Add MS 38656

ff. 3r–4v: Declaration against papal supremacy in England in these words: ‘Romanus episcopus non habet maiorem aliquam iurisdictionem collatam sibi a deo in sacra scriptura in hoc regno Angliae quam alius quiuis externus episcopus.’

It is signed by both the Archibishops (Thomas Cranmer and Edward Lee), by the Bishops of Carlisle, Chichester, Coventry and Lichfield, Durham (Cuthbert Tunstall), Ely, Exeter, Lincoln, London and Winchester (Stephen Gardiner), five archdeacons, the provincials of the orders of Carmelites and Franciscans, twenty-two abbots, eleven priors, one warden and 52 private persons, including Edmund Bonner, afterwards Bishop of London, Nicholas Shaxton, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, and Peter Vannes, formerly Secretary to Wolsey and afterwards Dean of Salisbury.

The date must be after 19 April 1534, the day on which the Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield and of Ely were consecrated, and before 17 May of the same year, when Richard Sydnor had vacated by death the registrarship of the Order of the Garter (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, vii, no. 534).

Similar declarations by other groups of clergy, etc., appear in Letters and Papers, vii, the earliest dated 14 May 1534. The names of all the signatories are included in the index.

ff. 1r–2r: Original letter from Sir Frederic Madden, K.H., Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum (1837–1866), to Richard Mullings, 20 November 1850. He refers to the ‘Papal Aggression’ of that year, and expresses the opinion that the first three lines, i.e. the sentence quoted above, are in the handwriting of Cranmer, a view which is not borne out by a comparison with other autographs.

f. 4v: Notes on the back; a list of bishops who have signed.