Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/92

76 76 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. hand, that nothing was aimed at the oath, as in itself an object of dislike, and, on the other, that the moving influence was a jeal- ousy of the hold the clergy were obtaining on the laity and a desire to restrict their power to persons and matters purely spiritual. But the clergy did not accept this check as final, and the strug- gle continued. Articles were presented to Edward II., vainly protesting against the narrowness of their powers. 1 In Henry IV.'s time they found an administration more favorable to their cause, and a reaction took place. A statute of 2 H. IV. (1403) gave the church permission to use all the sanctions or " methods " authorized by its canons, and under this clause the oath began again to be administered. In 1408 we find Archbishop Arundel directing his clergy to denounce as heretics all who spoke against the administration of oaths by ecclesiastics. But the tide turned once more against the church, and we find a statute of 28 H. VIII. (1533) repealing the statute of H. IV., and leaving the law as it stood before. This new statute was directed against certain clerical abuses; but it is apparent from the preamble that, in the movement of opposition now beginning, the grievance of the people and of the commons was the oath itself, or rather the detestable methods attending the church's use of it, quite as much as the general jurisdiction of the church. At this time, then, the law stood that oaths could be adminis- tered (by ecclesiastics) to the clergy in all cases, and to laymen in matrimonial and testamentary causes. In 1 Phil, and M. the statute of H. VIII. was repealed, but 1 Eliz. saw it restored. The statute of H. VIII., however, is not heard of again for many years, and it is likely that the agitation which gave it being would have died out had not a powerful engine for the discovery of heretics now made its appearance, — the High Court of Com- mission, appointed by virtue of the supreme ecclesiastical authority of Elizabeth. Up to 1583 five commissions had been issued, but until the sixth, in that year, no great murmuring seems to have been heard. Now, however, Archbishop Whitgift, a man of stern Christian zeal, determined to crush heresy wher- ever its head was raised, was placed in charge of a commission which proceeded immediately to examine clergymen and other 1 See 9 E. II., Articuli Cleri ; Cay, Statute of the Realm, I. 171; see also Athon, pt. 3, p. 47.