Occasion given and occasion taken; fourth objection: holy men approved the privilege; the duke’s stand

that this is against the catholic faith, as is clear from Romans 3:8 and 7:8, where the Apostle teaches that "evils of fault are not to be done, that good may come"; for since such circumstances of cases are matters of chance, it is clear that it would then happen that for the greater part of the duration of a given law an unjust judgment would be given according to it; and then the law would undoubtedly be unjust and never to be permitted.¹ As to the third difficulty, over which the schoolmen cry out, one must distinguish (as the Apostle does) 264between occasion given and occasion taken from the law for committing injury. And occasion for perpetrating injury is given by an unjust law when, according to its sense, together with truths, injury is inferred: as [when] the sense claimed to belong to the said privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging is that every fugitive to that place, whether he be worthy or unworthy, will have there liberty of every kind; which has been shown to conflict with divine justice.² But if it is said that liberty is claimed only for the worthy, then either it must be shown that the fugitives to be set free are worthy, or it must be said that, by the very fact that the king so grants, whoever flees there will be worthy. Granted the first: then, once it has been shown through the king’s council that a given fugitive is not worthy to have refuge, he has nothing to do with the freeing privilege.³ If the second is granted, then the privileging prince is blasphemously exalted above God. For God does not so privilege a place or a nature capable of sin without placing it in the freedom of its choicelibertas arbitrii: freedom of choice that it can render itself unworthy to receive the fruit of the privilege granted. Nor does the deduction avail, that then judgment according to human laws would often be unjust, since they do not attend to justice as regards God: what is inferredconcludere: to infer is true, since only the law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls (Psalm 19:7).⁴ And so, if, second, it is objectedinstatur; obicitur: it is objected that in England there are many privileges just as wicked, it is clear that the disproof of this privilege is not dissolved but made heavier, since to multiply an absurdityinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs) is not to resolve it; indeed, a more manifest, more general injustice, and one more contrary to the words and to the intention of the privilege, would be more out of keeping with that place and order than elsewhere in England in the hands of secularsecclesia laycalis / secularis: the lay church / the secular church, where commonly not so great an injury is committed.⁵

The fourth main objection, from schoolmen and common peoplevulgares: the common people alike: "Many," they say, "holy kings, bishops, clericsclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric,

and common people approved this privilege when the kingdomregnum: kingdom went forward prosperously; with what face, then, do we, less holy, less wisesciolus: knowing, wise or powerful, dare to usurp the violation of holy mother churchecclesia: church, since the lords and the parties to whom injury has been done can (as far as in them lies) remit satisfactionsatisfaccio; satisfacere: satisfaction; to make satisfaction and penalty, commending vengeance to God? For in this way certain cities in England are a refuge in perpetuity for serfs."⁶

To this the answer isdicitur multipliciter: is said in many ways that something false is assumed in the mind of the objection; for there can be neither holiness nor prudence in defending this privilege expounded in its bare sense; hence whoever had approved this sense either had fruitfully repented or else are damned; nor is it shown which holy or approved men had approved that sense.⁷ But it has been perversely wrested, as a privilege, beyond the bounds of justice, against the king’s oath and the prosperity of the kingdom; therefore a new remedy must be applied to so excessive an abuse. And this is the reason why the kingdom, no longer able to tolerate the growth of injury, has now applied a remedy rather than before.⁸ For a half-fool perceives and attacks a manifest injury after the wise man has passed over an imperceptibleinsensibilis: imperceptible; of a thing that cannot feel, without sensation injury. Nor is it the word of any but fools to say that the basilica, as wood and stones, is holy mother church. For the spirits whom God calls to the crown, espousing [them] in the wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland, are holy mother church; whose house is such a basilica, to which, in the name of the bridegroomsponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom and the bride, the reverence of an image is to be paid; which is done above all when justice is observed for that place.⁹ For holiness of life and the observance of justice would honour the place of the church more than all the gold or all the bodily jewels of this world; just as the least sin would infect it more in the eyes of the bridegroom 266than all possible bodily foulnesses or pollutions. For God flows intoillabi: to flow into every creature, however foul, causing it, a love which he cannot have toward sin; hence (as far as I understand) the temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords pressed prudently for the reverence of the place and the honour of the church.¹⁰ For the teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence of my lord, the lord duke, was that there should be preserved in them whatever privilege tended to the honour of the place, brought benefit to the monks, pertained to true mercy and piety toward fugitives, [and] was permitted by the honour of the king and his oath to preserve justice for every liege man of his; so much so that we heard him say "that it would be tolerable that fugitives should have refuge there in a case of some species of the crime of lèse-majesté. The deflowering of the king’s daughter," he said, "is one species of the crime of lèse-majesté; but this is far from the betrayal of the kingdom, from the defence of injury to God and neighbour, and also from the damnation of the soul of one dwelling in that place, by the defence of the fugitive’s crime."¹¹ And he stood spiritedly, singularly, for these just claims, so much so that he showed where, through whom and when a thousand pounds were offered him to procure, or to promise, that the said fugitives should go with their captive to the lands of the enemies; to which, because it seemed to him and to the king’s council, since they were confederate with the enemies, to tend to the danger of the kingdom, he would not assent.¹² Hence it is wholly the mark of irreligionirreligiositas: irreligion in the envious, with itching ears, [to take in] fictitious scandalous lies about a man, and to take hard the praiseworthy accounts of him that have been heard by many hundreds of men.¹³

But the opposing party seemed to us to stand wholly for the contrary; for since holiness becometh the house of God in the time of the synagogue, how much more in the time of the law of gracelex gracie: the law of grace, 267when Christ cast out those who sold and bought from the temple and said (Matthew 21:13): "My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves." What kind of religion, then, is it to defend criminals within the church, even though by probable evidenceevidencia: evidence they have been hardened?¹⁴ Or what benefit is it to a monk to prepare a hired house even for hardened fugitive robbers, although at the end of their life the abbey should have all the plunder they bring? Or what kind of religion is it, third, to protect criminals under the cloak of false piety, to the damnation of their soul and the infection of the English church, when, placed outside that den, by obeying the common law they would probably have been wholesomely chastised? Or how, fourth, would it stand with the king’s oath on receiving the government of the kingdom (which stands, as is clear from the king’s oath, in the observance of justice to everyone) that by the poison of the privilege he should foster even membersmembrum: member of the devil, to the poisoning and injury of his kingdom?¹⁵ Is it not written in Ecclesiasticus 10:8: "A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of injustices, and wrongs"? For just as nothing does more for the establishment of a kingdom than to observe justice to everyone, and [that] through the severe punishment of transgressorsprevaricator; prevaricancia: transgressor; transgression, so nothing more threatens ruin to a kingdom than constantly to foster injuries.¹⁶ And if it is objected that, according to this teaching, the king would punish the homicides perpetrated there, I confess it; but right order demands that the graver injustice be corrected sooner: but as things now are, [the deeds] arising from the dwelling of criminals in the sanctuary, from the killing of a religiousreligiosi: the religious within the church, from the breaking of the head of a religious, even a graduategraduacio; graduati: graduation; graduates, within the church by one of his own brethren, together with like things which, among those who inhabit the church, sound of the greater weight of sin, pollute the place more than the shedding of blood or of seed, on which no such weight of crime is founded.¹⁷