Penalties for non-observance of the articles. Punishment of preached or dis those, who Six Articles. puted against the in these articles; and enacted, that if any did speak, preach, HENRY VIII. or write against the first article, they were to be judged here- 1509-1547. tics, and to be burnt without any abjuration, and to forfeit their real and personal estate to the king. And those who preached, or obstinately disputed against the other articles, were to be judged felons, and to suffer death as felons, without benefit of clergy. And those who, either in word or writing, spake against them, were to be prisoners during the king's pleasure, and forfeit their goods and chattels to the king, for the first time; and if they offended so, the second time, they were to suffer as felons. The marriages of priests were declared void; and if any priest kept any such woman, whom Marriages of he had so married, and lived familiarly with her, as with his wife, he was to be judged a felon; and if a priest lived carnally with any other woman, he was upon the first conviction to forfeit his benefices, goods, and chattels, and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure; and upon the second conviction, was to suffer as a felon. priests. women. The women so offending Punishment of were also to be punished in the same manner as the priests: and those who contemned, or abstained from confession, or the sacrament, at the accustomed times, for the first offence, were to forfeit their goods and chattels, and be imprisoned; and for the second, were to be adjudged of felony. For the execution of this act, commissions were to be issued Appointment of out to all archbishops and bishops, and their chancellors and commissioners. commissaries, and such others in the several shires as the king should name, to hold their sessions quarterly, or oftener; and they were to proceed upon presentments, and by a jury. These commissioners were to swear, that they should execute their commission indifferently, without favour, affection, corruption, or malice. All ecclesiastical incumbents were to read this act in their churches once a quarter; and, in the end, a proviso was added, concerning vows of chastity; that they should not oblige any, except such as had taken them, at or above the age of twenty-one years; or had not been compelled to take them. Six Articles mitigated. The law of the Six Articles was mitigated by Stat. 35 Hen. The law of the VIII. c. 5, which enacted that no person should be put to his trial, upon an accusation concerning any of the offences com- Stat. 35 Henry prised in Stat. 31 Hen. VIII. c. 14, except on the oath of twelve persons, before commissioners authorized for the purpose; and that no person should be arrested, or committed to ward for VIII. c. 5. 1509-1547. HENRY VIII. any such offence before he was indicted; and any preacher accused of speaking in his sermon contrary to these articles, was to be indicted within forty days. ECCLESIASTICAL Commissioners appointed to settle a religion. Stat. 32 Henry VIII. c. 26. " ERUDITION FOR ANY CHRISTIAN MAN." PUBLICATION OF PSALMS AND PRI Henry had appointed a commission consisting of the two archbishops and several bishops of both provinces, together with a considerable number of doctors of divinity, and, by virtue of his ecclesiastical supremacy, he had given them in charge to select a religion for his people. Before the commissioners had made any progress, the legislature, by Stat. 32 Henry VIII. c. 26, ratified all the tenets which these divines should thereafter establish with the king's consent; but the commissioners were to establish nothing repugnant to the laws and statutes of the realm; which proviso was inserted by the king to serve his own purposes: because, by introducing a confusion and contradiction into the laws, he became more master of every one's life and property. And, as the ancient independence of the church still gave him jealousy, he was thus enabled to introduce appeals from the spiritual to the civil courts. It was, for a like reason, that he would never promulgate a body of canon law, and he encouraged the judges, on all occasions, to interpose in ecclesiastical causes, wherever they thought the royal prerogative was concerned. In 1542, another system of religious tenets published by Henry, is contained in a work, intituled, "A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man." It teaches the same doctrines, as the "Institution of a Christian Man," with the addition of transubstantiation, and the sufficiency of communion under one kind. Before the expedition against France in which Boulogne was taken, a litany in English had been published, which corresponds with our present one in almost every particular, except that the invocation of saints and angels was still retained, and there was a petition against the tyranny of the pope. To this work, psalms and private devotions were added; VATE DEVOTIONS. and in the preface, the utility of private prayer in the mother tongue, is particularly insisted on. The correct notion, also, 39 The "Bishop's Book," or "The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man," was published in 1537; it was republished in 1543, intituled "The necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man," and being under royal authority, was called the "King's Book." 40 Wilk. Con. iii. 868. Strype, 100. 4 Lingard, 310, 311. of Christ's presence in the sacrament of the Lord's supper, seems to be delivered, in an explanation of the Lord's Prayer, as a paraphrase of the fourth petition": and in 1545, a collection of prayers was published, which was composed by the queen. HENRY VIII. 1509-1547. VIII. c. 3. The other statutes of this reign relative to the Reformation, and which have not been noticed, were essentially in aid of those which have been extracted, and not introductory of new matter: thus 26 Henry VIII., c. 3, gave the king the first Stat. 26 Henry fruits and tenths which had been taken from the pope; by 26 Henry VIII., c. 14, the primitive institution of suffragan bishops was provided for, in order to promote the good government of the church; Stat. 27 Henry VIII., c. 15, for revising Stat. 27 Henry the canon law, and drawing up a body of ecclesiastical laws; Stat. 28 Henry VIII., c. 13, made an amendment in the late law of non-residence by the clergy; Stat. 31 Henry VIII., c. 9, the king was empowered to create bishops by letters patent; Stat. 34 and 35 Henry VIII., c. 1, some provisions Stat. 34 and 35 were made about Tindal's books. The great object of these statutes was to rescue the kingdom from a foreign yoke, and to prevent the English clergy from establishing independent authority in their own body; in a word, to bring ecclesiastical causes, like the civil, under the control of the chief magistrate and fountain of justice. But the prerogative being bounded by the provisions of the legislature, the supremacy abstractedly considered, implies no unreasonable power in the crown; and does not, in reality, involve any question about the respective merits of ecclesiastical establishments, except in so far as the clergy maintain, that their order is a divine institution which ought to be independent of civil government. VIII. c. 14, 15. vIII. c. 13. Stat. 31 Henry VIII. c. 9. Henry VIII. c. 1. The chief object of the statutes, relative to eccle siastical reforma tion. state should be subordinate to tution. Wherever there is a religion of the state, it ought, in the A religion of the nature of things, to be erastian, or subordinate to the civil constitution. If it be otherwise, there must necessarily either the civil constibe such a clashing of interests between the church and state, as will prove destructive of public peace, and, in the common case, end in the ruin of the religious establishment, or the monarch will form a junction with the priesthood, prejudicial to the rest of the community, since each will, from their mutual interest, assist the other in usurpations upon the public rights. 41 Strype, 174. 1 Short's Church Hist. 188; vide etiam 2 Ib. 306. Strype, 174. 421 Brodie, 99. EDWARD VI. 1547-1553. Disposition of the crown of to the people of England. SECTION III. EDWARD VI., January 28, A.D. 1547,—July 6, a.d. 1553. 1 It has been observed by Bolingbroke that if Henry VIII. had left a son and successor of full age, and bold and enterprising like himself, our liberties had been irretrievably lost, according to all appearance. Henry VIII., by applying to his parliament for the extraEngland belongs ordinary powers which he exercised, and by taking these powers for such terms, and under such restrictions as the parliament imposed, owned indeed sufficiently that they did not belong of right to the crown. He owned, likewise, in effect, more than any prince who went before him, how absolutely the disposition of the crown of England belongs to the people of England, by procuring so many difficult and opposite settlements of it to be made in parliament; and yet tyranny was actually established. The freedom of our government might flourish in speculation, but certainly it did not subsist in practice. Danger of admitting encroachments on the constitution. Our forefathers, in the case supposed above, would very soon have found how fatal it is, under any circumstances, by any means, or under any pretences, to admit encroachments on the constitution; and how vain it is, when these encroachments are once admitted, for the service of some present turn, to prescribe the limitations to the exercise or duration of them: in fact, the principle of all political regulations should be:Live with your enemy as if he were one day to become your friend; live with your friend as if he were one day to become your enemy. But Providence directed the course of things better, and broke those shackles which we had forged for ourselves. A minority followed this turbulent reign: the government was weak, the governors divided, and the temper of the people such, as made it prudent to soothe them. 'Bolingbroke's Hist. Eng. 111. 1547-1553. This the Duke of Somerset did out of inclination, and the EDWARD VI. Duke of Northumberland out of policy. To the former we owe, not only the purification of the Anglican church from the dross of popery, but the first and great steps which were made to restore a free government. In order to suppress that fact, so distasteful to the Tudors and Stuarts, that sovereignty is of popular origin, an inno vation was made at the coronation. It had been the invariable rule for the king to take an oath to preserve the liberties of the realm, and especially those granted by Edward the Confessor, &c., before the people were asked whether they would consent to have him as their king; but upon the present occasion, not only did the address to the people precede the oath of the king, but, in that address, they were reminded that, he held his crown by descent, and that it was their duty to submit to his rule. Policy of Somerumberland. set and North Change in the coronation oath. 2. Rescission of Tyrannical Statutes. Treason restricted to Stat. 25 Edward III. Stat. 5, c. 2. Stat. 1 Edward Several statutes, grievous to the nation, and destructive of liberty, were modified or rescinded: thus, the Stat. 1 Edw. VI. c. 11, mitigated Stat. 28 Henry VIII. c. 17, which had empowered a minor king to annul every statute passed before the four-and-twentieth year of his age; by enacting, that he could only prevent their future execution, but could not recal any past effects which had ensued from them: the crime of treason was restricted to Stat. 25 Edw. III., st. 5, c. 2; and all enactments during the late reign, extending the crime of felony, except concerning those who counterfeited the king's sign manual, privy signet, or privy seal, and servants embezzling their master's goods; and all laws against lollardy or heresy, together with the Statute of the Six Articles, were Statute of the Six repealed; and none were to be accused for words but within a month after they were spoken. VI. c. 12. Articles repealed. crime by the common law. Heresy was, however, a capital crime by the common law, Heresy a capital and was subjected to the penalty of burning, but there remained no precise standard by which that crime could be defined or determined,-a circumstance which might either be 27 Rymer, 158. 2 Burnet, App. 93. 4 Lingard, 374. P |