[397] Information given by John Maydwell, of treasonable Words spoken against Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn: Rolls House MS.
[398] In this instance we need not doubt that the words were truly reported, for the offenders were tried and pleaded guilty.
[399] The conspiracy of "young Ryce," or Richard ap Griffyth, is one of the most obscure passages in the history of this reign. It was a Welsh plot, conducted at Islington. [Act of Attainder of Richard ap Griffyth, 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.] The particulars of it I am unable to discover further, than that it was a desperate undertaking, encouraged by the uncertainty of the succession, and by a faith in prophecies (Confession of Sir William Neville: Rolls House MS.), to murder the king. Ryce was tried in Michaelmas term, 1531, and executed. His uncle, who passed under the name of Brancetor, was an active revolutionary agent on the Continent in the later years of Henry's reign.—See State Papers, Vol. IV. pp. 647, 651, 653; Vol. VIII. pp. 219, 227, &c.
[400] Trial and Conviction of John Feron, clerk, and John Hale, clerk: Baga de Secretis; Appendix II. to the Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.
[401] History is never weary of repeating its warnings against narrow judgments. A year ago we believed that the age of arbitrary severity was past. In the interval we have seen the rebellion in India; the forms of law have been suspended, and Hindoo rajahs have been executed for no greater crime than the possession of letters from the insurgents. The evidence of a treasonable animus has been sufficient to ensure condemnation; and in the presence of necessity the principles of the sixteenth century have been instantly revived.—April, 1858.
[402] Act of Supremacy, 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
[403] To guard against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper, "hath no new authority given hereby that he is recognised as supreme Head of the Church of England; for in that recognition is included only that he have such power as to a king of right appertaineth by the law of God; and not that he should take any spiritual power from spiritual ministers that is given to them by the Gospel. So that these words, that the king is supreme Head of the Church, serve rather to declare and make open to the world, that the king hath power to suppress all such extorted powers as well of the Bishop of Rome as of any other within this realm, whereby his subjects might be grieved; and to correct and remove all things whereby any unquietness might arise amongst the people; rather than to prove that he should pretend thereby to take any powers from the successors of the apostles that was given to them by God. And forasmuch as, in the session of this former parliament holden in the twenty-fifth year of this reign, whereby great exactions done to the king's subjects by a power from Rome was put away, and thereupon the promise was made that nothing should be interpreted and expounded upon that statute, that the King's Grace, his nobles or subjects, intended to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in anything concerning the articles of the Catholic faith, or anything declared by Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for his Grace's salvation and his subjects'; it is not, therefore, meet lightly to think that the self-same persons, continuing the self-same parliament, would in the next year following make an act whereby the king, his nobles and subjects, should so vary. And no man may with conscience judge that they did so, except they can prove that the words of the statute, whereby the king is recognised to be the supreme Head of the Church of England, should show expressly that they intended to do so; as it is apparent that they do not.
"There is none authority of Scripture that will prove that any one of the apostles should be head of the universal Church of Christendom. And if any of the doctors of the church or the clergy have, by any of their laws or decrees, declared any Scripture to be of that effect, kings and princes, taking to them their counsellors, and such of their clergy as they shall think most indifferent, ought to be judges whether those declarations and laws be made according to the truth of Scripture or not; because it is said in the Psalms, 'Et nunc Reges intelligite, erudimini qui judicatis terram': that is, 'O kings! understand ye, be ye learned that judge the world.' And certain it is that the Scripture is always true; and there is nothing that the doctors and clergy might, through dread and affection, [so well] be deceived in, as in things concerning the honour, dignity, power, liberty, jurisdiction, and riches of the bishops and clergy; and some of them have of likelihood been deceived therein."—Heads of Arguments concerning the Power of the Pope and the Royal Supremacy: Rolls House MS.
[404] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 2.
[405] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.