ΧΙ of New College-a visitor of the monasteries after- CHAP wards-and Dr. Higdon, Dean of St. Frideswide) proceeded with their search, and discovering a number of young men, as already stated, who had bought Garrett's books, and more or less sympathized with their contents, they caused them to bear faggots at Oxford, and there the matter ended. "White Cambridge Some four years before this, a theological party of The much greater importance was forming at Cambridge, Horse" the members of which, says Strype, "flocked to- divines of gether in open streets, in the schools, and at sermons A.D. 1523 in St. Mary's and at St. Austin's, and at other disputations." The names given by him are those of Dr. Barnes, Stafford, a divinity reader, Bilney, Latimer, Dr. Thixtel, Thomas Allen, of Pembroke, Dr. Farman, President of Queen's, Mr. Took, Mr. Loude, of Bennet, Mr. Cambridge, Field, Colman, Coverdale, Bachelors of Divinity, Parnel, of St. Austin's, Thomas Arthur, Dr. Warner, Segar Nicholson, Rodolph Bradford, of King's, and Dr. Smith, Fellow of Trinity Hall. "These, and a great many more, met often at a house called the White Horse, to confer together with others, in mockery called Germans, because they conversed much in the books of the divines of Germany brought thence. This house was chosen because those of King's College, Queen's College, and St. John's might come in at the back-side, and so be the more private and undiscovered." At the time this party was first 8 There is a long-winded narrative of these transactions in Foxe, written by one Anthony Delaber. From his own account he was a very unscrupulous undergraduate, who set no value on truth though he talked loudly about "the Truth." 9 Strype's Ecc. Mem., i. 568, ed. 1822. CHAP forming at Cambridge, in the year 1523, Wolsey had ΧΙ refused to interfere when his legatine authority was A.D. 1527 invoked, the refusal being made the forty-third charge in his indictment seven years afterwards. But when Oxford was called to account, it was necessary also to take some steps respecting CamWolsey's bridge. bridge. Bilney and Arthur were accordingly summoned before the Cardinal and his synod at the inno- Westminster, on November 27, 1527, when both of lenieney towards vators Severe enforcement laws by them readily abjured, and were dismissed, doubtless with an admonition as to future conduct. Barnes was also brought before the Cardinal, as has been before narrated. Latimer too was summoned, but dismissed by Wolsey with very kindly words and a general preaching license, which gave him authority to preach in any part of England. Such was the character of the "persecution" which the antiChurch party underwent at the hands of Wolsey. Some who escaped so easily then, received a very different treatment afterwards at the hands of others. For after the influence of Wolsey had passed away, of heresy the laws against heresy began to be enforced with Wolsey's great rigour, such as had, indeed, never been used successors before, a severity which continued in force for a third of a century, and gives a miserable character to the period. History of heresy laws A short history of these laws will not be unacceptable to the reader before entering upon the account of their practical application and subsequent modification in the last twenty years of the reign of Henry VIII. The correction of misbelievers was originally part 1 "Wolsey's persecution.”—Froude's Hist, Eng., i. 71. ΧΙ of laws of the ordinary jurisdiction of every bishop and it CHAP remained on this footing by the common law of England until the year 1381. The punishments awarded were mostly of a spiritual nature, penance and excom- History munication; but penance mostly included some against bodily infliction, and excommunication entailed civil heresy pains and penalties. In very serious cases of heresy, the bishops appear to have made a practice of carrying them from their own jurisdiction to that of a provincial synod:2 as was done in the notorious cases of Sawtrey, Badby, and Barton, in the years 1400, 1409, and 1416, and of Latimer in 1530. ment of The dreadful sentence of burning alive was for- Punishmerly a familiar one, being always passed on men burning for certain unnatural crimes, and on women for all capital crimes, down to the year 1790.3 Blackstone says, however, that "the humanity of the English nation has authorized, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such parts of these judgments as savour of cruelty, there being very few instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any person being embowelled or burned till previously deprived of sensation by strangling." This mode of punishment was first adopted for heresy in Spain, in the time, and (as is commonly alleged) by the instigation of the founder of the Dominican order, who died A.D. 1221. The third of the Constitutions of Innocent III. (commonly called the Canons of the fourth Council of Lateran, A.D. 1216) decrees that 2 See Bishop Gibson's elaborate note on 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15, in Tit. xvi. cap 1, of his Codex Juris Ecc. Anglican. The last female criminal was burned, for coining, on March 18, 1789, and the execution is des cribed by an eyewitness in Notes 4 Blackstone's Comment., Book XI CHAP convicted heretics shall be given up for punishment to the secular arm, and burning was undoubtedly introduced about that time as the recognised punishment to be awarded. First statute against heretics A.D. 1381 But in England no person is known to have been burned for heresy before the beginning of the fifteenth century, that of the priest Sawtrey being the first on record: nor does any severe bodily punishment appear to have been inflicted until about twenty years before that date, when the first statute on the subject was passed by a parliament held in the fifth year of Richard the Second." This Act of Parliament [5 Rich. II. cap. 5] was levelled against unlicensed preachers, who, without sufficient authority, were accustomed to preach in markets, fairs, and other public places, as well as in churches and churchyards, their sermons "containing heresies and notorious errors to the great emblemishing of the Christian faith, and destruction of the laws and of the estate of Holy Church, to the great peril of the souls of the people, and of all the realm of England." These preachers are charged with engendering "discord and dissension between divers estates of the said realm, as well spiritual as temporal, in exciting the people, to the great peril of all the realm." And, since they will not obey the summons or commandment of the ordinaries, "nor care for their monitions, nor censures of the Holy Church, but expressly despise them," it is enacted that sheriffs and other officers of the King shall arrest such preachers as are proceeded against in 5 The common idea that this act never received the assent of the House of Commons is dis proved by Bp. Gibson: Codex, Tit. xvi. cap. 1. XI burning Chancery by the bishops, and shall "hold them in CHAP arrest and strong prison, till they will justify them according to the law and reason of Holy Church." The effect of this Act was that when a bishop laid an information in Chancery against any of these seditious preachers, the chancellor issued his warrant to the sheriff, who took the accused into custody, and kept him until judgment was passed after a proper legal trial. Another Act of a similar kind, but much more Statute for severe, was passed in the year 1400. This is the heretics famous Statute de hæreticis comburendis [2 Hen. A.D. 1400 IV. cap. 15], by which the English Parliament, not the English Church, introduced into our country the punishment of burning heretics. The preamble of the Act charges the unauthorized preachers with making unlawful conventicles and confederacies, holding schools and writing books in which "they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and, as much as they may, excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection," with subverting the Catholic faith, diminishing God's honour in the land, and destroying "the estate, rights, and liberties of the Church of England." It repeats the declaration of the previous Act that the authority of the bishops is set aside and despised. It then enacts that none shall preach without his bishop's license except in their own churches; that none shall teach or write, either in churches, schools, or conventicles, anything contrary to the Catholic faith; that all existing books of an heretical nature shall be delivered up to the diocesans within forty days, under pain of imprisonment and that any person convicted of teaching such errors may be imprisoned at the dis |