quented, nor disobedience to magistrates and aged men at no time more practised. And as for repairing to the church, [it] is counted a thing of no importance. For how can the child put that in practice which the parents themselves neglect? The parents being infected with heresy, the child must follow the same, and must do as the young crab did, whereof we read a pretty tale in Esop's Fables: who being commanded of his dame not to go so crooked, but to go more straight: O mother,' quoth he, 'go thou before, and I will follow.' In like manner, if the parents would walk more duly in their vocation and duty, the children would do the same. But as the fathers are, so are the children. The ill life and heretical trade of the parents maketh such unhappy and disobedient children, who in the end, unless they be looked unto in time, will be the father's bane. For the child, if his father be a catholic, will not be ashamed to say, he hath a papist to his father, or an old doting fool to his mother. A pitiful hearing, that heresy the regent of mischief should bear such rule without correction Here also were worthy of remembrance the correction which ought to be done to apprentices and other servants, who being noselled in liberty are not only odious to the world, but also unthrifty towards their masters, and in manner become masters themselves. Whose bringing up is so lewd that they be grown to such insolence that no good man or priest passing by them in the streets can escape without mocks. But let their masters take heed, for I believe when they see their time they will mock them too in the end, hoping one day to have the spoil of their goods. Besides this their dissolute lives are such, that no regard they have at all to repair to the church upon the holydays, but flock in clusters upon stalls, either scorning the passers by, or with their testaments utter some wise stuff of their own dovise. So that prayer is seldom seen to proceed out of their graceless mouths."-p. 85.

But this paper has run to such a length, that I will only prolong it by one extract from BARLOW's Dialogue'. The author is perhaps too well known to require any introduction, and how far his being known should lead to his being trusted, is a question which need not be here discussed. He is not cited as an authority, and whether his graphic sketch is in all points true or not, it is worth our attention.

"Mark it then substantially in cities and towns where ye see the people most rifest and most busy to prate of the gospel, whether they be or be not as great usurers, deceivers of their neighbours, blasphemous swearers, evil speakers, and given to all vices as deeply as ever they were. This I am sure of, and dare boldly affirm, that sith the time of this new contentious learning the dread of God is greatly quenched and charitable compassion sore abated.

"Shall ye not see there a cock-brained courtier, that hath no more

4 The full title is, "A Dialoge describing the original ground of these Lutheran faccions, and many of their abuses. Compyled by Sir William Barlow chanon, late byshop of Bath. 1553."

faith than a Turk, and less Christian manners than a Pagan, with lordly countenance and knavish conditions, which taking the name of God in vain, shall unreverently alledge the gospel with scoffing and scorning in reprehension of the clergy: whereas his own lewd language is so unthrifty that ye cannot espie one good point in him, except it be upon his hosen, nor one inch of honesty beside his apparel, nor scantly there one neither, being all so hacked and jagged with double weapon ready to fight, and single wit busy to brawl and chide, more like a furious tormentor of Herod than a patient disciple of Christ.

"Shall ye not also see there a merchant peradventure made a gentleman by promotion ere ever that he had a good yeoman's conditions; which getting his chief substance, as many do there, by usury, false deceit of true people, and other wrongful ways, will take upon him to preach the gospel against the avarice of religious persons; how they, having their bare necessary food, ought to part the residue of their goods with poor people, whereas he himself hath thousands lying by him in store unoccupied, and will neither help his poor neighbour, nor scarcely give a galy halfpenny to a needy creature in extreme necessity.

"And at their belly-festing days, among such of their affinity which are not so wise nor well-learned as they would be seen, if it chance them to have in company some simple priest, it is a wonder to hear how he is apposed, and after that their spirits be a little kindled in gluttony, how they lash out the gospel. Then beginneth one or another with his potycarye formality, and holiday gravity, to move some subtle question, saying: 'Master parson, how say ye to such a text of Paul?' and if the priest be ignorant for lack of learning, or maketh not an answer satisfying his mind, he is mocked and jested upon with scornful derision. Then begin they to canvass the scripture among them with filling the cups, and jolly gentyl cheer, and by the time they have eaten more than enough, and have drunken too much, they be ready to wade forth in the deep mysteries of scripture, willing to be teachers of things whereof they understand not what they speak, nor what they affirm. Then are they full-armed to talk of abstinence and sober diet of the apostles, their table being furnished with sumptuous dishes and exquisite dainties; and whereas their cupboards be really garnished with costly plate, and the tables full of cups and pieces of silver and gold, then make they exclamations against the rich jewels of churches, as crosses and chalices, saying that better it were to make money of them and to be distributed unto poor people than they should perish for lack of succour. Likewise, when they be served at their solemnities with counterfeited courtesies and bowing the knee, and vailing the bonnet, having sewers and carvers after a most stately manner of service, wherein if the officers fail never so little, though it be but the setting of a saucer amiss they shall be rebuked, yet their pettish patience cannot break the honest ceremonies of the church to be laudably done, calling them foolish fantasies, and inventions of ideots. And though some of these new gospellers occupy truly and justly with their neighbours in the face of the world behaving themselves charitably, yet are they very

few in comparison of the other which be railers and jesters, vicious livers and false hypocrites, without any conscience."-Sig. L. ii. b.

These extracts, I repeat, are not given as authorities, and the reader must deduct what he thinks fit on the score of party and prejudice; the object is to illustrate the history and the spirit of the period, and in order to this we must hear both sides patiently, and become familiar with what is wrong as well as what is right.

ESSAY XV.

BISHOP GARDINER AND THE KING.

THE will of Henry VIII., under which Somerset and his colleagues took the reins of government, has been suspected of being a forgery. Whether it was, or was not, it is certain that it did not contain the name of Gardiner, who might have been expected to be one of the persons in whose hands the king would place the responsibility of government; and it is equally certain that, whether that omission was made by actually fabricating a will, or by the king (either spontaneously or through persuasion or management), or by any other means, it was highly agreeable to the Somerset party. Gardiner, however far he might have gone in the way of Reformation, was, after all, an unclubbable man,' ," who would not go heartily into the measures which they intended to pursue, and they did not wish to be troubled with him. Perhaps it would be plainer and truer to say, they meant to put him down.

But let us look at the history of the matter so far as it is recorded; and, in the first place, at the reasons popularly It is said that at the time of assigned for this omission. Henry VIII.'s death, and long before, Gardiner was out of favour with the king. If we look at the testimony on which Gardiner was deposed from his See, we find the Lord Paget stating that the bishop was "the man at that time 'whom the said Lord Paget believeth his majesty abhorred 'more than any man in his realm: which he declared 'grievously at sundry times, to the said lord against the

'said bishop; ever naming him with such terms as the said 'Lord Paget is sorry to name. And the said Lord Paget 'thinketh that divers of the gentlemen of the privy 'chamber are able to depose the same." On the same occasion, the Earl of Wiltshire said that he had "heard the 'late king of famous memory, King Henry the Eighth, 'declare his misliking of the said Bishop of Winchester 'sundry times." The Lord Riche, too, "saith that he hath 'heard divers times of sundry persons, whose names he ' remembereth not, that King Henry the Eighth did think 'the said bishop not to be well pleased with the proceedings 'of the realm in matters of religion; and therefore this 'deponent hath heard say, that the said late king did 'mislike the said bishop." "13 If that were the case, one would think there should not be much doubt about the matter; for Henry was not usually ambiguous in his conduct to a disgraced favourite. He was one "who," as Burnet says, 66 never hated nor ruined any body by halves." But when and why was the king displeased with Bishop Gardiner ?

The earliest reason that I find assigned is his conduct in "the persecution at Windsor," under the Six Articles, in the year 1543. Even Fox distinctly states, that up to that time Gardiner was in high favour and power. Indeed, he begins his account of the Windsor business by saying, "When the 'time drew nigh that the king's majesty (who was newly 'married to that good and virtuous lady, Katherine Parr) 'should make his progress abroad, the aforesaid Stephen 'Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had so compassed his matters, that no man bare so great a swinge about the king as he did." This is very plain and very important information; and it would be much more so if it came from a writer who could be better depended on; but such as it is, we must take it with us in our inquiry.

I do not indeed see why the origination of the Windsor' persecution is attributed to Gardiner in particular, rather

1 Fox, vol. vi. p. 164.

2 Ibid. p. 173.

Ibid. p. 176. The depositions of the Earl of Bedford, p. 181, and Sir Ed. Carne, p. 185, may be consulted, but are not worth quoting, except for the fact that the latter, of all men, said that he could not depose to the fact.

Hist. of Ref. i. 331.

5

Fox, vol. v. p. 486.

than to the rest of the council. They were informed that Anthony Peerson was preaching strange doctrine and distributing unlawful books in that town, and sent an order for a search. Forbidden books were found, and the issue of the inquiry thus originated, was that Peerson, with three others, named Testwood, Filmer, and Marbeck, were condemned to be burned. Gardiner went to the king and begged the life of one, and the other three were executed. Fox tells us, that the king riding one day in Guildford Park, and "seeing the Sheriff with Sir Humfrey Foster sitting on 'their horsebacks together, he called unto them, and asked ' of them how his laws were executed at Windsor. Then 'they, beseeching his grace of pardon, told him plainly, that ' in all their lives they never sat on matter under his grace's ' authority that went so much against their consciences as 'the death of these men did; and up and told his grace so 'pitiful a tale of the casting away of these poor men, that the king, turning his horse's head to depart from them, 'said, 'Alas! poor innocents.' After this," adds the historian, "the king withdrew his favour from the Bishop of Winchester." 776 This is rather too strong even for Strype, who dilutes it into, "observing how Winchester was the great agent in all this, never liked him after."

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Another cause assigned for the king's dislike of Gardiner is, the suspicion of his fidelity, which arose out of the affair of Germain Gardiner, the bishop's secretary, who was convicted and executed as a traitor, for his practices with the court of Rome. "Germain Gardiner," says Strype, "was, a year after" [that is, in 1544] "hanged, drawn, and 'quartered, as a traitor, for denying the king's supremacy. 'And the Bishop of Winchester, after this, never had favour or regard of the king more.' This is of course slaying the slain, for he had told us the year before that the king 66 never liked him after" the matter of Windsor. But here he outruns his usual authority Fox, who gives the story in a manner somewhat different. He says "Upon the detection of this Germain Gardiner, being secretary to Gardiner, 'Bishop of Winchester, his kinsman, it seemed to some, and 6 so was also insinuated unto the king, not to be unlike, but 'that the said Germain neither would nor durst ever