cook was gone to fetch him some drink, made use of his opportunity to mingle poison in the gruel that was preparing for the Bishop and his household. Probably it was a fast day; for the Bishop, fasting altogether, escaped; but of seventeen persons, who partook of the gruel, two died, and the rest were terribly disordered. We may suppose the crime of poisoning to have been frightfully common in England, since it was thought necessary, by an express act, to declare it high-treason, and to punish it by boiling alive, which horrible death was inflicted upon the miserable Rouse. If he thought to please the King by removing a thorn out of his side, he found himself mistaken. But it is more likely that he was a fanatic, whom Fisher's severity in enforcing the laws against heresy had driven mad. Excessive cruelty in punishment rarely answers its purpose, for we find that the example of boiling Rouse did not deter a woman servant from poisoning three families; She suffered the same penalty, which was abolished along with the rest of Henry the Eighth's new invented treasons. It is the chance of impunity; not the lenity of punishment that encourages crime. The Spanish inquisition was the only system of cruelty that perfectly answered its end; but this succeeded rather by destroying all confidence and security than by the terror of its ghastly tortures.

The other danger which threatened the Bishop proceeded from a cannon ball, which being shot from the other side of the Thames, pierced through his house at Lambeth-marsh, and only just missed his study. This might possibly be accidental, but Fisher suspected a design against his life, and retired to his see of Rochester.

The divorce cause, which, upon the Queen's appeal, had been advoked to Rome, still lingered on. The case had been divided into three and twenty heads, and a year was consumed in discussing the first, which had little relation to the main point, and was of a nature which had better not been discussed at all. Perhaps the suit was wilfully protracted, in hopes that the death of Catherine would end it in the most convenient manner; for she had many infirmities, and a breaking heart but this prospect suited not the impatience of Henry. That he endured so long delay can only be ascribed to his reluctance to break with the see of Rome. But accident about this time introduced him to Cranmer, and all his scruples were quickly removed. In 1521 it was first proposed in Convocation to bestow on the King the title of Supreme Head of the Church. Fisher opposed the innovation, which to him appeared blasphemous, with all his might, and succeeded so far as to get a clause inserted to the effect, that the King was acknowledged Head of the Church, IN SO FAR AS IT IS LAWFUL BY THE LAW OF CHRIST, which was almost taking away with the one hand

what was given by the other. In this form, however, it passed the upper house of Convocation, nine Bishops and fifty-two Abbots and Priors voting in its favour.

If we are to believe the author of the Life of Bishop Fisher, published under the name of Bailey, but really composed by Hall, a bigotted Romanist, and seminary priest at Cambray, King Henry was mightily enraged at the introduction of this neutralizing ingredient into his title. He sent for those whom he had employed to manage the business in the Convocation, and rated in the following kingly strain:" Mother of God! you have played me a pretty prank: I thought to have made fools of them, and now you have so ordered the business that they are likely to make a fool of me, as they have done of you already, Go unto them again, and let me have the business passed without any quantums or tantums. I will have no quantums or tantums in the business, but let it be done." But in truth, there is nothing in eastern fiction more unfounded than the reports of Princes' private conversations with which many so-called histories abound. The poet may well be allowed to overhear the whispers of lovers, and the soliloquies of captives in their dungeons, but the historian should not usurp the same privilege. This assumption of supremacy met with little opposition in the province of Canterbury, but York, encouraged by Archbishop Lee, held out long and honourably, and sent two letters to his Majesty, respectfully informing him of their reasons for denying the title he claimed. The King, the evil of whose violent nature was not yet ripened, answered the northern Convocation in a mild and argumentative letter, probably composed, however, by Cranmer, in which “he disclaimed all design by fraud to surprise, or by force to captivate, their judgments, but only to convince them of the truth, and the equity of what he desired. He declared the sense of "Supreme Head of the Church," (though offensive in the sound to ignorant ears) claiming nothing thereby more than what christian princes in the primitive times assumed to themselves in their own dominions, so that it seems he wrought so far on their affections, that at last they consented thereunto."

So says that stout Church and King man, Tom Fuller; but we believe that the King's prerogative, after all, was more effective than his sophistry. If nothing more be meant by the King's supremacy than his right to govern the persons and properties of all his subjects, this had been asserted over and over again by almost every monarch in Europe. Even the royal right to the appointment of Bishops, &c., to the summoning convocations and synods, and the passing of regulative ordinances for the Church, was not altogether a new claim, though it

had been stoutly resisted by the more zealous Church-men. And indeed, however expedient it may be in a secular point of view, that such power be vested in the crown, it is utterly without example in the primitive church, or even analogy in the Jewish theocracy. It is a moot point whether the Bishops who purchased of Constantine an establishment for Christianity, and a secular rank for themselves, were not traitors to the Church. The question should be argued on grounds of christian expediency. If, however, it be deemed necessary that the Church possess a fixed property, and that property be the foundation of political privileges, it seems inconsistent with public safety, that the civil government should suffer the disposal of such property to pass out of its own hands. But Henry, following the precedent of Constantinopolitan Emperors, doubtless meant, by assuming the spiritual supremacy within his own dominions, to be lord of his subjects' faith as well as of their works, and to dispose of their creeds as well as of their properties; in fact, to be Alterius orbis Papa, the Pope of his own kingdom. Now of all possible tyrannies, this would have been the worst. No need to suppose a succession of Harry the Eigths. Such a power would have been fatal to all civil and intellectual freedom, even if possessed by Princes mild, intelligent, and pious as Charles the First. That no toleration would have been admitted or admissible, that every shade of opinion or mode of adoration that did not accord with the fancy of the reigning monarch would be subject to the penalties of treason; and, on the other hand, that every effort on behalf of civil liberty would be treated as schism or sacrilege, would not have been the worst consequence of the royal and national papacy. There would have been a new creed at least with every reign, perhaps with every year. Church would have been impoverished and the clergy ruined by capricious changes in garments, which would be altered as frequently and as expensively as the uniforms of crack regiments. But worse than all, nobody who wished to be saved in the Church Royal would know what to believe, or how to pray. It is by no means impossible that the immortality of the soul might have been abolished, or purgatory established by royal proclamation, and royal proclamations would then have had the force of laws.

We think, therefore, that the clergy of Yorkshire and the other northern provinces acted commendably in delaying to transfer their spiritual allegiance; for as Henry still maintained the doctrines of the Church of Rome,―nay, even burned many for the disbelief of tenets grounded solely on the authority and tradition of that Church-tenets of which he could have no proof that did not rest on the infallibility of that Church, of which the papacy is the sealing stone. The mere act of

separation from the Catholic body was on Henry's part an act of schism, however justifiable in those real reformers, who held conscientiously that the Popes had been, and continued to be, corrupters of christianity, and upholders of corruption.

But unfortunately for their own credit, the adherents of the ancient Church attempted to support their failing cause by means the most illjudged and unjustifiable; and Bishop Fisher in his old age betrayed a degree of credulity, or rather gullibility, which the darkness of the time can hardly excuse. At the same time, we entirely acquit him of any participation in, or connivance at, the fraud. He was one of those good men who think the excellence of faith consists in believing readily and much. He was weak and grey-headed. He saw that Church which he esteemed the kingdom of heaven upon earth, and the Israel of God, in peril of being led away captive; and thought that if ever power divine displayed itself at time of need, that time was come. Nothing almost sees miracles, But miseries.

In the parish of Aldington, in Kent, there lived a young woman, named Elizabeth Barton, of mean birth and no education, who was subject to that sort of epileptic fits which the ignorance of mankind was wont to attribute either to possession or inspiration. When in these trances, she uttered wild incoherent speeches, which sometimes seemed to have relation to the passages of the times. Hereupon Masters, the priest of Adlington, hoping to draw much custom by means of this poor diseased creature, drew up an account of her ravings and prophecyings, and went to the Archbishop Warham, and wrought so successfully upon the aged prelate, that he received orders to attend the damsel carefully, and bring tidings of any new trances she might fall into. It is probable that the woman was not from the beginning an impostor; but rather affected with that sort of docile insanity which has proved in past times so serviceable to the cause of priestcraft. When she awoke out of her trances, she was utterly unconscious what she had been saying; but the crafty priest would not have the matter to stop so, but persuaded her to believe, or at least to profess herself inspired by the Holy Ghost. He afterwards induced her to counterfeit, or perhaps wilfully to produce, renewed trances, and to deal in visions and revelations. The affair at length made a considerable noise, and many came to see her; and Masters, in order to raise the reputa tion of an image of the Virgin that was in a chapel within his parish, by which he might expect to profit largely from the offerings of devotees and the concourse of pilgrims, chose for an associate in his imposture one Dr. Bocking, a canon of Christ Church, in Canterbury. By

these means, the Holy Maid of Kent was instructed to say, in her trances, that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her in a vision, and revealed that she never should be relieved of her infirmity till she visited the image in question. She accordingly went in pilgrimage to the chapel, where, in the midst of a great concourse of people that were there assembled, she fell into a trance, poured forth extatic ejaculations, declaring that God had called her to a religious life, and appointed Bocking to be her ghostly father. She afterwards pretended to be recovered of all her distempers by the intercession of the Virgin, took the veil, saw visions, heard heavenly melodies, and passed with great numbers for a prophetess; in which belief it is probable that Archbishop Warham died, luckily for himself, before the imposture was exposed.

It does not appear that either the poor crazy woman or her sacerdotal keepers had originally any political designs. But as the divorce of Queen Catherine, and its unforeseen consequence, the rupture with Rome, approximated to a crisis, the prophetic powers of the Holy Maid took a more public turn, and ventured to prophecy destruction to the King himself. It is by no means impossible that the persecutions of Catherine really made a deep impression on her disordered imagination for all women who have ever had a spark of goodness, feel that their whole sex is injured when one individual woman is wronged. She might think herself inspired to denounce the wrath of heaven against a tyrant. She might very easily be persuaded that she had a special dispensation for any measure of pious fraud. But her prompters more probably foresaw that there was but one way to save their Church and their trade, and aimed at nothing less than a general revolt against the innovating King. It may be remarked, that the inspirations of the Holy Maid did not take a treasonable aspect till after the death of Warham, and the promotion of Cranmer to the Primacy; nor were the Protestant inclinations of Anne Boleyn unsuspected.

Dealers in mock-miracle and false prophecy seldom display much imagination for it is not to the imagination, or generous passions, but to the selfish hopes and fears of men, that they address themselves. But one of the Holy Maid's fabrications has at least the credit of bold invention. She asserted, that when the King was last at Calais, whilst he was at mass, she being invisibly present either in the body or out o. the body, saw an angel snatch the consecrated Host out of his hand, and give it to herself, whereupon she was instantaneously conveyed back to her monastery, no person being aware of her presence, absence, or removal. The drift of the story of course was, that Henry, by plain