rest of the Counsel might hauke & hunt, and take their pleasure? None lyke unto Sobna. Who was most frantic and ready to destroy Somerset and set up Northumberland? Was it not Sobna?...... the Treasurer.'

By Sobna, i e. Shebna, he "refers to Sir William Paulet, created in 1551 Marquess of Winchester, who was successively Comptroller, Secretary, and Lord Treasurer to Edward the Sixth, and was continued in that office by Queen Mary."-Laing's Knox, vol. 3, p. 283.

It may be thought, perhaps, that the way in which Knox here speaks of Northumberland is adverse to the supposition of the latter being his patron; but the fact is, that their regard for each other (whether ever very sincere or not) had undergone a material change. Elsewhere in the "Admonition" Knox calls the Duke" that wretched (alas) and miserable Northumberlande"; and, again, he asks " who, I pray you, ruled the roste in the courte all this time, by stoute corage and proudness of stomak, but Northumberland?" (Laing, pp. 277 & 280.) It was barely seven weeks after the Duke had recommended Knox for the Bishopric of Rochester that he wrote thus to the Secretary Cecil:

"Master Knox's being here to speak with me, saying that he was so willed by you, I do return him again, because I love not to have to do with men which be neither grateful nor pleasable. I assure you I mind to have no more to do with him but to wish him well, neither also with the Dean of Durham, because, under the colour of a false conscience, he can prettily malign and judge of others against good charity upon a froward judgment. And this manner you might see in his letter, that he cannot tell whether I be a dissembler in religion or not but I have for twenty years stand [stood] to one kind of religion, in the same which I do now profess; and have, I thank the Lord, past no small dangers for it."-Orig. St. P. Off. 7th Dec. 1552, in Tytler's Edw. vi. vol. ii. p. 148.

The breach thus opened was made wider by Knox's political preaching at Newcastle in the following year, in which he lamented the fall of Somerset, and thus led Northumberland to complain of him, in February, to the Council; nor was it ever healed.

Another indication that Knox it was who had mainly provoked the Archbishop's Letter, occurs in one line of a "Memoranda of matters to be brought before the Council," dated

Oct. 20, 1552, (St. P. Office. Domestic, Edw. vi. Vol. xv. No. 20,) which runs thus:

"Mr. Knocks-b. of Catrb. | ye book in y' [or ye] B. of Durh"

This note is just 13 days after the Primate's Letter (p. 77), and 7 days before the Letter to the Lord Chancellor (p. 35) to add the Declaration: the juxta-position of Knox and Cranmer and the mention of the book, though separated from their names, I cannot but conjecture to be notes touching this dispute on Kneeling which was settled at the Council of Oct. 27th by ordering the Declaration. The remaining part of the Memorandum probably refers to the subject of appointing a Bishop of Durham, which Northumberland,was then urging upon the Council: but whether "ye book " lates to some Document connected with the See of Durham, or refers, as I think, to the Prayer Book then under discussion, the former part of the Note looks very much indeed like an allusion to Knox's alleged complaint of the Rubric on Kneeling and the Archbishop's defence of it.

re

Further, early in the next year, under date Feb. 2, 1552-3, the Council Book contains the following entry :

----

"At Westminster, the seconde of Fibruary 1552 A lettre to the Archbusshop of Caunterbury in favour of Mr. Knokes, to be presented to the Vicatedge or Personage of Allhallows, in Bredestrete, in his Lordship's disposition, by the preferment of Thomas Sampson to the Deanry of Chichester.'

This occurrence, and certain consequent proceedings of the Council against Knox, related in the following passage, serve still more to identify the Northern Reformer with the dispute as to this Rubric on Kneeling. Mr. Laing remarks:

"Knox's refusal of this living was one of the grounds upon which he was summoned to appear before the Privy Council, as we learn from a letter written by him in April 1553. The letter itself has not been discovered; but Calderwood has preserved what seems to be a full abstract of it, in his larger Manuscript History, in connection with some extracts from his 'Admonition,' which was written and published the following year......

"In a letter, dated the 14th of April 1553, and written with his own hand, I find (says Calderwood) that he was called before the Council of England for kneeling, who demanded of him these

questions. First, Why he refused the benefice provided for him. Secondly, Whether he thought that no Christian might serve in the Ecclesiastical ministration according to the rites and lawes of the realme of England? Thirdly, If kneeling at the Lord's table was not indifferent?

"....To the third he answered, That Christ's action in itself was most perfect, and Christ's action was done without kneeling; that kneeling was man's addition or imagination; that it was most sure to follow the example of Christ, whose action was done sitting and not kneeling.'

"In this last question there was great contention betwixt the whole table of the Lords and him. There were present there the Bishops of Canterbury and Ely, my Lord Treasurer, the Marquis of Northampton, the Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Master Comptroller, my Lord Chamberlain, both the Secretaries, and other inferior Lords. After long reasoning, it was said to him, that he was not called of any evil mind; they were sorry to know him of a contrary mind to the common Order. He answered, that he was more sorry that a common Order should be contrary to Christ's institution. With some gentle speeches he was dismissed, and willed to advise with himself if he would communicate after that Order."-Knox's Works. Vol. iii. p. 83. Edinburgh, 1854.

A careful examination of the Council Book,† though it enabled me to verify the extracts from Burnet and Strype at p. 35, has failed to furnish any additional particulars illustrative of the course pursued by the Council subsequently to the Archbishop's Letter. The Book contains, in fact, only short minutes of the Council's Meetings, any transcripts of Documents connected with the business transacted were kept elsewhere, and what remain are now preserved in the State Paper Office and other repositories of the Public Records. Perhaps the Council's Letter to the Lord Chancellor, Thos. Goodrick Bishop of Ely, (referred to at p. 35,) may have contained some reason for the insertion of the Declaration on Kneeling, but this Document does not seem to exist.

From the little we know of Goodrick himself, there is every reason to conclude that he was not likely to have been a party

Certainly this is confirmed by the fact recorded (barely two months later) in the Council Book, under date June 2nd, 1553, that the Council, including the Abp. of Canterbury, wrote a Letter in favour of Knox to several gentlemen in Buckinghamshire. He quotes in his "Admonition" what he had preached at "Hammershame," i.e. Amersham, in that county.

For the facility afforded me in doing this, I have to acknowledge the polite attention of Henry Reeve, Esq., of the Privy Council Office.

to any statement committing the Church of England to heterodox teaching on the subject of the Real Presence; there seems nothing to shew that he was at all a time-serving Prelate in the way of, what I may call, Continental Protestantism: rather his tendencies, as alleged in the following Biographical notice of him, appear to have been in the opposite direction:

......

"he had a hand in compiling ...... the Institution of a Christian man ... in 1551, he was made Lord Chancellor of England, in the room of Lord Rich, which office he discharged with singular reputation of integrity, though in matters of Religion he was suspected by some, of too much disposition to temporize in favour of popery, upon the accession of Queen Mary; and Dodd, though somewhat faintly, claims him as a popish bishop. It is certain he was suffered to retain his bishopric to his death, although the seals were taken from him."-Chalmers' Biog. Dict. Vol. xvi. p. 100.

Burnet's opinion coincides with this, though (as is too often the case with that Prelate who yet was not quite the person to be thus uncharitable) he indulges in somewhat severe remarks upon the Chancellor: he says, with regard to his promotion, that

.... as Goodrick was raised by the Popish interest in opposition to the Duke of Somerset, and to Cranmer, that was his firm friend; so it appeared in the beginning of Queen Maries Reign, that he was ready to turn with every tide: and that whether he joyned in the Reformation only in compliance to the time, or was perswaded in his mind concerning it; yet he had not that sense of it that became a Bishop, and was one of those who resolved to make as much advantage by it as he could, but would suffer nothing for it."-Hist. Ref. bk. ii. pt. 1, p. 173, fol. 1715.

Another link, however, in the chain of evidence is supplied in Foxe's account of Latimer's Disputation at Oxford, April 18, 1554, already quoted from at p. 39. Weston, one of his opponents, thus addressed him :—

66

Well, master Latimer, this is our intent, to will you well, and to exhort you to come to yourself, and remember, that without Noah's ark there is no health. Remember what they have been, that were the beginners of your doctrine: none but a few flying apostates, running out of Germany for fear of the faggot. Remember what they have been which have set forth the same in this realm: a sort of fling-brains and light-heads, which were never constant in any one thing; as it was to be seen in the turning of the table, where like a

sort of apes, they could not tell which way to turn their tails, looking one day west, and another day east; one that way, and another this way. They will be like (they say) to the apostles, they will have no churches. A hovel is good enough for them. They come to the communion with no reverence. They get them a tankard, and one saith, I drink, and I am thankful: the more joy of thee, saith ancther. And in them was it true that Hilary saith, 'Annuas et menstruas de Deo fides facimus; that is, We make every year and every month a faith.' A runagate Scot did take away the adoration or worshipping of Christ in the Sacrament, by whose procurement that heresy was put into the last Communion-book: so much prevailed that one man's authority at that time -Acts and Monuments,

vol. vi. p. 510.

These last words (which I have italicised) would naturally be thought to refer to Knox by any one aware of the prominent position which he at that time occupied; taken with the statements just before quoted they, apparently, are conclusive on the point. Moreover, the former part of Weston's accusation looks in the same direction; and (making due allowance for their author and for what we should call, the not very refined language of the period,) describes just such a character as that depicted by Cranmer in his Letter, where he deprecates the "gloriouse and unquiet spirites wch can like nothing but that is after their own fansye," and who choose to assert that "whatsoever is not commaunded in the scripture is against the scripture, and utterly unlawfull and ungodlie."

But Dr. Townsend, the Editor of Foxe, throws a doubt upon Weston's meaning by appending to the expression, "a runagate Scot," the following note:

"Alexander Ales, or Alesius, who translated the first Liturgy of Edward vi. into Latin. See Dr. Watkins' note in his life of Latimer, prefixed to his Sermons (Lond. 1824). p. ciii."

I have not succeeded in finding the book here referred to, and therefore are unable to examine the evidence which Dr. Watkins furnishes. The Parker Society's Editor of Latimer's Remain's affixes to Weston's expression a note similar to that of Dr. Townsend: he says

"The person here alluded to is with reason supposed to have been Alexander Aless, a native of Edinburgh, and who was for some time an exile in Germany on account of his adherence to the doctrines of