dom commended. And in this, his parliaments, his courtiers, his chaplains, foreigners and natives, all seemed to vie who should exceed most, and came to speak to him in a style which was scarce fit to be used to any creature. But he designed to entail these praises on his memory, cherishing churchmen more than any king in England had ever done: he also courted the pope with a constant submission, and upon all occasions made the pope's interest his own, and made war and peace as they desired him. So that, had he died any time before the nineteenth year of his reign, he could scarce have escaped being canonized, notwithstanding all his faults; for he abounded in those virtues which had given saintship to kings for near a thousand years together, and had done more than they all did, by writing a book for the Roman faith.

England had for above three hundred years been the tamest part of Christendom to the papal authority, and had been accordingly dealt with. But though the parliaments, and two or three high spirited kings, had given some interruption to the cruel exactions and other illegal proceedings of the court of Rome, yet that court always gained their designs in the end. But even in this king's days, the crown was not quite stripped of all its authority over spiritual persons. The investitures of bishops and abbots, which had been originally given by the delivery of the pastoral ring and staff, by the kings of England, were, after some opposition, wrung out of their hands: yet I find they retained another thing, which upon the matter was the same. When any see was vacant, a writ (custodia temporalitatis) was issued out of the chancery for seizing on all the temporalities of the bishopric, and then the king recommended one to the pope, upon which his bulls were expeded at Rome, and so by a warrant from the pope he was consecrated, and invested in the spiritualities of the see; but was to appear before the king, either in person or by proxy, and renounce every clause in his letters and bulls, that were or might be prejudicial to the prerogative of the crown, or contrary to the laws of the land, and was to swear fealty and allegiance to the king. And after this a new writ (restitutio temporalitatis) was issued out of the chancery, bearing that this was done, and that thereupon the temporalities should be restored. Of this there are so many precedents in the records, that every one that has searched them must needs find them in every year; but when this began I leave to the more learned in the law to discover. And for proof of it the reader will find in the Collection (No.i) the fullest record

which I met with concerning it in Henry the Seventh's reign, of Cardinal Adrian's being invested in the bishopric of Bath and Wells. So that upon the matter the kings then disposed of all bishoprics, keeping that still in their own hands which made them most desired in those ages; and so had the bishops much at their devotion.

But King Henry in a great degree parted with this, by the above-mentioned power granted to Cardinal Wolsey, who being legate as well as lord chancellor, it was thought a great error in government to lodge such a trust with him, which might have passed into a precedent for other legates pretending to the same power; since the papal greatness had thus risen, and oft upon weaker grounds, to the height it was then at. Yet the king had no mind to suffer the laws made against the suing out of bulls in the court of Rome without his leave to be neglected; for I find several licences granted to sue bulls in that court, bearing for their preamble the statute of the sixteenth of Richard the Second against the Pope's pretended power in England.

But the immunity of ecclesiastical persons was a thing that occasioned great complaints. And good cause there was for them. For it was ordinary for persons after the greatest crimes to get into orders; and then not only what was past must be forgiven them, but they were not to be questioned for any crime after holy orders given, till they were first degraded; and till that was done, they were the bishop's prisoners. Whereupon there arose a great dispute in the beginning of this king's reign, of which none of our historians having taken any notice, I shall give a full account of it.

King Henry the Seventh, in his fourth parliament, did a little lessen the privileges of the clergy, enacting that clerks convicted should be burnt in the hand t. But this not proving a sufficient restraint, it was enacted in parliament in the fourth year of this king, that all murderers and robbers should be denied the benefit of their clergy. But though this seemed a very just law, yet, to make it pass through the house of lords, they added two provisions to it: the one, for excepting all such as were within the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon; the other, that the act should only be in force till the

* License to the Prior of Petersburgh. November 3, 1 part. 5to. Reg. Rot. Pat.

+ Keilway's Reports.

next parliament. With these provisos it was unanimously assented to by the lords on the 26th of January, 1513, and being agreed to by the commons, the royal assent made it a law: pursuant to which, many murderers and felons were denied their clergy, and the law passed on them to the great satisfaction of the whole nation. But this gave great offence to the clergy, who had no mind to suffer their immunities to be touched or lessened. And judging, that if the laity made bold with inferior orders, they would proceed further even against sacred orders; therefore, as their opposition was such, that the act not being continued, did determine at the next parliament (that was in the fifth year of the king), so they, not satisfied with that, resolved to fix a censure on that act, as contrary to the franchises of the holy church. And the abbot of Winchelcomb being more forward than the rest, during the session of parliament in the seventh year of this king's reign, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, said openly, that that act was 66 contrary to the law of God, and to the liberties of the holy church; and that all who assented to it, as well spiritual as temporal persons, had, by so doing, incurred the censures of the church." And, for confirmation of his opinion, he published a book to prove, that all clerks, whether of the greater or lower orders, were sacred, and exempted from all temporal punishment by the secular judge, even in criminal cases. This made a great noise, and all the temporal lords, with the concurrence of the house of commons,, desired the king to suppress the growing insolence of the clergy. So there was a hearing of the matter before the king, with all the judges, and the king's temporal council. Doctor Standish, guardian of the Mendicant Friars in London (afterwards bishop of St. Asaph), the chief of the king's spiritual council, argued, That by the law, clerks had been still convened and judged in the king's court for civil crimes, and that there was nothing either in the laws of God or the church inconsistent with it; and that the public good of the society, which was chiefly driven at by all laws, and ought to be preferred to all other things, required that crimes should be punished. But the abbot of Winchelcomb, being counsel for the clergy, excepted to this, and said, "There was a decree made by the church expressly to the contrary, to which all ought to pay obedience, under the pain of mortal sin; and that therefore the trying of clerks in the civil courts was a sin in itself." Standish upon this turned to the king and said, "God forbid that all the decrees of the church should bind. It seems the bishops think not so, for though there

is a decree that they should reside at their cathedrals all the festivals of the year, yet the greater part of them do it not;" adding, that no decree could have any force in England till it was received there; and that this decree was never received in England, but that, as well since the making of it as before, clerks had been tried for crimes in the civil courts. To this the abbot made no answer, but brought a place of Scripture to prove this exemption to have come from our Saviour's words, Nolite tangere christos meos, Touch not mine anointed; and therefore princes ordering clerks to be arrested and brought before their courts was contrary to Scripture, against which no custom can take place. Standish replied, These words were never said by our Saviour, but were put by David in his Psalter one thousand years before Christ; and he said these words had no relation to the civil judicatories; but because the greatest part of the world was then wicked, and but a small number believed the law, they were a charge to the rest of the world not to do them harm. But though the abbot had been very violent, and confident of his being able to confound all that held the contrary opinion, yet he made no answer to this. The laity that were present being confirmed in their former opinion by hearing the matter thus argued, moved the bishops to order the abbot to renounce his former opinion, and recant his sermon at Paul's Cross. But they flatly refused to do it, and said, they were bound by the laws of the holy church to maintain the abbot's opinion in every point of it. Great heats followed upon this during the sitting of the parliament, of which there is a very partial entry made in the journal of the lords' house; and no wonder, the clerk of the parliament, Dr. Tylor, dootor of the canon law, being at the same time speaker of the lower house of convocation. The entry is in these words: "In this parliament and convocation there were most dangerous contentions between the clergy and the secular power, about the ecclesiastical liberties; one Standish, a minor friar, being the instrument and promoter of all that mischief." But a passage fell out, that made this matter be more fully prosecuted in the Michael

Journal pro

* Made clerk October 29, I Reg. Rot. Pat. Part. 1. cerum 7 Hen. 8, Dissolutum et finitum fuit hoc parliamentum 22 Dec. 1515. Johanne Tylor, juris pontificii Doet. Clerico parliamentorum Domini Regis: et eodem tempore Prolocutore Convocationis Cleri, quod raro accidit. In hoc parliamento et convocatione periculosissimæ seditiones exortæ sunt inter clerum et secularem potestatem super libertatibus Ecclesiasticis, quodam fratre minore, nomine Standish, omnium malorum ministro ae stimulatore. Hall and Fox.

mas term. One Richard Hunne, a merchant tailor in London, was questioned by a clerk in Middlesex for a mortuary, pretended to be due for a child of his that died five weeks old. The clerk claiming the beering sheet, and Hunne refusing to give it; upon that he was sued, but his counsel advised him to sue the clerk in a præmunire, for bringing the king's subjects before a foreign court; the spiritual court sitting by authority from the legate. This touched the clergy so in the quick, that they used all the arts they could to fasten heresy on him; and understanding that he had Wickliff's Bible, upon that he was attached of heresy, and put in the Lollard's tower at Paul's, and examined upon some articles objected to him by Fitz-James, then bishop of London. He denied them as they were charged against him, but acknowledged he had said some words sounding that way, for which he was sorry, and asked God's mercy, aud submitted himself to the Bishop's correction; upon which he ought to have been enjoined penance, and set at liberty; but he persisting still in his suit in the King's courts, they used him most cruelly. On the 4th of December he was found hanged in the chamber where he was kept prisoner. And Dr. Horsey, chancellor to the Bishop of London, with the other officers who had the charge of the prison, gave it out that he had hanged himself. But the coroner of London coming to hold an inquest on the dead body, they found him hanging so loose, and in a silk girdle, that they clearly perceived he was killed; they also found his neck had been broken, as they judged, with an iron chain, for the skin was all fretted and cut: they saw some streams of blood about his body, besides several other evidences, which made it clear he had not murdered himself; whereupon they did acquit the dead body, and laid the murder on the officers that had the charge of that prison: and by other proofs they found the Bishop's sumner and the bell-ringer guilty of it; and by the deposition of the sumner himself it did appear, that the chancellor and he, and the bellringer, did murder him, and then hang him up.

But as the inquest proceeded in this trial, the bishop began a new process against the dead body of Richard Hunne, for other points of heresy; and several articles were gathered out of Wickliff's preface to the Bible with which he was charged. And his having the book in his possession being taken for good evidence, he was judged an heretic, and his body delivered to the secular power. When judgment was given, the bishops of Duresme and Lincoln, with many doctors both of divinity and the canon law, sat with