the printing of the great Bibles. And by the advice of 1 Berthelet I have appointed them to be sold for xiij. iiij. apiece, and not above. Howbeit Whitchurch informeth me that your lordship thinketh it a more convenient price to have them sold at x'. apiece, which in respect of the great charges both of the paper, (which in very deed is substantial and good,) and other great hindrances, Whitchurch and his fellow thinketh it a small price. Nevertheless they are right well contented to sell them for x. so that you will be so good lord unto them, as to grant henceforth none other licence to any other printer, saving to them, for the printing of the said Bible. For else they think that they shall be greatly hindered thereby, if any other should print it; they sustaining such charges as they already have done. Wherefore I shall beseech your lordship, in consideration of their travail in this behalf, to tender their requests. And they have promised me to print in the end of their Bibles the price thereof, to the intent the king's liege people shall not henceforth be deceived of their price. Further, if your lordship hath known the king's Highness's pleasure concerning the Preface of the Bible, which I sent to you to oversee, so that his Grace doth allow it, I pray you

'The historians of our typography seem not to have known, that Berthelet had been the archbishop's secretary. See before, p. 100.

240 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

that the same may be delivered unto the said Whitchurch unto printing; trusting that it shall both encourage many 1 slow readers, and also stay the rash judgments of them that read therein.--At Lambeth, the xiiijth day of November, [1539.]"

Thus he writes in his Preface: " Truly some there are that be too slow, and need the spur; some others seem too quick, and need more of the bridle; some lose their game by shortshooting, others by over-shooting: some walk too much on the left hand, some too much on the right. In the former sort be all they that refuse to read, or to hear read, the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue; much worse they that let also, or discourage, the other from the reading or hearing thereof. In the latter sort be they which by their inordinate reading, indiscreet speaking, contentious disputing, or otherwise by their licentious living slander and hinder the Word of God most of all other, whereof they would seem to be the greatest furtherers." I have added, at the end of this volume, the whole of Cranmer's Preface, too long to be admitted here as a note.

CHAPTER XII.

1538.

Destruction of Becket's shrine-Some account of him—Cromwell's second Injunctions especially against the doctrines of the Church of Rome - Impostures detected - Letters of Cranmer and Coverdale respecting Becket Mission of the German Protestants to England-Cranmer's letters relating to it The Anabaptists in England-Trial of LambertCranmer's speech, and his opinion of the Eucharist-Of the marriage of priests-The king's proclamation against it.

WHILE the zeal of the Reformers in 1538 had been so eminently displayed in the preparation of the Great Bible, the same year was distinguished by other signal proceedings both in accordance and in opposition to their views.

The most popular saint, in England, of the Church of Rome, was Thomas Becket. He was now in the estimation of many, as Chaucer more than a century before had termed him, "1 the holy

1

3

blissful martyr" of the time. His miracles, often of the most ridiculous and absurd character, were still the honoured theme of ignorance and credulity. To his shrine at Canterbury superstitious pilgrims yet resorted; and upon the altar, erected to his memory, their prodigality, as in former days, showered down the richest offerings. Cranmer had already censured this folly. The king now resolved to check it. We are told that the deceased prelate was formally cited to appear in court, and answer charges to be brought against him by the king's attorney of treason and rebellion. After the canonical allowance of thirty days' delay, "5 still the saint neglected," the recent historian of our country facetiously observes, "to quit the tomb in which he had reposed for two centuries and a half." But counsel, it is also said, argued for him, though in vain. For the proof of these proceedings, we are referred

1 A long list of them is given by Stapleton, in his Tres Thomæ, &c. p. 108. In the Library of the Cathedral at Canterbury there still exist manuscripts detailing not only some of these delusions, but various receipts at his shrine, and an account of jubilees in honour of his memory. MSS. C. xi. xiii.

"Even in the time of Henry VIII. in one year the offerings at the altar of Becket were 9541. 6s. 3d., at that of the Virgin Mary only 47. 6s. 8d., at that of God nothing.

3 In treating his memory with disrespect, at the time of his festival.

4

Lingard, Hist. Eng. 8vo. vi. 359.

5 Ibid.

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to copies of two apparently public instruments made by Wilkins from the work of Chrysostom Henriquez, entitled Phoenix Reviviscens; the authenticity of which Dr. Lingard himself might have 2 doubted, he says, if the king had not alluded to them, in his proclamation of November 16, by saying "it appeareth now clearly that Thomas Becket," &c. and if the papal bull, of December 17, had not used the words " in judicium vocari, et tanquam contumacem damnari, ac proditorem declarari fecerat." It is to 3 Pollini, indeed, who is hardly at any time more than a servile copier of Sanders, that this Henriquez ascribes the first of these instruments, which is the citation, and to another foreigner the second, which is the judgment. And yet not a syllable of the first is to be found in the piratical Italian, nor any thing respecting the second but a lamentation of the alleged writer of it. Pollini merely translates the remark by

4

* Hist. Eng. 8vo. vị. 360. n.

3 "Hæc sententia, ut refert F. Girol. Pollini in Istor. Eccl. della Rivoluzione d'Ingilterra, l. iii. (intended for lib. i.) c. 42, à rege et senatu subscripta sic se habebat; Henricus," &c. Wilkins, iii. 835.

It is not, however, from the first edition of Sanders that Pollini borrows his account. In that the martyr is less celebrated than in the second; while the second erroneously gives an additional century to the period when Becket lived, which Pollini precisely follows. See the De Schismate Angl. ed. 1585, p. 189, and Pollini Istor. Eccl. 1594, p. 153.