Сн. A.D. 1532. Broken CH. 4. bunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready expiation of crime. To prevent the escape of the Bishop of Rochester's cook, who was a 'clerk,' parliament had specially interfered, and sentenced him without trial, by attainder. They now passed a general act, remarkable alike in what it provided as in what, for the present, it omitted to provide. The preamble related the nature of the evil which was to be remedied, and the historical position of it. It dwelt upon the assurances the ordi- which had been given again and again by the ordinaries that their privileges should not be abused; but these promises had been broken as often as they had been made; so that 'continually manifest thieves and murderers, indicted and found guilty of their misdeeds by good and substantial inquests, and afterwards, by the usages of the common lawes of the land, delivered to the ordinaries as clerks convict, were speedily and Corruption hastily delivered and set at large by the ministers Consistory of the said ordinaries for corruption and lucre; promises of naries. of the Courts. or else because the ordinaries enclaiming such offenders by the liberties of the church would in no wise take the charges in safe keeping of them, but did suffer them to make their purgation by such as nothing knew of their misdeeds, and by such fraud did annull and make void the good and provable trial which was used against such offenders by the king's law; to the pernicious example, * 23 Hen. VIII. cap. I. increase, and courage of such offenders, if the CH. 4. King's Highness by his authority royal put not A.D. 1532. speedy remedy thereto.' under the allowed to murder punity. To provide such necessary remedy, it was No person enacted that thenceforward no person under the degree of degree of subdeacon, if guilty of felony, should subdeacon be allowed to plead 'his clergy' any more, but commit should be proceeded against by the ordinary with im law. So far it was possible to go-an enormous step if we think of what the evil had been; and in such matters to make a beginning was the true difficulty-it was the logical premise from which the conclusion could not choose but follow. Yet such was the mystical sacredness which clung about the ordained clergy, that their patent profligacy had not yet destroyed it-a priest might still commit a murder, and the profane hand of the law might not reach to him. the Arch Court. The measure, however, if imperfect, was ex- Reform of cellent in its degree; and when this had been bishop's accomplished, the House proceeded next to deal with the Arches Court-the one enormous grievance of the time. The petition of the Commons. has already exhibited the condition of this institution; but the act by which the power of it was limited added more than one particular to what had been previously stated, and the first twenty lines of the statute which was now passed* may be recommended to the consideration of the modern censors of the Reformation. The framer of the resolution was no bad friend to the bishops, if CH. 4. they had possessed the faculty of knowing who their true friends were, for the statement of complaint was limited, mild, and moderate. A.D. 1532. spirit of Again, as with the benefit of clergy,' the real ground for surprise is that any fraction of a system so indefensible should have been permitted to continue. The courts were nothing else but the vicious sources of unjust revenue; and with the opportunity so fairly offered, it is strange indeed Temperate that they were not swept utterly away. But English sweeping measures have never found favour in England. There has ever been in English legislation, even when most reforming, that temperate spirit of equity which has refused to visit the sins of centuries upon a single generation. statute limited its accusations to the points which it was designed to correct, and touched these with a hand firmly gentle. legislation. Parties summoned diocese in live. The 'Whereas great numbers of the king's subont of the jects,' says the preamble, as well men, wives, which they servants, or others dwelling in divers dioceses of the realm of England and Wales, heretofore have been at many times called by citations and other processes compulsory to appear in the Arches, Audience, and other high Courts of the archbishops of this realm, far from and out of the dioceses where such persons are inhabitant and dwelling; and many times to answer to surmised and feigned causes and matters, which have been sued more for vexation and malice than from any just cause of suit; and when certificate hath been made by the sumners, apparitors, or any such light litterate persons, that the party against A.D. 1532. tortion and injustice. whom such citations have been awarded hath CH. 4. been cited or summoned; and thereupon the same party so certified to be cited or summoned hath not appeared according to the certificate, the same party therefore hath been excommuni- General excated, or, at the least, suspended from all divine service; and thereupon, before that he or she could be absolved, hath been compelled, not only to pay the fees of the court whereunto he or she was so called, amounting to the sum of two shillings, or twenty pence at the least; but also to pay to the sumner, for every mile distant from the place where he or she then dwelled unto the same court whereunto he or she was summoned to appear, twopence; to the great charge and impoverishment of the king's subjects, and to the great occasion of misbehaviour of wives, women, and servants, and to the great impairment and diminution of their good names and honesties-be it enacted-' We ask what?looking with impatience for some large measure to follow these solemn accusations; and we find parliament contenting itself with forbidding the bishops, under heavy penalties, to cite any man out of his own diocese, except for specified causes (heresy being one of them), and with limiting the fees which were to be taken by the officers of the courts. It could hardly be said that in this any of the king's subjects any Be it further enacted that no archbishop or bishop, official, commissary, or any other minister, having spiritual jurisdiction, shall ask, demand, or receive of CH. 4. parliament there was any bitter spirit against the church. This act showed only mild forbearance Extreme and complacent endurance of all tolerable evil. A.D. 1532. forbearance of parliament. assurances parish churches and cha pels. เ Another serious matter was dealt with in the Act for the same moderate temper. The Mortmain Act had of lands for prohibited the church corporations from further the use of absorbing the lands; but the Mortmain Act was evaded in detail, the clergy using their influence to induce persons on their deathbeds to leave estates to provide a priest for ever to sing for their souls.' The arrangement was convenient possibly for both parties, or if not for both, certainly for one; but to tie up lands for ever for a special service was not to the advantage of the country; and it was held unjust to allow a man a perpetual power over the disposition of property to atone for the iniquities of his life. But the privilege was not abolished altogether; it was submitted only to reasonable limitation. Men might still burden their lands to find a priest for twenty years. After twenty years the lands were to relapse for the service of the living, and sinners were expected in equity to bear the consequence in their own persons of such offences as remained after that time unexpiated.* The work Thus, in two sessions, the most flagrant of which was the abuses first complained of were in a fair way of being remedied. The exorbitant charges for doue. |