the bishops had returned the names of the delinquents into the court of Chancery."

When Richard II. was deposed, and the crown usurped by Henry IV. in order to gain the good-will of the clergy, it was farther enacted, in the second year of his reign, "that if any persons were suspected of heresy, the ordinary might detain them in prison till they were canonically purged, or did abjure their errors; provided always, that the proceedings against them were publicly and judicially ended within three months. If they were convicted, the diocesan, or his cominissary, might imprison and fine them at discrétion. Those that refused to abjure their errors, or after abjuration relapsed, were to be delivered over to the secular power, and the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs, were to be present, if required, when the bishop, or his commissary passed sentence, and after sentence they were to receive them, and in some high place burn them to death before the people." By this law the king's subjects were put from under his protection, and left to the mercy of the bishops in their spiritual courts, and might, upon suspicion of heresy, be imprisoned and put to death, without presentment, or trial by a jury, as is the practice in all other criminal cases.

In the beginning of the reign of Henry V. who was a martial prince, a new law passed against the Lollards or Wickliffites, "that they should forfeit all the lands they had in fee-simple, and all their goods and chattels to the king. All state-officers, at their entrance into office, were sworn to use their best endeavours to discover them; and to assist the ordinaries in prosecuting and convicting them."

*It marks the profaneness, as well as cruelty of the act, here quoted by Mr. Neal, that it was not directed merely against the avowed followers of Wickliffe as such, but against the perusal of the Scriptures in English: for it enacted, "that whatsoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother-tongue (which was then called Wicleue's learning), they should forfeit land, catel, lif, and godes, from theyr heyres for ever, and so be condempned for heretykes to God, enemies to the crowne, and most errant traitors to the lande." Emlyn's Complete Collection of State Trials, p. 48. as quoted in Dr. Flemming's Palladium, p. 30. note.

So great an aların did the doctrine of Wickliffe raise, and so high did the fear of its spread rise, that by the statute of 5 Rich. II. and 2 Hen. IV. c. 15. it was enacted, as part of the sheriff's oath," that he should seek to redress all errors and heresies, commonly called Lollards." And it is a striking instance of the permanent footing, which error and absurdity, and even iniquity, gain, when once established by law, that this clause was preserved in the oath long after the Reformation, even to the first of Charles I. when Sir Edward Coke, on being appointed sheriff of the county of Buckingham, objected to it; and ever since it has been left out. The Complete Sheriff, p. 17. ED.

I find no mention in any of these acts, of a writ or warrant from the king, de hæretico comburende; the sheriff might proceed to the burning of heretics without it; but it seems the king's learned council advised him to issue out a writ of this kind to the sheriff, by which his majesty took them, in some sort, under his protection again; but it was not as yet necessary by law, nor are there any of them to be found in the rolls, before the reign of king Henry VIII.

By virtue of these statutes the clergy, according to the genius of the Popish religion, exercised numberless cruelties upon the people. If any man denied them any degree of respect, or any of those profits they pretended was their due, he was immediately suspected of heresy, imprisoned, and it may be put to death; of which some hundreds of examples are upon record.*

Thus stood the laws with respect to religion, when king Henry VIII. second son of king Henry VII. came to the crown; he was born in the year 1491, and bred a scholar: he understood the purity of the Latin tongue, and was well acquainted with school-divinity. No sort of flattery pleased him better than to have his wisdom and learning commended. In the beginning of his reign he was a most obedient son of the Papacy, and employed his talents in writing against Luther in defence of the seven sacraments of the church. This book was magnified by the clergy as the most learned performance of the age; and upon presenting it to the pope, his holiness conferred upon the king of England and his successors, the glorious title of DEFENDER OF THE FAITH: it was voted in full consistory, and signed by twenty-seven cardinals, in the year 1521.+

* Thus, in the reign of Edward IV. John Keyser was committed to jail, by Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, on the suspicion of heresy, because, having been excommunicated, he said, "that notwithstanding the archbishop or his commissary had excommunicated him, yet, before God, he was not excommunicated, for his corn yielded as well as his neighbours." Thus also, in the reign of Henry VII. Hilary Warner was arrested on the charge of heresy; because he said, "that he was not bound to pay tithes to the curate of the parish where he lived."

Coke's Institutes, 3 inst. p. 42, quoted in a treatise on heresy as cognizable in the spiritual courts, p. 22, 23. En,

"The extravagant praises which he received for this performance," observes Dr. Warner," meeting with so much pride and conceitedness in bis nature, made bim from this time impatient of all contradiction on religious subjects, and to set up himself for the standard of truth, by which his people were to regulate their belief." Ecclesiastical History, vol. 2. p. 228. We are surprised in the event, to see this prince, who was now "the pride of Popery, become its scourge," Such are the fluctuations in human characters and affairs, and so unsearchable are the ways of Providence! Ep.

At the same time cardinal Wolsey, the king's favourite, exercised a sovereign power over the whole clergy and people of England in spiritual matters; he was made legate in the year 1519, and accepted of a bull from the pope, contrary to the statute of præmunire, empowering him to superintend and correct what he thought amiss in both the provinces of Canterbury and York; and to appoint all officers in the spiritual courts.* The king also granted him a full power of disposing of all ecclesiastical benefices in the gift of the crown; with a visitatorial power over monasteries, colleges, and all his clergy, exempt or not exempt. By virtue of these vast powers a new court of justice was erected, called the Legate's court, the jurisdiction whereof extended to all actions relating to conscience, and numberless rapines and extortions were committed by it under colour of reforming men's manners; all which his majesty connived at out of zeal to the church.

But at length the king being weary of his queen Katharine, after he had lived with her almost twenty years, or being troubled in conscience because he had married his brother's wife, and the legitimacy of his daughter had been called in question by some foreign princes, he first separated from her bed, and then moved the pope for a divorce; but the court of Rome having held his majesty in suspense for two or three years for fear of offending the emperor the queen's nephew, the impatient king, by the advice of Dr. Cranmer, appealed to the principal universities of Europe, and desired their opinions upon these two questions,

1. "Whether it was agreeable to the law of God for a man to marry his brother's wife?

2. "Whether the pope could dispense with the law of God?"

All the universities, and most of the learned men of Europe, both Lutherans and Papists, except those at Rome, declared for the negative of the two questions. The king laid their determinations before the parliament and convocation, who agreed with the foreign universities. In the convocation of English clergy, two hundred and fifty-three were for the divorce, and but nineteen against it. Sundry learned books were written for and against the lawfulness of the marriage; one party being encouraged by the king, and the * Burnet's Hist. Ref. vol. 1. p. 8.

other by the pope and emperor. The pope cited the king to Rome, but his majesty ordered the earl of Wiltshire to protest against the citation as contrary to the prerogative of his crown; and sent a letter signed by the cardinal, the archbishop of Canterbury, four bishops, two dukes, two marquisses, thirteen earls, two viscounts, twenty-three barons, twenty-two abbots, and eleven commoners, exhorting his holiness to confirm the judgment of the learned men, and of the universities of Europe, by annulling his marriage, or else he should be obliged to take other measures. The pope in his answer, after having acknowledged his majesty's favours, told him that the queen's appeal and avocation of the cause to Rome must be granted. The king seeing himself abused, and that the affair of his marriage, which had been already determined by the most learned men in Europe, and had been argued before the legates Campegio and Wolsey, must commence again, began to suspect Wolsey's sincerity; upon which his majesty sent for the seals from him, and soon after commanded his attorney-general to put in an information against him in the King's Bench, because that, notwithstanding the statute of Richard II. against procuring bulls from Rome under the pains of a præmunire, he had received bulls for his legatine power, which for many years he had executed. The cardinal pleaded ignorance of the statute, and submitted to the king's mercy; upon which he was declared to be out of the king's protection, to have forfeited his goods and chattels, and that his person might be seized. The haughty cardinal, not knowing how to bear his disgrace, soon after fell sick and died, declaring that if he had served God as well as he had done his prince, he would not have given him over in his gray hairs.

But the king, not satisfied with his resentments against the cardinal, resolved to be revenged on the pope himself, and accordingly, Sept. 19, a week before the cardinal's death, he published a proclamation forbidding all persons to purchase any thing from Rome under the severest penalties; and resolved to annex the ecclesiastical supremacy to his own crown for the future. It was easy to foresee that the clergy would startle at the king's assuming to himself the pope's supremacy; but his majesty had them at his mercy, for they having acknowledged cardinal Wolsey's legatine power, and submitted to his jurisdiction, his majesty caused an in

dictment to be preferred against them in Westminster-hall, and obtained judgment upon the statute of præmunire, whereby the whole body of the clergy were declared to be out of the king's protection, and to have forfeited all their goods and chattels.

In this condition they were glad to submit upon the best terms they could get, but the king would not pardon them but upon these two conditions, (1.) That the two provinces of Canterbury and York should pay into the Exchequer 118,8407. a vast sum of money in those times. (2.) That they should yield his majesty the title of sole and supreme head of the church of England, next and immediately under Christ. The former they readily complied with, and promised for the future never to assemble in convocation but by the king's writ; nor to make or execute any canons or constitutions without his majesty's licence: but to acknowledge a layman to be supreme head of an ecclesiastical body, was such an absurdity, in their opinion, and so inconsistent with their allegiance to the pope, that they could not yield to it without an additional clause, as far as is agreeable to the laws of Christ. The king accepted it with the clause for the present, but a year or two after obtained the confirmation of it in parliament and convocation without the clause.

The substance of the act of supremacy* is as follows: "Albeit the king's majesty justly and rightfully is, and ought to be, supreme head of the church of England, and is so recognised by the clergy of this realm in their convocations: yet nevertheless, for confirmation and corroboration thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion, within this realm of England, &c. be it enacted by the authority of this present parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed, the only supreme head on earth of the church of England; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honours, dignities, immunities, profits, and commodities, to the said dignity of supreme head of the said church belonging and appertaining; and that our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority to visit, repress, redress, reform, order,

*26 Heury VIII. cap. 1.