(1) The holy blood of Hayles.' 'Hayles Abbey in Gloucestershire, called also 'Tray' (see Annales Waverl. in anno 1246), was founded by Richard, earl of Cornwall, second son to king John. The building was commenced in 1246, and was completed in 1251. Edmund, earl of Cornwall, son and heir of Richard the founder, having, in his travels in Germany with his father, obtained a portion of a relic, considered to be the blood of our Saviour, gave a third part of it, after his father's death, to this monastery in 1272, occasioning a very increased resort to it. Another portion of this blood he gave to the house of the Bonhommes at Ashridge.' See Dugdale, vol. v. p. 686.- ED. (2) Lowted,' kneeled or bowed.-ED.

(3) Bote,' a recompense or fee.-ED.

Besydes these stockes and stones,

Haue we not had, of late, traytors bones,'
Thus their trompery to maintain?

Whiche is a token, verely,

They go about most earnestly

To bryng in superstition again!

With dyvers other trickes,

Whiche sore in mens' consciences stickes :
But to Christ let us all pray!
To plucke it up, by the hard rote
(Seeing there is none other bote),2
And utterly to banyshe it away.

And now, to make an end:
Lorde! we beseche Thee to sende

Us, peace and tranquillitie;

And, that of thy mere mercy and grace,
Within short tyme and space,

To illumine us with thy sincere veritie !3*

(1) Traytors bones,' the bones of Thomas Becket.-ED.

(2) Bote,' amends, or means of safety.-ED.

(3) Thus ended this little treatise, made and compiled by Gray.

Henry
VIII.

A. D.

1540.

Henry
VIII.

A. D. 1540.

Of the Bible in English, printed in the large Dolume;

AND OF EDMUND BONNER, PREFERRED TO THE BISHOPRIC OF
LONDON BY MEANS OF THE LORD CROMWELL.

About the time and year when Edmund Bonner, bishop of Hereford, and ambassador resident in France, began first to be nominated and preferred, by means of the lord Cromwell, to the bishopric of London, which was A.D. 1540, it happened that the said Thomas lord Cromwell, earl of Essex, procured of the king of England his gracious letters to the French king, to permit and license a subject of The Bible his to imprint the Bible in English within the university of Paris; because paper was there more meet and apt to be had for the doing volume thereof, than in the realm of England, and also that there were more printed In Paris. store of good workmen for the ready dispatch of the same.

of the

greater

great fur

the Bible.

And in like manner, at the same time, the said king wrote unto his ambassador, who then was Edmund Bonner, bishop of Hereford, lying in Paris, that he should aid and assist the doers thereof in all their Bonner a reasonable suits: the which bishop, outwardly, showed great friendthere in ship to the merchants that were the imprinters of the same; and, printing moreover, did divers and sundry times call and command the said persons to be in a manner daily at his table, both dinner and supper; and so much rejoiced in the workmanship of the said Bible, that he himself would visit the imprinter's house, where the same Bibles were printed, and also would take part of such dinners as the Englishmen there had, and that to his cost, which, as it seemed, he little weighed. And further, the said Bonner was so fervent, that he caused the said The New Englishmen to put in print a New Testament in English and Latin, Testa- and himself took a great many of them, and paid for them, and gave English them to his friends. And it chanced in the meantime, while the said Bible was in printing, that king Henry VIII. preferred the said print by Bonner from the bishopric of Hereford, to be bishop of London; at Bonner which time the said Bonner, according to the statute law of England, bishop of took his oath to the king, acknowledging his supremacy, and called

ment in

and Latin put in

Bonner.

made

London.

one of the aforesaid Englishmen that printed the Bible, whom he then loved, although afterwards, upon the change of the world, he did hate him as much, whose name was Richard Grafton; to whom the said Bonner said, when he took his oath, "Master Grafton, so it is, that the king's most excellent majesty hath, by his gracious gift, presented me to the bishopric of London; for the which I am sorry, for, if it would have pleased his grace, I could have been well content to have kept mine old bishopric of Hereford." Then said Grafton, "I am right glad to hear of it, and so I am sure will be a great number of the city of London; for though they yet know you not, yet they have heard so much goodness of you from hence, as no doubt Bonner they will heartily rejoice of your placing." Then said Bonner, “I eth pray God I may do what may content them. And to tell you, Stokesley Master Grafton, before God (for that was commonly his oath), the cuting. greatest fault that ever I found in Stokesley was, for vexing and

reprov

for perse

troubling of poor men, as Lobley the bookbinder, and others, for having the Scripture in English; and, God willing, he did not so

(1) The doers hereof were Richard Grafton and Whitchurch.