A HISTORY OF LONDON
The petition states that the friars, who were 'founded by the Bishop of Rome his usurped authority, and not of God's Word,' had procured themselves ample churches in the City, where at all hours there were masses, to which infected persons 'did commonly ... resort, without danger of others.' God had been pleased to reveal to the king 'the truth of His blessed word' and the 'simulate sanctity' of the friars, and he 'according to their demerits, like a most godly, catholic, and virtuous prince' had 'extirped and extinct' them, 'to the great exaltation of Christ's doctrine and the abolition of Antichrist their first founder.' Their churches, now vacant, were the largest in the City except St. Paul's, and most fit 'for God's word to be preached in and God's scripture to be read in.' The early masses there had been convenient for those who were unable 'to tarry the parish mass,' which did not begin till six or seven o'clock. For lack of these and other services which had been attended by visitors to London, in Parliament and term time the parish churches would be 'pestered with people' (as St. Paul's already was), 'and the parishioners put out of their pews.[1]
The petition was not granted, and it is to be feared that one result of the fall of the London religious houses was that many of those who had gone there to worship gave up the practice of frequent attendance at divine service which the petition seems to indicate was almost universal in 1538. A tendency in the same direction may be traced in the decision made in December 1539 that in future the mayor and aldermen should only go in state to St. Paul's on the day the lord mayor took his oath, All Saints, Christmas, the Epiphany, and Candlemas Days.[2]
The year 1539 marks a turning point in the history of the Reformation. The changes which had followed one another in rapid succession abruptly ceased. The 'diversity of preachers' also ceased, though several of the leading reformers were not silenced without severe persecution. Hilsey and Stokesley died in 1539, and next year Cromwell and Barnes were executed, so that by the autumn of 1540 the chief actors too were changed.
The position early in 1539 is indicated by three documents — the proclamation issued on 26 February, a paper composed as a vindication of the changes hitherto made by the royal authority, and a private letter written from London on 8 March by four men of the reforming party.[3] Taken alone, the last would indicate a much greater advance in the direction desired by its writers than either of the others. It says that though ceremonies were still tolerated, 'for the sake of preventing any disturbances,' explanations of them were ordered, but the explanations it gives as examples are far less conservative in tone than the official ones. It also says that persons had freely preached before the king about the marriage of priests, and that the mass 'is not asserted to be a sacrifice for the living and the dead, but only a representation of Christ's passion.' There seems to be no other evidence that this doctrine was then generally taught or believed in London, but as regards ceremonies there may have been little diversity of opinion among the leaders
- ↑ Memoranda ... relating to the Royal Hospitals, App. i. The first part of this long and very interesting document, of which only a few of the chief points are given above, is almost verbally the same as Gresham's letter (Strype, Mem. i [i], 409), the most important alteration being that of the phrase 'to live in pleasure' into 'carnally living as they [the monks, &c.] of late have done.'
- ↑ Rec. Corp. Letter Bk. P, fol. 207b; cf. supra, pp. 232-3.
- ↑ Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 842; L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (l), 402; Orig. Letters (Parker Soc), ii, 624.
