[435] “The king intended his loving subjects to use the commodity of the reading of the Bible humbly, meekly, reverently, and obediently; and not that any of them should read the said Bible with high and loud voices in time of the celebration of the mass, and other divine services used in the Church; or that any of his lay subjects should take upon them any common disputation, argument, or exposition of the mysteries therein contained.”—Proclamation of the Use of the Bible: Burnet’s Collectanea, p. 138.
In a speech to the parliament Henry spoke also of the abuse of the Bible: “I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverendly that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and coldly.”—Hall, p. 866.
[436] The Bishop of Norwich wrote to Cromwell, informing him that he had preached a sermon upon grace and free-will in his cathedral; “the next day,” he said, “one Robert Watson very arrogantly and in great fume came to my lodgings for to reason with me in that matter, affirming himself not a little to be offended with mine assertion of free will, saying he would set his foot by mine, affirming to the death that there was no such free will in man. Notwithstanding I had plainly declared it to be of no strength, but only when holpen by the grace of God; by which his ungodly enterprise, perceived and known of many, my estimation and credence concerning the sincere preaching of the truth was like to decay.” The bishop went on to say that he had set Watson a day to answer for “his temerarious opinions,” and was obliged to call in a number of the neighbouring county magistrates to enable him to hold his court, “on account of the great number which then assembled as Watson’s fautors.”—The Bishop of Norwich to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, first series, Vol. X.
[437] For instance, in Watson’s case he seems to have rebuked the bishop. Ibid.
[438] Very many complaints of parishioners on this matter remain among the State Papers. The difficulty is to determine the proportion of offenders (if they may be called such) to the body of the spiritualty. The following petition to Cromwell, as coming from the collective incumbents of a diocese, represents most curiously the perplexity of the clergy in the interval between the alteration of the law and the inhibition of their previous indulgences. The date is probably 1536. The petition was in connexion with the commission of inquiry into the general morality of the religious orders:—
“May it please your mastership, that when of late we, your poor orators the clergy of the diocese of Bangor, were visited by the king’s visitors and yours, in the which visitation many of us (to knowledge the truth to your mastership) be detected of incontinency, as it appeareth by the visitors’ books, and not unworthy, wherefore we humbly submit ourselves unto your mastership’s mercy, heartily desiring of you remission, or at least wise of merciful punishment and correction, and also to invent after your discreet wisdom some lawful and godly way for us your aforesaid orators, that we may maintain and uphold such poor hospitalities as we have done hitherto, most by provision of such women as we have customably kept in our houses. For in case we be compelled to put away such women, according to the injunctions lately given us by the foresaid visitors, then shall we be fain to give up hospitality, to the utter undoing of such servants and families as we daily keep, and to the great loss and harms of the king’s subjects, the poor people which were by us relieved to the uttermost of our powers, and we ourselves shall be driven to seek our living at alehouses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and substantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, knowing our frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses.”—Petition of the Clergy of Bangor to the Right Hon. Thomas Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXVI.
[439] This story rests on the evidence of eye-witnesses.—Foxe, Vol. V. p. 251, &c.
[440] The late parliament had become a byword among the Catholics and reactionaries. Pole speaks of the “Conventus malignantium qui omnia illa decreta contra Ecclesiæ unitatem fecit.”—Epist. Reg. Pol. Vol. II. p. 46.
[441] “For your Grace’s parliament I have appointed (for a crown borough) your Grace’s servant Mr. Morison, to be one of them. No doubt he shall be able to answer or take up such as should crack on far with literature of learning.”—Cromwell to Henry VIII.: State Papers, Vol. I. p. 603.
[442] Letter to Secretary Cromwell on the Election of the Knights of the Shire for the County of Huntingdon: Rolls House MS.