I. PART when all the churches in the kingdom were open to them? unless it had been Midsummer-Moon in December, and they were all stark mad, and then it is no matter where they were consecrated. In criminal causes, where things are pretended to be done against penal laws, such as this is, the proofs ought to be clearer than the noon-day light. Here is nothing proved,— but one single witness named,-and he a professed enemywho never testified it upon oath-or before a judge—or so much as a public notary-or to the face of a Protestant,-but 440 only whispered it in corners (as it is said by adversaries) among some of his own party. Such a testimony is not worth a deaf nut, in any cause between party and party. If he had been a witness beyond all exception, and had been duly sworn, and legally examined, yet his testimony in the most favourable cause had been but half a proof. Though a hundred did testify it from his mouth, it is still but a single testimony. And as it is, it is plain prittle prattle, and ought to be valued no more than 'the shadow of an ass.' To admit such a testimony, or a hundred such testimonies, against the public authentic records of the kingdom, were to make ourselves guilty of more madness than they accuse the Bishops [1 Tim. v. of. If St. Paul forbid Timothy to "receive an accusation" 19.] against a single presbyter "under two or three witnesses," he would not have us to condemn fifteen Bishops of such a penal crime upon a ridiculous rumour, contrary both to the laws and records of the kingdom. The severity of our laws doth destroy the credit of this fable. IV. [Fourth reason against the Nag's Head CHAPTER IV. THE FOURTH AND FIFTH REASONS AGAINST THIS IMPROBABLE FICTION; IV. My fourth plea is, because there was no need to play this counterfeit pageant. We use to say, necessity hath no law, that is, regardeth no law. In time of war the laws Consecra- are silent. But this was a time of peace. First, there the want of could be no necessity why they should have a clandestine necessity consecration, without a register or public notary, when they tion;-from for it.] V. might have had an army of public notaries ready upon their DISCOURSE whistle, even under their elbows at Bow's Church, out of the courts of the Arches, and the Audience, and Prerogative. Secondly, there was no necessity why they should anticipate the Queen's letters patents for their consecration, by whose gracious favour they were elected; and of the accomplishment whereof in due time they could not doubt, unless they would wilfully destroy their own hopes by such a mad prank as this had been; that is, unless they would themselves hew down the bough whereupon they stood. Thirdly, there was no necessity that they should choose a common tavern for the place of their consecration, when the keys of all the churches in the kingdom were at their command. Fourthly, there could be no necessity why they should desert the form of ordination prescribed by the law, which was agreeable both to their judgments, and to their desires, and to their duties; and to omit the essentials of ordination, both matter and form, which they knew well enough, to be consecrated after a new brainsick manner'. of a com number of ordainers.] Then all the necessity which can be pretended, is want of [No want a competent number of ordainers. Suppose there had been petent such a necessity to be ordained by two Bishops, or by one Bishop, this very necessity had been a sufficient dispensation with the rigour of the canons, and had justified the act. As St. Gregory pleadeth to Augustin, "In the English Church, wherein there is no other Bishop but thyself, thou canst not ordain a Bishop otherwise than alonem." And after this manner our first English Bishops were ordained. And so might these Protestant Bishops have been validly ordained, if they received the essentials of ordination. But what a remedy is this,-because they could not have a competent number of Bishops according to the canons of the Church and the laws of England, therefore to reject the essentials of ordination, for a defect which was not essential, and to cast off obedience to their superiors, both civil and ecclesiastical? This had been just like little children, which because they cannot have some toy which they desire, cast away their gar I. PART ments, and whatsoever their parents had provided for them. Want of three Bishops might in some cases make a consecration illegal or uncanonical, but it could not have rendered it invalid, as this silly pretended ordination had. But now I come up close to the ground-work of the fable, and I deny positively that there was any such want of a competent number of Bishops, as they pretend. And for proof 441 hereof, I bring no vain rumours or uncertain conjectures, but the evident and authentic testimony of the Great Seal of England, affixed to the Queen's letters patents for authorising the confirmation and consecration of Archoishop Parker, dated the sixth day of December, anno 1559, directed to seven Protestant Bishops, namely, Anthony Bishop of Llandaff, William Barlow sometimes Bishop of Bath and Wells and then elect Bishop of Chichester, John Scory sometimes Bishop of Chichester then elect Bishop of Hereford, Miles Coverdale sometimes Bishop of Exeter, John Suffragan Bishop of Bedford, John Suffragan Bishop of Thetford, and John Bale Bishop of Ossory in Ireland". Three are a canonical number; if there were choice of seven, then there was no want of a competent number to ordain canonically. I add, that if it had been needful, they might have had seven more out of Ireland, Archbishops and Bishops, for such a work as a consecration. Ireland never wanted store of ordainers; nor ever yet did any man object want of a competent number of consecraters to an Irish Protestant Bishop. They who concurred freely in the consecration of Protestant Bishops at home, would not have denied their concurrence in England, if they had been commanded. Which makes me give no credit to that vain report, of an Irish Archbishop prisoner in the Tower, who refused to comply with the desires of the Protestant Bishops, "for his liberty and a large reward"." But the Archbishop wanteth a name, and the fable wanteth a ground; the witnesses and persuaders are all unknown. And if there had been a grain of truth in this relation, yet in this DISCOURSE case one man is no man; one man's refusal signifieth nothing. Against the evident truth of this assertion, two things may be opposed out of the relation of these Fathers. V. The first is particular, concerning the Bishop of Llandaff;- [1. Of the Bishop of that he was no Protestant, but a Roman Catholic until his Llandaff in death. So they say indeed; [and withal] that "he was the particular.] only man of all the Catholic Bishops that took the oath of supremacy P." Observe how prejudice and partiality doth blindfold men of learning and parts; they confess he took the oath of supremacy, and yet esteem him a good Roman Catholic. I see, censures go by favour; and one may steal a horse better than another look over the hedge. I am well contented, that they reckon him for so good a Catholic. They add, that "he knew Parker and the rest which were to be ordered Bishops to be heretics, and averse from the doctrine of the" (Roman) "Catholic Church, which he constantly adhered unto (the supremacy only excepted) during his life." And a little after they tell us, that "he desired to be numbered among Catholics." Now what if the Bishop of Llandaff after all this should prove to be a Protestant? Then all the Fathers' story is quite spoiled. And so he was. If he knew Parker and the rest to be heretics, he knew himself to be one of their brother heretics. His daily mass was the English Liturgy, as well as theirs ; he adhered constantly to a Protestant Bishopric during his life, as well as any of them; and if he did not hold it as long as any of them, it was death's fault, and none of his fault. They say "they prevailed with him to give them a meeting at the Nag's Head in Cheapside, where they hoped he would ordain them Bishops, despairing that ever he would do it in a church, because that would be too great and notorious a scandal for Catholics." They were too modest. They might easily have prevailed with him, or have had him commanded, to join in their consecration in a church, after a legal manner. [Antony Kitchin alias Dunstan, Bishop of Llandaff from 1545 until his death in 1563, was (according to Godwin) "Pontificiæ doctrinæ addictissimus" (whence probably it was that he did not actually assist at Parker's PART I. He who did not stick at renouncing the Pope, and swearing an oath of supremacy to his prince, would not have stuck at a legal ordination, upon the just command of his prince. But to desire him to do it in a tavern, in a clandestine manner, without the authority of the Great Seal, before their election was confirmed, was to desire him out of courtesy to run into a præmunire; that is, to forfeit his Bishopric of Llandaff, his estate, his liberty. Is it become a more "notorious scandal" to Catholics, to ordain in a church, than in a tavern, in the judgment of these Fathers? There may be scandal taken at the former, but notorious scandal is given by the latter. Here Bishop Bonner steppeth upon the stage, and had well near prevented the whole pageant, by sending his chaplain to the Bishop of Llandaff, to forbid him under pain of excommunication to exercise any such power of giving orders in his diocese, wherewith the old man being 442 terrified, and otherwise moved in conscience, refused to proceed." Bishop Bonner was always very fierce, which way soever he went. If Acworth say true, he escaped once very narrowly in Rome, either burning or boiling in scalding lead, for being so violent before the assembly of Cardinals against the Pope on the behalf of Henry the Eighth, if he had not secured himself by flight. Afterwards he made such bonfires of Protestants, and rendered himself so odious, that his prison was his only safeguard from being torn in pieces by the people'. But that was "Dum stetit Ilium et ingens gloria Teucrorum"," —whilst he had his prince to be his second. Now he was deprived, and had no more to do with the Bishopric of London than with the Bishopric of Constantinople. He had the habitual power of the Keys, but he had no flock to exercise it upon. [And, secondly,] if he had continued Bishop of London still, what hath the Bishop of London to do with the Bishop of Llandaff? Par in parem non habet potestatem.' Thirdly, Bow's Church, which is near the Nag's Head, wherein the ecclesiastical part of this story, so far Acworth, Cont. Monarch. Sander., lib. [ii.] p. 195. [Lond. 1573.] [Andrewes, Tortura Torti, p. 147. Lond. 1609;-Godwin, De Præsul., in Vitâ Boneri;-Strype, Annals, I. i. 214.] [Virg., Æn., i. 268. ii. 325, 326.] |