prentices to any one who would bring them up in an honest calling, and the magistrates were to protect them from ill-usage.
Public morality was reported to be disordered. The sudden emancipation from the control of the Church courts had led to license, and both the religious parties desired alike a restoration of discipline. On the 14th of November the bishops presented a complaint in the House of Lords that their jurisdiction was despised and disobeyed, that they could cite no one and punish no one—they could not even compel those who were disinclined to appear in their places in church. The peers listened with regret,[1] and the prelates were invited to prepare a measure which would meet the necessity. After four days they produced something which to them was satisfactory, but it was found to savour too strongly of their ancient pretensions.[2] The motion led only to the reappointment of the commission of thirty-two, who were long before to have reformed the canon law; and the fruit of their exertions, when at last it seemed to have acquired vitality, dropped to the ground unripe. The time was passed when the English laity would submit their private conduct to ecclesiastical discipline, whether it was Catholic or whether it was Genevan.
1550.January.In the beginning of January an account was tendered to Parliament of the proceed-
