ting judge, some persons of quality being present, she confessed some just and lawful impediments, by which it was evident, that her marriage with the king was void." So far is Burnet from implicating Cranmer in the charge of endeavouring to prevail upon her to die with a lie upon her lips, that he speaks of him as afflicted at the scene: so far is he from charging that prelate with extorting from her a confession of the precontract, there is no proof that he attempted to persuade her into any confession; and the terms of the statement imply, that this confession of the precontract was not even made in the presence of Cranmer, but at some time previous to the day on which she was brought to Lambeth. The reader will see from this strange mistatement of Burnet's authority, how cautious we must be in admitting Mr. Butler's criminations of Archbishop Cranmer. If he can be so intrepid, and yet so incorrect, in assertion, when he cites his authority, we must be at least equally on our guard when he cites none.

We adduce another illustration of the little stress to be laid upon Mr. Butler's assertions in matters which involve the interests of Popery and Protestantism, and then bid farewell to this unpleasant subject.

"As to Latimer, whom you so highly celebrate,-was he not more remarkable for inconsistency than almost any other man with whose biography you are acquainted? Was he not first known by his attack upon the doctrines of Melancthon, and the other German Reformers? then by his advocation of these doctrines? then by his rejection of them in obedience to the command of Wolsey? then by his re-assumption of them? then by his second rejection of them, and his craving pardon for them on his knees to soothe Henry VIII.? then by his second re-assumption of them in the reign of Edward VI., &c." Butler, p. 218.

Latimer, it seems, was originally a Papist. The fact is unquestionable: such were the clergy of that day, before the Reformation: and, so far as this involves matter of charge, he shares it with them all.

Till better instructed, he must of necessity have been a Papist.

He then became a Protestant. Equally true.

He next rejected the doctrines of the Reformers, in obedience to the command of Wolsey. A mere gratuitous assertion. Fox says, that when called up before the cardinal for heresy, "he was content to subscribe and grant to such articles as then they propounded to him."

We know of no other tolerable authority which asserts even this concession: but what were these articles? The account given by Morice, a friend of Latimer, is very minute in its detail of this affair, and carries with it strong internal marks of truth; and so different, according to that report, was the issue of the conference between Latimer and Wolsey, that the cardinal expressed high approbation of his conduct: assuring him, "If the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my licence, and shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will." "And thereupon, after a gentle monition given unto Mr. Latimer, the cardinal discharged him with his licence home to preach throughout England."-(Wordsworth's Eccles. Biog. Latimer.)

:

Then by his re-assumption of them. No comment is necessary. Then by his second rejection of them. Where and when? Before the convocation in 1531-2? It cannot be proved that he subscribed the articles then proposed to him. Mr. Gilpin thinks it past dispute that he did not: and the reasons assigned for that opinion are exceedingly strong. He possibly made some concession: and, as Fox observes, "no great matter nor marvel; the iniquity of the time being such, that either he must needs so do, or else abide the bishop's blessing; that is, cruel sentence of death; which he at that time, (as himself confessed, preaching at Stamford,) was loth to

sustain for such matters as these were, unless it were for articles necessary of his belief: by which," adds Fox, with great candour and honesty, "I conjecture rather that he did subscribe at length, albeit it was long before he could be brought to do so. Fox's conjecture, although of little weight with us against Morice and Mr. Gilpin's arguments, is proof with Mr. Butler; proof so positive, as to justify the strong affirmation contained in his question to Mr. Southey: whether, even if Latimer had at that time, through fear of the bishop's blessing, subscribed declarations which his conscience did not cordially acknowledge, some little apology might not be found for him in the infirmity of human nature, let others judge. Mr. Butler sees nothing in it to qualify the charge of culpable inconsistency.

Then by his second rejection of them, and his craving pardon for them on his knees, to soothe Henry VIII.

We are not quite certain, whether the former part of this sentence is to be taken, as we have supposed, for a detached accusation, or whether it is to be combined with the submission before the king. We have given Mr. Butler the full benefit of it, as a distinct allegation: we proceed to ask then, did Latimer crave pardon for his Protestant doctrines on his knees, to soothe Henry VIII.? Certainly not. The only authority on this subject is his own statement in the seventh of his sermons. It runs thus:—

"In the king's days that is dead, many of us were called together before him to say our minds in certain matters. In the end one kneeled down," (kneeling to the King was then not uncommon,)" and accused me of sedition, that I had preached seditious doctrine: a heavy salutation, and a hard point of such a man's doing, as, if I should name him, ye would not think it *. "The king turned to me, and * Probably Gardiner, Bishop of Win

chester.

said, What say you to that, sir?' Then I kneeled down, and turned first to mine accuser, and required him, Sir, what form of preaching would you appoint me to preach before a king? Would you have me preach nothing as concerning a king, in a king's sermon? Have you any commission to appoint me what I shall preach?' Besides this I asked him divers other questions, and he would make answer to none of them all: he had nothing to say. Then I turned me to the king, and submitted myself to his Grace, and said, I never thought myself worthy, I never sued to be a preacher before your Grace; but I was called to it, and would be willing, if you mislike me, to give place to my betters: for I grant there be a great many more worthy of the room than I am; and if it be your Grace's pleasure so to allow them for preachers, I could be content to bear their books after them. But if your Grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire your Grace to give me leave to discharge my conscience: give me leave to frame my doctrine according to my audience. I had been a very dolt indeed to have preached so at the borders of your realm, as I preach before your Grace.' I thank Almighty God, which hath always been my remedy, that my sayings were well accepted of the king; for, like a gracious lord, he turned into another communication." So little ground has Mr. Butler for the vaunting question did he not crave pardon for them (the doctrines of the Reformers) on his knees, to soothe Henry VIII.? Did he, we rejoin, ask pardon for any thing? And unless sedition and Protestantism are convertible terms, was there the remotest allusion to the principles of the Reformation?

And

We wish that Cranmer could be defended from the charge of having countenanced religious persecution, with as much ease as both himself and his fellow-labourers in the Reformation can be vindicated from other matters of accusation brought

forward by Mr. Butler: but, in the case especially of Joan Bocher and George Paris, we lament to find this gentle and amiable man deeply implicated in the guilt of shedding blood; and the only plea to be of fered on his behalf, is one which will in some measure extend to all who were concerned in those sad tragedies. The principles of toleration were, in that day, generally unknown: no voice, as Mr. Southey remarks, had yet been raised against the atrocious persuasion, that death was the just punishment for heresy, and burning the appropriate mode of execution. It is to the lasting honour of Martin Luther, that he advanced in this respect much beyond the character of the age in which he lived. The question being put to him by his friend Lincus, whether he conceived the magistrate to be justified in putting to death teachers of false religion,' he replied, I am backward to pass a sentence of death, let the merit be ever so apparent. For I am alarmed when I reflect on the conduct of the Papists, who have so often abused the statutes of capital punishment against heresy, to the effusion of innocent blood. Among the Protestants, in process of time, I foresee a great probability of a similar abuse, if they should now arm the magistrate with the same powers, and there should be left on record a single instance of a person having suffered legally for the propagation of false doctrine. On this ground, I am decidedly against capital punishment in such cases, and think it quite sufficient that mischievous teachers of religion be removed from their situations." Joseph Milner, from whom we borrow this passage, observes,-" Where we are to look for examples of similar discrimination and freedom from party

Mr. Butler holds a different doctrine; and mentions (p. 261), among the persons who had professed the principle of toleration, Sir Thomas More: he had established it in his Utopia. It is to be lamented that this great man did not better understand it in practice.

violence, under any circumstances resembling those in which Luther was placed, I know not. Certainly we shall have occasion to lament, in the progress of this history, that some other reformers, even of the most gentle and beneficent tempers, were of a very different opinion, deceived, no doubt, by the perversion of the Old-Testament precedents, which derive their force from the Jewish Theocracy."

In looking, therefore, at the little army of martyrs, amounting to nearly 300*, who were burned in Queen Mary's reign, besides those that died of famine in different prisons, we would not, in reflecting upon their persecutors, leave out of sight the character of the times; we would not forget, that a strong case, on the same ground, may be made out against some of our great reformers. But it is to be remembered that these were men brought up in popish habits of education; and the exclusive and intolerant spirit which the creed of that church tends so directly to cherish is not perhaps to be cast off in one generation. The reader of that disastrous portion of our annals cannot fail to be struck with the contrast in some important particulars between the behaviour of the reformers and that of the bigoted adherents to Popery. What, for example, was the conduct of Bishop Ridley, while in possession of the see of London, towards the mother and sister of Bishop Bonner? They dined every day at his table. And how wickedly was it recompensed by that bloody persecutor, when again in powert! Compare the

* See Strype.

+ When Ridley was condemned, he entreated that a supplication, which he read, might be presented to the Queen, in behalf of some tenants, to whom he had granted leases, and for his sister, whose husband

Bonner had deprived of the provision which he had made for her and her family. "The Bishop of Gloucester promised to further his request: but so far was Bonner from acknowledging the beneficence which Ridley had shewn to his mother and sister, that, not content with depriving the martyred bishop's brother-in-law of his means

measures dealt out generally to the Protestant Bishops by the Romish hierarchy with that of the popish prelates to them, as each class held alternately the seat of authority, and ask whether the spirit of moderation be not incalculably on the side of the Protestant. One of the most repulsive and horrible circumstances which attended the execution of the Marian martyrs, was the delight which the wretched persecutors found in their atrocious business they enjoyed the condemnation of the alleged heretic, they seem to have felt a barbarous pleasure in his execution: it was not in general sufficient to burn him to ashes: they loved the work as well as the wages of their iniquity; they bleated forth sounds of petty triumph and of barbarous insult; they demonized themselves, and attempted, but happily in vain, to demonize the people. Was this after the manner of Cranmer ? or was there one among the Reformers who exhibited that savage disposition which has consigned to infamy the names of so many of the Marian persecutors? As an indication of the spirit by which these barbarous men were generally influenced, we shall be contented to mark their conduct in reference to Archbishop Cranmer himself, when placed in circumstances which, whatever may have been in their estimation his previous delinquencies, might, we should suppose, have awed or soothed them into decency; and that we may not appeal merely to Mr. Southey, we give a short passage from Gilpin. The scene is in St. Mary's at Oxford, when Cranmer was lamenting to the people his subscription to popish opinions. "As he was continuing his speech, the whole assembly was in an uproar.

of subsistence, he threatened, in his brutal language, to make twelve god-fathers go upon him; and would have brought him to the stake if Heath, in return for the kindness which he had experienced from Ridley, had not interposed and saved him." Southey, p. 197.

Lord Williams gave the first impulse to the tumult, crying aloud, Stop the audacious heretic.' On which several priests and friars, rushing from different parts of the church, with great eagerness seized him; pulled him from his seat; dragged him into the street, and with much indecent precipitation, hurried him to the stake, which was already prepared. Executioners were on the spot, who, receiving him with a chain, piled the faggots in order round him.

"As he stood thus, with all the horrid apparatus of death about him, amidst torments, revilings, and execrations, he alone maintained a dispassionate behaviour," &c. What indeed must have been the brutalized habits of these persecutors, when, even after the death of Mary, one of them, Story, "boasted in the House of Commons of the part which he had taken; related, with exultation, how he had thrown a faggot in the face of an ear-wig, as he called him, who was singing Psalms at the stake, and how he had thrust a thorn-bush under his feet to prick him: wished that he had done more ; and said, he only regretted that they should have laboured at the young and little twigs, when they ought to have struck at the root," &c. *

It is not, however, without much confidence, and all the plausibility which strong assertions can give, that the Papists complain of the persecutions endured by themselves as far exceeding those which they are charged with inflicting; and Mr. Butler countenances such state

ments. We do not feel any disposition to vindicate sanguinary or oppressive measures, from whatever quarter they may come and it is possible that the law passed in the reign of Elizabeth for restraining and punishing those who either denied her supremacy, or who, as ministers, refused to use the Common Prayer, or who maintained the authority of the pope, or affirmed that the queen was not a lawful sovereign, or pre

* Southey, vol. ii. D. 258.

tended to have power to withdraw her subjects from their allegiance, together with the severer acts against Jesuits, &c., might be unnecessary in themselves, and too violent in their provisions, and too rigid in their execution. But when we consider the temper of the times, the circumstances under which these enactments severally took place, and the general policy of Elizabeth's reign, we can by no means concur in Mr. Butler's unqualified statements on this subject. It was the object of the queen and her councillors to heal the unhappy divisions which existed at her accession to the throne; and for some time, notwithstanding the occasional violence of individual Roman Catholics, that object was carefully pursued. The disposition to treat Papists with kindness, and by kindness to conciliate them to the new order of things was remarkably evinced in the moderation manifested toward the popish bishops. Some of these, although they refused, nearly to a man, to assist at her coronation, were allowed to live in a sort of splendid retirement. Heath was occasionally visited by the queen in person; and even Bonner had the use of the garden and orchards attached to the Marshalsea, where he resided, and lived as he pleased without other any privation than that of liberty; for, though he was allowed to go abroad, he durst not, we are told, avail himself of the privilege, for fear of the people. But this calm was of no long duration. Elizabeth soon began to find, that she was made the subject of plots and conspiracies. To meet these, as they successively occurred, the laws to which we have just adverted were successively passed; in our days, they might perhaps have been modified; perhaps no government, (at least no Protestant government, for the most modern annals of Popery shew how little the spirit of its priesthood is reformed -witness the rash project just introduced into the French chambers, for making disrespect to the Host, or CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 278.

the vessel that contains it, a capital crime,) would now have recourse to measures so revolting; but, in Elizabeth's time, it was unfortunately believed that the only effectual mode of putting down the spirit of Roman-Catholic hostility was by strong penal enactments, and some of these were executed with unsparing severity. Whether the jealousy of the government might not, in these cases, outrun the danger, must be left to every reader of English history to decide for himself; but at least it must be admitted, that the conduct of the pope was of a nature to excite the worst suspicions, and to rouse into action the most tardy of the councillors of the crown. Pius V., having soon found his efforts to regain Elizabeth to the Church of Rome ineffectual, proceeded, without ceremony, to instigate her subjects to rebellion.

"Being," he said, "as Peter's successor, prince over all people, and all kingdoms, to pluck up, destroy, scatter, consume, plant, and build, he publicly excommunicated Elizabeth, whom he called the pretended Queen of England, and the servant of wickedness: seeing (he said) that impieties and wicked actions were multiplied through her instigation, he cut her off as a heretic, and favourer of heretics, from the unity of the body of Christ; deprived her of her pretended title to the kingdom, and of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever; absolved all her subjects from their allegiance, forbade them to obey her, or her laws; and included all who should disregard this prohibition, in the same sentence of excommunication." Southey, vol. ii. p. 266.

Who that reads this Bull, and reflects upon the power and influence of the pope, can doubt that the government was compelled, in a manner, for its own safety, to act with some degree of rigour; or can we be surprised, if the execution of the laws were sometimes attended in such an age by great cruelty, and sometimes, perhaps, by no small measure of injustice?

Mr. Butler (p. 219) challenges Mr. Southey to compare the conduct of Latimer" with that of More, Fisher, or any of the 300 persons who suffered death under your penal

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