[32]The first Primer of note was in 1545; Froude, V. 141. The Prayer-book underwent several changes in 1552, others under Elizabeth, and a few, lastly, at the Restoration.
[33]"To make use of words in a foreign language, merely with a sentiment of devotion, the mind taking no fruit, could be neither pleasing to God, nor beneficial to man. The party that understood not the pith or effectualness of the talk that he made with God, might be as a harp or pipe, having a sound, but not understanding the noise that itself had made; a Christian man was more than an instrument; and he had therefore provided a determinate form of supplication in the English tongue, that his subjects might be able to pray like reasonable beings in their own language."—"Letter of Henry VIII to Cranmer," Froude, IV. 486.
[34]Bishop John Fisher's "Funeral Oration of the Countess of Richmond" (ed. 1711) shows to what practices this religion succeeded. The Countess was the mother of Henry VII, and translated the "Myrroure of Golde," and "The Forthe Boke of the Followinge Jesus Chryst":
"As for fastynge, for age, and feebleness, albeit she were not bound yet those days that by the Church were appointed, she kept them diligently and seriously, and in especial the holy Lent, throughout that she restrained her appetite till one meal of fish on the day; besides her other peculiar fasts of devotion, as St. Anthony, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Catherine, with other; and throughout all the year the Friday and Saturday she full truly observed. As to hard clothes wearing, she had her shirts and girdles of hair, which, when she was in health, every week she failed not certain days to wear, sometime the one, sometime the other, that full often her skin, as I heard say, was pierced therewith.
"In prayer, every day at her uprising, which commonly was not long after five of the clock, she began certain devotions, and so after them, with one of her gentlewomen, the matins of our Lady; which kept her to then, she came into her closet, where then with her chaplain she said also matins of the day; and after that, daily heard four or five masses upon her knees; so continuing in her prayers and devotions unto the hour of dinner which of the eating day was ten of the clocks, and upon the fasting day eleven. After dinner full truly she would go her stations to three altars daily; daily her dirges and commendations she would say, and her even songs before supper, both of the day and of our Lady, beside many other prayers and psalters of David throughout the year; and at night before she went to bed, she failed not to resort unto her chapel, and there a large quarter of an hour to occupy her devotions. No marvel, though all this long time her kneeling was to her painful, and so painful that many times it caused in her back pain and disease. And yet, nevertheless, daily, when she was in health, she failed not to say the crown of our lady, which, after the manner of Rome, containeth sixty and three aves, and at every ave, to make a kneeling. As for meditation, she had divers books in French, wherewith she would occupy herself when she was weary of prayer. Wherefore divers she did translate out of the French into English. Her marvellous weeping they can bear witness of, which here before have heard her confession, which be divers and many, and at many seasons in the year, lightly every third day. Can also record the same those that were present at any time when she was houshylde, which was full nigh a dozen times every year, what floods of tears there issued forth of her eyes!"
[35]Latimer's "Seven Sermons before Edward VI," ed. Edward Arber, 1869. Second sermon, pp. 73 and 74.
[36]Latimer's Sermons. Fifth sermon, ed. Arber, p. 147.
[37]Latimer's Sermons, ed. Corrie, 1844, 2 vols., "Last Sermon preached before Edward VI," I. 249.
[38]Latimer's Sermons, ed. Corrie, "First Sermon on the Lord's Prayer."
[39]Noailles, the French (and Catholic) Ambassador. Piet. Hist. II. 523. John Fox, "History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church," ed. Townsend, 1843, 8 vols. VI. 612, says: "His wife and children, being eleven in number, and ten able to go, and one sucking on her breast, met him by the way, as he went towards Smithfield."—Tr.