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reaping there such spiritual benefits as Popes profess periodically to dispense, were compelled to bridle their impatience until the end of February. Then his Holiness kindly undertook to unlock, with due solemnity, "the sacred treasure composed of the merits, sufferings, and virtues of our Saviour, of his Virgin Mother, and of all the

saints "."

How worthy were the hands which claimed this exalted privilege was soon apparent. Julius, after abandoning himself to pleasure, indolence, and parade, completed the ruin of his character by raising to the cardinalate a youth of unknown parentage, who had been long an inmate of his house. This disreputable appointment was universally odious, and gave rise to the most unworthy suspicions".

On the 2d of January, the twenty-eight vague and frivolous articles which had been alleged against the Duke of Somerset, were laid before Parliament, signed by his own hand. He had been prevailed upon to sign this document a short time before, under a hope of favourable treatment, and under a protestation, that his exceptionable acts had flowed from indiscretion, not from any evil intention. His manner in admitting the charges against him was abject, for he did it on his knees. At first some objection was made in the Upper House against receiving this

• Bull for the Jubilee of 1825, cited by Dr. Phillpotts. Supplemental Letter to C. Butler, Esq. Lond. 1826, p. 428. P F. Paul. 299. Jurieu. 184.

paper as evidence against the disgraced Duke, inasmuch as his signature might have been affixed to it from the employment of force, or under the influence of fear. Four of the bishops, and the same number of temporal peers were in consequence sent to him, and they reported, that the noble prisoner's subscription was voluntarily made. By a legislative act, he was then mulcted of his whole personal property, and of two thousand pounds annually from his landed estate. Had these ruinous fines been enforced to the letter, he must have been reduced to beggary; but a submissive letter to the council saved the bulk of his fortune. He was released from prison on the 6th of February, having given security for his good behaviour in a bond of ten thousand pounds. On the 16th of the same month he received a pardon". His pecuniary punishment only extended to such portions of his property as had been already given to others; the rest of his fines being remitted'. On the 10th of April, he was again sworn in a member of the privy council; but his political rivals appear to have thought him no longer formidable. Early in June, his daughter was married to Viscount Lisle, eldest son to the Earl of Warwick', and thus an intimate connexion was apparently cemented between Somerset and that ambitious peer who had succeeded in driving him from the helm.

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Edward's government was not only strengthened at this time by the termination of domestic dissension; its stability was augmented also by a good understanding with foreign powers. The wars with France and Scotland which had served no other purpose than to mature faction, and exhaust the national resources, were brought to a close; peace being proclaimed in London on the 29th of March. To no man of high consideration was this event of so much importance as to the Earl of Warwick, because it relieved him from a burthen which might overthrow his influence. As, however, it was agreed that Boulogne should be surrendered within six months, and in fact, that England should gain no object whatever by the war, men generally found fault with the treaty. Warwick, accordingly, who was now assiduously courting popularity, was observed to be absent when the pacification was concluded. Of this, indisposition was the cause alleged '. In religious policy, Warwick steadily pursued the course which had been adopted under the administration of Somerset; much to the disappointment of the Romish party, and to the gratification of foreign Protestants. By these last, indeed, the proceedings of the English government had long been watched with intense interest, and so cordiallydid they approve them, that Bullinger, Calvin, and others had offered to unite their followers with the episcopal Church of England, and to

Burnet, Hist. Ref. II. 239.

name King Edward the protector of their common faith". By the Romanists, this prospect of union among the enemies of their sect was regarded with great uneasiness; and it probably prompted them to level against the Reformers, with unusual loudness, those charges of heterodoxy, by which they have ever endeavoured to render odious and suspected all religionists who treat papal traditions with contempt. There is

"Strype, Mem. Cranm. 296. Sanders, 217.

Upon this subject let us hear Mr. Butler, the eulogist, and ordinarily the model, of polemical courtesy. "You (Dr. Southey) believe, therefore, all that the Roman Catholic Church believes, respecting the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Christ, and the Atonement; but are these doctrines seriously and sincerely believed by the great body of the present English clergy: or by the great body of the present English laity? Do not the former, to use Mr. Gibbon's expression, sign the thirty-nine articles with a sigh or a smile? Is a sincere and conscientious belief of the doctrines expressed in them, considered by many of the laity to be a condition of salvation?" (Book of the R. C. Church, 172.) This insult has been indignantly and very ably repelled by Bishop Blomfield, of Chester. The spirit of delusion and misrepresentation which dictated it, is excellently developed by Mr. Blanco White in his ingenuous account of his own interesting case. "It was the general opinion in Spain, that Protestants, though often adorned with moral virtues, were totally deficient in true religious feelings. This was the opinion of Spanish Catholics." (Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism, 12.) It is easy to understand why Romanists draw this picture of Protestants. The latter believe all those articles in the Romish creed which are unquestionable; they reject such articles only in that creed as have no better authority than the confident assertions of interested men. The naked disclosure of this fact must needs be very unsatisfactory to a discerning Romanist. Its natural operation is, therefore, eluded by a re

even reason to believe, that some unprincipled Papists abroad had aided two foreign fanatics, or persons assuming that character, in reaching England; in order to scandalise serious Christians there by preaching against the baptism of infants, and by announcing, that the fifth, or spiritual monarchy, was now upon the point of annihilating the political system of Europe'. Unhappily the

presentation, that those who profess to reject papal traditions, have in reality ceased also to hold scriptural truth.

"Whereupon were sent two of their emissaries from Rotterdam into England, who were to pretend themselves Anabaptists, and preach against baptising infants, and preach up re-baptising, and a fifth monarchy upon earth. And besides this, one D. G. authorised by these learned men (the council of Trent) despatched a letter written in May 1549, from Delf in Holland, to two bishops, whereof Winchester was one, signifying the coming of these pretended Anabaptists, and that they should receive them, and cherish them, and take their parts, if they should chance to receive any checks: telling them, that it was left to them to assist in this cause, and to some others, whom they knew to be well affected to the mother-church. This letter is lately put in print. Sir Henry Sydney first met with it in Queen Elizabeth's closet, among some papers of Queen Mary's. He transcribed it into a book of his, called, The Romish Policies. It came afterwards into the hands of Archbishop Usher; and was transcribed thence by Sir James Ware." (Strype, Mem. Cranm. 297.) In May 1549, began the tumults in England. At that time the council of Trent was a non-entity, the papal partizans composing it having been transferred long before to Bologna; where they transacted no ostensible business. There was, indeed, a party of the Emperor's subjects left at Trent, in idleness, as far as it appears. That either the Trentine, or the Bolognese party should have authorised the infamous artifice mentioned in the text, is not credible. There might, however, have been individuals among them thus guilty. It is sufficiently notorious, that

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