In again appearing before the public, the Author has gratefully to acknowledge the very favourable reception which his former volumes have experienced. He has, in consequence, determined upon undertaking to carry on his history until the completion of the English Reformation, at the commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In another volume this design may be accomplished. Some apology, perhaps, is due for the unusual bulk of the present volume. This has arisen from anxiety to place before the reader full information upon the important matters which occupied public attention under Edward VI. Of all the theological questions agitated in that monarch's reign, transubstantiation is the most conspicuous. It was ori ginally intended, accordingly, to place a brief historical account of that doctrine at the beginning of a chapter. But the subject was found incapable of such compression, and, therefore, a separate division of the work was devoted to it. As the facts detailed in this are interesting, and yet many of them are not easy of access to the generality of readers, it is hoped that the insertion of this digressive chapter may not prove unacceptable. CONTENTS Bishop Gardiner's defence of images and lustral Images removed from one of the London churches 36 Progress and establishment of a belief in transubstantiation 136 The Eucharist represented as a propitiatory sacrifice .... 146 ..... .... The Anglo-Saxon homily ..... Anglo-Saxon epistles against transubstantiation trine The Marquess of Northampton's divorce...... 219 Some Romish ceremonies forbidden Order of Council for removing images from Proclamation for the observance of Lent Plunder and profanation of churches...... Unsound opinions repressed ... Sermon and imprisonment of Bp. Gardiner Archbishop Cranmer's visitation... The liturgical committee |