V. could be made good; confessing that he himself was in Eng- DISCOURSE land at that time (the witness doth not positively remember whether at the consecration or not). But Mr. Clerke said, that he himself was present, when the advocate of the Arches, whom the Queen sent to peruse the register after the consecration, and to give her an account whether it was performed canonically, returned her this answer, that he had perused the register, and that no just exception could be made against the consecration, but' (he said) something might have been better, particularly that Bishop Coverdale was not in his rochet;' but he assured her, 'that could make no defect in the consecration.' Here we have, if not an eyewitness, yet at least an ear-witness, in an undoubted manner, of the legal consecration, and of the truth of the register, and of the judgment of the Advocate of the Arches concerning the canonicalness of the consecration. Thus much Mr. Higgins was ready to make faith of, whilst he was living; and Mr. Barwick, a person of very good credit, from him at this present. The second witness is Mr. Higgins himself, who coming [2. Mr. afterwards into England had a desire to see the register, and Higgins.] did see it, and finding those express words in it," Milo vero Coverdallus non nisi togá laneâ talari utebatur,”—and remembering withal what Mr. Clerke had told him, whereas the canonical garments of the rest of the Bishops are particularly described, he was so fully satisfied of the truth of the consecration and lawful succession of our English Bishops, that he said he never made doubt of it afterwards. My third witness is Mr. Hart, a stiff Roman Catholic, but [3. Mr. Hart.] a very ingenuous person, who having seen undoubted copies of Doctor Reynolds his ordination by Bishop Freake, and of Bishop Freake's consecration by Archbishop Parker, and lastly of Archbishop Parker's own consecration, he was so fully satisfied with it, that he himself did raze out all that part of the conference between him and Doctor Reynolds ¶. [The conference between Dr. Reynolds (or Rainolds) and Mr. Hart was held about 1583, and published first in the following year (according to Wood, Athen. Oxon., vol. ii. p. 15. ed. Bliss). The account in the text is taken from Mason (bk. iii. c. 18. § 13), who had it from Reynolds himself. An attes- PART My fourth witness is Father Oldcorn the Jesuit. This I. testimony was urged by me in my Treatise of Schism in [4. Father Oldcorn.] these words ;-"These authentic evidences being upon occasion produced out of our ecclesiastical courts, and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorn the Jesuit, he both confessed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted (that was, the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church), and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendom, that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was; blaming us as partly guilty of the gross mistake of many, for not having publicly and timely made known to the world the notorious falsehood of that empty but far spread aspersion against our succession "." To this the Bishop of Chalcedon, who was better acquainted with the passages of those times in England than any of those persons whom these Fathers style of " undoubted credit," makes this confession,-" that Father Oldcorn being in hold for the powder treason, and judging others by himself, should say those registers to be authentic, is no marvelt." [5. Mr. Wadsworth.] A fifth witness is Mr. Wadsworth, who in an Epistle to a friend in England doth testify, that "before he left England he read the consecration of Archbishop Parker in our registers"." This made him so moderate above his fellows, that whereas some of them tell of five, and the most of them of in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lam- [Edward Oldcorn, a Jesuit, "after 8 u Survey &c., c. ix. [sect. 6.] p. 132. [Quoted from Mason, bk. iii. c. 18. § 14. ed. 1625.-" I know and have seen the records themselves, that afterward there was a consecration of Doctor Parker at Lambeth, and three Bishops named, viz. Miles Coverdall of Exeter, one Hodgeskin suffragan of Bedford, and another whose name I have forgotten." Wadsw.,] in Epist. ad Amic. n. 5. [§ xi. pp. 12, 13. as before quoted. Wadsworth turned Romanist when chaplain to the English Ambassador in Spain in 1605 (Winwood's Memor., vol. ii. pp. 109, 131, 136); and (apparently) continued in that country until 1615 (the date of the above letter) and afterwards until his death about 1623 (Pref. to Letters, &c. between Wadsw. and Bedell). He must have seen the register consequently before 1605. Compare also the same Letters, &c., c. xi, p. 141.] fifteen, which were consecrated at the Nag's Head, he saith DISCOURSE only, that "the consecration of the first Protestant Bishop 66 461 was attempted there, but not accomplished." If it were only attempted, not accomplished," then the Nag's Head Ordination is a fable. But it falleth out very unfortunately for Mr. Wadsworth's "attempt," that of all those first Protestant Bishops, whose elections were all confirmed at Bow's Church about that time (and it might be all of them, it is very probable sundry of them, had a confirmation dinner at the Nag's Head), not one was confirmed in person, but all of them by their proxies; Archbishop Parker by Doctor Bullingham, Bishop Barlow and Bishop Scory by Walter Jones Bachelor of Law, Bishop Grindal by Thomas Hink Doctor of Law, Bishop Cox by Edward Gascoine, Bishop Sandes by Thomas Bentham, &c.; as appeareth by the authentic records of their confirmation". Bishops are ordinarily confirmed by proxy; but no man was ever consecrated, no man was ever attempted to be consecrated, by proxy. V. other Ro The four next witnesses are Mr. Collington, Mr. Laithwaite, [6. Four Mr. Faircloth, and Mr. Leake, two of them of the same order manists.] with these Fathers; to whom the Archbishop of Canterbury caused these records to be shewed, in the presence of himself, the Bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Bath and Wells, Lincoln, and Rochester. They viewed the register, they turned it over and over, and perused it as much as they pleased, and in conclusion gave this sentence of it, that "the book was beyond exception." To say, that afterwards they desired to have the records into prison, to peruse them more fully, is ridiculous. Such records may not go out of the presence of the keeper. But these Fathers may see them as much as they list in the registry, if they seek for satisfaction, not altercation. PART I. [7. Mr. self.] Lastly, Bishop Bonner had a suit with Bishop Horne; and the issue was, whether Bishop Horne were legally consecrated Neale him- Bishop; upon that scruple, or rather cavil, which I have formerly mentioned". If Mr. Neale, who they say was Bishop Bonner's chaplain, and sent on purpose to spy what the Bishops did, could have proved the ordination of Bishop Horne at the Nag's Head, he might not only have cleared his master, but have turned Bishop Horne deservedly out of his Bishopric. But he was loath to forfeit his ears by avouching such a palpable lie. The Nag's Head Ordination was not talked of in those days. How should it, before it was first devised? Mr. Sanders dedicated a book to Archbishop Parker, which he called The Rock of the Church: if the Nag's Head Ordination had been a serious truth, how would he have triumphed over the poor Archbishop! [Conclusion.] To conclude;-if faith ought to be given to concurring records, ecclesiastical and civil, of the Church and kingdom of England; if a full Parliament of the whole kingdom deserve any credit; if the testimony of the most eminent public notaries in the kingdom, if witnesses without exception, if the silence, or contradiction, or confession, of known adversaries, be of any force; if the strongest presumptions in the world may have any place,-that men in their right wits will not ruin themselves wilfully, without necessity, or hope of advantage ;—if all these grounds put together do overbalance the clandestine relation of a single malicious spy, without either oath, or any other obligation; then I hope every one who readeth these grounds will conclude with me, that the register of the Church of England is beyond all exception, and the malicious relation of the Nag's Head Ordination, a very tale of a tub, and no better; so full of ridiculous folly in b [c. v. pp. 79-81; and see below in the beginning of c. viii. To Neale's negative testimony may be added that of Bonner himself, and others of the deprived Bishops, who in a letter of urgent remonstrance to Qu. Elizabeth, dated Dec. 4. 1559 (Strype, Annals, I. 1. 217), make no allusion whatever to such a circumstance as that of the Nag's Head Consecration: which evidence is corroborated by a similar silence in a letter of the same parties to Parker himself (dated March, 1560), so far as can be gathered from Strype's account of its contents and from Parker's reply (Strype, Parker, bk. ii. c. 2). See Browne, c. vi.] [The Rock of the Church, wherein the Primacy of St. Peter, and his Successors, the Bishops of Rome, is proved out of God's Word. Louvain, 8vo. 1566, 1567; St. Omers 1624; with a dedication "to the Right Worshipful M. Doctor Parker, bearing the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury." See Mason, bk. iii. c. 8. § 1.] itself, that I wonder how any prudent man can relate it DISCOURSE without laughter. Who told this to Bluet? Neale. Who told this to Haberley? Neale. Who told it to the rest of the prisoners at Wisbeach? Neale; only Neale. Who suggested it to Neale? The Father of lies. Neale made the fable, Neale related it in corners, long after the time it was pretended to be acted. If his master Bishop Bonner had known any thing of it, we had heard of it long before. That the Archbishop should leave Lambeth to come to London to be consecrated; that he should leave all those churches in London, which are immediately under his own jurisdiction, to choose a common tavern, as the fittest place for such a work; that Bishop Bonner, being deprived of his Bishopric, and a prisoner in London, should send Neale from Oxford, and send a command by him to one over whom he never had any jurisdiction; that the other Bishop, being then a Protestant, should obey him being a Roman Catholic, when there were so many 462 churches in the city to perform that work in where the Bishop of London never pretended any jurisdiction; that these things should be treated, and concluded, and executed, all at one meeting; that Bishop Bonner did foresee it would be so, and command his servant to attend there until he see the end of that business; that the Bishops, being about such a clandestine work, should suffer a known enemy to stay all the while in their company;-is incredible. If Neale had feigned that he had heard it from one of the drawer's boys, it had deserved more credit than this silly, improbable, inconsistent relation; which looketh more like a heap of fictions made by several authors by starts, than a continued relation of one man. "Quicquid ostendas mihi sic incredulus odi "." CHAP. VII. THE NAG'S HEAD ORDINATION IS BUT A LATE Device-of THE EARL OF 8. ELIZAB. C. I.—AND THE QUEEN'S DISPENSATION. V. Now, having laid our grounds, in the next place let us see [The story what the Fathers have to say further for themselves. d [Hor., A. P. 188.] of the Nag's Head Consecration |