Richard Hilles, writing in 1541 to Henry Bullinger, assumes that this modification of the Six Articles only applied to those who were guilty of incontinence, and that it did not “appear to the king at all extreme still to hang those clergymen who marry or who retain those wives whom they had married previous to the former statute” (Original Letters, Parker Soc. Pub. p. 205)—but both Burnet and the Parliamentary History make no such distinction, and in the abstract of the bill as printed in the Statutes at Large (I. 281) it is described as applicable to “priests married or unmarried.”
[1219] [see transcriber’s notes} Hooper to Bullinger.—Original Letters, Parker Soc. Pub. p. 36.
[1220] Thus Dr. Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was married on June 24th, 1547, within six months after Henry’s death, to Margaret, daughter of Robert Harlston of Mattishall. As he had been in priest’s orders since 1527, he assumed a liberty which was not even asked of Parliament until nearly eighteen months later (see his autobiographical memoranda in his Correspondence, pp. vii., x., Parker Soc., 1853).
[1221] 1 Edw. I. c. I, 12 (Parl. Hist. I. 582-4).—Wilkins IV. 16.—Burnet, II. 40, 41; III. 189.
[1222] 2-3 Edw. VI. c. 21 (Parl. Hist. I. 586).—Burnet II. 88-9.
[1223] Wilkins IV. 26.—Cardwell’s Documentary Annals, I. 59. Wilkins and Cardwell date this in 1547, which is evidently impossible. Burnet (II. 102) alludes to it under 1549, which is much more likely to be correct.
[1224] Sanderi Schisma Anglic. pp. 214-5.
[1225] Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Bk. II. chap. 14.—Smith subsequently at Louvain continued to urge the necessity of celibacy and was answered by Peter Martyr. Strype calls him a filthy fellow, notorious for lewdness, and his championship of chastity excited some merriment. There is an epigram upon him by Lawrence Humphrey—
“Haud satis affabre tractans fabrilia Smithus
Librum de vita cœlibe composuit