Lord Paget, chancellor of the duchy, was on some pretence tried in the star chamber, and condemned in a fine of six thousand pounds, with the loss of his office. To mortify him the more, he was degraded from the order of the garter; as unworthy, on account of his mean birth, to share that honor.[*] Lord Rich, chancellor, was also compelled to resign his office, on the discovery of some marks of friendship which he had shown to Somerset.
The day after the execution of Somerset, a session of parliament was held, in which further advances were made towards the establishment of the reformation. The new liturgy was authorized; and penalties were enacted against all those who absented themselves from public worship.[**] To use the mass had already been prohibited under severe penalties; so that the reformers, it appears, whatever scope they had given to their own private judgment, in disputing the tenets of the ancient religion, were resolved not to allow the same privilege to others, and the practice, nay the very doctrine of toleration, was at that time equally unknown to all sects and parties. To dissent from the religion of the magistrate, was universally conceived to be as criminal as to question his title, or rebel against his authority.
A law was enacted against usury; that is, against taking any interest for money.[***] This act was the remains of ancient superstition; but being found extremely iniquitous in itself, as well as prejudicial to commerce, it was afterwards repealed in the twelfth of Elizabeth. The common rate of interest, notwithstanding the law, was at this time fourteen per cent.[****]
* Stowe, p. 608.
** 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 1
*** 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 20.
**** Hayward, p. 318.
A bill was introduced by the ministry into the house of lords, renewing those rigorous statutes of treason which had been abrogated in the beginning of this reign; and though the peers, by their high station, stood most exposed to these tempests of state, yet had they so little regard to public security, or even to their own true interest, that they passed the bill with only one dissenting voice.[*] But the commons rejected it, and prepared a new bill, that passed into a law, by which it was enacted, that whoever should call the king, or any of his heirs named in the statute of the thirty-fifth of the last reign, heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the crown, should forfeit, for the first offence, their goods and chattels, and be imprisoned during pleasure; for the second, should incur a “præmunire;” for the third, should be attainted for treason. But if any should unadvisedly utter such a slander in writing, printing, painting, carving, or graving, he was, for the first offence, to be held a traitor.[**] It may be worthy of notice, that the king and his next heir, the lady Mary, were professedly of different religions; and religions which threw on each other the imputation of heresy, schism, idolatry, profaneness, blasphemy, wickedness, and all the opprobrious epithets that religious zeal has invented. It was almost impossible, therefore, for the people, if they spoke at all on these subjects, not to fall into the crime so severely punished by the statute; and the jealousy of the commons for liberty, though it led them to reject the bill of treasons sent to them by the lords, appears not to have been very active, vigilant, or clearsighted.
* Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 258. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 190.
** 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 2.
The commons annexed to this bill a clause, which was of more importance than the bill itself, that no one should be convicted of any kind of treason, unless the crime were proved by the oaths of two witnesses, confronted with the prisoner. The lords for some time scrupled to pass this clause, though conformable to the most obvious principles of equity. But the members of that house trusted for protection to their present personal interest and power, and neglected the noblest and most permanent security, that of laws.
The house of peers passed a bill, whose object was, making a provision for the poor; but the commons, not choosing that a money bill should begin in the upper house, framed a new act to the same purpose. By this act the churchwardens were empowered to collect charitable contributions; and if any refused to give, or dissuaded others from that charity the bishop of the diocese was empowered to proceed against them. Such large discretionary powers intrusted to the prelates seem as proper an object of jealousy as the authority assumed by the peers.[*]
There was another occasion in which the parliament reposed an unusual confidence in the bishops. They empowered them to proceed against such as neglected the Sundays and holy-day.[**] But these were unguarded concessions granted to the church: the general humor of the age rather led men to bereave the ecclesiastics of all power, and even to pillage them of their property: many clergymen, about this time, were obliged for a subsistence to turn carpenters or tailors, and some kept alehouses.[***] The bishops themselves were generally reduced to poverty, and held both their revenues and spiritual office by a very precarious and uncertain tenure.
* 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 2.
** 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap, 3.
*** Burnet, vol ii. p. 202.