mandment or your Lordship's. Therefore I most humblie beseche you to contynue my good Lord, as you ever have bene, and to directe your honourable letters to remove him hens. And whensoever the King's gracious commandment, or your's, shall come to me, you shall find me most reddie, and obeydiant to folloe the same. And notwithstanding that D. London, like an untrew man, hath informed your Lordship, that I am a spoiler and waster, your good Lordship shall know, that the contrary is trewe, for I have not alienatyd one halporthe of goods of this Monasterie, moveable or unmoveable, but have rather increased the same; nor ever made lease of any farme or peece of grownde belongyng to this House; or than ever have been in times paste, alwaies set under the Covent Seal for the weal of the House. And therefore my verie truste is, that I shall fynd the King as gracious a Lorde unto me, as he is to all other his subjects; seeyng I have not offended; and am and will be moste obedyent to his most gracious commandment at all tymes, with the grace of Almighty Jesus, who ever preserve you in honour, longe to endure to his pleasure. Amen.Godistou, ye 5 Daie of Nov.

'Your most bownden Beeds Woman,

KATHARINE BULKELEY, Abbes there.

Of this same D. London we have already taken notice from Mr. Fuller, what a vile perjured wretch he was, and how fit to be employed to insult Religious Ladies. But neither the infamy of this miscreant, nor the virtue of the Nuns, availed the Monastery. The instrument was fit for the work he had to do; and those that made use of him, [King Henry and Lord Cromwell] had no occasion for a better.

Motive VII. For the Suppression of the Chanteries, &c. the Danger of the Priests and Governors frustrating the pious Donations, was pretended.-Answer. This is but a Tame excuse at the best. For how can it be imagined there should be no laws then in being, or that none could be enacted strong enough to curb such Priests and Governors, and to keep them under proper regulations and restraints? But, in reality, there was no reason why the King should dive so deep into politics, for a pretence to destroy these Religious Settlements with the rest, when the real motive swims upon the surface. The truth of the matter, in short, is this.

The Religious Houses (both little and great) havingbeen

re

swallowed up in the bottomless vortex of the King's necessi ties, (and these continually increasing) nothing now mained, as a farther supply to them, but the Chanteries, Free-Chapels, Colleges, Hospitals, Fraternities, Guilds, and the maintenance for stipendiary Priests, with the lands and estates settled upon them. All which had formerly been founded upon such considerations, as neither the King nor the Parliaments of those times disavowed, and much less condemned.

66

However, upon the first parliamentary summons, these were all surrendered to his Majesty, sacrificed to the Crown, and dissolved for ever, by virtue of a statute, which (right or wrong) "+ Chargeth misdemeanors on the Priests and Governors, that of their own authority, as Governors of the aforesaid Chanteries, without the assent of their Patrons, Donors, or Founders, they had let leases for lives, or term of years, of the said lands, &c. contrary to the will and purposes of their Founders, to the great contempt of Authority Royal. Wherefore the Parliament puts the King and his. successors for ever in the real and actual possession of such Chanteries, &c."

"Now with great submission to the wisdom of the Legislature, some people would almost be at a loss upon this occasion: for when prayer for the dead was reckon'd a significant service: when this Prince, in his last will, left money to pray for his soul: when this was the general persuasion, it is somewhat surprising, that Chantery-lands should be taken away! The Chantery-lands, I say, which were given for the benefit of the dead, and settled, as it were, upon the other world!”

Indeed, nothing had hitherto so much exposed the unreasonableness of the King's proceedings, and the inconsistency of his conduct, as this fact of his laying violent hands upon Chanteries and Free-Chapels. The obligations annexed to these places (as we have elsewhere observed) were daily sacrifices and prayers, offered up to God, for the relief of the deceased Founders and of all the Faithful departed, for ever. And this primitive practice the King not only acknowledged to be beneficial to the dead in general, but moreover instantly desired, that the same, after his departure, might particularly be performed for the remission of his offences, and the wealth of his soul, as I find it exFuller's Ch. Hist. Book vi. p. 350. See also Stat. 38. H. 8. c. 4. Collier's Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. B. iii. p. 207.

pressed in his last will and testament. A copy of which (as far as it concerns religious matters) may be seen in the Appendix, No. XV.

§ 10.-The Fruits of K. Henry VIII.'s Reformation.

HAV

AVING recited the transactions of K. Henry the Eighth in quality of Supreme Head of the Church, with all the brevity that could well be expected in so copious a subject, we shall conclude the whole with some account of the consequences, the effects, the fruits of his ever memorable deeds of undoing.

It is not our intention to enumerate every particular calamity or disaster which this unhappy Monarch brought upon the Church; neither is it necessary so to do; especially since they are all reducible to the following general heads, viz. a deplorable confusion in matters of religion, and a general corruption of Christian Morality.

Of the sad confusion which was, about this time, introduced into Religion, Mr. Fox, (p. 1037) has left us the following plaintive description. "To many who be yet alive, it is not unknown how variable the state of Religion stood in those days; how hardly, and with what difficulty it came forth; what chances and changes it suffered, even as the King was ruled and gave ear, sometimes to one, sometimes to another. So one while it went forward, at another season as much backward again; sometime clean altered and changed for a season, according as they could prevail who were about the King. So long as Queen Ann [Bullen] lived, the Gospel [he means the new Gospel] had indifferent success. After that she, by sinister instigation of some about the King, was made away [i. e. beheaded for adultery and incest] the course of the Gospel, [alias the Reformation] began again to decline; but the Lord opportunely stirred up the Lord Cromwell [ridiculous cant !] in that behalf, who did much for the increase of God's true religion [not that he cared a straw for any religion while he continued in power] and much more had he brought to perfection, if the pestilent adversaries had not supplanted his vertuous proceedings. After the taking away of which Cromwell, the state of Religion [meaning the new Religion] more and more decayed, during all the residue of the reign

of King Henry."-Now, since a fit opportunity offers itself, we beg leave to propose the following queries: 1. Whether the plundering and demolishing of Religious Houses, Churches, Chapels, Altars, &c. with other abominable sacrileges, committed without number by the Lord Cromwel, can properly be styled vertuous proceedings? 2. Whether any body but John Fox, the fabulous Martyr-monger, had ever front enough to style them so?

Conclude we this subject of Variations in Religion, with a word or two more from Baker's Chronicle, p. 408."And now," "" 66 says he, was the state of Religion come to a strange pass, because always in passing, and had no consistence. For at first, the authority of the Pope was excluded in some cases only, awhile after in all. Afterwards his doctrine came to be impugned; but yet in some few points only; a while after, in many. That the fable of Proteus might be no longer a fable, when the Religion of England might be its true moral."

From this observation, and Mr. Fox's complaint, it plainly appears, that the new Gospel, in the days of old King Harry, was in a very fluctuating and uncertain state : that it underwent several chances and changes: that it sometimes went forward, sometimes backward: that it was in or out of favour, according to the capriciousness of that wilful Monarch, or the private views of those that were (pro tempore) in possession of the royal ear: that, in fine, altho' the respective views of King Henry, Ann Bullen, and Crommel, might be, in some regards, different, yet they all agreed in the main; which was, to advance the Reformation (as Mr. Fox expresses it) upon politick respects.

In a word, no sooner had King Henry broke the ice, than new Gospelers presently started up in almost every city, town, and village in England; whose uncouth preachments, &c. occasioned so many alterations in points of faith; such a diversity of opinions, and such chopping and changing in religious sentiments,

"As if Religion was intended

For nothing else but to be mended."

Indeed, ever since the reign of King Henry VIII. our busy Reformers have been constantly employed in turning and patching the Church; but to what purpose, it will be a hard matter to discover, unless it may be reckoned an advantage, to be always upon the change, and never at a stund.

Even we ourselves have lived to see proposals offered to the public by the authors of the Candid Disquisition, for a farther and still purer Reformation of the present Liturgy of the Church of England. Nay, which is more, we have lived to see (besides a new Reformation lately imported from Moravia) a new set of Reformers make their appearance at home, under the queer denomination of Methodists. And what other religious oddity may tread upon the heels of Methodism, those that come after us may expect to see. For, of Reformations there can be no end, as long as it is possible for the wit of man to strike out new Lights in Religion, or to mistake Religious Whims for Gospel Truths. In fine, the Reformation (like all other human inventions) must and will be always subject and liable to perpetual variations. To be always passing and never consistent, has been for these many years, and still is, the deplorable state of The Religion of England. Now to our Morals.

When we seriously consider the viciousness and depravity. of the present age, we shall find but slender motives to value ourselves upon the mighty advantages we have gained by the introduction of new modes of Faith amongst us; and as little reason to suppose that a multiplicity of new religions has contributed any thing towards the sanctity of our lives. In a word, we need not run after new Gospellers to be taught better manners. Erasmus has observed, in his time, that those who changed sides, and relinquished the old to embrace the new Religion, were always the worse for changing.

"Take a view," says he, "of this Evangelical People, and see whether they are less addicted to luxury, wantonness, or avarice, than those whom you detest. Bring me one, if you can, who by this Gospel has been reclaimed from drunkenness to sobriety, from fury and passion to meekness, from avarice to liberality, from reviling to wellspeaking, from wantonness to modesty. I will show you a great many, who are become worse thereby than ever they were. Perhaps it is my misfortune, but I never yet met with one, who does not appear changed for the worse."

To conclude, what great matter had K. Henry VIII. to boast of after all, in quality of a Reformer? What did the sum total of all his Transactions as Supreme Head of the Church amount to? Why, truly, to nothing more than this: That he had unfortunately opened a gap to let in

Vid. Eras Ep. ad Vulturium Neocomum. A. 1529; and Sleidan's Reformation, B. vi. p. 122.