Life of Matthew Parker (Strype, 1821)/Book II/Chapter XVI

CHAP. XVI.

Bishop Thirleby and Dr. Boxal with the Archbishop at Bekesborn. Queen Mary's Bishops and Divines favourably dealt with. Archbishop Hethe, Bishop Bourn. John Bale, the antiquarian, Prebendary at Canterbury, dies.

Thirlby and Boxal Placed with the Archbishop

IN the month of September this year, the Queen's Council were so kind to Thirlby, late Bishop of Ely, and Boxal, late Dean of Windsor, (whom the Lord Burghley called "a person of great modesty and knowledge,") as to remove them for their preservation from London, where the plague grew now very hot: and having been with the Archbishop before at Lambeth, appointed them to harbour with him now at his house at Bekesborn. And their keeper, who conveyed them thither, brought also letters from the said Council to the Archbishop, signifying upon what conditions he was to receive them. Concerning this resolution of the Council, Thirlby also had wrote him a letter before. But this was some surprise to him, not only in regard of the inconveniency of the entertainment of them here, such was the straitness of his house, having not many less than an hundred persons uprising and down lying therein; besides divers of his family, which were forced to lodge abroad: but chiefly because of the great danger of harbouring persons that came from a place infected. And that if any peril should arise from them, the country would make such exclamation, which he saw was wonderfully afraid of all such as came from London. Nor did he, as he writ his friend, in respect of his own person, repine at this appointment, nor would he be thought slack to gratify his old acquaintance, so far as his faith to God and his word, and his allegiance to his Prince and her government, might bear with it. But for the prevention of any danger of infection, he desired the Secretary that he would prefer his request unto the Lords of the Council, that it might stand with their pleasures, that for the fear his household was in of them, coming from a contagious air, he might place them in the town, not far from his house, in an house then standing empty, till such time as they were better blown, as his phrase was, with that fresh air for a fourteen days. He would see to their provision, and for the custody of their persons. As to one of them, he said, he was surely persuaded that he would not disappoint the Council's expectations: which, I suppose, was Thirlby; with whom probably he might have contracted a good acquaintance, having been Bishop of Norwich (the Archbishop's native city) in King Edward's days. But the nature of the other he was not so well acquainted with. Whereupon, if ought should chance in the mean time, till he should receive them to himself, he trusted the Council would rather bear with him, in avoiding the danger of infection, as might be feared, than for their behoof endanger his whole family. This he prudently thought good to signify to the Secretary's own hands, praying him to be a means that his doings might be taken in the best part.

And so was Thirlby entertained henceforward with the Archbishop in all courteous and gentle manner, both here near Canterbury and at Lambeth, until his death, which happened Aug. 26. in the year 1570. "Taking more pleasure," as Bishop Godwin assured himself, "in this time of his imprisonment, than ever heretofore in the midst and fullest stream of his highest honours." The Archbishop took care to have him decently buried in the chancel of Lambeth church, and a fair stone laid over him, with an inscription in brass, still remaining. He was born in Cambridge, Fellow of Trinity hall, and in degree Doctor of the Civil Law; and the first and last Bishop of Westminster.

Queen Mary's Bishops Favourably Dealt With

And here I will take this occasion to cast an eye back upon Queen Mary's Bishops and other ecclesiastics. Reason of state, and their incompliance with the laws now established, made it necessary to take them up and lay divers of them in the Tower. In the year 1560, they petitioned the Lords of the Council that they might have liberty to come together at their meals. This suit of theirs was left unto the discretion of the Archbishop, as head of the Queen's Commissioners ecclesiastical, that if he judged it not convenient that this liberty should be granted them, then they desired him by the Secretary to signify it unto the Lords: but if he approved it, then to send his orders to the Lieutenant of the Tower to allow them so to do as they had desired, prescribing nevertheless the order unto them: which was, that Dr. Hethe, Dr. Boxal, Dr. Pates, and Dr. Fecknam, be admitted to one company to one of the tables: and to the other table Dr. Thirleby, Dr. Bourne, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Turbervile. Which favour, no question, the Archbishop readily yielded them.

And so they, or some of them, continued under an easy restraint till the year 1563, the year wherein the nation, and chiefly London, was visited with the plague: when they desired the Lords to be removed, because of the danger of infection. Whereupon the Lords dispersed them among the Bishops in their respective places of habitation, where they might be safe. Fecknam was sent to the Bishop of Winchester, Bourn to the Bishop of Lincoln; and to the Archbishop the Council wrote, to receive Thirleby and Boxal, his former guests, as was mentioned before; and "to give them convenient lodging, each of them one man allowed them, and to use them as was requisite for men of their sort; and that they should satisfy his Lordship for the charges of their commons." This letter was dated September 15. Upon this order, Dr. Thirleby wrote to him concerning his coming into his family, saying, "That he was an unbidden guest, who, according to the proverb, wotteth not where to sit; and that he would bring all his family with him, that is, his man and his boy." To which the Archbishop made this very friendly answer: "Sir, as an unbidden guest, as you write, knoweth not where to sit, so a guest bidden or unbidden, being content with that which he shall find, shall deserve to be the better welcome. If you bring with you your man and your querister too, ye shall not be refused. And if your companion in journey [Dr. Boxal] can content himself with one man to attend upon him, your lodging shall be the sooner prepared. Your best way were to Maidstone the first night, and the next hither. I would wish your coming were the sooner afore night, that such as shall come with you, being once discharged of their charge, may return that night to Canterbury, two miles off, to their bed. And thus God send you a quiet passage. 20th September, 63."

Thirleby continued with the Archbishop to his dying day; though sometimes, it seems, he lodged in London in Black Friars, at one Mrs. Blackwell's. In whose bedchamber some years after died one Mrs. Catharine Carus, a Lancashire woman, a zealous Papist, widow of a Justice of Peace of that name. Which gentlewoman, it is likely out of her devotion, hired that chamber in her age to die in, upon the supposed holiness and merit thereof, which the said Thirleby might be thought to convey to it. This news of her death thus Fleetwood, Recorder of London, writ to the Lord Burghley. "Katherin Carus, the late Justice wife, my countrywoman, with all her pride and Popery, is this week gone, I trust, to God. She died in Bishop Thirleby's chamber in Mrs. Blackwell's house in the Black Friars."

Boxal's Removal and Death

Boxal after some time removed to Bromley, whether it were to the Bishop of Rochester's, or to some other habitation of his own there, it is uncertain to me. Thence he wrote a letter of thanks to the Archbishop for his hospitable entertainment. Which was in these words:

"I have none other business to trouble your Grace with a letter, but only to render unto the same my humble thanks, as well for my very good entertainment, which so long time without desert your Grace exhibited unto me, as also for your gentleness shewed at this my removing from your Grace's house to Bromleigh. Which I do acknowledge, and most heartily wish I were able by any means to declare myself mindful of it, as I am, &c. Your Grace's debter and well-willer to his small power, Jo. Boxall."

This Boxal, it seems, after some time returned to the custody of the Archbishop again, and was, as were the aforesaid Thirleby and Bishop Tunstal, a guest at his table continually. But afterwards falling sick and shook with a fever, he went to a friend of his at London, and there expired a little after of that disease.

He was Doctor of Divinity of Oxford, Dean of Peterburgh, Norwich, and Windsor, Secretary and Counsellor to Queen Mary. He abstained Mattheus. under that Queen from shedding innocent blood, or giving his consent thereto. There was in him as it were by nature a great modesty and courteous disposition.

Archbishop Hethe at Cobham

As for Hethe he seemeth before this time to have had his liberty of dwelling at large, and might be gone to his seat at Cobham in Surrey, where he lived and died at full ease, quiet, and safety, and as handsomely as most gentlemen in England. For Cobham (according to a particular of that manor which I have seen among Sir Michael Hicks's papers) was situate twenty miles from London, four miles wide of Windsor, held in sockage. It contained five hundred acres of land, meadow, wood, and pasture. The wood and timber valued at eight hundred pounds. A fair house, garden, and orchard. The whole ground paled about. It was rented at 180l. a year. The price of the purchase 3000l. It was now Sir Francis Lee's; formerly Mr. Hethe's, the heir, I suppose, of Dr. Hethe. This was that grave man's easy retirement in his old age.

Dorman Answered by Nowel

And yet so ungrateful were the Papists of those times, that they were not only unsensible of this kind usage of their Bishops and chief Divines, but represented them in their ordinary discourses and public prints as miserable prisoners. Thus Dorman about this very time had the confidence to publish these words: "How many notable men of the Clergy, said he, both for life and learning, only for refusal of this oath [of supremacy] suffer they to pine away in prison?" To which false suggestion let me by the way subjoin the answer which Nowel, Dean of St. Paul's, gave; telling Dorman, "That this oath was never required of them; and they pined not, but fared well, and of other men's cost too, a great many of them. They were well fed and in good liking, and some of them so fat as they might wallow too. That they neither sat nor hung in stocks by legs or fingers, nor had their necks in chains. That they were neither whipped nor scourged, as some of them used others, [meaning Bonner's dealing with the professors of the Gospel.] And that in sickness time, they had their progresses both for health and pleasure too." Having in his eye, no question, the sending of these two unto the Archbishop from the sickness at London; as well as others of them, that had now permission granted them to retire from London to their friends, or places of more safety. So that it was a most true denomination by which our Archbishop called these Popish dignitaries, viz. his guests, and not his prisoners.

Bishop Bourn with the Bishop of Lincoln

Such gentle and good usage did Bourn, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, receive at the hands of the Bishop of Lincoln, with whom he was now placed. Though whether it were before or after this he lived with Cary, Dean of the chapel, as Godwin writes, I know not. But with the said Bishop I find him in January 1565. When he desired the Archbishop to be a suitor to the Secretary to obtain licence, that his guest, Mr. Bourn, for so he called him, might be at his own house, which he had in London, for the Parliament time, being sufficiently bound to be quiet, and to return again with him, or otherwise, when the said Bishop should repair home; because his own lodging at Lambeth was too strait. He lodged, I suppose, at Lambeth, that he might be near the Archbishop, where the commission court was kept, he being one of the ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Archbishop, according to the Bishop of Lincoln's request, writ to the Secretary to the effect above mentioned, adding, that if they of the commission might do it, they would not wish it to be moved to the Queen or Council; and so prayed the Secretary to grant his desire. Whence we may conclude, that Bourn had the liberty to dwell at his own house, under some easy conditions of living peaceably; and so enjoyed himself and his friends about him. And so did divers others of Queen Mary's Bishops and Divines.

Apprehension of a French Invasion

In the month of February the Archbishop being at his Palace at Canterbury, I find his two guests, Thirleby and Boxal, still with him. But there being at this time a great consternation in those parts, upon apprehension of the French's invasion of England thereabouts; he put it to the Secretary's consideration, what were best to be done with them in that time and country, and in such vicinity [of the French.] Though he judged by their words, which they now spake, that they were true Englishmen, not wishing (as he said) to be subject to the governance of such insolent conquerors.

The Death of John Bale

In November died a famous man, John Bale the antiquary, formerly Bishop of Ossory in Ireland, but a Prebendary now of this church of Canterbury, where he resided after Queen Elizabeth possessed the crown. He was once a White Friar in Norwich, and very hot and devout in that way of religion. In one of his books speaking concerning the worshippers of images, and the practisers of Popish superstitions, he added, "Yea, I ask God mercy a thousand times, I have been one of them myself." Afterwards, being convinced of his superstitions by the Lord Wentworth, and well observing himself the unclean and shameful practices used too commonly in the monastic life, he left his Order, and became a zealous decrier of the Papal supremacy and worship, between the years 1530 and 1540. And sometimes we find him in the north, where Lee the Archbishop imprisoned him; and sometimes in the south, where Stokesly, Bishop of London, met with him. But making his supplications to the Lord Crumwel, the King's Vicar General, he escaped out of their hands. The said Crumwel used to be delighted with reading certain witty plays composed by Bale in Latin. At Crumwel's death he thought it not safe for him to abide any longer in the land, especially persecution growing so hot upon the Six Articles; so he with his wife and family went beyond sea, and tarried in Lower Germany for eight years: that is, till King Edward came to reign.

Bale's Antiquities and the Prebend

The decease of this man created our Archbishop two businesses. The one was to get into possession of the antiquities which Bale had by great diligence, industry, and charges, for many a year been picking up and collecting. These our Archbishop took care speedily to bespeak before others, and was promised to have them for money. And this he writ to his friend the Secretary, as knowing him to be a great antiquarian himself, and a studious retriever of such monuments; and therefore an acceptable piece of news to him. The other was to procure Mr. Bale's prebend for a Chaplain of his, who was Andrew Peerson, his Almoner. Which by the instant intercession of the Secretary with the Queen he obtained. But instead of a presentation, the ordinary instrument in such cases, there was brought to the Archbishop a donation under the Great Seal, for the Chaplain's enjoyment of the prebend. This did a little disturb our Prelate, who used to be very punctual in keeping to old ecclesiastical statutes and orders, and was no further for any innovations than was necessary. For this instrument was not in such order passed, as both by laws ecclesiastical, and statutes of the house, was required. This caused him to send another letter to the Secretary, urging to him, how this would work a subversion of order in the Church, and a breach of statute, besides other inconveniences. He blamed the clerks, wishing they would better consider the order of such privy seals. He took notice also of another mistake, namely, that the Queen's grant was two days before Bale's departure. Which little error, he said, might peradventure be hurtful to the party to come into that prebend, which was not void when the grant was made: though the Great Seal bare date after his decease. But he earnestly desired the Secretary that he would get the instrument reformed, that it might pass by presentation as it ought. Which was accordingly procured.

But there happened not long after another matter, that gave fresh occasion for the Archbishop to solicit the Secretary again in his Chaplain's behalf about this prebend. There was one Tamworth, who had obtained so much favour from the Queen, that she had granted him the next avoidance of a prebend in that church; and so ought to have been admitted into Bale's place. But it seems he was not quick enough; nor did the Archbishop, when he solicited on his Chaplain's behalf, know of any such grant to Tamworth. But observing a prejudice done to him, and that his Chaplain's title might not be so firm in case the other should have tried to reverse the possession the said Chaplain had therein: to make therefore some amends for the prejudice, and to secure his domestic, he entreated the Secretary that he would prefer the said advowson to the Queen's Highness, to have it renewed for the next hereafter. Which, he said, was no more cost, but her favourable grant to be the same, that once was granted to take place at the next turn: seeing it was of late otherwise at her free favour bestowed.

Editorial Notes

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Source: John Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, the First Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1821), Vol. I. Enhanced reading edition: proofread against the 1821 scan; section headings and editorial notes added per the AnglicanWiki editorial guidelines.

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