BY R. M. CARLYLE AND A. J. CARLYLE CHAPLAIN AND LECTURER (Late fellow) oF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OXFOrd, BOSTON AND NEW YORK 1899 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 9636 PREFACE IT is difficult to write a life of any of the more important personages of the English Reformation; it is difficult to write without prejudice, and the documents of the last part of the reign of Henry VIII. and of the reign of Edward VI. have not yet been calendared. We have endeavoured to give a brief account of Latimer's life and doings, without attempting to deal in detail with the great critical and controversial questions of the time; some will, no doubt, think this improper, but we should like to point out that Latimer's position in English History is not of the kind to make a life of him a convenient startingpoint for a discussion of the complicated circumstances of those times. We have to express our obligations to Canon Dixon's History of the Church of England in the Time of the Reformation, especially for the reign of Edward VI. and Queen Mary. The references to the State Papers are to the "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic," of the reign of Henry VIII. References to Latimer's Sermons and Remains are to the two volumes in the Parker Society's publications. References to Strype's Memorials are to the edition of the Clarendon Press, 1822, and to Strype's Cranmer, Clarendon Press, 1812. Morice, to whom V occasional reference is made (taken from Strype), was at one time secretary to Cranmer, and probably reasonably well acquainted with the circumstances of Latimer's life. Augustine Bernher was a personal servant of Latimer. The references to Foxe are to the edition of the Acts and Monuments published by R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, London, 1838. LIFE OF LATIMER CHAPTER I THE history of the Reformation, especially in England, is the history of one of the most complex movements in the history of Europe. The great changes of the sixteenth century were the results of many forces, closely, no doubt, interrelated, but yet diverse in their character. And yet it is but a superficial judgment which fails to perceive that below all the complex forces of the Reformation there lay one great force, the force of the revival of religion, a passion which possessed men for the recovery of a more spiritual, and therefore a more free and spontaneous, religious life. The characters of the men who played the greater parts in this movement are often as perplexing as the movement itself. In England especially they are often interesting, but almost always perplexing, full of ideas and gifted with great qualities; but they lack the direct, straightforward, robust character of the great reformers of Germany and Switzerland. And yet again, it is a hasty and superficial judgment which fails to recognise that these men were profoundly stirred, were full of a genuine zeal for the I |