BISHOP OF WORCESTER. 103 prove the charges brought against him. "Because I am so belied, I could wish that it would please the King's grace to command me to preach before his highness a whole year together every Sunday, that he might perceive how they belie me, saying that I have neither learning nor utterance worthy thereunto." Latimer's performance of his pulpit duties probably increased the respect entertained for him by the King. He had also a friend. at court in Anne Boleyn. At her recommendation the monarch appointed the preacher in the following year to the vacant diocese of Worcester. He was consecrated at Lambeth, by Archbishop Cranmer, in September, 1536. FISHER AND SIR THOMAS MORE-SERMON BEFORE CON- CLERGY-BILL AGAINST HERESY-HOLY WATER AND BREAD-THE RECEPTION--THE INSTITUTION OF A CHRISTIAN MAN- INJUNCTIONS FRIAR BLOOD OF HAILES. THE HE period of Latimer's entrance on the episcopate was one of weighty import in the history of the English Reformation. The separation from the Pope had been formally proclaimed by Parliament and by Convocation in the previous year. The succession to the throne had been settled upon the offspring of the King's second marriage, and an oath of allegiance in conformity with this decision, and also declaratory of the illegality of the first marriage, had been required of all subjects. Two individuals alone throughout the kingdon refused to take this oath. These THE CHARTER-HOUSE MONKS. 105 were Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, the successor of Wolsey as Lord Chancellor. The King was next declared by Parliament. the head of the English Church, and denial of his authority as such head constituted treason. The only persons who refused this acknowledgment besides Fisher and More were the Carthusian monks of the Charter House in London. The exception was a memorable one. The Charter House had kept its reputation unsullied amid all the scandal caused by the general irregularities of the monasteries. No whisper of peculation, misappropriation of funds, of lewdness or drunkenness had been brought against its inmates. This social position, however, now operated against them. The weight of their influence was too great to be left in opposition. They would not bend, and they were broken; Haughton the Prior, and nine of his brethren, were executed. The remaining members of the house were scattered in other institutions. The terrible penalty of the law was enforced with great reluctance, and the court put on mourning to testify to the public sorrow. Fisher and More. also remained firm, and suffered the same fate in June and July, 1536. Bishop Latimer was appointed to preach at the opening of the Convocation, June 9, 1536. The sermon appears in his works, "translated out of Latin into English, to the intent that things well said to a few may be understood of many, and do good to all them that desire to understand the truth." The. discourse is in two parts, both long, and is a stirring appeal for activity in the ministry. "God partly wondereth," he says, "at our ingratitude and perfidy, partly chideth us for them; and being both full of wonder and ready to chide, asketh us, 'What is this that I hear of you? As though he should say unto us: All good men in all places complain of you, accuse your avarice, your exactions, your tyranny. They have required in you a long season, and yet require diligence and sincerity. I commanded you that with all industry and labor ye should feed my sheep: ye earnestly feed yourselves from day to day, wallowing in delights and idleness. I commanded you to teach my commandments, and not your fancies; and that ye should seek my glory and my van 6 HOSTILITY TO PREACHING. 107 tage: you teach your own traditions, and seek your own glory and profit. You preach very seldom; and when ye do preach, do nothing but cumber them that preach truly, as much as lieth in you: that it were much better such were not to preach at all, than so perniciously to preach. Oh, what hear I of you? You that ought to be my preachers, what other thing do you, than apply all your study hither, to bring all my preachers to envy, shame, contempt? Yea, more than this, ye pull them into perils, into prisons, and, as much as in you lieth, to cruel deaths. To be short, I would that Christian people should hear my doctrine, and at their convenient leisure read it also, as many as would: your care is not that all men may hear it, but all your care is, that no lay man do read it surely, being afraid lest they by the reading should understand it, and understanding, learn to rebuke our slothfulness." The great majority of the Convocation had ́ little sympathy with their preacher. They had for the most part acquiesced unwillingly in the transfer of their spiritual allegiance from the Pope to the King, and were so far from desiring any change in the regulations |