Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/59

Ch. 4. no proces againt him; the writ de haeretico comburendo being not a writ of coure, but iuing only by the pecial direction of the king in council.

in the reign of Henry the fourth, when the eyes of the chrtian world began to open, and the eeds of the protetant religion (though under the opprobrious name of lollardy ) took root in this kingdom; the clergy, taking advantage from the king's dubious title to demand an increae of their own power, obtained an act of parliament 2 Hen. IV. c. 15. , which harpened the edge of perecution to it's utmot keennes. For, by that tatute, the diocean alone, without the intervention of a ynod, might convict of heretical tenets; and unles the convict abjured his opinions, or if after abjuration he relaped, the heriff was bound ex officio, if required by the bihop, to commit the unhappy victim to the flames, without waiting for the conent of the crown. By the tatute 2 Hen. V. c. 7. lollardy was alo made a temporal offence, and indictable in the king's courts; which did not thereby gain an excluive, but only a concurrent juridiction with the bihop's conitory. when the final reformation of religion began to advance, the power of the eccleiatics was omewhat moderated: for though what herey is, was not then preciely defined, yet we are told in ome points what it is not: the tatute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 14. declaring, that offences againt the ee of Rome are not herey; and the ordinary being thereby retrained from proceeding in any cae upon mere upicion; that is, unles the party be accued by two credible witnees, or an indictment of herey be firt previouly found in the king's courts of common law. And yet the pirit of perecution was not then abated, but only diverted into a lay chanel. For in ix years afterwards, by tatute 31 Hen. VIII. c. 14. the bloody law of the ix articles was made, which etablihed the ix mot conteted points of popery,