: England; such as preaching against transubstantiation, purgatory, extreme unction, auricular confession, penances, pardons, indulgences, praying to saints, worshipping images and relics, pilgrimages, holy water, hallowed oil, bread, candles, ashes, and palms in short, against all the worship which has no foundation in the Scriptures, and to which, consequently, they would not conform. From the above we may infer that at this time the spirit and principles of the Reformation were but little known among the clergy, who complained that preachers were allowed to declaim, and the people to talk with impunity against the doctrines and ceremonies of the church. In reply to a number of interrogatories sent by Cromwell to the clergy of the province of York, he received from a convocation held in that city the following answers :-That all who preached against purgatory, worshipping of saints, pilgrimages, images, &c., should be committed to the flames as heretics, that neither the king nor any temporal man could be supreme head of the church by the laws of God,-that no clerk ought to be put to death without degradation,—that dispensations lawfully granted by the pope are good, and pardons have been allowed by general councils and the laws of the church,-we think that by the law of the church, general councils, interpretations of approved doctors, and consent of Christian people, the pope of Rome has been taken for the head of the church, and vicar of Christ, and ought to to be taken.* The excessive indulgences at the tables of the popish priests had risen to such a height that the archbishop interposed his authority to prevent the immoderate expense and scandal their conduct brought upon religion. In the year 1541, the primate published the following bill of fare. The table of an archbishop was not to exceed six dishes of meat, and four of banquet,—a bishop's, five of meat, and three of banquet,—a dean's, or archdeacon's, four of meat, and two of banquet; and the lower clergy to have only two dishes of meat. But Bellaria, from whom Burnet takes the account, laments that the splendid entertainments at the tables of the dignified clergy, to which the people had so long been accustomed, formed an insuperable barrier against the archbishop's salutary regulation. The suppression of the monasteries, the circulation of the Scriptures in English, and the queen's known attachment to the Reformation, encouraged the German princes to hope that the king would renounce the doctrines as well as the authority of the see of Rome, on the ground of which some overtures were made of entering into a league with him against the emperor and the pope. Many conferences were held, and the league was brought into a state of great forwardness. The popish party knew that the queen * Strype's Appendix, N. 74. was using her influence to promote the league, as being calculated to facilitate the Reformation. To counteract the queen's influence, every nerve was exerted, with that success which terminated in her destruction. The articles on which the league was to be formed were sent to bishop Gardiner, then ambassador at the court of France, who immediately wrote back to the king, urging him, by every argument he could devise, not to enter into the coalition. At the same time the duke of Norfolk and his party at court were endeavouring to accomplish a reconciliation with the emperor and the pope. But the queen was an insuperable barrier in the way of this reconciliation, because, since the see of Rome had pronounced her marriage null, it would never be allowed by any of the popish party. The first part of their scheme was to dispose of the queen, which from the temper of the king, and other concurring circumstances, they did not despair of accomplishing. The king had concluded, from the decease of those sons he had by the divorced queen, that the marriage was displeasing to God. The queen had been delivered of a dead son but a few months previous, which circumstance the popish party improved to their advantage, by so acting upon the king's prejudices as to induce him to draw a similar conclusion in reference to his present marriage. This suggestion was the more readily received by the king, from his having conceived a violent passion for Miss Seymour, a maid of honour, who had all the charms of youth and beauty, with a temper between the gravity of the one and the gaiety of the other queen. The heads of this party, perceiving that the king's affections were alienated from his present queen, infused a suspicion of her fidelity, for which, unhappily, her natural levity gave them too successful a pretext. Though this is one of the most remarkable events in the reign of Henry VIII., yet our prescribed limits will not allow us more fully to detail its circumstances than is necessary to form a correct idea of the cruelty with which this queen was treated. Scarcely any thing bearing the semblance of justice can be traced in the proceedings on her case. On the 2d of May she was committed to the Tower; she was tried on the 15th, and found guilty on the evidence of one witness, who deposed that he had heard the late lady Wingfield swear before her death that the queen had had a criminal correspondence with her brother and four other gentlemen, during the time she was in her majesty's service. On this one evidence alone she was beheaded on the 20th of May, 1536. Thus fell the virtuous, though indiscreet, queen Ann Boleyn, a martyr to the perfidious conduct of a popish party in the court of Henry VIII. Soon after the execution of this queen, and the celebration of his marriage with lady Jane Seymour, which was on the following day, the king convened a parliament, to set aside the succession of the lady Elizabeth, her daughter, and empower him, in case of failure of his male heirs, to nominate his successor by his last will and testament. The parliament was entirely at the king's service, and consequently empowered him to pronounce both his daughters illegitimate; but, as the king had to settle the succession, they both entertained hopes, and quietly submitted to their father's pleasure. The chief impediment which the popish party had now in the way of a reconciliation with the emperor was that of lady Mary having been pronounced illegitimate. In hope of ultimately effecting an accommodation with the pope, this party urged the king to have the act pronouncing her illegitimacy repealed, on her submission. The king so far consented as to allow her to state her submission to him in writing. She expressed her submission in general terms, confessing her former obstinacy and perverseness, and engaging to submit to the laws respecting the succession. But all this would not avail. The king insisted that she should acknowledge his marriage with her mother was incestuous and unlawful, that she would renounce the pope's authority, and recognise his majesty as supreme head of the church of England. These were hard terms to the princess, who from infancy had been taught the reverse, and she tried by every method she could devise to evade so explicit a renunciation of her faith. But the king would admit of nothing short of an absolute submission on the points required. The con |