belief. For, suppose his friends durst, his foes would, not afford him a shroud; yet some neuters betwixt both (no doubt) would have done it out of common civility. Besides, seeing the king vouchsafed him the Tower, a noble prison; and beheading, an honourable death; it is improbable he would deny him a necessary equipage for a plain and private burial. Wherefore, when Hall tells us, that the soldiers attending his execution could not get spades to make his grave therewith, but were fain with halberds, in the north side of the church-yard of All-Hallows Barking, to dig a hole wherein they cast his naked corpse; I listen to the relation as inflamed by the reporter's passion. Be it here remembered, that Fisher in his life-time made himself a tomb on the north side of the chapel in St. John's college, intending there to be buried, but therein disappointed. This Fisher was he who had a cardinal's hat sent him, which, stopped at Calais, never came on his head; and a monument made for him, wherein his body was never deposited.

Our author reporteth also, how queen Anna Boleyn gave order his head should be brought unto her, before it was set up on Londonbridge, that she might please herself at the sight thereof, and, like another Herodias, insult over the head of this John her professed enemy. Nor was she content alone to revile his ghost with taunting terms, but out of spite or sport, or both, struck her hand against the mouth of this dead head brought unto her; and it happened, that one of Fisher's teeth, more prominent than the rest, struck into her hand, and not only pained her for the present, but made so deep an impression therein that she carried the mark thereof to her grave. It seems, this was contrary to the proverb, Mortui non mordent. But enough, yea, too much of such damnable falsehoods. Pass we from Fisher to More, his fellow-prisoner, whom Fisher's execution had not mollified into conformity to the king's pleasure, as was expected.

16-18. Sir Thomas More's Extraction and Education: charged for his over-much Jesting: a great Anti-Pro

testant.

Son he was to Sir John More, one of the judges of the King's Bench, who lived to see his son preferred above himself. Bred a Common Lawyer, but withal, a general scholar as well in polite as solid learning; a terse poet, neat orator, pure Latinist, able Grecian, he was chosen Speaker in the House of Commons, made Chancellor first of Lancaster-duchy, then of all England, performing the place with great integrity and discretion. Some ground we have in England, neither so light and loose as sand, nor so stiff and binding as clay, but a mixture of both, conceived the surest soil for profit and plea

sure to grow together on: such the soil of this Sir Thomas More, in which facetiousness and judiciousness were excellently tempered together.

Yet some have taxed him, that he wore a feather in his cap, and wagged it too often; meaning, he was over-free in his fancies and conceits; insomuch, that, on the scaffold, (a place not to break jests, but to break off all jesting,) he could not hold, but bestowed his scoffs on the executioner and standers-by. Now, though innocency may smile at death, surely it is unfit to flout thereat.

But the greatest fault we find justly charged on his memory, is his cruelty in persecuting poor Protestants, to whom he bare an implacable hatred; insomuch that in his life-time he caused to be inscribed, as parcel of his epitaph on his monument at Chelsea, that he ever was furibus, homicidis, hæreticisque molestus: a passinggood praise, save after the way which he there calleth "heresy," pious people worship the God of their fathers. He suffered the next

month after Fisher's execution, in the same place, for the same cause, July 6th, and was buried at Chelsea, under his tomb aforesaid; which, being become ruinous, and the epitaph scarce legible, hath few years since been decently repaired at the cost, as I am informed, of one of his near kinsmen.

19. The Death and Character of Queen Catherine Dowager.

At this time, January 8th, Catherine dowager, whom we will be bold still in courtesy to call "a queen," notwithstanding king Henry's proclamation to the contrary, ended her woful life at Kimbolton. A pious woman toward God, (according to her devotion,) frequent in prayer, which she always performed on her bare knees, nothing else between her and the earth interposed; little curious in her clothes, being wont to say, she accounted no time lost but what was laid out in dressing of her; though art might be more excusable in her, to whom nature had not been over bountiful. She was rather staid, than stately; reserved, than proud; grave from her cradle, insomuch that she was a matron before she was a mother. This her natural gravity increased with her apprehended injuries, settled in her reduced age into a habit of melancholy, and that terminated into a consumption of the spirits. She was buried in the abbey-church of Peterborough, under a hearse of black say; probably by her own appointment, that she might be plain when dead, who neglected bravery of clothes when living. A noble pen† tells us, that in intuition to her corpse here interred, king Henry, at the destruction of abbeys, not only spared the church in Peterborough, but also advanced it into a cathedral. If so, it was civilly done of SANDERS De Schismate Anglicano. † LORD HERBERT in his Henry VIII. VOL. II.

F

him not to disturb her in her grave whom he had so disquieted in her bed. The news of her departure was not unwelcome to queen Anna Boleyn, who, though too good a Christian to desire her death, was too wise a woman to be over-sorrowful for the same; seeing formerly she was the king's wife but by sequestration, the true pos sessor of his bed being yet alive; whereas now, Rehoboth, she conceived God had made room for her, Gen. xxvi. 22.

20. The Character of Queen Anna Boleyn.

This Anna Boleyn was great-grandchild to a citizen, Sir Jeffery Boleyn, lord mayor of London; grandchild to Sir William Boleyn, knight, who lived respectedly in his country; daughter to Thomas Boleyn, carl of Wiltshire, a great courtier: and she had her birth in England; blood, by her grandmother,* from Ireland; and breeding in France, under Mary the French queen: so that so many relations, meeting in her, accomplished her with an acceptable behaviour to all qualities and conditions of people; of a handsome person and beautiful face; and therefore that pen† that reports her lean-visaged, long-sided, gobber-toothed, yellow-complexioned, with a wen in her neck, both manifests his malice, and disparageth the judgment of king Henry, whom all knew well-read in books, and better in beauties; who would never have been drawn to so passionate a love, without stronger loadstones to attract it. This queen, remembering how her predecessor lost the king's love with her overausterity, tuned herself to a more open and debonair behaviour, even generally to all with whom she conversed: which, being observed by her adversaries, was improved by them to her overthrow; so that she but for a very short time had the sole and peaceable possession of her husband. In a word, she was a great patroness of the Protestants, protector of the persecuted, preferrer of men of merit, (among whom Hugh Latimer,) a bountiful reliever of the poor, and the happy mother of queen Elizabeth.

21-23. The first Reformed Convocation. The Silence in the Abbots of the Convocation. The Journal of this Convo

cation.

On the eighth of June began a short but sharp parliament, (dissolved the eighteenth of July following,) effecting much in little time; matters, it seems, being well prepared aforehand, and the House assembled, not to debate, but do the king's desires. The parallel Convocation began the day after, being one new-modelled, and of a fashion different from all former Convocations. Therein the lord Cromwell, prime secretary, sat in state above all the bishops, † SANDERS De Schismate Anglicano.

Daughter to Thomas, Earl of Ormond.

as the king's vicar or vicegerent-general in all spiritual matters. Deformi satis spectaculo, saith my author,* indocto laico cœtui præsidente sacratorum antistitum, omnium, quos ante hæc tempora Anglia unquam habuisset, doctissimorum. In one respect, that place had better become the person of king Henry, than this lord his proxy; all allowing the king a very able scholar. But Cromwell had in power and policy what he lacked in learning; if he may be said to lack it, who, at pleasure, might command the borrowing thereof from the best brains and pens of those of his own party in the Convocation.

This Convocation consisted of two Houses; the Lower, of the clerks and proctors of their respective cathedrals and diocesses, with the deans and archdeacons therein; the Upper, of the bishops, with the lord-abbots, and priors, (I mean, so many of them as voted as barons in parliament,) as may appear by their several subscriptions.† However, I find not the abbots active in any degree in canvassing matters of religion. Whether this proceeded from any desire of ease, their laziness being above their learning; or out of humility, counting it more proper to permit such disputes to the sole disposal of the bishops, as most concerned therein; or out of fear, loath to stickle on religion, knowing on what ticklish terms they stood. For, in this very parliament, all abbeys, which could not dispend two hundred pounds a year, were dissolved, and bestowed on the king; and those rich abbots (which had more than so many thousands yearly) knew that maxim in logic to be true, Magis et minùs non variant speciem, "More and less do not alter the kind;" and might say with him on the cross, they were "in the same condemnation," though as yet the sentence was not passed upon them.

We will observe the daily motions in this Convocation, as with mine own hand I have faithfully transcribed them out of the records. Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester, made the Latin sermon, taking for his text, "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light," Luke xvi. 8. On the Friday following, June 16th, Richard Gwent, archdeacon of London, was presented, and confirmed Prolocutor in this Convocation. On the same day Master William Peter, doctor of the laws, came into the House, as deputed from his master the lord Cromwell, who could not be present, because of his greater employment in parliament. This Dr. Peter claimed the highest place in the House, as due to his master the lord Cromwell, et petiit dictum locum sibi, tanquam procuratori dicti magistri; ‡ and he (shall I say, requested? or)

• GODWIN'S "Annals," anno Domini 1536. virum [Cromwell] et reverendos episcopos abbates et vocationis celebrat, anno 1536, fol. antepenul.

↑ Concordatum erat per honorandum priores domus superioris.—Acta ConRecords of Cant. A.D. 1536, fol, 9.

"required the same precedency, as due to him, being his proctor, and obtained it accordingly, without any dispute. Though some, perchance, might question, whether a deputy's deputy (as one degree farther removed) might properly claim his place, who was primitively represented. Next Wednesday, June 21st, came in the lord Cromwell in person, and, having judiciously seated himself above all, tendered unto them an instrument to be publicly signed by all the Convocation, concerning the nullity of the king's marriage with the lady Anna Boleyn.

24, 25. Cranmer solemnly divorceth Anna Boleyn from the King. What might be the King's Designs in this Divorce. A D. 1536.

Some ten days before, archbishop Cranmer at Lambeth had held an open court, in the presence of Thomas Audley, lord chancellor, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and most of the privy council; wherein the king and queen were cited to appear, as they did by their proxies, Dr. Richard Sampson being the king's, and Dr. Nicholas Wootten the queen's. Then proceeded the archbishop to discuss the validity of their marriage, and at the last, by his definitive sentence, pronounced the same "invalid, frustrate, and of none effect." No particular cause is specified in that sentence, still extant in the record; and though the judge and court seemed abundantly satisfied in the reasons of this nullity, yet, concealing the same unto themselves, they thought not fit to communicate this treasure to posterity; except they shut their coffers on purpose, because there was nothing in them. Sure I am, there is no dashing on the credit of the lady, nor any the least insinuations of inchastity in that instrument; præclara domina, et serenissima regina, being the worst titles that are given her therein.

Men may justly marvel what king Henry meant by this solemn and ceremonious divorce, which the edge of the axe or sword was more effectually to perform the day after, her death being then designed. Was it because he stood on this punctilio or criticism of credit, that he might not hereafter be charged with cruelty for executing his wife, that first he would be divorced from her, and so cannot be said to put his queen, but Anna Boleyn, to death? Or did he first but barely intend her divorce, and afterwards suspecting this would not make sufficient avoidance in his bed, to clear all claims, took up new resolutions to take away her life? Or was it because he conceived the execution would only reach the root, the queen herself, and not blast the branch, the lady Elizabeth, whom by this divorce he desired to render illegitimate? Whatever his aims were, he got her divorce confirmed both by Convocation and