Rights for this book: Public domain in the USA. This edition is published by Project Gutenberg. Originally issued by Project Gutenberg on 2020-06-11. To support the work of Project Gutenberg, visit their Donation Page. This free ebook has been produced by GITenberg, a program of the Free Ebook Foundation. If you have corrections or improvements to make to this ebook, or you want to use the source files for this ebook, visit the book's github repository. You can support the work of the Free Ebook Foundation at their Contributors Page. The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of Lynn, Vol. 2 [of 2], by William Richards This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The History of Lynn, Vol. 2 [of 2] Author: William Richards Release Date: June 11, 2020 [eBook #62372] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF LYNN, VOL. 2 [OF 2]*** Transcribed from the 1812 W. G. Whittingham edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THE HISTORY OF LYNN, Civil , Ecclesiastical , Political , Commercial , Biographical , Municipal , and Military , FROM THE EARLIEST ACCOUNTS TO THE PRESENT TIME, INTERSPERSED With occasional remarks on such national occurrences as may serve to elucidate the real state of the town, or the manners, character, and condition of the inhabitants at different periods. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A COPIOUS INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF ITS Situation , Harbour , Rivers , Inland Trade and Navigation , the Ancient and Modern State OF Marshland, Wisbeach, and the Fens, AND Whatever is most remarkable, memorable, or interesting, in other parts of the adjacent country. IN TWO VOLUMES. BY WILLIAM RICHARDS , M.A. Honorary member of the Pennsylvania Society , for promoting the Abolition of Slavery , and the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage VOL. II. LYNN: PRINTED BY W. G. WHITTINGHAM, AND SOLD BY R. BALDWIN; PATERNOSTER ROW; LONDON. 1812. PART IV. From the Reformation to the present time. CHAP. I. Miscellaneous remarks on the Reformation—its rise and progress on the continent—introduction into this island, and effects upon this town. The reformation formed a new era in the history of the world, and was one of those mighty revolutionary events which have a most extensive and lasting effect on the affairs and destinies of mankind. But men have been ever since greatly divided in their ideas and judgments concerning it. While some have hailed it as a most happy, admirable, and glorious event, fraught with heaven’s choicest blessings, it has been deemed by others, and even by a large majority of the inhabitants of christendom, as an exceedingly unfortunate, pernicious, and execrable occurrence, which has produced all manner of mischief, and, like the opening of Pandora’s box, filled the world with calamities and miseries innumerable. The learned and the wise, as well as the illiterate and fly foolish, have been found among each of these opposite and contending parties: their respective opinions and allegations must therefore be entitled to a serious and candid hearing. But it is not intended here to go deeply or largely into this disputed subject: nor would it well accord with the plan or design of this publication. Some cursory hints, however, on a few of the most prominent facts will not, it is presumed, be either impertinent or uninstructive. Section I. Statement of different and opposite opinions respecting the reformation—with brief remarks The information, like the French revolution, seems to have been too much admired by its friends, and too much vilified by its enemies. The former, for the most part, perceive nothing in it but what is praise worthy and divine, and the latter nothing but what is detestable and devilish. The truth, probably, lies somewhere about midway between these two extremes, as is usual in most of the disputes that divide and agitate the world. The reformation had certainly some good points in it, as well as some very bad ones, that can never be too much reprobated and detested. Had they been all bad, its friends would have defended them, for they have actually and unblushingly defended its very worst points; [625a] and had they been all good, its enemies, on the other hand, would not fail to condemn them, for they have really done so with its very best parts, whose intrinsic or essential goodness and beneficial tendency are most obvious and demonstrable. [625b] The friends of the reformation consider the original and chief actors in that great revolutionary work as excellent men, actuated by a right apostolical and christian spirit, with a view to the restoration of primitive christianity, and the promotion of the best interests of mankind. Their opponents, on the contrary, consider them in a very different light, and hold them up as persons of a disreputable character, who were actuated by very unworthy and base motives, from whose thoughts nothing could be further than the restoration of genuine christianity, or the promoting of real benevolence, philanthropy, or human happiness. It will not be safe to give implicit credit to either of these representations. There were, certainly, some good men concerned in the reformation, and there were also some very bad men concerned in it, whose misdeeds ought never to be palliated; and these were probably the most numerous and the most powerful, or the work, surely, would have been more worthy of our praise and admiration. The reformation, in the judgment of its admirers, was eminently calculated to promote the cause of truth and virtue, and inculcate the practice of piety, morality, and all manner of good works. All this, however, is flatly contradicted by the champions of the opposite cause, who positively affirm that the doctrines of the reformers were, in the very nature of them, of an evil, immoral and impious tendency:—alluding to the grand Lutheran tenet of justification by faith without works , [626a] and to the famous Calvinian notion of predestination, as extending to all the deeds of men, bad and good, or that all human actions, even the very worst, originate in the Divine decrees , or will of God . [626b] This opinion of the evil tendency of the reformation, or of the reformed doctrine, they represent as further corroborated and established by undeniable facts, and authentic historical evidence; or in other words, by its immediate effects, or the very first fruits it produced wherever it did prevail. Those who advocate the cause of the reformers say that their labours were abundantly fruitful of good works, and that their doctrine produced the happiest effects wherever it was received. But their opponents flatly deny it, and positively assert that the very reverse was actually the case: and they support their assertion, not only by referring to those long and bloody wars which resulted from the reformation, but also to the express testimony of credible witnesses, who affirm, that vice and immorality greatly increased wherever protestantism became predominant. Nor is it a little remarkable that these same witnesses are, for the most part, some of the very chief reformers; so that their evidence comes with a force that cannot well be resisted. Some of them belonged to the continent, and others to this kingdom; but we shall in this place bring forward only the former, reserving the latter till we come to exhibit the rise and progress of the reformation in this country. We shall begin with Luther, whose testimony on this occasion is very strong and remarkable.—“The world (says he) grows worse and worse. It is plain that men are much more covetous, malicious, and resentful, much more unruly, shameless, and full of vice, than they were in the time of popery.” [628a] “Formerly, when we were suduced by the pope, men willingly followed good works, but now all their study is to get every thing to themselves by exactions, pillage, theft, lying, usury.” [628b] “It is a wonderful thing, and full of scandal, that from the time that the pure doctrine was first called to light, the world should daily grow worse and worse.” [628c]—The testimony of Bucer, another celebrated reformer, is to the same effect. “The greater part of the people” (says he) “seem only to have embraced the gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c., which lay upon them in the time of popery; and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appetites without controul. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone and not by good works , having no relish for them.”—[628d] Musculus also, another eminent reformer, is said to have borne much the same testimony. [628e] Calvin’s evidence in this case seems also to be equally forcible and decisive: “Of so many thousands (says he) seemingly eager in embracing the gospel, how few have since amended their lives? Nay, to what else does the greater part pretend, except by shaking off the heavy yoke of superstition to launch out more freely into every kind of lasciviousness?” [629a] Thus said Calvin. When the character of the reformation is duly and thoroughly considered, and especially that of Calvin’s own doctrine, it is no great wonder that such effects should follow. It would have been much more wonderful if they had not followed; at least, when we further consider the abominable conduct, the vile and bloody deeds that were sanctioned by the same reformer’s own example. Had he been a different sort of man, these unsightly fruits of his labours might have led him to doubt the soundness of his faith, or suspect that his creed did not altogether tally with the doctrine that is according to godliness. But from him it could not be expected. Another testimony of no small weight in this case, and which must not be here omitted, is that of the celebrated Erasmus, one of the greatest luminaries and most eminent characters of that age, who has been reckoned among the principal authors of the reformation as well as restorers of literature. Let us listen then to his evidence on this subject: “What an evangelical generation is this? Nothing was ever seen more licentious and more seditious. Nothing is less evangelical than these pretended gospellers . [629b] Take notice of this evangelical people, and shew me an individual amongst them all who from being a drunkard has become sober, from being a libertine has become chaste. I, on the other hand, can shew you many who have become worse by the change. Those whom I once knew to have been chaste, sincere, and without fraud, I found, after they had embraced this sect, to be licentious in their conversation, gamblers, neglectful of prayer, passionate, vain, as spiteful as serpents, and lost to the feelings of human nature. I speak from experience.” [630] Upon the whole, it seems impossible to evade the force of this evidence, or deny that vice and immorality increased where protestantism prevailed, and, consequently, that there must have been some radical and essential defect in that system from the very first: so that it must be the very height of folly, absurdity, and arrogance in our present pretended evangelical demagogues to attempt to hold it up to the people as a standard of unadulterated truth and model of christian perfection. It is remarkable enough that these good people, almost to a man, are very loud in their reprobation of the French revolution, although it might easily be proved that that same revolution was nearly, if not quite as honourable in its origin, and respectable in its progress as that which was excited and conducted by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their coadjutors, and which they seem so much to admire, and so ready to commend and justify. While reprobating the Gallic revolution on account of the licentiousness and crimes it produced, they are not aware how much the protestant revolution is liable to the same imputation. Section II. The former subject continued , with occasional and brief remarks There does not seem on any point a greater difference of opinion between the admirers of the reformation and their opponents than that which relates to the real character of the reformers. Volumes have been written on both sides of the question: one party extolling them to the skies, as if they had been all perfect beings or angels of light, and the other degrading them to the lowest point, as if they had been no better than so many demons. Too much, no doubt, has been said both for and against them. We must not believe them to be quite so bad as some catholic writers have represented them; nor yet, on the other hand, altogether so good and perfect as they have been described by the generality of our protestant authors. What is unfounded on either side we wish to explode; but some apparently well established facts relating to the reformers, and not generally known among protestants, ought not here to be passed over unnoticed, as they are well calculated to correct the reader’s ideas, both as to the reformers and the reformation. As to Luther, it seems to be the common opinion among protestants that he was convinced of the errors and corruptions of the church of Rome, and, of course, decidedly hostile to them before the appearance of Tetzel with his indulgences. But this opinion appears to be untenable. It is more likely that he had thought nothing about the said errors and corruptions before the arrival of that memorable vender of pardons; and that either wholly out of detestation of his extravagant and shameless pretensions, or partly also out of spite to the Dominicans, to which order he belonged, he then ventured to oppose that scandalous traffick, without any direct intention to declare against any others of the papal abominations, towards which it does not seem that he had yet begun to conceive any aversion. Accordingly, he appeared for some years after, to have no mighty objection to any thing in the popish religion but the abuse of the traffick of indulgences; and even on that point he actually consented to observe in future a profound silence, provided the same condition were imposed on his adversaries. Nay he went still further, and proposed to write a humble and submissive Letter to the Pope , acknowledging that he had carried his zeal and animosity too far: and such a Letter he actually did write. He even consented to publish a circular Letter , exhorting all his disciples and followers to reverence and obey all the dictates of the Roman church. He declared that his only intention, in the writings which he had composed was to brand with infamy those emissaries who abused its authority, and employed its protection as a mask to cover their abominable and impious frauds. [632] Such was the hostility to the pope and his cause, and such the anxiety for religious reformation which Luther manifested for some years after he had assumed the character of a reformer, or rather after the commencement of his quarrel with Tetzel and the Dominicans. Had Leo X. been wise and politic enough to accept his proffered submission, about the time of the conferences with Miltitz , he would, to all appearance, immediately and gladly have returned into the bosom of holy church, and, most probably, never have given his holiness or the world any further trouble on the score of religious abuses and corruptions. The haughty pontiff, however, instead of embracing the golden opportunity, and receiving readily and kindly his rebellious, but now repentant son, had recourse to the very opposite mode of proceeding. He fulminated his anathemas against him, had him solemnly excommunicated, declared an enemy to the church, and even to the holy Roman empire. Luther having now no alternative, was obliged to make virtue of necessity; and it is easy to see that he was actually forced to take that course which he afterwards pursued, and in the pursuit of which he displayed such wonderful address, and such extraordinary talents as have really immortalized his name. But as to real virtue, it seems hard to see or say how much of that there was in his opposition to the pope and church of Rome, except what is implied in the law of selfpreservation. Cromwell too, had that law on his side, to the full as much, perhaps, as Luther, even while engaged in what has been deemed the most criminal parts of his conduct, the dethronement of the king and attainment of the supreme power. But which of these two men was the most virtuous or most vicious, was the better or worse man, is a point that will not be presumed or attempted to be made here a subject of investigation. They certainly had, both of them, great talents and great defects. Lutheran and other protestant writers have appeared not a little anxious to have Luther acquitted from the imputation of having opposed Tetzel out of spite to the Dominicans, or from resentment for the preference shewn them in the distribution or traffick of indulgences. We pretend not to say that that was the sole cause of his opposition; but that it might be partly the cause seems not at all improbable from what he himself has owned on other occasions. Thus he acknowledges that he had tried to persuade himself of there being no real presence of Christ in the sacrament, “on purpose to spite the pope , but that the words of scripture were too plain in favour of it.” Likewise, in his letter to the Vaudois, he says, “I have hitherto thought it of small consequence whether the bread remains in the sacrament or not, but now, to spite the papists , I am determined to believe that it does remain.” Thus also, writing against those who had presumed to alter the public service without his authority, he says, “I knew very well that the elevation of the sacrament was idolatrous, but 1 retained it out of pure spite to that devil Carlostadius .” [634] A very glaring and most odious trait in Luther’s character was the ungentlemanly and foul language in which he used to address his opponents, than which nothing could be more unbecoming in one who pretended to be engaged in, or anxious for the reformation of mankind, and the revival or restoration of genuine and primitive christianity. We have just now seen in what style he could speak of his quondam friend Carlostadius: “that devil Carlostadius:” and it seems he could be sometimes equally uncivil and foulmouthed when he had occasion to speak of Zuinglius and the rest of that party, who did not receive his favourite doctrine of consubstantiation, or the real presence; for whom he had no mercy, but consigned them all to everlasting perdition; just as his modern disciples, our present evangelicals , do to the poor Arians and Socinians. As to the papists , it was not to be expected that he should be more civil or polite to them than to the Zuinglians. Accordingly, we are told that “the usual flowers of his speech, when addressing the pope and other catholic prelates, were: villain, thief, traitor, apostle of the devil, bishop of sodomites: and that the extent of his charity to them was to wish that their bowels were torn out, that they were cast into the Mediterranean sea or into the flames, and that they were hurried away to the devil. His treatment of the king of England, Henry VIII, with whom he had at one time a theological controversy, (though afterwards they grew into a better understanding with each other,) was not more respectful than his treatment of the pope. Luther makes no difficulty to call his royal antagonist, a Thomistical pig, an ass, a jakes, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon disguised in a king’s robe, a mad fool with a frothy mouth and a whorish face. He even addresses him as follows: You lie, you stupid and sacrilegious king.” [636a] Another very unamiable and disgustful trait in Luther’s character was his assuming an extraordinary and apostolic dignity and authority, under the name or title of Ecclesiastes : “Martin Luther Ecclesiastes of Wittemberg.”—“It is not fitting, (said he,) that I should be without a title , having received the work of the ministry, not from man, or by man, but by the gift of God, and the revelation of Jesus Christ.” [636b] This was evidently putting himself upon a level, at least, with Peter and Paul, and the rest of the apostles, and claiming from professing christians the deference or submission due to them. Accordingly, “he plainly proclaims to the whole body of protestants, in case they presume to consult together and determine about their common belief, that he will return back to the ancient church, and revoke every word he had ever written or taught against it; telling them that even in acting right, when they acted without his authority, they were plunging themselves into the jaws of hell.” [636c] It is not a little remarkable that this reformer pretended to have some extraordinary intercourse, not only with the Deity, but also with Satan Accordingly, he has published to the world, not only that he held frequent communications with the devil, but also that he learned the most material part of the reformation, namely, the abolition of the mass from him. In his treatise on that subject there is an account of Satan’s appearing to him by night, and of a long dialogue that passed between them, in which Luther defends the mass, and the devil argues against it. The conclusion is that this new apostle yields to the motives suggested by his internal antagonist, and adopts the important reform which he proposes. We are also informed, that Luther in one of his Sermons, according to Cochleus , affirmed that he had “eat more than a bushel of salt with Satan;” and that in his Colloquies he describes himself as constantly haunted by the devil, who, he says, “sleeps nearer to me than my wife Catherine.” [637] Luther bears testimony to the unfavourable effects of the reformed religion, not only upon his followers, (as we have seen before) but also upon himself . He says that whilst he continued a catholic monk he observed chastity, obedience and poverty; and that being free from worldly cares be gave himself up to fasting, watching, and prayer: whereas, after he commenced reformer, he describes himself as raging with the most violent concupiscence, to satisfy which he broke through his solemn vow of continency, in direct opposition to his former doctrine, by marrying a religious woman, who was under the same obligation. He then proceeded to teach what most people deem shameful and licentious lessons, such as the permission, in certain cases, of concubinage and polygamy, and that pestilential doctrine, which is the utter destruction of all morality, that there is no freedom in human actions—and that when the scripture commands good works, “we are to understand it to forbid them, because we cannot do them; that a baptized person cannot lose his soul, whatever sins he commit, provided he believe, inasmuch as no sin can damn except infidelity.” [638] Section III. Further remarks on the reformers and reformation—tenaciously adhered to , and retained the very worst part of popery , its intolerant , persecuting , and bloody spirit—the very first thing whose reformation or expulsion they ought to have attempted—its omission rendered their whole undertaking illfavored , preposterous , and ineffectual Defective in many parts as Luther’s character really was, he appears to have been, nevertheless, one of the best among the original and leading reformers. There seemed to be a frankness or unreservedness about him that was somewhat pleasing, and which it is not easy to discover in many of his coadjutors. He was also apparently not so bloodyminded as some of them were, at whose head, it is presumed, we may venture to place the apostle of Geneva, Calvin . This man (as is evinced by the tragical case of Servetus ,) when his favourite dogmas were opposed, and his wisdom, learning, and infallibility set at naught, nothing would satisfy but the obstruction of his opponent: but Luther, (as appears from the affair of Carlostadius,) would be pretty well satisfied with the banishment only of those who happened so to offend him. The spirit of Luther, however, though less vindictive and diabolical than that of Calvin, was yet very dissimilar to that of Jesus Christ, whose followers they both professed themselves to be. It seems to have been then the case, that those reformers who had gone the furthest from the church of Rome in doctrine , such as Calvin and the Swiss divines, who denied the real presence, were yet the nighest to that church in spirit : for they seemed more addicted to the practice of consigning to destruction those whom they deemed heretics than the Lutherans, though the latter did not depart near so far as the former from the grand popish doctrine of transubstantiation . Odd as this may be considered, it appears to be a fact; though to account for it may, perhaps, be attended with considerable difficulty. It cannot however, be supposed, that the denial of the real presence could have any tendency to make people more bloodthirsty, vindictive, or intolerant. The reformers, in retaining the bigotry and intolerance, or the spirit of popery, retained in fact its very worst part, and what may be called its marrow and substance; which the world had most need to get rid of. All therefore that they did, or could do, in such a case, was only like giving a new edition, or an abridgment of an old and bad work, which still contained the essence of the former, and must, of course, have the same defective and evil tendency. They appeared like people undertaking the cure of a demoniac without casting out the demon, or pretending that the evil or scrophula may be healed and eradicated by the royal touch. In short, they began the work at the wrong end, and never meddled with that part at which they ought to have begun. Their first work ought to have been to exhibit to the religious world the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and endeavour to bring those who professed to be his servants back to the spirit of his religion. Had they done so, and succeeded, their work would have beep more than half done. The rest would have followed of course, or, at least, with little comparative difficulty. For when men have once imbibed the spirit of the New Testament, it will not be very hard to persuade them to renounce such doctrines or practices as are not enjoined or countenanced in that sacred volume: and if any errors or misconceptions happen still to remain, they will become in a great measure harmless, through the influence of that divine spirit by which they are now led and governed. The reformers in foisting into their system the impious and horrid principle of intolerance and persecution, gave it a most monstrous and shocking aspect, even more so than that of the centaurs, or minotaurs of ancient fable; for it was like joining God with the devil, or Christ with Belial. But nothing better, perhaps, could be expected from men who knew so little of the temper which christianity produces; and who never discerned the difference between the wisdom that is from above and that which is from beneath; or considered that Jesus Christ came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. For men who knew so little of the genius of christianity to take it upon them, as they did, to lord it over the faith of professing christians, was certainly a most gross and iniquitous piece of presumption. The power which the reformers acquired was very great and formidable, and the authority which they sometimes assumed and exercised was not a little remarkable and extraordinary, as appears not only from the permission of concubinage, &c. already mentioned, but also from the Dispensation granted by Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, and five others, to the prince of Hesse Cassel to have two wives at a time, and which was afterwards published by a descendant of that prince. This was certainly taking a great deal upon them, and placing themselves, not indeed upon a level with the apostles, as was before observed, but much above them, even with the pope himself. Yet they seemed very angry with his holiness, calling him antichrist, and many other bad names. They appeared very desirous to pull him down, but had no manner of objection to do his work, or act the pope themselves when it suited them, and that was not unfrequently. It is curious enough to hear these men inveigh against the intolerant and persecuting spirit of the church of Rome, at the very time when they themselves were manifesting the selfsame spirit, and pursuing the same tyrannical and murderous course which they so much condemned in the papists. In our own country, John Fox, the martyrologist, was employed in writing huge folios to describe the horrors of popish persecution, while his own protestant sovereign and her bishops and clergy were persecuting the poor puritans with unfeeling and relentless rigour. Protestants can see the hatefulness of persecution in the papists, but very often are quite blind to it in themselves, or those of their own party. [642] They can discern what is bad in their opponents, but overlook what is equally so in themselves. Christianity, in its first aspect and fundamental principles, is a religion of peace and good will towards men, which forbids any to domineer over their brethren, or exercise authority over their consciences, and requires, in all things whatsoever, to do to others as we would they should do to us. But the reformers overlooked all this, and discovered either an entire ignorance of, or a fixed aversion to these godlike principles. In either case they must have been wretchedly qualified to reform and christianize the world, or form a religion worthy the reception of mankind. A religion, however, they would and did form, and never rested till they got it established by the civil power, and enforced by penal sanctions; and this rendered its native intolerance doubly pernicious and detestable. “No religion” (says an excellent writer) “can be established without penal sanctions, and all penal sanctions in cases of religion are persecutions. Before a man can persecute he must renounce the generous tolerant dispositions of a christian. No religion can be established without human creeds; and subscription to all human creeds implies two dispositions contrary to true religion, and both expressly forbidden by the author of it. These two dispositions are, love of dominion over conscience in the imposer, and an abject preference of slavery in the subscriber. The first usurps the rights of Christ; the last swears allegiance to a pretender. The first domineers, and gives laws like a tyrant; the last truckles like a vassal. The first assumes a dominion incompatible with his frailty, impossible even to his dignity, yea even denied to the dignity of angels; the last yields a low submission, inconsistent with his own dignity, and ruinous to that very religion, which he pretends by this mean to support.” [644] It is very remarkable, and no less true and disgusting, that protestantism was ushered into the world in the very spirit of the religion it strove to supplant. Yet its authors expected to be thought commissioned by heaven to do what they did, and clearly entitled to the gratitude and reverence of mankind, as well as their ready submission to their dictates and authority. But to one who has carefully examined the New Testament, they appear so very different from the first disseminators or propagators of christianity, that they can hardly be supposed to belong to the same cause or family. When Luther is seen banishing conscientious people who differed from him, and Calvin , and the Swiss reformers, burning or hanging them, and the French protestants, or Calvinists of France solemnly soliciting their popish sovereign to inflict severe punishment on those whom they were pleased to deem heretics: [645]—when one recollects these acts, and that they were all done in the name of the Lord, one is ready to sicken at the thought of the pretensions of the actors, to reform the world and restore christianity to its original state. Nor is it less disgusting to hear our flaming advocates for modern orthodoxy extolling these men, as models of christian sanctity, and unexceptionable or safe guides to pure, undefiled, and evangelical religion. Section IV. Brief account of the rise and progress of the reformation in this kingdom No sooner had the reformation begun to gain ground and spread on the continent than its effects began to be felt in this country. The court, or government was at first so far from being disposed to countenance it, that it seemed, on the contrary, quite determined to oppose and crush it. The sovereign himself appeared exceedingly hostile to it: which, from his known character, must have rendered the prospect of its admission and success here very dark and hopeless. So inimical was his majesty then to the cause of the reformers and so hearty in that of their opponents, that he actually took up his pen and wrote a book against Luther; for which important performance and acceptable service the pope thought proper to reward him, by conferring on him the dignified title of Defender of the Faith ; a title which all his protestant successors have tenaciously, if not proudly retained to this day. This was the book which Luther answered in the rude and uncourtly manner before described. [646] Our royal polemic did not long continue to be that fond and dutiful son of his holy father at Rome of which he had at first exhibited so fair and hopeful a promise. His Holiness not readily favouring his inclination, or gratifying his wish to be divorced from his first wife and marry another Lady, whom he liked much better, he disdainfully threw off that paternal yoke, renounced his connection with Rome, and became himself a great and violent reformer; so as to deserve to be placed in the very first rank among his contemporaries of that denomination. A mighty revolution ensued throughout his dominions: and though we cannot boast of the purity of the source whence it sprung, or of its being distinguished, (at least in the outset,) by much, if any, real virtue; yet it proved eventually of no small advantage and benefit to these nations: and Henry ought to be commemorated as one of the chief and most meritorious of all our royal benefactors. One of the chief objects of Henry’s reformation, like that of Lather, seems to have been to spite the pope . He had also in view, no doubt, the gratification of his ambition and caprice, which in a mind like his must have been very powerful springs of action. Nor did he miss his aims: he fairly expelled the pope, obtained full scope for his caprice, boundless as it was, and actually acquired far more power than ever, for he now became a complete and uncontrouled despot in temporal, and a pope in spiritual affairs. The two other branches of the legislature, from whom alone any effectual or legal opposition could have arisen, were so far from daring or attempting to check his soaring career, or cross his capricious humour, that they readily and obsequiously concurred in constituting him supreme head both of church and state. Having reached the utmost point of elevation, or pinnacle of power, he set about reforming the religion, and rectifying the faith of his subjects, after the example of his brother-reformers on the continent; and a most curious, grotesque, and strange piece of work he certainly made of it. Yet it is supposed to be the true foundation or groundwork of our present national establishment, and that Henry himself was the father, or first patriarch of the English protestant Hierarchy. Nor has our established church any just ground or reason, apparently, to disown him in that character, for he was perhaps as holy and good a soul as most of her succeeding patriarchs. But this point we pretend not to determine. King Henry made his own faith or creed the standard or model for all his subjects, male and female, young and old, learned and unlearned. It was at the utmost peril of any of his subjects if their religion did not exactly tally with his; at least, if he happened to find it out. If shorter or narrower than his, it was at the peril of their lives; and the same again if it proved longer or broader. It must not vary a single inch, or even a hair’s breadth from his, or his majesty would deem it a most grievous offence, and a crime deserving capital punishment. Hence he is known to have put some to death for not going so far from Rome or popery as he did, and some again for going further; and both were occasionally burnt in the same fire, or at the same time. In short, it was then a sad and dismal time in this country, and Henry’s reformation must have been a most strange and terrible work. Even the bishops and other religious functionaries, who generally fare better than most other people, could not then have a very pleasant time of it; especially the better sort of them, who could have wished to lead honest lives and act somewhat conscientiously, had they been quietly permitted so to do. To that class bishop Latimer is supposed to belong. He seemed more simple and downright than most of the rest, which might involve him in difficulties which his more wary brethren would naturally escape. Accordingly we find the correctness of his creed repeatedly called in question, and he got frequently into heretical scrapes, which he generally managed to get out of by abjuration: [649] —a method which some would be apt to deem not very creditable to his virtue or integrity, though in general looked upon as unimpeachable and of the first order. “Admitting him” (says Milner to Sturges) “to have been conscientiously persuaded of the truth of the Reformation, was it consistent with christian integrity and virtue to dissemble his religion for twenty years together, and repeatedly abjure it, as he certainly did as often as he found himself threatened with any serious danger by adhering to it? Was it consistent with integrity and virtue to accept of one of the highest offices, the bishopric of Worcester, in a church which he so much reprobated, and even to take an oath of opposing, to the utmost of his power, all persons who dissented from, or were disobedient to it? But supposing you inclined to overlook all this, what will you say to the share he took in the religious persecutions both of Henry’s and of Edward’s reign? What excuse will you make for him when you find him sending christians and protestants to the stake for the very opinion which he himself holds?” [650] These are serious charges, and all apparently well-founded; but the chief and heaviest of them is his being a bloody persecutor. He was moreover one of our chief English reformers, on which account the above brief sketch of his character has been here introduced, along with the rest of his most conspicuous associates, to give the reader an opportunity to judge what veneration is due to their memory, or how well or ill they deserved of their contemporaries and of posterity. Ridley is another of our protestant prelates that appeared at the head of our English Reformation. Dr. Sturges describes him as “active in the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs.” To which his keen and able opponent replies: “I think, sir, you will grant that he shewed rather too much activity in these affairs, to be consistent with integrity, after I shall have reminded you, that when bishop of Rochester in Henry’s days, and when bishop of London in those of Edward,