THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND

SHOWING HOW THAT EVENT HAS IMPOVERISHED THE MAIN BODY OF THE PEOPLE
IN THOSE COUNTRIES

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO ALL SENSIBLE AND JUST ENGLISHMEN

By

WILLIAM COBBETT


LETTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

Kensington, 29th November, 1824

MY FRIENDS,

1.  WE have recently seen a rescript from the King to the Bishops,
the object of which was, to cause them to call upon their Clergy to
cause collections of money to be made in the several parishes
throughout England, for the purpose of promoting what is called the
"religious education" of the people. The Bishops, in conveying their
instructions, on this subject, to their Clergy, direct them to send
the money thus collected to a Mr. JOSHUA WATSON, in London, who, it
seems, is the Treasurer of this religious education concern, and who
is, or lately was, a wine and spirit dealer, in Mincing-lane,
Fenchurch-street. This same Mr. WATSON is also the head man of a
society, called the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge." The
present Bishop of Winchester, in his first charge to the Clergy of
his diocese, says, that this society is the "correct expounder of
evangelical truth, and firm supporter of the established Church;" and
he accordingly strongly recommends that the publications put forth by
this society be put into the hands of the scholars of those schools,
to promote which, the above-mentioned collections were made by royal
authority.

2.  We shall, further on, have an opportunity of asking what sort of
a Clergy this must be, who, while they swallow, in England and
Ireland, about eight millions a year, call upon their parishioners
for money to be sent to a wine and spirit merchant, that he may cause
the children of the country to have a "religious education." But not
to stop, at present, for this purpose, pray observe, my friends, that
this society for "promoting Christian knowledge" is continually
putting forth publications, the object of which is to make the people
of England believe that the Catholic religion is "idolatrous and
damnable;" and that, of course, the one-third part of the whole of
our fellow subjects are idolaters, and are destined to eternal
perdition, and that they, of course, ought not to enjoy the same
rights that we Protestants enjoy. These calumniators know well, that
this same Catholic religion was, for nine hundred years, the only
Christian religion known to our forefathers. This is a fact which
they cannot disguise from intelligent persons; and, therefore, they,
like the Protestant Clergy, are constantly applauding the change
which took place about two hundred years ago, and which change goes
by the name of the REFORMATION.

3.  Before we proceed further, let us clearly understand the meaning
of these words: CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT, and REFORMATION. CATHOLIC means
universal, and the religion, which takes this epithet, was called
universal, because all Christian people of every nation acknowledged
it to be the only true religion, and because they all acknowledged
one and the same head of the Church, and this was the POPE, who,
though he generally resided at Rome, was the head of the Church in
England, in France, in Spain, and, in short, in every part of the
world where the Christian religion was professed. But, there came a
time, when some nations, or, rather, parts of some nations, cast off
the authority of the POPE, and, of course, no longer acknowledged him
as the head of the Christian Church. These nations or parts of
nations, declared, or protested, against the authority of their
former head, and also against the doctrines of that Church, which,
until now, had been the only Christian Church. They, therefore,
called themselves Protestors, or PROTESTANTS; and this is now the
appellation given to all who are not Catholics. As to the word
REFORMATION, it means, an alteration for the better; and it would
have been hard indeed if the makers of this great alteration could
not have contrived to give it a good name,

4.  Now, my friends, a fair and honest inquiry will teach us, that
this was an alteration greatly for the worse; that the "REFORMATION,"
as it is called, was engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in
hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation,
and by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood; and that, as to
its more remote consequences, they are, some of them, now before as
in that misery, that beggary, that nakedness, that hunger, that
everlasting wrangling and spite, which now stare us in the face and
stun our ears at every turn, and which the "Reformation" has given us
in exchange for the ease and happiness and harmony and Christian
charity, enjoyed so abundantly, and for so many ages, by our Catholic
forefathers.

5.  Were there, for the entering on this inquiry, no motive other
than that of a bare love of justice, that motive alone would, I hope,
be sufficient with the far greater part of Englishmen. But, besides
this abstract motive, there is another of great and pressing
practical importance. A full third part of our fellow-subjects are
still Catholics; and when we consider, that the principles of the
"Reformation" are put forward as the ground for excluding them from
their civil rights, and also as the ground for treating them in a
manner the most scornful, despiteful and cruel; when we consider,
that it is not in human nature for men to endure such treatment,
without wishing for, and without seeking, opportunities for taking
vengeance; when we consider the present formidable attitude of
foreign nations, naturally our foes, and how necessary it is that we
should all be cordially united in order to preserve the independence
of our country; when we consider, that such union is utterly
impossible as long as one-third part of the people are treated as
outcasts, because, and only because, they have in spite of two
hundred years of persecutions unparalleled, adhered to the religion
of their and of our fathers: when we consider these things, that fair
and honest inquiry, on which a bare love of justice might well induce
us to enter, presses itself upon us as a duty which we owe ourselves,
our children, and our country.

6.  If you will follow me in this inquiry, I will first show you how
this thing called the "Reformation" began; what it arose out of; and
then I will show you its progress, how it marched on, plundering,
devastating, inflicting torments on the people, and shedding their
innocent blood. I will trace it downward through all its stages,
until I show you its natural result, in the schemes of Parson
MALTHUS, in the OUNDLE PLAN of Lord John Russell's recommending, in
the present misery indescribable of the labouring classes in England
and Ireland, and in that odious and detestable system, which has made
Jews and paper-money makers the real owners of a large part of the
estates in this kingdom.

7.  But, before I enter on this series of deeds and of consequences,
it is necessary to offer you some observations of a more general
nature, and calculated to make us doubt, at least, of the truth of
what we have heard against the Catholic religion. Our minds have been
so completely filled with the abuse of this religion. that, at first,
we can hardly bring ourselves to listen to any thing said in defence
of it, or, in apology for it. Those whom you will, by-and-by, find in
possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church, and, indeed, of
those of the Catholic nobles and gentlemen, not forgetting those of
the poor; these persons have always had the strongest possible motive
for causing the people to be brought up in the belief, that the
Catholic religion was, and is, something to inspire us with horror.
From our very infancy, on the knees of our mothers, we have been
taught to believe, that to be a Catholic was to be a false, cruel,
and bloody wretch; and "popery and slavery" have been rung in our
ears, till, whether we looked on the Catholics in their private or
their public capacity, we have inevitably come to the conclusion,
that they were every thing that was vicious and vile.

8.  But you may say, why should any body, and particularly our
countrymen, take such pains to deceive us? Why should they, for so
many years take the trouble to write and publish books of all sizes,
from big folios down to halfpenny tracts, in order to make us think
ill of this Catholic religion? Now, my friends, take an instance in
answer to this way. The immense property of the Catholic Church in
Ireland, in which, mind, the poor had a share, was taken from the
Catholics and given to the Protestant Bishops and Parsons. These have
never been able to change the religion of the main body of the people
of that country; and there these Bishops and Parsons are enjoying the
immense revenues without having scarcely any flocks. This produces
great discontents, makes the country continually in a state of
ferment, causes enormous expenses to England, and exposes the whole
kingdom to great danger in case of war. Now, if those who enjoy these
revenues, and their close connections in this country, had not made
us believe, that there was something very bad, wicked and hostile in
the Catholic religion, should we not, long ago, have asked why they
put us to all this expense for keeping that religion down? They never
told us, and they never tell us, that this Catholic religion was the
only religion known to our own forefathers for nine hundred years. If
they had told us this, we should have said, that it could not
possibly have been so very bad a religion, and that it would be
better to leave the Irish people still to enjoy it; and that, since
there were scarcely any Protestant folks, it would be better for us
all, if the Church revenues were to go again to the original owners!

9.  Ah! my friends! here we have the real motive for all the abuse,
all the hideous calumnies that have been heaped upon the Catholic
religion, and upon all that numerous body of our fellow-subjects who
adhere to that ancient faith. When you think of the power of this
motive, you will not be surprised at the great and incessant pains
that have been taken to deceive us. Even the Scripture itself has
been perverted in order to blacken the Catholics. In books of all
sizes, and from the pulpit of every church, we have been taught from
our infancy, that the "beast, the man of sin, and the scarlet whore,"
mentioned in the Revelations, were names which God himself had given
to the POPE; and we have all been taught to believe of the Catholic
Church, that her worship was "idolatrous," and that her doctrines
were "damnable."

10.  Now let us put a plain question or two to ourselves, and to
these our teachers; and we shall quickly be able to form a just
estimate of the modesty, sincerity, and consistency of these revilers
of the Catholic religion. They will not, because they cannot, deny,
that this religion was the ONLY CHRISTIAN religion in the world for
fifteen hundred years after the death of Christ. They may say,
indeed, that for the first three hundred years there was no POPE
seated at Rome. But, then, for twelve hundred years there had been;
and, during that period, all the nations of Europe, and some part of
America, had become Christian, and all acknowledged the POPE as their
head in religious matters; and, in short, there was no other
Christian Church known in the world, nor had any other ever been
thought of. Can we believe, then, that Christ, who died to save
sinners, who sent forth his gospel as the means of their salvation,
would have suffered a false Christian religion, and no other than a
false Christian religion. to be known amongst men all this while?
Will these modest assailants of the faith of their and our ancestors
assert to our faces, that, for twelve hundred years at least, there
were no true Christians in the world? Will they tell us, that Christ,
who promised to be with the teachers of his word to the end of the
world, wholly left them, and gave up hundreds upon hundreds of
millions of people to be led in darkness to their eternal perdition
by one whom his inspired followers had denominated the "man of sin
and the scarlet whore"? Will they, indeed, dare to tell us, that
Christ gave up the world wholly to "Antichrist" for twelve hundred
years? Yet this they must do; they must thus stand forward with bold
and unblushing blasphemy; or they must confess themselves guilty of
the most atrocious calumny against the Catholic religion.

11.  Then, coming nearer home, and closer to our own bosoms; our
ancestors became Christians about six hundred years after the death
of Christ. And how did they become Christians? Who first pronounced
the name of Christ to this land? Who converted the English from
Paganism to Christianity? Some Protestant saint, doubtless, warm from
a victory like that of SKIBBEREEN. Oh, no! The work was begun,
continued, and ended by the POPES, one of whom sent over some Monks,
(of whom we shall see more by-and-by), who settled at CANTERBURY, and
from whose beginnings the Christian religion spread, like the grain
of mustard seed, rapidly over the land. Whatever, therefore, any
other part of the world might have known of Christianity before the
POPE became the settled and acknowledged head of the Church, England,
at any rate, never had known of any Christian religion other than
that at the head of which was the POPE; and in this religion with the
POPE at its head, England continued to be firmly fixed for nine
hundred years.

12. What, then: will our kind teachers tell us, that it was the
"scarlet whore" and "Antichrist" who brought the glad tidings of the
gospel into England? Will they tell us, too, that all the millions
and hundreds of millions of English people, who died during those
nine hundred years, expired without the smallest chance of salvation?
Will they tell us, that all our fathers, who first built our
churches, and whose flesh and bones form the earth for many feet deep
in all the church-yards; will they tell us, that all these are now
howling in the regions of the damned? Nature beats at our bosom, and
bids us shudder at the impious, the horrid thought! Yet, this, even
this, these presumptuous men must tell us; or they must confess their
base calumny, in calling the POPE  "Antichrist." and the Catholic
worship  "idolatrous" and its doctrines "damnable."

13.  But. coming to the present time, the days in which we ourselves
live; if we look round the world, we shall find that now, even now,
about nine-tenths of all those who profess to be Christians are
Catholics. What, then: has Christ suffered "Antichrist" to reign
almost wholly uninterrupted even unto this day? Has Christ made the
Protestant Church? Did he suggest the "Reformation?" And does he,
after all, then, suffer the followers of "Antichrist" to outnumber
his own followers nine to one? But, in this view of the matter, how
lucky have been the Clergy of our Protestant Church, established by
law! Her flock does not, if fairly counted, contain one-five-
hundredth part of the number of those who are Catholics; while,
observe, her Clergy receive more, not only than all the Clergy of all
the Catholic nations, but more than all the Clergy of all the
Christian people in the world, Catholics and Protestants all put
together! She calls herself a Church "by law established." She never
omits this part of her title. She calls herself "holy," "godly," and
a good deal besides. She calls her ministers "reverend," and her
worship and doctrines "evangelical." She talks very much about her
reliance for support upon her "founder" (as she calls him) Christ;
but, in stating her claims and her qualities, she never fails to
conclude with, "by LAW established." This "law," however, sometimes
wants the bayonet to enforce it; and her tithes are not unfrequently
collected by the help of soldiers, under the command of her
ministers, whom the law has made Justices of the Peace!

14. To return; are we to believe, then, that Christ has, even unto
this day, abandoned nine-tenths of the people of Europe to
"Antichrist?" Are we to believe, that, if this "law-established"
religion had been the religion of Christ, and the Catholic religion
that of "Antichrist:" if this had been the case, are we to believe,
that the "law-established" religion, that our "holy religion," as
George Rose used to call it, while his grasping paw was deep in our
purses; if this had been the case, are we to believe that the "law-
established" religion, that the "holy religion" of John Bowles, the
Dutch Commissioner; are we to believe, that that "holy religion" (the
fruits of which we behold in those worthy sons of the church, VITAL
CHRISTIANITY and JOCELYN RODEN) would, at the end of two hundred
years, have been able to count only one member for about every five
hundred members (taking all Christendom together) of that Church
against which the "law" Church protested and still protests?

15.  Away, then, my friends, with this foul abuse of the Catholic
religion, which, after all, is the religion of about nine-tenths of
all the Christians in the world! Away with this shameful calumny, the
sole object of which is, and always has been, to secure a quiet
possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church, and of the poor;
for, we shall, by-and-by, clearly see how the poor were despoiled at
the same time that the Church was.

16.  But, there remains to be noticed, in this place, an instance or
two of the consistency of these revilers of the Catholic Church and
faith. We shall, in due time, see how the Protestants, the moment
they began their "Reformation," were split up into dozens and scores
of sects, each condemning the other to eternal flames. But, I will
here speak only of the "Church of England," as it is called, "by law
established." Now, we know very well, that we, who belong to this
Protestant Church, believe, or profess to believe, that the NEW
TESTAMENT, as printed and distributed amongst us, contains the true
and genuine "word of God:" that it contains the "words of eternal
life;" that it points out to us the means, and the only means, by
which we can possibly be saved from everlasting fire. This is what we
believe. Now, how did we come by this New Testament? Who gave us this
real and genuine "word of God?" From whom did we receive these "words
of eternal life?" Come, JOSHUA WATSON, wine and spirit merchant, and
teacher of religion to the people of England: come, JOSHUA, answer
these questions! They are questions of great importance; because, if
this be the book, and the only book, which contains instructions
relative to the means of saving our souls, it is manifest, that it is
a matter of deep interest to us, who it was that this book came from
to us, through what channel we received it, and what proof we have of
its authenticity.

17.  Oh! JOSHUA WATSON! Alas! wine and spirit merchant, who art at
the head of a Society "for promoting Christian Knowledge," which
Society the Bishop of Winchester calls the "correct expounder of
evangelical truth, and the firm supporter" of the law-established
Church: oh! JOSHUA, teacher of religion to the people of England, who
pay six or eight millions a-year to the Parsons who employ thee to do
this teaching; oh! JOSHUA, what a shocking thing it is, that we
Protestants should have received the NEW TESTAMENT; this real and
genuine "word of God;" these "words of eternal life;" this book that
points out to us the means, and the only means, of salvation: what a
shocking fact, that we should have received this book from that POPE
and that CATHOLIC CHURCH, to make us believe that the first of whom
is the whore of Babylon, and that the worship of the last is
idolatrous and her doctrines damnable, you, JOSHUA, and your Society
"for promoting Christian Knowledge," are now, at this very moment,
publishing and pushing into circulation no less than seventeen
different books and tracts!

18.  After the death of Christ, there was a long space of time before
the gospel was put into any thing like its present shape. It was
preached in several countries, and churches were established in these
countries, long before the written gospel was known much of, or, at
least, long before it was made use of as a guide to the Christian
churches. At the end of about four hundred years, the written gospels
were laid before a council of the Catholic Church, of which the POPE
was the head. But there were several gospels besides those of
MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN! Several other of the apostles, or early
disciples, had written gospels. All these, long after the death of
the authors, were, as I have just said, laid before a council of the
Catholic Church; and that council determined which of the gospels
were genuine and which not. It retained the four gospels of MATTHEW,
MARK, LUKE and JOHN; it determined that these four should be received
and believed in, and that all the rest should be rejected.

19.  So that here JOSHUA WATSON's Society is without any other
gospel; without any other word of God; without any guide to eternal
life; without any other than that which that Society, well all the
rest of us, have received from a church which that Society calls
"idolatrous," and the head of which it calls "the beast, the man of
sin, the scarlet whore, and Antichrist"! To a pretty state, then, do
we reduce ourselves by giving in to this foul-mouthed calumny against
the Catholic Church: to a pretty state do we reduce ourselves by our
tame and stupid listening to those who calumniate the Catholic
Church, because they live on the spoils of it. To a pretty state do
we come, when we, if we still listen to these calumniators, proclaim
to the world, that our only hope of salvation rests on promises
contained in a book, which we have received from the Scarlet Whores
and of the authenticity of which we have no voucher other than that
Scarlet Whore and that Church, whose worship is "idolatrous" and
whose doctrines are "damnable."

20.  This is pretty complete; but still this, which applies to all
Protestants, is not enough of inconsistency to satisfy the law-Church
of Enzland. That Church has a Liturgy in great part made up of the
Catholic service; but, there are the two creeds, the Nicene and
Athanasian. The first was composed and promulgated by a Council of
the Catholic Church and the POPE; and, the second was adopted, and
ordered to be used, by another Council of that Church, with the POPE
at its head. Must not a Parson of this law-Church be pretty impudent,
then, to call the POPE "Antichrist," and to call the Catholic Church
"idolatrous?" Pretty impudent, indeed; but we do not, even yet, see
the grossest inconsistency of all.

21. To our law-Church PRAYER-BOOK there is a CALENDAR prefixed, and,
in this Calendar there are, under different days of the year, certain
names of holy men and women. Their names are put here in order that
their anniversaries may be attended to, and religiously attended to,
by the people. Now, who are those holy persons? Some Protestant
Saints to be sure? Not one! What, not saint Luther, nor saint
Cranmer, nor saint Edward the Sixth, nor the "VIRGIN" saint
Elizabeth? Not a soul of them; but, a whole list of POPES, Catholic
BISHOPS, and Catholic holy persons, female as well as male. Several
virgins; but not the "VIRGIN Queen;" nor any one of the Protestant
race. At first sight, this seems odd; for, this CALENDAR was made by
Act of Parliament. But, the truth is, it was necessary to preserve
some of the names, so long revered by the people, in order to keep
them in better humour, and to lead them by degrees into the new
religion. At any rate, here is the Prayer-Book, holding up for our
respect and reverence a whole list of POPES and of other persons
belonging to the Catholic Church, while those who teach us to read
and to repeat the conntents of this same Prayer-Book, are incessantly
dinning in our ears, that the POPES have all been "Antichrists," and
that their Church was, and is, idolatrous in its worship and damnable
in its doctrines!

22.  JUDGE BAYLEY (one of the present twelve Judges) has, I have
heard, written a Commentary on the Common Prayer-Book. I should like
to know what the Judge says about these Catholic Saints (and no
others) being placed in this Protestant Calendar. We shall, in due
time, see the curious way in which this Prayer-Book was first made,
and how it was new-modelled from time to time. But, here it is now,
even to this day, with the Catholic Saints in the Calendar, whence it
seems, that, even down to the reign of Charles II., when the last
"improvement" was made in it, there had not appeared any Protestant
Saint to supply the place of the old Catholic ones.

23.  But there is still a dilemma for these revilers of the Catholic
religion. We swear on the four Evangelists! And these, mind, we get
from the POPE and a Council of the Catholic Church. So that, if the
POPE be "Antichrist," that is to say, if those who have taught us to
abuse and abhor the Catholics; if those be not the falsest and most
malignant wretches that ever breathed, here are we swearing upon a
book handed down to us by  "Antichrist "? And, as if the
inconsistencies and absurdities springing out of this Protestant
calumny were to have no end, that "Christianity," which the judges
say, "is part and parcel of the law of the land;" that Christianity
is no other than what is taught in this same NEW TESTAMENT. Take the
New Testament away, and there is not a particle of this "part and
parcel" left. What is our situation; what a figure does this part and
parcel of the law of the land make, with a dozen of persons in gaol
for offending against it; what a figure does it make, if we adopt the
abuse and falsehood of the revilers of the Catholic Church! What a
figure does that "part and parcel" make, if we follow our teachers;
if we follow JOSHUA WATSON's Society; if we follow every brawler from
every tub in the country, and say that the POPE (from whom we got the
"part and parcel") is "Antichrist" and the "scarlet whore"!

24.  Enough! Ay, and much more than enough to make us sorely repent
of having so long been the dupes of the crafty and selfish revilers
of the religion of our fathers. Were there ever presumption,
impudence, inconsistency and insincerity equal to those of which we
have just taken a view? When we thus open our eyes and look into the
matter, we are astonished at, and ashamed of, our credulity; and,
this more especially when we reflect, that the far greater part of us
have suffered ourselves to be misled by men not possessing a tenth
part of our own capacity; by a set of low-minded greedy creatures;
but indefatigable; never losing sight of the spoil; and, day after
day, and year after year, close at the ears of the people from their
very childhood, din, din, din, incessantly, until, from mere habit,
the monstrous lie got sucked in for gospel-truth. Had the lie been
attended with no consequences, it might have been merely laughed at,
as all men of sense laugh at the old silly lie about the late King
having "made the Judges independent of the Crown." But, there have
been consequences, and those most dreadful. By the means of the great
Protestant lie, the Catholics and Protestants have been kept in a
constant state of hostile feeling towards each other; and both, but
particularly the former, have been, in one shape or another,
oppressed and plundered for ages, with impunity to the oppressors and
plunderers.

25.  Having now shown, that the censure heaped on the religion of our
forefathers is not only unjust, but absurd and monstrous; having
shown that there could be no good reason for altering the religion of
England from Catholic to Protestant; having exposed the vile and
selfish calumniators, and duly prepared the mind of every just person
for that fair and honest inquiry, of which I spoke in paragraph 4;
having done this, I should now enter on that inquiry, and show, in
the first place, how this "Reforma tion," as it is called, "was
engendered by beastly lust;" but, there is yet one topic to be
touched on in this preliminary Number of my little Work.

26.  Truth has, with regard to this subject, made great progress in
the public mind, in England, within the last dozen years. Men are not
now to be carried away by the cry of "No-Popery," and the "Church in
danger." Parson HAY, at Manchester, Parson DENT, at Northallerton,
and their like all over the country, have greatly enlightened us.
Parson MORRIT, at Skibbereen, has done great good in this work of
enlightening. Nor must we forget a Right Reverend Protestant Father
in God, who certainly did more in the opening of eyes than any Bishop
that I ever before heard of. So that it is now by no means rare to
hear Protestants allow, that, as to faith, as to morals, as to
salvation, the Catholic religion is quite good enough; and, a very
large part of the people of England are forward to declare, that the
Catholics have been most barbarously treated, and that it is time
that they had justice done them.

27.  But, with all these just notions, there exists, amongst
Protestants in general, an opinion that the Catholic religion is
unfavourable to civil liberty, and also unfavourable to the producing
and the exerting of genius and talent. As to the former, I shall, in
the course of this work, find a suitable place for proving, by the
melancholy experience of this country, that a total want of civil
liberty was unknown in England, as long as its religion was Catholic;
and, that the moment it lost the protection of the POPE, its kings
and nobles became horrid tyrants, and its people the most abject and
most ill-treated of slaves. This I shall prove in due time and place;
and I beg you, my friends, to bear in mind, that I pledge myself to
this proof.

28.  And now to the other charge against the Catholic religion;
namely, that it is unfavourable to the producing of genius and
talent, and to the causing of them to be exerted. I am going, in a
minute, to prove, that this charge is not only false, but
ridiculously and most stupidly false; but, before I do this, let me
observe, that this charge comes from the same source with all the
other charges against the Catholics. "Monkish ignorance and
superstition" is a phrase that you find in every Protestant
historian, from the reign of the "VIRGIN" Elizabeth to the present
hour. It has, with time, become a sort of magpie-saying, like
"glorious revolution," "happy constitution," "good old king," "envy
of surrounding nations," and the like. But there has always, false as
the notion will presently be proved to be, there has always been a
very sufficient motive for inculcating it. BLACKSTONE, for instance,
in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, never lets slip an
opportunity to rail against "Monkish ignorance and superstition."
BLACKSTONE was no fool. At the very time when he was writing these
Commentaries, and reading them to the students at Oxford, he was, and
he knew it, LIVING upon the spoils of the Catholic Church, and the
spoils of the Catholic gentry, and also, of the poor! He knew that
well. He knew that, if every one had had his due, he would not have
been fattening where he was. He knew, besides, that all who heard his
lectures were aware of the spoils that he was wallowing in. These
considerations wae quite suffcient to induce him to abuse the
Catholic Church, and to affect to look back with contempt to Catholic
times.

29.  For cool, placid, unruffled impudence, there has been no people
in the world to equal the "Reformation" gentry; and BLACKSTONE seems
to have inherited this quality in a direct line from some altar-
robber of the reign of that sweet young Protestant saint, Edward the
Sixth. If BLACKSTONE had not actually felt the spoils of the
Catholics sticking to his ribs, he would have recollected, that all
those things which he was eulogising, magna charta, trial by jury,
the offices of sheriff, justice of the peace, constable, and all the
rest of it, arose in days of  "monkish ignorance and superstition."
If his head had not been rendered muddy by his gormandizing on the
spoils of the Catholic Church, he would have remembered, that
FORTESCUE and that that greatest of all our lawyers, LITTLETON, were
born, bred, lived and died in the days of "monkish ignorance and
superstition." But, did not this BLACKSTONE know, that the very roof,
under which he was abusing our Catholic forefathers, was made by
these forefathers? Did he not, when he looked up to that roof, or, 
when he beheld any of those noble buildings, which, in defiance of
time, still tell us what those forefathers were; did he not, when he
beheld any of these, feel that he was a pigmy in mind, compared with
those whom he had the impudence to abuse?

30.  When we hear some Jew, or Orange-man, or parson-justice, or
Jocelyn saint, talk about "monkish ignorance and superstition," we
turn from him with silent contempt: but, BLACKSTONE is to be treated
in another manner. It was at OXFORD where he wrote, and where he was
reading, his Commentaries. He well knew, that the foundations for
learning at Oxford were laid, and brought to perfection, not only in
monkish times, but, in great part, by monks. He knew, "that the
Abbeys were public schools for education,  each of them having one or
more persons set apart to instruct the youth of the neighbourhood
without any expense to the parents." He knew, that "each of the
greater  monasteries had a peculiar residence in the universities;
and, whereas there were, in those times, nearly THREE HUNDRED HALLS
and PRIVATE SCHOOLS at Oxford, besides the colleges, there were not
above EIGHT remaining towards the middle of the 17th century."
[Phillips' Life of Cardinal Pole, Part I. p. 220.] That is to say, in
about a hundred years after the enlightening "Reformation" began. At
this time (1824) there are, I am informed, only FIVE halls remaining,
and not a single school.

31.  I shall, in another place, have to show more fully the folly,
and, indeed, the baseness, of railing against the monastic
institutions generally; but, I must here confine myself to this
charge against the Catholic religion, of being unfavourable to
genius, talent, and, in short, to the powers of the mind. It is a
strange notion; and one can hardly hear it mentioned without
suspecting, that, somehow or other, there is plunder at the bottom of
the apparently nothing but stupid idea. Those who put forward this
piece of rare impudence do not favour us with reasons for believing
that the Catholic religion has any such tendency. They content
themselves with the bare assertion, not supposing that it admits of
anything like disproof. They look upon it as assertion against
assertion; and, in a question which depends on mere hardness of
mouth, they know that their triumph is secure. But, this is a
question that does admit of proof, and a very good proof too. The
"Reformation," in England, was pretty nearly completed by the year
1600. By that time all the "monkish ignorance and superstition" were
swept away. The monasteries were all pretty nearly knocked down,
young Saint Edward's people had robbed all the altars, and the
"VIRGIN" Queen had put the finishing hand to the pillage. So that all
was, in 1600, become as Protestant as heart could wish. Very well;
the kingdom of France remained buried in "monkish ignorance and
superstition" until the year 1787: that is to say, 187 years after
happy England stood in a blaze of Protestant light! Now, then, if we
carefully examine into the number of men remarkable for great powers
of mind, men famed for their knowledge or genius; if we carefully
examine into the number of such men produced by France in these 187
years, and the number of such men produced by England, Scotland and
Ireland, during the same period; if we do this, we shall get at a
pretty good foundation for judging of the effects of the two
religions with regard to their influence on knowledge, genius, and
what is generally called learning.

32.  "Oh, no!" exclaim the fire-shovels. "France is a great deal
bigger, and contains more people, than these Islands; and this is not
fair play!" Do not be frightened, good fire-shovels. According to
your own account, these Islands contain twenty-one millions; and the
French say, that they have thirty millions. Therefore, when we have
got the numbers, we will make an allowance of one-third in our favour
accordingly. If, for instance, the French have not three famous men
to every two of ours, then I shall confess, that the law-established
Church. and its family of Muggletonians, Cameronians, Jumpers,
Unitarians, Shakers, Quakers, and the rest of the Protestant litter,
are more favourable to knowledge and genius, than is the Catholic
Church.

33.  But how are we to ascertain these numbers? Very well. I shall
refer to a work which has a place in every  good library in the
kingdom; I mean, the "UNIVERSAL, HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY." This work, which is every where received
as authority as to facts, contains lists of persons of all nations,
celebrated for their published works. But, then, to have a place in
these lists, the person must have been really distinguished; his or
her works must have been considered as worthy of universal notice.
From these lists I shall take my numbers, as before proposed. It will
not be necessary to go into all the arts and sciences: eight or nine
will be sufficient. It may be as well, perhaps, to take the ITALIANS
as well as the French; for we all know that they were living in most
shocking "monkish ignorance and superstition;" and that they, poor,
unfortunate, and un plundered souls, are so living unto this very
day!

34.  Here, then, is the statement; and you have only to observe, that
the figures represent the number of persons who were famous for the
art or science opposite the name of which the figures are placed. The
period is, from the year 1600 to 1787, during which period France was
under what young GEORGE Ross calls the "dark despotism of the
Catholic Church," and what BLACKSTONE calls "monkish ignorance and
superstition;" and, during the same period, these Islands were in a
blaze of light, set forth by LUTHER, CRANMER, KNOX, and their
followers. Here, then, is the statement:



England,
Scotland and
Ireland
France.
Italy.
Writers on Law
6
51
9
Mathematicians
17
52
15
Physicians and
Surgeons
13
72
21
Writers on
Natural History
6
33
11
Historians
21
139
22
Dramatic
Writers
19
66
6
Grammarians
7
42
2
Poets
38
157
34
Painters
5
64
44

132
676
164


35.  Here is that very "SCALE," which a modest Scotch writer spoke of
the other day, when he told the public, that, "Throughout Europe,
Protestants rank higher in the scale of intellect than Catholics, and
that Catholics in the neighbourhood of Protestantants are more
intellectual than those at a distance from them." This is a fine
specimen of upstart Protestant impudence. The above "scale" is,
however, a complete answer to it. Allow one-third more to the French,
on account of their superior populousness, and then there will remain
to them 451 to our 132! So that they had, man for man, three and a
half times as much intellect as we, though they are buried, all the
while, in "monkish ignorance and superstition," and though they had
no Protestant neighbours to catch the intellect from! Even the
Italians surpass us in this rivalship for intellect; for, their
population is not equal to that of which we boast, and their number
of men of mind considerably exceeds that of ours. But, do I not, all
this while, misunderstand the matter? And, by intellect, does not the
Scotchman mean the capacity to make, not books and pictures, but
checks, bills, bonds, exchequer-bills, inimitable notes, and the
like? Does he not mean loan-jobbing and stock-jobbing, insurance-
broking, annuities at ten per cent., kite-flying, and all the
"intellectual" proceedings of Change Alley; not, by any means,
forgetting works like those of ASLETT and FAUNTLEROY? Ah! in that
case, I confess that he is right. On this scale Protestants do rank
high indeed! And I should think it next to impossible for a Catholic
to live in their neighbour hood without being much "more
intellectual;" that is to say, much more of a Jewish knave, than if
he lived at a distance from them.

36.  Here, then, my friends, sensible and just Englishmen, I close
this introductory Letter. I have shown you how grossly we have been
deceived, even from our very infancy. I have shown you, not only the
injustice, but the absurdity of the abuse heaped by our interested
deluders on the religion of their and our fathers, I have shown you
enough to convince you, that there was no obviously just cause for an
alteration in the religion of our country. I have, I dare say,
awakened in your minds, a strong desire to know how it came to pass,
then, that this alteration was made; and, in the following Letters,
it shall be my anxious endeavour fully to gratify this desire. But,
observe, my chief object is to show, that this alteration made the
main body of the people poor and miserable, compared with what they
were before; that it impoverished and degraded them; that it
banished, at once, that "Old English Hospitality," of which we have
since known nothing but the name; and that, in lieu of that
hospitality, it gave us pauperism, a thing, the very name of which
was never before known in England.







LETTER II.

ORIGIN OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, IN ENGLAND, DOWN TO THE TIME OF THE
"REFORMATION."
BEGINNING OF THE "REFORMATION" BY KING HENRY VIII.

Kensington, 30th December, 1824.

My FRIENDS,

37.  It was not a reformation but a devastation, of England, which
was, at the time when this event took place, the happiest Country,
perhaps, that the world had ever seen; and, it is my chief business
to show, that this devastation impoverished and degraded the main
body of the people. But, in order that you may see this devastation
in its true light, and that you may feel a just portion of
indignation against the devastators, and against their eulogists of
the present day, it is necessary, first, that you take a correct view
of the things on which their devastating powers were exercised.

38.  The far greater part of those books, which are called "Histories
of England," are little better than romances. They treat of battles,
negotiations, intrigues of courts, amours of kings, queens and
nobles: they contain the gossip and scandal of former times, and very
little else, There are histories of England, like that of Dr.
GOLDSMITH, for the use of young persons; but, no young person, who
has read them through, knows any more, of any possible use, than he
or she knew before. The great use of history, is, to teach us how
laws, usages and institutions arose, what were their effects on the
people, how they promoted public happiness, or otherwise; and these
things are precisely what the greater part of historians, as they
call themselves, seem to think of no consequence.

39.  We never understand the nature and constituent parts of a thing
so well as when we ourselves have made the thing: next to making it,
is the seeing of it made: but, if we have neither of these
advantages, we ought, at least, if possible, to get at a true
description of the origin of the thing and of the manner in which it
was put together. I have to speak to you of the Catholic Church
generally; then of the Church in England, under which head I shall
have to speak of the parish churches, the monasteries, the tithes,
and other revenues of the Church. It is, therefore, necessary that I
explain to you how the Catholic Church arose; and how churches,
monasteries, tithes and other church revenues came to be in England.
When you have this information, you will well understand what it was
which was devastated by Henry VIII. and the "Reformation" people.
And, I am satisfied, that, when you have read this one Number of my
little work, you will know more about your country than you have
learned, or ever will learn, from the reading of hundreds of those
bulky volumes, called "Histories of England."

40.  The Catholic Church originated with Jesus Christ himself. He
selected PETER to be head of his Church. This Apostle's name was
SIMON; but, his Master called him PETER, which means a stone or rock;
and he said, "on this rock will I build my church." Look at the
Gospel of Saint Matthew, xvi. 18, 19, and at that of Saint John, xxi.
15, and onward; and you will see, that we must deny the truth of the
Scriptures, or acknowledge, that here was a head of the Church
promised for all generations.

41.  Saint PETER died a martyr at Rome in about 60 years after the
birth of Christ. But another supplied his place; and there is the
most satisfactory evidence, that the chain of succession has remained
unbroken from that day to this. When I said in paragraph 10, that it
might be said, that there was no POPE seated at Rome for the first
three hundred years, I by no means meant to admit the fact; but to
get rid of a pretence which, at any rate, could not apply to England,
which was converted to Christianity by missionaries sent by a POPE,
the successor of other Popes, who had been seated at Rome for
hundreds of years. The truth is, that, from the persecutions which,
for the first three hundred years, the Church underwent, the Chief
Bishops, successors of Saint Peter, had not always the means of
openly maintaining their supremacy; but they always existed; there
was always a Chief Bishop, and his supremacy was always acknowledged
by the Church; that is to say, by all the Christians then in the
world.

42.  Of later date, the Chief Bishop has been called, in our
language, the POPE, and, in the French., PAPE. In the Latin he is
called PAPA, which is an union and abbreviation of the two Latin
words Pater Patrum which means Father of Fathers. Hence comes the
appellation of papa, which children of all Christian nations give to
their fathers; an appellation of the highest respect and most ardent
and sincere affection. Thus, then, the POPE, each as he succeeded to
his office, became the Chief or Head of the Church; and his supreme
power and authority were acknowledged, as I have observed in
paragraph 3, by all the bishops, and all the teachers of
Christianity, in all the nations where that religion existed. The
POPE was, and is, assisted by a body of persons called CARDINALS, or
Great Councillors: and at various and numerous times, COUNCILS of the
Church have been held, in order to discuss and settle matters of deep
interest to the unity and well-being of the Church. These Councils
have been held in the countries of Christendom. Many were held in
England. The POPES themselves have been taken promiscuously from men
of all the Christian nations. POPE ADRIAN IV. was an Englishman, the
son of a very poor labouring man; but having become a servant in a
monastery, he was there taught, and became himself a monk. In time he
grew famous for his learning, his talents and piety, and at last
became the head of the Church.

43.  The POPEDOM, or office of POPE, continued in existence through
all the great and repeated revolutions of kingdoms and empires. The
Roman Empire, which was at the height of its glory at the beginning
of the Christian era, and which extended, indeed, nearly over the
whole of Europe, and part of Africa and Asia, crumbled all to pieces;
yet the Popedom remained; and at the time when the devastation,
commonly called the "Reformation," of England began, there had been,
during the fifteen hundred years, about two hundred and sixty Popes,
following each other in due and unbroken succession.

44.  The History of the Church in England, down to the time of the
"Reformation," is a matter of deep interest to us. A mere look at it,
a bare sketch of the principal facts, wil show how false, how unjust,
how ungrateful those have been who have vilified the Catholic Church,
its Popes, its Monks, and its Priests. It is supposed, by some, and,
indeed, with good authorities on their side, that the Christian
religion was partially introduced into England so early as the second
century after Christ. But we know for a certainty, that it was
introduced effectually in the year 596; that is to say, 923 years
before Henry VIII. began to destroy it.

45.  England, at the time when this religion was introduced, was
governed by seven kings, and that state was called the HEPTARCHY. The
people of the whole country were PAGANS. Yes, my friends, our
ancestors were PAGANS: they worshipped gods made with hands; and they
sacrificed children on the altars of their idols. In this state
England was, when the POPE of that day, GREGORY I., sent forty monks,
with a monk of the name of AUSTIN (or AUGUSTIN) at their head, to
preach the gospel to the English. Look into the Calendar of our
Common Prayer Book, and you will find the name of GREGORY THE GREAT
under the 12th of March, and that of AUGUSTIN under the 26th of May.
It is probable that the POPE gave his order to Austin on the former
day, and that Austin landed in Kent on the latter; or, perhaps, these
may be the days of the year on which these great benefactors of
England were born.

46.  Now please to bear in mind, that this great event took place in
the year 596. The Protestant writers have been strangely embarrassed
in their endeavours to make it out, that up to this time, or
thereabouts, the Catholic Church was pure, and trod in the steps of
the Apostles; but that, after this time, that Church became corrupt.
They applaud the character and acts of POPE GREGORY; they do the same
with regard to AUSTIN: shame would not suffer them to leave their
names out of the Calendar; but still, they want to make it out, that
there was no pure Christian religion after the POPE came to be the
visible and acknowledged head, and to have supreme authority. There
are scarcely any two of them that agree upon this point. Some say
that it was 300, some 400, some 500, and some 600 years before the
Catholic Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ. But, none of
them can deny, nor dare they attempt it, that it was the Christian
religion as practised at Rome; that it was the Roman Catholic
religion, that was introduced into England in the year 596, with all
its dogmas, rites, ceremonies, and observances, just as they all
continued to exist at the time of the "Reformation," and as they
continue to exist in that Church even unto this day. Whence it
clearly follows, that if the Catholic Church were corrupt at the time
of the "Reformation," or be corrupt now, be radically bad now, it was
so in 596; and then comes the impious and horrid inference!,
mentioned in paragraph 12, that "All our fathers who first built our
churches, and whose bones and flesh form the earth for many feet deep
in all the churchyards, are now howling in the regions of the
damned!"

 47. "The tree is known by its fruit." Bear in mind, that it was the
Catholic faith as now held, that was introduced into England by POPE
GREGORY THE GREAT; and bearing this in mind, let us see what were the
effects of that introduction; let us see how that faith worked its
way, in spite of wars, invasions, tyrannies, and political
revolutions.

48.  Saint AUSTIN, upon his arrival, applied to the Saxon king,
within whose dominions the county of Kent lay. He obtained leave to
preach to the people, and his success was great and immediate. He
converted the king himself, who was very gracious to him and his
brethren, and who provided dwellings and other necessaries for them
at Canterbury. Saint AUSTIN and his brethren being monks, lived
together in common, and from this common home, went forth over the
country, preaching the gospel. As their community was diminished by
death, new members were ordained to keep up the supply; and besides
this, the number was in time greatly augmented. A church was built at
Canterbury. Saint AUSTIN was, of course, the BISHOP, or Head Priest.
He was succeeded by other Bishops. As Christianity spread over the
island, other communities, like that at Canterbury, were founded in
other cities; as at London, Winchester, Exeter, Worcester, Norwich,
York, and so of all the other places, where there are now Cathedrals,
or Bishops' Churches. Hence, in process of time, arose those majestic
and venerable edifices, of the possession of which we boast as the
work of our forefathers, while we have the folly and injustice and
inconsistency, to brand the memory of these very forefathers with the
charge of grovelling ignorance, superstition, and idolatry; and while
we show our own meanness of mind in disfiguring and dishonouring
those noble buildings by plastering them about with our childish and
gingerbread "monuments," nine times out of ten, the offspring of
vanity, or corruption.

49.  As to the mode of supporting the clergy in those times, it was
by oblations or free gifts, and sometimes by tithes, which land-
owners paid themselves, or ordered their tenants to pay, though there
was no general obligation to yield tithes for many years after the
arrival of Saint AUSTIN. In this collective, or collegiate state, the
clergy remained for many years. But in time, as the land-owners
became converted to Christianity, they were desirous of having
priests settled near to them, and always upon the spot, ready to
perform the offices of religion. The land was then owned by
comparatively few persons. The rest of the people were vassals, or
tenants, of the land-owners. The land-owners, therefore, built
churches on their estates, and generally near their own houses, for
the benefit of themselves, their vassals, and tenants. And to this
day we see, in numerous instances, the country churches close by the
gentleman's house. When they built the churches, they also built a
house for the priest, which we now call the parsonage-house; and, in
most cases, they attached some plough-land, or meadow-land, or both,
to the priest's house, for his use; and this was called his glebe,
which word, literally taken, means the top-earth, which is turned
over by the plough. Besides these, the land-owners, in conformity
with the custom then prevalent in other Christian countries, endowed
the Churches with the tithe of the produce of their estates.

50.  Hence parishes arose. Parish means a priestship, as the land on
which a town stands is a township. So that the great man's estate now
became a parish. He retained the right of appointing the priest,
whenever a vacancy happened; but he could not displace a priest, when
once appointed; and the whole of the endowment became the property of
the Church independent of his control. It was a long while, even two
centuries or more, before this became the settled law of the whole
kingdom; but, at last, it did become such. But, to this possession of
so much property by the Church, certain important conditions were
attached; and to these conditions it behoves us, of the present day,
to pay particular attention; for, we are, at this time, more than
ever, feeling the want of the performance of those conditions.

51. There never can have existed a state of society; that is to say,
a state of things in which proprietorship in land was acknowledged,
and in which it was maintained by law; there never can have existed
such a state, without an obligation on the land-owners to take care
of the necessitous, and to prevent them from perishing for want. The
landowners in England took care of their vassals and dependants. But
when Christianity, the very basis of which is charity, became
established, the taking care of the necessitous was deposited in the
hands of the clergy. Upon the very face of it, it appears monstrous,
that a house, a small farm, and the tenth part of the produce of a
large estate, should have been given to a priest, who could have no
wife, and, of course, no family. But, the fact is, that the grants
were for other purposes as well as for the support of the priests.
The produce of the benefice was to be employed thus: "Let the priests
receive the tithes of the people, and keep a written account of all
that have paid them; and divide them, in the presence of such as fear
God, according to canonical authority. Let them set apart the first
share for the repairs and ornaments of the church; let them
distribute the second to the poor and the stranger with their own
hands in mercy and humility; and reserve the third part for
themselves." These were the orders contained in a canon, issued by a
Bishop of York. At different times, and under different Bishops,
regulations somewhat different were adopted; but there were always
two-fourths, at the least, of the annual produce of the benefice to
be given to the necessitous, and to be employed in the repairing or
in the ornamenting of the church.

52.  Thus the providing for the poor became one of the great duties
and uses of the Church. This duty rested, before, on the land-owners.
It must have rested on them; for, as BLACKSTONE observes, a right in
the indigent "to demand a supply sufficient to all the necessities of
life from the more opulent part of the community, is dictated by the
principles of society." This duty could be lodged in no hands so
fitly as in those of the clergy; for thus the work of charity, the
feeding of the hungry, the clothing of the naked, the administering
to the sick, the comforting of the widow, the fostering of the
fatherless, came always in company with the performance of services
to God. For the uncertain disposition of the rich, for their
occasional and sometimes capricious charity, was substituted the
certain, the steady, the impartial hand of a constantly resident and
unmarried administrator of bodily as well as of spiritual comfort to
the poor, the unfortunate and the stranger.

53.  We shall see, by-and-by, the condition that the poor were placed
in, we shall see how all the labouring classes were impoverished and
degraded, the moment the tithes and other revenues of the church were
transferred to a Protestant and married clergy; and we shall have to
take a full view of the unparalleled barbarity with which the Irish
people were treated at that time; but, I have not yet noticed another
great branch, or constituent part, of the Catholic Church; namely,
the MONASTERIES, which form a subject full of interest and worthy of
our best attention. The choicest and most highly empoisoned shafts in
the quiver of the malice of Protestant writers, seem always to be
selected when they have to rail against MONKS, FRIARS and NUNS. We
have seen BLACKSTONE talking about "monkish ignorance and
superstition;" and we hear, every day, Protestant bishops and parsons
railing against what they call "monkery," talking of the "drones" in
monasteries, and, indeed, abusing the whole of those ancient
institutions, as something degrading to human nature, in which work
of abuse they are most heartily joined by the thirty or forty mongrel
sects, whose bawling-tubs are erected in every corner of the country.

54.  When I come to speak of the measures by which the monasteries
were robbed, devastated and destroyed in England and Ireland, I shall
show how unjust, base and ungrateful, this railing against them is;
and how foolish it is besides. I shall show the various ways in which
they were greatly useful to the community; and I shall especially
show how they operated in behalf of the labouring and poorer classes
of the people. But, in this place, I shall merely describe, in the
shortest manner possible, the origin and nature of those
institutions, and the extent to which they existed in England.

55.  Monastery means a place of residence for monks, and the word
monk comes from a Greek word, which means a lonely person, or a
person in solitude. There were monks, friars, and nuns. The word
friar comes from the French word frère, which, in English, is
brother; and the word nun comes from the French word nonne, which
means a sister in religion, a virgin separated from the world. The
persons, whether male or female, composing one of these religious
communities, were called a convent, and that name was sometimes also
given to the buildings and enclosures in which the community lived.
The place where monks lived was called a monastery; that where friars
lived, a friary; and that where nuns lived, a nunnery. As, however,
we are not, in this case, inquiring into the differences in the the
rules, orders, and habits of the persons belonging to these
institutions, I shall speak of them all as monasteries.

56.  Then, again, some of these were abbeys, and some priories; of
the difference between which it will be sufficient to say, that the
former were of a rank superior to the latter, and had various
privileges of a higher value. An abbey had an ABBOT, or an Abbess; a
priory, a Prior, or a Prioress. Then there were different ORDERS of
monks, friars, and nuns; and these ORDERS had different rules for
their government and mode of life, and were distinguished by
different dresses. With these distinctions we have here, however,
little to do; for we shall, by-and-by, see them all involved in one
common devastation.

57.  The persons belonging to a monastery lived in common; they lived
in one and the same building; they could possess no property
individually; when they entered the walls of the monastery, they left
the world wholly behind them; they made a solemn vow of celibacy;
they could devise nothing by will; each had a life-interest, but
nothing more, in the revenues belonging to the community; some of the
monks and friars were also priests, but this was not always the case;
and the business of the whole was, to say masses and prayers, and to
do deeds of hospitality and charity.

58. This mode of life began by single persons separating themselves
from the world, and living in complete solitude, passing all their
days in prayer, and dedicating themselves wholly to the serving of
God. These were called hermits, and their conduct drew towards them
great respect. In time, such men, or men having a similar propensity,
formed themselves into societies, and agreed to live together in one
house, and to possess things in common. Women did the same. And hence
came those places called monasteries. The piety, the austerities,
and, particularly, the works of kindness and of charity performed by
those persons, made them objects of great veneration; and the rich
made them, in time, the channels of their benevolence to the poor.
Kings, queens, princes, princesses, nobles, and gentlemen founded
monasteries; that is to say, erected the buildings, and endowed them
with estates for their maintenance. Others, some in the way of
atonement for their sins, and some from a pious disposition, gave,
while alive, or bequeathed, at their death, lands, houses, or money,
to monasteries already erected. So that, in time, the monasteries
became the owners of great landed estates; they had the lordship over
innumerable manors, and had a tenantry of prodigious extent,
especially in England, where the monastic orders were always held in
great esteem, in con sequence of Christianity having been introduced
into the kingdom by a community of monks.

59.  To give you as clear a notion as I can of what a monastery was,
I will describe to you, with as much exactness as my memory will
enable me, a monastery which I saw in France, in 1792, just after the
monks had been turned out of it, and when it was about to be put up
for sale. The whole of the space enclosed was about eight English
acres, which was fenced in by a wall about twenty feet high. It was
an oblong square, and at one end of one of the sides was a gate-way,
with gates as high as the wall, and with a little door in one of the
great gates for the ingress and egress of foot-passengers. This gate
opened into a spacious court-yard, very nicely paved. On one side,
and at one end of this yard, were the kitchen, lodging-rooms for
servants, a dining or eating place for them and for strangers and
poor people; stables, coachhouses, and other out buildings. On the
other side of the court-yard, we entered at a door-way to the place
of residence of the monks. Here was about half an acre of ground of a
square form, for a burying ground. On the four sides of this square
there was a cloister, or piazza, the roof of which was, on the side
of the burying ground, supported by pillars, and, at the back,
supported by a low building which went round the four sides. This
building contained the several dormitories, or sleeping-rooms of the
monks, each of whom had two little rooms, one for his bed, and one
for his books and to sit in. Out of the hinder room, a door opened
into a little garden about thirty feet wide, and forty long. On one
side of the cloister, there was a door opening into their dining-
room, in one corner of which there was a pulpit for the monk who
read, while the rest were eating in silence, which was according to
the rules of the CARTHUSIANS, to which Order these monks belonged. On
the other side of the cloister, a door opened into the kitchen
garden, which was laid out in the nicest manner, and was well stocked
with fruit trees of all sorts. On another side of the cloister, a
door opened and led to the church, which, though not large, was one
of the most beautiful that I had ever seen. I believe, that these
monks were, by their rules, confined within their walls. The country
people spoke of them with great reverence, and most grievously
deplored the loss of them. They had large estates, were easy
landlords, and they wholly provided for all the indigent within miles
of their monastery.

60.  England, more, perhaps, than any other country in Europe,
abounded in such institutions, and these more richly endowed than any
where else. In England, there was, on an average, more than twenty
(we shall see the exact number by-and-by) of those establishments to
a county! Here was a prize for an unjust and cruel tyrant to lay his
lawless hands upon, and for "Reformation" gentry to share amongst
them! Here was enough, indeed, to make robbers on a grand scale cry
out against "monkish ignorance and superstition"! No wonder that the
bowels of CRANMER, KNOX, and all their mongrel litter, yearned so
piteously as they did, when they cast their pious eyes on all the
farms and manors, and on all the silver and gold ornaments belonging
to these communities! We shall see, by-and-by, with what alacrity
they ousted, plundered, and pulled down: we shall see them robbing,
under the basest pretences, even the altars of the country parish
churches, down to the very smallest of those churches, and down to
the value of five shillings. But, we must first take a view of the
motives which led the tyrant, Henry VIII., to set their devastating
and plundering faculties in motion.

61.  This King succeeded his father, Henry VII., in the year 1509. He
succeeded to a great and prosperous kingdom, a full treasury, and a
happy and contented people, who expected in him the wisdom of his
father without his avarice, which seems to have been that father's
only fault. Henry VIII. was eighteen years old when his father died.
He had had an elder brother, named ARTHUR, who, at the early age of
twelve years, had been betrothed to CATHERINE, fourth daughter of
Ferdinand, King of Castile and Arragon. When ARTHUR was fourteen
years old, the Princess came to England, and the marriage ceremony
was performed; but ARTHUR, who was a weak and sickly boy, died before
the year was out, and the marriage never was consummated, and,
indeed, who will believe that it could be? Henry wished to marry
Catherine, and the marriage was agreed to by the parents on both
sides, but it did not take place until after the death of Henry VII.
The moment the young King came to the throne, he took measures for
his marriage. CATHERINE being, though only nominally, the widow of
his deceased brother, it was necessary to have from the POPE, as
supreme head of the Church, a dispensation, in order to render the
marriage lawful in the eye of the canon law. The dispensation, to
which there could be no valid objection, was obtained, and the
marriage was, amidst the rejoicings of the whole nation, celebrated
in June, 1509, in less than two months after the King's accession.

62.  With this lady, who was beautiful in her youth, and whose
virtues of all sorts seem scarcely ever to have been exceeded, he
lived in the married state, seventeen years, before the end of which,
he had had three sons and two daughters by her, one of whom only, a
daughter, was still alive, who afterwards was Mary, Queen of England.
But now at the end of seventeen years, he, being thirty-five years of
age, and eight years younger than the Queen, and having cast his eyes
on a young lady, an attendant on the Queen, named ANNE BOLEYN, he,
all of a sudden, affected to believe that he was living in sin,
because he was married to the widow of his brother, though, as we
have seen, the marriage between Catherine and the brother had never
been consummated, and though the parents of both the parties,
together with his own Council, had unanimously and unhesitatingly
approved of his marriage, which had, moreover, been sanctioned by the
POPE, the head of the Church, of the faith and observances of which
Henry himself had, as we shall hereafter see, been, long since his
marriage, a zealous defender!

63.  But the tyrant's passions were now in motion, and he resolved to
gratify his beastly lust, cost what it might in reputation, in
treasure, and in blood. He first applied to the POPE to divorce him
from from his Queen. He was a great favourite of the POPE, he was
very powerful, there were many strong motives for yielding to his
request; but that request was so full of injustice, it would have
been so cruel towards the virtuous Queen to accede to it, that the
POPE could not, and did not grant it. He. however, in hopes that time
might induce the tyrant to relent, ordered a court to be held by his
Legate and Wolsey, in England. to hear and determine the case. Before
this court the Queen disdained to plead, and the Legate, dissolving
the court, referred the matter back to the POPE, who still refused to
take any step towards the granting of the divorce. The tyrant now
became furious, resolved upon overthrowing the power of the POPE in
England, upon making himself the head of the Church in this country,
and upon doing whatever else might be necessary to insure the
gratification of his beastly desires and the glutting of his
vengeance.

64.  By making himself the supreme head of the Church, he made
himself, he having the sword and the gibbet at his command, master of
all the property of that Church, including that of the monasteries!
His counsellors and courtiers knew this; and, as it was soon
discovered that a sweeping confiscation would take place, the
parliament was by no means backward in aiding his designs, every one
hoping to share in the plunder. The first step was to pass acts
taking from the POPE all authority and power over the Church in
England, and giving to the King all authority whatever as to
ecclesiastical matters. His chief adviser and abettor was THOMAS
CRANMER, a name which deserves to be held in everlasting execration;
a name which we could not pronounce without almost doubting of the
justice of God, were it not for our knowledge of the fact, that the
cold-blooded, most perfidious, most impious, most blasphemous caitiff
expired, at last, amidst those flames which he himself had been the
chief cause of kindling.

65.  The tyrant, being now both POPE and King, made CRANMER
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, a dignity just then become vacant. Of
course, this adviser and ready tool now became chief judge in all
ecclesiastical matters. But, here was a difficulty; for the tyrant
still professed to be a Catholic; so that his new Archbishop was to
be consecrated according to the usual pontifical form, which required
of him to swear obedience to the POPE. And here a transaction took
place that will, at once, show us of what sort of stuff the
"Reformation" gentry were made. CRANMER, before he went to the altar
to be consecrated, went into a chapel, and there made a declaration
on oath, that, by the oath that he was about to take, and which, for
the sake of form, he was obliged to take, he did not intend to bind
himself to anything that tended to prevent him from assisting the
King in making any such "reforms" as he might think useful in the
Church of England! I once knew a Corrupt Cornish knave, who having
sworn to a direct falsehood (and that he, in private, acknowledged to
be such) before an Election Committee of the House of Commons, being
asked how he could possibly give such evidence, actually declared, in
so many words, "that he had, before he left his lodging in the
morning, taken an oath, that he would swear falsely that day." He,
perhaps, imbibed his principles from this very Archbishop, who
occupies the highest place in lying Fox's lying book of Protestant
Martyrs.

66.  Having provided himself with so famous a judge in ecclesiastical
matters, the King lost, of course, no time in bringing his hard case
before him, and demanding justice at his hands! Hard case, indeed; to
be compelled to live with a wife of forty-three, when he could have,
for next to nothing and only for asking for, a young one of eighteen
or twenty! A really hard case; and he sought relief, now that he had
got such an upright and impartial judge, with all imaginable
dispatch. What I am now going to relate of the conduct of this
Archbishop and of the other parties concerned in the transaction is
calculated to make us shudder with horror, to make our very bowels
heave with loathing, to make us turn our eyes from the paper and
resolve to read no further. But, we must not give way to these
feelings, if we have a mind to know the true history of the
Protestant "Reformation." We must keep ourselves cool; we must reason
ourselves out of our ordinary impulses; we must beseech nature to be
quiet within us for awhile; for, from first to last, we have to
contemplate nothing that is not of a kind to fill us with horror and
disgust.

67.  It was now four or five years since the King and CRANMER had
begun to hatch the project of the divorce: but, in the meanwhile, the
King had kept ANNE BOLEYN, or, in more modern phrase, she had been
"under his protection," for about three years. And here let me state,
that, in Dr. BAYLEY's life of Bishop FISHER, it is positively
asserted, that ANNE BOLEYN was the King's daughter, and that Lady
BOLEYN, her rnother said to the King, when he was abouut to marry
ANNE, "Sir, for the reverence of God, take heed what you do in
marrying my daughters for, if you record your own conscience well,
she is your own daughter as well as mine." To which the King replied
"Whose daughter soever she is, she shall be my wife." Now, though I
believe this fact, I do not give it as a thing the truth of which is
undeniable. I find it in the writings of a man, who was the eulogist
(and justly) of the excellent Bishop FISHER, who suffered death
because he stood firmly on the side of Queen CATHERINE. I believe it;
but I do not give it, as I do the other facts that I state, as what
is undeniably true. God knows, it is unnecessary to make the parties
blacker than they are made by the Protestant historians themselves,
in even a favourable record of their horrid deeds.

68.  The King had had ANNE about three years "under his protection,"
when she became for the first time with child. There was now,
therefore, no time to be lost in order to "make an honest woman of
her." A private marriage took place in January, 1533. As ANNE's
pregnancy could not be long disguised it became necessary to avow her
marriage; and, therefore, it was also necessary to press onward the
trial for the divorce; for, it might have seemed rather awkward, even
amongst "Reformation" people, for the King to have two wives at a
time! Now, then, the famous ecclesiastical judge, CRANMER, had to
play his part; and, if his hypocrisy did not make the devil blush, he
could have no blushing faculties in him. CRANMER, in April 1533,
wrote a letter to the King, begging him, for the good of the nation,
and for the safety of his own soul, to grant his permission to try
the question of the divorce, and beseeching him no longer to live in
the peril attending an "incestuous intercourse "! Matchless,
astonishing hypocrite! He knew, and the King knew that he knew, and
he knew that the King knew that he knew it, that the King had been
actually married to ANNE three months before, she being with child at
the time when he married her!

69.  The King graciously condescended to listen to this ghostly
advice of his pious primates who was so anxious about the safety of
his royal soul; and, without delay, he, as Head of the Church,
granted the ghostly father, CRANMER, who, in violation of his
clerical vows, had, in private, a woman of his own; to this ghostly
father the King granted a licence to hold a spiritual court for the
trial of the divorce. Queen CATHERINE, who had been ordered to retire
from the court, resided at this time at AMPTHILL, in Bedfordshire, at
a little distance from DUN5TABLE. At this latter place CaSYMER opened
his court, and sent a citation to the Queen to appear before him,
which citation she treated with the scorn that it deserved. When he
had kept his "court" open the number of days required by the law, he
pronounced sentence against the Queen, declaring her marriage with
the King null from the beginning; and having done this, he closed his
farcical court. We shall see him doing more jobs in the divorcing
line; but thus he finished the first.

70.  The result of this trial was, by this incomparable judge, made
known to the King, whom this wonderful hypocrite gravely besought to
submit himself with resignation to the will of God, as declared to
him in this decision of the spiritual court, acting according to the
laws of holy Church! The pious and resigned King yielded to the
admonition; and then CRANMER held another court at LAMBETH, at which
he declared, that the King had been lawfully married to ANNE BOLEYN;
and that he now confirmed the marriage by his pastoral and judicial
authority, which he derived from the successors of the Apostles! We
shall see him, by-and-by, exercising the same authority to declare
this new marriage null and void from the beginning, and see him
assist in bastardizing the fruit of it: but we must now follow Mrs.
ANNE BOLEYN (whom the Protestant writers strain hard to whitewash)
till we have seen the end of her.

71. She was delivered of a daughter (who was afterwards Queen
Elizabeth) at the end of eight months from the date of her marriage.
This did not please the King, who wanted a son, and who was quite
monster enough to be displeased with her on this account. The couple
jogged on apparently without quarrelling for about three years, a
pretty long time, if we duly consider the many obstacles which vice
opposes to peace and happiness. The husband, however, had plenty of
occupation; for, being now "Head of the Church," he had a deal to
manage: he had, poor man, to labour hard at making a new religion,
new articles of faith, new rules of discipline, and he had new things
of all sorts to prepare. Besides which he had, as we shall see in the
next Number, some of the best then in his kingdom, and that ever
lived in any kingdom or country, to behead, hang, rip up, and cut
into quarters. He had, moreover, as we shall see, begun the grand
work of confiscation, plunder and devastation. So that he could not
have a great deal of time for family squabbles.

72.  If, however, he had no time to jar with ANNE, he had no time to
look after her, which is a thing to be thought of when a man marries
a woman half his own age, and that this "great female reformer," as
some of the Protestant writers call her, wanted a little of husband-
like vigilance, we are now going to see. The freedom, or rather the
looseness, of her manners, so very different from those of that
virtuous Queen, whom the English court and nation had had before
them, as an example for so many years, gave offence to the more
sober, and excited the mirth and set a-going the chat of persons of
another description. In January, 1536, Queen CATHERINE died. She had
been banished from the court. She had seen her marriage annulled by
CRANMER, and her daughter and only surviving child bastardized by act
of parliament; and the husband had had five children by her, that
"Reformation" husband had had the barbarity to keep her separated
from, and never to suffer her, after her banishment, to set her eyes
on that only child! She died, as she had lived, beloved and revered
by every good man and woman in the kingdom, and was buried, amidst
the sobbings and tears of a vast assemblage of the people, in the
Abbey-church of Peterborough.

73.  The King, whose iron heart seems to have been softened, for a
moment, by a most affectionate letter, which she dictated to him from
her death bed, ordered the persons about him to wear mourning on the 
day of her burial. But, our famous "great female reformer" not only
did not wear mourning, but dressed herself out in the gayest and
gaudiest attire; expressed her unbounded joy; and said, that she was
now in reality a Queen! Alas, for our "great female reformer!" in
just three months and sixteen days from this day of her exultation,
she died herself; not, however, as the real Queen had died, in her
bed, deeply lamented by all the good, and without a soul on earth to
impute to her a single fault; but, on a scaffold, under a death-
warrant signed by her husband, and charged with treason, adultery,
and incest!

74.  In the month of May, 1536, she was, along with the King, amongst
the spectators at a tilting-match, at GREENWICH, when, being
incautious, she gave to one of the combatants, who was also one of
her paramours, a sign of her attachment, which seems only to have
confirmed the King in suspicions which he before entertained. He
instantly quitted the place, returned to Westminster, ordered her to
be confined at Greenwich that night, and to be brought, by water, to
Westminster the next day. But, she was met, by his order, on the
river, and conveyed to the TOWER; and, as it were to remind her of
the injustice which she had so mainly assisted in committing against
the late virtuous Queen; as it were to say to her, "See, after all,
God is just," she was imprisoned in the very room in which she had
slept the night before her coronation!

75.  From the moment of her imprisonment her behaviour indicated
anything but conscious innocence. She was charged with adultery,
committed with four gentlemen of the King's household, and with
incest with her brother, Lord ROCHFORD, and she was, of course,
charged with treason, those being acts of treason by law. They were
all found guilty, and all put to death. But, before ANNE was
executed, our friend, THOMAS CRANMER, had another tough job to
perform. The King, who never did things by halves, ordered, as "Head
of the Church," the Archbishop to hold his "spiritual court," and to
divorce him from ANNE! One would think it impossible that a man, that
any thing bearing the name of man, should have consented to do such a
thing, should not have perished before a slow fire rather than do it.
What! he had, we have seen in paragraph 70, pronounced the marriage
with ANNE "to be lawful, and had confirmed it by his authority,
judicial and pastoral, which he derived from the successors of the
Apostles." How was he now, then, to annul this marriage? How was he
to declare it unlawful?

76.  He cited the King and Queen to appear in his "court!" (Oh! that
court! His citation stated, that their marriaze had been unlawful,
that they were living in adultery, and that, for the "salvation of
their souls," they should come and show cause why they should not be
separated. They were just going to be separated most effectually; for
this was on the 17th of March, and Anne, who had been condemned to
death on the 15th, was to be, and was, executed on the 19th! They
both obeyed his citation, and appeared before him by their proctors;
and after having heard these, CRANMER, who, observe, afterwards drew
up the Book of Common Prayer, wound up the blasphemous farce by
pronouncing, "in the name of Christ, and for the honour of God," that
the marriage "was, and always had been null and void!" Good God! But
we must not give way to exclamations, or they will interrupt us at
every step. Thus was the daughter, ELIZABETH, bastardized by the
decision of the very man who had not only pronounced her mother's
marriage lawful, but who had been the contriver of that marriage! And
yet BURNET has the impudence to say, that CRANMER "appears to have
done every thing with a good conscience"! Yes, with such another
conscience as BURNET did the deeds by which he got into the
Bishoprick of Salisbury, at the time of "Old glorious," which, as we
shall see, was by no means disconnected with the "Reformation."

77.  On the 19th, ANNE was beheaded in the Tower, put into an elm-
coffin, and buried there. At the place of exe cution she did not
pretend that she was innocent; and there appears to me to be very
little doubt of her having done some, at least, of the things imputed
to her: but, if her marriage with the King had "always been null and
void;" that is to say, if she had never been married to him, how
could she, by her commerce with other men, have been guilty of
treason? On the 15th, she is condemned as the wife of the King, on
the 17th she is pronounced never to have been his wife, and, on the
19th, she is executed for having been his unfaithful wife! However,
as to the effect which this event has upon the character of the
"REFORMATION," it signifies not a straw whether she were guilty or
innocent of the crimes now laid to her charge; for, if she were
innocent, how are we to describe the monsters who brought her to the
block? How are we to describe that "Head of the Church" and that
Archbishop, who had now the management of the religious affairs of
England? It is said, that the evening before her execution, she
begged the lady of the lieutenant of the Tower to go to the Princess
MARY, and to beg her to pardon her for the many wrongs she had done
her. There were others, to whom she had done wrongs. She had been the
cause, and the guilty cause, of breaking the heart of the rightful
Queen; she had caused the blood of MORE and of  FISHER to he shed;
and she had been the promoter of Cranmer, and his aider and abettor
in all those crafty and pernicious councils, by acting upon which, an
obstinate and hard-hearted King had plunged the kingdom into
confusion and blood. The King, in order to show his total disregard
for her, and, as it were, to repay her for her conduct on the day of
the funeral of CATHERINE, dressed himself in white on the day of her
execution; and, the very next day, was married to JANE SEYMOUR, at
MAREVELL HALL, in Hampshire.

78.  Thus, then, my friends, we have seen, that the thing called the
"REFORMATION"  "was engendered in beastly lust, and brought forth in
hypocrisy and perfidy." How it proceeded in devastating and in
shedding innocent blood we have yet to see.







LETTER III.

RESISTANCE TO THE KING'S MEASURES.
EFFECTS OF ABOLISHING THE POPE'S SUPREMACY.
DEATH OF SIR THOMAS MORE AND BISHOP FISHER.
HORRIBLE MURDERS OF CATHOLICS.
LUTHER AND THE NEW RELIGION.
BURNING OF CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS AT THE SAME FIRE.
EXECRABLE CONDUCT OF CRANMER.
TITLE OF DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.

Kensington, 31st January, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

79.  No Englishman, worthy of that name, worthy of a name which
carries along with it sincerity and a love of justice; no real
Englishman can have contemplated the foul deeds, the base hypocrisy,
the flagrant injustice, ex posed in the foregoing Letter, without
blushing for his country. What man, with an honourable sentiment in
his mind, is there, who does not almost wish to be a foreigner,
rather than be the countryman of CRANMER and of HENRY VIII.? If,
then, such be our feelings already, what are they to be by the time
that we have got through those scenes of tyranny, blood and robbery,
to which the deeds, which we have already witnessed, were merely a
prelude?

80.  Sunk, however, as the country was by the members of the
parliament hoping to share, as they finally did, in the plunder of
the Church and the poor; selfish and servile as was the conduct of
the courtiers, the King's councillors, and the people's
representatives; still there were some men to raise their voices
against the illegality and cruelty of the divorce of CATHERINE, as
well as against that great preparatory measure of plunder, the taking
of the spiritual supremacy from the POPE and giving it to the King.
The Bishops, all but one, which one we shall presently see dying on
the scaffold rather than abandon his integrity, were terrified into
acquiesence, or, at least, into silence. But, there were many of the
parochial clergy, and a large part of the monks and friars, who were
not thus acquiescent, or silent. These, by their sermons, and by
their conversations, made the truth pretty generally known to the
people at large; and, though they did not succeed in preventing the
calamities which they saw approaching, they rescued the character of
their country from the infamy of silent submission.

81.  Of all the duties of the historian, the most sacred is, that of
recording the conduct of those, who have stood forward to defend
helpless innocence against the attacks of powerful guilt. This duty
calls on me to make particular mention of the conduct of the two
friars, PEYTO and ELSTOW. The former, preaching before the King, at
Greenwich, just previous to his marriage with ANNE, and, taking for
his text the passage in the first book of Kings, where MICAIAH
prophecies against AHAB, who was surrounded with flatterers and lying
prophets, said, "I am that "MICAIAH whom you will hate, because I
must tell you "ruly that this marriage is unlawful; and I know, that
I shall eat the bread of affliction, and drink the water of sorrow;
yet because our Lord hath put it in my mouth, I must speak it. Your
flatterers are the four hundred prophets, who in the spirit of King,
seek to deceive you. But take good heed, lest you, being seduced,
find AHAB's punishment, which was to have his blood licked up by
dogs. It is one of the greatest miseries in princes to be daily
abused by flatterers." The King took this reproof in silence; but,
the next Sunday, a Dr. CURWIN preached in the same place before the
King, and, having called PEYTO dog, slanderer, base beggarly friar,
rebel, and traitor, and having said that he had fled for fear and
shame;• ELSTOW, who was present and who was a fellow-friar of PEYTO,
called out aloud to CURWIN, and said: "Good Sir, "you know that
Father PEYTO is now gone to a provincial council at Canterbury, and
not fled for fear of you; for to-morrow, he will return. In the
meanwhile I am here, as another MICAIAH, and will lay down my life to
prove all those things true, which he hath taught out of Holy
Scripture; and to this combat I challenge thee before God and all
equaljudges; even unto thee, CURWIN,  I say, which art one of the
four hundred false prophets, into whom the spirit of lying is
entered, and seekest by adultery to establish a succession, betraying
the King into  endless perdition.'

82.  STOEE, who relates this in his Chronicle, says that ELSTOW
"waxed hot, so that they could not make him cease his speech, until
the King himself bade him hold his peace. The two friars were brought
the next day before the King's council, who rebuked them, and told
them, that they deserved to be put into a sack. and thrown into the
Thames. "Whereupon ELSTOW said, smiling: "Threaten  these things to
rich and dainty persons, who are clothed  in purple, fare
deliciously, and have their chiefest hope in  this world; for we
esteem them not, but are joyful, that,  for the discharge of our
duty, we are driven hence: and with thanks to God, we know the way to
heaven to be as ready by water as by land."

83.  It is impossible to speak with sufficient admiration of the
conduct of these men. Ten thousand victories by land or sea would not
bespeak so much heroism in the winners of those victors as was shown
by these friars. If the bishops, or only a fourth part of them, had
shown equal courage, the tyrant would have stopped in that career
which was now on the eve of producing so many horrors. The stand made
against him by these two poor friars was the only instance of bold
and open resistance, until he had actually got into his murders and
robberies; and, seeing that there never was yet found even a
Protestant pen, except the vile pen of BURNET, to offer so much as an
apology for the deeds of this tyrant, one would think that the heroic
virtue of PEYTO and ELSTOW ought to be sufficient to make us hesitate
before we talk of "monkish ignorance and superstition," Recollect,
that there was no wild fanaticism in the conduct of those men; that
they could not be actuated by any selfish motive; that they stood
forward in the cause of morality, and in defence of a person, whom
they had never personally known, and that, too, with the certainty of
incurring the most severe punishments, if not death itself. Before
their conduct, how the heroism of the Hampdens and the Russells sinks
from our sight!

84.  We now come to the consideration of that copious source of
blood, the suppression of the POPE'sS SUPREMACY. To deny the King's
supremacy was made high treason, and, to refuse to take an oath,
acknowledging that supremacy, was deemed a denial of it. Sir THOMAS
MORE, who was the Lord Chancellor, and JOHN FISHER, who was Bishop of
Rochester, were put to death for refusing to take this oath. Of all
the men in England, these were the two most famed for learning, for
integrity, for piety, and for long and faithful services to the King
and his father. It is no weak presumption in favour of the POPE's
supremacy that these two men, who had exerted their talents to
prevent its suppression, laid their heads on the block rather than
sanction that suppression. But, knowing, as we do, that it is the
refusal of our Catholic fellow subjects to take this same oath,
rather than take which MORE and FISHER died; knowing that this is the
cause of all that cruel treatment which the Irish people have so long
endured, and to put an end to which ill treatment they are now so
arduously struggling; knowing that it is on this very point that the
fate of England herself may rest in case of another war; knowing
these things, it becomes us to inquire with care what is the nature,
and what are the effects, of this papal supremacy, in order to
ascertain, whether it be favourable, or otherwise, to true religion
and to civil liberty.

85.  The Scripture tells us, that Christ's Church was to be ONE. We,
in repeating the Apostle's Creed, say, "I believe in the Holy
Catholic Church." Catholic, as we have seen in paragraph 3, means
universal. And how can we believe in an universal church, without
believing that that Church is ONE, and under the direction of one
head? In the Gospel of Saint John, chap. 10, v. 16, Christ says, that
he is the good shepherd, and that "there shall be one fold and one
shepherd." He afterwards deputes PETER to be his shepherd in his
stead. In the same gospel, chap. 17, v. 10 and 11, Christ says, "And
all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I
come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be ONE, as we are." Saint Paul, in
his second epistle to the Corinthians, says, "Finally, brethren,
farewell: be perfect, be of good comfort, be of ONE MIND."  The same
Apostle, in his epistle to the Ephesians, chap. 4, v. 3, says,
"Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the  bond of peace.
There is one body and one spirit, even as  ye are called in one hope
of your calling; one lord, ONE  FAITH, ONE BAPTISM, one God and
Father of all." Again, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap.
1, v. 10. "Now,  I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord
Jesus  Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be
no divisions amongst you; but that ye be perfectly joined  together
in the same mind and the same judgment."

86.  But besides these evidences of Scripture, besides our own creed,
which we say we have from the Apostles, there is the reasonableness
of the thing. It is perfectly monstrous to suppose that there can be
TWO true faiths. It cannot be: one of the two must be false. And will
any man say, that we ought to applaud a measure which, of necessity,
must produce an indefinite number of faiths? If our eternal salvation
depend upon our believing the truth, can it be good to place people
in a state of necessity to have different beliefs? And does not that,
which takes away the head of the Church, inevitably produce such a
state of necessity? How is the faith of all nations to continue to be
ONE, it there be, in every nation, a head of the Church, who is to be
appealed to, in the last resort, as to all questions, as to all
points of dispute, which may arise? How, if this be the case, is
there to be "one fold and one shepherd"? How is there to be "one
faith and one baptism"? how are the "unity of the spirit and the bond
of peace" to be preserved? We shall presently see what unity and what
peace there were in England, the moment that the King became the head
of the Church.

87.  To give this supremacy to a King is, in our case, to give it
occasionally to a woman; and still more frequently to a child, even
to a baby. We shall very soon see it devolve on a boy nine years of
age, and we shall see the monstrous effects that it produced. But if
his present Majesty and all his royal brothers were to die to-morrow
(and they are all mortal), we should see it devolve on a little girl
only about five years old. She would be the "one shepherd;" she,
according to our own creed, which we repeat every Sunday, would be
head of the "Holy Catholic Church"! She would have a council of
regency. Oh! then there would be a whole troop of shepherds. There
must be a pretty "unity of spirit" and a pretty "bond of peace."

88.  As to the POPE's interference with the authority of the King or
state, the sham plea set up was, and is, that he divided the
government with the King, to whom belonged the sole supremacy with
regard to every thing within his realm. This doctrine, pushed home,
would shut out Jesus Christ himself, and make the King an object of
adoration. Spiritual and temporal authority are perfectly distinct in
their nature, and ought so to be kept in their exercise; and  that,
too, not only for the sake of religion, but also for the sake of
civil liberty. It is curious enough that the Protestant sectarians,
while they most cordially unite with the established Clergy in crying
out against the POPE for "usurping" the King's authority, and against
the Catholics for countenancing that "usurpation," take special care
to deny, that this same King has any spiritual supremacy over
themselves! The Presbyterians have their Synod, the Methodists their
Conference, and all the other motley mongrels some head or other of
their own. Even the "meek" and money-making followers of George Fox
have their Elders and Yearly Meeting. All these heads exercise an
absolute power over their members. They give or refuse their sanction
to the appointment of the bawlers; they remove them, or break them,
at pleasure. We have recently seen the Synod in Scotland ordering a
preacher of the name of FLETCHER to cease preaching in London. He
appears not to have obeyed; but the whole congregation has, it seems,
been thrown into confusion in consequence of this disobedience.
Strange enough, or, rather, impudent enough, is it, in these sects,
to refuse to acknowledge any spritual supremacy in the King, while
they declaim against the Catholics, because they will not take an
oath acknowledging that supremacy: and is it not, then, monstrous,
that persons belonging to these sects can sit in Parliament, can sit
in the King's council, can be generals or admirals or judges, while
from all these posts, and many others, the Catholics are excluded,
and that, too, only because their consciences, their honourable
adherence to the religion of their fathers, will not allow them to
acknowledge this supremacy, but bids them belong to the "one fold and
the one shepherd," and to know none other than "one Lord one faith,
and one baptism"?

89.  But the POPE was a foreigner exercising spiritual power in
England; and this the hypocrites pretended was a degradation to the
King and country. This was something to tickle JOHN BULL, who has,
and, I dare say, always has had, an instinctive dislike to
foreigners. But, in the first place, the POPE might be an Englishman,
and we have, in paragraph 42, seen one instance of this. Then how
could it be a thing degrading to this nation, when the same thing
existed with regard to all other nations? Was King ALFRED, and were
all the long line of kings, for 900 years, degraded beings? Did those
who really conquered France, not by subsidies and bribes, but by
arms; did they not understand what was degrading, and what was not?
Does not the present King of France, and do not the present French
people, understand this matter? Are the sovereignty of the former,
and the freedom of the latter, less perfect, because the papal
supremacy is distinctly acknowledged. and has full effect in France?
And if the Synod in Scotland can exercise its supremacy in England,
and the Conference in England exercise its supremacy in Scotland, in
Ireland, and in the Colonies; if this can be without any degradation
of king or people, why are we to look upon the exercise of the papal
supremacy as degrading to either?

90.  Ay; but there was the money. The money ot England went to the
POPE. Popes cannot live, and keep courts and ambassadors, and
maintain great state, without money, any more than other people. A
part of the money of England went to the POPE; but a part also of
that of every other Christian nation took the same direction. This
money was not, however, thrown away. It was so much given for the
preservation of unity of faith, peace, good will and charity, and
morality. We shall, in the broils that ensued, and in the consequent
subsidies and bribes to foreigners, soon see that the money which
went to the POPE, was extremely well laid out. But how we Protestants
strain at a gnat, while we swallow camels by whole caravans! Mr.
PERCEVAL gave more to foreigners in one single year than the Popes
ever received from our ancestors in four centuries. We have bowed,
for years, to a DUTCHMAN, who was no heir to the crown any more than
one of our workhouse paupers, and who had not one drop of English
blood in his veins; and we now send annually to Hanoverians and other
foreigners, under the name of half-pay, more money than was ever sent
to the POPE in twenty years. From the time of the "Glorious
Revolution," we have been paying two thousand pounds a year to the
heirs of "Marshal SCHOMBERG," who came over to help the DUTCHMAN; and
this is, mind, to be paid as long as there are such heirs of Marshal
SCHOMBERG, which, to use the elegant and logical and philosophical
phrase of our great "Reformation" poet, will, I dare say, be "for
ever and a day." And have we forgotten the BENTINCKS and all the rest
of the DUTCH tribe, who had estates of the Crown heaped upon them:
and do we talk, then, of the degradation and the loss of money
occasioned by the supremacy of the POPE! It is a notorious fact, that
not a German soldier would have been wanted in this kingdom, during
the last war, had it not been for the disturbed and dangerous state
of Ireland, in which the German troops were very much employed. We
have long been paying, and have now to pay, and shall long have to
pay, upwards of a hundred thousand pounds a year to the half-pay
officers of these troops, one single penny of which, we now should
not have had to pay, if we had dispensed with the oath of supremacy
from the Catholics. Every one to his taste; but, for my part, if I
must pay foreigners for keeping me in order, I would rather pay
"pence to PETER" than pounds to Hessian Grenadiers. Alien Priories,
the establishment of which was for the purpose of inducing learned
persons to come and live in England, have been a copious source of
declamatory complaint. But, leaving their utility out of the
question, I, for my particular part, prefer Alien Priories to Alien
Armies, from which latter this country has never been, except for
very short intervals, wholly free, from the day that the former were
suppressed. I wish not to set myself up as a dictator in matters of
taste; but, I must take leave to say, that I prefer the cloister to
the barrack; the chaunting of matins to the reveille by the drum; the
cowl to the brass-fronted hairy cap; the shaven crown to the
mustachio, though the latter be stiffened with black-ball; the
rosary, with the cross appendant, to the belt with its box of
bullets; and, beyond all measure, I prefer the penance to the point
of the bayonet. One or the other of these set of things, it would
seem, we must have; for, before the "Reformation," England never
knew, and never dreamed, of such a thing as a standing soldier; since
that event she has never, in reality, known what it was to be without
such soldiers: till, at last, a thundering standing army, even in
time of profound peace, is openly avowed to be necessary to the
"preservation of our happy constitution in CHURCH AND STATE."

91. However, this money part of the affair is now over, with regard
to the POPE. No one proposes to give him any money at all, in any
shape whatever. The Catholics believe, that the unity of their church
would be destroyed, that they would, in short, cease to be Catholics,
if they were to abjure his supremacy; and, therefore, they will not
abjure it: they insist that their teachers shall receive their
authority from him: and what do they, with regard to the POPE, insist
upon, more than is insisted upon and acted upon by the Presbyterians,
with regard to their Synod?

92.  Lastly, as to this supremacy of the POPE, what was its effect
with regard to civil liberty; that is to say, with regard to the
security, the rightful enjoyment, of men's property and lives? We
shall, by-and-by, see that civil liberty fell by the same tyrannical 
hands that suppressed the POPE's supremacy. But whence came our civil
liberty? Whence came those laws of England which LORD COKE calls "the
birth-right" of Englishmen, and which each of the States of America,
declare, in their constitutions, to be the "birth-right of the people
thereof?" Whence came these laws? Are they of Protestant origin? The
bare question ought to make the revilers of the Catholics hang their
heads for shame. Did Protestants establish the three courts and the
twelve judges, to which establishment, though, like all other human
institutions, it has sometimes worked evil, England owes so large a
portion of her fame and her greatness? Oh, no! This institution arose
when the POPE's supremacy was in full vigour. It was not a gift from
Scotckmen, nor Dutchmen, nor Hessians; from Lutherans, Calvinists,
nor Huguenots; but was the work of our own brave and wise English
Catholic ancestors; and CHIEF JUSTICE Annon is the heir, in an
unbroken line of succession, to that BENCH, which was erected by
ALFRED, who was, at the very same time, most zealously engaged in the
founding of churches and of monasteries.

93.  If, however, we still insist, that the POPE's supremacy and its
accompanying circumstances, produced ignorance, superstition and
slavery, let us act the part of sincere, consistent and honest men.
Let us knock down, or blow up, the cathedrals and colleges and old
churches; let us sweep away the three courts, the twelve judges, the
circuits, and the jury-boxes; let us demolish all that we inherit
from those whose religion we so unrelentingly persecute, and whose
memory we affect so heartily to despise: let us demolish all this,
and we shall have left, all our own, the capacious jails and
penitentiaries; stock-exchange; the hot and ancle- and knee-swelling,
and lung-destroying cotton-factories; the whiskered standing army and
its splendid barracks; the parson-captains, parson-lieutenants,
parson-ensigns and parson-justices; the poor-rates and the pauper
houses; and, by no means forgetting, that blessing which is
peculiarly and doubly and "gloriously" Protestant, the NATIONAL DEBT.
Ah! people of England, how have you been deceived!

94.  But, for argument's sake, counting the experience of antiquity
for nothing, let us ask ourselves what a chance civil liberty can
stand, if all power, spiritual and lay, be lodged in the hands of the
same man? That man must be a despot, or his power must be undermined
by an Oligarchy, or by something. If the President, or the Congress,
of the United States, had a spiritual supremacy; if they appointed
the Bishops and Ministers, though they have no benefices to give, and
would have no tenths and first fruits to receive, their government
would be a tyranny in a very short time. MONTESQUIEU observes, that
the people of Spain and Portugal would have been absolute slaves,
without the power of the Church, which is, in such a case, "the only
check to arbitrary sway." Yet, how long have we had "papal usurpation
and tyranny" dinned in our ears! This charge against the POPE
surpasseth all understanding. How was the POPE to be an usurper, or
tyrant, in England? He had no fleet, no army, no judge, no sheriff,
no justice of the peace, not even a single constable or beadle at his
command. We have been told of "the thunders of the Vatican" till we
have almost believed, that the POPE's residence was in the skies;
and, if we had believed it quite, the belief would not have surpassed
in folly, our belief in numerous other stories hatched by the gentry
of the "Reformation." The truth is, that the POPE had no power but
that which he derived from the free will of the people. The people
were frequently on his side, in his contests with Kings; and, by this
means, they, in numerous instances, preserved their rights against
the attempts of tyrants. If the POPE had had no power, there must
have sprung up an Oligarchy, or a something else, to check the power
of the King: or, every king might have been a Nero, if he would. We
shall soon see a worse than Nero in Henry VIII.; we shall soon see
him laying all law prostrate at his feet; and plundering his people,
down even to the patrimony of the poor. But, reason says that it must
be so; and, though this spiritual power be now nominally lodged in
the hands of the King, to how many tricks and contrivances have we
resorted, and some of them most disgraceful and fatal ones, in order
to prevent him from possessing the reality of this power! We are
obliged to effect by influence and by faction that is to say, by
means indirect, disguised, and frequently flagitiously immoral, not
to say almost seditious into the bargain, that which was effected by
means direct, avowed, frank, honest, and loyal. It is curious enough,
that while all Protestant ministers are everlastingly talking about
"papal usurpation and tyranny," all of them, except those who profit
from the establishment, talk not less incessantly about what they
have no scruple to call, "that two-headed monster, Church and State."
What a monster would it have been, then, if the Catholics had
submitted to the "VETO;" that is to say, to give the King a rejecting
voice in the appointment of Catholic Bishops; and thus to make him,
who is already "the Defender of the Faith," against which he
protests, an associate with the Sovereign Pontiff in carrying on the
affairs of that church, to which the law strictly forbids him to
belong!

95.  Thus, then, this so much abused papal supremacy was a most
salutary thing: it was the only check, then existing, on despotic
power, besides it being absolutely necessary to that unity of faith,
without which there could be nothing worthy of the name of a Catholic
Church. To abjure this supremacy was an act of apostacy, and also, an
act of base abandonment of the rights of the people. To require it of
any man was to violate Magna Charta and all the laws of the land; and
to put men to death for refusing to comply with the request was to
commit unqualified murder. Yet, without such murder, without shedding
innocent blood, it was impossible to effect the object. Blood must
flow. Amongst the victims to this act of outrageous tyranny, were,
Sir THOMAS MORE and Bishop FISHER. The former had been the LORD HIGH
CHANCELLOR for many years. The character given of him by his
contemporaries, and by every one, to the present day, is that of as
great perfection for learning, integrity and piety, as it is possible
for a human being to possess. He was the greatest lawyer of his age,
a long-tried and most faithful servant of the King and his father;
and was, besides, so highly distinguished beyond men in general for
his gentleness and humility of manners, as well as for his talents
and abilities, that his murder gave a shock to all Europe. FISHER was
equally eminent in point of learning, piety, and integrity. He was
the only surviving privy-councillor of the late King, whose mother
(the grandmother of Henry VIII.) having out lived her son and
daughter, besought with her dying breath, the young King to listen
particularly to the advice of this learned, pious, and venerable
prelate; and, until that advice thwarted his brutal passions, he was
in the habit of saying, that no other prince could boast of a subject
to be compared with FISHER. He used, at the council-board, to take
him by the hand and call him his father; marks of favour and
affection which the Bishop repaid by zeal and devotion which knew no
bounds other than those prescribed by his duty to God, his King and
his country. But, that sacred duty bade him object to the divorce and
to the King's supremacy; and then the tyrant, forgetting, at once,
all his services, all his devotion, all his unparalleled attachment,
sent him to the block, after fifteen months of imprison ment, during
which he lay, worse than a common felon, buried in filth and almost
destitute of food; sent him, who had been his boast, and whom he had
called his father, to perish under the axe; dragged him forth, with
limbs tottering under him, his venerable face and hoary locks
begrimed, and his nakedness scarcely covered with the rags left on
his body; dragged him thus forth to the scaffold, and, even when the
life was gone, left him to lie on that scaffold like a dead dog!
Savage monster! Rage stems the torrent of our tears, hurries us back
to the horrid scene, and bids us look about us for a dagger to plunge
into the heart of the tyrant.

96.  And yet, the calculating, cold-blooded and brazen BURNET has the
audacity to say, that "such a man as Henry VIII. was necessary to
bring about the Reformation!" He means, of course, that such measures
as those of Henry were necessary; and, if they were necessary, what
must be the nature and tendency of that "Reformation?"

97.  The work of blood was now begun, and it proceeded with steady
pace. All who refused to take the oath of supremacy; that is to say,
all who refused to become apostates, were considered and treated as
traitors, and made to suffer death accompanied with every possible
cruelty and indignity. As a specimen of the works of BURNET's
necessary reformer, and to spare the reader repetition on the
subject, let us take the treatment of JOHN HOUGHTON, Prior of the
Charter-house in London, which was then a convent of Carthusian
monks. This Prior, for having refused to take the oath, which,
observe, he could not take without committing perjury, was hanged at
TYBURN. He was scarcely suspended when the  rope was cut, and he
alive on the ground. His clothes were then stripped off; his bowels
were ripped up; his heart and entrails were torn from his body and
flung into a fire; his head was cut from his body; the body was
divided into quarters and parboiled; the quarters were then
subdivided and hung up in different parts of the city; and one arm
was nailed to the wall over the entrance into the monastery!

98.  Such were the means, which BURNET says were necessary to
introduce the Protestant religion into England. How different, alas!
from the means by which the Catholic religion had been introduced by
POPE GREGORY and Saint AUSTIN! These horrid butcheries were
perpetrated, mind, under the primacy of Fox's great Martyr, CRANMER,
and with the active agency of another ruffian, named THOMAS CROMWELL,
whom we shall soon see sharing with CRANMER the work of plunder, and
finally sharing, too, in his disgraceful end.

99.  Before we enter on the grand subject of plunder, which was the
mainspring of the "Reformation," we must follow the King and his
primate through their murders of Protestants, as well as Catholics.
But, first, we must see how the Protestant religion arose, and how it
stood at this juncture. Whence the term, Protestant, came, we have
seen in paragraph 3. It was a name given to those who declared, or
protested, against the Catholic, or universal church. This work of
protesting was begun in Germany, in the year 1517, by a friar, whose
name was MARTIN LUTHER, and who belonged to a convent of Augustin
friars, in the electorate of Saxony. At this time the POPE had
authorised the preaching of certain indulgences, and this business
having been entrusted to the Order of Dominicans, and not to the
order to which LUTHER belonged, and to which it had been usual to
commit such trust, here was one of the motives from which LUTHER's
opposition to the POPE proceeded. He found a protector in his
sovereign, the Elector of Saxony, who appears to have had as strong a
relish for plunder, as that with which our English tyrant and his
courtiers and parliament were seized a few years afterwards.

100.  All accounts agree that LUTHER was a most profligate man. To
change his religion he might have thought himself called by his
conscience; but, conscience could not call upon him to be guilty of
all the abominable deeds of which he stands convicted even by his own
confessions, of which I shall speak more fully, when I come to the
proper place for giving an account of the numerous sects into which
the Protestants were soon divided, and of the fatal change which was,
by this innovation in religion, produced, even according to the
declaration of the Protestant leaders themselves, in the morals of
the people and the state of society. But, just observing, that the
Protestant sects had, at the time we are speaking of, spread
themselves over a part of Germany, and had got into Switzerland and
some other states of the Continent, we must now, before we state more
particulars relating to LUTHER and the sects that he gave rise to,
see how the King of England dealt with those of his subjects who had
adopted the heresy.

101.  The Protestants immediately began to disagree amongst
themselves; but, they all maintained, that faith alone was sufficient
to secure salvation; while the Catholics maintained, that good works
were also necessary. The most profligate of men, the most brutal and
bloody of tyrants may be a stanch believer; for the devils themselves
believe; and, therefore, we naturally, at first thought, think it
strange, that Henry VIII. did not instantly become a zealous
Protestant, did not become one of the most devoted disciples of
LUTHER, He would, certainly; but LUTHER began his "Reformation" a few
years too soon for the King. In 151 7, when LUTHER began his works,
the King had been married to his first wife only eight years; and he
had not then conceived any project of divorce. If LUTHER had begun
twelve years later, the King would have been a Protestant at once,
especially after seeing that this new religion allowed LUTHER and
seven other of his brother leaders in the "Reformation" to grant,
under their hands, a licence to the LANGRAVE OF HESSE to have TWO
WIVES at one and the same time! So complaisant a religion would have
been, and, doubtless was, at the time of the divorce, precisely to
the King's taste; but, as I have just observed, it came twelve years
too soon for him; for, not only had he not adopted this religion, but
had opposed it, as a Sovereign; and, which was a still more serious
affair, had opposed it, as an AUTHOR! He had in 1521, written a BOOK
against it. His vanity, his pride, were engaged in the contest; to
which may be added, that Luther, in answering his book, had called
him "a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a
lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, a mad fool with a frothy
mouth and a whorish face;" and had afterwards said to him, "you lie,
you stupid and sacrilegious King."

102.  Therefore, though the tyrant was bent on destroying the
Catholic Church, he was not less bent on the extirpation of the
followers of LUTHER and his tribe of new sects. Always under the
influence of some selfish and base motive or other, he was, With
regard to the Protestants, set to work by revenge, as, in the case of
the Catholics, he had been set to work by lust, if not by lust to be
gratified by incest. To follow him, step by step, and in minute
detail, through all his butcheries and all his burnings, would be to
familiarize one's mind to a human slaughter-house and a cookery of
cannibals. I shall, therefore, confine myself to a general view of
his works in this way.

103.  His book against LUTHER had acquired him the title of "Defender
of the Faith," of which we shall see more by-and-by. He could not,
therefore, without recantation, be a Protestant; and, indeed, his
pride would not suffer him to become the proselyte of a man, who had,
in print, too, proclaimed him to be a pig, an ass, a fool, and a
liar. Yet he could not pretend to be a Catholic. He was, therefore,
compelled to make a religion of his own. This was doing nothing,
unless he enforced its adoption by what he called law. Laws were made
by him and by his servile and plundering parliament, making it heresy
in, and condemning to the flames, all who did not expressly conform,
by acts as well as by declarations, to the faith and worship, which,
as head of the Church, he invented and ordained. Amongst his tenets
there were such as neither Catholics nor Protestants could,
consistently with their creeds, adopt. He, therefore, sent both to
the stake, and sometimes, in order to add mental pangs to those of
the body, he dragged them to the fire on the same hurdle, tied
together in pairs back to back, each pair containing a Catholic and a
Protestant, Was this the way that Saint AUSTIN and Saint PATRICK
propagated their religion? Yet, such is the malignity of BURNET, and
of many, many others, called Protestant "divines," that they
apologise for, if they do not absolutely applaud, this execrable
tyrant, at the very moment that they are compelled to confess that he
soaked the earth with Protestant blood, and filled the air with the
fumes of their roasting flesh.

104.  Throughout the whole of this bloody work, CRANMER, who was the
primate of the King's religion, was consenting to, sanctioning, and
aiding and abetting in, the murdering of Protestants well as of
Catholics; though, and I pray you to mark it well, HUME, TILLOTSON,
BURNET, and all his long list of eulogists, say, and make it matter
of merit in him, that, all this while, he was himself a sincere
Protestant in his heart! And, indeed, we shall, by-and-by, see him
openly avowing those very tenets, for the holding of which he had
been instrumental in sending, without regard to either age or sex,
others to perish in the flames. The progress of this man in the paths
of infamy, needed incontestible proof to reconcile the human mind to
a belief in it. Before he became a priest he had married: after he
became a priest, and had taken the oath of celibacy, he being then in
Germany, and having become a Protestant, married another wife, while
the first was still alive. Being the primate of Henry's Church, which
still forbade the clergy to have wives, and which held them to their
oath of celibacy, he had his wife brought to England in a chest, with
holes bored in it to give her air. As the cargo was destined for
Canterbury, it was landed at Gravesend, where the sailors, not
apprised of the contents of the chest, set it up on one end, and the
wrong end downwards, and had nearly broken the neck of the poor frow!
Here was a pretty scene! A German frow, with a litter of half German
half English young ones, kept in hugger-mugger, on that spot, which
had been the cradle of English Christianity; that spot, where Saint
AUSTIN had inhabited, and where THOMAS À BECKET had sealed with his
blood his opposition to a tyrant, who aimed at the destruction of the
Church and at the pillage of the people! Here is quite enough to fill
us with disgust; but, when we reflect, that this same primate, while
he had under his roof his frow and her litter, was engaged in
assisting to send Protestants to the flames, because they dissented
from a system that forbade the clergy to have wives, we swell with
indignation, not against CRANMER, for, though there are so many of
his atrocious deeds yet to come, he has exhausted our store; not
against HUME, for he professed no regard for any religion at all;
but, against those who are called "divines," and who are the
eulogists of CRANMER; against BURNET, who says that CRANMER "did all
with a good conscience;" and against Dr. STURGES, or rather, the Dean
and Chapter of Winchester, who clubbed their "talents" in getting up
the "Reflections on Popery," who talk of the "respectable CRANMER,"
and who have the audacity to put him, in point of integrity, upon a
level with Sir THOMAS MORE! As Dr. MILNER, in his answer to STURGES,
observes, they resembled each other in that the name of both was
Thomas; but in all other things, the dissimilarity was as great, as
that which the most vivid imagination can ascribe to the
dissimilarity between hell and heaven.

105.  The infamy of CRANMER in assisting in sending people to the
flames for entertaining opinions, which he afterwards confessed that 
he himself entertained at the time that he was so sending them, can
be surpassed by nothing of which human depravity is capable; and it
can be equalled by nothing but that of the King, who, while he was,
as he hoped and thought, laying the axe to the root of the Catholic
faith, still styled himself its defender! He was not, let it be borne
in mind, defender of what he might, as others have, since his day,
and in his day, called the Christian Faith. He received the title
from the POPE, as a reward for his written defence of the Catholic
faith against Luther. The POPE conferred on him this title, which was
to descend to his posterity. The title was given by POPE Leo X. in a
bull, or edict, beginning with these words: "Leo, servant of the 
servants of the Lord, to his most dear Son, Henry, King of England,
Defender of the Faith, all health and happiness." The bull then goes
on to say, that the King, having, in defence of the faith of the
Catholic Church, written a book against Martin Luther, the POPE and
his Council had determined to confer on him and his successors the
title of Defender of the Faith. "We," says the bull, "sitting in this
Holy See, having, with mature deliberation, considered the business
with our brethren, do with their unanimous counsel and consent, grant
unto your Majesty, your heirs and successors, the title of Defender
of the Faith; which we do, by these presents, confirm unto you,
commanding all the Faithful to give your Majesty this title."

106.  What are we to think, then, of the man who could continue to
wear this title, while he was causing to be acted before him a farce,
in which the POPE and his Council were exposed to derision, and was
burning, and ripping up the bowels, of people, by scores, only
because they remained firm in that faith of which he had still the
odious effrontery to call himself the defender? All justice,
everything like law, every moral thought must have been banished
before su