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business of Gardiner's deprivation, though the Oration is repeatedly mentioned. There is, I admit, no great weight in this, as the matter there respected strictly only what Gardiner had done; though it would not have been strange if some incidental allusion had been made to the preface. It is of much more importance to observe, (and as far as I can see it is true,) that while Gardiner got into the Prohibitory Index for his part, and his Oration was condemned, Bonner and his Preface escaped all notice; a circumstance, which, if the work was avowed, and believed by wellinformed persons to be genuine, seems to me utterly unaccountable.

Add to this, that although, as I have already said, this Preface, genuine or not, was undoubtedly well known among the party for whom books of this kind were secretly printed, yet I recollect only one instance of its being thrown in Bishop Bonner's face by any person under examination. Gardiner got many "nips," both "privy" and apert, for his share in the book; but I do not recollect any other instance of an attack on Bonner than that which was made by William Tyms, curate of Hockley, at his examination on the 28th March, 1556, and it is particularly worthy of attention. How far the reporter was competent to do justice to what he heard, and how much there was which he did not hear, we have no means of knowing, for Fox only tells us, "thus 'much William Aylsbury, witness hereof, being present 'thereat, so far as he heard hath faithfully recorded and ' reported. What more was spoken and there said, (for 'they made not yet an end a good while after,) because he departed then out of the house, he doth not know, nor did 'hear." He professed, however, to have heard the following discourse, which, after what we have already seen, may, I think, lead some readers to suspect that Bonner either did not write the Preface in question, or else was a much greater fool than he is generally supposed to have been. He was not in this case (as he was in many others) engaged with merely illiterate persons who might be imposed on, for another of the prisoners was Robert Drakes, "parson of Thundersley, in Essex." If twenty years before, Bonner had written that violent invective in Latin, and if, only two or three years before, two editions of it in English had been circulated, and Bonner not only knew himself that he had

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done so, but that the fact was notorious, one can hardly imagine it possible that he should have replied to the general charge of Tyms as he did. Bonner had asked him whether he would submit himself to the Catholic church as an obedient child :

"Then Tyms answered and said, 'My Lord I doubt not but I am of the catholic church, whatsoever you judge of me. But as for your church, you have before this day renounced it, and by corporal oath promised never to consent to the same. Contrary to the which you have received into this realm the Pope's authority, and therefore you are falsely perjured and forsworn, all the sort of you. Besides this you have both spoken and written very earnestly against that usurped power, and now you do burn men that will not acknowledge the Pope to be supreme head.'3

"HAVE I?' quoth the Bishop; 'WHEN HAVE I WRITTEN ANYTHING AGAINST THE CHURCH OF ROME?'

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"My Lord,' quoth Tyms, 'the Bishop of Winchester wrote a very learned oration, entitled, De vera Obedientia, which containeth worthy matter against the Romish authority. Unto the which book you made a preface, inveighing against the bishop of Rome, reproving his tyranny and falsehood, calling his power false and pretensed. The book is extant, and you cannot deny it.'"

One can easily imagine that the bishop, if he had written the Preface, (and still more, if he had not,) might feel "somewhat abashed" at such a reply. At least he might exhibit such an appearance to a spectator who, perhaps, was fully convinced of the genuineness of the Preface, and the

3 It is right to state that, according to William Alsbury's own account, it does not appear that Tyms was examined about the pope's supremacy, because such misrepresentations should be pointed out even when they are only incidentally reprinted in passages quoted for quite different purposes. Nobody who has studied the examinations of the martyrs, indeed, would expect to find Bonner taking up that subject, and driving that point, in the first instance. On the contrary, Fox introduces this examination by telling us, that on the five prisoners (of whom Tyms and Drakes were two) being brought before Bonner, "the said Bishop after his accustomed manner proceeding against them, inquired of them their faith" [not as to the pope's supremacy, but] "upon the sacrament of the altar. To whom," he adds, "they answered that the body of Christ was not in the sacrament of the altar really and corporally after the words of consecration spoken by the priest." This, I say, is Fox's account of it, but in the course of a page or two, he gives us, “The Articles for the which William Tyms, of Hockley, in Essex, was condemned in the Consistory in Paul's, the 28 day of March; with his Answers and Confession upon the same," and then he gives us, as Tyms's own words: "Item, I confessed that in the sacrament of the altar, the Christ is not present either spiritually or corporally."

perjured baseness of the bishop. But the candid explanation which Bonner entered into with his prisoners at a public examination in "the open Consistory in Pauls," the modest way in which he proposed himself to them as a model of conscientious prudence-in short, the whole thing, if we can only be sure that there was no irony in it, no sense of the humour of his writing a preface to the "great learned man's" book, none of that broad, and even coarse, humour in which he sometimes indulged at the expense of those who insulted him, and to the amusement of those about himif one can be quite sure that he said all that is reported, and seriously meant all that he said, the passage is very remarkable indeed. It sets the stubborn old bishop, who had stuck in gaol all the days of King Edward, in quite a new light. What a nice peculiarity of conscience there must have been to prevent his doing for the royal son half what he had done so freely for the royal father! But Fox goes on:

"Then was the Bishop somewhat abashed, and looking upon such as were present, spake very gently, saying, 'Lo! here is a goodly matter indeed. My Lord of Winchester being a great learned man, did write a book against the Supremacy of the Pope's Holiness, and I also did write a preface before the same book, tending to the same effect. And thus did we because of the perilous world that then was for then was it made treason by the laws of this realm to maintain the pope's authority, and great danger it was to be suspected a favourer of the see of Rome; and therefore fear compelled us to bear with the time, for otherwise there had been no way but one. You know when any uttered his conscience in maintaining the pope's authority, he suffered death for it.' And then turning his tale unto Tyms, he said, 'But since that time, even since the coming in of the Queens Majesty, when we might be bold to speak our conscience, we have acknowledged our faults, and my Lord of Winchester himself shamed not to recant the same at Paul's Cross. And also thou thyself seest that I stand not in it, but willingly have submitted myself. Do thou also as we have done.' "My Lord,' quoth Tyms, 'that which you have written against the supremacy of the pope, may be well approved by the Scriptures. But that which you now do, is against the word of God, as I can well prove.'

"Then another (I suppose it was Dr. Cooke) said, 'Tyms, I pray thee let me talk with thee a little,' &c."—Fox, viii. 10.

I do not pretend to say that others may not have made reference to this Preface, when under examination by Bonner; but as I have stated, this is the only instance which I have observed, though I believe I may say that I have examined

every case in which Bonner had to do with any accused person. Bishop Gardiner's conduct with respect to his part of the work was very different, as the reader will perceive.

ESSAY XIX.

GARDINER'S POPERY.

Ir may at first be difficult for some readers, but perhaps on reflection they will find it possible, to imagine a man ardently denying the Supremacy of the Pope, and avowing a zealous desire to abolish his usurped authority, and yet at the same time strenuously maintaining Transubstantiation, Purgatory, the Invocation of the Saints, and a variety of other doctrines and practices which the adherents to the Pope maintain, but which protestants have rejected. Such men, however, there were among those who lived in, and survived, the reign of Henry the Eighth; and Bishop Gardiner was one of them. When the person of the king had changed, and Edward was on the throne, Gardiner not only avowed that he had in the former reign maintained the King's Supremacy, but he still maintained it, and in the process for his deprivation before Edward's Commissioners, he pleaded in his "Long Matter," which has been already quoted, that the articles brought forward against him ought not to have any weight, for various reasons:

"And, among other things, because the said bishop hath been always ready, with his best endeavour, diligence, and industry, according to his bounden duty, to publish, declare, and set forth, as well the supremacy, and supreme authority, of the king's majesty that now is, and of the most noble prince of famous memory, the king's majesty's father that dead is, as the abolishing of the usurped power of the bishop of Rome, and setting forth of all and singular acts, statutes, laws, injunctions, and proclamations, made and ordained in that behalf, and concerning orders of religion in this his majesty's church of England; and hath had, hitherto, a very circumspect, learned, and diligent chancellor under him, who hath duly executed, and put in execution, the same accordingly: all which things the said bishop, for his own part, hath likewise always justly, duly, and obediently done, kept, observed, and executed, and for the approving, confirming, and stablishing the said supremacy. And of the usurped

power of the bishop of Rome aforesaid, he hath not only openly preached, affirmed, and declared the same, in many and divers his sermons (preaching and teaching always due obedience), but also hath made and set forth a certain book or work concerning the same, as by the contents thereof more plainly appeareth, and hath defended the same in the university of Louvain. And these things were and be true, public, notorious, manifest, and famous."-Fox, Vol. vi. p. 105.

Bishop Gardiner, it is plain, was not anxious to conceal or disavow, in the reign of King Edward, what he was said to have written to curry favour with King Henry; and it is somewhat curious to see how this one of his Articles is treated by some of those who were called upon to depose in reply to the multitude of them contained in his "Long Matter." A considerable portion of those who were interrogated, were, it will be seen, in a state of remarkable ignorance concerning the book.

"The Right honourable Lord Edward Duke of Somerset, being examined upon the articles ensuing, saith as followeth :

'To the 1st article his Grace saith that it hath oftentimes appeared to his Grace, by sundry complaints and informations made against the said bishop, that he hath not done his duty in setting forth the King's Majesty's proceedings, in matters of religion, in such ample sort as his duty required. And as for his chancellor, his Grace can little testify therein otherwise than that there hath been of late in him no towardness of conformity; for which he doth now remain in prison. And his Grace, also, saith, that touching the bishop's preaching against the usurped power of the bishop of Rome, he remembereth not of any sermon by him so made, saving one, whereof fuller mention is made in his depositions upon the articles, ministered against the said bishop of office in this behalf. And as for the book mentioned in this article, his Grace saith, he hath heard of such a book by him made; but to what effect it weigheth, his grace knoweth not, nor also of his defence made in the university of Louvain."-Fox, Vol. vi. p. 168.

It was hardly to be expected that the minor courtiers of King Edward should be better informed than his Grace the Lord Protector. Perhaps it was only a proper compliment to his station to profess a still more complete ignorance. Turning over the depositions, we find that,

"As for the bishop's book, and his disputation in Louvain, mentioned in this article, his lordship [the Earl of Wiltshire] knoweth nothing of it," p. 171,-absolutely nothing.

"As touching the said bishop's book, and disputation in Louvain, his Lordship [the Marquis of Northampton] knoweth nothing thereof," p. 173.

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