Bishop Gilbert Burnet: "Reformation of the Church of England," 1.2.85ff.

2.1.2, 85-101ff.

Government, Parliamentary and Royal theology proceeds apace in 1557. Bills and debates occur on communion in one or both kinds, the repeal of the 1539 Six Whips, the repeal of laws against the Lollards, the repression of private masses, episcopal appointments by Royal authority, chantries put on the realty market with its thinly-disguised face of plunder and avarice, and laws against vagrancy and loitering (an occupation dominated by monks and friars tossed when the Abbey’s were closed—a dangerous breed of malcontents). Of necessity, Cranmer is on this Erastian bus although not driving it. Bonner and Gardiner protest the Homilies while getting tossed into the Fleet Prison. Burnet notes that everyone was familiar with Gardiner’s “haughty spirit.” Poopery breeds pride, then, just as now, although Pelagian mainliners have ingested the poison-spirits as well. Cranmer has a tete-tete with Gardiner with Wily give the standard view of justification-on-the-installment plan and in control of the Poopish, priestly talismans and dominions. The Reformation view twists the arm, then breaks it and finally kneecaps Rome on justification. Finally, when face-down, the Reformed doctrine caps the Poopish doctrine. Some oral-foamings occur over Erasmus’s Paraphrase as a worthless defection, but peter out. Mary writes her many letters to the Protector, no doubt with intel-reports to Spanish ears, asking that all decisions revert to her father’s legislation until her brother reaches an age of majority. That’s Mary’s theme-song sung in various keys over several letters, reviewed elsewhere. Mary, aged 31, the grand Doctor of Theology, laughably says the Scriptures are ”new-fangled” and are “fantasies.” Another Tudor opinion. So much for Mary’s Spanish tutors.