and gentlemen, and generally of all true Christian men and women that will not follow them, and assist them in their damnable errors, intent and purpose, and would destroy all political rule and government, spiritual and temporal; and considering that they, against God's law and man's, stir our people without our commandment or authority to assemble and arise, and therewith purpose and would take upon them and usurp as well our royal power and authority as the Church's, and use correction and government in no wise belonging unto them that ought to be governed, and not so to govern; the which stirring and usurpation of our royal power, by the law of this our land, is treason, each reasonable man may well feel that in eschewing of chastising, and aspire reddome [violence] to the contemner of our laws, they so doing would never by their wills come to reckoning thereof, but dispose them to be out of subjection, obedience, or awe of us, and of our law; and, as God knoweth, never would they be subject to his, nor to man's, but would be loose and free, to rob, reve, and despoil, slay and destroy all men of estate, thrift, and worship, as they purposed to have done in our fadre's days, and of lad and lurdains [clowns] would make lords, and generally would use, do, and fulfil all their lusts and wills that God forbade: and howbeit, that by the grace of our Lord, and the great and notable diligence of our bel [good] uncle of Gloucester, our lieutenant, and of other commissioners and judges in sundry places, lawful execution may be done upon divers of the said God's traitors and ours; the which, if reason ought to have been unto them and their accomplices extreme confusion and rebuke; nevertheless, it is credibly from day to day reported unto our said lieutenant and council here, in divers ways, that the wicked and malicious purpose of the said traitors ceaseth not, but continueth and abideth: wherefore, howbeit, that we wrote late ago unto you, that be now true unto God and us, to the intent that followeth: nevertheless, forasmuch as we know not when our said letters came unto you, praying you heartily and also charging you on the faith, truth, and allegiance that ye owe to God and to us, that with all diligence and without delay or tarrying, ye ordain and array you and yours, and stir other such as will accompany you to be ready to assemble, with other of our true licge men to do the same, and withstand mightily, chastise, and subdue the damnable malice and enterprise of God's said traitors and ours, the which ye and all our true liege men have great cause and matter to have in great await. And, in especial, we will and charge you that ye inquire, consider, and take good heed from time to time, which of the inhabitants in the country about who have now of late time absented them, or absent from them hereafter, otherwise than their occupation or craft axeth; and also, of strange and unknown comers, such as any matter of ill suspicion may reasonably be felt in, and that ye arrest, search, and examine them in the straightest wise, whence they come, and where they have been, and of all the days, times, and places of their absence; and also, if sowers of seditions, slanderous or troublous language, or tales. Over this, not suffering privy gatherings, or conventicles to be had or made by night or by day thereabout, you having alway your recourse and resort, whensoever you think that need is for your succour, your help, and comfort to our said lieutenant and council, whom ye shall find ever well-willed and disposed to purvey that that may be to your surety, and comfort and ease; and fail not in due and diligent execution of these things aforesaid, as ye desire our prosperity and yours and welfare. Given under our privy seal at Westminster, the sixth day of July. To our trusty and well-beloved the Aldermen and Bailiffs of our town of Bury. (Letters of the Kings of England, ed. cited, 1, 115.) 103. Mandate for the Burning of a Heretic (1438) Letters of the Kings of England There exists a misconception regarding the executions of heretics under English law. It is not infrequently supposed that the death penalty for heresy was peculiar to the reign of Mary. (Nos. 131, 132.) The selection given will therefore be as suggestive as No. 141, which follows in the chapter devoted to the reign of Elizabeth. The king to the sheriffs of London, etc., Whereas the venerable Father Robert, bishop of London, by the assent and consent of reverend men of great discernment and wisdom, as well doctors of divinity as others, doctors of the canon and civil law, who were aiding to him in the process of justice required in this behalf, and which hath been observed in all points, hath pronounced John Bismire, otherwise called John Chandyrer, of the Parish of Saint Mary-at-Axe, in the city of London, who hath fallen back into the heresy which he held and abjured a heretic relapsed by his definite sentence, according to laws and canonical decrees set forth in this matter, even as appeareth to us by the letter of the foresaid bishop; and as Holy Mother Church hath not any more that she can do in the preceding case... We, therefore, zealous for justice, and revering the catholic faith, and willing to uphold and defend Holy Church, the rights and liberties of the same, to pluck out by the roots heresies and errors out of our kingdom of England, as far in us lieth, and to punish with condign punishment heretics. so convicted; and considering that such heretics, convicted in the form aforesaid, according to law, divine and human, and the canons and institutes in this behalf, ought, as a matter of course, to be burned with the burning of fire. To you we command, with all strictness possible, and positively enjoin, that the aforesaid John, now being in your custody, you cause to be committed to flames in some public and open place, within the liberty of the city foresaid, having made public the reason before stated, in presence of the people; and him to be burned in the same fire in very deed, by way of abomination of a crime of this kind, and as an open example to others, his neighbours: and this at your instant peril by no means omit ye. Witness the king, the 14th day of May, the sixteenth year of his reign. (Letters of the Kings of England, ed. cited, I, 119.) |