VIII. Henry mess, a dish of the best unto them; and indeed so did, albeit the said Damlip refused that offer, showing his lordship that thin diet was A. D. most convenient for students. Yet could not that restrain him, but that every meal he sent it. 1539 to Damlip transub tion and church. This godly man, by the space of twenty days or more, once every 1544. day, at seven of the clock, preached very godly, learnedly, and preacheth plainly, the truth of the blessed sacrament of Christ's body and blood, against mightily inveighing against all papistry, and confuting the same; stantia but especially those two most pernicious errors or heresies, touching the transubstantiation, and the pestilent propitiatory sacrifice of the Romish Romish mass, by true conference of the Scriptures, and applying of the ancient doctors; earnestly therewith oftentimes exhorting the people to return from their popery; declaring how popish he himself had been, and how, by the detestable wickedness that he did see universally in Rome, he was returned so far homeward, and now became an enemy, through God's grace, to all-papistry: showing therewith, that if gain or ambition could have moved him to the contrary, he might have been entertained of cardinal Pole (as you have heard before); but, for very conscience' sake, joined with true knowledge, grounded on God's most holy word, he now utterly abhorred all papistry, and willed them most earnestly to do the same. The idolatrous pageant of the resurrec sumptu Commis sion sent from the king to : And thus he continued awhile reading in the chapter-house of the White Friars; but, the place being not big enough, he was desired to read in the pulpit and so, proceeding in his lectures (wherein he tion most declared how the world was deceived by the Roman bishops, who ously pic had set forth the damnable doctrine of transubstantiation, and the in Calais real presence in the sacrament, as is aforesaid), he came, at length, to speak against the pageant or picture set forth of the resurrection, which was in St. Nicholas's church, declaring the same to be but mere idolatry, and an illusion of the Frenchmen before Calais was English. Upon which sermon or lecture, there came a commission from the king to the lord deputy, Master Greenfield, sir John Butler commissary, the king's mason, and Smith, with others, that they should search whether there were (as was put in writing, and under bull and pardon) three hosts lying upon a marble stone besprinkled with blood; and if they found it not so, that immediately it should be plucked down; and so it was. For in searching thereof, as they brake up a stone in a corner of the tomb, they, instead of the three hosts, found soldered in the cross of marble lying under the sepulchre, three plain white counters, which they had painted like unto hosts, and a bone that is in the tip of a sheep's tail. All which trumpery Damlip showed unto the people the next day following, which was Sunday, out of the pulpit, and, after that, they were sent by the lord deputy to the king. search out the false jug gling of this idolatry at Calais. Three painted counters instead of three hosts. Notwithstanding, the devil stirred up a Dove (he might well be called a cormorant), the prior of the White-Friars; who, with sir Gregory Buttoll, chaplain to the lord Lisle, began to bark against him. Yet, after the said Adam had, in three or four sermons, confuted the said friar's erroneous doctrine of transubstantiation, and of the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass; the said friar outwardly seemed to give place, ceasing openly to inveigh, and secretly practised to impeach him by letters sent unto the clergy here in England; so VIII. to 1544. Damlip that, within eight or ten days after, the said Damlip was sent for to Henry appear before the archbishop of Canterbury, with whom was assistant Stephen Gardiner bishop of Winchester, Dr. Sampson bishop of A. D. Chichester, and divers others, before whom he most constantly affirmed 1539 and defended the doctrine which he had taught, in such sort answering, confuting, and solving the objections, that his adversaries, yea even among others, the learned, godly and blessed martyr Cranmer, sent for then yet but a Lutheran, marvelled at it, and said plainly, that the to appear Scripture knew no such term of "transubstantiation." Then began council in the other bishops to threaten him, shortly to confute him with their Threataccustomed argument (I mean fire and faggot), if he would still stand ened by to the defence of that he had spoken: whereunto he constantly shops. answered, that he would the next day deliver unto them fully so much in writing as he had said, whereunto also he would stand; and so was dismissed. before the England. the bi warned to void. The next day, at the hour appointed to appear, when they looked secretly surely to have apprehended him, in the mean season he had secret intimation from the archbishop of Canterbury, that if he did any more personally appear, he should be committed unto ward, not likely to escape cruel death. Whereupon he (playing indeed then somewhat old Adam's part, for such is man, left in his own hands) had him commended unto them, and sent them four sheets of paper learnedly written in the Latin tongue, containing his faith, with his arguments, conferences of the Scriptures, and allegations of the doctors, by a messenger or friend of his. This done, he, having a little money given him in his purse by his friends, stepped aside, and went into the West country, and there kept all the time, while great trouble kindled against God's people in Calais upon the same; as ye shall hear, the Lord permitting. pion and Garret preach at After his departure, the king's majesty was advertised, that there Dr. was great dissension and diversity of pernicious opinions in his said Cham town of Calais, greatly tending to the danger of the same. Where- Master upon, during yet the days of the lord Cromwell, were sent over Dr. sent to Champion, doctor of divinity, and Master Garret, who after was burned, two godly and learned men, to preach and instruct the people, and to confute all pernicious errors, who in effect preached and maintained the same true doctrine which Adam Damlip had before set forth; and by reason thereof they left the town at their departure very quiet, and greatly purged of the slander that had run on it. After the departure of the said Champion and Garret, one sir William Smith, curate of our Lady's parish in Calais (a man very zealous, though but meanly learned), did begin to preach, and earnestly to inveigh against papistry and wilful ignorance; exhorting inen obediently to receive the word, and no longer to contemn the same, lest God's heavy plagues and wrath should fall upon them, which always followeth the contempt of his holy word. This sir William William Smith, for that sometimes he would be very fervent and zealous, sharply inveighing against the despisers of the word, was and a moved by some of the council there, who would seem to favour God's preacher word, that he should not be so earnest against them that yet could not away with the same; willing him to bear with such, for, by bearing with them, they might hap to be won. Smith, curate. zealous at Calais. Henry 66 "Well, well," said the same Smith (openly in the pulpit one day as he preached), some say I am too earnest, and will me to bear A.D. with such as continue open enemies against Christ's holy gospel, and refuse, nay forbid that any should read the Bible or holy Scripture 1539 to 1544. within their house: but let all such take heed, for, before God, I fear that God, for their contemning of his word, will not long bear with them, but make them in such case as some of them shall not have a head left them upon their shoulders to bear up their cap withal." And indeed, shortly after, so it came to pass; *for sir Nicholas Carew, knight of the most noble order of the Garter, and Master of the King's Horse, being lieutenant of Ruysbanke, before attainted of treason, was, on the third of March, in the 31st year of the reign of Henry VIII., beheaded at Tower-hill; who made a godly and humble confession of his superstitious faith and long contempt of God's holy word; giving God right hearty thanks, that ever he came into the prison of the Tower, where he first felt the sweetness of God's great mercy towards him, and the certainty of his salvation, through faith in Christ, promised in his holy word; the knowledge whereof he had attained unto by the reading of God's holy word, the English Bible, which, all his life before, he disdained to look upon; for whose godly end many men much rejoiced, and gave God hearty thanks for the same.* This Smith continued in the diligent bestowing of his talent there, till, shortly after, the devil got such hold in the hearts of a number of God's enemies, that he, with divers other godly men, was called over into England, and charged with erroneous opinions worthy of great punishment, as hereafter more at large shall appear. * And3 forasmuch as we have entered into the story of Calais, and matters which were done in that town, it cometh to remembrance of one Thomas Brook, an alderman of that town, and burgess of the parliament before mentioned, wherein was concluded, the next year after this, A.D. 1540, the Act of Six Articles, as is before said.* After this bill of the Six Articles had passed the Higher House, and was brought to the burgesses of the Lower House, the lord Cromwell gave intelligence, not only that it was the king's majesty's determinate pleasure to have the bill to pass in sort as it had come down from the Lords, but, also, that if any man should stand against it earnestly, the same should put himself in great danger of his life. Notwithstanding, this Thomas Brook, with great danger and peril of his life, did repugn and refute the said bill, with divers reasons and good ground of Scripture: insomuch that a message came down, by sir N. Pollard, from the lord Cromwell to the said Brook, willing him, as he loved his life, not to speak against the said bill. Notwithstanding, Brook proceeding in his enterprise, the lord Cromwell, meeting him the next time after that, called him unto him, and said, that he never knew man play so desperate a part as to speak against that bill, unless he made a reckoning to be either hanged or burned: "but God," said he, "hath mightily preserved thee; whereof I am glad." (2) Edward Hall says the 30th year.-ED. (1) See Edition 1563, p. 658.-ED. VIII. to 1544. This fear caused men, much against their consciences (such is Henry man's frailty), to establish that act; but yet not in such sort as the bill came down from the Lords. For whereas before, by that first A.D). bill sent down, it was only felony for a priest to have, or to take unto 1539 him, a wife of his own (though St. Paul say that marriage is honourable among all men, and willeth that every man, for the avoiding of fornication, should have his own wife; and, rendering as it were a cause thereof, affirmeth, that it is better to marry than to burn), but no punishment at all was appointed for such shameless whoremongers, incontinent priests, as, contemning holy matrimony, abused themselves both with women married and unmarried: now, upon the said Brook's urging that unless men had better opinion of whoredom than of holy matrimony (called of St. Paul a bed undefiled), it was of necessity to be granted, that at least the incontinent life of priests unmarried, should, by that act, have like pain and punishment as those priests, who, not having the gift of continency, therefore entered into the holy yoke of matrimony. Whereupon the greater part of the House so fully agreed to the equal punishment, that unless it had been made felony, as well for the one as the other, that act had never passed the House; and, therefore, equal punishment was assigned for either of those deeds in that session, though in the next session or parliament after, there was mitigation or qualification of the punishment for the horrible whoredom of priests; the marriage of priests standing still under the danger and punishment limited in the statute afore. The said Brook further spoke to this effect: Part of a Speech delivered by Thomas Brook, in the Lower House, on the Bill of the Six Articles. He required to be certified of them that were learned, how it might be proved by the Scriptures, that God at all commanded laymen to receive the sacrament of his blessed body and blood in one kind (to wit, in material bread), to do it in remembrance of him who shed his blood for the remission of their sins, and to show the Lord's death until his coming if it be so, that in giving this commandment, Bibite ex hoc omnes,'' Drink ye all of this,' no layman at all be included, but, contrariwise, this other kind of sacrament, to wit, the cup, or the material wine, be by God forbidden them: For,' said he, if in that universal proposition, Drink ye all of this, be included every one of that number unto whom Christ, when he took bread in his hand, and gave thanks unto his heavenly Father, did give this commandment, saying, Take ye, eat ye; this is my body; do ye this in remembrance of me: then needs must our clergy grant unto us who be laymen, that either it is lawful for us also, with the priests, to receive the sacrament in both the kinds (that is to wit, both in bread and the cup or wine), or else, that we silly laymen are not commanded to receive the sacrament at all; and, consequently, neither thereby to remember him to be our merciful Saviour, who hath died for remission of our sins, nor to show his death until he come, whereby he declared his most tender love towards us.' Wherefore, if it might not be granted that it was lawful to receive the blessed sacrament in both kinds, he required some authority of Scripture to be brought for the same; alleging further, that albeit, through gross ignorance, contempt of God's holy word, and the insatiable ambition and covetousness of such men as made merchandise of men's souls (affirming in effect that Christ died in vain), that gross and foolish error of transubstantiation hath within this four or five hundred year creeped in, and, as a festered canker, now spread itself abroad in all those places where the bishop of Rome hath established his usurped authority: yet,' said Brook, Henry A. D. 1539 to 1544. 'even unto this day, in all the Greek church that blind error and foolish opinion of transubstantiation hath never been received, and St. Paul himself calleth it bread, after those words which they call the consecration, five times in one chapter neither hath man,' said he, I think, ever heretofore presumed to affirm, that the bread, after the consecration, should be both the body and blood, and the wine both the blood and body, in such sort as either of those kinds divided unto many parts, should, in every of those parts, contain the whole natural body and blood of our Saviour Jesu Christ, as this present act affirmeth. Therefore, before this act do pass, such doubts are to be resolved, whereby many afterwards might incur danger of life, for lack of the plain explication of our meaning of them; as for example: Where this act affirmeth that the wine, after the consecration, is Christ's natural blood and body both, how would our clergy, that the silly unlearned layman should answer, if it were asked him (as it is like enough to be), what he believes to be in the chalice, when the priest holds it over his head. For they make an infusion, you know, of water, and that before the consecration; so that there is a mixture of the water and wine. Whether now shall we affirm the thing which before was water, is now, by the commixion of the wine, turned with the wine into both the natural blood and body of Christ? or else, will it content them that it be answered thus: That the water remaineth water still? 'Divers such doubts might be put, but, to come to an end: If this bill must needs pass as an act, I most heartily wish that first such places of the Scripture, and allegations of holy fathers as the bishops and others, the learned of this realm, do recite in confirmation of this doctrine, those they would vouchsafe to communicate unto this House, to the intent that men who be yet of contrary minds, being overcome by their true conference of the Scriptures, and by strength of arguments, might, without grudge of conscience, agree unto that, which, while they be otherwise minded, they cannot without sin grant unto. And finally, whereas by this act we greatly differ from many christian realms and provinces, all which profess Christ's true religion, and, nevertheless, set not forth these laws at all (much less with such pains of death), I heartily beseech God, it may please the king's majesty, that this whole act, with the conferences of Scriptures, allegation of doctors, and forms of arguments, which our clergy and others, the furtherers of this act, have brought in and affirmed for the establishing of it now for a law, may be truly translated into the Latin tongue; to this intent, that other nations likewise, professing Christ's religion, seeing by those authorities what hath moved this realm to pass this act, either being overcome with our truth, thus lately found out, may be procured to receive the like doctrine, for that they see it sufficiently proved to be sincere and true; or else, seeing us by ignorance to be in error, by refelling or refuting the same as erroneous, may not only reduce us to the truth again, but, also, have cause to judge of this realm, that this act passed not through trust in men's own wits only, without respect had to the holy Scriptures of God, but, as men that had ignorantly fallen, and not obstinately contemned the Scriptures. So will it come to pass, that, if this act be good, the goodness thereof shall be the more common, and, if it be otherwise, it shall do the less hurt, yea and continue the less while, when other men, not in thraldom, or fear of this law, shall freely, and out of good conscience, write and show, what opinion they have of it.' Unto these words of the said Brook, no man took upon him to make any direct answer, but yet, first, one Master Hall, a gentleman of Gray's-inn,' in acknowledging that he was not able to refel the objections made against the bill, for that he lacked learning thereunto, said as followeth : Master Hall, of Gray's Inn, in Reply to Brook. That he would only speak his conscience touching the passing of that bill, which he grounded (he said) upon this: that he had read in chronicles, that some one prince of this realm had, by laws, commanded auricular confession to (1) This Master Hall is named afterwards in the story of Anne Askew. |