furious enemy to the fee of Rome, was determined to C HA P. facrifice every thing to prefent intereft, and had joined XXXII. the confederacy of Gardiner and the partizans of the old religion. Gardiner himself, it was believed, had fecretly 1538. entered into measures with the pope, and even with the emperor; and in concert with thefe powers, he endeavoured to preserve, as much as poffible, the antient faith and worship.

HENRY was fo much governed by paffion, that nothing could have retarded his animofity and oppofition against Rome, but fome other paffion, which stopped his career, and raised him new fubje&s of animofity. Though he had gradually, fince he came to years of maturity, been changing the tenets of that theological system, in which he had been educated, he was equally pofitive and dogmatical in the few articles which remained to him, as if the whole fabric had continued entire and unfhaken: And though he stood alone in his opinion, the flattery of courtiers had fo enflamed his tyrannical arrogance, that he thought himself entitled to regulate, by his own particular standard, the religious faith of the whole nation. The point, on which he chiefly rested his orthodoxy, happened to be the real prefence; that very doctrine, in which, among the numberless victories of fuperftition over common fenfe, her triumph is the moft fignal and egregious. All departure from this principle he held to be heretical and deteftable; and nothing, he thought, would be more honourable for him, than, while he broke off all connections with the Roman pontiff, to maintain, in this effential article, the purity of the catholic faith.

THERE was one Lambert, a fchool-mafter in Lon- Difputadon, who had been questioned and confined for unfound tion with opinions by archbishop Warham; but, upon the death of Lambert, that prelate, and the changing of councils at court, he had been releafed. Not terrified with the danger which he had incurred, he still continued to promulgate his tenets; and having heard Dr. Taylor, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, defend in a fermon the corporal prefence, he could not forbear exprefling to Taylor his diffent from that do&rine; and he drew up his objections under ten feveral heads. Taylor communicated the paper to Dr. Barons, who happened to be a Lutheran, and who main

Fox, vol. ii. p. 396.

tained,

CHA P. tained, that, though the fubftance of bread and wine XXXII. remained in the facrament, yet the real body and blood of Chrift were there alfo, and were, in a certain mysteri1538. ous manner, incorporated with the material elements. By the prefent laws and practice, Barnes was no lefs expofed to the ftake than Lambert; yet fuch was the perfecuting rage which prevailed, that he was determined to bring this man to condign punishment; because, in their common departure from the antient faith, he had dared to go one step farther than himself. He engaged Taylor to accufe Lambert to Cranmer and Latimer, who, whatever their private opinions might be on these points, were obliged to conform themselves to the standard of orthodoxy, established by Henry. When Lambert was cited before thefe prelates, they endeavoured to bend him to a recantation; and they were furprized, when, instead of compliance, he ventured to appeal to the king.

THE king, not difpleafed with an opportunity, when he could at once exert his fupremacy, and display his learning, accepted the appeal; and was determined to mix, in a very unfair manner, the magiftrate with the difputant. Public notice was given, that he intended to enter the lifts with this school-master: Scaffolds were erected in Weftminfter-hall, for the accommodation of the audience: Henry appeared on his throne, accompanied with all the enfigns of majesty: The prelates were placed on his right hand: The temporal peers on his left. The judges and moft eminent, lawyers had a place affigned them behind the bifhops: The courtiers of greateft diftinction behind the peers: And in the midst of this fplendid affembly was produced the unhappy Lambert, and he was required to defend his opinions against his royal antagonist

THE bishop of Chichester opened the conference, by faying, that Lambert, being charged with heretical pravity, had appealed from his bifhop to the king; as if he expected more favour from this application, and as if the king could ever be induced to protect a heretic: That though his majesty had thrown off the ufurpations of the fee of Rome; had difincorporated fome idle monks, who lived like drones in a bee-hive; had remedied the idolatrous worship of images; had published the bible in Eng

Fox, vol. ii. p. 426.

lifh,

1536,

lifh, for the inftruction of all his fubjects; and had made C H A P fome leffer alterations, which every one must approve of; XXXII. yet was he determined to maintain the purity of the catholic faith, and to punish, with the utmost feverity, all departure from it; And that he had taken the present opportunity, before fo learned and grave an auditory, of convincing Lambert of his errors; but if he ftill perfe vered obftinately in them, he must expect the most con. dign punishment R.

AFTER this preamble, which was not very encouraging, the king afked Lambert, with a ftern countenance, what his opinion was of Chrift's corporal prefence in the facrament of the altar; and when Lambert began his dife course with some compliment to his majesty, he rejected the praise with difdain and indignation. He afterwards preffed Lambert with arguments, drawn from Scripture and the schoolmen: The audience applauded the force of his reasoning, and the extent of his erudition: Cranmer feconded his proofs by fome new topics: Gardiner entered the lifts as a fupport to Cranmer: Tonstal took up the argument after Gardiner; Stokesley brought fresh aid to Tonftal: Six bishops more appeared fucceffively in the field after Stokefley. And the difputation, if it deferves the name, was prolonged for five hours; till Lambert, fatigued, confounded, brow-beaten, and abashed, was at laft reduced to filence. The king then, returning to the charge, asked him whether he was convinced? and he, propofed, as a concluding argument, this interesting queftion, whether he was refolved to live or die? Lambert, who poffeffed that courage which confifts in obstinacy, replied, that he caft himself wholly on his majesty's clemency: The king told him, that he would be no protector of heretics; and therefore, if that was his final anfwer, he must expect to be committed to the flames. Cromwell, as vicegerent, read the fentence against him $. LAMBERT

R Goodwin's Annals.

s Collier, in his ecclefiaftical hiftory, vol. I. p. 152, has preferved an account which Cromwell gave of this conference, In a letter to Sir Thomas Wyat, the king's embaffador in Germany. "The king's majefty," fays Cromwel," for the reverence of the holy facrament of the altar, did fit openly in "his hall, and there prefided at the difputation, process and judgment of a miferable heretic facramentary, who was

66

"burned

СНАР.

LAMBERT, whofe vanity had probably incited him XXXII. the more to perfevere on account of the greatness of this

public appearance, was not daunted by the terrors of that 1538. punishment, to which he was condemned. His executioners took care to make the fufferings of a man who had perfonally oppofed the king, as cruel as poffible: He was burned at a flow fire; his legs and thighs were confumed to the stumps; and when there appeared no end of his torments, fome of the guards, more merciful than the reft, lifted him on their halberts, and threw him into the flames, where he was confumed. While they were employed in this friendly office, he cried aloud feveral times, Nene but Chrift, none but Chrift; and these words were in his mouth when he expired T.

1539.

SOME few days before this execution, four Dutch anabaptifts, three men and a woman, had faggots tied to their backs at Paul's Crofs; and were burned in that manner. And a man and a woman, of the same sect and country, were burned in Smithfield ".

IT was the unhappy fituation of the English, during that age, that when they laboured under any grievance, they had not the fatisfaction of expecting redress from parliament: On the contrary, they had reafon to dread each meeting of that affembly, and were then sure of having tyranny converted into law, and aggravated, perhaps, with fome circumftance, which the arbitrary prince and his minifters had not hitherto devifed, or did not think

proper,

"burned the 20th of November. It was a wonder to fee how

princely, with how excellent gravity, and ineftimable majesty "his highnefs exercifed there the very office of fupreme head "of the church of England. How benignly his grace effayed "to convert the miferable man: How strong and manifeft "reafons his highne fs alledged against him. I wish the princes "and potentates of Chriftendom to have had meet place to "have feen it. Undoubtedly they fhould have much marvelled at his majefty's moft high wifdom and judginent, and reput"ed him no otherwife after the fame, than in a manner the "mirror and light of all other kings and princes in Chriften"dom." It was by fuch flatteries, that Henry was engaged to make his fentiments the ftandard of all mankind; and was determined to enforce, by the feverest penalties, his firong and inanifeft reafons for tranfubftantiation. U Stowe.

T Fox's acts and monuments, p. 427. Burnet. p. 556.

This CHA P.

1539.

proper, of themselves, to carry into execution. abje& fervility never more eminently appeared than in a XXXII. new parliament, which the king now affembled, and which, if he had been so pleased, might have been the laft that ever fat in England. But he found them too ufeful inftruments of dominion ever to entertain thoughts of giving them a total exclusion.

THE chancellor opened the parliament by informing the house of Lords, that it was his majesty's earnest defire, to extirpate from his kingdom all diverfity of opinions with regard to religion; and as this enterprize was, he owned, difficult and important, he defired them to chuse a committee from among themselves, who might frame. Certain articles, and communicate them afterwards to the parliament. The lords named the vicar-general, Cromwel, now created a peer, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Bath and Wells, Bangor, and Ely. The house might have seen what a hopeful task they were undertaking: This fmall committee itself was agitated with fuch diversity of opinions, that it could come to no conclufion. The duke of Norfolk then moved in the house, that, fince there were no hopes of having a report from the committee, the articles of faith, proposed to be established, should be reduced to fix; and a new committee be appointed to frame an act with regard to them. As this peer was understood to speak the king's mind, his motion. was immediately complied with; and, after a fhort. rogation, the bill of the fix articles, or the bloody bill, as the proteftants justly termed it, was introduced, and having paffed the two houfes, had the king's affent affixed to

it.

pro

A parlia

ment, 28th

Apr.

ticles.

In this law, the doctrine of the real prefence was esta- Law of blished, the communion in one kind, the perpetual obli- the fix are gation of vows of chastity, the utility of private maffes, the celibacy of the clergy, the neceffity of auricular confeffion. The denial of the first article, with regard to the real prefence, fubje&ted the perfon to death by fire, and to the fame forfeiture as in cafes of treafon; and admitted not the privilege of abjuring: An unheard of feverity, and unknown to the inquifition itself. The denial of any of the other five articles, even though recanted, was punishable by the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and imprifonment during the king's pleafure: An obfti