[188] ELLIS, first series, vol. i. p. 135.  “My Lord, in my most humblest wise that my poor heart can think, I do thank your Grace for your kind letter, and for your rich and goodly present; the which I shall never be able to deserve without your great help; of the which I have hitherto had so great plenty, that all the days of my life I am most bound of all creatures, next to the King’s Grace, to love and serve your Grace.  Of the which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I shall vary from this thought as long as any breath is in my body.”

[189] CAVENDISH Life of Wolsey, p. 316.  Singer’s edition.

[190] CAVENDISH, pp. 364, 5.

[191] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii. pp. 368, 378, etc.

[192] See HALE’S Criminal Causes from the Records of the Consistory Court of London.

[193] Petition of the Commons, infra, p. 191, etc.

[194] Reply of the Ordinaries to the petition of the Commons, infra, p. 202, etc.

[195] Petition of the Commons. 23 Hen.  VIII. c. 9.

[196] HALE’S Criminal Causes, p.4.

[197] An Act that no person committing murder, felony, or treason should be admitted to his clergy under the degree of sub-deacon.

[198] In May, 1528, the evil had become so intolerable, that Wolsey drew the pope’s attention to it.  Priests, he said, both secular and regular, were in the habit of committing atrocious crimes, for which, if not in orders, they would have been promptly executed; and the laity were scandalised to see such persons not only not degraded, but escaping with complete impunity.  Clement something altered the law of degradation in consequence of this representation, but quite inadequately.—­RYMER, vol. vi. part 2, p. 96.

[199] Thomas Cowper et ejus uxor Margarita pronubae horribiles, et instigant mulieres ad fornicandum cum quibuscunque laicis, religiosis, fratribus minoribus, et nisi fornicant in domo sua ipsi diffamabunt nisi voluerint dare eis ad voluntatem eorum; et vir est pronuba uxori, et vult relinquere eam apud fratres minores pro peccatis habendis.—­HALE, Criminal Causes, p. 9.

Joanna Cutting communis pronuba at praesertim inter presbyteros fratres monachos et canonicos et etiam inter Thomam Peise et quandam Agnetam, etc.—­HALE, Criminal Causes, p. 28.

See also Ibid. pp. 15, 22, 23, 39, etc.

In the first instance the parties accused “made their purgation” and were dismissed.  The exquisite corruption of the courts, instead of inviting evidence and sifting accusations, allowed accused persons to support their own pleas of not guilty by producing four witnesses, not to disprove the charges, but to swear that they believed the charges untrue.  This was called “purgation.”

Clergy, it seems, were sometimes allowed to purge themselves simply on their own word.—­HALE, p. 22; and see the Preamble of the 1st of the 23rd of Henry VIII.