A universal history of Christian persecutions and martyrdom...

Front matter

M

St. Lawrence fastened to a gridiron and burned to death with a slow fire.

Dreadful Sufferings of Primitive Martyrs.

CHAPTER I. Progress of the Reformation i?t the reign of Henry VIIL

The reader will, doubtless, attend to the transactions recorded in this reign with peculiar interest. It was in this period that God, through the instrumentality of the king, liberated this country from the papal yoke, when England became, as it were, a religious world dependent on itself.

The wars between the houses of York and Lancaster had produced such fatal revolutions, and thrown England into such frequent convulsions, that the nation with great joy hailed the accession o[ Henry VII. to the throne, who, being himself descended from the house of Lancaster, by his marriage with the heiress of the house of York freed them from the fear of any further civil wars. But the covetousness of his temper, the severity of his ministers, and his jealousy of the house of York, made him so generally odious to his people that his death was little lamented.

Henry VIIL succeeded, with all the advantages he could have desired; and his disgracing Empson and Dudley, the cruel ministers of his father's avaricious designs, his appointing restitution to be made of the sums that had been unjustly exacted of the people, and his ordering justice to be done on those rapacious ministers, gave all people hopes of happy times ; and when ministers, by the king's orders, were condemned and 1* executed for invading the liberties of the people under the covert of the king's prerogative, it made the nation conclude that they should hereafter live secure under the protection of such a prince, and that the violent remedies of parliamentary judgments should be no more necessary, except as in this case, to confirm what had been done before in the ordinary courts of justice.

One of the most remarkable men of this, or perhaps of any other age, was cardinal Wolsey. He was of mean extraction, but possessed of great abilities, and had wonderful dexterity in insinuating himself into men's favor. He had but a little time been introduced to the king when he obtained an entire ascendency over him, and the direction of all his affairs, and for fifteen years continued to be th£ most absolute favorite ever known in England. He saw the king was much set on his pleasures and had a great aversion to business, and the other counsellors, being unwilling to bear the load of affairs, were troublesome to him, by pressing him to govern by his own counsels ; but Wolsey ktiew the methods of favorites better, and so was not only easy, but assistant, to the king in his pleasures, frttd undertook to free him from the trouble of government, and to give him leisure to follow his appetites.

He was master of all the offices at home and treaties abroad, so that all affairs went as he directed them. He soon became obnoxious to parliaments, and therefore tried but one during his ministry, where the supply was granted so scantily, that afterwards he chose rather to raise money by loans and benevolences than by the free gift of the people in parliament. He in time became so scandalous for his ill life, that he grew to be a disgrace to his profession ; for he not only served the king, but also shared with him, in his pleasures. He was first made bishop of Tournay, in Flanders, then of Lincoln, after that he was promoted to the see of York; and had both the abbey of St. Alban's, and the bishopric of Bath and Wells, in commendam; the last he afterwards exchanged for Duresm, and upon Fox's death he quitted Duresm, that he might take Winchester ; and besides all this, the king, by a special grant, gave him power to dispose of all the ecclesiastical preferments in England ; so that in effect he was the pope of the British world, and no doubt but he copied skilfully enough after those patterns that were set him at Rome. Being made a cardinal, and setting up a legatine court, he found it fit for his ambition to have the great seal likewise, that there might be no clashing between those two jurisdictions. He had, in one word, all the qualities

PROGRESS OP THE REFORMATION. 7

frecessary for a great minister, and all the vices usual in a great favorite.

Tbe immunity of churchmen for crimes committed by them till they were first degraded by the spiritual court, occasioned a contest in the beginning of this reign between the secular and ecclesiastical courts. A law was passed under Henry the Seventh, that clerks convict should be burnt in the hand. A temporary law was also made in the beginning of Henry the Eighth's reign, that murderers and robbers, not being bishops, priests, nor deacons, should be denied the benefit of clergy ; but this was to last only till the next parliament, and so, being not continued by it, the act determined. The abbot of Winchelcomb preached severely against it, as being contrary to the laws of God and the liberties of the holy church, and said that all who assented to it had fallen under the censures of the church. And afterwards he published a book to prove that all clerks, even of the lower orders, were sacred, and could not be judged by the temporal courts.

Not long after this, Richard Hun, a merchant of London, was sued by his parish priest for a mortuary in the legate's court ; on this, his friends advised him to sue the priest in the temporal court for a praemunire for bringing the king's subjects before a foreign and illegal court. This incensed the clergy so much that they contrived his destruction. Accordingly, hearing that he had WicklifTe's Bible in his house, he was upon that put in the bishop's prison for heresy ; but being examined upon sundry articles, he confessed some things, and submitted himself to mercy ; upon which they ought, according to the law, to have enjoined him penance, and discharged him, this being his first crime ; but he could not be prevailed on by the terror of this to let his suit fall in the temporal court ; so one night his neck was broken with an iron chain, and he was wounded in other parts of his body, and then knit up in his own girdle, and it was given out that he had hanged himself; but the coroner's inquest, by examining the body, and by several other evidences, particularly by the confession of the sumner, gave their verdict that he was murdered.

In the beginning of this reign, several persons were brought into the bishops' courts for heresy, or Lollardism. Forty-eight were accused : but of these, forty-three abjured, twenty-seven men and sixteen women, most of them being of Tenterden ; and five of them, four men and one woman, were condemned, Tsome as obstinate heretics, and others as relapsers : and, against the common laws of nature, the woman's husband, and her two sons, were brought as witnesses against her. Upon their conviction, a certificate was made by the archbishop to the chancery ; upon which, since there is no pardon upon record, the writs for burning them must have been issued in course, and the execution of them is little to be doubted. The articles objected to them were, that they believed that in the eucharist there was nothing but material bread ; that the sacraments of baptim, confirmation, confession, matrimony, and extreme unction, werd neither necessary nor profitable ; that priests had no more power than laymen ; that pilgrimages were not meritorious, and that the money and labor spent in them were spent in vain ; that images ought not to be worshiped, and that they were only stocks and stones ; that prayers ought not to be made to saints, but only to God ; that there was no virtue in holy water, or holy bread. By this it will appear, that many in this nation were prepared to receive those doctrines which were afterwards preached by the reformers, even before Luther began first to oppose indulgences.

The rise and progress of the doctrines of Luther are well known : the scandalous sale of indulgences gave the first occasion to all that followed between him and the church of Kome ; in which, had not the corruptions and cruelties of the clergy been so visible and scandalous, so small a cause could never have produced so great a revolution.

It was found that a blind superstition came first in the room of true piety ; and when by its means the wealth and interest of the clergy were highly advanced, the popes had upon that established their tyranny ; under which all classes of people had long groaned. All these things concurred to make way for the advancement of the reformation ; and the books of the German reformers being brought into England, and translated, many were prevailed on by them. Upon this, a furious persecution was set on foot, to such a degree, that six men and women were burnt in Coventry in passion-week, only for teaching their children the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments, in English. Great numbers were everywhere brought into the bishops' courts ; of whom some were burnt, but the greater part abjured.

The king laid hold on this occasion to become the champion of the church, and wrote aginst Luther. His book, besides the title of " Defender of the Faith," drew upon him all that flattery could invent to extol it ; yet Luther, not daunted by such an antagonist, answered it, and treated him as much below the respect that was due to a king, as his flatterers had raised him above it. Tindal's translation of the New Testament, with notes, drew a severe condemnation from the clergy, there being nothing m which they are more concerned than to keep the people unacquainted with that book.

Tindal and others at Antwerp were every year either translating or writing books against some of the received errors, and sending them over to England. But the translation of the New Testament, by Tindal, gave the greatest ofTence, and was much complained of by the clergy as full of errors. Tonstall, then bishop of London, returning from Cambray, to which place Sir Thomas More and he had been sent by the king, as be came through Antwerp, bargained with an English merchant who was secretly a friend of Tindal to procure him as many of his New Testaments as could be had for money. Tindal gladly received this ; for being about a more correct edition, he found he would be better enabled to proceed if the copies of the old were sold off; he therefore gave the merchant all he had, and Tonstall, paying for them, brought them over to England, and burnt them publicly in Cheapside. This was called a burning of the word of God ; and it was said the clergy had reason to revenge themselves on it, for it had done them more mischief than all other books whatever. But, a year after this, the second edition being finished, great numbers were sent over to England, when Constantine, one of Tindal's partners, happened to be taken : be* lieving that some of the London merchants furnished them with money, he was promised his liberty if he would discover who they were : upon this, he said that the bishop of London did more than all the world besides, for he bought up the greatest part of a faulty impression. The clergy, on their condemning Tindal's translation, promised a new one ; but, a year after, they said that it was not necessary to publish the scripture in English, and that the king did well not to set about it.

About this time a book, written by Fish, of Gray's Inn, was published. It was entitled, " The Supplication of the Beggars," and had a vast sale. In it the beggars were made to complain that the alms of the people were intercepted by the mendicant friars, who were a useless burden to the government; and to tax the pope with cruelty for taking no pity on the poor, since none but those who could pay for it were delivered out of purgatory. The king was so pleased with this, that he would not suffer any thing to be done against the author. Sir Thomas More answered it by another supplication in behalf of the souls in purgatory, setting forth the miseries they were in, and the relief which they received by the masses that were said for lO SUFFERINGS OF EARLY CHRISTIANS.

them ; and therefore they called upon their friends to support the religious orders, which had now so many enemies.

Frith published a serious answer to the last-mentioned work* in which he showed that there was no mention made of purgatory in scripture ; that it was inconsistent with the merits of Christ, by which, upon sincere repentance, all sins were pardoned ; for if they were pardoned, they could not be punished ; and though temporal judgments, either as medicinal corrections or a warning to others, do sometimes fall even on true penitents, yet terrible punishments in another state cannot consist with a free pardon, and the remembering of our sins no more. This book so provoked the clergy, that they resolved to make the author feel a real fire, for endeavoring to extinguish their imaginary one.

Sir Thomas More objected poverty and want of learning to the new preachers ; but it was answered, the same was made use of to reproach Christ and his apostles ; but a plain simplicity of mind, without artificial improvements, was rather thought a good disposition for men that were to bear a cross, and the glory of God appeared more eminently when the instruments seemed contemptible.

But the pen being thought too feeble and gentle, the clergy betook themselves to persecution. Many were vexed with imprisonments for teaching their children the Lord's prayer in English, for harboring the reformed preachers, and for speaking against the corruptions and vices of the clergy.

Hinton, formerly a curate, who had gone over to Tindal, was seized on his way back with some books he was conveying to England, and was condemned by archbishop Warham. He was kept long in prison ; but remaining firm in the truth, he was, at length, burned at Maidstone.

Thomas Bilney Was brought up at Cambridge from a child. On leaving the university, he preached in several places ; and in his sermons spoke with great boldness against the pride and insolence of the clergy. This was during the ministry of cardinal Wolsey, who, hearing of his attacks, caused him to be seized and imprisoned. Overcome with fear, Bilney abjured, was pardoned, and returned to Cambridge in the year 1530. Here he fell into great horror of mind, in consequence of his instability and denial of the truth. He became ashamed of himself, bitterly repented of his sin, and, growing strong in faith, resolved to make some atonement by a public avowal of his apostasy, and confession of his sentiments. To prepare himself for this task, he studied the scriptures with deep atten-

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. H

tion for two years ; at the expiration of which he again quitted the university, went into Norfolk, where he was born, and preached up and down that county against idolatry and superstition ; exhorting the people to a good life, to give alms, to believe in Christ, and to offer up their souls to him in the sacra* ment. He openly confessed his own sin of denying the faith ; and using no precaution as he went about, was soon taken by the bishop's officers, condemned as a relapse, and degraded. Sir Thomas More sent down the writ to burn him. Parker, afterwards archbishop, was an eye-witness of his sufferings, and affirms that he bore all his hardships with great fortitude and resignation, and continued very cheerful after his sentence. He ate up the poor provision that was brought him heartily, saying, he must keep up a ruinous cottage till it fell. He had these words of Isaiah often in his mouth, u When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt :" and by burning his finger in the candle, he prepared himself for the stake ; saying, the fire would only consume the stubble of his body, and would purify his soul.

On the 10th of November he was brought to the stake, where he repeated the creed, prayed earnestly, and with the deepest sense repeated these words, " Enter not into judgment with thy servant, Lord !" Dr. Warner, who attended, embraced him, shedding many tears, and wishing he might die in as good a frame of mind as Bilney then was. The friars requested him to inform the people that they were not instrumental to his death, which he did ; so that the last act of his life was one of charity and forgiveness.

The officers then put the reeds and fagots about his body, and set fire to the first, which made a great flame, and disfigured his face : he held up his hands, and struck his breast, crying sometimes " Jesus," sometimes " Credo !"' but the flame was blown away from him several times, the wind being very high, till at length the wood taking fire, the flame was stronger, and so he yielded up the ghost. His body, being shrunk up, leaned down on the chain, till one of the officers with his halberd struck out the staple of the chain behind him, on which it fell down into the bottom of the fire, when it was covered with wood, and consumed.

The sufferings, the confession, and the heroic death, of this martyr, inspirited and animated others to imitate his conduct.

Byfield, who had formerly abjured, was taken dispersing TmdaPs books ; and he, with one Tewkesbury, was condemned by Stokesly, and burnt. Two men and a woman suffered also the same fate at York. Upon these proceedings, the parliament complained to the king ; bat this did not check the sanguinary proceedings of the clergy. One Bainham, a counsellor of the Temple, was taken on suspicion of heresy, whipped in the presence of Sir Thomas More, and afterwards racked in the Tower, yet he could not be wrought on to accuse any, but through fear he abjured. After this, however, being discharged, he was in great trouble of mind, and could find no quiet till he went publicly to church, where he openly confessed his sins, and declared the torments he felt in his conscience for what he had done. Upon this he was again seized on, and condemned for having said that Thomas Becket was a murderer, and was damned if he did not repent ; and that in the sacrament Christ's body was received by faith, and not chewed with the teeth. Sentence was passed upon him, and he was burnt. Soon after this, More delivered up the great seal, in consequence of which the reformed preachers had a short respite.

But the persecution soon revived, and its rage stopped not at the living, but vented itself even on the dead. Lord Tracy made a will, by which he left his soul to God, in hopes of mercy through Christ, without the help of any saint; and therefore he declared that he would leave nothing for soul-masses. This will, being brought to the bishop of London's court to be proved, after his death, provoked the clergy so much,^ that he was condemned as a heretic, and an order was sent to the chancellor of Worcester to raise his body ; but he went beyond his instructions, and burnt it, which could not be justified, since the deceased was not a relapse. Tracy's heir sued him for it, and he was turned out of his place, and fined four hundred pounds.

The clergy proclaimed an indulgence of forty days' pardon to any that carried a fagot to the burning of a heretic, that so cruelty might seem the more meritorious.

The reformed now enjoyed a respite of two years, when the crafty Gardiner represented to the king, that it would tend much to his advantage if he would take some occasion to show his hatred of heresy. Accordingly, a young man named Frith was chosen as a sacrifice to this affected zeal for religion, He was a young man much famed for learning, and was the first who wrote in England against the corporeal presence in the

* We shall not be surprised at their anger, if we consider that they foresaw, in the event of Lord Tracy's example being followed, the abolition of the most profitable part of their traffic. They railed against him on the same grounds as Demetrius the silversmith did against Paul at Ephesus— they feared that "their craft was in. danger."

sacrament. He followed Zuinglius's doctrine, on these grounds ; Christ, received in the sacrament, gave eternal life, but this was given only to those who believed, from which he inferred that he was received only by faith. St. Paul said, that the fathers before Christ ate the same spiritual food with Christians ; from, which it appears, that Christ is now no more corporeally present to us than he was to them ; and he argued, from the nature of sacraments in general, and the end of the Lord's Supper, that it was only a commemoration. Yet, upon these premises, he built no other conclusion but that Christ's presence was no article of faith.

For these opinions he was seized on, in May, 1533, and brought before Stokesly, Gardiner, and Longland. They charge ed him with not believing in purgatory and transubstantiation. He gave the reasons that determined him to look on neither of these as articles of faith ; but thought that neither the affirming nor denying them ought to be determined positively. The bishops seemed unwilling to proceed to sentence ; but he continuing resolute, Stokesly pronounced it, and so delivered him to the secular arm, desiring that his punishment might be moderated. This request was thought a mockery, when all the world knew that it was intended to burn him. One Hew r et, an apprentice of London, was also condemned with him on th§ same account.

They were brought to the stake at Smithfield, on the 4th of July, 1533. On arriving there, Frith expressed great joy, and hugged the fagots with transport : a priest, named Cook, who stood by, called to the people not to pray for them more than they would do for a dog : at this Frith smiled, and prayed God to forgive him : after which the fire w T as kindled, which con? sumed them to ashes.

This was the last instance of the cruelty of the clergy at that time ; for the act regulating their proceedings followed soon after.

This act gave the new preachers and their followers some respite. The king was also empowered to reform all heresies and idolatries : and his affairs obliged him to unite himself to the princes of Germany, that, by their means, he might so embroil the emperor's affairs, as not to give him leisure to turn his arms against England ; and this produced a slackening of all severities against them ; for those princes, in the first fervor of the reformation, made it an article in all their treaties, that none should be persecuted for favoring their doctrine. The queen also openly protected the reformers ; she took Latimer 2 and Shaxton to be her chaplains, and promoted them to the bishoprics of Worcester and Salisbury.

As Cranmer and Cromwell set themselves to carry on a reformation, another party was formed who as vigorously opposed it. This was headed by the duke of Norfolk and Gardiner ; and almost all the clergy lent their strength to it. They persuaded the king that nothing would give the pope or the emperor so much advantage, as his making any changes in religion ; and it would reflect much on him, if he, who had written so learnedly for the faith, should, from spite to the pope, make any changes in it. Nothing would encourage other princes so much to follow his example, or keep his subjects so faithful to him, as his continuing steadfast in the ancient religion.

These reasonings made great impression on him. But, on the other hand, Cranmer represented to him that, if he rejected the pope's authority, it was very absurd to let such opinions or practices continue in the church, as had no other foundation but papal decrees : he exhorted the king to depend on God, and hope for good success if he proceeded in this matter according to the duty of a Christian prince. England, he said, was a complete body within itself; and though in the Born an empire, when united under one prince, general councils were easily assembled, yet now many difficulties were in the way, for it was evident, that though both the emperor and the princes of Germany had for twenty years desired a general council, it could not be obtained of the pope ; he had indeed offered one at Mantua, but that was only an illusion. Every prince ought, therefore, to reform the church in his dominions by a national synod.

The nobility and gentry were generally well satisfied with the change in ecclesiastical affairs ; but the body of the people, being more under the power of the priests, were filled with fears on the subject. It was said, amongst them, that the king now joined himself to heretics ; that the queen, Cranmer, and Cromwell, favored them. It was left free to dispute what were articles of faith, and what were only the decrees of popes ; and the most important changes might be made, under the pretence that they only rejected those opinions which were supported by the papal authority.

The first act of his new power was the making Cromwell vicar-general, and visiter of all the monasteries and churches of England, with a delegation of the king's supremacy to him ; he was also empowered to give commissions subaltern to himself; and all wills, where the estate was in value above two hundred pounds, were to be proved in his court. This was afterwards enlarged ; he was made the king's vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, had the precedence of all persons except the royal family ; and his authority was in all points the same as had been formerly exercised by the pope's legates.

In October the general visitation of the monasteries was begun ; and the visiters were instructed to inquire, whether the houses had the full number according to their foundation? if they performed divine worship at the appointed hours ? what exemptions they had ? what were their statutes ? how their superiors were chosen? whether they lived according to the severities of their orders ? how their lands and revenues were managed ? what hospitality was kept ? what care was taken of the novices ? what benefices were in their gift, and how they disposed of them ? how the enclosures of the nunneries were kept ? whether the nuns went abroad, or if men were admitted to come to them ? how they employed their time, and what priests they had as their confessors ?

The visiters were also ordered to deliver some injunctions in the king's name, as to his supremacy, and the act of succession ; and were authorized to absolve every one from any rules or oaths of ohedience to the pope.

The visiters went over England, and found in many places monstrous disorders. The most horrible and disgusting crimes were found to be practised in many of the houses ; and vice and cruelty were more frequently the inmates of these pretended sanctuaries than religion and piety. The report contained many abominable things, not fit to be mentioned : some of these were printed, but the greatest part was lost.

The first house that was surrendered to the king was Langden, in Kent ; the abbot of which was found in bed with a woman, who went in the habit of a lay brother. To prevent greater evil to himself, he and ten of his monks signed a resignation of their house to the king. Two other monasteries in the same county, Folkstone and Dover, followed their example. And in the following year, four others made the like surrenders.

On January 8, 1536, queen Catharine died. She had been resolute in maintaining her title and state, saying, that since the pope had judged her marriage was good, she would die rather than do any thing to prejudice it. She desired to be buried among the Observant friars, who had most strongly supported her, and suffered for her cause. She expired at Kimbolton, in the fiftieth year of her age, having been thirty-three years in iG SUFFERINGS OF EARLY CHRISTIANS.

England. She was devout and exemplary; patient and charitable. Her virtues and her sufferings created an esteem for her in all ranks of people. The king ordered her to be buried in the abbey of Peterborough, and was somewhat affected at her death ; but the natural barbarity of his temper prevented him from feeling much remorse on the reflection that he had embittered the existence of a woman who loved and reverenced him.

The same year the parliament confirmed the act empowering thirty-two persons to' revise the ecclesiastical laws ; but no time being limited for finishing it, it had no effect. The chief busi- . ness of this Session, was the suppressing of all monasteries whose revenues did not exceed two hundred pounds a year. Th-e act sets forth the great disorders of those houses, and the many unsuccessful attempts made to reform them. The religious that were in them, were ordered to be placed, in the greater houses, and the revenues given to the king. The king Was also empowered to make new foundations of such of the suppressed houses as he pleased, which were, iri all, three hundred and seventy.