[70] Bambridge was poisoned (according to Stow) by Rinaldo da Modena, his chaplain, who was incited to the act by revenge, having suffered the indignity of a blow from the archbishop.
[71] Dr. Robert Barnes preached a Sermon on the 24th of December, 1525, at St. Edward’s Church in Cambridge, from which Sermon certain Articles were drawn out upon which he was soon after called to make answer before the Cardinal. Barnes has left behind him a description of this examination. The sixth of these Articles was as follows. “I wyll never beleeve that one man may be, by the lawe of God, a Byshop of two or three cities, yea of an whole countrey, for it is contrarye to St. Paule, which sayth, I have left thee behynde, to set in every citye a byshop.”
“I was brought afore my Lorde Cardinall into his Galary, (continues Dr. Barnes), and there hee reade all myne articles, tyll hee came to this, and there he stopped, and sayd, that this touched hym, and therefore hee asked me, if I thought it wronge, that one byshop shoulde have so many cityes underneath hym; unto whom I answered, that I could no farther go, than St. Paules texte, whych set in every cytye a byshop. Then asked hee mee, if I thought it now unright (seeing the ordinaunce of the Church) that one byshop should have so many cities. I aunswered that I knew none ordinaunce of the Church, as concerning this thinge, but St. Paules sayinge onelye. Nevertheles I did see a contrarye custom and practise in the world, but I know not the originall thereof. Then sayde hee, that in the Apostles tyme, there were dyvers cities, some seven myle, some six myle long, and over them was there set but one byshop, and of their suburbs also: so likewise now, a byshop hath but one citye to his cathedrall churche, and the country about is as suburbs unto it. Me thought this was farre fetched, but I durst not denye it.” Barnes’s Works, p. 210. A. D. 1573. W.
[72] This was not the first time in which this point of precedency had been contested. Edward III, in the sixth year of his reign, at a time when a similar debate was in agitation, having summoned a Parliament at York, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the other Prelates of his Province, declined giving their attendance, that the Metropolitan of all England might not be obliged to submit his Cross to that of York, in the Province of the latter. Fox, p. 387, 388. W.
[73] Wolsey, in his endeavours to obtain the purple pall, had relied much on the assistance of Adrian, Bishop of Bath, himself a cardinal, then the Pope’s collector in England, but residing at Rome, and acting by Polydore Vergil, his deputy. Adrian being either unable or unwilling to render the expected service, Wolsey, conceiving that he had been betrayed, seized upon the deputy collector, Polydore, and committed him to the Tower, where he remained, notwithstanding repeated remonstrances from the court of Rome, until the elevation of Wolsey to the cardinalate procured his liberty. This will account for the unfavourable light in which Wolsey is placed in Polydore Vergil’s History.
[74] “Not farre unlike to this was the receaving of the Cardinals hatte. Which when a ruffian had brought unto him to Westminster under his cloke, he clothed the messenger in rich aray, and sent him backe to Dover againe, and appoynted the Bishop of Canterbury to meet him, and then another company of Lordes and Gentles I wotte not how oft, ere it came to Westminster, where it was set on a cupborde and tapers about, so that the greatest Duke in the lande must make curtesie thereto: yea and to his empty seat he being away.” Tindal’s Works, p. 374. Fox’s Acts, p. 902. W.
[75] Dr. Fiddes and Mr. Grove remark, that this is a prejudiced statement of the case, and that Cavendish was misled by false information. It does not indeed appear that Wolsey used any indirect means to supersede Archbishop Warham, and the following passages in the correspondence of Sir Thomas More with Ammonius seem to prove the contrary. Sir Thomas says: “The Archbishop of Canterbury hath at length resigned the office of Chancellor, which burthen, as you know, he had strenuously endeavoured to lay down for some years; and the long wished for retreat being now obtained, he enjoys a most pleasant recess in his studies, with the agreeable reflection of having acquitted himself honourably in that high station. The Cardinal of York, by the Kings Orders, succeeds him; who discharges the duty of the post so conspicuously as to surpass the hopes of all, notwithstanding the great opinion they had of his other eminent qualities: and what was most rare, to give so much content and satisfaction after so excellent a predecessor.”
Ammonius, writing to Erasmus, says: “Your Archbishop, with the King’s good leave, has laid down his post, which that of York, after much importunity, has accepted of, and behaves most beautifully.”
[76] This is noticed by the satirist Roy, in his invective against Wolsey:
Before him rydeth two prestes stronge,