would collect to overawe them on their tribunals;[1] and Cromwell was constituted a referee, to whom victims of episcopal persecution rarely appealed without finding protection.[2] Devout communities were scandalized by priests marrying their concubines, or bringing wives whom they had openly chosen to their parsonages. The celibacy of the clergy was generally accepted as a theory; and, though indulgence had been liberally extended to human weakness and frailty, the opinion of the world was less complacent when secret profligacy stepped forward into the open day under the apparent sanction of authority.[3]
- ↑ The Bishop of Norwich wrote to Cromwell, informing him that he had preached a sermon upon grace and freewill in his cathedral; 'the next day,' he said, 'one Robert Watson very arrogantly and in great fume came to my lodgings for to reason with me in that matter, affirming himself not a little to be offended with mine assertion of freewill, saying he would set his foot by mine, affirming to the death that there was no such freewill in man. Notwithstanding I had plainly declared it to be of no strength, but only when holpen by the grace of God; by which his ungodly enterprise, perceived and known of many, my estimation and credence concerning the sincere preaching of the truth was like to decay.' The Bishop went on to say that he had set Watson a day to answer for 'his temeranious opinions,' and was obliged to call in a number of the neighbouring county magistrates to enable him to hold his court, 'on account of the great number which then assembled as Watson's fautors.'—The Bishop of Norwich to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, first series, vol. x.
- ↑ For instance, in Watson's case he seems to have rebuked the Bishop.—Ibid.
- ↑ Very many complaints of parishioners on this matter remain among the State Papers. The difficulty is to determine the proportion of offenders (if they may
Henry spoke also of the abuse of the Bible: 'I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverendly that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every alehouse and tavern. I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and coldly.'—Hall, p. 866.
