PRINCETON, N. J BX 5055 .H673 1881 ' Hore, A. H. Eighteen centuries of the Church in England EIGHTEEN CENTURIES OF THE churchI%/'1,15iV IN ENGLAND. BY THE REV. A. H. HORE, M.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. PARKER AND CO. OXFORD, AND 6 SOUTHAMPTON-STREET, STRAND, LONDON. 1881. PREFACE. 'J^HE object of the present work is to lay before English Churchmen, I will not say the history, but an unbroken narrative of their Church from its commencement to the present day. An idea prevails with some, and those influential people, who use their influence to the detriment of the Church, that the Church in England was founded by the State at the Reformation ; that the State therefore has the right to deal with it as it pleases, to secularize its institu- tions, or to confiscate its endowments. So far from this being true, history shews that a Christian Church existed in this country of ours long before the Ger- mans converted Britain into England, and long before Parliament was thought of ; the Reformers themselves tell us again and again that it was not the intention of the Reformation to innovate, but to restore ; to root out recent corruptions that had crept in ; and to restore what existed in the primitive and purer ages of the Church ; and not " to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like Churches \" Instead of the State making the Church, it would be far more correct to say that the Church made the State, for it was the National Synods of the ° Canon xxx. A 2 IV PREFACE. English Church which first suggested the idea of a Na- tional Parliament ; the Canons passed in those synods were the origin of our Statute Law ^ ; and instead of the State having endowed the Church, the property of the Church is incomparably the most ancient form of property which exists. In traversing so long a period as eighteen hundred years, I have unavoidably been brought much in con- tact with the Church of Rome, the course of which, for more than three hundred years, flowed much in the same channel as that of our own Church. In order to avoid, as much as possible, controversy, which is at all times objectionable, and to present an unbroken narrative of our own Church, I have devoted one chapter to a short review of the rise and marvellous progress of the Church of Rome, from the time when, from being the head of the Suburbicarian Provinces of the imperial city, it claimed its right to make and de- pose emperors and kings ; when the Pope deposed King John of England, and compelled him to hold his kingdom as a fief of Rome ; till the time when the un- willing thraldom under which the Papacy held the State, no less than the Church, was shaken off at the Reformation. In carrying out the object which I had in view, I have endeavoured, without advocating the cause of any particular party, to take my stand on the lines of the English Church ; although I have not hesitated to do justice to the memory of those who in past time See Green's History of the English People, vol. i. 59. PREFACE. V have fought the battle of the Church, because it is the fashion of the nineteenth century to disparage them ; or to defend any unpopular cause, simply because it is unpopular ; or to present in their true light, practices, even if my own feelings may lead me to doubt their expediency, when I am describing not what ought to be, but what is, the Law of the Church. Whatever may be the value of the present work, my excuse for writing it is, that it is the first attempt that has been made to give a continuous narrative from its commencement of the Church in England ; and my aim has been to write it in a style which may not only be instructive to students and candi- dates for Holy Orders, but also not unattractive to general readers, many of whom, whilst they would be ashamed to be ignorant of the secular history of their country, have, it is to be feared, although they may be ready with an answer on every subject which divides us, bestowed little attention on what certainly is not less interesting, and ought not to be of less importance, the history of their Church. 5 Marine Square, Brighton, July, 1 88 1. ERRATA. Page 70, line 25,>r " Ethelfrid " read " Ethelred." 233, note \\,for "prohibited" " perfected." 362, line 2,^ for " associates " read " associations." 416, „ 6,/or" is6s" read" is66." 426, „ 29,/«?r " Stillingfleet " r^a^f " Chillingwor 535) !) 2, "Jamaica " " and Barbados. 553, >, S,/or" 1801" read" iS 11." CONTENTS. PART I. Zbc Britisb Cburcb. CHAPTER I. The Foundation of the British Church. The religion of the primitive inhabitants of Britain. — Authorities as to the early introduction of Christianity into the country. — Tra- ditions about SS. James, Simon Zelotes, and Aristobulus, improbable. — St. Joseph of Arimathasa. — St. Peter. — Important authorities, that St. Paul preached in Britain. — Opposed by the most recent Com- mentators.— But not impossible. — The British Church of Oriental foundation. — Primitive Liturgies . . . pp. i — 19 CHAPTER n. The British Church to the Missions of St. German. Identity of the British Church with the Church of the present day. — King Lucius. — The Diocletian perseciftion. — St. Alban. — Constantine declared Emperor in Britain. — British Bishops present at Councils. — Aries. — Nice. — Sardica. — Rimini. — Orthodoxy of the early British Church. — But it was afterwards tainted with Pelagian- ism. — Two visits of St. German to Britain. — The Alleluia victory. pp. 20—36 CHAPTER HL The British Church in Wales. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest. — Christianity annihilated in the parts occupied by the English. — Takes refuge in Wales. — Combination of the Churches of Britain, Ireland, and Scotland. — British Missions. — Ninian. — Patrick. — Columba. — Columban. — Gall. — Willibrord. — Kilian. — The two Ewalds. — Boniface. — British Schools and Monas- teries.— British Saints . . . . • PP- 37 — 59 viii CONTENTS. PART II. Zhc Bnolo*Sajon Cburcb. CHAPTER I. The Conversion of England. Gregory the Great. — Sends Augustine and forty Monks into Eng- land.— Cowardice of the Missionaries. — Ethelbert, King of Kent, baptized. — Augustine consecrated " Archbishop of the Enghsh." — Meetings between Augustine and the British Bishops. — Arrogance of the former. — Death of Augustine. — Lawrence consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.— Conversion of the Heptarchy. — Bishop Wilfrid ...... pp. 60 — 90 CHAPTER II. From Archbishop Theodore to the Lichfield Archbishopric. Theodore consecrated Archbishop at Rome. — Promotes the build- ing and endowment by the Thanes of Churches. — Synod of Hert- ford.— Wilfrid appeals to the Pope against the Archbishop and the King. — Is in consequence imprisoned. — Council of Hatfield. — Death of Theodore. — Wilfrid's second appeal to Rome. — The Papal decree in his favour not accepted in England. — Benedict Biscop. — Laws of Ina. — York becomes a Metropolitan see. — Synod of Cloveshoo. — The short-lived Archbishopric of Lichfield. — Peter- pence ...... pp. 91 — 109 CHAPTER III. The Danish Invasions. Danish hatred of Christianity. — Persecutions. — Synod of Calcuith. — King Alfred. — His zeal for learning. — Intercourse between Eng- land and the Churches of India ; — And the Patriarch of Jerusalem. — Alfred a great admirer of Rome.- Destruction of Monasteries by the Danes. — Revival of Monasticism under Odo and Dunstan. — Archbishop Elfric — Piety of King Cnut.— The Normans. — Battle of Senlac. — The cause of Rome advanced in England. pp. no — 129 CONTENTS. ix PART III. XTbe Hnolo=1Klorman Cbuvcb. CHAPTER I. Lanfranc and William I. Low state of morality in England at the Norman Conquest. — Severity of William to the English Church. — Archbishop Stigand deposed. — Wulfstan. — William's independence of the Pope. — Clerical marriages. — Separation of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Courts. — Lanfranc. — Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. — Rebuilds Canterbury Cathedral. — Lanfranc's independence. — Pope Gre- gory VIL ; — Upholds the doctrine of Transubstantiation against Berenger. — The Sarum Missal arranged by Bishop Osmund. — Dis- putes between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. pp. 130 — 142 CHAPTER IL Anselm and William II. and Henry I. The see of Canterbury kept vacant four years. — Anselm re- luctantly accepts it. — His disputes with William Rufus. — Two Popes at Rome. — Pope Urban sends the Pall to William to be conferred by him. — Anselm invests himself with it. — Anselm goes to Rome. — Vacillating conduct of the Pope. — Henry I. King. — Requires Anselm to be re-invested and to do homage. — Anselm refuses. — Treacherous conduct of the new Pope. — Anselm deter- mines to excommunicate the King. — Averted from this by the Countess of Blois. — Compromise effected. — Victory gained by Anselm to the Church. — See of Canterbury kept vacant five years after Anselm's death.— Quarrels between the two Archbishops. — Corboil, Archbishop of Canterbury. — A Legatus a latere sent by the Pope into England. — Battle of the "Standard." pp. 143 — 161 CHAPTER HI. Thomas A Becket and Henry II. The early life of A Becket.— Promoted when in Deacon's Orders to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. — Altered life of Becket. — Separation of the Civil from the Ecclesiastical Courts the cause of the troubles during his Primacy. — Henry II. demands that convicted X CONTENTS. Clerks should first be degraded, and then handed over to the civil authorities. — Becket objects to this. — Agrees to obey the customs of the kingdom. — Constitutions of Clarendon.— Two Popes at Rome. — Charges against Becket. — He retires to France, and lives in exile six years. — Spiteful conduct of the King.— Becket annuls the Con- stitutions of Clarendon and threatens the King with excommunica- tion.— Henry's alarm. — The Pope threatens Henry with an interdict. — The murder of Becket. — Penance of the King in Canterbury Cathedral . . . . . . pp. 162 — 177 CHAPTER IV. Stephen Langton and John. Unseemly quarrel between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. — Increase of the Pope's influence in England. — Disputes between the Monks of Canterbury and the Bishops as to their rights to elect the Archbishop. — Stephen Langton consecrated Archbishop by Pope Innocent III. — King John defies the Pope. — The Pope places the kingdom under an interdict. — Afterwards excommuni- cates the King.— And threatens to depose him. — John makes terms with the Pope, and England becomes a fief of Rome.— The Barons make common cause against the King. — John signs Magna Charta. — Stephen Langton the real author of the Charter — The first article declares that the " Church of England shall be free." — The Pope annuls Magna Charta. — It is, however, renewed under Henry III. — Langton enforces the celibacy of the Clergy . pp. 178 — 190 PART IV. Zbc Hnolo*1Roman Cburclx CHAPTER I. The Roman Church and Western Christendom. In what sense the Church was founded upon St. Peter. — The five Patriarchates. — The Patriarchate of Rome confined to the Suburbi- carian Provinces. — Circumstances that favoured the Roman Church. — The Council of Sardica laid the foundation of its supremacy. — The Popes take advantage of it. — Still Gregory the Great pro- nounces the assumption of the title of Oecumenical Bishop to be blasphemous. — Not long afterwards Pope Boniface III. accepted it. CONTENTS. xi Rome specially indebted to the French nation for its pre-eminence and temporary power. ^ — The Iconoclastic controversy. — Charles Martel. — Pepin. — Charlemagne ; — Crowned by the Pope Emperor of the West. — The Pseudo-Isidore Decretals. — The ninth and tenth centuries an age of darkness. — Division of the Eastern and Western Churches. — Advance of the Papacy under Gregory VII. — Gregory and the Emperor Henry IV. — The Crusades greatly advanced the influence of the Popes. — Alexander III. and the Emperor Barba- rossa. — Rome's greatest height attained under Innocent III. — Decline commences from the Pontificate of Boniface VIII. — The Papacy removed to Avignon. — The great Schism of the West. — - The three Councils. — General demand for a Reformation. pp. 191 — 226 CHAPTER II. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, TILL THE Age of Wicliffe. The Pope, through his Legate, claims the guardianship of the young King Henry III. — Also the right of annulling the election of Bishops. — Contrives to elect the Archbishops ; — But not without remonstrance from the Bishops. — Papal exactions in England. — But frequently opposed. — Birth of Parliament. — Statute of Provisors. — Statute of Praemunire. — The Philosophy of the Schoolmen. — How it affected the Doctrines of the Church. — Condition of the English Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. — Rise of the Mendicant Orders. — Colleges at the Universities due to them. — The Friars favoured by the Popes. — Their degeneracy. pp. 227 — 248 CHAPTER III. Pre-reformation Reformers. Reformers before Wicliffe. — Archbishop Rich. — Bishop Grostete. — Archbishop Sewell. — Archbishops Bradwardine, Thursby, Fitz- ralph. — Piers Ploughman's Vision. — Wicliffe appointed second on a Commission under John of Gaunt to Bruges.— The Pope orders his prosecution. — Insurrection of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. — Archbishop Sudbury murdered, and Courtney appointed Archbishop. — Wicliffe retires to Lutterworth, where he dies. — His opinions. — His translation of the Bible. — In what sense Wicliffe was the fore- runner, if not the actual author, of the Reformation. — Wicliffe's bones burnt. — The Lollards. — The statute De hmretico combiirendo. — Prose- cutions under it.— Causes that led to the Reformation, pp.249 — 269 xii CONTENTS. PART V. TLbc Cburcb of tbe IReformation JEra. CHAPTER I. The Breach with Rome. Not the object of English Reformation to separate from other Churches nor to found a new Church.— Reformation effected by Convocation as well as Parliament, and no change touching the Church made without the sanction of the former. — The character of Henry, and his marriage with Ann Boleyn, only an incident of the Reformation.^ — Henry to the end of his life a Romanist. — His divorce from Katharine. — Disgrace of Wolsey. — Cranmer Arch- bishop.— Confirms Henry's marriage with Ann Boleyn. — The Clergy subjected to a Prcenmnire. — Refuse to accept Henry's supremacy except under a limitation. — The " Annates Act," and the " Statute for the Restraint of Appeals." — The Pope annuls the divorce and threatens to excommunicate Henry. — The Act of " Submission of the Clergy." — All Bulls and Briefs and appointments to Bishoprics from Rome forbidden. — Convocation, with the exception of Bishop Fisher, together with the Universities, reject the Pope's jurisdiction. — The Act of Supremacy. — Goes far beyond what the Clergy had agreed to. — Execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More. — Crumwell made Vicegerent. — Dissolution of the smaller Monasteries. — A rebellion in the north of England in consequence. — Dissolution of the larger Monasteries. — Unprincipled character of the Commis- sioners. — Execution of the Abbots of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury. — Confiscation of Chantries, &c. — Evils arising from the suppression of the Monasteries. — The seeds of Puritanism sown. ■ — Several useful measures effected in reign of Henry. — A translation and free use of the Bible prescribed. — The "whip with six cords." — The Litany. — The Reformation under Henry not doctrinal. — Executions in his reign , . . . . pp. 270 — 307 CHAPTER n. Ultra-Reform. — Edward VI. Three Parties in the Church. — Violence of the Sectarians. — Ra- pacity of the Protector Somerset. — Confiscation of the remaining Chantries. — Bishops required to take out new Commissions. — The CONTENTS. XIU Protector determines on a General Visitation, and issues Injunctions to the Visitors. — Change as to issuing the conge d'^lire. — Reception under Two Kinds sanctioned. — Four petitions from Convocation. — The First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI. — Not a new book, but the adaptation of the old " Sarum Use." — Marriage of the Clergy- sanctioned. — Cranmer's Catechism. — Foreigners in England object to the Prayer-Book. — Second Prayer-Book and second Act of Uni- formity.— The two Books compared. — The forty-two Articles.— " Reformatio Legum Ecclesisticarum " . . pp.308 — 327 CHAPTER III. The Romanist Reaction. — Mary, All the early Reformers persecutors. — Gardiner made Lord Chan- cellor.— Character of Gardiner. — Of Bonner. — Parliament ratifies the marriage of Henry and Katharine. — Convocation meets without the Royal Licence and annuls the Statutes made under Edward. — Cardinal Pole arrives in England as the Pope's Legate, and re- ceives the Nation back into Communion with Rome. — Several Bishops and others seek refuge on the Continent. — Many who remain at home provoke the Queen and Pole. — Many executions. — Latimer and Ridley executed at Oxford. — Cranmer's courage fails him, and he recants. — He recants his recantation, and is exe- cuted.— Pole succeeds him as Archbishop. — Mary takes Pole's part against the Pope . . . . • PP- 328 — 338 CHAPTER IV. The Roman Schism, and the Rise of Puritanism. — Elizabeth. Coronation of Elizabeth. — The Queen proceeds cautiously in the work of Reformation. — Insolent conduct of the Pope. — The Queen refuses the title of Supreme Head of the Church. — A proviso made in the Supremacy Act. — The Prayer-Book Revision Committee. — The Queen and Cecil wish to re-introduce the First Prayer-Book of King Edward VI. — Her Council, however, recommend the Second. — The Second Prayer-Book with certain alterations, and a return to the Ornaments prescribed under the First Book, probably at the suggestion of the Queen, is annexed to the new Act of Uniformity. — Commissioners furnished with fifty-three Injunctions appointed to make a visitation of the country. — They find the new Prayer-Book xiv CONTENTS. willingly received by the Laity, by nearly all the Clergy, and a vast majority of Romanists.— Pope Pius IV. expresses his willingness to accept it, if the Queen would acknowledge his supremacy. — No difficulty in finding Bishops to consecrate Parker as Archbishop. — Other Bishops consecrated. — The Nag's Head Fable.— The Thirty- nine Articles.— The Bishops' Bible.— The Advertisements.— Pro- bably never seen by the Queen, and issued only with the authority of the Bishops. — Foreign Seminaries. —Pius V. excommunicates the Queen. — Political prosecutions of Romanists. — Amalgamation of ultra-Protestant sects under the name of Puritans. — Tenets of the Puritans. — They find a leader in Cartvvright. — Establishment of Presbyteries. — Parker succeeded by Grindall. — Whitgift. — The Lam- beth Articles. — Jewell. — Hooker . . • PP- 339 — 368 CHAPTER V. The Growth of Puritanism. — James I. The Millenary Petition. — The Hampton Court Conference. — Alterations made in the Prayer-Book. — Canons of 1604. — The English Bible. — Gunpowder Plot. — The oath of allegiance. — Book of Sports. — James sends deputies to the Synod of Dort. — Breach between the Puritans and the Church widened during James's reign. — Primacy of Abbot favoured the Puritans . . pp.369 — 381 CHAPTER VL Charles L — The Triumph of Puritanism. Embarrassed state of the country. — Unpopularity of Charles's mar- riage.— The Puritans form a majority in the House of Commons. — The Commons set forth a list of their grievances. — Parliament usurps the functions of Convocation in the case of Montagu. — Laud, with the Bishops of Oxford and Rochester, complain of their conduct. — Parliament refuses to vote sufficient supplies, and is dis- solved.— New Parliament. — Erastianism of Sibthorpe and Main- waring. — Suspension of Abbot. — Mainwaring fined and suspended by the House of Commons, but made Bishop of St. David's. — Laud promoted to the See of London. — The Petition of Right. — The Remonstrance of the Commons. — No Parliament between 1629 and 1640. — Laud prefixes the Royal Declaration to the Thirty-nine Articles. — The Vow. — Laud promoted to Canterbury. — Laud and CONTENTS. XV Strafford the King's principal advisers. — Republication of the Book of Sports. — The Histriomastix. — Severe punishment of Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton. — Laud's endeavours to introduce greater reverence into the Church's services. — Character of the Scotcli people. — Unsuccessful attempt to introduce the Liturgy into Scot- land.— The Solemn League and Covenant. — The King sanctions the Covenant. — The Short Parliament. — Convocation and Parlia- ment.— The "et C^etera" oath. — The Long Parliament. — Laud committed to the Tower. — The Committee of Religion. — The Smectymnuan controversy. — The High Commission Court and Star Chamber abolished. — The King confirms the abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland ; — But refuses to do so in England. — New Bishops ap- pointed.— The Grand Remonstrance. — War between the King and Parliament inevitable. — The Root and Branch Bill passed. — West- minster Assembly of Divines. — The Directory for Public Worship. — Committee for the removal of scandalous Ministers. — Execution of Laud. — His Life and Character. — Oliver Cromwell. — Execution of the King ..... pp. 382 — 409 CHAPTER VIL The Completion of the Reformation, and the last Act of Uniformity. — Charles IL The Triers.— Restoration of Charles H. — Appointment of Bishops. — Declaration from Breda. — Assembly at Sion College. — The Savoy Conference. — A Review of the Prayer-Book determined on, and a direction sent to Convocation for that purpose. — The work unani- mously subscribed by both Houses of Convocation. — The Lord Chancellor returns thanks to Convocation for the care bestowed upon it. — The Commons accept it without debate. — A via media adopted as to the Ornaments Rubric. — The last Act of Uniformity. — Black Bartholomew. — First Conventicle Act. — Five Mile Act. — Second Conventicle Act— The King favours Toleration. — The Duke of York declares himself a convert to Rome. — The Test and Cor- poration Acts. — Sancroft succeeds Sheldon as archbishop. — Titus Oates. — The Exclusion Bill rejected in the House of Lords — Death of Charles H. — Noble array of English Divines during the reign. — New school of Latitudinarians . . . pp.410 — 426 I xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. The Attempt to Undo the Reformation. — James II. James's Declaration. — Resolves to establish Romanism. — Deter- mines to get rid of the Test Act. — Defeated in Parliament, which he dissolves. — Jefferies appointed Lord Chancellor. — All the high places in the State conferred on Romanists. — High Court of Com- mission revived. — Compton, Bishop of London, its first victim. — James's Declaration of Indulgence. — A Romanist appointed Dean of Christ Church. — The Master of University College a Romanist. — James attacks the Universities. — Magdalen College, Oxford. — The Roman Mass celebrated in the college chapel. — The Declara- tion of Indulgence ordered to be read in the churches. — A Remon- strance from the Bishops presented to the King. — Seven Bishops committed to the Tower. — Their trial and acquittal. — The Prince of Orange lands in England. — Flight of the King . pp. 427 — 440 CHAPTER IX. Comprehension and Toleration. — William and Mary. The Bishops and Clergy required to take the oath of allegiance to the new Sovereigns. — The Non-jurors. — Other Non-juring Bishops consecrated. — The names " High Church " and " Low Church." — The new King favours the Latitudinarians and Dissenters. — Bishop Burnet. — The Comprehension Bill. — Passes the Lords, but the Commons reject it. — The Toleration Act passed. — Unitarians and Romanists excluded from its benefits. — Severe penalties against the latter. — Proposed changes in the Prayer-Book come to nothing. — Meeting of Convocation. — " Nolumus leges Angliee mutari." — The Lower House refuses to join the Upper in designating the English Church Protestant. — Parliament prorogued for ten years. — The King appoints Latitudinarian Bishops. — Severance between the Bishops and their Clergy. — Tillotson, Primate. — Is succeeded by Tenison. — The Convocation controversy . . pp. 441 — 452 PART I. Zbc Briti0b Cburcb, CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH CHURCH. TT would be interesting to know for certain by whom Christianity was introduced into this country ; but, unfortunately, all native documents of the early British Church have been lost% whilst the information which is gleaned from other sources is frequently so mixed up with spurious documents and monkish fables, as to throw suspicion on what otherwise would be accepted as a trustworthy foundation. Our earliest native his- torian, Gildas^ sadly laments the want of any do- mestic records from which he could derive certain information. He says : "If there were any, they have either been consumed in the fires of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into distant lands, so that none of them are to be founds" He was, therefore, obliged to be " guided by the relations of foreign writers, which, being broken and inter- rupted in many places, are therefore by no means clear." The numerous wars in which this country has been engaged, and the various nationalities — Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans — which at different times have occupied it ; the Diocletian and other per- * Bede's Ecclesiastical History, together with the Anglo-Saxon Chro- nicle, are the chief sources of the early history of England. * Gildas wrote about A.D. 550. ' " Scripta patriae, scriptorumve monumenta, si quae fuerint, aut igni- bus hostium exusta, aut civium exulum classe longius deportata, non comparent." n. B 2 THE BRITISH CHURCH : secutions, during which care was taken to destroy all the monuments which concerned the Christian churches ; above all, the destruction of the monas- teries ; by such and other causes, we can conceive every vestige of its antiquity, every document con- nected with its early history, and the succession of its Bishops, to have been burnt, or otherwise destroyed. We must, therefore, content ourselves with such scanty testimony from foreign sources as we can command ; and this testimony, if it does not establish the exact date of its foundation, at the least establishes three points : first, the extreme antiquity of the British Church ; second, that it is of Eastern, and not West- ern origin ; third, that it was not originally subject to any foreign jurisdiction. A few words are necessary as to the state of the country before the introduction of Christianity. It need hardly be said that the present inhabitants are not the aborigines of the land. We are, by far the greater part of us, Germans. England, or as it was originally. Angle, or Engle-lond, is the land of the Angles, a German tribe ; the Germans who conquered Britain, swept its former inhabitants off the face of the land, and introduced a new race, a new language, new institutions, and a new religion ; and ever since that first immigration, every new infusion of blood, the Dane, the Norseman, even the French-speaking Nor- man, have only added to the Teutonic identity. The earliest inhabitants of whom we read were Celts, or Gauls a people of the same stock as the * Ancient historians, Greek and Latin, class Britons and Gauls to- gether. Appian, de Bell. Civ.j Strabo ; Tacitus {A^fi'c.) says, " in uni- versum tamen asstimanti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse credibile est. Eorum sacra deprehendas . . . sermo haud multum diversus." ITS FOUNDATION. 3 Cimmerians, or Gommerians, the descendants of Co- rner, the son of Japheth, who were found here by the Phoenicians the earhest traders with the island, and seem to have come from the adjacent Con- tinent about B.C. 600. We read of the Cimmerians being a powerful nation in Western Asia between B.C. 800 — 600, occupying the country of which the modern Sebastopol is the central point. These Cim- merians being hard pushed by the Scythians from the East, went, as was always the custom with Asiatic hordes, westward : on their way to Britain, they would pass through Gaul, which lies in a direct line between the cradle of the human race and Britain : hence the various points of affinity between the early inhabitants of the country, and the countries of the neighbouring Continent ; the same language, the same manners, the same monarchical form of government, and the same religion. Our knowledge of the earliest inhabitants of the country we derive almost entirely from Julius Caesar, before whose time the country was little known to the world ; and from his account, the character of the people was about as barbarous as it could be. It must, however, be borne in mind, that Caesar's stay in the island was only of short duration, and his ex- perience limited to a small part of it. The most civilized portion of the inhabitants were those who lived nearest to Gaul, the people of Kent and the ' The Phoenicians are supposed to have come here about B.C. 1000, from Gades, or Cadiz, for the purpose of buying tin ; they probably wished to monopohse the trade, and made a secret of the place whence their goods were brought, so that we derive from them little information as to the island. Hence it is that Herodotus (iii. 15) expressed his inability to say more of the Cassiterides (or tin islands), than that these were situated in the extreme West. B 2 THE BRITISH CHURCH southern coast. But no one would go to the island who could avoid it^; the people generally were very barbarous ; they clothed themselves in the skins of wild animals, wore their hair long, and dyed their bodies with woad ^, which made them of a bluish colour, and an object of terror to their enemies ; they had wives in common, and their domestic arrange- ments generally were of the most promiscuous cha- racter. The primitive religion of the people was Druidism, the chief abode of which was in the island of Anglesea. Alone, conspicuous for knowledge, stood the Druids, the prophets and priests ; and the bards, the poets and historians of the people. The Druids formed a sepa- rate caste ; were freed from war, and the payment of taxes, and were held in great fear and honour by the people. They decided all cases and controversies, and inflicted punishment at their own discretion ; who- soever disobeyed them was deprived of all rights, and denied the protection of the law ; he was held as impious and excommunicate, and his presence shunned from fear of contagion. They also were the instruc- tors of the young. No species of superstition ever was more terrible than that of the Druids, no idola- trous worship ever gained such an ascendancy over its votaries ; for by the doctrine of the transmigration of souls they stimulated the fears of the people, and ' "Neque enim temere prjEter mercatores adit quisquam." — (Co»!. '\\:2o.) Diodorus Siculus, however, says, " They who live near the promontory of Britain, which is called Belerium (Land's end), are particularly fond of strangers, and from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilized in their habits." « Britannia is probably derived from " Brith," an old British word which signifies "painted;" for the same reason, the extra-provincial Britons were called " Picts." ITS FOUNDATION, 5 could thus impose upon them the strictest obedience to their will. But as their system was never com- mitted to writing, and only communicated to the initiated under the strictest obligations of secresy, very little is known of their worship and ceremonies ; the only sources of information being a few notices in the Classics, and the Latin inscriptions of Gaul, derived probably from the infractions of their obligations, after their superstitions became weakened by the influences of Christianity. That their religion was a Polytheism appears certain ^ Caesar identifies their gods with Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva ; be- sides these, or differing perhaps in name, were, An- draste, "the Goddess of Victory;" Hu, "the mighty;" and Beal, or Belinus, in whose honour they made the people to pass through fire, a worship evidently de- rived from the Baal of the Phoenicians ^ ; as the three chief gods, Lucan mentions Teutates the Father, Hesus the God of Heaven, and Taranis the Thunderer, They held the doctrine of vicarious atonement, and, like other idolaters, thought the only way to appease Heaven was by means of human sacrifices ; this they did when some great crime had been committed, or some important enterprise was to be undertaken. Having made a huge figure of basket-work in the shape of a man, they thrust into it as many people as it would hold ; those selected for the purpose were generally thieves, criminals, or prisoners taken in war, but if Although some suppose they worshipped only one God. " Druides unum esse Deum semper inculcarunt ; " Camden, and Bishop Godwin; an opinion from which the Church historian, Fuller (B. I. c. i. sect. 2) thoroughly disagrees. ' Traces of a temple to Diana, and bones of victims offered in sacrifice to her, were discovered in London in the reign of Edward I. ; some even derive the name London from Llan Dian^ "temple of Diana." — (Fuller, B. L c. i.) 6 THE BRITISH CHURCH : these were wanting, then the innocent ; they then heaped up wood around it, and set light to it till the whole was consumed, whilst they inspected the quivering flesh of their victims, as a means of ascer- taining futurity. Such was the condition, and such the religion, of the country when the attention of the Romans was first drawn to it in a.d. 55 ; and Julius Caesar, having overrun Gaul, made two successive descents on its shores, defeated the Britons, and penetrated beyond the Thames. But Caesar by no means met with the success which usually attended his arms*^; the civil wars which arose at Rome averted the attention of the emperors from the island, and it was not till nearly a hundred years later, that in the reign of Claudius, effectual means were adopted for its sub- jugation. Several battles were fought with unequal success ; in one Caractacus was defeated, and taken prisoner to Rome, but the Britons were not even then subdued : not till a.d. 78 was its conquest com- pleted, by Agricola, the father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, when Britain was reduced to, and remained, a Roman province for more than three hundred years \ As was the custom of Rome with regard to the na- tions which she conquered, she brought her religion with her. To Rome the bloody superstition of the Druids had long been particularly hateful, and had already been proscribed by Augustus, Tiberius, and " Invictus Romano marte Britannus." — (Tibullus.) * Even then the northern part remained unconquered, and constantly harassed the south with attacks. ° So much was this the case, that throughout the whole extent of the Roman empire, there was but little variation from the cult observed in the Capital. Even at Jerusalem, where the distant colony of ^lia Capi- tolina was founded, a temple to Jupiter was erected on the site of the holy Temple. ITS FOUNDATION. 7 Claudius ; for some time longer it remained undis- turbed in the remote regions of Scotland and Ireland, but in the south it was exterminated, only however to be succeeded by another superstition, more refined perhaps, but not less idolatrous, and scarcely less cruel than that which it displaced, paganism. Meanwhile, the greatest events in the world's his- tory had been transpiring in the East — the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord, and the foun- dation of the Christian Church at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. • ••••• By whom was Christianity introduced into Eng- land ? To enable us to answer the question, we have, it is true, no positive evidence ; but we have an authority which, from its cumulative weight, is more substantial than that on which important points of history often have been, and are, established °. Justin Martyr, writing a little more than a century after our Saviour's crucifixion, says that Christians were to be found in every country known to the Romans. Irenaeus, who was born a.d. 97, and lived for ninety years, not only asserts that the Church was extended by the Apostles to the utmost bounds of the earth, but he includes in it the Celts, and amongst these (especially in connexion with the words of Jus- tin Martyr) it is reasonable to suppose he included the Celts of Britain. Tertullian, who wrote at the end of the second, or beginning of the third century °, speaks of British dis- " The reader, however, for the opposite view, is referred to the " Re- mains of the late A. W. Haddan," p. 211. ° That is shortly after the time of Pope Eleutherius, during whose pon- tificate King Lucius is supposed to have lived. 8 THE BRITISH CHURCH : tricts, inaccessible to Roman arms ^ yet being subjected to Christ ; and if such remote districts had embraced the faith, we may conclude that in the more accessible parts it was firmly, and for a long time, established. Origen, about 240, says, that the power of our Saviour's kingdom reached as far as Britain, which appeared to lie in another part of the world There is no one whose authority on the subject is more valuable than Eusebius'. He was the friend of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who was born and proclaimed emperor in Britain ; he was present at the Council of Nice, whither Bishops were assem- bled from all parts of the empire ; he had reason for examining the history of the different churches, with a view to writing his ecclesiastical polity. Having named the Romans, Persians, Armenians, Parthians, Indians, and Scythians, he says that some of the Apo- stles crossed the ocean, " to those which are called the British islands ;" which is confirmed by Theodoret, who says that .some of the Apostles brought the Gospel to all men, and persuaded not only the Ro- mans, but the Britons'' y and Cimbrians, and Germans, and in a word every nation and race of men, " to receive the laws of the Crucified One." From the authorities above cited (even if there were no others), there can be no reasonable ground for doubting that the British Church was not only of very ancient, but also of Apostolical foundation. A Roman Catholic writer, not generally very favour- p "Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." — (Ter- tull. ad Judceos.) 1 " Qui ab orbenostroin Britannia dividuntur." — (Orig.Hom.VI. inLuc.) (TTi Tas Ka\ovfi€uas BperraviKas vfjcrovs. ^ Bperavvovs — Koi aira^anXais Trav 'ddi/os kcu yivos dvdpaTrav de^aadai tov ^TavpUldtVTOS ToilS UOjlOVS. ITS FOUNDATION. 9 able to the Anglican Church, whose testimony on that account is the more valuable, readily admits this : " It is probable," he says, " that Christianity was disseminated over parts of England during the Apostolic age. This was tiniversally believed by our ancestors. . . The documents on which the history of the first conversion of England depend, approach much nearer than those of the ancient Romans to historical cei^titude But, allowing that the British Church was of Apo- stolic foundation, to which of the Apostles is it to be attributed ? The traditions respecting SS. James the son of Zebedee, Simon Zelotes, and Aristobulus are improbable. St. James suffered martyrdom before the dispersion of the Apostles, and Simon Zelotes was martyred in Persia. It is the opinion of some that the Gospel was preached here at the latter end of the reign of Tiberius, a.d, 37, through the dis- persion of the Christians after the martyrdom of St. Stephen ; but it is difficult to reconcile this with Acts xi. 19 : " Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Ste- phen, travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to 7ione but tmto the Jews only!' Of all scriptural persons, Joseph of Arimathaea" has been more particularly regarded as the Apostle of Britain, and the founder of Glastonbury Abbey. There is an ancient tradition that the Jews, bear- ing a special enmity against SS. Philip, Joseph of Ari- ' Butler's Book of the Roman Church. " At the Council of Basle, the English Bishops claimed precedence, on account of the conversion of their country by St. Joseph. — (Fuller, iv. i8o.) THE BRITISH CHURCH mathsea, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene and Martha his sisters, banished them, with Marcella their ser- vant, and put them out to sea in a vessel without sails and oars. The vessel arrived safely at Mar- seilles, of which Lazarus became Bishop ; St. Philip remained in France, but sent Joseph of Arimathsea, with eleven companions, to preach the Gospel in Bri- tain : they received from Arviragus, a king of the country, a grant of the island then called Avalon, but now Glastonbury, where the first Christian church was built, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Now, that the church of Glastonbury was the oldest Christian church in Britain (many say in the whole world) there are abundant proofs, nay, it is generally conceded ; Archbishop Usher says the church called by the Saxons Glaston, is the mother church of the British Isle ; Fuller, that if credit is to be given to ancient authority, it is the oldest church in the world. The testimonies of Joseph of Arimathaea having come here are, as Archbishop Usher and Bishop Godwin assert, numerous ; it is also worthy of notice that Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker" claimed him as the first preacher of Christianity in Britain ; but against this theory goes the silence of the Saxon authorities ^. Glastonbury was a place renowned for sanctity many generations before the Norman con- quest ; but until that time, no connection was made of the story of Joseph of Arimathaea with that place ; had Glastonbury possessed claims of such a venerable cha- racter, it is scarcely likely the Saxon Chroniclers would have overlooked them. There was also a tradition ^ " Parker, i. 139. * Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan.^ i. 4. Eus., Hist. EccL, v. 18. ITS FOUNDATION. that our Saviour commanded the Apostles not to de- part from Jerusalem till twelve years after His Ascen- sion ; and the Alexandrine Chronicle states that they did not separate till after the Council of Jerusalem. To meet this, those who favour the story of Joseph of Ari- mathaea would place it about a.d. 62, which would make Lazarus and Joseph of a great age to under- take so long a journey. There are, however, strong authorities in its favour, which cannot lightly be laid aside. There remain two others who are said to have preached in Britain, SS. Peter and Paul. As to the former, the authority rests chiefly on monkish legends, Baronius, however, whilst he admits that St. Peter spent most of his time in the East, yet says that about A.D. 58 he preached in the West, and parti- cularly Britain. The only authority he quotes is Metaphrastes. But Metaphrastes is not of sufficient repute to establish such a theory on his sole autho- rity : Baronius himself accuses him of misquotations from Eusebius ; he also says of him afterwards that "he is no authority in these matters." Pope Inno- cent has also been quoted in favour of St. Peter, but without reason : he speaks of France, Spain, Africa, and Sicily, and the interjacent islands, as being con- verted by St. Peter or his disciples and successors ; but the British islands cannot geographically come under that description. There is, therefore, no suf- ficient evidence to lead us to suppose that St. Peter ever came to Britain, and there is everything to lead us to the opposite conclusion. St. Paul (Gal. ii. 7) says that St. Peter's work was amongst the Jews, as his own was amongst the Gentiles : it may therefore be taken for granted that the work of the former was THE BRITISH CHURCH, confined to those countries where the Jews abounded. Accordingly, Eusebius from Origen affirms that St. Peter preached to the dispersed Jews in Pontus, Ga- latia, Bithynia, and Cappadocia ; and Epiphanius, that whilst St. Paul travelled towards Spain, St. Peter fre- quently visited Pontus and Bithynia. This would be agreeable to his commission, there being many Jews in those parts ; but St. Paul tells us of himself, that when he essayed to go into Bithynia, he was for- bidden by the Spirit, and ordered to go into Europe ; as if Asia was reserved by the Spirit for St. Peter, Europe for him. It is not probable that St. Peter was the original Apostle in Britain ; but the claim made in his favour by Roman Catholic writers is use- ful in one way, as shewing that, even on their autho- rity, the foundation of the Church in this country is of equal antiquity with that of Rome. There remains, therefore, St. Paul ; was he ever in Britain ? If the words of important authorities are to be taken in their literal sense, the question can only be answered in the affirmative ; if any other inter- pretation is to be put on them, it remains to see which is the most reasonable, and most consonant with con- current evidence. In the Epistle to the Romans, written from Corinth before he went to Rome, he expresses his intention of going to Spain, and of visiting Rome on his way ^. The author of the Muratorian Canon, written about the middle of the second century, mentions " the journey of St. Paul setting forth from the city (of Rome) for Spain \" There is good authority in the " Rom. XV. 24, " Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you;" and Rom. xv. 28, " I will come by you into Spain." ' Routh's Rel. Sac, i. 403. ITS FOUNDATION. 13 Fathers for believing that by Galatia, mentioned 2 Tim. iv. 10, Gaul is meant, and that St. Paul came to Gaul From Gaul, or even from Spain, the journey to Britain was not difficult. Accordingly, we find that — (i.) Clemens Romanus, the cotemporary of St. Paul, whom St. Paul calls his fellow-labourer''; who was also Bishop of Rome, that is. Bishop of the city in which St. Paul suffered martyrdom ; who had, there- fore, every opportunity of conversing with, and being familiar with the travels and actions of, St. Paul ; who, as St. Irenaeus says of him, had been conversant with the blessed Apostles, and had their preaching still ringing in his ears, and their traditions before his eyes ; we find him describing St. Paul's sufferings with the greatest minuteness ^ ; he speaks of his " having become the herald of God in the East and in the West;" of his "having preached righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the limit of the West." St. Clement was writing from Rome, so that the country he describes must be considerably west of that city. Britain at the time was well known to the Romans ; it had been the scene of many war- like actions since the time of Claudius ; it was a Ro- man province, the station of a Roman garrison, the residence of Roman lieutenants ; two Roman colonies were established in the country, one at London, and Lightfoot, Ep. of St. Clement, p. 50. ' Phil. iv. 3. IlavXos vnoiiovrji ^pa^eiov vnecTxev, firruKis dfcrfxa (poprjcras, v rijv Trjs SidaaKaXtas Xafindda irpoa-rjVfyKt. — (Theod. in Ep. II. ad Timoth.) ' "Transit et Oceanum, vel qua facit insula portum, Quasque Bretannus habet terras, quasque ultima Thule." ITS FOUNDATION, 15 quoted by the Magdeburg Centuriators, as bringing St. Paul to Britain, although it is right to add, the statement is not found in the extant writings of Sophronius himself. (6.) This view is also maintained by Archbishops Parker and Usher, Bishop Stillingfleet, Camden, Gib- son, Cave, Nelson, Burgess, and many others j. But aofainst this view of the older writers, are to be set the more recent investigations of such learned writers as the late Mr. Haddan and the present Regius Pro- fessor of Modern History at Oxford. We find words in our historian, Gildas, which, in the opinion of many, fix the introduction of Chris- tianity into Britain at this very time : " In the mean- time" (i.e. in the time of which he had spoken before, viz. the victory gained by Suetonius Paulinus over Boadicea, a.d. 61 \) "Christ, the true Sun, for the first time casts its rays, that is, the knowledge of His laws, on this island, shivering with icy cold, and widely separated from the visible sun ; that is to say, not from the visible firmament, but from the supreme, everlast- ing power of heaven \" ^ Cf. also Bishop Wordsworth's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles : "a.d. 64 : St. Paul, after his first imprisonment at Rome, goes probably to Spain, and perhaps even to Britain." Stilling., Orig. Britan. 6. ' The whole passage is : " Interea glaciali frigore rigenti insulas, et velut longiore terrarum secessu soli visibili non proximse verus ille Sol, non de firmamento solum temporali, sed de summa etiam coelorum arce cuncta tempora excedente, orbi universo praefulgidum sui coruscum os- tentans, tempore ut scimus, summo Tiberii Cassaris, quo absque ullo impedimento ejus propagabatur religio, comminata, senatu nolente, a principe morte dilatoribus militum ejusdem, radios suos primum indulget, id est sua przecepta Christus." As far as it is possible to make anything out of this flowery and obscure sentence, Gildas appears to speak of a double shining of the Gospel, one general at the end of the reign of Tiberius, the other, A.D. 6i, confined to Britain. i6 THE BRITISH CHURCH : In order that we may form a just estimate, and put a right interpretation on such passages, we must bear in mind the state of the world at that time ; how there was one uninterrupted Roman empire, stretching from our own island as far as Persia and Ethiopia ; how there were roads throughout this vast empire, laid down with the most consummate engineering skill ; how easily and safely merchants could travel along these roads, under the protection of one law and one government ; how soldiers were constantly passing to and fro, from one part of the empire to another ; and how persecutions, which were common in Rome, but unknown in Britain, would induce many Chris- tians to seek a refuge in this country. There were, therefore, many means by which com- munication could be kept up between this island and St. Paul at Rome. Many persons who had heard him must, for different reasons, have travelled hither from Rome, and we cannot doubt that he must have fre- quently been informed of the state of religion in the country, and been pressed to visit it. It is said that persons of rank amongst the Roman inhabitants, and kings of different provinces, had already embraced the yoke of Christ Caractacus, after being defeated in battle, had been taken prisoner to Rome, and there, together with his father, Bran", a Druidical bard, had been converted. Pomponia Graecina, the wife of Aulus Plautius, the Roman lieutenant in the country, was sister to Caractacus, and there is strong reason for believing that she was a Christian". Linus, one Churton's Early English Church. " There is an early tradition that Bran, after his conversion, returned to Britain, and converted his countrymen. " She is accused (Tac. Ann. 13. 32) of " externa superstitio," which was ITS FOUNDATION. 17 of the sons of Caractacus, was consecrated by St. Paul as first Bishop of Rome p. His daughter Gladys, who with Pomponia Graecina, is supposed to have been of " the saints of Csesar's household," soon afterwards became the wife of Rufus who from his gentleness was called Pudens ; and having been adopted into Csesar's household, she received the name of Clau- dia, and according to Baronius became the mother of SS. Timothy, Novatus, Pudentiana, and Praxedes, who, if we can believe the Roman martyrologies, were instructed in the faith by St. Paul, and all of whom, together with their father, Rufus, and their uncle, Li- nus, at different times suffered martyrdom. Much of this, resting as it does on supposition, rather than direct records, is, of course, unsatisfactory as historical evidence. The coincidence of the names of the Claudia and Pudens of St. Paul with the Claudia and Pudens of Martial is, to say the least, striking ; but, at the same time, in coming to a right conclusion, we must bear in mind that the date of St. Paul's Epistle is A.D. 67, whereas Martial's Odes maybe presumed to have been written between a.d. 83 and a.d. 97. We cannot doubt that St. Paul must have received many pressing invitations to visit Britain, and that, prompted by his zeal for spreading the Gospel of Christ, he may have availed himself of the oppor- the manner in which the Romans would describe Christianity. But against this, see Haddan, Remains^ p. 229. P Clemens Romanus calls him " Sanctissimus Linus frater ClaudiiE." ' "Claudia, Rufe, meo rw^-iM peregrina Pudenti." — (Martial. Epigr. 13 ad Ruf.) From another epigram it appears (supposing, that is, of course that Martial is referring to the same Claudia in both epigrams) that the country to which this foreign lady belonged was Britain ; Lib. xi. epig. 53 : " Claudia casruleis cum sit Rufina Britaimis Edita." ' Mentioned 2 St. Tim. iv. 21, and Rom. xvi. 13. C i8 THE BRITISH CHURCH : tunity afforded him of visiting the furthest bounds of the Roman empire ; so that, agreeably to the many authorities quoted above (not any one singly, but all cumulatively), notwithstanding the opposite opinion held by recent critics, it is not an altogether unrea- sonable presumption, although we cannot say there is any historical proof, that he did preach in Britain. Everything points to the connexion of the British Church with an Eastern, everything militates against a Western foundation. Only this can account for the circumstances connected with it which St. Augustine found when he arrived in the country, and which so astonished him ; he asked Gregory how, when the faith was the same, the aistoms of Churches could be dif- ferent ? The reason which perplexed him so much is plain, but only on the hypothesis that the British Church was of Oriental foundation ; everything about it was Oriental ; the very word Church (Kf/jja/c^) is derived from the Greek, and was never applied to it in the Roman language ; the British Church observed Oriental customs ; the form of the tonsure which its clergy wore was Oriental ; the method it followed for computing Easter^ was the Oriental, whereas that of the Roman Church was the Western method ; and the Liturgy which it used was not the Roman, but the Galilean, which was derived from St. John. The primitive Liturgies, it may be observed in pass- ing, are reducible to four : these are, i. The Oriental, which was in use from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, and thence to the South of Greece; 2. The Alexandrian, in Egypt, Abyssinia, and the borders of the Medi- terranean to the West; 3. The Roman, in Italy, Sicily, ' Socrates, Eccl. Hist. v. 22, p. 234, considers this as one of the differ- ences between the East and West. ITS FOUNDATION. 19 and the civil diocese of Africa ; 4. The GalHcan, in Gaul, Spain, and (till the fourth century) in the Ex- archate of Ephesus. As to the Galilean Liturgy, an author* of the eighth century says, "John the Evan- gelist first chanted the Galilean course ; then after- wards the blessed Polycarp, disciple of John ; then afterwards, thirdly, Irenaeus, who was Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, chanted the same course in Gaul." This Li- turgy, which was distinct from the Roman, remained in use in the churches of Gaul till the time of Charle- magne, who introduced the Roman Liturgy ; it was also, as we have seen, the Liturgy in use in the British Church. But as the Liturgies were at first not written, but committed to memory, and each bishop and abbot had the power of adapting the Li- turgy to his own church, there arose in time dif- ferent customs or " uses," such as those of Sarum, York, Hereford, and Bangor, of which we shall hear more hereafter " ; we may, however, mention here, that it was the object of the compilers of our present Prayer-Book to make out of these one uniform book, and that the Prayers which are daily used in our Church are actually the same which have existed from the earliest ages ^ • Spelman's Concilia^ i. 176. " pp. 141 and 319. * See Palmer, Orig. Liturg. C 2 CHAPTER II. THE BRITISH CHURCH TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERINIAN. TT is important that the ApostoHc foundation of the British Church, even if we cannot with certainty name its founder, should be estabhshed ; for its con- tinuity, and the succession of its Bishops, and its iden- tity with our Church of the present day, admits of no reasonable doubt. We have the clearest evidence from Tertullian of its wide extension at the end of the second century. It can lay claim to its martyrs, even if few in number, in the Diocletian persecution, A.D, 303. Its prosperous condition under Constan- tine is described by Gildas : " The Christians were brought back to a state of ease, the victorious cross was displayed, the churches were rebuilt, and the holy solemnities were kept without any disturb- ance." This brings us to the age of the Councils, at three of which, viz. those of Aries, Sardica, and Rimini, if not at others, we have positive evidence that British Bishops were present. In the time of Jovian, we have the testimony of St. Athanasius as to its orthodoxy. Shortly after this occurred the Pelagian heresy, and the missions of St. German ; then the subjugation of the country by the Saxons, A.D. 449 — 597, during the whole of which time, in whatever obscurity, in consequence of that persecu- tion, it is involved, we know that a flourishing Church ' In the passage referred to (p. 8) : " Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." THE BRITISH CHURCH, ETC. existed in Wales and Cornwall, that the Christians were numerous, that they maintained there their own customs, and the same ritual and liturgy which they had derived from St. John, through SS. Irenaeus and Polycarp, till the time of St. Augustine. But to return. The prominent event in the history of the second century is the story connected with King Lucius ; if, indeed, such a person ever existed. Dean Milman ^ dismisses it as a " legend." Burton also denounces it as " a fable, without credit." Gildas takes no notice of it. But that there was such a person there is some reason for believing : the authority of Bede, and the agreement of many authors from his time, render it not improbable ; and Nennius, who wrote at the be- ginning of the seventh century, is positive as to his ex- istence But there is no reason to assign any great importance to the story connected with him. That he enjoyed full dominion over the whole country, as the monks pretend, or that he was anything more than a petty prince over part of Britain, is improbable. The Romans would not have left such extensive power in the hands of a native prince ; a native, too, of a country always impatient of the Roman yoke, which was divided from the other parts of the empire by the sea, and was thus rendered frequently inac- cessible. But there is no reason why, in accordance with their custom in other countries, they should not have placed him, as they did Herod and his sons in *• Lat. Christ, ii. 24. Haddan (Remains, p. 227) pronounces him "a mere Roman invention of the fourth or fifth century, first dressed up into shape in Wales, in the eighth or ninth century." Archb. Usher {(ie Priinord. c. iii. p. 39) speaks of two coins bearing the inscription of a cross, with the monogram, LVC. 22 THE BRITISH CHURCH Judaea, in authority over some part of the country''. The true version of the story may have been as follows : — Lucius, a petty king in Britain, who had been in- structed in the Christian religion by the British Church, having received from the Romans an edict to put down Druidism, wished to enquire more fully for himself into the truth of the two religions. From the frequent intercourse kept up between Rome and Britain, through the governors and soldiers who were constantly passing to and fro, he must have become acquainted with the fame of the Roman Church ; he must have heard of its martyrs ; of its Bishop, who, the twelfth in direct succession from the Apostles, was then ruling over the Roman Church ; there, if any- where, he would think that true Christianity was to be found, and he would be desirous of learning, before he bound himself to the Christian faith, whether the two Churches of Rome and Britain were in accord. But no idea of the supremacy of one Church over the other could possibly have occurred to him ; for it is clear that at that time no such supremacy was either allowed, or claimed. So he sent two messengers, Elwan and Medwin, to Pope Eleutherius, to Rome, to gain what instruction they could. Having more fully instructed the two messengers in the faith, the Pope baptized, and afterwards ordained them, making Elwan a Bishop, and Medwin a teacher ; and, on their return to England, King Lucius and the chief of the people were baptized ; a revival of religion occurred, and the number of Bishops was increased ^ The king In fact, the Romans were proud of such a display of their power : thus Juvenal speaks of King Arviragus, who reigned in the island under Domitian. ' Pope Eleutherius is said to have sent a letter to King Lucius, which, TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 23 Is said to have settled the ecclesiastical order ; con- verted Druidical temples into churches \ and endowed them with lands, whilst the original foundation of several churches is also attributed to him ^ ; and to have been a great patron of the University of Cambridge. From the death of King Lucius, " the history for about eighty years is in a manner sunk. However, we are thus far certain, both from ancient and modern, from our own and foreign writers, that the Christian religion held on through the whole period, without the least interruption''." Bede ' tells us that from this time " the Britons preserved the faith, which they had received, uncorrupted and entire, in peace and tranquillity until the time of the emperor Diocletian ; Gildas says the same^. Origen'' speaks of Christianity however, as it was not known till a thousand years after his death, Spel- man regards as spurious. Part of this letter is said to have been as fol- lows : " Leges Romanas et Caesaris semper reprobare possumus ; legem Dei nequaquam. Habetis penes vos in regno utramque paginam ; ex illis Dei gratia per concilium regni vestri sume legem, et per illam, Dei pa- tientia, vestrum reges Britanniae regnum. Vicarius vero Dei estis in regno." ' Particularly that dedicated to Diana, in London ; and another near it, to Apollo, in the same city, now called Westminster. — (Fuller, B. i. c. 2 ; Collier.) n Such as St. Peter's, Cornhill, which is said for many years to have been the seat of an Archbishop ; the cathedral at Gloucester ; a church at Winchester ; a church and college at Bangor ; the restoration of St. Mary's, Glastonbury ; the church in Dover Castle ; and St. Martin's, Canterbury. — (Fuller, B.i. c. 2.) *" Collier, cent. iii. ' Bede, B. i. c. 4. 3 " Quae praecepta (in Britannia) licet ab incolis lepid^ suscepta sunt, apud quosdam tamen integr^ et alios minos, ad persecutionem Diocletiani novennem permanere."— (Gild, de excid. Brit.) " Virtus Domini Salvatoris et cum his est, qui ab orbe nostro in Britannia dividuntur." 24 THE BRITISH CHURCH existing at this time amongst the British, as also do the Magdeburg Centuriators \ But the time had now arrived when the Church was to acquire new strength through the blood of its martyrs. In 284, Diocletian was proclaimed em- peror, and under him the most severe persecution which had afflicted the Church, and the only one which reached Britain, broke out. At that time there were no less than four emperors, two of them, Dio- cletian and Maximian, bearing the title of Augustus ; whilst Galerius, son-in-law of Diocletian, and Con- stantius Chlorus bore that of Caesar'". During the latter part of the century Christianity had been making rapid progress and its professors enjoying ample toleration. Christian churches began to assume an appearance of architectural splendour ; persons in high station allowed, not only their servants, but their wives and children, to profess it ; Christians were appointed to the government of provinces ; even the emperor Diocletian himself took into his house- hold a presbyter of the Church of Corinth, named Dorotheus ° ; whilst his wife Prisca, and his daughter Valeria, the wife of the emperor Galerius, are sup- posed to have been Christians. Of the four em- perors, Diocletian was not averse to, whilst Con- stantius Chlorus was inclined to favour, Christianity. But the pagan priests, fearing the influence that his wife and daughter might exercise over him, deter- mined to work upon his superstitious character by means of impositions and false oracles, a scheme in which they were readily joined by Galerius, a man ' " Mansisse et hac aetati ejus insulse (i.e. Britain) ecclesias, affirmare non dubitamus." " Mosheim, iv. i. i. " Eus. H. E. viii. i. » Burt. Eccl. Hist. p. 597. TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 25 of savage disposition, whose name, rather than that of his father - in - law, the persecution would more rightly have taken. At length, a.d. 303, when Dio- cletian was absent in Nicomedia, the first order for the persecution of the Christians went forth ; the churches were to be demolished, their holy books burnt, and they themselves deprived of all civil rights. But still Diocletian was averse to slaughter ; no Christians were to suffer death except those who refused to give up their books to the magistrates ^ But soon, at the instigation of his son-in-law, Dio- cletian issued more severe proclamations : all Chris- tians, lay, as well as the clergy, were ordered, under penalty of torture, to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. Soon the prisons throughout the Roman em- pire were filled with Christians. Whereas the other persecutions, from that of Nero, had been of short duration, " this persecution," says Bede, " was carried on incessantly for the space of ten years, with burn- ing of churches, outlawing of innocent persons, and the slaughter of martyrs." " The churches," says Gildas, " were demolished throughout the whole em- pire ; the holy Scriptures searched for, and burnt in the streets ; the priests and people dragged to the shambles, and butchered like sheep, insomuch that in some provinces there were scarcely any remains of Christianity. In Britain the persecution only lasted two years, and was less severe than in other parts of the empire. This was owing to the governor Constantius Chlorus, father of the great Constantine, who, although a hea- then himself, is described as a man of great justice and humanity. But it was not in his power to dis- Those who did so were called Traditores. 26 THE BRITISH CHURCH pense with the edicts issued at Rome ; even in Britain, Gildas informs us that "many Christians were de- spatched with diversity of torture, and torn Hmb from limb in a most unheard-of and cruel manner ;" but as the names of only three have been preserved, St. Alban of Verulam, and Aaron and Julius of Caer- leon-upon-Usk, we may conclude that the persecution in Britain was not, comparatively speaking, severe. The name of St. Alban, as being the proto-martyr of Britain, claims especial notice. We will give the story in the language of the historian Bede, leaving the reader to divide what is fact from what is fiction. Alban, a person of noble birth, and an officer in the Roman army, lived at Verulam, near the town which since has been called after him, St. Alban's. During the persecution, a priest named Amphibalus ^ took refuge in his house from the pursuit of his ene- mies. Alban, who was then a pagan, took him in, and was so struck with his piety, that he himself received instruction from him, and was baptized. After a few days the retreat of the priest was dis- covered ; Alban, in order to screen him, assuming his cassock, delivered himself up to the soldiers, and was led before the governor, who was at the time engaged in sacrificing to the Pagan gods. Con- fessing himself a Christian, and refusing to offer the sacrifice, after having suffered most cruel tortures, which he bore not only patiently but joyfully for his Lord's sake, he was led forth to execution. On arriving at the little river Ver, the bridge over which was so crowded with people that it was impossible 1 The name is not given him by Bede or Gildas, and it is supposed by Archbishop Usher to denote his habit (d/i<^i ^dXX«) rather than his person. TO THE MISSIONS OF ST, GERMAN. 27 to cross it, the channel of the river was, on his pray- ing, immediately dried up for him to pass over. See- ing this, the executioner threw down his sword, pray- ing that he might suffer with him, or, if possible, in- stead of him. Alban then ascended a hill clothed with all sorts of flowers, and sloping down into a most beautiful plain, a worthy scene for a martyr's sufferings ; here, on the summit, on his prayer to God, a living spring of water broke out before his feet, as it had before dried up in the valley ; and here he died the martyr's death, and received the crown of life. But the executioner who did the deed was not permitted to rejoice over it, for his eyes dropped upon the ground, together with the blessed martyr's head At the same time suffered also the soldier who had refused to be his executioner, and not long after suffered also the priest Amphibalus ^ The scene of the execution of St. Alban was called Holmhurst; over his remains a stately church was built ; this church having been destroyed by the Saxons, Ofifa, king of Mercia, a.d. 793, built on the spot one of the noblest monuments in England, the Abbfey of St. Alban's, lately converted into a Bishop's see. In 305, Diocletian and Maximian resigning, the West was left entirely to Constantius Chlorus, under whom, although he never became a Christian, the per- secution of the Christians ceased. In the following year he died at York, and there his son Constantine, who was born in Britain ' by Helena, a British lady, was proclaimed emperor by the soldiery in Britain. ' Bede, B. i. 7. " His martyrdom is not mentioned in the early martyrologies, but Mat- thew Paris and several historians vouched to having read it in a book in St. Alban's monastery. ' Baronius says that any one must be extremely mad (" extremae de- mentiae ") to deny this. 28 THE BRITISH CHURCH In 312 he marched against, and defeated Maxen- tius, who had usurped the throne of Italy and Africa. It was on his way to this victory, somewhere in Gaul, although doubts exist as to the exact place, that we are told he beheld in the heavens a luminary cross outshining the midday sun, intersected by the letter P, with the inscription, " By this conquer ;" which sa- cred symbol he henceforward affixed to the Labarum, or standard of his army. Constantine and Licinius were now sole emperors, and in a.d. 313 they drew up an edict at Milan, giving full liberty to Christians, and all sects, to live according to their own laws and in- stitutions : but it was not till a.d. 324, that, having defeated in battle, and treacherously put Licinius to death, Constantine became sole emperor ; at that time he became a Christian, and Christianity the religion of the Roman empire. It was a great victory to the Church, having a Chris- tian emperor, but it was not without great difficulty that Constantine was brought to acknowledge the Chris- tian faith : that he should not have embraced it earlier, after the vision which he saw irt a.d. 312, appears strange After that vision he was favourably inclined to Christianity, but his views with regard to the Sa- viour were very indistinct ; he was still addicted to many pagan superstitions, and by no means regarded Christianity as the only true religion. Much as we may admire the virtues of Constantine, and however thankful we may be for his favour to Christianity, we must not be blind to his faults, which were neither few nor slight. He was notoriously addicted, not only to pride and voluptuousness, but also to treachery " The causes of his conversion have been disputed. Theodoret as- cribes it to his mother Helena ; Eusebius, on the contrary, ascribes the conversion of the mother to the son. TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 29 and cruelty. He put to death his own son Cnspus, and his wife Fausta, on an unfounded suspicion, and he killed Licinius, who had married his own sister, and his unoffending son, contrary to his pledged word. His favour towards the Christians arose as much from a statesmanlike as from a religious point of view. He saw what rapid strides Christianity was making, in spite of persecution ; he understood what power- ful allies they might be to him ; he felt it was his in- terest as well as his duty to support them. He did not declare his change till after the death of Licinius. Suffering under remorse for his sins, he sought in vain comfort and absolution from the pagan priests ; it was from Hosius ^, Bishop of Corduba, who happened to be at his court at the time, that he learnt that the Blood of Christ only could atone for the sins of pen- itent believers. Havino- once been convinced of this truth, there is no doubt he was sincere ; and if for ^ many years of his life he remained a catechumen, and did not receive baptism till a few days before his death, yet this delay was agreeable to the practice of the times, arising from an exalted notion of Bap- tism, and a fear that througrh falling- into sin after- wards, its grace might be lost. After his baptism he refused to wear any other dress than his baptismal garment ; and he died on Whit-sunday a.d. 337. The accession of Constantine to the imperial throne marks an important era in the history of the British Church ; of its communion in faith and discipline with other Christian Churches, we have abundant proofs in the ecclesiastical documents of the age^. We have now arrived at the age of the Councils. ' Hosius was one of the three President Bishops at the Council of Nice. 7 Lingard, i. 6. 30 THE BRITISH CHURCH In the year 314, Constantine summoned a Council at Aries, to consider the question of the Donatist schism, which had arisen in Africa, and which, though small at its commencement, continued to trouble the Church for more than a century. At this time, there were three provinces in Britain, called respectively, Maxima Csesariensis, the metropolitan seat being at York ; Britannia Prima, with the metropolitan at London ; and Britannia Secunda, with the metro- politan at Caerleon-on-Usk. We consequently find that the Canons of that Council were subscribed by three British Bishops, Restitutus of London, Eborius of York, and Adelfius " de civitate colonia Londinen- sium." As to the meaning of the last expression there is much doubt ; Bishop Stillingfleet thinks it a mis- print^; it probably referred to the third province of Caerleon-on-Usk. There were also present from Britain, Sacerdos a presbyter, and Arminius a dea- con. The number attending from Britain, to judge , from the subscription to the Council, seems propor- tionate to the representatives of other countries, ex- cept the neighbourhood of Aries, which sent more Bishops, so as to supply any deficiency from the more distant dioceses. One important point must not be unnoticed, as shewing the position at that time of the Church of Rome. Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome, was not present ; yet we find that the Bi- shops did not acknowledge his supremacy, nor re- quire his confirmation to the Canons They merely sent him a copy of their decrees ; they address him as "frater dilectissime ;" they tell him that they had ^ Stilling., Orig. Brit. i. 115. " QujE decrevimus communi concilio caritati tuce significamus, ut omnes sciant quid in futurum observari dcbeat." TO THE AIISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 31 assembled, " piissimi imperatoris voluntate," that they had "Dei nostri praesens auctoritas et traditio;" but if he had possessed any patriarchal rights over the Western Churches, could they assume the power of making Canons, and only send them to the Pope to publish? would Hildebrand, or Innocent III., or a Pope at the present day permit this ? Eleven years afterwards, a.d. 325, the first Qicu- menical Council, the Council of Nice, summoned by Constantine to decide on the heresy of Arius, a Pres- byter of Alexandria, was attended by 318 Bishops, presided over by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, Eustathius, Bishop of Antioch, and Hosius, Bishop of Corduba. At this Council there is no express state- ment that British Bishops were present, but the sub- scriptions to it are confused and imperfect. There can, however, be little doubt that some were present. Eusebius says that Constantine summoned Bishops out of all provinces ^ and provided them with car- riages, and other accommodation for their journey ; and that the most eminent Bishops of all Churches, as well those of Europe as of Asia, did come to Nice. Now Eusebius, as we have seen before, was well ac- quainted with the Churches of Britain, and it is not likely that Constantine, who had summoned British Bishops to so unimportant a Council as that of Aries, would neglect to summon them to the far more im- portant one of Nice. The result of the Council was that Arius was condemned; the Nicene Creed, as far as the sentence, " I believe in the Holy Ghost," was drawn up ; the proper time for keeping Easter settled ; and twenty Canons passed, the emperor at- tending the last sittings, and confirming the Canons. aTTavTax"6(v rois e7ricr/c(!7rour ypafifxaai TifxrjTiKols. 32 THE BRITISH CHURCH The Council of Sardica, a.u. 347, was summoned by the emperor Constantius, son of Constantine, to re- unite the Eastern and Western Churches, which had been disturbed through the Arian party having ban- ished Athanasius and the orthodox Bishops from their sees. That British Bishops, either in person or by proxy, were present, and that they sided with the orthodox party, we have the evidence of St. Atha- nasius himself ; he also speaks of a British Bishop, named Restitutus, attending, but the commonness of the name makes it doubtful whether he was or not the Bishop of London. Hilary of Poitiers, a.d. 358*^, congratulated the British Bishops on " their freedom from all con- tagion of the detestable heresy" of Arianism ; and in A.D. 360, three British Bishops were present at the Council of Rimini. Of this we have the autho- rity of Sulpicius Severus ; for he relates an anecdote concerning them. When the emperor Constantius offered to provide board and lodging to all the Bi- shops at the public expense, the other Bishops, and amongst them the British Bishops, with the excep- tion of three, declined ^ ; from which we may infer two things : firstly, that there were several British Bishops at the Council ; secondly, the prosperous condition of the British Church, where Bishops could " Usher, Br/f. Eccl. Ant., p. 105. ^ Hilary, whilst an exile in Phrygia, writes thus: " Dilectissimis et beatissimis fratribus et coepiscopis . . . . et provinciarum Britanniarum episcopis, Hilarius servus Christi in Deo et Domino nostro aeternam salutem. Gratulatus sum in Domino incontaminatos vos et illaesos ab omni contagio detestandse hasreseos perstitisse." ' "Id nostris (Aquitanis) Gallis ac Bretannis indecens visum est; repu- diatis fiscalibus propriis sumptibus vivere maluerunt ; tres tantum ex Britannia, inopia proprii, publico usi sunt." TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 33 travel so far from their country, and live, with the exception of three, in a foreign land at their own expense. But, whatever may have been the conse- quences of the Council of Rimini, although, no doubt, its members were cajoled into accepting the uncatholic formulary which made the name of Rimini a byword, they returned to the Nicene position; for in a.d. 363, we find St. Athanasius \ although he detected in other places a widespread tendency to Arianism, reckoning the Britons amongst those who were loyal to the Catholic faith ; it .is evident, therefore, that Gildas and Bede greatly exaggerated the influence of Arian- ism in Britain. Eminent authorities in the age follow- ing that of St. Athanasius speak of their orthodoxy : St. Chrysostom says that in " the British isles .... as in the farthest East, or beside the Euxine, or in the South, men may be heard discussing points of Scrip- ture with differing voices, but not differing belief;" and St. Jerome, writing about a.d. 390, says that Britain "worships the same Christ, observes the same rule of faith as other nations^." It is evident, there- fore, that the British Church remained sound in doc- trine ; or, at the most, only slightly tainted with Arianism, to the end of the fourth century. But in the beginning of the fifth century, both Gildas and Bede agree in charging it with Pela- gianism, or the denial of original sin, and the neces- sity of divine grace ; a heresy which was first taught by a native of Wales ^ named Morgan, or "sea-born," ^ TavTTjv 8e irlcmv oi iv tiiKala avueXdovrts (afxoKoyqa-av Trdrcpes, Kai Tavrrj (ivfiy\frioi Tvyxd-vovdi nacrai ai navTaxov Kara tottov eKKXrja-iai ai re Kara rrjv T.navlav /cat BpeTavvlav Kai TaXXiay. — (Athan. ad Jovian. J7np.) » Bright's Early English Church, p. 12. Such was the general opinion : Stillingfleet, however, thinks he was "Scotus," i.e. a native Irishman. D 34 THE BRITISH CHURCH in consequence of which the Roman name Pelagius was given him, and he was commonly known, St. Augustine tells us, as Pelagius Brito'. Pelagius, who had left his native country early in life, never appears to have returned to it, and never attempted personally to propagate his heretical opinions in Bri- tain : his heresy however — which was refuted by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and was condemned in councils held at Carthage and Milevum, a.d. 416, (no less than thirty councils were held against it,) — is supposed to have been introduced here by Agricola, the son of Severianus, a Gallic Bishop The British Bishops, who were generally orthodox were alarmed at the success which Pelagianism had met with, and so, according to Bede, they sent for help to the Bishops of the neighbouring Church of Gaul, who, as far as we can learn, without consult- ing the Pope summoned a council at Troyes, and sent over, probably a.d. 429, St. German, Bishop of Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, brother of St. Vincentius, two Bishops of great reputation, ' " Ut ab illo distingueretur qui Pelagius Tarenti dicitur." Haddan, on the other hand, says (Remains, 336, note) : "Pelagianism found no doubt a heresiarch and a name in a British monk, and that here- siarch a coadjutor (probably) in an Irishman. But neither Pelagius nor Cselestius originated the heresy. It was imparted to Pelagius by Rufinus, a Syrian ; and not in Britain, but in Rome." ' Although Fastidius, Bishop as is supposed of London, the only Bishop of the ancient Britons of whom any doctrinal work is extant, is charged, through an overstrained interpretation of his treatise, with Pelagianism. Stillingfleet, however, defends him. " Prosper of Aquitaine, however, asserts that Pope Caslestine sent St. German ; and it must be admitted that his opinion is of weight, as he was on a mission to that Pope, a.d. 431, and was afterwards secretary to Leo the Great. But he evidently greatly exaggerates the Pope's authority ; for even if, as he says, Caelestine did send St. German as his representative (vice sua), the Britons did not accept him as the Pope's Vicar, and regarded It only as a friendly act, and not as of one having authority over them. TO THE MISSIONS OF ST. GERMAN. 35 for that purpose. The two Bishops, preaching in the fields and streets, soon brought conviction home to their hearers ; in a solemn conference at Verulam, the triumph of orthodoxy was complete, and the two Bishops returned to the Continent, leaving the Britons, as they supposed, well settled in the faith, and the Pelagfians convinced of their errors But the Pelagian heresy reviving, a.d. 447, St. German returned to Britain, taking with him this time Severus, Bishop of Treves, a disciple of his former colleague, Lupus ; his labours were again suc- cessful, but now the heretical teachers were banished, and from that time forward Bede tells us that the British Churches remaind sound and orthodox. We must return for a moment to the first mission of SS. German and Lupus : it was during the time that the Picts and Scots had combined to invade the country. About the middle of Lent, a.d. 430, the two missionaries joined the British camp, in which a great number of the soldiers were still heathens, and having spent the intermediate time in instruct- ing them, administered to them on Easter Eve the sacrament of Baptism, in a church formed out of the boughs of trees. The British army advanced, the greater part of them still wet from the baptis- : mal laver, putting their trust in divine help, whilst human power was despaired of From these inex- ; perienced troops, St. German, determined himself to i be their leader, selected the most active, and posted j his little army in ambush in a narrow valley encom- " Before leaving, St. German visited the tomb of St. Alban, and depo- sited there some relics of the Apostles and Martyrs ; whilst at the same time he took away with him some earth from the martyr's grave (still red it was said with his blood), to place in a new church which he dedicated to the saint at Auxerre. D 2 36 THE BRITISH CHURCH. passed by hills, since called Maes Gannon, or the field of German. The heathen army drew near, con- fident of victory ; all of a sudden the priests from the ambush shouted " Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia," words with which the soldiers had become familiar during their late Easter rejoicings ; with one voice they took up the shout ; the surrounding hills mul- tiplied the echo, it rang from hill to hill, and filled the invading hosts with panic ; thinking the hills were falling on them, they cast away their arms, and fled in precipitate disorder, many of them being drowned in their flight ; thus the grand " Alleluia victory " was gained, the Britons remaining inactive spectators of the victory, without losing a single man. CHAPTER III. THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. TN the middle of the fifth century commenced a very dark period in the history of our Church and country. With the exception of a few incursions from the barbarous Caledonians in the north, the Romans had governed Britain in peace and security for three hundred and fifty years ; and the loss of liberty was more than counterbalanced by the improvements which the Romans had introduced into the rude and savage manners of the conquered. Under Roman rule Christianity flourished ; arts, agriculture, and commerce increased ; roads were made, mines opened, many considerable towns arose ; and at the present day many Roman remains testify how much England owes to Roman civilization. But there was one drawback. The Britons had so long been under the Roman rule, and been so long accustomed to rely on Roman aid, that they had grown effeminate and unwarlike ; and besides this, their best men were constantly being drafted away to protect the interests of the Roman empire in other parts of the world, so that they had not the means, that they would other- wise have had, of defending themselves. And now the days when they could rely upon Ro- man aid were fast drawing to a close : the northern bar- barians were threatening Rome itself ; the great fabric of the empire was tottering to its base ; so Rome, obliged to concentrate around the capital the scat- tered forces of the empire, withdrew its legions from Britain. But at this very time danger threatened Britain 38 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. also. The tribes from the north, the Picts (as the Caledonians were then called), and the Scots (a tribe who had migrated from Ireland), made frequent in- cursions into the country. In their distress the people appealed again and again to Rome for help ; one of these appeals, addressed to " yElius thrice consul," was inscribed as the Groans of the British; the Romans, out of pity for their wretched state, did all they could for them ; they sent over such forces as they could ill spare under their own difficulties, first one legion and then another ; they then told them plainly that they could help them no longer, and that they must train up their people to the defence of their wives and chil- dren, against those who were no stronger than them- selves. To encourage them the more, they built for them a stone wall extending from sea to sea, and exer- cised them in the use of arms ; and then, a.d. 409, they took their last farewell of Britain, never to return. But it was to their vices, rather than their cowardice, that the calamities which came upon the nation are to be ascribed. Bede speaks of the depth of wickedness into which priests as well as people had fallen. Gil- das draws a sad picture of the prevalent immorality : " Those who should have set the best examples, their priests and teachers, were as bad as the others; exces- sive drinking, heats and animosities, contentions and divisions, envy and oppression, were then so prevail- ing, that they seem to have lost all judgment of good and evil." The departure of the Romans only stimulated the enemies of Britain to renew their attacks. The Britons persuaded their king, Vortigern, a.d. 449, to adopt the fatal policy of calling in the assistance of the Germans, who were noted pirates, and who had for some time THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 39 been coasting- around their shores. This, Bede says, was a punishment sent by God for the wickedness of the people ; and Gildas speaks of " the stupidity and infatuation which the Britons were then under, to call in a nation to help them, whom they dreaded worse than death." These Germans, called by the Romans, Saxons, but known amongst themselves under the common name of Angles, or English, were not un- acquainted with Britain ; they knew well its great fertility, the wealth of its cities, the accessibility of its coasts, and the weakness of its people. Nor were the Britons ignorant of the Germans. Not unfre- quently they had joined their northern enemies in their incursions ; their ravages had been so frequent and so successful, that the whole shore from the Elbe to the British channel was known as "the Saxon shore and under the title of "Counts of the Saxon shore," Roman officers were appointed to guard the Roman possessions. Scarcely had these Germans vanquished the foes against whom they had been called in, than they shewed themselves in their true light. They found Britain was a pleasant land ; other adventurers came, and brought over their wives and families, and drove out the Britons, whom they called Welsh, or strangers. The first that came had been Jutes, who set up the first kingdom of Kent, a.d. 451. Next came the Saxons, who set up the kingdom of Sussex in 477, and Wessex in 519, and Essex, which included Mid- dlesex, in 530. Later came the Angles in 547, who set up the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria. Others went inland, and founded Mercia, a.d. 585. For some time Britain, unaided and alone, success- * Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 14. 40 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. fully withstood its invaders. On one occasion, indeed," under Ambrosius Aurelianus, a.d. 489, they seem to have won an important battle at Bannesdown. Am- brosius employed the respite thus afforded in rebuild- ing the churches which had been destroyed in the war, and in providing for the better settlement of religious affairs. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Ambrosius convened a Council, and appointed two metropolitans, Sampson to York, and Dubricius to Caerleon ; Samp- son, we are told, afterwards went to Armorica, and became Archbishop of Dole ^. But eventually victory remained with its enemies ; and never was there a victory more complete, or more cruelly misused. For, of all the hordes that dismem- bered the Roman empire, the Saxons were the most barbarous. The Goths and Lombards had been Christianized ; and the Franks, if not Christians, had at least been softened by Roman civilization. But the Saxons were heathen ; they worshipped the sun and moon, and Wodin or Odin, and Thor the thunderer, and many other false gods ^ The greatest virtue with them was courage, the greatest vice, cowardice : those who fell in battle were the special favourites of the gods, and were at once admitted to the hall of Woden (Walhalla), where their time was passed in alternate fighting and feasting ; whilst for cowards were re- served all the pains of Niflheim ("evil home"): to drink ale for ever out of the skulls of their enemies, was the reward of the virtuous ; hunger and thirst the punishment of the vicious. We can easily understand, from the fierce character of the people, how the Teutonic settlement in Britain Collier, cent. vi. It is, however, from them that we derive the word " God," or, " the Good." THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 41 was unlike that of the Goths, or Lombards, or Franks in the countries which they conquered. The conquest of Gaul, or Italy, was little more than a forcible settle- ment in the conquered country, which was destined in the course of time to absorb the conquerors. French, for instance, is not the language of the Frank, but of the Gaul, whom the Frank conquered. But the German conquest of Britain was a sheer dispossession and slaughter of the conquered people. Wherever the conqueror went, the vengeance he took on the Britons was terrible ; whole villages and towns were consigned to the flames, and a promiscuous slaughter of the inhabitants ensued ; everything Celtic was as effectually wiped out of the land, as everything Roman was wiped out of Africa by the Saracen conquerors of Carthage Britain ceased to be Britain, and became England : the religion, the laws, the language were all changed ; and, as if to recall to the people the daily remembrance of their slavery, the very days of the week took the names of the deities which had de- throned Christ ^ Meanwhile, what was the condition of the British Church ? According to Bingham \ there must have been in the country, before these calamities came upon it, more Bishops than there are at the present day. By the Anglo-Saxon conqueror, England, that is, the conquered portion of the country, was divided into seven kingdoms, known as the Saxon Heptarchy: those kingdoms were Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria; and in them Chris- tianity was simply annihilated. Its wretched condition we learn from Gildas, who, writing about the middle of Freeman's Norman Conquest. ' Green's History of the English People. ' Antiquities of the Christian Church, B. ix. ch. 6. 42 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. the sixth century, must either himself have been an eye-witness, or have conversed with those who had been the eye-witnesses of the devastation which he de- scribes. All the cities and churches were burnt to the ground ; the inhabitants destroyed by the sword, or buried in the ruins of houses and altars, which were defiled with the blood of the slain. He applies to the devastation the words of the Psalmist, " They have cast fire into Thy sanctuary, by casting down Thy dwelling-place to the ground;" and, "O God, the heathen have come into Thine inheritance : Thy holy temple have they defiled." All public and private buildings, says Bede, were destroyed ; the priests' blood was spilt upon the altars ; the prelates and people destroyed together by fire and sword, and no man dare give them burial. But the whole of the western part of the country remained unconquered. Strathclyde, including the country from the Clyde to the Dee, the kingdom of Cumbria; North Wales, or Cambria ; South Wales ^, or Devon and Cornwall ^ with part of Somerset and the sacred Avalon, remained purely British ; this land the English called Welsh-land, or, the " Land of the Foreigner," Welsh being the name which the Ger- mans applied to all nations speaking languages of Latin descent. For a time, Theon, Bishop of London, and Thadioc of York, held to their sees in England; but when the country had entirely relapsed into pa- ganism, when London sacrificed to Diana, and West- minster to Apollo, and they found that all was lost, 8 South Wales was conquered by Henry I. ; North Wales, not till the reign of Edward I. ; while the conquest of Cornwall was effected in the tenth century by King Athelstan. Cornwall, Cornu-GalHae, "the Horn of Wales." THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 43 then, A.D. 587, they were forced by persecution to fly, and to join their brethren in Wales. In those parts we must now look for the Primitive Church of this land, shut off indeed from, and perhaps forgotten by, the larger portion of Christendom ; but now no longer standing alone, but forming one with its sis- ter Churches of Ireland and Scotland, (for, as we shall see presently, about the middle of the fifth century a combination of Churches of the British confession arose) ; conscious of no submission to any foreign Church, but gazing fondly back to Jerusalem' and the Holy Land rather than to (although not to the exclusion of) papal Rome ; with its own Liturgy, its own customs, its own peculiar, although erroneous, cycle of computing Easter; orthodox in belief; hav- ing, as we learn from Gildas, a regularly-ordained Episcopate"^; believing its Bishops to be the suc- cessors of the Apostles ; its priests claiming power to bind and loose ; the hands of the priests and inferior ministers anointed and certain lessons from the Epistles and the Acts read at their ordination : we learn how the Church also had societies of monks and nuns under religious vows ; how the services ' St. Columban, in a letter to Pope Boniface IV., whilst he asserts the independence of the British Church, sets the Church of Jerusalem above that of Rome : "You are almost heavenly, and Rome is the Head of the Churches of the world, saving the special prerogative of the Place of the Lord's Resurrection." '' We shall find that seven Bishops from Wales (how many more there may have been we have no means of judging) met for conference with St. Augustine : and all the Welsh bishoprics of the present day claim a foundation prior to Anglo-Saxon times. " Eo tempore quo Augustinus Monachus, in Britanniam missus est a Gregorio, Christianismus viguit, cum fuerint in ea septcm episcopatus et unus Archiepiscopatus." — (Gil- frid de Gest. Brit.) ' " Initiantur sacerdotum vel ministrorum manus." 44 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. were chanted, and the churches contained several altars dedicated to martyrs. We learn also from him (although probably with much exaggeration), that as soon as the terrors of the Saxon invasion had subsided, the moral condition of the Britons was deplorable ; that priests as well as people were guilty of heinous offences ; that bishops and priests were guilty of simony, and cowardly in re- buking vice, and that they took no steps to con- vert the hated Saxons. It is of the greatest consequence that we should gather all the information, and form as clear a view as possible, of the Church in Wales : for it cannot be doubted that a great number of people think, that the link between the early British Church and our Church of the present day was snapped asunder by the Saxon invasion, and that in consequence of this a new Church arose, and that we derive our ori- gin, not from the Apostles, but St. Augustine. If we have to regret that the ecclesiastical history of the fifth and sixth centuries is veiled in obscurity, it must be remembered that the same may be said of the civil history of the same period. Modern cri- ticism has shewn the almost impossibility of extract- ing reliable details from the confused traditions of the Saxon conquest; even the existence of Hengist and Horsa, of Vortigern and Arthur have been called in question™, and that by no mean authorities. Can we wonder, then, when Christianity was so sorely perse- cuted, when its persecutors tried all they could to de- " Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus." — (Mac, vol. i. p. 6.) THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 45 stroy all vestiges of the hated religion of a hated people, when Christianity was hunted out of the largest and best portions of the country, and forced to take refuge amongst the inaccessible mountains in a remote corner of the land, that its memorials per- ished with it, or that the little Church was well-nigh forgotten. We must be content with such docu- ments as are at our disposal ; and if few and uncon- nected, these are, at any rate, sufficient for our pur- pose. There are three very reliable tests of the condition of a Church; (i.) its missions; (2.) its colleges and schools of learning ; (3.) the number of its saints and holy men ; and, judged by these tests, we shall find that the British Church held an im- portant position in Christendom. (i.)The great glory of the British Church consisted in its missionary enterprises, which caused its name to be regarded with reverence, in the sixth and seventh centuries, by Christians of every grade throughout the whole north-west Continent of Europe. From the middle of the fifth century the name of British or Celtic Churches comprised not only the Christians of Wales, but also the Irish or Scots, and the Caledo- nians and to make this part of the history intelligible, it will be necessary to say a few words as to the ori- gin of these sister Churches of the British confession. It must be borne in mind that the early inhabit- ants of Ireland were Scots. "It is probable," says Gibbon", "that in some remote period of antiquity ° Hook, i. 10. Under the name " BritanniccC Insulae" the ancients in- cluded Albion, or England, and Scotland, and Hibernia, or Ireland, and the adjacent islands. "The Irish Churches," says Soames, "might be connected, as are the Church of England and the Episcopal Church of North America ; as also are the Churches of Italy and Spain." " Decline and Fall, vol. iv. p. 294. 46 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES, the fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hun- gry Scots ; ... it is certain that in the declining age of the Roman Empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man were inhabited by the Scots." Hence Ireland was generally called " Scotia," or " Insula Scotorum," by the writers of the sixth and seventh centuries ; and the name of Scotland, as applied to the northern part of Britain, which was at that time in- habited solely by the Picts, is of comparatively modern date. In process of time, the Scots migrating from Ireland under their leader Reuda^, either by fair means or force of arms, secured to themselves those settlements amongst the Picts which they still possess ; for a time the two peoples answered to the division of Highlanders and Lowlanders of modern times ; but by degrees the Scots gained on, and subdued the Picts, till in the ninth century they became supreme, and gave their name to the whole country. During the early part of the fifth century, St. Ninian, the son of a British chief, preached to the southern Picts, a people of whom it was said before their con- version, " they had more hair on their faces than clothes on their bodies." He established his see at Whithorn, in Galloway, and there he dedicated a church to St. Martin, which, on account of its being built of white stone, received the name " Candida Casa," a name afterwards given to the see. After labouring amongst them for eight years, their violence compelled him to leave the country, and he took refuge in Ireland. About A.D. 440, Patrick, a native of North Britain, went into Ireland, and established Christianity in the country, from which circumstance he is commonly Bede, chap. i. THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 47 known as the Apostle of Ireland Patrick, whose ori- ginal name was Succoth, but to whom that of Patricius, or Patrick, was given on account of his noble birth, is generally supposed to have been born in a village near Dumbarton, which after him is called Kirkpatrick'^ : his father, Calpurnius, was a deacon, and his mother is supposed to have been a sister of St. Martin of Tours. Patrick had already in his youth become acquainted with Ireland, for in his sixteenth year he, with his two sisters, had been carried captive there by a band of pirates : after six years he made his escape ; but after he was ordained priest, he felt himself called by visions to preach the Gospel in the land of his captivity. Pal- ladius ^ a Briton, who had been ordained deacon at Rome, had before, in 431, gone on a mission to Ire- land, but his mission failed, and he was expelled from the country by Sinell, king of Leinster; the mission of St. Patrick, who was ordained bishop a.d. 441, when he was nearly seventy years of age, was eminently suc- cessful, his first convert being the king himself About A.D. 454 he fixed his see at Armagh, which has ever since continued the seat of the Irish Primacy; and, ac- cording to Archbishop Usher, he died a.d. 493, at the age of 120 years, having laboured amongst the Irish for fifty years, and (if we can believe his Irish Biog- raphers) founded 365 churches, and baptized 12,000 persons. In the following century, Ireland was able to repay 1 The Isle of Man is said to have received its first Bishop from St. Patrick, about A.D. 447. Churton, Ancient Brit. Ch. 19. ' Some think he was born at Boulogne, but he mentions his birth- place as being "in Britanniis." ' That Christians existed in Ireland even before the mission of Palla- dius, see Haddan and Stubbs' Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. ii. part ii. p. 288. 48 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. the debt she owed to Scotland. In 565 St, Columba, an Irish Abbot from Durrogh, in Ireland, one of St. Patrick's monasteries, crossed over to Scotland in a boat made of ox-hides, and there founded in Hy, one of the Hebrides, the famous monastery of lona, called after him, Icolm-kill, or, the Island of Columba of the Celts, which long remained famous as a seat of learning and religion, and became the parent of many other monasteries. Making this monastery his start- ing-point, he laboured for forty years with great suc- cess on the neighbouring shores of Scotland, and the north of England From an early period, a strong missionary spirit seems to have pervaded these monasteries of Ireland and Scotland ; and before the coming of St. Augustine, a remarkable body of missionaries had started from Britain for the conversion of the Continent ^ In 589, Columban, a monk, from the Irish monastery of Ban- gor, crossed into Gaul, and, establishing himself in the Vosges, founded three monasteries of Anegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines, into which he introduced the British customs, and mode of observing Easter. In 610, after a residence in the country of twenty years, having incurred the anger of King Theodore, he was driven from his court. He then went to Metz, and from thence into Switzerland, where he laboured for some time in the neighbourhood of Zug : he after- ' According to Bede. " For the conversion of the " Australes Picti" by St. Ninian, and of the " Septentrionales Picti" by St. Cokimba, see Haddan and Stubbs, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 105. ^ The traditions of St. Beatus, after whom is named St. Beatenberg, on the Lake of Thun, of Mansuetus, Bishop of Toul, of Marcellus, Bishop of Treves, and of Cataldus, in the first and second centuries, and of Mello, Bishop of Rouen, in the third, rest on no sufficient authority. i THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 49 wards went into Italy, where, having founded the monastery of Bobbio amongst the Cottian Alps, he died A.D. 615. St. Gall, the countryman and pupil of St. Columban, having been prevented from accompanying him into Italy, remained behind in Switzerland (of which country he is called the Apostle), and founded there the fa- mous monastery, which after him was called St. Gall. He died a.d. 627. On his way to Rome, a.d. 677, to seek redress against Archbishop Theodore and King Egfrid, Wil- frid, a Saxon, brought up in the British Church, of whom we shall hear more in a succeeding chapter, was carried by a storm into Friesland, where he preached the Gospel with great success ; the king, Adalgis, together with most of the chiefs, and many thousands of the people, being converted. But Adal- gis, having been succeeded by Radbod, a heathen, for some time the work of evangelization was stopped. In the year 690, a monk named Willibrord, who had been trained in Wilfrid's monastery at Ripon, set out with twelve monks for Frisia ; and, having been con- secrated an Archbishop at Rome, under the more euphonious name of Clement, fixed his see, by per- mission of Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charle- magne, at Utrecht^, and succeeded in extirpating pa- ganism from a large part of Frisia. He died a.d, 739, in his eighty-second year. The conversion of Thuringia was commenced by Kilian, who, arriving in the country about a.d. 686, at the head of a band of Irish missionaries, was kindly received by Duke Gozbert, who resided at Wurzburg. But Kilian, having induced him to part with his wife ' Bede says it was at Wittaburg, on the opposite side of the Rhine. 50 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. Geilana, who had previously been married to his bro- ther, Geilana in revenge murdered him, with two of his companions ; in consequence of which, the venge- ance of Heaven is said to have pursued the ducal house, till it speedily became extinct. Bede ^ relates the touching story of two Saxon priests, named Ewald, called, for distinction's sake, the one " black," and the other " white " Ewald ; who, following the examples of Willibrord and his followers, went on a mission to Saxony, They were hospitably received into the house of the steward, who promised to introduce them to the Ealdorman (for Bede says these Saxons had no king), and they continued " in prayer, and singing of Psalms and hymns, and daily offerins: the sacrifice of the savins oblation." But the pagans, fearing lest their chief might be converted, fell upon the two priests, and put them to a cruel death, " white " Ewald being dispatched immediately by a single sword-stroke, whilst "black" Ewald suffered dreadful tortures, and was torn limb from limb. Their martyrdom took place a.d. 695, near Cologne, where their bodies, which had been thrown into the Rhine, being recovered by their companions, were interred. The end of the seventh, or early part of the eighth century, marks the culminating point of the British Churches ; at that time the extent of the non- Roman communion throughout Europe well-nigh ba- lanced that of the Roman side : it seemed that the Christian world would see a combination of Churches, of which the British Isles would have been the nu- cleus, as widely spread, and far better united than the Rome itself of that day, untorn by dissensions, un- ' Book V. 10. THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 51 assailed by Arian barbarians, and as independent of Rome as the patriarchates of Antioch or Alexandria ^ The names of Bishop Wilfrid and Archbishop Theo- dore at home, and of St. Boniface abroad, mark the decadence of the British Church, and the commence- ment of its absorption into that of Rome. In the eighth century, the most famous of all, — although he belonged rather to the English than the British Church, — left these shores as a missionary, Winfrid ^ or, as he is better known, St. Boniface, the " Apostle of Ger- many." Born at Crediton about a.d. 680, at the age of seven he entered a monastery at Exeter, from which he removed to a Hampshire monastery named Nutscelle; and, by the advice of its abbot took Holy Orders. The monks were desirous of making Winfrid their abbot ; but a noble impulse of piety led him to desire the life of a foreign missionary, so he joined the aged Willibrord at Utrecht about 716. He shortly afterwards returned to England, and, starting a second time to Frisia in 718, took with him letters of recom- mendation from Daniel, Bishop of Winchester ; and, going to Rome in 723, he was consecrated under the Italian name of Boniface, not to any particular diocese, but as missionary Bishop to Germany, by Pope Gre- gory II., who bound him, as the condition of his ordi- nation, by an oath of obedience or allegiance to the see of Rome. This is the first instance of an oath of allegiance being taken to the Pope, and it must be confessed that Boniface, even if he were not a servile follower"^ of Rome, did much to increase the Pope's ° Haddan's Remains, p. 318. The name must not be confused with that of Wilfrid. " The French Benedictine monks remark on the sycophancy of Boni- face to the Roman pontiff: "II exprime son devouement pour le S. Si^ge E 2 52 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. influence both on the Continent and in England. After a long course of missionary labour, he was appointed to the see of Mayence with archiepiscopal rank, and received the pall from Gregory III. soon after his accession. And here he might well have rested from his labours. But he still yearned after his missionary life ; so, laying aside his dignities, he resumed his work in Friesland, which, in his early life, he had in vain tried to bring to the faith. The great success he met with embittered those who remained unconverted ; and, A.D. 754, his holy and laborious life was brought to a violent end, and he suffered martyrdom. He had given notice of a Confirmation, and was expecting a large number of his catechumens ; instead of these, an armed band of pagans rushed into his tent, and murdered the holy man, together with his whole com- pany, fifty-two in number. But, famous as was the British Church in the work of foreign missions, it must be confessed that it en- tirely neglected the conversion of its hated Saxon neighbours. It failed in its duty; and so the ground that it ought to have occupied, was occupied by the foreigner. But when once the British Church was aroused to its duty, we shall find its success amongst the pagan kingdoms of England was as remarkable as it was praiseworthy. A small part only of the Saxon Heptarchy was converted to Christianity by mission- aries from Rome ; by far the largest portion owes its conversion to missionaries of the native Church. (2.) We must now pass on to the schools and col- leges of the British Church. As long as the Roman empire lasted, the establishment of schools in the va- quelquefois en des termes qui ne sont pas assez proportion's, a la dignitd du charact^re episcopal." THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 53 rious parts of the empire was undertaken by it. To supply the loss of the Roman schools, St. German had recommended the Britons to build monasteries ; and he appears to have founded himself the famous monastery of Banofor-Iscoed. The most famous schools were those of St. Dubricius and Iltutus. The former, who is said to have been the son of a petty king ^ for seven years taught at Hentland, in Monmouthshire, where he had no less than a thousand students ; great num- bers of pupils, such as SS. Telian and Sampson, flock- ing to him from all parts of Britain. Iltutus kept a scarcely less famous school in Glamorganshire, Gildas being one of his pupils, at a place called after him, Llanyltad, or, the Church of Iltutus. One of the most famous seats of learning, was the monastery of Llancarvan, in Glamorganshire, which St. Cadok founded, and of which he became the first abbot. To this monastery were admitted, not only candidates for the monastic life, but the sons of the chiefs and petty kings of Wales ; so that Llancarvan became a famous school for social and secular learning. The monastic community at Llancarvan was fol- lowed by many other places of education, or monas- teries usually bearing the name of Bangor, i.e. *' high choir, or circle." The most famous of these was Bangor-Iscoed ("under the wood"), in Flintshire; it is said to have contained two thousand monks at the time of its destruction by King Ethelred, who massa- cred twelve hundred of them Another Bangor was that which still bears the name, and of which David Fuller says, B. i. 29, that in this and the next century there is no mean between two extremes ; all men eminent for learning and religion are either without known fathers, or sons of kings. ° Bede, B. ii. 2. 54 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. was, as was not uncommon in British Churches, both abbot and bishop. Another Bangor was the fa- mous monastery of Llanelwy, now St. Asaph, found- ed under direction of Kentigern, or St. Mungo, the Bishop of Glasgow, who, with his friend St. Asaph, is said to have founded that see in the sixth century ; into this men of all ranks and ages pressed, to the number of nine hundred and sixty-five Besides these, there were the White House, or Whitland, in Carmarthenshire, founded by Paulinus, at which St. David was educated, and the great col- lege of Llanbadarn-Vaur, founded by St. Patern, where one of the most venerable churches in the Principality still exists^. (3.) Nor was the British Church deficient in eminent men. Amongst the most eminent Bishops was Dubri- cius, or Dyfrig, of whom mention has been made above. He was the first Bishop of Llandaff, and subsequently Archbishop of Caerleon-on-Usk in which capacity he is said to have crowned Uther Pendragon, and his son Arthur; but this was impossible, as Dubricius, dying probably a.d. 612, must have lived long after King Arthur. Under him a council was held at Brovi, or Llandewi, in Cardiganshire, in consequence of the revival of Pelagianism, at which, the Utrecht manu- script states, one hundred and eighteen Bishops were present'. Finding himself disqualified on account of age, he resigned his archbishopric to St. David. ' Forbes, Cat. of Scottish Saints. « Bright's Early English Church. Dubricius was Archbishop " dextralis partis Britannije;" by this Archbishop Usher understands South Wales, but Bishop Stillingfleet, with greater probability, thinks it includes both North and South. There is much difTerence of opinion as to his date, some placing his death as early as A.D. 522. ' It is difficult to imagine how there could have been so many bishops : THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 55 St. David, or Dewi, the patron saint of Wales, is said to have been son of Xantus, a prince of Wales, and uncle to King Arthur. Having been educated, first at Llanwit Major, and afterwards at the college of Paulinus at Whitland, he visited Jerusalem, where he received ordination at the hands of the Patriarch ; after his return, he founded and became head of a so- ciety at Hen-Mynyw, at which the most rigorous rule was observed, the monks being obliged to plough and cultivate the land themselves, without the help of oxen. By permission of King Arthur, he removed the seat of the Archbishopric from Caerleon to Menevia, called after him, St. David's ; preferring, as was cus- tomary with the British Bishops, the monastic seclu- sion of that retired spot to the populous and less con- templative Caerleon. He had taken an important part in the Council of Brovi, or, as it was called after him, Llandewi. Under him another Council was held, at a place called Victoria, at which the acts of the Council of Brovi were confirmed ; and the proceedings of these two Councils henceforward became the rule and stand- ard of the British Church. St. David was a person of great learning and eloquence, and remarkable for the austerity of his life. He built a church at Glas- tonbury, and twelve monasteries, the chief of which was at Menevia ; and having lived the great ornament and pattern of his time, he died probably a.d. 612^, being 146 years of age, and was afterwards canonized by Calixtus II. but it must be borne in mind that at that time dioceses were much smaller than now, and no doubt much more numerous. Many bishops were ordained, e.g. Sampson, afterwards Archbishop of Dole, " sine titulo." > Some place his death as late as a.d. 642; others as early as A.D. 522. 56 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. Sampson, one of the scholars of Iltutus, having been consecrated a Bishop at large {sine tittilo) by Dubricius, landed in Armorica'', or French Britain, a.d. 522. He is said to have carried with him the monuments of the early British Church, which have never been reco- vered, and to have become Archbishop of Dole : in Armorica, many British Christians found a refuge, particularly St. Malo, St. Brice, and Gildas the his- torian. St. Cadok, son of a petty king of South Wales, re- fusing to succeed his father in his principality, founded the monastery of Llancarvan, where he spent several years of his early life. He is said to have supported, besides the ordinary hospitality of his table, three hundred clergy and poor people out of his patrimony. From Wales he went to Armorica ; and after remain- ing there several years, he returned to his native country, not, however, to end his life in his peaceful mo- nastery at Llancarvan, but he chose Weedon, in North- amptonshire, as the scene of his labours ; and here, whilst he was celebrating the divine offices, he suffered martyrdom at the hands of a band of Saxons, a.d. 570. St. Patern, the friend of St. David, was a native of Armorica, and came over first to Ireland, and then to Wales, where a church was dedicated to him, under the name of Llan-Badarn Vaur (the Church of Patern the Great), which was made into an episcopal see, and continued so for many years, until it was extinguished on account of the people murdering their Bishop. Brittany, on the coast of Gaul, was founded during the Saxon troubles by a colony of Britons (whence its name), as a convenient station near their own country, where they might receive their own countrymen who were suffering persecution, or return home if they thought fit. THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 57 St. Telian, a pupil of Dubricius, and the intimate friend of St. David and St. Petroc, succeeded Dubricius as second Bishop of Llandafif, and after him in that see came Oudoceus as third bishop. In a full synod of his clergy, held a.d. 560, he excommunicated Mourice, King of Glamorganshire, for murder. After being ex- communicated for two years, the king came in tears, and asked the bishop to restore him to communion ; which request, after a severe penance, was granted. Mention is made in the book of Llandaff of other princes being excommunicated by him. St. Kentigern, popularly known as St. Mungo, said to be the son of a British prince, Owen ab Urien Reged, was born about a.d. 514 at Culross, on the Forth ; proceeding whence he planted a monastery at Cathures, now called Glasgow, and became bishop of the kingdom of Cumbria, and with SS. Ninian and Columba, was one of the great missionaries of Scot- land. Leaving Scotland, he went into Wales, and there he founded another monastery, and the bishopric which bears the name of his pupil, St. Asaph ; return- ing into his county, he died at Glasgow about a.d. 560 ; according to other accounts a.d. 601. He is described as a person of great piety and austerity, frequently fasting for three days together ; never tasting wine or flesh, and wearing goat-skins, with sackcloth next his skin. Next to St. Kentigern, whose life he wrote, must be mentioned his pupil St. Asaph, a person of noble birth, and eminent for his piety and learning : he is supposed to have died about a.d. 590. Of SS. Columba and Columban mention has been made above. It remains to mention Gildas the historian. He 58 THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. was born, according to Archbishop Usher, a.d. 520, and died a.d. 570 ; and having been educated in the fa- mous school of Iltutus, he became a monk at Bangor. He was a person of great piety; but Gibbon not un- justly describes his writings, which are very severe, especially against princes and clerg}', as the produc- tion of a monk utterly ignorant of human nature. Archbishop Usher thinks he wrote his work, De Excidio Britannicu, a.d. 564. He says he had re- frained from writing for ten years, but the sins of his countrymen no longer allowed him to keep silence. His work, which he wrote in Armorica, at the request of his countrymen who w^ere settled there, is divided into two parts, the " history " and the " epistle," which last again is divided into the " Increpatio in reges" and the " Increpatio in clerum." His works were well known to literary men in the seventh and eighth centuries ; six chapters of Bede's first book ' are almost entirely a transcription from Gildas ; and Alcuin twice speaks of him as " Brettonum sapientissimus." Be- sides his extant works, Geoffrey of Monmouth speaks of a larger historical work, which apparently is lost ^. Of the Church of Cornwall, or, as it then was, the south of Wales, we know but little. This much, how- ever, is certain, that the Christians in Cornwall were numerous, and that they retained their ancient customs and liturgy till the seventh century. During the fifth and sixth centuries, Cornwall had been receiving from Ireland a succession of missionaries, including some w^omen, whose work is still remembered in the nomen- ' The twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and twenty- second. ■° Unless it is contained, as Turner (Angl, Sax. i. 201) thinks, in the " Historia Britonum" of Nennius. THE BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES. 59 clature of the country. Cornwall, says Fuller " is the cornucopia of saints, most of Irish extraction." " If," says the Bishop of Truro °, " St. Augustine had gone to Cornwall, he would not have found there, as many perhaps might suppose, a multitude of heathen people, but there he would have found people holding the full knowledge of the Gospel ; worshipping there day after day, as well as from Sunday to Sunday. St. Augustine would have found himself amongst peo- ple who knew and loved the same Gospel which he taught. They knew that in the fifth century there came over from Ireland, which was already Christian, missionary after missionary, who took up his abode in their coasts. There came St. Breoka, who had left her name in Breage, St. la, St. Ives, St. Uny, St. Gwithin, St. Piran." The Cornish Church owed very little to Romanists ; who, on the contrary, tried all they could to obliterate the memory of those saints. " B.i. II. ° Sermon preached at Peranzabuloe, August, 1878. PART II. CHAPTER I. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. /GREGORY I., the best and greatest of his name became Pope of Rome, at a time when it might be expected he would find trouble enough at home, to prevent his attempting the conversion of Eng- land. For at that time Rome had reached the lowest depth of degradation ; so lamentable was its condition, as to lead people to suppose the end of the world was at hand. The Lombards were overrunning Italy, and no help could be obtained from Constantinople, or from the Exarch : the Tiber had overflowed its banks, and destroyed the gran- aries of corn ; and a severe pestilence, in which the Pope Pelagius died, had followed. Nor was the state of the Church much better ; Gregory himself compares it to " an old and violently-shattered ship, admitting the waters on all sides, its timbers rotten, shaken by daily storms And even if that fatherly tenderness and loving charity which characterized every action of his life could find time, amidst his other duties, to think of the conversion of the hea- then, why should England be the favoured nation England was not the only pagan country in Europe. All Germany, and all nations from the Rhine to the frozen ocean, and all the Slavonian tribes, were equally pagan. Rome had long considered England as se- » Ep. i. 44. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 6i parated from the whole world, as approaching the frozen Thule ; especially of late years, it had been cut off by its German conquerors from all inter- course with the civilized world, so that of all coun- tries it seemed the least likely to attract the atten- tion of a Roman pontiff. Gregory, when he first formed the benevolent desire of converting England, was only a private monk ; but he was a man who, in whatever capacity of life he was (and he went through several), united in his person every quality which goes to make a man not only nominally, but really great. Born at Rome, of an illustrious family, about a.d. 540; hav- ing a Pope (Felix) for his great-grandfather^, and two sainted sisters for his aunts, endowed with talent and riches, and with earthly fame within his reach ; appointed at an early age praetor of Rome ; he vo- luntarily relinquished all to devote himself to the Church. From his own wealth he founded seven mon- asteries, one that of St. Andrew in his own family mansion of Rome ; and into that, having lavished on the poor all his costly robes, his silk, his gold, his jewels, and his furniture, he retired, not, how- ever, assuming at first the abbacy of his own con- vent, but commencing with the lowest monastic du- ties, and devoting himself to the most severe asceti- cism. During the time that the plague was desolating Rome, Gregory braved all its dangers, and forming the citizens into choirs, he traversed the streets, chanting penitential litanies with the view to ap- peasing Heaven''. Rome was full of the praise of A proof that celibacy was not at the time enforced. The custom of chanting htanies in procession, in times of danger, having originated in the East, was prevalent in the Church in the fourth century. St. Gregory the Great collected the existing litanies into one, which was received into this country by the Council of Cloveshoo, A.D. 747. 62 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. such magnanimity and self-denial, and when, in a.d. 590, Pelagius was carried off by the plague, he was elected as his successor by the unanimous voice of the clergy, senate and people. Gregory reluctantly accepted the office, after he had used every means to escape it : he was forced to yield, and was consecrated in September, 590. "Nothing," says Milman*^, "was too great, nothing too small for his earnest personal solicitude ; from the most minute points of ritual, or regulations about the papal power in Sicily, he passes to the conver- sion of Britain, the extirpation of simony amongst the clergy of Gaul, negotiations with the armed con- querors of Italy, the revolutions of the Eastern em- pire, the title of universal Bishop usurped by John the Faster, of Constantinople." He laboured dili- gently as a preacher. In learning he was inferior to none; his book on "Pastoral care "was for many centuries the manual of the Western Church. As St. Ambrose introduced into Milan the Ambrosian chant, so Gregory increased the number of tones from four to eight, and introduced that method of singing which, under the name of the Gregorian Chant, is the basis of Church-singing in the present day ^ But the one great act which concerns us most is his mission to the English. During the time that Gregory was Abbot of St. Andrews, the traffic in slaves was carried on extensively at Rome One day, when he was walking in the market-place of ^ Lat. Christ, i. 439. • Gibbon, while admitting the full extent of his disinterestedness, yet without giving any reason, speaks of "his virtues and his faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of sense and superstition." Hume also depreciates him, but without giving any reason. ' The traffic of slaves was allowed even by councils (e.g. that of Agde, A.D. 506) not only to laymen, but also to the clergy and monks. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 63 that city, his attention was attracted to some fair- haired boys who were exposed there to sale. He was told by the slave-owner that they were " Angles :" the resemblance of their name to that of angels, and the contrast of their heathen condition, at once inter- ested him. Their country, Deira, which we may broadly call Yorkshire, suggested to him that they ought to be snatched " from the wrath " (de ira) of God. The name of their king, Ella, suggested Alle- lujah, and that the praises of God ought to be sung in their kingdom. He went to the Pope, and offered himself as a missionary to the English nation ; he even started upon his journey, but so popular was he at Rome, and so little could the people spare him, that the Pope was forced to order his return. But he never forgot that scene in the market-place, and when he became himself Pope, he set himself to the work which he had so long at heart. Four years afterwards he sent off a party of about forty monks to England, having selected Augustine, the Prior of his OAvn monastery, as their head. They started on their journey, making a halt amongst the monastic recluses of Lerins, where they received a hearty welcome. But the monks of Lerins told them of the difficulties and dangers of the journey, of the fierce nature of the Saxons, and of their barbarous language. The missionaries lost heart, and were for returning home : so they sent back Augustine to Rome to induce Gregory to relieve them from their task. But Gregory was not so easily daunted : he gently rebuked the cowardice of Augustine, he en- couraged them to resume their journey, and, to give Augustine greater authority, he created him Abbot, supplying him with letters of commendation to the 64 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. Bishop of Aries and other bishops. Augustine, thus strengthened, rejoined his companions, and having provided themselves with interpreters in Gaul, where they wintered, the missionaries landed in the Isle of Thanet, a.d. 597. Under ordinary circumstances we may doubt whe- ther the worshippers of Wodin would readily have exchanged their paganism for the religion of Christ. There were not wanting, indeed, in the Saxon cha- racter, certain traits which would render them amen- able to the softer influences of Christianity. Their free spirit, the lofty sense of personal honour, and, above all, their high estimate of women ; these were principles capable of being turned into a purer and nobler channel. Gregory himself says that he had been informed of their desire for Christian instruc- tion, and blames the Gallic Bishops for not having imparted it to them ^. But the time chosen was providential. Ethelbert, King of Kent, and Bretwalda^ over the other king- doms of the heptarchy, had married a Christian wife. Bertha, daughter of Charibert, King of Paris, on the condition that she should be allowed to follow her religion, and to take with her her priest, Luidhard. For her use a British church (St. Martin's, Canter- bury), had been restored and rendered fit for service'. Augustine landed with singular advantages ; he was the messenger of the Pope, whose spiritual power was widely acknowledged through Europe ; he was forti- fied with recommendations from the king of France ; and was secure of the favour of the queen. Ethelbert, « Ep. vi. ^ Wielder of Britain. ' Nor can we doubt that, under the influence of the most important lady in the land, converts to the faith had already been made. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 65 who no doubt had already looked on Christianity with a favouring eye, was willing to receive the mission- aries ; but habitual prudence, and no doubt a fear of the Anglo-Saxon Witagemot, as well as the oppo- sition from the pagan priests, induced him to act with caution. However, after a few days he went to meet them in the Isle of Thanet, the same place where Hengist and Horsa had landed a century and a-half before ; but being, as a Teuton, a believer in " witch- lore ^" he sat in the open air, that being, as was thought, less subject than a house to magic. The missionaries approached him in procession, one carrying a silver cross, another a banner with a painted portrait of the Saviour, and all chanting the Litany. Through their interpreter, they told the king their purpose. He received them kindly : " Fair words," said he, but being " new and doubtful, I cannot give in to them, and give up all that I and the English people have so long observed." This was as much as they could expect at the first meeting. He allowed them to preach, he provided also their sustenance, and gave them a temporary abode in the stable-gate at Durovernum (Canterbury). They took the church of St. Martin for their services ; and by their preach- ing, as well as by their holy and self-denying lives, their frequent prayers and fastings, they soon made many converts, and on Whitsunday Ethelbert himself was baptized, probably in St. Martin's. Augustine, finding that so great a work had begun, saw the necessity of his assuming episcopal functions ; so in the autumn, according to Gregory's directions, he repaired to France, where he was consecrated by Ver- gilius. Bishop of Aries, and vE^therius, Bishop of Lyons, ^ Kemble, i. 458. F 66 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. as "Archbishop of the English ;" returning to England, he received from the king, who retired to Reculver, the gift of his own palace for a residence, and met with such success, that Gregory was enabled to an- nounce, in a letter to Eulogius, Patriarch of Alex- andria, that more than ten thousand Kentish men were baptized on Christmas-day. In the spring of 598, Augustine despatched two messengers, Laurence, a priest, and Peter, a monk, to Rome, asking for additional help, and also the advice of Gregory as to the management of his new diocese. Gregory had evidently much to occupy him at the time : he was also suffering from ill-health, so he did not till a.d. 601 send him his instructions; a few of which must be mentioned. Augustine had consulted him as to the difference between the Roman and Gallican Liturgies, the latter of which was in use at St. Martin's. Gregory told him to use whichever was most conducive to piety, and adapted to the English nation. As to another question, how he was to deal with the bishops of Gaul and Britain, Gregory gave him no authority over the former, but placed the latter under his jurisdiction \ He evidently thought Augustine was established in London : London, therefore, was to be one metro- politan see, with twelve suffragan bishops ; he selected York, meaning, perhaps, to comprise Scotland, as the other, also with twelve suffragans ; and the two metro- ■ ' And yet Gregory professed reverence for the first four Councils : " Sicut quatuor Evangelii libros, sic quatuor concilia venerari me fateor." In the eighth Canon of the Council of Ephesus, the principle which, from its, in the first instance, relating to the Church in Cyprus, is known as the " Jus Cyprium," is laid down, that " no bishop shall occupy another pro- vince which has not been subject to him from the beginning." THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 67 politans, after the death of Augustine, were to take precedence according to the priority of their conse- cration ™. To help him in his work,- Gregory sent four other missionaries, MelHtus, Justus, PauHnus, and Ruffinianus, and with them vestments for the clergy, sacred vessels and ornaments for the church, and some relics of the Apostles and martyrs, and some books " ; at the same time he sent him the pall °. The little church of St. Martin soon became too small for the increasing converts. Gregory had ad- vised Augustine to consecrate the heathen temples, and turn them into Christian churches ; so he re- covered from heathen uses, and re-consecrated an old British church, which stood in ruins near his palace. This church was on the spot where now stands Can- terbury Cathedral. Between this and St. Martin's stood what had once been another British church. This church also he re-dedicated ; and here he laid the foundation of the great monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, which, after a time, took the name of St. Augustine. On this site, as much of the ancient structure as possible being retained, was built, a. d. 1844, the noble college of St. Augustine's, with a view to carrying out the purpose that SS. Gregory and Augus- tine had so much at heart, the education of mission- aries for foreign work. Thus far all was done with the excellent motive " Sit inter Londonise et Eboracae civitatis episcopos in poste- nim honoris ista distinctio ut ipse prior habeatur qui prius fuerit or- dinatus." ° The books which are summed up in the library of Trinity Hall, Cam- bridge as, " primitias librorum totius Ecclesise Anglicante," appear to have been a Bible in two volumes, two books of the Gospels, two Psalters, Apocryphal Lives of the Apostles, Lives of Martyrs, and Expositions of some Gospels and Epistles. " See Appendix I. THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. of conciliating the English people ; the next step Augustine took was the one most calculated to dis- gust them. If Gregory had known that the British Church, wasted away as it was with persecution, en- joyed a claim equal to his own of an Apostolical foundation, he would not have forgotten his con- troversy with John the Faster, as well as the Ephe- sine Canon, and placed a primitive and independent Church under the jurisdiction of Augustine. But Au- gustine was narrow-minded and unconciliatory, two great faults in a missionary. He seems to have dis- covered now, for the first time, from Gregory's letter, that there was a British Church, and that there were British bishops in Wales ; and in order to meet them, he took a journey to the confines of that country. A meeting took place at St. Augustine's Oak, pro- bably situated on the borders of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. We may be sure it was not without some assurance of safe conduct from Ethelbert, that these British bishops were led to cross the frontier of the hated Saxon, to confer with an English bishop owning a foreign jurisdiction. Augustine at once charged them with heresy, and told them they did many things against the unity of the Church ; and that they must change these, in order to undertake with him the conversion of the Gentiles. Such an abrupt commencement was unlikely to lead to any successful results. The British bishops were as in- tractable as Augustine, and preferred their own tra- ditions. Finding argument fail, Augustine proposed recourse to miracle. A blind Saxon was introduced, whose sight the Britons in vain tried to restore ; but on the prayer of Augustine the blind man re- covered his sight, and "Augustine was by all de- THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 69 clared the preacher of divine truth p." The Britons requested a second meeting. Before this was held, the advice of a hermit was asked, whether they should forsake their traditions and yield to Augustine. " If he be a man of God, follow him," was the advice ; but how were they to know this. That was no difficult matter, the hermit told them ; if Augustine shewed humility, and rose at their approach, then he was a man of God ; but if he continued sitting, and shewed pride, he was not so. The story may have some substratum of truth, but it can hardly be believed that so much was made to depend upon so little. However, seven bishops assembled at the second meeting, and together with them many learned men, chiefly of the monastery of Bangor-Iscoed, with their abbot Dinooth. Augustine addressed them in the same unconciliatory manner as before ; he did not rise to them ; he required them to meet him on three points: (i.) the Roman time for observing Easter; (2.) trine immersion and the tonsure ; and then (3.) to join him in preaching to the English. It must be observed these are matters of discipline only : that Augustine charges the British bishops with no differ- ence in doctrine from Rome ; nay, if they had held false doctrine, he would not have asked them to join him in preaching to the English. The British bishops, P Bede, B. ii. 2. 1 According to Welsh tradition, " these are the bishops who disputed with Augustine, the Bishop of the Saxons, on the banks of the Severn, in the Forest of Dean, namely: i. The Bishop of Caerfawydd, called Hereford; 2. the Bishop of Teilo, i.e. Llandafif; 3. the Bishop of Llan- badarn Vaur ; 4. the Bishop of Bangor ; 5. the Bishop of Llanelwy (St. Asaph) ; 6. the Bishop of Weeg ; 7. the Bishop of Morganwg." — (Haddan and Stubbs, vol. iii. 41.) 70 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. disgusted with his discourtesy, resolved through Di- nooth, whom they had elected as their spokesman, that they utterly refused submission to the Church of Rome, or to Augustine, as bishop over them ; they owed brotherly kindness and charity to the Church of God, and the Pope of Rome, and all Christians, but other obedience they owed not to him whom they called Pope, for they were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Caerleon-on-Usk'', who was, under God, their spiritual adviser and overseer, Augustine, who had before shewn great want of discretion, now shewed an equal want of what for mis- sion-work is all important, good temper and charity. He left the bishops with a prophecy, or, as Bede calls it, a threat ; if they would not have peace with their brethren, they should be warred upon by their foes ; if they would not preach the way of life to the English nation, they should suffer at their hands the vengeance of death. " All of which," says Bede, " through the dispensation of divine judgment, fell out exactly as he had predicted." Words spoken at random had a terrible fulfilment ; but of this Augustine, who had been dead eight years when it occurred, must have been entirely innocent. A few years afterwards, in 613, King Ethelfrid was besieging Chester. Seeing a large body of priests from the neighbouring mo- nastery of Bangor- 1 scoed, praying for the success of their countrymen, he ordered his soldiers to attack them ; they were put to a dreadful slaughter, no fewer than 1,200 of them being killed. On his return to Canterbury, Augustine was able to add to the work which he had so successfully ' The Metropolitan see, which had been at Caerleon, had been trans- ferred to St. David's, so that it was called under either title indifferently. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 71 begun. A second see was erected at Rochester ; there Ethelbert built a church, which Augustine, in remembrance of his abbey at Rome, dedicated to St. Andrew, and the new see was committed to Justus. Sebert, King of Essex, was the son of Ethelbert's sister, Ricula ; him Augustine persuaded to embrace the faith, and MelHtus was appointed Bishop of Lon- don, the capital of the kingdom. Ethelbert, in con- nection with Sebert, built the cathedral of St. Paul, known as East Minster; whilst on Thorney Island another cathedral was built, which, by way of dis- tinction, was called West Minster. Augustine, revered and beloved by his cotempo- raries, died a.d. 604, and was buried in the church- yard of his yet unfinished monastery ^ It must be confessed that he was not a successful missionary, for he was lacking in those works which are absolutely in- dispensable for mission-work, — courage, good temper, discretion, and large-heartedness. Under specially fa- vourable circumstances, having the soil well-prepared for him, he had effected the conversion of the kingdom of Kent ; he had founded two bishoprics in that county ; he had established also the see of London. This was very far from realising the scheme pointed out to him by St. Gregory ; and he had done one irreparable harm, for he had laid the foundation of a lasting enmity between the British and the Anglo-Saxon Churches. But we willingly acknowledge a large debt of grati- tude which England owes him ; he " renewed the union of the kingdom, which . . . Hengist had de- • The monastery was consecrated by his successor, Lawrence, who transferred his remains to a grave in the northern part of the church ; in 1 09 1 his body was removed to Canterbury Cathedral. 72 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. stroyed. The new England was admitted into the older Commonwealth of nations ; the civilization, arts, letters, which had fled before the sword of the Eng- lish conquest, returned with the Christian Faith At his death the work of evangelising England (of which he can only be considered the pioneer) had just begun. Only two kingdoms of the Heptarchy, Kent and Essex (these also soon to relapse into pa- ganism), had been reached by his teaching. The consequences of his failure were fatal to all hope of England being converted from Rome ; henceforward we shall find the native Church was the chief agent of the work which it had so long and so inexcusably neglected. Before his death, St. Augustine had consecrated Lawrence as his successor in the see of Canterbury ^ Lawrence immediately endeavoured, but in a more conciliatory spirit than Augustine, to effect a recon- ciliation with the native clergy. In a letter to the bishops of Ireland, he addresses them as his " most dear lords and brothers." He thought the Irish would be more amenable than the Welsh bishops, and so he exhorted them to conform to the Catholic customs throughout the world ; but he was doomed to disappointment. Dagan, an Irish bishop, who had lately gone to Canterbury for the purpose of con- ferring with the three English bishops, had been so much annoyed with something that had been said ' Green's Hist, of the Eng. People, i. 42. " Strictly speaking, this was an uncanonical proceeding. The eighth Canon of the Council of Nice enacted that "there be not two bishops in one city ;" and a Canon of the Council of Antioch, A.D. 341, forbade a bishop consecrating his successor. St. Augustine of Hippo, for these reasons, only nominated, but did not consecrate, his successor. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 73 there (probably with regard to the differences be- tween the two Churches), that he refused even to eat in the same house with them ^. We must now give some account of the conversion of the kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy ; and this will, perhaps, be more clearly understood, if we nar- rate the conversion of each kingdom separately, in the order in which it was effected. I. Kent. — The kingdom of Kent was converted, as we have seen, by St. Augustine. After the death of Ethelbert, his son and successor, Eadbald, had married his father's widow (for Bertha, his first wife, having died, Ethelbert had married a second time) ; and hating the restraints of a religion which forbad such an intercourse, he renounced Christianity. Law- rence, the archbishop, was so discouraged at the ill- success which had hitherto attended the Roman mis- sion, that he was about to leave England in despair. He was, however, prevented by a miracle^ from carry- ing out his intention. The night before his intended departure, he ordered his bed to be placed in the church of SS. Peter and Paul. During the night St. Peter appeared to him, and lacerated his back as a punishment for his cowardice. The next morning he repaired to the king, and shewed him the scars of the stripes which he had received. The king, astonished, asked who had presumed to give stripes ' A similar complaint is made a century later, in a letter which Aldhelm, afterwards Bishop of Sherborne, wrote, by order of a Saxon Synod, to Geraint, a British king. He complains that the priests of Demetia, by which he means South Wales, would not pray with a Saxon in church, nor eat with him, nor even give him an ordinary greeting ; but they would throw to the dogs or swine the remains of his meat, and cleanse with sand or ashes the dishes or bowls which he had used. (Bright, Early English Church, p. 419.) y Bede, B. ii. 6. 74 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. to SO great a man ^ ? The end was, that Eadbald was convinced by the miracle ; and, abjuring his idols and his unlawful marriage, he embraced the faith of Christ, and did his utmost to promote Christianity. Thus Kent was reclaimed to the faith. 2. Northumbria. — Edwin, son of Ella, King of Northumbria, and Bretwalda, sought in marriage Ethelburga, or Tata, the sister of Eadbald ^ the zealous King of Kent. At that time Edwin was a pagan, but he agreed not only to allow her the free- dom of her religion, but to adopt it himself if he found it more worthy of belief than his own. Ethel- burga took with her to Edwin's court Paulinus, one of the missionaries who had joined Augustine in 6oi, and who had been consecrated a bishop by Justus, Archbishop of Canterbury. For some time Paulinus met with but slight success ; but on a certain night when Edwin's life was saved from an assassin sent by Quichelm, son of Cynegils, sub-king of the West Saxons, it happened also that Ethelburga was safely delivered of a daughter. Edwin, believing that these events were mainly owing to the prayers of Paulinus, allowed his daughter and eleven of his followers to be baptized, and promised himself to become a Chris- tian, if he should overcome his enemy who had at- tempted his life. He gained a great victory, but still he hesitated, probably from political motives. So he summoned a council of the wise and chief men ( Witan) to Godmundingham, now called Godmanham, about twenty-three miles from York, to consult with them. The chief priest, Coiffi, was the first to give his opi- ' Bede, B. ii. 6. » Eadbald also had a daughter named Eanswith, after whom the church which he built at Folkestone was named. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 75 nion, which was, that the old religion contained nei- ther virtue nor utility ; for no man's worship had been more devout than his, and yet no man had received fewer benefits from it than himself The advice next given by an aged thane offers an interesting picture of the simplicity of the age : " The present life of man, O king, as compared to that which is unknown to us, is like the swift flight of a sparrow through your room in winter, when there is a good fire within, but rain and snow outside. Whilst it is within it is safe from the storm, but after a short space it vanishes i^om your sight into the dark winter. So is the life of man : his existence is visible for a short time, but of what went before, or of what is to follow, we are entirely ignorant. If, therefore, this new religion of- fers something more certain, it justly deserves to be followed''." They then determined to hear Paulinus, whose address so affected the assembly, that Coiffi declared there was no longer any room for doubt ; he proposed that they should renounce idolatry, and that he himself should be allowed to profane the tem- ples of the false gods. By his profession as priest he was forbidden to carry weapons, and he was only al- lowed to ride a mare. By the king's permission, spear in hand, and mounted on the king's charger (the people the while thinking he was mad), he thrust the spear into the venerated temple of the pagan worship at Godmundingham, whilst the people set fire to the wooden building and the surrounding groves. Edwin, having gone through the training of a catechumen, was, together with Osfrid and Eadfrid, his sons by a former wife, Hilda his niece, and the nobility and Bedc, ii. 13. 76 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. courtiers, on Easter Eve, a.d, 627, baptized in St. Pe- ter's Church at York. Here he commenced to build a noble church of stone the site of the present York minster. Here Paulinus became bishop, and is said to have met with such success, that for thirty-six days he was engaged in baptizing in the neighbouring rivers, the Glen and the Swale (for as yet there were no baptisteries), the people who flocked to him. A pall was sent to him from Rome, but before it arrived he had ceased to be a metropolitan. The mission-work in Northumbria was cut short. Edwin, together with his son Osfrid, was defeated and slain in a battle at Hatfield, near Doncaster, 1 f) / 9 O fought against Penda, King of Mercia, for thirty years • the strenuous enemy of Christianity, and Cadwallon, the Christian King of Wales'^; his whole army was either destroyed or dispersed, and Northumberland relapsed into paganism. Paulinus, together with the other missionaries, and Queen Ethelburga, took re- fuge in Kent ; every vestige of Christianity in North- umbria was destroyed ; Ethelburga retired into a mo- nastery at Lyminge, and was afterwards revered as a saint ; Paulinus accepted the vacant bishopric of Rochester, and York remained without a metropoli- tan till the primacy of Archbishop Egbert in the eighth century. One person alone had the courage to remain, James, or Jacob, "the deacon," otherwise known as the " Chanter," from his knowledge of ' Parts of this edifice were discovered under the choir of the present minster, when it was lately under repair. * This is an instance of the bitter enmity between the Britons and Saxons. Cadwallon was a Christian, but he preferred joining Penda, the most inveterate enemy of Christianity, rather than the Saxons, his fellow-Christians. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 77 Church music ; he continued still to preach, and the scene of his labours was called Akeburg, or " Jacob's Town," near Richmond. What would St Gregory have thought, if he had lived to witness the faint-heartedness of his mission- aries ? To each of the first four Archbishops of Can- terbury,— all of them Italians, all of them appointed by Gregory, — attaches the stigma of cowardice. St. Augustine was for turning back at Lerins ; Lawrence, his successor, was once on the very point of leaving the kingdom ; Mellitus, the third, and with him Jus- tus, the fourth. Archbishop, when respectively Bishop of London and Rochester, actually fled the kingdom from the sons of Sebert. And now the same tale is told of Paulinus, — truly the missionaries of St. Gre- gory were not ambitious of the martyr's crown ! The conversion of Northumbria, so earnestly commenced, so feebly relinquished by Paulinus, must be accom- plished by other missionaries. Edwin's cousins, Osric and Eanfrid — both of them at the time Christians, but both of whom, under fear of Penda, relapsed into paganism — succeeded him, the one in Deira, the other in Bernicia. Their reign was, hov/ever, short ; and next came Oswald, a younger brother of Eanfrid, who was afterwards honoured as St. Oswald, as King of the whole of Northumbria : he, having gained a great victory, a.d. 634, in the battle of Heavenfield, near Hexham, at which he took the holy Rood as his banner, and having slain Cadwallon, regained all the power of Edwin, and the tide of Bretwalda. Oswald's first idea was to restore Christianity. Having in his youth found refuge in the monastery of lona, he was indebted to it for his conversion, so 78 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH, he naturally applied there for a bishop. Colman, the first missioner sent, was a man of stern and unbend- ing character, and returned without success, which he said was impossible amongst a people so rude and stubborn. Aidan a brother in the monastery, asked Colman whether it might not be his own severity, rather than their stubbornness, which was at fault ; had he given them, as the Bible enjoined, the milk first, before the strong meat ? The end was that Aidan was chosen as the best fitted to under- take the mission, and being ordained bishop, he suc- ceeded Paulinus, a.d. 635. But he was unwilling to fix his see at York, the ancient seat of the episcopate ; whether this was from a wish to have no connexion with the Roman Church, or from a love of the se- clusion to which he had been accustomed at lona, is doubtful ; but, without seeking the sanction of Can- terbury or Rome, he transferred the see to Lindis- farne or Holy Isle, on the coast of Northumberland, whither he was followed by a large number of Scot- tish missionaries. From Lindisfarne missionaries went forth amongst the peasants of Yorkshire and Northumbria, under Aidan's direction, he himself travelling on foot, and setting an example of fru- gality and self-denial ; with him travelled the king, w^ho, as Aidan was unacquainted with the Saxon language, acted as interpreter, a sight which Bede might well call " beautiful." Aidan formed a school of twelve English boys, amongst them the famous Chad, whom he trained for mission-work in their own country ; monasteries and churches were built ^ Bede (iii. 3) says of him that he obsen-ed Easter after the British manner ; yet he cannot withhold his admiration " of a man of the great- est gentleness, piety, and moderation." • THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 79 by the king's bounty, and established on the system of lona ; the missionaries were instant in works of charity ; whatever money was given them, was either devoted to the poor, or to redeeming slaves, whom Aidan instructed and converted to Christianity, and many of whom he ordained as priests. Thus was the Northumbrian Church founded, and rooted in the faith. But a great calamity now befel it, for the good King Oswald was, at the age of thirty-eight, slain in battle at Maserfield, near the town which after him is called Oswestry, by that foe to Christianity, Penda. He died as he had lived. Bede tells us "he ended his life in prayer;" when beset by his enemies, and he saw he must die, he prayed for the souls of his army ; " Lord, have mercy on their souls," said Oswald, as he fell to the ground ^ The ferocious Penda exposed his head and arms on wooden stakes ; but they were rescued the next year, and the head buried by Aidan at Lindisfarne, whence it was removed, a.d. 875, within the coffin of St. Cuth- bert. William of Malmesbury tells us, that when the tomb of Cuthbert, in Durham Cathedral, was opened, A.D. 1 104, the head of Oswald, king and martyr, was found between his arms ; hence the common repre- sentation of that saint, holding the head of Oswald in his hands. Oswald was succeeded by his brother Oswy, then about thirty years of age, who married Eanfleda, daughter of Edwin and Ethelburga. On his way to that battle in which he slew Penda, Oswy, whose religion was strongly tainted with superstition, vowed that if he were successful, he would dedicate to God his daughter Elfleda, then a baby of a year old, and ' Bede, iii, 12. . J8o ^ y THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. ' / found twelve monastenes. Havingf defeated and slain Penda, he at once fulfilled his vow ; he built the mo- nasteries, and he placed his daughter in the monastery of Hartlepool, of which Hilda was abbess. Hilda, who was a person of great ability and piety, was daughter of Heneric, nephew of Edwin, and had be- come a recluse by the advice of St. Aidan. Two years afterwards, a.d. 657, Hilda built the famous double monastery, one part being for monks, and the other for nuns, at Strenseshalch, " the bay of the light-house," since known as Whitby, whither she and her nuns removed, and in which, after her death, a.d. 680, Elfleda succeeded her as abbess^. Such was the state of" affairs in Northumbria, when the disputes between the British and Roman party, as to the observance of Easter, were brought to an end in the followinof manner. Oswy's wife, Eanfleda, had derived from her mother, Ethelburga, a strong preference for the Roman, whilst her husband continued firm to the British customs ; although, at the same time, he allowed her to appoint Wilfrid, a young Northum- brian priest, and a firm adherent to Rome, tutor to their son. There was thus a manifest difference at Court in the observance of Easter, for whilst one party was enjoying its festivities, the other was ob- serving the austerities of Lent. Aidan, having died a.d. 651, had been succeeded by Phinan, another monk of lona; and now Colman, also from lona, was Bishop, and therefore the British party was « Such was the repute in which the monaster)' was held, that five of its monks became bishops ; but it is especially famous as the abode of our earliest Christian poet, Csedmon, who was a ser\'ant in the monastery. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 8i in the ascendant. But the king was determined to have the matter of the different observance of Easter settled, and for this purpose he held a famous Council, in 664, in the new monastery of Whitby, at which Bishop Colman, and Cedd, Bishop of Essex, conducted the British, and Agilbert, Bishop of Dorchester, and Wilfrid, the Roman cause. The British party re- ferred their custom to St. John, the Roman to St. Peter, to whom Christ had given the keys of heaven. " Were the keys of heaven given to St. Peter ?" the King asked. " Certainly," was the answer. Turning to the British party, " Can you claim such a privilege for your custom?" asked the king. "We cannot," Colman replied. " I cannot, therefore," decided the king, " disoblige him who keeps the keys of heaven, lest, when I seek admission, he may refuse to open." Thus was the case finished, and the ancient cus- toms of the Britons were renounced ^. There can be no doubt Oswy had been influenced by his wife ; but to this absurd termination of the synod, Rome owes one of her most important triumphs. It must be al- lowed that the proper method of computing Easter had been adopted ; but it was at a great cost. Cedd, indeed, abandoned the British usages ; but to Colman the matter was too important to be thus solved ; he could not so easily abandon the principles of his Church, so he resigned his bishopric, and taking with him the greater part of his Scottish monks and clergy, sailed back to lona. The long contest between the The Southern Irish adopted the Roman mode of calculating Easter about A.D. 634; the North of Ireland, A.D. 704, Hy, 716 ; the Welsh did not yield till after Bede's death ; the North Welsh, under the influence of Elbod, Bishop of Bangor, in 755 or 768 ; the South Welsh, under strong pressure, in 777. (Bright, 99.) G. 82 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. British and Roman Churches was settled in North- umbria ; the native Church had Christianized the coun- try, and Rome entered into the fruits of its labours. Tuda, who had been consecrated bishop in Ireland, adopted the Roman usages, and became first Roman Bishop of Lindisfarne ; but, dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded by Wilfrid. Of this wonderful man, of whom mention has al- ready more than once been made, " one of the most remarkable men of the day" (or, it might be added, any other day), " right-hearted, wrong-headed, full of genius, but defective in judgment'," some account must now be given. Wilfrid, the son of a Thane in Bernicia, was born A.D. 634. Being driven from home at the age of four- teen by the ill-treatment of a step-mother, he was appointed, through the influence of Queen Eanfleda, the wife of Oswy, to an office in the monastery of Lindisfarne. There he lived for some time under the management of the Scottish monks, and would natu- rally acquire the British views of Church discipline. To counteract this, the queen, who had become his patroness, sent him at the age of nineteen, in the company of Benedict Biscop ^ to Rome, where, under the tuition of Archdeacon Boniface, he acquired a taste for everything Roman, and a contempt for everything British. At the end of a.d. 658 he returned to Eng- land, and became abbot of the monastery at Ripon. At the age of thirty he attended the Council of Whitby, and shortly afterwards was appointed to succeed Tuda in the see of Lindisfarne; but being unwilling^ to be ' Hook, i. 137. An account of Benedict Biscop will be found in the succeeding chapter. ' He was unwilling to be consecrated by " Prelates not in connection with Rome, or those who agree with schismatics {qui schisniaticis consen- THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 83 consecrated by British bishops, he went to Compiegne, and was consecrated, a.d. 665, by his friend Agilbert, the ex- Bishop of Dorchester, who was at the time Archbishop of Paris. He also, from a dislike of its Scottish foundation, transferred the see of Lindisfarne to York. The ceremony of his consecration as bishop was performed with great pomp; seated on a chair" of gold borne by twelve bishops, he was carried to the altar of his consecration ; and altogether he was treated with so great honour and respect in France, that he was tempted to prolong his stay in that country till the spring of the following year. But the contempt with which he had treated the English Church, and his long delay in returning to his diocese, so offended King Oswy, that he in consequence deposed him from his bishopric, and appointed Chad, Abbot of Lasting- ham, and brother of Bishop Cedd, in his place. We shall soon hear more of Wilfrid, and can now return to the conversion of England. 3. East Anglia. — Redwald, King of East Anglia, had been persuaded by Ethelbert, King of Kent, to receive baptism ; but, under the influence of his wife, he had grown lukewarm. In the same temple he kept two altars, one for Christian, the other for hea- then worship, thus trying to associate the two rites. Hunt)." — (Eddius.) Bright, however, says that the canonical number of three consecrating bishops could not be found in England. Deusdedit, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Damianus, Bishop of Rochester, had died of the plague, at that time devastating Europe. Cedd was still alive, but against him there would be the objection of his Scotch consecration ; there would be the same objection against Jaruman, Bishop of Mercia ; Wini, of Winchester, would be objected to, as having supplanted Agilbert. There therefore only remained one bishop, Boniface of Dunwich. G 2 84 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. His son, Eorpwald, was persuaded by Edwin, King of Northumbria, to embrace the faith ; but pagan an- tipathy, which could tolerate the lukewarmness of Redwald, was fiercely excited against the more reso- lute Christianity of Eorpwald, so he was assassinated by one named Ricbert in 628, the year of his con- version. For three years the country was again hea- then, when Sigebert, Eorpwald's half-brother, who had been driven by his step-father Redwald into Gaul, and had there been converted, " thoroughly Christian and very learned, a good man and religious," as Bede calls him, became king. Sigebert set himself to the completion of the work begun by his brother, and selected a Burgundian, named in Saxon Bertgils, but in Italian Felix"", who was recommended to him by Archbishop Honorius", to preach to his people; and he, fixing his see at Dunwich °, on the Suffolk coast, held his bishopric for seventeen years. In no king- dom did Christianity take root more firmly or more permanently than in East Anglia. Sigebert, probably at the instigation of Fursey'', an Irish monk, who had lately come over to East Anglia, resigned his kingdom for a monastery on the site of the present Bury St. Ed- mund's, which may be taken as a proof of the depth of his convictions, and accounts for the firm root which Christianity took in his country. " His name is still preserved in the Suffolk village, Felixstowe. " But in the mission to East Anglia there was no acknowledgment of the metropolitan authority of Honorius. (Hook, i. 113.) ° Theodore divided the diocese, creating a new bishopric at Elmham ; the East Anglian bishopric was transferred to Thetford a.d. 1075, and to Norwich A.D. 1094. p Fursey was an object of especial dislike at Canterbury, because he cut his hair, as it was said, after the fashion of Simon Magus. (Hook, i. 113.) THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 85 4. Wessex. — The conversion of Wessex was never undertaken by the early Roman missionaries ; diffi- culties standing in the way, with which the faint- hearted Italians were unwilling to cope. In 633, Pope Honorius sent over to England, Birinus, a Gaul- ish monk, who was consecrated a missionary bishop by Asterius, Bishop of Milan, residing at Genoa. Landing in Hampshire, he found the kingdom of Wessex sunk in the deepest paganism ; but he preached there with so great success, that he soon touched the heart of the king, Cynegils. His success, however, was greatly due to Oswald, King of North- umbria, who was engaged to marry Cynegils' daughter, at whose court he was staying at the same time as Birinus ; Cynegils was baptized at Dorchester, near Oxford, Oswald standing as his godfather. Of the new see of Dorchester Birinus was appointed bishop, and was succeeded in the see by a Frenchman named Agilbert. Quichelm, the son of Cynegils, who, ten years before, had sent Eomer with the poisoned dagger to kill Edwin, followed his father's example ; but the same year that witnessed his baptism, witnessed also his death, and the crown passed to his younger bro- ther, Coinwalch, who was at the time a heathen, but soon became converted, and founded the see and built the cathedral church of Winchester. To this new see of Winchester, Wini, a native of the country, but who was consecrated in France, was appointed the first bishop ; but to the appointment of a second bishop in the kingdom of Wessex, Agilbert, Bishop of Dor- chester, took offence, so, resigning his see, he retired to France, where he became Archbishop of Paris. 5. Essex. — Sebert, King of Essex, and nephew of Ethelbert, had, as we have seen, followed Ethelbert's, 86 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. example, and embraced Christianity at the hands of the Roman missionaries, MelHtus being appointed Bishop of London, the capital of his kingdom. But he was succeeded by his three sons, who were pagans ; and under them the kingdom entirely relapsed into idolatry. Whilst Mellitus was celebrating Mass, these three men, bursting into the church, demanded of him some of the Eucharistic Bread, such as he had given to their father. " You must first be baptized," was the answer of Mellitus ; " the Bread of Life is reserved for those who have received the laver of life." Upon this Mellitus was expelled the kingdom, and paganism again introduced. Mellitus, with Justus, Bishop of Rochester, having consulted with Lawrence, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, left the country ; Justus after- wards returned to the see of Rochester, but the people of Essex preferred to live in their idolatry, and refused to receive back Mellitus "i. About a.d. 653, Sigebert, King of Essex, afterwards named the Good, between whom and Oswy, King of Northumbria, a strong friendship existed, on one of his frequent visits to Oswy was convinced of the truth of Christianity, and baptized at the same time as Peada by Phinan, Bishop of Lindisfarne. On Sig^ebert asking for some Chris- tian teachers to instruct his people, Oswy sent Cedd from Mercia, and him Phinan, himself a staunch ad- herent of British customs, having called in two other British bishops to assist him, consecrated as bishop for the East Saxons. St. Gregoty's plan was to have established the southern archbishopric, not at Canterbury, but London. The political dependence of London on Canterbury prevented this being done upon Augustine's death, and the apostacy of the Londoners hindered it henceforward. (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 67.) THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 87 6. Mercia. — Peada, the son of that inveterate Chris- tian - hater, Penda, '"' an excellent youth, and much worthy of the title and person of king""," sought in marriage Atheleda, the daughter of Oswy, who re- fused to give her to him except on his becoming a Christian. He was also frequently persuaded to em- brace Christianity by Oswy's son, Alfrid, who had married his sister Cyneburga. Peada, when he heard the Gospel preached, was so struck with the " promise of the heavenly kingdom, and the hope of resurrection and future immortality, that he declared he would willingly become a Christian, even though he should be refused the virgin ^" and was baptized by Phinan. Phinan then, a.d. 656, consecrated Diuma, an Irish- man, as bishop, and sent him with three Saxon priests, one of whom was Cedd, afterwards Bishop of London, to evangelize the Mercian kingdom. Diuma first placed his see at Repton, but afterwards transferred it to Lichfield, the capital of the kingdom ; his three successors in the see were all selected from the native clergy, and under these four prelates all the midland counties were converted. Immediately after the con- secration of Diuma, Oswy and Peada are said to have begun to build a monastery to the glory of Christ and St. Peter at a place called Medeshamstede, "the dwell- ing-place of the meadows," which in the tenth century acquired the name of St. Peter's Borough. But Peada could do little more than lay the foundation, for in the same year, or the beginning of the next, he was murdered, by the treachery, it is said, of his wife, the Christian princess of Northumbria. 7. Sussex. — The last converted of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy was Sussex ; yet it is surprising that ' Bede, iii. 21. ' Ibid. 88 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. no attempt at its conversion had been made by the Roman missionaries, Sussex being the nearest king- dom to Kent. A small monastery appears, indeed, to have been established at Bosham by a Scottish monk, but it made no impression upon the surround- ing country, and the services were unattended except by the inmates. By chance, it would almost seem, Wilfrid came into the country. We parted with Wil- frid when he was deposed for the first time from his bishopric by King Oswy ; in the next chapter we shall find him reinstated, but again getting into trouble, and again deposed. It was after this second dismissal from York that, being under the ban of his own king, he found protection, a.d. 68 i, in Sussex, at the hands of the king, -^dilwalch, who shortly before had been baptized in Mercia by persuasion of the king, Wulf- here. Wilfrid " could not," as Bede tells us, " be re- strained from preaching the Gospel'," so he adminis- tered to the West Saxons the word of faith and the baptism of salvation. No rain, it was said, had fallen in the country for three years ; a sore famine was the consequence, so that the people, driven to despair, would in companies of forty and fifty, hand in hand, throw themselves from the precipices into the sea. Though the sea and rivers abounded in fish, the peo- ple were so barbarous as to be ignorant of fishing. Wilfrid taught them the art, and presently they took three hundred fish of different kinds. In this manner he gained the affections of the people, who were the more ready to listen to his preaching. He spent some months in instructing them ; the ealdormen and thanes set the example, which the rest of the people followed, of receiving baptism ; and on that very day " there * Bede, iv. 13. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. 89 fell a soft but plentiful rain ; the earth revived again, and the verdure being restored to the fields, the sea- son was pleasant and fruitful The king gave him the Isle of Selsey, which remained a bishop's see till it was transferred to Chichester ; here Wilfrid founded a monastery, and performed the duties of a bishop for five years. It will thus be seen how by far the larger portion of England owed its conversion to native rather than Roman missionaries. Let us briefly summarise what has been said. Kent was converted to Christianity by the Roman missionaries, a.d. 597 ; Northumbria, under Scottish missionaries, in 635 ; East Anglia, under a Burgundian named in Saxon Bertgils, and in Italian Felix, in 631 ; Wessex, under Birinus, a Gaulish monk, who was sent into the country by Pope Honorius, in 633 ; Essex, under Cedd, who was con- secrated by Phinan, the successor of St. Aidan, in 653 ; Mercia, under the Scots, 653 ; Sussex, under Wil- frid, 681. It is interesting to notice the prominent part which the sovereigns of the country bore in evangelizing their kingdoms, in which respect the names of Ethel- bert, Edwin, Oswald, Oswy, and the two Sigeberts stand conspicuous. Under such leaders, we can little wonder that the native missionaries met with such eminent success. And they were themselves men especially fitted for the work of evangelizing heathen countries. Their whole life was spent in self-denial, in preaching, baptizing, visiting the sick, and taking the charge of souls. Their frugal habits, and their abstinence from all worldly indulgences, had already gained for their monastery the name of Holy Island. " Bede,'iv. 13.] 90 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. Money they had none, it all went to the poor. If the king visited them, he fared no better than the rest. The poor from the neighbouring villages would flock in crowds to their churches on Sundays. If one of the missionaries passed through their villages, the poor people would gather round him, seeking an ex- hortation from the word of life, asking him to sign their foreheads with the sign of the cross, and to give them his blessing. They knew how to sympathise with the poor, and so the poor loved those humble and earnest men, and were so induced to listen to their words. This was the secret of the success of the British missionaries ; and the want of this sym- pathy is the secret of the failure of St. Augustine, and of the missionaries sent from Rome. CHAPTER II. FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. HE four successors of St. Augustine were Italians. Next to Augustine came Lawrence, then Mellitus, then Justus, during whose primacy Northumbria was converted, and the see of York estabHshed ; next came Honorius, who lived to see Northumbria lost under Paulinus, and churches springing up on all sides disowning the primacy of Canterbury. After these Italians followed a Saxon archbishop, Frithona, who assumed the name of Deusdedit, in whose pri- macy the Council of Whitby was held : then followed an interregnum of three years. It might have been expected that Wilfrid would have then been appointed to the primacy ; but able as he was, there were in his case some insurmountable difficulties. In the first place he was a thorough par- tizan of Rome, and in the next, he never concealed his contempt for the British Church. It was evident that the British bishops would never accept him as their metropolitan. But after the see had been vacant three years, the two most powerful kings — Oswy of Northumbria, and Egbert of Kent — selected, "with the consent of the holy Church of the nation of the English ^" Wigheard, a Kentish priest ; and as there was no metropoli- tan in England, and no consecrating bishops could be found who would not offend one party or the other, they sent him to Rome to be consecrated by * Bede, iii. 29. 92 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO Pope Vitalian^. Wigheard died of the pestilence then raging in Rome before he was consecrated, and as the see of Canterbury had been so long vacant, the two kings asked Vital ian to appoint the archbishop, and his choice " fell upon Adrian, an African and a monk. Adrian refused the archbishopric for himself, but re- commended Theodore, a Greek, who was at the time resident at Rome ; a strong, hale old man, although he was sixty-six years of age. Vitalian approved of the recommendation ; but, knowing that the British Church prided itself on its adherence to the Greek and not the Roman Church, having reason also to fear that the orthodoxy of Theodore might be somewhat tainted with the Monothelite heresy at that time prevalent in the East, he stipulated that Adrian should accompany him into England^. Theodore was not yet in holy orders ; he had, therefore, to go through the different grades from the sub-diaconate. Then, as he had received the Greek tonsure, he had to wait four months longer, till his hair grew long enough to receive the Roman tonsure. He started with Adrian and Benedict Biscop in March, 668 ; but he did not reach England till May, 669. Adrian was detained in France two years longer, during which time the abbacy of SS. Peter and Paul, which Theodore afterwards gave him, was held by Benedict Biscop. The same course was taken in the case of Theodore's successor, Brightwald, who went to France to be consecrated. ' Others take a different view of the Pope's conduct. " The death of Wigheard . . . was taken advantage of by the Pope, to set over the Anglo- Saxon bishops a primate devoted to his views." — (Lappenberg, Ang.-Sax. Kings, i. 172.) " The opportunity was not lost upon Italian subtlety." — (Soames, Ang.-Sax. Church, p. 78.) ■* Bede, iv. i. THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOrRIC. 93 A better appointment than that of Theodore could not have been made. What was wanting in England was a system ; hitherto the Church of England had been little more than a missionary Church, divided between two opposing parties, the Roman and the British. There was needed a man who would be acceptable to both parties, and who would be able to perfect the system which Gregory wished to, but could not, carry out. Theodore was, like Saul, a native of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia ; he was a member of the Greek Church, therefore his appointment was acceptable to the British party ; he was appointed by the Pope, he was on that account acceptable to the Roman party : he succeeded in fusing the two into one, so that under him the Anglo-Saxon Church was for the first time united ^ Theodore, in company with Adrian, immediately began a general visitation of his province. Wherever he went, he proceeded in a thoroughly practical, if a somewhat autocratic, manner. He everywhere in- culcated Roman customs, and behaved somewhat harshly to the Britons, refusing communion with them unless they adopted Roman rites. Before his time there had been, no parish churches, and no residential clergy ; the bishop and clergy resided in monasteries, frequently at a great distance from their people, in sequestered villages and secluded situations. Follow- ing the custom with which he had become familiar in the Greek Church, he encouraged the formation of parishes, and thus remedied the roving character which had hitherto prevailed amongst the clergy ; village churches were built, order and subordination ' " Is primus erat in Archiepiscopis cui omnis Anglorum ecclesia manus dare consentiret."— (Bede, iv. 2.) 94 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO were promoted ; the bishops who, during his primacy, increased from seven to seventeen, were confined to their dioceses, and the regular and secular clergy to their appointed spheres of work. For the endowment of the churches, he adopted the plan which Justinian had introduced into the Greek Church ; he persuaded the thanes and landed proprietors to build and endow churches on their estates, and to assign their chap- lains the independent position of incumbents, thus securing a constant intercourse between the clergy- man, the thane's (or, as we should now say, the squire's) family, and his tenants ; in return for which he conceded to them and their heirs the right of ap- pointing to the livings, provided the church had a suf- ficient income for the maintenance of the ministers. To this principle, advocated by Theodore, must be at- tributed the foundation of our parochial system ; the endowment provided by his system arose entirely from the piety of individuals, who provided for the spiritual wants of their tenants, and the maintenance of the church fabric, partly by gifts of money, partly by tithes chargeable on their estates V Wilfrid had, as we have already seen, been deposed from the see of York, and been succeeded by Chad. One of the first measures of Theodore in his visitation, was to depose Chad, and to reinstate Wilfrid in the Northumbrian bishopric. He soon detected a flaw in Chad's consecration. Archbishop Deusdedit having died, and the see of Canterbury being vacant, Chad had repaired for consecration to Wini, Bishop of Win- ' " Contulit itaque . . . piissimus Theodoras facultatem, excitabat fide- lium devotionem et voluntatem . . . ecclesias fabricandi, parochias distin- guendi, assensus eisdem regies procurandi, ut, . . . earundem perpetuo patrinatu guaderent." — (Elmham, 285.) THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 95 Chester, who, in order to observe the canonical re- quirement, called in the assistance of two British bishops, which raised doubts amongst the Roman party as to the regularity of Chad's consecration. " You have not been properly consecrated," said Theodore. "If you consider that I have not re- ceived the episcopate rightly," replied Chad, " I wil- lingly retire from my office, of which, indeed, I never thought myself worthy, but which I undertook for the sake of obedience to command." So the meek and gentle Chad went back to his beloved monas- tery at Lastingham. But Theodore was so struck with Chad's humility, that he himself supplied what was lacking in his orders, and soon afterwards ob- tained for him from Wulfhere, King of Mercia, the vacant see of Lichfield, where his name is still vene- rated, and the cathedral church dedicated to his memory. To Theodore is to be attributed the introduction of synodal action into the Church, for the regulation of Church matters ; and on September 24, a.d. 673, was held at Hertford the first English provincial synod. At the synod there were present Bisi, Bishop of East Anglia ; Putta, Bishop of Rochester ; Eleutherius, Bi- shop of Wessex ; and Winfrid, who had succeeded Chad at Lichfield. Theodore brought before it a col- lection of Canons of the ancient Councils, from which he had selected ten as being most adapted to the cir- cumstances of the English Church. These Canons enacted : (i.) Conformity in the observance of Easter ; (2.) That no Bishop should invade the diocese of ano- ther; (3.) That no bishop should disturb the monas- teries, or seize their property ; (4.) That monks do not remove from one monastery to another without the 96 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO leave of their abbot; (5.) The same prohibition was laid on the secular clergy ; (6.) That neither a bishop or priest could officiate out of his own diocese, without permission of the bishop in whose diocese they may happen to be ; (7.) That a synod should be assembled twice annually; (8.) This canon regulated the priority of bishops; (9.) That the number of bishops should be augmented; (10.) This canon regarded the sacred- ness of marriages. Theodore at once set himself to carrying out the ninth Canon of the Council. He divided the immense kingdom of Northumbria, consecrating Eata to Hex- ham, A.D. 678; Trumwin to Whithern in 681; and Cuthbert to Lindisfarne in 685. Thesjs alterations met with strong opposition, in consequence of which Winfrid, Bishop of Lichfield, was deposed, and a much greater than he, Wilfrid, — whom, on the deposition of Chad, Theodore had reinstated in the see of York in 669, — again got into trouble. In 670, King Oswy having died, was succeeded in his kingdom by his son Egfrid, who at first lived on friendly terms with Wilfrid. As soon as he was reinstated in his diocese, Wilfrid set himself to remodelling it with great munificence. The first thing he took in hand was the restoration of his cathedral, which was in a very dilapidated state ; the roof, which was only thatched, he covered with lead ; the windows, which were mere openings in the wall, with curtains before them, he filled with glass, but " such glass as permitted the sun to shine within." At Ripon, he built a church towering to a great height, of polished stone, with ornamented pillars and porches, and arched vaults and winding cloisters ; the church of Hexham was even more sumptuous, so that it was THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 97 said that no church on this side of the Alps could compare with it ; he erected also, or restored, several other churches. His munificence was unbounded, and he assumed an almost royal state and retinue. At the same time, he laboured incessantly in the improve- ment of church services, in teaching church song, and his other episcopal duties. His popularity for a time knew no limits. At length, the question began to be asked, "How was all the money raised?" It must be remembered that the money and the distribution of the tithes for the maintenance of the clergy and the church, were at that time left to the bishop, and these Wilfrid used at his discretion. He had also a large income arising from his see, and also from his monas- teries at Ripon and Hexham. Added to this, priors, abbots, and abbesses, and thanes, often left him their possessions ; part of which, if not devoted to the Church, would have gone to the king. Men began to complain of his extravagance ; and the alienation of property from the royal exchequer was more than the king, who hitherto had befriended him, could tolerate. There was, moreover, a woman in the case. Etheldred, the wife of Egfrid, had vowed a life of perpetual virginity, and had eventually become a nun, having accepted the veil from Wilfrid himself in the convent of Coldingham. But when the king married Ermenburga, the sister of the King of Wessex, Wilfrid objected to the second marriage, and so drew down upon himself the anger, not only of the king, but also of the queen, who did all in her power to influence the king against him. The king determined, with Arch- bishop Theodore's approval, without any respect to Wilfrid's vested interests and canonical rights, to di- ll 98 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO vide his immense diocese. Wilfrid, a very different man to Chad, was not Hkely to brook an injustice, so he appealed to Pope Agatho. The Pope, in a synod held in a chamber of the Lateran Basilica, which was attended by fifty bishops, decided in his favour, and ordered that Wilfrid should be reinstated in his diocese, as it existed before the partition. Elated with his success, Wilfrid returned to England in the spring of 680, the bearer of a letter from the Pope, to which was attached the bull, or leaden seal ^ a sight to which England was then unaccustomed. The king convened a council of clergy and laity ; and what must have been Wilfrid's surprise, when, instead of confirm- ing the pope's action, they determined that the appeal to Rome was a public offence, and threw him into prison, where he was confined in a cell rarely lighted by the sunshine, and never by a lamp. The papal mandate, which declared an everlasting anathema against any one who should resist the decree of re- instating Wilfrid, summoned Theodore to a Council of Constantinople''. The archbishop shewed his in- dependence by obeying neither order ; he did not reinstate Wilfrid, nor did he attend the council ; and the Pope did not issue his anathema. It is plain that the time had not yet come when the English Church owned the supremacy of Rome. Still Theodore, although determined not to be the tool of Rome, was not unnaturally inclined to exalt the power to which he owed his elevation. Having reason to believe that John " the Precentor," who had lately come to England on an invitation from Benedict « From this "bulla," or leaden seal, with the image of SS. Peter and Paul attached, the Pope's letters were called " bulls." Summoned to deliberate on the Monothelite heresy. THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 99 Biscop, had received instructions from the Pope to investigate the orthodoxy of the EngHsh Church, he, in deference to the Pope, a.d. 680, convened the second provincial synod at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, at which John the Precentor was present; the synod accepted the decrees of the first five general councils, as well as those of a synod which had been held in Rome, A.D. 649, under Martin I., and condemned the Monothelites '. Thus Theodore established the ortho- doxy of the English Church. Theodore died a.d. 690, at the age of eighty-eight. His primacy marks one of the most important eras of our Church. Before then, says the Saxon Chronicle ^ " the bishops had been Romans, but from this time they were English." To him is to be attributed, as has been already stated, the establishment of our parochial system, and the increase of the episcopate. To Theodore (himself an author of high repute, as shewn by his " Penitential "), and to his no less gifted friend Adrian, England owes the successive appear- ances of Aldhelm, Bede, Egbert, and Alcuin, and the foundation of that scholarship for which England was so long and so justly famous amongst European na- ' The Monothelite heresy, which found an advocate in Pope Honorius, was condemned in a Lateran Council, held a.d. 649, and more autho- ritatively in the Council of Constantinople, a.d. 680. In the thirteenth session of this Council, Pope Honorius was anathematized, in company with Theodore, Sergius, and others, as having followed him in his heresy. This anathema was confirmed by Leo II., who wrote to the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus: " Anathematizamus .... necnon et Honorium, qui hanc Apostolicum Ecclcsiam non ApostolicK traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana traditione immaculatam subvertere conatus est." Succeeding Popes for three centuries invariably repeated this confirma- tion, in the profession of faith which they made at the time of their accession. (Blunt's Diet, of Theol.) But what becomes of Papal In- fallibility ? ^ A.D. 690. H 2 lOO FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO tions. Through Theodore the larger monasteries were converted into seminaries of learning, to which laity, as well as clergy, were admitted ; by him the ancient library at Canterbury, founded by St. Augustine, was largely added to ; a general love of learning was pro- moted, so that Bede tells us that in his time the scholars of Theodore and Adrian were as well versed in the Greek and Latin languages as their own ' ; and Alcuin, under whom the literary fame of ancient Eng- land reached its height (that height, however, the im- mediate precursor of a dark and stormy night of ig- norance), could boast of the learned men of England, to whom Charlemagne himself, when he wished to revive the almost extinguished literature of France, applied for assistance. Before the death of Theodore, a reconciliation was effected by means of Earconwald, Bishop of London, between him and Wilfrid ; the result was that Wilfrid was reinstated in the see of York. Wilfrid returned to his diocese with a spirit un- schooled by adversity. Egfrid, having been killed in battle, was succeeded by his natural brother, Ald- frid, who had been educated in the British Church. For five years after his restoration Wilfrid managed to keep himself quiet ; after that, open war broke out between him and the king. Aldfrid and the Witage- mot determined again to divide the diocese of York, and to convert his beloved monastery of Ripon into an independent see. Wilfrid objected. Brightwald, who had succeeded Theodore at Canterbury, called a synod at Eastenfeld, at which the king attended. Wilfrid was asked whether he would comply with the decrees of the late archbishop, in other words, whe- ' Bede, iv. 2. THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 101 ther he would consent to the division of his diocese. He pleaded the papal decision, and asked them whe- ther they would dare to compare the decrees of an Archbishop of Canterbury with those of the Popes of Rome, Agatho, Benedict, and Sergius "\ He ap- pealed to the great benefits he had himself conferred on the Church. Who, but he, had rooted out the errors of the Scottish schismatics ? had brought back the right observance of Easter and the coronal ton- sure ? had introduced the antiphonal chant, and esta- blished the Benedictine rule for the monastic life ? Again he appealed to Rome. This appeal was a new offence ; he was judged to be contumacious, de- posed and excommunicated ; and so great was the detestation in which he was held, that no one was allowed to eat in his company, food blessed by him was to be thrown away, the sacred vessels which he had used were to be considered as polluted, Again the old man, now verging on seventy, bent on foot his way to Rome, whither Archbishop Bright^ wald also sent his envoys. The case of both parties was laid before a council assembled at Rome, which devoted four months and seventy sittings to their consideration. Again the Pope, now John VI., de- cided in his favour, but with no better success than before. The king refused to " alter a sentence issued by himself, the archbishop, and all the dignitaries of the land, for any writings coming, as they called it, from the apostolical see." But the King Aldfrid died, having, according to the statement of his sister, the Abbess Elfleda, ex- " Interrogavit eos qua fronte auderent statutis Apostolicis ab Aga* thone sancto, et Benedicto electo, et beato Sergio, sanctissimis Papis, . . . praeponere." — (Eddius.) I02 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO pressed on his death-bed contrition for his conduct towards Wilfrid, and his resolution, had he lived, of reinstating him. Archbishop Brightwald, wavering and fearing the anger of Rome, summoned another synod,- A.D. 705, somewhere near the river Nidd", at which the young king and all the chief men of the kingdom attended. The bishops and thanes took their stand by the Synod of Eastenfeld ; the arch- bishop sided with Wilfrid. After a long and angry debate, a compromise was effected by a great and unexpected concession from Wilfrid ; it was decided not to accept the papal decree, nor that Wilfrid should be reinstated at York, but that John of Hex- ham should be appointed to that see, and that Wil- frid should succeed him at Hexham, and retain the monastery at Ripon. Shortly afterwards (a.d. 709) Wilfrid ended his long and stormy life in his monastery at Oundle, at the age of seventy-six, after an episcopate of forty-five years. As a prelate, or missionary, he has had few equals ; but a life, which might have been one of still greater usefulness, was marred by his attempts to enforce on the Church, of which he was a bishop, an unwilling obedience to the judgment of an alien Church. He was the first to set the example of appeals to Rome from a judicial sentence of the English Church, and his example shews how unheeded such appeals were, not only by the civil, but also the ecclesiastical au- thorities. Romanists assert that the Pope's judgment was not recognised in England, because Wilfrid had obtained it first by bribery, and afterwards by misrepresenta- tion. But this is passing an indifferent compliment " Bede, v. 19. THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. to the Pope, by imputing to him the possibility of being bribed to do an injustice". Before parting with Wilfrid, a word must be said about his friend Benedict Biscop, sometimes known as " Baducing," a man in learning inferior to neither Theodore or Adrian ; the founder of monasteries, and the promoter of ecclesiastical art, whose name, like Wilfrid's, is so closely connected with the Church history of Northumbria. A high-born Northumbrian, he gave up, at the age of twenty-five, his rank as a king's thane, and his worldly estates, as Bede says, "to take service under the true king." It was he who accompanied Wilfrid in his first journey to Rome, A.D. 653. He spent the time between 665 — 667 at the famous monastery of Lerins, where he took the tonsure and vows of a monk. Being in Rome at the time^ he was requested by Pope Vitalian to ac- company the new archbishop, Theodore, to England, and was appointed by Theodore to the vacant abbey of SS. Peter and Paul at Canterbury, which, after holding it two years, he vacated in favour of Adrian. After his return from his fourth visit to Rome, A.D. 674, having received from King Egfrid a grant of land on the borders of the Wear, he founded his first monastery of Wearmouth, in honour of St. Peter ; the church he built of stone, " after the Roman fashion, which he always loved ;" he brought over the glaziers from France to make the windows of ° Here is certainly a dilemma : William of Malmesbury (de Poiitif.) says that the king believed the decrees of Rome were obtained for 7>ioney^ for that the Romans lefid themselves to people who make presents. He made altogether six visits to Rome. Bede ; compare iii. 4, where he speaks of the church of stone, which Ninias built for the southern Picts, as "not being usual amongst the Britons." I04 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO the church, cloisters, and refectory, thus being the means of teaching the Northumbrians the art of making glass, and working in stone ; whilst, through a valuable collection of pictures and paintings which he had brought from Rome, he encouraged amongst the people a taste for the fine arts. Five years after the building of Wearmouth, on his return from his fifth journey to Rome with the " Precentor John," whom the Pope had allowed to accompany him to England, for the purpose of teaching the Wearmouth monks the system of chanting and reading adopted in St. Peter's, he laid the foundation of his great monastic work, the famous monastery at Gyruum, afterwards called Jarrow, on a site, on the banks of the Tyne, granted him by King Egfrid ; a monastery rendered for ever illustrious by the name of the Venerable Bede, who, when only seven years of age, was committed to the care of Benedict Biscop to be educated, first at Wearmouth, but soon afterwards at Jarrow, where he lived and died, a.d. 735. These two establishments, at the death of Biscop, which occurred on Jan. 12, 689, numbered no less than 600 monks. Theodore, as we have seen, was succeeded by Brightwald, in whose primacy the Laws of Ina were passed. By these laws provision was made for the compulsory payment of an ecclesiastical tax, known as Kirk-shot, which appears to have been the payment to the Church of a certain quantity of corn, or other produce of the earth, as first-fruits. Next to Bright- wald followed Tatwine, a.d. 731 ; then Nothelm, 735 — 741. Nothelm, when a presbyter, undertook a journey to Rome, for the sake of collecting and copying manu- scripts for the English libraries, which were fast be- THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC, coming the most famous in Europe ; and Bede men- tions him as collecting materials there for his eccle- siastical history''. Those epistles, doubtless, would convey the original plan of St. Gregory for a second metropolitan at York ; they would shew also that it had been his intention that the southern metropolitan see should be that of London, and not Canterbury. So the King of Northumbria was no longer willing that the Arch- bishop of the kingdom of Kent should have supreme authority over the bishop of his kingdom, Accord- ingly, the great event in the primacy of Nothelm was the elevation of the diocese of York into a second metropolitan see, of which Egbert, a noble patron of learning, and the friend of Bede, cousin of the king, Ceolwulf, and brother of his successor, was appointed archbishop. The first two Archbishops of York, Egbert and Albert, were men of great learning and eminence. Egbert composed a " Penitential " for the guidance of priests in hearing confessions, and a collection of Church laws and canons in the Engrlish langfuape ; he also formed a valuable library at York, and died after a pontificate of thirty-four years. Albert, his successor, was master of the school which Egbert had founded at York ; there Alcuin was his pupil and successor, and to him Albert left the charge of his valuable library. Albert, Alcuin says, " was a pattern of goodness, justice, piety, and ' " Nothelm, afterwards going to Rome, having with leave of the present Pope, Gregory, searched into the archives of the holy Roman Church, found there some Epistles of the blessed Pope Gregory" (i.e. Gregory the Great), "and other Popes; and returning home . . . brought them to me to be inserted in my history."— (Bede's Preface.) I06 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO liberality ; he guarded the lambs of Christ from the wolf, bearing back on his shoulders the wanderers, fearing neither kings nor earls, if they misbehaved." After holding the see for thirteen years, he resigned it to Eanbald, another of his pupils at York, and re- tired into a monastery, that he might wholly devote himself to God. Such were the eminent prelates who were the first Archbishops of York, Unfortunately, in no great length of time, disputes between the two metropoli- tans of Canterbury and York for precedence, caused, as we shall see hereafter, not unfrequently great scan- dal in the Church. In the year 741, Cuthbert, the friend of Winfrid (who is better known as St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany^), succeeded to the primacy. In a letter to Cuthbert, in which he styles himself Legate of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, Boniface boasts of his having procured a synodical submission of the German Church to Rome, and advises Cuthbert to do the same in England; transmitting to him at the same time a body of canons passed by his obsequious synod. Cuthbert shared the Roman views of his friend Boni- face, and in consequence of his letter he sought and obtained permission from the king, Ethelbald, to sum- mon a synod at Cloveshoo a.d. 747. The synod was opened by the reading of two letters from Pope ' See p. 51. ' That Cloveshoo was either in Mercia, or in some kingdom subordi- nate to Mercia, is probable from the fact that all the recorded Councils of Cloveshoo date within a period coincident with the predominance of Mercia, and that the Mercian kings take the lead in them, often without the presence of any other king at all. Cliff-at-Hoo, in Kent, the old in- terpretation, rests solely on the resemblance of name, and was not in Mercia. (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 122.) THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 107 Zacharias by the archbishop. Subjects of much in- terest were discussed, and canons were passed on the model of Boniface's continental synod ; the canons were mainly directed to the correction of irregularity in morals and discipline ; they enjoined a strict uni- formity with Rome's offices and usages ; but when Boniface's proposed plan came on, of referring difficult questions to Rome, the members refused to compro- mise the dignity of the Church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was declared to be its supreme head Next to Bregwin, who succeeded St. Cuthbert a.d. 759, came, a.d. 766, Janbert, or Lambert (for he is known under both names) ; and under him an im- portant, although a short-lived, change in the govern- ment of the English Church took place, viz, the eleva- tion of the see of Lichfield into an archbishopric. At that time Offa, King of Mercia, the most powerful king of the Heptarchy, resolved, that as the kingdom of Kent, and also that of Northumbria, had metro- politans, his own kingdom of Mercia was entitled to one also. He was also glad to deprive the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had offended him, not only of his prestige, but also his emoluments, as his property in Mercia was required for the endowment of the new archbishopric. The great difficulty was to obtain the pall for the new archbishop, Higbert, without which he would not be on an equal footing with the two other metro- politans. How was this to be obtained ? To the shame of both Pope and king, it must be confessed " "If there be anything which a bishop cannot reform in his own diocese, let him lay it before the archbishop in synod, and pubhcly before all, in order to its being reformed." — (Canon of Council of Cloveshoo.) io8 FROM ARCHBISHOP THEODORE TO that Offa was not too low to offer, nor the Pope to accept, a bribe ^. The Pope, Adrian, looked for an opportunity of establishing the papal supremacy in England, and so he did not hesitate to upset the arrangement of his predecessor, St. Gregory. That Offa was leading a grossly immoral life^ that he was persecuting an archbishop, concerned him but little. He was able to make his own terms, which were more valuable even than the bribe which he had received : those terms were that two Papal legates were to be admitted into the kingdom, and allowed to hold a council. The king consented ; the two legates arrived, and were received with high marks of honour. The great object of their visit was attained, and a precedent ^ for papal legates being sent to England was established. A council was held at Calcuith ^ in presence of the king and the papal legates ; in vain the archbishop opposed the mutilation of his see ; the archbishopric of Lichfield was decreed, and the sees of Hereford, Worcester, and Sydnocester, in addition to the Mercian sees of Elmham and Dunwich, became suffragans of the new metropolitan. Thus England owes the first public encouragement * " Data pecunia infinita, a sede Apostolica qua; nuUi deest pecuniam largienti, licentiam impetravit." — (Matt. Par. Hist. Ang.) So also William of Malmesbury : " Epistolis ad Adrianum Papum et fortassis muneribus egit ut pallio Lichfieldensem episcopum contra morem veterum efferret." ~{De Gest. Pont.) ^ Alcuin, whilst he allows that Offa's best deeds were tarnished by avarice and cruelty, yet on the whole commends him. It was, however, the only instance of papal legates in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. * Great doubts exist as to this place. Bishop Gibson supposes it to be Kelceth in Lancashire; Dr. Lingard, Chelsea; and Mr. Soames, Challock, or Chalk, in Kent. (Robertson's Ch. Hist. ii. 176 n.) THE LICHFIELD ARCHBISHOPRIC. 109 of papal assumption to the selfish motives of a licen- tious king. The new archbishopric, however, lasted only about fifteen years : Ethelhard, the successor of Janbert, with the consent of Kenulph, the King of Mercia, went to Rome, with a request that the see of Lichfield might be reduced to its former state ; the Pope consented, and the new archbishopric was abol- ished by the Council of Cloveshoe, a.d. 803. Towards the end of his life, Offa, whose conscience was burdened, amongst other crimes, with the bar- barous murder of Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, not only built the abbey of St. Alban's, but also un- dertook a pilgrimage to Rome. Ina, King of Wessex, when on a pilgrimage to the same city, had endowed a school for the education of English children ; this endowment Offa now increased by a tax imposed upon every family in his dominions ; thus arose the payment of Rome-scot, or Rome-penny, afterwards called Peter -pence, which was confirmed by Ethel- wulf, A.D. 855. CHAPTER III. THE DANISH INVASIONS. THE end of the eighth, or the beginning of the ninth century, may be regarded as the period of the highest intellectual pre-eminence of England ; but now a long period of religious and intellectual, as well as of political, darkness set in. Of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, at first Kent had been the chief; but its power declined at an early period, to be succeeded by Northumbria, which in its turn fell at the end of the seventh century. For a time the kings of Mercia and Wessex contended for the supremacy, till (a.d. 757 — 796) Offa, King of Mercia, who was able to treat as an equal with the powerful Charlemagne, was the Bretwalda. After his death the over-lordship passed to Wessex, in the per- son of Egbert, under whom the kingdoms of the Hep- tarchy came to an end, and Egbert became sole king of a united England, a.d. 828. Just as the country seemed to be enjoying peace and prosperity, the Danes, a heathen people from Scandinavia, of the same stock as the English, who had been driven from their own country by the con- quests of Charlemagne, began to settle down in the country. These Danish invasions had commenced as early as 787 ; but at the end of Egbert's reign they became more formidable, and in 833 Egbert was defeated by them, in a battle in which two bishops, Wilbert of Sherborne, and Herefrid of Wor- cester, were killed, Egbert, however, managed to keep them tolerably THE DANISH INVASIONS. Ill under control during his reign. But for a long period after his death the history of the country is taken up with the ravages they committed ; and it was Chris- tianity especially Avhich incurred their hatred. For not only were these Northmen pagans, but Charle- magne had rendered Christianity doubly hateful to them, by forcing it upon them as a badge of slavery. Their lust of plunder, blended with a religious fanati- cism, directed their ferocity especially against the mo- nasteries, the wealth and undefended condition of which marked them out as an easy object of attack ; there alone books were stored, and scholars found a home ; the consequence was a general decay of learning and every peaceful art. Once again we hear of a repetition of the same wanton cruelties as were committed by the Saxons : Christianity again perse- cuted, the priests and monks slain at the altar ; whole cities rased to the ground ; the same promiscuous slaughter of men ; the women and children driven off into slavery. A period of such national calamities as set in with the Danish conquests, favourable as it was to reli- gious corruptions, affords but few materials for eccle- siastical history. Wulfred, whom Ethelard had appointed as the first Archdeacon of Canterbury, succeeded him in the primacy, a.d. 805 ; during his primacy, which lasted twenty-eight years, the only event deserving record is the synod of Calcuith in 816. At this synod eleven canons were passed, the most important being the second and the fifth. Canon II. enacts that at the consecration of churches, where no relics of martyrs can be found, the consecrated elements being placed in a pyx are sufficient, for that they are the Body and 2 12 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. Blood of our Saviour ; a canon which shews that the English Church did not consider the second synod of Nice a general one, nor themselves bound by it \ Canon V, prohibits "any Scotchman to baptize, read divine service, give the Eucharist, or perform any part of the sacerdotal office," which indicates that though the Scotch had conformed as to Easter, the breach between the Roman and British parties had not been healed, and that the ordination of the Scots was still considered doubtful. Ceolnoth, the first Dean of Canterbury, became Archbishop of Canterbury, a.d. 833 ; and his primacy is chiefly remarkable for the charter granted by King Ethelwulf, A.D. 855, at the institution, it is supposed, of St. Swithin, ordering a general payment of tithes ^ throughout all England, for the service of God, " ex- empt from expeditions, the building of bridges, or of forts ^" Ethelwulf, a pious but superstitious king, who had been educated by St. Swithin ^ Bishop of Winchester, ' The second canon of the second synod of Nice enacted, that "if any bishop shall consecrate a church for the future, without such holy relics, let him be deprived for making a breach upon ecclesiastical tradition." >> The scriptural nile of devoting a tenth part, or a tithe of their sub- stance to God, was observed by the early converts to Christianity in this land. So the charter of Ethelwulf orders the tenth manse to be so applied : " Aliquam portionem terrarum hsereditarum antea possiden- tibus omnibus gradibus, sive famulis et famulabus (probably monks and nuns) Deo servientibus, sive laicis miseris, semper decimam mansionem ; ubi minimum sit, turn decimam partem omnium bonorum." ' These taxes, termed the " Trinoda necessitas," were ordinarily im- posed on ecclesiastical property. *' The name of St. Swithin is connected with a belief that if rain falls on the 15th of July, it will continue to rain for forty days. -Very little is known of St. Swithin, except that posthumous honours were done him as a great worker of miracles. He died in 688, and according to his request, was therefore buried in the churchyard of Winchester. But THE DANISH INVASIONS. and had been called from the cloister to the throne, resolved on making a pilgrimage to Rome, in which his youngest son, Alfred (the future Alfred the Great), then seven years of age, who had already visited Rome before, accompanied him. During his visit to Rome, Ethelwulf displayed great liberality, rebuilding the English school founded by Ina, which had been de- stroyed by fire, and confirming the grant of Peter- pence. Meanwhile the Danes had been pushing forward their conquests, and, a.d. 855, wintered in the Isle of Sheppey. Alfred, who was born at Wantage, A.D. 849, succeeded to the throne in 871, in his twenty-third year. He had already given proofs of his high ability as a general ; but at first his efforts against the Danes were unsuccessful ; in 878 they had completely overrun the kingdom, which was overwhelmed in apparently hopeless ruin; and Al- fred, disguised in the humblest costume, was forced to seek refuge with a neatherd in a little island called after him Athelney (Prince's Island), amongst the marshes of Somersetshire'. Here the people ga- thered around him, and in a short time he found himself at the head of a large army, with which he totally routed the Danes, in a battle near the modern a century afterwards he was canonized, and the monks not thinking the public cemetery a fitting place of sepulture for a saint, resolved to re- move his body into the choir ; the translation was to take place on the 15th of July, but the rain fell so incessantly for forty days that the design was abandoned. ' The story of the neatherd's wife entrusting him with the care of the baking-cakes, and scolding him for his carelessness in letting them get burnt, is a household word. It is said that Alfred found in the forest a man named Denewulf, a common swineherd, and that being struck with his intelligence, he had him educated, and that this man afterwards became Bishop of Winchester. I 114 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH, Yatton. The Danes capitulated, and a peace was agreed to at Wedmore, on condition of their receiving baptism, and Alfred himself stood godfather to Guth- rum, the Danish chief, whom he received as his adopted son, giving him the name of Athelstan ; Alfred gave up to them the kingdoms of East Anglia and Northumbria, so the Danes settled down in the land, which enjoyed peace for ten years. During these years Alfred rebuilt London and the other cities which had been destroyed ; he established many use- ful institutions ; he divided England into counties, hundreds, and tithings ; he established the county court, to which appeals from the lower courts were allowed, and at which the Bishop and Ealdorrnan together presided ; he made ^ a digest of the laws of kings Ina and Offa, and of those of King Ethelbert, and for this he obtained a solemn confirmation from his legislature ; he also stipulated for the payment of tithes, Rome-shot, light-shot, and plough-alms, pro- viding by pecuniary fines against disobedience ; thus affording another testimony to the antiquity of the recognition of the Church's title to a payment for the exigencies of public worship^. Labour on Sun- days and holydays was forbidden ^ and a severe punishment enacted against immorality. But Alfred's success as a scholar, and as a restorer of learning, is the most remarkable trait in his cha- racter. ' Alfred prefaced his laws with the Ten Commandments, from which, however, the second commandment is omitted from its proper place. » Soames, Ang.-Sax. Ch. p. 156. A similar prohibition was made by the laws of Ina. A bondman working on Sundays by his master's order, was declared free ; if without his order, he was to suffer corporal punishment ; whilst a freeman work- ing on that day lost his freedom, or was fined sixty shillings. THE DANISH INVASIONS. Having lost in his infancy his mother Osburgh, his education was so neglected, that it was not till he was twelve years of age that he was taught to read. His step-mother, Judith, being ashamed of the ignorance of her step-sons, offered a beautifully illuminated manuscript to the one of them who should first learn to read. Alfred won the prize. The love of study being once aroused in him, he began to thirst after knowledge, and he found that reading to any advantage required a knowledge of Latin. But so extinct had learning become in England under the Danish ravages, and so great was the prevailing ignorance, that Alfred himself complained that he did not know a single individual to the south of the Thames who could translate a Latin epistle. " There was a time," he said, " when foreigners sought wisdom and learning in this island ; now we are compelled to seek them in foreign lands." Accord- ingly he sent abroad for teachers. At his invita- tion there came over to England Grimbald of Rheims, and John of old Saxony ; with these were associated native teachers, Asser his biographer, a Welsh priest from St. David's, Phlegmund, Archbishop of Canter- bury, Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester, and his kins- man St. Neot'; whilst John Scotus Erigena, one of the Scots of Ireland, the most famous dialectician of the day, received through Alfred a professorship at Oxford j. So great was the success of Alfred's sys- ' Of St. Neot, who gave his name to the town in Huntingdonshire, little is known, beyond that " he visited Rome city seven times, in honour of Christ and St. Peter." i Poor Erigena came to a sad end. From Oxford he removed to the abbey of Malmesbury, where his pupils murdered him with the iron pens which were then used to write on the wax tablets. I 2 ii6 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. tern of education, that Athelstan had the honour of educating in Eno^land three foreign kinofs, Alan of Bretagne, Louis of France, and Haco of Norway Alfred himself translated into Saxon the History of Orosius, the Consolations of Boethius, a philo- sopher of the sixth century, Gregory's Pastoral Care, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. He also trans- lated certain portions of the Scriptures, and was en- gaged in the translation of the Psalms at the time of his early death, at the age of fifty-two. One of the most interesting signs of the revival of energy which took place during the reign of Al- fred, was the opening of a communication with the Christians of the East and the Churches of India. What was the immediate cause of it we do not know, but it is interesting to be able to trace back the first intercourse between E norland and Hindo- Stan to A.D. 883, and to know that it consisted in an interchange of Christian feelings, having origin- ated in Christian charity. In this same spirit, an interchange of kind offices and Christian feeling took place between the King of England and the Patriarch of Jerusalem Alfred was a great admirer of Rome ; in his earliest youth he had made two visits to that city. During the first of these visits, his biographer Asser assures us that the Pope Leo " anointed him for king, and, taking him to himself as a son of his adoption, con- firmed him." He could hardly fail through life to associate with Rome everything that was grand and magnificent, and so it is his fate to fill a no unim- portant place among the Anglo-Saxon builders of that Roman system which did so much to under- Turner, ii. 200. ' Hook, i. 312 ; Churton, p. 217. THE DANISH INVASIONS. 117 mine the stability of the English Church", And yet in his reign we meet with no letters of submission, no learned men sent from Rome to assist the king in his schemes for the revision of the arts and sciences, no intercourse of legates, no interposing in the business of the Church, no bulls of privilege for the new abbeys of Winchester and Athelney : and what is more, King Alfred patronized John Scotus Erigena, the opponent of Transubstantiation, notwithstanding the discountenance he lay under at Rome °. To Alfred succeeded his son Edward the Elder (901-925), who subdued the Danes as far as the Humber. William of Malmesbury mentions an in- cident as occurring in this reign, which, if true, would have denoted a remarkable advance of the papal power in England : viz. that Pope Formosus, A.D. 904, put the kingdom under an interdict, in consequence of the long vacancy of some of its sees ; it is certain that about this time a greater vigour with regard to the episcopate was manifested, in the creation of the new sees of Wells, Crediton, and St. German's. But then there is this difficulty, that whereas the interdict is said to have been issued A.D. 904, Pope Formosus had died a.d. 896. Ser- gius III. was at that time Pope; the cruel Pope who, having thrown Formosus into prison, after his death caused his body to be exhumed, and having Soames, Ang.-Sax. Ch. 143. " Collier, p. 174. In the time of Erigena, a French monk named Paschasc Radbert first taught the doctrine of Transubstantiation as it is now taught by the Church of Rome. Erigena strongly opposed this noveL doctrine; and in consequence Nicholas I. wrote to Charles the Bald, at whose court he resided, to banish him from France ; this induced him to come to England. Il8 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. mutilated it by cutting off the head and first two fingers, ordered it to be thrown into the Tiber. It is much more probable that the king added the new sees, on the suggestion of Archbishop Phleg- mund, a wise and diligent prelate, than at the in- stigation of such a man as Sergius. Phlegmund's history illustrates one of the many instances of Rome's divisions, which occasioned his paying two visits to that city in search of the pall. On his first visit Formosus was Pope, and he re- turned home thinking he had been canonically con- secrated. It was not till Formosus was dead, and a post mortem council had been held over him, that he was condemned, and his consecrations pro- nounced invalid ; Phlegmund therefore was obliged to visit Rome again to obtain his pall. The chief event in the history of the Church, be- tween the death of Alfred and the Norman conquest, was undoubtedly the revival of monachism. From the beginning of the eighth century monachism in England had been declining; the fervour of the mo- nastic life had worn off ° ; there was an unwillingness to adopt its restraints ; external circumstances conduced towards the general decline, and the Danes completed its extinction. By them the venerable church of Lin- disfarne, the burial-place of St.Cuthbert, and the abode of so many pious missionary bishops, was plundered and destroyed, its inmates either being murdered or led captive. Soon after, the monasteries of Wear- mouth and J arrow, the abode of the Venerable Bede, shared the same fate. The noble and wealthy monas- teries of Bardley, of Croyland, of Medeshamstede (Peterborough), Ely, Repton, and Coldingham, were ° This was shewn by Boniface's letter to Archbishop Cuthbert. THE DANISH INVASIONS. 119 wasted with fire and sword ; every soul belonging to them was cruelly massacred ; the treasures deposited in them from the neighbouring county for safety were plundered, even the monuments of the dead being rifled for the sake of the jewels which they contained ; the valuable libraries were destroyed ; the nuns ex- posed to the foulest indignities. In one (the wealthy monastery of Croyland), the barbarians burst into the church in the time of divine service, slaughtered the monks, and murdered the aged Abbot Theodore at the very horns of the altar, while in the act of cele- brating High Mass. Under such persecutions the monastic order had become extinct ; or, if any possessions of the monas- teries escaped the rapacity of the Danes, they were seized by the English kings to defray the expenses of the war. Alfred did his best to restore them when he founded his monasteries at Athelney, at Shaftesbury, of which his own daughter became abbess, and at Winchester ; but only with very partial success. For a time monasteries in England were almost altogether abolished ; the monks either embraced secular pro- fessions, or betook themselves to the monasteries on the Continent, more especially those of Fleury and Ghent ; or, if any inmates remained in the monasteries in England, they could hardly be regarded in the strict sense as monks. The restoration of the monastic system is due partly to Archbishop Odo, but more especially to his suc- cessor in the primacy, St. Dunstan. In their time a great many of the clergy were married men ; and this was the case, not only amongst the " secular," but also the "regular" clergy. To establish a uniform celibacy amongst them ; to abolish entirely the secular, I20 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. and to substitute the regular clergy ; to introduce a stricter observance of the Benedictine rule into the monasteries : this was the object of these reformers. Odo, a Dane of noble family, a pagan by birth, being attracted by the preaching of a Christian mis- sionary, at an early age embraced Christianity, and became naturalized as an Englishman. In his youth he had been a soldier, and continued to be so after his ordination; even after he was consecrated, a.d. 926, to the bishopric of Ramsbury, he was present at the battle of Brunenburg, where he was engaged in the hottest part of the fight. It is probably this mixture of the military and episcopal characters which produced the wide diversity of opinion respecting him ; for whilst he is called by some " Odo the Good," by others he is branded with every opprobrium. On the death of Wulfhelm, he was, a.d. 942, promoted to the see of Canterbury, through Dunstan, at that time minister of King Edmund. Hitherto, Odo had lived as one of the "seculars;" but thinking that none but a monk was fitted for an Archbishop, and that none but a Bene- dictine was fitted for a monk, he went to Fleury, near Rouen, where a monastery existed on the model of St. Benedict's monastery on Monte Casino ; here he embraced the Benedictine rule, which, by the assist- ance of the Chancellor Thurketal, he took every op- portunity of introducing into England. But it remained for St. Dunstan to carry out the plan which Odo had begun. Dunstan, a man who was held in much honour whilst he lived, and canon- ized after his death, but whose memory has been tar- nished by monkish fables of miracles which he never did, and never pretended to do, was of royal birth ; having also for his uncles, Athelm, Archbishop of THE DANISH INVASIONS. 121 Canterbury, and Elphege, Bishop of Winchester. He was born near Glastonbury, and received his education at Fleury. On his return from Fleury, King Edmund appointed him one of his chaplains, and gave him the ruined abbey of Glastonbury to restore, which, how- ever, was not finished till the reign of Edred, a.d. 954. This was the first Benedictine abbey in England, and Dunstan the first Benedictine abbot. Amongst the earliest of its monks were Ethelwold, afterwards Abbot of Abingdon and Bishop of Winchester ; and Oswald, nephew of Archbishop Odo, afterwards Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York : these two, with St. Dunstan, were the principal agents in reintroducing monachism, and establishing the Benedictine system in England. On the death of Odo, Elfin, Bishop of Winchester, was appointed to succeed him ; but on his way to Rome to obtain the pall, he was frozen to death on the Alps. Brithelm, Bishop of Sherborne, was the next nominated ; but before he was consecrated, the king died, and his nomination being thus annulled, Dunstan was appointed archbishop by the new king, Edgar ^. Edgar's reign (958 — 975) was one of great glory to the country, but he was himself a man of licentious and profligate habits. Dunstan exercised a powerful influ- ence over him ; and on one occasion, in consequence of a flagrant crime which he had committed, prohibited him from wearing his crown for seven years. By Dun- stan's advice good laws were made for the people by the king and the Witagemot, and through him about forty monasteries were built or restored, and richly P It is worthy of note that in the Acts of his reign, Edgar styles himself "Vicar of Christ in his Realms." This shews that the Pope did not then possess in England the title which he afterwards claimed. 122 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. endowed % At Worcester and Winchester, the bishops, Oswald and Ethelwold, and also the bishops of some other dioceses, turned out all those who refused to become monks ; but it is strange that in his own diocese of Canterbury Dunstan made no alteration, allowing the secular clergy to remain at the cathedral, whilst the monks resided at St. Augustine's ; nor was any attempt made to dispossess the secular canons until the primacy of Archbishop Elfric. In the history of Dunstan we have a proof that papal interference was unrecognized by the Anglo- Saxon Church. An earl of considerable influence had contracted an incestuous marriage, and Dunstan ex- communicated him. The earl appealed first to the king, and then to Rome. The Pope seized the oppor- tunity to interfere, and wrote and ordered Dunstan to grant him absolution ; Dunstan refused to take any notice of the Pope's interference till the sin was aban- doned ^ The sequel of the story shews how much better a spiritual guide Dunstan was than the Pope. Seeing how little the Archbishop regarded the Pope's order, the nobleman began to relent : he abandoned his unlawful marriage, took the habit of a penitent, and coming to the Archbishop bare-footed, cast himself at his feet, and asked absolution. St. Dunstan was softened, but for the penitent's good he concealed his feelings for a time ; but when he could refrain no longer, he melted into tears, and granted the absolu- tion. Dunstan died in 988. 1 Amongst these were the old foundations of Ely, Peterborough, Tewkesbury, Glastonbury, Evesham, Bath, and Abingdon ; the new abbeys of Ramsey, Hunts; Tavistock, and Milton Abbot's, Devon; Cerne Abbot's, Dorset ; and many more. (Churton, p. 244.) ' This is such an evident disregard of the Pope, that Cardinal Baronius is at a loss how to explain it. THE DANISH INVASIONS. 123 Elfric, an abbot,«who became archbishop in 995, was as staunch a promoter of monachism as Dunstan had been ; he even removed the secular canons, whom Dunstan had spared, from Canterbury Cathedral ; they were, however, restored after his death. Elfric, who was a man of great ability, earned a foremost rank in the literature of England, as the author of two books of homilies, selected chiefly from such authorities as SS. Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, and Bede, and which became authoritative in the Anglo-Saxon Church ; he also, at the request of Wulfsy, Bishop of Sherborne, wrote a summary of admonition, resembling an epis- copal charge of the present day, for the information of the clergy. These works are useful, as illustrating the religious opinions of that time ; they shew that although the veneration of relics and the doctrine of Purgatory had increased, the notion of Transubstan- tiation had not been received in the Analo-Saxon Church, and that the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist was the same then as now. Archbishop Elfric also states in his canons that the first four councils are to be regarded as the four Gospels, and that though others have been held since, they are not to be regarded as of equal au- thority. The period that ensued, from the death of Edgar to the Norman Conquest, was one of great calamity to the nation. The young king, Edward (hence sur- named "the Martyr"), was cruelly murdered by his stepmother, Elfrida, the mother of Ethelred " the Un- ready," by whom he was succeeded. Again the Danes invaded the kingdom ; in vain Ethelred induced them, by payment of money, which gave rise to the tax known as Danegeld, to retire. This was the worst 124 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH, thing he could have done ; for again and again the invaders, induced by the hope of money, returned. In one of these invasions, Canterbury, betrayed by the abbot of St, Augustine's, was captured, the ca- thedral destroyed, and Elphege, who had succeeded Elfric as archbishop, was murdered. We must now turn to another body of Northmen, with whom the history of the English Church and nation is henceforward so closely connected. Whilst the Danes were committing- their ravages in England, the Normans coming, as their name im- plies, from the north, in 912, under their leader Rollo or Rolf, had conquered and settled in that part of Gaul, which from them took the name of Normandy, and there founded a new European state. At that time Rolf and his followers were heathens ; he was, however, before long baptized, and gradually the Normans became Christians, and adopted the French customs and the French language. For some time no intercourse was held between the people of Eng- land and the people in Normandy. But, a.d. 1002, Ethelred the Unready married Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, and henceforward the attention of the Normans became directed to Eng- land. But now Ethelred committed a treacherous and dastardly act, for on St. Brice's day, a.d. 1002, he caused all the Danes that were in England, without respect of station, of age or sex, to be put to death : even the Princess Gunilda, the sister of the King of Denmark, and a Christian, after seeing her husband and children murdered, met a similar fate by order of Ethelred himself. This wanton cruelty gave Sweyne, King of Denmark, an excuse for again invading Eng- land ; and, arriving with his son Cnut and a large THE DANISH INVASIONS. army, he soon compelled Ethelred, and his wife and two sons, to seek refuge with the Duke of Normandy. In 1014 Sweyne died, and Edmund Ironside, the son of Ethelred, having conquered Cnut, Ethelred again became king; but only for a short time, for a.d. 1016 he died, and Edmund dying soon after, the people elected Cnut, who married Emma, the widow of Eth- elred, for their king. Cnut became a Christian, and enjoyed a prosperous reign of nearly twenty years. By the advice of Ethelnoth, Archbishop of Canter- bury, he sanctioned a code of laws for the Church, and founded a monastery at Essendon : he was also the founder and munificent benefactor of many churches, as also the restorer of the monasteries which had been injured by the Danish invasions ; and amongst his noblest works must be mentioned the foundation of the monastery of St. Edmondsbury, in memory of King Edmund ^ who had been killed by the Danes, in 870. He went also on a pilgrimage to Rome, and during this visit he remonstrated with the Pope on account of the great expense incurred by English archbishops in obtaining the pall from Rome ; he also added to the glory of his reign by the conversion of Denmark, into which he sent missionary bishops from England. On the death of Cnut, his son Harold, by his first wife, became king, but dying in 1040, he was suc- ceeded by Harthacnut, Cnut's son by Emma; thus a Norman by his mother's side became King of Eng- land. Harthacnut died a.d. 1042, and then Edward the Confessor (the son of Ethelred, by Emma), who married the daughter of Godwin, the most powerful • St. Edmund was fastened to a tree, and after being unmercifully scourged by the Danes, he was, Hke St. Sebastian, transfixed with spears. 126 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. earl in England, succeeded to the throne. Edward, a good and pious king, but more suited for a cloister than a throne, and a devoted servant of the Pope, had been brought up all his life in Normandy ; hence he was more Norman than English ; he preferred the French language ; he appointed Normans to high stations and bishoprics in England ; and he made Robert, Abbot of Jumieges, in Normandy, Arch- bishop of Canterbury; and William, another Norman, Bishop of London ; whilst he lived on intimate terms with his cousin William, Duke of Normandy. But the appointment of Robert to the see of Can- terbury was more than the nation could tolerate. He had been appointed Bishop of London, a.d. 1044, but in order to keep him out of Canterbury, the chapter of the cathedral, together with the monks of St. Au- gustine's, had elected ^Ifric, a relation of Earl Godwin ; this they had done without the conge cfelirc, so, with- out taking any notice of their election, the king ap- pointed Robert. The country was for a time in re- bellion ; soon, however. Earl Godwin regained his as- cendency with the king, who, by the advice of Stigand, summoned the Witagemot, and Robert was ban- ished. But the short tenure of Robert's primacy was marked by the increasing influence of the Pope in England, into whose hands Robert threw all the power he was able. And now Robert appealed to Rome, — the only English bishop, except Wilfrid, who had ever done so ; the Pope, of course, decided in his favour, but no notice was taken of his decision, and Stigand was elected archbishop. Pope Alex- ander always refused to recognise Stigand, partly be- cause he still considered Robert as archbishop, partly because Stigand had received the pall from an Anti- THE DANISH INVASIONS. 127 pope, Benedict X., who was afterwards deposed. Yet it is certain that Stigand was archbishop for nineteen years ; that he was acknowledged by Aldrid, Arch- bishop of York ; that Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, although consecrated by Aldrid, professed canonical obedience to him ; and that Stigand signed himself as Archbishop of Canterbury before the Archbishop of York, and next to the Royal Family. Nothing increased the influence of the Pope in England more than the foundation, now for the first time, of alien priories. These priories, filled with Normans, were attached, and subjected, not to Eng- lish monasteries, but to abbeys in Normandy ; thus English property was handed over to the Norman Church : how great an influence this added to the Normans, may be judged from the fact, that at the death of Edward the Confessor, one third of the land in England was said to belong to ecclesiastical bodies ; and this was one of the many ways in which the in- terests of his cousin, soon to become its conqueror, were advanced in the land. At this time William came to England on a visit to the king, during which it is supposed that Edward, who had no son himself, made him a promise, which William pleaded as his title, of the succession to the throne. This of course Edward, without the consent of the Witagemot, had no power to do, especially as Edgar Atheling, the grandson of Edmond Ironside, was the rightful heir to the throne. Edward just lived long enough to see the consecration of Westminster Abbey, which he had built and endowed as a Benedictine abbey, on the ruins of the church founded by Sebert, King of Essex, when he died a.d. 1066, after having, it is said, repented of the promise he had made to William, 128 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. and asked the Witagemot to elect Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, as his successor. Harold was accord- ingly chosen as king ; and as Archbishop Stigand's title to the primacy, during the lifetime of Robert, was considered doubtful, he was crowned by Aldrid, Archbishop of York. The battle of Senlac, near Hastings, soon followed. Many circumstances fa- voured William ; the Pope approved his cause, and sent him a banner; the Normans were victorious, and Harold was slain ; and though the Witagemot at first chose Edgar Atheling, and Stigand anointed him as king, William, without much difficulty, reached London, where, on Christmas Day, a.d. 1066, he was acknowledged king of the English. A great revolution was effected in the English Church. The whole religious life of the country was changed. The Normans displaced the native, and appointed in their place Norman bishops ; the first thing the new bishops did was to build, or rebuild, their cathedrals in the style for which Normandy is so renowned. In their own country the Normans had adopted the style of Roman architecture ; the round arch, which we call Norman, being only a reproduction of the old Roman arch. As time went on, the taste for architecture im- proved ; the heavier style of the Norman buildings gave place to the lighter style of the Early English, which developed by degrees into the Decorated style ; but it is to the Normans that we are mainly in- debted for the noble cathedrals and churches, often the churches in the smallest villages, for which Eng- land is so distinguished. But a still greater change ensued. The battle of Senlac was considered a holy battle. Nowhere was the Church more submissive to the Pope than in Nor- THE DANISH INVASIONS. 129 mandy, and the Normans went to the battle with his blessing ; nowhere was the Church so independent as in England. Foreign priests joined the Norman army, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and half-brother to William, being one of the most conspicuous leaders ; but in England the clergy did all they could to stop the in- vasion ; Alfwig, Abbot of Winchester, with twelve of his monks, fought with Harold, and were killed to a man ; many others amongst the clergy shared the same fate ; the consequence was, that William came to the throne with no kindly feelings to the English Church. The cause of the Pope in England was ad- vanced, and England for the future was broug^ht into closer connection with, and dependence on, the see of Rome. K PART III. ^be Hnolo^morman Cburcb. CHAPTER I. LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. HE Enorlish seem with a natural aptitude to have acquired the vices which their conquerors brought with them, and so from the Danes they learnt habits of gluttony and drunkenness. Unfortunately they not only learnt what was bad, but they also unlearned the good which they possessed before. William of Malmesbury draws a sad picture of the state of Eng- land at the time of the Norman Conquest. "For a time after the people became Christian," he says, " they shook off their rough, unpolished manners, they abandoned their fighting propensities, and gave themselves over entirely to religion ; kings and queens exchanged their thrones for the cloister ; churches and monasteries were built and richly endowed, and the people followed the example set them by their rulers. But all this had changed. The higher classes were entirely given up to luxury and de- bauchery ; instead of going to the churches, accord- ing to Christian custom, they would lie in bed, and hear Matins and Mass celebrated at their bedside by some over-officious priest. The poor were a prey to the rich, who, after having seized on their pos- sessions, sold them beyond sea as slaves. The monks belied their professions by expensive habits and sumptuous living. The learning which Dunstan had for a time revived, had again died out ; the LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. clergy were sunk in ignorance ; to be able to stam- mer out the service was considered a sufficient qua- lification for the priesthood, few of the clergy carried their learning further ; and any one who had a know- ledge of grammar was looked upon as a prodigy of learning In the matter of civilization, the English were certainly gainers by the Norman Conquest. The Normans were the foremost nation of Christendom, and English princes, since the decadence of learn- ing in England, had not unfrequently resorted to Normandy for their education ; whilst their freedom from that intemperance to which the other branches of the great German race were addicted, formed a striking contrast to the gluttony and drunkenness which disgraced their Saxon and Danish neighbours ^ William, no doubt, treated the English, the Church no less than the State, with great severity ; but the opposition he met with, considering, as he did, that Har^d had been a usurper, and that he himself was through the will of Edward the Confessor the rightful heir, was partly an excuse. He was a man of iron will, and with a heart as hard as stone ; " he was very stark," says the chronicle, "towards those who withstood his will;" yet he was no tyrant; he was " a very wise and good man, mild towards those good men who loved God ;" and, says Orderic of him, " he ever loved in God's servants true reli- gion." The chief opponents of William were the clergy ; at his coronation he had vowed to dispense ' " Clerici literaturi tumultuaria contenti, vix sacramentorum verba balbutiebant ; slupori erat et miraculo ca;teris qui grammaticam nosset." —(Will, of Malm. Lib. iii. 245.) Macaulay, vol. i. ch. i. K 2 132 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. equal justice to all his subjects, but there must be no resistance, no disloyalty : he was a strong as- serter of the Royal supremacy, and regarded him- self as the supreme head of the country, in eccle- siastical as well as civil matters ; bishop and baron enjoyed like privileges in the land over which he reigned, and therefore from both alike homage was due. But the clergy opposed him, so in a few years scarcely a native abbot, or a native bishop (Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, being a notable ex- ception) was to be found, Normans always being appointed in their stead ; and during nearly one hundred years, not a single Englishman was ap- pointed to any high station in the Church. How arbitrary this rule of William was considered to be, may be judged from the fact that Guimond, a Nor- man, and disciple of Lanfranc, refused an English bishopric, on the ground that it was unjust in William to intrude foreign bishops on the English Church. It must be confessed, however, that in some re- spects William's ecclesiastical rule was judicious. " Whenever any chief pastor died," says Orderic, "he caused all the Church possessions to be in- ventoried, lest they should be wasted by irregular guardians. Then he would call together the bishops and abbots and wise counsellors, and would enquire of the fiftest man for the appointment ; and whoso- ever was selected by the wise men, the king would appoint him a ruler and steward of the bishopric or abbey. Simony he abhorred ^ He set persons approved for their character over the monasteries in England, through whom the monastic life, which ' Simony attained a great height in the following reigns of William II. and Henry I. LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. had somewhat languished, sprang up into new life." So also the bishops whom he appointed were men of learning and piety ; but unfortunately for their episcopal duties, they despised the English, and scorned to speak the language of the people into whose sees they had been thrust. The evil conse- quence of this was, that whilst hitherto the services had been performed in the native tongue, hencefor- ward, till the Reformation, they were performed in Latin, in a language " not understanded of the people ^" The first to feel his severity was Stigand, the archbishop. The ceremony of William's consecra- tion had been performed by Aldrid, Archbishop of York ; according to one account, because Stigand refused to perform it ; according to another, because William refused to be crowned by one whom he did not consider the rightful archbishop, who had received the pall from an Anti-pope, and held his see in defiance of the reigning Pope, Alexander II. Stigand had shewed his opposition to William by exciting the men of Kent into a rebellion against him ; he was also a pluralist, holding together the sees of Canter- bury and Winchester, and this no doubt offended William, who was a strict disciplinarian. So Stigand must be deposed. But how was this to be effected ? It would be a tyrannical commencement of his reign to depose the archbishop by his own personal will, nor could he trust a synod composed of Englishmen to depose their own primate. He therefore applied to the Pope, or to Hildebrand, who was then virtu- ally Pope; Hildebrand was only too glad to inter- Art. xxiv. 134 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. fere ; he put forward a claim for the Church of Rome \vhich was never at any time allowed, "the Church of Rome has the right to superintend all Christians''^ Ermenfrid, Bishop of Sion, arrived as the papal le- gate ; Stigand and all the bishops who opposed William were deposed, and the Archbishop of Canterbury- ended his days in a prison at Winchester^. One reason assigned for deposing the English bishops was ignorance of the French language. Old Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, one of the best and most religious of them, was indebted to his holy simplicity for being allowed to hold his see both under William I. and William II. He was summoned to a synod at Westminster, and when ordered to give up his bishop's staff, he gently re- plied, " I confess I am not worthy of the dignity, nor sufficient for its duties. I knew it when the clergy elected me, when the prelates forced it upon me, and my master summoned me to the office." He was willing to obey the council, and surrender the staff, but not to the council who had not given it to him, but to Edward the Confessor. Then advancing to his tomb, and invoking the king whom both Normans and English regarded as a saint, he said, " Master, thou knowest how unwillingly I took upon myself this charge ; ... to thee, therefore, I re- sign the charge which I never sought." He then laid the crozier on his tomb. Such an invocation of a dead saint was regarded as an awful thing. No one dared ' Wilkins' Concilia, i. 323. ' If William was arbitrary, he was fair in his dealings. He deposed his own uncle, Malger, Archbishop of Rouen, who employed his time in secular amusements, and replaced him by Mauritius, a man of very dif- ferent stamp. LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. take up the staff. A legend stated that no one could take it up, and that it adhered to the altar ; till Wulf- stan, at the command of William, took it himself, and remained Bishop of Worcester, the cathedral church of which he built, till his death, a.d. 1095, at the age of eighty-eight. William made use of the Pope when he required his countenance for depriving the English bishops, but he would not sacrifice the independence of his kingdom, as the Pope had hoped ; and he was the only king in Europe who could hold his own against Gregory VII. He would not allow any papal letters to be received into the kingdom, nor (which was very necessary when there was frequently more than one Pope at a time) any Pope to be acknowledged without his approval. Gregory demanded of him that he should do fealty for his kingdom, and pay the arrears of Peter-pence : this last was an unfounded claim, for Peter-pence had never been paid as a tax, but only as a free gift ; still the money he was willing to give, not as a tribute, but an alms ; the fealty he refused, because he had never promised it, and his predecessors had never given it ; he would ask the Pope's prayers, " because we have loved your predecessors, and you above all we desire to love sincerely, and listen to obediently." Gregory was very profuse in his compliments ; he spoke of William as greatly superior to all the other monarchs of the age : still at one time he seemed in- clined to try his strength against him. He declared that money without obedience was useless ; he hinted at the king's treating him with disrespect, and charged his legate to threaten William with the wrath of St. Peter unless he repented, and to order the at- tendance of the English and Norman bishops at a 136 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. synod at Rome. No notice was taken of the ci- tation, and the Pope was wise enough to let the matter drop. Another occasion when William asserted his inde- pendence, was with regard to clerical celibacy. Hilde- brand had issued a decree against clerical marriages, with excommunication against those clergy who re- tained their wives, and forbidding the laity to accept their ministrations. A synod held at Winchester, A.D. 1076, refused to go such lengths ; and a canon of that council enacted that for the future bishops should enforce celibacy ; but for the present, only those attached to colleges and cathedrals should be obliged to put away their wives. One of the most important, but at the same time the least clear-sighted acts, and fraught with danger in after times, of his reign, was the separation of the ecclesiastical from the civil courts. In former times, the bishop and ealdormen had sat in the same courts, the former presiding in ecclesiastical, the latter in civil causes, each giving the other the weight of his autho- rity. But William set up courts for the bishops and archdeacons, before which all ecclesiastical causes were to be tried, according to the canons and the ecclesias- tical law, disobedience to which was to be punished by excommunication. He little thought of the troubles that this change was soon to effect between the clergy and the crown. William's chief adviser, whom he appointed to suc- ceed Stigand as Archbishop of Canterbury, was Lan- franc, an Italian. Lanfranc was born at Pavia, a.d. 1005, the son of the keeper of the public archives; and being left an orphan at an early age, he sought his livelihood by teaching, first in Italy, then in France, LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. and afterwards at Avranches in Normandy, where he conducted a school with great success ; WilHam, who was then Duke of Normandy, being a great patron of literature. On his road from Avranches to Rouen, A.D. 1 04 1, he was attacked by robbers in a forest near the abbey of Bee, tied to a tree, and left in this con- dition for a day and a night. The next morning, his cries for help were heard by some travellers : of them he enquired the way to the nearest monastery, and was directed to Bee. On his road thither, he met a man in old and torn garments, and uncombed and dis- hevelled hair. This was no other than the abbot, Herluin, who, a man of noble birth, had built the abbey upon his own estate. Herluin asked him what he wanted : " To be a monk," was the reply. Lanfranc was then conducted to Bee, where the fame of his teaching at Avranches had preceded him. The princes and nobles of the land flocked to study under the fa- mous master ; the buildings were obliged to be en- larged ; Herluin retained the office of abbot, and Lanfranc became the prior of the monastery, from which emanated three Archbishops of Canterbury. It was here that he gained the affection of William, which was soon, however, to be interrupted. William had contracted a marriage with his cousin Matilda, daughter of the Earl of Flanders, which Lanfranc op- posed. William tried to gain Lanfranc over, but in vain ; so he ordered him to leave his kingdom. The king thought the monastery of Bee a rich one, whereas it was very poor : it only possessed one horse. Lan- franc, riding on this animal, which soon fell dead lame, and attended only by one servant, was proceeding slowly to Rouen. William, who expected to find him travelling, as was the custom of the times, in state, 138 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. and attended with a retinue of servants, met him, and complained that he was so slow in executing his orders, " Give me a better horse," said Lanfranc, "and I shall go quicker." William appreciated the joke ; and from that event dates the commencement of Lanfranc's great influence over William. Although opposed to William's marriage, Lanfranc considered that a dispensing power rested with the Pope, and thither he repaired to arrange terms. He stipulated at Rome that William and Matilda should erect and endow two abbeys and four hospitals : and thus were built the abbeys of St. Stephen, of which he became abbot, a.d. 1066, and of the Holy Trinity at Caen ; and the hospitals of Rouen, Caen, Cherbourg, and Bayeux. In 1067, William offered him the Archbishopric of Rouen, which he refused ; and a.d. 1070, passing over his own brother Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux, who expected the appointment, that of Canterbury. This post also, although pressed by the king and queen Matilda to accept it, he again and again refused ; till, at the request of the Pope, which he considered equiva- lent to a command, he at length accepted it, and was consecrated in a shed at Canterbury, upon the site of the cathedral, which, a few years before, had been destroyed by fire. After his return from Rome, whither he had gone to obtain the pall ^ he, with the king's approval, in- sisted on the restoration of the Church lands and ^ Lanfranc, in consequence of work which required his presence in England, asked that the pall might be sent him; but Hildebrand, w'ho, though then only Archdeacon at Rome, managed the affairs of Pope Alexander IL, insisted on his attendance ; he told him that if it could be done for any one, it should be done for him, but the journey to Rome was indispensable. LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I, manors which the Norman barons had seized, and instituted proceedings against Odo, who had admin- istered the see of Canterbury after the deposition of Stigand, and who had laid claim to certain manors belonging to the archbishopric, on pretence that they devolved upon him as Earl of Kent. The wealth which he reclaimed for his see Lanfranc expended nobly. He rebuilt the cathedral with stone brought from the quarries of Caen ; he founded and endowed two hospitals near Canterbury, and devoted immense sums of money to religious uses ; and he assisted Paul, a monk at Caen, whom he had ap- pointed Abbot of St. Alban's, to rebuild the abbey in that city with great magnificence. Lanfranc was of too independent spirit to please Hildebrand, who had now become Pope Gregory VII. Gregory wrote him a letter, complaining that though he had often ordered him to Rome, yet, either through pride or negligence, and without assigning any canoni- cal reason, he had never gone there. He therefore now ordered him to make no excuses, but to go to Rome within four months ; if not, he should be sev- ered from the grace of St. Peter, and suspended from his episcopal office. Lanfranc, however, did not go, and the time had not yet arrived when even Gregory dare carry out his threat in England. Yet there is no doubt that the primacy of Lanfranc brought the English Church into nearer conformity with Rome. Lanfranc, having been himself a monk, had naturally a great preference for the monastic life ; he drew up a collection of rules for the Benedictine monks whom he had established at Canterbury ; he was also a strong advocate for clerical celibacy, which, although it stopped far short of the idea of Hilde- 140 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. brand, during his primacy made some advance in Eng- land, and was carried further by his successor, Anselm. Lanfranc taught (and he was probably the first who did so in England) the Roman doctrine of Transub- stantiation in the Eucharist, which, though introduced by Paschasius Radbert, had not in Lanfranc's time be- come a dogma in any branch of the Catholic Church. Berenger, Archdeacon of Angers, had taught that the " Holy Bread on the Altar is the Body of Christ, but that it is still Bread after consecration." At first, Gregory VII. wished to leave it an open question, but, A.D. 1078 and 1079, he held two synods at Rome, in both of Avhich Berenger was obliged to subscribe to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. To refute his opinions, Lanfranc wrote a treatise expressly against Berenger, in which he asserted that the earthly sub- stances, by consecration, are turned into the substance of the Lord's Body, though the appearances of the things themselves, and some other qualities, remain. Several changes, of more or less importance, were made during his primacy. In a synod held in London, A.D. 1075, amongst other matters it was enacted that the Holy Eucharist, which had sometimes been ad- ministered in beer, and sometimes in water, should for the future be administered in wine mixed with water ; and that the wooden communion-tables, which had been used in Saxon churches, should be con- verted into stone altars Another matter of importance was the removal of several sees from villages to cities. In 1075, Sher- borne and Ramsbury were removed to Old Sarum (afterwards, a.d. 12 19, to Salisbury); Selsey to Chi- In the Primitive Church, St. Athanasius is a witness that either wooden or stone altars were used indifferently. LANFRANC AND WILLIAM I. 141 Chester; Lichfield to Chester (afterwards, a.d. 1095, to Coventry) ; Elmham to Thetford (afterwards to Norwich, 1094) ; Wells to Bath ; and in the next reign, Dorchester to Lincoln. A great improvement (the happy result of an un- happy riot in the monastery of Glastonbury) was the establishment of a uniform Liturgy for the whole kingdom, each bishop or abbot having hitherto ar- ranged the rubrics in the Church services for his own diocese or monastery. Thurstan, the wrong-headed Norman Abbot of Glastonbury, after having, in order to enrich himself, starved the monks (treatment which they patiently endured), at last determined to deprive them of their long-used service-books, and to intro- duce a new kind of church-music. The monks re- fused to obey him any longer, and took refuge in the church. Thurstan called in to his help the Norman archers : these, first ascending to the gallery of the church, poured upon the monks a volley of arrows ; then, attacking the defenceless monks in the church itself, they killed two of them : in vain the monks, flying to the altar, defended themselves as best they could with the candlesticks and ornaments of the church, and one with the crucifix. The figure of our Lord being pierced by an arrow, forthwith, as the chro- nicler relates, there miraculously flowed blood. Besides the two killed, fourteen monks were wounded. The abbot was punished, but there was a more important result ; to prevent such a recurrence, one uniform use, the Salisbury missal and manual, was drawn up by Osmund, Bishop of Old Sarum (1078 — 1099), the same which existed to the Reformation, which was then made the ground-work of our present Book of Common Prayer. 142 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. At the commencement of his primacy, Lanfranc demanded, and Thomas the Norman Archbishop of York, refused to pay him canonical obedience. The question of precedence between the two archbishops, which has, at various times since, been a matter of dispute, was settled in the synod of London, a.d. 1075. It was then determined that the Archbishop of York should be subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in things pertaining to religion ; that next to the two archbishops, should rank the Bishops of London and Winchester, and after them, other bishops, according to the date of their consecration. In 1087 William I. died, having requested Lan- franc to anoint his second son, William, surnamed Rufus (although the Norman barons preferred his eldest son, Robert), as king. Lanfranc only lived two years longer, during which matters went on quietly ; and it is one of the strongest testimonies to the power of Lanfranc, that for two years that licentious and avaricious king, William II., who had no regard for religion, and whose one object was to plunder the Church as much as he could, was kept under control from respect to his character. CHAPTER II. ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. WILLIAM RUFUS, who inherited from his father • • his exalted notions of kingly dignity, and of his supreme rights over all persons and things, as well ec- clesiastical as civil, chose as his chief adviser Ranulph, surnamed the Flambard (' Firebrand '), an unprincipled man, whom he afterwards made Bishop of Durham. Ranulph pretended that on the death of a bishop or abbot, the revenues lapsed to the king, to be held by him until his successor was appointed : so he let the lands of the Church to the highest bidders, in order that they might extort from the oppressed tenants as much money as possible. After the death of Lanfranc, the see of Canterbury was kept vacant for four years, till the king thinking himself at the point of death, and repenting of his rapacity, appointed Anselm, a.d. 1093, ^vho like Lanfranc was an Italian, but happened at the time to be in England. In his primacy the struggle between the spiritual and temporal powers, between the Church and State, which had been averted during the primacy of Lanfranc, was imported from the Continent into England. On the Continent, Pope and Emperor had been joined together in a death struggle for preeminence. The two powers had grown together with conflicting relations, and with no defined limits of sovereignty and subjection ; the one claimed to itself the title of Head of the Church, the Vicar of Christ ; the other of successor of the Csesars, of Au- gustus, Constantine, and Charlemagne ; each acknow- ledged in a certain degree the supremacy of the other, 144 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. but it was a subjection of jealousy, for whilst each accorded the minimum to the other, he claimed the maximum to himself ^ Of this struggle the English Church was now to become the battle-ground. Anselm, a man of noble birth, was born at Aosta, A.D. 1033. His father, Gundulph, died when he was young, leaving Anselm a large inheritance. For a time he was perplexed which he should follow, the world or the Church ? He put himself into Lanfranc's hands, who commended him to the Archbishop of Rouen : by his advice he became a monk at Bee at the age of twenty-seven, of which Herluin, the founder, was still abbot, Lanfranc being prior ; three years afterwards, when Lanfranc was removed to Caen, he succeeded him in his post ; fifteen years later, on the death of Herluin, he became Abbot of Bee, which post he held for fifteen years longer, gaining for himself a reputation for learning superior even to Lanfranc, or of any theological teacher since St. Augustine of Hippo, when he succeeded Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury. A man of his amiable and gentle spirit was ill-suited to cope with the rough temper of Rufus ; and there- fore, as he knew the character of the king, he was un- willing to accept the proffered see ; " it was like yoking," he said, "a feeble old sheep with a wild bull." In vain the people begged him to accept it; he was dragged into the king's presence, who entreated him with tears in his eyes, promising at the same time to restore the property of his see, and to follow his advice in matters of religion ; the bishops present even thrust the crozier into his hands j he at length reluc- • Milman's Lat. Christ. ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 45 tantly accepted, and did homage to the king for his temporalities. Flambard soon began to throw difficulties in An- selm's way ; the first was a matter touching the royal prerogative ; which, if of little consequence, boded ill for the future, but it did not prevent Anselm's conse- cration in December, 1093. At the commencement, however, a slight contretemps occurred, through an ob- jection from the Archbishop of York. In the act of election, the cathedral of Canterbury was styled " the metropolitan church of all Britain." " But if this is so," interrupted the Archbishop of York, " the church of York is not a metropolitan church. It must be written, the Primacy of all Britain." So Anselm was consecrated Primate of all England. The next grievance was that Anselm being required according to the law to give a " relief" on his suc- cession, offered only five hundred pounds ; the king had expected a thousand pounds, and refused the do- nation; Anselm then distributed the money in alms amongst the poor. But these were small matters ; the real troubles were now to begin. Anselm proposed to go to Rome to receive the pall. " From which Pope ?" asked the king. " From Urban," Anselm replied. For another schism had broken out in the papacy ; again there were two Popes, each excommunicating the other, — Odo, Bishop of Ostia, reigning in the Lateran Palace, under the title of Urban II.; and Guibert, Archbishop of Ra- venna, in the castle of St. Angelo, under that of Clement III. As yet England had given its allegiance to nei- ther, nor would either the king or his father allow any Pope to be recognised without their permission : but Anselm, when Abbot of Bee, had given his allegiance L 146 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. to Urban, and still continued it now that he had be- come Archbishop of Canterbury. William consented to a council being held at Rock- ingham on Midlent Sunday, a.d. 1095, to deliberate on the matter, at which the bishops, abbots, nobles, and many others of the clergy and laity were present. The result was that nearly all the bishops and abbots in subservience to the kingr renounced obedience to the archbishop, although the nobles refused to follow their example ; and the Bishop of Durham threatened to impeach the archbishop for high treason, if he did not renounce Urban. In the meantime, the king had sent two ecclesiastics to Rome, to learn which of the rival Popes was the stronger and more compliant, and without mentioning on whom the klngr meant to confer it, to obtain from the Pope the archbishop's pall. They found that Urban was in possession at Rome, and only too glad of any pretence to oblige the king of England ; Urban sent off the Bishop of Albano with the pall to William as a special privilege, although, when the legate was asked by the king to depose Anselm, he answered that that was impossible. The legate succeeded, how- ever, in bringing the archbishop and the king together : the king received Anselm so cordially at Windsor, that the legate in the fulness of his heart exclaimed, " Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." The king had intended to confer the pall with his own hands ; but Anselm refused to receive from a secular person what his pre- decessors had been accustomed to receive from the Pope himself ; the papal legate with consummate skill devised a middle course ; the pall was placed by him on the high altar at Canterbury, from which Anselm, ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 47 barefooted, took it and invested himself, thus claiming to receive it from the hand of St. Peter. Peace was now restored, but only for a short time. Troubles soon again commenced, and Anselm deter- mined to seek refuge in Rome ; the king refused, but at last consented, to let him go, and Anselm departed, having first given the king his blessing, in the guise of a pilgrim. This was their last meeting, and the king confiscated the archbishopric. Anselm was received with every mark of honour by Urban, who declared he ought to be treated as an equal, " as Pope and Patriarch of another world." At the same time, Urban was afraid of offending William by entertaining Anselm as his guest ; so he persuaded him to remove into the country. He was soon, how- ever, requested by the Pope to attend the Council of Bari, a.d. 1098. The question arose about the re-union of the Latin and Greek Churches, and the Pope tried to reason against the Greeks, who were present, on the procession of the Holy Ghost. He was, however, unequal to the task ; and then called upon Anselm to undertake the duty. His learning had the desired effect, and the decision in favour of the Latin doctrine was unanimous. The Pope, who had before wavered between William and Anselm, now filled with admiration, turned from the Greek to the English Church ; he brought before the synod the irreligious and tyrannical life of the king, his simony, and his unjust treatment of such a man as Anselm; and with the assent of the assembly, he was about to pronounce his anathema, when Anselm, falling on his knees, averted it. The Pope and Anselm had both written to the king to demand a restitution of Anselm's property. As to L 2 148 . THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. Anselm's messengers, William threatened to tear out their eyes if they did not immediately leave the king- dom. To the Pope he sent William of Warelwast, one of his own chaplains. At first the Pope threat- ened to excommunicate the king, if he did not rein- state Anselm ; the messenger, however, brought with him a large sum of money as a bribe ^ ; the Pope relented, and the excommunication of the king was never issued. A general feeling of indignation prevailed at the Pope's treatment of Anselm. Another synod was con- vened, on the 24th April, 1099, which was attended by one hundred and twenty bishops, chiefly from Italy and France. On the next day, Anselm, seeing that the Pope had no intention to assist him, left Rome, and repaired to Lyons ; the Pope contented himself with issuing a sentence of excommunication, which Rufus cared little for, against all those who should receive investiture from a layman. Such was the state of things when Urban, dying on the 29th July of the same year, was succeeded by Paschal II. ; and Rufus, dying the same year, was suc- ceeded by his younger brother Henry, to the exclu- sion of the elder brother Robert, who was absent on a Crusade. Henry, under a less rough exterior, in- herited, like Rufus, all his father's harshness and stub- bornness ; in a moral point of view, he was as un- principled and unscrupulous as his brother, but being a usurper, it was his interest to conciliate. He there- fore promised to remedy all the abuses of the former reign ; he wrote down on paper his promises to govern William of Malmesbury says : " Money prevailed, as it always does. I blush to record it, that in so great a man, I speak of Urban, self-respect and zeal for God had fallen so low that he perverted justice for money." , ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 49 according to the old laws of the kingdom, to restore the privileges of King Edward, with the amendments of his father; not to sell benefices, or keep them vacant. He also imprisoned Flambard, and restored the forfeited property of the see of Canterbury; he re- called the archbishop, and Anselm landed in England on 23 September, iioo. But now a new trouble arose, and the contest about lay investiture, which had so long agitated the Roman Church, was to be fought out in England °. Henry required Anselm to be re-invested in his archbishopric, and to do homage to him. The right of investiture had hitherto been part of the royal prerogative in England. Anselm had already twice consented to it, once when he was appointed Abbot of Bee, and again as Archbishop of Canterbury ; since then Rome had declared against the practice ; and such an exor- bitant demand as that of re-investiture struck at the very root of episcopacy. It must be mentioned that investiture was a ceremony performed, in the case of an abbot, by conferring on him a pastoral - staff ; in that of a bishop, the pastoral-staff and ring ; the pastoral^stafif signifying the bishop's pastoral authority over his flock, the ring his marriage to the Church ; in fact, it conferred the spiritualities, as homage did the temporalities of the see. Abroad, by means of inves- titure, the emperor had so overawed the elections, as virtually to become the nominator to all the higher preferments of the Church ; and there was danger of the same being done in England. Anselm refused to The contest about investitures lasted fifty-six years, occasioned sixty battles, and the loss of two millions of lives. It was settled by a com- promise, A.D. 1 1 22, between the Emperor Henry V. and Pope Calixtus II. (Hook, ii. 241.) THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. be re-invested by the king. It does not seem that per- sonally he thought the matter of much importance ; and his plea that it was forbidden by a canon law of Rome, justly laid him open to the censure of the bishops and barons, who could not understand how a canon of Rome was obligatory in England, or could override the common law of the land. But it must be borne in mind that he was an Italian, born and edu- cated in a Church which was wholly dependent on Rome ; to whom, therefore, the word of the Pope was equivalent to a command ^ It was the Pope who was in the wrong throughout ; it was his duty to have spoken out honestly and un- mistakeably, either to enforce the decree, or to absolve Anselm from his obedience. This, as we shall see, was the very thing he did not, because he had not the courage, to do. He halted between two things ; he did not like to give over investitures, and he did not like to offend Henry : and thus he was the great stum- bling-block in the way of the conscientious but per- plexed archbishop, on whom the whole blame, and that in no scanty measure, has been thrown. It may be said, he should have resigned the primacy ; but this was what he wished to do : he professed his wil- lingness to leave the kingdom, to resign his arch- bishopric, to die. Why did not Henry take him at his word ? The answer is plain. Robert, the rightful heir to the throne, had just returned from the Holy Land : popular before, he was far more so now, from ^ And yet, when the Pope, in iioo, sought to invade the rights of the see of Canterbury by sending his legate, Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, into the country (a thing which Eadmer calls, " inauditum in Britannia), Anselm joined with the other parties in the kingdom in opposing him, and Guido was obliged to return unacknowledged. ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 151 the part he had taken in delivering the Holy Sepulchre from the infidel. Henry could not afford to quarrel with the Church by dispensing with the services o£ Anselm ; he himself proposed a via media, that the matter should be referred to Rome ; Anselm saw that the proposition was only made to cause delay, but he unwillingly consented. That Anselm was actuated by no unfriendly feelings to the king, or by an overstrained formality, is shewn in his conduct with respect to the king's marriage with Matilda. To a usurper like Henry, the marriage was of the greatest consequence. Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, and Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling, and thus the direct representative of the Saxon royal family ; and therefore the marriage was very popular with his Anglo-Saxon subjects. But then there was a canonical impediment in the way, which appeared insurmountable. It was generally sup- posed that Matilda had been a nun. She had, indeed, after the death of her father and mother, during those troublous times when religious houses were the only security for young women of the highest families, been educated in the nunnery of Romsey, under her aunt Christina, the abbess, by whom she had been forced against her will to take the veil. Anselm believed her story, and with an unusual large -heartedness, deter- mined to overcome an impediment, which was the result of an accident, and therefore, to his mind, not binding on the conscience. He summoned a synod at Lambeth, declared her free from the monastic obli- gation, and on Martinmas, a.d. iioo, solemnized her marriage with the king in Westminster Abbey. William of Warelwast (afterwards Bishop of Exeter), whom Henry had sent to Pope Paschal H,, returned 152 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. from Rome, bringing a friendly letter to the king, but no relaxation in the matter of investiture to Anselm. Henry ignored the Pope's decision, and Anselm de- termined to leave England. Henry was still reluctant that Anselm should do this, and proposed to send a new embassy to Rome. On the part of the king, Gerhard, Archbishop of York, Herbert, Bishop of Norwich, and Robert, Bishop of Lichfield ; on the part of Anselm, two monks, Baldwin of Tournay, and Alexander of Canterbury, were selected. The king sent a letter to the Pope, threatening that unless the matter was decided in his favour, he would withdraw the Peter-pence, and break off all communion with the Church of Rome. And now we get the insight into Anselm's difficulties. The Pope felt that Anselm was in the right ; and yet he liked England's money, and wished to avoid a quarrel with Henry. So (if we are to believe the three bishops) he acted with unintelli- gible duplicity, and sent back two contradictory an- swers. To Anselm a written one, exhorting him to persist in his refusal : to Henry a verbal reply, which probably he never expected to be published, saying that as he was such an excellent prince, he consented to his granting investitures, but that he would not commit his decision to paper, lest other princes should hear of it, and demand a similar privilege. " Vox audita perit ; litera scripta manet." A violent dispute ensued. Which of the two judgments should be received ? The monks said, there could be no doubt about theirs, because it was in black and white ; the bishops said, there could be no doubt about theirs, because they were bishops, and a bishop's word was better than the parchment of two " monklings." ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 53 All was now confusion ; the king appointed to va- cant benefices, and Anselm refused to consecrate his nominees ; and although the Archbishop of York was willing to supply his place, two bishops-elect, Reinhelm to Hereford, and William to Winchester, refused to be consecrated by him under such terms. Henry now proposed that Anselm should himself go to Rome. Accordingly, on the 27th April, 1103, he, now old and infirm, once more started for Rome, where he found that Warelwast had preceded him, and was backing up the king's cause with a valuable present of Peter-pence. Warelwast declared that the king would rather resign his crown than the right of investiture ; Paschal, with even greater warmth, that " he would not, before God, suffer him to have it." Yet he gave every point in the king's favour. What could Anselm do with such a weak, not to say prevaricating. Pope The Pope had denied, in a letter to Anselm, the mes- sage delivered to Henry by the three bishops. Anselm could not trust the Pope : he determined to leave Rome, and to take the matter into his own hands, and, if necessary, excommunicate Henry, from which he was only averted by Henry's sister, the Countess of Blois, who, seeing the danger that threatened the kingdom, effected an interview between the king and the archbishop at the castle of L'Aigle in Normandy. Henry was in the midst of difficulties. He was engaged in war with his brother Robert, and the ex- penses necessary for carrying it on made him un- popular with the people ; whilst his exactions and simoniacal acts rendered him unpopular with the clergy. Gerhard, the Archbishop of York, and other bishops, now saw the error of their former course, and deter- mined to make common cause with Anselm. Henry 154 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. was determined therefore to avert, if possible, the threatened excommunication. And now a fortunate way of escape presented itself : William of Warelwast returned from Rome with a proposal for a compro- mise ; the right of homage for the temporalities was to be conceded to the king, and of investiture, which symbolized the spiritual authority, to the Church. These conditions were ratified at a solemn confer- ence at Bee, in August, 1106; the king promised to restore to Anselm the revenues of his see, to abstain from seizing the property of the Church, and to remit all fines to the clergy, and to allow a cou^S d'elire to the chapters. Thus Anselm's integrity and consistency gained a great victory to the Church over oppression and wrong. He had to contend with two thoroughly un- scrupulous kings, who cared nothing for the Church, and acted only for their own interests. Whatever else people may think of him, all must allow that he fought the battle fairly, openly, and conscientiously ; he esta- blished what is true and necessary at all times, that spiritual power, and the conferring spiritual gifts, does not belong to kings ; the battle had been fought and won for the Church, and for the rest of his life Anselm enjoyed the confidence and respect of Henry. But unfortunately he bought the victory at a great price, at a price which went on increasing with usu- rious interest, the subjection of the English to the Roman Church ; he had delivered the Church from a temporal, only to deliver it for four hundred years into the hands of a spiritual, despot. Anselm, like Lanfranc, had been a monk, and to this must be ascribed his advocacy of clerical celibacy. An intolerable evil had arisen out of the marriage ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY L 1 55 of the clergy, that the son inherited his father's bene- fice ; but the cure of this led to another evil, the en- forcement of clerical celibacy. At a synod of West- minster, A.D. 1102, which was attended by bishops, abbots, and lay-peers, a stringent canon was enacted against the marriage of the clergy ; none could be or- dained even a sub-deacon, without a profession of celibacy ; whilst no priest, if already married, was al- lowed to perform Mass. This Henry turned to his own advantage, by allowing the clergy to retain their wives on the payment of a tax. Still stricter enactments were passed in another synod in London, 1108 ; and severe penalties were denounced against those of the clergy who had married wives since the synod of 1 102. Anselm was distinguished as a philosopher, no less than a Churchman. His writings bear upon the most profound theological and metaphysical myste- ries ; his works, " Cur Deus Homo," and " De Con- cordia Praescientise et Praedestinationis," forming an epoch in Christian philosophy. Although Alexander of Hales was the first who completely systematized in the scholastic manner the doctrines of the Church, yet Anselm may be considered, if not the founder, at any rate the forerunner, of that scholasticism which, from the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the sixteenth century, exerted such a powerful influence over the European mind. Anselm died a.d. 1109, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, in the sixteenth year of his pontificate. After his death, the king kept the see of Canterbury vacant for five years : after which he appointed Ralph of Escures, who had formerly been Abbot of Seez in. Normandy, and was at the time Bishop of Rochester j 156 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. a learned and amiable man, but a confirmed invalid ; so much was this the case, that though the Pope always required the personal attendance of the arch- bishop at Rome to obtain the pall, in this case he allowed it to be conveyed to England by Anselm, a nephew of the late archbishop. The chief event in Ralph's primacy was one of those unseemly quarrels so frequently occurring between the two archbishops. Lanfranc had had a difficulty with Thomas of York ; Anselm with Gerhard and Thomas of York, as to the oath of obedience demanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury ; and now again, Thurstan, the hero of the battle of the " Standard," who succeeded Thomas, refused to take the oath of obedience to Archbishop Ralph. Thurstan, chaplain to King Henry, and a man much renowned for his piety and great liberality, having been appointed Archbishop of York, sought consecration from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who refused to confer it, without his taking the oath of canonical obedience. Thurstan, not consulting his own inclinations, but, as he thought, the dignity of his see, refused to take the oath, and wouM have resigned the archbishopric ; but the chapter of York declining to have any archbishop but him, he went abroad, and was consecrated by Pope Calixtus II., one of the two rival Popes then governing the Roman see, who was at the time holding a synod at Rheims, which several English bishops attended. As the Arch- bishop of Canterbury claimed the obedience of the English bishops, without any reservation of obedience to Rome, the Pope was glad of the opportunity of advancing a rival archbishop ; so he not only con- secrated Thurstan, but put him on an equality with the Archbishop of Canterbury. For receiving con- ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 57 secration from the Pope, Henry for more than a year banished Thurstan from, although afterwards he al- lowed him to take possession of, his see. Ralph was succeeded by a French priest, William of Corboil, — " old Turmoil," they called him ^ — a man whose birth and parentage are unknown, except that he was born near Paris ; formerly Prior of St. Osyth's in Essex, but a man of by no means unblemished cha- racter, and who had been one of the chaplains of the notorious Ralph Flambard. Being a Frenchman, he thought that the same allegiance was due to the Pope from England as from France ; he acknowledged the Pope's right and supremacy in England, and himself to be merely the Pope's vicar : thus laying, more than any of his predecessors had done, the foundation of the papal dominion in England. But he soon found out his mistake. In his primacy, A.D. 1 125, the Pope appointed John of Crema, Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, as " legatus a latere" in England, who consequently took precedence of all the English bishops, and actually, in a synod held in London, occu- pied a seat higher than the archbishop himself. The new legate, whose exactions and insolent bearing created universal disgust, had laid the king under an obligation, through some political services ren- dered to him ; and as he was desirous of the honour- able and lucrative post of legate, Henry, who was at the time a conscience-stricken and heart-broken old man, and was desirous of conciliating the Pope in favour of his daughter, the Empress Maud, found it difficult to refuse him. The primate represented at Rome the injustice to himself of such a precedence given to an extraordinary {a latere) legate ; so he was * Churton, p. 311. 158 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH, appointed by the Pope ordinary [natus) legate in England. He accepted the office, so derogatory to the primate of all England ; but his obsequiousness did not long profit him. Another Pope, Innocent II., A.D. 1 1 3 1 , took away from him the legate's office en- tirely, and conferred it on one of his suffragans, Henry of Blois, brother of King Stephen, and Bishop of Winchester ^ And, although the succeeding arch- bishop, Theobald, who was much embarrassed by his suffragan claiming authority over him, and sitting in synods above him, recovered it to the primacy of England by the payment of large sums of money, yet from this time a papal legate became established in England ; who superseded the archbishop, held councils, passed laws for the English Church, and extorted enormous sums for his foreigrn master. Thus by one archbishop, and him a foreigner, the inde- pendence of the English Church was lost, and not recovered till the Reformation ^. Stephen, Count of Boulogne, son of Henry's sister, Adela, although he had sworn allegiance to Maud, the only child of Henry, usurped the throne, and as might be expected from an usurper, promised obedience to the Pope, who was only too willing under such terms to sanction the usurpation, William of Corboil, although he also had sworn to recognise the Empress Maud, performing the office of consecration. His reign pre- sented nothing but misfortune to the Church. Churches were burnt, or converted into fortresses, and monaste- ries plundered. " Never yet," says the Saxon Chro- nicle, " had more wretchedness been in the land, nor did heathen men ever do worse than they did ; for ' The founder of St. Cross Hospital. ^ Churton, p. 310. ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. 1 59 everywhere, at times, they forbore neither church nor churchyard, but took all the property that was therein, and then burned the church and all together. Nor forbore they a bishop's land, nor an abbot's, nor a priest's, but robbed monks and clerks, and every man another, who anywhere could. The bishops and clergy constantly cursed them, but nothing came of it ; for they were all accursed, and foresworn, and lost." Before long the flames of civil war were kindled in the land. In the third year of Stephen's reign, David, King of Scotland, and uncle of Maud, collected his forces, under pretence of avenging his niece ; and, causing cruel havoc and devastation on all sides, en- tered Yorkshire. The name of the aged Thurstan ^, Archbishop of York, lives in history in connection with the battle of the " Standard." He exhorted the northern barons, who, in hopes of partaking of the spoils, had before joined the invading army, to protect the country against such wanton cruelty and destruc- tion. No royal banner was carried to the field : to impress the people that they were fighting for their religion and their homes, the archbishop raised the banners of St. Cuthbert, of St. John of Beverley, and of St. Wilfrid of Ripon ; the standards were carried to Northallerton, some thirty miles distant, where the barons were awaiting the enemy's attack. On a wag- gon was raised a ship-mast, on the top of which was placed a small silver Pyx, containing the consecrated Host, such as was used in the processions of the Church, whilst from it streamed the banners of the saints. This standard occupied the centre of the line Thurstan was the founder of Fountains Abbey. i6o THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. of battle ; round it being gathered the barons, all resolved to conquer or to die. The archbishop, too infirm to attend in person, sent in his place the Bishop of Durham, who, standing on the waggon, encouraged the soldiers to the battle. The Scots were com- pletely routed ; and thus, through the devout energy of Thurstan, a stop was put to the most successful attempt ever made by the Scots on the borders of Enorland. o The papal power under Stephen, as was always the case under weak or vicious kings, made rapid strides in the country. Albericus, Bishop of Ostia, and one of the Pope's legates, passing through the country, took upon himself to hold visitations in the monas- teries and colleges of England ; and, a thing which until the reign of Stephen would have rendered him guilty of treason, convened a synod at Westminster on the 13th December, 1138. And yet this was surpassed by the conduct of Stephen's own brother, Henry of Blois, the Pope's legate in this country. The military propensities of the clergy, who were imitating the examples of the barons in building strongly-fortified castles \ excited the anger of Stephen, who imprisoned three of the most military bishops, the Bishops of Salisbury, Ely, and Lincoln. His brother Henry, who had before taken the king's side, being disappointed at Theobald being appointed over him as Archbishop of Canter- bury, determined to be avenged on his brother. He not only maintained that these bishops ought to be tried by an ecclesiastical court, but he even claimed ' The barons built more than iioo castles, from which they oppressed and plundered the people at their pleasure. ANSELM, AND WILLIAM II. AND HENRY I. l6l the power as papal legate of deciding between the rights of Stephen and the Empress Maud. Accord- ingly, he convened a synod on the 26th August, 1 1 39, before which he summoned the king to answer for his conduct, and before this synod the king not only condescended to appear by counsel, but even to do penance in obedience to it. M CHAPTER III. THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY U. TN the next great struggle between the Church and ^ Crown, a Becket and Henry H. were the actors. The contention between them was this : Becket in- sisted that all clerical offenders should be judged by the spiritual court, and punished according to the canon law. Henry, that having been convicted in the civil courts, they should first be degraded by the Church, and then handed over to the civil court for punishment. Thomas a Becket was born in Cheapside, London, A.D. 1118. A very romantic story, but scarcely on sufficient authority, is related of his parentage. His father, Gilbert Becket, a London portreve, joined in one of the Crusades ; and being taken prisoner, be- came the slave of a rich Saracen. His master's daughter, Roesa, fell in love with him, and effected his escape, with the understanding that she should accompany him ; but Gilbert either forgot, or in the hurry of his flight had not time, to take his deliverer with him. She, however, was not so easily to be shaken off ; and though ignorant of the English lan- guage, knowing only that he lived in London, she pursued, discovered, and was married to her lover. The fruit of this marriage was Thomas. As he shewed promise of great ability, in order that he might receive a good education, he was, when only about ten years of age, put under the care of the canons of Merton, in Surrey. In his boyhood he nearly lost his life : whilst crossing a narrow bridge THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY II. in a hawking expedition, his pony took a false step, and fell into a mill-stream. Becket could easily have swum to land ; but in his anxiety for the hawk, he was drawn down by the current under the mill, another turn of which would have torn him to pieces, when the miller stopped the wheel, and pulled him out half-dead. From Merton he passed to the schools of London, then in high repute. Afterwards he studied Theology at the famous University of Paris ; whilst, later on, he studied the civil and canon law at Bologna and Aux- erre. From this varied education he gained some- thing more than mere scholarship, (indeed, in book learning, he does not appear to have attained any great proficiency) ; he became universally popular, and by some of his numerous friends he was intro- duced to Archbishop Theobald, who admitted him to deacon's orders ; and as a deacon he was admitted to the rectories of St. Mary-le-Strand, London, and Offord in Kent, a prebend of St. Paul's, the provost- ship of Beverley, and later the archdeaconry of Can- terbury, the largest piece of preferment and the highest dignity in the Church, next to a bishopric. On the accession of Henry IL he was removed to his court, and appointed by him high chancellor of the kingdom, a.d. 1155; whilst he not only retained his archdeaconry and other Church preferments, but added to them the deanery of Hastings, and the wardenship of the castles of Eye and Berkhamstead, the former with a service of one -hundred -and -fifty knights at- tached to it ; he was also tutor to the young prince. At this period of his life, Becket shewed himself the faithful friend and confidential minister of the • Hook, ii. 367. M 2 164 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. king. As we have seen, he was only in minor orders ; he therefore thought it no harm to dress and Hve Hke a layman. He was a hunter, hawker, soldier, states- man : opposed rather than otherwise to clerical pre- tensions ; yet, unlike the king, he was a strict up- holder of morality, a man of unbounded charity, and one whom no one ever accused of duplicity. This was the man whom Henry raised, a.d. i 162, to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Becket, with his many faults, had many virtues ; and one was that he was a thoroughly conscientious man. So when Henry offered him the archbishopric, Becket told him plainly that if he accepted it, their friendship would certainly end ; for the king would assume authority over the Church, to which he, as archbishop, would never con- sent. That surely was plain speaking enough. Becket had lived in the court of good Bishop Theobald ; that was a strict school to teach the duties of an arch- bishop : and Becket was not the man to accept an office, the duties of which he did not intend to per- form. Henry, like a good many reformers, especially Church reformers, would recognise no will at all but his own. He had made up his mind that the Church should succumb to him ; he wanted some one, not to say without, but with a pliable, conscience, who would let him do with the Church exactly what he wanted. It can hardly be supposed that a violent man of Henry's character, a man " who whispered, and scrib- bled, and looked at picture-books during Mass, who never confessed, and cursed God in wild frenzies of blasphemies was one adapted to undertake the business of Church reform, or into whose schemes an archbishop would readily fall. But Henry, having Green, loi (small edit). i THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY II. 165 once offered the archbishopric to Becket, would listen to no refusal ; and the Pope's legate, Henry of Pisa, also used his influence to induce him to accept. Becket having warned the king, thought he had done his duty. No doubt the voice of ambition made itself heard ; he accepted the offer, was ordained priest one day, archbishop the next, and enthroned with great ceremony at Canterbury. From the time of his consecration as archbishop, Becket was an altered man. He changed his luxu- riousness for the most rigid asceticism, and his secular dress for the bishop's mitre and cope ; he assumed the Benedictine habit, and wore sackcloth, which he changed so seldom that it became stocked with vermin, next to his body ; he took for his food either plain bread, or diet of the coarsest kind ; and mixed his drink, which was only water, with bitter herbs ; he lacerated his back with severe penances, and daily washed the feet of thirteen beggars. His heart and mind underwent a corresponding change ; he spent his time in prayer, he doubled the charities of his predecessor, and appeared as the champion of the Church against oppressors ; and as he was not able to perform its duties properly, he resigned the chan- cellorship. The king felt that a storm was brewing ; and both combatants being of a fiery temper, it burst at once. Henry asked Becket why he had not, with the chan- cellorship, resigned also the valuable archdeaconry, and required him to do so at once. Becket, on his part, refused to appoint a friend of the king's to the archdeaconry of Canterbury ; he likewise excommu- nicated William of Eynesford, one of the king's tenants-in-chief. Henceforward there was open, and THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. with few interludes, incessant skirmishes between them, which were only ended with Becket's death. The separation made by William I., of the civil and ecclesiastical courts, was the cause of all the miseries of Becket's primacy. The exemption granted by him to the clergy, from being tried and punished by the secular courts for crimes of the worst character, had by the time of Henry II. become intolerable. It must be remembered that under the name of clergy were in- cluded all who received the tonsure ; all acolytes, clerks, sextons, grave-diggers, all in a word who performed any offices connected with the church or monasteries : nor does even this exhaust the catalogue, which comprised widows and orphans, the pilgrim, the crusader, the poor, and the stranger". The punishments inflicted by the Normans in the civil courts were of the most cruel kind ; not only loss of life, but maiming, brand- ing, and putting out the eyes, were of common occur- rence. The severity of these punishments was so in contrast with the stripes or the penance inflicted by the canon law, that for no other reason than to escape them, many embraced the line of life which entitled them to be numbered amongst spiritual persons. When Henry II. came to the throne, he found that the greatest abuses had arisen from the immunities of these so-called clergy. The vices of the times did not extend to the higher clergy, whose lives were in marked contrast with those of the barons : but amongst the lower clergy sins of the grossest character, rob- beries, murders, adulteries, were of common occur- rence,— since the accession of Henry one hundred murders are said to have been perpetrated by clerks ; and since the ecclesiastical courts could not inflict the ' Hallam, Mid. Ages, vol. ii. 309. THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY 11. 1 6/ same severe penalties as the civil courts, these per- sons, simply because they were by an absurd custom reckoned amongst the clergy, escaped with compara- tive impunity, and whilst others were hung, they were only degraded or sent into a monastery. It is evident, therefore, on the one hand, that Henry was right in putting down such an acknowledged evil ; some reformation was plainly needed, and to suppose that Becket would desire for the clergy an immunity for sinning would be absurd. But then, on the other hand, that reformation must be effected in such a way as not to make the Church the slave of the State ; and the civil despotism which had existed under Rufus or Henry I., was not such as any conscientious Church- man could tolerate to see repeated. The king summoned, in October, 1163, a meeting of bishops and abbots at Westminster, and made the proposal that clerks on conviction should first be de- graded, and then handed over for punishment to the civil authorities. To this the bishops were at first inclined to agree. But Becket at once saw through it ; not only would it inflict a double punishment on clerical delinquents, first degradation by the spiritual, and then a further punishment by the temporal court, but it aimed a deadly blow against the principle for which he was striving, viz., the independence, or at any rate the non-subjection, of the Church to the State ; through him the bishops were brought to view the matter in the same light ; and when Henry demanded of them whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom, they all, with the exception of the Bishop of Chichester, an- swered that they were willing, saving their order ^. " This was the watchword of Becket throughout the quarrel, " salvd ecclesias dignitate ;" whilst that of the king was "salva dignitate regni." 1 68 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. The king was so enraged, that he abruptly left the assembly, and had recourse to a mean piece of spite, (a thing not uncommon with him) : the next morning he sent and demanded from Becket the resignation of the castles and other temporal honours which he held from the Crown ; a demand which, if he made it at all, he ought to have made at the time when Becket re- signed the chancellorship. A short glimpse of hope now occurred. Moved by the entreaties of Pope Alexander, who was unwilling to incur the enmity of Henry, Becket gave way, and paid a visit to the king at Woodstock, and promised to obey the customs of the kingdom. But Henry wished to humble Becket still further : his humiliation must be made public, and with a view to this, Henry, on 25th January, 11 64, summoned a council to Claren- don, near Salisbury, which was attended by the two archbishops, twelve bishops, and more than forty barons, Becket and the bishops promised to obey the customs of the realm ; but the question was, what were the customs of the realm ? to define this, six- teen articles were drawn up, which are known as the Constitutions of Clarendon. Of these articles many were only a re-enactment of the laws existing in the reign of William I,, and were therefore such as Becket had promised to obey ; but some of the articles were wholly new. The effect of them was to grant an appeal from the ecclesiastical to the civil courts ^ ; in fact, to place the Church at the On his part Becket was so determined on his proviso, as to declare that " if an angel from heaven advised him to withdraw it, he would anathe- matize that angel." ' The eighth Canon is remarkable, as shewing that if justice could not be obtained in the archbishop's court, a recourse might be had to the king, THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY H. 169 mercy of whatever the king and his court from time to time might think fit to do, to bring back all the evils of the reigns of Rufus and Henry I., when the king could keep abbeys and bishoprics vacant as long as he pleased, and appropriate the revenues as if they had been his own estate, Becket at first refused his consent, but afterwards, through pressure from the bishops and nobles, yield- ed, and the Constitutions of Clarendon became for a time the law of the land. Becket, when he had time for reflexion, and fully realized what he had done, and the artifices that had been employed against him, was a miserable man : he underwent a voluntary penance, and sus- pended himself from his office until he should re- ceive absolution from the Pope. At that time there were (what was not uncommon) two Popes, each excommunicating the other and the other's adher- ents, so that from one Pope or the other all Europe was under excommunication ; and whilst one Pope ruled at Rome, the other Pope, Alexander, who was acknowledged by the English, was holding his court at Sens. To him both Henry and Becket applied : the former, that he would appoint the Archbishop of York as legate over Becket's head ; the latter, for advice and absolution : the Pope tried to satisfy, and so of but even then it was to be finally decided in the archbishop's court. " In case of appeals in ecclesiastical causes, the first step is to be made from the archdeacon to the bishop ; and from the bishop to the arch- bishop. And if the archbishop fails to do justice, a further recourse may be had to the king ; by whose order the controversy is to be finally decided in the archbishop's court. Neither shall it be lawful for either of the parties to move for any further remedy without leave from the Crown i.e. appeals to the Pope were prohibited. THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH, course displeased, both : he sent to Becket a letter of comfort, and his absolution ; he also sent the le- gatine commission to the king, but clogged with such conditions as to render it nugatory' ^ The king dared not impeach Becket ; all he could do was by vexatious, if not untrue, charges, to force him into another quarrel, or to make him resign his archbishopric. John, the king's " Marshal," sum- moned Becket before the king's court for an alleged act of injustice towards himself ; and when Becket did not appear, it was construed into a contempt of the king, who, in consequence, summoned him be- fore a national assembly, held 6th October, 1164, at Northampton. Becket was condemned by the unanimous voice of bishops and barons, and sen- tenced to the forfeiture of all his goods and chattels. He was also accused of having confiscated sums of money entrusted to him three or four years ago, when he was chancellor ; the charge was evidently invented for the occasion, otherwise, why had it not been brought forward before ? at any rate, it was a direct breach of faith on the part of the king, for Becket had accepted the archbishopric on the condi- tion that he was freed from all secular obligations. However, the archbishop was humbled ; he who forbade the clergy to be cited before the king's courts, had himself been condemned before a lay tribunal ; he who had kept a retinue equal to that of kings and emperors, was reduced to beggary. Becket, seeing clearly that an undying persecution was being carried on against him, warned also that his life was in danger, escaped to France, where ' Hook, ii. 415. THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY H. 171 he was received with every mark of compassion and respect by the king at Soissons, and by Pope Alex- ander, who was then residing at Sens. He found that an embassy sent by Henry, con- sisting of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Chichester, Exeter, and Worcester, had ar- rived before him, and had already represented the king's case to the Pope, with a request that he would send the archbishop back to England, and also a legate a latere to investigate the charges against him. But when the Pope read for the first time the Constitutions of Clarendon, he called them not " customs," but " tyrannical usurpations ;" he censured the conduct of Becket and the bishops in having accepted them, and seemed disposed to ad- vocate Becket's cause. Becket, with tears in his eyes, lamented his shortcomings, and, as a mark of shame and contrition, resigned his archbishopric into the Pope's hands, who, however, after three days, reinstated him in the primacy. Still Alexander dared not act an open part for fear of offending Henry, and for six years Becket remained in exile. At first he selected as his abode the monastery of Pontigny, about twelve leagues from Sens, where he adopted the monastic habit, and the strict discipline of the Cistercian monks. The king stooped to the meanest acts of vengeance. Not only did he confiscate the revenues of the see as well as the property of those who followed him, or prayed for him in the churches, but he banished from England even his innocent friends and rela- tions, without respect to age or sex, so that four hundred persons were thus, in the dead of winter, exposed to starvation in a foreign land, and thrown 172 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. upon the charity of the monasteries of France, which afforded them the sheker denied them in their own country. Henry even threatened to seize all the monasteries of the Cistercians, because the monas- tery which was affording him a refuge belonged to that order. Becket, in consequence, removed to Sens, and sought refuge in the monastery of St. Columba for the rest of his exile. Henry thought by his cruel conduct to humble the archbishop to obedience, but he was mistaken. For a time Becket was dissuaded by Pope Alexander from resorting to extreme measures, but he now determined to resort, if necessary, to excommuni- cation. On Ascension Day, a.d. 1166, he publicly annulled from the pulpit of a neighbouring church the Constitutions of Clarendon, and excommunicated many of his opponents ; he also threatened to visit the king, if he still remained hardened, with the same punishment. Henry was seriously alarmed ; at one time he thought of forsaking Alexander, and recognising the rival Pope ; but he thought better of the plan, and in his fear he urged the bishops to do what was ex- pressly forbidden by the Constitutions of Clarendon — to appeal from the archbishop to the Pope, who in vain tried to bring about a reconciliation. The king for some political reasons wished his son, the young Prince Henry, to be associated with him in the kingdom ; and he was accordingly crowned by the Archbishop of York, assisted by the Bishops of London and Salisbury, and several other prelates. This was in direct contravention of the rights of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury ; the Pope had also sent to Eng- land letters (which, however, seem not to have arrived THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY H. till after the event) forbidding the Archbishop of York to officiate at the coronation. The Pope now threat- ened Henry himself, who therefore saw that he must submit. A meeting between the archbishop and king was arranged at Fretville. The king's change of manner affected the archbishop, and Becket dismounted from his horse and threw himself at the king's feet ; who, in his turn, holding his stirrup, forced him to re-mount. Becket was allowed to return to England, although with the inward conviction that he was returning for certain death. Henry broke every agreement he had made with him ; the reconciliation had taken place in July, in October the Pope threatened Henry with an interdict unless he performed what he then promised. Henry had confiscated all the archbishop's property, and had promised money to enable him to return ; he did not perform even this, and the Archbishop of Rouen supplied him with three hundred pounds of his own money. On his arrival in England, only thirty days before his death, the people of Canterbury, especially the poor, flocked round him, threw their garments in the way, and asked his blessing ; whilst cries met him on all sides (in the language of welcome accorded to re- ligious persons in the Middle Ages), " Blessed is he that Cometh in the Name of the Lord." One of his first steps was to excommunicate those bishops who had gone most against him. When the king, who was in Normandy, heard of this, in one of those fits of ungovernable passion, which made him more like a wild beast than a human being, he asked, " Will none of my cowardly followers rid me from this turbulent priest?" These words were construed into a wish on the king's part for Becket's death. Four 174 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. knights of Henry's court, who were present — Fitzurse, De Tracy, De Moreville, and Richard Brito — set off the same day for Canterbury, and proceeded to the arch- bishop's palace. When Becket disdained to fly, the monks forced him into the cathedral, the doors of which, in order not to convert the sacred place into a fortress, Becket with his own hands opened ; and here, attended by three faithful followers, Robert of Merton, his old instructor, Fitz Stephen, his chaplain, and Grim, a monk, he calmly awaited his fate. It was about 5 p.m. of December 29, 11 70, the time of Ves- pers. The knights, clad in mail, with their vizors down and their swords drawn, forced their way into the cathedral, Fitzurse leading the way. Two safe places of refuge, the crypt and the chapel of St. Blaize in the roof, were pointed out to the archbishop, but even then he refused to avail himself of the escape. Next they pointed out the choir, thinking its sacred- ness would awe his assailants. But Becket awaited them in the transept, afterwards known as " the Mar- tyrdom." First came Fitzurse, his sword in one hand and a carpenter's axe in the other ; but so great was the horror that such an act of sacrilege raised even in the minds of those murderers, that Fitzurse, seizing Becket by the collar, tried to drag him out of the church. But it was in vain ; the archbishop resisted with all his might, and threw one of them, De Tracy, to the ground. The first blow — which Grim trying to parry, had his arm broken — dashed off his cap. The archbishop, with clasped hands and bent knee, ex- claimed, " I commit myself to God, to St. Denis of France, to St. Alfege, and to the saints of the Church." Then, wiping away the blood which trickled from the wound, he exclaimed, " Into Thy hands, O Lord, I THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY II, commend my spirit." A second blow on the head made him draw back, as if stunned ; at a third, he sank on his knees before the altar of St. Benedict, his hands folded in prayer, whilst his feeble voice could scarcely articulate, " For the Name of Jesus and the defence of the Church I am willing to die ; " as he spoke, he fell on his face with such dignity that his mantle, which covered his whole body, was not dis- arranged. In this posture he received such a tre- mendous blow that the scalp was severed from the skull, and the sword snapt in two on the marble pave- ment. A sub-deacon, who had joined the party as it entered the church, being taunted because he had taken no share in the deed, planted his foot on the neck of the corpse, thrust his sword into the wound, and scattered the brains over the pavement. " Let us go, let us go," he said ; " the traitor is dead : he will rise no more The brutal murder was received with horror through the Christian world, but by no one more than Henry himself. For three days he neither ate nor drank, and shutting himself in his chamber, refused to have any communication with the world. But the cause for which Becket had contended, and for which he died, triumphed. There was nothing Henry feared so much as excommunication. He was obliged to humble himself, and send envoys to the Pope to plead his innocence, and to express his readi- ness to undergo any penance the Pope imposed. At a meeting at Avranches between Henry and the Pope's legates, on September 27, 11 72, Henry, in words at least, conceded everything for which Becket had con- tended ; he would give up all customs introduced dur- * Stanley's " Memorials of Canterbury." THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. ing his reign prejudicial to the Church ; he would re- store its possessions to the see of Canterbury ; he would maintain for one year two hundred knights for the defence of the Holy Land, and would himself, un- less excused by the Pope, go on a Crusade ; and (which shews again how the vices of kings promoted the cause of Rome) he allowed appeals from the English Church to the Pope ; he swore to recognise Alexander, and not to accept any other in his place, as Pope. But this was not enough. St. Thomas of Canter- bury had already been canonized, and Henry was in danger at home. His quarrel with the archbishop filled the barons with encouragement. They per- suaded the young Henry to rebel against his father ; the King of France invaded Normandy, and the King of Scotland invaded England ; Henry must do pen- ance at the tomb of the martyred archbishop, and thus make his peace with the Church. On his road from Normandy to Canterbury, he fasted on bread and water ; when within sight of the city, he laid aside the emblems of royalty ; at St. Dunstan's Church he dismounted from his horse ; he put on a hair shirt, and over all a rough cloak. Thus dressed, his feet bare and bleeding from the rough flints, he entered the cathedral porch, prostrated himself on the floor, and with outstretched hands continued for some time in prayer. Then proceeding to " the Martyrdom," he kissed the stone on which the saint had fallen. De- scending into the crypt, he knelt down and kissed his tomb, and dissolved in tears, he groaned forth his prayers. Then in the presence of the monks he ex- pressed his innocence, except through his hasty words, of the murder ; he promised to restore all the pro- perty he had confiscated, and to assign forty pounds THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY U. 1 77 yearly for candles to be kept burning at the martyr's tomb. After receiving from the Prior the kiss of re- conciliation, he bared his back, and received from every bishop, as well as the monks who were pre- sent, in all eighty stripes. After that he received absolution, and spent the whole night in the crypt fasting ; the next morning he visited the altars and shrines, and heard Mass. He afterwards left for Lon- don, and when we are informed that it took him a week to arrive there, we may judge of the severity of his penanced Was a humbler penance inflicted on the emperor, Henry IV., when he sought the pardon of Gregory VH. at Canossa ? ^ Hook, ii. 523. CHAPTER IV. STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. HERE is little of interest (if we except the Cru- sades) in the history of the English Church be- tween the death of Becket and the accession of King John. After two years and a-half, Richard, a Bene- dictine monk, was appointed archbishop, a man whose meekness was compared to that of Moses. Nevertheless, in his primacy occurred such an un- seemly dispute between the sees of Canterbury and York, that Henry was obliged to request the Pope to send his legate into England to decide between the two archiepiscopal litigants. The Pope was only too glad to oblige him, and Cardinal Hugo was sent into the kingdom. At a meeting held in St. Cathe- rine's Chapel of W estminster Abbey, for the purpose, a graver quarrel than ever (we may call it a down- right fight, " tantaene animis caelestibus irae ?") took place between the two archbishops. The legate had taken his seat, with the Archbishop of Canterbury on his right hand, when his Grace of York, who had determined beforehand to have that coveted place, arrived, and being unable in any other way to secure it, sat himself right down on the Archbishop of Can- terbury's lap. This usurped intrusion was more than his Grace of Canterbury's friends could stand ; the ' Archbishop of York was dragged off his knees, thrown down on the ground, and there (for it is no use minc- ing words) he received a sound thrashing, and was turned out of the abbey. The long contest which Becket had carried on with STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. 179 Henry had terminated successfully for the Church ; but one consequence was the rapid extension of the papal authority, which, ever since the Norman Con- quest, had been gradually increasing in England. Before the Norman Conquest, the comparative weak- ness of Rome had prevented the Pope from interfer- ing much in the affairs of the English Church ; and he had trouble enough to engage his attention at home. Nevertheless, the Pope was always looking for an opportunity of extending his power in England : at length one presented itself in the Norman invasion, for the Normans were amongst the Popes most faith- ful allies ; and always afterwards, under the Norman dynasty, the papal power in England advanced with rapid strides, owing, more than any other cause, to the vices and oppressions of the kings. The kings seized on the property of the Church ; or they kept sees vacant, letting the temporalities to the highest speculators ; or they sold the endowments ; what could the Church do ? Persecuted by the State, it must look for help from some other quarter, and so it put herself under the protection of Rome. The Pope was always willing to gain for himself the credit of supporting the oppressed party, and to frighten the strong into subjection by his spiritual thunders ; when once this was done, and the Crown was fairly hum- bled, then Rome had no objection, as we shall see in the history of John, to make the Church subject to it ; thus the papal power extended itself over both Church and State, by playing off one against the other, and thus making both its subjects. It was in the reign of John that the papal power reached its greatest height in this country. In 1199, John, perhaps the worst king that ever reigned in N 2 i8o THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. the country, ascended the throne, which he occupied during the whole, except the first year, of the pon- tificate of Innocent III., one of the most able pontiffs that ever occupied the papal chair. In 1205, his wisest adviser, Archbishop Hubert, died, and it was the quarrel as to who should succeed him, which brought about the collision between the Pope and the King of England, and which led to the establish- ment of the papal authority in this country. For a long time there had been disputes between the monks at Canterbury and the bishops of the pro- vince, as to their respective rights in the election of the metropolitan. On the death of Hubert in 1205, the monks, to make sure of the election, acting without the king's licence, assembled at night, and immediately chose Reginald their sub-prior, a man unknown beyond the precincts of the monastery, as archbishop ; and him they despatched, under a promise of secrecy, in com- pany of some monks, for investiture to Rome. But Reginald was so elated by his unexpected good for- tune, that he travelled with great pomp and ceremony ; and when he arrived at Flanders, could no longer keep the secret to himself, but openly proclaimed it. This so shamed the monks who had elected him, that, to es- cape the king's anger, they applied to him for the conge d'elii^e, and proceeded to a fresh election. John there- upon recommended John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, and him he invested with the temporalities of the see, and sent to Rome. But in this case he had forgotten to consult the suffragan bishops, who therefore com- plained to the Pope of the violation of their rights. The Pope, who advanced the papal claims further than any of his predecessors, here saw the opportunity of extending his influence in England ; he rejected both STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. l8l Reginald and the Bishop of Norwich ; and then he ordered the EngHsh monks, who were present as a deputation to Rome, to go through the form of an- other election, but compelled them, under threat of anathema, to elect Stephen Langton. It was in vain that the monks urged the necessity of the king's ap- proval : Innocent affirmed that such was not the case when the election was made at Rome ; so the monks with one exception acquiesced, and Stephen was con- secrated by the Pope. A better appointment could not have been made. Stephen Langton, of whose early history little is known, was an Englishman, and a profound biblical scholar ^ a poet, and a statesman of the highest order, who by his learning had acquired great fame, not only in England, but on the Continent ; he held two pre- bends, one at Notre Dame, the other at York ; he was Chancellor of the University of Paris, Dean of Rheims, and was elected Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus, at Rome, in his thirty-seventh year. His brother Simon, as we shall see, was, a.d. 12 15, elected to the archbishopric of York ; but the king objected to his election, thinking that if two brothers bore rule, one in the northern, the other in the southern province, everything in England would be regulated according to their will. John received this usurpation of the rights of the Church and Crown with defiance, and declared that he would rather die than suffer such an infringement of his prerogative ; that he was resolved to carry through the election of the Bishop of Norwich ; he threatened to cut off all communication with Rome ; and he wreaked his vengeance on the offending monks • We are indebted to him for the division of the Bible into chapters. l82 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. by expelling them from their monastery, and con- fiscating their goods. Disregarding the king's threat, the Pope bestowed on Langton the pall with his own hands, and charged the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, in case he was excluded from the see, to place the kingdom under an interdict. When those prelates waited upon John, and entreated him with tears to submit, he swore by God's teeth that if any one dared to interdict his kingdom, he would send them all packing to Rome, and confiscate their goods : if they were the subjects of the Pope, he would pluck out their eyes, split their noses, and so return them to his Holiness. Innocent, however, remained firm, and in Lent, 1208, placed the kingdom under an interdict, which was tantamount to leaving the innocent, as well as those whom the Pope thought guilty, in a state of heathendom. When we consider the loss that this en- tailed, not on the bodies, but souls of Christians, the question may surely be asked whether a Pope, who, as far as in him lies, consigns thousands of souls to perdition, is deserving the name (we will not say of the Vicar of Christ, Who came to seek and to save those who are lost), but even of a Christian. All re- ligious services ; all Masses, and marriages, and abso- lutions, and sacraments (except those of private bap- tism), were forbidden : the dead lay unburied, or buried in ditches, without a priest ; a curse was felt to rest on the whole kingdom ; even the monasteries were closed ; it is difficult even to imagine the full ex- tent of the misery that this closing of the monasteries must have caused, when the sick and dying were un- able to obtain relief through those accustomed chan- nels. The Cistercians alone refused, but were soon compelled by the Pope, to conform to the interdict. STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. The archbishop lived during the interdict at Pon- tigny, and at that time was enabled to prevail with the Pope to grant some relaxation. Accordingly, the baptism of children, the celebration of the Holy Eu- charist to the dying, the solemnization of marriages at the church doors, silent burials, services in the mo- nasteries, but without singing ; such was the slight mitigation granted under this national calamity. For a time, as long as the curse did not touch himself, John retaliated by banishing the clergy, and inflicting severe penalties on their wives ; by trying those that observed the interdict in the civil courts, and confis- cating their goods. A new Bishop of Lincoln, elected in 1209, sought consecration at the hands of the arch- bishop at Pontigny, and in consequence his goods were confiscated ; some few remained faithful to the king ; and in the dioceses of Winchester, Durham, and Norwich, the interdict was either wholly or in part unobserved. Soon, however, the punishment was to be brought home to the king himself After two years, the Pope proceeded to the sentence of excommunication against John. The effect of such a sentence was tremendous. The king was placed outside the pale of the Church, and ceased to be a Christian ; his subjects were freed from obedience ; all persons were forbidden to have any intercourse, or to eat and drink with him ; the Pope even claimed the right, in the last extremity, of depriving such a king of his throne. Yet, unlike the powerful Philip Augustus of France, who, under an interdict, was reduced to submission in seven months, John, even when under the greater sentence of excommunication, was able to hold out for six years. At one time, Matthew of Paris tells us, he even threat- THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. ened to turn Mahomedan, and seek the alliance of a Mahomedan prince, rather than submit. In the midst of the interdict, he was able to make two suc- cessful expeditions into Wales and Scotland, where he crushed a rebellion, which the hatred of his sub- jects and the intrigues of the Pope had stirred up against him. In 12 1 2, Stephen Langton, accompanied by the Bishops of London and Ely, went to Rome, and re- presented to the Pope the crimes of John, and the miseries of the English Church. The Pope now had resort to the king's deposition ; he proclaimed a cru- sade against him, which he placed under Philip Au- gustus, the King of France, with a promise of a re- mission of all his sins, and succession to the English crown. To meet the threatened attack, John collected an army of 60,000 men on Barham Down, near Can- terbury, and with such a powerful army and the fleet at his command, he might have defied the strongest prince in Europe, Yet at this very moment he made the most humiliating terms, not with the King of France, but with the author of all his misfortunes, the Pope. Under such circumstances, Pandulph, the Pope's agent, and a skilful diplomatist, had a meeting with the king at Dover. He pointed out to him the danger of his situation, and how the only escape lay in recon- ciliation with the Church : with this end in view, he must resign the kingdoms of England and Ireland to St. Peter, and hold them for the future in vassalage, on the payment of a yearly tribute, under the Roman see. Peter, a hermit, increased the fears of John by prophesying that by the following Ascension-day he would cease to be king. To the disgraceful terms STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. 1 85 offered by Pandulph, John agreed : he not only pro- mised to recognise Stephen Langton, but, to the great disgust of his court, he resigned, the day before Ascen- sion-day, his crown, through Pandulph, into the Pope's hands ; the hermit's prophecy was thus fulfilled, al- though John hanged him as a false prophet ; from Pandulph he received it as the Pope's gift, to be held by him and his successors as vassals of the Pope, under the annual payment of looo marks. With whatever feelings of indignation Englishmen may regard this act of John, it is plain that, though in making England a fief of the Pope he acted as a traitor, he acted also with determination and vigour. The King of France, the archbishop and barons of England, were all his enemies ; he had wisdom enough to understand that, under the circumstances, the friend- ship of the Pope was most valuable to him. To ob- tain that friendship he must pay a high price, he must become the Pope's vassal : he determined to pay the price, and he received his reward. Henceforward, John became the favourite son of the Pope ; he was regarded at Rome as a persecuted and pious king, and a model of excellence ; the Pope threw his aegis over.a murderer and a tyrant, and espoused his cause against the barons, against the archbishop, and against the Church of England, Invited by the king, whose word, however, he would not trust without guarantees, Langton returned to England, and in company of the exiled bishops went to meet the king at Winchester. John came out to meet them, and throwing himself at their feet, asked forgiveness : he swore allegiance to holy Church, that he would annul all bad laws, and observe the old Hook, ii. 693. i86 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. Saxon laws of Edward the Confessor. Whereupon, although the Church was still lying under the interdict, the archbishop granted him absolution. At Michaelmas, Innocent sent his legate, Nicolas, Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, to settle outstanding debts and disputes. The legate was very careful about his master's interests ; but when he came to the claims of the bishops for compensation, he shewed his prejudice for the king, and accepted a sum wholly inadequate in justice to their demands. The Pope felt himself under an obligation to John. The claims of both were referred to Rome, where John was repre- sented as a paragon of piety and excellence, and the bishops unreasonable and avaricious ; the Pope de- cided in favour of his new vassal, and issued a special bull that no sentence of excommunication should be issued against him except by permission from Rome. Meanwhile, John having again resigned his crown into the papal legate's hands, and received it back again as a donation from the Pope, in an assembly held at St. Paul's, the interdict from the kingdom was removed. The second act in the drama represents Langton as a high-minded and able statesman ; an upholder of the liberties of the country against both Pope and king, and the author of Magna Charta. John had summoned the barons to attend him in an expedition against the King of France. Such, however, was the indignation that prevailed at the king's having humbled the kingdom before a foreign power like the Pope, and such the universal detesta- tion in which he was held on account of his low de- baucheries, which made him an unwelcome and unsafe visitor in any respectable family, that the barons re- STEPHEN LANGTON AJSfD JOHN. 187 fused to follow him ; and when John, secure of the favour of the Pope, determined to punish their dis- obedience, Langton took the part of the barons, and shewed himself the champion of law and right against the despotism of the king. He had acted with con- summate foresight when he obtained from John an oath that he would observe the laws of the country. The barons had before acted separately in their in- dividual interests ; he now persuaded them to act together, as an order of the realm, for a definite object. The first step in this direction was taken in a council at St. Alban's, held on 4th August, 12 13, which was attended not only by the barons, but by chosen men throughout the country, and was thus the first instance of representatives attending the national council. The council ordained that the laws of Henry I. should be observed. Those laws were the old Saxon laws, first made by Edward the Confessor, and afterwards con- firmed by Henry I., but which had been lost, and well-nigh forgotten. Langton, however, had just dis- covered the charter. This was what John had sworn to observe, and this Langton produced at a second meeting held in St. Paul's on 25th August. The charter was at once welcomed as a basis of national action ; and on this the bishops and barons deter- mined to take their stand, binding themselves by oath to defend and, if necessary, to die for, their rights : and the compact was ratified on the 22nd November, in the chapel of St. Edmond at St. Ed- mondsbury. Meanwhile, the king had assembled an army against the barons. Backed by the papal legate, he swore he would never consent to the charter. He tried to de- tach the bishops from the barons, by offering them en- i88 THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. tire freedom of election to their sees ; he surrounded himself with foreign mercenaries ; he even took the Cross and vows of a crusader (for against such it was a sacrilege to make war) from the hands of the Bishop of London. But the barons, people, and clergy were all against him. They named their army, " the army of God and of the Church," and appointed Fitz-Walter as their marshal ; it was the army not only of the barons against the king, but of the Church against the Pope. Langton presented a list of their require- ments to the king ; the king was taken by surprise. " Why do you not demand my kingdom also ? " he asked, and he swore by God's teeth he would never yield. But now his few supporters deserted his cause, and joined " the army of God and of the Church." The country arose as one man against King and Pope. His cause was hopelessly lost ; he found himself with only seven knights at his back, and a whole nation in arms against him ; he flattered himself that his friend the Pope was suzerain of England, and that the charter would not be valid without his consent ; yet he had no time to apply to the Pope. Nursing wrath in his heart, he bowed his back to necessity. He summoned his barons to meet him at Runnymede, a meadow by the Thames, near Windsor, and there he sealed (al- though his oath was not worth the paper it was writ- ten on, and he never meant to keep it), on June 15, 1215, Magna CWta. It was Langton's act. By that charter (which pro- bably, more than any episcopal act of his life, has ren- dered his name famous to posterity) Langton obtained for the country the fundamental principles of Eng- lish liberty; but whilst remembering his duty to his STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN. 1 89 country, he was never forgetful of the Church, which he served so faithfully as its Primate, for the first article declares that " the Church of England shall be free, and have her rights entire and her liberties Uninjured." The first thing the king did was to send Pandulph to represent that, as he was a vassal of Rome, an in- sult had been offered to the Pope no less than to him- self, and to get the new charter annulled. Innocent, angry at this conduct towards his vassal, asked, " Is it true do these barons mean to dethrone their king, who has taken the Cross, and is under the protection of the Apostolic see ? Do these barons dare to trans- fer the patrimony of the Church of Rome ? By St. Peter, we will not permit this outrage to go unpun- ished." On August 24 he issued a bull, in which, after declaring that England was a fief of the holy see, that the king had no power to act without consent of the Pope, that the conduct of the barons was a piece of audacious wickedness and contempt of the holy see, he then annulled Magna Charta, forbade the king to observe it, and placed the same command upon the barons. This bull being treated with con- tempt, he ordered Langton to excommunicate the barons. Against Langton, whom he had expected to be a pliant tool, the Pope was especially wrathful, not only on account of the support he had given to the barons, but also of his opposition to his legate, Nicolas. Langton refused to execute the bull, and was suspended, and the suspension was confirmed at the Lateran Council ^ a.d. 12 15, at which Langton was present; and although it was afterwards taken " At this council, the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation was for the first time authoritatively established. igO THE ANGLO-NORMAN CHURCH. off, he was not allowed to return to England during the reign of John. The people of England, to shew their gratitude, elected his brother Simon Archbishop of York ; but by this time the Pope had claimed the power of annulling the election of the chapters, and so in his place Walter de Grey, the king's nominee, was appointed. On his return to England in 12 18, two years after the death of Innocent and King John, at a council held in London he set his seal to the new document of Magna Charta, which those who acted for the young king, Henry III., who was only nine years old, had accepted with a few alterations. Nothing can shew more plainly the disinterestedness and consis- tency of Langton's character, than his conduct through- out the transactions of Magna Charta. Though a de- voted member of the Church of Rome, of which he was a cardinal, he never forgot his duty to his country and Church of England ; he was willing to pay obe- dience to the Pope when he was right, but when he felt that he was acting unjustly, he did not hesitate to op- pose a Pope who was perhaps the strongest that ever presided over the Roman Church. The worst feature in the primacy of Langton was his severity in enforcing the celibacy of the clergy. In a synod held at Osney, near Oxford, at which he presided, one of the canons enacted speaks of the wives of the clergy as concubines ; if the clergy re- fuse to abandon their wives, they were to be deprived of their benefices, the wives were to be expelled from the churches, and if they persisted, they were to be excommunicated and to be denied Christian burial. PART IV. CHAPTER I. THE ROMAN CHURCH AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. TTAVING traced the history of the Church in Eng- land from its foundation to the time when, through the fault of its kings, it was brought into subjection to a foreign see, we now purpose to give a short account of the rise ^ and progress of the Roman Church, in order that we may understand how that Church came in time to hold such a supremacy, not only in Eng- land, but also amongst the other Churches of Chris- tendom. Our Saviour had said to St. Peter, " Thou art Peter (HeVpoy), and upon ^/iis selfsame rock (eVt ravrr} rrj Uerpa) I will build My Church " (" Tu es Petrus et super hanc Petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam"). There is no difficulty in supposing (although other interpre- tations have been given) that by that rock our Sa- viour might mean St. Peter. It is the least forced interpretation. Our Lord also was speaking, not in Greek or Latin, but in the Syriac language, in which " It has been asserted that the foundation of the British Church was prior in date to that of the Roman : cf Crakanthorp, Def. Eccl. Angl., p. 23, " De Britannica Ecclesia nostra liquidum est fuisse illam aliquot ante Romanam annis fundatam Disce Romanam ecclesiam Britan- nica? nostraa non matrem sed sororem, atque sororem integro qiiinqueii- nio minorem." 192 THE ROMAN CHURCH the same word, Cepha (the name which our Saviour Himself had given Peter, St. John i. 42) means either the name of the Apostle or a rock ; He was also speak- ing to Peter, and that He should have told him (what he knew already) that his name was Cephas, is incom- prehensible ; whereas, that He should have told him so in order to explain its meaning, is intelligible enough. But the Church which St. Peter founded was not at Rome, but Jerusalem, which, we have only to refer to Acts ii. to see, was founded by St. Peter as the mother of all Churches ^ : as Bishop Pearson says, " When He ascended into heaven and the Holy Ghost came down, when Peter had converted three thousand souls which were added to the hundred- and-twenty disciples, t/ien there was a Church, and that built upon Peter, according to our Saviour s pro- mised " It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been three orders in Christ's Church, bishops, priests, and deacons ^" From time to time the bishops of neighbouring Churches used to meet together for consultation ^ in the metropolis or chief city of each district ; hence the metropolitan bishops by degrees acquired a pre-eminence, whilst at a later time a still higher authority attached, under the title of Patriarch, to the bishops of the three seats When the Council of Trent speaks of the Roman Church "omnium ecclesiarum matrem et majestram agnosco," it is historically untrue. Cf. Theodor. v. 9, t^s hi fitfrpos anaa&v rav ^'EKKXtjaiav Trjs fv 'Upo- o-vXv/iots. ' Ordination Office. " Let there be a synod of bishops twice every year ; the first on the fourth week after Easter, the other on the 12th day of October." — (Apost. Const., 37.) AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. of government, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch to which, at a later period, were added the Church of Constantinople, as the seat of empire, and the Church of Jerusalem, on account of the sacred associations connected with it. But to none of these was juris- diction given over other Churches ^ The Patriarchate of Rome was confined to what, from their vicinity to Rome, were called the " sub- urbicarian " provinces ^ including middle and lower Italy (about seventy bishoprics in Northern Italy being subject to the Archbishop of Milan), Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, in all about two hundred sees. From very early times an honorary precedence was given to the Church of Rome as being the Church of the imperial city ; that great city which, at the com- mencement of Christianity, stood conspicuous amongst ' These three are recognised as the principal sees by the sixth Canon of the Council of Nice, whilst by Canon 7 the next place is given to the Bishop of ^lia (Jerusalem). ' Besides these, there were other Churches which were called airo- Ki^aKoi (a term often found in early Church history), amongst which Balsamon reckons the metropolitans of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Iberia, and Armenia. Such was also the Church of Britain, the archbishop of which was termed " alterius orbis papa," " princeps episcoporum Angliae," " pon- tifex summus," " patriarcha," " primas ; " whilst his cathedral was " ca- thedra patriarchalis Anglorum," and he himself was said to perform " vices Apostolicas in Anglifi." — (Twysden's Vind. of the Church, p. 22.) " Ecclesia Britannica erat aiTOK((f)a\os, nulli extraneo episcopo, sed suo soli metropolitano subjacens." — (Bish. Beveridge, ad Can. Cone. Nic.) * Rufinus {Hist. Eccl.) a Roman priest of the fourth century, and therefore an unexceptionable authority as to the limits of the Roman Patriarchate, says : " In urbe Romd vetusta consuetudo servetur ut . . . hie (i.e. Episcopus Romanus) Suburbicariarum Ecclesiarum solicitudi- nem gerat." Dupin, himself a Roman Catholic, says the same ; " Patri- archatus Romani non videntur excessisse provincias eas, quae Vicario urbis parebant, dicunturque a Rufino suburbicariae. ... In aliis pro- vinciis minimi suburbicariis jus ordinationum pontificem Romanum ha- buisse probari non potest. . . . Nihilominus tamen successu temporis Romanus Pontifex partriarchatus sui limites, quantum potuit, extendit." O 194 THE ROMAN CHURCH the nations of the earth, the wealthy and enlightened capital of the world, the centre of civilization and au- thority. Other circumstances favoured the Roman Church ; its apostolical foundation, the number of its martyrs, its wealth and charity, the high character of its bishops, the purity of its faith from the theo- logical speculations which harassed the East. And as time went on, and the barbarians were at the gates of Rome, as faith in the empire began to wane, a de- sire arose for something, universal and eternal, to take its place; — for a belief widely prevailed that, when Rome fell, the end of all things would arrive, and with it would fall the world Unity also was necessary, and this unity must have a centre ; there was one empire throughout which Rome was the capital ; why should there not be one co-extensive Church also, of which the Church of the empire should be the centre and the head ? The idea of a universal Church, under one head, was a grand one ; it was the foundation of the advancement of the Roman Church. As to any primacy attaching to Rome de jure divmo, Scripture and Catholic tradition are entirely silent'; the su- premacy of St. Peter was an afterthought. The Roman Church, presuming upon the accident of its position as the Church of the Roman empire, tried, at an early date, to assert some vague right over other Churches, which being asserted in a dictatorial " Cum caput illud orbis occiderit . . . quis dubitet venisse jam finem rebus humanis, orbique terrarum?" — (Lactantius, Div. Inst.) ' Bailly {de Ecc. Christ., ii. p. 310), a learned Roman theologian, says : "Jure communi ac Christi institute, Pontifex immediatam jurisdictionem in alienis dicEcesibus non habet neque in illis episcoporum munia exercere potest." Gregory the Great says : " Si sua unicuique episcopo juris- dictio non servetur, quid aliud agitur nisi ut per nos, per quos eccle- siasticos custodiri debuit ordo, confundatur ?" AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. manner, was entirely ignored : as, for instance, at the end of the second century, in the dispute between the Asiatic bishops, and Victor, Bishop of Rome, with re- gard to the proper time of observing Easter ; and in that between Stephen, Bishop of Rome, and St. Cy- prian ^ Bishop of Carthage, with regard to those who had lapsed during the Decian persecution. In the fourth century the thin end of the wedge, which led to Rome's after supremacy, was first inserted. A step was gained in the removal by Constantine of the seat of empire to Constantinople. Henceforward, Rome being at a distance, became more free and inde- pendent, whilst the Bishops of Constantinople, being under the very eyes of the emperor, became harassed and cramped in their actions ; their influence also was weakened by constant quarrels with the emperors, who found it to their advantage to court the Bishops of Rome, and to use them as a check upon their own patriarchs. Added to this, in the frequent dissensions of the Eastern bishops amongst themselves, the alli- ance of Rome, as the principal see of the West, was eagerly sought for, and the jealousy of the suffra- gan bishops made them prefer giving obedience to a foreign master, rather than to a superior nearer home ; and what was at first given as advice, gra- dually assumed the character of a command. The appellate jurisdiction given to Rome by the Council of Sardica, a.d. 347, has been much over- rated ; that it was new, and not primitive, is evident, St. Cyprian, although a great admirer of Rome, says : " Neque enim quisquam nostrum Episcopum se episcoporum constituit, aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adigit, quando habeat omnis episcopus pro licentia libertatis et potestatis suae arbitrium pro- prium, tamque judicare ab alio non possit, quam nec ipse potest alium judicare." O 2 196 THE ROMAN CHURCH for it is allowed that it was then first given. It per- mitted, it did not require, a reference to be made to Pope Julius, on account of the assistance he had given to St. Athanasius and the orthodox bishops when per- secuted by the Arians, in the causes of bishops who had been unjustly condemned ^ Julius being men- tioned by name, and not his successors, shews that the power was personal to meet a particular case. That a general appeal was not acknowledged is clear. The African Church denied the right of appeal when claimed by Pope Zosimus ; the Galilean bishops denied it in the case of Celidonius ; the English bishops in that of Wilfrid. Moreover, the council was not a ge- neral one ; the decree was reversed by the Council of Chalcedon, which was a general one ; the Eastern bishops were not present at it, and therefore it could not be binding on the Eastern Church". Yet the Council of Sardica laid the foundation of Rome's power, which, until the publication of the false De- cretals, rested on no other basis. The General Councils were careful to forbid bishops assuming any authority beyond their own dioceses. The first Council of Constantinople, a.d. 381°, not only forbade this, but it gave the see of Constanti- nople a precedence next to Rome, "forasmuch as it ' " Osius Episcopus dixit ... si vobis placuit, sancti Petri Apostoli memoriam honoremus ut scribatur ab his qui causam examinarunt, Julio Romano Episcopo." " Ad Julium, non ad Papam Romanum ; privilegium Sardinense per- sonale fuit, ideoque cum persona Julii extinctum." — (Crakenthorp, Def.) " The Greek canonists, Balsamon and Zonaras, maintain that the appeal was only given to the Churches which were under Rome, and that the Patriarch of Constantinople had an equal power over his provinces. ° The council has always been received as of authority ; it is admitted that Pope Damasus concurred in it : "non sine Damasi summi Pontificis auctoritate." — (Mansi, iii. 526.) AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 197 is the new Rome." The fourth general Council of Chalcedon, a.d, 451, placed the two sees on an equality, the cities of Rome and Constantinople being equal in dignity. The words of the Canon are important, as shewing that the privileges granted to Rome arose not from any inherent right, but because it was the imperial city : " The fathers have with good reason granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, 07i account of her being the imperial city ; and the one hundred and fifty bishops beloved of God, acting with the same view, have given the like privileges to the most holy throne of new Rome ; rightly judging that the city which is the seat of empire and of a senate, and is equal to the old imperial Rome in other privileges, should be also honoured as she is in ecclesiastical concerns, as being the second and next after her." This canon induced the Patriarch of Constantinople to put forth claims over the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, not unlike those afterwards made by Rome ; it was also the cause of the incessant con- tentions between the sees of Rome and Constanti- nople, which eventually led to the schism between the Latin and Greek Churches 'i. The Roman see quickly took advantage of the Council of Sardica. The first encroachment was soon after made by Pope Siricius (a.d. 385), who, by not allowing its bishops to be consecrated without his consent, virtually annexed to the papacy the pro- vince of Illyricum. Innocent I., a.d. 402, carried his Canon 28. *• Leo the Great (a.d. 440 — 461), and other Roman prelates, resisted the Canons of this, a general council, but in vain, for the emperors supported their own patriarchs. 198 THE ROMAN CHURCH pretensions beyond any of his predecessors : he af- firmed that there was no Church in all Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, and the adjacent islands, which was not founded by St. Peter or his successors, and therefore derived from Rome ; that the whole Western world was bound to conform to the usages of Rome, though this had lately been disallowed by St. Am- brose ^ He appointed Rufus, Archbishop of Thessa- lonica, to be his vicar in Illyria, which is the first instance of the appointment of a Vicar Apostolic ^ Zosimus, his successor, was the first Pope to declare that the Popes inherited from St. Peter a divine au- thority equal to that of St. Peter, and that no one can question the Pope's decision ' ; and yet he himself had expressed approval of the heresy of Pelagius, and was obliged to retract his judgment. When, a.d. 418, Apiarius, an African presbyter, being excommunicated and degraded for misconduct, applied to Rome, Zosi- mus, in opposition to the African bishops, who denied the right of appeal, maintained that such an appeal was allowed by the Council of Nice. The African bishops sent to the Eastern patriarchs for a copy of the Nicene Canons, when they discovered that the canon was not one of the Nicene, but the Sardican Council ; so they sent to Boniface I., who had suc- ceeded Zosimus, complaining of the pride of Rome in interferinor o ' " In omnibus cupio sequi ecclesiam Romanam : sed tamen et nos homines sensum habemus ideo quod alibi rectius servatur, et nos rec- tius custodimus." ' Hussej-'s Rise of the Papal Power, p. 32. ' Alansi, Cone. iv. 366. " When Apiarius again appealed to Rome during the pontificate of Caelestine I., they not only disallowed his interference, but declared that it would be a cause for excommunication. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 199 Under Leo the Great, a.d. 440, we first meet the conception, ahhough imperfectly realised, of the papacy of later times. Celidonius, Bishop of Vienne, having been deposed in a synod, a.d. 444, by Hilary, Metro- politan of Aries, appealed to Leo. Hilary denied the Pope's right to receive the appeal ; notwithstanding which, Leo declared the power of Rome to be of un- broken succession from Apostolic times ; that the Apostolic see always had received appeals from Gaul : he restored Celidonius, and obtained from the Em- peror Valentinian a law which he is supposed to have dictated himself, that the Bishop of Rome is the right- ful governor of the whole Church ^ Thus the Pope's supremacy was now established, not by the law of Christ, or by a canon of the Church over the Church, but by the Roman law, over the dominions of the Roman emperor of the West ^ . About the middle of the sixth century, the Pope claimed the right of con- firming the Archbishop of Milan. But no decisive progress was made beyond Italy until the time of Gregory the Great, which may be taken as the boundary between ancient and mediaeval Church history. He appointed legates in Spain and Aries, to whom he gave instructions to act as vice- gerents of the Apostolic see, " quae omnium ecclesiarum caput est." He sent the pall (a custom which had been commenced by Pelagius H.) to St. Augustine ; but at that time the pall could only be sent by the consent of the emperor, and was then (not, as it after- wards became, a badge of servitude, and the necessary appendage of an archbishop's office), only a mark of favour. But Gregory spoke of the Patriarchs of Alexandria Robertson's Church History, i. 482. Hussey, p. 64. 200 THE ROMAN CHURCH and Antioch as his equals, and as sharing with him a dignity of rank as successors of St. Peter. We find him also resisting a claim which afterwards was one of those most frequently put forth by the Popes. When John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, in an Eastern synod arrogated to himself the title of (Ecu- menical or Universal Bishop, a title which had before often been used by the patriarchs of that see, Gregory denounced the title, not only as proud and foolish, but anti- Christian and blasphemous, and unlike the con- duct of Peter, who, though the first, was of the same rank as the other Apostles ; and referred the question to the Emperor Maurice, " ut piissimus Dominus Mauri- cius ipsum illud negotium judicare dignaretur?" His appeal, however, was ineffectual, and the Patriarchs of Constantinople continued to style themselves oecu- menical ^ But the conduct and words of Gregory de- serve notice. He referred the matter, as we have seen, to the emperor, a course very different from that adopted by his successors, who claimed the right of deposing emperors. He styles the act of John, in calling himself " oecumenical," blasphemous ; yet, not long after. Pope Boniface HI. did not think it below his dignity to receive that title from the tyrant Phocas, who, from being a centurion, had ascended the im- perial throne after the brutal murder of the Emperor Maurice and his children. Phocas deprived the Pa- triarch of Constantinople of it, and conferred it upon Boniface ; but this was again reversed by the thirty- ' St. Gregory denounces the title as "profanum vocabulum;" "nomen illud blasphemiae;" " superstitiorum at superbum vocabulum;" "contra statuta evangelica, contra canonum decreta." He says, "Si unus Pa- triarcha universalis dicitur, Patriarcharum nomen caeteris derogatur;" "ego fidenter dico, quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat vel vociferari desiderat, in elatione suS, Antichristum praecurrit." AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 20I sixth canon of the Quinsextine Council, a.d. 691, which declared the two bishops equal* in rank, although Rome had a precedence of honour. Amid the general chaos of the seventh and eighth centuries, Rome, although taken and re-taken by the barbarians, remained comparatively unscathed ; and the papacy, aided by the firm and enthusiastic support of the monks, the most influential body in Europe, — at a time when the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were reduced under Mahomedan rule, and the Patriarch of Constantinople had become the tool of the emperors — made rapid strides towards supre- macy ; the Pope, from being regarded merely as the representative of the West, now came to be regarded as the sole successor of St. Peter, as the source and representative of Christianity. But it is to the French nation that the Church of Rome is most indebted for its privileges and its pre- eminence, as well as its temporary power. When Clovis, King of the Franks, conquered Gaul, both he and his people were heathens. But Clovis had mar- ried a Christian, Clotilda, daughter of the King of Bur- gundy, and by her he was persuaded to receive bap- tism, with three thousand of his followers, in Rheims Cathedral, from the hands of its bishop, Remigius, A.D. 496. From the circumstance that he was con- verted at a time when the princes of the East were Arians, and the emperor supported the heresy of Eutyches, the kings of France received the title, which they have held ever since, of " Eldest Sons of the " The Quinsextine Council, being averse to Rome's supremacy, was not at first received at Rome by Pope Sergius ; but the next Pope but one, John VII., A.D. 705, accepted it without alteration; as again did Pope Adrian I., A.D. 787, and other Popes afterwards. (Hussey, p. 155.) 202 THE ROMAN CHURCH Church." From being the chief of a small people, Clovis became the founder of the great French mon- archy, soon about to become the most powerful of Catholic nations. For a long time the Galilean Churches resisted the supremacy of Rome, first the Bishop of Vienne, and then the Bishop of Aries, claiming a patriarchal authority like that of Rome and Constantinople. But from the time of Gregory the Great, successive Popes, who were gradually fail- ing in their allegiance to the emperor, strove to esta- blish a connexion with the Frankish princes, as a means of strengthening themselves against the empire. The long-sought opportunity was afforded by the accession of the Carlovingian dynasty ; not only was the papacy enabled to cement the bonds between Rome and Gaul, but also to shake off the unwelcome yoke of the East- ern, and to lay the foundation of a new Western, empire. The opportunity arose out of the Iconoclastic con- troversy. Leo the I saurian, a man of low birth, be- came emperor, a.d. 717, and whether it was that being born amonorst the I saurian mountains he had learnt a simpler faith, or, as it was asserted, being influenced by the taunts of the Mahometans, who stigmatized the use of images as idolatrous'', he determined to abolish the use of them altogether. In consequence of this. Pope Gregory III. (a.d. 731), in a council of ninety-eight bishops, anathematized him, and excited the Italians to renounce their allegiance to him. But the emperor was not the Pope's only enemy. It must be understood that these images were not sculptures, or statues, for those the Greek Church never allowed, but coloured portraitures on a plane surface, or, more rarely, mosaics, (Abp. Trench, Med. Ch. Hist., p. 91.) AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 203 The nearest and most dreaded of Rome's enemies were the Lombards ; and the hatred between them, which had originated in the Arianism of the latter, had survived their conversion to orthodox Christianity. Luitbrand, King of the Lombards, saw his opportunity in the disorders of Italy, and summoned Rome to ac- knowledge him as her lawful sovereign. Thanks to this, the Pope, from being bishop in the first city of the world, entered upon a new career of greatness, and, by a succession of favouring circumstances, was raised into a secular prince. It was in vain for the Pope to look to the Eastern empire for aid ; the Emperor had dangers and embarrassments enough nearer home ; and even if he could have helped him, the aid of the professed enemies of images would have been distasteful. So the Pope must look for a pro- tector to another quarter. At this time, Charles Martel, who by his late vic- tory over the Saracens had saved his own country, and perhaps Europe, from the yoke of the Mahome- dans, governed France, under the title of Mayor of the Palace, and was considered as the champion of Christendom. To him the Pope applied for aid ; and, to strengthen his petition, he sent him the keys of St. Peter's tomb. It is said he offered him the title of Consul or Patrician of Rome, and to transfer the allegiance of the Romans to the Prankish crown. The offer, however, came to nothing, for, a.d. 741, both Gregory and Charles Martel died. Pepin succeeded his father as Mayor of the Palace to Childeric III., and the Pope and the Franks were now in a position mutually to assist each other. Pepin ° This title designated, in the later days of the empire, the next dignity to the throne. 204 THE ROMAN CHURCH felt that the time had arrived that the servile title which he held should be abolished, and the empty royalty of the Merovingian dynasty should end. But to put an end to an ancient dynasty was no light matter. If he could procure the approval of the Church, if the Roman pontiff could be induced to sanction the revolution, then the conscience of the people might be satisfied. So he sent to the new Pope, Zacharias, who had been elected without the confirmation of the emperor or the exarch, to ask in the name of the French nation whether it was not right that he who had the power, should also have with it the title of — king. The answer of the Pope, which was prompted by the consideration of his own interest ^, was, as might have been expected, favourable; and a.d. 752, Pepin was crowned king by Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, acting in the name of the Pope (a second coronation being performed by the Pope himself at St. Denys), and made Patrician of Rome. In return, Pepin made the cause of the Pope his own ; he afforded him the required help against the Lombards, and bestowed on the Church a donation of a large tract of country which he had taken from the Lombards ; not, indeed, to be held as an independent sovereignty, but under the Prankish crown. Thus was laid the foundation of Rome's temporal power. Pepin died a.d. 768, and was succeeded by his son Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, whose relations with the papacy were to become still more intimate. Charlemagne invaded Italy, and, a.d. 774, overthrew the Lombard dominion, by part of which he enlarged ^ So Gregory VII., when he deposed Henry IV., speaks of it: "Alius Romanus pontifex regem Francorum non tarn pro suis iniquitatibus, quam eo quod tantaa potestati non erat utilis, a regno deposuit el Pippinum . . . in ejus loco substituit." AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 205 the donation already made by Pepin. Charles made several visits to Rome, during one of which, a.d. 800, a remarkable and important event took place. On Christmas-day, whilst Charles was attending' Mass at St. Peter's, and whilst kneeling before the altar, the Pope suddenly, as if by a heavenly impulse, placed a golden crown upon his head, imitating the coronation of the Eastern emperor by the Patriarch of Constanti- nople, whilst the people shouted, " Long life and vic- tory to the Emperor Charles." The new emperor affected surprise and displeasure, but there is no doubt that if there was no complicity, there was a secret understanding between the two principal actors, that Charlemagne had determined to be emperor, and that he was displeased only with the manner and the sud- denness with which the act had been performed. It was a clever ruse on the part of Pope Leo, who looked rather to his own aggrandisement than to the dignity he was conferring on the emperor : but the interpre- tation which was afterwards put upon the proceeding, that the Pope had taken the empire from the Greeks and bestowed it upon the Germans, that he therefore enjoyed the right to bestow the empire on his own authority, was opposed to the whole spirit of Char- lemagne's policy, and the Pope himself was the first to do homage to the new empire. The papacy had now become a necessity to France, and the Pope took advantage of the weakness of Charlemagne's successors to shake off the chain with which Charlemagne had bound it. Charlemagne, in reviving the Western empire, had intended that the emperors should be masters of the Popes ; instead of this, the Popes became masters of the emperors. Shortly before his death, Charlemagne, having ob- THE ROMAN CHURCH tained the consent of the National Diet, had declared his only legitimate son, Louis, afterwards surnamed " the Pious," then thirty-six years of age, to be his colleague and successor in the empire. He desired him to approach the High Altar, and to take from it the crown and place it upon his own head ; meaning to assert by this act that his descendants derived their title, not from the coronation by the Pope, but direct from God, Notwithstanding this, Louis, after his fa- ther's death, submitted to be crowned again at the hands of Stephen IV. The importance of this act to the papacy was great. After this the Popes con- tinued to crown the emperors, and the opinion be- came established, that the highest worldly dignities could only be conferred by God Himself, through the successor of St. Peter ; nor was henceforward the im- perial title assumed by the German sovereigns of Italy, until they had been crowned at Rome by the hands of the Pope ^. One thing, and one thing only, was now required to establish Rome's ascendancy, — it was without an historical basis ; there was nothing in the early his- tory of the Church to warrant its pretensions. Nor was this long wanting. At the close of the eighth cen- tury was fabricated one of the mightiest engines in the triumph of the papacy, a series of Decretals known as the " Pseudo Isidore." Hitherto the Decretal Epistles had begun with Pope Siricius ; but the new writer produced a number of letters purporting to be written by St. Clement and Anacletus, the cotempo- raries of the Apostles, as well as the acts of some hitherto-unknown councils. Thus the claims of Rome were supported by a continuous chain of testimony ' Rob., Ch. Hist. ii. 460. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 207 reaching up to the Apostles themselves, and the papal see was represented, on the authority of ancient usage, as the sole and irresponsible directress of the theocra- tic system of the Church ^ Amongst other forgeries, they contained the famous donation of Constantine ^ ; the object of which was to shew that the temporal power given by Pepin and Charlemagne was only the restitution of a gift made by the first Christian em- peror, Constantine, but which had been violently taken from the papal see by the Lombards. The story ran that Constantine, having been cured of his leprosy and baptized by Pope Sylvester, from a conviction of the superiority of the spiritual to the temporal power, relinquished Rome to the Popes, and founded his new kingdom of Constantinople. The spurious- ness of the Decretals, which was shewn by several anachronisms and other gross instances of ignorance \ was detected by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, and the Gallican bishops ; nevertheless, they were boldly asserted in a letter addressed by Pope Adrian I. to the second Council of Nice, a d. 787; they were appealed to as genuine by Pope Nicolas I. (a.d. 858); Gratian made them the foundation of his Decretum, the great book of Canon Law during the Middle Ages ; after the revival of learning at the Reformation (by which time, however, they had done their work), they were universally rejected by Romanists ; but as it ' Hardwick, Mid. Ages, 146. « This donation was said to comprise not only the exarchate of Ra- venna, but the dukedom of Spoleto and Benevento, Venetia, Istria, and other territory in the north of Italy ; in short, nearly the whole penin- sula, and the island of Corsica. The title "Peccator" was common amongst bishops as a mark of humility; the author of the forged Decretals ascribes them to Isidore " Mercator." 208 THE ROMAN CHURCH cannot be imagined that two Popes appealed to them in bad faith, the question arises, What becomes of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility ? With the exception of a short gleam of glory during the pontificate of Nicolas I, (a.d. 858 — 867), — who declared that " Rome is the rule of faith and source of absolution," that " her judgment is the voice of God," that " no question could be decided without the consent of the Roman pontiff," — the ninth and tenth centuries are mostly a period during which, that the history of the pontiffs is " a history of monsters, a record of the most atrocious villainies and crimes, is acknowledged by all the best writers, and even by the advocates of popery V For more than fifty years (the Dark or Iron Age, as it has been called, of the Church) the election of Pope lay in the hands of three infamous women, Theodora, and her two daughters, Theodora and Ma- rozia ; who, by their influence with the profligate nobles, contrived to procure the throne of St. Peter for their paramours or illegitimate children. John XI, (a.d. 931) is said to have been the son of Pope Ser- gius by Marozia. Iniquity reached its climax under John XII., who (a.d. 955) became Pope at the age of eighteen''. John, who was guilty of the most heinous crimes, of even murder, was deposed (Dec. 4, 963) by the Emperor Otho the Great ; (this shews that ' Mosheim, Cent. X. Romanists neither screen nor palliate the vices of the Popes at that period ; on the contrary, they consider it rather as a proof of the exalted character of their Church, that she could have weathered such a storm. Baronius uses this argument, although he ad- mits the Popes were "homines monstruosi, vita turpissimi, moribus per- ditissimi, usquequaque foedissimi." His name had been Octavianus, and this is the first instance of a change of name on becoming Pope. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 209 the emperors could depose the Popes ;) and the fol- lowing year was assassinated whilst carrying on an adulterous intrigue near Rome; and Leo VIII., a man of good character, but not yet in Holy Orders, was chosen in his place By the middle of the eleventh century (a.d. 1054) the power of the Roman Church was so advanced, that the Pope was enabled without a synodical de- cree, and solely by his own authority, to pass a sen- tence of excommunication upon Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, which caused the unhappy division between the East and West, which has never yet been healed. There had before been occasional schisms. In the middle of the ninth cen- tury, a dispute which had arisen between the two Churches about the province of Bulgaria, both Pho- tius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope John VIII. claiming jurisdiction over it, although communion was for some time suspended, had been healed. But (a.d. 1053) Michael Cerularius, a man of restless and uncharitable temper, wrote to the Bishop of Trani a letter, which he desired to be communicated to the Pope and the whole Western Church, complaining of certain rites and ceremonies of the Roman Church, and shut up the Latin churches, and seized the mo- nasteries, in Constantinople. The points he com- plained of were, the use of unleavened bread in the Holy Eucharist, fasting on Saturday, the eating of things strangled and of blood, and the singing of the Great Hallelujah at Easter only"". ' Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 248. " Although at the Institution our Lord used unleavened bread, that being the only bread allowed under the Jewish law at the Paschal season, the Eastern Church maintained that the Apostles and the early Church P 2IO THE ROMAN CHURCH The Pope, Leo, was naturally indignant at such high- handed and unreasonable proceedings, but he con- trived to put himself as much in the wrong as Ceru- larius. He appointed three legates, of whom Cardinal Humbert was the principal, to proceed to Constan- tinople, who treated Cerularius with the greatest dis- respect ; complained of the usages of the Greek Church, such as the marriage of the clergy, and the omission of the "Filioque" clause from the Nicene Creed; and finally, entering the church of St. Sophia, left an ex- communication on the altar, at the time when it was prepared for the Holy Eucharist. Thus the Church of Rome severed itself from the great Oriental Church, that Church which produced the greatest saints, whom the Church reverences ; such as SS. Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzum, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and numberless other saints and martyrs. In 1073 the famous Hildebrand, under the title of Gregory VII., ascended the papal throne, and from his time the name of Pope, which had hitherto been the common appellation of bishops, became the distin- guishing title of the Bishop of Rome". The maxims which he laid down, and the power which he claimed for the Church of Rome, and the sovereign domina- tion of the Pope, were far in advance of the Pseudo- Isidore Decretals, and were such as would thoroughly used common bread, and the word apror signifying something raised, they themselves used leavened bread for the Sacrament. (Robertson, ii. 528.) " Ennodius of Pavia, wTiting about the end of the fifth century, confines the title to the Bishop of Rome ; it was probably so restricted at that time in Italy, but not so in other countries of the West, till the time of Hildebrand. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM, 2 I I have extinguished every kind of freedom. In a coun- cil held at Rome, a.d. 1074, he compares the first four general councils to the four Gospels ; and yet they were not to be so highly reverenced as the decrees of Popes, for that those councils would have had no force, unless they had been confirmed by the Aposto- lic authority of the Roman pontiffs °. Pope Alexander II., the immediate predecessor of Hildebrand, had assumed the right of conferring tem- poral sovereignty when he sanctioned William the Conqueror's invasion of England. Gregory went a step further : the power which could confer thrones, could also depose kings. He placed Henry IV. under the ban of the Church, and declared him to be deprived of the government of Germany and Italy, and released his subjects from their allegiance. Henry soon found that he was deserted and shunned, and that his subjects were falling away from him ; he must obtain the papal pardon under any terms. In the depth of winter, and that one of unusual severity even in those inclement regions, he determined to cross the Alps with his wife and infant child, and to throw him- self upon the mercy of the pontiff. The Pope at the time was at Canossa, a castle among the Apennines. Unattended, dressed in the garb of. a pilgrim, and with bare feet, Henry was admitted within the second of the three walls of the castle, and there exposed to the piercing cold, he was detained for three whole days, after which he was admitted into the presence of the Pope. But Gregory had gone too far : the humiliation to which he had been subjected armed Henry with an energy of which he had seemed incapable. Henry * Mansi, xx. c. 433. P 2 2 12 THE ROMAN CHURCH led a large army into Italy, and took possession of the Leonine city, a.d, 1083 ; the Pope sought refuge in the castle of St. Angelo ; a rival Pope, Guibert of Ravenna, was formally enthroned on Palm Sunday, A.D. 1084 ; and by him, on Easter Day, Henry was crowned to the imperial dignity. Gregory, in his emergency, had solicited the help of Robert Guiscard, who effected an entrance into the city, and carried the Pope in triumph from St. Angelo to the Lateran ; but for three whole days the city ^v^as subjected to a siege, and to quell the resistance of the citizens, Guiscard ordered it to be set on fire, whereby a large part of ancient Rome was reduced to a mass of ruins. But to avoid the rage of the citizens, Gregory was obliged to withdraw first to Monte Casino, and ultimately to Salerno, where, on May 25, 1085, he died an exile, apparently in a lost cause, but really the conqueror in the great battle which under him had only just begun. He had found the papacy sunk in the lowest depth of degradation, he left it far advanced towards domi- nion over the kingdoms of the earth ; henceforward the relations between the emperor and the Pope were to be reversed ; the emperor was no longer to confirm the election of the Pope, but the Popes were to have the empire at their disposal ^. Hildebrand had aimed at nothing short of the complete subjection, not only of bishops and councils, but of princes and emperors to the see of Rome. Now the Pope made no scruple of calling himself a universal bishop, which Gregory I. had denounced as "blasphemous." Now no longer the emperor, but the Pope alone could convene coun- cils ; and the decrees of even general councils were not binding on him, or on others, without his sanc- Robertson, ii. 602. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 213 tlon ; he could send at his will his legates into every country, who, perhaps only in deacon's orders, had full authority over the archbishop of the province ; the Pope was the only bishop, the source of all juris- diction, he could promulgate new enactments, and dispense with ancient canons of the Church Loftier pretensions than these could not be made ; yet it remained for the Popes, between Gregory VII. and Innocent III., (a.d. 1198,) to fill in the outline which Gregory had sketched. Gregory's successor, Victor III., only held the pon- tificate for a few months, and Urban II. followed, a.d. 1088, who, in a council held at Clermont in 1095, niade that appeal which led to the Crusades, of which, as being the cause of a further developement in the papacy, we must now give a short account. In 638 Jerusalem had fallen into the power of the Mahomedans, subject to whom Christians in the Holy Land, and the pilgrims who resorted to the Holy Place, led generally a tolerable existence, under the Patriarch of Jerusalem. But after 1073, when the Turks who had become converts to Mahomedanism conquered Palestine, the condition of the Christians became in- tolerable. It was in consequence of the sad report brought by Peter the Hermit from Palestine, that Urban II., at the Council of Clermont, proclaimed the first Crusade, promising the pardon of their sins ^ Of his deposition of Henry IV., Bossuet (i. 141) says : " On netrouve dans tous les si^cles qui ont precedd Gregory VII. aucun example d'un semblable sentence." Yet we have several instances under future Popes ; Alexander III. with respect to Frederic Barbarossa, a.d. 1168 ; Inno- cent III. to Otto IV., A.D. 1210, and King John of England, 1212 ; Gre- gory IX., A.D. 1238, and Innocent IV., a.d. 1245, to Frederic II. ; John XXII. to the King of Bavaria, a.d. 1333 ; and Pius V. to Queen Elizabeth a.d. 1569. 214 THE ROMAN CHURCH to all who should take arms against the infidels, and die in true repentance. The speech was greeted with exclamations of " It is the will of God," which hence- forward became the war-cry of the Crusaders, whilst thousands immediately enlisted by attaching a cross to their left shoulder, the badge of their profession as Christ's soldiers. For nearly two hundred years did the eruption from Europe into Asia last; not only kings and princes, but three emperors took their share ; Crusade followed Crusade ; twice was Jerusa- lem taken and re-taken. The first and only success- ful Crusade ended after a siege of forty days, by the taking of Jerusalem by Godfrey de Bouillon, a.d. 1099, and the setting up of a Latin kingdom at Jeru- salem, of which Godfrey himself was elected king ; the kingdom however, which comprised little more than the city itself, the country in general being under the Mahomedans, continued to exist only about eighty years. Another Crusade, of which St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, was the principal director and animating spirit, having been undertaken in 1147, on account of the great progress of infidelity, only ended in a disastrous failure. Saladin having extinguished the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and again bringing the Holy Sepulchre under the power of the infidels, in 1x89 a Crusade was undertaken by Frederic Barbarossa, the great Hohenstaufen, but on his way to the Holy Land he was drowned, whilst crossing a small river in Cilicia, and his army swept away by a terrible pes- tilence. The following year another expedition was headed by Philip Augustus of France, and Richard Coeur-de-Lion of England ; Richard gained some AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. advantage over Saladin, but Jerusalem was not re- covered, and the Mahomedan power was left es- tablished in Palestine. In 1203 another Crusade, under the French and Venetians, stopped short at Constantinople, and did not even attempt the recovery of the Holy Land. At Constantinople they established a Latin emperor, and not only so, but they cruelly persecuted the Greek bishops and clergy, whilst they set up a schismatical Church with a Latin Patriarch, Tomaso Morosini as bishop subject to the see of Rome. The Greek Patriarchs maintained their succession at Nice in Bithynia, and it was not till a.d. 1261 that they recovered Constantinople, and expelled the Latin usurpers. Other Crusades followed, but no permanent good was effected. Jerusalem was for a time recovered, but only to fall again into the hands of the Maho- medans ; and a.d. 1291 the city of Acre, where the feeble relics of the Crusaders, and the titular King and Patriarch of Jerusalem had resided, was cap- tured ; and so ended the Christian power in Pa- lestine. The Crusades were a lamentable failure. But, per- secuted as the Eastern Church was, it might at least have been hoped that its sad condition would have excited the sympathy of the Pope, and the union of the Eastern and Western Churches have been effected. Instead of that being the case, when Ger- manus. Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote to Pope Gregory IX., protesting that the Greeks were not schismatics, and entreating him to be at peace with them, that Pope, a.d. 1232, could exult over the downfall of the Greek Church, and taunt the patri- 2l6 THE ROMAN CHURCH arch that " calamities had come by the just judg- ment of God ever since they had refused obedience to St. Peter and his successors, while the Roman Church, the head and mistress of all Churches, had flourished in peace'." So the two Churches became more estranged than ever. But failure as the Crusades were, to Rome they were of the greatest importance, and from the first the Pope understood the great moral influence he would gain by setting himself at the head of them. The whole scheme of the Crusades rested on the supremacy of the Pope over every part of the Church ; he could give absolution to all who took part in them, from whatever part of the world they came ; for two centuries the Popes had the power of directing all the armies of Europe against the infidels ; they could exact enormous sums of money on pretence of send- ing aid to the Crusaders, or for absolving people from their vows : can we wonder that, after they had es- tablished their rights to create and depose kings, to be infallible, and superior to general councils, they came to assert claims which grew, if possible, higher as time grew on, and became, as the Reformation drew near, a burden both to Church and State ? It had been the custom, first set by Pepin, for the great people of the earth to lead the Pope's horse ^ ' Hussey, p. 167. ■ A burlesque of this was performed at the consecration of the hermit, Peter of Murrone, who, a.d. 1294, was consecrated under the title of Celestine V. The old man, drawn from his narrow cell on the mountain of Murrone at the age of seventy-two, emaciated with fasting and the austerities of his living, was surprised to find himself elected to the Pon- tificate ; at his consecration, at which a concourse of two hundred thou- sand persons were assembled, the new Pope, with his long white hair and roughly dressed, rode upon an ass, the reins of which were held on one side by the King of Naples, on the other by the titular King of Hungary. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 217 Conrad, the rebellious son of Henry IV., instituted the practice of holding the Pope's stirrup ; this cus- tom the Popes in time deduced from Constantine, whom the donation' represented as performing the duty for Pope Sylvester. In 1152, Frederic I., better known as Barbarossa, or Red Beard, second of the house of Hohenstaufen, succeeded to his uncle, Conrad III., as emperor. Convinced as firmly as any Pope of the sacredness of his office, and that he wore the imperial crown by the grace of God, no man was less likely to submit to papal encroachments. On his first visit to Rome he found Hadrian IV, (Nicholas Break- speare, the only Englishman ever raised to that dig- nity) Pope. He refused to comply with the custom of holding Hadrian's stirrup ; but when the Pope re- fused to bestow on him the crown on other terms, and he heard that the emperor Lothair had done so, he consented ; even then he did it so clumsily as to hold the left instead of the right stirrup ; the Pope remon- strated ; Barbarossa excused himself by observing that the Hohenstaufen family had not had much experi- ence in the duties of a groom. Quarrels between Pope Hadrian and the emperor followed, only to be ended by the death of the Pope ; and to break out again for twenty years longer with more momentous consequences under Alexander III., a pontiff who carried out the Hildebrandine princi- ples in their full vigour". ' When the Pseudo-Isidore Decretals did not go far enough, new his- torical supports, new laws, or new interpretations of old laws, were never wanting to justify further pretensions. ° It was in this pontificate that the quarrels between A'Becket and Henry II. took place. Alexander convened on his own authority, in the same manner as the emperors had done, the third Lateran Council, A.D. 1 1 79, by which it was decreed that the Pope should be elected by the college of cardinals alone, a majority of two thirds being required for a valid election. 2l8 THE ROMAN CHURCH Barbarossa transferred his allegiance to an anti- pope, holding for him his stirrup, and shewing him other marks of reverence. But Alexander not only- had the moral support of the kings of France and England, and was aided by the league of the Lom- bard cities ; but the half of Barbarossa's army was in one week destroyed by a fever then raging at Rome, so that he was defeated at the battle of Legnano, A.D. 1 1 76, and was forced to sue for peace. The two powers, the emperor and the Pope, were induced, by the mediation of the Doge Sebastian Ziani, to meet on July 24 at Venice. Alexander and two cardinals were sitting in the porch of St. Mark's, where three slabs of red marble now mark the spot. The em- peror, laying aside his outer robe, prostrated himself, and kissed the Pope's feet ; after which, advancing to the altar, he bowed his head, and received the kiss of peace. The next day, on the feast of St. James, the ceremony of kissing the Pope's feet was repeated, and after Mass the Pope was conducted by the em- peror to the door of the church ; the emperor held his stirrup, and was taking the bridle to lead the horse, when the Pope courteously excused him The mag- nitude of the victory to the papacy cannot be exag- gerated : it was the abandonment by the mightiest prince of the time of a project on which both em- peror and Pope had set their hearts. During the whole pontificate of Alexander, the power of the papacy increased ; the decrees of councils were guided by the dictation of the Pope or his legate ; by the system of appeals, every matter of importance was ^ The story of the Pope's placing his foot on the emperor's neck, whilst the choir sang Ps. xci. 13, "Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder," was a fabrication of the fourteenth century. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. brought under his jurisdiction, so that the way was paved for the full development of the papacy in the time and person of Innocent III. (a.d. 1198 — 12 16). The thirteenth century may be considered as the period of Rome's greatest height. Innocent III. (Car- dinal Lothair) claimed the inherent supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power, as of the soul over the body, as of eternity over time, as of Christ over Csesar, as of God over man. Matthew Paris indeed, accuses him of avarice ; yet, says Milman, " his high and blameless, and in some respects wise and gentle, character, seems to approach more nearly than any one of the whole succession of Roman pontiffs to the ideal light of a supreme pontiffs." Later pontiffs were more violent and more exor- bitant in their demands, but they only endangered their cause, and the repulsive and ill-timed arro- gance of Boniface VIII. (a.d. 1294) undermined and shook the papacy to its base. Cardinal Lothair was elected Pope when he was only thirty-seven years of age, and in deacon's orders. His two greatest wishes were the conquest of Palestine, and the re- formation of the Church ; these he believed could only be effected by the complete ascendancy of the Roman Church, and the obedience of all nationalities to the Roman see. The minority of the young Frederic II.'' greatly favoured him, and the kings of almost every state, not only petty kings such as Arragon, Leon, and Portugal, but great potentates ' Anno 1215. ^ Milm., Lat. Christ., B. ix. c. i. Barbarossa died a.d. 1189, leaving a son, Henry VI. ; who, dying in 1 197, in his thirty-second year, left a son, afterwards Frederic II., only ■two years of age. 220 THE ROMAN CHURCH also, were brought under subjection to him. By that fearful engine, the Interdict, he could make all submit to his will. When the Empress Con- stance, widow of Henry V,, applied to him for in- vestiture of the kingdom of Sicily for herself and her son Ferdinand, he would only grant it on the condition of the empress and her son, when he came of age, doing homage for the kingdom. He claimed to himself the right of judging between the candi- dates for the imperial throne, and himself choosing the emperor. He freed the subjects of Count Ray- mond of Toulouse, who was tainted with the Albi- gensian heresy, from their allegiance. He compelled Philip Augustus, King of France, to dismiss his wife, Agnes de Meranie, whom he had unlawfully married, and to take back his lawful wife, Inger- burga. How he sfibdued John of England ; how John resigned his crown and kingdom to the papal commissioner Pandulph, and received it back from his hands ; how he promised to hold the kingdom of England and Ireland by the payment of an an- nual tribute to Rome (although it is true that Magna Charta was passed against the Pope's will), we have seen in the last chapter. His views as to the autho- rity of the Church, that every heresy is an offence not only against the Church, but against society, which it was the duty of rulers to suppress at any cost, led him into the Crusade against the Albigen- sians ; and although he cannot be held responsible for its excesses, it is evident he viewed the enter- prise not only as lawful but praiseworthy. Magnificent above all was the close of his pontifi- cate, when the fourth Lateran Council (a.d. 12 15) met at his bidding at Rome ; that famous council, attended AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 221 by the representatives of two emperors, by all the Eastern patriarchs, either in person or by proxy, by seventy metropolitans, more than four hundred bishops, and eight hundred other prelates ; all acknowledging him as their head, and assembled to receive from his lips the law for Christendom ^, which for the first time engrafted the distinctive features of Romanism on the theology of the Church ; first the doctrine of Transub- stantiation, and then the necessity for people of both sexes confessing their sins at least once a-year to their own parish priest. For a time there were not wanting Popes to maintain for the papacy the high position at which Innocent had left it. Frederic II. was crowned emperor by Ho- norius, and the enmity between the Popes and the Hohenstaufens soon broke out into open hostility, which was to last throughout the whole of Frederic's life. With Frederic, the cause of the empire was lost ; and the contest ended in the complete triumph of the papacy, when, a.d. 1268, Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, the best and most innocent of the race, perished miserably on the scaffold at Naples, the victim of the relentless hostility of the papacy. The Pope had conquered the greatest power in the world. Boniface VIII. (a.d. 1294) failing to see the altered circumstances of the times, — a compact monarchy in France, under Philip the Fair, ready and able to take up the quarrel with the papacy, which the emperors had dropt ; in England, under Edward I., an impa- tience under papal exactions, and aspirations after civil and religious liberty, — put forth the same exalted pre- ' Abp. Trench, Medijeval Church, p. 161. 222 THE ROMAN CHURCH tensions as the ablest and most powerful of the Popes. As Innocent III. had interpreted "the greater light to rule the day" (Gen. i. i6) to be a symbol of the pa- pacy, so now with Pope Boniface the " two swords " (St. Luke xxii.) meant the spiritual and temporal power of the Pope. Philip of France, a man as selfish and rapacious as Boniface, wanted money, and he determined to follow the example of the Popes in laying excessive taxes upon the clerg}\ Edward, King of England, refused to pay the unjust tribute first granted by his grand- father, John. Boniface, in consequence, issued, a.d. 1296, the bull (called from its two first words) "Clericis Laicos," which forbade the clergy paying taxes without the consent of the Apostolic see ; whilst, a.d. 1302, he published the famous bull " Unam sanctam," in which it is stated, " we declare, affirm, define and pronounce, that it is altogether necessary to salvation, that every human creature should be subject to the Roman Pon- tiff." Philip of France was not thus to be terrified ; for now the Estates of the realm had declared aorainst o the Pope's claims, and by this time papal excommuni- cations had lost their terror. He forbade the French bishops to attend a council which Boniface summoned at Rome, and himself appealed to a general council. Boniface had retired to his native place, Anagni, from which he had intended to issue against Philip a bull of deposition on Sept. 8, 1303, but he was frustrated in a manner he little expected. In the early days of his pontificate, he had cruelly oppressed the Colonnas, one of the most powerful families in Rome. On the 7th September, a party of the Colonnas engaged in the service of Philip, set fire to the church of Anagni, AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 223 which adjoined the Pope's palace : Boniface managed with difificulty, and after having endured the greatest privations, to escape to Rome, where he found a re- fuge in the family of the Orsini, the hereditary enemies of the Colonnas. But his recent sufferings were too much for an old man nearly ninety years of age ; his mind gave way, and it was necessary to place him under restraint. The manner of his death is uncertain, and terrible accounts are given of it : the prophecy of his predecessor, Celestine V., towards whom he was guilty of great treachery, is said to have been fulfilled, " He entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like I a dog." But his end involved more than his own fate. He had tried to stretch the papal prerogative too far, and had failed ; and henceforth the power of the pa- pacy declined. With his humiliation is immediately connected the transfer of the papacy to Avignon ; from that transfer sprang the great schism of the West ; to heal that schism were held the three councils, and all these effectually worked together to bring about the Reformation. It was this Boniface who, a.d, 1300, instituted the Jubilee, under the pretence that it had always been a centenary festival, although the records were lost, to the attendants at which extraordinary privileges were attached. To establish the story, two very aged men were found, one of whom declared that when he was a boy, aged seven, he had attended the last Jubilee, a hundred years before ; and a Savoyard, of respect- able position, gave a similar account of himself At this Jubilee it was said there were 200,000 strangers in the city; the wealth that it brought to the papal exchequer was enormous ; and an eye-witness stated that he saw two of thq clergy employed night and 224 THE ROMAN CHURCH day in collecting the money which was left in St. Peter's ^ Clement V., the next successor but one to Boniface, who was elected in the interest of France, inflicted a heavy blow on the supremacy of Rome, by removing the papal chair to Avignon, where, for seventy years (1309 — 1377), a period which Italian writers compare to the Babylonian captivity, he and six succeeding Popes resided, all of whom, with a majority of the cardinals, were French. But the rapacity of the Popes by no means diminished ; on the contrary, as it was necessary for them to recruit their exhausted exchequer, it increased. The " mandates " for pre- ferring a particular clerk to a benefice now gave way to wholesale " provisions," a method of obtain- ing, before they became vacant, the next presentation to rich benefices by an "in commendam" tenure to the Pope and his followers. John XXII. (a.d. 1316) reserved to himself all the benefices of Christendom ; he imposed annates, or first-fruits of one year's value, on all benefices, and accumulated from England an incredible sum of money. In iT)']'], in the pontificate of Gregory XL, the papal throne, through the influence of Catharine of Siena, was moved back to Rome. On the death of Gregory, 1378, followed the great schism of the West, which shook the papacy to its centre, and exhibited the spectacle of two Popes excommunica- ting each other, and their followers ; so that the whole of Christendom was necessarily under the ban of ex- communication of one Pope or 'the other. One Pope • It was pretended that the Jubilee was a centenary festival. However, now that it was once instituted, it was found a very convenient mode of raising money ; so Clement VI. reduced the interval between the Jubilees to fifty. Urban VI. to thirty, and Sextus IV. to twenty-five years. AND WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. 225 reigned at Rome, having the allegiance of Italy, England, and the northern kingdoms ; the other at Avignon, with the allegiance of France, Spain, Sicily, and Scotland. The schism continued ; and with a view to healing it, was assembled the Council of Pisa, A.D. 1409 ; but it only made matters worse, for it set up a new Pope, so that now there were three, instead of two Popes. The Council of Constance was assem- bled^ (a.d. 1414 — 1418) for the same purpose; and a new Pope was elected, who was acknowledged by the whole of Europe. A third council, summoned to Pavia, but removed to Bale, a.d. 1437, made certain reforms, which the Pope, Eugenius IV., disliking, called a rival council at Florence ; but he was sen- tenced to deposition (although he retained posses- sion of his see), and a rival appointed by the Coun- cil of Bale. But the intentions of councils were frustrated, and all hope of reforming Christendom in that manner was abandoned. The evils complained of remained unchanged. In case of nearly all the Popes, the old vices of the papacy, nepotism and licentiousness, were conspicuous ; the belief became prevalent that the Popes were promoting, not the cause of Christ, but of Satan, and preparing the way of Antichrist. As the vices of kings had built up the power of the papacy, so the vices and arrogance of the Popes de- stroyed a power which otherwise would have been invincible. The " Reformation of the Church in its head and members " was demanded on all sides ; yet At this Council, amongst many matters of refonn, a resolution was passed that a Pope refusing to obey that or any other council lawfully assembled, should be punished. Q 226 THE ROMAN CHURCH. whatever might be the wishes of her people, Rome was not likely to reform itself whilst so many abuses were productive of such great advantages. Such was the state of things when, a.d, 15 13, Leo X. was elected Pope. In order to give an unbroken narrative of the Church of Rome, we have somewhat anticipated the order of events ; we now return to the Church in England. CHAPTER II. THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE ^ PROM the death of John, throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the history of Europe is little more than a history of the Popes ; and as during that period the history of our Church is more or less interlaced with that of Rome, it is an almost unin- terrupted series of papal encroachments and abuses. After John had violated the liberties of the' nation, the Popes considered themselves free to act with Eng- land as they chose, and observed no limits in their exactions ; and as the English Church had grown very rich, no country in Europe was subjected to such heavy taxations, or suffered so much from papal ava- rice. By this time the " forged decretals " had done their work ; and now the exalted notion of papal au- thority, the idea that the Pope of Rome was jure divino the successor of St. Peter, and had jurisdiction over the whole of Christendom ; that those who were not in communion with him were outside the pale of the Catholic Church, cut off from all hope in this world and the next, had become established in England ; and was a chain around the neck of the nation, self- imposed indeed, but which never ultimately failed to attain its end ; resistance might be, and constantly was made, but it was only for a time ; demands, how- ever unjust or extravagant, were sure, under threat of excommunication, to be conceded. Under the more able kings of England, Rome was kept somewhat • " Sasculum Wiclivianum " as it was called. Q 2 2 28 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, under control, whilst under the weaker monarchs abuses multiplied ; sometimes the Church, the king, and the nation protested ; but too often, as long as the Church only suffered, Pope and king found it to their interest to act in concert. If we add to this, that Rome had now departed widely in doctrine from the purity of the early Church ; that she had set at nought the discipline of antiquity, and had introduced new and strange doctrines ; we shall have some idea of the corrupt state of the English Church, at the period on which we are en- tering. John was succeeded by his son Henry III., a child of only nine years of age, and Pope Honorius, through his legate Gualo, Cardinal of St. Marcellus, who performed the coronation at Gloucester, assumed as his liege lord the guardianship of the young king ; everywhere he speaks of himself as sovereign of Eng- land, and Henry as the vassal of Rome. John had conceded to the chapters of cathedrals the right of electing their own bishops ; this, however, was of little avail, for the Pope claimed the power of annulling their election, thus virtually having the ap- pointment in his own hands. On the death of Archbishop Langton, the chapter of Canterbury elected as his successor one of their own number, Walter of Hemesham, and sent him to Rome for investiture. But they had overlooked the right of the king and of the suffragan bishops to be consulted, who therefore objected, and sent three commissioners to Rome to dissuade the Pope from confirming the election. The Pope rejected Hemesham, but insisted on making the appointment himself The commission- ers were taken by surprise, but in the end the Pope TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. 229 had his own way, for although he sanctioned the elec- tion of their nominee, Richard Grant, Chancellor of Lincoln, yet they had conceded a principle of which succeeding Popes always availed themselves. On the death of Grant, the king nominated Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester and Chancellor of Eng- land, to the primacy : the Pope annulled the election. John, Prior of Canterbury, an old man, was next elect- ed ; him also, on account of his age, the Pope rejected. The next selected was John Blunt, a scholar of known reputation. On this occasion the Pope took high moral ground ; Blunt was a pluralist, and pluralities were forbidden by the canon ^ ; it was allowed that the conge d'elii^e should be granted in England, but it was arranged at Rome that Edmund Rich, after- wards canonized as St. Edmund, a man of blameless life and conversation, should be the bishop elect, and the Pope sent in anticipation the pall to be conferred on him by the Bishop of London. On his death, a man of very different character and a foreigner, Boniface of Savoy, a violent and worldly- minded man, but who had the good fortune to be uncle to Queen Eleanor, was by her influence elected to the primacy; and the new Pope, Innocent IV., de- sirous of conferring an obligation on the king, wil- lingly confirmed the election. In the reign of Edward I., on the death of Boniface, the choice of the monks fell on their prior, Adam de Chittenden, whilst the king nominated as archbishop, Robert Burnell, his Chancellor, and one of the first Nevertheless, in the same reign (Henry IIL), the Pope confirmed Ethelmar, the king's brother, to the see of Winchester, although he was under age, and allowed him to hold other preferments " in commendam," amounting to more than a thousand marks a-year. 2 30 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, statesmen of the day. Gregory X. was Pope at the time, and mediated between the two, by annulling the election of both ; and, knowing the value of the Men- dicant Friars to the papal see, he appointed Robert Kilwardby, one of the Dominicans who had lately obtained a settlement in England. To prevent the proceedings of the Pope forming a precedent, a protest was made that the bishops of the Church of England had always been elected by the chapters under a conge d'elire from the king, who might object to the election, if he thought proper ; that, therefore, the case of Kilwardby was to the prejudice of the king and the church of Canterbury, and must be considered only as an exceptional favour, not to the Pope, but to his nominee. Still this did not prevent the Pope electing the suc- cessor of Kilwardby. In 1277, Nicholas III. became Pope, and wishing, like his predecessor, to favour the Mendicants, he appointed Kilwardby to the Cardi- nalate ; and when the archbishop resigned the see of Canterbury at Rome^ he appointed John Peckham, a Franciscan Mendicant, as his successor. The Pope, to justify his conduct, had a ready and plausible argu- ment. If a diocesan died at Rome, the Popes had for some time asserted the right (and that right was con- firmed by the Decretals) of appointing his successor ; the Pope argued that he had by analogy the same right in the case of a resignation at Rome. In the reign of Edward II., on the death of Robert Winchelsey, a.d. 13 13, the king having gone to France to attend the coronation of Louis X., the chapter of Canterbury elected as archbishop, Thomas Cobham ; He took with him to Rome a fortune of 5,000 marks ; and what is still worse, if it is true, the register of all his predecessors at Canterbury. TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. 231 the king, however, — one of those " who associated with buffoons, singers, actors, grooms, labourers, rowers, sailors, and other mechanics," and of whom " it may- become a question whether for their own good, and for the good of others, they should not be placed under restraint, and treated as idiots," — insisted on his right to appoint, and did appoint, Walter Reynolds, the son of a baker at Windsor ; "of all the primates who have occupied the see of Canterbury, few have been less qualified than he to discharge the duties de- volving upon a metropolitan However, Edward applied to Pope Clement V. to annul the election of Cobham, and to confirm Walter Reynolds, who, amongst his other numerous appointments, held the bishopric of Worcester ; and the pliant Pope, dreading the antipapal feeling that was arising in France, and not wishing to add to the number of his enemies, de- termined to conciliate the king of England, and so annulled the choice of the chapter, and confirmed the king's favourite. During the long reign of Edward III. no less than seven Archbishops of Canterbury were appointed, Simon Mepeham, a.d. 1328; John Stratford, 1333; Thomas Bradwardine, 1349; Simon Islip ^ also 1349; Simon Langham, 1366; William Whittlesey, 1368; Simon Sudbury, 1375 : and although under Edward several laws were enacted in opposition to Rome, yet all these archbishops were appointed either by, or through the intervention of, the Popes ; whilst since A.D. 1236, in the pontificate of Gregory IX., all bishops ■* Dean Hook, iii. 458. ' In the appointment of I slip, a hitherto unheard-of power was claimed ; he was appointed " per provisionem Apostolicam, spreta electione de eo." (Dean Hook, iv. 114.) 232 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, were obliged at their consecration to take an oath of fidehty to the papal see. The Pope claimed the right to appoint the bishops to the English sees, as successor of St. Peter, and spiritual head of all Christendom. But he had other rights also. He maintained that all kingdoms of the earth were under his temporal jurisdiction ; he was as far above the kings of the earth as "the sun is greater than the moon," so that as king^ he could impose taxes at his will. Pope Honorius, a.d. 1225, demanded through his legate, Otho, two marks from every convent in the kingdom ; and in the following year, two prebends in every cathedral : the latter de- mand, however, was received only with mirth and ridicule. Next came an order for the payment of a tithe on the annual income of all benefices, first a tenth, and afterwards a fifth, for a crusade against the emperor ; so that now the English Church was to be taxed, not for a crusade against the Saracens, but for a private quarrel of the Pope's. The bishops at first objected, but afterwards yielded to the demand. In 1240, Gregory IX. issued a brief requiring no fewer than three hundred of the first vacant benefices for Italians. Innocent IV. is said to have drawn an- nually from England, for the foreigners who had been appointed to English benefices, 70,000 marks, a sum more than triple the whole revenue of the crown ^. Nor did the avarice of the Popes stop here. They claimed the patronage of all sees vacant when the incumbent died in Rome, " vacantes in curia;" and, as appeals had to be made to Rome, and there were always many litigants attending the courts at Rome, the livings thus claimed were very numerous. ' Barrow, vi. p. 5. » Matt. Paris (vit. Hen. III.) TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. By the system of expedatives, mandats, or provisions (which had first begun under Hadrian IV., the only Englishman who ever occupied the papal chair), the Popes first asked, and next demanded, before they be- came vacant, the reversion of the presentations to liv- ings^ into which they thrust their favourites; the canons against pluralities were annulled, so that sometimes fifty or sixty benefices were held by the same person, who could not speak English, who never appeared in England, and provided for his duty by some under- paid and half-starved substitute. Add to these exactions, Annates, or first-fruits of one year's income on the presentation to a benefice, — these, by constantly removing clergymen from one benefice to another, could be made the source of an immense income ; money paid for the pall, which, having been at first conferred as a mark of favour, soon became a mark of confirmation, and ultimately the actual gift, of the metropolitan office ; Peter-pence, or Rome-scot, an annual tribute of a penny paid out of every family on the feast of St. Peter ; the large sums of money paid into the papal exchequer for appeals to Rome, for the probate of wills, the laws with regard to marriage which the Pope alone had power to sanction ; the laws of Church dues, of tithes, and other Church property ; if to these we add the fees paid for exemption from the Church's laws, for indulgencies, for pluralities and non-residence, we may form some idea of the extent to which papal extor- tions were carried, and of the consequent indignation which they produced. And yet even this catalogue does not convey the The system was prohibited under John XXIL, who, as mentioned in the last chapter, reserved to himself all the bishoprics of Christendom. 234 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, full extent of the evil. It must be borne in mind that for a long period the Popes lived at Avignon, and were Frenchmen ; so that this money was drained out of England to assist a country which was a rival of England. For many years past a papal legate had been established in the country, whose duty it was to look after the interest of the " curia " at Rome — for the term " ecclesia," (" church ") was now exchanged for that of " curia," (" court,") — to inform the Pope of everything that was being transacted in England, and to draw the uttermost farthing from the country ; whilst the extortions made by the legates themselves on their own account, are a constant subject of complaint on the part of the writers of that age. But it must not be imagined that the. English people ever willingly acquiesced in their subjection to Rome ; the whole history, from the time of John to the Refor- mation, disproves this. At one time a society was formed, which declared they would rather die than be plundered by the Romans and demanded the expul- sion of all foreigners from England. In 1239, a clergy- man who had been appointed to a living by the patron, Sir Robert Twinge, had been rejected by the Archbishop of York, acting under the Pope's orders. A complaint made to the Pope was on this occasion successful. In 1245 the English barons made a remonstrance, at the Council of Lyons, summoned by Innocent IV. ; but at that time Boniface of Savoy, the Archbishop of Canter- bury, who hated the English as much as the English hated him, threw all his influence on the side of the papacy, and therefore the grievances were unredressed. In the reign of Edward I., monks and priests were for- ' " Infamia enim curiae Papalis id promeruerat, cujus foetor usque ad nubes fumum teterrimum exhalabat." TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. bidden to send any money to their superiors abroad. In 1343, the Pope having made a charge of two thou- sand marks upon the next vacant benefices, the agents who came to collect the money were ordered by Ed- ward III. to quit the kingdom, under pain of impri- sonment. When, in 1365, Pope Urban V. demanded of the king the tribute of one thousand marks promised by King John, with the unpaid arrears of thirty-three years, the three Estates of the Realm, Clergy, Peers, and Commons, came to the unanimous decision that neither John, or any other king, had power to place the realm under such a thraldom, without the consent of the nation ; and the king at the same time, in order to shew his indignation at the Pope's rapacity, pro- hibited the payment of Peter-pence. It must be borne in mind, that since the reign of John a momentous change had been effected in the constitution of the country. Until the reign of Ed- ward I. the national council had been merely an as- sembly of the king's feudal tenants, not a really repre- sentative assembly. But in 1295 Edward I. called together a Parliament, founded on the same ideas as our Parliaments of the present day, which was to re- present all the classes or estates of the realm : the higher clergy and the barons sitting in person, and members from the lower clergy, as well as two knights for every shire, and two burghers for every borough, being elected to attend as representatives of the other classes of the people. No sooner was the character of the national assem- bly established, than it began an important series of legislative enactments, which shew that long before the Reformation it was found necessary to secure the in- 236 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, dependence of the Church against the exactions of Rome. Of those enactments, the most important were the " Statute of Provisors," and the " Statute of Praemu- nire." In 1350 Parliament unanimously passed the Statute of Provisors, which enacted that " in case the Pope collated to any archbishopric, bishopric, dignity, or other benefice . . . the collation to such dignity should escheat to the Crown, and the king and his heirs were to dispose of such preferments for one turn. And if any person should procure Reservations and Provisions from the Pope . . . that then the said Pro- visors, their Procurators and Notaries, shall be attached by their body and brought in to answer." This was followed by a more stringent act, which forbade causes relating to Provisions being taken into the papal courts. But when, notwithstanding the Statute of Provisors, it was found that papal interference iti the matter of patronage was not materially abated, the statute 16 Ric. II. c. 5, which is known as the Statute of Prae- munire, enacted that " whoever procures at Rome, or elsewhere, any translations, processes, excommuni- cations, bulls, instruments, or other things which touch the king, against him, his crown and realm, and all persons aiding and assisting therein, shall be put out of the king's protection, their lands and goods forfeited to the king's use, and they shall be attached by their bodies to answer to the king and his council^" The Statute of Praemunire, although unjustly turned against them in after time by Henry VIII., was not enacted against the clergy, but against the Pope. No- thing is clearer than that, in the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries, the Church of England, clergy as Blackstone, Commentaries, iv, 8. TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. well as laity, and the higher clergy in particular, though closely connected with and holding the doc- trines of the Church of Rome, was anti-papal ; and though the Church and State might sometimes differ as to what papal requirements were lawful and what not, yet all were united in resisting any encroachment made by the Pope on the rights, liberties, or persons of the Church or nation At the same time, there is no doubt that the English Church did hold the peculiar doctrines of Rome, when unfortunately Rome had deviated widely from the faith of the Primitive Church. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries theological learn- ing was at a low ebb. " It was the misfortune of the doctors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries," says the Abbe Fleury, " to know but little of the writ- ings of the Fathers, especially the more ancient, and to be deficient in the aids for well understanding them." The writings of the Fathers, and the decrees of councils were little known, except through the medium of the Book of Sentences, or the Decretuni of Gratian : the former of which was the basis of scholastic theology, the latter the text-book of the canonists, which, being written by a Benedictine monk holding very exaggerated notions of papal authority, tended greatly to increase the influence of the Popes The theology of the Schoolmen, which reached its full development in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies, the object of which was to engraft the philo- sophy of Aristotle" on the established Platonism which ' Dean Hook, iii. 18. Palmer, p. 233. ° Aristotle, through not being sufficiently understood, had not been con- sidered orthodox down to the time of St. Bernard, nor does he seem to 238 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, alone had hitherto been regarded as the orthodox phi- losophy of the Church, could not have done much towards dispelling the prevalent ignorance of the time. The dryness inseparable from scholasticism ; the lo- gical question with regard to universals, whether they are ' narnes ' or ' sounds ' (flatus vocis) as held by the Nominalists ; or ' objective realities,' corresponding to the ' ideas ' of Plato, as held by the Realists ; or, again, something between the two, ' conceptions of the mind ;' to the exclusion of the more important matters of the- ology, must have served rather to confuse than to edify. But these questions produced a marked effect on the religious tenets of the day. It is true that philosophy was regarded only as the handmaid of theology — " philosophia ancilla theologiae " — still, by the School- men everything was questioned and disputed ; doc- trine was established not so much by scripture and the ancient Fathers, and the oecumenical councils, as by reasoning and philosophy ; and even when any authority beyond reason was looked for as the ex- pounder of Holy Writ, the Church was taken as the first authority, and the Bible made only a part of the Church's teaching. With regard to the question between the Nominal- ists and Realists ; about the same time, or a little be- fore, it arose or rather revived (for it had before been raised in the eleventh century), the question as to the mode of the Presence in the Holy Eucharist was brought into prominence. It turned on the sense attached to the words really and truly. The * real Presence of Christ as asserted in the specula- tions of the Schoolmen was that of His abstract Per- have been held in favour by the Reformers. Luther styles him, "that most rascally knave, Aristotle" — " sceleratissimus ille nebulo, Aristoteles." TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. sonality ; that abstract Substance which, truly ex- isting in Itself, was capable of communicating Itself to the forms of bread and wine, and of thus being infinitely multiplied, without multiplication of Its own essence. It was at the same time, and owing to the same mode of reasoning, that the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church became developed, such as the " Treasury of Grace," which issued in the sale of indulgencies, and the Immaculate Conception; and although there was at the same time a growing desire for something better, both in doctrine and practice, the Schoolmen ° were the steadfast opponents of everything like improvement ; there was nothing, however corrupt, if it were part of Rome's teach- ing, that they were not ready to defend. The denial of the cup to the laity ; transubstantiation ; simony, if practised by the Pope ; purgatory ; indulgencies ; the burning of heretics ; matters like these they never questioned, or, if they did, it was only to establish them on a firmer basis than before This state of things was not altogether dissimilar to what we shall find to have existed in the eight- eenth century ; but unfortunately there was lacking " The principal Schoolmen were, Alexander of Hales, called the " Irre- fragable Doctor" (died A.D. 1245); Albert of Cologne, surnamed the Great, a Dominican ; St. Bonaventura, a Franciscan, a man of so sweet a temper and pure life that it was said, " In fratre Bonaventura Adam peccasse non videtur :" greater than any of these was St. Thomas Aqui- nas, the "Angelical Doctor;" Duns Scotus, whom Hooker calls "the wittiest of the school divines," an opinion in which posterity does not agree, for from him is derived the word " Dunce," or " Duns-man ;" William Ockham ; and one, probably a superior genius to any of them, who from the universahty of his gifts was called the "admirable Doctor," Roger Bacon. p Abp. Trench, Med. Ch. Hist., p. 267. 240 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, in the clergy the learning and the energy which characterized the rulers of the Church at the latter period. Without crediting all we read, we can easily be- lieve that the state of the clergy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was anything but satisfac- tory ^ but when they are accused of immorality, we must remember what that accusation probably means. The clergy at that time were forbidden to marry, but they did marry, and that was ever afterwards thrown in their teeth. Their wives were concubines, and they " concubinary priests ;" they were looked down upon, even as they were in the days of Eliz- abeth, and were accused, as they were by her, of immorality. Almost all the higher offices in the State were filled by clergy ; they were chancellors, ministers, re- gents, diplomatists, ambassadors ; we read of arch- bishops and bishops being engaged in wars, crusades, or other temporal occupations ; hence there was a general non-residence, to the great injury of the people: the presence of the bishops in their cathedral cities was rare, the visitations of their dioceses a ceremony of pomp and show, rather than for the purpose of instruction. The Popes gave the clergy dispensa- tions from the laws of the Church, in fact there was 1 " They were buried in all the surfeitings of a worldly life, haunted taverns out of measure, and stirred up laymen to excess, idleness, pro- fane swearing, and disgraceful brawls. They wasted their time and wealth in gambling and revelry, went about the streets roaring and out- rageous, and sometimes had neither eye, nor tongue, nor hand, nor foot to help themselves for drunkenness. In this worse than pagan desecra- tion of themselves they maintained their influence and authority by an impious prostitution of the power of the keys, and extorted by the terrors of spiritual censures the money and the obedience of their congrega- tions."—(Le Bas, Life of Wycliffe.) TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. 241 scarcely any law that was not frequently dispensed with ; the same persons would often hold several bene- fices, nay, several bishoprics together, dispensations of non-residence being granted them ; hence, amongst bishops and clergy alike, there was a spirit of world- liness, and self-indulgence, and a general neglect of their duties. The clergy were, as we have seen, often foreigners, ignorant of the English language ; even when they were Englishmen, the service was said in Latin, which the people did not understand at all, and the priests but little ; preaching had fallen into disuse, few having the gift, and fewer still the inclination to preach. " Babbling Sir Johns," " Sir John lack-Latin," "simple Sir John," "mumble- matins :" such were the familiar appellations of the parish priests; mass -priests they were, who could read their breviaries and no more ; scarcely able to say by heart the Pater Noster or the Ten Command- ments. It was the neglect and incompetence of the clergy that gave rise to the Mendicant orders, one of the most remarkable revivals in the whole history of the Church. Long before the Reformation, the old orders of monks had fallen into disrepute ; by the thirteenth century monachism, although in its time it had performed a useful office, was regarded as an effete institution. When we visit the ruins of the old monasteries, and think that the monks must have had a pleasant time, we do not consider that those sites, standing amidst the glories of na- ture, were once swampy marshes and barren moors, reclaimed by the sweat of their brow and the labour of their hands. The Benedictine monks were the agriculturists of Europe ; the Cistercians were the R 242 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, growers of wool, at that time the staple of England's wealth ; to them the country was indebted for food and clothing, and indirectly for much of its prospe- rity in trade and commerce". They were at once labourers and missionaries ; they laboured that they might have enough for their own subsistence, and to dispense charity to the poor, who came to the wicket-gate of the monastery to receive their alms, or gifts of bread and beer. Their life was not one of mere self-indulgence and luxury ; but was spent in fastings and mortification, and a perpetual routine of religious services. It is difficult to imagine how, in early times, the Church could have done without the monasteries. Not only were they places of re- fuge for those who were in trouble, or weary of the world ; but they were schools for the young, hospi- tals for the sick, asylums for the poor ; to them we are indebted for whatever remnants of ancient litera- ture we possess; they were the sole repositories of the learning in the land, one of the occupations of the monks being to chronicle the events of the time, and to copy the writings of the Fathers and the Holy Scriptures. But in time these monks became wealthy, and lived easy and comfortable lives, and were thus estranged from the poor ; religion was neglected, and lost its hold upon the people. Besides this, as the cities were growing in wealth and importance, the people were gathering more and more from the rural districts into the towns ; the pauper population, as it increased in numbers, increased also in misery ; at the best of times, the monasteries, which were built in secluded places, far from the busy haunts of men, could have ' Dean Hook, iii. 42. TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. effected but little good under such altered circum- stances. Some revival was absolutely necessary. It was during such dark times as these that the Mendicant orders, or Preaching Friars, first came into England, during the thirteenth century. They consisted of four principal orders, — the Dominicans (" Black Friars," or " Preaching Friars "), who came here about a.d. 1212; Franciscans ("Grey Friars," or "Minorites"), A.D. 1224; Carmelites, or ("White Friars"), a.d. 1250; Augustines, or ("Austin Friars"), a.d. 1252 : the chief of these being the Dominicans, founded by Dominic Guzman, a Spaniard of noble birth ; and the Fran- ciscans, by Francis, a native of Assisi. The primary principle of the older monks had been to fly from the world : the profession of the Mendi- cants was to go into the world ; to have no houses or possessions of their own ; to live in the narrowest cell on the hardest fare ; to identify themselves with the lowest of the people ; to live on alms, and to abide in any house where they were bidden. Wherever there was sin and misery, there we find the Friar taking up his abode ; in the low and swampy districts of large towns, in the poorest and most neglected quarters. Near the shambles of Newgate, on a spot appro- priately called Stink-lane ; in the parish of St. Ebbe's at Oxford ; by the town-gaol at Cambridge ; by the water-side at Norwich ; everywhere in the poorest parts of the cities ; preaching in the corners of the streets, or in the market-places, in plain, homely lan- guage, such as the poorest could best understand ; frequenting hospitals and lazar-houses, where others were afraid to enter; tending the lepers, and giving them the kiss of peace. A great revival at once took place ; everywhere crowds hung upon their words, and R 2 244 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, asked their blessing ; people gave up their possessions to take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and went forth and helped them in their work. In a few years, they had acquired greater influence than the older orders had possessed after two or three hundred years ; so that shortly after the death of St. Francis, his order alone numbered eight thou- sand houses. But before long the vow of poverty was evaded. They were not allowed to possess property, but they might enjoy the use of it. This they evaded by re- ceiving donations and benefactions to any amount, the property being vested in their strong ally, the Pope, to be applied, however, to their own use. This ingenious distinction enabled them to beg with all the greater importunity ; so that before long, whilst boast- ing of being the poorest, the Mendicant orders had become the richest, in Christendom. As early as A.D. 1259 they had erected magnificent buildings ; they were to be found no longer in the hovels of the poor, but in the halls of the rich and the palaces of kings. They found their way to the Universities, the Dominicans taking the lead at Paris, the Francis- cans at Oxford. Here they established separate houses for the use of students of their own order ; their example was soon followed by other religious societies ; munificent founders, obtaining a relaxation of the " Statute of Mortmain endowed colleges and halls for the education of poor scholars ; so that it ■ Lands held by corporate bodies were said to be held "en morte main," the tenants not being able to perform the ordinary feudal services. In the reign of Edward I., there being reason to fear that men would be wanting for the purposes of husbandry or the army, the government passed, in 1279, the Statute of Mortmain, to prevent the multipHcation of religious houses. i TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. is to the Friars we are indebted for the origin of colleges at our Universities St. Francis had contemned all learning, except just enough for the purpose of reading the Bible ; but now his followers cultivated learning, collected libraries at any price (for money was always forthcoming), and filled the Professors' chairs at the Universities. Many Friars were eminent as scholars, or divines. Roger Bacon, a.d. 1284, was the first adventurer in experi- mental science, for which he was imprisoned as a ma- gician. St. Thomas Aquinas, the most renowned amongst the Schoolmen, was a Dominican ; whilst the Franciscans could boast Alexander of Hales, Bo- naventura, and Duns Scotus. They soon became the most influential body in the country. " What the Jesuits were after Luther began the Reformation," says Mosheim, " that the Dominicans and Franciscans were for the thirteenth century, till the time of Luther. For that period they had the direction of nearly every- thing in Church and State; they held the highest offices, ecclesiastical and civil ; taught with almost absolute authority in all the schools and churches, and defended the authority of the Roman pontiff against kings, bishops, and heretics ^ The Friars, and especially the Franciscans, basked in the special favour of the Pope ; and through them, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Romish Church received an addition of some important doc- trines. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, held " that there is an immense treasury of good works ' The celebrated College of Sorbonne was founded by Robert de Sorbonne, a.d. 1251, for the secular clergy, and is believed to be the first instance in Europe where seculars lived and taught in a community. " Mosheim, c. xiii. p. ii. ch. ii. 246 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES, performed by holy men, over and above what duty requires ; and that the Roman pontiff is the keeper and distributor of this treasure, and able, out of the inexhaustible fund, to transfer to every one such an amount of good works as his necessities require, or as will suffice to avert the punishment of his sins." The next step was the sale of these indulgences, a fruitful addition to the papal treasury. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, which was not raised into an article of faith necessary for salvation till the pontificate of Pius IX., made great advances under the Friars in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The idea of her being a mediatrix for those who feared to approach the Saviour immediately, was inculcated even by St, Bernard. She was long styled the Queen of Hea- ven, and it was assumed that she was without sin. It was held by St. Anselm and others that she was conceived in sin, but sanctified either before or after her birth by the special operation of the Holy Spirit. A festival was instituted to her immaculate concep- tion ; but this did not originally relate to her own conception in her mother's womb, but to her having herself conceived the Saviour of the world. This dogma, which was opposed by St. Bernard, became in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a subject of strong controversy between the Franciscans and Do- minicans, the former believing, the latter denying, the immaculate conception ; but even those who rejected it, helped on the dogma by their extravagant lan- guage, which, whilst it attributed Dulia to saints, Latria to the Divine nature, and Hyperdulia to the human nature, of our Lord, afterwards transferred Hyperdulia from the Son to the Mother. St. Dominic TILL THE AGE OF WICLIFFE. 247 promoted ^ a devotion in honour of the Blessed Virgin. People were taught to repeat the Ave Maria one hundred and fifty times, and the Lord's Prayer fifteen times, once after each decad of Aves. The prayers were reckoned by beads, and the whole service ob- tained the name of Rosary. The excess of reverence amongst the Friars for the Virgin found expansion in a multitude of hymns ; amongst these may be men- tioned the " Dies Irae," probably the work of Celano, a Franciscan, and biographer of St. Francis ; and the " Stabat mater," which has been ascribed to Inno- cent III., but is generally supposed to be the com- position of another Franciscan, Jacopone of Todi^ The Popes, appreciating the zeal of the Friars, and desirous of lowering the authority of the bishops, to the subversion of all discipline, exempted their houses from episcopal jurisdiction, and gave them leave to preach in the churches, to administer the sacraments, and to bury the dead, without permission of the in- cumbents of parishes, or licence from the bishops. If the parish priest refused absolution, it could easily be obtained from the Friars ^' ; if the Friar was refused the churches, he would erect his ambulatory pulpit at some cross, from which he would rail at the sloth and ignorance of the parish priest, and inveigh against the secular clergy, whom he styled " dumb dogs," and " cursed hirelings." Thus the Mendicants, the militia of the Pope, be- came under his patronage the dissenters of the day, and a nuisance to society. Instead of begging for " He did not invent it, because it was in use A.D. 1 100, and is ascribed to various people, — St. Benedict, the Venerable Bede, and Peter the Hermit. y Rob. iii. 16. ' " Full swetely heard he confession, And pleasant was his absolution." — (Chaucer.) 248 THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES. alms, they would intrude themselves, uninvited, into houses, and after eating and drinking as much as they were able, we are told by Richard Fitzralph, Arch- bishop of Armagh in the fourteenth century, that, " not content with that, they would carry away with them either wheat, or meal, or bread, or flesh, or cheeses, al- though there were only two in the house ; " they would force themselves into the parsonage, where they were regarded as snakes in the grass. If they saw a fowl or a bottle on the table, they would betray their host's hospitality by denouncing him as a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber. By the time of Erasmus ' and Luther, they were the butt of every tavern ; " they were exhibited in pot-house pictures as foxes preach- ing, with the neck of a stolen goose peeping out of the hood behind ; as wolves giving absolution, with a sheep muffled up in their cloaks ; as apes sitting by a sick man's bed, with a crucifix in one hand, and with the other in the sufferer's fob ^" Notwithstanding, they were the Pope's right-hand men. This will explain, when we come to the Re- formation, which, under Henry, was a contest between him and the Pope for supremacy, why the smaller monasteries were destroyed first. The reason as- signed was that they were the most corrupt ; a truer reason may be found in the fact that the smaller monasteries were the abodes of the Friars, the Pope's staunchest allies, and, therefore, the king's strongest enemies. * Erasmus says that the world was groaning under their tyranny: "Tyrannide fratrem mendicantium, qui cum sint satellites sedis Ro- manse, tamen eo potentias ac multitudinis evadunt, ut ipsi Romano pon- tifici atque ipsis adeo regibus sint formidabiles." Prof. Blunt, p. 44. CHAPTER III. PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 'PHE removal of the papacy to Avignon was fatal to the independence of the Roman Church ; the great schism of the West was fatal to its unity. For seventy years, as has been already related, the Popes were mere puppets of the kings of France ; for fifty years afterwards the Christian world was scandalized by two rival Popes, the one dwelling at Avignon, the other at Rome ; and sometimes even three Popes at a time, each pretending to be Christ's Vicar, each as- sailing the other and his adherents with plots and ex- communications. " The calamities of those times," says Mosheim^, "were indescribable. For, besides the wars and contentions between the political fac- tions, nearly all sense of religion was in many places extinguished, and wickedness acquired greater bold- ness and impunity ; whilst the vicegerents of Christ were at open war with each other, the clergy laid aside all appearance of religion ; whilst conscientious people, who had believed that no one could be saved without subjection to Christ's Vicar, were thrown into the greatest perplexity and confusion." A firm re- sistance had, as we have seen, been made by the legis- lature in England to the exactions of the Pope ; now, not unnaturally, a doubt arose as to his dominion over the souls of men. The national spirit, which had been stimulated by the victories of Crecy and Poitiers, felt an instinctive opposition to the Popes who were living in France, * Cent. iv. part ii. ch. ii. 250 THE AXGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. the subjects of their enemy. Moreover, there had been of late a wider diffusion of learning and religion throughout the world. We have seen that the monks had founded colleges at the Universities ; learning had begun to flourish at Oxford and Cambridge, and was no longer confined to the higher clergy ; the in- creasing wealth of the trading and manufacturing towns added influence to the middle classes ; and a desire arose on the part of the laity that the high offices of State should be held by them, instead of, as hitherto, by the clergy. This intellectual revival led people to enquire for themselves, and to understand the existing abuses of the Church ; to desire a limitation of the power of the Popes, and a greater decency in the lives of the clergy. Matthew Paris, himself a strong ad- herent of the Pope, had strongly attacked the abuses of the Church, and insisted on a revival of religion. The necessity of a Reformation of some kind or other was becoming daily more apparent, the question was as to the best means to effect it ? was it to be done through a general council, or by the Pope was it to regard the external administration of the Church, which most people allowed to be faulty, or to extend to doctrine, of which only a few complained ? It was not, at first, against the doctrines, but the discipline of the Church, more especially with regard to the Friars, that Wicliffe arose as a Reformer about the middle of the fourteenth century. Others before him had boldly taken their stand against the abuses of the Church, a few of whom we ought here to mention. Edmund Rich, elected Archbishop of Canterbury in 1234, even before his election was confirmed, con- vened a council at Westminster, and presented a PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. Strong petition to the king, Henry III., in which he and the suffragan bishops complained that England had been disgraced by being made tributary to the Roman pontiff, and exhorting the king to dismiss his foreign ministers, and to call native subjects to his council. The petition concluded : "If within a very short time you do not redress these grievances, we solemnly warn you that against you, as against all who shall run counter to what has now been said, we shall put in force the censures of the Church ; a mea- sure which is only delayed until the consecration of our venerable father, the Archbishop of Canterbury*^." Henry was alarmed : the foreigners were banished ; English prelates were appointed in their stead ; at the same time the king secretly applied to the Pope to send a legate into the country, and thus virtually su- persede the archbishop. The end will be best told in the words of Collier ° : " The ill-usage put upon him " (the archbishop) "by the legate, made him quit the kingdom, and retire into France. And here by grief, excess of abstinence, and other austerities, he wore out his constitution in a little time. The encroach- ments of the court of Rome, 'twas thought, sat heaviest on his spirits, and shortened his life." He was after- wards canonized as St. Edmund of Pontigny, " at whose shrine the devout were seen to kneel, until, at the period of the French Revolution, the shrine was demolished, and the bones of St. Edmund cast abroad r Robert Grostete, or Greathead% another of these Wendover, iv. 292. = Vol. i. 446 (fol. Edit.) Hook, iii. 226. ' "Seu Capito dictus," says Cave. Fuller says he received his sur- name from the greatness of his head, " having large stowage to receive, and store of brains to fill it." Matt. Paris describes him as : " Domini 252 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. reformers, a man remarkable for sanctity of life and strictness of discipline, was born in London about A.D. 1 1 75, and was appointed to the see of Lincoln A.D. 1235. He was at first the friend and patron of the monks, but when these received the tithes and paid a half-starved vicar to perform the Sunday duty for them, he determined to set about the reform not only of the monasteries and of his own diocese, but of the Church at large ; and on account of the ex- emption granted by the Pope to the monasteries, he sought the Pope out, and upbraided him to his face. "Be content," said Pope Innocent, "you have de- livered your own soul by your protest, but if I please to shew grace to these persons what is that to you ?" When Pope Innocent IV. demanded, through two Franciscans, a tax of six thousand marks from the diocese of Lincoln, Bishop Grostete refused to give them ; and when he appointed his nephew, Frederic di Livania, a young child, to a canonry at Lincoln, he disallowed the appointment ; and the Pope, acting on the advice of his cardinals, thought it wise to yield to a man so popular both in France and England. On hearing of his death, the Pope exclaimed : "I re- joice, and let every true son of the Roman Church rejoice with me, now that my great enemy is re- moved ;" and he ordered a letter to be written, which, however, the cardinals refused to allow, to Henry, ordering the bishop to be exhumed, and to be cast out of the church and burnt. Sewell, Archbishop of York a.d, 1256, a friend of Papae et regis redargutor manifestis, praelatorum correptor, presbyterorum director, Clericorum instructor, scholarium sustentator, populi prjedicator, incontinentium persecutor, scripturarum sedulus persecutator, Romanonim malleus et contemptor." PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. St. Edmund and Bishop Grost^te, when Alexander IV. appointed Giordano, an Italian, who could not speak English, to the deanery of York ; and again, when he appointed some Italians to benefices in his diocese, refused to institute them ; whereupon the Pope ex- communicated him, and under that sentence he died. Other men of the same stamp were Bradwardine, chaplain to Edward III., for a few weeks only, a.d. 1349, Archbishop of Canterbury; Thursby, Arch- bishop of York A.D. 1360, who promoted the read- ing of the Holy Scriptures in English ; and Fitz- ralph. Archbishop of Armagh a.d. 1347, who ex- posed before the Pope the evil practices of the Friars, and is said to have translated the Bible into the Irish language. The unknown author of" Piers Ploughman's Vision," a work of the fourteenth century, exposes, in severe terms, the corruptions of the Church, and the sectarian spirit of the clergy. He complains of men having taken away the honour due to God ; of the worldly- mindedness of the priests, of the celibacy of the clergy ; he asserts that the Pope is Antichrist, and has no power over purgatory. He represents himself as in search of a creed, but the sectarianism of the clergy baffled him ; the Dominicans told him not to be a Franciscan, the Franciscans not to be a Dominican, and so on with the other orders. He could get nothing out of any of them but a negative answer, till he applied to a poor ploughman, who in every respect differed from the Friars, for he represented the " Di- vine Wisdom." But a greater far than any of these was John Wicliffe, who was the forerunner, if not the actual author, of the Reformation. THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. Wicliffe, who was a great admirer of Bishop Gros- t^te, as well as Archbishop Fitz-Ralph, to whom he often refers in his writings, was born at a village of the same name as himself in Yorkshire, a.d. 1324, and appears to have been educated at Queen's and Merton Colleges, Oxford ; he ranked high as a school- man, and still more as a divine, drawing his the- ology from the Bible, a peculiarity at that time which gained for him the title of " Evangelical," or Gospel Doctor. We first find him brought into prominence in 1360, as the champion of the University against the Mendi- cants, who had rendered themselves obnoxious, through their attempts to get all the teaching of the University into their own hands, and to draw off students into their own monasteries. When, in 1365, Pope Urban V. demanded the tribute promised by King John, the pen of Wicliffe added its weight to the unanimous decision of the Church and nation, that the act of John, without the concurrence of the national assembly, was illegal. In 1372 he took his doctor's degree, which at that time involved the duty of delivering divinity lectures at the University. Two years afterwards King Ed- ward III. issued a commission, of which John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was head, to proceed to Bruges, for the purpose of conferring with the Papal Nuncios with regard to the number and value of English bene- fices held by foreigners, and Wicliffe was appointed second on the commission. He remained at Bruges two years, and on his return he was presented by the king to the prebend of Aust, in the collegiate church of Westbury, and afterwards to the rectory of Lutter- worth, which henceforth became his home. Whilst PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. at Bruges, he obtained such an insight into papal cor- ruption, and inveighed with such earnestness against the evils of the papacy ^ and its allies, the Mendicants, that, A.D. 1377, Gregory XI. issued from Avignon three bulls addressed to Sudbury, Archbishop of Can- terbury, and Courtney, Bishop of London, complaining of the remissness of the bishops and the University of Oxford in extirpating heresy, and ordering the prose- cution of Wicliffe. Wicliffe, attended by John of Gaunt, and Earl Percy, the Earl-Marshal of England, ap- peared before the commission in St. Paul's on 19 Feb- ruary, 1377. The intemperate conduct of John of Gaunt, a man of ungovernable temper, whose friend- ship for Wicliffe arose rather from his hatred of Court- ney and the bishops, than any love to the Church, and who threatened to drag Courtney out of the cathedral by the hair of his head, brought on Wicliffe a moral defeat, and he was dismissed with a significant hint not again to mix himself up in party politics. The following year he was summoned before a council at Lambeth, to which he submitted a declaration of his faith in eighteen articles. On this occasion, the sym- pathy of the mob was enlisted in his favour, and alarmed the bishops ; whilst a message from the Prin- cess of Wales, the mother of the young king, led them to stop the proceedings, and dismiss Wicliffe with an admonition. But the trouble and anxiety which he had endured brought Wicliffe to death's door from a fever at Ox- ford. His old enemies, the Friars, with the aldermen of the city, sought him out, and bade him prepare for death, which his treatment of them had brought upon ' His language with regard to the Pope was strong; he calls him " the proud, worldly priest of Rome," " the most cursed of clippers and purse- curvers," i.e. purse-cutters. 256 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH, him. Wicliffe, ordering himself to be raised on his pillow, exclaimed, " I shall not die, but live, and de- clare the evil deeds of the Friars." And he did live ; and his language became bolder and stronger. The great schism of the West had broken out that year, of which Wicliffe declared that Christ had " cloven the head of Antichrist." The next year he proceeded further, and attacked the doctrines of Rome. He declared Transubstan- tiation not to be founded on Scripture, and pro- fessed the doctrine of Berenger to be the original doctrine of the Roman Church ^ ; he asserted his belief in a Real, although not a carnal Presence, and ex- pressly disallowed the doctrine that the Eucharist is in no wise Christ's Body\ But now that he had advanced to the attack of doc- trine, he stood alone, his friends, and amongst them John of Gaunt, refusing to take part with him any longer, and the latter urged him to be silent ; whilst the insurrection of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, which occurred at the time, in which Sudbury, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was murdered, although it had certainly nothing to do with the teaching of Wicliffe and the Lollards, was imputed to him, and prejudiced his cause. His old enemy, Courtney, now became archbishop • and in a Convocation held under him at Oxford, Wic- liffe's opinions were condemned, and he himself for- bidden to teach in the University. He thought it, therefore, prudent to retire to Lutterworth, where he ended his simple but eventful life. He was probably 8 " Olim fuit fides Ecclesiae Romanae in professione Berengarii, quod Panis et Vinum quas remanent post benedictionem, sunt hostiae con- secrator." " Eucharistia habet virtute verborum sacramentalium, tarn corpus quam sanguinem Christi, vera et realiter ad quemlibet ejus punctum." PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. Indebted to the great schism in the Roman Church, which gave that Church work enough to occupy it at home, to being allowed to end his days in peace. He was seized with an illness during Mass, on the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, and died on the feast of Pope Sylvester, a.d. 1384. It would be unjust to attribute to Wicliffe all the opinions of his followers, the Lollards ; but that he held many opinions with which Churchmen cannot sympathize, there is no doubt. Such, for instance, as the wickedness of the priest vitiates the acts of his ministry ; tithes are mere alms, to be given or with- held at the option of parishioners; Church endowments may be claimed by the patron, or the king. So that we may be thankful the Reformation was not carried out by him. He was a man to pull down a house, not to build one up. He would have pulled down the Church of Rome, but with it he would have pulled down the Catholic Church also, and would have left no foundation on which to build the super- structure. But there is one work for which he deservedly merits the obligations of English Churchmen, and that is, his translation of the whole Bible into English. Sir Thomas More, indeed, asserted that Wiclifife's was not the first translation ; but this assertion has never been verified. Translations of certain portions, it is true, had before appeared. Csedmon, in the seventh century, had paraphrased detached portions of the Bible in verse ; Bede translated St. John's Gospel ; Aldhelm the Psalms ; the translation of the four Gos- pels had^been begun, and perhaps finished, by King Alfred; Elfric translated the Pentateuch, and some other books of the Old Testament, and some of the s 258 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. New ; the Normans translated the Psalter into their own dialect. But Wicliffe's was the first translation of the whole Bible. We must remember that the art of printing had not then been invented, and that every book had to be written with the pen. The cost of Wycliffe's Bible in 1429 was £2 i6i-. Zd., when money was about the tenth of its present value. We are told of the great value which people put upon its possession. Those who could not afford to buy the whole volume, would give a load of hay for some favourite chapters. The possession of the book was a dangerous one ; the for- bidden treasure was often hidden under the floors of houses ; people would escape to the woods, there to read in solitude, or would sit up all night with locked doors, for fear of surprise. The Word of the Lord must have been precious in those days, when people would risk their lives for its possession ; not unfre- quently scraps of the Bible were burnt, with their pos- sessors, at the stake. Wicliffe's translation unfortunately was made from the Vulgate, as he was unacquainted with the original language of the Bible. Yet the translation was no contemptible one. "At this day," says Professor Blunt', "the New Testament (the Old has never been printed) might be read in our churches without the ne- cessity of many, even verbal, alterations ; and, on com- paring it with the authorized version of King James, it will be found that the latter was hammered on Wicliffe's anvil. It was inevitable there should be imperfections ; but they were mostly removed in the later and more popular version of John Purvey''." ' Reformation, p. 95. ■ Truth compels us to state, that in the persecution which followed PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. Of course, the translation of the Bible met with strong opposition. The historian, Knighton, says that Master John Wicliffe, in translating the Bible from Latin into English, has rendered it so common, that " the Gospel pearl is cast abroad, and trodden under foot of swine." In the primacy of Archbishop Arundel, the successor of Courtney, it was enacted, that " no one henceforth do translate any text of the Holy Scripture into the English tongue, or any other, by way of book or treatise ; nor let any book or trea- tise now lately composed in the time of John Wicliffe, or since, or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or in part, in public or in private, under fine of the greater excommunication." It has been said before that Wicliffe was the fore- runner, if not the actual author, of the Reformation. No country, under ordinary circumstances, would seem less likely than Bohemia to be influenced from Eng- land, But Richard II. had married a Bohemian prin- cess, " the good Queen Anne." The number of tracts which Wicliffe wrote during his retirement at Lutter- worth seems incredible ; these tracts having after his death been carried into Bohemia, as is supposed by the Bohemian ladies and attendants who returned there after the queen's death, received an extensive circu- lation in that country ; the extent may be judged from the fact that Lupus, Bishop of Prague, consigned two hundred of his works to the flames, because they con- tained heresy. Some of his works, however, escaped, and his opinions were eagerly taken up in Bohemia by a young man named John Huss. Huss was in against the Lollards (the first occasion on which heresy in England was made punishable with death), John Purvey recanted ; it is probable, how- ever, that he afterwards recanted his recantation. S 2 26o THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. consequence summoned before the Council of Constance (a.d. 1414 — 1418), by which he was condemned to death ; being degraded from his orders, and thus be- coming again a layman, he was committed to the flames, his ashes and unconsumed pieces of his clothes being thrown into the Rhine, lest the people should treasure them as relics. Ten months afterwards, his old friend and companion, Jerome of Prague, was condemned by the same council to the same fate. This Council of Constance also ordered the bones of Wicliffe to be burnt, a sentence which, however, was suspended till the time of Pope Martin V., in 1428. The prelate who saw the sentence carried out was Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, once Wicliffe's friend, and the champion of his opinions ; by his order the ashes were thrown into the Swift, the stream that flows by Lutterworth ; but the Swift bore them to the Avon, the Avon to the Severn, the Severn to the Sea, to be dispersed into all lands ; " which things," says Professor Blunt " are an allegory." Thus Wicliffe prepared the way for Huss, and Huss for Luther. The followers of Wicliffe, who were called Lollards — (a name probably derived from their practice of singing Psalms — " lollen " or " lullen," in one of the old German dialects, signifying " to sing," as a mother " lulls " her child to sleep — ) so rapidly increased, that, not long after Wicliffe's death, one half of England was said to have been Lollards ; the University of Oxford for a long time remained Wicliffite, whilst at court " the good Queen Anne " was known to be well disposed to them ' Reform., p. 85. " That she was a diligent reader of her Bible, we learn from the sermon which Archbishop Arundel preached at her funeral, " quod quamvis ad- PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 261 But the Lollards, who began with teaching the ex- treme doctrines of Wicliffe, ended by preaching ex- treme revolution, not only in Church, but also in State, and so became dangerous members to society at large. As to the Church, they lost all reverence for the Sac- raments ; dispensed with the services of the priest in matrimony ; ordained their own ministers " ; claimed the right of nuns and monks to marry ; despised Saints' days, and treated the Lord's day as a mere Jewish ordinance ; they would willingly have stripped the churches, spoiled the monasteries, and confiscated the Church's lands ; so that they were regarded not only as heretics, but as rebels. King Richard was averse to persecution, so under him the Lollards were allowed to escape with impunity. To Arundel, who, a.d. 1397, had succeeded Courtney in the primacy, and to the clergy °, Henry IV. owed his usurpation. Arundel was the inveterate hater of the Lollards ; to his primacy we must attribute the first laws against heresy, and the beginning of those fearful religious persecutions which, for two centuries onward, were the disgrace of England. Hitherto ex- communication had been the only punishment for spi- ritual offences, and the Lollards did not care for ex- communication. Henry was determined to strengthen his doubtful title by the alliance of the Church ; it has been said that to the clergy the sanguinary statute, vena esset et peregrina, tamen quatuor Evangelia in linguam Anglicam versa et doctorum commentariis declarata, assidue meditaretur." The translation she used must have been Wicliffe's. " Walsingham says of them : " in tantam sunt evecti temeritatem, ut eorum Presbyteri more Pontificum novos crcarent Presbyteros, asserentes quemlibet sacerdotem tantam habere potestatem conferendi sacramenta ecclesiastica quantum Papa." " This is the only instance in history, in which the clergy, as a body, were disloyal. (Southey's Book of the Church, 208.) 262 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. " de haeretico comburendo," is entirely attributable ; it is certain they bore their share in it ; but it was a sin of the whole nation P; and a.d. 1400, the first law under which, in England, heresy was made punish- able with death, was passed. The statute sets forth that " diverse false and per- verse persons, under colour of dissembled holiness, preached and taught new doctrines and heretical opi- nions, made unlawful conventicles, held schools and wrote books ; that they refused the authority of the bishop, and wandered from diocese to diocese, stirring up the people to insurrection and sedition." Trials in the civil courts were suspended ; offenders against the act were to be proceeded against accord- ing to the canons ; being convicted by the diocesan, they were fined and committed to prison ; if they re- fused to abjure, on a certificate from the bishop or his commissary of their being condemned for heresy, the sheriffs and their officers were constrained " forthwith in some high place, before the people to do them to be burnt," "to the end that such punishment might strike in fear to the minds of others." Such was this execrable statute ; and from the time of its passing to the Reformation, except when the country was too much engaged in its struggles with, or in, the " Wars of the Roses," to think about the Church ; when, to use the beautiful language of Ful- ler, " the very storm was their refuge," the history of the Church is an almost unbroken succession of martyrs and confessors. Within a few months of the passing of the act, William Sautre, priest of St. Osyth, in the city of p Rot. Pari., iii. 459 : it was the act of " Praslati et clerus ac etiam communitates dicti regni in eodem Parliamento." PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 263 London, was its first victim. He had, when in the diocese of Norwich, confessed himself a Lollard, but had recanted ; in London, having expressed his denial of transubstantiation, he was convicted as a relapsed heretic. Having undergone a sevenfold degradation from his different orders, from priest to sexton, and his tonsure being rased away. Archbishop Arun- del delivered him as a secular person to the secular authorities; and Feb. 26, 1401, he was burnt at Smithfield. The second victim was John Badby, a tailor, who, being convicted of heresy by his diocesan, was brought to London and burnt at Smithfield on March i, 1410. From this time the persecution increased. But now Lollardism assumed its political rather than reli- gious aspect, and became more obnoxious to the civil than the ecclesiastical power. Hence the bishops were disposed to deal more leniently with the Lol- lards ; instead of handing them over to the civil power, they frequently kept them imprisoned, at their own expense, in their palaces ; and it is to this " the Lollards' Towers," which still exist at Lam- beth and some other palaces, are supposed to owe their origin. The most famous victim was Sir John Oldcastle, commonly called, by right of his wife, Lord Cobham, a distinguished soldier, who having embraced the doctrines of Wicliffe, soon drifted into the socialist doctrines inherent to Lollardism. He sought to in- timidate the king and hierarchy, by affixing notices to the London churches that the Lollards, 100,000 strong, were ready to withstand all opposed to them. When cited to appear before Archbishop Arundel, he at first absented himself, and was pronounced contu- 264 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. macious ; but being apprehended, his opinions were pronounced by a court of clergy to be heretical ; he was excommunicated and committed to the Tower, from which however, owing, it is supposed, to court favour and the connivance of the authorities, he con- trived to escape. Henry V. had not long been king, when news was brought to him at Eltham that Lord Cobham, at the head of 25,000 men, was marching on London; the king managed to crush the movement at the outset ; Lord Cobham escaped, but thirty of his followers were captured, and were first hung as traitors, and then burnt as heretics. Three years afterwards, being again engaged in treasonable designs, he was himself captured; and a.d. 141 7, as he shewed no signs of recanting, he was hung in chains at St. Giles-in-the- Fields, over a slow fire, praying to God, and com- mending his soul to his Redeemer. The only writer who had set himself to the work of convincing the Lollards, was Reginald Peac(5ck, at first Bishop of St. Asaph, from which, in 1449, he was translated to Chichester. In 1457, in the primacy of Bourchier, Peacock, a zealous defender of the Church against Lollardism, and one who in the present day would be called an Ultramontane, had the misfortune to be mistaken for a Lollard, and was only saved from the flames by a public abjuration at St. Paul's Cross. The Councils of Pisa, Constance and Bale had de- clared the Pope to be only "primus inter pares," and answerable to the Church, by which he might be de- posed. Against this Peacock, then Bishop of St. Asaph, had preached in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross ; in it he maintained that the Pope was the source of all power, and other bishops only his delegates ; he PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 265 advocated papal provisions and the payment of an- nates, and so much was his conduct approved at Rome, that he was, as stated above, translated in 1449 to the see of Chichester. Unfortunately for him he at- tempted to effect a reconciliation of the Lollards to the Church, and with that view wrote a book en- titled a " Treatise of Faith." In the book he shews that Scripture is the only perfect and substantial basis of belief ; he seemed also somewhat inconsistently to call in question the infallibility of the Church ; but whatever there was in the book, there was nothing in it of Lollardism. He was, however, expelled from the House of Lords ; his books were pronounced by Archbishop Bourchier to be heretical, and himself to be burnt or to abjure ; he preferred the latter ; habited in his episcopal robes, he at St. Paul's delivered up his books to be cast into the flames ; he confessed his faults, and abjured every erroneous tenet imputed to him ; and he passed the remainder of his life in soli- tary confinement, under circumstances of great cruelty, — all writing-materials and all books, except a Bre- viary, a Mass-book, a Psalter, and a Bible, being taken from him, — in Thorney Abbey, in Cambridge- shire, where he died The period between a.d. 1455 H^S, was taken up with the Wars of the Roses, and was one of the most disastrous periods of English history. In 1485 Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who was recognised as head of the Lancastrian party, defeated and slevy Richard HI. at the battle of Bosworth ; and having ■> In a statute of King's College, Cambridge, provision was made that every scholar, at the end of his probation, should abjure the errors or heresies "Johannis Wiclif, Reginaldi Peacock," &c. (Hardwick, Mid. Ages, 422 n.) 266 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH, married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., thus uniting the rights of the rival parties, became king, under the title of Henry VII. His reign, which brought peace to the State, brought also a renewal of persecution to the heretics ; so many heretics were burnt, that Erasmus wrote from Cambridge (an inex- cusable joke), that in consequence the price of wood was increased''; at this time Bishop Nix, of Norwich, who could speak of those whom he suspected of heresy as " savouring of the frying-pan," bears an infamous notoriety. The venerable age of fourscore years was no protection to a lady of some quality, named Joan Boughton, who was for heretical opinions burnt at Smithfield, a.d. 1498. A still crueller scene was wit- nessed at Amersham, at the execution of Tylsworth in 1506, when his only daughter, who was suspected of holding the same opinions as her father, was com- pelled not only to witness his death, but with her own hands to light his funeral pyre. Many people, under such a cruel persecution, ab- jured their opinions. Such were obliged to carry a faggot at the execution of those who had greater courage than themselves ; their hands being then tied, they were branded on the cheeks with a hot iron, thus " bearing," as it was said, " in their bodies, the marks of the Lord Jesus," whilst for the rest of their lives they were obliged to wear a faggot worked on the left sleeve. By the time that Henry had become king, it was remarked on all sides that a Reformation in the disci- pline of the Church (for of a doctrinal Reformation, except the Lollards, there were but few advocates), ' " Istis hsereticis vel hoc nomine sum iniquior, quod, instante bruma, nobis auxerint lignorum pretium." PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 267 and with regard to the pretensions of the Popes, could not be much longer deferred. Its necessity had been admitted even by cardinals of the Church of Rome, at the three councils summoned at Pisa, Constance, and Bale, each of which was attended by delegates from the English Church, Of late years a great revival of learning and litera- ture had taken place. The study of the Classics had been introduced into Italy and the neighbouring coun- tries by the Greeks, who had taken refuge there when the Turks captured Constantinople. The revival of learning was liberally patronised at Rome itself. In 15 13, Leo X., son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the patron of literature and art, and the first to esta- blish a printing-press in the country, became Pope at the early age of thirty -seven, and under him Rome became the centre, where all the scholars of the world met. A similar revival had taken place in England. In 1476 Caxton had set up the first printing-press; books had multiplied ; the study of Greek and He- brew, which enabled people to read the Bible in its original language, was encouraged. In 1506 Erasmus, who may be called the parent of Biblical criticism, had gone to Cambridge, where he was appointed Margaret Professor of Divinity and Professor of Greek. Though he never left the Church of Rome, he confessed and exposed its errors ; and he taught, quite as strongly as Luther, or any of the Reformers, with regard to the Bible, that " the sun should not be more common than Christ's doctrines." It was Erasmus who first dared to call in question the hitherto deemed infallible au- thority of the Vulgate ; to publish for the Western Church (and that with the sanction of the Pope him- 268 THE ANGLO-ROMAN CHURCH. self), in the original Greek, the Gospels and Epi- stles of St. Paul, and to explain in his paraphrase the hitherto sealed meaning of the New Testament. In 1526 Tyndale had published, at Worms, his translation of the New Testament in English. Under the auspices of Archbishop Warham and Bishop Tun- stall, search was made, and all the copies that could be found were solemnly burnt in Cheapside in the following year ; but the supply was not diminished ; men would have their Bibles, although the price was about three shillings and sixpence, or the value of a working-man's fortnight's wages. Books, and copies of the Bible, as well as facilities for reading and understanding them, multiplied ; the foundation of colleges, and other seminaries of educa- tion, promoted largely the study of the ancient au- thors ; the intelligence of the middle and lower classes induced a spirit of enquiry, a desire to learn whether the doctrines they had blindly accepted were, or were not, really the doctrines of the primitive and best ages of the Church. Then, again, there was the influence of the prelates, men of piety and learning, whom Henry the Seventh had appointed. There were others to be found, like Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, who, a liberal patron of the Greek language, and an educational as well as a doc- trinal Reformer, founded St. Paul's school ; a man who, as Dean, insisted on an improvement in the quality and number of the cathedral services ; who, in his sermons in St. Paul's Cathedral, exposed the vices of the clergy, and delivered lectures on the Epistles, for which he was accused of heresy by the Bishop of London, although to no purpose, to Archbishop Warham, PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS. 269 It was clear a Reformation must come before long ; how was it to be effected ? Whether the Roman doc- trines of transubstantiation and purgatory, and in- dulgences, and enforced celibacy, were primitive doc- trines of the Church, people at that time troubled themselves but little ; it was the papal supremacy in England that was called in question ; it was asked why the English Church and nation should be im- poverished to support a foreign jurisdiction ? why im- mense sums of money, by means of annates and first-fruits and payments for bulls and dispensations, should be drained out of the country to enrich the Pope of Rome ? PART V. Zbc (Tburcb of tbc IReformation iSra. CHAPTER I. THE BREACH WITH ROME, HENRY VIII. "AS early as the beginning of the sixteenth, or even the latter part of the fifteenth century," says Ranke, " throughout all Christendom a general strug- gle was made to curtail the rights of the Pope England having ended its wars of the houses of York and Lancaster, was not in a humour to brook the pretensions and exactions of Rome any longer ; and the time had arrived when its independence was to be re-asserted, and a change in the foreign relations of the Church effected. So far from the Reformation in England being a violent revolution, or a separation from the Catholic Church and the foundation of a new Church, it was an essentially conservative movement, and a return to primitive antiquity ^ ; so that the same Church, with some errors cleared away, and some doctrines and discipline of the primitive and purest ages of the Church restored, existed after, as before the Refor- mation, " So far was it from the Church of England ' History of the Popes, i. 25. So says Hammond : " Ecclesia Britannica. , . . huic basi Reforma- tionem niti vult, ut scripturis primae, dein primorum saeculorum episcopis, martyribus, scriptoribus, ecclesiasticis secundae deferantur." And Ca- saubon : " Si me conjectura non fallit, totius Reformationis pars in- tegerrima est in Angli4, ubi cum studio veritatis, viget studium An- tiquitatis." THE BREACH WITH ROME. 271 to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, Rome, Spain, and Germany, or any such like Churches, that it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies which do neither endanger the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men ; and only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen from themselves in their ancient integrity, and from the Apostolical Churches, which were their first founders So that the Church of England was not, as some people imagine, founded at the Reformation ; it was not Roman Catholic before, and Protestant since ; it was the same Catholic Church which had existed from the beginning, the same which St. Augustine found when he first landed in this country. At the Reformation no new principle was introduced. There were the same bishops, the same clergy, the same convocation afterwards as there were before. And, what is more, the clergy themselves, who, be it re- membered, were then, if ever, Romanist, were the very people who were instrumental in effecting it. Grievances, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical, re- quired to be remedied ; the remedies were frequently suggested by the clergy ; at any rate, they were ef- fected by the co-operation of Convocation and Par- liament, with the ratification of the Crown But * Canon xxx. So writes Archbishop Wake to Du Pin : " Proponitur quzestio Epi- scopis ac clero in utriusque Provinciae synodo congregatis, an Episcopus Romanus in sacris Scripturis habeat aUquam majorem jurisdictionem in regno Angliae quam quivis alius externus Episcopus ? . . . Quod Episcopi cum suo clero statuerant, etiam regni Academic calculo suo appro- barunt. Rex cum Parliamento sancivit." So also Laud against Fisher: " In the English Reformation, our princes had their parts, and the clergy theirs ; and to these two principally the power and direction for Reformation belong." 272 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA, whenever anything affecting the doctrine or discipline of the Church was called in question, no change was in any case effected without the sanction of the Church ; and after all, we are able to say with Archbishop Bramhall, *' We have not left the Church of Rome in essentials : we retain the same Creed to a word ; and in the same sense by which all the primitive Fathers were saved, which they held to be sufficient." Churchmen need not be careful to defend the cha- racters of such men as Henry VIII. and Somerset; they might have been as bad as they are represented ; nor, again, need they concern themselves with the lawfulness of Henry's marriage with Katharine or Ann Boleyn ; for such matters are mere accidents, and cannot affect the Reformation of the Church of England. The same may be said with regard to the suppression of the monasteries ; the temporal pro- moters of the Reformation may have had temporal motives, for which the Church cannot be made re- sponsible. Henry VIII. was only the means which God employed, as He often did employ wicked men to carry out His righteous ends*. From the time that the Roman empire became Christian, the ancient Church was more or less subject to the sometimes tyrannical will of princes ; whilst, in modern times, the Roman Catholic countries of France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, have felt too severely the weight of the temporal power, to be able to taunt us with our misfortunes. That a Reformation was to some extent necessary, almost all Churchmen will allow ; and if in the mode ' " Qui dedit imperium Constantino Christiano, ipse etiam Apostatas Juliano: qui Mario imperium dedit, etiam Caio Cjesari; qui Augusto, ipse et Neroni," — (St. August, de Civ. Dei.) THE BREACH WITH ROME. of carrying it out there may be causes for regret, we have many reasons also to be thankful. The cha- racter, the motives, even the acts of Henry VIII., except that he confiscated property which ought to have gone to the Church, affect us not at all ; the Re- formation under him was only a turning-point in the history of our Church, and Henry the sign-post be- tween the old and new paths. The reforms effected under Henry, and under Edward VI., were swept away by Queen Mary ; and except as far as they were re-enacted by Elizabeth, and ultimately com- prised in the Act of Uniformity of Charles II., do not concern the Church in the present day ^ We are only concerned with Henry VIII. with respect to the old fabric, not as the builder of the new : and with regard to the former, we shall be able to shew that the supremacy of the Pope was properly and consti- tutionally abrogated by the united action of Church and State ; those, therefore, who say that the English Church is Erastian, or a Parliamentary Church, be- cause Henry VIII. terminated the papal supremacy in England, might with equal or greater justice as- sert that the Church of Rome is an Erastian or State Church, because the supremacy was given it by a usurper and murderer, the Emperor Phocas, who conferred on Boniface III. that title of "Universal Bishop," which only a few years before Gregory the Great had stigmatised as blasphemous, and savouring of Antichrist. The Reformation in England may not be all that ' "Had Cranmer and Ridley promulgated a Socinian Liturgy and Articles, the circumstance need not in the slightest degree have affected the basis on which the acts of the subsequent reign were founded." —(Gladstone's State in Relation to the Church.) T 2 74 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. could be desired ; some think it went too far, others not far enough ; yet all have reason, at any rate, to be thankful that it was no worse. The Reformation, which began under Henry VIII., was not completed till the reign of Charles II. We may well be thank- ful that it did not proceed, as in Germany or Switzer- land, from one individual ; had this been the case, had it come sooner under Wicliffe, we might have been Wickliffites; had it come later, under Edward VI., we might have been Zwinglians or Calvinists ; as it is, we bear no human name : " we are neither of Paul or Apollos, but have been led back at once to the dis- tant fountains, whence the waters of life, fresh from their sources, flowed most freely." In one word, we are Catholics ; our Church is continuous, one with the Pre-reformation Church, differing only as " a garden weeded, from a garden unweeded^," We maintain the continuity of the Church by our Apostolic minis- try ; we have the same Creeds, the same Sacraments, the same doctrine as the ancient Church ; we have our Articles, which, if they err, it is on the side of comprehension, not exclusion ; above all, we have, as it were by a miracle, our noble Liturgy, the heritage of 1 800 years : our Reformers did not discard it ; they mutilated it, it is true, but not in any vital point ; and it has descended to us, violently indeed treated, but in all its practical and necessary integrity''. When Henry VIII. ascended the throne, it seemed little likely that under him would be accomplished the extinction of the papal supremacy, for no man was a more zealous papist than he, or more devoted to the interests of the Roman pontiff. He had been educated during the lifetime of his elder brother, with ' Archbishop Bramhall. ^ Tracts for the Times. THE BREACH WITH ROME. the view to some high position in the Church. He presented himself as the champion of the Pope, and opponent of Luther ; and for the book which he wrote against the German Reformer, he was after- wards rewarded by the Pope himself in full conclave with the title of " Defender of the Faith." To the end of his life he remained a Romanist, and perse- cuted those who opposed that faith. But whilst men were thinking what was best to be done in the corrupt state of the Church, a trivial and ignoble event put in motion the long-meditated re- form. Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VH., had married Katharine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- bella of Spain, with a dowry of two hundred thousand ducats ; but as he died soon afterwards, whilst a mere boy, the money would have relapsed to the King of Spain. The loss of so much money out of his family was intolerable to the avaricious King of England, who therefore obtained a dispensation from Pope Julius H., (which Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, protested against as contrary to the word of God), and married Katharine to his son Henry. As long as Henry en- joyed his wife's fortune, and he had hopes of a son, he entertained no scruples as to the legality of the marriage. But after he had lived with Katharine nearly twenty years, and she was growing old (for the eight years by which she was his senior made the difference more apparent as time went on) ; when he had spent her money, and she had only yielded him a daughter ; moreover, after he had contracted an at- tachment to Ann Boleyn ; then he, a zealous papist, and having the Pope's dispensation for the marriage, held that the marriage was illegal, professed remorse for having married his brother's widow, and deter- T 2 2^6 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. mined on a divorce. Of course, if he felt that he was' living in sin, this was right ; it did not follow that he ought to marry some one else. As to the lawfulness of his marriage with Katha- rine opinions differed ' ; and Wolsey, who was Arch- bishop of York and Chancellor of the kingdom, as well as a cardinal, undertook to arrange a divorce for the king, and asked the Pope to declare that the dis- pensation granted by Pope Julius was illegal, and the marriage void ; at the same time informing him that, in case of refusal, he would lose England. But the Pope halted between two opinions : he did not wish to dis- please Henry, and to lose England ; nor could he afford to displease the powerful emperor, Charles V., who was Katharine's nephew. He tried to please both, and he appointed another legate, Campeggio, whom Henry had lately made Bishop of Salisbury, to try the case in England, in conjunction with Wolsey. Before this papal tribunal the king and queen ap- peared. It may not unreasonably be asked, Why did the king recognise the court, if it was not a legitimate one, in his dominions ? The answer is plain. Matri- monial causes had from time immemorial been con- . sidered as subjects for the Pope's decision ; even Wil- liam the Conqueror, who certainly was no champion of the Pope's prerogative, acknowledged it when he wished to marry his cousin; now, particularly, Henry would be desirous of the Pope's sanction, to prevent doubts as to the succession. The queen's cause was espoused by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester (afterwards ' Luther's opinion was that whether the marriage was legal or illegal, after so many years of cohabitation, separation would be a greater enormity than the marriage, however improper it might have been in the first instance. THE BREACH WITH ROME, 277 martyred), and Ridley, uncle of the future martyr ; whilst Gardiner, the most eminent Canonist of the day, and Bonner, were on the part of the king. In vain did Campeggio try to induce the queen to retire into a convent ; the Emperor prevailed on the Pope, Clement VII., to transfer the case to Rome, where the king and queen were summoned to appear, either in person or by proxy. But this was more than the imperious temper of Henry would tolerate, and his wrath vented itself upon Wolsey, who, by acting as the Pope's legate, had brought himself under the statute of Praemunire, and so incurred the forfeiture of his goods, and ban-- ishment from the kingdom. Henry sacrificed Wolsey for not ridding him of his wife, as he afterwards sacri- ficed Crumwell for getting him an ugly one. But it was a flagrant act of injustice to enforce the act against Wolsey. It was with the king's consent that the Pope had made him a cardinal, and it was by the king's re- quest, and contrary to his own wishes, that he had accepted the post of legate. Wolsey knew that by accepting the latter office he was transgressing the law, but he naturally thought that the king's licence under the great seal was sufficient, and for fifteen years he had exercised the office to the king's ap- proval. But for this one offence all his offices were taken from him ; he was deprived of the office of Chancellor ^ his property was confiscated, and he re- tired to York. For a short time he regained the king's favour, and the archbishopric was restored to him ; soon, however, he was arrested on a charge of high treason (for what new offence does not appear) ; This was for the first time bestowed upon a layman, Sir Thomas More. 278 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. on his way to London to answer to that charge, he died broken-hearted at Leicester on November 30, 1530; a man who, although second as Archbishop of York in ecclesiastical rank, was not only in ecclesiastical dignity, but as Chancellor of England in political im- portance also, incomparably the first man in England ; he was also a cardinal of Rome, and at that very time an aspirant to the papacy. Shortly before the death of Wolsey, in the autumn of 1529, Cranmer, whilst acting as tutor in a gentle- man's family at Waltham, met there two of the king's retinue, Gardiner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Fox, afterwards Bishop of Hereford. The con- versation turned on the great topic of the day, the divorce ; Cranmer expressed his opinion that the Pope had no power to dispense with the law of God ; that the question turned upon the interpretation of Scrip- ture, of which the members of the Universities, learned in divinit}^ were the best judges. This being related to the king, he sent for Cranmer, who he said had " got the sow by the right ear ;" he appointed him one of his chaplains, and sent him on an embassy to Rome, under the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Ann Boleyn, for the purpose of furthering the divorce, and obtaining- a favourable answer from the Universities ^ He managed to obtain (we are not told by what means he did so) judgments in favour of the divorce from twelve Universities ; Oxford and Cambridge re- ' After \-isiting the Universities, Cranmer spent some time in Ger- many, where he made the acquaintance of the German reformers, who so greatly influenced his after opinions. He had before been married to a relation of the keeper of the " Dolphin Inn" at Cambridge, named Joan, who was commonly known as " Black Joan ;" but as she died within a year, he was allowed to retain his fellowship, and he now took to wife the daughter of Osiander, one of the Gennan reformers. THE BREACH WITH ROME. luctantly assented under great pressure ; the Convo- cations of Canterbury and York formed a similar judg- ment ; fortified with these opinions, the king thought the matter sufficiently settled without the Pope's dis- pensation, and privately married Ann Boleyn. Shortly before this, in August, 1532, Warham died, and Cran- mer, who would willingly have declined so dangerous an honour, was nominated as his successor. Clement the Pope could not have much liked the nomination, but not wishing to hasten a rupture, he sanctioned the appointment, on condition of Cranmer taking the oath of canonical obedience to him. But here it is impos- sible to acquit Cranmer of dishonesty ; he swore alle- giance to two masters, who had no two interests in common. He swore to the Pope " that he would from that hour forward be faithful and obedient to St. Peter, and to the Holy Church of Rome, to my Lord the Pope and his successors ; that they should suffer no wrong by any means with his advice, consent, or connivance ; that their counsel he would not discover ; their regality he would help, maintain, and defend against all men." To the king he swore " that he would henceforth utterly forsake all clauses, words, sentences, grants, which he had or should have here- after from the Popes Holiness in virttie of his bishop- ric, that in any wise were or might be prejudicial to his highness, his heirs, successors, dignity, privilege, or estate royal ; that to him and his he would be faithful and true, and live and die with him against all people ; that he acknowledged to hold his bishopric of him only, and accordingly besought of him the temporalities of the same"." Cranmer took the oath to the Pope under a mental reservation, that he " intended not by " Prof. Blunt's Reformation, p. 127. ■28o THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. the oath to bind himself to do anything contrary to the laws of God, to the king's prerogative, or to the commonwealth and statutes of the kingdom ;" that is to say, he took the oath in one sense, whereas he knew the Pope was administering it in another ; the bulls for the consecration (the last that were ever is- sued for an English see) were granted, and on March 20. 1533. Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Agreeably with the determination of the Universities, the opinions of eminent Canonists, and the judgments of the Convocation of Canterbury and York, at a council held at Dunstable, Cranmer, with whom were associated the Bishops of London, Winchester, Bath, and Lincoln, and many other great prelates", annulled the king's marriage with Katha- rine, and on May 28, in a court held at Lambeth, he confirmed his marriage with Ann Boleyn. Already, even during the lifetime of Archbishop Warham, a circumstance had transpired typical of what the Church might expect from such a capricious ruler as Henry. A discovery was made that both the Church and nation had been equally guilty with Wolsey under the statute of Praemunire, in having re- cognised his legatine authority. The king pardoned the laity without any fine, or rather the laity par- doned themselves in Parliament ; but against the clergy the king bore a grudge for their reluctant as- sent to his divorce, and so to them a very different measure was meted out. It was usual with the clergy at that time to tax their own body in Convocation. The king was in want (he always was in want) of money ; so he informed the clergy that, though they were liable to the confiscation of all their property, " Fuller, B. v. 44. THE BREACH WITH ROME. 281 he would release them on the payment of the sum of ^100,844 Ss. S(/. for the Province of Canterbury, and ;^i8,840 OS. lod. for York; an immense sum, equiva- lent to more than a million at the present day. Nor was this all; as a condition of his pardon, he required them to acknowledge him as " sole Protector and Su- preme Head of the Church." But this title was en- tirely new, and the clergy agreed that it belonged to a spiritual and not a temporal head, so they were un- willing to place in the king's hands such a power as the title might be construed to confer. Nor were they any more willing to concede it when the title was mo- dified by the addition of the words " under God ;" so after a debate of three days, they only agreed to the title being allowed "as far as is permitted by the law of Christ"," Subject to this limitation, it was agreed to by nine bishops, sixty-two abbots and priors of the Upper House, and a majority of the Lower House. But in the northern Convocation, Bishop Tunstall recorded a protest against the title being conceded even with this limitation, as being ambiguous ; " if it was understood to relate merely to secular and civil jurisdiction, he and all the English clergy were ready to accept it with complete acquiescence, but against any notions of a spiritual headship he protested." Yet with this reservation, which was supported by Arch- bishop Warham, the Royal Supremacy was sanctioned by both Convocations; but in the "Act of Supre- macy," passed in 1534, the limitation clause was most disingenuously omitted, so that the clergy never did " " Ecclesia et Cleri Anglican! singularem protectorem, et unicum, et supremum dominum, et quantum per Christi legem decet^ etiam suprc- mum caput, ipsius majestatem recogniscimus." 282 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. agree to, nor are they responsible for, that unwarrant- able interpretation of the Royal Supremacy. They, however, acknowledged that Convocation ought to be assembled, not as hitherto, by the writ of the arch- bishop, but the writ of the king, and promised not " to promulge or put in ure any new canons, constitutions and ordinances, provincial or synodal, without the royal authority." Having gained this great victory over Convocation, Henry now turned his attention to a matter in which the people were thoroughly in accord with him, the suppression of the papal authority in England ; and accordingly, in the Parliament of a.d. 1532 — 1533, two important acts, the one, " the Annates Act," the other, the famous act called " the Statute for the restraint of Appeals," were passed. The preamble to the former act states, that An- nates had first been paid to Rome for maintaining forces against the infidels ; that since the second year of King Henry VII. no less than 60,000 sterling had been drawn out of the country in payment of them. The payment of Annates was henceforward, except under some slight restrictions, prohibited ; the Pope's censures were rendered insignificant, and the " bishops and clergy were to go on in their functions, notwithstanding any excommunications or interdictions to the contrary." It must be observed that the Statute against the payment of Annates was passed at the request of Convocation. The clergy had imagined that for the future they would be delivered from such payments ; instead of this, they only exchanged their master; for by an act of 1534, the right to first-fruits and tenths was vested in the king. In the preamble to "the Statute of Appeals," it is THE BREACH WITH ROME. 283 Stated that " divers sundry old authorities declare that under the ancient constitution of the realm of Eng- land, were included the spirituality and temporality under one head, the king." As to the former, the preamble sets forth, " the body spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the law divine happened to come in question, or of spiritual learn- ing, then it was declared, interpreted, and shewed by that part of the body politic called the spirituality, now being usually called the English Church, which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort, that both for knowledge, integrity, and suffi- ciency of number, it hath been always thought, and is also at this hour, sufficient and meet of itself, with- out the intermeddling of any exterior person or per- sons, to declare and determine all such doubts, and to administer all such offices and duties, as to their rooms spiritual doth appertain." Wherefore it was enacted that all causes should be determined within the kingdom, notwithstanding any appeals to Rome, or inhibitions, or bulls from Rome. Appeals were to be made from the archdeacon to the bishop, from the bishop to the archbishop, or the Dean of the Court of Arches, where the matter was to be settled ; but in cases affecting the king, an appeal was allowed to the Upper House of Convocation, where they should be finally determined. Parliament met again in January, 1534, and several acts of importance to the Church were passed. In March of that year, the Pope issued a bull annulling the sentence of divorce pronounced by Cranmer, con- firming the marriage with Katharine, and excommuni- cating Henry, if he did not within a fixed time return to her. Thus the rupture between England and Rome was complete. 284 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. The first important proceeding of the session of 1534, was to throw into an Act of ParHament the submission which the clergy had made in Convocation two years before. The preamble of the Statute known as " the Submission of the Clergy," sets forth : " the clergy of this realm have not only acknowledged, ac- cording to the truth, that the same clergy is, always has been ^, and ought to be, assembled by the king's writ ; but also, submitting to the king's Majesty, have promised in Vcrbo Sacerdotii that they will never from henceforward presume to attempt, allege, claim, or put in ure, enact, promulge, or execute any canons, constitutions, ordinance, provincial or other . , , unless the king's most royal assent and licence may to them be had, to make, promulge, and execute the same." The second part of the statute was the answer to a petition from the clergy for a revision of the Canon Law : " Several of the old canons and constitutions being complained of as prejudicial to the prerogative royal, and contrary to the statutes of the realm, it is therefore enacted that the king shall have power and authority to assign two-and-thirty persons, six- teen of the clergy and sixteen of the laity, to ex- amine, abrogate, or confirm the canons as they thought fit. Till such a review was made, all those canons which were not contrary to the law or pre- rogative, were to remain in force 'i." All appeals to p Collier says that it is certain Convocation did acknowledge the truth of this preamble ; but that it is also certain Convocation met frequently by the sole authority of the bishop, (ii. 84). 1 A "Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum" was made in the reigns of Henrj VIII. and Edward VI., and was prevented in each case by the death of the king. Another attempt was made in 1571, under Arch- bishop Parker, and brought before the House of Commons ; but this again fell through. "As the matter now stands, the canons of the universal Church are binding on English Churchmen, when they have THE BREACH WITH ROME. 285 Rome are again prohibited under Praemunire. But a change was made in the final Court of Appeal ; an appeal was allowed from the archbishop to the king in chancery, to be heard by delegates appointed by the Crown. The next act regulated the appointment of arch- bishops and bishops. " From henceforth no per- son shall be presented, nominated, or commended to the Pope or see of Rome, for any archbishopric or bishopric within this realm. Neither shall any person procure any bulls, briefs, or palls from the see of Rome, or pay any annates, or sums of money there." As to the election of bishops, the statute proceeds, — " The king, upon the vacancy of the see, was to send his conge d'elire to the dean and chapter, or prior or convent ; and in case they delayed their election be- yond twelve days, the Crown was empowered to no- minate the persons by letters patent. . . . And lastly, if the persons assigned to elect or consecrate, defer performing their respective offices for twenty days, they were to fall under the penalty of a Praemunire." Another statute provides that " neither the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, or any other person, shall have power to visit religious houses;" and gives the king the right to visit all monasteries and colleges hitherto exempt. In these matters, although the royal pre- rogative had been stretched to the uttermost, and the realm had invested the king with a perilous au- thority in questions concerning the discipline of the Church, no point of Church doctrine had been at- tacked, and there was nothing which Convocation, been received and adopted by English synods, and are not contrariant to English law, either canonical or statute."— (Perry's Student's Eng. Church Hist., p. 297.) 286 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. much as it must have disapproved, was bound to oppose. So that when, in June, 1534, the question was submitted to the Provinces of Canterbury and York, "Whether the Bishop of Rome has in the Word of God any greater jurisdiction in this realm of England than any foreign bishop although many of the bishops, such as Heath, afterwards Archbishop of York, Tunstall, Stokesley, Gardiner, and Bonner, were firmly attached to the doctrines of Rome, they decided that he had not ; one bishop alone. Fisher of Rochester, dissenting ; and the Universities and clergy agreed in their decision ^ On November 3, Parliament met again after its prorogation ; and the first act passed by it was the Act of Supremacy, which, whilst it professes to be grounded on the submission of the clergy, goes far beyond anything which they had acknowledged, and is thoroughly incompatible with the liberties of the Church. It is in these words : " Albeit the king's majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and is so recog- nized by the clergy in their Convocation ; yet, never- theless, for confirmation and corroboration thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirp all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, be it enacted by the present Par- liament that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of Eng- land, called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and en- ' " Quod Romanus Episcopus non habet majorem jurisdictionem sibi a Deo collatam in hoc regno quam alius quivis externus Episcopus." — (Journ. of Conv.) THE BREACH WITH ROME. 287 joy, annexed and united unto the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all the honors, dignities, profits, commodities to the said dig- nity of supreme head of the said Church belonging and appertaining. And that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time, to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts and enormities whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may law- fully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, cor- rected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's re- ligion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm, any usuage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority, prescription, or any thing or things to the contrary notwithstanding." Soon after the passing of this Act, the " Treason Act" was passed, which constituted it high treason to " imagine, invent, practise or attempt any bodily harm to the king's most royal person, the queen's, or their heirs-apparent, or to deprive them, or any of them, of their dignity, title, or name, of their royal estates ; and that all such persons . . . shall be ad- judged traitors, and the offence high treason." The greater part of those who refused to acknow- ledge the king's supremacy were the monks. Amongst the few others who stood out against it were Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More : the former, distin- guished amongst the prelates, and venerable from his age of eighty years ; the latter, the most distin- guished ornament of his time. The offence of Fisher had been increased by the injudicious act of the Pope 288 • THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. in making him a cardinal, when he was lying under the anger of the king. The poor old man was confined in prison for a whole year, without a fire, or even sufficient clothing, in winter, and was executed on 22nd June, 1535. To have taken the life of such a man as Fisher was a disgraceful act ; no less so was the execution of Sir Thomas More on 6th July; and the execution of these two men was regarded with horror and indignation throughout Christendom. Henry was not long before he stretched his almost unrestricted prerogatives to their utmost limit. Of all the recusants to his supremacy, the monastic orders were the chief; and the same statute which made Henry head of the Church, transferred the jurisdic- tion over the monasteries from the Pope to the Crown. With the exception of the abbots who sat in the House of Lords, all the monks, but more especially the Mendicant orders, were from the first opposed to the course pursued by Henry. They had few, or no friends ; they were disliked by the clergy, with whom they were frequently coming into collision ; they were exempted from episcopal supervision, so they enjoyed no good will from the bishops ; they had swallowed up nearly half of the ecclesiastical endowments of the country, and they were also the strong allies of the Pope, so they were an object of hatred to the king. The dissolution of the monasteries, or the conveyance of their perhaps excessive wealth into another channel, might have been of great advantage to the Church ; but nothing was further from the intention of Henry. He wanted money ; there lies the secret of their disso- lution. Henry could plead State emergencies as his excuse for plundering the monasteries. Not only had the murder of two such men as More and Fisher THE BREACH WITH ROME. 289 brought down upon him the wrath of the new Pope, Paul III. ; but Cardinal Pole, a man of high position, and a near relative of the king, was so horrified, that he applied to the Emperor Charles V. to divert an army which he had raised against the Turks, and to turn it against England. Henry also pleaded his in- tention of founding new bishoprics, for which, in 1532, he had obtained a bull from the Pope. Unfortunately, a precedent for an attack upon the monasteries had been set by Wolsey and by others, whose names are gratefully recorded in the present day as benefactors to the Church. It was from the forfeited estates of monasteries that William of Wykeham founded his twin colleges at Winchester and Oxford. His ex- ample was followed by Archbishop Chicheley and William of Waynflete, for their two colleges of All Souls and Magdalen at Oxford. Still more recently, Wolsey had pleaded that the small monasteries, in which neither education or religion was observed, were superfluous and unnecessary, and so he was able to procure as endowments for his foundations of Ipswich and Christ Church the property of twenty-four monas- teries, together with sixty-nine benefices ^ Such precedents must have turned the mind of Henry towards an easy mode of raising money. In 1535, he determined to make a royal visitation of the kingdom ; and as he could not do it personally, imi- tating the example of the Pope, which he had before renounced, he determined to appoint a Vicar-General, or Vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, to make the visitation for him : and so he appointed Crumwell to manage all ecclesiastical causes, and to exercise all ecclesiastical power which belonged to the supreme • Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, vi. 65. U 290 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. head ; to visit all churches, hospitals, and monasteries ; to call synods and convocations for any cause which he might think necessary ; to preside at and direct the election of prelates, to confirm or to annul them ; to institute and induct into possession of churches ; and to deal as he liked with ecclesiastical property. Pending the visitation, the jurisdiction of the bishops was suspended ; none of them were allowed to visit the monasteries and churches, or the clergy of their dioceses, during the visitation, except in case of neces- sity, when they were to act only " as the king's com- missaries and Crumwell's." At the end of the year, a general visitation of the monasteries was determined upon, and Cromwell ap- pointed Doctors Leighton and Leigh, two civilians, London, Dean of Wallingford, Richard Thornton, Bishop Suffragan of Dover, and a few others, to report on their condition. ■ The visitation of the smaller monasteries, which had a revenue under £200 a-year, was first determined on ; these smaller monasteries, it must be borne in mind, were the abodes of the Friars, the allies of the Pope, and therefore the king's special enemies. It is not improbable that these monasteries of the Mendicants were, as the commissioners stated, the most corrupt ; it is certain that the Mendicants, if once corrupted, would from their vagrant habits, their going about from house to house, and thus having the means of spreading corruption, be the most dangerous to society. At the same time, the report of the commissioners must be received with some suspicion ; they instituted their enquiries with a view of detecting abuses, and of confiscating their property. However, they reported that these smaller monasteries were as bad as they THE BREACH WITH ROME. 291 could be ; and an Act of Parliament was, without op- position, passed for their dissolution; 376 houses were condemned, and their property, the annual revenue of which was valued at ^32,000, besides ;^ioo,ooo worth of jewels and plate, was handed over to the king for ever, the smallest possible pension being bestowed upon the expelled inmates. But what became of the servants ? In one mo- nastery, where there were only thirty monks, there were no fewer than forty-four servants ; besides whom there were the numerous out-door labourers employed upon the farms. And what became of the dependants and hangers-on of these establishments, — those who re- ceived from them charity, many also their livelihood ? In one way or other, by the first Act of Dissolution, ten thousand persons were thrown upon the world, deprived of the means of existence ; some at an ad- vanced age, and unable to work for their daily bread ; many, on the other hand, sturdy beggars, at a time when the first act of vagrancy was punished by whip- ping and cutting off part of the right ear, and the third act was punished by death. No wonder that a rebellion followed. One that broke out at Louth, in Lincolnshire, was suppressed without difficulty. Another in Yorkshire consisted of 100,000 men, which assumed the name of the " Pil- grimage of Grace ;" bearing a crucifix on one side of their banner, and a chalice and wafer on the other, whilst on their sleeves they wore a representation of the five wounds, they, under the leadership of Robert Ashe, a country gentleman, assumed formidable pro- portions. The rebellion, however, was quelled, not by force of arms, but by diplomacy (" in plain lan- guage," says Dean Hook, "by lying") ; the insurgents u 2 292 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. were dispersed by promises, which the king neither kept, nor thought of keeping \ But the rebelHon, when once it was quelled, instead of warning the king, only impelled him onwards to the suppression of the larger monasteries. The ex- cuse given for the confiscation of the smaller ones was their corruption. But this was not alleged against the larger monasteries : on the contrary, their regu- larity and good order was spoken of, and " religion was well kept and observed." But the commissioners were men of no principle, and were themselves charged with inordinate rapacity, with the embezzlement of the property lying at their mercy, even abusing the oppor- tunities which their commission gave them, and cor- rupting the nuns". It is necessary, in order to form a correct idea of the state of the monasteries, and Henry's object in confiscating them, that we should bear in mind the character and object of the com- ntissioners. Fuller says, " They were men who well understood the message they went on, and would not come back without a satisfactory answer to him that sent them, knowing themselves were likely to be losers there." That they went out with the foregone conclu- sion that the monasteries were corrupt, or if not, with the settled intention of condemning them, is evident from their reports on Bruton and Glastonbury ; they admitted that there was nothing objectionable in them ; the brethren, they said, were kept too strict to be able to offend ; but they would, if they could. At the visitation of the larger monasteries, many of the abbots, knowing that their doom was sealed, and hoping thus to get better terms for themselves, made a voluntary surrender : of the twenty - eight mitred « Hook, vi. 85. , " Prof. Blunt's Reform., p. 140. THE BREACH WITH ROME. abbots, twenty-five thus surrendered. On all the ver- dict of guilty was returned, and an act was passed which spoke of their voluntary resignation, and le- galising the confiscation of the houses already dis- solved, or hereafter to be dissolved, to the king and his heirs for ever ^ ; a liberal pension was al- lowed to those who resigned ; some were appointed to high offices in the Church, as was the case with Benson, Abbot of Westminster, who was appointed the first Dean of Westminster. The mitred abbots that held out were those of Reading, Colchester, and Glastonbury : they were all executed. Glastonbury, next to Westminster, was the richest monastery in England : its last abbot was Richard Whiting, an old man of fourscore, noted for his piety and charity. Every Wednesday and Friday crowds of poor as- sembled at the gates of the abbey to receive his bounty ; as many as five hundred of the county gentry availed themselves of the hospitality of his table, whilst he gave free education to three hundred of their sons. He was accused of having sent the plate and money of the abbey to the rebels of the North : all that he had done was to conceal treasures which were dedicated to God, that they might not fall into the sacrilegious hands of the commissioners. He was arraigned at Wells on a charge of high treason : he was so old that he could with difficulty hear or understand the case against him ; but he was con- demned. In vain he asked to be allowed to take leave of the monks of his abbey before his execution. On the next day, he was dragged on a hurdle through * The act passed the House of Lords without any protestation from the mitred abbots, ahhough there were present at the first reading of the bill, eighteen abbots ; at the second, twenty ; at the third, seventeen. 294 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. the town of Glastonbury to Glastonbury Torre, outside the town, where he was executed. In the words of the chronicler, " the said abbot's body was divided into four parts, and his head stricken off, whereof one quarter standeth at Wells, another at Bath, and at Ilchester and Bridgewater the rest, and his head upon the abbey-gate of Glaston Crumwell, who had condemned the poor abbot at a tribunal of which he was himself prosecutor, jury, and judge, was soon to receive as he had given. A few more months, and he, too, on Tower-hill passed to his account ^ the first, and fortunately the last, who held the office of Viceoferent. Even these confiscations were not sufficient to sa- tisfy the king. So a third statute was passed, a.d. 1545, ordering the confiscation of all colleges, chan- tries, chapels and hospitals, consisting of secular priests. Under this statute, the two Universities were included, and only after strong remonstrance, were exempted ^ The number of monasteries dissolved is computed at 645, the number of colleges at 90, of chantries and chapels at 2,300, of hospitals at 1 10 : the nominal value of the rental must have been about ^200,000. The king, before the confiscation of the monasteries, had promised to create twenty-one new bishoprics, and to convert religious houses into chapters of deans and prebendaries, to be attached to the new sees, or to im- prove those already in existence. Instead of this, only six new sees were founded, and those with very inade- Supp. Mon. Camden Soc. 260. ' Froude's England, iii. 247 (small ed.). ' This act having been passed in the last year of the king's reign, the commissioners employed had not time to seize all the chantries ; there- fore, in the first year of King Edward VI., cap. 14, the other chantries were adjudged to be vested in the king. THE BREACH WITH ROME. quate endowments : Oxford, from the abbey of Osney, with the Dean and Canons of Christ Church for its chapter ; Gloucester, from the abbey of St. Peter in that city ; Bristol, from the monastery of St. Augustine at Bristol ; Peterborough, from the abbey of Peter- borough ; Chester, from the monastery of St. Wer- burgh ; and Westminster, soon to revert to its former collegiate state. Eight religious houses also were founded. This was all that was done for the Church from the proceeds of the monasteries ; the rest was given, or sold at a low price, to the favourers of the Court. What became of the buildings ? How they, once the pride of sacred architecture, were treated, those can tell who have visited such ruins as Fountains, or Whitby, or Tintern, or Glastonbury, or Reading. Some few were converted into collegiate establish- ments; some, as St.Alban's, Tewkesbury, and Mal- vern, into parish churches ; but the rest were ruth- lessly destroyed. The immediate effect of the dissolution of the mo- nasteries was apparent in the immense prevalence of crime, and the cruel laws which were passed to sup- press it ; whilst as many as seventy-two thousand per- sons are said to have died at the hands of the execu- tioner in this dreadful reign. And when it is remem- bered that the number of monks is supposed to have amounted to 100,000, some few only of whom received a small pension, there is too much reason to fear that many must have died of want, or, being rendered des- perate by starvation, must have entered into the lawless licence of the times, and perished by the halter. One thing is certain, that as long as the monasteries re- mained, no further provision for the poor was required ; 296 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. no sooner were they suppressed, than we hear of wholesale executions ; eighty men, for example, were hanged in one day for attacking some royal waggons. Soon arose the necessity for a poor-law ; the statute of the 5th of Elizabeth being the first one of the kind in the land. But other evils followed the dissolution of the mo- nasteries. A chasm has been left in our history which can never be restored. There was scarcely a religious house that did not possess a library. At a time when printing had only lately been invented, and there were few printed books, these libraries were the depositories of all the learning which had de- scended from former times ; in them were preserved the records of our Convocations, the Acts of Parliament, as well as the hereditary documents of private families. If not destroyed, these were sold for waste paper; they were used, some " to scour candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some sold to the grocers or soap- boilers, and some sent over sea to bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations ; a single merchant pur- chasing, at forty shillings apiece, two noble libraries to be used as grey-papers To the same cause is to be attributed the rise of lay-impropriations. The system of " impropriation," of buying livings, and assigning from them just a sufficient sum to stipendiary curates for the mainte- nance of divine service, by which the property of the Church is dissevered from the parish priest, took its origin from the monks as far back as the time of the Conquest. Rectories were thus reduced to vicarages, the great tithes going to the monastery, ^ Spelman's Hist, of the Fate of Sacrilege. THE BREACH WITH ROME. 297 which supplied a vicar (" vicarius," some one in place of the Rector) to take the duty. But the " lay-impro- priator" was a person not known before the dissolution. To lessen the unpopularity which would have followed on that act, Crumwell suggested to the king the sale, at an easy price, of the abbey-lands and the tithes to the landed gentry, who, not residing on the property, received the highest price they could obtain, and paid the smallest pittance, sometimes no stipend at all, but simply his board, to a clergyman, generally some cast- off or half-starved Friar, who could hardly say Matins, to do the duty. No one of education could be found to take these miserable benefices, so that the bishop was often obliged to ordain the lowest mechanics. To such an extent did this evil increase, and so ignorant and wicked had the clergy become, that Archbishop Parker enjoined his suffragans to reject such candi- dates for Holy Orders ; and then arose another evil, although the only alternative, pluralities No wonder that, under such circumstances, the seeds of that dissent were sown, which was soon to grow into a large tree, and to spread its poison through the length and breadth of the land. But so it was. There was sown the seed of the Puritans, with which the ignorance of the clergy was unable to cope. There were Predestinarians, there were Antinomians, there were Anabaptists, and Fifth Monarchy men, and Arians, and Unitarians, and Libertines'^; sects without any positive doctrine, but all opposing the conservative principles of the Reformation ; embryo Protestants they might be called, holding nothing themselves, and protesting against everything ; disbelieving all that did not exactly square with their negative notions of re- • Prof. Blunt, 144. Ibid., 158. 298 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. ligion ; yet gaining strength during the remainder of Henry's reign, and increasing ever stronger and stronger, till, in the time of Charles and Laud, they formed the majority in the House of Commons, and included Church and King in a common ruin. The Royal Supremacy having been established, and the revenues of the monasteries transferred to the Crown, Henry's interest in the Reformation waned. He had determined that the throne and Church of England should be free, but he declared again and again that it was not his intention to make any change in doctrine, or to deviate in any way from the Catholic faith of Christendom At the same time, with the view of promoting uniformity, several useful measures, probably at the instigation of Cranmer, were adopted during this reign. I. The first of these was a Primer in 1535, a tract drawn up by Cuthbert Marshall, Archdeacon of Not- tingham, and, at the recommendation of Convocation, published with the king's authority. It is prefaced by an admonition, which cautions people against certain books lately published, which were liable to give people a wrong idea of the Christian religion : for though a distinction was drawn in them between La- tria and Dulia, the first being the higher worship due to God alone, yet in practice the distinction had been forgotten, and thus God and His creatures were put too much on a level. The chief object of the Primer was to furnish the unlearned, as its name implies, with such parts of the Church's service as were most required, in the vulgar tongue. It contained the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer ; after which followed '25 Henry VIII. c. 21. THE BREACH WITH ROME. 299 the Ave Maria, the seven penitential Psalms, and a Litany. 2. The Primer being intended for the young, the next year, a.d. 1536, Ten Articles, derived chiefly from the " Confession of Augsburg," were published, " devised by the king's highnes majestie to stablish Christen quietnes and unitie among us, and to avoide contagious opinions." After much discussion in Con- vocation between the followers of Cranmer on the one side, and those of Stokesley on the other \ between whose opinions they were a compromise, they were agreed to by both houses ; and being signed by the two archbishops, seventeen bishops, forty abbots and priors of the Upper, and fifty members of the Lower House, whilst at the head of the signatures stood the name of Crumwell, the Vicegerent, they were finally issued by the king's authority. They consisted of two parts, the first five relating to doctrine, the last five to "the laudable ceremonies used in the Church." L (i.) The people were to be instructed to believe the Bible and three creeds as the only source of faith and doctrine, and to condemn all heresies contrary to the four general councils. (2.) Baptismal regeneration is asserted ; children dying unbaptized could not be saved, and the opinions of the Anabaptists and Pela- gians are condemned. (3.) Penance, consisting of con- trition, confession, and amendment, is a Sacrament in- stituted by Christ, and necessary to salvation for those ' The Upper Houses of Convocation were tolerably equally divided ; to one party belonged Cranmer, Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, Shaxton of Sarum, Hugh Latimer of Worcester, Fox of Hereford, Hillsey of Ro- chester, Barlow of St. David's. To the other, Lee, Archbishop of York, Stokesby, Bishop of London, Tunstal of Durham, Gardiner of Winchester, Sherburne of Chichester, Nix of Norwich, and Kite of Carlisle. 300 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. who have fallen into sin after baptism ; the words of the priest pronouncing absolution are "the very words and voice of God Himself, as if He should speak to us out of heaven." (4.) In the Sacrament of the altar, under the forms of bread and wine, there is " verily, substantially and really combined and comprehended, the very self-same Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which was born of the Virgin Mary, and suffered upon the cross for our redemption." (5,) Jus- tification, on the ground of any merit' except that of Christ, is disclaimed, but to attain to it contrition, faith and good works are necessary. n. (i.) Images are valuable as representing virtue and good example, and to excite devotion, but not to be unduly honoured. (2.) The saints, being in heaven, ought to be honoured, " but not with that confidence and honour which is due only unto God." (3.) The holy angels and saints ought to be prayed to in order that they may pray for us, " so that it be done without any vain superstition ;" and holy days, in memory of Christ and His saints, are to be observed. (4.) The rites and ceremonies of the Church, such as vest- ments, the sprinkling of holy water, bearing can- dles on Candlemas - day, sprinkling ashes on Ash- Wednesday, bearing palms on Palm Sunday, and set- ting up the holy sepulchre on Good Friday, are to be observed. (5.) As to purgatory, " it is good and charit- able to pray for souls departed, that they may be re- mitted part of their pain ; . . . but it is superstition and folly to think that the Pope's pardon can help them, or that Masses can deliver them from their pain." In these articles four out of the seven Sacraments are not named ; and, says Collier ^ " several of the most shock- K ii. 128. THE BREACH WITH ROME. 301 Ing doctrines of the Roman communion are softened and explained to a more inoffensive sense, and several superstitious usages discarded." 3. In 1537 the king, having been requested by Con- vocation to authorize an English version of the Bible, the whole Bible known as Matthew's Bible (a fictitious name, which the author assumed from fear of perse- cution), consisting of such portions as had been trans- lated by Tyndale (the remainder being supplied from the translation of Coverdale), was edited by John Rodgers, who was afterwards burnt at Smithfield in the reign of Mary. A royal " Injunction" was issued in 1 538, ordering the clergy to provide " one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume, in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within your church, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it Item, that ye discourage no man privily or apertly from the reading of the same Bible, but shall expressly provoke, stir, and exhort every person to read the same, as that which is the very lively Word of God, that every Christian man is bound to embrace, believe, and follow, if he look to be saved : admonishing them nevertheless to avoid all contention and altercation therein, and to use an honest sobriety in the inqui- sition of the true sense, and refer the explication of obscure places to men of higher judgment in Scrip- ture." This translation of the Bible was received with the greatest delight ; people, instead of, as formerly, being obliged to read it secretly in woods and retired places, were now permitted to read it openly ; those who could afford it, bought the Book ; sometimes several neighbours clubbed together, and bought it in com- 302 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ER.\. mon ; many aged people learnt to read, in order that they might be able to read their Bible ; the Bible be- came the great topic of the day, but, it must be added, frequently also one of angr}- and vehement debated 4. In 1537, a committee of forty-six divines, com- prising all the bishops, Gardiner and Bonner being of the number, was appointed to draw up an instruc- tion in faith and morals, the result of which was " The Pious and Godlv Institution of a Christian Man," known as the " Bishops' Book."' It contained an ex- planation of the Apostles' Creed, and the Scvoi Sacra- ments (in the ten Articles only three Sacraments were mentioned), the Holy Eucharist, Baptism, and Penance, being the most necessary- ; the Ten Commandments, the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the doctrines of Justification and Purgator)-. The corporal Presence of our Lord in the Sacrament of the altar, the necessity of confession to a priest, and the benefit of absolution, are asserted. A definition of the Church is given ; the Church of E norland is a Catholic Church, and the Roman Church has no exclusive riorht to the title ; the king, though he is the overlooker of bishops and priests, is •• not to teach or preach, or to administer the sacraments, nor to absolve or to excommunicate." A distinction is drawn between the Lord's Day and the Jewish Sabbath; "the Sabbath-day, which is called Saturday, is not now prescribed and appointed thereto (i.e. a spiritual rest), as it was by the Jews, but instead of the Sabbath-day succeedeth the Sunday, and many other holydays and feastful days which the Church hath ordained from time to time, . . . that upon those days we should give ourselves wholly, without any impediment, unto holy works." Str}-pe's Craiuner, p. 64. THE BREACH WITH ROME. In November, 1538, a proclamation was issued against married priests; they were "not to minister any sacrament or other ministry mystical, nor to hold any office or preferment, but to be utterly expelled from the same, and held as lay-persons ; and such as should marry after this to be imprisoned during his majesty's pleasure." 5. In 1540 was commenced, but not finished till 1543, a similar book to the " Bishops' Book," but with corrections and additions, under the title of " A neces- sary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man," or " King's Book," but containing the doctrine of Tran- substantiation, which had been omitted in the former book, as also the Concomitancy of the Flesh and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, which need therefore only be received in one kind. The preface states that it was " set forth by the king with the advyce of his clergy ; the Lords both spirituall and temporall, with the nether House of Parliament, having both sene and liked it very well." 6. On May 5, 1539, "the king being most de- sirous to put an end to all controversies about reli- gion, and bring his subjects to a uniform belief," a committee was formed, with Crumwell the Vicegerent at their head, consisting of the two Archbishops, the Bishops of Durham, Bath and Wells, Ely, Bangor, Carlisle, and Worcester, " to finish this union scheme with all expedition ' :" but the opinions of Cranmer, Crumwell, and the Bishops of Ely and Worcester being so different from the others, the scheme came to nothing. The Duke of Norfolk then brought six points before the House of Lords, which were de- bated for three days, Cranmer arguing strongly against ' Collier, ii. 167. 304 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. them, the king being present, and taking part in the debates. An act was passed, and, as stated in the pre- amble, " Six Articles were debated in Convocation as well as Parliament, in both which places it was finally agreed and resolved :" — In these Articles, or as they were commonly called, ' the whip with six cords ;' (i.) Transubstantiation is asserted; (2.) Communion in both kinds is not necessary for all persons by the law of God ; (3.) Priests are forbidden by the law of God to marry ; (4.) Vows of chastity made to God advisedly by man or woman ought to be observed ; (5.) Private Masses are agreeable to God's law; (6.) Auricular Confession is to be retained and continued, used and frequented. The penalties attached to the breach of those articles was terribly severe. The de- nial of the first was to be punished by burning, and the forfeiture of estates : offences against the other five were to be punished, in the first instance, by for- feiture of goods and estates, and imprisonment during the king's pleasure ; a repetition, by death as felons ^ As to the manner in which the act was carried out opinions differ. Some hold that the king meant only to intimidate, and that for the eight years in which the act was in force only twenty-five prose- cutions took place under it. Burnet, on the contrary, asserts that five hundred persons were imprisoned at one time. Fox says that " people suffered daily ;" so that during the eight years there must have been thousands of executions ; tales of dreadful cruelty are related as having been inflicted under it ; such as peo- ple braving the rack, and dying by inches in dun- geons, their feet in the stocks, or " the neck and legs The punishment against clerical matrimony was, however, in 1540, changed to a forfeiture of goods and estates. THE BREACH WITH ROME. 305 trussed together by a devilish engine which contracted with the writhings of the sufferer, till his frame was crushed within its iron grasp ' ;" whilst two bishops, Latimer and Straxton, were under it deprived of their bishoprics and thrown into prison. 7. In 1543, on account of the failure of the harvest, the bishops were enjoined by the king to appoint a Prayer of Procession and Litany, to entreat God's mercy on the land ; and in the following year an order in council was issued, directing the archbishop to com- pose from the existing Litanies one uniform English Litany. This Litany was accordingly drawn up by Cranmer, and receiving the approval of King and Convocation, was issued under the title, "An exhort- ation unto prayer, thought meet by the King's Ma- jesty and his clergy to read to the people in every church after processions. Also a Litany, with suf- frages, to be said or sung in the time of the said pro- cessions." This Litany is almost identical with that now in use : the difference is, that it contained pe- titions for the Prayers of Angels, and Archangels, the Virgin Mary, Saints and Martyrs ; and also the words to be delivered "from the tyranny of the Church of Rome, and all its abominable enormities." In 1542 Convocation had decided on issuing a new edition of the " Sarum Breviary." It was also or- dered, with the authority of Convocation, that " every Sunday and holiday throughout the year the curate of every parish church, after the Te Deum and Mag- nificat, should openly read to the people one chapter of the New Testament in English, without exposi- tion ; and when the New Testament was read over, then to begin with the Old." This was the first step ' Professor Blunt's Reform, X 306 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. taken towards the introduction of services in the vulo-ar tongue. It will be seen that some important changes, such as necessarily arose out of the suppression of the papal supremacy, were effected under Henry. But the reformation in his reign was for the most part either political, as his breach with Rome ; or personal, as the suppression of the monasteries. The opinions of Henry and Cranmer, although the latter did not develope till the next reign, were radically opposed. Cranmer, in opposition to Henry, as well as to Gar- diner and Tunstall, would have reformed the Church after the model of the Germanic Reformation ; Heath and Fox were even sent as ambassadors to Smalcald 1535 ; but when Luther and Melancthon insisted on the Augsburg Confession as the basis of union, Henry refused to make any change in doctrine, and so the matter came to nothing. Henry would have been well satisfied to establish an Anglican Church, differ- ing from the Roman on the point of the supremacy alone. That to the end he was a firm believer in purgatory, is shewn in his will, by which he left a considerable sum of money to the monks of Windsor to be spent in Masses for his soul. His great object was to free England from the dominion of the Pope, and to establish his own supremacy ; any one who opposed him must suffer for it. He would burn, and he actually did burn, on the same day (July 30, 1540) six people, three for holding the doctrines of the Re- formers, and three others, priests and doctors of di- vinity, for upholding the supremacy of the Pope ; whilst, to shew his impartiality, a Romanist and a Re- former were bound to the same hurdle, and were thus drawn to Smithfield. THE BREACH WITH ROME. That power, rather than change of teaching, was the object of Henry, is clear from the doctrines which were visited with punishment during this reign. In 1527, Bilney, a clergyman of Cambridge, who is said to have converted Latimer to his views, was burnt at Norwich, for preaching that Christ was the only Mediator, that saint -worship, pilgrimages, and the adoration of relics, were useless and idolatrous. Bainham, a lawyer of the Middle Temple, was ac- cused of heresy, and sentenced to be burnt, but re- canted. From that time he was so tortured in mind, that he soon afterwards declared his belief in those doctrines which, through fear, he had abjured, and met his death at Smithfield with resignation, holding Tyn dale's translation in his hand. The body of William Tracy was dug up and burnt, because in his will he had committed his soul to Christ, without mentioning the saints or purgatory. Robert Barnes, Prior of the Augustines at Cam- bridge, and John Frith, a young student whom Wol- sey had removed to his college at Oxford, wrote in defence of Tyndale's opinions. The Prior abjured, and was compelled to " carry the fagot." Frith, who had also written against the corporal Presence and the doctrine of purgatory was burnt at Smithfield on July 4, 1533; a young man named Hewet being tied to the same stake, for professing belief in Frith's opinions. The doctrine of purgatory was attacked in 1528 in a widely-spread pamphlet, called the " Supplication of Beggars," written abroad by Simon Fish, a gentleman of Gray's Inn, who had joined Tyndale in Germany. He satirized the mediaeval doctrine of purgatory as the source of all Roman corruptions ; and was answered by Sir Thomas More, who, in the " Supplication of Souls," defended purgatory. X 2 CHAPTER II. ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD' VI. "CD WARD VI. succeeded his father on January 28, ^ 1547, at the age of nine years ; and by his father's will was placed under the guardianship of sixteen councillors, till he should arrive at the age of eigh- teen. Only two of these councillors, Cranmer and Tunstall of Durham, w^ere bishops ; Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor, who was one of them, was a strong anti- reformer ; the name of Gardiner, Bishop of Winches- ter, was omitted in the number. The will of the late king was soon set aside ; the form of government which he had appointed was turned into a Protec- torate under Lord Hertford, the young king's uncle, soon to become the Lord Protector Somerset ; the council next excluded the Bishop of Durham and the Lord Chancellor, and thus the cause of ultra- reform was greatly advanced at the commencement of the new reign. The young king is described as of an amiable and gentle disposition, although he must have been a very precocious youth ^ ; but as he died before he was six- teen, it is evident that the changes in religion which were introduced in his reign, were due to his guar- dians rather than himself, who for their own interests took care to provide him with Puritan advisers. Two • There are letters in the British Museum, written by him before he was nine years old, in French and Latin ; he knew Greek, and could translate Aristotle before he was thirteen ; he knew Italian and Spanish, and was conversant with Logic, Physic, and Music. At his coronation three swords were presented to him, representing the three kingdoms ; whereupon he asked for the fourth, the Bible, the " sword of the spirit." ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD VI. 309 worse guardians it was impossible for a young king to have. The first, the Protector Somerset, was bad enough; but after his execution in 1552, he was suc- ceeded by a man more unscrupulous even than him- self, the Duke of Northumberland, son of that Dudley who was executed in the reign of the late king, and father to the husband of Lady Jane Grey. North- umberland was a man who advocated reform, because he thought it was popular ; but when, in the reign of Mary, he was sentenced to death, he declared that in heart he had always been a Romanist. At the accession of Edward there were three parties in the Church; one represented by Gardiner'' (with whom was the future Archbishop Pole, now in exile on the Continent), who understood by the Reformation what Henry had intended it to be, independence of, but not antagonism to, Rome ; and who, having con- sented to the abolition of the papal supremacy, thought the Reformation had gone far enough. The second party was represented by Cranmer, whose sympathies went with the German Reformers ; with him were as- sociated Holgate, Archbishop of York, Holbeach of Lincoln, Goderic of Ely, Latimer of Worcester, and above all, Ridley, first of Rochester, and afterwards of London. To Cranmer it was immaterial whether the government of the Church was Episcopalian or Presbyterian ; of that the king was the best judge ; he would wish to brine all the reformed Churches into one communion, each preserving its own disci- pline and formularies ; the chief thing insisted on was complete antagonism, spiritual as well as temporal, to So difficult was it to find competent men of reforming opinions, that several bishoprics, Lincoln, Worcester, Chichester, Hereford, and Bangor, were obliged to be held " in commendam ;" and at one time four bishops, holding anti-reform views, were in prison, and so kept out of the way, Gardiner, Bonner, Heatlr of Worcester, and Day of Chichester. 310 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. Rome ; the royal supremacy he understood to mean that the government of the Church was vested not in the bishops, but the civil power, the king being the proper judge of what is most suited for the spiritual life of his people, who therefore, as it belonged to him to appoint the most fitting civil governors, was also best adapted to provide for ecclesiastical offices. A third, or a more advanced section of the second party, was in favour of what was being done by Zwingle and Calvin in Switzerland, and may be identified with the Puritans, of whom we are soon to hear so much. Of this party Hooper may be considered as the head ; he had fled from the kingdom under fear of the six articles, and bringing back from Switzer- land— where he made the acquaintance of Bullinger, Gualter, and Calvin — Calvinistic ideas, he was, in 1550, appointed to the bishopric of Gloucester by the Protector Somerset, who appointed to the higher preferments of the Church, without consulting the Primate, those who were ready to carry out his views of reform. He refused, however, to wear the epis- copal robes at his consecration, and from that circum- stance arose the unhappy strife, so calamitous to the Church, which was destined ultimately to overwhelm the Church and Crown in a common ruin. In vain Bucer and Peter Martyr, who held posts at Cam- bridge and Oxford, attempted to overcome the scru- ples of the bishop elect : Cranmer refused to conse- crate him ; nothing would alter his determination, so on January 27, 1551, he was committed to the Fleet prison ; he at last consented, and was consecrated in the proper episcopal robes on March 8. ' The episcopal habits were much grander then than now, consisting (besides the rochet of white Hnen) of scarlet silk, instead of the black satin now usually worn, to which the lawn-sleeves were attached. ULTRA-REFORM. — EDWARD VI. These parties may be called respectively the anti- Reformers, the Reformers, and the ultra- Reformers, to the last class of which Cranmer later on gave, at any rate an apparent, adherence. Over and above these, there was an undisciplined host of Anabaptists ^ and other sectarians, dangerous not only as religious but socialistic revolutionists, who were ready to give their alliance to that party in the Church and State which was most opposed to order ; these men, who had taken their rise in Germany, where they had already excited a rebellion, deter- mined on a course of destruction of everything which, if it did not exactly square with their own ideas of what was right, they branded with the title of Roman, and condemned as opposing the second command- ment. In vain the clergy taught them that there was a use as well as an abuse of the matters they con- demned ; that pictures and images were not neces- sarily objects of worship ; that religious feelings may be aroused through the eye as well as through the ear. Without waiting for any authority, these people began an indiscriminate destruction of images and pictures ; especially was their wrath excited against the holy-roods or crucifixes over the chancel-screens in churches, which they everywhere destroyed, sub- stituting the royal arms in their place. It could not be expected that such a man as the Protector Somerset would be much shocked at the desecration of churches ; unfortunately his temper and character were too much in unison with the Icono- Of these Anabaptists there were two classes, one opposed to infant baptism, which was merely a doctrinal error, the other dangerous fanatics, and holding opinions subversive of all civil government. It is this last class which is referred to in Art. xxxviii. 312 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. clasts. He already revelled in the spoils of monas- teries. In the general scramble that ensued on their spoliation, he had contrived to procure the estates of three religious houses ; one of his first acts as Pro- tector was to appropriate five or six more, amongst them being the Abbey of Glastonbury, where, in cer- tain tenements, he started as manufacturers the French and Walloon refurees. Nor was he averse to other kinds of Church property ; he secured to himself the revenues of a deanery, the treasurership of a cathedral, and four of its best prebends. To make room for the splendid palace which he built on the site of the pre- sent Somerset House, he destroyed the parish church of St. Mary-le-Strand ; in order to furnish apartments for his servants, the town-houses of three bishops were pulled down, and their chapels desecrated ; whilst for his pleasure-gardens the charnel-house and chapel in St. Paul's churchyard were levelled, the bones being utilized as manure for the neighbouring fields ; whilst he was only averted by gifts of money from the de- struction of Westminster Abbey ^. It was this man who, under pretence of religion, advocated the destruction of the remaining chantries, free chapels and colleges, for which an act had been passed in the preceding reign, but which had escaped the rapacity of Crumwell. Somerset had a double purpose in this ; that religion had nothing to do with it, as he pleaded, need scarcely be stated. He wanted first of all a share in the spoils himself ; he wanted also to please the courtiers, and to buy off the jealousy which his more than royal splendour had excited. The Commons saw through the device ; so did Cranmer, and both the Reforming and the Romanist ' Hook, vii. 221. ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD VI. 3^3 bishops ; even Bucer, in his honest indignation, ex- claimed, that the " sinews of antichrist were the church- robbers, who held and spoilt parish churches ;" but to no avail : the nobles wanted the revenue for them- selves : an Act of Parliament was passed, and the re- maining chantries went, as the monasteries and other chantries had gone before them. All the chantries and free chapels (the schools and universities being alone excepted) became vested nominally in the Crown, but really passed into the possession of the courtiers ; only a small sum being set apart for the endowment of those grammar-schools which are, in the present day, known in the country under the name of Edward the Sixth's schools. In order to give some idea of the state of Church parties during this reign, and to afford an insight into the character of the man who took upon himself the guardianship of the Church, we have somewhat an- ticipated events, and must now return. The first ecclesiastical act of the reign was to re- quire the bishops to take out new commissions for the discharge of their duties ; an intimation that spi- ritual as well as temporal jurisdiction emanated from the Crown. It is difficult to acquit Cranmer of being a principal cause of this Erastian arrangement ; in fact, he is said himself to have petitioned for the new licence, that his " authority terminating with the late king's life, his present majesty would please to in- struct him with the same jurisdiction'." In the first year of Edward's reign, Ridley, one of Cranmer's chaplains, was appointed Bishop of Rochester ; during a sojourn of three years on the Continent, he had im- bibed much of the spirit of the foreign Reformers ; ' Collier, ii. 218. 314 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. before he was appointed bishop, he had preached a dangerous sermon advocating the demoHtion of images ; in his first diocese of Rochester, and after- wards in London, he was a strong opponent to, and ordered the removal of, the existing altars ; and hence- forward he became Cranmer's strong ally, and one of the most prominent advocates of the Reformation. With such powerful helpers, the Protector proceed- ed to his work. He determined to institute a royal visitation throughout the country. The whole of the kingdom was divided into six circuits, which were ap- portioned out between the visitors, for whose guid- ance Injunctions, similar to some issued in the previous reign, were published ; each circuit had a preacher, whose business it was to bring back people from su- perstition, and to dispose them for the intended altera- tions ^ : to make the impression of their doctrine more lasting, the preachers were to leave a Book of Homi- lies, lately composed, for the future guidance of the parish priest ^ The archbishop sent his mandate by virtue of the royal letter, suppressing all episcopal jurisdiction and all preaching, except by the bishop in his cathedral, and clergymen in their collegiate or parish churches. Our space will only allow the mention of a few of the Injunctions delivered to the Commissioners : — I. The K Collier, ii. 221. This was the First Book of Homilies. There is little evidence to shew by whom they were written ; but three, at least, including the Homily of Justification, entitled the "Salvation of Mankind," to which Gardiner took exception, were written by Cranmer ; that on Charity was by Bonner ; the eleventh is by Becon, one of Cranmer's chaplains, and it appears in his works : other authors were probably Ridley, Latimer, and Hopkins. But the book was put forth solely on the authority of Cranmer, and had never the sanction of Convocation or Parliament, ULTRA- REFORM. — EDWARD VI. 315 clergy were to preach four times a-year against the pretended supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and in favour of the royal supremacy. III. Images that have been abused with pilgrimages and offerings were to be taken down and destroyed, and wax candles were not to be burnt before images. However, two tapers were to remain still on the high altar before the Sacra- ment, to signify that Christ is the very Light of the world. VII, Within three months the Bible of the larger volume in English, and within twelve months Erasmus's " Paraphrase on the Gospel," were to be con- veniently placed in the Church for the use of the peo- ple. IX. The clergy were to examine people coming to confession in Lent, whether they can repeat the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, in English ; and unless they could do so, they were not to be admitted to the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. XXI. In time of High Mass, the Epistle and Gospel were to be read in English, and one chapter of the New Testament at Matins, and of the Old Tes- tament at Evensong after the Magnificat. XXIII. No processions should be used about the church or churchyard; but immediately before the High Mass the Litany should be distinctly said or sung in Eng- lish. None were to go out of church without just occasion, and no bells were to be rung except one before sermon. XXVI 11. All shrines, coverings of shrines, tables, candlesticks, trindels, or rolls of wax, paintings, and other monuments of feigned miracles, were to be taken away and destroyed. XXXI. In- cumbents guilty of simony should be deprived of their livings, and made incapable of holding any spiritual promotion ; the patron who sells the presentation, or makes profit out of it by any indirect agreement, 3l6 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. should lose his title for that turn, and the living lapse to the king. A form of Bidding Prayer to be used by all preach- ers, either before or during their sermon, was pre- scribed by the visitors ; the concluding part of which ran thus : " You shall pray for all them that be de- parted out of this world in the Faith of Christ, that they with us, and we with them, at the Day of Judg- ment, may rest both body and soul with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Armed with these Injunctions and Homilies, the visitors proceeded on their circuits ; they met with a favourable reception from the clergy ; two prelates alone, Gardiner and Bonner, refused to receive them, and were committed to the Fleet ; Bonner, however, was soon liberated. After a time Gardiner also was liberated ; but on his refusing to proceed further in the way of Reformation than Henry VIII. had left it, was afterwards committed to the Tower, where he re- mained a State prisoner to the end of the reign, Poynet being appointed to his see ; Bonner likewise was com- mitted to the Marshalsea prison, and Ridley was pro- moted from the see of Rochester to that of London. The Princess Mary also protested against the action of the visitors as disrespectful to her late father, and injurious to her young brother, who had not arrived at sufficient years to judge for himself. Parliament met November 4, 1547, and was con- tinued, by prorogations, during the whole of the reign ; and the next day Convocation met. The first busi- ness of Parliament was to repeal all penal laws against religion, and amongst these were the laws against the Lollards, and the statute of the six articles. Another act transferred the election of bishops from the Deans ULTRA- REFORM.— EDWARD VI. and Chapters of cathedrals to the Crown. In the preamble it is stated that " the said elections are in very deed no elections, but only by a writ of conge d'elire, have colours, shadows, and pretences of elec- tions ; that they serve to no purpose, and seem de- rogatory and prejudicial to the king's prerogative royal, to whom appertains the collation and gift of all archbishoprics and bishoprics and suffragan bishops within his highness his dominions. It is therefore enacted that for the future no conge d'elire shall be granted, nor any election be made by the Dean and Chapter, but that the archbishopric or bishopric shall be conferred by the king's nomination in his Letters Patents." The proceedings of Convocation were of the great- est importance. On December 2, a proposition made by Cranmer for " taking the Lord's Body in both Kinds," was approved " nullo reclamante :" a statute to that effect was enacted by Parliament, and ratified by the Crown, as being more agreeable to the Primi- tive Church ; but the statute continued, that the res- toration of this ancient practice was not to be consi- dered as condemning the practice of any Church out- side his majesty's dominions. The Lower House then, through their prolocutor, the Dean of St. Paul's, presented to the archbishop four petitions : (i.) That the committee appointed in the previous reign for reviewing the ecclesiastical laws should be revived. (2.) That the clergy of the Lower House might be admitted to sit in Parliament with the House of Commons according to ancient usage*. (3.) That, as a committee had been appointed ' Pro nomtullis urgentibus caitsis , . . si fieri potest assumatur et co- optetur in inferiorem domum parliamenti. They insist upon the clause 3l8 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. in the last reign for that purpose, the Church Services might be remodelled. (4.) That some consideration might be made for the clergy promoted to livings during the first year in which first-fruits were paid. The first petition was granted, and the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws resumed. In the second pe- tition the clergy only asked to be restored to their ancient privilege of sitting in the House of Commons, and now that they were prevented by the Act of " Sub- mission of the Clergy" from making any new canons or constitutions without the king's licence, it was only just that they should be consulted in any measures af- fecting their body, or the religion of the land ; how- ever, to this petition no answer was given ; the fourth seems to have been overlooked. But the third peti- tion was rendered necessary, by the change which had been effected with regard to the receiving the Holy Communion in both kinds. A committee had been appointed in 1542, consist- ing of the Bishops of Salisbury and Ely, and six clergy of the Lower House of Convocation, for the purpose of revising the Mass-books, Antiphoners, and Portuises, i.e. Portiforia or Breviaries. The work of the committee had for some time been suspended by the statute of the six articles, which rendered the work dangerous. But now that that act was repealed, the committee were at liberty to continue their labours ; so they again commenced, with others added to their number, to complete the work which they had for so many years had in hand. The committee recom- of Prcemunientes in the king's writ, and the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom. If this request was denied, they desired that no bills in which the Christian religion, the persons, estates, or jurisdiction of the clergy are concerned, may pass without the assent of the clergy. ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD VI. menced their sittings at Windsor in January, 1548, "having respect to the pure religion Christ taught in the Scripture, and the practice of the Primitive Church." But there was no need of a new Prayer-Book. There were already several Prayer-Books or " Uses" existing in English dioceses, such as the Uses of Sarum, York, Hereford, and Bangor. Of these, the principal and the most generally received was the " Sarum Use," which St. Osmond, Bishop of Salis- bury, had consolidated from the various Liturgies which had up to this time been used in the English Church. This Sarum Prayer-Book contained the fa- mous Portiforium, or Breviary of Sarum, which com- prised the Daily Services; together with the Sarum Missal, or Communion Office ; and probably the Sa- rum " Manual," comprising the Baptismal and other "occasional" offices. These ancient formularies, how- ever well adapted for the rule and continual worship of monastic communities, became, after the suppres- sion of the monasteries, unfitted to the altered cir- cumstances of the Church of England, and too com- plicated for parochial congregations The work of the committee, therefore, was confined to comparing the existing book with Scripture and the Primitive Church ; to purging out mediaeval accre- tions, and making the book better adapted to the pre- sent requirements of the Church. The first result of their labours was the production, on March 8, 1548, of an English " Order for Communion," as supple- mental to the Office of the Mass, which was directed to come in use at Easter (April i). But this work was only tentative ; the committee, or a part of them, '' Blunt's Annot. Common Prayer, xix. 320 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. continued their sittings at Windsor, which they finished in November ; on the 24th of that month they sub- mitted their work to Convocation ; and with the sanc- tion of Convocation, handed to the king, to be by him laid before ParHament, the " Book of Common Prayer," the first Prayer-Book of King Edward VI., "the no- blest monument of piety and learning which the six- teenth century had produced \" This book was sub- mitted to the House of Commons, December 19, 1548, and the next day to the House of Lords, in order that it might be incorporated into an Act of Parlia- ment (2nd and 3rd Edw. VI., c. i.). The act (in- cluding the Prayer-Book) was finally returned to the House of Lords from the House of Commons on Jan. 22, 1549, just six days within the second year of King Edward VI. This, which was the first Act of Unifor- mity, and pronounced the Book of Common Prayer to have been composed " under the influence of the Holy Ghost," enacted that the book should come into general use on the Whitsunday following ; the first copy, however, was published on March 7, and the clergy were at liberty to use it as early as they could procure copies. The principal difference between this and " the Sarum Use," was the compression of the offices for the seven hours into daily Matins and Even- song™; the reading of the Psalter through once a- month, instead of once a-week ; the selection of the Lessons from the Bible only ; and the substitution of the English for the Latin language. The book in one sense was a new one, but it was in substance iden- ' Hardwick's Reform., 212. " The canonical hours were: (i.) Noctums, Matins or Lauds, a night or daybreak service ; (2.) Prime at 6 a.m. ; (3.) Terce at 9 ; (4.) Sexts at noon ; (5.) Nones at 3 p.m. ; (6.) Vespers at 6 ; and Compline, the last ser%'ice. ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD VI. 321 tical with the older books, the Communion Office being an adaptation of the old Missal or Mass, and our Matins and Evensong that of the Old Breviary. " The great majority of our formularies are actually translated from Latin and Greek Rituals, which have been used at least fourteen or fifteen hundred years in the Christian Church ; and there is scarcely a por- tion of our Prayer- Book which cannot in some way be traced to ancient offices"." Cranmer declared it was the same that had been used in the Church for fifteen hundred years : if here and there new elements are detected, they are traceable to the reformed Bre- viary, which was drawn up by Cardinal Quignon, at the command of Pope Clement VII., and first pub- lished in 1536; in fact, a considerable portion of the preface " concerning the service of the Church " is taken word for word, and is a mere translation from Latin into English of a passage in Quignon's Breviary. In this Prayer-Book there was at first no Ordinal included. But by an Act of Parliament passed in the beginning of 1550, "six prelates, and six other men learned in the law," were appointed to draw up a form for making " archbishops, bishops, priests, dea- cons, and other ministers ;" the new Ordinal was sub- mitted to the council on Eeb. 28, signed by eleven of the commissioners. Heath, Bishop of Worcester, alone refusing, for which he was committed to the Fleet prison. The same Parliament that passed the Act of Uni- formity, sanctioned also the marriage of the clergy. The marriage of the clergy had been allowed in Con- vocation, after much opposition, by fifty-three to thirty- two votes, but it met with much stronger opposition , " Palmer, Orig. Lit. Y 322 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. in Parliament ; and although an act was passed which sanctioned it, the preamble sets forth that " it is to be v/ished the clergy would live single, that they might be more at leisure to attend the business of their function." In the year 1548 was published Cranmer's Cate- chism, entitled "A Short Instruction to Christian Re- ligion, for the singular profit of Children and Young People." It was probably derived from Luther's Ca- techism, and drawn up at first in German, from which language it was translated into Latin by Justus Jonas, and from Latin into English perhaps by Rowland Tay- lor, the martyr, who was one of Cranmer's chaplains ; the part borne by Cranmer appears, from the title, to have been to "oversee" and "correct it." This Cate- chism, which is an exposition of the Ten Command- ments arranged after the Roman usage, and which teaches the three Sacraments of Baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and Penance, must not be confounded with our Church Catechism ; which was probably drawn up by Dean Nowell (although some attribute it to Poynet, Bishop of Winchester), and revised by Cranmer and Ridley ; the latter part, concerning the Sacraments, was not added until long afterwards, by Bishop Overall in the reign of James I. The principle of the English Reformation had hi- therto been mainly Catholic, and totally alien from that advocated on the Continent. The First Prayer- Book of Edward VI. had been drawn up without foreign interference, and was acceptable to a large majority both of clergy and laity. At the same time, everything had been done to satisfy the ultra-Re- formers ; images had been removed, and in many places altars had been destroyed. But a small sec- tion still complained of several things which remained, ULTRA-REFORM. — EDWARD YI. 323 especially the episcopal vestments ; and influenced by the Calvinistic Reformers of the Continent, complained of the new Service-book as nothing short of the Roman Missal and Breviary, translated into the English lan- guage. Calvin had, in 1545, published at Geneva a Liturgy of his own, quite different to the English Li- turgy, and he tried to bias the minds of Cranmer and the Protector in favour of his own views. A number of distinguished foreigners, at the invitation of Cran- mer and Somerset, were now settled in the country. Bucer and Fagius had been appointed to Theological lectureships at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr to the Regius Professorship of Divinity at Oxford. Another foreigner residing in the country was John A. Lasco, whose great praise is that he was the friend of Eras- mus ; to him had been made the grant of the Grey Friars Church, and the charge of all the foreign com- munities in London, under the sanction of the Bishop ; whilst the congregation of the French and Walloons at Glastonbury was committed to Pullain, under the immediate tutelage of Somerset. These foreigners, who did not understand English, and knew the book only through imperfect translations, were continually complaining of the Prayer-Book, and plotting for its alteration. In the autumn of 1549 the Protector Somerset had been committed to the Tower, and the new Protector, the Duke of Northumberland, saw that it was to his interest to favour the ultra- Reformers ; Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, was sent to the Tower, and the tempo- ralities of his see were, by Act of Parliament, made over to Northumberland ; Cranmer, who was too cau- tious and too little revolutionizing to suit the Protector, had for a time retired from his usually busy life, and so Hooper had the opportunity of instilling his prin- Y 2 324 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. ciples into the court, and especially his aversion about the ornaments and vestments of the Church. The young king (and there is reason to believe that Cranmer after a time joined him) was led by these in- fluences towards a further review of the Prayer-Book, but the revision was not to be made by Convocation. In the Convocation of 1550 the matter of revision was defeated in both Houses, and there was a general un- willingness for any change. The king threatened to alter the Prayer-Book on his own authority ; this de- termination of the king's probably induced Convocation to delegate its authority to a Royal Commission, com- posed chiefly of its own members, although there are no records to shew for certain in what manner, and by whom, this second revision was made. The revision commenced in the autumn of 1550. In 1552, Parliament met on January 23; Convocation meeting, as usual, on the following day. Edward's second Act of Uniformity, with the Second Book at- tached, passed both Houses of Parliament on April 6, with a proviso that it was to come into use on the following feast of All Saints. The difference between the two Prayer-Books of King Edward VI. is at once apparent : the first was thoroughly Catholic ; in fact, it was little more than an abridged compilation from the old service-books ; the second book was a great advance towards ultra- reform, and sacrificed much, both in doctrine and ritual, which the Church would willingly have re- tained. The Act of Uniformity attached to the second book speaks of the Prayer-Book of 1 549, " as a godly order, agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church," yet that " because divers doubts and disputes had arisen as to the way in which the book was to be used .... rather by the curiosity ULTRA-REFORM. — EDWARD VI, 325 of the minister than of any worthy cause;" therefore, the present book was now put forth. The principal changes made were : the addition of the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession and Absolution at the beginning of the Prayer- Book ; the insertion of the Ten Commandments in the Communion Office, which thus differs from every primitive Liturgy, and is a peculiarity of the English Church ; the omission of certain rites, such as the anointing and use of the chrism and trine immersion at Baptism, the unction of the sick, the reserved Sacrament, Introits before the Collects, prayer for departed souls, both in the Communion and that for the Burial of the Dead ; the invocation of the Holy Ghost at the con- secration of the Holy Eucharist, and the prayer of oblation which followed it; and the rubric which or- dered the mixing of water with wine. Special vest- ments for the Holy Communion, which were pre- scribed in the First Book, were ordered to be laid aside ; the Black Rubric added, which explains kneel- ing at the Holy Communion, whilst a change in the words of delivery was also made : a revised Ordinal was also appended to the new Prayer- Book. There is no proof that the Second Prayer-Book of King Edward VI. ever received the sanction of Con- vocation ; nor is there any evidence that the book even came into general use. Three editions were printed ; but in so unsatisfactory a manner, that fur- ther publication was stopped by an Order of Council on Sept. 27, 1552; nor were any further issues of it made. The probable reason for its suppression was, the thorough dislike with which it was received both by clergy and people. Even Cranmer complains of the unquiet spirits which demanded the unnecessary revision : " which can like nothing but that is after 326 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. their own fancy ; and cease not to make trouble when things be most quiet and in good order. If such men should be heard, although the book were made every year anew, yet it should not lack faults in their opinion"." The year 1552, in which this Second Prayer-Book of King Edward VI. appeared, witnessed also the publication of Forty-two Articles of Religion. The growth of the reforming party, on the one hand, which advocated extravagant doctrines, — doctrines which were carried still further by the violence of the Anabaptists and other sectaries, — and of the party headed by Gardiner p, on the other, rendered neces- sary some authorized confession of orthodoxy. It had long been a favourite idea with Cranmer, in which he had invited Melancthon to assist him, to draw to- gether the Continental Protestants of different schools into communion with the English Church. Henry VI 1 1, had, as we have seen, refused the proposal of an al- liance made to him by the foreign Reformers. But Edward VI. being a child, and thoroughly under the influence of his guardians, the foreigners entertain- ed strong hopes of forming an English alliance, and making Edward the head of a Protestant League ; a plan which was probably only frustrated by Edward's death. Cranmer, however, by the king's command, and aided by Ridley, taking the Lutheran documents, especially the Confession of Faith drawn up at Augs- ° Blunt's Annot. Com. Prayer, xxxi. p Gardiner and his party were naturally exasperated at the treatment they had received. At the end of the reign, six bishops of that party were in prison : Gardiner, Bonner, Day, Tunstall, Heath, and Ferrars ; the Crown and courtiers were enriching themselves with the property of the Church ; and even the more zealous of the bishops, such as Rid- ley and Hooper, were only playing into the hands of an unscrupulous government. ULTRA-REFORM. EDWARD VI. burg In 1530, as his model, compiled Forty-two Ar- ticles, and committed them to certain bishops for their approval. After having revised and amended them, he submitted them to Sir William Cecil and Sir John Cheke, who agreed that they should be sent to the king. After this had been done, Cranmer commu- nicated them to some other divines ; and, after making his last remarks, he then sent them to the Council on November 24, 1552, with the request that the king would authorize the bishops and clergy to subscribe them. The Council kept them in their hands till the following March, and ordered them to be circu- lated in May ; but whether they received the sanction of Convocation is uncertain ; Dr. Cardwell, in his Synodalia, thinks they did and it appears that Con- vocation sat that year from March 19 to April i. The Articles, in some important respects, differ from the Thirty-nine Articles of Queen Elizabeth's reign, they did not contain the Article on the Holy Ghost, nor the twenty-ninth and thirtieth Articles on the Lord's Supper. Another act had been passed, in 1 549, for the re- formation of the canon law, but again failed, as before in the reign of Henry VHI. The commissioners had prepared their work, and were ready to submit it to Convocation and Parliament, when Edward died. The matter was afterwards revived by the Puritans in the reign of Elizabeth, but the queen considered that it trenched upon her supremacy. Another attempt was made in vain under Charles I. ; so all attempts of the " Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum " have proved abortive. ■» Bishop Harold Brown's 39 Art. CHAPTER III. THE ROMANIST REACTION. MARY. T^HE folly of religious persecution cannot be better exemplified than in the history of the English Church at this period. Henry persecuted Romanists and Protestants alike ; Edward persecuted Romanists ; Mary persecuted those whom Edward favoured; and we shall soon find Elizabeth persecuting Romanists again. We now-a-days talk about the " bloody reign of Queen Mary," and so it was ; so also were the reigns of her father, her brother, and her sister. Clarendon says that under Henry more people were put to death than under Mary; Henry would burn as traitors alike those who were guilty of heresy, and those who denied his supremacy. What can we say of Cranmer's share in this sanguinary work ? Under Henry Cranmer con- demned to the flames those who denied Transub- stantiation ; in the reign of Edward he overcame the boy-king's aversion to persecution ; against his better judgment, with tears in his eyes, and an appeal to the grey-headed primate that he would be responsible for the act at the day of judgment, Edward, listening to the voice of Cranmer, signed the death-warrant of the poor fanatic, Joan of Kent, a woman who was more fit for a lunatic asylum than for martyrdom. Cranmer himself was always wavering in his faith ; he was first a Romanist, then a mitigated Romanist, then a Lutheran, and then a Calvinist ; so many deaths, therefore, according to his own theory of intolerance, ought he to have suffered. It is from no wish to disparage Cranmer's memory, THE ROMANIST REACTION.- — MARY. or to excuse Mary's conduct, that these remarks are made ; her woman's nature ought to have been averse to cruelties which have excited the horror of Roman Catholic historians ; but truth compels the confession that others, and with less excuse, are equally, or only in a less degree, guilty with Mary. Mary, it must be remembered, had been herself persecuted for her re- ligion. She had keenly felt the unjust treatment in- flicted on her mother ; Edward had, in his will, left the throne to the Lady Jane Grey; and at the beginning of her reign a conspiracy had been organised, and that supported by no less a person than the primate, to set aside her undoubted right to the Crown. In the present day a different kind of religious persecu- tion is in vogue ; the fires of Smithfield are out of date : but we must carry ourselves back to the times and circumstances of Mary's reign, when no notion of religious toleration existed, when she only carried out the sanguinary system of her predecessors. Mary was a bigot ; but she was sincere ; she believed, ac- cording to the principles of the Church in which she had been brought up, that she was inculcating the cause of truth ; heresy with her was a deadly sin ; the punishment of heresy was death, so heretics must be burnt ; and if she burnt their bodies, it was to save their souls, that through a short suffering in this world, they might be saved from eternal suffering in the next. The bishops who had been deprived were at once reinstated in their sees : Gardiner was made Lord Chancellor, and as long as he was her adviser, Mary proceeded cautiously : she still retained the title of " Head of the Church," and promised that she would force no man's conscience. Gardiner thoroughly un- 330 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. derstood the wishes of the country ; he saw that the ultra- Reformation under Edward had left the mass, both of clergy and laity, unaltered in their attachment to the ancient faith, but that there was also a strong opposition to the supremacy of the Pope ; he himself had thoroughly acquiesced in its abolition ; he wished now, without alarming the prejudices of the country, to restore the religious system as it had existed at Henry's death, and thus by degrees to effect a re- conciliation with Rome. Had Gardiner's advice been acted upon ; had a moderate, instead of a rash and cruel, policy been adopted ; had Mary listened to wiser counsellors than the Pope, and the numerous Spaniards who held office in the court ; it is more than probable that all the work of the two previous reigns would have been undone ; a lasting impression have been made upon the Church, and the papacy permanently established in England. As it is, just as England was being recovered to Rome, the fires of Smithfield broke out, and so England was lost to Rome for ever. The character of Gardiner is much misunderstood, and in the minds of many people is associated, with that of Bonner, in the cruelties of this reign. No mistake could be greater. Gardiner probably was not averse to the burning of a heretic (few people in those days were), least of all Cranmer. Gardiner had man- fully withstood the ultra-reforming spirit of the late reign, which Cranmer had so greatly encouraged. He had himself been persecuted ; but how did he behave when he was restored to power His bitterest enemy had been the Duke of Northumberland ; yet when the duke was a prisoner in the Tower, he visited him, and pleaded for his life. No one could have op- THE ROMANIST REACTION. MARY. posed him more than did Peter Martyr ; yet, when it was proposed that the Reformer should be called upon to answer for his conduct, Gardiner, at that time Lord Chancellor, not only exerted his influence in his favour, but supplied him with the means of departing from the country. Cranmer, a comparatively unknown man, had been appointed over his head to the pri- macy ; through Cranmer he had been committed to prison under Edward VI. ; yet to him on one occa- sion Cranmer owed his liberty, and to the last Gar- diner did all in his power to save him. A very different man from Gardiner was Bonner, " vulgar and coarse-minded, and one who is best de- scribed as a bully ^ ;" yet he probably was not as bad as he has been painted. A royal circular of Ma}-, 1555, complains of the bishops generally (and amongst them Bonner must have been included), for not using greater strictness in extirpating heresy ; but Bonner was a bishop, and therefore the Puritans delighted to fasten on him the murders of which Mary herself was the chief cause. The queen's counsellors, although they had changed themselves, were always ready to do as the queen wished, and never counselled mercy ; what rendered Bonner's memory particularly odious, were the coarse and vulgar personalities with which he vented his angry passions on the unhappy heretics who were brought before him as judge. The first Parliament of the reign met October 5, 1553' four days after the queen's coronation, and was opened with High Mass in Latin. The first steps taken were to confirm the marriage of Henry and Katharine, and thus legalize Mary's birth ; and to restore the freedom of Convocation, of which it had " Hook's Lives, vii. 309. 332 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. been deprived by Henry. Accordingly, Convocation met without the royal licence, and the Lower House elected Weston, Dean of Westminster, as prolocutor. By one Act of Parliament, the two Acts of Unifor- mity, the marriage of the clergy ^ and other statutes made under Edward, were abolished, and the services of the Church restored to their condition in the last year of Henry VHI. When the prolocutor proposed to the Lower House of Convocation the repeal of the acts legalizing the Service-book of King Edward, only six members were found to oppose it. In the Upper House it was resolved to maintain the doctrine of Transubstantiation, to restore Communion in one kind, and the elevation and reservation of the Host. It could not be to a love of the new queen that this change of feeling was attributable. Mary was disliked almost as much as from her childhood she had hated the English nation, all her sympathy from which she had transferred to her mother's country. It is true that several bishops were either imprisoned or de- posed ; that many of the clergy had been compelled to seek refuge and security in Switzerland and Ger- many ; yet this cannot account for the general apathy that existed, or the readiness with which not only Par- liament, but Convocation also, repudiated the Refor- mation ; it shews that when the glaring exactions and usurpations of Rome had been abolished, the thought- ful people were opposed to the sweeping changes of the former reign ; that a dislike of the whole work of Reformation set in, and a reaction occurred amongst the community at large. But moderate counsels were not long followed by Against the married clergy the queen was very severe in the " In- junctions" which, in imitation of her predecessors, she issued in 1554. THE ROMANIST REACTION. — MARY. 333 Mary, and the end of Gardiner's supremacy was at hand. On November of 1 554, the year of the queen's marriage with PhiHp of Spain, Cardinal Pole, whose attainder had been removed by an Act of Parliament, after an absence of twenty years, arrived in England as the Pope's legate, for the purpose of reconciling England with the Holy See; and on November 28, after but a slight opposition in the House of Commons, the acts against the Pope's supremacy were repealed in both Houses of Parliament, and the same decision was arrived at in Convocation. On St. Andrew's day, after High Mass in Westminster Abbey, the lords and ladies assembled in Whitehall, and there, in the pre- sence of the queen and her husband, kneeling on their knees, they received absolution from the cardinal ; the nation was thus received back into communion with Rome ; the Act was ratified by the new Pope, Paul IV., and on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, a solemn procession was made to St. Paul's, to return thanks for the reconciliation of the kingdom with the papal see. And now the work of the counter- reformation went on apace. All the married clergy were ejected from their livings ^ The statutes against heresy were re- vived. Great numbers of Englishmen, from all ranks of society, fled the kingdom, although conflicting opi- nions render it impossible to state the number'^. Seve- ' It is difficult to compute the numbers ejected on this ground. Some place it as high as three-fourths of the whole clergy. In the diocese of Canterbury, it is known that out of three hundred and eighty, rather more than seventy -were ejected ; if this can be taken as an average, it may be computed at about one-fifth of the whole clergy. Heylin says eight hundred. Massingberd, in his " Reformation," relying on untrustworthy information, speaks of thirty thousand suffering exile, and of three hundred being burnt. 334 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. ral bishops, Coverdale, Barlow, Scory^, Poynet, and Bale, together with other dignitaries and clergymen who afterwards became distinguished in the Church, Jewel, Nowel, Pilkington, Fox, Humphrey, and Whit- tingham, being in the number. Of those who remained at home, many by the vio- lence of their fanaticism, and the disloyalty of their language, as well as their ridicule of the superstition of the Roman Church, succeeded in provoking the naturally amiable temper of Pole, and the vindictive susceptibilities of the queen ; whilst an insurrection, headed by Sir Walter Carew in the west of England, and Sir Thomas Wyatt in Kent, which was owing rather to a dislike of the Spanish connexion, than any religious enthusiasm, seemed to threaten the security of the queen. These causes may explain, although they do not palliate, the cruel executions of the next four years. Pole, who had before been an advocate on the side of mercy, now adopted a sure plan for discovering the antagonists of the new religion. He ordered a book to be kept by the bishops of those who had become reconciled to Rome. In this manner, those that re- sisted were discovered ; and as many as two hundred and eighty persons were through this means put to death, for no other reason than that they remained faithful to their religion, and to the vows which they had taken in the former reign. Rodgers, one of those who had helped Tyndale in translating the Bible, was burnt at Smithfield in the presence of his children, who stood by and encouraged him ; Hooper in front of his own cathedral at Gloucester, Saunders at Co- ' Scory was the only bishop that recanted, and he received absolution from Bonner. THE ROMANIST REACTION. MARY. 335 ventry, and Rowland Taylor in his own parish at Hadley, all four married men. A month afterwards, Farrer, Bishop of St. David's, was burnt ; Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, through the mediation of the King of Denmark, escaped, and left the country. Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, and with them Bradford, were confined in the same apartment in the Tower ; but the three first were afterwards removed to Oxford, where they were imprisoned separately, Ridley and Latimer in the houses of private individuals in the Corn-market, and Cranmer in the common prison called Bocardo. The place selected for the execution of Latimer and Ridley was a ditch outside the city, in front of Balliol, of which Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester — who, acting as the Pope's commissioner, had condemned them to death — was master; and here, on Oct. i6, 1555, they met their death manfully ; the last words of Latimer being, when a lighted faggot was being laid at Ridley's feet, " Be of good comfort. Master Ridley, we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in Eng- land, as I trust shall never be put out." Meanwhile, strong interest was being made on be- half of Cranmer ; even Cardinal Pole interceded for him with the queen. Hopes, and not without reason, were entertained of his joining the Church of Rome. From the time that from his prison-window he had witnessed the burning of Ridley and Latimer, his con- stancy failed him. At one time he signed an ab- ject declaration, submitting himself to the queen, and acknowledging the Pope's supremacy ; but as he did not retract his religious opinions, this was not enough. At another time, he appealed to a general council, called together in the Holy Ghost, as superior 336 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. to the Pope ; but here again he wavered, for in defend- ing himself he spoke of the Pope's usurped authority. This was considered a proof of his insincerity : Pole could no longer intercede for him ; and his enemies determined to proceed to extremities. Cranmer still clung to the hopes of life. A month passed by, in the expectation that he might be induced to recant : he was removed to the lodgings of the Dean of Christ Church ; and here, being treated with great kindness, he made a full and thorough recantation, under the hope, as he himself said, that his life might be spared. It was, however, in vain. On the 21st March, being ap- prised of his doom, in a layman's dress (for, like the other bishops, he was first degraded), he was brought into St. Mary's Church, and there he was called upon for a public expression of faith, that all might know he was a Catholic. Standing on a raised plat- form in front of the pulpit, he first read a prayer ; then kneeling (the people also kneeling, and joining with him), he repeated the Lord's Prayer. Having re- cited the Apostles' Creed, and declaring his belief in the faith of the Catholic Church, he said he came to the matter which troubled him more than anything in his life. He was now expected to read a confession drawn up for him by Bonner. Instead of this, he con- fessed that the papers he had signed, and for which he grieved so much, were written under fear of death ; and " forasmuch as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished there- fore, for when I come to the fire it shall first be burnt. And as for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist, and all his false doctrines." He spoke a few sentences more, but his voice was drowned with hootin^s, and he was hurried off to the spot where THE ROMANIST REACTION. MARY. 337 his brother bishops had lately made so good a con- fession; and there, on March 21, 1556, when the fire was lighted, resuming all his fortitude, he thrust his right hand into the flame \ and held it there without flinching, exclaiming, "This unworthy right hand;" and with his last breath, " Lord Jesus, receive My spirit." No one will reproach Cranmer that he had not the gift of fortitude; but not having that gift himself, he will always be blamed for want of feeling, and committing others to a cruel and untimely death. But truth compels one to confess that in no sense is he entitled to the appellation of martyr. A martyr is one that dies willinglyy rather than renounce his opinions. Cranmer both renounced his opinions, and died unwillingly: he renounced his opinions more than once, and although it is unjust to reflect upon him that he might have done the same again to save his life, it is nothing to say he recanted his recantation when his life was forfeited. He only did what others do when they are at the point of death, and all hope of pardon in this life is excluded. On the next day. Cardinal Pole was consecrated as' Archbishop of Canterbury, but he did not enjoy his honour long. Pole certainly understood the English temperament, and shewed his sympathy for the people by ordering the New Testament to be translated into English. He had not an easy part to play : he was the personal enemy of the new Pope, Paul IV., against whom he had been put in competition for the papacy ; he was suspected at Rome of Lutheran tendencies, ' Voltaire compares this act to a similar one by Mutius Scaevola, cha- racterizing that of Cranmer as the most magnanimous of the two. Z r^^S THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. and his advocacy of the translation of the New Testa- ment probably increased the ill-feeling against him. The Pope revoked his legatine commission, and summoned him to attend at Rome ; but the queen shewed she had a will as strong as her father's ; she would not allow him to go to Rome, and Pole was reinstated in his office of legate. He died on Nov. i8, 1558. Mary, worn out by trouble; hated, as she felt she was, by her subjects ; feeling that the Roman creed in England would die with her; neglected by her hus- band, whom she greatly loved ; involved in a quarrel with the Pope ; in addition to all, overwhelmed with grief at the loss of Calais, died only a few hours be- fore the primate, on Nov. 1 7. CHAPTER IV. THE ROMAN SCHISM, AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. ELIZABETH. CO great was the indignation felt in England at the ^ persecution of the bishops and others ; so great the national shame for the loss of Calais, and the de- gradation to which the country had fallen through an unnecessary and disastrous war ; so financially ruined had it become through the raising of subsidies, and the constant draining of money from England to Spain ; that people of all classes, the Romanist clergy alone excepted, overlooked their theological differences, and hailed with joy the accession of Elizabeth. During the reigns of Henry and Edward, owing to the tyrannical character of the former, and the ultra-reforming spirit of the counsellors of the latter, no great national zeal had been manifested in the cause of the Reformation ; but when it came before the nation recommended by the blood of martyrs, as in the reign of Mary, then it was regarded with favour both in a religious light and in the cause of liberty. As the see of Canterbury was vacant, the duty of officiating at the coronation of the queen fell on Heath, the Archbishop of York ; but as he refused, the cere- mony was performed by Dr. Owen Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, according to the old formulary, which has existed from the earliest period of our history, and which, though altered and adapted to suit the circum- stances of each reign, was substantially the same as that which is used now * : the " knights and lords, * Hook's Lives, ix. 151, is conclusive on this point. Z 2 340 THE ROMAN SCHISM, heralds of arms in their rich coats, then the nobles, and all the bishops in scarlet," being present The queen acted cautiously, but firmly, hoping thus to unite the discordant elements of the nation. She regularly attended Mass, and declared her attachment to the ceremonies of the Church as she found them ; her only objection being to the elevation of the Host during the celebration of the Mass. The ornaments of the royal chapel remained the same as they were under her sister : there vfas a crucifix over the altar, with tapers lighted before the Sacrament, incense was burnt, and obeisance was made before the altar. Her state-council consisted both of Romanists and Re- formers : she retained eleven of Mary's counsellors, to whom she added eight favourable to the Reforma- tion ; whilst she took as her principal adviser, Cecil, principal Secretary of State, and Sir Nicolas Bacon, Lord Keeper. In order to prevent disputes about religion, at a time when party - spirit between the Romanists and Reformers ran high, she issued a pro- clamation for the suppression of preaching : till the meeting of Parliament, the people might only give audience " to the Gospels and Epistels, commonly called the Gospel and Epistel of the day, and the ten Commandments, without exposition or addition of any maner, sense or meaning, to be applyed or added ; nor *" Strype's Annals. Soames says all the bishops were present, although, on account of the recent great mortality, this number was small. Most writers assert that only one bishop, Oglethorpe, was present, the others being unwilling to attend. But their authority seems to be Camden, who, Soames tells us, was at that time a child; and it is to be remarked that, though Camden says Oglethorpe officiated, he does not say the other bishops were not present. It would appear that all the diocesan bishops were present, except Bonner ; and that he lent his scarlet robes to another prelate, who would not otherwise have been properly dressed. (Hook, ix. 153.) AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. to use any other maner of public prayer, rite or cere- mony in the Church, but that which is already used as by law receaved ; or the common Litany used at present in her Majesty's own chapel, and the Lord's Prayer and the Crede in English." The religion at that time established, that is, the Roman, was for a time to continue ; but the reformers might have the service in their own language, only without preaching. Cecil not only clearly understood the temper of the nation, that the great majority were in favour of a moderate reform ; but he saw, with statesmanlike insight, the danger that would accompany such a move- ment. On one side, he saw the animosity of Rome ; how the Pope would place the kingdom under an interdict, and bestow it on a foreign prince : on the other, the coming trouble from the Puritans, how when they saw that all ceremonies were not abo- lished, and that any doctrine or practice except their own was retained, they would call it " a cloaked pa- pistry, or a mingle-mangle." He was anxious that the Prayer-Book should be restored in such a manner that the influence of the ultra -reformers might not endanger the throne and commonwealth. Such were the difficulties that beset Elizabeth. She had to contend with Romanism on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other. She was bent on reform ; but it was the moderate reform of her father, preserv- ing as much of the old Church as possible ; and she had no intention of forming an alliance with the Pro- testants. Communication had been opened with the Pope, through Sir Edward Carne, the ambassador ; pending his answer, everything was done to conciliate him. The future of England's religion was in the Pope's hands. 342 THE ROMAN SCHISM, The conduct of the Pope was coarse and insolent. He refused to recognise her title, on the ground that she was illegitimate : and her succession to the throne, which was a fief of the papal see, without his sanction, was an act of impertinence. Of this the queen took no further notice, beyond the withdrawal of the am- bassador. Still the queen and Cecil were desirous of conciliating the Romanizing part of her subjects, if only they would obey the laws of the country. The first Parliament met in December, 1558, and never did Parliament meet under circumstances more imperative. It had to undo, in face of strong oppo- sition, all the work of Mary's reign ; to repeal the laws by which Mary had abolished the acts of Henry and Edward ; to repeal the penal laws, and to restore the superseded services and ritual, and the appoint- ment of bishops by the cojige d'elire. Unfortunately, it undid whatever little good Mary had done, for in one respect Mary's character contrasted favourably with that of Elizabeth. Mary had relinquished her rights to the tenths and first-fruits from ecclesiastical benefices, which had been conferred on the Crown in the reign of Henry V HI.; these rights were now, although the measure was strongly resisted by the bishops, resumed by Elizabeth, together with the right to any property belonging to vacant sees, and of trans- ferring a pretended equivalent (which was generally most inadequate) for the impropriations vested in the Crown. In the first session of Parliament was passed, under opposition from all the bishops except Kitchin of Llandaff, an act entitled " An Act for restoring to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical, and abolishing all foreign powers re- AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 'pugnant to the same." Henry had assumed the title 'of Supreme Head of the Church on earth ; EHzabeth, from conscientious scruples it is said, refused this title, •even when accompanied with any limitation : she would only accept the title of "Supreme Governor" instead of " Supreme Head." The distinction seems to be rather without a difference. The Queen, it is true, in the Injunctions which she published, attached to the Royal Supremacy an unobjectionable inter- pretation : "Her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any authority other than was challenged and lately used by the noble kings of famous memory, Henry VHI. and Edward VI., which is and was of ancient time due to the imperial Crown of this realm ; that is, under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms, dominions, and countries, of what state, either ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they may be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them." But, notwithstanding this explanation, the Supremacy Act invested the queen with a power far beyond the legitimate limits of the supremacy, a power scarcely inferior to that exercised by the Pope ; it empowered the queen and her suc- cessors to erect the High Commission Court for the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; to appoint, by letters patent under the Great Seal, such persons as she should think fit for the exercising under the Crown all manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction By this act the Visitors are empowered to " visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, ' Collier, ii. 420. 344 THE ROMAN SCHISM, and enormities, which by any manner, spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redeemed, cor- rected, or amended." There was, however, an im- portant proviso : "No person or persons who shall be authorised by the queen, her heirs, or successors, to execute any spiritual jurisdiction, shall have any authority or power to determine or judge any matter or cause to be heresy, but only such as heretofore had been determined, ordered, or adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the canonical scriptures, or by the first four General Councils, or any of them, or any other General Council, wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the canoni- cal scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be ordered, judged, or determined to be heresy by the High Court of Parliament of the realm, with the assent of the clergy in their Convocation ; anything in this act to the contrary notwithstanding." To give some ecclesiastical sanction to measures which had been so strongly opposed by the bishops in the House of Lords, Heath, Archbishop of York, was ordered to appoint a conference in Westminster Abbey, on March 31, 1559, between bishops and clergy selected from the Romanists and the Reformers, to discuss the points of difference between the two par- ties. On the side of the Romanists, the bishops of Winchester, Chester, Lichfield, and Lincoln, with four other clergy, were appointed : on that of the Reform- ers were Scory, late Bishop of Chichester ; Cox, late Dean of Westminster ; Horne, late Dean of Durham ; Aylmer, late Archdeacon of Stow ; and Whitehead, Grindal, Guest, and Jewel. The disputation took place in the presence of the Privy Council, many of AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 345 the House of Lords, and some of the House of Com- mons. On the first day it was carried on with order and decorum ; but on the second the Romanists, find- ing themselves unequal to the task they had under- taken, violated the terms to which they had agreed. The Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln behaved with great violence, and threatened to excommunicate the queen, and were in consequence committed to the Tower. And so the matter was broken off. The other important act of the session was the Act of Uniformity, which authorized the new Prayer- Book of Queen Elizabeth. A committee had assembled under the presidency of Sir Thomas Smith, the queen's Secretary, to revise the Book of Common Prayer. The committee consisted of Matthew Parker, soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury ; Grindal, after- wards Bishop of London, and Archbishop of York and Canterbury ; Pilkington, Dean of Durham ; Cox, Bishop of Ely ; May (elected to York, but who died before his consecration) ; Sir Thomas Smith, Dean of Carlisle ; Whitehead, who declined the Archbishop- ric of Canterbury ; Sandys, Archbishop of York ; and Guest, Bishop of Rochester and Salisbury ; but it is a question how far any of the few alterations even- tually made were the results of their labours. The two principal parties in the Church were very active, one desirous of abolishing episcopacy alto- gether, and every rite and ceremony which was used by Rome, and to introduce the service and disci- pline of Geneva ; the other, (and amongst them the Queen and Cecil) wished to re-introduce the First Prayer-Book of King Edward VL, and if any altera- tions were required, to remodel it in a Catholic rather 346 THE ROMAN SCHISM, than a Puritan direction. Her council, however^ seem to have been guided by the consideration that while, on the one hand, it was impossible to reconcile the Romanists, on the other, it was policy to consult, as far as possible, the wishes of the exiles who had lately returned from Geneva ; they, therefore, recommended that the second book should be attached to the Act of Uniformity. The queen, who was an advocate for a high ritual (the practice in her own chapel shews this), would not consent to this simple procedure. A compromise was effected : so the book submitted to Parliament was that authorized in the fifth and sixth years of King Edward VI., with a few alterations. A table of proper lessons for Sundays was added ; the " accus- tomed place," or chancel, instead of " in such place as the people may best hear," was appointed for the cele- bration of divine service ; the black rubric, as it is called, which had been irregularly inserted in the second book, was omitted, as also the words in the Litany, " from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities ;" the words in the Delivery, " The Body . . . Blood ... of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given . . . shed . . . for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," were inserted with the words from the second book, " Take and eat . . . drink . . . this in remembrance that Christ died for thee . . . that Christ's Blood was shed for thee . . . and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanks- eivinor . . . and be thankful ;" which had been before substituted. But the most important alteration, pro- bably at the suggestion of the queen, was a return to the ornaments of the Church which had prevailed AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 347 under the first, but had been discontinued under the second book. The Proviso enacting this, appeared nearly at the end of the Act, and ran thus : " Pro- vided always and be it enacted, that such Orna- ments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use, as was in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI., until other order shall be therein taken by the autho- rity of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorized under the Great Seal of England, for causes Ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this Realm." The rubric which incorporated the clause of the Act, ran : " And here it is to be noted, that the Minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his Ministra- tion, shall use such Ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI., according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book." Thus altered, the new Prayer-Book, which was vir- tually the same as that which had been approved by Convocation in the reign of Edward VI., was laid before Parliament, which, without any recorded dis- cussion, annexed it to the Act of Uniformity. The Elizabethan Act of Uniformity was passed on April 28, 1559, and was ordered to come in use on the feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24 ; it was, however, in use within a fortnight in the queen's chapel and St. Paul's Cathedral, and before the end of May was in general use in the churches through- out the land. In the following year it was, at the request of the Universities, translated into Latin by Walter H addon ; but this, with the necessary changes. 348 THE ROMAN SCHISM, was little more than a reproduction of the translation previously made by Alexander Aless. The same year that the Act of Uniformity was passed, in order to test the feelings of the clergy, a general visitation of the country was determined upon ; and, at the same time, a body of fifty-three Injunctions'^ were issued, very similar to those of Ed- ward VI,, for the instruction of the clergy. Through- out the kingdom the revised Prayer- Book was wil- lingly received, even by the vast majority of the Romanist laity ; and from the report of the Com- missioners, it appears that out of 9,400 clergy, only 80 rectors (and to them pensions were assigned), 6 abbots, 12 archdeacons, 50 prebendaries, and 15 heads of colleges, were deprived for refusing to con- form to the new laws. Pope Paul IV. having died on August 18, 1559, was succeeded by Pius IV, The new Pope sent his nuncio with a letter to the queen, announcing his ap- proval and willingness to accept the new Prayer- Book, as well as the Communion in both kinds, if only the queen would acknowledge his supremacy ^ Such ^ A few of these must be mentioned. Images were not ordered to be taken away (n.b. the queen retained a crucifix in her own chapel), but it was forbidden to " set forth, or extol the dignity of any image, relic, or miracle ; " the Common Prayer was to be sung with as clear pronun- ciation as if read ; an anthem might be sung at the beginning or the end of the service ; organs and other instrumental music might be made use of In another document, issued later, called " Interpretations and further Considerations," it is ordered that there be used in the church " only one apparel, as the Cope in the ministration of the Lord's Supper, and the Surplice in all other ministrations ;" but these latter seem never to have been issued with authority. ' Lord Cope vouches for this as an undoubted fact. Pope Pius, he says, wrote a letter to the Queen, " in which he did allow the Bible, and Book of Divine Service, as it is now used amongst us, to be authentic, and AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 349 terms were, of course, now inadmissible ; although, had they been made earlier, they might have had an effect on the whole after-course of the Reformation. The insulting language of the late Pope had rendered it now impossible ; the laws precluded the entrance into the land of a papal legate without the consent of Parliament, and the queen's own dignity forbade her to acknowledge a power which had so grievously and wantonly insulted her. The Act of Supremacy having been passed, the bishops must either submit, or be deprived. Several bishops had lately died from the fearful epidemic which ravaged the country at the end of Mary's reign ; and the see of Canterbury being vacant, there were only fourteen bishops living. Several of these bishops had before supported Henry in the matter of the su- premacy; but now, all of them, with the exception of Kitchin of Llandaff, thinking probably thus to force the queen to yield, through want of a sufficient num- ber of bishops to consecrate to the vacant sees, re- fused compliance, and were deprived K Fortunately, there was no difficulty in consecrating new bishops. Consecration by one bishop, although irregular according to the canons of the Church, is not invalid ; the number of three being required only to prevent clandestine ordinations. In England, the not repugnant to truth. . . . That he would also allow it unto us, without changing any part, so as her Majesty would acknowledge to receive it from the Pope, and by his allowance ; which her Majesty denying to do, was excommunicated. And this is the truth concerning Pope Pius Quar- tus, as I have faith to God and man. / /lave often times heard avowed by the queen herself her own words .... and I have conferred with some lords that were of greatest reckoning in the State, who had seen and read the letters which the Pope had sent to that effect" ' Kitchin managed to keep his bishopric under Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth ; but it is thought he was ultimately deprived. 350 THE ROMAN SCHISM, consecration of an archbishop by three bishops, al- though it would not have been according to the law ^, would have been valid. But in the consecration of Archbishop Parker to the vacant see of Canterbury, everything was done, not only canonically, according to the laws of the Church Catholic, but also legally, according to the laws of the realm. There were living three bishops who had been ejected under Mary ; Coverdale, late Bishop of Ex- eter ; Barlow, Bishop-elect of Chichester, late of Bath and Wells ; and Scory, Bishop-elect of Hereford, late Bishop of Chichester, To these must be added, Bale, Bishop of Ossory ; Hodgkins, Suffragan -bishop of Bedford ; John, Suffragan of Thetford ; and also Kitchin, Bishop of Llandaff. On August I, 1559, Matthew Parker, who had been chaplain to Ann Boleyn, was elected archbishop; on December 9, his election was confirmed in the church of St. Mary-le-bow ; and on December 1 7, he was consecrated in the chapel of Lambeth by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins. Soon afterwards, other bishops were consecrated by Parker, and other assistant bishops, to the vacant sees ; Grindal to London, Jewel to Salisbury, Pilkington to Durham, Cox to Ely, Sandys to Worcester, Merick to Bangor, Young to St. David's, Bullingham to Lincoln, Davis to St. Asaph, Guest to Rochester ; whilst Scory was translated to Hereford, and Barlow to Chichester \ 8 Statute 25 Henry VIII., required for the consecration of an arch- bishop a metropolitan and two bishops ; or, in the absence of a metro- politan, four bishops. Owing to the loss of a register, Roman Catholic controversialists have raised a question as to Barlow's proper consecration: the question, however, has been thoroughly investigated and refuted by Courayer, Mason, Bramhall, the late Mr. Haddan, and by the Roman Catholic his-- AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 35 I Some forty years afterwards (i.e. in 1604), a foolish story was invented, known as the "Nag's Head" Fable, which is attributed to Neale, one of Bonner's chaplains. Parker and the bishops elect were said to have dined together at the " Nag's Head " tavern, in Cheapside ; where, says the relater, he looked through the key- hole, and saw Scory laying a Bible on the head of each one, saying, " Take thou authority to preach the Word of God." This story is disbelieved now by all leading Romanists ; its falsehood is at once apparent ; it was not heard of till forty years after the event ; a noble- man who was alive, and was present at Parker's con- secration, denied the truth of it ; and the full record of the consecration of Parker by Barlow, Scory, Cover- dale, and Hodgkins, is duly entered in the register in the library of Lambeth Palace. Parker's own conduct probably gave rise to the story. Although perhaps a discreet man, he was certainly a very timid one ; and, for fear of offending the Puritans (who hated him in return'), "curtailed the ceremonies of consecration, by not insisting upon the mitre, the gloves, or the pastoral-staff, the bestowal torian, Lingard. Barlow had been appointed in 1536 to the see of St. Asaph, and in the same year, to the more lucrative see of St. David's ; in 1548 he was translated to Bath and Wells, and in 1559 to Chichester. Barlow, although himself properly consecrated, was a thorough Erastian ; he maintained that any layman chosen by the king as Head of the Church, was as good as "the best bishop in England." This Erastianism does not appear to have been a drawback to his daughters contracting epis- copal marriages. One married Toby Matthew, Archbishop of York ; another, William Wickham of Lincoln ; another, Day of Chichester ; and a fourth, the Bishop of Hereford. ' The hatred of the Puritans for Parker extended beyond his death. In the reign of Charles I., they destroyed the monument that was raised over his remains, dug up his coffin, and sold the lead, and buried his bones on a dung-hill, where they remained, until they were rescued, and decently interred by an order obtained by Archbishop Sancroft from the House of Lords. 352 THE ROMAN SCHISM, of which had for several centuries formed part, though not an essential part, of the ordinal \ One of Parker's earliest acts as archbishop was to remodel the Articles of Religion ; following, as Cran- mer had done, the Lutheran formularies ; but drawing now on the Wurtemburg, rather than on the Augs- burg Confession. In 1562, he presented a draft 'of the Articles of 1552 to Convocation, with additions, omissions, and alterations, most of which Convocation accepted : the Queen herself is said to have added the famous clause, "The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith," in the Twentieth Article. This clause does not appear in the original document to which the bishops subscribed their names, nor in the earliest edition of the Latin printed copies, or in the earlier editions of the English translation. In 1571, the Articles, as we now have them, were committed to the editorship of Bishop Jewel, and then received the sanction both of Convocation and Parliament, in Latin and English ; the difference be- tween the two now is, that the English version con- tains, and the Latin omits, the famous clause : which of the two is the correct version, as ultimately approved by Convocation, it is impossible to say ; but the fact remains that the Thirty-nine Articles have come down to us with the sanction of Convocation, and that they have had the authority of the bishops and clergy of the Church for more than three hundred years \ In 1563 appeared the second book of Homilies, authorised by Convocation, and ratified by the queen as supplemental to the first book. By whom the book was composed is uncertain : Burton attributes it to Hook, vol. ix. p. 206. ' Bishop Brown, 39 Art., p. 9. AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 353 Jewel, but Archbishop Parker asserts that he and other bishops bore some part in it. Several versions of the Bible had now been put forth, the chief of which were Cranmer's or the Great Bible, and the Geneva Bible, the latter of which had been drawn up by the exiles in Geneva, and appeared about 1560. But the Great Bible was an imperfect translation, whilst the Geneva Bible bore marks of a Calvinistic tendency. Another Bible therefore was published in 1568, under the direction of Parker, which, as the majority of persons employed in it were bishops, is known as the " Bishops' Bible." A large Preface was prefixed to it, with a Table of the degrees within which matrimony is forbidden, since inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, annexed ™. The queen, as we have seen, was fond of a high ce- remonial, and of outward order in religion ; the bishops and clergy, however, seem to have been somewhat more lax in this respect than she approved. In 1564 Cecil complained to the queen of the incongruous manner in which the services of the Church were cele- brated. Some said the service in the chancel, some in the body of the church, some in a seat made in the church, some in the pulpit facing the people, some in surplices, some without. In some churches the holy table was in the body of the chancel, in some in the middle of the church, in some altar-wise near the wall ; sometimes with a carpet on it, and some- times without any covering. Some celebrated the The Romanists, not long after, saw the necessity of publishing an English translation for their community. Accordingly a translation of the New Testament was published at Rheims in 1582, whilst a transla- tion of the whole Bible was published at Douay in 1609, both made from the Vulgate. 354 THE ROMAN SCHISM, Holy Communion in surplice and cope, some with only surplice, some with neither ; some with a chalice, others with a common cup ; some with leavened, others with common bread ; some received kneeling, others standing or sitting ; some baptized in a font, making the sign of the cross ; some in a basin without the sign ; some celebrated baptism in a surplice, others without ; some went about in a square cap, others a round ; some in scholar's clothes, and some without. The queen was angry with the bishops for allowing such an indecent system to prevail, and ordered Arch- bishop Parker to take such steps as were necessary to promote better order. Of the bishops appointed at the beginning of the reign most had Puritanical ten- dencies, and were either averse to ceremonial them- selves, or unwilling to force it on the scruples of the weaker clergy, and were therefore content to exact the minimum of ritual. In order to promote greater uniformity, Parker, on March 3, 1565, sent to Cecil a " Book of Articles," requesting that the queen would license them ; but she misliked them alto- gether. Parker then presented to the Queen, on March 28, 1566, certain ordinances known as "Ad- vertisements," which prescribed merely the minimum of ritual to be observed ; in cathedrals, the celebrant at the Holy Communion was to wear a cope, the gos- peller and epistoler being vested agreeably. There is no reason to suppose that these Advertisements, drawn up by Archbishop Parker, were meant to forbid the vestments of the first book, which were enacted by the rubric of 1559, but only to enforce some disci- pline in'churches, and more in cathedrals. The queen, as we have seen, was fond of a high ritual ; she had probably intended that a more, instead of a less, ornate AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 355 ritual should be uniformly adopted. The Archbishop knew this ; and he would never have dared to forbid them, had the Advertisements diminished from the lawful ritual. They do not in any way affect the rubric of 1559, nor can they be considered as the " taking of further order," spoken of in the proviso ; nor is there any evidence to shew that the queen at any time even saw them. The Advertisements had therefore only the autho- rity of the bishops. Vested with such a power, Parker summoned the London clergy to meet him at Lam- beth ; of one hundred, only thirty -seven refused to sign the Advertisements, and they, after three months allowed for consideration, were deprived. Though Cambridge was at the time the hot-bed of Puritanism, and Catholicism was in the ascendant at Oxford, yet the most eminent Nonconformists were two Oxford men, — Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, and Humphrey, President of Magdalen, and Regius Professor of Divinity. In vain Bullinger and Gualter tried to persuade them to conform ; they refused, and were deposed. But as yet there was no general sepa- ration of the Puritans from the Church. In 1570 originated that papal schism which has divided the Anglican and Roman Churches to the present day. The Romanists were quietly settling down, and conforming to the worship of the Church of England ° ; and it was the Puritans alone who caused trouble and anxiety. But this conformity cre- " " For divers years in Queen Elizabeth's reign there was no recusant known in England : but even they who were most addicted to Roman opinions, yet frequented our churches and public assemblies, and did join with us in the use of the same prayers and divine offices without any scruple, till they were prohibited by a papal bull for the interest of the Roman court." — Archbishop Bramhall, i. 248. A a 2 356 THE ROMAN SCHISM, ated alarm at Rome, and a feeling that more vigorous measures must in consequence be adopted. The Je- suits, a religious order founded in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, projected a plan for assailing the faith of the country. In 1569 they formed the idea of founding seminaries abroad, to educate English missionaries for the conversion of England. The first founded was at Douay, at the expense of Philip II. of Spain; and William Allen, a distinguished though fanatical Eng- lishman, who had been a Fellow of Oriel, and after- wards Principal of St. Mary Hall, was appointed as its first Head, and for his zeal was rewarded with a cardinal's hat. The same year a college was founded at Rome for the same purpose, of which Persons, an English Jesuit, was made rector. The oath taken on admission to these colleges was to the following effect : " Bred in the English college, considering how great benefits God hath bestowed upon me, but then espe- cially when He brought me out of my own country so infested with heresy, and made me a member of the Catholic Church, I promise and swear ... in due time to receive Holy Orders, to return to Eng- land to convert the souls of my countrymen." Hun- dreds of clergy were sent into England under a brief from Pope Pius V., and were placed under the direction of Dr. Allen. They did not hesitate to disguise them- selves in the garb of Puritans or when apprehended, to confess that the revolution of the state, and the assassination of the queen, was their object ^. In » The following is the oath taken by the students of Douay, to whom Mary had given a refuge in Scotland : "although I may pretend in case of persecution, or otherwise, to be heretically disposed, yet in soul and conscience I shall help, aid, and succour the Mother Church." p Other seminaries were in time established; one in 1589 at Valladolid, another at Seville in 1593, another at St. Omer in 1596. AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 357 1570 Pope Pius V. published the bull, " regnans in excelsis," of excommunication and deposition against EHzabeth, " the pretended queen of England," as "a vassal of iniquity," pronounced an anathema, and cut off from the Church all that adhered to her, and absolved her subjects from their oath of obedience. The Government were in alarm ; there were con- stant attempts against Elizabeth's life ; so a statute was passed, making it high treason to call the queen a heretic, a schismatic, or a usurper, to publish any bull from Rome, or to conceal any offences against the Crown. The Acts of Uniformity were strictly en- forced ; prosecutions and punishments (it can scarcely be said for religion, for they were political rather than religious'') became again common in England; it was the only means of deterring the Seminarists, or Jesuits, v^ho came into the country with the avowed intention of assassinating the queen. The feeling of the country against the Romanists was thoroughly aroused by the massacre of the Huguenots in 1572. In 1580, two Jesuits, Campion and Persons, openly advocated the cause of Philip, King of Spain, the avowed enemy of England, who was at the very time preparing his " invincible Armada," with the determination of crush- ing the English power; and brought down upon them- selves the anger of the Government. Persons managed to escape from the kingdom ; but Campion and three others were executed. The Roman Church claims these men for martyrs ; if they were not traitors, it is difficult to understand what the word means. ' James I. said : " The trewth is according to my owne knowledge, the late queene of famous memory, never punished any Papist for religion." Charles I. said : " I am informed neither Queen Elizabeth nor my father did ever avow that any Priest in their times was executed merely for religion." (Pari. Hist. ii. 713.) 358 THE ROMAN SCHISM, The Roman schism was founded on the excuse that the English Church had proceeded too far; another schism arose about the same time, on the ground that it had not proceeded far enough in the way of Reforma- tion. The various ultra- Protestant sects, which had sprung into life as early as the time of Henry VIII,, now began to assume a cohesion, and under the common name of Puritans (a name derived from the Puritani or Cathari of the third century), to exhibit an intole- rance which was soon to bring havoc on the Church. Puritanism was one of the evils of the Reformation. Whatever corruptions had crept into the mediaeval Church, there was connected with it an authority which rendered that Church venerable. But when the chains which bound the Church to Rome were loosened, a spirit of revolution was fostered, and it required no great foresight to predict that people, when once they had tasted of liberty, would not patiently endure the yoke of bondage. As long as Henry lived, the rigid laws enforced against heretics kept the malcontents tolerably under restraint. Under Edward, headed by Hooper, they increased in numbers and influence, and shewed only too clearly that if ever they obtained the upper hand, they would be satisfied with nothing short of the rejection of all authority. On the accession of Elizabeth, these men returned from Germany and Swit- zerland to England, bringing with them what Arch- bishop Parker terms, " their Germanical natures," or deeply imbued with the doctrines of the Swiss ; with a preference for Presbyterianism, and a deep-rooted sen- timent that the English Reformation had not gone far enough. Every vestige of ceremonial they condemned as a badge of papacy, or of what they considered as bad, Lutheranism. They objected to set forms of AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 359 prayer, to the singing the service, to all instrumental accompaniments, to the sign of the Cross, kneeling at the Holy Communion, bowing at the name of Jesus, and the ring in marriage. Nor were they all of one mind : there were various heterogeneous sects, with no other cohesion than jealousy of the Church ; there were Presbyterians, who would abolish episcopacy ; there were the Brownists, who were afterwards merged in the Independents, or Congregationalists, objecting alike to Presbyterianism and Episcopacy ; sects ready to fly at each other's throats, as soon as one or the other of them attained preeminence, and each apply- ing, in their time of need, to the Church, which they had done their best to pull down, for succour against the others. With such revolutionary tendencies, the hatred they bore to the Church soon extended to the Crown. Early in the reign of Elizabeth, the Puritans formed a ma- jority in the House of Commons ; and had it not been for the worldly wisdom of the queen, whose hand was always kept on the national pulse, the contest which was thus put off till the reign of Charles, would have occurred in her reign. The Commons had the power, which they afterwards used to such terrible purpose, of withholding the supplies ; and the last Par- liament of her reign shewed that, if necessary, they were ready to use that power. In matters of religion, she silenced Puritans and Romanists alike ; but when she saw the necessity of yielding, she yielded grace- fully, and so the danger was postponed for a fu- ture day. To understand the Puritan of those days, we must have recourse to the inimitable description of Lord 36o THE ROMAN SCHISM, Macaulay^ His gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned whites of his eyes, the nasal twang, and, above all, his peculiar dialect, marked him out from other men. His malignant dis- position rendered the New Testament little suited to his feelings ; hence he baptized his children, not by the names of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. " The prophet who hewed in pieces a captive king ; the rebel general, who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs ; the matron who, in defiance of plighted troth, drove the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally, who had just fed at her board, and was sleeping under the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models for Christians, suffering under the tyranny of princes and prelates." The dress, the deportment, the amusements of this rigid sect, were regulated by those of the Pharisees, who taunted the Redeemer with being a Sabbath-breaker and a wine-bibber. It was sin to hang garlands on a May-pole, to drink a friend's health, to fly a hawk, to play at chess, to read the " Faery Queen." They turned the weekly festival by which the Church had from time imme- morial commemorated the resurrection of our Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath. Some had scruples about teaching the Latin Grammar, because in it occurred the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo. They ob- jected to baiting bears, not because it gave pain to the bears, but because it afforded pleasure to the spec- tator ; the fine arts were discouraged, organs were su- perstitious; of the finest paintings, half were idolatrous, the other half indecent. A foolish and thankless attempt had been made to ' Vol. i. p. 80. AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 361 satisfy them, when the Prayer- Book was modified to meet their views. Nothing would content them : they required, Neal tells us, the pulling down of " all ca- thedral churches, where the service of God is griev- ously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing and trowling of Psalms, with the squeaking of chanting choristers, disguised, as are all the rest, in white sur- plices, some in corner-caps and filthy copes, imitating the manner and fashion of Antichrist, the Pope." All they wanted was a leader, to break out into open hos- tility. Such a man presented himself in the person of Thomas Cartwright, who, having been Margaret Pro- fessor of Divinity at Cambridge, was, when Dr. Whit- gift, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, was Vice- Chancellor, expelled from the University for his pecu- liar tenets on Church discipline. Cartwright, on leaving Cambridge, became indoctrinated on the Continent in the views of Beza, the successor of Calvin, and re- turned to England, in 1570, with a bitter hostility to the English Church. Under him the first organised schism took place, and the first Presbytery was esta- blished at Wandsworth in 1573; eleven elders, en- titled " the Orders of Wandsworth," were chosen ; and the Genevan service-book, and a Presbyterian form of government, were adopted. Other Presbyteries were set up in the neighbouring counties ; in a few years they were to be found in Warwickshire and North- amptonshire; and not long afterwards in Lancashire and Cheshire. Sir Walter Raleigh declared in Par- liament that there were 20,000 separatists in the neigh- bourhood of London, Essex, and Norfolk; and in 1584, bills were introduced, although without effect, into Parliament, praying for a reform of Church abuses, and " to establish a Presbytery, or eldership in each 362 THE ROMAN SCHISM, parish, together with the minister, to determine the spiritual business of the parish ^" The Presbyterians formed themselves into associates, called " Prophesy- ings of the Clergy," which were presided over by a Moderator ; these many of the clergy, and some of the bishops, to the great dislike of Parker, fa- voured ; and they received also the countenance of Leicester, Parker died a.d. 1575. No one could have ruled the Church better than he, few so well, in such difficult times. During his last years, what between Romanism and Puritanism, and his endeavours to preserve the Catholicity of the Church from falling back into me- diaeval error, or drifting forward into licentiousness and unbelief ; whilst the capricious temper of the queen now led her one way, now another \ according as she listened to the fascinations of Leicester, or to the voice of her better conscience ; the life of Parker, who never received from his suffragans that support which he had a right to expect, must have been full of difficulty. The queen objected to the " Prophesy- ings," and bade Parker to suppress them ; the Bishop of Norwich, their chief favourer, resisted the Arch- bishop, and appealed to Leicester. Leicester supported him ; the queen vacillated, and only gave Parker a lukewarm support. Parker was at the time suffering under a painful disease, which the physicians told him must terminate fatally. It must be mentioned, to the queen's credit, that, notwithstanding all Leicester's attempts to damage him, she retained to the end her esteem for the faithful friend of her childhood. • Neal's Puritans, i. 398. ' Neal describes her as sometimes "tamquam ovis," at others, " tam- quam indomita juvenca." (I. 5.) AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. Sometimes her dislike of clerical marriages made her forget herself; on one occasion, in the presence of Parker, she addressed his wife, " Madam I may not call you, and mistress I am ashamed to call you :" yet, fickle as she was, she on the whole remained true to him, and paid him a visit towards the end of his life at his palace at Canterbury, Parker was succeeded by a very different man, Grindall (immortalized by Spencer as "Algrind"), who had been Bishop of London and Archbishop of York. Unlike Parker, who had remained in Eng- land during the reign of Mary, Grindall had fled the country, and so became mixed up with the foreign Reformers, and was the intimate friend of Bucer : he brought back with him the Puritanical dislike for the vestments; as early as 1561 Cecil had written of him, that "he winketh at Schismatics and Anabaptists;" and so his primacy was marked with a relaxation of Church discipline, and an open sympathy with Puri- tanism. There are, however, some points in Grindall's cha- racter in which he contrasts favourably with the more timid disposition of Parker. The Crown had great power over the Church lands ; the queen frequently compelled the Church to exchange its lands for Crown lands, always, it need hardly be said, to the advantage of the latter. Grindall ventured, although in vain, to expostulate with her. On another occasion the queen required the archbishop to suppress " the Prophesy- ings." It is difficult to understand exactly what was the great harm in these prophesyings ; at any rate, Grindall approved of them, and so he declined to comply with the mandate of the imperious queen, who was always too ready to usurp the authority of the 3^4 THE ROMAN SCHISM, Church. His letter to the queen points a useful les- son for all times ; he confessed that he preferred to offend the earthly rather than the heavenly majesty, and asked her to consider two petitions : " The first is, that you refer all these ecclesiastical matters which touch religion, or the doctrine and discipline of the Church, unto the bishops and divines of your realm, according to the example of all godly Christian emperors and princes of all ages. . . . The second peti- tion I have to make to your majesty is this ; that when you deal in matters of faith and religion, or matters that touch the Church of Christ, which is His spouse, bought with so dear a price, you would not use to pronounce so resolutely and peremptorily, quasi ex auctoritate, as ye may do in civil and extern matters ; but always remember that in God's causes the will of God, and not the will of any earthly creature, is to take place. . . . Remember, madam, that you are a mortal creature, . . . and although you are a mighty prince, yet remember that He which dwelleth in hea- ven is mightier." The queen ordered him before the Star Chamber, and wished that he should be deposed ; but to such an unjust course even Leicester was opposed, and the queen reluctantly gave way ; but he was suspended from his office. About five years afterwards, in 1582, when he was in extreme old age and growing blind, the suspension was removed. The next year he be- came totally blind, and the queen insisted on his re- signation, and determined to appoint Whitgift, who, however, refused to accept the primacy during Grin- dall's lifetime. Grindall only requested to be allowed to retain his see till Michaelmas, as he had some bene- factions which he was desirous of meeting at that AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM, time ; the queen would only allow him till Lady Day ; but while the negotiations were pending, the blind old man died, and was thus released from his cruel persecution. His successor, Whitgift, 1583 — 1604, whose vigor- ous enforcement of discipline rescued the Church for a time from Puritanism, but who was tainted with Erastianism and doctrinal Calvinism, tried to impose upon the Church nine Articles, known as the " Lam- beth Articles," which asserted the most objectionable of Calvinistic doctrines, such as Predestination, Repro- bation, Assurance, and the denial of man's free-will : but those Articles never received the sanction of Con- vocation, and when presented by Lord Burghley, who greatly objected to them, to the queen, they were strongly condemned by her ; so that they were never in any sense binding on the Church, whilst they re- flect any thing but credit on the doctrine and cha- racter of Whitgift. During this reign there began to spring up that race of theologians who so successfully vindicated the Catholicity of the English Church against the attacks of Romanists and Puritans. Against the former, the first was Jewel, who was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and in 1562 published the "Apology for the Church of England," in Latin ; a work which was translated into English by Lady Bacon, the wife of the Lord keeper, and mother of the famous Lord Bacon, as well as into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, and Welsh. During the reign of Mary, he, as a friend of Peter Martyr, was marked out for destruc- tion, to escape which he renounced his adherence to the reformed Church ; but soon repenting, he escaped to Zurich, where he remained, during Mary's reign, 366 THE ROMAN SCHISM, in the house of Peter Martyr. Returning to England after her death, he brought back with him some of the tenets of the foreign Reformers, and an objection to the vestments ; he held that the Church of Engrland was Scriptural and primitive, " the doctrine is every- where most pure, but as to ceremonies or maskings there is a little too much fooling " ;" but being appointed Bishop of Salisbury in 1560, he preached on the i8th of June, vested in a Bishop's robes, a sermon at St, Paul's Cross. In that sermon he repeated the chal- lenge to the Romanists which he had made in a for- mer sermon. He enumerated twenty-seven points, and said " if any learned man of all our adversaries would bring any one sufficient sentence out of any old Ca- tholic doctor or father, or out of any old general coun- cil, or out of the Holy Scriptures of God, or any one example of the Primitive Church, that the Romish doctrine was the true one, he would be content to yield and subscribe." The challenge led to a con- troversy between him and Hardinge, a prebendary of his own cathedral, who, like himself, had lapsed into Romanism under Mary ; it is to this controversy that we owe his " Apology," written under the patron- age of Parker (although there were many things in it of which he could not have approved), and with the authority of the queen. The work was a great one, and was brought under the consideration of the Council of Trent, although an attempt to invest it with an ecclesiastical authority was resisted by the English Church. The Church owes a great debt to Jewel, since it was through his liberality and influence that the "ju- dicious Hooker," the greatest writer of the sixteenth " Jewel's Letters. AND THE RISE OF PURITANISM. 367 century, who was born, in 1554, of poor parents at Heavitree, near Exeter, was sent to Oxford ; of whose great work, " The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," Pope Clement VIII. well said, " his books will get reverence by age, for there is in them such seeds of eternity that they shall continue till the last fire shall devour all learning." Whitgift had for some time carried on the contest with Cartwright, but on his elevation to Can- terbury, his mantle fell on Hooker. On the death of Elvie, Hooker, through the influence of Sandys, Bishop of London, was appointed to the mastership of the Temple, Lord Burleigh being desirous that his chaplain Travers, the lecturer at the Temple, who at that time, next to Cartwright, was the leader of the Puritans, should be appointed. Travers, however, had been ordained by a Presbyterian congregation at Antwerp, and therefore Archbishop Whitgift objected to the appointment ; Hooker had Travers as his colleague at the Temple, an attractive preacher and a popu- lar man, so that it was said "pure Canterbury was preached in the morning, and Geneva in the after- noon :" Travers making a point of refuting in the afternoon whatever Hooker had preached in the morn- ing. The archbishop silenced Travers, on the ground that he was not properly ordained : Travers addressed "a supplication to the Privy Council :" to this appeal we are indebted for Hooker's great work, the first four books of which appeared in 1594 ; in the same year he was appointed to the living of Bishopsbourne, where he lived till his death in 1600, in his forty-sixth year, and where he published his fifth book, the remain- ing books being posthumous. The controversy carried on between Whitgift and Cartwright, and Hooker and Travers, was continued 368 THE ROMAN SCHISM, ETC. by Dr. Bridger, Dean of Salisbury, in a work which called forth the famous Martin Marprelate Tracts, certain scurrilous publications originating, probably, with a Welshman named Penry, which were pub- lished through a moveable press set up first at Moul- sey, and thence conveyed to Faussley in Northamp- tonshire, then to Coventry, and which was ultimately brought to light by the Earl of Derby at Manchester. . The tracts, though directed at first against the bishops, especially Whitgift, Aylmer, the successor of Sandys at London, Cooper, Bishop of Winchester, and Wick- ham, Bishop of Lincoln, the great objects of Puritani- cal hatred, were afterwards levelled against the queen and her courtiers. CHAPTER V. THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. JAMES I. H ROUGH the reign of Elizabeth, Puritanism had been gaining strength, but had been kept tolerably under control ; and, although treated with great se- verity, had refrained from any systematic opposition to the government. With the dynasty of the Stuarts commenced even higher claims for the royal preroga- tive than under the Tudors ; James formally enunciated that doctrine of the divine right of kings, which was to prove so fatal to his family, and which was to be at last terminated by the landing of William of Orange ; he also advocated the divine right of bishops, because the bishops upheld the divine right of kings. Hence the unpopularity of the throne caused the unpopularity of the Church ; henceforth the cause of Puritanism be- came identified with the cause of civil liberty, and the cause of the Church with the cause of tyranny. Both Romanists and Puritans looked forward to the accession of James with hopeful expectations ; the hopes of the former being founded on the religion of his mother, those of the latter on his subscription to the Scottish Covenant. Unfortunately for the Pu- ritans, Puritanism does not improve upon acquaint- ance, and James had already seen enough of it in Scotland ; the thraldom which he had lived under from the Presbyterians had grown too hateful for him to wish for its repetition in his new kingdom. However, the uncertainty did not last long. On the death of Elizabeth, Dr. Neville, Dean of Canterbury, who con- veyed to James the congratulations of the English B b 370 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. Church, soon returned with the decisive answer of his determination to uphold the Church as Elizabeth had left it, and of his anxiety for its welfare. But the Puritans did not give the new king long breathing-time. On his way to London they presented him with the " Millenary Petition," so-called because it purported to be signed by i,ooo, although it was really signed by 753, ministers, calling themselves clergymen of the Church of England, " groaning under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies." The king declared his adherence to the constitution of the English Church as being primitive and agree- able to God's Word ; but, at the same time, he was willing to listen to reasonable objections, and for this purpose he appointed a meeting of the Church and Puritan divines at Hampton Court in January, 1604. On the part of the Church nine bishops were ap- pointed ; amongst them were Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Bancroft, Bishop of London, who, on ac- count of the Archbishop's great age, took the lead ; Matthew of Durham, and Bilson of Winchester. Amongst the other clergy were Andrewes, the deepest theologian of the day ; Barlow, Dean of Christ Church, the chronicler of the Conference ; Overall, Dean of St. Paul's ; and Dr. Field, author of " The Treatise on the Church." On the part of the Puritans, the depu- ties were Reynolds, President of Corpus, and Sparkes, from Oxford ; the former reputed the greatest scholar of the day, and the equal of Bellarmine in controver- sial theology; and Chaderton and Knewstubbs from Cambridge ; all of them men of great learning, but unfortunately nominated by the king ; it is unfortunate also that their number was so small, as compared with their opponents ; it is certain, owing perhaps to the THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. great learning opposed to them, that they feebly sup- ported their reputation. The Conference lasted three days. On the first day, the king and the Church party alone attended with closed doors ; for the king, who had been brought up a Presbyterian, wished to consult the clergy as to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. That James was favourable to the Church we have his own words and works ; although, says Andrewes, Bishop of Win- chester, on the first day he did " for five hours won- derfully play the Puritan," so that it is clear his pre- ference arose from conviction. The first matter dis- cussed was the Prayer- Book, with especial regard to Confirmation, Absolution, and Baptism by women. With regard to Confirmation, the bishops declared Baptism was not considered incomplete without it ; but that it was the Laying-on of hands, established on the authority of the Apostles and the primitive Church. Bancroft defended the Absolution, not only in the daily prayer, but in the offices for the Communion and the Visitation of the Sick. It was agreed that, for the present, it should be left as it was ; but on another oc- casion it should be determined whether the words, " remission of sins," should not be added to the rubric. As to lay-baptism, the Archbishop stated it was lawful, but rarely used ; others said it was reasonable, the minister not being of the essence of the Sacrament ; but the king decided it should be a matter of con- sideration whether the word "curate," or "lawful min- ister," should not be inserted in the rubric for private baptism. On the second day, Jan. 16, the Puritans under Reynolds, stated their objections under four heads : (i.) Of Doctrine. — They desired, amongst other minor B b 2 372 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. points, the Lambeth Articles'" to be incorporated in the thirty-nine ^ ; that some of the latter, e.g. the passage in the sixteenth, "after we have received the Holy Ghost, we may fall from grace ;" in the twenty -third, as to any one preaching or adminis- tering the Sacraments before he is called ; might be expunged, or altered : but when they made their objection that Confirmation should be performed by a priest, as well as a bishop, the king spoke his fa- vourite aphorism, "No bishop, no king," and was en- tirely opposed to them ; whilst the other objections the bishops met to the king's complete satisfaction. Reynolds next objected that the Church Catechism was too short, (to this objection we are indebted to the introduction of the latter part of the Catechism as to the Sacraments,) whilst that of Dean Nowell was too long ; he also requested a new translation of the Bible. Both of these points the king granted conditionally ; whilst, as to the better observance of the Lord's day, both parties were equally agreed. (2.) As regards the Ministers of the Chztrch. — Rey- nolds complained of the system of pluralities, and requested that all parishes should have preaching min- • These were the nine Articles arranged at a meeting of Calvinistic divines, held in 1595 at Lambeth Palace, under Archbishop Whitgift. The first four assert the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination and Repro- bation ; the two next that of Final Perseverance ; the three last that of Particular Redemption, and a denial of man's free will. Archbishop Whitgift approved of them under the hope of conciliating the Puritans, and quieting the controversy on Predestination, which then, under the leadership of Dr. Whitaker, the Regius Professor of Divinity, on the one side, and Dr. Baron, the Margaret Professor, on the other, was agitating the University of Cambridge. But as we saw in the previous chapter, they were never in any way binding on the Church. This was happily not effected : but they were incorporated in the Irish Articles of 161 5: these Articles, however, the Irish Church rejected in 1635 for the Thirty-nine Articles. THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. 373 isters. Bancroft, in reply, requested that they might also have a praying ministry, and humbly requested that as pulpit harangues were often dangerous, and pulpits were made pasquils, where every discontented fellow could traduce his superiors, the number of ho- milies might be increased. As to pluralities, the king promised to refer the matter to the bishops. (3.) The revising the Book of Common Prayer. — Under this head, objections were raised to the mode of subscription to the Articles, to the reading the Apo- cryphal Lessons, the sign of the cross in baptism, the surplice and other vestments, the marriage ring, and the churching of women; objections which the king dismissed as frivolous. (4.) Church Government. — The question of eccle- siastical censures having been arranged between the bishops and the king, Reynolds requested that diocesan assemblies should be held for the establishment of prophesyings, which Elizabeth had forbidden as being seminaries of schism. This greatly excited the anger of the king, which he said was nothing but a secret design for establishing a Scotch presbytery, on which he reflected in strong and offensive language ; he said he could now understand the Puritan objections, for if the bishops were out and they in, he knew " what would become of the Royal Supremacy, for, ' no bishop, no king.'" James considered himself the "greatest master of kingcraft that ever lived " ;" he certainly understood the nature and pretension of Puritanism ; he now told the Puritans that they must either con- form, or else " I will harrie them out of the land ; or else do worse, only hang them, that's all." On the third day of the Conference, Reynolds and Macaulay, Essays, Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. 374 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. the Puritans were summoned merely to hear the de- cision at which the king, by the advice of the bishops, had arrived. The king told them their scruples were frivolous : if, therefore, they were honest men, they would conform ; if not, they had better leave the Church. This result not being favourable to them, one of them, Chaderton, fell on his knees, and asked that some godly ministers of Lancashire might be spared the surplice and the cross ; whereupon another request was made by Knewstubbs, for certain min- isters in Suffolk ; but this was more than the king could tolerate. " This," he said, " is the Scottish way, but I will have none of this arguing ; therefore, let them conform, and that quickly, or else they that are of an obstinate and turbulent spirit, I will have them enforced to conformity." The king issued a procla- mation that he would make no further concession, and required all his subjects to conform to the Liturgy. One result of the Hampton Court Conference was, that a few alterations were made in the Prayer- Book : (i.) The words, " Or remission of sins," were added in the Absolution ; (2.) The prayer for the royal family was placed at the end of the Litany, and also some oc- casional thanksgivings ; (3.) Two slight verbal changes were made in the beginning of the Gospels for Sec- ond Sunday after Easter, and Twentieth Sunday after Trinity ; (4.) Some alterations were made in the ru- brics for Private Baptism ; (5.) An explanation of Con- firmation was given ; (6.) The concluding part in the Church Catechism, about the Sacraments, was added, probably by Overall ; (7.) Some slight changes were made in the Calendar. Another result was the publication of the Canons of 1604. Convocation, which (Whitgift having lately THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. 375 died) assembled under Bancroft, Bishop of London, proceeded to compile a digest of canons collected out of the articles, injunctions, and synodical acts of the two previous reigns, entirely opposed to Puritanical principles. These canons of 1604, numbering 141, are still in certain force, and when not opposed to the statute or common law, form the basis of eccle- siastical law at the present day ; but as they were never confirmed by Act of Parliament, although autho- rized by the king's letters patent under the Great Seal, the king commanding that every priest should annu- ally read them in church during divine service, yet they are not held in law to be binding on the laity as they are on the clergy ^ A still more important result was the production of the English Bible now in use. In July of 1604, ^1"^^ king appointed a commission of sixty-four persons, divided into six committees, two of which sat at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster ; with instructions to make none but necessary altera- tions in the Bishops' Bible ; to append only such notes as might be required for the literal explanation of He- brew and Greek words, and as few marginal notes as possible. The work was begun in 1607, ^rid finished in 161 1 ; the result was our present translation of the Bible, which, if it has imperfections, is probably the best translation in existence. The Romanists, equally with the Puritans, were dissatisfied with James : they did not think that the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, would continue against them the severities of Elizabeth. James was earnestly desirous of uniting the Roman and the Anglican Canon twenty-four prescribes that Copes are to be worn in cathe- drals by those who administer the Holy Communion. 376 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. Churches, but this could only be done by the former renouncing the supremacy of the Pope, and his power to dethrone princes ; till they were willing to do this, they had nothing to expect from his clemency, and before the first Parliament met, he repeated the pro- clamation of Elizabeth, ordering all Jesuits and Romish priests to leave the country. A plot, known as the Gunpowder Plot, was devised for the destruction of the king, the Prince of Wales, and the two Houses of Parliament, on their meeting on Nov. 5, 1605, under the idea that thus the principal enemies of Rome would be removed, and the nation restored to Romanism. With this view, Catesby and Percy, and their followers, hired a cellar beneath the houses of parliament, where they concealed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. The discovery of the plot has been attributed to Henry IV. of France, who learnt it from the Jesuits ; at any rate, on the eve of its execu- tion, an anonymous letter was received by Lord Mont- eagle, which led to the detection of the conspirators, who were overtaken in Staffordshire, and the ring- leaders either killed in their attempt to escape, or executed afterwards. At the opening of Parliament, James exculpated the Romanists as a body from com- plicity; but as four Jesuits, Garnett, the Provincial of the Jesuits in England (who admitted his knowledge, but excused himself as having learnt the plot under the seal of confession), Oldcorn, Gerard, and Green- way were known to be connected with it, it would be a false feeling of charity to try to screen that order. The immediate consequence of the plot was to give rise to the " oath of allegiance," which differed from the oath of supremacy, inasmuch as it required a de- THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. 377 claratlon which it was thought might readily be sub- scribed by Romanists, against the doctrine that princes, excommunicated by the Pope, might be deposed or murdered by their subjects. The oath was taken by most of the laity, both amongst the Peers and Commons. But to the oath was added a form of words, that to maintain the doctrine was impious, heretical, and damnable ; a declaration to which many a conscientious Roman Catholic, who would otherwise have willingly subscribed, demurred. The Jesuits in particular condemned it. Pope Paul V. issued two briefs against it, and declared that no Romanist could take the oath without dishonour to God ; and Black- well, the arch-priest of the seculars in England, drew down upon himself the vengeance of Rome, and his own deprivation, by not only taking the oath him- self, but persuading his brethren that Catholics ought to take it, and thus exonerate their body from treason. Severe measures were accordingly adopted against the Romanists ; twenty-eight priests and seven laymen were executed, and 128 were banished, and others sub- jected to heavy fines. One good, however, came out of this great evil. It was discovered that the infliction of death for religious error, instead of only for a vicious life, is sure to propagate the errors which it condemns, so the execution of heretics was for the future con- demned and abandoned. In 1618 was put forth "the Book of Sports." A difference of opinion had long existed as to the proper observance of the Lord's Day. Some amongst the Puritans held it to be " as great a sin to do any single work on the Lord's Day, as to kill a man, or commit adultery ;" " to ring more bells than one on the Lord's 37^ THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. Day, was as great a sin as to commit a murder ^" In his progress through Lancashire, the king had noticed that on Sunday the poor people were deprived of all innocent games and amusements ; but in issuing the " Book of Sports " he went to the other extreme, and so distressed the feelings of the Puritans ; this was one of the ways in which James needlessly paved the way to the future troubles of his successor. The book declared that after service on Sunday the people might enjoy such pastimes as dancing. May-games, Whitsun- ales, Morris-dances, and the like. The declaration was ordered to be read in all the churches ; this, how- ever, the Archbishop (Abbot) forbade in his own church at Croydon. James, who prided himself on his theological attain- ments, and was ready to take part in every dispute that occurred, could not refrain from sending deputies to the Synod of Dort in 1618, which was summoned by the Prince of Orange with a view to settling the dis- putes between the Arminians and the Calvinists. The object of the king, whose religion was a strange med- ley, was to bring about a union between the foreign Protestants and the English Church ; and as the synod was composed mainly of Calvinistic divines, the Eng- lish Church was in danger of being committed to ex- treme Calvinism. The controversy between the Ar- minians and Calvinists consisted of five points, (hence it was called the " Quinquarticular Controversy ;") these points were,- — Original sin ; Irrespective Elec- tion and Reprobation ; Particular Redemption ; Irre- sistible Grace ; and Final Perseverance. All these points were held by the Calvinists, and, as would be expected from the composition of the synod, were all ' Heylin's Aerius Redivh'us. THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. 379 determined in their favour. The synod, however, did not please the king. " The king," says Neal ^ " had assisted in maintaining these doctrines in Holland, but will not have them propagated in England. From this time all Calvinists were in a manner excluded from court preferments." But henceforward the name Arminian was commonly applied by the' Puritans to the Church party in England, and identified with Romanism. King James I. died on March 17, 1625. During his reign, the breach between the Puritans and the Church was visibly and materially widened. James, though always boasting of his skill in kingcraft, was by his arbitrary and overbearing, though at the same time weak and vacillating character, pursuing a course opposed to the wishes of the people, and which was sure to bring forth a fruitful crop of evils in his suc- cessor's days. During the primacy of Bancroft, Cla- rendon assures us that the Church had nearly been rescued out of the hands of the Puritans ; if he had lived, he would have extinguished all the fire that had been kindled in England from Geneva; "or if he had been succeeded by Bishop Andrewes or Bishop Overall, or any man who understood and loved the Church, that infection would easily have been kept out, which could not afterwards be so easily ex- pelled There was a general expectation that Bancroft would have been succeeded by Andrewes, certainly the most eminent of the bishops. Unfortunately Ab- bot had written a book which flattered James' vanity. He described James as being "zealous as David, learned as Solomon, religious as Josias, careful of * Puritans, ii. 119. « Clarendon, i. 36. 380 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. spreading the truth as Constantine, just as Moses, undefiled as Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah, clement as Theodosius^" What other claim Abbot could have had to the primacy it is difficult to imagine. He was not a man of deep learning ; when Master of University College, Oxford, he and his brother, the Master of Balliol, had been the great upholders of Puritanism in the University. He was three times Vice-Chancellor, in which capacity he had exhibited his strong Puritanical antipathy against the Arme- nian party, who were stigmatised as Romanists ; he ordered several pictures which he considered super- stitious to be burnt in the market - place, and he offered an incessant opposition to Laud, who was at that time Fellow of St. John's. In 1599, Abbot be- came Dean of Winchester; in 1609, Bishop of Lich- field and Coventry; in 1610, of London; and Arch- bishop of Canterbury in 161 1. In this capacity he was never able to lay aside the narrow Puritanism in which he had been brought up ; and the lax rule of his primacy, which lasted till 1633, united to his austere and repulsive temper, and the most latitu- dinarian principles, conduced more than anything else to produce that rebellion which brought his successor to the scaffold. Before his accession to the primacy, the hopes of the Puritans had been damped by the death of the heir apparent, Henry, Prince of Wales, " the darling of the Puritans," as he was called. Their grief at his loss knew no bounds, and their hatred to Prince Charles increased ; but by Abbot's elevation everything favoured them. By his laxity of disci- pline, and his appointment of Puritans to important stations in the Church, no doubt he acted conscien- Wrangham's Life of Abbot. THE GROWTH OF PURITANISM. 38 1 tiously, and thought to make concessions to tender consciences ; but no less surely, during his long tenure of the primacy, was he preparing the evils of which Laud became the victim, and of which Laud is connected in the minds of many people as the originator. CHAPTER VI. CHARLES I. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. r^HARLES, with "much in his character very suit- ^ able to the times in which he Hved and to the spirit of the people he was to rule ; a stern and serious deportment, a disinclination to all licentiousness, and a sense of religion which seemed more real than his father ^ ;" a man of whom " it would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man of ex- quisite taste in the fine arts, of strict morals in private life succeeded his father at the age of twenty-five years, a.d. 1625, but he succeeded to a throne full of embarrassments. The plague was devastating the country, an expensive war threatened, and a large debt had been incurred. Charles had contracted an unpopular engagement with a Spanish Princess ; in 1623 he and the Duke of Buckingham went to Spain to bring her to England ; difficulties ensued, and to the joy of England Charles returned without his Spanish bride. Parliament now wished him to marry a Protestant ; instead of this, he made the great mis- take of his life in marrying Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV., King of France. She was a devoted member of the Roman Church, and Richelieu took care that the marriage agreement should be drawn up in terms favourable to Rome; accordingly she was to have the care of their children till they were twelve years old ^ She brought with her to England a Roman » Hallam, Const. Hist., ch. vii. Macaulay, Essays. There is reason to believe that the stipulation was not carried out ; but that the articles should have been framed, shews the arrogant con- tempt of James and Charles for English opinion. (Hal. Const. Hist, vii.) THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. bishop, and a large number of Roman priests, for whom a chapel was fitted up in St. James' Palace ; and so unpopular was the marriage in England, that it was pronounced as a judgment from Heaven, even greater than the plague that was devastating the country. Charles himself was devoutly attached to the Eng- lish Church, without any bias towards Rome, although it is not too much to say he liked a Romanist better than a Puritan. The condition of the Church was out- wardly flourishing, but beneath was smouldering the volcano which was soon to burst with such terrible violence. The Puritans, under the primacy of Abbot, had gained courage and influence in the Church, and they determined to repress the obnoxious ceremonies which were prescribed in the Church's formularies. At this time they formed a majority in the House of Commons. Charles had been brought up in a school which had for some time been gradually but surely getting out of date. Henry and Elizabeth had treated the Commons as if they were schoolboys ; and from his father Charles had learnt that all legitimate power was confined to the Crown, opposition to which was rebellion. But the secular arm had now lost its force. The Puritans in the House of Commons felt their power, and with admirable dexterity they seized the right which the constitution afforded them of opposing the king without infringing the law. To them be- longed the duty of granting or withholding the sup- plies ; this right, which the Tudors would have thought little short of high treason, they determined to exer- cise ; and, whilst taking from the Crown the undue prerogative with which the Tudors and Stuarts had invested it, they could effect what was still nearer to their heart, the overthrow of a religion which had not 384 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. gone far enough in the way of reform ; which, as far as they could see, had only substituted a temporal (and that might be a woman) for a spiritual head, which exacted a uniformity in its papistical doctrines, and which refused to others the freedom which it claimed for itself when it shook off the despotism of Rome. Such was the feeling of the House of Commons at the beginning of the reign. Charles, like his pre- decessor, was no doubt imperious, perhaps obstinate and narrow-minded ; at any rate, he misunderstood the signs of the times and the temper of his people. The last years of Elizabeth, when the House of Commons had gained a great victory over the throne on the question of monopolies, shewed unmistakably that a crisis was at hand. Elizabeth, as we have seen understood the crisis, and yielded graciously. " If her successors had inherited her wisdom with her crown, Charles I. might have died of old age, and James II. would never have seen St. Germain's ^" In a reign where the interests of Church and State were of necessity so intimately blended, and where Church and throne fell together, it is difficult to draw a decided line, and to distinguish clearly what belongs to the history of the State and what to that of the Church. The history of the struggle between Charles and Parliament is the history of a religious strug- gle, ending in the triumph of Puritanism ; but in that struggle we find Parliament usurping the duties of the Church, and pronouncing ecclesiastical censures ; whilst the Church invaded the duties of Parliament by in- sisting on the divine right of kings, and of its own right to impose taxes without, and even in opposition to, the wish of Parliament. ^ Macaulay's Essays. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM, An instance of this kind of interference occurred at the very beginning of the reign. The first Parliament assembled June 18, 1625. The Commons set forth a list of their grievances, and presented a petition for the execution of the penal laws against Papists. The king promised redress, but he promised more than, with the best intentions, he was able to perform ; for by his marriage articles he had already pledged him- self to grant toleration to the Romanists, and at that very time his palace was filled with Roman Catholics, who had come from France to celebrate the wedding festivities. The next step of Parliament was to usurp the duties of Convocation. Montagu, one of the king's chaplains, of whom Fuller says that he was much skilled in the Fathers, in ecclesiastical antiquity, and in the Latin and Greek tongues, had in the reign of the late king, in answer to a pamphlet published by some Jesuits, written another pamphlet, in which he spoke dis- respectfully of the Synod of Dort and the doctrines of the Puritans*. The pamphlet gave great offence to the Puritans, as inculcating Arminianism and Popery, and it was condemned by Archbishop Abbot. On the death of James, Montagu appealed against this injus- tice, and published in vindication of himself another pamphlet, which he dedicated to King Charles, styled " Appello Caesarem." He was not, he said, Arminian, Calvinist, or Lutheran, names of division, but Chris- tian ; " For Arminianism, I must and doe protest before God and His angels that the time is yet to come that I ever read word in Arminius." Montagu, however, was condemned by a committee of the House ' The pamphlet of the Jesuits was styled "A Gag for the New Gos- pel ;" that of Montagu's answer, " A new Gag for an old goose." C C 386 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. of Commons ; Laud, at that time Bishop of St. David's, together with the Bishops of Oxford and Rochester, complained that the House of Commons had usurped the duties of Convocation. The king also complained of their calling one of his chaplains to the bar of the House. Parliament then voted insufficient supplies. The king was astonished : he dissolved Parliament, and raised money under his Privy Seal. The next Parliament met on February 6, 1626, many of the obnoxious members having been in the meantime appointed sheriffs, in order to unfit tfiem for re-election. But there was no change in the spirit of Parliament : Montagu was again condemned, and again the king dissolved Parliament. Unfortunately at this time the Church was deprived of the services of the most learned of its bishops, for Bishop Andrewes died in October, 1626. The king in his emergency, under the necessity of obtaining money, had sent a circular letter to the bishops, instructing them to preach the doctrine of passive obedience, and to use their influence in induc- ing their people to submit to forced loans. Two ser- mons preached before the king by Sibthorpe and Mainwaring, men of strong Erastian principles, espe- cially attracted attention, as greatly exaggerating the royal authority. Mainwaring maintained that " Par- liaments were not ordained to contribute any right to the king, but for the more equal imposing and more easy exacting of that which unto kings doth appertain by natural and original law and justice, as their proper inheritance annexed to their political crown from their birth." Abbot condemned the sermon, and his short suspension (whether from this cause is unknown) fol- lowed soon afterwards. Fuller gives a different reason THE TRIUMTH OF TURITANISM. for his suspension. Seven years previously, whilst shooting at a buck in Bramshill Park, he had missed the buck and killed the keeper. The question was at the time much discussed at home and abroad, whether or not the archbishop, having blood on his hands, was incapacitated for his office ; and three newly-elected bishops, of whom Laud was one, refused to be conse- crated by him, from a fear that they might be "attainted with the contagion of his scandal and uncanonical con- dition." A commission was appointed to examine the case, and without exculpating Abbot, recommended the king to forgive him ; his offence was therefore for the time forgiven, but now it was felt that the stain of blood attached to him, and unfitted him for his office. Parliament, however, would not allow Mainwaring's sermon to escape them. The Commons resolved that he had abused his holy functions, and had offended against the State ; and the Lords condemned him to imprisonment, fined him ^1000, and suspended him for three years. How little weight the king attached to the opinion of Parliament may be judged from the fact, that in a few months he presented him to the Deanery of Worcester, and afterwards to the Bishopric of St. David's ; whilst Montagu became successively Bishop of Chichester and Norwich, and in 1628 Laud, of whose Arminian doctrines the House of Commons had complained, was promoted to the see of London. On March 17, 1628, Charles, wanting money, was obliged to summon another Parliament, and finding that an inflexible opposition was useless, he reluct- antly ratified the famous " Petition of right," the second great charter of English liberty. He bound himself to levy no taxes without Parliament, never to imprison any one except in due course of law, not to c c 2 388 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. billet soldiers on private houses, nor to subject the people to the jurisdiction of courts martial ; a com- promise was thus effected, and Parliament voted five subsidies, nearly ^400,000. But even now the Com- mons were not satisfied with the king. Before the supply bill had passed the House of Lords, they drew up a Remonstrance setting forth the grievances of the nation, grievances which could not be remedied till Calvinism was made the standard of orthodoxy, and no tolerance shewn for Arminianism, or what they deemed equivalent, Romanism. But as soon as the money bill passed, the king, without waiting to receive the Remonstrance, dissolved Parliament ; and from 1629 to 1640 there was no Parliament at all. One of the first acts of Laud as Bishop of London was a conciliatory measure, to prefix the royal decla- ration, as it now stands, to the Thirty-nine Articles, prohibiting any but the plain and literal sense being attached to them ; this he did, although without sub- mitting it to Convocation, under the hope of restoring peace to the Church, and composing the differences between the Puritans and Arminians. But even this did not satisfy the Puritans ; they declared, and Arch- bishop Abbot joined them, that it was done out of favour to the Arminians, " the spawn of Papists," and to prevent godly preachers from preaching the doc- trine of election and reprobation. In the session of 1629, a committee, in which the name of Oliver Crom- well for the first time appears, was appointed to con- sider the Declaration, and the following answer, which was called their Vow, was drawn up : "We, the Com- mons in Parliament assembled, do claim, protest and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion which was established by Parliament in the thirteenth THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. year of our late Queen Elizabeth, which, by the public act of the Church of England, and by the general and current exposition of the writers of our Church, hath been delivered unto us : and we reject the sense of the Jesuits and Arminians, and all others wherein they differ from us." A scene of orreat confusion in the. House of Commons followed. The king forbade the Speaker to put the question, and ordered an adjourn- ment : the Speaker was forcibly held down in his chair ; a protest was made against the illegal conduct of the king, the first article of which was, " Whosoever shall by favour or countenance seem to extend Popery or Arminianism, shall be reported a capital enemy of the kingdom." In 1633 Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canter- bury. A new era in the history of Church and State in England commenced. For the first time in its his- tory, the country was left without a Parliament for eleven years ; the Constitution was an absolute mo- narchy, Charles being his own Prime Minister. Buck- ingham had been stabbed by a man named Felton, as he was about to join the fleet that was sailing for the war against France. Sir Charles Wentworth, who was afterwards created Lord Strafford, and Arch- bishop Laud were, in consequence, the king's chief ad- visers. The office was thrust on Laud, and he could not refuse it. It was, as we learn from his own word, not only opposed to his natural inclination, but was also at variance with his episcopal duties ; it drew down on him the greatest share of obloquy of all the king's ministers : he had long suffered under the un- merited calumny of being a papist ; henceforward he had to bear also the unpopularity of the king : whilst on him fell, not without some reason, the blame of 390 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. the two infamous tribunals of the High Commission and the Star Chamber, the power of which had greatly increased under Charles. It was not long before the troubles of the arch- bishop commenced. The ordinary amusements in country parishes on Sunday afternoons were called, Church-ales, at which money was collected for the repairs of the churches ; Clerk-ales, for the benefit of the Parish-clerk ; and Bid-ales, for the poor. King James had, as before stated, published a Book of Sports, specifying such amusements as might be per- mitted on Sundays. In 1633, Chief Justice Richard- son, at the request of the Somersetshire magistrates, forbade the ales and wakes, and directed that the clergy should read his order in their churches ; an unwar- rantable interference in ecclesiastical matters, for which he was severely rebuked before the Privy Council by the archbishop. It was by the advice of Laud deter- mined that the Book of Sports should be re-published. This step, which was unpopular enough in itself, was rendered more so by an order to the clergy to read it in their churches ; some obeyed, some altogether re- fused ; whilst others read it with the fourth command- ment, adding, " This is the law of God, that the law of man." This re-publication called forth from Prynne, a con- ceited and hot-headed young barrister, a libellous book called " Histriomastix," reflecting on these Sunday amusements, and on the court, but more especially on the queen, who was particularly fond of them. He was, in consequence, tried in the Star Chamber ; his book was condemned to be burnt by the common hangman, and himself to stand twice in the pillory, to lose both his ears, to be fined five thousand pounds, THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. and to be imprisoned for life ; two others, Bastwick, a physician, and Burton, a clergyman, were condemned to a similar punishment : Prynne, offending again, the stumps of his ears were cut off, and he was branded in both cheeks. Laud declared that he had no more to do with these cruel punishments than every other member of the Star Chamber ; nevertheless, the whole odium rested upon him. Prynne, who was a great favourite with the people, was regarded as a martyr, and henceforward became the avowed enemy of Laud to the end of his life, and at his trial was the barrister employed to prepare the case against him, Prynne lived long enough to confess the justice of his punishment ; and that if the king had cut off his head also, when he cropped his ears, he would have done what was just, and " have done good, and the nation good service." Nothing offended the Puritans, and it must be added also many professed Conformists, more than Laud's endeavours to introduce a decent ceremonial into the services of the Church. The practice which had been brought into vogue, of moving the holy table into the body of the church at the time of the celebration of Holy Communion, had led to great irreverence and desecration. The altar was made the receptacle of the hats and overcoats of the congregation, and sometimes a table where the churchwardens cast up their accounts. Laud, therefore, ordered that the altars should at all times stand at the east end of the church, raised above the level of the floor, and fenced in by a rail, so that they might be screened from approach, except of the communicants, at the Holy Eucharist. This decent arrangement brought down upon him the opposition even of the bishops, more especially of Williams, who 392 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. at that time was Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of West- minster, as well as Lord Chancellor ; and he was ac- cused of bringing back the Host, and the discarded superstitions of Rome. The king had long entertained a desire of bringing the Scottish Kirk into conformity with the English Church ; and, with that view, had in 1833, in company with Laud, made a visit to Scotland. The Scotch people had always been turbulent and ungovernable : " They had butchered their first James in his bed- chamber ; they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second ; they had slain James the Third on the field of battle ; their diso- bedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth ; they had deposed and imprisoned Mary ; they had led her son captive, and their temper was still as in- tolerable as everV Besides this, there was always a bitter antipathy to England. What England did, that Scotland was sure to disapprove of. The refor- mation in Scotland did not take place till twenty-five years after it was begun in England ; and when it did take place, it was of a much more thorough and sweep- ing kind. The reformed Kirk of Scotland, under the guidance of John Knox, was shaped on the principle in vogue in Geneva, on the model of the most rigid Calvinism ; and though James the First of England had established a Scotch episcopacy, the Church go- vernment was really Presbyterian. The most bitter hatred was felt towards everything connected with the Church of Rome, and the Church of England was thought little better than that of Rome. Charles wished to introduce the English liturgy, but when the Scotch bishops urged that the national feeling ' Macaulay, i. 93. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 393 would revolt against such interference, he ordered them when he left Scotland to prepare a Scotch liturgy and canons. The liturgy, when it arrived in England, was referred to three bishops, Laud, Juxon, and Wren ; and, after having undergone certain changes, and being ratified by the king, it was sent back to Scotland in 1637, with an order that it should be used on an ap- pointed day in all the churches throughout the land. The opposition which the king's proclamation en- countered at Edinburgh was overwhelming. The Sunday on which its use was first attempted is still known as "Stony Sabbath," or "Casting of the Stools." The Dean, when he began the service in the cathe- dral, was assailed with a volley of stones, whilst a woman aimed a three-legged stool at his head, which fortunately missed its mark : the bishop, when he mounted the pulpit, received no better treatment, and in attempting to make his escape, nearly lost his life ; and the clergy in the other churches met with a similar outrage. The futility of enforcing the liturgy on an unwilling people was too apparent. All classes of the laity were opposed to it ; women of the highest rank joined the dissentients ; it was soon found that the majority of the clergy were opposed, not only to episcopal government, but to any prescribed form of worship ; the bishops were regarded as the enemies of the country, and the abettors of superstition, and a bishop could not walk with safety in the streets of Edinburgh. A revolutionary committee was formed, designated "the Tables;" and in March, 1638, the people bound themselves by a Solemn League and Covenant to resist all innovations, not to be intimidated by any threats, but to abolish episcopacy, not only in Scotland, but in England and Ireland also, and to 394 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. restore the liberty and purity of the Gospel : Christ, they said, was himself a Covenanter, and whoever refused to join them was considered an Atheist. The king, seeing the danger of the crisis, sent the Marquis of Hamilton to Edinburgh, and made con- siderable concessions ; he sanctioned the Covenant, and withdrew the liturgy and canons : the clergy and laity alike pronounced with one voice they would as soon renounce their Baptism as the Covenant: the General Assembly met, and claimed its right to sit, notwith- standing the royal prohibition ; it abolished episco- pacy, renounced Arminianism, and adopted Calvin- ism. It declared that its acts, sentences, and censures should be obeyed throughout the whole kingdom ; it pronounced sentence of deposition against all the Scotch bishops, eight of whom were excommunicated : nor was this all ; an address was drawn up to the people of England, requesting them to join the Covenanters, and an agent was sent to London to draw over ad- herents to their party. Scotland was in open rebel- lion ; the Scots invaded England ; the king with an army of twenty thousand marched to the frontier, but consented to an insecure truce ; the Scots offered no submission ; the king had no other resource but to summon Parliament ; the short Parliament, as it was called, met on April 13, 1640, and the king selected to preach the sermon, Bishop Wren, next to Laud, the most unpopular of all the bishops. The new House of Commons observed great mo- deration, and was more respectful to the throne than any which had sat since the time of Elizabeth^. All the anger of the Commons was turned against Laud ; they complained of popish ceremonies, such as altars, K Macaulay, i. 95. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 395 bowing to the east, crosses, crucifixes, and pictures ; as well as the acts of the High Commission Court, and of the punishment of clergy for refusing to read the Book of Sports in their churches ; they began to repeat the grievances which the nation had suffered for the last eleven years ; thereupon the king dissolved Parliament. When Parliament was dissolved, it was the custom to dissolve Convocation also ; but now it was proposed that Convocation should continue its sittings, and the question arose whether Convocation was not independent of Parliament. The matter was referred to the law officers of the Crown, who decided that " Convocation being called by the king's writ under the Great Seal, does continue till it is dis- solved." Convocation therefore continued till the 29th of May. Several canons were enacted ; but one canon directed against the Scotch Covenant, which imposed upon the clergy a new oath, known as the " et caetera " oath, was most obnoxious to the people. The form of the oath to be taken was, " I swear that I approve the doctrine, discipline, and government, established in the Church of England, as containing all things ne- cessary to salvation, and that I will not endeavour by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, to bring in any popish doctrine contrary to that which is so esta- blished ; nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of the Church by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons, et ccstera, as it stands now established." The " et caetera " plainly refers to the chancellors and other officers of the Church, and was inserted carelessly, instead of " et caeteros," in draft- ing the form. Yet people asked. What does the " et caetera " mean ? On all sides the oath was ob- jected to ; and many of the clergy refused to take it. 396 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. On May 9 the archbishop's palace at Lambeth was attacked ; the primate was obHged to retire to White- hall ; Convocation was placed under the protection of an armed guard ; the High Commission Court fled for safety from Lambeth to St. Paul's. Such was the state of things when the famous Par- liament, known as the Long Parliament, met ; that Parliament which, beginning with the execution of Strafford, did not end its work till the Primate and King, and some of the first nobility in the land, were committed to the block, and Church and State fell together. One of the first acts of the new Parliament was to release the prisoners Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick ; to restore Dr. Williams, who had been suspended, and condemned to pay a heavy fine. They next attacked the clergy. The late proceedings in Convocation were condemned, and a resolution was passed that the clergy and bishops had no power to grant subsidies, or to make any constitutions or canons, or any acts what- ever, whether of doctrine or discipline, without the consent of Parliament^. From the clergy in general the attack passed to Laud. The prejudice against Laud was not a little increased by the action of the Scottish Commissioners, who impeached him in the House of Lords as an in- cendiary, charging him with forcing on the Scottish nation alterations in religion, and a liturgy with many corruptions of doctrine, opposed to their laws and cus- toms. On Dec. 18 a debate took place in the House of Commons as to the archbishop's conduct. To him were imputed all the evils under which the nation By the statute known as " The Submission of the Clergy," there was no necessity for their obtaining the sanction of Parliament. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 397 groaned ; he it was who had raised to their dignities those who with him were the authors of their calami- ties ; who had gained the promotion of Strafford, and who had advanced the popish bishops, Bishop Main- v/aring, Pearce of Bath and Wells, the Bishop of Oxford, and Bishop Wren ; he was " a great fire- brand;" an "angry wasp leaving its sting in every- thing ;" and he was false to the Church. The debate ended with a vote of the house that he was a traitor ; Laud exclaimed that "not one man in the House of Commons did believe it in his heart ;" this only made things worse, and he was committed to the custody of the Black Rod ; after ten weeks he was on March I, 1 64 1, pursued by the insults and revilings of the populace, committed to the tower, whence he was only to emerge twice, once for his trial, the other time for his execution. From this time Convocation gradually melted away ; henceforward Parliament assumed its functions, and the work of effecting a religious Re- formation. On March 15, by the advice of Williams, on whom now devolved the chief management of ecclesiastical matters, and who was soon raised to the Archbishopric of York, a " committee of religion " was named in the House of Lords, consisting of twenty lay-peers and ten bishops, four only of whom, Williams, Usher, Hall, and Merton, consented to serve ; with a sub-committee of clergy, mostly doctrinal Puritans," for the reforma- tion of abuses both in doctrine and discipline. The commissioners held six sittings in the Jerusalem Chamber. Most of their proceedings were directed against the discipline of Laud ; they objected that the communion-table was turned altar-wise, and called an altar ; that the people were taught to bow towards it ; 39S THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. that the clergyman said the prayers turning to the east ; that there was a " credentia," or " side-table ;" that there were candlesticks on the altar, and a canopy over it ; and that the communicants came to the rails to receive the Holy Communion. Numerous changes were demanded in the Prayer- Book. The names of some saints were to be omitted in the calendar ; the ornaments rubric was to be altered ; apocryphal les- sons to be omitted ; the " sure and certain hope," in the Burial Office, to be changed into " knowing as- suredly that the dead shall rise again." On May 21 was introduced into the House of Com- mons the " Root and Branch " Bill, for abolishing the bishops and all other chief officers of the Church. But now two more Bishops, Wren and Pearce, had been impeached, and the Bishops awoke to their danger ; even Williams' saw the injurious consequences of his opposition to Laud ; and Hall, Bishop of Exeter, since the death of Andrewes the most learned amongst them, put forth a Remonstrance, defending forms of prayer and episcopal government. This was an- swered by Smectymnuus ^, and the controversy known as the Smectymnuan controversy followed, in which Archbishop Usher took the side of the bishops, whilst the poet Milton, in no fewer than five treatises, ad- vocated that of the Smectymnuans. ' It was this prelate who, when the king in his severe trial consulted him as to the signing Strafford's death-warrant, lulled his scruples to rest by telling him that a king had a double conscience, one public and the other private ; and that the former compelled him to sacrifice one whom the latter would induce him to save as a friend. The king unfortunately rejected the straightforward advice of Juxon, that he ought not to act against his conscience ; and accepted that of Williams. '' The name was derived from the initials of five Puritans who took part in the controversy, Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, WiUiam Spurstow. - THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 399 On July 5, 1 64 1, the king consented to the aboli- tion of the High Commission Court, and the Star Chamber justly experienced the same fate. In the autumn of the same year the government of the Church by bishops was declared, in Scotland, to be contrary to the Word of God ; and its abolition, in that country, was confirmed by the king. In England, during the recess, the Commons took the unprecedented step of appointing a committee for the transaction of business, who were thus enabled to get into their hands the management of ecclesi- astical affairs. Lecturers appointed by them invaded the pulpits, preached violence and sedition, denounced episcopacy, and, indirectly, even the king himself. Orders were given to the churchwardens to remove the altars from the east end of the churches, and to take away the rails ; the churches were profaned ; the Litany depraved ; the sacraments disparaged ; mar- riages illegally solemnized, and the ring omitted ; painted windows were demolished, monumental brasses defaced, and tombs destroyed. The abolition of episcopacy in Scotland excited the hopes of the Puritans that the king would also abolish episcopacy in England ; but Charles thought the two cases utterly dissimilar. In Scotland, Episcopacy, as we have seen, had never been fully established, and was uncongenial to the character of the people ; he stated his belief that episcopacy was most agreeable to the Word of God, and that he was ready to seal his belief with his blood. To leave no doubt on the mat- ter, he filled up the vacant sees. Williams was ap- pointed Archbishop of York ; Winniffe, Dean of St. Paul's, to Lincoln, in his place ; Hall was translated from Exeter to Norwich ; Brownrigg was appointed 400 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. to Exeter ; Bryan Duppa from Chichester to Salis- bury; King, to Chichester; Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, who had sought refuge in England from the troubles in Ireland, was appointed " in commendam " Bishop of Carlisle ; Skinner, to Oxford ; Westfield, to Bristol ; whilst Prideaux, Regius Professor of Di- vinity and Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, became Bishop of Worcester. • In 1641 Charles went to Scotland, hoping to get the Scots over to his side ; he expected also to get help from the Irish Catholics. But whilst he was away, news came that the latter had risen against the Pro- testants, and put many of them to death. This was laid to the king's charge, and a " Grand Remon- strance" was drawn up, setting forth all the mis- government of the country since Charles came to the throne, and containing a violent attack upon the bi- shops, A charge of high treason was brought against them, — they might as well, it was said at the time, have been accused of adjdtcry; petitions against epis- copacy, and counter-petitions from persons of high rank and influence, were presented ; the bishops were subjected to violence, and ten of them committed to the Tower. After eighteen days they were released ; but on February 6, 1642, all jurisdiction was taken from the bishops, and vested in a committee of the House of Commons ; the king, acting on the advice of the law officers, — influenced also, it is said, by the queen, — believing it to be the only way of saving the Church, reluctantly gave his consent to their exclu- sion from the House of Lords. Charles had mortally offended the House of Com- mons by accusing five members of high treason, and going to the House with his Guards to take them THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. prisoners. He had thus attempted to use force, and had shewn that he was ready to set aside the privi- leges of ParHament. After this, war between the King and ParHament was inevitable, and both par- ties prepared for the conflict. The forces of the country were equally divided : on the side of the king were the Church party, and the nobles and the country gentlemen ; whilst on the side of Parlia- ment were the Puritans, who mostly comprised the farmers and tradesmen. Parliament could not hope to succeed without the aid of the Scots, and the Scots would only join them on the condition of their embracing Presbyterianism. There must be one confession of faith, one Directory of worship ; and uniformity was to commence with the abolition of papacy and prelacy, for " what hope can there be of one confession of faith, one form of wor- ship and catechism, till prelacy be plucked up root and branch, as a plant which God hath not planted ? " These terms, except with regard to episcopacy, were unpalatable to the majority of the House of Com- mons ; but the Scots would consent to no other. The " Root and Branch Bill," which could not be passed in a former session, now passed the Commons in Sep- tember, 1642, and the House of Lords four months later. On June 12, 1643, the Lords and Commons passed an ordinance " for the calling an assembly of learned and godly divines and others, to be consulted with by the Parliament for the settling of the govern- ment and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing the doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations." This as- sembly, known as the " Westminster Assembly of Divines," — consisting of 131 ministers, by far the D d 402 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. greater number of whom were Presbyterians, some Independents, and some avowedly Erastians, and 30 laymen, — met for the first time in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel on Sunday, July i, 1643. Amongst them there were at first a few Episcopalians and some bishops. Archbishops Williams and Usher, Bishops Brownrigg, Morton, Prideaux, and Westfield, with Drs. Hackett, Hammond, and Sanderson ; but when the king issued a proclamation forbidding the assem- bly, most of the Episcopalians ^ refused to act. The assembly agreed to the " Solemn League and Covenant," which was ordered to be read, and framed and hung up in all the churches, and to be signed by every person of the age of eighteen, by February 2, 1644 ; whilst a Directory for Public Worship was sub- stituted for the Prayer- Book, and ordered to come into use January 3, 1645. Thus a strong weapon was placed in the hands of their enemies of discovering and deposing the loyal, or, as they were called, the malignant clergy, refusal to sign being the proof of malignancy. The king, on November 13, issued from Oxford a proclamation forbidding the use of the Di- rectory, but the Houses of Parliament had adopted a counterfeit Great Seal, which they affixed to their ordinances, so that the royal authority was now ren- dered unnecessary. The " Committee for the re- moval of scandalous ministers," examined those scan- dalous or malignant clergy as were accused, sometimes by the meanest and worst of the parishioners ; be- tween 2,000 and 3,000 clergy, amongst whom were some of the most learned and devout, are said to have ' Clarendon says there were not above twenty in the assembly who were not the avowed enemies of the Church, many of them men of in- famous character and scandalous ignorance. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. been deprived ; and on them, in some cases only, a pension not exceeding a fifth of the vakie of their be- nefices was bestowed. The life of Laud was part of the price demanded by the Scots for their alliance. He had, indeed, met with cruel treatment. On March i, 1641, he had been committed to the Tower ; after being detained there three years, and fined thirty-six thousand pounds, — sixteen thousand as compensation to Prynne, Bur- ton, and Bastwick, and twenty thousand for his pro- ceedings in the last Convocation, — he was, on March 12, 1644, brought to trial. A bill of attainder was passed against him in the House of Commons on Nov. 13, and in the House of Lords on Jan. 4 follow- ing; and on January 10, at the age of seventy-two. he was brought to the scaffold on Tower-hill. No man is more abused in history, and few men more unjustly, than Laud. Throughout his life he had to contend with almost unparalleled difficulties ; and the troubles which came upon him and the Church were due rather to the faults of others than his own faults, and to causes over which, unless he evaded the responsibilities of his office, he had no control. A short review of his life may serve to place his character in its true light. Born at Reading in 1573, he became Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, at a time when theology in the University had undergone a complete change from Romanism to Puritanism ; a ten- dency prevailed to identify the English with the foreign Reformation, and to represent the English Church as a mere sect, created at that time. Against this teaching. Laud insisted that the English Church descended by succession from the time of the Apo- stles, and that the Reformation was only a single in- D d 2 404 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. cident in its history. This brought down on him the hostiHty of Dr. Abbot, the future Archbishop of Can- terbury, at that time Master of University College and Vice-Chancellor, who with his brother, the Master of Balliol, was the leader of the Puritan party; and so strong was the opposition to Laud, that he himself says, when he was Proctor, University men were ashamed to be seen speaking to him, or to notice him in the streets. Notwithstanding the opposition of Abbot, who denounced him as a papist, Laud was elected President of St. John's in 161 1 ; Abbot ap- pealed to King James, who not only confirmed his election, but was so pleased with him that he ap- pointed him his chaplain. Honours now showered fast on him. In 1614 he became Prebendary of Lincoln; in 1615, Archdeacon of Huntingdon; in 1616, Dean of Gloucester, " a shell," as the king called it, " with- out a kernel;" here, as at Oxford, the "no popery" cry was raised, and he was stigmatised as a papist. It is not difficult to understand what that cry meant. The fabric of the cathedral was falling into decay ; the services were like those of a conventicle ; whilst its bishop. Dr. Miles Smith, was an advanced Cal- vinist. Laud at once set himself to work ; he moved the Holy Table from the body of the church to the chancel wall ; and at the end of one year things were done in the cathedral decently and in order. But this so excited the wrath of the Calvinist bishop, that he vowed he would never again (and he strictly kept the vow) enter the cathedral whilst Laud was Dean. The " no popery " cry meant that Laud had a duty to do, and that he did that duty fearlessly. In 1620 Laud became Prebendary of Westminster, and Bishop of St. David's, and resigned the President- THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. ship of St. John's. In 1625 James died, but the high re- putation which Laud enjoyed under him was increased under Charles, who, in 1626, translated him to Bath and Wells ; whilst in the same year he succeeded the great Bishop Andrewes as Dean of the Chapel Royal. In 1628, Montaigne, Bishop of London, whose laxity of discipline, coupled with the Puritanism of the pri- mate, was a principal cause of the calamities of Laud's life, was transferred to York, and Laud succeeded him in London. In the same year Buckingham was mur- dered ; and now Laud, against his will, became with Wentworth the chief minister, and so henceforward partaker in the faults and calamities of the throne. In 1630, notwithstanding the opposition of his old enemy Williams, who, as Bishop of Lincoln, was visitor of four colleges, he became Chancellor of Oxford, and in 1633 Archbishop of Canterbury. Such a career was one of almost unparalleled suc- cess. In every position which he occupied — as Dean of Gloucester, as Bishop of St. David's, of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury — he left his mark for good. In his articles of visitation, questions were asked as to the decent performance of divine service, as to bap- tism, whether there was a font of stone, and not, as was common, a mere basin ; as to the position of the Holy Table ; and whether the Holy Eucharist was de- livered to each communicant separately. In this man- ner abuses were rectified, slovenliness discouraged, churches restored, and men of ability promoted. It is to the Caroline divines we look back as the great authorities of our Anglican Theology ; here, again, it is to Laud (himself indebted to one of the greatest men who ever adorned episcopacy, Bishop Andrewes) that we owe a great debt of gratitude. Through Laud it 406 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. was that Jeremy Taylor, the son of a barber at Cam- bridge, and educated at that University, was preferred to a Fellowship at All Souls, Oxford. Laud could ad- mire the learning as well as the sincerity of Bishop Hall, who not only differed from, but openly rebuked, without offending him. To him Bishop Sanderson, Archbishop Bramhall, Dr. Peter Heylyn, George Her- bert (whose early death at thirty-nine cut short one of the purest and most promising lives in the English Church), Hammond, one of the greatest divines of that or any other age, and Chillingworth, who through Laud was induced to return from Rome to the Church which he had forsaken, owed encouragement or ad- vancement. Even his enemies will allow that he was a generous patron of learning ; of his great munificence the Church and his University are sufficient witnesses. At a time when the mere observance of the Church's law was branded as Popery, Laud was accused of being an innovator and a Romanist. So far from being a Romanist, he brought back, as we have seen, Chillingworth into the Church ; and it was his oppo- sition to Rome which entailed on him the bitter ani- mosity of the queen, and was one secret of the cala- mities of his life. He was an object of hatred to the Romanists no less than to the Puritans ; there is rea- son to believe that the offer of a cardinal's hat, which we have it on his own authority was made to him from Rome, was made under the hostile motive of leading him into a trap, and thus exposing him to the male- volence of his enemies. Yet one of the accusations brought against him at his trial was, of " wishing to subvert God's true re- ligion, and to set up a Popish superstition instead." This accusation can be best answered in his own THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 407 words ; his last declaration before his execution, when he had nothing to gain, the sincerity therefore of which no one can question. " I was born and bap- tized in the bosom of the Church of England, esta- blished by law ; in that profession I have ever since lived, and in that I die. This is now no time to dis- semble with God, least of all in matters of religion ; and therefore I desire it may be remembered I have always lived in the Protestant religion established in England, and in that I come now to die. I can bring no witness of my heart and the intention thereof, there- fore I must come to my protestation not at the bar, but my protestation at the hour and instant of my death ; in which I hope all men will be such charitable Christians, as not to think I would die and dissemble, being instantly to give God an account of the truth of it. I do therefore here, in the presence of God and His holy angels, take it upon my death that I never endeavoured the subversion of law or religion." The truth of this statement, made at such a time, is of course final. Another accusation is brought against him, that he was a bigot. If to obey the laws of his Church ; if to exact conformity, in which respect, whilst he was certainly in contrast with his Puritanical predecessors, he was not more rigid than Archbishops Whitgift and Bancroft ; if a love for antiquity, and a respect for decent ritual be bigotry, then, but not otherwise. Laud, in company with some of the greatest prelates of our Church, may be called a bigot. There was something grand about his end. When the passing of the ordinance was signified to him, " he neither entertained the news with a stoical apathy, nor waited his fate with weak and womanish lamenta- tion ; but heard it with so even and smooth a temper, 408 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. as shewed he was neither ashamed to live, nor afraid to die :" and when he was conducted to the scaffold, " he ascended it with such a cheerful countenance, as if he had mounted it rather to behold a triumph than to be made a sacrifice, and came not there to die, but to be translated It had been his wish to be buried in the chapel of his college of St. John's. At first he was buried in the church of All Hallows, near the Tower ; but after the Restoration his bones were transferred to the chapel of St. John's, where they were deposited under the altar. The nation was now divided into two religious bodies, the Presbyterians and Independents. The different sects known formerly as Brownists, or Bar- rowists, had settled down under the name of Inde- pendents or Congregationalists, and under the guid- ance of Oliver Cromwell had become supreme, not only in the House of Commons but also in the army. The private soldiers of Cromwell's troop were men of superior birth and education, who entered the army of their own free-will, not so much to gain a livelihood, as from a political and religious zeal ; their religious charter was liberty of conscience, whilst they regarded the king not only as their own foe, but the foe of God. Cromwell, who had gained renown as a soldier at the battle of Edgehill, soon drilled these men into such an excellent state of discipline, that Crom- well's Ironsides became celebrated as the best troops in Europe ; and though there were no doubt hypo- " Quarterly Review, x. 99. " At this time arose the two parties which, under the name of Cavahers and Roundheads, Tories and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals, have since then divided the nation. THE TRIUMPH OF PURITANISM. 409 crites amongst them, yet for the most part they were, if fanatical, yet sober and God-fearing men : they met regularly in their barracks for prayer and devotion, so that even the Royalists allowed, no oath was ever heard, nor drunkenness or outrages ever witnessed in their camp. With these troops Cromwell gained a decisive victory over Charles at Marston Moor in 1644, and again at Naseby in 1645. Charles, unable to raise any more troops, now fixed his hopes on the Presbyterians to help him against the Independents, and so took refuge in Scotland : the Scots, however, gave him up to the English Par- liament in 1647. It was Cromwxll's wish to save the king's life ; but the military saints thirsted for his blood, and even threatened Cromwell himself, and a mutiny broke out which even he could with difficulty quell. He saw that his attempts to save Charles were in vain, so he left him to his fate. A revolutionary tribunal pro- nounced the king to be a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; so on January 30, 1649, he was beheaded in the presence of thousands of spectators in front of the banquet-hall of his own palace °. Thus the Puritans, who had first destroyed the Church, destroyed after it the throne also. But as the influence of the Independents increased, so that of the Puritans grew weaker and weaker. The Presbyterian ministers were glad to take themselves off to the country livings, from which they had ex- pelled the lawful owners ; so the Westminster As- sembly gradually melted away, and came to an end. ° Macaulay, i. 128. CHAPTER VII. THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. CHARLES II. POR eleven years England was virtually governed by the sword ; the government, which was nomi- nally a Republic under the Protectorate of Cromwell, being in reality a despotism, limited only by the wis- dom and moderation of the despot. An oath, called the " Engagement," was taken to the new government, and a universal toleration was allowed, except to pa- pacy and prelacy. Ordination of ministers was en- trusted to thirty-eight Commissioners, called " Triers," most of them being Independents, some Presbyterians, and a few Baptists : they were invested with full powers, not only to refuse or reject candidates, but also retrospectively over those who had been already admitted to benefices. Nor was this all. The ejected clergy had sometimes been able to pick up a pre- carious living by acting as schoolmasters, or chaplains to private families ; these also were subjected to the Triers by an ordinance for " ejecting scandalous, ig- norant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters." Gauden puts the number of ejected clergy at eight thousand. When it was too late, Cromwell repented of all the evil that had been done to the clergy, and began to understand the intolerant spirit of the Pres- byterians ; " that insolent sect," as he called them, " which could tolerate none but itself : " and he would willingly have restored the Church and the monarchy. His last years were consumed in remorse and bitter- ness. Eighteen months of anarchy ensued after his THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, ETC. 4 II death, and disunion pervaded the army ; by that time the nation had become sensible of its degradation, and longed for the restoration of the Church and throne ; even the Presbyterians, now that they were thrown into the background by the Independents, desired the return of the king. So that when Charles returned in 1660, the Restoration was welcomed with joy on all sides. Everything that had been done since the out- break of the civil war was undone. The Church was without difficulty set up again, for, since the ordinances of the Long Parliament had not received the royal sanction, the deprived clergy were without difficulty reinstated ; the bishops took possession of their dio- ceses ; and, by the resumption of the Liturgy in his private chapel, the king shewed that Puritanism was at an end, and the Church of England once more established. Only nine bishops had survived the Rebellion : it was necessary, therefore, to fill up the vacant sees. Juxon, old and infirm, but the best appointment that, under the circumstances, could be made, was raised to the primacy; Accepted Frewen was appointed to York, Sheldon to London ; Cosin, Dean of Peterborough, to Durham ; Sanderson to Lincoln ; Duppa from Salis- bury to Winchester; Bryan Walton, the author of the Polyglot Bible, to Chester ; Gauden to Exeter, Henchman to Salisbury, Lancy to Peterborough, Stone to Carlisle ; the great and good Dr. Hammond was nominated to Worcester, but died before his con- secration, and Morley was appointed in his place. But we are anticipating events ; Charles had is- sued from Breda the following Declaration : " We do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for 412 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, differences of opinion in matters of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom ; and that we shall be ready to consent to such an Act of Par- liament as, upon mature deliberation, shall be offered to us, for the full granting that indulgence." On May 4, deputations from both Houses of Par- liament were sent to the Hague, to conduct the king to England. At the same time, a Presbyterian depu- tation, including Reynolds, Calamy, Case, and Manton, were sent to meet him, in hope of persuading him that the English Prayer-Book, having been so long dis- continued, should not be restored, and that he would not allow the use of the Prayer-Book or the Surplice in his own chapel. The king indignantly refused : he told them that " though he was bound for the present to tolerate much disorder and indecency in the exer- cise of God's worship, he would never, in the least de- gree, by his own practice, discountenance the good old order of the Church in which he had been bred \" But they were not to be put off so easily, and were constantly troubling the king with their complaints ; so, by his command, they assembled at Sion College, and drew up a list of their requirements. Their de- mands, which were mainly due to Baxter, were nothing short of the concession on the part of the Church of all the points between the Church and the Puritans. The king, with the view of promoting union, issued on October 25 a Declaration, in consequence of which, a conference was arranged to be held in the Bishop of London's lodgings in the Savoy. The conference began its sittings on April 15, 1661, and concluded on July 24. The commissioners appointed were autho- rized by letters patent to " advise upon a review of the * Clarendon, Hist, of the Great Rebellion. AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 413 said Book of Common Prayer, comparing the same with the most ancient Liturgies which have been used in the Church in the primitive and purest times. . . . And, if occasion be, to make such reasonable and necessary alterations, corrections, and amendments therein, as ... . shall be agreed upon to be needful and expedient for giving satisfaction unto tender con- sciences, and the restoring and continuing of peace and unity in the churches under our protection and government ; but avoiding as much as may be all unnecessary alterations from the forms and Liturgy wherewith people are already acquainted, and have so long received in the Church of England." The Presbyterians brought forward all the old objections which had been used by the Puritans for a hundred years, and when the four months allowed by the king had expired, nothing was effected ; so the commis- sioners reported to the king that, as to the Church's welfare, unity, and peace they were all agreed, but as to the means to be employed they could come to no agreement. The " Convention " Parliament havingf been dis- solved, a new House of Commons, " more zealous for royalty," says Macaulay, " than the king, and more zealous for episcopacy than the bishops," was elected in May, 1661, and immediately resolved to introduce the old Prayer-Book. But when the Savoy Conference was ended, the king resolved to submit the Prayer- Book to Convocation ; so a licence was issued on October lo, directing the Convocation of Canterbury to review the Book of Common Prayer and the Or- dinal, and on November 22 a similar licence was sent to the Archbishop of York. The Convocation of Can- terbury met, November 21, and immediately entered 414 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, upon the work of revision, the following committee being appointed for that purpose : Cosin Bishop of Durham, Wren of Ely, Skinner of Oxford, Warner of Rochester, Henchman of Salisbury, Morley of Worces- ter, Sanderson of Lincoln, and Nicholson of Gloucester. The Convocation of York agreed to be represented by proxies, three being selected from the Lower House of Canterbury province, and five from that of York, of whom Sancroft, then chaplain to Bishop Cosin, was one, and acted as Secretary to the commissioners. The committee met at Ely House, and, as the work had been foreseen, and certain parts, such as a Form of Prayer for May 29, and the office for Adult Baptism, had been already agreed upon ; and especially as they had the valuable collections of Bishop Cosin, himself the most learned ritualist amongst the bishops, who had also been librarian to Bishop Andrewes and Bishop Overall, for a basis, they were enabled to proceed rapidly with their review. On November 23, a portion of the work was delivered to the Lower House of Convocation, which returned it on the 27th, with a schedule of amendments. The whole work was finished on December 20, 1661, and was unani- mously received, approved, and subscribed by the clergy of both Houses of Convocation, and of both provinces. For two months it seems to have been detained by the king in council ; but on February 25, 1662, it was brought to the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, with a message from his majesty, expressing his full approval and allowance of the same ; on March 1 7, it was resolved by the House that that "shall be the book to which the Act of Uniformity shall relate ; " on March 18, the Lord Chancellor re- turned thanks to Convocation for the care shewn in AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 415 its revisal ; and on April i6, it was accepted by the Commons exactly as it was sent down, the point whether debate should be permitted on the amend- ments made by Convocation being negatived by 96 to 90 votes, although the House asserted its right of debating upon them, had it felt so inclined ^. Meanwhile, the Act of Uniformity had been under consideration of Parliament, where it was much dis- cussed in the Commons, resulting in a conference being held between the two Houses. The amend- ments of the Commons were mainly agreed to by the House of Lords on May 9 ; and thus our Prayer- Book, which was attached to the Act of Uniformity, comes down to us with the authority of Convocation, of Parliament, and of the Crown, the final words being spoken on May 19, 1662, " Le Roy, remercient ses bons Subjects, accepte leur Benevolence, et Ainsi Le Veult." This Prayer-Book has never substantially been al- tered since ; and although an attempt to remodel it in a directly Puritan direction was made in the reign of William HL, the Prayer-Book of 1662 is the same as is used now. At the review in 1662, a large num- ber of alterations were made, but many of these of little or no importance from a doctrinal point of view, or as affecting subsequent controversies ; but one es- pecially requires notice, as bearing upon the questions of the present day. The first is what is called the " Ornaments Rubric." The standard chosen in the Prayer-Book and Act of Uniformity of Queen Eliza- beth was, as we have seen, that which prevailed " by For the proceedings of the Houses of Lords and Commons, and of Convocation, during these debates, see Introduction to the Successive Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, by James Parker. 41 6 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI.," not that prevaiHng in 1552. But with regard to this rubric, an attempt has been made to import into it other considerations, based on fanci- ful interpretations of certain passages in the Adver- tisements of 1565, and the Jacobean Canons of 1604. The rubric, however, of 1662 passes over all these changes, and enacts, " And here it is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their Ministration, shall be re- tained and be in use as were in this Church of Eng- land by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. ;" that is to say, a via media was adopted between the more ex- cessive ritual in use before the second year, and the lower ritual prescribed under the Second Prayer- Book. It is unreasonable to imasfine that a Convocation of bishops and other divines would, at a time when the question of ritual was more vehemently debated even than it is now, have inserted in the plainest language words which were to be interpreted in the very oppo- site meaning to that which they convey ^ The Act of Uniformity, which was promoted, not by Convocation, but by the House of Commons, and which was the death-knell of Puritanism, was to come into operation on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662. The act required every beneficed person before that day to read the prayers according to the amended book in his church or chapel, and declare his unfeigned assent and consent to all things contained in it ; and all succeeding beneficed persons to do this within two " The author is, of course, aware of the different interpretation which has been put upon this rubric ; he cannot, however, refrain from stating, with all deference, the common-sense interpretation of the rubric. A AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 417 months after taking possession of their benefices ; also, every ecclesiastical person, and every tutor and school- master, to make a declaration of the illegality of taking arms against the king and of conformity to the Li- turgy, and during the next twenty years a further de- claration that the Sok)mt League and Covenant was an unlawful oath, and of no obligation. It deprived of their benefices all persons who were not in Holy Orders by episcopal ordination, unless they were or- dained priest or deacon before the feast of St. Bar- tholomew. It provided for the toleration of aliens of the foreign reformed Churches, allowed or to be allowed in England. The Morning and Evening Prayer, and all other prayers and services, might be used in Latin in the chapels of colleges, and in Convo- cations. All lecturers and preachers to be approved and licensed by the archbishop or bishop of the dio- cese. Common Prayer to be read before sermons, except at the public university sermon. The Bishops of Hereford, St. David's, St. Asaph, Bangor, and Llan- daff, to take order for a true and exact translation of the book into the British or Welsh tongue When St. Bartholomew's Day came {Black Bar- tholomew it was called), some eight hundred Presby- terians were ejected from benefices (Nonconformists without reason overstate the number, — some, as Bax- ter, placing it at eighteen hundred ; others, as Ca- lamy, at two thousand), and the day was compared to the St. Bartholomew's Day which witnessed the cruel massacre of the Huguenots. But even at the highest calculation, the number of Presbyterians ejected was less than a quarter of those Episcopalians whose benefices they had usurped, who, it must be remem- ^ Collier, Eccl. Hist. ; and Proctor, Book of Com. Prayer, p. 142, n. 4l8 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, bered, had been ejected by no lawful authority, and whose only fault was their faithful allegiance to their Church and King. Intolerance is always to be depre- cated, but this act of retribution was the necessary consequence of former intolerance and persecution, Puritanism had overthrown the Church, the very es- sence of which was episcopacy, and had murdered its chief pastor. Was it to be rewarded for this ? There was only one course to be pursued. When the Church was restored, episcopacy and its Liturgy were of neces- sity restored with it ; there was no new system, but only the old revived. The ejection of those who would not conform, however much to be lamented (for amongst them were pious and learned men), was necessary ; but even then its leading men were of- fered the highest posts in the Church, Reynolds actually accepted the see of Norwich, whilst those of Lichfield and Hereford were offered to, but refused by, Baxter and Calamy. Nor were the Nonconformists altogether opposed to the restoration of episcopacy ; many of them, on the contrary, remained in communion with the Church, and attended the services. But they expected tolera- tion for themselves ; (toleration to Romanists they re- garded with abhorrence), and many of those who were ejected continued to hold meetings and to preach ; in consequence of this, in 1664, the first Conventicle Act was passed, which rendered any one above sixteen years of age, who attended any religious meeting of more than five people where any other than the Li- turgy and practice of the Church of England was used, liable to a fine and imprisonment; and for the third offence, transportation for life. Still, the ejected clergy continued their preaching in AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 419 secret, and Parliament, which at the time when the Plague was raging in London, held its sittings at Oxford, passed the Five Mile Act, by which all Non- conforming ministers were oblio^ed to take an oath that it was not lawful under any pretence to take arms against the king, or to endeavour to subvert the go- vernment either of Church or State. Those who were unwilling to take the oath were not allowed, except in travelling, to come within five miles of any city, town, or borough, or of any parish of which he had been minister, under a penalty of forty pounds, and six months imprisonment. These penal laws had, during the ravages of the Plague, fallen partly into abeyance ; so, in 1670, a second Conventicle Act was passed, with a view to their stricter observance. A fine was imposed for attendance at any dissenting chapel ; any magistrate might enter the chapel and disperse the assembly ; and so rigorously was the act enforced, that it was said not a single conventicle was left in England. These were fierce and vindictive measures, but at the time they were thought necessary. In 1661, London had been thrown into a state of alarm by disturbances caused by Venner and the Fifth Mo- narchy men. In 1662, Phillips and Stubbs were executed for contumacy ; and, in 1663, twenty-one conspirators were executed in the north of England. The country was suffering under a series of calamities. Constant plots, fomented by Presbyterians against the government, were discovered : in 1664, war broke out between England and Holland, which the Lord Chan- cellor openly accused the Presbyterians of encouraging by preaching schism and rebellion. The great Plague, surpassing in horror anything which had afflicted the E e 2 420 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, country for centuries, and which in nine months swept away more than a hundred thousand human beings, had begun in May, 1665 ; in September, 1666, the fire of London, which laid in ruins the whole city, and destroyed eighty-nine churches, broke out. The fire was, by general consent, ascribed rather to design than accident ; eight persons, all of them Levellers, and former officers in Cromwell's army, confessed at their execution that there was a plot to set fire to London on September 2, and on that very day the fire of London began. " If this was a mere coinci- dence, it is surely the most remarkable in history The king advocated toleration from a wish to favour the Romanists ; of this Parliament was aware, and the acts passed in the early part of his reign, although ostensibly directed against the Protestant dissenters, really aimed at the papists. The Romanists enter- tained strong hopes, which the conversion of the Duke of York, and the indifference of the king, or perhaps his decided attachment to Rome after his marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, fostered, of a return of England to the Roman faith. As early as 1662 the king had put forth a Declaration, based on " that power of dispensing which we conceive to be inherent in us ;" but when the House of Commons protested against this as contradicting the Act of Uniformity, and even Protestant Nonconformists, in their hatred to Rome, objected to it, he let it drop, but only for a time. In 1665 he devised a plan of selling toleration to the Nonconformists ; it was, however, through the influ- ence of Clarendon and the bishops, defeated in the House of Lords : the bishops in consequence incurred the king's severe displeasure, and from this time Cla- ' Southey's Book of the Church, p. 522. AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 42 1 rendon's ascendancy sensibly declined, and in 1667 he was deposed ^ Henceforward, under the guidance of the Duke of Buckingham, the Court was given up to the most shameful profligacy and extravagance ; Shel- don, Archbishop of Canterbury, remonstrated, and was removed from Court ; the Duke of York threw off all disguise, and openly declared himself a convert to Rome. In 1670, Charles made a secret treaty with Louis XIV., King of France, in which Louis agreed to give him money to enable him to rule without a Parliament, Charles promising to join him in his war against the Dutch, and to declare himself a Romanist. In 1672 the king, now under the influence of the Cabal, published his " Declaration of Indulgence," suspend- ing all the penal laws both against Protestant and Romanist dissenters ; but whilst a certain number of places of worship were to be set aside and licensed for the former, the Romanists were not required to have any licensed chapels, but might hold their ser- vices in their own houses. The Declaration was received with the greatest aversion throughout the country, for it was evident that a blow was being struck against religion, and that the king was resolved to introduce Romanism. The hatred against the Puritans which had existed at the Restoration had now subsided, and the old hatred of Rome once more revived. The bishops were strongly opposed to the Declaration ; Lord Chan- cellor Bridgeman thought it so objectionable, that he refused to annex the seal to it ; he was consequently dismissed from his office, which was conferred upon Shaftesbury, through whom this arbitrary attempt had ' "The best of writers, the best of patriots, the best of men," Bishop Warburton, no blind admirer of Clarendon, calls him. 422 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, been made. The House of Commons considered it an infringement of the Constitution, and passed the Resolution : " That penal Statutes in matters Eccle- siastical cannot be suspended except by Act of Parlia- ment ; that no such power had ever been claimed by any of the king's predecessors, and therefore that the late ' Declaration of Indulgence ' was contrary to law :" and they threatened to withhold the supplies. The king made a stand, but signs of disunion began to manifest themselves in the Cabal. Of a sudden Shaftesbury deserted the king, and declared the De- claration to be illegal ; the king was obliged to yield, and cancelled it. But this was not enough. The highest places in the State were held by Romanists. The Commons saw the threatened danger from Popery, and feeling their strength, passed, in 1673, the "Test Act" (the famous Act, with the Corporation Act^, remained un- repealed till 1828) which required all who held offices, either civil or military, to receive the Holy Commu- nion according to the English Church, and to sub- scribe a declaration against Transubstantiation. The Bill easily passed the House of Commons, but with greater opposition, the king himself being present, the House of Lords ; and the Duke of York was obliged to resign his office of Lord High Admiral. The act scarcely bore more hardly on the Roman- ists than upon the Puritans ; but the latter, who were always glad of any enactments against the Romanists, offered little opposition ; the Commons agreed to a bill granting them toleration, but it was rejected in the House of Lords. ^ The Corporation Act had been passed in 1661, "for the well-govern- ing and regulating of corporations." AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. In 1677, Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, died, and was succeeded by Sancroft, who perhaps owed his advancement not a Httle to his exalted ideas of royalty and the doctrine of passive obedience. ^ At a time when the feeling of the nation was in a highly inflammable state ; when the heir-presump- tive was a Romanist ; when his first wife having died in the Communion of Rome, he had married another member of the same Church, the Princess Mary of Modena; when the king himself was thought to fa- vour Rome; in 1678, an impostor named Titus Oates, who had taken Holy Orders in the English Church, but had since turned successively Anabaptist, Cal- vinist, and Romanist, and again retraced his steps, alarmed the country with a pretended conspiracy to slay the king, and put the Duke of York on the throne, which he was to hold as a fief of the see of Rome. The dead body of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, the justice of the peace before whom Oates had sworn the conspiracy, was found in a field near London. Colman, the Duke of York's secretary, in whose pos- session some popish documents were found, and many noble Romanists, amongst whom was Lord Stafford, were accused of complicity, and executed. All the gaols were full of Romanists ; a stringent test was re- quired from members of both Houses of Parliament; every member was obliged to take an oath against Popery, Transubstantiation, the worship of the Virgin, and the Invocation of Saints ; and Oates was rewarded with a pension of ;^I200 a-year. A bill to exclude the Duke of York from the throne was introduced into the House of Commons. The whole country was thrown into agitation. On one side were the Non- conformists and a small portion of the clergy, who 424 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, maintained that the country would never be safe under a Romanist king ; the other side insisted on the divine right of kings, that the right of succession was derived from God, and could not be set aside. The names of Whigs and Tories were now for the first time introduced ^ : the former corresponding to the Roundheads of the Commonwealth, applied to the exclusionists ; the latter to the Cavaliers, applied to the maintainers of the divine right. The Exclusion Bill passed the House of Commons by seventy-five votes ; but after a long and angry debate, the king himself being present, it was rejected by a large ma- jority in the House of Lords. A reaction soon set in. The conviction prevailed that Gates was an impostor, and Stafford a murdered man. A new Parliament, and again a new Parliament, was called ; the Whigs were defeated, and the king had triumphed. He was now at the height of his power ; he no longer tried to conciliate the people, and he restored his brother, in defiance of an Act of Parliament, to the command of the fleet, without requiring from him the test which the law demanded. Whatever Charles might have been during his life, — probably he always wavered between Infidelity and Romanism, inclining to the former in the time of health and high spirits, and to the latter in his more serious hours, — he avowed himself a Romanist at his death. In his last illness, Sancroft and Ken stood by his bedside, but nothing could induce him to re- ceive the Holy Eucharist at their hands. To find Of these contemptuous nicknames the one was of Scotch, the other of Irish origin. Tories was the name apphed to the outlaws who infested the bogs of Ireland. Whig, or " sour-milk," was applied to the grave- faced Presbyterians of Scotland. AND THE LAST ACT OF UNIFORMITY. a Roman priest at a time when severe proclamations were issued against Nonconformists, was no easy mat- ter. But there happened to be at Whitehall a Bene- 'dictine monk, named John Huddleston, who, having saved the king's life at Worcester, had ever since been considered a privileged person in the country, but a man who is described as being so illiterate that he scarcely knew what to say, or how to act on such an occasion ; and at his hands the king received the last Sacraments of the Roman Church. He died Feb. 6, 1685, lamented indeed, but only for one reason, that of the succession. The reign of Charles II. is considered the golden era of the English Church, and never did the Church boast of such a noble array of divines at one time. But it is a strange and instructive fact that, at the very time the Church was at its height, virtue was at its lowest point ; and there is no reign on which an Englishman looks back with greater shame and hu- miliation than that of Charles II. The profligacy of his cOurt is unsurpassed in the annals of English history ; whilst his reign was full of disaster to the country, of the honour of which he was as reckless as of his own. It is not surprising that in such a state of things the Church suffered from the attacks of infidelity and atheism under the leadership of Hobbes, a man who, opposed though he was to every modifica- tion of Christianity, bore an unimpeachable character, widely at variance with the immorality of the times. Hobbes had accompanied Charles in his exile, and exerted a strong influence over him : Charles always treated him with great respect, and when he became king, he had his portrait hung up in his private room at Whitehall, and conferred a pension upon him. The 426 THE COMPLETION OF THE REFORMATION, ETC. refutation of Hobbes' error fell upon three Cambridge theologians, Cudworth, Wilkins, and More, who be- longed to that class of Latitudinarians which, now rising into repute, for a long time exerted such a powerful influence in the Church, and to which is mainly attributed the torpor and indifference which characterized the after-history of the Church in the eighteenth century. This school of thought may be said to take its rise from Hales and Chillingworth. Hales published a tract on Schism, in which he advocated a dispensa- tion from all tests ; Laud disliked his views, but allowed the tract to be published, and made him a Canon of Windsor in 1639. Chillingworth, one of the most famous controversialists of the English Church, was born at Oxford in 1602, and educated at Trinity College, of which he became a Fellow. He was always unsettled in his theological opinions, at one time even inclining to Arianism. Under the influence of the Jesuit, Fisher, he became a Romanist, and retired to Douay ; but, having been persuaded by his god- father. Laud, to examine the principles of the two Churches, he returned to the English Church in 1631 ; and in 1637 he published his famous book, " The Religion of Protestants a safe way of Salvation." He never rose to the highest dignities of the Church, owing to his scruples with regard to the Thirty-nine Articles : the highest dignity he enjoyed was the Chan- cellorship of Sarum. Hales, Stillingfleet, Cudworth, More, Wilkins, Whichcot, Worthington, Tillotson, and Burnet, such were some of the principal latitudinarian divines ; but even such great names as these pale into insignificance beneath the galaxy of more orthodox divines who flourished about this time. CHAPTER VIII. THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. ^JAMES U. JAMES, as soon as he was proclaimed king, issued a Declaration, which he broke as soon as possible, of his solemn intention to maintain the government in Church and State as established by law ; he made the same promise in his speech at the opening of Par- liament : at his coronation, he took the usual oaths ; although some of the customary ceremonies, such as presenting him with a Bible, were omitted, and neither he nor the queen received, as was usual, the Holy Communion from the English bishops. It was evident, at the very commencement of his reign, that the Church, as lately reformed, would enter upon a struggle for its very existence. With all the stubbornness, but without the intellect, of the Stuarts, James cherished a belief in the divine right of kings, and a hatred of Parliaments ; and he resolved on the establishment of Romanism, as the only means of en- suring the obedience of his people. It was necessary for him to call a Parliament, because it was necessary to obtain money. Every kind of corruption is said to have been used to make the House of Commons sub- servient to the king ; and this was done so success- fully, that the king himself said that not more than forty members were returned otherwise than he could have wished : they at once proceeded to vote him such an immense revenue for Hfe, as made him inde- pendent of Parliament, and supplied him with a power- ful fleet and army, which he officered with Romanists, without further trouble. Thus, and by his successful 428 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. suppression of a rebellion headed by the Duke of Monmouth, he so firmly established his throne that nothing but extreme misgovernment could have shaken its stability. He soon, however, began to court un- popularity. On one thing he had set his heart, and that was to abolish the rigorous laws which had been passed against Romanists. The Test Act he disliked, not only because it excluded all Nonconformists from civil and military offices, but because he looked upon it as a standing threat against himself, made with the view, first of removing him from the admiralty, and thus preparing his exclusion from the throne. It soon began to be rumoured that the king was determined to get rid of the Test Act ; that he preferred, if possi- ble, to do this constitutionally, if not, he would repeal it himself. But the majority of the nation saw that the safety of the kingdom depended upon the Test Act, and in that House of Commons which he had lately con- sidered so favourable to him, he suffered such a defeat as might have shewn him on what a perilous course he was entering. James dissolved Parliament, and de- termined to rule as an absolute monarch. Parliament being silenced, the clergy were left alone to defend religion. To prevent them from opposing him, he sent circular letters to the bishops of the Church, inhibiting their preaching on controversial subjects, although sermons in the defence of his own religion were allowed. This injustice forced the clergy to defend themselves by the diffusion of tracts, but this only irritated the king the more. He knew he had no right to act as he was acting, and to put Ro- manists into offices without the consent of Parliament, THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. 429 SO he determined to effect his object through the courts of law. He remodelled the bench by dismiss- ing four judges who refused to lend themselves to his plans, and he appointed others, amongst them the in- famous Jefferies, whom he made Lord Chancellor, from men who were likely to obey him. These judges decided that " it is a privilege inseparably connected with the sovereignty of the king to dispense with penal laws, and that according to his own judgment ; " and this principle James exercised with a reckless im- patience of all decency and self-restraint. Romanists were admitted into all civil and military offices, and to belong to the national Church was a positive dis- advantage. Nearly the whole of the inhabitants of the country, almost all the property of the country % almost all the political and legal knowledge in the country, belonged to the Established Church. Yet Romanists began to swarm in every department of the public service : they were lord-lieutenants, deputy- lieutenants, magistrates, envoys to foreign courts, colonels of regiments, governors of fortresses. The Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Cham- berlain, the Groom of the Stole, the First Lord of the Treasury, the principal Secretary of State, and others, most of whom had been bred Churchmen, became, or professed to become, Romanists, in order to keep or obtain their high places^. The laws which forbade the presence of Romanist priests, or the open exer- cise of Romanism, were set at nought. A gorgeous chapel was opened in St. James's Palace for the king's • Macaulay, Hist, of England, ii. 238, says, although probably with exaggeration, "more than forty-nine fiftieths of the inhabitants of the country, more than forty-nine fiftieths of the property of the kingdom . , . were Protestant." Ibid., ii. 239. 430 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. use. Carmelites, Benedictines, Franciscans, appeared in their religious dress in the streets, and the Jesuits established a crowded school in the Savoy ; and to overawe the capital, which shewed clear symptoms of discontent at these proceedings, a camp of thirteen thousand men was set up at Hounslow^ In order to humble the clergy, by the advice of Jefferies, but under the opposition of his ministers, James, on his own authority, notwithstanding two Acts of Parliament which provided that no similar court should ever be established, revived, in 1686, the High Court of Commission. To that court power was given " to take cognizance of all ecclesiastical matters." To this illegal tribunal were subjected, without the right of appeal, all colleges and schools, from the vice-chan- cellor to the humblest usher ; all offices of the Church, from the archbishop to the youngest curate. The members of this court were six in number, Jefferies, the Lord Chancellor, being president. The other members were two laymen, Herbert, who had suc- ceeded Jefferies as Lord Chief Justice, and the Earl of Rochester, second son of the first Earl of Claren- don, and therefore brother-in-law to the king, who, much as he objected to it, could not bring himself to sacrifice so important an office with its large emolu- ments. There were also three bishops, Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was fully convinced of its illegality, and refused to act ; and the two bi- shops who were thought to be the most obsequious, Crewe of Durham (to whose credit it must be men- tioned that he was a munificent patron of the Uni- versity of Oxford), and Sprat of Rochester, the latter ' Green, Hist, of the English People, ii. 13. THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. 43 1 supposed to be attracted by hopes of obtaining the vacant archbishopric of York. The first victim of the court was Compton, Bishop of London, who had already been removed from the deanery of the Chapel Royal and the Privy Council, for opposing the king in the matter of the Test Act. Sharp, Rector of St. Giles', a man of exemplary cha- racter, and an able preacher, was, with much exag- geration, reported to the king as having preached in contempt of Rome, Without enquiring whether the report was true or false, he ordered Compton to sus- pend him ; the bishop replied respectfully that it was impossible for him to condemn a man unheard. Rea- sonable as the excuse was, Compton now became the object of the king's vengeance. Sharp was forgotten, and the king determined to prosecute Compton for contempt in his new court. In vain Compton claimed his right to be tried by his metropolitan and suffra- gans. It was evident, even to the court, that Comp- ton was right. Only Jefferies and Crewe held out, and they proposed to suspend him, but they were in a minority. The king, full of wrath, determined to carry his point ; so he threatened his relative, Roches- ter, if he did not join in the condemnation. Rochester was weak enough to yield, and Compton was sen- tenced to suspension during the king's pleasure. The king was now advancing rapidly on his down- ward course. He had silenced the two Houses of Parliament, because they would not be his tools ; he had erected the High Court of Commission, to sub- vert the religion of the country ; and he maintained a standing army, chiefly officered by Romanists, as a menace to the people. The king now thought the time favourable for a 432 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. project which he had long entertained, so on April 4, 1687, he went beyond the most audacious of all the attacks of the Stuarts, and on his sole authority issued his famous Declaration of Indulgence to Romanists and dissenters alike. In this he had a double pur- pose. As he had failed to bring the Church or Tories over to his side, he thought to make friends of the Protestant dissenters ; and by suspending the penal laws against them, to remove also the disabilities against the Romanists, and render them capable of holding employment. In the former of these hopes he was disappointed, as the bulk of the Protestants remained true to the cause of freedom, and such men as Baxter, Howe, and Bunyan, refused an indulgence which could only be obtained by the overthrow of the law. The Declaration set forth, " We cannot but heartily wish that all people of our dominion were members of the Catholic Church, yet we humbly thank Almighty God it is and hath a long time been our constant sense and opinion, that conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced in matters of mere religion ; we therefore, out of our princely care and affection to all our loving subjects, have thought fit, by virtue of our royal prerogative, to issue forth this our Declaration of Indulgence, making no doubt of the concurrence of our two Houses of Parliament, when we shall think it convenient for them to meet. In the first place, we do declare that we will protect and maintain our archbishops, bishops, and clergy, and all other our subjects of the Church of England, in the free exercise of their religion as by law estab- lished, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their possessions, without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever." All recusants were to be protected in THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. 433 their religion, and the oaths of supremacy and alle- giance, and the several oaths and regulations required in the last reign for those who were admitted to offices, were to be dispensed with ; and people might hold what assemblies they pleased for religious worship without disturbance. The next step taken by James was to drive the clergy and the two Universities into resistance. The king made no secret of selecting for the most lucra- tive appointments in the Church those who openly professed themselves Romanists. By virtue of the dispensing power, John Massey, a Fellow of Merton, who had no other recommendation than of his havinof turned Romanist, was appointed Dean of Christ Church. The see of Oxford was conferred on Samuel Parker, an avowed sympathiser with Rome ; the Master of University College, Obadiah Walker, was a convert to Rome ; the bishopric of Chester, after the death of Pearson, was bestowed on Cartwright, one of the chief abettors of the throne against the Church. The archbishopric of York was kept vacant during the whole reign ; delayed, probably, till the king dared to appoint a Romanist. The Universities were the only centres of higher education of the English gentry, and the only train- ing-schools of the English clergy, and these the king next proceeded to make his enemies. He commenced with Cambridge, by commanding that University to admit a Benedictine monk to the M.A. degree with- out his taking the usual oaths. After an attempt had been made first to dissuade the king, and then to in- duce the monk to take the oaths, the two Houses of Regents and Non-Regents agreed that his admission was illegal, and refused. The Vice-Chancellor was, F f 434 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. in consequence, ordered before Jefferies, and deposed ; his successor was no more amenable, and in his in- augural speech stated his determination to support the rights of the Church and of the University. But this was a small matter. Defeated at Cambridge, the king turned to Oxford. The revenues of Magdalen were far larger than those of any other similar institution in the land. The Pre- sidency of Magdalen, which by its statutes confirmed by Royal Charter was in the election of the Fellows, being vacant, letters mandatory from the king ordered them to elect one Anthony Farmer, a man notorious for every vice, with only one thing to recommend him to the king, his having turned Romanist, which alone was sufficient to disqualify him from the office. The college sent a petition of remonstrance to the king, stating that the person named by him was by the sta- tutes of the college ineligible ; the king persisted ; the fellows, acting on their right, elected John Hough, one of the fellows, and his election was confirmed by the Visitor, the Bishop of Winchester. The fellows were summoned before the High Com- mission at Whitehall for disobedience ; Hough's elec- tion was declared void, and he and the Vice-President and one fellow were deposed ; nothing more was said about Farmer ; but now another mandate was delivered to the fellows, dispensing with the statutes of the col- lege, and ordering them to elect as President, Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford, who, even if there had been a vacancy, was not eligible. The king went himself to Oxford, and in vain tried to compel the college to obey him. Again the High Commission was put in motion, but this time it sat at Oxford, and instituted a visitation of Magdalen. THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION, 435 All the fellows, except two, were expelled, and ren- dered incapable of holding any Church preferment ; the Bishop of Oxford was forcibly admitted as Presi- dent ; the fellowships were filled up with Roman- ists ; and when shordy afterwards Parker died, a Ro- manist, Bonaventure Giffard, Bishop of Madura, was elected, and the Roman Mass was celebrated in the college chapel. The Declaration of Indulgence had been before the country more than a year, when, on May 4, 1688, the following order was put forth, that it should be read in the churches : " It is this day ordered by his ma- jesty in council, that his majesty's late gracious Decla- ration ... be read at the usual time of Divine Ser- vice on the twentieth and twenty - seventh of this month, in all the churches and chapels within the cities of London and Westminster, and ten miles thereabout; and upon the third and tenth of June next, in all the churches and chapels throughout the kingdom. And it is hereby further ordered, that the Right Reverend the Bishops cause the said Declara- tion to be sent and distributed throughout their seve- ral and respective dioceses, to be read accordingly." Only a short time was allowed for consideration. The clergy held several meetings in London ; it was evi- dent to them that the king was bent on subverting the Church, and making the clergy his instruments for the purpose ; and they determined not to read the Indulgence. Sancroft summoned a meeting at Lambeth of such bishops as could arrive in London on so short a no- tice for May 18. At this meeting there were present : Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Compton, Bishop of London ; Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake F f 2 43^ THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peter- borough, and Trelawney of Bristol ; besides these were present, Tillotson, Dean of Canterbur}', Stillingfleet, Archdeacon of London, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Sherlock, Master of the Temple, and Tenison, Vicar of St. Martin's. A petition of remonstrance to the king was drawn up in the handwriting of Sancroft, and signed by him and six of the bishops present, Compton being suspended, and so incapacitated from signing : other bishops, Compton, Lloyd of Norwich, Frampton of Gloucester, Ward of Salisbury, INIew of Winchester, Lampleugh of Exeter, agreed with the remonstrance ; the sees of York and Oxford were va- cant. Only in four churches in London was the Indulg- ence read*^; one of those who obeyed, Timothy Hall, who had nothing else to recommend him, was re- warded with the bishopric of Oxford ; even the chap- lain of St. James's Chapel refused to read it. Nor was the case different in the country ; only a few of the clergy obeyed, and even where they did, the con- gregation shewed their displeasure by leaving the church. On the second Sunday the order was more generally disobeyed than on the first. The king, enraged with the petition of the bishops, which he called a " Standard of Rebellion," but at the same time intimidated, would probably have receded from the false position he had taken up ; but Jef- feries, his evil genius, was at hand to counsel him, and by his advice the bishops were summoned, on June 8, 1688, before the Privy Council, and on the evening of the same day (Black Friday it was called) were com- mitted to the Tower. This was, for the king's in- ^ One of those who refused to read was Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles, who was then a curate in London. THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. 437 terest, the most disastrous course that he and Jef- feries could have adopted ; the bishops were looked upon as Confessors for the liberties of the Church and the nation ; it was necessary, in order to prevent a riot, that they should be conveyed to the Tower by water ; everywhere they were met with prayers for their safety, and rejoicings for their courage ; even the banks of the river were crowded with people kneeling, and asking their blessing ; the very senti- nels at the Tower knelt for their blessing as they entered its gates. On arriving within the Tower, they immediately re- paired to service in the chapel : the words of the se- cond lesson were such as to give them all the comfort they needed : " in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments." They were detained as prisoners one week. On June 15 they were summoned before the King's Bench. On their way thither, even greater demonstrations of respect were shewn than on their way to the Tower : thirty or forty of the nobility accompanied them, ready to offer bail, if necessary ; one of the richest dissenters in the city solicited the honour of giving security for them ; but bail was not required ; that day fortnight was appointed for their trial, and during the interval they were bound only by their own recognizances. The trial took place on June 29. The jury had been packed : the judges were mere tools of the Crown ; but judges and jury were both overawed by the in- dignation of the people at large ^. In the early part of the evening the jury retired, and remained the ' Green, ii. 24. 438 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. whole night in deliberation : and at ten o'clock the next morning the court met again. The bishops were acquitted. The king had retired to the camp at Hounslow, to quell the mutinous spirit of the gar- rison. The glad news of the acquittal spread quickly throughout the city, and soon communicated itself to Hounslow : the joyful acclamation of the soldiers, who could not repress their feelings even in the presence of their sovereign, first brought the unwelcome tidings to the ears of the king. The shout told him that he stood alone in his kingdom : the peerage, the gentry, the bishops, the clergy, the universities, every lawyer, every trader, every farmer, stood aloof from him ; and now his soldiers forsook him ^ But even now the infatuated king could not be turned from his purpose ; rage and disappointment at his defeat had hardened his heart and rendered him desperate ; he dismissed the two judges who had favoured the cause of the bishops, and he resolved to prosecute the bishops before the High Commission. The commissioners understood the dangerous crisis better than the king : they tried, however, one forlorn hope, and demanded of the chancellors and archdea- cons that within five weeks the names of the clergy who had refused to read the Declaration should be submitted to them. This was the last suicidal act of the expiring Commission : the chancellors and arch- deacons made common cause with the bishops, and refused to furnish the information. The Commission met : only one officer had sent in a report ; the chan- cellors and archdeacons were not even reprimanded, for a more important matter engaged their attention ; ' Green, ii. 24. THE ATTEMPT TO UNDO THE REFORMATION. 439 Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was unwilling any longer to bear a part in the prosecution of his brethren, and resigned his odious function. This was the death- blow of the Commission ; the Commissioners felt that the tribunal must indeed be a low one to merit the censure of such a man as Sprat, and the court broke up in confusion. It was now felt that the king was incapable of go- vernment. A common wrong had united all the dif- ferent orders of the community : Churchmen and Dissenters, Conservatives and Republicans, high and low, rich and poor, made common cause ; on the same days that witnessed the bishops' acquittal, a letter was written by some of the leading men, in- viting the Prince of Orange to undertake an expe- dition to the country. James's rule had only been endured so long, because he was growing old, and on his death the Crown would pass to his daughter Mary, who was a Churchwoman, the wife of the Prince of Orange. But just before the trial a son was born to James, who it was felt would certainly be brought up in the religion of his father and mother, and thus the situation was changed. The king, see- ing his danger, issued a Proclamation summoning a new Parliament ; he professed his determination to preserve inviolate the English Church, and to exclude Romanists from the House of Commons. He now appealed to the bishops for advice, in partial obedience to whom he reluctantly dissolved the High Commission Court ; he removed the sus- pension of the Bishop of London, and reinstated the President and Fellows of Magdalen. But it was too late. On November 5, 1688, the Prince of Orange, with 440 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. an army of about 14,000 men, escaped the vigilance of the English fleet and landed at Torbay. The flight of the king to France left the management of the kingdom open to William, who entered London the same day that James left it. CHAPTER IX. COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION. WILLIAM AND MARY. A CONVENTION Parliament, in which the Whigs formed a majority, met January 22, 1689. The House of Commons voted that the king, " having en- deavoured to subvert the constitution of this kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant." In the Lords, the majority of whom were Tories, the question was fiercely debated ; some (and with them most of the bishops agreed) were of opinion that a regency should be appointed ; but ulti- mately, by a majority of only two, Sancroft being absent from the debate, it was agreed that the throne should be settled on the Prince and Princess of Orange con- jointly, and the descendants of the latter. The bishops and clergy were required to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns ; but at that time the doctrine of the divine right of kings was con- sidered of such paramount importance, that such a re- quirement, whilst James was still alive, was resented as an intolerable injustice, and nine bishops refused to take the oath. These were Sancroft the Primate ; Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich ; Turner of Ely, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, Frampton of Gloucester, Thomas of Worcester, Lake of Chi- chester, and Cartwright of Chester. A short time was> 442 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. given them for consideration ; those who had not taken the oaths by August i, were to be suspended for six months, and if they still refused, were to be deprived. When that day arrived, Thomas and Lake had died, Cartwright had followed James in his exile, but the other bishops, hence called Non-jurors, refused, and were suspended; and on February i, 1690, were, to- gether with about 400 of the clergy, ejected. Amongst the Non-juring divines, besides the bishops, the most celebrated were Leslie, son of the Bishop of Clogher, Chancellor of the diocese of Connor, who, although marked out for high Church preferment, re- mained to the end of his life a zealous adherent of the exiled family; Hickes, Dean of Worcester; Je- remy Collier, the historian ; Thomas Wagstaffe ; Dod- well, Camden Professor at Oxford ; John Kettlewell, Author of "Measures of Christian Obedience;" and John Fitzwilliam, Canon of Windsor. Sherlock, Mas- ter of the Temple, at first joined the Non-jurors, but afterwards changed his opinions, and succeeded Tillot- son in the deanery of St. Paul's. Amongst the non-juring laity must be mentioned Robert Nelson, who, however, by the advice of Ken, returned to the established Church in 1 709. One of the many noble traits in Nelson's character was that, notwithstanding his Non-juring and Jacobite views, he always lived on terms of intimacy with members of the established Church. His name appears amongst the most distinguished Churchmen of the day, as one of the earliest members of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge at its foundation in 1699, not unfrequently as chairman at its meetings ; and he took a leading part in the organization of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1701. COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION. 443 But an unhappy schism was set up, a schism doubly to be lamented, inasmuch as it was partly political ; for it can scarcely be imagined that any Whigs were included amongst the Non-jurors. Ken, indeed, re- signed his bishopric, and endeavoured to stop the schism ; so also did Frampton ; but Sancroft, the Primate, delegated his archiepiscopal authority to Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich ; other Non-juring bishops were consecrated, in opposition to those appointed by the Crown; thus, on November 24, 1694, Hickes, the deprived Dean of Worcester, was consecrated as Suf- fragan Bishop of Thetford, and Wagstaffe Suffragan of Ipswich, by Lloyd, assisted by White and Turner. In this manner a free Church was set up, and steps were taken towards effecting a union with the or- thodox Eastern Church ; and a proposal to that effect was made, although without success, to the Patriarch of Alexandria. After the death of Wagstaffe, Hickes, with the assistance of the Scottish bishops, consecrated in 1 71 3 Jeremy Collier, and others, to the episcopate; but in 1 718, the Non-jurors split up into a schism amongst themselves, each party continuing its suc- cession through the Scottish bishops. The schism was for a time healed ; but it broke out again, and continued till 1779, when, under the uncongenial at- mosphere of the Hanoverian dynasty, its numbers having gradually become smaller and smaller, it finally died out ; Dr. Gordon, who died in London in No- vember of that year, leaving behind him only two or three presbyters. But to return. When the Non-jurors seceded, the bulk of the clergy bowed to necessity, and remained in the Church ; but none the less was their bitterness ex- cited against this assertion of the supremacy of Par- 444 THE . CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. liament over the Church, and the deposition of the bishops by an act of the legislature. At the beginning of the reign, the two parties within the Church began to assume the more definite character of High Church and Low Church, the latter of which did not comprise one-tenth of the clergy ^. The Low Church party again was composed of two different elements, the Puritan Low Churchmen, who were of an exclusive character, and stood aloof from all who differed from them, and the Latitudinarians, who ad- vocated comprehension, and who would make the Church's forms broad enough to comprise all deno- minations of Christians, the hated Romanist always excepted. They disagreed with the Nonconformists, who thought the wearing a Surplice, the sign of the Cross in Baptism, or kneeling at the Holy Commu- nion, sinful : but they did not regard such forms as necessary ; they did not hold that the Church had power to decree rites and ceremonies ; they thought the Church might exist without episcopacy, or a pre- scribed Book of Common Prayer. The new king — born a Presbyterian, called to be Defender of the Faith to which he was an alien, and all his tastes were opposed — finding that so many amongst the bishops refused to take the oath of alle- giance to him, and that the Nonconformists were amongst his staunchest allies, was inclined to favour the Dissenters outside the Church, and the Low Church and Latitudinarians within its pale. Epis- copacy was in his mind connected with Toryism, the doctrine of passive obedience, and the divine right of kings ; and on this theory there was another king of England living ; so it was from the Whigs and the * Macaulay's Hist., iii. 74. COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION. 445 Latitudinarian section of the clergy that he sought for successors to the non-juring bishops. The first bishop whom he appointed soon after his succession was his chaplain, Burnet, an extreme Latitudinarian, who, of all the clergy, was the most obnoxious to the bishops, and whom Sancroft, the then Primate, refused to consecrate''. Backed by the favour of the king, and the influence of Burnet, the Latitudinarian party soon increased in number and power and it became evident that a new era was commencing in the history of the Church. Before he was seated on the throne, the king had issued a Declaration of his intention to promote an agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant dissenters, and to repeal the penal laws with regard to the latter, " provided those laws remain still in force by which Roman Catholics are shut out of both Houses of Parliament, and out of public em- ployments, ecclesiastical, civil, and military." So that his views as to toleration were exactly opposite to those of his predecessor. The Church, whilst avoid- ing Scylla, had run into Charybdis. Two bills in favour of the Nonconformists were, without the advice of Convocation being asked, speed- ily introduced into Parliament ; a Comprehension Bill " for the uniting of their Majesties' Protestant sub- jects," and a Toleration Bill ; an attempt was also made to admit dissenters to a civil equality, by a re- peal of the Test Act ; this, however, was at once re- jected by the House of Lords. The Comprehension He was, however, so inconsistent as to issue his commission for Burnet's consecration by other bishops. ' "In two years' time," says Burnet, "the king had named fifteen bishops, and these were generally looked on as the learnedest, the wisest, and the best who were in the Church." 446 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. Bill passed the House of Lords, but the Commons refused to discuss it, and advised the king to follow the ancient practice of the kingdom, and to summon a Convocation to deliberate on ecclesiastical matters. The Toleration Act, however, met a different fate ; it passed both Houses with slight opposition, and received the royal assent on May 24, 1689. It re- pealed the most rigorous of the penal laws against dissenters, but it did not touch the Act of Uniformity, and left the civil disabilities of dissenters under the Corporation and Test Act unaltered. By the To- leration Act, all persons dissenting from the Church of England were, on taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribing a declaration against Tran- substantiation, exempted from the penalties of attend- ing religious worship according to their own forms, provided it was not done with closed doers ; Quakers being allowed to make an affirmation instead of tak- ing the oath. Dissenting ministers were excused from subscribing part of the 20th Article, as well as the 34th, 35th, and 36th Articles. An exception from the benefits of the act was, however, made in the case of Unitarians and Romanists, who were soon sub- jected to additional penalties. The former were dis- abled from holding any office, ecclesiastical, civil, or military ^ ; the latter were placed under most severe restrictions. In 1700, an act was passed offering ;^ioo for the discovery of any Romanist priest in the exercise of his office, and subjecting him to perpetual banishment. By the same act, Romanists were de- clared incapable of inheriting or purchasing land, un- less they abjured their religion ; they were also pro- " 9 Will. III., c. 35. COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION. 447 hibited from sending their children abroad to be educated. The king now, in opposition to the opinion of Bur- net, who saw that a Convocation would be fatal to his favourite scheme of Comprehension, determined to follow the advice of Tillotson, who, though himself a Latitudinarian, and disliking its meeting as much as Burnet, saw its necessity, and advised the king to summon Convocation. By Tillotson's advice, a Com- mission was issued to ten bishops and twenty other divines, to propose, amongst other matters, alterations in the Liturgy and Canons, and for reforming the ec- clesiastical courts, to be submitted to Convocation. The commissioners — amongst whom were Tillotson and Tenison, future Archbishops of Canterbury ; Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York ; Beveridge, Archdeacon of Colchester, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph ; Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester ; and Bur- net— met for the first time in the Jerusalem Chamber on October 3, 1689. Two bishops, Mew of Winches- ter, and Sprat of Rochester, quickly withdrew ; as also did Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and Aldrich, Dean of Christ Church. The other com- missioners seem to have been unanimous in formu- lating a scheme for comprehension, which would have been nothing short of a thorough mutilation of the Prayer- Book ; but as the proposed changes never had any authority or any importance, it is not necessary to give any particulars respecting them. The two Houses of Convocation met again in No- vember, under the conviction that the Church was now threatened by a danger from Latitudinarianism, equal to that which had threatened it from Romanism in the days of James II. Beveridge preached the Latin 448 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. sermon, in which he advocated a moderate change, but pointed out that whilst certain matters were only local and temporary, and could therefore be changed to meet the altered circumstances of the times, others were primitive and fundamental, and could not be altered without affecting the vitality of the Church. The first thing was to elect a Prolocutor. The Court, and those bishops who were desirous of changes, wished Tillotson to be elected ; but Dr. Jane was elected by a majority of two to one over the future Archbishop of Canterbury. In the customary Latin speech, he extolled the excellence of the English Church, and concluded with the significant words, " Nolumus leges Angliae mutari." But it was now discovered that the Royal Warrant, without which Convocation could not proceed to business, was de- ficient, through the loss of the Great Seal, which James, in his flight from London, had thrown into the Thames ; so Convocation was prorogued till De- cember 4. The proper warrant, sealed with the Great Seal, was in the meantime brought in due form, with a message from the king, in which he spoke of " his interest for the Protestant religion in general, and of the Church of England in particular." The Upper House quickly agreed in their answer, thanking the king for his message, and requested the concurrence of the Lower House. The Lower House, however, refused to consent to an expression which identified the English Church with foreign Protestantism, and claimed the right of drawing up their own address ; ultimately, the matter was patched up, to the dissatis- faction of the bishops, and an address of thanks was presented to the king, in which the word Protestant, as applied to the English Church, was omitted. COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION, 449 The king, however, understood the meaning of the omission, and saw with anger that his plan of compre- hension had failed. The Upper House pleaded as an excuse that the Primate, Sancroft, was absent from the debates ; that Compton, the Bishop of London, was acting without full authority ; and that there was not a sufficient number of bishops present ; they there- fore advised the king to prorogue Convocation. It was accordingly prorogued for six weeks ; it was then, through the influence of Tillotson, prorogued again and again, and was not allowed to assemble for ten years. " Thus," says Burnet, " seeing they were in no disposition to enter upon business, they were kept from doing mischief for a course of ten years," But in whatever manner it was brought about, any escape from the threatened mutilation of the Prayer- Book at such a time was little short of providential. Had it once begun, it is impossible to say where it would have stopped. As yet, the schism made by the se- cession of the Non-jurors was insignificant ; had the suggestions of the commissioners for alterations in the Liturgy been carried out, it is almost certain the schism would have been swollen, not only by a large majority of the clergy, but by large congregations of the laity also ; and thus a rent would have been made in the Church, the consequence of which it would have been impossible to foresee. There was a growing feeling amongst the bishops whom William appointed against Convocation. The king selected Latitudinarian bishops, and the lay patrons of livings, who were mostly Jacobites, or at any rate not Whigs, appointed High Churchmen to benefices ; the result was a severance between the bishops and the mass of the clergy, which tended to 450 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. break the strength of the Church. The appointment of Tillotson to the primacy in 1691, in succession to Sancroft, was very unpopular with the clergy. He was the foremost theologian of the school of Chilling- worth and Hales ; a Latitudinarian as broad as Burnet; he would dispense with all the practices and formu- laries of the Church ; he allowed communicants to receive the Holy Eucharist sitting; of the Athanasian Creed, he confessed that " he wished we were well rid of it." His aversion to Convocation arose from his having taken an active part in the Comprehension Committee, so that when he became Archbishop he determined to govern the Church without it, by means of royal injunctions. Tillotson, who was far advanced in years when he became Primate, died in 1699, and a better man than Stillingfleet could not have been found to succeed him ; but Stillingfleet was too sound a Churchman, so Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln, who, like Tillotson, was a Latitudinarian, was appointed archbishop. Those ten years during which it was suppressed, were by no means uneventful, and an important con- troversy on the subject of Convocation took place, in which two men destined to attain high places in the Church, Dr. Wake and Francis Atterbury, bore a con- spicuous part. The controversy, which was to bear fruit in the future history of Convocation, had its beginning in a pamphlet published in 1689, entitled, "A Letter ' He was accused of being an Arian, a Socinian, a Deist, an Atheist ; of holding the account of the Fall and the Book of Genesis as allegorical, and denying eternal punishment. His parents were said to have been Anabaptists ; the parish registers were in vain sought for his baptism, and he was nicknamed "undipped John." (Macaulay, iv. 36.) COMPREHENSION AND TOLERATION. 45 1 to a Convocation Man," in which the writer contended that Convocation was the only means of remedying the prevalent immorality and infidelity. Convocation, the letter said, had, by the writ prcEinunientes, the same right as Parliament to meet and pass measures, and nothing was required for their validity, except the sanction of the king. This letter was answered amongst others by Dr. Wake, in a work called, " The Authority of Christian Kings over their Ecclesiastical Synods," in which he argued that from the time of the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity, princes had always the control over their ecclesiastical synods ; that although it had been usual to summon Convocation with Parliament, yet that it never had power to make laws without the king's licence ; that its business was only occasional ; and, as to the evils suggested in the " Letter to a Convocation Man," Con- vocation would be a " remedy worse than the disease." The chief antagonist to Dr. Wake was Atterbury, then Student of Christ Church, but afterwards Bishop of Rochester, who demanded for Convocation the right claimed in the " Letter to a Convocation Man," of meeting with Parliament. The clergy generally adopted the views of Atter- bury, and maintained that, by the law of the land, it was intended that Convocation should meet as often as Parliament, and that the Lower House of Convoca- tion had, equally with the Lower House of Parliament, its inherent and independent rights. The necessity of the assertion of their rights arose from the fact that, since the death of the queen in 1694, the king had en- trusted to six bishops, all of them Latitudinarians, the patronage of the Church dignities, and these bishops always appointed men of similar views with them- G g 2 452 THE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION ERA. selves, men therefore widely opposed to the great ma- jority of the clergy. Under these circumstances, it was inevitable that quarrels should arise between the two houses ; but as the subsequent history of Convocation belongs to the eighteenth century, this must be a matter for a future chapter. PART VI. ZTbe Cburcb of tbc proteetant jera. CHAPTER I. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ^ITHEN we consider the various phases through which the Church had lately passed, the rapid transition from the Romanism of James II. to the Calvinism of William of Orange ; and then look forward a few years to the accession of the Hano- verian dynasty, and the Lutheranism of the first two Georges, we may well be thankful that there was any religion at all in England during the eighteenth cen- tury. With the exception of a short gleam of light in the reign of Queen Anne, we are now entering on a period of darkness in the Church's history. Yet at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period of peace and prosperity, as well to the Church as to the State, appeared to have set in ; as the century ad- vanced, the prosperity of the State increased ; the thirty years which succeeded the peace of Utrecht (1713) were, says Mr. Hallam^ "the most prosperous season that England has ever experienced ;" but to the Church, whilst there never was greater appearance of hope than at the beginning of the century, never was fulfilment of hope more melancholy as the century advanced. William died in 1702, and his successor Anne, an intellectually dull woman indeed ; (it was said that if ■ Const. Hist., ii. 464. 454 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. there was any duller person in the kingdom it was her husband, Prince George of Denmark) ; untainted, on the one hand, with the Latitudinarianism of her pre- decessor, or, on the other, with the Romanism of her father, was devoutly attached to the Church of Eng- land ; she was also kindly and compassionate in her private feelings, and liberal in her public benefactions, qualities which gained for her the popular appellation of the "good Queen Anne." In the new Parliament, at the beginning of her reign, the decision of the pre- vious elections had been reversed, and double the number of Tories (that is, of the professed friends of the Church) had been returned over that of the Whigs. Both parties in the State recognised her power, and vied with each other for her support ; each denounced the other as enemies of the Church, the Tories charging the Whigs with favouring Puritanism, the Whigs retaliating by accusing the Tories of fa- vouring Rome and the Pretender \ Both Romanist and Low Church dissenters tried their strengfth agfainst her and failed, and the National Church was willingly embraced by all classes of the community. But even as early as 1 7 1 1 a message was sent by the Queen to Convocation, directing its attention to the growth of " immorality and profaneness," and " the relaxation and decay of the discipline of the Church ;" and complaining that " a due regard to religious per- sons, places, and things, hath scarce in any age been more wanting." As the century proceeded matters grew worse, and in a few years, whatever influence the Church had possessed under Anne, entirely disap- peared under the first two Georges, who were not only men of alien faith, but of grossly immoral lives ; Abbey and Overton's English Church. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 455 who made no secret of living openly with their mis- tresses, in which the wife of the second George, by her coarse jokes, rather encouraged her husband than otherwise. A more unscrupulous minister than Sir Robert Walpole never presided over a great nation. In 1712 he was expelled from the House of Commons for -"a high breach of trust and notorious corruption," and sent to the Tower; yet on the accession of George I. he was advanced to favour, and found a patron in the queen; in 171 5 he became Chancellor of the Ex- chequer and First Lord of the Treasury, and for a quarter of a century, with a break of only four years, he ruled the destinies of England ; a jest which was circulated during his premiership, that a bill was to be introduced into Parliament to expunge the word "not" from the Commandments, and transfer it to the Creeds, describes only too faithfully the condition of society. Under such influences arose the decay of religion, the coarseness of manners, and the general ignorance which have rendered the eighteenth century a by- word in the history of the Church. Seeker, Bishop of Oxford (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury), thus, in 1 738, charges his candidates for Holy Orders : " You cannot but see in what a profane and corrupt age this stewardship is committed to you ; how grievously reli- gion and its ministers are hated and despised." Bishop Gibson of London, in 1741, complains that the gan- grene had penetrated the middle classes, generally the last to be infected by immoral contagion. Bishop But- ler, in a charge to the clergy of the diocese of Durham * Burke says that in his time only one person in a hundred could read. 456 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. in 1 75 1, says: "as different ages have been distin- guished by different sorts of particular errors and vices, the deplorable distinction of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in some, and a growing disregard of it in the generality." Addison speaks of there being less appearance of religion in England than in any neighbouring state or country. The evil spread to that sex which generally shrinks with horror from the dogmas of the free-thinker, and, in 1710, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes, that there were "more atheists amongst the fine ladies than amongst the lowest sort of rakes." Montesquieu, a Frenchman, who visited this country in 1729, declared, although evidently with much exaggeration, that there was no religion in England, and that the subject excited no- thing but laughter. The Church is blamed for the low state of religion in the eighteenth century, but the truth is, that the State had so paralyzed its action as to render the Church almost powerless. The Church had never recovered the triumph of Puritanism, and the ejection of its 8,000 clergy at the time of the Commonwealth. The places of those clergy had been filled by Puritans, mostly Presbyterians, but also some Independents and Baptists. Of these, only about 800 were ejected on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662 ; so that the rest of the Puritans still continued, although opposed to its doc- trines and its ritual, to exercise the ministrations of the Church. Hence arose great irregularities. " If you would have the conforming Puritan de- scribed to you," says South ^, " what he is ; he is one who lives by the altar, and turns his back on it ; one * Sermon on Gal. ii. 5. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 457 who catches at the preferments of the Church, but hates its discipHne and orders ; one, in short, who serves all the interests of schism and faction in the Church's livery. The Surplice sometimes worn, but oftener laid aside ; the Holy Sacraments indecently and slovenly administered. These and the like vile passages have made some men schismatics, and con- firmed others ; and in a word, have made people Non- conformists to the Church by their conforming to their minister." Charles II. appointed many good bishops, and even under James II., although he tampered with the li- berties of the Church, on the whole a satisfactory state of things prevailed. But in the reign of Wil- liam III. the seeds were sown which were to bear fruit throughout the eighteenth century. The secession of the Non-jurors had deprived the Church of much learning, and of the Catholic spirit which had marked the golden age of its theology ; to the sees vacated by the Non-jurors, bishops were appointed who tried to assimilate the ritual and discipline of the English Church to the Protestantism of the Continental Re- formers. Under those Latitudinarian bishops a theo- logical apathy and a neglect of Church literature set in ; the patristic writings, which had been held in esteem for many years after the Restoration, were neglected ; the Fathers were little, if at all, read ; and when read, it was only to be subjected to disparage- ment. Episcopacy was abolished in Scotland ; Non- conformity was encouraged both in Scotland and Ire- land ; the " Regium Donum," an annual gift to the Presbyterians, which had begun under Charles II., but had been discontinued at the end of his reign and during that of James, was renewed and increased 458 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. to the Nonconformists in the North of Ireland ^ After the death of William III., the influence of the Low- Church party visibly decreased; High Churchmen were abundant enough^, but the High Churchman- ship took the form of an ecclesiastical Toryism, with a full persuasion of the exclusive orthodoxy of the English Church, and a repugnance to dissent ^ ; but two things more dissimilar can scarcely be imagined than the High Churchmanship of the eighteenth cen- tury, and of the present day. The orthodoxy of the former was attached to a political more than to a theo- logical creed, and was eminently Protestant against the errors of Rome ; but it let go the Catholic element of the English Church, and so it lost the fervour, the depth, the reference to antiquity, which had formerly characterized it ; the High Churchmanship of the pre- sent day is, on the contrary, theological, not political ; it is the revival in the Church of those Caroline di- vines of whom it was said, " Clerus Anglicanus stu- por mundi " ('the English clergy are the amazement of the world '), which had died out with the Non- juring schism. The action of the State had so thoroughly ham- pered the Church, that the Church forgot, and so drifted away from, its Catholic moorings. The chief characteristic of the Church of what we have called the Protestant era was, so to speak, to have no cha- racteristic at all ; everything was negative ; and this negative character increased as the century advanced ; ' The "Regium Donum" began in 1672 at ^600 ; under William III. it was raised to £\,zoo ; in 1723 it was augmented by George I., in conse- quence of the Presbyterians having advocated his cause; in 1784 it was raised to ^2,200 ; in 1792 to ^5,000 ; in 1863 it was ^39,746. ' The names High Church and Low Church first came into use in Queen Anne's reign. « Abbey and Overton, i. 136. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 459 and when at the end of it a revival within the Church took place, although that revival was in many respects most beneficial, and could not be charged with any positive erroneousness, yet the undogmatic character of its teaching, dwelling rather upon what people ought not to do, than on what they ought to do, never seemed to advance anything new ; and whilst it made sub- jective Faith the sole criterion of religion, it entirely disregarded the Apostolic Order and Sacramental Grace. Amongst the excellent Bishops whom it would be difficult to enumerate, were men of learning, who de- served well of their own generation, and handed down their light to the next, such as Wake, Potter, Gibson, Waterland, Butler, Conybeare, Berkeley, Louth ; and Wilson and Hildesley in the Isle of Man. But of these the greater number were not promoted for their Churchmanship, but because they had been useful to the government, and it was expected that they would turn Latitudinarians. Wake and Gibson had greatly aided the government by their writings ; Berkeley's philosophy led to his promotion ; Seeker had been a Presbyterian preacher ; Butler a Dissenter, known to Clarke; Wilson and Hildesley owed their promotion to the Earl of Derby, But previously to the death of the Pretender in 1788, energetic clergymen were frequently charged with Jacobitism, and so incurred the suspicion of government ^. At the commencement of the century, Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, although the most unpopular amongst the clergy of all the bishops, was unquestionably the leading bishop of the day. Whilst mentioning Burnet's faults, we must not be blind to his virtues ; for, if perhaps some- Church Quarterly, April, 1878. 460 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. what boisterous and devoid of tact, he was in his pubhc and private Hfe learned and pious, a strong opponent of the prevalent vice of pluralities, and both performed himself and enforced on his clergy a high amount of clerical work. His mother had been a Presbyterian, which may account for his re- ligious bias ; for his great book on the Reformation he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament ; but throughout the work are manifested his anti-Ca- tholic sentiments. He would communicate with the foreign Churches of Holland and Geneva ; he would dispense with the Surplice, the sign of the cross in Baptism, and subscription to the Articles ; thus com- bining in his person the views of the Broad Church and Low Church parties of the present day ; and he perhaps, more than any other, may be considered to be the author of Church of England Protestantism. Following in Burnet's wake, the bishops were the most Protestant portion of the clergy, and had every disposition to enter into an alliance with the Non- conformists. " In the eyes of the majority of the bishops, the Church of England was emphatically a Protestant Church, and the differences between the Establishment and the chief Nonconformist bodies were in matters of comparatively little moment'." A satirist of the day said of a neighbouring parish, that there could scarcely be found " a Presbyterian in it, except the bishop j." The main body of the clergy (the patrons of the livings being generally, as we have already seen ^ Jaco- bites and High Churchmen) were opposed to this Protestantising character of the bishops, as well as to the Act of Toleration and the Revolution; but ' Lecky, Eighteenth Cent, i.85. •> Freeholder, No. 22. See p. 449- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 461 ■we shall understand their theology better, how it was of a political rather than religious character, if we view it with regard to the Test Act. There can be no doubt that the working of that act must have had a most prejudicial effect upon the Church, by making the Holy Eucharist to be regarded (as it was de- scribed) a '■' picklock to a place," when It was received by the place-hunter or the office-holder, who were fre- quently noted worldlings or libertines, simply with a view to obtaining or retaining office. And yet this practice found no stronger advocates than amongst the clergy, especially those of the clergy who, at a time when Toryism and High Churchman- ship were almost equivalent, were called High Church- men, and were supposed to take the highest view of the Holy Sacrament. If these were the views of the High Church clergy, what must have been the views of the Lower, or what other than a most pernicious result could have been effected by this teaching upon the public ? It even became the custom for the minis- ter, before the Holy Communion, to desire the legal communicants to divide themselves from those who were attending for the sake of devotion '. Swift was himself one of the most staunch advocates of the Com- munion Test, and yet he has given us a sample of its working : " I was early," he writes, " with the Secre- tary (Bolingbroke), but he was gone to his devotions, and to receive the Sacrament. Several rakes did tJie same. 1 1 was not from piety, but e^nploymcnt, accord- ing to Act of Parliament." After the State had thus made the Church a poli- tical machine for State purposes, its next step was to take away its means of defence, by the suppression ' Lecky, i. 255. 462 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. of its Convocation. To its Convocation the Enelish branch of the Catholic Church is especially indebted, for to it are to be attributed " our Liturgy, our Arti- cles, our Canons, in truth, all the external circumstance of our Church, and the regulation of its internal ar- rangement™." The model of our Church Convoca- tions we can trace back to the very earliest ages, and at no previous time in its history had the Church been deprived of its synodical action. The suppression of Convocation in 171 7 (of which an account will be given in the next chapter) — when diocesan confer- ences and ruri-decanal meetings had no existence, at the very time when Convocation was most needed, when the Church was agitated by the Non-juring, the Bangorian, the Deistical, and the Trinitarian contro- versies,— -was a great calamity. It is true that its latest debates had been carried on with too intempe- rate zeal ; that strong opposition existed, and un- seemly contests had arisen between the Upper and Lower Houses ; but surely the bishops might have devised some remedy, might have suggested some reformation, instead of advocating its total suppression. For in what way was it possible that the affairs of the Church could be carried on during such critical times, except through its deliberative assembly ? or why should the Established Church, simply because it is the Church of the land, be deprived of the right, com- mon to all dissenting bodies, of meeting and managing its own affairs" ?" During the reign of Queen Anne Convocation met regularly, and vigilantly guarded the " Joyce's Sacred Synods, p. 74. ° " Shall," asked Dr. Johnson in 1763, "the Presbyterian Kirk of Scot- land have its General Assembly, and the Church of England be denied its Convocation ? " THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. orthodoxy of the Church ; owing to it, in 18 10, Whis- ton was deprived of his professorship at Cambridge, and the Arianism of Dr. Samuel Clarke was made the subject of complaint in the Lower House. Amongst its latest Agenda we find many practical questions discussed, such as the Church at that time much needed, — the establishment of charity schools and pa- rochial libraries, the want of missions, and the increase of Church accommodation. It was through the ad- vice of Convocation (which, during the reign of Anne, worked well in concert with the government of the day) that, in 171 1, a grant of ;^35o,ooo was made by the House of Commons for the erection of fifty new churches in the cities of London and Westminster, and their suburbs. By the suppression of Convocation, a strong barrier against licentiousness and the pesti- lential publications which swarmed in the eighteenth century, was thrown down. When we find amongst the clergy such names as Sherlock, and Warburton, and Waterland, and Butler, and Wilson, and Berkeley, it cannot be doubted that, had they been permitted to meet and deliberate in Convocation, instead of each being obliged to act alone in matters of such peculiar difficulty, they would have been able to devise some means of stemming the irreligion and infidelity of the times ; and instead of discountenancing enthusiasm, would have solved amongst themselves the important question how such zealous, even if mistaken, workmen as the Wesleys could be utilized to the benefit of the Church. "The Church in danger" was a frequent cry in the eighteenth century ; and the danger was real and imminent when the Church, having first been bound hand and foot, was afterwards gagged by the State. The State did its best to destroy the Church ; 464 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. thanks to its vitality, the Church weathered the storm, but it was a period of transition and of peril also. It is, then, to the State primarily that the torpor and deadness of the Church in the eighteenth century is attributable. We must now enter more into detail, in order that we may learn what influences within the Church affected its condition at this period. First, as to the bishops. Those were the days when the custom of visiting a diocese once during his episcopate was established by the Bishop of Win- chester ; of confirming but once in his episcopate by the Metropolitan of York ; of never residing in his diocese by the Bishop of Llandaff°. Most of the bishops were men of aristocratic connexion ; and if some were men of learning also, yet they were so much occupied in writing controversial books in de- fence of the outposts of Christianity, they so often held, together with their bishoprics, other preferments, and were so frequently absentees, that efficient dioce- sans they were not. The period is marked by great nepotism on the part of the higher ecclesiastics, and cringing to the Ministers of the day. In the appointment of bishops, learning and piety were secondary considerations, and frequently no consideration at all. Ministers made no scruple of confessing that they bestowed the highest offices of the Church on those who were likely to be their po- litical adherents. Lord Shelburne bestowed the see of Llandaff on Dr. Watson, hoping, says the bishop, " I was a warm and useful partisan ; and he told the Duke of Grafton he hoped I might occasionally write a pamphlet for the administration p. Queen Caroline, " Quarterly Review, cxiv. 543. p Anecdotes of the life of R. Watson, i. 157. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. who, during the reign of George II. until her death, was the great dispenser of ecclesiastical patronage, made a favourable exception in the case of good Bishop Wilson, of Sodor and Man, whom she highly- esteemed, and constantly pressed to accept an English bishopric. " One day, as he was approaching the queen to pay his respects to her, she turned round to several bishops who were then at levee, and said, * See here, my lords, is a bishop who does not come for translation °.' " The following letter, written in 1 79 1 by the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, brother of Earl Cornwallis, to Pitt, will give a specimen of the manner in which bishoprics were negotiated : " After the various instances of neglect and contempt which Lord Cornwallis and I have experienced, not only in violation of repeated assurances, but of the strongest ties, it is impossible I should not feel the late disap- pointment very deeply. With respect to the proposal concerning Salisbury, I have no hesitation in saying that the see of Salisbury cannot be in any respect an object to me. The only arrangement which promises an accommodation in my favor, is the promotion of the Bishop of Lincoln to Salisbury, which would enable you to confer the deanery of St. Paul's upon me." Next, as to the two lower orders of clergy. We learn that during Queen Anne's reign they were zealous in their work p, although Burnet dates the com- mencement of the decline before the end of that reign. Writing in 1713, he says: "I must own the main body of our clergy has always appeared dead and lifeless to me, and instead of animating one another, they seem to lay one another to sleep. ... I have ob- Stowell's Life of Wilson. f Defence of the Clergy and Church of England, H h 466 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. served the clergy in all places through which I have travelled, Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists, and dis- senters ; but of all, our clergy is much the most remiss in their services in public, and least serious in their lives;" and he speaks of the lamentable ignorance of the clergy, which rendered the " Ember-weeks the burden of his life." But with all their faults, says Lord Mahon, " the lives of the clergy were, as a rule, pure." On one occasion, when a Presbyterian minister was inveighing in too strong language against the clergy. Dr. Johnson exclaimed, "Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot But it is evident the social position of the clergy in the eighteenth century was very different from what it had been before the Reformation, when the clergy were the most important body in the State, and all the chief offices were held by them. The abolition of the monasteries had lessened the influence of the Church, by the removal of the abbots from the House of Lords ; and the appropriation by the Crown of so large a part of its property, had left its revenue utterly insufficient for its requirements. As early as 1597, Hooker writes in his Ecclesiastical Polity, " All that we have to sustain our miserable life is but a remnant of God's own treasure, so far already diminished and clipped, that if there were any sense of common hu- manity left in this hard-hearted world, the impoverished state of the clergy would, at length of very commise- ration be spared. The mean gentleman, that hath but ^100 to live on, would not be hasty to change his worldly estate and condition with many of those so over-abounding prelates ; a common artizan, or trades- 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 467 man of the city, with ordinary pastors of the Church." Fifty years later, the average annual income from Church preferments was, according to the highest value, ^60 a-year. People would not send their sons to the Universities, because it was impossible to get a decent maintenance from the Church. The clergy, says a writer at the end of the seventeenth century, " are accounted by many as the dross and refuse of the nation. Men think it a stain to their blood to place their sons in that function, and women are ashamed to marry with any of them Burnet tells us hundreds of cures were worth only jC20, thousands only ^50 a-year, and Swift sayS there were at least ten bishoprics the income of which did not exceed ^600. Archbishop Tenison wrote to Queen Anne that curates were often chosen, especially by the lay-impropriators, at the lowest rates, often ^1^5 or £6 a-year, and were obliged to wander about from parish to parish, barely earning a precarious livelihood.* Stackhouse, the well-known author of the " History of the Bible," himself a clergyman, in his valuable book, the " Miseries and great Hardships of the Inferior Clergy in and about London," draws a sad picture of the " inferior clergy," and says they were " objects of extreme wretchedness." Their salary was frequently nearer £20 than ;^5o ; less than the sexton's, and not so punctually paid The common fee for a sermon was a shilling and a dinner ; for reading prayers, two pence and a cup of coffee. They lived in garrets. ' Eachard, Contempt of the Clergy. • Adam Smith says, in his Wealth of Nations, in 1776, that ^40 a-year, the pay of journeymen shoemakers in London, is considered very good pay for a curate ; whilst there were many who received less than £20, a sum less than is earned by industrious workmen of all kinds in the metropolis. H h 2 468 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. appearing in the streets in tattered cassocks. If by chance they were invited to dine with their rectors, the latter " made jests upon their poverty," " turning them among the herd of their servants into the kit- chen till dinner comes, and then shewing them what a mighty favour it is that they are permitted to sit down at the lower end of the table amongst their betters." There were indeed some rich prizes, and there were some of the clergy well-fitted by their abilities and learning to hold the highest position in the Church ; well able to command respect in (as the English Court under the first two Georges was) the most dissolute Court in Europe ; or to maintain the cause of Chris- tianity against sceptics and infidels. So there were, it would appear, two distinct classes amongst the clergy : the one, men frequently of learning and high family connection, and courted by the aristocracy, — these were mostly to be found at the Universities, at the great cathedrals, or in the capital ' ; the other, pressed down by poverty, regarded as a plebeian class, if not without education, yet without learning. There can be no doubt the social position, and the influence of the clergy of the eighteenth century, was very different to what it is now ; perhaps the descrip- tion of Dean Swift, who died in 1745, at the age of 77, may not be out of place : "He is usually the son of some ordinary tradesman or middling farmer. His learning is much of a size with his birth and educa- tion, no more of either than what a hungry servitor can be expected to bring with him from his college. He liveth like an honest, plain farmer, and his wife is dressed little better than Goody. He is sometimes ' Macaulay, i. 332. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 469 graciously invited by the squire, where he sitteth at humble distance." Sydney Smith, the author of the well-known description of a curate, draws a humorous picture of the curate of the eighteenth century ; " the poor working-man of God, a learned man in a hovel, with sermons and saucepans, lexicons and bacon, He- brew books and ragged children ; good and patient, a comforter and a teacher, the first and purest pauper in the hamlet ; yet shewing that in the midst of worldly misery he has the heart of a gentleman, and the kind- ness of a pastor One evil consequence of the inadequate incomes of the clergy was the prevalence of pluralities, which in- volved also non-residence. It was a common com- plaint that the clergy heaped together as many bene- fices as they could, leaving the greater part of the work to be done by some half- starved curate, whilst they themselves performed the smallest possible amount compatible with law. Many of the clergy never went near their parishes from Sunday to Sunday ; some had to serve two churches on the same afternoon, and after finishing the service at one church, were obliged to gallop off as quickly as possible to take the duty in a neighbouring parish. If a clergyman lived on his glebe, he often lived as an ecclesiastical squire ; if called upon for some extra duty, he would hurry through the burial or marriage -service, vested in a Surplice hurriedly thrown over the hunting-coat and " Whitfield, however, gives a less satisfactory account of the clergy of his time. He says that as a body they made no scruple of frequenting horse-races and taverns, although they went disguised, by which he means without the gowns and cassocks, which were then the ordinary dress of the clergy. Cowper thus speaks of them, — " Except a few with Eli's spirit blest, Hophni and Phinehas may describe the rest." 4/0 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. top-boots " ; the plan most in vogue, however, was to reside out of reach of his flock ; cases are cited where clergymen had not visited their parishes for years, and one case where there had not been a resident clergy- man for twelve years. Queen Anne, when, in 1704, she gave up the first- fruits and tenths, amounting to about ^17,000 a-year, and appropriated the sum to the augmentation of small livings, performed a noble act of retribution to the Church ; but as this revenue had been anticipated by various grants for lives and years, it was not for many years available for the intended purpose; in 1720 only three hundred livings had been benefited by it ^ ; until 1728 an income of ;^50 a-year was the limit of livings it relieved ; and as lately as 1802 there were still 5,555 livings with only ^50 a-year''. Almost all the clergy at that time were University men ; but it would seem that no great amount of learn- ing was necessary to procure a University degree. A well-known writer ^ who took his degree at Oxford in 1753, thus describes the process. Every candidate after four years was required to be examined by three Masters of Arts of his own choosing, the examination to take place in one of the schools betwen 9 and 1 1 a.m. ; and it was considered a piece of good management to procure three pleasant, good-tempered, young Masters of Arts, and to ply them well with wine previous to the examination. A frequent subject in the exami- * Crabbe, in his " Village," describes the parish priest as a keen sports- man, an eager follower of hounds, a good shot, and a skilful player of whist ; who gave — "To fields the morning, and to feasts the night." * Chamberlayne, p. 202. ^ Quarterly Review, ccxlvii. 226. ' Dr.Vicesimus Knox, Essay 77. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 47^ nation between examiners and examinee was the last drinking-bout, or the pedigree of horses ; and to while away the time till the hand pointed to eleven, a news- paper or a novel was read ; when the expected hour arrived the parties descended, and the much -desired " Testamur" was signed by the three Masters. The state of the Universities was far from satis- factory. Of Oxford, Gibbon says that the fourteen most unprofitable months of his life he spent at Magdalen College ; that he was never called upon even to attend a lecture, and that the undergraduates and tutors of the same college lived almost as entire strangers to each other. Of Cambridge, Wilberforce tells us : "I was introduced on the first night of my arrival to as licentious a set of men as can well be conceived. They drank hard, and their conversation was even worse than their lives, . . . often, indeed, I was horror-struck at their conduct, and after the first year I shook off my connexion with them." The most degraded set of men of the eighteenth century were those known as the Fleet clergy. Them- selves imprisoned for debt, at a time when a valid marriage was constituted simply by consent of the persons about to be married, without licence or regis- tration, they were allowed to perform marriages in pnblic-houses or houses of ill-fame near the Fleet prison, for which purpose they were often kept in the pay of the taverns of the neighbourhood. Young men of noble families were forcibly dragged into these houses and married to women of bad character ; inno- cent young girls from the country became the dupes of gamblers and led-captains, who haunted the fashion- able assemblies under disguise, and only awoke to their shame to find themselves bound for life to some 472 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. ruined spendthrift. There was, it is true, a law by which the solemnizers of a marriasfe without a Hcence were subjected to a fine of ^loo; but the fine was easily evaded ; their dupes were only too glad to con- ceal their shame ; or the profits arising from the busi- ness were so lucrative, that the delinquent clergyman was easily able to pay the fine and pocket the surplus, and thus to set the law at defiance. When we read of one man realizing ^57 from fees in one month; of another marrying one hundred and seventy-three couples in one day, whilst close on three thousand marriages took place in four months, or at the ratio of 8,000 per annum''; it is easy to understand how, even if they were brought to justice, the trade left a sufficient margin after the fine was paid. Nor were there wanting persons to perform a simi- lar office in the more fashionable parts of the town. One of these, Keith, was so overworked that he was obliged to keep a curate ; he advertised his trade openly in the papers ; in one year three thousand couples were married in his chapel at Mayfair, and so great was the profit accruing to him, that his in- come is said to have equalled that of bishops. On being told on one occasion that there was a scheme on foot to stop his lucrative traffic, Keith declared that he would still be avenged of the bishops, — that he would buy a piece of ground, and outbury them The practice of clandestine marriages was at length stopped in 1753 by the Marriage Act of Lord Hard- wicke, which enacted that all marriages, except under licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, should be solemnized in the parish church, after banns published on three successive Sundays ; whilst no marriages, but » Andrewes' Eighteenth Century, p. 48. '' Mahon, iv. 38. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 473 those of Quakers and Jews, should be solemnized, except by clergymen ordained according to the Eng- lish Ordinal. We must now enquire into the state of the parishes and the religious observances of the period. One of the great reproaches against the Church of the eighteenth century was the want of adequate church accommodation. A numerous class of miners and manufacturers had sprung up, and yet the Church made little or no effort to keep pace with the national growth. Eighty-nine churches had been destroyed by the great fire of London, thirty-five of which were never rebuilt, their sites only being denoted to this day by their burial-grounds, and in some cases by a stone tablet, on which is inscribed the name of the church, and of the saint to whom it was consecrated. Burnet says there were in his time, in London and the suburbs, two hundred thousand persons more than could find church accommodation. Convocation, as we have before seen had, through its Prolocutor, At- terbury, warmly advocated the building of additional churches ; and in the new House of Commons of 1 710, which was elected after the trial of Dr. Sachev- erell ^ a large majority of which were Tories, an address to the queen was voted on the subject, to the effect that in the opinion of the House the want of churches greatly contributed to the misery, and schism, and irreligion of the age. A sum of ^350,000, to be raised by the duty of one shilling on every chaldron of coals unloaded in the port of London for three years, was devoted to the building of fifty new churches. During Anne's reign, and until the suppression of Convocation, the work made consid- ' p. 463. See following chapter. 474 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. erable progress ; unfortunately, Convocation, which would have been of the greatest service to see that the work was properly carried out, was soon after- wards suppressed. Through mismanagement, the few churches which were built were built very extrava- gantly, and being under no proper supervision, the fund was miserably squandered ; so that, instead of fifty, only eleven churches were the result. Thus, by the end of the century, the Church found itself surrounded with a swarming population, and with- out any adequate machinery for coping with the pre- vailing mass of ignorance and sin. To the want of church accommodation must be added the baldness and coldness of the church ser- vices. On the one hand, the fear of Romanism, which the days of James II. had recalled, brought suspicion of everything that was ornate in the matter of ritual, and even of the decent observance of the highest fasts and festivals of the Church. Bishop Butler was ac- cused of Romanism simply because he had a cross in his private chapel. In 1777, Archbishop Cornwallis^ of Canterbury, was met with " No Popery" cries, be- cause, aided by Bishop Porteus, — then of Chester, and ' The wife of Archbishop Cornwallis, who had been raised in 1749 from the see of Lichfield and Coventry to the primacy, seems to have created great scandal by her balls and splendid establishment. The Countess of Huntingdon, whom Mrs. Cornwallis had called a hypo- crite, complained of the archiepiscopal splendour to George III., which called forth a letter of remonstrance from the king to the arch- bishop : " My good Lord Primate ; I could not delay giving you the mortification of the grief and concern with which my breast was af- flicted at receiving authentic information that routs had made their way into your palace. At the same time, I must signify to you my sen- timents on this subject, which hold those levities and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a residence for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious retirement, and the exten- sive exercise of chanty and benevolence," &c. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 475 afterwards of London, — he had advocated an observ- ance of Good Friday, which at that time had almost become obsolete. His "arrogance" in causing the shops to be shut on that day, it was said, would soon be followed by " the elevation of the Host and Cru- cifix to prostrate crowds in dirty streets V From this same fear arose that neglect of ritual which, in Elizabeth and Charles the Second's time, had been regarded as the Church's heritage ; and, as a further consequence, that neglect in the fabric and the out- ward circumstances of the Church, and the coldness in its services, which prevailed through the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the hatred of Puritanism, which had been engendered by the Commonwealth, led to a suspicion of everything like fervour or enthusiasm. From one or the other of these causes arose a want of elasticity, and the prevalent stagnation of the times ; the public services neglected, the Holy Eucharist rarely celebrated, the Sacrament of Baptism carelessly admin- istered ; little care taken to prepare the young for Confirmation ; fervent and heart-stirring sermons re- placed by dull, undogmatic addresses, or moral essays, either wholly political, or a mixture of politics and re- ligion, which made Blackstone exclaim, that whenever he heard a preacher of note in London, he could never discern whether he was a follower of Confucius, of Mahomet, or Christ. As to the proper mode of observing Sunday, there always has been a wide divergence of opinion in Eng- land. We have already seen, in a former part of this work, that James L published, and Charles I. re-pub- lished, the " Book of Sports," which much disgusted ' Church Quarterly, vol. viii. 292. 476 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. the Puritans. The Puritans under the Commonwealth abolished, and Charles II. after his restoration re- established, the usages of his father's reign, although he forbade the use of coaches on Sunday ; under him Sunday came to be considered a fitting time for social hilarity, for cards and supper-parties ; but after Charles's time, both High Churchmen and Puri- tans joined in a more decent observance of the day. But the Sabbatarianism of Scotland never obtained in England, nor was the Christian Sunday, even in name, converted into the Jewish Sabbath till towards the end of the eighteenth centur}^, when some of the Wesleyan and Evangelical leaders gave an impulse to Sabbatarianism, and thus the Sunday came not uncommonly to be called by the Jewish name. Such extremes have always been opposed by the sober sense of the English Church ^. Robert Nelson, in the eighteenth century, says of the Sabbath that *' by Scripture, antiquity, and all ecclesiastical writers, it is commonly appropriated to Saturday, the day of the Jews' Sabbath." Seeker (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) says, in 1741, that " one would not by any means make the day of rest wearisome, nor for- bid cheerfulness, and even innocent festivity upon it, much less the expression of neighbourly civility and good-will, which are indeed a valuable part of the in- stitution." And Chillingworth, the champion of Pro- testantism in the seventeenth century, was for some time unable to allow the fourth Commandment, with the prayer following, to hold its place in the Commu- nion Office. 8 With regard to opening the Crj stal Palace on Sunday, the " Record " newspaper (Nov. 19, 1852) writes : " It is surprising that any animal with a head of a higher order than a chimpanzee should pronounce it innocent to open a place for public worldly amusement on the Sabbath." THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 477 But the habitual neglect of the observance of Sunday must be reckoned amongst the vices of the eighteenth century. Seeker complained : " People of fashion .... have nearly thrown off the observance of the Lord's day ; . . . and if, to avoid scandal, they sometimes vouchsafe their attendance at divine wor- ship in the country, they seldom or never do so in the town." Cabinet Councils were frequently held on that day. Sunday card-parties were fashionable entertainments in the best circles, and were counte- nanced at Court under the first two Georges. Evelyn, in his Diary, complains of the practice, although he does not on that account seem to have shunned the king's revelry. The Essayists continually speak of the prevailing irreverence in church ; of '■ the bows, curtsies, whisperings, smiles, winks, nods, with other familiar acts of salutation," which made an English • congregation a shameful contrast to the Roman Ca- tholic congregations of the Continent In 1 78 1, the matter was brought before Parliament, and, after much violent opposition, an Act was passed by which no place might be used for public amusement or public debate on the Lord's day, to which people are admitted by payment ; and so the present day has witnessed the strange anomaly of closing museums and places of valuable instruction on the only day when the masses of the people can avail themselves of them, whilst public houses, during certain hours, are allowed to hold an undisputed pre-eminence To the eighteenth century we must attribute the general introduction of pews : about the same time, ^ Lecky, vol. ii. 534. ' In 1875, the Brighton Aquarium Company was fined ^200 under this act. 478 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. the payment of pew-rents for the maintenance of the clergyman was adopted ^. Records as early as a.d. 1450 shew that pews, or rather pties, existed in England before the Reformation, but they were at that time plain, open benches, facing eastwards. The modern idea of high enclosures originated with the Puritans, who, as they objected to certain points in the service to which they were bound to conform, such as bowing at the name of Jesus and the Gloria Patri, sought to conceal their Nonconformity by hiding themselves from the congregation. But high-backed pews were not common before Queen Anne's reign, and are said to have been then introduced in consequence of complaints that the courtiers and maids of honour occupied them- selves in church by looking at, and making signs to, each other, instead of attending to their devotions ; . henceforward they became so regular a part of the church's furniture, that in 1712, in the regulations specified by both Houses of Convocation for the con- secration of churches, it is especially enjoined that the church be previously pewed^ although the High Church party objected to the " Protestant pews " of their opponents. Not only were these pews an injury to the architectural effect of the churches, and a se- rious eye-sore, as well as injustice to the poor, and a cause of jealousy amongst the parishioners ; but they entailed a twenty per cent, loss of accommodation, which led to another eye-sore, in the erection of galle- Sir Christopher Wren, who was appointed one of the Commissioners under the Act for building fifty new churches, says, "It were to be wished there were to be no pews, but benches; but there is no stemming the tide of profit, and the advantage of pew-keepers, especially since by pews, in the chapel-of-ease, the minister is chiefly supported." ' Abbey and Overton, ii. 422. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 479 ries, raised sometimes one over another, to compensate for the space wasted by the pews. We have dwelt at some length on the state of religion, or rather irreligion, prevalent during the eighteenth century, because to it we believe is to be attributed that coldness in the ceremonial of the Church, which, having crept in at that time, still finds favour in some quarters in the present day. It has been shewn that a different stamp of bishops and clergy existed in that day from those who had before adorned the Church ; that the Latitudinarian obj^ect of assimilating the Church's ritual to that of the fol- lowers of Calvin had in the main succeeded ; that a lower standard of ceremonial than was aimed at by the reformers, and which had prevailed so late as Charles the Second's reign, was the consequence of their teaching ; hence arises more than a suspicion that to the eighteenth century, and not the Reforma- tion, is to be attributed that neglect in doctrine, and especially ritual, which till late years has marked our Church, and of which we are now seeing the revival, under great difficulties, accomplished It is certain that, owing to the anti-ritualistic proclivities of the eighteenth century, the discontinuance of a distinctive out-door dress, such as is common in other Catholic countries, became general amongst the clergy. « CHAPTER II. QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. THE HANQVERIAN SUCCESSION. TT was, perhaps, its prosperity at the commencement of the eighteenth century, — the calm succeeding so suddenly to the storm, — that proved the Church's greatest danger. Before the end of the seventeenth century, the Church had been putting forth new life. Religious societies had been established everywhere throughout the country, the object of which was to promote holiness of life ; the attendance at Divine service, both on Sundays and week-days, and the more frequent celebration of the Holy Eucharist ; the stricter observance of Saints' days ; the relief of the poor ; the instruction of the ignorant ; the suppression of vice ; the release of prisoners, and such kindred purposes. From these religious societies sprang, in 1698, the " Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," which was founded by five gentlemen, — Lord Guildford, Sir Humphry Mackworth, Judge Hook, Colonel Colches- ter, and Dr. Bray; with the objects: (i.) " Of pro- moting and encouraging the erection of charity schools in all parts of England and Wales ; (2.) Of dispersing, both at home and abroad. Bibles and tracts of religion, and in general of advancing the honour of God, and the good of mankind, by promoting Christian know- ledge, both at home and in other parts of the world, by the best methods that should offer." The second of these objects was in 1701, chiefly owing to the ex- ertions of Dr. Bray, who had acted as the Bishop of London's Commissary in Maryland, North America, THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. delegated to a branch society, founded under the name of the Society for the " Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," for the maintenance of Christian mis- sions in North America and other possessions of the British Crown. In 1704, took place at St. Andrew's, Holborn, the first assemblage of the metropolitan charity school- children ; at that time, there had been founded in and about London alone fifty-four schools, numbering 2,131 children; in 1712, the number of charity-schools in London and Westminster was 117, and the number of children 5,000. Such was the beginning of our charity-schools, which Addison describes as the glory of the age in which we live. In 1704, the Queen performed a munificent act of restitution to the Church. First-fruits, or annates, that is, a tax of the first year's entire income from a bene- fice ; and tenths, or the annual payment of the tenth part of the income, had, as we have before seen, been first imposed by the Popes for the support of the Crusades, but had continued long after the Crusades had ceased. The clergy, expecting to be delivered from this hardship, entreated Henry VIII. to deliver them from it ; he answered their prayer by transferring it from the Pope into his own pocket. Queen Mary remitted the tax to the Church ; Elizabeth reimposed and even increased it; and in the time of Charles II. it was regarded as an excellent fund for providing for the king's female favourites, and their numerous chil- dren \ On the anniversary of Queen Anne's birthday in 1704, the Secretary of State brought a message from her to the Commons, announcing her intention to grant the whole revenue arising out of the first-fruits " Mahon's Life of Queen Anne. I i 482 QUEEN ANNe's RETGN. and tenths for the benefit of the poor clergy. On re- ceiving the message, a bill was passed, enabling the queen to alienate from the Crown this branch of revenue, and to create, by charter, a Corporation, by the name of " The Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne for the augmentation of the maintenance of the Poor Clergy." The money arising from the Bounty, which is applied to the increase of poor livings and the building of parsonages, has been an incalculable benefit to the Church. We must now resume the history of Convocation from the end of the last century. It was evident that the antagonism caused in the Church by the appoint- ment of William's Latitudinarian bishops, must sooner or later lead to a dangerous crisis. There were, as we have seen in the previous chapter, two conflicting parties, — the High Church, who were opposed to the Whig government (which had again returned to power) and favourable to the Church, and the Low Church, who were favourable to the government and dissen- ters ; to the latter belonged the bishops who had been appointed by William ; to the former the other clergy, those in the country almost to a man, and by far the greater part of the town clergy, together with the poor, and the country gentry ; whence the terms " the coun- try party " and " the Church party " came to be almost equivalent. Both the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation had powerful and equally-matched leaders, for whilst to the former belonged Bishop Burnet, the latter could boast Dean Atterbury ; a series of colli- sions which took place between the two houses was assigned as the reason for the suppression of Con- vocation ; we may perhaps find another, and possibly a truer reason, in another direction. THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. In the reign of Edward I. the custom commenced of inserting a clause, known as the prmnunientes clause ^, into the bishops' writ, prcsmonishing them to bring certain clergy with them to Parliament to vote sub- sidies together with the House of Commons. " It is now perhaps scarcely known," says Mr. Hallam, "by many persons not unversed in the constitution of their country, that besides the bishops and baronial abbots, the inferior clergy were regularly summoned at every Parliament. In the writ of summons to a bishop he is still directed to cause the dean of his cathedral church, the archdeacons of his diocese, with one proctor from the chapter of the former, and two from the body of his clergy, to attend with him at the place of meeting. This might by an observant reader be confounded with the summons to the Convocation, which is composed of the same constituent parts, and by modern usage is made to assemble on the same day. But it may easily be distinguished by this dif- ference ; that the Convocation is provincial, and sum- moned by the Metropolitans of Canterbury and York ; whereas the clause commonly denoted prcsmiinictitcs (from its first word) in the writ to each bishop, pro- ceeds from the Crown, and enjoins the attendance of the clergy at the national council of Parliament." This arrangement the clergy soon resented ; their This clause, which was so known from its first word, was as follows : "■ PrcEmiinientes priorum et capitulum ecclesiae vestrjE, archidiaconos, totumque clerum vestras diocesis, facientes quod ibidem Prior et Archi- diaconi in propriis personis suis, et dictum capitulum per unum, idemque clerum per duos procuratores idoneos, plenam et sufficientem potestatem ab ipsis capitulo et clero habentes, unk vobiscum intersint, modis omni- bus tunc ibidem ad tractandum, ordinandum, et faciendum nobiscum et cum cseteris prjelatis et proceribus et aliis incolis regni nostri, qualiter sit hujusmodi periculis et excogitatis malitiis obviandum." I i 2 484 QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. chief parliamentary work was to tax themselves for the king, and this they preferred to do in their own Convocations, as a separate estate of the realm ; and as Convocation met at the same time as Parliament, they could do what was required of them as well in one house as the other. The money voted in Convo- cation was no contemptible sum. In the fourteenth century ^20,000, the amount of the clerical tenth, was an important item in the royal revenue, which did not exceed ;!^8o,ooo. But after the submission of the clergy to Henry VIII., the House of Commons had taken upon itself to interfere in Church matters ; so in 1 548, the clergy asserted their rights, and petitioned that they, "according to the tenor of the king's writ and the ancient laws and customs of this noble realm, might have their room and place, and be associated with the Commons in the nether House of this present Parliament " ;" or, " that no acts affecting the Church might be passed in that House without their consent." To this petition they never received a reply. As long, however, as they adhered to their resolu- tion of taxing themselves in Convocation, and were therefore useful to the Crown, they secured the right of meeting, whenever Parliament was summoned for a like purpose ; and that right of meeting involved the right of petitioning, and, within certain limits, of legis- lating for themselves ^. This continued till a.d. 1664. In that year the clergy petitioned the House of Commons to " consider and determine some more equal manner of raising subsidies upon the clergy, the present measure thereof to them bearing no proportion to the rest of his ma- ' Wilkins' Concilia^ iv. 16. Stubbs' Const. Hist. THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. jesty's subjects " ;" in consequence of this petition, by a verbal agreement between Lord Chancellor Claren- don and Archbishop Sheldon, the custom of the clergy taxing themselves in Convocation ceased, and hence- forward they were included in the taxes prepared by the House of Commons; they thus lost importance as a separate estate of the realm, and to make up for their loss, they obtained the inadequate privilege of voting for members of Parliament. Warburton says in one of his letters, that " Convocation, by giving up their old right of taxing themselves, seem to have given up their right of meeting and debating." At any rate, the abandonment of the right rendered Con- vocation less necessary to the Crown, and doubtless paved the way for its suppression. Bearing the above facts in mind, we shall be better able to form a correct judgment of the disputes be- tween the two Houses, and of their final result. After its suppression for eleven years, Tillotson, the staunch opponent of Convocation, being dead (al- though he was succeeded by Tenison, an archbishop scarcely less Latitudinarian than himself), and a Tory Government having succeeded to the long Whig ad- ministration. Convocation was authorized to assemble in 1 701. But the two Houses assembled under feel- ings of mutual ill-will, and the sole business of the year was a contest between them. Their meeting was opposed to the wishes of the bishops ; the Lower House attributed to the Upper the long discontinuance of their debates, and suspected them of Latitudina- rianism : perhaps also, owing to the long suppression of Convocation, the members of the two houses had forgotten their distinctive prerogatives, and thus a dis- ' Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 580. 486 QUEEN ANNE's REIGN. pute arose as to the archbishop's power to prorogue the Lower House, which the latter saw gave the Upper House the power of breaking off their debates at any moment. No doubt the Lower House were exacting, but the Upper were unconcihatory ; and nei- ther would give way. The difficulties were increased when the Lower House condemned the works of To- land and other Deists, still more so when they pro- ceeded to censure Bishop Burnet's book on the Thirty- nine Articles. The bishops maintained that they had no right to examine a book without consulting them, and no power to condemn a book judicially without the king's licence : the disputes could not be healed ; Convocation was prorogued by royal writ, and dis- solved soon after, on the dissolution of Parliament at the king's death, in 1702. During the whole of Queen Anne's reign (1702 — 1 714) the quarrels continued. In 1703, the Lower House formally complained of the lax administration of the bishops ; again, in 1 704, of the bishops being the great impediment to anything being done in Con- vocation ; also, of the great hardship to themselves in being obliged to administer the Holy Eucharist to schismatics. In 1705, a cry of "the Church in danger," in consequence of the anti-Church feeling produced by the Marlborough influence, was raised in the Lower House ; the Archbishop of York (Sharpe) asserted that the Church was in danger, from the great increase of dissenters ; the Bishop of London (Compton), that there was danger from the vile books set out by the press, alluding particularly to a sermon which had been preached by Hoadly before the Lord Mayor ; but the bishops, under the influence of Burnet, pronounced that the Church was not in danger ; and the Lower THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. 487 House brought down upon itself the censure of Par- liament, and afterwards of the queen. In 1707, the union of England and Scotland created alarm, not only on account of the recognition of Pres- byterianism by the State, but also from fear of the influence which would be exercised upon Parliament by the addition of forty-five Presbyterian members. To prevent the Lower House from taking counsel on this matter, Convocation was summarily prorogued ; the Lower House resented the breach of privilege, and complained that never, from the time of the submission of the clergy, a period of 173 years, had Convocation been thus dealt with during the sitting of Parliament. The queen complained of their action as an invasion of her supremacy. But the High Church influence went on steadily increasing, and the cry of " the Church in danger" was again raised ; the people were growing stronger in support of the Church ; the ministry was growing un- popular, even the queen began to share their unpopu- larity, and not only a religious discontent, but serious symptoms of Jacobitism began to manifest themselves. These feelings found vent in the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell. Sacheverell, the grandson of an In- dependent minister, and the son of a Low Church clergyman, was in 1 705 appointed Preacher at St. Sa- viour's, Southwark, where he preached his favourite doctrine of passive obedience before crowded congre- gations, in opposition to Hoadly, Rector of St. Peter- le-Poer, who carried the opposite doctrine to an equal extreme. Sacheverell preached two sermons, in the first of which he complained of the dangers which beset the Church, and the betrayal of its rights and interests; the second, preached before the Lord Mayor 488 QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. on the subject "perils from false brethren," has ren- dered his name famous in history. Whilst he in- sinuated that Hoadly and Burnet were the "false brethren," he violently attacked the Revolution settle- ment and the Act of Toleration; asserted the principles of non-resistance and passive obedience, and described the Church as being in imminent danger. This sermon was so highly approved by the Lord Mayor, who was a high Tory, that Sacheverell was induced to pub- lish it, and in a few days its circulation amounted to 40,000 copies ; but by other people it was pro- nounced to be sheer Jacobitism. Sacheverell had al- ready made himself obnoxious to the Whig govern- ment, especially the Prime Minister, Godolphin, whom he satirized under the name of " Volpone," or old fox ; by publishing his sermon he had brought himself within their reach, and thus led to his own impeach- ment. From the moment of his impeachment he was the hero of the day. On his way to his trial, crowds gathered round him, desiring to kiss his hand, and shouting, " Sacheverell and the Church for ever." The pews of the meeting-houses were burnt ; Burnet's house was in danger ; and the crowds had to be re- strained by the Guards. Sacheverell had the sym- pathy of the queen, of the clergy headed by Atterbury, and the community at large. If the queen was seen in public, she was greeted with cheers : " God bless your majesty ; we hope your majesty is in favour of High Church and Sacheverell." In his trial by the House of Lords, in February, 1710, he was found guilty by 69 to 52, seven out of twelve bishops voting against him ; but though nominally defeated, he was virtually the victor. It was felt that in the excited state of feeling throughout the country, severity was THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION, 489 unsafe ; the obnoxious sermons were condemned to be burnt by the common hangman, but he was only sus- pended for three years, with the privilege, during the time, of accepting Church preferment. Such enthu- siasm as had not been exhibited since the acquittal of the seven bishops, everywhere greeted him. There were bonfires and illuminations, not only in London, but in the country ; he was debarred indeed from preaching, but crowds flocked into church to hear him read prayers ; he was sent for in all directions to bap- tize children, to whom it was considered a high honour to be named after him ; his journey from London to Wales, to take possession of a good living which had been conferred on him, was a festal progress ; at Ban- bury and Warwick, he was met by the mayors in their robes of office ; and at Shrewsbury a crowd of 4,000 persons pressed forward to greet him ^ It is not too much to say, that owing to him the Whig ministry at the elections suffered a crushing de- feat ; the new ministry were all more or less favour- able to the Jacobite cause ; and when his suspension was ended, Sacheverell was appointed by the new House of Commons to preach the sermon at the anni- versary of the Restoration ; he received the thanks of the House, and was soon appointed to the substantial rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn. The Tory party, now restored to power, were strong enough to pass an act which had long been a part of their policy, the " Occasional Conformity " Act. The "Test Act," by making the Holy Communion a quali- fication, had effectually excluded Romanists, but it did not exclude Protestant dissenters, who, though they ' Mahon, Life of Queen Anne, p. 416. 490 QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. attended their own chapels, had no objection to an oci:aswna/ reception of the Holy Communion, in order to obtain or hold their offices. In 1702, a bill against occasional conformity had passed the Commons, but although the queen sent her royal Consort to the House of Lords to vote for it, so great was the oppo- sition excited against it by King William's bishops, that the queen was induced abruptly to end the session. A similar bill met a similar fate in the House of Lords in 1 703 ; in 1 704, a party in the House of Commons tried to "tack" it on the Land Tax Bill; the "tackers," however (as they were called), did not succeed, and in the House of Lords, although the queen herself was present, the bill was lost. But now, under the new Tory Government, and the auspices of Lord Nottingham, the bill was carried in the House of Lords without a division. It enacted " that all persons in places of profit, and all the com- mon-councilmen in corporations, who should be at meeting for Divine worship where there were above ten persons more than the family, in which the Com- mon Prayer was not used, or where the Queen and the Princess Sophia were not prayed for, should, upon conviction, forfeit their place of trust ; . . . and such persons were to continue incapable of any employment till they should depose that for a whole year together they had been at no conventicle^;" and the House of Commons added, " a penalty on the offender of £\o, which was to be given to the informer." In 1714, the tyrannical "Schism Act" passed the Commons by 237 to 126 votes. As passed in the Com- mons, it provided that no one, under pain of three K Burnet's Hist, of his Own Time, ii, 585. THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. 491 months* imprisonment, should keep either a pubHc or private school, or act as usher or tutor, except under licence from a bishop, an engagement that he con- formed to the Liturgy, and had received the Holy Com- munion within a year. The act, with certain modifica- tions, viz. that it should not apply to schoolmistresses, to instructors in reading, writing, and arithmetic, or to tutors in noblemen's families, passed the House of Lords by 77 to 72 ; and it received the royal assent; but the very day on which it was to come into opera- tion the queen died. Queen Anne died in 17 14; had her death occurred three years sooner, in the midst of the Sacheverell excitement, it is more than probable that the Pre- tender would have been called to the throne ; had the Stuarts been brought back in 17 14, what would have been the result to the Church it is impossible to conjecture. The queen died before the plans of the Jacobites were fully matured. A bill had passed in 1 70 1, devolving the Crown on the Electress Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James L, and upon her descendants ; the Electress had died only a few weeks before the queen, and so her son — who, if anything, was a Lutheran — succeeded to the throne, with no good- will from the friends of the Church, under the title of George L The first Church appointment of the new reign seemed to give fair promise. Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, having died in 171 5, Wake, Bishop of Lincoln, — who, as far back as the reign of James II., had distinguished himself as a controversialist against the famous Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux,^ — was appointed to succeed him. But the next appointment was a very different one. Hoadly, who, as early as 1705, had 492 QUEEN ANNE's REIGN. drawn on himself a censure from Convocation, was appointed to the see of Bangor (which, however, he is said never to have visited). Something Hke the stigma of a traitor attaches to Hoadly, "the object of Whig idolatry and Tory abhorrence," as Gibbon styles him. Not only did he — in a pamphlet in answer to Dr. Hickes, the Non-juring bishop, which he wrote soon after his consecration — deny the necessity of being in communion with any visible Church ; not only did he make common cause with dissenters ; in these respects he acted, perhaps, in common with other Latitudi- narian bishops ; but he occupied a very questionable position as the intimate friend and admirer of the great Arian leader, Clarke. But we will pass at once to the troubles which he brought upon the Church. In 171 7, he preached be- fore the king a sermon on the text, " My kingdom is not of this world," in which he inveighed against the idea of there being any visible Church, his object being to shew that no human power has a right to impose religious tests or punishments, and that Christ has not delegated this power to any ecclesiastical au- thority. This sermon was the origin of the great Ban- gorian Controversy. The Lower House of Convoca- tion, on May 10, 171 7, severely censured the sermon, as being subversive of all government and Church discipline. The Upper House, now under the pre- sidentship of Archbishop Wake, Burnet having died in 1 71 5, was willing to join the Lower House in its condemnation of the sermon. To prevent the mea- sure from being carried, the king interfered ; Convo- cation was prorogued till November 23, and never met again for business till very recent times. Five of the royal chaplains were removed for writing against THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. 493 Hoadly, who continued to receive favours from the king. In 1721, he was translated to the see of Here- ford; in 1723, to Sahsbury ; and in 1734, to Winches- ter, which he held till his death, at the age of 85 years, in I 761. In 1 71 7, the year that witnessed the suppression of Convocation, a correspondence was begun between Archbishop Wake and Du Pin, the Head of the Theo- logical College of the Sorbonne, with a view to the reunion of the Anglican and Galilean Churches. The admiration which the latter Church had obtained for itself by such names as Fenelon, Paschal, and Bossuet, and the noble assertion of its rights against Roman aggression, attracted towards it the sympathy of this country. In 1713, Pope Clement XI. had issued the famous Bull, " Unigenitus," against the " Reflexions Morales" of Quesnel, a work which, though published with the approval of Cardinal Noailles, Bishop of Chalons, and later Archbishop of Paris, was after- wards found to revive all the most obnoxious doc- trines of Jansenism. De Noailles, and other Galilean bishops, refused to accept the Bull except under cer- tain conditions ; fourteen bishops formally opposed it ; and eventually, in 171 7, a declaration was put forth, encouraged by Noailles, and to which the theological faculty of Paris adhered, appealing from the Pope to a General Council ; and a desire having been ex- pressed by the Galilean for a reunion with the Eng- lish Church, a correspondence was begun by Du Pin, the head of the theological faculty, and Archbishop Wake, with that view. The main point insisted on was the principle of the freedom of national Churches, and the independence of the Galilean Church from Rome ; if this were effected, the archbishop saw no 494 QUEEN ANNE's REIGN. essential points of difference. The two Churches might " own each other as true brethren, and branches of the CathoHc Christian Church ;" it might be neces- sary that some sHght modifications should be made ; where they differed, each Church was to preserve its own views of doctrine, " till God should bring a union of those also." In this friendly and hopeful manner the negotiations were being carried on. The last letter was addressed by Archbishop Wake to Du Pin on May i, 1719, but before it arrived in Paris, Du Pin was dead, and so unfortunately the matter ended. Another correspondence, springing partly out of this, ensued between Archbishop Wake and Cou- rayer, who published, in 1727, his "Defence of the Orders of the English Church." The work having been formally censured by an assembly of French cardinals and bishops, Courayer left France and came to England, where he was kindly received by the primate, and the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C. L. He died in 1776, at the age of ninety, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 1 718, an act^ annulling the Occasional Con- formity and Schism Acts was passed in the House of Commons, but only by a majority of 41 votes (243 against 202) ; and even this small majority was chiefly due to the Scotch members, thirty-four out of thirty-seven of whom voted for the measure. Lord Stanhope, who was then at the head of affairs, was This act, however, forbade (but it was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of rS/i) any mayor, baiUff, or other magistrate to attend any rehgious form of worship, except that of the Church, in a gown, or the ensigns of his office. THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION. 495 desirous of abolishing also the Test Act ; this, how- ever, he found to be impracticable ; but almost every year, from 1727 to 1828, an Indemnity Act was passed, which practically threw open the gates of all of¥ices to Protestant dissenters, quite as fully as if the law had been actually repealed In 1737, Archbishop Wake died; Gibson, Bishop of London, who had been translated from Lincoln in 1723, the ecclesiastical lawyer and the historian of synods, was so confessedly the first bishop of the day, that he was commonly spoken of as " the heir- apparent of Canterbury ; " unfortunately, he had of- fended Sir Horace Walpole by voting one way when he expected him to vote another ; he was, therefore, put aside, and Potter, Bishop of Oxford, who had been Regius Professor in the University, who, though a Whig, was a High Churchman, was advanced to the primacy. Nothing more clearly shews the decay of the Church's influence after the Hanoverian succession, than the dif- ferent treatment shewn to Sacheverell and Atterbury. In 1 7 10 Sacheverell, who had nothing else to recom- mend him than his High Church views, which were then in favour, was made the idol of the populace ; and, in fact, was the most popular man in the king- dom. In 1 71 3 Atterbury, the advocate of the rights of Convocation, and the opponent of Hoadly, was rewarded with the bishopric of Rochester and the deanery of Westminster, He was at that time the leading and most popular bishop, and was not un- reasonably marked out for the primacy ; but the Hanoverian succession put an end to all his hopes. In 1722 he was committed, on slight foundation, ' Lord Mahon, i. 493. 496 QUEEN ANNe's REIGN. to the Tower, for alleged correspondence with the Stuarts. Walpole induced Parliament to pass a bill of pains and penalties against him ; and his banish- ment for life, and his death in exile at Paris in 1732, shew plainly how High Church principles, which were so strongly in vogue in the reign of Anne, had rapidly and materially declined. CHAPTER III. THE DEISTS' AND THE UNITARIANS. 'INHERE can be little doubt that to the exaggerated principles of toleration, and the Latitudinarian- ism of the bishops, the scepticism and infidelity so prevalent during the eighteenth century are mainly attributable. When we find a bishop maintaining, as Hoadly did, in direct contradiction to one of the Articles ^ that it is unnecessary to believe any par- ticular Creed, or to belong to any particular Church, and that a person's persuasion of the correctness of his opinions is all that is required ; and when we find such views in favour at Court, and the teacher of them holding four bishoprics in succession, we can- not wonder they soon produced the natural fruits of infidelity. Following the path mapped out by a bishop, people began to ask. What is truth how is truth to be found ? As long as the Church was acknowledged to be the centre of unity, and Catholicity the test of orthodoxy, the stand-point of Christianity was intelligible *^ enough ; but, contended the Rationalist, the venerable antiquity ■ The author is indebted for much in his remarks upon the Deists to an excellent Article in the Quarterly Review (vol. cxv.) by the late Dean Mansel. Art. xviii. "They also are to be accursed that presume to say that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he may be diligent to frame his life according to that law and the light of nature." "= This is the line adopted by Bossuet in his " Variations of Protest- ants ;" the fallacy of his conclusion is evident ; it is a "petitio principii," making Romanism and Catholicism equivalent terms. K k 498 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. of the Church was broken up at the Reformation ; the Protestant Church was the result of private judgment ; the Reformers used their "reason" against that of the CathoHc Church, and extracted a different meaning from that accepted by Romanists. By such arguments the supremacy of " reason " was easily established, and people claimed, each one for himself, to put their own interpretation on the Bible. Next came the question, What is this Bible? how is it to be interpreted ? And soon arose out of it the further question. Who is this Christ of whom the Bible speaks ? The aphorism of Chillingworth, " the Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Protestants," as advocated later by Archbishop Tillotson ^ and Tenison, and like- minded bishops, in not laying down rules as to how Scripture was to be interpreted, might easily lead others into a very different interpretation of the Bible to that of which they approved themselves. Hooker, no less than Chillingworth, allowed the jurisdiction of reason ; but he added that the judgment of the indi- vidual ought to bow before that of the Church, as we find it expressed in the great councils and the general voice of ecclesiastical tradition. Chillingworth, on the contrary, discarded everything as inferior to reason : reason gives knowledge ; faith only gives belief, which is part of, and therefore inferior to, knowledge ; it is therefore by reason that we must distinguish between truth and falsehood. The Deists, who flooded England with their infidel publications in the eighteenth century, only went one Collins, the Deist, actually speaks of Tillotson as "one whom all English free-thinkers own as their head." Whitfield said of him that " he knew no more of true Christianity than Mahomet." THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. 499 Step further when, in the exercise of their reason, they asserted the sufficiency of natural, and rejected all revealed, religion. The Deist, as the name im- plies, as opposed to an Atheist, believes in a God ; neither the name nor the opinions of Deism were new. The name, as applied to the opponents of revealed re- ligion, existed in the middle of the sixteenth century; and Viret, the cotemporary and friend of Calvin, speaks in his Instruction Chretienne, published in 1563, of per- sons who called themselves Deists. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (born 1581, died 1648), brother of George Herbert, may be considered as the father of English Deism. He lived through the trou- blous times of Charles I., and saw the Church broken up into various sects, each differing from the other, and each asserting that their interpretation of the Bible was the correct one. All these could not pos- sibly be right ; so he sought a surer test, and the only sure test he found was reason. He discarded all ex- traordinary revelation as unnecessary, and asserted the sufficiency and perfection of natural religion. This natural religion he placed under five heads : (i.) There is a supreme God ; (2.) He is to be worshipped ; (3.) Piety and virtue are the necessary requirements for that worship ; (4.) Men must forsake their sins, and then God will pardon them ; (5.) There are re- wards and punishments for good and bad, or, as he sometimes termed it, here and hereafter. Yet, though Lord Herbert may be considered as the originator of English Deism, the ground in more recent times had been prepared for it by the reigning philosophy of the day, that of Locke. Though Locke wrote without reference to theology, and probably without any distinct thought of the bearing of his K k 2 500 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. system, yet certainly the tendency of his teaching was to make human reason the measure and judge of truth. It was from the armoury of Locke that both the Deists and their later opponents borrowed their weapons ; thus the latter were enabled to contend with the free- thinkers on their own ground, and to employ Locke's philosophy for the purpose for which he would him- self have wished it to be employed ^. The most famous Deists of the eighteenth century are Toland, Shaftesbury, Collins, Woolston, Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, and Bolingbroke. Toland was born in Ireland in 1669, and was brought up a Romanist. In 1696 he published his principal work, "Christianity not Mysterious," which was burnt by order of the Irish Parliament by the common hangman, one member pro- posing that Toland should himself be burnt. The Lower House of Convocation was unanimous in con- demning the book, and presented a prayer to the Upper House for its suspension ; the latter, however, took the advice of the law lords, and with the excep- tion of Compton, Bishop of London, and the Bishops of Exeter and Rochester, rejected the petition. Shaftesbury, the third Earl (born 1671, died 1713), grandson of the infamous member of the Cabal mi- nistry, although he is called by Voltaire the boldest of all the English Deists, may more properly be con- sidered a Rationalist than a Deist. He wrote rather for applause than for truth, and in a style calculated to influence the upper classes, amongst whom he was one of the leading stars, and became the favourite writer ; of his works, the principal was " Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times ;" he advo- cates ridicule as the test of religious truth, speaks of ' Quarterly Review, vol. cxv. THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. 50I Christianity as " a witty, good-humoured reh'gion," and treats it with a Hght banter ; and altogether his works are so mixed up with levity, as to render it impossible to pronounce when he is in jest and when in earnest. Anthony Collins (born 1676, died 1729) was edu- cated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and was at one time the intimate friend of Locke, who said of him, that " he has as much love for truth, for truth's sake," as any man he ever saw ; but at that time he was not the determined foe to Christianity that he afterwards became, and it is improbable that Locke, if he had lived, would have pronounced him as a friend either to truth or to himself. Woolston (born 1669, died 1731), who had been a Fellow of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, but was deprived of his Fellowship, was probably a mad- man ; indeed, he seems to have considered himself such ; although, at the same time, he had no mean idea of his own abilities, for he says he "will cut out such a piece of work for the Boylean Lectures as shall hold them tug so long as the ministry of the letter and a hireling priesthood shall last V He died in the Queen's Bench prison, to which he was committed for his infidel writings. Tindal (born 1656, died 1733), who, from the con- structive character of his writings, was called " The Christian Deist," a man of scandalous life, was a Fellow of All Souls, a convert to, and revert from, Rome. In 1730 he published his principal work, the standard ' The Boyle Lectures were founded in the middle of the seventeenth century by the Hon. Robert Boyle, seventh son of the first Earl of Cork, for the purpose of defending the Christian religion against Atheists, Deists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahomedans. Of these lectures, Collins says, " No- body doubted the existence of a Deity till the Boyle Lectures endea- voured to prove it." 502 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. work of Deism, entitled, "Christianity as old as the Creation," which, more than any work of the Deists, gave rise to Butler's Analogy. Dr. Thomas Morgan, who, like Tindal, called him- self a " Christian Deist," was a dissenting minister. Like Dr. Colenso, of later date, he made Samuel to be the writer of the Book of Genesis. Chubb (born 1679, died 1746) was a tallow-chandler, and a man of no education, who embraced the views of Whiston, and wrote some Tracts, mostly on Arian- ism, which he dedicated to Bishop Burnet. Bolingbroke (born 1672, died 1751) was Secretary of State for War in 1 704, and for Foreign Affairs in 1 7 10, in which capacity he concluded the peace of Utrecht in 1713, having been raised to the peerage in the preceding year ; he afterwards became Secretary of State to the Pretender, by which his political repu- tation was considerably damaged, so that he was com- pelled to leave the country, and live in France, where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire. Bolingbroke appeared on the scene when Deism had been refuted and practically worn out. He (unlike Chubb), a bril- liant man of the world himself, would adapt religion to sinners of rank and fashion, and would impose no re- straint on "gentlemanly" vices; he advocated polyg- amy as "a reasonable indulgence," whilst monogamy is " an absurd, unnatural, and cruel imposition." Bo- lingbroke had given instructions to David Mallet for the publication of his works after his death, which brought down upon him the virtuous indignation of Dr. Johnson. "Sir," said he, "he was a scoundrel and a coward ; a scoundrel for charofing a blunderbuss against religion and morality ; and a coward, because he had no resolution to fire it off himself, but left THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death." The one common object of the Deists was to assert the supremacy of reason. They looked for certainty away from external revelation to the internal revelation which God has implanted in the human soul ; they dwelt on the sufficiency of natural religion and the improbability of any other, which was intended to be universal, being revealed only to one, and that an ob- scure people ; on the moral and textual difficulties of many parts of the Bible ; on the immorality of teach- ing future rewards and punishments, as the supreme incentives to a holy life ; they would tolerate nothing supernatural ^ no miracles nor prophecies ; they would eliminate all dogmatic teaching, which cannot be veri- fied by reason, and thus they would get rid of Chris- tianity altogether. The development of Deism was gradual, through three different phases ; the first of which may be de- scribed as " No dogmatic Christianity," as taught by Toland ; the second as " No historical Christianity," as taught by Chubb ; the third as " No Christianity at all," as taught by Bolingbroke. Toland commenced with the open denial of miracles, which was followed, but in a coarser strain, by Collins. From mysteries in doctrine, the attack proceeded to the supernatural in fact ; by Collins on prophecies, by Woolston on the miracles. And then, when everything above reason was eradicated from Christian belief, then the autho- rity of the teachers fell with the belief, and Christianity became, in the hands of Tindal and Morgan, a scheme without any authority of its own, and only to be ac- « Hence, by Germans, Rationalism is not unfrequently termed Na- turalism. 504 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. cepted on account of doctrines discernible by the light of nature Yet, so far from considering themselves the enemies of religion, they threw the stigma of that upon the clergy, and profess that they only acted themselves in the interests of religion, which they disencumbered of the accretion of ages. Tindal, in his " Christianity as old as the Creation," thinks that he has "laid down such plain and evident rules, as may enable men of the meanest capacity to distinguish between religion and superstition ; and has represented the former in every part so beautiful, so amiable, and so strongly affecting, that they who in the least reflect, must be highly in love with it." So Chubb, in his " Preface to the true Gospel," says, that he has "rendered the Gospel of Christ defendable upon rational principles." And again, the same writer, in the " Defence of his Dis- courses on the Miracles:" "Where's the sense and reason of imposing parochial priests upon the people to take care of their souls, more than parochial lawyers to look to their estates, or parochial physicians to at- tend to their bodies, or parochial tinkers to mend their kettles." When we consider the great popularity that at- tended their writings, we may form some idea of the mischief which Deism must have spread throughout the country. Woolston's Discourses are said to have sold to the extent of thirty thousand, and to have called forth in a short time sixty replies. Against Collins' "Discourse of Free-thinking," thirty-four works are said to have been published in England alone, and the number in various languages to have amounted in all to seventy-nine ; whilst Tindal's " Christianity as Quarterly Review, cxv. 80. THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. 505 old as the Creation," called forth no fewer than one hundred and fifteen replies During the reign of Deism, the Church did its work well and effectually. Of the numerous works pub- lished in defence of Christianity, the principal were : Sherlock's "Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus," Conybeare's " Defence of Revealed Reli- gion," Berkeley's " Minute Philosopher," and Warbur- ton's "Divine Legation of Moses ;" whilst, amongst the lesser luminaries, must be mentioned, Leslie, Sykes, Balguy, and Stebbing. But, far surpassing all, was a work published in 1736, the result of twenty years' labours, and those twenty years spent at the very time when Deism was at its height, a work which struck at the very root of infidelity, the immortal Analogy of Bishop Butler. Thanks to these champions of the faith, the Deism of the eighteenth century was com- pletely overcome. It, however, thanks to the pa- tronage it received from the State, lingered on for a time ; it revived later in the century, in the works of Hume and Gibbon, both of whom received lucrative appointments under government ; Paine's " Age of Reason" widely diffused its poison through the lower classes ; and it was not finally driven from the country till the "Evangelical" movement, which took its rise at the end of the century. " We, too, in England," says Burke, " have had writers who made some noise in their day, but they now repose in oblivion. Who, born in the last forty years, has read one word of Collins, Toland, or Tindal, or Morgan, who called themselves Free-thinkers ?" In an age so opposed as the eighteenth century was to everything like mysticism, it is not surprising that ' Quarterly Review, cxv. 60. 506 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. controversies arose on the subject of the Divine na- ture of our Lord. Heretical opinions respecting the Person of Christ are almost as old as Christianity it- self, having been held by the Ebionites and Cerin- thians in the days of the Apostles, by the Monarchians in the middle of the second century, and the Sabellians in the middle of the third. In the fourth century the heresy passed, with several divergencies, into Arianism, and was condemned by the four General Councils. In the sixteenth century, being revived by an uncle and nephew, Lselius and Faustus Socinus, it took from them the name of Socinianism ; in Switzerland, in 1553, Servetus was burnt for holding the heresy ; and about the middle of that century if made its appearance in England, when Joan Bocher, and a Dutchman, Van Parris, were burnt under Edward VI., two others being burnt under James I. In the seventeenth cen- tury it exercised considerable influence, and its ad- herents were so numerous, that Dr. Owen, writing in 1665, says, "there is not a city, a town, and scarcely a village in England, where some of the poison is not poured forth." Shortly before that time, John Bidle formed the society of those holding heretical opinions on the Trinity, who after him were called Bidellians. In 1645 he was imprisoned for his heretical opinions, and in 1648 condemned to death by the Westminster Divines ; but the army, less cruel than the Church, pre- vented the sentence from being carried out. Under Cromwell he was released from prison, but he soon again got into trouble ; his doctrine was so obnoxious, that his books (amongst which was a translation of the Racovian Catechism'') were condemned to be burnt, and in order to save his life, the Protector was com- '' The standard of Socinian doctrines, first drawn up in 1605. THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. 507 pelled to banish him to the Scilly Islands ; at the Restoration he was again apprehended and thrown into prison, where he died in 1662. Unitarianism, the development of the theology of the intellectual Puritans, of which Milton was a con- spicuous example, dates from the eight hundred Puri- tans who were ejected from their benefices on St. Bar- tholomew's-day, a.d. 1662. At that time the two most learned and most important sects of Puritans were the Presbyterians and the Independents ; the Independ- ents, in their early days, being the advocates of tolera- tion, whilst the Presbyterians would persecute all that differed from their own form of Church government. For a time, after their separation from the Church, the two sects agreed to work together, and had one united congregation, and the same meeting - house. But their divergencies soon became manifest ; the In- dependents grew less tolerant, and would hold commu- nion with none but Calvinists : the Presbyterians, on the other hand, grew less intolerant ; to a great extent they gave over Calvinism, and refused to be bound by Creeds, or any other authority than their own inter- pretation of the Bible. This change became more and more marked ; till they adopted those Unitarian views, which called forth from Dr. Bull, in 1685, his famous Defence of the Nicene Creed, for which he received a vote of thanks from the French bishops, headed by Bossuet. The Act of Toleration did not extend the liberty it allowed to other Dissenters, to Romanists, or those who denied the Trinity ; so that for some time the number of the Unitarians was small. Their growth was due to Thomas Firmin (born 1632, died 1697), a rich linen-draper in London, a friend not only of 508 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. Biddle, but of Tillotson, and other leading divines of the day, a man of most unbounded charity, who, at the end of the seventeenth century, devoted a large sum of money to the circulation of anti-Trinitarian publications. A controversy on the subject of Unitarianism ori- ginated in 1 719 in the west of England, and two Pres- byterian ministers, on account of their holding anti- Trinitarian doctrines, were deposed from their pas- toral charges. But in time the Presbyterians became thoroughly impregnated with those doctrines, and the Presbyterian chapels and endowments in a great de- gree the property of the Unitarians, whose origin, as a distinct communion in England, may be dated from the period just subsequent to 1730^ Unitarianism had come into great prominence at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Whiston, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, and one of the most learned theologians of the day, openly professed Arianism. Dr. Samuel Clarke, Rector of St. James', Westminster, and one of the royal chaplains, who had twice been Boyle Lec- turer, fell into the heresy, and only escaped the cen- sure of Convocation by retracting his statements. The doctrine of the Trinity in that age of controversies be- came one of the chief subjects of the Church's politics ; in it Tillotson, Jane, Sherlock, Burnet, South, and many others took part ; it was greatly favoured by the suppression of Convocation ; and heretical opinions on the subject were attributed to the bishops ; Hoadly, and later. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, were charged with it. Rundle, a friend of Whiston and Clarke, was sus- pected of it, and through the representation of Gibson, ' Hook's Church Dictionary. THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. Bishop of London, was prevented from obtaining the bishopric of Gloucester. Clayton, for nearly thirty years Bishop of Clogher, openly attacked the Atha- nasian and Nicene Creeds ; and in 1756 moved, in the Irish House of Lords, for their expungement from the Prayer-Book ; proceedings were in consequence com- menced against him, but on the very day, in 1758, on which they commenced, he died. Accompanying the controversy was a strong ob- jection to compulsory conformity, and signing the Thirty-nine Articles. It was contended that these Articles were decidedly Calvinistic ; and that as most of the clergy who signed them were Arminians sub- scription was an unmeaning form, and might quite as properly be made by Arians. Whiston, on account of his Arian principles, had lost his professorship at Cambridge. Clarke refused a bishopric, because he was unwilling to sign the Thirty-nine Articles : (he, however, did not scruple to retain the rectory of St. James'). Middleton, at the very time he was signing the Articles as a preliminary to taking a living, wrote in 1 736 : " though there are many things in the Church which I wholly dislike, yet whilst I am content to ac- quiesce in the ill, I should be glad to taste a little of the good, and to have some amends for that ugly assent and consent which no man of sense can ap- prove of In the great Trinitarian controversy at the end of the century, in which Priestley and Horsley were the prominent actors, this objection to signing was one Paley, in his defence of the " Feathers' Tavern Petition," states that the only persons at the time who beheved the Thirty-nine Articles were the Methodists, who were refused ordination by the bishops. ° Nicholl's Lit. Anecd. of the Eighteenth Century. 5IO THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. of the most prominent features. In 1766, Blackburne, Archdeacon of Clevedon, published his "Confessional," in which he advocated the maxim of Chillingworth, " The Bible, and the Bible only, the religion of Pro- testants ;" and contended that the Church has no right to demand any other subscription than a con- formity to the Bible. If Blackburne was not himself a Unitarian, he was very near one ; he was decidedly a Calvinist ; he confessed his belief that many doc- trines of the English Church were objectionable ; yet he did not resign his appointments. Let us hear his own reason, — he had " a wife and children ;" he talked about the jargon of the Athanasian Creed, and refused to read it ; or again sign the Thirty-nine Articles. His son-in-law, Theophilus Lindsey, Vicar of Cat- terick, travelled through Yorkshire, trying to get up petitions against subscription, but he met with little success. The only effect of the agitation was a " Pe- tition," drawn up by an association of two hundred and fifty persons, clergy as well as laity, at a meeting held at the Feathers' Tavern in the Strand, and pre- sented to the House of Commons in 1772, embodying the proposal made in the " Confessional " of subscrip- tion to the Scriptures instead of to the Articles. Burke spoke in the House of the grievance as being infini- tesimal; the petition was rejected by 217 to 71, and when introduced again in the following year, by 159 to 67. Lindsey, seeing no hope of a change being made, avowed himself a Unitarian, and resigned his living. The law which made the denial of the Tri- nity punishable, though not enforced, still existed ; there was no licensed place for Unitarian worship ; so Lindsey, leaving Catterick, went to London, where, in Essex-street, Strand, he opened the first Unitarian THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. chapel, where he continued to preach till his death in 1808. The subscription controversy led to more open at- tacks upon the Trinity. In 1782, Dr. Priestley, a well- known natural philosopher, who, according to his own confession, "came to embrace what is called the he- terodox side of every question ; " a man, by birth a Calvinist, then an Arminian, and eventually a So- cinian, published a work entitled " the Corruptions of Christianity ; " which brought him in contact with Dr. Horsley, Archdeacon of St. Albans, and led to the greatest controversy of the latter half of the eighteenth century. In a charge to the clergy of his archdeaconry in 1783, the archdeacon severely criti- cized the prominent defects and errors of the work, as being nothing short of an attack upon the Creeds, and established discipline of every Church in Christen- dom. He thus sums up the scope of the book : " The doctrine of the Trinity, in the form in which it is now maintained, is no older than the Nicene Council, the result of a gradual corruption of the Gospel, which took its rise in an opinion first advanced in the second century by certain converts in the Platonic school, who, by expounding the beginning of St. John's Gos- pel by the Platonic doctrine of the Logos, ascribed a sort of secondary divinity to our Saviour, affirming that He was no other than the Second Person in the Platonic Triad, who had assumed a human body to converse with men. Before this innovation, of which Justin Martyr is made the author, the faith of the whole Christian Church, but especially the Church of Jerusalem, was simply and strictly Unitarian. The im- mediate disciples conceived our Saviour to be a Man, whose existence commenced in the womb of the Vir- 512 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. gin, and they thought Him in no respect an object of worship. The next succeeding race worshipped Him indeed, but had no higher notions of His divinity than those which were maintained by the followers of Arius in the fourth century." Pamphlets and counter-pamphlets were published by each of the litigants, in which much warmth was displayed on both sides ; in one of these, Priestley talks of his antagonist as " this incorrigible dignitary." Ul- timately, however, Horsley entirely succeeded in de- stroying his credit as a scholar and a theologian, by exposing manifest errors and ignorance, and proving his unfitness to write on such a subject. The triumph of Horsley was complete. Priestley's opinions were not received with favour even in his own country. In Birmingham, where he had exer- cised his ministry from 1781 to 1791, he was stig- matized as a revolutionist, and an enemy to order and religion ; in the latter year the memorable " Bir- mingham Riots " occurred ; Priestley's chapel and his private house were destroyed, and, in danger of his life, he fled from Birmingham to London ; but, find- ing himself no better off there, in 1794 he emigrated to America, where he died in 1804. Horsley, on the other hand, was rewarded in 1788 with the bishopric of St. David's ; from whence, in 1793, he was translated to Rochester, and, in 1802, to St. Asaph. To Bishop Horsley at the end of the eighteenth, as to Bishop Bull at the end of the seventeenth, cen- tury, the Church is indebted for the suppression of these heretical opinions. The Unitarians profess to ground their religion on reason and common-sense ; but though Presbyterianism has dwindled into Uni- THE DEISTS AND THE UNITARIANS. 513 tarianism as the last stage in the downward path of heresy, they have never in England been an im- portant sect, or secured a firm hold in any part of the empire °. • " Humanitarianism" would be a more applicable name to the heresy : for the Catholic Church, which is " Trinitarian " in one sense as holding the belief in Three Persons, is equally " Unitarian " on the other, as hold- ing that there is only One God. l1 CHAPTER IV. THE METHODISTS. T the time that the controversy with the Deists was at its height, the Church entered upon a more inglorious contest with the Methodists. The Method- ists, feeling the stirring of those truths which the Deists had denied, set themselves to stemming the infidelity, and immorality, and coldness of the day. They strove manfully and, to a certain extent success- fully, against the prevailing corruptions ; but they were enthusiasts, and at that time enthusiasm in religion brought back the memory of Puritanism, and was re- garded as an unmitigated evil. The bishops, as a body, although they saw and owned the Church's shortcomings, stigmatized the Methodists as Antino- mians ; some of them, as Warburton and Lavington, assailed Wesley with the coarsest invectives ; whilst his followers not unfrequently were accused of being Deists and Papists. Of this great movement in the eighteenth century, one man, John Wesley, was the life and guiding spirit ; and it is in the history of his life that we shall find also the history and character of the work. John Wesley, the second of three brothers, was born at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, in 1703, five years before his brother Charles. His father (although his family were Puritans, and he himself had been in the number of those who seceded in 1662,) was a High Churchman, Rector of Epworth, and a man of con- siderable reputation ; he was Proctor in Convocation THE METHODISTS. for the diocese of Lincoln, and probably bore part in the controversy between the two houses, which led to their suppression : John Wesley's mother was a daugh- ter of Dr. Annesley, an eminent Nonconformist min- ister. When he was only five years old, the rectory of Epworth was burnt to the ground, and John Wesley was only saved at the last moment. After being edu- cated at the Charterhouse, he proceeded, at seventeen years of age, to Christ Church, Oxford ; and at the age of twenty-five was elected (although under some opposition on account of his opinions) Fellow of Lin- coln College ; his brother Charles having, in the mean- time, proceeded from Westminster on a Studentship to Christ Church. At Oxford, his favourite studies were, Thomas a Kempis' " Imitation of Christ," Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying," and above all, William Law's " Serious Call ;" to which last work he attributes the religious revival which bears his name \ After taking deacon's orders, he became his father's curate for two years, when he returned to Oxford, to find the work which was afterwards so thoroughly identified with himself, already commenced by his brother Charles. Under Charles Wesley, about 1729, a small society of Undergraduates, consisting of himself, Morgan of Christ Church, and Kirkman of Merton, to whom later were added Whitfield ; Hervey, author of " Theron and Aspasio," (who afterwards embraced Calvinistic opinions) ; Gambold, later a Moravian bishop ; Clay- • "William Law," says Bishop Warburton, "begot Methodism;" it thus appears that a Non-juror and a High Churchman was the originator of Methodism. To this book Dr. Johnson also attributes his first religious impres- sions, and it was honoured by the approval of even Gibbon. l1 2 5l6 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. ton, afterwards a zealous High Churchman ; and se- veral others (three of whom relapsed into sin and in- fidelity), were induced to assemble in each other's rooms for the purpose of prayer and study, more especially the study of the Greek Testament. They bound themselves to abstain from the prevalent amuse- ments and luxuries of the University ; to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, and during Lent ; to re- ceive the Holy Eucharist every week at St. Mary's ; and to visit the prisoners in the gaols, and the poor in the workhouses ; and from their professing thus lo live by rule, the nickname of Methodists was ap- plied to them. So that Charles Wesley, the " sweet singer" of the movement, was the founder of the Methodists, although John, from his age, his charac- ter for learning, and his position in the University as Fellow of his college, naturally became their leader. On the death of his father in 1735, he was offered, but refused, the living of Epworth, although it was his father's dying request that he should accept it as a means of maintaining his mother and sisters. The same year he was offered, through Dr. Burton, Presi- dent of Corpus, and accepted, the appointment of missionary under the S. P. G. in the colony of Georgia, which had been founded only two years before, and of which General Oglethorpe was appointed the first Governor. We must here make a short digression, in order to say a few words regarding General Ogle- thorpe, who, standing as he does conspicuous as one of the few philanthropists of that time, deserves more than a passing notice. The mismanagement of the prisons, and the great number of executions for comparatively trifling of- fences, were amongst the crying evils of the century. THE METHODISTS. In 1732, no fewer than seventy-two persons received sentence of death at the Old Bailey ; and in the same year, eighteen persons were executed at Cork in one day. But the treatment of the prisoners, more espe- cially the insolvent debtors, was a disgrace to civi- lization. In 1729, Oglethorpe succeeded in obtaining a parliamentary enquiry into the condition of the Fleet and the Marshalsea : the enquiry was afterwards ex- tended to other prisons, and the state of things brought to light excited universal indignation. Oglethorpe did what he could to remedy these abuses, but with only slight success. Nearly forty years later, the phi- lanthropist Howard found the same frightful abuses ; the prisons crowded by the cruel legislation of the day ; debtors and felons huddled together in one com- mon cell ; no separation between the sexes ; every gaol a chaos of the foulest immorality ; prisoners, even when acquitted, dragged back to their cells, because they were unable to pay the extortionate fees of their gaolers, and left there either to starve or to die from the gaol-fever, which infested those haunts of misery. Oglethorpe devised the idea of founding a colony, where debtors, after their liberation from prison, might find a refuge. A charter was obtained in 1732, and the next year the colony of Georgia was founded for that purpose, Oglethorpe being appointed Governor. It was in this colony that Wesley thought he saw an opening as missionary ; and, in company with his brother Charles, left England for Georgia in October, 1735. In his voyage out he, for the first time, came in contact with the Moravians, who so deeply in- fluenced his after-life. The colonists belonged to many nationalities, and spoke many languages : Wes- ley worked hard among them, and it was no small merit 5l8 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. to his ability and energy, that, in addition to his Eng- lish services, he conducted also services in French, German, and Italian. But his mission to Georgia was a lamentable failure ; and if we may judge from the success that afterwards attended Whitfield in the same colony, his failure was mainly due to his temper and indiscretion. Wesley was not an amiable man, nor at that period was he a discreet one. The people were startled at the novelties which he abruptly intro- duced, of which they could not understand the mean- ing. He insisted on Baptism by immersion, refused to say the Burial Service over a dissenter, insisted on re-baptizing those who had been baptized by dis- senters, and divided the Church services. He was hard and domineering ; he was accused of prying into the secrets of every family; all the quarrels which took place in the colony were attributed to his intermed- dling ; and not a very creditable law-suit, in which he was involved, made the place too hot for him, so by the advice of his friends he left the colony in 1738 (his brother Charles having left before), shaking off the dust from his feet ; and arrived in England just a few days after Whitfield had set out from England for Georgia. On his arrival in London, being tortured by doubts as to the reality of his faith, he made the acquaintance of Peter Bohler, a Moravian minister, who obtained a complete ascendancy over him ; from him he ac- quired the belief that every one is in a state of dam- nation until, by an instantaneous process, the super- natural conviction flashes on him that his sins are forgiven, and he has a personal and absolute assur- ance of forgiveness. In his Journal he minutely fol- lows out the process of his own case. In the after- THE METHODISTS. noon of May 24, 1738, he went in a state of great depression to St. Paul's. On the evening of the same day he reluctantly went to a meeting in Aldersgate- street, where some one was reading Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. "About a quarter before nine," he writes, " I felt my heart strangely warmed : I felt I did trust in Christ, and Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death ^" Wesley seems, however, still to have entertained doubts as to his state, so he determined on making a visit to the head-quarters of Moravianism at Hern- hut, where he made the acquaintance of the great patron of the Moravians, Count Zinzendorf ; he re- turned to England strengthened indeed in his opi- nions, but for some reason or another dissatisfied with Moravianism, of which Methodism hitherto had been little more than an offshoot. Zinzendorf, on a visit to England, tried to effect a reconciliation between his followers and Wesley ; but the breach was only widened, and although their views materially affected all his opinions, in 1740 Wesley solemnly separated himself from the Moravians. But before these events happened, George Whit- field, another of the little Oxford brotherhood, was electrifying England by his preaching. Whitfield was born at the "Bull Inn," Gloucester, on December 16, 1 714, which was then kept by his mother, and in which he for some time served as waiter. Having been edu- cated in the grammar-school of that city, he entered, in his eighteenth year, as a servitor at Pembroke Col- lege, Oxford ; and having through his personal cha- " Journal, 1738. 520 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA, racter and zeal in visiting the sick and prisoners in Gloucester, attracted the attention of Dr. Benson, bishop of the diocese, was ordained by him at the age of twenty-one years. His first sermon was preached at Gloucester ; and the sermon was so different to what people were at that time accustomed, that a complaint was made to the bishop that it had driven some people mad. The bishop replied, he " wished the madness might not be forgotten till the follow- ing Sunday." The sermon is in print, and would now- a-days be considered a temperate, almost a tame, production. Whitfield was not a learned man ; but the manner of his preaching, such as England had never heard before, theatrical, often common-place, but exhibiting the most intense earnestness of belief, combined with the deepest feeling for the sin and sorrow of his fellow- creatures ; his powerful voice, which Franklyn said could easily be heard by a congregation of 30,000, and soft as music ; the manner of his delivery ; at once marked him out as the first pulpit orator of the day. It was no common enthusiast who could extort admi- ration from the cold infidelity of Hume ; could wring gold from the close-fisted Franklyn"^; or admiration from the fastidious Horace Walpole ^ ; or who in Glou- cester, Bristol, and London, could attract such crowded congregations as no other preacher is ever known to have brought together. In 1738, as we have seen, he " I had in my pocket,'' wTites Franklyn (who had resolved to give nothing) in his Autobiography, "a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver : and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all." ' Green's History of the English People. THE METHODISTS. was induced to go to America, and, unlike Wesley, met with great success there ; but shortly afterwards he was obliged to return to England to take his Priest's orders, and to collect funds for an orphanage in Georgia. Another digression must here be allowed, in order that we may explain the necessity which caused Whit- field to come all the way from America to receive Priest's orders. Although remonstrances and most touching peti- tions were constantly flowing in from America, no bishop, till 1784, was ever consecrated to the North American continent. Laud had advocated a plan, but it was defeated by the breaking out of the civil war ; Clarendon was frustrated by the Cabal ; nothing was done in James the Second's reign ; William was no friend to episcopacy ; when arrangements were nearly completed, they were stopped by the death of Anne ; and Walpole was opposed to Jacobite bishops, and cultivated the growing dissenting interest ^ From such causes the people in North America went with- out Confirmation ; and those who desired Ordination were obliged to travel 3,000 miles to be ordained by the Bishop of London, Soon after the accession of George IIL, Archbishop Seeker had been desirous of ending such an anomaly, by consecrating bishops in England; but there was danger of 2, pi'csmimire ; it could not be done without an Act of Parliament ; altogether there was such strong opposition, that the plan had to be abandoned. But after the United States had asserted their independence, such a state of things could be tolerated no longer ; but difficulties still existed in England; so on November 14, 1784, ' Church Quarterly, viii. 308. 522 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. Dr. Seabury was consecrated at Aberdeen as Bishop of Connecticut by the Primus of Scotland, and the Bishops of Aberdeen, Ross, and Moray; and in 1787, the difficulties in England being removed, Drs. Pro- voost and White, and soon afterwards Dr. Maddison, were consecrated bishops by the Archbishop of Can- terbury ; and thus the American Church was placed in a position henceforward canonically to consecrate its own bishops. Such were the circumstances that compelled Whit- field to return to England. He now adopted, with or without the consent of the clergy, the practice of open- air preaching, which from that time became one of the most striking features of the Methodist movement. The poor colliers of Kingswood, near Bristol, men sunk in the most brutal ignorance and vices, and en- tire strangers to religion, excited his compassion, and induced him to seek them out in their haunts. He selected an elevated spot, called Rose Green, from which to address these people. The congregations were at first small, but as the fame of his preaching spread, immense congregations assembled to hear him, sometimes as many as twenty thousand ; the lanes were blocked with the carriages of the rich, the fields were blackened with dense masses of the poor ; Whitfield's powerful voice was able to pene- trate to the extreme outskirts ; and he himself relates how he saw on their faces the white gutters made by the tears which fell plentifully down their black cheeks, • — black as they came out of the coal-pits. Having been forbidden by the Chancellor of Bristol to preach any longer in the diocese, Whitfield next carried on his work, with even greater success, amongst the London rabble collected at Moorfields or Kenning- THE METHODISTS. ton Common ; and he wrote to John Wesley, asking him to continue the work which he had so successfully begun amongst the Kingswood colliers. Wesley, know- ing that Whitfield had been prohibited, was at first unwilling to do so, but eventually, with his brother Charles, consented to act in defiance of the chan- cellor's inhibition, even at the cost of his allegiance to the Church. By the end of 1738 the Methodists were excluded by the clergy from most of the pulpits. This led, in 1739, to the erection of Methodist chapels, which it was necessary to register as " dissenting cha- pels." At the latter end of 1739 " religious societies" were founded, and Methodism began to assume a re- gularly organized system. In 1740, Wesley became the minister of a registered chapel in Moorfields, and in the same year he separated from Whitfield. This open breach with the Church was soon widened. In 1 741, Wesley gave his sanction to lay preachers ; in 1 744, the first Wesleyan Conference was held, at which only six persons, five of them clergymen of the Church, attended ; but with this small conference originated a system which has since exerted the strongest influ- ence on the religion of England. By degrees, Wesley went further and further from the Church, although even then he never seems to have con- templated the formation of a separate sect or denomi- nation; until, under the excuse that bishops and priests were originally one order, he usurped episcopal func- tions, and pretended to confer Holy Orders. In 1784, he consecrated Coke as bishop of the American Me- thodists ; and, in 1787, he ordained three ministers for Scotland. He was thus doing deliberately what he knew he had neither the right nor the power to do. His own conduct shews that he was aware of this ; for 524 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. on one occasion, when a Greek bishop, Erasmus, Bi- shop of Arcadia, was in London, he tried to induce him to consecrate him a bishop. The Greek bishop saw that the act was uncanonical, and refused. In 1752, Wesley, though he was a strong advocate of clerical celibacy, had married ; his wife was a widow, with four children, but he was not suited for a married life. The marriage was an unhappy one, and they separated. From this time little variety occurred in his energetic life : he rose every morning at four ; preached two or three times every day ; rarely tra- velled less than 4,500 miles in the year. In fifty-two years it is calculated that he travelled 225,000 miles, and preached 40,000 sermons. The separation between Wesley and Whitfield broke the Methodists up into two parties, the Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodists. Wesley was an Arminian, Whitfield a Calvinist ; Wesley hated Calvinism, and declared that he would rather be a Turk, a Deist, or an Atheist, than a Calvinist. So, under Whitfield, the Calvinistic Methodists became a distinct sect, and were subsequently organized under the patronage of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, whence they are commonly known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. To this cause she devoted her large fortune. In 1768 she founded the college of Trevecca in South Wales (of which she made Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, pre- sident), which, in 1792, was transferred to Cheshunt ; thence missionaries were sent to all parts of the united kingdom ; but after the death of Whitfield, the Cal- vinistic Methodists never occupied a position equal to that of their rivals. Before the end of his life, Wesley outlived oppo- sition from the Church. The clergy overpowered him THE METHODISTS. with invitations to preach ; so much was this the case, that, in 1777, he writes in his journal, " Is the offence of the cross ceased ? it seems, after being scandalous nearly fifty years, I am at length growing into an honourable man." On March 2, 1791, he died in London, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. Probably, no one man ever exercised so strong an influence on the religion of England as John Wesley; and not only in England, for his influence extended to the furthest corners of the globe. The prevalence of drunkenness, the coarseness of manners amongst the gentry, the rudeness of the peasantry, the dead- ness of religion, — these were some of the vices of the times against which Wesley strenuously set himself. Sensible of the great work he was doing, he went on courageously and perseveringly, through good report and evil report, under the greatest difficulties, some- times at the risk of his life. That he did a great work all will admit. The effect of his preaching was mar- vellous. Under the terrible sense of the conviction of sin which he brought upon his hearers, the dread of hell and the hope of heaven which he excited within them, strong men were smitten to the ground, women fell down in convulsions. He himself tells us how, under his preaching, the criminals at Newgate " dropped on every side as thunderstruck." People who had never entered a church before flocked to hear him, and their hearts were softened under his preach- ing. The long period of darkness of the eighteenth century was broken, and a new life opened out. And as he taught others to live, so he lived him- self; always the same life of simplicity, of activity, and of earnestness, until the end. When he was seventy years of age, he only allowed himself money enough to buy the barest necessities of food and cloth- 526 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. ing ; the rest of his money, amounting in all, it is believed, to ^30,000, he devoted to charity and good works. To within six months of his death Wesley continued to preach in the parish churches, and to the last he urged his followers never to separate from the Church of England. At the end of his life he wrote, " I live and die a member of the Church of England ; and no one who regards my judgment or advice will ever separate from it." But whilst giving that advice, he must have been sensible of his own inconsistency. He himself professed to be a member of the Church, and he was willing to follow its discipline, but it was only so far as it commended itself to his judgment, whilst the means he employed directly impugned its authority. It is probable that Wesley scarcely realized the extent and importance of the work which he had ef- fected. He contemplated a revival, and even during his lifetime that revival was independent of the Church ; but he had also created a party, and after his death that party was too powerful to be thus easily con- trolled. He disliked the idea of separation, yet he took the very steps which were certain to promote it after he was gone ; and he must have known that dissent was the logical and inevitable conse- quence of the practices and discipline which he had advocated. The position of Whitfield is far more intelligible. From the first Whitfield professed a thorough dis- regard of Church agency, except so far as it conduced to the object which he had in view. He would as soon preach in a dissenting chapel as a church ; he would communicate dissenters, and he would baptize accord- ing to the English Prayer- Book. THE METHODISTS. 52/ Almost immediately after the death of Wesley, the Wesleyan Methodists took up a deliberately schis- matical position, and their connexion with the Church soon ceased. Hitherto, they had been bound to re- ceive the Holy Eucharist in the parish churches. In 1792, the Methodist Conference decided that laymen might administer that Sacrament ; the next year lay administration became a common thing, the only pro- viso being that it should be according to the Liturgy of the English Church, and only on such days when it was not celebrated in the parish church. At the present day the Wesleyan Methodists, although as early as 1797 schisms began amongst themselves, are the largest body of separatists from the Church ^. « An incident illustrative of the unworldly character of Charles Wesley may be mentioned. An Irish gentleman named Wellesley, believing him to belong to his family, ofifered to make him his heir ; Charles re- fused his terms ; so the estate went to another branch, which was soon raised to the Irish peerage under the title of the Earl of Mornington, from which sprang the Duke of Wellington. CHAPTER V. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT, nPHE spirit of Wesley had, however, penetrated the Church ; and at the end of the eighteenth century EvangeHcahsm, a form analogous to, and springing out of, Methodism (although following the teaching of Whitfield rather than that of Wesley), arose as a natural consequence, within the Church, of the work which the Methodists had effected independently of it. For some time there had been scattered here and there throughout the country a small knot of clergy- men with a strong leaning towards Calvinism. Of these, the best known are Hervey, who had been educated at Lincoln College, and thus in early life brought under the influence of Wesley ; Toplady who, although an opponent to Wesley, ascribed his con- version to one of Wesley's preachers ; Berridge, and Romaine ; these, together with Whitfield, may be re- garded as the Fathers of the Evangelical School. From the end of the eighteenth, throughout the first quarter of the present century, the Evangelicals (as they were called), although never equal to those who were considered, in contradistinction, the orthodox party, either in numbers ^ or purely intellectual force ; and never numbering in their ranks the highest dig- nitaries ; yet in their duties as clergymen, were the ' In 1738, Wesley wrote to Peter Bohler that he only knew ten clergy- men in England who professed Evangelical opinions. Romaine says when he began his ministry there were only six or seven, but before he died he could number five hundred. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. most zealous and the most influential, and maintained an almost undisputed pre-eminence amongst the masses of the population. Amongst the most prominent Evangelicals were Newton, Cecil, Scott, Venn, and Simeon : whilst Wil- berforce, in his " Practical View," set forth the faith of the party. In Oxford, Evangelicalism was almost unknown ; a score or so of young men gathered round Mr. Bulteel at St. Ebbe's : six students were harshly expelled from St. Edmund's Hall, but this was for ultra-Calvinism, far in advance of the ordinary Evan- gelical teaching. At Cambridge, on the other hand, led by Simeon, it ran through the academic body. Simeon, who held the living of Trinity Church, and the Vice-Provostship of King's College for fifty-three years, — thus having the means of communicating the doctrines to those who were about to take Holy Orders, — may be regarded as the centre of the move- ment, and the founder of the modern " Low Church " party, who from him were called " Simeonites ;" he spent his considerable fortune in purchasing the ad- vowsons of important livings in the large towns, and these he conferred on Evangelical clergymen. Porteus, Bishop of London (died 1808), was the bishop most identified with the movement. The sources from which (next to the Bible) the Evangelicals drew their inspiration, were not Patristic or Anglo-Catholic ; but Protestant works of the six- teenth, and Nonconformists' books of the seventeenth century. The Homilies were their delight ; they ap- pealed to them in proof of their distinctive theology ; certain Articles, especially the seventeenth, they re- garded with great satisfaction ; but several parts of the Church's formularies, especially the Baptismal and M m 530 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. Burial Services, they found little to their taste \ They firmly believed the Bible to be given by inspiration of God ; but if they were asked why their interpretation of the Bible was more correct than that of the dia- metrically opposite sects into which Christendom is divided ; or why they accepted certain books as ca- nonical and rejected others ; they were in a dilemma, and had absolutely no answer at all to give. The starting-point of Evangelicalism was the exact opposite to that of Rationalism, which was so much in vogue in the eighteenth century. With the latter, the religion of nature and the Christian religion were al- most identical : with the Evangelicals, human nature was opposed to everything that is good ; nature and grace were two thoroughly antagonistic principles, and till nature is changed by grace, and that by no external ordinances, but by the perception of an inward change, there is in man a radical repugnance to all religion. An exclusive pre-eminence was given to the doctrine of "Justification by Faith:" but the object of Faith was not clearly defined ; with Justification Baptism was unconnected ; the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration was rejected, and the Holy Eucharist, as the Sacra- ment by which Faith is nourished in the soul, was thrown into the background. Personal election, sud- den conversion, experimental religion, with a constant reference to personal experience ; the idea that each person must be able to point to the exact hour of his conversion ; these were considered as the gauge of Gospel truth ; (hence the term " Evangelical," as ap- plied to them ;) they preferred preaching to prayers and Sacraments and ordinances of the Church, and laid great store on the black gown in the pulpit. Stoughton's Religion in England. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. In the present day, people are inclined to under- value the Evangelical movement; but in order to as- sign to it its proper value, we must carry ourselves back to its origin. The Evangelicals were zealous and laborious parish priests ; they worked incessantly in their enormous parishes, in visiting the sick, in seeking out sinners, in teaching in their schools, in preaching ; in their private lives they were men of great self-denial, who contributed much by their per- sonal character to the spread of religion ; they felt that people did not need so much to be awoke to the belief, as to the sense of religion, and that the require- ment of the day was a fervent, heart-stirring enthu- siasm. The sermons of that time were cold, moral essays, addressed to the head instead of to the heart ; suited at best to the upper and educated classes, but wholly unsuited to the poor and unlearned, and ill- adapted to change the character or reclaim the lost3 For this reason, the Evangelicals attached great im- portance to sermons. Their sermons frequently lasted an hour, sometimes an hour-and-a-half ; they would preach, as they said, half-an-hour " before God came," and then for an hour afterwards ; in their sermons they substituted Bible truths for the abstract argu- ments to which people had been so long accustomed ; they represented sin in its most hideous colours, and an enraged God as a severe creditor, who would exact the uttermost farthing, and Christ as the sinners' friend, ready and willing to reclaim them. Thus they raised the religious feeling which had been so long dormant, and infused warmth and reality into the hard, intellectual religion of the day. It is easy now to note the weak side of the move- ment. It was no doubt a narrow and emotional theo- M m 2 532 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. logy ; in preaching the doctrine of the new birth the EvangeHcals dwelt wholly on the negative side of that great truth ; belief was not the great essential, but feeling. In laying stress on the truth that the Gospel is a revelation from God to lost sinners, designed to produce a corresponding effect on our hearts, and that the faith of Christ is a faith that works by love, they did a great work. But they went further, and taught that the belief and the action must be grounded on the feelings, considered as the immediate and sensible operation of the Holy Ghost. The practical result of such teaching was a popular impression that the test of a correct understanding of Scripture is the amount of comfort and edification derived from it, and that pious feelings are all that is required for a right un- derstanding of the Bible. The results which followed the movement were most striking. The last vestiges of Socinianism were eradicated ; the infidelity and irreligion which (not- withstanding the Wesleyan movement) had still lin- gered on, disappeared ; a philanthropic energy mani- fested itself; Sunday-schools, which had been first established in 1781 by Robert Raikes, a printer at Gloucester, in conjunction with the Rev. Thomas Stock, a clergyman in that city, multiplied*^; and several societies were established. Unfortunately in their work little regard was paid to the Church; in 1800 the "Church Missionary Society" was founded, on principles opposed to those of the venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; in 1801 the "Re- ligious Tract Society," inculcating no distinctive Church ■= Fifty years after their foundation they had increased to 16,828, and afforded accommodation to rather more than 1,500,000 pupils. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 533 teaching; in 1804, the "Bible Society'^," contrasting with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, in not diffusing, with Bibles, Prayer-Books, and publi- cations of the Church's interpretation of the Scriptures ; and the "British and Foreign School Society," founded on principles which expressly excluded the Creeds and formularies of the Church. It would be unjust to attribute to the Evangelicals the whole blame of the lamentable^condition of all the outward circumstance of the Church, its services and fa- brics, at the end of the last, and during the first quarter of the present century, although a large measure of fault justly attaches to them. They never troubled them- selves (Mr. Simeon himself allowed it) about working on the lines, or according to the rubrics, of the English Church. How the services were performed, how slo- venly, how unfitted they might be to the grandeur of God's house ; whether they were on the type of the conventicle ; whether the ritual was, or was not, in accordance with the rubrics, they concerned themselves but little. And yet Evangelicals talked much about rubrics. A member of the party once complained to a bishop of a clergyman overstepping the rubrics. "Do yoti have Morning and Evening Prayer in your Church?" enquired the Bishop. — "No." — " Then the you say about rubrics the better," was the bishop's verdict. The period we assign to the pre-eminence of Evan- gelicalism is from the last few years of the eighteenth century to a.d. 1833 ; it will now be necessary to men- tion a few of the most important events in the Church's history during that period. The number of Bibles, Testaments, or portions issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society for 1880 was 2,846,029. 534 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA, We may mention in passing, that in 1801 an Act of Parliament was passed, rendering clergymen ineligible to sit in the House of Commons, Horne Tooke having been the last to enjoy that privilege as member for Old Sarum^ One of the proudest monuments of the English Church in the present day is its colonial episcopate. As early as 1638, Laud, as has been already stated^, formed a plan for sending a bishop to New England, and after the Restoration a patent constituting Dr. Murray Bishop of Virginia, was actually made out by Lord Clarendon, but was defeated afterwards by the accession of the Cabal. About a.d. 1713 a larger plan, for the endowment of four bishoprics, two for Jamaica and Barbados, and two for the Continent of America, in Virginia and New Jersey, was matured, with the personal approbation and encouragement of Queen Anne; in fact, at Burlington, in New Jersey, jC^oo had actually been expended upon the purchase of a house for the bishop, when, unfortunately, the project was cut short by the death of the Queen. In 171 5, Archbishop Tenison bequeathed by his will ^1000 to- wards an American episcopate ; but after the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty, nothing was done for seventy years, till the separation of the United States, when, as we have seen \ Dr. Seabury was consecrated in 1784 as the first bishop of North America. In 1787, the first colonial see of Nova Scotia was founded, and Dr. Inglis appointed its bishop; that of Quebec was founded six years later, in 1793 ; in 1814, the see " A bill introduced this year (1881) for the repeal of the Horne Tooke Act, was defeated in the House of Commons by no to loi votes. Why clergjTTien who have no cure of souls should be less fit to sit in Par- liament, or why the clergy should be the only section of the community excluded, it is difficult to understand. ' Page 521. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 535 of Calcutta was formed, and Dr. Middleton appointed bishop ; ten years later, Jamaica became a bishopric. These were the only colonial sees established at the period we are now considering. Until very recent times, two great educational so- cieties, the " National " and the " British and Foreign Bible" Societies, provided for the elementary educa- tion of the poor. Of these, the former, founded in 1811, required instruction in the Bible, Liturgy, and Catechism of the Church of England ; the latter, founded a few years earlier, required the Bible, but prohibited the Creeds from being taught in the schools which it aided, although, at the same time, it dis- claimed being classed amongst dissenters. Under these two societies, the education of the poor was con- ducted without State aid till 1833, when, for the first time, parliamentary grants were made. To understand the important change effected by the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act, we must take a brief review of the penal laws affecting dissenters. The Act of Toleration had afforded no relief to Ro- manists, or persons denying the Trinity. In 1700, fresh laws, although they were seldom enforced, were enacted against the former ; they were prohibited from purchasing or possessing land, or from educating their children abroad. By the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1778 — the precursor of the " No Popery" riots of 1780 — supplemented by an Act of 1791. various dis- abilities under which the Romanists laboured were removed. Their priests were no longer subjected to perpetual imprisonment for performing their duties ; those of them educated abroad were relieved from penalties ; the prohibitions to their purchasing lands were taken off ; a modified freedom in worship and 536 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. education was allowed ; and their Peers, although still debarred by the Oath of Supremacy from sitting in the House of Lords, were relieved from banishment from the king's presence, to which they were previously subjected^. In 1779, the Dissenting Ministers' Act relieved Dissentinof Protestant ministers and school- masters from the limited subscription to the Thirty- nine Articles required by the Toleration Act ; and another Act, in 181 2, relieved them from the remaining oaths and declaration required under the latter statute. The next year removed the disabilities of Unitarians from the benefits of the Toleration Act, although the civil disabilities still remained till 1828. The concessions made in 1778 to the Romanists of England and Ireland aroused a storm of Protestant rage ; but when, in the following year, it was proposed to extend the like privileges to Scotland, it was more than could be tolerated ; the people herded themsevles into " Protestant Associations," and broke out into open rebellion, under the leadership of Lord George Gordon. For three days "No Popery" riots held London in terror ; the chapels and the residences of the Romanists were destroyed ; the house of Lord Mansfield, who had recently acquitted a Roman priest who was charged with celebrating Mass, was set on fire ; the lawn sleeves of the Archbishop of York were torn off, and thrown in his face ; the Bishop of Lincoln, on his way to Parliament, was obliged to take refuge in a house, from which it is said he escaped in a woman's dress along the tiles ; the city was in flames ; "the sight was dreadful," says Dr. Johnson, "thirty-six fires all blazing at one time;" Parliament was in- vested by the mob ; and the tumult was, at last, with ^ Taswcll-Langmeads English Constitutional History, p. 751. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT, 537 great difficulty, at the expense of some hundreds of Hves and great loss of property, put down by the military. A strong Protestant feeling pervaded all classes of society ; advertisements appeared in the newspapers that his Majesty's hosier was one of the staunchest Protestants in the kingdom, and that his Majesty's wine-merchants were also Protestants \ In 1787, and again in 1789 and 1790, attempts were made — on the last occasion, under no less powerful patronage than that of Mr. Fox — to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts ; the measure, however, was opposed by Pitt and Burke, and was defeated by nearly three to one (149 to 62) : and no other attempt was made for nearly forty years. In 1 791, a further relaxation was made to Romanists, described as "Protesting Catholic Dissenters," i.e. those Romanists who protested against the Pope's claims to excommunicate kings, and to free their subjects from their allegiance; and in 1795, a grant was made to- wards a Roman Catholic College at Maynooth, to meet the necessity created by the destruction, during the French Revolution, of the Roman Catholic places of education in France. In 1800, the union between England and Ireland was brought about by the help of the Romanists, to whom Pitt promised relief from the penal laws. But Pitt found that he had promised more than he was able to perform. George III. was persuaded that to give the promised relief would be contrary to his Coronation Oath, and declared that he "should reckon any man his personal enemy" who advocated the mea- sure. Pitt in consequence resigned. In 1807, the Roman Catholic emancipation question was again *■ Lord Mahon's Hist., vii. 36. 538 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. raised by Lord Grenville's ministry, but the king again asserted his royal power, and dismissed them. But the question was not allowed to rest, and scarcely a session went by without its being introduced into Parliament. In 182 i, an Emancipation Bill was passed by the House of Commons ; year after year a similar bill was passed, but always with the same fate, of being rejected by the Lords. In 1828, the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, and only accepted such reforms as he could no longer resist. The same year the Test and Corporation Acts were done away with ; henceforward people holding office were bound to declare, on " the true faith of a Christian '," that they would not act to the injury of the established Church ; and the following year, the popular feeling having grown too strong to be resisted, and the " Ca- tholic Association," under Daniel O'Connell, threaten- ing civil war, the Duke of Wellington, to the disgust of the High Tories, withdrew his opposition, and the " Catholic Emancipation Act," to which George IV. gave a reluctant assent, was passed. Instead of the oath of supremacy and against Transubstantiation, P.omanists, on taking the oath of allegiance, and making a disavowal of the doctrine that persons ex- communicated by the Pope might be deposed or mur- dered, could be admitted to both Houses of Parlia- ment, to all corporate, judicial (except in the eccle- siastical courts), civil and political offices, except those of regent, lord chancellor of England or Ireland (the latter office has since been thrown open to all, irre- spective of creed), and lord lieutenant of Ireland, In ' By this declaration Jews were excluded. In 1845, however, this exclusion was removed, but it was not till 1858 that the Jews were admitted into Parliament. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 539 1832 an act was passed, putting the Roman Catholics, with respect to their schools, places of worship, chari- ties, &c., on the same footing as Protestant dissenters ; and a few years later almost all the other enactments against them, although they had before been obsolete, were removed from the Statute Book, In 1833, Quakers and Moravians were in like man- ner admitted to Parliament, by making an affirmation instead of an oath ^. In 1832 had been passed the Reform Bill. Thus an entirely new era had begun to the Church. The Legislature, which had hitherto, by a fiction, con- sisted exclusively of Churchmen, ceased to be even nominally connected with it. A short review of the history of the Church will enable us better to understand the relation, past and present, between Church and State. The Church and the world, from the earliest ages, have been in opposition to one another. The Church has ever been a standing witness against wrong, an opponent to the licentious practices of the world, and the ambitious designs of princes ; it has therefore been, with only a few exceptions, the leading object with kings and emperors to subjugate the Church to the control of the State. The Church of England early won its liberties ; its right to elect its own bishops was admitted in the eighth century. The Normans for a time encroached upon its prerogatives, but these were again established by the Magna Charta of King John, which was confirmed by every successive sove- reign from John to Henry VIII., and which declared that the Church of England was free, and enjoyed the ' 7 and 8 Vict., c. 102 ; 9 and 10 Vict., c. 59. Taswell-Langmead, Eng. Const. Hist., 753. 540 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. right of electing its own bishops. Its spiritual as well as temporal rights were trodden under foot by Henry VIII. ; and from that time the Church has been under bondage, and the rights and liberties which he invaded have never since been restored. The Church was deprived of its voice in the appointment of its bishops ; of its rights to hold its provincial synods without permission of the Crown, a permission which, since 1 7 1 7, was entirely withheld ; of its power to enact canons without the consent of the king ; of its jurisdiction over matters of doctrine. From Eliza- beth to Charles II., the queen and kings were on the whole Catholics ; from the accession of William of Orange (with the exception of the short reign of Queen Anne), through the Georgian era, the Protes- tant element had the ascendancy, and the object aimed at was to reduce the Church to a mere department of the State, and to place it under control of Parliament. The functions of the sovereign, and the right of ap- pointment to bishoprics, were virtually transferred to the Prime Minister, who noiu need not be a communi- cant, not even a Churchman ; so that it comes to this, that the Royal Supremacy really means the supremacy of the Prime Minister, who is, except nominally, ap- pointed by the House of Commons, which may be composed not only of dissenters, but of Jews, and in- fidels, and atheists ; and this Prime Minister is the person who is entrusted with the appointment of arch- bishops and bishops and deans, of controlling the ac- tion of Convocation, of choosing the members of the Privy Council who are to determine ecclesiastical causes, to decide abstruse points of doctrine, and to reverse the decision of bishops. We must now return, and enquire into the condition THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. of the Church in the early part of the present century. A few words are sufficient at once to state the case and to explain the cause, — there were more parishes than there were clergy, and more than half the clergy were non-resident. Yet, notwithstanding, it was under strong opposition, not only from the non-resident in- cumbents themselves, but also from the bishops (twenty- one of whom, it must be told, held livings themselves), that, in 18 12, Lord Harrowby was able to carry a bill through Parliament, which made the very reasonable requirement, that a non - resident incumbent should keep a curate with a suitable stipend. The poorness of the livings, and the insufficiency of the emoluments, rendered pluralities, and conse- quently non-residence, necessary. There were many lucrative livings, but too frequently these were looked upon as a provision for younger sons, for tutors, and sometimes incapable persons, who were appointed to them without the slightest regard to their doctrine or their ability, for the performance of the smallest amount of perfunctory services. Bishop Blomfield was translated from Chester to London in 1828, and in the latter diocese, then con- taining 1,650,000 souls, he found a truly lamentable condition of things. In one parish, with 40,000 in- habitants, there was only one clergyman ; in four pa- rishes, with 166,000, there were eleven; in twenty others, with 739,000 inhabitants, there were forty- five ; and in nine, with 232,000, there were nineteen clergymen \ The episcopate of Bishop Porteus the only bishop ' Second Report of Church Enquiry Commissioners. Bishop Porteus is the bishop who, when he was asked on one occa- sion to preach a charity sermon, answered that he only gave one a-year, and for that year it was bespoken. 542 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. of the time who was thoroughly associated with the EvangeHcals, extended over twenty-one years, from 1787 to 1808, and during the whole of that time not one church was built in London. Bishop Blomfield, when he had been bishop eighteen years, was able to announce that provision had been made for the erec- tion of sixty- three new churches ; and at the end of an episcopate of twenty -eight years (only seven more than 'that of Bishop Porteus) he could point to nearly two hundred churches which had been consecrated by himself A bishopric seems, at that time, to have been con- sidered as a provision for the sons of the aristocracy. In 181 5, of the two archbishops, one was the son, the other the grandson, of a peer. Of the bishops, one was a peer in his own right ; two were sons, one grandson, two brothers, two near connexions of peers ; seven had been tutors in the families of noblemen, and two the tutors of ministers. So that, out of twenty-six prelates at the time, nineteen were thus appointed. And as they owed their position to their family connexion, so do they seem to have been careful in providing for their own ; bishops not unfrequently regarded the property of the Church as a suitable means for providing marriage-portions for their sons and daughters. Amongst the family of one arch- bishop were shared sixteen rectories, vicarages, and chaplaincies, besides precentorships and other digni- ties in cathedrals ; one son-in-law, in about as many years, received eight different preferments, estimated at about 10,000 a-year. A daughter and a sister were scarcely less fortunate in their ecclesiastical alli- ances. The three sons of another bishop were all THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 543 appointed to dignities in his cathedral ; two of them had also four, and one two other pieces of preferment. Another bishop and his family enjoyed a revenue of ;/^3 1,645 a-year, two of his sons being prebends of his cathedral, whilst one of them held a valuable rectory of one parish, the lay rector)^ of another, was ex- amining chaplain to his father, registrar of the diocese, and chief steward of several manors ; whilst his son- in-law was prebend of his cathedral, and held four livings Bishop Watson of Llandaff may be taken as a re- presentative Liberal Bishop at the end of the last, and the beginning of the present century. He graduated at the University as second Wrangler in 1759, was Professor of Chemistry, and in 1771 of Divinity, at Cambridge. Having been tutor to the Duke of Rut- land, he was in 1782 appointed Bishop of Llandaff. As to his doctrine, he depreciated the Thirty-nine Ar- ticles, except those which condemned the Church of Rome ; the Liturgy required revision ; the Athanasian Creed did not fairly represent the doctrine of the Gos- pels ; he advocated the cause of Archdeacon Black- burne, and claimed the Unitarians as Christians. He held the see of Llandaff for thirty-four years, but as there was no habitable residence, he never resided in his diocese ; he tells us he had retired " in a great measure from public life ;" that he spent his time partly in writing, but " principally in building farm- houses, blasting rocks, enclosing wastes, in making bad land good," &c. ; his income was made up to ^2,000 by the emoluments arising from sixteen liv- ings, on nine of which he kept a resident-curate. An- other account of the bishop tells us that he enjoyed ° Black Book, published in 1820. 544 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. "all the emoluments of his stations, and the fame arising from his writings in rural retirement at Cal- garth Park, Westmoreland, a beautiful sequestered situation, where his lordship passes much of his time in the indulgence of those deep studies to which his whole life has been addicted p." Bishop Watson was buried in Westminster Abbey. The laxity of Bishop Bathurst (" good Bishop Bath- urst," as he was called), who was Bishop of Norwich 1805 — 1837, is well known. The diocese of Lincoln extended from the Thames at Egham to the Humber, and comprised the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Bucking- ham, and part of Hertfordshire ; and yet for two hun- dred years no Bishop of Lincoln had resided within eighty miles of his cathedral. The bishopric of Chester contained the largest population of any diocese in England (1,850,000), with a stipend of only ^1,400 a-year, and an insuf- ficient residence, and was too poor to be held except with some other benefice ; and as it was only accepted with the expectation of early translation, little interest was taken in the performance of its episcopal duties. How far this was the case may be judged from the fact, that Bishop Sparke (who held the see for three years) confirmed 8,000 persons at Manchester in one day. Together with Chester, Bishop Blomfield held the rectory of Bishopsgate, with a population of 10,000, and an income of ^2,000 a-year. The monition delivered by the bishop at an ordi- ° As an author, Bishop Watson is entitled to rank amongst the great writers of his time ; his principal works being " An Apology for Chris- tianity," which he addressed to Gibbon ; and an " Apology for the Bible," which was designed as an answer to Paine's " Age of Reason." p Nicholls' Literary Anecdotes, viii. 145. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 545 nation to his chaplain is : " Take heed that the per- sons you present unto us be apt and meet for their learning and godly conversation, to exercise their mi- nistry duly to the honour of God and the edifying of His Church ;" to which the Archdeacon shall answer : " I have enquired of them and also examined them, and think them so to be." Yet the manner adopted in the examination of candidates for Holy Orders seems in some cases to have been somewhat origi- nal. The chaplain and son-in-law of Bishop North (178 1 — 1820) examined the candidates in a tent in a cricket- field, he himself being one of the players. Bishop Pelham (1807 — 1827) performed the same office by sending his butler with a message to the candidates to write an essay. The chaplain of Bishop Douglas (1787 — 1807) examined them whilst he was shaving, and stopped the examination when the ex- aminee had construed two words This laxity of the bishops will account for what we are told about the clergy. When Bishop Stanley was appointed to Norwich in succession to Bishop Bathurst, who held that see 1805 — 1837, we are told of the condition in which he found the diocese ; " non- residence, pluralities, one service once a-week, some- times only once a-fortnight ;" an abuse which had reached such a pitch that, in one instance, fifteen churches were served by three brothers. Hannah More speaks of thirteen contiguous parishes without even a resident curate. A clergyman of the diocese of Norwich wrote: "when first I came here in 1837, out of twenty-eight parishes (in the deanery of Sand- ford), five churches only were open for Divine Service Memoir of Bishop Blomfield. N n 546 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. twice on the Lord's Day^" Bishop Jenkinson, in his primary charge in 1828 to the clergy of Llandaff, an- nounced that he could not permit any clergyman to serve more than two churches on the same day. From such a state of things arose the neglect of pastoral visitation, and the imperfect administration of baptisms and burials ; Mr. Stanley (the future Bishop of Norwich) succeeded, in the living of Alderley in Cheshire, a rector who boasted that he had never en- tered a sick man's house ; and frequently no services were performed in the parish church, for the reason that, though there was a population of 1300, no one availed himself of the rector's ministration. An anecdote is told of Bishop Blomfield, who, when Bishop of Chester, had reason to rebuke a clergyman for drunkenness. " But, my lord, I was never drunk on duty," was the excuse. — " On duty," replied the Bishop, " when is a clergyman not on duty?" — " True," said the other, " I never thought of that^" What, under such a state of things, was the con- dition of the parish churches. The churches stood beautiful in their original structure, such as no other country but England can boast, but rendered para- gons of ugliness by modern barbarism, or, as it was con- sidered, modern improvement ; the high roof cut down ; the windows robbed of their stained glass, and even their tracery ; or, if here and there some painted win- dows were to be found, Bible subjects were religiously excluded, and the arms of the corporation, or some local magnate, emblazoned in their stead ; the pillars were cut away to make room for hideous monuments ; fine frescoes were buried beneath a dozen coats of w^hitewash ; the area of nave, aisles, and even choir ' Life of Bishop Stanley, p. 26. ' Memoir of Bishop Blomfield. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 547 was choked up with hideous high - backed pews, " lidless boxes," as they have been called, more re- sembling sheep-pens than anything else ; there were the unsightly galleries ; the tripartite erection, the "three-decker" pulpit, overhanging and often hiding the altar; the meanly-dressed altar, the common re- ceptacle of the hats and cloaks of the congregation ; a basin, the not unusual substitute for, or more fre- quently an addition to, the font ; the unused credence- table ; and if here and there a new church was built,, at a time when Gothic churches had fallen into dis- repute, they were in imitation of large meeting-houses, and without the least pretence of architecture ; whilst as to the preservation of the fabrics, it was thought sufficient to keep them as they were, with an occa- sional coat of whitewash, at the minimum expense to the present generation of ratepayers ; but in a state gradually leading to decay, as witness the churches of forty or fifty years ago, the uneven pavements, the windows broken and stopped up anyhow so as to ex- clude the wind and rain, whilst the walls and founda- tions were undermined with weeds and damp Then as to the services held in these churches. The rubrics enjoining daily Matins and Evensong, and the Litany on Wednesdays and Fridays, were the same as they are now, but were almost universally unobserved ; the churches were closed from Sunday to Sunday ; the Holy Communion was celebrated once a-quarter, sometimes less frequently, at the most once a-month, and to a whole rail-full of communicants at a time : there was the duet between the parson and the clerk, then the hurrying from the church into the vestry to put off the surplice, and the returning to the * Conybeare's Church Parties. N n 2 54^ THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. church to preach the sermon in the black gown, and then, if there happened to be a celebration of Holy Communion, returning to the vestry again to exchange the black gown for the surplice. Not the least strange part of the service was the singing ; all Psalmody was objected to except the Psalms of David, or such as were taken out of the Scriptures. No other music varied the service except a metrical Psalm or two, one not sung where it ought to be, after the third collect, supplemented by another exactly where it ought not to be, imme- diately before the sermon. The Old Version of Stern- hold and Hopkins held its own till it was so bad it could be tolerated no longer, and then gave way to the scarcely better New Version of Tate and Brady, accom- panied by the squealing of a cracked flageolet, or the growling of a bass-viol " ; in short, if we can imagine a state of things where there was a general agreement to denude the services of everything which a religious service ought to be, we may have some idea of the appearance of the churches, and the manner of con- ducting the services during the first thirty years of the present century. Such was the result after forty years of Evangelical rule. We have admitted that the Evangelicals w^ere men of piety, of zeal and earnestness, and that they did much good in their generation ; but that they were men of great intellect or learning, or large-heartedness, few will contend. They approved themselves mostly to the middle class, the money- making part of the community ; but they never reached, speaking as a whole, the highest or lowest strata of society ; to the former they were too narrow, whilst the mere sub- " Conybeare's Church Parties. THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT. 549 jective character of their teaching proved too unsub- stantial for the latter. And yet those were days that required not only zeal and earnestness, but in a special degree, a large heart and a discerning and organizing intellect. The Eng- land of the early part of this century was not the England of a hundred years before ; its manufacturing system had grown up ; its great towns had sprung into existence. So that here was a new sphere of duty and of usefulness to which the Church must adapt itself, and the Evangelicals were not equal to the oc- casion. So that a revival, if the Church was not en- tirely to lapse into dissent, was absolutely necessary. The ground which had been lost had to be gained back foot by foot, and inch by inch ; and the strangest part of all is that this had to be done under the strongest opposition of the Evangelicals themselves. Let us look back only a few years, and we shall see how the carrying out the plainest orders of the Church, and the simplest matters of ritual, — the daily and even- ing prayer, saints-day services, more frequent com- munions, destroying the unsightly galleries, lowering the pews and throwing them open to rich and poor alike ^, the preaching in a surplice, the using a cre- dence-table, the restoration of churches, — how one and all these things had to be fought for forty years ago under quite as strong, sometimes stronger, opposition ' A friend of ours visited a parish where this kind of reformation was proceeding under a storm of opposition. One farmer was especially furious at the removal of a hideous gallery which, for the last fifty years, had blocked up a beautiful window. " I have heard of them tyrants of antikkity," said he, "who burnt people because they would not agree with their notions ; and our parson is just as bad, burning our gallery." Another said, " It is all Popery ; waren't them new-fangled pews what they used to call monks' cells.'" (Conybeare's Church Parties.) 550 THE CHURCH OF THE PROTESTANT ERA. than is shewn against what is called Ritualism now, on the part of the very people who caused or sanc- tioned the neglect. A still more untoward result of the neglect of former times remains to be mentioned. The connexion be- tween Church and State implies a covenant between the two, in which, if one fails, the other is absolved from its part of the agreement. During the first quarter of the present century the Church was not in a position to perform its part of the covenant towards the State ; the consequence is that the State, which from time immemorial has been jealous of the Church's prerogatives, availed itself of the opportunity thus of- fered. Parliament, just at the very time when it ceased to represent the Church, took upon itself, without con- sulting Convocation, to legislate for the Church ; and now in some quarters the rights, the property, the dis- cipline, the religion of the Church are held to be " Par- liamentary," to be managed as Parliament decrees. PART VII. Zbc dbnvch of the [present H)a^. CHAPTER I. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. A S Evangelicalism owed its origin to Cambridge, so now, when that movement had spent its force, at a time when Lord Melbourne and his colleagues were flattering themselves that they could do what they liked with the Church, and had actually warned it to set its house in order, a new revival took its rise at Oxford ^ This revival was not antagonistic, but sup- plemental to the former ; holding quite as strongly the necessity of Conversion, Justification by Faith, and the supremacy of the Scriptures ; but also bring- ing into prominence those doctrines which the Evan- gelicals had undervalued, the doctrine of the Sacra- ments, of Faith shewing itself by works, of Church authority, and the Apostolical Succession, The intellectual and spiritual activity which had deserted the Church when it thought itself safe, re- turned to it when it was in danger. The revival was due to a rapid succession of events, — the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828; the Eman- cipation Act of 1829; the Reform Bill of 1832 ; the still more recent suppression of two Irish archbishop- • " Our conviction is that (we can scarcely except the institution of the Methodists) this was the most remarkable and important event in the history of our Church and our country since the Restoration." (Quarterly Review, Ixx. 333.) 552 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. rics and eight bishoprics ^ ; and a threatened attack upon the Book of Common Prayer, shewed too plainly what the Church might expect if ever it became a mere appanage of the State. A Latitudinarian spirit, the teaching of the school of Hales and Chillingworth ^ which had produced such pernicious results throughout the eighteenth century, had manifested itself within the Church, Pamphlets were in wide circulation advocating the abolition of the Creeds, and especially urging the abolition of the Athanasian Creed ; the removal of all mention of the Blessed Trinity, of the doctrine of Baptismal Re- generation, of the practice of Absolution ^ In January, 1833, Dr. Arnold, the Head Master of Rugby, pub- lished his Principles of Church Reform, which aimed at the comprehension of all sects of Christians, ex- cept Quakers and Romanists, in the National Church. Episcopacy was to be maintained, and bishops were to hold their seats in the House of Lords ; all minis- ters of religion were to be episcopally ordained ; all services were to take place in the parish church ; those of the Established Church in the morning, at other times of the day those of the Nonconformists. Already, before 1833, and that revival which we are about to consider, symptoms had manifested themselves that the Church was beginning to awake to its danger. To build a church was a very com- There were at the time in the Irish Church twenty-two archbishops and bishops, though it only numbered a million members ; in England, numbering at least eight million members, there were only twenty-six archbishops and bishops. Several bishops, notably Dr. Blomfield, ad- vocated the suppression. (Memoir of Bishop Blomfield, i. 182.) "= See p. 426. Palmer's Narrative of Events connected with the publication of the " Tracts for the Times." TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 553 plicated matter (to obtain the necessary power to build a church at Derby cost ^1,000"); to subdi- vide a parish required an Act of Parliament. But in 1818 the "Incorporated Church Building Society" was founded, and this to a great extent determined the whole revival of Church usefulness in the present century ; its effects were at once apparent, for whereas between 1801 and 1820 only 96, between 182 1 and 1830 as many as 308, churches were consecrated. The publication in 1827 of "The Christian Year," by Mr. Keble (which in the eyes of the opponents of Tractarianism was " fons et origo mali V') and the fa- vour with which it was received, was a sign of a grow- ing appreciation of Church doctrine, and of a desire for reviving stricter principles within the Church. Between 1826 and 1828, Dr. Lloyd, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, was Regius Professor of Divinity, and at his lectures all the earlier parties in the re- vival (with the exception of Mr. Keble, who had left the University in 1823) attended; and to those lec- tures Mr. Oakley, one of the most prominent amongst its earliest members, ascribes the commencement of the movement : — " I do remember," he says, " to have received from him an entirely new notion of Catholics and Catholic doctrine ;" and, " I have no doubt his teaching had a most powerful influence upon the movement." But the year 1833 time, and Oriel Common- room the scene, of the birth of the Oxford revival. It found a voice, on July 14, 1833, in Keble's famous ' Quarterly Review, July, 1874. ' A friend, visiting Dr. Newman at Littlemore, said "a certain book had been publicly burnt ; what is it?" Newman answered, "The Chris- tian Year." (Church Quarterly, April, 1881.) 554 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Assize Sermon at St. Mary's, on " National Apostasy:" " I have always," says Newman, in h\s Apologia, "con- sidered and kept that day as the start of the religious movement of 1833." That same month some mem- bers of the University met at Hadleigh Rector}', the residence of H. J. Rose, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbur)', with the view of devising some remedy against approaching danger. It appeared to them that the action of Parliament arose from a mistaken idea of the character and constitution of the Church, of its legal independence from the State, and the divine com- mission and authority of its clergy ; and they agreed that the first step was to revive a practical recognition of the truths set forth in the Preface to the Ordinal. The first-fruits of that meeting were the " Tracts for the Times." On their return to Oxford, it was agreed to make a united effort to promote these two points : i. the firm and practical maintenance of the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession ; 2. the preservation, in its in- tegrity, of the Prayer- Book. In the autumn of the same year an appeal was made to the public, suggesting the formation of an " Associa- tion of Friends of the Church," its objects being : i. To maintain pure and inviolate the doctrine, the discipline, and the serv^ices of the Church ; that is, to withstand all change w^hich involves the denial of, or departure from, primitive practice in religious offices, or innova- tion upon the Apostolical prerogatives, order, and commission of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. 2. To afford Churchmen an opportunity of exchanging their sentiments, and co - operating together on a large scale. One of the first results of the appeal was an ad- TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 555 dress signed by about 7,000 of the clergy; another was a declaration of attachment to the Church signed by upwards of 230,000 heads of families, and pre- sented to the Archbishop of Canterbury in May, 1834. From these two events may be dated the turn in the tide which had threatened to overwhelm the Church ^. The principal parties in the early movement were Keble, Newman, Percival, (the present Sir) William Palmer, Isaac Williams, and Hurrell Froude ; and in some degree Mr. Hugh Rose of Cambridge Uni- versity. In 1833 was published the first Series of the " Tracts for the Times," which gave rise to the name of Tractarians The party grew. Dr. Pusey was not " fully asso- ciated with the movement till 1835 and 1836, when he 8 The above account is derived from the letter of Mr. Percival (who was one of the three Oxford men who met at Hadleigh) to the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal. We cannot refrain from quoting a few brief extracts from a beautiful poem, entitled "Origin of the Tracts for the Times," by Isaac Williams. " It was before the summer holidays, At noon I well remember, as we" (he and Hurrell Froude) "sat Conversing in my college-rooms" (Trinity), . . . "my friend Lately returned from genial Italy; Death in his frame and cheek, and to his eye Lent more than its own brightness ; he was one I lov'd ; ah, would that I had loved him more, For he was worthy of a good man's love. ' Yes,' said he, .... ' We must be up And moving, now at once ; and when our friend" (Newman) " Shall have return'd from ancient Sicily' — He spake of one whom he had left behind Bound for the classic shores of Syracuse — ' Tracts we must have, and by what means we can Launch them abroad, — short Tracts, — we must begin, And you too, you must aid, and with your verse.' " 556 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. published his tract on Baptism, and started the Libra7y of the Fathers^!' In 1836, in opposition to Dr. Wise- man, appeared Mr. Newman's Prophetical Office, and in 1837 his Essay on Justification ; in 1838, Froude's Remains, and in 1840, Faber's Tracts on the Church and her Office. Much alarm and anger was aroused by the publication of Froude's Remains. He died at the early age of 33. No doubt his youthful and fervent spirit had sometimes led him into hasty ex- pressions concerning the Church of Rome ; but it is only fair to his memory that he should be judged, not from what others said of him, but from his own words, written shortly before his death : " If I were to assign my reason for belonging to the Church of England before any other community, it would be simply this, that she has retained an apostolic clergy, and enacts no sinful terms of communion ; whereas, on the one hand, the Romanists, though retaining an apostolic clergy, do exact sinful terms of communion ; and, on the other, no other religious community has retained such a clergy." The first time the Tractarians, as a body, appeared upon the scene was in 1836, in connexion with men of all shades of opinion, in opposition to the appoint- ment by Lord Melbourne of Dr. Hampden, who had been condemned by the University for unsound doc- trine, to the Regius Professorship of Divinity. Their influence began to shew itself by the appointment of such men as Denison, Longley, and Thirlwall to the episcopate. In 1 84 1, the contest for the Professorship of Poetry between Isaac Williams and Mr. (afterwards Arch- ' Newman's Apologia, p. 136. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 557 deacon) Garbett was decided on purely theological grounds ; and the latter, of whom as a poet no one ever heard then or since, was elected over the former, who is well known to fame as the author of the Bap- tistery and Cathedral, but who was one of the original Tractarians. The same year the Tracts were abruptly terminated, mainly in deference to the wish of Dr. Bagot, Bishop of Oxford, by the publication of No. 90, entitled, " Remarks on certain Passages in the Thirty-nine Articles," of which, although it was at first published anonymously, Mr. Newman, in a letter on March 16 to the Vice-Chancellor, avowed himself the author. The object of the Tract was, " to shew that our Ar- ticles neither contradict anything Catholic, nor are meant to condemn anything in early Christianity, even though not Catholic, but only the later definite system in the Church of Rome^" But we will give Mr. Newman's own version : "The main thesis of my Essay was this ; the Articles do not oppose Catholic teaching, they but partially oppose Roman dogma ; they, for the most part, oppose the dominant errors of Rome. And the problem was to draw the line as to what they allowed, and what they condemned. Such being the object which I had in view, what were my prospects of widening and de- fining their meaning ? The prospect was encouraging ; there was no doubt at all of the elasticity of the Articles. To take a preliminary instance ; the four- teenth was presumed by one party to be Lutheran, by another Calvinistic, though the two interpretations were contradictory to each other ; why, then, should ^ Pusey's Letter to Jelf. 55^ THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. not Other Articles be drawn up with a vagueness of an equally intense character ?" At a meeting of the Hebdomadal Council on March 15, a resolution was passed, that " The modes of inter- pretation, such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading, rather than explaining, the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they were designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are in- consistent with the due observance of the above- named statute, i.e. the statute which requires subscrip- tion to the Thirty-nine Articles." The Tracts were discontinued ; but their work was done. Long- forgotten truths concerning the nature and Apostolical foundation of the English Church, were brought to light ; a higher tone of feeling per- vaded society ; a taste for theological learning mani- fested itself among the clergy, and an increased de- votion amongst the laity; a more reverent celebra- tion of Divine Service, more frequent Communions, and an improvement in Church music everywhere followed. The movement communicated itself to Cambridge, where had been founded in 1838 the Camden Society, under the auspices of which arose the Ecclesiological Society, having for its object the " promotion of the study of Christian art and antiquities, more especially in whatever relates to the architecture, arrangement, and decoration of churches ; a similar society had already been started in Oxford, though its first public meeting was not held till March, 1839. In 1 84 1 was founded the Motett Society, for the '' Apologia. The Tracts written by Mr. Newman were, i, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, II, 19, 20, 21, 34, 38, 41, 45, 47, 71, 73, 75, 79, 82, 83, 8s, 88, 90. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 559 purpose of reviving " the study and practice of the ancient choral music of the Church Thus the ex- ternals of Divine Service, the beauties of religious architecture, and church music, were brought into prominence. At Oxford, Newman was Vicar of St. Mary's, and in that position, through his transcendent ability and his simple piety, he was able to exercise an immense in- fluence amongst the Undergraduates. Whence arose the great power of his sermons, we may form some idea from the words of Mr. Gladstone, himself an Undergraduate of the University at the time. His " manner in the pulpit was one which, if you considered it in its separate parts, would lead you to arrive at a very unsatisfactory conclusion. There was not much change in the inflexion of his voice ; action there was none : his sermons were read, and his eyes were always on his book ; . . . but you take the man as a whole, and there was a stamp and a seal upon him ; there was a solemn sweetness and music in his tone, there was a completeness in the figure taken together with the tone and the manner, which made even his delivery, such as I have described it, and though ex- clusively with written sermons, singularly attractive." On May 19, 1841, was laid at Oxford the founda- tion of the " Martyrs' Memorial," in accordance with a proposal issued from Magdalen Hall, on Nov. 17, 1838, that, in order to counteract the Tractarian move- ment, a memorial should be erected to Cranmer, Lati- mer, and Ridley, "who had so large a share in re- storing our own branch of the Catholic Church to ' In 1852, an amalgamation was effected between the Ecclesiological Society and the Motett Choir, which continued till 1862, when, by an amicable arrangement, it was dissevered. 56o THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. primitive orthodoxy, and who for the maintenance of the Scriptural truth which they embodied in its Ar- ticles and other formularies, suffered death in this city. In 1843, Dr. Pusey preached the sermon entitled, Holy Communion a Comfort for the Penitent, for which he was suspended for two years by the University ; after his suspension, he preached another sermon, The Presence of Christ i7i the Holy Eticharist, containing precisely the same doctrine which had been con- demned before. But Newman felt that his place in the movement was lost. He describes his position : " Posted up by the Marshal on the buttery-hatch of every college of my University, after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks ; and when, in every part of the country, and every class of society, through every organ and opportunity of opinion, in newspapers, in periodicals, at meetings, in pulpits, at dinner-tables, in coffee- rooms, in railway-carriages, I was denounced as a traitor, who had laid his train, and was detected in the very act of firing it against the time-honoured Establishment "The bishops, one after another, began to charge against me." So he exchanged his important station at St. Mary's for the quiet retire- ment of Littlemore, near Oxford. Then came the af- fair of the Jerusalem bishopric : " This was the third blow, which finally shattered my faith in the Anglican Church. That Church was not only forbidding any sympathy or concurrence with the Church of Rome, but it actually was courting an inter-communion with Protestant Prussia, and the heresy of the Orientals " Apologia per vita sua. ° For Jerusalem bishopric, vide Appendix D. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. This was more than the sensitive nature of Newman could bear, and snapped the last thread which bound him to the English Church. In February, 1843, " I made a formal retractation of all the hard things which I had said acjainst the Church of Rome. In September, I resigned the living of St. Mary's, Little- more included As I advanced, my difficulties so cleared away that I ceased to speak of the Roman Catholics, and boldly called them Catholics'^!' Events now followed one another rapidly. In February, 1845, Ward's "Ideal of a Christian Church" was condemned in the Oxford Convocation by a ma- jority of 392 out of 777 votes, and Mr. Ward was deprived of his degrees by a smaller majority of 38 ; Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Hook, and Dr. Pusey siding with him, and Mr., now Archdeacon, Denison pro- testing against the whole proceeding. In April, the country was thrown into a flame about Sir Robert Peel's grant of ;^30,ooo a-year to Maynooth. In June, followed the condemnation by Sir H, Jenner Fust of Mr. Oakley, Incumbent of Margaret -street chapel, for claiming to hold, as distinct from teaching, all the doctrines of Rome. On November i, Mr. New- man and Mr. Oakley were received into the Roman communion in the chapel of Oscott, by Dr. Wiseman; Ward, Faber, and other less conspicuous names joined in quick succession the same Church. On November 30 of that eventful year. Dr. Wilberforce, at the age of forty, was consecrated to the see of Oxford : who can tell how the appointment, a few years earlier, of such a bishop, with his intense sympathy, his knowledge of, and influence over, men, might have directed the course of the whole movement ? " Apologia. O O 562 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Meanwhile, the work was meeting with great success in various parts of the land. Dr. Hook was carrying on a great work in Leeds ; Mr. Oakley had done the same in London. The restoration of churches, a thing long unknown, became a frequent occurrence. A great progress towards an extended colonial episcopate, which was followed by the organization of the Colonial Bi- shops' Fund, ensued. Lonsdale, Gilbert, Bagot, Wil- berforce, and Turner ; such were the men who were raised to the episcopate. The movement, of course, had its drawbacks ; and the loss of such a man as Newman did for the time incalculable harm. The Oxford revival did not aim at approximation to Rome, except where Rome approxi- mated to truth. Newman, as he tells us himself, had been brought up in exactly opposite principles ; so had Ward, Oakley, and Faber ; (the same was the case in the second secession after the Gorham Judgment, with Manning, Dodsworth, the two Wilberforces, and Allies ;) if on their journey from Clapham to Rome, they touched at Oxford, it was only as an intermediate station Others, in like manner, have left us in search of an ideal faith^and, not finding it as they expected, have returned to us again. Newman set up his own ideal of a Church ; so he wandered about from faith to faith, till he found a home, and let us hope rest, in Rome, as his younger brother did in Rationalism. In 1847, Lord John Russell, who in the previous year had succeeded Sir Robert Peel as Prime Min- ister, appointed Dr. Hampden to the see of Hereford, "to strengthen," as he said, "the Protestant character of our Church, so seriously threatened of late by many defections to the Church of Rome ;" thirteen of the bishops remonstrated against the appointment, and ° Gleanings from Gladstone. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. an attempt was made, but without success, against its confirmation in Bow Church. Yet the Church, instead of losing, gained ground. A scheme was started for a combination of Churchmen for the defence of the Church, and in 1849 the " Lon- don Union" was estabHshed. On its committee were enrolled the names of Judges and Regius Professors, Peers and members of the House of Commons, and distinguished members of the Oxford, and the old High Church party; its rules were submitted to Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, who not only signified his approval, but allowed himself to be considered the Patron of the Society. On March 8, 1850, the Privy Council Judgment in the famous Gorham case was delivered, which, as his diocesan, the Bishop of Exeter refused, on account of his objection to Mr. Gorham's views on Baptismal Regeneration, to give him institution, empowered the Archbishop of Canterbury to do so. In Michaelmas of the same year. Pope Pius IX., elated by the few converts who had left the English Church for that of Rome, thought the time propitious for re-establishing the Papal Hierarchy in England, with English titles to their new sees. At the be- ginning of the seventeenth century the chief pastor of the Romanists in England was an Arch-priest ; but afterwards, until 1850, they had been governed by vicars apostolic, at first only one, but later two, then four, and then eight. Pope Pius IX. divided England into twelve dioceses, and appointed Cardi- nal Wiseman, an Englishman on his father's, and an Irishman on his mother's side (who was already well known in England as Bishop of Melipotamus in par- tibus in/idelium), Archbishop of Westminster. Look- 002 554 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. ing at the matter at this distance of time it appears of little consequence ; but not so then. The title of Cardinal brought back unpleasant reminiscences. The Prime Minister, Lord J. Russell, wrote an intemperate letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which he denounced the movement in itself as "a pretension over the su- premacy of England, . . . inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of our country as asserted even in the Roman Catholic times," He spoke of " the mummeries of superstition," and " the endeavours which are now making to confine the in- tellect and enslave the soul ;" these expressions, whilst the Roman Catholics regarded them as directed against themselves, were really directed against the Tracta- rians, whom he described in the same letter as "un- worthy sons of the Church of England," and " leading their flocks step by step to the verge of the precipice." Never was a more bitter controversy excited. There were public meetings, protests, and denunciations ; there were petitions to the queen, and violent articles in the press ; the old cry of " No popery " was raised ; every Sunday mobs attacked the church of St. Bar- nabas, Pimlico, to which the Prime Minister's letter was supposed to refer, which had been consecrated on the iith of June of that year, and had adopted a choral service, a cross on the altar, and the east- ward position. The bishops shared in the general alarm ; and although the parishioners of St. Barnabas were strongly attached to their incumbent, though the churchwardens tried to dissuade the bishop from the course, and a legal opinion was obtained in favour of the ritual, the bishop called on Mr. Bennett", the in- p Afterwards the defendant in Sheppard v. Bennett. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. cumbent, to redeem a promise which he had made, and to resign ; which Mr. Bennett accordingly did in March, 1851. But the matter did not end thus. Soon after the meeting of Padiament, Lord J. Russell brought in a Bill against the assumption by the Roman Catholic bishops of any title taken from places in the United Kingdom. Churchmen, as well as Roman Catholics, objected to the measure ; the " Ecclesiastical Titles Bill " was opposed on all sides ; some thought it went too far, others not far enough ; in the midst of the agitation the Prime Minister (although for another reason) resigned, but, after various futile attempts had been made to form another ministry, returned to power ; the Bill, under the same opposition, was re- sumed, and various alterations were made ; but even- tually (after the government which proposed it had been defeated over and over again) it passed simply as an Act against the public and ostentatious assump- tion of illegal titles ; but no practical change was ef- fected : Cardinal Wiseman remained Archbishop of Westminster, the other Roman Catholics continued their English titles, and in 1871 the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was repealed. The object of Tractarianism had been to restore the Catholic doctrines of the English Church, and it was eminently successful amongst the higher and edu- cated classes : to raise its ceremonial, and to adapt it to the feelings and requirements of the masses, now became the object of those whom society has named Ritualists. Ritualism, as expressive of the new movement, is an inexact term (perhaps ultra- Ritualism would be more expressive), for there must always be a certain amount 566 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. of Ritualism in connexion with the Church ; the spire with " its silent finger pointing towards heaven ;" the font at the entrance of the church ; the elevated altar ; the triple aisles ; the cross of the transept ; all embody mysteries of the faith, all are eminently Ritualistic. And again, what is considered Ritualistic at one time, passes unnoticed at another ; for instance, preaching in the surplice at the commencement of the Tractarian movement was considered Ritualistic, and created se- rious riots in Exeter, whilst in the present day it is frequently used in dissenting chapels. However, the word Ritualism is familiar, and that is sufficient for our present purpose. We have seen in a former chapter that the cere- monial of the Church had, in the eighteenth century, greatly deteriorated. Breaches in the law were too common to excite comment ; portions of the rubric had been so long neglected that their very existence was forgotten, and the clerg}^man who restored them was regarded as an innovator. It was the object of Ritualism to remedy this, to carry out the Apostolic precepts : " Let all things be done decently and in order "let all things be done unto edifying and "to the glory of God^;" and to restore what was still lawful, even though it had been long neglected. The question naturally arose, what is the proper mode of conducting divine service ? what is the prescribed vestment for the clergyman ? Every one knows that there is not a word in the Prayer-Book prescribing the use of the black gown ; but many people forget that there is no mention even of a surplice from one end of the Prayer-Book to the other. There is only one place, and that is at the 1 I Cor. xiv. 40. ' Ibid. 26. ' Ibid. x. 21. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. very commencement of the Prayer- Book, which pre- scribes the proper vestment : " And here it is to be noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all Times of their Ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the Authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI." As to the vestments of the minister, the first Prayer- Book of King Edward VI. contains two rubrics. One of these directs the use of the surplice in ordinary min- istrations, and that " graduates where they do preach, should use such hood as pertaineth to their several degrees." The other relates to the habits at the cele- bration of Holy Communion : " Upon the day and at the time appointed for the ministration of the Holy Communion, the Priest that shall execute the holy ministry, shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say, a White Albe plain with a Vestment or Cope. And where there be many Priests or Deacons, so many shall be ready to help the Priest in the ministration as shall be requisite, and shall have upon them likewise the vesture ap- pointed for the ministering, that is to say, albes with tunicles." There seemed to be no difficulty in understanding such a plain rubric before the Law Courts undertook to explain it. In the first year of King Edward VI. there had been an excessive ceremonial, unsanctioned by the use of the Primitive Church, whereas at a later period there had been a fault in the opposite direction ; the Catholic spirit of the English Church, at the last re- view of the Prayer- Book, chose therefore the second year of King Edward VI. as the mean between excess and defect. In 1857, in the case of Liddell z*. Wes- 568 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. terton*, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided, that "the same dresses and the same utensils or articles which were tised tmdcr the First Prayer- Book of Edward VI. may still be used." This de- cision had also the sanction of the Court of Arches. In the case of Elphinstone v. Purchas, the Dean of Arches asserted, in February, 1870, that according to the plain meaning of the rubric, those vestments were legal, and might lawfully be worn ; taking the principle of interpretation laid down by Lord Coke, " loquendum est ut Vulgus," he could not understand how people of common sense and ordinary intelligence, unless biassed, as the Puritan party was, could hesitate in its interpre- tation, especially as the Privy Council in Liddell v. Wes- terton had obviously meant that those vestments may " still be used." He added, " I am convinced that if the sub- ject to which the language refers were not one which excites some of the strongest passions and feelings of our nature, but was one of an ordinary, indifferent, and civil character, no dispute would ever have been raised, with respect to the plain and literal meaning of that language." The Privy Council having decided on the legality of the vestments, two years afterwards Ritualism took its rise, not in the aristocratic parishes of the West end of London, but amidst the dens of vice in Wap- ping and Ratcliffe Highway, in the parish of St. ' In this case it was decided also that the Holy Table must be of wood, and moveable. In the celebrated stone-altar case with regard to the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Cambridge, it was decided that the cir- cumstance of its being let into the wall rendered it no longer a table in the sense of a Communion-table. It was, however, decided in the Liddell " case," that a credence-table, and the cross over the altar, as an emblem of Faith, also different colours according to the Church's seasons, were lawful. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. George's-in-the-East, which, from the first building of its church, had been in a constant state of warfare with its rectors. As his predecessors had left little mark for good on the parish, the rector, Mr. Bryan King, determined to try the effect on the people of a more ornate service ; he increased the number of communions, had choral celebrations, used altar-lights, and wore linen vestments. In a short time he ga- thered around him 300 communicants, a thing hitherto unheard of in that ungodly neighbourhood. But the more religion increased, the more the trade of the gin- palaces and the infamous houses fell off ; this was more than could be tolerated ; an organised conspiracy to interrupt the services was set on foot ; and Sunday after Sunday St. George's Church became the scene of rioting and blasphemy. The police magistrates might easily have put down such lawless profanity ; but this was not done. So the rector resigned ; and what was the consequence Ritualism had suffered that which gives an impetus to every religious move- ment, persecution ; the St. George's riots gave it an advertisement ; the movement spread over England ; whilst in the very worst parts of Wapping, the church of St. Peter's, London Docks, was built ; the services were well supported ; and its vicar, the late Mr. Low- der, could parade the streets, bearing the stations of the cross, with the respect of the assembled crowds. The legality of the ornaments", as interpreted by " The Judicial Committee, in Liddell v. Westerton, ruled that the word " ornaments " is not to be taken in its ordinary sense ; but in the larger sense of the word " ornamentum," which, according to Forcellini's Dic- tionary, is used/r^? quorumque apparatii seu implc7nenio, and that all the articles used in the performance of the services and rites of the Churchy vestments, books, cloths, chalices, patens, and the like, are ornaments within the meaning of the rubric. 570 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. the Privy Council, being considered beyond ques- tion, Ritualism met with hearty enthusiasm amongst classes of the community which the Church revival had not hitherto reached, and was adopted in many parishes, mainly in compliance with the wishes of the parishioners". That a movement so at variance with what had long been customary met with strong opposition, need hardly be said, — changes which every one now confesses to be beneficial, shared the same fate. Wesley and his followers were accused of popery, and in danger of their lives ; Scott and Romaine were charged with Antinomianism ; Dr. Pusey was silenced at Oxford for preaching High Church doctrine ; so also had Romaine been silenced fifty years before, for preaching Low Church doctrine from the same pulpit. In our notice of Ritualism, we need not be led away by the idiosyncrasies of individual Ritualists, or by the various "articles" charged in Hebbert v. Purchas ; we have a fair statement of the case in a resolution adopted at the annual meeting of the English Church Union in 1875, which lays down the points which Ri- tualists wish to revive, and the " limits beyond which they do not desire to pass " That, without intend- ing to put all the following points on the same ground, nor wishing to go beyond what recognised Anglican authorities warrant as to their use, the English Church Union is of opinion that, in order to bring about a generally satisfactory settlement of the present ritual controversy in the Church of England, there should ' Bishop Baring, the late Bishop of Durham, a strong anti-Rituahst, admitted this. At the consecration of a church at Gateshead, he said : he "believed the laity came and said, You must do this, and you must do that ; we want a higher ritual service" &c. ^ Speech of the Rev. T. T. Carter. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. be no prohibition of the following usages, when desired by clergy and congregations, viz, : — {a.) The Eastward Position. {b.) The Vestments. {c.) The Lights. {d.) The Mixed Chalice. {e.) Unleavened Bread. {/.) Incense." We shall therefore confine ourselves to these six points. We do not wish to recommend their use ; personally we prefer a less ornate ceremonial in the Church services ; but we have nothing to with indi- vidual predilections, nor with the question whether the re-introduction of a ritual which had long been discontinued was or was not advisable ; we are simply concerned with their legality under the rubric put forth at the last review of the Prayer-Book in 1662. All these six points, as any one who pleases can find for himself, were sanctioned in the second year of King Edward VI., and were therefore decided to be lawful by the Judicial Committee and the Court of Arches. An objection is made to Ritualism on the ground that it is Popish, and opposed to the character of the " Protestant Reformation." But the answer to this is, that Ritualism is common in the Protestant Churches of Germany, as well as in other countries which own the Lutheran communion, such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and on the inhospitable shores of Iceland; there altars, vestments, lights (if not even incense) are in use ; the clergyman is called the Priest, and the communion office the Mass ^. Contemporary Review, October, 1874. 572 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY, And then again, according to the most recent deci- sions, the cope is imperative in cathedrals and colle- giate churches. So that the highest judicial authority has admitted that the principle of Ritualism is sanc- tioned by our English Reformers ; and when it is re- membered that such dignitaries as the present Dean of Exeter, and the late Dean McNeile, have worn the vestments (for the distinction between cope and chasu- ble is only a matter of detail), the objection of their being Popish vanishes ; for if it is not Popish to wear them in cathedrals, it cannot of course be Popish to wear them in parish churches ^ Another complaint is made of the disobedience of Ritualists towards their bishops. This is a serious charge, for it involves the necessity either of the bishops being wrong, or of the Ritualists being wrong, or of the law, by which both are equally bound, being wrong. How do the Ritualists defend themselves A clergyman is asked at his ordination : "Will you reverently obey your ordinary and other chief min- isters, unto whom is committed the charge and go- vernment over you, following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourself to their godly judgments?" To which he answers, " I will do so, the Lord being my helper." The words of St. Ignatius are often quoted : " Do nothing without the bishop;" but those that follow ought in justice to be quoted also, " and be ye also subject to the priesthood for they shew the great '■ The Right Hon. Mr. Beresford Hope, one of the Ritual Commis- sioners, suggests that as there is an obligation to use a special Eucha- ristic dress in cathedrals, there ought to be a permission to use them in parish churches. TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 573 esteem in which the second order of the ministry was also held. Ritualists profess to be very scrupulous as to paying proper deference and obedience to their bishops ; but they contend that archbishops and bishops are equally bound with priests to obey the Church, and that bishops are not infallible. It cannot be expected that a clergyman is to yield a blindfold obedience to his bishop, or that he is to bind himself to a particular course of action in one diocese, when he may be called upon to exactly the opposite if transferred to another diocese. The Ritualist says to his bishop, " If you will judge me by the law of the Church, by which you are bound yourself, I acknowledge your authority ; but I deny the right of Parliament, which contains not only friends but enemies of the Church, without the sanction of, and in opposition to, the wishes of the Church, to establish courts, or to lay down rules affecting spiritual matters." And this objection of the Ritualist has com- mon sense on its side. We will take an imaginary, but by-no-means improbable, case. The Ornaments Ru- bric, about which there has been so much controversy, has been interpreted, as we have seen, by the Judicial Committee in two exactly opposite senses. In 1857 (Liddell v. Westerton) it was decided that " the same dresses, and the same utensils and articles which were used under the First Prayer- Book of King Edward VI. may. still be used ;" and although this may be called an obiter dictum, the same rule was afterwards laid down in 1868 (Martin v. Mackonochie). A clergyman is called upon by his bishop in 1869 to stand an en- quiry, and submit to his judgment. He does so, and finds that the vestments are lawful ; and, although he is not forced to wear them (perhaps he objects to 574 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. them), yet, at the wish of his congregation, he consents to do so. In 1 87 1 (Hebbert z^. Purchas) the Judicial Committee contradicts its two former judgments, and pronounces the vestments to be illegal. The same clergyman is now called upon to obey the new law. But by that time he has taught his people the meaning of ritual, which therefore is invested with an import- ance which it did not possess before. He tells the bishop that he cannot allow the State thus to tamper with the consciences of his congregation, but that he is still willing to be judged by the bishop according to the law of the Church ; whether by that law, the rubric which prescribes that the vestments shall be retaitied and be in tise, can possibly mean the same as if it had prescribed, they shall not be retained, and shall not be in tise. For this reason, the Ritualists claim that, judged by the law of common sense, and the meaning of the rubric, they are not acting uncanonically as respects the bishops. On June 3, 1867, in consequence of a Vestment Bill which had been introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Shaftesbury, a Royal Commission was issued, with a view to explaining or amending the rubrics, orders, and directions of the Prayer- Book, for regu- lating the course and conduct of public worship, so as to secure general uniformity, " more especially with reference to the ornaments worn by the ministers thereof at the time of their ministration;" and also to report on alterations which might advantageously be made " in the Proper Lessons appointed to be read in Morning and Evening Prayer and Holydays throughout the year, and in the Calendar with the Table of First and Second Lessons contained in the TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 575 said Book of Common Prayer." It was a fair attempt on the part of the Government of the day to deal with the question ; and the Committee, as comprehending the representatives of all schools of thought within the Church, was not unfairly constituted. The Commis- sioners began their sittings on June 20, and held 108 meetings, the last being on June 28, 1870. They issued four reports: the first on August 19, 1867 ; the second, April 30, 1868; the third, January 12, 1870; the fourth, August 31, 1870. The first was to the effect : " We find that whilst these vestments are re- garded by some witnesses as symbolical of doctrine, and by others as a distinctive vesture whereby they desire to do honour to the Holy Communion as the highest act of Christian worship, they are by none re- garded as essential, and they give grave offence to many. We are of opinion that it is expedient to re- strain^ in the public services of the United Church of England and Ireland all variations in respect of ves- ture, from that which has long been the established usage of the said United Church, and we think that this may be best secured by providing aggrieved pa- rishioners with an easy and effectual process for com- plaint and redress." The Commissioners made their second Report, to the effect that lights on the altar during the celebration of Holy Communion, the use of incense, and the vestments, are at variance with the usage of the Church for the last 300 years, and suggest "a speedy and inexpensive remedy," which "should be provided for parishioners aggrieved by their intro- duction ;" but of the Commissioners, four signed with • Mr. Beresford Hope, in a recent number of the Nineteenth Century, points out that by the word "restraining," he, and those who thought with him, meant to exclude "forbidding." 576 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. partial dissent, four others declined to sign at all, and two sent in separate Reports. The first and second Reports led to no legislative results ; the Ornaments Rubric, which was the chief object of the Commission, as well as the Athanasian Creed, which was at one time imperilled, remained unchanged ; im- mense representative meetings in St. James's Hall and the Hanover -square Rooms on January 31, 1873, shewed the mind of the Church against any change in the latter ; and Convocation laid down the sense in which the warning clauses in that Creed are to be interpreted. But in two respects the Ritual Commission did some service to the Church ; to it we are indebted for two important Acts of Parliament, passed with the approval of Convocation ; one, the result of the third Report, sanctioning a new Table of Lessons ^ which, on January i, 1879, became the only legal Lectionary ; the other, of the fourth Re- port, sanctioning a shortened form of service in parish churches So late as May 20, 1881, it was paraded in some of the newspapers, that a memorial against Ritualism has lately been presented to the Archbishop of Can- terbury, signed by ripwards of 24,000 Churchme7t. It is not, however, stated what portion of this number were Coimmmicmits ; it cannot, therefore, in weight be compared to the remonstrance against the Purchas Judgment of the 5,000, who were not only Communi- cants, but Clergymen, which was presented on April 24, 1 87 1, to the archbishops and bishops by so moderate and universally respected a Churchman as the late An Act to amend the Law relating to the Table of Lessons and Psalter contained in the Prayer-Book (1871). An Act for the Amendment of the Act of Uniformity (1872). TRACTARIANISM AND RITUALISM. 577 Dean Hook ; whilst in number it is a considerable decline from a similar document on May 5, 1873, pro- moted by the Church Association, signed by 60,200 laymen, and presented to the Archbishops at Lambeth Palace, We will conclude this chapter with an extract from a recent leading article in the " Guardian," the repre- sentative paper of the moderate High Church party. The opponents of the Ritualists " may rest assured that any contraction of the base of the Establishment would inevitably and soon bring about its overthrow. Let them lay to heart certain very seasonable appli- cations which have more than once been made of the text, ' Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.' " pp CHAPTER II. THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. "NTO account of Ritualism would be complete without ■'■ ^ some notice of those ecclesiastical courts in which it has borne so conspicuous a part. We shall, there- fore, take the opportunity, which has not occurred be- fore, of describing briefly the past and present system of ecclesiastical legislation in England. We learn from the Constitutions of Clarendon that the gradation of appeals, as far back as the history of our ecclesiastical courts can be traced, was from the archdeacon to the bishop, from the bishop to the arch- bishop, and lastly, from the archbishop, " if he should be wanting injustice" {si defuerit in justitid exhibenda), to the king ; but, even in the last event, the cause was not to be taken out of the hands of the archbishop, but to be remitted to him to be determined in his court {in airid airhiepiscopi terminehir) ; and it could not with- out the consent of the king be taken to Rome. So that, although appeals undoubtedly were made to Rome, it was against the law of the land, especially the statutes of provisors and prmnunire, and the final resort was to the court of the archbishop. This continued till the Reformation ; when, by the " Statute of Appeals," all appeals from the archbishop's court to Rome were absolutely forbidden. In 1534, the first encroachment on the spiritual jurisdiction was made ; the archbishop's court ceased to be the final resort, and an appeal was allowed to the king in Chancery ; the High Court of Delegates (so called from their being delegated by the king to hear causes) was THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. 579 established for all causes not touching the king. That court consisted of ecclesiastical persons, who were as- sisted by common and chancery lawyers, appointed on behalf of the Crown, to see that no statute or common law of the kingdom was violated. The real judges were the bishops, who called to their aid the Professors of Theology of the two Universities to advise on theo- logical questions, and ecclesiastical lawyers to advise on questions involving canon law ; but, as a matter of fact (as far at least as can be ascertained), for a period of 156 years (1534 — 1690), no case of doctrine came before the court; from 1690 to 1832, including, it must be observed, the most degenerate period of our Church's history, only four cases of doctrine or dis- cipline were brought before it ^ In 1832, the Court of Delegates having fallen into disfavour, two commissions were appointed, to report on the subject of ecclesiastical courts ; and the court was abolished, its jurisdiction being transferred to the whole Privy Council, which, as it was composed of lords spiri- tual as well as temporal, the commissioners thought a fitting tribunal to settle appeals from the ecclesias- tical courts. But, by a statute in the next year, through an unfortunate mischance, the supreme court was transferred from the whole to a committee of the Privy Council. An act was passed for assimilating * Joyce, The Sword and the Keys. Those cases were, i. Salter v. Davis, November lo, 1691, in which three bishops sat ; 2. Bishop of St. David's v. Lucy, March 13, 1699, six bishops sat; 3. PeUing v. Dr. Bettes- worth, May 16, 1713, five bishops; 4. Havard Evanson, June 27, 1775, was a matter of a mere technical point of law, so no bishops sat. As late as 1777, three bishops sat as delegates on an important case of nullity of marriage. " It is a very bungling piece of work, and one which Lord Lans- downe ought not to consent to, the object evidently being to make a court of which Brougham shall be at the head, and to transfer to it much of the P p 2 580 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. the process of admiralty and colonial appeals, and, although not a word appeared in the enacting clauses comprehending the ecclesiastical amongst the courts enumerated, by a blunder of the draftsman, these courts also were included. For this statement the highest authority can be adduced. Lord Brougham, the chief author of the act, himself said, that the Judicial Committee of Privy Council was never framed with the expectation of ec- clesiastical causes being brought before it ; he had "no doubt that if it had been constituted with a view to such cases as the present (the Gorham case), some other arrangement would have been made." The Bishop of London (Blomfield) — who, with the Arch- bishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley), and Dr. Kaye of Lincoln, sat on both commissions, and approved of the first appeal to the whole Privy Council — said distinctly with regard to the second, " the question of doctrinal appeals was not alluded to," and that " the contingen- cies of such an appeal came into no one's mind." When, therefore, people speak of the bishops on the commission approving of the change in the Court of Appeal, they must bear in mind that they were speak- ing of the first, not the second commission. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, how- ever, was constituted. That Committee consisted of about thirty persons, all of whom, except two, might be dissenters ; by statute, three of these (although there was generally a larger number) formed a quorum, and they were selected by the Lord President of the Privy Council, who might himself be a dissenter. authority of the Crown, Parliament, and Priv>' Council ; all from his ambitious and insatiable desire of personal aggrandisement." (Greville Memoirs, January 3, 1833.) THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. The archbishops and bishops who were members of the Privy Council were allowed to sit, but with what authority does not appear ; so that it comes to this, that the judges, who by law might sit in judgment on cases decided by archbishops and bishops and the Church courts, and settle abstruse points of Church doctrine, might all of them be dissenters ^ This continued so till 1873, when Lord Selborne's "Judicature Act" was passed, which created a new supreme Court of Appeal, to which Privy Council jurisdiction was to be transferred by order of the Queen in Council ; but as, under that act, only lay judges sat, a variation was made in ecclesiastical causes, in which the archbishops and bishops were to sit in rotation, but as assessors only, not as judges. This act was, in respect of the foregoing provisions, superseded by the "Appellate Jurisdiction Act" of 1876, under which the same mode of trying ecclesias- tical causes is now adopted by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the tribunal still in force. Until 1874, the Court of Appeal in the province of Canterbury was the Court of Arches, the Judge of which was called the Dean of Arches ^ ; and in the province of York, the Chancery Court of York. But in that year an Act of Parliament, known as the " Public Worship Regulation Act," was passed, pur- porting to be " an Act for the better administration of the Laws respecting the Regulation of Public Wor- ship." It enacted that when a vacancy should occur ' Joyce's Sword and Keys. So called because he formerly held his court in the church of St. Mary- le-Bow (Sancta Maria de Arcubus), though afterwards all spiritual courts were held in Doctors' Commons. 582 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. in the office of Judge of the Court of Arches, or Auditor of the Chancery Court of York, the two archbishops, subject to the approval of the queen, to be signified under her sign manual, were to appoint as judge a member of the Church of England, a bar- rister-at-law, who had been in actual practice for ten years ; or a person who has been judge of one of the superior courts of law or equity, or of any court to which the jurisdiction of any such court has been, or may hereafter be, transferred by authority of Par- liament ; if the archbishops failed to appoint within six months, her Majesty might, by letters patent, appoint the judge ; and the judge should combine in his person the two offices before held by the Dean of Arches and the Auditor of the Chancery Court of York. The Prime Minister of the day ingenuously con- fessed that it was an act for putting down Ritualism, which he described as the " Mass in Masquerade." Nothing better to the Ritualists themselves than such a one-sided act could have been devised. From the passing of that act, in opposition to the Lower Houses of Convocation both of Canterbury and York, the cause of Ritualism was won. Open war was pro- claimed. A Society, called the " Church Association," with a capital of ^50,000, was determined, if money could do it, that Ritualism should be " put down ; " the English Church Union, with its motto Defence not Defiance, pledged " to defend and maintain unim- paired the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England," determined that it should not be put down ; and the " Church of England Working-men's Society" has since enlisted in the cause of the Ritualists the sympathy of the working-classes of the community. The Ritualists, feeling that the act was directed ex- THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. 583 pressly against themselves, determined that they would assert their rights ; they contended that though the act declared that the judge should become ex officio " official Principal of the Arches Court of Canterbury," and that all proceedings taken before him should be " deemed to be taken in the Arches Court," yet that a new court had really been appointed in matters not only ceremonial, but also doctrinal ; that the new judge was created without the consent and against the will of the Church ; that thus the constitutional rights of Convocation had been invaded, whilst the clergy had been deprived of their prescriptive rights by the House of Commons, from which they alone, as an order, were excluded ; that the act virtually suppressed for certain causes the diocesan courts, and for all causes actually suppressed the provincial courts ; that by the opera- tion of the act the spiritual jurisdiction of the episco- pate is, in some cases, practically suspended, and in others absolutely abolished ; that by the office of the new judge, the spiritual rights of the priesthood are infringed, both in the courts of first instance and in those of appeal ; and that therefore the decisions of the new judge could not be recognised as pos- sessing any spiritual authority on the consciences of clergymen. Such was from the first the contention of the Ritual- ists. Everything about the bill was crude and inde- finite ; even the framers of it did not seem to know their own minds. The motive of the bill was never plain ; the Archbishop of Canterbury, who introduced the original bill, said it was equally directed against all parlies ; the Prime Minister, that it was a bill to put down Ritualism. Lord Shaftesbury declared that, though he was called a Low Churchman, yet that, even if his party should have a monopoly of bishops 584 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAV. for the next fifty years, he would object to giving to the bishops such power as was proposed under the act. From its birth it has set the Church by the ears. Bishops have shewn a wholesome dread of it ; even the Church Association finds that it does not re- alize its expectations ; Ritualists have ignored it ; lawyers have blundered over it ; the highest legal authorities have quarrelled over it ^ ; a want of sym- pathy between bishops and clergy has ensued ; the High Church party have discovered that danger threatens themselves if left to the tender mercies of three aggrieved parishioners, perhaps the most dis- reputable of their flock, — " proximus ardet Ucale- gon ; " hence an increased feeling of sympathy to the Ritualists, four of whom have already gone to prison, and others are ready to follow their example rather than obey the obnoxious act. Let us now enquire how modern litigation has affected the doctrine and ritual of the Church. I. As to Doctrine. It has been decided, — (a.) A clergyman may hold that grace may be granted before, in, or after Baptism ; that in Baptism God works invisibly, but only in such as worthily receive it, and in them alone it has a wholesome effect ; but regeneration does not necessarily accompany the act of Baptism, nor is it unconditional ^ This judgment • An angry newspaper correspondence took place between Lord Pen- zance, the judge under the P. W. R. A., and the late Lord Chief Justice, in which the former unintentionally condemned himself and the court over which he presides. Lord Penzance had suspended Mr. Mackono- chie for three years ; the Court of Queen's Bench overruled his judg- ment. Thereupon Lord Penzance retorted that there was no reason for supposing that the Lord Chief Justice, bei7ig a civil judge, could know anything of ecclesiastical law. But if so, the question arises. How did Lord Penzance himself, in the Divorce Court, acquire his fitness to be an ecclesiastical judge ' Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter. After this judgment, Bishop Blomfield THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. may be said to favour an exceedingly small section of ultra-Evangelicals, (jQ.) A clergyman may teach that " the Bible is an expression of devout reason, to be read with reason in freedom ; " or that " the Bible is the written voice of the congregation." He may deny that every part of the Scriptures was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is the Word of God, because such a proposition is not to be found in the Articles or formularies of the Church ^. (y.) It is not penal in him to express a hope that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked who are con- demned on the day of judgment may be consistent with the will of Almighty God This and the pre- ceding judgment favours the more extreme section of the Broad Church party. (5.) He may hold that in the Holy Eucharist there is " an actual Presence of the true Body and Blood of our Lord in the consecrated Bread and Wine," " with- out or external to the communicant, and separately from the act of reception by the communicant." He may also maintain that " the Communion-table is an altar of sacrifice . . . and that there is a great sacrifice or offering of our Lord by the ministering priest, in which the mediation of our Lord ascends from the altar to plead for the sins of men." Also, that " ado- ration is due to Christ present upon the altars or Com- saw the expediency of some change in the constitution of the ecclesi- astical courts, and proposed to revive the dormant rights of the Upper House of Convocation as a court of appeal, with power " to summon the judges or retired judges of the ecclesiastical, common law, and equity courts" to hear ecclesiastical causes. Lord John Russell, however, ob- jected that this would only end by substituting "the supremacy of the Pope for that of the Queen," so, through the opposition of the Govern- ment, the bill was defeated. (Mem. of Bp. Blomfield, ii. 132.) 8 Williams v. Bishop of Salisbury. Wilson v. Fendall, 586 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. munion- tables of the churches in the Sacrament'." CathoHcs can desire no higher doctrine than this. (e.) A clergyman may not refuse to administer the Holy Communioil to a parishioner on the ground of his denial of the eternity of future punishment, or of the personality and existence of the devils This judgment is opposed to the feelings of both High Churchmen and Low Churchmen alike. 2. Next as to ritual ; with respect to which we confine ourselves to decisions as to the six points claimed by Ritualists. (a.) Vestments. — The minister may not wear, nor sanction the wearing, of a chasuble, dalmatic, tunicle, or albe. The surplice is the only vestment prescribed for the parochial clergy at all times of their ministra- tions, but "a cope is to be worn in ministering the Holy Communion on high feast-days, in cathedral and collegiate churches (/3.) The Eastward Position. — This, during the Prayer of Consecration, is not unlawful, so long as the minister stands so that the communicants present, or the bulk of them, being properly placed, can see the breaking of bread and the taking the cup into his hand ^ : but he may not elevate the paten or cup over his head, nor kneel or prostrate himself before the con- secrated elements (7.) Lights on the Altar. — Lighted candles may not be used on the Holy Table ceremonially, and not for the purpose of giving light, during the Holy Communion °. (5.) The Mixed Chalice. — Water may not be ' Sheppard v. Bennett. ^ Jenkins v. Cook. Hebbert v. Purchas ; Clifton v. Ridsdale ; Coombe v. Edwards. ' Clifton V. Ridsdale. " Martin v. Mackonochie. " Ibid. THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. mixed with the wine during the celebration", nor previously p. (e.) Unleavened Bread. — Only such bread as is usually eaten may be used at Holy Communion ; this, however, refers only to the composition of the bread (it must be leavened), not to the shape ^ (^.) Incense. — This may not be used ceremonially'. What, then, are the fruits of all this litigation and miserable waste of money What was the result of the Purchas judgment ? It is true, he was called upon to pay costs amounting to ^2,096, and that in February, 1872, a sequestration was placed on his lay goods (for the value of what he derived from the church was nil), and that he died in October of the same year ; but this could scarcely be what the Church Association desired. But that judgment, contradict- ing as it did the previous judgments of the same court, was received with a storm of indignation, not only by Ritualists, but also by moderate High Churchmen : it was repudiated by 4,934 clergy, that is, nearly a quar- ter of the body, some of them high dignitaries, in the following Protest to the Bishops : — " We, the under- signed clergy of the Church of England, hereby offer our solemn remonstrance against the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Hebbert v. Purchas :" (here follow the reasons for the Protest, which ends thus :) " On these grounds, although many of us are not personally affected by the judgment, we earnestly trust that your Lordships will abstain from acting upon this decision, and thus pre- serve the ancient liberty of the Church of England." " Martin v. Mackonochie. p Hebbert v. Purchas ; Clifton v. Ridsdale. Clifton V. Ridsdale. ' Martin v. Mackonochie. 588 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Have the law courts succeeded in putting down Ritualism ? has Ritualism diminished since the pass- ing of the Public Worship Regulation Act ? The con- trary is the case. From the " Statistics of London and Suburban Churches ^" it would appear that whereas in 1874, vestments were in use in 30, the eastward po- sition in 74, incense in 14, altar-lights in 36 churches; in 1880, vestments were in use in 35, the eastward position in 234, incense in 11, and altar-lights in 54 churches ; whilst throughout England the vestments were, in 1880, worn in no churches, as against 82 in 1874. It has been asserted that the object of Church prose- cutions was to obtain a definition of the law ; it may therefore fairly be supposed that the promoters, after having found out what the law is, are ready to act on it ; at any rate, they can no longer accuse their oppo- nents of being law-breakers, unless they themselves observe the law. But can it be fairly said that either of the parties in the Church is prepared to abide by the judgments of the Privy Council. One party may find satisfaction (we will not say in the Gorham judgment), but in Martin v. Mackonochie, Hebbert v. Purchas, and Clifton v. Ridsdale ; but do they as readily accept the decisions in Sheppard v. Ben- nett, Jenkins v. Cook, or Fendall v. Wilson, and the Bishop of Salisbury v. Williams ? or of the eastward position as sanctioned in Clifton v. Ridsdale. The Gorham case (although it did not question that Bap- tismal Regeneration is the doctrine of the Church) fa- voured the views of the extreme Low Church party. But the Privy Council has sanctioned also the east- ward position in the Prayer of Consecration ; two ' Mackeson's Guide. THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. altar-lights (not lighted, but sufficient to symbolize the divine and human nature of our Lord), and a cross over the altar ; it has condemned the black gown, and decided that the surplice is the only legal dress in parochial churches, whilst a cope is to be used at high festivals in cathedrals ; it has taken away a few orna- ments, but left the highest doctrine of the Church on the Eucharist intact. Is either party prepared to abide by the nineteenth century theology of the Privy Council ? If so, it must no longer preach from the pulpit that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, for the Privy Council has taught that it contains also un- inspired matter ; nor the eternity of future punish- ment, for it has taught that hell may mean only a pur- gatory. It may, indeed, preach that the Eucharistic vestments are unlawful ; but it must not deny the doc- trine which the vestments denote, the Real Objective Presence, nor the Eucharistic sacrifice, nor Eucharistic worship. But we must not omit one episode in the history of the Public Worship Regulation Act. One small party was desirous that that act should be passed, for they imagined it would supply an easy means for putting down Ritualism. But let us see, now they have that act, whether they are satisfied. Under the act it is necessary that the prosecutors should find three pa- rishioners of full age who feel aggrieved, and then they may, but not without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, institute proceedings against a clergyman for Ritualism But they find it difficult to procure even these three aggrieved parishioners, although the law ' The bishop under the P. W. R. A, may withhold his consent, in which case he must signify his reason in writing, to be kept in the registry of the diocese. 590 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. does not require that they should be communicants, nor is it particular about their character So what do they do? The "Church Discipline Act" of 1840 required only one parishioner for prose- cutor, and seemed to deprive the bishop of any dis- cretion in the matter. In the parish of Clewer, which may be taken as the model of an English parish under its late venerable rector, they found one aggrieved per- son, who, though nominally possessing a footing in the parish, really lived out of England. The bishop of the diocese (Oxford), finding that there was only one dissentient in the parish, and that he was actuated by the Church Association, which had no existence in the parish, refused to interfere, and proceedings were taken in the Court of Queen's Bench to compel him. The case turned wholly upon the question whether a bishop could be compelled, under the Church Discipline Act of 1840, to do what, under the P. W. R. A., was left to his discretion. Mainly owing to the manner in which the bishop conducted his own case, the court unanimously granted the man- damus. With equal unanimity the judgment was re- versed on May 30, 1879, by an equal number of Lord Justices of Appeal. But we learn one lesson from the above incident, viz. that the Church Association, the great admirers of the P. W. R. A., have, like every one else, grown tired of it, and that they would readily return to their own system. For this assertion, v.^e have the words of the Chairman himself of the Church Association: "When we get the decision" (i.e. the " A dignitary of the Church writes : " The other day — I name no names, but I state a fact — an Enghsh gentleman, having with much dif- ficulty overcome the reluctance of his son to join him in his anti-ritual campaign, called in his butler to make up the party of the three aggrieved parishioners." — Arch. Uenison, Notes of my Life, p. 368. THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. decision in the Clewer case before the Court of Ap- peal, which they made sure would be in their favour), " we shall be able to proceed on the complaint of one parishioner, who, the bisJiop having no discretion, will be able to brino- the offender before the law." This is the Society which complains of the want of respect to bishops ; the Society of which one bishop (the Bishop of Liverpool), who of all might have been thought to be most friendly to it, confesses, " I may fairly say, that of all the bodies banded together for particular objects, there is none more unpopular, and none more thoroughly hated, than the Church As- sociation The Ritualists, who have been the chief objects of attack under the Public Worship Regulation Act, are accused of being law-breakers, because they prefer to go to prison, even to be deprived of their benefices, rather than obey that court. We do not hold a brief for the Ritualists, but what is their cause to-day may be the cause of others to-morrow. There are some, and those influential, people, quite as strongly opposed to the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds as others are to Ritualism ; " Mutato nomine, de te fabula narra- tur." So we will enquire into the charge from the view of all Churchmen who would disclaim the charge of Erastianism. What is meant by law-breakers ? If there are two conflicting laws, one of the Church, the other of the State, there can be no doubt that clergymen are bound to follow the former, even if they suffer for it. Every clergyman, at his Ordination, vows that he will give " faithful diligence so to minister the Word and Sacraments, and discipline of the Church, as the Lord * Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Church Association, 1879. 592 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. hath commanded, and as this Church and Realm have received the same;" and unless he takes that vow, no bishop would ordain him. At the present day, the claims of the State and the ecclesiastical law courts, are at variance with the ori- ginal compact on which the union of Church and State rests. In the "Magna Charta" of King John, by which succeeding kinsrs have bound themselves, the first article oruarantees the rights of the Church of England, " quod libera sit Ecclesia." At the Refor- mation, the "Act of Appeals" (the first act by which the new relations between Church and State were en- tered upon) set forth : " This realm is an empire, governed by one supreme head and king, unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of people, and by names of spirituality and temporality, is bound to bear a natural and humble obedience. . . . The body spiritual w/iereof having power when aiiy cause of tJie lazv divine happemd to come in question, then it was declared, interpreted, and shewed by that part of the body politic called the spirituality, ivhich hath always been thought and is at this hour sjifficient and vieet of itself to declare and detennine stuh doubts as to their roo7ns spiritual doth appertaiti." The clerg}*, even when dealing with such an arbitrary monarch as Henry refused to acknowledge his unqualified supremacy over the Church, and only did so with the important proviso, " quantum per Christi legem decet ;" which can only mean one thing, viz. that princes have no rights or jurisdiction over the Church except what the law of Christ confers ; and to nothing beyond this did the clergy under Henry, or have the clerg}' since, bound themselves. Henry, in his letter to Bishop Tunstall, explains the rights of the Crown in the same THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. 593 sense : " We be as God's law stiffereth us to be, where- uiito we do and must conform ourselves" He confines his ecclesiastical jurisdiction to matters of a temporal, or at most a partly temporal, nature, such as summon- ing and confirming the law of Convocation, the cogni- zance of criminal causes, &c. A message, sent by Queen Elizabeth to Parliament, states her Majesty's pleasure to be, that " from hence- forth no bills concerning religion shall be preferred or received into this House, unless the same shall be first considered of and liked by the clergy." And the Royal Declaration prefixed to the Thirty-nine Articles sets forth, " If any difference arise about the external policy concerning the injunctions, canons, and other consti- tutions thereunto belonging, the clergy in their Con- vocation is to order and settle them, having first ob- tained leave under our Broad Seal so to do." Now the contention of the Ritualists is, that the violation of the compact on the part of the State com- pels them to obey the Church rather than the State. The State without, and even against, Convocation (that is to say, the body spiritual, which in the original compact was agreed to be the fitting authority in spi- ritual matters), has established two secular courts, and those courts are made the interpreters of Church law in matters of doctrine and ritual. Of these, the Judi- cial Committee of the Privy Council, by the admission of its framer, never was intended to act in ecclesiasti- cal causes at all ; whilst the other court was not estab- lished on the principle of equal justice (for it must be admitted, that if one party exceeds, another falls short in its duties), but with the object of " putting down " Ritualism. The Ritualists contend, moreover, that the judgments of the State-made court are not founded on Q q 594 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAV. the principles adopted in other courts, and there is no question that the faith of Churchmen in the Court of Final Appeal has received a severe shock. We relate the following story for what it is worth, solely with the purpose of shewing that it ought either to have been denied at the time, or that it cannot be w^ondered that clergymen should prefer to suffer rather than obey a judgment which, they have it on the high- est possible authority, was wrong. After the Clifton V. Ridsdale case, one of the judges stated to a clergy- man that the judgment was based upon expediency ; that the court took upon itself to promulge as law what was not law ; that " the judgment was an ini- quitous one ;" and that unanimity did not prevail amongst the judges. All will allow that those were serious charges. A correspondence ensued between the then Lord Chancellor and the judge in question (the late Sir Fitzroy Kelly), which carries us back to the days of the Star Chamber and the High Commis- sion Court. The Lord Chancellor did not deny the charge. Sir Fitzroy Kelly did not retract it ; on the contrary, he corroborated it. He said he did not re- collect using the word "iniquitous ;" " if I had done so, it ought not to be repeated :" "I may have hazarded the expression that there was much of policy rather than of law, though perhaps unconsciously to them- selves, in the majority of the jiidges" No contradic- tion whatever was given ; simply an order in Council was issued, enjoining for the future silence on the judges. " It is not the first time in English history," said the " Spectator that judges have made law under cover of explaining it ;" but, says Mr. Parker in his 1 May 26, 1877. THE LAW AND THE RITUALISTS. 595 Letter to Lord Selborne, though they " may make law, they cannot make history." Well might the "Nonconformist" newspaper speak of "the extra- ordinary reasoning of the recent judgment, according to which the Ornaments Rubric was shewn to mean precisely the opposite to what it apparently says." Lord Westbury laid it down in his judgment on " Essays and Reviews," that the Court of Final Ap- peal " has no jurisdiction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine what ought in any particular to be the doctrine of the Church of England." But now, when a judge openly accuses a judgment of being based on expediency, not law, no denial is given to the accusation ; simply an Order in Council is issued, that for the future the judgments of the Privy Council are to be kept secret. So that it comes to this, that dis- senters may sit in secret judgment on the most vital doctrines of the Church, and may make law according to their own views of expediency. What prevents the Privy Council, at some future time, deciding on the illegality of the Athanasian or Nicene Creed ? From one cause or another amongst clergy who have little sympathy with Ritualism, the Public Wor- ship Regulation Act, and the court established under it, have come to be regarded as public scandals, if for no other reason, yet for the miserable fiasco which have followed all the proceedings of the latter. Not only have four clergymen been sent to prison for a matter of conscience, but it seems as if scarcely any judgment can be delivered by it without violating some recognised rule of legal procedure. It is cer- tain that anarchy cannot be permitted in the Church more than in the State ; but it is necessary to place the courts which determine ecclesiastical causes on Q q 2 596 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. a footing " in harmony with the divinely-appointed constitution of the Church," and the first requisite, urges Canon Liddon, will be the repeal of the Public Worship Regulation Act That the bishops are awakening to such a necessity may be concluded from the recent appointment, on an application of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, of a Royal Commission " to en- quire into the constitution and working of the eccle- siastical courts, as created and modified under the Reformation statutes of the 24th and 25th years of King Henry VIII., and any subsequent acts." » Thoughts on Present Church Troubles. CHAPTER III. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. TTAVING traced the historical continuity of the Church in England through more than eighteen centuries, from the earliest ages of Christianity to the times in which we ourselves live, we might now not unreasonably have concluded. But events of so great importance have taken their rise out of the Oxford movement, and the Church has of late entered upon so new a phase ; the State no longer of one faith, or necessarily of any faith at all, claiming not only to legislate for, but to admit the various denominations in the land to the privileges of the Church ; that an account of late proceedings, although necessarily short, may be interesting, and possibly instructive also. At the beginning of the present century, dissent had been increasing with rapid strides. Sherlock states that at the end of the seventeenth century dissenters were only in proportion of one to twenty, at the death of George I. they were one to twenty-five. Churchmen. In 1736 there were only six meeting-houses in North Wales, and thirty-five in the whole principality, whilst there were 850 churches. Then came the movements under Wesley and Whitfield, which, drifting away gra- dually from the Church, reanimated the languishing Nonconformity of the country, in which they were powerfully aided by the influence of Lady Hunting- don, whose numerous chaplains seceded and formed Independent and Baptist congregations. Cleaver, Bishop of Chester, in his charge of 1790, complains 598 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. of those " who sought the Orders of our Church with a view to set at defiance her ordinances, to depreciate her ministry, and to seduce her members into their unhallowed conventicles, under the arrogant and false pretensions of being themselves exclusively Gospel preachers." The Evangelical movement greatly increased the number of dissenters : Evangelical clergy frequently either became dissenters themselves, or more frequently led their hearers to become so : no fewer than thirteen young men, converted by Venn, entered the ministry, chiefly as Independents; Rowland Hill had his meet- ing-house in London, and only after great difficulty, and being refused by six bishops, obtained deacon's orders ; whilst John Newton, at Olney, with a popu- lation of 2,500, succeeded in emptying his church, and filling the parish with dissenters and Antinomians*. Through such means, when, by reason of the rapid growth of our manufacturies, dense populations were swarming from villages into towns, and had neither churches to attend, nor clergy to look after them ; when the Church had fallen asleep, dissent assumed vitality ; the meeting-houses in Wales increased from thirty-five to one thousand ; so that at the beginning of the present century. Nonconformity had grown from one twenty-fifth to at least one-fourth of the population ; when George IV. became king, dissent, and not the Church, was in possession of the large towns ; by the time that William IV. succeeded him, dissent had be- come a power in the State ^. Still, dissent unaided would have been powerless against the Church ; unfortunately it was joined by Churchmen, who would have repudiated with indigna- • Church Quarterly, July, 1877. •> Quarterly Review, July, 1874. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 599 tion the charge of being dissenters, but whose Church- manship was purely political ; the Latitudinarian, or, as it was now called, the " Broad Church " party, gained ground in Parliament; a so-called liberality was advocated as consonant with the enlightened spirit of the times ; the idea prevailed that because the Church is established, Parliament had a right to deal with it as it pleased ; and so people professing the strongest affection for the " established " religion, claimed to extend its area by asserting the unbridled right of private judgment, by eliminating all dogmatic teaching, and substituting a kind of religious neutrality in its place. Hence it came to pass that this Neo- Christianity of the nineteenth century was liberal to all but the Church. The purity of the Faith which the Church is divinely commissioned to teach ; the possession of its places of education, whether of its Universities, or its endowed grammar-schools, or the national schools for the education of the poor ; the means which the piety and liberality of Church- men has confided to it for the maintenance of its faith and services ; these are already taken away or threatened ; and no one can tell how long it may be before Parliament may take upon itself to legislate further for the Church, not only as to its disestablish- ment (for this, and even disendowment, however un- just, would be of comparatively little moment), but to obtain the total abolition of tests, to pass a law for regulating its ritual, or to interfere with its doctrine, which, once gone, can never be replaced. The Nonconformists put forth claims against the Church on two grounds : (i.) of number ; (2.) of right ; both of which it is necessary to consider. (i.) On the ground of their number as compared 6oO THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. with the Church. The name of the various sects of dissenters is legion : in England and Wales there are 172 whose places of worship have been certified to the Registrar-General. There are Protestant dis- senters, there are Romanist dissenters, and Jews, and infidels, and atheists. But what connexion has the Romanist with the Protestant ? What the Protestant Independent with the Presbyterian ? how would the Romanist like to be classed with infidels, or atheists, or Jews ? They love one another no better than they love the Church, the destruction of which is the only point which they have in common. Individually their numbers are still less important : but as they are pleased to be enumerated together, let us enquire what their collective number is. Here a difficulty at once occurs, for the reason that they object to their numbers being known; twice (in i860 and 1870) Churchmen have desired a religious cen- sus, but Dissenters have successfully resisted the enquiry, and have preferred to introduce a test of their own, based on the sitting -accommodation of their registered chapels. But such a test is obviously fallacious, for the simple reason that it is one thing to supply seats, another to fill them. Besides this, the report of the Registrar- General reveals that many buildings, owned by companies or private individuals, are registered as dissenting chapels ; amongst which are to be found : — " Temperance Halls," " Odd Fel- lows' Halls," " Music Halls," " single rooms in cot- tages," " a bakehouse," "a malthouse," even "a railway- arch ;" as well as the " Great Hall of the Freemasons' Tavern," London ; the " Royal Agricultural Hall," Is- lington ; and the " Royal Amphitheatre," Holborn. The last religious census was taken in 1851, by NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 6oi direction of the Registrar- General, and it was then estimated that the number of Churchmen amounted to 9,600,000 ; that of Dissenters to 8,640,000, or a pro- portion of 52 per cent, of Churchmen, and 48 per cent, of Dissenters. But to account for this improbable, not to say fabulous, proportion, it has been with reason surmised that a friendly interchange of dissenting pulpits on the census Sunday may have been supple- mented by the exchange of congregations, who were thus counted twice or three times over. We must therefore have recourse to other sources. Taking the following official returns, we find that out of every 100 : — school returns give 72 Churchmen to 28 Dissenters'*; cemetery returns, 70 to 30**; mar- riages, 75 to 25""; army returns, 63 to 37*^, of which 37, no less than 24 are Romanists; navy returns, 75 to 25^; workhouse returns, 79 to 21 \ These returns give an average of 72 per cent, of Churchmen, and 28 of Dissenters; or, if the army is deducted, 74 per cent, of Churchmen, to less than 26 of Dissenters, in- cluding Romanists '. In a speech which he made at a meeting of the National Society in Liverpool in April, 1872, the Right Hon. Mr. Hubbard says : " I examined all the sources of information open to me, such as the returns of burials in consecrated and unconsecrated portions of public cemeteries, the returns of marriages ' Report of Education Department, 1871. ^ Burials, Session i860. Parliamentary paper 560. ' Registrar-General's Report for 1873. ' Army Parliamentary paper 170, Session 1871. ^ Navy Parliamentary paper 132, Session 1876. Union Workhouse paper 157, Session 1876. ' The above information is derived from a paper entitled " The Re- ligious Population of England." 602 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. by the Church and the registrar, and from these and other returns bearing on the subject, I found the pro- portion of Dissenters of all kinds vary from 20 to 28 per cent. But a publication entitled, I think, ' De- nomination Statistics,' by E. G. Ravensheim, has re- cently fallen into my hands, the conclusion of the author being, that the proportion of Dissenters of all kinds, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Secularists, amounts to 22 per cent, of the population of England and Wales." One thing therefore of two is evident, either that Nonconformists are in a minority, varying from 22 to 28 per cent. ; or that a large proportion of Protestant dissenters prefer to be married by our clergy, and with our service ; and that though Churchmen and Dissent- ers have each in the public cemeteries their separate chapels and separate burial-grounds, the latter prefer to be buried in our consecrated ground, and with the rites of the Church. But what, then, becomes of the con- scientious grievance ? does it not shew that the burial grievance was infinitesimal ? If, however. Noncon- formists are not satisfied with the result of our cal- culations, founded on official returns, which are the most correct that can be ascertained, they have in their hands the easiest remedy, viz., to withdraw their opposition to a religious census. But however small their numbers, individually or collectively, it was not unreasonable for the State to feel for tender consciences ; if, for instance, dissenters had conscientious scruples ^ against paying church-rates for the maintenance of our churches and churchyards, it Many persons, especially Quakers, have conscientious scruples against war, but are not on that account exempted from paying taxes towards the army and navy. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 603 was right that they should be exempted ; although at the same time it would appear that their scruples were confined to payment, for they did not hesitate to bring their children to church to be baptized, or their daugh- ters to be married, or their dead to be buried. (2.) As to the claim on the ground of right. This arises from an erroneous supposition that the Church of England was founded at the Reformation, and that its property was at that time transferred from the Roman Church ; or an equally mistaken idea, that the endowments of the Church were bestowed upon it by the State. But what is the meaning of the word Reformation ? It surely implies the previous existence of the thing reformed, not the creation of something new : as, for instance, when the Reform Act of 1832 is spoken of, it is implied that Parliament existed before in an un- reformed state, not that it was then first introduced as a factor into English politics. No acts of Parliament can be cited which (i.) established at any time the Church of England ; or (2.) transferred the buildings and emoluments from Roman Catholics to Protestants ; as, for example, such acts as those of 1560 and 1690, with respect to Scotland, whereby the Presbyterian Kirk obtained its status and endowments. We think we have already shewn conclusively that the Church in England is older than Parliament ; it was the State that copied the Church, not the Church the State, and the National Synods of the English Church which first suggested the idea of a National Parliament ; the canons passed in those synods were the origin of our statute law ' ; and the property of the Church is incomparably the most ancient form of pro- ' Green's History of the English People, i. 59. 604 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. perty which exists. " The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy," says Mr. Hallam™, "never received any territorial en- dowment by law, either under the Roman Empire, or the kingdoms erected on its ruins. But the voluntary munificence of princes, as well as their subjects, amply supplied the place of a more universal provision." As to the payment of tithes Blackstone says" : "We can- not precisely ascertain when tithes were first introduced into this country. Probably they were contemporary with the planting of Christianity amongst the Saxons by Augustine the monk, about the end of the sixth century. But the first mention of them which I have met with in any written English law, is in a consti- tutional decree made in a synod held 786, wherein the payment of tithes in general is strongly recom- mended." The synod to which Blackstone refers is that of Calcuith, by the seventeenth article of which a general payment of tithes is prescribed. An earlier mention is, however, to be found in the Excei^pta of Egbert, Archbishop of York, a.d. 740, where they are spoken of as being already in existence. No legislative act can be adduced by which tithes were first ordained. About A.D. 794, Offa, King of Mercia, legalized the pre-existing payment of tithes throughout his king- dom ; and in 855, Ethelwulf did the same for all England ; but neither of them granted the tithe, but only put it on a legal footing. They did not decree it as a new demand, but as an old and established claim. " Tithe," said the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, is of " the nature of a reserved rent, which never be- longed to either landlord or tenant." No wholesale Middle Ages, chap. vii. " Commentaries, bk. ii. c. 3. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 605 gifts to the Church as a corporate body are known to exist ; all endowments were given piecemeal by single donors to single churches ; and there never has. been any representative body capable of legally accept- ing and acquiring property on behalf of the Church of England in general. The real benefactor in each parish was the original donor. From time immemo- rial land has been sold or let subject to the Church's claim ; so that neither the dissenter, nor the land- owner, nor the landholder, really pays anything at all, or has on that ground reason for complaint. When dissenters were admitted to Parliament by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, it was asserted that the step involved no danger to the Church. When Church-rates were abolished, it was under the plea that the concession would inaugurate a period of peace for the Church ; that none but Church-people had an interest in the fabric, and that nothing would disturb the peace between Church-people and Nonconformists. The disestablishment of the Irish Church was advocated on the ground that the case was perfectly different from that of the Church in England, and that Churchmen might vote for the disestablishment of the one without fear of being called upon to vote for the disestablishment of the other. Since the first concession, Nonconformists have car- ried on one continuous and successful campaign, al- ways with the same plausible pretext that no further step was meditated. Fom the first it was evident what they aimed at was not relief to their consciences, but religious equality. The first change which the State made to satisfy them was with respect to the marriage-law. In 1834, Lord John Russell brought a bill into Parliament with 6o6 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. that view, and again, Sir Robert Peel in 1835 ; still they were not contented, and both bills were laid aside. In 1836, however. Lord John Russell suc- ceeded in carrying two bills, the first of which sanc- tioned a civil registration of all births, marriages, and deaths; in the second (the Marriage Bill), the publi- cation of banns in the parish church was retained, but henceforward dissenters might perform marriages in their own chapels. Lenient as the State is towards any imaginary griev- ance of Nonconformists, that it is totally indifferent to the consciences of the clergy is shewn by the Divorce Act of 1857. The Church teaches that God has conse- crated matrimony; "that in it is signified and repre- sented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and His Church ;" it binds its clerg}^ to marry no per- sons except such as absolutely and unconditionally promise to be man and wife " so long as they both shall live," and " until death them do part." It is not a little remarkable that the terms of this contract be- came at the Reformation even more stringent than before, for before it the wording was " till death us depart, if Holy Church it will ordain °." By the Divorce Act, a complete revolution was made by the State in the law of marriage. Not only was the jurisdiction transferred by the act from the ecclesiastical to a new court constituted for the pur- pose ; not only does the act sanction a dissolution of marriage, but the offending party is free to marry again ; and although no clergyman is compelled to solemnize the new marriage, he cannot refuse his church to any other clergyman who can be found willing to do so. That is to say, a clergy-man is ° Gleanings from Gladstone, vi. 105. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 607 compelled to lend his church for an act in direct vio- lation of the canons of the Church p, and for legalizing adultery ; for no one can imagine that any clergyman can re-marry parties in direct disobedience to our Lord's own words, " Whosoever marrieth her that is divorced, committeth adultery" (St. Matt. v. 32) ; and " whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adul- tery ; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away, doth commit adultery " (St. Matt. xix. 8, 9). Previous to the Divorce Act, marriages were only dissolved by private Acts of Parliament, which granted also the liberty of" re-marriage." From 1799 to 1830 there were only eighty-two of these bills, and from 1830 to 1856, ninety-nine From 1858, when the new law came into operation, to 1877 inclusive, the number of divorces made absolute, as taken from the official "Judicial Statistics," was 2,952; whilst it ap- pears that from Michaelmas, 1879, to Trinity, 1880, about 554 decrees (which shews an immense increase) were made absolute. From 1861 to 1876, according to the Registrar-General's report for the latter year, 696 divorced persons " re-married," of whom only 1 3 intermarried ; so that 683 others were involved in sin by marrying divorced persons, by the sanction of the civil law ^ Bills for allowing a man to marry two sisters have thus far been rejected in Parliament. The law of the English Church, agreeably to the common law of Christendom, that there is no difference between af- p Canon 107 of 1604 : " In all sentences of divorce, bond to be taken for not marrying during each other's hfe." 1 Guardian, July 29, 1857. ' Times, August 16, i88o. • Church Quarterly, April, 1881. 6o8 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. finity and consanguinity as a bar to marriage, is founded on the divine institution, " they two shall be one flesh." But now that the matter has received the support of the second person in the realm, and the present Prime Minister is of opinion that, having the support of ministers " the most respected in their seve- ral communities, — men among the Roman Catholics, the Nonconformists, the Established Church, High Church and Low Church, including such a man as Dr. Hook, who might perhaps be described as the first parish minister of his day," — the pressure is too strong to be resisted ; we cannot disguise the proba- bility that success may attend the persistent endea- vours of those who seek an alteration in the law. In 1 84 1, the first bill for the abolition of Church- rates was introduced into Parliament, but rejected. But the dissenters were resolved to gain their point. From 1855 to 1859, measures for the abolition were passed in the House of Commons with increasing ma- jorities ; in 1 86 1, however, the opinion of the country veered round, and the number of votes was equal. In 1862, the measure was defeated by two, and in 1863 by ten votes. At length it became evident that the question of Church-rates was one of constant agi- tation, and therefore of weakness to the Church ; so, in 1868, Mr. Gladstone was enabled to pass a bill, founded upon a measure which he had advocated two years before, viz. the substitution of a voluntary prin- ciple, instead of the compulsory payment, and the "Compulsory Church-rate Abolition Act" became law ' It was provided that that act should not affect the rights of burial, to which the inhabitants of the district were entitled, in the churchyard of the mother church. NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 609 An attempt had been made, as early as 1834, to obtain fuller privileges for the dissenters at the Uni- versities. At Oxford, they could not gain admission at all without signing the Thirty-nine Articles ; but at Cambridge, a student was not required until the B.A. degree to declare himself a bond fide member of the English Church. No alteration, however, was at that time made with regard to Oxford and Cam- bridge; but in 1836 London University was estab- lished by Royal Charter, for the purpose of giving dissenters a university education, and an annual grant of ^5,000 was made by Government, without reference to religious belief But this was not enough. In 1850, a Commission was issued for enquiring into the state of Oxford and Cambridge ; great changes were made, with the effect of weakening the influence of the Church, in the laws and studies of those Universities. In 1854, an act was passed for abolishing religious tests at matriculation; in 1856, tests, except for di- vinity degrees, were abolished at Cambridge. Persons of any faith, or of no faith at all, being ad- mitted to the benefits of the University, the next step gained was, when in 1871 the University Tests Act, which in 1866 and in 1868 had been the protege of the present Lord Coleridge, became law under the first Ministry of Mr. Gladstone. By that act. Noncon- formists were entitled to become Fellows and Tutors of Colleges, although, for the moment, clerical Head- ships and Fellowships were spared. But, under the Commission appointed in 1877 (supposing that its pro- posals are ratified by Parliament), it appears that all clerical members on the foundation of colleges at Ox- ford, except a minimum of one at some colleges, of two at St. John's and Magdalen ; and of the Dean, six R r 6io THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Canons, and three Students at Christ Church, and the Headship of Pembroke, which could not afford to dis- pense with the canonry at Gloucester attached to it, are doomed. The two great societies for promoting elementary education were, the National Society, and the British and Foreign School Society; and, until 1833, these societies had carried on the work without Parlia- mentary assistance. In that year, however, small Par- liamentary grants were, for the first time, made, with the understanding that they involved no alteration in the religious teaching of the schools. In 1839 these grants were increased ; an education department was instituted, and a Government inspector appointed to examine the schools ; but the public grants were sup- plemented by the voluntary contributions of Church- men, which were at least five times as large as that granted by Government ; and no change was made in the religious instruction, the National Society con- tinuing the work for which it was founded, viz. " the education of the poor in the principles of the esta- blished Church." This state of things, although the Government grants fell by degrees from ^140,000, till in 1865 they had dwindled down to /^ig,ooo, continued till 1870, when the Education Act was passed, which involved an entire separation of the State from all concern in the religious instruction in elementary schools. By that act, education was rendered compulsory ; all England was divided into school districts, under the manage- ment of elected school-boards, provision being made for the building and maintenance of the schools out of the local rates. A clause known as the Cowper Temple clause, enacting that " no religious Catechism, NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 6ll or religious formulary, which is distinctive of any par- ticular denomination, shall be taught in the school,'' whilst it has, at first sight, the appearance of impar- tiality, proves on examination to be hostile to the Church, and the Church alone. For, (i.) It is not improbable that the secularists, being an amalgamation of all sects of professing Christians, and of no Chris- tians at all, may have a majority on the board, in which case they can have their way, and exclude all religious teaching ; thus the clause is a direct advantage to them. (2.) It is most improbable that any ofie of the numerous sects of dissenters could have a majority, so as to be able to enforce its own teaching ; the clause, therefore, is no disadvantage to them. (3.) On the other hand, it is reasonable to suppose that the Church, having a majority in the country at least twice as great as all the Nonconformists put together may have a majority on the school-board, in which case it is excluded from teaching its Catechism or religious formularies ; so that the clause is unfair to the Church, and the Church alone. The Church schools have also had to contend against serious disadvantages, owing to the fact that the Government school-boards, being able to charge an arbitrary expenditure on the local rates", tempt teachers from other schools by profuse salaries, and often draw away their children, by reducing, or alto- gether remitting the fees ^. " The last report of the Committee of Council on Education, with reference to the comparative expense of Board and Voluntary Schools, says : " We see no good reason why the average cost per child in board- schools {£2 2s. old.) should be so much as 22 per cent. {js. 6ld.) in excess of the average cost per child in voluntary schools {£1 i^s.6d.). The effect of the act on Church schools will be mentioned in the next chapter. R r 2 6l2 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. The disestablishment of the Irish Church, whilst it serves as a warning of what the State may some day do to the established Church in England, concerns us as being the severance of a connexion between " the United Church of England and Ireland." In March, 1869, Mr. Gladstone, who had lately become Prime Minister, with a majority of 120 members pledged to support him in the measure, brought forward a bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. On January i, 1871, the Irish Church ceased to be recog- nized by the State ; the Crown resigned its right of appointing the Irish bishops, who lost their seats in the House of Lords ; the property of the Irish Church, which was estimated at ^16,000,000, was applied, after satisfying the life-interests of incumbents and other necessary charges, " to the relief of un- avoidable calamities and suffering, in such manner as Parliament shall hereafter direct." Another, and that the most important concession to dissenters must be mentioned, viz. the " Burial Laws Amendment Act " of 1880. The dissenters' contention against Church - rates, that it was unfair that they should pay towards that in which they had no interest, had now turned into a claim that they should have an equal interest with the Church in that towards which they paid nothing. Previously to the passing of that act, every parishioner had a right to be buried in the parish churchyard unless he were unbaptized (Baptism by dissenters or laymen, or women, so long as it was ^ It was, however, undecided whether such Baptism entitled an adult to Christian burial according to the rites of the English Church, unless he ratified his Baptism, and was admitted to the full communion of the Church by Confirmation ; and the late Bishop of Exeter, in the celebrated Helstone case, determined that it did not. (Prideaux, Guide to Church- wardens, p. 409.) NONCONFORMITY AND RELIGIOUS EQUALITY. 613 performed by water in the name of the Trinity, was sufficient), or a suicide, or excommunicate, with the burial-service of the Church of England ; and in no case where the service was prescribed might it be omitted \ So that, if any body had reason to complain, it was not the dissenters, who paid nothing to the Church-rates, but the parish priest, who was compelled by law to bury not only Nonconformist parishioners, but also notoriously evil livers. But by the act of 1880, any relation, or friend, or legal representative of a deceased person may, by giving forty -eight hours notice in writing to the incumbent, conduct a funeral within the churchyard of the parish or ecclesiastical district, either with or without a service ; or he may invite some person or persons to conduct a Christian and orderly religious service at the grave, the Christian service including "every religious service used by any church, denomination, or person professing to be Chris- tian." The representative of the deceased person may choose any day for the service (except Sunday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day), and the hour (within certain prescribed limits), provided that no other ser- vice has been previously arranged in the church or churchyard for that hour. After the burial, he must, on the same or following day, send a certificate, accord- ing to a prescribed form, to the incumbent, who is required to enter it in the register, stating not by whom it was performed, but by whom it was certified under the act. In 1870, Parliament took upon itself to infringe the indelibility of Holy Orders by the " Clergy Dis- ' The clergyman, however, could, according to the rubric, use his dis- cretion of either taking the corpse into the church, or proceeding at once to the grave. 6 14 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. abilities Act," which professed to enable a clergyman "to relinquish the office of priest or deacon" by a given ecclesiastical form ; after six months, the bishop is required to register the deed, and all civil disabilities are removed. A machinery also is provided for his return, should he desire it. In the Owston Ferry case of 1875, it was decided by the Privy Council against the diocesan, the Bishop of Lincoln, and the incumbent of the parish, as also the judgment of the Chancellor of the diocese, and the Dean of Arches, that a Wesleyan minister may still style himself Reverend on a tombstone, for that the title is not one of honour and dignity, and does not signify that a person is in Holy Orders. The claims of dissenters having been conceded to officiate in consecrated churchyards (the furthest step they have as yet advanced), it remains to see how long it will be before their right is advocated of officiating (as Dr. Arnold proposed fifty years ago) in our parish churches also. Speaking at Carlisle in January, 1876, Sir Wilfrid Lawson said: "Well, but I will be honest. I don't say. Let us get rid of this, and the Church will be the stronger. No ! I admit fully, let me be honest about it, that if you let the Nonconformist into the churchyard, it is only a step towards letting him into the church. It is far better to be honest about the thing \" • Church Quarterly, January, 1877. CHAPTER IV. CHURCH PROGRESS. n^HAT the last fifty years have witnessed a mar- vellous progress in the Church ; in the tone and influence of the clergy ; in the zeal of the laity ; in the revival of suffragan bishops ; in the increased number and improved character of daily and saints'-day ser- vices and Holy Communions ; in the work of missions ; in the spread of education ; in the restoration and building, as well as in the architecture, of churches ; in the substitution of the offertory for pew-rents ; in a word, in every department of practical Church-work, all will readily admit. The rapid change which fol- lowed the Oxford movement is thus described by Mr. Gladstone ^ : " The outward face of divine service began to be renovated, and the shameful condition of the sacred fabrics was readily amended. . . . The mis- sionary arm of the Church began to exhibit a vigour wholly unknown in former years. Noble efforts were made, under the auspices of the chief bishop of the Church, to provide for the unsatisfied wants of the Me- tropolis. The great scheme of the colonial episcopate was founded. . . . The tone of public schools and uni- versities was steadily raised. The greatest change of all was within the body of the clergy. . . . The spectacle, on the whole, was what we are told of a Russian spring ; almost in a day the snow dissolves, the ice breaks up, and the whole earth is covered with a rush of verdure." But much required to be done before the Church • Autobiography, p. 24. 6l6 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. was in a position to effect its own recover}-. Such scandals had crept into it as to render legislation in- dispensable ; and questionable as is the principle of robbing the Church with one hand to endow it with the other, there can be no doubt that to the Eccle- siastical Commission much of the present vitality of the Church is attributable. In 1835, two comimissions were issued, to consider the state of the several dioceses in England and Wales, with reference to the amount of their revenues, the more equal distribution of episcopal duties, and the prevention of the necessity of attaching benefices by commendam to bishoprics ; to consider also the state of the cathedral and collegiate churches ; and to make the best provision for the cure of souls, with special reference to the residence of the clergy in their re- spective benefices. On the recommendation of the members of those commissions the Ecclesiastical Commission was con- stituted. A state of things was brought to light which surprised even the sincerest admirers of the Esta- blished Church. Of the whole income of the Church, amounting to ^3,490,497, no less than ^435,046 went to the bishops and other dignitaries ; benefices were of very unequal value ; whilst some were very lucra- tive, 2,623 were under ^120 a-year, and 2,713 others under ;^2 2o; and there were eleven livings, one of which contained 800 inhabitants, under ^10; so that of the whole total of more than 10,000 livings, one- half were less than ^220 a-year, and one-fourth under ;^i20; there were also 4,000 livings without houses fit for residence Two Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Origin and Progress of the Ecclesiastical Commission (1863). CHURCH PROGRESS. If regarded with respect to the amount of work to be done, the inequality of hvings was still more appa- rent ; for whereas some small country livings were worth ^3,000, ^4,000, and even ^7,000 a-year, large parishes in London, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, con- taining 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants, often paid their clergyman less than ^150 a-year, and that frequently dependent upon pew-rents. The Church's revenues were also very unequally distributed amongst the bishops ; for whilst the Arch- bishop of Canterbury enjoyed an income of ^18,090; the Bishop of London, ^13,890; of Durham, ^19,480; the Bishop of Oxford had only ^1,600; of Rochester, ;^i,400; of Llandaff, ^1,170; whilst the see of Glou- cester, at that time unconnected with Bristol, was worth only ^700 a-year. Under such circumstances, the bishops themselves were frequently pluralists. At one time, the Bishops of Llandaff, Oxford, and Rochester, were respectively Deans of St. Paul's, Canterbury, and Worcester. The Bishops of Gloucester and Lichfield held stalls at Westminster. The Bishop of Carlisle was a Pre- bendary of St. Paul's ; the Bishop of St. David's, Dean of Durham, and Dean of Brecon as well. To remedy the evils resulting from such a state of things, three Acts of Parliament were passed, the " Epis- copal," the " Pluralities," and the " Cathedral" Acts. By the Episcopal Act of 1836, two new sees (the first since the Reformation) of Manchester and Ripon were founded, and the translation of bishops was, by nearly equalizing the revenues of all but the five principal sees, to a great extent obviated. The Pluralities Act, ia 1838, provided for each parish its resident clergyman. To obtain the money that was required, the Cathedral 6i8 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Act was passed under strong opposition in 1840. Under the provisions of the last act, some 360 pre- bendal estates attached to the cathedrals of the old foundation ; and the corporate incomes of all canons beyond four in (with a few exceptions) all the other ca- thedrals ; and the revenues of the separate estates of deans and residentiary canons, as distinguished from their corporate revenues ; and the proceeds of sinecure rectories, were appropriated to provide, when they should all be vacated, ^134,251 a-year for the augmen- tation of small livings. It was, however, some time be- before the dii'ect advantage of this act was felt ; for in 1843 Sir Robert Peel forestalled the future increment of the revenue, by inducing Parliament to impose upon the fund a charge of ^30,000 a-year, for the creation, with a stipend of ^150 a-year each, of two hundred new districts in the mineral, shipping, and manufacturing towns, and of ^18,000 a-year to repay to Queen Anne's Bounty the interest of the sum borrowed to effect such anticipation of its future income ^ But in i860 the Commissioners were enabled to announce, that no fewer than 1388 livings had been augmented and endowed, to the amount of ^98,900 a-year, to which had been added land and tithe-rent charge amounting to ^9,600 a-year. Another important act, the " Tithe Commutation " Act, passed in 1836, did much towards promoting a better feeling between the clergy and the agricul- tural interest, by providing, instead of tithes being- paid in kind, for a general commutation into a rent- charge upon the land, valued according to the average price of corn during the previous seven years. A most important point was gained by the partial ' Quarterly Review, January, 1868. CHURCH PROGRESS. 619 revival, after a suppression of more than 130 years, of the functions of Convocation ; a revival for which the Church is mainly indebted to a layman, the late Mr. Henry Hoare, and the late Bishop Wilberforce. As early as 1840, when, as Archdeacon of Surrey, he had a seat in the Lower House, the latter urged that the meetings of Convocation should be something more than listening to a Latin speech and choosing a Pro- locutor. From that time the desire for its revival grew. On November 24, 1847, it was proposed that " an address should be presented to the Upper House, asking their lordships to unite with the Lower in a humble petition to the Queen, praying for her royal licence that Convocation might be permitted to consult upon the best means of increasing the efficiency of the Church." The matter, however, at that time came to nothing. But the Privy Council judgment in the Gorham case plainly shewed the necessity of some representative assembly more fitted to legislate for the Church than the House of Commons, or the Ju- dicial Committee of the Privy Council. In February, 185 1, Convocation met for the first time for the pur- pose of receiving petitions, and addresses were pre- sented from the Lower to the Upper House ; but the Archbishop (Sumner) prorogued the assembly. In July, however, a lay peer. Lord Redesdale, moved for copies of the petitions, and spoke in favour (as also did Bishop Blomfield) of the revival of Convocation. Archbishops Sumner and Whately opposed the mo- tion, which Lord Lansdowne described as " novel, far- fetched, and dangerous :" it was, however, carried. In 1852, a new ministry having been formed under Lord Aberdeen, the Bishop of Oxford (Bishop Wilber- force), who was now joined by the Bishops of Exeter, 623 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Salisbury, and Chichester, protested against the Arch- bishop acting sine coJisensii fratrtim ; and in spite of the opposition of the Court, he prevailed with the new Premier, and in January, 1854, one day for delibera- tion was allowed to Convocation. Since that time. Convocation has progressed step by step ; in 1856, it deliberated on a rearrangement of the Church Ser- vices; in 1857 and 1858, it had so far advanced, that the Archbishop declared it would be out of the ques- tion any longer to stop its debates. On the appoint- ment of the present Archbishop of York, the Convoca- tion of the northern province was revived, and has since been partially reformed. In 1872, an important advance was made by the issue of the royal licence and " Letters of Business," enabling Convocation to consider the rubrics, with a view to legislation. A new Lectionary, and a shortened form of week-day service has been sanctioned ; and now Convocation occupies a position in the country which no prudent statesman can afford to overlook. Together with the revival of Convocation must be mentioned another important feature in the synodical action of the Church, viz. the revival of Diocesan Conferences and Synods ; and, what is of equal im- portance, the establishment of Church Congresses, which, having originated in 1863 at Manchester, have continued from year to year to the present time. The development of late years of the colonial epis- copate has been eminently satisfactory. During the first quarter of the century, there were only five co- lonial bishoprics, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Calcutta, Ja- maica, and Barbados, jurisdiction in other parts of the world being exercised by the Bishop of London, who had been empowered by an Order in Council of CHURCH PROGRESS. 1726 "to exercise spiritual jurisdiction in the planta- tions;" this jurisdiction he discharged through com- missioners, who, being only in priest's orders, could not of course perform episcopal functions. In 1840, the number of colonial sees had in- creased to ten ^ In April of that year, Bishop Blom- field wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which led to the establishment of the Colonial Bishop- rics' Council ; and a meeting to consider the increase of the colonial episcopate was held in Willis's rooms. The cause of the colonial episcopate had already taken deep root ; the Christian Knowledge Society voted ^10,000; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel ^5,000, to which soon afterwards it added ;^2,5oo; the Church Missionary Society ^600 for New Zealand : so that on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1842, no fewer than five colonial bishops (amongst them a bishop for Gibraltar) were consecrated ; in little more than twenty years, twenty more colonial sees were founded ; at the present time, the Church of England numbers sixty-one colonial bishoprics, whilst, in connexion with the Church, there are twelve mis- sionary bishops in countries not subject to the British Crown ; and we must not here omit to mention one missionary bishop in particular, the late Bishop Pat- teson, who, in 1871, received the crown of martyrdom in the island of Nukupu, one of the Santa Cruz group, in Melanesia, To bring together the colonial bishops of the Angli- can communion throughout the world was the object of two conferences held at Lambeth, under the presi- dency of the see of St. Augustine ; the first, to which These were Nova Scotia, Quebec, Calcutta, Jamaica, Barbados, Australia, Madras, Bombay, Newfoundland, and Toronto. 622 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. every bishop was invited except Dr. Colenso (whose heresy was one chief cause of the conference) under Archbishop Longley in 1867, being attended by 76; the second in 1878, attended by exactly 100 bishops. The Encychcal pubHshed by the first of these con- ferences, impHcitly condemned two of Dr. Colenso's most prominent errors, the denial of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and the Very Godhead of the One Person of our Incarnate Lord. We cannot re- frain from quoting some sentences of wisdom which proceeded from the first of these conferences, words expressive of the Catholic position of our Church, and worthy of remembrance in these days of contention : " We propose," said the venerable President, Arch- bishop Longley, " to discuss matters of practical in- terest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions, which may serve as safe guides to future action!' " We do here solemnly record our conviction, that unity will be most effectually promoted by main- taining the Faith in its purity and integrity, as taught in the Holy Scriptures, held by the Primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed General Cotmcils!' A Pastoral was addressed to "the faithful in Jesus Christ, the priests and deacons and the lay members of the Church of Christ in communion with the Anglican branch of the Church Catholic," to " hold fast the Creeds, and the pure worship and order which, of God's grace, ye have inherited from the Primitive Church." Here, then, is an authority to which, agreeably to the Word of Christ, " Tell it unto the Church," we may refer, instead of going to law one with another ; the Primitive Church, the Creeds, Gene- ral Councils are laid down as "the safe guides to future action;" here is the standard by which those people CHURCH PROGRESS. 623 who are constantly complaining of others should judge themselves as to the respect they themselves pay to the voice of the united episcopate. The foundation of the bishopric of Gibraltar is of great interest, for more reasons than one. In 1842, the care of the English congregations in the Mediter- ranean was transferred to that see from the Bishop of London; and in 1869 a Foreign Office Circular was issued, that "the spiritual superintendence hitherto ex- ercised by the Bishop of London over the ministers and congregations of English churches throughout Spain and Portugal, on the coast of Morocco, and in the Canary Islands, as well as over the like congrega- tions in the kingdom of Italy, on the shores of the Black Sea, and in the Lower Danube, shall henceforth devolve on the Bishop of Gibraltar." So that for English residents in various parts of the Continent, there are now two, but still only two, bishops ^ But there is another circumstance which makes the foundation of the Gibraltar bishopric of especial in- terest. At the public meeting in Willis's rooms before referred to, the importance was urged of promoting a friendly understanding between the English Church and the Patriarch and prelates of the Greek Church. With that view, Mr. Tomlinson, one of the Secretaries of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (afterwards the first Bishop of Gibraltar), was de- spatched with commendatory letters from the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London ; and he received so friendly a reception from the Oriental bishops, that it was determined to establish an English ' The work of appointing and maintaining these chaplaincies is mainly- undertaken by two Societies, that for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the Colonial and Continental Church Society. 624 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. bishopric at Valetta, for the sake of English congre- gations in the Mediterranean, as well as a convenient point of communication ''with the bishops of the ancient Churches of the East, to luhom our Church has been for centuries known only by name^ T but as there was already a Roman Catholic see at Malta, Gibraltar, in- stead of Valetta, was ultimately chosen as the see of the bishop. This opening of communication with the bishops of the Eastern Church naturally brings us to the present position of our Church with relation to the other Churches of Christendom. The original intention of promoting, through the bishopric of Gibraltar, friendly relations with the East- ern Church has never been lost sight of Dr. Trower, formerly Bishop of Glasgow, who succeeded to the see of Gibraltar in 1863, maintained the friendly inter- course which was so auspiciously begun, and when on a visit to Athens, was kindly received by the arch- bishop of that city. Again, Bishop Harris, who was consecrated to the see in 1868, met with a most cordial reception from the bishops of the Greek Church ; and, on one occasion, when he was at Constantinople, he found the Protosyncellus of the Patriarch reading care- fully the Greek copy of our Prayer- Book which had been presented, at the Patriarch's desire, by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and marking in pencil certain difficult passages. The present bishop, who succeeded in 1873, has experienced the same kindly treatment from the Eastern Church. At the dedication, in 1874, of an English church at Patras, fourteen Greek clergy- men who were present, expressed a wish for union between the Greek and English Churches ; a similar ' Declaration of the Archbishops and Bishops. CHURCH PROGRESS, 625 wish was expressed by the Archbishop of Corfu, the Archbishop of Syra and Tenos, the Patriarch of Con- stantinople, and other heads of the Eastern Church ; so that this object of the foundation of the Gibraltar see must be pronounced to have been eminently suc- cessful. The immediate consequence of the Vatican Council of 1870 was a disastrous schism in the Roman Church ; the " Old Catholics," as they called themselves, refused to be bound by the new dogma of Papal Infallibility, and they were confirmed in their refusal by the ex- communication of Dr. Dollinger by the Archbishop of Munich. At a meeting in Munich, the Old Catho- lics claimed the Primitive Church for their guidance, and accepted the decrees of the Council of Trent, against which, they maintained, the Pope had been for a long time working ; but at a second meeting, at Solothurn, a proposal that " they should at once secede from the Church of Rome," was defeated by a large majority. In 1872, a meeting of the "Old Catholics" was held at Cologne, at which the Bishops of Ely (Dr. Harold Browne) and Lincoln, and the Dean of Westminster, were present, and a committee was appointed for the purpose of promoting the re-union of Christendom. In 1874, Dr. Dollinger invited members of the East- ern, English, and American Churches, for conference at Bonn. " The discussions will be conducted," he said, " on the basis of what was taught and believed in the ancient Church ; and the common ground and authoritative guides will be sought in the doctrines and institutions of Christianity, both Eastern and Western, and in the formularies of faith as they ex- isted before the great disruption which separated the s s 626 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Eastern Church from her Western sister, and broke up the union of Christendom." At this conference, the main difficulty was the " Filioque " clause in the Nicene Creed, with regard to which the Easterns were inflexible. Another meeting was, however, arranged, and took place on August 12, 1875. t^'^^t meeting Lycur- gos. Archbishop of Syra and Tenos, attended. The archbishop, in 1870, had spent three months in Eng- land, where he had been received by the Queen, Mr. Gladstone, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Ely, and Lincoln ; he had been made a D.C.L. at Cambridge, a D.D. at Oxford, and had left England favourably disposed ^ towards its Church, and desirous of re-union with it. Although in feeble health, he attended this second meeting mainly at the request of Mr. Gladstone. He was unanimously elected by all the " orthodox " clergy present — Russians, Greeks, Slavonians, and Serbians — as their president, and is generally believed to have been chiefly instrumental in the agreement arrived at between the Easterns and Westerns. On August 14, these two branches of the Church arrived at an agreement to the following effect : (i.) " We agree in accepting the CEcumenical Creeds and the dogmatic decisions of the ancient undivided Church." (2.) " We agree in admitting that the ad- dition of the Filioque was not made in a canonical manner." (3.) " We adhere on all sides to the form of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, as is taught by the Fathers of the undivided Church." (4). " We reject every notion and every mode of expression in which, in any way, the acceptance of two principles, or dpxf^t or aiTiai, in the Trinity, would be involved." CHURCH PROGRESS. 627 Thus the difficulty about the Fih'oque clause was surmounted. The doubts of the Eastern Church as to Anglican Orders, Dr. Dollinger, who, it must be re- membered, is one of the most learned canonists of the day, removed in the following words : " The fact that Parker was consecrated by four rightly -consecrated bishops {rite ct legitime), with the imposition of hands, and the necessary words, is so well attested, that if any one chooses to doubt the fact, one could with the same right doubt 100,000 facts ; or, as was done in jest after the appearance of the life of Jesus by Strauss, one could represent the history of the first Napoleon as a myth. The fact is as well established as a fact can be required to be. Bossuet has acknowledged the validity of Parker's consecration, and no critical his- torian can dispute it. The orders of the Roman Chttrch conld be disputed with more reasoji." That these conferences held out hopes for the re- union of Christendom, at any rate, as far as the East- ern and the English Churches are concerned, there can be little doubt. The Easterns were represented by an archbishop, two bishops, two archimandrites, and eight professors of theology ; the Old Catholics by Dr. Dollinger (in himself a host), and their then only bishop, Bishop Reinken, who was consecrated by a bishop of the Church of Utrecht ; the American Church was represented, as also the English, not by any bishop at the last conferences, but by leading re- presentatives of the Church, headed by Canon Liddon. The utilizing the capacious naves of cathedrals for divine service has now been adopted in most dioceses, and has been attended with great success. It com- menced in 1 85 1, when, in order to meet the require- ments of the multitude from all parts of the world s s 2 628 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. which crowded into London during the Great Ex- hibition, the naves of St. Paul's and Westminster Ab- bey were thrown open for divine worship. At the close of the Exhibition, the naves of the cathedrals were also closed for service till 1858, when they were again opened, at certain times of the year, for special evening services on Sunday. Since 1873, ^^^Y have remained open all the year ; and by degrees the ex- ample set by the metropolitan cathedrals has been followed in almost all the other dioceses. In its course of progress, it was scarcely possible but that the Church should encounter some difficulties and dangers. In i860, the threadbare subject of Rationalism — the same which had been so prevalent in England in the eighteenth century ; in France, at the end of the eighteenth, and in Germany at the end of that and the beginning of the present century — was revived in England by the appearance of a volume entitled " Essays and Reviews." The book consisted of seven essays, all but one written by influential clergymen, who talked of " honest doubt," and of the " free handling in a becoming spirit " of the most sacred truths of the Bible. It was the same story as of old, gaining importance only from the position of the writers ; a repugnance to creeds and formularies ; a desire of comprehension by the abandonment of everything that is Catholic ; the acceptance of one part of the Bible, and rejection of other parts ; a dis- like of everything supernatural, and an appeal to the supremacy of Reason. A protest against the book was signed by between eight and nine thousand of the clergy ; it was condemned by the Convocations of Canterbury and York, and two of the writers were sentenced in the Court of Arches to a year's suspen- CHURCH PROGRESS. 629 sion, a judgment which was, however, reversed by the Privy Council. A still more pronounced expression of Rationalistic principles was published by Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, in a work entitled " The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined," in which he en- deavoured to shew that those books were full of er- rors, and that parts of them were " unhistorical," or, in other words, fabulous. In 1852, the Bishop of Capetown was the only An- glican bishop in South Africa, his diocese being nearly 3,000 miles in length. It was therefore resolved that the diocese should be divided, and its bishop become a metropolitan of a province; and, in 1853, the sees of Natal and Grahamstown were founded, the bishops appointed to those sees taking the oath of canonical obedience to the Bishop of Capetown as metropolitan, and to the Church of Capetown as a metropolitical see. In June, 1859, a bishop was consecrated for St. Helena ; in i860, the consecration of Archdeacon Mackenzie raised the number of suffragan bishops of the province of Capetown to four ; on his death, Dr. Tozer succeeded him in 1863, and the same year the first bishop was consecrated to the Orange Free State. A great outcry was raised against the Bishop of Natal's book. The Bishop of Capetown summoned his suffragan bishops, two only of whom, the Bishops of Grahamstown and the Orange Free State, by rea- son of the distance and the difficulty of communica- tion, were able to answer the summons. With these two bishops he tried, and on December 16, 1863, passed sentence of deprivation on. Dr. Colenso, four months being allowed for retractation. Every other course having failed, a sentence of excommunication, 630 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. bearing date December 16, 1865, was passed against Dr. Colenso, and formally published in the cathedral church of Pieter-Maritzburg. The sentence was after- wards approved by the Convocations of Canterbury and York, by the Episcopal Synod of Scotland, by the Provincial Council of Canada, and by a large ma- jority of bishops assembled at the first Lambeth Con- ference in 1867. Dr. Colenso had, however, appealed to the Privy Council against the sentence, and in 1865 it was reversed, and the trial at the Cape was pro- nounced to be null and void ; whilst by a subsequent judgment in his favour, given in 1866 by Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls, Dr. Colenso was enabled to com- pel the Colonial Bishoprics Fund to continue his salary. Other funds, however, were provided for the mainte- nance of a new bishop, and Mr. Macrorie was chosen, with the concurrence of the Primate, by the Bishops of Capetown and Grahamstown, as Bishop of Pieter- Maritzburg. Such matters were of course trials ; but they did not hinder the progress of the Church. In 1876, two new bishoprics, those of St.Alban's and Truro, were founded, and thus far the Church had added, since the time of Henry VIII., four to the roll of home-bishop- rics; in 1878 was passed the "Additional Bishoprics' Bill," through which the see of Liverpool has already come into existence, whilst those of Newcastle-on- Tyne, Southwell, and Wakefield, are promised in course of time. The progress of the Church in the matter of educa- tion has been eminently satisfactory. Notwithstanding the Education Act, and the rate-paid school-boards, its work in primary education has immensely advanced. Since the passing of that act, the accommodation sup- CHURCH PROGRESS. 631 plied in Church-schools increased from 1,365,080 on August 31, 1870, to 2,301,073 on August 31, 1879 (i.e. 935,993 additional school -places were provided by the Church) ; whilst, during the same period, all the other religioits bodies, together with school-boards, pro- vided accommodation for only 1,327,647 children ; and this is all the more wonderful when we remember the reckless expenses incurred by the school-boards, and the advantages possessed by them in having at their command the money of the ratepayers. It appears also that, during the ten years ending August 31, 1879, the Church contributed towards education in church- schools : (i.) For the maintenance of the schools, ;^4,94i,689; (2.) For building and enlarging schools, 294,307 ; the total amount being ^6,235,996, as against contributions of ^1,490,892 from all the other religious bodies in England ^. If we bear in mind that, since its formation, the National Society alone has dispensed ^1,000,000 for educational purposes, involving an outlay of at least 1 2,000,000 more in actual capital from other sources, we may form some idea of what the Church has been doing for the education of the poor. Through, or in connection with, the National Society, the Church has founded six-and-twenty Training Colleges for Teach- ers, St. Mark's College alone costing from ;^6o,ooo to ^70,000; Culham nearly ^20,000 ; and others in proportion The spread of sound religious education amongst the middle, and more especially the lower middle, classes, that portion of the community which is gene- rally supposed to be the mainstay of Nonconformity, and the success of Canon Woodard's gigantic scheme « Leaflet published by the National Society (May, 1880). Quarterly Review, July, 1874. THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. in supplying those classes witri the advantages of a public-school education, based upon Church prin- ciples, promises the happiest results for the Church. At the head of these establishments stands Lancing College, which, however, by the original intention of its founder, holds a higher position, similar to that of Radley and Bradfield, and ranks, though at a much lower cost, amongst our great public schools. Others are St. John's, Hustpierpoint ; Denstone, and Taunton ; also Ardingly, built to accommodate i.ooo boys, and Ellesmere, now in course of building ; whilst, in alli- ance with the scheme, are two schools for girls, one at Bognor, the other at Abbots' Bromley. In connexion with this subject must be mentioned the Theological Colleges, which, now that the Uni- versities are being secularized, are of the first im- portance to the Church; St. David's College, Lam- peter, for Wales, founded by Bishop Burgess in 1822, and incorporated in 1828, with a charter granted in 1852 for conferring the B.D., and another in 1864 the B.A., degree ; Queen's College, Birmingham, incorpo- rated 1843; St. Aidan's, Birkenhead, founded 1846; St. Bees, Cumberland, originally founded in 1816, and recognized by Act of Parliament in 1840; Chichester, Cuddesdon, Gloucester, Highbury, Ely, the Church Missionary College at Islington, Leeds, Lichfield, Salisbury, Truro, and Wells. ]\Ianv of the colonial dioceses have also theologfical colleges for the training, in time, of their own clergy. But, for the present, the colonial and missionary clergy are mostly supplied from England, for which purpose there are two large colleges, St. Augustine's, Canter- bury, and St. Boniface's, Warminster, as well as several smaller ones. The Abbey of St. Augustine ' had been • See p. 67. CHURCH PROGRESS. suppressed in 1538 ; but in 1844 the gateway and por- tions of the site were purchased by Mr. Beresford Hope, now M.P. for Cambridge University ; and there, in 1848, as much as possible of the original struc- ture being preserved, St. Augustine's College was in- corporated for the training of missionary clergymen. In i860, St. Boniface's College, Warminster, now affiliated to Durham University, was founded as a pre- paratory institution to St. Augustine's ; but since 1877 it has held an independent position, the number of its students has been doubled, and it now occupies in the west and centre a position similar to that of St. Augus- tine's in the east of England. Besides these two, are the Colleges of SS. Peter and Paul at Dorchester, near Oxford, founded in 1878; and the College of St. Paul, Burg-le-Marsh, Lincoln- shire, opened under the auspices of the Bishop of Lincoln in 1877. Then, again, we must mention King's College, London, almost a University in its range of subjects and staff of teachers, incorporated in 1829, and opened in 1831, strictly in connexion with the Church of Eng- land ; the University of Durham, founded in 1832 through the munificence of Bishop Van Mildert and the chapter of Durham, who transferred to it a large income from their own revenues ; Keble College, Oxford, whose name alone has a charm for every Churchman, founded in 1870, with a guarantee for its religious character, of which every other college was deprived by the act of 1871, and which is now one of the four largest colleges at Oxford ; whilst, on June 1 of the present year, was laid, in commemo- ration of the late Bishop of Lichfield, the foundation- stone of Selwyn College at Cambridge, which is in- 634 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. tended to help forward the mission - work of the Church ^ and which it is hoped will prove a worthy rival at Cambridge to Keble College at Oxford. At Cambridge also has been established a Theo- logical Tripos, and at Oxford a Theological School, the latter for the purpose, as Dr. Pusey said at the time, of " saving Theology from being crushed out by the pressure of new subjects." It has not, however, at present proved a success ; the most influential tutors have discouraged it ; few honours have been obtained in it ; and it affords no measure whatever of the num- ber of candidates for Holy Orders'. At the commencement of this chapter we charac- terized the progress of the Church as marvcllons. In order to shew that this is not an exaorgrerated state- ment (perhaps to most people it will seem a truism), we must have recourse to a few statistics. At the beginning of the century, the number of parishes was about 10,600, and the number of clergy about 10,300; in other words, there were about 300 more parishes than there were clergy to serve them : out of this number of clergy, there were 5,230 curates, 4,224 of whom were employed by non-resident incum- bents. In 1802, more than half the livings, or 5,555, were under ^50 in value, many were as low as ^30, and in 4,800 there was no habitable parsonage. The State languidly admitted its duty of providing for the spiritual w^ants of its rapidly -increasing population ; and augmented the clerical incomes by eleven par- liamentary grants of ^100,000 each between 1809 and 1820, whilst between 18 18 and 1826 it voted '' " Ad cultum virtutis ac doctrinae, ad augmentum fidei Christianae ad ethnicos usque." Words spoken by the High Steward of the University. ' Church Quarterly, April, 1881. CHURCH PROGRESS. 1, 650,000 towards the erection of new churches. Since that time, the Church has been left to its own resources, and the HberaHty of its members. We have seen that in 1834, that is, just before the report of the Church Enquiry Commission was issued, out of the total number of livings, one half were under £220, one fourth under £120 a-year. These livings were generally held in plurality, " some with one ser- vice v/eekly, some with a monthly service, some with services suspended during one half, and only occa- sionally performed during the other half, of the year Now, if we contrast this with the present state of things, we shall be able, in some degree, to appreciate the progress which has been made. The number of parishes and parochial districts at the present time is about 13,300, as against 10,000 in 1 831", the number of new parishes formed under the Church Building and Ecclesiastical Commission down to November i, 1880, being returned as 3,015. The number of new churches built since the commencement of the century to 1872 was 3,204; of churches wholly rebuilt, 925; in all, 4,129: of this number, 1,150 were built in the ten years ending 1872, as against 151 built in the first twenty years of the century. Restorations and enlargements are still more numerous, so that over 9,000 churches have been either built, rebuilt, or restored. The total cost of this cannot be accurately estimated ; but from the return presented to the House of Lords, on the motion of " Two Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Origin and Progress of the Ecclesiastical Commission (1863). " This return, which was made in answer to a Parliamentary enquiry, is unquestionable, although it is smaller than the return made at the com- mencement of the century. The discrepancy is probably due to the latter return including all manner of chapels, chapels-of-case, school, college, and gaol chapels. (Quarterly Review, July, 1874.) 636 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Lord Hampton in 1875, it is computed that not less than ^34,000,000 was expended on church building and church restoration between 1840 and 1874, an amount which has since been increased to ^40,000,000 at the least, or more than ^1,000,000 a-year°. During the last fifty years also, more than 5,100 new parsonage-houses have been built ; thus (not to mention parsonages rebuilt) there is a clear gain of 5,100 resident incumbents. Next, as to the number of the clergy. In 1801, the number was given of 10,307 ; in 1841, there were 14,613 ; in 1878, over 23,000, or an increase of 8,000 in thirty-seven years; of these 23,000, 19,000 were engaged in parochial work, of whom, in round num- bers, 13,000 were incumbents, and 6,000 curates ^ The last Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission- ers affords some idea as to how the money has been raised which these great enterprises necessitated. Four thousand seven hundred benefices have been aug- mented and endowed by the Commissioners since 1840; grants have been made for the provision or improvement of parsonages, in the purchase of pro- perty, partly of land, tithes, &c., to about ^620,500 per annum in perpetuity, amounting in capital value to about ^18,615,000; if to this be added the sum of ^3,750,000 from private sources, to meet the grants of the Commissioners, equivalent to an increase of " Leaflet published by the Church Defence Institution. f From a return made in March of the present year to the House of Commons, it would appear that at the end of 1879 there were 11,186 resident, 1,509 non-resident, incumbents ; 387 curates in sole charge, and 4,888 assistant curates ; as these numbers together only make up 17,970, there must be more than 5,000 cathedral, retired, and other clergy not computed. 1 Twenty-third Report, for 1881. CHURCH PROGRESS. 25,000 per annum, we shall find that, through the instrumentality of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in forty years a capital sum of about ^23,000,000, producing an income of ;!^765,500 per annum, has been devoted to the increase of the value of benefices. The revenues of the Church have been further in- creased by Queen Anne's Bounty. Since 1831, there has been committed to its trusteeship, by charities or private benefactions for poor benefices, 366,762 in money and bank annuities, valued as money ; ;!^297,689 in " land, houses, or tithes, valued as money;" and ^16,421 a-year in "land, houses, or tithes, valued in annual rent or in yearly rent-charges and stipends." If the last sum is capitalized at twenty- five years' purchase, it will be found that the endow- ments of the Church by private liberality, through the instrumentality of Queen Anne's Bounty, have been increased more than ^2,000,000. During the years from 1864 — 1880, the amount distributed from the funds granted by Queen Anne were ^285,600 ; whilst, during the previous thirty- five years, they probably amounted to double that sum ^ Other public sources are the Tithe Redemption Trust of 1846, and the increase of income derived from the sale of the smaller livingrs under the Lord Chancellor's Augmentation Act of 1863, by which last the sum of ^242,679 has been added to the capital endowment of churches. In the dioceses of London, Winchester, and Roches- ter, separate funds have been raised for the spiritual wants of those dioceses. The first of these, which was commenced in 1863, had at the end of ten years expended ^405,309, whilst it drew forth three times ' Quarterly Review, April, 1881. 638 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. as much from private sources ; and from January i, 1874, to September 30, 1880, its receipts have been So much have hvings improved in value, that it has been found difficult to dispose of many which, fifty years ago, were of an average value. In 1863, Lord Chancellor Westbury was (by the Act mentioned above) empowered to sell livings in the Chancellor's gift of less than .^^^300 a-year in value (the schedule of the act puts the number of these at 327), the proceeds of the sale being devoted to the augmentation of the livingrs. From the return made to the House of Commons in March of this year, we find that a corresponding improvement has taken place in the income of curates, and that, whereas, in 1 843 ^ the average stipend paid to a curate was £^2 2s. lod. ; in 1853, £"/() ; in 1863, ^97 los. ; in 1873, ^129 5^-. 8^. ; in 1879, it had risen to ^150. So that now a clergyman, on starting in life, is secured an income at the commencement equal to that of other professions, for which an equally ex- pensive education is required ; in fact, we may go fur- ther and say, that many doctors and lawyers begin life without the certainty of obtaining so large an in- come as a curate, even supposing the latter never attains to any preferment. Next comes the question, Where does this money come from ? If we place the number of curates at 6.000 and their stipend at ^150, the gross curate- income amounts to ^900,000, about half of which is believed to be paid by the incumbents ; the other half must therefore come from lay sources. Of the socie- ties which contribute to this desirable object, there are ' The Church and her Curates, edited by the Rev. J. J. Halcombe. CHURCH PROGRESS. three principal ones : of these, the "Additional Curates Society," which confines its grants to no particular party in the Church, with an income of ^^84,05 1 18.?. ^d., made grants in 1879' to the amount of ^70, 135 \ 2s.\\d.\ the total amount of its grants since its foundation in 1837 being ^1,598,624 5^-. dd. Another society, the "Church Pastoral Aid," founded in 1836 in the interest of the " Evangelical party," with receipts for 1879 of ^57,114, expended ^54,824; whilst the total amount of money raised since its foundation is ^1,173,943- A third source of income to the curates is the "Curates' Augmentation Fund," the object of which is briefly this, — " to give to the working curate, while at work, an augmentation or additional stipend of, if possible, ;^ioo per annum, over and above the stipend which he receives from other sources. ... It is proposed, in the first instance, that every curate of fifteen years standing or upwards, being in the bo7id fide receipt of a clerical income of at least ^100 a-year, or ^80 a-year and a house, shall be eligible for a grant"." By this fund grants were made for the year 1879 to the amount of £ \ 1,683. The efficiency of the Church has been greatly pro- moted by two Acts of Parliament, the " Bishops' Re- signation Act" of 1869, and the "Benefices Resigna- tion Act" of 1870; although, it must be confessed, a much larger measure has been meted out to the bishops than to the incumbents. By the former of ' Since the above was written, the statement of the accounts of this Society for 1880 has been pubhshed, from which it appears that its income last year was only ^^79,565 i6j. <^d., or a decrease, as compared with 1879, of 2s. 2d. This ought not to be. The Position and Prospects of Stipendiary Curates : a Paper pub- lished by order of the Provincial Council of the Curates' Augmentation Fund. 640 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY, these acts, entitled " An Act for the reHef of Arch- bishops and Bishops when incapacitated by infirmity," the see is to be filled up as if the bishop were dead, except that he is to be paid whichever is larger of two sums, one-third of the emoluments of the see, or ;^2,ooo a-year ; he is to keep the episcopal residences as before, and his rank, style, and privileges, except the patronage. In the case of the see of Sodor and Man, the retiring bishop is to receive ;^i,ooo a-year; whilst of the two archbishops, York is to receive £j,ooo and Canterbury 1,000 a-year. In a word, the retiring bishop retains all the grandeur of a peer, without the work of a bishop. Far different is the case of the incumbents under the " Benefices Resignation Act." An incumbent who is incapacitated, or desirous to be relieved from duty, is, with the concurrence of the bishop, to receive a pension not exceeding a third of the gross income, and to vacate the parsonage-house. Some important advantages have resulted from the Ritual Commission of 1867 ; one from the third re- port, in consequence of which an improved Lectionary has been adopted ; the others, the result of the fourth report. With respect to the latter, a shortened ser- vice in parish churches in lieu of, and in cathedrals in addition to, the ordinary Morning and Evening Prayer, is allowed, except on Sunday, Christmas Day, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Ascension Day. The following portions in the Prayer-Book, at the discretion of the minister, may be omitted : — the Ex- hortation, the Vcnite, one or more Psalms (one at least, or one portion of the 119th Psalm, being re- tained) ; one Lesson, except a Proper Lesson or two Proper Lessons be appointed, when that Lesson or CHURCH PROGRESS. 641 both Lessons are to be read ; the service always con- chiding with the Prayer of St. Chrysostom and 2 Cor. xiii. 14. It is also estabhshed, if that were necessary (for there is no authority for blending the services, a cus- tom which is attributed to Archbishop Grindall), that Morning Prayer, Litany, and the Communion Office may be used as separate services ; and that the ser- mon may be preached without any Common Prayer or services, so long as it is preceded by the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer provided by the act, or by the Bidding Prayer, or by one prayer taken from the Prayer-Book. Two circumstances of some importance remain to be mentioned. On May 17, 1881, a joint Committee of the two Houses of Convocation, which had been appointed on May 5, 1870, for the revision of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, laid their first Report, containing the proposed revision of the New Testament, before Convocation. To criticize the Report, so soon after its appearance, would ob- viously be premature, especially since the book at present possesses no synodical authority, nor is Con- vocation in any way responsible for it. The other circumstance is the appointment, in com- pliance with the motion carried in the House of Lords by the Archbishop of Canterbury, of a Royal Com- mission to enquire into the constitution and working of the Ecclesiastical Courts, The Ecclesiastical Courts' Commission, which held its first meeting in the Jeru- salem Chamber on May 30, is fairly enough consti- tuted, consisting of the two archbishops, three bishops, six clergymen, six lawyers, and eight others, in all twenty-five persons ; and if they act with the know- T t 642 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. ledge and prudence which ordinarily distinguishes Englishmen, the Commission may effect much good ; but the Church will be contented with nothing short of that which is its inalienable right, viz., to be allowed " to do by her bishops and clergy all such things as . . . shall concern the settled continuance of her doc- trine and discipline The necessity for such a commission brings us to the consideration of an objection which is often made by opponents, that the Church is a house divided against itself. Now without stopping to enquire whe- ther there are not, and always have been, equal di- visions in the other branches of the Catholic Church, we readily admit that there are amongst the clergy three parties, known distinctively as the High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church, as to the relative strength of which we have some means of forming an opinion. When an agitation was set on foot for a re- vision of the Prayer-Book, a protest in 1862, under the auspices of Archbishop Trench, then Dean of Westminster, was signed by between ten and eleven thousand clergymen ; these clergymen were almost exclusively of the High Church school ; if, therefore, we make allowance for those who did not sign, and the rapid growth of the party since that time'', we may fairly estimate the number of the High Church party (or of those who would deprecate any change in the dogma or discipline of the Church) at 12,000, or more than half of the clergy of England. Mr. Scott- Robertson's clerical address to the Bishops ^ Preface to the Thirty-nine Articles. ^ From the last " Church Union Gazette," it appears that during the twelve months preceding its publication, as many as 2,619 members (all necessarily communicants) were added to the English Church Union. CHURCH PROGRESS. 643 in 1875, against the eastward position and vestments, received 5,376 signatures, nearly wholly Evangelicals, with a few names from other schools ; these, taken in conjunction with some calculations in the Record, may be considered to denote the full strength of the Low Church party, or less than one-fourth of the whole clergy. Then, in 1872, the address to the Archbishop of Canterbury against the use of the Athanasian Creed, received 2,872 signatures, mainly of Broad Church, but also a considerable number of Low Church clergy ; we may therefore estimate the Broad Church clergy at about 2,500, or less than one-ninth of the whole ^. We should not have dwelt upon this subject, but that we believe the differences in the Church are im- mensely exaggerated ; that they are mere surface dif- ferences ; we have only to refer to the Church Con- gresses, which shew that the parties can meet together and amicably discuss their divergences, and how much wider is the area of agreement than of difference. All agree in accepting the Prayer-Book, the High Church- men may prefer that of 1549, the Low Churchmen that of 1552 ; both prefer to leave the Prayer-Book as it is, rather than run the inevitable risk of legis- lative manipulation. The immense meetings in St. James's Hall and the Hanover- square Rooms, on Jan. 31, 1873, in defence of the Athanasian Creed, shew how combined are all Churchmen (except a com- paratively insignificant minority) in support of the Creeds ; so that if there is variety in non-essentials, there is unity in essentials ; and, after all, such dif- ferences which do not affect our unity, are an indi- cation of life, and far better than torpor and indiffer- ' Church Quarterly, July, 1878. T t 2 644 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. ence ; most people, moreover, are agreed that it would be an evil day if one or the other of the parties should be cast out, or retire from the Mother Church. Space does not admit of our particularizing the numerous agencies which of late years have sprung into existence, which the Church employs in its works of mercy ; such as are Sisterhoods, Guilds, Confrater- nities, Penitentiaries, Orphanages, IMissions, Retreats. We will conclude our remarks on the Church's pro- gress with a reference to the last edition of Mackeson's " Guide to the Churches of London and its Suburbs," Avhich gives statistics of 887 churches in, and within a radius of twelve miles of, London, and may be taken as a fair index of the Church Services through- out the land. From that guide we find that there are daily celebrations of the Holy Communion in 43 churches, or one in twenty ; weekly celebrations in 454, more than half; early celebrations in 533, tAvo- fifths ; choral celebrations in 128, one-seventh; daily service in 256 churches, nearer one-third than one- fourth ; Saints'-day services in 433, nearly one-half; full choral service in 303 churches, more than one- third ; a surpliced choir in 397, more than two-fifths ; Gregorian tones in 124, one-seventh; a weekly offer- tory from the whole congregation in 440 churches, one-half ; free and open seats in 317, more than one- third ; the surplice worn in the pulpit in 581, two- thirds ; whilst one hundred and eleven churches are open for private prayer ; in 53 the Sunday services are separated, and in 91 the shortened services are said. As to the more distinctive points of ritual : the eastward position is taken by the celebrant in 234 churches ; vestments are worn in 35 ; incense is used in 11; altar-lights in 54, and in addition there are CHURCH PROGRESS. 645 candles on the altar during Holy Communion in 53 ; floral decorations are the rule in 219 churches ; and the Dedication festival is kept in 1 56. Against these most encouraging statistics must be mentioned two rather discouraging items ; the one that there are 131 churches in which there are no week-day services, and 267 in which there is evening communion ; but against the former must be placed an increase of eleven in the daily services ; against the latter, of 45 in weekly celebrations, and 55 in early communions, for last year. CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION. "XTO subject is discussed more freely in the present day, and on none does a greater diversity of opinion, even amongst Churchmen, exist, than the Disestabhshment of the Church ; for, whilst some re- gard the union between Church and State as a mutual advantage, others regard it as a cause of weakness to the Church. Thirty-seven years ago, that union was believed to be the essential principle of the British Constitution ; but of late, active measures have been adopted for disestablishment and also disendowment. The " Liberation Society," with an average income of ^14,000 a-year, has constituted itself a great associa- tion for that purpose, combining Romanist and Pro- testant dissenters, and secularists ; it has mapped out the country into districts, with a trained and sa- laried agent in each ; vigorous measures are being made to extend the movement on all sides by means of lectures, public meetings, school-room addresses, and the diligent circulation of millions of anti-Church pamphlets and leaflets, by an army of voluntary tract distributors. In 1879, the Society circulated no less than 3,141,767 publications, and delivered 794 lectures; whilst from 1875 to 1879 inclusive, these lectures amounted to 4,281. Local newspapers are diligently worked, local influences unsparingly invoked to excite opposition to the Church, and to return a Parliament favourable to the views of the Libera- tionists ' Memorandum for Church Defence Conference at Lambeth Palace, March 28, 1 88 1. CONCLUSION. 647 That the disestablishment of the Church, the abo- lition, that is, of the oldest institution in the land, must be a serious venture, and a leap in the dark," there can be no doubt, if only for the reason that there is no equivalent precedent by which to measure its importance ; no means of judging how much of the su- perstructure may fall with the destruction of the founda- tion, coeval with the earliest history of the nation. "The Church of England," says Dr. Dollinger^ " has not only been a part of the history of this country, but a part so vital, entering so profoundly into the entire life and action of the country, that the severing of the two would leave nothing behind but a bleeding and lacerated mass. Take the Church of England out of the history of England, and the history of England becomes a chaos, without order, without life, and without meaning." On May 9, 1871, the House of Commons rejected a resolution for Disestablishment, brought forward by the late Mr, Miall, by 374 to 89 votes ; and on July 2, 1873, his motion for a Royal Commission to enquire into the revenues, &c., of the Church, by 295 to 94 votes. Still Dissenters seem to have their way in all things ; and they will never be contented till they have their way in this. Already Church-rates have been abolished; Church teaching in the elementary schools has been restrained ; the endowed schools and the Universities, to a great degree, have been secu- larized; the parochial graveyards opened to the ser- vices of the Nonconformists. In every British colony, the Established Church has been swept away ; the Irish Church has been dises- tablished and disendowed. It is true, the case be- Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches. 648 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. tween the Irish Church and the Church of England is widely dissimilar. The disestablishment of the former was decreed on the plea that the Roman Catholics had increased, and the Established Church decreased, to such an extent, as to render the applica- tion to the latter of emoluments which of late years had largely increased, an unendurable injustice. Long since, the Irish Church had been described as "bishops without clergy, churches without parsons, and parsons without churches and things grew worse instead of better. If the idea of an Established Church consists in the combination of efficiency and religious liberty, that the Church of England in the present day has attained : never was the Church more efficient, more thoroughly Catholic, than at present ; never was it more liberal ; and Dissenters, with regard to the Church, have, in some respects, been placed in a better position than Churchmen; for, whereas the latter have to pay, the Dissenters have established their rights to the Church without payment. The hostility of Dissenters to an Established Church is a characteristic feature of the Nonconformists of the present day, unlike that of their predecessors, who, although they themselves left the Church in search of a more earnest type of religion, yet often speak of the Established Church as essential to the well-being^ of the nation. The works of Baxter and Owen, Howe and Henry, Watts and Doddridge, and other leading Nonconformists, abound in sentiments of good-will to the principle of an Established Church. And it is strange that their successors should have discovered objections in the present day, just when the old land- " Lord Wellesley in 181 2. CONCLUSION. 649 marks between Church and Dissent have disappeared ; when the advocates of the latter have not only dis- carded the prejudices of their ancestors, but have adopted forms and ceremonies which, not many years ago, would have been branded as highly ritualistic ; when their places of worship are no longer designated meeting-houses, but chapels and even churches ; when you no longer see the red brick Ebenezers and Bethels of former times, but a style of architecture which throws into the shade the churches of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries ; when they freely adopt parts of the Church's Prayer-Book in their services; when they use surplices and organs ; when their min- isters are frequently seeking admission within the Church ; it is strange that at such a time they should have discovered conscientious scruples, and that Ro- manist and Protestant dissenters, who love each other no better than they love the Church, should have entered into an alliance with secularists and others, who demand a free-trade in religion, and would destroy every vestige of a Christian Church. That the fulfilment of the wishes of those who ad- vocate disestablishment would be a cause of weakness to the Church we do not for a moment believe ; how it would affect the State is a different question : the subject is, on many grounds, of too great imjDortance to be lightly dismissed, and must occupy a space in our concludingr remarks. What does Establishment imply ? To answer this, we will not have recourse to those who are biassed in favour of the Church, but to one who was known as the " advocate of the rights of the people," the un- sparing castigator of the abuses of the Church, Wil- liam Cobbett : " An Established Church," he says, 650 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. "a Church established upon Christian principles, is this — that it provides an edifice sufficiently spacious for the assembling of the people in every parish ; that it provides a spot for the interment of the dead ; that it provides a priest, or teacher of religion, to officiate in the edifice, to go to the houses of the inhabitants, to administer comfort to the distressed, to counsel the wayward, to teach the children their duty towards God, their parents, and their country ; to perform the duties of marrying, baptizing, and burying ; and particularly to initiate children in the first principles of religion and morality, and to cause them to communicate ; that is to say, by an outward act of theirs to become mem- bers of the spiritual Church of Christ ; all which things are to be provided for by those who are the pro- prietors of the houses and lands of the parish ; and when so provided, are to be deemed the property or uses belonging to the poorest man of the parish, as well as the richest." He puts to himself, and answers, the question, " Ought we to have an Establishment at all ? In answering which for ourselves, it is our opinion that this nation has been much more religious and happy tinder the influence of the Protestant Established Church than it is ever likely to be in case that Church were abolished^." The opinion of a man brought up as Cobbett was at the plough-tail, who, by his perseverance and energy, raised himself in life, whose predilections were rarely in favour of the Church, is important. The great advantage of an established Church is to the poor. " If I would keep up the Established Church of England," says Lord Macaulay, " it is not Political Register, CONCLUSION, for the sake of lords and baronets, and country gentle- men of ^5,000 a-year, and rich bankers in the city. . . . The person about whom I am uneasy is the working-man, the man who would find it difficult to pay even five shillings or ten shillings a-year out of his small earnings for the ministration of religion. What is to become of him under the voluntary system ?" Wherever a parish church stands, there is the centre of the religious, intellectual, and social life of the pa- rish, where the rich find a friend, the poor sympathy, and where even now the children of the poor receive instruction ; where Churchmen and Dissenters are alike parishioners ; — what would the Liberationists substitute for such a principle ? on whom, under the voluntary system, would rest the responsibility ? what certainty would there be that the poor were cared for, the fabric of the church maintained, its services de- voutly conducted, the eccentricities of the preacher controlled ? But with disestablishment there is a cry for disendow- ment also. We have before dwelt on the rights of the Church to its property ; of late years only, now that Church endowments have become so large as to be on a national scale of magnitude, has the State thought them deserving of attention, or statesmen spoken of them as national property. At first, the Liberationists " demanded only the sequestration of property granted by Parliament to the Church ; in four years' time they demanded all national property devoted to the maintenance of religion " Vires acquirit eundo." Now, we find that the gross yearly value of the endowments of the Church is rather over ^^4,000,000. * London Quarterly Review, April, 1863. 652 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAV. Of this sum, tithes and rents given to the Church of Eneland before the Reformation amount to about 950,000; since the Reformation to ^2,250,000; in all, a gross yearly amount of ;^4,20o,ooo; or, if we deduct ^700,000 paid to the State as taxes, &c., other than income-tax, a net yearly value of about ^3,500,000. This net value is thus distributed : — to archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons, about ^173,000; to the deans, 132 canons, 128 minor canons, singers, and lay officers, about ^203,000 ; to rectors, vicars, and cu- rates, about ;^3, 1 24,000. To supplement its endow- ments, the Church receives by free gifts from its mem- bers towards the support of schools, missions, the expenses of divine worship and fabric of the churches, the poor, and such-like, about _;^5, 500,000 every year ^ So that the Church is not so rich, certainly not comparatively so rich', as people suppose. If "the whole revenue of the Church," says the "Times" news- paper ^ " glebes, rent-charges, parsonages, churches, episcopal and capitular incomes, were brought to the hammer, they would not fetch the amount of last year's moderate ' drink bill.' " Now, last year's bill (as it is called) amounted to 12 8,000,000, that is, an average of ^18 per family, abstainers included ; and yet this enormous sum was moderate as compared with that of 1876, which amounted to ^147,288,760. Would it be wise policy, with such a national vice ' Leaflet of Church Defence Institution. B There are probably at least ten lay peers, each of whom has a yearly income equal to that of all the archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons ; and three or four whose incomes not only equal all these, but the incomes of all the deans and chapters in addition ; whilst the aggregate incomes of fewer than twenty equal the total of the 7iei endowments of the Church. March 29, 1881. CONCLUSION. Staring us in the face, to do away with the strongest barrier that exists arainst sin ? But if the Church were disendowed, to what would the money be appHed ? The Liberation Society has pubHshed its proposals. The bishops and clergy are to be pensioned off; the parsonages and glebes, after the interests of the clergy in them are paid off, are to be dealt with by commissioners ; all cathedrals and churches, both ancient and modern, as well as all en- dowments, are to be regarded as national property, to be maintained for such purposes as Parliament may from time to time determine. The surplus derived from these various sources'is to be appropriated " with reference to the wants and feelings of the period ; " it may be " devoted to education, to the maintenance of the poor, to effecting great sanitary improvements, to the reduction of the national debt, or to other ob- jects beneficial to the whole nation." But it will be allowed that the onus rests with the State of shewing that the property of the Church is national property, before it takes upon itself to con- fiscate it. We doubt whether the right of the Church to its own property can be more clearly shewn than by the late Mr. Miall, the founder and mainspring of the Liberation Society. The State " did not build these churches. It did not endow them. It does not support them. It has simply absorbed them into the system as by law established. All the benefice^ice put forth in achieving these splendid results — for splendid they are — ivere put forth by individtials, not Parlia- ment. . . . The beautiful structures reared by the mu- nificent donations of the wealthy, both in the metro- polis and in not a few of our provincial towns, would probably have been reared all the same, if the Church 654 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. to which they have been made over had been inde- pendent of the State." Mr. Miall might have added that, in the present century, the Church has expended about fifty millions of money in restoring the churches from the miserable condition into which they had fallen, or in building for the State new ones for the fifteen millions which have been added to its popula- tion ; and has, through the voluntary liberality of its members, more than doubled the number of the clergy provided for by the ancient endowments. What could more clearly shew the right of the Church to its own property ? The endowments are the Church's own ; the State did not give, it only protects the Church in them. Whether it was an Established Church or not, they would have been given all the same ; in other words, the Church's property is its own, to be used by the Church as the "pillar and ground of the Faith';" of which " kinoes are the nursino^-fathers and queens the nursing-mothers ^ ;" to which has been given the promise that " no weapon formed against her shall prosper^;" and to the members of which attaches the responsibility, that " the nation and king- dom which will not serve thee shall perish," and "shall be utterly wasted \" Disestablishment will probably some day come, and with it disendowment may come also. It is one point gained to have a grievance, even if it is an imaginary one ; and the discordant sects of Nonconformists and Secularists always agree in agitating until their cause is gained, and the State is always ready to redress their grievances. It is as well to be prepared for the event. But should it come, the Church has surmounted ' I Tim. iii. 15. Ibid. liv. 17. ' Isaiah xlix. 23. ' Ibid. Ix. 12. CONCLUSION. worse difficulties, and may look forward to this with calmness. Certain eventualities, as, e.g. Parliament legislating for the Church without the sanction of Con- vocation ; the continuation of the present Court of Final Appeal, and of that court over which Lord Pen- zance presides, in ecclesiastical causes ; the unequal and unjust treatment of clergymen, when one is sus- pended for a year for intemperance, whilst another is suspended for three years, perhaps imprisoned, or perhaps deprived, for obeying what he believes to be the law of his Church ; such provocation might cause the value of establishment to be set at too high a price. Meanwhile, it is the duty of the Church to strengthen its position, and to devise those means which are most conducive to the spread of religious truth. And how shall it best do this ? Two means at once suggest themselves. The first duty of the Church, on the principle that charity begins at home, is towards Non- conformists in our own country. There is enough in- difference to religion, enough worldliness, enough in- temperance, enough infidelity, to which they as well as ourselves are opposed, to make us forget our dif- ferences, and to unite our forces in face of a common danger. Infidelity in various forms is credibly stated to be systematically propagated amongst all classes, especially amongst the working - classes, throughout the country. We need not to be reminded of the danger to which we are exposed through " our un- happy divisions," or that " union is strength " and di- vision weakness, and that a " house divided against itself cannot stand." Churchmen are too inclined to think that Nonconformists are entirely in the wrong, and are irreconcileable enemies. We believe the for- 656 THE CHURCH OF THE TRESEXT DAY. mer to be partly, the latter to be wholly, false. There are, it must be allowed, two kinds of Nonconformists, political and religious ; it is with the latter alone that we are concerned : and to one body of these, the great body of Wesleyan Methodists, who reject the name of Dissenters altogether, the Church owes a large debt of gratitude, and we ought to regard them with shame and humility rather than hostilit)'. The earlier move- ment, which clung tenaciously to the Church, met with nothing but opposition from the Church, whilst its fol- lowers drifted into schism without one single earnest effort being made by the Church to restrain them. It was the Wesleyans, we must remember, who, in the eighteenth century, supplemented the deficiencies of a cold and sleepy Establishment ; who provided re- liorious instruction when the neglect of the Church left large masses of the population entirely uncared for ; if, at a time when the shepherd slumbered, the sheep went astray, and sought refuge in a more congenial fold ; ought we not rather to contrast their zeal with our neglect, and to remember with gratitude that it was they who provided for the spiritual \vants of Cornwall and Wales, and for a large part of the manufacturing population in the north of England ? As we were the original transgressors, we ought to look upon Xon- conformists from their standpoint rather than our own ; to remember that dissent has now become hereditary amongst them ; that they have their traditions as we have ours ; and that they regard heresy and schism, and other points which at present divide us, in an entirely different view to our own. That they do not, as a whole, regard us with un- friendly feelings, we may believe from the number of Nonconformists who return to us, and of Noncon- CHURCH PROGRESS. formlst ministers who are constantly seeking Holy Orders in the Church. The Bishop of Lincoln, not long ago, issued a Pastoral to the Wesleyans, founded upon the principles of the Church ; it was, at the time, denounced as narrow - minded and repellent ; yet what has been the result.-* "Out of sixty-three students who have entered the Theological College, in Lincoln, with a view to Holy Orders, ten have come from the Nonconformists, of whom seven are W esleyans ; and many others would follow their ex- ample, if they were not prevented by difficulties which arise, not in foro conscientice, not from spiritual, but from social and financial sources'"." It is evident that there is a gravitation of dis- senters towards the Church, which it is the duty of the Church to encourage. How is this to be done ? Not by sacrificing truth to peace ; not by level- ling ourselves down to dissent, but by levelling up dissent to the Church ; by the distinctive teaching that heresy and schism are sins ; that there are three Creeds to be accepted, that there are three Orders of the ministry, and that no one must invade these un- less he be lawfully called and sent ; it must be union on the principles of the English Church, as being the principles also of the Primitive Church. If the Church shewed a conciliatory spirit towards Nonconformists, is it too much to hope that they would meet us in a like spirit ; and that at least the most important sec- tion of them may yet act on the words of their great founder : " I declare once more that I die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgment or advice will ever separate from it." And when we have effected this union, there is Paper of the " Home Re-union Society," 1878. U U 658 THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. another, scarcely second to it in importance, for the effecting of which our Church has pecuh'ar advantage, the reunion of the divided Churches of Christendom. " More has been done in England," says Dr. Bol- linger, in his Lectures on the English Church, " in the last nine or ten years to bring about ... a union of the Eastern, Western, and Anglican Churches than in any other country," As to the position of England with regard to the two other branches of the Catholic Church, we will quote at length (for they are of great importance) the words of Le Maistre, who, as being one of the straitest sect, and the most able advocate of Ultramontane opinions, cannot but be regarded as an unprejudiced authority. He thus writes of the Church of England: — "Si jamais les Chretiens se rapprochent, comme tout les y invite, il semble que la motion doit partie de I'Eglise d'Angleterre. Le Presbyterianisme fut une oeuvre Frangaise, et par con- sequent une oeuvre exaggeree. Nous somme trop eloignes des sectateurs d'un culte trop peu substantiel ; il n'y a pas moyen de nous entendre, mais I'Eglise Anglicane, qui nous touche d'une main, touche de I'autre ceux qui nous ne pouvons toucher ; et quoique sous un certain point de vue, elle soit en butte aux coups des deux parties, et qu'elle presente le spectacle un peu ridicule d'un revoke qui preche l'ob6issance, cependant elle est tres-precieuse sous d'autres aspects, et peut-etre consideree comme un de ces intermedes chemiques, capable de rapproches des Elements inasso - ciables de leur nature"." Great strides, as we have seen, have already been made in this direction, more especially in connexion with the Greek Church. Since the promulgation of " ConsideratioJis sur la France. CHURCH PROGRESS. the Vatican decrees the prospect of reunion with Rome has been thrown back, we cannot tell for how long ; the conversions which have taken place excited, at one time, vain hopes for the reconversion of England ; and the late revival in the English Church has made Rome more bitter, ever since it has been manifest that the extreme section of the Ritualists have no arriere pensee for its community. We must therefore wait in patience and abide our opportunity ; the three branches of Christendom have much, have nearly all, in com- mon ; the great step to be recognised is that they are one Church, because they acknowledge one Christ as their Head, because they acknowledge the three Creeds, and the first four General Councils as their standard ; that holding thus a unity of Faith, uniformity in prac- tice is neither expected nor desired. In carrying out the work which it is divinely com- missioned to perform, all the Church asks from the State is a fair field and no favour, and the same liberty which is allowed to others, of managing its own affairs. It would then be in a better position than it is now to perform its duties towards the State, and towards those members of the community who are at present estranged from it. The admission of Nonconformists into Parliament has so diminished the influence of the Church, that an equipoise can only be effected by giving the Church the same freedom as is allowed to members of other communities. An alteration for the better in the Ec- clesiastical Courts will, it may be hoped, result from the commission recently appointed to enquire into their constitution and working. Some change in the conge d'elire, which will allow the Church a voice in the selection of its rulers, may reasonably be expected. u u 2 66o THE CHURCH OF THE PRESENT DAY. Power to alter the existinor constitution of the Lower House of Convocation, so that there may be a large increase in the representatives of the parochial clergy, is essential to the efficiency of the Church. At pre- sent that House consists of 156 members, of whom 20 (the English deans and the Provost of Eton) are directly appointed by the Crown ; 66 (the Welsh deans and all the archdeacons, except the Archdeacon of Westminster) are appointed by the Bishops ; 23 are Proctors of the cathedral chapters ; and only 46 are the representatives of the parochial clerg}', who of late years have more than doubled in numbers, and whose importance has altogether outgrown the proportion of seats allotted to them. The Church also in non-essentials must adapt it- self to the wants of the times ; it requires greater freedom, greater elasticity, to suit the various elements which make up our national character. Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans ; such are the different tribes which have tended to shape our institutions, to frame our laws, and to mould our character ; and the aim of a national Church should be to embrace all and exclude none. Some people like a plain service, others a service with elaborate music ; the surplice contents some, whilst a more gorgeous ritual commends itself to other congregations. Short services are required for the poor, simple services for the unlearned ; a rigid uniformity, a " Chinese exactness," as the late Bishop of Worcester termed it, is less adapted to the English, than any other, nation. Never was the Church more in earnest, never more able to carry out its divine commission, than in the present day. That it has reached an important crisis is evident ; but its past histor)- shews that its fortunes CHURCH PROGRESS. have been above the times ; it has been appointed to fulfil a great purpose, and in the fulfilment of that pur- pose it is the duty and interest of the State, and of those outside the Church, to encourage it. " If Church- men and Dissenters," said the late Bishop Wilber- force, " would unite together to exalt the one name of Christ, and for the love of that name seek heartily and thoroughly for brotherly communion in one com- mon Church, England might have it ; and having it, she might be the first in things spiritual, and then would, in things material, be more than a match for a divided world against her." APPENDIX A. (p. 67.) THE PALL. THE Pall, which the Greeks called Mfiocfiopiov, and the Latins Pallium, was originally a part of the imperial dress, and granted by the emperors to the patriarchs. Thus Constantine granted it to the Bishop of Rome, and Anthinius, Patriarch of Constantinople, being expelled his see, returned the Pall to the Emperor Justinian, which implies that he had received it from him. (Broughton's Bibliothcca.) It was afterwards bestowed by the Pope on Metropolitans as a mark of favour, and of connexion with the Roman See, the earliest instance of such a grant being that of Caesarius, Bishop of Aries, to whom Pope Symmachus permitted " speciali privi- legio Pallii usum." When some Metropolitans received it, others applied for a like privilege, so that in time it came to be regarded as the ensign of Metropolitan dignity, and that dignity the gift of the Pope. Next it became the badge of dependence on the Pope ; thus Honorius I., who was con- demned by the sixth CEcumenical Council as a Monothelite heretic, sent one, A.D. 634, to Paulinus, Metropolitan of York ; and another to Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, as a badge of investment with Metropolitan power derived from the Pope, without which it could not be exercised. The Council of Frankfort, A.D. 742, under Pope Zachary, declared it to be necessary ; a Metropolitan could not be consecrated without, and was obliged to go to Rome to receive it ; in time it was decreed that the Metropolitan should be buried in his Pall, so that his successor might not be able to use the old one, but be obliged to apply at Rome for another. Thus it became a source of great profit to the Papacy, so that King Cnut, when on a pilgrimage to Rome, complained to the Pope of the exorbitant charges made on English arch- bishops, and obtained promise of relief ; Matthew Paris, how- ever, states that in the time of Henry I., the Archbishop of York paid a sum equivalent to 10,000 for the Pall. The 664 APPENDIX, badge of Metropolitan submission advanced into an oath of fealty ; by the Lateran Council of 12 15, it was enacted that neither the functions nor title of an archbishop should be assumed without it, and as subjects swore an oath of alle- giance to their sovereign, so Metropolitans should swear an oath of allegiance to the Pope. Du Pin, himself a Roman Catholic, says : " Primum qui- dem Metropolitica ordinationum jura ad se trahere conati sunt per concessionem Pallii ; eo enim dabatur a Pontifici- bus ; ut possent plena auctoritate sus provinciae Episcopos ordinare ; unde sequebatur hanc potestatem a Pontifice Me- tropolitanis simul cum pallio concedi. Hinc postea novo jure Metropolitanis interdictum est universis functionibus episcopalibus, donee pallium recepissent, juramentum que fidei introductum est." {De Antiq. Ecc. Disc) This oath, says Archbishop Bramhall, was at first innocent enough, that archbishops should observe regulas sanctorum Pairum, but was soon afterwards exchanged into regalia Sancti Petri, i.e. the royalties of St. Peter. APPENDIX B. (p. 560.) JERUSALEM BISHOPRIC. Frederick William, who succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1840, conceived the idea of creating, in con- junction with the Church of England, a Bishopric at Jeru- salem, to which the King of Prussia and Crown of England should nominate alternately ; and with this view he sent, in 1 84 1, Chevalier Bunsen as special envoy to England; the bishop was to have jurisdiction over the English and Ger- man subjects in Syria and Palestine, and ordain, if occasion required, natives of Germany, who should subscribe both the Thirty-nine Articles and the Augsburg Confession. As there was already a bishop of the Greek Church located there, it is evident that there could not canonically be an- other Bishop of Jerusalem. The intention of the scheme may be judged of from the following words, taken from the APPENDIX. 665 statement of proceedings afterwards published : — " Whilst the Church of Rome is continually, and at this very moment, labouring to pervert the members of the Eastern Churches, and to bring them under the dominion of the Pope, sparing no arts nor intrigues, hesitating at no misrepresentations, sowing dissension and disorder amongst an ill-informed peo- ple, and asserting that jurisdiction over them which the ancient Churches of the East have always strenuously re- sisted, the two great Protestant powers of Europe will have planted a Church in the midst of them, the bishop of which is specially charged not to encroach upon the spiritual rights and liberties of those Churches, but to confine himself to the care of those over whom they cannot rightfully claim any jurisdiction, and to maintain with them a friendly intercourse of good offices, assisting them, so far as they may desire such assistance, in the work of Christian education, and presenting to their observation, but not forcing upon their acceptance, the pattern of a Church essentially scriptural in doctrine and apostolical in discipline." Much opposition to such a scheme, in connexion with the unepiscopal Church of Prussia, was raised in England at the time ; nevertheless, before the end of 1841, Dr. Alexander, a converted Jew, was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury as Bishop of Jerusalem ; the scheme has, however, failed either in converting the Jews, or in conciliating the Oriental Christians. SUCCESSION OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY FROM THE APOSTLES. APPENDIX C. St. Peter and St. Paul. 1. Linus, A.D. 68. 2. Anacletus or CIetus,A.D.8o. 3. Clement, A.D. 93. 4. Evaristus, A.D. 100. 5. Alexander I., A.D. 109. 6. Sixtus or XystusI.,.\.D.ii9. 7. Telesphorus, A.D. 128. 8. Hyginus, A.D. 139. 9. Pius I., A.D. 142. ID. Anicetus, A.D. 157, 1 1. Soter, A.D. i68. 12. Eleutherius, A.D. 176. 13. Victor, A.D. 190. 666 APPENDIX. 14. Zephyrinus, A.D. 201. 15. Calixtus, A.D. 218, 16. Urban, A.D. 223. 17. Pontianus, A.D. 230. 18. Anterus, A.D. 235. 19. Fabian, A.D. 236. 20. Cornelius, A.D. 251. 21. Lucius, A.D. 252. 22. Stephen I., A.D. 253. 23. Sixtus or Xystus II., A.D. 257. 24. Dionysius, A.D. 259. 25. Felix I., A.D. 270. 26. Eutychian, A.D. 274. 27. Caius, A.D. 283. 28. Marcellinus, A.D. 296. 29. Marcellus, A.D. 308. 30. Eusebius, A.D. 310. 31. Melchiades, A.D. 311. 32. Sylvester, A.D. 314. 33. Mark, A.D. 336. 34. Julius, A.D. 337. 35. Liberius, A.D. 352. 36. Felix II., A.D. 355. 37. Damasus, A.D. 366. 38. Siricius, A.D. 384. 39. Anastasius I., A.D. 398. 40. Innocent I., A.D. 402. 41. Zosinius, A.D. 417. 42. Boniface I., A.D. 418. 43. Celestine I., A.D. 422. 44. Sixtus III., A.D. 432. 45. Leo I. the Great, A.D. 440. 46. Hilary, A.D. 461. 47. Simplicius, A.D. 468. 48. Felix III., A.D. 483. 49. Gelasius, A.D. 492. 50. Anastasius II., A.D. 496. 51. Symmachus, A.D. 498. 52. Hormisdas, A.D. 5 14. 53. John I., A.D. 523. 54. Felix IV., A.D. 526. 55. Boniface II., A.D. 530. 56. John II., A.D. 532. 57. Agapetus, A.D. 535. 58. Sylverius, A.D. 537. 59. Vigilius, A.D. 537. 60. Pelagius I., A.D. 555. 61. John III., A.D. 560. 62. Benedict I., A.D. 574. 63. Pelagius II., A.D. 578. 64. Gregory I. the Great, A.D. 590. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY 1. Augustine, consecrated by Vergilius of Aries, A.D. 597. 2. Lawrence. 3. Mellitus. 4. Justus. 5. Honorius. 6. Deusdedit. A vacancy of four years. 7. Theodore. 8. Brightwald. 9. Tatwine. 10. Nothelm. 11. Cuthbert. 12. Bregwin. 13. Lambert. 14. Ethelard. 15. Wulfred. APPENDIX. 667 16. Theogild. 17. Ceolnoth. 18. Ethelred. 19. Phlegmund. 20. Athelm. 21. Wulfhelm. 22. Odo. 23. Dunstan. 24. Ethelgar. 25. Siricius. 26. Elfric. 27. Elphege. 28. Liring. 29. Ethelnoth, 30. Eadsige. 31. Robert of Jumieges. 32. Stigand. 33. Lanfranc. 34. Anselm. 35. Ralph of Escures. 36. William of Corboil. 37. Theobald. 38. Thomas a Becket. 39. Richard. 40. Baldwin. 41. Hubert. 42. Stephen Langton. 43. Richard Grant. 44. Edmund Rich. 45. Boniface of Savoy. 46. Robert Kilwardby. 47. John Peckham. 48. Robert Winchelsey. 49. Walter Reynolds. 50. Simon Mepeham. 51. John Stratford. 52. Thomas Bradwardine. 53. Simon Islip. 54. Simon Langham. 55. William Whittlesey. 56. Simon Sudbury. 57. William Courtney. 58. Thomas Arundel. 59. Henry Chicheley. 60. John Stafford. 61. John Kemp. 62. Thomas Bourchier. 63. John Morton. 64. Henry Dean. 65. William Warham. 66. Thomas Cranmer. 67. Reginald Pole. 68. Matthew Parker. 69. Edmund Grindall. 70. John Whitgift. 71. Richard Bancroft. 72. George Abbot. 73. William Laud. 74. William Juxon. 75. Gilbert Sheldon. 76. William Sancroft. 77. John Tillotson. 78. Thomas Tcnison. 79. William Wake. 80. John Potter. 81. Thomas Herring. 82. Matthew Hutton. 83. Thomas Seeker. 84. Frederick Cornwallis. 85. John Moore. 86. Charles Manners Sutton. 87. William Howley. 88. John Bird Sumner. 89. Charles Thomas Longley. 90. Archibald Campbell Tait. INDEX. Abbot, Archbishop, 378, 379, 385, 387, 388, 404. Act of Appeals, 592. Additional Curates' Society, 639. Adrian, 92. Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth, 354, 416; not "the taking further Order," 355. yEtius and the " groans of the British," 38. Aidan, St., 78. A Lasco, 323. Alban, St., 26. Albans, St., 27, 109 ; bishopric of, 630. Albert, Archbishop of York, 105. Alcuin, 100, 105. Alexander II., Pope, 211. III., Pope, 217. Aldrich, Dean, 447. Alfred the Great, 113 — 117 ; Laws of, 114. Alien Priories, 127. Allegiance, oath of, 376. Alleluia victory, the, 36. Allen, Dr., 356. Anabaptists, 311 and n., 326. Analogy, Butler's, 305. Andrewes, Bishop, 370, 379, 386, 405, 414. Annates, 224, 233, 282, 342. Anne (of Bohemia), Queen, 259. Anne, Queen, 452, 480 — 491 ; Queen's Bounty, 470, 481. Anselm, Archbishop, 144 — 155. Apiarius, 198. Appeals, Court of, 283 ; Statute of, 282. Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 581. Aquinas, St. Thomas, 239 n., 245. Arches, Court of, 581, 582. Architecture, Norman, 128. Arimathsea, St. Joseph of, 9, 18. Armagh, see of, 47. Arminian, meaning of, 379. Armorica, 56. Army of God and of the Church, 188. Arnold, Dr. , 552. Articles, ten, 299 ; forty-two, 326 ; thirty-nine, 352. Arundel, Archbishop, 261, 263. Asaph, St., 57. Assize sermon, Keble's, 554. Association of Friends of the Church, 554- Church, 582. Athanasius, St., 32. Atterburv, Bishop, 450, 451, 473, 482, 494- Augsburg Confession, 306. Augustine, St., lands in the Isle of Thanet, 64; converts King Ethel- bert, 65 ; consecrated archbishop of the English, 66 ; meets the British bishops, 68 ; founds the see of Ro- chester, 71; and London, ib.; ill- success of his mission, ib. ; conse- crates Lawrence as his successor, 72 ; college of, 632. Augustine Friars, 243, AuTo(fe 610. Broad Church Party, 599, 643. Brougham, Lord, 580. Brovi, Council of, 54. Brownists, 359. Bull's Defence of Nicene Creed, 507. Bunyan, 352. Burial Laws Amendment Act, 612. Burke, 510. Burnet, Bishop, 426, 445, 447, 449, 454, 460, 482, 486, 488. Butler, Bishop, 455, 459. Cadok, St., 53, 56. Casdmon, 257. Caerleon-on-Usk, 30, 55, 70. Csesar, Julius, 6. Calamy, 412, 418. Calcuith, Synods of, 412, 418, 604. Camden Society, 558. Campeggio, 278. Campion, 357. Canons of 1604, 374, 416. Canterbury, church built at, by St. Augustine, 67. St. Martin's, 65, 67. see of, declared head of English Church by Synod of Cloveshoo, 107. Cathedral destroyed by Danes, 124 ; rebuilt by Lanfranc, 139. ■ and York, contention between the sees of, 142, 156, 178. Capetown (Gray), Bishop of, 629. Caractacus, 6, 16. Carmelites, 243. Came, Sir Edward, 341. Cartwright, 361. Catholic Association, 538. Caxton, 267. Cecil, 529. Cedd, Bishop of Essex, 81, 86, 87. Celidonius, Bishop of Vienne, 199. Cerularius, Patriarch of Constanti- nople, 209. Chad, Bishop, 83, 94, 95. Chaderton, 370, 374. Chalcedon, Council of, 197. Chancery Court of York, 581, 582. Chantries, destruction ot, 294, 312, 313- Charity-schools, foundation of, 481. Charlemagne, 102. Charles I., King, 382 — 409. -11., King, 410 — 426; reign of, the golden era of the English Church, 425. Chester, see of, 544. Chicheley, Archbishop, 289. Chichester, see of, 140. Chillingworth, 426, 476, 498. Christendom, re-union of, 658. " Christian Year," the, 553. Church, coldness of its services in eighteenth century, 474, 475 ; con- dition of, in early part of nine- teenth century, 546, 616 ; not created at the Reformation, 603 ; older than Parliament, ib. ; its property the most ancient in. the kingdom, 604; INDEX. 671 revival of, in nineteenth century, 634-645. Church Association, 582. and State, 539. Building Society, 553- Discipline Act, 590. of England Working-men's So- ciety, 582. Missionary Society founded, 532. rates, abolition of, 605, 608. Enquiry Commission, 635. Churches, money voted for building, 473. 474- Chubb, 501, 504. Clarendon, Lord, 421, 485; Consti- tutions of, 168, 171, 172, 176, 578. Clarke, 492, 508, 509. Cleaver, I5ishop, 597. Clement V., Pope, 224, 231. Clergy, submission of the, 281, 381. Submission Act of, 284. celibacy of the, 303, 321, 363. Disabilities Act, 614. Clericis Laicos Bull, 222. Clermont, Council of, 213. Clewer case, 590. Clifton V. Ridsdale, 586—588, 599. Cloveshoo, Councils of, 106, 109. Cnut, King, 124. Cobbett, William, 645. Cobham, Lord, 263, 264. Coiffi, 73. Colenso, Dr., 622, 629, 630. Colet, Dean, 268. Colleges at the Universities, origin of, 24.5. Collier, Jeremy, 442, 443. Collins, 501, 503, 504. Colman, Bishop, 80, 81. Cologne, meeting of Old Catholics at, 625. Colonial Bishoprics Council, 621. episcopate, 521, 534, 620, 621. Columba, St., 48. Columban, 48. Commission, High Court, erected, 343; abolished, 399 ; revived, 430. Committee of Religion, 397. Comprehension, Bill of, 445. Compton, Bishop, 435, 449, 486 ; sus- pended, 431. Conferences, diocesan, 620. Lambeth, 621, 622. Conge d'elire, 285, 317, 342, 660. Congresses, Church, 620. Constance, Council of, 225, 260. Constantine, Emperor, 27 ; donation of, 207. Constantinople, First Council of, 196. Conventicle Acts, 418, 419. Convocation, rights of, invaded, 284 ; restored by Mary, 331 ; repudiates the reforms of Edward VL, 332 ; sits after prorogation of Parliament, 395 ; under William TIL, 448, 449, 451 ; suppression of, 462, 485 — 487 ; much needed in eighteenth century, 463, 473 ; revival of, 619, 620 ; re- form of, necessary, 660. Conybeare's "Defence of Revealed Religion," 505- Coombe v. Edwards, 586. Copes, 376 n. Corboil, William of. Archbishop, 157. Cornwall, saints of, 58. Cornwallis, Bishop, 465. Archlsishop, 474 n. Corporation Act, 422. Cosin, Bishop, 41 1, 414. Courts, separation of the civil and ec - clesiastical, 136. Covenanters, 394. Coverdale, Bishop, 335, 350. Cowper-Temple clause, 610. Crediton, see of, 117. Crewe, 430, 431. Cromwell, Oliver, 288, 408 — 410. Croyland, monastery of, 119. Crumwell, 289, 294, 297, 299, 303. Crusades, the, 213 — 216. Cranmer, consults the Universities as to Henry the Eighth's divorce, 278 ; his oath to the King and to the Pope, 279 ; his party amongst the bishops, 299 and n., 309; his Erastianism, 313; his change of opinions, 328; Cardinal Pole intercedes for, 335 ; his recantation, 336 ; his repentance and execution, 339. Cudworth, 426. Curates' Augmentation Fund, 639. Cuthbert, Archbishop, 79, 106. Bishop of Lindisfarne, 96. Dagan, 72. Danes, invasions of the, uo, 130. David, St., 55. Davids, St., see of, 55. Declaration of Lidulgence, 432 ; or- dered to be read in the churches, 435. 436. Decretals, Pseudo-Isidore, 206. Decretum of Gratian, 207, 237. Defender of the Faith, title of, 275. De Haeretico Comburendo, statute of, 262. Deism, 499, 503, 504. Delegates, Court of, 578. Denison, Archdeacon, 561, 590- Denmark, conversion of, 125. Deusdedit, Archbishop, 91. Dinooth, 69. 672 INDEX. Diocletian persecution, 24. Directory for Public Worship, 402. Disendowment, 653. Disestablishment, 647, 654 ; of Irish Church, 648. Dissent, growth of, 596, 597. Dissenting Ministers' Act, 536. Divorce Act, 606 ; increase of divorces since, 607. Doctrine, how affected by the law courts in nineteenth century, 584 —586. DoUinger, Dr., 625, 627, 647; on English Orders, 627. Dominic Guzman, St., 243, 247. Dominicans, 243, 246. Dorchester, see of, 85. Dort, Synod of, 378, 385. "Drink bill," 652. Dubricius, St. , metropolitan of Caer- leon, 40 ; school of, 53. Dulia, 246. Duns Scotus, 239, 245. Dunstan, St., Archbishop, 119 — 122. Dunwich, see of, 84. Duppa, Bryan, Bishop, 400, 411. Durham, University of, 632. Eadbald, King, 73. East and West, division of, between, 209, 215. Eastenfeld, Sraod of, icxd. Easter, disputes about, 69 ; settled, 81. Eborius, Bishop of York, 30. Ecclesiastical Commission, the, 616, 636. Courts Commission, 596, 641. Titles Bill, 565. Ecclesiological Society, 558. Edmondsbury, St., monastery of, 125, 187. Edward the Confessor, 125. Edward I., King, 222. Edwin, King of Northumbria, 74 — 76. Egbert, first Archbishop of York, 105. King, 1 10. Eighteenth century, review of, 452 — 479- Eldest son of the Church, title of, 201. Eleutherius, Pope, 22. Elfric, Archbishop, 123, 259. Elphege, Archbishop, murdered by the Danes, 124. Elphinstone v. Purchas, 568. Ehvan, Bishop, 22. Emancipation Act, 551. Encyclical, the Lambeth, 622. Endowments promoted by Archbishop Theodore, 94. English Church Union, 582. Episcopal Act, 617. Erasmus, 267. Erigena, John Scotus, 115 and n., I17. " Essays and Reviews," 628. Essendon, monaster)- of, 124. Essex, conversion of, 85. " Et Castera " Oath, 395. Ethelbert, King, 64 ; conversion of, 84. Ethelred, King, 53, 70. Ethelwulf, King, 112, 113. Eugenius IV., Pope, 225. Evangelicals, the, their teaching, 529 ; doctrine, ib. ; great good done by, 531 ; preference of, for sermons, ib. ; faults of their teaching, 532 ; dis- regard of rubrics, 533 ; increase of dissent under, 598. Ewald, Black and White, 50. Exclusion Bill, the, 424. Exeter, late Bishop of, 563, 584 and n. Faber, 556, 561, 562. Farmer, Romanist Bishop of Oxford, 434- Feathers' Tavern Petition, 510. Filioque clause, 210, 626. Fire of London, 420, 473. Firmin, Thomas, 407. Fisher, Bishop, 276, 287 ; execution of, 288. Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop, 253. Five Mile Act, 419. Fleet clergy, 471. Fletcher of Madeley, 524. Fleury, monastei-y of, 119. Florence, Council of, 225. Formosus, Pope, 117, 118. Frampton, Bishop, 441, 442. Francis of Assisi, St., 243. Franciscans, 243, 246. Frederick II., Emperor, 219, 221. Froude, Hurrell, 555 ; his Remains, 556. Gall, St., 49. Gambold, 515. Gardiner, Bishop, advocates Henry the Eighth's cause against Katha- rine, 277 ; becomes Bishop of Win- chester, 278 ; committed to the Tower, 316; made Lord Chancel- lor, 329 ; character of, 330. Gaunt, John of, 254. George I., King, 491. George's-in-the-East, St., parish of, 569. Georgia, Colony of, founded, 514. German, St., 34, 35; see of, 117. Gibbon, 505. Gibraltar, see of, 621, 623, 624. INDEX. Gibson, Bishop, 455, 459. Gildas, I, 15, 57, 58. Gladstone, 561, 608, 609, 61 2, 615. Gladys, 17. Glastonbury Abbey, said to be founded by Joseph of Arimathsea, 9 ; restored by Dunstan, 121; a church at, built by St. David, 55 ; riot in the Abbey, 141. Gloucester, see of, 295. Godfrey, 423. Godfrey de Bouillon, 214. Gorham case, the, 563. Grant, Richard, Archbishop, 229. Greek Church, connexion of the Eng- lish Church with, 624. Gregorian Chants, 62. Gregory the Great, St. , Pope, 60 — 68 ; denounces the title of Universal Bishop, 199. II., Tope, 51. III., Pope, 202. VII. (Hildebrand), Pope, William I. refuses fealty to, 135; Lanfranc disregards the order of, 139; holds two .Synods at Rome on the doctrine of Transubstantiation, 140 ; advance of the papacy under, 211 ; excom- municates Henry IV. (afterwards Emperor), 211 ; dies in exile at Sa- lerno, 212. IX., Pope, his extortions from England, 232. Grindall, Archbishop, his Puritanism, 363 ; his cruel treatment by Queen Elizabeth, 364. Grostete, Bishop, 251. Guest, 345. Guiscard, Robert, 212. Guthrum, 1 14. Hadrian IV., Pope, 217. Hales, 426 ; Alexander of, 155, 239 n., 245. Hall, Bishop, 398, 399, 406. Hammond, 402, 406, 411. Hampden, Bishop, 556, 562. Hampton Court Conference, 370 — 375. Hanover-square Rooms, meeting in, 576, 643. Harold Browne, Bishop, 625. Harris, Bishop, 624. Hatfield, Synod of, 99. Heath, Archbishop, 344, 399. Heavenfield, battle of, 77. Hebbert v. Purchas, 574, 586 — 588. Henry I., King, 148, 153, 187. II., King, 162—178. IV., Emperor, 211. VII., King, 266. VIII., King, the Reformation under, 270 — 307 ; Defender of the Faith, 275 ; his character does not affect the Reformation, 273 ; marries Ann Boleyn, 279 ; his marriage con- firmed by Cranmer, 280; cleigy re- fuse to acknowledge his supremacy except with a limitation, 281 ; Re- formation in his reign chiefly politi- cal, 306. Herbert, George, 406 ; Lord, of Cher- bury, 499. Herluin, Abbot of Bee, 137, 144. Hertford, .Synod of, 95. Hervey, 518, 528. Hexham, see of, 96, 102. Hickes, 442, 443, 492. Highbert, Archbishop of Lichfield, 107. High Church and Low Church, titles of, 444; in eighteenth century, 458, 460, 461 ; comparative strength ol, 642. - — of the nineteenth cen- tury, 458. Hilary, Metropolitan of Aries, denies the Pope's right to receive appeals, 199. Hilda, Abbess, 75, 80. Hildesley, Bishop, 459. Hill, Rowland, 598. Hinckman, Archbishop of Rlieims, ex- poses the spuriousness of the Decre- tals, 207. Histriomastix, the, 390. Hoadley, Bishop, 486, 487, 492, 497. Hoare, Henry, 619. Hobbes, 425. Homilies, First Book of, 314 and n. ; Second Book of, 352 ; of Archbishop Elfric, 123. Honorius, Archbishop, 91 ; Pope, 232. Hook, Dean, 561, 562, 608. Hooker, 366 ; Ecclesiastical Polity of, 367- Hooper, Bishop, 310, 322 ; execution of, 334- Home Tooke Act, 534 and n. Horsley, Bishop, 509, 511, 512. Hosius, Bishop of Corduba, 29, 31. Hough, 434. Howard, philanthropist, 517. Howley, Archbishop, 580. Hubert, Archbishop, 180. Humbert, Cardinal, 210. Hume, 505. Humplirey, 355. Huntingdon, Connexion of the Countess of, 524, 597- Huss, 260. Hyperdulia, 246. Iconoclastic controversy, 202. X X 6/4 INDEX. Ideal of a Christian Church, Ward's, 561. Iltutus, school of, 53. Immaculate Conception, Doctrine of, 239, 246. Ina, King, 109 ; laws of, 104. Independents, 359, 408, 507. India, early connexion of English Church with, 1 16. Injunctions of Edward VI. , 314 ; Eliza- beth, 348. Innocent III., Pope, 219 — 221 ; and King John, 180 — 190. IV., Pope, 232, 252. Investiture, 149. lona, monastery of, 48, 77, 80, 81. Ireland, early Church of, 43, 45 ; dis- establishment of Church of, 605, 612. James, St., 9. the deacon, 76. I., King, 369—381. II., King, 427—440. Hall, meeting in, 643. Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity, 440, 447. Jarrow, monastery of, founded 104 ; destroyed by Danes, 118. Jefferies, Lord Chancellor, 429, 431, 436. Jenkins v. Cook, 586, 588. Jenkinson, Bishop, 545. Jerusalem, Church of, mother of all Churches, 192; early intercourse of England with, 116; condition of, under the Turks, 213 ; Latin king- dom set up at, 215 ; extinguished by the Saracens, ib. ; bishopric of, 560, and App. B. Jesuits, foreign seminaries founded by, 356. Jewel, Bishop, 350, 352, 365; Apo- logy of, 366. John, the Precentor, 98, 104. the Faster, 200. King, 179 — 190. XI., Pope, 208. . XII., Pope, ib. ■ XXII., Pope, 224. Jubilee, the, 223 and 224 n. Julius I., Pope, right of hearing ap- peals granted to, by Council of Sar- dica, 196. II., Pope, 275, 276. Justus, Archbishop, 76, 86, 91. Juxon, Archbishop, 393. Katharine, Queen, 275, 280, 331. Kaye, Bishop, 580. Keble, John, 553, 555. College, 633. Kelly, Sir FitzRoy, on the Ridsdale Judgment, 594. Ken, Bp., 424, 436, 441, 443. Kent, conversion of, 65 ; relapse of, 73 ; re-conversion of, 74. Kentigern (St Mungo), 57. Kettlewell, 442. Kilian, St., 49. Kilwardby, Archbishop, 230. King, Rev. Bryan, 569. King's Book, 303. College, London, 633. Kirkman, 515. Kirk-Shot, 104. Kitchen, Bishop, 342, 349 n. Knewstubbs, 37c. Knox, John, 392. Lake, Bishop, 436, 441. Lambert, Archbishop, 107. Lambeth Articles, 365, 372 ; synods of, 158. Lanfranc, Archbishop, 136 — 142, 144. Langton, Stephen, 181 — 190; author of Magna Charta, 188. Lastingham, monastery of, 95. Lateran IV , Council of, 220. Latimer, Bishop, 309 ; execution of, 335- Latitudinarian Bishops, 449, 451, 457, 479. 482. Latitudinarianism, rise of, 426 ; growth of, 445, 498; in nineteenth century, 55.2- Latria, 246. Laud, opposed by Abbot at Oxford, 380 ; refuses to be consecrated by him, 387 ; appointed Bishop of Lon- don, ib. ; prefixes Declaration to Thirty-nine Articles, 388 ; appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, 389 ; in- troduces a decent ritual into churches, hostility of the House of Commons to, 394 ; committed to the Tower, 397 ; execution of, 403 ; character of, 405 ; his plan for a Colonial Episcopate, 426. Lavington, Bishop, 514. Law, Bishop, 508. Law's " Serious Call," 515 and n. Lawrence, Archbishop, 72, 73, 91. Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, 614. Lay impropriators, 296. Lectionary, New, 620, 641. Legates, 108, 157, 15S, 171. Legnano, battle of, 218. Le Maistre on the English Church, 658. Leo the Great, Pope, 199. IX. , Pope, excommunicates Ce- rularius, 210. X., Pope, 226, 267. INDEX. 6-5 Leo the Isaurian, 202. Leslie, 442. Letter to a Convocation-man, 451. Liberation Society, the, 646, 653. Lichfield, diocese of, 87, 95 ; arch- bishop of, 107 — 109. Liddell v. Westerton, 567, 573. Lincoln, diocese of, 141 ; at commence- ment of nineteenth century, 544. Bishop (Wordsworth) of, 17 n., 625, 657. Lindisfarne, see of, 78 ; monastery of, 82 ; destroyed by Danes, 118. Lindsay, Theophilus, 510; established the first Unitarian Chapel, 511. Linus, Bishop of Rome, 16. Litanies, 61 and n. Litany, 305. Liturgies, primitive, 18. Liverpool, see of, 630. Llanbadarn Vaur, 54, 56. Lloyd, Bishop (Non-juror), 435, 441, 443 ; of Oxford, 553. Locke, 499. London, see of, intended by St. Gre- gory to be a metropolitan see, 105 ; foreign jurisdiction of, 623 ; synod of, 140, 142. Longley, Archbishop, 622, Louis the Pious, 206. Lowder, Rev. C. F., 569. Lucius, King, 21. Lupus, 36. Luther, 306. Lycurgos, Archbishop, 626. Macaulay, Lord, 650. Macrorie, Bishop, 630. Magdalen College, Oxford, expulsion of the President and Fellows of, 435 ; they are restored, 439. Magna Charta, 188 — 190, 592. Mainwaring, iJishop, 386, 387. Manchester, see of, 617. Mandates, 224. Marozia, 208. Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister, 607 ; Bill, Lord Hardwicke's, 472 ; (1836), 606. Martel, Charles, 203. Martin Marprelate Tracts, the, 368. Martin v. Mackonochie, 573, 586, 587, 589. Martin's, St., Canterbury, 64, 65. Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford, 559. Mary, Queen, 329 — 338. Massey, Roman Catholic, appointed Dean of Christ Church, 433. Matthew's Bible, 301. Maynooth, College of, 537 ; grant to, 561. Medwin, 22. Melanchthon, 306. Mellitus, Archbishop, 77, 86, 91. Mendicants, 241, 248, 255, 290. Mercia, Conversion of, 86. Methodists, the, 514 — 527. Metropolitans, 192. Miall, 647, 653. Millenary Petition, the, 370. Milton, Poet, 398, 507. Missions, British, 45. Monachism, 118, 241. Monasteries destroyed by the Danes, III; revival of, 119, 120; dissolu- tion of, under Henry VIIL, 288, 290 — 292 ; crime consequent on, 295 ; other evils consequent on, 296, 297. Monothelite heresy, 92, 99. Montagu, Bishop, 385 — 387. Moravians, influence of, on John Wes- ley, 517. More, Sir Thomas, 287 ; execution of, 288 ; ( Latitudinarian), 426. Hannah, 525. Morgan, Pelagius, 34 ; (Deist), 501, 503 ; one of the early Methodists, 515- Morosini, 215. Mortmain, statute of, 244. Motett Society, 558. Nag's Head Fable, 351. National Society, the, 535, 610, 631. Nelson, Robert, 442, 476. Neot, St., 115 n. Newman, Cardinal, 555, 556, 559— 562. Newton, 529, 598. Nice, Council of, 31. Nicholas L, Pope, 208. Ninian, St., 46. Nix, Bishop, 266. Nonconformists, numerous sects of, 600 ; objection of, to a census, ib. ; their numbers individually insignifi- cant, ib. ; and collectively either small, 601 ; or their conscientious grievances must be infinitesimal, 602 ; encroachments of, 605, 608,609, 612, 614; opposition of, to the Church, 649 ; duty of the Church to, 655, 657- Non-juring schism, 441—443. "No Popery" Riots, 536. Northumberland, Protector, 309, 323. Northumbria, conversion of, 74 — 83. Nothelm, Archbishop, collects mate- rials at Rome for Bede's History, ICS. Oakley, 553, 561, 562. Occasional Conformity Act, 489, 494. 6/6 INDEX. Odo, Archbishop, 119. Offa, King of Meicia, founds arch- bishopric of Lichfield, 107 ; imposes Peter-pence, 109 ; legalises pre-ex- isting payment of tithes, 604. Oglethorpe, Bishop, crowns Queen Elizabeth, 339. General, 517. Ordinal added to the Prayer-Book, 321. Ordination, examination for, in early part of nineteenth century, 545. Ornaments Rubric, the, 415, 567, 569. Osmund, Bishop, J41, 319. Osney, Synod of, 190 ; Abbey of, its property diverted to the see of Ox- ford, 295. Oswald, St., 77 — 79. Oswy, 79. Otho the Great, 208. Overall, Bishop, 370, 414. Oxford, see of, 295 ; in eighteenth cen- tury, 470. Bishop (Mackarness) of, 590. Paine's " Age of Reason," 505. Pall, Appendix A. Palladius, 47. Pandulph, 184. Papal Hierarchy re-established in Eng- land, 563. Parishes formed by Archbishop Theo- dore, 93. Parker, Archbishop, 345, 350, 362. Samuel, Bishop of Oxford, 434. Parliament, the Short, 394 ; the Long, 396, 411 ; and the Church, 550, 593, 599- Parties in the English Church, 642. Paschall IL, Pope, 148, 150 — 153. Patern, St., 56. Patrick, St., ih. Patteson, Bishop (martyr), 621. Paul, St., authorities for his preaching in Britain, 12, 17. Paulinus, Bishop of York, 76 ; after- wards Bishop of Rochester, ib. Peacock, Bishop, 264. Peada, 87. Peckham, Archbishop, 230. Peel Districts, the, 618. Pelagianism in British Church, 35, 36. Penzance, Lord, correspondence be- tween, and the late Lord Chief Jus- tice, 584 n. ; court of, 595. Pepin, 203. Persons, 357. Peter, St., Founder of the Church, 191. the Hermit, 213. pence, 109, 135, 233. ■ Martyr, 310. Peterborough, see of, 295. Petition of Right, 387. Pews, 477. Philip Augustus, 184. the Fair, 221, 222. Phinan, Bishop, 80, 86, 87. Phlegmund, Archbishop, 115. Phocas, 200, 273. Piers Ploughman's Vision, 253. Pilgrimage of Grace, the, 291. Pisa, Council of, 225. Pius v.. Pope, excommunicates Queen Elizabeth, 357. Pluralities, prevalence of, in eighteenth century, 469 ; act, 616. Pole, Cardinal, 289, 333, 334, 337. Pomponia Griecina, 16. Poor Law, origin of the, 296. Pope, title of, applied to Bishops of Rome, 210. Porteus, Bishop, 474, 529, 541. Potter, Archbishop, 454, 495. Prremunientes Clause, 451, 483 n. Prremunire, Statute of, 236. Prague, Jerome of, 260. Prayer-Book, First, of King Edward VL, 319, 520, 567. ^ Second, of King Edward VL, 324 ; publication of, stopped, 325. of Queen Elizabeth, 345 ; the Se- cond Book of King Edward taken as its model, 346 ; with a few altera- tions, ib. ; and a return to the Orna- ments of the First Prayer-Book, 347 ; the Pope offers to accept it, 342. of 1662, 414; adopts Ornaments of First Prayer-Book of King Ed- ward VI. , 416. revision of, under William III. comes to nothing, 447, 449. Presbyterians, 408, 409; ejected, 417 ; adopt Unitarian views, 507 ; their chapels and endowments given to the Unitarians, 508. Prideaux, Bishop, 400, 402. Priestley, 509, 511, 512. Primer, 298. Privy Council, Judicial Committee of, 568, 579, 593- Promoting Christian Knowledge, So- ciety for, 480. Propagation of the Gospel, Society for, 481. Prophesyings of the clergy, 363. Protestant, Associations, 536 ; era of the English Church, 458, 460 ; ob- jection of the Lower House of Con- vocation to be called by the name, 448. Provisions, 224. Provisors, Statute of, 236. Prynne, 390, 396. INDEX. 677 Public Worship Regulation Act, 581 ; its motive not clear, 583 ; objection of Lord Shaftesbury to, ib. ; disas- trous fate of, 584, 595, 596. Purchas Judgment, Remonstrance against, of nearly 5,000 clergymen, 576, 587- Puritans, 297, 358, 360, 369, 380, 416. Purvey, 258 and n. Pusey, Dr., 555, 556; suspension of, 560. Quignon, Cardinal, Breviary of, 321. Quinquarticular Confession, 378. Quinsextian Council, 201. Raikes, promoter of Sunday-schools, 532. Ranulph (Flambard), 143, 145, 149. Reading, Monastery of, 293. Reform Bill, a new era in English Church inaugurated by, 539, 551. Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, 327- Reformation, causes that led to, 267, 269 ; Catholic character of, 270, 274; mistake regarding, 603. Regium Donum, the, 457, 458 n. Regnans in Excelsis, Bull, 57. Reinkens, Bishop, 627. Religious Tract Society, 452. Restitutus, Metropolitan of London, 30- Restoration, the, 411. Revision of the Authorized Version, 641. Reynolds, Archbishop, 230; (Puritan), 370, 412; accepts see of Norwich, 418. Richard, St. Edmund of Pontigny, Archbishop, 250. Ridley, Bishop, 309, 313, 316; execu- tion of, 335. Rimini, Council of, 32. Ripon, monastery of, 97 ; see of, ib. ; nevjr see of, in nineteenth century, 617. Ritual Commission, 575, 640. Ritualism, an inexact term, 565 ; rise of, 568 ; object of, 566 ; six points of, 571 ; common in foreign Protes- tant countries, 571 ; memorials against, 576 ; how affected by re- cent legislation, 586, 587 ; increase of, since P.W.R.A., 588, 589. Ritualists, accused of disobedience to bishops, 572 ; answer as to the charge, 573, 574 ; objections of, to P. W. R. A., 583 ; deny that they are Law-breakers, 592 — -594. Robert of Jumi^ges, Archbishop, 126. Rochester, Earl of, 430, 431 ; see of, Rockingham, Council of, 146. Rodgers, martyr, 301, 334. Romaine, 528, 570. Roman Catholic Emancipation Act, 535. 537. 538; Relief Bill, 535. Romanists, influence of, in England under James IL , 429. Rome, Church of, 191 — 226 ; Patri- archate of, at first confined to the Suburbicarian provinces, 193; gra- dual advance of, 193 — 195, 197 — 199, 205, 206, 209, 211, 216, 218 — 220 ; height of power of, 221 ; de- cline of, 223 ; Curia of, 234 ; gradual influence of, in England, 108, 1 16, 127, 129, 139, 154, 157, 160, 179, 183, 185, 227, 231 ; opposition to, in England, 122, 135, 136, 139, 157, 189, 236 ; jurisdiction of in England abolished, 286. large portion of, burnt, 212. Root and Branch Bill, the, 398, 401. Rose, Rev. H. J., 454. Roses, Wars of the, 265, 270. Rundle, 508. Russell, Lord J., letter of, to the Bi- shop of Durham, 454. Sacheverell, 473, 487, 489. Saladin, 214. Salisbury, diocese of, 140. Sampson, St., 40, 53, 56. Dean of Christ Church, 355. Bancroft, Archbishop, 423, 430, 435, 441, 443- Sanderson, Bishop, 402, 406, 411, 414. Sardica, Council of, 32, 195. Sarum Use, 141, 305, 319. Sautre, 262. Savoy Conference, 412. Saxons, invasions of the, 41, 42. Schism, Act, 490, 494 ; the Roman, in England, 357, 563. Schoolmen, the, 237 — 239 and n. Scory, Bishop, 350. Scotland, early Church of, 43. episcopacy abolished in, by Charles L, 399 ; under William III., 457- Scots, originally inhabitants of Ireland, 45 ; conquer and expel the Picts, 46. Seabury, first bishop of North America, 521. Sebert, King, 71. Seeker, Archbishop, 455, 476. Selsey, see of, 89. Selwyn College, 633. Seminaries, foreign, 256. 678 INDEX. Senlac, battle of, 128. Sentences, book of, 237. Sergius, Pope, 208. Severus, Bishop, 35. Sevvell, Archbishop, 252. Shaftesbury (Deist), 500. • Lord, 574, 583. Sharp, incurs the wrath of James II., 431 ; afterwards made Archbishop of York, 447. Sheppard v. Bennett, 585, 588. Sheldon, Archbishop, 411, 421, 485. Sherlock, Dean, 436, 442. Bishop, trial of the Witnesses of, 305- Shortened service, form of, 620, 640. Sibthorpe, 386. Sigebert, King, 84, 86, 89. Simeon, 529. Simeonites, 529. Siricius, Pope, 197, 206. Smectymnuan controversy, 398. Societies, Religious, 480. Solemn I^eague and Covenant, the, 393. 402, 417. Stafford, Lord, 423, 424. Standard, battle of the, 159. Stanhope, Lord, 494. Stanley, Bishop, 545. Star Chamber, 391 ; abolished, 399. Stephen, King, 158, 161. Bishop of Rome, 195. Sternhold and Hopkins, old version of, 548. Stigand, Archbishop, 126 — 128, 133, 134- Stillingfleet, Bishop, 436, 447, 450. Stock, 532. Stokesley, Bishop, 299. Stony Sabbath, 393. Strafford, Lord, 389, 396. Suburbicarian Provinces, 193 n. Sudbury, Archbishop, 255 ; murdered, 256. Sumner, Archbishop, 619. Sunday, observance of, 475, 476 ; schools, 530. Supremacy, Royal, the, 281, 298, 329, 333. 343. 592 ; Act of, 281, 286. S within, St., 112. Sylvester, Pope, 30. Table of degrees of marriage, 353. Tables, the, 393. Tate and Brady, new version of, 548. Tatwine, Archbishop, 104. Taylor, Jeremy, 406. Telian, St., 53, 57. Temporal power, foundation of Rome's, 204. Tenison, Archbishop, 436, 450, 485, 498 ; bequeathed ;^iooo towards a colonial episcopate, 534. Test Act, 422, 428, 461, 489, 494 ; University, 609 ; and Corporation Act, repeal of, 551. Tests, abolition of, at the Universities, 609, 610. Thadioc, Bishop of York, 42. Theobald, Archbishop, 158, 160. Theodora, 208. Theodore, Archbishop, 92 — 100. Theological Colleges, 632. Theon, Bishop of London, 42. Thetford, diocese of, 141. Thomas, Bishop, 441. Thurketal, Chancellor, 120. Thursby, Archbishop, 253. Thurstan, Bishop, 156, 159; abbot, 141. Tillotson, Archbishop, 426, 436, 447 — 450, 498. Tindal, 501, 504. Tithe Commutation Act, 618 ; Redemp- tion Trust, 637. Titus Gates, 423. Toland, 486, 500, 503. Toleration, Act of, 446 ; plan of Charles II. for .selling, 420. Tomlinson, Bishop, 623. Toplady, 528. Towns, growth of the manufacturing, 549- Tractarians, 555, 556. Tracts for the Times, 554, 555, 558 ; discontinued, 557 ; lines on, by Isaac Williams, 555 n. Transubstantiation, 140, 221, 256, 303, 304, 332, 423. Travers, 367. Treason Act, 287. Treasury of Grace, 239, 245. Trelawney, Bishop, 436. Trench, Archbishop, 642. Trevecca, College of, 524. Triers, 410. Trower, Bishop, 624. Truro, Bishopric of, 630. Tuda, Bishop, 82. Tunstall, Bishop, 268, 306, 308, 323, 592. Turner, Bishop, 435, 441. Tyndale, 268. Unam Sanctam, Bull, 222. Uniformity, First Act of Edward VI., 320. Second Act of Edward VI., 334, 332- Act of Elizabeth, 345, 357, 415. Act of Charles II., 415 — 417. INDEX. 679 Union, London, the, 609. Urban II., Pope, 145 — 148, 213. — v.. Pope, 235, 254. Usher, Archbishop, 400, 402. Van Mildert, Bishop, 633. Venn, 529. Vestments, the, pronounced by Judicial Committee of Privy Council to be legal, 567, 568, 573 ; to be illegal, 574> 586. Vicarages, origin of, 297. Victor, Bishop of Rome, 195. Vitalian, Pope, 92. Vortigern, 38. Vow, the, 388. Wagstafle, 442, 443. Wake, Archbishop, 450, 451, 459, 491 ; correspondence of, with Du Pin, 493 ; with Courayer, 494. Wales, British Church in, 42, 43 ; Dis- sent in, in nineteenth century, 597, 598- Walker, Obadiah, 433. Walton, Bryan, Bishop, 411. Wandsworth, orders of, 361. Warburton, Bishop, 463, 485, 514; Divine legation of, 505. Warelwast, 151, 153. Warham, Archbishop, 268, 279. Warminster, St. Boniface, 632. Waterland, Bishop, 459. Watson, Bishop, 464, 543. Waynflete, Bishop, 289. Wearmouth, monastery of, 103, 118. Wedmore, peace of, 114. Wells, see of, 117. Wesley, Charles, 515. John, early life of, 515; goes to Georgia, 517 ; his account of his con- version, 519; visits Hernhut, t'i. ; separates from the Moravians, t//. ; and from Whitfield, 523 ; sanctions lay preaching, ; usurps episcopal functions, id. ; his marriage, 524 ; his energetic life, li. ; his great in- fluence, 526 ; his inconsistency, id. ; accused of popery, 570. Wesleyan Conference, 523. Methodists, schism of, 527, 656, 657- Wessex, conversion of, 85. West, schism of the, 224. Westbury, Lord, 595, 638. Western empire, revival of, 205. Westminster Abbey, consecration of, 127. Assembly of Divines, 401, 409. Dean (Stanley) of, 625. See of, 295. ■ Synod of, 155. Whately, Archbishop, 619. Whigs and Tories, 424, 454. Whip wilh six cords, the, 304, 316. Whiston, 508, 509. Whitby, monastery of, 80 ; council of, 81. White, Bishop, 436, 441. Whitfield, 515 ; goes to Georgia, 518 ; early life of, 519; first sermon of, 520 ; his powerful preaching, ib. ; returns to England to take Priest's Orders, 521 ; adopts open-air preach- ing, 522 ; inhibited by the Chan- cellor of Bristol, ib. Whitgift, Archbishop, 361, 365, 370. Whiting, Abbot, execution of, 292. Wicliffe, 253 — 260. Wigheard, 91. Wilberforce, William, 529. Bishop, 561, 619, 664. Wilfrid, Bishop, 49, 81, 82, 88, 92, 96—103. Wilkins, 426. William I., King, 131, 132, 135. II., King, 142, 148. III., King, 440, 452. Williams, Archbishop, 391, 396 — 399, 402, 405. Isaac, 555, 557. V. Bishop of Salisbury, 585. Willibrord, 49. Wilson V. Kendall, 585. Winchester, see of, 85, 142. Winfrid (St. Boniface), 51, 106, 204. Wini, Bishop, 85, 96. Wiseman, Cardinal, 565. Wolsey, Cardinal, 276 — 278, 289. Woodard, Canon, Middle-Class Schools of, 631. Wren, Bishop, 393, 394, 397, 398. Wulfstan, Bishop, 132, 134. Wurtemburg Confession, 352. Wykeham, William of, 289. 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