made no honest, earnest effort to reform her own acknowledged corruptions. During the entire century preceding the English Reformation, though reform was occasionally talked of by the churchmen, and though some of the more conscientious of them complained loudly that it was not attempted, English ecclesiastics, with solitary exceptions, continued shamelessly corrupt in principle and practice.

Public documents, as well as private writings, prove this. For example: in 1425 the commons complained, in a petition to the king, (Henry VI.,) of the shameful neglect by the clergy, of parochial and ministerial duties, and of their non-residence, indolence, avarice, and extortion; that benefices were given to foreigners, who did not reside in England, and would not, and could not take care of the souls committed to them, but contented themselves with exacting and carrying away, to expend abroad, all the pecuniary emoluments of their offices; and the government was warned that the church was thus losing the respect of the people; and, furthermore, that by reason of this corruption of the clergy, and their neglect of their benefices, "the people had fallen into Lollardies and heresies."

But the Bishop of Winchester was then the chancellor of the kingdom and the leading spirit of the cabinet of Henry VI., and he opened the

*See Rolls of Parliament, vol. v. (3 Hen. VI.) 290; (4 Hen. VI.) 305, 306; Turner's Hist. England, vol. 111. pp. 111-113.

very parliament in which these complaints were made, with a bitter invective against heresy and Lollardy. And Henry, as might have been anticipated under the guidance of such ministers, disregarded this prayer of the commons. A quarter of a century later, substantially the same state of things existed in the English Church and State: the people complaining of a negligent, avaricious, persecuting clergy; the clergy resisting all movements towards reform, while they busied themselves in denouncing and punishing the Lollards, the only radical reformers in the kingdom.

A contemporary of those times (Dr. Gascoigne) describes the state of things in his day as deplorable in the extreme. He says, speaking of the insurrection of the people about the year 1450: "Insurrections overflowed against the church and against the king of England, by thousands of men, who said, 'The ecclesiastics destroy us; they live luxuriously on their property, while we are perishing with want; and they have destroyed the king by their flattery or silence.'" These insurgents, the Doctor tells us, complained of "the pluralities of churches, the appropriations in monasteries and collegiate churches, the non-residence of prelates and rectors in their cures, and the unworthy promotion of immoral young men in the church, who, I myself know to be unable to pronounce Latin, and who did not even receive their own revenues, but sent their servants to take and spend them; these evils, and the celebrated proc

lamantes, destroy the good government of the church, and of souls."

There appear to have been a few honest and good men among the clergy of that day, who deplored this state of things, and boldly denounced these corruptions in Church and State. But Dr. Gascoigne tells us: "The bad lords and bishops, in 1449 and 1450, declared that the preachers of the Word of God disturbed the people and caused insurrections. Yet these preachers were famous in life and science, and only preached against vices and sins, and against the insatiable cupidity of the king's council, and of the bishops and others, and against the deficiency of public justice, and against the promotion of the very worst persons in the church and public offices." †

Such, substantially, was the state of the church and kingdom during the entire reign of Henry VI., a mild, amiable, well-disposed, but weak man, too much ruled by unprincipled churchmen. The blame is to be laid at the door of the regency

* In Turner's Hist. Eng., 111. 89-92. The first seven chapters of Turner (vol. 111. bk. III.) on the Middle Ages, abound in illustrations of the hopelessly worldly, corrupt, and abandoned condition of the hierarchy of England at the period which we are now reviewing.

† In Turner's Hist. Eng., Middle Ages, 111. 90-95. Lond. 8vo. ed. 1830. Dr. Gascoigne styles himself, "Dr. Theol. and Chancellor of Oxford." He held "a prebend of eight marks in the cathedral of Welles," and in 1445 was appointed rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, London; but infirmity preventing him from immediately residing in his parish, he resigned the office. He died March 13th, 1450.

during the king's minority, and at that of his council afterwards; the hierarchal element prevailing in both, and the ruling spirit in both bodies for a long time being the king's uncle, the cardinal-bishop of Winchester.*

Although there was less persecution during the reign of Edward IV. than during that of Henry VI., yet the hierarchy remained unimproved; and in 1485 we find one of the clergy deploring the state of the church, and lamenting the hatred of the people towards the clergy, and the eagerness of the common people to insult and abuse them ou all convenient occasions. He exhorts his brother clergymen to follow the example of the gospel, and make themselves "good shepherds, not merHe cenary ones." says: "There are two kinds of Christians, clergy and laity; but the laymen now harass the clergy." He deplores also the discord among the clergy, and says that "the negligences, ignorances, cupidity, and avarice of the prelates were everywhere inculcated [talked about]; that their judgments, processes, sentences, and decrees were held in contempt; and that the orders. of their councils were irreverently disputed (by themselves) before the laity." "These things," he

*The Regency consisted, in 1429, of the Duke of Gloucester; the Bishop of Winchester; Archbishop of Canterbury; Archbishop of York, Chancellor; Bishops of London, of Ely, and of Bath and Wells; Duke of Norfolk; Earl Warwick; Stafford; Lewis Robessart; R. Cromwell; J. C. Scrope; W. Hungerford, Trevener; J. Tiploft. - Rolls of Parl., 1v. 344; Turner, III. 3.

says, "provoke the laity of our time to attempt such unbridled enormities against the church.” * He adds, that there were scarcely ten clergymen in any diocese who did not yearly suffer in their persons or their purses; so great was the general contempt and hatred of the clergy, towards the close of the fifteenth century, occasioned by their idle and vicious lives, oppressions of the people, and cruel persecutions of the Lollards.

There is no evidence of any improvement in the hierarchal clergy during the brief reigns of Edward V. and Richard III., or of any increase of popular favor towards that body. But the clergy had very little opportunity to persecute those who hated and despised them. When, however, Henry VII. had become firmly seated on his throne, the hierarchy, under his fostering care, began again to raise its head, and thrust out its venomous fangs against the poor Lollards, to the prevalence of whose doctrines was attributed all the hatred and contempt of popery which was then cherished by the common people of England.

The principal ministers of the crown during this reign, as during the preceding, were ecclesiastics. Men like Cardinal Morton and Archbishop Warham had now their full swing. And though they improved their power unsparingly, as we have seen in preceding pages, to persecute "heretics," yet

* Quoted from a manuscript discourse prepared to be delivered before the convocation of the prelates and clergy about the time of the death of Edward IV., 1483. — Turner's Eng., 111. 365-69.