Songes and Sonettes, 8vo. 1557, p. 35. 2.
[205] The King of France’s sister.
[206] Sanders De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis Anglicani. Libri 3. This book was first printed at Cologne, in 1585, and passed through several editions, the last in 1628. It was subsequently translated into French, and printed in 1673-4; which induced Burnet to write his History of the Reformation. In the appendix to his first volume he gives a particular account of Sanders’ book, and refutes the calumnies and falsehoods contained in it. This called forth a reply from the catholic party, under the title of Histoire du Divorce de Henry VIII. par Joachim Le Grand. Paris, 1688, 3 vols. 12mo. A work not without interest on account of the documents printed in the third volume, some of which I have found useful as illustrations of the present work.
[207] Sir Francis Brian was one of the most accomplished courtiers of his times: a man of great probity and a poet. Wyatt addresses his third satire to him, and pays a high compliment in it to his virtue and integrity. He was, like Wyatt, firmly attached to the Protestant cause: on this account he seems to have drawn on himself the hatred of the Roman Catholic party. Sanders, in his malevolent account of the Reformation in England, relates the following absurd and wicked story of him.—Cum autem Henrici Regis domus ex perditissimo hominum constaret, cujusmodi erant aleatores, adulteri, lenones, assentatores, perjuri, blasphemi, rapaces, atque adeò hæretici, inter hos insignis quidem nepos extitit, Franciscus Brianus, Eques Auratus, ex gente et stirpe Bolenorum. Ab illo rex quodam tempore quæsivit, quale peccatum videretur matrem primum, deinde filium cognoscere.—Cui Brianus, “Omnino,” inquit, “tale O rex quale gallinam primùm, deinde pullum ejus gallinaceum comedere.” Quod verbum cum rex magno risu accepisset, ad Brianum dixisse fertur. “Næ! tu merito meus est Inferni Vicarius.” Brianus enim jam prius ob impietatem notissimam vocabatur, “Inferni Vacarius.” Post autem et “Regius Inferni Vicarius.” Rex igitur cum et matrem prius, et postea filiam Mariam Bolenam pro concubina tenuisset, demum at alteram quoque filiam, Annam Bolenam, animum adjicere cœpit. De Schismate Anglicano, p. 24.
This disgusting calumny is repeated by the followers of Sanders, and among others by Davanzati, in his Schisma d’Inghilterra, p. 22, Ed. 1727. And yet that history is presented by the Curators of the Studio at Padua, to the youth educated there as “una stimabilissima Storia; descritta con quei vivi e forti colori che soli vagliano a far comprendere l’atrocita del successo dello Schisma d’Inghilterra.” How (says Dr. Nott, from whom this note is taken) can the bonds of charity be ever brought to unite the members of the Roman Catholic communion with those of the reformed church, so long as their youth shall be thus early taught to consider our Reformation as the portentous offspring of whatever was most odious in human profligacy, and most fearful in blasphemy and irreligion?" Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, p. 84.
[208] 32 Henry VIII. A. D. 1540.
[209] A. D. 1532-3.
[210] Tyndal’s Obedience of a Christian Man.
[211] This curious and interesting occurrence, which probably had considerable effect in furthering the progress of the Reformation, is told with more circumstance by Strype, from the manuscripts of Fox. It is so entirely corroborated by what is here said, that I think it incumbent upon me to place it in juxtaposition with Wyatt’s narrative.
“Upon the Lady Anne waited a young fair gentlewoman, named Mrs. Gainsford; and in her service was also retained Mr. George Zouch. This gentleman, of a comely sweet person, a Zouch indeed, was a suitor in the way of marriage to the said young lady: and among other love tricks, once he plucked from her a book in Englishe, called Tyndall’s Obedience, which the Lady Anne had lent her to read. About which time the Cardinal had given commandment to the prelates, and especially to Dr. Sampson, dean of the king’s chapel, that they should have a vigilant eye over all people for such books, that they came not abroad; that so as much as might be, they might not come to the king’s reading. But this which he most feared fell out upon this occasion. For Mr. Zouch (I use the words of the MS.) was so ravished with the spirit of God speaking now as well in the heart of the reader, as first it did in the heart of the maker of the book, that he was never well but when he was reading of that book. Mrs. Gainsford wept because she could not get the book from her wooer, and he was as ready to weep to deliver it. But see the providence of God:—Mr. Zouch standing in the chapel before Dr. Sampson, ever reading upon this book; and the dean never having his eye off the book, in the gentleman’s hand, called him to him, and then snatched the book out of his hand, asked his name, and whose man he was. And the book he delivered to the cardinal. In the meantime, the Lady Anne asketh her woman for the book. She on her knees told all the circumstances. The Lady Anne showed herself not sorry nor angry with either of the two. But, said she, ‘Well, it shall be the dearest book that ever the dean or cardinal took away.’ The noblewoman goes to the king, and upon her knees she desireth the king’s help for her book. Upon the king’s token the book was restored. And now bringing the book to him, she besought his grace most tenderly to read it. The king did so, and delighted in the book. “For (saith he) this book is for me and all kings to read.” And in a little time, by the help of this virtuous lady, by the means aforesaid, had his eyes opened to the truth, to advance God’s religion and glory, to abhor the pope’s doctrine, his lies, his pomp, and pride, to deliver his subjects out of the Egyptian darkness, the Babylonian bonds that the pope had brought his subjects under. And so contemning the threats of all the world, the power of princes, rebellions of his subjects at home, and the raging of so many and mighty potentates abroad; set forward a reformation in religion, beginning with the triple crowned head at first, and so came down to the members, bishops, abbots, priors, and such like.”—Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. p. 112.