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II.

Sir Walter

promotion, is somewhat uncertain. The Duke of Glou- CHAP. cester, if ever he was his patron, was now declining in his influence at court. A long feud had been betwixt History of England, the Duke and Henry Beaufort, the rich Cardinal and vol.i. p.252. Bishop of Winchester; which as it laid the foundation ed. 1715. of all the disturbances that succeeded, so it particularly served to set the Clergy, who sided with the Cardinal, against the Duke. Besides this, the Duke very bravely opposed the King's marriage with the daughter of Rey- Preface to ner Duke of Anjou, and nominal King of Sicily. He Raleigh's thought this match a manifest injury to the daughter of History,&c. Armagnac, of the house of Navarre, the greatest of the princes of France, to whom the King had been solemnly contracted and affianced; and, that it could bring nothing with it but, as it actually did, loss and dishonour to the kingdom, as the yielding to France the dukedom of Anjou, and country of Maine, bulwarks to Normandy, which now especially ought to have been retained in order to conclude a lasting peace with that kingdom. But other counsels prevailed, the daughter of Anjou was brought over by the Earl of Suffolk, one of the advisers of this unhappy match, and the King was married to her at Southwick in Hampshire, and she crowned Queen of England at Westminster, May the 30th this year. Suffolk for this piece of service was made a Marquis, and the great favourite of A. D. 1444. the King and his new Queen; and in less than two years after, the Duke of Gloucester was removed from his protectorship, and excluded from the council table; persons were encouraged to exhibit accusations against him, and, to make the shortest work with him, in a few months after he was committed to custody and d murdered, which was said to be owing to the advice of the new e Marquis of

Feb. 23 or 28, of the 25th Hen. VI. or A. D. 1446.

e In 1442 he had obtained a grant, &c. of the name, title, and honour of Earl of Pembroke, in case the Duke of Gloucester died without issue. In 1447 he obtained a creation to the dignity and title of Duke of Suffolk, &c. which advancement was reported to be the reward of his advising the murder of the Duke of Gloucester. Bishop Kennett's Parochial Antiq. p. 630, 656. (vol. ii. p. 333. 373. Oxf. ed.)

II.

CHAP. Suffolk. But if what has been observed before be true, that Mr. Pecock, by being at court, was grown very rich, we need not wonder how he came by the Pope's bulls for this poor bishopric, which were generally purchased with money. However this be, our Bishop received the temporalties of this bishopric June 8, 1444, and was consecrated in the Archbishop's chapel of his palace at Croydon, the 14th of the same month.

p. 348. v.

MS.

3. On occasion of this promotion, our Bishop took his degree of Doctor of Divinity. This, we are told, he had given him without his doing any exercise. Thus GasDict. Theol. coigne speaks of it as a reproach to him, that "Mr. Pecock pars prima, «leaving the University before he had taken his degree of Episcopus, "Doctor of f Divinity, was made Doctor by grace of ab66 sence, and never answered to any Doctor pro forma sua, "nor did any act in the schools at Oxford, after he was "Inceptor in Divinity, neither by reading, preaching, or "disputation." This, it seems, was not particular in the Bishop, even at this time, though the conferring this degree in this manner seems not to have been so common now, as it has been since. But this writer had a great prejudice against our Bishop on account of his being reputed an heretic; for he was not condemned as such, until some time after Gascoigne's death.

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A. D. 1447. 4. Three years after Dr. Pecock's promotion to this bishopric, he preached, we are told, at Paul's cross, and affirmed in his sermon several Conclusions, which were afterwards the occasion of a great many evils in England and elsewhere. These Conclusions, which are so frightfully represented, were seven in number, and are as follows:

f Qui doctor fuit in Oxonia per gratiam absentandi, nunquam enim respondit alicui doctori pro forma sua ut esset doctor, nec aliquem actum in scolis fecit in Oxonia postquam incepit in theologia, an postea faciet nescitur a nobis. Gasc. Dict. Theol. MS.

Iste Reginaldus episcopus prædictus-ad crucem Sancti Pauli affirmavit et asseruit in suo sermone, et per indenturas in Anglicana scriptura scriptas tradidit diversis personis post sermonem istas conclusiones plurimorum malorum causatias in Anglia et alibi. Dict. Theol. p. 348. v. Episcopus.

II.

I. Nobody knows how to prove, that a Bishop, because CHAP. he is a Bishop, is obliged himself to preach to the common people of his diocese, taking the word preach in its most famous signification.

II. Bishops ought not to hold themselves obliged to preach in their own persons to the common people of their dioceses; because Bishops are superior to other Curates, and are obliged to keep themselves free, and at liberty from that burden of preaching; the words used in that Conclusion being taken in the most famous signification.

III. Bishops, on account of their being Bishops, ought to have knowledge of those matters which inferior Curates are to preach, and to have greater knowledge in answering and solving the great questions, than inferior Curates are obliged to have, because they are inferior Curates.

IV. Bishops have authority to resume, and take to themselves the office and work of preaching, and to leave it off, and let it alone whenever they please; in like manner as they have the power of resuming and taking whatever relates to the labour of any cure, belonging to the meanest or greatest Curate, whensoever they will; so that they are not hindered by so doing from the better work of their ordinary cure, which ought to be done by them, and which cannot ordinarily be done by another Curate.

h

V. A more useful work may be done to the souls of men, than is the work of preaching, the term preaching being used in its most famous and usual signification.

VI. Bishops may for divers causes be absent from their dioceses, and not reside on them, excusably, meritoriously, and cum gratiarum actione, in the sight of God; and that otherwise, or if they were resident on their bishoprics, during the continuance of these causes, they would sin against God.

h Novem sunt officia quæ episcopi ultra sacerdotes possunt exercere, scilicet, 1. Ordinare clericos. 2. Virgines benedicere. 8. Basilicas dedicare. 4. Clericos disponere. 5. Synodos celebrare. 6. Chrisma conficere. 7. 8. Vestes, et vasa consecrare. 9. Ultimo confirmare. Bernardus de Parentinis Lilium Misse. fol. xxii. a coll. 1. edit. 1510.

CHAP.

MS.

II.

VII. Neither the Pope, nor the Bishops of England, are simoniacs upon this account, that they receive their bishoprics from the Pope by provision, and pay first-fruits or annates for their bishoprics.

5. Any one sees, at first sight, that this sermon was the effect of the Bishop's studying the dispute betwixt the Church and Dissenters, and that, in particular, these propositions were maintained in defence of the Bishops and Clergy, from the censures that were passed upon them Gascoigne, by the Lollards. Accordingly, it is said, that the Bishop Dict. Theol. should thus speak to one Master Chapman, "That the "consequence of his opinion would be, that no one here"after would speak ill of the Bishops, or murmur about "them; since by him it was made evident, that Bishops 66 are not obliged to preach, nor to do the other works "of a cure of souls, as children and the common people "think; but it is their office and business to superintend 66 or oversee those who have cures." But notwithstanding this, exception was, it seems, taken at this sermon of the Bishop's, insomuch that, after he had ended it, he by indentures, written in English, delivered these Conclusions to several persons his particular friends, viz. Walter Hart or Lyhert, Bishop of Norwich, who is styled his fautor or patron; Adam Molens, Bishop of Chichester and Lord Privy Seal; and Dr. Vincent Clement, who is called the i unwonted Doctor, because he took his degree of Doctor of Divinity when he was only in Deacon's or Subdeacon's Orders, and was admitted to it by virtue of the King's mandamus; being the Pope's collector of his tenths, &c.

i Magistro Vincentio Clementi doctori insolenti, qui Oxoniæ in theologia incepit in ordine diaconatus existens, gradu suo obtento minis et promissis, et diversis literis regiis, et brevibus regiis missis contra eos, qui in magna congregatione regentium in Oxonia gratiam suam petitam, ex sua conscientia negaverunt. Gasc. Dict. Theol. This the translator of the History and Antiquities of Oxford thus represents: Vincentio Clementi, doctori Oxoniensi arrogantissimo, &c. Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. lib. i. p. 221.

Romanus quidam, Vincentius Clemens, Papæ subdiaconus, atque quæstor. Parkeri Antiq. p. 434. But by the constitution of the University, one in no Orders at all may take this degree of Doctor of Divinity.

II.

Pecock alle

nibus suis

ensem. MS.

6. Of this sermon of our Bishop's, complaint seems like- CHAP. wise to have been made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as if it was on a needless or unnecessary subject; that the Conclusions maintained in it could not be defended; and that they savoured more of curiosity than of usefulness. To answer this complaint, very probably, our Bishop was cited to give his Grace an account of the reason why he thus preached. Since we have a short defence of these Conclusions, supposed to be made by our Bishop to his Reginaldi Grace, in which having repeated the seven Conclusions gatio de which were objected against, he exhibits or declares the Conclusioreasons of his drawing them up, holding and publishing ad Arch. them. The first of these is, that "the opposite or direct Cantuari contrary of these Conclusions, had been for some time "since the opinion of a great many men, and often "preached by them in the pulpits: that the Bishops who, "for reasonable causes, were absent from their dioceses, "were by this means subject to very frequent detractions "of the common people, and made vile and contemptible "to their subjects, by whom they ought to be reverenced; 66 nay, that they were rendered so much the more unable "to correct, command and order their subjects, since they were so much injured in their reputation by being thus 66 reproached; that no wise man will deny that this is an ❝ evil very deserving to be remedied, since we ought to do "what we can to remove the reproach of even unworthy

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persons, or which is undeservedly cast on them, much "more the unjust reproach which is attempted to be fixed on Bishops." A second reason given by the Bishop for his preaching thus, is, that " in many Bishops scruples of "conscience were raised on this account, viz. their being

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k The reasonable causes of Priests being absent from their cures, Bernardus de Parentinis assigns as follows: 1. The affairs of the Church. 2. Being mortally hated by their subjects or parishioners. 3. If by the Pope's commandment they waited at Court, or served any Bishop. 4. If they studied Divinity at the University, provided they did not stay there above five years. Lilium Misse. fol. 22. a coll. 1.

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