ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY it is said they were treated worse than they would have been in ordinary prisons."" In January 1535 people were ordered to give up all books defending what Stokesley called the ' intolerable and exorbitant primacy ' of the pope, and there were many sermons against it.^*^ Next month the bishops formally renounced the jurisdiction of the see of Rome.^'* But the chief interest of the year centres in the fate of those who denied the royal supremacy, among them the Carthusian monks, Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More. It is unnecessary here to recount a story so well known. '*' The priors of three Charterhouses and two other clergymen were executed as traitors in May, and three more monks in June ; Fisher was beheaded in June, and More in July. It was suggested that the monks might be induced to acknowledge the royal supremacy by the preaching of divines who had accepted it, but who in other respects were conspicuously orthodox (' of the popish sort '; ; among them are mentioned the rectors of St. Mary Woolchurch and St. Michael Cornhill,^'* and the Bishop of London."' Two accounts state that the jury could not agree to condemn the Charterhouse priors till overcome by Cromwell's threats,"' and it was reported abroad that the whole City was displeased at their execution."^ The narratives of the London chroniclers, however, give no indication of sympathy with any of the victims except Fisher, who was ' of very many men lamented.'"* Wriothesley's account is quite colourless, and Hall thought the monks deserved their fate."" In May the bishop and Dr. Barnes were together commissioned to examine some foreign Anabaptists who had taken refuge in England. Thirteen or fourteen of them were condemned to be burnt, two, a man and a woman, suffering at Smithfield on 4 June ; the rest were sent back to the Continent. " The weakening of ecclesiastical authority was already encouraging the promul- gation of strange heresies in England as in Germany and Flanders,'" but there is no evidence as yet of popular sympathy with those who maintained them. The parish priest of St. Mary Woolchurch got into trouble for speaking, in July, against Dr. Barnes, who had made two ' abominable sermons ' in City churches.'"^ Stokesley was bold enough to withstand Cromwell with regard to the sermons at Paul's Cross. John Hilsey, provincial of the Dominicans and one of the royal commissioners to visit all the friars in England, was to have preached on one occasion, but the bishop desired him to subscribe "" See account of the Grey Friars in 'Religious Houses ' ; cf. L. and P. Hen. Fill, vii, 1607. '" Ibid, viii, 48, 55, 121. "'Ibid. 190. '*' See Gairdner, Hist, of Engl. Ch. in l6th Cent. 156-60 ; Lollardy and the Reformation, passim ; Gasquet, Hen. VIII and the Engl. Monasteries, 59 et seq.; Hendriks, The London Charterhouse, 130 et seq. ; Diet. Nat. Biog. ; documents in L. and P. Hen. Fill, vii and viii, passim. "* Possibly also St. John Baptist Walbrook ; cf. Hennessy, op. cit. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii, 600 ; cf vii, 1090 ; xi, 186. "* Hendriks, op. cit. 144-6, with authorities cited ; cf Wriothesley, Chron. (Camd. Soc), i, 27. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii, 726 ; cf 786, 846. '«' Hall, Chron. 27 Hen. VIII ; cf L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii, 1075. '*' Cf Monum. Franc. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 197 ; Songs, Carols, &c. (Early Engl. Text Soc), App. 165 ; Lond. Chron. 9 in Camd. Misc. iv. One of the Charterhouse monks, who obtained a City living, kept the arm of the prior as a relic ; Wriothesley, op. cit. i, 185 ; Stow, Annals, 1547. 190 Wriothesley, Chron. (Camd. Soc), i, 28 ; Stow, Annals ; Songs, &c., ut sup. ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii, 771, 826 ; cf 846, &c. ; and Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 779. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii, 1129. '" Foxe, op. cit. V, App. xxiv. 263
