Page:VCH London 1.djvu/341

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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY merits, offered to manage the transaction for him. Hall gives an amusing account of the affair, in which the bishop appears as the dupe of Packington and Tyndale, who printed a new and better edition with Tunstall's money, so that ' more New Testaments came thick and threefold into England.' In May 1530 those bought by Tunstall, with many other books, were burnt at Paul's Cross.^-i The ten years that had passed since the similar scene in 1521 had been full of ecclesiastical events, but it does not appear from the parochial and other records that the ordinary religious life of the Londoners was as yet affected. Rebuilding and decoration of churches was still going on, and new crosses and images were being set up both within and without the churches."'^ Out of nineteen wills enrolled in the busting made between 1521 and 1529,^" fourteen contain bequests for religious purposes. Seven provide for the maintenance of chantries, and seven for obits. It was customary for friars to receive legacies for attending the funerals of rich men,^^* but the three other bequests to religious houses are all to hospitals — the Pappey, Elsing Spital, and St. Bartholomew's. All but three of the numerous bequests to the livery companies are charged with some religious observance. Early in 1530 Tunstall was translated to Durham ; ^" his successor, John Stokesley, according to Hall ' a man of great wit and learning, but of little discretion and humanity,' ^^' was abroad at the time of his appointment, working hard to get opinions of foreign universities against the validity of the king's marriage,'" and was not consecrated till November."* In March 1531 the bishops summoned before them the rector of St. Antholin's, Dr. Crome, who was suspected of erroneous opinions ; he appealed to the king ' as the archbishop's sovereign ' (Convocation had just made a qualified acknow- ledgement of the royal supremacy), and successfully demanded to be examined in his presence.'^' Crome had probably not long held a City living,'^" but he was already well known."' According to the Imperial ambassador, one of the charges against him was that he said the pope was not head of the Church, and the king declared that was no heresy, and set him at liberty, ordering him to make a public profession of orthodoxy in other matters. It was thought that he owed his release partly to the favour of Anne Boleyn. The ' erroneous opinions' he had to disavow concerned purgatory, the invocation of saints, pilgrimages, fasts, sacramental grace, the use of images, prayers for the dead, good works, the right to preach even when forbidden by bishops, and the "' Hall, Chron. For other information concerning the circulation of parts of the Bible translated by Tyndale and other forbidden books in 1529-30 see Foxe, op. cit. iv, 676, 677, App. 765, 778 ; L. and P. Hen. y^III, iv, 6402 (2) (wrongly dated), 6487 ; Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 727 ; Strype, Mem. iii (ii), 200-2 ; Hall, Chron. 22 Hen. VIII. "' For examples see Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 649 ; Rcc. Corp. Repert. viii, fol. 95^ ; Stow, Surv. (ed. Kingsford), i, 209 ; Foxe, op. cit. iv, 620—1 ; Chwdns.' Accts. St. Martin in the Fields, 1525. '"Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, ii, 630, 633-7, 6+i""57 ^49- The only wills enrolled which were made between 1530 and 1534 are five dated 1532 and 1533 ; these include one bequest for the maintenance of two chantry priests in St. Paul's and another for an obit in St. Laurence Pountney ; ibid, ii, 637-8, 646, 650. '" Cf. ibid, ii, 649, with the four wills in L. and P. Hen. Fill, iii, 3175 ; iv, 952, 1204, 201 5. '" Did. Nat. Biog. "' Chron. 22 Hen. VIII ; cf. ibid. 8 Hen. VIII. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv (3), passim. "^ Hennessy, Novum Repert. "° Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 725 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, v, 148 ; Strype, Mem. iii (il), 193. "" Diet. Nat. Biog. Hennessy's list for St. Antholin's is certainly wrong. '" He had preached before the king in the Lent of I 5 30, and had been among the divines who met at Westminster in the following May ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, v, p. 318 ; Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 737. I 257 33