CHAP. to Fox's words, he had become 'strong in Christ.' He had unhappily, too, adopted with the daring Reformer's indomitable courage much of his coarse intemperate language. When Anne Boleyn was Queen, and in the ascendant, Barnes had returned to England, and was so far in favour with the King that he was sent on a mission to the Court of Cleves, preparatory to the ill-assorted marriage with the Princess Anne of that house. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, it is said, anticipated Barnes, who had been appointed to preach at Paul's Cross on the following Sunday. It is difficult to accept, more difficult to reject as pure invention, Fox's report of Gardiner's sermon. It was on the Gospel of the Day, the Temptation of our Lord. Now-a-days the Devil tempteth the world, and biddeth 'them to cast themselves backward. There is no forward ' in the new teaching, but all backward. Now the Devil 'teacheth, come back from fasting, come back from praying, come back from confession, come back from weeping for your sins; our all is backward, insomuch 'that men must learn to say their paternoster backward. 6 6 For where we said "Forgive us our debts as we forgive ' our debtors," now it is "as Thou forgivest our debts, so ' will I forgive my debtors," and so God must forgive first, and all, I say, is turned backwards.' This view of the great Lutheran doctrine of Justification by Faith might induce the English Reformers, in their letters to their brethren in Germany, to brand the sermon as arrant Popery. But what would genuine Papalists have said to the following paragraph? He dwells on the Devil's craft in deceiving men, who, envying his felicity, and therefore coveting to have men idle, and void of good works, and to be led in 'that idleness, with a vain hope to live merrily at his plea'sure here, and yet to have heaven at the last, hath for that 'purpose procured our pardon from Rome, where heaven VIII. was sold for a little money, and to retail that mer- CHAP. 'chandise the Devil uses priests for his ministers. Now 'they be gone out with all their trumpery, but the Devil is not gone. And now that the Devil perceiveth that it 'can no longer be borne to buy and sell with the friars, ' he hath excogitated to offer heaven without working for it so freely that men shall not need to work for heaven at 'all, whatsoever opportunity they have to work, knowing, if they will have any higher place in heaven, God will 'leave no work unrewarded, but as to be in heaven, but only belief, only, only, and nothing else.' 5 Barnes had at least better learned Luther's doctrines. On the Sunday after, he had his turn at Paul's Cross, but he had not learned from Luther (it was a lesson Luther taught not) to measure his language, or to show respect for dignity or station. 'Winchester had been before the 'Devil in plucking men backward from truth to lies; from ' religion to superstition; from Christ to Anti-Christ.' 'By a pleasant allegory,' writes Fox, he likened himself and 'the Bishop to two fighting cocks, but the garden cock ' lacked good spurs.' According to Hall, he taunted the Bishop, in evident allusion to the Bishop's argument, and so far confirming Fox's report, that if he and Winchester 'were together at Rome, no money would restrain his lips, ' a very little entreaty would reconcile the Bishop.' Gardiner complained to the King of the rude and disrespectful language used by Barnes. The King appointed a public disputation on those abstruse but vital questions. The disputation, however, concerns not S. Paul's, and when the combatants encountered again in the pulpit, it was not at Paul's Cross, but in S. Mary Spittle. There, in the solemn Easter service, 'through some sinister com'plaints of Popish sycophants,' Barnes and two of his Fox, vol. ii. p. 524, folio edit. 208 PROTESTANT AND PAPAL MARTYRS. VIII. CHAP. brethren, at the King's command, attended to make their profession of belief. Barnes made what sounded to his enemies' ears a full recantation, but his admirers asserted that it was but a very skilful evasion and eluding of the minor points. He implored now distinctly forgiveness of the Bishop of Winchester for his insolent demeanour. This Winchester granted slowly, with manifest reluctance. On which Barnes began his sermon, in which he fully and deliberately recanted his recantation. The two others followed; one of them, Jerome, parson of Stepney, had before publicly preached, that if S. Paul himself had been at Paul's Cross, and had preached the same words to the English which he wrote to the Galatians, in this behalf, ipso facto, he would have been 'apprehended for an heretic for preaching against the 'Sacrament of Baptism and Repentance.' Here closes, as far as S. Paul's, this dreary history. Yet Gardiner's sermon at Paul's Cross might seem a fit prelude for the scene at Smithfield, where (it was after Cromwell's fall) Barnes, with his two brethren, entered the flames. Three Anti-Papalist martyrs, with three Papalist martyrs, were burned for denying the King's supremacy, in the same fire. But all did not aspire to martyrdom. The terrible antagonism might seem to have been allayed by the awe of the King's name and stern resolution. In the Convocation in 1542, Archbishop Cranmer landed in his barge at Paul's Wharf, thence proceeded on foot to S. Paul's, with the Cross borne before him. There Bishop Bonner officiated, if I speak properly, at the Mass of the Holy Ghost.' Richard Cox, Archdeacon of Ely, preached on 'Vos estis sal terræ.' But it was not at the altar of S. Paul's alone that Cranmer and Bonner met in 6 • Fuller, vol. iii. p. 196. PROCLAMATION OF PEACE. 209 seeming amity. They were engaged in a common work. It had become of acknowledged necessity to address to 'the bewildered people' short homilies to explain and enforce the principal uncontested Christian doctrines and duties. We are not surprised that the congenial subject, 'Exhortation to the Reading of Holy Scripture,' should be assumed by the Primate Cranmer. It is startling, however, to find 'Charity' assigned to or undertaken by Bonner. Yet in the first part of our Homilies, that on 'Charity' was without doubt written by the Bishop of London. On the commonplace of this crowning Christian virtue, the homily is simple, clear, forcible. But with a prudent or prescient reserve, Bonner excludes from the pale of charity the evil-doer. Him he surrenders to the inexorable justice of the magistrate. And of course, though not stated, the worst and most dangerous 'evil'doer' is the heretic." Some years passed. Towards the close of Henry VIII.'s reign, there was another great procession on Whit-Monday (June 13, 1546), from S. Paul's to S. Peter's in Cornhill, with all the children of S. Paul's School, and a cross of every parish church, and 'parsons and vicars of every church in new copes, and the choir of S. Paul's in the same manner; and the Bishop (Bonner), bearing the Sacrament under a canopy, met 'the Mayor in a gown of crimson velvet, the Aldermen, and all the crafts in their best apparel, and at the Cross 6 6 was proclaimed, with heralds and pursuivants, universal peace for ever between the Emperor, the King of Eng land, the King of France, and all Christian Kings for ever!' The second perpetual peace! The reign of Henry cannot close with this Christian See the preface, by Mr. Griffith, to the Oxford edition of The Homilies, 1859, p. xxvii. P CHAP. CHAP. 210 LAST HOLOCAUST OF HENRY VIII'S REIGN. scene. On the previous Passion Sunday, 1546, Dr. Crome had preached in his parish church against the Sacrament of the Altar. He had been twice examined, refused to recant, but at Paul's Cross, in a sermon which he was commanded to preach, he had read a full recantation. Still, however, on the 10th July was the frightful holocaust, in which were burned for grave heresy,' a priest of Richmond, who had been an Observant Friar; Anne Askew, a woman of high birth, but higher mind; a gentleman, Lascelles, of Furnival's Inn, and a poor tailor from Colchester. Nicholas Shaxton, who had been Bishop of Salisbury, with two others, was in Newgate with them, and underwent the same sentence. Shaxton preached at their burning before the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Chancellor (Wriothesley), others of the Council, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Judge; and, the 1st of August after, preached at Paul's Cross the said Nicholas Shaxton, and there recanted and wept sore, and 'made great lamentation for the offence, and prayed the 'people also to forgive him his "mysse" example that ' he had given unto the people.' 8 6 * Grey Friar's Chronicle, pp. 50, 51. |