Whitechurche and his fellow thinketh it a small price. Nevertheless they are right well contented to sell them for 10s., so that you will be so good lord unto them as to grant henceforth none other license to any other printer saving to them, for the printing of the said Bible y; for else they think that they shall be greatly hindered thereby, if any other should print, they sustaining such charges as they already have done. Wherefore, I shall beseech your lordship, in consideration of their travail in this behalf, to tender their requests; and they have promised me to print in the end of their Bibles the price thereof, to the intent the King's liege people shall not henceforth be deceived of their price z. Farther, if your lordship hath known the King's Highness' pleasure concerning the Preface a of the Bible which I sent to you to oversee, so that his Grace doth allow the same, I pray you that the same may be delivered unto the said Whitchurche unto printing, trusting that it shall both encourage many slow readers, and also stay the rash judg ments of them that read therein. Thus our Lord have your good lordship in his blessed tuition. At Lambeth, the 14th day of November. To my singular good lord, my Lord Privy Seal. Your own ever assured, printed on excellent paper, and being in every respect a very handsome book.] * [This" fellow" may perhaps have been Grafton, and Berthelet may have been concerned only as the King's printer. If so, the fact mentioned in a note to the State Papers as remarkable, will be accounted for, namely, that none of the editions of Cranmer's Bible appear to have been printed by Berthelet and Whitchurch jointly. See Lewis, Hist. of Translations, p. 137.] y [By letters patent, dated the 14th of Nov. 1539, no Bibles were to he printed for five years without the perinission of Crumwell. Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 649; Burnet, Ref. vol. i. App. B. iii. No. 15.] [This promise does not appear to have been fulfilled, but the omission was supplied by the proclamation of 1541. See p. 289. note (t); and Burnet, Ref. vol. i. App. B. iii. No. 24.] a [See this Preface, (vol. ii. p. 104.)] CCLIV. To CRUMWELL. Cotton My very singular good Lord, after my most hearty com- MSS. mendations; these shall be to advertise your lordship, that I Cleop. E.iv. have received your letters dated the xxvii. day of November; Original. and therewith a bill concerning the device b for the new es b [The following is the design on which Cranmer comments: it is preserved in the same manuscript. Hen. VIII. was probably proud of it; for Sadler, his ambassador in Scotland, was directed to lay it before James V, as an example of the useful purposes to which the revenues of religious houses might be applied. See Sadler's State Papers. "First, A provost "Christ's Church in Canterbury. "Item, Twelve prebendaries, every of them at 401. by the 66 year, sum "Item, Six preachers, every of them 201. a year "Item, A reader of humanity, in Greek, by year "Item, A reader in divinity in Hebrew, by year "Item, A reader both in divinity and humanity, in Latin, by "the year "Item, A reader of civil "Item, A reader of physic "Item, Twenty students in divinity, to be found ten at Ox"ford, and ten at Cambridge, every of them 10l. by the 66 year "Item, Sixty scholars to be taught both grammar and logic "in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, every of them five marks "by the year "Item, A school-master 201. and an usher 107. by the year "Item, Eight petty canons to sing in the choir, every of "them 10l. by the year fol. 302. "Item, Twelve laymen to sing also, and serve in the choir, “Item, Ten choristers, every of them five marks by the year 33 "Item, A master of the childern 24 10 00 "Item, A cater to buy their diets, for his wages, diets, and "making of his books "Item, One chief cook, his wages and diets "Item, One under cook, his wages and diets "Item, Two porters "Item, Twelve poor men, being old and serving men, de"cayed by the wars, or in the King's service, every of "them at 6l. 13s. 4d. by the year "Item, To be distributed yearly in alms "Item, For yearly reparations vol. iii. Burn. Ref. tablishment to be made in the metropolitan church of CanApp. B. iii. terbury; by which your lordship requireth mine advice thereupon by writing, for our mutual consents. No. 65. Surely, my lord, as touching the book drawn and the order of the same, I think that it will be a very substantial and godly foundation; nevertheless in my opinion the prebendaries which be allowed 407. a piece yearly, might be altered to a more expedient use. And this is my consideration; for having experience both in times past and also in our days, how the said sect of prebendaries have not only spent their time in much idleness, and their substance in superfluous belly cheer, I think it not to be a convenient state or degree to be maintained and established. Considering first, that commonly a prebendary is neither a learner, nor teacher, but a good viander. Then by the same name they look to be chief, and to bear all the whole rule and preeminence in the college where they be resident : by means whereof the younger, of their own nature given more to pleasure, good cheer, and pastime, than to abstinence, study, and learning, shall easily be brought from their books to follow the appetite and example of the said prebendaries, being their heads and rulers. And the state of prebendaries hath been so excessively abused, that when learned men hath been admitted unto such room, many times they have desisted from their good and godly studies, and all other Christian exercise of preaching and teaching. Wherefore, if it may so stand with the King's gracious pleasure, I would wish that not only the name of a prebendary were exiled his Grace's foundations, but also the superfluous conditions of such persons. I cannot deny but that the beginning of prebendaries was no less purposed for the maintenance of good learning and good conversation of living, than religious men were: but forasmuch as both be "Item, Six to be employed yearly, for making and emending £. "Item, A steward of the lands "Item, An auditor "Item, For the provost's expenses in receiving the rents and s. d. 40 00 6 13 4 10 00 6 13 4"] 1 gone from their first estate and order, and the one is found like offender with the other, it maketh no great matter if they perish both together: for to say the truth, it is an estate which St. Paul, reckoning up the degrees and estates allowed in his time, could not find in the Church of Christ. And I assure you, my lord, that I think it will better stand with the maintenance of Christian religion, that in the stead of the said prebendaries, were twenty divines at 107. a piece, like as it is appointed to be at Oxford and Cambridge; and forty students in the tongues and sciences and French, to have 10 marks a piece; for if such a number be not there resident, to what intent should so many readers be there? And surely it were great pity that so many good lectures should be there read in vain: for as for your prebendaries, they cannot attend to apply lectures, for making of good cheer. And as for your sixty children in grammar, their master and their usher be daily otherwise occupied in the rudiments of grammar, than that they may have space and time to hear the lectures. So that to these good lectures is prepared no convenient auditory. And therefore, my lord, I pray you let it be considered, what a great loss it will be to have so many good lectures read without profit to any, saving to the six preachers. Farther, as concerning the reader of divinity and humanity, it will not agree well that one man should be a reader of both lectures. For he that studieth in divinity, must leave the reading of profane authors, and shall have as much to do as he can, to prepare his lecture to be substantially read. And in like manner, he that readeth in humanity, had not need to alter his study, if he should make an erudite lecture. And therefore in mine opinion it would be two offices for two sundry learned men. Now concerning the Dean and other to be elected into the College, I shall make a bill of all them that I can hear of in Cambridge, Oxford, or elsewhere, meet to be put into the said College, after my judgment: and then of the whole number the King's Highness may choose the most excellent; assuring you, my lord, that I know no man more meet for the Dean's room in England than Doctor Cromed, who by his sincere learning, godly conversation, and good example of living, with his great soberness, hath done unto the King's Majesty as good service, I dare say, as any priest in England. And yet his Grace daily remembereth all other that doth him service, this man only except, who never had yet, besides his gracious favour, any promotion at his Highness' hands. Wherefore, if it would please his Majesty to put him in the Dean's room, I do not doubt but that he should show light to all the deans and masters of colleges in this realm. For I know that when he was but president of a college in Cambridge, his house was better ordered than all the houses in Cambridge besides. And thus, my lord, you have my final advice concerning the premises, which I refer unto the King's Grace's judgment, to be allowed or disallowed at his Highness' pleasure: sending unto your lordship herewithal the bill again, according to your request. Thus, my lord, most heartily fare you well. At Croydon, the xxix. day of November. [1539.] Your own ever assured, T. Cantuarien. [Cranmer's recommendation was not followed, Dr. Nicholas Wotton having been appointed the first Dean of Canterbury by the charter of incorporation. Le Neve, Fasti. For a memoir of Crome, see Strype, Memorials, vol. iii. p. 102. See also Burnet, Ref. vol. iii. p. 287. He was the author of the ingenious argument against private masses, "that if "trentals and chauntry masses could avail the souls in purgatory, then "did the parliament not well in giving away monasteries, colleges, and "chauntries, which served principally to that purpose. But if the par"liament did well (as no man could deny) in dissolving them, and bestowing the same upon the King, then is it a plain case, that such chaun"tries and private masses do nothing to relieve them in purgatory. This "dilemma no doubt was insoluble. But notwithstanding, the charitable prelates so handled him, that they made him recant. And if he had not, they would have dissolved him and his argument in burning fire." Foxe, vol. ii. p. 572. See some valuable letters respecting this prosecution, in which Latymer also was implicated, in the State Papers, vol. i. part ii. Letter CCXLIII. &c.] 66 66 e [The following narrative from one of Foxe's manuscripts throws some farther light on Cranmer's views respecting this new foundation at Canterbury. The substance of it is printed by Strype, Cranmer, p. 89. "At what time the Cathedral Church of Canterbury [was] newly ❝erected, altered, and changed, from monks to secular men of the clergy, |