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He even procured some judicial informations to be drawn up by the licentiate Cepeda, respecting the crimes which he laid to the charge of the commissary, of which the following is an abstract. "It appeared reasonable to suppose that Suarez must have been privy to the desertion of his nephews, as they lived in his house and could not have gone off without his knowledge.
They were of the usual nature complaints, informations, protests, appeals from men of every rank of life; agents, farm-labourers, priests, ex-Religious, fanatics and he read them quickly through, docketing their contents at the head of each that his master might be saved trouble. At one, however, he stopped, glanced momentarily at Cromwell, and then read on.
The defects of this law, for that it was defective cannot be denied, were in the manner of levying the duty; for had half the duty that was demanded from the unlicensed retailers, been required from the distiller, there had been no need of informations; nor had we been stunned with the dismal accounts of the rage and cruelty of the people, or the violent deaths of those who endeavoured to grow rich by commencing prosecutions.
"Forasmuch," says the preamble of the Act of Dissolution, "as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed among the little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation or such religious persons is under the number of twelve, whereby the governors of such religious houses and their convents, spoil, consume, destroy, and utterly waste their churches, monasteries, principal houses, farms, and granges, to the high displeasure pleasure of Almighty God, the slander of true religion, and to the great infamy of the King's Highness and of the realm, if redress should not be had thereof; and albeit that many continual visitations hath been heretofore had by the space of two hundred years and more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal, and abominable living; yet nevertheless, little or none amendment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamelessly increaseth and augmenteth, and by a cursed custom is so rooted and infested, that a great multitude of the religious persons in such small houses do rather choose to rove abroad in apostacy than to conform them to the observation of true religion; so that without such small houses be utterly suppressed, and the religious persons therein committed to great and honourable monasteries of religion in this realm, where they may be compelled to live religiously for the reformation of their lives, there can be no reformation in this behalf: in consideration hereof the King's most royal Majesty, being supreme head on earth, under God, of the Church of England, daily finding and devising the increase, advancement, and exaltation, of true doctrine and virtue in the said Church, to the only glory of God, and the total extirping and destruction of vice and sin; having knowledge that the premises be true, as well by accounts of his late visitation as by sundry credible informations; considering also that divers great monasteries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full number of religious persons as they ought and may keep; hath thought good that a plain declaration should be made of the premises, as well to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as to other his loving subjects the Commons in this present parliament assembled.
Philip, on his side, was industrious to bring about the consummation of his measures. Ever occupied with details, the monarch, from his palace in Spain, sent frequent informations against the humblest individuals in the Netherlands.
I know there is no comparison, nor can it be urged upon me that my words have the least color that way, because the parliament seems to give liberty to me to say any thing to you; as that, that is a tender of my humble reasons and judgment and opinion to them; and if I think they are such, and will be such to them, and are faithful servants, and will be so to the supreme authority, and the legislative wheresoever it is: if, I say, I should not tell you, knowing their minds to be so, I should not be faithful if I should not tell you so, to the end you may report it to the parliament: I shall say something for myself, for my own mind, I do profess it, I urn not a man scrupulous about words or names of such things I have not; but as I have the word of God, and I hope I shall ever have it, for the rule of my conscience, for my informations; so truly men that have been led in dark paths, through the providence and dispensation of God; why, surely it is not to be objected to a man; for who can love to walk in the dark?
The same in civil matters: inform yourself of the jurisdiction of a court of justice; of the rules and numbers and endowments of a college, or an academy, and not only of the dimensions of the respective edifices; and let your letters to me contain these informations, in proportion as you acquire them.
The great difficulty of the former method, a method certainly in itself reasonable and efficacious, arose from the necessity of receiving informations from the meanest and most profligate of the people, who were often tempted to lay hold of the opportunities which that law put into their hands, of relieving their wants, or gratifying their resentment; and very frequently intimidated the innocent by threats of accusations, which were not easily to be confuted.
There are books which give an account of it, among which the best is Amelot de la Houssaye, which I would advise you to read previously; it will not only give you a general notion of that constitution, but also furnish you with materials for proper questions and oral informations upon the place, which are always the best.
And in the mean time, we have been very little solicitous for correspondence to settle union with such of them as owned the Covenant, or for giving to, or receiving from them, mutual informations of our respective cases and conditions, under all our calamities and calumnies cast upon us: nor have we studied to keep sympathy or communion of saints, or mutual bearing of one another's burdens, as became covenanted brethren.
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