But such an infamous report not being fit to be put up, Henry Earl of Sussex, being Lord Lieutenant of that county, took upon him to examine this scandal, and to search it to Titus B. 2 the very first reporter. And so I find a bill drawn, in the

Cotton library, subscribed by that Earl's own hand, which set forth that Laurence Hunt, of Disse in Norfolk, came to Robert Lowdal, chief constable, and told him, "That he "did hear say, that the Queen's Majesty was with child by "the said Bishop, and that his wife did tell him so." And when his wife was examined, she said, she had it of one Sheldrake's wife. And when Sheldrake's wife was examined, she said, she had it of her husband. And when he was examined, he said, he had it of one Wilby of Diss. And Wilby examined, said, he had it of one John Smith of Cock-street. And John Smith said, he heard it of one widow Miles. And she, being examined, said, she had it of two men, but what they were she could not tell, nor where they dwelt. And then, after this bill, follow all their examinations distinctly: which, I suppose, was drawn up for the council, signed with Sussex's hand. And what followed of this I know not only in another manuscript there is a memorial of one John Albone, of Trunch in 319 Norfolk, who in the first of the Queen was indicted for saying, "That the Queen was with child by Win"chester."

A parliament.

A parliament met this year in the month of October. The Queen knew how difficult it would be to obtain her purpose, to overthrow all that had been established concerning religion in her brother's days; and therefore, when

IV.

this parliament was to be summoned, she impeached the CHAP. free election of members by dispatching abroad into the Anno 1553. several counties her letters directing the choice. And Hale's orasuch knights and burgesses were chosen by force and tion. threatening for many places, as were judged fit to serve her turn. And divers that were duly chosen, and lawfully returned, were thrust out; and others, without any order or law, put in their places. For the people were aware what the Queen intended this parliament should do; and therefore did bestir themselves in most places to return honest men. In the upper House, Taylor, Bishop of Lincoln, was in his robes violently thrust out of the House. In the House of Commons, Alexander Nowel, and two more, chosen burgesses, lawfully chosen, returned, and admitted, were so served: which, according to the judgment of some, made the parliament actually void, as by a precedent of the parliament holden at Coventry in the 38th of Henry VI. it appeareth. As also her third parliament was reckoned by many to be void, because in the writs, from Philip and Mary, part of the title of the Kings of England, viz. Supreme Head of the Church of England, was left out: which by a statute made in the 35th of Henry VIII. was ordained to be united and annexed for ever to the imperial crown of this realm. In which third parliament of the Queen they repealed what was done by King Henry VIII. for the restitution of the liberty of the realm, and extinguishing the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome. This flaw Gardiner the Lord Chancellor well seeing, thought craftily to excuse by saying, (as may be seen in a piece of the statute made in the same parliament, cap. 8,) "That it lay in the "free choice and free liberty of the Kings of this realm, "whether they would express the same title in their style, "or no." But it is replied to this, that though any man may renounce his own private right, yet he may not renounce his right in that which toucheth the commonwealth, or a third person. And this title and style more touched the commonwealth and the realm of England, than the King.

The parliament re

In this first parliament an act was made for confirmation of the marriage of the Queen's mother to her father peal Queen

divorce;

and Cranmer taxed

for it.

Hist. Re

form. vol.

ii. p. 254.

66

BOOK King Henry. Herein the leading men shewed their malice III. against the good Archbishop by their wording of the Anno 1553. preamble: as, "that Thomas Cranmer, late Archbishop, Katherine's did, most ungodly and against law, judge the divorce upon his own unadvised understanding of the Scriptures, "and upon the testimonies of the universities, and some "bare and most untrue conjectures." And they declared the sentence given by him to be unlawful. But I cannot let this pass, for the reputation of the Archbishop, without taking notice of the censure, that the Bishop of Sarum doth worthily bestow upon Bishop Gardiner, whom he concludes to be the drawer up of this act: "That he "shewed himself herein to be past all shame, and that it was as high a pitch of malice and impudence, as could be 320" devised. For Gardiner had been setting this on long "before Cranmer was known to the King, and had joined "with him in the commission, and had given his consent "to the sentence. Nor was the divorce merely grounded 66 upon Cranmer's understanding the Scriptures, but upon "the fullest and most studied arguments that had perhaps "been in any age bronght together in one particular case. "And both houses of convocation had condemned the "marriage before his sentence."

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The Arch

bishop attainted of

treason.

CHAP. V.

The Archbishop attainted.

THIS parliament attainted Cranmer, with the Lady Jane and her husband, and some others. And in November he was adjudged guilty of high treason at Guildhall. And under this judgment he lay for a good while: which was very uneasy to him, desiring to suffer under the imputation of heresy under this government, rather than treason. He was now looked upon as divested of his archbishoprick, being a person attainted: and the fruits of his bishoprick were sequestered.

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