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larly audited; and its paid agents went up and down the country, carrying testaments and tracts with them, and enrolling in the order all persons who dared to risk their lives in such a cause." This Bible, tract, and colporteur association, all in one, doubtless contributed largely to prepare the minds of men for the great events which ten years subsequently broke like claps of thunder, one after another, upon Christendom. The popish bishops strove hard against the quiet, but mighty influence of these Bible and tract distributors. The poor men were hounded from one place to another; compelled to disguise themselves, to hide their heads in friendly habitations, or in the forests; to travel by night, and to resort to various stratagems by day, to escape the bishops' hands; and with all their care, they were not always able to elude the diligence and activity of their persecutors. Let any one read the affecting story, told by Fox, of Garret's persecution—who, though a scholar and a fellow of Magdalen College, did not think it beneath him to traverse the country on foot, and supply the hungry protestants with the Scriptures and other aids to devotion and instruction of Ferrar's, another of the Christian brotherhood, if they would understand what these good men were exposed to in doing their Master's work. It

or

*Froude's Hist. Eng. 11. 26. He quotes from a manuscript in the Rolls House, in support of his description of this association of protestants in 1525.

will be seen from these stories, that not the Bible and tract distributor alone was subject to persecution, but that the receiver, as well as the circulator of English books, was doomed to bitter pains and penalties. Thus, that little band of brethren in Wolsey's college, in Oxford, to whom Garret carried his precious wares, and who were accustomed to meet and read the Scriptures, and pray together, on the detection of the colporteur were themselves seized, imprisoned, and punished, until death ended the sufferings of some of them."

The popish bishops tried another method to stop the circulation of "heretical books," particularly Tyndale's New Testament: they bought up the books, and burned them. But this proved a losing, as well as an expensive business; for the avails of these sales enabled the reformers to publish new and corrected editions of the burnt books. And so, in spite of the powers of darkness, the good work of preparation for the English Reformation went steadily on, until the time arrived for the king of England to commence the mighty work of abolishing popery, and introducing the English Scriptures as the standard of religious faith and practice.

* See Dalaber's narrative, in Fox, 11. 438-41; and in Froude, 11. 45-70. See also Tyball's confession, and that of other buyers and readers of protestant books, in 1528. — Strype's Mems., vol. 1. pt. 11. Nos. 17-22, pp. 50–65.

CHAPTER V.

REIGN OF EDWARD VI., 1546-1553.

PROGRESS OF

THE REFORMATION. -DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED.

EDWARD VI., the only surviving son of Henry VIII., and the only child of Jane Seymour, was proclaimed king January 31st, 1546-47. Edward was born October 12th, 1537, and had been most carefully educated.* His reign, though short, is memorable, for during it the Reformation was fully consummated, so far as the church of England was concerned. Yet, it is not a reign of which Englishmen, not even English churchmen, are particularly proud.

* Strype, in his Ecclesiastical Memorials, gives a list of Edward's teachers, "happily chosen, being both truly learned, sober, wise, and all favorers of the gospel." First, Cranmer, his godfather, had a sort of general supervision of his education; Sir Anthony Cook, famous for his five learned daughters; Dr. Richard Cox, "a very reverend divine, some time moderator of the school of Eaton, afterwards dean of Christ's Church, Oxford, and chancellor of that university," who instructed him in Christian manners, as well as other learning. In Latin and Greek he had as a teacher "that most accomplished scholar, Sir John Cheke, once public reader of Greek in Cambridge," and John Belmair for the French. These were his principal teachers. "Other masters attended on him for other tongues. But Cheke did most constantly reside with him.”. - Vol. 11. pt. 1. ch. 1, pp. 13-16.

Henry had carefully arranged a plan for the gov ernment of England during his son's minority, vainly hoping to reign by his will when he himself was no more. To this end, he appointed sixteen executors, to be regents of the kingdom until Edward was eighteen years old, assisted by twelve privy councillors, who were also named. But if Henry forgot that he should cease to be king when he ceased to live, and that when he ceased to be king he would neither be feared nor obeyed, his subjects did not; and one of the first acts of these executors and councillors, on assuming the government of the kingdom, was to depart materially from the late king's will by appointing one of their number to be Protector; who should represent the king, and be at the head of the government, though without authority to act independently of his coadjutors, the executors and councillors. Their choice fell on the Earl of Hertford, afterwards created Duke of Somerset, Edward's maternal uncle.

Henry had endeavored to give to the new gov ernment the prominent characteristics of his own. Accordingly, the administrators of it were in part reformers and in part papists; the former, however, had the ascendency, and began almost immediately to exert their power in favor of the protestants. Persecution under the Six Articles act was stopped, and the prisoners for conscience' sake were set free. Among these was honest " Old Latimer," who resigned the bishopric of Worcester on the pas

sage of the Six Articles, and who, after repeated arraignments for his heretical preaching, was finally imprisoned in the Tower, and there remained six years.*

The council also invited home the Christian exiles who had been driven abroad by the severity of Henry's government. Among these were Coverdale, Hooper, Rogers, Philpot, and other distinguished protestants. Several learned foreign reformers were also invited into England, and settled in the universities and elsewhere; among whom were the celebrated Peter Martyr, who was made professor of divinity at Oxford, and Martin Bucer and Paul Phagius, who settled at Cambridge.

Cranmer, who through all the fluctuations of the latter part of Henry's reign had retained the

*Hugh Latimer seems to have given the rulers of Henry's church a good deal of trouble. On the 11th of March, 1531, he was called before the convocation of Canterbury, and pronounced contumacious. But ten days after, March 21st, he appeared again and apologized for his preaching and conduct, subscribed certain articles which were prescribed, and was absolved from the sentence of excommunication. On the 22d of April, 1532, he appeared again before the convocation, and made yet fuller confessions of his irregularities, and was fully restored to the communion of the church. But on the 26th of March, 1533, Latimer's case was before the convocation a third time. He seems to have failed to satisfy the clergy by his preaching and living; and on the 2d of October, 1533, he was forbidden again to preach, by "John, bishop of London."- Wilkins' Concilia, 111. 747, 748, 756, 760; Burnet, vol. 1. pt. 1. bk. 11. p. 335; vol. 111. pt. 1. bk. 11. pp. 146, 147.

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