no accusation against him, as Weston is said to have done, on the present point. He thus addresses Ridley also without such censure.

"Ward. You, being brought into the briars, seemed to doubt of Christ's presence on the earth: to the proof of which matter I will bring nothing else than that which was agreed upon in the Catechism of the synod of London, set out not long ago by you.

66

Ridley. Sir, I give you to wit, before you go any further, that I did set out no Catechism. "Weston. Yes, you made me subscribe to it, when you were a bishop in your ruff,

66

Ridley. I compelled no man to subscribe. "Ward. Yes, by the rood, you are the very author of that heresy.

Ridley. I put forth no Catechism.

"Cole. Did you never consent to the setting out of those things which you allowed?

66

Ridley. I grant that I saw the book; but I deny that I wrote it. I perused it after it was made, and I noted many things for it: so I consented to the book: I was not the author of it.

"The Judges. The Catechism is so set forth, as though the whole convocation-house had

Acts and Mon. 1449.

2 The Articles certainly have not the title worded in such terms of extent and comprehension, as these judges pretend.. They profess only to have been agreed upon in the synod by the bishops and certain other learned men; whence it seems pro

324 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

agreed to it. Cranmer said yesterday that you made it.

"Ridley. I think surely that he would not say so.

"Ward. The Catechism hath this clause: Si visibiliter, et in terra, etc.

66

Ridley. I answer, that those Articles were set out, I both willing and consenting to them. Mine own hand will testify the same; and M. Cranmer put his hand to them likewise, and gave them to others afterwards."

Whatever, lastly, may be thought of the synodical authority of these our first Articles, it cannot be denied, that to almost every decision or regulation of Cranmer, to his learning, his zeal, and his discretion, it is still that unfeigned assent is the indispensable condition of qualifying for their ministry, and their preferment, the clergy of the Church of England.

bable, as I have observed, that the Articles might be passed by a committee. See before, p. 290, and Collier, ii. 325. Strype, Ecc. Mem. ii. 368.

CHAPTER XIII.

1552 to 1553.

The Reformation of Ecclesiastical Laws.

1

THE Liturgy was under revision, and the Articles were in preparation, when the attention of Cranmer was also again employed upon the design of establishing a code of canon law, which appears to have been first proposed, immediately after the abolition of the papal power in this country. Towards the close of Henry's days a scheme of it was drawn up. In the present reign, the subject had been revived at the beginning of it, and the promulgation of the code was expected in the last year of it. Whether, by the death of Henry, or some other cause, the plan in his time had been

1 See vol. i. p. 104.

2

2 The book itself was required to be seen by Henry, and Cranmer promised it should be immediately sent. See before, vol. i. pp. 359, 360. See also Strype's Life of Cranmer. B. i. ch. 30.

2

rendered abortive, is uncertain. That by the death of Edward it now was, is the frequent assertion of historical writers. Some, however, have thought 'that the severity of the code would never have been endured in this country, and that this is the true reason why it was laid aside. Others, that in that age of licentiousness, which ill could brook restraint, some art was employed to prevent the confirmation of it. The observation of Cox, who was one of the eight commissioners chosen to finish it for publication, has been cited in aid of this opinion. Only a few days before the meeting, for the accomplishment of what had so often been talked of, and of which the substance must have been generally known, he wrote to Bullinger, at Zurich, telling him that the liturgy had been revised, " but we hate," said he, "the bitter institutions of Christian discipline;" and he therefore entreated Bullinger to exert his interest with the nobility, and other distinguished persons, in behalf of spiritual jurisdiction; considering it, no doubt, when «5 aided by the civil power, as the best safeguard of a

4

1 Hallam, Constit. Hist. of Eng. 2d edit. i. 139.

4

Bullinger was much attached to England. See before, p. 223. To our Universities he sent several of his

young coun

trymen. By our Reformers he was greatly regarded.

Christian commonwealth against vice." In fact, the prelates of the realm had long before occasioned the legislative nomination of the thirtytwo commissioners for the accomplishment of the present work, by their complaint, to the house of lords, of the great increase of immorality, and by their desire to be supplied with laws which should enable them to suppress it. In November, 1551, Edward nominated eight of these thirty-two commissioners to lay first before the remainder of them, afterwards before himself and his Privy Council, the intended code. At the head of these eight persons was the archbishop, to whom the subject was so familiar, an abler canonist than him not being easily to be found within the realm. The book was ready for the inspection of the king some months before he died, but there is no evidence that he ever saw it. His commission indeed, as that of Henry had also been, was prepared to introduce this body of laws to the public; and both are prefixed to the edition of the book, published in 1571 under the direction of archbishop Parker, by Foxe the martyrologist, with the title of Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. The compilation is supposed to have been originally made in English, and to have received from Haddon, the king's professor of civil law at Cambridge, with the assistance of Sir John Cheke,