ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



and goods that were seized were sent up to London, included a super- 

 altar, a cope, five pieces of massing ornaments, a vestment, a stole, a set 

 of beads, two great wax candles, and ' a greate masse booke in Latin.' ' 

 They also took from the prisoners a variety of devotional and contro- 

 versial works of theology, and one work of more serious import, Allen's 

 Defence of English Catholics, wherein the lawfulness of killing Elizabeth 

 is maintained, though not in such plain or virulent terms as those used 

 by Bishop Ponet for the killing of Mary. 



The end of this episcopate was stained by two martyrdoms. John 

 Slade, educated at Douay, followed the profession of a schoolmaster at 

 Winchester. John Body, a Wykehamist and master of arts, was another 

 Hampshire schoolmaster. After a long confinement in gaol they were 

 condemned at the Winchester assizes for denying the queen's supremacy. 

 Slade was butchered as a traitor at Winchester on 30 October, 1583, and 

 Body at Andover on 2 November of the same year. 8 They were both 

 laymen. 3 



But it was not only the perverse Romanists who were a trouble to 

 Bishop Watson. An extreme and extravagant section of the Anabaptists, 

 who became known as the Family of Love or the Familists, established 

 themselves in England towards the end of Edward VI. 's reign. There 

 seems no doubt that they often offended grossly against decency and 

 order. On 3 October, 1580, a proclamation was issued against 'the 

 Sectaries of the Family of Love,' and a form of abjuration of their 

 various heresies was issued by the council, to be administered to its 

 members. A letter was sent to the Bishop of Winchester on 10 October, 

 directing him to call to his assistance Sir William Moore, Sir Thomas 

 Browne, and such other learned men as he thought meet for the sup- 

 pressing and punishing of the ' Familie of Love.' 4 The dioceses of 

 Winchester, Ely and Norwich were the chief centres of the sect. 



On the death of Watson a more distinguished man and considerable 

 scholar succeeded to the bishopric of Winchester. Thomas Cooper, the 

 son of a poor Oxford tailor, educated as a Magdalen College quire boy, 

 eventually through his diligence became fellow and master of the school 

 where he had been pupil. His greatest work was the Thesaurus, or 

 Latin dictionary, first published in 1565, which won Elizabeth's special 

 esteem. He was also a considerable theologian and controversialist. 

 Cooper was successively Dean of Christchurch and Gloucester and Bishop 

 of Lincoln, and was translated to Winchester in 1584, where he was 

 noted for his learning and personal sanctity. When the famous series of 

 Martin Marprelate tracts attacking the English prelacy in 1588-9 were 



1 Dom. State Papers, Eliz. clviii. 9. 



* Stow's Annals ; Challoner's Martyrs (Law's ed.) i. go-z. 



3 One of the most astounding mistakes in Green's Short History (which fully acknowledges the 

 cruelty and extent of the Elizabethan persecution fostered by the wicked bull of Pope Pius) is his state- 

 ment that under the penal Act of 1 5 8 1 'no layman was brought to the bar or to the block . . . the 

 work of bloodshed was reserved wholly for priests.' The fact is that fifty-seven laymen and laywomen 

 were done to death under its provisions in addition to upwards of 100 priests. 



* Acts of Privy Council, 1580-1, p. 233. 



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