" Then quoting the lines from the
service of Thomas Becket, on which we have above commented, he
adds, "I will let pass many more which are easy to be searched
and found out." Becon preached and wrote in the reign of Henry
VIII. and was then persecuted for his religion, as he was
afterwards in the reign of Mary.]
[Footnote 86: We are told that forty-eight years after his
death, the masters of Paris disputed whether Thomas was a
condemned sinner, or admitted into heaven.]
In Henry the Eighth's proclamation, dated Westminster, 16th November, in
the thirtieth year of his reign, printed by Bertholet, is the following
very curious passage:--
"ITEM, for as moche as it appereth now clerely, that Thomas
Becket, sometyme Archbyshop of Canterburie, stubburnly to
withstand the holsome lawes establyshed agaynste the enormities
of the clergie, by the kynges highness mooste noble progenitour,
kynge HENRY the Seconde, for the common welthe, reste, and
tranquillitie of this realme, of his frowarde mynde fledde the
realme into Fraunce, and to the bishop of Rome, mayntenour of
those enormities, to procure the abrogation of the sayd lawes,
whereby arose moch trouble in this said realme, and that his
dethe, which they untruely called martyrdome, happened upon a
reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gave
opprobrious wordes to the gentyllmen, whiche than counsayled hym
to leave his stubbernesse, and to avoyde the commocion of the
people, rysen up for that rescue.
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