DR. MAITLAND ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITS! THE REFORMATION. * THE main

object of this book seems to be to darken the characters of the Protestants of the Reformation. Its more formal purpose is to " ex- plain " the Marian persecutions, by unfolding at length the grey-goose- quill provocations given by such British Reformers as the dangers of the times had driven into exile, and to defend Gardiner and Bonner from the popular ignominy that attends them, especially Bonner. This design is accomplished by an elaborate and certainly a very curious and painstaking examination of the Protestant writings of the period, in order to condemn the Reformers out of their own mouths. The Protestants, or, as Dr. Maitland prefers to call them, the Puritans, are put to the question, and pronounced to be deliberate liars on principle. Their writings are scrutinized to exhibit the "Puritan Style," as well as the "Puritan Politics," touching their opinions upon the natural and Scriptural claims of women to the throne, (vide. licet, Mary,) the duties of subjects, and the national character of the Spaniards ; the text being the Spanish match. Four of the essays are specially devoted to what Dr. Maitland calls "The Ribalds" : but his • Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation in England. Reprinted, with Additions, from "The British Magazine." By the Reverend S. R. Maitland, F.R.S., F.S.A., sometime Librarian to the late Archbishop of Canterbury, and Keeper o the MSS. at Lambeth. Published by Rivington. illustrations on this head rather refer to Protestant "brawling" and "rows" in church, or out of it, than to ribaldry as commonly under- Mood; the Reforming ballads and jeux d'esprit being, he says, too gross to quote. Several essays labour the rather small point of the terms on which Gardiner latterly stood with Henry the Eighth, and a curious bkdiographical discussion about Gardiner's book on the Supremacy, and a preface which Bonner is alleged to have written for it. A very long and laboured defensive inquiry into Bonnet's cruelty, involving an examination of the most remarkable cases recorded by Fox in his "Book of Martyrs," concludes the work.

To find a "sometime Librarian to the late Archbishop of Canterbury and Keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth" engaged in a task of this sort, will remind some people of the conduct alluded to by the proverb which in French is illustrated by dirty linen and in English by a bird's own nest. This remark will not apply to those (and Dr. Maitland, though opposed to Popery, appears to be of the number) who think the Anglican Church more Roman than Protestant. The real objection, however, seems to be less to the thing itself than to the spirit in which it is done. AU public characters are open to public criticism of the most severe and searching kind. There is no doubt but that many persons under Henry the Eighth and his child. yen made religion a cover for their advancement, or that some zealous Pro- testants were not pattern men ; and there is no reason why a Protestant should shrink from exposing the errors and backslidings either of parti- cular Reformers or the Reformers as a body, provided it be done in a spirit of fairness. Such is not the case in Dr. Maitland's book ; which is full of a hostile animus. The difficulties, the provocations, the dangers of the Protestants, are lost sight of; the style and language of the age, especially in theological controversy, are not sufficiently allowed for; the sufferings and merits of the men are sunk altogether, and their failings brought out with the boldest relief. On the other hand, everything that can tell against the Papists is dropped—nothing but their provocations is dwelt upon ; even in treating of those provocations, the very obvi s fact is overlooked, that the men who offered them were not the poor peopth who were burned in Smithfield and elsewhere ; and while the coarsenesses of Protestant tongues and pens are harshly exhibited, the horrid cruelties of the Popish party are mentioned as matters of course in the then state of society, and if not justifiable as practices in themselves, yet in- volving no blame in the agent—Bonner to wit. And in this, we repeat, the most blameable part is the animiu,, and the skill with which the ad- vocate of a bad cause is trying to cover himself. The forms of logic are preserved as much as may be; and sometimes a species of verbal in- trenchment is thrown up to serve as a refuge, which renders the fides of the whole more dubious than if the matter were managed with greater heat and less caution. A Jesuit might have written the Essays on Sub- jects connected with the Reformation in England. Yet, after all, it does not seem to us that Dr. Maitland succeeds in es- tablishing the partial conclusions he is driving at. The veracity of the Puritan party is impugned on the faith of four examples, and Fox's mode of recording them ; nearly all relating to denials of charges under judicial examination, such as we find judges on the bench now-a-days encouraging, even in the Case of notorious criminals. One of the facts, indeed, on which the faith of a whole party is thus unscrupulously impugned, merely amounted to giving a wrong address to a man whom George Joye, con- templating immediate escape, suspected of being a spy of the Papists. The others were much grosser instances of the principle that no man is bound to criminate himself; and so far from defending them, we think them very censurable ; but we also think that Dr. Maitland's censure is strained, and his deduction extreme. A similar remark will apply to the charges of grossness of language ; which might be matched from the other side, and indeed from all sides to a much later age than that of the Tudors. We are not defending this, any more than we are defending the violence of Knox and other writers; such things are found among the zealots of all parties, without the excuses which Knox and his Co. mates in exile might plead. We object not so much to the mere ab- stract censure of Dr. Maitland, which is grounded though extreme, but to the obvious animus with which it is done. The defence of Bonner, how- ever, is more repulsive than the censure of the Puritans. We do not need to be told that the Devil is not so black as he is painted ; but he is the Devil nevertheless. "Fox populi vox Dei," in matters that the people can really understand; and they understand the broad character of men better than persons who can see further and closer but who are apt in their refinements to substitute the secondary for the essential. When the people find a priest and a bishop thrusting the hand of a defenceless prison- er into the flame they attribute it to brutal cruelty ; and rightly, though Dr. Maitland only sees in it a humane wish to save the victim's life by procuring recantation by a foretaste of the stake. When the vulgar observe a natural bully assume the wheedler or wag to carry his point, they remember that a coarse jocularity is very often combined with a hard indifference to human suffering or human feelings; indeed, these are mach more frequently found united than the stilted port and gloomy looks of the villain of a melodrama. When the people find one man, not much more conspicuous in office or more called upon by duty than many others, foremost in every deed of persecution and preminent in blood among all his fellows, they affix the sobriquet of " bloody " to his name; and we think them right, Dr. Maitland's statistics helping us to the conclusion. He considers the numbers who perished during the Marian persecution exaggerated in popular estimation. He puts them down at about 277; of which number, poor calumniated Bonner only dealt with about 120, either as bishop-sole or bishop-pareener. As for burning a youth, or a poor old cripple, it was all in his day's work ; in- deed, he could not help it—he was merely discharging "a painful duty." Our Reverend Doctor waxes quite wroth about the complaints against the Lord of London.

"But there is also the case of Hugh Laverock, a creeple, sixty-eight years old, whom he caused to be burned.' It is really not worth while to waste time on each childish staffi If Fuller had said that nobody, of any age, lame or not lame, ought to be burned for heresy, one would fully and heartily agree with him. The law by which it was done was execrable, and should have been altered; but while the law existed, while the Government enforced it, while public opinion and even the most violent partisans of the Reformation supported it, when, as far as I know, nobody had ever thought of saying a word against it—when things were in this state what was a judge to do? Half a century ago people in general I believe thought that a man who had committed forgery ought to be hanged ; and, though our judges were not bloody wolves, it was a very rare thing for a convicted forger to escape the gallows. How the court and jury sworn would have stared if the counsel for the prisoner had admitted the fact without hesitation, declared that his client did it on principle, gloried in it, and would do it again as soon as he was discharged ; for discharged he would of course be, seeing that he was sixty-eight years old, and could not walk without a crutch? " Such matter is not worth answering."

Possibly not; but the question will still arise in simple minds, how Bonner, poor fellow, was so forward and conspicuous in these doings; how he was " art and part " in nearly a half of the whole, while some of his fellows, who likewise disapproved of heresy, held back, and others— Pole, for example—censured his doings ; how, finally, the common sense and common feeling of mankind in all times and all ages draw a dis- tinction, not logical perhaps, but human, between prosecutions under the criminal law and martyrdoms for opinion. When Dr. Maitland is next in want of a subject, we should recommend the "Bloody Assizes." Indeed, as an intellectual exercise, a defence of Jeffreys is far the easiest. Legally and logically, there is no doubt about the " treason manifest " of Monmouth's rebellion. The only possible doubt about Jeffreys, (who also, poor man, had a free humour which the vulgar misunderstood !) was, whether he was sufficiently formal, in his haste to "despatch busi- ness " ; but on the other band, he might legally have hanged many more than he did had he taken time to hunt up his cases.

There is occasionally a rather saucy parsonlike tone about Dr. Mail- land; and he perhaps pushes his extracts and illustrations to an extreme in point of length, especially upon subjects not of popular interest. His volume, however, is curious and interesting in a literary point of view. His position as Librarian at Lambeth has made him acquainted with rare works and their first editions,—for the Doctor warns us that new editions have Often been modified on ticklish topics, both in the writer's lifetime and afterwards. From these rare works he has drawn many curious passages, not only descriptive of the manners and the times, but import- ant as contributions towards the history of literature and opinion. Hal- lam intimates that the Jesuits materially assisted to advance liberal opi- nions in politics, by their recommendations of regicide and resistance; but the Puritans were before them. Knox and several Englishmen pub- lished doctrines extreme as regards the right of rebellion and ungallant as respects the right of females to rule. The argument was of course levelled at Mary, and Knox seems to intimate a special revelation upon the subject to more than one.

"Further, it is our dutie to open the trathe reueled vnto vs, vnto the ignorant and blind world, vnlest that to our owns condemnation we list to wrap vp and hyde the talent committed to our charge. I am assured that God hath reueled to 801138 in this our age, that it is more then a monstre in nature, theta woman shad reigns and haue empire abov,e man. And yet with vs all, there is suche silence as if God there with were nothing offended. The naturall man, ennemy to God shall fyad, I knowe, many causes why no suche doctrine oght to be pub- lished in these our dangerous dayes. First, for that it may seine to tend to sedi- tion: secondarilie it shal be dangerous not onlie to the writer or publisher, but also to all such as shall reads the writinges, or fanor this truth spoken: and last it shall not amend the chief offenders, partlie because it shall nener come to their eares, and partlie because they will not be admonished in such cases. * *

"Yf any think that the empire of women, is not of such importance, that for the suppressing of the same, any man is bounde to hazards his life, I answer, that to suppresse it, is in the hand of god alone. But to vtter the impiety and abomination of the same, I say, it is the dutie of euerie tree messager of God, to whome the truth is reueled in that behalfe."—Knox, Fref. p. 5. S *

"To promote a woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion, or empire shone any realms, nation, or citie, is repugnant to nature, contumelie to God, a thing most contritrious to his reuelled will and approued ordinance, and finallie it is the subuersion of good order, of all equitie and iustice."—Knox, p.9. "Bat now to the second part of nature: in the which° I include the reueled will and perfect ordinance of God, and against this parte of nature, I say, that it doth manifestlie repngne that any woman shal reigne or beare dominion truer man. For God first by the order of his creation, and after by the curse and malediction pronounced against the woman, by reason of her rebellion, bath pronounced the con- trails."

Having shown that woman in her highest perfection before the Fall, was subject to man, and dilated upon the consequences of her "fall and rebellion," and the sentence pronounced in Paradise, the great Calvinist proceeds to handle the subject according to natural reason.

"For who wolde not iudge that bodie to be a moostre, where there was no head eminent aboue the rest, but that the eyes were in the handes, the tongs and mouth beneth in the belie, and the cares in the feet. Men I say, shulde not onus pronounce this bodie to be a monstre: but assnredlie ?hey might conclude that such a bodie could not long indure. And no lease monstruous is the bodie of that common welth, where a woman beareth empire. For ether cloth it lack a laufull heads (as in very dede it doth) or els there is an idol exalted in the place of the true head. An idol I call that, which bath the forme and apparance, but. lacketh the venue and strength, which the name and proportion do resemble and

promise. • •

"For nature bath in all beastes printed a certein marks of dominion in the male, and a certeine subiection in the female, whiche they kepe inniolate. For no man suer saws the lion make obedience, and stoups before the lionesse, nether yet can it be proned, that the hinds taketla the conducting of the heard anningst the bartes. And yet (alas) maa, who by the mouth of God bath dominion apointed to him oner woman' doth not onlie to his own shame, Stoup° viider the obedience of women, but also in despit of God and of his apointed ordre, reioyseth, and mainteineth that rnonstruouse authoritie, as a thing lauful and inst."—P. 30. "Albeit I bane thus (talkinge with my God in the angnishe of my harts) some what digressed: yet bane I not vtterlie forgotten my former proposition, to witt, that it is a thing repugnant to the ordre of nature, that any woman be exalted to role ouer men. For God bath denied vnto her the office of a head. And in the intreating of this parte, I remembre that I haue made the nobilitie both of Eng- land and Scotland inferior to brute beastes for what they do to women, which no male amongest the common sorts of beastes can be proned to do to their females: that is, they reuerence them, and qwake at theii-presence, they obey their com- mandements, and that against God. Wherfore I judge them not onelie subiectes to women, but sclaues of Satan, and seruantes of iniquitie." Several English divines also treated the question of female rule under a like revelation ; but on Elizabeth's accession this was felt to be awk- ward. The books could not indeed be recalled, and no one seems to have recanted; but Aylmer, afterwards a bishop, undertook to answer Knox's "lytle books, strangely vvritten by a straunger " and, while professing to speak for his English brethren, ignoring all ;hat they had published. Dr. Maitland seems to think slightingly of Aylmer, and in a moral point of view the contempt may be just enough ; but his book is very able. Dexterous in argument, full of matter, copious in apt illustrations, close and vigorous in style, combining the quaint sturdiness of the elder Tudor with Elizabethan elasticity and variety, Aylmer stands out as the most readable of all the writers Dr. Maitland quotes. As he extends his sub- ject to the state of England and the government of the church, there is more in his book than in a mere treatise on its obvious topic. After meet- ing Knox's bad women by instances of good, he thus answers the general

religious question.

" Placeth he a vvoman vveake in nature, feeble in bodie, softe in courage, vn- skilfull in practise, not terrible to the enemy, no shilde to the frynde, vvel, Virtue mes (saith he) in infirmitate perf6citw: My strengthe is moats perfight vvhen yen be meets vveake; if he ioyne to his strengths, she can not be vveake; if he put to his hande, he can not be feeble; if he be vvith her, vvho can stands against her? Thou shalt not take vvith the any great power (saith he to Gedeon) lest you think° to ouercome your enemies by your own strength, and provves, and not by my vvurking and might. It is as easy for him to sane by fevve as by many, by make as by strong, by a vvoman as by a man. Yea his moats vvonderfull vvorkes are alvvayes wrought in ours moats vveakenes, as infinite examples and testimonies do shevve."—Sig. B. ii. b. "VVas not Queene Anne the mother of this blessed woman, the chief, first, and only cause of banyshing the beast of Rome, vvith all his beggerly baggage? vvas there suer in Englande a greater feats wrought by any man, then this vvas by a vvoman? I take not from Kyng Henry the due praise of brocbing it, nor from that lambs of God King Edvvard, the finishing and perfighting of that vvas begun, though I giue hir, hir due commendacion. I knovv that that blessid mar- fir of God lhomas Crammer Byshop of Canterbury, did much tranaile in it, and furthered it: but if God had not gyuen Quene Anne fauour in the sight of the Kynge, as he gave to Hester in the sight of Nabucadnezar, Haman, and his com- pany, the Cardinall, VVynchester, More' Roches: and other, vvold sons harm tnsed vp Mardocheus vvith al the rest that leaned to that side. VVherfore though many deserued much° praise for the helping forvvarde of it: yet the croppe and roots vvas the Queue, whiche God had eudevved vvith vvisdome that she coulde, and gyuen hir the minds that she vvould do it."

In his dedication Aylmer speaks of Knox's book without much civility: be is more polite to the man.

"Tully saith, fie Si3 curiosus its aliena rep. The voyce of a stmunger is to be Lard in the pulpit, so long as he speaketh Gods words: But a straungers voyce is not slowed tnforo, in the Parliament about pollycie, hymns° he is not a citezen. This I says not to philip you, as though you ment euil to vs (for I am perswaded that you lone England as well as your own contrey) but I means to monish you, that being a straunger you disturbs not our state: lest you gins occasion to them that know you not, of suspicion. It is a great enterprise (and as they say no balls playe) to pane a queues crowns of his (sic) head : and specially such a ones, as many ages bane not sene, nor many countrem enjoyed, or many histories re- corded the lyke. I would not be wounded in conscience, with any attempts against hir, if I might be lord of al that Philippe, and the French King bane. VVel, I must leans hir for this tyme, lest the remembraunce of her vertues make me to forget my matter."—Sig. F. i.

We can only spare room for one more passage' where, though Aylmer admits that a woman may be head of the church, he yet argues that she requires men to help as bishops and clergymen.

For in such as shall occupy the pulpit is required these things, that they be mete to teach, to reprone, and cellulose. In teaching is required granitie„learn- ing, and eloquence. In reproninge courage and sounds indgem i

ente, and n coa- nincynge Artes, memorye, and muche science. And because the bringinge vppe of vvomenne, is commonlye suche, as they canna not hane theese thynges (for they bee not brought° vppe in learnynge in Scholes, nor trayned in disputacions; Or if they were yet because nature bathe made them softer and milder then incline, yet bee they not suche as are mete for that function.) Tberfore be they vnmete for this calling. "For those that be preachers must be no mylke soppes, no white lyuered gen- tlemen, that for the frowning and cloudy ccuntenannce of eoery man in autherine, will Issue his tackle and one Peecaui. They must be of such nature, as the Poet aaieth of Crito, in valets grauitas, in verbis fides. They may not be afrayed to rebuke the proudest, no not kynges and queues so farfurth as the two tables reach- eth. As we see in Samuel, Nathan, Elie, Jhon Baptist, and many other. They may not stoops to euery mans becke, and study to please man more than God. If heresies arise, they must haue their tooles ready to mete with thaduersary and to onerthrowe hym: whiche he can not haue, onles he haue trampled in many sciences, bards and redde much, which thinges (because they be buswynes) women can not bane commonly, and therfore they be vnmete hereunto. "Yea God knoweth so be many men to: for it is not inough for a man to tell a fayre tale in the pulpit, and when he commeth down is not able to defends it. If preachers and spiritual ministers be such°, where be we when we come to handgripes? They must not only florishe, but they must know their quarter strookes, and the waye how to defends their head, their head Christe I saye, and his crease. And specially in these dayes, wherein Sathan spiting the happy grouthe and grenes of Gods field, soweth tares and fytches of heresies and sectes continually, to choke or to empayre the good corns if it may be."