134 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



t^od S. VII. Feb. 12. '69. 



translated to St. David's, April 21, 1536. Now 

 we find that, in the Conge cPElire to the Dean 

 and Chapter of St. Asaph to elect Barlow's suc- 

 cessor, dated May 29, 1536, more than a month 

 after the translation of Barlow, it is stated that 

 the see was vacant " per liberam transmutationem 

 Willielmi Barlowe ultimi episcopi ibidem electi;" 

 and the same words occur in the commission to 

 consecrate his successor, Robert Warton, to the 

 see of St. Asaph, dated 24th of June, 1536. This 

 being the case, it would be interesting to know in 

 what document Barlow is described as full Bishop 

 of St. Asaph, on, or previous to, April 21, 1536. 



F. C. H. proceeds to say : " In Henry VIII.'s 

 reign it was not necessary even to be a bishop, 

 but sufficient to be a representative of a diocese 

 to be summoned to parliament ;" but he gives no 

 reference to support this. Here, far from libra- 

 ries, I have no means of fully investigating this 

 point, but Courayer says that, " according to the 

 laws of England, the writs are addressed only to 

 Consecrated Bishops." Can this be refuted ? But 

 to establish his point, it will be also necessary 

 for F. C. H. to prove that wnconsecrated Bishops 

 were allowed to sit as bishops in Convocation, and 

 sign accordingly : for among the signatures to the 

 articles agreed upon by Convocation in 1536 (Col- 

 lier, iv. 356. ed. 1852), there occurs "Willlelmus 

 Meneven," immediately followed by that of his 

 successor " Robert (Warton) Assaphen." War- 

 ton was consecrated at Lambeth, July 2, 1536. 

 Barlow, therefore (unless it can be proved that 

 unconsecrated bishops were allowed to sit and 

 sign as bishops in Convocation) was consecrated 

 before Warton : for surely, if unconsecrated him- 

 self, he never would have been allowed to sign his 

 name before that of a consecrated bishop. Can 

 F. C. H. supply instances in which unconsecrated 

 bishops have s.at both as Peers in Parliament, and 

 aa full Bishops in Convocation ? 



As regards Bishop Barlow's marriage, I stated 

 it on the authority of H. J. Rose in his Biogra- 

 phical Dictionary, where F. C. H. will find the 

 particulars of his daughter's marriage as I have 

 given them. I should be glad to know Burnet's 

 authority for stating him to have died unmarried. 

 F. C. H. says Courayer has been solidly refuted ; 

 but how can he answer the indisputable facts given 

 by J. Y. in your last number, and which alone are 

 sufficient to convince any unprejudiced mind that 

 Barlow was duly consecrated. The truth is, that 

 the Romanists have no other means of invalidating 

 the Anglican succession than by stoutly denying 

 Bishop Barlow's consecration ; and this some of 

 them persist in doing in spite of any amount of 

 proof that may be brought forward in its favour, 

 apd which would be considered abundantly suffi- 

 cient in any similar case. Alkbed T. Lee. 



Few events of history are more certain than this 

 fact. In spite of Father Hardouin's paradox, who 

 delighted In nothing else but paradoxes, and in 

 spite of F. C. H., no one need travel beyond your 

 pages to satisfy himself of the probability, strong 

 presumption, and positive certainty, that Thomas 

 Barlow was consecrated Bishop of St. David's : 1. 

 F. C. H. states that he went to Scotland in Feb- 

 ruary, and "returned about May," but he has 

 forgotten to add that he was in London certainly 

 In April : it should have been that he went to 

 Scotland in February or March, that he came to 

 London in April, and went again to Scotland in 

 May. As he was confirmed In person at Bow 

 church, April 21, we may conjecture that he made 

 the journey from Scotland for the purpose of being 

 consecrated, since confirmation did not require his 

 presence. It is true that the record of that con- 

 secration does not appear in the register of 

 Canterbury, but F. C. H. destroys the force of 

 any argument that may be deduced from this 

 silence. The consecration of Gardiner is equally 

 wanting, though " a record of Gardiner has been 

 found" or rather I imagine from the allusion to 

 " MS. Lowth e Regist. Cant.," F. C. H. meant to 

 say, that by reference to MS. Lowth it would 

 seem that the record of the consecration of Gar- 

 diner had been entered in the Lambeth register, 

 but had now disappeared. Since then consecra- 

 tions have taken place, and been entered in the 

 register, and have since disappeared, why not Bar- 

 low's ? This much as to the probability. 2. I 

 think there Is strong presumption of his consecra- 

 tion from the fact that a mandate was issued for 

 his consecration : for certainly if Henry VIII. 

 disbelieved in the necessity of episcopal consecra- 

 tion, and yet issued on the 22nd Feb. 1536 (Ry- 

 mer, vol. xiv. p. 559.) a mandate to Cranmer to 

 consecrate Barlow a bishop, and then acknow- 

 ledged him afterwards, in contempt of his own 

 mandate, as bishop without consecration, such 

 conduct, to say the least, is so comical that his- 

 tory would have recorded something about such 

 singular facts. 3. But we are not left to proba- 

 bility, or strong presumption ; we have documen- 

 tary evidence of the most unexceptionable nature 

 as to Barlow's consecration. Mary in her Conge 

 dElire for the election, and again in her mandate 

 for the consecration of Gilbert Browne as the 

 successor of Thomas Barlow, declares him to have 

 been duly consecrated ; for she says in the first 

 document that the see is vacant " per liberam et 

 spontaneam resignationem ultimi episcopi" — not 

 the pretended bishop, but the bishop ; and in the 

 second document that it is so vacant " per depri- 

 vationem et amotionem ultimi episcopi." But no 

 one without consecration Is a bishop. To make 

 F. C. H.'s revival of Father Hardouin's theory 

 even plausible, we must therefore suppose that 

 Mary, who had every reason to proclaim the nul- 



