Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/323

A.D. 1547.] integrity in action are entertaining qualities; they will stick by a man when everything else takes its leave; and I must not resign them upon any consideration. The best on it is, if I do not throw them away myself, no man can force them from me; but if I give them up, then I am ruined by myself, and deserve to lose all my preferments."

There wanted nothing to a man with such sentiments to make him great, but the heart to cede this liberty to others, but in this he woefully failed when his turn came. Now his sturdy independence condemned him to the Fleet, where Bonner had gone before him, for the council did not wait for the visitors summoning him in his own diocese, but called him before them, and committed him.

Parliament assembled on the 4th of November. In anticipation of it the Protector had procured a patent under the great seal empowering him to sit in Parliament on the right hand of the throne, and to enjoy all the honours and privileges that any king's uncle, whether by the father's or the mother's side, ever enjoyed. This was noted as the beginning of that vainglorious arrogance which in the end proved so ruinous to him. The Parliament in its proceedings first took care of the interests of the king and his ministers; but that done, it passed some very useful and constitutional acts. The subsidy of tonnage and poundage had become so much a regular aid of the crown, that Henry VIII. had received it for many years before any Act of Parliament whatever had granted it to him. It was now voted to Edward for life, but Parliament treated it not as a matter of right, but of option—a freedom which would have brought down stern reproof in the last reign. The next act was more exclusively for the benefit of the king's ministers. It went to make over to the crown all the lands of the charities, colleges, and free chapels which had been granted to Henry, but had not yet been appropriated. It was proposed to add these to the funds for the support of obits, anniversaries, and church-lights, and all guild lands possessed by fraternities for the same purpose, so that the king might employ them in providing for the poor, augmenting the income of vicarages, paying the salaries of preachers, and endowing free schools for the advancement of learning.

Cranmer, however, aware of what was the real object of the measure, opposed it in the House of Lords, and was warmly supported by the bishops; but there were too many interested in the passing of the Act for their opposition to avail. The late king's executors had already divided these amongst them, as we have seen, by anticipation, and "they saw," says Burnet, "that they could not pay his debts nor satisfy themselves in their own pretensions, formerly mentioned, out of the king's revenue, and so intended to have these divided amongst them." All who hoped to share in the booty eagerly supported them, and the bill passed by an overwhelming majority, Cranmer and six bishops constituting the whole minority. In the Commons the members of the boroughs resisted it stoutly, on account of the guild lands which it gave to the king, and they would not suffer it to pass till they were assured that these should be excepted. All such lands as had been granted by the late or present king were to be confirmed to their possessors.

These interested grants being made, Parliament proceeded to mitigate some of the severities of the last reign. It repealed those monstrous acts of Henry VIII. which gave to Royal proclamations all the force of Acts of Parliament; likewise all the penal statutes against the Lollards, and all the new felonies created in the last reign, including the statute of the Six Articles. It admitted the laity as well as the clergy to receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in both kinds. It determined that the old fiction of electing bishops by "conge d'elire" should cease, and that all such appointments should proceed directly by nomination of the crown; that all processes in the episcopal courts should be carried on in the king's name, and all documents issuing thence should be sealed, not with the bishop's seal, but with that of the crown. The claim of spiritual supremacy was placed on the same level as the other rights of the crown, and it was made a capital offence to deny that the king was supreme head of the Church; but with this distinction, that what was printed of that nature was direct high treason—what was merely spoken only became so by repetition. A bill for legalising the marriages of the clergy was brought into the Commons, and carried by a large majority; but, from some cause, was not carried to the Lords during the present session.

The attention of the Legislature was drawn forcibly to a great and growing evil, that of mendicancy. Those who had received daily relief at the doors of the monasteries and convents, were now thrown on the country in crowds, without homes and resources. They speedily grew in this life into the worst type of vagabondism; swarmed on the highways, and in the villages and solitary country dwellings became a terror and a nuisance. The boldest and worst soon associated in the shape of footpads and robbers, and travelling became highly dangerous. An act was, therefore, passed for the punishment of these vagabonds, and for the relief of the poor. The relief was of a very inefficient and fallacious kind. It was ordered that the impotent, the maimed, and the aged, who were not vagabonds, should be relieved "by the willing and charitable dispositions of the parishioners" where they were born or had lived for the last three years. Relief by the charitable disposition of parishioners where no specific fund for the purpose was erected, was not likely to be very great; but the punishments awarded to the vagabond class were of the most savage and brutal character, and said very little for the better understanding of the Gospel in those reformers of religion. Well might the young king in his journal term it "an extreme law." Any person brought before two justices of the peace on the charge of "living idly and loitering for the space of three days," was to be branded with a hot iron on the breast with the letter V, as a vagabond, and adjudged to serve the informer for two years as his slave. The master thus acquiring his services, was to give him bread, water, or small drink, but to refuse meat, and might compel him to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise, at any kind of labour, however vile. He might put an iron ring round his neck, arm, or leg, and if he absented himself for a fort-night, might brand the letter S into his cheek or forehead, as a sign that he was become a slave for life. If he ran away a second time, he was to suffer death as a felon. Clerks, that is clergymen, convicted of felony, if they were entitled to purgation in the bishop's court,