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after shall be made afore them of the same oath by any 1534. person or persons coming before them to take the same oath; and that every such certificate to be made by such A certificommissioners, as is aforesaid, shall be taken as strong and refusal as available in the law as an indictment of twelve men to have weight of lawfully found of the said refusal; so that the person and an indictpersons, against whom any such certificate shall be made, ment by a jury. shall be compelled to answer thereunto as if they were indicted; and that such process, judgment, execution, and every other thing shall be had, used, and ministered, of and upon every such certificate against the offenders, as if they had been lawfully indicted of such offences by the due course and order of the common laws of this realm.

LVII.

THE TREASONS ACT, A. D. 1534.

26 HENRY VIII, CAP. 13.

THIS Act was passed in the November session of 1534; it remained 1534 upon the Statute Book till 1863 Stat. Law Rev. Act, 1863).

[Transcr. Statutes of the Realm, iii. 508.]

Forasmuch as it is most necessary, both for common Necessity

for the

and

queen.

policy and duty of subjects, above all things to prohibit, protection provide, restrain, and extinct all manner of shameful slanders, of the king perils, or imminent danger or dangers, which might grow, happen, or rise to their sovereign lord the king, the queen, or their heirs, which when they be heard, seen, or understood, cannot be but odible, and also abhorred of all those sorts that be true and loving subjects, if in any point they may do, or shall touch the king, his queen, their heirs or successors, upon which dependeth the whole unity and

1534.

Definition of high

treason.

universal weal of this realm, without providing wherefore too great a scope of unreasonable liberty should be given to all cankered and traitorous hearts, willers and workers of the same; and also the king's loving subjects should not declare unto their sovereign lord now being, which unto them has been, and is most entirely both beloved and esteemed, their undoubted sincerity and truth.

Be it therefore enacted by the assent and consent of our sovereign lord the king, and the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that if any person or persons, after the first day of February next coming, do maliciously wish, will, or desire, by words or writing, or by craft imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the king's most royal person, the queen's, or their heirs apparent, or to deprive them or any of them of their dignity, title, or name of their royal estates, or slanderously and maliciously publish and pronounce, by express writing or words, that the king our sovereign lord should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel or usurper of the crown, or rebelliously do detain, keep, or withhold from our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, any of his or their castles, fortresses, fortalices, or holds within this realm, or in any other the king's dominions or marches, or rebelliously detain, keep, or withhold from the king's said highness, his heirs or successors, any of his or their ships, ordnances, artillery, or other munitions or fortifications of war, and do not humbly render and give up to our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, or to such persons as shall be deputed by them, such castles, fortresses, fortalices, holds, ships, ordnances, artillery, and other munitions and fortifications of war, rebelliously kept or detained, within six days next after they shall be commanded by our said sovereign lord, his heirs or successors, by open proclamation under the great seal:

That then every such person and persons so offending in 1534. any the premises, after the said first day of February, their Penalty. aiders, counsellors, consenters, and abettors, being thereof lawfully convicted according to the laws and customs of this realm, shall be adjudged traitors, and that every such offence in any the premises, that shall be committed or done after the said first day of February, shall be reputed, accepted, and adjudged high treason, and the offenders therein and their aiders, consenters, counsellors, and abettors, being lawfully convicted of any such offence as is aforesaid, shall have and suffer such pains of death and other penalties, as is limited and accustomed in cases of high treason.

or

benefit of

And to the intent that all treasons should be the more No traitor dread, hated and detested to be done by any person to have persons, and also because it is a great boldness and an sanctuary. occasion to ill-disposed persons, to adventure and embrace their malicious intents and enterprises, which all true subjects ought to study to eschew: be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that none offender in any kinds of high treasons whatsoever they be, their aiders, consenters, counsellers, nor abettors, shall be admitted to have the benefit or privilege of any manner of sanctuary, considering that matters of treasons touch so nigh both the surety of the king our sovereign lord's person, and his heirs and successors.

as to

by resi

And over that, be it enacted by authority aforesaid, that Provision if any of the king's subjects, denizens or other, do commit for inquiry or practise out of the limits of this realm, in any outward treason parts, any such offences, which by this Act are made, or committed heretofore have been made treason, that then such treasons, dents whatsoever they be, or wheresoever they shall happen so to abroad. be done or committed, shall be inquired and presented by the oaths of twelve good and lawful men, upon good and probable evidence and witness, in such shire and county of

1534.

The outlawry of

such per

sons on

conviction.

What a person convicted

this realm, and before such persons as it shall please the king's highness to appoint by commission under his great seal, in like manner and form as treasons committed within this realm have been used to be inquired of and presented; and that upon every indictment and presentment found and made of any such treasons, and certified into the King's Bench, like process and other circumstance shall be there had and made against the offenders, as if the same treasons, so presented, had been lawfully found to be done and committed within the limits of this realm. And that all process of outlawry hereafter to be made and had within this realm against any offenders in treason, being resident or inhabited out of the limits of this realm, or in any of the parts of beyond the sea, at the time of the outlawry pronounced against them, shall be as good and as effectual in the law to all intents and purposes, as if such offenders had been resident and dwelling within this realm at the time of such process awarded, and outlawry pronounced.

And be it further enacted by authority aforesaid, that every offender and offenders, being hereafter lawfully convicted of treason of any manner of high treasons, by presentment, confession,

shall

forfeit.

verdict or process of outlawry, according to the due course and custom of the common laws of this realm, shall lose and forfeit to the king's highness, his heirs and successors, all such lands, tenements, and hereditaments, which any such offender or offenders shall have of any estate of inheritance in use or possession, by any right, title, or means, within this realm of England, or elsewhere, within any of the king's dominions, at the time of any such treason Saving of committed, or any time after; saving to every person the rights and persons, their heirs and successors (other than the offenders in any treasons, their heirs and successors, and such person and persons as claim to any their uses), all such rights, titles, interests, possessions, leases, rents, offices, and other profits, which they shall have at the day of com

of others.

mitting such treasons, or any time afore, in as large and ample manner as if this Act had never been had nor made.

1534.

LVIII.

ABJURATION OF PAPAL SUPREMACY BY THE
CLERGY, A. D. 1534.

ON March 31, the Convocation of Canterbury considered the question of the papal supremacy, and rejected it by a decisive majority. The Convocation of York discussed the matter on May 5 and subsequent days. The Cambridge decision is dated May 2, and the Oxford June 27. The king's proclamation abolishing the usurped power of the pope' is dated June 9.

CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY.

[Tr. Wilkins, iii. 769, who quotes from the Register of Convocation 1.]

and

1534.

vocation

affirmatively by And a large majority that the

On the last day of March, in the presence of the most Canterreverend Ralph Pexsall, the clerk of the crown in the bury Conchancery of the lord the king, in the name of the said king, decides presented a royal writ for summoning Convocation proroguing it to the fourth day of November following. afterwards was exhibited a writing by William Saye, notary public, concerning the answer of the Lower House to the question, viz. 'Whether the Roman pontiff has any greater jurisdiction bestowed on him by God in the Holy Scriptures in this realm of England, than any other foreign [externus] bishop?' Noes 34, doubtful 1, ayes 4.

CONVOCATION OF York.

[Tr. Reg. Lee, fol. 88; cf. Wilkins, iii. 782.]

By virtue of a royal writ this synod, convened on the fifteenth day of May, sent to the lord the king, by the

1 We have failed to trace the original.-EDD.

pope has no greater power, &c.

The Con

vocation of York, re

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