ke was ever subjected to the
censure of the Parlament but being aggreed upon and
published as afforesaid, a law was made by the Parlament
for the inflictinge of penalty upon all such as should refuse
to use and observe the same; further autoryty then so is
not in the Parlament, neyther hath bin in former tymes
yealded to the Parlament in thinges of that nature but the
judgment and determination therof hath ever bin in the
Church, therto autorised by the Kinge which is that which
is yealded to H. 8. in the statute of 25 his raygne.
[Endorsed] Bishops.

******

Another copy follows, No. 47, written with modernised
spelling. It is endorsed as follows:

(1) _Bishops_.

(2) _Power of the Convocn in framing the Book of Common
Prayer &c. and of the Act of Parlt Sr. Th. Wilson's hand_.

The second endorsement of No. 47 (wrongly given in the
Calendar as "Progress of the Convocation, etc.") is in the
handwriting of Sir Joseph Williamson, Keeper of the State
Paper Office, and from 1674 to 1679 Secretary of State. Sir
Thomas Wilson was a confidential servant of Robert, Earl of
Salisbury, who often employed him in matters of secret
police. He was made Keeper of the S.P. Office in 1605 and
died in 1629. A comparison with his letters and notes
preserved in the Record Office shows that the copy in his
handwriting is the earlier one, No. 46. It is written, however,
more formally and with more archaic spelling than his
original papers. It would therefore seem to be a copy of an
older original. I venture to suggest that it may have been
written for Salisbury's use in 1604, when revision of the
Prayer-book was being discussed. There is nothing to show
the provenance of the original, but the errors in point of fact
make against an early date. Cheney is said to have been
a bishop in the time of Edward VI.; he was in fact raised
to the episcopate in the year 1562. Oglethorpe is said, like
Kitchen, to have retained his bishopric under Elizabeth. He
was in fact deposed on June 21, 1559, and died in the following
December. The statement that the Prayer-book was
submitted to the Convocation, "consisting of the said
Bishops," is all but demonstrably false.

[1] Wilkins, _Concilia_, iv. 6; Strype, _Cranmer_, vol. i. p. 156; Cardwell,
_Synod_., p. 421.

[2] Proclamation prefixed to _The Order of the Communion_, printed by
Grafton, March 8, 1547/8.

[3] Cardwell, _Doc. Ann_., vol. i. p. 72. As the bishops were required
"to cause