[191] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii. pp. 368, 378, etc.
[192] See HALE'S Criminal Causes from the Records of the Consistory Court of London.
[193] Petition of the Commons, infra, p. 191, etc.
[194] Reply of the Ordinaries to the petition of the Commons, infra, p. 202, etc.
[195] Petition of the Commons. 23 Hen. VIII. c. 9.
[196] HALE'S Criminal Causes, p.4.
[197] An Act that no person committing murder, felony, or treason should be admitted to his clergy under the degree of sub-deacon.
[198] In May, 1528, the evil had become so intolerable, that Wolsey drew the pope's attention to it. Priests, he said, both secular and regular, were in the habit of committing atrocious crimes, for which, if not in orders, they would have been promptly executed; and the laity were scandalised to see such persons not only not degraded, but escaping with complete impunity. Clement something altered the law of degradation in consequence of this representation, but quite inadequately.—RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 96.
[199] Thomas Cowper et ejus uxor Margarita pronubæ horribiles, et instigant mulieres ad fornicandum cum quibuscunque laicis, religiosis, fratribus minoribus, et nisi fornicant in domo suâ ipsi diffamabunt nisi voluerint dare eis ad voluntatem eorum; et vir est pronuba uxori, et vult relinquere eam apud fratres minores pro peccatis habendis.—HALE, Criminal Causes, p. 9.
Joanna Cutting communis pronuba at præsertim inter presbyteros fratres monachos et canonicos et etiam inter Thomam Peise et quandam Agnetam, etc.—HALE, Criminal Causes, p. 28.