Page 128 of 131

* In another place mention is made of four cooks. (p. 388.)
But I suppose that the two servants, called in p. 325 groom
of the larder and child of the scullery, are on p. 368,
comprehended in the number of cooks.

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[ NOTE D, p. 132. Protestant writers have imagined, that because a man could purchase for a shilling an indulgence for the most enormous and unheard-of crimes, there must necessarily have ensued a total dissolution of morality, and consequently of civil society, from the practices of the Romish church. They do not consider, that after all these indulgences were promulgated, there still remained (besides hell fire) the punishment by the civil magistrate, the infamy of the world, and secret remorses of conscience, which are the great motives that operate on mankind. The philosophy of Cicero, who allowed of an Elysium, but rejected all Tartarus, was a much more universal indulgence than that preached by Arcemboldi or Tetzel; yet nobody will suspect Cicero of any design to promote immorality. The sale of indulgences seems, therefore, no more criminal than any other cheat of the church of Rome, or of any other church. The reformers, by entirely abolishing purgatory, did really, instead of partial indulgences sold by the pope, give, gratis, a general indulgence of a similar nature, for all crimes and offences, without exception or distinction. The souls once consigned to hell were never supposed to be redeemable by any price. There is on record only one instance of a damned soul that was saved, and that by the special intercession of the Virgin. See Pascal’s Provincial Letters. An indulgence saved the person who purchased it from purgatory only.]

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[ NOTE E, p. 142. It is said, that when Henry heard that the commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one of the members, who had a considerable influence on the house; and he being introduced to his majesty, had the mortification to hear him speak in these words: “Ho! man: will they not suffer my bill to pass?” And laying his hand on Montague’s head, who was then on his knees before him, “Get my bill passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off.” This cavalier manner of Henry succeeded; for next day the bill passed. Collins’s British Peerage. Grove’s Life of Wolsey. We are told by Hall, (fol. 38,) that Cardinal Wolsey endeavored to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, and told them plainly, that “it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in this case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads.” Such was the style employed by this king and his ministers.]

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[ NOTE F, p. 177. The first article of the charge against the cardinal is his procuring the legatine power, which, however, as it was certainly done with the king’s consent and permission, could be nowise criminal. Many of the other articles also regard the mere exercise of that power. Some articles impute to him, as crimes, particular actions which were natural or unavoidable to any man that was prime minister with so unlimited an authority; such as receiving first all letters from the king’s ministers abroad, receiving first all visits from foreign ministers, desiring that all applications should be made through him. He was also accused of naming himself with the king, as if he had been his fellow—“the king and I.” It is reported that sometimes he even put his own name before the king’s—“ego et rex meus.” But this mode of expression is justified by the Latin idiom. It is remarkable, that his whispering in the king’s ear, knowing himself to be affected with venereal distempers, is an article against him. Many of the charges are general, and incapable of proof. Lord Herbert goes so far as to affirm, that no man ever fell from so high a station who had so few real crimes objected to him. This opinion is perhaps a little too favorable to the cardinal. Yet the refutation of the articles by Cromwell, and their being rejected by a house of commons, even in this arbitrary reign, is almost a demonstration of Wolsey’s innocence. Henry was, no doubt, entirely bent on his destruction, when, on his failure by a parliamentary impeachment, he attacked him upon the statute of provisors, which afforded him so little just hold on that minister. For that this indictment was subsequent to the attack in parliament, appears by Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, and Stowe, (p. 551,) and more certainly by the very articles of impeachment themselves. Parliamentary History, vol. iii. p. 42, article 7. Coke’s Inst. part iv. fol. 89.]

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[ NOTE G, p. 183. Even judging of this question by the Scripture, to which the appeal was every moment made, the arguments for the king’s cause appear but lame and imperfect. Marriage in the degree of affinity which had place between Henry and Catharine, is, indeed, prohibited in Leviticus; but it is natural to interpret that prohibition as a part of the Jewish ceremonial or municipal law; and though it is there said, in the conclusion, that the Gentile nations, by violating those degrees of consanguinity, had incurred the divine displeasure; the extension of this maxim to every precise case before specified, is supposing the Scriptures to be composed with a minute accuracy and precision, to which, we know with certainty, the sacred penmen did not think proper to confine themselves. The descent of mankind from one common father obliged them, in the first generation, to marry in the nearest degrees of consanguinity. Instances of a like nature occur among the patriarchs; and the marriage of a brother’s widow was, in certain cases, not only permitted, but even enjoined as a positive precept, by the Mosaical law. It is in vain to say that this precept was an exception to the rule, and an exception confined merely to the Jewish nation. The inference is still just, that such a marriage can contain no natural or moral turpitude; otherwise God, who is the author of all purity, would never, in any case, have enjoined it.]

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[ NOTE H, p. 191. Bishop Burnet has given us an account of the number of bulls requisite for Cranmer’s installation. By one bull, directed to the king, he is, upon the royal nomination, made archbishop of Canterbury. By a second, directed to himself, he is also made archbishop. By a third, he is absolved from all censures. A fourth is directed to the suffragans, requiring them to receive and acknowledge him as archbishop. A fifth to the dean and chapter, to the same purpose. A sixth to the clergy of Canterbury. A seventh to all the laity in his see. An eighth to all that held lands of it. By a ninth he was ordered to be consecrated, taking the oath that was in the pontifical. By a tenth the pall was sent him. By an eleventh the archbishop of York and the bishop of London were required to put it on him. These were so many devices to draw fees to offices which the popes had erected, and disposed of for money. It may be worth observing, that Cranmer, before he took the oath to the pope, made a protestation, that he did not intend thereby to restrain himself from any thing that he was bound to, either by his duty to God, the king, or the country; and that he renounced every thing in it that was contrary to any of these. This was the invention of some casuist, and not very compatible with that strict sincerity, and that scrupulous conscience, of which Cranmer made profession. Collier, vol. ii. in Coll No. 22. Burnet, vol. i. p. 128, 129.]