Henry VIII. had always spent money lavishly. His father's immense hoards

had disappeared, while England, under Wolsey, was the paymaster of

Europe, and the King was in great need of funds. In England as elsewhere

the wealth of the monasteries seemed to have been collected for the

purpose of supplying an empty royal exchequer. A visitation of

monasteries was ordered, under the superintendence of Thomas Cromwell;

and, in order to give him a perfectly free hand, all episcopal functions

were for the time being suspended. The visitation disclosed many

scandalous things. It was followed by the Act of Parliament (1536) for

_The Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries_.[459] The lands of all

monasteries whose annual rental was less than £200 a year were given to

the King, as well as all the ornaments, jewels, and other goods

belonging to them. The dislodged monks and nuns were either to be taken

into the larger houses or to receive some measure of support, and the

heads were to get pensions sufficient to sustain them. The lands thus

acquired might have been formed into a great crown estate yielding

revenues large enough to permit taxation to be dispensed with; but the

King was in need of ready money, and he had courtiers to gratify. The

convent lands were for the most part sold cheaply to courtiers, and the

numbers and power of the county families were largely increased. A new

visitation of the remaining monasteries was begun in 1538, this time

accompanied with an inquiry into superstitious practices indulged in in

various parts of the country, and notorious relics were removed. They

were of all sorts--part of St. Peter's hair and beard; stones with which

St. Stephen was stoned; the hair shirt and bones of St. Thomas the

martyr; a crystal containing a little quantity of Our Lady's milk, "with

two other bones"; the "principal relic in England, an angel with one

wing that brought to Caversham (near Reading) the spear's head that

pierced the side of our Saviour on the cross"; the ear of Malchus, which

St. Peter cut off; a foot of St. Philip at Winchester "covered with gold

plate and (precious) stones"; and so forth.[460] Miraculous images were

brought up to London and their mechanism exposed to the crowd, while an

eloquent preacher thundered against the superstition:

"The bearded crucifix called the 'Rood of Grace' (was brought from

Maidstone, and) while the Bishop of Rochester preached it turned

its head, rolled its eyes, foamed at the mouth, and shed tears,--in

the presence, too, of many other famous saints of wood and stone

... the satellite saints of the Kentish image acted in the same

way. It is expected that the Virgin of Walsingham, St. Thomas of

Canterbury, and other images will soon perform miracles also in the

same place; for the trickery was so thoroughly exposed that every

one was indignant at the monks and impostors."[461]

A second Act of Parliament followed, which vested all monastic property

in the King; and this gave the King possession not only of huge

estates, but also of an immense quantity of jewels and precious

metals.[462] The shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, when

"disgarnished," yielded, it is said, no fewer than twenty-six cartloads

of gold and silver.[463]

This wholesale confiscation of monastic property, plundering of shrines,

and above all the report that Henry had ordered the bones of St. Thomas

of Canterbury to be burned and the ashes scattered to the winds,

determined Pope Paul III. to renew (Dec. 17th, 1538) the execution of

his Bull of excommunication (Aug. 30th, 1535), which had been hitherto

suspended. It was declared that the Bull might be published in St.

Andrews or "in oppido Calistrensi" in Scotland, at Dieppe or Boulogne in

France, or at Tuam in Ireland.[464] The Pope knew that he could not get

it published in England itself.

The violent destruction of shrines and pilgrimage places, which had been

holiday resorts as well as places of devotion, could not fail to create

some popular uneasiness, and there were other and probably deeper roots

of discontent. England, like other nations, had been suffering from the

economic changes which were a feature of the times. One form peculiar to

England was that wool-growing had become more profitable than keeping

stock or raising grain, and landed proprietors were enclosing commons

for pasture land and letting much of their arable land lie fallow. The

poor men could no longer graze their beasts on the commons, and the

substitution of pasture for arable land threw great numbers out of

employment. They had to sell the animals they could no longer feed, and

did not see how a living could be earned; nor had they the compensation

given to the disbanded monks. The pressure of taxation increased the

prevailing distress. Risings took place in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and

Lincolnshire, and the insurgents marched singing:

"Christ crucified,

For Thy woundes wide,

Us commons guyde,

Which pilgrims be,

Through Godes grace,

For to purchache,

Old wealth and peax

Of the Spiritualitie."[465]

In their demands they denounced equally the contempt shown for Holy

Mother Church, the dissolution of the monasteries, the spoliation of

shrines, the contempt shown to "Our Ladye and all the saints," new

taxes, the enclosure of commons, the doing away with use and wont in

tenant rights, the branding of the Lady Mary as illegitimate, King's

counsellors of "low birth and small estimation," and the five reforming

Bishops--Cranmer and Latimer being considered as specially

objectionable.[466] The Yorkshire Rising was called the Pilgrimage of

Grace.

The insurgents or "pilgrims" were not more consistent than other people,

for they plundered priests to support their "army";[467] and while they

insisted on the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, they had no wish to see

his authority re-established in England. They asked the King to admit

the Pope to be head of spiritual things, giving spiritual authority to

the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, "so that the said Bishop of Rome

have no further meddling."[468]

The insurrections were put down, and Henry did not cease his spoliation

of shrines and monasteries in consequence of their protests; but the

feelings of the people made known by their proclamations, at the

conferences held between their leaders and the representatives of

authority, and by the examination of prisoners and suspected persons,

must have suggested to his shrewd mind whether the Reformation was not

being pressed onward too hastily for the great majority of the English

laity. England did not produce in the sixteenth century a great

spiritual leader inspired by a prophetic conviction that he was speaking

the truth of God, and able to create a like conviction in the hearts of

his neighbours, while he was never so far before them that they could

not easily follow him step by step. The King cried halt; and when

Cromwell insisted on his plan of alliance with the Protestants of the

Continent of Europe, he went the way of all the counsellors of Henry who

withstood their imperious master (July 28th, 1540).

But this is to anticipate. Negotiations were still in progress with the

Lords of the Schmalkald League in the spring of 1539,[469] and the King

was thinking of cementing his connection with the German Lutherans by

marrying Anne of Cleves,[470] the sister-in-law of John Frederick of

Saxony. The Parliament of 1539 (April 28th to June 28th) saw the

beginnings of the change. Six questions were introduced for discussion:

"Whether there be in the sacrament of the altar transubstantiation

of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of flesh and

blood or not? Whether priests may marry by the law of God or not?

Whether the vow of chastity of men and women bindeth by the law of

God or not? Whether auricular confession be necessary by the law of

God or not? Whether private Masses may stand with the Word of God

or not? Whether it be necessary by the Word of God that the

sacrament of the altar should be administered under both kinds or

not?"[471]

The opinions of the Bishops were divided; but the lay members of the

House of Lords evidently did not wish any change from the mediæval

doctrines, and believed that no one could be such a wise theologian as

their King when he confounded the Bishop with his stores of learning.

"We of the temporalitie," wrote one who was present, "have been all of

one opinion ... all England have cause to thank God and most heartily

to rejoice of the King's most godly proceedings."[472] So Parliament

enacted the _Six Articles Act_,[473] a ferocious statute commonly called

"the bloody whip with six strings." To deny transubstantiation or to

deprave the sacraments was to be reckoned heresy, and to be punished

with burning and confiscation of goods. It was made a felony, and

punishable with death, to teach that it was necessary to communicate in

both kinds in the Holy Supper; or that priests, monks, or nuns vowed to

celibacy might marry. All clerical marriages which had been contracted

were to be dissolved, and clerical incontinence was punishable by loss

of property and benefice. Special commissions were issued to hold

quarterly sessions in every county for the enforcement of the statute.

The official title of the Act was _An Act abolishing Diversity of

Opinion_. The first commission issued was for the county of London, and

at the first session five hundred persons were indicted within a

fortnight. The law was, however, much more severe than its enforcement.

The five hundred made their submission and received the King's pardon.

It was under this barbarous statute that so-called heretics were tried

and condemned during the last years of the reign of Henry VIII.

The revival of mediæval doctrine did not mean any difference in the

strong anti-papal policy of the English King. It rather became more

emphatic, and Henry spoke of the Pope in terms of the greatest

disrespect. "That most persistent idol, enemy of all truth, and

usurpator of Princes, the Bishop of Rome," "that cankered and venomous

serpent, Paul, Bishop of Rome," are two of his phrases.[474]

_The Act of the Six Statutes_ made Lutherans, as previous Acts had made

Papists, liable to capital punishment; but while Cromwell remained in

power he evidently was able to hinder its practical execution. Cromwell,

however, was soon to fall. He seemed to be higher in favour than ever.

He had almost forced his policy on his master, and the marriage of Henry

with Anne of Cleves (Jan. 6th, 1540) seemed to be his triumph. Then

Henry struck suddenly and remorselessly as usual. The Minister was

impeached, and condemned without trial. He was executed (July 28th); and

Anne of Cleves was got rid of on the plea of pre-contract to the son of

the Duke of Lorraine (July 9th). It was not the fault of Gardiner, the

sleuth-hound of the reaction, that Cranmer did not share the fate of the

Minister. Immediately after the execution of Cromwell (July 30th), the

King gave a brutal exhibition of his position. Three clergymen of

Lutheran views, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome, were burnt at Smithfield;

and three Romanists were beheaded and tortured for denying the King's

spiritual supremacy.

Henry had kept himself ostentatiously free from responsibility for the

manual of doctrine entitled _Institution of a Christian Man_. Perhaps he

believed it too advanced for his people; it was at all events too

advanced for the theology of the _Six Articles_; another manual was

needed, and was published in 1543 (May 19th). It was entitled _A

Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man; set forth by the

King's Majesty of England_.

It was essentially a revision of the former manual, and may have been of

composite authorship. Cranmer was believed to have written the chapter

on faith, and it was revised by Convocation. The King, who issued it

himself with a preface commending it, declared it to be "a true and

perfect doctrine for all people." It contains an exposition of the

Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and of some selected

passages of Scripture. Its chief difference from the former manual is

that it teaches unmistakably the doctrines of _Transubstantiation_, the

_Invocation of Saints_, and the _Celibacy of the Clergy_. It may be said

that it very accurately represented the theology of the majority of

Englishmen in the year 1543. For King and people were not very far

apart. They both clung to mediæval theology; and they both detested the

Papacy, and wished the clergy to be kept in due subordination. There

was a widespread and silent movement towards an Evangelical Reformation

always making itself apparent when least expected; but probably

three-fourths of the people had not felt it during the reign of Henry.

It needed Mary's burnings in Smithfield and the fears of a Spanish

overlord, before the leaven could leaven the whole lump.

CHAPTER II.

THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI.[475]

When Henry VIII. died, in 1547 (Jan. 28th), the situation in England was

difficult for those who came after him. A religious revolution had been

half accomplished; a social revolution was in progress, creating popular

ferment; evicted tenants and uncloistered monks formed raw material for

revolt; the treasury was empty, the kingdom in debt, and the coinage

debased. The kingly authority had undermined every other, and the King

was a child. The new nobility, enriched by the spoils of the Church, did

not command hereditary respect; and the Council which gathered round the

King was torn by rival factions.[476]

Henry VIII. had died on a Friday, but his death was kept concealed till

the Monday (Jan. 31st), when Edward VI. was brought by his uncle, the

Earl of Hertford, and presented to the Council. There a will of the late

King was produced, the terms of which make it almost impossible to

believe that Henry did not contemplate a further advance towards a

Reformation. It appointed a Council of Regency, consisting of sixteen

persons who were named. Eleven belonged to the old Council, and among

them were five who were well known to desire an advance, while the two

most determined reactionaries were omitted--Bishop Gardiner and Thirlby.

The will also mentioned by name twelve men who might be added to the

Council if their services were thought to be necessary. These were

added. Then the Earl of Hertford was chosen to be Lord Protector of the

Realm, and was promoted to be Duke of Somerset. The coronation followed

(Feb. 20th), and all the Bishops were required to take out new

commissions in the name of the young King--the King's ecclesiastical

supremacy being thus rigidly enforced. Wriothesley, Henry's Lord

Chancellor, who had been created the Earl of Southampton, was compelled

to resign the Great Seal, and with his retirement the Government was

entirely in the hands of men who wished the nation to go forward in the

path of Reformation.

Signs of their intention were not lacking, nor evidence that such an

advance would be welcomed by the population of the capital at least. On

Feb. 10th a clergyman and churchwardens had removed the images from the

walls of their church, and painted instead texts of Scripture; an

eloquent preacher, Dr. Barlow, denounced the presence of images in

churches; images were pulled down from the churches in Portsmouth; and

so on. In May it was announced that a royal visitation of the country

would be made, and Bishops were inhibited from making their ordinary

visitations.

In July (31st) the Council began the changes. They issued a series of

_Injunctions_[477] to the clergy, in which they were commanded to

preach against "the Bishop of Rome's usurped power and jurisdiction"; to

see that all images which had been "abused" as objects of pilgrimages

should be destroyed; to read the Gospels and Epistles in English during

the service; and to see that the Litany was no longer recited or sung in

processions, but said devoutly kneeling. They next issued _Twelve

Homilies_, meant to guard the people against "rash preaching." Such a

series had been suggested as early as 1542, and a proposed draft had

been presented to Convocation by Cranmer in that year, but had not been

authorised. They were now issued on the authority of the Council. Three

of them were composed by Cranmer. These sermons contain little that is

doctrinal, and confine themselves to inciting to godly living.[478]

Along with the _Homilies_, the Council authorised the issue of Udall's

translation of the _Paraphrases_ of Erasmus, which they meant to be read

in the churches.

The royal visitation seems to have extended over a series of years,

beginning in 1547. Dr. James Gairdner discovered, and has printed with

comments, an account or report of a visitation held by Bishop Hooper in

the diocese of Gloucester in 1551. One of the intentions of the

visitation was to discover how far it was possible to expect preaching

from the English clergy. Dr. Gairdner sums up the illiteracy exhibited

in the report as follows:--Three hundred and eleven clergymen were

examined, and of these one hundred and seventy-one were unable to repeat

the _Ten Commandments_, though, strangely enough, all but thirty-four

could tell the chapter (Ex. xx.) in which they were to be found; ten

were unable to repeat the Lord's Prayer; twenty-seven could not tell who

was its author: and thirty could not tell where it was to be found. The

Report deserves study as a description of the condition of the clergy of

the Church of England before the Reformation. These clergymen of the

diocese of Gloucester were asked nine questions--three under three

separate heads: (1) How many commandments are there? Where are they to

be found? Repeat them. (2) What are the Articles of the Christian Faith

(the Apostles' Creed)? Repeat them.--Prove them from Scripture. (3)

Repeat the Lord's Prayer. How do you know that it is the Lord's? Where

is it to be found? Only fifty out of the three hundred and eleven

answered all these simple questions, and of the fifty, nineteen are

noted as having answered _mediocriter_. Eight clergymen could not answer

any single one of the questions; and while one knew that the number of

the Commandments was ten, he knew nothing else. Two clergymen, when

asked why the Lord's Prayer was so called, answered that it was because

Christ had given it to His disciples when he told them to watch and

pray; another said that he did not know why it was called the Lord's

Prayer, but that he was quite willing to believe that it was the Lord's

because the King had said so; and another answered that all he knew

about it was that such was the common report. Two clergymen said that

while they could not prove the articles of the Creed from Scripture,

they accepted them on the authority of the King; and one said that he

could not tell what was the Scripture authority for the Creed, unless it

was the first chapter of Genesis, but that it did not matter, since the

King had guaranteed it to be correct.[479]

There is no reason to believe that the clergy of this diocese were worse

than those in other parts of England. If this report be compared with

the accounts of the unreformed clergy of central Germany given in the

reports of the visitations held there between 1528 and 1535, the

condition of things there which filled Luther with such despair, and

induced him to write his Small Cathechism, was very much better than

that of the clergy of England. Not more than three or perhaps four out

of the three hundred and eleven had ever preached or could preach. These

facts, extracted from the formal report of an authoritative visitation

made by a Bishop, explain the constant cry of the Puritans under

Elizabeth for a preaching ministry.

The Council were evidently anxious that the whole service should be

conducted in the English language, and that a sermon should always be

part of the public worship. The reports of the visitation showed that it

was useless to make any general order, but an example was given in the

services conducted in the Royal Chapel. Meanwhile (1547) Thomas Hopkins

was engaged in making a version of the Psalms in metre, to be sung both

in private and in the churches, and these soon became highly popular.

Like corresponding versions in France and in Germany, it served to

spread the Reformation among the people; and, as might have been

expected, Archbishop Laud did his best to stop the singing of these

Psalms in later days.

The first Parliament of Edward VI. (Nov. 4th to Dec. 24th, 1547) made

large changes in the laws of England affecting treason, which had the

effect of sweeping away the edifice of absolute government which had

been so carefully erected by Henry VIII. and his Minister Thomas

Cromwell. The kingly supremacy in matters of religion was maintained;

but the _Act of the Six Articles_ was erased from the Statute Book, and

with it all heresy Acts which had been enacted since the days of Richard

II., and treason was defined as it had been in the days of Edward III.

This legislation gave an unwonted amount of freedom to the English

people.

Convocation had met in November and December (1547), and, among other

things, had agreed unanimously that in the Holy Supper the partakers

should communicate in both _kinds_, and had passed a resolution by

fifty-three votes to twelve that all canons against the marriage of the

clergy should be declared void. These two resolutions were communicated

to Parliament, with the result that an Act was passed ordaining that

"the most blessed Sacrament be hereafter commonly administered unto the

people within the Church of England and Ireland, and other the King's

dominions, under both the kinds, that is to say, of bread and wine,

except necessity otherwise require."[480] An Act was also framed

permitting the marriage of the clergy, which passed the Commons, but did

not reach the House of Lords in time to be voted upon, and did not

become law until the following year. Other two Acts bearing on the

condition of the Church of England were issued by this Parliament.

According to the one, Bishops were henceforth to be appointed directly

by the King, and their courts were to meet in the King's name. According

to the other, the property of all colleges, chantries, guilds, etc.,

with certain specified exceptions, was declared to be vested in the

Crown.[481]

Communion in both kinds made necessary a new Communion Service, and as a

tentative measure a new form for the celebration was issued by the

Council, which is called by Strype the _Book of Communion_.[482] It

enjoined that the essential words of the Mass should still be said in

Latin, but inserted seven prayers in English in the ceremony. The

Council also proceeded in their war against superstitions. They forbade

the creeping to the Cross on Good Friday, the use of ashes on

Ash-Wednesday, of palms on Palm Sunday, and of candles on Candlemas; and

they ordered the removal of _all_ images from the churches. Cranmer

asserted that all these measures had been intended by Henry VIII.

The next important addition to the progress of the Reformation was the

preparation and introduction of a Service Book[483]--_The Boke of the

Common Praier and Administration of the Sacramentes and other Rites and

Ceremonies after the use of the Churche of England_ (1549), commonly

called _The First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI._ It was introduced by

an _Act of Uniformity_,[484] which, after relating how there had been

for long time in England "divers forms of Common Prayer ... the use of

Sarum, York, Bangor, and of Lincoln," and that diversity of use caused

many inconveniences, ordains the universal use of this one form, and

enacts penalties on those who make use of any other. The origin of the

book is somewhat obscure. There is no trace of any commission appointed

to frame it, nor of any formally selected body of revisers. Cranmer had

the chief charge of it, and was assisted by a number of divines--though

where they met is uncertain, whether at Windsor as the King records in

his diary, or at Chertsey Abbey, as is said in the Grey Friars

Chronicle. About the end of October the Bishops were asked to subscribe

it, and it was subjected to some revision. It was then brought before

the House of Lords and discussed there. It was in this debate that

Cranmer disclosed that he had definitely abandoned the theory of

transubstantiation. The Prayer-Book, however, was eminently

conservative, and could be subscribed to by a believer in the old

theory. The giving and receiving of the _Bread_ is called the _Communion

of the Body of Christ_, of the _Wine_, the _Communion of the Blood of

Christ_; and the practice of making the sign of the Cross is adhered to

at stated points in the ceremony. An examination of its structure and

contents reveals that it was borrowed largely from the old English Use

of Sarum, and from a new Service Book drafted by the Cardinal Quignon

and dedicated to Pope Paul III. The feeling that a new Service Book was

needed was not confined to the Reformers, but was affecting all European

Christians. The great innovation in this Liturgy was that all its parts

were in the English language, and that every portion of the service

could be followed and understood by all the worshippers.

With the publication of this _First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI._

the first stage of the Reformation during his reign comes to an end. The

changes made had all been contemplated by Henry VIII. himself, if we are

to believe what Cranmer affirmed. They did not content the more advanced

Reformers, and they were not deemed sufficient by Cranmer himself.

The changes made in the laws of England--the repeal of the "bloody"

_Statue of the Six Articles_ and of the treason laws--had induced many

of the English refugees who had gone to Germany and to Switzerland to

return to their native land. The Emperor Charles V. had defeated the

German Protestants in the battle of Mühlberg in 1547 (April), and

England for a few years became a place of refuge for continental

Protestants fleeing from the requirements and penalties of the

_Interim_. All this gave a strong impetus to the Reformation movement in

England. Martin Bucer, compelled to leave Strassburg, found refuge and

taught in Cambridge, where he was for a time the regius professor of

divinity. Paul Büchlein (usually known by his latinised name of Fagius),

a compatriot of Bucer and a well-known Hebrew scholar, was also settled

at Cambridge, where he died (Nov. 1549). Peter Martyr Vermigli and

Bernardino Ochino, two illustrious Italian Protestants, came to England

at the invitation of Cranmer himself, and long afterwards Queen

Elizabeth confessed that she had been drawn towards their theology.

Peter Alexander of Arles and John à Lasco, the Pole, also received the

protection and hospitality of England.[485] The reception of these

foreign divines, and their appointment as teachers in the English

universities, did not escape protest from the local teachers of

theology, who were overruled by the Government.

Between the first and the second stage of the Reformation of the Church

of England in this reign, a political change occurred which must be

mentioned but need not be dwelt upon. The Duke of Somerset incurred the

wrath of his colleagues, and of the new nobility who had profited by the

sale of Church lands, by his active sympathy with the landless

peasantry, and by his proposals to benefit them. He was driven from

power, and his place was taken by the unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, who

became Lord Protector, and received the Dukedom of Northumberland. The

new Governor of England has been almost universally praised by the

advanced Reformers because of the way in which he pushed forward the

Reformation. It is well to remember in these days, when the noble

character of the Duke of Somerset has received a tardy recognition,[486]

that John Knox, no mean judge of men, never joined in the praise of

Northumberland, and greatly preferred his predecessor, although his

advance in the path of Reformation had been slower and much more

cautious.

There was much in the times to encourage Northumberland and his Council

to think that they might hurry on the Reformation movement.

The New Learning had made great strides in England, and was leavening

all the more cultured classes, and it naturally led to the discredit of

the old theology. The English advanced Reformers who had taken refuge

abroad, and who now returned,--men like Ridley and Hooper,--could not

fail to have had some influence on their countrymen; they had almost all

become imbued with the Zwinglian type of theology, and Bullinger was

their trusted adviser. It seemed as if the feelings of the populace were

changing, for the mobs, instead of resenting the destruction of images,

were rather inspired by too much iconoclastic zeal, and tried to destroy

stained-glass windows and to harry priests. Cranmer's influence, always

on the side of reform, had much more weight with the Council than was

the case under Henry VIII. He had abandoned long ago his belief in

transubstantiation, he had given up the Lutheran doctrine of

consubstantiation, if he ever held it, and had now accepted a theory of

a real but spiritual Presence in the communion elements which did not

greatly differ from the more moderate Zwinglian view. The clergy, many

of them, were making changes which went far beyond the Act of

Uniformity. The removal of restrictions on printing the Bible had

resulted in the publication of more than twenty editions, most of them

with annotations which explained and enforced the new theology on the

authority of Scripture.

In these circumstances the Council enforced the Act of Uniformity in a

one-sided way--against the Romanist sympathisers. Many Romanist Bishops

were deprived of their sees, and their places were filled by such men as

Coverdale, Ridley, Ponet, and Scovey--all advanced Reformers. John Knox

himself, freed from his slavery in the French galleys by the

intervention of the English Government and made one of the King's

preachers, was offered the bishopric of Rochester, which he declined. It

must be remembered, however, that the Lord Protector and his _entourage_

seem to have been quite as much animated by a desire to fill their own

pockets as by zeal to promote the cause of the Reformation. Indeed,

there came to be in England at this time something like the _tulchan_

Bishops of a later period in Scotland; great nobles got possession of

the episcopal revenues and allowed the new Bishops a stipend out of

them.[487]

Then came a second revision of the Prayer-Book--_The Boke of Common

Prayer and Administration of the Sacramentes and other Rites and

Ceremonies in the Churche of England_ (1552). It is commonly called the

_Second Prayer-Book of King Edward the Sixth_.[488] Cranmer had

conferences with some of the Bishops as early as Jan. 1551 on the

subject, and also with some of the foreign divines then resident in

England; and it is more than probable that his intention was to frame

such a liturgy as would bring the worship of the Church of England into

harmony with that of the continental Reformers. There is no proof that

the book was ever presented to Convocation for revision, or that it was

subject to a debate in Parliament, as was its predecessor. The

authoritative proclamation says:

"The King's most excellent majesty, with the assent of the Lords

and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the

authority of the same, has caused the aforesaid order of common

service, entitled The Book of Common Prayer, to be faithfully and

godly perused, explained, and made fully perfect, and by the

aforesaid authority has annexed and joined it, so explained and

perfected, to this present statute."[489]

This _Book of Common Prayer_ deserves special notice, because, although

some important changes were made, it is largely reproduced in the Book

of Common Prayer which is at present used in the Church of England. The

main differences between it and the _First Prayer-Book of King Edward_

appear for the most part in the communion service, and were evidently

introduced to do away with all thought of a propitiatory Mass. The word

_altar_ is expunged, and _table_ is used instead: _minister_ and

_priest_ are used indifferently as equivalent terms. "The minister at

the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration,

shall use neither Alb, Vestment, nor Cope; but being an archbishop or

bishop, he shall have or wear a rochet: and being a priest or deacon, he

shall have and wear a surplice only." Instead of "standing humbly afore

the midst of the altar," he was to stand "at the north side of the

table"; and the communion table was ordered to be removed from the east

end of the church and to be placed in the chancel. Ordinary instead of

unleavened bread was ordered to be used. In the older book the prayer,

_Have mercy on us, O Lord_, had been used as an invocation of God

present in the sacramental elements; in the new it became an ordinary

prayer to keep the commandments. The _Ten Commandments_ were introduced

for the first time. Some rubrics--that enjoining the minister to add a

little water to the wine--were omitted. Similar changes were made in the

services for baptism and confirmation, and in the directions for

ordination. One rubric was retained which the more advanced Reformers

wished done away with. Communicants were required to receive the

elements kneeling. But the difficulties were removed by a later rubric:

"Yet lest the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we

do declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is

done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread or

wine there bodily received, or to any real or essential presence

there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood."

This addition is said, on somewhat uncertain evidence, to have been

suggested by John Knox.

The most important change, however, was that made in the words to be

addressed to the communicant in the act of partaking. In the _First

Prayer-Book_ the words were:

"When the priest delivereth the sacrament of the Body of Christ, he

shall say to every one these words:

_'The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given, for thee,

preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.'_

And the minister delivering the sacrament of the Blood, and giving

every one once to drink and no more, shall say:

_'The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee,

preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.'_"[490]

In the _Second Prayer-Book_ the rubric was altered to:

"Then the minister, when he delivereth the bread, shall say:

_'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and

feed on Him in thy heart by faith and with thanksgiving.'_

And the minister that delivereth the cup shall say:

_'Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee,

and be thankful.'_"[491]

The difference represented by the change in these words is between what

_might_ be the doctrine of transubstantiation and a sacramental theory

distinctly lower than that of Luther or Calvin, and which _might_ be

pure Zwinglianism.

This _Second Prayer-Book of King Edward_ was enforced by a second _Act

of Uniformity_, which for the first time contained penalties against

laymen as well as clergymen--against "a great number of people in divers

parts of the realm, who did wilfully refuse to come to their parish

churches." The penalties themselves show that many of the population

refused to be dragged along the path of reformation as fast as the

Council wished them to go.[492]

Soon after there followed a new creed or statement of the fundamental

doctrines received by the Church of England. This was the _Forty-two

Articles_, interesting because they formed the basis of the later

Elizabethan _Thirty-nine Articles_. They were thrust on the Church of

England in a rather disreputable way. It was expressly slated on the

title-page that they had been agreed upon by the Bishops and godly

divines at the last Convocation in London--a statement which is not

correct. They were never presented to Convocation, and were issued on

the authority of the King alone, and received his signature on June 12th

(1553), scarcely a month before he died.

One other document belonging to the reign of Edward VI. must be

mentioned--the _Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_, drafted by Cranmer.

The Archbishop had begun in 1544 to collect passages from the old Canon

Law which he thought might serve to regulate the government and

discipline of the Church of England. A commission of thirty-two was

appointed to assist him, and from these a committee of eight were

selected to "rough hew the Canon Law." When the selection was made, a

Bill to legalise it was introduced into Parliament, but it failed to

pass; and the _Reformatio Legum_ never became authoritative in England.

It was as well, for the book enacted death penalties for various

heresies, which would have made it a cruel weapon in the hands of a

persecuting government.

During the reign of Edward VI. the beginnings of that Puritanism which

was so prominent in the time of Elizabeth first manifested themselves.

Its two principal spokesmen were the Bishops Hooper and Ridley. Hooper

was an ardent follower of Zwingli, and was esteemed to be the leader of

the party; and Ridley's sentiments were not greatly different. Hooper

came into contact with the Government when he was appointed to the See

of Gloucester. He then objected to the oath required from Bishops at

their consecration, and to the episcopal robes, which he called

"Aaronic" vestments. The details of the contest are described by a

Zwinglian sympathiser, Macronius, in a letter to Bullinger at

Zurich[493] (Aug. 28th, 1550):

"The King, as you know, has appointed him (Hooper) to the bishopric

of Gloucester, which, however, he refused to accept unless he cd.

be altogether relieved from all appearance of popish superstition.

Here then a question immediately arises as to the form of oath

which the Bishops have ordered to be taken in the name of God, the

saints, and the Gospels; which impious oath Hooper positively

refused to take. So, when he appeared before the King in the

presence of the Council, Hooper convinced the King by many

arguments that the oath should be taken in the name of God alone,

who knoweth the heart. This took place on the 20th of July. It was

so agreeable to the godly King, that with his own pen he erased the

clause of the oath which sanctioned swearing by any creatures.

Nothing could be more godly than this act, or more worthy of a

Christian king. When this was done there remained the form of

episcopal consecration, wh., as lately prescribed by the Bishops

in Parliament, differs but little from the popish one. Hooper

therefore obtained a letter from the King to the Archbishop of

Canterbury (Cranmer), that he might be consecrated without

superstition. But he gained nothing by this, as he was referred

from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bishop of London (Ridley),

who refused to use any other form of consecration than that which

had been subscribed by Parliament. Thus the Bishops mutually

endeavour that none of their glory shall depart. A few days after,

on the 30th of July, Hooper obtained leave from the King and the

Council to be consecrated by the Bishop of London without any

superstition. He replied that he would shortly send an answer

either to the Council or to Hooper. While, therefore, Hooper was

expecting the Bishop's answer, the latter went to court and

alienated the minds of the Council from Hooper, making light of the

use of the vestments and the like in the church, and calling them

mere matters of indifference. Many were so convinced by him that

they would hardly listen to Hooper's defence when he came into

court shortly afterwards. He therefore requested them, that if they

would not hear him speak, they would at least think it proper to

hear and read his written apology. His request was granted:

wherefore he delivered to the King's councillors, in writing, his

opinion respecting the discontinuance of the use of vestments and

the like puerilities. And if the Bishop cannot satisfy the King

with other reasons, Hooper will gain the victory. We are daily

expecting the termination of this controversy, which is only

conducted between individuals, either by conference or by letter,

for fear of any tumult being excited among the ignorant. You see

in what a state of affairs the Church would be if they were left to

the Bishops, even to the best of them."

In the end, Hooper allowed himself to be persuaded, and was consecrated

in the usual way.

The advanced Reformers in England were probably incited to demand more

freedom than the law permitted by the sight of the liberty enjoyed by

men who were not Englishmen. French and German Protestants had come to

England for refuge, and had been welcomed. The King had permitted them

to use the Augustines' church in London, that they might "have the pure

ministry of the Word and Sacraments according to the apostolic form,"

and they enjoyed their privileges.

"We are altogether exempted by letters patent from the King and

Council from the jurisdiction of the Bishops. To each church (I

mean the German and the French) are assigned two ministers of the

Word (among whom is my unworthy self), over whom has been appointed

superintendent the most illustrious John à Lasco; by whose aid

alone, under God, we foreigners have arrived at our present state

of pure religion. Some of the Bishops, and especially the Bishop of

London, with certain others, are opposed to our design; but I hope

their opposition will be ineffectual. The Archbishop of Canterbury,

the special patron of foreigners, has been the chief support and

promoter of our church, to the great astonishment of some."[494]

These foreigners, outside episcopal control and not subject to the _Acts

of Uniformity_, enjoyed liberties of worship which were not granted to

Englishmen. They were driven out of the country when Mary succeeded; but

under Elizabeth and James they had the same privileges and were

naturally envied by the English Puritans, coerced by Bishops and harried

by Acts of Uniformity.

While the Reformation was being pushed forward in England at a speed

too great for the majority of the people, the King was showing the

feebleness of his constitution. He died on the 6th of July 1553, and the

collapse of the Reformation after his death showed the uncertainty of

the foundation on which it had been built.

CHAPTER III.

THE REACTION UNDER MARY.[495]

One of the last acts of the dying King had been to make a will

regulating the succession. It was doubtless suggested to him by the Duke

of Northumberland, but, once adopted, the lad clung to it with Tudor

tenacity. It set aside as illegitimate both his sisters. It also set

aside the young Queen of Scotland, who, failing Mary and Elizabeth, was

the legitimate heir, being the granddaughter of Margaret, the eldest

sister of Henry VIII., and selected the Lady Jane Grey, the

representative (eldest child of eldest child) of Mary, the younger

sister of Henry VIII. Both the King and his Council seem to have thought

that the nation would not submit to a Roman Catholic on the throne; and

Charles V. appears to have agreed with them. He considered the chances

of Mary's succession small.

The people of England, however, rallied to Mary, as the nearest in blood

to their old monarch, who, notwithstanding his autocratic rule, had

never lost touch with his people.

The new Queen naturally turned to her cousin Charles V. for guidance. He

had upheld her mother's cause and her own; and in the dark days which

were past, his Ambassador Chapuys had been her indefatigable friend.

It was Mary's consuming desire to bring back the English Church and

nation to obedience to Rome--to undo the work of her father, and

especially of her brother. The Emperor recommended caution; he advised

the Queen to be patient; to watch and accommodate her policy to the

manifestations of the feelings of her people; to punish the leaders who

had striven to keep her from the throne, but to treat all their

followers with clemency. Above all, she was to mark carefully the

attitude of her sister Elizabeth, and to reorganise the finances of the

country.

Mary had released Gardiner from the Tower, and made him her trusted

Minister. His advice in all matters, save that of her marriage,

coincided with the Emperor's. It was thought that small difficulty would

be found in restoring the Roman Catholic religion, but that difficulties

might arise about the papal supremacy, and especially about the

reception of a papal Legate. Much depended on the Pope. If His Holiness

did not demand the restoration of the ecclesiastical property alienated

during the last two reigns, and now distributed among over forty

thousand proprietors, all might go well.

Signs were not wanting, however, that if the people were almost

unanimous in accepting Mary as their Queen, they were not united upon

religion. When Dr. Gilbert Bourne, preaching at St. Paul's Cross (Aug.

13th, 1553) praised Bishop Bonner, he was interrupted by shouts; a

dagger was thrown at him; he was hustled out of the pulpit, and his life

was threatened. The tumult was only appeased when Bradford, a known

Protestant, appealed to the crowd. The Lord Mayor of London was

authorised to declare to the people that it was not the Queen's

intention to constrain men's consciences, and that she meant to trust

solely to persuasion to bring them to the true faith.

Five days later (August 18th), Mary issued her first _Proclamation about

Religion_, in which she advised her subjects "to live together in quiet

sort and Christian charity, leaving those new-found devilish terms of

papist or heretic and such like." She declared that she meant to support

that religion which she had always professed; but she promised "that she

would not compel any of her subjects thereunto, _unto such time as

further order, by common assent, may be taken therein_"--a somewhat

significant threat. The proclamation prohibited unlicensed preaching and

printing "any book, matter, ballad, rhyme, interlude, process, or

treatise, or to play any interlude, except they have Her Grace's special

licence in writing for the same," which makes it plain that from the

outset Mary did not intend that any Protestant literature should be read

by her subjects if she could help it.[496]

Mary was crowned with great ceremony on October 1st, and her first

Parliament met four days later (Oct. 5th to Dec. 6th, 1553). It reversed

a decision of a former Parliament, and declared that Henry VIII.'s

marriage with Catharine of Aragon had been valid, and that Mary was the

legitimate heir to the throne; and it wiped out all the religious

legislation under Edward VI. The Council had wished the anti-papal laws

of Henry VIII. to be rescinded; but Parliament, especially the House of

Commons, was not prepared for anything so sweeping. The Church of

England was legally restored to what it had been at the death of Henry,

and Mary was left in the anomalous position of being the supreme head of

the Church in England while she herself devoutly believed in the

supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. The title and the powers it gave were

useful to restore by royal proclamation the mediæval ritual and worship,

and Mass was reintroduced in this way in December.[497]

Meanwhile the marriage of the Queen was being discussed. Mary herself

decided the matter by solemnly promising the Spanish Ambassador (Oct.

19th) that she would wed Philip of Spain; the marriage treaty was signed

on January 12th, 1554; the formal betrothal took place in March, and the

wedding was celebrated on July 25th.[498] It was very unpopular from the

first. The boys of London pelted with snowballs the servants of the

Spanish embassy sent to ratify the wedding treaty (Jan. 1st, 1554); the

envoys themselves were very coldly received by the populace; and Mary

had to issue a proclamation commanding that all courtesy should be used

to the Prince of Spain and his train coming to England to marry the

Queen.[499]

In September (1553) the pronouncedly Protestant Bishops who had remained

in England to face the storm, Cranmer, Ridley, Coverdale, Latimer, were

ejected and imprisoned; the Protestant refugees from France and Germany

and many of the eminent Protestant leaders had sought safety on the

Continent; the deprived Romanist Bishops, Gardiner, Heath, Bonner, Day,

had been reinstated; and the venerable Bishop Tunstall, who had acted as

Wolsey's agent at the famous Diet of Worms, had been placed in the See

of Durham.

Various risings, one or two of minor importance and a more formidable

one under Sir Thomas Wyatt, had been crushed. Lady Jane Grey, Lord

Guilford Dudley (February 12th, 1554), Sir Thomas Wyatt, Lord Suffolk,

and others were executed. Charles V. strongly recommended the execution

of the Princess Elizabeth, but his advice was not followed.

England was still an excommunicated land, and both Queen and King

Consort were anxious to receive the papal peace. As soon as he had been

informed by Mary of her succession to the throne, the Pope, Julius II.,

had selected Cardinal Pole to be his Legate to England (early in August

1553). No one could have been more suitable. He was related to the royal

house of England, a grandson of the Duke of Clarence, who was the

brother of Edward IV. He had so thoroughly disapproved of the anti-papal

policy of Henry VIII. that he had been compelled to live in exile. He

was a Cardinal, and had almost become Pope. No one could have been more

acceptable to Mary. He had protested against her mother's divorce, and

had suffered for it; and he was as anxious as she to see England

restored to the papal obedience. But many difficulties had to be cleared

away before Pole could land in England as the Pope's Legate. The English

people did not love Legates, and their susceptibilities had to be

soothed. If the Pope made the restoration of the Church lands a

condition of the restoration of England to the papal obedience, and if

Mary insisted on securing that obedience, there would be a rebellion,

and she would lose her crown. No one knew all these difficulties better

than the Emperor, and he exerted himself to overcome them. The Curia was

persuaded that, as it was within the Canon Law to alienate

ecclesiastical property for the redemption of prisoners, the Church

might give up her claims to the English abbey lands in order to win back

the whole kingdom. Pole himself had doubts about this. He believed that

he might be allowed to reason with the lay appropriators and persuade

them to make restoration, and his enthusiasm on the subject caused many

misgivings in the minds of both Charles and Philip. Nor could the

Cardinal land in England until his attainder as an English nobleman had

been reversed by Parliament. He had been appointed Legate to England

once before (February 7th, 1536), in order to compass Henry VIII.'s

return to the papal obedience; he had written against the Royal

Supremacy. Neither Lords nor Commons were very anxious to receive him.

At last, more than thirteen months after his appointment, the way was

open for his coming to England. He landed at Dover (Nov. 20th, 1554),

went on to Gravesend, and there found waiting him an Act of Parliament

revers ing his attainder. It had been introduced into the Lords, passed

in the Upper House in two days, was read three times in the Commons in

one day, and received the Royal Assent immediately thereafter (Nov.

27th, 1554). Tunstall, the Bishop of Durham, brought him letters patent,

empowering him to exercise his office of Legate in England. He embarked

in a royal barge with his silver cross in the prow, sailed up the Thames

on a favouring tide, landed at Whitehall, and was welcomed by Mary and

Philip. On the following day the two Houses of Parliament were invited

to the Palace to meet him, and he explained his commission. The day

after, the question was put in both Houses of Parliament whether the

nation should return to the papal obedience, and was answered

affirmatively. Whereupon Lords and Commons joined in a supplication to

the Queen "that they might receive absolution, and be received into the

body of the Holy Catholic Church, under the Pope, the Supreme Head

thereof." The Supplication was presented on the 30th, and in its terms

the Queen besought the Legate to absolve the realm for its disobedience

and schism. Then, while the whole assembly knelt, King and Queen on

their knees with the others, the Legate pronounced the absolution, and

received the kingdom "again into the unity of our Mother the Holy

Church."

It now remained to Parliament to pass the laws which the change

required. In one comprehensive statute all the anti-papal legislation of

the reigns of Henry VIII. and of Edward VI. was rescinded, and England

was, so far as laws could make it,[500] what it had been in the reign of

Henry VII. Two days later (Dec. 2nd, 1554), on the first Sunday in

Advent, Philip and Mary, with the Legate, attended divine service in St.

Paul's, and after Mass listened to an eloquent sermon from Bishop

Gardiner, in the course of which he publicly abjured the teaching of

his book _De vera obedientia_.[501] Convocation received a special

absolution from the Legate. To show how thoroughly England had

reconciled itself to Mother Church, Parliament proceeded to revive the

old Acts against heresy which had been originally passed for the

suppression of Lollardy, among them the notorious _De hæretico

comburendo_, and England had again the privilege of burning Evangelical

Christians secured to it by Act of Parliament.[502]

In March 1554 the Queen had issued a series of _Injunctions_ to all

Bishops, instructing them on a variety of matters, all tending to bring

the Church into the condition in which it had been before the

innovations of the late reign. The Bishops were to put into execution

all canons and ecclesiastical laws which were not expressly contrary to

the statutes of the realm. They were not to inscribe on any of their

ecclesiastical documents the phrase _regia auctoritate fulcitus_; they

were to see that no heretic was admitted to any ecclesiastical office;

they were to remove all married priests, and to insist that every person

vowed to celibacy was to be separated from his wife if he had married;

they were to observe all the holy days and ceremonies which were in use

in the later days of the reign of King Henry VIII.; all schoolmasters

suspected of heresy were to be removed from their office. These

_Injunctions_ kept carefully within the lines of the Act which had

rescinded the ecclesiastical legislation of the reign of Edward VI.[503]

The Bishop of London, Bonner, had previously issued a list of searching

questions to be put to the clergy of his diocese, which concerned the

laity as well as the clergy, and which went a good deal further. He

asked whether there were any married clergymen, or clergymen who had not

separated themselves from their wives or concubines? Whether any of the

clergy maintained doctrines contrary to the Catholic faith? Whether any

of the clergy had been irregularly or schismatically ordained? Whether

any of them had said Mass or administered the sacraments in the English

language after the Queen's proclamation? Whether they kept all the holy

days and fasting days prescribed by the Church? Whether any of the

clergy went about in other than full clerical dress? Whether any persons

in the parish spoke in favour of clerical marriage? These and many other

minute questions were put, with the evident intention of restoring the

mediæval ceremonies and customs in every detail.[504] His clergy assured

the Bishop that it was impossible to make all the changes he demanded at

once, and Bonner was obliged to give them till the month of November to

get their parishes in order. This London visitation evidently provoked a

great deal of discontent. In April (1554) "a dead cat was hung on the

gallows in the Cheap, habited in garments like those of a priest. It had

a shaven crown, and held in its forepaws a round piece of paper to

represent a wafer.... A reward of twenty marks was offered for the

discovery of the author of the outrage, but it was quite

ineffectual."[505] Other graver incidents showed the smouldering

discontent.

The revival in Parliament of the old anti-heresy laws may be taken as

the time clearly foreshadowed in the Queen's first proclamation on

religious affairs when persuasion was to cease and force take its place.

The platitudes of many modern historians about Mary's humane and

merciful disposition, about Gardiner's aversion to shedding blood, about

"the good Bishop" Bonner's benevolent attempt to persuade his victims

to recant, may be dismissed from our minds. The fact remains, that the

persecutions which began in 1555 were clearly indicated in 1553, and

went on with increasing severity until the Queen's death put an end to

them.

The visitations had done their work, and the most eminent of the

Reformed bishops and divines had been caught and secured in various

prisons. "The Tower, the Fleet, the Marshalsea, the King's Bench,

Newgate, and the two Counters were full of them."[506] Their treatment

differed. "The prisoners in the King's Bench had tolerably fair usage,

and favour sometimes shown them. There was a pleasant garden belonging

thereunto, where they had liberty sometimes to walk." They had also the

liberty of meeting for worship, as had the prisoners in the Marshalsea.

Their sympathisers who had escaped the search kept them supplied with

food, as did the early Christians their suffering brethren in the first

centuries. But in some of the other prisons the confessors were not only

confined in loathsome cells, but suffered terribly from lack of food. At

the end of Strype's catalogue of the two hundred and eighty-eight

persons who were burnt during the reign of Mary, he significantly adds,

"besides those that dyed of famyne in sondry prisons."[507] Some of the

imprisoned were able to draw up (May 8th, 1554) and send out for

circulation a confession of their faith, meant to show that they were

suffering simply for holding and proclaiming what they believed to be

scriptural truth. They declared that they believed all the canonical

books of Scripture to be God's very Word, and that it was to be the

judge in all controversies of faith; that the Catholic Church was the

Church which believed and followed the doctrines taught in Scripture;

that they accepted the Apostles' Creed and the decisions of the first

four Oecumenical Councils and of the Council of Toledo, as well as the

teachings of Athanasius, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Damasus; that they

believed that justification came through the mercy of God, and that it

was received by none but by faith only, and that faith was not an

opinion, but a persuasion wrought by the Holy Ghost; they declared that

the external service of God ought to be according to God's Word, and

conducted in a language which the people could understand; they

confessed that God only by Jesus Christ is to be prayed to, and

therefore disapproved of the invocation of the saints; they disowned

Purgatory and Masses for the dead; they held that Baptism and the Lord's

Supper were the Sacraments instituted by Christ, were to be administered

according to the institution of Christ, and disallowed the mutilation of

the sacrament, the theory of transubstantiation, and the adoration of

the bread.[508] This was signed by Ferrar, Hooper, Coverdale (Bishops),

by Rogers (the first martyr), by Bradford, Philpot, Crome, Saunders, and

others. John Bradford, the single-minded, gentle scholar, was probably

the author of the Confession.

Cardinal Pole, in his capacity as papal Legate, issued a commission

(Jan. 28th, 1555) to Bishop Gardiner and several others to try the

prisoners detained for heresy. Then followed (Feb. 4th, 1555) the

burning of John Rogers, to whom Tyndale had entrusted his translation of

the Scriptures, and who was the real compiler of the Bible known as

Matthews'. The scenes at his execution might have warned the authorities

that persecution was not going to be persuasive. Crowds cheered him as

he passed to his death, "as if he were going to his wedding," the French

Ambassador reported. His fate excited a strong feeling of sympathy among

almost all classes in society, which was ominous. Even Simon Renard, the

trusted envoy of Charles V., took the liberty of warning Philip that

less extreme measures ought to be used. But the worst of a persecuting

policy is that when it has once begun it is almost impossible to give it

up without confession of defeat. Bishop Hooper was sent to Gloucester

to suffer in his cathedral town, Saunders to Coventry, and Dr. Taylor

was burnt on Aldham Common in Suffolk. Several other martyrs suffered

the same fate of burning a few days afterwards.

Robert Ferrar, the Reformed Bishop of St. David's, was sent to

Carmarthen to be burnt in the chief town of his diocese (March 30th,

1555). Perhaps it was his death that gave rise to the verses in Welsh,

exhorting the men of the Principality to rise in defence of their

religion against the English who were bent on its destruction, and

calling them to extirpate image worship and the use of the

crucifix.[509]

Bishops Ridley and Latimer and Archbishop Cranmer had been kept in

confinement at Oxford since April 1554; and they were now to be

proceeded against. The two Bishops were brought before the Court acting

on a commission from Cardinal Pole, the Legate. They were condemned on

Oct. 1st, 1555, and on the 16th they were burnt at Oxford in the present

Broad Street before Balliol College. Cranmer witnessed their death from

the top of the tower in which he was confined.

In the Archbishop's case it was deemed necessary, in order to fulfil the

requirements of Canon Law, that he should be tried by the Pope himself.

He was accordingly informed that his sovereigns had "denounced" him to

the Pope, and that His Holiness had commissioned the Cardinal Du Puy,

Prefect of the Inquisition, to act on his behalf, and that Du Puy had

delegated the duty to James Brooks, who had succeeded Hooper as Bishop

of Gloucester, to the Dean of St. Paul's, and to the Archdeacon of

Canterbury. The trial took place in St. Mary's Church. The accusers,

Philip and Mary, were represented by Drs. Martyn and Story. They, in the

name of their sovereigns, presented a lengthy indictment, in which the

chief charges were adultery, perjury, and heresy. The first meant that

although a priest he had been married, and had even married a second

time after he had been made an Archbishop; the second, that he had sworn

obedience to the Pope and broken his oath; and the third, that he had

denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.[510]

Cranmer refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of his judges, but

answered the charges brought against him to his accusers because they

represented his sovereigns. He denied that the Pope had any

ecclesiastical power within England; but submitted to the kingly

supremacy. As Brooks had no authority from the Pope to do more than hear

the case, no judgment was pronounced; it was only intimated that the

proceedings would be reported to Rome. Cranmer was conducted back to his

prison. There he addressed first one, then a second letter to the

Queen.[511] In dignified and perfectly respectful language he expressed

the degradation of the kingdom exhibited in the act of the sovereigns

appealing to an "outward judge, or to an authority coming from any

person out of this realm" to judge between them and one of their own

subjects. Cranmer early in his career had come to the unalterable

opinion that the papal supremacy was responsible for the abuses and

disorders in the mediæval Church, and that reformation was impossible so

long as it was maintained. In common with every thoughtful man of his

generation, he repudiated the whole structure of papal claims built up

by the Roman Curia during the fifteenth century, and held that it was in

every way incompatible with the loyalty which every subject owed to his

sovereign and to the laws of his country. He took his stand on this

conviction.

"Ignorance, I know," he said, "may excuse other men; but he that

knoweth how prejudicial and injurious the power and authority which

the Pope challengeth everywhere is to the Crown, laws, and customs

of this realm, and yet will allow the same, I cannot see in anywise

how he can keep his due allegiance, fidelity, and truth to the

Crown and slate of this realm."

In his second letter he struck a bolder note, and declared that the oath

which Mary had sworn to maintain the laws, liberties, and customs of the

realm was inconsistent with the other oath she had taken to obey the

Pope, to defend his person, and to maintain his authority, honour, laws,

and privileges. The accusation of perjury did not touch him at all. The

sovereigns--Bishop Brooks, appointed to try him--every constituted

authority in the realm--when confronted by it, had to choose between the

oath of allegiance to country or to Papacy; he had chosen allegiance to

his fatherland; others who acted differently betrayed it. That was his

position. The words he addressed to Queen Mary--"I fear me that there be

contradictions in your oath "--was his justification.

At Rome, Cranmer was found guilty of contumacy, and the command went

forth that he was to be deposed, degraded, and punished as a heretic. In

the meantime he was burnt in effigy at Rome. When he heard his sentence,

he composed an Appeal to a General Council, following, he said, the

example of Luther.[512] The degradation was committed to Bonner and

Thirlby, and was executed by the former with his usual brutality. This

done, he was handed over to the secular authorities for execution. Then

began a carefully prepared course of refined mental torture, which

resulted in the "Recantations of Thomas Cranmer."[513] A series of

recantations was presented to him, which he was ordered to sign by his

sovereign; and, strange as it may seem now, it was the sovereign's

command that made it almost impossible for Cranmer to refuse to sign the

papers which, one after another, were given him. He was a man who felt

the necessity of an ultimate authority. He had deliberately put aside

that of the Pope, and as deliberately placed that of the sovereign in

its place; and now the ultimate authority, which his conscience

approved, commanded him to sign. The first four were not real

recantations; Cranmer could sign them with a good conscience; they

consisted of generalities, the effect of which depended on the meaning

of the terms used, and everyone knew the meanings which he had attached

to the words all throughout his public life. But the fifth and the sixth

soiled his conscience and occasioned his remorse. It was not enough for

Mary, Pole, and Bonner that they were able to destroy by fire the bodies

of English Reformers, they hoped by working partly on the conscience and

partly on the weakness of the leader of the English Reformation, to show

the worthlessness of the whole movement. In the end, the aged martyr

redeemed his momentary weakness by a last act of heroism. He knew that

his recantations had been published, and that any further declaration

made would probably be suppressed by his unscrupulous antagonists. He

resolved by a single action to defeat their calculations and stamp his

sincerity on the memories of his countrymen. His dying speech was

silenced, as he might well have expected; but he had made up his mind to

something which could not be stifled.[514]

"At the moment he was taken to the stake he drew from his bosom the

identical paper (the recantation), throwing it, in the presence of

the multitude, with his own hands into the flames, asking pardon of

God and of the people for having consented to such an act, which he

excused by saying that he did it for the public benefit, as, had

his life, which he sought to save, been spared him, he might at

some time have still been of use to them, praying them all to

persist in the doctrines believed by him, and absolutely denying

the Sacrament and the supremacy of the Church. And, finally,

stretching forth his arm and right hand, he said: 'This which hath

sinned, having signed the writing, must be the first to suffer

punishment'; and thus did he place it in the fire and burned it

himself."[515]

If the martyrdoms of Ridley and Latimer lighted the torch, Cranmer's

spread the conflagration which in the end burnt up the Romanist reaction

and made England a Protestant nation. The very weakness of the aged

Primate became a background to make the clearer his final heroism. The

"common man" sympathised with him all the more. He had never been a very

strong man in the usual sense of the words. The qualities which go to

form the exquisite liturgist demand an amount of religious sensibility

and sympathy which seldom belongs to the leader of a minority with the

present against it and the future before it. His peculiar kind of

courage, which enabled him to face Henry VIII. in his most truculent

moods, was liker a woman's than a man's, and was especially called forth

by sympathy with others in suffering. None of Henry's Ministers pleaded

harder or more persistently for the Princess Mary, the woman who burnt

him, than did Cranmer; and he alone of all his fellows dared to beseech

the monarch for Cromwell in his fall.[516]

The death of Cranmer was followed by a long succession of martyrdoms.

Cardinal Pole became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in Philip's

absence the principal adviser of the Queen. He did not manage, if he

tried, to stop the burnings. Sometimes he rescued prisoners from the

vindictive Bonner; at others he seems to have hounded on the

persecutors. Mary's conscience, never satisfied at the confiscation of

property, compelled her to restore the lands still in possession of the

Crown, and to give up the "first fruits" of English benefices--the only

result being to awaken the fears of thousands of proprietors, and set

them against the papal claims. She attempted to restore the monastic

institutions, with but scanty results; to revive pilgrimages to shrines,

which were very forced affairs, and had to be kept alive by fining the

parents of children who did not join them. The elevation of Pope Paul

IV. (Cardinal Caraffa) to the See of Rome increased her difficulties.

The new Pontiff, a Neapolitan, hated her Spanish husband, and

personally disliked Cardinal Pole, her chief adviser. Her last years

were full of troubles.

Mary died in 1558 (Nov. 17th). "The unhappiest of queens, and wives, and

women," she had been born amidst the rejoicings of a nation, her mother

a princess of the haughtiest house in Europe. In her girlhood she had

been the bride-elect of the Emperor--a lovely, winning young creature,

all men say. In her seventeenth year, at the age when girls are most

sensitive, the crushing stroke which blasted her whole life fell upon

her. Her father, the Parliament, and the Church of her country called

her illegitimate; and thus branded, she was sent into solitude to brood

over her disgrace. When almost all England hailed her Queen in her

thirty-seventh year, she was already an old woman, with sallow face,

harsh voice, her dark bright eyes alone telling how beautiful she had

once been. But the nation seemed to love her who had been so long

yearning for affection; she married the man of her choice; and she felt

herself the instrument selected by Heaven to restore an excommunicated

nation to the peace of God. Her husband, whom she idolised, tired of

living with her after a few years. The child she passionately longed for

and pathetically believed to be coming never came.[517] The Church and

the Pope she had sacrificed so much for, disregarded her entreaties, and

seemed careless of her troubles. The people who had welcomed her, and

whom she really loved, called her "Bloody" Mary,--a name which was,

after all, so well deserved that it will always remain. Each

disappointment she took as a warning from Heaven that atonement had not

yet been paid for England's crimes, and the fires of persecution were

kept burning to appease the God of sixteenth century Romanism.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SETTLEMENT UNDER ELIZABETH.[518]

Mary Tudor's health had long been frail, and when it was known for

certain that she would leave no direct heir (i.e. from about June 1558),

the people of England were silently coming to the conclusion that

Elizabeth must be Queen, or civil war would result. It seemed also to be

assumed that she would be a Protestant, and that her chief adviser

would be William Cecil, who had been trained in statecraft as secretary

to England's greatest statesman, the Lord Protector Somerset. So it fell

out.

Many things contributed to create such expectations. The young

intellectual life of England was slowly becoming Protestant. Both the

Spanish ambassadors noticed this with alarm, and reported it to their

master.[519] This was especially the case among the young ladies of the

upper classes, who were becoming students learned in Latin, Greek, and

Italian, and at the same time devout Protestants, with a distinct

leaning to what afterwards became Puritanism. Elizabeth herself, at her

most impressionable age had been the pupil of Bishop Hooper, who was

accustomed to praise her intelligence. "In religious matters she has

been saturated ever since she was born in a bitter hatred to our faith,"

said the Bishop of Aquila.[520] The common people had been showing their

hatred of Romanism, and "images and religious persons were treated

disrespectfully." It was observed that Elizabeth "was very much wedded

to the people and thinks as they do," and that "her attitude was much

more gracious to the common people than to others."[521] The burnings of

the Protestant martyrs, and especially the execution of Cranmer, had

stirred the indignation of the populace of London and the south counties

against Romanism, and the feelings were spreading throughout the

country. All classes of the people hated the entire subjugation of

English interests to those of Spain during the late reign, just as the

people of Scotland at the same time were growing weary of French

domination under Mary of Lorraine, and Elizabeth shared the feeling of

her people.[522]

Yet there was so much in the political condition of the times to make

both Elizabeth and Cecil pause before committing themselves to the

Reformation, that it is necessary to believe that religious conviction

had a great influence in determining their action. England was not the

powerful nation in 1558-60 which it became after twenty years under the

rule of the great Queen. The agrarian troubles which had disturbed the

three reigns of Henry VIII., Edward, and Mary had not died out. The

coinage was still as debased as it had been in the closing years of

Henry VIII. Trade was stagnant, and the country was suffering from a two

years' visitation of the plague. The war with France, into which England

had been dragged by Spain, had not merely drained the country of men and

money, but was bringing nothing save loss of territory and damage to

prestige. Nor was there much to be hoped from foreign aid. The Romanist

reaction was in full swing throughout Europe, and the fortunes of the

continental Protestants were at their lowest ebb. It was part of the

treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (April 1559) that France and Spain should

unite to crush the Protestantism of the whole of Europe, and the secret

treaty between Philip II. and Catherine de' Medici in 1565[523] showed

that such a design was thought possible of accomplishment during the

earlier years of Elizabeth. It was never wholly abandoned until the

defeat of the Armada in 1588. Cecil's maxim, that the Reformation could

not be crushed until England had been conquered, had for its corollary

that the conquest of England must be the prime object of the Romanist

sovereigns who were bent on bringing Europe back to the obedience of

Rome. The determination to take the Protestant side added to the

insecurity of Elizabeth's position in the earlier years of her reign.

She was, in the opinion of the Pope and probably of all the European

Powers, Romanist and Protestant, illegitimate; and heresy combined with

bastardy was a terrible weapon in the hands of Henry II. of France, who

meant to support the claims of his daughter-in-law, the young Queen of

Scots,--undoubtedly the lawful heir in the eyes of all who believed that

Henry VIII. had been lawfully married to Catharine of Aragon. The

Spanish Ambassador, Count de Feria, tried to frighten Elizabeth by

reminding her how, in consequence of a papal excommunication, Navarre

had been seized by the King of Spain.[524] His statement to his master,

that at her accession two-thirds of the English people were

Romanists,[525] may be questioned (he made many miscalculations), but it

is certain that England was anything but a united Protestant nation.

Still, who knew what trouble Philip might have in the Netherlands, and

the Lords of the Congregation might be encouraged enough to check French

designs on England through Scotland.[526] At the worst, Philip of Spain

would not like to see England wholly in the grip of France. The Queen

and Cecil made up their minds to take the risk, and England was to be

Protestant and defy the Pope, from "whom nothing was to be feared but

evil will, cursing, and practising."

Paul IV., it was said, was prepared to receive the news of Elizabeth's

succession favourably, perhaps under conditions to guarantee her

legitimacy; but partly to his astonishment, and certainly to his wrath,

he was not even officially informed of her accession, and the young

Queen's ambassador at Rome was told that she had no need for him there.

The changes at home, however, were made with all due caution. In

Elizabeth's first proclamation an "et cetera" veiled any claim to be the

Head of the Church,[527] and her earliest meddling with ecclesiastical

matters was to forbid all contentious preaching.[528] The statutory

religion (Romanist) was to be maintained for the meantime. No official

proclamation was made foreshadowing coming changes.

Elizabeth, however, did not need to depend on proclamations to indicate

to her people the path she meant to tread. She graciously accepted the

Bible presented to her on her entry into London, clasped it to her

bosom, and pressed it to her lips. Her hand ostentatiously shrank from

the kiss of Bonner the persecutor. The great lawyer, Goderick, pointed

out ways in which Protestant feeling might find vent in a legal manner:

"In the meantime Her Majesty and all her subjects may by licence of

law use the _English Litany_ and suffrages used in King Henry's

time, and besides Her Majesty in her closet may use the Mass

without lifting up the Host according to the ancient canons, and

may also have at every Mass some communicants with the ministers to

be used in both kinds."[529]

The advice was acted upon, improved upon. "The affairs of religion

continue as usual," says the Venetian agent (Dec. 17th, 1558), "but I

hear that at Court when the Queen is present a priest officiates, who

says certain prayers with the Litanies in English, after the fashion of

King Edward."[530] She went to Mass, but asked the Bishop officiating

not to elevate the Host for adoration; and when he refused to comply,

she and her ladies swept out of church immediately after the Gospel was

read.[531] Parliament was opened in the usual manner with the

performance of Mass, but the Queen did not appear until it was over; and

then her procession was preceded by a choir which sang hymns in English.

When the Abbot of Westminster met her in ecclesiastical procession with

the usual candles sputtering in the hands of his clergy, the Queen

shouted, "Away with these torches, we have light enough."[532]

She was crowned on January 15th, 1559; but whether with _all_ the

customary ceremonies, it is impossible to say; it is most likely that

she did not communicate.[533] The Bishops swore fealty in the usual way,

but were chary of taking any official part in the coronation of one so

plainly a heretic. Later in the day, Dr. Cox, who had been King Edward's

tutor, and was one of the returned refugees, preached before the Queen.

As early as Dec. 14th (1558) the Spanish Ambassador could report that

the Queen "is every day standing up against religion (Romanism) more

openly," and that "all the heretics who had escaped are beginning to

flock back again from Germany."[534]

When Convocation met it became manifest that the clergy would not help

the Government in the proposed changes. They declared in favour of

transubstantiation and of the sacrifice of the Mass, and against the

royal supremacy. The Reformation, it was seen, must be carried through

by the civil power exclusively; and it was somewhat difficult to

forecast what Parliament would consent to do.

What was actually done is still matter of debate, but it seems probable

that the Government presented at least three Bills. The first was

withdrawn; the second was wrecked by the Queen withholding her Royal

Assent; the third resulted in the Act of Supremacy and in the Act of

Uniformity. It is most likely that the first and second Bills, which did

not become law, included in _one_ proposed Act of legislation the

proposals of the Government about the Queen's Supremacy and about

Uniformity of Public Worship.[535] The first was introduced into the

House of Commons on Feb. 9th (1559), was discussed there Feb. 13th to

16th, and then withdrawn. A "new" Bill "for the supremacy annexed to the

Crown" was introduced in the Commons on Feb. 21st, passed the third

reading on the 25th, and was sent to the Lords on the 27th.[536]

The majority in the House of Commons was Protestant;[537] but the Marian

Bishops had great influence in the House of Lords, and it was there that

the Government proposals met with strong opposition. Dr. Jewel describes

the situation in a letter to Peter Martyr (March 20th):

"The bishops are a great hindrance to us; for being, as you know,

among the nobility and leading men in the Upper House, and having

none there on our side to expose their artifices and confute their

falsehoods, they reign as sole monarchs in the midst of ignorant

and weak men, and easily overreach our little party, either by

their numbers or their reputation for learning. The Queen,

meanwhile, though she openly favours our cause, yet is wonderfully

afraid of allowing any innovations."[538]

The Bill (Bill No. 2--the "new" Bill), which had passed the Commons on

the 25th, was read for the first time in the Lords on the 28th, passed

the second reading on March 13th, and was referred to a Committee

consisting of the Duke of Norfolk, the Bishops of Exeter and Carlisle,

and Lords Winchester, Westmoreland, Shrewsbury, Rutland, Sussex,

Pembroke, Montagu, Clinton, Morley, Rich, Willoughby, and North. They

evidently made such alterations on the Bill as to make that part of it

at least which enforced a radical change in public worship useless for

the purpose of the Government. The clearest account of what the Lords

did is contained in a letter of a person who signs himself "Il

Schifanoya," which is preserved in the State Archives in Mantua.[539] He

says:

"Parliament, which ought to have ended last Saturday, was prolonged

till next Wednesday in Passion Week, and according to report they

will return a week after Easter (March 26, 1559); which report I

believe, because of the three principal articles the first alone

passed, viz. to give the supremacy of the Anglican Church to the

Queen ... notwithstanding the opposition of the bishops, and of the

chief lords and barons of this kingdom; but the Earls of Arundel

and Derby, who are very good Christians, absented themselves from

indisposition, feigned, as some think, to avoid consulting about

such ruin of this realm.

"The Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Viscount Montague

and Lord Hastings did not fail in their duty, like true soldiers of

Christ, to resist the Commons, whom they compelled to modify _a

book passed by the Commons forbidding the Mass to be said or the

Communion to be administered (ne se communicassero) except at the

table in the manner of Edward VI._; nor were the Divine offices to

be performed in church; priests likewise being allowed to marry,

and the Christian religion and the Sacraments being absolutely

abolished; adding thereto many extraordinary penalties against

delinquents. By a majority of votes they have decided that the

aforesaid things shall be expunged from the book, and that the

Masses, Sacraments, and the rest of the Divine offices shall be

performed as hitherto.... The members of the Lower House, seeing

that the Lords passed this article of the Queen's supremacy of the

Church, but not as the Commons drew it up,--the Lords cancelling

the aforesaid clauses and modifying some others,--grew angry, and

would consent to nothing, but are in very great controversy."[540]

The Lords, induced by the Marian Bishops, had wrecked the Government's

plan for an alteration of religion.

The Queen then intervened. She refused her assent to the Bill, on the

dexterous pretext that she had doubts about the title which it proposed

to confer upon her--_Supreme Head of the Church_.[541] She knew that

Romanists and Calvinists both disliked it, and she adroitly managed to

make both parties think that she had yielded to the arguments which each

had brought forward. The Spanish Ambassador took all the credit to

himself; and Sandys was convinced that Elizabeth had been persuaded by

Mr. Lever, who "had put a scruple into the Queen's head that she would

not take the title of Supreme Head."[542]

The refusal of Royal Assent enabled the Government to start afresh. They

no longer attempted to put everything in one Bill. A new Act of

Supremacy,[543] in which the Queen was declared to be "the only supreme

governor of this realm ... as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical

things or causes as temporal," was introduced into the Commons on April

10th, and was read for a third time on the 13th. Brought into the Lords

on April 14th, it was read for a second time on the 17th, and finally

passed on April 29th. If the obnoxious title was omitted, all the

drastic powers claimed by Henry VIII. were given to Elizabeth. The

Elizabethan Act revived no less than nine of the Acts of Henry

VIII.,[544] and among them the statute concerning doctors of civil

law,[545] which contained these sentences: "Most royal majesty is and

hath always been, by the Word of God, Supreme Head on earth of the

Church of England, and hath full power and authority to correct, punish,

and repress all manner of heresies ... and to exercise all other manner

of jurisdiction commonly called ecclesiastical jurisdiction"; and his

majesty is "the only and undoubted Supreme Head of the Church of

England, and also of Ireland, to whom by Holy Scripture all authority

and power is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of causes

ecclesiastical." Thus the very title Supreme Head of the Church of

England was revived and bestowed on Elizabeth by this Parliament of

1559. It may even be said that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction bestowed

upon Elizabeth was more extensive than that given to her father, for

_schisms_ were added to the list of matters subject to the Queen's

correction, and she was empowered to delegate her authority to

commissioners--a provision which enabled her to exercise her supreme

governorship in a way to be felt in every corner of the land.[546] This

Act of Supremacy revived an Act of King Edward VI., enjoining that the

communion should be given in both "kinds," and declared that the revived

Act should take effect from the last day of Parliament.[547] It

contained an interesting proviso that nothing should be judged to be

heresy which was not condemned by canonical Scripture, or by the first

four General Councils "or any of them."[548]

The same Parliament, after briefer debate (April 18th to 28th), passed

an Act of Uniformity which took an interesting form.[549] The Act began

by declaring that at the death of King Edward VI. there "remained one

uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of

sacraments, rites, and ceremonies in the Church of England, which was

set forth in one Book, entitled _The Book of Common Prayer and

Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies in the

Church of England_." This Book had been authorised by Act of Parliament

held in the fifth and sixth years of King Edward VI., and this Act had

been repealed by an Act of Parliament in the first year of the reign of

Queen Mary "to the great decay of the due honour of God, and discomfort

of the professors of the truth of Christ's religion." This Act of Queen

Mary was solemnly repealed, and the Act of King Edward VI., with some

trifling alterations, was restored. In consequence, "all and singular

ministers in any cathedral or parish church" were ordered "to say and

use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's Supper, and

administration of each of the sacraments, and all their common and open

prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book, so

authorised by Parliament in the said fifth and sixth years of the reign

of King Edward VI., with one alteration or addition of certain lessons

to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany

altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of

the sacrament to the communicants, and none other or otherwise." This

meant that while there might be the fullest freedom of thought in the

country and a good deal of liberty of expression, there was to be no

freedom of public worship. All Englishmen, of whatever creed, were to be

compelled by law to join in one common public worship according to the

ritual prescribed. The Act of Parliament which compelled them to this

had no specific Book of Common Prayer annexed to it and incorporated in

it. It simply replaced on the Statute Book the Act of King Edward VI.,

and with it the Second Prayer-Book of King Edward, which with its

rubrics had been "annexed and joined" to that Act[550]--certain

specified alterations in the Book being notified in the Elizabethan Act.

The history of the Elizabethan Prayer-Book is confessedly obscure. If an

important paper called the _Device_,[551] probably drafted by Cecil,

embodied the intentions of the Government, their procedure may be

guessed with some probability. It enumerates carefully, after the manner

of the great Elizabethan statesman, the dangers involved in any

"alteration of religion," and shows how they can be met or averted.

France and Scotland can be treated diplomatically. Rome may be left

unheeded--it is far away, and its opposition will not go beyond "evil

will and cursing." The important dangers were at home. They would come

from two sides--from the Romanists backed by most of the higher clergy;

and from the advanced Reformers, who would scoff at the alteration which

is alone possible in the condition of the kingdom, and would call it a

"cloaked papistry and a mingle-mangle." Yet both may be overcome by

judicious firmness. The Romanists may be coerced by penal laws. The

danger from the advanced Reformers may be got over by a carefully

drafted Prayer-Book, _made as far as possible to their liking_, and

enforced by such penalties as would minimise all objections. There is

great hope that such penalties would "touch but few." "And better it

were that they did suffer than Her Highness or Commonwealth should shake

or be in danger." The _Device_ suggested that a small committee of seven

divines--all of them well-known Reformers, and most of them

refugees--should prepare a Book "which, being approved by Her Majesty,"

might be laid before Parliament. It was evidently believed that the

preparation of the Book would take some time, for suggestion is made

that food, drink, wood, and coals should be provided for their

sustenance and comfort. There is no direct evidence to show that the

suggested committee met or was even appointed; but evidence has been

brought forward to show that most of the theologians named were in

London, and were in a position to meet together and consult during the

period when such a Book would naturally be prepared.[552] The whole

matter is shrouded in mystery, and secrecy was probably necessary in the

circumstances. No one knew exactly what was to take place; but some

change was universally expected. "There is a general expectation that

all rites and ceremonies will shortly be reformed," said Richard Hilles,

writing to Bullinger in the end of February (1559), "by our faithful

citizens and other godly men in the afore-mentioned Parliament, either

after the pattern which was lately in use in the time of King Edward the

Sixth, or which is set forth by the Protestant Princes of Germany in the

afore-mentioned Confession of Augsburg."[553]

The authorities kept their own counsel, and nothing definite was known

to outsiders. A Book was presented to the Commons--_The Book of Common

Prayer and Ministration of the Sacraments_--on Feb. 16th, at the time

when the first draft of the Supremacy Bill was being discussed.[554] It

must have been withdrawn along with that Bill. The second attempt at a

Supremacy Act was probably accompanied with a Prayer-Book annexed to the

Bill; and this Prayer-Book was vehemently opposed in the Lords, who

struck out all the clauses relating to it.[555] What this Book of Common

Prayer was, cannot be exactly known. Many competent liturgist scholars

are inclined to believe that it was something more drastic than the

Edwardine Prayer-Book of 1552, and that it was proposed to enforce it by

penalties more drastic than those enacted by the Act of Uniformity which

finally passed. They find the characteristic features of the Book in the

well-known letter of Guest (Geste) to Cecil.[556] Such suggestions are

mere conjectures. The Book may have been the Edwardine Prayer-Book of

1552.

The Government had made slow progress with their proposed "alteration of

religion," and the Protestant party were chafing at the delay. Easter

was approaching, and its nearness made them more impatient. Canon law

required everyone to communicate on Easter Day, which in 1559 fell on

the 26th of March, and by a long established custom the laity of England

had gone to the Lord's Table on that one day of the year. Men were

asking whether it was possible that a whole year was to elapse before

they could partake of the communion in a Protestant fashion. The House

of Commons was full of this Protestant sentiment. The reactionary

proceedings in the House of Lords urged them to some protest.[557] A

Bill was introduced into the Lower House declaring that "no person shall

be punished for now using the religion used in King Edward's _last_

year." It was read twice and engrossed in one day (March 15th), and was

read a third time and passed on March 18th.[558] It does not appear to

have been before the Lords; but it was acted on in a curious way. A

proclamation, dated March 22nd, declares that the Queen, "with the

assent of Lords and Commons," in the "present last session," has

revived the Act of King Edward VI. touching the reception of the

Communion in both "kinds," and explains that the Act cannot be ready for

Easter. It proceeds: "And because the time of Easter is so at hand, and

that great numbers, not only of the noblemen and gentry, but also of the

common people of this realm, be certainly persuaded in conscience in

such sort as they cannot be induced in any wise to communicate or

receive the said holy Sacrament but under both kinds, according to the

first institution, and to the common use both of the Apostles and of the

Primitive Church ... it is thought necessary to Her Majesty, by the

advice of sundry of her nobility and commons lately assembled in

Parliament," to declare that the statute of Edward is in force, and all

and sundry are commanded to observe the provisions of the statute.[559]

What is more, the Queen acted upon her proclamation. The well-informed

"Schifanoya," writing on March 28th, says that the Government "during

this interval" (i.e. between March 22nd and March 28th) had ordered and

printed a proclamation for every one to take the communion in both

"kinds" (_sub utraque specie_). He goes on to say that on Easter Day

"Her Majesty appeared in chapel, where Mass was sung in English,

_according to the use of her brother, King Edward_, and the communion

received in both 'kinds,' kneeling." The chaplain wore nothing "but the

mere surplice" (_la semplice cotta_).[560] The news went the round of

Europe. Elizabeth had at last declared herself unmistakably on the

Protestant side.

Easter had come and gone, and the religious question had not received

final settlement. The authorities felt that something must be done to

counteract the speeches of the Romanist partisans in the Lords.[561] So,

while Parliament was sitting, a conference was arranged between Roman

Catholic and Protestant divines. It seems to have been welcomed by both

parties. Count Feria, the Spanish Ambassador, declared that he had

something to do with it. He was anxious that the disputation should be

in Latin, that the arguments should be reduced to writing, and that each

disputant should sign his paper. He was overruled so far as the language

was concerned. The authorities meant that the laity should hear and

understand. The three questions debated were:--Whether a "particular

Church can change rites and ceremonies; Whether the services of public

worship must be conducted in Latin; Whether the Mass is a propitiatory

sacrifice." The conference was held at Westminster on March 31st, in

presence of the Privy Council, the Lords and Commons, and the

"multitude." Great expectations were cherished by both parties in

anticipation, and when the Romanist divines withdrew on points of

procedure, their cause suffered in the popular estimation. Two of the

Bishops were sent to the Tower "for open contempt and contumacy"; and

others seem to have been threatened.[562]

Parliament reassembled after the Easter recess and passed the Act of

Supremacy in its third form, and the Act of Uniformity, which

re-enacted, as has been said, the revised Prayer-Book--that is, the

Second Book of King Edward VI. with the distinctly specified

alterations. The most important of these changes were the two sentences

added to the words to be used by the officiating minister when giving

the communion. The clauses had been in the First Prayer-Book of Edward

VI.

While in the Second Prayer-Book of King Edward the officiating minister

was commanded to say while giving the Bread:

_"Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and

feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving,"_

and while giving the Cup, to say:

_"Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee,

and be thankful;"_

the words were altered in the Elizabethan book to:

_"The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee,

preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this

in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy

heart by faith with thanksgiving;"_

"_The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee,

preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in

remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be

thankful._"

The additions in no way detracted from the Evangelical doctrine of the

Sacrament. They rather brought the underlying thought, into greater

harmony with the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. But they have had

the effect of enabling men who hold different views about the nature of

the rite to join in its common use.

When the Act of Uniformity was passed by Parliament, the advanced

Reformers, who had chafed at what appeared to them to be a long delay,

were contented. They, one and all, believed that the Church of England

had been restored to what it had been during the last year of the reign

of Edward VI.; and this was the end for which they had been striving,

the goal placed before them by their friend and adviser, Henry Bullinger

of Zurich.[563] Their letters are full of jubilation.[564]

Yet there were some things about this Elizabethan settlement which,

_if_ interpreted as they have been by some ecclesiastical historians,

make it very difficult to understand the contentment of such men as

Grindal, Jewel, and Sandys. "Of what was done in the matter of

_ornaments_," says Professor Maitland, "by statute, by the rubrics of

the Book, and by _Injunctions_ that the Queen promptly issued, it would

be impossible to speak fairly without lengthy quotation of documents,

the import of which became in the nineteenth century a theme of

prolonged and inconclusive disputation."[565] All that can be attempted

here is to mention the principal documents involved in the later

controversy, and to show how they were interpreted in the life and

conduct of contemporaries.

The Act of Uniformity had restored, with some trifling differences

clearly and definitely stated, Edward VI.'s Prayer-Book of 1552, and

therefore its rubrics.[566] It had at the same time contained a proviso

saying that the _ornaments_ sanctioned by the authority of Parliament in

the second year of Edward VI. were "to be retained and be in use" "until

further order shall therein be taken."

Men like Grindal and Jewel took no exception to this proviso, which they

certainly would have done had they believed that it ordained the actual

use in time of public worship, of the ornaments used in the second year

of King Edward. The interpretation they gave to the proviso is seen from

a letter from Sandys to Parker (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury),

written two days after the Act of Uniformity had passed the Lords. He

says:

"The last book of service has gone through with a proviso to retain

the ornaments which were used in the first and second year of King

Edward, until it please the Queen to take other order for them. Our

gloss upon the text is that we shall not be enforced to use them,

but that others in the meantime shall not convey them away, but

that they may remain for the Queen."[567]

Sandys and others understood the proviso to mean that recalcitrant

clergy like the Warden of Manchester, who carried his consecrated

vestments to Ireland, were not to make off with the ornaments, and that

churchwardens or patrons were not to confiscate them for their private

use. They were property belonging to the Queen, and to be retained until

her Majesty's pleasure was known. The whole history of the visitations

goes to prove that Sandys' interpretation of the proviso was that of its

framers.

When the Prayer-Book was actually printed it was found to contain some

differences from the Edwardine Book of 1552 besides those mentioned in

the Act as the only ones to be admitted; and early editions have not

always the same changes. But the one thing of importance was a rubric

which, on what seems to be the only possible interpretation, enjoins the

use in public worship of the ornaments (_i.e._ the vestments) in use in

the second year of King Edward.[568] How this rubric got into the

Prayer-Book it is impossible to say. It certainly was not enacted by the

Queen "with assent of Lords and Commons." We have no proof that it was

issued by the Privy Council.[569] The use and wont of the Church of

England during the period of the Elizabethan settlement was as if this

rubric had never existed. It is directly contradicted by the thirtieth

Injunction issued for the Royal Visitation of 1559.[570] It was not

merely contemptuously ignored by the Elizabethan Bishops; they compelled

their clergy, if compulsion was needed, to act in defiance of it.

Contemporary sources abundantly testify that in the earlier years of the

reign of Queen Elizabeth the English clergy in their ministrations

scarcely ever wore any ecclesiastical garment but the surplice; and

sometimes not even that. The _Advertisements_[571] of 1566, which almost

all contemporary notices speak of as prescribing what had been enjoined

in the Injunctions of 1559, were drafted for the purpose of coercing

clergymen who were in the habit of refusing to wear even the surplice,

and they enjoined the surplice only, and the cope[572] in cathedrals. In

the Visitation carried out in accordance with the directions in the

Injunctions, a clean sweep was made of almost all the _ornaments_ which

were not merely permitted but ordered in the proviso of the Act of

Uniformity and the Rubric of 1559 on the ordinary ritualistic

interpretation of these clauses. The visitors proceeded on a uniform

plan, and what we hear was done in one place may be inferred as the

common practice. The Spanish Ambassador (July or August 1559) wrote to

his master: "They are now carrying out the law of Parliament respecting

religion with great rigour, and have appointed six visitors.... They

have just taken the crosses, images, and altars from St. Paul's and all

the other London churches."[573] A citizen of London noted in his diary:

"The time before Bartholomew tide and after, were all the roods and

Maries and Johns, and many other of the church goods, both copes,

crosses, censers, altar cloth, rood cloths, books, banners, banner

stays, wainscot and much other gear about London, burnt in

Smithfield."[574] What took place in London was done in the provinces.

At Grantham, "the vestments, copes, albs, tunicles, and all other such

baggages were defaced and openly sold by the general consent of the

whole corporation, and the money employed in setting up desks in the

church, and making of a decent communion table, and the remnant to the

poor."[575]

It is true that we find complaints on the part of men like Jewel of

ritualistic practices which they do not like; but these in almost every

case refer to worship in the royal chapel. The services there were well

known, and both friends and foes of the Reformation seemed to take it

for granted that what was the fashion in the royal chapel would soon

extend to the rest of the realm.[576] Historians have usually attributed

the presence of crosses, vestments, lights on the altar, to the desire

of the Queen to conciliate her Romanist subjects, or to stand well with

the great Roman Catholic Powers of Europe. It is quite likely that the

Queen had this thought in her mind. Elizabeth was a thrifty lady, and

liked to bring down many birds with the one stone. But the one abiding

thought in the mind of the astute Queen was to stand well with the

Lutherans, and to be able, when threatened with papal excommunication,

to take shelter under the ægis of the Peace of Augsburg.

When the Government had secured the passing of the Acts of Supremacy and

Uniformity, they were in a position to deal with the recalcitrant

clergy. Eleven of the English Episcopal Sees had been vacant at the

accession of Elizabeth, among them that of the Primate; for Cardinal

Pole had died a few hours after Mary, In the summer and autumn of 1559

the sixteen Bishops were called upon to sign the Oath of Supremacy, in

which the papal rule over the Church of England was abjured, and the

Queen declared to be the Supreme Governor of the Church. All the

Bishops, more or less definitely, refused to take the oath; although

three were at first doubtful. They were deprived, and the English Church

was practically without Bishops.[577] Some of the deprived Bishops of

King Edward's time survived, and they were restored. Then came

discussion about the manner of appointing new ones. Some would have

preferred a simple royal nomination, as in Edward's time; but in the end

it was resolved that the appointment should be nominally in the hands

of the Deans and Chapters according to mediæval rule, with the proviso,

however, that the royal permission to elect had first to be given, and

that the person named in the "leave to elect" should be chosen. Then the

question of consecration gave rise to some difficulties; but these were

got over in ways which were deemed to be sufficient. Matthew Parker,

after more than one refusal, was nominated and consecrated Archbishop of

Canterbury. Lists of clerical persons suitable for promotion were

prepared for the Queen,[578] and the other Sees were gradually filled.

The Elizabethan episcopate, with the exception of the few Edwardine

Bishops, was an entirely new creation. A large number of the Deans and

members of the Cathedral Chapters had also refused to sign the Oath of

Supremacy; they were deprived, and others who were on the lists were

appointed in their place. The inferior clergy proved to be much more

amenable, and only about two hundred were in the end deprived. The

others all accepted the "alteration of religion"; and the change was

brought about quietly and without the riotings which had accompanied the

alterations made in the days of Edward, or the wholesale deprivations

which had followed upon those made by Queen Mary--when almost one-third

of the beneficed clergy of the Church of England had been removed from

their benefices. A similar passive acquiescence was seen in the

introduction of the new Book of Common Prayer, and in the fulfilment of

the various orders for the removal of images, etc. The great altars and

crucifixes were taken away, and the pictures covered with whitewash,

without any disturbances to speak of.

The comparative ease with which the "alteration of religion" was

effected was no doubt largely due to the increased Protestant feeling of

the country; but the tact and forbearance of those who were appointed to

see the changes carried out counted for something; and perhaps the

acquiescence of the Roman Catholics was due to the fact that they had no

great leader, that they did not expect the Elizabethan settlement to

last long, and that they waited in expectation that one or other of the

two Romanist Powers, France or Spain, would interfere in their behalf.

The religious revolution in Scotland in 1560 saved the Elizabethan

settlement for the time; and Philip of Spain trifled away his

opportunities until a united England overthrew his Armada, which came

thirty years too late.

The change was given effect to by a Royal Visitation. England was

divided into six districts, and lists of visitors were drawn up which

included the Lords Lieutenants of the counties, the chief men of the

districts, and some lawyers and clergymen known to be well affected to

the Reformation. They had to assist them a set of Injunctions, modelled

largely, not entirely, on those of Edward VI., drafted and issued by

royal command.[579] The members of the clergy were dealt with very

patiently, and explanations, public and private, were given of the Act

of Supremacy which made it easier for them to accept it. The Elizabethan

Bishops were also evidently warned to deal tenderly with stubborn parish

clergymen; they would have been less patient with them if left to

themselves. One, Bishop Best, Bishop of Carlisle, is found writing to

Cecil about his clergy, that "the priests are wicked impes of

Antichrist," for the most part very ignorant and stubborn; another,

Pilkington, the Bishop of Durham, in describing the disordered state of

his diocese, declared that "like St. Paul, he has to fight with beasts

at Ephesus"; and a third, Scory, Bishop of Winchester, wrote that he was

much hindered by justices of the peace who were Roman Catholics, and

that when certain priests who had refused to take the oath were driven

out of Exeter and elsewhere, they were received and feasted in the

streets with torch-lights.[580]

Elizabeth's second Parliament was very much more Protestant than the

first, and insisted that the Oath of Supremacy must be taken by all the

members of the House of Commons, by all lawyers, and by all

schoolmasters. The Convocation of 1563 proved that the clergy desired to

go much further in the path of Reformation than the Queen thought

desirable.

They clearly wished for some doctrinal standard, and Archbishop Parker

had prepared and laid before Convocation a revised edition of the

_Forty-two Articles_ which had defined the theology of the Church of

England in the last year of King Edward VI.[581] The way had been

prepared for the issue of some authoritative exposition of the doctrinal

position of the Elizabethan Church by the _Declaration of the Principal

Articles of Religion_--a series of eleven articles framed by the Bishops

and published in 1561 (March), which repudiates strongly the Romanist

doctrines of the Papacy, private Masses, and the propitiatory sacrifice

in the Holy Supper. The Spanish Ambassador, who had heard of the

meetings of the Bishops for this purpose, imagined that they were

preparing articles to be presented to the Council of Trent on behalf of

the Church of England.[582] The Archbishop's draft was revised by

Convocation, and was "diligently read and sifted" by the Queen herself

before she gave her consent to the authoritative publication of the

Articles.

These _Thirty-nine Articles_ expressed the doctrine of the Reformed or

Calvinist as distinguished from the Evangelical or Lutheran form of

Protestant doctrine, and the distinction lay mainly in the views which

the respective Confessions of the two Churches held about the Presence

of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Supper. By this time (1562)

Zwinglianism, as a doctrinal system, not as an ecclesiastical policy,

had disappeared;[583] and the three theories of the Presence of Christ

in the Sacrament had all to do with the Presence of the Body of Christ

and not with a spiritual Presence simply. The Romanist theory,

transubstantiation, was based on the mediæval conception of a substance

existing apart from all accidents of smell, shape, colour, etc., and

declared that the "substance" of the Bread and of the Wine was changed

into the "substance" of the Body and Blood of Christ, while the

accidents or qualities remained the same--the change being miraculously

effected by the priest in consecrating the communion elements. The

Lutheran explanation was based upon a mediæval theory also--on that of

the ubiquity or natural omnipresence of the "glorified" Body of Christ.

The Body of Christ, in virtue of its ubiquity, was present everywhere,

in chairs, tables, stones flung through the air (to use Luther's

illustrations), and therefore in the Bread and in the Wine as everywhere

else. This ordinary presence became an efficacious sacramental Presence

owing to the promise of God. Calvin had discarded both mediæval

theories, and started by asking what was meant by _substance_ and what

by _presence_; he answered that the substance of anything is its power

(_vis_), and its presence is the immediate application of its power.

Thus the substance of the crucified Body of Christ is its power, and the

Presence of the crucified Body of Christ is the immediate application of

its power; and the guarantee of the application of the power is the

promise of God received by the believing communicant. By discarding the

Lutheran thought that the substance of the Body of Christ is something

extended in space, and accepting the thought that the main thing in

substance is power, Calvin was able to think of the substance of the

Body of Christ in a way somewhat similar to the mediæval conception of

"substance without accidents," and was able to show that the Presence of

Christ's Body in the sacrament could be accepted and understood without

the priestly miracle, which he and all Protestants rejected. Hence it

came to pass that Calvin could teach the Real Presence of Christ's Body

in the Sacrament of the Supper without having recourse to the mediæval

doctrine of "ubiquity," which was the basis of the Lutheran theory. They

both (Calvin and Luther) insisted on the Presence of the Body of Christ;

but the one (Luther) needed the theory of "ubiquity" to explain the

Presence, while the other (Calvin) did not need it. But as both

discarded the priestly miracle while insisting on the Presence of the

Body, the two doctrines might be stated in almost the same words,

provided all mention of "ubiquity" was omitted. Calvin could and did

sign the Augsburg Confession; but he did not read into it what a

Lutheran would have done, the theory of "ubiquity"; and a Calvinist

statement of the doctrine, provided only "ubiquity" was not denied,

might be accepted by a Lutheran as not differing greatly from his own.

Bishop Jewel asserts again and again in his correspondence, that the

Elizabethan divines did not believe in the theory of "ubiquity,"[584]

and many of them probably desired to say so in their articles of

religion. Hence in the first draft of the Thirty-nine Articles presented

to Convocation by Archbishop Parker, Article XXVIII. contained a strong

repudiation of the doctrine of "ubiquity," which, if retained, would

have made the Articles of the Church of England more anti-Lutheran than

even the second Helvetic Confession. The clause was struck out in

Convocation, probably because it was thought to be needlessly offensive

to the German Protestants.[585] The Queen, however, was not satisfied

with what her divines had done, and two important interferences with

the Articles as they came from Convocation are attributed to her. The

first was the addition of the words: _and authoritie in controversies of

fayth_, in Article XX., which deals with the authority possessed by the

Church. The second was the complete suppression for the time being of

Article XXIX., which is entitled, _Of the wicked which do not eate the

Body of Christe in the use of the Lordes Supper_, and is expressed in

terms which most Lutherans would have been loath to use.

The Queen's action was probably due to political reasons. It was

important in international politics for a Protestant Queen not yet

securely seated on her throne to shelter herself under the shield which

a profession of Lutheranism would give. The German Lutherans had won

legal recognition within the Empire at the Diet of Augsburg in 1555; the

votes of two Lutheran Electors had helped to place the Emperor on his

throne; and the Pope dared not excommunicate Lutheran Princes save at

the risk of offending the Emperor and invalidating all his acts. This

had been somewhat sternly pointed out to him when he first threatened to

excommunicate Elizabeth, and the Queen knew all the difficulties of the

papal position. One has only to read an account of a long conversation

with her, reported by the Spanish Ambassador to his master (April 29th,

1559), to see what use the "wise Queen with the eyes that could

flash"[586] made of the situation. The Ambassador had not obscurely

threatened her with a papal Bull declaring her a bastard and a heretic,

and had brought home its effects by citing the case of the King of

Navarre, whose kingdom was taken from him by Ferdinand of Spain acting

as the Pope's agent, and Elizabeth had played with him in her usual way.

She had remarked casually "that she wished the Augsburg Confession to be

maintained in her realm, whereat," says the Count de Feria, "I was much

surprised, and found fault with it all I could, adducing the arguments I

thought might dissuade her from it. She then told me it would not be the

Augsburg Confession, but something else like it, and that she differed

very little from us, as she believed that _God was in the Sacrament of

the Eucharist_, and only dissented from three or four things in the

Mass. After this she told me that she did not wish to argue about

religious matters."[587] She did not need to argue; the hint had been

enough for the baffled Ambassador.

Article XXIX. was suppressed, and only _Thirty-eight Articles_ were

acknowledged publicly. The papal Bull of excommunication was delayed

until 1570, when its publication could harm no one but Elizabeth's own

Romanist subjects, and the dangerous period was tided over safely. When

it came at last, the Queen was not anathematised in terms which could

apply to Lutherans, but because she personally acknowledged and observed

"the impious constitutions and atrocious mysteries of Calvin," and had

commanded that they should be observed by her subjects.[588] Then, when

the need for politic suppression was past, Article XXIX. was published,

and the _Thirty-nine Articles_ became the recognised doctrinal standard

of the Church of England (1571).

What the Queen's own doctrinal beliefs were no one can tell; and she

herself gave the most contrary descriptions when it suited her policy.

The disappearance and reappearance of crosses and candles on the altar

of the royal chapel were due as much to the wish to keep in touch with

the Lutherans as to any desire to conciliate the Queen's Romanist

subjects.

The Convocation of 1563 had other important matters before it. Its

proceedings showed that the new Elizabethan clergy contained a large

number who were in favour of some drastic changes in the Prayer-Book and

in the Act of Uniformity. Many of them had become acquainted with and

had come to like the simplicity of the Swiss worship, thoroughly

purified from what they called "the dregs of Popery"; and others envied

the Scots, "who," wrote Parkhurst to Bullinger (Aug. 23rd, 1559), "have

made greater progress in true religion in a few months than we have done

in many years."[589]

Such men were dissatisfied with much in the Prayer-Book, or rather in

its rubrics, and brought forward proposals for simplifying the worship,

which received a large measure of support. It was thought that all

organs should be done away with; that the ceremony of "crossing" in

baptism should be omitted; that all festival days save the Sundays and

the "principal feasts of the Church" should be abolished;--this proposal

was lost by a majority of one in the Lower House. Another motion,

leaving it to the option of communicants to receive the Holy Supper

either standing, sitting, or kneeling, as it pleased them, was lost by a

very small majority. Many of the Bishops themselves were in favour of

simplifying the rites of the Church; and five Deans and twelve

Archdeacons petitioned against the use of the surplice. The movement was

so strong that Convocation, if left to itself, would probably have

purified the Church in the Puritan sense of the word. But the Queen had

all the Tudor liking for a stately ceremonial, and she had political

reasons, national and international, to prevent her allowing any drastic

changes. She was bent on welding her nation together into one, and she

had to capture for her Church the large mass of people who were either

neutral or who had leanings to Romanism, or at least to the old mediæval

service. The Council of Trent was sitting; Papal excommunication was

always threatened, and, as above explained, Lutheran protection and

sympathy were useful. The ceremonies were retained, the crucifixes and

lights on the altars were paraded in the chapel royal to show the

Lutheran sympathies of the Queen and of the Church of England. The

Reforming Bishops, with many an inward qualm,[590] had to give way; and

gradually, as the Queen had hoped, a strong Conservative instinct

gathered round the Prayer-Book and its rubrics. The Convocation of 1563

witnessed the last determined attempt to propose any substantial

alteration in the public worship of the English people.

At the same Convocation a good deal of time was spent upon a proposed

Book of Discipline, or an authoritative statement of the English canon

law. It is probable that its contents are to be found in certain

"_Articles for government and order in the Church, exhibited to be

permitted by authority; but not allowed_," which are printed by

Strype[591] from Archbishop Parker's MSS. Such a book would have

required parliamentary authority, and the Parliament of 1563 was too

much occupied with the vanishing protection of Spain and with the

threatening aspect of France and Scotland. The marriage of the Queen of

Scots with Darnley had given additional weight to her claims on the

English throne; and it was feared that the English Romanists might rise

in support of the legitimate heir. Parliament almost in a panic passed

severe laws against all recusants, and increased the penalties against

all who refused the oath of allegiance or who spoke in support of the

authority of the Bishop of Rome. The discipline of the Church was left

to be regulated by the old statute of Henry VIII., which declared that

as much of the mediæval canon law as was not at variance with the

Scriptures and the Acts of the English Parliament was to form the basis

of law for the ecclesiastical courts. This gave the Bishop's officials

who presided over the ecclesiastical courts a very free hand; and under

their manipulation there was soon very little left of the canon

law--less, in fact, than in the ecclesiastical courts of any other

Protestant Churches. For these officials were lawyers trained in civil

law and imbued with its principles, and predisposed to apply them

whenever it was possible to do so.

The formulation of the _Thirty-nine Articles_ in the Convocation of 1563

may be taken as marking the time when the "alteration of religion" was

completed. The result, arrived at during a period of exceptional storm

and strain, has had the qualities of endurance, and the Church of

England is at present what the Queen made it. It was the Royal Supremacy

which secured for High Church Anglicans the position they have to-day.

The chief features of the settlement of religion were: