Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

You then inform us, that the court "excom"municated lord Cobham, and pronounced him "accursed; and not him alone, but all who should "in anyway receive, help, or defend him." The word accursed, is your own addition: no such word was used by the court. You call it "a cruel and "inhuman" sentence: how many sentences equally cruel and inhuman have been passed by protestant courts on catholics, not only less culpable than lord Cobham, but perfectly innocent of the crimes of which they were accused? and their innocence of which is now acknowledged?

In a former part of your work, you transcribe the terrible words in which excommunication was expressed you observe, that no form of heathen

66

superstition could have been so revolting, as when "a christian minister called upon the Redeemer of "Mankind to fulfil execrations which the devil "himself might seem to have inspired." I do not defend the words to which you object; they were devised in an age of barbarism, when the most forcible language only had any effect on the populace they were an abusive application of the curses in Deuteronomy*; and, I believe, they were resorted to only on singular occasions, and that, before the revival of letters, they had fallen into desuetude. By perusing the document in Wilkins, to which I have referred, you will observe, that the sentence of excommunication, past by archbishop Arundel on lord Cobham, does not contain these execrations.-According to the actual jurisprudence of

Deut. c. xxxviii.

England, excommunication is yet attended by many civil penalties and disabilities.

All, who peruse your account of lord Cobham, and your censure of doctor Lingard, should recollect that, in an earlier part of" the Book of the "Church," you inform us, that "the Lollards held "principles incompatible with the peace of society;

66

opinions founded in gross error, and leading to “direct and enormous evil;" and that "lord "Cobham was confessedly their head and leader." I trust I have successfully vindicated doctor Lingard against the only particular charge you have brought against him...

"Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, "and Scottish Catholics," have been published by another hand: you may, perhaps, find some things in them which you think objectionable; but I feel a strong confidence, that they do not merit any of the undistinguishing and unqualified expressions of gross abuse, which you apply to the historical productions of every catholic historian of the reformation.

You close the chapter, by an insinuation in favour of Henry VIII. You intimate, that, "he was not "the mere monster which, upon a cursory view, he "must needs appear to every young and ingenuous "mind:" yet you mention, in the preceding line, "his many revolting acts of caprice and cruelty;" and, in a subsequent line, "his sending a wife and

a minister to the scaffold with as little compunction, "as he would have in sending a dog to be drowned."

The frequent repetition of these enormities, in every part of his reign; his general profligacy; his

prodigality; his wicked interferences with the courts of justice; his unjust and ruinous wars; and his general oppression of his people, are confessed by all his historians: all represent him,-to use the language of one of the most eminent among them,as a tyrant, "who never spared woman in his lust, "nor man in his wrath; so that, if all the patterns "of a merciless prince had been lost in the world, "they might have been found in this king*." Such is the character given, even by his protestant historians, of Henry; if it be true, it justifies your expression, he was not a mere monster, he was more: I wish you to mention the vices which he did not possess; or the talents which he possessed, and did not abuse. Your unlimited abuse of all catholic historians of the reformation, and saving clause in favour of Henry, are equally admirable.

[ocr errors]

Cromwell, his active minister, particularly in his rejection of the pope's supremacy, and the dissolution of the monasteries, you highly extol: but' you omit to mention that he died in the catholic faith; and that, from the scaffold, he solemnly professed, and called on the spectators "to bear him "record, that he died in the catholic faith, not " doubting in any article of his faith."

* Heylin's Hist. p. 15; he citing Sir Walter Raleigh.-The introduction to Letter XI. (p. 141–142), contains an allusion to the Manichean descent of the French propagandists of Liberty and Equality, through the sectaries of the middle ages. It is a curious subject, and deserves investigation; Gibbon traces this supposed descent in the fifty-fourth-perhaps the most interesting-chapter of his history. It had before attracted the attention of Bayle, (Art. Pauliciens), and of Mosheim, (His. Ecc. Seculum ix, p. 311, &c).

LETTER XIII.

EDWARD VI.

SIR,

[ocr errors]

IT gives me pleasure to mention, that your account of the suppression of the remaining colleges, and the hospitals and chantries, and of the general destruction of their libraries, and the sacred and secular articles of use and ornament belonging to them, in the reign of Edward VI, is free from objection, and written with equal accuracy and eloquence. A catholic, however, may be permitted to wish, that you had given in it some account of the enormous wickedness of the protector Somerset, and of Dudley earl of Warwick, who supplanted him. Under the influence of these daring noblemen, Cranmer devised the first sanguinary code that was framed against the English catholics. Now, the bad character of the persecutor is universally considered to be favourable to the persecuted: on this account, it has, you well know, been deemed honourable to christianity, that Nero was its first persecutor; justice, therefore, to the catholics seems to require, that it should be known who the persons were that first persecuted them.

You might also have noticed the opinion of Cranmer, that the exercise of episcopal jurisdiction depends upon the prince; that, in conformity to this principle, he thought his own right to exercise episcopal authority had ended with the life of

Henry VIII; that he would not act as archbishop, until the infant monarch had renewed his commission; that his example was imitated by other prelates; and that this proceeding was as inconsistent with the doctrine of the church of England, expressed in the thirty-nine articles, as it is with the doctrine and discipline of the roman-catholic church.

You might, too, have mentioned Cranmer's alienation of the better half of the possessions of the see of Canterbury to the king. Read the article in Collier's" Appendix to the second volume of his "history," in which he gives " an account of the "church lands alienated by the prelates, from their

sees, in the reign of Henry VIII." You will find in it what Cranmer did, and how his example was imitated by Ridley and other prelates. So great a friend as you profess yourself to the dignity and comfort of the English hierarchy, you may, perhaps, feel a wish, that, on this occasion, Cranmer and his imitators had shown something of the stern and uncompromising spirit of Becket.

You might too, and, in justice to the romancatholics you ought, to have noticed their patience. during the innovations in the reign of Edward VI, and the miseries which attended them. It is diffi cult to find, in history, an instance of more general or galling spoliation and oppression than those which the roman-catholics then suffered. You admit, that "the majority of the nation was, at this

time, attached to the old faith ; the government was distracted, and the mind of the public was

i

« ForrigeFortsæt »