14

They are paid for masses, yet never say one.

Your Grace

should build us

a sure hospital, and send these

loobies to work for their living.

Genesis iii. 19.

Whip them at the cart's tail

that they take not

our alms; so

shall we decrease,

and your power not pass from you;

your people will obey you, the idle work, people marry, be rich, have the gospel preached, none beg,

MAKE THE STURDY LOOBIES WORK.

kinges of this realme, haue gyuen londes to monasteries to giue a certein somme of money yerely to the poore people, wherof, for the aunciente of the tyme, they giue neuer one peny: They haue lyke wise giuen to them to haue a certeyn masses said daily for theim, wherof they sey neuer one. If the Abbot of westminster shulde sing euery day as many masses for his founders as he is bounde to do by his foundacion, .M. monkes were to fewe. wherfore, if your grace will bilde a sure hospitall that neuer shall faile to releue vs, all your poore bedemen, so take from theim all these thynges. Set these sturdy lobies a brode in the world, to get theim wiues of theire owne, to get theire liuing with their laboure in the swete of theire faces, according to the commaundement of god, Gene. iij. to gyue other idell people, by theire example, occasion to go to laboure. Tye these holy idell theues to the cartes, to be whipped naked about euery market towne til they will fall to laboure, that they, by theyre importunate begging, take not awey the almesse that the good christen people wolde giue vnto vs sore, impotent, miserable people, your bedemen. Then shall, aswell the nombre of oure forsaid monstruous sort, as of the baudes, hores, theues, and idell people, decreace. Then shall these great yerely exaccions cease. Then shall not youre swerde, power, crowne, dignite, and obedience of your people, be translated from you. Then shall you haue full odedience of your people. Then shall the idell people be set to worke. Then shall matrimony be moche better kept. Then shal the generation of your people be encreased. Then shall your comons encrease in richesse. Then shall the gospell be preached. Then shall none begge oure almesse from vs. Then shal we haue ynough, and more then shall suffice vs; whiche shall be the best hospitall that euer was founded for vs. Then shall we

A SUPPLICACYON FOR THE BEGGERS.

-NOTES.

15

daily pray to god for your most noble estate long to and all will ever endure.1

Domins ealuum fac regem.

1 Sir Frauncys Bygod, about 1534, in his Treatyse concernynge impropriations of benefices thus supports the last remedy of the Beggers Supplicacyon:

But & as man might (sauyng their pacyence) be so bolde with them / what mater were it (vnder correction I speke) if all

pray for your long reign.

these improfytable sectes / and stronge sturdye route of idle Idle paunches paunches were a lytell poorer / to thende that the trew relygion should be poorer. of christ might thereby somthynge be sette vp and avaunsed / and syffycient company of the ministers of goddes true worde prouyded for in all partes. I praye you / what an idle sorte be founde and brought vp in Abbeyes / that neuer wyll laboure whyles they ben there / nor yet whan they come thence to other mens seruyce / in so moche that there goth a comen prouerbe: That he which hath ones ben in an abbey, wyll euer Once in an Abbey, more after be slouthefull/ for the whiche cause they ben called ever idle; Abbey of many men / Abbey loutes or lubbers. And some saye that many of our holye fathers spende nat a lytell vpon my cosyn Iane Elsabeth and Marget (ye knowe what I meane) inso- Monks' women. moche that that euen they which be most popysshe of all /

& knowe none other god almost than the gret drafsacke of Rome / can nat deny this to be trew.

louts or lubbers.

Page 6. Priests' immorality. The women were occasionally to blame. In a story told by the author of the Ménagier de Paris, a young wife married to an old husband from whom she gets no solace, thus answers the question of whom she will love: "Mère, j'aimeray le chapellain de ceste ville, car prestres et religieux craingnent honte, et sont plus secrets. Je ne voudroie jamais amer un chevalier, car il se vanteroit plus tost, et gaberoit de moy, et me demanderoit mes gages* à engager." Compare Robert of Brunne's complaint in his Handlyng Synne of these women who will have priests. But the lechery of the monks, &c., is continually complained of throughout Early English Literature; see the series of extracts on this subject in my Ballads from Manuscripts, p. 59–86 (Ballad Soc. 1868), and The Image of Ypocresye, ib. p. 194-5, &c.

Page 6. Check to the increase of Population by the not-marrying of the Clergy. This is complained of in the Record-Office MS Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Lupton, written by Starkey, one of Henry VIII's chaplains, which Prof. Brewer has recommended us to print, and which we have had copied. Lupton is made to say: "I haue thought long many a day a grete let to the increse of chrystun pepul, the law of chastyte ordeynyd by the church, whych byndyth so gret a multytude of men to lyue theraftur, as, al secular prestys, monkys, frerrys, channonys, & nunnys, of the wych, as you know, ther ys no smal nombur; by the reson wherof the generatyon of man ys maruelously let & mynyschyd. Wherfor, except the ordynance of the church were, (to the wych I wold neuer gladly rebel,) I wold playnly Iuge that hyt schold be veray conuenyent somethyng to relese the band of thys law; specyally consyderyng the dyffyculty of that grete vertue, in a maner aboue *Peut-être faudroit-il bagues, effets, joyaux.-J. Pichon.

16

nature..."

RICHARD HUNNE'S CASE.

...

Pole answers " in this mater I thynke hyt were necessary to tempur thys law, and, at the lest, to gyue and admyt al secular prestys to mary at theyr lyberty, consydyryng now the grete multytude and nowmbur of them. but as touchyng monkys, chanonys, frerys, and nunnys, I hold for a thyng veray conuenyent and mete, in al wel-ordeynyd commyn welys, to haue certayn monasterys and abbeys, to the wych al such as, aftur lauful proue of chastyte before had, may retyre, and from the besynes and vanyte of the world may wythdray themselfe, holly gyuyng theyr myndys to prayer, study, and hye contemplatyon. thys occasyon I wold not haue to be taken away from chrystyan pollycy, wych ys a grete comfort to many febul and wery soulys, wych haue byn oppressyd wyth wordly vanyte. but as touchyng the secular prestys, I vtturly agre wyth you, and so that obstacul to take away, wych lettyth by many ways the increse of our pepul, as many other thyngys dow more also; among the wych a nother chefe, aftur my mynd, ys thys:—that grete multytude of seruyng men, wych in seruyce spend theyr lyfe, neuer fyndyng mean to marry conuenyently, but lyue alway as commyn corruptarys of chastyte."

Page 7. The good luck of a wench who is taken as a priest's concubine is noticed in the Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II. (Camden Soc. Political Songs, 1839; Percy Soc. 1849), " And wel is hire that first may swich a parsoun kacche in londe," ib. p. 62.

Pages 9 and 12. Richard Hunne's case. "In the year 1514, a citizen of London, named Richard Hunne, a merchant tailor, fell into a dispute with the parson of a country parish in Middlesex, about a gift of a bearing-sheet, which the clergyman demanded as a mortuary, in consequence of an infant child of Hunne's having died in his parish, where it had been sent to be nursed. Hunne made some objection to the legality of the demand; but it is probable that he was secretly inclined to the new doctrines, and that this was the true cause of his refusal. Being sued in the spiritual court by the parson, he took out a writ of premunire against his pursuer for bringing the king's subjects before a foreign jurisdiction, the spiritual court sitting under the authority of the pope's legate. This daring procedure of the London citizen threw the clergy into a fury, and, as the most effectual way of crushing him, recourse was had to the terrible charge of heresy, upon which Hunne was apprehended and consigned to close imprisonment in the Lollard's Tower at St Paul's. After a short time, being brought before Fitzjames, bishop of London, he was there interrogated respecting certain articles alleged against him, which imputed to him, in substance, that he had denied the obligation of paying tithes, that he had read and spoken generally against bishops and priests, and in favour of heretics, and lastly, that he had 'in his keeping divers English books prohibited and damned by the law, as the Apocalypse in English, epistles and gospels in English, Wycliffe's damnable works, and other books containing infinite errors, in the which he hath been long time accustomed to read, teach, and study daily.'* It appears that Hunne was frightened into a qualified admission of the truth of these charges; he confessed that although he had not said exactly what was asserted, yet he had 'unadvisedly spoken words somewhat sounding to the same; for the which,' he added, 'I am sorry, and ask God mercy, and submit me unto my Lord's charitable and favourable correction.' He ought upon this, according to the usual course, to have been enjoined penance and set at liberty; but, as he still persisted in his suit against the parson, he was the same day sent back to his prison, where, two days after, namely, on the 4th of December, he was found

* Foxe, p. 737.

A SUPPLICACYON FOR THE BEGGERS.--NOTES.

suspended from a hook in the ceiling, and dead.

17

The persons in charge of the prison gave out that he had hanged himself; but a coroner's inquest came to a different conclusion. According to the account in Burnet, the jury did acquit the dead body, and laid the murder on the officers that had the charge of that prison;' and, by other proofs, they found the bishop's sumner* and the bellringer guilty of it. It may be suspected that the excited feelings and strong prejudices of the coroner's jury had perhaps as much share as the weight of circumstantial evidence in winning them to the belief of this not very probable story; but, be that as it may, the violence and indecency shown on the other side were fully equal to any they can be thought to have displayed. While the inquest was still going on, the Bishop of London and his clergy began a new process of heresy against Hunne's dead body. The new charges alleged against Hunne were comprised in thirteen articles, the matter of which was collected from the prologue or preface by Wycliffe to the English Bible that had been found in his possession. He, or rather his dead body, was condemned of heresy by sentence of the Bishop of London, assisted by the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln, and by many doctors of divinity and the canon law; and the senseless carcase was actually, on the 20th of December, committed to the flames in Smithfield. This piece of barbarity, however, shocked instead of overawing the public sentiment. The affair now came before the parliament, and a bill, which had originated in the Commons, was passed, restoring to Hunne's children the goods of their father, which had been forfeited by his conviction. This, however, did not put an end to the contest. When the Bishop of London's chancellor and sumner had been charged on the finding of the coroner's jury as both principals in the murder, the convocation, in the hope probably of drawing off attention to another part of the case, called before them Dr Standish, who had asserted the claims of the civil power in a debate before the king, and put him upon his defence for what he had said on that occasion; and an appeal was made to the conscience of Henry, that he would not interpose to shield the delinquent from justice, as he regarded his coronation oath, and would himself escape the censures of holy church. Henry's headstrong and despotic character had scarcely yet begun to develop itself; his pride as a true son of the church had received no check from coming into collision with any of his other selfish and overmastering passions: when the convocation, therefore, assailed him in this manner on the one hand, and the parliament on the other likewise addressed him 'to maintain the temporal jurisdiction, according to his coronation oath, and to protect Standish from the malice of his enemies,' he was thrown into great perplexity. So, to free his conscience, he commanded all the judges, and the members both of his temporal and his spiritual councils, together with certain persons from both houses of parliament, to meet at Blackfriars, and to hear the matter argued. This was done accordingly; and the discussion was terminated by the unanimous declaration of the judges, that all those of the convocation who had awarded the citation against Standish had made themselves liable to a premunire. Soon after, the whole body of the lords spiritual and temporal, with all the judges and the king's council, and many members also of the House of Commons, having been called before the king at Baynard's Castle, Cardinal Wolsey, in the name of the clergy, humbly begged that the matter should be referred to the final decision of the pope at Rome. To this request, however, Henry made answer, with much spirit, By the permission and ordinance of God, we are king of England; and the kings

* Or summoner, the officer employed to cite parties before the ecclesiastical courts, more commonly called the apparitor.

18

A SUPPLICACYON FOR THE BEGGERS. -NOTES.

of England in times past had never any superior, but God only. Therefore, know you well that we will maintain the right of our crown, and of our temporal jurisdiction, as well in this as in all other points, in as ample a manner as any of our progenitors have done before our time.' The renewed solicitations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the matter might at least be respited till a communication could be had with the court of Rome, had no effect in moving the king from his resolution; and Dr Horsey, the Bishop of London's chancellor, against whom warrants were out, on the finding of the inquest, for his trial as one of the murderers of Hunne, seemed to be left to his fate. At this point, however, the clergy, or perhaps both parties, saw fit to make advances towards an accommodation it was agreed that Horsey should surrender to take his trial; that he should not stand upon his benefit of clergy, but plead not guilty and that, satisfied with this concession, the attorney-general should admit the plea, and the prisoner be discharged. This form was gone through, and Horsey immediately left London, where, it is said, he never again showed his face. Dr Standish, however, was also, by the king's command, dismissed from his place in the court of convocation, so that the issue of the business by no means went altogether against the clergy. But, besides the augmented popular odium to which they were exposed, from the strong suspicion that was entertained that Hunne had been murdered, a heavy blow had been undoubtedly dealt at their favourite pretension of exemption from the jurisdiction of the civil courts in criminal cases."-Macfarlane's Cab. Hist. of England, vol. vi., p. 113-116.

Page 12. Doctor Alyn. By the sayd power Legantine, he [Wolsey] kept also generall visitations through the Realme, sending Doct. Iohn Alein, his Chaplein, riding in his gowne of Veluet, & with a great traine, to visite all religious houses.-Foxe, 1576, 3rd edit., p. 960.

Page 2. The tenth part of euery seruauntes wages. "Then the proving of testaments, the prizing of goods, the bishop of Canterbury's prerogative; is that not much through the realm in a year? There is no servant but that he shall pay somewhat of his wages."-Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man, Parker Soc.'s edit. of Tyndale's "Works," vol. i. p. 237.