ON THE LAWS OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN RESPECTING PROTESTANT NONCONFORMISTS
The two statutes enacted in the first year of Elizabeth, commonly called
the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, are the main links of the Anglican
church with the temporal constitution, and establish the subordination
and dependency of the former; the first abrogating all jurisdiction and
legislative power of ecclesiastical rulers, except under the authority
of the Crown; and the second prohibiting all changes of rites and
discipline without the approbation of parliament. It was the constant
policy of this queen to maintain her ecclesiastical prerogative and the
laws she had enacted. But in following up this principle she found
herself involved in many troubles, and had to contend with a religious
party, quite opposite to the Romish, less dangerous indeed and inimical
to her government, but full as vexatious and determined.
_Origin of the differences among the English protestants._--I have in
another place slightly mentioned the differences that began to spring up
under Edward VI. between the moderate reformers who established the new
Anglican church, and those who accused them of proceeding with too much
forbearance in casting off superstitions and abuses. These diversities
of opinion were not without some relation to those which distinguished
the two great families of protestantism in Europe. Luther, intent on his
own system of dogmatic theology, had shown much indifference about
retrenching exterior ceremonies, and had even favoured, especially in
the first years of his preaching, that specious worship which some
ardent reformers were eager to reduce to simplicity.[266] Crucifixes and
images, tapers and priestly vestments, even for a time the elevation of
the host and the Latin mass-book, continued in the Lutheran churches;
while the disciples of Zuingle and Calvin were carefully eradicating
them as popish idolatry and superstition. Cranmer and Ridley, the
founders of the English reformation, justly deeming themselves
independent of any foreign master, adopted a middle course between the
Lutheran and Calvinistic ritual. The general tendency however of
protestants, even in the reign of Edward VI., was towards the simpler
forms; whether through the influence of those foreign divines who
co-operated in our reformation, or because it was natural in the heat of
religious animosity to recede as far as possible, especially in such
exterior distinctions, from the opposite denomination. The death of
Edward seems to have prevented a further approach to the scheme of
Geneva in our ceremonies, and perhaps in our discipline. During the
persecution of Mary's reign, the most eminent protestant clergymen took
refuge in various cities of Germany and Switzerland. They were received
by the Calvinists with hospitality and fraternal kindness; while the
Lutheran divines, a narrow-minded intolerant faction, both neglected and
insulted them.[267] Divisions soon arose among themselves about the use
of the English service, in which a pretty considerable party was
disposed to make alterations. The chief scene of these disturbances was
Frankfort, where Knox, the famous reformer of Scotland, headed the
innovators; while Cox, an eminent divine, much concerned in the
establishment of Edward VI., and afterwards Bishop of Ely, stood up for
the original liturgy. Cox succeeded (not quite fairly, if we may rely on
the only narrative we possess) in driving his opponents from the city;
but these disagreements were by no means healed, when the accession of
Elizabeth recalled both parties to their own country, neither of them
very likely to display more mutual charity in their prosperous hour,
than they had been able to exercise in a common persecution.[268]
_Religious inclinations of the queen._--The first mortification these
exiles endured on their return was to find a more dilatory advance
towards public reformation of religion, and more of what they deemed
lukewarmness, than their sanguine zeal had anticipated. Most part of
this delay was owing to the greater prudence of the queen's counsellors,
who felt the pulse of the nation before they ventured on such essential
changes. But there was yet another obstacle, on which the reformers had
not reckoned. Elizabeth, though resolute against submitting to the
papal supremacy, was not so averse to all the tenets abjured by
protestants, and loved also a more splendid worship than had prevailed
in her brother's reign; while many of those returned from the continent
were intent on copying a still simpler model. She reproved a divine who
preached against the real presence, and is even said to have used
prayers to the Virgin.[269] But her great struggle with the reformers
was about images, and particularly the crucifix, which she retained,
with lighted tapers before it, in her chapel; though in the injunctions
to the ecclesiastical visitors of 1559, they are directed to have them
taken away from churches.[270] This concession she must have made very
reluctantly, for we find proofs the next year of her inclination to
restore them; and the question of their lawfulness was debated, as Jewel
writes word to Peter Martyr, by himself and Grindal on one side, against
Parker and Cox, who had been persuaded to argue in their favour.[271]
But the strenuous opposition of men so distinguished as Jewel, Sandys,
and Grindal, of whom the first declared his intention of resigning his
bishopric in case this return towards superstition should be made,
compelled Elizabeth to relinquish her project.[272] The crucifix was
even for a time removed from her own chapel, but replaced about
1570.[273]
There was however one other subject of dispute between the old and new
religions, upon which her majesty could not be brought to adopt the
protestant side of the question. This was the marriage of the clergy, to
which she expressed so great an aversion, that she would never consent
to repeal the statute of her sister's reign against it.[274]
Accordingly, the bishops and clergy, though they married by connivance,
or rather by an ungracious permission,[275] saw, with very just
dissatisfaction, their children treated by the law as the offspring of
concubinage.[276] This continued, in legal strictness, till the first
year of James, when the statute of Mary was explicitly repealed; though
I cannot help suspecting that clerical marriages had been tacitly
recognised, even in courts of justice, long before that time. Yet it
appears less probable to derive Elizabeth's prejudice in this respect
from any deference to the Roman discipline, than from that strange
dislike to the most lawful union between the sexes, which formed one of
the singularities of her character.
Such a reluctance as the queen displayed to return in every point even
to the system established under Edward, was no slight disappointment to
those who thought that too little had been effected by it. They had
beheld at Zurich and Geneva the simplest, and, as they conceived, the
purest form of worship. They were persuaded that the vestments still
worn by the clergy, as in the days of popery, though in themselves
indifferent, led to erroneous notions among the people, and kept alive a
recollection of former superstitions, which would render their return to
them more easy in the event of another political revolution.[277] They
disliked some other ceremonies for the same reason. These objections
were by no means confined, as is perpetually insinuated, to a few
discontented persons. Except Archbishop Parker, who had remained in
England during the late reign, and Cox, Bishop of Ely, who had taken a
strong part at Frankfort against innovation, all the most eminent
churchmen, such as Jewel, Grindal, Sandys, Nowell, were in favour of
leaving off the surplice and what were called the popish
ceremonies.[278] Whether their objections are to be deemed narrow and
frivolous or otherwise, it is inconsistent with veracity to dissemble
that the queen alone was the cause of retaining those observances, to
which the great separation from the Anglican establishment is ascribed.
Had her influence been withdrawn, surplices and square caps would have
lost their steadiest friend; and several other little accommodations to
the prevalent dispositions of protestants would have taken place. Of
this it seems impossible to doubt, when we read the proceedings of the
convocation in 1562, when a proposition to abolish most of the usages
deemed objectionable was lost only by a vote, the numbers being 59 to
58.[279]
In thus restraining the ardent zeal of reformation, Elizabeth may not
have been guided merely by her own prejudices, without far higher
motives of prudence and even of equity. It is difficult to pronounce in
what proportion the two conflicting religions were blended on her coming
to the throne. The reformed occupied most large towns, and were no doubt
a more active and powerful body than their opponents. Nor did the
ecclesiastical visitors of 1559 complain of any resistance, or even
unwillingness, among the people.[280] Still the Romish party was
extremely numerous; it comprehended the far greater portion of the
beneficed clergy, and all those who, having no turn for controversy,
clung with pious reverence to the rites and worship of their earliest
associations. It might be thought perhaps not very repugnant to wisdom
or to charity, that such persons should be won over to the reformed
faith by retaining a few indifferent usages, which gratified their eyes,
and took off the impression, so unpleasing to simple minds, of religious
innovation. It might be urged that, should even somewhat more of
superstition remain awhile than rational men would approve, the mischief
would be far less than to drive the people back into the arms of popery,
or to expose them to the natural consequences of destroying at once all
old landmarks of reverence,--a dangerous fanaticism, or a careless
irreligion. I know not in what degree these considerations had weight
with Elizabeth; but they were such as it well became her to entertain.
We live however too far from the period of her accession, to pass an
unqualified decision on the course of policy which it was best for the
queen to pursue. The difficulties of effecting a compromise between two
intolerant and exclusive sects were perhaps insuperable. In maintaining
or altering a religious establishment, it may be reckoned the general
duty of governments to respect the wishes of the majority. But it is
also a rule of human policy to favour the more efficient and
determined, which may not always be the more numerous party. I am far
from being convinced that it would not have been practicable, by
receding a little from that uniformity which governors delight to
prescribe, to have palliated in a great measure, if not put an end for a
time, to the discontent that so soon endangered the new establishment.
The frivolous usages, to which so many frivolous objections were raised,
such as the tippet and surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, the
ring in matrimony, the posture of kneeling at the communion, might have
been left to private discretion, not possibly without some
inconvenience, but with less, as I conceive, than resulted from
rendering their observance indispensable. Nor should we allow ourselves
to be turned aside by the common reply, that no concessions of this kind
would have ultimately prevented the disunion of the church upon more
essential differences than these litigated ceremonies; since the science
of policy, like that of medicine, must content itself with devising
remedies for immediate danger, and can at best only retard the progress
of that intrinsic decay which seems to be the law of all things human,
and through which every institution of man, like his earthly frame, must
one day crumble into ruin.
_Unwillingness to comply with the established ceremonies._--The
repugnance felt by a large part of the protestant clergy to the
ceremonies with which Elizabeth would not consent to dispense, showed
itself in irregular transgressions of the uniformity prescribed by
statute. Some continued to wear the habits, others laid them aside; the
communicants received the sacrament sitting, or standing, or kneeling,
according to the minister's taste; some baptized in the font, others in
a basin; some with the sign of the cross, others without it. The people
in London and other towns, siding chiefly with the malcontents, insulted
such of the clergy as observed the prescribed order.[281] Many of the
bishops readily connived at deviations from ceremonies which they
disapproved. Some, who felt little objection to their use, were against
imposing them as necessary.[282] And this opinion, which led to very
momentous inferences, began so much to prevail, that we soon find the
objections to conformity more grounded on the unlawfulness of compulsory
regulations in the church prescribed by the civil power, than on any
special impropriety in the usages themselves. But this principle, which
perhaps the scrupulous party did not yet very fully avow, was altogether
incompatible with the supremacy vested in the queen, of which fairest
flower of her prerogative she was abundantly tenacious. One thing was
evident, that the puritan malcontents were growing every day more
numerous, more determined, and more likely to win over the generality of
those who sincerely favoured the protestant cause. There were but two
lines to be taken; either to relax and modify the regulations which gave
offence, or to enforce a more punctual observation of them. It seems to
me far more probable that the former course would have prevented a great
deal of that mischief which the second manifestly aggravated. For in
this early stage the advocates of a simpler ritual had by no means
assumed the shape of an embodied faction, whom concessions, it must be
owned, are not apt to satisfy, but numbered the most learned and
distinguished portion of the hierarchy. Parker stood nearly alone on the
other side, but alone more than an equipoise in the balance, through his
high station, his judgment in matters of policy, and his knowledge of
the queen's disposition. He had possibly reason to apprehend that
Elizabeth, irritated by the prevalent humour for alteration, might burst
entirely away from the protestant side, or stretch her supremacy to
reduce the church into a slavish subjection to her caprice.[283] This
might induce a man of his sagacity, who took a far wider view of civil
affairs than his brethren, to exert himself according to her peremptory
command for universal conformity. But it is not easy to reconcile the
whole of his conduct to this supposition; and in the copious memorials
of Strype, we find the archbishop rather exciting the queen to rigorous
measures against the puritans than standing in need of her
admonition.[284]
_Conformity enforced by the archbishop against the disposition of
others._--The unsettled state of exterior religion which has been
mentioned lasted till 1565. In the beginning of that year a
determination was taken by the queen, or rather perhaps the archbishop,
to put a stop to all irregularities in the public service. He set forth
a book called _Advertisements_, containing orders and regulations for
the discipline of the clergy. This modest title was taken in consequence
of the queen's withholding her sanction of its appearance through
Leicester's influence.[285] The primate's next step was to summon before
the ecclesiastical commission Sampson, Dean of Christchurch, and
Humphrey, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, men of signal
non-conformity, but at the same time of such eminent reputation that,
when the law took its course against them, no other offender could hope
for indulgence. On refusing to wear the customary habits, Sampson was
deprived of his deanery; but the other seems to have been
tolerated.[286] This instance of severity, as commonly happens, rather
irritated than intimidated the puritan clergy, aware of their numbers,
their popularity, and their powerful friends, but above all sustained by
their own sincerity and earnestness. Parker had taken his resolution to
proceed in the vigorous course he had begun. He obtained from the queen
a proclamation, peremptorily requiring conformity in the use of the
clerical vestments and other matters of discipline. The London
ministers, summoned before himself and their bishop, Grindal, who did
not very willingly co-operate with his metropolitan, were called upon
for a promise to comply with the legal ceremonies, which thirty-seven
out of ninety-eight refused to make. They were in consequence suspended
from their ministry, and their livings put in sequestration. But these
unfortunately, as was the case in all this reign, were the most
conspicuous, both for their general character and for their talent in
preaching.[287]
Whatever deviations from uniformity existed within the pale of the
Anglican church, no attempt had hitherto been made to form separate
assemblies; nor could it be deemed necessary, while so much indulgence
had been conceded to the scrupulous clergy. But they were now reduced to
determine whether the imposition of those rites they disliked would
justify, or render necessary, an abandonment of their ministry. The
bishops of that school had so far overcome their repugnance, as not only
to observe the ceremonies of the church, but, in some instances, to
employ compulsion towards others.[288] A more unexceptionable, because
more disinterested, judgment was pronounced by some of the Swiss
reformers to whom our own paid great respect--Beza, Gualter, and
Bullinger; who, while they regretted the continuance of a few
superfluous rites, and still more the severity used towards good men,
dissuaded their friends from deserting their vocation on that account.
Several of the most respectable opponents of the ceremonies were equally
adverse to any open schism.[289] But the animosities springing from
heated zeal, and the smart of what seemed oppression, would not suffer
the English puritans generally to acquiesce in such temperate counsels.
They began to form separate conventicles in London, not ostentatiously
indeed, but of course without the possibility of eluding notice. It was
doubtless worthy of much consideration, whether an established
church-government could wink at the systematic disregard of its
discipline by those who were subject to its jurisdiction and partook of
its revenues. And yet there were many important considerations derived
from the posture of religion and of the state, which might induce
cool-headed men to doubt the expediency of too much straightening the
reins. But there are few, I trust, who can hesitate to admit that the
puritan clergy, after being excluded from their benefices, might still
claim from a just government a peaceful toleration of their particular
worship. This it was vain to expect from the queen's arbitrary spirit,
the imperious humour of Parker, and that total disregard of the rights
of conscience which was common to all parties in the sixteenth century.
The first instance of actual punishment inflicted on protestant
dissenters was in June 1567, when a company of more than one hundred
were seized during their religious exercises at Plummer's Hall, which
they had hired on pretence of a wedding, and fourteen or fifteen of them
were sent to prison.[290] They behaved on their examination with a
rudeness as well as self-sufficiency, that had already begun to
characterise the puritan faction. But this cannot excuse the fatal error
of molesting men for the exercise of their own religion.
These coercive proceedings of the archbishop were feebly seconded, or
directly thwarted, by most leading men both in church and state. Grindal
and Sandys, successively Bishops of London and Archbishops of York, were
naturally reckoned at this time somewhat favourable to the
non-conforming ministers, whose scruples they had partaken. Parkhurst
and Pilkington, Bishops of Norwich and Durham, were openly on their
side.[291] They had still more effectual support in the queen's council.
The Earl of Leicester, who possessed more power than any one to sway her
wavering and capricious temper, the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon, and
Warwick, regarded as the steadiest protestants among the aristocracy,
the wise and grave Lord Keeper Bacon, the sagacious Walsingham, the
experienced Sadler, the zealous Knollys, considered these objects of
Parker's severity, either as demanding a purer worship than had been
established in the church, or at least as worthy by their virtues and
services of more indulgent treatment.[292] Cecil himself, though on
intimate terms with the archbishop, and concurring generally in his
measures, was not far removed from the latter way of thinking, if his
natural caution and extreme dread at this juncture of losing the queen's
favour had permitted him more unequivocally to express it. Those whose
judgment did not incline them towards the puritan notions, respected the
scruples of men in whom the reformed religion could so implicitly
confide. They had regard also to the condition of the church. The far
greater part of its benefices were supplied by conformists of very
doubtful sincerity, who would resume their mass-books with more alacrity
than they had cast them aside.[293] Such a deficiency of protestant
clergy had been experienced at the queen's accession, that for several
years it was a common practice to appoint laymen, usually mechanics, to
read the service in vacant churches.[294] These were not always wholly
illiterate; or if they were, it was no more than might be said of the
popish clergy, the vast majority of whom were destitute of all useful
knowledge, and could read little Latin.[295] Of the two universities,
Oxford had become so strongly attached to the Romish side during the
late reign, that, after the desertion or expulsion of the most zealous
of that party had almost emptied several colleges, it still for many
years abounded with adherents to the old religion.[296] But at
Cambridge, which had been equally popish at the queen's accession, the
opposite faction soon acquired the ascendant. The younger students,
imbibing ardently the new creed of ecclesiastical liberty, and excited
by puritan sermons, began to throw off their surplices, and to commit
other breaches of discipline, from which it might be inferred that the
generation to come would not be less apt for innovation than the
present.[297]
_A more determined opposition, about 1570, led by Cartwright._--The
first period in the history of puritanism includes the time from the
queen's accession to 1570, during which the retention of superstitious
ceremonies in the church had been the sole avowed ground of complaint.
But when these obnoxious rites came to be enforced with unsparing
rigour, and even those who voluntarily renounced the temporal advantages
of the establishment were hunted from their private conventicles, they
began to consider the national system of ecclesiastical regimen as
itself in fault, and to transfer to the institution of episcopacy that
dislike they felt for some of the prelates. The ostensible founder of
this new school (though probably its tenets were by no means new to many
of the sect) was Thomas Cartwright, the Lady Margaret's professor of
divinity at Cambridge. He began about 1570 to inculcate the unlawfulness
of any form of church-government, except what the apostles had
instituted, namely, the presbyterian. A deserved reputation for virtue,
learning, and acuteness, an ardent zeal, an inflexible self-confidence,
a vigorous, rude, and arrogant style, marked him as the formidable
leader of a religious faction.[298] In 1572 he published his celebrated
_Admonition to the Parliament_, calling on that assembly to reform the
various abuses subsisting in the church. In this treatise, such a hardy
spirit of innovation was displayed, and schemes of ecclesiastical policy
so novel and extraordinary were developed, that it made a most important
epoch in the contest, and rendered its termination far more improbable.
The hour for liberal concessions had been suffered to pass away; the
archbishops' intolerant temper had taught men to question the authority
that oppressed them, till the battle was no longer to be fought for a
tippet and a surplice, but for the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy,
interwoven as it was with the temporal constitution of England.
It had been the first measure adopted in throwing off the yoke of Rome
to invest the sovereign with an absolute control over the Anglican
church; so that no part of its coercive discipline could be exercised
but by his authority, nor any laws enacted for its governance without
his sanction. This supremacy, indeed both Henry VIII. and Edward VI. had
carried so far, that the bishops were reduced almost to the rank of
temporal officers, taking out commissions to rule their dioceses during
the king's pleasure; and Cranmer had prostrated at the feet of Henry
those spiritual functions which have usually been reckoned inherent in
the order of clergy. Elizabeth took some pains to soften and almost
explain away her supremacy, in order to conciliate the catholics; while,
by means of the high commission court, established by statute in the
first year of her reign, she was practically asserting it with no little
despotism. But the avowed opponents of this prerogative were hitherto
chiefly those who looked to Rome for another head of their church. The
disciples of Cartwright now learned to claim an ecclesiastical
independence, as unconstrained as the Romish priesthood in the darkest
ages had usurped. "No civil magistrate in councils or assemblies for
church matters," he says in his _Admonition_, "can either be chief
moderator, over-ruler, judge, or determiner; nor has he such authority
as that, without his consent, it should not be lawful for ecclesiastical
persons to make any church orders or ceremonies. Church matters ought
ordinarily to be handled by church officers. The principal direction of
them is by God's ordinance committed to the ministers of the church and
to the ecclesiastical governors. As these meddle not with the making
civil laws, so the civil magistrate ought not to ordain ceremonies, or
determine controversies in the church, as long as they do not intrench
upon his temporal authority. 'Tis the prince's province to protect and
defend the councils of his clergy, to keep the peace, to see their
decrees executed, and to punish the contemners of them; but to exercise
no spiritual jurisdiction."[299] "It must be remembered," he says in
another place, "that civil magistrates must govern the church according
to the rules of God prescribed in his word, and that as they are nurses,
so they be servants unto the church; and as they rule in the church, so
they must remember to submit themselves unto the church, to submit their
sceptres, to throw down their crowns before the church, yea, as the
prophet speaketh, to lick the dust of the feet of the church."[300] It
is difficult to believe that I am transcribing the words of a
protestant writer; so much does this passage call to mind those tones of
infatuated arrogance, which had been heard from the lips of Gregory VII.
and of those who trod in his footsteps.[301]
The strength of the protestant party had been derived, both in Germany
and in England, far less from their superiority in argument, however
decisive this might be, than from that desire which all classes, and
especially the higher, had long experienced to emancipate themselves
from the thraldom of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For it is ever found,
that men do not so much as give a hearing to novel systems in religion,
till they have imbibed, from some cause or other, a secret distaste to
that in which they have been educated. It was therefore rather alarming
to such as had an acquaintance with ecclesiastical history, and knew the
encroachments formerly made by the hierarchy throughout Europe,
encroachments perfectly distinguishable from those of the Roman see, to
perceive the same pretensions urged, and the same ambition and arrogance
at work, which had imposed a yoke on the necks of their fathers. With
whatever plausibility it might be maintained that a connection with
temporal magistrates could only corrupt the purity and shackle the
liberties of a Christian church, this argument was not for them to urge,
who called on those magistrates to do the church's bidding, to enforce
its decrees, to punish its refractory members; and while they disdained
to accept the prince's co-operation as their ally, claimed his service
as their minister. The protestant dissenters since the revolution, who
have almost unanimously, and, I doubt not, sincerely, declared their
averseness to any religious establishment, especially as accompanied
with coercive power, even in favour of their own sect, are by no means
chargeable with these errors of the early puritans. But the scope of
Cartwright's declaration was not to obtain a toleration for dissent, not
even by abolishing the whole ecclesiastical polity, to place the
different professions of religion on an equal footing, but to substitute
his own model of government, the one, exclusive, unappealable standard
of obedience, with all the endowments, so far as applicable to its
frame, of the present church, and with all the support to its discipline
that the civil power could afford.[302]
We are not however to conclude that every one, or even the majority, of
those who might be counted on the puritan side in Elizabeth's reign,
would have subscribed to these extravagant sentences of Cartwright, or
desired to take away the legal supremacy of the Crown.[303] That party
acquired strength by the prevailing hatred and dread of popery, and by
the disgust which the bishops had been unfortunate enough to excite. If
the language which I have quoted from the puritans breathed a spirit of
ecclesiastical usurpation that might one day become dangerous, many were
of opinion that a spirit not less mischievous in the present hierarchy,
under the mask of the queen's authority, was actually manifesting itself
in deeds of oppression. The upper ranks among the laity, setting aside
courtiers, and such as took little interest in the dispute, were chiefly
divided between those attached to the ancient church and those who
wished for further alterations in the new. I conceive the church of
England party, that is, the party adverse to any species of
ecclesiastical change, to have been the least numerous of the three
during this reign; still excepting, as I have said, the neutrals, who
commonly make a numerical majority, and are counted along with the
dominant religion.[304] But by the act of the fifth of Elizabeth, Roman
catholics were excluded from the House of Commons; or, if some that way
affected might occasionally creep into it, yet the terror of penal laws
impending over their heads would make them extremely cautious of
betraying their sentiments. This contributed with the prevalent tone of
public opinion, to throw such a weight into the puritanical scale in the
Commons, as it required all the queen's energy to counterbalance.
_Puritans supported in the Commons._--In the parliament that met in
April 1571, a few days only after the commencement of the session, Mr.
Strickland, "a grave and ancient man of great zeal," as the reporter
styles him, began the attack by a long but apparently temperate speech
on the abuses of the church, tending only to the retrenchment of a few
superstitions in the liturgy, and to some reforms in the disposition of
benefices. He proceeded to bring in a bill for the reformation of the
common prayer, which was read a first time. Abuses in respect to
benefices appear to have been a copious theme of scandal. The power of
dispensation, which had occasioned so much clamour in former ages,
instead of being abolished or even reduced into bounds at the
reformation, had been transferred entire from the pope to the king and
archbishop. And, after the Council of Trent had effected such
considerable reforms in the catholic discipline, it seemed a sort of
reproach to the protestant church of England, that she retained all the
dispensations, the exemptions, the pluralities, which had been deemed
the peculiar corruptions of the worst times of popery.[305] In the reign
of Edward VI., as I have already mentioned, the canon law being
naturally obnoxious from its origin and character, a commission was
appointed to draw up a code of ecclesiastical laws. This was accordingly
compiled, but never obtained the sanction of parliament; and though some
attempts were made, and especially in the Commons at this very time, to
bring it again before the legislature, our ecclesiastical tribunals have
been always compelled to borrow a great part of their principles from
canon law: one important consequence of which may be mentioned by way of
illustration; that they are incompetent to grant a divorce from the bond
of marriage in cases of adultery, as had been provided in the
reformation of ecclesiastical laws compiled under Edward VI. A
disorderly state of the church, arising partly from the want of any
fixed rules of discipline, partly from the negligence of some bishops,
and simony of others, but above all, from the rude state of manners and
general ignorance of the clergy, is the common theme of complaint in
this period, and aggravated the increasing disaffection towards the
prelacy. A bill was brought into the Commons to take away the granting
of licences and dispensations by the Archbishop of Canterbury. But the
queen's interference put a stop to this measure.[306]
The House of Commons gave in this session a more forcible proof of its
temper in ecclesiastical concerns. The articles of the English church,
originally drawn up under Edward VI., after having undergone some
alteration, were finally reduced to their present form by the
convocation of 1562. But it seems to have been thought necessary that
they should have the sanction of parliament, in order to make them
binding on the clergy. Of these articles the far greater portion relate
to matters of faith, concerning which no difference of opinion had as
yet appeared. Some few however declare the lawfulness of the established
form of consecrating bishops and priests, the supremacy of the Crown,
and the power of the church to order rites and ceremonies. These
involved the main questions at issue; and the puritan opposition was
strong enough to withhold the approbation of the legislature from this
part of the national symbol. The act of 13 Eliz. c. 12, accordingly
enacts, that every priest or minister shall subscribe to all the
articles of religion which _only_ concern the confession of the true
christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, comprised in a book
entitled _Articles whereupon it was agreed_, etc. That the word _only_
was inserted for the sake of excluding the articles which established
church authority and the actual discipline, is evident from a remarkable
conversation which Mr. Wentworth, the most distinguished asserter of
civil liberty in this reign, relates himself in a subsequent session
(that of 1575), to have held on the subject with Archbishop Parker. "I
was," he says, "among others, the last parliament sent for unto the
Archbishop of Canterbury, for the articles of religion that then passed
this house. He asked us, 'Why we did put out of the book the articles
for the homilies, consecration of bishops, and such like?' 'Surely,
sir,' said I, 'because we were so occupied in other matters that we had
no time to examine them how they agreed with the word of God.' 'What!'
said he, 'surely you mistake the matter; you will refer yourselves
wholly to us therein!' 'No; by the faith I bear to God,' said I, 'we
will pass nothing before we understand what it is; for that were but to
make you popes: make you popes who list,' said I, 'for we will make you
none.' And sure, Mr. Speaker, the speech seemed to me to be a pope-like
speech, and I fear least our bishops do attribute this of the pope's
canons unto themselves; Papa non potest errare."[307] The intrepid
assertion of the right of private judgment on one side, and the
pretension to something like infallibility on the other, which have been
for more than two centuries since so incessantly repeated, are here
curiously brought into contrast. As to the reservation itself, obliquely
insinuated rather than expressed in this statute, it proved of little
practical importance, the bishops having always exacted a subscription
to the whole thirty-nine articles.[308]
It was not to be expected that the haughty spirit of Parker, which had
refused to spare the honest scruples of Sampson and Coverdale, would
abate of its rigour towards the daring paradoxes of Cartwright. His
disciples, in truth, from dissatisfied subjects of the church, were
become her downright rebels, with whom it was hardly practicable to make
any compromise that would avoid a schism, except by sacrificing the
splendour and jurisdiction of an established hierarchy. The archbishop
continued, therefore, to harass the puritan ministers, suppressing their
books, silencing them in churches, prosecuting them in private
meetings.[309] Sandys and Grindal, the moderate reformers of our
spiritual aristocracy, not only withdrew their countenance from a party
who aimed at improvement by subversion, but fell, according to the
unhappy temper of their age, into courses of undue severity. Not merely
the preachers, to whom, as regular ministers, the rules of canonical
obedience might apply, but plain citizens, for listening to their
sermons, were dragged before the high commission and imprisoned upon any
refusal to conform.[310] Strange that these prelates should not have
remembered their own magnanimous readiness to encounter suffering for
conscience sake in the days of Mary, or should have fondly arrogated to
their particular church that elastic force of resolution, which disdains
to acknowledge tyrannous power within the sanctuary of the soul, and
belongs to the martyrs of every opinion without attesting the truth of
any!
The puritans meanwhile had not lost all their friends in the council,
though it had become more difficult to protect them. One powerful reason
undoubtedly operated on Walsingham and other ministers of Elizabeth's
court against crushing their party; namely, the precariousness of the
queen's life, and the unsettled prospects of succession. They had
already seen, in the Duke of Norfolk's conspiracy, that more than half
the superior nobility had committed themselves to support the title of
the Queen of Scots. That title was sacred to all who professed the
catholic religion, and respectable to a large proportion of the rest.
But deeming, as they did, that queen a convicted adulteress and
murderer, the determined enemy of their faith, and conscious that she
could never forgive those who had counselled her detention and sought
her death, it would have been unworthy of their prudence and magnanimity
to have gone as sheep to the slaughter, and risked the destruction of
protestantism under a second Mary, if the intrigues of ambitious men,
the pusillanimity of the multitude, and the specious pretext of
hereditary right, should favour her claims on a demise of the Crown.
They would have failed perhaps in attempting to resist them; but upon
resistance I make no question that they had resolved. In so awful a
crisis, to what could they better look than to the stern, intrepid,
uncompromising spirit of puritanism; congenial to that of the Scottish
reformers, by whose aid the lords of the congregation had overthrown the
ancient religion in despite of the regent Mary of Guise? Of conforming
churchmen, in general, they might well be doubtful, after the
oscillations of the three preceding reigns; but every abhorrer of
ceremonies, every rejecter of prelatical authority, might be trusted as
protestant to the heart's core, whose sword would be as ready as his
tongue to withstand idolatry. Nor had the puritans admitted, even in
theory, those extravagant notions of passive obedience which the church
of England had thought fit to mingle with her homilies. While the
victory was yet so uncertain, while contingencies so incalculable might
renew the struggle, all politic friends of the reformation would be
anxious not to strengthen the enemy by disunion in their own camp. Thus
Sir Francis Walsingham, who had been against enforcing the obnoxious
habits, used his influence with the scrupulous not to separate from the
church on account of them; and again, when the schism had already
ensued, thwarted as far as his credit in the council extended, that
harsh intolerance of the bishops which aggravated its mischiefs.[311]
We should reason in as confined a manner as the puritans themselves, by
looking only at the captious frivolousness of their scruples, and
treating their sect either as wholly contemptible or as absolutely
mischievous. We do injustice to these wise counsellors of the maiden
queen, when we condemn, I do not mean on the maxims only of toleration,
but of civil prudence, their unwillingness to crush the non-conforming
clergy by an undeviating rigour. It may justly be said that, in a
religious sense, it was a greater good to possess a well-instructed
pious clergy, able to contend against popery, than it was an evil to let
some prejudices against mere ceremonies gain a head. The old religion
was by no means, for at least the first half of Elizabeth's reign, gone
out of the minds of the people. The lurking priests had great advantages
from the attractive nature of their faith, and some, no doubt, from its
persecution. A middle system, like the Anglican, though it was more
likely to produce exterior conformity, and for that reason was, I think,
judiciously introduced at the outset, did not afford such a security
against relapse, nor draw over the heart so thoroughly, as one which
admitted of no compromise. Thus the sign of the cross in baptism, one of
the principal topics of objection, may well seem in itself a very
innocent and decorous ceremony. But if the perpetual use of that sign is
one of the most striking superstitions in the church of Rome, it might
be urged in behalf of the puritans, that the people were less likely to
treat it with contempt, when they saw its continuance, even in one
instance, so strictly insisted upon. I do not pretend to say that this
reasoning is right, but that it is at least plausible, and that we must
go back and place ourselves, as far as we can, in those times, before we
determine upon the whole of this controversy in its manifold bearings.
The great object of Elizabeth's ministers, it must be kept in mind, was
the preservation of the protestant religion, to which all ceremonies of
the church, and even its form of discipline, were subordinate. An
indifferent passiveness among the people, a humble trust in authority,
however desirable in the eyes of churchmen, was not the temper which
would have kept out the right heir from the throne, or quelled the
generous ardour of the catholic gentry on the queen's decease.
_Prophecyings._--A matter very much connected with the present subject
will illustrate the different schemes of ecclesiastical policy pursued
by the two parties that divided Elizabeth's council. The clergy in
several dioceses set up, with encouragement from their superiors, a
certain religious exercise, called prophecyings. They met at appointed
times to expound and discuss together particular texts of Scripture,
under the presidency of a moderator, appointed by the bishop, who
finished by repeating the substance of their debate with his own
determination upon it. These discussions were in public; and it was
contended that this sifting of the grounds of their faith, and habitual
argumentation, would both tend to edify the people, very little
acquainted as yet with their religion, and supply in some degree the
deficiencies of learning among the pastors themselves. These
deficiencies were indeed glaring; and it is not unlikely that the
prophecyings might have had a salutary effect, if it had been possible
to exclude the prevailing spirit of the age. It must however be evident
to any one who had experience of mankind, that the precise clergy, armed
not only with popular topics, but with an intrinsic superiority of
learning and ability to support them, would wield these assemblies at
their pleasure, whatever might be the regulations devised for their
control. The queen entirely disliked them, and directed Parker to put
them down. He wrote accordingly to Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, for
that purpose. The bishop was unwilling to comply. And some privy
counsellors interfered by a letter, enjoining him not to hinder these
exercises, so long as nothing contrary to the church was taught therein.
This letter was signed by Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Walter Mildmay, Bishop
Sandys, and Sir Francis Knollys. It was, in effect, to reverse what the
archbishop had done. Parker, however, who was not easily daunted, wrote
again to Parkhurst, that, understanding he had received instructions in
opposition to the queen's orders and his own, he desired to be informed
what they were. This seems to have checked the counsellors; for we find
that the prophecyings were now put down.[312]
Though many will be of opinion that Parker took a statesmanlike view of
the interests of the church of England in discouraging these exercises,
they were generally regarded as so conducive to instruction that he
seems to have stood almost alone in his opposition to them. Sandys' name
appears to the above-mentioned letter of the council to Parkhurst. Cox,
also, was inclined to favour the prophecyings. And Grindal, who in 1575
succeeded Parker in the see of Canterbury, bore the whole brunt of the
queen's displeasure rather than obey her commands on this subject. He
conceived that, by establishing strict rules with respect to the
direction of those assemblies, the abuses which had already appeared of
disorderly debate, and attacks on the discipline of the church, might be
got rid of without entirely abolishing the exercise. The queen would
hear of no middle course, and insisted both that the prophecyings should
be discontinued, and that fewer licences for preaching should be
granted. For no parish priest could without a licence preach any
discourse except the regular homilies; and this was one of the points of
contention with the puritans. Grindal steadily refused to comply with
this injunction; and was in consequence sequestered from the exercise of
his jurisdiction for the space of about five years, till, on his making
a kind of submission, the sequestration was taken off not long before
his death. The queen, by circular letters to the bishops, commanded them
to put an end to the prophecyings, which were never afterwards
renewed.[313]
_Whitgift._--Whitgift, Bishop of Worcester, a person of a very opposite
disposition, was promoted, in 1583, to the primacy, on Grindal's
decease. He had distinguished himself some years before by an answer to
Cartwright's _Admonition_, written with much ability, but not falling
short of the work it undertook to confute in rudeness and asperity.[314]
It is seldom good policy to confer such eminent stations in the church
on the gladiators of theological controversy; who from vanity and
resentment, as well as the course of their studies, will always be prone
to exaggerate the importance of the disputes wherein they have been
engaged, and to turn whatever authority the laws or the influence of
their place may give them against their adversaries. This was fully
illustrated by the conduct of Archbishop Whitgift, whose elevation the
wisest of Elizabeth's counsellors had ample reason to regret. In a few
months after his promotion, he gave an earnest of the rigour he had
determined to adopt, by promulgating articles for the observance of
discipline. One of these prohibited all preaching, reading, or
catechising in private houses, whereto any not of the same family
should resort, "seeing the same was never permitted as lawful under any
christian magistrate." But that which excited the loudest complaints was
the subscription to three points, the queen's supremacy, the lawfulness
of the common prayer and ordination service, and the truth of the whole
thirty-nine articles, exacted from every minister of the church.[315]
These indeed were so far from novelties, that it might seem rather
supererogatory to demand them (if in fact the law required subscription
to all the articles); yet it is highly probable that many had hitherto
eluded the legal subscriptions, and that others had conceived their
scruples after having conformed to the prescribed order. The
archbishop's peremptory requisition passed, perhaps justly, for an
illegal stretch of power.[316] It encountered the resistance of men
pertinaciously attached to their own tenets, and ready to suffer the
privations of poverty rather than yield a simulated obedience. To suffer
however in silence has at no time been a virtue with our protestant
dissenters. The kingdom resounded with the clamour of those who were
suspended or deprived of their benefices, and of their numerous
abettors.[317] They appealed from the archbishop to the privy council.
The gentry of Kent and other countries strongly interposed in their
behalf. They had powerful friends at court, especially Knollys, who
wrote a warm letter to the archbishop.[318] But, secure of the queen's
support, who was now chiefly under the influence of Sir Christopher
Hatton, a decided enemy to the puritans, Whitgift relented not a jot of
his resolution, and went far greater lengths than Parker had ever
ventured, or perhaps had desired, to proceed.
_High commission court._--The Act of Supremacy, while it restored all
ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Crown, empowered the queen to execute
it by commissioners appointed under the great seal, in such manner and
for such time as she should direct; whose power should extend to visit,
correct, and amend all heresies, schisms, abuses, and offences whatever,
which fall under the cognisance and are subject to the correction of
spiritual authority. Several temporary commissions had sat under this
act with continually augmented powers, before that appointed in 1583,
wherein the jurisdiction of this anomalous court almost reached its
zenith. It consisted of forty-four commissioners, twelve of whom were
bishops, many more privy-counsellors, and the rest either clergymen or
civilians. This commission, after reciting the acts of supremacy,
uniformity, and two others, directs them to inquire from time to time,
as well by the oaths of twelve good and lawful men, as by witnesses and
all other means they can devise, of all offences, contempts, or
misdemeanours done and committed contrary to the tenor of the said
several acts and statutes; and also to inquire of all heretical
opinions, seditious books, contempts, conspiracies, false rumours or
talk, slanderous words and sayings, etc., contrary to the aforesaid
laws. Power is given to any three commissioners, of whom one must be a
bishop, to punish all persons absent from church, according to the Act
of Uniformity, or to visit and reform heresies and schisms according to
law; to deprive all beneficed persons holding any doctrine contrary to
the thirty-nine articles; to punish incests, adulteries, and all
offences of the kind; to examine all suspected persons on their oaths,
and to punish all who should refuse to appear or to obey their orders,
by spiritual censure or by discretionary fine or imprisonment; to alter
and amend the statutes of colleges, cathedrals, schools, and other
foundations, and to tender the oath of supremacy according to the act of
parliament.[319]
Master of such tremendous machinery, the archbishop proceeded to call
into action one of its powers contained for the first time in the
present commission, by tendering what was technically styled the oath
_ex officio_, to such of the clergy as were surmised to harbour a spirit
of puritanical disaffection. This procedure, which was wholly founded on
the canon law, consisted in a series of interrogations, so comprehensive
as to embrace the whole scope of clerical uniformity, yet so precise and
minute as to leave no room for evasion, to which the suspected party was
bound to answer upon oath.[320] So repugnant was this to the rules of
our English law, and to the principles of natural equity, that no
species of ecclesiastical tyranny seems to have excited so much
indignation.
_Lord Burleigh averse to severity._--Lord Burleigh, who, though at first
rather friendly to Whitgift, was soon disgusted by his intolerant and
arbitrary behaviour, wrote in strong terms of remonstrance against these
articles of examination, as "so curiously penned, so full of branches
and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so
many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys." The primate
replied by alleging reasons in behalf of the mode of examination, but
very frivolous, and such as a man determined to persevere in an
unwarrantable course of action may commonly find.[321] They had little
effect on the calm and sagacious mind of the treasurer, who continued to
express his dissatisfaction, both individually and as one of the privy
council.[322] But the extensive jurisdiction improvidently granted to
the ecclesiastical commissioners, and which the queen was not at all
likely to recall, placed Whitgift beyond the control of the temporal
administration.
The Archbishop, however, did not stand alone in this impracticable
endeavour to overcome the stubborn sectaries by dint of hard usage.
Several other bishops were engaged in the same uncharitable
course;[323] but especially Aylmer of London, who has left a worse name
in this respect than any prelate of Elizabeth's reign.[324] The violence
of Aylmer's temper was not redeemed by many virtues; it is impossible to
exonerate his character from the imputations of covetousness and of
plundering the revenues of his see; faults very prevalent among the
bishops of that period. The privy council wrote sometimes to expostulate
with Aylmer, in a tone which could hardly have been employed towards a
man in his station who had not forfeited the general esteem. Thus, upon
occasion of one Benison, whom he had imprisoned without cause, we find a
letter signed by Burleigh, Leicester, Walsingham, and even Hatton,
besides several others, urging the bishop to give the man a sum of
money, since he would recover damages at law, which might hurt his
lordship's credit. Aylmer, however, who was of a stout disposition,
especially when his purse was interested, objected strongly to this
suggestion, offering rather to confer on Benison a small living, or to
let him take his action at law. The result does not appear; but probably
the bishop did not yield.[325] He had worse success in an information
laid against him for felling his woods, which ended not only in an
injunction, but a sharp reprimand from Cecil in the star-chamber.[326]
What Lord Burleigh thought of these proceedings may be seen in the
memorial to the queen on matters of religion and state, from which I
have, in the last chapter, made an extract to show the tolerance of his
disposition with respect to catholics. Protesting that he was not in the
least addicted to the preciser sort of preachers, he declares himself
"bold to think that the bishops, in these dangerous times, take a very
ill and unadvised course in driving them from their cures;" first,
because it must discredit the reputation of her majesty's power, when
foreign princes should perceive that even among her protestant subjects,
in whom consisted all her force, strength, and power, there was so great
a heart-burning and division; and secondly, "because," he says, "though
they were over squeamish and nice in their opinions, and more
scrupulous than they need; yet with their careful catechising and
diligent preaching, they bring forth that fruit which your most
excellent majesty is to desire and wish; namely, the lessening and
diminishing the papistical numbers."[327] But this great minister's
knowledge of the queen's temper, and excessive anxiety to retain her
favour, made him sometimes fearful to act according to his own judgment.
"It is well known," Lord Bacon says of him, in a treatise published in
1591, "that as to her majesty, there was never a counsellor of his
lordship's long continuance that was so appliable to her majesty's
princely resolutions, endeavouring always after faithful propositions
and remonstrances, and these in the best words and the most grateful
manner, to rest upon such conclusions as her majesty in her own wisdom
determineth, and them to execute to the best; so far hath he been from
contestation, or drawing her majesty into any of his own courses."[328]
Statesmen who betray this unfortunate infirmity of clinging too fondly
to power, become the slaves of the princes they serve. Burleigh used to
complain of the harshness with which the queen treated him.[329] And
though, more lucky than most of his class, he kept the white staff of
treasurer down to his death, he was reduced in his latter years to court
a rising favourite more submissively than became his own dignity.[330]
From such a disposition we could not expect any decided resistance to
those measures of severity towards the puritans which fell in so
entirely with Elizabeth's temper.
There is no middle course, in dealing with religious sectaries, between
the persecution that exterminates, and the toleration that satisfies.
They were wise in their generation, the Loaisas and Valdes of Spain, who
kindled the fires of the inquisition, and quenched the rising spirit of
protestantism in the blood of a Seso and a Cazalla. But sustained by the
favouring voice of his associates, and still more by that firm
persuasion which bigots never know how to appreciate in their
adversaries, a puritan minister set at nought the vexatious and arrogant
tribunal before which he was summoned. Exasperated, not overawed, the
sectaries threw off what little respect they had hitherto paid to the
hierarchy. They had learned, in the earlier controversies of the
reformation, the use, or, more truly, the abuse, of that powerful lever
of human bosoms, the press. He who in Saxony had sounded the first
trumpet-peal against the battlements of Rome, had often turned aside
from his graver labours to excite the rude passions of the populace by
low ribaldry and exaggerated invective; nor had the English reformers
ever scrupled to win proselytes by the same arts. What had been
accounted holy zeal in the mitred Bale and martyred Latimer, might plead
some apology from example in the aggrieved puritan. Pamphlets, chiefly
anonymous, were rapidly circulated throughout the kingdom, inveighing
against the prelacy. Of these libels the most famous went under the name
of Martin Mar-prelate, a vizored knight of those lists, behind whose
shield a host of sturdy puritans were supposed to fight. These were
printed at a movable press, shifted to different parts of the country as
the pursuit grew hot, and contained little serious argument, but the
unwarrantable invectives of angry men, who stuck at no calumny to
blacken their enemies.[331] If these insults upon authority are apt
sometimes to shock us even now, when long usage has rendered such
licentiousness of seditious and profligate libellers almost our daily
food, what must they have seemed in the reign of Elizabeth, when the
press had no acknowledged liberty, and while the accustomed tone in
addressing those in power was little better than servile adulation?
A law had been enacted some years before, levelled at the books
dispersed by the seminary priests, which rendered the publication of
seditious libels against the queen's government a capital felony.[332]
This act, by one of those strained constructions which the judges were
commonly ready to put upon any political crime, was brought to bear on
some of these puritanical writings. The authors of Martin Mar-prelate
could not be traced with certainty; but strong suspicions having fallen
on one Penry, a young Welshman, he was tried some time after for another
pamphlet, containing some sharp reflections on the queen herself, and
received sentence of death, which it was thought proper to carry into
execution.[333] Udal, a puritan minister, fell into the grasp of the
same statute for an alleged libel on the bishops, which had surely a
very indirect reference to the queen's administration. His trial, like
most other political trials of the age, disgraces the name of English
justice. It consisted mainly in a pitiful attempt by the court to entrap
him into a confession that the imputed libel was of his writing, as to
which their proof was deficient. Though he avoided this snare, the jury
did not fail to obey the directions they received to convict him. So far
from being concerned in Martin's writings, Udal professed his
disapprobation of them and his ignorance of the author. This sentence
appeared too iniquitous to be executed even in the eyes of Whitgift, who
interceded for his life; but he died of the effects of confinement.[334]
_Attempt to set up a Presbyterian system._--If the libellous pen of
Martin Mar-prelate was a thorn to the rulers of the church, they had
still more cause to take alarm at an overt measure of revolution which
the discontented party began to effect about the year 1590. They set up,
by common agreement, their own platform of government by synods and
classes; the former being a sort of general assemblies, the latter held
in particular shires or dioceses, agreeably to the presbyterian model
established in Scotland. In these meetings debates were had, and
determinations usually made, sufficiently unfavourable to the
established system. The ministers composing them subscribed to the
puritan book of discipline. These associations had been formed in
several counties, but chiefly in those of Northampton and Warwick, under
the direction of Cartwright, the legislator of their republic, who
possessed, by the Earl of Leicester's patronage, the mastership of a
hospital in the latter town.[335] It would be unjust to censure the
archbishop for interfering to protect the discipline of his church
against these innovators, had but the means adopted for that purpose
been more consonant to equity. Cartwright with several of his sect were
summoned before the ecclesiastical commission; where refusing to
inculpate themselves by taking the oath _ex officio_, they were
committed to the Fleet. This punishment not satisfying the rigid
churchmen, and the authority of the ecclesiastical commission being
incompetent to inflict any heavier judgment, it was thought fit the next
year to remove the proceedings into the court of star-chamber. The
judges, on being consulted, gave it as their opinion, that since far
less crimes had been punished by condemnation to the galleys or
perpetual banishment, the latter would be fittest for their offence. But
several of the council had more tender regards to sincere, though
intractable, men; and in the end they were admitted to bail upon a
promise to be quiet, after answering some interrogatories respecting the
queen's supremacy and other points, with civility and an evident wish to
avoid offence.[336] It may be observed that Cartwright explicitly
declared his disapprobation of the libels under the name of Martin
Mar-prelate.[337] Every political party, however honourable may be its
objects and character, is liable to be disgraced by the association of
such unscrupulous zealots. But, though it is an uncandid sophism to
charge the leaders with the excesses they profess to disapprove in their
followers, it must be confessed that few chiefs of faction have had the
virtue to condemn with sufficient energy the misrepresentations which
are intended for their benefit.
It was imputed to the puritan faction with more or less of truth, that,
not content with the subversion of episcopacy and of the whole
ecclesiastical polity established in the kingdom, they maintained
principles that would essentially affect its civil institutions. Their
denial indeed of the queen's supremacy, carried to such lengths as I
have shown above, might justly be considered as a derogation of her
temporal sovereignty. Many of them asserted the obligation of the
judicial law of Moses, at least in criminal cases; and deduced from this
the duty of putting idolaters (that is, papists), adulterers, witches
and demoniacs, sabbath-breakers, and several other classes of offenders,
to death.[338] They claimed to their ecclesiastical assemblies the right
of determining "all matters wherein breach of charity may be, and all
matters of doctrine and manners, so far as appertaineth to conscience."
They took away the temporal right of patronage to churches, leaving the
choice of ministers to general suffrage.[339] There are even passages in
Cartwright's Admonition, which intimate that the commonwealth ought to
be fashioned after the model of the church.[340] But these it would not
be candid to press against the more explicit declarations of all the
puritans in favour of a limited monarchy, though they grounded its
legitimacy on the republican principles of popular consent.[341] And
with respect to the former opinions, they appear to have been by no
means common to the whole puritan body; some of the deprived and
imprisoned ministers even acknowledging the queen's supremacy in as full
a manner as the law conferred it on her, and as she professed to claim
it.[342]
The pretensions advanced by the school of Cartwright did not seem the
less dangerous to those who cast their eyes upon what was passing in
Scotland, where they received a practical illustration. In that kingdom,
a form of polity very nearly conforming to the puritanical platform had
become established at the reformation of 1560; except that the office of
bishop or superintendent still continued, but with no paramount, far
less arbitrary dominion, and subject even to the provincial synod, much
more to the general assembly of the Scottish church. Even this very
limited episcopacy was abolished in 1592. The presbyterian clergy,
individually and collectively, displayed the intrepid, haughty, and
untractable spirit of the English puritans. Though Elizabeth had from
policy abetted the Scottish clergy in their attacks upon the civil
administration, this connection itself had probably given her such an
insight into their temper as well as their influence, that she must have
shuddered at the thought of seeing a republican assembly substituted for
those faithful satraps, her bishops, so ready to do her bidding, and so
patient under the hard usage she sometimes bestowed on them.
_House of Commons averse to episcopal authority._--These prelates did
not however obtain so much support from the House of Commons as from
their sovereign. In that assembly a determined band of puritans
frequently carried the victory against the courtiers. Every session
exhibited proofs of their dissatisfaction with the state of the church.
The Crown's influence would have been too weak without stretches of its
prerogative. The Commons in 1575 received a message forbidding them to
meddle with religious concerns. For five years afterwards the queen did
not convoke parliament, of which her dislike to their puritanical temper
might in all probability be the chief reason. But, when they met again
in 1580, the same topic of ecclesiastical grievances, which had by no
means abated during the interval, was revived. The Commons appointed a
committee, formed only of the principal officers of the Crown who sat in
the house, to confer with some of the bishops, according to the
irregular and imperfect course of parliamentary proceedings in that age,
"touching the griefs of this house for some things very requisite to be
reformed in the church, as the great number of unlearned and unable
ministers, the great abuse of excommunications for every matter of small
moment, the commutation of penances, and the great multitude of
dispensations and pluralities, and other things very hurtful to the
church."[343] The committee reported that they found some of the
bishops desirous of a remedy for the abuses they confessed, and of
joining in a petition for that purpose to her majesty; which had
accordingly been done, and a gracious answer, promising all convenient
reformation, by laying the blame of remissness upon some prelates, had
been received. This the house took with great thankfulness. It was
exactly the course which pleased Elizabeth, who had no regard for her
bishops, and a real anxiety that her ecclesiastical as well as temporal
government should be well administered, provided her subjects would
intrust the sole care of it to herself, or limit their interference to
modest petitioning.
A new parliament having been assembled, soon after Whitgift on his
elevation to the primacy had begun to enforce an universal conformity,
the lower house drew up a petition in sixteen articles, to which they
requested the Lords' concurrence, complaining of the oath _ex officio_,
the subscription to the three new articles, the abuses of
excommunication, licences for non-residence, and other ecclesiastical
grievances. The Lords replied coolly, that they conceived many of those
articles, which the Commons had proposed, to be unnecessary, and that
others of them were already provided for; and that the uniformity of the
common prayer, the use of which the Commons had requested to leave in
certain respects to the minister's discretion, had been established by
parliament. The two archbishops, Whitgift and Sandys, made a more
particular answer to each article of the petition, in the name of their
brethren.[344] But, in order to show some willingness towards
reformation, they proposed themselves in convocation a few regulations
for redress of abuses, none of which, however, on this occasion, though
they received the royal assent, were submitted to the legislature;[345]
the queen in fact maintaining an insuperable jealousy of all
intermeddling on the part of parliament with her exclusive supremacy
over the church. Excluded by Elizabeth's jealousy from entertaining
these religious innovations, which would probably have met no
unfavourable reception from a free parliament, the Commons vented their
ill-will towards the dominant hierarchy in complaints of ecclesiastical
grievances, and measures to redress them; as to which, even with the low
notions of parliamentary right prevailing at court, it was impossible to
deny their competence. Several bills were introduced this session of
1584-5 into the lower house, which, though they had little chance of
receiving the queen's assent, manifest the sense of that assembly, and
in all likelihood of their constituents. One of these imported that
bishops should be sworn in one of the courts of justice to do nothing in
their office contrary to the common law. Another went to restrain
pluralities, as to which the prelates would very reluctantly admit of
any limitation.[346] A bill of the same nature passed the Commons in
1589, though not without some opposition. The clergy took so great alarm
at this measure, that the convocation addressed the queen in vehement
language against it; and the archbishop throwing all the weight of his
advice and authority into the same scale, the bill expired in the upper
house.[347] A similar proposition in the session of 1601 seems to have
miscarried in the Commons.[348] In the next chapter will be found other
instances of the Commons' reforming temper in ecclesiastical concerns,
and the queen's determined assertion of her supremacy.
The oath _ex officio_, binding the taker to answer all questions that
should be put to him, inasmuch as it contravened the generous maxim of
English law that no one is obliged to criminate himself, provoked very
just animadversion. Morice, attorney of the court of wards, not only
attacked its legality with arguments of no slight force, but introduced
a bill to take it away. This was on the whole well received by the
house; and Sir Francis Knollys, the stanch enemy of episcopacy, though
in high office, spoke in its favour. But the queen put a stop to the
proceeding, and Morice lay some time in prison for his boldness. The
civilians, of whom several sat in the lower house, defended a mode of
procedure that had been borrowed from their own jurisprudence. This
revived the ancient animosity between them and the common lawyers. The
latter had always manifested a great jealousy of the spiritual
jurisdiction, and had early learned to restrain its exorbitances by
writs of prohibition from the temporal courts. Whitgift, as tenacious of
power as the most ambitious of his predecessors, murmured like them at
this subordination, for such it evidently was, to a lay tribunal.[349]
But the judges, who found as much gratification in exerting their power
as the bishops, paid little regard to the remonstrances of the latter.
We find the reports of this and the succeeding reign full of cases of
prohibition. Nor did other abuses imputed to these obnoxious judicatures
fail to provoke censure, such as the unreasonable fees of their
officers, and the usage of granting licences, and commuting penances for
money.[350] The ecclesiastical courts indeed have generally been
reckoned more dilatory, vexatious, and expensive than those of the
common law. But in the present age that part of their jurisdiction,
which, though coercive, is professedly spiritual, and wherein the
greatest abuses have been alleged to exist, has gone very much into
disuse. In matrimonial and testamentary causes, their course of
proceeding may not be open to any censure, so far as the essential
administration of justice is concerned; though in the latter of these, a
most inconvenient division of jurisdictions, following not only the
unequal boundaries of episcopal dioceses, but the various peculiars or
exempt districts which the church of England has continued to retain, is
productive of a good deal of trouble and needless expense.
_Independents liable to severe laws._--Notwithstanding the tendency
towards puritanism which the House of Commons generally displayed, the
court succeeded in procuring an act, which eventually pressed with very
great severity upon that class. This passed in 1593, and enacted the
penalty of imprisonment against any person above the age of sixteen, who
should forbear for the space of a month to repair to some church, until
he should make such open submission and declaration of conformity as the
act appoints. Those who refused to submit to these conditions were to
abjure the realm, and if they should return without the queen's licence,
to suffer death as felons.[351] As this, on the one hand, like so many
former statutes, helped to crush the unfortunate adherents to the Romish
faith, so too did it bear an obvious application to such protestant
sectaries as had professedly separated from the Anglican church. But it
is here worthy of remark, that the puritan ministers throughout this
reign disclaimed the imputation of schism, and acknowledged the
lawfulness of continuing in the established church, while they demanded
a further reformation of her discipline.[352] The real separatists, who
were also a numerous body, were denominated Brownists or Barrowists,
from the names of their founders, afterwards lost in the more general
appellation of Independents. These went far beyond the puritans in their
aversion to the legal ministry, and were deemed in consequence still
more proper subjects for persecution. Multitudes of them fled to Holland
from the rigour of the bishops in enforcing this statute.[353] But two
of this persuasion, Barrow and Greenwood, experienced a still severer
fate. They were indicted on that perilous law of the 23rd of the queen,
mentioned in the last chapter, for spreading seditious writings, and
executed at Bury. They died, Neal tells us, with such expressions of
piety and loyalty that Elizabeth regretted the consent she had given to
their deaths.[354]
_Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity." Its character._--But, while these
scenes of pride and persecution on one hand, and of sectarian insolence
on the other, were deforming the bosom of the English church, she found
a defender of her institutions in one who mingled in these vulgar
controversies like a knight of romance among caitiff brawlers, with arms
of finer temper and worthy to be proved in a nobler field. Richard
Hooker, master of the Temple, published the first four books of his
_Ecclesiastical Polity_ in 1594; the fifth three years afterwards; and
dying in 1600, left behind three which did not see the light till 1647.
This eminent work may justly be reckoned to mark an aera in our
literature. For if passages of much good sense and even of a vigorous
eloquence are scattered in several earlier writers in prose, yet none of
these, except perhaps Latimer and Ascham, and Sir Philip Sidney in his
_Arcadia_, can be said to have acquired enough reputation to be
generally known even by name, much less are read in the present day; and
it is indeed not a little remarkable that England, until near the end of
the sixteenth century, had given few proofs in literature of that
intellectual power which was about to develop itself with such
unmatchable energy in Shakspeare and Bacon. We cannot indeed place
Hooker (but whom dare we to place?) by the side of these master spirits;
yet he has abundant claims to be counted among the luminaries of English
literature. He not only opened the mine, but explored the depths, of our
native eloquence. So stately and graceful is the march of his periods,
so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in
images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so
little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his
learned phrase, that I know not whether any later writer has more
admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages
more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity. If
we compare the first book of the _Ecclesiastical Polity_ with what bears
perhaps most resemblance to it of any thing extant, the treatise of
Cicero de Legibus, it will appear somewhat perhaps inferior, through the
imperfection of our language, which with all its force and dignity does
not equal the Latin in either of these qualities, and certainly more
tedious and diffuse in some of its reasonings, but by no means less
high-toned in sentiment, or less bright in fancy, and far more
comprehensive and profound in the foundations of its philosophy.