ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Cromwell, insisting on the title of Totius Anglle Primas, and persisted in 

 the Winchester visitation. 1 



Meanwhile Gardiner was faithfully working at his share of the 

 translation of the New Testament, on the scheme projected by Cranmer 

 in 1533, with which he was occupied chiefly at his quiet manor house 

 of Bishops Waltham. On 10 June, 1535, he wrote to Cromwell, stating 

 that he had just finished the translation of the Gospels of St. Luke and 

 St. John, and being overwrought by his labours intended for a time to 

 put aside all books and writing. 2 



Following on the divorce of Catherine in 1533 came the separa- 

 tion from Rome in 1534 and the proclaiming of Henry VIII. as the 

 supreme head of the Church of England, accompanied by the Verbal 

 Treason Act, by which any one questioning even by ' malicious silence ' 

 the right of the king to such a title was liable to execution as a 

 traitor. The clergy, secular and religious, as well as members of par- 

 liament and officials, were ordered to swear allegiance to Anne (Boleyn) 

 and her children, to acknowledge the supremacy of the Crown, and to 

 deny that the pope had any more authority in England than any other 

 bishop. To this stringent oath the now despotic Henry secured the 

 subscription of almost the whole of the clergy, parochial and monastic. 

 Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Sir Thomas More, the late chancellor, and 

 several Carthusian monks were executed under the Verbal Treason Act. 

 Gardiner of Winchester hesitated for some time, but at last (on 10 

 February, 1535)" he signed his repudiation of papal authority, and calling 

 together his clergy at St. Swithun's induced the falterers to follow his 

 example. 



The foremost and plainest opponents of the king's divorce were the 

 Friars Observants, who numbered amongst them the best preachers of 

 the day, such as Peto, Elstow and Forest. The king, who but a few 

 years previously had declared this order to be the most holy and faithful 

 in his dominion, now resolved on its suppression. About 200 of the 

 order were flung into prison without trial, where upwards of fifty died 

 from the severity of their treatment, whilst their houses were handed 

 over to the Augustinian friars. The Observants had their origin in a 

 reformation of the relaxed Franciscan rule, begun in 1400 and con- 

 firmed by the council of Constance in 1414. The Southampton house 

 of Franciscan friars was one of the seven English houses that adopted 

 the reformed rule, and were henceforth Observant friars. On Passion 

 Sunday, 1534, one, Robert Cooke of Rye, had to do penance for certain 

 heresies about the sacrament of the altar, and to make public confession 

 and abjuration in the cathedral church at Winchester. The preacher 

 on that occasion was Friar Pecock, warden of the Observant convent at 

 Southampton. He was bold enough to avail himself of the opportunity 



1 Cott. MSS. Cleop. F. i. z6o. 



8 Letters and Papers, Henry fill. No. 850. The four Gospels were assigned to the Bishops of 

 Canterbury, Lincoln, Winchester and Ely, and it is a great tribute to Gardiner's learning that the two 

 longest were eventually allotted to him as his share. 



8 Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 780. 



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