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 A HISTORY OF LONDON 'condemned for auricular confession ' early in 1542, and remained a prisoner in Newgate for three years.^'^ In December 1540 Melanchthon's letter to Henry VIII against the Act of Six Articles had been published in London, and the Privy Council im- prisoned several booksellers, including Grafton, for selling it and other 'seditious books.' '^^ In 1541 and 1542 the bishop took further steps to prevent the sale of forbidden books.*'' But Bonner was not, like Stokesley, afraid to allow the ' simple people ' to study God's word for themselves. In 1540 he had several Bibles set up in St. Paul's, with a notice over each, admonishing readers to use them in a proper spirit, to make no expositions, and to be specially careful not to read aloud during service or sermon. This admonition was disregarded by ' divers wilful and unlearned persons,' including a young man named John Porter, who was imprisoned by order of the bishop, and, according to Foxe, died in Newgate. Bonner then warned readers that if the offenders persevered in their folly he would take down the Bibles : ' which ... I should be right loth to do.' "' The short-lived bishopric of Westminster (December 1540 to March 1550) is of little importance in the ecclesiastical history of London. The proposed elevation of Sampson to it never took effect, and the bishop ultimately appointed, Thomas Thirlby, was abroad as an ambassador during the greater part of his episcopate. His diocese included the two parishes in West- minster, St. Clement Danes, and St. Mary le Strand,'*^" and he was patron of eleven City rectories, ten of which had been in the gift of the abbey. Of the City livings affected by the Dissolution twenty-two, including these ten, remained in the hands of ecclesiastics ; the Crown kept eighteen, thus enormously increasing its influence over the religious affairs of the City, and ten others passed to laymen.*^' The rectory of St. Mary Colechurch came to the Mercers' Company in 1541, when they bought from the king, through Sir Richard Gresham, the church of St. Thomas of Aeon ; it became their chapel, that built for them a few years before by Sir John Allen being made into shops.'"^ In August 1540 the Common Council had offered the king 1,000 marks for the houses and churches of the friars; Gresham reported that the king called the citizens ' pynche-pence,' and negotiations dragged on for some years.'" In February 1542 began the fall of the colleges of secular priests in London. But the dissolution of St. Martin le Grand seems to have attracted little attention ; a royal free chapel, perhaps it "° Lond. Epis. Reg. Bonner, fol. 37 ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 156. For a case of heresy in 1543 see Foxe, op. cit. V, App. xv. '" Proc. o/P.C. (Rec. Com.), vii, 100, 104, no ; of. L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiv (2), 315 ; Foxe, op. cit. V, 350. 4»2. '" Lond. Epis. Reg. Bonner, fol. 2b ; Foxe, op. cit. v, App. x ; cf. note, ibid. 831. '" Foxe, op. cit. V, 451-2, App. xiv ; H. Brinklow, Complaint (Early Engl. Text Soc), 54 ; cf Wilkins, Cone, iii, 856, 863 ; Proe. of P.C. (Rec. Com.), vii, 181, 185 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, p. 309 ; Marillac, Coiresp. II May 1 541. ™ L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiv (2), 429, 430 ; xvi, 333, 379 (30, 35) ; cf. Diet. Nat. Biog. and the account of Westminster Abbey in this volume. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, 503 (33) ; Hennessy, Novum Repert. "' L. andP. Hen. Fill, xvii, 283 (55) ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 129 ; Stow, Surv. (ed. Kingsford), i, 269 ; cf. the account of the chapel of St. James Cripplegate (Lamb's chapel) ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 311 (28) ; xiv (l), p. 610 ; xviii (l), 346 (66) ; Nevvcourt, Repert. i, 369 ; Stow, op. cit. i, 316 ; Gent. Mag. Lib. ' Topog.' XV, 291 et seq. '" Rec. Corp. Letter Bk. P, fol. 220^; Repert. x, fol. 200 ; Sharpe, Lond. and the Kingdom, i, 406. Wriothesley's information (op. cit. i, 1 29) must have been incorrect, but cf. Piideaux, Mem. of the Goldsmiths, i, 50. 280