Note 1196 — XXVI. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

MS. State Paper Office (Froude, III. 65). Ap Rice’s report to Cromwell is sufficiently suggestive as to the interior life of the monastic orders to deserve transcription. “As we were of late at Walden, the abbot there being a man of good learning and right sincere judgment, as I examined him alone, showed me secretly, upon stipulation of silence, but only unto you as our judge, that he had contracted matrimony with a certain woman secretly, having present thereat but one trusty witness; because he, not being able, as he said, to contain, though he could not be suffered by the laws of man, saw he might do it lawfully by the laws of God; and for the avoiding of more inconvenience, which before he was provoked unto, he did thus, having confidence in you that this act should not be anything prejudicial unto him.”