But so dark and unsearchable are the methods of the divine providence, that notwithstanding the great share which pope Inno

Which course of the emperour did not much content (as it seemeth) the bishops of Rome; because it revived the memory of the ancient honour and dignity of the empire. Whereupon, very shortly after, Eugenius the third set Gratian in hand to compile a body of canon law, by contracting, into one book, the ancient constitutions ecclesiastical, and canons of councils; that the state of the papacy might not, in that behalf, be inferiour to the empire. Which work the said Gratian performed, and published in the days of Stephen king of England, about the year 1151, terming the same concordia discordantium canonum,' a concord of disagreeing canons. Of whose great pains therein, so by him taken, a learned man saith thus: Gratianus ille jus pontificale dilaniavit, atque confudit:' that fellow Gratian did tear in pieces the pontifical law, and confound it; the same being, in our libraries, sincere and perfect. But (this testimony, or any thing else to the contrary, that might truly be objected against that book notwithstanding) the author's chief purpose being to magnifie and extol the court of Rome, his said book got (we know not how) this glorious title, 'Decretum Aureum Divi Gratiani,' the Golden Decree of St. Gratian; and he himself (as it appeareth) became, for the time, a saint for his pains.

"Indeed he brake the ice to those that came after him, by devising the method, which since hath been pursued, for the enlarging and growth of the said body, by some of the popes themselves. Gregory the ninth, about the year 1236, and in the time of king Henry the third, after sundry draughts made by Innocentius the third, and others, of a second volume of the canon law, caused the same to be perused, enlarged, and by his authority to be published; and being divided into five books, it is intituled The Decretals of Gregory the Ninth.' Boniface the eighth, the great Augustus (as before we have shewed), commanded likewise another collection to be made of such constitutions and decrees, as had either been omitted by Gregory, or were made afterward by other succeeding bishops and councils; and this collection is called 'Sextus Liber Decretalium,' the Sixth Book of the Decretals; and was set out to the world in the year 1298, in the reign of king Edward the first. Clement the fifth, in like manner, having bestowed great travel upon a fourth work, comprehending five books, died before he could finish it: but his successour, John the twenty-second, did, in the year 1317, and in the time of king Edward the second, make perfect, and publish the same work of Clement, and gave it the name of 'The Clementines.' Afterward, also, came out another volume, termed 'The Extravagants;' because it did not only comprehend certain decrees of the said John the twenty-second, but likewise sundry other constitutions, made by other popes, both before and after him; which flew abroad uncertainly in many men's hands, and were therefore swept up, and put together about the year 1478 into one bundle, called 'Extravagant Decretals,' which came to light post sextum,' after the sixth. By which title the compiler of this work would gladly (as it seemeth) have had it accounted the seventh book of the Decretals: but it never attaining that credit, the same, by Sixtus Quintus's assent, is attributed to a collection of

VOL. I.

K

cent had in that usurpation, with which God was pleased to punish the Christian church; notwithstanding the unspeakable miseries which his ambition had drawn upon the world, and the scenes of cruelty and the seeds of mischief which he had prepared for afterages; God thought fit to let him go down to the grave by the common course of nature.

On the other hand, the death of king John, like the paths of the dead, is still in the dark, and will in all probability remain a subject of doubt till the revolution of the great day. Some of our writers say, that he was poisoned by a monk of Swinshead abbey in Lincolnshire; whereas those of the Romish church pretend that this is all malice, and designed as a reproach on that order of men on whom it is laid, and have the confidence to tell the world, it is a fiction owing to the Reformation. But if it.be a fiction, it is certainly older than the Reformation; and if this be a made tale, it is not owing to the reformers, but ought to be laid at the door of those who ought to be ashamed of it. For if the monks of Swinshead had not the guilt of that prince's death, they suffered a wild bigotry so far to have prevailed over truth and religion, as to take the guilt thereof to themselves, by appointing and continuing priests to say mass for the monk, who was supposed to be the doer thereof: and thus they propagated their own infamy to succeeding ages. But whatever gave beginning to this report, if it be omitted by M. Paris, the chronicles of Wikes and Hemingford, written before the Reformation, relate at large all the circumstances of that story.

a

Thus did this unfortunate prince end his life and his reign, and reproach and dishonour dwell for ever upon his memory. But though no eloquence is sufficient to brighten his character, or to excuse his conduct, especially that unworthy submission to the

certain other constitutions made by Peter Matthew, of divers popes, from the time of Sixtus the fourth, who died in the year 1484. To all these books mentioned, there have been lately added three great volumes of 'Decretal Epistles,' from St. Clement to Gregory the seventh's days; also a huge heap of the Pope's Bulls,' from the said Gregory's time to Pius Quintus ; and lastly, no short summ of Papal Constitutions,' set forth a little before the said seventh book of the Decretals.-So as all these volumes being put together, they exceed as far the body of the civil law, as the usurped dignity of the papacy exceedeth the mean estate of the empire." Bishop Overall's Convocation Book, of A.D. 1606. p. 320-2. A.D. 1690. 4to.

a Chron. Wikes, Col. Gal. vol. ii. p. 38.

b Chron. Hemingf. Col. Gal. vol. ii. p. 559.

papal tyranny, which will remain the eternal and indelible blemish of his reign; yet it must be owned, that the stand which he made against the court of Rome in the defence of the monarchy, was bold and generous, and such as deserved a better issue: and one may be allowed to say, that even his fatal miscarriage was chiefly owing to the bigotry of the English nation, and to the unhappy circumstances wherein he received the crown. And it is very hard to blame a prince for not maintaining the dignity of a crown, which descends to him in chains and fetters; or that he only should bear the dishonour which falls upon his country, when his people will not suffer him to defend it; and much more when they take part with the enemy, and choose to be instruments in their own undoing;—and this was but too much the case at this time.

Besides, it should not be forgotten, that the last part of this prince's life was spent in the defence of the royal line of England; and all circumstances considered, it seems probable, that he owed his death to the same cause. And if the conduct of this prince in these instances be not enough to atone for his past miscarriages, they will at least deserve to be remembered by all that love their country and the monarchy, that have the least taste of liberty, or that have any sense of those miseries which the papal tyranny let in upon the church and kingdom.

However, the revolutions under this prince are very dishonourable to the English nation, and such as naturally lead one to a frightful idea of the reign under which they happened: and they who do not carefully attend to the springs by which these great turns were set into motion, are very apt to resolve them into the ill conduct of king John, rather than into those mischievous principles and the wicked artifices of that court which attempted to enslave all Christendom under pretences of religion, and into the great steps which they had made towards it in England before this prince came to the crown.

I shall now ask the reader's leave to repeat some things which I have observed before, and shall put an end to this work, with giving him a short view of the ancient and the present state of the English church and monarchy, and of the springs and causes, as well as of the effects and consequences of those changes, which make up the subject of the present history.

INTRODUCTION.

PAPAL USURPATIONS IN CHURCH AND STATE; ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF.-GENERAL RECAPITULATION 1.

THE Britons had been converted in all probability before Christianity was settled in Rome, and the British church continued on the same foot on which it was originally founded, till the conquest by the English. And though that revolution forced the British people into a narrower compass, and put the English-Saxons in possession of the greatest and best parts of their country, yet a Christian church was still preserved together with the remains of the British nation. And this church was as free and independent' as the people; who were so far from being influenced with the after-conversions of some of the English by the missionaries from Rome, that the rites which they received from thence set them at a greater distance from the English, added a new article of controversy, and made the breach wider. Their metropolitans never received a pall from Rome; their bishops were chosen and consecrated, and all ecclesiastical affairs determined finally within themselves, and their clergy generally married. In short, there is no mark of any dependence of the British church on that of Rome, nor any proof of a settled intercourse or communion betwixt them to be found, till the conquest of Wales by king Henry the first united the British to the English church, and did thereby expose it to the hard fate of that church, to which it was united.

The case of the English was different from that of the Britons. Some of them had received their conversion from Rome, and

1 General recapitulation.] From Inett's Origines Anglicanæ, vol. ii. p. 488

503.

2 Free and independent.] See above, p. 4-6; 18, 19, and note.

they who had been originally converted by the Scots from Ireland, had for some ages before the Norman revolution held communion with the church of Rome. And the better to preserve a friendship and give proof of the communion betwixt the English and the Roman church, the English archbishops did frequently go to Rome and receive palls' from thence, and a great deference was ever paid to the bishops thereof.

But whilst the English church thus maintained a communion with that of Rome, the authority and government thereof were continued on the same foot, on which the canons of the universal church had originally placed national churches.

The English metropolitans convened and presided in their provincial councils, and their authority therein was final, unless in such cases wherein appeals to the king were allowed: but as no canon of the English church before the conquest ever allowed any appeal to the bishops of Rome, the histories thereof afford no instance of a practice of that kind.

The English bishops had their proper diocesan synods, and all the clergy and religious as well as the laity within their several dioceses were the subjects of their care. If there were any exemptions from their authority, they were owing to the secular power; and these, if I mistake not, never extended further than exempting some of the religious from the charges of receiving and providing for them in their visitations, rather than discharging their persons from the authority of their diocesans.

The bishops of England were nominated to those trusts by our kings, confirmed and consecrated by their proper metropolitans, subjected to no canons but such as were either received or formed with their own suffrage and consent. They convened and presided in their proper diocesan synods, and their authority therein was final, except in such cases wherein appeals lay to the courts of the archbishop of the province, or of the king.

The case of the lower clergy was much the same with that of the bishops. They were subject to no ecclesiastic authority but that of their proper ordinaries: the canons were the measures of their duty, and the laws of their country the standard of their secular rights and of their subjection to the civil power.

1 Receive palls.] See Inett, vol. ii. p. 17--20; Twisden's Vindication, p. 41-7 (a very elaborate discussion); and Salmasius's learned edition of Tertullian's Treatise De Pallio, Lug. Bat. 1656.