peers, gentlemen, and canon
lawyers, on whom the court could rely. "Wicked persons" had invented
slanders against the queen's person, and had sown "pestilent heresies"
in the realm. The queen, therefore, "minding to punish such
enormities," and having especial trust in the wisdom of these persons,
gave them power to institute inquiries at their pleasure into the
conduct and opinions of every man and woman in all parts of the
kingdom. The protection of the law was suspended. The commissioners
might arrest any person at any place. Three of them were enough to
form a court; and mayors, sheriffs, and magistrates were commanded to
assist at their peril.

The object of the commission was "to search and find out" the sellers
of heretical books, or those who in any way professed heresy or taught
it; to ascertain who refused to attend mass, to walk in procession, to
use holy water, or in any way betrayed disrespect for the established
religion. Those who "persisted in their bad opinions" were to be given
up to their ordinary, to be punished according to law. The
commissioners were themselves empowered to punish with fine or
imprisonment those who yielded, or those whose offences were in the
second degree, taking care to collect the fines which they inflicted,
and to certify the exchequer of their receipts. They were not
embarrassed by a necessity of impanelling juries; they might call
juries if they pleased; they might use "all other means and politic
ways that they could devise." No Spanish inquisition possessed larger
or less tolerable powers; no English sovereign {p.281} ever more
entirely set aside the restrictions of the law.[593] The appointment
of the commission was followed up by Pole in a visitation of the
diocese of Canterbury. Persons were nominated to examine into the
doctrines of the clergy; to learn whether those who had been married
held communication with their wives; whether the names of those who
had not been reconciled had been registered as he had ordered; and
from every clergyman to ascertain the habits, beliefs, and opinions of
every resident, male or female, in his parish.[594]

[Footnote 593: Royal Commission printed in Foxe,
vol. viii. p. 301, and by Burnet in his
_Collectanea_.]

[Footnote 594: Articles of the visitation of
Cardinal Pole: Foxe, vol. iii.]

Other commissioners again were sent to the univer