ecclesiastical, the question refused to settle itself, and the
Convocation which assembled on the 1st of January, 1557, was obliged
to publish an elaborate series of articles, which demonstrated that
previous enactments had either not been properly observed or that
they had failed in effecting their purpose. Thus the prohibition of
marriage to those in priests’ orders was formally renewed. Such of
the married clergy, who had undergone penance and had been restored,
as still persisted in holding intercourse with their separated wives,
were to be deprived irrevocably of their office, and only to be
admitted to lay communion—thus reversing the policy of Cardinal Pole’s
injunctions. As all priests who had been married were obnoxious to the
people, they were to be removed from the priesthood; or, at least, on
account of the scarcity of ministers, to act only as curates, and to
be incapable of holding benefices until a thorough course of penance
should have washed away their sins. Even then, in no case were they to
officiate in the dioceses wherein they had been married, but were to be
removed to a distance of at least sixty miles, and if detected in any
intercourse with their wives, they were to incur severe punishment, a
single interchange of words being sufficient to call down the penalty.
To insure the observance of these rules, all synods were directed to
make special inquiry into the lives of these unfortunates, who were
thus to exist under a perpetual surveillance, at the mercy of inimical
spies and informers.[1256] This may, perhaps, be considered a moderate
expiation for men who, in those days of fierce religious convictions,
possessed that flexibility of faith which enabled them to change their
belief with every dynastic accident.
If the rigid rules now introduced were successful in nothing else,
they at all events succeeded in restoring the old troubles with the
old canons. Denied the lawful gratification of human instincts, the
clergy immediately returned to the habits which had acquired for them
so much odium in times past, and the rulers of the church at once
found themselves embarked in the sempiternal struggle with immorality
in all its shapes and disguises. If the scandalous chronicles of the
period be worthy of credit, neither Gardiner nor Bonner, nor other
active promoters of the canons, were without the visible evidences of
the frailty of the flesh;[1257] and though they were above the reach
of correction, the minor clergy were not so fortunate. The Convocation
of 1557, which issued the stringent regulations just quoted, was also
obliged to promulgate articles concerning the residence of women with
priests, and the punishment of licentiousness, similar to those which
we have seen reproduced so regularly for ten centuries. Cardinal Pole,
too, in his visitation of the same year, directed inquiries to be made
on these points in a manner which shows that they were existing, and
not merely anticipated evils.[1258]
* * * * *
Fortunately for the character of the Anglican clergy, the reign of
reaction was short. On the 17th of November, 1558, Queen Mary closed
her unhappy life, and Cardinal Pole followed her within sixteen hours.
The Marian persecution had been long enough and sharp enough to give
to heresy all the attractions of martyrdom, thus increasing its
fervor and enlarging its circle of earnest disciples; and the sudden
termination of that persecution, before it had time to accomplish its
work of extirpation, left the reformers more zealous and dangerous than
ever. Heresy had likewise been favored by the discontent of the people
arising from the disastrous and expensive war with France, which aided
the improvident restoration of the church lands in impoverishing the
exchequer and in rendering necessary heavy subsidies from the nation,
repaid only by cruelty and misfortune. Dread of Spanish influence also
had a firm hold of the imagination of the masses, while the church
itself was especially unpopular, as the conviction was general that
the ill-success of Mary’s administration was attributable to the
control exercised by ecclesiastics over the public affairs. Under such
auspices, the royal power passed into the hands of a princess who,
though by nature leaning to the Catholic faith and disposed to tread
in the footsteps of her father, was yet placed by the circumstances of
her birth in implacable hostility to Rome, and who held her throne only
on the tenure of waging eternal warfare with reaction. The reformers
felt that the doom of Catholicism was sealed. Emerging from their
hiding-places and hastening back from exile, the religious refugees
proceeded at once to practise the rites of Edward VI. Elizabeth,
however, after ordering some changes in the Roman observances, forbade,
on the 27th of December, all further innovations until the meeting of
Parliament, which was convoked for January 23, 1559.
Parliament assembled on the appointed day and sat until the 8th of
May. It at once passed acts resuming the ecclesiastical crown lands
and restoring the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and it
repealed all of Mary’s legislation concerning the power of the papacy.
Several other bills were adopted modifying the religion of the kingdom,
with a view of discovering some middle term which should unite the
people in a common form of belief and worship.[1259] Anxious to avoid
all extremes, it negatived the measures introduced by the ardent
friends of the Reformation, and among the unsuccessful attempts was one
which proposed to restore all priests who had been deprived on account
of marriage. This, indeed, was laid aside by the special command of the
queen herself.[1260]
The question of clerical marriage was thus left in a most perplexed and
unsatisfactory condition. The Six Articles had been repealed by Edward
VI., and had been virtually revived by Mary; but Mary’s efforts had
been to restore the independent jurisdiction of the church, and she
had therefore not continued to regard the Six Articles as in force,
the canons of synods and the legatine constitutions of Pole being the
law of her ecclesiastical establishment. This was now all swept away,
a statute to fill the void was refused, and men were left to draw
their own deductions and act at their own peril. Elizabeth refused
the sanction of law to sacerdotal marriage, and would not restore the
deprived priests, yet she did not enforce any prohibitory regulations,
and even promoted many married men. Dr. Parker, the religious adviser
of Ann Boleyn, who had left him in charge of her daughter’s spiritual
education, was married, and one of Elizabeth’s earliest acts was to
nominate him for the vacant primacy of Canterbury, which after long
resistance he was forced to accept. The uncertainty of the situation
and the anxiety of those interested are well illustrated by a letter
to Dr. Parker, dated April 30th, just before the rising of Parliament,
from Dr. Sandys, afterwards Bishop of Worcester: “The bill is in hand
to restore men to their livings; how it will speed I know not....
Nihil est statutum de conjugio sacerdotum, sed tanquam relictum in
medio. Lever was married now of late. The queen’s majesty will wink at
it, but not stablish it by law, which is nothing else but to bastard
our children.”[1261] In this, Dr. Sandys spoke nothing but truth, and
those who were married were obliged formally to have their children
legitimated, as even Dr. Parker found it necessary to do this in the
case of his son Matthew.[1262]
At length Elizabeth made up her mind, and in the exercise of her royal
supremacy she asked for no act of Parliament to confirm her decree.
Archbishop Parker has the credit of being the most efficient agent in
overcoming her repugnance to the measure, and the ungracious manner
in which she finally accorded the permission shows how strong were
the prejudices which he had to encounter. In June, 1559, she issued
a series of “Injunctions to the Clergy and Laity” which restored the
national religion to nearly the same position as that adopted by
Edward VI., and it is curious to observe that when she comes to speak
of sacerdotal matrimony, she carefully avoids the responsibility of
sanctioning it herself, but assumes that the law of Edward is still
in force. All that she does, therefore, is to surround it with such
limitations and restrictions as shall prevent its abuse, and although
this form had perhaps the advantage of establishing the legality
of all preëxisting marriages, yet the regulations promulgated were
degrading in the highest degree, and the reason assigned for permitting
it could only be regarded as affixing a stigma on every pastor who
confessed the weakness of his flesh by seeking a wife.[1263]
From the temper of these regulations it is manifest that if Elizabeth
yielded to the advice of her counsellors and to the pressure of the
times, she did not give up her private convictions or prejudices, and
that she desired to make the marriage of her clergy as unpopular and
disagreeable as possible. It was probably for the purpose of meeting
her objections that the order for a return of the clergy, issued by
Archbishop Parker, October 1st, 1561, contained in the blanks issued
the unusual entry classifying them as married or unmarried,[1264]
and Strype informs us that in the Archdeaconry of London the returns
show the ministry for the most part to have been filled with married
men.[1265] Even the haughty spirit of the Tudor, thus, could not
restrain the progress which had now fairly set in. Those around her who
controlled the public affairs were all committed to the Reformation,
and were resolved that every point gained should be made secure. When,
therefore, in 1563, there was published a recension of the Forty-two
Articles issued by Edward VI. in 1552, resulting in the well-known
Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, care was taken that
the one relating to the liberty of marriage should be made more
emphatic than before. Not content with the simple proposition of the
original that “Bishops, priests, and deacons are not commanded by
God’s law either to vow the estate of a single life, or to abstain
from marriage,” the emphatic corollary was added, “Therefore it is
lawful for them as for all other Christian men to marry at their
own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to
Godliness”[1266]—such as we find it preserved to the present day. This
specific declaration in a special article marks the necessity which was
felt to place the matter beyond controversy, as a rule of practice. The
Articles on Justification and Works of Supererogation (Arts. xi. and
xix.) would have sufficed, so far as principle was concerned.
This was not an empty form. Not only the right to marry at their own
discretion, thus expressly declared, did much to relieve them from
the degrading conditions laid down by the queen, but the revival
and strengthening of the article marked a victory gained over the
reaction. When, in 1559, the queen appointed a commission to visit
all the churches of England and enforce compliance with the order of
things then existing, the articles prepared for its guidance enjoin
no investigation into opinions respecting priestly marriage, showing
that to be an open question, concerning which every man might hold his
private belief.[1267] After the adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles,
however, this latitude was no longer allowed. In 1567 Archbishop
Parker’s articles of instruction for the visitation of that year
enumerate, among the heretical doctrines to be inquired after, the
assertion that the Word of God commands abstinence from marriage on the
part of ministers of the church.[1268] As we shall see, it was about
the same time that the council of Trent likewise erected the question
of clerical marriage into a point of belief.
Yet Elizabeth never overcame her repugnance to the marriage of the
clergy, nor is it, perhaps, to be wondered at when we consider the
contempt in which she held the church of which she was the head,[1269]
and her general aversion to sanctioning in others the matrimony which
she was herself always toying with and never contracting. When she made
her favorites of both sexes suffer for any legalized indiscretions
of the kind, it is scarcely surprising that she always looked with
disfavor on those of the clergy who availed themselves of the privilege
which circumstances had extorted from her, and which she would fain
have withheld. When Archbishop Parker ventured to remonstrate with
her on her popish tendencies, she sharply told him that “she repented
of having made any married bishops.” This was a cutting rejoinder,
but even more pointed was the insolence from which his life-long
services could not protect his wife. The first time the queen visited
the archiepiscopal palace, on her departure she turned to thank Mrs.
Parker:—“And you—madam I may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to
call you, so I know not what to call you—but, howsoever, I thank
you.”[1270] So in Ipswich, in August, 1561, she found great fault with
the marriage of the clergy, and especially with the number of wives and
children in cathedrals and colleges—a feeling possibly justified by
occasional disorders not unlikely to occur. In 1563 we find Sir John
Bourne complaining to the Privy Council that the Dean and Chapter of
Worcester had broken up the large organ, the pride of the cathedral,
which had cost £200; the metal pipes whereof were melted into dishes
and divided among the wives of the prebendaries and the case used to
make bedsteads for them; the copes and ornaments, he added, would
likewise have been distributed had not some of the unmarried men
prevented it, “and as by their Habit and Apparel you might know the
Priests wives, and by their Gate in the Market and the Streets from an
hundred other Women: so in the Congregation and Cathedral Church they
were easy to be known by placing themselves above all other of the
most ancient and honest Calling of the said City.”[1271] There was no
lack of persons to pour such stories into the queen’s ear, and, with
her well-known tendencies, it is no wonder that her counsellors found
it difficult to restrain her to the simple order which she issued from
Ipswich, declaring “that no manner of person, being either the head or
member of any college or cathedral church within this realm, shall,
from the time of the notification hereof in the same college, have,
or be permitted to have, within the precinct of any such college, his
wife, or other woman, to abide and dwell in the same, or to frequent
and haunt any lodging within the same college, upon pain that whosoever
shall do to the contrary shall forfeit all ecclesiastical promotions
in any cathedral or collegiate church within this realm.” Burghley,
in sending this royal mandate to Parker, remarks, “Her Majesty
continueth very evil affected to the state of matrimony in the clergy.
And if [I] were not therein very stiff, her Majesty would openly and
utterly condemn and forbid it. In the end, for her satisfaction, this
injunction now sent to your Grace is devised. The good order thereof
shall do no harm. I have devised to send it in this sort to your
Grace for your province; and to the Archbishop of York for his; so
as it shall not be promulged to be popular.”[1272] It is doubtless
to this occurrence that we may attribute the last relic of clerical
celibacy enforced among Protestants, that of the Fellows of the English
Universities.
This injunction of Queen Elizabeth caused no little excitement. Though
Burghley had prudently endeavored to prevent its becoming “popular,”
yet Cox, Bishop of Ely, in remonstrating against its cruelty to
those whom it affected in his cathedral seat, shows that it was
speedily known to all men, and that it gave exceeding comfort to the
reactionaries—“What rejoicing and jeering the adversaries make! How
the godly ministers are discouraged, I will pass over.”[1273] In the
Universities, where crowds of young men were collected, there might
be some colorable excuse for the regulation, but in the splendid
and spacious buildings connected with the cathedrals some milder
remedy might easily have been found, and the mandate was particularly
unpalatable to married bishops. Parker himself, who was individually
interested in the matter, made a personal appeal to the queen, the
result of which was to wound him deeply, as well as to show him
how extreme were her prejudices on the subject. He pours forth his
feelings in a letter to Burghley describing the interview—“I was
in an horror to hear such words to come from her mild nature and
Christianly learned conscience, as she spake of God’s holy ordinance
and institution of matrimony. I marvel that our states in that behalf
cannot please her Highness, which we doubt nothing at all to please
God’s sacred Majesty.” He deplores the effect which it must produce on
the people—“We alone of our time openly brought in hatred, shamed and
traduced before the malicious and ignorant people, as beasts without
knowledge to Godward, in using this liberty of his word, as men of
effrenate intemperency, without discretion or any godly disposition
worthy to serve in our state. Insomuch that the queen’s Highness
expressed to me a repentance that we were thus appointed in office,
wishing it had been otherwise.” The interview had evidently been
stormy, and Parker had been made to feel the full force of Elizabeth’s
perverseness—“I have neither joy of house, land, or name, so abased by
my natural sovereign good lady; for whose service and honor I would not
think it cost to spend my life”—and he even goes so far as to threaten
resistance—“I would be sorry that the clergy should have cause to show
disobedience, with _oportet Deo obedire magis quam hominibus_. And what
instillers soever there be, there be enough of this contemned flock,
which will not shrink to offer their blood to the defence of Christ’s
verity, if it be either openly impugned or secretly suggilled.”[1274]
Evidently, before Parker could have been driven to such scarcely
covered threats, there must have been an intimation by the angry queen
that she would recall the permission to marry, which, in the existing
state of the law, she could readily have done.
The same spirit which rendered the marriage of a pastor dependent on
the approbation of the neighboring squires caused the retention of
ancient rules, which prove the profound distrust still entertained as
to the discretion and morality of the clergy, and the difficulty with
which the Anglican church threw off the traditions of Catholicism.
Thus, even in 1571, Grindal, Archbishop of York, promulgates a
modification of the canon of Nicæa, forbidding the residence with
unmarried ministers of women under the age of sixty, except relatives
closely connected by blood.[1275] Indeed, in some remote corners of the
kingdom the old license was kept up. Archbishop Parker, about the year
1565, in speaking of the diocese of Bangor, states—“I hear that diocese
to be much out of order, both having no preaching there and pensionary
concubinary openly continued, notwithstanding liberty of marriage
granted.”[1276] It evidently required time to accustom the clergy to
the substitution of the new privileges for the old.
Although sacerdotal marriage was now fully sanctioned by the organic
canon law of the church, yet it was still exposed to serious
impediments of a worldly character. When thus frowned upon by her
who was in reality, if not in name, Supreme Head of the church; when
the wife of the primate himself could be exposed to such indelible
impertinence; when the marriage of every unfortunate parson was
subjected to degrading conditions, and when it was assumed that
his bride must be a woman at service, the influences affecting the
matrimonial alliances of the clergy must have been of the worst
description. The higher classes of society would naturally model their
opinions on those of the sovereign, while the lower orders had not
as yet shaken off the prejudices in favor of celibacy, implanted in
them by the custom of centuries. Making due allowance for polemical
bitterness, there is therefore no doubt much truth in the sarcastic
account which Sanders gives of the wives of the Elizabethan clergy.
Taking advantage of the refusal of Parliament to formally legalize such
marriages—a refusal which could not but greatly affect the minds of
the people—he assumes that the wives were concubines and the children
illegitimate in the eyes of the law; consequently decent women refused
to undergo the obloquy attached to a union with a minister of the
church, who was therefore forced to take as his spouse any one who
would consent to accept him. The wives of prelates were ostracized;
not received at court, and sharing in no way the dignities of their
husbands, they were kept closely at home for the mere gratification
of animal passion. The members of universities had been wholly
unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain the same license, which was
only granted to the heads of colleges, under condition that their wives
should reside elsewhere, and should rarely pollute with their presence
the learned precincts.[1277]
The accuracy of this sarcastic description is confirmed by a statement
made by Percival Wiburn for the benefit of his friends in Zurich,
subsequent to the adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles. He asserts
that “The marriage of priests was counted unlawful in the times of
queen Mary, and was also forbidden by a public statute of the realm,
which is also in force at this day; although by permission of queen
Elizabeth clergymen may have their wives, provided only they marry by
the advice and assent of the bishop and two justices of the peace, as
they call them. The lords bishops are forbidden to have their wives
with them in their palaces; as are also the deans, canons, presbyters,
and other ministers of the church, within colleges, or the precincts
of cathedral churches.”[1278] It is not a little curious, indeed, to
observe that in spite of the formal declaration in the Thirty-nine
Articles, the absence of a special act of Parliament long caused the
question to remain a doubtful one in the public mind. As late as July,
1566, Lawrence Humphrey and Thomas Sampson, two zealous Protestants,
in denouncing “some straws and chips of the popish religion” which
still defaced the Anglican church, state that “the marriage of the
clergy is not allowed and sanctioned by the public laws of the kingdom,
but their children are by some persons regarded as illegitimate;” in
answer to which, Bishops Grindal and Horn rejoined that “the wives of
the clergy are not separated from their husbands, and their marriage
is esteemed honorable by all, the papists always excepted.”[1279] The
matter evidently was still regarded as a subject of controversy, not
yet decided beyond appeal; and the experience of the previous quarter
of a century had accustomed men to too many vicissitudes for them to
feel safe with so slender a guarantee as the Articles afforded. The
Catholics still constituted a very large proportion of the population,
and they scarcely concealed their feelings towards the innovation.
When Sir John Bourne quarrelled with Dr. Sandys, Bishop of Worcester,
among the formal articles of accusation which he presented to the Privy
Council was the assertion that the Bishop in a sermon had ridiculed
celibacy and had decried the virtue of unmarried priests.[1280] The
knight apparently believed that this would be damaging to the bishop,
and the latter seems likewise to have thought so, for in his answer he
emphatically denied it, retorting that his adversary was a papist who
had mass celebrated in his house and who was in the habit of applying
the most opprobrious epithets to the wives of priests.[1281] So when in
1569 the Catholics of the North rose in insurrection under the Earls of
Westmoreland and Northumberland, one of the grievances of which they
complained was the marriage of the ministers of Christ.[1282] During
the whole of this transition period the question was evidently one
which occupied largely the public mind, and in the diversity of opinion
it was not easy to see what the ultimate decision might be. When an
irrevocable step such as marriage was legal only during the pleasure of
a capricious woman, whose assent was known to have been extorted from
her, it is no wonder that it should be looked upon with disfavor by all
prudent relatives of women inclined to venture on it.