understand the language in which they were said, the king had therefore sent certain suffrages in "our native English tongue," "to be openly used continually in all churches, villages, and parishes of your diocese." The English Litany thus sent to Cranmer had been, in fact, translated and prepared by himself at the king's direction. In sending it to the king the archbishop writes :-" According to your Highness's commandment, I have translated into the English tongue certain processions to be used on festival days, if after due correction and amendment of the same your Highness shall think it so convenient in which translation, forasmuch as many of the processions in Latin were but barren as me seemed, and little fruitful, I was constrained to use more than the liberty of translation, for in some processions I have altered divers words, in some I have added part, in some I have taken away; some I have left out whole, either because the matter appeared to me little to the purpose, or because the days be not with us festival days; and some processions I have added whole, because I thought I had better matter for the purpose than was the procession in Latin." The Litany, thus refashioned by the archbishop and authorised by the king, was at once used. Wriothesley writes in his Chronicle under this year (1544):-"The 18th October being St. Luke's day and Sunday, Paul's choir sang the procession in English by the king's injunction, which shall be sung in every parish church in England every Sunday and festival day, and none other." In another place he speaks of the English Litany as the "goodliest hearing that ever was in this realm." The English Litany, together with a chapter in English from the Old Testament, and one also from the New, the order for which is mentioned above, was the whole amount of English service which was authorised during the reign of Henry VIII. But there is reason to believe that much more was often used irregularly, and it is probable that more was in preparation by the action of the Convocation committee, stimulated by the zeal of the archbishop. In the last year of his reign the king employed the archbishop in "turning the mass into a communion." He is said to have done this under an agreement with the King of France, and it is probable that the work done in this matter now 1 Wilkins, iii. 870. 2 State Papers of Henry VIII. i. 760. 3 113 Chronicle, pp. 148, 161. 4 The chief alterations made by Cranmer consisted in the omission of the long string of invocations of saints which had gradually been inserted in the western litanies. He still retained three clauses, in which the prayers of the Virgin Mary, the angels, and the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, were desired. Cranmer had before him the Litany issued by Herman, Archbishop of Cologne, in 1543. An exhortation to prayer was prefixed.-See Appendix to Private Prayers of Queen Elizabeth (Parker Soc.) Strype's Cranmer, i. 193, 195 (fol. ed.) facilitated the publication of the first communion office of the reign of Edward VI. The archbishop was also able to prevail with the king to order the disuse of certain ceremonies which were shown to be superstitious, of the observance of vigils, the creeping to the cross, as well as the abolishing of such images in churches as could be shown to have been abused. The Church of England owes much to the archbishop's persevering devotion to reforming views when he stood absolutely alone. To this, and to the king's constant support of him (due probably to personal feelings of affection, but nevertheless having the important effect of influencing the action of Convocation), must be attributed, under God, the state of preparedness in which the Church of England found herself at the beginning of a new reign, to enter more vigorously on the path of reformation and improvement. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) ATTAINDERS IN THE PARLIA- | of law; yet this I say of the proceeding, MENT OF 1539. Auferat oblivio si potest, si non utcunque (B) QUEEN CATHERINE PARR. The last queen of Henry VIII. was a Attainders, or the condemnation of a person by Act of Parliament, with or without evidence adduced and reasons alleged, differ altogether from Impeachment, which is a trial of a person before Parliament sitting as judges. The essential injustice of an attainder is that it is ex parte. Of course any member of Parliament might rise in his place, and defend the person accused, but the process would be equally valid were no defence offered, and the person accused absent, and even unaware that his attainder was being moved. It is generally supposed that in the Parliament of 1539, Crumwell moved that persons might be attainted in their absence and unheard, and that he took the opinions of the judges on this point. It is certain, however, that persons had been attainted previously to this, without hearing. This Parliament has an evil prominence for the number of attainders passed by it. No less than sixteen persons were condemned by its vote, Crumwell himself being one. The strangest attainder probably ever passed by Parliament was that - of Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome, for an undefined charge of heresy. "Parliamentary attainders," says Mr. Amos, "were very rare before the reign of Edward IV., but from the beginning of this reign to that of James they entirely superseded impeachments. The doctrine that a Parliamentary attainder holds good in law, notwithstanding the violation of the first principles of justice, is a corollary from the truth, that so long as the constitution of the state is maintained, a supreme and legally irresponsible authority is vested in Parliament. On the moral responsibility, however, of the king, lords, and commons, with respect to attainders, some important remarks will be found in the Fourth Institute of Lord Coke. He there remarks-"Albeit I find an at-life-time (1545), she published a volume tainder of Parliament for high treason of a subject never called to answer in either House of Parliament; although I question not the power of Parliament, for without question the attainder standeth in force of Prayers and Meditations. She favoured CHAPTER XI. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1547-1550. § 1. The Council appointed by King Henry's will. § 2. Omission of Gar- § 1. KING HENRY VIII. had been allowed by the third Act of bishops nominated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the great upholder of the reforming movement, was balanced by Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, if not the most zealous, yet the most popular and the most learned of the bishops of the "old learning." In like manner Lord Hertford, the king's uncle, a pronounced reformer, was opposed to Lord Wriothesley, the chancellor, a zealous anti-reformer. It would seem as if King Henry had carefully provided for the continuance of that special phase of opinion which prevailed at his death. ance. § 2. But there was one remarkable omission from the council which seemed to indicate the contrary to this. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was not in the list. He had been an able and trusted servant of the king's for more than twenty years, and since the fall of Crumwell, Henry's chief adviser; yet he was now excluded from all share of power. Whatever was the reason for which the king acted thus, the effect of it was of no small importIt enabled the reforming party quickly to gain the entire ascendant, as there was no man of ability and vigour to withstand them, and it placed Gardiner in strong opposition to the measures taken by the authorities. He professed now to take up the position of a conscientious opponent of the reforming movement, although during the reign of King Henry he had accepted every phase of his policy, had signed his divorce from Catherine, agreed to the spoliation of the monasteries, written in the most exaggerated strain to defend the supremacy, and held his episcopal jurisdiction on a license from the Crown. The council having assumed the character of a decidedly reforming body by the election of Lord Hertford as Lord Protector, and the exclusion of Lord Wriothesley and Bishop Tonstal, must henceforth reckon on the decided opposition of Bishop Gardiner. §3. The first act connected with ecclesiastical matters performed by the council was to require the bishops to take out anew licenses from the Crown to exercise their jurisdiction. These licenses were a device invented by Crumwell, Leighton, and ApRice, in order to guard the supremacy of the Crown. There was a special clause inserted in them to declare that they did not in any way profess to touch the divine authority which bishops had by the sacred Scriptures; but inasmuch as bishops had not only spiritual functions simply, but had also mixed functions, such as granting probates and faculties, judging in their courts, licensing, instituting, etc., and inasmuch as all jurisdiction 2 proceeded 1 See the whole question fully discussed in Maitland's Essays on the Reformation, Essays xv. xvi. * Jurisdiction does not imply the right of personal direction or deciding |