ing shrunk in dismay from that spirit
of reformation which had only been a party business with him, and making
himself a pope, decided that nothing should be learnt but what he
himself deigned to teach!

The antipathies and jealousies which our populace too long indulged, by
their incivilities to all foreigners, are characterised by a
proclamation issued by Mary, commanding her subjects to behave
themselves peaceably towards the strangers coming with King Philip; that
noblemen and gentlemen should warn their servants to refrain from
"strife and contention, either by outward deeds, taunting words,
unseemly countenance, by mimicking them, &c." The punishment not only
"her grace's displeasure, but to be committed to prison without bail or
mainprise."

The proclamations of Edward the Sixth curiously exhibit the unsettled
state of the reformation, where the rites and ceremonies of Catholicism
were still practised by the new religionists, while an opposite party,
resolutely bent on an eternal separation from Rome, were avowing
doctrines which afterwards consolidated themselves into puritanism, and
while others were hatching up that demoralising fanaticism which
subsequently shocked the nation with those monstrous sects, the
indelible, disgrace of our country! In one proclamation the king
denounces to the people "those who despise the sacrament by calling it
_idol_, or such other vile name." Another is against such "as innovate
any ceremony," and who are described as "certain private preachers and
other laiemen, who rashly attempt of _their own and singular wit and
mind_, not only to persuade the people from the old and accustomed rites
and ceremonies, but also themselves bring in _new and strange orders
according to their phantasies_. The which, as it is an evident token of
pride and arrogancy, so it tendeth both to confusion and disorder."
Another proclamation, to press "a godly conformity throughout his
realm," where we learn the following curious fact, of "divers unlearned
and indiscreet priests of a devilish mind and intent, teaching that a
man may forsake his wife and marry another, his first wife yet living;
likewise that the wife may do the same to the husband. Others, that a
man may have _two wives or more_ at once, for that these things are not
prohibited by God's law, but by the Bishop of Rome's law; so that by
such evil and fantastical opinions some have not been afraid indeed to
marry and keep _two wives_." Here