title of this code,

debarred from the privilege of making a will. Yet, though not allowed the customary freedom of a testament, several of these persons might bequeath money to discharge the prisoner for debt; or to relieve the orphan, or widow, or any that had no helper ; or to furnish the indigent maiden with a marriage-portion; or to maintain a scholar in one of our Universities; or to repair the highways.

The twenty-sixth title prescribes ecclesiastical censures. On extraordinary occasions, commutation of penance for money is allowed, the money being then bestowed upon the poor of

the place, in which the offender lived. On the offender's relapse into transgression, the torturing hour of the penance itself is to be endured without remission.

The twenty-seventh, and the two following, dilate upon suspension, sequestration, and deprivation: the thirtieth, largely, upon excommunication; which, as it is asserted to cut off the offender from Christian society, is to be inflicted only in cases of extremity, where the crime makes a breach in morality, or strikes at the root of religion. Never ought this rigorous expedient to be used, says Collier, except when persons are hardened in their wickedness, that is, when they either make a jest of reproof, take no notice of a citation, or refuse to stand to the judgment of the

ecclesiastical court. The manner of restoring the penitent offender to the privileges he had lost concludes the chapter.

The regulations of the ecclesiastical courts are the subjects of the remaining titles; defining judgment, the office of the judge, crimes, quarrels, scandal, proofs, presumptions, witnesses, perjury, delays, exceptions, and appeals; in the midst of which are two chapters relating to the personal safety of the clergy.

1

Such is the unauthoritative code, often altered, it appears, in its progress through the reigns of Henry and Edward; in vain 2 endeavoured to be brought into use in that of Elizabeth; merely reprinted in that of Charles the first; and, lastly, ineffectually suggested to public notice with a view to its establishment by bishop Burnet.

1

3

Strype had seen the first copy of it, with Cranmer's own amendments, and with those which long afterwards Peter Martyr made. Life of Cranm. B. i. ch. 30.

2 See before, p. 329.

3

History of his Own Times, at the Conclusion.

CHAPTER XIV.

1552 to 1553.

The archbishop in commission to enquire after certain sectaries -The Family of Love-The archbishop in another commission, relating to ecclesiastical goods—Avoids acting in it— His letter respecting it to Cecil-Their intimacy-The declining health of the king-Alteration of the succession in favour of lady Jane Grey-The archbishop's share in the transaction-The king dies-The lady Jane's brief reign.

THE autumn of 1552, we have seen, witnessed Cranmer in his residence at 1Ford, near Canterbury. At the close of September, the Council had directed a letter to him there, for the purpose of examining a sect 2 newly sprung up in the county. Of this sect, neither the name, nor character, is recorded. All that appears is, that the archbishop was required to prevent the dissemination of its tenets, whatever they were. It could not be that of the Anabaptists, says Strype; for against them a commission, still in force, had been issued some years before. It was, perhaps, he adds, a branch

of the Family of Love, or "the sect of David George, who made himself sometimes Christ, and sometimes the Holy Ghost." But it was Henry Nicholas, the constant companion of that enthusiast, who was the founder of this Family. The doctrine of George and Nicholas, however, was much the same; though the title of their disciples, first in Holland, the native country of 2 both the teachers, was not known before 1555, or 1556, when the former died. But the principles of the sect had probably been introduced into England, before that time; as the following passage in a treatise by Becon, the learned chaplain of Cranmer, seems to prove: "What wicked and ungodly opinions are there sown now-days of the Anabaptists, Davidians, Libertines, and such other pestilent sects in the hearts of the people, to the great disquietness of Christ's Church, moving rather to sedition than to pure religion, to heresy than to things godly!" It is related also in the Displaying of the Family of Love, that “ * there had been many

1 Strype.

2 Mosheim inaccurately describes Nicholas as a Westphalian. He was a native of Amsterdam, and was usually called Henry of Amsterdam. Displaying of the secte, &c. 1579, sign.

A Displaying of the horrible secte of grosse and wicked heretiques, naming themselves, The Family of Love, set forth. by J. R. (John Rogers,) 1579, sign. A. iii. b.

of our Englishmen, in Flanders, to confer with this Henry Nicholas, their author, of whom, in their return, they speak great good of his wisdom, of his mild nature, of his humility, and of his patience; yea, and they vainly boast that he knew of their secret messages, which they account to be miraculous." His directions for belonging to this Family, it is curious to observe, were these: "They must pass four most terrible castles, full of cumbersome enemies, before they come to the house of love; the first is, of John Calvin, the second the Papists, the third Martin Luther, the fourth the Anabaptists; and, passing these dangers, they may be of the Family, else not." That is, other theological tenets than his own he considered of no moment. Of these several were blasphemous as well as absurd; and it is no wonder that his pretensions led his followers into laxity of morals. If we find no other allusion to this sect, or at least none of any importance, in the present or succeeding reign, our ecclesiastical history in that of Elizabeth describes it as then widely prevailing, and occasioning no small confusion in the kingdom.

To a business of political inquiry also the archbishop was commissioned, before he left his Kentish retirement. It was to ascertain who they were that had embezzled the plate and goods be