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All these former six. named men were, as it seems, Judges; and, although condemned, yet their lives were saved at the intercession of some of the guiltless peers, and they afterwards were banished into Ireland.

Sir Simon de Burleigh was also condemned and beheaded; he was a Knight Banneret, and of the Garter, a great and gallant courtier, and his body lieth honourably buried and intombed in Paul's Church. Sir John Beuchamp, Steward of the Household to the King, and Sir James Bereverous, were also condemned and beheaded at Towerhill.

Sir John Salisbury was condemned, drawn from Tower-hill to Tyburn, and then hanged.

There were also detected, and condemned of the aforesaid treason, The Bishop of Chichester, the king's confessor,

Sir William Ellingham, Knight.

Sir Thomas Trinet, Knight.

Sir Nicholas Nagworth, Knight.
Richard Metford, Clerk.

John Slake, Clerk.

John Lincolne, Clerk,

An Abstract of many memorable Matters, done by Parliaments, in this Kingdom of England.

BY parliament, Sir Thomas Wayland, chief justice of the commonpleas, 17 Edw. I. was attainted of felony for taking bribes, and his lands and goods forfeited, as appears in the pleas of parliament, 18 Edw. I. and he was banished the kingdom, as unworthy to live in that state, against which he had so much offended,

By parliament, Sir William Thorp, chief justice of the king's bench in Edw. III's time, having of five persons received five several bribes, which in all amounted to but one hundred pounds, was for this alone adjudged to be hanged, and all his goods and lands forfeited.

The reason of the judgment is entered in the roll in these words:

Because that, as much as in him lay, he had broken the king's ⚫ oath made to the people, which the king had intrusted him withal.' By the parliament, holden, Anno 22, Hen. II, assembled at Nottingham, and by advice thereof, the king caused the kingdom to be divided into six parts, and justices itinerants appointed for every part, with an oath by them to be taken for themselves, to observe and cause inviolably to be observed, of all his subjects of England, the assizes made at Clarendon, and renewed at Northton.

By the parliament, in the 11th of Edw. I, the dominion of Wales was united to the crown of England; in the parliament, in Anno 16 of Edw. I. 1289, upon the general accounts made of the ill adminis tration of justice in the king's absence, by divers great officers and

ministers of justice, these penalties were inflicted upon the chief ministers thereof; whose manifest corruptions the hatred of the people to men of that profession, apt to abuse their science, and authority, and the necessity of reforming so grievous a mischief in the kingdom, gave ease thereunto by the parliament then assembled, wherein, upon due examinations of their offences, they are fined to pay to the king these sums following:

First, Sir Ralph Hengham, chief justice of the higher bench, seven thousand marks.

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Sir John Loveton, justice of the lower bench, three thousand marks. Sir William Brompton, justice, six thousand marks.

Sir Soloman Rochester, four thousand marks.

Sir Richard Boyland, four thousand marks.
Sir Thomas Sadington, two thousand marks.
Sir Walter Hopton, two thousand marks.
These four last were justices itinerants."
Sir William Saham, three thousand marks.

Robert Lithbury, master of the rolls, one thousand marks.
Roger Leicester, one thousand marks.

Henry Bray, escheater and judge for the jews, one thousand marks. But Sir Adam Stratton, chief baron of the exchequer, was fined in four and thirty thousand marks. These fines, as the rate of money goes now, amount to near three hundred thousand marks; a mighty treasure to be gotten out of the hands of so few men, which, how they could amass in those days, when litigation and law had not spread itself into those infinite wreathings of contention, as since it hath, may seem strange even to our greater-getting times.

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In the parliament Anno 2 of Edw. III. held at Nottingham, that great aspirer Mortimer was accused, condemned, and sent up to Lon don, and drawn, and hanged at the common gallows at the Elms, now called Tyburn.

In the fiftieth year of the reign of Edw. III. Anno Dom. 1376, was held a parliament at Westminster, which was called the Great Parliament, where were divers complaints exhibited by the parliament, charging the king's officers with fraud, and humbly craving that the Duke of Lancaster, the Lord Latimer, then Lord Chamberlain, Dame Alice Peirce the king's concubine, and one Sir Richard Sturry, might be removed from court; their complaints and desires are so vehemently urged by their speaker, Sir Peter la Moore, that all these persons were presently put from court.

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By parliaments, all the wholesome fundamental laws of this land were and are established and confirmed.

By act of parliament, the pope's power and supremacy, and all superstition and idolatry, are abrogated, abolished, and banished out of this land.

By act of parliament, God's true religion, worship, and service are maintained and established.

By act of parliament, the two famous universities of Cambridge and Oxford have many wholesome and helpful immunities.

By parliament, one Pierce Gaveston, a great favourite and notable misleader of king Edw. II. was removed, banished, and afterwards

by the lords executed. So were Hugh Spencer the father, and Hugh the son.

By parliament, Epsom and Dudley, two notorious pollers of the commonwealth, by exacting penal laws on the subjects, were discovered, and afterwards executed.

By parliament, the damnable gun-powder treason, hatched in hell, is recorded to be had in eternal infamy.

By parliament, one Sir Giles Mompesson, a modern caterpillar and poller of the commonwealth, by exacting upon Innholders, &c, was discovered, degraded from knighthood, and banished by proclamation.

By parliament, Sir Francis Bacon, made by King James, Baron Verulam, and Viscount St. Albans, and Lord Chancellor of England, very grievous to the commonwealth, by bribery, was discovered and displaced.

By parliament, Sir John Bennet, judge of the prerogative court, pernicious to the commonwealth in his place, was discovered and displaced.

By parliament, Lionel Cranfield, sometime a merchant of London, made by King James, Earl of Middlesex, and Lord Treasurer of England, hurtful in his place to the commonwealth, was discovered and displaced.

By parliament, one Sir Francis Mitchel, a jolly justice of peace for Middlesex in the suburbs of London, another notable canker-worm of the commonwealth, by corruption in exacting the penal laws upon poor alehouse-keepers and victuallers, &c. was discovered, degraded from knighthood, and utterly disabled for being justice of peace.

By parliament, Spain's late fraud was discovered, and by act the two treaties, with that perfidious nation, for the match of the prince, our now gracious king, and restitution of the palatinate, were dissolv ed and annihilated: both which had cost the king and his subjects much money, and much blood. We may remember, that that sage counsellor of state, Sir William Cecill, Lord Burleigh, and Lord Treasurer of England, was oftentimes heard to say, 'He knew not what an act of parliament might not do:' which sage saying was approved by King James, and by his majesty alledged in one of his published speeches.

Which being so, now the face of christendom being at this present so torn and miserably macerated, and the christian world distracted; the gospel in all places almost persecuted; both church and commonwealth, where the gospel is professed in all places beyond the seas, lying a bleeding, as we may say, and we ourselves at home, not without fear and danger: to conclude, what good may we not hope and pray for, by this present and other ensuing parliaments, the only means to rectify and remedy matters in church and commonwealth

much amiss.

THE

PRAIER AND COMPLAYNTE* OF THE PLOWEMAN

VNTO CHRISTE :

Written not long after the yere of our Lord, a thousande and thre hundred.

CHRISTUS MATT. X.

If they have called the Lorde of the Howse Beelzebub: how moch more shal they so call them of hys Howshold?

Printed, without date, Octavo, Black Letter, containing ninety-six pages.

TO THE CHRISTEN READER.

Grace be with the, and peace be multiplied in the knowlege of God the Father, and of oure Lorde Iesus Christe. Amen.

CHRIS

HRISTE, oure Sauioure, and his Apostels after hym, although they taught no thinge which was not taught in the law and the prophetes more then a thousande yeres before, ever and in euery place, desyringe the audience to serche the Olde Scriptures, and proue whether they testified with hym or no: yet, all this not withstandinge, the scribes, the phareses, the byschops, the prestes, the lawyers, and the elders of the people, cryed alwayes: What new lerninge is this? These fellowes teach new lerninge. These be they that trouble all the world with their new lerning, & cete. And so with avayne name of new lerninge, and with their autorite and opinion of olde lerninge and auncientnes of the Church, they so blinded the same people that herde Christes doctrine of his awne mouth, sawe hys lyuyinge and his miracles, and they that at his cominge to Hierusalem mette hym by the waye, cast their clothes and grene bowes in his waye, cryenge with an open voyce, 'Blessed ys he that cometh in the name of the Lorde:' The same people, I say, were so blinded and iugled with them, that the sixt daye after they cryed, Hange hym on the crosse; hange hym on the crosse.

And quitte one Barabas, a mortherer, and delyuered innocente Christ unto deth.'

All this did their byschops, prestes, and lawyers bringe to passe, only by that they made the people beleve it was new lerninge. And that the Scripture there was no man that cowlde vnderstande but they; and that Christ and his disciples were men nother of authorite nor reputacion, but laye men, ydiotes, fyschers, carpenters, and other of the rascall sorte. So that it was not possible that ever God wold open that vnto soch a rude sorte, which the religious phareses, the holy byschops, the vertu

• This is the 103d article in the catalogue of pamphlets in the Harleian Library.

ous prestes, the auncient doctours, the gret lerned lawyers, and the wise and sage elders knew not. But it must nedes be that Christe and al his disciples were heretiques, scismatiques, and disceauvers of the people, and well worthy to be put to some shamefull deth for it, to the example of all other. As they were in dede afterwarde.

But yet, for all this, even apon the crosse Christe ouercame his enemies. And, when they thought that they had layed him to slepe for ever, he rose agayne. And his disciples haue ever had the victory upon the crosse, and testified vnto the worlde the wisdome of God in these pore ydiotes, and veray folishnes and wisdome of the flesh in these gret lerned aunciente fathers.

Even now after the same manner, that ye maye grope with your fyngers, that oure holy byshops, with all their ragman's rolle, be of the selfe same sorte, and veray childerne of their fathers the phareses, bischops and prestes, which so accused Christ and his apostles of new lerninge: ye do se how they defame, sclaunder, and persecute the same worde and preachers and folowers of it, with the selfe same names, calling it new lerninge, and them new masters. And retayne the people in erroure with their fathers olde face of religiouse phareses: fryars, I wolde say, and monkes, of holy byschops, of vertuous prestes, of aunciente doctors, of the gret lerned lawyers, and of the wise and sage elders. And take away the autorite and estimacion of Gods worde and the credence of the preacher, with 'Ye maye se there ys no man preaches so but two or-three, and they haue no lerninge, and the folish people which hath no lernynge for lowes them. But ye shall se no man of substance, of reputacion, of autorite, or lerninge take parte with them.

And so, with these old clokes of their fathers, the phareses, byschops, and prestes, fyrst they persuade the people the worde of God to be heresye. And by that means they liberally prison and persecute vnto the deeth all the professours of the same. Even as the old phareses, with the bischops and prestes, prisoned and persecuted Christe and his apostles, that all the rightuous bloude may fall on their heedes, that hath been shed, from the bloude of Steuen, the first martyr, to the bloude of that innocent man of God, Thomas Hitton, whom Willyam Werham, Byschop of Canturbury, and John Fyscher, Byschop of Rochestur, morthered, at Maydeston in Kente, the last yere, for the same trouth. I pray God that they maye be ones turned vnto the Lorde, that he maye heale them, and forgeue them that sin of ignorancy. For as for these malicious tyrauntes that persecute against their awn conscience, I praye not, but leaue them to the iudgemente of God, as manyfest synners against the Holy Goost.

As for the trouth, when they haue slayne and put to sylence al the preachers of the same, and layed it to slepe, doutles God, after his old facion, shall there, by them and by those meanes that they doubt leest, reyse vp the trouth againe, to the vttur confusion of al hys enemies, whose iudgemente doth not slepe.

Now, good reader, that thou maist se playnly that it ys no new thinge, but an olde practyse of oure prelates lerned of their fathers, the byschops, phareses, and prestes of the olde law, to defame the doctrine of Christe with the name of new lerninge, and the teachers therof with the name

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