1560.
On the conduct of Elizabeth as head of the church.--Sketch of the
history of the reformation in England.--Notices of Parker, Grindal, and
Jewel.
There was no part of the regal office the exercise of which appeared so
likely to expose Elizabeth to invidious reflections, as that which
comprehended the management of ecclesiastical affairs. Few divines,
though protestant, could behold without a certain feeling of mingled
jealousy and disdain, a female placed at the head of the religion of the
country, and by the whole papal party such a supremacy was regarded
perhaps as the most horrible, certainly as the most preposterous, of all
the prodigies which heresy had yet brought forth. "I have seen the head
of the English church dancing!" exclaimed, it is said, with a sarcastic
air, an ambassador from one of the catholic courts of Europe.
A more striking incongruity indeed could scarcely be imagined, than
between the winning manners and sprightly disposition of this youthful
princess, as they displayed themselves amid the festivities of her court
and the homage of her suitors, and the grave and awful character of
Governess of the church, with which she had been solemnly invested.
In virtue of this office, it was the right and duty of the queen to
choose a religion for the country; to ordain its rites and ceremonies,
discipline, and form of church government; and to fix the rank, offices
and emoluments of its ministers. She was also to exercise this power
entirely at her own discretion, free from the control of parliament or
the interference of the clerical body, and assisted only by such
commissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself to
appoint.
This exorbitant authority was first assumed by her arbitrary father when
it became his will that his people should acknowledge no other pope than
himself; and the servile spirit of the age, joined to the ignorance and
indifference on religious subjects then general, had caused it to be
submitted to without difficulty. In consequence, the title of Head of
the Church had quietly devolved upon Edward VI. as part of his regal
style; and while the duties of the office were exercised by Cranmer and
the Protector, the nation, now generally favorable to the cause of
reform, was more inclined to rejoice in its existence than to dispute
the authority by which it had been instituted. Mary abhorred the title,
as a badge of heresy and a guilty usurpation on the rights of the
sovereign pontiff, and in the beginning of her reign she laid it aside,
but was afterwards prevailed upon to resume it, because there was a
convenience in the legal sanction which it afforded to her acts of
tyranny over the consciences of men.
The first parliament of Elizabeth, in the fervor of its loyalty, decreed
to her, as if by acclamation, all the honors or prerogatives ever
enjoyed by her predecessors, and it was solely at her own request that
the appellation of Head, was now exchanged for the less assuming one of
Governess, of the English church. The power remained the same; it was,
as we have seen, of the most absolute nature possible; since, unlimited
by law, it was also, owing to its recent establishment, equally
uncontrolled by custom. It remains to the delineator of the character of
Elizabeth to inquire in what manner she acquitted herself, to her
country and to posterity, of the awful responsibility imposed upon her
by its possession.
A slight sketch of the circumstances attending the introduction of the
reformation into England, will serve to illustrate this important branch
of her policy.
On comparing the march of this mighty revolution in our own country with
its mode of progress amongst the other nations of Europe, one of the
first remarks which suggests itself is, that in no other country was its
course so immediately or effectually subjected to the guidance and
control of the civil power.
In Switzerland, the system of Zwingle, the earliest of the reformers,
had fully established itself in the hearts of his fellow-citizens before
the magistracies of Zurich and its neighbouring republics thought proper
to interfere. They then gave the sanction of law to the religion which
had become that of the majority, but abstained from all dictation on
points of which they felt themselves incompetent judges.
In Germany, the impulse originating in the daring mind of Luther, was
first communicated to the universities, to the lower orders of the
clergy, and through them to the people. The princes of the empire
afterwards took their part as patrons or persecutors of the new
opinions; but in either case they acted under the influence of
ecclesiastics, and no where arrogated to themselves the character of
lawgivers in matters of faith.
At Geneva, the vigor and dexterity of Calvin's measures brought the
magistracy under a complete subjection to the church, of which he had
made himself the head, and restricted its agency in religious concerns
to the execution of such decrees as the spiritual ruler saw good to
promulgate.
The system of the same reformer had recently been introduced into
Scotland by the exertions of John Knox, a disciple who equalled his
master in the fierceness of his bigotry, in self-opinion, and in the
love of power, whilst he exceeded him in turbulence of temper and
ferocity of manners: and here the independence of the church on the
state, or rather its paramount legislative authority in all matters of
faith, discipline and worship, was held in the loftiest terms. The
opposition which this doctrine, so formed for popularity, experienced
from the government in the outset, was overborne or disregarded, and it
was in despite of the utmost efforts of regal authority that the new
religion was established by an act of the Scottish parliament.
In England, on the contrary, the passions of Henry VIII. had prompted
him to disclaim submission to the papal decrees before the spirit of the
people demanded such a step,--before any apostle of reformation had
arisen in the land capable of inspiring the multitude with that zeal
which makes its will omnipotent, and leaves to rulers no other
alternative than to comply or fall,--yet not before the attachment of
men to the ancient religion was so far weakened, that the majority could
witness its overthrow with patience if not with complacency.
To have timed this momentous step so fortunately for the cause of
prerogative might in some princes have been esteemed the result of
profound combinations,--the triumph of political sagacity; in Henry it
was the pure effect of accident: but the advantages which he derived
from the quiescent state of the public mind were not on this account the
less real or the less important, nor did he suffer them to go
unimproved. On one hand, no considerable opposition was made to his
assumption of the supremacy; on the other, the spoil of the monasteries
was not intercepted in its passage to the royal coffers by the more
rapid movements of a populace intoxicated with fanatical rage or fired
with hopes of plunder. What appeared still more extraordinary, he found
it practicable, to the end of his reign, to keep the nation suspended,
as to doctrine and the forms of worship, in that nice equilibrium
between protestant and papist which happened best to accord with his
individual views or prejudices.
Cranmer, who has a better title than any other to be revered as the
father of the Anglican church, showed himself during the life of Henry
the most cautious and complaisant of reformers. Aware that any rashness
or precipitation on the part of the favorers of new opinions might
expose them to all the fury of persecution from a prince so dogmatical
and violent, he constantly refrained from every alarming appeal to the
sense of the people on theological questions, and was content to proceed
in his great work step by step, with a slow, uncertain, and interrupted
progress, at the will of that capricious master whose vacillations of
humor or opinion he watched with the patience, and improved with the
skill, of a finished courtier.
Administered in so qualified and mitigated a form, the spirit of
reformation exhibited in this country little of its stronger and more
turbulent workings. No sect at that time arose purely and peculiarly
English: our native divines did not embrace exclusively, or with
vehemence, the tenets of any one of the great leaders of reform on the
continent, and a kind of eclectic system became that of the Anglican
church from its earliest institution.
The respective contributions to this system of the most celebrated
theologians of the age may be thus stated. It was chiefly from
Zwingle,--the first, in point of time, of all the reformers of the
sixteenth century, and the one whose doctrine on the eucharist and on
several other points diverged most widely from the tenets of the church
of Rome,--that our principal opponents of popery in the reign of Henry
VIII. derived their notions. Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer himself, were
essentially his disciples.
By others, the system of Luther was in the whole or in part adopted.
But this reformer was personally so obnoxious to Henry, on account of
the disrespectful and acrimonious style of his answer to the book in
which that royal polemic had formerly attacked his doctrine, that no
English subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower,
or to open any direct communication with him. Thus the Confession of
Augsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the English monarch
than any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain the
sanction of that authority which might have rendered it predominant in
this country.
A long and vehement controversy on the subject of the eucharist had been
maintained between the German and Swiss divines during the later years
of Henry; but at the period of Edward's accession, when Cranmer first
undertook the formation of a national church according to his own ideas
of gospel truth and political expediency, this dispute was in great
measure appeased, and sanguine hopes were entertained that a
disagreement regarded as dangerous in a high degree to the common cause
of religious reform might soon be entirely reconciled.
Luther, the last survivor of the original disputants, was lately dead;
and to the post which he had held in the university of Wittemberg, as
well as to the station of head of the protestant church, Melancthon had
succeeded. This truly excellent person, who carried into all theological
debates a spirit of conciliation equally rare and admirable, was
earnestly laboring at a scheme of comprehension. His laudable
endeavours were met by the zealous co-operation of Calvin, who had by
this time extended his influence from Geneva over most of the Helvetic
congregations, and was diligent in persuading them to recede from the
unambiguous plainness of Zwingle's doctrine,--which reduced the Lord's
supper to a simple commemoration,--and to admit so much of a mystical
though spiritual presence of Christ in that rite, as might bring them to
some seeming agreement with the less rigid of the followers of the
Lutheran opinion. At the same time Bucer, who presided over the
flourishing church of Strasburg, was engaged in framing yet another
explication of this important rite, by which he vainly hoped to
accommodate the consciences of all these zealous and acute polemics.
Bucer was remarkable among the theologians of his time by a subtility in
distinction resembling that of the schoolmen, and by a peculiar art of
expressing himself on doctrinal points in terms so nicely balanced, and
in a style of such labored intricacy, that it was scarcely possible to
discover his true meaning, or pronounce to which extreme of opinion he
most inclined. These dubious qualifications, by which he disgusted
alternately both Calvin and the more zealous Lutherans, were however
accompanied and redeemed by great learning and diligence; by a
remarkable talent for public business, which rendered him eminently
useful in all the various negotiations with temporal authorities, or
with each other, in which the leaders of the reformation found it
necessary to engage; by a mild and candid spirit, and by as much of
sincerity and probity as could co-exist with the open defence of pious
frauds.
The whole character of the man appeared to Cranmer admirably fitted for
co-operation in the work which he had in hand. On the difficult question
of the eucharist Bucer would preserve the wariness and moderation which
appeared essential in the divided state of protestant opinion: on
justification and good works he held a middle doctrine, which might
conciliate the catholics, and was capable of being so interpreted as not
greatly to offend the moderate Lutherans: on the subject of church
government he had not yet committed himself, and there was little doubt
that he would cheerfully submit to the natural predilection of the
archbishop for prelacy. His erudition and his morals could not fail to
prove serviceable and creditable to the great cause of national
instruction and reformed religion. Accordingly an invitation was sent to
him, in the name of the young king, to come and occupy the theological
chair in the university of Cambridge; and in the year 1549 he reached
England, and began to discharge with much assiduity the duties of his
office.
The name and influence of Bucer became very considerable in this
country, though his career was terminated by death within two years
after his arrival. A public funeral, attended by all the members of the
university and many other persons of eminence, attested the
consideration in which he was held by Edward's ministers; the subsequent
disinterment of his remains by order of cardinal Pole, for the purpose
of committing his bones to the flames, gave further evidence of his
merits in the protestant cause; and in the composition of our national
Articles, it has been said that no hand has left more distinguishable
traces of itself than that of Bucer.
From Strasburg also the university of Oxford was destined to receive a
professor of divinity in the person of the celebrated Peter Martyr. This
good and learned man, a Florentine by birth and during some years
principal of a college of Augustines at Naples, having gradually become
a convert to the doctrines of the reformers, and afterwards proceeding
openly to preach them, was compelled to quit his country in order to
avoid persecution. Passing into Switzerland, he was received with
affectionate hospitality by the disciples of Zwingle at Zurich; and
after making some abode there he repaired to Basil, whence Bucer caused
him to be invited to fill the station of theological professor at
Strasburg. He was also appointed the colleague of this divine in the
ministry, and their connexion had subsisted about five years in perfect
harmony when the offers of Cranmer induced the two friends to remove
into England.
It is to be presumed that no considerable differences of opinion on
points deemed by themselves essential could exist between associates so
united; but a greater simplicity of character and of views, and superior
boldness in the enunciation of new doctrines, strikingly distinguished
the proceedings of Peter Martyr from those of his friend. With respect
to church government, he, like Bucer, was willing to conform to the
regulations of Cranmer and the English council; but he preached at
Oxford on the eucharist with so Zwinglian a cast of sentiment, that the
popish party raised a popular commotion against him, by which his life
was endangered, and he was compelled for a time to withdraw from the
city. Tranquillity was soon however restored by the interference of the
public authority, and the council proceeded vigorously in obliterating
the last vestiges of Romish superstition. Ridley throughout his own
diocese now caused the altars to be removed from the churches, and
communion-tables to be placed in their room; and, as if by way of
comment on this alteration, Martyr and others procured a public
recognition of the Genevan as a sister church, and the admission into
the English service-book of the articles of faith drawn up by Calvin.
During the remainder of Edward's reign the tide of public opinion
continued running with still augmenting velocity towards Geneva. Calvin
took upon him openly to expostulate with Bucer on the preference of
state expediency to Scripture truth, betrayed, as he asserted, by the
obstinate adherence of this divine to certain doctrines and observances
which savoured too much of popery; and it is probable that a still
nearer approach might have been made to his simpler ritual, but for the
untimely death of the zealous young king, and the total ruin of the new
establishment which ensued.
Just before the persecutions of Mary drove into exile so many of the
most zealous and conscientious of her protestant subjects, the discord
between the Lutherans and those whom they styled Sacramentarians had
burst out afresh in Germany with more fury than ever. The incendiary on
this occasion was Westphal, superintendant of the Lutheran church of
Hamburgh, who published a violent book on the subject of the eucharist;
and through the influence of this man, and of the outrageous spirit of
intolerance which his work had raised, Latimer and Ridley were
stigmatized by fellow protestants as "the devil's martyrs," and the
Lutheran cities drove from their gates as dangerous and detestable
heretics the English refugees who fled to them for shelter. By those
cities or congregations, on the contrary,--whether in Germany, France,
or Switzerland,--in which the tenets either of Zwingle or Calvin were
professed, these pious exiles were received with open arms, venerated as
confessors, cherished as brethren in distress, and admitted with perfect
confidence into the communion of the respective churches.
Treatment so opposite from the two contending parties, between which
they had supposed themselves to occupy neutral ground, failed not to
produce corresponding effects on the minds of the exiles. At Frankfort,
where the largest body of them was assembled, and where they had formed
an English congregation using king Edward's liturgy, this form of
worship became the occasion of a division amongst themselves, and a
strong party soon declared itself in favor of discarding all of popish
forms or doctrine which the English establishment, in common with the
Lutheran, had retained, and of adopting in their place the simpler
creed and ritual of the Genevan church.
It was found impracticable to compromise this difference; a considerable
number finally seceded from the congregation, and it was from this
division at Frankfort that English nonconformity took its birth. No
equally strong manifestation of opinion occurred amongst the exiles in
other cities; but on the whole it may be affirmed, that the majority of
these persons returned from their wanderings with their previous
predilection for the Calvinistic model confirmed and augmented by the
united influence of the reasonings and persuasions of its ablest
apostles, and of those sentiments of love and hatred from which the
speculative opinions of most men receive an irresistible though secret
bias.
Their more unfortunate brethren, in the mean time, who, unwilling to
resign their country, or unable to escape from it, had been compelled to
look persecution in the face and deliberately acquaint themselves with
all its horrors, were undergoing other and in some respects opposite
influences.
An overpowering dread and abhorrence of the doctrines of the church of
Rome must so have absorbed all other thoughts and feelings in the minds
of this dispersed and affrighted remnant of the English church, as to
leave them little attention to bestow upon the comparatively trifling
objects of dispute between protestant and protestant. They might even be
disposed to regard such squabbles with emotions of indignation and
disgust, and to ask how brethren in affliction could have the heart to
nourish animosities against each other. The memory of Edward VI. was
deservedly dear to them, and they would contemplate the restoration of
his ritual by the successor of Mary as an event in which they ought to
regard all their prayers as fulfilled:--yet the practice, forced upon
them by the vigilance of persecution, of holding their assemblies for
divine worship in places unconsecrated, with the omission of every
customary ceremonial and under the guidance frequently of men whom zeal
and piety alone had ordained to the office of teachers and ministers of
religion, must amongst them also have been producing a secret alienation
from established forms and rituals, and a propensity to those
extemporaneous effusions of devotion, or urgencies of supplication,
which seem best adapted to satisfy the wants of the pious soul under the
fiery trial of persecution and distress. The Calvinistic model
therefore, as the freest of all, and that which most industriously
avoided any resemblance of popish forms, might be the one most likely to
obtain their suffrage also.
Such being the state of religious opinion in England at the accession of
Elizabeth, it will not appear wonderful that the Genevan reformer should
have begun to indulge the flattering expectation of seeing his own
scheme established in England as in Scotland, and himself revered
throughout the island as a spiritual director from whose decisions there
could be no appeal. Emboldened at once by zeal and ambition, he hastened
to open a communication with the new government, in the shape of an
exhortation to the queen to call a protestant council for establishing
uniformity of doctrine and of church government; but his dream of
supremacy was quickly dissipated on receiving for answer, that England
was determined to preserve her episcopacy.
This decisive rejection of the presbyterian form was followed up by
other acts on the part of the queen which gave offence to all the real
friends of reformed religion, and went far to prove that Elizabeth was
at heart little more of a protestant than her father. The general
prohibition of preaching, which was strictly enforced during the first
months of her reign, was understood as a measure of repression levelled
full as much against the indiscreet zeal of the returned exiles, as
against the disaffection of the catholics. An order that until the next
meeting of parliament no change should be made in the order of worship
established by the late queen, except the reading of the creed and
commandments in English, implied, at least, a determination in the civil
power to take the management of religion entirely out of the hands of a
clergy whose influence over the minds of the people it viewed with a
jealous eye. It was soon also discovered, to the increasing horror of
all true protestants, that the queen was strongly disposed to insist on
the celibacy of the clergy; and even when the strenuous efforts of Cecil
and others had brought her to yield with reluctance this capital point,
she still pertinaciously refused to authorize their marrying by an
express law. She would not even declare valid the marriages contracted
by them during the reign of her brother; so that it became necessary to
procure private bills of legitimation in behalf of the offspring of
these unions, though formed under the express sanction of then existing
laws. The son of Cranmer himself, and the son of archbishop Parker, were
of the number of those who found it necessary to resort to this
disagreeable and degrading expedient.
Other things which offended the reformists were, the queen's
predilection, already mentioned, for crucifixes, which she did not cause
to be removed from the churches till after considerable delay and
difficulty, and retained in her private chapel for many years
longer,--and her wish to continue the use of altars. This being regarded
as a dangerous compliance with the Romish doctrine, since an _altar_
could only suit with the notion of a _sacrifice_ of Christ in the mass,
earnest expostulations on the subject were addressed to her by several
of the leading divines; and in the end the queen found it expedient,
with whatever reluctance, to ordain the substitution of
communion-tables.
She was also bent upon retaining in the church of which she was the head
the use of vestments similar to those worn by the different orders of
popish priests in the celebration of the various offices of their
religion. A very natural association of ideas caused the protestant
clergy to regard with suspicion and abhorrence such an approximation in
externals to that worship which was in their eyes the abomination of
idolatry; and several of the returned exiles, to whom bishoprics were
now offered, scrupled to accept of them under the obligation of wearing
the appointed habits. Repeated and earnest representations were made to
the queen against them, but she remained inflexible. In this dilemma,
the divines requested the advice of Peter Martyr, who had quitted
England on the accession of Mary and was now professor of theology at
Zurich. He persuaded compliance, representing to them that it was better
that high offices in the church should be occupied by persons like
themselves, though with the condition of submitting to some things which
they did not approve, than that such posts should be given to Lutherans
or concealed catholics, who, instead of promoting any further
reformation, would labor continually to bring back more and more of the
ancient ceremonies and superstitions. This argument was deemed
conclusive, and the bishoprics were accepted. But such a plea, though it
might suffice certain men for a time, could not long satisfy
universally; and we shall soon have occasion to take notice of scruples
on this point, as the source of the first intestine divisions by which
the Anglican church was disturbed, and of the first persecutions of her
own children by which she disgraced herself.
On the whole, it must be admitted that the personal conduct of Elizabeth
in this momentous business exhibited neither enlargement of mind nor
elevation of soul. Considerably attached to ceremonial observances, and
superior to none of the superstitions which she might have imbibed in
her childhood, she was however more attached to her own power and
authority than to these. Little under the influence of any individual
amongst her clergy, and somewhat inclined to treat that order in general
with harshness, if not cruelty,--as in the article of their marriages,
in the unmitigated rigor with which she exacted from them her first
fruits, and in the rapacity which she permitted her courtiers to
exercise upon the temporalities of the bishoprics,--the only view which
she took of the subject was that of the sovereign and the politician.
Aware on one hand of the manner in which her title to the crown was
connected with the renunciation of papal authority, of the
irreconcileable enmity borne her by the catholic powers, and of the
general attachment of her subjects to the cause of the reformation, she
felt herself called upon to assume the protection of the protestant
interest of Europe, and to re-establish that worship in her own
dominions. On the other hand, she remarked with secret dread and
aversion the popular spirit and republican tendency of the institutions
of Calvin, and she resolved at all hazards to check the growth of his
opinions in England. Accordingly, it was the scope of every alteration
made by her in the service-book of Edward, to give it more of a Lutheran
aspect, and it was for some time apprehended that she would cause the
entire Confession of Augsburg to be received into it.
Of toleration, of the rights of conscience, she had as little feeling or
understanding as any prince or polemic of her age. Her establishment was
formed throughout in the spirit of compromise and political expediency;
she took no pains to ascertain, either by the assembling of a national
synod or by the submission of the articles to free discussion in
parliament, whether or not they were likely to prove agreeable to the
opinions of the majority; it sufficed that she had decreed their
reception, and she prepared, by means of penal statutes strictly
executed, to prevent the propagation of any doctrines, or the observance
of any rites, capable of interfering with the exact uniformity in
religion then regarded as essential to the peace and stability of every
well constituted state.
To Cecil her chief secretary of state and to Nicholas Bacon her keeper
of the seals, assisted by a select number of divines, the management of
this great affair was chiefly intrusted by the queen: and much might be
said of the sagacity displayed by her in this appointment, and of the
wisdom and moderation exercised by them in the discharge of their
office; much also might be, much has been said, of the excellencies of
the form of worship by them established;--but little, alas! of moral or
of religious merit can be awarded by the verdict of impartial history to
the motives or conduct of the heroine of protestantism in a transaction
so momentous and so memorable.
Three acts of the parliament of 1559 gave the sanction of law to the new
ecclesiastical establishment; they were those of Supremacy, of
Uniformity, and a third empowering the queen to appoint bishops. By the
first, the authority of the pope was solemnly renounced, and the whole
government of the church vested in the queen, her heirs and successors;
and an important clause further enabled her and them to delegate their
authority to commissioners of their own appointment, who amongst other
extraordinary powers were to be invested with the cognisance of all
errors and heresies whatsoever. On this foundation was erected the
famous High Commission Court, which grew into one of the principal
grievances of this and the two following reigns, and of which, from the
moment of its formation, the proceedings assumed a character of
arbitrary violence utterly incompatible with the security and happiness
of the subject, and hostile to the whole tenor of the ancient charters.
The act of Uniformity ordained an exact compliance in all points with
the established form of worship and a punctual attendance on its
offices; it also rendered highly penal the exercise, public or private,
of any other; and of this law it was not long before several unfortunate
catholics were doomed to experience the utmost rigor.
Many parish priests who had been open and violent papists in the last
reign, permitted themselves to take the oath of supremacy and retain
their cures under the new order of things, a kind of compliance with the
times which the court of Rome is said sometimes to have permitted,
sometimes even to have privately enjoined,--on the principle of Peter
Martyr, that it was better that its secret adherents should continue to
occupy the churches, on whatever conditions, than that they should be
surrendered entirely into the hands of an opposite party. The bishops,
on the contrary, considered themselves as called upon by the dignity of
their character and office to bear a public testimony against the
defection of England from the holy see; and those of them who had not
previously been deprived on other grounds, now in a body refused the
oaths and submitted themselves to the consequences. All were deprived, a
few imprisoned, several committed to honorable custody. The policy of
Elizabeth, unlike the genuine bigotry of her sister, contented itself
with a kind of negative intolerance; and as long as the degraded bishops
abstained from all manifestations, by words or deeds, of hostility
against her government and ecclesiastical establishment, and all
celebration of the peculiar rites of their religion, they were secure
from molestation; and never to them, as to their unfortunate protestant
predecessors, were articles of religion offered for signature under the
fearful alternative of compliance or martyrdom.
To supply the vacancies of the episcopal bench became one of the
earliest cares of the queen and her ministers; and their choice, which
fell on the most eminent of the confessors and exiles, was generally
approved by the nation.
Dr. Parker, formerly her mother's chaplain and the religious instructor
of her own childhood, was designated by Elizabeth for the primacy. This
eminent divine had likewise been one of the chaplains of Edward VI., and
enjoyed under his reign considerable church preferments. He had been the
friend of Cranmer, Bucer, Latimer, and Ridley; of Cook, Cheke, and
Cecil; and was the ardent coadjutor of these meritorious public
characters in the promotion of reformed religion, and the advancement
of general learning,--two grand objects, which were regarded by them as
inseparable and almost identical.
On the accession of Mary, being stripped of all his benefices as a
married priest, Parker with his family was reduced to poverty and
distress; and it was only by a careful concealment of his person, by
frequent changes of place, and in some instances by the timely
advertisements of watchful friends, that he was enabled to avoid a still
severer trial of his constancy. During this period of distress he found
support and solace from the pious task of translating into English metre
the whole of the Psalms. The version still exists in manuscript, and is
executed with some spirit, and not inelegantly, in the old measure of
fourteen syllables.
Parker's "_Nolo episcopari_" is supposed to have been more than
ordinarily sincere: in fact, the station of metropolitan must at this
juncture have been felt as one of considerable difficulty, perhaps even
of danger; and the stormy temper of the queen afterwards prepared for
the prelate so much of contradiction and humiliation as caused him more
than once to bewail his final acceptance of the highest dignity of the
English church.
With all her personal regard for the primate, Elizabeth could not always
refrain in his presence from reflections against married priests, which
gave him great pain.
During a progress which she made in 1561 into Essex and Suffolk, she
expressed high displeasure at finding so many of the clergy married,
and the cathedrals and colleges so filled with women and children; and
in consequence she addressed to the archbishop a royal injunction, "that
no head or member of any college or cathedral should bring a wife or any
other woman into the precincts of it, to abide in the same, on pain of
forfeiture of all ecclesiastical promotion." Parker regarded it as his
duty to remonstrate with her in person against so popish a prohibition;
on which, after declaring to him that she repented of having made any
married bishops, she went on to treat the institution of matrimony
itself with a satire and contempt which filled him with horror.
It was to his wife that her majesty, in returning acknowledgements for
the magnificent hospitality with which she had been received at the
archiepiscopal palace, made use of the well-known ungracious address;
"Madam I may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to call you, and so I
know not what to call you; but howsoever I thank you."
But these fits of ill-humor were transient; for Parker learned the art
of dispelling them by submissions, or soothing them by the frequent and
respectful tender of splendid entertainments and costly gifts. He did
not long remain insensible to the charms of rank and fortune; and it
must not be concealed that an inordinate love of power, and a haughty
intolerance of all opposition, gradually superseded that candor and
Christian meekness of which he had formerly been cited as an edifying
example. Against that sect amongst the clergy who refused to adopt the
appointed habits and scrupled some of the ceremonies, soon after
distinguished by the appellation of Puritans, he exercised his authority
with unsparing rigor; and even stretched it by degrees so far beyond all
legal bounds, that the queen herself, little as she was inclined to
tolerate this sect or to resent any arbitrary conduct in her
commissioners, was moved at length to interpose and reverse some of his
proceedings. The archbishop, now become incapable of yielding his own
will even to that of his sovereign, complained and remonstrated instead
of submitting: reproaches ensued on the part of Elizabeth; and in May
1575 the learned prelate ended in a kind of disgrace the career which he
had long pursued amid the warmest testimonies of royal approbation.
The fairest, at least the most undisputed, claim of this eminent prelate
to the gratitude of his contemporaries and the respect of posterity, is
founded on the character which his high station enabled him to assume
and maintain, of the most munificent patron of letters of his age and
country. The study which he particularly encouraged, and to which his
own leisure was almost exclusively devoted, was that of English
antiquities; and he formed and presented to Corpus Christi college a
large and valuable collection of the manuscripts relative to these
objects which had been scattered abroad at the dissolution of the
monasteries, and must have been irretrievably lost but for his diligence
in inquiring after them and the liberality with which he rewarded their
discovery. He edited four of our monkish historians; was the first
publisher of that interesting specimen of early English satire and
versification, Pierce Plowman's Visions; composed a history in Latin of
his predecessors in the see of Canterbury, and encouraged the labors of
many private scholars by acts of generosity and kindness.
Grindal, a divine of eminence, who during his voluntary exile at
Frankfort had taken a strong part in favor of king Edward's
Service-book, was named as the successor of Bonner in the bishopric of
London; but a considerable time was spent in overcoming his objections
to the habits and ceremonies, before he could be prevailed upon to
assume a charge of which he deeply felt the importance and
responsibility.
To the reputation of learning and piety which this prelate enjoyed in
common with so many of his clerical contemporaries, he added an
extraordinary earnestness in the promotion of Christian knowledge, and a
courageous inflexibility on points of professional duty, imitated by few
and excelled by none. His manly spirit disdained that slavish
obsequiousness by which too many of his episcopal brethren paid homage
to the narrow prejudices and state-jealousies of an imperious mistress,
and it soon became evident that strife and opposition awaited him.
His first difference was with archbishop Parker, whom he highly offended
by his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, a
sect many of whose scruples Grindal himself had formerly entertained,
and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than with
indignation. Cecil, who was his chief friend and patron, apprehensive of
his involving himself in trouble, gladly seized an occasion of
withdrawing him from the contest, by procuring his appointment in 1570
to the vacant archbishopric of York; a hitherto neglected province, in
which his efforts for the instruction of the people and the reformation
of the state of the church were peculiarly required and eminently
successful.
For his own repose, Grindal ought never to have quitted this sphere of
unmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of Parker in 1575, the
primacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of rendering
his plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted its
acceptance. Thus was he brought once more within the uncongenial
atmosphere of a court, and subjected to the immediate control of his
sovereign in matters on which he regarded it as a duty, on the double
ground of conscience and the rights of his office, to resist the fiat of
a temporal head of the church.
The queen, whose dread and hatred of the puritans augmented with the
severities which she exercised against them, had conceived a violent
aversion to certain meetings called prophesyings, at this time held by
the clergy for the purpose of exercising their younger members in
expounding the Scriptures, and at which the laity had begun to attend as
auditors in great numbers and with much interest. Such assemblies, her
majesty declared, were nothing else than so many schools of puritanism,
where the people learned to be so inquisitive that their spiritual
superiors would soon lose all influence over them, and she issued
positive commands to Grindal for their suppression. At the same time
she expressed to him her extreme displeasure at the number of preachers
licensed in his province, and required that it should be very
considerably lessened, "urging that it was good for the world to have
few preachers, that three or four might suffice for a county; and that
the reading of the homilies to the people was enough." But the venerable
primate, so far from consenting to abridge the means of that religious
instruction which he regarded it as the most sacred duty of a protestant
church to afford, took the freedom of addressing to her majesty a very
plain and earnest letter of expostulation. In this piece, after showing
the great necessity which existed for multiplying, rather than
diminishing, opportunities of edification both to the clergy and the
people, and protesting that he could not in conscience be instrumental
to the suppression either of preaching or prophesyings, he proceeded to
remonstrate with her majesty on the arbitrary, imperious, and as it were
papal manner, in which she took upon herself to decide points better
left to the management of her bishops. He ended by exhorting her to
remember that she also was a mortal creature, and accountable to God for
the exercise of her power, and that she ought above all things to be
desirous of employing it piously for the promotion of true religion.
The event showed this remonstrance to be rather well-intended than
well-judged. Indignation was the only sentiment which it awakened in the
haughty mind of Elizabeth, and she answered it by an order of the
Star-chamber, in virtue of which the archbishop was suspended from his
functions for six months, and confined during the same period to his
house. At the end of this time he was urged by Burleigh to acknowledge
himself in fault and beg the queen's forgiveness but he steadily refused
to compromise thus a good cause, and his sequestration was continued. It
even appears that nothing but the honest indignation of some of her
ministers and courtiers restrained the queen from proceeding to deprive
him.
At the end of four or five years, her anger being somewhat abated, it
pleased her to take off the sequestration, but without restoring the
primate to her favor; and as he was now old and blind, he willingly
consented to resign the primacy and retire on a pension: but in 1583,
before the matter could be finally arranged, he died.
Archbishop Grindal was a great contributor to Fox's "Acts and
Monuments," for which he collected many materials; but he was the author
of no considerable work, and on the whole he seems to have been less
admirable by the display of any extraordinary talents than revered and
exemplary for the primitive virtues of probity, sincerity, and godly
zeal. These were the qualities which obtained for him the celebration of
Spenser in his "Shepherd's Calendar," where he is designated by the name
of Algrind, and described as a true teacher of the Gospel and a severe
reprover of the pride and worldliness of the popish clergy. The lines
were written during the period of the prelate's disgrace, which is
allegorically related and bewailed by the poet.
Another distinguished ornament of the episcopal bench was Jewel,
consecrated to the see of Salisbury in 1560. It is remarkable that this
learned apologist of the church of England had expressed at first a
stronger repugnance to the habits than most of his colleagues; but
having once brought himself to compliance, he thenceforth became noted
for the rigor with which he exacted it of others.
In the time of Henry VIII. Jewel had become suspected of opinions which
he openly embraced on the accession of Edward, and he was sufficiently
distinguished amongst the reformers of this reign to be marked out as
one of the first objects of persecution under Mary. As a preliminary
step, on which proceedings might be founded, the Romish articles were
offered for his signature, when he disappointed alike his enemies and
his friends by subscribing them without apparent reluctance. But his
insincerity in this act was notorious, and it was in contemplation to
subject him to the fierce interrogatories of Bonner, when timely warning
enabled him, through many perils, to escape out of the country. Safe
arrived at Frankfort, he made a public confession, before the English
congregation, of his guilt in signing articles which his conscience
abhorred, and humbly entreated forgiveness of God and the church. After
this, he repaired to Strasburgh and passed away the time with his friend
Peter Martyr.
The erudition of Jewel was profound and extensive, his private life
amiable, his performance of his episcopal duties sedulous; and such was
the esteem in which his celebrated "Apology" was held, that Elizabeth,
and afterwards James I., ordained that a copy of it should be kept in
every parish-church in England.
Of Dr. Cox, elevated to the see of Ely, mention has already been made;
and it would be superfluous here to enter more largely into the
ecclesiastical history of the reign.
A careful consideration of the behaviour of Elizabeth towards the two
successive primates Parker and Grindal, will furnish a sufficiently
accurate notion of the spirit of her religious policy, besides affording
a valuable addition to the characteristic traits illustrative of her
temper and opinions.
CHAPTER XIIIa.
1561.
Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex.--Translations of ancient tragedies.--Death
of Francis II.--Mary refuses to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh--returns
to Scotland.--Enmity between Mary and Elizabeth.--Philip II. secretly
encourages the English papists.--Measures of rigor adopted against them
by Elizabeth.--Anecdote of the queen and Dr. Sampson.--St. Paul's struck
by lightning.--Bishop Pilkington's sermon on the occasion.--Paul's
Walk.--Precautions against the queen's being poisoned.--The king of
Sweden proposes to visit her.--Steps taken in this matter.
The eighteenth of January 1561 ought to be celebrated as the birthday of
the English drama; for it was on this day that Thomas Sackville caused
to be represented at Whitehall, for the entertainment of Elizabeth and
her court, the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, otherwise called Gorboduc,
the joint production of himself and Thomas Norton. From the unrivalled
force of imagination, the vigor and purity of diction, and the intimate
knowledge and tasteful adaptation of the beauties of the Latin poets
displayed in the contributions of Sackville to the Mirror of
Magistrates, a lettered audience would conceive high expectations from
his attempt in a new walk of poetry; but in the then barbarous state of
our Theatre, such a performance as Gorboduc must have been hailed as
not only a novelty but a wonder. It was the first piece composed in
English on the ancient tragic model, with a regular division into five
acts, closed by lyric choruses.
It offered the first example of a story from British history, or what
passed for history, completely dramatized and represented with an
attempt at theatrical illusion; for the earlier pieces published under
the title of tragedies were either ballads or monologues, which might
indeed be sung or recited, but were incapable of being acted. The plot
of the play was fraught with those circumstances of the deepest horror
by which the dormant sensibilities of an inexperienced audience require
and delight to be awakened. An unwonted force of thought and dignity of
language claimed the patience, if not the admiration, of the hearers,
for the long political disquisitions by which the business of the piece
was somewhat painfully retarded.
The curiosity of the public respecting a drama which had been performed
with general applause both at court and before the society of the Middle
Temple, encouraged its surreptitious appearance in print in 1565, and a
second stolen edition was followed, some years after, by a corrected one
published under the inspection of the authors themselves. The taste for
the legitimate drama thus awakened, may be supposed to have led to the
naturalization amongst us of several of its best ancient models. The
Phoenissae of Euripides appeared under the title of Jocasta, having
received an English dress from Gascoigne and Kinwelmershe, two students
of Gray's Inn. The ten tragedies of Seneca, englished by different
hands, succeeded. It is worthy of note, however, that none of these
translators had the good taste to imitate the authors of Ferrex and
Porrex in the adoption of blank verse, and that one only amongst them
made use of the heroic rhymed couplet; the others employing the old
alexandrine measure, excepting in the choruses, which were given in
various kinds of stanza. Her majesty alone seems to have perceived the
superior advantages, or to have been tempted by the greater facility of
Sackville's verse; and amongst the MSS. of the Bodleian library there is
found a translation by her own hand of part of Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus,
which is in this measure. Warton however adds, that this specimen "has
no other recommendation than its royalty."
The propensity of Elizabeth, amid all the serious cares of government
and all the pettinesses of that political intrigue to which she was
addicted, to occupy herself with attempts in polite literature, for
which she possessed no manner of talent, is not the least remarkable
among the features of her extraordinary and complicated character.
At the period of her reign however which we are now considering, public
affairs must have required from her an almost undivided attention. By
the death of Francis II. about the end of the year 1560, the queen of
Scots had become a widow, and the relations of England with France and
Scotland had immediately assumed an entirely novel aspect.
The change was in one respect highly to the advantage of Elizabeth. By
the loss of her royal husband, Mary was deprived of that command over
the resources of the French monarchy by which she had hoped to render
effective her claim to the English crown, and she found it expedient to
discontinue for the present the use of the royal arms of England. The
enmity of the queen-mother had even chased her from that court where she
had reigned so lately, and obliged her to retire to her uncle, the
cardinal of Lorrain at Rheims. But from the age and temper of the
beautiful and aspiring Mary, it was to be expected that she would ere
long be induced to re-enter the matrimonial state with some one of the
princes of Europe; and neither as a sovereign nor a woman could
Elizabeth regard without jealousy the plans for her reestablishment
already agitated by her ambitious uncles of the house of Guise. Under
these circumstances, it was the first object of Elizabeth to obtain from
her rival the formal ratification, which had hitherto been withheld, of
the treaty of Edinburgh, by one article of which Mary was pledged never
to resume the English arms; and Throgmorton, then ambassador to France,
was instructed to urge strongly her immediate compliance with this
certainly not inequitable demand. The queen of Scots, however, persisted
in evading its fulfilment, and on pleas so forced and futile as justly
to confirm all previous suspicions of her sincerity.
Matters were in this state between the two sovereigns, when Mary came to
the resolution of acceding to the unanimous entreaties of her subjects
of both religions, by returning to govern in person the kingdom of her
ancestors; and she sent to request of Elizabeth a safe-conduct. The
English princess promptly replied, that the queen had only to ratify the
treaty of Edinburgh, and she should obtain not merely a safe-conduct but
free permission to shorten the fatigues of her voyage by passing through
England, where she should be received with all the marks of affection
due to a beloved sister. By this answer Mary chose to regard herself as
insulted; and declaring to the English ambassador in great heat that
nothing vexed her so much as to have exposed herself without necessity
to such a refusal, and that she doubted not that she should be able to
return to her country without the permission of Elizabeth, as she had
quitted it in spite of all the vigilance of her brother, she abruptly
broke off the conference.
Henceforth the breach between these illustrious kinswomen became
irreparable. In vain did Mary, after her arrival in Scotland, endeavour
to remedy the imprudence which she was conscious of having committed, by
professions of respect and friendship; for with these hollow compliments
she had the further indiscretion to mingle the demand that Elizabeth
should publicly declare her next heir to the English throne; a proposal
which this high-spirited princess could never hear without rage. Neither
of the queens was a novice in the arts of dissimulation, and as often as
it suited the interest or caprice of the moment, each would lavish upon
the other, without scruple, every demonstration of amity, every pledge
of affection; but jealousy, suspicion, and hatred dwelt irremoveably in
the inmost recesses of their hearts. The protestant party in Scotland
was powerfully protected by Elizabeth, the catholic party in England was
secretly incited by Mary; and it became scarcely less the care and
occupation of each to disturb the administration of her rival than to
fix her own on a solid basis.
Mary had been attended on her return to Scotland by her three uncles,
the duke of Aumale, the grand prior and the marquis of Elbeuf, with a
numerous retinue of French nobility; and when after a short visit the
duke and the grand prior took their leave of her, they with their
company consisting of more than a hundred returned through England,
visiting in their way the court of Elizabeth. Brantome, who was of the
party, has given incidentally the following particulars of their
entertainment in the short memoir which he has devoted to the
celebration of Henry II. of France.
"Bref, c'estoit un roy tres accomply & fort aymable. J'ay ouy conter a
la reigne d'Angleterre qui est aujourd'huy, que c'estoit le roy & le
prince du monde qu'elle avoit plus desire de voir, pour le beau rapport
qu'on luy en avoit fait, & pour sa grande renommee qui en voloit par
tout. Monsieur le connestable qui vit aujourd'huy s'en pourra bien
ressouvenir, ce fut lorsque retournant d'Escosse M. le grand prieur de
France, de la maison de Lorreine, & luy, la reigne leur donna un soir a
soupper, ou apres se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonne
& dresse, representant les vierges de l'evangile, desquelles les unes
avoient leurs lampes allumees & les autres n'avoient ny huile ny feu &
en demandoient. Ces lampes estoient d'argent fort gentiment faites &
elabourees, & les dames etoient tres-belles & honnestes & bien apprises,
qui prirent nous autres Francois pour danser, mesme la reigne dansa, &
de fort bonne grace & belle majeste royale, car elle l'avoit & estoit
lors en sa grande beaute & belle grace. Rien ne l'a gastee que
l'execution de la pauvre reigne d'Escosse, sans cela c'estoit une
tres-rare princesse.
"...Estant ainsi a table devisant familierement avec ces seigneurs, elle
dit ces mots, (apres avoir fort louee le roy): C'estoit le prince du
monde que j'avois plus desire de voir, & luy avois deja mande que
bientost je le verrois, & pour ce j'avois commande de me faire bien
appareiller mes galeres (usant de ces mots) pour passer en France expres
pour le voir. Monsieur le connestable, d'aujourd'huy, qui estoit lors
Monsieur d'Amville, respondit, Madame, je m'asseure que vous eussiez
este tres-contente de le voir, car son humeur & sa facon vous eussent
pleu; aussi lui eust il este tres-content de vous voir, car il eust fort
aime votre belle humeur & vos agreables facons, & vous eust fait un
honorable accueil & tres-bonne chere, & vous eust bien fait passer le
temps. Je le croy & m'en asseure, dit elle." &c.
By the death of the king of France, and the increasing distractions of
that unhappy country under the feeble minority of Charles IX., the
politics of the king of Spain also were affected. He had not now to fear
the union of the crowns of England France and Scotland under the joint
rule of Francis and Mary, which he had once regarded as a not
improbable event; consequently his strongest inducement for keeping
measures with Elizabeth ceased to operate, and he began daily to
disclose more and more of that animosity with which he could not fail to
regard a princess who was at once the heroine and patroness of
protestantism. From this time he began to furnish secret aids which
added hope and courage to the English partisans of popery and of Mary;
and Elizabeth judged it a necessary policy to place her catholic
subjects under a more rigid system of restraint. It was contrary to her
private inclinations to treat this sect with severity, and she was the
more reluctant to do so as she thus gratified in an especial manner the
wishes of the puritanical or Calvinistic party in the church, their
inveterate enemies; and by identifying in some measure her cause with
theirs, saw herself obliged to conform in several points to their views
rather than her own wishes.
The law which rendered it penal to hear mass was first put in force
against several persons of rank, that the example might strike the more
terror. Sir Edward Waldegrave, in Mary's reign a privy-councillor, was
on this account committed to the Tower, with his lady and some others;
and lord Loughborough, also a privy-councillor much favored and trusted
by the late queen, was brought into trouble on the same ground. Against
Waldegrave it is to be feared that much cruelty was exercised during his
imprisonment; for it is said to have occasioned his death, which
occurred in the Tower a few months afterwards. The High Commission
court now began to take cognisance of what was called recusancy, or the
refusal to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; it also
encouraged informations against such as refrained from joining in the
established worship; and numerous professors of the old religion, both
ecclesiastics and laity, were summoned on one account or other before
this tribunal. Of these, some were committed to prison, others
restricted from entering certain places, as the two universities, or
circumscribed within the limits of some town or county; and most were
bound in great penalties to be forthcoming whenever it should be
required.
As a further demonstration of zeal against popery, the queen caused all
the altars in Westminster abbey to be pulled down; and about the same
time a remarkable scene occurred between her majesty and Dr. Thomas
Sampson dean of Christ-church.
It happened that the queen had appointed to go to St. Paul's on New
Year's day to hear the dean preach; and he, thinking to gratify her on
that day with an elegant and appropriate present, had procured some
prints illustrative of the histories of the saints and martyrs, which he
caused to be inserted in a richly bound prayer-book and laid on the
queen's cushion for her use. Her majesty opened the volume; but no
sooner did the prints meet her eye, than she frowned, blushed, and
called to the verger to bring her the book she was accustomed to use. As
soon as the service was ended, she went into the vestry and inquired of
the dean who had brought that book? and when he explained that he had
meant it as a present to her majesty, she chid him severely, inquired if
he was ignorant of her proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish
reliques in the churches, and of her aversion to all idolatry, and
strictly ordered that no similar mistake should be made in future. What
renders this circumstance the more curious is, that Elizabeth at this
very time kept a crucifix in her private chapel, and that Sampson was so
far from being popishly inclined, that he had refused the bishopric of
Norwich the year before, on account of the habits and ceremonies, and
was afterwards deprived of his deanery by archbishop Parker for
nonconformity.
Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the
reign of Elizabeth; and we may remark as symptomatic of the temper of
the times, the manner in which a trivial accident was commented upon by
adverse disputants. The beautiful steeple of St. Paul's cathedral, the
loftiest in the kingdom, had been stricken by lightning and utterly
destroyed, together with the bells and roof. A papist immediately
dispersed a paper representing this accident as a judgement of Heaven
for the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had used
to be performed in the church at different hours of the day and night.
Pilkington bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul's cross after the
accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgement, but on the
sins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses by which
the church had formerly been polluted. In a tract published in answer to
that of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of the
practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at the
present day as a record of forgotten customs. He said that "no place had
been more abused than Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of
Christ's Gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that God had spared it so
long, than that he overthrew it now.... From the top of the spire, at
coronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to
throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to
please other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times
were used their popish anthems, to call upon their Gods, with torch and
taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollards'
Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented
and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from
the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their
censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men commonly complained
of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes: and divers had
been condemned there by Annas and Caiaphas for Christ's cause. Their
images hung on every wall, pillar and door, with their pilgrimages and
worshipings of them: passing over their massing and many altars, and the
rest of their popish service. The south alley was for usury and popery,
the north for simony; and the horse fair in the midst for all kind of
bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies. The font for
ordinary payments of money as well known to all men as the beggar knows
his dish.... So that without and within, above the ground and under,
over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down to
the low floor, not one spot was free from wickedness."
The practice here alluded to, of making the nave of St. Paul's a kind of
exchange for the transaction of all kinds of business, and a place of
meeting for idlers of every sort, is frequently referred to by the
writers of this and the two succeeding reigns; and when or by what means
the custom was put an end to, does not appear. It was here that sir
Nicholas Throgmorton held a conference with an emissary of Wyat's; it
was here that one of the bravoes engaged in the noted murder of Arden of
Feversham was hired. It was in Paul's that Falstaff is made to say he
"bought" Bardolph.
In bishop Earl's admirable little book called Micro-cosmography the
scene is described with all the wit of the author and somewhat of the
quaintness of his age, which was that of James I.
"_Paul's walk_ is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle
of Great Britain. It is, more than this, the whole world's map, which
you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling, and turning. It
is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but
is here stirring and afoot. It is the synod of all pates politic, joined
and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy
at the parliament.... It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may
cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all
famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined
and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not a
few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves
sanctuary.... The visitants are, all men without exception, but the
principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captains
out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches which, after all, turn
merchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their
dinner, but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very
cheap."
The vigilant ministers of Elizabeth had now begun to alarm themselves
and her with apprehensions of plots against her life from the malice of
the papists; and it would be rash to pronounce that such fears were
entirely void of foundation; but we may be permitted to smile at the
ignorant credulity on the subject of poisons,--universal indeed in that
age,--which dictated the following minute of council, extant in the
handwriting of Cecil. "We think it very convenient that your majesty's
apparel, and specially all manner of things that shall touch any part of
your majesty's body bare, be circumspectly looked unto; and that no
person be permitted to come near it, but such as have the trust and
charge thereof.
"Item. That no manner of perfume either in apparel or sleeves, gloves or
such like, or otherwise that shall be appointed for your majesty's
savor, be presented by any stranger or other person, but that the same
be corrected by some other fume.
"Item. That no foreign meat or dishes being dressed out of your
majesty's court, be brought to your food, without assured knowledge from
whom the same cometh; and that no use be had hereof.
"Item. That it may please your majesty to take the advice of your
physician for the receiving weekly twice some preservative 'contra
pestem et venena,' as there be many good things 'et salutaria.'
"Item. It may please your majesty to give order who shall take the
charge of the back doors to your chamberers chambers, where landresses,
tailors, wardrobers, and the like, use to come; and that the same doors
be duly attended upon, as becometh, and not to stand open but upon
necessity.
"Item. That the privy chamber may be better ordered, with an attendance
of an usher, and the gentlemen and grooms[48]."
[Note 48: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes, p. 368.]
It was fortunate that the same exaggerated notions of the power of
poisons prevailed amongst papists as protestants. Against the ill
effects of a drug applied by direction of a Spanish friar to the arms of
a chair and the pommel of a saddle, the antidotes received twice a week
might be depended upon as an effectual preservative.
From these perils, real and imaginary,--none of which however appear to
have taken strong hold of the cheerful and courageous temper of the
queen,--her attention and that of her council was for some time diverted
by the expectation of a royal suitor.