In speaking of the Dissolution of the Religious Houses it must be understood that I am considering this momentous step with reference to London only. The influences of the Continental movement; the lessons of history; the turn taken by theological controversy; the unedifying spectacle of Rome in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the talk of scholars; the strength of the conservatism which rallied about the Church at first; the apparent power of the Church, which seemed, indeed, able to crush every opponent, whatever his rank and station;—these things moved not, consciously at least, the man of London. He became acquiescent in the changes imposed upon him by other considerations. And I believe that had not his acquiescence been understood as certain to follow, these changes would not have been attempted. Henry VIII. was the most masterful sovereign of his time; but a king cannot outrage and trample upon the settled religious faith of his subjects. The Old Faith had gone to pieces when Constantine proclaimed the New. The New, in its turn, now grown old and incrustated, and hidden by a thousand additions, superstitions, and superfluities, was in its turn ready for departure, in Northern Europe at least, when Henry effected the separation from Rome which began the Reformation in England.

Among an ignorant and an uncritical people the ancient Faith passed unquestioned—was it not the Faith of all those in authority? Its doctrines were supported less by teaching than by outward forms, ceremonies, pageants, splendours and traditional conventions. In every church the story of the Gospels was partly represented, but overlaid with stories of the Saints; the Christian virtues were never, even at the lowest point of Church History, forgotten, yet their practice had become crystallised; almsgiving was part of the Rule of every Religious Order, but it was indiscriminate; mercy towards the criminal had become a refuge for those who continued in their evil practices under cover of Sanctuary; the tradition of austerity no longer brought respect to the Benedictine; the tradition of self-sacrifice no longer brought love to the Franciscan: to the former, as to the College of All Souls, Oxford, the members were bene nati, and, I believe, for the most part bene morati and moderate docti; in the more secluded religious communities discipline was relaxed and scandals had crept in; for a hundred years and more the people had been gradually ceasing to endow the Religious Houses with bequests. At the commencement of the sixteenth century they had wholly ceased the practice, formerly universal. Monk and Nun; Friar and Sister; Hermit, Anchorite, Anchress, now received no more bequests; of all the Religious Orders none had fallen into disrepute so hopelessly as the Franciscans: they were selling the lead off the roofs of their stately churches; they were selling their sacred vessels of silver gilt; their boxes, hung up in the shops—if the shopkeepers admitted them—received no more offerings; they were insulted in the streets; their numbers were dwindling daily. Now all these things were like an open book in which those who passed along the way might read daily, and did read unconsciously, so that their minds were moulded and directed, they could not tell why or how.

As for the spread of the ideas called Lollardry, one knows not how far they survived the persecution under Henry V. and the disturbances of the Civil Wars. But such ideas, whose strength lies in the exercise of reason, so far as men can reason, do not easily die; the case of Richard Hun (p. 32) shows that they were still alive. The socialistic side of Lollardry had vanished, but some, at least, of the religious side survived.

Yet the old things went on apparently undisturbed. Nothing could surpass the external splendour of a Cardinal Archbishop: no authority was greater in appearance than his. The rich endowments of the greater Abbeys made the Houses magnificent and the Brethren proud, generous, and profuse in hospitality and in alms. Who could be more dignified than the Abbot of St. Peter’s, Westminster? Still the Church seemed to rule in everything: the Fraternities continued; they still attracted members; they still marched in procession, each with its chaplain and its singing men, its banners and its brethren, through the streets on its appointed day; the City Companies were incorporated as Religious as well as Trade Societies; the Manger and the Holy Tomb still adorned the churches on the great Festivals; the Angel still flew over the people from the roof on the Day of Pentecost; the pictures on the wall in every church recorded the martyrdom of the Saint of Dedication and the miracles which commanded his canonisation. No one could have dreamed, no one could have prophesied, when the scholarly young King thundered against Luther that the old order was drawing to its allotted end, and that for Rome, as well as Northern Europe, Reform was at hand.

In many ways the Church had long lost its former hold. No longer were the architects Churchmen; no longer were the bridge builders a distinct fraternity; the lawyers were clerks, indeed, but not in Holy Orders; the King’s Ministers were no longer necessarily of the Clergy; scholars were no longer of necessity ordained priests or deacons; physicians were laymen; the clergy were allowed to practise surgery, provided that they did not use fire or steel—in other words, did not conduct operations; in trade the lending of money—formerly in the hands of the Jews and afterwards in those of the so-called “Caursini,” Italians licensed by the Popes—was now recognised as necessary, and was carried on more or less openly by merchants; in a word, the daily life of the world, which had been shot through and through, like a piece of silk with its coloured threads, by Religion, had long been emancipating itself, by slow and gradual steps, from the control of the Church and the interference of the priest.

How much these things were understood at the time it is not necessary to inquire. Probably the people, who knew no history, had been unconsciously moulded and changed, and were far from realising the great gulf which now divided them from their ancestors.

Yet there were other signs of change, could they have been rightly interpreted. Scholars, like Erasmus, openly derided the adoration of relics; some of them, under new Pagan influence, denied the Christian faith itself; the scholars of France, like Rabelais and Étienne Dolet, scoffed at the Pope and the Papal pretensions; yet Rabelais did not dare to publish in his lifetime the most daring and the most deadly part of his work.

Add to these things the long-standing disaffection towards the Roman authority. For centuries the Pope had been attempting fresh encroachments, claiming new powers, demanding more contributions. All travellers to Rome brought back the same story of corruption and laxity; men asked themselves why they should submit to the oppression of an Italian prince. In 1529 the House of Commons drew up a petition in which, while they did not ask for a change of doctrine, they complained of the independent legislation claimed by Convocation, the number of officers, the exorbitant fees of ecclesiastical courts, the granting of benefices to children, pluralities, non-residence and other grievances. Surely such a man as Wolsey must have discerned in all these symptoms a warning, clear and loud, that their house must be set in order. Perhaps not, however: nothing is more difficult than for the ecclesiastical mind to see, outside its fences of doctrine and usage, the questioning people, and to hear and understand the awakened mind.

The action of Henry, which, on the face of it, seems the most masterful thing ever attempted by a king, was, on the contrary, approved and accepted by the great mass of the people; especially by the people of London, by the scholars, and by the clergy. There were few who emulated the constancy of the unfortunate Carthusians or the martyrdom of More and Fisher; the old order crumbled and fell to pieces at a touch; out of the dÉbris, among the fallen monarchs of the forest, rose up a tangled mass of vegetation, from which the nobler kinds had to be separated by trial and proof, by persecution and by cultivation.

The first direct step towards the Reformation was, assuredly, not considered as such. It was the suppression by Cardinal Wolsey of certain small houses with whose revenues he endowed his Colleges.

The second direct step was the Petition of the House of Commons, which also passed the Upper House, in 1529.

In January 1531 the House of Commons, in demanding of the clergy the payment of £118,000—an enormous sum, representing more than a million of our money—gave Henry the title of Head of the Church. This was before the break with Rome; so far it meant only that the civil power should be superior to the ecclesiastical.

Then followed the Bill for the abolition of annales or payment to the Pope of the first year’s income of benefice or see. This was at first held in terrorem over the head of the Pope.

The divorce of Katherine and the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn in spite of the opposition of the Pope completed the separation. Henceforth the King was Head of the Church within his own realm.

It was to show to the whole world that he was in earnest and that he meant indeed to be Head of the Church, that Henry caused the execution of the Carthusian monks, of Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. All Christendom shuddered when those holy men were dragged forth to suffer the degrading and horrible death of traitors; yet all Christendom recognised that there was a King in England who would brook no interference, who knew his own mind, and would work his own will.

I need not follow the course and the development of the Reformation, for its history belongs to the whole country. As regards London, two or three points present themselves for consideration: as, for instance, the condition of the Houses; the manners and morality of the Religious; and the mind of the people.

Let us consider these points from the position of a contemporary Londoner, so far as is possible. First, as to the condition of the Houses.

The enormous wealth of the Church could not fail to impress every one with the incongruity of ecclesiastical professions and practices. The sight of those scores of able-bodied men, most of them with no pretensions to be considered scholars, or divines, or even gentlemen—a qualification which, at the time, might have been sufficient justification for living on the work of others—but men of low origin and of narrow attainments, lounging about the streets and in the taverns—some, as the friars, with no apparent duties at all; some, like the chantry priests, with half an hour’s work every day; many of them without the least pretence to piety or virtue—could not but become a powerful aid in the popular approval of the Dissolution. In London alone, a very large part of the City belonged to the Church. The streets swarmed with ecclesiastics who, in the midst of a busy and industrial population, seemed idle and useless.

In the Italian Relations of England the writer speaks of the vast wealth of the Church and the power of the ecclesiastics. “I for my part,” he says, “believe that the English priests would desire nothing better than what they have got, were it not they are obliged to assist the Crown in time of war, and also to keep many poor gentlemen, who are left beggars in consequence of the inheritance devolving to the eldest son. And if the Bishops were to decline this expense they would be considered infamous, nor do I believe that they would be safe in their own churches.”

There is surely some confusion here. It is true that younger sons attached themselves to the following of the great Lords Spiritual as well as Temporal, but I have nowhere else found it stated that it was the duty of the Church to keep them. Also many of them, as we have seen, had City connections and embarked in trade. For “Church” we should perhaps read “the Monastic Houses.”

If we come to consider the condition of the Religious on the score of morality, all that can be said concerning those of London is that we hear nothing against them. It is true that the details of the Visitations of London have not been revealed. But there could not have been anything very bad, or it would have been laid hold of and enlarged upon, and pointed out for the execration of the people, by the preachers of the new religion.

Froude, in his paper on the Dissolution of the Monasteries, argues that the evidence of immorality on the part of certain Religious Houses is overwhelming. His case against that of St. Albans is certainly convincing, so far as that House alone is concerned. And it is difficult not to believe that in other cases about the country the evidence of the visitors, even granting that their own private character left a good deal to be desired, is much too detailed for pure invention.

But, as regards the Religious of London, I am not aware that there is any evidence to prove that they were either notoriously or secretly corrupt or luxurious. Considering the pristine standard of the Rule, they were doubtless degenerate, just as in a College of Oxford or Cambridge fifty years ago, the Fellows who should have carried on the lamp of learning spent their time in the study of Port and the practice of Whist. Father Gasquet argues in favour of the whole body of nuns—London or country—when he cites the case of Sister Joan. In the year 1535 the Archbishop of York visited a certain convent in his diocese and learned that one of the nuns had been guilty of unchastity. He inflicted upon her a sentence of great severity: she was to be kept in prison for two years, without speaking to any one but the Prioress; she was to fast altogether on Wednesday and Friday; and on every Friday she was to be taken to the Chapter House, there to receive discipline—i.e. to be whipped. Is it possible, Father Gasquet asks, that the nunneries of England could be grossly and openly immoral—even secretly immoral—when such a severe punishment was meted out to an offender by the visiting archbishop? One might point out that a severe punishment may tell of two things: either of horror at a rare and heinous offence, or of a determination, by severe measures, to put down a too frequent breaking of the vows of chastity.

Concerning, therefore, the morals of the London Religious, there has been no special charge, so far as I know, brought against the whole body. We may remember, however, that the number of persons bound by vows of celibacy was very large; that even at the present time, when there is certainly more self-restraint, it would be impossible for these vows to be kept by so large a proportion of the people; and that the clergy, in morals and in practice, have never been more than a little in advance of the laity.

The many acts of unchastity of which one reads in the books were perhaps scattered and solitary instances. I refer, however, to certain documents which prove, not the common prevalence of vice, but relaxation of the Rule. They are a collection of papers, the charges of Langland, Bishop of Lincoln, early in the sixteenth century, published in ArchÆologia (vol. xlvii.). They point to laxity, not to vice.

The first is a charge to the Abbess and Convent of Elstow, near Bedford. In this House the Sisters, instead of assembling in the Fratry for their meals, were accustomed to gather together in what they called their “Households”; apparently messes of two or more, at which secular men, women, and children were allowed to be present. This has to be amended. Henceforth they may repair to the Misericorde, but only one or two at a time, and then under charge of an elderly sister. Their attendance at the services in the “Quire” has become irregular, henceforth they are all to attend every service; they are not to look about the church upon the people during service, for which purpose a door is to be constructed shutting off the choir. They had become irregular about their dress, henceforth they are not to wear their dresses cut low. As for the Lady Abbess, she herself is ordered to get up and attend matins with the rest, and not to break her fast nor to sup with the steward or any secular man.

Clearly, a House requiring reformation, yet not blameworthy of the grosser sins.

There was the Priory of Studley, a Benedictine Nunnery in the Parish of Beckley, Oxfordshire, the burial-place of the British Saint Donanverdh, and one of the residences of Richard of Almayn, brother of Henry. The Prioress is warned to dismiss a certain steward, named Marten Whighill; she is not to suffer her ladies to become godmothers, nor to go out on visits to their kinsfolk “onles it be for their comforte in tyme of ther syknesse, and yett nott then onlesse it shal seme to you, ladye priores, to be behoveful and necessarye, seeing that undre such pretence muche insolency have bene used in religion.” Considering, further, that the House is in great debt, the Prioress is to grant no more corrodies, i.e. right of board and lodging in the House; to have fewer servants; and to live “in a scarcer manour.” She is to look more carefully after the food of the Sisters; she is to see that they wear their robes; and she is to admit more ladies.

The Prioress of Cotham, in Lincolnshire, is to see that there is more order in the singing of the novices. This House has grown very lax. The kinsfolk of the Sisters were no longer to be admitted; the Chaplain was not to be allowed the key of the church; the Lord of Misrule was not to be admitted at Christmas. Then, some of the Sisters had been allowed to go out into the world under pretence of pilgrimage, which license had caused great scandals. Henceforth they were not to be allowed out of the House for the night, nor out of the House at all unless accompanied by a devout Sister. Again, the Sisters had been allowed to go on visits to Thornton, Newsome, Hull (where there were other nunneries), and the Bishop speaks strongly of the reproach, rebuke, and shame which the rumours of their conduct had brought upon them. This House is the worst case of the four. Certain persons named are absolutely forbidden within the walls. Sir John Warde, Sir Richard Calverley, Sir William Johnson, the Parson of Skotton, and Sir William Sele, are those who have brought upon themselves by their misconduct this prohibition. Lastly, since the House had been reduced to miserable poverty, the Prioress must diminish her servants, grant no more corrodies, sell no more plate, and get the necessary repairs effected as speedily as possible.

The last of the charges is one to the Abbot of Missenden, in Buckinghamshire. This House, also, has fallen into poverty; there must be a diminished number of servants and a simpler table; there must be no more granting of corrodies; the House must be put into repair. There was no school for the novices; a man learned in grammar must be appointed at once; the boys must be kept apart; in future the monks must not be allowed to wander about outside, day and night, as had been the case. And no women were to be admitted either by day or by night. John Compton was to be turned out of the monastery at once—he was probably the steward; and Dom John Slithurst was to be put in prison and kept there.

These accounts indicate very clearly the decay of discipline in the Houses. The Prioress eats and drinks with her steward; the Sisters entertain their kinsfolk within the walls; the church plate is sold to pay debts; the Sisters get outside on any pretext—then come scandals. Certain persons are so much mixed up with these scandals that they must never be allowed within the House at all; the Sisters adopt as much of the fashions of the world as they can; they shirk the services; they relieve the monotony of their lives by going on pilgrimages. As to the monks they get out alone, all night long. What scandals made the Bishop so determined upon keeping women out of the House altogether? And what had Dom Slithurst done, more than his fellows, that he was to be clapped into prison and kept there?

It will be replied that these are all Houses in the country. That is quite true; yet I think that, considering the attacks on the Religious; the decay of the Friars; the withdrawal of bequests from monks and friars alike,—the London Houses must have been open at least to charges of laxity; and I would not press against them anything more severe. In the admonition of the Dean of St. Paul’s to the Nuns of St. Helen’s, laxity, not vice, was the principal complaint. Those who believe that graver charges might be brought may read the famous accusation against the Abbot of St. Albans—a thing, to my mind, impossible to get over. True, St. Albans is not London, which is a saving clause.

Enough about the condition of the Houses and the morality of the Religious. I hear certain whispers where men congregate: they murmur—tacenda. I have no proof that they are true; but I understand that the holiness of the Religious is no longer accepted as a matter of course; it is enough for one that this is so. The work of the Houses is done when the people no longer desire the prayers of brethren inclusi, and sisters immured; and no longer expect the pristine devotion of the Friars.

The suppression of the Religious Houses and its immediate effects in London are passed over by Stow, in his Survey, with great brevity. It is a pity; we should like so much to have a clear understanding of how the people at large received these measures. Now this historian was born in 1525; he could remember, therefore, not only the Dissolution, but also the condition of the City under the old rÉgime. It is much to be lamented, further, that though he could find time and space to give whole pages to the Coronation of Anne Boleyn, he could not give more than a brief note on the suppression of one House after another. He remembered the Franciscans going in and about everywhere in their grey gowns; the Dominicans in black; the Carmelites in white; he remembered the riding apparel of the monks; he remembered—he notices, in fact—the hospitality of the richer houses; he remembered the stately churches towering above the humble parish churches, as Westminster above St. Margaret’s; St. Augustine’s over Peter le Poor; the Holy Trinity over St. Catherine Cree; their peals of bells; their organs; their treasures of gold and silver plate; their church furniture, sumptuous with cloth of gold and velvet. He remembered the splendour, wealth, authority, and power of the old ecclesiastics. Their authority seemed rooted in the solid rock, never to be destroyed; and he remembered how this substantial ecclesiastical structure vanished at a word, at a touch, leaving behind it nothing but ruined cloisters; churches desecrated; carvings and marbles broken up. In his old age he sat alone and marvelled over these things. But he spoke not. Perhaps it was dangerous, even for a historian, to speak—Stow had already been accused of being a favourer, at least, of the old Order; regrets were accounted traitorous; sympathy with the outcast monk was heresy—or, which was as dangerous, was lÈse MajestÉ. Not every one desired the crown of martyrdom: to most people it was disagreeable to be burned—one would avoid this method of extinction if possible; almost as disagreeable was it to be dragged on a hurdle, half hanged, cut down, and then quartered. So Stow wrote nothing about the old time as compared with that which followed.

In a single passage, however, Stow does allow us to understand something of his opinion as to the whole business. No doubt many people looked about for some mark of the Divine displeasure upon those who took an active part in the Dissolution. To this day, certain persons whisper about the families which succeeded to the monastic houses; if anything happens to them it is put down to the vengeance which must be expected to follow upon the sacrilegious occupation of monastic property; nothing is said, of course, as to the long prosperity which has attended most of the families which still occupy the old monastic lands.

“About such time as Cardinall Wolsey was determined to erect his new Colledges in Oxford and Ipswich, he obtayned licence and authoritie of Pope Clement the Seventh to suppresse about the number of fortie Monasteries of good fame, and bountifull hospitalitie, wherin the King bearing with all his doings, neyther Bishop nor temporall Lorde in this Realme durst saye any worde to the contrarie.

In the executing of this business, five persons were his chiefe instruments, who on a time made a demaunde to the Prior and Convent of the Monasterie of Daintrie, for occupying of certayne of theyr groundes, but the Monkes refusing to satisfie their requests, streightway they picked a quarrel agaynst the house, and gave information to the Cardinall agaynste them, who taking a small occasion, commaunded the house to bee dissolved, and to bee converted to hys new Colledge, but of thys irreligious robberie, done of no conscience, but to patch up pride, whiche private wealth coulde not furnishe, what punishmente hath since ensued at God’s hande (sayeth myne Author) partly ourselves have seene, for of those fyve persons, two fell at discorde betweene themselves, and the one slewe the other, for the which the survivor was hanged; the thirde drowned himselfe in a well; the fourth beeing well knowne, and valued worth two hundred pounde, became in three yeares so poore, that hee begged to hys dying day; and the fifth called Doctor Allane, beeyng chiefe executor of these doyngs, was cruelly maymed in Irelande, even at suche tyme as hee was a Bishop; the Cardinall falling after into the King’s greevous displeasure, was deposed, and dyed miserably; the Colledges whiche hee meante to have made so glorious a building, came never to good effect; and Pope Clement himselve, by whose authoritie these houses were throwne downe to the ground was after enclosed in a dangerous siege within the Castell of Saint Angell in Rome by the Emperialles; the Citie of Rome was pitifully sacked; and himselfe narrowly escaped with his life.”

I have repeatedly spoken of the falling off in bequests to the various Religious Orders during the hundred years preceding the Reformation. The fact, indeed, seems to be most important in considering the attitude of the citizens. That it is a fact may be proved by the following table, compiled from the Calendar of Wills. I have already made some extracts from the Wills in proof of the change of popular opinion in this respect; this table considers the fact from another point of view.

Of course we have not, in these pages, all the Wills, nor anything more than a small fraction of the Wills made by the Citizens during the centuries covered by the contents of these two volumes. But they may be taken as representative wills, in whatever manner they present contemporary opinion. Now, as regards bequests to Religious Houses, I have made the following analysis. I take three periods. (1) from 1250 to 1350; (2) from 1350 to 1450; (3) from 1450 to the Dissolution, say 1538; covering nearly three centuries. During these three periods the following is the number of bequests:—

These figures show most unmistakably that the monastic life was no longer regarded as it had been by the people of London. By the friars especially, i.e. by those who could read the signs of the time, it must have been understood that the end was very near. Not the alleged immorality of the Religious, but the decay of their numbers, the wasting of their property, the withdrawal of support by the laity, might have warned those under vows that a change was nigh at hand. I do not suppose that many of them heard this warning. Who could believe, standing in the great church, glittering with lights, with gold and silver, rich with colour, splendid with carved work, that the axe was already laid to the root?

The people of London were not, it is true, consulted. Henry was not the kind of man to consult the illiterate on points of Theology or Spiritual Government. They were, however, filled with a vague unrest of new ideas; we know not what survivals of the old Lollardry lingered and were whispered about, or spoken openly; we know not how widely the ballads and satirical verses against monks and friars were repeated and sung and made the subject of merriment in the taverns. We do know, however, that the King ordered and that the people of London obeyed. I think it incredible that even the most masterful of English kings should have dared to force changes so radical upon an unwilling city. London was never remarkable for meekness, and in matters religious was never uncertain. The King must have known that the people of London, at least, would be with him. London, therefore, obeyed; the people looked on while the Pope of Rome vanished; they made no protest when they saw Monks, Nuns, and Friars turned out of doors and their Houses closed; they looked on without a murmur even when the Carthusians were dragged to a horrible doom. Was this callousness? Was it fear? Was it acquiescence in the Revolution, with the hope of larger things to follow? For my own part, looking at the attitude of the citizens during the successive reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, I think there can be no doubt as to the general opinion at the time, and that it was from the outset in favour of the Dissolution of the Houses and the Dispersion of the Religious; in favour of denying the authority of the Pope; eager for the free readings of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue and for the right of that private interpretation which seems so easy to the illiterate. As regards ritual, the changes, as will be explained later, were gradual; the introduction of distinctive Protestant doctrine was not brought about in a day; the genesis of the Puritanic spirit does not belong to the Revolution under Henry.

Let us endeavour to realise something of the extraordinary change which the Suppression of the Houses brought about in London. Fortunately the work was carried on by successive Acts, covering a period of fifteen years or so; it was not until 1548, for instance, that the whole of the chantries, colleges, etc., were suppressed.

The point of departure is, naturally, the expulsion and the dispersion of the Religious of all Orders. At this point most historians stop. Yet this was only the beginning.

Consider, then, the number of those turned out of the London Houses. We may arrive at an approximation of the number by the following considerations. There were 202 Houses, not counting Friaries, dissolved in 1538–1540.

They contained, in all, 3221 Monks and Canons. This gives an average of 16 Brethren to each House. Now there were in London some twenty Houses great and small—say from St. Peter’s, Westminster, to Jesus Commons. In the same proportion there would thus be 300 Monks and Canons. In the same proportion, also, there would be about a fourth of that number of Nuns. Now, these monks and nuns were not sent out into a cold world empty-handed. Not at all. They received pensions. The nuns of St. Helen’s, for instance, received pensions of £2:14:4 each. The chantry priests of the same place, whose stipends had been £6:13:4 and £7 respectively, obtained pensions of £5 each. We must, in fact, put aside altogether the generally received notion of the Dissolution as an Act which drove thousands of holy men and women out of their homes—abodes of piety and virtue—to starve. There was no starvation at all: the pensions though small were intended to be sufficient; we have therefore the fact that some 400 Religious of London were made to lay down the habit of their Profession and to go forth into the world on pensions large enough to maintain them. What became of them? Many of the older monks and nuns doubtless felt acutely the change of habit; the loss of the former life—its quiet, its self-centred interests, its community; some of the younger men, we cannot doubt, willingly turned themselves to secular pursuits; some lived quietly, keeping up privately, two or three together, some manner of religious life; some were concealed in the country and a few, perhaps, in town, and led the life of the Rule in a clandestine manner; some, again, the restraint of their vows being withdrawn, ran into excesses and fell into the mire; some haunted taverns, to the disgrace of their former calling. But of suffering or privation I cannot discover that there was much, if any, either for monks or nuns. It is pretended that the pensions were irregularly paid. The evidence seems to me insufficient; in regard to the nuns of St. Helen’s, we have positive evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

The greatest sufferers were, as we have seen, the friars. For them there was no pity; for them there were no pensions; no one believed in them any longer; their day was done. There appeared, a short time ago, a book written by one who had been for twelve years a friar: he came out of the House; he laid down his frock and renounced his vows; and he wrote a book in which he described the life of his late brethren. It is not an exaggerated or an ill-natured book; it is simply a plain statement of the manner of life led by the friars of these days. Looking through its pages one begins unconsciously to consider the friars of the early sixteenth century—the friars in their last days—by the light of this revelation. Now the modern friar is a man of some education and some culture. Take away his education and his culture in order to get at the friar of the Tudor time. Place him in a time much rougher and coarser in manners; give him nothing to do: no work either of mental or physical kind; and to the general futility and unreality of life in a modern friary add the temptations, almost irresistible to the uneducated mind of the ordinary friar, of the world around him. In this way one may succeed, perhaps, in understanding the reasons for the unpopularity of the friars.

It is generally stated that riches flowed in upon the friars as a consequence of the respect in which they were held. That is not the case: they were never rich. They owned a few houses built within the limits of their own precinct, the rent of which went to maintain the fabric of the church, and the service. For themselves the friars possessed no great buildings, except the Church, the Library, and the Hall: and they lived on charity at the end of their time as at the beginning. Wyclyf makes much of their churches. “Freres bylden mony grete churches and costily houses, and cloystris as hit were castels and that withoute nede. Grete houses make not men holy, and onely by holiness is God wel served.”

The friars were not rich, but they were proud: they arrogated power and sanctity for their very robe. Those who died in the Franciscan habit could never, they said, be carried away by the devil. Walsingham, who had, perhaps, the jealousy of a monk, thus wrote of them:—

“The friars, unmindful of their profession, have even forgotten to what end their Orders were instituted; for the holy men their lawgivers desired them to be poor and free of all kind of temporal possessions, that they should not have anything which they might fear to lose on account of saying the truth. But now they are envious of possessors, approve the crimes of the great, induce the commonalty into error, and praise the sins of both; and with the intent of acquiring possessions, they who had renounced possessions, with the intent of gathering money, they who had sworn to persevere in poverty, call good evil and evil good, leading astray princes by adulation, the people by lies, and drawing both with themselves out of the straight path.”

They disappeared. What became of them? It is impossible to say. Some of the Sisters went to Flanders; some of those who were in priests’ orders obtained benefices; some took up honest work; for many, work was impossible. If a man gets to thirty or so without doing any work, it becomes impossible that he should ever do any work.

The Brethren, however, were not the only people who lived upon the revenues of the House. Every Monastic Foundation had its own establishment and was complete in itself. Of course, the superfluity of officers and the general waste of work were, from a modern point of view, deplorable. Every House had its mill, its brewery, its bakery, its still-rooms, its gardens, orchards, fish-ponds, vineyards; its servants of all kinds, including bailiffs, serjeants, scriveners, illuminators, carvers, gilders, singing men, singing schools, huntsmen, farmers, carpenters, plumbers, gardeners, agriculturists, sextons, gate-porters, rent-collectors, lawyers, stewards, and one knows not what besides. When the House was closed all these people were turned adrift, certainly, without pensions. Thousands of families, for these people were not under vows and were married, were suddenly deprived of their means of livelihood. What could they do? The ordinary craftsmen would make shift: their Companies helped them; but the better sort, the scriveners, limners, illuminators, painters, carvers, gilders; the bailiffs, lawyers, stewards,—what could they do? For fifteen years London was flooded with the people of the monasteries turned adrift to find a means of living; they were not people who swelled the ranks of the vagabond and the masterless; they were respectable and honest folk. Their struggles and their sufferings, if we could get at them, must have been very real and, in many cases, very terrible.

There were, next, the people who lived by the making and selling of things no longer wanted under the new order. There were the makers of ecclesiastical vestments and robes; altar cloths; wax tapers; instruments required in the celebration of Mass; crosses and crucifixes; beads, reliquaries, images, and all the “properties” required for the old Faith. Also all those who sold tapers, beads, crosses, images, relics, books of hours, mass books, censers and every kind of church vessel. One has only to look at the shops in the vicinity of a French cathedral to understand the extent of the business when not a single cathedral, but a hundred and fifty parish churches, and monastic chapels, had to be provided for, and when all the people, with one consent, acquiesced in the doctrines, and practised the ritual of the Church.

All these people, thus deprived of their livelihood, were skilled craftsmen. When their occupation was gone, when embroidered altar-cloths, copes and vestments stiff with cloth of gold, carven images, sacred pictures, beads and crosses and crucifixes, were no longer wanted, what could they do? If, at the present day, any single branch of industry is suddenly destroyed, what happens? It is too late for the people concerned to learn another trade. What happened to these unfortunates it is impossible to guess. One thing we know, namely, in general terms, that London was in a miserable condition for a quarter of a century after the Dissolution of the Houses; and we may fairly conclude that not bad trade alone, but also the great number of poor and forlorn creatures who had been hurled by the Reformation from comfort to penury, was one cause of the depression.

Or, if we consider the immediate external effects of the Suppression; think of the unwonted silence, when all the bells of all the Monastic Houses were taken down: instead of the melodious pealing from forty chapels, there was left only the sorry tinkle of the parish bell.

From the streets disappeared all the friars: those of St. Francis, of St. Dominic, of St. Augustine, the Carmelites, and those with the Iron Cross. The old familiar figures had been diminishing in numbers, but they were still visible when the end came: still they went about, opening their money-boxes in the shops, and finding nothing. Afterwards one met, flitting along the streets, stray and forlorn figures clad like craftsmen, but knowing no craft; sturdy beggars who would not work; men and women turned out into the stony-hearted streets, filled with rage and bitterness; looking always for the restoration of the old Order and their own return to the quiet house of ease and comfort. Gone, too, were the servants of the Houses; they had been known by the badge upon their shoulders; gone was the vast army of chantry priests, subdeacons, and ecclesiastics, with all the minor Orders. When Queen Mary restored the ancient Faith the priests appeared again, leaping out from unknown dens and secret places, ready to resume suddenly the restored service before the newly adorned altar. And as London always attracted the masterless and the vagabond and the criminal, so from all parts of England flocked to the City those whom the Reformation had sent out homeless and penniless. The clergy, for their part, lost the greater part of their fees. The baptisms, marriages, and funerals, it is true, continued, but the fees for masses to be said for the dead—the most important part of the fees—the endowments of chantries, post obits, and memorial days, were all swept away. There were many chantry priests in every parish church. Why, only a few years before the Reformation, on the death of Lady Jane Seymour, Sir Richard Gresham ordered 1200 masses to be sung in the City churches for the repose of her soul. And when prayers for the dead were forbidden, and what had been an aristocratic Heaven, open especially to the rich because they could buy their entrance by masses, became a democratic Heaven, open to the poor and lowly as much as to the high and mighty, the loss to the clergy from this source was very great. There was also another loss in the abolition of pilgrimage, and another in the abolition of confession, penance, and extreme unction.

As for the people, they had their losses to deplore as well as their gains to rejoice over. They were deprived, for instance, of the most splendid and gorgeous spectacle open to them, the services of the Church with the rolling music of the organ, the singing of the choir, the chanting of the priests; with the illumination of the altar; the fragrance of the incense; the pictures on the wall; the brilliant side chapels; the many votive candles; the sculptured saints; and all that appealed to the eye and to the ear. That service had been performed by moving figures, they seemed not men, in wondrous robes set off by the bright lights. It was a service at which the hearts of men and women with imagination were daily, keenly, sincerely moved and led heavenward. All this they had to give up. In its place they were offered a cold and quiet service with a sermon an hour long, appealing to their reason and bidding them base their faith on logic and argument instead of the authority and the Voice of the Church, inviting them to trust in right doctrine rather than in the Fold of Christ. The service had been the chief instructor in art, music, and Æsthetics. When it was gone what had they left? There were no more pictures for the people; there was no more grand and solemn music for them; only the tinkling of the mandoline in the tavern, or the “noise” of the whifflers who marched before a prisoner; there was nothing else for them. Mary’s martyrs made them hate the name of Catholic; they pelted her chaplains in the street; they hung up a dog, head shorn, to mock the tonsure; they hung up a cat with a wafer in its paws to mock the Elevation of the Host. Yet though they were no longer Catholics it cannot be maintained that they had got very far in Protestantism.

Some of the ancient forms remained: it still continued the duty of every Christian, as it has always been the duty of every follower of the Roman Church, to attend service on Sunday morning, and to communicate on the great festivals of Easter, Christmas, Trinity, and Whit Sunday. The fast days remained: no flesh could be sold; the butchers’ shops were closed; none could be eaten on Fridays or in Lent; there were some who followed the ancient austerities so far as to fast on Wednesday as well. All classes, high and low, rich and poor, were constantly engaged in reading the New Testament for proofs of new doctrine, and the Old Testament for examples and for warnings. In every ale-house the men wrangled on points of doctrine over their pots; the women in the doorways discussed obscure points in the teaching of St. Paul; there were none so ignorant as not to be able to formulate a whole body of doctrines; in every barber’s shop there was a Bible; already men had begun to set up strange and absurd teachings, in their ignorant and fond attempts to discern the Truth in a weak translation; already some had begun to go about in sad-coloured garments, without ornament, colour, or decoration, even with texts ostentatiously bound round their hats or their sleeves, like the phylacteries of the Pharisees.

In London the better sort of people towards the end of the century became infected with Puritanism. Puritans were known by their outward and visible signs: they wore texts on their arms; they hated starch and had limp cuffs; they wore no hatbands; they would not curl their hair, but carried it lank; those who were shopkeepers always had a Bible open on the counter; they hated the theatre and all other amusements; in church they would have no organ; they used strange words, calling, for instance, godfather and godmother “witnesses”; they spoke of Christ-tide instead of Christmas; whole trades in London went “solid” for Puritanism, e.g. the feathermen of Blackfriars; they were intolerant and fanatic; they desired above all things to abolish Episcopacy. They showed their opinions by their manner of singing, which was without the accompaniment of organs, and by slowly drawling their words. The Puritans would not greatly care for irreverence in St. Paul’s: they gave no reverence to a consecrated place; yet they went to church in order to worship and to hear godly sermons. Therefore they could not look on unmoved when they saw St. Paul’s crowded with people who went there in order to transact business, to buy and sell, to talk, to quarrel, to fight, to make assignations or to keep them, to display fine dress, to be hired in service.

To a certain class, the larger class, otherwise the thing would have been impossible; these changes were welcomed with the greatest joy because they declared and emphasised the revolution of religious thought. For the majority the pendulum had swung round from the faith and trust in the Fold of the Church, to the sense of individual responsibility. The pendulum is always swinging backwards and forwards. In our own time we have witnessed a partial return to the belief in a Fold. The cold service with its long sermon of doctrine; the private study of the Scriptures; the exercise of individual judgment, free though unlettered, upon points of doubt and apparent contradiction;—all formed part of the same movement and appealed to the majority.

At the same time there was another section to whom these things were hateful and horrible and blasphemous. This was the class which was ready to forget the old grievances, the intolerable burden of Church property; the multitudes who lived in sloth, as it appeared; the wide difference between practice and profession; and thought only, as so many at the present day think, of the haven of safety promised to the faithful; the beauty, splendour, and stateliness of the service; the ecstasy of the believer; the yielding of spirit before the Ineffable Presence; the visible power and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. These people looked and prayed daily for a return of the old Faith; they were recusants under Elizabeth; they concealed the priests who came over to concoct their conspiracies; they were Romanists first and Englishmen next, until the horrors of the persecution in Flanders, of the massacres in France, and the designs of the Spaniards upon England, made them Englishmen first and Catholics next.

An irreparable loss to the world was the wholesale destruction of the libraries. Printing, an invention of no longer standing than fifty years, had as yet produced comparatively few books. When, for instance, the learned Anthony Brockby had written his book Ad Fratres against the King’s Supremacy, he did not get it printed, but had a duplicate copy made, which he presented to the Franciscans, his brothers. By far the greater part of theology, philosophy, science, and literature remained in MS., and these MSS. formed the Monastic Libraries. When the Houses were suppressed, those who obtained them as a gift from the King for the most part cared nothing about the books: they were dispersed without any consideration for their use or value; if they were well bound, the covers were pulled off and the books thrown away, or turned into waste paper. Thus John Bale writes (Antiq. English Franciscans):—

“Covetousness was at that time so busy about private interest, that public wealth was not anywhere regarded. A number of them which purchased those superstitious Mansions reserved of those Library Books some to serve their Jakes, some to scowr their candlesticks, and some to rub their Boots, and some they sold the Grocers and Soap sellers, and some they sent over sea to the Bookbinders: not in small number, but, at times, whole ships full. Yea, the Universities of this Realm are not all clear in this Fact; but cursed is the belly which seeks to be fed with so ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his natural country. I know a Merchant man (which shall at this time be nameless) that bought the Contents of two noble Libraries for forty shillings price; a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied, instead of grey paper, by the space of more than these ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. A prodigious example is this, and to be abhorred of all men which love their nation as they should do. Yea, what may bring our realm to more shame and rebuke than to have it noised abroad that we are despisers of learning? I judge this to be true, and utter it with heaviness, that neither the Britons under the Romans and Saxons, nor yet the English people under the Danes and Normans had ever such damage of their learned Monuments as we have seen in our time. Our posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of England’s most noble Antiquities.”... “How many admirable manuscripts of the Fathers, Schoolmen, and Commentators were destroyed by this means? What number of historians of all ages and Countries? The Holy Scriptures themselves, as much as these Gospellers pretended to regard them, underwent the fate of the rest. If a Book had a cross on it it was condemned for Popery, and those with lines and circles were interpreted the Black Art and destroyed for Conjuring. And thus, as Fuller goes on, Divinity was profaned, Mathematicks suffered for Corespondence with Evil Spirits, Physick was maimed, and a Riot committed on the Law itself.”

One change, one result, of the Suppression, everybody can understand. This was the closing of the Hospitals. London was full of Hospitals, but they were Religious Houses. St. Bartholomew’s, attached to the Priory; St. Thomas’, Southwark; St. Mary Spital; Elsing Spital for the blind; St. Mary of Bethlehem for the insane; the House on Tower Hill also for the insane; the House of St. Augustine Papey for old priests; the Infirmary in every Monastic House;—all these provided for the sick poor. I have no doubt, though on the subject I have no information, that the Companies, which certainly took care of their sick and their infirm, must have done so through the existing Hospitals. When the Houses were closed, what became of the sick? It is commonly believed that they were turned into the street, no one caring for them. This was certainly not the case. The Companies cared for their own; the City cared for its freemen and their families; would the City, which maintained a debtors’ prison for its freemen, so that they should not be confined with the general herd, suffer its sick and poor to starve? There was a residuum of those who were not free, namely, the vagabonds and masterless men and women. For them there was a time of great misery; when they were ill there was no one to visit them; no hospital where they might be taken; no hands to minister and alleviate; no voice to console and to fortify. And we know nothing, and cannot estimate the suffering because there were no journalists to publish the things they saw; and the sick and poor lay unheeded and starved, and died unknown and uncared for in the dirt and misery of the Tudor slum.

There is no doubt, also, that the open house kept by such a monastery as the Holy Trinity, where the poor received every day the broken meat and a great deal more, was greatly missed and deplored by the whole company of the masterless. What with daily open house at the greater monasteries, the broken meats of the smaller, the doles and charities of the parish, the “mind days” with their loaves and gifts to the poor, bequeathed by rich citizens, a family which objected to work might rub along in solid and well-fed comfort all the year round. And this resource, looked upon as certain and unfailing like a perennial spring, was suddenly stopped. Then all these people had to work, or to beg, or to rob. The streets became pestered with sturdy beggars: the by-places of Elizabethan Literature present most vivid pictures of the companies of beggars, impostors, rogues and vagabonds. They were the people whom the monks and nuns had fed without asking questions; the folk who would not work; the people turned out of the monasteries; ex-friars; ex-chantry priests; former makers of images, crucifixes, beads, candlesticks and the rest: these were the people who felt most bitterly the abolition of indiscriminate charity and the cruel choice offered them under the new order of work; mendicancy with the whip, or crime with the gallows.

Out of all these evils and sufferings was born, like a sweet flower on a heap of rubbish, the Spirit of modern Charity.

The Church had taken over to herself the whole of MediÆval charity. Did a citizen desire to help the poor, he gave money for the purpose to the Church. If a poor man wanted help, it was not to a merchant that he went, but to a monastery.

For charity, that is, for pity, for almsgiving, the world has always felt the most profound respect. The most popular of mediÆval saints was the hard and austere Bishop of whom the world remembered that he had once divided his cloak with a beggar. There were six churches dedicated to St. Martin in the City of London alone.

And when the friars first came over, and men, wondering, saw that they did not lock themselves up in their cloister to pray for the world like the other Religious, but that they went about among the people ministering, comforting, preaching, consoling; that they found no den too revolting, no disease too loathsome, no criminal too base, for their ministrations; then, indeed, there was an outburst of gratitude, of joy, of respect, of awe for men so saintly. They were considered the veritable children of God.

But it was not to be thought that the poor sinners outside the monastery should imitate their example. Nay, St. Francis, their founder, had himself separated his Order from the world, they were called out from the rest of humanity, they were kept separate by vows of celibacy, poverty, obedience. Modern charity as yet did not exist, as we now understand it, only the respect for charity as an ecclesiastical institution.

I believe that the early followers of St. Francis perceived the weak point of this separation from the world. We can hear one wiser than the rest saying, “There is danger that the early zeal may decline. All things human have in them the germs of decay; if there comes a time when our brethren shrink from the task they have undertaken, if their vows become a sham, their prayers a form, their work a pretence and a profession, then it would have been better for the world had St. Francis never existed, because we shall have taken from the layman the duty of personal service and killed it by our own neglect.”

To meet this danger, not to take renunciation and self-sacrifice wholly out of the world, they created another Order, that called the Fratres de SaccÂ. This Order contained men and women of the world, married men and married women; they were allowed to go about their daily work; those who were single were not forbidden to marry; they took vows, but not those of celibacy nor of poverty.

When the Houses were suppressed, all the institutions which they had supported were suppressed as well. Yet it did not immediately occur to the people that the burden of the poor, which they had long since willingly laid upon the Church, was now laid upon themselves. When the City took over the House of the Grey Friars; the House of St. Bartholomew; the House of St. Mary Bethlehem; the Palace of Bridewell; the House of St. Thomas,—it seemed to take the place of the Church and to attempt, by way of taxation, all that the Monastic Houses had tried, or professed, to do from their own resources. We hear of sundry collections for the poor; we do not hear of work among the poor, or of responsibility for the poor, for a hundred years and more after the Reformation.

I am not, happily, called upon in this place to attack, or to defend, the Dissolution. I have only to consider its effect upon London. And as regards the London Houses, I repeat, I can find no scandals. The judgment of the people, though that was not asked or regarded, seems to have arrived at a very clear understanding as to the actual spiritual value, apart from any pretension or profession, of the life of seclusion and celibacy. It was a very low estimate. On the other hand, the City does not seem to have been openly hostile to the Religious. They were an institution; these holy men were their own kin; the Monastic Houses were a part of the daily life.

There were violent things published against monks and friars at this time, but they were written by vehement partisans and were forced upon the people. For example, the work of Barnabe Googe with his Popish Kingdom. Had there been any active hatred against them it would have shown itself by the acts and deeds of the ’prentices, who always reflected, roughly but surely, the direction of the current of contemporary opinion. Such slight indications of feeling on the subject as are afforded by the literature in the next generation point to reverence as regards the nuns; while as regards monks and friars they are clean forgotten—a sure sign that they were not very actively hated. At the same time it does seem most remarkable that the treatment of the Carthusians, who must have been regarded as innocent victims and martyrs, unless they were represented as political traitors, should not have excited any popular indignation. One can only suppose that the spectacle of a prisoner drawn on a hurdle, hanged, and quartered, was so familiar, that people hardly troubled to ask who the sufferer was, or for what crime he suffered.

Let us now pass on to speak of certain Martyrs and Confessors. It is by this time needless to point out that the constancy shown by a Ridley and a Latimer for the Protestant form of doctrine was fully equalled by that of those who passed through the way of fire for the ancient faith. There was, however, this difference, that the Catholic martyrs were monks, priests, and men of mark like Fisher and More, while the Protestants included a vast number of men and women from the lower ranks—from the uneducated, who yet dared to hold a belief of their own based, as they thought, on private judgment,—really on the training of the sermons that they had heard.

The case of Dr. Forest, Confessor to Queen Katherine, must not be forgotten when one speaks of the martyrs of this time. Forest, an old man, was committed to gaol, where he lay for two years among the common malefactors, because he refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the King. After two years of Newgate, two years in a close, stifling, and noisome prison, the venerable priest was informed that he was to be hanged over a fire and so slowly done to death. No more terrible form of death was known in England, where the horrors of the French and German capital punishments were never practised. It was the same punishment as had been meted out to Oldcastle, and it was inflicted on Forest for the same reason: to show the hatred and abhorrence of the judges for the doctrines he taught. When the unfortunate Katherine heard of the sentence she wrote to him. The letter, too long for reproduction in these pages, together with Forest’s reply, may be found in The Antiquities of the English Franciscans: they are probably genuine and are very pitiful. The Queen, however, was spared the misery of hearing of her Confessor’s torturing death: he was respited and continued to lie in prison. Two years after the Queen’s death, and when he had been confined in Newgate for four years, Forest was brought out for execution.

On the 22nd of May 1518 they placed the old man on a sledge and dragged him from Newgate to Smithfield, where he was hung in chains from a gallows over a fire. This was the most terrible of all deaths. In ordinary cases, the sufferer, bound to a thick stake with iron chains, was enclosed up to the middle, and perhaps higher, with dry faggots: it would seem that the fierce flames enveloping the victim caused death by suffocation in a very few moments. Latimer, for instance, died in this manner almost immediately; if, however, the flames were blown away, the lower parts of the body might be slowly burned before death ensued: this was the case with Ridley. When, however, the sufferer was simply dangled over a fire, the flames blown this way and that, the agony might last for hours.

In the case of Forest, the bystanders took pity on the old man and threw the gallows into the fire, so that an end was soon made. “In what state,” asked Latimer before the fire was lit, “will you die?” Whereupon the old man replied in a loud voice: “If an angel should come down from heaven to teach men any other doctrine than what I have received and believed from my youth, I would not believe him; and if my body should be cut joint after joint, member after member, hanged, burned, or whatever pain might be done to me, yet would I never turn from my old profession.” A brave old man!

After the Carthusians the principal sufferers seem to have been the Observant Friars, of whom a large number suffered for refusing to acknowledge the King’s supremacy. We may read in the Antiquities of the English Franciscans a great many stories of these sufferings. One hopes that there is exaggeration. For some, according to this book, were carried about the country in chains; some were racked and then strangled; some were starved to death; miracles attended the death of some: the whole prison, in one case, became filled with a heavenly and miraculous light; and an earthquake, in another case, testified to the Divine displeasure at another martyrdom.

On the 22nd day of June 1534, three days after the execution of the three Carthusians, Exmew, Middlemore, and Newdigate, was beheaded that illustrious Catholic martyr, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, for maintaining the Pope’s supremacy; and a fortnight later, that still more illustrious martyr, Thomas More. The witty and pleasant manner of his conversation was kept up to the last. Grafton thus speaks of his last moments:—

“Besides his learning he had a great wit, and in talking verie pleasant and merie conceited, and that even to the last hower; insomuch that at hys comming to the Tower, one of the officers demanded his upper garment for his fee (meaning hys Gowne) and he aunswered, he should haue it, and toke him his cap, saying it was the uppermost garment that he had. Likewise even going to his death at the Tower gate a pore woman called to him and besought him to declare that he had certayn evidence of hers in the time that he was in office (which after he was apprehended she could not come by) and that he would intreat she might have them agayne, or else she was undone. He aunswered good woman have pacience a little while, for the King is so good unto me that even within this half houre he will discharge me of all businesses, and help thee himselfe. Also when he went up the stayres on the Scaffolde, he desired one of the Shriefes officers to give him his hand to help him up, and sayde, when I come downe agayne, let me shift for myself as well as I can. Also the hangman kneeled downe to him asking him forgivenesse of his death (as the manner is) to whome he sayde I forgive thee, but I promise thee that thou shalt never have honestie of the stryking of my head, my neck is so short. Also even when he should lay downe his head on the block, he having a great gray beard, striked out his beard and sayde to the hangman, I pray you let me lay my beard over the block least ye should cut it.” (Chronicle of England, Grafton, vol. ii. p. 454.)

The martyrdom of the Carthusians was the most significant, the most revengeful, the most audacious act of the new Head of the Church, the Act by which he defied, once for all, the whole power of the Pope, of Spain, and even of France. The world trembled, people looked for some supernatural manifestation, some unmistakable sign of the Divine wrath: none came, and they understood that here was an act of open war, and that the Divine will as to the issue had not been pronounced.

Let us pass to the Marian Persecution. I have called attention to the fact that the greater number of the martyrs belonged to the middle class and to the rank or status of craftsmen. Thus, Christopher Wade was a linen weaver; Thomas Wats a linen draper; John Warren was an upholsterer; John Ardeley was a husbandman; Robert Bromley was a grocer; Thomas Ormond was a fuller; Williams a weaver; Margery Polley widow of a craftsman; Dirick Carver a brewer; John Laneden a rustic; John Tudson an artificer; Joan Warne a maidservant. There were wives and widows among them, “simple women,” artificers and ’prentices, maid-servants and girls.

It was the sight of their own people suffering a cruel death which made the name of Rome hateful and horrible for three hundred years and more. It was the sight of the constancy of the martyrs which laid the firm foundations of the Protestant Faith. For none of them flinched before the flames, none of them feared the pains which the Lord God in His mercy and wisdom had ordered them to endure for the sake of the Cause. What was to be expected when a shoemaker such as John Noyes could die triumphant and rejoicing?

“On the next-day morning he was brought to the stake, where were ready against his coming the foresaid justice, master Thurston, one master Waller, then being under-sheriff, and master Thomas Lovel, being high-constable, as is before expressed; the which commanded men to make ready all things meet for that sinful purpose. Now the fire in most places of the street was put out, saving a smoke which was espied by the said Thomas Lovel proceeding from the top of a chimney, to which house the sheriff and Grannow his man went, and brake open the door, and thereby got fire, and brought the same to the place of execution. When John Noyes came to the place where he should be burnt, he kneeled down and said the 50th Psalm, with other prayers; and then they, making haste, bound him to the stake. And being bound, the said John Noyes said, ‘Fear not them that can kill the body, but fear him that can kill both body and soul, and cast it into everlasting fire.’

When he saw his sister weeping, and making moan for him, he bade her that she should not weep for him, but weep for her sins.

Then one Nicholas Cadman, a valiant champion in the Pope’s affairs, brought a faggot and set against him; and the said John Noyes took up the faggot and kissed it, and said, ‘Blessed be the time that ever I was born to come to this.’

Then he delivered his Psalter to the under-sheriff, desiring him to be good to his wife and children, and to deliver to her that same book; and the sheriff promised him that he would, notwithstanding he never as yet performed his promise. Then the said John Noyes said to the people, ‘They say, they can make God of a piece of bread; believe them not!’

Then said he, ‘Good people, bear witness that I do believe to be saved by the merits and passion of Jesus Christ, and not by mine own deeds.’ And so the fire was kindled, and burnt about him. Then he said, ‘Lord have mercy upon me! Christ have mercy upon me! Son of David have mercy upon me!’

And so he yielded up his life. And when his body was burned, they made a pit to bury the coals and ashes, and amongst the same they found one of his feet that was unburnt, whole up to the ankle, with the hose on; and that they buried with the rest.”

Or, to take the case of Cicely Ormes. She was a very simple woman, the wife of a worsted weaver who lived in Norwich. She was present at the martyrdom of Simon Miller and Elizabeth Cooper, and there, being affected with their constancy, she declared that she would pledge them with the same cup from which they drank:—

“She was burnt the 23d day of September, between seven and eight of the clock in the morning, the said two sheriffs being there, and of people to the number of two hundred. When she came to the stake, she kneeled down, and made her prayers to God; that being done, she rose up and said:—

‘Good people! I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, three persons and one God. This do I not, nor will I recant; but I recant utterly from the bottom of my heart the doings of the Pope of Rome, and all his popish priests and shavelings. I utterly refuse and never will have to do with them again, by God’s grace. And, good people! I would you should not report of me that I believe to be saved in that I offer myself here unto the death for the Lord’s cause, but I believe to be saved by the death and passion of Christ; and this my death is and shall be a witness of my faith unto you all here present. Good people! as many of you as believe as I believe, pray for me.’

Then she came to the stake, and laid her hand on it, and said, ‘Welcome the cross of Christ.’ Which being done, she, looking on her hand, and seeing it blacked with the stake, wiped it upon her smock; for she was burnt at the same stake that Simon Miller and Elizabeth Cooper was burnt at. Then, after she had touched it with her hand, she came and kissed it, and said, ‘Welcome the sweet cross of Christ’; and so gave herself to be bound thereto. After the tormentors had kindled the fire to her, she said, ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour.’ And in so saying, she set her hands together right against her breast, casting her eyes and head upward; and so stood, heaving up her hands by little and little, till the very sinews of her arms did brast in sonder, and then they fell. But she yielded her life unto the Lord as quietly as if she had been in a slumber, or as one feeling no pain; so wonderfully did the Lord work with her: His name therefore be praised for evermore.”

Remember that the example was not only an admonition to those who saw her death: it was related by the spectators; it was spread through the length and breadth of the land; it was written down by Foxe, in whose hands it certainly lost nothing of eloquence or of dramatic effect, and it has been read ever since by countless people. Not the martyrdom of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and the rest of the bishops, priests and scholars, so much as those of the “very simple” women, the plain craftsmen, built up the Protestant Faith, scattered the Spanish Fleets, and changed the Englishman of the sixteenth century, so that he of the seventeenth became possible.

The bare list of burnings in London alone, not nearly complete, as enumerated by Henry Machyn in his Diary (1550–1563), conveys a sense of the overwhelming horror which filled England during this reign, perhaps clearer than a laboured treatise on the Lives and Deaths of the Martyrs. In reading the list we can see the crowds flocking to Smithfield: all their sympathies are with the sufferer; they see him dragged on his hurdle, undressed to the shirt and tied to the stake; they see that he flinches not nor offers to retract; the faggots are piled about him, Heaven grant they be of dry wood; from the flames and through the smoke they hear the voice of the martyr praising God and praying till the end comes, when his tongue swells up in his mouth and he can speak no more, or is suffocated with the smoke, or with the intensity of his agony his heart stops and merciful Death seizes him. Then the crowd go home again; they dare not speak to each other; but they remember.

“1555. The iiij day of Feybruary the bysshope of London went into Nugatt and odur docturs to dysgratt (degrade) Hoper, and Rogers sumtyme vycker of sant Polkers. The sam day was Rogers cared be-twyn x and xj of the cloke into Smythfeld and bornyd, for aronyus opinions, with a grett compene of the gard.

1555. The xvj day of Marche was a veyver (weaver) bornyd in Smyth-feld dwellynge in Sordyche, for herese, by viij of the cloke in the mornyng, ys nam was Tomkins.

1555. The xiiij day of Aprell, the wyche was Ester day at sant Margatt parryche at Westmynster after masse was done, one of the menysters, a prest of the abbay, dyd helpe hym that was the menyster to the pepull who wher reseyvyng of the blessyd sacrement of the Lord Jhesus Cryst, ther cam in-to the chyrche a man that was a monke of Elly, the wyche was marryed to a wyff: the sam day ther that sam man saud to the menyster, What doyst thow gyff them? and as sone as he had spokyn he druw his wod-knyffe, and hyt the prest on the hed and struck hym on the hand, and cloyffe ys hand a grett way and after on the harme a grett wond; and ther was syche a cry and showtt as has not byne; and after he was taken and cared to presun, and after examyned wher-for he dyd ytt. The xxiij day of Aprell was the sam man cared to Westmynster that dyd hurt the prest, and had ys hand stryken of at the post, and after he was bornyd aganst sant Margett chyrche with-owt the cherche-yerde.

1555. The sam day of May was arraigned iiij men at Powlles a-for none and after-non, of Essex, and thay wher cast for heresse and all iiij cast to be bornyd and so cared unto Nugat.

1555. The xxv day of May were arraigned at St. Paul’s for heresy, before the bishop, master Cardmaker sometime vicar of St. Bride’s in Fleet-street, and one John Warren a cloth-worker in Walbrook and a-nodur of ... and cast to be brent and carried back to Nugatt.

1555. The xxx day of May was burnt in Smythfeld master Cardmaker sum-tyme veker of sant Bryd, and master Varren clothworker, dwellyng aganst sant John in Walbroke, an hupholster, and ys wyff behyng in [Newgate].

1555. The x day of Juin was delevered owt of Nugatt vij men to be cared into Essex and Suffoke to borne.

1555. The furst day of July whent into Smythfield to borne master Bradford, a grett precher by Kyng Edward’s days, and a talow chandler’s prentice dwellyng by Nugatt, by viij of the cloke in the mornyng, with a grett compene of pepull.

1555. The viij day of July were three more delivered out of Nugate and sent into the country to be burned for heretics.

1555. The xij day of July was bornyd y Canturbery iiij men for herese, ij prestes and ij laye men.

1555. The ij day of August was a shumaker bornyd ay sant Edmundbere in Suffoke for herese.

1555. The viij day of August, between iiij and v in the morning, was a presoner delevered into the shreyff of Medyllsex to be cared unto Uxbryge to be bornyd; yt was the markett day—owt of Nugatt delevered.

1555. The xxiij day of August was bornyd ay Stratford of bowe, in the conte of Mydyllsex, a woman, wife of John Waren, clothworker, a huphulster over against sant Johns in Walbroke; the whyche ... John her hosband was bornyd with on Cardmaker in Smythfield for herese boyth; and the sam woman had a sune taken at her bornyng and cared to Nugatt to his syster, for they will born boyth.

1555. The xxxj day of August whent out of Nugatt a man of Essex unto Barnett for herese, by the shreyff of Medyllsex, to borne ther.

1555. The same day were burnt at Oxford for heresy doctor Latimer, late Bishop of Worcester, and doctor Ridley, late bysshope of London; they were some tyme grett prychers as ever was; and at ther bornyng dyd pryche doctur Smyth, sumtyme the master of Vetyngtun colege.

1555. The xviij day of Dessember be-twyn 8 & 9 of the cloke in the mornyng was cared into Smythfeld to be bornyd on master Philpot, archdeacon of Winchester, gentyllman, for herese.

1556. The xxij day of January whent into Smythfeld to berne betwyn vij and viij in the mornyng v men and ij women; on of the men was a gentyllman of the ender tempull, ys nam master Gren; and they wer all bornyd by ix at iij postes; and ther wher a commonment thrughe London over nyght that no yong folke shuld come ther, for ther the grettest number was as has byne sene at shyche a tyme.

1556. The xxj day of Marche was bornyd at Oxford doctur Cranmer, late archebysshope of Canturbere.

1556. The xv day of May was cared in a care from Nugatt thrug London unto Strettford-a-bow to borne ij men; the on blyne, the thodur lame; and ij tall men, the one was a penter, the thodur a clothworker; the penter ys nam was Huw Loveroke, dwellyng in Seythin lane; the blynd man dwellyng in sant Thomas apostylles.

1556. The xxvij day of June rod from Nugatt unto Stretford-a-bowe in iiij cares xiij, xj men and ij women, and ther bornyd to iiij postes, and ther wher a xx M. pepull.

1557. The iij day of April five persons out of Essex were condemned for herese, iij men and ij women (one woman with a staff in her hand), to be bornyd in Smythfeld.

1557. The vj day of Aprell was bornyd in Smythfeld v, iij men and im women, for herese; on was a barber dwellyng in Lym-strett; and on woman was the wyff of the Crane at the Crussyd-frers be-syd the Towre-hylle, kepyng of a in ther.

1557. The xiiij day of May was bornyd in Chepe-syd and odur places in London serten melle that was not sweet; and thay sayd that hey had putt in lyme and sand to deseyffe the pepull and he was had to the conter.

1557. The sam mornyng was bornyd be-yond sant George’s parryche iij men for heresee, a dyssyd Nuwhyngtun.

1557. The xviij day of June was ij cared to be bornyd beyonde sant Gorgeus, almost at Nuwhyngtyn for herese and odur matters.

1557. The xxij day of December were burned in Smyth-feld ij, one ser John Ruffe the frere and a Skott, and a woman for herese.” (Diary of Henry Machyn.)

The question as to the proportion of Protestants to Catholics at the accession of Elizabeth, and at her death, has received various answers, depending upon the religion of the respondent. Lingard, the fairest of all the Catholic writers, estimates the number of Catholics at one-half the whole population. This was thirty years before Elizabeth’s accession. Dr. Allen thought they were two-thirds (Strype, iii. 415). A great many of the better class were Catholics. Venner (1649) says that fifty years before, all physicians were Catholics. This may have been caused by study in Italian schools of medicine. A good many people in London attended mass at some Ambassador’s chapel. The Spaniards when the Armada was projected relied upon the opinion that the half of England would join them. The North of England was filled with Catholics, yet they did not join the Rebellion of 1569. One-fourth of the population of Cheshire were Catholics; on the other hand, there is testimony to the effect that the number of Catholics had enormously decreased in the first thirty years of Elizabeth’s reign. In 1569 there were in London twelve to fifteen places where mass was regularly said. In 1594 a Jesuit speaks of the “little sparkle of Catholic religion yet reserved amongst us” as soon to be extinguished. The common-sense view of the case seems to be this. The people of London who, as we have seen, were filled with Lollardry from the beginning of the fifteenth century; who welcomed the Dissolution of the Religious Houses; who rejoiced at such a shadow of free thought as Henry afforded them; who shuddered with horror at the flames of Smithfield;—were overjoyed at the return of the Protestant Faith. But it would be wrong to suppose that all the scholars, all who had lived among the better-class priests and friars, went over to the new Faith; they did not: a large number of gentlewomen remained steadfast; the Government showed its good sense by taking no notice, or as little as possible, of recusants. Burleigh advised against punishing these people by death; best not make martyrs; there was no true method of lessening their numbers “but by preaching and by education of the younger under good schoolmasters.”

In a word, if it is intended to make any form of faith decay, there is no need of persecution: it has only to be surrounded by disabilities. If a Roman Catholic could hold no municipal office, and no State office, could not enter a grammar school or the university, could not take a degree, could not become a lawyer, could not sit in either House, could not serve in the army or the navy, then the Roman Catholic religion would fall rapidly into decay. This is exactly what happened; at the present moment, though all disabilities have been removed, the proportion of Catholics in England and Scotland is certainly not more than one in twenty. The “old” Catholics were those wealthy families which could continue in spite of all disabilities, a few noble houses and a few county people. Similar results attended the disabilities of the Nonconformists. Dissent survived its disabilities among people who cared nothing for office, people at the lower end of society, people for the most part of small trade. Among the better class, Dissent lost ground and mostly disappeared till the abolition of disabilities.

It is commonly believed that in the parish churches there was but one step from the mass to the Reformed service. This was not so (see an article by Mr. T. T. Micklethwaite on “Parish Churches in the year 1548,” Arch. Journ. xxxv.). The Dissolution of the Religious Houses made at first very little difference in the churches. The guilds were suppressed, and therefore the lights which they kept up; the endowed lights were also suppressed; but people went on endowing new lights for the parish churches. In the year 1547 certain rules or injunctions were issued which commanded that all images which had been made the object of pilgrimage should be destroyed; that no lights should be set up before any picture except two wax tapers on the altar, and these because Christ is the Light of the World. Images which had not been abused were to remain “for remembrance only.” The English Bible and the Paraphrases of Erasmus on the Gospel were to be set up in every church where the people could have access to them. Shrines, pictures of miracles, and glass depicting miracles, were to be destroyed; a pulpit was to be provided, and an alms chest to be placed by the altar.

As regards the services, changes were gradual. The High Mass continued, but the Gospel and Epistle were read in English, and a chapter from the New Testament was read after lessons at Matins and after Magnificat at Evensong. The English Litany was sung after High Mass. The Pater Noster, Creed, and Ten Commandments were sometimes publicly rehearsed in English, and Communion was refused to those who did not know them.

In the year 1548 the “Order of Communion” was put forth; in 1549 the Prayer Book appeared. Mr. Micklethwaite has drawn up an account of the parish church of 1548 before the Reformed Prayer Book, and with the alterations made in the service up to that date. The principal entrance was by the south door; in the porch was a basin of holy water; the font stood sometimes in the middle of the nave, sometimes against the west side of one of the pillars; it had a cover which could be locked down. Near it was a locker in which were kept the oils, salt, etc., required for the old rite of baptism.

“At the beginning of the sixteenth century all but very poor parish churches seem to have been furnished with pews, but the whole area was not filled with them, as at a later date. Old pews west of the doors are very rare, but they are found sometimes, as at Brington, Northants. Generally all this space was left clear, and there was a clear area of at least one bay, and often much more at the west end. A church with aisles had nearly always four blocks of pews, and the passages were broad alleys, that in the middle being often more than a third of the width of the nave, and the side passages were not much less. The appropriation of special places to individuals seems to have been usual, and even that bugbear of modern ecclesiastical reformers, the lock-up pew or closet, was not unknown. These in parish churches were generally chantry chapels, arranged for private services at their own altars and for use as pews during the public services.”

The pulpit had no fixed position: it was made movable; one of that period still remains at Westminster. It was ordered in 1547 that the priests and choir should kneel in the midst of the church and sing or say the Litany; the Litany desk came into use afterwards. The confessional had been continued in certain London churches: at St. Margaret Patens there was the “shrivyng pew”; at St. Christopher le Stock the “Shriving House.” The usual custom was for the penitent to kneel or stand before the priest, who sat in a chair. The Bible and the Paraphrases of Erasmus were chained to a desk somewhere in the nave.

The Rood screen, which was a music gallery, carried a loft and the organ when there was one. The loft contained desks for singers; it was also provided with pricks for candles. The great cross rose above the loft. In the chancel stood the high altar; when there were no aisles two smaller altars stood one on either side. Above the altar was a reredos of carved work; at the ends of which hung curtains. There was generally a super altar. On the high altar stood the cross, with figures, reliquaries, and images to adorn it. Also they laid on the altar the Textus or Book of the Gospels, with the paxbrede or tablet for the kiss of peace. There were generally two lights on the altar.

“It is convenient to mention here the other lights, which were kept in 1548, by the retention of the ceremonies with which they were connected. These were the two tapers carried by boys in processions at High Mass, and at other services when solemnly performed; the herse light, used at Matins or Tenebres on the last three days of Holy Week; the paschal candle, which stood in a tall candlestick, or hung in a bason on the north side of the high altar, and was lighted with much ceremony on Easter Eve, and burned at all the principal services throughout Paschal tide; the torches carried in the procession on Corpus Christi Day; the lantern carried before the Sacrament when it was taken to the sick; the large standing tapers which were placed round a corpse during the funeral service; and the candle used at baptism. Most of the lights, which a little earlier had been common round tombs, were endowed, and as such had been taken away, but the custom of survivors placing lights round the graves of their departed friends would probably be continued still for a few years.”

Chapels were the most usual places for tombs, but they are found in every part of the church. The various forms of them are too familiar to require description, but the use of colour gave them much more decorative importance in an interior than they have now. Many were painted, and others were covered with rich cloths. Flat gravestones had often carpets laid over them, and raised tombs had palls of cloth of gold or other costly stuff. The church of Dunstable still possesses such a pall: it is of crimson velvet, richly embroidered. Tapestries and cloths of various kinds were very much used, especially in chancels, as curtains and carpets, and as coverings for seats and desks and the like. Every church also had special hangings for Lent, when images and pictures were covered up generally with white or blue cloths, marked with crosses and the emblems of the Passion. The Lenten veil between the choir and the high altar seems also to have been retained in 1547, but in 1548 Cranmer and his party had partly succeeded in doing away with it. All parts of the church were more or less adorned with imagery and pictures on walls, in windows, or on furniture. None had been ordered to be taken away except such as had been superstitiously abused, or which were representations of “feigned miracles.”

“When the priest took the Sacrament to the sick he was accompanied by clerks, who carried a cross, bell, and light. The Sacrament itself was enclosed in a pyx, and with it was taken a cup in which the priest dipped his fingers after giving the communion. The chrismatory was generally a little box of metal containing three little bottles for the three oils, which seem generally to have been kept together. For use at funerals, every church had a cross, a bier, and a handbell, the last being a good-sized bell which was rung before the corpse as it was being carried to the church. It was also used for ‘crying’ obits about the parish, and asking for prayers for the deceased. Some churches had what was called the common coffin, which was used to carry bodies to the church, the most general custom being to bury without coffin. And they had palls and torches for funerals, for the use of which a charge was made according to the quality of the pall and the ‘waste’ of the torches. At weddings it was the custom to hold a large square cloth of silk or other material, called the care cloth, over the heads of the bride and bridegroom whilst they received the benediction, and it was kept for that use amongst the church goods. At St. Margaret’s, Westminster, we find also a crown or circlet for brides, which appears to have been a thing of some value.”

It will be seen from these quotations that the parish church contained in essentials the whole of the Catholic ritual except the parts which were ordered to be read in English. At the same time by reading, by hearing sermons, by the newly awakened spirit of examination and discussion, the people were preparing for more drastic changes. When they came there was no violent revolution, and though many remained faithful to the old creed, the bulk of the people in London were Protestant at heart. The weak point of the Reformation was that as yet no one was sure that it was stable and assured. Nor was there any such assurance till the defeat of the Spanish Armada and fifty years of the Maiden Queen had turned Protestantism into patriotism.

It is apparent (see ArchÆologia, vol. xlv.) that the ancient vestments were worn in some of the churches after the Reformation, until they fell to pieces. At the church of St. Christopher le Stock they were worn until the third year of Elizabeth, when being worn out, and no funds existing to replace them, the simple surplice was used. Twelve tables hung on the wall of the church: one containing the Ten Commandments; eleven containing prayers to the saints. The Reformers, therefore, did not introduce a new thing when they hung up the Table of the Commandments.

It used to be a custom in many City churches to ring the bell at 5 A.M.; not the “apprentice bell,” but a continuation and a survival of the ancient practice to call the people to the early service. Thus, at St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, in 1573, it was “resolved that after every workday we shall have morning prayer at five o’clock; also to have a lecture every Wednesday and Friday, beginning at five o’clock and ending at six o’clock, the bell to toll half an hour after five every afternoon.” The books show a good deal of whipping of men and women. They were chiefly wanderers, tramps, and their great offence was in carrying the plague about the country.

The services of the church could be made Lutheran in their character or Puritanic. The great difference was in the manner of singing. The Puritans sang in a plain tune all together; the Protestants “tossed” the Psalms from one side to the other with music of the organ. Congregational singing was one of the most important changes introduced by the Reformation. In September 1559 the new morning prayer “after Geneva fashion” was introduced at St. Antholin’s, the bell ringing at 5 A.M.

There were still some processions kept up. On St. Andrew’s Day a procession was conducted at St. Paul’s with one priest out of every parish in the City, and on the 25th of September the boys of St. Anthony’s school marched together from Mile End down Cornhill with streamers and flags, whifflers and drums.

In the church of St. Christopher le Stock we find that certain old customs were preserved: the church was decorated at Christmas with holly and ivy; at Easter with “rosemary, bay, and strawings.”

The parish system seems to have been well worked; the streets were kept clean; evildoers were not allowed to harbour within the limits; taxes were collected; the sick were watched and tended.

The efforts of the more sober leaders were directed to change, it is true, but to gradual not revolutionary change. The restraint of the zealous, however, was in some churches very difficult; certain quarters of the City were far more Protestant than others: Blackfriars, for instance, became an early centre of Puritanism; at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, on the other hand, we find the church-wardens quietly obeying every new ordinance, but keeping the old things in boxes ready for a possible return to the old order. The Dissolution of the Houses brought with it certain unexpected accompaniments. The servants of the Commissioners took away the sacred vestments and used them either for their own common wear or for saddlecloths, thus inflicting wanton insults on the faithful and bringing into contempt, with the desecration of the vestments, the very doctrines of which they were symbolical. Again, there were the relics and the images which the people had so long adored; it is true that the Church would not acknowledge the adoration of an image, but that was the practice of the common people, as it is at this day in every Roman Catholic Church. Thus sacred objects came to be treated with the utmost scorn: reliquaries were emptied and the relics thrown away; images of the Virgin were deprived of their lovely vestments, and sent about the country, shapeless lumps of wood, or brought to London to be publicly burned. In some cases an ancient and venerable fraud was discovered and pitilessly exposed. Who could resist contempt for the priests and monks who had for many generations of simple believers made the head on the Holy Rood of Boxley incline benignantly and roll its eyes upon the kneeling multitude? With all these aids to disbelief who can wonder if the wave of Protestant indignation mounted steadily higher; if the fiery spirit of Reform seized upon town and country, upon the sober merchant and the hot-headed ’prentice? We hear of the young men reading the Bible aloud in the churches, shouting the words they read; of girls who carried the English Primer with them to church and studied it during the singing of Matins; of men who insulted the Consecration of the Host; who attacked the priest who carried it through the streets. It is certain that London itself, almost from the beginning, was for the Reformation. (See Appendix V.)

A pressing difficulty, in the opening years of Elizabeth, was the illiterate and immoral condition of the clergy. So many refused the oath of supremacy that it became necessary to create lay readers. Indeed, the condition of England, including London, was calculated to fill the minds of the most ardent Protestants with dismay. During the first fifteen years of the reign, the House of Commons complained to the Queen that men were ordained who were infamous in their lives and conversation; the Bishop of London complained that even the Bishops were “sunk and lamentably disvalued by the meanest of the peoples”; the County of Essex represented that the new clergy were ignorant, riotous and drunkards; the Lords in Council represented to the Archbishop of Canterbury the evil lives of the clergy. Out of all the clergy in the City of London there were but nineteen preachers. Yet in 1559 Elizabeth ordered that there should be a sermon once a month on doctrine. And in 1586 the Bishop of London ordered the clergy to write one Sermon every week. It is said that the clergy fell so low in esteem as to be treated like outcasts, incurably drunken, ignorant, and licentious.

With the general charges against the Elizabethan Clergy it appears unnecessary to bring forward specific acts which may very well be taken to be isolated cases, in no way proving general corruption. There are, however, a few which seem to show the general condition of things.

In 1562, a priest was carted through the City for saying mass.

In 1554 priests, who would not leave their wives, did penance in St. Paul’s, and were beaten over the head with rods.

In 1561 the Queen, who never approved the marriage of priests, ordered those who were married not to bring their wives into Colleges.

In the same year there were found to be many conjurors in Westminster including priests, one of whom was put in pillory.

In 1557 the priest of St. Ethelburga was pilloried for sedition, and had his ears nailed to the pillory.

In 1559 there was a great burning of copes, censers, crosses, altar cloths, rood cloths, books, banners, etc.

In 1560 a priest was hanged for cutting a purse; it was his second offence.

The priest who sold his wife to a butcher, and was carried through the streets for an open shame, must hardly, one hopes, be quoted as an example. We picture him as a drunken and dissolute hog, lost to all sense of decency. The other priest who for an act of immorality was also carried about the streets may have been more common. When all the clergy married as a matter of course such scandals ceased.

As I have reproduced certain charges against the clergy and Religious of the old Faith, it is but fair to give an example of the bad character of one, at least, belonging to the clergy of the Reformation. The following letter is addressed to the Lady Bowes:—

“Right Worshipfull,

I understand that one Raphe Cleaton ys curate of the chappell at Buxton; his wages are, out of his neighbour’s benevolence, about V^LI yearely; Sir Charles Cavendishe had the tythes there this last years, ether of his owne right or my Lord’s, as th’ inhabitants saye. The minister aforenamed differeth little from those of the worste sorte, and hath dipt his finger both in manslaughter and p’jurie, etc. The placings or displacing of the curate there resteth in Mr. Salker, commissarie of Bakewell, of which churche Buxton is a chappell of ease.

I humbly thanke your Worship for your letter to the justices at the cessions; for Sir Peter Fretchvell, togither with Mr. Bainbrigg, were verie earnest against the badd vicar of Hope; and lykewyse Sir Jermane Poole, and all the benche, savinge Justice Bentley, who used some vaine (talk) on his behalfe, and affirmed that my Lady Bowes had been disprooved before Mr. Lord of Shrowesburie in reports touching the vicar of Hope; but such answere was made therto as his mouthe was stopped; yet the latter daie, when all the justic’s but himselffe and one other were rysen, he wold have had the said vicar lycensed to sell ale in his vicaredge, althoe the whole benche had comanded the contrarye; whereof Sir Jermane Poole being adv’tised, retyrned to the benchs (contradicting his speeche) whoe, with Mr. Bainbrigge, made their warrant to bringe before them, him, or anie other person that shall, for him, or in his vicaridge, brue, or sell ale, etc. He ys not to bee punished by the Justices for the multytude of his women, untyll the basterds whereof he is the reputed father bee brought in. I am the more boulde to wryte so longe of this sorrie matter, in respect you maye take so much better knowledge of Sir Jo. Bentley, and his p’tialytie in so vile a cause; and esteeme and judge of him according to that wisdome and good discretion. Thus, humbly cravinge p’don, I comitt your good Wors. to the everlasting Lorde, who ever keepe you.” This is quoted by N. Drake in Shakespeare and his Times, vol. i. p. 92.

And here is Ben Jonson’s portrait of the City Parson—none too flattering:—

Harrison, however, speaks up for the credit of the Reformed Clergy.

The observance of Lent was maintained by law, but with difficulty, and the law was continually broken. It was a distinguishing mark of the Puritan to eat flesh on the forbidden days. Queen Elizabeth ordered that no flesh should be eaten on “fish days,” namely, the forty days of Lent, Ember Days, Rogation Days, and Fridays. Licenses, however, were granted for those who either on account of bodily infirmity, or any other cause, were forbidden to fast. The license cost, for a nobleman or his wife, 26s. 8d. per annum; for a knight or his wife, 13s. 4d. per annum; and for those of lower degree, 6s. 8d. per annum.

Thus began the evasion of the law. Butchers were licensed to kill for those privileged to eat flesh. In 1581 the House of Lords call upon the Mayor to explain why forty butchers are allowed to kill during Lent, and how it is that the eating of flesh at that season is common in the City. The Mayor replies that the facts are otherwise, and that the number of licensed butchers is only five, viz. two for either Shambles and one for Southwark.

In 1552 only three butchers are licensed. Evidently the Mayor tries strong measures. But there are more complaints from the Lords.

In 1586 the House of Lords again send representations to the Mayor.

In 1587 the Mayor, evidently wishing to shift responsibility, says that it is difficult to restrain butchers. Perhaps the House of Lords will undertake the duty of licensing. The House of Lords declines to undertake the work of the Mayor.

In 1590 the Mayor complains of butchers being licensed in privileged places. What does this mean?

In 1591 he gives licenses to six butchers. He then finds out what we have been suspecting all along, that cattle and sheep were killed outside his jurisdiction, and that flesh was brought into the City by the gates. He also proves that within the City itself a great deal more meat is killed than was wanted for Shrovetide. Here we have a proof of the Puritanic spirit. The unlicensed butchers, on the eve of Lent, kill a great deal more than is wanted for Shrovetide; the licensed butchers go on killing. Do they sell to none but persons who have paid for the privilege? And every day carcases are brought in at the gates wrapped up in some kind of cloth for disguise.

In 1615 the Mayor gives up the attempt. He says that all butchers kill and sell meat in Lent, on Fridays, and that the people buy it freely on Fridays and on the other forbidden days.

Still there is maintained the pretence of an enforced fast during Lent until the Civil War, after which there are no more attempts to make the people fast, while many of the better class, clergy and others, continue to abstain from meat on the forbidden days.

There are grave complaints, both before and after the Reformation, about the behaviour of the people in church. The complaints point to two widely different causes. The first cause, that which operated before the Reformation, was undoubtedly the formalism into which religion had fallen. To be present at Mass, merely to be present, to kneel at the right time, was the whole of religion. Sir Thomas More, a most devout Catholic, complains bitterly of the irreverence of people at church service. Outward behaviour, he says, “is a plain express mirror or image of the mind, inasmuch as by the eyes, by the cheeks, by the eyelids, by the brows, by the hands, by the feet, and finally by the gesture of the whole body, right well appeareth how madly and fondly the mind is set and disposed.” He applies this observation to himself and the congregation. Sometimes “we solemnly get to and fro, and other whiles fairly and softly set us down again.” “When we have to kneel we do it upon one knee, or we have one cushion to kneel upon and another to support the elbows. We never pretend to listen: we pare our nails; we claw our head.”

The second cause was the rise of the new Religion. It was inevitable that with the destruction of the old forms a period of irreverence should set in. The churches quickly began to show signs of neglect. The windows were broken, the doors were unhinged, the walls fell into decay, the very roofs were in some places stripped of their lead. “The Book of God,” says Stubbes, “was rent ragged, and all be-torn.” Some of the churches were used for stabling horses. Armed men met in the churchyard, and wrangled, or shot pigeons with hand-guns over the graves. Pedlars sold their wares in the church porches during service. Morrice-dancers excited inattention and wantonness by their presence in costume, so as to be ready for the frolics which generally followed prayers. “Many there are,” said Sandys, preaching before Elizabeth even after her reforms, “that hear not a sermon in seven years, I might say in seventeen.” The friends of the new doctrine expected that all the evils of the time would be instantly remedied. But the work of reform was extremely gradual.

A third reason is offered for the irreverence of the people during service, this time during the Anglican service. Many people walked about, talked and laughed. This, however, was to show their contempt for the new order; they were secretly attached to the ancient Faith; they betrayed their sympathies, not only by this intolerance, but also by crossing themselves and telling their beads in secret.

Many of the ancient customs remained. It was long before the people, in London, could be persuaded to give up their old customs. Sunday remained the weekly holiday: the people held on Sundays their wakes, ales, rush-bearings, May games, bear-baitings, dancing, piping, picnics, and gaming; they continued so to “break the Sabbath”—which was first made part of the Christian week by the Puritans—until well into the seventeenth century. After the Commonwealth I think that there were very few traces of old customs lingering in the country, and only those, such as the hanging of garlands in the chancel when a maiden died, which carried with them no doctrinal significance and could prove no occasion for drunkenness and debauchery.

Before the coming of the Puritans the funerals continued with much of the old ritual. The body was laid out in such state as the family circumstances allowed: tapers were burned round it by night and by day; the church bells still rang for the prayers of the people, though they were taught that to pray for the dead was a vain thing; the priests who visited the house of the dead repeated the Lord’s Prayer; if on the way to the churchyard the procession passed a cross, they stopped and knelt, and made prayers; the body was laid in the grave wrapped in a shroud, without a coffin; it was covered by a pall, which was decorated with crosses. Those of the ancient Faith would persuade the clergymen, if they could, to omit the service; if he persisted, they left the grave and walked away. Nothing was a stronger tie to the old Religion than its burial service, and its assurance that the dead who died in the Church were assured of Heaven after due purgatory, and that the prayers of the living were of avail to shorten the pains of prison.

Machyn, the City Chronicler of this period, thus describes the simplicity of a Protestant funeral:—

“The iij day of Aprell was browth unto saint Thomas of Acurs in Chepe from lytyll sant Barthellmuw in Lothberes masteres ... and ther was a gret compene of pepull, ij and ij together, and nodur prest nor clarke, the nuw prychers in ther gowne lyke leymen, nodur syngyng nor sayhyng tyll they came to the grave, and a-for she was pute into the grayff a collect in Englys, and then put into the grayff, and after took some heythe, and caste yt on the corse and red a thynge ... for the sam, and contenent cast the heth into the grave, and contenent red the pystyll of sant Poll to the Stesselonyans the chapter, and after thay song pater noster in Englys, boyth prychers and odur and women of a nuw fassyon, and after on of them whent into the pulpytt and made a sermon.”

The following note by Machyn presents one of the last appearances of the old Sanctuary customs:—

“The vi day of December the abbot of Westminster went a procession with his convent; before him went all the sanctuary men with crosse keys upon their garments, and after whent iij for murder: one was the Lord Dacre’s sone of the Northe was wypyd with a shett abowt him for Kyllyng of on master West, sqwyre, dwellyng besyd ...; and anodur theyff that dyd long to one of master comtroller ... dyd kylle Recherd Eggyllston the comtroller’s tayller, and killed him in the Lord Acurs, the bak-syd Charyng-crosse; and a boy that kyld a byge boye that sold papers and pryntyd bokes, with horlyng of a stone and yt hym under the ere in Westmynster Hall; the boy was one of the chylderyn that was at the sckoll ther in the abbey; the boy was a hossear [hosier] sune a-boyff London-stone.” (Diary of Henry Machyn, p. 121.)

The good old institution of Sanctuary died hard. Even after it was supposed to have been finished and put away it continued to linger. Abbot Feckenham made a vigorous appeal for its preservation. “All princes,” he said, “and all Lawmakers, Solon in Athens, Lycurgus in Lacedemon, all have had loca refugii, places of succour and safe-guard for such as have transgressed laws and deserved corporal pains. Since, therefore, ye mean not to destroy all sanctuaries, and if your purpose be to maintain any, or if any be worthy to be continued, Westminster, of all others, is most worthy, and that for four causes: the first is, the antiquity and continuance of sanctuary there; the second, the dignity of the person by whom it was ordained; the third, the worthiness of the place itself; the fourth, the profit and commodity that you have received thereby.”

It is a common charge against the Dissolution of the Religious Houses that the old custom of open tables for all comers fell into disuse. The disuse is not without exceptions. The Houses being suppressed, of course the hospitality disappeared; but the practice was still kept up by some of the Bishops: Archbishop Parker, for instance, fed every day a number of poor people who waited outside the gates of Lambeth for the broken meats; while any one who chose to come in, whether at dinner or at supper, was received and entertained either at the Steward’s or the Almoner’s table. Order was observed; no loud talking was permitted; and the discourse was directed towards framing men’s manners to Religion. Whether the practice of indiscriminate doles should have been kept up is another question, and one that cannot be asked of the sixteenth century. The state and dignity maintained by this Archbishop were almost worthy of Cardinal Wolsey: the Queen gave him a patent for forty retainers, but his household consisted of five times that number, all living with him and dining at his table in Lambeth Palace.

The Church House was an ecclesiastical edifice which has now entirely passed away. I know nothing about the Church House except what is found in the ArchÆological Journal, vol. xl. p. 8.

“Not a single undoubted specimen has been spared to us, though it is not improbable that the half-timbered building attached to the west end of the church at Langdon, in Essex, and now called the Priest House, is really one of these. We have evidence from all parts of the country that they were once very common. There is, indeed, hardly an old churchwarden’s account-book which goes back beyond the changes of the sixteenth century that does not contain some reference to a building of this kind. They continued in being and to be used for church purposes long after the Reformation. The example at All Saints, Derby, stood in the churchyard and was in existence in 1747.”... “We must picture to ourselves then a long, low room with an ample fireplace, or rather a big open chimney occupying one end with a cast hearth. Here the cooking was done, and here the water boiled for brewing the church ale. There was a large oak table in the middle with benches around, and a lean-to building on one side to act as a cellar. This, I think, is not an inaccurate sketch of a building which played no unimportant part in our rural economy and rural pleasures. All the details are wanting, and we can only fill them in by drawing on the imagination. We know that almost all our churches were made beautiful by religious painting on the walls. I should not be surprised if we some day discovered that the church-house came in for its share of art, and that pictures, not religious in the narrow sense, but grotesque and humorous, sometimes covered the walls. It was in the church-house that the ales were held. They were provided for in various ways, but usually by the farmers, each of whom was wont to give his quota of malt. There was no malt tax in those days, and as a consequence there was a malt-kiln in almost every village. These ales were held at various times. There was almost always one on the Feast of the Dedication of the Church. Whitsuntide was also a very favourite time; but they seem to have been held at any convenient time when money was wanted for the church.... Philip Stubbes, the author of the Anatomie of Abuses, only knew the Church Ales in their decline. He was, Anthony Wood informs us, a most rigid Calvinist, a bitter enemy to Popery, so that his picture must be received with allowances for exaggeration. His account of them is certainly not a flattering one. He tells us that ‘The Churche Wardens ... of every parishe, with the consent of the whole parishe, provide halfe a score or twentie quarters of mault, wherof some they buye of the churche stocke, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, everyone conferryng some-what, accordyng to his abilitie; which mault beeyng made into very strong ale or beere is sette to sale, either in the churche or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then, when this ... is sette abroche, well is he that can gette soonest to it and spend the most at it; for he that sitteth the closest to it and spendes the moste at it, he is counted the godliest man of all the rest, and moste in God’s favour, because it is spent uppon His church forsoth. But who, either for want can not, or otherwise for feare of God’s wrath will not sticke to it, he is counted none destitute both of vertue and godlines.... In this kind of practise they continue six weekes, a quarter of a yere, yea helfe a yeare together, swillyng and gullyng, night and daie, till they be as dronke as rattes, and as blockishe as beastes.... That money ... if all be true which they saie ... they repair their churches and chappels with it, they buie bookes for service, cuppes for the celebration of the sacrements, surplesses for Sir John, and such other necessaries.’”

The burning of St. Paul’s steeple created a great sensation, and was by some regarded as an act of God’s wrath for the recent changes. Maitland[3] quotes an original letter describing the disaster:—

“a.d. 1561, on Wednesday the 4th of June, as appears by a Letter before me from Mr. Richard Jones to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the Court of France, communicated by the honourable Mr. Yorke, it rained all the Day, and, towards Four of the Clock in the Afternoon, it began to thunder terribly: ‘When suddenly a Thunder-bolt, with a great Thunder following, hit within a Yard of the very top of the Steeple, which forthwith shewed his Effect, and appeared a little Fire, like unto the Light of a Torch, which, increasing towards the Weather-cock, caused the same within a quarter of an hour to fall down; whereby the Wind, which was great, and the more vehement by reason of the opening of the Steeple and Height thereof, caused the Flame so to augment, and burn the Steeple, which no Man could succour, as within an Hour the high Steeple of Paul’s, which was so long in building, and so renowned, was utterly consumed to the very Battlements; which being of some Breadth and Strength, as was needful to uphold such a weight, received most part of the Timber which fell from the Spire, and began to burn with such Vehemence, as all the Timber was burnt, the Iron and Bells melted and fallen down upon the stairs within a short space. This was judged to be the end of the effect of the lightning; when forthwith the East and West roofs of the Church, partly kindled with the timber which fell from the Battlements, and with the heating of the Fire whiles it remained within the Stone Steeple, were on Fire, and ceased not to burn so extremely, as could not be provided for by no means, till that not only those ends, but the north and south ails, before one of the Clock after Midnight, were consumed, and not a piece of Timber left, nor Lead unmolten, upon any of the higher and cross Roofs and Battlements. The side Ails, tho’ they were a little touched, by reason of their Crowns, remained safe, Thanks be to God. And this is all that is happened by this Misfortune, and the Church within is untouched. Your Lordship may guess what Stir and Removing there was in St. Paul’s Church-yard, especially towards the North door, where divers Houses were pulled down, and much lamentation on all sides. On the East End a Pinnacle fell down and ruined a House, wherein there were seven Persons not hurt, but the good man of the House a little. Many other turmoils there were, as in like Cases it happens; which, as it grieves me to hear, so I am loth to write the same. The French here are not sorry for the Matter. All good and honest Men are sorry for it, and impute it to a terrible remembrance of God’s Anger towards us for our Offences. This is enough and too much of so grievous a matter; and yet I thought I should perhaps satisfy your Lordship in writing thereof thus largely.

R. Jones.’

London, June 5th, 1561.”

As might have been expected of a time when all the world was thinking and talking about religious doctrine, the unlearned as well as the learned, but with much more confidence and presumption, arguing entirely on the meaning of texts, passages, and detached clauses, there were fanatics in plenty. I have made a selection from the cases before me.

“William Hacket gave out that he was Jesus Christ, come to judge the World; which was soon proclaimed throughout the City of London by Edmond Coppinger and Henry Arthington, two of his Disciples; who, going from Hacket’s Lodgings, at Broken-Wharf, thro’ Watling-Street and the Old-Change, amidst an excessive Multitude, to Cheapside, they mounted an empty cart near the end of Gutter Lane, and proclaimed Mercy from Heaven to all such as should repent and believe that Christ (William Hacket) was come with his Fan in his hand to judge the Earth, and to establish the Gospel in Europe, and that he was then to be seen, with his glorious Body, at one Walker’s, at Broken-Wharf; and that they were Prophets, the one of Mercy, and the other of Judgment, sent by God Himself as Witnesses, and to assist in the present great Work. The first of whom incessantly proclaimed Mercy and Joys inexpressible to all such as should receive this acceptable Message; and the last denounced terrible Judgments against the Obdurate, which should not only immediately fall upon the Incredulous in this City, but that likewise all such were condemned to eternal Punishments; and, in a particular and very treasonable Manner, thundered out bitter invectives against the Queen and her Ministry; wherefore they were all apprehended, and Hacket, the pretended Messiah, soon after tried and convicted at the Old-Baily of Treason; whence he was carried to the Place of Execution in Cheapside, where, instead of shewing the least Sorrow for his Crimes, he committed the most horrid and execrable Blasphemies against God, and detestable imprecations against the Queen and her Ministers; and his associate, Coppinger, refusing all Manner of sustenance, died the next Day in Bridewell, as did Arthington, his Companion, some Time after in Wood Street Compter.” Evidently three enthusiasts all equally mad and equally obstinate.

Later on, also, was the case of Anne Burnell (Sharpe, i. 552):—

“The strain which the continuation of the war and the threatened renewal of a Spanish invasion imposed upon the inhabitants of London at large was a great one, and appears to have affected the mind of a weak and hysterical woman, Anne Burnell. She gave out that she was a daughter of the King of Spain, and that the arms of England and Spain were to be seen, like stigmata, upon her back, as was vouched for by her servant, Alice Digges. After medical examination, which proved her statement to be ‘false and proceedinge of some lewde and imposterouse pretence,’ she and her maid were ordered to be whipt,—‘ther backes only beeinge layd bare,’—at the cart’s tail through the City on a market day, ‘with a note in writinge uppon the hinder part of their heades shewinge the cawse of their saide punishmente.’”

Again, there was the case of William Geffery and John Moore. These two unfortunate creatures were perfectly mad, and ought to have been locked up in Bethlehem. Said William Geffery to the other lunatic, “Christ is not in Heaven, John. He is on earth and like unto us.” “He is,” John replied, “and thou thyself, William Geffery, art none other than Christ.” “That,” said William, “is perfectly correct.” They therefore clapped John Moore in Bethlehem and William Geffery in the Marshalsea. This should have been enough. But it was not the fashion of the time ever to have enough of punishing. They therefore tied Geffery to the cart tail and flogged him all the way from the Marshalsea to Bethlehem, a matter of two miles. At the gate of Bethlehem the cart was stopped. Then John Moore was brought out, and Geffery was flogged again until he confessed his error and acknowledged that Christ was in Heaven and that he himself was nothing but a sinful man. They then stripped John Moore and tied him to the cart tail; at first he took the punishment smiling, but before going an arrow’s shot he begged them to stop, and confessed that he was wrong. So they both went back: John Moore to Bethlehem and William Geffery to the Marshalsea, and we hear no more of them.

The Anabaptists were another perverse people who met with no mercy. On 3rd April 1575 there was found a congregation of Anabaptists in a house outside Aldgate Bars. Twenty-seven in all were arrested. On the 15th of May four of them, bearing faggots to show that they deserved death, recanted at Paul’s Cross; on 22nd July two of them were burned at Smithfield, “who died in great horror, with roaring and crying.” Their recantation shows the doctrines they held.

“Whereas I.I.T.R.H. being seduced by the devil, the spirit of error, and by false teachers his ministers, have fallen into certain most detestable and damnable heresies, namelie:—

1. That Christ tooke not flesh of the substance of the blessed Virgin Marie.

2. That infants of the faithful ought not be baptized.

3. That a Christian man may not be a magistrate, or beare the sword or office of authoritie.

4. That it is not lawful for a Christian to take an oth. Now by the Grace of God, and through conference with good and learned ministers of Christ His church, I doo understand and acknowledge the same to be most damnable and detestable heresies, and doo aske God here before His church mercie for my said former errors, and doo forsake them, recant and renounce them, and abjure them from the botome of my heart, professing that I certainly believe:

1. That Christ tooke flesh of the substance of the blessed Virgin Marie.

2. That infants of the faithfull ought to be baptized.

3. That a Christian man may be a magistrate, or beare the sword or office of authoritie.

4. That it is lawful for a Christian man to take an oth. And further that I confess that the whole doctrine and religion established and published in this realme of England, as also that which is received and preached in the Dutch Church, from henceforth utterlie abandoning and forsaking all and every anabaptistical error. This is my faith now, in the which I doo purpose and trust to stand firme and stedfast to the end. And that I may soo doo, I beseech you all to praie with me, and for me, to God the heavenlie father, in the name of his son our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Before this, one man and ten women were tried in the Consistory of St. Paul’s and sentenced to be burned, but one woman having been converted, they resolved on banishing the rest, who were Dutch. Accordingly the nine women were led by the sheriff, and the man was tied to a cart tail and whipped all the way from Newgate to the river, where they were shipped. And there was a certain sect called the Family of Love, which gave some trouble through their obstinacy. In the year 1575 five of them recanted; in 1580 the sect were thought of sufficient importance to justify a proclamation against them. The tenets of the people do not appear, but they were accused of holding it laudable to deny their connection with their own sect, which made it impossible to convict them by their own confession.

The case of Matthew Hamont, plough-wright, may conclude these cases of strange hallucinations and the conclusions of a disordered brain. He was a common man of no education, who took to thinking and reading about doctrines which he could not understand. He finally arrived at the conclusion that the New Testament, with the Gospels, is but an invention of man, that Christ was a mere man, and so on, shrinking from nothing. This poor lunatic they gravely tried, and because he had spoken words against the Queen, they first cut off both his ears, and then, after giving him a week of pain from his wounds, they burned him for a heretic.

After Religion stalks her caricature, Superstition. Now the credulities of London in the Elizabethan age were many and wonderful.

Everybody, for instance, at that time believed in witchcraft. Yet there was not wanting an occasional protest.

“I saie, that there is none which acknowledgeth God to be onlie omnipotent ... but will denie that the elements are obedient to witches, and at their commendement; or that they may at their pleasure send raine, haile, tempests, thunder, lightning.... Such faithlesse people are also persuaded that neither hale nor snowe, thunder nor lightening, raine nor tempestuous winds, come from the heavens at the commandement of God, but are raised by the cunning and power of witches and conjurers; inasmuch as a clap of thunder or a gale of wind is no sooner heard, but wither they run to ring bells, or crie out to burne witches, or else burne consecrated things, hoping by the smoke thereof to drive the devill out of the aire.”

Witchcraft and magic were, however, recognised by the Government as real things. It was thought desirable in 1542 to pass an Act against these practices.

“It shall be felony to practise, or cause to be practised conjurations, with craft, enchantment or sorcery, to get money: or to consume any person in his body, members, or goods; or to provoke any person to unlawful love; or for the despight of Christ or lucre of money to pull down any cross; or to declare where goods stolen,” etc.

This Act of Henry VIII. was repeated or confirmed by Elizabeth twenty years later, and by James I. in 1603. Cranmer, in 1549, ordered the clergy to inquire “whether you know of any that use charms, sorcery, enchantment, witchcrafts, soothsaying, or any like craft invented by the devil.” And in 1558 Bishop Jewel, preaching before the Queen, said, “It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within these last few years are marvellously increased within your Grace’s realm. Your subjects pine away even to the death; their colour fadeth; their flesh rotteth; their speech is benumbed; their senses are bereft.”

The precautions used against witchcraft do not belong to London, where the belief in the superstition took a less active form than in the country. A pebble with a natural hole in it, a horseshoe picked up by accident and nailed up over the door, a hare’s foot in the pocket, a bit of witchwood, were simple precautions against the witch. I do not think that these superstitions were much followed in London, though there are examples that the terror of the witch prevailed in the City as well as in the country.

It is remarkable that the spread of education and the toleration of fine thoughts in religion did not destroy this horrible superstition. On the contrary it increased, and the seventeenth century, when the greatest amount of religious freedom was practised if not allowed, only made the belief in witchcraft more profound.

Who could choose but to believe when Ben Jonson himself could write of witches as follows?

We may illustrate this belief by the case of Joan Cason or Freeman (she was the wife of one Freeman). She was indicted and solemnly tried by a jury on the charge of being a witch, and of having killed by witchcraft one Jane Cooke, aged three years.

The principal evidence was Sarah Cooke, mother of the child. She kept an alehouse. She was one day drawing a pot of ale for a stranger when he remarked the languishing condition of her child, and suggested that it was bewitched. “Take,” he said, “a tile from the house of the suspected person, lay it in the fire, and if she really is a witch the tile will sparkle round the cradle.” Wonderful to relate, Sarah Cooke took a tile from the woman’s house, laid it in the fire, and it did “sparkle round the house.” At that moment Joan Cason herself looked in, gazed upon the child, and went away. Four hours after the child died. What more was wanted? There was evidence corroborative. In the lifetime of the man Freeman there was something like a rat seen about her house, something that squeaked. In the end Joan was hanged, protesting her innocence, but confessing ill conduct with one Mason, who had died of the plague.

There is also the case of Simon Penbrooke, living in St. George’s Parish, Southwark. He was suspected to be a conjurer, and was summoned before a court holden in the church of St. Mary Overies either for that or for some other case. As he was talking to a proctor, presumably about his defence, he suddenly fell dead, just as the Judge entered the church. Of course the Judge remarked that it was the just judgment of God towards those that used sorcery, “and a great example to admonish others to fear the justice of God.” They found upon him certain “develish” books of conjuration, with a tin man and other fearful things. And they were reminded of Leviticus xx. 6, “If anie soule turne himselfe after such as woorke with spirits and after soothsaiers, saith the Lorde, I will put my face against that soule, and will cut him off from among my people.”

Another form of witchcraft was that of the professional conjurer. There was, for instance, the case of William Randoll, who was charged with conjuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth. Four others were charged with assisting at the conjuration. One has no doubt of the fact or of the means employed. Randoll used, of course, the well-known bent stick, the “verge de Jacob,” which is still employed all over the world for the discovery of water, though its properties and powers in revealing the existence of metals have been of late neglected, and are now nearly forgotten. The whole of the accused were condemned to death, but in the end Randoll alone was executed. There was said at the time to be five hundred professed conjurers in the country.

The origin of touching for the King’s Evil is recounted by Stow in his Annals in the following manner:—

“A young woman was afflicted with this disorder in a very alarming manner, and to a most disgusting degree, feeling uneasiness and pain consequent upon it in her sleep, dreamt that she should be cured by the simple operation of having the part washed by the King’s hand. Application was consequently made to Edward, by her friends, who very humanely consented to perform the unpleasant request. A bason of water was brought, with which he carefully softened the tumours till they broke, and the contents discharged; the sign of the cross wound up the charm; and the female retired, with the assurance of his protection during the remainder of the cure, which was effected within a week.”

Of talismans and amulets the sixteenth century had many. The word talisman is an Arabic corruption of the Greek, i.e. the influence of a planet or Zodiacal sign upon a person born under it. It was a symbolical figure drawn or engraved. It was supposed at once to procure love and to avert danger. The amulet derived from Latin amolior, to do away with, or baffle, averted danger of all kinds. Amber kept children from danger; a child’s caul made lawyers prosper; the Evil Eye was averted by certain well-known symbols, including the locust; the closed hand, the pine cone, and other objects were amulets. The German Jew at the point of death tied his head round with knotted leather. The Turks cured apoplexy by encircling the head with a parchment strip painted with signs of the Zodiac. Spells were of all kinds.

Among the superstitions of the time must not be forgotten that favourite form of superstition known as astrology, which still flourishes, though it is not so commonly practised and believed as formerly. Many of the Fathers of the Church denounced astrology, yet astrologers continued. After the Reformation they became more open in their profession and more daring in their pretensions. The names of Nostradamus, Cornelius Agrippa, William Lilly, Robert Fludd, John Dee, and Simon Former, occur as leaders among the astrologers, some of whom were also alchemists. Some of the English professors of astrology were pupils of Cornelius Agrippa in London and at Pavia; others went to study the science at Strasburg. Judicial astrology was in great vogue in London for two hundred years after the Reformation; hundreds of people gained their livelihood by casting nativities for children in which their future was foretold. The story of Dryden and his son’s nativity is well known. The astrologers picked out lucky days for the commencement of any kind of business; they told fortunes; they resolved questions; they recovered stolen goods; they predicted future events. It is, however, apparent from their own writings that they had little confidence in the stars, and that the popular part of astrology, at least, was for the most part guesswork, not without fraud. The astrologers of London in the sixteenth century formed themselves into a Society. In the year 1550 a certain Dr. Gell preached a sermon before the Society of Astrologers. Ashmole also mentions his own attendance at certain astrological banquets. But about the Society itself very little is known. Newton pointed out that the sun and stars were only other earths which could have no power over the destiny of men. But the superstition decayed very slowly.

Dr. Dee’s Diary is a locus classicus for the superstitions of his time—the last quarter of the sixteenth century.

He hears knockings in his chamber, with a voice like the shrieking of an owl, but more drawn out and more soft. He is offered a sight in a crystal and he “saw”—what did he see? He does not tell us.

A friend is strangely troubled by a “spiritual creature” about midnight. Robert Gardiner reveals to him a great philosophical secret, which is received with common prayer. He hears of an alchemist who gives away “great lumps” of the philosopher’s stone. He dreams that he is to be bereft of his books.

There was trouble with Anne his nurse. She was tempted by a wicked spirit who possessed her. He prayed with her; he anointed her with “holy oil” twice, the wicked spirit resisting. Despite the power of the oil Anne threw herself into the well, but was dragged out in time. Three weeks later she evaded her keeper and cut her throat.

In 1596 Dee received a message from the Queen; he was to do what he would in philosophy and alchemy; no one should hinder him. And so on to the end of the Diary.

In the autumn of 1899 there was found in the garden of Lincoln’s Inn a thin leaden tablet about four inches square. On one side were eighty-one small squares, arranged in a large square, each with a number engraved upon it. On the other side were three names—Hasmodar, Scherchemosh, and Scharhahan, with a symbol to each. The explanation is as follows:—The square is a charm; the number eighty-one is the number of the Moon, each planet having its own number in the “science” of astrology. The arrangement of the numbers in the eighty-one squares is such that added up vertically or horizontally or diagonally the sum shall always be the same. In this case it is 369. Why 369 I cannot explain. On the other side the three names are the three spirits of the Moon, each with its hieroglyph.

The writing is an expression of an invitation or a command to the spirits to work mischief on an unfortunate man. Had the sorcerer desired good fortune he would have used a silver plate. In either case it was necessary to bury the plate in some secret place, unseen and unsuspected.

The following story is gravely told by Philip Stubbes. Perhaps he did not believe it himself; but it is certain that he meant his readers to believe it.

“This gentlewoman beeyng a very riche Merchaunte mannes daughter: upon a tyme was invited to a Bridall or Wedding, whiche was solemnized in that Toune, againste whiche daie she made great preparation, for the plumyng of herself in gorgious arraie, that as her body was moste beautifull, faire, and proper, so her attire in every respecte might bee corespondent to the same. For the accomplishment whereof, she curled her haire, she died her lockes, and laied them out after the best maner, she coloured her face with waters and Ointmentes; but in no case could she gette any (so curious and daintie she was) that could starche and sette her Ruffes and Neckerchers to her mynde; wherefore she sent for a couple of Laundresses, who did the best thei could to please her humours, but in anywise thei could not. Then fell she to sweare and teare, to cursse and banne, castyng the Ruffes under feete, and wishyng that the Devill might take her when she weare any of those Neckerchers againe. In the meane tyme (through the sufferaunce of God) the Devill, transformyng himself into the forme of a young man, as brave and proper as she in every pointe in outward appearance, came in, fainyng himself to bee a woer or suter unto her. And seyng her thus agonized, and in suche a peltyng chase, he demaunded of her the cause thereof, who straight waie tolde hym how she was abused in the settyng of her Ruffes, which thyng beeyng heard of hym, he promised to please her minde, and thereto tooke in hande the setting of her Ruffes, whiche he performed to her greate contentation, and likyng, in so muche as she lokyng her self in a glasse (as the Devill bad her) became greatly inamoured with hym. This dooen, the yong man kissed her, in the doyng whereof he writhe her necke in sunder, so she died miserably, her bodie beyng metamorphosed into blacke and blewe colours most ugglesome to behold, and her face (whiche before was so amorous) became moste deformed, and fearfull to looke upon. This being knowen, preparaunce was made for her burial, a riche coffin was provided, and her fearfull bodie was laied therein, and it covered verie sumpteously. Foure men immediatly assaied to lifte up the corps, but could not move it, then sixe attempted the like, but could not once stirre it from the place where it stoode. Whereat the standers by marveilyng, caused the Coffin to bee opened, to see the cause thereof. Where thei founde the bodie to be taken awaie, and a blacke Catte verie leane and deformed sittyng in the Coffin, setting of greate Ruffes, and frizlyng of haire, to the greate feare and wonder of all beholders. This wofull spectacle have I offered to their viewe, that by looking into it, instead of their other looking Glasses thei might see their own filthinesse, and avoyde the like offence, for feare of the same, or worser judgment: whiche God graunt thei maie doe.”