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Bishop Bonner and the Oath

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

Geoffrey de C. Parmiter
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Extract

Section 9 of the Act of Supremacy, 1559, provided that ‘all and every Archebishoppe Bishoppe and all and every other Ecclesiasticall Person, and other Ecclesiastical Officer and Minister… and all and every Temporall Judge Justicer Mayor and other Laye or Temporall Officer and Minister’, and certain other persons should take an oath the form of which was set out in the section. The oath acknowledged the queen's ecclesiastical authority and renounced all foreign jurisdiction including that of the pope. Section 10 of the Act provided that if any person who was required to take the oath refused to do so, he should be deprived of ‘all and every Ecclesiasticall and Spiritual Promotion Benefice and Office, and every Temporall and Laye Promotion and Office’ which he had at the time of refusal, and should thereafter be disqualified for life from holding or exercising any such office or promotion.

The Act of Supremacy received the royal assent on 8 May 1559, soon after Easter, and immediately the surviving bishops of Mary's reign were faced with the prospect of taking the oath prescribed by the act. On 23 May 1559, a commission was issued to eighteen laymen authorizing and requiring them to administer the oath of supremacy to the bishops and others required by the act to take it.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 11 , Issue 5 , April 1972 , pp. 215 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1972

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References

1 1 Eliz. I, c. 1 (Statutes of the Realm, iv, 350-5). Sect. 9 of the Act was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1863, and sect. 10 by the Promissory Oaths Acts, 1871.

2 Commons Journals, i, 61; D'Ewes, Journals, 31-35.

3 For the text of the commission, which is in Latin, see Gee, H., The Elizabethan Clergy and the Settlement of Religion, 1558-1564 (Oxford, 1898), pp. 39, 40Google Scholar. The commissioners were sir Nicholas Bacon (lord keeper),* marquess of Winchester (lord treasurer),* marquess of Northampton, earl of Arundel,* earl of Shrewsbury (president of the Council of the North), the earls of Derby, Bedford and Pembroke, lord Clinton (lord high admiral), lord Howard of Effingham (lord chamberlain), sir Thomas Parry (treasurer of the household),* sir Edward Rogers, * sir Francis Knollys (vice-treasurer of the household), * sir William Cecil (secretary), * sir Ambrose Cave (chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster), sir William Petre, sir Richard Sackville and sir John Mason. The commission authorized any five of the commissioners to act, provided that the five included at least one of those marked with an asterisk.

4 The twenty-five sees do not include that of Sodor and Man whose bishop was not entitled to sit in the house of lords; Henry Man, bishop of Sodor and Man, had died in October 1556, and the see was vacant. Robert King of Oxford had died on 4 December 1557, and John Hopton of Norwich at some date after 24 August 1558. In addition, Robert Parfew of Hereford had died on 22 September 1557, and Thomas Reynold had been nominated to the see (but not consecrated) before 7 November 1558; and John Salcot (or Capon) of Salisbury had died on 6 October 1557, after which William Peto was provided but resigned in 1558, and on 14 October 1558, Francis Mallett was nominated to the see but not consecrated, and was deprived later in the year. For the dates of bishops, see Powicke, F. M. and Fryde, E. B., ed., Handbook of British Chronology (2nd ed., 1961), pp 202-80.Google Scholar

5 Reginald Pole died on 17 November 1558. Maurice Griffith of Rochester died on 20 November 1558, John Holyman of Bristol on 20 December 1558, and John Christopherson of Chichester sometime before 28 December 1558. Frances Mallet (see note 4) was deprived before the end of 1558.

6 Bonner was also causing trouble by refusing to alter his services in accordance with the new Prayer Book. The Act of Uniformity provided that the new Prayer Book should be used on and after 24 June 1559, but many churches began to use it before that date, and changes had been made in the royal chapel on Easter Day, even before the Act had been passed. By the end of May most London churches were using the new Prayer Book, and it was only at St Paul's that the old services were maintained; although Bonner was not then compelled by law to use the Prayer Book, the refusal of the bishop of London to fall into line was a nuisance. He was offered a pension if he would resign, but refused. The old services ceased in St Paul's on 11 June 1559, twelve days after Bonner's deprivation. See bishop of Aquila to king of Spain, 24 May 1559 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 69, at p. 76); II Schifanoya to Ottaviano Vivaldino, 28 March 1559, and II Schifanoya to castellan of Mantua, 6 June 1559 (Cal. S. P. Ven., vii, 57, 94); Strype, Annals of the Reformation (Oxford, 1820-40), vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 205; J. Nichols, ed., Diary of Henry Machyn (Camden Soc, 1848), p. 200.Google Scholar

7 Edmund Bonner of London on 30 May; Owen Oglethorpe of Carlisle, Cuthbert Scott of Chester, Ralph Baynes of Coventry and Lichfield, Thomas Watson of Lincoln, John White of Winchester, and Richard Pates of Worcester, all on 26 June; Thomas Thirlby of Ely and Nicholas Heath of York, on 5 July; and James Brooks of Gloucester, and Thomas Reynold (nominated to Hereford; see note 4) on an unknown date. Goldwell of St Asaph resigned in June 1559. It is a matter of doubt whether Kitchin of Llandaff ever took the oath; however, on 18 July 1559, he signed a document in which he undertook, in consideration of the queen's bountiful grace to him in postponing his obligation to take the oath, to carry out ‘the whole course of religion now approved in the state of her Grace's realme’ and to ‘require the said othe of others receyving office ecclesiastical or temporal, as in the statute thereof provyded’ (see Estcourt, E. E., The Question of Anglican Ordinations Discussed (London, 1873), p. 93 Google Scholar, where the document is printed [this work is hereafter cited as Estcourt, Ordinations]).

8 Henry Morgan died on 23 December 1559.

9 See Registrum Matthei Parker Diocesis Cantuariensis. A.D. 1559-1575. Register I, transcribed by E. Margaret Thompson; ed. by W. H. Frere (Canterbury and York Soc, 2 vols, 1928), Vol. 1, pp. 16-25 [hereafter cited as Parker's Register]. The register contains all the documents relating to Parker's consecration; see Vol. 1, pp. 2-38. See Davies, E. J., ‘Archbishop Parker's Register’, E.H.R., xxiv (1919), 257-60Google Scholar; Thompson, B. M., The Consecration of Archbishop Parker (London, 1934)Google Scholar; and cf. Whitebrook, J. C., The Consecration of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1945).Google Scholar

10 25 Hen. VIII, c. 20 (Statutes of the Realm, iii, 462-4): ‘An Arte restrayning the payment of Annates, etc.’; the short title, ‘The Appointment of Bishops Act, 1533’, was given to the act by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1948. The act had been repealed in Mary's reign by 1 and 2 Phil, and Mar., ch. 8, but was revived by s. 2 of the Act of Supremacy, 1559. The act provided, among other things, that elections of archbishops and bishops should be made by deans and chapters, and in default of such election the king should present by letters patent. The election of archbishops and bishops of the Church of England is still carried out in accordance with the act.

11 See s. 4 of the 25 Hen. VIII, c. 20: ‘… and then after he [i.e., the elect] hath made such othe and feautie only to the Kynges Majestie hys heires and successours as shalbe lymytted for the same, the Kynges Highnes by his letters patentes under hys greate seale shall signifie the said eleccion to one archebishop and ij other bisshoppes or els to iiij bishoppes within this realme or within any other the Kynges domynyons to be assigned by the Kynges Highnes, his heires or successours, requyring and comaunding the seid archebishop and byshoppes with all spede and seleritye [to confirme the seid eleccion and] to investe and consecrate the seid person soo elected to the office and dignitye he is elected unto … ’ The words in square brackets are interlined in the original act.

12 P.R.O., S.P. 12/6/41; Cal. Pat. Rolls (1558-1560), p. 28; Rymer, Foedera, xv, 541. Barlow was translated from St David's to Bath and Wells in 1548, but resigned in October 1553; he was nominated to Chichester in December 1559. John Scory was translated from Rochester to Chichester in May 1552, but was deprived in August 1553; he was elected to Hereford on 15 July 1559, and his election was confirmed on 20 December 1559. For Scory's consecration, see Messenger, E. C., ‘Bishop Bonner and Anglican Orders’, Dublin Review, vol. 198 (1936), pp. 100-10Google Scholar. Since neither of these men was in possession of a see they were not qualified to act, since the act of 1553 required ‘bishops within the realm’, that is, in possession of English sees.

13 Cf. the comment of Canon Estcourt in Ordinations, p. 85.

14 P.R.O., S.P. 12/5/25. It is printed in full in Estcourt, Ordinations, 86, where a facsimile is also provided, and in Birt, Elizabethan Religious Settlement, 242, 243. That the document was drawn up by an official is indicated by the sentence, ‘And thordinary fees to be payde to her Majesties Officers’.

15 5 and 6 Edw. VI, c. 1 (Statutes of the Realm, iv, 130-32); the short title, ‘The Act of Uniformity, 1551’, was given to the act by the Statute Law Revision Art, 1948.

16 In Parker's register, where the letters patent are set out (Parker's Register, i, 5), they are addressed to Barlow, Scory and Coverdale as ‘Willelmo Barlo quondam Bathoniensi Episcopo nunc Cicestrensi electo, Joanni Scory quondam Cicestrensi Episcopo nunc electa Herefordensi, Milone Coverdale quondam Exoniensi Episcopo’. Hodgkin was addressed as ‘Richardo Bedfordensi’ but in the register ‘Richardo’ is crossed out and ‘Joanni’ written over. Bale was addressed as ‘Osserensi Episcopo’. Miles Coverdale was consecrated bishop of Exeter on 30 August 1551, and deprived in September 1553. John Bale was consecrated bishop of Ossory in Ireland on 2 February 1553, but left the diocese during the same year. Hodgkin was appointed suffragan, bishop of Bedford on 9 December 1537, and Salisbury was appointed suffragan bishop of Thetford on 19 March 1536. Hodgkin and Salisbury bad been consecrated according to the Catholic Pontifical.

17 The letters patent, together with the legal opinion of the civilians who were consulted, are reproduced in Parker's Register, i, 5, 6; Rymer, Foedera, xv, 549. The original draft, signed by the civilians, is in P.R.O., S.P. 12/7/56, which has slight and unimportant differences from the text of the patent rolls and that printed by Rymer. The text of the supplentes clause is as follows: ‘Supplentes nihilominus Suprema auctoritate nostra Regia ex mero motu et certa Scientia nostris si quid aut in hiis que juxta mandatum nostrum predictum per vos fient aut in vobis aut vestrum aliquo conditione statu facilitate vestris ad premissa perficienda desit aut deerit eorum que per Statuta hujus Regni nostri aut per Leges ecclesiasticas in hac parte requiruntur aut necessaria sunt Temporis Ratione et rerum necessitate id postulante’. The opening words of the clause are curiously reminiscent of the draftsmanship of the papal curia. Had Bonner's case come to trial there would, presumably, have been an interesting argument as to what was the effect, if any, of this clause.

18 See Parker's Register, i, 31-33. For a translation of the description of Parker's consecration, see Barnes, , Bishop Barlow and Anglican Orders (London, 1922), 188-90Google Scholar [cited hereafter as Barnes, Barlow]. The register is careful not to refer to the consecrator and his assistants as if they were consecrated diocesans; for example: ‘Finito tandem evangelio, Herefordensis electus [Scory], Bedfordensis suffrageneus [Hodgkin], et Milo Coverdale (de quibus supra) Archiepiscopum coram Cicestrensi electo [Barlow], apud mensam in Cathedra sedente …” (Parker's Register, i, 32).

19 For the parliamentary history of this bill, see Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments: 1559-1581 (London, 1953), 116-21Google Scholar.

20 5 Eliz. I, ch. 1 (Statutes of the Realm, iv, 402-05). The act was repealed by the Religious Disabilities Act, 1846, s. 1.

21 Cecil to sir Thomas Smith, 27 February 1563; printed in Wright, T., Queen Elizabeth and Her Times (London, 1838), i, 125, at p. 126.Google Scholar

22 Cf. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments: 1559-1581, 121: ‘The voice of moderation had been decisively beaten, and the government had no option but to accept the result. They were in serious need of the measure: of the extension of the oath, and, as they no doubt thought, of severer penalties against Catholic propagandists. The queen could not employ the royal veto in such a situation. However, she had other ways of asserting her will. She could be rigorous or slack in the execution of the law.’

23 Correspondence of Matthew Parker, D.D., archbishop of Canterbury (Parker Soc, 1853), 173-5; Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker (Oxford, 1821), i, 125, 126. The Spanish ambassador reported to the king of Spain, in a letter dated 24 April 1563 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 321, at p. 322), that ‘This week they began to demand the oath from the Catholic bishops in accordance with the new Act passed in Parliament recently, and the bishops of London and Lincoln … have been summoned for Monday next [26 April]’. A fortnight later he reported that the matter had come to an end because the queen had refused to sign the commission; see Bishop of Aquila to the king of Spain, 9 May 1563 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 323, 324). The oath was not tendered to Bonner until about a year later.

24 The precise reason for Bonner's imprisonment is uncertain; in a list of names of prisoners remaining in the Marshalsea, dated 2 July 1561 (printed in Bridgett, T. E. and Knox, T. F., The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth (London, 1889), p. 84 Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Bridgett, Hierarchy]), it is said to be ‘for matter of religion’ CDr Bonner, sent in the 20 April 1560, upon the commandments of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and others, the Queen's Majesty's commissioners; viz. for matter of religion’). In the King's Bench record of the prosecution of Bonner (P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex, m. 13), it was noted that ‘in quorum [i.e. Marrescallorum Marescalcie] custodiam preantea commissus fuit per mandatum Mathei, permissione divina Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, Metropolitani totius Regni Anglie, et aliorum Commissionarum dicte domine Regine ad causas ecclesiasticas examinandas assignatorum, salvo custodiendus quousque etc.’; there is a similar entry on the Controlment Roll (P.R.O., K.B. 29/199, m. 34). According to Jewel, Bonner and others were imprisoned ‘for having obstinately refused attendance on public worship, and every where declaiming and railing against that religion which we now profess’ (see Jewel to Peter Martyr, 22 May l560;Zurich Letter,i,V,at p. 79). Jewel also stated thatwhen Bonner was imprisoned one of his fellow prisoners abused him in violent language, and refused to have anything to do with him (see Jewel to Peter Martyr, 1 June 1560; Zurich Letters, i, 80, at p. 82). Other bishops were subsequently imprisoned in the Tower and elsewhere; for instance, on 22 May 1560, Cecil wrote to sir Nicholas Throgmorton: ‘Yesterday Watson (quondam Lincoln), Pates (quondam Wigorn), Feckenham (quondam Abbot) were committed to the Tower, as men obstinate. More will or must follow, ad terrorem. Bonner is in the Marshalsea’ (see Forbes, , A Full View of the Public Transactions in the reign of Elizabeth [London, 1740-41], i, 460 Google Scholar).

25 Grindal to Cecil, 2 May 1564; P.R.O., S.P. 12/34/1; printed in Bridgett, Hierarchy, 86, and Barnes, Barlow, 96, note 1.

26 Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 3; Luis Roman to Granvelle, 29 April, 1564 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 360).

27 de Silva to the king of Spain, 29 September 1564 (see T. Gonzalez, Documents from Simancas relating to the reign of Elizabeth, tr. Spencer Hall, London, 1865, p. 93).

28 See Strype, Parker, ii, 168; Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses, i, 409. Plowden was the most eminent common lawyer of his day and became Treasurer of the Middle Temple; Wray was appointed, in 1574, chief justice of the King's Bench (not the Common Pleas, as stated by Strype); Lovelace was later advanced to the degree of serjeant-at-law, and Strype stated that he was refused an appointment by Parker ‘because he never mentioned the matter [of Bonner] to him’. According to Strype, Plowden, Wray and Lovelace were assigned by the court as counsel for Bonner, but the record of the case on the Coram Rege Roll (P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex, m. 13) gives no support for that statement; it does not record any counsel appearing for Bonner. It seems likely that counsel appeared when the questions of law were argued in chambers. It is worth noting that when Wray presided as chief justice of the King's Bench at the trial of Edmund Campion in 1581, he sent a message to Plowden, whom he had seen enter the court, asking him to withdraw.

29 In 1519 Bonner proceeded bachelor of canon law and bachelor ofcivillawontwo successive days, and in 1525 he became doctor of civil law. See Register of the University of Oxford (ed. Boase, C. W. and Clark, A., Oxford Hist. Soc), vol. 1 (1885), p. 109.Google Scholar

30 B.M., MSS. Harl. 421 ff. 4-6; the document is mutilated. There is a printed version in Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 4-7; portions of two paragraphs are printedin Barnes, Barlow, 98, and in Estcourt, Ordinations, 118.

31 In full, anno primo et anno quinto, that is, 1 Eliz. I, ch. 1 (Act of Supremacy) and 5 Eliz. I, ch. 1.

32 See note 11.

33 The first bill was introduced in the commons; it was read a first time on 9 February, a second time on 13 February, debated on 14 February, and committed on 15 February; the bill was so drastically amended in committee that it emerged as a new bill, the second supremacy bill.

34 For the relevant parliamentary history, see Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments: 1559-1581, 51-68,69-76. See also, Neale, J. E., ‘The Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity’, E.H.R., lxv (1950), 304-32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and cf. Maitland, F. W., Collected Papers (Cambridge, 1911), iii, 188–204 Google Scholar.

35 That is, the sovereign, the lords and the commons. Bacon defined a statute as: ‘A law agreed upon by the king or queen of England, having regal authority, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons, lawfully assembled; which taketh strength and life by the assent royal’ (Bacon, Abridgment, s.v. Statute).

36 Cf. Erskine May, Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament (18th ed., 1971), p. 4: ‘The Lords Spiritual and Temporal sit together, and jointly constitute the House of Lords’.

37 The enacting clause is modified in the case of statutes enacted in accordance with the provisions of the Parliament Acts, 1911 and 1949. And in certain statutes of a financial nature the enacting clause is preceded by words of grant addressed to the queen which recite the resolution of the house of commons by which the introduction of the bill was authorized; those words of grant are not, strictly speaking, words of enactment, but for the purposes of parliamentary procedure they are classed with those words and not with the preamble. it is a singularity of the enacting clause of a modern statute that it refers to both the lords spiritual and the lords temporal separately, although they form only one unit in the legislative process.

38 Cf. the opinions of F. W. Maitland: ‘… it was by no means so plain as it now is that an Act against which the spiritual lords have voted in a body may still be an Act of the three Estates’ (Camb. Mod. Hist., 1st ed., ii, 571); ‘In 1559 our rule, that the bishops may be all in the minority and the Act never the worse, was certainly in the making, but I doubt it was already past discussion’ (Collected Papers, iii, 126).

39 Rot. Parl., iii, 348-51.

40 As to this, see, e.g., Pike, L. O., Constitutional History of the House of Lords (London, 1894), 153-68.Google Scholar

41 Keilwey's Reports, 184b: ‘Et aury les Justices disoyent que nostre Seigniour le Roy poit assets bien tener son Parliament per luy, et ses temporall Seigniors, et per les Commons, tous sans les Spirituals Seigniors, car les spiritual Seigniors nont ascun place en le Parliament chamber per reason de lour spiritualtie, mes solement per reason de lour temporall possessions &c.’ For the nature and probable authorship of Keilwey'3 Reports, see A. W. B. Simpson, ‘Keilwey's Reports, temp. Henry VII and Henry VIII’, 73 L.Q.R. 89-105 (1957).

42 Bishop of Aquila to the king of Spain, 19 June 1559 (printed in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Relations Politiques, i, 537, at p. 540; Cal. S. P. Span., i, 75, at p. 76): ‘Agora parece que hallan en dar forma legitima a esta privacion, porque los dotores de aqui dicen que los obispos no pueden ser privados por desobedientes desta ley a cuyo establecimiento o promulgacion han contradicto siempre y contradicen agora, pretendiendo que no puede tener vigor conforme a la costumbre deste reino habiendose hecho en contradicion de todo el estado ecclesiastico’.

43 Executors of Skewys v. Chamond (1544), Dyer 59b, at p. 60a.

44 Co. Inst, ii, 586.

45 The statutes were 13 Ric. II, cc. 2 and 3.

46 The right to protest is an ancient privilege of the house of lords that is maintained by the existing standing orders which provide that, in addition to voting upon a question, any lord may record his dissent with or without his reasons for objecting to a decision of the house, and every such protest is entered in the journals (H.L. Standing Orders [1954] [Public Business] No. 52).

47 Co. Inst, ii, 587.

48 They withdrew under protest, ‘saving to themselves and their successors all such right in judicature as they have by law, and of right ought to have’. The Constitutions of Clarendon declared that archbishops and bishops ought to be present at trials in the king's courts unless there were a question of life or limb. It was for this reason that the lords spiritual did not sit during the trial of peers in the Court of the King in Parliament or the Court of the Lord High Steward.

49 Colledge of Phisitians v. Cooper (or Hubert) (1675), 3 Keb. 587, per Hale, C. 1. Coke (Co. Inst, iv, 25) said that ‘the difference between an act of parliament and an ordinance in parliament, is, for that the ordinance wanteth the threefold consent, and is ordained by one or two of them’ (see also Co. Litt, 159b). For this reason, the enactments made during the period of the Commonwealth are not reckoned as acts of parliament, and the term ‘ordinance’ is applied to the enactments of the lords and commons during that period; see, e.g., the title of, and the preamble to, 12 Car. II, c. 2 (1660).

50 The private act for the attainder of the duke of Norfolk, which received the royal assent by commission just before the death of Henry VIII, was declared void by another act, promoted by the duke in the first year of the reign of Mary. The act of Mary recited that the reasons for avoiding the attainder were that the commission did not show that the king himself had given his consent, that the commission was not signed by the king's own hand but by a stamp, and that it was signed in the wrong place; and the act declared that what was done by virtue of the commission was clearly void in law and did not make the bill an act of parliament, for the bill remained merely a bill exhibited in parliament and assented by the lords and commons but not by the king. The act of Mary is classified, in the later printed editions of the statutes, as cap. 13 of the list of private acts of 1 March, sess. 2, and is printed in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 1, pp. lxxv, lxxvi. There are two known cases in the nineteenth century where the royal assent was given by mistake to bills which had not completed all their stages, namely a public bill, in 1830, to amend the law relating to the employment of children in cotton factories, and a private bill, in 1844, for the extension of a railway undertaking; in each case the position was regularized by a subsequent statute; see Clifford, F., History of Private Bill Legislation (London, 1885-87), i, 315, 316Google Scholar. It is, however, quite clear that today, while the question of the sufficiency of consent is open to the courts, the question of regularity of consent is not. Thus, if a bill has been agreed to by both houses of parliament and has received the royal assent, it cannot be impeached in the courts on the ground that its introduction or passage through parliament was attended by irregularity (see Edinburgh and Dalkeith Ry. Co. v. Wauchope (1842), 8 CI. and Fin. 710, H.L., at p. US, per Lord Campbell), or even that it was procured by fraud (Stead v. Carey [1845], 1 C.B. 496, at p. 522, per Tindal, C.J.).

51 The Act of Supremacy commenced with a preamble which began with the phrase, ‘Most humblie besechen yor most excellent Mstle yor faitheful and obedient subjectes the lordes spuall and temporall, and the comons in this yor pnte Plament assembled …’; the preamble ended with the enacting formula, ‘… that it may be enacted by thauctorite of this pnte Plamt that …’. The question of the sufficiency of consent has arisen only in relation to documents that do not contain a recital of the three consents; see, e.g., Wiltes Peerage Claim (1869), L.R. 4 H.L. 126. For an examination of the factors resulting in the reception of documents not having such a recital, for example the inclusion in them of the words ‘by the authority of Parliament’, see The Prince's Case (1606), 8 Co. Rep. la, at p. 20b.

52 Y.B., 33 Hen. VI, pi. 8: ‘C'est un Acte de Parlement, et nous voillomes estre bien avise devant que nous anullons ascun Acte fait en la Parlement: et peraventure le matter doit attendre jusque a le prochein Parlement adonquez nous poimes estre certifie par eux de la certainte de le matter: mes non obstante nous voillomes estre avises que sera fait’.

53 See Erskine May, Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament (18th ed., 1971), p. 242. The Evidence Act, 1845, s. 3, provided that the journals of either house of parliament might be proved by copies purporting to be printed by the printer to either house, and no proof was necessary that such copies were so printed. The journals are admissible as evidence of the facts relating to parliamentary procedure therein recorded (see Attorney-General v. Bradlaugh [1885], 14 Q.B.D. 667, C.A.).

54 See D'Ewes, Journals, 27; cf. Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 87. The existing journals of the house do not record any sitting between 13 and 17 April, 1559; D'Ewes, however, did not consider that the respective clerks carried out their duties efficiently, with regard to the journals. He complained of the ‘great negligence of … Seymour Esq.; now Clerk of the same House [of Commons]’, and also of ‘the error of Francis Spilman Esq.; Clerk of the Upper House’ (D'Ewes, Journals, 29), and similar complaints occur elsewhere in D'Ewes's Journals. ‘… Seymour’ is, of course, John Seymour who initiated the Commons Journals, and to whom D'Ewes frequently referred in this way when he complained about his conduct.

55 D'Ewes, Journals, 27-29.

56 Voting in a division by proxy is an ancient privilege of the house of lords, of which use was constantly made in the past by both lords spiritual and lords temporal. Although the privilege has not been formally abandoned, it has not been exercised since 1868 when the house of lords, acting on the report of a committee of the house, agreed to the adoption of a standing order by which the practice of calling for proxies on a division was discontinued (see now, H.L. Standing Orders [1954] [Public Business] No. 53). For a short account of voting by proxy, see Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords, 243-5. For the proxies for this session, see D'Ewes, Journals, 3-5.

57 D'Ewes, Journals, 28 (D'Ewes stated ‘… dissentientibus … Episcopo Oxon …’ which is presumably a misprint for ‘Exon'; the see of Oxford was vacant); Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 87. Of the twenty-five sees of England and Wales (excluding Sodor and Man), 7 were vacant (Canterbury, Norwich, Oxford, Bristol, Chichester and Rochester by death, and Salisbury by deprivation), and Thomas Reynold, who had been nominated to Hereford, had not been consecrated nor had received his temporalities, and was therefore ineligible to sit and vote in the house of lords. There were, thus, 17 effective bishops in the house of lords, to whom must be added the abbot of Westminster and the prior of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in order to make up the full tally of lords spiritual. Ten lords spiritual voted in person against the third reading: York, London, Coventry and Lichfield, Chester, Carlisle, Ely, Exeter, Worcester, Llandaff and the abbot of Westminster. In addition there were 5 proxies: York was sole or joint proctor for Peterborough, Durham, Bath and Wells, St David's and the prior of St John; London was joint proctor for Peterborough and Bath and Wells; and Coventry and Lichfield was joint proctor for Peterborough. Four lords spiritual were not present and had not given proxies: Winchester, Gloucester, Lincoln and St Asaph.

58 See Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords, p. vii. Cf. Lords Journals, i, 576. For a description of the house of lords journals, see A. F. Pollard, “The Authenticity of the Lords’ Journals in the Sixteenth Century’, Trans. R. Hist. Soc, 3rd ser., viii (1914), 17-40. See note 54 for the complaints of sir Simonds D'Ewes about the negligence and mistakes of the clerks of both houses.

59 See note 11.

60 See Parker's Register, ii, 450. Home had been nominated on 18 December 1560.

61 B.M., MSS. Harl. 419, f. 149. It is printed in Estcourt, Ordinations, 104-07.

62 The most important differences are that the document in the Foxe MSS. described Barlow as the consecrator and the others as ‘assistants’, and stated that the rite employed was that of the Ordinal of Edward VI; both of these statements are omitted in the existing register.

63 B.M., MSS. Harl. 419, f. 149. The text is printed in Estcourt, Ordinations, 104-07, with the relevant extracts from Parker's register in a parallel column; there is also a facsimile of the document. The original of the part quoted is: ‘Willelmus Barlow consecratus fuit tempore Henr. VIII. Johannes Scory suffectus est Episcopus Roffen. per litteras patentes datas mandato regis ad consecrandum eundem xxviimo Aprilis anno Regni Regis Edwardi sexti quinto. Consecravit Tho. Cant, assistentibus Nicolao London, et Johanne Bedforden. xxxmo Augusti et Regni Regis Edwardi VIti quinto. Consecratus Milo Coverdall in Episcopum Exonien. xxx° die mensis Augusti anno domini 1551mo et Regni Regis praedicta quinto eosdem consecratores.’

64 For the enrolment of the certificate and its terms, see P.R.O., K.B. 27/1210, Rex, no. xi. Part of the text of the certificate (but not of the enrolment) is printed in Dixon, R. W., History of the Church of England (Oxford, 1878-1902), vi, 31 noteGoogle Scholar.

65 The statute 1 Hen. V, c. 5 (the Statute of Additions of 1413) provided that in all original writs, appeals and indictments there should be added, after the names of the defendants or accused persons, a statement of their ‘estate or degree or mystery, and of the towns, hamlets, or places, and countries, in which they were*. The statute was repealed in 1883 by the 46 & 47 Vict., c. 49, s. 4.

66 The relevant part of the certificate is as follows (P.R.O., K.B. 27/1210, Rex, no. xi): ‘… certificavimus quod nos Robertus Episcopus … obtulimus et ministravimus Edmundo Bonner, alias Boner, de Southwark predict: in Com. Surr. predicto legum doctor! personae ecclesiasticae in sacris ordinibus constitutae, tunc et ibidem coram nobis comparenti … Sacramentum …’ The words to which objection was taken are those printed in italics.

67 The relevant part of the enrolment is as follows (P.R.O., K.B. 27/1210, Rex, no. xi): ‘Memorandum quod Georgius Ackworthe, legum doctor, vicarius generalis in Spiritualibus Roberti Wintonensis Episcopi, venit hie in Curiam domine Regine… . Et protulit hie in Curia quandam certificacionem prefati Roberti … Que Sequitur in hec verba …’

68 See Bonner's Case (1564), Dyer 234a.

69 For the indictment, see P.R.O., K.B. 9/608, pt. 1, m. 41.

70 See P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex, no. xiii (Coram Rege Roll); and see also the short entry on the Controlment Roll (P.R.O., K.B. 29/199, m. 34).

71 See P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex, no. xiii, and Bonner's Case (1564), Dyer 234a: ‘Et fuit tenus que le trial ne sera per homines de Com. Middlesex, sed per homines de Com. Surrey, de vicinat. de Southwark.’ Cf. Co. Inst, iii, 34: ‘… the question upon the statute of 5 Eliz. was, if Bonner should appear and plead not guilty, by what county he should be tried, whether by a jury of Midd. where the indictment was, or by a jury of Surrey, where the offence was committed; and resolved that he should be tried by a jury of Surrey: for the statute of 5 Eliz. extendeth to the indictment only, and leaveth the trial to the common law …’

72 Sir Robert Catlin (or Cattlyn) was appointed a judge of the Common Pleas in 1558 and chief justice of the King's Bench in 1559. He died in 1574.

73 Bonner's Case (1564), Dyer 234a: ‘Et fuit mult debate inter omnes justic. in camera dmi. Catlyne, si Bonner poit donner in evidence sur cest issue, scil. quod ipse non est inde culpabilis, que le dit Evesque de Winton, non fuit episcopus tempore oblationis sacramenti. Et resolve per omnes que, si le verity et materia soit tyel in fait, il a ceo serra bien resceive sur cet issue, et le jury ceo triera.’

74 Bonner to the queen, 26 October 1564, printed in App. X, in Strype, History of the Life . of Edmund Grindal (Oxford, 1821), p. 487; Strype used the copy of the letter in the Petyt MSS. in the Library of the Inner Temple (cf. H.M.C., 2nd Rep., App., p. 152, and 11th Rep., App. VII, p. 276).

75 Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 14 October 1564 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 388, at p. 389). On his appointment as ambassador in January 1564, de Silva was instructed, among other things, to intercede pressingly on behalf of the bishops (see Gonzalez, T., Documents from Simancas relating to the reign of Elizabeth, tr. Spencer Hall, London, 1865, p. 88 Google Scholar).

76 Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 13 November 1564 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 392); cf. Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 28 January 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 511, at p. 516).

77 P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex. no. xiii.

78 For the relevant documents relating to Barlow, see Barnes, Barlow, Apps. IV and V. And see Claude Jenkins, ‘Bishop Barlow's Consecration and Archbishop Parker's Register’ in Church Hist. Pub., xvii (1935).

79 Sander, Nicholas, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, tr. Lewis, D. (London, 1877), p. 276.Google Scholar

80 See Barnes, Barlow, 104, 105. When Creagh left Louvain he returned to Ireland and was again captured in 1568; he was brought to the Tower once more, and he died there in 1585.

81 Randolph to Cecil, 30 March 1565 (P.R.O., S.P. 52/10/66; printed in Bridgett, Hierarchy, 87). This letter was written three weeks before Creagh escaped from the Tower.

82 Archbishop of York to the queen, 23 June 1565, quoted from the calendar (Cal. S. P. Dom. Eliz., Addenda, 1547-1565, p. 567).

83 Kennedy, W. M., in his Archbishop Parker (London, 1908), p. 225 Google Scholar, said that Bonner went back to prison ‘with the satisfaction of knowing that he had placed both the bishops and the government in a decidedly awkward position’.

84 8 Eliz. I, c. 1 (Statutes of the Realm, iv, 484-6). The act was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1863. According to the Spanish ambassador, the bill was introduced because of a petition from the bishops; see Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 19 October 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 587, at p. 588).

85 See Commons Journals, i, 75, 76, 78, 81; Lords Journals, i, 636, 638, 639, 640, 641, 651, 666; D'Ewes, Journals, 101, 102, 103, 108, 110, 116, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130; Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 11 November 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 594, at p. 596); Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 7 December 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 600). Sir John Neale, in his Elizabeth I and her Parliaments: 1559-1581, does not, apparently, notice the passage through parliament of this curious piece of legislation.

88 P.R.O., K.B. 27/1212, Rex, no. xiii dorse.

87 The precise significance of this word in this sentence is not clear.

88 The writ and Parker's certificate are entered in the archbishop's register; see Parker's Register, ii, 459-61.

89 Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 18 March 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 529, at p. 533). See also Guzman de Silva to the king of Spain, 19 October 1566 (Cal. S. P. Span., i, 587. at p. 588).

90 Strype, Edmund Grindal, 208-16. Mgr D. Shanahan has suggested that Bonner's body was eventually buried at Copford, near Colchester, in Essex; see Shanahan, ‘De Mortuis’, Essex Recusant, i (1959), 78, at p. 80.

91 Kennedy, W. M., Archbishop Parker (London, 1908), 227, 228.Google Scholar

92 Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt 2, p. 8.

93 I am much indebted to Mrs D. M. Clarke for her zeal and skill in searching for and transcribing documents at the Public Record Office which were essential for this paper.