p^., ., .^.--.-^.^,^.^.^. 'li'TI wmmmmim /r'r'^'f ''''';!' 'm ■••'■'it •■'.'c* ' PRINCETON, N. J. SAe//. % BR 476 .P47 v. 2 Perry, G. G. 1820-1897. A history of the English church :^* /,V; * ■ ■ i?!^'- .t^ ./5'\%^? ;\^. ... J, !*.►" *^% :*. i(: r *»>.•; ,;£,; ^tjm-'f'' f:S' HISTOKY OF THE ENGLISH CHUECH FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY Till. TO THE SILENCING OP CONVOCATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH JTirst ilerioU FROM THE PLANTING OP THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN TO THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII., 596-1509. Tee Students English Church History. A HISTORY ENGLISH CHURCH Second ?3eriotJ FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. TO THE SILENCING OF CONVOCATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1509-1717 By a. G>PEREY, M.A. CANON OF LINCOLN AND RECTOR OF WADDINGTON THIRD EDITION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1884 Uniform with the 2ircsent JVorJc. I. THE STUDENT'S MANUAL OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. From the Creation of the World to the Return of the Jews from Captivity. With an Appendix, containing an Introdnction to the Books of the Old Testament. By PHILIP SMITH, B.A. With Maps and Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. II. THE STUDENT'S MANUAL OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY. With an Introduction containing the connection of the Okl and New Testament. By PHILIP SMITH, B.A. With Maps and Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. III. THE STUDENT'S MANUAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. A History of the Christian Church. By PHILIP SMITH, B.A. With Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Post 8vo. Part I. — The First Ten Centuries. From the Times of the Aj)Ostles to the full Establishment of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papal Power, a.d. 30-1380. 7s. 6d. Part II.— The Middle Ages and the Reformation. 1381-1598. 7s. 6d. PEEFAOE, In this volume an attempt is made to set forth the History of the Church of England,, during its reformed period, in a concise form,- but without the omission of any essential points. At present there is no such work accessible for Students. Many Histories of the Eeformation, of more or less value, exist ; but these all stop short of the Stuart times, when the Church was so sorely tried by evil influences from various quarters. Bishop Short's History extends over a larger area, but scarcely at all enters into details. It is hoped, therefore, that this volume may supply a manifest want. The volume concludes with the silencing of Convoca- tion, as from that point the action of the Church was to a certain extent in abeyance. A short sketch of the remainder of the Eighteenth Century is added. Clevedon, CJiristmas 1877. ^ CONTENTS. Introductoky A. Wycliffe B. The Friars CHAPTER I. Notes and Illustrations : — A -^ • ^(O PACK 14 CHAPTER IL— 1509-1523. Alienation between Clergy and Laity Notes and Illustrations :— A. The Early Life of Wolsey . B. History of the Privilege called ' ' Benefit of Clergy C. History ©f the Royal Supremacy 16 27 27 28 CHAPTER 111—1511-1527. Growth of Reforming Opinions in England . CHAPTER IV.— 1527-1533. The Divorce Case and the Fall of Wolsey . Notes and Illustrations : — A. Early Life of Anne Boleyn ..... B. Date of the Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn C. Early Life of Thomas Cranmer . . . • D. The Form of the Annulling of the Marriage of Henry and Catherine ... ... E. The Pope's Bull declaring the Validity of the Marriage 41 64 65 65 65 CHAPTER v.- 1529-1536. The Reformation Parliament and Convocation Notes and Illustrations : — A. Thomas Crumwell ,..••• B. Acts of Parliament respecting the Church in the Session 1532 C. Tlie two Forms of Submission of the Clergy . 67 87 87 87 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI.— 1528-1536. FAOB PHOQRESS OF EeFORMING OPINIONS . . . .89 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Reformers burned during Sir T. More's Chancellorship . 107 B. Mediaeval Primers . . . • . .107 CHAPTER VIL— 1534-1536. The Supremacy — Its Opponents and Defenders . .168 CHAPTER VIII.— 1536-1539. The Suppression of the Monasteries . . . .121 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The Act for the Suppression of the Smaller Monasteries . 139 B. Contemporary Sketch of the Dissolution of a Monastery . 140 CHAPTER IX.— 1536-1539. The Reformation Period . . . . . . 142 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The Pilgrimage of Grace . . . . .159 B. Tyndale's Death . . . . . .162 CHAPTER X.— 1539-1547. The Reactionary Period ..... 164 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Attainders in the Parliament of 1539 . , ,185 B. Queen Catherine Parr . . . . ,185 CHAPTER XL— 1547-1550. The Progress of the Reformation , . . .186 Notes and Illustrations :— A. Tlie Ancient Summons of the Clergy to Parliament . . 202 B. Names of the Divines who were employed in drawing up the Prayer-Book ...... 202 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIL— 1550-1553. PAQU Development of the Pkotestant Element in the English Reformation. ...... 203 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Foreign Divines 'brought to England by Cranmer . .219 B. The Book of Bertram ; its real anthorship . . • 220 C. Comparison of the Forty-two Articles with the Thirty-nine . 220 D. Treatment of the Princess Mary during the reign of Edward VI. 220 CHAPTER XIIL— 1553-1555. The Restoration of the Unreformed Religion . . 221 Notes and Illustrations : — Bonner's Proceedings in London against the married Clergy . 235 CHAPTER XIV.— 1555-1558, The Persecution of the Reformers . . • 236 Notes and Illustrations : — Table of the number of Keformers burned in the different Dioceses during the reign of Queen Mary . . • .251 CHAPTER XV.— 1558-1559. The Restoration of the Reformation Movement . . 252 Notes and Illustrations : — A. John Knox . . . • '■,-,,' ^- ' oa? B. The Vesture used by the Clergy in Queen Elizabeth s tune . ^t)/ CHAPTER XVI.— 1559-1563. The Reformation Settlement of the Church of England Notes and Illustrations :— 269 283 A. The Nag's Head Fable . • • ' . V B. Table of the Succession of the New Bishops at begmmug ot Elizabeth's reign . . • • • ' o8k C. Bernard Gilpin . • • • • . -^oo S CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVir.— 1563-1575. PAGH The Attempt to Enfokce Discipline. The Advep.tisements 286 Notes and Illustrations : — A.. The Advertisements never sanctioned by the Queen . . 300 B. The Bill for Subscription, and the Final Settlement of the Thirty-nine Articles . . . . .301 C. Thomas Cartwright . . . . . .301 CHAPTER XVm.— 1575-1583. Aeohbishop Grindal's Primacy. The Prophesyings . 302 Notes and Illustrations :— The Commissions of Concealments . . . .312 CHAPTER XIX.— 1583-1586. Archbishop Whitgift's Struggle with Puritanism. The Subscription. ...... 313 Notes and Illustrations : — A. "Way in which Church Service was performed by Mr. Nicholas ofEastwell . . . . . .328 B. Kichard Hooker ... . . 329 CHAPTER XX.— 1586-1593. The Struggle with Puritanism. The Libellers . . 330 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Treatment of the Puritans by the Judges . . , 338 B. The Founders of the Barrowists . . . .338 CHAPTER XXL— 1563-1603. The "Work of Convocation. Religious Controversy during THIS Reign ....... 339 Notes and Illustrations : — England and Rome during the reign of Elizabeth . .357 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XXIL— 1603-1605. PAGE The Commencement of a New Era— Conference with the Puritans. The " Ex-Animo " Subscription . . 358 Notes and Illustrations :— A. The Millenary Petition ..... 372 B, Alterations made in the Prayer-Book after the Hampton Court Conference ...... 373 CHAPTER XXITL— 1605-1610. Collisions between the Ecclesiastical and Lay Authorities. Eevision of the English Version of the Bible — Bishops FOR Scotland ...... 374 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Bishop Overall's Convocation Book .... 384 B. Chelsea Controversial College .... 384 C. Bishop Andrewes' Sermons and Field Of the Church . 385 CHAPTER XXIY.— 1611-1625. Abbot's Primacy. Calvinism — The Reaction against it . 386 Notes and Illustrations : — Marc Anthony de Dominis, Archhishop of Spalatro . 401 CHAPTER XXY.— 1625-1629. The Church made to Support Absolutist Views . . 402 Notes and Illustrations : — Bishop Cosin's Book of Devotions .... 413 CHAPTER XXVI.— 1629-1639. Laud's Policy in Church Matters .... 414 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The Puritan Settlements in New England . . .426 B. John Hales and William Chillingvvorth . .427 C. Archbishop Laud as a promoter of learning . . . 427 2di CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVII.— 1637-1640. PAGl? Scotch Affairs. The Short Parliament and Convocation 428 CHAPTER XXYIII.— 1640-1642. The Church and the Long Parliament . . . 439 Notes and Illustrations : — Declaration of the House of Commons on Eeligion, September 9 451 CHAPTER XXIX.— 1642-1647. The Westminster Assembly of Divines. The Covenant AND Directory ...... 452 CHAPTER XXX.— 1640-1649. The Persecution of the Clergy .... 462 Notes and Illustrations : — Substance of the Articles exhibited against Archbishop Land . 474 CHAPTER XXXI.— 1649-1660. The Church during the Commonwealth . 475 CHAPTER XXXIL— 1660-1662. The Restoration Settlement— The PtEVisioN of the Prayer- BooK ........ 486 Notes and Illustrations : — A. Changes made in the Prayer-Book after leaving Convocation 500 B. Change made in the Ornaments Kubrick at the Review of 1662 ....... 501 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER XXXIII— 1660-1685. PAQS The Political History of the Church of England during THE Reign of Charles II. . . . . . 502 Notes and Illustrations :— A. The Provisoes sent by the King to the House of Lords for insertion in the Act of Uniformity . , . 511 B. The Declaration against tlie Solemn League and Covenant prescribed in the Act of Uniformity . . . 511 CHAPTER XXXIV.— 1660-1685. The Internal History of the Church of England during THE Reign of Charles II. . . . . .512 Notes and Illustrations : — Paper drawn up by Dr. Wilkins which he considered might satisfy the Dissenters and pass the Legislature . . 523 CHAPTER XXXV.— 1685-1688. The Struggle of the Church of England against Romanism 524 CHAPTER XXXVI.— 1688-1689. Toleration and Comprehension .... 538 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The Toleration Act. 1 Will, and Mary, c. 18 . . 549 B. Summary of tlie Alterations in the Prayer-Book recommended by the Commission ..... 549 CHAPTER XXXVIL— 1689-1702. The Nonjuring Schism— The Convocation Controversy 550 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The later Nonjurors ..... 564 B. The Trinitarian Controversy of the Revolution Period . 564 CHAPTER XXXVIII.— 1702-1710. Occasional Conformity. Convocation Disputes — "The Church in Danger." Dr. Sacheverell . . .565 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The First-Fruits and Tenths . . - • ^l^ B. Benjamin Hoadly ...••• 576 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIX.— 1710-1717. The Church of England at its Highest Point of Influence 577 Notes and Illustrations : — A. The Social Condition of the Clergy in the time of Queen Anne 586 B. Sketch of Religious AflFairs during remainder of Eighteenth Century ....... 587 Table of Succession of English Kings, Archbishops of Canterbury, and Popes ..... 595 Chronological Table of Events .... 597 Inde2 .... .601 HISTORY OP THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. § 1. National character of the English Church. § 2. Greatly enhanced by Rupture with Kome in sixteenth Century. § 3. Corruptions of the Western Church had culminated at that period. § 4. lUustrations of this : (a) Ignorance of Scripture ; (&) Decay of the Friars ; (c) of the Monks ; (d) of Pilgrimages ; (e) of Saint Worship ; (/) Disregard of teaching office of Clergy ; (g) Secular Employments of Clergy ; (h) Rotten Social State of the period. § 5. Proofs of it by the general desire for Reform then prevalent. § 6. Reformers, Educational and DoctrinaL § 7. Educational : (a) The King ; (b) Cardinal Wolsey ; (c) Arclibishop Warham ; (d) Bishop Fox ; (e) Bishop Fisher ; (/) More, Colet, and Erasmus, (g) Other Educational Reformers. § 8. The Doctrinal or Scriptural Reformers. § 9. Both classes likely to help a movement. § 10. Luther gives the first impulse to Reformation. § 11. Fortunate that no English leader arose. § 12. Character of the King useful for furthering the work. § 13. Mixed character of the Reformation move- ment. § 14. Erastianism how far prevalent. § 15. Spoliation of Church Property. § 16. Scarcity of great J\Ien. § 17. How we ought to approach its History. § 1. It is proposed in this work to narrate that portion of the history of the Church of Christ in this land which is peculiarly- special and distinctive. During all its history, indeed, the Church in England has had its distinct national characteristics. From its insular position, its remoteness from the centre of ecclesiastical power, the independent character of its inhabitants, and the com- parative freedom of its institutions, national life in this land, butli civil and ecclesiastical, has had a complexion of its own. The early English Church, anterior to the Conquest, was distinctly a national Church. It owed almost as much to eastern as to western sources. The wise advice given by Pope Gregory to Augustine, not to stickle for every particular to which he had been used in Home, but to adopt what seemed to him best from other churches also, repre- sents the way in which the English Church was built up. The B 2 INTRODUCTORY. Chap. 1. Saxon Churcli, while it did not refuse to tlie pope respect and deference, was altogether independent of him. No legates then attempted to administer the Church affairs of England in defiance of the laws of the land. No separation existed between clerical and lay jurisdiction. No canons enacted abroad had of necessity- weight in England. The expedition of Duke William took almost as much the character of a crusade against the nationality of the Church, as a war of conquest directed agaiast the secular power. ^ Under William and Lanfranc the Roman system was introduced, but, in spite of the vigorous rule of the early Norman kings, the national characteristics of the Church soon again developed them- selves. The connection of cathedrals with monasteries, the resist- ance to the law of celibacy for the clergy, the long struggle against clerical immunities and special rights, the noble stand made by churchmen in favour of the " ancient customs," which found ex- pression in the charters of John and Henry III. ; the limitation of foreign ecclesiastical influence by the statutes of Mortmain,^ Pro- visors,3 and Praemunire ; * finally, the teaching of John Wyclyfifcj^ and the wide-spread and deeply-rooted effects which it produced — all give a continuity of national life to the Church of England. § 2. But this national character of the English Church was very greatly enhanced by its rupture with Eome in the sixteenth century. Hence this becomes a natural starting-point for a history of the Church of England. The Church of England has to some extent a history of its own before, but from this point it has a history specially its own. Although its position as a branch of the Catholic Church was never impaired, or even imperilled, yet its divergence from other branches of the Church now became so marked that it requires a special and peculiar treatment. What was it that occasioned this rupture and this divergence ? They arose, first of all, from certain historical causes, but they were sustained and perpetuated by another principal cause, viz. the generally felt desire for, and sense of the need of, a Reformation. ^ See Freeman's Norman Conquest, iii. 638 ; Thieny, History of the Conquest, i. 248, 251 (Hazlitt's Trans.) ^ To restrain the transfer of lands to the Church hy will. This was done in the following Statutes : — Magna Charta ; 7 Edward I. c. 2 ; 13 Edward I. c. 32 ; 25 Edward I. c. 36 ; 15 Eic. II. c. 2. 3 To restrain the giving away of English benefices by the pope. This was done in the following :— 25 Edw. III. cc. 6, 22 ; 27 Edw. III. c. 1 ; 13 Eic. II. St. 2, c. 2 ; 16 Eic. II. cc. 1-5 ; 2 Hen. IV. c. 3 ; 9 Hen. IV. c. 8. ■* To restrain English ecclesiastics from acting under Papal authority. This was done in the following :— 7 Eic. II. c. 14 ; 16 Eic. II. c. 5. (This was the most famous statute, and from its use of the term Prcemunire at the beginning of one of its clauses gave a special name to the offence) ; 22 Hen. VIII. c. 16. ^ John Wyclyfle. See Notes and Illustrations, A. Chap. 1. INTRODUCTORY. 3 § 3. The nationality of the English Church during the middle age had not saved it from its share in the corruption in doctrine and discipline which had gradually overspread the Western Church. From this corruption no period had been altogether free, but the commencement of the sixteenth century exhibited it in some of its worst lineaments. We may trace downwards a constant note of warning from censors and satirists testifying to this gro^vdnr' cor- ruption. Thus, William of Malmesbury charges the later Anresented him to the living of Lymington (1500). At the Marqui.s's death he became known to Sir John Nauphant, the Treasurer of Calais, who made him his chaplain, and was also instrumental in procuring him the ap- pointment of chaplain to King Heniy VII. Fox, Bishop of Wincliester and Lord Treasurer, thus made his acquaint- ance, and being much pleased with his wit and readiness, recommended him to the king for employment in a foreign mi.ssion. He executed this so speedily and well, that the king, as a reward, gave him the deanery of Lincoln, "which was at that time one of the worthiest promo- tions that he gave under tlie degree of a bishopric (Cavendish). After the death of Henry VII., Wolsey obtained a seat i in the council, and so recommended hini- ' self to the young king, that " the esti- I mation and favour of him put all other 1 ancient counsellors out of high favour I that they were before in " (Cavendish). I Presents and bribes flowed in fast. His influence became paramount with the ' king. Even the queen addressed herself to him to manage matters with the king for her. His ifurther promotions have been described in the text. I (B) HISTORY OF THE PRIVILEGE CALLED "BENEFIT OF CLERGY." (Gibson's Codex, Tit. xlix. p. 11C4.) In the Anglo-Saxon times there was no distinction between the ecclesiastical and i civil laws. Both clerks and laymen were ! tried by the same courts, the secular ! judge and the bishop sitting together. ! William the Conqueror separated Uie civil and ecclesiastical .jurisdiction. Tl.' NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. Chap. 11. Roman Canon, wliicli enacted the sepa- rate treatment of clerks and laymen, was introduced into England about the end of the reign of Stephen (Stubbs). It ran as follows : — The Roman Canon. " Clerks shall not be unjustly seized nor detained from the ordinary, upon pain of excommuni- cation and interdict. And their accusers also shall be excommunicated. Clerks vagi et ignoti being seized, shall be de- manded by the ordinary, who, if they be amerced, shall not levy it, and so in all cases which are merely spiritual." It was upon this point that the great dispute between Henry II. and Thomas Becket mainly arose. The Constitutions of Clarendon enact that " clerks accused of any matter, when summoned by the king's justice, shall come into his court, and there plead, so that the king's justice may see whether the matter be'to be inquired into in his coiirt or in the Church court. If it belongs to the Church court, the king's justice shall send into the Church court to see what the sentence is, and if the clerk shall be convict, the Church ought not to defend him further." It is probable that this arrangement was never carried out, and that practically all clerks, that is persons in any degree of orders, and the servants of such, were completely free of the temporal courts, until the mischief growing to a great head, it was modified by various statutes. Statutes on this head.— By 52 Henry III. c. 27, those who bailed persons who after- wards pleaded benefit of clergy were liberated from their obligations, it having before been the practice to amerce them, just as if the bailee had fled. This statute was in aid of the pri-\alege. So also was 3 Edward I. c. 2, which enacted that "a clerk taken for felony shall be delivered to the ordinary, accord- to the privilege of holy Church : " and 9 Edward II. cap. 16, which enacted that " if a clerk makes a confession of any crime before a temporal judge, j^et, if demanded by the ordinary, he must be given up." 18 Edward III. enacts that if a clerk "holding him to his clergy" will not answer, he must be given to the spiritual court. 25 Edward III. c. 4, seems to be the first limitation ; this enacts that if clerks convict of treason or felony touching other 'persons than the king, shall plead clergy, they must be given up. 25 Edward III. c. 5, enacts that clerks demanded by the ordinary shall not be sent to gaol on other matters. but shaU be tried on the point at issue. The privilege of "benefit of clergy" was fully recognised by 10 Richard II. c. 1. 4 Henry IV. c. 2, confirms 25 Edward III., ordains that clergy, even when indicted for open violence or highway robbery, shall be delivered to the ordi- naries without delay. As women could not plead " clergy," Acts were passed to ordain that they should not sutfer death for matters wherein men might plead clergy. The first real limitation to this astounding privilege was made by 4 Henry VII. cap. 10. This statute recites that persons upon trust of the privilege of the Church have been more bold to commit murder, rob- bery, theft, etc. It is therefore ordained that they shall have the privilege of clergy tut once if xoitliin minor orchrs, and that they shall be marked M if murderers, T if thieves, but if the culprit pleads higher orders, he shall be obliged to prove his orders, and if not clergy not to be allowed. By the 12 Henry VII. c. 7, those in minor orders were not allowed clergy for murdering or attempting to murder the king. 4 Henry VIII. c. 7, extends this to all miu-derers, sacrilegious persons, robbers with violence. These, except in higher orders, were not allowed clergy. This statute excited great opposi- tion. It was only temporary. 23 Henry VIII. c. 1, enacts that persons in holy orders, convict for petit treason, mur- der, or felony, and delivered to the ordi- naries, shall not be admitted to purga- tion, but kept continually in prison (except they find two sufiicient sureties). The ordinary may degrade a clerk convict, and send him to the justices of King's Bench, who then may proceed against him as if he were no clerk. 28 Henry VIII. c. 1, abjurers not to have clergy, even if within holy orders. 1 Edward VI. c. 12, Lords of Parliament to be allowed to plead clergy, " even if they cannot read." 1 Edward VI. cap. 13, instead of making purgation, the clerk convict may be kept for a certain period as a slave. It was not till quite modern times that the last vestiges of the privi- lege of " benefit of clergy " passed away. (C) HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. William I. undoi;btedly exercised a supremacy "in all causes and over all persons, ecclesiastical as well as civil." He would have no pope acknowleged within his dominions without his con- Chap. II. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 29 sent ; no bulls were allowed to have force till lie had approved them. He would not allow the decrees of a national council to run without his warrant ; nor any ofiicer of his to be tried by a church court Avith- out his permission. (Eadmer, p. G.) Thus he exercised a supreme regulatory power over the spiritual jurisdiction, while at the same time he caused it to be carefully separated from the secular. Henry II. had the royal supremacy in causes ecclesi- astical distinctly marked when it was ordained in the Constitutions of Clarendon thatappeal lay on failure of justice by the archbishoii to the king, and no further appeal was to be made without the king's consent. By the statute of Provisors (25 Edward III. s. 4), the seigniory of bishoprics and benefices was taken from the pope and conferred upon the king, the rights of patrons being preserved. By the 27 Edward III. c. 1, appeals to Rome from the king's courts were forbidden, such appeals being "to the prejudice and disherison of the king." By the 13 Richard II. c. 2, any intro- duction of papal bulls or sentences was made highly penal. Parliament declared, in the form of a petition to the king, that " the crown of England, Avliich hath been so free at all times that it has been in subjection to no realm, but immediately subject to God and no other, ought not in anything touching the regality to be sub- mitted to the Bishop of Rome, nor the laws of this realm by him fi-ustrated and defeated at his will, to the perpetual destruction of the king and his suvereign- ty." Then followed the famous statute of Preemunire (IG Richard II.), which is interpreted by Sir E. Coke to make penal all applications to a foreign juris- diction either in the court of Rome or elsev^here (i.e. to the ecclesiastical courts of the realm), in prejudice of the king's crown and dignity. This enabled the judges very much to control the ecclesi- astical jurisdiction, and to assert the king's prerogative over spiritual causes ; so that whenever there was a danger of the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions coming into collision, the former had to give way. Long before the Reformation the excommunications of the pope in this realm were illegal (Brooke's Privy Council Judgments, Introduction). The king might take away jurisdiction from an ordinary, or grant it to him. It is abundantly clear, therefore, that the royal supremacy in causes ecclesiastical is an ancient right of the crown, that it was not a new claim set up by Henry VIII., but that " the principles which nourished and sustained it were firmly planted in the roots of the English constitution, which, itself slowly built up, was but a reflex of the character and genius of the people." —(Brooke.) 30 THE GROWTH OF Char III. CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH OF REFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 1511-1527. § 1. Punishments for heresy at the heginuing of the reign of Henry. § 2, Luther's commencement. § 3. Spread of his opinions in England, § 4, Wolsey constrained to act against the Lutherans. § 5. The burning of books at St. Paul's. § 6. The king writes against Luther. § 7. Ee- ception of his book in Kome. § 8. Character of the king's book. § 9. Luther's reply, and answer to it. § 10. Sir T. More's work. § 11. Bishoj) Fisher's. § 12. Wolsey obtains leave to suppress monasteries for foundation of his colleges. § 13. Cardinal College at Oxford. § 11. The Cambridge men introduced there. § 15. William Tyndale. § 16. Publication of the New Testament in English. § 17. The bishops seize the copies of it to burn them. § 18. The Ijooks are spread abroad in the country. § 19. Trial and sentence of Thomas Bilney. § 20. Keform- ing views had gained a footing in England. § 1. It has been already said that there was in England at the commencement of the sixteenth century a large number of persons, mostly of low rank and little education, who held religious views derived from Wyclyffist and Lollard sources. These persons, for the most part allowed to remain in obscurity, became neverthe- less from time to time the objects of severe measures on the part of the bishops. On the 2d May 1511 six men and four women, most of them of Tenterden, were brought before Archbishop War- ham, at his manor of Knoll, and caused to abjure certain opinions as to the necessity of the sacraments, the power of the priest, the ef&cacy of pilgrimages, the worshipping of saints, etc. They were also charged to inform against any who held oj^inions similar to those which they had abjured. On the 15th and 19th May others were made to abjure at Lambeth. These facts are noted in Warham's Register, and in the same register similar entries occur for June, July, August, September. These poor people, having abjured, were made to do penance by carrying a faggot in a procession, and by having a faggot in flames marked on their clothes in such manner that it could be conspicuously seen, which mark had to be carried for the remainder of their lives. This was the case with those who were billing to abjure and recant. But when any of the accused ventured to defend his opinions &nd refused to abjure, he was, after being dealt with by argument and tlireats, if he continued obstinate, handed over to the secular arm for punishment 1511-1527. REFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 31 Also, if any who had once abjured had relapsed into heresy, the same was done.^ For one or other of these reasons William Carder of Tenterden, Agues Greville, Robert Harrison, John Brown, and Edward Walker, were at this time handed over to the secular j)ower, the archbishop's writ running thus : — " Our holy mother, the Church, ha\4ng nothing further that she can do in this matter, we leave the forementioned heretics, and every one of them, to your royal highness and your secular council." 2 Whether all or any of these sentences were carried out is somewhat doubtful. But if they were not, the poor wretches who were condemned by them must have lain perhaps for many years in a miserable prison, expecting their dreadful doom — a punishment far worse than the immediate execution would have been. It is probable that, previously to any reforming opinions having been broached on the Continent, other bishops besides the primate had taken severe measures against the so-called heretics of the Lollard type. The Register of Fitz-James, Bishop of London, has entries similar to those quoted from Warham ; 3 and Nix, Bishop of Norwich, and Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, are said to have taken severe measures against sectaries.'^ § 2. This partial and occasional pimishment of heresy indi- cates no alarm on the part of the Church authorities, and no special vigour or obtrusiveness on the part of the sectaries. But u great change was speedily to be observed. In 1517 Martin Luther published at Wittenberg his ninety-five Theses, condemning the most flagrant abuses of the papal system, and immediately a controversy began, in which Luther and his assistants, Melanch- thon and Carlostadt, defended by scriptural arguments the posi- tion they had taken up. Some of their ^\Titings were not long in finding their way into England, were translated, and eagerly read. King Henry was as much interested in these new and startling writings as any of his subjects. As early as 1518 he appears to have formed the design of writing against Luther.° The attention of many being drawn to the reformer's opinions, now so boldly broached, every fresh work on the subject was sought for and welcomed. Luther's great work on the Babylonish Captivily 1 For the form of handing over a relapsed person to the secular arm, see Notes and Illustrations, extract from Longland's Register. 2 Burnet, Hist. Reformation, i. 22 (ed. 1841), from Archbishop War- ham's Register. None of these proceedings are mentioned by Foxe. He has recorded the burning of John Brown, but appears to have put it under a wrong year. "^ lb. • ^c ^• 4 By Foxe ; but, so far as Longland is concerned, there is no justihcatioD for the statement from his Register. 5 Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIIL, vol. 11., ^os. 4Jo7, 4-ioo. 32 THE GROWTH OF Chap. III. of the Church was piiblislied in 1520. Early in 1521 it had found its way into England. § 3. On March 8 (1521) Archbishop Warham wrote to Wolsey, stating that he had received letters from Oxford, containing news which he was very sorry to hear. '' For I am informed that divers of that university be infected with the heresies of Luther, and others of that sort, having among them a great number of books of the said perverse doctrine, which were forbidden by your grace's authority, as Legate de Latere of the See Apostolic, and also by me, as Chancellor of the said University, to be had, kept, or read by any person of the same, except such as were licensed to have them, to impugn and convince the erroneous opinions contained in them." He earnestly entreats Wolsey's interference, desiring at the same time that the university incur as little " infamy " as possible ; for it were great pity, he writes, " that through the lewdness of one or two cankered members who have induced no small number of young uncuxumspect fools to give ear unto them, the whole university should incur the scandal of so heinous a crime." He wishes the " captains of the said erroneous doctrines to be punished, to the fearful example of all other," but that the inquiry into the conduct of the less guilty should take place at Oxford rather than in London. Both the universities, he fears, are contaminated. Oxford had for many years been void of all heresies, and Cambridge had boasted that she was never defiled, but now seems to be the original cause of the fall of Oxford. He would have the cardinal make a list of all writers who are " fautors " of the Lutheran opinions, that their writings may be proscribed.^ On April 3 (1521) Warham wrote to the cardinal another letter, in which, thanking him for a handsome jewel sent to the shrine of St. Thomas, he again reminds him of the " most accursed writings of Luther." ^ About the same time John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, the king's Confessor, attacks the cardinal on the same subject. He writes to say that a certain monk of St. Edmund's had preached at Oxford a most seditious sermon, railing against cardinals and bishops, maintaining certain opinions of Luther, and comforting erroneous persons in their opinions, saying, " Be not afraid of them that kiU the body." 3 Again he writes to Wolsey, beseeching him, for " the honour of God," to remember the " in- fecte persons " at Oxford, and to take some order and punishment with them ; " for if sharpness be not now in this land, many one shall be right bold to do ill." He thinks there are many heretics at Oxford, as appears by the libels set up at night on church > Ellis, Original Letters (Third Series), i. 239. ^ jj^ 215. ^ /j_ 251. 1511-1527. KEFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 33 doors. He feels that he is responsible for the souls of the mem- bers of the university, being in his diocese, and he proposes going to Oxford, " if it shall stand with your honourable pleasure." ^ § 4. Thus, however much Wolsey might have been personally inclined to leave the new opinions alone, he could scarce avoid acting under these various stimulants. His first action was to send for certain divines of Oxford to come to him in London. These having agreed upon a solemn condemnation of Luther's tenets, a paper condemning his doctrine was drawn up and sent down to Oxford, to be affixed on the dial of St. ]\lary's Church.2 His next step was to issue a proclamation by his authority as legate, ordering all books of Luther's to be brought to the bishop of the diocese, or his commissary, by the 1st of August, and afterwards to be sent to himself. § 5. Of these obnoxious publications the cardinal determined to make a solemn holocaust, with every circumstance of publicity and pomp. Attended by thirty-six abbots, mitred priors, and bishops, he repaired to St. Paul's and heard a sermon from Fisher, Bishop of Eochester. Then the condemned books were ranged before him in baskets, and, a huge fire having been lighted, the baskets were emptied into the flames. Certain persons who were suspected of favouring the Lutheran opinions — among them Dr. Barnes, a friar from Cambridge, afterwards burned as a heretic — were made each to throw a faggot into the flame. Then abso- lution was pronounced, and the faithful who were present were gratified with an indulgence. By these harmless measures the cardinal endeavoured to satisfy the alarmists, who were eager for a more vigorous repression of the new opinions.^ § 6. While these public proceedings were being taken against the Lutherans, the king, who had for some time been employed on a controversial work in answer to Luther's Babylonian Captivity of the Church, had appeared against them in print. On the 25th of August 1521, his book, entitled " Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, adoersus Martinum Liitherum, edita ah invictissimo Anglicc et FrancicB rege et domino Hibernice, Henrico, ejus nominis octavo," came forth complete from the hands of the printer, Richard Pynson, of London. 1 EHis, i. 251. ^ Wood, Fasti Oxen; Ellis, i. 243. ' A late historian of these times says : " With this ostentatious pageant Wolsey staved off more severe measures for the present, in the hope that they could be avoided altogether. Burning books was not a very serious matter, but burning men was of much more importance ; and although Long- land suggested pursuing the heretics ad ignem, Wolsey preferred dealing with them in his own way, marking their errors, but sparing their persons." —Blunt, Hist, of Reformation, p. 84. D 34 THE QEOWTH 01 Chap. III. § 7. TA\'enty-eiglit cojoies splendidly bound were forwarded to Clerk, the English ambassador at Eome, some for presentation to the pojDe and cardinals, and some for the pope to present to divers potentates and universities. These copies were all signed by the king's own hand. The pope's copy, bound in cloth of gold, was presented privately to his Holiness immediately on the arrival of the parcel, and the ambassador narrowly watched and carefully rej)orted the manner of its reception. The pope, he says, liked the '* trim decking " of the book very well, and opened and read it for five leaves successively, and the ambassador thinks that if time and place had been suitable, he would not have ceased until he had read it through. Clerk called his attention to the two verses which the king had written at the end of the book,^ and these the pope praised greatly, and then the ambassador pressed that the book might be formally presented and received at a j)ublic con- sistory. A public consistory was declined on the ground that it might draw lay attention to the pestilent doctrines, but a private consistory was held October 2, when the book was solemnly presented. Clerk making a Latin oration on his knees. The pope answered somewhat shortly, praising the book and the author, describing Luther as almost filthy monster," declaring his joy that he had been slain by this doughty champion. On the next day (October 3, 1521), the title of Defender of the Faith was solemnly conferred upon Henry by the pope. It is somewhat of a curious comment on the above that a year after, the English ambassador, writing to Wolsey, tells him that the copies of the book sent to the pope for distribution had never been distributed, but were lying unnoticed and forgotten.^ § 8. Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full account of the king's book, with copious extracts. His judgment is, that " the king seems to have the better of the controversy, and generally speaking to be much the sounder divine. His principles are more catholic and his proofs more cogent. He seems superior to his adversary in the vigour and propriety of his style, in the force of his reasoning, and the learning of his citations." s Mr. Brewer, on the contrary, describes the royal book as " an empty wind-bag." "The cardinal principles of Luther's teaching the king did not understand, and did not therefore attempt to confute. Contented to point out the mere straws on the surface of the current — the 1 " Angloram rex Henricus, Leo Decime, mittit Hoc opus et fidei testem et amicitise." Royal versifiers may perhaps consider themselves unshackled by the rules of quantity. 2 Ellis, Original Letters (Series 3), Letters xcix. c. cxii. Brewer, In- trod. to Calendar, vol, in. p. ccccxx. ^ Collier, Ch. Hist. iv. 47. 1511-1527. REFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 35 apparent inconsistencies of Lntlier, his immoderate language liis disparagement of authority — the royal controversialist never travels beyond the familiar round, and reproduces, without force, originality, or feeling, the weary topics he had picked up without much thought or research from the theological manuals of the day. Even his invective is as mean and feeble as his logic." ^ § 9. Luther replied to the king's book with excessive violence, scorn, and raillery, affecting to treat it as in great measure the work of Edward Lee, a divine in favour with the king — afterwards Archbishop of York. There is no reason to suppose that this was the case. Answers to Luther's reply quickly appeared. One was by a Franciscan friar named Thomas Murner, who after- wards came into England in expectation of a reward, and received £100. § 10. Another came out under the pseudonym of Guilelmus Rosseus. This was quickly known to be the w^ork of Thomas More. It was the singular characteristic of this great man that while his nature was pure and gentle, his writings were full of the coarsest invective and most unseemly ribaldry. " I should be glad," says Mr. Brewer, " to believe that More was not the author of this book. That a nature so pure and gentle, so adverse to coarse abuse, and hitherto not unfavourable to the cause of religious reform, should soil its better self with vulgar and offensive raillery, destitute of all wit and humour, shocks and pains like the misconduct of a dear friend." ^ § 11. An answer of altogether a superior type was written by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. This, entitled Assertionis Lutherancc Co7ifutatio, was printed at Antwerp by an English printer named Addison, to whom the king had given license, " in order to hinder the frauds in printing, especially in works which contended for the Catholic faith, of which lie had taJcen zq)on himself the defence, as he was bound to do by the name conferred upon him by Pope Leo of pious memory." ^ § 1 2. In spite of the solemn burning of books at which he had presided, Cardinal Wolsey was not disposed to think that the spread of Lutheran opinions could be combated by mere repression. In the year 1523 the bishops were anxious to have a commission sent to Cambridge to root out from thence the holders of Lutheran opinions, but the cardinal would not consent to it.^ He had other designs in view of quite a different character to meet the growing heresy. In the year 1523, being disappointed of the popedom, ^ Brewer, Introd. to Calendar, vol. iii. p. ccccxxvi. ^ lb. p. ccccxxix. ^ Strype, Memorials of lie formation, i. 41 (foho cd.) * Herbert's ^e?ir2/ Ti//. , " Kennett, ii. 129. 36 THE GROWTH OF Chap. 111. which, he had desired, the new pope (Clement VII.), to conciliate him, gave him the appointment of legate for life. The opportunity was taken advantage of by the cardinal to obtain also certain bulls for the suppression of monasteries. He had begun a magni- ficent college at Oxford, and he designed also to build one at Ipswich, his native place. For the endowment of these he desired to have the revenues of certain small priories granted to him, in the same w^ay that Chicheley had for All Souls, Waynflete for Magdalen, and Wyckham for the St. Llary Winton colleges. The small priories, many of which were alien,^ had always been a scandal and a nuisance to the English Church, and it was thought a good deed to get rid of them. 2 In his application for the bulls, Wolsey stated the designs which he had in view in building his colleges. He spoke of the importance of meeting the new views spreading in the Church by a learned clergy who should be able to overthrow them by argument. " That as printing could not be put down, it were best to set up learning against learning, and by introducing able persons to dispute, to suspend the laity betwixt fear and controversies." The clergy had been much re- proached by the new sectaries for ignorance. He would remove the reproach. There were many superfluous and useless monas- teries in the land, in which neither learning nor religion were cared for. The taking away of such might give greater solidity to the others.^ Two bulls were granted by the pope for the sup- pression of the smaller monasteries to the number of forty, subject to the king's consent and that of the representatives of the founders.* The latter provision was probably not much cared for, and the king readily issued his letters-patent, as he had long taken an interest in the plan. § 13. For the cardinal's College at Oxford had been begun some years before this period. About 1520, which was some- what near the time of its commencement, Bishop Longland writes ^ That is, the religious houses that were affiliated or offshoots of foreign monasteries of renown. The mischief was that they depended on the for- eign house, and could not be brought under episcopal discipline. Wolsey says of them in his letter to the king, "Neither God was served, nor re- ligion kept." Wolsey' s agent for the suppression, Dr. Allen, was accused of precisely the same sort of treatment of the monks as was afterwards laid to the charge of Cromwell's commissioners. Wolsey wrote to the king to excuse his conduct, — State Papers of Henry VIII., i. 154. 2 "Oppressed by debts and incumbrances of various kinds, the smaller religious houses had fallen into ruins— discipline was neglected — the inmates were poor and illiterate." — Brewer, Introd. to Calendar, vol. iv. p. Ixxii. 3 Lord Herbert's Henry VIII. , Kennett, ii. 61. ^ The first bears date April 1524, the second March 1525. — Collier, Eccl. Hist. iv. 53. 1511-1527. REFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 37 to Wolsey that the king was much interested in the scheme, and that Queen Catherine had been informed by him of the " good learning and letters " which would be fostered by the foundation, the "notable lectures and exercitations of learning" which would take place, how the Bible should be expounded, and many good prayers said for her Grace. ^ The revenues of the suppressed monasteries were designed to furnish out a goodly apparatus of learning at Cardinal College, founded on the site of St. Fredeswide's priory at Oxford. By the original intention there were to be at this institution a dean, sub-dean, sixty canons of the first order forty of the second, thirteen chaplains, twelve clerks, sixteen choristers. There were to be lecturers or professors in divinity, canon-law, physic, philosophy, logic, and humanity. Four censors, three treasurers, four stewards, and twenty inferior servants, one hundred and eighty-six students. § 14. A considerable number of Cambridge men was incor- porated in the new college before its buildings were completed. The imiversity records give the names of John Clarke, John Fryer, Geoffrey Harman, Eichard Coxe, John Fryth. It is a very remarkable circumstance that all these men were Lutherans of more or less decided views. Accordingly, the Oxford annalist tells us that " Lutheranism increased daily -in the university, and chiefly in the Cardinal College by certain Cantabrigians that there remained." ^ John Clarke was especially conspicuous as a Lutheran teacher, and great numbers of the students resorted to his lectures. Fryth soon left the university to join Tyndale in Germany. It is probable that Wolsey selected these men advisedly, thinking that his patronage would soothe down their theological eagerness, and that the arguments of the learned men who would be associated with them in his college would suffice to convince them of their error. But the times were too excited, inquiry was too much awakened, and the earnestness in seeking after truth too great, to allow this policy to succeed. Keforming opinions had now laid hold of the English mind to a considerable extent, and the publi- cation of the New Testament in English, which now took place, gave a fresh impulse to these views. § 15. The author of this important work, and one of the most conspicuous actors in the earlier Reformation, was William Tyn- dale, a Gloucestershire man of a good family, who had studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, and had shown great eagerness to make use of the labours of Erasmus in gaining a knowledge of the 1 Ellis, Orig. Letters (Series 1), i. 181. 2 Anthony Wood, Annals of Oxford; Ellis, Orig. Letters (Series 3), L244. 38 THE GROWTH OF Chap. HI. New Testament. He became tutor in the family of Sir Jolin Welch of Little Sodbnry, but having expressed his reforming opinions with somewhat of dangerous boldness, his patron thought it safer for him to remove. Going to London, he applied to Dr. Tonstal, the bishop, for employment, and as a specimen of his powers, to.6k with him the translation of an oration of Isocrates. The bishop could not find a place for him in his service, and Tyn- dale remained for some time with Humphrey Monmouth, a rich citizen of London, who was a favourer of the new views. Here he formed the project of translating the New Testament into Eng- lish, but as there was little facility for printing such a work in England, and considerable danger from the authorities, Tyndale with his friends Fryth and Koye went to Germany. At Witten- berg he saw Luther, and received counsel and encouragement from him. § 16. Much difficulty was experienced by Tyndale in finding a fit place for his labours, but at length he and his assistants settled at the free imperial city of Worms, where, by their labours, the New Testament, translated into English, and printed by Peter Schoffer, was published in the year 1526, without the trans- lator's name. A quarto edition with introduction came out the same year, printed partly at Cologne, but finished and published at Worms. A warning had been sent to England during the preparation of this work by Dr. Edward Lee,^ and the authorities were quite prepared to be on their guard against the introduction of the English Testaments. § 17. On November 3, 1526, Archbishop Warham issued a mandate to his sufitagans to make inquisition for all copies of Tyndale's Testament which were published, some with, some without comments, that the copies might be immediately burned.^ Bishop Tonstal had anticipated the action of his metropolitan, and had issued (Oct. 1 8) his precept to the Archdeacon of London to search for and seize tlie prohibited books, declaring that they contained unfair renderings and mischievous glosses of the Word of God, and were calculated to disseminate and uphold heretical pravity.^ A solemn burning of the New Testaments took place in Cheapside (1527), but still the supply was not diminished. Men were bent upon having them, and clumsy measures of repression could not keep them out. § 18. The price of these coveted books was about three and sixpence, which was nearly the value of two weeks' work of a labouring man, but at this comparatively high price great numbers ^ Ellis, Orig. Letters (3d Series), 11. 74. " Wllklns' CoTicil. ill. 706. ^ Collier, Eccl. Hist., Records, No, xil. 1511-1527. REFORMING OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. 39 of the working classes became possessed of them. Bishop Tonstal's Register at this period is full of the trials and punishments of persons of the artisan class for having New Testaments, or for holding some of the reforming doctrines.^ The good bishop, who, like Wolsey, was a hater of persecution, contented himself with ordering the delinquents to carry a faggot in a procession. § 19. Those whose trials and sentences caused the greatest sensation were Thomas Bilney and Thomas Arthur, two Cambridge men. Bilney had been the means of implanting the first doubts as to the truth of the Romish system in the bosom of Hugh Latimer, who afterwards was so conspicuous a figure in the move- ment.2 He was a singular man, and his dissension from the prevailing creed did not lead him to object to some of its most antiscriptural doctrines. Saint-worship, pilgrimages, the adoration of relics, and what were called " good deeds," that is, offerings at shrines, burning of candles, etc., were the abuses which specially called forth his denunciations. In company with his friend Arthur, he went about the country denouncing these things, and in several places riots ensued. Information was laid against the preachers before Cardinal Wolsey, and the cardinal summoned a meeting of bishops at the Chapter House, Westminster, and ordered that Bilney and Arthur should be brought before them (Nov. -27, 1527). He himself took little part in the proceedings, but left the matter to Bishop Tonstal. Arthur at once submitted, but Bilney defended his opinions. He was adjudged guilty of "heresy," on what ground it is hard to discover, as Foxe allows that as " touch- ing the mass and the sacrament of the altar he never varied from liimself, or ever varied therein from the most grossest Catholics." ^ In other points also he held with the Church as against the r'jformers. Tonstal, feeling perhaps the slight grounds on which Bilney had been condemned, used every effort to make him recant. He was successful. Bilney signed a full recantation of the opinions he had expressed against images, pilgrimages, saint-worship, etc., and after carrying a faggot on his shoulder during a sermon at Paul's Cross, was absolved. He returned to Cambridge, but bis conscience tortured him with bitter reproaches for his weak apostasy. He abjured his recantation, went forth again as a preacher of the opinions which he had never ceased to believe, fell into the hands of Bishop Nix at Norwich, and was burned as a relapsed heretic in the market-place of that city. It was asserted by Sir T. More that Bilney recanted his recantation in 1 Strype, Memonals of Eeformation, i., chap. 7 ami 8 ; Appendix, numbers xxi., xxii. ^ Watkin's Life of Latirmr, p. 5. 3 Wordsworth's Ecd. Biog. ii. 34. 40 REFOEMmG OPINIONS IN ENGLAND. Chap. III. tlie flameB, but this was strenuously denied by Matthew Parker, afterwards Arclibisliop of Canterbury, who stood near him during the whole time of his burning. § 20. From various sources of information, it would appear that the number of " doctrinal " reformers now (1527) to be found in England was very considerable, and that the Reformation was fairly on foot, though in a crude and unformed state, long before the ru^Dture between the king and the pope. The reformers in and about London are said to have been organised in a secret society called the *' Christian Brotherhood," which had its central committee and paid agents for distributing New Testaments and proscribed books.^ The ground was fairly broken up, so that when the political rupture came, and the king commenced a series of anti-papal measures, the soil was prex^ared for their growth and development. The causes which led immediately to this rupture, and which were charged with such weighty consequences, we have now to detail. ^ Fronde, History of England, i. 61 , from a Eolls House MS. 1527-1533. THE DIVORCE CASE. 41 CHAPTER ly. THE DIVORCE CASE AND THE FALL OF WOLSET. 1527-1533. § 1. The divorce history fully investigated. § 2. Points that have been established. § 3. Wolsey early employed in furthering it. § 4. Henry declares his intention to the Queen. § 5. Wolsey's visits to "Warham and Fisher, § 6. An agent sent to Eoine independently of Wolsey, but fails. § 7. Wolsey's negotiations fail. § 8. The mission of Gardener and Fox. § 9. They obtain partial success. § 10. Great issues at stake. § 11. Campeggio, on arriving, does not proceed with the case. § 12. Proceedings in the interval. § 13. The King's speech. § 14. Proceed- ings of the Court at Blackfriars. § 15. Campeggio adjourns it — the cause revoked. § 16, Fall of Wolsey. § 17. He is pardoned, and re- stored to York. § 18. Goes to his diocese. § 19. Arrested for high treason. § 20. His death and character. § 21. A new phase of the divorce case — T. Cranmer. §22. Foreign universities consulted. §23. The divorce case at Cambridge. § 24. At Oxford. § 25, Parliament calls on the pope to decide, § 26. Opinions of universities brought be- fore Parliament. § 27. Convocation consulted. § 28. The King's book. § 29. Cranmer made Archbishop. § 30. Convocation consulted a second time. § 31. King married to Anne Boleyn, § 32. Cranmer's proceed- ings at Dunstable. § 33. Catherine receives the news of the sentence. § 34, Cranmer confirms Henry's marriage with Anne — crowns Anne. § 1. The obscure and intricate history of tlie divorce of Henry VIII. from Ms Queen Catherine of Arragon has now been so fully investigated, and so carefully elucidated, that a narrative of the various phases of its history becomes comparatively easy.^ § 2. It may be assumed as almost demonstrated that the first movements of the king in this matter did not proceed from reli- gious scruples, nor from fears about the succession, nor from annoy- ance at any objection to Mary's legitimacy made by the French ambassadors, but from his distaste for his faded wife, quickened by the love which he had conceived for Anne Boleyn. It may also be assumed as proved, that the first idea of a divorce did not originate in 1527, as has been generally supposed, but several years before.^ It appears also certain that in the negotiations of the Bishop of ^ Mr. Brewer in his Introduction to vol. iv. of the Calendars of State Papers of Henry VIII. , and Mr. Pocock in his Memorials of the Reforma- tion, have probably done all that can be done for the elucidation of this matter. The former will be quoted in the references simply as "Brewer." 2 There is an allusion to the king's " great matter " in a letter of Arch- bishop Warham to Wolsey in 1525, and a very distinct mention of it by Clark, the English ambassador at Rome in 1526, (Brewer, pp. 83, 123.) 42 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. 17. Tarbes and the other French ambassadors for the hand of the Princess Mary, early in 1527, not one word was mentioned in dis- paragement of her legitimacy.^ This story was concocted between the king and cardinal as a pretext for proceeding in the divorce matter. It was not the occasion of it. Once more it may now be considered as in the highest degree probable that the first sugges- tions as to a possible divorce did not come from Wolsey, and that when he first became aware of the king's project it was opposed by him.2 § 3. Very early, however, in the proceedings, the cardinal was certainly employed in actively furthering them. In May 1527, with the consent of the pope, a collusive suit was instituted before him, in which it was intended to try the question, and to pro- nounce the divorce without the queen having any intimation of the proceedings.^ The discovery of this plot by the queen, her demand for counsel, and the captivity of the pope, which forced him to change his policy, caused this design to miscarry. It was by way of furthering this that the cardinal made his journey into France ; and it was with a view of propping it up that he made those visits to Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher in the summer of 1527, of which we have such ample details in the State Papers. § 4. While the cardinal was absent on these visits, Henry, having discovered that the queen was aware of what was brewing, himself solemnly informed her (June 22) that they two had been living in mortal sin up to this time ; that his conscience was troubled ; that such a state of things could go on no longer ; that they must be separated a mensd et thoro. The queen was greatly agitated, and then the king desired her on no account to divulge what he had told her.* The object of this communication to the queen is evident. It was to prevent her seeking advice and counsel 1 Brewer, p. 197, sq. It should, however, be stated that Le Grand, the French historian of the divorce, who had the French ambassador's papers as authority, asserts the contrary. [Histoire du Divorce, i. 49.) The dates, however, seem to make it certain that this, at any rate, was not the origin of Henry's scruples. The negotiations for the marriage took place in April 1527, but in September 1526 Clark speaks of " that cursed divorce." (Brewer, p. 223.) 2 It is, however, remarkable that in addition to the many writers who have asserted that Wolsey sowed doubts in the king's mind through Long- land, his confessor, another and no mean authority has come to light since Mr. Brewer wrote. This is Nicholas Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury, a man who took a prominent part in Church matters under Mary, who, in a History of the Divorce, says :— "The beginning of all this broil, as we have partly touched already, proceeded from Cardinal Wolsey, who first by him- self or by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and the king's confessor, put this scruple and doubt into his head." (MS., Grenville Library.) 3 Brewer, p, 255,52-. ^ Mendoza's despatch: Brewer, p. 279. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 43 in the matter, and to keep her alone and unprotected, in order that she might be the better overwhelmed.^ § 5. While the king performed his part in the plot, which liad been concocted with Wolsey, the cardinal went to play a kindred part with those who were likely to be consulted by the queen, if she consulted any one. He went first to Archbishop Warham. Of Warham there could be little doubt ; he had been opjwsed to the marriage of Henry and Catherine from the first, and it would seem but reasonable to him that the king should have scruples in the matter. But it was necessary to make sure of him, lest he might haply side with the queen. In the letter which Wolsey wrote to the king to tell of his interview with Warham, there are indica- tions that Henry had conceived some suspicion of the cardinal's zeal in the prosecuting the case. He writes (July 1) : — " I take God to record that there is nothing earthly that I covet so much as the advancing your secret matter When Master Sampson showed unto me that the queen was very stiff and obstinate,^ aflirm- ing that your brother did never know her carnally, and that she desired counsel as well of your subjects as of strangers, I said this device could never come of her head, but of some tliat were learned, and these were the worst points that could be imagined for the empeching [hindering] of the matter, that she would resort unto the counsel of strangers. For the reverence of God, sir, and most humbly prostrate at your feet, I beseech your Grace, whatsoever report shall be made unto the same, to conceive none opinion of me but that in this matter, and in all other things which may touch your honour and surety, I shall be as constant as any living crea- ture." Visiting the archbishop, the cardinal informed him that the queen knew of the " secret matter," that she took it " displea- santly," but that the king had done much for the " pacification " of her. He told him that the king had ''nothing intended nor done, but only for the searching and l)ringing out of the truth, proceeding on occasion given by the French party, and doubts moved therein by the Bishop of Tarbes." ^ " My Lord of Canterbury liked the fashion and manner very well." Wolsey then arranged with Warham 1 Before this interview had taken place, the queen had contrived to convey a secret message to the Spanish court. The Spanish ambassador in England also was acquainted with it. ,, 2 This was doubtless on the occasion of Henry's divulging his " scruples on June 22. ^ This was the story concocted and agreed upon by the king and car- dmal. It was to be represented that the kingAvas only moving in the matter in order to establish Mary's legitimacy. His love for Anno Boleyn was as yet a profound secret. It would seem by the following words that Warliam understood at once the object of putting the matter in this way. 44 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IT. wliat lie was to do if the queen demanded Mm for her counsel ; and from Dartford, where he had met him, went to Rochester to see Bishop Fisher, i He first extracted diplomatically from the bishop (who was the queen's confessor) that he had a suspicion of something being in progress, that he had had a message from the queenj saying that she should want his advice, and then, first making him swear not to divulge the matter, he told Fisher the story agreed upon as to the objections of the French ambassadors, and the king's desire to make the legitimacy of his daughter cer- tain. He then told him that he (the cardinal) had consulted learned men upon the matter, and that their books were already growing in magna volumina ; and then he came to the real point of his visit, Fisher was the queen's confessor^ and much beloved by her. He was the person to whom Catherine was almost sure to apply for advice. Wolsey therefore set himself carefully to represent the queen's " stubborn and resentful temper," when she was informed of the proceedmgs which the king was so kindly taking to establish the validity of the marriage and the legitimacy of her daughter. He thus sought to prejudice her in the mind of the bishop, and according to his own account he succeeded. Fisher, as he repre- sents, found much fault with her stubbornness, and said that he did not doubt he should be able to bring her to a better mind, and cause her " to repente humille, and submit herself to the king's highness." This, however, was not what Wolsey wanted. It would tiot have been convenient for the conspirators for the bishop to communicate with the queen. "Such an endeavour," says Mr. Brewer, " would have discovered all." ^ The cardinal therefore persuaded the good and unsuspecting bishop to say nothing to the queen until the king should desire him to do so ; and, having performed the noble and chivalrous office of " alienating from the unhappy queen the only adviser on whose sincerity and honesty she could rely," he went on his way to France. ^ § 6. While the cardinal was in France, Henry became more than ever engrossed in his love for Anne Boleyn.* He made her a promise that the divorce should certainly be accomplished, and she and her family continued eagerly to press him to take decisive measures. Under this influence the king was made to believe that the cardinal's measures were slow and dilatory, and that he was not fully in earnest about the matter, and was induced to send a mission to the pope independent of Wolsey. The person selected was Dr. Knight, and his purport of his mission was to obtain a 1 State Papers of Eenry VIII., 1. 195, 196. ^ Brewer, p. 269 3 State Papers of Eenry VIII. , i. 196-204. * For particulars of early life of Anne Boleyn, see Notes and Illustrations. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 45 dispensation for the king to marry a second wife, though the first still remained un divorced. ^ Knight carried with him from England a dispensation ready drawn for this effect. The pope, being in captivity and hard pressed for help, consented to ratify this dispensation, but, on escaping from captivity, he drew back from his promise,^ and would only grant such a dispensation and commission, as turned out when examined in England, to be worthless.3 The negotiations then again fell into Wolsey's hands. § 7. The cardinal, by means of Sir Gregory Cassali, an Italian in the service of England, induced the pope, after much difficulty, to grant a commission to himself and another cardinal to hear and try the case in England, and a dispensation for the king to marry again.* These documents being skilfully manipulated by the cardinal St. Quatuor, proved also when examined in England to be insufficient.^ § 8. Thus, two negotiations having failed, it was determined to try a third with difiFerent agents and in a bolder tone. Dr. Fox (afterwards Bishop of Hereford), and Dr. Stephen Gardiner (after- wards Bishop of Winchester), were now (1528) sent to the pope to obtain more ample and satisfactory powers for determining the matter in England, and with a direction that Cardinal Campeggio should be joined by name in the commission with Wolsey. Campeggio was known to the king, having been sent on a former mission to England, and he also held an English bishopric (Salisbury). Gardiner and Fox were to obtain what was called a decretal commission, that is to say, a commission giving the cardinals named the full power of determining the matter, as though they were the pope himself, and leaving no right of appeal. But there was the greatest difficulty in the way of their obtaining this. It would be equivalent on the pope's part to accepting an ex parte statement, and actually decreeing the dissolution of the marriage. His fear of the emperor w^as too great to allow this. At the same time he was much bound to the King of England, and it was important that he should stand well with him. Thus commenced a series of negotiations of the most perplexing and tormenting character, in which Gardiner and Fox contended as well as they could against all the resources of Roman chicanery — the English ambassadors striving to obtain a decretal commission which should 1 Brewer, 306, 308. There is great probability that Cranmer Avas the author of this scheme. See Mr. Brewer's note, p. 806. 2 Brewer, p. 315. ^ H. p. 318. * lb. p. 328. There was a very singular proviso in this dispensation which proves almost conclusively that there had been an illicit connection between Mary Boleyn, elder sister of Anne, and Henry. ^ lb. p. 336. 46 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. make the decision of the cardinals final, the pope and his advisers striving to pnt them off with an ordinary commission for the cardinals to hear the case — and a loromise that the pope would ratify their sentence. " He willed us," wrote the envoys to Wolsey, "to take a general commission in as ample form and manner as we could devise, with promise of ratification, rather than stick upon this form being new."^ But to this form the envoys did stick, knowing how much depended on it, and how utterly futile would be any commission to judges to try the cause, when their sentence would be nothing until ratified by the pope. § 9. At length they devised the plan of having two commis- sions, one general simply to hear the case, another special actually to dissolve the marriage.^ The latter subsequently took the form of what was called the decretal bull, which was entrusted to Campeggio by the pope with fear and trembling, to be shown to the king and some few chief persons, and then immediately to be secretly burned ! ^ § 10. Wolsey had watched with the deepest anxiety the progress of this matter. He felt that his own position was absolutely staked on his success. He knew that " Mistress Anne," whose charms had completely enslaved the king, bore him no good will,* and that any delay or failure in the divorce business would ensure his ruin. Thus he presses, beseeches, even threatens the pope, to hasten the completion of the business.^ But on the other hand the pope was threatened by, and in still greater dread of the emperor, and he dared not finish it. The commission which he had granted to Campeggio and Wolsey to hear the case was not held satisfactory. The king was angry at it,^ and his dissatisfac- tion was further increased by the extreme slowness with which Campeggio (who was suffering from gout, and could move but slowly)- made his journey into England. § 11. He arrived September 18, 1528, but the case was not proceeded with, for there had arisen another stumbling-block. It was discovered that at the time when Julius II. had granted the dispensation to Henry to marry Catherine, he had also issued a hrief, reciting and reiterating his dispensation in stronger terms than were used in the dispensation itself. This brief had been ^ Records of Reformation, i. 108. ^ Ih. i. 116. ^ Brewer, 443. ■* She was aware tliat Wolsey had done his best to dissuade the king from marrying her, and had recommended a French princess. There were also various other reasons why there was enmity between them. ^ Wolsey to the Pope. Burnet, Records, p. i. Nos, viii. xxii. xxiii. ^ Letter from Fox in England to Gardiuer at Kome. Records of Re^ formation, i. 157 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 47 ieposited in tlie Spanish arcliives. It was absolutely necessary lui the success of the cause either that this brief should be got hold of and destroyed, or that it should be proved to be a forgery. 1 The former plan was attempted and failed ; the latter was then adopted. But the pope could not be induced to declare the brief a forgery, and hence the long delay of seven months before the Legatine Court sat.^ Neither would the pope make any promise that he would not revoke the suit to Eome.^ In fact, now he was completely under the influence of the emperor. § 12. During the time that the action of the Legatine Court was checked in England, various steps were taken which it was thought might facilitate the cause. The bishops, called together by Wolsey's legatine authority, had been consulted. Their answer was that the case was doubtful, and they desired that learned clerks of the universities might be consulted.* Pace, Dean of Windsor, had written to the king that a friar named Wakefield was prepared to prove against all Christendom that this dispensa- tion was beyond the pope's power to grant.^ Various attempts were made upon the queen to induce her to yield and " enter into religion." ^ But Catherine firmly resisted all these suggestions. She felt the justice of her cause, and decided to condemn herself by her own act. Another attempt to facilitate the matter was a public speech made by the king to an assembly of notables called together at Blacldriars. Very great dissatisfaction and angry feeling had been excited among the people by this barefaced attempt to get rid of one wife, and to put another in her place, for all the world now knew of Henry's devotion to Anne Boleyn. § 13. To meet, and, if possible, to remove this bad feeling, the king condescended to address his lords and councillors, and any others who could get near enough to hear him. He declared that the " simple and only reason why he wished to move in the matter was lest his true heir should not be known at the time of his death. He referred to the dreadful mischiefs formerly wrought in England by a disputed succession, and that though he had a fair daughter, yet the French councillors had raised a doubt as to her legitimacy, and that his conscience was daily and hourly troubled by the matter. Accordingly, he had asked counsel of the greatest clerks of Christendom, and had sent for the legate as a man indifferent to judge and decide tlie matter. He solemnly 1 Brewer, p. 444. - Ih. pp. 458-461. 3 Records of Reformation, i. 236, 249, 254. * Cavendish, Life of Wolseij ; Wordsworth's Eccl Biog. i. 53l». * Le Grand Hist, du Divorce, i. 1 ; Buruet, Hist. Rrf. i. 615. ^ Brewer, 468 : Ha^''s ChrnnvcU. p, 755 (4to ed.) 48 THE DIVOECE CASE Chap IV. declared that Catherine was most dear to him, and that if it were free to him to marry her again he would do so." -^ With a view of giving greater weight to these sentiments, Anne Boleyn was temporarily dismissed the court, at which she was so much offended, that it was with great difficulty that she was afterwards brought back again. ^ § 14.' At length the Legatine Court met in the great hall of the palace of Blackfriars, May 31, 1529. The two legates sat as judges. Counsel of divines and civilians appeared for both king and queen.^ The king and queen were cited to appear on June 18. On that day the king appeared only by his counsel ; but the queen appeared in person, and protested against the jurisdiction of the court.* On June 21 the court re-assembled, and both king and queen appeared. The king made a speech declaring his uneasiness in the state of mortal sin in which his marriage condemned him to live, and desired justice. Wolsey replied for the court that justice should be done. The queen then crossing the court, and throwing herself on her knees before the king, made a pathetic appeal to him, declaring that she had ever been to him a faithful wife, and did not deserve to be re- pudiated and put to open shame. She declared that she would not accept the decision of the court, but that she had appealed to Eome.5 She then quitted the court with dignity, and appeared no more. The next session the judges set aside her appeal, and pronounced her contumacious. The sessions of the court pro- ceeded rapidly. On June 28, Bishop Fisher made a solemn pro- testation that he was willing to stake his life that the marriage ol Henry and Catherine was perfectly good. The king was much moved to anger by this, and wrote a violent reply to Fisher.^ § 15. From this moment Campeggio appears to have hung back. It had all along been determined between the pope and himself that the cause should be revoked to Rome, but it was desirable that a decent appearance of hearing it in England should be made. He thought this had now gone on long enough, and ^ Hall's Chronicle, p. 754 (4to ed.) 2 Herbert, Henry VIIL (ap. Kennett), i. 106. ^ For the king, Drs. Sampson and Eell ; for the queen, Bishops Clark and Standish, and Dr. Eidley, ^ Letter of King Henry : Burnet, Records, p. i. No. xxviii. ^ Brewer, p. 472. The speech, given in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, pro- bably represents very nearly what Catherine said. ^ Brewer, pp. 476-479. A question arose as to whether Fisher had signed the document referred to above, to the effect that the matter was doubtful, and needed inquiry. Archbishop Warham afl&rmed that he had authorised his signature to be put. Fisher denied it. — Brewer, p. 481, note. 1527-1533. AlTD THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 40 accordingly, on July 23, Campeggio pronounced the adjournment of the court. The pope had already revoked the cause,i and it needed the utmost efforts on Wolsey's part to prevent a citation being served on the King of England to appear at Rome. 2 When he had succeeded in this, and desired to communicate the result to the king, Henry refused to see him.^ The king went on a progress, taking with him Anne Boleyn. It was evident to every one that the cardinal's disgrace was near at hand. But once more his fortune seemed to be rising when he went with Campeggio, who was taking leave, to visit the king at Grafton. According to the account given by Cavendish, tlie king on this occasion sliowed himself very friendly to him, and Anne Boleyn was proportion- ately annoyed. But this was the last ray of favour. § 16. At the beginning of Michaelmas term Wolsey went to his place in Westminster as Lord Chancellor, but merely appointed two attorneys to act for him, and never went there more.^ Pro- ceedings had already commenced against him under the Praemunire statute. The great seal was soon after taken from him by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. His rich and costly goods and furniture were seized for the king. He was commanded to retire to Esher, and wait the king's pleasure. From this point much of the interest in the cardinal ceases. His abject letters to the king, who was treating him with the grossest injustice, are too humili- ating to him to quote. Some may consider them pathetic ; more will probably hold them to be miserably mean-spirited. Wolsey would have been a great man, indeed, if he could only have fallen decently. But it would almost seem as if the nemesis for his unjust trickery in the divorce case had come upon him. He was utterly dispirited and self-condemned. On his way to Esher the king sent him a ring to encourage him, but this was probably done with a sinister purpose. It would not have suited Henry's plans for Wolsey to have been driven to despair and arrayed against him as an enemy. Of this, however, there was no fear. The cardinal fawned upon the hand that chastened him. Re- maining at Esher in poverty and sickness, and aided only by his secretary Thomas Crumwell, he experienced the bitterest trials of fallen greatness. The law courts had decided that all that he had was forfeited to the king, and that his person was at the king's pleasure. The bill brought into Parliament had given to the world, under the sanction of the lords, an elaborate catalogue of his misdeeds.'^ He had never been popular, and now the execra- 1 Brewer, p. 504. 2 jjy^ p_ 506. 3 jjy p_ 503. 4 j^ p 52I. ^ This bill was thrown out in the Commons by the address of Thomas Crumwell, who sat Cor Taunton. This, as Lord Herbert says, was the 50 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. tions and scoffs of the mob readied him whenever he showed him- self in public. All this caused the cardinal to fall seriously ill. On hearing of this the king appears to have been touched. He sent Dr. Bates, his physician, to him, and Aime Boleyn did not refuse to send by him a token of kindly feeling. § 17. On February 12 (1530) Wolsey received a fuU par- don, was restored to the archbishopric of York with all its pos- sessions, received about ,£3000 in money, some plate, furniture, and horses.-"^ He was obliged to resign Winchester and St. Alban's.2 § 18. At the beginning of Passion week he set forth very un- willingly on his journey to the north. On Palm Sunday he was at Peterborough. Soon afterwards he reached Southwell, which was within his diocese. Here he received the visits of the gentry, and seems to have recovered himself somewhat. Complaints were, however, made of him for extravagance, while he himself wrote to the king, bitterly commenting upon his straits for want of money. No relief w^as vouchsafed to him from the king, who had seized so large an amount of his wealth. Some new law proceedings now gave him fresh terror,^ and a bitter pang was added by hearing that the king had seized on liis beloved colleges. Ipswich was totally suppressed, and his Oxford college was greatly shorn of its revenues, though ultimately refounded by the king.* After a stay of some time at Southwell, Wolsey went into Yorkshire. He reached Cawood Castle, near York, about the beginning of October. Preparations were being made for a magnificent enthronisation in York Minster, a ceremony which had been long delayed, as the cardinal had never found time to visit his northern diocese. His popularity in Yorkshire increased, and a happy and peaceful end of his life seemed before him, when his enemies made another determined attempt to ruin him. § 19. Mr. Brewer has thrown full light on this hitherto ob- scure episode in the cardinal's history. It apf>ears that Wolsey, who believed that the French king was favourably disposed to- wards him, and ready to aid him in regaining the favour of Henry, beginning of Crumwell's future greatness. The object of it was to disable the cardinal from being again employed in the kiag's councils. — Brewer, p. 554. ^ There is very great doubt whether he actually received these things, or was only promised them. 2 Brewer, pp. 562-564. He was promoted to V.'mchester only in 1528. When lie thus vacated Durham, he had the strange audacity to ask for this valuable see for his natural son Winter, who had been made Dean of Wells —State Pajm-s of Henry VIII. i. 329. 8 Brewer, p. 580. ^ /j. 534. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 51 carried on certaLn secret negotiations with France by means of one Augustine, his (Wolsey's) physician. This man betrayed everything to the Duke of Norfolk, Wolsey's great enemy. It was easy to give such a colour to these proceedings as to make them look like treasonable correspondence with France and Rome, and this was carefully done.^ Wolsey was remaining at Cawood, unconscious of his danger, when suddenly, as he was at dinner in the castle, on Friday, November 4, Lord Percy, with a large number of followers, entered the hall, and arrested him in the king's name for high treason. A warrant had been brought from London by Sir "Walter Walshe, one of the gentlemen of the king's chamber. In the graphic and interesting account of Wolsey's later history, drawn by Cavendish, his gentleman-usher,2 who was with him through- out, there is abundant record of sighing and groaning, tears and sobs, on the part of Wolsey at this new turn in his affairs, details which do not tend to exalt the cardinal's character. He was re- moved from Cawood, Sunday evening, November 6. At Sheffield Park, where he stayed eighteen days, he was treated with great kindness by Lord Shrewsbury, but remained utterly dejected and miserable. At length the king sent Sir William Kingston, con- stable of the Tower, to bring him prisoner to the Tower. § 20. The news of this was so terrible a shock to the cardinal . that it absolutely killed him.^ He journeyed with great difficulty as far as Leicester Abbey, and there, on November 30, he died. The whole estimate of Wolsey's character and labours belongs rather to secular than to church history. He was more of a states- man than a churchman, yet his memory should be dear to the churchman for his noble encouragement of learning, his strong- minded and sagacious resolve to make the overgrown and effete monastic system subserve the best interests of the Church in the support of colleges and the foundation of new bishoprics ;* and, 1 Brewer, p. 600. ^ Printed in Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog. vol. i. ^ His physician declared that the cause of his death was palpitation of the heart and sickness {atra lilis), brought on by grief. — Brewer, 620, note. * Besides the two bills which Wolsey obtained for the suppression of monasteries for his colleges, he also obtained two more to suppress monas- teries with the view of founding new bishoprics. One of these is dated in 1528, and the other in 1529. The latter recites the fact that many monas- teries are so rich, and their churches so magnificent, that they might well serve for cathedrals, and the revenues of the monasteries might support a see ; and that it would be greatly for the advantage of the Church of England that this should be done, for the better exercise of discipline and for the con- venience of those who have to resort to tne bishop on business. Upon these grounds it gives Wolsey power of turning abbeys into Ijishoprics, and the places where they are built into cities, and of annexing to them smaller monasteries to swell their revenues. — Wilkins' Condi, iii. 715. r,2 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. above all, in his large-liearted contempt for the use of persecution in matters of religion. The best testimony to Wolsey's greatness is the difference between the reign of his master, Henry, before his fall and after it. § 21. The second great chapter in the divorce-history com- mences in the autumn of 1529. A change of policy was then de- termined on. Nothing was any longer to be hoped from Eome. The cause had been " avocated " to the pope's own court. The king was fully determined not to appear there, and nothing could be done. A new adviser and director now comes on the scene. While the king in his progress was staying near Waltham, Gar- diner and Fox, both of whom had been actively employed in the case before, and were still high in the king's service, met with Dr. Thomas Cranmer ^ at the house of Mr. Cressy, where he was acting as tutor, and were advised by him first to get the o^Dinions of the universities, and then to act upon them by holding a court in Eng- land.^ This bold advice seems to have struck the king's ministers as valuable. They communicated it to their master, who ex- claimed : " This man has got the right sow by the ear." Cranmer was ordered to write a treatise to establish his point, and in the house of the Earl of Wiltshire (Lord Rochford) he laboured briskly at this. If the treatise jprinted in the Records of the Reformation be the one which he wrote there, he argues against the marriage of Catherine and in favour of the dispensation, distinctly in the interests of Anne Boleyn, and with a view to the king's marriage with her, and in so doing he confirms the suspicion which the wording of the dispensation sent to Henry had excited, and with which the king was afterwards distinctly charged by Reginald Pole — viz., that there had been illicit intercourse between Henry and Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister.^ As this constituted a canonical bar to matrimony, it is somewhat a singular comment on Henry's alleged scruples as to illegal marriage. § 22. When this treatise was finished Cranmer was sent to ^ For early life of Cranmer, see Notes and Illustrations. 2 Considerable misapprehension has existed on this point. Cranmer's advice was not merely to consult the universities. This (as has been seen) the bishops had recommended before ; but to act upon their advice by settling the matter in England. From Mr. Brewer's researches it appears very probable that this was by no means the first occasion in Avhich Cranmer had been concerned in this matter. " It is now known," says Mr. Brewer, "that he was chaplain to Lord Eochford, and tutor to Anne Boleyn," — Brewer's Introd., p. 306 note, p. 344 note. See with regard to the first point Hook, Lives of the ArchhishojJS (new series), i. 438. ^ It is by no means impossible that this was the point afterwards made use of to dissolve the marriage with Anne, rather than a pre-contract on her side, of which no real evidence exists. 152r-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 53 Rome, probably to let the pope know of Henry's intention to i)ro- ceed by sentence of an English Court. At Rome he was made Grand Penitentiary of England by the pope — a lucrative office, perhaps intended to quiet his activity. He then, in company with Drs. Croke, Stokesley, and some others, proceeded to the various universities of Italy, to obtain their opinions as to the validity of the pope's dispensation to Henry and Catherine. These opinions are not of much value, as there is evidence that Henry's agents bribed on one side, as the emperor's did on the other.-^ At Paris there was considerable difficulty in obtaining a sentence in favour of the divorce. But most of the foreign universities decided, with- out scruple, in the way the king desired. § 23. A much greater interest attaches to the record of pro- ceedings in our own universities, where there is no evidence of bribery having been used, though undue influence and intimidation were freely resorted to. Tliese proceedings must be related in somewhat more of detail. The king wrote a letter to the Uni- versity of Cambridge (dated February 16, 1530), in which he affirmed that " in the matter of matrimony between us and the queen, upon consultation had with the greatest clerks of Christen- dom, as well without this our realm as within the same, they have in a great number affirmed unto us in writing, and tliereto sub- scribed their names, that " ducere uxorem fratris mortui sine liberis, sit prohibitum jure divino et naturali ;" and upon this he desires to have their opinion, reminding them that they had ah\'ays found him favourable to them, and trusting that they will now not omit to do that which " will minister him gratification and pleasure." ^ With the letter containing his strong hint of what the king de- sired, Drs. Gardiner and Fox went to Cambridge. In the account of their proceedings which they furnished to the king, they say that they found the Vice-Chancellor (Dr. Buckmaster) and Dr. Edmunds as studious to serve the king as they could wish, but that there was a very strong party on the other side, and at tlie first meeting of the senate no agreement could be arrived at. At the meeting next day the grace was at first denied, '*' but at tlie last, by labour of friends to cause some to depart tlie house which were against it," it was agreed that the matter should be referred to a committee of twenty-nine, who should have power to determine the question as for the university. A list of tliese is sent, " those marked with the letter A being already of your grace's opinion, by which we trust, and ivith other good means, to induce and obtain 1 EUis, Orig. Letters (third series), ii. 167. Tocock's Itccords uf Refor- mation, 1. 296, 526, sq. ■^ Buruet, Records, Part iii. book ii. No. 16. 54 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV a great part of tlie rest." The vote was at length, passed, March 9, 1530, and carried by the vice-chancellor to the king at Windsor. A letter of Dr. Buckmaster remains, in which he gives an account of his interview with the king. It was on a Sunday. Mr. Lati- mer ^ had been preaching, and the king greatly praised his sermon. Henry was not altogether satisfied when he read the resolution at which Cambridge had arrived. It was simply to the effect that " to marry a deceased brother's wife, when the matrimony had actually been consimimated, was against the divine law." In the question which had been put to the university, the clause " when the matrimony had actually been consummated " had no place. The king also was dissatisfied that they had not declared that it was ultra vires of the pope to dispense in such a case. Meantime^ such was the unpopularity of the divorce that Dr. Buckmaster says . " All the world crieth out of Cambridge for this act, and specially on me, but I must bear it as well as I may." ^ § 24. The letter which the king addressed to Oxford differed considerably from that which was sent to Cambridge, and evidently shows that the king knew that a stronger feeling against the divorce prevailed there than even at the sister university. " We will and command you," he writes, " that ye, not leaning to wilful and sinister opinions of your own several minds, not giving credence to mis- reports and sinister opinions and persuasions, considermg we are your sovereign liege lord, do show and declare your true learning in this cause like as ye will abide by ;" or else " we will so quickly and sharply look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your quietness and ease hereafter." Oxford, how- ever, though thus threatened, declined to afl&rm the unlawfulness of the marriage. The opposition proceeded from the junior masters, who would not agree to trust the matter in the hands of a select body of the seniors, as Cambridge had done, but would iusist on a large body of the junior masters having also a vote in the decision. The king writes a second time more angrily, telling the university that " non bonum est irritare crahrones." Even this severe threaten- ing did not reduce the young masters to obedience. The king wrote a third letter, and sent it by the hands of Dr. Fox, who had previously been employed at Cambridge. In this he addressed himself to the heads, exhorting them not to allow the rash young men to thwart tlieir wisdom. The matter was in debate in the ^ Hugh Lathner was already at this time a favourer of reforming yiews, having been powerfully influenced by Bilney, as he himself tells us. His homely and earnest preaching was much liked by King Hemy, to whom he ventured to speak some very plain truths. Soon after this we shall find him it trouble from the attack of Convocation. ' Burnet. Records, Part iii. book ii. No. 16. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 55 university from the 1 2tli of February to the 4th of April. Towards the end of March, Archbishop Warham, as Cliancellor of the University, wrote very angrily, complaining of the folly, obstinacy and wilfulness of the regents, and commanding, as chancellor, the doctors and bachelors of divinity to decide the case, and when it was decided to send their decision to the king as that of the whole univer- sity.^ This arrangement was finally effected. Bishop Longland, Mr. Bell, and Mr. Fox, write to the king in April that " after long variance and much difficulty," they had at length obtained the consent of the university to entrust the decision of the matter to certain doctors and bachelors of divinity, whose decision was to be final. On the 8th April (1530), this committee voted in the same terms as Cambridge, that " to marry a deceased brother's wife, when the matrimony had actually been consummated, was against the divine law."^ By this vote nothing had really been effected or afiirmed. No one for a moment doubted that which the univer- sities had so solemnly agreed upon. The real points were (1 ) Had the marriage between Arthur and Catherine been actually consum- mated ? which the queen herself always strenuously denied ; and (2) Had the pope the power of dispensing with a divine law 1 Neither of these points was touched by the vote of the English universities, and their decisions therefore may be said to have gone for nothing in this case. The opinions of the foreign universities were much stronger and more to the point. It was thought that enough university decisions had now been arrived at to justify proceeding in the matter, but first one more effort was to be made to influence and intimidate the pope. § 25. In July 1530, Parliament addressed to him a petition, remonstrating ^vith him for his delays in the divorce case, stating that the opinions of the universities were against the legality of the marriage of Henry and Catherine, and calling upon him to declare the marriage null. It was hinted that if this was not done another way would be taken of bringing the matter about. The pope's answer was given in September. He declares that he had been very averse to admitting the queen's appeal, but had been constrained by considerations of justice to do so. That as the king had not since appeared by his proctors, he could not ])rG- 1 Pocock, Records of Reformation, 1. 286. 2 State Raiders of Henry VIIL, i. 377 ; Burnet, Records, iii. ii. 17. For the controversy which arose between Bishop Burnet and Anthony- Wood as to the details of this matter, see Appendix I. to Burnet's History of the Reformation. The letters puhhshed in the State Papers show them both to have been wrong. There is no doubt that the violent opposition of the junior masters was" greatly due to the popularity of Cardinal Wolsej in the university which he had so greatly benefited. 56 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. ceed in the matter. He thinks that the Parliament has acted very unadvisedly in impeaching his proceedings and using threatening language. He cannot perceive that he has in any way failed to act rightly in the matter. The reply to the pope's missive was a proclamation issued by the king, forbidding any of his subjects to have any transactions with the Court of Rome, and making the introduction of papal bulls into this country punishable with imprisonment^ (September 19, 1530). § 26. When Parliament met again (January 1531) on March 30, Sir T. More, as Lord Chancellor, brought before it the opinions of the universities as to the divorce, and if he is rightly reported by the chronicler Hall, spoke as though favourably inclined to the divorce. Catherine, he said, was both wedded and bedded with Prince Arthur, and so you may surely say that the king hath married his brother's wife. As a virtuous prince, he is grieved with this, and for the safety of his realm has taken the opinions of the learned in their universities, the Bishop of London (Stokesley) and others being employed in this matter. Oxford and Cambridge might have sufficed, but as their partiality might be suspected, the king has gone to France and Italy as well. Then the opinions of twelve foreign universities were produced and read. Among these, Orleans, Paris, Anglers, Bourges, Tholouse, Padua, and Bologna, strongly aflS.rmed that the marriage was against the law of God, and that the pope had not the power of granting a dispensation for it. Then were shown to the Parliament '' above one hundred books" drawn by doctors of strange regions, which all agreed the king's marriage to be unlawful." Then the chancellor bade the Commons report in their several counties what they had heard, that men might rightly judge in the matter. " The wise men of the realm," says the chronicler, " much abhorred the marriage, but women and such as were more wilful than wise or learned, spake against the determination, and said that the universities were cor- rupt and enticed so to do ; which is not to be thought." ^ § 27. There is some difficulty as to the exact date when the opinion of Convocation was first taken as to the divorce, the records of Convocation having been destroyed. It was done, however, pro- bably some time before the matter was brought before Parliament. The questions proposed to the Convocation had been two — (1.) Whether the marrying a brother's widow after consummation of the marriage was prohibited by the divine law, and above and be- yond the pope's dispensation ? (2.) Whether the consummation of the marriage of Arthur and Catherine were sufficiently proved ? ^ Lord Herbert's Henry VIII., K,eimett, ii. 641, sq, 2 Hall's Chronicle, pp. 779, 780. 1527 1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 57 These questions were debated in the Canterbury Convocation for several days, the two houses sitting together. For the first there voted 253 in the affirmative, 19 in the negative. On the second question only civiHans voted. There were 44 present and 3 proxies ; 41 voted in the affirmative, 6 in the negative. ^ In York Convoca- tion, in a house of 27 present and 24 proxies, the first question was carried in the affirmative, but the numbers are not given. The second question was determined in a house of 44 canonists present and 5 proxies ; 47 voted affirmatively, 2 in the negative.^ The clergy were at the time in a state of great alarm at their prosecu- tion under the Praemunire statute (which will be touched more fully hereafter) and this can hardly be thought to represent their real opinion. § 28. The next important step in the tedious business of the divorce was the publication of a book called A Glass of the Truth. This, there is good reason to believe, was written by King Henry himself. It is in the form of a dialogue between a divine and a lawyer. The divine explains from Leviticus that it is unlawful to marry a brother's wife, and shows that the special exemption in Deuteronomy does not affect the law. The lawyer shows that the pope has no right to prevent the cause being heard and determined in England, for it was ordained in the council of Nicsea and other general councils that every cause should be decided where it first began, and the pope has no right to break the canons of the Church. And it must needs go against the queen, even in spite of her plea that she was not carnaliter cognita by Prince Arthur ; for as the law presumeth the son to be the child of the father when there lias been matrimony between the mother and the reputed father (though the son may have been begotten in adultery), so Catherine having been married to Arthur, it must be presumed that the mar- riage was consummated. The whole matter might very well be concluded within this realm, and to this end the king and his Par- "^iament should earnestly press the metropolitans to " set an end shortly to this." ^ The publication of this book, as well as the consulting of Parliament, is a remarkable proof how much store Henry set by public opinion, and how eager he was to influence it in favour of the divorce, of which at present there was but little sign. It would have greatly helped to change public opinion in liis favour could he have induced the pope to pronounce the divorce ; but of this the probability seemed to grow constantly less. The imperial interest completely prevailed with Clement, and Henry 1 Wilkins Concilia, iii. 758 ; Collier, Ch. Uist. iv. 170. 2 Wilkins' Concilia, iii. 767. ^■' Pocock's Records of the Reformation, ii. 3S5-42G. 58 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. must make up his mind to brave the discontent of his subjects by getting the divorce decreed in England, or abandon the project altogether. § 29. Just at this juncture Archbishop Warham died (August 1532), and the king at once resolved to appoint in his place the man who had latterly been the most prominent actor in the divorce business, and of whose sentiments he felt quite sure. Thomas Cranmer was nominated for the primacy. He shrank, we may well believe with sincerity, from the dangerous honour ; but the king was not to be denied. Cranmer was constrained to yield, and in yielding, either at the king's desire or by his own device, he was unhappily led into an act of prevarication which seems quite inde- fensible. There was no formal rupture as yet between England and the pope. Cranmer must therefore obtain the bulls of conse- cration and his pallium ^ as metropolitan from the pope ; but in order to obtain these it was absolutely necessary that he should take the oaths of canonical obedience and subjection to the pope. As it did not enter into his intentions, nor into those of the king, that he should obey the pope, a difficulty arose here. Cranmer appears to have thought that he could get over the difficulty by taking the usual oath with a protestation " that he intended not by the oath to bind himseK to do anything contrary to the laws of Gocl, the king's prerogative, or to the commonwealth and statutes of the kingdom." ^ Cranmer was thus taking the oath in one sense, while the pope was accepting it in another. The bulls were issued from Eome, February 21, 1533, and on the 30th March following Thomas Cranmer was consecrated archbishop.^ During all Henry's reign he was a weak and pliant instrument of the king's will ; and the same want of moral courage which led him to play so poor a part at the last involved him in various discreditable transactions under the arbitrary rule of Henry. Yet there was much that was good, amiable, and excellent in the character of the archbishop, and it is certain that the Church of England owes him no small debt of gratitude. § 30. No time was lost after the consecration of Cranmer before proceeding to the completion of the divorce suit. The first thing done was to obtain the opinion of his Convocation a second time. ^ The pallium was a small woollen stole, blessed by the pope and granted only to metropolitans and patriarchs. ^ Wilkins, iii. 747. ^ These hulls were the last issued from Rome for an English see. A little later Bishop Salcot wiites to Cromwell that he can in no wise procure the bull needed for his consecration. {State Papers, i. 410.) The bulls issued for Cranmer were eleven in number. The fii'st eight bear date February 21, the ninth February 22, the tenth and eleventh March 2. Cranmer waa consecrated by the Bishops of Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Asaph. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 59 On March 26 (1533), the Bishop of London, acting as president of the Canterbury Convocation (Craumer being not yet consecrated), produced the opinions of the universities and certain doctors, and commended them to the careful study of Convocation. On March 28 he took the vote of the UjJi^er House on the question " Whetlier marriages with the widows of brothers dying without children are so prohibited by natural as well as divine law, that in the matter of such marriages, either contracted or to be contracted, the chief pontiff cannot dispense ? " This was the form in which the question had been voted by the University of Paris, and was much stronger than that which the English Universities had voted, and to which Convocation had before agreed. In both of these cases the condi- tion of the consummation of the first marriage was inserted. Now it was proposed to affirm simply, without this condition, that in all cases such marriages are incapable of being legalised. The Upper House of Canterbury first voted unanimously that their opinions were in accordance with those of the universities, which had been laid before them affirmatory of this proposition. On the next session, March 29, the question was again put to the vote. Six abbots desired to insert the condition " Si dicta relicta prius erat carnaliter cognita a fratre mortuo;" the remainder of the house voted the resolution without the qualify log clause. On April 1, Cranmer, now consecrated, appeared in Convocation, and calling before him the Lower House, desired to have their vote upon the question — " Whether it could be lawful to marry a wife who had been carna- liter cognita by a brother dying without issue ; or whether there is a prohibition of divine law against this which the pope camiot dis- pense with ?" The way in which the question was framed, with the condition of consummation introduced, indicates that the opinion of the Lower House was known to be more adverse than the bishops had shown themselves. This is further confirmed by the fact that at the time of voting in the Lower House only 23 voted. Of these 14 affirmed the question, 7 were against it, 1 was doubtful, 1 held that the marriage was prohibited but dispensable. At the next session the Bishop of London presided, and received the decisions of the canonists as to the fact of the consummation of the marriage of Arthur and Catherine having been proved. They were unani- mously of opinion that it had been sufficiently proved. Next day the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, as canonists, signified their accordance with this opinion. The Bishop of Bath and WeUs alone dissented. 1 1 Wilkins' Concilia, ill. 756 ; Pocock's Records of Eeformationy ii. 41i2; ColUer, Ch. Hist. iv. 208. 60 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. § 31. Fortified by this decision of Ids Convocation, Cranmer could the more confidently enter upon the task entrusted to him, a task which must now of necessity be rapidly hurried on. For in the winter of 1532 the king, anticipating the divorce, had been privately married to Anne Boleyn.^ The character of this lady is not altogether a j^leasing one. Her education in courts, especially in the French Court, had given her bold and unfeminine manners. She had lived on very suspicious terms with the king, and had occupied a position towards Queen Catherine that no delicate per- son would have tolerated ; and even if she had succeeded in pre- serving her chastity,^ yet the expressions used by Henry in his letters to her show that they were on very coarse and familiar terms. § 32. Cranmer, immediately after his consecration, began to move in the king's "great matter." A letter, bearing date April 11, was sent by him to the king. In this he mentions the mis- chiefs arising and likely to arise from the long delay in the settle- ment of the case, and the obloquy which falls on the principal clergy for not terminating it. " I therefore," writes he, " your most humble orator and bedeman, am, in consideration of the premises, urgently constrained at this time most humbly to be- seech your most noble grace, that where the office and duty of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by your and your progenitors' sufi'er- ance and grants, is to direct, order, judge, and determine causes Bpiritual in this your grace's realm, ... it may please, therefore, your most excellent majesty to license me, according to my office and duty, to proceed to the final determination of the said great cause." ^ The king's answer, after observing that the archbishop had declared that it was his zeal for justice, and the exonerating of his conscience towards God, that made him write as he had done, commends his " good and virtuous intended purpose," and will not refuse his humble request and offer to make an end of this cause, which has so long given him unquietness. He gives him, therefore, under his seal and sign-manual, license to proceed 1 Nov. 14 (1532). On the date of this marriage see Notes and Illustra- tions. ^ Modern writers for the most part hold that Anne Boleyn lived with the king as his mistress "before her marriage. There is no suihcient reason for asserting this. Mr. Brewer seems to attach weight to a sarcastic and jocular expression of the French ambassador. But we have as against this the testimony of two contemporaries, most bitterly hostile to Henry and Anne, who both assert distinctly that there was no illicit intercourse before marriage, viz. Nicholas Sanders and Eeginald Pole {Sanderus de Schismate Anglic, pp. 17, 60 ; Pole in his letter to King Henry). 3 State Papers of Hmry Fill. i. 390. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 61 to determine the cause, " not doubting but that ye will have God and the justice of the said cause only before your eyes, and not regard any earthly or worldly affection therein. For assuredly the thing we most covet in this world is so to proceed in all our acts and doings as may be most acceptable to the pleasure of Almighty God, our Creator, and to the wealth, honour of us, our succession and posterity, and the surety of our realms and sub- jects within the same."^ Considering that the king had been some time married to his second wife when he wrote this, it would be hard to find a more solemn piece of hypocrisy than this letter. We have Cranmer's own account of the w^ay in which he carried out the king's license to determine the cause. " After the Convo- cation had determined in this matter, and agreed according to the former consent of the universities, it was thought convenient by the king and his learned counsel that I should repair unto Dun- stable, which is within four miles unto Ampthill, where the said Lady Katherine keepeth her house, and there to call her before me, to hear the final sentence in this matter. Notwithstanding, she would not at all obey thereunto, for when she was by Doctor Lee called to appear to a day, she utterly refused the same, saying that inasmuch as her cause was before the pope, she would have none other judge, and therefore would not take me for her judge. Nevertheless, the 8th day of May, according to the said appoint- ment, I came unto Dunstable, my Lord of Lincoln being assistant unto me, and my Lord of Winchester (Gardiner), Doctors Bell, Claybroke, Trygonnell, Hewes, Oliver, Brytten, Mr. Bedell, with divers others learned in the law, being counsellors in the law for the king's part ; and so these at our coming kept a court for the appearance of the said Lady Katherine, where were examined cer- tain witness, which testified that she was lawfully cited and called to appear, who for fault of appearance was declared contumax ; proceeding in the said cause against her in pcenam contumucm, as the process of the law thereunto belongeth, which continued fifteen days after our coming thither ; and the morrow after Ascension Day I gave final sentence therein, how that it was indispensable for the pope to license any such marriages."^ The king was im- mediately informed by a special messenger of the divorce ha^nng been pronounced, at which it may be supposed he was duly grati- fied. A letter from Bedell, one of the counsel to Crumwell, illus- 1 State Papers of Henry VIII. 1. 393. 2 Cranmer to Archdeacon Hawkyns ; Cranmer's Works, i. 244 (Park. Soc.) For the actual terms in which tlie marriage was annulled, see Notee and Illustrations. 62 THE DIVORCE CASE Chap. IV. trates somewliat amusingly the irony of the whole proceeding : — " I trust the process here shall be somewhat shorter than it was devised before . the Icing's grace. All that be here study to make things consonant to the law as far as the matter will suffer. My lord of Canterbury handleth himself very well and very uprightly, without any evident cause of suspicion to be noted in him of the counsel of the said Lady Katherine, if she had any present here^^ Happily for those engaged in the matter, there were no counsel of the Lady Catherine to comment on the proceedings. There was nothing so much dreaded by the judges as lest some such should appear. Cranmer writes to Crumwell — " If the said Lady Catherine should be moved, stirred, or persuaded to appear before me in the time or afore the time of sentence, I should be therefore greatly stayed and let in the process, and the king's grace's counsel here present shall be much uncertain what shall be then further done herein." 2 § 33. It only remains to note the way in which the unfor- tunate lady, thus expelled from her wifely condition, her dignity, and title, received the intelligence. Lord Mountjoy, her cham- berlain, with others joined with him, was appointed to communi- cate it to her. She would not grant them audience till the 3d of July, and received them lying on her couch, as she had injured her foot. When they read from their instructions the words, " Princess Dowager " (which it was ordered that she should hence- forth be called), she said she was no princess dowager, but the queen, and the king's lawful wife, and that she would vindicate and challenge the name of queen all her life. She was then told that the king had married the Lady Anne, who had been anointed and crowned queen, to which she answered, that all the world knew how that was done ; much more by power than by justice. She had never been divorced, as her cause was still before the pope. As for the universities, " it was well known that they were procured by merit ;" and as to the assent of the lords and commons she said, " The king may do in his realm by his royal power what he will." As for her possessions she cared not for them ; she would make no disturbance in the realm, nor attempt to court the favour of the people should they be against her. " Yet she trusted to go to heaven ; for it was not for the favour of the people, nor yet for any trouble or adversity that could be devised for her, she would lose the favour of God." It was not for any vainglory that she refused to abandon the name of queen, but only for the discharge of her conscience to declare herself the 1 State Papers, i. 395. 2 Cranmer's Works, i. 242. 1527-1533. AND THE FALL OF WOLSEY. C3 king's true wife ; and " neither for her daughter, family, possession, nor any worldly adversity or displeasure that might ensue, would she yield in this cause to put her soul in danger;" alleging the words of the gospel, that they should not be feared which have power of the body, but He only that hath power of the soul. She required all who were present to bear record that she there affirmed upon her soul that she was the king's true wife " until she was declared to be otherwise by the pope and the college of cardinals." ^ The next day, the queen desiring to see the report which the commissioners were going to make of her, spoke some- what more warmly : " She had always demeaned herself well and truly towards the king, and if it can be proved that she hath either stirred or procured anything against his grace, she is willing to suffer for it ; but if she should agree to our motions and per- suasions she should be a slanderer of herself, and confess to have been the king's traitor these twenty-four years, in which she should do such offence against God and her conscience, that no priest then, nor yet her ghostly father, could dispense herewith." She scoffed at "the Bishop of Canterbury" as "a man of the king's own making," and at the king's claim as " siqneinum ccqmt ecclesice," but finally begged that nothing in her words might be taken against her, as she was " no English woman, but a Spaniard born, and no counsel there to assist her." 2 Such were the touching and dignified utterances with which this unfortunate lady retired from the long and harassing trial which had been forced upon her, which she in no way deserved, and throughout which she had carried herself with unfailing dignity. Doubtless it was no small consolation to Catherine that the pope, on hearing of Cranmer's proceedings, immediately pronounced their nullity, and threatened the king with excommunication ; and at length (March 23, 1534) solemnly issued a decree exactly contrary to that of Cranmer, declaring the marriage to be legitimate, and that Henry could have no other lawful wife so long as Catherine lived. ^ The unlbrtunate queen survived the dissolution of her marriage about three years. She retired to Kimbolton Castle, in Huntingdonshire, where she passed her time in great devotion and austerity, and died in January 1536, in the fifty-third year of her age. § 34. Within a week after the sentence at Dunstable, Cranmer pronounced at Lambeth the validity of the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, and after gorgeous processions and pageants in the city of London on Whitsunday (June 1, 1533), Cranmer assisted 1 State Papers, i. 397-404. '^ Il>. * For the text of this decree, see Notes aud Illustrations. 64 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. IV. at the ceremony of her coronation, six other bishops, numerous abbots and priors, and a large number of nobles, assisting in the splendid ceremonial and festivities. On September 5, 1533, the Princess Elizabeth was born, and the archbishop acted as godfather at her baptism.^ 1 Cranmer's Works, I 245. Herbert's Henry Fill. (ap. Keunett), ii.l69. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) EARLY LIFE OF ANNE BOLEYN. Scarcely any subject has been more mis- represented by historians than the early life of Anne Boleyn. The following is abridged from Mr. Brewer's account of her, he being the best authority for the reign of Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn was born in 1507, being the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn of Blickling, Nor- folk, knight, and the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. She was thus by her mother's side descended from the proudest family of England. Her father was employed as ambassador to France, and took with him his daughter Anne to that country when she was about fifteen. Her stay would not seem to have been long, for she was in England in the 3^ear 1522. This sufficiently confutes the monstrous together against her by Sanders. She thus became first known at the English court when she was about sixteen. Her beauty and grace caused a great sensation. She was of dark com- plexion, with wonderful eyes, and long black hair of exquisite softness. There had been a negotiation, in which the king and cardinal had taken part, for betroth- ing her to Sir Piers Butler, in order to reconcile the conflicting claims of the Butlers and Boleyns to the earldom of Onnond. Anne's grandmother was an Ormond. But the negotiation never came to a final issue. Anne had numer- ous admirers in the English court, among whom the king was soon to be coanted. She was an accomplished musician and dancer, and still more rcmarkal'le for her grace than her beauty. There was a sort of rivalry between Sir Thomas Wyat and the king, as to who should be her chosen knight, in which, as might be expected, tlie king proved -vdctorioiLS. There was certainly no contract of marriage between Anne and the Lord Percy, as alleged by Cavendish, though there probably may have been some love-making. Anne, iu fact, was a lively and fas&inating coquette, attracting all more or less, but especially exercising her fascination on the king. "Whether it was the contrast between her and Catherine that piqued his fancy, or whether from idle gallantry he fell into more serious passion, the fascination that Anne exercised over him was com- plete."— (Brewer.) There could not, how- ever, have been anything specially mark- ed in the king's devotion to her before 1525, if (as is supposed), Wolsey in that year thought that the king might take to wife the Duchess of Alengon. It was probably not till 1526 that the cardinal became aware of the real strength of Henry's passion for Anne, and then, if Cavendish may be trusted, he went on his knees to the king, to dissuade him from trying to make her his wife. This would fully account for the hostility which Anne and her family always enter- tained towards the cardinal. Anne seems to have played the role of coquette ^yith consummate skill. Often the king was reduced to despair by her suddenly quitting court, or by some unexpected slight and coldness. She thus caused him to commit to writing distinct pro- mises that he would marrj^ her. With regard to the point to which their intimacy advanced before marriagou Hi. Chai'. IV. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (j5 Brewer, we think, says most judiciously , "She was not a woman of any high principle, but, like her father, she was not deficient in worldly wisdom and ambition. That she loved the king at any time is questionable — that she would stoop to his advances, as others had done, and throw away her chances of an honourable marriage, was not to be expected," This, however, is intimately connected with the point discussed in the next section. (B) DATE OF THE MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN. The older chroniclers (Hall, p. 794), make the king to have been married to Anne Boleyn privately by Roland Lee on Nov. 14, 1532, being St. Erkenwuld's day. This is also distinctly asserted by Sanders (De Schismate Anglic, p. 60.) Cranmer, however, in a letter to Arch- deacon Hawkins, says that they were married "much about St. Paul's day." This has been generally supposed to mean Jan. 25, the day in the calendar of the Apostle Paul. Mr. Pocock, an able critic of the history of these times, says, "This is a very loose expression, and even if Cranmer was not designedly vague, his testimony is not worth much. It is yet possible that Sanders' stoiy of the marriage having taken place on Nov. 14, 1552, may be true, though it has been thought that this date has been assigned to it in order to save Anne Boleyn's reputation." — (Records of Reformation, Introduction, p. xxvi.) Certainly this motive would have no power with Sanders. It is probable, however, that Cranmer's expression, "much about St. Paul's day," and the date of the chrori- olers, " the feast of St. Erkenwuld " may be reconciled, and that in fact they mean the same thing. St. Erkenwuld's day was kept with great ceremony and observ- ance at St. PauVs Church. St. Erken- wuld was a canonised bishop of London. In the year 1386 a decree was publi-shed by Robert, Bishop of London, ordering special honour to be done to this fes- tival, appointing collects to be said at the office of the mass, and granting forty days' indulgence to those who assisted at the celebration. — (Wilkins' Concil. iii. 196.) May it not have been the cus- tom to describe this festival day at St. Paul's as " St. Paul's day," and may not Cranmer have meant this day ? (C) EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS CRAN.MER. Thomas Cr.ajnmer was born at Aslacton, Notts, July 2, 1 184. He was the second son, and had two brothers and four sisters. His father was a country gentle- man of good property. Cranmer wa.s sent, when a boy, to a school where a very severe master so ill-treated him, that hia secretary, Ralph Morice, says he never fully recovered the efTects. At the ag« of fourteen he was sent to Cambridge, and became a member of Jesus CuUege, of which society he was afterwards fellow. He was much addicted to field sports, and does not appear to have gained any special eminence at the university. Dr. Hook, his latest biographer, thinks that he had chosen the study of the law for his profession. He married, while still a layman, the daughter or niece of an inn- keeper, who died before the expiration of his year of grace, so that he was rein- stated in his fellowship. In the year 1523 he entered holy orders, and was soon after made Doctor of Divinity. Cardinal "Wolsey is said to have invited him with other Cambridge men to his new college at Oxford, but this Cranmer declined. Mr. Brewer asserts (we are not aware upon what evidence) that Cranmer was chaplain to Lord Rochford, and tutor to Anne Boleyn. He also thinks it probable that he was early employed in the negotiations for tlie divorce, and was sent to Rome with the draft of a new dispensation forwarded to Dr. Knight. It was during the prevalence of the sweating sickness, when all who could retreated from the towns, that Cranmer was acting as tutor to the sons of Mr. Cressy, when he met with Gardiner and Fox, and was introduced to the king. (D) THE FORM OF THE ANNUL- LING OF THE MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND CATHERINE. "Plene et evidenter Invenimus et com- periraus prsedictum matrimonium inter prajfatos iUustrissimum et potentissiinum principem et dominum nostrum Henricum octavum, ac serenissimam dominain Catherinam, ut prremittitur, contractum et consummatum, nullum et invalidum oinnino fuisse et esse, ac divino jure pro- hibente contractum et consummatum fuisse : idcirco nos Thomas Archiepis- copus, Primas et Legatiis antedictus, Christl nomine primitus invocato, et solum Deum praj oculis nostris habentes, pro nuUitate et invaliditate dicti matri- monii pronunciamus decernimus et de- claramus, ipsumquo pra'tensum matri- monium fuisse et es.se nullum et invali- dum et diviuD jure proliibtnte contractum et consummatum, nuUiusque valoris aut 66 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. IV momenti esse, sed viribus et firmitate ■nu'is caruisse et carere, prsefatoque jllustrissimo domino Henrico octavo et serenissimae dominse Catharinae non licere in eodeni prseteuso matrimiuio permanere etiam pronunciamus decernimus et de- claramus, ipsosque potentissimum prin- cipem Henricum octavum ac serenissimam dominam Catherinam, quatenus de facto etnon de jure dictum prgetensum matri- monium ad invicem coutraxerunt et con- summarunt, ab invicem separamus et divorciamus atque sic divorciatos et separatos, necnon ab omni vinculo matri- moniali respectu dicti praetensi matri- monii liberos et immunes fuisse et esse pronunciamus decernimus et declaramus, per banc nostram sententiam definitivam in his scriptis. In quorum testimonium, etc. (E) THE POPE'S BULL DECLARING THE VALIDITY OF THE MAERIAGE. Matrimonium intra prsedictos Cather- inam et Henricum Anglise reges contrac- tum et inde secuta quaecunque fuisse et esse validum et canonicum, validaque et canonica, suosque debitos debuisse et de- bere sortiri affectus, prolemque exinde susceptam et suscipiendam fuisse et fore legitimam, et praifatum Henricum Anghae regem teneri et obligatum fuisse et fore ad cohabitandum cum dicta Gathering Re- gina ejus legitime, coujuge, illamque mari- tal! affectione et regio honore tractanduni, et eundem Henricum Angliae regem ad prsemissa omnia et singula cum atfectu adimplendum, condemnandum, omnibus- que juris remediis cogendum et compel- lendum fore prout condenmamus cogimug et compellimus : molestatisnesqne et de- negationes per eundem Henricum regem eidem Catherinse super invaliditate ac foedere dicti matrimonii quomodolibet factas et praestitas fuisse et esse illicitas et injustas, et eidem Henrico Regi super iUis ac invaliditate matrimonii hujus modi perpetuum silentium imponendum fore imponimus, eimdemque Henricum Angliae regem in expensis in hujusmodi caus& pro parte dictae Catherinse reginae coram nobis, et dictis omnibus legitime factis condemnandum fore et condemnamus quarum expensanxm taxationem nobis in posterum reservamns. — Pocock's Records of Reformation, ii. 532. 1629-153(5. THE KEFOKMATION PARLI ANIENT, ETC. 67 CHAPTER V. a?HE REFORMATION PARLIAMENT AND CONVOCATION. 1529-1536. § 1 Character of the Parliament of 1529. § 2. Sir T. More's speech as Chancellor. § 3. His attack upon Wolsey's character. § 4. Bills affecting the rights of the clergy brought into the Commons. § 5. The clergy strongly oppose the bill against pluralities. § 6. Bishop Fisher in the House of Lords. § 7. The Commons complain of his speech. § 8. The king summons Bishop Fisher before him. § 9. The three biUs pass the Upper House. § 10. Lords and Members of the Commons remon- strate with the pope. § 11. Irritation of the Parliament against Rome. § 12. Clergy brought in guilty of Praemunire oflfer a money composition. §13. Their acceptance of the supremacy is demanded. §14. The clergy acknowledge the royal supremacy. § 15. The "pardon" of the clergy. § 16. The true nature of the supremacy. § 17. The address of the Commons against the Ordinaries. § 18. The first answer of the Ordinaries. § 19. The second answer. § 20. The king's requirements. § 21. The submission of the clergy. § 22. The clergy petition against the pope's annates. § 23. The Act to abolish papal annates. § 24. The Act for restraint of appeals. § 25. Negotiations with Rome, which prove abortive. §. 26. The statute of the submission of the clergy. § 27. Appeals further regulated. § 28. Act to regulate appointments to bishoprics. § 29. Act to make illegal papal dispensations. § 30. First succession Act. § 31. Act to regulate proceedings in matter of heresy. § 32. Act of supremacy. § 33. Treason Act. § 34. Act to give king first fruits and tenths. § 35. The pope's supremacy thus formally repudiated. § 36. Convocation petitions for an English Bible. § 1. The Parliament which met in November 1529 was composed, in an unusually large degree, of office-holders under the crown, and its spirit was one of complete subserviency to the king's will. It showed its servility not only by sanctioning all the illegal methods to which resort had been had for raising money, but, still more, by passing a law which enacted that all the loans made to tlie king were to be regarded as gifts, and that he was discharged from all obligation of repayment, i This, as might be expected, caused grievous dissatisfaction in the country. Nevertheless the work which this Parliament performed in the restoration of its liberty to the Cliurch of England was so important, that its character has been enthusiastically lauded by historians. One has not shrunk from declaring that "the records of the world contain no instance of such a triumph, bought at a cost so slight, and tarnished with blemishes so trilling." ^ 1 Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 23. ^ Froude, Hist, of Enqland, i. 168. d8 THE EEFOEMATIOis^ PAELIAMENT Chap. V. § 2. The session was opened by a speech from Sir Thomas More, who had been appointed chancellor on the disgrace of Wolsey. Sir Thomas was a man of high character and spotless integrity. He was learned and eloquent after the manner of those daj^s, and in his private life altogether admirable. But his character had its decided blemishes, and it must be confessed that in the opening of this Parliament, and the violent attack which he made on the disgraced favourite Wolsey, he does not show to advantage. § 3. The authority for More's speech is the chronicler Hall, a man of a decided bias against him, but, says Mr. Brewer, " it is hard to suppose that the whole speech was due to the active invention of the chronicler."^ More likened the king to a shej)- herd or herdsman taking care for his flock. " And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the sound sheep, the great wether which is of late fallen as you all know, juggled with the king so craftily, scabbedly, and untruly, that all men must see that he imagined himself that the king had no sense to perceive his crafty doings, or presumed that he could not see or understand his fraudulent juggling and attempts. But he was deceived, for his grace's sight is so quick and penetrable, that he not only saw him. but saw through him both within and without, so that he was entirely open to him. According to his desert, he hath had a gentle correction, which small punishment the king would not should be an example to other oftenders, but openly declareth that whoso- ever hereafter shall make the like attempt, or commit the like offences, shall not escape with the like punishment. "2 The chancellor thus seems to lend the weight of his authority to the unjust persecution of the cardinal, and in accordance with this he afterwards signed the articles of accusation ^ brought against him in the Lords. The House of Commons, however, took a fairer view, and refused to accept the bill passed in the Lords. § 4. In doing this the Commons were not influenced by any special regard for the Church and clergy. The bitter feeling which had been working in the minds of the laymen since the beginning of the reign, and which, in the king's angry mood, was not dis- pleasing to him, soon began to show itself in the Commons' House. Three bills were brought in touching the privileges and rights of 1 Brewer, iv. 600, note. It is probable that Hall was a member of this Parliament. 2 Hall's Chronicle, p. 762 (4to ed.) 3 "Articles so frivolous," says Mr. Hallam, "that they have served to redeem his fame in later times." — Const. Hist. i. 22. 1529-1536. AND CONVOCATION. 60 the clergy. Tlie first concerned the probate of will.^, and was designed to abridge the exorbitant fees exacted in the bishops' courts.^ It enacted that when the property of the deceased person was under 100 shillings, no fee should be demanded for adminstra- tion ; that when the property exceeded 100 shillings, but was under ^'40, three shillings and sixpence should be charged ; and that when it was above this sum, five shillings should be the amount of fee. The second Act regulated mortuaries.^ It declared that this charge had been sometimes held over-excessive to the poor people, and specified the amounts to be charged, the charge only to be made where the custom had prevailed.^ The third Act was directed against pluralities and clerical farming.'* It prohibited the obtaining any license or dispensation from the court of Rome after April 1, 1535, for holding a plurality of benefices, or for any relaxation of the law. A heavy penalty was affixed to the obtaining such licenses. § 5. This was therefore the first Act of this period which directly struck at the pope's power in England. It was by no means ac- ceptable to the clergy. Taking away as it did from them all power of obtaining, by a money payment, from the court of Rome, the license for pluralities, it left them in this matter completely at the mercy of the king. Convocation was at the time in session, and it took up the matter warmly. The clergy addressed the king, ■^.o claim what they held to be their rightful privileges. They de- manded that the privileges given them by Magna Charta and the ancient laws should not be abridged ; that a clear statement should be made as to the provisions of the Act of PrcBmunire; that clergy should not be called before the King's courts under this statute.^ They declared that the Parliament ran great risk of sin in passing any statute which touched clerical liberties, without first consult- ing the clergy in their Convocations.^ It was a bold protest, and founded on justice, but perhaj^s somewhat impolitic at the moment. Very soon the clergy are compelled altogether to change their tone. § 6. Bishop Fisher, in the House of Lords, made a spirited de- fence of the clergy. In his speech he said that there M'as a report that " the small monasteries should be given up into the king's 1 21 Henry VIII. c. 5. 2 A mortuary was the best beast or chattel of which the deceased died possessed (or the worth of it), or the second best -wlien the lord of the manor obtained the best for a heriot. Amos, Statutes of Reformation Parlt., p. 205. 3 21 Henry VIII. c. 6. * lb. c. 13. ^ The process instituted against Wolsey, and extended to the whole clergy of England wlio had acquiesced in his legatine authority, was then going on. Of this more hereafter ^ Collier, llccords, No. 28. 70 THE REFORMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. V. hands, which," said the aged bishop, " makes me fear it is not so much the good as the goods of the Church that is looked after. Truly, my lord, how this may sound in your ears I cannot tell, but to me it appears no otherwise than if our holy mother the Church were to become a bondmaid. Otherwise, to what tendeth these pretentious and curious petitions from the Commons ? To no other intent and purpose but to bring the clergy into contempt of the laity, that they may seize their patrimony. But, my lords, beware of yourselves and your country ; beware of your holy mother, the Catholic Church. The people are subject to novelties, and Lutheranism spreads among us. Eemember Germany and Bohemia, what miseries are befallen them already. . . . My lords, except ye resist manfully by your authorities this violent heap of mischief offered you by the Commons, you shall see all obedience first drawn from the clergy, and afterwards from yourselves ; and if you search into the true causes of all these mischiefs, you shall find that they all arise through want of faith." -^ § 7. The Commons were in no mood to be lectured in this way by any prelate, however respectable. They complained to the king of the bishop's speech. To make their complaint more formal, it was carried by their Speaker, Sir T. Audely, and thirty of the members of the House. They declared that they held it to be a crying grievance that they, who were " elected for the wisest men of all the shires, cities, and boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble and open presence to lack faith, which was equivalent to say that they were infidels and no Christians, as ill as Turks and Saracens." ^ § 8. The king received the complaints of the Commons nothing loth. He bore Bishop Fisher special ill-will for his conduct in the divorce business. He had made up his mind to humble the high pretensions of the churchmen. The bishop was called before him. The archbishop and six other bishops were bid to accompany him. The complaints of the Commons were stated to him. The bishop rej)lied that he had intended to accuse not the English Commons, but the Bohemians, of lack of faith. With this somewhat lame excuse he escaped. The king sent to inform the Commons how the bishop had defended himself, but his " blind excuse," says Hall, " pleased the Commons not at all." ^ § 9. Meantime the three bills passed by the Commons made no progress in the Lords, where the spiritual peers had a majority. The king therefore applied himself to the work of getting them through the Upper House. Some alterations were made in the first two bills, by which means the Lords were brought to accept I Bailey's Life of Fisher. ^ Hall's Chron. p. 766. ^ jjaU, p. 766. 1529-1536. AND COXVOCATIOX. 71 them. But the third bill, touching pluralities and clerical farm- ing, with its clauses altogether cutting off applications to Rome was entirely distasteful to the House. It needed much manage- ment and not a little royal influence before its acceptance could be secured. The king summoned a meeting of eight members of each House to discuss the matter, and after " sore debating," the temporal lords taking part with the Commons, the bishops were obliged to yield.^ The bill thus at length became law, to the great joy of the laymen, but especially, it may be inferred, to the satis- faction of the king, who was thus furnished with a most powerful curb to restrain the clergy, the effect of which was quickly visible in the action of Convocation. § 10. Thus the first session of this Parliament (which lasted only six weeks) had inaugurated with considerable vigour, and with not mnch regard to clerical opinion, the task of recasting the ex- ternal status of the Church of England. Men gifted with any dis- cernment might easily perceive in what direction things were tending ; and had the pope been a politic man, he would at this point have offered some concession, at any rate, as to the divorce suit, by which perhaps the direction of the king's mind and the work of the Parliament might have been changed. But none such was offered ; and when Parliament met again, in July 1530, many of its members proceeded to address a remonstrance to the pope for refusing to advance the divorce matter. As yet no man saw his way clearly to a total rupture with Rome, but threats were freely used in the remonstrance that if Rome did not act, " some other way " would be found. The pope's answer to this remon- strance was by no means conciliatory to the Lords and Commons who had signed it. He blames them for their threatening lan- guage, and declares that they have impeached his proceedings " very unadvisedly." 2 § 11. The answer to this was the proclamation making it penal to introduce bulls from Rome,^ and the temper of the House of Commons was by no means more conciliatory towards Rome when it met, January 1531. At this session, when the opinions of the universities as to the divorce were laid before it, both Parliament and Convocation would seem to have distinctly declared themselves in favour of the divorce ; and the feeling of Parliament towards Rome may be judged by an Act which passed, ordaining that all Proctors and Pardoners,'^ g^^^o ^l->oi-^t in. any country without suffi- 1 Hall, p. 767. - Lord Herbert's Henry VIII.; Kennett, ii. 141, sq. ^ Yet Cranmer's hulls were introduced some two years after this time. * i.e. Persons engaged in selling the pope's pardons or indulgences. 72 THE REFORMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. V. cient autliority, were to be regarded as vagrants, to be drawn on two successive days tlirongli the next market town, tied to tlie end of a cart naked, and to be whipped on their way till their bodies were bloody. The punishment was to be repeated on the repeti- tion of the ofifence, with the addition of the pillory and the loss of ears.-^ § 12. The politic device of obtaining a conviction against the whole clergy of England, under the Praemunire statute,^ gave the king an irresistible weapon for humbling whatever of Eoman spirit still remained in the Convocation. By the decision of the judges the whole clergy of the land, their liberties, their goods, lay at the mercy of the king. The Convocations acting for the whole clergy were invited to offer a composition. That of Canterbury offered no less than .£100,000, an enormous sum, equivalent to over a million of modern value. But this immense fine was not all that was demanded of the clergy. The king's politic ad- visers, of whom Crumwell ^ was already the leading spirit, saw in the critical position of the clergy a great opportunity for procuring the acknowledgment of the king's supremacy, and for erecting a powerful barrier against Ptome. § 1 3. The clergy were informed that their money composition could not be accepted imless they inserted in the instrument which conveyed it an acknowledgment that the king was supreme head of the Church of England. Henry had before, in the matter of Standish, claimed this title, as his predecessors had done before him. But the clergy had never acknowledged it. They had lived all their lives in the belief that their supreme head was at Rome, and that they were not under the same obligations as the laity. Now they were called iipon under pressure to renounce this theory, and accept a new condition of things. It cannot be won- dered at that they did it hardly and with great reluctance. But the king was determined. Their whole revenues, their liberties, vere at stake. § 14. So the archbishop was constrained to take counsel with *' the counsellors of our lord the king" as to the exact wording of the acknowledgment that was required. For three sessions the Convocation debated the matter, and then sent a message to the king, desiring some less decided form than " supreme head." The 1 22 Henry VIII. c. 12. Amos, Reformation Parliament, p. 248. 2 The clergj^ were convicted for accepting Wolsey's acts, and so becom- ing accessory to them. To give some colour to this act of gross injustice, the haity of England were also convicted, but these were quickly pardoned. The clergy had to pay heavily. 3 For an account of Thomas Crumwell, see Notes and Illustrations at the end of this chapter. 1529-1536. AND CONVOOATION. 73 king's answer, sent by Lord Eochford, was that he wonl«l have the words "of which he is the protector and supreme head after God." The archbishop continued to negotiate, and on February 11 (1531), he informed the House that the king would accept the wording " the singular protector, the only and supreme lord, and as far as is j)ermiUed hy the law of Christ, even the siqweme heady This wording was ambiguous, and was no doubt intended to be so. It left the exact amount and nature of the supremacy still an open question. But it was an acknowledgment that in a certain sense the king was rightfully supreme head of the Church, and Henry easily perceived that it was quite sufficient for his purpose. The clergy had shown considerable spirit and power of resistance, and it was not thought politic to urge them further. When Archbishop Warham announced this form in Convocation, he said, " He that is sUent seems to consent." Well satisfied at a settlement so much more favourable than they had expected, not one of the members of Convocation raised his voice, and the king's sui:)remacy, as thus limited f was accepted unanimously.^ § 15. Upon the acceptance of the royal supremacy and the vote of the large benevolence by the clergy, the king sent down to Parliament a bill " for pardoning the clergy of the provinces of Canterbury," 2 which, after magnifying the king's mercy and tenderness, declares the clergy pardoned in consideration of the sum of £100,044 : 8 : 8. The other important concession of the clergy was not mentioned in the Act, but was made full use of afterwards, and in a most disingenuous fashion. The Convocation of York was allowed to compound for a fine of .£18,840, together with the same acknowledgment of the supremacy that had been made by Canterbury (May 4, 1531). There was more difficulty apparently in bringing the northern Convocation to consent to the king's claim than had been experienced with the southern. Bishop Tonstal presided, and he was strongly opposed to any concession of the sort. It did not escape his acuteness that the expression — supreme head quantum jjer Christi legem licet — being in its nature ambiguous, might hereafter be interpreted to mean " a headship in spirituals ;" a thing, says the bishop, " contrary to the doctrine of the Catholic Church." He therefore recorded a protest against this title simply on the grounds of its ambiguity. " If it was understood to relate merely to seci:ilar and civil jurisdiction, he ^ Wilkins' Concilia, iii. 724. When the Act of Parliament "which embodied the clergy's concession was drawn, the qualifying clause was omitted, so that in fact the clergy never did agree to the prei^osterous inter- pretation of the royal supremacy put forth in that Act, and are in no \va> responsible for the gross abuses which followed. - 22 Henry VIII. c. 15 ; Amos, Reformation Parliament, p. 57. 74. THE EEFOEMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. V. and all the English, clergy were ready to accept it with complete acquiescence, but against any notions of a spiritual headship he protested." i The king wrote to the bishop a long and somewhat angry letter,^ in which he endeavours to show that Tonstal did not attribute a proper force and extent to his supremacy ; and it is clear that the bishop's words do fall short of the full recognition of this right of the Crown. § 16. The king is supreme in all causes, not merely in civil and secular causes, of which no one ever doubted. He has a cor- rective jurisdiction over spiritual persons and in spiritual causes. That which he has not, by right, but which Henry VIII. claimed and exercised, is a directive and regulative power, a power to super- sede laws and to give orders to spiritual persons in matters of doctrine, discipline, and practice. This power the clergy never acknowledged. It was given to the king by a too servile Parliament, and unscrupulously exercised by him in various ways. The pardon of the York clergy was not passed till the fol- lowing session,^ that of the laity having preceded it.^ Great dis- contents were caused by the levying from the clergy of the fine to which the Convocations had agreed. An open riot was raised against Bishop Stokesley by the clergy of London. Submission, however, was inevitable, as there was at the moment but little sympathy for the clergy among their brethren of the laity. § 17. On March 18, 1532, the Commons presented to the king an address which may be supposed to represent the whole of their grievances against the ordinaries and the clerical body.^ They complain — (1) That the prelates and spiritual ordinaries and the clergy have made in their Convocations, constitutions, and ordinances, without the king's knowledge or consent, and without assent or consent of the lay subjects of the Crown, which con- stitutions or canons laymen are forced to obey under heavy penalties, being in ignorance previously of the nature of those laws, seeing that they were never published in the English tongue. (2) That the Archbishop of Canterbury having limited the number 1 Wilkins, iii. 745. ^ jj_ 744^ 3 23 Henry VIII. c. 19. * 22 Henry VIII. c. 16. See Amos, Statutes of Reformation Parlia- ment, pp. 57, 58. This able writer observes : — "A pardon of a people has not a parallel in history, and this pardon was rendered more preposterous from the circumstance that in effect the Lords and Commons pardoned them- selves." ^ This address is printed in Mr, Froude's History from a MS. in the Rolls House, but is placed by him about two years and a half too early. That is to say, at the first meeting of Parliament, instead of the Session of 1532. Trowde, History of England, I 20s. 1529-1536. AND CONVOCATION. 75 of proctors in liis courts, and none others being allowed to plead the laymen could not obtain indifferent counsel, and that the proctors always went against them, fearing the loss of their office. (3) That men were inqaieted, vexed, troubled, and put to ex- cessive charge, and many times suspended and excommunicated, for small and light causes, only upon the certificate of the proctors of their adversaries, made under a feigned seal which every proctor has, and that without any warning given. (4) That excessive fees are exacted in the spiritual courts. (5) That parsons, vicars, and parish priests, exact divers sums of money for the sacra- ments and sacramentals of Holy Church, which ought to be freely ministered. (6) That the trouble and fees in proving wills were excessive. (7) That fees for institution to benefices were exacted to an unfair amount, and that the incumbents were forced to give bonds to pay the first fruits after their induction. (8) That the ordinaries promote " certain young folks, calling them their nephews and kinsfolk," and thus retain for themselves the emoluments of the benefices, while " the poor silly souls which should be taught in the parishes are left for lack of good curates to perish without any instruction." (9) That an excessive number of holy-days is observed, upon which "many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports be used and exercised." (10) That men are constantly summoned by the ordinaries to answer some charge, ex officio, and upon their appearance, " com- mitted and sent to ward sometimes for half a year, sometimes for a whole year, and more, before they know either the cause of their imprisonment or the name of their accuser," and after great costs, if found innocent, have no recompense. (12) That upon charges of heresy subtle questions are put to unlearned laymen to trap them, and make them appear guilty of heresies which they by no means hold, and that the testimony of two witnesses, however much defamed and vile they may be, is held conclusive against the accused, who thus is often punished unjustly to his own un- doing. Upon these grounds the Commons beseech the king " to provide such necessary and behoveful remedies as may effectually reconcile and bring in perpetual unity his subjects spiritual and temporal." § 18. The answer of the ordinaries to this heavy indictment was drawn up by Bishop Gardiner, a man well skilled in canon law. They allege that there is no discord on their part towards their •' ghostly children." " They have only exercised with all charity the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church. They claim their right to make canons from Scripture and holy Church, to which their canons are made to conform, and if the same rule were 76 THE REFOPtMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. Y, observed in making temporal laws the two would not clash. They cannot imdertake to submit their canons to the king's ap- proval, but if he will signify his wishes beforehand they will gladly attend to them. It is said that some of their laws touch the goods and possessions of lay people, and subject them to ex- comm,unication. They do not remember any such, except such as relate to heresy. As regards the summoning of persons before them or their ofl&cials, ex officio , they are sorry if it has been done improperly. They only use prison before conviction for safe custody, and only in the case of heres}^, and no " notable " person has been thus treated, but only " certain apostates, friars, monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds, and lewd idle fellows who have embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany." They agree that no man ought to be entrapped into making dangerous admissions, but, so far as they know, no man has suffered but by his own desert. It is sometimes " commendable and allowable " to commute penance for money. As regards allowing two suspected witnesses to prove a matter, they hold that " in heresy no exception is necessary to be considered if their tale be likely." For the archbishop's probate courts he has lately been reforming them. Tithes are of divine right, and the right to recover them never lapses. Mortuaries ought not to be sued for before opportunity of payment has been given. Moderate fees only are charged for induction, and the bonds complained of are illegal. As regards appointing " young folks " to livings, they reply that if the proceeds of the living be used for the education of such persons, or for other good uses, it is not to be condemned. The secular employments of clergy may in some cases be allowed. They are in no way responsible for the ill-feeling which exists between clergy and laity, and they appeal to the king to aid them in carrying out the proper work of their spiritual office.^ This defence of the ordinaries was voted in the Upper House April 15, and in the Lower House April 19 (1532).2 The king on receiving it sent for Sir Thomas Audeley, the Speaker of the Commons, and delivered it to him, saying : — " We think their answer will smally please you, for it seemeth to us very slender. You be a great sort of wise men, we doubt not you will look circumspectly in the matter, and we will be indif- ferent between you."^ The king's strong disapproval of the reply drew from Bishop Gardiner a letter of apology,'^ § 19. The Convocation took the matter into consideration 1 Fronde, History of England, 1. 223-240. ■^ Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 340. ^ jjall's Chronicle, p. 788. 4 Wilkiiis, iii. 742. 1529-1536 AND CONVOCATION. 77 again. The Lower House was by no means satisfied with the defence that had been made, and the bishops now entrusted to a committee of that House the task of making another reply. This paper addressed itself specially to that point in the former answer which had chiefly displeased the king, viz. the refusal of the clergy to submit their canons for his approval. With regard to this, the clergy now declare that " the laws and determina- tions of Christ's holy Church through all Christian realms received and used be clear and manifest ; that the prelates of the same Church have a spiritual jurisdiction and judicial power to rule and govern in faith and good manners necessary to their soul's health their flocks unto their care committed ; and that they have authority to make and ordain rules and laws tending to that pur- pose, which rules and laws have and do take effect in binding Christian persons as of themselves, so that before God there needs not of necessity any temporal power or consent to concur with the same by way of authority." This right of the spiritualty to make laws has always been recognised by Christian princes, as much as their right to confer orders or exercise any spiritual function. It is founded on many passages of Holy Scripture, and is defended by the king himself in his book against Martin Luther. Nevertheless they are willing to promise that no laws shall be set out by them without the consent of the king, " except they be such as shall concern the maintenance of the faith and good mamiers in Christ's Church, and such as shall be for tlie reformation and correction of sin after the commandment of Almighty God," — in these they desire a complete liberty. As regards laws made of old time by the Church which are contrary to the laws of the land, these, " if they be not now in use, and do not concern the faith nor reformation of sin," they would readily abrogate. " So that your said honourable Commons shall now dare execute your laws without any fear, dread, or anger, of our said laws, if any such there be." ^ The concessions offered in this paper amount really to nothing, as the clergy were still to be the judges of what laws came within the excepted categories. They could hardly have supposed that the king would be satis- fied with it. § 20. The king's reply was sent down to Convocation by his almoner. Bishop Fox. The clergy were required to subscribe to three articles to the effect that — (1) No constitution or ordinance should hereafter be enacted or put forth by the clergy without the king's consent. (2) That a committee of thirty-two persons be ^ Wilkins, iii. 753. From a MS. in the Cottou. Collection ; Collier, iv, 187-9. This reply is not noticed by Mr. Froude. 78 THE REFORMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. V. appointed to review tlie ancient canons, and to abrogate sucli as sliall be fonnd "prejudicial to tlie king's prerogative and onerous to bis bigbness's subjects." (3) Tbat all sucb canons as sball be approved sball stand good wben ratified by tbe king's consent.^ Tbese demands appeared to tbe Convocation to be excessive. In tbeir perplexity they sent a deputation from botb Houses to consult Fisber, tbe aged Bisbop of Rocbester, wbo was too feeble to attend in bis place. Tbe advice of tbe bisbop was tbat tbey sbould boldly stand out against at any rate tbe tbird of tbe king's demands. § 21. Tbe Lower House, bowever, does not appear to bave ven- tured upon any decided opposition. On May 15 tbey agreed to a form of Submission wbicb does not differ materially from tbat w^bicb was demanded by tbe king. But tbe Upper House acted in a more spirited manner. Tbey drew up a new form, in wbicb tbe obnoxious requirement, tbat none of tbe old canons sbould bave force except wben approved by tbe king, is evaded. Tbis tbey voted on May 16, 1532, but even tben not unanimously; one (Bisbop of Batb and Wells) voted against it. Tbree (St. Asapb, Lincoln, London) voted it witb conditions. Tbus tbis important transaction, known as tbe Submission of the Clergy^ was brougbt about. Tbe Convocation was not, in fact, committed to anything beyond tbat to wbicb tbe Upper House agreed.^ But tbis was amply sufficient. Henceforth no new canons or constitutions could be put forth by the clergy without the king's sanction ; and although tbe old canons still remained in force, yet it was agreed tbat a review of them sbould be made by a body of commissioners, and tbat sucb of them as were disapproved of should be struck out and abrogated. § 22. Having tbus abandoned the papal supremacy and sub- mitted themselves to tbe supremacy of the crown, the clergy in Convocation naturally looked to obtain some relief from tbe heavy burdens to which the pope's claims bad long subjected them. Among tbese burdens, one of tbe most pressing and galling was the payment of annates or first-fruits demanded by tbe See of Rome. A bisbop appointed to a see bad to pay the whole of his first year's income in advance to tbe papal Curia, and at tbe same time to pay enormous fees before be could obtain from the pope the bulls for consecration and admission to bis see. The money to satisfy tbese heavy claims usually bad to be borrowed, and thus tbe incoming prelate was burdened with debt and induced to bave recourse to those various exactions and sharp practices as to ecclesiastical pro- 1 Wilkins, iii. 749. 2 For the two forms of submission agreed to by the two Houses, see Notes and lUustrations at the end of the chapter. 1529-1536. AND CONVOCATION. 79 perty, of whicli there was so mncli complaint in those days. The Convocation therefore very naturally fastened on this abuse, and voted an address to the Crown, petitioning the king to take steps for abolishing this heavy burden, and if the pope should oppose they add these remarkable words : — " Forasmuch as all good Chris- tian men be more bound to obey God than any man, and forasmuch as St. Paul willeth us to withdraw ourselves from all such as walk inordinately, it may please the king's most noble majesty to ordain in this present Parliament, that then the obedience of him and his people be withdrawn from the See of Eome, as in like case the French king withdrew his obedience of him and his subjects from Pope Benedict XIII. of that name, and arrested by authority of his Parliament all such annates, as it appeareth by good writing ready to be showed." 1 These words are remarkable as proving that the clergy formally petitioned the king to renounce subjection to the pope before any act had been done by the lay power to effectuate this. These three acts of the clergy in their Convocation — the acknowledgment of the royal supremacy, the submission to the crown in the matter of putting forth canons, and the petition to the king to withhold the papal revenues, and if the pope objected " to withdraw the obedience of his people from the See of Eome," — constituted a complete revolt of the spiritualty of the Church of England, acting in their legal and constitutional assembly, fi'om the usurped power of the pope. § 23. As the petition of the clergy suited very well with the king's policy, an Act in accordance with it was immediately pre- pared and brought into the House of Lords.^ This Act recited that "great and inestimable sums of money'^ had been taken out of the country by the pope on the pretence of a right to the first-fruits of bishoprics, not less (since the second year of Henry VII.) than one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, that this claim impoverished the bishops^ and inflicted great injury on the Church. The bill, therefore, provides that the payment of annates shall cease. It shall, however, be lawful to pay to the pope for the accustomed bulls five per cent on the clear income of the see. They trust that the pope, of his own mere motion, will do away with this ^ Strype, Memorials of Beformation, vol. i. appendix xli. Wilkins' Condi, iii. 760. Benedict XIII. was one of the popes of the schism, ap- pointed 1395. The king was the mad king Charles VI. The example does not go for much, save to show the spirit which now animated the clergy. 2 23 Henry VIII. c. 20. 3 We may judge of the immense sums paid to the pope on this head from what Cranmer had to pay soon afterwards. His first-fruits were 10,000 ducats. His fees for hnlls amounted to about 6000 more. — tiiate Papers of Henry VIIL, S. A. 1533. 80 THE KEFORMATION PARLIAMENT Chap. V. charge, and for this pur2:>ose the king may withhold from this Act his ratification until Easter 1533, and then if he sees good ratify it by letters patent. But if the pope opposes this change and will not grant the bulls, then it shall be lawful for the bishops to be consecrated without them, and for the clergy to minister all manner of sacraments and sacramentals, any excommunication, interdiction, or inhibition of the pope notwithstanding.! It is evident that it was supposed that the device of holding this Act in suspense for a year would influence the pope to show himself complaisant towards the king rather than lose so great a source of revenue as that which flowed in to him from the rich English sees. But the imperial interest was too strong, and the pope could not yield. The Annates Act, being the first Act of Parliament of Henry's reign directed distinctly against Rome, was also by far the mildest in its language and provisions. As the CLuarrel advanced and the parties to it became embittered, the provisions of the Acts of Parliament become much -more stringent. § 24. In the session of 1533 was passed the famous Act called the Statute for the restraint of Apioeals.^ The preamble of this declared " That the Crown of England was imperial and the nation a complete body within itself, with a full power to give justice in all cases, spiritual as well as temporal, to all manner of folk, without restraint or appeal to any foreign prince or potentate ; the body spiritual thereof, having power, when any cause of the law divine hapj)ened to come in question or of spiritual learning, to declare and interpret by that part of the body politic called the spiritu- alty, now being usually called the English Church, and that there had always been in the spiritualty men of sufficiency and integrity to declare and determine all doubts within the kingdom, without the intermeddling of any exterior power, and that several kings, as Edward I., Edward III., Richard II., Henry IV., had by several laws preserved the liberties of the realm, both spiritual and tem- poral, from the interference of Rome ; yet that many inconveniences had arisen by appeals to the See of Rome in causes of matrimony and others which delayed and defeated justice. Wherefore it was en- acted that all such causes, whether relating to the king or any of his subjects, were to be determined within the kingdom in the several courts to which they belonged, notwithstanding any appeals to Rome or inhibitions or bulls from Rome. And if any spiritual person re- fused to execute the sentence of such courts, they were to suffer a ! Burnet, Records, p. i. b. ii. No, 41. For other important Acts of Par- liament relating to the Church passed this session, see Notes and Illustratious T,t the end of this chapter. 2 24 Henry VHI. c. 12. 1529-1536. ATTD CONVOCATION. 81 year's imprisonment, and fine and ransom at the king's will. And if any person in the king's dominions procured or exercised any censures from Rome, they were to be liable to the pains and penal- ties of the statute 16 Richard II. Appeals were only to be allowed from the archdeacon to the bishop, and from him to the archbishop or the Dean of the Arches, except in the case of the king and his heirs, whose appeal should lie from the archbishop to the Upper House of Convocation.-'^ § 25. Between the Parliamentary session of 1533 and that of 1534 events of much importance took place, which of necessity influenced the subsequent legislation. Up to the passing of the statute of restraint of appeals there had been no formal rupture with the pope, and the Acts of Parliament passed might have been made to fit in with a modified allegiance to him. But in May 1533 Cranmer had pronounced the divorce between Henry and Catherine. Soon afterwards the king was married anew ; a daughter was born ; the pope had declared his intention of excommunicating Henry ; Bonner at Rome had solemnly ap- pealed from the pope to a general council, Cranmer in England had done the same,^ and an absolute rupture was imminent. Before, however, this policy was determined upon there was a debate in the king's council, both sides of the question being pleaded with considerable force. ^ Francis, king of France, was urgent with King Henry to induce him to make concessions suffi- cient to stay the threatened excommunication. To this the king himself inclined, and the Archbishop of Paris, who was then in Eng- land, undertook to proceed to Rome and conduct the negotiations. He succeeded so well with the pope in supporting Henry's proposals (which were to the effect that he would abandon his measures for the final separation from Rome if the pope would allow the re- hearing of the divorce case by unprejudiced judges at Cambray), that a courier was sent to England to obtain the king's definite undertaking. On his return, should it be by a day appointed, the pope declared himself ready to give his final consent. It is im- possible to forecast what the effect of such an arrangement would have been. Probably the complete Reformation of the Church of England would have been greatly retarded. Providentially, how- ever, the courier did not arrive in time. The imperial party pressed the pope to decide to issue the adverse sentence. The 1 Amos, Statutes of Reformation Parliament, p. 257. It is clear that thia statute was passed to make a firm foundation for Cranmer's impendint* judgment in the divorce case. ^ Lord Herbert's Henry VIII., Kennett, ii. 170^ "* The arguments are given in Herbert, pp. 170-172 G 1 82 THE EEFORMATION PAELIAMENT Chap. V. French party contended with great earnestness for delay. The pope felt himself obliged to be true to his word, and decide in favour of the imperialists. On March 23, 1534, his sentence was issued declaring the marriage of Henry and Catherine good, and that the king should be compelled by all the remedies which the law provided to cohabit again with Catherine his lawful wife. Two days afterwards the courier arrived, bearing the required consent of the king. The moderate party at Rome endeavoured to obtain the rehearing of the case, but in vain. It is said that the pope and cardinals were greatly exasperated by the news that the king had published a book "on the true difference between the royal and ecclesiastical power," and that the pope and cardinals had been satirised in a masque played before the court. The bull M^as pro- mulgated, and the separation between England and Home was complete. ^ § 26. During this momentous crisis, the Parliament, which met for its sixth session in January 1534, had been occupied with important acts relating to the Church. Of these the first was the statute called the statute of the submission of the clergy. ^ The submission which the clergy had made in their Convocation two years before, that they would promulgate no new canons without the king's license, and that they would consent that the old canons should be revised, was now thrown into an Act of Parliament. The Act recited, " Whereas the clergy have truly acknowledged that the Convocation is always assembled by the king's authority, and have promised that they will not henceforth make and allege any new constitutions without his highness' assent and license, and whereas divers constitutions and canons provincial and synodal heretofore enacted are thought to be prejudicial to the king's prerogative, and contrary to the statutes of the realm and onerous to the people ; and the said clergy, therefore, hath humbly be- sought his majesty that the said constitutions and canons may be committed to the examination of thirty-two men, to be named by his majesty, viz. — sixteen of both Houses of Parliament, and sixteen of the clergy, who may annul and confirm the same as they find cause : It is enacted, therefore, that henceforth all Con- vocations shall be called by the king's writ,^ and that in them nothing shall be promulged or executed without his highness' license, under pain of imprisonment." The Act then gives the king ^ Herbert's Jlennj VIII., Kermett, ii. 173. 2 25 Henry VIII. c. 19. ^ The Convocation was previously summoned by the writ of the arch- bishop. There is no record of the clergy having formally conceded this point, but they had virtually done so in agreeing to the supremacy of the crown. 1529-1536. AND CONVOCATIOK 83 power to appoint the thirty-two commissioners after this session of Parliament. § '27. By another clause of this Act appeals were further regulated. It was enacted by this that in case of failure of justice in the court of the archbishop, there should lie an appeal to the king in liis Court of Chancery, which should be heard by delegates to be nominated by the crown.^ § 28. Another Act rendered illegal the pope's interference in the appointment to bishoprics, and regulated such appointments. 2 This Act recited the Annates Act previously passed, but suspended for a time to see if the pope would settle the matter by fair means. This the present Act declared had not been done, and so the king had ratified the Annates Act, and this Parliament now confirmed it, and added further, " That from henceforth no bishop shall be commended, presented, or nominated, by the Bishop of Eome, nor shall send thither to procure any bulls or palls, but that at every vacation of a bishopric, the king shall send to the chapter of the cathedral a license (as hath of old been accustomed) to proceed to election, which election being deferred above twelve days next ensuing shall belong to the king, but being made within the time limited shall be held firm and good : and the person so elected, after notification of his election to the king's highness and oath of fealty taken to him, shall be styled bishop elect, and so by his majesty shall be commended to the archbishop of the province to be in- ducted and consecrated. And if the persons to whom his election and consecration belongeth neglect or refuse to perform the same, or admit or execute any censures or interdictions to the contrary, they shall incur the penalty of the law of Prceimtnire'' In tlie license issued to the chapter no person was to be named, but the license was to be accompanied by a "letter missive" in which the king should name some person for the chapter to elect, and this person, and no other, was to be elected by the chapter under the penalties specified by the Act.^ § 29. The Parliament next proceeded to deal with j)apal dis- pensations. It was made illegal for any dispensation to be sued for or used within the realm. The two archbishops were to have the power of granting dispensations in those things in which the pope was accustomed to grant them. All those on which a fee ^ Herbert's ffeyiry Fill., Kennett, ii. p. 174. 2 25 Henry VIIT. c. 20. 3 Herbert's Henry VIII., Kennett, ii. 174. This Act was repealed in the next reie^ by the Act which ordained bishops to be appointed by letters- patent without election. This again was repealed under Mary, and tho statute of Henry being revived under Elizabeth is the law of tlie land at present. 84 THE EEFOEMATIOX PARLIAJilENT Chap. V. higher than four pounds was wont to be paid must be confirmed by the king's seal and enrolled in Chancery. Part of all fees to be paid to the king. The king and not the archbishop to have authority to visit all monasteries, colleges, etc., hitherto exempt.-^ This Act contained also an important declaration, viz. " That the king and. Parliament did not intend by it to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's Church in any thing concerning the very articles of the catholic faith of Cliristendom, and in any other things declared by Scripture and the Word of God necessary for salvation." § 30. On the 20th March was introduced into the Lords a bill for regulating the succession, which, confirming the divorce and the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, settled the succession to the crown in his daughter by Anne in defect of heirs-male, thus treating the Princess Mary as illegitimate.^ The Act also provided that all persons should swear allegiance. The oath was not recited in the Act, but was agreed to concurrently in the House of Lords. 3 It was an amplification of what was enacted, and on this ground was objected to by Sir Thomas More. § 31. In this session of Parliament was also passed an Act to regulate the proceedings against heretics.* The cases of Thomas Phillips, treated, as was asserted, with gross injustice by the Bishop of Loudon, and the burning of John Fryth for alleged heresy (which will be more fully treated of in the following chapter), had much exasperated the Commons. The Act now passed repealed the Act of Henry IV. (the first penal Act for heresy), and enacted that none should hereafter be proceeded against for heresy, ex officio, but only on the testimony of two witnesses at least, and that they should be tried in open court. Being found guilty, and refusing to abjure, or being proved to have relapsed, they might be con- demned to death, the king's writ de hceretico comhurendo being first obtained. But no man was to be accounted a heretic for speaking against the pope's canons or laws. This was the main work of the spring session of Parliament of 1534. But the Parliament met again for another session on November 3, and the act of the pope in having definitively decided against the king's divorce, and ^ 25 Henry VIII. c. 21. This Act was the origin of the Court of Faculties, wliich was the cause afterwards of great complaints and abuses. 2 25 Henry VIII. c. 22. 2 It is doubtful whether it was agreed upon in the exact form in which it was afterwards put. In the next session of Parliament an oath Avas in- .serted in the Act 26 Henry VIII. c. 2, and it was declared that this was the oath intended hy the former statute. The oath is given in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. — See Dodd's CJi. Hist. ii. 233, appendix xxxv. -» 25 Henry VIII. c. 14. 1529-1536. AND CONVOCATION. 85 threatened him with excommunication being now known, more trenchant legislation was decided upon. § 32. By what was called the Act of Supremacy i it was de- clared that, " Albeit the king's majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised by the clergy in their Convocation ;^ yet nevertheless^ for corroboration and confirmation 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 Parliament that the king our sovereign lord, his heirs and suc- cessors, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England, called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united unto the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all the honours, etc., to the said dignity belonging, and shall have full power 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 jurisdiction ought and may be lawfully reformed — most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm, any usage, etc., to the contrary notwithstanding." This Act alto- gether transcends the king's proper constitutional position, and in- vests him with an authority which is incompatible with the true liberties of the Church. Possibly the circumstances of the time might excuse it as a temporary measure, yet no Church could have long existed in a healthy state under its operation.^ § 33. It was, however, not judged sufficiently strong, and im- mediately after its passing another Act of Supremacy (sometimes called the Treason Act *) made 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, their aiders, counsellors, etc., being there- of lawfully convict, according to the laws and customs of this realm, shall be adjudged traitors, and that every such offence in any of 1 26 Henry VIII. c. 1. 2 The clergy had recognised it with a limitation quantum per Cliristi licet, wliich is here dropped out. 3 " It will be notice.l," says Mr. Amos, *' that the statute is disingenu- ously framed in pretending that it was declaratory, and that the powers con- ferred by it were not so much granted to the crown as acknowledged to be a portion of the royal prerogative." — Statutes of Reformation FarliameiU, p. 284 * 26 Henry VIII. c 13. 66 THE REFORMATION PARLIAMENT, ETC. Chap. V. the premises shall be adjudged high treason/' There is too much reason to suppose that this Act was specially passed to destroy Bishop Fisher and Sir T. More (whose cases will be related below), who had refused to take the oath prescribed by the Succession Act. But whether this was so or no, the Act was a disgrace to English legislation, and was the source of gross and cruel oppression. § 34. By other Acts passed in this session the king was invested with a right to the first-fruits and tenths,^ which the clergy fondly hoped that they were delivered from when they were taken from the pope,^ and a provision was made for the appointment of suffragan bishops/ a somewhat sorry substitute for Wolsey's grand scheme of erecting twenty new sees in England. § 35. Tims at the close of the year 1534 the papal power, so long intrusively dominant in England, had been legally repudiated by the constitutional acts of both clergy and laity. But in doing this the estates of the realm had invested the king with an uncon- stitutional and perilous authority, which, though overruled for good ends, was yet productive of great abuses, and has been the cause of no little scandal to the Church of England. § 36. In the last session of 1534 the Convocation of Canter- bury was occupied in censuring certain books printed abroad, which it is said were full of heretical opinions, and it also unani- mously petitioned the king to fulfil his promise of causing the Scriptures to be translated into the vulgar tongue by honest and learned men, with a view to their being delivered to the people."* During the year 1535 no important Act was passed in Parliament, but the last session of this remarkable Parliament, which com- menced February 4, 1536, was rendered famous by the Act for the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries. An account of this will be given in the chapter which treats of the Suppression. 1 26 Henry VIII. c. 3. ^ "At that time it had perhaps abated much of their heartiness if they had imagined that the duties should be still paid. " — Burnet. 3 20 Henry III. c. 14. ■* Joyce's Sacred Synods, 380. Chap. V. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 87 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THOMAS CRUMWELL. TuoMAS Crumwell was born in 1490. His father is said to have heeu a black- sniitli at Putney, His education was defective, but he showed great natural ability. He was clerk to the English factory at Antwerp, and employed by the king in some foreign agencies. On his return to England he seems to have exercised various trades. He is said to have been a scrivener, a woolstapler, a merchant, and money-lender. The great extravagance of those times, and the debts which pressed down many of the nobility, made this employment a very gainful one. About 1524: he entered the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and suc- ceeded in gaining his confidence. Wolsey left to him and to Dr. Allen all matters connected with the foundation of his colleges. His fidelity to his master, and the ready wit with which he served him and defended his cause in the House of Commons, no doubt recommended him to the king. Staking his political success on the advance of the reforming party, Crumwell bribed the king to support the Reformation, to which he was not much inclined, by dexterously sacrificing to him the monasteries. He was an able but unprincipled man, and freely took bribes from the monasteries, Avhich, nevertheless, he abandoned to their fall. The attempt to strengthen his position by procuring the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves no doubt brought about his ruin. The king was excessively fastidious as to female charms, and com- pletely in bondage to them when he once yielded to their influence. Thus, as Anne Boleyn ruined Wolsey, so did Catherine Howard ruin Crumwell. As to the in- justice of Crumwell's attainder and execu- tion there can be no real difference of opinion. (B) ACTS OF PARLIAMENT RESPECTING THE CHURCH IN THE SESSION 1532. By 23 Henry VIII. c. 1, the Benefit of Clergy was further restrained, being taken away from all persons convictedof "wilful murder of malice prepensed, or of rob- bing any churches, chapels, or other holy places, or for robbing any persons in their dwelling-houses, or in the highways, or for wilful burning of any dwelling- house or barn." This Act, however, lil:e a former one passed Lu the fourtli year of this reigTi, was temporary, being to cou- tmue to the last day of the next Parlia- ment, and it was not to apx>ly to clerks in orders of the rank of sub-deacon and above. These were to remain in the ordinary's prison during their natural lives, unless they found sufficient sureties. The ordinary, if he thought lit, might degrade any clerk convict, and send him for trial to the court of King's Bench. 23 Henry VIII. c. 9, ordained that no person should be summoned to a si)iritual court out of the diocese in which he lived, which was to restrain certain abuses practised by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. 23 Henry VIII. c. 10, enacted that gifts of real property for devotional purposes, by which it was alleged that the king's dues might be impaired, should be pro- hibited. 23 Henry VIII. c. 11, enacted that all clerks of whatever grade breaking prison might be treated as common felons, and receive sentence of death in civil coiuts. This was the most serious interference with clerical immunities whicli had yet been accomplished.— (Amos, Statutes of the Reformation Parliament.) (C) THE TWO FORMS OF SUBMIS- SION OF THE CLERGY. 1. The submission of the Lower House of Contocatioii agreed to May 15, 1532. (The king's draft) :— " We, your Majesty's roost humble sub- jects, daily orators, and bedemen of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excel- lent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion ; and also in your learning far exceeduig in our judgment the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and increase in your Majesty — Firsf, do offer and promi.se, in verba sacerdoti, here \into your High- ness, submitting oui-selves most humbly to the same, that wo will never, from NOISES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. V. henceforth, presume to attempt, allege, claim, or yet put in use, or to enact, pro- mulge, or execute any canons, constitu- tion, or ordinance provincial, or by any other name whatsoever they may be called in our Convocation in time coming, which Convocation is always, hath been, and must be, assembled only by your royal commandment or writ, unless your Highness by your royal assent shall license us so to make, promulge, and execute the same, and thereto give your most royal assent and authority. Secondly, that whereas divers constitutions and canons provincial, which have been here- tofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial to your preroga- tive royal, but also overmuch onerous to your Highness's subjects, your foresaid clergy is contented it be submitted to the examination and judgment of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the Upper and Nether House of the Tempor- alty, and other sixteen of the clergy, aU to be chosen by your Highness. 60 that finally, whichsoever of the said constitu- tions shall be thought and determined by the most part of the said thirty-two persons worthy to be abrogated and annulled, the same to be afterwards taken away by your most noble Grace and the clergy, and to be abolite as of no force nor strength. Thirdly, that all other of the said constitutions or canons being viewed and approbate by the said thirty-two persons, which, by the most part of their judgments, do stand with God's law and your Highness's to stand in full strength and power, your Grace's most royal assent once inipetrate and given to the same." — (Collier, Records, No. xix.) 2. The last submission of the clergy to Henry VIII., subscribed by the Upper House of Convocation, May 16, 1532. "We, your most hiimble subjects, daily orators, and bedemen of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your excellent wisdom, your princely goodness and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learn- ing far exceeding in our judgment the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting no- thing but that the same shall still con- tinue and increase in your Majesty— First, do offer and promise, in verho sacerdoti, here unto your Highness, sub- mitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we wUl never, from hence- forth, enact, put in use, promulge, or execute any new canons or constitutions provincial, or any kew ordinance, pro- vincial or synodal, in our Convocation or Synod in time coming (which Convoca- tion is always, hath been, and must be assembled only by your high command- ment or writ), imless your Highness by your royal assent shall license us to assemble our Convocation, and to make, promulge, and execute such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in the same ; and thereto give your royal assent and authority. Secondarily, that whereas divers of the constitutions, ordinances, and canons provincial or synodal, which hath been heretofore enacted, be thought to be not only much prejudicial to your pre- rogative royal, but also overmuch onerous to your Highness's subjects,, your clergy aforesaid is contented, if it may stand with your Highness's pleasure, that it be committed to the examination and judg- ment of your Grace, and of thirty-two persons, whereof sixteen to be of the Upper and Nether House of the Tempor- alty, and other sixteen of the clergy, all to be chosen and appointed by your most noble Grace. So that, finally, whichsoever of the said constitutions, ordinances, or canons, provincial or synodal, shall be thought and determined by your Grace, and by the most part of the said thirty- two persons, not to stand with God's law and the laws of your realm, the same to be abrogated and taken away by your Grace and the clergy ; and such of them as shall be seen by your Grace, and by the most part of the said thirty-two persons, to stand with God's laws and with the laws of your realm, to stand in full strength and power, your Grace's most royal assent and authority once impetrate and fully given to the same."— (Collier, Records, No. xx.) [It will be seen that the only essential difference between the two forms is the introduction of the word new into the latter. By this the clergy retain the right of putting forth, and putting in use, aU old canons not condemned, and ordered to be abolished. As the thirty- two persons never did, in fact, complete their work, all the old canon law of the Church of England is now in force, except where it is contrariant to statute law. This has frequently been ruled to be the case by eminent judges of the common law.] 1528-1536. PROGEESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 89 CHAPTER VL PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 1528-1536. § 1. The Supplication of Beggars. § 2. It attacks the Doctrine of Pur- gatory. § 3. Sketch of its contents. § 4. Sir T. More invited by the Bishops to take np the controversy. § 5. His Supplication of Souls. § 6. Proclamation against heretical books. § 7. Form of exhortation against them. § 8. John Fryth. § 9. He answers the defences of Purgatory. § 10. Is arrested in Enghand. § 11. Writes on the Eucharist. § 12. Is condemned to be burned. § 13. Fryth and Cran- mer. § 14, Effect of his execution. § 15. TjTidale as a controversial- ist. §16. More's Dialogue. §17. Tyndale's reply. §18. More's Confutation. § 19. More's controversy with Barnes. § 20. More did not use personal violence. § 21. Case of T. Phillips. § 22. Hugh Latimer. § 23. He is called before the Convocation, and recants. § 24. Crumwell's designs for influencing public opinion. § 25. King's circu- lar to the Justices of the Peace. § 26. Cranmer's Book of Directions. § 27. The various parts of the spiritualty repudiate the pope's autho- rity. § 28. The king checks the advance of reforming views. § 29. The first English Bible. § 30. The first reformed Primer. § 31. The queen's patronage favourable to the groAvth of reforming views. § 1. The diffusion of the New Testament in English, and of various English reforming books printed abroad, greatly stimulated the growth of reforming opinions in England during the year 1527. In the year 1528 there was brought into England, and handed about from one to another, the most free-spoken and bitter attack npon the old superstitious doctrines which had yet appeared. This was the Supplicatmi of Beggars, written by Simon Fish, a gentleman of Gray's Inn, who having incurred the anger of Cardinal Wolsey by taking part in a comedy which satirised him, had fled abroad and joined Tyndale in Germany. His pamphlet, printed abroad, was conveyed secretly into England, and (it is said) brought to the notice of Anne Boleyn, who showed it to the king. Whether that were so or not, it immediately attracted great attention, as by its bold and scurrilous language it was well calculated to do. § 2. The Supplication takes as the material for its satire the most grotesque and the most feebly supported of all the medieval doctrines — viz. that of purgatory. This was a point which in- vited attack, as upon this doctrine the raison iVHre of all the religious houses and establishments, monasteries, chantries, etc., rested. The swarmi%' abundance of men in the garb of " reli- 90 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. Chap. VI. gious;" tlie absorption of so much valuable property to what seemed to many utterly worthless purposes ; the constant solicita- tion for alms, not unmingled with threats of unpleasant conse- quences if the demand were refused, — must have been grievously exasperating to the mind of the laymen of England, especially when they had been brought in any way to doubt of the truth of the system which produced these effects. Fish, as a London lawyer conversant with the prevalence of this feeling, skilfully availed himself of it, and aimed a blow at the doctrine of purgatory, through the sides of those who so obtrusively and irritatingly clamoured and vexed the laymen on the ground which it fur- nished to them. § 3. The " Supplication " is in the form of a petition addressed to the king by " his poor bedemen, the wretched hideous monsters upon whom scarcely for horror any eye dare look, the foul un- happy sort of lepers and other sore people, needy, impotent, lame, sick, that live only by alms." These wretches are made to utter a piteous complaint against the absorption of all alms by the monks, friars, and mass priests, under pretence of delivering souls from purgatory — a doctrine which is merely a dream and a delusion, having no foundation in Scripture or truth. The beggars there fore demand " that these sturdy loobies (the monks and friars) be set abroad into the world, to get them wives of their own, to get their own living by the sweat of their faces according to the com- mandment of God, and if they be idle, ' tie them to the carts, to be whipped naked about every market town till they fall to labour.' Then shall the king be better obeyed, matrimony be better kept, the gospel be better preached, and none shall rob the poor of his alms." ^ § 4. The dissemination of this and similar books in the country, and the avidity with which they were bought and read, naturally made the bishops very uneasy. Tonstal, Bishop of London, to whom, as to Wolsey, belongs the great praise of being unwilling to inflict capital punishment for heretical opinions, was yet very active in using all other means for suppressing them. With this view he pressed into the service Sir Thomas More, whose wit and power of writing were much admired in his day. More had not yet reached the high post of chancellor, but he had been Speaker of the House of Commons, had been employed in important diplo- matic trusts, was distinguished both as a lawyer and a man of letters. In his controversial work against Luther he had utterly discarded all those milder sentiments which in his Utopia he had appeared to entertain for theological dissidents, and he seemed by ^ Foxe's Acts and Monuments, 1. 229, sq. 1528-153(). PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 91 temper, power, and position to be a champion excellently fitted to defend the cause of the old superstitions. To him, therefore, Bishop Tonstal sent a letter, which, after stating that abominably heretical books abounded in England, so that there was danger of the faitli being extinguished unless good and learned men contended vigo- rously for it, goes on to say, " Because that you, dearest brother, both in our vernacular tongue, and in the Latin, are a second Demosthenes, and a most keen champion of the truth, you cannot better bestow your leisure hours, if you can pilfer any from your great occupations, than by putting forth in our English tongue something to expose to simple and unlearned men the crafty malignity of the heretics." He sends him, therefore, a heap of "heretical trash in Euglish,i together with some books of Luther which have been the origin of these insanities." ^ To this lettei we owe More's English theological works, the first of which was an answer to the Sujjplication of Beggars. § 5. More's answer is called the Swpplication of Souls. As the opposing treatise had represented the beggars making a lamentable cry for the alms of which they had been defrauded, so Sir Thomas makes the " silly souls " that are in purgatory send forth a lament- able cry, in fear lest Christian people should cease to pray and do alms for them, and so they be left in their terrible limbo. They had heard, they declared, from several who had lately come there, and from the devil, who " had much bragged of it," that one, under pretence of piety, had made and put forth a book which denied the existence of purgatory, and so would persuade men not to think of them. This book showed " a devilish desire of noyance both to poor and rich." Li it there were not " half so many leaves as lies, but almost as many lies as lines." The writer then exa- mines the statements as to the number of parishes, the amount given to friars, and the other calculations in the Supj^lication of Beggars, and pronounces them all false. He acknowledges that some of the clergy are lewd, but objects to this being attributed to the generality. He denies that Parliament was ruled by the spiritualty, and brings an instance where the temporal peers had carried it against the spiritual. He derides Luther's Gospel, in which, if any care for obedience is shown, it is only " for courtesy," faith being the only necessary. He accuses Tyndale of having designedly ^ Sir T. ]\Iore specifies some of the books which he either received now from the bishop, or became acquainted with afterwards : — The A B C for Children ; The Pathway to Scripture (Tyndale) ; The Sum of Scripture ; The Primer (translated by George Joyce, with the litany and dirige omitted) ; The Exposition ofl Cor. vii. ; The Examination of Thorpe; The Chris- lian State of Matnmony. — ]\Ioie's Works, p. 341. ^ Burnet. Records, i. i. vi. 92 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. Chap. VI. falsified Ms translation of the Testament.^ Having devoted Ha first book principally to railing against his antagonists, Sir Thomas in his second book endeavours to prove the doctrine of purgatory from Scripture. In this somewhat difficult task it was hardly to be expected that he should be very successful He ends his treatise, with a burst of fine eloquence, apostrophising the living not to neglect the care for the dead, and especially that most im- portant of all cares, the praying them out of purgatory.^ § 6. The writer of this treatise having been raised to the office of chancellor in succession to the cardinal (October 1529), was thus able to contend against the heretics with other weapons besides those of argument. Before the end of this year (1529) there came forth a proclamation " for resisting and withstanding the most damnable heresies sown within this realm by the dis- ciples of Luther and other heretic perverters of Christ's religion." All good laws are to be put in force against them, and all the lords, spiritual and temporal, judges, justices of the peace, etc., are to take care (1) That no one publish anything, or preach without the license of the bishop ; (2) that every one having in his possession prohibited or suspected books do within fifteen days deliver them to the bishop, under pain of fine and imprisonment. If the bishop judges any loerson to he relapsed, he shall deliver him to the secular arm, which shall carry out the sentence. The chancellor, judges, and justices to make oath to be diligent in the extirpation of heresy. The judges to make inquisition for it in their sessions ; to issue writ of capias to the sheriffs, who shall arrest the suspected person, and then hand him over to the ordinary by indenture. Books from beyond sea specially forbidden ; a list of heretical English books printed abroad ap- pended.^ With this fierce proclamation did the reign of the new chancellor begin.^ It does not appear, however, that this procla- mation, threatening though it was, had the desired eff'ect of stopping the introduction of the reforming books from abroad. About a year afterwards another proclamation was issued, offering a free 1 Compare with this Tyndale's solemn words, " I call God to record against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered oue syllable of God's word against my con- science, nor would this day, if all that is in earth, whether honour, pleasure, or riches, might be given to me." — TyndaU to Fryth. 2 More's JVorks (ed. 1557), 288-338. ^ Foxe, Acts and Monuments, i. 236. * "I reckon that being his (the king's) unworthy chancellor, it apper- taineth to my part and duty to open to the people the malice and poison of these malicious books . . . that the people may be far from contagion and from all punishments following thereupon." — More's Works, p. 351. 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 93 parclon to all who Avould bring to the bishops heretical books and declaring that though it is not necessary for the people to have the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, yet when the evil books have been cleared away, his Grace may then cause Holy Scripture to be translated into English by great, learned, and catholic persons. -^ § 7. This proclamation, the difference of the tone of which from that of the preceding, marks the rapid growth of reform- ing opinions in the land, was followed soon after by a public in- strument set forth by the bishops, specifying certain errors which were extracted from the condemned books, and giving a form of homily or exhortation which preachers were to use to warn their hearers against them. 2 Proclamations, however, whether tlireaten- ing or bland, could not check the supply of works " of the new learning." Sir Thomas More himself complains that they came into the land "in vats-full." He' was not likely to be discharged from his o£&ce of literary champion of the Church, nor to find the office a sinecure. § 8. Among the knot of Englishmen \^-ho in Germany were busily employed in supplying the English market with books of the reforming type, one of the most distinguished was John Fryth. He was a Cambridge man, but had been brought to Oxford by Wolsey when he established Cardinal College ; and like the other Cambridge men who had been selected for this honour, soon fell under suspicion of the Lutheran heresy. He got into prison, but was allowed to escape through Wolsey's means, and going be- yond seas, became associated with Tyndale in liis literary work. That Fryth was much thought of as' a scholar, the special instruc- tions with respect to him sent by King Henry to his ambassador plainly prove. He was to be induced, if possible, to renounce his heretical opinions, and to return to England.^ He was, how- ever, far too much in earnest to yield to these seductions. About the end of the year 1530 Fryth received from England Sir T. More's Supplication, and two treatises, also in defence of purga- tory, written by Bishop Fisher and Mr. Kastall, More's brother- in-law. § 9. He proceeded to answer all three in one treatise, devoting a book to each. The first book was directed against Rastall, who sought to establish purgatory by " natural reason and philosophy." The second against More, who had principally relied on the argu- ment from Scripture. The third against Fisher, who tried to sup- port the doctrine from fathers and doctors. In his reply to More, 1 Wilkins, iii. 741. 2 7j. 727, 3 Vaugban's letter to the king.— State Papers of Uenry VIII. viu 802. 94 PEOGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. CnAr. YI he urges the fact that Sir Thomas had relied merely on the Vul- gate, a very inadequate translation, and that the version of his friend Erasmus might have prevented some of his mistakes. The treatise is temperately and learnedly written, abstaining from that vituperation which was so marked a feature in More's writings. § ID. Not long after writing this treatise, Fryth, in spite of the great risk he ran, ventured into England. He was a connec- tion of the Abbot of Reading, and went to that town. Probably the abbot did not receive him very kindly, for while at Reading he was arrested as a vagabond, and put in the stocks. He owed his deliverance to the schoolmaster, who, happening to fall into conversation with him, found him well versed in Latin and Greek, and procured his dismissal. But his presence in England became known to the chancellor, who used every means to capture him. In this he at last succeeded. Fryth was thrown into the Towei, where More and the bishops visited him, but found him very stilF in his opinions. § 11. There was nothing in Fryth's writings as yet sufficient to condemn him, but by a transaction which has a very ugly look of treachery about it. he was brought within the law. One William Holt, a tailor, visited him in prison, and, pretending great desire for instruction, obtained from Fryth a treatise on the eucharist, which he had written in prison. This he at once conveyed to Sir Thomas More, and More wrote a short reply to it. Of this Fryth obtained a copy, and, fired with the spirit of controversy, wrote a rejoinder, which, considering that it was written in prison without books, is a very remarkable production. He specially argues against Sir Thomas on the ground of the Fathers, showing " that there is none of the old Fathers but they call it a sacrament, a mystery, mystical meat,- which is not eaten with tooth and belly, but with ears and faith. And, touching the honour and worship done to it, I say it is plain idolatry. And I say that he falsely reporteth on the old holy doctors. For they never taught men to worship it, neither can he allege one place in any of them all which would have men to worship the sacrament. Therefore it foUoweth that they took not the text after the letter, but only spiritually." ^ Fryth did not follow Luther in his views on this subject, but inclined to the Swiss school of Zwingle and (Ecolampadius. He displayed, how- ever, a very remarkable moderation. He declared himself not only willing to acquiesce in the Lutheran doctrine, but even in the transubstantiation theory, if his opponents would only grant that the sacrament ought not to be worshipped. 2 Of course his 1 Fryth's TForJcs, p. 150 (ed, 1573). More's JForJcs, p. 833 (ed. 1557). 2 "If yoxi will grant and publish but this one proposition, that it ought 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING ORINIONS. 95 antagonists would not concede this point, and Frytli prepared him- self to suffer in support of his views, § 12. There was no desire probably to bring him to the stake. His youth and learning pleaded for him. The officers who were conducting him to Croydon for a final examination before Bishops Gardiner, Stokesley, and Longland, gave him the opportunity of escape, and even urged him to take advantage of it ; but he re- fused. At his examination he spoke modestly. He did not desire to make his saying an article of faith, but he desired the doctrine on this mysterious subject to be left an open question. " for all men to judge thereon, as God shall open their heart ; and no side to condemn the other, but to nourish in all things brotherly love, and to bear other's infirmities." ^ The bishops were not prepared to adopt this view of the subject, and Fryth was handed over to the secular power to be burned. § 13. Before this was done, Sir T. More had ceased to be chancellor, though still continuing his controversial work ; but Fryth was brought into contact with another of the leading men of the period, viz. Archbishop Cranmer. Cranmer tried to con- vince him, but found himself unable to do so. He writes of liim and his impending fate with somewhat of revolting coldness : " He is now at a final end with all examinations, for my lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular power, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with him one Andrew, a tailor, of London, for the self-same opinion." ^ Fryth was burned in Smith field on July 4, 1533. § 14. His execution for a mere speculative opinion, which he had never publicly taught, caused a profound sensation, and im- mediately led to the passing of the Act of Parliament which made it illegal for bishops to proceed ex officio against heretics. § 15. The principal controversial ojiponent of the chancellor during this period was William Tyndale. Tyndale was more happy as a translator of the Bible into that terse and idiomatic diction which we still admire, than as a controversial writer. His books were bitter in their style, and exaggerated in their state- ments, while the solifidianism which he advocated gave his acute antagonist an abundance of telling topics to urge against him. § 16. The strife was commenced by More's Dialogue, in which Sir Thomas supposes an imaginary objector advocating the cause of the heretics, and supporting their distinctive opinions, to which not to be worshipped, I promise you I will never wi-ite against it. " — Fi'yth to More. ^ Fiyth's JForks.j). 170. * Cranmer to Archdeacon Hawkins. — JForks, ]>. -46. 96 PROGEESS OF EEFOEMmG OPTIONS. Chap. YI. tlie ortliodox interlocutor duly replies. Among other things whicli come in question is Tyndale's translation of tlie Testament, of which More says some very hard words, but only specifies a very few ex- ceptions to Tyndale's renderings, such as the use of Presbyters in- stead of Priests, Congregation instead of Church, Love instead of Charity. He accuses Tyndale of allowing to priests a plurality of wives. ' He defends the burning of heretics, though at the same time he asserts that the Church never burns any, but merely hands them over to the State.^ § 17. Tyndale, finding himself thus attacked, immediately answered More's Dialogue. His reply can scarcely be held satis- factory. He is unable to shake himself free from the logical con- sequences of his- tenets that faith alone saves, and that the " elect '' cannot fall. His system is plainly chargeable with the antino- mianism which More imputes to him when he declares that Tyndale taught that " a man may have a right faith joined with all manner of sin." Neither does he exhibit more satisfactory views on the subject of the Eucharist, his teaching being that " the sacrament standeth in as good stead as a lively preacher. And as the preacher justifieth me not, but my faith in the doctrine ; even so the sign justifieth me not, but the faith in the promise which the sacrament signifieth and preacheth. And to preach is all the virtue of the sacrament." The privileges assigned to the elect are also dangerously antino- mian. The elect may dispense with an oath, " if necessity re- quire it, to save life or health." " Though I had sworn chastity, and the commonwealth or necessity of another required the con- trary, I might break it." ^ They may dispense with the observ- ance of the Lord's-day. " As for the Sabbath, a great matter. We be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it to the Mon- day, or any other day as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy-day if we see cause why." ^ They are able to determine what is and what is not Scripture. '^When they ask us how we know that it is the Scripture of God, the children of God spy out their Father, and Christ's elect spy out their Lord, and trace out the paths of His feet and follow." ^ He is more satisfactory when he comes to the defence of his translation. He had rendered ^/c/cXiycrta congregation, because the word church had been by com- mon use so entirely appropriated to the spiritualty. Every one must confess that eKKkrjaia could not always be rendered church, and Erasmas had translated it by congregatio. For the same reason — the special appropriation of terms — he had rendered ayaw^ love, rather than charity ; x'^P'-^ favour, rather than grace. irpea^O- 1 More's TVorJcs, 105-288, ' Tyndale's JVorJcs, p. 315. 3 lb. p. 287. ^ lb. p. 265. 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 97 repos he had first translated senior, but had changed this into elder. Of saint-worship, images, pilgrimages, relics, Tyndale speaks witli much good sense and candour. He holds that there is nothin<' wrong in the use of them if they stir up a man to greater devotion towards God. " To kneel down before an image in a man's medi- tations, to call the living of the saint to mind for to desire God of like grace to follow the example, is not evil." " Whatsoever it be, whether lively preaching, ceremony, relic, or image, that stir up his heart to God, and preach the Word of God and the example of our Saviour Jesus more in one place than another, that ye thither go I am content." But the danger was great, " lest men should serve these things instead of making them serve them." 1 § 1 8. Sir T. More immediately wrote a " Confutation " of Tyndale's reply, in which he grievously laments the great intro- duction of heretical books. " Which books, albeit that they neither can be there printed without great cost, nor here sold without great adventure and peril, yet cease they not with money sent from hence to print them there, and send them hither, by the whole fattes full at once, and in some places, looking for no lucre, cast them abroad by night, so great a pestilent pleasure have some devilish people caught, with the labour, travail, cost, charge, peril, hurt, and harm of themselves to seek the destruction of other." ^ Some part of this treatise can hardly be thought to do much honour to Sir Thomas More. He uses very strong invectives against some of the reformers whom his strict administration of what he held to be the duties of his office had brought to the stake, calling them " false knaves, poor forsworn creatures, that would gladly have saved their lives if they could, by agreeing to anything." 3 It was somewhat hard that not even the agonies of the Smithfield fires could be held sufficient satisfaction to outraged orthodoxy. § 19. As we are here, however, only concerned with the literary part of the chancellor's work, we pass to his controversy with Robert Barnes. Barnes has been already mentioned as having to attend as a penitent at the great burning of Lutheran books made by Wolsey at St. Paul's. After this it appears that Barnes had relapsed, or was held to have done so, and he was adjudged to be burned. He escaped, however, abroad, and became one of the literary assailants of the old belief.^ The point on which Sir 1 Tyndale, TVorks, pp. 271-2. 2 More's " Confutation," TVorks, p. 382. 3 For an account of the reformers burned during More's chancellorship, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 4 In his doctrine on the eucharist, Barnes held entirely with Lutlier, and differed from Fryth and Tyndale. There will he occasion to speak of this hereafter. H 98 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. Chap. YI. Thomas More and Doctor Barnes were brought into collision was the nature of the Church. Barnes held, as Tyndale and Fryth did, that the Church to which the promises in Scripture are made, was the invisible company of the elect, and not the " common, known, catholic church." This error is victoriously refuted by Sir Thomas in his treatise called A Confutation of Friar Barnes's Church. Sir Thomas, however, equally errs himself in maintaining that there is any promise in Scripture of an absolute freedom from error, in matters of doctrine and opinion, made to any Church whatsoever ; though there is a promise that the Church shall not wholly or finally fall i.way from the truth.^ § 20. Sir Thomas More used with unsparing vigour the weapons of his pen and of his magisterial authority against what he judged heretical and soul-destroying errors. It is but just, however, to his memory to put on record his emphatic denial of using any personal violence to the accused — with which he has been charged by Foxe and others, and by many modern historians. He says, " Of all that ever came in my hand for heresy, as help me God, saving the sure keeping of them, had never any of them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a fillip on the forehead."^ § 21. There was, however, one other weapon used by More, the use of which he himself freely admits, but which seems of doubtful equity. This was the use of secret informations extracted from accused persons against others, and made by way of benefiting their own position. § 22. This comes out prominently in the case of Thomas Phillips, which contributed, together with that of John Fryth, to bring about a change in the law. Phillips had been apprehended merely upon suspicion, and he was kept in prison for three years without trial ; at length he contrived to get his case brought before the House of Commons. The Commons called upon the House of Lords to constrain the bishop of London to do him justice. This they were unable to do. Phillips then appealed to the king. The king ordered his dismissal. It was certainly a case of grievous wrong,^ and, as has been stated, eff'ectually con- tributed to bring about an alteration in the law. ^ Hooker. *' For the lack of diligently observing the difference first between the Church of God mystical and visible, then between the visible sound and corrupted, sometimes more, sometimes less, the oversights are neither few nor slight that have been committed. The Church of Christ, which was from the beginning, is, and continueth to the end ; of which Church all parts have not been always equally siucere and sound." ^ Mora's ApoJogii, ch. xxxvi. ^ See Fronde's History of England for a strong statement of this and other cases as against the chancellor. 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 99 § 22. Many of the advocates of the new opinions were safely sheltered abroad, but there was one who was destined to be a remarkable figure in the Reformation movement, who was now making himself heard in England, and who was within reach of the censures which his views were sure to call down upon him. This was Hugh Latimer, who had been one of Bilney's converts at Cambridge, and soon became one of the most notable preachers in the university. Many were the attempts made to stop him. The Bishop of Ely, as diocesan, inhibited him from preaching in the Cambridge churches, but Dr. Barnes still allowed him to preach in the exempt church of the Austin Friars. He obtained Cardinal Wolsey's license which protected him.-*- He was promoted to the living of West Kington, in Wiltshire (it is said by Crumwell's influence), and in 1530 we hear of him preaching before the king, who made him one of his chaplains.^ § 23. On March 11, 1532, Latimer was summoned before the Convocation, and certain articles were tendered to him for signature. Three times he refused, was pronounced contumacious, and excommunicated. But Latimer was not yet fully persuaded in his ovm mind ; he was feeling his way, and was not prepared to put himself in direct antagonism to the Church. On March 21, he appeared in Convocation, asked pardon for having been in his sermons " lacking in discretion," and professed himself ready to sign two of the three articles offered him. He was then absolved.^ But on April 13 he was again in trouble for a sermon preached in London. He appealed to the king, but was referred by him to the Convocation. He was constrained now to confess that he had not only lacked in discretion, but also erred in doctrine, for which he desired forgiveness, which was accorded to him,* Latimer did not the less continue to preach in a homely and outspoken style, against what he held to be the great abuses of the Church, and against the prevalent immorality. The report of his sermons reached Convocation. On March 26, 1533, an order was made that the record of Latimer's submission and recanta- tion should be copied and sent to Bristol, where he was reported 1 This is on the authority of Morice, Cranmer's secretary, quoted in Wordsworth, Ecd. Biog. ii. 463, note. 2 In 1530 he wrote to the king a long letter exhorting liim to allow the Scriptures in English to the people. This was after the modified promise made in the Proclamation alluded to above. 3 Wilkins, iii. 747. ^ lb. 748. Foxe, wi'' his usual inaccuracy, makes Latimer to be called before the cardir J '.u this year, when Wolsey had been two years dead. Foxe also asserts that during all this period Latimer was preaching at Cambridge. Wordsworth, Eccl Biog. ii. 457, 462. 100 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. Chap. VI. to have preached contrary to the undertaking which he had given to Convocation.^ It is probable that this was no more than the truth. Foxe says, " The days were so dangerous and variable that he could not in all things do that he would." ^ But if excusable, such conduct was certainly not commendable, any more than the countenance which Latimer afterwards gave to executions for heresy. It is hardly fair to endeavour to make a perfect character of the zealous bishop. Neither Latimer on the one side, nor More on the other, is free from palpable blemishes. § 24. The advancement of reforming opinions became more easy and less full of danger, as the influence of Thomas Crumwell with the king increased. This able minister had in fact staked his political life upon the progress of the Eeformation, and was ready to second it in every possible way. It was needful that public opinion should be influenced,^ especially in the matter of the royal supremacy, the exercise of which would be so great a shock to the feelings and habits of those who had been brought up in a mysterious reverence for the pope. Many in England argued, " If we do well now thus to forsake the pope, then all our fore- fathers did amiss, and so did we also till this present time, which were under obedience and subjection to the Bishop of Rome, named pope ; and they believed he had power and authority to make laws, and to bind and loose what and whom he would." ^ This feeling, wide-spread as it doubtless was, must if possible be eradicated. There remains to us a paper drawn up for the council and cor- rected in Crumwell's hand, which specifies very minutely the manner in which it might be feasible to influence the opinion of the country. The bishops are all to be sent for and asked whether the pope is above general councils or subject to them, and if they agree to the latter, they are to be bid to preach this doctrine, and cause it to be preached among the people. They are also to declare that the pope has no more jurisdiction in this realm of England than any other foreign bishop, and that the power which he has before time enjoyed here was by usurpation, and through the sufferance of the princes of the realm. The same doctrine was to be preached at Paul's Cross from Sunday to Sunday by selected preachers, and in all the dioceses of the land. The chiefs of the four orders of Eriars are to cause the same to be preached by the 1 Wilkins, iii. 756. ^ Wordsworth, ii. 528. ^ In the midst of his most arbitrary measures, Henry never disregarded public opinion, but always tried to carry it with him. His daughter Elizabeth did the same. Hence the Tudors could do with ease acts which ruined the Stuarts, who never understood or cared for public opinion. ^ "Treatise against the muttering of certain papists " (1534). Pocock's Records of Reformation, ii. 540. 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 101 " preachers of their religion." The Act for the restraint of appeals to Rome, the king's appeal to a general council, are to he printed and set up in every church in the hand, so that if excommunica- tion is published against the king by the pope, the people may know that it is of none effect, he having previously appealed. Nor were the churchmen alone to be used in this attempt to mould public opinion. The mayor, aldermen, and common councillors of the city of London, " shall liberally speak at their boards, and also cause their servants to declare, that he that calleth himself pope is but the Bishop of Rome, and under the obedience of a general council, and hath no more authority here than any other bishop ; " and " the head governors and rulers of every good town " are to do the same. The nobility are in like manner to hold the same language at their tables, and to cause their families to bruit it about. -^ § 25. In pursuance of this policy, on June 9 (1534), the king issued a circular letter to the justices of the peace, in which he set forth that the clergy in their Convocations had solemnly agreed to recognise him by the style and title of " Supreme Head, immediately under God, of the Church of England," and that they had denounced all oaths and obedience to any foreign potentate or jurisdiction, as well of the Bishop of Rome as all other ; and that therefore he had addressed his letters to the bishop of each diocese, to take care that the usurped jurisdiction of the Roman bishop and his enormities should be fully preached and made known every Sunday and high feast, as also the king's right to the title of Supreme Head of the Church under God by all manner spiritual persons; and to cause ''all manner prayer, oraisons, rubricks, canons of mass-books, and all other books in the churches, wherein the said Bishop of Rome is named, and his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, utterly to be abolished, eradicate, and razed out, and his name and memory to be never more (excej)t to his contumely and reproach) remembered, but perpetually suppressed and obscured ; and finally to desist and leave out all such articles as be in the general sentence,^ which is usually accustomed to be read four times in the year, and to tend to the glory and advancement of the Bishop of Rome his name, title, and jurisdiction." The justices of the peace are to see that the clergy do this work heartily, and not "coldly or feignedly."3 ^ State Papers of Henry VIII. 1. 411. 2 This was the solemn curse directed against those who should in any way meddle with the rights and privileges of holy Church, pronounced by the parish priest four times a year with bell, book, and candle. It is printed in the "The Festival " by Wynkyn de Worde, and may be seen in Cranmer's Remains (Parker Soc), p. 281. ^ Wilkins, iii. 772. 102 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPmiONS. Chap. YI. § 26. Shortly afterwards (in the summer of 1534) Archbishop Cranmer sent round to the clergy a book containing an order for " preaching and bidding of the beads in all sermons within this realm." It first specifies who are to be mentioned in " bidding the beads," the pope and cardinals being of course excluded, and then directs that the king's "just cause of matrimony" shall be " opened and declared by preachers as nigh as their learning can serve them." With a view to help deficiencies, an account is given of the divorce case, and of the pope's false dealings therein, which they might read to the people. ^ § 27. It will now be interesting to see what effect these elaborate arrangements to influence the opinion of the spiritualty and laity in the matter of the supremacy produced. First, the two Convocations of the Church, being the legal representatives of the whole clergy of England, voted — Canterbury on March 31, 1534, " That the Eoman bishop has no greater jurisdiction given to him by God in this kingdom than any other foreign bishop ;" ^ York on June 1, 1534 — " That the Eoman bishop has not in the Holy Scriptures any greater jurisdiction in the kingdom of Eng- land than any other foreign bishop." ^ The two universities fol- lowed. Cambridge voted on 2d May, adopting the Canterbury form ; Oxford on the 27th July, adopting the York form.* Of individual bishops, and their proceedings in the matter, we have abundant record. Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury, writes to Crum- well to express his great joy, and declares " that he will apply all diligence to fulfil so godly a commandment." Eobert, Bishop of Chichester (an old man in his ninetieth year), preached in his cathe- dral as to the king's right to the title of "Supreme Head under God of the Church of England," and, excusing himself on account of his great age, sent his suffragan to preach in all the towns of his diocese.^ Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, writes — " I have, accord- ing as I am bounden, and as the king's grace's commandment was by his letters, since the receipt of the same set forth and caused to be declared through my diocese his title, dignity, and style of Supreme Head in earth, immediately under God, in the Church of England, and so shall continue." He had caused two thousand copies of the book of directions to be printed and distributed through his diocese.^ Lee, Archbishop of York, who had been 1 Cranmer's Remains, Appendix ii. 2 Wilkins, iii. 782. ^ lb. * Dodd, Ch. Hist. Appendix xxxviii ; Fuller's Hist, of Cambridge ; Wood's Annals of Oxford. It is suggested that in both cases the words, in Holy Scripture, were inserted with a purpose. — Collier, iv. 264. ^ Strjrpe, Memorials of Reformation, Henry YIII., p. 186 (folio ed.) 6 Ellis, Orig. Letters (Series 3), vol. ii. 336." 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 103 complained of for slackness in the matter, writes to deny tliis, and declares that he had both preached himself, and given his clergy charge to do the same, distributing the books of directions in every parish and to all the religious houses, although he confessed that there were difficulties in the way about preaching ; for, says the archbishop, '' I do not know in all my diocese twelve secular priests preachers, and few friars, and almost none of any other religion."^ The Bishop of Ely was zealous in enforcing the preaching of the new style ; and Tonstal, at Durham, also sus- pected of slackness, shows in reply that he had always been against the pope's usurpations, and now more than ever.^ Nor was this readiness to accept the new state of things confined to the secular clergy. All the most considerable abbots, with their monks, signed instruments renouncing the pope's authority and supremacy. Henry Wharton is said by Collier to have had no less than 175 of these instruments in his possession, and to have known of the existence of many more.^ Thus from the whole spiritualty of the English Church a full renunciation of the supre- macy of the pope was obtained before Parliament was called upon to invest the king with the supreme powers which he claimed. There was no law then in existence making it penal to uphold the pope's supremacy, and this universal renunciation, though no doubt influenced by authority and pressure, is one of the most remark- able facts in the history of the Pieformation. § 28. The reforming spirit, which had been stimulated by the State measures, soon showed a tendency to advance faster than the king desired. In his capacity of temporal head of the Church he thought himself obliged to check it. A dreadful example of the danger of extreme opinions was given to the country. Fourteen Dutch Anabaptists were tried at St, Paul's, and condemned to the stake for their opinions. Two of them were burned at Smithfield. The remaining twelve were sent to the chief towns of England, that twelve other places besides the metropolis might have this melancholy proof of the king's orthodoxy. Early in the year 1535 the king issued a proclamation, in which, after the con- demnation of books brought from abroad, and of the opinions of the Anabaptists and sacramentaries, he says — " Forasmuch as the blessed sacrament of the altar is the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer, and so hatli and ought to be taken by the whole congregation of Christian men, upon the peril of damnation ;" his highness commands that no one shall venture to dispute about the same ; and as to cere- 1 EUia, Orig. Letters (Series 3), vol. ii. 221, 337. 2 Strype, Memorials, pp. 186, 191. ^ Collier, iv. 263. 104 PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPmiONS. Chap. YI. monies, liis highness orders that such as are not abrogated or abolished by his highness, and nis laws and authority, are to be observed. Finally, as certain clergy have taken to themselves wives, he orders that such priests shall not perform " any sacra- ment or ministry mystical, nor have any ofi&ce, dignity, profit, or commodity within the Church."-^ In a proclamation which fol- lowed, the king addressed himself to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, and clerk'i. as well as to the nobility and commoners, de- claring that, " as the power both of the ecclesiastical and earthly government " is conceded to him, he must needs be solicitous to fufil it by propagating the true doctrine of Christian piety. He commends, therefore, to their careful observance the book of direc- tions as to the way in which the pope's supremacy is to be care- fully abolished, and commands that the directions be received and observed by all, "under pain of our utmost displeasure."^ § 29. While, on the one hand, therefore, the king pressed the revolt from the pope to the utmost limits, on the other he endea- voured to hold back the people from a revolt against the doctrine of the Church. His minister, Crumwell, on the contrary, was ])ent upon stimulating this in every possible manner. Upon the advance of the reforming movement all his ambitious hopes were built ; and when his master could not by other means be induced to advance with sufficient resolution, he was prepared to offer the enormous bribe of the monastic lands. The keen insight of Crum- well did not fail to see that nothing was more likely to help for- ward the cause of reformation, and to render impossible any per- manent relapse, than the publication of the whole Bible in the English tongue. The king was committed, by his proclamations, to an opposition to Tyndale's Testament. It had been publicly con- demned and burned. At the same time, a promise had been made of another translation, and the Convocation of 1534, under Cranmer's influence, had requested the king to perform that pro- mise. Steps had already been taken to procure a new translation by apportioning the work among the bishops, but Crumwell knew well that such a task so arranged was not likely to be soon per- formed.^ He had, therefore, employed what he thought would be a speedier agency. As early as 1531, if not before. Miles Cover- dale writes to Crumwell : " Now I begin to taste of Holy Scripture ; 1 Wilkins, iii. 776. 2 7j. 779. 3 Cranmer was also of this opinion. He writes to Crumwell that he tliinks the translation will be finished " the day after doomsday " {State Papers of Henry VIII. i. 561). Grafton writes to Crumwell in 1539 : — "It is now seven years since the bishops promised to translate and set forth the Bible, and as yet they have no leisure " (State Papers, vii. 592). 1528-1536. PROGRESS OF REFORMING OPINIONS. 105 now, honour "be to God, I am set to the most sweet smell of holy- letters, with the godly savour of holy and ancient doctors, into whose knowledge I cannot attain without diversity of books." i Coverdale 2 was at this time in Germany working at a translation of the Bible in concert with Tyndale, under the secret patronage and with the help of Crumwell. By his aid the work was finished and printed by October 1535.^ In his preface Coverdale apolo- gises for the " rudeness" of the work, which was not made from the original, but from the Latin and German translations, but trusts that if anything be translated amiss, the king will vouchsafe to amend it. The book thus put under his majesty's patronage was permitted to circulate, and two editions of it were rapidly bought up. § 30. In the same year which witnessed the publication of the first Bible in English, the first reformed primer or book of private devotions, made its appearance. * It is remarkable as being not only a manual of devotion, but also as containing much expository and admonitory matter ; censuring the prevailing practice of pray- ing to the saints and before images ; condemning such superstitious services as the "mass of the five wounds," and such "lying tales" as those printed in the Golden Legend, which had misled the people. It gives some admirable directions for prayer ; condemns as blasphemous the practice of invoking God by the merits of the saints. The Bishops of Eome are censured as " cursed and blas- phemous ;" the " holy Church of England " is spoken of. Tlie salutation of the Virgin is declared not to be a prayer, but an honourable mention ; yet the writer declares that " he was not of the opinion that our Blessed Lady and holy saints might in no wise be prayed unto." The fact of the existence of this primer in the year 1534 is proved by the complaint made of it in that year in Convocation by the Abbot of Northampton.^ It was ordered to be suppressed,^ but the next year (as has been stated) came 1 State Papers, i. 384. 2 He was a Yorkshire man, educated at Cambridge, in the house of Austin Friars under Robert Barnes, and had escaped beyond seas. 3 Westcott's History of the Bible, p. 57. 4 This primer was printed in 1534, and only reprinted in 1535 ; but I believe no copy certainly known to be of 1534 exists. (Some account of the mediaeval primers will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter.) Mr. Procter [Hist. Pr. Bk. p. 14) says that Marshall printed this priyticr before 1530, but that was probably the reformed primer printed abroad by George Jaye, and mentioned in Sir Thomas More's works. How far it may have coincided with this book of Marshall's I cannot say. The whole sub- ject of the primers, a very interesting one, is treated by Dr. Burton in his 5 Wilkins,'iii. 769. ^ Procter, Uist. Pr. BTc. p. 10. 106 PROGEESS OF REFORMING OPTIONS. Chap. VI. forth in a new edition, and had a very extensive circulation.! Such a manual could not fail to have very great influence in advancing the growth of reforming opinions. § 31. Nor must we forget to take into consideration that, up to the time of her disgrace, Queen Anne was a considerable power in forwarding reforming views. She and all her connections took up the position of strong favourers of the Reformation. Certain bishops were called " her bishops ;" the clergy who were of the more pronounced type found in her a patroness and encourager. Thus many sources of influence united to produce during this period a very rapid advance of the " new learning." ^ "A goodly primer, newly corrected and printed, wiili certain godly meditations and prayers, and imprinted at London by John Byddell for William Marshall, June 16, 1635." See Lathbury, Hist. Prayer Book, p. 2 ; Procter, Hist. Prayer Book, p. 16 ; Collier, Ch. Hist. iv. 311 ; and the reprint of the primer in Dr. Burton's Three Primers. Chap. YI. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS; 107 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) REFORMERS BURNED DURING SIR T. MORE'S CHANCELLORSHIP. Besides those mentioned in the text, there are others spoken of by Sir T. More himself in his works. His over-abounding zeal led him not only to bring men judged to be heretical, to their death, but to attack their memories also. Thus he speaks of Thomas Hilton, a priest of Kent, as the "devil's stinking martyr," etc. (Works, p. 346). Mr. Hilton's heresy con- sisted (so far as appears from More's statement) in denying the five so-called sacraments which had been added to the sacraments of the Gospel. Sir T. More accuses him of perjury and lying, be- cause he vjould not take the oath prof- fered to him (the ex officio oath) ; alleging that oaths were illegal. Hilton or Hilten had been curate of Maidstone, and was much concerned in bringing over the reforming books which were prohibited. He suffered a long imprisonment, and was tried by Warham and Fisher, who handed him over to the secular arm. He was burned at Gravesend about the end of the year 1530. Richard Bayfield, a monk and priest of Bury St. Edmunds, also convicted of introducing the prohibited books, is ac- cused by Sir T. More of having had two wives, one in England the other in Bra- bant. Sir Thomas, however, immediately afterwards acknowledges that he knew nothing definite about the matter, but only reported vague rumours. (Works, p. 346.) Bayfield was burned at Smithfield, Nov. 11, 1531, suffering with wonderful constancy. Thomas Tewkpsburt, a leather-seller, was brought before the bishops for heresy, and is said to have disputed so vigorously that he put them to silence. He, however, recanted, but afterwards relapsed to his former opinions. He was condemned to the stake by Stokesley and More. Sir T. More accuses him of dying in bitter inalice with his judges, and supports this assertion by alleging the fact that Tewkes- bury after his condemnation had never spoken of his heresies to any one, but carefully concealed them, because "he would fain leave an opinion among the people that his judges had borne him wrong in hand.",' (Works, p. 348.) Tewkes- bury was burned at Smithfield, December 1531. James Bainham, a gentleman of the Temple, was accused of heresy, and brought before the Chancellor. He ab- jured, but was afterwards so tortured in mind that he stood up publicly in the chujch of St. Augustine, holding Tjmdale's Testament in his hand, and declared his belief in those doctrines which he had been induced by fear to abjure. He was then regarded as relapsed, and was burned April 1532. (B) medleval prymers. English versions of the IToxirs {i.e. ser- vices shorter than those in the Breviary, dra-^vn up to be used privately at the seven canonical hours), Occasional Devotions, the Litany or Procession, the Dirge (i.e. the order for Vespers and Matins when a funeral had taken place, sometimes called the Placebo and Dlnje, one of the anthems in Vespers, beginning with Placebo, and one in Matins with Dirige), and certain Psalms, were brought together in one book, which may be traced to the fourteenth century. This book was called The Pry- mer. Various additions were made to it from time to time — expositions of the Ten Commandments, the Seven Works of Mercy, the Seven Sacraments, etc. It was partly in English and partly in Latin, and was a recognised manual of devotion and instruction for the people, at least 150 years before the Reformation. Use was made of this well-known name by the Reformers, who were busy in printing books abroad, to endeavour to spread their doctrines. Thus "The Pryiner translated by George Jaye, with the Lit- any and Dirge omitted," is put by Sir T. More in his list of books to be refuted and condemned. The first reforming Prynier printed in England was probably 1534. This was reprinted in 1535 by Marshall, was suppressed on complaint of Convoca- tion, but Avas nevertheless extensively known. (Procter's Hist, of Prayer Book ; Lathbury's Hist, of Prayer Book; Sir T. More's Works, p. 341.) 108 THE SUPREMACY : Chap. VII. CHAPTER yil. THE SUPREMACY ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDERS. 1534-1536. § 1. Elizabeth Barton, the Canterbury nun. § 2. Bill of attainder against her and her confederates. § 3. Some executed, others found guilty of misprision of treason. § 4. The succession oath, § 5. More and Fisher refuse to swear. § 6. Their committal to the Tower. § 7. Nature of their objections to the oath. § 8. The legislation of the autumn of 1534. § 9. The Carthusians put to death. § 10. More and Fisher ex- amined as to the Supremacy. § 11. Their trial at Westminster. § 12. Execution of Fisher. § 13. Of More. § 14. Public opinion in Europe. § 15. The Bull of Paul III. § 16. Measures to check the general feeling. § 17. Reginald Pole. § 18. Writings of Gardiner, Bonner, and Sampson. § 19. Designs of the King and Crumwell to humble the Church. § 20. Crumwell's appointment as Vicar-General. § 21. Bishops suspended and restored under license. § 22. Character of these proceedings. § 1. So great a revolution as the withdrawal from the pope of all allegiance on the part of the Church of England, and the investing the king with a power which was altogether new and strange to the minds of most of his subjects, could not fail to produce much disturbance and invite strong opposition. The first opposition which showed itself on the part of those who upheld the old system of things came from a somewhat singular source. As early as 1528 we find Archbishop Warham writing to Cardinal Wolsey about one Elizabeth Barton, a religious woman professed in St. Sepulchre's, Canterbury, who had strange visions, and who had a great desire to speak with the cardiual. This nun, whom the archbishop describes as very virtuous, had been known to the archbishop before her profession at St. Sepulchre's. While a servant in the house of one Thomas Cobbe of Aldington, she had been subject to hysterical fits or trances, in which she uttered many strange words. The parson of the j)arish, Richard Master, had told the archbishop about this singular case, and had been ordered by him to observe her closely. He had also informed concerning it Dr. Bocking, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. By these two, Masters and Bocking, a public exhibition of the trances of Elizabeth Barton was arranged. This took place at the chapel of Courte-at-Strete, in the presence of nearly 2000 people. Elizabeth was seen in fits which passed into a trance, during which she declared herself healed by the intercession of the Virgin. She 1534-1536. ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDERS. 109 then was professed at St. Sepulchre's, and Booking became her confessor. The idea had evidently been conceived by Masters and Bocking of making the pretended trance-utterances of this poor girl a source of profit. Two other monks, Bering and Hawk- shaw, were admitted into the plot, and Thwaites and Lawrence, the latter secretary to the archbishop, became the " secretaries to the prophetess," writing out her sayings on sheets of paper for the use of those who consulted her. It appears that the king had had some of these " revelations " sent to him, which he handed to Sir Thomas More to read and give him his opinion upon. Wolsey also had received a " revelation " from her as to " three swords " which God had put in his hand, and w^hich he was to use aright.^ When the king's divorce had taken place, and the rupture with Eome was proceeding, the monks and friars who were in league with the nun, conceived the idea of making her revelations serve to counteract the prevailing influences. For this purpose they endeavoured to enlist Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher among the number of her adherents. Sir Thomas saw the nun, talked with her, and thought well of her character, but refused to hear any of her " revelations " touching the king, and wrote to her advising her not to meddle with any matters of state. 2 He afterwards fully acknowledged that she was guilty of " detestable hypocrisy, and devilish dissembled falsehood," and that she was under the influence of evil spirits. 3 Bishop Fisher, however, appears to have accepted and credited her as a prophetess. Her " revelations " against the king's marriage, and proceedings against Rome, being much talked of, about midsummer 1533 Cranmer took the matter up, and, going down to Canterbury, caused the nun to be brought before him. Apparently not able to make much of her, Cranmer sent her to Crumwell, under whose severe questioning she acknowledged that she had never had any real visions, but had only pretended to have them for the purposes of gain.^ § 2. It was supposed or assumed tliat the nun and her accom- plices had entertained a plot for the murder of the king, and a bill of attainder was brought into Parliament against them. Into this bill the king insisted that the names of More and Fisher should be inserted. The absence of all complicity on the part of ^ More's Letter to Crumwell ; Eoper's More, Appendix 11. The three swords were — 1. The ordering of the clergy as legate. 2. The ordering the temporalty as chancellor. 3. The conduct of the divorce case. 2 His letter Is given In Roper's Life, Appendix ii. 3 More's Letters to Crumwell ; Eoper's Life, Appendix ii. * Cranmer' s Remains, p. 276 (Park. Soc.) Strype's Memorials of Henry VIII., Appendix No. xlviil. 110 THE SUPREMACY : • Chap. VII. More was well known to Crnmwell, who represented it to the king, and More himself wrote a letter to the king to the same effect.^ It was, however, with the greatest difficulty that Hemy was brought to consent that his name should be omitted.^ As regards Fisher, though he was pressed by Crumwell to disclaim the nun, he would not do so a-ny further than by writing to the House of Lords to express his belief that the nun had herself communicated her prophecies to the king, so that it was not treason in him to conceal them.^ The bishop's name was therefore put into the bill of attainder. § 3. Elizabeth Barton, Masters, Bocking, Rich, Rigsby, Dering, and Gold, were adjudged guilty of treason, and executed at Tyburn, and Bishop Fisher and many distinguished lay persons* were held guilty of misprision (or concealment) of treason, and became liable to imprisonment and the loss of their goods. The bishop com- pounded for his forfeiture by a sum of .£300,^ but he was soon to be involved in more serious troubles. § 4. In the spring session of 1534, the first Act of Succession was passed. This Act settled the succession in the children of Queen Anne, to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. It was to be enforced by an oath to be taken by all the chief persons in the State. But the form of the oath was not recited in the Act, but was di-awn up afterwards by the council, and submitted to the House of Lords. The form of the oath was as follows : — " Ye shall swear to bear faith, truth, and obedience, all only to the king's majesty, and to his heirs of his body of his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife Queen Anne begotten, and to be begotten ; and further, to the heirs of our said sovereign lord, according to the limitation in the statute made for surety of his succession in the crown of this realm mentioned and contained, and not to any other within this realm, nor foreign authority or potentate. And in case any oath be made or hath been made by you to any person or persons, that then ye do repute the same as vain and annihilate ; and that to your cunning, wit, and uttermost of your power, without guile, fraud, or any other undue mean, ye shall observe, keep, maintain, and defend, the said Act of Suc- cession, and all other acts and statutes made in confirmation, or for execution of the same, or for anything therein contained. And this ye shall do against all manner of persons of what estate, dignity, degree, or condition soever they be ; and no wise do or 1 Eoper's Life of More, Appendix iv. ^ Ih. pp. 78, 85. 3 Burnet, Records, 1. ii. xlix. Ellis, Orig. Letters, ill. ii, 289. ^ Of these the venerable Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole, and the nearest in blood to the throne, was one. ^ Lingard, Hist. Eng. iv. 209. 1534-1536. ITS OPPOiN'ENTS AND DEFENDERS. m attempt, nor to your power suffer to be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any tiling or things privately or apertly to the let hindrance, damage, or derogation thereof, or of any part of the same by any manner of means, or for any manner of pretence. So help you God and all saints and the holy evangelists." ^ § 5. There were two men of chief note and mark in State and Church at this time to whom it was determined to offer this oath among the very first. These were Sir Thomas More, late chan- cellor, and John Fisher, Bishop of Eochester. Neither of these men had given in their adherence to the divorce of the king from Catherine and his marriage to Aime. Sir Thomas More had in- deed done so, partially and ministerially, when as chancellor he brought before Parliament the opinions of the universities, but it was known that he did not heartily go with it. The king had used the greatest efforts to make him declare himself on his side, but Sir Thomas would give no more than a passive acquiescence.^ As to Bishop Fisher, he had strongly opposed the divorce through- ont, and had come into sharp collision with the king on the matter.^ Sir Thomas has himself given a full account of the circumstances connected with the offering of the oath to him at Lambeth on April 13, 1534. He first desired a sight of the oath and of the Act of Succession, and compared them carefully together. He at once decided that he could swear conscientiously to the succession, but to the particular form of oath he could not agree " without," as he says, "jeoparding his soul to perpetual damnation." The counsellors all did their utmost to induce him to yield, but Sir Thomas was firm. He would not declare the " special part " of the oath to which he objected ; but he offered at last to do this in writing, and at the same time to make oath that if any man could fully answer his objections he would yield. To this the commis- sioners would not agree, as it might give a dangerous ground for others to refuse. Upon his refusal Sir Thomas was committed to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster for four days. At the end of this time, after much consultation, and at the urgent request (it is said) of Queen Anne,^ he was again brought before ^ 26 Henry VIII. c. 2. This statute, called the second Act of Succession, was passed in order to recite the oath, and at the same time to declare that this was the oath intended by the first statute. - He thus writes to Crumwell : — " I never have had against his grace's marriage any manner of demeanour whereby his highness might have any manner cause of occasion of displeasure against me. His highness being in possession of his marriage, I will most heartily pray for the prosperous estate of his grace long to continue to the pleasure of God." — Roper's Life of More, Appendix v. ^ See above. Chapter IV. * Roper's More, p. 89. 112 THE SUPREMACY : Chap. VII. the commissioners, and refusing the oath, was committed to the Tower (April 17). Bishop Fisher had been before the commis- sioners on the same day as Sir Thomas, and also refused. He too was allowed certain time for reflection, but declined to yield.-'^ He declared that he was willing to " accept, approve, and defend the succession, and damn the tother," 2 but he would not take the oath. Consequently he soon joined Sir Thomas in the Tower. § 6. It is clear that both commitments were illegal, as the Act of Parliament had not specified any particular oath, and both More and Fisher were willing to swear to the succession.^ It is not, however, very evident what was their precise objection to taking the oath. They had refused to specify their objections when called upon to swear, and afterwards in the Tower, when examined as to them, neither of them would declare what they were.* § 7. There is reason, however, to believe that it was to the pre- amble of the Act that they specially objected. The oath covered all the statements of the Act, and the preamble of the Act was directed against the pope. Cranmer had pressed that they might be allowed to swear to the succession, and not to the preamble. To this Crumwell replied, " In case they be sworn to the succes- sion, and not to the preamble, it is to be thought it might be taken not only as a confirmation of the Bishop of Rome's authority, but also as a reprobation of the king's second marriage." ^ Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher remained in the Tower during the summer of 1534, and in the autumn of that year Parliament met, and two Acts were passed, which, it can scarcely be doubted, had special reference to their cases. In the interval the king had been greatly incensed against them by the pope's proceedings at Rome, detailed above. § 8. The two Acts of Parliament referred to have been already mentioned. One was the Succession Act, passed to legalise, by ex 'post facto legislation, the oath already tendered. The other was the Treason Act, making it high treason not only to speak against any of the king's titles and prerogatives, but even to imagine any- thing against them. By their refusal to take the oath of succes- sion the goods and liberties of the bishop and ex- chancellor were forfeit to the crown, but their lives were not touched under this ^ More's' Letter to Margaret Roper, Appendix No. vi. 2 State Papers of Henry Fill. i. 432. ^ " At length the Lord Chancellor, with Mr Secretary, espying their own oversight in that behalf, were fain afterward to find the means that another statute should be made for the confirmation of the oath so amplified with their additions," — Eoper's More, p. 93. 4 State Papers of Henry VIIL i. 232, 233, 236. ^ Crumwell to Cranmer. — Froude's Hist, of England^ ii. 227. 1534-1536. ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDERS. 113 statute. But tlie Treason Statute touched the life, and enacted the fearful jDenalties of high treason against all those who would not admit and assent, in words, to the royal supremacy. " Malicious silence," which was assumed to imply evil imaginings against the supremacy, was to be interpreted as treason, and punished by death. § 9. The first to suffer under this atrocious law were the monks of the Charterhouse in London — men distinguished by their sanctity and austere piety. They were visited by the commis- sioners, and examined as to the supremacy. Their answers not being held satisfactory, they were committed for trial. It was hoped that by dealing with them in small batches the constancy of the survivors might be weakened. But this did not prove to be the case. As many as ten appear to have suffered the extreme penalties of the law. The rest either died in prison from fever, or were dispersed into other houses.-"- § 10. In May 1535 the appointment of Bishop Fisher as cardinal furiously exasperated the king, and he determined to destroy both him and Sir Tliomas More. A deputation from the council waited on them in prison, and examined them as to the king's supremacy. They were silent.^ This plan had been adopted on the advice of More, who thought it would be impossible to in- dict them if no word were spoken. But unfortunately the bishop, though silent when questioned by the commissioners, had not been equally guarded in his intercourse with others. Divers persons were able to aver that they had heard him say things in deroga- tion of the supremacy. Among others. Dr. Leighton, soon so well known in the matter of the suppression of the monasteries, bore witness against him. As to Sir Thomas More, he was entrapped into a conversation WT.th Rich, the Attorney-General, in whicli he was led on to say that Parliament could not create the supremacy.^ § 11. On this evidence indictments were framed against the bishop and Sir Thomas, and a commission of Oyer and Terminer was issued to try them at Westminster, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, and some other lords, being associated with the judges.* The bishop was tried first. He had lain more than a year in prison, suffering from the want of even common necessaries — ill-fed and ragged. But his spirit was high as ever. As regards the cardinal's hat, which had been sent to him, he declared he would not stoop to pick it up if it lay at his feet, but he had as 1 Historia Martyrum Anglorum, by Cliauncey ; quoted in Stiype, Memorials Henry VIII., p. 194. Dodd's CJmrch History, vol. i., Ap- pendix ii. 2 State Paxters of Henry VIIL, i. 43G ; Roper's Life of More, p. 99. 3 Ih, 103. " Burnet, Hist. Eef i. 258. 114 THE SUPREMACY : Chap. VII. little intention as ever of yielding to the king. He j^leaded not guilty, but was convicted and condemned to die (June 1 2). § 12. The king extended his mercy towards him so far as to allow him to be beheaded, instead of being hung, drawn, and quar- tered, and on June 22 the aged bishop, now in his eightieth year, walked out on Tower Hill for execution. He had dressed himself mth great care, for he said that this was the day of his nuptials. In his hand he carried a copy of the New Testament, and ever and again repeated the verse to which his attention had been speci- ally drawn : " This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." This, said the bishoj), is learning enough for me. Arriving at the scaffold, he repeated the Te Deum, and laying his head on the block, he jDassed away to his rest. Thus died the most learned, the most devout, the most conscientious of the bishops of that day — the real founder of St. John's and Christ's Colleges at Cambridge, and of the Divinity Professorships at the two Universities ^ — the man who studied Greek in his old age, that he might benefit his university — the man who would not yield a hair's-breadth, for either fear or favour, in a matter which touched his conscience. § 13. On the 1st July Sir Thomas More was brought to his trial. The indictment charged him with " malicious silence," ^ in- asmuch as he had both refused to answer himself touching the supremacy, and had also encouraged the bishop to refuse. But the words which he was said to have spoken to Rich were the chief evidence against him.^ He pleaded strongly in his own defence, but was condemned. The sentence he received joyfully, and at once set himself to prepare for that which he had long desired, and even courted. The touching details of his last days on earth, and his execution, are told by his son-in-law. Roper, who had married his favourite daughter, Margaret — a lady in every way worthy of her father. More kept his jocose and witty vein until the last, and was executed July 6 (1535).* § 14. The execution of two such men as Bishop Fisher and Sir T. More, and on such manifestly inadequate grounds, could not fail to arouse the public feeling of Christendom. § 15. To Clement VII. had now succeeded in the papal chair Paul III. — a rash and violent man — who was transported to fury by the news of the King of England's proceedings. He had him- 1 He had been confessor to the Lady Margaret, grandmother of the king, and he dhected her munificence into this channel. 2 Herbert's Henry VIII., Keunett, ii. 163. 3 Sir Thomas entirely denied the truth of Rich's statement. — Roper's LifCy p. 103. ^ Burnet, i. 259. 1534-1536. ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDERS. 115 self been greatly instrumental in causing them, by his inconsiderate gift of a cardinal's hat to Bishop Fisher, but this only served to exasperate him the more. He at once drew up a bull, in which, declaring that Henry had already incurred the censure threatened by Clement, he pronounced against him excommimication and de- position, and laid the land under an interdict until his sentence was carried out. He absolved the king's subjects from their allegiance, and called upon all Christian kings to unite in depos- ing this monster of iniquity. On receiving a brief to this effect, the King of France remonstrated strongly Avith the pope, and in- duced him to restrain the publication of his anathema,i which did not finally appear until after the rifling of the tomb of Thomas Becket. But though all might not be ready to commend such measures of extreme violence as the pope contemplated, yet a strong and general feeling of indignation against the king prevailed throughout Europe. § 16. To meet and if possible to remove this, Crumwell set himself to give explanations to the princes of Europe through the English ambassadors. Gardiner was sent on a special mission to France ; Fox, Bishop of Hereford, to the Duke of Saxony.- The feeling at home, which, if not so freely expressed, was probably as deep, was met by another circular to the justices of the peace, in which they are bid to see that the clergy publish, four times a year, " the treasons traitorously committed against us and our laws by the late Bishop of Eochester and Sir Thomas More ; who by divers secret practices of their malicious mind against us intended to seminate, engender, and breed, among our people and subjects, a most mischievous and seditious opinion, not only to their own confusion, but also of divers others who lately have condignly suffered execution according to their demerits."^ § 17. There was one among his subjects whom King Henry had especial reason to dread as a leader of public opinion against him, and all the more because he was not in his ]30wer. This was Reginald Pole — of the royal blood both by father and mother^ — a man of high spirit and considerable talents, who had been re- garded with much affection by the king, and had been loaded with preferment, a canonry and two deaneries being given him before ^ In his letter to the pope Francis designated the brief sent him as im- pudentissimum quoddam Breve. — State Papers of Henry VIII., vii. 628 ; Dodd's Ch. Hist., vol. i., Appendix, xxxvii. 2 Crumwell to Cassalis, State PajJers, vii. 633. Dodd's Church History, vol. i., Appendix, Nos. xxxvii. -xlvi. ^ Stryjje, Memorials of Henry VIII., Appendix, liv. * His father was Lord Montacute, cousin to King Henry VII. His mother, Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV. 116 THE SUPREMACY : Chap. VII. he was nineteen years of age. He had been sent by the king to study at Paris, and was there when the opinion of the university was required as to the divorce. He had declined to help forward the king's cause, and soon afterwards, returning to England, he composed a pamphlet against the divorce. Cranmer, who had seen this, declared that it was of such eloquence and wit that if it was known to the common people it would be impossible to persuade them to the contrary,^ Henry now testified his displeasure against his cousin, and Pole retired to Italy, where he resided principally at Padua. Dr. Sampson, Dean of the Chapel Eoyal, had printed a Latin oration in defence of the supremacy, and this was sent to Pole by way of infl.uencing him. The effect it had on him was just the contrary. It set him to write a Latin treatise on Ecclesi- astical UnitT/,^ in which he comments witli unsparing bitterness on the king's proceedings, and brings a tremendous indictment against him.^ In some passages of fine eloquence he lauds Fisher and More, and stigmatises their execution as an atrocious crime. This treatise was well calculated to provoke Henry to fury. Pole him- self was somewhat fearful as to its reception, for he wrote to a friend in England, suggesting that it would not be well that the king should read it for himself, on " account of its prolixity," but that his Grace should commit it to some "learned and sad man" to read it for him, suggesting Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, as the fittest.* Henry, however, had read the book, and his first idea was to try to get Pole into his hands, in which case he would probably have soon followed More and Fisher. Pole knew the danger, and preferred to risk his English preferment to accepting the king's invitation to come home.^ Tonstal wrote a letter to him replying to the charges he had made against the king. " You presuppose," he writes, " for a ground, the king's grace to be swerved from the unity of Christ's church and that in taking upon him the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England he intendeth to separate the Church of England from the unity of the whole body of Christendom ; taking upon him the office belonging to spiritual men, grounded in the Scriptures, of immediate care of souls, and attributing to himself that which belongeth to priesthood, wherein ^ Cranmer's Hemains (Park. Soc), p. 229. 2 Pro ecclesiasticce unitatis defensione libri quatuor. ^ Especially lie charges him with criminal intimacy with Mary Boleyn, sister to Anne. At the same time he states that Anne would not yield to his advances, because of the way in which he had repudiated her sister, Mr. Fronde shows some reason for douhting whether this passage were in the original MS. Dr. Hook, Mr. Blunt, Mr. Pocock accept the charge as true. * Burnet, Records, p. iii. b. ii. No. 51. ^ Strype, Memorials of Henry VIII., Appendix, 82. 1534-1536. ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDERS. 117 you do err too far. His full purpose is to see the laws of Al- mighty God purely preached and taught, and Christ's faith without blot kept and observed within the realm, and not to separate him- self any wise from the unity of Christ's holy Catholic church, but inviolably at all times to keep and observe the same ; and to reduce the Church of England out of all captivity to foreign powers, and to abolish such usurpations as heretofore in this realm the Bishops of Rome have increased, reducing all things to that estate that is conformable to those ancient decrees of the church which the Bishop of Rome at his consecration solemnly doth profess to observe, which be the eight universal councils." ^ Pole replied to this letter, defending his treatise and not showing any inclination to yield. The pope quicklj'- made him a cardinal, while Henry caused him to be attainted as a traitor. § 18, As the position of the king was so rudely assailed, it became necessary to establish it by every means possible. Some time in the year 1535, Gardiner, who had already reaped a sub- Btantial harvest of royal favour in the rich See of "Winchester, published a book On true Obedience. Like Sampson in the oration which had so much moved the wrath of Pole, he maintained in this work that the king was just as much the supreme head of the nation in spiritual as in temporal things. According to him the distinction between the two i» utterly dark and misleading. " For if a Christian prince is to be king and govern his people, in what way is he to govern them ? In the way of truth or of falsehood ? If in the way of truth, the Scripture says he is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Spiritual things are a more important part of his care than temporal. . . . He is a prince of his whole people, not of a part of it, and he governs them in all things, not in some only ; and as the people constitute the Church in England, so he must needs be the suj)reme head of the Church as he is the supreme head of the people."- Such were the views of the famous bishop of Winchester at this period. And another man not less remarkable in the after history of the Church zealously seconded them. This treatise was republished in the following year with a preface by Bonner, then Archdeacon of Leicester. In this preface the supreme power of the king is exag- gerated in the same way as it is in the treatise. ^ Similar views ^ Burnet, Records, p. iii. 1j. ii. No. 52. ^ Gardinerus de vera ohcdientid. Browu, Fasciculus, vol. ii. pp. 808, 810. ^ Dr. Maitlaiid {Essays on the licformation) endeavours to throw doubt on this preface having been written by Bonner. Ho does not, however, appear to prove his point. j 118 THE SUPREMACY : Chap. VIT. are to be found in Sampson's treatise mentioned above. "The whole nation is one political body made up of individuals as its members, the king as its bead. As bead he has supreme power in all things. The king is the minister of God, the vicar of God ; not to obey him is to despise the Word of God. The Bishop of Kome has power as a bishop at Rome. In England he has no more power than the Archbishop of Canterbury has at Rome." ^ The Church of England, according to these writers, is nothing else than " the whole mass of men and women, clerical and lay, being Chris- tians, who dwell in England." 2 The idea of these divines was to prove the supremacy by solving the Church into the State, and making the two simply different aspects of the same body. § 19. When the leading divines of the day taught in this fashion, the eccentricities of the king and Crumwell are the less to be wondered at. Not contented to hold that the royal supremacy consisted in seeing that all Church laws were properly carried out, and in defending the national Church from aggression on the part of a foreign potentate, the king professed that the supremacy gave him the right to supersede all Church laws, and to govern the Church autocratically, according to his will. And this absolute and irresponsible power he declared could be deputed to another, who should act as his vicegerent, and from the vicegerent to other inferior deputies, so that the absolute power of the supremacy might be present everywhere and control everything. There stood in the way of this theory the fact that the Church was administered by certain ecclesiastical officers, who had derived their jurisdiction not from the king but by virtue of an office conveyed to them by certain special persons and rites. This, however, did not present an insurmountable difficulty to the ingenuity of Crumwell. These quasi-independent ecclesiastical officers might first be superseded in their jurisdiction by a special act of the visitatorial power of the Crown, and then restored to their ordinary jurisdiction, but only with the license and during the good pleasure of the sovereign. Such was the scheme contrived between Henry and his minister Crumwell, and it was duly carried out. § 20. In 1535 was issued, under the great seal, an instrument which declares that the king is about to exert his supremacy for the good of the Church, and being unable personally to attend to the work, he therefore appoints his well-beloved Thomas Crumwell " to treat and examine all causes ecclesiastical, and to exercise, provide, and exert aU and all manner of jurisdic- tion, authority, or power ecclesiastical, which belongs to him as ^ Sampsoni libdlus de obedientid Regi prccsiandd. Brown, Fascicidus, ii. 822. 2 Gardiner, 148. 1534-1536. ITS OPPONENTS AND DEFENDEljiS. 119 sui3reme head ;" and because Thomas CrumAvell is hindered by his affairs, the king gives to those appointed by him " license to visit, both in head and members, the see being full or vacant, as often and at what time they shall think fit, all and singular churches, even metropolitan churches, cathedral and collegiate churches, hospitals, and monasteries, both of men and women, etc., ecclesi- astical places, exempt or non-exempt ; and to make inquiry con- cerning the state of the same, both in spirituals and temporals, the life, manners, and conversation of their presidents and prelates, of whatever name and dignity, even if it be archiepiscopal or episco- pal ; to correct, punish, and restrain those whom they shall find culpable, and, if necessary, to remove them altogether from their benefices, or to suspend them ; to sequestrate the revenues of the church or place, and keep them in safe ward ; to make statutes, ordinances, and injunctions for the government of religious houses ; to call synods, chapters, and convocations for any cause which may appear to them necessary ; to hold courts, and summon before them any of the king's subjects ; receive resignations and cessions of churches, and deal in any way with the ecclesiastical property ; preside at and direct the elections of prelates, confirm those rightly made, and annul the contrary ; institute and induct into possession of churches." § 21. By this instrument the whole liberties, powers, privi- leges of the Church of England, would seem to be swept away at one blow. The fitting pendant to it was that which immediately followed — namely, the suspension of the jurisdiction of the bishops : — " Pending our visitation, none of them shall presimie to visit the monasteries, the churches, and other aforesaid places, or the clergy of his diocese, or to exercise any jurisdiction, or in any way to interfere with our general visitation." ^ Some of Crumwell's ad- visers had written to him to suggest '' that if the king made a temporary seizure of all spiritual jurisdiction, it would confirm the subject in the belief of this right, and prove a serviceable precedent." 2 If there was any matter in which it was necessary for the bishops to act during the royal visitation, they should act in it " as the king's commissaries and Crumwell's." The bishops thus rudely superseded exhibited no unwillingness to have their jurisdiction restored to them under the royal license. This singu- lar document ran as follows : — " Forasmuch as all authority for exercising jurisdiction, and all jurisdiction of every kind, as well that which is called ecclesiastical as secular, has emanated in the first place from the king's majesty as from its supreme head, and the fountain and source of all magistracies within the kingdom, it ^ Wilkins, iii. 784 ; Collier, Ch. Hist Records, Nos. 30, 31. 2 Letter from Legli and Ap-Rice to Crumwell. — J/>S'. Cotton Library. 120 THE SUPREMACY. Chap. VII. behoves those wlio have beforetime exercised these jurisdictions only by sufferance, to recognise with grateful minds the favour thus granted to them by the royal liberality, and to attribute it only to the royal bounty, and readily to quit and give it up as often as it shall seem good to the royal majesty : . . . We, being moved by your humble ^^rayers, have determined to commit and depute to you our office in the manner and form described below, and to license you to ordain those within your diocese whom you shall have found, by previous diligent and strict examination, to be suitable ; also to collate to benefices, to grant probate of wills, and to perform all and singular things, whether in matters of necessity or fitness, beyond and besides those which are distinguished as being divinely committed to you in the sacred writings, which are to be performed in our stead, in our name and by our authority." i § 22. The fundamental error which runs through the whole of these proceedings is, that the king's supremacy conferred on him a power of originating and exercising jurisdiction above and beside the law. The Act of Parliament had given him the power of visiting the monasteries ;^ he assumed an extension of this power to all churches. This was an invasion. But a more serious one still was the interjDretation which was put upon the visitatorial power. This, rightly understood, is nothing more than an inquiry as to how far the laws which govern the body visited have been obeyed, and, where they have been disobeyed, the obliging them to be observed. But the interpretation of the visitatorial power adopted by the king and Crumwell was, that it gave an absolute right over the body visited into the hands of the visitor ; to order it, control it, reform it, or destroy it, as to the visitor should seem good. This at least would appear to be the claim made ,in these docu- ments ; but, as a matter of fact, this overweening power was never exercised towards the Church up to the extent of the claims made for it. The license granted to the bishojDS was speci- ally confined to those matters in which their jurisdiction was con- nected with civil riglits, an express reservation being made as to purely spiritual matters. There was no visitation made of the churches ; and the visitation of the monasteries which immediately took place, though it was claimed as a right belonging to the royal supremacy, was nevertheless guarded by an Act of Parliament, while no attempt at dealing with these houses was made until an express authorisation had been granted by the legal executive. The overweening claims made for the supremacy would seem there- fore to have been made i7i terrorem, rather than for actual use. 1 From Stolcesley's Register; Collier, Records, No. 41. 2 25 Henry VIII. c. 21. 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 121 CHAPTER VIIL THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES 1536-1539. § 1. The King had long meditated the spoilmg of the Monasteries. § 2. Difficulties in the way. § 3. Debate in the Council. § 4. A visitation of them decided upon. § 5. The various Visitations. § 6. Points illustrated by the notices of the visitations : {a) The alleged immorality of the monastic orders ; {h) Their financial condition ; (c) Their state of discipline ; {d) Whether the visitors were clean-handed. § 7. The Act founded on the report. § 8. Character of the Act. § 9. Its special injustice. § 10. Previous suppressions of religious houses. § 11, The first resignation. § 12. The Court of Augmentations. § 13. The sur- render of Furness. § 14, Commissioners sent to the dissolved Monasteries. § 15. Nature of their certificate. § 16. The work of the Receivers. § 17. Pillaging of the goods of the houses. § 18. Pensions assigned to the religious. § 19. Amount of revenue obtained from smaller houses. § 20. Immediate effect of the Dissolution. § 21. The Visitation of 1537. § 22. Exposure of pretended relics. § 23. Rapid resignation of abbeys. § 24. Act to confirm the surrenders, § 25. Means taken to dispose of the last abbots. § 26, Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury, § 27. Wealth poured into the Exchequer from the monasteries. § 28. Change in the status of the House of Lords. § 29. Impropriations not restored to the parochial clergy. § 30. The policy of granting the abbey lands to the country gentlemen. § 31. Funds appropriated to Church purposes. § 32. The hardships of the disinherited religious persons. § 33. The effect of the Dissolution on learning. § 34. General estimate of the effect of the Dissolution of Monasteries. § 1. From the time when the strong-minded policy of Wolsey towards the monasteries opened the king's eyes to the possibility of gathering a huge spoil with very little trouble, Henry probably never ceased to speculate as to the best way to compass this. He was greatly in want of money. Ever in dread of some dangerous attack from the powerful emperor, who might at any time assume the aggressive as the redresser of the grievances of his aunt, or the executor of the sentence of the Church, Henry was aware that his ports were unfortified, his navy deficient, his preparations to resist external aggression very small. Every source of revenue, then, was welcome to him ; and if at the same time he could in- crease his revenues and inflict a serious wound on his great internal foe — the papal influence in England — so much the better. The temptation, therefore, to grasp at the riches of the monasteries was very great. And Crumwell, skilled in the work, was at hand to encourage him in the project, and to suggest the means. 122 SUPPKESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VIIL § 2. Yet the king evidently dreaded to make a nuDve, Tkese great ecclesiastical castles dotted tke whole land, and exerted an influence in every place. It is true that their religious character had long since almost died out, and that all enthusiasm for them had long since ceased, yet they were deeply rooted in the social framework of the land. There was, scarce a man of weight in the kingdom who was not in some way connected with them. Either they had been founded by his ancestors, or he himself was a patron, or he held leases under some of them, or some of his family were buried within their churches. It is true that the exemptions of the monasteries entailed a grievous burden on their lay neighbours ; but then these establishments, scattered over the country to the number of upwards of six hundred, exercised hospitality and gave doles to the poor. So that all classes might be expected to defend them. How then should the king act ? § 3. The matter was brought before his council. Lord Herbert gives us a sketch of what was said, or might have been said, on the occasion.-^ It was determined to have a strict visitation of the monasteries. At the same time the king protested that he would suppress none without the consent of Parliament. This, says Lord Herbert, he did politicly, " seeing that there were many in the Parliament who were against the Romish religion, and many more who objected to the charges of a war, and thought it might well be borne by the monasteries." So that, though the king and his councillors might not openly speak of it to one another, visita- tion in fact meant suppression, and inquiry was simply for the object of getting up a case which might furnish a decent excuse to Parliament, and palliate the matter with the nation. For the visitation thus determined on, Crumwell chose the instruments. Of these. Doctors Leighton, Leigh, London, and Ap-Rice, were the principal employed about the monks and nuns, and Richard Thorn- ton, Bishop-suffragan of Dover, the chief " visitor of the friars." There were, however, many others employed who are found act- ing sometimes separately from these, who appear to be the chief, and sometimes in conjunction with them. Some of the reports are signed by six or seven names. § 5. The period of visitation embraces upwards of three years, beginning October 1535, and ending towards the close of 1538. It may be divided into three main portions — (1.) The first visita- tion in the autumn of 1535, in order to get up the case which formed the foundation of the Act of Suppression, passed February 1536. (2.) The second visitation, by commissioners acting under the Court of Augmentations established by the Act, carried out 1 Herbert's Sennj Fill. p. 185 (ed. Kennett). 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 123 during 1536, to accomplish the demolition of the abbeys sup- pressed by the Act of Parliament, to pension off their inmates, and to encourage and promote, if possible, by the detection of scandals, the resignation of the greater abbeys, which, in case of their resignation, were given to the king by the preceding Act. (3.) The third visitation, beginning in the summer of 1537, after the suppression, of the northern rebellion, to inquire into any complicity the monastery might have had in the rising, to search for and seize upon any pretended relics or sacred images, and, generally, to intimidate the monks into resignation, in which it was almost completely successful. § 6. A great number of the letters and notices relating to these visitations being without dates, it is almost impossible to assign to them all their proper places. It wdll be better, therefore, to group some of these interesting notices under various heads, rather than attempt to arrange them chronologically. Treated thus they will serve to illustrate — (a.) The alleged immorality of the monastic orders ; {h.) Their financial condition ; (c.) Their state of discipline ; {d.) They will throw some light on the point as to how far the commissioners acted fairly, and how far Crumwell's hands were clean in the matter, (a.) First, as to the alleged im- morality of the orders. — Out of the vast number of monks and nuns at that time professed in England, it would be simply ridi- culous to suppose that no cases of immorality would be forth- coming when carefully sought for. Many of the " religious " were professed young, before they knew their own powers of restraint ; many were professed against their will, with no desire to keep their rule, and ready to seize any oj)portunity for license. And as to the abbots, against whom the charges of immorality seem to preponderate. As the societies often elected their own heads, the most lax and indulgent of the body would no doubt be frequently chosen by the monks, and the same sort of persons would, as a rule, recommend themselves to lay patrons for promotion to the headship. The abbots also had more license to go abroad in the world than the monks, so that it is nothing more than would naturally be looked for, if we find the abbots oftener charged with immorality than others. There is, therefore, no reason entirely to discredit the stories against the morals of the monks reported in the letters of the visitors to Crumwell. It is d iiriori certain that there must have been immoralities. The chief, and in fact the only, question is as to what proportion these cases of immorality bore to the whole number of the religious. Now, the actual bill of indictment against the monks being the report laid before Par- liament after the first visitation, which is known by the name of 124 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VIII tlie " Black Book," was carefully destroyed in Queen Mary's time. "We know, however, its general purport, whicli was, that if all the religious persons in England were divided into three parts, two parts at least of the three would be found guilty of abominable and unmentionable crimes. i This was the purport of the report laid before Parliament, but it was an utterly unreliable document. For, first, the persons making it had no sufficient knowledge ; the visitation (so-called) was made for the whole of England in a few months. Secondly, There was no judicial investigation of cases or balancing of evidence, so that any spiteful lie might be allowed to establish a fact. Thirdkj, The commissioners were sent to get up a case, or, as Lord Herbert expresses it, to " find means to make the monasteries obnoxious," so that there is reason to think that they invited and welcomed scandals. Fourthly, The commissioners were mostly men of bad character. Leighton, raised from poverty by Crumwell, had already shown himself unscrupulous. ^ Leigh is accused by his brother commissioner of taking enormous bribes, and of being overweeningly proud and conceited, using the monks with great severity.^ London is freely censured for licentious living,* is said to have solicited nuns, and was afterwards convicted of perjury. There is, therefore, no good ground for accepting the statements of the Black Book as fully reliable. But could those statements have been publicly made, and would they have been accepted, without indignant j^rotest, even by a prejudiced Parlia- ment, if they had not been " founded on fact " ? We can hardly conceive it possible. Full of misstatements, as the report doubt- less was, there yet must have been some truth in it. The follow- ing are some of the cases of scandal with which we have the " re- ligious " charged : — Notorious profligacy is imputed to the nuns of Sion and their confessor ;5 to the Abbot of Maiden Bradley, who was said to have six sons who waited on him ;^ to the Warden of the Cruched Friars j'' to the Abbot of Walden ;8 to the Abbot of Fountains ;» to the Abbot of Bury, who is described as a gambler and as never preaching ; ^*^ to the nuns of Chicksand ;^^ to the nuns of Harwold ;^^ to various houses of nuns in Lincolnshire.-^^ At Ensham Abbey it is said that " almost all kinds of ^dce were rampant ;"^* while the Abbot of Langdon and his doings are ^ The Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Soc), p. 114. 2 In the matter of Bishop Fisher, whom he was employed to entrap when in prison. 3 ^^jjg^ Q^,ig^ Letters, ii. (Series 3), 354. ^ By Ai'chdeacon Louthe, in Nicholls' Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc) ^ Suppression, p. 47. ^ Ih. j). 58. 7 Ih. p. 60. 8 Ih. p. 76. « lb. p. 100. i^ j^,, p. 35. 11 lb. p. 91. 12 xb. p. 92. 13 ijy^ p_ 214. 14 Ellis, Orig. Letters, iii. (Series 3), 37. 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 125 described in siicli a manner by Dr. Leigliton that the grossness of the thing staggers our belief. ^ Besides the more open forms of profligacy, some abbots are noted for grievous dilapidations and alienating property j^ and one house is described as having a re- gular establishment for coining money .^ Accusations of idleness, ignorance, tij)j)ling, and so forth, are frequent. From the register of Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, a bishop who had no reforming tendencies, we gather the following facts as to several monasteries in his diocese, to which the bishop addressed lengthy " injunc- tions," still preserved in their entirety. First, Missenden, a con- vent of Augustinian canons. The canons were ignorant, and did not know Latin. They roamed about the country day and night. The house was dilapidated, filthy, and stinking. The abbot's kins- folk preyed upon the revenues. The canons gave great cause of scandal by their intimacy with the J^oung boys that were being educated there. No rules or ceremonial were observed. The brethren were allowed to live "lasciviously" abroad, anywhere they pleased. They wore " guarded and welted hose, stuffed cod- pieces and jerkins." Neither abbot nor prior attempted to enforce discipline. Second, Ulnestowe, convent of nuns. The priests re- sorted to the convent at all times and associated with the nuns. The gates of the convent were not kept shut. The buildings of the monastery were out of repair. The abbess took her meals in the buttery with the steward and other secular persons. The nuns wore on their heads " cornered crests," discarded the veil, wore " voided shoes " and red stomachers. Third, Nun Cottam, convent of nuns. The services were gabbled without devotion at un- seemly times. There were quarrels among the inmates. There were great disorders. The Lord of Misrule was entertained in the convent. ]\Ien dressed up as nuns. The prioress's kinsfolk lived off the convent. The chaplains had private keys. The nuns wandered abroad, whereby much scandal had come — some to Thorn- ton, some to Newsum, some to Hull — so that often only six were left in the house to perform the services. ]\Ien visited at the convent (names of several are given). Prioress made no account ; kept an inordinate quantity of servants. All the buildings were fallen to decay. Boys were taught in the convent. Corrodies were granted to a great extent by the prioress. She had sold much of the plate belonging to the convent. Fourth, Stadley, convent of nuns. The nuns were very ignorant of their service ; were in the habit of going out of the convent ; brought strangers into the convent. The house was in great debt, and the buildings 1 Ellis, Orig. Letters, lit. (Series 3), 165. 8 Suppression, pp. 100, 174. ^ Tb. 138. 126 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. YIII. in decay. Corrodies granted by tlie prioress. She had far too many servants. The veil not used, or not of a fitting form.i These charges, from a source which does not admit of suspicion, hut which were founded on investigations made in the bishop's visita- tion, abundantly show that there was very great disorder in some house?. But, on the other hand, it may be urged that the fact of a very large number of houses in his diocese being left by Bishop Longland without censure (at least so far as his Register bears witness), implies that in the great majority there was nothing specially to find fault with. The same may also be inferred to some extent from the report of the visitors. Even their unfriendly eyes could detect nothing but good at Bruton and Glastonbury, which hath " long been full honourable ;"2 at Hamsey, where they "live uprightly after the best sort of living of religious folks ;"^ at Catesby, where the house of nuns was " in very perfect order j"^ at Pollesworth,^ at Hales,^ at Brewerne,'' and at Godstow.s Upon the whole therefore, so far as the letters published go, there is no overwhelming case of immorality made out against the abbeys ; perhaps not more than we might reasonably expect among so great a number, living an idle life, often under no pretence of discipline. (&.) The next point which may be illustrated from the published letters is the financial condition of the religious houses. Among the numerous monastic chronicles which have been published, there is probably not one that does not tell us of the debts of the house. It was indeed barely possible for a monastery to keep out of debt, so great and sudden were the exactions to which it was often exposed from Rome, which exercised a tyranni- cal sway over all religious houses, or from the king, who was little scrupulous as to how the money was obtained, so long as it was brought into his exchequer. All the houses censured by Bishop Longland appear to have been in great debt, while their buildings were running fast to decay. Leicester Abbey is noted as deeply indebted,^ as also St. Andrew's at Northampton ;-^*^ while the vast revenues of Fountains and St. Alban's had not kept them out of the same difficulty. Of the latter the commissioners report that " the house is in such debt we think no man will take the office of abbot upon him." ^-^ The houses of the friars were as a rule much poorer than those of the monks. These were almost all 1 From Bishop Longland's Eegister, MS,, Lincoln, S. A. 1530, 1, 2. 2 Supiiression, pp. 59, 64. '^ lb. p. 98. ^ /j, p, 129. 5 /^ p_ 139^ ^ lb. p. 236. 7 Ellis, Orig. Letters, iii. (Series 3), 38. ^ lb. (3) 233. Dr. London himself intercedes for Godstow, which seerus to have been a model house, and a famous school for well-born young women. — Suppression, p. 228. ^ Siqopression, p. 163. 10/6. p. 173. 11 lb. p. 250 1 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 127 deeply in debt, and in some cases liad pawned their relics and sacred vessels to raise money.^ The spreading of the reformed opinions had no doubt greatly cut off the supplies from the friars, and they would soon have died from inanition even if they had not been suppressed, (c.) As regards the state of discipline in the religious houses, we may gather from the notices which remain and are accessible that it was almost non-existent. When the king's injunctions^ were applied to a house, although they were not stricter than their own rules, the burden became intolerable to the monks and nuns, and in most cases a surrender quickly followed. That to which the monks were most bitterly opposed was the being " enclosed," and not allowed any intercourse with the outside world. Yet this is one of the fundamental laws of all monastic rules. " I have in all places that I have been at," writes Dr. Leigh, " according to mine instructions, restrained as well the heads and masters of the same places as the brethren from going forth of the precinct of the said places, which I assure you grieveth the said heads not a little."^ By the visiting and roaming about the country then common among the religious of both sexes, the keeping u]3 of their constantly recurring services would be much interfered with, and the general state of discipline would suffer Thus at Nun Cottam there were often only six sisters left in the house to attend the services. The corrodies, or assignments of rent-charges for particular persons on the revenues of an abbey, which were made sometimes by the king,* sometimes by the patrons of the house, but more commonly by the heads of the religious houses themselves, would also interfere with discipline. If the recipients of these life-grants dwelt in the monastery, they would prove a practical impediment in the way of order. If, as in the case of Sir Thomas More and Glastonbury, they dwelt away from the abbey, and merely drew a rent from it, they would seriously interfere with its resources. Thus it is not surprising that we hear great complaints of want of discipline. The Abbot of Wardon complains that his monks are reprobate and unmanage- able. The Prior of Bodmin writes, " I am sore disquieted ^ Suppression, p. 211. 2 The king's injuiictious left at all religious houses after the visitation, as well as the articles of visitatiou, 86 in number, are printed in Burnet's Records, i, iii. 1, 2, as also in Wilkins. ^ Siqyprc-ssion, p. 56. "^ e.g. "Grant of a corrody within the monastery of Parshore to John Ashkyrke, yeoman of the body, Beds, lately held by John Young, brewer." — Calendar of State Tapers, i. 9, There are numerous examples. Sir Thomas More had a corrody of £5 on Glastonbury, After his execution Abbot Whiting sent it among other delicate bribes, of whicli he administered a great many to Crumwell. 128 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VIII. ■with a set of unthirifty canons, which of long continuance have lived unthriftily and against the good order of religion, to the great slander of the same, as all the country can tell."^ The Abbot of Furness declares — " I, Eoger, abbot of the monastery of Furness, knowing the misorder and evil life both unto God and our prince of the brethren of the said monastery."^ The house at Newburgh was " far indebted and behindhand by the great misorder and negligence of the said late j)rior there," and "none of the house was meet to be ruler thereof." s Assuming the truth of the state- ment in the preamble of the Dissolution Act, that in some of the great " solemn " houses "religion was well kept," it may safely be also assumed that in the majority of the smaller houses the "reli- gious life," technically so-called, was practically obsolete. In connection with this we must take the frequent instances men- tioned by the commissioners of religious persons ardently urging to be dismissed from their houses, even where they did not come under the ojDeration of the Act. We hear of monks " kneeling on their knees and earnestly beseeching to be let go ;" * of no small numbers wanting to be let go ; " ^ of nuns desiring the same. Many of these, as Dr. London points out, were professed at a very early age,^ and were eager to be free from a burden which they had not themselves cliosen. (d.) As to the last point noted for illustration by the published letters, it is evident that Crumwell openly and eagerly took bribes on all sides. The idea of the poor religious was to propitiate the powerful minister on behalf of their house that it might be spared in the general destruction, or that it might be refounded as a college. Thus the Abbot of Eewley (near Oxford) writes to him, " All my refuge, help, and succour is in you, glad of my voluntary mind to be bound in obligation of one hundred pounds to be paid to your mastership, so that our house may be saved, although it be converted into more of a col- lege to have both learning and learned men go forwards therein."'^ Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, the most magnificent of aU the abbeys in England, whose state was more like that of a prince than a humble follower of St. Benedict, as though prescient of his coming fate, endeavours assiduously to appease Crumwell. He ^ Suppressiooi, p. 130. 2 jj^ ^ i53_ ^ Duke of Norfolk to Crumwell. — Ih. p. 155. There are no stories among the letters on the suppression so bad, and no picture of a " religious " house so startling, as that which is given at length in the Chronicle of Eves- nam by Thomas of Marlborough, monk, and afterwards abbot of that house, written in the thirteenth century. Edited for the Rolls Series by Mr. Macray, * Supp7rssio7i, p. 82, 5 lb. p. 99. See Ellis' Orig. Letters, iil (3), 119, 132, 236, 272, 381. * Suppression, p. 214. ''lb. p. 73. 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 129 sends liirr, the gift of the advowson of Monkton ;^ the yearly rent- charge held by Sir Thomas J\Iore, with the payment of tlic arrears due ; ^ a message that he may offer the king the abbot's parks for sporting in ; ^ and again the advowson of Netilton.^ Some think much more modest gifts may suffice. Thus the Abbot of Croy- land, in the fens of Lincolnshire, sends a present of fish ; ^ while the abbot of Leicester offers the substantial douceur oi a "brace of fat oxen and a score of fat wethers." ^ The Abbot of Michelney offers one hundred pounds, a very large bribe ;" while the Abbess of Shaftes- bury and the Abbot of Cerne think that two-thirds of that sum may prove enough, and offer each a hundred marks,^ The visitors were no doubt equally amenable to bribes as their master. Ap-Rice complains against Leigh that the bribes he always exacted were excessive ;^ and as it would seem that even in the monasteries which were not ordered to be suppressed, the visitors usually packed up all the jewels and ornaments that they could lay their hands on for the king's use, their visit must have ordinarily had the effect of completely impoverishing an abbey. No doubt it was deli- berately intended that it should have this effect, in order to facili- tate surrenders. This is plainly avowed by the Bishop Suffragan of Dover, " the visitor of the friars." After recounting his method of 25roceeding, which was to seize upon their valuables and to carry off the seal of the house, that they might grant no leases, he adds, " So that I think, ere the year be out, there shall be very few houses able to live, but shall be glad to give up their houses and provide themselves otherwise, for they shall have no living." ^^ § 7. Such wag the general character of the visitation of the monasteries. Enough was supposed to have been done in the matter between October 1535 when it began, and the commence- ment of the next year, to warrant the framing and bringing into Parliament of the famous Bill for the Suppression of the Smaller Houses. The exact date at which the bill was brought in does not appear, but it passed towards the end of February 1536, the mitred abbots in the House of Lords offering no opposition, in the vain hope that their smaller brethren might prove a scapegoat for tliemselves. Stokesley, Bishop of London, is said to have re- marked at the time of the bill passing that " the putrified old oaks must needs follow ;" ^^ so that even the bishops most attached to the old state of things had no word of pity for the monasteries, which had rendered themselves odious to the Episcopal order by their 1 Ellis, Orig. Letters, ii. (3), 348. ^ j^, 349. 3 ji, 373. 4 fi, 379 = Sujjpression, p. 152. " Ellis, ii. (3), 320. ^ lb. 334. ^ lb. iii. 230. ^ lb. ii, 356. ^^ Sui:)2^rcssion of Monasteries, p. 194. ■^^ Grafton's CJironicle quoted Suppression of Monasteries, p. 107. K 130 SUPPEESSION OF THE MONASTEPJES. Chap. VIII. exemptions and encroachments. The Act was entitled " An Act whereby religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, which may dispend manors, lands, tenements and hereditaments under the clear yearly value of X200 are given to the king's highness, his heirs, and executors for ever."^ § 8. Though only dealing with the smaller houses in the first place, it did in fact seal the fate of all the monasteries in Eng- land. All must have seen that the size of the house could not be an unerring test of its virtue or vice. More than that, every one in the country must have known that it was not the evil lives of the monks, but the king's want of money and his thickening strife with Eome which brought the measure about. § 9. The Act, therefore, was based on a misrepresentation, and it enacted w^hat was and ever must be a moral injustice, although the legislative powers may make it technically legal — viz., an interference with the rights of property. In the case of cor- porate bodies holding property, the State can indeed, under certain circumstances, rightly interfere with the tenure. But it is a completely unjustifiable interference with the rights of property to injure the life-interests of the occupants, and it cannot be reasonably urged that the summary ejectment from the ancient and venerable home, the abrupt and violent cutting away their former status, and sending them to a new life — that all this was com- pensated for by the small pensions allowed to the monks and nuns, and the chance of entering another monastery if they could get any to receive them. These poor men and women were cast forth into the world defamed and disgraced, branded wdtli every foul accusation, and held up to the scorn of mankind. How were they to find employment, and out of what materials were they to construct for themselves a new life ? Some of them were in orders, but there was often no proof of this ; and the rectors of churches were not willing to take them as curates, nor the bishops to suffer them to act. Others were laymen, but they had passed the best part of their lives without learning any trade or profession, and how were they now to begin ? The suppression of the monasteries was indeed an enormous boon to the nation, but it might easily have been accom- plished without the revolting injustice which, as it w^as carried out, did in fact attend it.^ ^ For the Act of Suppression, see Notes and Illustrations at the end of tills chapter. ^ " If Henry had been content with prohibiting the profession of religious persons for the future, and had gradually diverted their revenues instead of violently confiscating them, no Protestant would have found it easy to con- sure his policy. It is impossible to feed too much indignation at the spirit in v.-hich these proceedings were conducted." — Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 74. 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTEEIES. 131 § 10. Between the passing of this Act and the bull obtained by Wolsey for the suppression of forty small religious houses there had been some dissolutions and resignations of monasteries. The larger scheme of Wolsey, for which bulls had been granted in 1528, had never been acted upon, but in 1532 the king obtained a bull from the pope for founding six bishoprics out of abbeys, and Burnet supposes that it was by virtue of the authority of this, that the priory of Christchurch, Aldgate, was dissolved in 1533 and given to Sir Thomas Audley.^ In 1534 the order of the Observant Franciscans, which had shown great opposition to the king's mar- riage with Anne Boleyn was suppressed throughout England.^ § 11. After the visitation had begim the first house resignied was Langdon, in which great disorders had been found (Nov. 13). Then followed Folkestone (Nov. 15), Dover (Nov. 16). Merton in Yorkshire, Bilsington in Kent, Tilty in Essex, Hornby in Yorkshire, were surrendered in the following February .3 In March the Act came into operation, and its proceedings were of a sweeping character. § 12. For the gathering in of the spoil a new court was erected, called the " Court of Augmentations of the King's Revenue ; " con- sisting of a chancellor, treasurer, an attorney or solicitor, ten audi- tors, seventeen receivers, a clerk, an usher, and a messenger. It had its seal, and full power to dispose of the lands and buildings of the abbeys in the way most profitable to the king. § 13. The first large abbey which surrendered was Furness, in Lancashire. This had originally been a foundation of Grey monks of the Savigniac order, but the Savigniacs became incorporated with the Cistercians, and took the white dress. For centuries, therefore, Furness had been Cistercian. But the supposed extra strictness of that order had not availed to save Furness from great scandals. The abbot in making the surrender asserts, not in the stereotyped form in which so many houses were made to cen- sure their own misdeeds, but in a straightforward and simple man- ner, that he knows the " misorder and evil life of the brethren."^ § 14. The houses surrendered, or dissolved by the Act, as being under the yearly value of ^200, were visited immediately by commissioners, a copy of whose instructions remains." They are to receive the cession of the house from the monks, to take exact ^ Burnet, Reformation, i. 92, 141. It was a somewhat singular way of carrying out a power to erect new bishoprics. - Ellis, Orifj. Letters, iii. (3), 346. Father Peto, one of the Observants, who had made himself conspicuous in preaching against it, escaped beyond sea. (Ellis, Orig. Letters. ) Forrest was executed some time after. This order was specially devoted to Queen Catherine, who had often taken part in their services at Greenwich. The king at one time thought more highly of them than of any other order. ^ Burnet, i. 142. ^ SupiJression of Monasteries, p. 153. ' Burnet, liecords, i. iii. vt 132 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VI II. inventories of all its possessions, to ascertain which of the monks desired "capacities" for entering secular life and receiving a pension, which of them desired to enter other houses of religion. Of all these matters the commissioners were to certify the Court of Aug- mentations, which was then to issue its final directions for the con- version of the house to the king's use. § 1 5. A copy of the certificate sent for Tew^kesbury Abbey, which was surrendered, printed by Burnet from the books of the Augmentation Court, shows us how this part of the work was per- formed. There were seven commissioners, three of whom might act for the rest. After reciting the date of surrender, January 9 (1539), the clear yearly value of the possessions of the monastery (" over and above £l36 : 8 : 1, annuities and custodies, granted to divers persons by letters patent under the convent seal of the said monastery for the term of their lives "^) is put at £1595 : 15 : 6. Then the " pensions assigned to the late religious dispatched," — John Witch, late abbot . . £266 13 4^ J. Beley, late prior . 16 0 0 J. Bromsgrove, late prior of Deleliurst 13 6 8 E. Circester, prior of St. James, 13 6 8 N. Did cote, prior of Crauborne 10 0 0 E. Chellenhem, B.D. 10 0 0 Two Monks £8 each . 16 0 0 One Monk 7 0 0 27 Monks £6:13:4 each . 180 0 0 £551 6 8 And so remains clear . . . £1044 8 10 Then follows the list of the houses and buildings delivered over to the custody of the receiver, and then a list of the buildings " deemed to be superfluous." Among these we find " the church, with chapels, cloister, chapter-house, misericord," etc. Then the estimate of the lead upon the church and chapels, the bells in the steeples, the jewels, plate, and ornaments reserved for the king's use. A book of certain articles sold (furniture, etc.), amounting to <£l94 : 8s. " Payment to thirty religious of the monastery, his majesty's reward," ^80 : 13 : 4 ; to 144 late servants of the monastery for their wages and liveries, £75 : 10 : 0 ; debts of the monastery for necessaries, .£18:12:0; leaving clear from the amount realised by sale, £19 : 12 : 8.^ § 16. But, besides these two stages, there remained yet a third stage in the process of dissolution, viz. the work of the receiver ^ This granting of corrodies or life-interests probably crippled very much most of the monasteries. ^ This is an enormous sum, if we regard the penny of Henry VIII. as equal to the shilling of Queen Victoria. ^ Burnet, Records, i. iii. 3. 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MOTTASTERIES. 133 appointed by the commissioners to carry out that which they had ordered — to pull down the churches, sell the lead and bells, etc. ; and, generally, to convert everything possible into ready money for the king's use. In the Stippressioji of Monasteries is printed the account of one of these receivers, ^Mr. John Scudamore, which throws much light on the process. The lists of sales present a curious jumble of rich ecclesiastical vestments, chalices, and patens, with brewing utensils, beds, and brass pots ; the prices realised appearing to be usually very small. Copes and vestments might be had at sixpence or a shilling a piece, and the whole materials of a church (excepting lead and bells, which were carefully re- tained) would fetch from £20 to £30. Sometimes the taking down of the church did not prove so easy a matter, so well and solidly had the skilful monkish architects erected their buildings. i Occasionally the work was even abandoned as not worth the expense. The vast amount of lead and bell-metal suddenly thrown into the market had the effect of ruining the proprietors of the lead mines, while, from the difficulty of transporting such heavy goods, the sum realised to the exchequer was but small. § 1 7. Contemporary writers give touching pictures of the sights and scenes which must have been everywhere prevalent while this desolating process was going on.^ The tendency of the people to pillage is noted almost everywhere by the commissioners. Neither is this to be wondered at. The people of the neighbour- hood thought that if the monasteries were to be pulled down, and if they were thus to become losers of their doles and charities, they had as much right to help themselves to some of the " stuff " as the king, who greedily claimed all. § 18. The monks w^ho elected to take capacities and embrace secular life had pensions assigned to them, to be paid out of the Court of Augmentations, averaging about £4. The nuns received on an average somewhat less. The abbots were pensioned at much higher rates.^ But even supposing the pensions sufficient to provide the " religious " with bare support, what was their life henceforward to be ? What could become of the large number of friendless women thus thrust violently into the world 1 ^ § 19. The first great sweep of the houses under £200 a year, amounting in nimiber to 376, produced, as is supposed, about ^ Siqjpression, p. 180. ^ See Notes and Illustrations at the end of this chapter. ^ Tewkesbury, quoted ahove as £266, is the highest I have ol)served. Mr. Hallani says they varied from £266 to £6. See Liiigard, vi. 341. ■* A considerable number of houses for nuns were re founded liy the king's letters-patent after the dissolution, but these soon disappeared willi the rest. 134 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VIII. .£32,000 annual revenue to the Crown ; and from tlie valuables, jewels, jDlate, lead, and bells, etc., about £100,000 was obtained.^ § 20. But this accession of revenue was somewhat dearly pur- chased. The immediate effect of it was to produce a rebellion in the north, which became a serious peril to the State. § 21. On the suppression of the rebellion twelve abbots were hung, drawn, and quartered, for alleged complicity in it ; and in the summer of 1537^ the visitors started afresh to visit the remain- ing larger monasteries, with the object of either proving their com- plicity in the late rebellion, and thus bringing the houses to an end as the harbourage of traitors, or, if that did not avail, of frightening the occupants into a surrender to avoid all possible evil consequences. Dr. Leighton writes to Crumwell, requesting that he and Dr. Leigh might be employed in this visitation in the north, as they were familiar with those parts, and none knew the work better.^ Their request was complied with, and they quickly made their authority severely felt. There was now the vague and terrible charge of treason hanging over the monks, an all-powerful weapon in the hands of unscrupulous commissioners, and threats and terrorism were unsparingly used to frighten them into a sur- render.* Any attempt to conceal the treasures of the house, or to dispose of any of them for the use of the society, was regarded as a flagrant crime. Another point was also to be carefully looked to by the visitors. § 22. They were to incjuire after and expose, with a view of exciting popular contempt against the monks, all the pretendc^d relics, holy images, and other gross pieces of trickery with which the ignorant and superstitious people had long been deluded. A large number of the most grotesque and absurd relics and sacred images are mentioned in the letters of the commissioners. Lord Herbert has brought them together in a list, which may suffice to show the extravagances of devotion which the monastic system had 1 Herbert's Eenry VIII. p. 192. ^ Supjjression of Monasteries, p. 156. ^ Ih. p. 156. ^ The way in -which the resignation of the monasteries was brought abont is well illustrated by the following letter : — "We think it shall be meet that some order be taken for the remotion of the monks now being in the same house (Whalley), and that we should take the whole house into our own liands, as by our laws we be justly, by the attainder of the late abbot, entitled unto it. . . . Wherefore our pleasure is, that 3'ou shall with good dexterity lay unto the charges of all the monks there their grievous offences towards us and our commonwealth, and thereby assay their minds whether they will conform themselves gladly for the redubbiug of their for- mer trespasses to go to other houses of their coat, where they shall be well entreated, or else whether they will rather take capacities, and so receive secular habit. " — King to Earl of Sussex. State Papers, Henry VIII. vii. 540. 1536-1539. SUrPRESSIO^ OF THE MONASTERIES. 135 upheld.^ By means of showing these things it was hoped that public opinion would be much excited against tlie monasteries, and that the monks for very shame would be anxious to quit their discredited mode of life. § 23. And, in fact, the resignations of abbeys went on apace during 1537 and 1538, so that by the end of that year very few were left. The first Act of Dissolution had given to tlie king all houses which might be voluntarily surrendered within a year. It was, therefore, now necessary to have another Act confirming these later surrenders. § 24. Accordingly, in the spring of 1539, an Act was passed to this effect. This Act saves and makes valid all leases and grants except those made within a year of the surrender of the abbey, which it invalidates. It is often called the second Act of Dissolution, but it did not dissolve any monasteries, but merely regulated voluntary transfers. § 25. It was no doubt thought that the whole of the houses in the country would be acquired by this voluntary process, but some of the abbots still held out, and these had to be destroyed on one j)retence or another. Among the last abbots put to death on the charge of treason were John Beche, Abljot of St. John's, at Col- chester, and Hugh Cook, Abbot of Eeading. § 26. But the most remarkable, and the one whose fate excited the most commiseration, was Richard Wliiting, Abbot of Glaston- bury. Glastonbury was a house of great magnificence ; order and devotion were well preserved there. Its abljot, whose position was that of a great lord, was a man without reproach. Yet, by a gross perversion of justice, Abbot Whiting was convicted of trea- son for hiding away the property of his own church in money and jewels, executed on Tor Hill, and his quarters distributed to four of the chief towns in Somersetshire. Truly, not all the good which afterwards resulted from setting free the land from the crippling effects due to the inordinate extension of this antiquated system, could excuse such foul acts of injustice, done in the outraged names of religion and law. § 27. " The suppression of the monasteries," says Mr. Hallam, " poured in an instant such a torrent of wealth upon the Crown as has seldom been equalled in any country by the confiscations following a subdued rebellion. The clear yearly value was rated at c£l31,607, but was in reality, if we believe Burnet, ten times as great ; the courtiers undervaluing these estates in order to obtain grants or sales of them more easily. It is certain, however, that Burnet's supposition errs extravagantly on the other side. The 1 Herbert's Henry VIII. p. 213 {crp. Keimett.) 136 SCJPPEESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. VIIT. moveables of the smaller monasteries alone were reckoned at £100,000, and as the rents of these were less than a fourth of the whole, we may calculate the aggregate value of moveable wealth in the same proportion." 1 A writer, well skilled in such calcula- tions, holds that the monks actually possessed about one-fifth of the kingdom, but tliat in value, on account of their long leases, they had not quite a tenth. ^ The number of religious houses, properly so called, not counting the '^ hospitals " and " colleges," which were afterwards dealt with, is put by Speed at 605. § 28. The mitred abbots, of course, ceased to sit in Parliament after the fall of their abbeys. They well deserved their exclusion. Not one of them had spirit enough to remonstrate in his place in Parliament against the proceedings taken in the matter, and they were quite willing to sacrifice their poorer brethren in the vain hope of saving themselves. The number of the abbots and priors summoned to Parliament as barons, varied, but they considerably outnumbered the bishops, and, when joined with them, a little outnumbered the lay lords. ^ Thus this change had the eff'ect of completely altering the character of the House of Lords, which before this was almost an ecclesiastical assembly. § 29. Another change, which ought immediately to have taken place, mifortunately was not made. The monks had been long the apjjropriators of the tithes of churches. When the monastery ceased to exist, on every principle of justice the tithes should have been restored to the parochial clergy. But these were part of the king's spoil, and were grasped and held by greedy hands. " In no one instance, I believe," says Mr. Hallam, " were the impro- priations restored to the parochial clergy, and they have passed into the hands of laymen, or of bishops and other ecclesiastical persons, who were frequently compelled by the Tudor princes to take them in exchange for lands." * This was the most reprehen- sible matter in the distribution of the funds. ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 75. This would make the moveables worth (about) £400,000, or, in the value of modern money, £4,800,000. Putting the yearly value at £140,000, which is somewhat less than Tanner's calcula- tion in Notitia Monastica, and assuming that the estates were worth twenty years' purchase, we get a gross gain (in modern value) of £38,400,000. . ^ Harmer's Ohscrvations on Burnet ; Hallam, note. Const. Hist. i. 75. ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 72. The House of Lords, on the meeting of the Eeformation Parliament, consisted of the following : — TemjDoral peers . . . . 44 Bisbops . . . . . 18 ) Guardians of spiritualties . . . 2 > 48 Abbots and priors . . . 28 ) — 92 — Amos, Reformation Parliament, p. 3. ^ Const. Hist. i. 76. Mary's praiseworthy determiuation to restore 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 137 § 30. The policy recommended by Crumwell with politic wisdom, of granting to the nobles and chief men of the country the abbey lands, either as gifts or as easy purchases, had very important consequences. For, first, it ensured the stability of the work in such a way that neither papist rulers nor popes themselves ventured to try to reverse it ; and, in the second place, it was of the highest value to the civil constitution, " strengthening, and as it were infusing new blood into the territorial aristocracy, who were to withstand the enormous prerogative of the crown." ^ The abbey lands not only reinvigorated the old nobility, which after the wars of the Roses had become almost powerless in the State, but they gave new strength and life to the most valuable class in the land, the country gentlemen, to whom so much of the after greatness of England is due. Henceforth Parliaments could not be altogether made up of the " king's creatures," and overweening royal power would be held in check. The very extravagance and recklessness displayed by the king as regards these funds proved indeed not without its use. An immense sum of money in the hands of the Crown, preserved as Henry VII. would have pre- served it, would have been an unmitigated evil for the nation ; but squandered as Henry VIII. squandered it, it resulted in good. § 31. This consideration, however, does not in the least acquit the king of blame for unjust dealing towards the Church, as well as extravagant waste in the disposition of these funds. As regards bishoprics only a distant approach was in fact made to the original plan of Wolsey. Six new sees were founded ; the king's first scheme, which contemplated several more, having been abandoned.^ The places selected were Westminster, Oseney, near Oxford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Peterborough. This left some of the old dioceses, and specially the diocese of Lincoln, in huge and un- manageable proportions. An Act of Parliament was passed enabling the king to erect sees by letters patent as he pleased, or to make other useful applications of the abbey funds, which are specified. The king seems to have been satisfied with enumerating many of the good uses to which these funds might be applied (the draft of the Act being in his own hand), without troubling himself to carry them out. But the erection of the six sees, with the chapters these to the Church, and the Act of Parliament which legalised it, were with- out result in the plundering days of Queen Elizabeth. ^ Hallam, u.s. ^ See the paper printed in Burnet, which was written in the king's own hand. A bull for erecting six bishoprics had been obtained from Piome in 1532, and the king seems to have recurred to his original intention. Burnet, Hist. Reformation, i. 192. Westminster only existed for ten years, and on the promotion of its first bishop to Norwich, was seized in tlie still more grasping days of Edward. 138 SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. Chap. A^III. appended to them, did not represent the whole of the application that was made of these funds to religious and charitable purposes. Some of the old monasteries wete erected into collegiate churches, of which Beverley, Eipon, Manchester, Wolverhampton, and Southwell, were the most remarkable ; and, at the intercession of Sir Eichard Gresham, St. Bartholomew's and St. Thomas's hospitals, with their grand revenues, were preserved for the use of the poor. Besides this, many of the most beautiful abbey churches were either saved by private munificence, or by the king's grants, to serve as parish churches.-^ Some grammar schools were also erected by Henry. § 32. The great and grievous hardship fell chiefly upon the dis- inherited " religious," many of whom doubtless went to swell the number of vagrants and mendicants, against whom such severe laws were enacted in this reign. But as the first of these savage laws was enacted long before the dissolution of the monasteries was contemplated, it is hardly just to set them down as measures which were held to be necessitated by it. § 33. At the time of the dissolution of the religious houses, everything being plundered and sold, among other more ignoble property, the stores of precious manuscripts and rare printed books which some of the houses had accumulated, went to any chance customers. Had it not been for the labours of the " king's anti- quary," John Leland, who, during all the period of the dissolution was making his " laborious journey," cataloguing and examining manu- scripts, and extracting their most curious contents — still more, had it not been for the work of John Bale, who, accompanying Leland, was getting into his possession many of the most valuable monu- ments of English history,^ infinite loss might have ensued. Yet, though much mischief was done which could not be repaired, there was nevertheless a compensating good effected, which perhaps more than outweighed it. For it was by this rude shock that the his- torical works of the monks became known, and by degrees got into print ; and those that remained in manuscript having fallen into the hands of more careful guardians than the monks sometimes were, have survived to our day, and are at present supplying us with a rich harvest of monastic lore. ^ ■•■ Many of these will occur to every reader — St. Albaus, Sherborne, Worksop, Malvern, StoAV, and Croyland, are examples, 2 The titles of the rich collection of these which Bale succeeded in ob- taining are printed at the end of his Scriptores. For the value of his work, see Sir F. Madden, preface to Hist. Anglorum, p. 23. ^ The chronicles of the abbeys of Abingdon, Evesham, Meaux, St. Alban's, Winchester, Waverley, Tewkesbury, Dunstable, Burton, Oseney, Worcester, Bermondsey, Margan, and others, have been lately published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 1536-1539. SUPPRESSION" OF THE MONASTERIES. 139 § 34. The natural regrets for the destruction of the monasteries and the spoiling of their goods, have, when fairly examined, a con- siderable amount of compensating good to bo set over against them. Indeed, had the suppression been effected by fairer means, and with due regard to existing interests, allowing the generation then in possession to die out in their old homes, and merely prohibiting new professions ; had the measure been saved from the slanders, scandals, trickery, and cruelty which in fact disgraced it, those who have regard for the highest interests of the Church and nation would have been able to rejoice over it with an almost unmixed feeling of .LTi'atitude and thankfulness. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE ACT FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SJIALLER MONASTERIES. 27 Hekry VIII. c. 28. The preamble runs thus : — " Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, canial, and abominable living, is daily used and com- mitted amongst the little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons, whereby the governors of such religious houses and their convent, spoil, destroy, consume, and utterly waste as well their chui'ches, monasteries, priories, principal houses, farms, granges, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, as the ornaments of their churches, and their goods and cattle, to tlie high displeasure of Almighty God, slander of good religion, and to the great infamy ofthe king's highness and the I'ealm, if redress should not be had thereof ; and albeit that many continual visitations have been heretofore had by the space of two hundred years and more, yet nevertheless little or none amendment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamelessly in- creaseth and augmentcth, and by a cursed custom so rooted and infested that a great multitude of the religious persons in such small houses do rather chose to rove abroad in apostasy than to conform them to the observation of good religion ; so that, without such small houses be utterly suppressed, and the religious persons therein committed to great and honourable monasteries of religion within this rciilm, wliere they may be coznpelled to live religiously to the refoi-mation of their lives, there can else be no reformation iu this behalf. In consideration whereof, the king's most royal majesty being su- preme head on earth, under God, of the Church of England, daily finding and devising the increase, advancement, and exaltation of true doctrine and virtue in the said Church, to the only honour of God and the total extirping and destruc- tion of vice and sin, having knowledge that the premises be true as well by the accounts of the late visitation, as by sundry credible informations, considering also that divers' and great solemn monas- teries of this realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full num- bers of religious persons as they ought and may keep, hath thought good that a plain declaration be made of the premise.^' as well to the lords spiritual and temporal, as to other his loving subjects the com- mons in this present Parliament as- sembled, whereupon the said lords and commons by a great deliberation finally be resolved, that it is and shall be much more to the pleasure of Almighty God, and for the honour of this his realm, that the possessions of such religious houses now being spent, spoiled, and wasted for the increase and maintenance of sin, should be used and converted to better uses, and the imthrifty religious so spending the 140 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. VIII. same be compelled to xeform their lives ; and thereupon most humbly desire the king's highness that it may be enacted by the authority of this present Parliament that his Majesty shall have and enjoy to him and his lieirs for ever, all and singu- lar such monasteries, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, of what kinds or diversities of habits, rules, or orders, they be called and named, which have not in lands and tene- ments, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds ; and in like manner shall have and enjoy all the sites and circuits of such religious houses ; and all and singular, the buildings, lands, rights, etc., appertaining or belonging to every such monastery, priory, or religious house, in as large and ample manner as the abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, or other governors of such monasteries, priories, and other religious houses now have or ought to have the same in the right of their houses ; and that also his highness shall have to him and his heirs, all and singular such monast^ies, abbeys, and priories, which at any time within one year after the making of this Act, hath been given and granted to his Majesty by any abbot, prior, abbess, or prioress, imder the convent seals, or that otherwise Tiath been suppressed or dissolved ; and all and singular the manors, lands, etc., to the same monasteries appertaining or be- longing; to have and to hold, all and singular the premises, with all their lights, profits, jurisdictions, and com- modities unto the king's Majesty, and to his heirs and assigns for ever, to do and use therewith his and their own wills, to the pleasure of Almighty God, and the honour and protit of this realm." Then follow clauses to reserve the rights of those who held lands on leases from the abbeys, for the payment of a yearly rent (excepting grants or leases, that had been made within the year preceding), and giving to the king all the jewels and ornaments, cattle, and debts, belonging to the monasteries on the 1st day of March 1536, whatever they may be, or to whomsoever sold (excepting the cattle sold or killed for the necessary support of the house). A clause excusing the heads of any of these monasteries ap- pointed since Jan. 1, 1535, from the pay- ment of first fruits. A clause fixing the value of the houses according to the valua- tion in the king's exchequer. A clause, saying that, " in consideration of the i^ro- mises, his Majesty is pleased and con- tented of his most excellent charity, to provide to every chief head and governor of every such religious house, during their lives, such yearly pensions and bene- fices, as for their degrees and qualities shall be reasonable and convenient. Wherein his highness will have most tender respect to such of the said chief governors as well and truly conserve and keep the goods and ornaments of their houses to the use of his Majesty without ^poil, waste, and embezzling of the same ; and also his Majesty will ordain and provide that the convents of such religious houses shall have their capacities, if they will, to live honestly and virtuously abroad, and some con- venient charity disposed to them towards their living, or else shall be committed to such honourable great monasteries of this realm, wherein good religion is ob- served, as shall be limited by his high- ness, there to live religiously during their lives." A clause follows making it im- perative that the great convents shall receive such persons ; others as to the payments of tithes and debts due from the convent estates. Another empower- ing the king by his letters patent, to refound any of the monasteries dissolved by this Act. Another reserving the rights or claims of founders or patrons, which shall be a charge on the property, into whosesoever hands it may pass. Another, enacting that whosoever shall become possessor of the abbey lands, "shall be bounden by authority of this Act, under the penalties hereafter ensuing, to keep or cause to be kept, an hone.st continual house and household, in the same site or precinct, and to occupy yearly as much of the same domains in plowing and tillage of husbandry," as was before, under the penalty for each month of oflfending of £6 : 13 : 4, which offence may be enquired into and determined, and the fine inflicted by the justices of the peace. (B) CONTEMPORARY SKETCH OF THE DISSOLUTION OP A MONASTERY. "Which thing was not a little grief to the convent, and all the sei-vants of the house, departing one from another, and especially such as with their conscience could not break their profession, for it would have made an heart of flint to have melted and wept to have seen the break- ing up of the house and theu* sorrowful departing ; and the sudden spoil that fell the same day of their departure from the liouse. And every person had everything Chap. VIII. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Ul good cheap, except the poor monks, friars, and nuns, that had no money to bestow of an j'thing. . . . Such persons, as afterwards bought their com and hay, and such like, found all the doors either open or the locks and shackles plucked away, or the door itself taken away, and went in and took what they found, filched it away. Some took the service-books that were in the church, and laid them upon their wain coppes, to piece the same ; some took windows and hid them in the hay, and likewise they did of many other things ; for some pulled forth the iron hooks out of the walls, that bought none, when the yeomen and gentlemen of the county had bought the timber of the church. ... It would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up of the leads there was, and plucking up of boards, and throwing down of the spars ; and when the lead was torn off and cast down into the church, and the tombs of the church all broken (for in .most abbeys were diverse noble men and women, yea. and in some abbeys, kings, whose tombs were regarded no more than the tombs of other inferior persons, for to wliat end should they stand, when the church over them was not spared for their cause), and all things of piice either siioUed, carped away, or defaced to the uttermost. The persons that cast the lead into fodders, plucked up all the seats in the choir, wherein the monks sat when they said service, which were like to the seats in minsters, and burned them, and melted the lead therewithal . . . every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could, yea, even such persons were con- tent to spoil them that seemed not two days before to allow their religion, and do gi'eat reverence at their matins, masses, and other service, and all their doings, which is a strange thing to say that they could one day think it the House of God, and the next the hoi;se of the devil." ^ 1 Ellis, Orig. Letters (Series 3), Hi. 33, 34. 142 THE REFORMATION PERIOD. Chap. IX. CHAPTER IX. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 1536-1539. § 1. Inconsistency of the king as to the reforming movement. § 2. Lati- mer's sermon to the Convocation. § 3. Crumwell and his deputy take precedence in Convocation. § 4. King's divorce from Anne Boleyn rati- fied. § 5. Convocation complains of ribald opinions. § 6, The " Ten Articles." § 7. Gradual nature of the advance of the Reformation move- ment. § 8. Convocation regulates holidays. § 9. Proceedings in Ger- many relating to the proposed General Council. § 10. Henry declines imion with the Germans. § 11. Convocation condemns the proposed Council. § 12. The king's protest against it. § 13. Injunctions to the clergy. §14. The rebellions. § 15. The articles of the northern clergy. § 16. King's letter to the bishops. § 17. Meeting of the bishops to dis- cuss doctrine. § 18. A committee appointed to draw up a book of doc- trine. § 19. The " Institution of a Christian Man." § 20. Matthew's bible. § 21. Crumwell's injunctions of 1538. § 22. Process against Thomas Becket. § 23. Excommunication published against the king. § 24. Negotiations in England with the German reformers. § 25. They come to nothing. § 26. Proclamation against the married clergy. § 27. Case of Nicholson or Lambert. § 28. Proclamation to uphold cere- monies. § 29. Crumwell endeavours to support the Injunctions, § 30. The king angered by the "Ribalds." § 1. The two things connected with the reforming movement for which the king cliiefly cared, were the inordinate assertion of the supremacy of the Crown in ecclesiastical matters, and the ohtaining for his own nse the goods and lands of the monasteries. In the first of these he was gratified to his utmost aspirations by Gardiner, Sampson, Bonner, and the divines of the " old learning " ; to the second he was helped by the vigorous and unscrupulous action of Crumwell and the party of the " new learning." Both parties may be said to have bid high for the king's support, and to have gone considerable lengths in their rivalry to obtain it, and Henry him- self was under the influence sometimes of one sometimes of the other of the two parties, which may be considered as represented by Gardiner on one side, and Crumwell on the other. To this conflict of influences is due the inconsistency which appears in the king's attitude towards the Reformation movement. At one time he seems embarked in it with all zeal and earnestness, at another he appears as the vigorous upholder of the old system, the severe punisher of any departure from it. During the time that he was 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 113 reaping the ricli harvest of monastic plunder the "king went almost entirely with the new party, and the Reformation advanced ; when this was over the German alliances proved distasteful, Crurawell fell, and the party of reaction triumphed. In designating the period comprised between the end of the Eeformation Parliament and the meeting of the Parliament of 1539 the Reformation 'period, while the remainder of the reign of Henry is treated as the Reac- tionary period, it must not be assumed that any more is intended than the predominant aspect of the two portions of time. In both, many events which do not correspond with this predominant aspect will occur. § 2. On June 9, 1536, the new Convocation of the province of Canterbury met. The archbishop was altogether in favour of the party of the new learning, and he accordingly selected as preacher the most prominent of the reforming divines — Hugh Latimer — now become bishop of Worcester. Latimer's sermon was preached on the text, "For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light " (Luke xvi. 8). The preacher drew a picture of his brethren even more severe than that which had been sketched by Dean Colet on a like occasion, twenty-four years before. He accused the bishops and clergy of being unfaithful stewards of their Master's interests, of coining new- money, of mingling and debasing the good- old coin, of causing " works lucrative, wdll-works, men's fancies, to reign, while Chris- tian works, necessary works, fruitful works, be trodden under foot," of preaching seldom and hindering those who would preach. For any good that had been done hitherto the king was more tc be thanked than the clergy, who, in their late Convocation had done nothing at all. But were there not many reforms needed ? The corruption and bribery of the church courts, the profane and licen- tious manner of spending the holy days. The gross superstitions of image-worship and pilgrimages. The using all services, even such as matrimony and baptism, in a tongue not understood by the people. The sale of masses. All these things cried aloud for reformation. " Come," said the preacher, " my brethren, leave the love of your profit, study for the glory and profit of Christ. Feed tenderly, with all diligence, the flock of Christ. Preach truly the word of God. Walk in the light, and so shall ye be called the children of light in this world, and shine in the world to come bright as the sun." ^ § 3. When, after this severe lecture, the Convocation met for its second session, another mortification awaited the clergy. Dr. Petre, a civilian, deputed by Crumwell to represent him, appeared 1 Latimer's Works (ed. Watkins), i. 31-54. 1-1 -1 THE REFORMATION PERIOD. CriAr. IX. in the house, and claimed precedence over all the bishops, as repre- senting the king's supremacy. The claim was admitted, and Petre sat during this session as president of the Convocation.^ In the next session Crumwell himself appeared and took precedence of the archbishop. § 4. An important matter was in hand. The king's divorce from Anne Boleyn, which had been pronounced by Cranmer, was brought before Convocation for ratification. It was agreed to by both houses, as it seems, without protest. ^ Upon what grounds the archbishop had ventured to pronounce the dissolution of the marriage is not known, but it may be safely asserted that no valid ground really existed ; and it is to be feared that Cranmer was guilty of a disgraceful comj)liance with the king's overbearing will in this case, as much as he was before in pronouncing the divorce from Catherine, and afterwards in that of Anne of Cleves. § 5. In the fourth session, held June 28, the Lower House made a vigorous reply to the severe lecture to which they had been sub- jected by Bishop Latimer. Mr. Gwent, the prolocutor, appeared with his assessors in the Upper House, and handed to the president as an articulus cleri,^ a paper, in which the clergy, after disclaiming all sympathy with the usurped authority of the Bishop of Kome, and declaring that they submitted tliemselves in all things to the king's majesty, complain of the prevalence of certain erroneous and blasphemous opinions which need special reformation. These they enumerate to the number of fifty-nine. Many of them are profane expressions alleged to be current about the Sacraments, and the Church, others are the expression of opinions which before long were adopted and ratified by the consent of the Church. The paper indicates a very considerable prevalence of free thought about religious matters, much of which was, as might be expected, of a very objectionable character. Fuller's description of the paper as " The Protestant religion in ore," is a happy one. At the end of their paper the clergy complain that certain bishops refused to condemn books which had been examined by Convocation and declared to be full of heterodoxy, and that these books remained in the hands of the common people and encouraged them to dis- 1 Wilkins, ill. 803 ; Collier, iv. 336 ; Joyce, Sacred Synods, 381. The " Session " of Convocation is its meeting on any one day. " Wilkins, iii. 803. *^ The prolocutor or chairman of the Lower House of Convocation ap- points a certain number of the members to be his assessors or assistants in determining any doubtful point. An articulus cleri is when the whole of the Lower House agree upon any special representation ti:* be made to the president and bisliops. 1536-1539. THE REFORM ATTO^^ PERIOD. U5 pute against the Church and to disturb the kingdom.i This waa a bold stroke at the reforming bishops, -svho, in aiklition to the primate, numbered six in this Convocation.^ Although no direct reply was made by the Upper House to this paper, it no doubt influenced the proceeding now to be mentioned, viz. the publica- tion of the Ten Articles. § 6. The first draft of these articles was made by the king himself, w^ith the assistance probably of Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Fox. They are taken chiefly from the Confession of Augs- burg and the commentaries on it.^ They were brought to Convo- cation by Bishop Fox on July 11, and were at once agreed to by both houses. They were then immediately published under the title of " Articles devised by the King's Highness' Majesty to stab- lish Christian quietness and unity among us, and to avoid conten- tious opinions : which articles be also approved by the consent and determination of the whole clergy of this realm." * As represent- ing the phase of religious opinion in which the king then was, and the point to which the Reformation had then reached, these articles are very remarkable and important. They represent a judicious and salutary compromise between the teaching of the more pro- nounced Scriptural reformers and those who held fast to the old superstitions. They declare that the Christian faith is compre- hended in the whole body and canon of the Bible and in the three Creeds, which are to be interpreted according to the opinions of holy and approved doctors of the Church and the decrees of the " Four Holy Councils." Baptism is represented as cleansing from original sin and conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost. Penance was instituted as a sacrament necessary for those who had fallen into deadly sin after baptism. It consists of contrition, confession, and amendment. Confession must be made to a priest, and the words of absolution spoken by him are to be looked upon " as spoken by authority given to him by Christ in His gospel." Of the Sacrament of the Altar, it is taught that under the form and figure of bread and wine " is verily, substantially, and really con- tained and comprehended the very selfsame body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary and suf- fered upon the Cross for our redemption." Of Justification, " it is attained by contrition and faith joined with charity, for the sake ^ Collier, iv. 336-341. Marshall's Primer is probably the book chiefly aimed at. ■^ Latimer of Worcester, Shaxtoii of Sarum, Goodrich of Ely, Fox of Hereford, Hillsey of Rochester, Barlow of St. David's. •^ Von Ranke, i. 157. •* See Bishop Lloyd's Formularies of Faith in the reign of Kinj TTmry VIU. 146 THE EEFORMATION PERIOD. Chap. TX. of the merits of Christ's passion." Images are valuable as repre- senting virtue and good example. Saints to be honoured by Chris- tian people, " but not with that confidence and honour which are only clue to God." " Grace, remission of sins, and salvation, cannot be obtained but of God only, by the mediation of our Saviour Christ." As to Purgatory, " it is good and charitable to pray for souls departed, that they may be remitted part of their pain," but " forasmuch as the place where they be, the name thereof and kind of pains there, be uncertain by Scripture, therefore this, with all other things, we remit to Almighty God, unto whose mercy it is meet and convenient. that we commend them; 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." -^ Nothing is said of the Four Sacraments (so called) of Order, Confirmation, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. § 7. Nothing, perhaps, could better illustrate than these articles the gradual advance of the English Eeformation. It was no sudden and reckless proceeding, but a slow movement, making steps for- ward with that cautious deliberateness which the presence of a powerful opposition, and the insecurity it was in of even retaining the ground which it had won, rendered necessary. § 8. The Convocation, after accepting the articles, proceeded to consider the question of Church holidays. The excessive multi- plication of these days had been long complained of as an abuse. It interfered with trade, encouraged drunkenness and lewdness, and was in no way conducive to religious ends. The arrangement now adopted by Convocation was to do away with all holidays which fell in harvest time (with a few exceptions), to appoint one uniform day (first Sunday in October) to be kejDt as the Feast of Dedication for all churches, and greatly to abridge the holidays occurring in the other parts of the year. The Act of Convocation, having been ratified by the king, was sent to all the bishops with directions for its enforcement.^ § 9. At the last session of this Convocation (lield July 20, 1536), the House voted an elaborate opinion touching General Councils, with special reference to the council which had been summoned by the pope to meet at Mantua. In order to perceive clearly the full meaning of this proceeding, it is necessary to revert to what had taken place in Germany during the few years previous to this meeting of Convocation. In 1530, at the diet held at Augsburg, the Lutherans had presented to the emperor their Confession of Faith. This was rejected by the diet, but a promise was then ^ Formularies of Faith of King Henry VIII. , pp. xv. xxxii. 2 wilkins, iii. 823, 824. 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. I47 made by tlie emperor that a free council of the whole church should be held to consider the points in dispute. Shortly after this the Protestant princes of Germany, meeting at Smalcald entered into a league for the support of their cause, one principal point of their policy being to oppose and prevent the assembling of any council to act in the name of the whole Church, which should not be truly free, that is to say, summoned independently of the pope, and in some place in which his influence did not pre- dominate. § 10. Into this league the greatest eff'orts were made to induce the King of England to enter. In the year 1535, Fox, Bishop of Hereford, was sent by Henry to the Smalcald league. At this time the new pope, Paul III., had signified his intention of hold- ing a council at Mantua. Henry was prepared to join with the German princes in opposing this, but when they proposed to him to accept with them the Confession of Faith made at Augsburg, he refused. In this he acted upon the advice of Bishop Gardiner, then ambassador in France. Gardiner pointed out that if the king agreed to this he would be bound to the Church of Germany, " and without their consent may not do that the word of God shall permit, unless the common consent doth concur hereunto. And tlius shall the Bishop of Eome draw it for an argument to his part that the word of God may be restrained to a common assent. By the word of God both they may reform their opinion without our assent, and we without theirs, whatsoever league were made to the contrary. Again, the English king and the German princes did not stand on the same footing. The king was in his realm an emperor, and head of the Church of England. They were under the emperor, who was head of their Church, and might not act without him. They would send to us, not to learn but to instruct and teach us, not to sue to us but to direct our Church in such ceremonies as by their deliberation shall be commended of and concluded." ^ §11. But though the king decided on these grounds not to make any league with the Germans, he still supported their policy. The proceedings in the English Convocation of 1536 were, in fact, the answer which he made to their proposals. The Ten Articles were the declaration as to how far the English Church was prepared to go with the Augsburg Confession, and the opinion of the Con- vocation on General Councils, and the king's declaration, founded thereon, were the English condemnation of the proposed Mantuan Council. The Convocation, in their opinion, begin by the strongest jissertions of the value of a really legitimate General Council, while ^ Collier. Rrxords, No. xxxii. 148 THE REFOEMATION PEEIOD. Chap. IX. at the same time they condemn in forcible terms a council which, pretending to be general, is in fact summoned, " not christianly and charitably, but for and upon private malice and ambition, or other worldly and carnal respects." They hold that " neither the Bishop of Eome, nor any one prince, of what degree, estate, or pre- eminence soever he may be, may, by his own authority, call, indict, or summon any General Council without the express consent of the residue of Christian princes, and specially such as have iviperium merum, that is, the whole, entire, and supreme government and authority over all their subjects." They imply, therefore, a strong condemnation of the ^proposed council at Mantua. This docu- ment was signed first by Thomas Crumwell as vicar-general, by the archbishop, fourteen other bishops, and forty-one of the clergy of the Lower House.^ § 12. Acting on this opinion, the king formally i)rotested against the council summoned to meet at Mantua in 1537. He sets forth his own zeal for the work of religion, declares that he had never declined a genuine council, but had always desired it, but that he was utterly opposed to a mock council such as he understood " Paul, the Roman bishop," had called to meet at Mantua, in order that " he and his accomplices might establish their papistical kingdom and tyranny." Against this he solemnly protests.^ § 13. The king followed up the work done in the Convocation by a letter to the archbishop, in which he says, " Albeit, consider- ing that upon contention arising among our people in diversity of certain opinions, we have caused you, the bishops, with the clergy within our realm, in solemn Convocation deliberately disputing and advising the same, to agree to certain articles most catholicly conceived ; yet to the intent our godly purpose may not be im- peached, we order that no sermons be preached before Michaelmas next save by the bishops, or in their presence by the ordinary preachers in the cathedrals, for which ordinary preachers the bishops are to be responsible." ^ And, in order more fully to instruct the clergy in their duties, a set of royal Injunctions was issued : * — ^ Collier, OJmrch History, iv. 360. Another paper, giving their opinion as to a general council, had been previously drawn iip for the king by cer- tain of the clergy. This may be foujid in Collier, Records, No. xxxvii. 2 Collier, Records, No. xxxviii. ^ Wilkins, iii. 807. ^ This was the first of these documents, which henceforth occur fre- quently in the history of the English Church. ^^ Note. — This was the first act of pure supremacy done by the king, for in all that had gone before he liad acted with the concurrence of Convocation. " — Wriothesley's Chronicle, - p. 55. 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 149 1. The clergy were to preacli ouce every quarter against the Bishop of Rome's usurped power. 2. They were to acquaint their people Avith the Ten Articles, especially as regards ceremonies, 3. They were to acquaint them with the new arrangements as to holy days. 4. To instruct them, according to the Ten Articles, against superstitioji in praying to saints and worshii")piug images, 6. To cause them to learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue, and to give them plain in- structions upon these, 6. To provide for the proper administration of the Sacrameiits. 7. Not to haunt taverns, but to give themselves to the study of Scrip- ture. 8. To he ready to give alms. 9. To provide exhibitions for scholars at the rate of one scholar for every £100 of income. 10. To repair their glebe-houses and the chancels of their churches to the amount of one-fifth of their benefice.^ § 14. Up to this poiut the progressive policy of Cruniwell and the reforming bishops advanced prosperously ; but now it was to receive a considerable check which threatened it with danger. About the end of October (1536) there broke out in Lincolnshire a formidable insurrection, caused by the proceedings taken in the dissolution of the abbeys. This was soon followed by a still more serious rising in Yorkshire. In spite of con- temptuous expressions, which his ambassadors abroad were in- structed to use of this,^ there is good reason to believe that the matter looked so serious to the king that he at one time thought of attempting a reconciliation with the pope.^ § 1.5. During the rising the northern clergy showed themselves strongly opposed to the opinions which had been acquiesced in by their brethren in the south. Keplying to the Ten Articles and the king's Injunctions, they voted in an irregular Convocation meeting at York, that all preaching against purgatory, worshipping of saints, images, and pilgrimages, ought to be reproved and punished. That neither the king's highness, nor any temporal man, can be supreme 1 Wilkins, iii, 813. '^ "Certain of our subjects with a number of boys and beggars," etc. Henry to Gardiner, Dodd, Clmrch History, Appendix, xlii.-xliv. For an account of the Pilgrimage of Grace, drawn from the original sources, see Notes and Illustrations, ^ Gardiner's sermon before King Philip ; Collier, Church Histcn-y, iv. 388. His assertion is confirmed to some extent by a letter of the king's to Pate (1537), "Considering there hath been some mean made unto us by the said bishop himself for such reconciliaticn, v)Mch we Mve not yet embraced, it should not be expedient to have it compassed by any other means." — State Pampers of Henry VIII. vii, ^'$i'.i. 150 THE E"EFOEMATION PERIOD. Chap. IX. head of the Church, or have or exercise any jurisdiction or power spiritual in the same, and that all Acts of Parliament to the con- trary are wrong. That no clerk ought to he put to death without degradation. That no person ought to be drawn out of sanctuary. That the first fruits and tenths have never been granted to the Parliament by the northern clergy, and that no temporal man can have such. That lands given to God cannot be taken away and put to profane uses. That dispensations and indulgences given by the pope are good and valid. That by the determinations of councils the pope has been constituted head of the Church, and ought to be so acknowledged. That the conviction of deadly sin belongs to the Church alone. That the canon law ought to be studied at the universities. That the clerks who have fled out of the land for refusing to acknowledge the king's supremacy ought to be recalled. That books treating of the pope's supremacy ought not to be prohibited. That the grants of tenths, etc., made to the king by the Parliament ought to be remitted, and that none ought to be sued under the Prcemunire statute without a prohibi- tion first awarded." ^ § 16. This document, so boldly antagonistic to all the king's policy, was probably the work of the threatened regulars, with the concurrence of some of the lower clergy. The bishops would scarcely have ventured to agree to it. To them the king now addressed himself, bidding them make a tour through their dioceses, distributing copies of the Ten Articles, and pointing out that there is no departure in them from the Catholic religion. They are also instructed " to commend and praise honest cere- monies of the Church, that the people may perceive that they be not contemned ; " and those that speak of these ceremonies " con- tentiously or contemptuously " are to be punished.^ § 17. The danger from the rebellion once over, and the expect- ation of a vast spoil from the monasteries which had been com- promised by it, being entertained by the king, the Eeformation movement was allowed again to go forward. At the beginning of the year 1537 a meeting of the bishops of both provinces was organised by Crumwell, and into this meeting he introduced one Alexander Ales, or Aless, a Scotchman, of whose abilities he thought highly, and who, he conceived, might be made useful in stirring up the bishops of the "old learning." ^ The meeting was in fact held by way of organising a more complete instruc- tion in doctrine than the Ten Articles. Crumwell informed the 1 Wilkins, iii. 812. 2 jj. 825. 3 He has left us a full account of tliis meeting, printed in Ellis, Orig. Letters (Series 3), vol. iii. p. 198. 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 151 bisliops of the king's desire that all things should be reformed according to the Scriptures, and that something might be drawn up by which the people might know what to believe. Cranmer then spoke. He said that " the ceremonies of confirmation, orders, and annealing, ought not to be called sacraments, and to be com- pared with Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." Stokesley, Bishop of London, said angrily, " Whereas ye affirm all right and true sacraments to be institute of Christ, or to have the mani- fest Scripture to prove them, or that all Sacraments must have a signification of remission of sins, it is all false." To this Fox of Hereford replied, " Think not that we can by any sophistical subtleties steal out of the world again the light that every man doth see. Christ hath so lightened the world at this time that the light of the gospel hath put to flight all misty darkness, and it will shortly have the higher hand of all clouds, though we resist in vain ever so much. The lay people do now know the Scriptures better than many of us, and the Germans have made the text of the Bible so plain and easy by the Hebrew and Greek tongue, that now many things may be better understood without any glosses at all than by all the commentaries of the doctors. And, moreover, they have so opened these controversies by their writings that women and children may wonder at the blindness and falsehood that have been hitherto. Truth is the daughter of time, and time is the mother of truth, and whatsoever is besieged of truth cannot long continue, and upon whose side truth doth stand, that ought not to be thought transitory, or that it will ever fall." 1 Mr. Aless also made a speech to the same effect. § 18. The upshot of the meeting was the appointment of a com- mittee of bishops and other divines ^ to draw up a book of religious instruction in matters both of faith and morals. The result of the labours of this committee was the book known as the Institution of a Christian Alan, sometimes described as The Bishops^ Book. The committee met at Lambeth. Each part of the work, after being discussed and agreed upon, was signed by the whole of the divines, so that there could be no drawing back. The plague was raging at the time of their work, which no doubt further tended to expedite matters. The book was rapidly finished. The king signed it, as it seems, without considering its contents. It was entrusted to the care of Bishop Fox to see to its printing, and some time in May 1537 it made its appearance.^ ^ Ellis, Orig. LpMers, \\. s. - The committee consisted of all the bishops, eight archdeacons, ami seventeen doctors of divinity and civil law. ^ Nicholls, Narratives of the Reformation, p. 223 ; Latimer to Cniin- 152 THE REFORMATION PERIOD. Chap. IX. § 19. The book thus somewhat hurriedly pnt out is in many respects an admirable work. Its great merit is the practical and devout tone which prevails throughout it, and the simplicity and power of some of its theological expositions. It consists of a full and practical explanation of , the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Com- mandments, and the Lord's Prayer ; an explanation of the Sacra- ments, (which are here treated as seven, not as three, as was done in the "Ten Articles"), of Justification, and of Purgatory. It would be hard to find anywhere in our theological literature a better exposition of the Creed than is here given. In particular, the article on the Church is very admirable. It is explained that in Scripture there is spoken of both an inward and an outward Church — the inward or invisible Church being all true servants of Christ whether dead or alive, the outward or visible Church being the congregation of all those professing Christ upon earth, which is made up both of bad and good. The episcopal oflB.ce is treated as only a grade of the priestly, and not as a distinct oflfice. The necessity of the apostolical succession is not asserted. The three sacraments of the eucharist, baptism, and penance are said to be of greater dignity and necessity than the others. The " Ten Articles " are incorporated into the " Institution." All mention of the cultus of saints is omitted. The Ave Maria is shown not to be a prayer, and nothing is said of the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The articles on justification and purgatory are identical with those in the Ten Articles. UjDon the whole the Institution of a Christian Man is a very admirable attempt to separate in a calm and reverent spirit, catholic truth from the admixture of pajml error. The book when finished and licensed by the king was pressed by the bishops in various ways upon the attention of their clergy. The Chapter on Orders was printed and circulated as a separate paper.'^ § 20. In the same year that the Institution of a Christian Man was published (1537), there appeared another version of the English bible. This is generally known as Matthew's Bible, from the assumed name of Matthew adopted by John Eogers, its real editor. It consisted of all the portions of Tyndale's translation which he had finished before his death, and where this was wanting the gap was filled up by the translation of Coverdale.^ The editor's well, State Papers, i. 563 ; Fox to CrumAvell, State Papers, i. 557, 562, That the king did not knoAv its contents may be judged from the minute and elaborate criticism -wliicb he afterwards made on it. His notes, -with Cran- mer's remarks on them, still remain in MS., and have been printed in Cran- mer's Remains (Parker Society). ^ Wilkins, iii. 832, 844. 2 The Pentateuch and New Testament are from Tyndale's published translations. From Joshua to 2 Chronicles is a new translation, supposed on 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 153 principal work was to add a marginal commentary and notes, which are of a strongly reforming character. This Bible was licensed 1 )y the king through Crumwell's dexterous management, though in doing this, Henry was made to reverse the opposition to Tyndale's translation which he had so strongly expressed. It was received with joy by Archbishop Cranmer and the reforming party among the bishops, who do not appear to have been cognisant of its pre- paration. It was printed abroad, though by the enter^Drise of Eng- lish printers (Grafton and Whitchurch), and almost immediately on its appearance a revision of it was commenced, which issued in the publication in 1539 of what is known as " The Great Bible." § 21. Before this version was finished (the work having been interrupted at Paris by the interference of the Inquisition), a body of Injunctions was set forth by the king's vicar-general, which are so far important as they may be held to represent the extreme point to which the Reformation reached in this reign. •'^ The second Injunction orders the clergy to " provide on this side the feast of next coming, 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 ; the charges of which book shall be rateably borne between you, the parson, and the parishioners aforesaid, that is to say the one half by you and the other half by them. Item, that ye discourage no man privily or apertly from the reading of the same Bible, but shall expressly pro- voke, 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 inquisition of the true sense of the same, and refer the explication of obscure places to men of higher judgment in Scripture." (3.) The clergy are every Sunday to repeat for their parishioners, several times over, some portion of the Pater Noster, Creed, or Ten Commandments in English, and explain them.^ (4.) In hearing confessions in Lent, they are to good ground to have been left in MS. by Tyndale. The books of the Old Testament from Ezra to Malachi and the Apocrypha are from Coverdale. — See Westcott's History of English Bible, pp. 68, 176 sq. For the account of Tyndale's death, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ^ These injunctions are printed by Wilkins under the year 1536, the date of those previously given, but tliey can be proved to have been issued in September 1538. — See Wriothesley's Chronicle, p. 86. 2 Some of the clergy went further than this. In Wriothesley s Chron- icle, under 1538, it is said, "This year, at Hadley in Suffolk and at Strat- ford in Essex, the mass and consecration of tlie sacrament of tlie altar was 154 THE REFORMATION PERIOD. Chap. IX. examine the people in their knowledge of the formularies, and tell them that they are not fit to come to the holy commnnion till they know them. (5.) They are to preach, at least once a quarter, a sermon in which they are to declare, purely and sincerely, the very gospel of Christ, and to exhort their hearers to works of mercy and charity, and not to trust in works devised by man's fantasies, as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or tapers to images or relics, kissing or licking the same, saying over a num- ber of bedeg not understanded or minded on, or in such like super- stitions, for the doing whereof ye not only have no promise or reward in Scripture, but contrariwise great threats and maledictions of God as things tending to idolatry and superstition, which of all other offences God Almighty doth most detest and abhor, for that the same diminisheth most His honour and glory. (5.) All images that have been abused with pilgrimages or offerings, or having any candles set before them, are to be taken down,^ and no lights to be suffered in the church save the light that commonly goeth across the church by the rood-loft, the light before the sacrament of the altar, and the light about the sepulchre, " which for adorning the church and divine service " shall be suffered to remain ; still ad- monishing your parishioners that images serve for no other purpose save for the books of unlearned men that cannot know letters, and that if they abuse these images for any other purpose they commit idolatry. Such images, it is intended, shall be utterly removed. (13.) No feasts or fasting days to be changed till it is done by authority, excepting only the day of Thomas Becket, which is to be clear expunged.^ § 22. Against this saint — whose tomb had been so long the object of extravagant veneration in the cathedral of Canterbury — the king's wrath had been especially directed, as having been in his lifetime a strenuous opponent of kingly interference in Church matters. A regular process had been instituted against him, some- what similar in character to the papal proceedings in canonising saints. A citation had been served at his tomb, calling upon Becket to appear and show cause why he should not be condemned said in English by the curate clivers times, and the canticle of the Te Deum was sung in English in the city of London after sermons made by Dr. Barnes, Thomas Roofe, and others of their sect, commonly called of the Papists the New Sect."— Wrioth. Chron. (Cam. Soc), p. 83. ^ "This year" (1538), "at Bartholomew even, the rood of the north door in Paul's was taken down by the dean by the king's commandment, because the people should do no more idolatry to the said image, and the image of S. Uncumber also in the same church. " — Wriothesley's Chronicle, p. St. For a subsequent order to the same effect, se^ Chapter X. 3 Wilkins, iii. 815-17. 1536-1539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 105 as a traitor, and in default of his appearance an advocate was as- sifrned to liim. After an interval of a month the matter was heard o before the Council, and Saint Thomas was decreed to be a false saint, and to have deserved death for his manifold treasons against the supreme head of the Church, and all his goods were decLared forfeit to the Crown. His bones were to be taken from his sepulchre and burned. This sentence w^as published at London and Canter- bury ; and Becket's tomb, with all its vast accumulation of gifts and offerings, was rifled (August 19, 1538). The treasure is said to have filled twenty-six large carts.^ § 23. When news of this proceeding reached Kome, the pope could no longer be induced to withhold the bull of excommunica- tion and deposition %vhich he had drawn up against Henry in 1535 (but which had hitherto been suspended out of deference to the King of France), and it was now launched against him with all its terrors. §24. The whole tenor of the Injunctions of 1538 is of so decidedly a reforming character, that it might easily be inferred from them that the king had determined on embarking without hesitation in the wake of the foreign reformers. But this w^ould be decidedly a misapprehension. In the same year in which these Injunctions were issued, Henry w^as in fact engaged in negotiations with the Lutheran divines, which are of great interest, but the result of w^hich was by no means indicative of a desire to make common cause with the foreign Eeformation. Previously to these negotiations, the chief of the Lutheran theologians had made ad- vances to the King of England. Luther, at the request of the divines of Wittenberg, had written to him an apologetic letter. Melancthon had dedicated his Commentaries on the Ejnstles to Henry, and had been rewarded by a letter of thanks and a present of 200 crowns.2 The king, however, was no nearer to the adoption of their views. Two years before he had formally declined to accept the Confession of Augsburg, and though political reasons induced him now to reopen the negotiations with the German divines, yet but little advance w^as in fact made towards agreement. A deputation of Lutheran divines, consisting of Francis Burcaud, vice-chancellor of the Elector of Saxony ; George a Boyneburg, a nobleman of Hesse ; and Frederick Myconius, superintendent of tlie Reformed Church at Gotha, arrived in England in May 1538. Cranmer had been instrumental in inviting them over, and imme- diately on their coming he entered into conferences with them, in which a considerable amount of agreement was reached. A pa])er, 1 Wilkins, iii. 835, 840, 848. Wriotliesley's CJironidc, p. 89. 2 Dodd's Ch. Hist. i. 438, note. 156 THE REFORMATION PERIOD. Chap. IX. which is still in existence^ and the substance of which was after- wards incorporated in the English articles, represents their united sentiments.-^ While matters had this hopeful appearance, it was thought desirable by the Germans to draw up a paper to be laid before the king, condemning the abuses which they held to be still prevalent in the English Church, and which they desired to have removed. These abuses were communion in one kind, private masses, and the celibacy of the clergy. The paper was just of the character to affront the king, who upheld these things, and to arouse the controversial spirit within him. He gave it to Bishop Tonstal to answer, but there is no doubt that the answer chiefly proceeded from himself. It is a very able and dexterously drawn document, but somewhat sophistical. ^ § 25. The negotiations, having stirred up this controversy, speedily came to nothing, which (according to a good authority) " was one of the heaviest blows sustained by the English Reforma- tion during the reign of Henry VIII. It both removed the salutary restraint hitherto imposed on the king's caprices by an unwillingness to break with those who were embarked in the same cause, and it also enlisted his personal feeling on the side of the tenets he had so zealously pledged himself to defend."^ Certainly from this point an increase of severity in the king's measures is to be observed. § 26. On November 16 (1538) was issued a proclamation, which, reciting the fact that certain priests had married wives, "straitly charges and commands the said priests not to minister any sacrament or other ministry mystical, nor to hold any ofiBce or preferment, but to be utterly expelled from the same, and held as lay persons, and such as should marry after this to be im- prisoned during his Majesty's pleasure." * § 27. But a more signal proof that it was a matter of danger for the clergy to venture on reforming views was now to be given. A divine named John Nicholson, who, like so many others, had imbibed strong reforming opinions from Bilney at Cambridge, had been employed in ministering to the English factory at Antwerp. Here his reforming views had been strengthened by intercourse with Tyndale and Fryth, and he, like them, had adopted the opinions of Zuinglius and (Ecolampadius on the holy eucharist. Sir T. More's eager search for heretical teachers failed not to dis- cover Nicholson, and he was sent over to England and committed to the custody of Archbishop Warham, But before he was ' Cranmer's Remains, Appendix xiii, xiv. - BTimet, Records, Addenda No. vii. ^ Jenkins' Cranmer, Preface, p. xxiv. ^ Strype's Cranmer, p. 98 (folio ed.) 1536-3539. THE REFORMATION PERIOD. 157 broiiglit to trial More had resigned, and Warham had died. Being released from prison by Cranmer, Nicholson became a sclioolmaster, endeavoured to give up his orders and to shelter himself under the protection of the Grocers' company. He also married. In the year 1538 he was present at St. Peter's church, Cornhill, and heard a sermon preached by Dr. Taylor on the eucharist, against which he thought himself obliged to remon- strate. Dr. Taylor asked him to put his opinions in writing, and showed the paper to Dr. Barnes, a strong Lutheran, who, thinking the views of Nicholson heretical, denounced them to Cranmer. The archbishop, who was at this time in the Lutheran phase of his opinions on this subject, condemned Nicholson's sentiments, and the latter was rash enough to appeal to the king. Henry was quite disposed to display his orthodoxy on a point of so much importance, and he was encouraged to do so by Gardiner and the reactionary party. Accordingly Nicholson (or Lambert, v>hich name he had assumed) was appointed to be solemnly tried by the king in person, assisted by his bishops as assessors. The trial took place at Westminster Hall (November 1538) with a considerable display of pomp and circumstance. Nicholson argued keenly for five hours against the king and bishops, but was at length reduced to silence by sheer exhaustion. As his views were equally opposed to the Lutheran system and the doctrine of the Church, he was of course condemned, and Crumwell, whose policy was rudely threatened by this condemnation, was by Gardiner's contrivance appointed to read the sentence. The poor Zuinglian was burned with circumstances of great barbarity, and the king was so pleased with what he had done in the matter of upholding orthodoxy, that he determined to call a Parliament, which at the same time should confirm to his use all the cessions of monasteries which had fallen outside the period covered by the first Act, and also provide a more effective and trenchant law for repressing the growth of heresy. § 28. Another proof that the influence of the reforming party Avith the king was at this time waning is furnished by the pub- lication of a proclamation, which, declaring that the king had directed a fitting explanation of the rites and ceremonies, at the same time declared that he by no means desired the abolition of these, but all are bid to " observe and keep the ceremonies of holy bread, holy water, processions, kneeling and creeping Good Friday to the Cross, and on Easter Day setting up of lights before the Corpus Christi, bearing of candles on the day of the Purification of our Lady, ofi'ering of Crysomes, etc." ^ t Wilkins, Hi. 842. 158 THE REFORMATION PERIOD Chap. IX. § 29. Crumwell endeavoured to modify tlie effect of this pro- clamation by sending a letter with it declaring that its object was to effect the gradual reclaiming of the people from superstition.^ He also procured a letter to be sent to the justices of the peace, bidding them to keep an eye on the clergy as to how they carried out the directions contained in the Injunctions, " We under- stand," the king is made to say, " sundry parsons, vicars, and curates, in this our realm, of their own perverse mind, and not only to blind the commons, do read so confusedly, hemming and hacking the Word of God, and such our Injunctions we have lately set forth, that almost no man can understand the true meaning of the said Injunctions, and also secretly have suborned certain spreaders of rumours and false tales in corners which do interpret and wrest our true meaning and intention of our said Injunctions : Therefore we desire you to inquire and find out such cankered parsons, vicars, and curates, which do not truly and sub- stantially declare our said Injunctions, and the very AVord of God, but mumble confusedly, saying that they be compelled to read them, and bid their parishioners nevertheless to do as they did in times past, to live as their fathers, and that the old fashion is the best, and other crafty seditious parables." ^ § 30. But wliile Crumwell thus strove to coerce the clergy, the king on the other hand was greatly excited to anger by the ribald freedom taken by many who favoured the foreign reforma- tion, in indulging in jibes and mockery against the most sacred ordinances of religion, making ballads on the mass, and satirising everything connected with the old faith. There is reason to be- lieve that this evil spirit of mockery was encouraged and pro- moted by Crumwell ;3 but if so, it proved, instead of a valuable ally to his policy, a most dangerous and destructive enemy to his most cherished schemes. 1 Strype, 3femorials Henry VIII., p. 303. 2 Buvnet, Records, Hi. iii. Ixiii. 3 See Dr. Maitland's Essays on the Reformation, " Crumwell and the ■Ribauds." Chap. TX. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 159 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE. The insurrection kno^vn by the name of the Pilgrimage of Grace, from the reli- gious character which was assumed for it, began at Louth, in Lincolnshire, on Mon- day, the 2d day of October 1536, on which day the Commissioners for inspecting Reli- gious Houses were to hold their visitation at that place. The fury of the populace was dii-ected against the commissioners by Dr. Matthew Makerel, the prior of Barlings in the same county, and suffragan bishop, and they were led by a man named Nicholas Melton, a shoemaker, styled Captain Cobbler. "With frantic violence they compelled all, even the com- missioners themselves, to swear to be faithful to the king, the Commonwealth, and to Holy Church. The excitement quickly spread to Caistor and to Horn- castle, both which places were also threat- ened with a visitation. At Homcastle the chancellor of the diocese. Dr. Rayne, was brutally murdered, the priests excit- ing and encouraging the people to the deed. A rising at Lincoln quickly fol- lowed, and the whole county seemed to be in open insurrection. The rebels sent to the king, in the character of his most humble supplicants, a list of grievances, which were — "(1) The suppression of so many religious houses. (2) The Act of uses as restraining the subjects' liberty in the declaration of their wills. (3) The tax of the fifteenth, against which poverty is pleaded. (4) The ill counsellors of mean birth whom the king had about him. (5) That divers bishops had sub- verted the faith. (6) That the jewels and plate of parish churches were in danger of being taken, as they had lately been from religious houses. They pray the king to call around him the nobility of the realm, and to take such steps that they might fully acknowledge him to be the governor and supreme head of the Church of England, which they confess to be his by right and inheritance. And they desire that the king should have the tenths and first-fruits of all benefices above the value of £20, and of all others where the incumbents do not keep residence. The king's reply was to desi)atch the Duke of Suffolk to raise forces against them. At the same time he wrote a severe letter, in which he says, " Concerning choosing of counsellors, I never have rend, heard, nor known tliat princes, counsellors, and pre- lates should be appointed by rude and ignorant common people. How presump- tuous are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most bi-ute and beastly of the whole reabn, to find fault with your prince for the electing of his counsellors and prelates. As to the sup- pression of religious houses and monas- teries, we will that ye and all our subjects should well know that this is granted unto us by all the nobles,spiritual and temporal, of this our realm, and by all the commons of the same by Act of Parliament, and not set forth by any counsellor or counsellors by their mere will and fantasy. And where ye allege that the service of God is muchtherebydiminished, the truth thereof is contrary, for there be none houses sup- pressed where God was well served, but where most vice, mischief, and abonaina- tion of living was used, and that doth well appear by their o^vn confessions sub- scribed with their own hands in the time of our visitations. And yet were suffered a great many of them, more than we by the Act needed, to stand,i wherein if we amend not their way of living, we fear we have more to answer for than for the sup- pression of all the rest. And as for their hospitality, for the relief of poor people, we wonder ye be not ashamed to affirm that they have been a great relief to our people, when a great many, or the most part, hath not above four or five religious people in them, and divers, but one, which spent the substance of the goods of their house in nourishing of vice and abominable living. As touching the Act of Uses, the grounds of those uses was false and never admitted by any law, but usurped upon the prince contrary to all equity and jus- tices As touching the fifteen which ye 1 Thirty-one religious houses in all were refounded by the king in jyerpetuam ele- moainam. These of course all disappeared afterwards. 2 What were called Uses was a device to effect the transfer of freehold property from one owner to another, without in- curring the heavy feudal dues which ac- crued to the king on an open transfer. The use was in fact a trust by which one peison was made to hold property for the l)enefit of another, called cestui qui use. This was done by will, whereas freehold property could not be transferred siin]>ly by will, but needed investiture. 'i'he statute 27 Henry VIII. cap. 10, made these uses illegal. See Amos, Statutes of Ihnry VIII. chapter viii. IGO NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. IX. demand of lis, think ye that we be so faint-hearted that ye of one shire could compel us with your insurrections and such rebellious demeanour to remit the same ? As touching the first-fruits, we let you wit it is a thing granted us by Act of Parliament for the supportation of part of the gi-eat and excessive charges which we support and bear for the maintenance of youT wealth and others our subjects. And we have loiown also that ye our com- mons have much complained in times past that the most of the goods, lands, and possessions of the realm were in spiritual hands, and yet now ye cannot find in your hearts that your prince and sovereign lord should have any part thereof." Wherefore they are bid to withdraw to their homes, and to deliver into the king's lieutenant's hands 100 persons, " to be ordered according to their demerits." But this rough answer did not have tlie desired effect. The rebellion spread. Armed men to the number of 60,000 occu- pied Lincoln .; the monks and clergy re- presenting to them that it would soon come to pass that there would be only one church in every five miles, and that all the plate would be taken away and only chalices of tin left ; that the king would seize every man's goods at his pleasxire, and that no man should ent white bread, pig, goose, or capon without paying a tax ; that there should be no wedding, burying, or christening without a tax of a noble. The fear of these terrible calamities so exasperated the people that they would not listen to reason. The gentlemen who were among them endea- voured to modify their fury and were at- tacked as enemies. A fierce struggle began. The gentlemen were besieged in the chapter-house of the cathedral, and would have been murdered had they not escaped by a private door. Tliey then with their retainers occupied the close and the cathe- dral, while the party led by the priests lay around the outskirts of the town. But the king's troops were rapidly advancing, and even the most furious of the rebels saw the hopelessness of the struggle. Terms were offered to them. The king sent to them another letter, in which he lec- tured them on their discontent, and extolled his own virtues and goodness, desiring them to deposit all their arms in the market-place of the city of Lincoln and return to their occupations ; in which case he would extend " his princely pity towards the most part of them, and all the world should see his mercy shine far above that he was bounden to." His words were listened to and obeyed. The Lincolnshire rising melted away.; Makerel and some other of the leaders, to the number of about 100, being executed. But a far more serious outbreak in the north quickly . showed itself. The leader of this was Rol)ert Aske, a gentleman of Howden in Yorkshire. He himself declared that he was forced into the movement against his will, and that the address which suddenly appeared on every chui-ch door bearing his name was not written by him. This address declared—" Forasmuch as simple and evil-disposed persons being of the king's council have not only incensed his grace with many and siindry new inven- tions which be contrary to the faith of God and honour of the king's majesty and the Commonwealth of this realm, and thereby intendeth to destroy the Church of England and the ministers of the same, as ye do well know as well as we, but also the said council hath spoiled and robbed, and farther intending utterly to spoil and rob the whole body of this realm. And if you think this to be true and do fight against us that intendeth the commonwealth of this realm and nothing else, we trust by the grace of God ye shall have small speed, for this pilgrimage we have under- taken it is for the preservation of Christ's Church and of this realm of England, the king our sovereign lord_, the nobility and commons of the same, and to the intent to make petition to the king's highness for the reformation of that which is amiss within this realm, and for the punishment of the heretics and subverters of the laws. And if you will not come with us for reformation of the premises, we certify you that we will fight and die against both you and all those who shall be about towards to stop us in'the said pilgrimage." The six articles of grievance of which the rebels desired redress were the same as those put forward by the Lincolnshire men. To give the rising the appearance of a religious pilgrimage, priests with crosses were made to lead the way as they marched, and on the banners of the army were depicted the five wounds of our Saviour, a crucifix, and a chalice. Aske advanced upon York at the head of a well-appointed army, and this strong city surrendered to him. The Percies and all the gi'eat nobles of the north joined the movement. Lord Darcy wrote hastily to the king to tell him that the whole of Yorkshire was up, and soon afterwards, not very unwillingly perhaps, he too was constrained to join the rebels. He sur- rendered to them Pomfret Castle, where he and the Archbishop of York were staying, and both Darcy and the archbishop took Chap. IX. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. IGl the oath tendered to them l>y Aske, wliich was, " that they should enter into this I'il- griniage of Grace for the love of God, the preservation of the king's person and issue, the purifying of the nobility, and expulsing all villain blood and evil council- lors, and for no particular profit for them- selves, nor to do displeasure to any, nor to stay nor murder any for envy, but to put away all fears, and to take after them the Cross of Clirist, his faith, and the restitu- tion of the Church, the suppression of here- tics and their opinions." Darcy afterwards came to the block, and Archbishop Lee must have come perilously near to it, as there was really no overwhelming con- straint to oblige him to take this oath. While Aske was at Pomfret another divi- sion of the rebels advanced against Hull, which, like York, surrendered. Every- where the whole population joined them. Skipton Castle alone in all Yorkshire held out for the king. Numerous recruits ar- rived from Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Durham. Their minds were inflamed by the same dreadful tales about the intended demolition of churches, the tin chalices, and the enormous taxes which were to be looked for in the future. As they ad- vanced they replaced the expelled monks in their monasteries, and received contri- butions from the greater houses which were as yet untouched, a terrible and dis- astrous proceeding for them in the future. Meantime the king and his nobles were not slack in opposing this formidable rising. Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, levied forces against them even before he had received the king's warrant. The Earl of Derby, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earls of Rutland and Huntingdon, were bid to join their levies to his, and the king him- self prepared to go and take the leader- ship of his troops. Lancaster Herald was despatched to Pomfret to try to procure the dispersing of the rebels, and was bid among other things to tell them that "as concerning points of religion or observance his Majesty had done no- thing, but the whole clergy of that province of York, as v,-ell as the pro- vince of Canterbury, hath determined the same to be conformable to God's holy word and testament." Of the manner in which he performed this perilous duty the Lancaster Herald has left us a very interesting report :— "Robert Haske, cap- tain of the host, being in the castle, heard tell that I was comen, and sent for me to come in to him, and so I did ; and as I entered into the first ward there I found many in harness of very cruel fellows, and a porter with a white stafif in his hand, and so I was brought into the hall, which I found full of people ; and I stood up at the high table in the hall, and there showed to the people the cause of my coming, and the effect of the proclama- tion, and in doing the same the said Haske sent for me to his chamber, and there keeping his port and countenance as though he had been a great prince, with great rigour and like a tyrant, wlio was accompanied with the Archbishop of York, the Lord Darcy, Sir Robert Con- stable, Mr. Magnus, Sir Christopher Dan- by, and divers others ; and, as my duty was, I saluted the Archbishop of York and my Lord Darcy, showing to them the cause I came thither for. And then the said Robert Aske, with a cruel and an in- estimable proud countenance, stretched himself, and took the hearing of my tale, which I opened to him at large, in as much honour to my sovereign lord the king as my reason would ser\'e me, which the said Captain Aske gave no reverence to, and superstitiously demanded the sight of my proclamation. And then I took it out of my purse and delivered it to him, and then he read it openly, without re- verence to any person, and said it should not need to call no counsel for the answer to the same, for he would of his own wit give me the answer, which was this : — ' Herald, as a messenger you are welcome to me and all my company, intending as I do. And as for this proclamation, sent from the Lords from whence you come, it shall not be read at the market cross, nor in no place amongst my people, which be all under my guiding ; nor for fear of loss of lands, life, and goods, nor for the power which is against us, doth not enter into our hearts with fear ; but are all of one accord with the points of our articles, clearly intending to see a reformation, or else to die in these causes.'" The end of the matter was that the herald was obliged to retire without publishing his procla- mation, after having been kindly treated, and receiving a present of money, and that the slackness which he was thought to have shown in performing his duties afterwards cost him liis life. The rebel army advanced upon Doncaster in three divisions, each 10,000 strong. To oppose them, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Marquis of Exeter, had but 5000 men, but these were enough firmly to hold the bridge over the Don, and a great rain Avhich fell rendered tlie passage of the river by the ford imjiracti- cable. This delay, and the defection from their forces which was continually taking place, inclined the rebels to treat, and 162 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. IX. two gentlemen deputed by them, accom- panied by the Duke of Norfolk, went up to London with their petition. The king strove to gain all the time possible, which he knew to be against the rebels. Emis- saries were despatched into the north to reason with them. An attempt was made to get Aske treacherously surrendered. These measures were not successful, and at Jength the Duke of Norfolk was de- spatched with a pardon for all, except six named and four unnamed. At the same time the king sent numerous copies of the Ten Articles of his devising, which had been agreed to by Convocation, and wrote a letter to the bishops, ordering the old ceremonies to be still observed. The northern clergy met at Pomfret, under the presidency of the archbishop, to hold a Convocation. The archbishop preached, and declared the rising illegal. He was dragged from the pulpit, and was in great danger of his life. The clergy voted a direct negative to the Ten Articles, to which the southern Convocation had agreed. On the 6th of December, 300 delegates, on the part of the rebels, met the king's lieutenants at Doncaster to discuss terms. The demands of the insurgents were so extreme that the Lords dared not grant them, and had not the river Don risen a second time the war would have recom- menced. The duke now advised the king that nothing short of a general pardon would serve, and Henry, dreading the support of the rebels either by Scotland or the emperor, at length sent this, to- gether with a promise to hold a parlia- ment at York. Upon this the rebels dis- persed and returned home. In answer to their demands and complaints the king wrote a letter to them, as he had done to the Lincolnshire men. As regards the maintenance of the faith, he marvels not a little "that ignorant people will go about to instruct us (which something have been noted to be learned) what the right faith should be. We have done nothing in their prejudice that may not be abiden by both by God's law and man's ; and in our own Church, whereof we be the supreme head here in earth, we have not done so much prgudice as many of our predeces- sors have done upon much less grounds. As for certain of our council whom ye name to be subverters of God's laws, we do take and repute them as just and true executors, both of God's laws and ours, as far as their commissions under us do ex- tend. We expect you our commons to be no more so light of credit, neither of ill things spoken of youi- king and sovereign, nor yet of any of his prelates and council- lors, but to think that your king, having so long reigned over you, hath as good discretion to elect and choose his council- lors as those, whosoever they be, that have put this in your heads." But in spite of these explanations and admonitions the northern men were not satisfied. Before long tliey again rose in rebellion ; but as now the king was better prepared they were easily dispersed this time without conditions. It was now thought com- petent to the king to recall his pardon, and to take vengeance for the former rising as well as this latter. Accordingly, Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, and Lord Hussey were- executed ; no less than twelve abbots and numerous monks were hanged, drawn, and quartered, l When the commissioners were sent forth a second time in the summer of 1537 to inquire into the state of the monasteries, the suspicion of complicity in the rebellion formed a terrible weapon in their hands for bring- ing about the surrender of the abbeys, and the submission of the monks. — State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. i. ; Herbert's Life of Henry VIII. ; Ellis's Original Let- ters, Series 3. (B) TYNDALE'S DEATH. William Tyndale was the leading spirit among the knot of reformers who, settled abroad, wrote and printed unceas- ingly, not alone translations of the Scrip- tures, but other books also of a strong re- forming character for importation into England. The greatest efforts were made both to check the supply of these books in England, and also to get hold of the authors of them. The following letter in- dicates some of the machinations used against Tyndale. It is from Vaughan, the king's envoy in Germany, to the king : — " I have again been in hand to persuade Tyn- dale, and to draAv him the rather to favour my persuasions, and not to think the same feigned, I showed him a clause con- tained in Master Crumwell's letter con- taining these words following : — ' And, notwithstanding other the premises in 1 " Forasmuch as all these troubles have ensued by the solicitation and traitorous conspiracies of the monks and canons of those parts, we desire you, at such places as they have conspired or kept their houses with force since the appointment at Doncaster, you shall, without pity or circumstance, cause all the monks and canons, that be in anywise faulty, to be tied up without further delay or cere- mony."—Henry to Duke of Norfolk. State Papers, i. 537. Chap. IX. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 163 this my letter contained, if it were pos- sible by good and wholesome exhortations to convert the said Tyndale from the train and affection which he now is in, and to excerpt and take away the opinions and fantasies sorely rooted in him, I doubt not but the king's highness would be much joyful of his conversion and amend- ment, and so being converted, if then he would return into the realm, undoubtedly the king's majesty is so inclined to mercy, pity, and compassion, that he refusetli none whom he seeth to submit themselves unto the obedience and good order of the world.' In these words I thought to be such sweetness and virtue as were able to pierce the hardest heart in the world, and as I thought, so it came to pass ; for after sight thereof I perceived the man to be exceedingly altered and moved, to take the same very near to his heart, inasmuch as that water stood in his eyes, and he answered, 'What gracious words are these ! I assui-e you if it should stand with the king's most gracious pleasure to grant only a bare text of Scripture to be put forth among the people, like as is put forth among the subjects of the emperor, be it of the translation of what person so- ever shall please his majesty, I shall im- mediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor abide two days in these parts after the same.' ... I have some good hope of the man, and would not doubt to bring him to some good point were it that now and then something might proceed from your Majesty towards me."— (State Papers, vii. 303-4). Tjmdalc, however, did not make the perilous ven- ture of trusting to the king's mercy. About 1534 he went to reside at Antwerp, taking up his abode in the house of Mr. Pointz, an English merchant. Here, by the agency of one Henry Philips, the king induced the procurator-general of the emperor to seize him. He was conveyed to the castle of Vilvoord and imprisoned for a year and a half. In 1536 he was brought to trial, and condemned under the emperor's decree made at Augsburg 1530. He was first tied to the stake, then strangled, and afterwards consumed by fire (1536). His last words were, ■" Lord, open the king of England's eyes." To Tjti- dale, more than to any other one man, we owe our version of the Holy Scriptures. His translation was the groundwork of all the succeeding versions. 164 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. CHAPTER X. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 1539-1547. Part I. External History. — § 1. The practical answer to the 'Ahuses' of the Lutheran divines. § 2. The Six Articles referred to a committee. § 3. The committee fails to agree. § 4. The draft of the hill. § 5. Convocation consulted. § 6. The Six Article Law, § 7. Its character. § 8. Act to legalise proclamations. § 9. Other acts of this session. § 10. Latimer and Shaxton resign, § 11. Cranmer reassured of the king's favour. § 12. Bonner promoted to London. § 13. Crumwell's attainder and execution, § 14. How this affected the interests of the Church. § 15. The divorce from Anne of Cleves. § 16. Six Article Law modified. § 17. Act anticipatory of a change in the authorised teaching. §18. Attainder of Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome. §19. Their execution, together with those who denied the supremacy. § 20. Other executions at this period. § 21. Act to restrain the use of the Bible. § 22. Intrigues against Cranmer. § 23. The archbishop loses political power. § 24. Act to inaugurate review of the Canon Law. § 25. Act to give to the king Chantries, Hospitals, and Guilds. § 26. Other Acts of this Parliament. §27. The obsequiousness of Henry VIII. 's Parlia- ments and Convocations. General estimate of the effect of this. Part II. Internal History. — § 1. History of English Bible during this period. § 2. The second and third Primers of this reign. § 3. Forma- tion of the "Erudition of any Christian man." § 4. History of the liturgical changes during this period. § I. The censure of the Lutlieran divines who were in England in 1538, upon the ahuses still tolerated in the Church of EngLand, had evidently produced much indignation in King Henry. Not only had he caused a sharp and biting answer to be made to them by the pen of Tonstal, but he now designed to set forth a more practical and telling reply to them, and to those who in England sympathised with them.-^ Those things which they had stigmatised as abuses he determined to establish and guard under the sharpest and severest penalties. On the 28th April 1539 the new Parlia- ment met. § 2, On May 4, Lord Chancellor Audley brought a message to the House of Lords from the king. His Majesty was most desirous to have all his subjects of one mind in religion, and to quiet all controversies about it, and with a view to this he had ^ The evident connection of the Six Article Law with the German paper of abuses has, I think, escaped the notice of all historians of the period. 1539-1647. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 165 bidden him to move that a committee should be appointed for examining the different opinions, and for drawing up certain articles of agreement which might be reported and considered by the House. Accordingly Crumwell, Archbishops Cranmer and Lee, Bishops Tonstal, Clerk, Goodrich, Bird, Aldrich, and Latimer, were appointed a committee for this purpose. Certain queries, probably drawn up by the king, were referred to them, which they were to answer by statements in the form of Articles. L Whether in the eucharist Christ's real body was present, without transub- stantiation ? II. Whether that sacrament was to be given to the laity in both kinds ? III. Whether the vow of chastity made either by men or women ought to be observed by the law of God ? IV. Whether by the law of God private masses ought to be celebrated ? V. Whether by the law of God priests might marry ? VI. Whether by the law of God auricular confession was necessary ? § 3. As the committee was composed of representatives of the two parties then striving for the mastery, and as the questions were on the very points of difference between them, it was hardly to be expected that they should come to an agreement. Its debates continued for eleven days, when the Duke of Norfolk announced in the House of Lords that the committee had made no progress, and that there was no probability of its coming to a decision. The questions were then referred to the House of Lords, and were debated there for three days, the king being present and taking part in the debate. Archbishop Cranmer contended earnestly to obtain a negative decision on some of the questions. The enforce- ment of the monastic vow of celibacy when the monastic life had been taken away ; the lawfulness of private masses ; the prohibition of marriage to the clergy, were the points on which he most zealously contended. As to the corporal presence in the eucharist he was as yet in favour of the Lutheran view. On one point he carried the king with him that, viz., of auricular con- fession, i § 4. The arrangement arrived at in the Lords was that Cranmer and those who thought with him should draft one bill ; Archbishop Lee of York and those who agreed with him should ^ Bishop Tonstal, after contending for this in the House of Lords, had sent the king a paper with his reasons. To this the Iving replied, " Me- thought, my Lord of Durham, that both the bishoi:)S of York and Winchester and your texts were fully answered the other day in our house. I marvelled not a little why you eftsoon have sent to me this now your writing, being in a manner few other texts or reasons than there were declared, both by the Bishop of Canterbury and me, to make snially or nothing to your intended purpose." — Burnet, llccords, addenda, xi. 166 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. draft another. The lay lords do not appear to have shown much interest in the matter. The two bills were drafted, but neither of them was accepted. The ultimate form which the bill took was due to a draft made by the king. § 5. On June 2, the Convocation of Canterbury was consulted on the six points, and answered them all affirmatively. Bishops Latimer and Shaxton, Doctors Crome and Tailour,^ being dis- sentient. § 6. The bill was brought into the Lords on June 7, and was much debated there. During these debates Cranmer was silent. It would appear that the king desired that he should absent himself from the house. This he declined, but he abandoned further opposition to the bill, without, however, in any way giving it his approval.^ The bill reached its final stage June 28. Beginning with a preamble touching unity, it asserted that Parlia- ment and Convocation had come to an agreement on six points — • (1) Transubstantiation in the eucharist. (2) Communion in both kinds not needful for all. (3) That priests may not marry. (4) That all vows of chastity must be observed. (5) That private masses were to be commended. (6) That auricular confession is necessary. The penalty for the offence of holding an opinion contrary to the first article to be death by burning. First offences against the other articles to involve loss of goods and imprison- ment. Second offences, death as felons. Marriages of priests and those who had vowed chastity to be dissolved. If they married again, the offenders to be hanged. Vows not to bind those who had taken them under twenty-one years of age. Abstaining from the mass at the accustomed time, or from confession, to be held an offence against the articles. Commissioners appointed by the bishops to hold quarterly courts of inquiry ; presentments to be made to them. § 7. By thus making heresy an offence against the statute law, there was taken away from the accused the refuge which had often saved life under the old system, viz. the resource of abjura- tion. Under this statute this did not avail. It is perhaps the most bloodthirsty statute ever inscribed on the books of our legislature, and it is evident that its promoters w^ere heartily ashamed of it, for they did not enforce it strictly, and they soon proceeded to modify it. It is, however, a mistake to argue that ^ Wriothesley's Chronicle, iii, 101. ' A great controversy has arisen as to Cranmer's conduct on this occasion, drawn from the somewhat loose statements of Morice, the archbishop's secretary, printed in Nicholls' Records of the Reformation. The mattei would hardly repay a long inquiry. 1539-1547. THE EEACTIOITARY PERIOD. 167 none suffered death under this statute, and that it was intended purely for the purposes of intimidation. Fifteen are mentioned by name in Wriothesley's Chronicle as having suffered under it in and about London. Dr. Maitland, who labours hard to dimin- ish the importance of the Act, admits that as many as 28 may have suffered under it. Burnet asserts that 500 persons were in prison at once by virtue of its penalties ; and it is agreed on all hands that a general consternation and terror was caused by its ferocious enactments. It was usually called the " Whip with six strings."^ § 8. Before the passing of this terrible Act, another measure had been adopted by this complaisant Parliament which, though it had not so fearful an appearance, was in fact more dangerous to the liberty of the subject than the law of the Six Articles. This was the statute which enacted that the king's proclamations should have the force of Acts of Parliament.^ This was practically to erect the king into an absolute monarch, and to entrust him with an uncontrolled dominion over the lives, liberties, and religion of his subjects. § 9. By another Act of this session the king was empowered to erect bishops' sees and to appoint bishops by letters patent.^ An- other vested in him the property of all monasteries dissolved or ceded since the period covered by the first Act.* § 10. The passing of the Six Article Law was followed imme- diately by the resignation of Latimer and Shaxton, the Bishops of Worcester and Salisbury. Latimer was committed to the custody of the Bishop of Chichester, and Shaxton to that of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, " to remain in their wards." ^ The former would have retired witli more credit to himself and greater claim upon our sympathies, had he not shortly before assisted at the burning of Friar Forrest for denying the king's supremacy;^ as for Shaxton he quickly changed his mind, accepted the persecuting statute, and became himself a persecutor. § 11. Perhaps Cranmer might also have contemplated retire- ment at this juncture, as he was well known to be married, and was in fact exposed to the penalties of the new law. But the king, who found his yielding temper serviceable to him, took pains to assure him of the continuance of his protection. The Duke of 1 See Collier's Ch. Hist. v. 37, sq. Wriothesley's Chronicle, pp. 118- 19-20-26-43-70. Maitland, Essays on Reformation^ essay xii. Burnet, Hist. Ref., i. 195. 2 31 Henry VIII. c. 3. 3 31 Henry VIII. c. 9. See Chapter viii. ^ 31 Henry viii. c. 13. ^ Wriothesley's Chronicle (Cam. Soc), pp. 101, 103. ^ On which occasion he Avrote to Crumwell to ask him whether he desired that in the pulpit "he should play the fool after his accustomed manner." 168 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. Norfolk and Crumwell were sent to dine with him at Lambeth to convince him of the king's favourable regard. Unfortunately they quarrelled at the dinner, a matter which had no slight influence on the subsequent fate of Crumwell. § 12. It is a singular irony that it was due to Crumwell's in- fluence at this time that Bonner was raised to the episcopate, first to the See of Hereford, and then, on the death of Stokesley, to that of London. This man, afterwards so remarkable a persecutor, professed how the doctrine of the king's absolute supremacy to the same extent as Gardiner and Sampson. He was content also to hold his episcopal jurisdiction on a license from the king.^ § 13. But the time was now approaching when the great influ- ence which Crumwell had long exercised, both in Church and State, was to come to an end. He had made it a part of his policy to connect the king with German Protestant alliances, and in an evil hour he thought to bind him fast to this policy by inducing him to take a German wife. On January 6, 1540, the king was mar- ried to Anne, sister of William, Duke of Cleves. Henry conceived an utter distaste to this lady from the first, and at once began to cast about for pretexts to obtain a divorce from her. Caught in the meshes of this disagreeable alliance, his indignation turned fiercely on those who had helped to involve him in it. There were no more monasteries to seize, the king did not desire the reforming movement to advance any farther, Crumwell was no longer necessary to him, and Crumwell had been the chief instru- ment in the hated marriage. The Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, now his chief advisers, were ready to suggest the most vigorous measures against him, and Henry readily yielded. On June 13 Crumwell was arrested at the council-table by the Duke of Norfolk and conveyed to the Tower, and on June 1 7th a bill for his attainder was brought into the House of Lords, read a second and third time two days afterwards, and sent down to the Commons. The Commons rejected the Lords' bill, but passed one of their own, which was accepted by the Lords, and received the king's assent the same day.^ Cranmer ventured to intercede for Crumwell, declaring that " no king of England ever had such a servant." ^ The king would not listen to his appeal. Under the influence of the Duke of Norfolk and of the charms of Catherine Howard, the duke's niece, he hurried Crumwell to his end. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, July 28, and the same day the king married Catherine Howard. ^ See above, Chapter VII. Bonner's " License " still exists in his register. See Burnet, Records, i. iii. xiv. ^ See note on the attainders of this Parliament, in Notes and Illustrationa to this chapter. ^ Burnet, Hist. Ref. i. 205. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 169 § 14. Looking merely to the interests of the Church, the death of Criimwell was no loss, but rather a gain. He had inaugurated the reforming movement, hut he would, had his power continued, have forced it too much, and have linked it with the erratic pro- ceedings of the foreign reformers. His death severed a link be- tween England and Germany, and allowed the Church in this land cautiously and prudently to prepare for the great change which was to be witnessed in the next reign. But to the king, whom he had served with zeal and devotion, his death was an infamy not less than that which attached to him for the ruin of Wolsey or for the murders of the Countess of Salisbury, the Earl of Surrey, and the Duke of Norfolk.^ § 15. The marriage with Catherine Howard must needs be pre- ceded by the ceremony of a divorce from the wife whom the king had formally married six months before, and again, as in the case of Anne Boleyn, the archbishop and the clergy were made the un- happy instruments of carrying out the capricious will of the sovereign. It is idle to attempt to defend the conduct either of Cranmer or the Convocation in this matter. The question of the validity of the marriage was brought before the synods of Can- terbury and York, sitting together by a special commission, on July 7 (1540). The record of their proceedings is printed at length in the State Papers. ^ It is a melancholy document. Upon the grounds that there was possibly a pre-contract — that the king had never given his mere and entire assent to his own act — and that there had been no consummation of the marriage — the clergy declared the marriage null and void. " This," says Bishop Burnet, " was the greatest piece of compliance the king ever had from the clergy. For as they all knew that there was nothing of weight in that pre-contract, so they laid down a most pernicious precedent for invalidating all public treaties and agreements, since if one of the parties being unwilling to it, so that his assent was not inward, he was not bound by it, there was no safety among men more. And for that argument which was taken from the want of consummation, they had forgotten what was pleaded on the king's behalf ten years before, 'that consent without consum- mation doth make a marriage valid.' "^ § 16. Possibly it was by way of reward for the ready com- pliance of the archbishop in this matter that the king consented to a modification of the law of Six Articles which took place in this session of parliament. Cranmer had, either at this time or ^ Although the Duke of Norfolk was not executed, yet his warrant was actually signed when the king died. 2 State Papers of Ucnry VIII. i. G29. ^ Burnet, Hist Ref. i. 205, 170 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. earlier, presented to the king a paper, in whicli lie argued very strongly against the severity of the punishments enacted for clerical marriage.-'- A statute passed July 20 (1540), modifies the penalties of the Act, taking away the punishment of death for clerical matrimony, and confining it to the forfeiture of benefices and goods.^ § 17. At the commencement of this session of parliament Crum- well had announced that it was the king's purpose to review and recast the book called The Institution of a Christian Man. With reference 16 this intention a very remarkable statute was passed by the Legislature. Reciting that a committee of learned divines had been appointed for this work, it enacted that whatsoever should be agreed upon by them, and allowed by the king, should be believed and obeyed by all the king's subjects, as well as if the particulars were set forth in this Act, but that nothing should be sanctioned by this Act contrary to the laws and statutes of the kingdom. The last clause was evidently intended to save intact the definitions already made in the Six Article Law, but a further use was also intended to be made of this statute by the reactionary party, as will appear hereafter. § 18. In this Parliament that party was completely in the ascendant. The fall of Crumwell had struck terror into the re- formers, and seems for the time to have completely paralysed them. The triumph of Gardiner was complete when he was able to cause the Legislature actually to pass bills of attainder against three reforming divines who had angered him by contravening his views upon justification. These men — Dr. Barnes, of whom men- tion has been made before, both in connection with TVolsey and. with Nicholson — Gerard, and Jerome, had not oflfended against the Six Article Law, or they would have been brought to trial|Under its provisions. They were Lutherans, and held the corporal pre- sence in the eucharist. But they also held the Lutheran tenet of justification solely by faith, and they had taken occasion to enforce their views in sermons at Paul's Cross, at which place Bishop Gardiner had shortly before preached an entirely difterent doctrine of justification. Confident, doubtless, in the support of Crumwell, they had probably treated the bishop with scant respect, but the fall of their patron gave them over defenceless into his hand.^ The king had been informed of their teaching, and having sent for ^ Collier (v. 23) says that this paper Avas presented before the passing of the Six Article Law. •^ 32 Henry VIII. c. 10. There was also another statute passed after- wards, which enacted that no information could be received under this statute unless verified by the oaths of twelve men — that the act complained of must have been done within a year, and if words, must have been spoken within forty days. 35 Henry VIII. c. 5. ^ Burnet, Records, i. iii. xxii. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 171 them had reproved them for it, and had given them a paper con- taining certain propositions touching justification, which they were bid to enforce in sermons at the Spittle in Easter week. Barnes was also charged to ask publicly the Bishoj) of Winchester's par- don. It seems that in the sermons designed for their recantation these preachers had again enforced their peculiar views, and the king hearing of this had ordered them to be thrown into the Tower. It was determined that they should be destroyed as aiders and abettors of Crumwell and his policy, and as there was no law which could summarily dispose of them, it was de- cided to bring bills of attainder against them into Parliament. Probably a stranger proceeding has never been witnessed in Par- liament than the condemnation of these men, without trial, but merely on representation that they had taught erroneously on the doctrine of justification. To take away " the extraordinariness of the thing," says Burnet, " they resolved to mix attainders for things that were very di£ferent one to the other." Five men were therefore attainted for *' adhering to the Bishop of Rome," and Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome for " conspiracy to set forth heresies, and taking themselves to be men of learning, so that they expounded the Scriptures." The framer of the bill did not even trouble him- self to enumerate their heresies. " The number of them," it is said, " was too long to be repeated," and with this startling parody of a trial the three Lutherans were condemned to be burned. § 19. On the same day three of those who had denied the king's supremacy — Abel, who had been confessor to Queen Catherine, Featherstone, and Powel, priests, all three of them doctors of divinity — were condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. By a wretched aping of impartial justice a Romanist and a Protestant were placed together on each hurdle, and thus drawn to Smithfield. At the stake Barnes asked the sheriff if he had any articles against them specifying the crimes for which they were to suffer. The sheriff confessed that he had none. Barnes then appealed to the peoj)le, and asked if any could say wherefore they were to be burned. No answer was given. He then said, " He had heard they were condemned to die by an Act of Parliament, and it seems it was for heresy,as they were to be burned. He prayed God to forgive those who had been the occasion of it." ^ Having desired that some would convey to the king his requests that he would be zealous in pro- moting practical religion, he and his companions were committed to the flames. At the same time the three impugners of the royal supremacy suffered death, all of them, it is said, charging Gardiner with their punishment. 1 Burnet, Hist. Ilef. i. 217. 172 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X § 20. This fearful exhibition of perverted justice took place July 30. On August 4 seven persons were executed at Tyburn for denying the royal supremacy.^ Before the end of the year at least four persons were burned under the Six Article Law.^ On May 17, 1541, the venerable Countess of Salisbury was beheaded, her real crime being that she was the mother of Cardinal Pole. Shortly afterwards Sir David Genson, one of the knights of St. John, was hanged for denying the supremacy. The famous order to which he belonged, which had been enriched with the spoils of the Templars, and had grown into vast wealth and influence, had been suppressed in England by a special Act of Parliament in the previous year. In an Appendix to Dodds' Church History a por- tentous list is given, by which it appears that sixty-five persons were actually executed in Henry's reign for denying the supremacy. Sixty-one were condemned, but not executed, most of them having died in prison, and thirty persons were executed for rising in defence of monastic lands. If we add to these the number of those who sufi'ered for imputed heresy, the total of victims on account of opinion in the reign of Henry will not fall far short of that which was reached- under his daughter Mary. Among these sufferers the most remarkable, perhaps, was Anne Kyme, whose maiden name was Ayscough, a Lincolnshire lady of good family, who was burned with three others under the Six Article Law, July 16, 1546. It is supposed that political considerations had some- thing to do with her execution, as she was a friend of Queen Catherine Parr's.^ The Lord Chancellor, Wriothesley, is said to have applied the rack to her with his own hands. She was a gentle, devout, and learned lady, and her cruel fate excited a feel- ing of universal horror. § 21. While the penalties of the law, or the acts of the king's capricious cruelty, fell with impartial severity sometimes on one 1 Laurence Cook, Prior of Doncaster ; Home, a lay brother of the Charterhouse ; Broomholme, a priest ; and four gentlemen. 2 Wriottiesley's Chronicle, which is a simple contemporary narrative, without any special colour, but from the relationship of the writer to Wriothesley, the chancellor, of an anti-reforming character, specifies the names of these persons : — May 3, Burned without St. George's Bar, at Southwark, three persons, a Frenchman, who had been groom to the queen, an Italian, and an Englishman, for "heresy against the sacrament of the altar." June 7, Burned without St. George's Bar, one Collins, for heresy against the sacrament of the altar." Burnet, following Foxe, assigns the death of six persons to this year. One, Meekins, at London, three at Salis- bury, two at Lincoln. It is impossible to depend upon Foxe's dates. Wriothesley puts the execution of Meekins by hanging on July 30, 1541.— Chronicle, pp. 119, 126, 143. ^ See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. [73 party, sometimes on the other, the tendency of legislation and general policy went for the most part in the direction of restrain- ing the reforming movement. A new Parliament met January 1543, and its first Act was directed towards repressing the excesses of some of the reformers, and putting a general curb on free inquiry. This Act, which is a curious patchwork, was called " An Act for the advancement of true religion, and abolishing of the contrary." ^ The preamble declares that much mischief has arisen by perverting the truth of Scripture. To remove these errors a form of orthodox doctrine shall be set forth. Tyndale's translation is condemned. All books contrary to the Articles of 1540 (the Six Articles) are forbidden. Plays, interludes, and ballads on religious subjects are prohibited. The reading of the Bible to all under the degree of gentlemen and gentlewomen is prohibited. Such doctrine as is or shall be set forth by his Majesty since the year 1540 2 is allowed, as also the Psalter, Primer, Paternoster, Ave, and Creed in English. The Act con- tained some provisions which modified the severest portions of the Six Article Law, as for instance it exempted the laity from capital punishment for heresy, and permitted the accused to brines his own witnesses. But as it was provided in the Act that the king might set it aside, or any part of it, these gains were more apparent than real.^ Probably its design was to stop the religious plays, and to check the reading of the Scriptures. § 22. The milder policy which had found some expression in this Act of Parliament is said to have been due to the persistent action of Archbishop Cranmer, and in like manner it was pro- bably due to him that the Statute 35 Henry VIII. cap. 5, which was designedly intended to modify the Statute of Six Articles, and which did very effectually diminish its rigour, passed the Legisla- ture (1544). Cranmer was, indeed, the only public man who at this period ventured to contend at all for the interests of reforma- tion, and in doing so he displayed a courage very different from his yielding and abject demeanour towards the king. The party now in the ascendant used every effort to ruin him. A conspiracv was got up among the clergy of his cathedral, in which Dr. London, famous for his work in the monasteries, and now a canon of Windsor, bore a part. Dr. Thornton also. Bishop-suffragan of Dover and also a monastic visitor, was concerned in it. They denounced Cranmer to the king as the fautor of heresy in his diocese. The king merely put the letters in the archbishop's own 1 34 and 35 Henry VIII. c. 1. 2 It would seem from this that the Institution of a Christian Man was prohiLited. 3 ggg Burnet, Hist. Eef. i. 235. 174 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X hands. Then Sir John Gostwick in the House of Commons denounced him as having " preached manifest heresy against the sacrament of the altar." The king, on hearing of this said, " Tell that varlet Gostwick that if he do not acknowledge his fault to my lord of Canterbury I will soon make him a poor Gostwick." ^ At length a bolder and more dangerous attack was made upon Cranmer in the Privy Council. Certain of the councillors declared that three-fourths of the land were heretics, and that the arch- bishop was the cause of all, and demanded that he should be com- mitted to the Tower, alleging that as he was a privy councillor none dared make charges against him until he was in prison. The king agreed that he should be called before the council the next day, and committed if cause could be shown. But he had no intention of deserting the archbishop. At midnight he sent for him, and giving him his ring, bade him appeal from the council to himself, exhibiting the ring if they should deal hardly with him. The archbishop, when he appeared to answer the summons, was kept waiting outside among the lacqueys, where Dr. Butts, the king's physician, chanced to see him, and informed the king of the slight thus put upon him. Admitted to the council, an attempt was made to deal roughly with him ; but Cranmer exhi- bited the royal signet, and soon afterwards the king entered, sharply reproved the councillors, and exonerated the archbishop. ^ § 23. But while the archbishop preserved the king's favour he was without political influence, and ceased to appear at court. He was able, for this reason, to give more diligent attention to the great work which was silently preparing in Convocation, the reviewing and recasting of the devotional system of the Church. § 24. Before, however, this is spoken of in detail, it will be well to notice some Acts which are important items in the exter- nal history of the Church at this time. By the Act of the Sub- mission of the Clergy, passed in 1534, the king had been em- powered to appoint thirty-two commissioners — sixteen clerical, sixteen lay — to review the whole body of canon law, and to revise and re-edit it in such a form as should be suitable for the position which the Church of England had now assumed independent of Rome. But the nominatiun had never been made, and the work had not been commenced. Archbishop Cranmer was very anxious to forward it, and by dint of extracting a number of 23assages from the Decretals and Extravagants, which enunciated most strongly the necessity of subjection to Rome,^ he iiiduced the king to move in the matter. In the session of 1544 an o ^ Strype's Cranmer, i. 177 (folio ed.) ^ jj) chap, xxiii. ^ The paper is printed in Burnet, Records, i. iii. xxvii. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 175 Act was passed renewing this power to the king of appointing commissioners, and providing that until they had reported, and the king liad assented to their report, the ancient canon law should hold good where it was not contrariant to the statutes of the realm or the prerogatives of the Crown.i § 25. In the autumn session of 1545, the king's necessities being pressing, an Act was passed to confer upon him the pro- perty of all colleges, free chapels, chantries, hospitals, fraternities, guilds, with which the Court of Augmentations was empowered to deal, selling or alienating them for the king's use.^ This was advancing a step beyond what had been done in the matter of the monasteries ; and considering that the king himself, and the majority of the nation, still believed in purgatory, was nothing short of sacrilege. For the suppression of the monasteries reasons both civil and religious might be alleged. For the spoliation of colleges there could be no valid reason,^ and the suppression of chantries by those who believed that souls needed to be prayed out of jDurgatory, seemed an impious rejection of all care for the souls of ancestors. Neither could there be anything alleged really to excuse the seizing on the property of hospitals, which were founded for the relief of the poor and suffering, or of guilds, which were lay corporations, useful for social and trading pur- poses, and in no way needing suppression for the general good. The death of the king, soon after the jDassing of this Act, prevented any great amount of mischief arising from it, but it formed a pre- cedent which was speedily followed in the next reign. § 26. Other Acts of this Parliament conferred upon the king a large number of manors wdiich had been ceded to the Crown by the new Archbishop of York, Eobert Holgate, and confirmed some which had been ceded by Cranmer, and by Bonner, Bishop of London. 4 It was now specially provided that laymen, being doctors of civil law, should have power, when duly appointed, to exercise jarisdiction ecclesiastical, it being asserted that bishops and other churchmen have no jurisdiction ecclesiastical save from and by grant of the Crown, and that the king is the sole fountain of all authority in all manner of causes. § 27. The obsequious fidelity which the Parliaments of Henry 1 This statute produced the Reformatio legum ecdesiasticarum, of which more will be said hereafter. The work was finished in this reign, but the king declined to sign it. It was again reviewed and prepared for the royal signature in the next reign, but was equally unfortunate. 2 37 Henry VIIl. cap. 4. 2 Oxford and Cambridge at once appealed to the king for protection against the effect of this Act, and were assured that it was not intended to touch them. * 37 Henry VIIL cap. 16, 17. 176 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. VIII. had ever displayed toward the king is truly remarkable. They had repudiated for him his debts, and even ordered the restoration of any sums that had been repaid. They had sup- ported him in every phase of his quarrel with the pope and the clergy. They had enunciated as law his doctrine of the supre- macy, and had strained the enactments against treason to such a point as to make it death even to imagine anything derogatory to his titles. Three times they had regulated the succession accord- ing to his pleasure, and at length had left it absolutely in his power to settle by his last will. They had even stultified their own position and office by making his proclamations bear the force of law. They had enacted his definitions of doctrine under the most highly penal provisions, and at his pleasure had relaxed them. They had struck down by the fearful weapon of attainder victim after victim at his will, and they had poured into his lap with reckless prodigality the vast possessions of the monasteries, chantries, hosj^itals, and guilds. The clergy in their Convocations had been somewhat less complaisant, but no effectual resistance had been offered to the royal will. They had acknowledged, though grudgingly, and with a qualifying clause, his supremacy. They had submitted their power of making canons to his- per- mission. They had accepted and confirmed the articles drawn by him. They had ratified his three divorces. They had condemned the pope's council as he desired. With this absolute control over the legislative bodies of the state, which, in fact, constituted Henry VIII. a monarch completely absolute, it is a matter for much thankfulness, both that the king went as far as he did, and that he stopped where he did. His active measures had the effect of completely setting the Church of England free from all control of Rome. The decided stop which he made in the road of Reforma- tion had the effect of hindering fanatical and hasty proceedings, and allowing the Church slowly and carefully to mature her services and her teaching. It is true that in the king's active proceedings the Church had to suffer from the overweening pre- tensions of the supremacy, and in his reactionary mood many innocent persons were put to death ; but out of this capriciousness, in itself altogether to be reprobated, there emerged a solid benefit to the Church and nation. § 1. The record of legislative enactments, of attainders and executions, and other facts of the external historv of the Church, is not the most important part of the ecclesiastical narrative of this period. The account of the inner life of the Church, the advance or check of doctrine and opinion, the gradual improvement of 1539-1517. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 177 devotional formularies, is of more real value. Something will now be said on these points. And first, to preserve continuity, the history of the English Bible during this period will be given entire. The revision and reprinting of Matthew's Bible in a larger volume had been confided by Crumwell to the care of Miles Coverdale and Grafton. They had attempted to carry out the work at Paris, but had been interrupted by the Inc[uisitor- general, and had been obliged to fly, with their presses, types, and workmen, to London, where the work was finished. This interruption had prevented the new edition of the Bible being ready in time for the Injunctions of September 1538, which order a Great Bible to be set up in the churches. It was in- tended that this Gh-eat Bible should be the new one. But this was not published till April 1539. It appeared without being at all known to Cranmer and the bishops, who were in fact employed with more or less diligence in preparing a version of their own.-^ But the archbishop readily welcomed it. Prepara- tions were at once made to print a new edition, and the arch- bishop composed a preface. In the meantime the king, by a letter issued to Crumwell in 1539, had given permission to all persons to become possessors of Bibles in their private houses, reserving to Crumwell for five years the right of licensing all editions. The Bible, with Cranmer's preface, appeared in April 1540. The pre- fcice points out in the simplest way the great value to all men of the moral teaching of Scripture. This, at least, all could under- stand ; and then gives some salutary cautions as to the vain and contentious use of Scripture by the unlearned. Numerous editions of this Bible followed one another, for the demand was great ; but after Crumwell's execution the names of Bishops Tonstal and Heath appear on the title-page as having " overseen the transla- tion." By a strange nemesis Bishop Tonstal is now made to give his approbation to that very translation of Tyndale's which he had once been so busy in burning. In addition to the order to that effect in the Injunctions, the king had issued a proclamation in May 1540, declaring that the Bible might be freely read in the churches, but giving some salutary restrictions as to the way in which it was to be used. That great abuses prevailed in this respect is evident. Bishop Bonner, after setting up six Bibles in St. Paul's, with an admonition to the people fastened to the pillar over each book, bidding them to use the Word of God with dis- cretion, reverence, and pious behaviour, soon after declared, in an- other admonition, that the Bibles were so much abused with noise and irreverence that he was compelled to remove them. The 1 State Papers of Henry VIIL i. 430, 561. N 178 THE KE ACTION ARY PERIOD. Chap. X. translation itself did not escape criticism. A formal complaint was made to the king hy the Convocation of 1542 that it was inaccurate in many respects. The king bade them amend it. The work was parcelled out among the bishops, and a begiuning was made. Bishojj Gardiner now proposed that a certain number of words (about 100) should not be translated into English, but should be left in the form which they had in the Latin Vulgate. This strange proposal, which would have spoiled both sense and rhythm, was resisted by Cranmer, who, by way of getting rid of it, suggested that the work should be referred to the universities. The king consented, and no more was heard of the revision. Probably to the annoyance felt by the reactionary party at this manoeuvre is due the fact that in the Parliament of 1543 Tyndale's translations were proscribed by name, and all notes in any copies of the Bible w^ere ordered to be erased. At the same time a great restriction upon the use of the English Bible was made. No women (excej)t gentlewomen), no artificers, journeymen, husbandmen, were allowed to read the Bible. Per- haps, however, this was more than compensated for by the resolu- tion of the Convocation in 1543, which ordered that the curate of every parish should, on festival days, read to the people one chapter of the Old Testament after the Te Deum, and one of the New Testament after the Magnificat} Three years later the king by a proclamation again forbade the use of Tyndale's and Cover- dale's translations, at the same time ordering many of the reform- ing books to be destroyed. Thus the English Bible encountered various fortunes till the end of the reign. But it is observable that the Great Bible, or Cranmer's Bible, as it is often called, was never proscribed or declared illegal, though the translations on which it .was based, Tyndale's and Coverdale's, were strictly forbidden, § 2. Next in importance for the religious life of the nation, after the Bible in the vernacular, was the provision of suitable books of private instruction and devotion. The publication of Marshall's Primer in 1535 has already been spoken of. Against this book the clergy had complained, and it had been partially suppressed. Crumwell, ever intent upon advancing reforming opinions, procured the publication of another edition of the Primer in 1539. This book was arranged by Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester, but under Cranmer's supervision. It contained as much reform- ing doctrine as could be ventured on without alarming the king It has the form of " bidding the beads " sanctioned by the king after the abrogation of the papal supremacy, and the new arrange- ments as to holidays. In the Litany a great number of the saints 1 Wilkins. ill. 863. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 179 usually invoked are omitted. The lessons in the Dirige are changed. In the instruction for hearing the mass the doctrine of the " Sacramentaries " is condemned. The book follows three main divisions — Faith, Prayer, and Works — giving instructions in each, and furnishing valuable devotions in the English tongue. The king, not fully liking this book, and in order to supply by authority a manual of devotion which should displace all others, himself in 1545 set out a Primer. In the introduction to it he says : " We, much tendering the youth of our realm, for divers good considerations, and specially that the youth are taught by divers persons, the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, Crede, and Ten Commandments, all in Latin and not in English, by means whereof the same are not brought up in the knowledge of their faith, duty, and obedience ; for that our people which have no know- ledge of the Latin tongue may pray in their vulgar tongue, which is to them best known ; and finally for the avoiding of diversity of former books which are now abroad, whereof are almost innumer- able sorts, which minister occasion of contentious and vain dis- putations : we have set forth this Primer, or Book of Prayers, in English, to be frequented, and used in and through all places of our realms, as well of the elder people as also of the youth, for their common and ordinary prayers, and every schoolmaster is next after the ABC, now by us also set forth, to teach this Primer or book of ordinary prayers unto them, and no other. "^ The English Litany, of the formation of which mention will be made below, was inserted in this Primer, and the promise of com- plete English Services may be said to have been made in the preface. " Forasmuch as we have bestowed great labour and diligence about setting a perfect stay in the other parts of our religion, we have thought good to bestow our earnest labour on this part also, being a thing as fruitful as the best, that men may know both what they pray and also with what words. We have, therefore, set out and given to our subjects a determinate form of praying in their own mother tongue, to the intent that such as are ignorant of any strange and foreign speech may have what to pray in their own familiar language with fruit and under- standing." ^ § 3. The Primer was no doubt valuable in its instructions and its prayers for the unlearned ; but it could hardly be thought a sufficient help in religious knowledge for the clergy and the more instructed class. This office the Institution of a Christian Man was designed to fulfil. But both the king and the bishops " of the old learning" had long been much dissatisfied with this book ; it 1 Wilkius, iii. 875. 2 /j_ y^i 874. 180 THE KEACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X was of far too reforming a character to please tliem. This had led CO the appointment of a committee of divines in 1540, in order to draw up anotlier book ; and then had followed that singular Act of Parliament which enacted that whatever should be agreed upon by this committee, and allowed by the king, should be believed and accepted by all the king's subjects. It is probable that there was a special object aimed at by Gardiner and others in thus obtaining the sanction of their work beforehand. Cranmer was the chief upholder of the reforming opinions. It was designed, therefore, by the leaders of the old party, to draw up among themselves a book of doctrine without his concurrence or knowledge, to obtain the king's approval of it, and then suddenly to force it upon the arch- bishop by surprise, who, it was thought, would not venture to oppose it when once assured that the king had agreed to it. It would then at once, by virtue of the anticipatory Act of Parliament, become law. This scheme was actually carried out up to the point of seeking the approval of the archbishop. The articles were drawn out without Cranmer s knowledge, the king's approval was obtained, and suddenly, on the meeting of the commissioners at Lambeth, the archbishop was requested to give his approval to a formulary which he had never before seen, and the teaching of which was altogether distasteful to him. Though supported by none of the other com- missioners, he resolutely refused. It was thought he was utterly ruined with the king ; but Cranmer knew the king's mind better. He had had much argument with him on the teaching of the Institution, as the manuscript, scored with the king's criticisms and Cranmer's replies, still remaining, sufficiently testifies. He thought he could trust him not to force upon him summarily a document of an entirely new character, and he was not mistaken.-^ This conspiracy being thus defeated, the archbishop took steps for procuring a review of the Institution of a CJiristian Man, and a change, if change were held desirable, in its teaching. He issued out to each of the commissioners a series of seventeen questions on the sacraments, to which they were to furnish answers ; and he afterwards summarised these replies for the king's use, and himself added comments.^ The answers are very various in tone. Cranmer's own sentiments are purely Erastian. He attributes to the king "''the whole cure of all his subjects, as well concerning the admini- stration of God's word for the cure of souls as concerning things political. The ministers of God's word under his Majesty be the 1 Strype's Cranmer, i. 108-9 (folio ed.) ; Morrice's Recollections, printed in Nicholls' Narratives of the Reformation (Cam. Soc.) ^ The document containing the wliole of the answers is printed in Burnet, Records, i, iii. xxi., and part of it in Strype, Cranmer, Append, xxvii. xxviiu 1539-1547. THE REACTIOITARY PERIOD. 181 bishops, parsons, vicars, and such other priests as be appointed by his Highness to that ministration. In the admission of many of these officers be divers comely ceremonies and solemnities used, which be not of necessity, but only for a good order and seemly fashion ; for if such offices and ministrations were committed with- out such solemnity, they were nevertheless truly committed." "A bishop may make a priest by the Scripture, and so may princes and governors also." " He that is appointed to be bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scripture, for election or appoint- ing thereto is sufficient." ^ This complete confusion of the civil and ecclesiastical, which is also apparent in the answers of some of the other commissioners, does not find expression in the book which was the outcome of their work, The Necessary Erudition of any Christian Man. It is observable, however, that the king's ecclesi- astical supremacy is stated more strongly and pointedly than in the Institution,^ while at the same time some defects which had been apparent in the Institution touching the clerical office are rectified. The doctrine of transubstantiation is stated in a much stronger form than in the Institution. Collier's judgment between the two books is, " that where the Erudition diff'ers from the Institution it seems mostly to lose ground — to go off from the primitive plan, and to reform backwards." ^ There is much, however, that is excellent in this book, especially in its practical and moral parts. The Erudi- tion was submitted to Convocation for its approval,* and thus had an authority in which its predecessor had been lacking. In his preface authorising it the king says that he had set it forth " with the advice of his clergy ; " ^ but as it was known that he had been greatly concerned in its composition, it was generally called " the king's book," the Institution having been usually known as ''the bishops' book." § 4. It remains now to sketch the work done during the latter part of this reign in fitting the ancient services of the Church for a more profitable use of them both by the clergy and people. There is nothing which knits the Church of England of modern days so firmly with the Church of the past as its prayer-book, and nothing which more fully illustrates this than the understanding how the English prayer-book grew by slow degrees out of the service-books of the ancient use. When Augustine, the Roman missionary, had 1 Burnet, Records, u. s., Cranmer's Remains (Parker Soc), p. 116 ; Collier, Ch. Hist. v. 122. ^ e.g. the latter says bishops and priests are to obey all the laws made by princes, being not contrary to God's law ; the former, that they are to obey both kings and governors, and all their laws, thus claiming a power of personal direction for the king. ^ Collier, v. 107. 4 Wilkins, iii. 868. ^ It was published May 29, 1543. 182 THE KEACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. estalDlished himself in England, he drew up for the use of the English Church a service-book differing in many respects from the Eoman ritual. As time advanced the bishops of each diocese added to or modified this book, so that many different Uses came to pre- vail in this country. At least seven are known to have existed ; but the one which was most extensively used was known as the Use of Sarum, drawn up about 1085 by Oswald, Bishop of Salis- bury and Chancellor of England. New editions of the 8arum Breviary or' Portiforium were published in 1516 and 1531, and of the Sarum Missal in 1533.^ In 1542, a proposal was laid before Convocation by Cranmer to amend the service-books. Another edition of the Sarum Breviari/, considerably expurgated, was pub- lished at this time, and it was ordered that no other breviary should be used in England. In the session of Convocation of February 21, 1543, the archbishop signified to the House that it was his Majesty's will that " all mass-books, antiphoners, portiuses, in the Church of England, should be newly examined, corrected, reformed, and castigated from all manner of mention of the Bishop of Rome's name, from all apocryphas, feigned legends, superstitious orations, collects, versicles, and responses ; that the names and memories of all saints which be not mentioned in the Scripture or authentical doctors should be abolished and put out of the same books and calendars ; and that the services should be made out of Scripture and other authentic doctors." The Bisliops of Sarum and Ely, with three of the Lower House joined to each of them, were ordered to undertake the work of correcting the old books.2 It does not appear whether this committee was also to undertake the work mentioned in the latter part of the message — namely, making ser- vices afresh " out of Scripture and other authentic doctors," but it is probable that the whole task was committed to them, and that the committee appointed in 1543 was, in fact, the commencer of our English prayer-book ; indeed the greater part of this work was done before the accession of Edward VI. In a session of Convoca- tion, April 1543, translations of the Lord's Prayer and the Angelical Salutation were laid before the House ;^ and on June 11, 1544, the king's letters were directed to the archbishop, in which, adverting to the miserable state of Christendom, distracted by wars and troubles, he signifies his desire to have " general processions in all cities, towns, churches, and parishes," said and sung with due rever- ence and devotion ; and because hitherto the people had paid but little attention to these processions, inasmuch as they did not ^ See Procter's Book of Common Prayer, p. 18, from which excellent work most of the statements on this point are adopted. 2 Wilkins, iii. 8G3. '^ lb. iii. 868. 1539-1547. THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. 183 understand the language in which they were said, the king had therefore sent certain suffrages in " our native English tongue," " to be openly used continually in all churches, villages, and parishes of your diocese." ^ The English Litany thus sent to Cranmer had been, in fact, translated and prepared by himself at the king's direc- tion. In sending it to the king the archbishop writes : — "According to your Highness's commandment, I have translated into the English tongue certain processions to be used on festival days, if after due correction and amendment of the same your Highness shall think it so convenient : in which translation, forasmuch as many of the processions in Latin were but barren as me seemed, and little fruit- ful, I was constrained to use more than the liberty of translation, for in some processions I have altered divers words, in some I have added part, in some I have taken away ; some I have left out whole, either because the matter appeared to me little to the purpose, or because the days be not with us festival days ; and some processions I have added whole, because I thought I had better matter for the purpose than was the procession in Latin." 2 The Litany, thus re- fashioned by the archbishop and authorised by the king, was at once used. Wriothesley writes in his Chronicle under this year (1544) : — ''The 18th October being St. Luke's day and Sunday, Paul's choir sang the procession in English by the king's injunction, which shall be sung in every parish church in England every Sun- day and festival day, and none other." In another place he speaks of the English Litany as the " goodliest hearing that ever was in this realm." ^ The English Litany,* together with a chapter in English from the Old Testament, and one also from the New, the order for which is mentioned above, was the whole amount of English service which was authorised during the reign of Henry VIII. But there is reason to believe that much more was often used irregularly, and it is probable that more was in preparation by the action of the Convocation committee, stimulated by the zeal of the archbishop. In the last year of his reign the king employed the archbishop in " turning the mass into a communion." He is said to have done this ander an agreement with the King of France,^ and it is probable that the work done in this matter now 1 Wilkins, iii. 870. 2 ^^^^g Fapers of Eennj VIII. i. 760. 2 Chronicle, pp. 148, IGl. ^ Tlie chief alterations made by Cranmer consisted in the omission of the long string of invocations of saints which had gradually been inserted in the western litanies. He still retained three clauses, in which the prayers of the Virgin Mary, the angels, and the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, were desired. Cranmer had before him the Litany issued by Herman, Archbishop of Cologne, in 1543. An exhortation to prayer was prefixed. — See Appendix to Private Prayers of Queen Elizabeth (Parker Soc.) 5 Strype's Cranmer, 1. 193, 195 (fol. ed.) 184 THE REACTIONARY PERIOD. Chap. X. facilitated the publication of the first communion office of the reign of Edward VI. The archbishop was also able to prevail with the king to order the disuse of certain ceremonies which were shown to be superstitious, of the observance of vigils, the creeping to the cross, as well as the abolishing of such images in churches as could be shown to have been abused. The Church of England owes much to the archbishop's persevering devotion to reforming views when he stood absolutely alone. To this, and to the king's con- stant support of him (due probably to personal feelings of affection, but nevertheless having the important effect of influencing the action of Convocation), must be attributed, under God, the state of preparedness in which the Church of England found herself at the beginning of a new reign, to enter more vigorously on the path of reformation and improvement. Chap. X. KOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 185 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) ATTAINDERS IN THE PARLIA- MENT OF 1539. Attainders, or the condemnation of a person by Act of Parliament, with or without evidence adduced and reasons alleged, differ altogether from Impeach- Tnent, which is a trial of a person be- fore Parliament sitting as judges. The essential injustice of an attainder is that it is ex parte. Of course any mem- ber of Parliament might rise in his place, and defend the person accused, but the process would be equally valid were no defence offered, and the person accused absent, and even unaware that his attainder was being moved. It is generally supposed that in the Parliament of 1539, Crumwell moved that persons might be attainted in their absence and unheard, and that he took the opinions of the judges on this point. It is certain, however, that persons had been attainted previously to this, without hearing. This Parliament has an evil prominence for the number of attainders passed by it. No less than sixteen persons were con- demned by its vote, Crumwell himself being one. The strangest attainder pro- bably ever passed by Parliament was that of Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome, for an un- detin ed charge of heresy. ' ' Parliamentary attainders," -says Mr. Amos, "were very rare before the reign of Edward IV., but from the beginning of this reign to that of James they entirely superseded im- peachments. The doctrine that a Parlia- mentary attainder holds good in law, notwithstanding the violation of the first principles of justice, is a corollary from the truth, that so long as the constitution of the state is maintained, a supreme and legally irresponsible authority is vested in Parliament. On the moral responsi- bility, however, of the king, lords, and commons, with respect to attainders, some important remarks will be found in the Fourth Institute of Lord Coke. He there remarks — "Albeit I find an at- tainder of Parliament for high treason of a subject never called to answer in either House of Parliament ; altliough I question not the power of Parliament, for without question the attainder standeth in force of law ; yet this I say of the proceeding, Auferat oblivio si potest, si non utcunque silentium tegat." —{Amos, Statutes of Re- formation Parliament.) (B) QUEEN CATHERINE PARR. The last queen of Henry VIII. was a strong favourer of reforming views, and certainly during the period of his union with her, the king appears better disposed towards reformation, than during the previous period after the fall of Crumwell. She was the daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, and was married first to Edward Burghe, and then to the Lord Latimer. She was a person of great ability and tact, and had improved her mind with much care, especially being versed in matters of religious controversy. She often argued these matters with the king, who sometimes was unable to hold his own against his wife, and in consequence lost his temper. After one of these dis- putes, Gardiner and Wriothesley the chan- cellor, taking advantage of the angry feelings of the king, persuaded him to sign an order for her committal to the Tower. This order fell accidentally from the bosom of the chancellor's robe, was picked up, and brought to the queen. She very dexterously led the king to be- lieve that he had convinced her by his arguments, and Henry, pleased at this, was completely reconciled. When the chancellor came next day to remind him of his order, the king called him " knave, fool, and beast," and sent him away. During the king's last illness, Catherine attended on him with the greatest care. She was afterwards married to Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the Lord Protector, but lived with him only for a short time, dying in 1548. After her death a religious work of her composition, called Queen Catherine Parr's Lamentation of a Sinner, was published by Lord Burleigh. In her life-time (1545), she published a volume of Prayers and Meditations. She favoured the reformers as far as she dared, and in particular Mrs. Kyme (Anne Ayscough) seems to have been secretly patronised by her. 186 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI. CHAPTER XI. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 1547-1550. § 1. The Council appointed by King Henry's will. § 2. Omission of Gar- diner's name. § 3. Bishops required to take licenses for jurisdiction. § 4. Spoliation of the Church determined on. § 5. Poverty of the clergy. § 6. Outbreak of fanaticism. § 7. The royal visitation. § 8. Bishop Gardiner opposes it. § 9. Conduct of Bonner. § 10. Of the Princess Mary. § 11. Holy communion ordered to be administered in both kinds. § 12. Other Acts of the first session of Parliament. § 13. The petition of the clergy to the Archbishop. § 14. First order for the communion published without Church authority. § 15. Preaching pro- hibited. §16. Disturbed state of religion. §17. Reforming party angry at the delay of the Prayer-book. § 18. Sacrilege prevalent. § 19. The Lord Protector tries to seize Westminster Abbey. § 20. Gardiner a second time sent to prison. § 21. Publication of the Catechism of Justus Jonas. § 22. The Book of Common Prayer published and authorised. § 23. The first Act of Uniformity. § 24. Character of the Prayer-book. § 25. Manner of its reception. § 26. Clerical matrimony legalised. § 27. Observance of Lent enacted. § 28. Second royal visitation. § 29. Bonner deprived and imprisoned. § 30. Burning of Joan Bucher. § 31. Fall of Somerset involves no change in religious policy. § 32. The letter to call in and deface old service-books. § 33. Act for appointing thirty- two commissioners for Canon Law. § 34. The revised Ordinal. § 35. Character of the Reformation work up to this period. § 1. King Henry VIII. had been allowed by the third Act of Succession to regulate finally the succession to the throne by his last will, and great anxiety was felt, as soon as his death was dis- closed, to know the contents of this document. It was a matter of course that his son should be next in order of succession, though only now a boy under ten years of age. His eldest daughter came next, and then her half-sister Elizabeth, though each of them had been declared illegitimate by jDrevious Acts. The descendants of his younger sister Mary were then placed before those of his elder sister Margaret. But the part of the will about which there was most anxiety was the nomination of the councillors who were to guide and act for the young king until he was eighteen years of age. Those who were speculating on the future of the Church looked anxiously to see what names of churchmen were to be found in the list of the sixteen councillors. There were only two 1517-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 187 bishops nominated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the great up- holder of the reforming movement, was balanced by Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, if not the most zealous, yet the most popular and the most learned of the bishops of the " old learning." In like manner Lord Hertford, the king's uncle, a pronounced re- former, was opposed to Lord Wriothesley, the chancellor, a zealous anti-reformer. It would seem as if King Henry had carefully pro- vided for the continuance of that special phase of opinion which prevailed at his death. § 2. But there was one remarkable omission from the council which seemed to indicate the contrary to this. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was not in the list. He had been an able and trusted servant of the king's for more than twenty years, and since the fall of Crumwell, Henry's chief adviser ; yet he was now ex- cluded from all share of power. Whatever was the reason for which the king acted thus,i the effect of it was of no small import- ance. It enabled the reforming party quickly to gain the entire ascendant, as there was no man of ability and vigour to withstand them, and it placed Gardiner in strong opposition to the measures taken by the authorities. He professed now to take up the posi- tion of a conscientious opponent of the reforming movement, although during the reign of King Henry he had accepted every phase of his policy, had signed his divorce from Catherine, agreed to the spoliation of the monasteries, written in the most exagger- ated strain to defend the supremacy, and held his episcopal juris- diction on a license from the Crown. The council having assumed the character of a decidedly reforming body by the election of Lord Hertford as Lord Protector, and the exclusion of Lord Wriothesley and Bishop Tonstal, must henceforth reckon on the decided opposition of Bishop Gardiner. § 3. The first act connected with ecclesiastical matters per- formed by the council was to require the bishops to take out anew licenses from the Crown to exercise their jurisdiction. These licenses were a device invented by Crumwell, Leighton, and Ap- Rice, in order to guard the supremacy of the Crown. There was a special clause inserted in them to declare that they did not in any way profess to touch the divine authority which bishops had by the sacred Scriptures ; but inasmuch as bishops had not only spiritual functions simply, but had also mixed functions, such as granting probates and faculties, judging in their courts, licens- ing, instituting, etc., and inasmuch as all jurisdiction'^ proceeded ^ See the whole question fully discussed in Maitland's Essays mi the Reformation, Essays xv. xvi. ^ Jurisdiction does not imply the right of personal direction or deciding 188 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XL from tlie Crown, the license committed to the bishop, as from the Crown, this power to be exercised during pleasure. This, if pro- perly explained and understood, was no intrusion on the episcopal office ;^ but there is good reason to believe that those who upheld the policy of granting these licenses did so upon Erastian grounds, that the Crown, namely, was competent to do all ecclesiastical acts, though for convenience sake it deputed the bishops to do them. § 4. Another precedent of King Henry's reign was also now quickly followed. An Act of Parliament had given to him the lands of the Chantries, Hospitals, and Guilds. ^ It was determined to bring in a Bill conferring the same rights on the present king, and by the sale of these lands to pay the legacies which had been left in King Henry's will. This w^as the beginning of a continued series of acts of spoliation of the Church which prevailed through- out this reign, yet the Church could ill afford this alienation of its property. § 5. Poverty had already begun to press heavily on the paro- chial clergy. The alienation of the impropriate tithes held by the monasteries into lay hands, had created a class of poor vicars, who were only able to eke out a bare subsistence by holding the vicariates of two or three parishes together. When the stipends of these clergy depended on a payment to be made by the im2:)ro- priator, they were often miserably small and very irregularly paid.^ Yet the impropriators being the powerful and legislative class, were never called to account, and the flagrant injustice continues until this day. The small vicarages, which had been served from the monasteries before the Dissolution, continued very generally to be in the hands of men who had been monks. This arrangement was eagerly sought after by the holders of monastic lands, inas- much as any Church preferment took the monk off the list of those to whom stipends were payable. The effect of it was that there was a large class of incumbents in England to whom reformation was absolutely hateful. They performed their prescribed functions more or less from fear of the law, but they would not or could a cause. The king has no right to take the place of a secular judge and administer justice ; neither has he the right to take the place of an ecclesias- tical officer or synod and give orders in Church matters. This was the great mistake which ran through all the Reformation proceedings. The supre- macy of the Crown is a corrective and regulative fimction, not a function of directing, guiding, and ordering matters independently of the proper legal tribunals. ^ See Dr. Hook's Life of Cranmer, p. 236. 2 37 Henry VIII. c. 4. ^ The monasteries had always resisted forming vicarages in the parishes, the tithes of which they had got into their hands, and had frequently suc- ceeded. In these cases there was no fixed payment, and the curate was entirely dependent en the good will of the impropriator. 1547-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION". 189 not preach, and did all that they dared to uphold the old super- stitions. § 6. On the other hand, at the beginning of Edward's reign, a class of fanatics were let loose who had been restrained by the fear of the late king's severity. Dr. Ridley, chaplain to the arch- bishop, preaching in Lent, somewhat rashly suggested the demoli- tion of images,^ and a general iconoclasm seemed imminent. The council was constrained to put out a proclamation directing the justices of the peace everywhere to see to the keeping of good order, " without innovation, alteration, or contempt of anything that by the laws of our late sovereign lord is prescribed." ^ Bishop Gardiner appeared as the champion of the old system of things, defending images, holy water, and the ceremonies, with great wit and skill, in letters addressed to the Lord Protector. His main topic was that no change or innovation ought to be made until the king was eighteen years old, and was of age to take the initiative himself.3 § 7. But the party of movement, favoured by the Lord Pro- tector, was now decidedly in the ascendant, and it was determined to institute without more delay a general royal visitation of Eng- land, during which the episcopal powers should be suspended, and which, by means of a set of Injunctions giving direction as to all the performance of the clerical office, and a set of homilies giving instruction as to the most important parts of Christian doctrine, should inaugurate a new and improved state of things in the English Church.* The power to act authoritatively by way of injunction was derived from the Act of Parliament which gave to King Henry's proclamations the force of law, and specially provided that during the minority of his son the proclamations of his council should have the same power. For the purposes of the visitation (which was commenced in August 1547) the country was divided into six circuits, in each of which the visitors were to consist of two gentlemen, a civilian, a divine, and a registrar. The visitors took with them preachers, who were to instruct the people as opportunity offered itself, while for the permanent enforcement of the same doctrine the Book of Homilies was left. Another book was also ordered by the Injunctions to be procured for the instruc- tion of the clergy. This was the Paraphrase of Erasmus on the ^ Gardiner's Letters to Ridley and Captain Vaughan. — Dodd, Ch. Hist., Appendix, vol. 11. ^ Burnet, Records, Edward VI. No. iii, ^ Gardiner's Letters to Somerset, and his rephes. — Dodd, Ch. Hist., Appendix, vol. ii. ■* The Injunctions were a reprint of Crurawell's, with considerable addi- tions. The Homilie.s, which had been drawn up by Cranmer during the late reign in obedience to a resolution of Convocation, were twelve in number, forming what is called the First Book of the Homilies. 190 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATIOK. Chap. XI. New Testament, lately rendered into English by tlie procurement of the queen dowager. Meanwhile all preaching was inhibited by the royal letter suspending the episcopal functions, save to each bishop in his cathedral, and to each clergyman in his own church, except where licenses were granted by the Lord Protector or the archbishop. The form of bidding prayers was again altered, and a copy of the new form left with the Injunctions. All images which had been in any way abused were ordered by the visitors to be removed. § 8. This vigorous attempt to force on reforming views was not received without considerable opposition on the part of those of the clergy and people, no doubt as yet the great majority of the nation, who were in favour of the old ways. Bishop Gardiner, as the leader of this party, made a strong reclamation against the measures taken by the council. He declared, before the visitors came to him, that he would receive neither Injunctions nor Homi- lies, and being warned that this would cost him his bishopric, he wrote in reply a letter which puts his resistance in the most favourable light : — " If I may depart from my bishopric well, without the offence of God's law or the king's, I shall think the tragedy of my life well passed over. I am by nature condemned to die, which sentence no man can pardon, nor assure me of delay in the execution of it. It is not loss to change for the better. Honesty and truth are more lief to me than all the possessions of the realm, and in these I take such pleasure and comfort that I will never leave them for no respect. I will show myself a true subject, humble and obedient, which repugneth not with my duty to God and my right in the realm not to be enjoined against an Act of Parliament." 1 He takes the ground that the Injunctions and Homilies contradicted the doctrine of the Erudition of any Christian Man which had been established and ratified by Act of Parliament, and therefore that he could not accept them. In a long letter to the Lord Protector the bishop also points out that, whereas the clergy were enjoined to receive both the Homilies and also the Paraphrase of Erasmus, these two books contradicted one another in many points, so that he was at a loss what doctrine he was to receive.2 As the bishop could not be induced to accept the Injunctions he was committed to the Fleet prison. Archbishop Cranmer endeavoured to incline him to yield, and for that purpose sent for him to the deanery of St. Paul's, where with other divines he argued on some of the doctrines of the Homilies, with him. Gardiner, however, was determined in his course, and he was sent ^ Burnet, Records, Edward VI. No. xiii. 2 Dodd's Ch. Hist, Appends iv. 1547-1550. THE TKOGHESS OE THE KEEOIIMATION. 191 Lack to prison. It miglit be asserted in favour of the Injunctions that they had the nature of a proclamation, and so rested upon the parliamentar}' sanction of the Act mentioned before. But the Homilies had no legal basis. They had not been approved of by Convocation nor sanctioned by Parliament, and Gardiner seems to have been clearly correct in his contention that they had no right as yet to displace the Erudition of amj Christian Man, and that where the two differed the latter was the authoritative document. § 9. Bonner, Bishop of London, made a less resolute opposi- tion to the new measures than Gardiner. He at first received the Injunctions and Homilies under protest, but this not being accej)ted, he was committed to the Fleet. He soon, however, withdrew his protest, on which he was liberated.^ § 10. Another protest against the new measures came from the Princess Mary. She remonstrated Avitli the Protector on the ground that the changes in religion were disrespectful to the memory of her father, and very injurious to her brother, who was not yet come to years of discretion, so as to be able to judge these things for himself. The Protector answered that Henry had done much in the way of reformation, and had minded to have done more had not death prevented him. They might, therefore, be held to be carrying out the late king's wishes.^ § 11. In the midst of these contentions Parliament met (Nov. 4, 1547). The first Act passed by it was altogether a salutary one, and passed in a constitutional manner, namely on the advice of the spiritualty in Convocation assembled. In their sixth session (December 2), the Convocation of Canterbury agreed unanimously that the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Saviour ought to be received by the laity in both kinds,^ and on December 20, a bill legalising this resolution, which had passed both houses, re- ceived the royal assent.* By this Act, the august nature of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is fully declared, and severe censure is passed on all who ventured to dis23arage or ridicule it. They were to be punished with fine and imprisonment. It was declared that it was more agreeable to Christ's ordinance and primitive practice that the people should receive in two kinds, and not in one only. Therefore the day before every sacrament an exhorta- tion was to be made to the people to prepare themselves for the reception, and the priests were not, without lawful cause, to deny it to any who asked for it. § 1 2. The second Act of this Parliament was of a piece with the policy which required the bishops to take out licenses from the ^ Burnet, Records, No. xii. - lb. No. xv. ^ Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 460. ^ 1 Edw. VT. c. 1. 192 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI. Crown for their jurisdiction. Following tlie precedent of an Act in the previous reign which enabled the king to appoint bishops to the new sees by letters patent, it was now enacted that all bishops should be appointed by letters patent and without cong^ d'eslire. In the ecclesiastical courts processes were from henceforth to run in the king's name and not in the bishops'. Collations to benefices and letters of orders were still to run in the bishops' name.-^ By another Act the granting of all chantries, hospitals, colleges, guilds, etc., to the king w^as ratified.^ By another enactment of a more salutary character all Acts of the late reign which declared any- thing to be treason or felony, which was not treason or felony before, were repealed,^ as was also the Act making the king's pro- clamations law. § 13. The clergy, in their Convocation, had been exhorted by the archbishop to deliberate together for throwing out all the " popish trash " which had not yet been thrown away. They had replied that so long as the Six Article Law was in force they dared not so much as speak on some of the matters. They were now set free by the general repeal of Acts making new treasons, and they showed a disposition to use their liberty with spirit. The Lower House of Canterbury addressed to the archbishop, as president, three requests — (1.) That the committee of thirty-two persons to revise the canon law appointed in the late reign be revived and their work completed ; (2.) That the clergy, according to the ancient writ of summons, may be present in Parliament by their represent- atives, or else that no matters relating to the Church may be passed without their concurrence ;^ (3.) That whereas a committee was appointed in the late reign to remodel the Church services, they desire that the work done by it may be laid before them ; (4.) That those promoted to livings may have some allowance for their support in the first year in which first-fruits are paid. 5 The second request of this petition claiming the constitutional rights of the spiritualty was not much in accordance with the archbishop's views. The Lower House, receiving no answer, repeated it again with greater force. They call to the bishops' recollection the sta- tute of the Submission of the Clergy, that they cannot promulge or put in use any canons or constitutions without the king's license, ^ 1 Edward VI. c. 2. This Act AVcas repealed by three statutes, two of which were afterwards repealed. As the third only repealed it indirectly, a question arose in the time of James I. whether it were in force. It was decided that it was not in force. — Amos, Statutes of Henry VIII., p. 272. 2 1 Edward VI. c. 14. ^ 1 Edward VI. c. 12. ^ For the ancient summons of the clergy to Parliament and its connec- tion with the Convocation summons, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ^ Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 420. 1547-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. I93 and they desire to have the royal license authorising them to " at- tempt, entreat, and commune of such matters, and therein freely to give their consents, which otherwise they may not do upon pain and peril j)remised. Also the said clergy desireth that such mat- ters concerning religion which be disputable, may be quietly and in good order reasoned and disputed among them in their House, whereby the verities of such matters shall the better appear, and the doubts being opened and resolutely discussed, men may be fully persuaded, with the quieting of their consciences and the time well spent." 1 § 14. What answer was returned at the time to this fitting remonstrance of the Low^er House is not known. But it is certain that such a remonstrance was much needed. The archbishop, urged on by the Lord Protector, was evidently inclined to precipi- tate changes in religion without due regard to the synodical action of the clergy. The Book of Homilies which he put forth as an authoritative document had never been submitted to Convocation or Parliament, and the next step which was taken in the path of reformation w^as founded on authority equally doubtful. The Convocation had requested that the work of the committee of divines w'hich had been appointed in the last reign to revise the services might be submitted to them. But this legitimate require- ment was not regarded. The divines continued and perfected their work at Windsor after the session of Parliament was over, and then, on March 8, 1548, there came forth a proclamation establishing by royal authority a new communion oflice for the Church of Eng- land. It is true that both Convocation and Parliament had regu- larly enacted that communion should be given to the laity in both kinds. But this was very far short of sanctioning a new ofiice, which the king set out without any pretence of its being the work of the clergy, but simply on " the advice of his dear uncle and others of his Privy Council." 2 It is also true that this service w^as the work of divines, and a work so admirably and carefully exe- cuted, that after all the sifting through which the English ofiices have passed it is still found almost entirely in our English liturgy. But it came forth as though it were simply a state document, Avith- out any better claim to acceptance than the will of the council. The service provided an exhortation in English to be read to the people the Sunday or holy day, or at least, one day before the celebration of the holy communion, and at the time of the celebra- tion the priest was to use the order of the mass in Latin, without any change until he himself had communicated. Then an English ^ Card well, Synodalia, ii. 422. 2 King's Proclamation, Dodd's Ch, Hist. v. ii. Appendix, viii, O 194 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI service was provided for the communion of the people, who were to receive in both kinds. In those parts which did not exist in the Latin office, the " Consultation " of Archhishop Hermann was chiefly followed,-^ § 1 5. The bishops were required by letters from the council to distribute this office through their dioceses in time for its use on Easter Sunday (April 1). Neither bishops nor clergy, however, were unanimous in their approval, and so many complaints were made against the new service, and so much violent declamation used, that, by a proclamation, preaching was again restrained to those who held licenses from the Lord Protector or the archbishop, and soon afterwards (September 23) was completely prohibited to all, the king being made to say that he did not doubt " that his loving subjects, in the meantime, would occupy themselves to God's hon- our with due prayer in the church, and patient hearing of the godly homilies, and so endeavour themselves that they may be the more ready with thankful obedience to receive a most quiet, godly, and uniform order to be had throughout his realms and dominions." 2 § 16. Throughout the year 1548 religious affairs were in a most troubled state in England, and the archbishop and the council were sorely perplexed how to deal with them. By a proclamation issued February (1548) all persons are strictly forbidden to " omit, leave undone, change, alter, or innovate any order, rite, or cere- mony, commonly used and frequented in the Church of England, and not commanded to be left undone at any time in the reign of our late sovereign lord, his Highness's father," or by the Injunctions issued in the present reign. But lest the party of the old learning should think that the tide was turning in their favour, on the 21st February came forth an order to all the bishops to cause the abso- lute removal of all images from churches ; the injunction which had directed only the removal of those which had been abused having, it is said, caused much contention. ^ The preachers, who had received the license from the Lord Protector, were addressed in a letter counselling them prudence, forbearance, and the incul- cating of quiet waiting on the part of the people.^ But that they did not altogether act according to these directions may be inferred from the fact of the issue of the inhibition of all preaching which took place in the autumn. § 17. Meanwhile the reforming party were extremely impatient at the long delay in the issue of a complete body of services. Divers unauthorised forms were issued both for the daily prayers 1 Procter's History of Prayer-Book, p. 23. 2 Dodd's Ch. Hist. vol. ii. Appendix ii. ' Burnet. Records, Edward VI. xxii. xxiii. ■* Ih. xxiv- 1547-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 195 and the holy communioii,i and every variety of use prevailed. The committee of divines sitting at Windsor was, however, doing its work, if not so speedily as some desired, yet with the utmost care and judgment. § 18. There were other sources of disquiet to the Church be- sides the delay in the appearance of the service-book. The pro- clamations of the time bear witness to the outbreak of a flood of irreverence and sacrilegious greed. One forbids " quarrelling and shooting in churches," " bringing horses and mules into and through churches," "making God's house like a stable or common inn." Another, the mobbing and ill-treating of priests. Another, the embezzling, stealing, and carrying away of church utensils and ornaments.^ The refuse and dregs of society tried to make their harvest out of the transition state of religious feeling and law. § 19. Nor was the sacrilege confined to the lower orders. At the head of the State the Lord Protector set an evil example of church robbery. He made a deliberate attempt to seize on and confiscate to his own use the estates of the cathedral church of Westminster, and to employ the materials of the glorious old abbey in building a palace for himself.^ Meanwhile the commissioners appointed under the Act for giving the chantries, hospitals, etc., to the Crown were busily at work, and a great part of the goods and estates seized by them were perverted to unworthy uses. § 20. Amidst the general dissatisfaction, Bishop Gardiner, who had been soon released from the Fleet, again showed himself as the leader of the old party. He was sent for by the Protector, and ordered to preach a sermon showing his approval of the changes in religion. He resented this dictation, but rather than go to prison consented to preach. His sermon was a moderate one. He gave his approval of most of what had been done, but he still maintained the point most objectionable to the council, viz., that the royal supremacy ought not to be exercised when the king was in his minority. For this he was committed to the Tower, and remained there during the remainder of the reign.* 1 These are mentioned in the First Act of Uniformity. See Lathbury's History of the Prayer-Book, pp. 19, 39. 2 Strype's Cranmer, pp. 251, 252 (folio ed.) ^ Westminster was a cathedral for ten years, from 1540 to 1550, when the bishop (Thirlby) was transferred to Norwich, and the church became collegiate. Benson, the first dean, who had been abbot before the Dissolu- tion, compounded Avith the Protector by alienating to him and to his brother a very large number of the manors belonging to the church. It was re- founded as a monastery in 1556. * Collier, Ch. Hist. v. 257-262. The greatest efforts were made by the council to make him yield. He was repeatedly communicated with. He utterly refused, hoAvever, to acknowledgp himself to have been in the wrong, 196 THE PROGEESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI § 21. Neither were men in England at all sure at this period what form the reformation of Church doctrine, which was immi- nent, might take. The beginnings of the Eeformation had been made under Lutheran influences, but the great theologian of Geneva was in correspondence with the Protector, and it was feared by some, and hoped perhaps by more, that the Church of England might now veer towards the Genevan doctrine. § 22. In this state of confusion, doubt, and difficulty, it must have been the greatest relief to all those who had the best interests of the Church at heart, when it was known that the committee of divines sitting at Windsor^ had at length finished their task, November 1548, and had, with the approval of Convocation,^ handed to the king the draft of the first English service-book, to be by him laid before Parliament. The book was laid before the Commons, December 19, 1548, and the next day before the House of Lords. In order to facilitate the passing of the book, a public disputation had been held in Parliament, December 14. "The argument," says Traheron, "was sharply contested by the bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury, contrary to general expectation most openly, firmly, and learnedly maintained your opinion on the subject. The truth never obtained a more brilliant victory. I perceive that it is all over with Lutheranism."^ The disputation no doubt helped forward the book ; but it was strongly opposed in the House of Lords, where eight bishops of the " old learning " protested against it. It was finally read the third time in the House of Lords, January 15, and in the House of Commons, January 21, 1549, its passing thus falling within the second year of Edward VI. The book was to be introduced generally at the Feast of Pentecost next ensuing, but the clergy were at liberty to introduce it earlier could copies be procured. The first edition was published March 7. The book was used in the London churches on Easter-day, April 21,* and on Whitsunday, June 9, generally throughout the land. and at length was deprived, December 1550. See Minutes of Council, printed in Archceologia, vol. xviii. pp. 135-150. ^ For the names of the divines who drew up the first Book of Common Prayer, see Notes and Illustrations. 2 It has often been asserted that the first English prayer-book was not laid before Convocation. The records of Convocation being lost, we can only rely on incidental notices. The king's message to the Devonshire rebels says that the book was "by the whole clergy agreed." The letter of the king and Council to Bonner says that it was accepted "by the assent of the bishops and all other the learned men in this our reahn in their synods and Convocations provincial." For further evidence on this point, see Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 470, sq. ^ Orig. Letters, p. 523, •* Tb. pp. 535-6. Heylin, Ecdes. Restaur, pp. 74, 98. 1547-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. iQT § 23. The Act of Uniformity which established its use gives also the reasons for setting it forth. " Whereas of long time there hath been used in this realm of England and Wales divers forms of common prayer, commonly called the service of the Church, that is to say the use of Sarum, of York, of Bangor, and of Lincoln, and besides the same, now of late much more divers and sundry forms and fashions have been used . . . the king's Highness, by the advice of his council, hath appointed the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and other learned men of this realm, and having respect to the most sincere and pure Christian religion taught by the Scripture as to the usages in the primitive Church, should draw and make one convenient and meet order, rite, and fashion of common and open prayer, and administration of the sacraments, to be had and used in his Majesty's realm of England and in Wales ; the which, at this time, by the aid of the Holy Ghost, with one uniform agreement is by them concluded, set forth, and delivered in a book entitled," etc. The great advantage of having one uniform use for rites external is dwelt upon, and then follow the penalties for non-observance of the provisions of the Act. For refusing to use the book or for 'depraving' it — for the first offence loss of the profits of one benefice for a year, and unjDrison- ment for six months ; for a second offence loss of all benefices, and imprisonment for a year ; for a third offence, imprisonment for life. There are also penalties for turning the book into ridicule by plays and interludes, or for compelling spiritual persons to use another form. Learned persons are, however, alloAved to use translations of the prayers in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. The penalties of the Act may be enforced before judges of Oyer and Terminer, the bishop or archbishop sitting with them if he pleased, as associate judge."^ Thus was this great boon to the English Church established by law. § 24. Taking only a general view of the book, it may be said that this book was not due to any foreign or strange influence, but was distinctly Anglican. It was formed not by a composition of new materials, but was in fact simply a careful revision of the old service-books of the English Church. The objectionable parts were excided, and the Latin forms translated into English of unequalled beauty, purity, and rhythm. Had any other plan than this been followed, the most disastrous results might have ensued. § 25. So great a change as the recasting of the whole devotional system of the Church, and introducing the element of the English language even into the mysterious solemnity of the mass, was, with every prudent arrangement and precaution, liable to produce con- 1 2 and 3 Edward VI. c. i. 198 THE PEOGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI. vulsion. During tlie year 1549, almost the whole of England was in insurrection. The chief cause of these risings was indeed an agrarian one — the altering of farms from tillage to pasture, the enclosure of commons, and the neglect of the new proprietors of the abbey lands to fulfil in any way the obligations of property. But, together with agrarian discontent, there was also much of religious discontent united. This was peculiarly the case in the Devonshire; rising, where, among the articles presented to Lord Kussell, a demand is made for the complete restoration of the old system of worship, and " that the new service should be laid aside, since it is like a Christmas game, and the old service again used with the procession in Latin." ^ The objections made against the book were answered by Cranmer, who pointed out that it was not the introduction of any novelty, but simply the old forms in a modern English dress. Others, who did not altogether object to the book, endeavoured to give it a complexion diflerent from that which it was intended that it should have, by the way in which they used it. In a letter written at the end of the year 1549, Hooper thus describes the means taken to effect this. " The public celebration of the Lord's Supper is very far from the order and institution of our Lord. Although it is administered in both kinds, yet in some places it is celebrated three times a day. Where they used heretofore to celebrate in the morning the Masc of the Apostles, they now have the Communion of the Apostles ^ where they had the Mass of the Blessed Virgin, they now have the communion, which they call the Communion of the Virgin. Where they had the princijDal or high mass, they now have, as they call it, the high communion. They still retain their vestments and the candles before the altar ; and although they are compelled to discontinue the use of the Latin language, yet they most carefully observe the same tone and manner of chanting to which they were heretofore accustomed in the papacy." 2 This letter will throw considerable light on the tenor of the second set of Injunctions issued this autumn. § 26. The Parliament which passed the first Act of Uniformity also released the clergy from the obligation of celibacy. The right of ordained persons to contract matrimony had been afiirmed in the first Convocation of the clergy in this reign without a dis- senting voice, and a bill had been introduced into Parliament in the session of 1547 to legalise it. This, however, miscarried through the opposition of the anti-reforming bishops. A second resolution of Convocation, to the same effect as the first, was passed in 1548, and after some considerable delays the statute 2 and 3 ' Bm-net, Hist. Ref. i. 374. - Hooper to Biilliuger, Orig. Letters, p. 72. 1547-1550. THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATIOI^ . 199 Edward VI. c. 2 1 , became law. This was entitled an " Act to take away all positive laws made against the marriage of priests." It recited in its preamble that it was better that clerks should remain in the single state, but inasmuch as great evils had arisen from this being enforced, all obligation to do so was now removed. § 27. A third Act connected with religion was also passed to enforce the observance of Lent. The eating of flesh on Fridays and Saturdays in Lent, on the Ember-days, and on all days ap- pointed as fasts, was forbidden (2 and 3 Edw^ard VI. c. 19). But the change in the feeling as to such matters was somewhat strangely shown by this prohibition being based not on religious grounds, but on the ground that such abstinence was good for health and needful to encourage the fishermen. § 28. The second royal visitation carried out in the autumn of 1549 was intended to enforce the proper use of the English JPrayer-book. The singular directions found in the articles enjoined by the visitors, show the deliberate attempt made by many to give a popish character to the new forms. It w^as ordered " that no minister do counterfeit the popish mass, as to kiss the Lord's table, washing his fingers at every time of the Communion, blessing his eyes with the paten or sudary, or crossing his head witli the paten, shifting of the book from one place to another, laying down and licking the chalice of the communion, holding up his fingers, hands, or thumbs joined towards his temples, breathing upon the bread or chalice, showing the sacrament openly before the distribu- tion of the communion, ringing of sacring bells, or setting any light upon the Lord's table at any time ; ^ and finally to use no other ceremonies than are appointed in the king's Book of Common Prayer, or kneeling otherwise than is in the said book." The In- junctions also forbade " buying and selling the communion, as in treutals, and such other," praying upon beads, the " maintaining of purgatory, invocation of saints, the six articles, beadrolls, images, relics, lights, holy bells, holy beads, holy water, palms, ashes, candles, sepulchres, paschal, creeping to the cross, hallowing of the font in the popish manner, oil, chrism, altars, beads, or any other such abuses and superstitions, contrary to the king's Majesty's proceedings." Also that not more than one communion on one day be used in any church or chapel. ^ § 29. It was known that Bonner, Bishop of London, encouraged and upheld this attempt to Romanise the new service-book, and to combine with its use the use also of the old forms. A letter was 1 The first set of Injunctions had ordered " two lights on the altar afore the Sacrament, for signification that Christ is the true light of the world." 2 Cardwell, Doc. Annals^ i. 63. 200 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. Chap. XI sent to him from the coimcil (June 24) ordering liim to discon- tinue these practices, and to enforce the use of tlie English book, and of that alone. Not content with this, the council also ordered Mm to preach at Paul's Cross, commending the new settlement, condemning the rebellions, and declaring that the royal sujiremacy was not prejudiced by the king's youth. He preached, but not to the satisfaction of the authorities ; he omitted the topic of the king's nonage, discoursed principally of transubstantiation, and said but little in favour of the new book. A special commission was then appointed to try him. Bonner boldly denied the power of the commissioners to act, and made a " hardy and plausible defence." On this he was deprived of his bishopric and committed to the Tower. - Neither in his case nor Gardiner's does the stretch of authority which deprived and imprisoned them appear justifiable. It would have been better, had these bishops offended against the Act of Uniformity, to let the penal part of the Act take its regular course against them. But this irregular action of the supremacy looked very like persecution, and formed a bad precedent for the next reign. § 30. Neither was persecution confined to the Eomanist side. Unhappily the archbishop allowed himseK to countenance the prevailing sentiment as to the punishment due to blasphemous heterodoxy. Joan Bucher, an Anabaptist woman who obstinately maintained blasphemous opinions as to our Lord's incarnation, was condemned for heresy, and burned May 1549.2 It is asserted that the young king set his hand to the warrant with the utmost reluctance, and that the archbishop took the whole responsibility on himself. A melancholy comment on his own subsequent fate. § 31. The fall of Somerset from power in the autumn of 15 49 caused the hopes of the Romanists to revive. " They are beginning to triumph," writes a contemporary, " over the downfall of our duke, the overthrow of our gospel, now at its last gasj), and the restoration of their darling, the mass, as though they had already obtained a complete victory." ^ But their hopes were premature. The Earl of Warwick, who had succeeded to the chief influence, saw that there was no other way of maintaining his power save by fol- lowing up the same policy, and when Parliament met in November it proceeded vigorously in the work of reformation. § 32, Indeed before the Parliament had enacted anything, that there might be no possibility of mistake as to the policy to be pursued, the council sent out a letter to the bishops ordering them ^ Collier, Ch. Hist. v. 235, sq. ; from Bonner's Register. ^ Another Anabaptist or Arian, a Dutchman, named George Van Paiis, was burned April 15, 1551. ^ Stumphius to Bullinger, Orig. Letters^ 464. 1547-1550. THE PEOGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 201 1 1 « call in, burn, deface, and destroy all the old church books, the keeping whereof should be a let to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer. This order was further enforced by a statute (3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 10), which mentioned by name " books called Antiphones, Missals, Grails, Processionals, Manuals, Legends, Pies, Portuasses, Primers in Latin or English, Couchers, Journals, Ordi- nals," as books forbidden to be used or kept, and ordered that all " images of whatsoever material taken out of churches or chapels, or yet standing in any such places, should be destroyed and de- faced." An exception was made in favour of any figure or picture on a tomb of a person who had never had the character of a saint, and also in favour of King Henry's Primer, which might be re- tained, the invocations to the saints being carefully blotted out. § 33. Another Act again empowered the king to appoint thirty-two commissioners to revise the canon law and draw up a new code, and provided that what they agreed upon, when signed by the king should have the force of statute law. § 34. Another Act provided for the formation of a new Ordi- nal. This had been omitted from the prayer-book as not of press- ing necessity, but the work was manifestly incomplete without it. By the Act " six prelates and six other men learned in God's law " were to be appointed to draw up a form and manner of making and consecrating " archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons, and other ministers of the Church;" and enacted that whatever they should agree upon, and which should be set forth under the great seal of England before the first day of April next should be lawfully exer- cised and used, and none other.^ The Ordinal was laid before the council signed by eleven commissioners on February 28, 1550 ; Heath, Bishop of Worcester, alone refusing to subscribe to it.^ § 5. With the publication of the Ordinal the first phase of the reformation work in King Edward's days may be regarded as com- pleted. So far as the authorised formularies went, the work had been prudently and wisely done. There had been cases of indi- vidual injustice, and the indefinite authority of the sui)remacy had been illegally strained, es^Decially in the matter of the homilies and the first communion office. But the times were most difficult and dangerous for those who had to steer the bark of the Church, and upon the whole we may well feel grateful for this chapter in our ecclesiastical annals. 1 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 10. '^ For his refusal he was sent to the Fleet, another instance of unjust persecution at this time. The account of this trial by the council is given iu Archccologia, vol. xviii. p. 166. He sail "he was not willing to sub- scribe it, though he would not disobey." He also objected to " taking down altars and setting up tables." 202 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XI. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONa (A) THE ANCIENT SUMMONS OF THE CLERGY TO PARLIAMENT. Besides the summons of the archbishop calling certain representatives of the clergy to a provincial synod, a practice was commenced in the time of Edward I. of summoning the clergy to attendance in Parliament. The object of this was that they might vote subsidies together with the laymen. The way of making the summons was by inserting a clause in the writ of the bishops which summoned them to Parliament, premonishing them to bring certain of their clergy with them. This clause is still retained, but the custom of parliamentary attendance of the clergy never became established, the clergy themselves resisting it, as they preferred to appear in the synod of the archbishop, and to tax themselves as a separate estate of the realm. A great controversy on this subject between Shower and Atterbury on the one side, and Wake, Hody, Kenuett, and others, on the other, arose in the eighteenth century. Atterbury contended that by virtue of this parliamentary sum- mons the lower clergy had a right to meet and vote in Convocation on all Church questions independently of the archbishop. "Wake proved, on the contrary, that this parliamentary summons had never been acted on, and that the status of the lower clergy in Convocation was simply that of assessors of the archbishop. (B) NAMES OF THE DIVINES WHO WERE EMPLOYED IN DRAWING UP THE PRAYER-BOOK. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Can- terbury ; George Day, Bishop of Chiches- ter ; Tho. Goodryke, of Ely ; John Skyp, of Hereford ; Henry Holbeach, of Lincoln ; Nicholas Ridley, of Rochester; Tho. Thirleby, of Westminster ; Dr. May, Dean of St. Paul's ; Dr. John Taylor, Dean of Lincoln ; Dr. HajTies, Dean of Exeter ; Dr. Robertson, afterwards Dean of Durham ; Dr. John Redmaji, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; Dr. Richard Cox, the King's Almoner. The persons princi- pally engaged in the matter were Cranmer, Ridley, Goodryke, Holbeach, May, Taylor, Haynes, and Cox. Bishop Day refused to sign the book, and he and the Bishops of Westminster and Hereford protested against it at the passing of the Act of Uniformity. 1550-1553. DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMATION 203 CHAPTER XII. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT ELEMENT IN THE ENGLISH REFORMxVTION. 1550-1553. § 1. How far foreign divines influenced the English Prayer-Book. § 2. Cranroer's object in bringing foreign divines into England. § 3. Hooper refuses the Church vesture, and is committed to prison. § 4. Eidley orders the removal of altars. § 5. The order of Council to the same eflect. § 6. Hooper yields and is consecrated. § 7. The plan adopted for drawing up a Confession of Faith. § 8. The review of the Prayer- Book. § 9, Peter Martyr's views on the Eucharist. § 10. Change in Cranmer's opinions. § 11. His Treatise on the Eucharist. § 12. Con- troversy arising from this. § 13. The new Prayer-Book presented to Convocation and Parliament. § 14. Second Act of Uniformity. § 15. Second Ordinal. § 16. Character of the second Prayer-Book. § 17. Confusion between the civil and ecclesiastical in legislation, § 18 Somerset House. § 19. Northumberland seizes the possessions of the See of Durham. § 20. The 42 Articles finished. § 21. Poynet'.s Catechism. § 22. The Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. § 23. Piobbery of Church property. § 24. A Commission appointed to inquire. § 25. Contemporary comments on these abuses. § 26. King Edward's benefactions. § 27. His death. § 1. It has frequently been a matter of debate how far the foreign Protestant divines, many of whom were in England during this period, had a share in fashioning the formularies of the reformed English Church. As regards direct work in this matter, it may be afhrmed as certain that they had none. That is to say, no formulary of the English Church proceeded direct from any foreign hand. But as regards indirect influence the matter is difi'erent. Both the first and second Prayer-Books were indirectly influenced by the work of foreigners. The first Prayer-Book owed much to the consultation of Archbishop Hermann, which was the work of Melancthon and Bucer, and which again was largely indebted to Luther's Nuremberg services. The second book was influenced by the Liturgy of Pollanus, and still more by the Service-book of John A Lasco.^ But in both these cases the English divines had maturely weighed, considered, and adapted these foreign elements, and it is altogether incorrect to regard the modification which the English book received at this period as due simply to the predominance of foreign influence.^ 1 Procter's Hist, of Prayer-Book, pp. 42-48, 57. 2 gpp Sparrow's FMtionalCy Appendix, p. 185. 204. DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XII. § 2. The real object for whicli Archbishop Cranmer was anxious to surround himself with foreign divines, was not that they might help him to draw up services or formularies, but that they might form a sort of Protestant Council to consider the whole status of the Eeformation, and to settle its doctrine, as a counter-demonstration to the work of the Romanists, then pro- ceeding at the Council of Trent. " We are desirous," writes the Archbishop to A Lasco, " of setting forth in our churches the true doctrine of God, and have no wish to adapt it to all tastes, or to deal in ambiguities, but, laying aside all carnal considerations, to transmit to posterity a true and explicit form of doctrine agree- able to the rule of the sacred writings. For the purpose of carry- ing this important design into execution, we have thought it necessary to have the assistance of learned men, who, having com- pared their doctrines together with us, may do away all doctrinal controversies, and build up an entire system of true doctrine. We have therefore invited both yourself and some other learned men ; and as they have come over to us without any reluctance, 80 that we scarcely have to regret the absence of any of them, with the exception of yourself and Melancthon, we earnestly request you both to come yourself, and, if possible, to bring Melancthon with you." ^ "I considered it better," he writes to Bullinger, " forasmuch as our adversaries are now holding their councils at Trent to confirm their errors, to recommend his Majesty to grant his assistance, that in England, or elsewhere, there might be convoked a synod of the most learned and excel- lent persons, in which provision might be made for the purity of ecclesiastical doctrine, and especially for an agreement upon the Sacramentarian controversy. To which plan I perceived that the mind of his Majesty was very favourably disposed. I have written upon the subject to Masters Philip Melancthon and Calvin ; and I pray you to devise the means by which this synod may be assembled with the greatest convenience, either in Eng- land or elsewhere." ^ The resort of foreigners to this country at the invitation of Cranmer must therefore be considered with refer- ence to this main design. § 3. Unquestionably, however, the tone of thought and feeling in England began in the year 1550 to set much more strongly in the Protestant direction, and those who were inclined to adopt wholesale the extreme sentiments prevailing in Switzerland, soon ^ Orig. Letters, p. 17. ^ Ih. p. 23. See also Cranmer to Calvin and Melancthon, Ih. pp. 24-25. For a personal notice of the chief foreign divmes now in England^ see Notes and Illustrations. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 205 found a champion and a confessor in their cause. There was no man in England more thoroughly steeped in the doctrines of the Geneva school than John Hooper. Originally a Cistercian monk, he had earnestly embraced reforming views, and on the passing of the Six Article Law had gone to Switzerland, where he had lived for eight years as the intimate friend of Calvin, BuUinger, Gualter, and other of the reforming divines. The Earl of Warwick, divining the tastes of King Edward, which were towards extreme Protestantism, recommended Hooper for the Bishopric of Gloucester (July 3, 1550). The king readily agreed to confer it upon him. Hooper thought it consistent with his duty to accept the bishopric, but to decline a legal and necessary condition of it — viz. the wearing of the prescribed vesture.^ Upon this arose a melancholy dispute, the precursor and parent of all that strife, which for the next century and a half did more than anything else to weaken and injure the Church in England. The council endeavoured to induce the primate to consecrate without the vesture. Cranmer steadily declined, alleging the law. Ridley, now Bishop of London (April 1, 1550), was put to argue with Hooper.- The only result was that both were some- what embittered against one another. Martin Bucer, now Pro- fessor at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr at Oxford, were applied to. Both condemned the obstinacy of the bishop-designate, though they failed not to insinuate the policy of removing the cause of scandal by law.""^ But as no one could be found to say the vesture was unlawful, the council was obliged to act. Hooper was ordered to keep his house, and not to preach or teach. He disregarded the order, and took the opportunity to publish Mhat he called A Confession of the Faith. He was then committed to Cranmer's custody by way of being convinced of his errors. The archbishop, however, reported to the council that he could do nothing with him, and finally the first Puritan Confessor found his way into the Fleet prison^ (January 27, 1551). § 4. While these disputes were in progress. Bishop Ridley was conducting a visitation of his new diocese of London. It seems somewhat singular that the same man who could argue prudently and sensibly in favour of the retention of the ancient vesture of ^ He also objected to the form of the oatli of supremacy, in wliicli was a clause of swearing by "God, the Saints, and the Holy Gospels," This he was afterwards allowed to omit. ^ It is either owing to this or to his (perhaps unwise) attempt to reduce the foreign Protestant congregations in London to conformity, that Ridley is roughly spoken of in the Orig. Letters of the Reformers. Hooper was their great favourite. 3 gtrype's Cranmer, i. 303, sq. •* ^Minutes of Council, A rchceologia, vol. xviii. ]>p. ]51-2. 206 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XII. the minister, could nevertheless not brook tlie preservation of the old altar of the church on which the holiest rites had been celebrated for ages, and which, though connected doubtless with grievous superstitions, was yet quite as capable as the vesture, or the chalice, of a " reformed use." But so it was. Ridley had in his first diocese of Rochester attacked the altars and ordered their removal,^ and in London he did the like. The pretext for the order made by him was the same as that for taking away images — viz. dissension and opposition between various churches. " Whereas in divers places some use the Lord's board after the form of a table, and some as an altar, whereby dissension is per- ceived to arise among the unlearned ; therefore, wishing a godly unity to be observed in all our diocese, and for that the form of a table may now move and turn the simple from the old super- stitions of the popish mass, and to the right use of the Lord's Supper, we exhort the curates, churchwardens, and questmen here present, to erect and set up the Lord's board after the form of an honest table, decently covered, in such place of the quire or chancel as shall be thought most meet by their discretion and agreement, so that the ministers with the communicants may have their place separated from the rest of the people, and to take down and abolish all by-altars or tables." ^ This order not only produced the greatest confusion in the ritual of the Church, as the table was set in every variety of position, but also was the fruitful parent of grievous sacrilege and profanation. It accorded well, however, with the ultra-Protestant temper of the Council, and was enforced by a Council order bearing date November 24 (1550), and sent to all the bishops for immediate attention. § 5. By this document all altars are commanded to be taken away, and " instead of them a table to be set up in some con- venient part of the chancel within every church." No direction more precise is given as to the position the table is to occupy. Anticipating great objections to their order, and much scandal, the Council encloses to the bishops a number of reasons for taking away altars and setting up tables. These reasons were drawn up by Ridley, the real author of this piece of policy. Discreet and prudent persons were to be employed in announcing the order, and apologising for it. The bishop in his cathedral, " his chancellor, or other grave preacher," were to defend it as best they might, and the same defence was to be gone through in all the most notable market-towns.^ There was one bishop at least bold enough to resist this unauthorised dictation of the lay executive power in a 1 Orig. Letters, p. 79. ^ Cardwell, Doc. Anvals, i. 83. 3 lb. i. 89. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 207 matter which certainly ought not to have been determined upon Mathout due deliberation in Convocation and Parliament. This was Bishop Day, of Chichester, whom neither the terror of the Council, nor the arguments of Cranmer and Ridley could induce to yield.-^ Consequently he soon joined Gardiner, Bonner, and Heath in prison, thus making the fourth bishop committed in this reign.^ § 6. Hooper, after an imprisonment of about two months, saw fit to forego the scruples which were keej)ing a man of great power and devotion in a position of useless idleness. He was conse- crated in the full episcopal dress on March 8, 1551, and took the oath of supremacy, the king having, as is said, with his own hand struck out the mention of the saints and angels. His stiff con- tentiousness, which had done a mischief to the Church, was well redeemed by the earnest devotion of his episcopal work,^ and the glorious constancy of his death, § 7. The scarcity of competent divines holding reforming opinions was very great, insomuch that it was found impossible to fill the sees which fell vacant with satisfactory occupants. Lin- coln, Worcester, Chichester, Hereford, and Bangor, were allowed to remain temporarily vacant under " guardians of the spiritual- ties." This plan, if it did not supply the archbishop with helpers, at any rate saved him from formidable opposition among the pre- lates. There was nothing now to prevent a vigorous prosecution of that scheme on which he had set his heart, and which the young king is believed also to have earnestly desired — viz. the drawing up a complete confession of the doctrine of the Church of England by way of response to the monstrous decrees of Trent. This work was being busily prosecuted during the whole of the year 1551. Drafts of articles made by Cranmer and Eidley were handed about to various divines, that they might give their ^ "He answered plainly (before the Council) he could not do it, saving his conscience. For the altars seemed to him a thing anciently established by agreement of the holy fathers, and confirmed by ancient doctors, with the custom also of a number of years, and, as he thought, according to the Scriptures. Therefore he could not in conscience consent to the abolishing of them, and determined rather to lose all that ever he had than condemn his own conscience." — Minutes of Council, Archceologia, vol. xviii. p. 149. ^ All four were deprived of their sees by a mixed commission of divines and laymen. Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, was also this year deprived on the ground of having favoured the Devonshire rebellion. ^ At Gloucester Hooper pul)lished fifty-one articles on the Christian religion for instruction of ministers, and thirty-one injunctions as to the way they were to jjerform their duties. He also issued twenty-one questions as to the conduct of the people, to be answered by the ministers, and sixty-one as to the conduct of the ministers, to be answered by the peoj^le. When, on the deprivation of Heath, he received the see of Worcester to hold in coin- mendam, he did the same in that diocese. — Strype's Cranmer, chap, xviii. 208 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XIT. opinions on them. Among these drafts there were certainly con- tained copies of the articles agreed npon between Cranmer and the Lutheran divines in 1538, inasmuch as the phraseology of these articles appears almost unaltered in the form finally agreed upon. § 8. And while the archbishop, with the aid, doubtless, of his foreign friends and dependants, was engaged in this work, another great work also occupied his care. This Avas the review of the Prayer-Book of 1549, with the view of introducing additions and alterations into it. In a meeting of Convocation held towards the close of 1550^ certain objections were formally made to the Prayer-Book sanctioned about two years before, by some of the prelates of the Upper House. The points especially noted for censure were : — The holy days still retained in the Calendar ; the form of words used in distributing the elements to the communi- cants, and, generally, the manner of administering that holy sacra- ment. Other points were, no doubt, called in question, and in both houses,^ but for Convocation proceedings we are unfortu- nately obliged to rely on incidental notices. It appears probable that Convocation now authorised a review of the book,^ and that the work was entrusted to the same divines who had drawn up the first book. There was no thought of throwing over the first book and constructing a fresh one, but only of introducing such alterations as should make the book " fully perfect in all such places in which it was necessary to be made more earnest and fit for the stirring up of all Christian people to the true honouring of Almighty God."* The alterations, whatever their value, were made by the committee of divines authorised by Convocation, and not by any direct interference of the foreigners. Calvin, who had signified his disapproval of the first book, con- tinued to have equally strong objections to the second. He has no words better to say of it than " intolerable stuff," and " tole- rable fooleries," o A review of the first book was made at great length by Martin Bucer,^ and adopted by Peter Martyr. It ap- pears, however, that the " faults discovered by Martyr and Bucer, of w*hich they drew up a report at the request of Cranmer, were neither all that were admitted to exist by the English divines, nor were themselves corrected, in most instances, in the ivay in which Martyr and Bucer recommended. It was stated to Martyr when he gave in the account of his objections that tlie bishops had already 1 Probably October 11 ; Wilkins, iv. 60. - Heylin, Eccl Rest. p. 107. ^ Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 477. ^ Second Act of Uniformity. ^ Collier, v. 424. ^ In his Scrijyta Anglicana ; it occupies tAventy-eight chapters. — See Procter, Hist, of Prayer-Book, p. 44, sq. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 209 agreed to many alterations." i It may be assumed then as certain that the alterations made in the First Book of Edward VI. were the work of English divines, acting on synodical authority. But the opinions of those who did the work had heen greatly influ- enced from foreign sources, and there is no doubt that they per- formed their task under a certain amount of constraint, it being known that the young king had declared to Sir John Cheke that if the clergy would not clear away what he considered the objec- tionable passages, he would bring the subject before Parliament, disregarding the Convocation.2 This very unconstitutional threat may be excused in a boy who had been studiously kept under fanatical influences, but it ought not to have affected the divines to the extent which it evidently did. It is to this that we owe the permanent loss of much that was good in the First Prayer- Book, and the adoption in the Church of England (for a brief period only, indeed) of a sacramentarian form of words, taken from the Liturgy of John A. Lasco, in the delivery of the conse- crated elements.^ Cox* and Taylor ^ are thought to have been the chief working members of the committee w^hich reviewed the Prayer-Book. But Cranmer and Ridley had also a principal share in the modifications of the book, and to account for the very dif- ferent treatment which the Holy Eucharist receives in the two books it will be necessary to inquire shortly into the history of the doctrine on that subject in England at this period. § 9. The accomplished Florentine, Vermigli, better known as Peter Martyr, had been early settled by Cranmer as divinity pro- fessor at Oxford, and at once began to lecture on those passages of Scripture which bear upon the doctrine of the eucharist. He had daily expositions on the First Epistle to the Corinthians and the sixth chapter of St. John, and every week he presided in a public disputation on these subjects.'' The views which he advocated were midway between those of Zuingli and the sacramentaries, and the corporal presence of the Lutherans. His teaching caused great excitement at Oxford, and a formal disputation was arranged to be held between Martyr on the one side, and on the other Dr. Smith, a man fond of rushing into controversy, and equally ready to recede from his positions when they appeared to be dangerous to himself. Smith left Oxford before the day of trial, and his place 1 Card-well, Two Liturgies, Preface, p. xxv. ^ Collier, v. 425, ^ Cavdwell, Two LiturgieSy Preface, p. xxviii note. * Cox, -wlio had been the king's tutor, was at that time Dean of West- nriiuster and Clirist Cluirch, Chancellor of Oxford, and almoner to the king ; afterwards Bishop of Ely. ^ Taylor was Dean of Lincoln, prolocutor of the first Convocation in this reign ; afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. ^ Orig. Letters, p. 481. P 210 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XI L was taken against Martyr by Doctors Tresham and Cbedsey. Dr. Cox, tlie chancellor, presided, and summed up the disjjutation favourably to Martyr, who afterwards drew up an account of it which was transmitted to Cranmer. § 10. With this there is good reason to believe that the arch- bishop agreed, as Cranmer had now entered the third phase of his opinions touching the eucharist. When first appointed archbishop he had not in any way departed from the received doctrine of the Church, and appears to have consented to the burning of John Fryth without a protest. In 1538 he had certainly adopted Lutheran views, and was able to assist at the condemnation of Lambert for Zuinglian opinions. But about the year 1546, under the influence of Ridley, his chaplain, he began again to modify his views, Ridley's mind on this subject had been formed by a very remark- able book written in the ninth century and attributed to the monk Ratramn, but in reality the composition of the famous Joannes Scotus Erigena.^ This book taught a real spiritual presence in the eucharist, but strongly combated the material theory. The publication of a Lutheran catechism by Cranmer in 1548 did not prove that he still held to the Lutheran view on this special point. He explained that he desired the expressions on it to be taken in a spiritual sense.^ § 11. Thus, under the influence of Martyr and Ridley, the archbishop had now arrived at his final opinions on this subject, and in 1550 he gave them to the world in an elaborate treatise called the Defence of the Trtie and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ. As the doctrines set forth in this work are certainly those which it was studiously endeavoured to impress upon the second Prayer-Book of this reign, the work is one of great interest. The writer first sets forth what he holds to be the Scriptural doctrine on the eucharist. He argues strongly for a special grace and gift in the sacrament, and asserts the real spiritual presence conveyed to the believer by the elements. He thus shows himself altogether opposed to the sacramentaries who attributed no special grace to the eucharist, but made it only useful for the stirring up of faith, just as a sermon or a book might be. Having laid down the doctrine from Scripture, he then ad- dresses himself to four main errors of the Romans and Lutherans — transubstantiation, the corporal presence, the eating and drinking of Christ by the wicked, the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass. He devotes a book to the refutation of each of these errors. The treatise produced a great sensation, not only on account of the ^ See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. This book was published in English in 1548. ^ Jenkyns' Cranmer, p. 79. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 211 authority of the writer, but also because it was the first Eiicrlisb exposition of a theory of the eucharist which seemed consonant with the teaching of the older fathers of the Church, while it adopted much of the teaching of the modern Protestant divines. § 12. It was felt by the favourers of the old opinions "that their cause was lost unless so vigorous an assault could be speedily repelled." i Accordingly Dr. Smith and Bishop Gardiner both pro- ceeded to answer it. Smith printed his " Confutation " at Louvain, but it was, in Cranmer's judgment, so poor a performance that it did not require an answer. Gardiner wrote his treatise in the Tower, and contrived to make it known by putting it in as an answer to some of the articles on which he was being examined. It was printed in France, January 1551. The wit, eloquence, and skill of the writer rendered a reply necessary. Cranmer, in his answer, reprinted verbatim his own words and Gardiner's com- ments, and subjoined what defence he thought requisite. The Bishop of Winchester, though a very dexterous writer, was not a theologian, and on many points his language was inconsistent with the teaching of his own Church, as well as with some other of his own writings.^ His reply to Cranmer was written in Latin, and published under a feigned name.^ Cranmer was employed upon a Latin rejoinder, when the commencement of a new reign changed altogether the relative positions of the two disputants. § 13. During the whole of the year 1551 those who were directing the affairs of the Church of England must iiave been in very anxious deliberation, both as to the changes to be proposed in the Prayer-Book and also as to the articles of religion which were in preparation. The Prayer-Book it was intended to lay before Parliament and Convocation at their winter session. In November (1551) a private discussion was held at the house of Sir W. Cecil, Secretary of State, as to the manner of Christ's presence in the eucharist, and on December 3d, another disputation on the same point.4 The Parliament met January 23 (1552) and the Convo- cation on the following day.^ Great care seems to have been taken in the preparation of the Prayer-Book for formal presentation. Some copies had been printed by Grafton. On September 27, an order of Council was made that the printing should be stopped and ^ Jenkyns' Cranmer, p. 87. ^ Ih. p. 91. ^ Marcus Antonius Coustantius, a diviue of Louvain. •* Stryj^e's Cranmer. ^ It is asserted by Mr. Joyce {Sacred Synods, p. 479) that Cauterbuiy Syuod met on October 14 and November 5 preceding. This, however, could not well be, as Parliament was not in session. But it is very probable that a committee of Convocation, to whom this work had been delegated, met on \hose (lays to consider it. 212 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XII. the copies recalled, as some faults had been discovered. October 7th, the Council order that the Prayer-Book should be diligently perused again and errors amended. October 27, the Council order that a declaration touching kneeling at the holy communion should be inserted.-^ Although no record of the fact remains, it seems not too much to suppose that the Convocation gave its approval to the work which had emanated from its own order, and had been con- ducted by a committee of its own members. § 14. The Act of Uniformity, giving a legal establishment to the book, passed both Houses of Parliament April 6 (1552). It speaks of the first book in high terms of praise as a very godly order, agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people desiring to live in Christian conversation ; " but because divers doubts and disputes had arisen as to the way in which the book was to be used, therefore for its explanation, and in order to make the service more earnest, and fit to stir Christian people to the honouring of Almighty God, the present book was now put forth." The penalties set forth in the Act are somewhat less stringent than those in the first Act. They are to apply to the new book after the Feast of All Saints (Nov. 1), at which time the book was to come into use. § 1 5. Appended to the revised Prayer-Book, and forming a part of the book, was a revised Ordinal. The Ordinal, which after construction by a committee, was legalised by Parliament in 1550, was now again reviewed, and certain ceremonies removed from it — as the requirements as to vestments, use of introits, of appeal to saints and evangelists, the delivering of a chalice and bread at the ordination of a priest, and the laying the Bible on the neck and of placing the pastoral staff in the hand at the consecration of a bisho23. § 16. It is not intended here to institute any detailed com- parison between the two Prayer-Books of King Edward's reign. This is best done by means of a conspectus, of which many are accessible. It is only needful to remark in general that the second book was in all respects a very great advance in Protestant or reforming sentiment as compared with the first. It corrected some errors and supplied some omissions, but it sacrificed much that succeeding generations of churchmen would have gladly retained. § 17. The same Session of Parliament which passed the second Act of Uniformity passed also some other Acts relating to religion. 1 Procter's History of Praycr-BooTc, p. 38, note. Tins is knowii as the Black Paibrick. It is doubtful whether it ever obtained the sanction of thr commissioners. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 213 By 5 and 6 Edward VI. c. 3, the Sundays and days of the Apostles and Evangelists were ordered to be observed nnder penalty, as also the fast of Lent. A relaxation was allowed in harvest time, or for any cause of necessary work.i Another Act empowered the churchwardens to gather alms for the relief of the poor, any persons refusing to contribute to be visited with Church censures. The marriage of the clergy was again legalised in a more ungrudg- ing and complete manner, the wording of the former Act having been much censured. Another Act forbade quarrelling in churches or churchyards, under the penalty of excommunication. All these Acts have this remarkable feature, that in them the civil power prohibits offences under ecclesiastical penalties. So complete was the confusion that was being designedly introduced by some at this period between the civil and ecclesiastical, that while the use of the Service Book was made a matter of cognisance in the civil courts, other offences were decreed by Act of Parliament to be amenable to Church censures and excommunication. "The reader may observe," says Collier, "that the direction of spiritual jurisdic- tion is managed by Parliament ; the Act excludes from the fellow- ship of Christ, communion, and reaches to the most solemn ex- ercise of the power of the Keys." ^ § 18. No man had done more to encourage this deplorable confusion than the Protector Somerset. Though foiled in his attempt to lay sacrilegious hands on Westminster Abbey, he had yet built his palace in the Strand, on the site of three Episcopal houses (Worcester, Lichfield, and Landaff), and had used for the materials of it the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, a cloister of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the church of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. § 19. Somerset may, perhaps, be credited with a genuine belief that there was no difference between sacred and profane. His successor in power, Northumberland, did not hold this belief, but in his conduct he exhibited as audacious a robbery of sacred things as even Somerset himself. He fixed his covetous glance on the rich See of Durham, which was still occupied by Bishop Tonstal, a man of a gentle and tolerant spirit, who had accepted the religious changes authorised by law, though he still held to the old opinions. On an accusation of having encouraged a rising in the north, Tonstal was sent to the Tower (Dec. 20, 1551), and a bill of attainder was brought into Parliament against him. 3 This passed the Lords in spite of tlie strong opposition of Arch- ~ 1 Dodd, Ch. Hist. Appendix, No. xi. 2 Collier, Ch. Hist. v. 459. 3 In the minute of Council it is said that a letter of Tonstal's was found in a cabinet belonging to the Duke of Somerset, which compromised him, 214 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. Xll. bishop Cranmer, but in the Commons it was rejected, its object being only too ajoparent. Tonstal, however, remained in prison, and like Gardiner, Bonner, Heath, and Day, was deprived of his see by a commission.^ § 20. The important business of the revision of the Prayer- Book being completed, the archbishop now turned his attention more exclusively to the not less important matter of preparing the Confession of Doctrine to be adopted by the English Church. An order of Council in 1551 had directed the drawing up of this, and on May 2, 1552, a letter was addressed to Cranmer by the Council, asking for the articles which had been agreed upon. These were forwarded to the Council by the archbishop, and again returned to him by them to receive som.e final corrections. After having made some changes and affixed the titles to the articles, Cranmer sent them to Sir William Cecil and Sir JohnCheke, for their opinions, desiring the latter to lay them before the king. Sir J. Cheke thought it better that the archbishop himself should present them to the king. This he accordingly did, and Edward directed his six chaplains — Harley, Bill, Home, Grindal, Pern, and Knox — to report on them. Some alterations were suggested by these divines, and the copy was sent to the archbishop at Ford, with directions that he should consider the points with all speed, in order that the articles might be returned in time to be submitted to Convocation. He returned the copy on the follow- ing day with this letter ; " I have sent unto your Lordships the Book of the Articles which yesterday I received from your Lord- ships. I have sent also a schedule enclosed, declaring briefly my mind upon the said book, beseeching your Lordships to be means unto the king's Majesty that all the bishops may have authority from him to cause all their preachers, archdeacons, deans, prebendaries, parsons, vicars, curates, with all their clergy, to subscribe to the said articles. And then I trust that such a concord and quietness in religion shall shortly follow thereof as else is not to be looked for for many years." ^ This letter is dated Nov. 24 (1552). The articles could not have been laid before Convocation then, as it was not sitting, and did not meet till and which he could not deny. Probably he had favoured Somerset's schemes for the protection of the working classes against the gentry. — Archccologia xviii. 170. ^ Strype's Cranmer, ch. xxxii. In the next Parliament a bill was brouglit in to suppress the See of Durham, to found two new sees — one at Durham and the other at Newcastle — and to grant the whole of the tempor- alties of the See of Durham to the Duke of Northumberland. (7 Edw. VI. c. 17). Ridley was named to the See of Durham, though not formally translated. ^ lb. Appendix-, No. Ixiv. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION, 215 j\Iarcli 2 iu the following year. Tliere is however, good reason to believe that on its meeting at that time the articles were sub- mitted to it. For not only does the copy of them bear in its title the express assertion that they were " agreed upon by the bishops and other learned men in the Synod of London in the year of our Lord God 1552,"^ but it is evident from the delay in their publication, and in exacting subscriptions to them, that something was being waited for, and this could scarcely have been any- thing but the approval of Convocation, inasmuch as the king and Council had approved of them before November 24. ^ The articles having been ratified by the king, were published by his command, May 20 (1553), and soon afterwards steps were taken to procure the subscriptions of the clergy to them. The London clergy were summoned to Lambeth before the archbishop, and requested to subscribe. There was no compulsion used, as the archbishop afterwards affirmed, but the majority of the clergy subscribed. They were also sent to the Universities for subscription there,^ and it is probable that the bishops in their several dioceses took steps for procuring the subscriptions of their clergy. Now, if the forty-two articles had regular synodical sanction, as there seems no reason to doubt, it follows that the second Prayer-Book and Ordinal had the like sanction, inasmuch as the thirty-fifth article gives complete and emphatic approval to both of them. § 21. Bound up together with the forty-two articles there came forth a Catechism, which was the work of a committee of Convocation, but does not appear to have had the sanction of the whole House. This was principally from the pen of Poynet, Bishop of Winchester, and was the foundation of the larger Catechism, afterwards published by Dr. Alexander Nowel, Dean of St. Paul's.* § 22. There was yet one other work which the archbishop had much at heart, but which he was not destined to bring to so successful an issue as he did the review of the Prayer-Book, and the construction of the articles. An Act of Parliament had sanctioned the appointment of thirty-two Commissioners for draw- ing up a body of reformed canon law.^* It seems, however, that the Commissioners were either not named after the passing of ^ It must always be remembered that the j^ear did not end till March 25. March 2, 1553, wonld therefore fall in 1552 — old style. ^ See Joyce, Sacred Synods, pp. 482-3-4. ^ Cardwell, Synod, i. 5, note. For a comparison between the 42 Articles of Edward's reign and the 39 of Elizabeth's, see Notes and Illustra- tions to this chapter. •* Strype's Cranmer, i. 423, (folio ed.) ^ It has been already stated that this work was actually completed iu Henry VIII. 's time, but the king declitied to ratify it. 216 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROTESTANT Chap. XIL this Act, or did nothing. A new commission was appointed, November 1551. In this list we find the names of John A Lasco, Peter Martyr, and Dr. Walter Haddon. The latter had an especial share in the work, and as the most accomplished Latin scholar of the day was employed to polish its style. The draft of the new laws was quite completed before the end of the reign, but for some reason or other the king never signed it — a happy escape, in the opinion of many, for the Church of England.^ As this work, .under the title of Reformatio legum Ecclesiasticarum, will meet us again in the reign of Elizabeth, nothing need be said of it here. § 2 3. While the archbishop and his helpers were thus intent upon the reconstruction of the services and formularies of the Church, a grievous mischief was being wrought to the Church's temporal progression by the unchecked and unbridled rapacity of the chief men of the State, and others who imitated their bad example. There was scarcely a see which was not stripped of its best possessions under the Act of Henry, which enabled a bishop to alienate manors to the Crown, and some were altogether denuded of everything. The alienations were made under the pretext of exchange, but, says Collier, " it was such an exchange as Glaucus made with Diomedes."2 On a smaller scale robbery of sacred things prevailed everywhere. " Information was given to the Council," says Fuller, " that private men's halls were hung with altar-cloths, their tables and beds covered with copes, instead of carpets and coverlets. Many drank at their daily meals in chalices, and no wonder if, in proportion, it came to the share of their horses to be watered in coffins of marble. And, as if first laying on of hands were sufficient title to them, seizing them was generally the price they had to pay for them."^ § 24. So scandalous did this become that a commission was issued (June 10, 1552) to inquire after all the valuables that had been embezzled from monasteries, chantries, and colleges, and to take possession of them for the use of the Crown. The commis- sioners were to leave in every church " one, two, or' more chalices and cups, and such other ornaments as by their discretion shall seem requisite for divine service. " ^ A very large amount of valuables was recovered by this agency, the sale of which produced much money for the exchequer. § 25. The Church, however, did not gain greatly by being ^ See Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, u. s., ii. 292-5. 2 Collier, Records, No. Ixvii. See the long list of alienations given in this paper. ^ Fuller, Ch. Hist. B. vii. p. 417 (foUo ed.) "* Fuller, vii. 418. 1550-1553. ELEMENT IN ENGLISH REFORMATION. 217 robbed by authorised spoilers instead of by private bands. The clergy remained miserably impoverished. Many parishes were without curates, and the poor were defrauded of their alms. A quaint writer of the time appeals to the lords and burgesses of Parliament to put a stop to these grievous abuses. " Your pretence," he says, " of putting down abbeys was to amend what was amiss in them. It is amended even as the devil mended his dam's leg (as it is in the proverb) ; when he should have set it right he brake it quite in pieces. The monks gave too little alms, and set unable persons many times in their benefices, but now where twenty pounds were given yearly to the poor in more than one hundred places in England, is not one meal's meat given. This is a fair amendment. Where they had always one or other vicar, that either preached or hired some one to preach, now there is no vicar at all, but the farmer is vicar and parson altogether, and only an old castaway monk or friar that can scarcely say his matins is hired for twenty or thirty shillings, meat, and drink, yea in some places for meat and drink alone without any wages. I know, and not I alone, but twenty thousand more know more than five hun- dred vicarages thus well and gospelly served, after the new gospel of England." ^ Similar charges are made by Bishop Latimer, who during this reign had devoted himself to preaching, not desirin<^ to be restored to the See of Worcester, which he had resigned in 1539. His plain speaking in his sermons before the court gave great offence. ^ " To consider," he says in a sermon at Stamford, " what hath been plucked from abbeys, colleges, and chantries, it is marvel no more to be bestowed on this holy office of salvation. It may still be said of us what the Lord complaineth by his pro- phet— ' My house ye have deserted, and run every man to his own house.' What is Christ's house but Christian souls ? but who maketh any provision for them ? Every man scrapeth and getteth together for his bodily house, but the soul's, health is neglected. Schools are not maintained. Scholars have not exhibition ; the preaching office decayeth, men provide lands and riches for their children, but this most necessary office they neglect. If it be no better in time to come than hitherto looked unto, then England will at the last bewail it." ^ § 26. For this spoliation and neglect of duty it is not fair to make the young king responsible. In spite of his inexperience of life, and the bad teaching to which in such matters he had been subjected, Edward showed a disposition to devote the funds given ^ Brinklow, a London merchant, who wrote under the name of Reginald Morse, quoted in Dugdale, Monasticon. ^ Watkins' Life of Latimer, p. 43. 3 Latimer's Sermons, ed. Watkins, i. 268. 218 PROTESTANT ELEMENT. Chap. XII. for pious uses to purposes of a similar character. From the sale of the lands of chantries and free chapels,^ twenty-two grammar- schools were founded and endowed by him at different times. Towards the end of his life, after hearing a sermon from Bishop Ridley, Edward sent for the bishop, and desired to receive some practical suggestions as to how some provision for the poor could best be made. The lord mayor, Sir Richard Dobbs, was called into council, and after consultation ^\dth the aldermen, drew up a scheme specifying' three different classes needing relief, and suggesting a method of relieving each. For the first, the poor by " imjMency,'^ he suggested the foundation of a great hospital for orphan and indigent children. For the second, the poor by casualty, the main- tenance and support of St. Thomas' and St. Bartholomew's hospitals. For the third, the poor by extravagance, the conversion of the " king's palace of Bridewell " into a hospital to which " ramblers, dissolute persons, and sturdy beggars," might be sent and compelled to work. These recommendations were in the main carried out. The grand foundation of Christ's Hospital was due to them. The palace of the Savoy, the revenues of which were much misap- propriated, was dissolved, and the funds given to St. Thomas' and Bridewell.^ § 27. The grave and earnest character of the young king, always intently bent on religious information, had greatly facilitated the work of Cranmer and Ridley. His death (July 6, 1553) was a crushing blow to the hopes of their party. The ill-advised attempt made to set aside the succession of the Lady Mary only made matters worse, and the harsh treatment which she had received as to her religious joractices,^ combined with her sense of political ill- usage to make her succeed to the throne possessed with a thorough hatred to everything connected with the reforming movement. 1 The amount realised by tliese sales was about £180,000. — Strype. ^ Collier, v. 503-5. ^ See Notes and Illustrations. Chap. XII. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 219 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, (A) FOREIGN DIVINES BROUGHT TO ENGLAND BY CRANMER. Some of the more distinguished of the foreign divines wlio came to England at Cranmer's iuvitation,in order to hold a sort of Protestant CounciljWere the following : I. Peter Martyr. He was born at Flo- rence, of a good family named Vermigli, in 1500, and named Peter Martyr in honour of Peter the martyr, a Milanese saint. He entered the order of canons regular of St. Augustine, and became a very popular preacher. Being attracted by the writ- ings of Zuinglius and Bucer, he became gradually inclined to adopt reforming views. At Nai^les he was made visitor- general of his order. Having been ap- pointed pi'ior of the House of Canons at Lucca, he applied himself to the exposi- tion of the Scriptures, and gave utterance to such strong reforming sentiments that he was summoned before a chapter of the order at Genoa. This determined him openly to embrace the reformation. He left Italy and made his way to Zurich, wliere he was hospitably received by Bullinger. He then became divinity pro- fessor at Strasburg, in conjunction with Bucer, with whom he always lived in the utmost harmony. In 1546 he married a nun who had escaped from her convent ; next year he came to England, on the in- vitation of Cranmer, and became divinity professor at Oxford. He was allowed to quit England on the death of Edward, and became professor at Zurich, where he died in 1562. He was among the most learned and eloquent of the reformers, and dis- tinguished for the moderation of his views, occupying a sort of middle place between the position of Zuingli and Luther. II. Martin Bucer. Bucer (or Kuhorn) was born in 1491 near Strasburg. He entered the order of Dominicans, and went to reside at Heidelberg for learned studies. Here he became acquainted with the writings of Luther and Zuingli. His idea was to unite the two sets of opinions. Becoming known as a theologian with these views, he was invited to Strasburg, his native place, and here for twenty years he taught divinity with much applause. Declining to sign the Interim, it became unsafe for him to remain in Germany, and he accepted Cranmei''s invitation to come to England in 1548. Ho was sent to Cam- bridge as divinity professor, and became very popular there. At his death, in 1550, the whole University attended his funeral, and the most famous of the doctors spoke orations in his praise. Bucer may be re* garded as holding much the same senti- ments as Peter Martyr. III. Bernardino Ochino was born, at Sienna in 1487. He took the habit of a cordelier; afterwards, he became vicar- general of the Capuchins, and confessor to Pope Paul III. He was induced to accept reforming views by John Valder, a Spaniard, He was summoned to Rome, and was on his way thither, when, at Florence, he met with Peter Martyr, who was about to quit Italy for Switzerland ; he accompanied him, and afterwards settled at Geneva. He went to England with Peter Martyr in 1547. Archbishop Cranmer gave him a prebend at Canter- bury. He wrote a dialogue on the usurped primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and in other ways laboured to advance the Refor- mation. At Edward's death he left Eng- land with Martyr. He was a brilliant but unstable man ; he wrote in defence of poly- gamy, and ended by joining the Socinians. IV. Paul Fagius (or Buchlein)was born at Rheinzabern in 1504. He studied Hebrew at Strasburg, under Wolfgang Capito, and became especially distin- guished for his proficiency in that lan- guage. In 1542, when Capito died, Fagius was appointed to succeed him as profes- sor. Frederick, Elector Palatine, induced him to come to Heidelberg, where he zealously laboured to advance learning and the Reformation. In 1548 he went with Bucer to England, at the invitation of Cranmer ; he was sent to Cambridge, where he was to teach Hebrew and under- take a new translation of the Old Testa- ment. He died at Cambridge in 1550. V. John A Lasco was by birth a noble- man of Poland. In his travels he came to Zurich, where he was brought under the influence of Zuingli. Returning to Hungary, he was nominated to a bishopric, on which he openly avowed reforming views, and, leaving Hungary, became minister of the church at Embden. The publication of the Interim compelled him to leave Germany. Cranmer, who was previously acquainted with him, invited him to England. He was made superin- tendent of all the foreign communities in London, and had a church in Austin Friars. Of all the reformers, he was probably the one who had most influence with Cranmer ; he was a very able and attractive person, as well as learned. He was allowed to leave England with his congiegation on Mary's accession. H« died al Frankfort in 1560. 220 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XII. (B) IRE BOOK OF BERTRAM: ITS REAL AUTHORSHIP. The treatise on the Lord's Supper, known as the Book of Bertram, is com- monly said to have been composed by Ratramnus, a monk of Corbey, in the ninth century. There is good reason, however, for believing that it was the work of Joannes Scotus Erigena. This view was first advocated by the learned Peter de MarcS,, Archbishop of Paris, and may be found fully stated by Cossai-t, in Labbe and Cossart's Concilia. Additional evidence, greatly confirmatory of the view, has been discovered since Cossart wrote, by the finding of the treatise of Berengar, of Tours, on the Lord's Supper. Berengar professes to have learned his views from the book of Joannes Scotus, which, it appears, from his references to it, can be no other than this work. As the work of Scotus was condemned by the Church, and ordered to be destroyed, it is supposed that the name of Ratramnus was prefixed to it to preserve it, a practice of which there are many instances. (C) COMPARISON OF THE 42 ARTI- CLES WITH THE 39 NOW IN FORCE. The principal differences between the articles as now drawn up and those after- wards agreed to under Elizabeth are as follows : — (1) The article on the incarna- tion expressed the divinity of our Lord somewhat less clearly than that at present in force. (2) The article on Holy Scrip- ture did not contain the specific names of the books of th.e Old Testament. (3) The article on the Old Testament did not con- tain the clause beginning, " Although the law given by God to Moses." (4) The article on free-will did not contain the first clause of that article in the 39. (5) The article on justification did not define it, but merely referred to the homily. (6) The present article on "good works" was not in the 42. (7) The article on the authority of the Church had not the first sentence of the present article. (8) There was an article on the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, now omitted. (9) The article on purgatory called it the doctrine of the Schoolmen on purgatory, not the Romish doctrine. (10) The article on the tongue to be employed in ministering was worded less strongly than the pre- sent. (11) Tlie article on the sacraments was differently worded, and condemned in terms the phrase, "ex opere operato." (12) The article on transubstantiation did not contain the phrase, " overtliroweth the nature of a sacrament ;" nor the phrase, "the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner ;" but it had a statement as to the impossibility of Christ's natural body being in more placet than one at the same time, and also deny- ing " a real and corporal presence, as they phrase it." (13) The present articles xxix. and XXX., as to the wicked not receiving, and as to "both kinds," were not in the 42. (14) The article on tradition did not contain the sentence beginning, " every particular and national church." (15) The article on the Homihes was of necessity different. (16) Article xxxv. of the 42 contained not only an approval of the Ordinal, but also of the " book lately de- livered to the Church of England by the authority of the king and Parliament, containing the manner and form of iniblic prayer, and the ministration of the sacra- ments." (17) The article on civil magis- trates did not contain the carefully weighed and most valuable statement of our present article xxxvii., but had in its place, "The King of England is, after Christ, the supreme head on earth of the Church of England and Ireland." (18) There were four articles in the 42 which have been altogether omitted in the 39 — namely, "That the resurrection of the dead is not past already;" "That the souls of the deceased do not perish with their bodies, nor sleep idly;" "Of the millennarians ;" "All men not to be saved at the last." (D) TREATMENT OF THE PRINCESS MARY DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD VI. Mary refused to yield in any point to the religious changes authorised by law, and had mass regularly said for her by her chaplains. This was at first winked at ; but the young king felt scandalised by it, and determined to make her jield. A qualified promise had been given to the emperor that she should not be disturbed in her religious duties, and the Council earnestly endeavoured to induce Edward to be quiet in the matter. However, he would not consent to this, and Mary had to endure a sort of persecution because she would not yield. Her chaplains and servants were sent to prison, but without avail. Bishop Ridley visited her at Hunsdon, and offered to preach before her; but she would not hear him, and re- mained inflexible throughout the reign. Tlie whole of the transactions between Mary and the Council will be found at great length in Archceologia, voL xviiL U5a-1555. THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 221 CHAPTER XIII THE KESTOJRATION OF THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 1553-1555. § 1 . The Chiu'cli did not oppose the accession of Mary. § 2. Mary not per- sonally popular. § 3. First proceedings of the Queen in matters -of religion. § 4. Proclamation to prohibit preaching. § 5. License to preachers in the Queen's name. § 6. Conduct of the reforming clergy. § 7. Proceedings in the case of Cranmer. § 8. His declaration. § 9 Cranmer, Latimer, and Holgate committed to the Tower. 10. Bonner exults over the change of circumstances. § 11. Proceedings of the first Parliament. § 12. Disputes in the Convocation, § 13. Cranmer con- victed of treason and pardoned. § 14. The Queen's injunctions. § 15. Proceedings against the married clergy. § 16. Eeforming bishops de- prived. § 17. Appointment of new bishops. § 18. Views of Cardinal Pole and the Queen. § 19. Convocation settles some test propositions on the Eucharist. § 20. Disputation of Cranmer, Piidley, and Latimer at Oxford. § 21. The reformers refuse to dispute at Cambridge. § 22. Provocations of the zealots. § 23. Cardinal Pole arrives with a dispensa- tion for the holders of Church lands. § 24. Parliament and Convoca- tion absolved and reconciled with Rome. § 25. The Act of Parliament embodying the dispensation. § 26. The laws against heresy revived. § 27. Rejoicings in Rome and in London. § 28. The Cardinal Legate directs the absolution of the people. § 29. Condition in which the Church of England noAV stood. § 1. The Cliurcli was in some measure compromised by the disastrous attempt to put the Lady Jane Grey on the throne, inasmuch as the archbishop had signed the settlement as a coun- cillor, and Bishop Ridley had preached in its favour in London, and Dr. Sandys at Cambridge. But there is no good reason to believe that the clergy generally, any more than the lay people, approved of this violent effort to upset the hereditary succession. Probably they did not anticipate any special mischief from the accession of Mary. The great majority of them, indeed, would still be in favour of the old Latin services in preference to those English forms to which they had been but a short time accus- tomed, while those of a distinctly reforming type did not antici- pate any peculiar danger, inasmuch as the Princess Mary had plainly assured the Suffolk men that she did not intend to compel her subjects to any change in religion.^ The people were de- cidedly bent to uphold regular succession and hereditary right. ^ Dodd, Ch. Hist. ii. 55, note. 222 THE EESTOEATION OF Chap. XIII. § 2. Mary, indeed, liad no jJ^rsonal popularity to recommend her cause. " She had no sympathy for the life, the interests, the struggles of her people. She hated them from her childhood. All her symj^athies were for the nation from whence her mother came."i And she seems to have been universally disliked in return. 2 § 3. On the entry of Llary into London, August 3, one of her first cares was to deliver the five imprisoned bishops, and to cause their restoration to their sees. This was done by the same agency which had deprived them, viz. by a commission of laymen. Mary would probably have at once publicly restored the old religion, had not the emperor given her advice to proceed with prudence. Acting on this, she allowed Cranmer to perform the funeral ser- vice of the late king according to the reformed rite, and the Eng- lish Liturgy still continued to be used. But the queen herself had mass said before her, and made no disguise of her sentiments, and soon a trifling incident furnished her with a pretext for im- posing silence upon the reformed preachers. Bourne, a canon of St. Paul's and a royal chaplain, took occasion, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, to inveigh against the reformed doctrines, and to laud the old superstitions. Some zealot threw a dagger at him in the pulpit. A tumult arose, and Bourne was only j)rotected from violence by the exertions of Rogers and Philpot, two prebendaries of St. Paul's, of reforming views. This trifling affair gave the queen a decent excuse ^ for interfering in religious matters. Again she followed most exactly the precedents of the late reign. § 4. She issued a proclamation (August 18) forbidding reli- gious dissensions, and the use of the " devilish terms of papist and heretic, and complaining that these dissensions were much stirred up by preaching, and by representing plays and interludes. She therefore forbade all preaching and public interpretation of the Scriptures, all printing and representing plays, without her special license." In this proclamation she also declared that she " cannot hide that religion which God and the world knoweth she hath ever j^rofessed from her infancy hitherto, which as her Majesty is minded to observe and maintain for herself by God's grace during her time, so doth her Highness much desire and would be glad the same were of all her subjects quietly and charitably entertained." This invitation to all to disobey what was as yet the law of the ^ Vou Ranke, Hist, of England, i. 208. 2 Noailles, the French ambassador, says — " Had she left the kingdom (as the emperor desired), she would not have found one solitary friend iu all JEngland to aid or favour her return." — Ambassade, ii. 254. ^ Lingard, v. 26, 1553-1555. THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 22;-^ land is somewliat singular in a royal proclamation. Compulsion, indeed, was not as yet to be exercised, as in fact it could not be until the law was changed. This, however, is claimed as an act of clemency in the proclamation : — " Of her most gracious disposition and clemency her Highness minds not to compel any her said sub- jects thereunto until such time as further order by common con- sent may be taken therein."^ § 5. The license given to such as were approved to be preachers is a curious adoption of the Erastian proceedings of the late reign. It ran thus : — '^ Mary, by the grace of God, on earth supreme head of the Church of England," and granted the powder of preach- ing, " so long as it shall please us, and you shall conduct yourself laudably." 2 § 6. The chiefs of the reforming party came to the conclusion that it was their duty to disobey this inhibition of preaching, and in consequence many of them soon found themselves in prison. Many others, however, foreseeing the storm gathering, thought it more prudent to escape to a place of safety and wait for better times. No opposition seems to have been offered to their leaving the country. Even Archbishop Cranmer might possibly have at this time escaped had he thought it consistent with his duty to do so. § 7. He had been twice summoned before the Council ; once in the beginning of August on the matter of his comiDlicity in the business of Lady Jane Grey, and again on August 27, to answer questions as to the possessions of his see. But in neither case had more been done than to order him to keep his house at Lambeth. 3 It was of course intended to deprive him of his see, but it does not appear that at the beginning of the reign any personal proceedings had been determined on against him. However, when pressed by his friend Peter Martyr to escape, he firmly declined, on the ground that being by his position placed in the forefront of the battle, he must not abandon the cause. And in a very short time escape became impossible for him. § 8. A report had been raised that he had agreed to accept the queen's religion, and that the Latin mass was again celebrated in the Cathedral of Canterbmy. The archbishop, indignant at this rumour, drew up a declaration, in which he condemns with some violence of ^ Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 103. In the Council meeting, August 13, in which the disturbance alluded to was considered, it is said : " Albeit her Grace's conscience is stayed in matter of religion, yet she meaneth graciously not to constrain other men's consciences otherwise than God shall put iu their hearts a persuasion of the truth." — Archceologia, xviii. 173. 2 Collier, Records, Ixviii. It will be observed that Mary adopted and used the style of "Supreme Head of the Church on earth," which Elizabetb afterwards refused to adopt. ^ Strype's Cranmer, i. 439, (fol. ed.) 224 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XIII. language the mass, and declares that the English communion service lately established was most agreeable to Scripture and the primitive Church. It was not by his allowance, he said, that the mass had been said in Canterbury Cathedral, but this had been done by a " false, flattering, lying, and dissembling monk." ^ He offers, together with Peter Martyr, to defend the English Prayer-Book as most agreeable to the faith, doctrine, and usage which have been in the Church for fifteen hundred years. Having drawn up this declaration on the spur of the moment, the archbishop was retaining it for further consideration and amendment, when an officious friend, Scory, Bishop of Chichester, getting sight of it in his house, took a copy without his authorisation, and published it. The archbishop did not deny that he had himself intended to publish it, but declared that after revising it he had resolved to append to it his archi- episcopal seal, and to have set it upon the door of St. Paul's. § 9. As it had thus come to the knowledge of the Council pre- maturely, this body, which now also, as in the late reign, acted as the highest ecclesiastical authority, sent for the primate, and in- formed him that, " as well for treason against the queen's Majesty as for aggravating the same his ofi'ence by spreading seditious bills and moving tumults to the disquiet of the State, he should be committed to the Tower, there to remain, or to be referred to justice, or to be further ordered, as shall stand with the queen's pleasure" (September 8). A few days later Latimer was also committed for his "seditious demeanour." 2 Holgate, Archbishop of York, soon joined them in prison (October 4). This prelate had not taken any very conspicuous part in the reforming movement, but he was known to be rich, and he had perhaps excited some indignation by his recent marriage with Mrs. Barbara Wentworth.^ § 10. As, one after another, the prelates who had been most conspicuous in the late reign found their way into the Tower, those who had now come into power, and who had experienced somewhat hard measure at their hands, could not conceal their jubilation. Bonner, restored to his See of London, writes exult- ingly to his agents " that they may order all things at their plea- ^ Thornton, Suffragan-Bishop of Dover. He had been an active and tyrannical "visitor" of the friars' houses in Henry VIII. 's time, and now became a vigorous persecutor of the reformers. ^ Journal of Council, Archceol. xviii. 175 ; Strype, Collier, Heylin, Lin- gard, V. 28. Bishop Ridley had been committed previously (July 26). ^ There is a letter from him in the State Fa2}ers to Sir R. Southwell, offering £1000 for deliverance, and declaring that his marriage with Mrs. "Wentworth was done by advice of the Duke of Somerset. — /Sto/e Papers of Mary, vi. 84. He is said to have been committed for " divers his offences." — Minute of Council, Archceologia, xviii. 176. 1553-1555. THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 225 sure, not suffering Sheepshead (or Shipside, which was the name of Ridley's agent) to be any meddler there, or to sell or carry away anything from thence ; and I trust I shall so handle both the Sheepshead and other Calvesheads that they shall perceive that their sweet shall not be without sour sauce. This day is looked where Mr. Canterbury must be placed where is meet for him. He is become very humble, and ready to submit himself in all things, but that will not serve. In the same predicament is Dr. Smith, my friend, and the Dean of St. Paul's, and others." i Thus do base natures exult over the misfortunes of others. § 11. The new Parliament met October 5. Every effort had been made to obtain an assembly which should be favourable to the restoration of the old religious status, and to the marriage which the queen already contemplated with Philip of Spain. In neither of these points, however, did the Parliament show itself tractable. A bold attempt was made by the Council to get a bill passed which should repeal at once all the Acts of the last two reigns affecting either the marriage of the queen's father and mother, or the exercise of religion. This the Lords were willing to accept, but the Commons showed a determined opposition. The bill was withdrawn and the Parliament prorogued.^ In the second session it was determined to proceed more prudently. An Act to annul the divorce of Hemy and Catherine, and establish the queen's legitimacy, passed as a matter of course ; a modified proposal was then submitted to the two Houses — viz. to repeal all the Acts made about religion in the time of Edward VI. This, which did not touch the question of the papal supremacy, but proposed a return to the condition of things at the end of Henry's reign, was more acceptable to the Commons than the former bill ; but it did not pass without very great opposition. " For eight days," says Noailles, the French ambassador, " has the Parliament remained in a mar- vellously violent debate. The bill only passed at last against the declared opposition of the third part of the assembly." ^ Nine Acts of Parliament, including the two Acts of Uniformity, etc., were repealed by it. The Act further directed 'Hhat all such divine service and administration of the sacraments which were most commonly used in England in the last year of King Henry VIII., shall be revived and practised after the 20th December next follow- ing ; after which time the officiating in any other service is for- bidden." * Then followed Acts against insulting and disturbing preachers, and against holding unlawful assemblies. The temper of the nation was thus fairly gauged. A majority, little in earnest 1 Burnet, Records (Mary), No, vii. ^ Lingard, v. 32. 3 Noailles, Amhassade, ii. 247. ^ 1 Mary (Sess. 2), c. 2. Q 226 THE RESTOEATION OF Chap. XIII. about religion, was ready to return to the old forms, but the papal supremacy was still universally reprobated. Nor would it have ever been accepted by the nation save through the bribe of the confirmation in the possession of the abbey and chantry lands. § 12. If a third part of the House of Commons may be assumed to have been in favour of the Reformation settlement, the propor- tion among the clergy, to judge from the proceedings of Convocation, was not nearly so great. It is true that many of the dignified clergy had fled beyond sea ; but, considering the assent which the clergy had given to the formularies of the late reign, more might have been expected to be found in opposition than, in fact, did appear.i Pr. Harpsfield, in his opening sermon, spoke very bitterly of the moral condition of the clergy. Dr. Weston was chosen pro- locutor ; and by the queen's command the Convocation was ordered to debate solemnly certain controverted points, with the view of framing canons upon them. At the session, October 20, the pro- locutor laid before the House two resolutions, the first of which asserted the presence of the natural body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, the second formally condemned the Catechism, falsely pretending to be set forth by the late Convocation. In opposition to this, Philpot,' Archdeacon of "Winchester, asserted that the said Catechism had convocational sanction, inasmuch as it was sanc- tioned by a committee deputed to act for the House.^ The propo- sition as to transubstantiation was signed by all the clergy except five — viz. Phillips, Dean of Rochester ; Chejmey, Archdeacon of Hereford ; Haddon, Dean of Exeter ; Philpot, Archdeacon of Win- chester ; Aylmer, Archdeacon of Stow. These five demanded a public disputation on the subject of the eucharist, and desired that Bishop Ridley, Rogers, and some other divines, might be allowed to assist them. The bishops rejected this petition, but the five dissentients were allowed to dispute by themselves if they pleased. Haddon and Aylmer were unwilling to enter upon a dispute which seemed so unequal ; but Cheyney having commenced the discussion^ all five eventually joined in it, and maintained it for four days.^ The discussion appears to have taken place before a large auditory, who encouraged the disputants according to their views. No real result could come of such a tournament. The reforming divines ^ Heylin says that such influences had been at work, and so partially were returns made, that none of "King Edward's clergy" appeared among the proctors. This, however, would only prove that their brother clergy were very little in earnest about the matter. 2 Cardwell, Synod, ii. 426. It is thought by many that Dr. Weston's resolution was aimed not so much at the Catechism as at the 42 articles which were bound up with it. ^ Cardwell, u. s. ; Strype's Cranvier, b. iii. ch. vi. 1553-1555. THE UNEEi^'OHMED llELIGION. 227 had, indeed, the advantage of bohlly stating their opinions, and so giving encouragement to their friends. Archdeacon Philpot was especially conspicuous for his bold tone ; but all must have seen that, for the present at least, no hope could be entertained of obtaining acceptance for such views as they advocated. § 13. On November 13 Archbishop Cranmer was brought to his trial for complicity in the affair of Lady Jane Grey. He pleaded guilty, and threw himself on the queen's mercy, upon which he was pardoned ; but when he further solicited the queen that he might be allowed to address her on the subject of religion, and have the opportunity of advocating his views, this was altogether declined, i § 14. It is somewhat strange to observe the exact imitation, in the proceedings of Mary and her Council, of the proceedings of the previous reign. In March 1554, the queen, by virtue of her supremacy, issued a body of Injunctions to the clergy. This docu- ment declared that in the time of King Edward (whose soul God pardon !) divers notable crimes, excesses, and faults, with divers kinds of heresies, simony, advoutry, and other enormities, had been committed, chiefly by the clergy, who had been given to much insolence and ungodliness ; wherefore the queen, feeling it to be her duty to abate such enormities, had sent these articles, which the bishop was to put in force "without all tract or delay" : — (1) All canons ecclesiastical, not being contrary to statute law, were to be enforced. (2) No bishop in his acts was to use the expression " regia auctoritate fulcitus." - (3) The oath of supremacy was not to be demanded of ecclesiastics. (4) No " sacramentaries," or heretics, to be admitted to any benefice ; no undue leases to be made. (5) Discipline to be strictly enforced against the clergy. (6) Evil books to be suppressed. (7) All married priests to be removed from their benefices. (8) Those whose wives were dead, or who are willing, with consent of the wife, to separate, to be pardoned after penance, and allowed to officiate. (9) Married priests or "vowed persons" to be compulsorily divorced. (10) Where parishes are without priests, arrangements to be made for priests of neigh- bouring parishes to officiate. (1 1) Latin processions to be revived. (12) Suppressed holy days to be restored. (13) Ceremonies to be restored. (14) Children to be christened, as of old, by the priest, and confirmed by the bishop. (15) The defects of those ordained by the late form to be supplied by the bishop, if the persons are meet. (16) Homilies to be published to teach the people, and aU to be compelled to attend church. (17) Suspected schoolmasters ^ Strype's Cranmer, Appendix, No. Ixxii. - By the first Act passed by the Parliament the clergy were freed from all danger of a '* Praemunire" in exercising their jurisdiction. 228 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XIII. to be removed, and children to be taught their parts in the mass. (18) Virtue and godly living to be encouraged, and vice repressed.^ § 15. The most important part of these Injunctions was that which related to the married clergy. This, the repeal of the Acts passed in Edward's reign had already made illegal, and it was de- termined at once to enforce the law. According to Burnet's calcu- lation 3000, according to that of Lingard 1500, clergy were deprived on this ground.^ The deprivation of those who were considered to have offended against the canons of the Church was not a mea- sure so abhorrent to all right feeling as that of compulsory divorce. Whether this compulsory divorce was applied to all the clergy, or only to those who had taken vows as regulars, seems doubtful. In any case it was sufficiently shocking. In the diocese of London, Bonner had anticipated the Injunctions by acting vigorously in this matter.^ § 1 6. As regards the bishops, commissions were issued by virtue of the royal supremacy to try those who had contracted matrimony, or had otherwise offended. For the first-named cause Archbishop Holgate, the bishops of St. David's, Chester, and Bristol were deprived. For having received their sees by letters patent, with a quamdiu se bene gesserint clause, the Bishops of Lincoln, Gloucester, and Hereford were also ejected.* § 1 7. On March 1 8 cojigSs d'elire were issued to the deans and chapters of the vacated sees, with the exception of that of York, and prelates of a type satisfactory to the Government were elected. The married clergy who had sought for divorce to qualify them- selves for restoration to their benefices, did not find much profit from their readiness to yield to the prevailing sentiment. Very few of them were employed again, and those only after a long probation and penance.^ § 18. By virtue of the Acts of Parliament and the queen's ^ Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 109. ^ See Hallam, Const. Hist i. 103, note. 2 For an account of Bonner's proceedings, see Notes and Illustrations to tliis chapter. ^ As regards the other bishops of reforming views — Cranmer having been convicted of treason was in abeyance, but being a metropolitan, his deprivation was reserved for the pope, by whose bulls he had been appointed. Ridley had resigned London with a view of taking Durham, but had not been formally inducted. Barloio had resigned his see of Bath and Wells, and had escaped. Scary of Chichester preserved his see for a while by re- nouncing his wife and doing penance, but was afterwards expelled. Cover- dale had been arrested, but great interest being made for him, he was allowed to escape. Poynet of Winchester had also escaped. The Bishops of Lincoln and Hereford had ventured to appear in their robes in the House of Lords, but declining to attend the mass with which the Parliament opened, they were expelled. ^ Strype's Cranmer, i. 475. 1553-1555. THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 229 Injimctions the Churcli of England had now relapsed into the state in which it was in the latter days of King Henry VIII. But this was very far from satisfying the aspirations of the queen, who de- sired the papal supremacy to be fully recognised, and the confis- cated Church property to be restored to its original uses. Had this been attempted at the beginning of her reign, it would without doubt have cost her her crown. But Bishop Gardiner, her chief adviser, was far too sagacious a politician to encourage so rash a proceeding. He had to contend not only against the queen's own wishes, but against the influence brought to bear upon her from abroad by the Papal See and Cardinal Pole. Immediately on hearing of her accession, Pope Julius had appointed Pole legate to England with the fullest powers. On August 13, Pole wrote to Mary congratulating her on her elevation ; telling her of his ap- pointment, and desiring to know her mind as to the way in which he should act.^ This letter was conveyed secretly to the queen, and one of the bearers of it, Commendone, having been charged by her with messages to the pope and the cardinal, was able to acquaint the court of Rome with the change in affairs — to them a subject of the greatest joy. On October 10 Mary answered the cardinal's letter, declaring herself determined to show a thorough obedience to the Roman See ; but on October 28, after the Parliament had met and the strong feeling had been shown in the Commons, she writes again declaring that it was impossible at present to do any- thing in the matter of the papal supremacy ; that she herself, al- though unwilling, had been obliged to assume the title of Supreme Head of the Church, that it would not be safe for the cardinal to come into England at present. The cardinal was by no means pleased with this communication. He answered (December 1), pointing out that such a title as she had assumed was altogether to be condemned on her own principles. At the same time he sent Dr. Goldwell, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, as his agent, with a long paper of instructions, the chief point in which is that he is to press on the queen the immediate restoration of the papal power.^ Gardiner's policy, however, which was bent on keeping out the cardinal and the Roman pretensions as long as possible, received the efficient support of the emperor, and Pole was not allowed to pass into England for another year. § 19. Meanwhile, at the beginning of April (1554) met Mary's second Parliament, which was to sanction her union with Philip, BO intensely unpopular in the country. The Parliament and Con- vocation were opened at Oxford, but immediately transferred to ^ Dodd, vol. ii. Appendix xvii. ~ lb. vol. ii. Appendix xix. xx. ; Strype, Oranmer, Appendix Ixxv. 230 THE EESTORATION OF Chap. XIII. Westminster and St. Paul's. In the Convocation certain test pro- positions were agreed upon wliicli were to be submitted to tlie imprisoned bishops, that if they dissented from them they might be convicted of heresy. The propositions were as follows : — " (1.) In the Sacrament of the Altar, by virtue of the divine word spoken by the priest, there is present really, under the forms of bread and wine, the natural body of Christ which was conceived by the Virgin Mary, also His natural blood. (2.) After consecration, there remains not the substance of bread and wine nor any other substance, except the substance of Christ, God and man. (3.) In the mass is the life-giving propitiatory sacrifice for the sins both of the living and the dead." i § 20. It was determined that these propositions should be sub- mitted to Cranmer, Eidley, and Latimer, at Oxford, and that they should be allowed to dispute against them if they wished,^ the object being to commit them to a formal enunciation of heresy. A deputation of Cambridge doctors was invited to Oxford to assist at the great controversial festival. On Saturday, April 14, in the chancel of St. Mary's church, Oxford, the three bishops were brought before the doctors deputed by Convocation ^ and furnished with the articles, on which they were desired to write their minds, or to prepare themselves to dispute. Cranmer and Kidley readily imdertook to do this, but Latimer, now a very aged man and never famous for his learning, declared he was as "meet to dispute as to be the captain of Calais." ^ There was, however, no remedy, and he was bid to prepare himself as best he might. On Monday (April 16) Cranmer was brought to the Divinity Schools for a formal disputation. The discussion was conducted in regular syl- logisms, with major, minor, and conclusion. It was sometimes in English, sometimes in Latin. There were many interruptions and much clamour and disorder. On Tuesday (April 17) Ridley had his turn. He was more incisive than the primate, and being a man of considerable power put his opponents to much difficulty. He was howled at with cries of blasphemer, and altogether, as he after- wards complained, the disputation scarcely preserved the semblance ^ Strype's Cranmer, i. 479. ^ JVIinutes of Council, March 8, 1554. Letter to Lieutenant of the Tower to deliver to Sir John Williams the bodies of the late Archbishop of Canter- bury, Doctor Kidley, and Mr. Latimer, to be by him conveyed to Oxford. — Archceolog. xviii. 177. 3 Dr. Weston, the prolocutor of Convocation, was also rector of Lincoln College, and vice-chancellor. * The account of this disputation is taken from Foxe, who had good sources of information, Jewel having acted as secretary. Foxe had also ob- tained Dr. Weston's formal account. 15o3-lo55. THE UXREFORMED RELIGION. 231 of fairness. On xVpril 1 8 came the aged Latimer. He had forgot- ten his Latin, he said, but he desired to give" an account of his faith in English, and then they might " do their pleasure" with him. He was soon involved in a disjDutation, and much railed and scoifed at. " I have spoken in my time," said the old man, " before two kings two or three hours together without interruption, but now I could not be suffered a quarter of an hour together without snatches, revilings, checks, rebukes, and taunts." On Friday, April 20, the commissioners again sat in St. Mary's church, and the three bishops being brought before them were required to subscribe the articles. They all refused ; upon which all three were condemned to be guilty of heresy.! They appealed solemnly from the judgment to the Great Judge of all, clearly perceiving that there was no hope in man. They were confined in separate prisons, and not allowed to communicate with one another, while the prolocutor and his assessors returned to London to report the result of the inquiry to Convocation,^ and to prepare for a similar proceeding at Cambridge. § 21. It was intended to try there Hooper, Rogers, Philpot, Bradford, Crome, and Taylor ; but these divines having heard of the proceedings at Oxford, sent forth from their prison a letter declining a disputation in which they saw little hope of fair treatment. At the same time they formally express their doctrine on transubstantiation, purgatory, and justification by faith. § 22. Meanwhile, while the chief reformers were lying in dan- ger of their lives, the thoughtless zealots of their party did not fail to give considerable provocation to the authorities by various in- sults,^ and thus hastened on that terrible period of persecution which was about to turn England into a huge charnel-house. § 23. The queen was married to Philip of Spain at Winchester July 25, and on November 1 met Mary's third Parliament, which it was hoped would complete the reconciliation of England with the papal see. On November 22 the attainder of Cardinal Pole was reversed, and there was now nothing to keep the long-expected ^ It seems doubtful by what authority this sentence was pronounced. A commission of Convocation had been sent to Oxford. It would thus seem as though Convocation were sitting as a court to try heresy, which was within its competency. But in that case, the sentence must have been pro- nounced in Convocation on the report of their committee, and not in the University. It does not appear, howevei-, that Convocation condemned the accused persons. In the minute of Council they are said to have been con- demned by the Universities. That there was great perplexity in the Council as to how to proceed is evident. May 3, 1554, it is ordered that the judges and queen's counsel should be summoned, and their opinions asked what the queen may do in law against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, who had been condemned by both Universities. — Archceologia, xviii. 177. 2 Cardwell, Synod, ii. 428. 3 Collier, vi. 82. 232 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XIII legate out of England. Gardiner, who knew well the temper of the nation, had taken care that he should not come until amply pro- vided with powers to confirm to their holders the abbey and church estates. At first Pole had been allowed by the pope " to treaty compound, and dispense " with the holders of this property as to their rents, then this power was extended from rents to lands, tenements, and tithes. Gardiner was not satisfied even with this — a dispensation which, depending on the good pleasure of the cardinal, implied a • certain amount of uncertainty. At length, then, the pope signed a bull empowering Pole " to give, aliene, and transfer " all Church property to its present holders, i Armed with this welcome document, the cardinal was sure of a good reception. § 24. On November 28 (1554) he met the Parliament, and made an harangue to them in presence of the king and queen. The next day the two houses voted, almost unanimously, their repentance for the schism, and their desire to be received back into the unity of the Catholic Church. On the day after (November 30, St. Andrew's Day) they appeared before the cardinal and desired absolution on their bended knees. The cardinal rising with ex- tended arms, pronounced the absolution of the nation, and its entrance again into union with Rome. On Advent Sunday Bishop Gardiner preached, extolling the happiness of again recovering the papal unity, which he himself had done as much as any man to break off. The clergy in their Convocation had, like the Parlia- ment, petitioned for absolution, and on December 6 (1554), before the cardinal at Lambeth, they were solemnly reconciled.^ § 25, The Convocation was then made use of to give a decent pretext for the all-important measure of the confirmation of the abbey lands to their present holders. They address their majesties, desiring them to intercede with the legate to grant a ratification of their titles to the possessors of church lands, inasmuch as any attempt to recover them " would not only redound to the disturb- ance of the public peace, but be a means that the unity in the Catholic Church could not obtain its desired effect." They pledge themselves to accept and act upon whatever the lord legate shall determine. But at the same time they "desire the restitution of all their ecclesiastical rights, liberties, and jurisdictions," without which they say they cannot " discharge their common duties." 3 The cardinal was graciously pleased to accede to this request. By an instrument published December 24 (1554), he pronounced (1) That all, cathedral churches, colleges, and schools founded during 1 Dodd, vol, ii. Appendix xxii, ; Lingard, v. 69 (4to edition), 2 Wilkins, Concilia, iv. Ill, 112. 3 Heylin, Ecd. Rest. p. 43. Cardwell, Synod, ii. 440. 1553-1555. THE UNREFORMED RELIGION. 233 the schism should be preserved ; (2) That all marriages contracted within the prohibited degrees, but sanctioned by the law, should be valid ; (3) That all institutions to benefices, all dispensations granted under any Act of Parliament, all judicial processes made before ordinaries or delegates, should be confirmed ; (4) That all persons having sufficient conveyance of any land, tenements, or other property formerly belonging to the Church might, without scruple of conscience, and without impediment or trouble by pre- tence of any general council, canons, and ecclesiastical laws, thence- forth continue to enjoy the same. This dispensation of the car- dinal was inserted in the body of the Act of Parliament which reasserted the papal supremacy ,i repealed all Acts which contra- vened it, declared that the title of Supreme Head of the Church never rightfully belonged to the Crown, restored the jurisdiction of all ecclesiastical ordinaries, and suspended the operation of the statutes of mortmain for twenty years. " This statute," says Dr. Hook, " sealed Pole's triumph over the liberties of his country, and we cannot record it without expressing the indignation which every patriot must feel against the legislators of that day." 2 § 26. The Lower House of Convocation addressed the bishops during this Parliament to obtain for them various privileges and immunities, and among other requests they desire to know whether those who have preached heretical doctrine shall be summoned before their ordinaries and compelled to recant or else punished.^ Thus reminded, the bishops proceeded to obtain from a subservient Parliament the power to recur to the old manner of dealing with heretics taken away by the statute of Henry YIII. which required a regular court and witnesses.^ The Parliament repealed this law, and enacted the revival of the old statutes made against the Lol- lards, so that the clergy of reforming opinions were now left utterly helpless in the hands of their enemies.^ § 27. An embassy had been despatched to Rome to acquaint the pope with the good news of the submission of the revolted nation. Pope Julius died before it arrived, and Marcellus II., his successor, ^ 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8, " The cardinal-legate strove long to prevent the two enactments as to the restoration to obedience and the title to ecclesiastical property being combined in one Act. But the English nobility adhered immovably to its demand, so that they must stand or fall together." — Y on 'Ravike, Hist, of England, i. 203. 2 Lives of the Archhisliops, iii. 290. 2 Cardwell, Synod, ii. 430. The demands run to the number of 28. 4 25 Henry VIII. c. 14. 5 " Gardiner assures us, and we may believe him in this, that it was not he that prompted the revival of the old laws against the Lollards. The chief impulse to it came, on the contrary, from the queen. " — Von Ranke, i. 209. 234 THE UNEEFORMED RELIGION. Chap. XIII. only lived twenty-one days. Paul IV., who followed, received the ambassadors with high compliments, and conferred upon Philip and Mary the title of King of Ireland (in place of the old title of Lord). In England a gorgeous procession to celebrate the restoration of catholic unity was made in London on the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, and on the following day the Parliament and Convo- cation were dissolved. § 28. The cardinal desired the clergy to repair to their cures, and to use lenity and moderation, endeavouring to recover their people by gentleness rather than by violence. He now issued out his commissions to the bishops, and in the vacancy of the two metropolitan sees to the deans and chapters of those sees, giving them the fullest powers to absolve all those who repented of heresy and schism ; to confirm the ordinations of those who w^ere ordained under the new Ordinal, to absolve those who had been constrained to break their monastic vows, .and who had taken any oath against the papal supremacy. The clergy, w^hen absolved, were to be em- powered to absolve the laity in the form following : — '' Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you, and by the apostolic authority granted and committed unto me, I absolve you from all sentences of ex- communication, and from all other censures and pains into the which you be fallen by reason of heresy and schism, or any otherwise ; and I restore you to the unity of our holy mother the Church, and to the communion of all sacraments, dispensing with you for all manner of irregularity ; and by the same authority I absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." i § 29. The Church of England was thus thrust back into the con- dition in which it was before 1529. All the gains of the Eeforma- tion — gains which had been acquired at so great a" cost — were wrested from it. Its nationality was again obscured, and the vast mass of superstitious folUes and abuses, implied by the name Rome, Vvas again heaped upon it. The effects of this retrogressive step, so glibly voted by the Parliament, were now to be witnessed ; and amidst the fearful scenes of the next four years was to be gene- rated in the breasts of Englishmen that indelible hatred of " popery " which was destined to be at once the support and the difficulty of the Anglican Church of the future. ^ Burnet, Records, iii. v, 33. Chap. Xlil. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 235 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) BONNER'S PROCEEDINGS IN LONDON AGAINST THE MARRIED CLERGY. It appears that Bonner commenced pro- ceedings against the married clergy in February ISS-t, a month before the issue of the Injunctions. The married priests were summoned to appear before him within a fortnight. ' Certain articles were issued to the priest, M'hich he was called upon to answer. If the answer admitted his marriage he was deprived of his bene- fice, suspended from his priestly func- tions, inhibited from continuing with his wife. If he was a regular, and had taken vows of chastity, his matrimony was de- clared void, and certain penance was en- joined to him. We have record of the penance ordered. On May. 14, John Turner, rector of St. Leonard's, East- cheap, was ordered to appear in his church, and holding a lighted taper in his hand, to pronounce in a loud voice the following form which had been drawn up for him :— " Good people, I am come hither at this present time to declare unto you my sorrowful and penitent heart, for that, being a priest, I have pre- sumed to marry one Amy German, widow, and under pretence of that matrimony, contrary to the canons and customs of the universal Church, have kept her as my wife, and lived contrary to the canons and ordinances of tlie Church, and to the evil example of good Christian people ; whereby now, being ashamed of my former wicked living, here I ask Almighty God mercy and forgiveness, and the whole Church, and am sorry and penitent even from the bottom of my heart : Therefore, and in token hereof, I am here, as you see, to declare and show unto you this my re- pentance, that before God on the latter day you may testify with me of the same ; and I most heartily and humbly pray and desire you all, whom by this evil example doing I have greatly offended, that for your part you will forgive me, and remem- ber me in your prayers, that God may give me grace, that hereafter I may live a con- tinent life, according to his laws, and the godly ordinances of our mother the holy Catholic Church, through and by His grace. And I do here before you all openly promise so to do during my life." — (Strype's Cranmer.) 236 PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. Chap. XIV CHAPTER XIV. THE PERSECUTION OP THE REFORMERS. 1555-1558. § 1. Persecution of the Reformers devoid of any reasonable explanation. § 2. The authors of this policy. § 3. Reformers petition to be brought to trial. § 4. The first sufferers — Rogers, Saunders, Hooper, and Taylor. § 5. BumiQg of Bishop Farrar, § 6. Letter to the bishops to quicken their zeal. §7. The ignorance and simplicity of the victims. §8. General remarks on the persecution. § 9. Reformers from beyond sea write to • the Queen. § 10. The answer to their letter. § 11. Cranmer before Bishop Brooks. J 12. He writes to the Queen. §13. Trial of Ridley and Latimer. § 14. Their degradation. § 15. They are burned at Oxford, October 16. § 16. Act to restore Tenths and First Fruits, and Impropriations, to the Church. § 17. The Legatine Synod. § 18. Cranmer condemned by the Pope. § 19. His degradation. § 20. His recantations. § 21. His purposed execution concealed from him. § 22. He abjures his recantations. § 23. His death and character. § 24. Pole made archbishop. § 25. The Queen restores religious houses. § 26. Commission for destroying compromising documents. § 27. Visitation of the Universities. § 28. Commission to search out heretics. § 29. The Pope deprives Pole of his commission as legate. § 30. Meeting of Convocation in 1558. § 31. Death of Queen Mary. § 1. The persecution of the reformers under Mary was uncalled for by any, even an imaginary, expediency, and can only be assigned to motives of bigotry and revenge. The old religion had been re-established without tumult and without difficulty. The leading reformers were either in prison or in. exile. No danger was to be apprehended from them, and if the authorities had any faith in the prudence of the measures taken by the cardinal-legate, they might fairly hope soon to see the whole land of one mind again in religious matters. What purpose, then, were cruel executions to serve, and how could they be held consistent with any intelligent policy ? It was not now, as in the days of Eliza- beth, when treason against the State necessarily formed an in- gredient in religious sentiments differing from the established religion. With the exception of a few fanatics, the reformers all recognised Mary as the rightful queen. She was supported by all the great powers of the Continent. The emperor was her close ally, and the King of France had ordered Te JDeum to be sung in all his churches for the restoration of England to the faith. The outbreak of persecution has appeared so strange even to Eomanist 1555-1558. PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. 237 writers that they have been at pains to examine and ascertain the real author of this miserable policy, or to assign some cause for it. The cause which they appear most to favour is the exaspera- tion of the Government at some insults offered to the established religion by a few fanatics, and especially to the conduct of one Ross, or Rose, who was said to have prayed for the death of the queen.^ That such inadequate motives could be assigned for a course of policy, pursued with zeal for no less than four years, shows well enough the desperate nature of the cause. § 2. The politic character of Bishop Gardiner, and the mild disposition of Cardinal Pole, forbid us to think that the commence- ment of the persecution was due to either of these. It was cer- tainly, indeed, debated in the Council several times before the cardinal's arrival, and the answer made by the queen to some representation of the Council on the subject indicates the real originator of these fearful proceedings. " Touching the punish- ment of heretics, we thinketh it ought to be done without rashness, not leaving in the meantime to do justice to such as by warning would deceive the simple ; and the rest so to -be used that the people might well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion, by which they shall both understand the truth, and beware not to do the like. And specially within London I would wish none to be burnt without some of the Council's presence, and both there and everywhere good sermons at the same time." ^ In this calm utterance speaks the concentrated spirit of Spanish bigotry, not untinctured by personal revenge. The queen, en- couraged and supported by her husband — a man devoid of every human feeling — has already devoted to the flames, as a piacular offering to heaven, all in the land who could be found still to maintain the doctrines of that reforming movement which had so much troubled her life. It may be said that Philip was not responsible for the persecution, inasmuch as he put up his confes- sor, Alphonsus da Castro, to preach strongly against it. But it has been well pointed out by a writer on this period that this same Alphonsus da Castro was a most ardent defender of persecu- tion both before and after the preaching of this sermon, and it is ^ See Lingard, v. 84 ; Dodd, ii. 98 ; and Tiemey's notes. This last very able writer does himself much honour by his unqualified condemnation of these horrors. " To detail them would be a revolting task ; the mind would shudder, the heart sicken, at the recital. At times a momentary siisfjension of cruelty seemed to indicate the presence of a milder spirit. But the illusion was quickly dissipated. New commissions were issued, new barbarities were enacted, and a monument of infamy was erected, which even at the distance of three centuries, cannot be regarded without horror,'* — Note to Dodd, Church History, ii. 103. ^ Lingard, v. 82. 238 PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. Chap. XIV. known from Spanish, sources that Philip had sent over before him- self a band of inquisitors, the most remarkable among whom were Pedro de Soto, a Dominican friar, and Juan de Villagarcia, also a Dominican, for whom an historian of his owrj. country claims the credit that "by his contrivance many were consigned to the flames." About the principles of these men there could be no doubt, and there is every reason to believe that the sermon of da Castro was devised by Philip simj^ly as a politic ruse to throw the blame of the fires, which his own intrigues were lighting, upon the English, bishops.i There is no reason to credit any of the English bishops, not even Bonner himself, with any s^Decial eager- ness to burn their unhappy countrymen. § 3. The reformers shut up in prison since the beginning of the reign, losing patience at the long-continued delay, petitioned the queen and Parliament that they might to be brought to trial. They declare themselves ready to defend the formularies sanc- tioned in the late reign, and if they fail in doing so, " by catholic principles and authorities " they are ready to suffer. • In a second address they complain bitterly of the harsh treatment they had received, repudiate the charged heresy, declaring that they hold nothing not sanctioned by Scripture and primitive antiquity.^ These addresses furnished a good pretext for the commencement of the auto-da-fe, which had been already resolved upon. § 4. On January 29 (1555) the cardinal issued his commission to Bishops Gardiner, Tonstal, Capon, Thirlby, and Aldrige, to pro- ceed to the trial of heretics. The commissioners sat in St. Mary Overy's church, Southwark. The first to be brought before them were Hooper, late Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, and Rogers, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and who, imder the assumed name of Matthew, had borne so prominent a part in the publication of the English Bible. Though some other points were raised in their examination, their trial really turned upon their admitting or denying the corporal presence in the eucharist, and transubstan- tiation, which, says Collier, " were the burning articles through this whole reign." ^ They both refused to admit the materialistic doctrine, and having been given a night to deliberate, were, on their persisting in their refusal, condemned as heretics, excom- municated, degraded from the priesthood, and committed to the custody of the sheriff for execution. Eogers, with especial cruelty, was refused an interview with his wife, by whom he had ^ See the whole subject fully elucidated in Massingberd's History of the Reformation, from Spanish researches, for which the writer acknowledges himself indebted to the late learned Archdeacon Churton, p, 342, sq. (ed. 1866). 2 Collier, vi. 103, 104. ^ j^^ ^i. 106, 1555-1558. PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. 239 ten cliildren. He had been a year confined in Newgate, and was weary of life. The spirit of fervent piety which possessed him made him rejoice to go through the last terrible conflict. No worthier champion could have been found to become the " proto- martyr " of the Church of England. He was burned at Smithfield February 4 (1555) amid a scene of intense excitement. The French ambassador writes, " This day was celebrated the confirma- tion of the alliance between the pope and this kingdom, by the public and solemn sacrifice of a doctor and preacher named Kogers, who was burned alive for holding Lutheran opinions, persisting till death in his sentiments. At this constancy the people were so delighted that they did not fear to strengthen his courage by their acclamations, even his own children joining, and consoling him after such a fashion, that it seemed as though they were conducting him to his nuptials." ^ On February 8, Saunders, rector of All- Hallows, Bread Street, was burned at Coventry, where he had for- merly ministered. On February 9, BishojD Hooper was burned at Gloucester, and Dr. Rowland Taylor, parson of Hadley in Suff^olk, was burned in his own parish. Hooper's suff'erings were fearfully protracted through the effects of a high wind which kept the flames from him. He displayed, however, an imflinching constancy. Taylor w^as barbarously treated by some of the bystanders, who hurled faggots at him. But he too suffered wdth constancy and even with cheerfulness. " An equal constancy," says the Romanist historian, " was displayed by all ; and though pardon was oftered them at the last moment, they scorned to purchase the continuance of life by feigning an assent to doctrines which they did not believe. They were the proto-martyrs of the reformed Church of England." ^ § 5. Whether it was that the account of their calm bravery touched the conscience of Gardiner, or that he had disapproved of these massacres from the first, he now abandoned his place on the commission, and left the conduct of these barbarities to the sterner nature of Bonner. On March 30, Farrar, Bishop of St. David's, was burned at Carmarthen. He had been excommunicated and condemned by his successor Morgan, who had received a commis- sion for that purpose. He had put liis powers of endurance to a perilous test, for he had told a gentleman of his acquaintance that if he saw him in the least degree shrink when in the flames, he might freely disbelieve all the doctrines which he had taught. No such shrinking was discernible, although his sufferings were greatly prolonged. § 6. The nation stood aghast at these hoiTors, and so great was the public indignation, that the bishops shrank from proceed- ^ Noailles, Amhassadc en Anglderre, iv. 173. ^ Lingard, v. 85. 240 PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. Chap. XIV. ing. A pause occurred in the persecution, but it was of short duration. Tlie fierce bigotry of the rulers was not content to allow the victims to escape. On May 24, came forth from the Council a circular letter to the bishops expressing the surprise of the autho- rities that though reputed heretics were brought by the justices of the peace to the bishops to be dealt with, yet " they are either refused to be received at their hands, or if received are neither so travailed with as Christian charity requireth, nor yet proceeded withal according to the order of justice." The bishops are there- fore admordshed " to have such regard to the office of a good pastor or bishop, as when any such offenders shall be brought imto you to use your good wisdom and discretion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it may be ; or else in proceeding against them according to the order of the laws."^ There is good reason to believe that many of the bishops continued stedfastly to refuse to act in this matter. Some, however, were of a different mind, and though, perhaps, they might not of themselves have moved, yet they were afraid to disobey the direct orders of the Council. It is said by his apologists that Bishop Bonner himself was of this mind. 2 And it may well have been so. For his acuteness could not fail to perceive that by the manoeuvres of the Spanish party it was designed to make a catspaw of the English prelates, so as to stave off the indignation of the people from the real authors of the troubles, while they secretly gloried in and took credit for their piacular offerings. § 7. In June the fires of Smithfield were rekindled, and six persons suffered. Their punishment introduced a new element in the persecution which was one of its most shocking features. Five of those burned were mechanics and unlettered men. Of this character, indeed, were the greater part of the victims ; and what- ever excuses might be offered for sacrificing what were called the ringleaders, whose influence might be supposed to be considerable, none could possibly be alleged for the murder of poor, illiterate, and uninfluential persons, whose only crime was a simple scriptural faith which they refused to abandon. § 8. As to the total number of the sufferers, and the places where they suffered, information will be found in the tables ap- pended.^ Dr. Maitland has severely scrutinised the statements of Foxe, but has made no great abatement in his numbers. The Jesuit Persons had made the same attempt before,^ but with all his ^ Foxe, Acts and Monwnents. ^ See Lingard, v. 87- Maitland's Essays on the Reformation. ^ See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. * In his Three Conversions of England. 1555-1558. PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. 241 ingenuity he failed to overset the substantial truth of his narrative. The following is the comment upon his labours made by one of his fellow-religionists. " The amount of real victims is too great to be affected by any partial deductions. When, after the removal of every doubtful or objectionable name, a frightful list of not fewer than two hundred still remains, we can only turn with horror from the blood-stained page and be thankful that such things have passed away." ^ The area of the persecution was very partial. It did not extend except in a very few instances either to the extreme north or south. In Durham, under the mild Bishop Tonstal, there was no victim, and in the large diocese of Lincoln there was none. Bath and Wells, Hereford, and Worcester dioceses were also free. In London, under Bonner, there suffered no less than 128. In Canterbury, under the Suffragan-Bishop Thornton, described by Cranmer as a false dissembling monk, there perished 55. In the diocese of Norwich, where Mary's first assurances had been given that she would compel no man in the matter of religion, were burned 46. There is reason to believe that Cardinal Pole, though at first averse to persecution, did during the latter part of the period uphold it, and that for a very discreditable reason. He had been liimself accused of heresy and cited by the Inquisition. Tlie pope was his bitter enemy. He had been once or twice near to the tiara of St. Peter. His cause required strengthening. Thus his latest biographer does not hesitate to saddle him with this tremendous charge : — " In the intensity of a selfishness not recog- nised by himself, the self-deceiver permitted the fires of Smithfield to burn wives into widows and children into orphans, that through these terrible fires it might be known to Eome that his former leniency was no proof of his want of sincerity in the papal cause." ^ As the persecution proceeded a new element of ferocity was imparted into it. It no longer could claim to be an attempt by the terror of punishment to convince the heretic, it became simply vindictive. In the Council Book of 1st August 1558 there is a letter to the sheriff of Hampshire, signifying " that the queen thought it very strange that he had delayed the execution of the sentence against one Bembridge condemned of heresy, because he had recanted, re- quiring him to execute it out of hand, and if he still continued in the Catholic faith, which he outwardly pretended, he was to suffer divines to have access to him, that he might die God's servant ; and as soon as the sheriff had burned him he was to come to the Council and answer for his presumption in delaying it so long. "3 * Tierney's Notes to Dodd, ii. 107. ^ Hook's Life of Cardinal Pole, p. 395 ^ Burnet, Hist. Ref. i. 555. There was also a proclamation issued for- bidding people to pray for the sufferers. R 242 PEESECUTION OF THE REFORMEES. Chap. XIV. § 9. In tlie midst of tlie fearful havoc which was being wrought in England, the fugitives beyond sea, sympathising with the suffer- ings of their brethren, sent an address to the queen to endeavour to stay her hand. They pointed out to her that she owed her life to Cranmer's intercession with her father, and that if she disliked his sentiments, yet that Gardiner, Bonner, and Tonstal had in many points held the same in King Henry's time. Christians were now in England treated far worse than they were in Turkey. To burn men for their opinions was an intolerable cruelty, not practised in the days of King Edward. The sword was given her not to destroy but to defend. The nobles, they warned them, would soon lose the abbey lands which had been the bribe of their acquiescence in these horrors, and be made to pay a heavy tax to the Spaniard. They demanded that the queen should treat her subjects no worse than she did the foreigners, and allow them to leave the country.^ § 10. In answer to this address was published a book called A Defence of the Proceedings against Heretics. The telling part of this was that the Eomanist writer was able to point to the fact that two persons had certainly been burned in King Edward's days for heretical opinions. The reformers, therefore, could not condemn this upon principle, as their own practice was against them. Grant- ing, however, the full force of this tu quoque argument, it failed nevertheless to show either that the Anabaptists burned under Edward stood upon the same ground as those who professed the doctrine legally enacted both by Church and State only a few years before ; or that the burning of two persons remarkalDle for their blasphemies, justified the burning of some three hundred, who were content to live in quiet and silence, without troubling their fellows. §11. It will now be necessary to trace in greater detail the concluding history of the three most prominent sufferers in these sad troubles — Bishops Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. They re- mained in their Oxford prisons unnoticed a year and a half after their dis^Dutation before Dr. Weston, the Government being sorely perplexed hoAv to proceed with them — whether to treat the Oxford condemnation as a sufficient sentence, or to bring them formally to their trial before bishops. It is thought that Bishop Gardiner contrived to delay their trial, hoping, through the influence of the new pope (Paul IV.), which was strongly adverse to Pole, and the charge of heresy which was still hanging over the cardinal in the inquisition,^ himself to succeed to Cranmer's place, Avhich was not 1 Burnet, Hist. Ref. i. 512. 2 " While the ashes of the reputed heretics were still smoking in their calvaries, the man who represented the Catholic form of religion, and was working effectively for its progress, was accused of falling away from the 1555-1558. PERSECUTIOIT OF THE REFORMERS. 243 formally vacant until he had been degraded by the pope. Whether this were so or not, it was not till September 7 (1555) that the archbishop was served with a citation to appear at Eome within eighty days, and at the same time informed that the pope had deputed his authority for the trial to Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester. On the 12th September Cranmer was brought before this commis- sioner in St. Mary's church. He denied the jurisdiction of the court, it being the pope's court, but gave his answers under pro- test. Articles were exhibited against him charging him with having married contrary to the law of the Church, with heresy on the eucharist, with having rebelled against the pope, with conse- crating as bishops persons who had not been confirmed at Eome. Cranmer admitted the facts, but defended them stoutly. Being charged by one of the advocates with advising the king to adopt the title of Supreme Head of the Church, he declared that he had never advocated this in any other sense than as expressing that the king was head of all the people in the land, whether eccle- siastical or lay. The trial being over, Cranmer was carried back to prison to await the pope's sentence on the report furnished by his commissioner. § 12. He wrote to the queen defending himself, and requesting her interference. The letter, by the queen's command, was answered by Pole, who reproached Cranmer with perjury in taking the oaths to the pope, and not keeping them. The arch- bishop considered that he had sufficiently guarded this point by the protest which he made at the time, but the proceeding does not appear to be defensible. § 1 3. Cranmer as a metropolitan could only be sentenced by the pope ; but Bishops Ridley and Latimer, who were merely diocesan bishops, could be tried by a commission from the Cardi- nal-legate, as Hooper and Farrar had been. A commission was issued for their trial directed to White, Bishop of Lincoln, Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester, and Holyman, Bishoj) of Bristol, or any two of them. On September 30 (1555), in the Divinity School at Oxford, Ridley appeared before the commissioners. Refusing to recognise the Legatine Court, he was deprived of his cap by one of the beadles by order of the bishops. The articles objected to him were the statements which he had made in his disputation before mentioned, so that the sentiments which were uttered under com- pulsion, and which might be thought to have the character of pri- vilege, were now made to condemn him. When Latimer was brought in he complained bitterly of having been so long kept orthodox faith, and summoned to Ptome to answer for it." — Von Panko. Hist, of England, i. 216. 244 PEESECUTION OF THE EEFORllERS. Chap. XIA^ waiting ''gazing upon the cold walls." The Bishop of Lincoln apologised for this, and earnestly exhorted the old man to do " as the rest of them had done ; " to forsake the " common error," and to return to the unity of the See of Eome. The old bishop, who had at first seemed inattentive, now removed his kerchief from his ears, and quietly said, " I confess, my lord, a Catholic Church, spread throughont all the world, in which no man may err, with- out the unity with which Church no man may be saved, but I know perfectly that this Church is in all the world, and hath not its foundation in Eome only as you say." Having made his answers to the articles, he was told that he might amend them the next day if he pleased. He desired to be troubled no more. " I am," he said, " at a point you shall give me respite in vain." The next day, October 1, Ridley and Latimer were brought with much formality before the commissioners in St. Mary's church, and required to confirm the answers given to the articles on the pre- vious day, or, if they pleased, to amend them. They defended their former answers, and were then formally sentenced as heretics, ordered to be degraded, and excommunicated with the greater ex- communication. The ground assigned for the sentence was — (1) That they had denied the true and natural body of Christ and his natural blood to be in the eucharist ; (2) That they had affirmed the true substance of bread and wine to remaru after con- secration ; (3) That they had denied the mass to be a lively sac- rifice of the Church for the quick and the dead. § 14. On October 15 the ceremony of degradation took place. The Bishop of Gloucester endeavoured to reason with Eidley. " He was vexed," Eidley replied, " that he should be again troubled with such vain and foolish talk. He was in no doubt about his doctrine ; he would maintain it as long as his tongue could wag, and in confirmation of it he would seal it with his blood." He desired, however, the friendly offices of the Bishop of Gloucester for his sister and her husband, who had had " a poor liv- ing " granted to them when he was Bishop of London, which now was taken from them by Bonner ; and also he would have the queen petitioned in favour of those to whom he had granted leasea. The Bishop of Gloucester promised to do his best. In the evening of the 15th, when the ceremony of the degradation was over, and nothing now stood between them and martyrdom, the two bishops were merry and jocund. They had had a long and bitter proba- tion, but now they saw the end almost reached. § 15. On the following morning (October 16, 1555) they were led out to be burned in the city ditch opposite Balliol College. As they passed Bocardo, where Cranmer was in prison, they had 1555-1558. PERSECUTI0:N' OF THE REFORMERS. 215 fondly hoped to have obtained a last sight of him, and to have received his blessing. Cranmer, however, was at the moment engaged in a discussion with Friar Soto, Philip's divinity professor at Oxford, and was unconscious that they were so near him. Coming to the stake, they embraced and kissed each other, and kneeling down kissed the stake and offered fervent prayers. The cruel farce of having a sermon preached before them was gone through. The preacher was Dr. Smith, a man who had veered in every direction of doctrine, and been condemned in turn by all sides. When their garments were thrown off, and the faggots lighted, old Latimer, who seemed to have recovered the vigour of youth, made to his brother-sufferer his famous speech, one of the precious heirlooms of the English Church. " Be of good cheer. Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light sucli a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out." Having said these memorable words, the old man was soon wrapped in the flames, and appeared to die almost without pain. Not so, however, Eidley. The faggots, too tightly packed around him, did not suffer the flame to ascend to the vital parts. His feet and legs were consumed. None of the hard-hearted ofl&cials interfered to shorten his sufferings. At length one of the bystanders, at eminent peril to himself, threw down the pile of faggots, and the flame leaping up, the martyr thrust himself into it, thus causing a bag of gunpowder which had been fastened round his neck to explode, and terminating his sufferings, i § 16. On the 21st of October a new Parliament met at West- minster. The queen had long wished to testify her zeal for the Church by a sui-render of all the Church property which had become vested in the Crown. This object w^as now effected. A bill was brought into Parliament to legalise the surrender of tenths, first-fruits, impropriations, manors, lands, etc., acquired by the Crown since the 20th year of Henry VIII. The revenue of all these was calculated at £60,000, which was made over to the Cardinal-legate for the improvement of small livings. 2 The generous spirit of the queen was not altogether appreciated by the Legislature. The bill passed easily in the Lords, but in the Com- mons it was strongly resisted, and only passed by a narrow majority. The cause of the opposition seems to have been a fear lest the new pope should retract the dispensing powers given to Cardinal Pole, and should order the restitution of the abbey- lands. The Commons were desirous of showing that they were ^ This gunpowder had been brought by Ridley's brother. The martjT received it as a gift from God, and desired that some should be provided for Latimer, -which was done. ^ 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 4. 216 PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. Chap. XIV. not of a yielding spirit in this matter. Pope Paul IV. had in fact issued a bull ordering complete restitution of Church property, but it was declared that this was not meant to apply to England, and Pole exhibited in Parliament a papal rescript to that effect. i § 17. The Convocation, grateful for the boons to the Church, voted a subsidy of eight shillings in the pound, payable in four years. A committee was appointed to act under the cardinal for the restoration of impropriations, etc., and it was agreed that a general legatine synod should be summoned, in which the cardinal should propound his plan for the reformation of the Church of England.^ It would seem that not only the consent of the clergy was asked to this synod, but also the authorisation of the Crown. On the 2d November a warrant under the great seal was given to license the holding of the synod, which, therefore, in spite of the revival of the papal supremacy and the office of legate, seems to be grounded on the lay authority.^ A variety of important work was entered upon by this synod ; among other things we find the clergy engaged in reviewing the Institution of a Christian Man, preparing for a new translation of the New Testament, establishing schools at cathedrals. A large body of constitutions was drawn up by the cardinal with the assent of the synod, and on February 10 (1556) was promulged in Lambeth Church. These constitutions were divided into twelve chapters or heads, which embraced the whole range of Church discipline.* Immediately after this the legatine synod was pro- rogued ; and in a few weeks' time the cardinal was in a position to hold the ordinary Convocation of the Church of England, having succeeded on March 22 to the See of Canterbury vacated by the death of Cranmer. § 18. Delay had been brought about in the case of Cranmer by the necessity of sending the particulars of his examination before Bishop Brooks to Rome, for the pope's sentence. When that sen- tence arrived, it condemned the archbishop " for bringing in the heresy of Berengarius, and the false and heretical doctrines of Wyclyffe and Luther." He was condemned on his answers made before Brooks, excommunicated, and ordered to be degraded. § 19. The commissioners appointed to degrade him were Thirleby, Bishop of Ely, and Bonner, of London. The ceremony 1 Tierney, Notes to Dodd, ii. 115. ^ Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 444. ^ Mr. Joyce says there was a fear of a Prcemunire, but that "the ground of such fears is somewhat perplexing," as 25 Henry VIII. c. 19, was repealed. But the Prcemunire statute of 16 Eichard II. still remained in force. — Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 526. * Printed in Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 143 sq. See also Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 527. 1555-1558, PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. 247 took place before the liigli altar in Christ Church Cathedral, The archbishop exhibited an appeal to the next General Council, in which he declared that he had taught nothing, and desired to teach nothing, against the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church, § 20. Some expressions in the ajDpeal induced Thirleby, who was very friendly to Cranmer, to think that the archbishop might be led to recant. No doubt the love of life was strong in Cranmer, while his opinions were somewhat wavering. He was induced by Thirleby, Friar Soto, and other foreign priests who were then about Oxford, to sign no less than seven forms of recantation. Some would maintain that these recantations were a mere pretence, in order to save his life, and that he did not vary in doctrine.^ It seems more reasonable to suppose that he was actually shaken in his views by the long imprisonment, the constant strain, and the continued polemical duels to which he was exposed ; but, whether honestly signed or not, the recantations did not avail him, § 21. It was determined by the queen that he should suffer, and it was also determined that this should be concealed from him till the last moment, lest (as was evidently feared) he should with- draw his recantations and snatch away the anticipated triumph from the Eomanists, With this view the preparations for his burning were carefully hidden from him, and when on the morning of Saturday, March 21 (1556), the archbishop was conducted in the midst of the rough storm of wind and rain to the church of St. Mary's, at Oxford, he was under the impression that, after a public declaration of his recanting, his pardon would be proclaimed, § 22, The thought of the publicity which would thus be given to his denial of that which in his conscience he believed to be true, of the grief and pain which the best friends of the Reformation would feel, of the dishonoured and useless life which he would thus purchase, determined the archbishop to prepare himself, on tliis public occasion, to abjure and repudiate his recantations, and boldly to submit to the consequences. Thus, when called upon by Dr. Cole, the preacher, to declare his repentance, he announced to the astonished congregation that he repented of his repentance, that he still held firmly to his old views, and renounced all that he had written for fear of death and to save his life. His unworthy right hand, which had written these things, he declared should suffer first.2 Vacillation and weakness were now over. § 23. At the stake the archbishop showed constancy and courage, and appeared to die with very little suffering. His was a character full of great weaknesses, but having many features of good ; he was ^ See Liugard, v. 95. ^ Strype's Cranmer, i. 557, 218 PERSECUTION OF THE rvEFORMERS. Chap. XIV. a gentle and kind man, too prone to }TLeld, too slavishly deferential to authority, too unstable and liasty in his views, but one who, with all his blemishes, wrought a work of incalculable value for the English Church. § 24. On the next day after the burning of Cranmer (March 22), Reginald Pole was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. The character of Pole is not unlike that of Cranmer. He was by dispo- sition mild and tolerant ; he was, however, weak and yielding, as he showed especially in the last year of his life, when, to refute the accu- sations brought against him, he allowed himself to uphold those san- guinary executions for heresy of which in principle he disapproved.^ § 25. In November of this year (1556), Queen Mary restored the church of Westminster to its former condition of a Benedictine abbey, abolishing the character of a collegiate church with dean and canons, which it had been made to assume since 1550. Fourteen monks were appointed, and Feckenham, Dean of St. Paul's, was made the abbot. The Observants were also settled anew at Green- wich, and a house of Dominicans established in Smithfield. The nunnery of Sion, near Brentford, was again furnished vnth nuns and re-endowed, and at Sheen, near Richmond, a convent of Car- thusians was erected. The fraternity of the Knights of St. John at Jerusalem was again founded in England, and Sir Thomas Tresham appointed the first prior. The Hosjjital of the Savoy, the lands of which had been granted to Bridewell by Edward VI., was refounded and endowed for the use of the poor.^ § 26. Other steps were also taken to efface, if possible, the Re- formation. A commission was issued for searching out and destroying all papers containing the acceptance of the royal supremacy and the abjuration of the pope, aU records of the visitation of abbeys, and all the compromising documents of the Reformation time. § 27. In the beginning of 1557, Cardinal Pole set on foot a visitation of the universities. Heretical books were sought out and seized, the services at the chapels inquired into. At Cambridge a formal process was instituted against Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius deceased ; they were convicted of heresy, and their bodies were taken up and burned, together with all their books which could be collected. At Oxford the body of the wife of Peter Martyr, buried there, although she could not be convicted of heresy, not having been able to speak English, was yet treated as that of an excom- municate person, on the ground of her having formerly been a nun ; it was taken out of consecrated ground and buried in a dunghill, § 28. With these insults to the dead was combined an increase ^ See Poll Up. iv. 156 ; Lingard, v. 98 ; Hook, p. 395. Burnet gives a most favoiirable character of Pole. - Collier, vi. 156. 1555-1558. PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. 249 of persecution of the living. It being found that the civil magis- trates now absolutely refused the odious task of searching out heretics and bringing them before the bishops, an ecclesiastical commission was issued (February 8, 1557) to some divines, and twenty laymen, giving them a general power for the whole country " to search out all such persons as obstinately refuse to preach the blessed sacrament of the altar, to hear mass, or come to divine ser- vice, to go in procession, or to take holy water or holy bread, and to hand them over to their ordinaries.^ Thus, during 1557, the persecution raged more fiercely than ever. § 29. Meanwhile at Eome the pope, a violent enemy of the Spaniards, was bitterly set against the cardinal, and went so far as to revoke his legatine commission, and appoint in his place Friar Peto, the queen's confessor ; ^ but the queen would not desert the cardinal, and when her will was crossed she showed herself as ready to resist the pope as her father or her sister. She ordered the ports to be guarded, so that no communication with Eome could be had. She wrote strongly and sharply to the pope, saying that it was her pleasure that Pole should continue legate. 3 The pope then endeavoured to lure the cardinal to Rome, where it is probable that he would have been handed over to the Inquisition ; and though Pole himself was inclined to go, the queen would not suffer him to do so, but instructed her ambassador to defend him with the pope. The pope at length yielded, chiefly on political grounds, and Pole was reinstated in his office as legate. § 30. In January 1558 he presided in the Convocation of Canterbury as archbishop. The whole country was in commotion at the loss of Calais, and the clergy were again called upon for a heavy subsidy. They voted another eight shillings in the pound, but they took the opportunity of making some demands for them- selves, which seem to indicate that they were not altogether con- tented with the state of things then existing, and that the enact- ments of the Legatine Synod had not been as yet carried out. They petition that clergy may be exempted from serving in the wars. They desire that Homilies, a Catechism, and a Primer in English, may be put forth ; that churches, altars, and vestments may be reverently cared for, and replaced where needed ; that discipline may be restored ; that married clergy might not hold benefices, but merely serve as curates ; that cathedral schools be 1 Burnet, Records, 11. 11, 32. 2 He was created a cardinal, and nominated to the See of Salisbury. He was abroad at this time, and the queen refused to allow him to retuni, threatening him with a Frocmunire. He died soon after. 3 Lingard, v, 126. 250 PERSECUTION OF THE REFORMERS. Chap. XIV, restored, the clerical dress enforced, the Universities regulated, and schools increased and provided with orthodox teachers. Canons on these points were in fact drawn up, but were not finally agreed upon by Convocation.^ § 31. And now the time of bitter agony and trial to the Church of England was drawing to a close. It is a sad picture, which even the historians most favourable to the queen's religion, draw, of the misery of her life, and the overpowering melancholy which hastened her death. She knew that she was hated by her subjects. She became convinced that the fires of Smithfield had failed to break down the spirit of the Eeformers, and that her favoured creed would fall with her.^ She found herself involved in a quarrel with the pope, for whom she had done so much, and she was neglected by the husband whom she loved with a deep intensity. The loss of Calais was the last drop in the cup. The queen was unable to rally from a feverish attack. " She lived," said the French ambassador, " almost alone, employing all her time in tears, lamentations, and regrets, in writing to try to draw back her husband to her, and in fury against her subjects." Meanwhile, " among all her subjects there arose a great clamour because that she made so many persons to perish, the universal opinion being that these poor wretches who are hurried away to divers punishments are all of them innocent."^ The queen died November 17, 1558, and within twenty-two hours of her death died the cardinal who had taken so prominent a part in carrying out her religious policy. Nearly at the same time died also no less than thirteen bishops, and a great number of the clergy, from the quartan fever, then greatly prevalent. A great barrier to the reintroduction of reforming views was thus removed, but none in the country could be altogether sure of the character in religious matters which the next reign would assume. Eliza- beth had steered her way with consummate prudence through the dangerous pitfalls which beset her on all sides during her sister's reign. She was believed to be favourable to the Reformation, but she had conformed to the religion of Mary, and many doubt- less awaited with intense anxiety the first indications of the views which she would now uphold. ^ Cardwell, Synodalia ii., 448-449. ^Lingard, v, 115. Noailles, Ambassade en Angleterre, v. 362-370. Chap. XIV. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 251 NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. TABLE OF THE NUMBER OP REFORMERS BURNED IN THE DIFFERENT .DIOCESES DURING REIGN OF QUEEN MARY. 1555. Burned iu Diocese of London 3 Canterbiuy 18 Norwich 6 Lichfield 5 Oxford 3 Ely . 2 Chichester 2 ,, „ Rochester 2 Chester 1 ,, Gloucester 1 „ in Dioceses of Wales, . 2 Of these, two were women. 1556. Tied in Diocese of London 40 ,, ,, Canterbury 8 „ Norwich 10 ,, Peterboro 5 Rochester 2 Oxford 4 ;, „ Chichester 4 M ,, Salisbuiy 3 >, ,, Gloucester 4 » „ Bristol 2 Ely . . 1 Of these, 15 were women. Burned in Diocese of London 29 ,y „ Canterbury 24 ,, ,, Norwich 16 Winchester 3 „ ,, Rochester 2 ,, Peterboro 1 Lichfield 1 Wales 1 Of these, 26 were women. 1558. Burned in Diocese of London .> „ Canterbury 1' ,, Norwich M „ Bristol Carry forward 77 Brought forward Burned in Diocese of Exeter York . Of these, 3 were women. Totals of the Years. 1555 ... 75 1556 ... 83 1557 . . 77 1558 ... 61 Totals of the Dioceses. London 128 Canterbury 55 Norwich 46 Bristol 6 Peterboro 6 Chichester 6 Lichfield 6 Oxford 7 Salisbury 3 Ely . 3 Rochester 6 Winchester 3 York . 1 Exeter 1 Chester 1 Gloucester 5 Wales 3 In addition to these about 68 are com puted to have perished in prison. Table of the sexes of the sufferers. Men . . . 240 Women . . 46 286 The following Dioceses were free of burnings. Lincoln (White and Watson). Durham (Tonstal). Carlisle (Aldridge and Oglethorpe^ Bath and Wells (Bourne). Hereford (War ton). Worcester (Pate"). 252 THE KESTORATIO^ OF Chap. XV. CHAPTER XV. THE RESTORATION OF THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 1558-1559. § 1. The English. Eeformers abroad during the reign of Mary. § 2. They hasten home on accession of Elizabeth. § 3, Doubts as to Elizabeth's sentiments. § 4. The paper of recommendations in religion. § 5. The Commission to revise tiie Prayer-Book. § 6. Proclamation against innovations. § 7. The Lord Keeper's speech. § 8. Convocation entirely in favour of Romanist dogma. § 9. A disputation resolved on. § 10. The Act of Supremacy, § 11 The disputation at Westminster . Abbey. § 12. The revision of the Prayer-Book. § 13. The Prayer- Book altered after leaving the Commissioners. § 14, The Act of Uniformity. §15. Use of the revised Prayer-Book commences. §16. Parliament tampers with Church revenues. § 17. The Romanist bishops deprived. § 18. Their subsequent treatment. § 19. Commission to visit the clergy. § 20, Number of those deprived, § 21, Jewel's account of the state of things. § 22. Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions. § 23. The Commissioners exceed the directions of the Injunctions. § 24. The Articles of Visitation. § 1. During tlie troublous period of the reign of Mary a con- siderable number of English of reforming views — both clergy and laity — were living in exile in various towns on the Continent. The Lutheran Churches had indeed churlishly refused an asylum to the fugitives,! but in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and the cities on the Rhine, the most generous hospitality was everywhere extended to the English exiles. Of bishops who had escaped there were Poynet of Winchester, Barlow of Bath and Wells, Scory of Chichester, Coverdale of Exeter, Bale of Ossory. Of deans — Cox, Haddon, Home, Turner, Sampson. Of archdeacons — Cranmer, Aylmer, BuUingham. There also were many divines whose names became well known in the after-history of the Church — Grindal, King, Sandys, Jewel, Reynolds, Pilkington, Noel, Knox, Gilby, Whittingham, Foxe. These, together with a large number of laity of position and importance, made up a total of about 800.^ settled in the towns of Aran, Basle, Zurich, Geneva, Emden, Wezel, Strasburg, Worms, and Frankfort. It is with this latter place that the history of the English exiles is principally con- nected. In their other settlements they lived together amicably 1 Orig. Letters, 163-168. - Collier, vi. 19. 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION" MOVEMENT. 253 and contentedly. In Frankfort great dissensions prevailed. These have been detailed (and perhaps exaggerated) in a tract called The Troubles of Frankfort, written by one who had borne a share in them on the side of the discontented minority.-' The French congregation settled in London dnring Edward's days had fled to Frankfort on the accession of Mary, and a church had been assigned to them. A party of English soon followed them there, and to these the magistrates allowed the alternate use with the French of the same church. To prevent, however, the scandals of opposing creeds and rituals, the English were required to make their worship agree with that of the French as far as possible. This they undertook to do, and so pleased were they with the kindness which they received at Frankfort, that they sent letters to their brethern at Strasburg, Zurich, and other places, magnify- ing their privileges, and inviting them to join them. The Stras- burg community answered, recommending them to put themselves under the direction of one of the exiled bishops. The Zurich company strongly advocated the use of the Book of Common Prayer. They declared that they were determined to use no other form of worship. 2 The Frankfort men considered themselves pre- cluded from the use of the book by the undertaking they had given to the magistrates of Frankfort. They wrote to Zurich to this effect, and added also, under the influence of Knox^ and Lever, who were acting as their ministers, some words about " unprofitable ceremonies," and the probability that a more thorough reformation would have been carried out in England had not the wickedness of men hindered it. This tone alarmed the more sober-minded of the English exiles, and Grindal undertook a mis- sion from Strasburg to the Frankfort men, to endeavour to pre- vail on them to use either the Prayer-Book absolutely, or with as little modification as possible. Upon this Knox and Whittingham determined to bring the authority of Calvin, the great theologian of the Reformation, to bear upon the English book. Calvin was tolerably familiar with its contents already, but these two divines thought it consistent with their duty to write a description of the book to him, which is in fact a studied misrepresentation of its contents. Calvin answered according to their mind, that the book contained " tolerable fooleries," " popish dregs," etc. Nevertheless he would not declare that the use of it was absolutely unlawful. ^ Printed in the Phcenix, vol. ii. The Romanist writers, sorely perplexed how to tell the story of Mary's reign without exciting too great disgust, riin off joyfully to this tract, and revel in its details. Tliey forget, however, to say anything of the seven or eight other settlements in which quiet and peace prevailed. ^ Fhcenix, \i. 55. ^ For an account of Jolm Knox, see Notes and Illustrations. 254 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XV. As a substitute for it, which should also satisfy the requirements of the Frankfort magistrates, an order of service was constructed, partly taken from the English book, and partly " from other things put to it as the state of the Church required." But this compromise was not destined to be of long duration. Dr. Cox and some other English Churchmen arrived at Frankfort, and at once testified strong objection to the new " use." They spoke the responses aloud, and declared that "they would do as they had done in England." Knox preached violently against their inter- ference, and, finding himself unable to silence them, appealed to the Frankfort magistrates. Cox and his friends retaliated by accusing Knox of disloyalty to the emperor, on the ground of a book which he had published some time before. This sufiiced to alarm the Frankfort magistrates, who requested Knox to leave the city, and the Church party were thus enabled to effect the complete establishment of the English Prayer- Bo ok. Dr. Home, late Dean of Durham, was appointed minister, but two elders were appointed to assist him, and the disputes now broke out afresh on the question of disci]3line ; the greatest efforts being made by a considerable party to establish a system of discipline similar to that used by the Presbyterian communities. These unhappy dissensions continued until the accession of Elizabeth. At Geneva, Knox and Whittingham adopted a form of service drawn up by Calvin,^ which formed the groundwork of the book so often alluded to in the Puritan struggles of the reign of Elizabeth, English Puritanism, developed and systematised in these dissen- sions, exercised for a long period an unhealthy influence on the history of the Church of England. § 2. No sooner was Elizabeth seated on the throne than the exiles hastened home in crowds, believing that the day was their own ; and straightway on their arrival they began to deface images, demolish altars, and to preach both privately and openly the extreme reforming views which they had learned abroad.^ Such proceedings were rash and ill-advised. If they had in any way studied the character of the new ruler they might have known that whatever settlement in religion she would favour would be grounded not so much on sentiment or religious convic- tion as on politic considerations. Any strong demonstration of anti-papal opinions, charged in the then state of England and Europe with the greatest peril to the State, was sure to be received with disfavour. § 3. As yet it was not clearly known what the new queen's ^ Printed in Phcenix, vol. ii. p. 204. 2 Heylin, Hist. Tresbyt. p. 245; Camden's Elizabeth; Kennett, ii. 371. 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 255 sentiments in religion were. She had conformed to her sister's creed during her lifetime. She had, indeed, given indications that the old state of things was not to continue unchanged. Eight councillors favourable to reforming views had been added to the Council. She had treated Bishop Bonner with marked disfavour, and ordered Bishop Oglethorpe not to elevate the Host in her chapel. Still she heard mass, and was crowned with all the old ceremonial. Everything should have taught the reforming party to wait patiently for awhile, satisfied with the ceasing of the per- secution, and hoping for a gradual restoration of the settlement made imder Edward VI. Happy, indeed, was it that the new queen was surrounded with shrewd and cautious councillors, who, weighing well the circumstances of the situation, were enabled to take the most prudent course in spite of the provocations of the zealots and the menaces of the favourers of the old superstitions. § 4. A paper, drawn up by one of them,^ sketches out the policy which, in the main, was afterwards carried out. Assuming that it was desirable that the Church of England should be " re- duced to its former purity," the writer goes on to consider the best means of efi'ecting this. He recommends that those who had had weight with Queen Mary should be gradually " abased," and those who had been faithful to the interests of Elizabeth advanced to authority. That, under the pressure of the Prcemunire statute, the bishops and clergy who had enriched themselves by the late queen's concessions should be made to disgorge their wealth to the Crown. That the sheriffs and justices in the counties should be removed. That not much attention should be paid to the de- mands of the ultra-reformers, for " better were it that they should suffer, than her Highness or the Commonwealth should shake and be in danger." That a commission of divines should be at once appointed to revise the English Prayer-Book, with a view to its restoration, and that until this was done a " strait prohibition " should be made of all innovation.^ Thus the main body of the nation, indifferent to the form of religion, was to be bribed by the spoil of the Church, and the restoration to the Crown of those sources of revenue, the alienation of which they had so grudgingly conceded in the late reign ; while the lovers of the Eeformation were to be propitiated by the restoration of the reformed worship, changed, however, in some few particulars to conciliate and attract the more moderate of the Romanists. § 5. This prudent policy was at once adopted. A commission, consisting of Doctors Parker, Pilkington, Bill, May, Cox, Grindal 1 Either by Sir Thomas Smith or Sir William Cecil. ^ Burnet, Records, h. iii. No. i. 256 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XV. and Whiteliead, together with Sir Thomas Smith, was appointed to revise the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. , and until their work was completed the usage of the interim was provided for by a proclamation, issued December 27, 1558. § 6. In this the queen " charges and commands all manner of her subjects, as well those called to the ministry in the Church as all others, that they do forbear to teach or preach, or to give audience to any manner of teaching or preaching, other than to the Gospels and Epistles, commonly called the Gospel and Epistle of the day, and to the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, without exposition of any manner, sense, or meaning to be applied and added ; or to use any other manner of public prayer, rite, or ceremony in the church but that which is already used, and by law received as the common Litany, used at this present in her Majesty's own chapel, and the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in English,-^ nntil consultation may be had by Parliament, by her Majesty, and her three estates of this realm, for the better concilia- tion and accord of such cases as at this present are moved in mat- ters and ceremonies of religion."^ This proclamation, while it restrained the hot spirits, could not fail to indicate to both Romanists and Reformers the real scope of the religious policy intended ; and while it comforted all sober-minded persons of the latter class, must have completely overthrown the hopes of the Romanists. § 7. A further indication of what was intended was given by the speech of Sir N. Bacon, the new Lord Keeper, at the opening of Parliament (January 25, 1559). He was commissioned to speak strongly against both extremes in religion : — " While nothing be advised or done which any way in continuance of time were likely to breed or nourish any kind of idolatry or superstition, so, on the other side, heed is to be taken that, by no licentious or loose handling, any manner of occasion be given to any contempt or irreverent behaviour towards God and godly things, that no spice of irreligion might creep in or be conceived."^ § 8. In the proposals for the religious settlement no mention was made of taking counsel with the Convocation, as it was well known that nothing in the way of reforming views could be hoped for from that body. Every element of this sort had been fully weeded out of it, and both Upper and Lower Houses were completely of accord to maintain the most extreme dogmas of the ^ These portions of English service were adopted for use as having been used in the time of Henry VIII., and not held to be grounded on the Act of Uniformity, which had been repealed. ^ Cardwell, Doc. Annals, 1. 176. ^ D'Ewes, Journals of Queen Elizabeth'' s Parliaments, p. 12. 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 257 old religion. In this respect it must be owned that the Convoca- tion which met at the beginning of this reign contrasts favourably with that which had assembled at the beginning of Mary's reign. Then, although the whole clergy of the land had accepted and acquiesced in the Reformation settlement, only five divines in the Lower House were found bold enough to stand up for the teaching of the English Church. Now, although the sentiments of the ruler were pretty well known, the Lower House voted unanimously, and forwarded to the Upper House certain propositions, express- ing as distinctly as possible, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, the supremacy and divine authority of the pope, and the right of the spiritualty alone to determine things relating to the faith, sacraments, and discipline of the Church. 1 These propositions, except the last, were also signed by the universities, and the government was placed by them in a considerable difiiculty. It would seem somewhat too strange and anomalous for the lay power simply to proceed to the reorganisation of services and formularies of faith, when the con- stitutional body of the spiritualty was in direct antagonism to it. § 9. In order, therefore, to do away with the effect of the Con- vocation resolutions, and to exhibit the voice of the spiritualty also on its own side — able, as it was hoped, to convict and refute the false doctrine of the upholders of the old superstitions — a formal disputation was arranged to be held in Westminster Abbey, the Lord Keeper acting as chairman, and Parliament being pro- rogued in order that the members might be present at the discussion. § 1 0. Parliament was in the midst of the serious and important work of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical settlement on the basis of that sanctioned in the reigns of Henry and Edward. An Act had been brought in " restoring to the crown the ancient juris- diction over the State ecclesiastical," which may probably be con- sidered a popular measure, inasmuch as Mary's Parliaments had very reluctantly consented to her abandonment of the supremacy, and she, though unwilling, had been constrained to use and act upon this title of Supreme Head for a year after her accession. Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy restored to the crown all its ancient jurisdiction over all courts and persons ; but it did more than this — it empowered the queen by letters patent, under the great seal, to give commis- sion to such persons as she thought fit " to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and 'amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities which by any manner spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority, or jurisdiction can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, or amended." This was 1 Collier, Ch. Hist. vi. 1 9Q. 258 THE RESTOEATIOK OF Char XV. to go far beyond the legitimate province of tlie supremacy, and to arm the Crown with a new irresponsible power, superseding and overriding all the ancient forms of law and procedure, and able under the pressure of severe penalties to make its own will the absolute law for the guidance of the Church. That Parliament should have been ready to arm the Crown with such an enormous power against the clergy, would seem to indicate that the old feel- ings of hostility between the lay and ecclesiastical, stimulated pro- bably by the atrocities of the late reign, were still in full force. It is true that some concessions were inserted in the Act to make it somewhat more tolerable. Nothing was to be pimished as heresy but wtat was so adjudged in Holy Scripture, or in one of the four first General Councils, or in any other national or provincial synod, deter- mining according to the "Word of God, or finally, which should be so judged in the time to come by the court of Parliament, first having the assent of the bishops and clergy in their Convocation. This was vague enough, but a more substantial gain was thought by many to be secured in the abandonment by the queen of the title of Supreme Head of the Church on earth, and the adoption instead of that of Supreme Governor.'^ The Supremacy Act was more than two months before Parliament,^ and various additions were made to it by both Houses. Finally, it contained clauses repealing all the Acts made touching religion in the late reign, and revising those passed in the time of Henry VIH. and Edward. It restored the method of appointing bishops by congas cVeslire instead of letters patent ; it contained penal clauses against those who should main- tain the supremacy of the papal see ; and enacted that all clergy- men, magistrates, officers, and public functionaries should take an oath declaring the queen to be the only supreme governor in the realm, both in temporal and spiritual things, and promising to defend all jurisdiction, power, and pre-eminence belonging to the imperial Crown. The bishops of the old religion opposed this measure in the House of Lords, but little or no lay opposition was offered to it. § 11. Before it had become law, the disputation which was. looked to to give some ecclesiastical sanction to the religious changes proposed, was held in Westminster Abbey. Eight disputants were selected from each side,^ and it was agreed that the disputation ■^ Henry had adopted the title of Supreme Head, disregarding the qualify- ing clause with which Convocation had guarded it. Edward and Mary had both used this title. Elizabeth is said to have been persuaded by Mr. Lever, a reforming divine, that it was not suitable. — Burnet, Records, iii. No. 2. 2 Brought in February 27, passed April 29. ^ For the Eomanists — White, Bishop of Winchester ; Bayne, Bishop of Lichfield ; Scott, Bishop of Chestei- ; Watson, Bishop of Lincoln ; Cole, Dean 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 259 should be carried on in writing, the bishops first reading a paper, and the reforming divines replying. The questions to be argued were (1) Whether it is against the Word of God and the custom of the ancient Church to officiate and administer the sacraments in a language unknown to the people ? (2) Whether every Church has authority to fippoint, change, or set aside ceremonies and ecclesias- tical rites, provided the same be done to edifying ? (3) Whether it can be proved in the Word of God that there is offered in the mass a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead ? The meeting for discussion took place on March 31, under the presi- dency of the Lord Keeper, and awaited the Eomanist's first paper. Bishop White, instead of producing a paper, declared that they preferred a viva 'voce discussion. He was reminded that Arch- bishop Heath, who had settled the preliminaries, had agreed on their part that they were to read papers. Thus obliged to proceed. Dr. Cole, for the Romanists, partly read and partly spoke an argu- ment against the service being used in the vulgar tongue. At its conclusion the other disputants on his side were asked if they desired to add anything. They replied in the negative. Then Dr. Home read a weighty and learned paper on the other side. The Romanists desired to be allowed to reply. They were reminded that this was contrary to the agreement, but it was agreed that if they would put their reply in writing it should be heard at another sitting. At the next meeting (April 3), the Lord Keeper desired that the second point should be treated. Bishops White and Watson insisted that the arguments on the first j)oint should be concluded before proceeding to the second. Being overruled by Archbishop Heath they had to give way, but when it came to the discussion of the second point they claimed the right of being respondents instead of commencing. This seemed nothing more than was fair, but it was against the letter of the preliminary agreement. The bishops, however, would not proceed in a way which they thought gave an imfair advantage to their opponents. The Lord Keeper, using some angry words to them for their breach of faith, then broke up the assembly.^ Technically the Romanist party were in the wrong, as they contravened the arrangement made on their behalf by Archbishop Heath, but practically they were only struggling to get a fair share of that Avliicli is the great of St. Paul's ; Harpsfield, Archbishop of CanterDury ; Langdale, Archdeacon of Lewes ; Chadsey, Prebendary of St. Paul's. For the Reformers — Scory, late Bishop of Chichester ; Cox, late Dean of Westminster ; Home, late Dean of Durham ; Aylmer, late Archdeacon of Stow ; Messrs. Whitehead, Grindal. Guest, Jewel, ^ Burnet, Records, ii. iii. Nos. 3, 4, 5. Strype, Annals, Collections, xv xvi. Collier, vi. 197 sq. Heylin, Hist. Eliz. 112. Zurich Letters, i. 13. 260 THE RESTOEATION OF Chap. XV. prize in sucli discussions — the riglit of saying the last word. For their contumacy in this disputation Bishops White and "Watson were committed to the Tower, and the other commissioners were bound to attend the Council daily until the amount of fines to be inflicted upon them should be fixed. § 12. Meantime the commissioners appointed to revise the Prayer-book were proceeding vigorously in their work, but not, as it would seem, to the entire satisfaction of the queen. Dr. Parker, one of those originally appointed, had been unable through illness to attend to the work, and his place had been taken by Dr. Edward Guest, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. It would appear that Dr. Guest became the most influential man on the commission, and to him, as such. Sir William Cecil addressed a paper of suggestive ques- tions, which clearly enough indicate the changes which the queen desired to have made. He is asked if the ceremonies used in King Edward's time could not be fairly restored, and the following points provided for — viz., the retention of the image of the Cross, the sanction of processions, the appointment of copes for holy communion, the presence of non-communicants at holy communion, prayer for the dead, the prayer of consecration, the elements to be placed in the mouth, the people to be obliged to kneel at recep- tion.^ The queen, who was a believer in the real presence,^ and who did not object to the mass except in some few particulars, desired the English oflBce to be made as near as possible after the pattern of the old ceremonial, hoping by this means also to draw her Romanist subjects to the use of it. But the commissioners were of another mind. They were anxious rather to adapt the book to the taste of the Puritan than the Romanist. Accordingly they deserted the basis of Edward's first book, and sanctioned the restoration of the second book with some few changes. Dr. Guest's reply to Sir W. Cecil's suggestions represents the grounds on which they proceeded. He answers that " ceremonies once taken away as ill used should not be restored. That all images are condemned by Scripture, and that this includes the crucifix also. That pro- cessions are superfluous, as we can pray better in church. That a surplice is sufficient in baptizing, reading, and preaching — why not then in the holy communion V That it was the ancient custom to dismiss the non-communicants before the beginning of the Liturgy proper. That prayer for the dead was not a primitive custom, and ©f dangerous tendency. That recei\'ing in the hands was most in accordance with the institution of the Supper. That kneeling 1 Strype, Annals, i. 120-121. ^ Feria's Despatches, Vou Ranke, i. 233. Heylin's Elizabeth, p. 124. 1558-1559. THE KEFOEMATION MOYEMENT. 261 or standing might be left indifferent, for the primitive Christiana prayed standing on Sundays in memory of the Resurrection. ^ § 13. Dr. Guest's reply probably represents the arrangement of the book as it left the hands of the commissioners, and was laid before Parliament. The Act of Uniformity describes the Prayer- book thus as " the book authorised by Parliament in the fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward VI., with one alteration or addition of certain lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year,2 and the form of the Litany altered aiid corrected,^ and two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the com- municants,* and none other or otherwise." This was the Prayer-book as brought before Parliament. But this is not the exact description of the Elizabethan Prayer-book. Besides these changes, there are to be found in this book new directions that the morning prayer shall be used " in the accustomed place of the church, chapel, or chancel," and that " the minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI. ; " and in addition to these direc- tions newly inserted, there was also the omission of the declaration as to kneeling at the communion. From what source did these alterations proceed? They must have been made by the queen in Council after the sanctioning of the book by Parliament. The rubric as to ornaments was no doubt held to be authorised by the almost identical provision in the Act of Uniformity, and the omis- sion of the Black Rubric was considered justifiable by the circum- stances of its irregular insertion into the second Prayer-book of Edward VI. ^ § 14. The Act of Uniformity re-establishing the English Prayer-book was imder debate at the same time as the Act of Supremacy, but it encountered far stronger opposition in the House 1 Strype, Append, to Annals, vol. i. No. xv. 2 In Edward's book there were no proper lessons for Sundays, but only for the chief festivals and holy days. The table in Elizabeth's book was not drawn up till some time after the passing of the Act. 3 The sentence, "From the tyranny of the Bishop Rome," etc., M'as omitted. The suffrage for the queen was altered by adding the words "Strengthen in the true worshipping of Thee, in righteousness and holiness of life." The prayers for the queen and for the clergy and people were placed at the end of the Litany. Of two collects for dearth one was omitted. — {Procter. ) "* That is, the words of the first book of Edward and the second book were united. * Mr. Procter is of opinion that these changes were made by the queen in Council before the book was laid before Parliament. But then the descrip- tion of it in the Act would be incorrect. — Hist. Frayer-hool:, p. 58. 262 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XV. of Lords. It was urged with great force by the bishops, that the bishops and the clergy in their Convocation were altogether opposed to the English book, and that it was monstrous to impose a service- book on the Church in direct opposition to the voice of the clergy.^ To this it might be rej^lied that no new book was now brought in, but only that book revived which had been accepted by the Church and Nation in the late reign. In addition to the bishops, nine temporal lords strongly opposed the bill, and Eliza- beth's Act ' of Uniformity only passed finally in the Lords by a majority of three (April 28). It enforced the use of the Prayer- book under penalties similar to those contained in the two Acts of Edward, and enacted that all who were absent from church, with- out reasonable excuse, should be subjected to a fine of one shilling to be levied on their goods and given to the poor. It gave a general power to the queen, with the advice of her commissioners appointed under the Great Seal, or of the metropolitan of the realm, " if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the ceremonies or rites of the Church by the misusing of the orders appointed in this book," to " ordain and publish such further ceremonies and rites as may be most for the advancement of God's glory, the edifying of His Church, and the due reverence of Christ's holy mysteries and sacraments." It is probable that at the beginning of her reign the queen contemplated not only the revival of the use of the old " ornaments " of the minister and the Church, but a considerable development of ceremonial similar to that which she used in her own chapel. But the contentious dis- putes of the Puritans which soon arose, and which rendered the enforcement even of a very small amount of ceremonial so difficult a task, prevented her from attempting this. There is in fact no trace of the use during this reign of any of the Edwardian vest- ments sanctioned by Elizabeth's book, except the surplice and cope,^ nor any proof that the queen used the power given to her to add to or alter the ceremonial prescribed. § 15. All clergy were to use the English book on and after the Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24, 1559). It was used in the royal chapel May 1, and on the following Wednesday in St. Paul's, in presence of a great number of people. In fact, it would appear that during the month of May the book was in general use throughout England,^ the people delighting to welcome back this pledge of a purer faith and happier times. ^ Dodd's Ch. Hist. vol. ii. Appendix xxxviii. ^ See on the use of clerical vestmenta in this reign Notes and Illustra- tions to this chapter. 3 Parkhurst to BuUinger (in May). "The book set forth in time of 1558-1559. THE REFOE^MATION MOVEMENT. 263 § 16. The first Parliament of Elizabeth not only restored the ancient jurisdiction of tlie Crown and the English service-book, but also carried out another part of the policy determined upon in religious matters — viz. the alienation of Church revenues for the use of the Crown. By the Act 1 Eliz. c. 4, first-fruits and tenths of ecclesiastical benefices were again given to the Crown. By 1 Eliz. c. 1 9, the queen was empowered, on the avoidance of a see, to reserve to herself any manors belonging to it she pleased to take, giving in exchange impropriate tithes; and by'l Eliz. c. 24, Queen Mary's religious foundations were suppressed and their revenues vested in the Crown. Had the true interests of the Church been properly cared for, the queen and Parliament would have been rather solicitous to increase the revenues of the clergy than to diminish them. The most disastrous results ensued from this tempting but evil policy, and the impoverishment of the clergy wasi long the mftin impediment to the progress of the Church. § 17. No complaint could reasonably be made of the treat- ment -wliich the bishops and clergy of Eomanist views had as yet received. Two bishops had indeed found their way into the Tower for contumacy in the matter of the Westminster disputa- tion.^ But the refusal of the whole body of bishops (with the exception of one) to act in the coronation of the queen, the vigo- rous and outspoken opposition which they had ofi'ered to the Supremacy and Uniformity Bills in Parliament, had not been re- sented. A very difi'erent treatment had been accorded to them from that which had been inflicted on the reforming bishops at the beginning of Mary's reign, when the two who ventured to ap- pear in Parliament were speedily expelled. It was evident, how- ever, that after the passing of the Supremacy Act the bishops must either submit and take the oath, or be deprived. Accordingly, May 15, the fourteen bishops who were able to attend were sum- moned before the c[ueen. She made a speech to them, desiring them to accept the laws recently made touching religion, and to put away the superstitious worship of the Church of Eome. Arch- bishop Heath, in answer, exhorted the queen to imitate the godly zeal of her sister for the true Church. Elizabeth made a sjDirited reply. "She was convinced," she said, "that the way which she had chosen was the right one. Her sister had no power to bind her successor. She held her crown from God alone, with the con- sent of the Parliament. She was resolved to resist the Bishop of King Edward is now in general use throughout England." — Zurich Letters, i. 29, 31. ^ Heylin says Bishops White and Watson threatened to excommunicate the queen. 264. THE EESTOKATION OF Chap. XV, Eome's usurpations, and to hold those as her enemies who upheld them." The bishops, showing a courage and constancy which did them credit, all (with the exception of Kitchen, bishop of Llandaff), refused to yield, and were soon after deprived of their sees. § 1 8. Their treatment was not harsh. Tonstal, Thirleby, and Bourne were appointed to reside in the houses of some of the re- forming divines. Heath, Turberville, and Poole, were allowed to reside on their own estates. Bonner was committed to the Mar- shalsea, which was- said to be necessary for his security, so greatly were the people incensed against him,^ and White and Watson remained in the Tower. § 1 9. The bishops being thus disposed of, measures were taken to test the feelings of the clergy, to remove those that were obsti- nate, and to inaugurate the changed state of things. Commissions, under the powers given in the Supremacy Act, were issued for the provinces of Canterbury and York. The commissioners were in- vested with power " to examine the true state of all churches, to suspend or deprive such clergymen as were unworthy, and to put others into their places ; to proceed against such as were obstinate by imprisonment, church censure, or any other legal way ; to reserve pensions for such as resigned ; to examine the condition of all such as were imprisoned for religion, and to discharge them ; to restore to their benefices those who had been unlawfully ejected in the late times." ^ § 20. A very small number of the clergy absolutely refused all compliance with the new laws. Including the fourteen bishops, only 189 are said to have been deprived in the whole of England, and of these six were abbots.^ § 21. Together with the commissioners, preachers were sent who were to endeavour to enlighten and persuade the people. One of these (Jewel) has left us a sketch of the state of things which is worth quoting. " We found everywhere the people sufficiently well disposed towards religion, and even in those quarters where we expected most difficulty. It is, however, hardly credible what a harvest, or rather what a wilderness of superstition had sprung up in the darkness of the Marian times. We found in all places votive relics of saints, nails with which the infatuated people dreamed Christ had been pierced, and I know not what small fragments of the sacred cross. The number of witches and sorcer- 1 Parkhiirst writes to Bullinger — "The bishops are now abhorred both by God and man. They never creep ont into public unless tliey are com- pelled to do so. Many call them butchers to their face." — Zurich Letters, i. 29, 31. 2 Commission for province of York. — Burnet, Records, iii. ii. 7. ** Camden's Elizabeth (Kennett). 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 265 esses had everywhere become enormous. The cathedral churchea were everywhere but dens of thieves, or worse, if anything worse or more foul can be mentioned. If inveterate obstinacy was found anywhere it was altogether among the priests, those especially who had been on our side." ^ § 22. For the future guidance of the clergy and laity the com- missioners distributed everywhere a body of Injunctions, drawn up, as is probable, by the same divines who had revised the Prayer- book. These directions, like the similar documents issued by Henry VIH., Edward VI., and Mary, were grounded on the eccle- siastical supremacy of the Crown, a prerogative which did not in reality confer upon the sovereign a right to make laws for the Church, any more than the civil supremacy did for the State, but which was assumed to have this power by all the sovereigns of the Eeformation period. The Injunctions, however, though having no force of law in themselves, were liable to be enforced by the ecclesiastical commission, created with such tremendous and irre- sponsible powers by the Act of Supremacy. The queen's Injunc- tions were fifty-three in number. They republished the Injunc- tions of King Edward, but with some important alterations and additions. (I.) As to Images. — In Elizabeth's Injunctions they are not ordered, as in Edward's, to be taken away, but it is forbidden to " set forth or extol the dignity of any image, relic, or miracle," declaring that all goodness, health, and grace ought to be looked for from Almighty God alone." ^ (II.) Glerical Matrimony. — It was ordered that no clergyman should marry " without the advice and allowance of the bishop and two justices of the peace dwelling next to the place where the woman hath made most her abode, nor without the goodwill of the parents of the woman, or of her master and mistress where she serveth.^ (III.) Glerical Apioarel. — The clergy are bid to wear the " seemly habits, garments, and square caps," to which they had been accustomed in the days of Edward VI. (IV.) Church Ornaments. — The churchwardens of every parish are bid to deliver to the visitors an inventory of " vest- ments, copes, and other ornaments, plate, books, grails, couchers, 1 Zurich Letters, i. 44. ^ This was in accordance with the queen's strong attachment to the use of the crucifix. The commissioners did, in fact, everywhere remove the images. But after this the queen had strong inclination to order them to be set up again, and was hardly persuaded to forego her purpose by the re- monstrances of Parker, Cox, and others. In spite of all remonstrances, she kept the crucifix in her own chapel. — ParJcor Corrcs])ond6nce, p. 79, etc. ^ It is probable that the queen would have prohibited clerical matrimony altogether, but the statute which legalised it in the time of Edward had, by some oversight, not been repealed under Mary. 266 THE RESTORATION OF Chap. XY. legends, processionals, manuals, hymnals, portasses, and such like." This clearly indicates that all these things were to be taken away for the profit of the Crown. (V.) Church Song. — " A modest and distinct song " is ordered to be used in the prayers, " that the same may be as plainly understanded as if it were read without singing ;" but, " for the comforting of such as delight in music," there may be sung at the beginning or end of common prayers a hymn " to the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently de- vised." (VI.) Royal Supremacy. — " 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 VIII. 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 tem- poral, soever they be, so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them." ^ (VII.) Holy Tables. — No altar to be taken down but by the oversight of the curate of the church and the churchwardens, " and the holy table in every church to be decently made and set in the place where the altar stood, and there commonly covered as thereto belongeth, and so to stand saving when the communion of the sacrament is to be distributed, at which time it shall be so placed in good sort within the chancel as whereby the minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants." (VIII.) Sacramental Bread. — This is to be "made and formed plain without any figure thereupon, of the same fineness and fashion round, though somewhat bigger in com- pass and thickness, as the usual bread and water heretofore named singing cakes, which served for the use of the private mass." ^ § 23. There is no doubt that the work of the commissioners exceeded, in some points, the orders of the Injunctions, especially in the .removal of images. Heylin says that in London, at St. Bartholomew's, the commissioners burned all the roods and images which had been taken out of churches, and in some places copes, vestments, altar-cloths, books, banners, se23ulchres, and rood-lofts.^ Jewel speaks of the crosses of silver and tin being everywhere broken in pieces.* Sandys says, " All images of every kind were at our last visitation not only taken down, but also biu^ned, and that too by public authority." & § 24. The work of the Injunctions was supplemented by a body 1 The importance of this declaration as a "contemporaneous exposition" of the supremacy is pointed out by Mr. Hallara, Constihdional History. 2 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 178 sg. ^ Heylin, Hist, Eliz. p. 118. ^ Zurich Letters, i. 74. ^ H). 1558-1559. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT. 267 of articles to be inquired into at a \4sitation to be conducted pro- bably by tbe same persons who had distributed the Injunctions, there being no episcopal authority available at the moment.^ To provide this must now be the anxious task of the queen and her advisers. The beginning of the restoration of the status of the reformed church had been fairly and prudently made. It now remained to see to the provision of such machinery for the admini- stration and progress of the 'Church as should be able to claim a divine right to govern by virtue of its apostolical succession, and which all good churchmen would be ready to regard with deference and respect. ^ Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 210, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) JOHN KNOX. John Knox was bom at Gifford, near Haddington, in East Lothian, in 1505. He early devoted himself to liheological studies, and was led by reading St. Je- rome's and St. Augustine's writings to see the errors of Popery. Having taken orders, he was further influenced in a reforming direction by the preaching of Thomas Williams and George Wishart. Cardinal Beaton attempted to seize him on account of his alleged heresy, but he escaped. He began his public ministry at St. Andrews in 1547, and soon after was captured by the French and carried to Rouen, where he was confined eighteen months on board the galleys. In 1549 he was liberated and came to England. Here he was licensed as a preacher, and exercised his ministry in the north. In 1552 he was made one of King Edward's chaplains, and sent to various places as an itinerant preacher. On Mary's accession he escaped, and was invited to minister to the English at Frankfort, where he was involved in the disputes with Dr. Cox mentioned in the text. He returned to Scotland in 1555, but soon afterwards returned to the Con- tinent to minister to the English at Geneva. While there in 1558 he piib- lished his Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstroxis liegimen of Wovien, a publica- tion which so angered Queen Elizabeth that she would not allow him to enter England. In 1559 he returned direct to Scotland, and from that time till his death in 1572 was the energetic denouncer of Popery and Episcopacy, advocating a form of Church government similar to that which had been adopted in Geneva. He frequently excited the people to vio- lence by the force of his oratory, and was the great opponent of Queen Mary, but he died in peace at Edinburgh and was buried with aU honour. (B.) THE VESTURE USED BY THE CLERGY IN QUEEN ELIZABETH'S TIME. The rubric in Queen Elizabeth's Prayer- book clearly sanctioned the use of the same ornaments of the minister in public ministrations as had been prescribed by the first Prayer-book of Edward, that is to say, chasubles and copes, albs and tunicles. There is no trace, however, of any of these vestments having been used, except the cope. Dr. Sandys, writing as to the rubric, says of the ornaments : — " Our gloss on this text is that we shall not be obliged to use them, but that others in the meantime shall not convey them away, that they may remain for the queen." Copes, not chasubles, were worn at Arch- bishop Parker's consecration. In the Interpretations there occur the words, "That there maybe used but one apparel, 268 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XV. as the cope in the ministration of the Lcffd's Supper and the surplice in all other ministrations." — Boo. Annals, i. 205. Sandys, writing to Peter Martyr, says, " The popish vestments remain in our churches— I mean the copes." Hum- phrey to BuUinger, "The sacred habits, namely the cope and the surplice, are used at the Lord's Supper."— Z^ricTiief- ters, i. 74, 164. The following contem- porary notices seem to prove both that the ornaments of the minister of Edward "VI. 's first book were legal, and at the same time that they were not used. Wil- liam Reynolds, a Puritan, published in 1583 a pamphlet, in the preface to which he says, "It had been appointed by the first Book of Common Prayer that the minister in the time of his ministration should use such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI. And then I appeal to the knowledge of every man how well that Act of Parlia- ment is observed throughout the realm ; in how many cathedrals and parish churches those ornaments are reserved ; whether every private minister by his own authority in the time of his ministra- tion disdain not such ornaments, using only such apparel as is most vulgar and profane." In the Appeal of the Lincoln- shire Ministers, published in 1605, it is said, " What bishop is there that, in cele- brating the communion and exercising every other public ministration, doth wear besides his rochet a surplice or alb and a cope or vestment, and doth hold his pastoral staff in his hand, or else have it borne by his chaplain ? To all which, notwithstanding, he is bound by the first Book of Common Prayer made in King Edward VI. his time, and consequently by authority of the same statute, whereby we are compelled to use those ceremonies in question. The bishops' Visitation Arti- cles in the time of Elizabeth, of which a great number have been printed in the Second Report of the Ritual Commis- sioners, in many cases make the inquiry whether vestments and copes had been destroyed in parish churches. — See chap- ter xvii. on the apparel prescribed by the Advertisements. 1569-1563. THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT. 269 CHAPTER XVI. THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 1559-1563. § 1, The new Bishops. § 2. Matthew Parker. § 3. His election and con- secration. § 4. Documents attesting the consecration. § 5. He con- secrates his sulfragans. § 6. The Queen will not abandon her ceremonial. § 7. Expedients to supply the want of competent ministers. § 8. The Queen grasps at the property of the sees. § 9. The " Interpretations '" of the Injunctions. § 10. Plan for the revision of the English Bible. § 11. Reform of Ecclesiastical Courts. § 12. Proclamation against defacing monuments. § 13. The Latin Prayer-book. § 14. Letter to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for greater care of churches, and the new calendar. § 15. Some of the Bishops averse to order. § 16. The Queen's directions as to clerical matrimony. § 17. State of the clergy. § 18. Meeting of Parliament and Convocation. § 19. The articles re- viewed and subscribed. § 20. Attempts to overset the Prayer-book settlement. § 21. Second Book of Homilies. § 22. Nowell's Catechism. § 23. New law de excommunicato cajnendo. § 24. Second Act of Supremacy. § 25. The Act not intended to be enforced. § 26. Bishops Bonner and Home ; the Ordinal established by law. § 27. State of the different sections of the Church. § 28. Bishop Jewel ; his Apology for the Cliurch of England. § 1. Op the Marian bishops not one, except Kitchen of LlandafF, had conformed to the new state of things, and with this exception, either by death, or by deprivation, all the sees of England were vacant in the year 1559. To find so many men suitable for leading positions in that critical state of the Church was no easy matter. The eff'ect of the violence of Queen Mary's times, the influence of the foreign divines upon the exiled English, had disposed most of them towards a somewhat fanatical Protestantism, and a disposition to undervalue the distinctive features of the Church. At the same time the Government, anxious to be pro- vided with vigorous champions against the Romanist pretensions, was inclined to promote men more for their controversial powers, than for their love of Church principles or their administrative ability. § 2. Happily this was not the case in the selection made for primate. Matthew Parker, Dean of Lincoln in King Edward's time, was endeared to the queen by having been chaplain to her mother, and upon him her choice for the highest dignity of the Church fell. He was a sober-minded, learned man, of literary 270 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVI. tastes, who had not fled abroad during the late persecution, but had been content to live in obscurity, though often exposed to much danger, delighting in the literary leisure thus accorded to him, and " directing all his efi"orts to serve God with a pure con- science."^ No man ever shrank from the onerous duties of the episcopate with more genuine feeling than this peace-loving divine, but the Lord Keeper, who was his intimate friend, and other of the queen's ministers who knew his value, were deter- mined to overcome his scruples, and at length they succeeded.^ § 3. On July 18 (1559) the congt d'elire was issued to the church of Canterbury. On August 1 Parker was elected, and on September 9 an order for his consecration was given under the great seal.^ But the three bishops named first in the warrant — Tonstal, Bourne, and Poole, refused to act. A second commission, bearing date December 6, was issued to Kitchen, Bishop of Llan- daff, Barlow, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, Scory, late Bishop of Chichester, Coverdale, late Bishop of Exeter, Hodgkins, Bishop- Suffragan of Bedford, John, Suffragan of Thetford, and Bale, late Bishop of Ossory, empowering them, or any four of them, to con- secrate. Kitchen, though he had conformed and taken the oath of supremacy, declined acting, it is said through fear of threats used by Bonner. The next four named — Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins — signified their willingness to consecrate. On December 9, at the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, the election of Parker was confirmed, and on December 17, in the chapel of Lambeth Palace, he was duly consecrated according to the Ordinal of King Edward's second book, which, from having been incorpo- rated with the Prayer-book, was also now legalised by the recent Act of Uniformity. § 4. Of this consecration there remains a long minute and detailed account in the register of Lambeth, and a contempo- raneous transcript of the consecration part of it in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. There are notices of it also in a great number of diocesan registers ; in the registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury ; in thirty or forty documents in the Rolls ; in a large mass of contemporary letters and documents preserved in Corj)us Christi College, Cambridge ; in papers pre- served at Zurich, and not known in England till 1685 ; in Parker's own book, De Antiquitate Britaymim Ecclesice, printed in 1572, and in many other places. There would seem to be no historical ^ Parker Correspondence, Introd. p. viii. ^ See the letters between them in Burnet, Records, iii. ii. viii. , and Id the Parker CorresiJondence (Parker Soc.) ^ State Papers of Elizabeth, Domestic, vi. 4L 1559-1563. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 271 fact supported by more complete and overwhelming evidence. And yet, about forty-four years afterwards, the Romanist party in England invented a story (generally called the Nag's Head Fable) which asserted that Parker and the other bishops were ordained in a hasty and ludicrous way at a tavern in Fleet Street.^ § 5. A few days after his consecration, the new archbishop, with the assistance of some other bishops, consecrated Grindal to the See of London, Cox to Ely, Sandys to Worcester, and Merick to Bangor. In January five more bishops were consecrated — Young to St. David's, BuUingham to Lincoln, Jewel to Salisbury, Davis to St. Asaph, and Guest to Rochester." There was one name absent from the new list of bishops which ought to have appeared there, but which the modesty of its bearer would not suffer to be thus prominently brought forward. This was that of Bernard Gilpin, known as the Apostle of the North, and whose devotion and munificent charity were able to protect him even during the fiery trials of the Marian persecution.^ § 6. The first great difficulty with which the new bishops had to contend was with the queen herself. Elizabeth would not give up the crucifix and lights in her chapel. The bishops were com- pelled to minister, much to their annoyance, at the altar thus ornamented, clad in " popish vestments," and " without a sermon." ^ Nor was this all. The queen, annoyed probably at the remon- strances of the bishops, declared it to be her will that the roods which had been everywhere taken from the churches by the over- zealous action of the commissioners, snould be restored. Jewel writes to Bullinger : " It comes to this, that either the crosses must be restored or our bishoprics relinquished,"^ At length, however, a compromise was effected. Sandys writes that the queen had agreed that the images should not be restored, but " the popish vestments, I mean the copes, are still to remain, which, however, we hope will not last long."® It is probable that the queen was influenced in this matter not so much by religious as by political considerations. § 7. Another great difficulty with which the bishops had to contend was the want of competent ministers for the parishes. Those of the Marian clergy who had not resigned, everywhere refused, or were incompetent to become preachers. Many of the parishes, writes Lever in 1560, were without clergymen, and of ^ For an account of the Nag's Head Fable and its refutation, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter, 2 For a complete table of the new bishops, see Notes and Illustrations. ^ For an account of Bernard Gilpin, see Notes and Illustrations. ^ Sampson to Bullinger, Zurich Letters^ i. 63. Cox to do,, i, QQ Jewel to do., i. 67. ^ Zurich Letters, i, 68. « xb. i. 74. 272 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVI. the clergy, there was " scarcely one in a hundred able and willing to preach the Word of God." ^ " There is a great and alarming scarcity of preachers," says Bishop Jewel ; " our schools and universities are deserted." Kather than allow the people to be entirely without ministration, the bishops were constrained to admit illiterate men to orders. These were ordained merely to be readers, without the preaching license. Scandals, however, quickly arose from the introduction of these unfit persons. In August 1560 Archbishop Parker writes to Grindal lamenting that the " artificers " whom they had been constrained to ordain " are very offensive to the people, and to the wise of the realm," and bidding him to admit none who had not had some suitable educa- tion, and to signify the same to the other bishops. 2 The arch- bishop sought to meet the present necessity by a union of benefices, the parson collated to the chief benefice having to take oversight of the others, and appointing under himself some honest " and grave layman " to act as a reader, not having commission to preach or administer the sacraments, but to read the service with the litany and homily. Such readers to be removable upon com- plaint to the bishop.3 § 8. A third scarcely less formidable difiiculty met the bishops in the resolution of the queen to grasp with unblushing rapacity the revenues of the Church. Under the Act of Parliament which gave the queen the right to take episcopal manors, giving in ex- change for them impropriate tithes, a vast amount of huckstering was now going on by special commissioners appointed by the Crown, in which it seemed likely that all the sees would be impoverished. The archbishop and four other bishops-elect addressed a letter to the queen (October 15, 1559), appealing to her to stop these pro- ceedings, and oflfering an annual payment of 1000 marks in lieu of the exchanges contemplated. They also request some consider- ation as regards their first-fruits, for if in addition to the heavy fees exacted from them, they had to give up the whole of their first year's income, they dared not " enter into their functions." The queen would not consent to abandon her grasp of episcopal manors, but she remitted to the bishops half of the first-fruits payable to the Crown.* Many of these episcopal manors were granted to courtiers who eagerly sought for the rich spoil. Thus Cecil, Leicester, Walsingham, North, Hatton, and Raleigh were enriched out of the spoils of the Church. In addition to this 1 Zurich Letters, i. 85. ^ Parkcr Correspondence, p. 120. ^ Strype, Annals, i. 275. * State Papers of Elizo,heth, Domestic, vii. 19; Parker Correspondence'^ 99, 100, 101. 1559-1563. THE CHUUCH OF ENGLAND. 273 questionable manipulation of Churcli revenues, the queen did not hesitate to keep some sees for a long time vacant that she might enjoy the whole profits arising from them. Thus York and Durham were kept/ and at all periods of her reign, probably, were there some sees whose revenues through their enforced vacancy were contribut- ing to the support of the Crown. In her treatment of Church pro- perty Elizabeth contrasts most unfavourably with her sister Mary. § 9. The clergy, in spite of the queen's Injunctions, must have been in considerable difficulty as to many points, and the bishops not being in a position to exact from them any confession of faith, must have been greatly perplexed as to the fitness of the persons applying to them for institution. On these grounds the primate and certain of the bishops, being ecclesiastical commissioners, deter- mined to draw up a paper of explanatory rules and directions for the guidance of the clergy, and at the same time to set out a short confession of faith, which all clergy preferred to livings might be required to sign. The document which they issued was styled " Interpretations and further considerations." It declares it to be desirable to draw up a second book of homilies and a longer cate- chism, for " the erudition of simple curates." That all " bishops and beneficed persons ought to go in apparel agreeable, or else within two monitions given by the ordinary, be deposed and sequestered from their fruits." That those who are deprived of their benefices should be " forced to minister some cure upon reasonable wages." That there be used in the church " only one apparel, as the cope in the ministration of the Lord's Supper, and the surpHce in all other ministrations." That " the table be re- moved out of the choir into the body of the church before the chancel door, where either the choir seemeth to be too little, or at great feasts of receivings, and at the end of the communion to be set up again, according to the Injunctions." " That one brief form of declaration be made, setting out the principal articles of our religion, to be spoken by parsons, curates, or both, at their first entry, and afterwards twice in the year." § 10. Accordingly " A declaration of certain principal articles of religion" was drawn up and printed. This declaration contains eleven articles. The first asserts the doctrine of the Trinity. The second the sufficiency of Scripture and the three Creeds. The third the power of the Church to change ceremonies and rites. The fourth the necessity of appointment to the ministry by the " high authorities." The fifth asserts the supremacy as " declared and expounded " by the Injunctions. Sixth, that the Bishop of Rome has no more ^ Parker writes to Cecil to complain of this, and points out that it might lead to a rebellion in the north. — Parker CorrespoTidence, p. 123. T 274 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVL authority than any other bishop. Seventh, that the Book of Com- mon Prayer is '' catholic, apostolic, and most fit for the advancing of God's glory, and the edifying of God's people." Eighth, that though the old ceremonies be omitted in baptism, yet that it is validly performed in the Church of England. Ninth, that private masses, and the doctrine that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, are to be condemned. Tenth, that the holy communion ought to oe administered under both kinds. Lastly, that images are vain things, and that God ought to be served by true obedience and the works of faith and charity." ^ The bishops also put forth certain re- solutions and orders for the " preservation and maintenance of uni- formity in matters ecclesiastical," regulating the granting of licenses, the manner of preaching and administering the sacraments.^ § 11. The archbishop also turned his attention to that which, in his view, was a most important matter — viz. the revision of the translation of the Bible. Certain of the reformers in their exile at Geneva during Mary's days had occupied themselves in this work, and the " Geneva Bible," with notes of a Calvinistic and Puritanical cast, had appeared about 1560. The " Injunctions" ordered, as those of Edward had done, a copy of the " Great Bible" to be set up in all the churches. But the Great Bible was by no means perfect as a translation, and it was very undesirable that the Geneva Bible should take its place. A revision of the authorised version was therefore urgently needed, and this the archbishop proceeded to organise by assigning various parts of the book to various divines.^ § 1 2. One other matter greatly needed attention, but did not, either now or at any subsequent period, receive the full attention and thorough care which it required, that is to say, the reform of the ecclesiastical courts. The bishops were more inclined to make use of the new instrument which the queen and Parliament had put in their hands — the court of ecclesiastical commission,'* than to render effective, and set free from abuse the ancient courts of the Church. The ecclesiastical commission was a legalised tyranny, which by its method of procedure, by the tendering of the ex-officio oath, and obliging the accused to purge himself of articles objected, might and frequently did inflict the most grievous injustice ; but it was a ^ Strype, Annals of Reformation, ch. xix. ^ It was distinctly affirmed in these that private "baptism might be ad- ministered by a layman. ^ As the great majority of these were bishops, this is generally called " the Bishops' Bibler" It was finished and published in 1568. See Westcott, Uist. Bible, p. 97, sq. * The waiTant, directing the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners, is printed, Cardwell, Doc. Annals, 1. 223. 1559-1563. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 275 ready and effective weapon, tempting to those in anthority to make use of instead of proceeding by the old legal methods. Hence no real reform of the ecclesiastical courts was effected in this reign, though various attempts were made in consequence of the loud outcry produced by their abuses. § 13. The tendency to fanatical violence, which was abroad among the reformers, may be judged of from a proclamation issued September 1560. This warned all persons to forbear from " breaking or defacing monuments, tombs, inscriptions, or any image of kings, princes, or nobles, or breaking or defacing any image or glass windows in churches." Any damage of this sort done is to be repaired forthwith, and the doers of it punished, and patrons of churches and owners of impropriations are strictly forbidden to spoil the churches and carry away the bells and lead, under pain of fine and imprisonment.^ § 14. The queen also endeavoured to stimulate the use of cere- monial in the Church, by causing the Book of Common Prayer to be translated into Latin for the use of the universities, and of such ministers as should prefer the Latin form for their own house, they being still bound to use the vernacular for the peoj)le. To the Latin version of the Prayer-book was appended a form for the commemoration of benefactors, and a collect, epistle, and gospel for the celebration of holy communion at funerals. § 15. The proclamation against defacing monuments was fol- lowed up by a letter addressed by her Majesty to the ecclesiastical commissioners (January 1561), in which she stated that "in sundry churches or chapels where divine service, as prayers, preaching, and administration of the sacraments be used, there is such negli- gence and lack of convenient reverence used towards the comely keeping and order of the said churches, and especially of the upper jDart called the chancels, that it breedeth no small offence and slander to see and consider on the one part the curiosity and costs bestowed by men on their private houses, and tlie other the unclean or negligent order, or spare keeping, of the house of prayer, by permitting open decays and ruins of coverings, walls, and windows, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables with foul cloths for the communion of the sacraments, and generally leaving the place of prayers destitute of all cleanliness, and of meet ornaments for such a place, whereby it might be known a place provided for divine service."^ The commissioners are directed to see to the correction of these abuses, and they are also bid in the same letter 1 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 257. ^ State Papers of Elizahcth (Domestic), xvi, 7- 276 THE EEFOEMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVI. to provide that calendar of selected lessons for Sundays, whicli had been authorised in the Act of Uniformity, but not yet completed.^ § 16. These attempts to introduce greater decency and reve- rence in worship, and more fitting ceremonial, were by no means seconded by all the bishops. It appears from a letter of Bishop Sandys to Parker that the primate was sorely tried by the freaks of what he calls " Germanical natures,"^ and Cecil writes to the archbishop (in 1561), "The Bishop of Norwich (Parkhurst) is blamed even of the best sort for his remissness in ordering his clergy. He winketh at schismatics and Anabaptists as I am in- formed. Surely I see great variety in ministrations. A surplice may not be borne here. And the ministers follow the folly of the people, calling it charity to feed their fond humour. Oh, my lord, what shall become of this time?" ^ § 1 7. The queen was greatly angered by the carelessness of the clergy in attending to the decencies of public worship, especially in the eastern counties, in which she was making a progress in the summer of 1561. Cecil writes to Parker: — "Your grace shall understand that I have hitherto had a very troublesome progress to stay the queen's majesty from daily offence conceived against the clergy, by reason of the undiscreet behaviour of the readers and ministers in these counties of Suffolk and Essex. Surely here be many slender ministers, and such nakedness of religion as it over- throweth my credit." * Elizabeth was led by this negligence, which displeased her, to be bitterly set against clerical matrimony, to which she attributed much of the carelessness of the clergy, as being thus more occupied than became them in secular things. It was with the greatest difficulty that Cecil prevented her from issuing a pro- clamation altogether forbidding the marriage of the clergy. As it was, he was obliged to yield to a prohibition of it in a modified degree, by which it was forbidden to the head or any member of a college or cathedral church to have within the j)recincts of the college or cathedral " his wife or other woman to abide and dwell in the same, or to frequent or haunt any lodging within the same, on pain of deprivation." ^ This order naturally excited considerable indignation in the bishops. Bishop Cox writes that at Ely it will render residence impossible ; that it is " very miser- able, and sounding contrary to the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures of God." ^ The archbishop writes that " he had heard with horror the ^ This was immediately done. On February 15 (1561) Parker writes to Grindal, as dean of the province, to pubUsh the new calendar, and also to direct tables of the Ten Commandments to be set up in the churches. —Parker Correspondence, p. 134. ^ lb. p. 125. ^ lb. p. 149. ^ lb. 148. ^ State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), xx. 9. ^ Parker Corresioondence, p. 151. 1559-1563. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 277 words used by the queen as to God's lioly ordinance of matrimony.^ He trusts God will stay her heart ; but if she proceeds farther, tliat the clergy will endure persecution rather than yield. Her pro- ceedings had given him bitter pain, and made him regret his ever having yielded to her request in accepting his onerous office. 2 § 18. It w^as indeed no easy course which the archbishop had to steer between a peremptory and overbearing sovereign, and an ignorant and careless clergy. How poor the material was for carrying out the ideal of a reformed church, scriptural in doctrine, and de- vout and impressive in services, may be judged by the sketch of the London clergy at this time (1561) preserved in Strype.3 Three, four, and five livings were held together by some. The Vicar of St. Dunstan's had a living in Yorkshire, another in Warwickshire, and a third in Middlesex. The curates were mostly non-graduates and illiterate, which was also the return for not a few of the in- cumbents ; not a third were licensed to preach. As to their learning, some are returned as "' knows some few Latin words," some as *' has some little understanding of Latin." There are very few certificates of real capacity.* By the return for the Diocese of Norwich it appears that more than 400 benefices are without incumbents, the churches being served from the neighbouring parishes. Hereford returns — " There be divers and many chapels either unserved or served with a reader only. The clergy of the cathedral are said to be disreputable as well as ignorant." ^ § 19. Under these circumstances the meeting of Parliament, together with a reformed Convocation in which some remedies might be hoped for for these manifold evils, must have been eagerly looked forward to by the best friends of the Church. Parliament met January 12, 1563. It was opened wdth great pomp — twenty bishops in scarlet robes and hoods of miniver riding in the queen's train. The sermon was preached by Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, who was also chosen prolocutor of the Lower House of the Canterbury Convocation. Having held its opening sessions at St. Paul's, the Convocation met for work in the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster on January 1 9. The Lower House was directed ^ Parker had had bitter experience of this iu the gross insult offered by the queen to his own wife. Sir John Harrington relates that, after being grandly feasted at Lambeth, the queen turned to Mrs. Parker, saying, "And you — madam I may not call you — mistress I am ashamed to call you — I know not what to call you ; but yet I do thank you." — Harrington's Nugce AntiqucB, ii. 16. 2 Parker Corrcs2Jondence, p. 157. 3 A return of the state of their clergy was demanded of all the bishops by a circular of the primate in June 1561. The return for the Archdeaconry of London is that spoken of. * Strype's Parker, b. ii. c. v. s State Faim-s of Elizabeth (Domestic), xvii. 32. 278 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chai>. XVL by tlie president to j)roceed to the consideration of the Forty-two Articles drawn up in King Edward's time, and the Upper House commenced the same work.-"^ The Upper House met sometimes at Westminster, sometimes at St. Paul's Chapter-house. § 20. At this latter place the bishops unanimously subscribed the articles after careful emendations, and the reduction of their numbei from forty-two to thirty-nine, on the 29th January 1563.2 In the Lower House there was not the same unanimity. The amended articles as subscribed by the bishops were sent to the Lower House January 29. On February 5 the prolocutor informed the Upper House that some members demurred to the subscription, and he requested that they might be called upon to subscribe in the presence of the Upper House. The president ordered that the names of the recu- sants should be furnished to him. On February 1 0 the prolocutor appeared again, and stating that some had subscribed since his last coming, said that nevertheless some still refused.^ It is not known whether these recusants ultimately yielded, but they were appa- rently a small minority. The articles thus agreed upon were drawn up in English and Latin under the title of " Articles agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562, for the avoiding diversities of opinion and establishing consent touching true religion." The document was then laid before the queen for ratification. This was not immediately accorded, but only after an interval of nearly a year. When the body of articles with the ratification appeared, it was observed at once that it differed from the copy previously subscribed by Convocation in two important particulars. A clause had been added at the beginning of the twentieth article : " Habet ecclesia ritus statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctoritatem ;"4 and that which is now the twentieth article, as to the wicked not eating the body of Christ, was omitted. The Latin version, ratified by the queen, was printed by Wolfe in 1563, and about the same time appeared an English version (printed by Jugg and Cawood) which did not contain the clause as to the Church ha-\dng power to decree rites and ceremonies, nor ^ Heylin's Elizabeth, p. 158. ^ The Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham and Chester, belonging to the northern province, also subscribed them. This is held by many to give the Act the force of that of a national synod ; but it does not appear that the Lower House of the northern province was represented. See Joyce, Sacred 'Synods, p. 560. ^ Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 514, 516 ; Strj^e, Annals, i. 491 ; Heylin, Elizaheth, p. 159. * It will be observed that the original clause does not contain the word ceremonias, which was afterwards added. 1559-1563. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 279 the article as to the wicked not participating in the Lord's Supper. So that there were three varying copies of the articles in 1563 — the Convocation copy, the queen's copy, and the English version. This variety is of less importance, as the articles were finally settled and accepted in 1571.^ §21. Having agreed to a doctrinal confession, the Convocation next turned its attention to matters of discipline. A vigorous attempt was made by the extreme party to get rid of even the small amount of ceremonial which the Church of England retained. The leader of this movement among the bishops was Sandys, Bishop of Worcester. He projDOsed that lay baptism, and the use of the sign of the cross in baptizing, should be forbidden hy Act of Parliament, and that the thirty-two commissioners for drawing up a code of reformed canons, whose work had proved abortive in two previous reigns, should be reappointed by Parliament, Avith a prospective clause that whatsoever they should decide upon should become law. Sandys does not appear to have been supported by his brethren, but in the Lower House an attempt was made to upset the discipline of the Prayer-book, which all but proved successful. A petition to the UiDper House was drawn up embodying six points — (1) That only Sundays be kept as holy days ; (2) That in all parish churches the minister read the service turning to the people and distinctly ;2 (3) That the sign of the cross in baptism be disused ; (4) That the order for kneeling at the holy communion be left to the discretion of the ordinary ; (5) That it be sufficient for a minister to use a surplice in all his ministrations ; (6) That the use of organs be prohibited. A great debate took place on this petition, and a very narrow majority rejected it.^ In fact, a considerable majority of those present were in favour of it, and it was only rejected by means of proxies. The Church thus escaped a very considerable danger. § 22. The Convocation authorised the publication of a second book of Homilies, set out with a preface by Bishop Cox, declaring that these homilies were to serve the same purpose as those of the first book published in King Edward's time, and to form a supple- ^ An accusation afterwards brought against Laud of tampering with the articles to introduce the clause as to ceremonies, is refuted by the facts of the history of tliis clause. ^ The permission in the rubric to read the service in the chancel is no doubt aimed at. ^ Only a majority of one. Strype gives the following analysis : — Yes No Members present 43 35 Proxies ... 15 24 58 59 Strype, Annals, i. 500 ; Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 565. 280 THE REFOEMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVI. ment to the others, one of them to be read each Sunday till the book was finished, and then to be begun again. The providing of a longer catechism for the instruction of the clergy was also cared for. § 23. Dean Nowell had drawn up a catechism principally taken from that of Poynet, which had been approved by a committee of Convocation in Edward's time. This had been submitted to the primate and accepted by him,^ and was now brought by Nowell before the Convocation. In the Lower House it appears to have been accepted after considerable alterations,^ and Dean Nowell forwarded it to Cecil, assuming, probably, that the Upper House would make no objection to it. However, for some reason or other, the Upper House never accepted it, and the Church of Eng- land was saved from giving a synodical sanction to a document which, being of a Calvinistic and Puritanical cast, would have proved a serious burden to it in its onward progress.^ § 24. While the Convocation was thus busily engaged in legis- lating for the Church, the Parliament had also been employed on kindred matters. The clergy in their Convocation had come to the conclusion that the best means of fortifying ecclesiastical dis- cipline was the making more effectual the writ de excommunicato capiendo. Parliament accordingly enacted that this writ should not only be binding on the sheriff of the district where the excom- municated person lived, but on all sheriffs, bailiffs or constables, or any officer, who should be empowered thereby to arrest the excommunicate and commit him or her to prison, " without bail or mainprise," until submission was made. The writ was made re- turnable to the Court of King's Bench, under a heavy penalty to the sheriff if not returned the next term after being sued out of the Court of Chancery. § 25. Parliament also passed a second Act of Supremacy, which was designed to be more severe and sweeping in its character than the first Act. It included in the obligation to take the oath several classes which had not been mentioned in the previous Act, and especially all those who should refuse to conform to the established worship, or should openly condemn the ceremonies of the Church, or should celebrate or hear others celebrate any private mass. These persons, if they refused the oath a second time when pro- perly tendered to them, were to be held guilty of treason, and were liable to be condemned to death. The bishops were empowered 1 Strype, Annals, i. 474. ^ Nowell to Cecil ; Strype, Annals, i. 526. 2 Dean Hook says, "We may be satisfied "with expressing our deep sense of gratitude to the merciful Providence which has exonerated us from a bur- den which it would be difficult to sustain," — Lives of the Archbishops, iv. 354. The catechism was again before Convocation in 1570, and again failed to obtain full synodical authority. 1559-1563. THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND. 281 to put the Act in force by tendering the oath to any suspected persons. § 26. But that the penalties of the Act were meant in terrorem and not for use, is evident from a circular addressed, at Cecil's request, by the primate to his suffragans. In this he recommends the bishops " to have a very grave, prudent, and godly respect in executing the Act of the queen's authority over her ecclesiastical subjects late passed in this Parliament. And if upon very apparent cause your lordship shall be as it were compelled by the -wilful- ness of some of that sort to tender the oath mentioned in the same Act, the peremptory refusal whereof shall endanger them in Prce- munire^ that immediately upon such refusal of any person ye do address your letters to me, and proceed not to offer the oath a second time unto, you shall have my answer returned to you in writing." ^ § 27. In one notorious instance, which ended somewhat strangely, this oath was tendered. Bonner, late bishop of London, was a prisoner in Southwark, within the diocese of Winchester. Home, Bishop of "Winchester, thought fit to tender him the oath of supremacy, and Bonner replied by pleading that Home was not legally a bishop as not having been consecrated by a form allowed by Parliament. The Act of Uniformity which established the Prayer-book had made no express mention of the Ordinal, which tvas held to be incorporated with the Prayer-book, though origin- ally constructed at a difi'erent time from the rest of the book. In order to remove any doubts as to its legality, an Act of Parliament was passed establishing it, and having a retrospective force, so as to declare all the consecrations which had previously taken place under it to be legal. § 28. The Church and State had thus done their parts in re- establishing the condition of things in the matter of religion which had been rudely broken up by the disastrous reign of Mary. The Romanists had been clearly shown that, in spite of the threatening aspect of foreign affairs and the strength which they could still count upon in the country, the Government of the queen was strong enough to enforce their submission or leave them exposed to considerable peril. On the other hand, the more fanatical re- formers had learned that the queen and the country, as repre- sented by Parliament, were determined to uphold the ancient church of the land, purified as it was from its main defects, and not to run into the eccentric courses of the foreign reformations. Dis- appointed in the hopes which they had formed, these zealous but misguided men were resolved to struggle in every way for obtain- ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 174. 282 THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT OF Chap. XVI. ing that wHch they believed to be the most precious good — viz. the deliverance of the Church from the yoke of ceremonies and the overthrowing its episcojoal organisation. The Church history of the remainder of this reign is in fact the record of that struggle. § 29. In the year 1562 had come forth a work, the first in order of time of the long series of famous works of English theology. The author of this was John Jewel, a Devonshire man, who had been early elected a scholar of Bishop Fox's College of Corpus Christi at Oxford, and had become famous in the university by his lectures. Marked out as a friend of Peter Martyr for destruc- tion in the reign of Mary, he had saved himself by subscribing a formula tendered to him by his enemies. Penitent for this weak compliance, he had contrived to escape to Zurich, and there publicly recanted and bewailed his fall. During the remainder of Mary's reign he lived in the house of Peter Martyr. At the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was designated for prefer- ment. He was employed in the disputation at Westminster, and sent to accompany the royal commissioners in the west, where his great talents as a preacher were made use of. On January 21, 1560, he was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury. Shortly before and again after his consecration, Jewel made his famous challenge in a sermon at Paul's Cross, that if the Komanists could bring, on any of twenty-seven different points, which he enumerated, " any one sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic doctor, or father, or general council, or holy Scripture, or any one example in the primitive church that the doctrine held by the Romanists was the true one, he would be content to yield and subscribe." i This challenge led to a notable controversy between himself and Dr. John Harding, a prebendary of Jewel's church of Salisbury. ^ It also produced Jewel's famous work. The Apology for the Church of England, published in Latin in 1562, but quickly translated into English with great skill and taste by Lady Bacon, the wife of the Lord Keeper, and into German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, and Welsh ; read and seriously considered at the Council of Trent, and ordered by Convocation to be placed in churches and in the houses of Church dignitaries. Though inclined by tastes and antecedents to favour the extreme school of reformers. Bishop Jewel ever showed in the administration of his diocese a wise moderation and a determination to uphold the laws of the Church. ^ Cardwell, Doc. Annals, i. 254. 2 ''The combatants were bom in the same county, bred up in the same grammar school, and studied at the same university — both zealous Protest- ants under King Edward, and both relapsed to Popery in the time of Queen Mary." — Heylin's Elizabeth, p. 130. 1559-1563. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 283 He refused to admit Dr. Humphreys to a living, when he had made himself conspicuous by his fanatical contentiousness, and it is to his liberality and discrimination that the Church owes the work and the fame of Richard Hooker. Had all the bishops of that day been of the temper of Bishop Jewel, the primate would have found the work to which he was now constrained to apply himself, of enforcing discipline in the Church, a far easier and more successful labour. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE NAG'S HEAD FABLE. The story invented by the Romanists to disparage the consecration and apostoli- cal succession of the bishops of the Church of England, appears to have been first set out by one Christopher Holy- wood, in the year 1603. It was repeated by Dr. Kellison, 1608 ; by Dr. Champney, 1616 ; and by many subsequent Romanist writers. Champney gives the story as follows :— " At the Nag's Head, in Cheap- side, met all those who were nominated to bishoprics (1), vacant either by death, as was that of Canterbury only (2), or by un- just deposition, as were all the rest. Thither came also the old Bishop of Lan- daff to make them bishops ; which thing being known to Doctor Bonner, Bishop of London, then prisoner, he sent unto the Bishop of Landaff, forbidding him, under pain of excommunication, to exercise any such power within his diocese as to order these men ; wherewith the old bishop, being terrified and otherwise moved in his conscience (3), refused to proceed in that action. . . . Being thus deceived of their expectation, and having no other mean to come to their desire, they resolved to use Mr. Scory's help, who, having borne the name of bishop in King Edward's time, was thought to have sufficient power to perform that office. He having cast off, together with his religious habit (for he had been a religious man), all scruple of conscience, willingly went out about the matter, which he performed in this sort : Having the Bible in his hand, and they all kneeling before him, he laid it upon every one of their heads or shoulders, saying, 'Take thou authority to preach the Word of God sincerely.'" The writer professes to have heard this narration from one Bluet, a priest, who had heard it from Neal, Bishop Bonner's chaplain, who had been sent with Bonner's message to Kitchen, Bishop of LandalT, and luas present at the ceremony (4).— Appendix to Dodd's Ch. Hist, vol. ii. No. xlii. This narrative happily bears its own re- futation on the face of it. A more clumsy falsehood was scarce ever contrived ; for (l) All those nominated to bishopries were notoriously not consecrated at the same time, but at considerable intervals. (2) It is so far from being true that Canter- bury was the only see vacant by death, that no less than eight other sees — viz. Chichester, Hereford, Bangor, Salisbury, Rochester, Norwich, Gloucester, and Bris- tol—were vacant by death. About this at least there could be no mistake. (3) Kitchen, Bishop of Llandaff, is repre- sented as being in subjection to Bonner, and disobeying the government. But this man had quite broken with the Romanists, complied in all things, and died a mem- ber of the Reformed Church. (4) Bonner's messenger Neal is represented to have been present at the ceremony ! Not a very x'>robable witness to have been select- ed. It is unnecessary in the case of so transparent a falsehood, which supposes all the documentary proofs of the regular consecration mentioned in the text to be forgeries, to enter into a more detailed refutation. This has been abundantly done by Mason, Browne, Bramhall, and Father Courayer, a French priest. The story was absolutely unknown to all the earlier Romish controversialists, as Harps- field, Hawkins, Saunders, Harding, Bris- towe, Allen, Stapleton, Rainolds, and to Bonner himself ! ! who, in his controversy with Dr. Home, never suggested that he had not been consecrated with the Eng- lish Ordinal. It may be added that aU fair-minded modern Romanist writers also reject it, as Dr. Lingard and Mr. Tierney (Notes to Dodd). Every particle of evi- dence bearing upon the subject seems to have been accumulated by the industry of Mr. Haddan, in his edition of BramhalL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XVT. (B) TABLE OF THE SUCCESSION OF THE NEW BISHOPS AT BEGINNING OP ELIZABETH'S REIGN. PRELATES RE- PRELATES CONSECRATED DIOCESE. MOVED BY DEATH. DEPRIVED. SUCCESSORS. OR CONFIRMED. Canterbury . Cardinal Pole, Nov. 18, 1558. Matthew Parker Dec. 17, 1559 Chichester '. John Christopher- son, Jan. 2, 1559. .... William Barlow Confirmed Dec. 20, 1559 Hereford . . Robert Parker, Sept. 22, 1558. John Scory Confirmed Dec. 21, 1559 London . . Edmund Bonner, June 2, 1559. Edmund Grindal Dec. 21, 1559 Ely ... Thomas Thirl e- bv, Nov. 23,1559. Richard Cox Dec. 21, 1559 Worcester . .... Richard Pate, June 30, 1559. Edwin Sandys Dec. 21, 1559 Bangor . . William Gljm, May 11, 1558. Rowland Merrick Dec. 21, 1559 St. David's . Henry Morgan. Thomas Young Jan. 21, 1560 Lincoln . . Thomas Watson, July 2, 1559. Nicholas BuUiug- ham Jan. 21, 1560 Salisbury . Cardinal Peyto, April 1558. John Jewel Jan. 21, 1560 St. Asaph . Thos. Goldwell, Richard Davies Jan. 21, 1560 July 15, 1559. Rochester . Maurice Griffith, Nov. 20, 1559. Edmund Guest Mar. 24, 1560 BathandWellp .... Gilbert Bourne. Gilbert Berkeley Mar. 24, 1560 Lichfield and Ralph Baynes, Thomas Bentham Mar. 24, 1560 Coventry June 24, 1559. Exeter . . James Turber- ville, Nov. 16, 1559. WilUam AUey July 14, 1560 Norwich . . John Hopton, Dee. 1558. .... John Parkhurst Sept. 1, 1560 Peterboro' . David Poole, Nov. 11, 1559. Edmund Scamblei Feb. 16, 1561 Winchester . John White, July 18, 1559. Robert Home Feb. 16, 1561 York . . . Nicholas Heath. Thomas Young Confirmed Feb. 20, 1561 Durham . . CuthbertTonstal Sept. 29, 1559. James Pilkington Mar. 2, 1561 Carlisle . . Owen Ogle- thorpe, June 21, 1559. John Best Mar. 2,1561 Chester . . Cuthbert Scott, June 21, 1559. William Downham May 4, 1561 Gloucester . James Brooks, Sept. 7, 1558. .... Richard Cheney Apr. 19, 1562 Bristol . . John Holyman, Nov. 1558. .... Richard Cheney (in commendam) Oxford . . Robert Kincc, Dec. 4, 1557. Archbishop Hugh Curwen, Translated Oct. 4, 1567 Chap. XVI. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 285 (C) BERNARD GILPIN. Bernard Gilpin was born of a good family in Westmoreland, became a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in the early days of its foundation, and made himself conspicuous in the University by his able and eager defence of the old religion. Tut forward in the next reign to dispute against Peter Martyr, his calm and candid examination of the controversy led him to doubt the truth of the doctrines for which he was combating. He was further ia- fluenced by the decree just then passed by the Council of Trent, that the traditions of the Church are to be held of equal authority with Scripture, and he formed the resolution of separating from the Ro- man Church. But as he was not a man to take any step hastily, he reached the reign of Queen Mary ^vithout having openly de- clared himself on the Protestant side. Tonstal, Bishop of Durham, his uncle, offered him preferment, but Gilpin pre- ferred to travel and study abroad, and would not take a living the duties of which he could not perform. He re- turned into England in the midst of the persecution, and being presented to the living of Essingdon, his preaching was so vigorous and so full of gospel truth that he was quickly denounced to Bishop Ton- stal as a heretic. But the good bishop, who hated persecution, would not molest Uim, but, instead of doing so, conferred on him the large and important living of Houghton. Here he became a very apostle to a poor, neglected, and ignorant district, gaining the love of the people by his good deeds, and instructing them by his uiinis- try. After the accession of Elizabeth he founded and endowed a school, which in due time produced a good crop of well- taught youths. His reputation was now so high that the queen nominated him to the Bishopric of Carlisle; and Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, his cousin, wrote, earnestly pressing him to accept the post, and promising in the queen's name that no manors should be filched from the see. But Gilpin was resolutely bent to keep to a humbler station. He foresaw many difficulties in administering a bishopric, whereas, with the immense influence which he had now gained, he was doing the work of a bishop without the cares and restraints. His house was a vast estab- lishment for the entertainment of scholars and distinguished men. His alms to the poor were unceasing, his labours to in- struct them infinite. "He was esteemed a very prophet," says his biographer, "and little less than adored by that half bar- barous and rustic people."! In these ad- mirable labours he lived and died. ^ Carleton's Life of Gilpin; Words- worth's E. B. iii. 398. 286 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. CHAPTER XVII. THE ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 1563-1575. § 1. The Queen averse to doctrinal statements. § 2. Disordered state of tlie clergy. § 3. Bishops commanded to amend this. § 4. Disorderly clergy summoned to Lambeth. § 5. The Primate endeavours to get disciplinary articles published by royal authority, but :the Queen refuses. § 6. He publishes the Advertisements by authority of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. § 7. Chief point in Advertisements prescribing a dress for the miaister — the dress used in the time of Elizabeth. § 8. Parker prepares to enforce the Advertisements. § 9. London ministers again summoned to Lambeth. § 10. They publish pamphlets in defence. § 11. The press restrained. § 12. Puritanism at Cambridge. § 13. Difficulty in supplying the vacant churches. § 14. Parker desires the help of the Council. § 15. Some of the Puritanical ministers decide not to separate. § 16. Others separate from the Church. § 17. Foreign divines do not encourage separation. § 18. Attempts to enforce sub- scription by statute ; the Queen angry with the Bishops. § 19. Some of the sectaries seized and imprisoned. § 20. The Bishops slandered to the foreign divines. § 21. The Council writes sharply to the Bishops. § 22. Puritanism in the Parliament of 1571. § 23. Passing of the Act for subscription to the articles. § 24. Convocation subscribes anew the Thirty-nine Articles. § 25. The Queen will not accept the Convoca- tion Canons. § 26. Final attempt to establish the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. § 27. Queen stops religious legislation in Parliament. § 28. Puritans publish the Admonitions to Parliament. § 29. Queen appoints a Commission of Oyer and Terminer to suppress Noncon- formity. § 30. The Bishops not well pleased. § 31. The manner of enforcing subscription. § 32. Death and character of Archbishop Parker. § 1. The queen was not over- well pleased with the work of the bishops and clergy in their Convocation in setting out the Thirty- nine Articles and the Second Book of Homilies. Statements of doctrine were distasteful to her, even if she were disposed heartily to accept the doctrinal teaching of the Reformers. There is reason, however, to believe that this was not the case. Thus she would only ratify the articles after making two important alterations in them, and the Book of Homilies she kept for a year under con- sideration before she would give it her approval. The archbishop was vexed by this hesitation. " I would gladly," he writes when about to commence his visitation in 1563, "the queen's majesty would resolve herself on our books of homilies, which I might 1563-157:.. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 287 deliver to tlie parishes as I go."^ That to which the queen reallj desired the bishops to apply themselves was the strict enforcement of coercive discipline, and from this many of them shrank. They were generally in favour of a lenient policy, hoping that the opponents would grow wiser and relax their stubbornness. But that a policy of decision and vigour on the part of the Church rulers was much needed seems to be shown by the general dis- organisation and disorder which prevailed among the clergy. § 2. This is forcibly set before us in a paper dra"\\Ti up by Cecil as a summary of returns received from the various dioceses in the year 1564. "Some say the service and prayers in the chancel, others in the body of the church ; some say the same in a seat made in the church, some in the pulpit with their faces to the people ; some keep precisely the order of the book, others intermeddle Psalms in metre ; some say in a surplice, others with- out a surplice ; the table standeth in the body of the church in some places, in others it standeth in the chancel ; in some places the table standeth altarwise, distant from the wall a yard, in some others in the middle of the chancel, north and south ; in some places the table is joined, in others it standeth upon tressels ; in some places the table hath a carpet, in others it hath not ; administration of the Communion is done by some with surplice and cap, some with surplice alone, others with none ; some with chalice, others with a communion cup, others with a common cup ; some with unleavened bread, some with leavened ; some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting ; some baptize in a font, some in a basin ; some sign with the sign of the cross, others sign not. Apparel — some with a square cap, some with a round cap, some with a button cap, some with a hat." 2 § 3. Such disorder as this angered the queen, whose love of order and ceremonial was her strongest religious sentiment. By her command Cecil addressed a letter to the bishops through the Primate. In this she complains that by neglect of the bishops " there is crept into the Church an open and manifest disorder and offence, specially in the external, and decent, and lawful rites and ceremonies to be used in the Church." She had hoped that the bishops would have checked this, but on the contrary she observes it rather to increase than diminish. Wherefore she gives the bishops to understand " that she means not to endure and suffer these evils thus to proceed, spread, and increase in her realm, but has certainly determined to have them reformed, and repressed, and the ceremonies of the Church brought to one manner of uni- formity throughout the realm, that the slanders spread abroad ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 177. ' Strype's Parker, ii. 19 (folio ed.) 288 ATTEMPT TO ENFOECE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XYIL thereiipou in foreign countries may be caused to cease." The archbishop is therefore bid to confer with the Ecclesiastical Com- missioners and the ordinaries, and finding out the things which need reformation, to proceed by order, injunction, or censure, according to the Act of Parliament, that uniformity may be fully established, and he is bid to use all expedition in the matter.^ The Primate, on receiving this letter immediately addressed a circular to his sufi'ragans, bidding them strictly to put the laws in force, and. to return to him by the last day of February next (1565) a certificate as to the state of their dioceses. § 4. He himseK, together with some of the bishops who were Ecclesiastical Commissioners, summoned before him at Lambeth some of the disorderly London ministers and certain divines from the universities who upheld this opposition to the law, anc| endeavoured to reduce them to obedience.^ § 5. It was perceived, however, that the queen's object would not be fully carried out unless a larger and more specific code of rules for the ministration of the clergy than any which had yet appeared, were put forth. This code of rules the Primate desired to have published by the royal authority in conformity with the provision in the Act of Uniformity. On March 3, 1565, Parker sent to Cecil a " Book of Articles," " partly of old agreed upon among us, and partly of late these three or four days considered," to obtain his judgment upon them.^ Apparently Cecil approved of the book, for on March 8 the archbishop wrote again, sending the book to obtain, if possible, the queen's authorisation. *' If the queen's majesty will not authorise them, the most part be likely to lie in the dust for execution on our parts. Laws be so much against our private doings. ' The queen's majesty with consent,' etc., I trust shall be obeyed."* But the queen refused to have anything to do with the Book of Articles. She was determined to have conformity, and equally determined that the bishops should be at the trouble of enforcing it without any special help from her. The archbishop w^as greatly annoyed at this. He writes to Cecil : " I would ye had not stirred istam camarinam^ or else have set it on to some order at the beginning." ^ He was disinclined to publish the articles without the royal authorisation, and desired to let the matter drop. After a year's waiting, how- ever, he made one more attempt to obtain the queen's authority. March 12, 1666, he writes to Cecil, enclosing a letter to the queen. He recalls to the secretary's mind that " last year certain of us agreed and consulted upon some particularities in apparel, 1 Parker Correspondence, 223-7. ^ Strype, Annals, ii. 129. 3 Parker Correspondmce, p. 233. ^ lb. p. 234. ^ 2b. p. 236 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 289 and for that by statute we be inhibited to set out any constitu- tions without license obtained of the prince, I send them to your honour to be presented. They could not be allowed then, I can- not tell of what meaning, which I now send again, humbly pray- ing that if not all, yet so many as be thought good be returned with some authority, at the least way for particular apj)arel, or else we shall not be able to do so much as the queen's majesty expecteth of us to be done."i The queen, however, was inexorable. § 6. The archbishop then changed the Book of Articles into a Book of '^ Advertisements Tpavtlj ioT the due order in the public administration of common prayers and using the holy sacraments, and partly for the apparel of all persons ecclesiastical, by virtue of the queen's majesty's letters commanding the same." With this changed title he sent the document again to Cecil, March 28, 1566,^ with a letter praying him to peruse this draft of letters, and the Book of Advertisements, with his pen. " I am now fully bent," he says, " to prosecute this order, and to delay no longer, and I have weeded out of the articles all such of doctrine which peradventure stayed the book from the queen's majesty's approbation, and have put in things advouchable, and, as I take it, against no law of the realm. And when the queen's highness will needs have me assay with mine own authority what I can do for order,^ I trust I shall not be stayed hereafter, saving that I would pray your honour to have your advice to do that more prudently in this common cause which needs must be done." ^ The code of rules thus set out by the authority of the Primate and other bishops, " in obedience to the queen's letters," declares that it does not lay down these rules as laws equivalent with the eternal Word of God, and as of necessity to bind the conscience, but as temporal orders, mere ecclesiastical, and as rules for decency, distinction, and order for the time."^ § 7. The principal point in which these Advertisements of the Metropolitan differed from the queen's Injunctions of 1559 was in prescribing a dress for the ministration of the sacraments and for ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 263. 2 The Advertisements therefore could not have been published until after this date, and not in 1564 as Strype eiToneously supposes, in which error lie is followed by Dr. Cardwell and others. "* As it has frequently been contended that these Advertisements received the queen's sanction, and thus became, under the Statute of Uniformity, a legal modification of the provisions of that Act, it is well to observe this ex- pression. Further proofs that the Advertisements were never sanctioned by tlie queen will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ■' Parker Correspondence, p. 272. ^ For the text of the Advertisements, see Cardwell, Doc. Annah, i. 287- 297. 290 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. public prayers. It was not thought necessary to prescribe such a dress in the Injunctions, because the rubric in the Prayer-book ordered such ornaments of the minister to be used as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI. This rubric, therefore, sanctioned the chasuble, alb, and tunicle, as well as the cope and surplice. But there is no trace of this rubric having been anything more than a dead letter.^ Throughout the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign, the vestments, about which there was so much controversy, and of which there is such frequent mention in the Zurich Letters, are again and again particularised as the cope and surplice. These were the vestures specified in the " Interpretations." But this was now found to be more than could be conveniently enforced. In many places the copes had been destroyed in spite of the Injunction that an inventory should be taken of all such Church property.^ In others, both minister and people were set against the use of so gorgeous a dress. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, therefore, in their Advertisements were constrained to be content with a lesser ceremonial than that which they had at first contemplated. Copes were now ordered to be worn only in cathedral churches. And that they were henceforth considered to be illegal in parish churches, is proved by the fact that the bishops in their Visitation Articles frequently inquire whether they had been destroyed.^ The rubric in the Prayer- book was thus altogether ignored. But it remained, nevertheless, in full force. Chasubles and albs were still strictly the legal dress. The Advertisements did not affect the legal binding of the rubric. Being published without the queen's authority, they were not such a " taking of further order " as was conceded to the queen by the rubric and the Act of Uniformity, should she desire to use this privilege. Possibly the queen may have withheld her consent to the Advertisements as hoping some day to see a more ornate ritual introduced. But this was seen to be impossible at the present time. The " Advertisements," therefore, prescribed the miiiimum of ritual which would be tolerated. § 8. Having laid this foundation for his disciplinary work, the Primate prepared to enter vigorously upon it. " As for the ^ Bishop Cosm says, " For the disuse of these ornaments we may thank them that came from Geneva, and in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign heing set in places of government suffered every negligent priest to do what him listed. " — Works, v. 42. See Notes and Illustrations to Chap. XV. ^ See the returns to this Injunction in the inventories for the diocese of Lincoln, published by Mr. Peacock. Out of 150 parishes the cope had been retained only in about one-sixth. — Droop, Edwardian Vestments, p. 9. ^ Vestments, albs, stoles, etc. , are always inquired after as illegal thmgs, to be destroyed. 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 291 most part of these recusants," he writes, " I could wish them out of the niinistry as mere ignorant and vain heads." ^ But the arch- bishop was not well supported by his brethren. " I see some of them," he writes to Cecil, " to be fleni rimarum, hue atque illuc effiuunty Unable to shake themselves free from the influence of the foreign reformers and the associations with which they had become familiar during their exile, the main body of the Eliza- bethan bishops were both Calvinistic in doctrine and inclined to Presbyterianism in discipline. With such slack helpers, the task promised to be no easy one. The archbishop had, as has been mentioned, made an attempt to reduce the London clergy to con- formity in the year 1565, before the publication of the Adver- tisements. At that time about 140 appeared before him at Lambeth, of whom all but thirty promised conformity. ^ § 9. In 1566, the London ministers were again cited before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at Lambeth, and required to make the declaration of conformity appended to the Advertisements. On this occasion sixty-one promised obedience and thirty-seven re- fused.3 The recusants were suspended or deprived. § 10. But though deprived of their cures they were not con- tent to subside into silence. They put forth " a declaration of the doings of those ministers of God's word and sacraments in the city of London which have refused to wear the upper apparel and minister- ing garments of the pope's Church." ^ In this they object to the Church habits as having been derived from heathen sources, and having been perverted to gross superstition and idolatry. Even if they were indiff'erent, which they do not 'grant, they say they ought not to be enforced, which is against Christian liberty. Other books to the same purport came forth. Among these one obtained some reputation for its scurrilous and sarcastic vein. It was called " A Pleasant Dialogue between a Soldier of Berwick and an English Chaplain." § 11. It was thought necessary to restrain the liberty of the press by a Council order inflicting imprisonment and the loss of his license on any printer who should publish anything against the queen's Injunctions or ordinances. § 12. At Cambridge the cause of the deprived London ministers was espoused in an open and defiant manner. The students refused to 1 Parker Correspomlence, p. 272-3. 2 Strype, Annals, i. 133. Grindal, c. ii. At this time Turner, Dean of Wells, and Sampson, Dean of Clirist Church, were deprived for noncon- formity. Humphreys, President of Magdalen, was allowed a further time. He ultimately conformed. 3 strype's Grvidal, c. ii. "* Neal's Puritans, i. 177. 292 ATTEMPT TO ENFOECE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XYII. wear surplices, and the masters both, of Trinity and St. John's appear to have encouraged them in their lawlessness.^ § 1 3. The Primate and the Bishop of London found great diffi- culty in supplying ministers for the vacated churches, and the ministers appointed to act were subjected to insults and obstruction. Sometimes the churchwardens refused to provide the surplice or the elements for holy communion. Sometimes these, even when provided, were carried away by some fanatical member of the con- gregation. " The precise folk," says the archbishop, " would offer their goods and bodies to prison rather than relent." 2 § 14. Once, however, having commenced the policy of coercion, the archbishop was obliged to proceed. He did it with a melan- choly foreboding that it would not prove successful. There were, as he well knew, more than one among the queen's counsellors who encouraged the contentious clergy in their resistance, hoping to ruin the Church, and to gain its goods as plunder. " I utterly despair," he writes, " as of myself ; can it be thought that I alone, having sun and moon against me, can compass this difficulty? In King Edward's time the whole body of the Council travailed."^ Moved by his appeal; the Council lent him some little assistance, committing some of the deprived malcontents to the custody of various bishops. § 15. Among the deprived ministers themselves there was anxious deliberation as to their policy for the future. Were they to decline to separate from a Church in which the word and sacra- ments were truly administered, though defiled with many super- stitions ? " or were they, inasmuch as they could not have the Word of God preached nor the sacraments administered without idolatrous gear, to break off from the public churches, and assemble, as they had opportunity, in private houses or elsewhere to worship God in a manner which might not offend against the light of their con- sciences? " * There was a division among them on these grounds. Sampson, Humphreys, and Foxe, Coverdale and Lever, and the better learned and more distinguished among the objectors to the Church ceremonial, continued in communion with the Church, exercising their ministry as far as the authorities would permit them. § 16. Another section of less distinguished men broke off en- tirely from the Church, established a worship and discipline of their own, and thus committed the first formal act of schism in the reformed Church of England. It is well to observe that this scliismatical separation and setting up of altar against altar took ^ Strype, Annals, ch. xliv. ^ Parker Correspondence, pp. 273, 277. 3 Ih. p. 280. ^ Neal, Puritans, 1. 181. 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 293 place solely and entirely on the question of the vesture to be worn in ministering. 1 No charge of false doctrine was made against the Church, nor was any other part of the ceremonial as yet strongly opposed. It was the wearing of a decent and ancient garment in their ministrations which seemed so intolerable to these men that they were prepared to convulse and rend the Church rather than submit to it. It was to these men, thus separating from the Church on these slight grounds, that the name of Puritan was first applied,"'^ a name of ill omen to the Church of England. But though the first nonconformists left the Church simply on the ground of the clerical habits, the necessity of defending their position at once led them to draw together and set forth all the objections against the Church system which they could devise. Neal, the historian of the Puritans, draws out these imder twelve heads, all of which will meet us again and again in the subsequent history. § 17. The foreign reformers did not encourage the action of the English Puritans in separating from the Church. Knox from Scotland, Beza from Geneva, Bullinger from Zurich, alike condemned it. Beza writes, " We do not think the matters of so great moment, that therefore the pastors should leave their ministry rather than take up these garments, or that the flocks should omit the public food rather than hear pastors so clothed." ^ The bishops, dreading the contentiousness and stiffness of the Puritans, were anxious to obtain the help of statute law in enforcing the settlement made by the Church. § 18. At the suggestion of some of them, on December 5, 1566, an attempt was made to enforce subscrij)tion to the Articles by statute. This policy was distasteful to the queen, who desired to govern the Church by her prerogative and by the Ecclesiastical Com- mission, and not by statute law. On the contrary, it approved itself to the bishops because they saw the great facilities in their admi- nistration which the force of statute law would give to them. In the Commons " A Bill for uniformity of doctrine to which was annexed a little book printed in 1562-3," passed quickly and easily.^ In the House of Lords, however, it was stopped by the command of the queen. Upon this a remonstrance was addressed to her Majesty by the bishops, in a paper pressing earnestly on the queen to allow the bill to proceed in the Upper House, declaring 1 Grindal and Home to BuUiDger, Zurich Letters^ i. 176 ; JeAvel to Bullinger, ih. 1. 185. ^ Heylin, Hist, of Preshyteriaris, p. 249. ^ Strype's Grindal, Appendix i. xvi. * D'Ewes, Journals of Queen Eliz. Pari. p. 132 ; Cardwell, Synodal ia, p. 59, note. The "little book" was no doubt the English copy of the Arti- cles Avhich dill not contain the clause — " The Chui'ch has power to decree rites and ceremonies." 294 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII, tliat tlie matter toiiclied the glory of God, the advancement of true religion, and the salvation of souls; that nothing would be so salu- tary for getting rid of diversities of opinion and errors, as to have a standard of doctrine established by law, and that the bill could not be stayed without very great danger to the Church." i This was signed by the two archbishops and by thirteen bishops. The queen was very angry at this resistance to her will. She sent for the two primates. Parker was ill and unable to attend, but Arch- bishop Young apologised as best he could, and (as he writes to Parker) " her Majesty appeared to be satisfied." ^ But the queen was by no means satisfied. She was extremely angry with the bishops for not securing order in the Church, and she was deter- mined that they should be made to do their work without any fresh help either from herself or the Parliament, § 19. Hearing of the assemblies which the nonconformists were venturing to hold in London, the queen notified to the Eccle- siastical Commissioners that she expected stricter measures to be taken. On June 19, 1567, the sheriffs of London seized about 100 sectaries at Plumbers' Hall, which they had hired under pre- tence of a wedding, and next day some of them were brought before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The sectaries showed a bold and contentious sj^irit, and would not yield to authority. They were committed to Bridewell, but their punishment was far from quench- ing the sectarian spirit. In fact it rapidly spread, and soon had a regular headquarters established at Wandsworth, which issued in- flammatory publications and exercised a direction over the whole body. At present, however, separation was chiefly confined to the London district. In the other parts of England there were abun- dance of ministers more or less inconformable, but these did not abandon their position, but kept up a continual struggle with their bishops, endeavouring to evade the law as far as possible. § 20. Had it not been for the support which these men re- ceived in high places, doubtless much more might have been done. "If I draw forward," writes the Primate, "and others draw back- ward, what shall it avail ? " ^ But the queen either did not see or did not choose to mark this great difficulty in the way of the bishops, and she continued to vent upon them her sharpest reproofs and displeasure for not accomplishing that which in fact the intrigues of her courtiers made almost impossible for them to accomplish. It was the policy of Leicester and other anti-church councillors who surrounded the queen, on the one hand to stir up the Puritans to resistance and to calumnious attacks on the bishops, on the other to represent to her Majesty that all the nonconformity in the land was due to episcopal slackness. 1 Parker Correspondence, p. 292. ^ Ih. p. 291, note. - lb. p. 263. 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 295 § 21. Thus, in November 1569, the council was directed to write to the Primate- and througli him to the other bishops that the queen found " that universally in the ecclesiastical government the care and diligence that properly belongeth to the office of bishops is, of late years, so diminished and decayed, as no small number of her subjects are entered either into dangerous errors, or into a manner of life of contempt and liberty without use or exer- cise of any of the rites of the Church." " There is a universal oversight and negligence of the bishops of the realm." ^ Such accusations as these, though they were -doubtless well deserved by some of the prelates, must have pressed very hardly upon thoee who, like the Primate, were striving through good report and evil to do their duty. We cannot wonder at the bitterness with which he writes, " If I had not been so much bound to the mother, I would not so soon have granted to serve the daughter in this place ; and if I had not well trusted to have died ere this time, your hon- our should have sent thrice for me before I w^ould have returned from Cambridge." ^ § 22. In the Parliament w^hich met April 1571, the growth of the Puritanical element as a power in the State was quickly de- monstrated. Mr. Strickland, " a grave and ancient man," argued so vigorously for a further reformation, that, notwithstanding the opposition made by the queen's ministers, the House of Commons appointed a committee of fourteen to confer with the bishops on the subject.^ The bill for subscription to the Articles, which had been stopped in a previous Parliament, w^as now reintroduced, and six other biUs relating to the Church were brought in. When the reformation committee met the bishops, the Primate, commenting upon several omissions in the sketch of things needed, said, " I suppose you are willing to leave these matters in the hands of the bishops?" "No, by the faith I owe to God," exclaimed IVIr. Wentworth ; " we will pass nothing before we understand what it is. That w^ere to make you popes. Make you popes who list — we will make you none." ^ This rude outburst signified but too truly the temper beginning to prevail with regard to the Church rulers, goaded on as they M-ere by the queen to coercive measures. § 23. Some little consolation was probably felt by the bishops that in this Parliament the Act enforcing subscription to the Articles which they had earnestly desired before, but which the queen had opposed, was at length carried. It enacted that all ministers who had been ordained by any other formula than that set forth in King Edward's time and now used, should declare their assent to the Articles and subscribe them before the bishoj) ; that all others having 1 Parker Correspondence, p. 355. ^ H) p_ 391^ 3 D'Ewes, Journals of Pari. pp. 157, 176. * Strype, Annals, iii. 09* 296 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. any ecclesiastical living should do the same, and testify the fact openly to the congregation, and also read aloud the Articles ; that any ecclesiastical person teaching anything opposed to the said Articles should he liable to deprivation ; that all incumbents here- after appointed should read and subscribe the Articles within two months of their induction ; that none should be ordained priest before the age of twenty-four, and with fitting testimonials ; none to be ordained deacon until he shall have subscribed the Articles ; all admissions to benefices contrary to the provisions of this Act to be ipso facto void in law.^ This Act w^as carried by the Com- mons in the teeth of a direct message from the queen requiring them not to deal with it. Elizabeth knew when to yield, and, judging the temper of the House rightly, she gave it her royal assent (May 29).^ § 24. The Convocation sitting concurrently with the Parliament had resolved, with reference to the bill before Parliament, " That when the Book of Articles touching doctrine should be fully agreed upon, then the same should be put in print by the order and direction of the Bishop of Sarum (Jewel), and a price set on the same, as it was to be ?old. That the same being printed, every bishop to have a convenient number of them to publish throughout their dioceses, and to be read in every parish church throughout the province four times a year." ^ Bishop Jewel accordingly revised the Articles both in the Latin and English editions, making some small changes. Both editions were laid before Convocation, and both subscribed by the members, though there is good reason to believe that the two editions did not contain identically the same matter,^ § 25. The Convocation drew up a body of canons, very salutary and useful for the guidance of the clergy, which were duly laid before her Majesty. The queen, however, showed her pique at having been defeated in the matter of tlie Subscription Act by refusing to sign them. Parker writes to Cecil, " If it will please her Majesty to grant our Book of Discipline, I will labour to put it in print for further instruction — Si own placet, faciat Doniinus quod honum est in ocidis ejus. Eor my part I am at a point in these worldly respects, and yet shall be ready to hear qiiicl in me loquatur Dominus!^ ^ § 26. An attempt was made in this Parliament to revive and give authority to the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, which had 1 13 Eliz. c. 12. ^ On the point of the exact force of this Act and some other curious points connected with the puLlication of the Thirty-nine Articles, see Notes and llhistrations to this chapter. ^ gtrype's Parker, iv. 5. •^ See Notes and lUustrations. '^ Favlcer Correspondence, p. 382. 1563-1575. THE ADVEETISEMENTS. 297 BO narrowly missed becoming the law of the Churcli of England in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. A new edition of it was prepared and printed by John Foxe, under the direction of Archbishop Parker, and a motion was made in the House of Com- mons by Mr. Norton that the book should be legally sanctioned. This, however, fell through, and the book now finally disappears from our ecclesiastical history. Had it been accepted by the Church it would have served more than anything else to sever the reformed Church of England from the Church of the past. It contained many most objectionable laws, and is generally considered (though its language on this point is ambiguous) to sanction the punishment of death for heresy .■'• As the matter now stands, the canons of the imiversal church are binding on English Churchmen when they have been received and adopted by English synods, and are not contrariant to English law either canonical or statute. This is a link with the past which it would be very unwise to sever, and which, like the English Prayer-book, has survived the times of hitter strife and convulsion with which the Church has been tried. § 27. In the parliamentary session of 1572, Mr. Wentworth, who had made himself conspicuous in a former session by his Puritanical zeal, again brought in two Bills of Eeformation, which were designed to cut away the ceremonial, and reform the Church after the pattern of Geneva. The queen, determined now to act more vigorously, sent a message to the House of Commons by the Speaker, that it was her will that no bills respecting religion should l3e received by the House except they had been first ap- proved by the clergy in their Convocations, and she ordered the bills for reformation to be sent to her. The next day a message was brought down by the treasurer that she utterly disliked the bills, and she would have the matter proceed no farther.^ The Commons obeyed the command, and the Puritan members could obtain no further hearing. § 28. When Parliament was prorogued the Puritanical faction was fiercely indignant. An able and learned man, Thomas Cart- wright,^ late Margaret Professor at Cambridge, now came to their aid. Under his direction a number of their divines — Gilby, Samp- son, Lever, Field, and Wilcox — drew up a volume, containing two addresses to the Parliament, called The First and Second Admoni- tion. These compositions were in effect an elaborate attack upon the Church. They denounced its doctrme, discipline, and ad- ^ See Liugard, v. 81, note; Hallain, Co7ist. Hist. i. 100, 7iote. 2 Strype, Annals, iii. 185. ^ For the previou.s history of Cartwright, see Notes and Illustrationg to this chapter. 298 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. ministration in the most bitter terms, and boldly advocated the Geneva platform. Nothing like it had yet appeared. The book was eagerly sought for, and in spite of the utmost efforts to repress it was printed with alarming rapidity. All that the Primate could do was to procure an answer to be written. For this work he employed Dr. John "Whitgift, Dean of Lincoln, and now prolo- cutor of the Canterbury Convocation, an old antagonist of Cart- wright's at Cambridge. Parker himself furnished the topics on which the answer to the apology should turn. § 29. But while the bishops were arguing, the queen deter- mined to act. Convinced at last that some extraordinary legal measures were needed to put down nonconformity, and that this end could not be effected by the ordinary exercise of Church discipline, she resolved to adopt more vigorous measures. But she would not practically admit the truth of the representations made to her by the Primate and the bishops, without inflicting uj^on them a final castigation for their inefficiency, which had made these things necessary. In a proclamation, issued October 20, 1573, she openly charges the bishops with negligence, and in a letter addressed to them by the Council she allows them to be deliberately and publicly insulted : — " The fault is in you, to whom the special care of ecclesiastical matters doth appertain, and who have your visitations, episcopal and archidiaconal, and your synods, and such other meetings of the clergy, first and chiefly ordained for that purpose, to keep all churches in your diocese in one uniform and godly order, which now is, as is commonly said (the more's the pity), to be only used of you and your officers to get money, or for some other purposes."^ The proclamation appointed a special commission of Oyer and Terminer, and nominated certain lay com- missioners for each diocese, who, together with the bishops and their officials, were to make a strict search for nonconformists, and bring them before the judges. § 30. The bishops, not unnaturally, murmured at the some- what degrading part they were made to play in this business. " The late proclamation," writes Grindal, " seems to lay a very heavy burden on our shoulders, and that, generally and equally, without respect of differences, whereas, indeed, there is not like occasion given of all. " " If I, your grace, and some more were gone," writes Bishop Cox, " indeed there would be cheer."- Bishop Parkhurst of Norwich, an old favourer of the Puritans, finds him- self at last, much to his annoyance, constrained to act vigorously against them. " The matter is of importance, and toucheth me so near," he writes to one who remonstrated against the increase of 1 Strype's Parker, iv. 36. ^ lb. u.s. 1563-1575. THE ADVERTISEMENTS. 299 strictness, " as less than this I cannot do if I will avoid extreme danger. I do heartily j^ray you to assist me in this hehalf, and not contrariwise to persuade, since this purpose is necessary, and looked for at both our hands." i So vigorously did the work pro- ceed in the diocese of Norwich that not less than 300 clergy are said to have been suspended. ^ § 31. The suspected clergy were required to subscribe a declara- tion approving of the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles, and the supremacy, and, in addition, making a sort of recantation as fol- lows : — " And whereas I have in public prayer and administration of the sacraments neglected and omitted the order by public authority set down, following my own fancy in altering, adding, and omitting of the same, not using such rites as by law and order are appointed, I acknowledge my fault therein, and am sorry for it, and humbly pray pardon for that disorder. And here I do submit myself to the order and rites set down, and I do pro- mise that I will henceforth, in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, use and observe the same." For the laity who had been unconformable, in place of the last paragraph this was substituted : — " And whereas I have absented myself from my parish church, and have refused to join with the congregation in public prayer and in receiving the sacrament, according to the public order set down and my duty in that behalf, I am right sorry for it, and pray that this my fault may be pardoned ; and I do promise that from henceforth I will frequent my parish church, and join with the congregation there as well in prayer as in ad- ministration of the sacraments, according to such order as by public authority is set down and established." ^ The queen having thus taken into her own hands the exercise of ecclesiastical dis- cipline, continued to regard with disfavour the bishops, whose slackness in her view had made this necessary. Parker himself was out of favour at court, probably through the acts and misre- presentations of Leicester, and all the great and valuable work which he had done for the Church of England was forgotten. § 32. In the spring of 1575 the acute disease, to which he had long been subject, overcame him, and he passed away to his rest (May 17). On his death-bed he wrote to the queen a plain- spoken and much needed reproof for the way in which she had robbed the Church of its revenues, and suffered her courtiers to enrich themselves from its spoils. Unfortunately, two of the greatest of them (Cecil, now Lord Bmieigh, and Bacon) were mentioned by name. Both these men had been the archbishop's 1 Strype, AtiTials, iii. 390. 2 Neal's Puritans, i. 242. 3 /^^ ^ 248. 300 ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE DISCIPLINE. Chap. XVII. friends and supporters, and tliougli what he said of tliem was triie^ yet it seemed to come somewhat hardly from him. On these grounds some of those who were cognisant of the contents of the letter, informed Lord Burleigh of it, and it never reached the queen. Archbishop Parker was buried with much solemnity in Lambeth Church, June 6, 1575. It may be said of him that he was a thorough " Church of England man." Moderate in his views, but firmly opposed to both Romanism and Puritanism, he desired to enforce the laws, not because " he cared for cap, tippet, surplice, wafer-bread, or such, but for the laws established." ^ He was valuable as a fair-judging, temj^erate, earnest man, at a time of great excitement and difficulty. He was also especially valu- able to the Church as an organiser at a time of change and con- fusion. The articles which he drew up for his visitation formed the models for all the other prelates.^ As an Ecclesiastical Com- missioner, he settled the procedure of the court. As a visitor of colleges, he gave new statutes to several colleges, and to the Uni- versity of Cambridge. As Metropolitan he set out statutes for the cathedrals of the new foundation. The table of the prohibited degrees in matrimony was drawn by him. He was principally concerned in arranging the calendar for Sunday lessons, and in the revision and settling of the Thirty-nine Articles. The revision of the Bible was brought to a successful issue under his care, and published in 1568, while many learned works of more or less value proceeded from his pen. Such a 2)rimate was a great boon to the Church of England in the difficult period at which he was called to administer his high functions, and his loss was un- feignedly and justly lamented. ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 479. ^ Stryj^e's ParJcer, ii. 2, Aj^pendix ii. xi. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE "ADVERTISEMENTS" NEVER SANCTIONED BY THE QUEEN. There lias been much controversy on this head. It is not pretended that the Advertisements were ever published under the Great Seal, but it is said that they were adopted by a royal proclamation afterwards. There is no trace of such a proclamation. On the contrary, the way in which the Advertisements w^ere always described plainly shows that they were not adopted by the queen. This is proved by Parker's language quoted in the text, and also by the expressions which he uses to Grindal, charging him to see "her Majesty's laws and orders duly observed, and also these our convenient orders, de- scribed in these books at this present sent unto your lordshii?." In the canons of 1571 the Advertisements are simply called Libelhis admoniUonum, without hav- ing any royal authority attributed to them. In the canons of 1576 an allusion to them was struck out by the queen, apparently for no other reason than lest she might be thought in ratifying the canons to give the Advertisements her authority. Chap. XVII. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 301 (B) THE BILL FOR SUBSCRIPTION, AND THE FINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES —AN EPISCOPAL NONCONFORM- IST. Great doubt has been felt as to the ex- act nature of the enactment of subscrip- tion to the Articles. The copy of the Articles referred to by the Act was not the Latin copy ratified by the qiieen, but the English unauthorised copy published at the same time. This did not contain tlie clause of the 20th Article— "The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies," etc. Tlie statute law did not therefore compel any one to subscribe to this. Secondly, the statute specifying the Articles describes them as "those which only concern the confession of the true faith and the doctrine of the sacra- ments." From these words it was after- wards inferred by the Puritans that they were only called upon to subscribe the doctrinal Articles, and not such as related to ceremonies, etc. But the fact that the word only is put after which instead of before it, seems to show that this expres- sion does not mean to divide the Articles, but to describe the whole of them as be- longing to faith and doctrine. This was the judgment of Sir E. Coke (Collier, Ch. Hist. vi. 489). The clerical subscription, which was enforced by canon and royal prerogative, applied to the copy of the Articles finally subscribed and accepted by Convocation, that is the Latin copy of 1571 which contains the controverted clauses. As so much confusion prevails as to the different copies of the Articles, the following Table may help to make things clearer :— I. The Clause of the 20th Article— "The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in con- troversies of faith"— is Not found in 1. Convocation copy of 15C3 (Lat.) (Parker MSS.) 2. English edition of 15G3. The " Little Book" of the Act of Parliament. 3. Latin edition of 1571. Is FOUND IN 1. Latin edition, 1563. (Ratified by queen.) 2. English editions (several, 1571). 3. Convocation copy of 1571 (Lai ) (Parker MSS.) All subsequent editions. II. The 20th Article— Not found in 1. Latin edition of 15C3. (Ratified.) 2. English do., 1563. Found in 1. Convocation copy of 1503. (Parker MSS.) 2. Latin and English, 1571. 3. Convocation copy, 1571. (Parker MSS.) All subsequent editions. (Cardwell, Synodalia, i. 62, note). With respect to subscription to the Ar- ticles, it was most rigidly enforced on the Convocation in 1571. Those who had not subscribed in 1563 were now, if members of the House, to be called on peremptorily to do so, or to be expelled. i One bishop who refused to subscribe incurred a still heavier sentence. This was Richard Chey- ney, Bishop of Gloucester,'who for refus- ing to subscribe was excommunicated, but afterwards absolved. (C) THOMAS CARTWRIGHT was born in Hertfordshire about 1535, was much distinguished in Cambridge, and chosen Fellow of St. John's, and afterwards removed to Trinity. He dis- puted before Queen Elizabeth in her visit to Cambridge in 1 564, when he was eclipsed by Dr. Preston, and it is said much of his bitterness against the Church afterwards is to be traced to this cause. In 1570 he was chosen Margaret Professor of Divinity, and began to give utterance to his pecu- liar tenets on Church discipline. He was complained of by Dr. Whitgift to the chancellor. Lord Burleigh, and when in 1571 Whitgift became ^ice-chancellor, he was deprived of his professorship and fel- lowship, and expelled the University. He then retired to Antwerp, acting as Englisli minister to the merchants there, and from this place he directed the drawing up of the Admonition to Parliament by Field, Wilcox, and others, and himself wrote a Second Admonition, which was published with the first. When Wliitgift answered the Admonition, Cartwright replied to it, and on Whitgift publishing a defence of his answer, Cartwright after some interval again replied. He was appointed Master of the Hospital at Warwick, but as Wiit- gift refused to license him as preaclier he again quitted the kingdom. On his return he was involved in the troubles which be- fell the Puritans at that time, and impri- soned. Finally he was liberated, and died at his liospital in Warwick, 1603. 1 Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 529. 302 ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL'S PRIMACY. Chap. XYIII. CHAPTER XVIII. ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL's PRIMACY THE PROPHESYINGS. 1575-1583. §•1. Grindal tlie new Primate ; his previous work in the north. § 2. In- creasing boldness of the Puritans. § 3. They are supported by the Courtiers. § 4. The Queen's urgent dealing in the matter of Church property. § 5. Grindal brings the Fifteen Articles before Convocation. § 6. The Queen makes alterations in them before ratifying. § 7. Points touched ;by the Articles. § 8. Grindal observes the want of Preachers. § 9. He proposes to encourage and regulate the " Pro- phesyings." § 10. Nature and previous history of these exercises. § 11. The Queen angrily reproves the Archbishop, and bids him stop the Prophesyings. § 12. Grindal's letter in reply. § 13. He is suspended. § 14. Queen's letter to the Bishops. § 15. Action and opinions of the Bishops in the matter. § 16. The Primate's suspension confirmed. § 17. Nature of this suspension. § 18. The letter of the Convocation in his favour. § 19. Convocation occupied with disciplinary matters. § 20. The Archbishop licenses a Presbyterian divine. § 21. Grindal partially submits, and his suspension is removed. § 22. The Pro- phesyings recommended by the Council. § 23. The Archbishop prepares to resign, but is prevented by death. § 24. His character. § 1. Archbishop Parker was succeeded in the primacy by Edmund Grindal, Archbisliop of York, and previously Bishop of London. Grindal was a man of a different school from Parker, having been one of the Marian exiles. He had learned abroad to undervalue the distinctive teaching of the Church in comparison with what he considered vital truths, and as Bishop of London he showed at first a slackness in discipline which drew upon him the censure of the Primate. Afterwards he appears to have taken a distinct stand against the Puritans, and in Yorkshire to have been success- ful in repressing what little of Puritanism had penetrated into the north. "In very deed," he writes in 15 73, "in my diocese that uniform order allowed by the book is universally observed." ^ Again, in 1574, he writes : "We are in good quietness, God be thanked, both for the civil and ecclesiastical state." ^ The tendency in the north was towards the old superstitions, and not towards Puritanism, so that the archbishop obtained, cheaply enough, the reputation of a disciplinarian. Grindal had also displayed a be- ^ Strype's TarTcer^ iv. 36. ^ Strype's Grindal^ ii. 4. 1575-1583. THE PROPHESYINGS. 303 coming spirit in striving to repress the disorders at Durham, where a Puritan bishop, and a still more Puritan dean, had con- trived almost to obliterate the features of the Church of England.^ The amount of disciplinary energy which he had shown, little though it probably was ; still more, perhaps, the knowledge of his amiable and gentle disposition, which raised the presumption that he would be found amenable to the suggestions of the lay authority, recommended Grindal to Lord Burleigh, and through him to the queen. He was confirmed 15th February 1576, having had many conflicts with himself, as he says, about accepting the great responsibility, and only doing so at last, " lest in resisting his vocation he might with Jonas ofiend God, and occasion a tempest." ^ § 2. The chief administrative officer of the Church could not at that moment promise himself a very quiet term of office. The nonconformists and the Puritanical conformists were rapidly increasing in the audacity of their attacks on the Church. " They have lately broken down," writes Bishop Cox in 1573, "the barriers of all order in the Church, by their abusive writings. They are labouring to bring about a revolution in our Church."^ Grindal himself whites : " Our affairs, after the settlement of the question respecting ceremonies, were for some time very quiet, when some virulent pamphlets came forth in which almost the whole external polity of our Church was attacked. They maintain that archbishops and bishoj)s should altogether be reduced to the ranks ; that the ministers of the Church ought to be elected solely by the people, that in every city, town, parish, or village, a con- sistory should be established, consisting of the minister and elders of the place, who alone are to decide on all ecclesiastical affairs." ^ § 3. In order to attract supporters, these men " bawled out to those harpies who were greedily hankering after plunder and spoil, that the property and revenues of the cathedral churches ought to be diverted to I know not what other uses." ^ " The earl " (Leicester) " by the help of the Precisians," was ever striving to overthrow the Church, that he might enrich himself,^ knowing 1 Bishop Pilkington and Dean Whittingham. The dean was the brother- ui-law of Calvin, the editor of the Geneva Bible ; a man not in holy orders, either according to the Anglican or the Presbyterian rite ; but appointed to the ministry at Geneva by a lay call. He wrote a preface to Goodman's wild book on the government of women. His canons exhibited articles against him for his irregularities, but the bishop, who was as great a Puritan as himself, disregarded them. Two successive archbishops endeavoured to abate the scandal, but as Whittingliam was supported by Leicester and others, he contrived to defy them. — State Papers of Elizabeth, Domestic, cxxx. 23, 24. 2 Strype's Grindal, ii. 5. ^ Zurich Letters, i. 284. ^ lb. i. 291. ^ lb. ii. 298. ^ Parker Corresjwndcnce, 472. 304 AECHBISHOP GRINDAL'S PRIMACY. Chap. XVIII. that the queen in her weak fondness for him would refuse him nothing. It was this which constituted the real danger from the Puritans, and which might, had the queen for a moment yielded, have utterly subverted the establishment and temporal status of the Church. § 4. Grindal had already had abundant experience as to the way in which the queen considered herself justified in dealing with Church property. If she did not suffer it all to go it was not that any principle restrained her, but merely politic considera- tions. In his capacity of Primate of the North he had been called upon to deal with a body of men, going about with the queen's license, to endeavour to sj)y out any ecclesiastical property for which a good title could not be shown by the incumbent, and at once to seize on it in the queen's name. The licenses given to these men, which were the cause of manifold trouble, anxiety, and loss to the clergy, were an ingenious method devised by her Majesty for paying the salaries of her gentlemen pensioners. ^ Knowing the character of the flock which he had to govern, and the mistress whom he had to please, it is not wonderful that Grindal should have shrunk from a post so onerous and so full of danger. § 5. The Parliament which met (February 8, 1576) presented a petition to the queen in Council for reformation of discipline in the Church. The queen, according to her usual practice of throw ing all the blame on the bishops, and forgetful of the fact that four years before she had refused to ratify a body of canons pre- sented to her by them, answered that such matters belonged to the bishops, but that if they did not act she herself would by virtue of her supremacy. The new archbishop, in taking his seat as President of the Canterbury Convocation, laid before the Synod a body of fifteen articles, " touching the admission of apt and fit persons to the ministry, and the establishing of good orcler in the Church." § 6. In these articles there was an attempt to meet the Puritanical objections as far as possible, and as it appears farther than the queen thought expedient, for before ratifying the articles which were accepted by Convocation, she struck out two of them, and made some alterations in others. The articles struck out by her were one that allowed marriage to be solemnised at all seasons of the year, without regard to Advent or Lent, and another which declared that baptism could only fitly be celebrated by a lawful minister. One of the alterations made was clearly designed to ^ For an account of the "Commissions of Concealments" with which the Church was vexed throughout this reign, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 1575-1583. THE PROPHESYING. 305 show that the queen had not authorised, and was not responsible for the Advertisements.! § 7. These canons, or " articles," are interesting, as being the fii'st regularly passed and authorised in the Reformed Church of England of a disciplinary character ; most of the provisions in them appear again in subsequent legislation. They provide that " unlearned ministers " are not to be promoted. That none be preferred to a benefice of £30 except he be a graduate of divinity, or a preacher, but that very small benefices may be held together. The clergy are to possess the New Testament in Latin and English, and to " confer daily one chapter of the same." Certain parts of the New Testament are also to be set them, to be " conned with- out book." Penances are not to be commuted for pecuniary mulcts except on urgent cause.^ § 8. In the summer of this year (1576) Archbishop Grindal made a metropolitical visitation. The information which he thus gained of the state of the country led him to believe that the great want of the Church was the scarcity of efficient preachers. It is true that very great advances had been made in this respect during the primacy of Parker. Grindal himself writes : — "Where afore were not three able preachers, now are thirty meet to preach at Paul's Cross, and forty or fifty besides able to instruct their own cures." ^ "Whitgift, writing in 1573, says that Cambridge alone had turned out fully 450 competent preachers since the beginning of the reign. ^ But these preachers were very irregularly distributed. In Cornwall it is said there were none at all,^ and in the north but few. § 9. The archbishop was desirous to increase their number and to quicken their power of usefulness. For this purpose there seemed to him nothing so likely to be useful as the encouragement of the exercises called inojphesyings. § 10. These were gatherings, sometimes of the clergy alone, sometimes of the clergy and lay people ; when, under certain pre- scribed rules, each clergyman was called upon to deliver his views on a subject which had been fixed beforehand, while a moderator presided and summed up the results of the argument. There was no doubt a very considerable element of usefulness in these exercises towards helping the clergy to think definitely and exj)ress them- 1 In the 8th article the words had stood "paying not above fourpence for the seal, parchment, and wax for the same, according to an article of the Advertisements in that behalf." The queen struck out the clause, and in- serted " paying nothing for the same." Cardwell, Synod, i. 136, note. ^ Cardwell, Synodcdia, i. 132-138. Joyce, Sacred Synods, 580. ^ Strype's Grindal, Append, ii. 9. ■* Strype's Parker, iv. 34. 5 Neal's PuHtans, i. 289 X 306 ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL'S PKIMACY. Chap. XVllI. selves correctl}^ ; but tliere was also a very obvious element of danger, for if the lay people were iDresent tlie clergy would be tempted to frame their discourse so as to approve themselves most to their audience, and those would probably be most applauded who were most free in treating the discipline. Feeble scruples would be strengthened by men of more pronounced views, and the whole set of the exercises would probably be in the direction of withstanding authority and making the clergy a law to themselves.^ It was on these grounds that the queen had ordered Archbishop Parker to' suppress these exercises, and that he had acted vigorously in the matter and partially succeeded. They appear to have begun at Northampton about the year 1571. They became extremely popular. In 1574 the Bishop of Lincoln issued some directions for them, by which it appears that the moderator was not only to comment upon the doctrine, but upon the lives of the speakers. ^ When these exercises reached the Diocese of Norwich — the very head-quarters of non-conformity in England — the queen thought it was time to interfere. By her direction Parker wrote a letter to Bishop Parkhurst, ordering him to " repress immediately these vain Prophesyings." ^ Yery soon afterwards the bishop received a letter from four privy councillors encouraging him to persevere in them.* In per]3lexity he referred to the Primate, and was more sharply com- manded than before in the queen's name to stop them. Upon this he acted at once, and directed their cessation. Had Archbishop Grindal been a politic man, he would have seen that it was very hazardous for him to go against the distinctly expressed will of the queen in this matter ; but, so far from stopping the Prophesyings, he encour- aged them by issuing a paper of directions for their management.^ § 11. When after this he appeared at court, a stormy scene awaited him. The queen severely reproved him for licensing so many preachers, when, as she said, four or five might suffice for a county ; and as to these Prophesyings which he favoured, she would have no more of them. She had already forbidden them, and she com- manded the archbishop to see that they were everywhere stopped,^ § 12. The archbishop was overpowered by this peremptory mandate, and could find no word of reply ; but when he had had time to think quietly over the matter, he felt his conscience in- volved, and he determined to act as became a Christian prelate. ^ " It must be evident to any one who had experience of mankind," says Mr. Hallam, "that the precise clergy, armed not only with popular topics, but with an intrinsic superiority of learning and ability to support them, would wield these assemblies at their pleasure, whatever might be the regu- lations devised for their control." — Const. Hist. i. 193. 2 Strype, Annals, iii. 475. ^ Parker Correspondence, p. 456. •* Ih. 457, note. ^ Strype's Grindal, ii. 8. ^ lb. u. s. 1675-1583. THE niOPHESYING. 307 He wrote the queen a letter (December 20, 1576), which is admir- able for the plainness with which it reproves her Majesty's over- bearing interference in Church matters. He tells her plainly of the great value and importance of preaching, laments the spoliation which the Church had suffered, and which made it impossible for every parish now to have a preaching pastor. As to the Prophe- syings, he thought them of great value, and no less than ten of his suffragans had expressed their agreement in this view. " I cannot," he says, " with safe conscience, and without the offence of the ma- jesty of God, give my consent to the suppressing of these exercises. I choose rather to offend your earthly majesty than the heavenly majesty of God." He concludes his letter with solemn words, of a character with which the queen was little familiar. " In God's matters all princes ought to bow their sceptres to the Son of God, and to ask counsel at His mouth what they ought to do. Remem- ber, madam, that you are a mortal creature. Must not you also one day appear before the fearful judgment-seat of the crucified, to receive there what ye have done in the body, whether good or evil ? And although ye are a mighty prince, yet remember that He which dwelleth in heaven is mightier." ^ § 1 3. The queen's answer to this letter was to order a meeting of the Court of Star Chamber, and to propose that the archbishop should be deprived. Her counsellors prevailed with her to be contented with a milder sentence, and the archbishop was suspended, and confined to his house until submission. § 14. She then directed a letter to be despatched to all the bishops to the following effect : — " We hear to our great grief that in sundry parts of our realm there are no small number of persons presuming to be teachers and preachers of the Church which do daily devise new rites and ceremonies, as well by their unordinate preaching, readings, and ministering the sacraments, as by procuring unlawfully of assemblies of great number of our people, out of their ordinary parishes, to be hearers of their disputations and new devised opinions, upon points of divinity far unmeet for vulgar people ,2 which manner of innovation they in some places term ' Prophesyings,' and in other places 'Exercises'; by which assem- blies persons are taken away from their ordinary work, and divi- sions are encouraged and sober people offended." The bishop is therefore charged not to allow any other service in the churches except that appointed by law, nor any to take part in public services except persons duly licensed, and to cause the aforesaid exercises to ^ Strype's Grindal, Appendix ii. ix. - It will be observed that the letter does not correctly describe tlie nature of the prophesyinga. 308 ARCHBISHOP GRJNDAL'S PRIMACY. Chap. XVIII cease, and if any continue to use them, to commit tliem to prison, and to report their names to the Council ; and if they neglected this, the queen would be forced " to make some example in re- forming you according to your deserts."! § 15. The bishops on receiving this peremptory epistle were not disposed to imitate the boldness of their chief. Although most of them had signified their approval of the prophesyings they hastened to put them down. Aylmer, Bishop of London, sends at once directions to this effect. The Bishop of Lichfield sends his orders, with this comment : — " These are to will and require you, and nevertheless in her Majesty's name to charge you, to forbear and stay yourselves from that exercise till it shall please God we may, either by earnest prayer or humble petition, obtain the full use thereof with her good pleasure and full authority." ^ Some of the bishops condemned the primate's action altogether. Bishop Barnes of Durham writes to Burleigh : — " As touching the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, truly, my lord, I detest his wilfulness and contending with the regal majesty, and obstinacy in not yielding to that which your honours set down, the same being godly and ex- pedient for the time, the malapertness of brainless men considered, who, when any order comes forth from authority, must needs con- sider whether they may with safe conscience, or ought to, obey the same." ^ On the contrary. Bishop Cox writes to Burleigh : — " I trust hereafter, the thing being deeply and considerately weighed, her Majesty seeking especially the glory of God and the quiet and needful edifying of the people, may be proved to have further con- sideration of this matter ; and when the great ignorance, idleness, and lewdness of the great number of poor and blind priests in the clergy shall be deeply weighed and considered of, it will be thought most necessary to call them and to drive them to some travail and exercise of God's holy word, whereby they may be better able to discharge their bounden duty towards their flock." * § 16. The archbishop having been suspended for a year and showing no signs of yielding, the matter was again brought before the Star Chamber. Lord Burleigh had previously written to him earnestly exhorting him to ask pardon of her Majesty. This Grindal refused to do. He wrote a letter indeed, desiring that his punishment might be taken off, on the ground that he had acted not from any stubbornness or wiKulness, but simply on conscien- tious grounds. The queen was anxious that he should be deprived, 1 Strype's Grindal, Appendix ii. x., under date May 7, 1577. 2 Neal's Puritans, i. 280. ^ Strype, Annals, vol. iv. 110. A very poor character of Bishop Barnes is given in Carleton's Life of Gilpin. * Strype, Annals, Append, ii. viii. 1575-1583. THE PROPHESYING. 309 and was hardly persuaded by the advice of those in whom she had confidence to abstain from inflicting this scandal upon the Church.^ The suspension of the archbishop was continued, and was not re- moved until just before his life terminated. § 17. But this suspension did not incapacitate the archbishop from every sort of episcopal act. It did not in fact amount to much more than a general surveillance of his proceedings. His metropolitical visitation, which had commenced before his suspen- sion, continued to proceed after it, though the commissions now ran in the names of his vicar-general and official principal. He was able to consecrate bishops. On September 16, 1580, he conse- crated Bishops "Watson and Overton at Croydon. On June 18, 1580, he is called upon by the Council to act as Ecclesiastical Commissioner in censuring those who had withdrawn themselves from Church service ; and he is bid to have a special eye upon Bchoolmasters. He issues a letter ordering a stricter observation of the fast of Lent. He is employed in settling disputes at Cam- bridge, at Merton College, Oxford, in putting forth a form of prayer on occasion of the great earthquake of 1580, in inquiring after and censuring those clergy who set up to be merely preachers, and con- sidered it beneath their dignity to administer the sacraments, in endeavouring by his letters to soothe do^vn the fierce outburst of public opinion against the queen's contemplated marriage mth the Duke of Anjou, in authorising general contributions for charitable purposes, and in regulating the proceedings of his courts. Neither was the management of his estates taken from him, for we find him successfully resisting a threatened depredation on his woods. Licenses, institutions, commissions, dispensations, etc., though for the most part they ran in the name of the civilians commissioned to act for him, yet sometimes ran in his name.^ § 18. In one part of his office he was unable to act, namely, to sit as President of the Convocation of Canterbury. In the Convo- cation of 1581 Aylmer, Bishop of London, presided, and one of its first acts was to send to the queen a letter requesting that she would restore their president to the full exercise of his office. This letter, drawn up by Dr. Toby Matthews, Dean of Christ Church, was feeble and full of platitudes.' The queen paid no attention to it. § 19. The Convocation, however, addressed itself to work. On the meeting of Parliament in 1580 great complaints were made of abuses in the Church, and the queen was petitioned to allow 1 Sir F. Knollys to Dr. Wilson ; Strype's Grindal, ii. 9. ^ xb^ ij jj ^^ 9^ ^ Dr, Cardwell thinks that there were two letters, one from the Convo- cation and another from the bisliops. Matthews' letter is printed in Fuller Ch. Hist, ix. iv. i. 310 ARCHBISHOP GRINDAL'S PRIMACY. Chap. XV^m. their removal. She directed the clergy to consider them in their Convocation. The principal subject which caused irritation among the laity was the light and often causeless infliction of the tre- mendous penalty of excommunication, by lay judges for contempt of court, non-payment of fees, or other inadequate causes. This was a great grievance, which it behoved well the Synod to look to. Accordingly, it was proposed in Convocation, in a paper said to have been drawn up by Archbishop Grindal, that excommunica- tion should be altogether taken away except for great crimes, and that contempt of court and other minor offences should be punished by imprisonment, without the intervention of the sentence of the Church, which was only to be pronounced by the bishop in a solemn way. This salutary proposal did not, however, commend itself to the Lower House, the ordinaries in which feared to lose their power thereby. They voted that the officers of ecclesiastical courts should still have the power of excommunication. Four other points were agreed upon by the two Houses of Convocation to be presented to Parliament for ratification by statute. Parliament, however, pro- bably out of disgust at the refusal of the clergy to deal with ex- communication, paid no attention to the recommendations.^ § 20. The archbishop probably angered many of the clergy by his views in the matter of excommunication. He certainly must also have done so by his ill-advised and unchurchmanlike pro- ceeding in licensing a divine called to the ministry according to the Presbyterian fashion in Scotland, to ofiiciate in the Church of England. The license granted to John Morrison actually recited that he had been " called to the ministry by the imposition of hands, according to the laudable form and rite of the reformed Church of Scotland. And since the congregation of the county of Lothian is conformable to the orthodox faith and sincere religion now received in the realm of England, we therefore approving and ratifying the form of your ordination and preferment, grant you a license and faculty that in such orders by you taken you may and have power to cele- brate the divine offices, to minister the sacraments, etc." ^ Such ecclesiastical laxity may serve to raise a doubt whether the Church of England lost much by the partial suspension of the archbishop. § 21. Some time in the year 1582, when the archbishop's sus- pension had continued about five years, he was persuaded to make a qualified submission to the queen, in which he said that " her Majesty had perhaps acted upon the advice of some other of the 1 Strype's Grindal, Appendix ii. xiv. ; Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 541-3 ; Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 585. Mr. Joyce appears to be in error in saying that the Convocation resolutions were accepted hj the Lower Hoiise of Par- liament. 2 Strype's Grindal, b. vi. c. 13. 1575-1583. THE PROPHESYmG. 311 bishops who had foimd these exercises mischievous ; that he was persuaded her Majesty meant well by her order, that he was sorry that he had vexed her, but that he was moved in conscience to petition against being made a special instrument for putting down those things which he thought in his heart ought to be made very useful. However, in his own diocese he had caused them to cease." i Upon this the archbishop, now in extreme old age and growing blind, was relieved of a censure that ought never to have been inflicted. § 22. For the very occasion of his censure, the Prophesy ings, were not only, even after that censure, tolerated, but they were actually recommended as a good and useful institution by a letter from the Council. In the year 1585, the Bishop of Chester issued a body of directions to his clergy as to conducting Prophesyings, and in his letter he says, " Whereas the right honourable the lords of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, upon careful zeal for the furtherance of the good proceeding and course of religion, have recommended unto us some further enlargements of the ecclesiastical exercises to the end they might be more frequently used, and in more places in this diocese than before had been ; whereupon we have upon good deliberation, and by good advice, appointed that the said exercises shall be had and kept at more places. "2 It was no doubt seen that the only real danger attend- ing the Prophesyings was the allowing them to be public disputa- tions before the laity. When confined to the clergy they were evi- dently useful helps for instruction and practice in the work of the ministry. " Many," says the Bishop of Chester, " that could do little good before in the Church, by this means have been brought in a short time to do some profit. Much good hath ensued of this exercise." ^ § 23. In January 1583, the archbishop had become quite blind, and the effective administration of his office was now altogether out of the question. The queen sent to him the Bishop of Salisbury, her almoner, to propose his resignation. In his reply he professed himself ready to resign, but desired to remain in office until the IMichaelmas audit of the see, as there were some benefactions he wished to make, and some leases to his servants to be granted. The queen was not willing to allow him longer than Lady-Day 1583. While the negotiations were in progress the archbishop became quite imbecile, and he died in possession of his see July 6, 1583. § 24. Grindal has been freely accused of covetousness and un- ^ Strype's Grindal, h. ii. c, 18, 2 Strype, Annals, Appendix, b. i. No. xxxix. ^ Strype, u. s. 312 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XVIIl. fair manipulation of Churcli property/ whether rightly or wrongly it is now hard to determine. He was certainly but little of a churchman, and by no means a suitable prelate for the high posi- tion into which he was brought in those troublous times. But he disj)layed an admirable conscientiousness and genuine Christian courage in. resisting the will of the queen, and plainly reproving her for her overbearing treatment of the Church, and as a confessor in this cause, when such confessors were so very rare, English Churchman will not fail to regard his name with affectionate respect. 1 Neal's Puritans, 1. 311. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. THE COMMISSIONS OF CONCEALMENTS. This was the name by which were known certain commissions or licences from time to time issued by Queen Eliza- beth to her courtiers, gi\ang them autho- rity to inquire into the titles of Church lands, and other Church property.- If the title were considered defective, they might proceed against the incumbent, and recover the property for their own iise, or, as was more usually done, compound with him for a fine. The ground for granting these commissions was, that in the case of cathedral churches, colleges, hospitals, etc., many of the estates had been affected by the statutes suppressing monasteries, chantries, hospitals, colleges, etc., but had been concealed from the knowledge of the commissioners employed to carry out the Suppression. But those who held the commissions took upon them- selves to inquire into the tenure of all Church property, and put the clergy to infinite annoyance and hardship, inasmuch as a title could not be made out to many Church lands. "Contrary to all right," says Strype, " and to the queen's meaning and intent, they did intermeddle and cliallenge lands of long time possessed by churchwardens and such like, upoji the charitable gifts of predecessors to the common benefit of the parishes ; yea, and certain stocks of money, plate, cattle, and the like. They made pretence to the bells, lead, and such other like things, belonging to churches and chapels, used for common prayer. Further, they at- tempted to make titles to lands, pos- sessions, plate, and goods belonging to hospitals and such like places, and for maintenance of poor people." — Annals, iii. 310. It was. In fact, the letting loose a band of hai-pies and cormorants (as Lord Coke calls them) to make prey on the Church. So loud were the complaints of their proceedings that the queen was constrained to issue (February 13, 1573) a proclamation superseding all Commissions of Concealments granted up to that date. They were, however, granted again after- wards on several occasions. Bitter com- plaints of Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift were directed against them. Lord Bur- leigh did much to stop them. But the queen's unworthy favourites again and again led her into this unfair treatment of the Church. It was thought necessary in the next reign to pass an express statute to relieve the Church of this burden. By a statute of 21 James I. " for the quiet of the subject against pretence of conceal- ment" above 100 hospitals, which hadhad more or less of a religious foundation, were saved. 1583-1586. ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE. 313 CHAPTER XIX. ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT's STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM. THE SUBSCRIPTION. 1583-1586. § 1. Appointment of Archbishop Whitgift, his character. § 2. Difficulties in his way. § 3. The Nonconforming sects — 1. Brownists ; 2. Fami- lists ; 3. Anabaptists. § 4. The Conforming Puritanical clergy. § 5. Their plan for observing the discipline and keeping livings. § 6. Whitgift's demand of Subscription. § 7. The " Three Articles." § 8. New Ecclesiastical Commission. § 9. Whitgift and the Council. § 10. The Council issue a paper of Articles of inquiry. § 11. Viru- lent attacks upon Whitgift in print. § 12. Whitgift draws up the Twenty-four Articles for the commission. § 13. Dispute between Lord Burleigh and Whitgift. § 14. Whitgift gives explanations to the queen. § 15. Discussion at Lambeth. § 16. Sees kept vacant. § 17. Controversy about the mastership of the Temple, Hooker appointed. § 18. Puritan expectations from the new Parliament. § 19. Their plan of proceeding. §20. Petition of the Commons to the Lords. §21. It is rejected by the Lords. § 22. Whitgift procures Articles to be passed in Convocation. § 23. Bills on religious matters in Parliament. § 24. The queen stops them. § 25. Other work of Convocation. § 26. Project for revaluing clerical incomes. § 27. Insidious attacks on Whitgift. § 28. Walsing- ham induces him to relax the Subscription Test. § 29. Whitgift made a privy councillor. § 1. On the death of Archbishop Grindal the queen was resolved to put into the place of chief governor of the Church a Prelate whom she could thoroughly trust as able and willing to enforce conformity without fear or favour. For this purpose she selected Dr. John Whitgift, Bishop of Worcester. Whitgift was born at Great Grimsby, in Lincolnshire, in 1530. For many years he was the leading man at Cambridge as master of Trinity, regius professor of divinity, and vice-chancellor. He had shown himself an imcompromising oppo- nent of the Puritans by procuring the expulsion of Thomas Cart- wright. The queen had heard him preach, and much admired him, and had made him first Dean of Lincoln (15 71), then Bishop of Worcester (1577.) He had been selected by the Canterbury Con- vocation as their prolocutor (1572), and had been appointed by Archbishop Parker as the divine most suitable to answer " the Admonition to Parliament." No divine in England united so many testimonies as to ability, learning, and energy, and none could have been chosen who was more suited for the work which he was called to perform. 314 AECHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. § 2. Tliat work was year by year increasing in difficulty, and the disorganised state of the Church, consequent upon Archbishop Grindal's suspension, had added strength to the obstacles which opposed it. In an attempt to produce conformity to the legal settlement of the Church of England, the rulers of the Church had to contend — first, against the Nonconformists declared and open ; secondly, against the Conformists who sought to evade the law, and under cover of it to establish a system of their own. § .8. Of the first class there were now three main sects — (1) The Brownists, who may be held to have absorbed such of the Puri- tanical clergy as had actually separated, and had remained in Eng- land.-*- Eobert Brown, the founder of this sect, was a Norfolk clergyman of good family, being a relative of Lord Burleigh. He had separated from the Church on the ground of the ceremonial, and had become an itinerant preacher, everywhere inveighing against the Church and bishops. He denounced not only those who were satisfied with the Church system, but with still greater bitterness those w^ho were contented to remain in a Church, the ceremonial and laws of which they did not approve. Against these he published " a treatise of Reformation without tarrying for any, and of the wickedness of those preachers that will not reform them- selves and their charge, because they will tarry till the magistrate command and compel them." In his crusade against the Church, Brown was constantly arrested and thrown into prison. He boasted that he had seen the inside of no less than thirty-two prisons, " in some of which he could not see his hand at noon-day." He was again and again delivered by the influence of Lord Burleigh, while some of his unfortunate followers were actually put to death for distributing his works, under the terrible law of libel which was passed. in 1581.2 He himself retired to Holland with a band of his disciples, who immediately fell into all sorts of quarrels and divisions among themselves.^ Brown " being weary of his office " returned to England, became a Conformist, and lived to a great age, bearing, as is said, a very disreputable character. But the sect which he had founded increased and multi|)lied in England. Their principal tenets were the excommunication and condemnation of all other churches, their entire rejection of external order and law, and their theory that each congregation was to be a law to itself. After a few years they came to be known in England as Barrowists rather than Brownists, from the name of another leader who had ^ Many of tlie clergy Avho had separated in 1566, went abroad to Holland, ^ni formed congregations there. ^ e.g. Copping and Thaclcer were hanged for this in 1583. 3 Neal's Puritans, i. 295. 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 315 sprung up after Brown had deserted tliem. They were extremely bit- ter against the Puritanical clergy, who were not bold enough to take the same stejD of separation which they had taken, in consequence, as they declared, of the teaching which they had heard from them. 2. The Familists or Family of Love. — This was a sect of foreign origin, being an offshoot of the Dutch Anabaptists, and grounding their belief on the teaching of Henry Nicholas of Amsterdam. Their tenets were those which were afterwards better known under the name of onystical. They denied the personality of Christ, the facts of the resurrection, and the future judgment, giving a mystical meaning to all the statements of Scripture. Separating the inward from the outward, they were ready to obey all the laws of Church and State, being content with the higher illumination which they conceived themselves to possess. Hence they were a harmless set of enthusiasts, and for the most part escaped persecution. They were specially bitter against the Puritans, whose contentiousness they despised and hated, as it often served to bring them into trouble. 2 3. The Anabaj^tists. — These were distinguished from the other sects of enthusiasts by holding some especially dangerous civil heresies. They denied the sanctity of an oath, tlie binding power of laws, the right of the magistrate to punish, and the rights of property. Their tenets were no doubt a danger to the State, but in England they seem to have been content with holding them without striving to carry them into practice. Many of them had suffered death under Henry VIII., and one at least under Edward VI. In the year 1575, two were condemned to be burned in Smithfield. The conscience of many in England was shocked at the notion of the fires for heresy being lighted again after seventeen years cessa- tion. John Foxe wrote a letter to the queen, entreating her to sub- stitute some other form of punishment'^ for that of burning. But the queen was inexorable ; and to the great disgrace of her and her government, these poor men suffered, the sentence being rendered the more iniquitous by the fact of their being foreigners. The sect ^ See Hooker, Preface to Ecclesiastical Polity. Works, i. 175 (Ed. Keble). 2 Strype, Annals, iii. 556, sq.; Hooker, Preface to Ecclesiastical Polity, i. 148, and note. "^ Not to spare them altogether, as is often said to have been the case. His words are, " Sunt ejectiones, inchisiones retrusae, sunt vincula, sunt per- petua exilia, sunt stigmata et irXrjy/xaTa, sunt etiam iiatibula. Id unum valde deprecor ne piras ac flammas Smithfieldanas, jam diu faustissirais tuis auspiciis liuc usque sopitas, sinas nunc candescere." (Fuller, Gh. Hist.) It appears, therefore, that the martyrologist would have been quite contented to see these men hung. In addition to the two Dutchmen executed in 1575, Matthew Hamond, a poor ploughman of Hetherset, near Norwich, was burned for Anabaptistical and Arian opinions in 1579. 316 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. of tlie Anabaptists proper does not appear to have numbered many- followers in England. § 4. These were the chief divisions of the ISTonconformists, but a far greater difficulty in the way of Church discipline than any which proceeded from them, was furnished by those of the clergy who nominally conformed, but under cover of conformity, were delibe- rately plotting to establish the Geneva discipline. About the year 1580, the Puritanical party in the Church had made the second great step in advance in the working out of their system. They had commenced by merely objecting to the clerical habits. Then they had gone on to object to the whole Church ceremonial. This we may see developed in the Admonition to Parliament published in 1572. From this they had now proceeded to the adoption of the Geneva discipline ; and, consequently, to an objection to the whole framework of an episcopal Church. The " Discipline " was in their view equally important with doctrine. " They do brag," writes Bancroft, " that they will not stick to die in the cause." ^ The discipline was one of the absolute marks of a true Church, and those Churches which had it not were synagogues of Antichrist.^ Ministers episcopally ordained might profitably be reordained, ac- cording to the " discipline." To establish this kings and piinces might be resisted and even deposed.^ § 5. It would seem that those who held such views must of necessity quit the Church of England. But this they had deter- mined not to do. The Booh of Discipline had been drawn up by Cartwright and Travers* on the Geneva model, and this they resolved now to accept as their guide, while they still out- wardly remained ministers of the Church of England. To ar- range the best method of compassing this, a meeting of about sixty of the Puritanical clergy took place at Cuckfield, in Sussex (May 8, 1582). The plan they devised was as follows — (1) a cer- tain number of clergy of the required sentiments were to form a classis or conference. To this classis those who desired the ministry were to apply. If approved and called (and thus practically ordained, according to the Discix^line), they were to apx3ly to the bishop for the legal rite ; (2) as regards the ceremonial the clergy, were to use no more than was absolutely necessary. If called upon to use what their consciences obeyed to, the matter was to be referred to the classis. If the classis allowed the use, the conscientious difficulty ^ Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, p. 42. ? Bancroft gives numerous quotations from their writings. Ih. b. ii, ^ Ih. b. i. c. iv, * Walter Travers, though a B.D. of Camhridge, thought fit to be "called to the ministry " by a congregation at Antwerp. He will meet us again in the controversy with Richard Hooker 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 317 was got over, aud the minister might comply ; (3) for the consis- tories in the parishes the lay element was to be furnished by the churchwardens and collectors for the poor, who might be elected to their offices ivith this end in view ; (4) the classis of various neighbourhoods might be grouped in a provincial synod, and the provincial synods in a national synod. This might be held with- out danger, and with great advantage, at the meeting of Parliament, when many resorted to London. The classis might meet for pro- phesyings, or if that were forbidden, under pretence of keeping a solemn fast and " praying for the queen." ^ This may serve to show some of the difficulties which awaited the new Primate, and also the necessity for vigorous action if the Church of England was to be saved from being degraded into a Presbyterian sect. § 6. Whitgift was elected August 24 (1583), and confirmed September 23. His first step was to issue a body of articles, which had been prepared beforehand, after consultation with the bishops of his province. This document contained three special articles, which all the clergy were to be called upon to subscribe, upon pain of deprivation. The tests were not new, and had all been pre\dously enacted by statute law. But they had hitherto been only partially applied. It was now determined to apply them together, and to all — to preachers, schoolmasters, and chap- lains, as well as to beneficed clergy. " Very many preachers," says Strype, " had now started up that would do nothing but preach, and neither read the liturgy nor administer the sacra- ments. And some undertook to preach that were not ordained ministers at all, or had been ordained diff'erently from the English book, nor had subscribed to the Three Articles — that is, the Queen's Supremacy, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Articles of Religion." 2 Some of the beneficed clergy, who were preachers, took pains to exhibit the utmost contempt for the Prayer-book. They hired some inefficient layman to read the service, they them- selves not coming into the chiirch till it was over. This indeed was one of the counsels given by the classis to help scrupulous consciences. Heylin gives an extract from a letter of a minister who wrote : '' that having nothing to do with the prescribed Book of Common Prayer, he preached every Lord's Day in his congrega- tion, and that he did so by the counsel of the reverend brethren, by whom (such was God's goodness to him) he had been lately called to be one of the classis which once a week was held in " some place or other." ^ It will be seen, therefore, that the arch- 1 Bancroft, Danrjerous Positions^ b. iii, c. 3 ; Neal's Puritans, i. 272, sq. ; Heylin's, Presbyterians, p. 299. ^ Strype's JFhitgi/t, b. iii. c. 2. ^ Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 301. 318 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE OHAr. XIX bibhop, -svho has been so violently denounced as a persecutor, neither introduced any new test, nor applied the existing tests in a stricter way until this was absolutely needed. § 7. The sixth of his articles, which contained the subscription test, ran as follows : — (6.) That none be permitted to preach, read, catechise, minister the sacraments, or execute any ecclesiastical function, by what authority soever he be admitted thereunto, unless he first consent and subscribe to these articles following, before the ordinary of the diocese, viz. — (1.) That her Majesty under God hath, and ought to have, the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within her realms, and dominions, and countries, of what estate, ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be ; and that none other foreign power, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre- eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or temporal, within her Majesty's said realms, dominions, and countries. (2.) That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering bishops, priests, and deacons, containeth nothing in it contrary to the Word of God, and that the same may be lawfully used, and that he himseK will use the form of the said book pre- scribed in public prayer and administration of the sacra- ments, and none other. (3.) That he alloweth the book of the articles of religion agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lord 1562, and set forth by her Majesty's authority, and that he believeth all the articles therein contained to be agreeable to the Word of God." The paper of articles, of which the above quoted formed the sixth, contained fifteen items, which were chiefly a repetition of what had been previously passed by Convocation. It was sent to the bishops October 19, and the bishops were required to furnish the Primate with a complete list of all ecclesiastical persons in their dioceses, with notices as to their conformity, or otherwise, and also how the articles now furnished had been put in execution, i § 8. The Primate, who foresaw a vigorous opposition to the enforcement of conformity, prepared an effective weapon to deal with the recusants. In December 1583 the great seal was put to a new Ecclesiastical Commission, with fuller powers than any before issued. The queen had complete confidence in the arch- bishop, and was determined to support him. 1 Strype's WMtgift, b. iii. 2. 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 319 § 9. Immediatel}' that the subscription test was applied, the Council was besieged with appeals from the suspended or deprived ministers. The ministers of Kent, suspended by the archbishop's commissaries, came professing their general acceptance of tlie Book of Common Prayer, but their want of power to subscribe it, as they believed many things in it needed reformation. The ministers of Suffolk, suspended by Bishop Freke, made a similar appeal. The Council, accustomed to treat bishops with but scant respect, sent Mr. Beale, their clerk, a notorious Puritan, to Lambeth, with letters to the archbishop, and summoned him to appear before them on the following Sunday. But they now had to deal with a man not easily to be turned aside from the path which he had marked out for himself, and one too who was confident in the support of the queen. He answered their letter to the effect that the Suffolk ministers had behaved very irregularly in appealing to them instead of to himself. " The matter," he said " was not inci- dent to that honourable board." As to the ministers, he said they were making a schism and encouraging the Papists. It was false, as they pretended, that their doings were approved by learned men. Most of the learned foreigners had condemned them. The Kentish complainants were mostly unlearned and young, and such as he would not have admitted into the ministry. It was great audacity in them to presume to bring his doings in question before their Lordships. He had carefully attended to their appeal and found it frivolous. " It was impossible for him to perform the duty her Majesty looked for at his hands if he might not proceed without interruption " of the Council.-^ This spirited letter, and the knowledge that the queen was with the writer, served to stop the interference of the Council. At the same time, in the case of some ministers of Sussex who, instead of trying to coerce the arch- bishop by the lay authority, had appealed from their diocesan to him, he showed much patience and mildness. He explained some of their difficulties, and finally allowed them to subscribe, with the salvo that they did it in no other sense than such as was not against the Word of God. 2 § 10. The Council having failed to make the Primate yield to their authority, now sought to humble him, and the bishops with him, by issuing a paper of articles. " About which the Arch- bishop of Canterbury was to be spoke withal." The purport of this paper was, under the guise of making inquiries, to imply that the bishops had been negligent in the performance of their duties, and that the troubles of the Church were due to them. Whitgift, instead of showing any annoyance at the paper, accepted it readily. 1 Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 3. 8 lb. 320 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. and forwarded it at once to the bishops, that they might reply to it. In fact it came opportunely to his hand as a means of stirring up his brethren as well as the inferior clergy. § 4. The Puritans saw with dismay this vigorous champion of the Church overcoming all obstacles, and preparing to reduce them or to ruin them. They now began to have recourse to that which was long their favourite weapon, and which has inflicted on their cause such indelible disgrace. In the Practice of Prelates, pub- lished about this time, the writer describes the setting forth of the articles as a plot proceeding from the rigour of one man. Then, correcting himself, he says : " But came all this alone from him- self ? Satan herein had also his finger without all doubt. For what more pernicious counsel could hell itself contrive. What use could it have but for his exercising tyranny upon his fellow ministers, upon a mere ambition, with the starving of many thou- sands of souls, by depriving them, and discouraging thereby other godly and sufficient men to enter the ministry, and all because they could not agree to his popish opinions." This violent pub- lication was intended to influence the new Parliament which was to meet in the winter of 1584. This Parliament, it was hoped by the Puritans, would sanction their discipline. " Now, even now," says the author of the Practice of Prelates in his preface, " it seemeth the discipline of Christ afresh seeketh and beseecheth the favour of men. The time of the worthy assembly of Parliament craveth it, the place the eye of the realm challengeth it." § 1 2. But the Primate, unmoved by these attacks, proceeded vigorously in his work. For the use of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sion he drew up a body of twenty-four articles to be charged against one accused or suspected of inconformity, and from which he was to be called upon to purge himself on oath. This method of proceeding was no doubt highly objectionable, and in bad hands might become most tyrannical ; but the critical state of the Church at that time, and the evasions to which the Puritans resorted, perhaps justified it. § 1 3. It naturally increased the virulence of the attacks made on the archbishop. Mr. Beale, clerk of the Council, assailed him in a book, and also with great personal insolence, for which Whit- gift made a formal complaint to the Council.-^ Sir F. KnoUys also attacked him. It is even asserted that the Primate's life was aimed at through some machinations of Lord Leicester.^ But what pained Whitgift more than any of these was the openly expressed displeasure of his old friend and supporter Lord Burleigh, who ^ Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. chaps, 5 and 6, Appendix Nos. 5 and 6. 2 lb. b. iii. c. 7. 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 321 was greatly displeased with tlie twenty -four articles drawn u]3 for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He found the articles he wrote " so curiously penned, that I think the Inquisition in Spain use not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their prey. According to my simple judgment this kind of proceeding is too much savouring of the Roman Inquisition, and is rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any."i Whitgift replied that the twenty -four articles were after the pattern of those used in the Star Chamber and the Marches Court ; that the method of the canon law will " hardly be bettered." " I have done nothing," he says, " in this matter which I do not think myself in duty and conscience bound to do, which her Majesty hath not with earnest charge committed unto me, and the which I am well able to justify to be most requisite for this State and Church." Bui'leigh replied that it seemed to him such proceedings were " scarcely charitable." " He had cause to pity the poor man " who should be called to answer all these interrogatories. Upon this Whitgift sent to Lord Burleigh a more formal defence of the process of " articling," as it was called. He defends the oath ex officio as being necessary, " because such persons spread their proceedings in secret, and wit- nesses were not to be procured. The proceeding by witnesses would be slow and utterly insufficient to meet the pressing needs of tlie case."^ Conscious that he had in these matters no one among the ministers to whom he could look for help and support, he yet says boldly, " In these public affairs I see no cause why I should seek friends, seeing they to whom the care of the Common- wealth is committed ought herein to join with me."^ § 14. The queen herself was appealed to in favour of the non- conforming ministers, and she desired the archbishop to draw up an answer to all the objections made against his proceedings. This he did, and at the same time plainly told her that the real en- couragement to nonconformity proceeded from the court. As to the clergy, he said, " the greatest number, the most ancient, the wisest, and in effect the whole state of the clergy of the province do conform themselves. Such as are otherwise affected are in number but few, and most of them young in years and of un- settled mind."* The opposition made openly to the primate's dis- cipline by men of influence about the queen was not the only nor ^ State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), clxxii. 1. 2 Strype's Whitgift, b, iii. c. 8. ^ /^_ Appendix, b. iii. No. xi, ^ Of the "preachers" in ten dioceses, by the returns made to the arch- bishop, there appeared to be, conformable 786, nonconformable 49. Of these many had only needed to he admonisJicd and not suspended, — Strype's Jrhitgift, Appendix iii. No. viii. Y 322 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. the worst weapon which they used against the Church. There is good reason to believe that some of them at least put men of bad character designedly into the livings in their gift, in order thereby to bring scandal upon the Church.-^ § 15. So strong was the phalanx of his opponents that the archbishop felt constrained, in the autumn of this year (1584), to allow a conference to be held at Lambeth between the Church divines and the Puritans, in the presence of Lord Leicester, Lord Gray, Sir F. Walsingham, and others. The conference lasted two days. The chief topics debated between Whitgift and Bishop Cooper for the Church, and Dr. Sparks and Mr. Travers for the Puritans, were the reading of the Apocrypha, the use of private baptism by laymen and women, the necessity of baptism, the use of the cross, private communion, the clerical dress. One of Whit- gift's biographers says that the " honourable personages " were highly satisfied with the archbishop's arguments,^ but this seems doubtful. A second conference was also held on similar topics. § 16. Though the queen supported Whitgift in his discipline, yet she caused him great anxiety and annoyance by her depreda- tions of Church property. In September 1584 there were no less than five sees being kept vacant that the queen might enjoy the revenues. Whitgift applied to the Lord Treasurer to procure an abatement of this scandal. He promised aid, but no appointments were made. Lord Burleigh, angry in his heart with Whitgift, and disliking the progress in power and authority which he saw the Church to be making, made some ungenerous reflections upon the bishops. Men that were well enough before their promotion, he said, became full of worldliness when they were made bishops. Of course he had no intention of reflecting on his Grace, for whom he had the highest respect, but " he wished that the spirit of gentleness might win rather than severity."^ § 17. In fact, this eminent man had but a very moderate amount of churchmanship, as he now clearly showed in a matter in which he was again brought into collision with the energetic Primate. The mastership of the Temple was at this time vacant by the death of Mr. Alvey, and Lord Burleigh was anxiously bent to obtain the appointment for Walter Travers, who was his chap- lain and Header at the Temple. Travers was, next after Cart- wright, the very head and leader of the Disciplinary Puritans. He was the joint author with Cart■v^Tight of the Book of Discipline. He was not even in orders of the Charch, having been " called " by a 1 SirG. 'Paul's Life of Whitgift; Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. iii. 578, and note. 2 Sir G. Paul, u.s. ^ Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 9. 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 323 congregation in Antwerp, and appointed according to the Presby- terian fashion. He was a man of great conceit and stubbornness, as was well known to Whitgift, Travers having been a fellow of Trinity when he was master. No doubt he was an able man, and acceptable to the laA\7ers at the Temple, w^ho were not concerned about his conformity. But "Whitgift, in the midst of his struggle for discipline, could not stultify all his proceedings by allowing the promotion of such an open opponent of the Church, as Travers. He -wrote to the queen, giving her the real character of Travers, and recommended for the place Dr. Bond, one of her chaplains. Lord Burleigh, on making his application for Travers, was referred by the queen to Whitgift. On applying to the archbishop, the Lord Treasurer was enlightened by him on the real character of Travers, who, says Whitgift, " was better known to no man than himself." A compromise was made between them. Burleigh withdrew Travers, and Whitgift Bond. This opened the way for the appointment of a divine strongly recommended by Archbishop Sandys — Richard Hooker — the greatest writer of the sixteenth century — the first man who showed of what the English language was really capable — a man who could preserve a philosophical temper and candid spirit in the midst of acrimonious disputes, and who defended the Church by genius and learning, as the arch- bishop defended it by watchful and vigorous action.^ § 18. Great things were hoped for by the Puritans from the new Parliament which met in November 1584. The more sanguine among them anticipated nothing less than the legal establishment of their Book of Disciipline^ which, after various emendations and alterations, had been printed anew at Cambridge this year, with a view to its presentation to the Parliament. Its acceptance would have involved no less than the abolishing of the Book of Common Prayer, and substituting for it a " Directory of PubKc Worship," and also the complete overthrow of the whole hierarchy of the Church, and the destruction of all its orders, laws, and ceremonies. 2 With the amount of encouragement which such views received in influential quarters, with a number of great men eagerly hungering after the revenues of the Church, and a majority, probably, of the members of the House of Commons, inclined to Puritanical sentiments, the Church at this moment was exposed to a great danger. Her position in the country was saved by the firmness of the queen and the vigour of the Primate. Soon the dangerous crisis passed. A reaction against the Puritans set in, 1 For the early life of Richard Hooker, see Notes and Illustrations. His literary work will be described in a subsequent chapter. 2 Bancroft's Survey of the Holy Discipline, p. 66. 324 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. wHch before tlie end of the reign was completely established. They did not again become popular until the mischievous policy of the Stuart kings had associated their cause with that of liberty and justice. § 19. The plan of the Puritans for influencing the Parliament was first to assail the House of Commons with a number of peti- tions, and then, when a sufficient impression had thus been made, to bring in a Bill for " Reformation of the Church," and at the same time to offer the " Book of the Godly Ministers " for accept- ance by the House. The introduction of the bill was negatived in consequence of the earnest apj)eals of the queen's ministers, who let it be seen plainly that her Majesty would not allow it to pro- ceed. But the temper of the House was shown to be favourable to it by the adoption of a petition, in which the points contained in the bill were urged upon the Upper House, with a view of being presented to her Majesty. i § 20. The petition, although mildly and artfully worded, amounted in fact to a request that those ministers who were un- favourable to the Puritans should be ejected, that priests should be put on a level with bishops in the matter of ordination, that no ordination should take place without a call from a congregation, that subscription should be done away mth, every sort of incon- formity permitted, all Whitgift's disciplinary suspensions cancelled, prophesyings restored, and all dispensations abolished. That such a petition should have been voted by the Commons shows the strong Puritanical spiiit which animated the majority of the House. § 21. Great hopes were entertained that the petition would be favourably received by the Lords ; especially it was hoped that the Lord Treasurer would support it ; but Burleigh, who knew well the queen's mind in this matter, at once gave it strong opposition. Archbishop Sandys spoke well and strongly against it. The answer returned by the Lords was that many of the articles were already provided for, and others were unnecessary, that the uniformity of the common prayer had been already enacted by Act of Parliament. ^ § 22. But the Primate, ever vigilant, had done more than oppose this petition in the Lords. He had drawn up a body of canons for the Convocation, which he had placed in the queen's hands on December 15, so that when the petition of the Commons came to the Upper House and was reported to her Majesty, she was able to see that order had already been taken by the clergy upon many of the points raised in it. These canons were passed by the Convocation of Canterbury, and received the royal assent March 23, 1 D'Ewes, Journals of Parliament, p. 339 ; Strype's WMtgift, b. ill. c. 10. 2 strype's WMtgift, b. iii. c. 10. 1583-1586. WITH rUPJTAmSM. 325 1585. They toucL. several points not provided for in the canons of 1576, followdng mainly the Primate's articles put out in 1583, They provide — (1) As to ordination, candidates must have titles in the diocese where they are ordained, must be of full age, graduates, or able to give an account of their faith in Latin ; having proper testimonials. The same qualifications to be required for institution.^ Bishops to be protected against suits of law ; bishops not observing these rules to be suspended for two years. (2) Penance not to be commuted except in rare cases, with approbation of the bishop. The fine to be used for charitable purposes ; the offender to testify his repentance in the church. (3) Licenses for marriage not to be granted save under sufficient bonds that there is consent of parents, and no legal impediment. (4) Excommunication for moral offences to be pronounced by the bishop or some dignified clergy- man ; for contumacy, by the official, some learned minister being present ; absolution under the same laws. (5) Only learned men and preachers to be allowed pluralities. The holder of two benefices to reside in each some part of the year ; benefices not to be more than thirty miles apart. Suitable curates to be provided. (6) Only the fees accustomed at the beginning of the reign to be taken ; a table of fees to be hung up in the consistory ; bishops to receive no fees for ordination. (7) Bishops to inquire yearly as to the learning and morals of their clergy, by whom ordained, manner of life pre- viously, value of their benefices, etc., to report to the archbishop.^ § 23. The Puritans, vexed with the rejection of their petition in the Lords, brought a number of bills into the Commons, more, it would seem, by way of annoying and traducing the Church than with any hope of carrying them into laws. One of them, directed against pluralities, availed to draw forth a somewhat tragical petition from the clergy in Convocation. The bill was described as one that " impeacheth the prerogative royal, impaireth the resources of the crown, overthroweth the study of divinity, depriveth men of the livings they do lawfully possess, beggareth the clergy, bringeth in a base unlearned ministry, taketh away all hope of a succession in learning." Others were of still more dangerous consequence to the Church, as was pointed out by the Primate in a letter to the queen on March 24, the day after she had ratified the new canons. § 24. Now that all that was needful for the working of the Church was in fact provided, the archbishop suggested that all this irregular legislation ought to be stopped. 3 The queen agreed with 1 This provision would serve gradually to rid the Church of unlearned ministers, without the injustice of an immediate expulsion. 2 Cardwell, Sijnodalia, i. 139 ; Stiype's Whltgift, Appendix iii. xiv ^ Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 11. 326 ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT'S STRUGGLE Chap. XIX. this view, and soon afterwards dismissed the Parliament with a severe lecture on their attempts at legislating for the Church. " There were some fault-finders," she said, " with the order of the clergy, which so might make a slander to herself and the Church, whose overlooker God had made her, and her negligence thereof could not be excused if schisms or errors heretical were suffered. Some faults and negligences might grow and be (as in all other great charges it happened), and what vocation without ? " Thus, much for the Puritanical members ; but her Majesty could not forego the opportunity of reading a lectui-e to the bishops, to whose negli- gence she attributed all the troubles. " If they (the lords of the clergy)," she said, " did not amend, she was minded to depose them, and she bade them henceforth look to their charges. All might be amended without needless and open exclamation. She would not animate Romanism, but neither would she tolerate newfangledness. She meant to guide both by God's true rule." ^ The campaign of the Puritans against Whitgift's disciplinary measures had thus proved ineffectual, in spite of the secret assembly of their chief ministers, which was sitting all the time of the Parliament in London, and directing the policy of the members favourable to them. § 25. This Convocation was allowed to continue its sittings after Parliament was prorogued. It was busily occupied, in addition to voting the canons, in trying two clerks for ecclesiastical offences, and in drawing up regulations for clerical studies, which provided that each clergyman should comment upon a chapter in the Bible weekly, and once a quarter write a Latin essay upon some common- place in divinity, the exercises to be submitted to the ordinary. ^ § 26. At this time a project was on foot for the re-valuation of all clerical incomes, with the view of raising the value of the tenths and first fruits for the benefit of the Crown. It appears that a full valuation had been made in 1574,^ and another was not needed, nor were the clergy in a condition to bear any increase of burdens. The archbishop warmly defended their cause. He wrote to the Lord Treasurer : — " It will be a sore burden to the poor clergy if their valuations are increased. The temporal lawyer, whose learn- ing is no learning anywhere but here at home, doth easily, by his barbarous knowledge, get a thousand a year or more, but the poor divine, labouring all his life in true learning, in the liberal sciences and the study of divinity, cannot be suffered to enjoy what is already prepared for him, and both by God's law and man's law belongeth to him and not to others. Temporal men are only valued to the 1 Strype's TFMtgift, h. iii. c. 11. 2 jj^ c. 12. ^ The particulars occupy three volumes in tlie State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), vols. c. ci. cii. 1583-1586. WITH PURITANISM. 327 tenth of tlieir income ; the divine is valued to the full extent of his income in all payment of dues. I trust Julianus the apostate hath no scholars at court, for he, taking away the rewards of learning^ sought utterly to extinguish it, and so consequently Christianity." i This spirited letter seems to have overset the scheme ; in fact the Church of England owes to Whitgift not only the preservation of her formularies from Puritan remodelling, but also the preservation of at least some portion of her revenues from sacrilegious invasion. § 27. The enemies of the Primate continued to use every means to overthrow his influence. Lord Leicester tried to accom- plish this by craft. Having presented Mr. Cartwright to the wardenship of an hospital which he had founded at Warwick, he assured the Primate of Cartwright's willingness to conform and live peaceably, and endeavoured by these representations to obtain for him from Whitgift a preaching license. Had the archbishop yielded he would probably have much impaired his influence with the queen ; but he prudently declined. He was ready " to be at peace with Mr. Cartwright so long as he lived peaceably, yet did his con- science and duty forbid him to give him any further approbation until he might be better persuaded of his conformity." ^ Another attempt was made by Leicester to damage Whitgift with the queen, by asking him to give his opinion as to the fitness of assisting sub- jects rebelling against their rulers. It had been determined by the queen and her advisers to aid the Protestants struggling in the Low Countries against the tyranny of the Spaniard. It was thought, probably, that a prelate of Whitgift's views would give a strong opinion against any favouring of rebellion, and thus he might be represented as running counter to the queen's policy ; but the Primate replied that such matters were better left to the Council, and from what he had heard he believed the thing had already been decided on. § 28. Walsingham, however, was able by skilfully judged re- presentations to induce Whitgift to abate somewhat of the strict- ness of his subscription test. At his request the Primate consented not to require subscription to the three articles of incumbents already in possession, but only of those who were to be instituted and of those newly ordained. For the others, it would suffice if they made a declaration in ^vriting " that they would observe the Book of Common Prayer and the orders of the Church by law set down." This concession was more apparent than real. The test ^ Stiype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 12. This project of re-valuation must be taken in connection Avith a project oi fanning ih.esQ clerical payments, which would probably have pressed hard upon the clergy, and which was also de- feated by the archbishop's care, ^ ^_ i-, ^^^ ^ i^ 328 AECHBISHOP WHTTGIFT'S STRUGGLE. Chap. XIX. had already been applied to most incumbents, and the preachers and lecturers — the most Puritanical class — were still subject to it. Nevertheless it seems a fair and fitting concession, and the arch- bishop assured Secretary Walsingham that it had brought him some ease from his former troubles, and produced some quietness in the Church.^ § 29. A great part of the primate's difficulties had arisen from the fact that he was not a member of the Privy Council, and there- fore not present to hear and meet accusations, to explain matters that had been misunderstood, and to enforce the importance of others which the lay councillors were not able to perceive. In February 1586, however, the archbishop obtained admission to the Coimcil. Leicester was absent with the contingent of troops in the Low Countries, or he would probably have opposed the admission of Whitgift with all his power. And besides the Primate, two lords well disposed to second him — Lords Cobham and Buckhurst — were at the same time admitted councillors. Hatton also, who was striving hard for the post of chief favourite with the queen, showed himself ready to support one whom the queen regarded with unvarying respect. The best understanding was kept up between him and Whitgift by Dr. Bancroft, Hatton's chaplain, who enjoyed the Primate's full confidence, so that now Whitgift may be consi- dered to have gained a firm footing, and to have established the predominance of his influence in matters connected with the Church against all those who had opposed it. 1 Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 13. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) WAY IN WHICH CHURCH SERVICE WAS PERFORMED BY MR. NICHOLAS, OF EASTWELL. Dr Lakes, commissary of the arch- bishop, reports on the way in which the Church service was performed at Eastwell, as follows :—" Tlie order of prayer was not used according to the order of the Book of Common Prayer, for divers things were pretermitted, as the Exhortation, the Absolution, the Venite, the Te Deum, the Creed, the three Collects, the Creed of St. Athanasius, the Litany. The way he performed the service was to begin with the general Confession and the Lord's Prayer, then to read the Psalms and Les- sons, then to sing a psalm in metre, then a sermon of an hour and a-half, then an- other psalm and an extemporary prayer. When holy communion was celebrated the table was set in the body of the church. The clergyman used the Lord's prayer, and the collect 'Almighty God unto whom,' the epistle and gospel, and the general confession of the conimimi- cants. He then, without any consecration, used the words, 'The body of the Lord Jesus Christ which was given for us, pre- serve our bodies and souls unto everlasting Chap. XIX. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 329 life,' and delivered the sacramental bread ! to the communicants sitting in their pews, saying unto them, ' Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee.' Then taking the cup, he said, ' The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for us, preserve our bodies and souls to everlasting life.' And 'We drink this in remembrance that Christ died for us.' Then the cup was handed to one of the communicants, and he, after drinking, handed it to another, and so on, a psalm of thanksgiving being meanwhile sung of the whole. In baptism, the father was called to answer the questions. The sign of the cross was omitted. The chancel was in a ruinous state and iinused. The order appointed for churching of women was not used as directed ; and at mar- riages the minister used an order of his own, omitting the order of the book." — Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 5. (B) RICHARD HOOKER. RiCHAED Hooker was born of poor parents at Heavitree, near Exeter, in 1554. He became known to Bishop Jewel, who procured his admission to Corpus Chrlsti College, Oxford, and settled a pension on him. After Jewel's death he was befriended by Dr. Edwin Sandys, who became Archbishop of York. In 1577 Hooker was chosen Fellow of Corpus, and became lecturer in Hebrew. In 1581 he took orders, and soon after married, his wife being a very unsuitable person for him In 1584 he was made rector of Drajrton Beau champ, and 1585 Master of the Temple. Here he became involved in a dispute with Walter Travers, the controversy being carried on in their ser- mons, so that it was generally said "the forenoon sermon spake Canterbury, the afternoon Geneva." The archbishop judg- ing this to be productive of scandal, silenced Travers, on the ground that he was not lawfully ordained according to the rites of the Church of England, and that he had opposed what was said by another preacher instead of conferring with him. Upon this Travers, by way of appealing against the Primate, published his Supplication to the Privy Council. To this Hooker published an answer, which was the germ of his famous work on ecclesiastical polity. " It was," to use Walton's words, "to satisfy these malcontents, and to unbeguue and win them, that he designed to write a- sober deliberate treatise of the Church's power, to make canons for the use of ceremonies, and by law to impose an obedience to them, as upon her children, and this he proposed to do in eight books of ecclesi- astical polity, intending therein to show such arguments as should force an assent from all men if reason delivered in sweet language and void of all provocation were able to do it."— Walton's Hooker. The first part of this famous work appeared in 1594. In 1591, Hooker was presented by Whitgift to the Rectory of Boscomb, and in 1595 by the queen to the Rectory of Bishopboume, in Kent, where he died 1600. 330 THE STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM. Chap. XX. CHAPTER XX. THE STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM — THE LIBELLERS. 1586-1693. § 1. Attempt made by the Puritans in 1586 to influence the Parliament and the Queen. § 2. They subscribe the Book of Discipline. § 3. The question of "waiting for the magistrate." § 4. Commencement of the Libellers. § 5. Dr. Bridges publishes his "defence." § 6. The Libellers most violent during the danger from the Spaniards. § 7. Martin Mar- Prelate. § 8. Specimens of the Libels. § 9. Seizure of the Press. § 10. Udal condemned ; execution of Penry. § 11. Answers to the Libels. § 12. Attempt to put down the Discipline ; arrest and trial of Cartwright. § 13. The Act 35 Eliz. c. 1. § 14. Its salutary effects. § 15. The Sectaries in Holland. § 1. It was soon apparent that the Puritans were not discouraged by the defeat which they had experienced in the Parliament of 1584. Parliament met again in October 1586, when a " Suppli- cation " was offered by them to the House of Commons accusing the bishops of neglect of their duties, and harshness and cruelty towards the deserving preachers of the Word, on account of their neglect of vain ceremonies. They prayed Parliament to attend to their supplication, and with it they offered a " survey," which professed to give for the whole of England tables showing the numher of benefices, the number of preachers, and the number of double-beneficed and non-resident clergy. This paper makes the number of preachers for the whole of Eng- land amount only to 2000.1 On February 27 (1587), it was moved : " that all laws then in force touching the ecclesiastical settlement might be repealed, and that the book (of Discipline, etc.) might be adopted as the legal settlement of Discipline and public worship." The House, however, refused to allow the bill or book to be introduced.^ The queen, on receiving a copy of the supplication and survey, answered decidedly that she " w^s fully satisfied with the reformation that had taken place, and minded not now to begin to settle herself in causes of religion. She had considered their objections, and examined their platform, and accounted it most prejudicial to the religion established, to her 1 Neal's Ptiritans, i. 374-5-6. By returns made shortly before this to Archbishop Whitgift, he had calculated the number of preachers at 3000, ihe whole clergy amounting to 9000. ^ Strype's Whitgift, b. iii. c. 17. Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, b. iii. c. 5. 1586-1593. THE LIBELLERS, 331 crown, her government, and her subjects. Supposing some things to be amiss in the Church, yet it was not expedient to be always making new laws. The clergy were the best judges in these matters, and this petition interfered with her Prerogative Ecclesi- astical, which had been conferred on her by Parliament."^ § 2. Foiled thus in their attempts to get the Discipline enacted by law, those who favoured it determined to endeavour to uphold it by a solemn mutual pledge. Four and twenty ministers of the classis of Warwick and Northampton subscrilDed the Book of Discipline as binding upon them. They were followed by others (according to Neal) to the number of 500.^ § 3. But now arose a question which threatened to cause a disruption in the Puritan body. Were they by the force of the obligation of having subscribed the Book of Discipline to be con- strained at once to practise it at all hazards, or were they " to tarry for the magistrate," wait until it was made legal. Some of them came to the conclusion " that since the magistrate could not be induced to reform the discipline of the Church by so many petitions and supplications, it was lawful to proceed without him, and introduce a reformation in the best manner possible." On the other hand, some of the classis voted " that touching the re- storation of ecclesiastical discipline, it ought to be taught to the people as occasion should serve, and that as yet the people are not to be solicited publicly to practise the Discipline till they be better instructed in the knowledge of it. That men of better understanding are to be allured privately to the present allowing of the Discipline, and the practice of it, as far as they shall be well able with the peace of the Church." ^ § 4, The more violent of the party, exasperated by this temporis- ing policy of their brethren, determined to precipitate matters at any cost, and to make that " peace of the Church," which was so much prized, a thing impossible. They commenced from this period a series of libellous attacks directed against the bishops, which, under the general name of the Mar-]j7-elate Libels have inflicted an eternal disgrace upon their party. The first notable publication of this character was a pamphlet called an Abstract of Certain Acts of Parliament. In this the writer stigmatises the laws relating to the Church as " popish, and to be abandoned, a froth and filth to be spewed out of the commonweal. And it were not a dodkin matter if all the books thereof were laid in a heap in Smithfield and sacrificed in the fire to the Lord." Another book, called Counterpoison, endeavoured to prove that the Church ^ Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, b. iii. c. 17. "^Puritans, i. 381. ^ Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 278. 332 THE STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM. Chap. XIX of England was no true Church, inasmuch as it lacked Discipline. And in a i^amphlet called A Bequest Against Cathedrals, the author prays that " all cathedral churches may he put down, where the service of God is grievously abused by piping with organs, singing, ringing, and trowling of psalms from one side of the choir to the other, with the squealing of chanting choristers, disguised, as are all the rest, in white surplices, some in corner caps and filthy copes, imitating the fashion and manner of anti-Christ the pope. These unprofitable drones consume yearly, some £2500, some £3000, some more, whereof no profit cometh to the Church of God. They are the dens of idle loitering lubbards, the harbourers of time-serving hyprocrites, where prebends and livings belong, some to gentlemen, some to boys, and some to serving-men and others." ^ § 5. Dr. Bridges, Dean of Salisbury, thought to stem these violent attacks by publishing (1587) A Defence of the Government of the Church of England, but this only gave occasion to fresh scurrilities. Mr. Fenner in reply said : " Our righteous souls are vexed with seeing and hearing the ignorance, the profane speeches, and evil examples of those thrust upon our charges, while we ourselves are defamed, reproached, scofi'ed at, and called seditious and rebellious. Upon every irreligious man's complaint in such things as many times are incredible, to be sent for by pursuivants, to pay twopence^ for every mile, to find messengers at our own charges, is not only grievous but heart-burning. Com- ing by dozens and scores before the bishop, after half a day's dis- orderly reasoning, some not being heard to the full, some railed on and miscalled, none mth lenity satisfied, but all suspended from our office because we would not subscribe his last two articles." ^ § 6. These grievances would have seemed more worthy of pity had not those who were exposed to them thought the proper way of avenging themselves was to pour out a torrent of foul invective against the authorities. Neither can they be acquitted of the crime of taking advantage of England's supreme danger from the Spaniards in the year 1588 to increase the virulence of their attacks.^ It was in this year that the Martin Mar-prelate libels (properly so called) first made their appearance. While the 1 Neal's Puritans, i. 378. 2 jj^^ j^ 385^ ^ In State Papers of Elizaleth (Domestic), under the years 1591-92, there are several papers which show the amount of vahie which the Spaniards set on the work of what they called "The new sect of the Martinists." Camden asserts that the Puritans deliberately seized this time for their most violent assaults. Heylin asserts the same, giving as the reason that they supposed in this moment of peril they would be secure from the queen and Council. — Presbytcriana, p. 280. 1586-1593. THE LIBELLERS. 333 Church was offering up solemn prayers to God to avert the threatened danger ; while every Wednesday and Friday strict fasts were observed, with the use of a special office for the warding off the imminent peril,i there began to appear from a concealed source a series of pamphlets full of such bitter and furious assaults on the bishops and clergy that, to use Heylin's words, " the like neither in nature nor number did ever exercise the patience of a Christian state." " There never was a time," writes Camden, " when the discipline of the Church was run down with such a saucy pertness, and the authority of her officers so rudely and basely insulted." ^ § 7. The name oi Martin Mar-prelate did not represent any one single writer. It was the nom de guerre of a band of unscrupulous men, who each contributed their quota of slander and abuse. The chief of them are generally supposed to have been Penry and Udal, who were ministers ; Throgmorton, whom Camden describes as " a man of learning, and master of a very facetious and satirical vein," and Tenner, who had answered Dr. Bridges' book. The titles of some of these pamphlets were : The Epistle to the Con- focation House ; The Epitome ; Bishop Cooper^ s Admonition ; Ha ye any work for a Cooper ; The Appellation ; A Dialogue setting furthe the Tyrannical Dealings of the Bishops against God's Children, Some laid Open; The Protestation of Martin; Martin Senior; Theses Martiniance or 2Iarti7i Junior ; More ivork for a Cooper ; Diotrephes ; Martin's Mineral.'^ § 8. As a specimen of the language employed, we may take the following resume from Heylin : " They could find no other title for the archbishop than Beelzebub of Canterbury, Pope of Lambeth, the Canterbury Caiaphas, ftsau, a monstrous antichrist, a most bloody opposer of God's saints, a very antichristian beast, most bloody tyrant. The bishops are described as unlawful, unnatural, false, and bastardly governors of the Church, the ordinances of the devil, petty popes, petty antichrists, incarnate devils, bishops of the devil, cogging cozening knaves, who will lie like dogs. They are proud, popish, profane, presumptuous, paltry, pestilent, pernicious prelates and usurpers, enemies of God and the State. The clergy are popish priests, or monks, or friars, ale- haunters, or boys or lads, or drunkards, and dolts, hogs, dogs, wolves, foxes, simoniacs, usurpers, proctors of antichrist, popish chapmen, halting neutrals, greedy dogs to fill their paunches, ^ Strype's Annals, vi. 15. 2 Life of Queen Elizabeth, Kennett, ii. 550. ^ A very carefully written account of the Mar-prelate controversy will be found in a little work written by Mr. Maskell. Most of these tracts havti been reprinted of late. 334 THE STRUGGLE WITH PURITANISM. Chap. XX. desperate and forlorn atheists, a cursed iincircmncised murdering generation, a crew of bloody soul-murderers, sacrilegious church robbers, and followers of antichrist." The Convocation is thus addressed by one of these Christian controversialists ! " Right puissant, poisoned, persecuting, and terrible priests, clergy, masters of the Confocation House, the holy league of subscription, the crew of monstrous and ungodly wretches that mingle heaven and earth together ; horned monsters of the Conspiration House ; an antichristian swinish rabble, enemies of the Gospel, most covetous wretched popish priests ; the Confocation House of devils, and of Beelzebub of Canterbury, the chief of the devils." The Prayer- book is thus stigmatised : " A book full of corruption, many of the contents against the Word of God, the sacraments wickedly mangled and profaned therein ; the Lord's Supper not eaten, but made a pageant and a stage-play ; the form of public baptism full of childish and superstitious toys." ^ § 9. The queen on hearing of these virulent libels ordered the archbishop to use extra diligence to arrest the authors of them, and the Council was directed to assist him in every way. But the dis- covery and arrest of the libellers was no easy matter. The pam- phlets were printed at a movable printing press, which continually shifted its position. It was first at Moulsey, near Kingston-on- Thames, then at Fawsley in Northamptonshire, then at Norton, then at Coventry, then at Welstone in Warwickshire, from whence it migrated to Manchester. Here it was at last captured by the Earl of Derby while it was engaged in printing one of the worst of the libels. More Work for a Cooler. It was discovered that some laymen of good position had furnished the funds for the printing, and that the tracts had been distributed by the agency of one Newman, a cobbler. The printers were first Waldgrave and then Hopkins. The laymen concerned escaped with a heavy fine, which was afterwards remitted, but the writers were not destined to come off so easily. Penry indeed, the chief offender, had managed so dexterously that nothing could be proved against him, and he was liberated. § 10. But Nicholas Tidal, a suspended minister, was convicted of being the author of the Demonstration, and thereby to have been a slanderer of the queen's government.2 The jury came to their ver- dict as to the authorship of the Demonstration on insufficient evi- dence, but .Udal's own admissions clearly enough show that he was really the author of this, and probably of some other libels. He ''■ Heylia's Preshjterians, p. 281. 2 This law was somewhat strained. The judge held that as the bishops were the queen's ecclesiastical officers, to libel thera was to libel the queen's government. 1586-1593. THE LIBELLERS. 335 was condemned to die under the libel Law of 1581, but at Whit- gift's intercession lie obtained his pardon. However, he was not destined to leave his prison, but died there.- Penry, liberated after his first arrest, escaped to Scotland. But his impetuous spirit would not suffer him to remain in quiet. He continued to send forth pam- jjhlets full of the most intolerable railing against the bishops and the queen. At length (in 1593), he came to London with the object, it is said, of presenting a petition to the queen to be allowed to return into Wales. He was arrested, and quickly brought to trial, condemned, and executed. § 11. The Mar-prelate libels were answered in their own scofifing and jeering style by Thomas Nash.^ A more serious and grave reply was, at Whitgift's suggestion, written by Cooper, Bishop of Winchester, who had been assailed as violently as any of the bishops in the pasquinades. His book was called an Admonition to the People of England, and it contained the special answers of the various prelates who had been specially aspersed, and among others Whitgift's vindication written by himself. § 12. The discovery of the systematic attempt to uphold the Puritan " Discipline " now made by the authorities, determined them to use measures of increased strictness. On September 1, 1590, Thomas Cartwright was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and required to purge himself on oath from a num- ber of articles charging him with nonconformity and seditious disturbance. Cartwright refused to take the oath, and was accord- ingly committed to the Fleet prison. Together with him, sixteen other ministers who had also refused the expurgatory oath were committed. Twice during the month of October Cartwright was before the commissioners, but though he professed himself very anxious to clear himself from some of the charges, and was ready to do so even on oath, yet nevertheless he refused to take the oath generally, as relating to all the Articles, but offered to give his reasons for declining to answer any special Article upon oath. At length the archbishop interposed and procured the release of his old literary antagonist, who does not appear to have been further molested. § 13. The complete failure of the case against Cartwright and the other ministers who had adopted the " Discipline," showed, even to the queen, who was so much opposed to statute law in Cluirch matters, that a new law was required if the Puritanical conforming 1 Strype's WMtgift, b. iv. c. 3 ; Neal's Puritans, i. 399-408. 2 The titles of some of the answers are, Pa}) with an Hatchet, A Fig for my Godson, Crack me this Nut, Pascp.iiVs Aiwlogy, An A Imond for a Parrot, by Cuthhert Curryknave, A Counterctiff given to Martin Junior, etc. Tlie answers were far more witty than the attacks. Mr. Maskell says, "The assailants were beaten out of the field with their own weapons and npou theii own ground." — Mar-Prelate, p. 200. 336 THE STRUGGLE A^HTH PURITANISM. Ceiap. XX. clergy were to be dealt with. Whitgift's siilDScrij)tion test might ensure their suspension or deprivation, but it would only leave them as the centres of influence, supported by the willing contri- butions of their disciples, and upholding an opposition to the established Church in the midst of the land. It was determined to remedy this in the Parliament of 1593. The queen's speech informed the Houses that they had been summoned specially to " compel by some sharp means to a more due obedience those that neglected the service of God." ^ The feeling of the House of Com- mons towards the Puritans was now very different from what it was before the publication of the Mar-prelate libels. In vain Mr. Morice appealed to the House to accept two bills which he had brought in against the Church courts and the oath. The Commons did not care to hear him. On the contrary, they enacted a law which pro- vided as follows : — " That if any person or persons above the age of sixteen years should obstinately refuse to repair to some church, chapel, or usual place of common prayer to hear divine service established, or shall forbear to do the same for the space of a month without lawful cause, or should move or persuade any other person whatsoever to forbear and abstain from coming to church to hear divine service, or to receive the communion, according to the laws and statutes aforesaid, or should come or be present at any unlawful assemblies, conventicles, or meetings, under pretence of any religious exercise, contrary to the laws and statutes made in that behalf, or should at any time after forty days from the end of the session, by printing, writing, or exj)ress words and speeches, advisedly and purposely, go about to move and persuade any of her Majesty's subjects to deny, withstand, or impugn her Majesty's power and authority in causes ecclesiastical united and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm, that then every person so offend- ing and convicted of it, should be committed unto prison without bail or mainprise till he or they should testify their conformity by coming to some church, chapel, or other place of common prayer to hear divine service, and to make open submission and declara- tion of the same, in such form or manner as by the said statute was provided." If the submission was not made within three months the accused was to be banished, and if he returned without leave, to suffer death without benefit of clergy.^ § 14. This was an effectual method of clearing the country both of the sectaries and of the conformists who practised the Discipline. By throwing the matter on the courts of common law it relieved the Church in great measure from the odium which attached to it from disciplinary and coercive measures. It provided a ready ^ D'Ewes' Journals, p. 478. - 35 Eliz. c, i. 1586-1593. THE LIBELLERS. 337 metliod of quick operation to meet the spread of religious disaffec- tion, and though very few persons will be found now to justify such a proceeding on principle, it had at least the merit, in an age when toleration was unknown, of being effectual. After a little experienc of the treatment which they received at the hands of the Common Law Judges,^ the Puritans and sectaries perceived the wisdom of keeping quiet and concealed, and waiting the chances of a new reign. The feeling of the country was decidedly against them, and the latter years of Elizabeth's reign were almost free from troubles from the Puritans. On the other hand, those who had been already arrested, and of whom the prisons were full, felt the new law a great relief, inasmuch as it allowed them to '' abjure the country," the thing of all others they most desired. Thus the Brownists put up a petition that they may be allowed to emigrate to Canada, where " they may worship God according to their conscience, and do her Majesty good service against the persecuting Spaniards." ^ The Ecclesiastical Commissioners kept poor people languishing in prison for years, in the vain hope that they would be brought to submit and take the oath. " Some of us," says a memorial of this date, " they have kept in close prison four or five years with miserable usage ; others they have cast into Newgate, and laden with as many irons as they could bear ; others into dangerous and loathsome gaols among the most facinorous and vile persons, where it is lamentable to relate how many of thsse innocents have perished within these five years, where so many as the infection hath spared lie in woful dis- tress ; others have been grievously beaten with cudgels and cast into a place called Little Ease for refusing to come to their chapel ser- vice." 2 From all these miseries this law, which allowed prisoners to " abjure the country," set them free. § 15. The greater number passed into Holland. Here they were accepted as a sort of compensation for the number of Dutch who had at an earlier period emigrated into England. Their minis- ters— Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Jacob — are heard of as engaged in various places in Holland. Churches were erected at Amsterdam, Arnheim, Middleburgh, Ley- den, and other places ; and probably never in the history of human opinion have so many wild doctrines been broached, and so many strange practices set on foot, as by these expatriated Brownists and Barrowists ^ in their sojourn among the Dutch. ^ See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter for some specimens of this. ^ State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), s. a. 1593. ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 429. "* For an account of Barrow, from -whom these sectaries took their name, see Notes and Illustrations. 338 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XX. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) TREATMENT OF THE PURITANS BY THE JUDGES. A letter printed by Strype from "A Person unknown of the Clergy to a Person of Quality," may serve to illustrate this. " Since my Lord Anderson hath obtained to ride this circuit, the ministry is grown into intolerable contempt, which is uni- versally imputed to him. He insinuated in his charge, with wonderful vehemency, that the country is troubled with Brown- ists, with disciplinarians, and erectors of presbyteries. He called the preachers knaves, saying they would start up in the pulpit and preach against everybody. He urged the statute for conventicles, and animated the Grand Jury accordingly. At Nortliampton he showed himself greatly grieved with him who preached the assizes there. At Leicester likewise with the preacher there. Mr. Allen, some time preacher at Louth, was in- dicted for not reading all the prayers. He was caused to go to the bar, and com- manded to hold up his hand there. Lord Anderson, standing up, bent himself to- wards him with a strange fierceness of countenance. He called him knave some- times, and rebellious knave, with manifold reproaches besides. He affirmed, with marvellous indignation, that he was his ordinary and bishop both in that place. There was another minister at the assizes also strangely handled. I would to God that they who judge in religious cause would get some more knowledge in reli- gion and God's word than my Lord An- derson hath."— Strype, Annals, vol. vii. No. cxcvi. (B) THE FOUNDERS OF THE BARROWISTS. Henry Barrow and John Greenwood may be regarded as joint founders of this sect, who did not appreciably difler from the Brownists, and may be taken indeed as another name for them. Barrow was a gentleman of the Temple, Greenwood a minister. In 1587 they were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for having inveighed against the Church of England as an ti christian and idolatrous, derided the sacraments, and declared that forms of prayer were blasphemous. They were committed to prison, and for a long time lay there. Barrow addressed a sup- plication to Parliament, complaining bit- terly of the ill-treatment he had received in prison. When brought before the Court of Ecclesiastical Commission, Bar- row indulged in most intemperate lan- guage, calling the archbishop a monster, a persecutor, and the Beast spoken of in the Revelations. Both of them had pub- lished books full of railing, and after the excitement caused by the Mar-prelate libels, they were brought to trial and con- demned under the libel law. The greatest efforts were made to induce them to sue for pardon, but they would not, and they were finally hanged at Tyburn, April 6, 1593. 1563-1603. WORK OF CONVOCATION. 339 CHAPTER XXL THE WORK OF CONVOCATION RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY DURING THIS REIGN. 1563-1603. § 1. Review of the work of Convocation up to 1586, § 2. Directions given in 1586 for promotion of clerical learning, preaching, etc. § 3. A Bene- volence voted by the two Convocations. § 4. Non-residence forbidden in 1589. § 5. Canons of 1597 to reform Ecclesiastical Courts. § 6. Further attempts at this in 1601. § 7. Commencement of Prohibitioiis. § 8. The Church popular at the end of this reign. § 9. Review of the controversy on Church government. § 10. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. § 11. Bilson's Perpetual Government of Christ's Church. § 12. Bancroft's Survey of the Holy Discijjline. § 13. The Sabbatarian Contro- versy. §14. The Predestinarian Controversy. §15. Mr. Barret's sermon. §16. The Lambeth Articles. §17. Condemned by the Queen and Lord Burleigh. § 18. Baro, the Margaret professor, preaches against them. § 19. Proceedings taken against him. § 20. Whitgift brought round to support him. §21. State of the Universities during this reign : Oxford, § 22. Cambridge. § 23, The reaction against Puritanism. 1 . Convocation (at least that of Canterbury) was actively employed during the reign of Elizabeth, and did much useful work for the Church. In 1563 it settled and subscribed the Confession of Doctrine, which has ever since remained the authoritative teaching of the English Church. It also set forth, with synodical authority, a second Book of Homilies. In 1571 it reviewed and again sub- scribed this Confession. At the same time it drew up a body of canons, prescribing the duties of bishops, deans, archdeacons, chan- cellors, the clergy, churchwardens, schoolmasters, and the patrons of livings. Tliis very useful body of laws, complete as far as the action of Convocation went, did not receive the sanction of the queen, and so failed to become law for the Church. In 1576 many of the provisions which were found in these canons were put into a body of fifteen articles which passed Convocation, and, with certain altera- tions, received the queen's sanction. In 1585 another body of arti- cles or canons was accepted by Convocation, embodying certain reso- lutions which had been accepted by Convocation in 1 58 1 , and which were now again passed by that body. To these the queen gave her assent. In this Convocation the clergy also made some regu- lations for encouraging and promoting learning in the clerical body. To this subject the Convocation of 1586 again addressed itself. § 2. Various expedients had from time to time been tried to 340 WORK OF CONVOCiTION". Chap. XXI. promote learning amongst the clergy. Sometimes they were to be set a certain portion of Scripture to be learned by heart. Some- times they were bid to make notes on certain portions of Scripture, which notes were to be examined by the bishops. Tlie directions given in 1586 are remarkable, not only for enjoining this, but also as directing that each of the clergy should possess himself of a copy of Bullinger's Decades ^ in Latin or English, and should, every week, read one of the sermons and make notes of it " in a paper book." The notes on the Scripture and Bnllinger were to be examined by certain divines selected by the bishop, so that the ministers might not have to travel above six or seven miles. The orders then make arrangement for a transition stage between the reading and preaching minister. The archdeacon and ordinaries were to allow a reading minister, if they judged him compe- tent, to expound, standing in his stall, the points of the catechism, with the additional explanations set forth in Nowell's book. It was also ordered that every licensed preacher was to preach twelve sermons each year in the diocese where his benefice lay, of which twelve, eight were to be in his own cure, and the archdeacon was to appoint six or seven preachers to preach " by course " every Sunday in those parishes within a convenient distance of their homes where no licensed preacher was, so that in each parish there might be one sermon at least every quarter. The incumbent of the parish to provide " his dinner and horse meat for the preacher,'' and to provide some one to serve his church. § 3. This Convocation not only voted the usual subsidies, but also gave to the queen a benevolence of three shillings in the pound. The York Convocation did the same.^ This extraordinary liberality caused much discontent, and probably no little suffering among the clergy. It was afterwards quoted and used as a precedent in the year 1640. This synod also made a formal protest against the Book of the Holy Discipline. § 4. In the synod of 1589 some orders were promulged by the archbishop and accepted by the synod as to the better enforcement of clerical residence. Non-residence due to the system of pluralities appears to have been still prevalent, and was violently attacked in the Parliament. The synod addressed her Majesty, exjDlaining that pluralities were necessitated by the smallness of livings, that there were scarce 600 benefices in England the stipend of which was SuflQ.cient to support a learned clerk.^ 1 Bullinger's Decades must thus be put into the class of works having a quasi-convocational sanction, together with Foxe's Martyrs, Jewel's Axjology, and Nowell's Catccliism. 2 Joyce, Sacred Synods, pp. 592, 596. ^ Joyce, p. 604. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 341 § 5. Ill the Parliament of 1593 a violent attack was made on the ecclesiastical courts ; and though the archbishop soon afterwards took some steps in endeavouring to reform them, the Parliamentary- attacks were renewed with greater bitterness in 1597. One great and crying grievance was the ease with which licenses to marry could be procured. An incestuous marriage which had lately taken jDlace had caused much scandal. Enormous fees, infinite delays, abuses of every kind, were charged against these courts, which would seem not to have much improved since the days of Henry VIII. and Archbishop Warham. Some more decided attempts at reform were now made by the Church authorities. In the Convo- cation of 1597 a body of canons was passed and ratified under the great seal, which undertook to reform all the grievances complained of. These embody, with more stringent additions, previous canons as to residence. They forbid marriage licenses to be issued until proof had been furnished of no pre-contract, consanguinity, or aflinity, of no suit pending in the ecclesiastical courts, and of con- sent of parents and guardians ; the marriage to be solemnised at a proper time and in the face of the Church. Banns to be published at the lawful intervals. Divorces only to be granted by the judge ecclesiastical ; the divorced persons not to re-marry. Tables of fees, as settled by the archbishoj), to be the only fees allowed. The registers to be written on parchment. Copies of the old paper books having been made, each leaf to be signed by the minister ; the entries to be read out each Sunday by the clerk. The registers to be kept in a chest with three keys ; attested copies to be sent each year to the Diocesan Registry. •'^ § 6. In the Convocation of 1601 Whitgift again brought for- ward the subject of the courts, giving the bishops ^ strict orders — (1) not to proceed in their courts merely upon the promoting of apparitors, and without presentment from the churchwardens ; (2) not to allow their judges to hold courts oftener than once in five weeks ; (3) not to allow men to be cited into different courts for the same fault ; (4) not to allow presentments more than once a year ; (5) to be careful as to the ability of the curates licensed ; (6) to allow none but their chancellors to grant licenses to marry.^ These points were further enforced upon the bishops in a circular letter (January 7, 1602), in which the Primate calls their attention to the fact that the very existence -of their courts is threatened, and that unless they be carefully watched and diligently reformed they must fall. 1 Cardwell, Synodalia, i. 147-163. - The Primate makes some very severe reflections on the negligence of the bishops in his letter to them. 3 /^_ jj^ 533^ 342 WORK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXI. § 7. It was evident, indeed, from the continued and violent attack made upon the Church courts, that a thorough distrust and dislike of them had grown up in the minds of the laity. Foiled in their attempts to deal with them in Parliament, the opponents of the Church courts now bethought them of a more efficacious manner of curbing them and diminishing their power. A plan now began to be introduced of stopping, by means of prohibitions issued out of the courts of common law, the procedure in cases brought into the courts ecclesiastical. The Court of High Commission even was not exempt from these prohibitions,^ and a struggle now com- menced between the judges ecclesiastical and the judges secular, which lasted far on into the next reign. § 8. Upon the whole, though some causes of complaint existed against the Church authorities, the Church may be regarded as being popular and generally accepted in the country during the latter years of Elizabeth. The Puritan faction was biding its time in silence ; the Romanists were still actively plotting, though broken in power and influence ; but the majority of the nation were satisfied with the Church of England. " Those to whom comely forms and decent order were attractive qualities gathered round the institu- tions which had been established in the Church under the auspices of Elizabeth. In the place of her first bishops, who were content to admit these institutions as a matter of necessity, a body of pre- lates grew up who were ready to defend them for their own sake, and who believed that, at least in. their main features, they were framed in accordance with the will of God. Amongst the laity, too, these expressions met with considerable support." ^ To win this place in the regard of the nation the Church had passed through a long struggle, not only externally but internally also, in working out and asserting her true doctrines and legitimate claims. § 9. The divines of the earlier part of the reign of Elizabeth had defended episcopacy and the institutions of the Church mainly on Erastian grounds — that it was within the competence of the sovereign, by virtue of her ecclesiastical supremacy, to appoint and sanction a form of Church government and order, and that the form thus sanctioned in England was not against the Word of God and the usages of the primitive church, but in accordance with them. In thus basing their religious system upon the will of the sovereign, the Church divines laid themselves open to the retort that what the sovereign appointed the sovereign might take away, that such a system had no elements of continuance in it, and therefore nothing of the divine.^ Yet the topic that " the magistrate might lawfully 1 Strype's Widtgift, b. iv. c. 24. 2 Qardiner, Hist, of Eng., i. 156. 2 "^a' ye any work for a Cooioerf' — Maskell, p. 104 ; Epitoim, pp. 10, 11. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 313 ordain it " was the main ground on which Whitgift in his Replies to Cartivright, Bridges in his Defence of Church Government, and Cooper in his Admonition, mainly relied for upholding the Church system. Sometimes they would almost seem to concede that the Puritanical plan was the more scriptural, but still that the other was lawful. Thus Whitgift : " This reply of T. C. consisteth of two false prin- ciples and rotten pillars, whereof the one is that we must of necessity have the same government that was in the apostles' time, and is expressed in the Scriptures, and no other ; " i and Bridges : " The doctor maintains that the Church government prescribed by our Saviour Christ, and enjoined by his apostle, was not immutable as the regiment under the Law was ;" ^ and Cooper : " He saw no proof brought out of the Word of God that such form of government (as the discipline) of necessity ought to be." ^ This feeble line of de- fence of the government of the Church was not abandoned until the preaching of Dr. Bancroft's sermon at Paul's Cross on February 9, 1589. Bancroft asserted that there was no Scriptural basis whatever for the Presbyterian platform, and claimed this for epis- copacy. " There was never ancient father since the apostles' time," he said, " were he never so learned or studious of the truth — there was never particular church council or synod, or any man of judg- ment that ever lived till these latter times — that did even so much as once dream of such a meaning (as them). It is most manifest that there hath been a diverse government from this used in the Church ever since the apostles' times. ... I cannot choose but account these interpreters to be perverters of Christ's meaning, and do hold them among the number of those of whom TertuUian speaketh, *They murder the Scriptures to serve their own purpose.' . . . Bishops have had this authority which Martin condemneth ever since St. Mark's time. . . and Masters and all his companions' opinions have been condemned of heresy ; and there is no man living, as I suppose, able to show where there was any church planted ever since the apostles' times, but there the bishop had authority over the rest of the ministry." ^ This raising of the question of Church government out of the region of the fit and expedient to that of the divine and necessary was acceptable to but few churchmen at the time. Men's minds were greatly in fear of unchurching the foreign reformed communities, and thus cutting themselves off from re- formed Christendom, as they were already severed by the most bitter animosities from papal Christendom.^ With the massacre of St. Bartholomew fresh in their minds, with the dreadful cruelties of Mary's reign still remembered, men could not endure the thought 1 Whitgift's TForks, v. 1. p. 6. ^ Epitome, p. 11. ^ Strype, Annals, vi. 155. ^ Bancroft's Sermon, pp. 10, 11, 69. ^ See Keble's Preface to Hooker, pp. IvL Ix. 344 WORK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXL of tlius placing themselves, as it were, on tlie side of the persecuting Churcli against the suffering Protestants ; but those who looked on questions of Church polity on their own merits, and apart from temporary considerations, at once advanced to the firmer and more tenable ground which was thus put before them. Among others, there is evidence that the Primate greatly altered the views which he had advocated in his controversy with Cartwright. Another able divine now came to lend a helping hand to the cause of the Church. This was Adrian Saravia, a divine from the Low Countries who came to reside in England, principally on account of the anger which his views on Church government had excited against him in Holland. He had been engaged in controversy with Beza, and in 1591 he printed at Frankfort a Latin treatise, De Diversis Minis- trorum Gradibus, in which the true doctrine of episcopacy is clearly laid down.i In this he states : — " It is certain that the apostles did not appoint anything which they had not received of the Lord ; but they did appoint bishops, such as were Timothy and Titus, wherever there was need. Had they not appointed bishops through- out the whole world, so great and so universal a consent would not have approved bishops. The churches were separated one from another by vast distances [so that they could not influence one another], and yet it is strange that not one of them retained that regimen which is now said to be divine, and which may be seen in some reformed churches. If this were a matter of no vital import- ance, and about which nothing certain was delivered by the apostles, there would be the greatest probability that some variation between the churches would be found ; but it would be the greatest miracle if in this one matter, by a universal consent, the apostolic tradition as to government had been altogether changed. All the orthodox believed that in this matter they followed the apostolic tradition and divine institution. From S. Ireneeus ^ it appears that that was an apostolic tradition and a divine institution which was received in all churches instituted by the apostles, but the order of bishops was so received by all churches. It is therefore an apostolical tradition and a divine institution." 3 Thus the doctrine of the divine right of episcopacy may be said to have been fairly planted in England before the time of Hooker's great work ^ on the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. ^ Mr. Keble, Pref, to Hooker, p. Ixv, note, is in error in saying that this treatise was published in England. It was jprinted at Frankfort, Saravia himself being at the time resident in England. Doubtless it was soon made known in England. ^ L. 3 c. 3 {adv. hcer.) ^ Saravia, De Diversis Ministrorum Gradibus, b. i. c. 21, ed. Francof. p. 77. * In an anonymous work called Querimonia Ecclesia^, published about this time, the divine right is also asserted. See Keble's Preface, p. Ixviii. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 345 § 10. On tlie laws of ecclesiastical polity did lie take Ins stand wdtli Bancroft and Saravia? or was lie content with the lower ground of the authority of the magistrate which had been held by Whitgift and Cooper ? Hooker occupies in this contro- versy a middle place between these two schools. His view is that bishops have indeed a divine sanction, but are not indispens- ably necessary to a church. Church government, according to him, is a thing which the Church itself constitutes, under a divine authorisation so to do. The Church has, in accordance with this divine power, constituted the regimen of bishops ; but the Church might, if it so pleased under certain special circumstances, dis- pense with this order and arrange otherwise. Whether these jus- tifying circumstances had arisen in the case of the foreign re- formed churches. Hooker declines to determine, but that they might arise in some cases he expressly states. " We must note," he says, " that he that afifirmeth speech to be necessary among all men throughout the world, doth not thereby import that all men must speak necessarily one kind of language. Even so the neces- sity of polity and regiment in all churches may be held, without holding any one certain form to be necessary for them all." . . . " Unto the complete form of church polity much may be requisite that the Scripture teacheth not, and much that it hath taught be- come unrequisite, sometime because we need not use it, sometime because we cannot. In which respect, for mine own part, although I see that certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and the French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean the government that is by bishops, inasmuch as both these churches are fallen under a different kind of regi- ment, which to remedy it is for the one altogether too late, and too soon for the other, during their present affliction and trouble ; this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such cases than excogitate, considering that men oftentimes, without any fault of their own, may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to content themselves with that, which either the irremediable error of former times, or the necessity of the present, hath cast upon them."i " Bishops, although they may avouch with conformity of truth that their authority hath thus descended even from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and everlasting continuance of it they cannot say that any com- mandment of the Lord doth enjoin, and therefore must acknow- ledge that the Church hath power, by universal consent, upon urgent cause, to take it away, if thereunto she be constrained ^ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, b. iii, ; Works, i. 388, 408. 346 WORK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXI. through the proud, tyrannical, and unreformable dealings of her bishops, whose regiment she hath thus long delighted in, because she hath found it good and requisite to be so governed."^ While, therefore, allowing to episcopacy the highest scriptural sanction. Hooker will not admit its indispensable necessity, and he thus stops somewhat short of asserting its divine right. He drives the Puritans from their ground of claiming the scriptural sanction for their platform, and clearly shows that this is in favour of episco- pacy, but' he will not so resolutely and completely fortify his posi- tion as to allow them no possible ground to stand upon. " On the whole," says his learned editor, " considering his education and circumstances, the testimony which he bears to the bolder and completer views of the divines of the seventeenth century is most satisfactory. Their principles he lays down very emphatically ; and if he does not exactly come up to their conclusion, the differ- ence may be accounted for without supposing any fundamental variance of judgment."^ The ascribing to the Church the power, if it so willed, to abolish the order of bishops, although that order is most agreeable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and to the ancient practice of the Church, is not (according to Hooker) " in anything to imj^air the honour which the Church of God yieldeth to the sacred Scripture's perfection. It is no more to the disgrace of Scripture to have left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church, than for nature to have left it for man to devise his own attire." ^ We may fully and un- reservedly admit this principle, and yet reserve a doubt whether Church polity comes into the category of these mutable things. It would seem as if Hooker's argument, logically carried out, would give to the Church the power even of abolishing the sacraments. He divides, in the first book, all laws into laws natural and laws positive. To the latter class belong all " supernatural duties." Laws natural do always bind ; laws positive not so, " but only after they have been expressly imposed." These are '• either per- manent or changeable, according as the matter itself is concerning which they were first made. Whether God or man be the maker of them, alteration they so far forth admit as the matter doth exact."* To subject the laws of the new dispensation thus unre- servedly to this condition of mutability seems a perilous principle ; and although in Hooker's own evenly-balanced mind there was no danger of the principle being pushed to excess, yet this might very easily be done by others. Hence Hooker's work would have 1 Hooker, Ecd. Polity, b. vii. ; Works, iii. 163. ^ Keble's Hooker, preface, p. Ixxvii. 3 Ecd. Pol. iii. iv. ; Works, i. 358. ^ lb. i. xv. : ih. i. 273. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 347 been more complete had he expressly exempted Church govern- ment, in its essential orders from those things over which the Church has the power of change. That he stopped short of this when he might have victoriously asserted it, proves at any rate, his extreme candour. " If we did seek," he says, " to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for lis, and the strongest against them, were to hold, even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of Church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches at all times. But with any such partial eye to* respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow."^ § 11. But there were other writers at this period who were convinced that the government of the Church by bishops, priests, and deacons, had a divine and exclusive right, and did not scruple to say so. Of these, Thomas Bilson, Warden (afterwards Bishop) of Winchester, was one. In 1593 he published his treatise, The Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, in w^hich the fullest claims are made for episcopacy, and the doctrine of the apostolical suc- cession is unreservedly asserted : — " The things common to bishops," he says, " which might not be common to presbyters, were sin- gularity in succeeding and superiority in ordaining. These two the Scriptures and fathers reserve only to bishops ; they never commimicate them unto presbyters. In every church and city there might be many presbyters ; there could be but one chief to govern the rest. The presbyters, for need, might impose hands on penitents and infants, but by no means might they ordain bishops or ministers of the Word and sacraments. The external unity and perpetuity of the Church depend wholly on these diflFer- ences. And this singularity of one pastor in each place descended from the apostles and their scholars in all the famous churches of 1 The able remarks of Mr. Gardiner are well worth attention : — " Hooker's greatness indeed, like the greatness of all those by whom England was ennobled in the Elizabethan age, consisted rather in the entireness of his nature than in the thoroughness with which his particular investigations were carried out. He sees instinctively the unity of truth, and cannot fail to re- present it as a living whole. It is this which has made him, far more than otliers who were his superiors in consistency of thought, to be regarded as the representative man of the Church of England. The work which had to be done by the generation which came after him was work which lie could not do. Truth was to be divided, in order that each portion of it might be thoroughly mastered. Men were to arise Avho, in clearness of conception and in logical precision, surpassed the great Elizabethan writer as far as the poli- tical themes of Pym or Somers surpassed those of the Elizabethan states- men."— Gardiner, Hist, of England ^ i. 158. 348 WOEK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXI. the world by a perpetual chain of succession, and doth to this day continue, but where abomination or desolation — I mean heresy or violence — interrupt it. . . . The decrees of the whole world, derived from the apostles and confirmed by them, may not be reversed or repealed after 1500 years, unless we challenge to be wiser or better able to govern the Church of Christ than the apostles were."^ And as Bilson would not, as Hooker did, admit the capacity of change in Church government, so neither would he admit any inferiority in the episcopal to the apostolical ofi&ce. " The authority of the first calling," he says, " liveth yet in their successors." The learning and ability with which Bilson advo- cated these views, the thorough and pitiless way in which he refuted the Puritans' pretence for scriptural authority for their discipline, and in especial exposed their invention of lay elders, constitute this work one of the most effective of English theolo- gical controversy, and certainly the most complete and useful which this particular strife produced, 2 § 12. Inferior to Bilson's work in learning and completeness, but yet very noticeable as a vigorous attack on the Puritans and a bold enunciation of the high view of Church government, was Dr. Bancroft's Survey of the Holy Discipline, published the same year (1593). In this he attributes the institution of bishops to Christ himself, declares that all ecclesiastical histories record their Buperiority over presbyters, all general councils have allowed it ; the Church has always held them the apostles' successors, and no ancient writer save Aerius, the heretic, has doubted of it. Where- fore, he says, " I see no reason why this Anabaptistical dream of equality amongst pastors should not be sent back to the place from whence it issued, and why any calling should be more esteemed, cherished, reverenced, and honoured by all true Christians, than the calling, offices, and authority of bishops and archbishops." 3 The controversy on Church government had thus, before the close of the reign of Elizabeth, been raised from the low level of Eras- tian principles, and placed on the higher ground of the voice of Scripture, and the consent of the primitive church. Here the champions of the Church could contend against their opponents, without being weighted with arguments, which seemed, on such a question, to carry their own refutation with them ; and the supe- rior learning and power which they brought to the discussion soon ^ Bilson's Perpetual Government of Christ's Church (ed. Oxford, 1842), p. 316. ^ Of course, Hooker's great work cannot be regarded as belonging simply to the Church government controversy. 3 Bancroft's Survey of Holy DisciiMne, p. 142 (Lond, 4to, 1593). 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 349 established a complete superiority for the Church on this subject. Men saw before them an intelligible issue, and one worth contend- ing for, and for which an enthusiasm could be evoked which could not be produced by defending the mere will of the prince. § 13. There were also other subjects of controversy between the Churchmen and the Puritans which tended to raise the Church in popularity and general esteem. A book came out in the year 1595, notable as being the first setting forth in England of those views as to the observance of the Lord's day, which have had the effect, more perhaps than anything else, of giving a special and l^eculiar character to the religions and social life of England. We find many instances in the earlier history of the Eeformation of serious complaints as to the bad observance of the great weekly festival, and of attempts to give it a more religious character. Al- most all the bishops, in their articles and constitutions, had issued directions about Sunday observance, but they had limited their directions to forbidding buying and selling and games being car- ried on during the time of divine service. The people were left free either to trade or to amuse themselves on the afternoons of Sundays, and, in fact, this had been the day most used for all sorts of games, sports, and exercises, such as Englishmen especially de- lighted in. The regulations that had been made had not proceeded on the ground of the special sacredness of the twenty -four hours of the Sunday, based upon the fourth commandment ; but upon the necessity for observing the seasons of Christian worship ; and thus the Sunday was placed much upon the same footing as the other Christian festivals. In 1595 Dr. Bound, a Puritan minister, put forth a book advocating the especial claim of the Lord's day to an exceptionally strict religious observance. The main topics which he endeavoured to establish were as follows — That the commandment to sanctify every seventh day, as in the Decalogue, is moral and perpetual. The other parts of the Jewish ritual were taken away, but this was changed and so made of perpetual obli- gation. That the seventh day must be observed by us as it was commanded to be observed by the Jews, namely by a complete and entire rest. All ordinary employments should be discontinued, all feasts prohibited, all games and sports, such as shooting, fencing, and bowling, refrained from.^ These views, however familiar they may be to modern ears, were utterly new to the men of that day, and were at once set down as part of a deep-laid scheme to dis- parage the festivals of the Church by the undue exaltation of one day. "The Ijrethren," says Heylin, "had tried many ways to suppress the festivals formerly as having too much in them of the 1 Fuller, Ch. Hist. b. ix, s. viii. par. 20. 350 WORK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXL superstitions of tlie Cliurch of Rome ; but they had found no way successful till they fell upon this, which was to set on foot some new Sabbath doctrine, and by advancing the authority of the Lord's day Sabbath to cry down the rest. Their intent was to cry down the holidays as superstitious Popish ordinances, that so their new-found Sabbath being left alone (and Sabbath now it must be called) might become more eminent." ^ " It is almost incredible," says Fuller, " how taking this (Dr. Bound's) doctrine was. On this day the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler, the most skilful archer unbent the bow, counting all shooting beside the mark. May games and morris dances grew out of request, and good reason that bells should be silenced from jingling about men's legs if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful." 2 The Sabba- tarian doctrine was carried by some of its advocates to a ridiculous and reprehensible excess. Heylin quotes (one cannot be sure with perfect fairness) some of the utterances of the Puritan preachers on this matter. One said, " to do any work on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man or to commit adultery." Another, " that to throw a bowl on the Lord's day was as great a sin as to kill a man." Another, " that to make a feast or dress a wedding- dinner on that day was as great a sin as for a father to kill his child." Another, " that to ring more bells than one on the Lord's day was as great a sin as murder." ^ But, notwithstanding these absurdities, there can be no question that the introduction of this question and the ventilating of the subject did much good. Dr. Bound's book was not immediately replied to, but several treatises in support of it appeared. The first printed reply to it was made by Mr. Rogers in his preface to his book On the Articles!^ He here declares the new doctrine to be an ingenious device for exalting the Presbytery, to which recourse was had when its advocates were completely beaten out of their old ground on the question of Church government. " They abandoned quite the bulwarks they had raised and gave out were impregnable, suffering us to beat them down, without any or with very small resistance, and yet, not careless of their affairs, left not the war for all that, but from an odd corner, and after a new fashion which we little thought of (such was their cunning) set on us afresh again by dispersing in printed books, which for ten years' space before they had been in hammering among themselves to make them complete, their Sab- bath speculations and Presbyterian, that is more than either kingly or popely directions for the observation of the Lord's day." ^ The ^ Heylin's Preshijterians, p. 310. 2 Fuller, u.s. 3 Heylin, u.s. * Keprinted by tlie Parker Society. 5 Eogers, On the Articles, preface. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 351 same writer congratulates liimself that be was the first to draw the attention of the authorities to the supposed mischievous character of these books. Whitgift, watchful against every effort of Puri- tanism, took vigorous measures to repress them, and Chief-Justice Popham seconded him. " Yet all their care," says Fuller, " did but make the Sunday set in a cloud, to arise soon after in more brightness." ^ This, indeed, was one of the great Puritan topics of the next century, and one of their most effective weapons against the Church ; and though in modern days a much greater amount of observance is yielded freely by churchmen to the Lord's day, yet the question of the " morality of the Sabbath " is still one of the theses of controversy.^ § 14. A much more important controversy than this, touching as it did the very life and soul of the Church's doctrine, was that which arose about the same time on the subject of predestination and election. The teaching of the great foreign reformers, espe- cially Calvin and Beza, had completely dominated theological thought in England, and it was only by slow degrees that a reaction against it was brought about. On the question of Church govern- ment the English Church had now risen to its proper level, but on the mysterious questions of the operation of grace, it still tremb- lingly bowed before the Geneva school. It was long since Luthe- ranism had exercised any great influence in England. Its influence was expended in the earlier part of the Reformation, when it found expression in the first draught of what was afterwards the Forty-two Articles. During the Marian persecution the Lutheran Churches had done nothing to help the suffering English exiles, but Calvin, at Geneva, and the divines of the Zurich school, Bullinger and Gualter, had been most generous in their hospitality, and hence the great influence they so long exercised in England. Up to nearly the close of the reign of Elizabeth the English divines were almost universally Calvinist. We get glimpses occasionally of a bold man enunciating something as to free will (such as Bishojj Cheyney of Gloucester), but it was regarded as rank heresy. We now come to the period when this matter came into controversy, and the Church of England ran no inconsiderable peril of being committed to an utterly uncatholic and essentially immoral formula of faith. It is possible to allow the greatest credit to Whitgift for his bold and vigorous administration of the Church, without feeling the same admiration for him in every part of his work. The archbishop was, perhaps, not so strong in theology, as in vigorous discipline. His controversial works on Church government were defective and unsatisfactory, the views which he held, or at least countenanced, ^ Fuller, U.S. viii. 22. ^ ggg ^]^g ^ble Bamptoii Lectures of Dr. TTessey. 352 WORK OF CONVOCATION. Chap. XXI, on the doctrines of grace, seem to be inconsistent either with the sober teaching of Christian ethics or with the validity of the sacra- ments. Hence the melancholy episode of the Lambeth Articles. § 15. Mr. Barret, a fellow of Gonville and Cains College, preaching a Latin sermon at Cambridge, had decried the certainty of assurance and the indefectibility of faith, and had asserted that sin was the true, proper, and first cause of reprobation. This as- sault upon the Calvinian theology caused the greatest anger amongst the Cambridge doctors, who were strong Calvinists, and especially was resented by Dr. Whitaker, the regius professor of divinity. After various proceedings the matter came before the archbishop. Whitgift, desiring to settle the controversy, called to his aid certain bishops and divines, and at Lambeth a paper of Articles on the controverted points was drawn up and agreed upon. § 16. These propositions, generally known as the Lambeth Articles, are as follows : — 1. God from eternity hath predestinated some to life, some He hath reprobated to death. 2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination to life is not the prevision of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything which may be in the persons pre- destinated, but only the will of the good pleasure of God. 3. Of the predestinated there is a fore-limited and certain num- ber which can neither be diminished nor increased. 4. They who are not predestinated to salvation will be neces- sarily condemned on account of their sins. 5. A true-living and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God sanctifying is not extinguished, does not fall away, does not vanish in the elect either totally or finally. 6. A truly faithful man, that is one endowed with justifying faith, is certain by the full assurance of faith, of the remis- sion of his sins and his eternal salvation through Christ. 7. Saving grace is not given, is not commimicated, is not granted to all men, by which they might be saved if they would. 8. No man can come to Christ except it be given to him, and unless the Father draw him. And all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come unto the Son. 9. It is not placed in the will or power of every man to be saved.i It seemed to many that this document elaborately denied the attribute of justice to the Most High, that it makes way for, if it did not suggest, complete Antinomianism in man. In it the part assigned to God in the work of salvation was thought to be the mere exercise of a capricious will ; and man's part the mere ^ Strype's Whitgift, b. iv. cxvii. 1563-1G03. EELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 353 assurance tliat he is the object of this wilh To lay down the doctrine that once having firmly believed in his own salvation, a man can never finally fall away, appeared to be a bold and hazardous statement encouraging a terrible recklessness. § 17. The queen on hearing of these Articles at once ordered Sir Robert Cecil to write to the archbishop that " she misliked much that any allowance had been given by his grace and the rest of any such points to be disputed, being a matter tender and dan- gerous to weak ignorant minds." ^ And the aged Lord Treasurer did not scruple to tell Whitaker, who showed him the Articles, that " they were charging God with cruelty, and might make men to be desperate in their wickedness." ^ § 18. Neither did long time elapse before there was delivered from the pulpit, in the place where they were excogitated, a protest against some of the terrible doctrines contained in the Lambeth Articles. Peter Baro, a Frenchman, Margaret professor at Cambridge, a learned and candid man, preaching the Latin sermon on January 1 2, 1596, maintained — (1) That God created all men according to his own likeness in Adam, and so consequently to eternal life ; (2) That Christ died sufficiently for all ; (3) That the promises of God made to us, as they are generally propounded, so also are to be generally understood. § 19. The vice-chancellor (Dr. Goad) immediately summoned Baro before him to answer for heresy, and at the same time repre- sented the case to the archbishop to endeavour to secure his sup- port. He asserted that Baro was acting in defiance of the settle- ment lately made by the Lambeth Articles, and stirring up strife. The archbishop, after hearing Dr. Baro, wrote to the vice-chancellor that Baro's objections to the Articles were " frivolous and childish," but (as he was now aware of the disgust excited by this document in high quarters) he bade the vice-chancellor proceed cautiously. The proceedings had at first been kept secret from Lord Burleigh the chancellor, but when the matter was laid before him he wrote a severe letter to the vice-chancellor, telling him that he had acted very wrongly in endeavouring to censure the Margaret professor, that the doctrines of the Articles were " dangerous and offensive," that " as good and ancient are of another judgment." They might punish Baro if they would, but they would do it " for well-doing and for holding the truth." " Ye sift him with interrogatories as if he were a thief. This seems done of stomach among you, and your witnesses do not agree." ^ It is difficult to determine whether Whitgift acted in these matters from ignorance of the true bearings 1 Strype's Whitgift, b. iv. c. xvii. ^ j^_ 3 j^^ 2 L 354 WOKK OF CONYOCATIOK Chap. XXI. of these doctrines, or wlietlier lie really desired to establish the Calvinistic scheme of doctrine.^ Certainly he showed himself against Baro and in favour of the Cambridge heads at first. § 20. But several things conspired to change his views. He had been made to know that the queen was very much annoyed at his proceedings and his definitions,^ and it came also to his know- ledge that at a clandestine synod held at London by the Puritans, decrees had been made against Baro. Nothing was 'more likely than this to induce the archbishop to espouse his cause. But be- sides this there was with the archbishop at this time, as his chap- lain, one of those truly great divines of whom the Church of Eng- land was soon to have a plentiful supply, and to him, as his friend, Baro WTote. Lancelot Andrewes ^ did not fail to place the true bearings of the doctrines in dispute before the Primate,* while at Cambridge a divine of scarcely inferior reputation, Dr. Overall,^ had succeeded into the place of Whitaker, who had lately died. Overall, summoned by Baro at one of his appearances before the vice-chan- cellor, and asked his judgment on the doctrine in dispute, " openly and freely confessed his consent with him." ^ All this induced Whitgift to witlidraw his active aid from the Calvinistical party and to support Baro in his ofiice, with the caution that he should no more meddle in these disputed points. This Whitgift did in spite of urgent requests forwarded to him from some of his brethren that he would deprive the professor of his ofi&ce. § 21. Of the universities, Oxford at the beginning of this reign 1 *' Possible it is that lie might not look so far into them as to consider the iU consequences that might follow on them, or that he might prefer the pacifying of some present dissenters before the apprehension of such incon- veniences as were more remote, or else, according to the custom of all such as be in authority, he thought it necessary to preserve Whitaker in power and credit against all such as did oppose him." — Heylin, Presbyterians, p. 345. 2 Heylin says that the queen at fii'st purposed to try all the divines who had been engaged in drawing up the Articles under the Act of Prcemunire, hut that Whitgift's explanation that these were no canons or decrees, hut merely articles for the University of Cambridge, pacified her. She, however, ordered that these Articles should he recalled and suppressed, which was carefully done. — Heylin, Presbyterians, p. 344. 2 Dr. Harsnet, also one of the archhishop's chaplains at this time, had in 1584 preached at Paul's Cross a powerful sermon against the Calvinist doctrine of reprobation. — Heylin, 345. * See his censure of the Lambeth Articles, published in the Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine, and his Life by Dr. EusselL ^ Overall had been previously engaged in disputes with Perkins, one of the most fanatical of the Calvinists, the author of the Armilla Aurea. It was Overall, then Dean of St. Paul's, who at the Hampton Court conference was able to give King James a true account of these Lambeth Articles. « Strype's TFhitgift, b. iv. c. 18. 1563-1603. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. 355 was almost altogether Eomanist, but gradually — under the influence of Leicester, its chancellor, and that of Dr. Humphrey, regius pro- fessor of divinity, and Dr. Reynolds, president of Corpus, both men of great ability and strong Puritan bias — it went into the opposite extreme. Sir F. Walsingham had founded a lecture in the university for the express purpose of widening the differences be- tween the Papist and the Protestant, and this lecture was held by Dr. Reynolds, whose great reputation for learning gave his utter- ances much weight.^ Under these circumstances, as Heylin says, " the face of the university was so much altered, that there was little to be seen in it of the Church of England according to the principles and positions upon which it was first reformed. All the Calvinian rigors in matters of predestination, and the points depending thereupon, received as the established doctrine of the Church of England ; the necessity of one sacrament, the eminent dignity of the other, and the powerful efficacy of both unto man's salvation, not only disputed, but denied ; Episcopacy maintained by halves, not as a distinct order from that of the Presbyters, but only a degree above them, or perhaps not that, for fear of giving scandal to the churches of Calvin's platform ; the Church of Rome inveighed against as the ' whore of Babylon,' the ' mother of abominations ; ' the pope as publicly maintained to be Antichrist, or the Man of Sin, and that as positively and magisterially as if it had been one of the chief articles of the Christian faith ; and then, for fear of having any good thoughts for either, the visibility of the Church must be no otherwise maintained than by looking for it in the scattered conventicles of the Berengarians in Italy, the Albigenses in France, the Hussites in Bohemia, and the Wick- liffists among ourselves. Nor was there any greater care taken for the forms and orders of this church than there had been for points of doctrine ; the surplice so disused in officiating the divine service of the Church, and the divine service so slurred over in most of the colleges, that the prelates and clergy assembled in the Convocation in 1603 were necessitated to frame two canons to bring them back again to the ancient practice." 2 Since the time of Bishop Jewel no great divine had arisen in Oxford until Richard Hooker came forward to redeem his university from the reproach of narrow-mindedness and shallow learning. 1 B.ey\m' a Idfe of Laud, p. 51. Dr. John Reynolds, so famous as a Puritan divine, was educated in one of the Romish seminaries, and originally professed Romanism. His brother William sought to convert him. He effected this, but in the process of argument was himself convinced of the truth of Romanism, and so the two brothers changed sides. John became a firm Protestant, William a decided Romanist. ^ Heylin's Laud, p. 51 356 RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. Chap. XXI § 2 2. At Cambridge there were, throughout the reign of Eliza- beth, many more distinguished men than at Oxford, but the Puri- tanism and Calvinism of Cambridge had been even more decided and aggressive. From Trinity College came Cartwright and Travers, the " head and neck " of English Puritanism ; while Drs. Humphrey and Reynolds of Oxford were eclipsed in stern Calvinism by Drs. Whitaker and Goad at Cambridge. But as Oxford had already produced Hooker and Field, so had Cambridge now her Andrewes and Overal. Better days were in store for both the universities. ' The Church in her divine character, with her life- giving sacraments, began to be admired and loved, and the narrow- ness of the Puritan and the dogmatism of the Calvinist gradually receded into the background. § 23. " An undoubted reaction against Puritanism," writes Mr. Gardiner, " marked the end of the sixteenth century. As one by one the generation which had sustained the queen at her accession dropped into the grave, a generation arose which, excepting in books of controversy, knew nothing of any religion which differed from that of the Church of England. The ceremonies and vest- ments which in the time of their fathers had been exposed to such bitter attacks were to them hallowed, as having been entwined with their earliest associations. It required a strong effort of the imagination to connect them with the forms of a departed system which they had never witnessed with their eyes ; but they re- membered that those ceremonies had been used, and those vest- ments had been worn by the clergy, who had led their prayers during those anxious days, when the Armada, yet unconquered, was hovering round the coast, and who had in their name and in the name of all true Englishmen, offered the thanksgiving which had ascended to heaven after the great victory had been won." ^ ^ Gardiner's Hist, of England^ i. 156. Chap. XXI. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 357 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. ENGLAND AND ROME DURING THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. Only about 200 clergy quitted their benefices or positions in the Church of England on the accession of Elizabeth. A very large number therefore of those who did not accept reforming views must have at first conformed. This conformity would probably have become by degrees hearty and genuine, had it not been for the \iolent proceedings of the popes. Pope Paul IV., to whom the Queen announced her accession by her ambassador, Sir Edward Carne, pronounced her a bastard, and to have no right to the throne, but promised if she would return to obedience to the Apostolic See he would consider her case. Of course the recall of the ambassador was immediately ordered. The succeeding Pope, Pius IV., made some conciliatory overtures. He desired to send a nuncio to England, and is said (though on insufficient authority) to have ofifered to confirm and approve the Eng- lish liturgy, and to annul the sentence against her mother's marriage, if the queen would " return into the bosom of the Church." These overtures were re- fused, and the nuncio was not suffered to land. The same pope (May 1561) invited Elizabeth to send representatives to the Council of Trent, but the invitation was declined on the ground of the faulty nature of the Council. There was nothing, therefore, as yet to hinder Romanists communicating with, and ministering in, the English Church, and that they did so during the first eleven years of the queen's reign we have the clearest testimony. Bristow, a fanatical Romanist, attacks his brethren with great bitterness "for that they did for the penny give them- selves to the ministry of the new service." and also censures the laymen for being hearers of it.i All this was changed by the action of a succeeding pope (Pius V.) after the abortive rebellion in the north. (Feb. 25, 1570) this pope published against the queen a Bull of Excommuni- cation and Deposition (known as the Bull regnans in excelsis), and henceforth all English Romanists loyal to the pope were constrained to regard the queen as an enemy, and to separate themselves from the Church which she upheld. The 1 Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog., iii. 318, note. action of the pope is deplored and con- demned by all moderate Romanist writers, (e.g. Messrs. Butler and Tierney), and it was repudiated by a great number, especi- ally among the laity, of the English Romanists at that day. In order to up- hold this violent ultramontane policy, so distasteful to many of their fellow- religionists, the leaders of the faction, who themselves remained in safety abroad, adopted various means. The most efl'ectual was the establishment of seminaries, where young men were trained for missionary work in England, and led to believe that the "conversion" of their countrymen, and the deposition of the heretical queen, were objects worth any risk to accomplish. The principal in- triguer, who v.-as also the founder of the first English seminary at Douai in Flanders, in 1568, was William Allen, once a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and afterwards a cardinal. This man procured the establishment of English colleges, both at Rome and in Spain, besides that at Douai. In 1580 he sent into England the first Jesuit mission- aries. Fathers Persons and Campion. Campion was captured, and executed with circumstances of great cruelty, but Per- sons escaped, and was long a very dangerous enemy to England. Notwith- standing the most rigorous laws, and the greatest severity shown by Government, a continuous stream of seminarist priests was poured into England. These men, pledged to do the mandates of a Church, which had excommunicated and deposed the queen, came, in fact, as traitors to the Government, and could expect no- thing, when apprehended, but the treat- ment of traitors. At the time of the Armada, Persons and Allen put forth a book openly advocating the cause of the King of Spain against Elizabeth. Plots against the life of the queen were con- tinually being organised by some of these intriguers. The laws, therefore, against them grew continually more and more ferocious. Yet, in spite of these terrible enactments, it is probable that at no time during the reign of Elizabeth would a Romanist priest, who was ready to dis- claim the deposing power of the pope, and to profess his loyal allegiance to the queen, have incurred sentence of death. --(Hallam, Co7ist. Hist. Tiemey's Notes to Dodd. Butler's English Catholics.) 358 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII. CHAPTER XXn. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA — CONFERENCE WITH THE PURITANS. THE " E2-ANIM0 " SUBSCRIPTION. 1603-1605. § 1. Attempts to get the first word with King James. § 2. He gives indica- tions that he will support the Church. § 3. The Millennary Petition. § 4. Rej)lies to it. § 5. The King shows an inclination to listen to it. § 6. Proclamation for a Conference. § 7. The Conference at Hampton Court. § 8. The first day's work. § 9. The second day. § 10. The third day. § 11. Arrangements for carrying out the alterations. § 12. Death of Whitgift ; his Character. § 13. A Proclamation ordering con- formity. § 14. Character of King James. § 15. Character of the new era. § 16. Church Legislation in Parliament. § 17. Meeting of Can- terbury Convocation. § 18. The Canons of 1604. § 19. York Con- vocation accepts them. § 20. Proclamation for conformity by St. Andrew's Day. § 21. Bancroft made Archbishop, § 22. Character of the new Subscription. § 23. The Bishops ordered to enforce it. § 24. The Judges consulted. § 25. Deprivations of Ministers. § 26. The Abridgment of the Lincolnshire Ifinisters. § 27. Morton's reply. § 28. Apparent success of Bancroft's measures. § 29. Testimony of Lord Clarendon. § 30. Of Dr. Heylin. § 1. There was sufficient doubt as to tlie religious opinions of the Scotch king who succeeded Elizabeth on the throne of England, to make all parties eager to have the first word with him on his accession. Mr. Lewis Pickering, " a Northamptonshire gentleman, zealous for the Presbyterian party," was the messenger chosen by the Puritans to hasten into Scotland with congratulations, and Dr. Neville, Dean of Canterbury, was deputed by the archbishop and the prelates. The dean was outstripped considerably by the zeal and activity of his rival, but, says Fuller, " he may be said to come first who comes really to effect what he was sent for." i § 2. Dr. Neville brought back " a welcome answer of his Highness' purpose, which was to uphold and maintain the govern- ment of the late queen as she had left it settled." ^ This message was a great relief to the archbishop, for both he and the Bishop of London had been doubtful whether James would not favour the Puritanical discif)line. Further indications were soon given of the conservative intentions of the new monarch. He warned off by a proclamation those who were flocking to him with their 1 FuUer, Ch. Hist. x. 1. 13 ^ duller, u. s. 1603-1605. CONFERENCE WITH THE PURITANS. 359 grievances in his progress soiitliwards,^ and by anotlier proclama- tion he forbade all innovations in the Church either in doctrine or discipline.2 § 3. The Puritans had been long preparing for a vigorous mani- festo to the new ruler. They had drawn up a petition recounting all their grievances, to which the signatures or approvals of about 750 ministers had been obtained. This was forwarded to the king soon after his accession, and the calm tone in which it was composed, and the reasonableness of some of its demands, caused, on its becoming known, a considerable trej)idation among the Church divines. 2 § 4. The universities were somewhat aimed at in it, and they at once replied. Cambridge passed a decree that whoever opposed the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England, either in word or writing, should be suspended from all degrees already taken, and disabled from taking any new degree. Oxford pub- lished a reply, in which it averred that the framers of the petition were such as advocated a limited monarchy, and the subjecting the titles of kings to the approbation of the people.* This seemed a sure way to prejudice King James against the document. On his part the Primate carefully collected the information needful to meet the Puritanical complaints. The bishops were directed to cause their archdeacons or commissaries to see j)ersoually every incumbent and curate within their jurisdictions, and to ascertain from them the number of communicants in each parish, the number of recusants ; the names of pluralists, with particulars of their benefices ; the number of impropriations, and whether endowed with vicarages or served by curates, and the stipends paid ; the names of all parsonages endowed with vicarages ; the value of both ; the names of all patrons of benefices. § 5. All this information was collected at the desire of the king, and he further wrote both to the Chancellor of Oxford and to the archbishop, desiring that they should take into consideration the restoration of impropriations to the Church.^ The archbishop became " exceeding pensive," and the hopes of the Puritans were high. Everywhere they were employed in getting signatures of influential laymen to support their petition. Whitgift wrote to the king pointing out that the restoration of impropriations by the universities would be ruin to them ; and at length, in Septem- ber 1603, the king made public a letter to the archbishop and ^ State Papers of James I. (Domestic), 1, 21. 2 Collier, Ch. Hist. vii. 273. ^ The petition, known as the Millenary Petition, will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ■* Strype's Whitgift, iv. 31. 5 Harleian MSS. 677, 23, 30. Tanner MSS. 67, 67. 360 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII bishops, declaring his constancy to the Church, and his determina- tion to uphold the laws for its protection, but without shedding of blood. ^ The bishops were reassured, but at the same time they were informed that their adversaries were to have a fair hearing. § 6. October 24, 1603, came out a proclamation dated from Wilton, " touching a meeting for the hearing and determining things pretended to be amiss in the Church." The king declares in this that he was persuaded that the constitution of the Church of England was agreeable to God's Word, and near to the condi- tion of the primitive church. Yet, because he had received in- formation that some things in it were scandalous and gave offence, he had appointed a meeting to be held before himself and Council, of divers bishops and other learned men, at which consultation he hoped to be better informed of the state of the Church, and whether there were any such enormities in it. " This our godly purpose we find hath been misconstrued by some men's spirits, whose heart tendeth rather to combustion than reformation, as appeareth by the courses they have taken, some using public invectives against the state ecclesiastical here established, some contemning their authority and the processes of their courts, some gathering subscriptions of multitudes of vulgar persons to be ex- hibited to us, to crave that reformation which, if there be cause to make, is more in our heart than in theirs. . . . We are not ignorant that time may have brought in some corruptions which may deserve a review and amendment, which, if by the assembly intended by us, we shall find to be so indeed, we will therein pro- ceed according to the laws and customs of this realm by advice of our Council, or in our high Court of Parliament, or hy Convoca- tion of ova clergy, as we shall find reason to lead us." 2 § 7. In accordance with this proclamation a conference was arranged to be held at Hampton Court in January 1604. The king nominated the Puritan deputies. This was an unfortunate arrangement, as it at once gave a handle to objectors. ^ It was also complained by the Puritans afterwards that the authorised report of the conference, drawn up by Barlow, was grossly partial to the Church, that " it fraudulently cut off and concealed all the speeches (which were many) that his Majesty uttered against the corruptions of the Church, and the practice of prelates ; " and if, says the writer, " the king's own speeches be grossly abused by the author, it is much more likely that S2)eeches of other men are ^ State Papers of James (J. Domestic), ii. 39 ; iii. 82. 2 /^^ ^y^ 28. ^ Calderwood says : " Two or three were appointed of the sincerer side, that were not sound, hut only to spy and prevaricate. " — Ch. Hist. 0/ Scot- land, p. 474. 1603-1605. CONFERENCE WITH THE PURITANS. 361 abused." ^ It was also unfortunate that on the side of the Puritans "* only four divines were nominated (Doctors Eejnolds and Sparkes, Mr. Chaderton and Mr. Knewstubbs), while the Church was allowed to be represented by not less than nineteen. 2 This neglect of proper securities for fair discussion and report, naturally suggested to the Puritans to repudiate and scoff at a conference in which their substantial gains amounted to so little.^ The king was also no doubt offensively jocular, and argumentative in an unfair degree for a moderator ; and it is probable that in pre- sence of so great a phalanx of Church dignitaries, and before a judge whose bias was so clearly shown, " the Puritan divines argued weakly, so that all wondered they had no more to say." ^ To the Church the result of the conference was highly satisfactory. No im- portant concessions had to be made, and if any doubts had existed in the minds of any churchmen as to the inclinations of the king towards Presbyterianism, they were fully and entirely removed. § 8. On Saturday, January 14, only the bishops and five deans, with the Lords of the Council, were present with the king, it being understood that this meeting was for the king's own satisfaction on sundry points in the English ritual, on which he desired some explanation. After long discussion, six points were referred to the bishops as requiring some alteration — viz. the titles of the general absolution, and the confirmation of children, and the allowance of baptism by women. Also two points relating to the jurisdiction of the bishops, and one to the state of the Church in Ireland. The Puritans gave out that the king was strongly against the bishops, and, in fact, it appears that he argued with them for three hours against private baptism. The divines, however, were sufficiently well satisfied to bestow extravagant laudations on his Majesty's learning and eloquence.^ § 9. On Monday, January 16, the Puritans were admitted to state their objections. They divided these into four heads — (I.) of doctrine; (II.) of pastors; (HI.) of Church government; (IV.) ^ Quoted in Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation, p. 225. Fuller seems to endorse the accusation, x. 1. 24. 2 Nine bishops : Whitgift, Matthews, Bancroft, Bilson, Babington, Rudde, Watson, Robinson, Dove. Eight deans : Montague Dean of the Chapel, Christ Church, St. Paul's, Worcester, Salisbury, Chester, Windsor, Westmin- ster. Archdeacon King and Dr. Field. — (Collier.) ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 29. ■* Montague, letter to his mother, Nicholls' Progresses, i. 315. ° Thus Montague: — "He spako for three hours wisely, witily, and learnedly, and with that pretty patience that I think no man living ever heard the like." " He sent us away," says Barlow, " not with contentment only, but astonishment. " "He showed such dexterity, perspicuity, and sufficiency, " says Bilson, " that I protest before God, without flattery, I have not observed the like in any man living." 362 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII. of ritual and tlie Prayer-book. I. The objections made to the Articles were (a) to the sixteenth, " We may depart from grace given and fall into sin." They desired also to have the Lambeth Articles inserted in the book, (b) To the twenty-third, " It is not lawful for any to minister in the congregation " (which it was said im- plied that one might minister out of the congregation though not lawfully called), (c) To the twenty-fifth, which calls " confirmation a corrupt following of the apostles," and yet in another place it is enjoined, (d) That a clause might be added to the articles, stating that the intention of the minister is not necessary to the sacrament. (e) To the thirty-seventh Article, which states that the Bishop of Rome " hath no authority," that the words " nor ought to have " might be added. (/) That an addition should be made to the Church Catechism, (g) That some order be taken for the better observance of the Lord's day. (h) That a revision of the transla- tion of the Bible should be made. To these objections the fol- lowing answers were given : — (a) With regard to the doctrine of predestination, the king desired it should be handled tenderly, and having inquired concerning the Lambeth Articles, was opposed to their introduction. (6) This objection was considered frivolous. (c) Confirmation by the bishop was defended as a primitive prac- tice, (d) This was refused on the ground of overcumbering the book, (e) The statement of his having no authority was said to imply that he ought to have none. (/) It was conceded that an addition to the Catechism might ]^rofitably be made, (g) That this ought to be looked to. (/t) That this also was desirable. II. The objections as to jpastors — (a) That learned ministers be provided for each parish. (6) That subscription be relaxed. Dr. Reynolds specially excepted against the use of the Apocrypha, and some insertions of words in the Gospels. It was answered — («) That it was hard to turn old incompetent men out. The bishops sug- gested that the bad appointments of lay patrons were a chief cause of the evil of unlearned ministers. (5) Subscription must be maintained, but some of the changes indicated by Dr. Reynolds might be made. III. The objections as to Church government — (a) That ecclesiastical censures should be pronounced by lay chancellors. (6) That prophesyings should be repressed, (a) To the first it was answered that the matter had been often under consideration, and it was reserved. (6) To the second the king broke out into a rage, saying, " If you aim at a Scotch presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, will meet and censure me and my Council." IV. The objections to the ritual and Prayer-book were urged by Mr. Knew- stubbs. He objected — (a) To the cross in baptism. (6) To the sur- plice, (c) To the ceremonies of the marriage service, (d) To the 1603-1605. CONFERENCE WITH THE PUEITANS. 363 cliiircliing of women. To the first — (a) it was answered that it was a salutary and expressive ceremony, and could not offend any but contentious persons. The king declared he would not tolerate such weak brethren. (6) The surplice had been described by Mr. Knewstubbs as " a garment worn by the priests of Isis." The king retorted that till lately he had always heard it described as a " rag of popery." The objectors did not know their own minds, (c) The marriage service was defended by the jocular remark made by the king that if the objector had a good wife he would not find fault with the way in which he came by her. (d) The " churching of women " was also defended in the same way as a means of bringing women to church. It is evident from the sort of answers made to the objections that no real trouble was taken to investigate the points which they raised, and there is some ground for the assertion of the Puritan historian : " The Puritan ministers were insulted, ridiculed, and laughed to scorn, without either wit or good manners." ^ Yet some substantial concessions were made, as for instance, the additions to the Catechism and the revision of the English translation of the Bible. § 1 0. On the third day of the conference (Wednesday, January 18), the archbishop and the committee, who had been occupied in con- sidering the points referred for alteration on the first day, presented their report. They suggested that after the word absolution, or remission of sins should be added. That in private baptism the lawful minister should alone be authorised to act. That before confirmation the words examination with be inserted. That Jesus said to them be substituted in the Gospels in two places for Jesus said to his disciyles. Then arose a discussion on the High Commis- sion Court and the oath ex officio. The king said that he heard that the commissioners were too many and too mean. The archbishop replied that he was obliged to have some of lower rank whose attendance he could comiDel. One of the lay lords broke out against the oath ex officio as being like the Spanish ImjDosition. The king defended this objectionable mode of proceeding. Upon this some of the bishops were so delighted that they could not contain their joy at having such a king given to them. " Undoubtedly," said the Primate, " your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit " — an utterance which may well be regretted in such a matter. As no further changes were agreed upon, the Puritan advocates were now called in to hear the small amount of altera- tions which had been accepted, and to be told by his Majesty that the exceptions taken were matters of weakness. " If the persons reluctant be discreet, they will be won betimes. If indiscreet, better ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 27. 364 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXIL they were removed, for by tlieir factions many are driven to be papists. " From you, Dr. Reynolds," he added, " I expect obedi- ence and humility (the marks of honest and good men), and that you would persuade others abroad by your example." Mr. Chader- ton and Mr. Knewstubbs endeavoured to plead for some allowance for certain ministers in Lancashire and Suffolk. But the king would not hear of any concessions. " Let them conform themselves, or they shall hear of it," was his final sentence.^ § 11. Certain commissioners were appointed by the king to carry out the alterations agreed upon, and they were then published in letters-patent, which ordered the exclusive use of the amended Prayer-book. The power to do this was assumed to be lodged in the Crown by that clause in the Act of Uniformity which em- powered the sovereign, on the advice of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners, to ordain further ceremonies, if the orders of the book were misused.^ It is, however, very doubtful whether this power was not in this instance overstrained, and whether the changes in the Prayer- book now made 3 were legal. Their acceptance afterwards by the Convo- cation might serve to quiet the consciences of the clergy in the matter. § 12. Very soon after the conference was ended, the archbishop, who had played such a prominent part in the history of the Church of England for upwards of twenty years, died. Whitgift had caught cold in going in his barge to Fulham, and having been kept long in attendance on the king at Whitehall, he was seized with paralysis. He was carried at once to Lambeth, and the next day visited by the king. His lips, touched by the paralysis, failed" to arti< culate anything save the words, which he was heard again and again to repeat, Pro ecclesia Dei, and no words could be a better com- ment on his life and labours. The active and vigorous character of this great man, the straightforward and unhesitating way in which he dealt with abuses, procured him many enemies, but none ever ventured to impugn the uprightness of his character, the singleness of his motives, or the clemency which he used towards adversaries whose mischievous practices he had once checked. To him the Church of England owes, under God, the preservation of its order and discipline, and the rescue of its property from the covetous grasp of the queen and courtiers. He scrupled not to tell Elizabeth the plainest truths with regard to her duties towards Church property ; and the queen, than whom there was no better ^ Barlow's Sum of the Hampton Court Conference ; Neal ; Fuller ; Strype's Whitgift ; Nicholl's Progresses; Calderwood ; Harrington's Nugce Antiquce ; Trevelyan Papers. ^ Procter's Rist. of Prayer-hooJc, p. 91, and note 4. * For the particular changes made at this time, see Notes and Illustrations. 1603-1605. CONFEEENCE WITH THE TURITANS. 365 judge of the real worth and value of a man, ever esteemed and respected him.^ § 13. Whitgift died February 29, 1604, and on March 5 came forth a proclamation from the king declaring that the Book of Com- mon Prayer and the doctrine of the established Church were unexcep- tionable, and calling upon all men to conform to it. All oflenders against the laws in this behalf were to be strictly punished. 2 This was the formal answer made by the king to the Millenary Petition. § 14. The policy of the king in religious matters was thus plainly declared, and the Puritans saw to what a broken reed they had trusted in their expectations that he was likely to favour the Pres- byterian discipline. They had hoped, judging from some expres- sions used in his book — Basilicon Doron— and from his letter to Queen Elizabeth in favour of Cartwright and Udal,^ that he woidd regard them with favour ; but James in Scotland, with the uncer- tainty of the future pressing on him, and James in England, securely seated on the throne of Elizabeth, were two very different persons. His real nature was now allowed to have play, and in that nature the strongest principle was his love of arbitrary power. Putting theological questions altogether aside, it was certain that the king would strongly support a Church, which magnified even inor- dinately the kingly office, and preached the doctrines of passive obedi- ence and absolute submission. But though the staunch est Churchman might be satisfied with the attitude which the king had now assumed towards the Puritans, he would scarcely be endued with a sagacious judgment if he augured very favourably as to the value of the character of James to the Church of England. The king's character was marked by vanity, weakness, and selfishness, and' these, in combination, threatened an especial danger to the Church. For while his vanity led him to think that he could settle everything, especially in the domain of theology, which he had made his peculiar study,* his weakness led him constantly to recede from positions he had once taken up, and his selfishness allowed him to throw the blame upon others. Thus churchmen under his influence were beguiled into making extravagant pretensions, and then found themselves deserted, ^ See Sir G. Paul's Life of Whitgift, Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. vol. iii., and an able sketch of Whitgift in Cooper's Athence Cantabrigienses, ii. 369- 0/9. Strype s elaborate life of the archbishop is the most valuable book we possess for the Church history of these times, ^ State Palmers of James I. (Domestic), vi. 88. ^ Heylin's Preshyteriam, p. 316. * When James succeeded to the English throne he had already published various treatises— viz., A volume of Poems (1584); Meditation on the Reve- T^/rai\ '^t'' ^^^^^^ ' ^^'^'"^^ Exercises {im); Demonology and JFitch- craft {1690 ; True Law of Free Monarchies (1598) ; Basilicon Boron ■ In- struction to the Prince, written 1599, published 1602. 366 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII and overwhelmed by tlie odium which, he did not attempt to stave off from them. He was a better Churchman than Elizabeth, but by no means so valuable a support. The queen seemed to regard the Church as a department of the State, and bishops as State officers. She viewed the Puritans simply as rebellious subjects, and would no more have admitted a conference with them, than she would have consulted with rogues as to the laws for petty larceny. James disliked Puritans probably as much, but he looked at them from the point of view of a polemical divine, even more than from that of a ruler of the State. Thus he complains not so much of their insubordination as of their bad arguments,^ and would treat them as schismatics rather than as traitors. § 15. And the difference of the opinions of the rulers marks the essential difference between the Eeformation period under Elizabeth, and the Anglo-Catholic period now commencing. The authority of the magistrate, the support of foreign reformers, were no longer relied upon by English divines as the great arguments in their controversies ; but now, fathers, councils, and the primitive church were regarded as the main stay of doctrine, while the divine authority, handed down from the first by the succession of bishops, furnished the Church with a paramount claim to obedience. The king in his speech to Parliament owns the Eoman communion as his mother Church,^ though defiled with blemishes and corrup- tions. The Puritans he describes as novelists, and a sect rather than a society of Christians. § 16. The Church might now not unreasonably anticipate a fairer treatment of her property than had prevailed in the late reign. In the first Parliament of James was passed an Act to restrain bishops or ecclesiastical corporations from granting manors to the Crown, except on leases of three lives or twenty-one years.^ Whether this Act was due to the king's consideration, or, as Hey- lin says, was contrived by Bishop Bancroft " to prevent the begging of the Scots,"* it was a very salutary protection to the Church. Parliament, however, renewed its attack upon the ecclesiastical courts ; and, by way of disparaging Church jurisdiction, it was enacted that all processes, citations, and judgments in any ecclesiastical courts should be issued in the king's name and under the king's seal.^ 1 King James to Mr. Blake (Lord Northampton) ; Strype's Whitgift, Appendix iv. 46. 2 The Eomanists had conceived the highest hopes of him at the beginning of his reign. Father Persons writes to N. T. his hopes that the king may become a Catholic. In another letter to the Eomish bishops it is asserted that the king is a Catholic. — State Papers of James I. (Domestic) i. 84, 117, 118. ^1 Jac. I. c. 3. ^ Presbyterians, p. 375. ^ This was disused by order of King Charles I. in 1638. 1603-1605. CON]fEEENCE WITH THE PURITANS. 367 § 17. On Marcli 20 met the Convocation of Canterbiir}\ Bancroft, Bishop of London, presided, the primacy being vacant. On the fifth session (April 1 3) he exhibited the king's license to the synod to make canons. Petitions were made to the House by the Puritans for relaxation of the terms of conformity, but they were merely admonished to conform. On May 1 8 the Tliirty-nine Articles were again approved and subscribed by the synod. Be- tween the beginning of May and the beginning of July the whole of the Book of Canons brought in by Bishop Bancroft was con- sidered and adopted. A great part of these had been approved by previous Convocations,^ but there was much new matter introduced. A lively debate took place as to the use of the symbol of the cross in baptism, which gave offence to many Puritans. The effect of this debate may be seen in Canon 30, which is a long argumenta- tive defence of that ancient custom. The other canons appear to have passed without much opposition, and thus an important code of laws for the guidance of the Church was properly passed and ratified. It has been held by various judges that these canons do not bind the laity jJroprio vigore, but only so far as they recite older canons which had received parliamentary sanction. There can, however, be no question that they bind the clergy, and may be enforced in ecclesiastical courts by ecclesiastical penalties.^ § 18. The whole body of canons, numbering 161, is divided into thirteen chapters or heads. The first chapter was directed against the Puritans. It declared that those who impugned the true and apostolical character of the Church of England, or any part of its authorised worship or ceremonies, or who separated from her communion, were ipso facto excommunicated, and were not to be restored but by the archbishop, after repentance and re- vocation of these wicked errors.^ Chapter 2 treats of Divine Wor- ship, and contains sixteen canons, regulating the use of all parts of the service of the Church of England. Besides the services to be said on Sundays and holidays, the Litany is to be said on "Wednes- days and Fridays ; due reverence and devotion during service time is commanded ; all are to make lowly reverence at the name of Jesus ; holy communion to be received thrice a year " at the least ;" copes to be used in cathedral churches ; the use of the cross at baptism defended at length. Chapter 3, of Ministers, con- tains forty-six canons. Canon 36 orders that Whitgift's three ^ The canons passed during Elizabeth's reign had only been ratified by the queen for her life, so that they would have fallen had they not been thus renewed. ^ gee Joyce, Sacred Synods, p. 625 sq. ^ Ipso faxto excommunication was a convenient weapon to use, but it is very doubtful whether such excommunications have any validity, and it is certain they were not generally recognised. 368 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII. articles of subscription shall be willingly and ex animo subscribed by all who are ordained, admitted, or licensed. A strict oath against simony is introduced ; a form of bidding prayer given ; ministers are to catechise every Sunday, and confirmation is to be performed by the bishops once in three years. The restrictions as to marriage are inserted ; clergymen are to visit the sick, and not to delay baptism or burial, and duly to keep their registers. Chapter 4 treats of Schoolmasters. Chapter 5 of The decent Fittings mid Ornaments of Churches, and their rejmir. Chapter 6 of Church- ivardens ' a7id Parish Clerks. Chapters 7 to 12 of Ecclesiastical Courts. And chapter 13 of Synods. § 19. These canons, passed only by the Synod of Canterbury, were confirmed by the king's letters-patent, without any reference to York. But York, in order to save its independence, desired the king's license to make canons, and having obtained it, accepted and passed the canons which had been before agreed upon by Canterbury.! § 20. The Convocation of Canterbury was prorogued July 9, and on the 1 6th came forth a proclamation warning all to be ready to con- form before the last day of November, or to take the consequences.^ § 21. On December 4 (1604), Bancroft, Bishop of London, was appointed to the primacy in succession to Whitgift. Some ' had thought that Toby Matthews, Archbishop of York, would be selected, but Bancroft was avowedly chosen as the most ready and able to enforce that vigorous discipline against the Puritans which had been determined on.^ § 22. For this work, so far as vigour and courage went, Ban- croft was eminently suited, but it may well be doubted whether the policy now adopted and zealously carried out, were justifiable, or whether it was not stretching tlie requirements of conformity beyond all measure. For now it was determined not to be con- tent with Whitgift's test of the subscription to the three articles, but to exact of the clergy a declaration that they made the sub- scription willingly and ex animo. Many men who did not alto- gether like the Prayer-book, nor the subscription test, might yet be willing to accept it for the sake of peace, and in order that they might not be parted from their flocks. All such men were met by this new device, which obliged them to say that they took the test willingly and with full aj^proval of it. This was hard measure. Again, those who had previously subscribed, and w^ho were living in peace in their parishes, were to be called upon to subscribe again in this more pronounced sense, and this offended many. For it was argued that the intention of the Church in exacting subscription ! Wake, State of the Church of England, p. 507. * Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 63. ' Sir J, Harrington's Brief Survey of the Church of England, p. 11. 1603-1605. THE EX-ANIMO TEST. 369 must "be regarded, "I have four times subscribed," \\Tites a Puritan divine, " to the Book of Common Prayer, with limitation and reference of all things therein contained to the purpose and doctrine of the Church of England ; but I cannot again subscribe, in- asmuch as the pu'i'pose, if not the doctrine, of our Church seems to be varied by the late proceedings from what I had taken it to be." ^ § 23. The archbishop, immediately after his confirmation, sent orders to his suffragans to enforce the new subscription test. " His Majesty expecteth," he said, " where advice prevaUeth not, autho- rity shall compel, and that the laws shall be put into execution where admonition taketh not effect." He instructs the bishops that, with regard to the ministers who were already placed, who were to be called upon to subscribe, those who utterly refused were to be at once silenced and deprived under the Act of Uni- formity .^ Those who were willing to promise conformity, but were unwilling to subscribe again, were to be " respited for some short time." But all were ultimately to subscribe, or be com- pelled to quit their benefices, two or three months' grace being given to them in order that they might find another house.^ § 24. As some doubt was felt as to the power of thus sum- marily depriving men of their freeholds, the judges were consulted. They reported that the king had power without Parliament to make orders and constitutions for the government of the clergy, and to deprive them if they obeyed not, and that he had also the power to delegate this ecclesiastical prerogative to commissioners.* Being also asked whether it was an offence to petition the king against the use of this power, they declared that it was an offence, " fine- able at discretion, and very near treason and felony." The eccle- siastical supremacy, supported by the Court of High Commission, could thus be worked so as to put the clergy completely in the king's hand, without anj^ rights or means of redress.^ § 25. Happily the judges were soon of another mind, but a large number of deprivations took place through the exercise of this arbitrary power. The number is estimated by the Puritans as 300. The archbishop only acknowledged 49.^ It is difficult to account for this great discrepancy. ^ Rogers On the Articles, preface, p. 29 (ed. Parker Soc.) ^ It does not appear how this Act authorised immediate deprivation, but Bancroft says that the Lord Chief-Justice and Attorney-General declare that it docs. That this law, however, was not good, may be inferred from the consultation of the judges which took place. ^ Cardwell's Doc. Annals, ii. 69 sq. * State Papers of James I. (Domestic), iii. 82. ^ The three articles of subscription were all supported by statute law. But the ex-animo test was only grounded on the canons. ^ Heylin's Fresbyterians, p. 376. 2 B 370 COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. Chap. XXII. § 26. Vigorous protests were naturally forthcoming against this increased strictness. The Abridgment of the Lincolnshire Ministers, j)uhlished early in 1605, took a stronger line against the ceremonies than had been taken by the earlier Puritans, and even by the Millenary Petition. It is contended that they are unlawful and sinful, and that, above all, they are dangerous. The ministers desire to have the ceremonies abolished because the people attach so much value to them. " Many of the people in all parts of the land are known to be of this mind, that the sacraments are not duly ad- ministered without them, and such as omit them are called Schis- matics and Puritans." " The surplice is known to be esteemed by many in all parts of the land so holy a thing, as that they will not receive the sacrament from any but such as wear it." Of the cross they say : — " The common people in many parts of the land are known not only to maintain the superstitious use of it (blessing themselves, their breasts, their foreheads, and everything they take in hand by it), but also to hold that their children are not rightly baptized without it." This is a remarkable testimony, the truth of which cannot be disputed, of the growth of Church feeling among the laity. The ministers argue further against the threatened con- formity : — " As there is danger in the use of these ceremonies in all congregations, so specially if they shall be brought back again into these when they have been long out of use, and received by such ministers as are known to have received them heretofore. For this cause great divines have judged that the receiving of them again into such congregations can with no colour of reason be re- ceived as an indifferent thing, but must needs be held wicked and unlawful." To the Abridgment is appended a table of such things as were considered unlawful by the Puritans, which is a much longer catalogue than that which appears in the Millenary Petition. §, 27. Morton, afterwards Bishop of Chester, answered the Abridgment in a treatise called A Defence of the Three Ceremonies. He assumes that the objections of the Puritans are mainly on three ceremonies — viz. kneeling at the holy communion, the cross in baptism, and the surplice. To their argument that everything not expressly commanded in God's Word is forbidden, he answers : — " Some ceremonies are merce, merely ceremonies ; some mixtce, mixed. They that are merely ceremonies need no special warrant from Scripture, but are sufficiently warranted by the general appro- bation of God's Word, which giveth a permission and liberty to all the churches to make their own choice of ceremonies according to the rules of order and decency ; but the mixed ceremonies, where- unto the imposers, or the generality of observers of them, annex some superstitious and erroneous opinion (whether it be of merit 1603-1605. THE EX-ANIMO TEST. 3X1 or of inherent holiness, efficacy, or real necessity), do in this case change the nature and become doctrinal, and in this respect are condemned as being not only beside the warrant, but plainly against the precept of Holy Scripture." i The bishop by this argument seems to furnish a ready answer to his opponents, who, no doubt, would hold that the ceremonies to which they objected came under the latter class. § 28. The Primate, however, was not inclined to wait for the results of controversy. He continued to press his subscription test ; and many ministers, rather than wait to be ejected forcibly, now resigned their preferments and passed into Holland to join the Brownists, where unnumbered extravagances, wranglings, and mutual excommunications prevailed.2 No doubt, also, many put a strain on their consciences by signing the new test, though not really ex animo, for the better of the Puritans still greatly dreaded the sin of schism ; and thus under Bancroft an amount of conformity was reached such as had never been seen at any time under his prede- cessors. It is possible, indeed, that this result was bought at too dear a price ; that it is to Bancroft's action in thus invading the domain of the conscience, and refusing to be satisfied with that out- ward conformity which had satisfied Whitgift, that the commence- ment of the unpopularity of the Church with the laity is due — that unpopularity which afterwards made the gentlemen of England appear as allies of a Puritanism which in their hearts they despised. § 29. The apparent success of the Primate's strictness is well attested. '' Dr. Bancroft," says Lord Clarendon, " that Metropolitan who understood the Church excellently, had almost rescued it out of the hands of the Calvinian party, and very much subdued the unruly spirit of the Nonconformists. If he had lived, he would quickly have extinguished all that fire in England which had been kindled at Geneva."^ § 30. " By the punishment of some few of the principals," says Heylin, " he struck such terror into the rest, that nonconformity grew out of fashion in a less time than could easily be imagined. Hereupon followed a great alteration in the face of religion : more churches beautified and repaired in the short time of his govern- ment than had been in many years before ; the liturgy more solemnly officiated by the priests and more religiously attended by the common people ; the fasts and festivals more punctually ob- 1 Defence of the Three Ceremonies, p. 18, ed. 1619, Morton was an- swered by a tract called The Three Noccnt Ceremonies, and tliis was replied to by Dr. Burgess, Avho had been deprived for nonconformity, but after- wards conformed. - Heylin's Presbyterians ^ p. 379. 3 Clarendon, Hist. Rebellion, p. 36 (ed. 1843). 372 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Chap. XXII. served by both than of later times ; copes brought again into the service of the Church ; the surplice generally worn without doubt or hesitancy ; and all things in a manner reduced to the same state in which they had first been settled under Queen Elizabeth, which, though it much redounded to the honour of the Church of England, gave no small trouble to some sticklers for the Puritan faction, ex- j)ressed in many scandalous libels and seditious railings, in which this reverend prelate suffered both alive and dead/' ^ ^ Heylin's Presbyterians, p. 376. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE MILLENARY PETITION, " Most gracious and dread Sovereign- Seeing tliat it hatli pleased tlie Divine Majesty, to the great comfort of all good Christians, to advance your Highness, ac- cording to your just title, to the peaceable government of this Church and common- wealth of England ; we, the ministers of the Gospel in this land, neither as factious men affecting a popular parity in the Church, nor as schismatics aiming at the dissolution of the State Ecclesiastical, but as the faithful servants of Christ and loyal subjects to your Majesty, desiring and longing for the redress of divers abuses of the Church, could do no less in our obedi- ence to God, service to your Majesty, love to His Church, than acquaint your prince- ly Majesty with our particular griefs ; for, as your princely pen writeth, ' the king, as a good physician, must first know what peccant humours his patient naturally is most subject unto, before he can begin his cure ;' and although divers of us that sue for reformation have formerly, in respect of the times, subscribed to the book- some upon protestation, some upon expo- sition given to them, some with condition rather than the Church should have been deprived of their labour and ministry- yet now we, to the number of more than a thousand of your Majesty's subjects and ministers, all groaning as under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies, do with one joint assent humble ourselves at your Majesty's feet to be eased and re- lieved in this behalf. Our humble suit, then, to your Majesty is that these offences following, some may be removed, some amended, some qualified :—(l) In the Church service;; that the cross in baptism, interrogatories ministered to infants, con- firmations, as superfluous, may be taken away ; baptism not to be ministered by women, and so explained. The cap and surplice not urged. That examination go before the communion ; that it be minis- tered with a sermon. That divers terms of priests, and absolution, and some other used, with the ring in marriage, and other such like in the book, may be corrected ; the longsomeness of the service abridged, Church songs and music moderated to better edification. That the Lord's day be not profaned ; the rest upon holidays not so strictly urged. That there may be an uniformity of doctrine prescribed ; no popish opinion to be any more taught or defended ; no ministers charged to teach their people to bow at the name of Jesus. That the Canonical Scriptures only be read in the Church. (2) Concerning Church ministers ; that none hereafter be admitted into the ministry but able and sufficient men, and these to preach diligently and specially on the Lord's day. That such as be already entered and cannot preach may either be removed, and some chari- table course taken with them for their re- lief, or else be forced, according to the value of their livings, to maintain preach- ers. That non-residency be not permitted. That King Edward's statute for the law- fulness of ministers' marriages be revived. That ministers be not ui-ged to subscribe, but according to the law, to the articles of religion and the king's supremacy only. (3) For Church living and maintenance ; that bishops leave their commendams, some holding parsonages, some prebends, some vicarages, with their bishoprics. Chap. XXII. ITOTES AND ILLUSTEATIOiTS. 373 That double-beneficed men be not suffered to hold, some two, some three, benefices with cure, and some two, three, or four dignities besides. That impropriations annexed to bishoprics and colleges be de- mised only to the preachers incumbents, for the old rent. That the impropriations of laymen's fees be charged, with a sixth or seventh part of their worth, to the maintenance of the preaching minister. (4) For Church discipline ; that the discip- line and excommunication may be minis- tered according to Christ's own institution, or at least that enormities may be re- dressed, as, namely, that excommunication come not forth under the name of lay persons, chancellors, officials, etc. ; that men be not excommunicated for trifles and twelvepenny matters ; that none be excommunicated without consent of his pastor. That the officers be not suffered to extort unreasonable fees. That none having jurisdiction or registers' places put the same out to farm. That divers popish canons (as for restraint of marriage at certain times) be reversed. That the long- soraeness of suits in ecclesiastical courts (which vary sometimes two, three, four, five, six, or seven years) may be restrained. That the oath ex officio, whereby men are forced to accuse themselves, be more sparingly used. That licenses for mar- riage without banns asked be more cauti- ously granted. These, with such other abuses yet remaining and practised in the Church of England, we are able to show not to be agreeable to the Scriptures, if it shall please your Highness further to hear us, or more at large by wi'iting to be in- formed, or by conference among the learned to be resolved ; and yet we doubt not but that, without any further process, your Majesty (of whose Christian judg- ment we have received so good a taste already) is able of yourself to judge of the equity of this cause. God, we trust, hath appointed your Highness our physician to heal tliese our diseases ; and we say with Mordecai to Esther — ' Who knoweth whether you are come to the kingdom for such a time?' Thus your Majesty shall do that which we are persuaded shall be acceptable to God, honourable to your Majesty in all succeeding ages ; profitable to His Church, which shall be thereby in- creased ; comfortable to your ministers, which shall be no more suspended, dis- graced, silenced, imprisoned for men's traditions ; and prejudicial to none but those who seek their own quiet, credit, and profit in the world. Thus, with all dutiful submission, referring ourselves to your Majesty's pleasure for your gracious answer as God shall direct you, we most humbly recommend your Highness to the Divine Majesty, whom we beseech, for Christ's sake, to dispose your royal heart to do herein what shall be to His glory, the good of His Church, and your endless comfort. Your Majesty's most humble subjects, 'The ministers of the Gospel that desire not a disorderly innovation, but a due and godly reformation.'"— Fuller. (B) ALTERATIONS MADE IN THE PRATER-BOOK AFTER THE HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE. In the calendar, August 26, Prov. xxx. instead of Bel and the Dragon ; October 1 and 2, Exod. vi.. Josh. xx. and xxii., in- stead of Tobit V. vi. viii. Into the title of the Absolution the insertion of the words, or remission of sins. A prayer for the queen, the prince, and royal family, after prayer for the king ; a corresponding petition in the Litany. Thanksgivings for rain, fair weather, plenty, peace, and vic- tory, deliverance from plague in two forms, added to occasional prayers, and styled an enlargement of thanksgiving for divers benefits, by v:ay of explanation. In Gospels for 2d Sunday after Easter, and 20th Sunday after Trinity, the words " unto his disciples " omitted, and Christ said and Jesus said to be printed in letters differing from the text. In heading of Private Baptism, instead of them that be baptized in private houses in time of ne- cessity, of them that arc to be baptized in private ho2ises in time of necessity by the mirdster of the parish or any other lawful minister that can be procured. In the second Rubrick, instead of "they baptize not their chihlren," ihej procure not their children to be baptized. In the third Ru- brick similar insertion of tlie words the lawful minister. In the inquiry as to baptism, the words, and because some things essential to this sacrament may happen to be omitted through fear or haste in such times of extremity, therefore I demand further, to be inserted ; confirmation ex- plained by adding, or laying on of hands on children baptized and able to render an account of their faith according to the Cate- chism following. The concluding portion on the sacraments was added to the Cate- chism, being the work of Dean Overal, prolocutor of Convocation, afterwards bishop. — Procter's Hist, of Prayer-book. 374 COLLISIONS BETWEEN THE Chap. XXIU. CHAPTER XXIIL COLLISIONS BETWEEN THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIES REVISION OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE BIBLE BISHOPS FOR SCOTLAND. 1605-1610. § 1. The Judges begin to issue Prohibitions. § 2. Bancroft exhibits Articles of Complaint against them to the Council. § 3. The answer of the Judges. § 4. Contest between the two authorities. § 5. Bishops and Judges before the King, § 6. Parliament jealous of ecclesiastical claims. § 7. Dr. Cowell's Interpreter. § 8. Demands made by Parliament as to Church abuses, § 9. Bancroft's letter to his Suifragans. § 10. Bitter spirit evoked in Parliament and the country. § 11, The policy of employing the Church against the Ptomanists, § 12. Divines drawn into controversy with Rome, § 13, The revision of the translation of the Bible determined on. § 14. Preparations for it. § 15. Arrangements for carrying on the work. § 16. Character of the work. §17. Restoration of the Episcopate to Scotland. § 18. Death of Bancroft, estimate of his work. § 1. The vigorous working of the ex-animo subscription test, and the high claims made for Church authority by Archbishop Bancroft soon awakened the jealousy of the judges. The power of prohibi- tions issued by the temporal courts had been learned in the last days of Queen Elizabeth, and the need of them seemed now to be still more apparent. These prohibitions had the effect of bringing many of the matters, cited before the ecclesiastical courts, to be tried by the common law of the land. This was extremely dis- tasteful to the archbishop. § 2. In Michaelmas term ] 605, Bancroft exhibited to the Privy Council twenty-five articles of complaint on the part of the clergy against the judges. This document states that 570 prohibitions had been granted, since the late queen's reign, to the Court of Arches alone. It pleads that as both the ecclesiastical and tem- poral jurisdictions are now united in his Majesty, it is absurd to allow one to impede the other, as though the jurisdictions were separate and distinct. It brings together all the arguments in favour of the free action of the Church courts, and calls upon the Council to remedy the grievance. § 3. The Council referred the matter to the judges, who, in Easter term 1606, replied in a paper agreed upon unanimously. 1G05-1610. ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIES. 375 They had on a former occasion committed themselves to a complete approval of the powers of the High Commission Court. Soon, however, they had shown themselves of a different mind. Within five months after giving that opinion they had issued a prohibition to stay a suit, because the accused had not received a copy of the articles charged against him. They had delivered, by writs of habeas corpus, two persons committed to prison by the Commis- sion Court, and when persons were arrested under the writ of de excommunicato capiendo, the judges had ordered the sheriffs to bring them into their courts and then had discharged them.i This decided action against the ecclesiastical jurisdiction the judges now undertook to justify. " To each of the articles of complaint they made separate answers, in a rough, and some might say, in a rude style, but pointed, and very much to the purpose." ^ They accuse the bishops of " strange presumption," and of utter ignorance of law. They say that so bad is the character of the ecclesiastical courts for justice, that a temporal man will prefer to have a claim for tithes tried against him in the King's Courts, though there, if cast, he will have to pay treble value, rather than in the spiritual courts, which are not allowed to award more than double value. They accuse the clergy of vexing their parishioners with claims for tithes which they never had, and to which they have no right. One minister had demanded seventeen different sorts of tithes, but on a prohibition, eight or nine of these were at once struck off. It was a common practice when suing for tithes to put in seven or eight additional claims, though without reason. As to the point that the king being the source of all jurisdiction could appoint what each of the courts was to concern itself with, the judges answer that nothing less than an Act of Parliament could alter the course of justice established by law.^ § 4. The rough answer of the judges only incited the arch- bishop to go all lengths in upholding what he regarded to be the privileges and rights of the Church. A strife commenced between the two jurisdictions not salutary for either of them. Thomas Ladd, a merchant at Great Yarmouth, and Richard Munsell, a preacher, were committed to prison by the Court of High Com- mission, but on the application of Nicholas Fuller, a bencher of Gray's Inn, writs of habeas corpus were granted by the Court of King's Bench, and they were discharged. Upon this Mr. Fuller himself was arrested by the High Commission Court. He applied ^ Bancroft's Articuli cleri, printed in Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 82-105. 2 Hallara, CotisL Hist. i. 318. ^ Coke's Institute, p. ii. Collier well points out that this ruling of the judges being in their own cause, could not be held as determining the law. —Ch. Hist. vii. 324. 376 COLLISION BETWEEN THE Chap. XXIII. to the judges for a prohibition. The judges granted him one so far as respected anything he had said as an advocate. It was declared that he was arrested, not for this, but for heresy. With this the judges could not interfere. Mr. Fuller was fined £200 before he was released, and in a short time afterwards was again in custody. How long he remained in ward is not known, but two years afterwards he appears to have been in his place in Parliament.-^ § 5. In 1609 the archbishop made another attempt to reduce the judges by the authority of the king. At a meeting of the rival functionaries held before his Majesty, Bancroft stated that the judges were the king's delegates, and that he might take any causes he pleased out of their hands. This doctrine was flatly contradicted by Sir Edward Coke. The king upheld it, and something like a quarrel took place between him and the resolute Chief-Justice. The judges, it appears, would not allow to the Church officers any power of interpreting statutes. Their courts, they maintained, were bound to take the law from them. They had no right to fine or imprison except for heresy. As to the ipso facto excommunication, they refused to recognise it. The ecclesiastical lawyers retorted, and the king, unable to settle the dispute, could only exhort them to live in peace one with another.^ § 6. These collisions between the two jurisdictions had no doubt an influence upon the temper of Parliament, ever jealous of the ecclesiastical courts. When Parliament met in 1610, very violent attacks were made on the Court of High Commission. So bitterly did the members attack the Church jurisdiction, that the king endeavoured to bring them to a better mind by a lecture. His speech was heard in silence, but did not serve to change men's minds. It was generally believed that he was in favour of the purest absolutism, and had an utter dislike of all constitutional checks. § 7. Kot long before he was known to have commended pub- licly a book written by Dr.' Co well, reader of civil law at Cam- bridge, named The Interpreter. In this work it was contended that the king was bound by no laws, that he could make laws at his pleasure, and though the Parliament was assembled to grant sub- sidies, this was a matter of favour and not of right. The king may quash any law made by Parliament. " It is uncontrollable that the King of England is an absolute king." 3 The open approval of 1 It is said by Fuller {Ch. Hist. x. iii. 29) that lie died in prison. This is shown to be incorrect bj' Mr. Gardiner. — Hist. Ejigland, i. 443. 2 Gardiner, Hist, of England, i. 446, sq. ^ Cowell's Interpreter, quoted by Hallam, Const. Hist. 1. 319; Gardiner, Hist. Eng. i. 452. 1605-1610. ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIES. 377 such monstrous doctrines as these, taken together with the fact that the clergy in their Convocation had constructed a number of canons on civil government, which asserted the divine right of kings in the sti'ongest manner,^ might well alarm the Parliament. A conference was held between the two Houses. It was determined that the author of such an exposition of law as that which appeared in The Interpreter, should be punished. Dr. Cowell was impri- soned, and his book suppressed by proclamation. § 8. The Commons, angry with the king and the clergy, de- manded, when prorogued in July (1610), that the deprived min- isters should be restored. They complained of pluralities, non- residence, and the abuse of excommunication. The king absolutely refused the first request. It would be fatal, he said, to the very existence of the Church. As to the other matters, he said he would look to them.^ In fulfilment of this promise, he gave charge at once to the archbishop to look, into and abate all cases of real abu-se. § 9. The Primate wrote to his sufi"ragans to inform them that " upon the grievances exhibited to his Majesty by the Lower House of Parliament, he hath been pleased to undertake much on our behalf, and to lay a great burden upon me, which I am other- wise not able to bear, but by assistance of your lordship and others our brethren the bishops , These are therefore to pray your lord- ship to inform yourself how many ministers have two benefices within your diocese, and whether every one of them hath a preach- ing minister to supply his absence. If not, cause him to supply that defect. If any give your lordship froward answers, suspend them for that contempt, and sequester the fruits of the benefice, and allow a reasonable portion for a curate that is a preacher. All prebendaries are to be required to reside on their benefices, and there to preach every Sunday. You are to examine very narrowly the proceedings of your commissaries, chancellor, archdeacons, and officials ; for while we repose so much trust in them as we do, and they intend little but their own profit, many true complaints and mischiefs do arise. You are to take care that all parsons keep the houses belonging to their benefices in good repair. In spite of the constitutions and canons, there never was such excessive luxury in clerical attire as at present. All dress like bishops. You shall find deans usually either in their velvet, damask, or satin cassocks, with their silk nether stock. Nay, some archdeacons and inferior ministers having two benefices are likewise so attired ; to omit that their wives in the cost and vanity of their apparel do exceed as ^ For an account of tliese canons, which ultimately appeared as a treatise called "Bishop Overall's Convocation Book," see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 2 ^^^iJe Papers of James I., liii. 123, 124. 378 COLLISION BETWEEN THE Chap. XXIII. much or more ; whicli is the principal cause why there is so much exclamation against double-beneficed men." These abuses greatly affected him, and if the clergy did not exhibit a better spirit " he must be forced to leave them." ^ § 10. The archbishop writes earnestly, and no doubt sincerely desired the removal of all abuses ; but the Parliament did not trust him. Episcopal exhortations, and the machinery of Church rules and censures, did not seem to them to give sufficient security that the abuses of which they complained would be removed. They desired to have legislation of a trenchant and severe character, and this the king very properly resisted. In the autumn session there were divers negotiations between him and the two Houses, but " on this rock all the negotiations split." ^ He would not hand over the Church to the tender mercies of a Puritanical House of Commons. But when, mainly on this ground. Parliament was suddenly dis- solved in 1610 without doing anything, a spirit very dangerous to the Church was evoked in the country. The Church was regarded as the friend and supporter of arbitrary power, the defender of abuses, the denier of justice to those who ventured to have a con- science and to think for themselves. Thus the support of the king had produced no great benefit to the Church of England. § 11. Neither had the favourite policy of James, of dealing with the Komanists rather by ecclesiastical than by civil agency, tended to raise the character of the Church. When James came to the throne, it was thought, not without some reason, that he would be much more favourable to the Eomanists than his predecessor.^ Unfortunately a strange plot occurred almost immediately on his accession which served to embitter his feelings against them.* A proclamation directing the banishment of Romanist j)riests appeared February 22, 1604. In June 1604 an Act of Parliament was passed for the due execution of the statutes against Jesuits, seminary priests, and recusants. In September a commission was appointed to carry out the banishing of the priests. It was determined that the fines for recusancy which were in arrear should be levied, and on February 10, 1605, the king especially charged the bishops to assist in carrying out this policy. Accordingly, the archbishop wrote to his suffragans, telling them that the king expected the bishops not to be negligent in discharging their duties towards ridding the kingdom of these " pestiferous adversaries." They are desired to use great diligence in finding out all recusants, and ascer- taining the degree of their hostility to the established religion ; 1 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 120. 2 Gardiner, i. 481. 3 Tierney, Notes to Dodd, Ch. Hist, iv, 36 * For a full account of this plot, see Tierney, Notes to Dodd, iv. 4, sq. 1605-1610. ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIES. 379 they are to confer witli them, as ordered by the 66th canon, and if they will not repent, to denounce them publicly as excommunicate. Where they have been busy in seducing others, or have long re- mained excommunicate without repentance, their names are to be certified into the chancery, and the writ de excommunicato capiendo to be procured.^ In consequence of the pressure put upon the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, it is said that not less than 5560 per- sons were convicted of recusancy.^ " Is it surprising," asks the Eomanist historian, " that such sufferings should have goaded men to desperation ? or that, deceived, oppressed, and proscribed in their own land, some reckless enthusiasts should have been found to join in any plot, however wicked, that promised to work vengeance and relief together ?" ^ The discovery of the great plot of 1605 natu- rally tended to increase, if that were possible, still further these severities. As regards the Church of England, the effect of this increased severity was most disastrous ; for now, for the first time, the device of a sacramental test was used in the service of persecu- tion. Eecusants were to be called upon not only to attend the parish church, but also to receive the Lord's Supper at the hands of the Protestant minister. This melancholy degradation of the most holy rite of the faith, thus begun, was long continued for civil purposes even of the most frivolous character. Nothing has served to inflict greater wounds on the Church of England than this. § 12. The king, regarding all matters from the point of view of a polemical divine, would not be satisfied without involving the Church of England in a contest with the Eomanists. He himself entered the controversial lists in an Apology for the Oath of Allegi- ance, now devised for the Romanists. Persons and Bellarmine attacked the royal controversialist. He answered them in his Epistle Dedicatory ; and the chief divines of the day following in his wake, instead of setting their own house in order, were led away into writing needless invectives against Rome. This controversial spirit infected the age, destroyed practical earnestness, and greatly weakened the English Church.* The divines of that Church might well have been contented to leave Rome to stand or fall by its own deeds. If plots unnumbered and the basest and foulest intrigues ; if treason made a profession and assassination justified ; if the Marian fires, the French St. Bartholomew, and the 50,000 victims of the Low Countries, availed not to condemn Rome, then all the ingenious hair-splittings of the greatest masters of controversy ^ Btate Tapers of James I. xiii. 25 ; Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 77, 81. 3 Gardiner, i. 226. 3 Tierney, Notes to Dodd, 'iv. 42. ^ For an account of the Controversial College, established about this time, see Notes and Illustrations. 380 COLLISION BETWEEK THE Chap. XXIIL would never avail to convict her. It is impossible not to lament the turning aside of the learning, genius, and playful fancy of Bishop Andre wes, the great sermon-writer of the day, into the barren path of Roman controversy ; and the acumen and power of Dean Field might have been better employed than in the superfluous labour of refuting Bellarmine and Stapylton.i § 13. In one useful and becoming labour the chief divines of that day were engaged throughout the primacy of Bancroft. No suggestion, of the Puritans had been received by the king with more favour at the Hampton Court conference than that which expressed the desirableness of a new revision of the English Bible. James, as a scholar, was well aware of the deficiencies of the Bishops' Bible, and as a theologian he had an especial antipathy to those ingenious perversions of Scripture to a Calvinistical sense, which the Geneva version exhibited. The Bishops' Bible had never altogether dis- placed the Geneva version ; there was no law to compel the use of the former,^ The king, who felt a special antipathy to some of the levelling views of the notes of the Geneva Bible, gladly seconded a project, which, by bringing out a new and improved translation, should supersede all others, and might be reasonably and fairly enforced for use by all. § 14. On July 22, 1604, the king addressed a letter to Bancroft, then Bishop of London, telling him that he had chosen fifty-four divines for the work, and admonishing him, and through him the Archbishop of York and other bishops, to take care and present such of these learned men as were not provided with benefices to some prebend or parsonage rated in the Booh of Taxations at ,£20 at the least, hoping also that lay patrons would have the same end in view, and declaring that the same direction had been given as to benefices iu the gift of the Crown. Bancroft had at the confer- ence shown some hostility to the proposal of a revision of the translation, but he now at once seconded the king's views. He wrote to his brother bishops, setting before them the king's wishes, and suggesting a subscription for defraying expenses. A thousand marks, he thought, would hardly finish the work.^ The bishops were also to inquire after all learned men in their dioceses, who might be invited to send their suggestions to the regius professors at the universities, or to Dr. Andrewes, Dean of Westminster. ^ For an account of Bishop Andrewes' Sermons, and Field's Book of the Church, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ^ Curiously enough, just at the time that it was determined to revise and supersede it, a canon was passed (Canon 80) for the first time giving legal status to the Bishops' Bible. More curiously, perhaps, still, as the authorised version never has been authorised, the only legal version now is the Bishops' Bible. 3 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, ii. 68. 1605-1610. ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHOEITIES. 381 § 15. The work does not appear to have been commenced till 1607, by which time the fifty-four divines originally nominated were reduced, either by death or resignation, to forty-seven. These were divided into six classes, two of which were to meet at West- minster, two at Oxford, and two at Cambridge. The king pub- lished a letter of directions. They were to follow the version of the Bishops' Bible as far as possible ; to keep the old names of the prophets and holy writers, and the old ecclesiastical words ; to give preference to the meanings of words sanctioned by the early Fathers, to keep the old divisions of chapters ; no mar- ginal notes to be put except simply explanatory of the meaning ; marginal references to be added. Each man of a company to revise a chapter separately, then all the company to revise it jointly, then the other companies to revise it. If any one company dif- fered from the others, the matter to be settled at a general meet- ing. On places of special obscurity the opinions of learned men to be asked by letter. Certain divines not employed in the revi- sion to act as general censors of the work.-^ Two of those arranged to commence the work died soon after the beginning of their task — Mr. Lively, professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, and Dr. Eeynolds, president of Corpus Christi, Oxford. Reynolds was held to be the most learned man of his day. He had acted as advocate for the Puritans at Hampton Court, but for himself he had no scruples which interfered with a complete conformity. Nay, by desiring formally the priestly absolution provided by the Church of England at his death,2 he seemed to show that he favoured High Church opinions. Dr. Miles Smith, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, de- scribes in the preface which he wrote to the revised translation the manner of the labours of the divines : — " We did not run over the work with that posting haste the Septuagint did. The work hath not been huddled up in seventy-two days, but hath cost the work- men, as light as it seemeth, the pains of twice seven times seventy- two days and more.^ We were far from condemning any of their labours that travailed before in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea. We never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad a good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against, — that hath been our endeavour and our mark." § 1 6. Posterity has long since decided how well this endeavour was accomplished. The greatest testimony to the excellence of the 1 Cardwell, Boc. Annals, ii. 106-112. 2 Crakanthorp, Defensio Eccl. Ang. pp. 460-2. 2 It is probable that preliminary work Avas done in the revision before the companies began to meet in 1607. The new version was published in 1611. 382 COLLISION BETWEEN THE Chap. XXIIL new version is to be found in the fact, that though it was never " authorised " either by Convocation, the Parliament, or the king, it very soon disjDlaced all other versions by its own intrinsic supe- riority over its rivals.-^ § 17. Another matter of high importance connected with tlie history of the Church of England was brought to a successful issue during the primacy of Bancroft. Scotland, convulsed and disorganised in its religious settlement by the work of the Eefor- niation, had long been without the episcopal order and the aposto- lical succession. The king, who fully ajDpreciated the importance of the divinely-sanctioned constitution of the Church, was anxious to restore this boon to his native land. Titular bishops had con- tinued to be appointed to the sees for secular reasons, but the episcopal character was wanting to them. In 1606, a Parliament held at Perth had restored their temporalities to the titular bishops. Soon afterwards the king invited some of the chief Presbyterian ministers to England, in order that the English divines might argue with them, and, if possible, persuade them to consent to the resto- ration of episcopacy. They were altogether impracticable and stub- born in their own opinions, but the king continued to press forward the design. At Linlithgow it was agreed that the assemblies should have constant moderators, and that the bishops should be these moderators. A General Assembly held at Glasgow (1610) ex- tended and confirmed their power. The bishops were to excom- municate, induct, and deprive ministers. Oaths of obedience were to be taken to them by those appointed to benefices. Having thus laid the foundation in the assent of the assembly, it was thought by the king that the time had arrived for giving to the Scotch titulars the true episcopal character by consecration. Three of them — Spotswood Archbishop of Glasgow, Lamb Bishop of Brechin, Hamilton Bishop of Galloway — were invited to England. A fear was expressed by some of the Scotchmen, lest if they were consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Scotch Church should thus be placed in subjection to the English. To avoid this it was determined that neither of the archbishops should take part in the consecration. Bishop Andrewes, who was to be one of the con- secrators, considered that the Scotch divines should be first ordained deacons and priests. This, which was naturally distasteful to them, was overruled on the grounds advocated by Bancroft — namely, that in old times laymen had been frequently invested with the epis- copal character j^gr saltum, and that the higher order contained the power. Thus Ambrose, Nectarius, Eucherius, and divers others, had been consecrated when laymen. All difiiculties being at length re- 1 Westcott, History of the Bible, p. 123. 1605-1610. ECCLESIASTICAL AND LAY AUTHORITIES. 383 moved, the three Scotclimen were consecrated, OctoLer 21, 1610, in the chapel of the Bishop of London, by the Bishops of London, Ely, Kochester, and Worcester. i The king now issued a high commission for Scotland, and made the bishops commissioners. Instructions were also issued by him for the conduct of the bishops and the administration of ecclesiastical discipline. One important matter, indeed, was lacking in these arrangements. The Church in Scotland as yet had no liturgy, and therefore no uniformity in the performance of divine service. An attempt to introduce this a few years later looked so dangerous, that the design was aban- doned. Towards the end of the next reign a serious attempt to introdue a liturgy so excited the people that the episcopacy planted with so much care was overthrown, and Scotland remained without the higher order of the ministry for upwards of a century. § 18. Within a fortnight after the consecration of the Scotch bishops, the English primate had breathed his last (November 2, 1610). In an incumbency of six years Bancroft had done much to produce at least an outward conformity, and by his vigorous measures had succeeded in weeding out of the Church of England the most forward and pronounced of those who favoured the Pres- byterian platform. He had done this, indeed, at the cost of some apparent injustice in forcing a conscience test upon men who were living quietly ; but in the increase of zeal and earnestness, which resulted from his vigorous action, the Church was a considerable gainer. The high claims which the Primate had advanced for Church authority, his contests with the judges and with Parliament, had served to render the Church unpopular, and the dislike be- ginning to be strongly felt against the king, had attached itself also to the clergy whom he favoured and upheld. This was a serious evil, as the Puritans gained immensely in power and influence thereby, and, upon the whole, it is probable that at the death of Bancroft the Church was really weaker, in its hold upon the country, than it was when he acceded to the primacy. 1 Collier, vii. 365 ; Heylin's Presbyterians, 388 ; Spotswood, 384 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XXIII. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) BISHOP OVERALL'S CONVOCA- TION BOOK. It appears that after the 141 canons had been completed, at the next session of Convocation, the king committed to the clergy the task of forming a number of canons on civil government, with a view of justifying in certain cases resist- ance to authority, and thus the rendering of assistance to revolted subjects of neigh- bouring princes. He says in his letter to Doctor Abbot : " My reason of call- ing you together was [to give your judg- ments how far a Christian and Protestant king may concur to assist his neighbours to shake off their obedience to their own sovereign, upon the account of oppres- sion, tyranny, or what else you like to name it. All my neighbours called on me to concur in the treaty between Hol- land and Spain, and the honour of the nation will not suffer the Hollanders to be abandoned, especially after so much money and men spent in their quarrel. Therefore, I was of the mind to call my clergy together, to satisfy, not so much me, as the world about me, of the justice of owning the Hollanders at this time." (Preface to Overall's Convocation Book.) The divines having this subject entrusted to them proceeded to investigate the origin of government, and its claims to obedience jure divino. They drew up a number of canons, together with the grounds or reasons on which the canons were founded, the purport of which is to give the most absolute right to rulers, and to take away all rights of resistance from subjects. It is even laid down that the Israelites would not have been justified in quitting Egypt had not Pharaoh given his consent. But though they took away all right of resistance from the subject, they nevertheless laid it down as certain that when this resistance had proved successful and a change of government had been effected, the ruler de facto had the same claims to obedience as the ruler de jure. This strange doctrine is set forth in Canon xxviii. ; "If any man shall affirm either that the subjects when they shake off the yoke of obedience to their sovereigns and set up a form of government among themselves, do not therein very wickedly, or that it is lawful for any bordering kings to invade their neighbours, or that when any such new forms of government begun by rebellion, and after thoroughly settled, the autho- rity of them is not of God, he doth greatly err." This doctrine offended the king in two ways. He thought that it implied that his own title was one de facto and not de jure. " All that you and your brethren have said of a king in possession (for that word is no worse than what you make use of in your canon) concerns not me at all. I am the next heir, and the crown is mine by all rights but that of conquest." And again, by not allowing resistance in any case, and so not justify- ing England's assistance of the Holland- ers, he considered that they had almost made God the author of evil, and declared tyranny to be His authority. The king thus utterly refused to give his sanction to the work of Convocation, and it is probable that the divines themselves were somewhat ashamed of it, as their treatise did not see the light for many years. Singular to relate, it was at last published by Ai-chbishop Bancroft after the Revolu- tion, under the idea, apparently, that it gave support to the principles of the non- jurors. It does, however, exactly the reverse, as it attributes the jti^ divimimto the de facto government. The book is printed in the " Anglo-Catholic Library." (B) CHELSEA CONTROVERSIAL COLLEGE. The love of controversy was so strong among the divines of the reign of James, that Matthew Sutclifife, Dean of Exeter, left by wiU lands to the amount of £300 a year, and £4000 in addition, for the establishment of a College at Chelsea for the study of controversial divinity. The king approved the scheme, and caused the college to be incorporated by royal charter. The college was empowered to dig a trench to the river Lea, and to erect engines, works, etc., for supplying London with water, A provost, 17 fellows, and 2 historians were appointed ; the king issued his letters to the archbishop to stir up the clergy to contribute. The design, however, was not popular. A college was built at an expense of £3000, but this in Fuller's time «' stood like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." The Court of Chancery restored Dr. Sutcliffe'a Chap. XXIIl. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 385 lands to his rightful heirs, and the college fell into the hands of the person who had the title to the land on which it was hnilt— (Fuller.) (C) BISHOP ANDREWES' SERMONS, AND FIELD OF THE CHURCH. The sermons of Bishop Andrewes, the most famous preacher of his day, were collected and edited by Bishops Laud and Buckeridge. As to their matter, the sermons are learned, pregnant, exhaust- ive full of striking thoughts and happy applications. As to their manner, they are in the highest degree peculiar, and altogether opposed to the taste of the present day. The preacher tortures and twists his subject, divides and sub- divides, indulges in puns and word-split- ting, jumbles together English, Latin, and Greek, often produces effects alto- gether ludicrous. It is hardly possible to imagine any one listening to these sermons without his risible muscles being sorely tried. Yet there is everything in them belonging to the highest Christian oratory. It is only in the way in which the subject is treated that there is any drawback, and this was the taste of the day. These sermons were greatly ad- mired. The king far preferred Andi-ewes to all other preachers. Sir J. Harrington, a courtier, and not of a specially religious turn, thus speaks of his sermons : " Two special things I have observed in his preaching that I may not omit to speak of— one, to raise a joint reverence to God and the prince, to spiritual and civil magistrates, by uniting and not severing them. The other to lead to amendment of life, and to good works, the fruit of true repentance. Of the first kind he made a sermon not long since, which was most famous, and though courtiers' ears are commonly so open as it goes in at one ear and out at the other, yet it left an aculeum behind in many of all sorts. And Henry Noel, one of the greatest gallants of those times, sware as he was a gentleman, he never heard man speak with such spirit. Of the second kind I may say all his sermons are, but I will mention but his last that I heard the 5th of last November, which sermon I could wish ever to read on that day." — (Harring- ton's Brief Survey of the Church of Eng- land., p. 145). Dr. Field, Dean of Glou- cester, wrote a treatise Of the Church, in five books, "to meet the assaults of the Romanists rather than the Puritans." The object of his work is to show that the Church of England has the notes of a true church. The treatise is a very learned and able one, and especially remarkable for its temperate and candid tone. It would not, however, satisfy high church- men, as Dr. Field does not hold the apostolical succession as a necessary note of the church. In his view, in cer- tain cases "the care and charge of the Church may devolve on the Presbyters remaining Catholic, do likewise the or- daining of men to assist them and suc- ceed them in the ministry." One especi- ally valuable part of this treatise is that in which the author exliibits the ground common to the Anglican and Greek Churches, and indicates the desirableness of intercommunion. 2 c 386 ABBOT'S PRIMACY— CALVINISM : Chap. XXIV. CHAPTER XXIV. abbot's primacy CALVINISM : THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 1611-1625. § 1. Abbot's appointment to tbe Primacy. § 2. His character. § 3. Poverty of the clergy. § 4. Burning of Bartholomew Legate at Sraithfield. § 5. Burning of Edward Wightman at Lichfield. § 6. Puritanism recovers influence. § 7. Abbot's influence checked. § 8. Lowness of principle among the bishops of the day. § 9. Parliament attacks Bishops Harsnet and Neill. § 10. A Benevolence from the clergy. § 11. Mr. Peacham's case. §12. The case of (7o?n??2€7ictom5 and the king's prerogative. §13. Case of Mr. Edward Sympson. § 14. Case of John Selden — his retracta- tion. § 15. Case of Mr, Trask. § 16. Book of Sports for Simdays. § 17. King sends deputies to Dort. § 18. The Spanish Match influences religious policy. § 19. Rise of Williams to be Lord Keeper and Bishop of Lincoln. § 20. His seeking for further preferment. § 21. Recom- mends Dr. Laud for a bishopric. § 22. Accidental homicide by the archbishop. § 23. Indulgence to Romanists. § 24. King endeavours to restrain preachers. § 25. Uneasiness in the country at the indulgence to Romanists. § 26. Abbot's letter. § 27. The English Church service in Spain. § 28. The first Romanist bishop in England. § 29. The ParUament of 1624. § 30. Attack on Richard Montagu. § 31. King James dies — ^his influence on the Church. § 1. At the death of Bancroft it was the general expectation that Andrewes would be nominated as Primate. He was by far the most distinguished divine of the Church of England at that period. In depth of learning, devotion of life, and oratorical power, he ex- ceeded all his fellows. He had shown his skill on the admired topic of controversy in his treatises against Bellarmine. He was a great favourite with the king, who had promoted him to the See of Chichester (1605), and that of Ely (1609). When, therefore, the bishops met and agreed to recommend Andrewes to the king as the fittest person for the primacy, they were doubtless under the impression that they were only giving the strength of their approval to that which the king had already decided upon in his own judgment. Unfortunately, however, there were other influ- ences at work. The Earl of Dunbar was a favourite with the king, and had done his work in Scotland effectively by bribing (as is generally supposed) the General Assembly at Glasgow to favour episcopacy. The Earl of Dunbar had as his chaplain, friend, and adviser. Dr. George Abbot, Master of University College, Oxford. Abbot was also well known to the king. He had been three 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 387 times vice-cliaiicellor at Oxford, and in his capacity of head of the University had waited on the king at Woodstock. It was to Abbot that the king addressed his letter when he found fault with the proceedings of the Canterbury Convocation. But Abbot had also another special recommendation. He had written a preface to a book, which was supposed to demonstrate the reality of the con- spiracy of the Cowries, and in this preface he had described King James as "zealous as David, learned as Solomon, religious as Josias, careful of spreading the truth as Constantine, just as Moses, undefiled as Jehosaphat or Hezekias, clement as Theodosius."i After this Lord Dunbar had but little trouble in obtaining for him the highest post in the English Church. He had been made Bishop of Lichfield (1609), Bishop of London (1610), and while the bishops were deliberating upon Andrewes, the king had already given him the promise of the primacy. § 2. A more unfortunate appointment could scarcely have been made. Abbot and his brother, the Master of Balliol, had long been the great upholders of Calvinism and Puritanism at Oxford. He was a man of a narrow mind and a morose temper. He had never had any experience of clerical work. His learning was not deep. His opinions were cliiefly formed from the writings of the foreign reformers, and he did not apprehend the great position of the Church of England. Having been employed all his Oxford days in squabbling with Laud 2 and Arminianism, he carried the same partisan views to the highest position in the Church. Honest, sincere, and bold as he showed himself on several occasions, he yet was a most unfortunate Primate for the English Church. § 3. What the clergy especially needed at this time in their ecclesiastical head, was a large-hearted sympathy for their extreme poverty and degraded social position. In this Abbot was alto- gether wanting. His predecessor Bancroft had brought a bill into Parliament, which, if it had been carried, would have done much to relieve the wants of the clergy .^ His successor Laud was able to give a considerable help to the poor vicars. But Abbot does not appear to have concerned himself about the matter. He was ^ Wrangham's Life of Abbot, note. 2 William Laud, fellow, and afterwards president, of St. John's, was the leader in Oxford of what may be called the " Church party." To him the two Abbots were bitterly hostile, but Laud's influence soon became, in spite of them, predominant in Oxford, - ." 3 It was proposed by this bill to give power to take tithes in kind, to make abbey lands which had been exempted liable to tithe, to make all parks and warrens altered from tillage within the last sixty years, all parks disparked, all lands of parishes depopulated, liable ; to renew the tithes of lambs' wool and wood ; to allow the demise of lands to the Church, notwith- standing any statute of mortmain. 388 ABBOT'S PEIMACY— CALVINISM : Chap. XXIV. content to acquiesce in the suffering condition of the clergy, which indeed at this time was very grievous. "They had," says Bishop Hacket, " scarce enough to feed them and keep them warm." The country parson, as sketched by George Herbert, was not to expect anything better than the rank of apprentice for his children. Though bid not to be " too submissive to the gentry," he was to make up his mind to submit to " the general ignominy cast on the profession." " The clergy," says another writer, " are brought into contempt and low esteem. They are accounted by many as the dross and refuse of the nation." In their poverty they eagerly sought the position of chaplains in great houses, and here they were often very vilely treated. " It is well," says a clever writer of the clergy in this position, "that they may have a little better wages than the cook and butler, as also that there may be a groom in the house besides the chaplain (for sometimes to the ten pounds a year they crowd the looking after a couple of geldings)."^ § 4. The Primate, instead of leading the king to do something to improve the suffering state of the clergy, preferred to encourage him in his theological antipathies, of the strength of which a melancholy proof was soon given. The year 1612 saw the fires of Smithfield again lighted, to the scandal of the Church and nation. It was near forty years since there had been an execution simply for heresy. The numerous capital punishments inflicted in Eliza- beth's time, unjustifiable as many of them were, were inflicted for treason, in part at least, if not entirely. But here there was no pretence of treason. Bartholomew Legate, an Essex man, was one who in reading the Scriptures had thought himself justified in assigning a meaning to them, in an overweening confidence in his own understanding and judgment. More than this, he had been rash enough to make his views known, and to try to influence others. He was informed against, and cited to appear by the Bishop of London. The king, fond of theological argument, en- deavoured to convince him of his errors. Legate proved skilful of fence, and determined in his resistance. The king is said to have spurned him with his foot, and to have abandoned him to the court. On March 3 (1612), in the Consistory Court of St. Paul's, before a great assemblage, Legate was condemned of heresy, and handed over to the secular arm. On March 1 1 the king directed his letters to the Lord Chancellor under the Privy Seal, to issue the writ de hceretico comhureiido, and to direct it to the sheriffs of London, and on March 18 Bartholomew Legate was burned in Smithfield. The archbishop had been zealous in forwarding the ^ Hacket's Life of Williams, i. 19 ; Hei-bert's Country Parson; Cham- berlayne, Anglioe Notitia, i. 269 ; Causes of Contempt of the Clergy, p. 17. 1611-1625. THE EEACTION AGAINST IT. 389 matter. He had been in consultation witli the Lord Chancellor as to taking the opinions of the judges, and as to carefully select- ing for consultation those judges who were likely to give a favour- able answer. "■ His Highness did not much desire the Lord Coke should be called hereunto, lest by his singularity in opinion he should give stay in the business."^ Certain convenient judges had been selected, and had declared that the law would not tolerate this great abomination. § 5. Nor was this all. Another heretic had appeared in the diocese of Lichfield, in the person of Edward Wightman of Burton- on-Trent. This poor man was condemned in the Consistory Court of Lichfield, and being handed over to the executioner by the same process, was burned at Lichfield, April 11 (1612). The horror and amazement which took possession of people at these fearful pro- ceedings were extreme. " The novelty and hideousness of the punishment " created a general indignation. The king was cowed. Henceforth he " politicly preferred that heretics, though condemned should silently and privately waste themselves away in prison." 2 The king appears to have been incapable of pity. The man that could write the fearful disquisitions to be found in the Treatise on Demonology, and whose favourite amusement was to see wild beasts baited in the Tower, was savage at heart, though constitutionally timid in action. § 6. Under Abbot's influence Puritanism, checked and repressed by Bancroft, soon began again to raise its head. Everywhere the Puritans showed themselves, and they began now to afi'ect a marked demeanour, language, and dress, so as to bring upon them the satire of the comedians of the day.^ The Prince of Wales was thought to favour their cause. The Princess Elizabeth had been given in marriage to a Protestant prince. § 7. But the Primate's influence soon suffered a check, and the cause of its diminution was the thing most creditable to him in the whole of his career. A disgraceful divorce suit was being eagerly promoted by the king to gratify his favourite, Lord Rochester, and a commission of bishops was called upon to pro- nounce a sentence in defiance alike of the laws of God and man. The archbishop resolutely refused to yield, and from that time his influence with the king was greatly impaired. Some of the other bishops disgraced themselves by pronouncing the sentence. § 8. An unhappy lowness of principle and a too eager grasping for promotion seem to have distinguished the bishops at this time. ^ Letters of Abbot to L. C. Egerton. — Egerton Papers (Camden Soc.) 2 Fuller, Ch. Hist. x. iv. 13, 14. 3 See Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Alchemist, Fox, etc. 390 ABBOT'S PRIMACY—CALVINISM : Chap. XXIV. Dr. G. Carleton, writing to his brother, says that he is ashamed to tell the manner in which bishoprics are got.^ A Bishop of Llandaff writes to Sir F. Lake, openly offering him a price for a church preferment. 2 Dr. Gary is reported as ready to pay well for a deanery. 3 Field, Bishop of Llandaff, writes to the favourite of the day in a contemptibly whining tone, " My Lord, I am grown an old man, and am like old household stuff", apt to be broke on removing. I desire it, therefore, but once for all, be it Ely or Bath and Wells ; and I will spend the remainder of my days in writing a history of your good deeds." * Another divine, from whose works better things would be expected, writes also in this abject strain. "I lie in a corner," writes Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, " as a clod of clay attending what kind of vessel it shall please you to make of your lordship's humblest, thankfullest, and devotedest servant." ^ § 9. All these things did not tend to raise the clergy in the opinion of the nation, and when a new Parliament met (April 5, 1614) the indignation naturally excited by the union of absolutist principles with a self-seeking and negligent life, fell upon the bishops. Harsnet, Bishop of Ghichester, preaching before the Gourt, had tried to prove that the words " Render unto Gsesar " implied giving hack that which was Gaesar's already by right ; and Neill, Bishop of Lincoln, the most successful time-server of his day,^ ventured to argue in the House of Lords in favour of " impositions," to appoint which he declared was the undoubted privilege of the imperial crown. The Gommons complained, and the bishop protested " on his salvation " and " with many tears " that he meant nothing dis- respectful to them. Further proceedings were, however, contem- plated against both of these prelates, and it was probably in a great measure to screen them, that this Parliament was rashly dissolved by the king without passing a single act. § 10. To meet the king's necessities it was determined to raise a subscription or benevolence from the clergy. The archbishop writes to the Bishop of Norwich that the bishops had all resolved to grant to the king the best piece of plate they had, and some of them who had no valuable piece of plate were to make up the deficiency by filling a smaller one with gold pieces, " so that it make a present of reasonable value." The Gonvocation had not lasted long enough to grant subsidies, so the bishops were called ^ State Papers of James L, Ixxxviii. 136. ^ 7^^ xxvii. 6. ^ Narrative of Arclibisliop Abbot. — Cobbett's State Trials, vol. ii. * Cabala, p. 65. See also another scandalous letter in the Fortescue Papers. ^ Fortescue Papers (C. S.), p. 157. * He was successively Bishop of Rochester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Durham, Winchester, and Archbishop of York, 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 391 •upon to stir up the clergy to grant a benevolence.^ There was some reason in this, but it was hard to make that which was no- minally a voluntary gift, in reality a compulsory tax. § 11. This hardship was exemplified in the case of Mr. Ed- mund Peacham, rector of Hinton St. George, Somersetshire. Mr. Peacham had been before in trouble for some alleged seditious words spoken by him in a sermon,^ and consequently was a sus- pected person. Upon being applied to for his share in the benevo- lence, he answered, " Silver and gold have I none, but I will give my prayers to the king." For this he was thrown into prison, and his house being searched a sermon, was found in his study, which was held to be of a treasonable character. He was indicted for divers treasonable passages in this sermon, though it could not be proved that it was preached, or even intended to be preached.^ This scandalous trial was conducted by Sir Francis Bacon, who also sanctioned, if he did not advise, the use of torture. Peacham was examined " before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture." ^ The king drew up with his own hand a paper against him called " The true state of the question," in which he argued earnestly that he was guilty of treason, even if (as Peacham de- clared) he had intended to strike out the objectionable passages of the sermon before preaching it. The judges, however, doubted as to the justice of executing a man for writing down his private lucubrations in his own house, and the unhappy minister was kept in prison for a year without being tried. At length he was tried at Taunton, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered — a fate which he only escaped by dying in prison. § 12. The eagerness with which the bishops applauded all the arbitrary measures of the king, and their constant hanging about the court and paying homage to the reigning favourite, was due not only to the possibility of obtaining a translation to a better see, but also to the hope of gaining good pieces of preferment to hold in commendam with their sees. The king assumed the power to grant these commendams, and the practice became very common. A rich deanery was sometimes held in commendam with a poor see, as Bishop Neile held Westminster with Lichfield, and even one bishopric might be held thus with another. Bishop Goodman, of Gloucester, considered himself very ill used at not being allowed thus to hold Hereford. The royal privilege came, however, now (1616) to be rudely assailed in the law courts. Sir Edward Coke, the impracticable judge, who ever steadfastly resisted the encroach- 1 Letter of Archbishop Kh'hot.— Tanner MSS. (Bodleian), 74, 40. 2 State PaxiCTS of James I., ii. 97. ^ Ih. Ixxxi. 73. * Cobbett's State Trials. See Lord Campbell's Life of Sir E. Coke. 392 ABBOT'S PRIMACY— CALVINISM : Chap. XXIV. ments of the prerogative, presiding. In the case of Colt v. the Bishop of Lichfield it was argued that the king had no power to grant these commendams. The king sent an order to the Chief- Justice to stop the trial. Coke declined to obey, and induced all the judges to join with him in a letter to the king, to the effect that such a proceeding would be a denial of justice. The king, on his return from Newmarket, assembled the judges in the council- chamber, and bade them never to allow suits to proceed in which his prerogative was involved. With the exception of Coke the judges all fell on their knees and promised obedience. Sir E. Coke manfully declared that when such a suit came before him he would do what became a judge. For this he was suspended, and soon afterwards dismissed.^ § 1 3. As yet, though not without some eccentricities and vari- ations, the king had continued to favour that school of theology in which he had been early initiated by his tutor, George Buchanan, and which he had defended in his treatise against Vorstius. He was still Calvinist in his views, and Calvinism was still the popular creed, though great divines such as Andre wes had learned to dis- card it. The Arminian school of Laud and Montagu was indeed fast rising into importance, but as yet it was scarcely safe to broach these new and unaccustomed views before the king. Mr. Edward Sympson, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, preaching before the king at Eoyston (1617), argued that the commission of any great sin extinguishes grace in a man until it be repented of, and that there is no certainty that such repentance will take place. Treating of the 7th chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans, he argued that the language of the apostle in that passage was of the unre- generate man. The king was offended at this doctrine, and consi- dered it heretical. The Cambridge divinity professors were ap- pealed to, and pronounced to the same effect. Mr. Sympson was called upon to recant.^ " He had the satisfaction of doing so," says Fuller, " in company with St. Augustine, who expounded the seventh of Romans first of all in the Catholic sense, and afterwards retracted and changed his views." But if JNIr. Sympson had the satisfaction of having so famous a companion with him in his re- tractation, he had the mortification of leaving the company of all the Greek fathers and the great majority of the Latin, who uphold his first interpretation. Such tyranny over opinion, especially opinion formed after study and careful thought by learned men, was altogether to be reprobated.^ ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 340-2. ^ State Papers of James I., xciv. 74. ^ About this time a book published by Dr. Mocket, warden of All Souls and chaplain to the archbishop, was ordered to be publicly burned. The 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 393 § 14. A more conspicuous victim soon followed. John Selden, famous as an archaeologist, and one of the most learned men of his day, had written a treatise on Tithes, with a view of disproving their scriptural authority. Beginning with the patriarchal times, he contended that Abraham's tithes to Melchisedek were merely an extraordinary payment ; that under the law there was no payment of tenth ordered, but certain prescribed offerings, partly for the priest and Levite, partly for the poor ; that for the first four hun- dred years after Christ there is no canon law enforcing the payment of tithes to the clergy ; that the right of parochial tithes was of still later date, it having been held free for lords or patrons to grant tithes of land for other ecclesiastical purposes than the use of the parson of the parish church. The treatise was a severe blow to the clergy. Their incomes, sufficiently impoverished, seemed to be al- together threatened. Nor did the author scruple to reproach them with ignorance and laziness, or even abstain from personal sallies. There were, however, among the clergy abundance of men able to answer Mr. Selden. Richard Montagu, a learned and brilliant writer, published a reply which far exceeded the treatise of Selden in wit, and equalled it in abstruse learning. Other clerical writers followed, and, according to Heylin, Mi. Selden " never came off in any of his undertakings with more loss of credit." ^ This might seem to be quite sufficient ; but not so thought the king and the bishops. Mr. Selden was summoned before the High Commission Court at Lambeth, and obliged to make a formal recantation. He humbly beseeches pardon for meddling with interpretations of Scripture, and with councils and fathers, and for all the arguments which he had adduced against the jus divinum.^ § 15. Nor were forced recantations the only or the worst punishment for the publishing of unwelcome theological opinions in the days of James. Mr. Trask, a Puritan minister, for a book written in defence of strict Sabbatarian notions, was actually set in the pillory at Westminster, and from thence wldpped to the Fleet, there to remain prisoner during his Majesty's pleasure.^ § 16. It appears that King James, whose religious opinions were a strange medley, had thought fit to publish (1618) a Book of Sports, enjoining certain amusements on the afternoon of Sun- days— such as dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting. May-games, offence of this book was not its theology, which was rank Calvinism, but its having claimed for the archbishop the power of confirming bishops from a canon of the Council of Nice. This was held a grievous infringement of the prerogative. • ^ Heylin 's Presbyterians, p. 391. ^ Ih. p. 392, Mr, Hallam comes perilously near the step from the sub- lime to the ridiculous, when he compares this proceeding to the retractation of Galileo. 3 Howes' Chronicle, p. 929. 894 ABBOT'S PRIMACY--CALYINISM : Chap. XXIV. WMtsim-ales, morris-dances, and such like.^ His Majesty's comfort had been somewhat interfered with by an extra strictness of Sunday observance which he had met with in a progress through Lanca- shire, and hence this edict. Naturally enough the Puritans were horror-struck at a command which they held to be so entirely opposed to the command of Scripture. The archbishop would not allow the king's letter to be read in his church at Croydon.^ Mr. Trask only expressed a very prevailing sentiment, and to visit him with so degrading and merciless a punishment was cruel persecution. § 17. The desire to meddle in every dispute which occurred, was conspicuous in King James ; hence he could not abstain from sending deputies to the synod at Dort, in which a determined effort was made by the Calvinists in Holland to crush and stamp out Arminianism. The English deputies selected for this work were Dr. Carlton, Bishop of Llandaff ; Dr. Hall, Dean of Worcester ; Drs. Ward and Davenant, heads of colleges in Cambridge. Mr. Walter Balcanqual, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, was afterwards sent to repre- sent the Church of Scotland. These divines were instructed to " favour no innovations in doctrine, and to conform to the confes- sions of neighbouring reformed churches." At this moment, in- deed, the Church of England ran great risk of being committed to the approval of the most decided Calvinism. § 18. But the reaction was about to commence. The king drew back from the support of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, and began to contemplate a match for his son with the Infanta of Spain. The change in politics immediately made itself felt in the way in which religious questions were regarded and ecclesiastical persons favoured. Archbishop Abbot, who had recovered his influence on the disgrace of the favourite Somerset, was again out of favour. It became necessary for the king, if he would stand well with the Spaniards, to relax the severity of the laws against the Eomanists. In a letter to the King of Spain he promised — " That no Koman priest or other Catholic should henceforth be condemned upon any capital law ; and although he could not at present rescind the laws, inflicting only pecuniary mulcts, yet he would so mitigate them as to oblige his Catholic subjects to him." ^ As the king inclined more towards the Romish party, the archbishop threw himself more com- pletely into the arms of the Puritans. " His house," says Lord Clarendon, " was a sanctuary for the most eminent of the factious ^ Baiting animals, interludes, and bowling were forbidden ; the latter lest a taste for it should interfere with the practice of archery. — Morton, Defence of Ceremonies, p. 192. 2 Fuller, Ch. Hist. x. iv. 58, sq. ; Nicholls' Progresses, iii, 397- ^ Eushworth's Collections, i. 14. 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 395 party, and he licensed their most pernicious writings ; " his in- fluence, therefore, in the general control of the Church rapidly- decreased, while that of Bishop Andrewes advanced. § 19. But another divine now came to the front, whose influence was even greater than that of the Bishop of Winchester. This was John Williams, who, by the favour of the Lord Keeper, Egerton, had run through a rapid course of preferment, until he had reached the Deanery of Westminster — a position much coveted by Church- men, as it kept them near the court, and in the way of further preferment. Williams, a shrewd and able man, and not over- scrupulous, perceived that the surest way of reaching the highest preferment was to court the favour of the all-pow^erful favourite Buckingham. " The doctor," says his biographer, " had crept far for ground ivy, but he must clasp upon this tree, or none, to climb." ^ In January 1621 the king summoned a Parliament after an interval of seven years. His son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, was in great peril, and his cause was highly popular in the country .^ Under cover of this popularity the king hoped to get something for his own necessities ; but the Parliament had no sooner met than it assailed with fury that abominable policy which had long prevailed with the crown of selling monopolies and privileges — " patent com- missions for latent knaveries." ^ The favourite Buckingham was the chief offender in this matter, and had thus enriched himself at the expense of the people. Dean Williams now gave him the bold advice to throw over all who had been concerned in these oppres- sions, and to induce the king to issue a proclamation on the popular side. It was in consequence of this sudden change of policy that the great Bacon fell,* and the great seal, taken from him, was en- trusted, at the request of Buckingham, to Dean Williams. Since the time of Dr. Heath, Archbishop of York, who was deprived at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, there had been no clerical Lord Keeper. The king, however, in his new zeal for purity, declared that he would have no more lawyers, " for they were so nursed in corruption that they could not leave it off." ^ Williams managed the office well. A man of great talents and immense industry, he 1 Hacket's Life of Williwins, i. 45. 2 Collections had been made for the cause of the Elector under the letters of the archbishop and some of the bishops, — State Papers of James I. cxiii. 34. 3 Hacket's Williams, i. 49. * Mr. Chamberlain, writing to Sir D. Carleton, says that Bacon's bribes were ordinarily £300 or £400, sometimes £1000. One of £6000 had been promised from Sir T. Egerton through Dr. Field, his chaplain {State Papers of James I. cxx. 38). But it is evident that these payments cannot be re- garded as bribes in our sense of the word. They were recognised and open. Tlie chief blame seems to belong to the king, who had encouraged the system, and then at once abandoned the victims. ^ State Papers, cxxi. 121. 396 ABBOT'S PEIMACY— CALVINISM : Chap. XXIV. soon raised himself above the contempt of the lawyers, and showed himself not unequal to his duties. He was almost immediately- nominated Bishop of Lincoln, and thus with his see, his deanery, a cathedral stall, and the living of Walgrave, he was, as Heylin re- marks, " a perfect diocese in himself, being bishop, dean, residen- tiary, and parson, and all these at once." ^ § 20. But this large amount of preferment by no means satisfied the clerical Lord Keeper. He continued to send begging letters to Buckingham asking for one piece of preferment after another, alleging that " his bribes are very little," his " bishopric, deanery, and commendams " very small ; ^ and, not content with this, he wrote a series of fawning letters to Mr. Packer, Buckingham's secretary, which it is hard to conceive a man in his position bringing himself to indite.^ With Williams, now in high favour with the king, the nominations to the sees almost rested. He was in religious matters a moderate man, and though not a High Churchman, yet neither a Calvinist nor a Puritan. § 21. He recommended Dr. Carew for Exeter, Dr. Davenant for Salisbury, and for St. David's, by the direction of Buckingham, he recommended William Laud, Dean of Gloucester. In this latter case his advice was not readily taken. The king had been prejudiced against Laud by Archbishop Abbot, whose ancient opponent Laud had been at Oxford, and though the archbishop's influence now counted for nothing, yet the impression remained with the king. It appears also that Laud had given to the king some advice as to the treatment of the Scotch Church, which the king considered very impolitic,* and as Dean of Gloucester he had embroiled himself with the bishop by the removal of the holy table to the east end of the cathedral.* Nothing, perhaps, is more remarkable about Laud than the fixed and unvarying nature of his views and character. That which he was at Oxford and Gloucester that he was also at Canterbury, and so continued to the end. The king at length consented to nominate Laud, who had greatly ingratiated himself with Buckingham, and it was arranged that the Bishops-designate of Lincoln, Exeter, Salisbury, and St. David's should be consecrated on the same day. § 22. Now, however, an unexpected obstacle arose. The Primate had been visiting Lord Zouch at his park in Hampshire. Going to kill a deer in the park the bolt of his cross-bow had ^ Heylin's Life of Laud, p. Z%. ^ Cabala, pp. 56, 85. 3 These letters have been lately brought to light by the publication of the Fortescue PaiJers by the Camden Society. See Letters cix. cxii. cxvii., Fortescue Pajjers. ^ Hacket's Life of Williams, 1. 64 ^ State Papers of James I. xc. 75, 95. 161M625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 397 struck the keeper, who was concealed behind the herd, and the poor man had died of the wound. The occurrence would have been treated as an ordinary accident,-^ had not the ambition of one of the bishops-elect suggested to him a profitable use of it. The shrewd Lord Keeper thought that it could be made to constitute irregularity, and thus necessitate deposition from the primacy. On the strength of this he actually wrote to Buckingham solicitino- for Canterbury .2 The other bishops-elect were induced to support Williams' scruples, and Abbot was called upon to issue a com- mission for the consecration, while his own case was to be investi- gated by a mixed commission of civilians and divines. On this commission sat four bishops, of whom Andrewes was one. It was presided over by the Lc/rd Keeper, who could hardly be said to be impartial in the case. But the lawyers were all strongly against the fact of irregularity having been incurred by accidental homi- cide, and when Bishop Andrewes gave his great learning and gravity to support their view, the Primate's cause was gained. A commission was issued to grant a dispensation to the archbishop, and his pardon for causing the death of Peter Hawkins, with restitution of all forfeitures, was also issued.^ The whole affair reflects much discredit upon Williams ; while Andrewes, who would probably have succeeded to the Primacy had a vacancy occurred, appears in a becoming light. § 23. The Convocation at this session of Parliament did nothing except censure Dr. Field for " brokage of bribery to Lord Bacon," * a censure which did not seriously affect the bishop's prospects, for he was twice afterwards translated to better sees. In November, when the Parliament met again, the favour which had been shown to the Romanists led to the presentation of a strongly-worded pro- test. The king, exasperated by their boldness, dissolved the Houses, and tore with his own hand a leaf out of the Commons' Journal which recorded their protest. ^ The Lord Keeper was now directed to write to the judges bidding them to extend the king's favour to all who were imprisoned for recusancy which concerned religion only. A very large number of Romanists were accordingly released,^ and the anger of the Puritan faction knew no bounds. 1 The king said none but a fool or a knave would think worse of him for such an accident, which had once nearly happened to himself. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict of '* misadventure and his own fault ! " State Papers, cxxii. 47, 60. 2 Cabala, p. 56. 3 State Papers of James I. cxxiii. 98, 100, 118. ^ lb. cxx. 48 ; cxxi. 69. ^ Dodd's Ch. Hist. vol. v. Appendix xlvi. Paishworth, i, 53, 54. ^ As many as 4000 it is said. The warrant and Lord Keeper's letter are in Dodfl, vol. v. Appendix xlviii. 398 ABBOT'S PRIMACY— CALYINISM : Chap. XXIY. § 24. The king thouglit it necessary to issue some directions for restraining the pulpits. Preachers were bid to confine themselves to the subjects comprehended in the Thirty-nine Articles. In place of afternoon sermons catechising was to be used. No preacher, under a bishop or a dean, was to treat on predestination, and election, and the doctrine of grace. No preacher was to set limits to the prerogative, or to use railing speeches against Puritans or Papists.-*^ Here we have the complete reversal of the policy which had upheld the Synod of Dort, " The king," says Neal, " had assisted in maintaining these doctrines in Holland, but will not have them propagated in England. From this time all Cal- vinists were in a manner excluded from court preferments." 2 There was considerable murmuring at this strange interference with preaching. Even the orthodox complained that if they were thus tongue-tied the freedom of their office was gone.^ An apologetic letter was published by the Lord Keeper declaring that his Majesty desired not so much to restrict preaching as to promote catechising.* By some bishops the king's injunctions seem to have been unduly pressed. Ministers appear to have been restricted to the actual words of the Catechism, and not permitted to enlarge upon them at all.^ Bishop Harsnet of Norwich was complained of for a too rigid discipline ; while, on the contrary, the Lord Keeper, as Bishop of Lincoln, seems to have courted popularity by a dangerous laxity. Williams may have been the more tempted to do this as his influence in high quarters was waning. Bucking- ham now showed a marked preference for Laud, who had lately conducted a disputation with the Jesuit Fisher, with the view of reconverting Buckingham's mother, who had been induced to embrace Eomanism. § 25. A mysterious dread now possessed the minds of many in the country as to the advance of Romanism, which was greatly increased by the sudden and secret journey of the prince into Spain. It was known that negotiations were going on with the Spaniards, but the particular concessions made by the king were kept concealed. All that the nation was able to perceive was that every day a greater amount of toleration and indulgence was ex- tended to the Eomanist. § 26. The archbishop felt that he could be no longer silent, and at this time (1623) addressed a letter to the king in which he ^ State Papers of James I. cxxxii. 35. ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 119. ^ Heylin's Laud, p. 99. '^ Cabala, p. 105. The letter is there given as the Lord Keeper's. Dr. Card-well thinks it proceeded from Abbot ; Doc. Annals, ii. 147, note, ^ Fuller, X. vii. 5. 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 399 Bays : " I have been too long silent, and am afraid by my silence I bave neglected the duty of the place it hath pleased God to call me to. Your Majesty hath propounded a toleration in religion. I beseech to take into your consideration what your act is, what the consequence may be. By your act you labour to set up the most damnable and heretical doctrine of the Church of Rome. And hereunto I add what you have done by sending the prince into Spain without consent of your Council, the privity and approbation of your people. What dread consequence these things may draw after I beseech your Majesty to consider, and whether they will not draw upon this kingdom in general, and yourself in particular, God's heavy wrath and indignation. . . . Thus, in dis- charge of my duty towards God, your Majesty, and the place of my calling, I have taken humble leave to deliver my conscience." i § 27. Prince Charles had gone into Spain suddenly and secretly. But the king, anxious that the Church of England should be represented favourably in the eyes of the foreigners, had sent after him two chaplains (Drs. Mawe and Wren) with all the re- quirements for a comely celebration of divine worship. They were directed to cause a convenient room to be set apart for this purpose, and adorned chapel-wise with an altar, fonts, palls, linen coverings, demy carpets, four surplices, candlesticks, tapers, chalices, patens, a fine towel for the prince, other towels for the household, a traverse of water for the communion, a bason and flagons, and two copes. Prayers were to be said twice a day ; the holy communion celebrated in due form, with an oblation of every communicant, and admixing water with the wine. Smooth wafers to be used for bread. The English Prayer-book had been translated into Spanish, and a large number of copies were sent that the Spaniards might be able to judge of the English services. § 28. Among other concessions now made to the English Romanists was the allowance of a bishop i7i partihus to reside in England. There had been an interminable quarrel between the secular Romish priests and the Jesuits on this point, the former desiring a bishop, the latter opposing it as limiting their autho- rity, and preferring the direction of an arch-priest.^ Now, at last, (1623) the first Romish bishop (Dr. William Bishop) appeared in England. The popular excitement was somewhat allayed when the prince returned safely in October (1623), and it was known that the Spanish match was abandoned. § 29. The Parliament which met, February 1624, was eager for war with Spain. The Puritanical character of this assembly 1 Tanner MSS. 73, 302, 303. Rusliworth, i. 85. 2 For all the particulars of this complicated strife see Dodd, CJi. Hist vols. iv. V. ; and Tierney's Notes. 400 ABBOT'S PEIMACY— CALVINISM : Chap. XXIY. may be gathered from the fact of their petitioning the king to ordain a general fast at their opening. The bishops, who thought such a matter ought to emanate from them, opposed the petition, as also some restraints proposed for the Lord's day, and were thus freely spoken of in the House of Commons as the champions of pride and irreligion.i The clergy in their Convocation showed their devotion to the Crown by the enormous grant of four entire subsidies of four shillings in the pound. The first of these was to be paid on the 1st of June following ; the remainder by half- yearly payments of two shillings. Thus an entire fifth of clerical incomes was voted. Heylin might well declare that some poor vicars paid more in taxes than the best gentlemen of the land.^ § 30. In this Parliament a vigorous attempt was made to put a check upon the anti-Calvinist reaction, and the growth of Arminian views. The person selected for attack was Richard Montagu, a chaplain of the king's, and a man well known for talent and learn- ing. He was rector of Stamford-Rivers, in Essex, and finding the Jesuits busy among his parishioners endeavouring to make prose- lytes, he had left in one of the houses where they visited certain propositions written down, together with an offer that if they could convince him upon any one of them he would become a con- vert. They replied by sending him a pamphlet with the quaint title, A Gag for the New Gosjpel. To this Montagu replied by a kindred brochure, called A neiu Gag for an old Goose. In this he shows that many of the doctrines asserted to be the doctrines of the Church of England were not doctrines of that Church, but mere private fancies of the Puritans. Two Puritan lecturers, Messrs. Yates and Ward, offended at these statements, made certain extracts from the book, and petitioned Parliament to take notice of them. The matter was referred to the archbishop. Abbot ex- pressed his dislike of Mr. Montagu's sentiments, and severely cen- sured the author. Certain of the bishops who favoured Arminian views, among whom was Laud, encouraged Montagu to dispute the justice of this censure. This gave rise to his famous treatise, Appello Gcesarem, which will come under review in the next reign. § 31. King James died at Theobald's, March 27, 1625. He is said to have made a very devout end, making open confession of sins, craving absolution, and repeating the confession of his faith before many witnesses. He died, he declared, in the bosom of the Church of England, whose doctrine he had defended with his pen, 1 Heylin's Laud, p. 118. 2 lb. p. 119. Four subsidies had been granted in April 1606, to be paid in twelve half-yearly payments. In 1628 five subsidies were granted, and a still greater number afterwards. — Cardwell, Synodalia, ii. 593, note. 1611-1625. THE REACTION AGAINST IT. 401 being persuaded that it was according to the mind of Christ, as he should shortly answer it before Him.^ Of the sincerity of his attachment to the Church of England there can be no doubt. Much more doubt there may reasonably be as to whether his policy and his way of supporting the Church, had been of real service to her interests. The king was arbitrary, overbearing, meddlesome. He was at the same time feeble and vacillating. Already under his irritating rule had taken place in England that ominous conjunction of Patriots and Puritans, destined to produce such terrible results in the next reign. Men who really loved the Church of England, but who were still more eager to secure their privileges as citizens, were forced into an alliance with the narrow- minded, tyrannical Puritan, simply because he was in opposition as well as themselves, and because there seemed a sufficient pro- mise of strength in the alliance to induce them to forego their dislike of their associates. 1 Hacket's Williams, i. 223. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. MARC ANTHONY DB DOMINIS. ARCHBISHOP OF SPALATRO. The most illustrious convert to the Church of England at this time was M. Anthony cle Dominis, Archbishop of Spa- latro, in the State of Venice. Some Italian friars, who had previously professed them- selves converts, had turned out badly, but the greatest hopes were entertained of the archbishop. After the settlement of the quarrel between Venice and Rome, a fine had been laid upon the see of the archbishop by the pope. This greatly displeased him, and he entered into nego- tiations with Sir H. Wotton, the English ambassador at Venice,- and Dr. Bedell, his chaplain, as to joining the Church of England. He was promised a hearty wel- come in England, and having decided on coming here, and professing his accept- ance of the English Church, he was en- tertained at Lambeth, and received a stipend of £600, made up by contributions among the bishops. He wrote a book to justify the step he had taken, and was ex- tremely popular in England. Cambridge made him a D. D. The king gave him tlie deanery of Windsor and the mastership of the Savoy. Having, however, offended the Spanish ambassador, a trap was laid for him by his intrigues and the conniv- ance of Rome. He was promised a large payment if he would go to Rome, and he immediately embraced the offer. The king, very indignant at his duplicity, ordered him to leave England in twenty days. After this, however, De Dominis had the assurance to ask for the arch- bishopric of York. He repaired to Brus- sels, where he wrote a raihng book against the Church of England, called Concilium Reditus, and went on his way to Rome. Immediately on his arrival there he was seized by the Inquisition and immured in prison, where he died, when his body was burned as that of a heretic. Dr. Fitz- herbert, rector of the English College at Rome, describes him thus : — " He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave while he lived with you, and a motley parti-coloured knave now he is come back." His book, Concilium Reditus, gave occasion for the writing of the De- fensio Ecclesioe Anglicanoe by Crakanthorp —one of the ablest controversial works of the period. A vast mass of letters relat- ing to the archbishop exists among the State Papers, vols. xc. xcii. xciv. cxxviii. There are also full accounts of him in Goodman {Court of King James), Fuller, Crakanthorp, Wilson, Hacket, and Heylin 2 D 402 THE CHURCH MADE TO SUPPORT Chap. XXV. CHAPTER XXV. THE CHURCH MADE TO SUPPORT ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. 1625-1629. § 1. Eifect of the accession of Charles I. on the Church. § 2. His mar- riage. Treatment of the Romanists. § 3. Parliament again attacks Richard Montagu. § 4. Laud's influence established. Project for de- creeing Arminian doctrine in Convocation. § 5. The Coronation. § 6. The attack on Montagu renewed. § 7. Bishop Goodman's sermon. § 8. "Tuning the Pulpits." §9. Dr. Sibthorp's sermon, §10. Dr. Bar- greave's sermon. § 11. Dr. Wren's sermon, § 12, Dr, Mainwaring's sermon. § 13, Dr. Hall made Bishop of Exeter, § 14. Parliament condemns Dr. Mainwaring. § 15, Censures Bishops Laud and Neile for Arminianism. § 16. Attempts made to conciliate the House of Com- mons in religious matters. § 17. The Declaration before the Articles. § 18. Debate in the Commons and the "Vow " of the House. § 19. Mr. Oliver Cromwell attacks Neile and Mainwaring. § 20. Feeling in the country as to the clergy on the dissolution of Parliament. § 1. By the accession of Charles I. to the throne of England the Church gained a zealous and faithful patron, and one who by the purity and decorum of his life did not throw discredit upon the religion which he upheld. At the same time, the impolicy which marked his rule, and the arbitrary notions which he had inherited from his father, involved the Church which he loved in no small discredit, and inflicted on it a severe and long-continued persecution. § 2. The negotiations for his marriage with Henrietta Maria of France had been completed before the death of James, and by a secret engagement between the king, the prince, and the pope, even greater concessions were made to the Komanists in England than had been promised to Spain.^ On May 8 (1625) the marriage was solemnised in Paris, King Charles being represented by deputy, and soon after the king welcomed his young French bride to Eng- land (June 23). The large number of French servants and the detachment of priests of the Oratory who came with the new queen, sufficed to cause great jealousy and uneasiness among the people, and this discontent at once found utterance in Parliament. On July 8 the Parliament presented a petition praying the king to cause the laws against recusants to be executed, and the king replied favourably. Divers proclamations directing the laws to be J Dodd, Ch. Hist. v. 154. 1625-1629. ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. 403 put in force were issued. It was afterwards alleged against him by the French that this was a direct infringement of the secret treaty, but Charles replied that the treaty had only been made subject to the condition that it should be practicable to carry it out.i He promised, however, to do what he could to temper the severity of the penal laws. § 3. The Commons, not content with attacking the Eomanists, also turned their attention to those in the Church of England whom they held to be favourers of the Eomanist doctrine. Eichard Montagu had defended himself from the censure pronounced upon him by Archbishop Abbot by the publication of the book called AiJ'pello Ccesarem. In this he was thought to have countenanced much Arminian and Popish error. The House of Commons, dis- trusting probably the action of the archbishop, as likely to be in- effectual, assumed the character of religious censors, and appointed a committee of their body to examine the book. The report was delivered by IVIr. Pym "so well and fully," says Joseph Mead, " that the most admired, and Montagu's friends were amazed. The effect was that no one man spoke in the House but in detestation of him, and his best friends were observed to leave the House before the question came. The opinion of the house was that he was guilty of an offence against the State, and so to be presented to the Lords." 2 The king, however, now interfered, and told the Com- mons that " what had been spoken in the House and informed against Mr. Montagu was displeasing to him. He hoped one of his chaplains might have as much protection as the servant of an ordi- nary burgess." ^ At the session of Parliament held at Oxford, the matter was again before the House of Commons. Bishops Laud, Houson, and Buckeridge, who supported Montagu, wrote to the Duke of Buckingham to solicit his assistance. They declared that Montagu's doctrines were in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, and that Convocation was the only fitting judge of such matters. It is probable that Parliament would have taken seme stronger steps against Montagu had it not been prematurely dissolved. The members were very angry at discovering that while the king was apparently acceding to their requests by issuing proclamations against the Eomanists, he was all the time secretly giving them dispensations and pardons. § 4. Li the Convocation, held concurrently with this Parliament, it was seen that now an influence was at work differing from the temporising policy of Bishop Williams, which had found favour 1 Tierney's Notes to Dodd, CJi. Hist. v. 162. ''* Joseph Mead to Sir M. Stuteville ; Court and Times of Charles I. i. 96. 3 Rushworth, i. 174. 404 THE CHURCH MADE TO SUPPORT Chap. XXV. ■with King James. Laud, Bishop of St. David's, had been for some time in favour with Buckingham, but had never recommended him- self to King James. The influence of Buckingham was even greater with Charles than it had been with his father, and Buckingham's favourite bishop was exactly of a temper to suit the new king. Fixed, clear, and decided in. his principles, without any regard to expediency, without any power, as it seemed, of estimating the policy or prudence of measures. Laud's straightforward and impe- tuous character satisfied the conception which Charles had formed of what a Churchman should be, and from the very begirming of the reign Laud's influence was paramount in ecclesiastical matters. Williams at once fell from power, being hated by Buckingham and despised by Charles, and a new regime commenced. Laud was employed first of all to distinguish all the chief divines by appending to their names in a list the letters 0 or P, to signify Orthodox or Puritan ; and the king yielded to his advice to call upon the Con- vocation to settle the five points of the Arminians by synodical decrees. Bishop Andrewes, however, was first to be consulted, and the learned and prudent Bishop of Winchester at once declared against the project. It was a dangerous matter to broach, he said ; the clergy might very possibly determine in the direction opposite to that which was desired.^ It is probable, however, that Laud would have persisted had not the Parliament been so rapidly dissolved. § 5. In the coronation ceremony of the king the influence of Laud and the ascendency of his views were conspicuously shown. Williams, Dean of Westminster, being in disgrace, the part in the ceremony ordinarily performed by the dean was deputed to Laud, who was a prebendary of the Church ; and at his recommendation an old prayer formerly used at coronations, which suggested the idea of the king being clothed with a quasi-priestly power, was revived.^ A request was also introduced for the clergy, the king was exhorted to give them greater honour than others, and to be the " mediator between clergy and laity." § 6. Four days after the coronation (February 6) the new Par- liament was opened, and the Commons immediately returned to the attack against Montagu. The committee of religion over which ^ According to Neal, this would certainly have been the case. — PuritanSy ii. 137. Sanderson, then a proctor in the Lower House, speaks of the ex- pectation of the matter being brought forward, and of preparing himself for it.— Wordsworth, E. B. iv. 417. ^ ' ' Let him obtain favour for the people, like Aaron in the Tabernacle, Elisha in the waters, Zacharias in the temple ; give him Peter's key of dis- cipline, and Paul's doctrine." "This," says Collier, "sounds extremely high for the regale, and might serve very well for the consecration of a T)atriarch." — Ch. Hist. viii. 7. 1625-1629. ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. 405 Mr. Pym presided, renewed their censure of his book ; and the House of Commons voted a petition to the Crown that Mr. Montagu might be punished according to his demerits, and that his book might be suppressed and burnt. -^ § 7. The Parliament, although perfectly aware that penal pro- ceedings were being vigorously enforced against the Romanists, was by no means satisfied with the king's zeal in the matter. They suspected him of double-dealing, and called loudly for greater strict- ness in enforcing the laws. A sermon preached before the king by Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, on April 12, further exasperated them. Bishop Goodman advocated the real presence in the'Eu- charist, using such materialistic terms that he was accused of main- taining the doctrine of transubstantiation. Convocation examined the passages excepted against, but came to no decision. The king referred the matter to Archbishop Abbot, Bishops Ajidrewes and Laud ; they reported that some things had been spoken " less warily," and recommended that the bishop should be allowed to explain. 2 This tender treatment was not likely to satisfy the Com- mons ; and when the Parliament was recklessly dissolved to shield the Duke of Buckingham, a more violent feeling than ever against the Popish and Arminian bishops, who were favoured by the king, was spread abroad throughout the land. § 8. The influence of the Church was, indeed, every day waning ; yet it was thought by the rash counsellors who surrounded the king that a counterpoise to the strength of public opinion produced by the treatment of the Parliament, might be effected by the process of " tuning the pulpits," as it was called. This practice had been resorted to, but in very different times, by Queen Elizabeth, and with considerable success.^ It was thought it might serve now, and with a view to carrying it out Laud drew up a paper of instruc- tions to be sent in the king's name to the archbishops and bishops, and by them to be communicated to the clergy. This paper com- mences by saying that the Church and State may be accounted but as one, being both made up of the same men, who are differenced only in relation to civil and spiritual ends. They ought, therefore, mutually to help one another ; and now, in the danger and necessity of the State, the clergy should preach to their people that the charges of the war entered into with full consent of Parliament can only be met by liberal aids. They are also to recommend unity, ^ Rushworth, i. 212. "With this the proceedings against Montagu ended; he was soon afterwards made a bishop. ^ Collier, viii. 14. Goodman died a Romanist, and it is very probable that he held Romanist doctrine at this time. ^ Especially in the case of the execution of Lord Essex. See State Papers of Elizabeth (Domestic), cclxxviii. 62, 126. 406 THE CHUKCH MADE TO SUPPORT Chap. XXV. and to desire tlie prayers of the people for tlie good success of the government.-'- The project for which this paper was intended to furnish the principles, was to obtain loans from the people in place of the grants which Parliament denied ; but this was skilfully- veiled, and it is said that Laud obtained no small credit for the dexterity of his composition. It was not expected, however, or desired, that the clergy should observe the same reticence ; they were to come distinctly to the point, and to recommend the people to give their money. § 9. On this ground, doubtless, it was, and not for any literary merit of its own, that it was determined to print and publish a sermon, preached by Dr. Sibthorp, Vicar of Brackley, at the assizes in Northampton. The king read and approved the sermon, and sent it to Archbishop Abbot to license. The archbishop, who could not conceive that it was seriously intended to put forth such a com- position by authority, considered that it was a plot of Buckingham and Laud to ruin him. " They thought," he says, " that one of these two things should follow — that either the archbishop should authorise it, and so all men who were indifferent should discover him for abuse and unworthy trust ; or he should refuse it, and so fall into the king's indignation, who might pursue it at his pleasure as against a man that was contrary to his service." ^ The seimon contends that the prince jure clivino has power to make laws and impose taxes. It is a poor vapid performance, only redeemed from insignificance by its bad theology and worse politics. After the archbishop's refusal to license it he was practically suspended from his office, and bid to confine himself to his house at Ford ; so that King Charles is seen to be exactly treading in the steps of Queen Elizabeth, though perhaps with less excuse. Sibthorp's sermon was licensed by Dr. Mountain, Bishop of London (May 8, 1627), and proved to be the first of a series of discourses published at this time with the approval of the authorities, in which religion was made to do base service in propping up illegal exactions and giving countenance to the purest absolutism. § 10. Of these sermons a few may here be noted. Dr. Bar- grave, Dean of Canterbury, preached on 1 Sam. xv. 23. " He imputed rebellion to those who refuse the loan, and much urged obedience. His sermon was printed by his Majesty's special command." 3 § 11. Dr. Wren, Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and chaplain to the king, preaching before the court (February 17, 1C27) on Proverbs xxiv. 21, contended that the way to show * Heylin's Laud, pp. 162-4. ^ Abbot's Narrative. — Eushworth, i. 436. » Joseph Mead to Sir M. Stuteville ; Court and Times of Charles I. 1. 214. 1625-1629. ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. ^ 407 the fear of God was by fearing the king, who stood in the place of God. This sermon was also published by command. § 1 2. Dr. Mainwaring, Eector of St. Giles', and chaplain to the king, preaching on Ecclesiastes viii. 2, before the king at Oatlands (July 4, 1627), maintained that kings were above angels. " Their power not human but superhuman, a participation of God's own omnipotency." The same divine, preaching before the same audi- ence at Alderton, contended that " justice intervenes not between a prince, being a father, and the people his children, for justice is between equals. There is no mention of any limitation in Scrip- ture to bar kings of that obedience which by natural right to them doth appertain." This was the doctrine preached from Church pulpits while all the prisons were full of the first gentlemen of England who had refused to contribute towards the loan. The clergy began to be regarded with feelings of aversion by all those who had the liberties of their country at heart. Among the bishops there were few whose high personal character helped to sustain their office in public estimation. Bishop Andrewes, the most learned, the most devout, as well as prudent and moderate divine of his day, had died (October 1626),^ and there was no one to occupy his place. § 1 3. A year after the death of Andrewes, however, the episcopal order had the advantage of the accession of one far in advance of most of his fellows. In December 1627, Joseph Hall was conse- crated to the see of Exeter. Hall, a moderate man and somewhat of a Calvinist, owed his appointment to some tracts which he had written to prove the catholicity of the English Church, but he was no sooner promoted than it was clearly shown that he was not of the stamp of the divines who found favour under the government of Laud. " I entered upon that place," he says, "not without much prejudice and suspicion in some hands, for some that sate at the stern of the Church had me in great jealousy for too much favour of Puritanism. I soon had intelligence who were set over me for espials ; my ways were curiously observed and scanned. Some persons of note in the clergy opened their mouths against me, both obliquely in the pulpit and directly at Court, complaining of my too much indulgence to persons disaffected, and my too much liberty of frequent lecturings within my charge. The billows went so high that I was three several times on my knees to his Majesty to answer these great criminations." 2 § 14. The king's necessities had obliged him to summon a 1 In this case another bad precedent of Elizabeth's days was followed. The see was kept vacant a year and a half that the king might appropriate the revenues. ^ Hall's Autobiogr-aphy. Wordsworth, U. B. iv. 289. 408 THE CHURCH MADE TO SUPPORT Chap. XXV. new Parliament, and Bishop Laud preached before the two Houses (March 17, 1628), earnestly exhorting them to unity. The Com- mons immediately aj^pointed a Committee for Eeligion, and mani- fested considerable signs of anger at what " those sycophants had prated in the pulpit."^ The Committee took into their considera- tion the cases of Montagu, Mainwaring, and Cosin, the latter of whom had incurred the anger of the Puritans by a volume of devotions lately published which was thought to savour too much of Rome.2 About the end of May Mr. Rouse brought in the Committee's indictment of Dr. Mainwaring. He is charged : (1) With labouring to infuse into the conscience of his Majesty the persuasion of a power not bounding itself with law. (2) For per- suading the conscience of the subjects that they are bound to obey commands illegal. (3) For robbing the subject of the propriety of his goods. (4) For branding those who will not lose this pro- priety with scandalous speech and most odious titles. (5) For seeking to blow up Parliament and parliamentary powers. The Commons voted that Dr. Mainwaring had most unlawfully abused his holy function, and grievously offended against the State, and appointed Mr. Pym to prosecute him before the Lords. The Lords voted that Dr. Mainwaring should be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House ; that he should be fined .£1000 ; that he should make submission to both Houses ; that he should be sus- pended three years from his ministry, and be disabled from receiving future preferment or from preaching at Court ; that his books should be called in and burned.^ It was doubtless some- what absurd for the House of Lords to pronounce an ecclesiastical sentence, but the fine and imprisonment for what was very like treason might well be inflicted. Dr. Mainwaring made the re- quired submission with the utmost fulness and self-condemnation. Beyond this a short imprisonment constituted the whole of his punishment. His fine was remitted, perferment was heaped upon him, and he was finally made Bishop of St. David's. " The pre- ferring this gentleman," says Collier, " who had recanted in form, and owned himself so remarkable a criminal, was no serviceable conduct. This countenance looked something like a partiality for 1 Speech of Sir E. Philips ; Rushworth, i. 503. 2 Joseph Mead to Sir M. Stuteville ; Gourt and Times of Charles I. i. 335. It sounds strange to find the good Joseph Mead writing of another man equally good and devout : "He is a most audacious fellow, and, I doubt, scarce a sound Protestant, and takes upon him most impudently to bring superstitious innovations into our Church," He was accused of causing 340 candles to be lit at Durham. We shall hear more of the accusations against Cosin presently. For an account of his Book of Devotions see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. ^ Rushworth, i. 594, 602, 605, 1625-1629. ABSOLUTIST YIEWS. 409 the prerogative, made the Parliament more warm at their next meeting, and the king lose ground in the affection of his subjects." ^ So eager was the king to sliow his contempt for the judgment of ParKament that he sent twice in one day (the last time at twelve o'clock at night) to the Bishop of London (Mountain) to restore Dr. jNlainwaring to his church and liberty of preaching. The bisliop twice refused, alleging the parliamentary sentence, but the third time he yielded.^ § 15. But the House of Commons was not content with pro- curing the censure of a somewhat obscure divine. They aimed at those who occupied places of greater influence. When (June 14, 16 28) they made their remonstrance to the king, they com- plained of the daily growth and spread of the faction of the Arminians, " who were no better than Papists ;" and of this faction " not wanting friends, even of the clergy, near to your Majesty — namely. Dr. Neile Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Laud Bishop of Bath and Wells, who are justly suspected to be unsound in their opinions that way. And it being now generally held the way to promotion in the Church, many scholars do bend the course of their studies to maintain those errors ; their books and opinions are suffered to be printed and published ; and on the other side the imprinting such as are written against them, and in defence of the orthodox Church, is hindered and prohibited ; and means hath been sought out to depress and discountenance pious, and painful, and orthodox preachers, and how conformable soever and peaceable in their disposition they may be, yet the preferment of such is opposed, and they are hardly permitted to lecture."^ In the answer to the remonstrance which was drawn up by Laud it is asserted that this charge of Arminianism is a great reflection upon his Majesty. " As if his Majesty is so ignorant in matters of religious belief, or so indifferent in maintaining them, as that any singular opinion should grow up, or any faction prevail in his kingdom without his knowledge ; that two eminent prelates attending his person were much wronged in being accused without the least colour of proof produced against them ; and that, should either these bishops or any other attempt the altering of religion, he would quickly animadvert upon them without staying for the Commons' remonstrance." As to preferment, it was fairly admini- stered, but his Majesty considered the preferments as his own, and should not be led in his judgment as to how to bestow them by the remonstrance of the Commons.^ Very soon after this reply 1 Collier, Ch. Hist. viii. 39. ^ Joseph Mead to Sir M. Stuteville ; Court and Times of Charles 1. i. 372. 3 Rushworth, i. 621-2. •* Laud's Works, v. 153. CoUier, viii. 33-4. 410 THE CHURCH MADE TO SUPPORT Chap. XXV was put fortli, Laud was promoted to the see of London, and Montagu to that of CMchester. § 16. The discontent and anger against the Church policy of the government were now "so strong that the king and his advisers thought it desirable to attempt to soothe it before the beginning of the next session of Parliament, With this view Archbishop Abbot was called back to Court, and was encouraged to hold at Lambeth " a Convocation of some selected clergymen," for the repressing of the growth of Popery and Arminianism ; and the king appears to have made a declaration, in consequence of the representations of this body, as to maintaining the " true faith against the errors lately crept into the Church."^ At the same time Barnaby Potter, a divine of Calvinistic views, was made Bishop of Carlisle, and a proclamation was issued suppressing the Appello Ccesarem, the author of which had, however, shortly before been elevated to a bishopric. § 1 7. In addition to this a Declaration was drawn up by Laud, to be prefixed by the king's order to the Thirty-nine Articles, commanding a cessation of the disputes between Calvinists and Arminians, enjoining only the simple and grammatical meaning to be put upon the Articles, and declaring that Convocation is the pro- per body for settling all disputed points of doctrine and discipline.^ § 18. This very salutary reminder did not, however, avail to convince the House of Commons that they had done wrong in intermeddling in religious matters. The " Declaration " seemed to them to be scarcely the equitable document which it assumed to be. They held that, under the pretence of impartiality, it did in fact condemn the Calvinists ; and in the temper in which the House of Commons then was, it did not feel inclined to remain quiet under such a sentence. On the very first day of the session after the prorogation, Mr. Eouse violently attacked the Arminians, as those who " make the grace of God lackey it after the will of man, who make the sheep to keep the shepherd, and make a mortal seed of an immortal God." Arminians, he said, were the spawn of Papists, and when the warmth of favour came upon them they would spring up like the frogs from the bottomless pit. He there- fore called upon the House of Commons to make a vow to hold fast by God and religion.^ He was supported by Mr. Pym, who boldly declared that the Lambeth Articles had been avowed and ^ Letters of Mr. Beaulieu to Sir T. Pickering ; Court and Times of Charles I. ii. 3, 5. ^ Yet this "Declaration," which affected to settle matters of doctrine, was never submitted to Convocation, but was put fortli on the sole authority of the king. ^ Rushworth, i. 645, 1625-1629. ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. 411 acknowledged as the doctrine of the Church of England ; that Par- liament was the proper body to " establish true religion," and that the Convocations were bodies of small importance. ^ Sir John Eliot spoke more temperately and wisely : — " There is a jealousy conceived as if we meant to dispute in matters of faith. It is not our profession, that is not to be disputed. It is not in the Parlia- ment to make a new religion, nor, I hope, shall it be in any to alter the body of the truth which w^e now profess. I must confess, among all those fears we have contracted, there ariseth to me not one of the least dangers in the declaration that is made and pub- lished in his Majesty's name concerning disputing and preaching. We see what is said of Popery and Arminianism ; our faith and religion is in danger by it, for, like an inundation, it doth break in at once upon us. It is said if there be any difference of opinion concerning the interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles, the bishops and clergy in the Convocation have power to dispute it, and to order which way they please ; and, for aught I know. Popery and Arminianism may be introdued by them, and then it must be re- ceived by all. A slight thing that the power of religion should be left to the persons of these men. I honour their profession : there are among our bishops such as are fit to be made examples for all ages, who sliine in virtue, and are firm for our religion, but the contrary faction I like not. We see there are some among them who are not orthodox nor sound in religion as they should be. Witness the two bishops (Laud and Neile) complained of at the last meeting of Parliament; I apprehend such a fear that, should we be in their power, we may be in danger to have our religion overthrown."- Incited by these speeches, the House of Commons determined to make a direct answer to his Majesty's de- claration, which they called their Vow: — "We, the Commons in Parliament assembled, do claim, protest, and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Eeligion whicli were established by Parlia- ment in the thirteenth 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."* The in- tention of this very vague resolution is more clear than its lan- guage. It was intended formally to repudiate Laud's handiwork, 1 Rushworth, i. 647. ^ j^^ i ^48. ^ By this, I suppose, is meant the adoption of the Lambeth Articles. It is unnecessary to say that thoy were never in any way adopted or recognised by the Church of England. "* Rushworth, i. 649. 412 ABSOLUTIST VIEWS. Chap. XXV. and to declare that they accepted, and would continue to accept, the Thirty-nine Articles in a Calvinistical sense. § 1,9. On February 12 (1629) Mr. Oliver Cromwell, now first appearing in the debates of the House, attacked Bishop Neile for countenancing some that preached " flat Popery," and complained that Dr. Mainwaring, though disabled from receiving preferment by the vote of Parliament, had nevertheless been preferred to a rich living.-^ § 2 p. The wild scene of excitement in which this Parliament closed, and the rash and tyrannical proceedings which followed its dissolution, are well known. The chief blame for all was laid upon the bishops who were around the king, and an intense feel- ing of hatred, against Laud especially, began now to prevail. This was but little affected by the Declaration drawn up by him for the king and published to the country, explaining the causes of the dissolution of the Parliament, and charging the members of it with factious and turbulent conduct. Men, unfortunately, had become convinced that the clergy encouraged the king in his notions of arbitrary power, that they had no fitting respect for the laws and liberties of their country, that in their overweening de- ference to kingly authority they were ready to put everything in the hands of the prince, that even their views on the most sacred subjects were ready to be adjusted to the tone adopted by the monarch, that those who had been Calvinists were now Arminians, and those who had most strongly declaimed against Popery were now ready to see much that was good in it. That there was a con- siderable foundation for these accusations is certainly true. True, however, it also is that the Church was now being regarded through the distorted medium of angry political passions, and that the religious views which were so vehemently denounced in the clergy were in many cases the result of fair and candid inquiry, and honest conviction of their truth. Between the disso- lution of the Parliament of 1629 and the meeting of the next Par- liament, eleven years later, the Church of England went through a change, almost equivalent to a revolution, in its doctrine, disci- pline, and worship. All this was effected mainly by the agency of one man — William Laud. It will be desirable to bring the main facts of Laud's administration together, that it may be the more easy to judge of the merit which belongs to many of his aims, and the lolame fairly to be awarded for the means taken to bring some of them about. 1 Eushworth, L 655. Chap. XXV. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 413 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. BISHOP COSIN'S BOOK OF DEVOTIONS. (From Evelyn's Diary.) " The Dean (Cousin), dining this day at our house, told me the occasion of pub- lishing those offices which, among the Puritans, were wont to be called Cosin's Cozening Devotions by way of derision. At the first coming of the queen into Eng- land, she and her French ladies were often upbraiding our religion, that had neither appointed nor set forth any hours of prayer nor breviaries, by which ladies and courtiers, who have much spare time, might edify and be in devotion, as they had. Our Protestant ladies, scandalised it seems at this, moved the matter to the king, whereupon his Majesty presently called Bishop White to him, and asked his thoughts of it, and whether there might not be found some forms of prayer proper on such occasions, collected out of some already approved forms ; on which the bishop told his Majesty that it might be done easily, and was very necessary. Whereupon the king commanded him to employ some person of the clergy to com- pile such a work; and presently, the bishop naming Dr. Cosin, the king told him to charge the doctor in his name to set about it immediately. This the dean told me he did, and three months after, bringing the book to the king, he com- manded the Bishop of London to read it over and make his report. This was so well likf>d, that (contrary to fonner custoisa of doing it by a chaplain) he would needs give it imprimatur under his own hand. Upon this there was at first only 200 copies printed, nor, said he, was there anything in the whole book of my own composure, nor did I set any name as author to it, but only those necessary prefaces out of the Fathers touching the times and seasons of prayer, all the rest being entirely translated and collected out of an office published by authority of Queen Elizabeth, anno 1560, and our own Liturgy. This I rather mention to justify that industrious and pious dean, who had exceedingly suffered for it, as if he had done out of his own head to introduce Popery, from which no man was more averse, and one who, in this time of temptation and apostacy, held and con- firmed many to our Church." 414 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXVL CHAPTER XXVL laud's policy in church matters. 1629-1639. § 1. Character of Larud. § 2. His Erastian policy. § 3. The King's Instruc- tions as to Church discipline. § 4. Great complaints against this. § 5. Censured Bishop Davenant. § 6. Dissolution of the Collectors of St. A. Antholin's, § 7. Case of Mr. Sherfield. § 8. The foreign religious communities compelled to conform. § 9. Laud made Primate. § 10. Publication of the Book of Spo7'ts. § 11. Orders for removing the Holy Table. § 12. Church restoration. § 13. Discontent at "The Innova- tions. § 14. Proceedings in Diocese of Norvnch. § 15. Extemporary prayer stopped. § 16. Star-Chamber sentences. § 17. Case of Bishop Williams. § 18. Laud not a promoter of Romanism. § 19. The control of the press. § 20. Apparent conformity established. § 1. That tlie Cliurcli of England owes much to Archbishop Laud is incontestable. He was almost the first bishop after the Reformation period who perceived the need of a decent ceremonial and comely- external face of worship for a great historical church such as the Church of England. This he set himself resolutely to produce, and he either succeeded in doing so, or at any rate laid the founda- tion for future success. But though his end was good, the means used to produce it were often highly objectionable, and these objectionable means were made still worse by the personal peculi- arities of the man who employed them. " There has seldom, per- haps," says one of his biographers, " lived a man who contrived that his good should be so virulently evil sj)oken of. From all that we learn of him his manner appears to have been singularly un- gracious and unpopular, and his temper offensively irascible and hot. There was nothing affable or engaging in his general behaviour. His very integrity was often made odious by wearing an aspect of austerity and haughtiness. It would almost seem as if prudence had been struck out of his catalogue of the cardinal virtues. The consequence of this ignorance, or this disdain of the ways of the world, was unspeakably hurtful to the cause which at all times was nearest to his heart." ^ To this, however, something more must be added. " He was," says M. Guizot, " alike incapable of conciliat- ing opposing interests and of respecting rights." ^ In the view of Laud there seemed to be no right save the " divine right of kings.'' 1 Le Bas, Life of Laud, p. 331. ^ English Revolution, p. 39 (Trans.) 1629-1639. IN CHURCH MATTERS. 415 With tMs lie was ever ready to assail both the liberties of the State and of the Church. § 2. Against the Church in particular he wielded the royal pre- rogative in such a fashion as to make the ecclesiastical government of his day more completely Erastian than it had been in the time of Henry VIII. In none of his measures were the clergy consulted. They were simply ordered to carry out the royal will. The king censures bishops for their sermons, ordains by his sole will a body of canons for Scotland, even sets forth a declaration to interpret the articles of religion. For these illegal acts Laud was responsible as ecclesiastical adviser, but the clergy no less than himseK had to pay the penalty. § 3. Laud began his work of church reformation with a most salutary measure. " He saw," says Heylin, " the church decaying both in power and patrimony ; her patrimony dilapidated by the avarice of several bishops in making havoc of their woods to enrich themselves, and in filling up their grants and leases to the utmost term after they had been nominated to some other bishopric, to the great wrong of their successors. Her power he. found diminished partly by the bishops themselves in leaving their dioceses unguarded and living altogether about "Westminster, to be in a more ready way for the next preferment ; partly by the great increase of chaplains in the houses of many j^rivate gentlemen ; but chiefly by the multitude of irregular lecturers, both in city and country, whose work it was to undermine both the doctrine and the government of it." 1 Laud accordingly presented to the king a paper of Consider- ations on these points, and shortly afterwards the king issued a body of Instructions to the bishops founded on these Considerations. They are bid to be specially careful in their ordinations not to admit unfitting persons to the ministry. They are not to allow afternoon sermons, but to enforce catechising. They are to com- pel all lecturers ^ to read divine service, properly vested, before their lecture. They are to arrange if possible for lectures to be taken by a body of the neighbouring clergy preaching in turn, who are to preach in gowns, not in cloaks, as was the fashion. No one is to preach a lecture who is not ready when occasion offers to take a benefice or cure. The bishops are to ascertain how the lecturers " behave themselves in their sermons." None save noblemen and those qualified by law are to be allowed to retain chaplains in their 1 Heylin's Laud, p. 199. 2 The Lecturer was a divine appointed to a church by a special arrange- ment or endowment. His services were to be rendered independently of the parish priest. He had no cure of souls, but was merely a preacher. It was by this plan that the Puritans especially strove to propagate their principles. 416 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXVL houses. Regular attendance at divine service is to be exacted from all. Bishops are not to grant leases after they have been nominated to another see, nor to cut down timber, but merely " to receive the rents due and to quit the place ; " otherwise their nominations will be cancelled. An account is to be sent in at the beginning of each year as to the way in which these Instructions have been carried out." ^ § 4. Heylin says that these Instructions raised a great storm of complaint and discontent. The archbishop refused to carry out the directions as to lecturers ; the bishops loudly complained of the hardship' of being banished to their dioceses ; the country gentle- men considered themselves ill-used at not being allowed to keep chaplains in their houses ; and the chaplains themselves resented the loss of their comfortable posts. 2 Nevertheless, the Instructions, though their authority may be questionable, were certainly salutary and much needed. Non-resident bishops, puritanical lecturers, and secularised chaplains, were all mischiefs which required to be removed. § 5. A much more questionable exercise of the royal supremacy soon followed the issue of these Instructions. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, preaching in Lent (1630) before the Court, touched somewhat on the doctrines of predestination and election. He was Calvinistical in his views. He had been one of the English depu- ties at Dort, and he attached probably an exaggerated importance to these questions. The king considered that he had disobeyed the Declaration prefixed to the Articles, and he was ordered to appear at the Council-table. There Harsnet, now Archbishop of York, vehe- mently spoke against him, and the king censured him for what he had preached, and ordered him not to handle such points for the future.3 For a similar offence against this Declaration three clergy- men at Oxford — Mr. Ford of Magdalen Hall, Mr. Thorne of Balliol, and Mr. Hodges of Exeter — were summoned before the king at Woodstock, severely censured, and expelled from the university.* The ofiicers of the university also incurred punishment and reproof for their slackness in animadverting upon the preachers. Every- where it was seen that there was no safety for those who differed from the views of Bishop Laud, who had the king completely at his disposal, and large numbers of puritanical clergy now emigrated to join their brethren in America.^ Here they speedily showed an 1 Eushworth, ii, 30. 2 Heylin's Laud, p. 202. » Davenant to Ward ; Fuller, Ch. Hist. xi. 11-15. * They appear to have been very tui'bulent persons, and to have invited their punishment. ^ For an account of the first and other migrations of the Puritans see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 1629-1639. IN CHURCH MATTERS. 417 intolerance to one another greater than that from whicli they hud fled. Some of their ordinances even went to the pitch of decreeing death for the profanation of the " Sabbath day." § 6. One principal source of strength to the Puritanical cause was the formation of a society or corporation known by the name of the Collectors of St. Antholin's. The object of this society was to buy up impropriations and advowsons with a view of presenting to the livings persons of whose views the " collectors " approved, and of establishing and paying lecturers.^ Laud saw in this organ- isation a danger to the Church, and though the feoffees offered to submit themselves to his directions as to the carrying out tlieir phans, lie insisted on the immediate dissolution of the society ,2 which appears a somewhat harsh as well as impolitic proceeding. Any attempt to better the condition of the clergy and improve their revenues, which was one object of the " collectors," might well have been welcomed, especially by one who was ever sincerely anxious to help his poorer brethren. § 7. The next exercise of violent discipline in which Laud figured was one where indeed the censure may be readily excused, but the absurd exaggeration of the punishment furnished great cause for scandal. Mr. Sherfield, Eecorder of Salisbury, had pro- cured the removal of a painted window in St. Edmund's Church, wherein the Almighty was represented after a fashion common in earlier times, though perhaps indefensible in itself. Not content with obtaining the removal of the painting, Mr. Sherfield further showed his zeal by smashing it with his stick, for which irrever- ence he was cited into the Star Chamber, where he was condemned, at Laud's instance,^ to be deprived of his recordership, fined £500, committed to prison, and obliged to make a public apology before the bishop of the diocese.^ § 8. Probably a still greater amount of unpopularity than that which arose from this monstrously disproportioned punishment may have accrued to Laud from his treatment of the communities of foreign Christians established in England. He compelled these, although the freedom of worship had been guaranteed to them by Elizabeth and James, to conform to the Church of England under the threat of excommunication. ^ ^ Rush worth, 11. 151. 2 Diasolved by order of the Court of Exchequer Feb. 1533. The impro- priations yjQXQ forfeited to the Ci'ovm, not restored to the parishes. — Le Bas, p. 152. 3 Heylia's Laiid, p. 229. ^ Rushworth, 11. 152, sq. The terrible punishment inflicted on Dr. Leighton for publishing Zion's Plea against Prelates has not been mentioned, as there is no proof that Laud had any special hand in this. Dr. Lelghton'a crreat offence was calling the queen "a daughter of Heth." '^ Heylin's LoAid, p. 235. 2 E 418 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXYI. § 9. On September 19, 1633, Laud was confirmed Archbisliop of Canterbury on the death of Abbot. He had virtually wielded before his promotion the highest power in the Church, and his advancement to be Primate did not make any change in his policy. His first act was to republish the Injunctions of 1629, and thus to indicate that they would be rigorously enforced. Henceforth non- resident bishops, Puritanical lecturers, and " trencher-chaplains " must look to themselves. There was one at the head of affairs who at any rate had this merit, that he would not be deterred from car- rying out what he believed to be right by either fear or favour. § 10. Another republication of a former royal order was more injudicious and objectionable. King James, as has been stated above, had published in 1618 a Book of S20orts which might be lawfully used on the afternoons of Sundays. Some license as to this matter appears to have arisen in the west of England. A petition signed by six ministers had, in 1628, been addressed to the judge of assize praying him to forbid " church-ales " being held on Sundays in Somersetshire, as it was stated the judges had done in the county of Dorset. The petition pleaded that a prohibition had been granted in 1594 by Chief-Justice Popham.-*^ The judges agreed to the request, and Chief-Justice Richardson went still far- ther. He not only forbade all village feasts or wakes to be cele- brated on Sunday, but he ordered the clergy to publish this in the time of service. For this unwarrantable proceeding he was severely reproved by the archbishop at the Council-table, and it was deter- mined, by way of reply, to republish the Book of Sports with an addition in which the king states — " Our express will and pleasure is, that these feasts with others shall be observed, and that our justices of the peace shall see them conducted orderly, and that neighbourhood and freedom with manlike and lawful exercises be used. And the justices of assize are to see that no man shall be molested in these lawful recreations, and the bishops are to give order for the publication of this command in all the churches." The making the publication of this order imperative on the clergy was certainly a hardship, inasmuch as many of them held that all such proceedings on the Sunday were against the Word of God. Still greater was the hardship of suspending and even depriving ministers for neglecting to carry out the order.^ The dioceses of ^ State Papers of Charles I. (Domestic), xcvi, 7. Church-ales Avere feasts held on the afternoons of Sundays, at which money was collected for the support or beautifying of the church. Clerk-ales were benefits for the parish clerk. Bid-ales for any poor person who specially needed some help. Bishop Pierce's Letter, Canterbury's Boom, pp. 142-3. 2 Prynne says that many himdreds were silenced {Canterbury's DoOTfif p. 153). This, no doubt, is a gross exaggeration. 1629-1639. IN CHURCH MATTERS. 419 Norwicli and Batli and "Wells are said to have been principally affected. § 11. The next piece of Churcli policy in which we find the archbishop engaged was of a much more salutary character, and indeed has been, in its results, of the highest value to the Church of England. To understand the full import of it, it will be neces- sary to recur to the earlier days of the Reformation. The central spot and most sacred place in all Christian churches must ever be the holy table, or altar, at which the one great liturgical service prescribed by our Lord is done. In the time of Laud these holy tables were in a state of great desecration. By the order in Council obtained by Bishop Ridley the ancient altars had in most cases been taken down and a wooden table of joiner's work intro- duced, usually standing on a frame but not fixed. This was moved at the communion time, and set either in the centre of the chancel, while the communicants were grouped around it,i or in the body of the church. The Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth confirm the practice of moving the tables, seeming to direct that at communion time they should stand tablewise against the east wall. But usually, when not used, the tables stood altarwise against the east wall. Now some of the more puritanically inclined persons could not tolerate the table standing in this ancient position even when not used. In 1627 the parishioners of the town of Grantham appealed against their vicar to Bishop Williams, because he enforced this practice. Bishop Williams decided that the table, when not used, should stand in the chancel not altarwise hut tablewise, and when it was used should be set where it was most convenient. It is evident that the allowing the table to stand thus detached, and as it were in the midst of the congregation, would lead to great desecrations of it, and we have testimony that such was the case.^ In 1628 the Court of Chancery, in settling a bequest, had ordered the holy table at St. Nicholas' Church, Abingdon, to stand " constantly at the upper end of the chancel j" and in 1633, on an appeal from the decision of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's as ordinaries, it was ordered by the Council that the holy table at St. Gregory's Church should be set and remain altarwise. Archbishop Laud now determined not only to enforce this decent arrangement in all churches, but also to require rails to be set up to fence off from the remainder of the chancel the place occupied by the table, and thus to render desecration almost impossible. The view taken 1 There are many chiu'clies in which the seats round the chancel still re- main. There is also a church (kno-\vn to the writer) in which it is still the custom to move the table at communion time, and bring it into a side chapel fitted with seats round the walls. ^ Life of Br. Heylin, p. 52. 420 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXVL by the Council was that the latitude allowed by the rubric and the canon, as to the place of the table, was not to leave the matter for the parishioners to judge, but to give power to the ordinary to make the most fitting arrangement. Probably nothing has contri- buted more than this order and its enforcement to raise the char- acter of the worship of the Church of England. But one incon- venience followed. The rubrics directing the position of the min- ister were drawn up to suit the east and west position of the table. When the tables were placed north and south the rubrics remained the same'. This drove the minister into the unseemly position of standing at the end of the table instead of before its longer side. In January 1634 the first report of the bishops as to the way in which the king's Injunctions, republished by the archbishop, were ob- served, was furnished. 1 Lecturers, it is said, were in a great measure silenced. The change in the position in the holy table had begun. § 12. The archbishop now applied himself vigorously to the work of church-restoration. He had begun, when Bishop of Lon- don, with St. Paul's, which had lain since the great fire in Eliza- beth's days more or less in ruin. But everywhere the restorer's hand was needed. The Primate's object in pressing the work was worthy of all praise ; but, says Lord Clarendon, " I know not how the prosecution of it, with too much afi'ectation of expense it may be, or with too much passion between the ministers and parishioners, raised an evil spirit towards the church." 2 Accusations of popery were freely made against the archbishop and all who agreed with him. Laud, indeed, would almost seem to have courted such accusations. In the consecration of the church of St. Catherine Cree (1631) he had used such extraordinary ritual (if the accounts are to be trusted) that must needs have set all men talking and speculating.^ They would connect with the prostrations and bow- ings in which the bishop then indulged, his orders as to changing the place of the holy table and beautifying the fabric of the church, and with the illogical reasoning of prejudiced minds, would put all down to a deliberate attempt to Komanise the Church. All would be regarded alike as innovations (the word which soon began to be everywhere used), although, in fact, the greater part of the inno- vations were only the restoration of the commonest decency. Lambeth chapel was now handsomely repaired and adorned, and furnished with copes, a credence-table, and other accessories for the holy communion. At Canterbury an elaborate provision of altar-plate was made, with a vessel for the mixing of water with ^ These very interesting reports are printed in the Appendix of Laud's History of his Troubles. 2 Clarendon's Rebellion, pp. 38, 39 (ed. 1843). ^ Rushworth, ii. 77 1629-1639. IN CHURCH MATTEKS. 421 the wine, and all, if we are to believe Neal, consecrated by a solemn service.^ At tbe cathedrals of Winchester, Chichester, Worcester, and Lichfield, the example of Canterbury was followed, and a more reverent and ornate service, with prescribed adorations or bowings towards the holy table, rich copes, and other accessories, was performed.^ § 1 3. Nothing, however, came so home to the people generally as the enforcement of the order for moving and railing in the holy table. Some of the bishops refused to carry out this. Others carried it out with great strictness. Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, excommunicated the churchwardens of Beckington who resisted the order, and they were imprisoned till they had sub- mitted and done penance. The churchwardens of Ipswich were excommunicated for a like resistance. The archbishop was charged with settirig up again the popish altar, and the obliging all to come up to the rails to receive the holy elements seemed equiva- lent to obliging them to do reverence to idolatry. This, in the view of the Puritans, was equal to the sins of adultery, drunken- ness, or swearing.^ " These new orders," writes a Puritanical min- ister, " do open the mouths of many against the bishops to call them antichrists, because none but an adversary to Christ will take upon him to set up altars." ^ Bishop Racket writes thus of this time : — " Can you be insensible of this impendent ruin ? Are you so intent upon your altars that you know not how the nation bears a grudge at you ? " ^ In addition to the changes as to the holy table, the archbishop and his suffragans enforced not only a rever- ence towards the altar, but also a reverence whenever the name of Jesus was used in divine service, and the repetition of the Psalms by alternate verses, the congregation standing.^ To those who had been used to sit carelessly with their hats on during service time, to have the holy elements brought to them in their pews, to hand the cup from one to the other instead of receiving it from the priest, all these things seemed terrible innovations, and, combined ■with the ALrminian doctrine now in vogue, to threaten the utter extinction of Protestantism. " For men to call themselves Pro- testants like Bishop Laud, Bishop Wren, and their wicked adher- ents, and to project and plot the ruin of the gospel, this my soul abhors as the highest step of wickedness and prevarication against ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 213. The vessel for holding the water of mixture was called Tricanale, being a round ball with a screw cover, out of which issued three pipes. This, as other things, was adapted from Bishop An- drewes' chapel, - Heylin's Laud, p. 292. 2 White, First Century of Scandaloiis Priests. * Petition of a Poor Minister, L. Hughes. ^ Life of Williams, ii. 103. ^ Diary of Rev. John Rous (Cam. Soc.) p. 69. 422 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXVL God and His honour." ^ But men were obliged to be careful how they let their complaints come abroad. The most severe disci- plinary measures were used unsparingly against any, whether clerical or lay, who opposed the orders of authority. The Star Chamber and the High Commission Court were sufficiently for- midable to strike awe into the stoutest heart. § 14. In the diocese of Norwich, Bishop Wren carried out in his visitation the most minute inquiry and the most imsparing repression of everything contrary to the orders laid down. His articles contained no less than 897 inquiries, and in the two years and a half he remained in the diocese he suspended or deprived fifty ministers.2 The Puritanical Sir Simonds D'Ewes, who re- sided in the diocese, thus bewails the state of things : — " They examined the churchwardens in many new and strange articles, never before used smce the Keformation in religion. This ensadded the souls of all who had any true piety, and these new impositions many of them were deemed to be so dangerous and unlawful as divers godly and orthodox men either left their own livings volun- tarily, or were suspended and deprived because they would not yield to them ; and whereas, to avoid idolatry, superstition, and offence at the beginning of the Reformation of the Church in this realm, the altars were removed and taken away in most churches of England, and communion tables placed instead of them, now the communion tables were removed out of the middle of the chancels and ordered to be set up close against the east wall of the same chancels, where the ground was to be raised and the table railed in. The communion table being thus placed altar wise, the minister was enjoined, both before his sermon and after his sermon, to go up thither and read some part of the service." ^ § 15. Naturally connected with the directions for increased reverence and care in the performance of the prescribed service, was the order to discontinue the practice of using extemporary prayer in the pulpit. This was a severe blow to the ministers of Puritan- ical views. By this loophole they had been accustomed to relieve their devotional feelings, tied up and straitened as they thought them by the words of a prescribed liturgy ; but now nothing was to be said by the minister in the pulpit save as ordered by the 55th Canon. He must not preach without reading the liturgy, neither must he add to or diminish from the universal form. He must only preach once a day ; he must devote the afternoon exercises to catechising. He must not handle any " deep points " of election ^ AutoUogra2Jhy of Sir S. IP Ewes, ii. 113. 2 Wren's Parentalia, pp. 12, 14. ^ Autohiogra;phy of Sir S. UEwes, i. 141-2-3. 1629-1639. m CHUECH MATTERS. 423 and predestination, and he must treat all matters in the pulpit in the way approved of by those in authority, otherwise the Court of High Commission, extended to every diocese, and well served everywhere by zealous informers, would speedily animadvert upon him. A system of excessive tension was being tried, which, considering the large amount of dangerous elements existing in the land, was one of extreme peril. No considerations of gentleness, patience, or prudence were allowed to influence the archbishop's policy, and thus, much that was indeed " good " came to be " evil spoken of." § 1 6. The odium arising against the bishops for their " innn- vations " was greatly increased by the terrible sentences of the Star Chamber, in which some of the bishops, as occupying great offices of State, had a place. Leighton had been fined, imprisoned, and mutilated for his Plea against Prelates, Prynne for his Histriomas- tix ; and in 1637 the same determined libeller, together with Bastwick, a physician, and Burton, a clergyman, was again before the Star Chamber for various libels. Upon this occasion Laud delivered a long speech in support of his ecclesiastical policy. The fearful sentences w^hich were executed upon the libellers have formed some of the chief charges against the archbishop ; but there is no proof whatever that Laud had any special hand in procuring these sentences, or that he was specially vindictive. One who loved him but little said of him that though " the roughness of his un- courtly nature sent most men discontented from him, yet would he often of himself find ways and means to sweeten many of them again when they least looked for it." ^ § 17. Neither can any special rancour be sho"\\Ti to have been exhibited by Laud against his old antagonist Williams, when (in 1637) Williams was brought before the Star Chamber. There had been a charge long hanging over the bishop of giving encourage- ment to the Puritans, but this was now withdrawn, and the graver charge of subornation of perjury was made against him. He was fined .£10,000, and committed to the Tower. His papers were now seized and examined, and among them were found some letters from Mr. Osbaldiston, Master of Westminster School, giving the bishop news about persons described by nicknames — " the Great Leviathan," the "little meddling Hocus-pocus," "the Little Urchin," and so forth. It was charged that these names were intended to apply to Arch- bishop Laud and to Lord Treasurer Weston. Mr. Osbaldiston swore that they were not meant for these great men, and Williams swore that he had not received the letters, although they were found in his house, and he had alluded to them in other letters. It is to be feared that in both cases perjury was committed. Archbishop Laud's 1 Sir E. Bering's Speeches in Matters of Religion, Preface, p. 5. 424 LAUD'S POLICY Chap. XXVI. part in the matter was, however, that of a mediator rather than an active antagonist.'^ § 18. And as Laud cannot be fairly charged with vindictive- ness and cruelty, so neither can the other charge so freely made against him, of labouring to bring in Popery, be established. The offer of a Cardinal's hat, twice made to him on his accession to the Primacy, may seem to have been faintly refused ; but, as one of his biographers has shown, the notion of the possibility of there being a Protestant Cardinal was then common.^ There is, however, every reason to believe that the offer was not ho7id fide, but only done to injure him. His Conference with the Jesuit Fisher (printed in 1624) showed him a determined opponent of Roman doctrine, and from this teaching he never swerved. " I assure myself," he said in 1637, " no prelate can be so base as to live a prelate in the Church of England and labour to bring in the superstitions of Rome upon himseK and it. And if any should be so foul, I do not only leave him to God's judgment, but to shame also and severe punishment from the State. And in any just way no man's hand shall be more or sooner against him than mine shall be."^ But while thus honestly set to oppose Roman doctrine, there is no doubt that the archbishop was also opposed to the fana- tical and furious persecution of Romanists then in vogue. He went farther indeed. He honestly desired reconciliation with Rome, as he himself says : " I have ever wished and heartily prayed for the unity of the whole Church of Christ, and the peace and reconcilia- tion of torn and divided Christendom. But I did never desire a reconciliation but such as might stand with truth and preserve all the foundations of religion entire. Were this done, God forbid but I should labour for a reconciliation, if some tenets of the Roman party on one side, and some deep and embittered dis- affections on the other, have not made it impossible, as I much doubt they have." ^ No fair-judging person will blame the arch- bishop for these views, however much he may lament that such wholesome views had not a more fortunate exponent. § 19. The control of the press was one great means by which the archbishop thought to bring about conformity to the opinions which were approved. The printing of " libellous and seditious books ■' exposed the printers to most terrible penalties. For this John Lilburne and John Warton were whipped through the streets of London, and condemned to stand in the pillory. No book could be published without the Imprimatur of one of the Primate's ' See Laud's Works (Oxford ed.), v. vi. pt. i. 315 ; pt. ii. 338, 408. 2 Le Bas, Life of Laud, p. 372. ^ Speech at censure of Bastwck, p 70. * Laud's History of his Troubles, p. 159. 1629-1639. IN CHUECH MATTERS. 425 chaplains, and tliat Imprimatur was not given at random. Tlie archbishop found time to examine and to suggest alterations in the manuscripts of treatises which touched religious questions. He spent a whole afternoon in arguing with John Hales as to his tract on schism, which was far too latitudinarian to please Laud.^ Bishop Morton wrote at his suggestion in defence of bowing to- wards the holy table, and Bishop Hall composed a treatise in support of Episcopacy, which was not only submitted to the arch- bishop but materially altered at his suggestion. He writes to Hall : " These are to let you know that were my occasions greater than they are I would not suffer a book of that argument and in these times to pass without my particular views ; and therefore, my lord, these may tell you that both my chaplains have read over your book ; and that since then I have read it over myself very carefully, every line of it, and I have now put it into the hands of my Lord Bishop of Ely." 2 He also suggested some alterations to make the language stronger and more decided, especially as regards the foreign religious bodies, all which suggestions Bishop Hall is most ready to adopt. § 20. In fact, the energetic archbishop had established a com- plete ascendancy over his suffragans. Even Bishop Davenant is found zealously carrying out his orders as to the removing of the holy table.^ The nonconforming clergy had either been weeded out and migrated to America, or had been constrained to yield ; and the report of the province of Canterbury for January 1639 breathes nothing but peace and contentment. Very few scandals or troubles are reported. The principal complaint of the bishops is of the wastes and dilapidations committed by their predecessors, and of the unconscionable leases which they had granted. This was in course of being remedied by the king and the archbishop. As to discontent and dissatisfaction, and the traces of the smoulder- ing fire which soon burst forth into a flame at the Long Parlia- ment, not a suspicion seems to be entertained by the bishops. The king and his chief adviser appear to have been perfectly blind to the real state of things. It was then that Edward Hyde, think- ing that the great want of the archbishop was a real friend, under- took the office of enlightening Laud as to the condition of feeling in the country. He told him plainly " that the people were uni- versally discontented, and that every one spake extreme ill of his 1 For some accouct of John Hales and Ms friend William Chillingwortb, see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. 2 Canterbury s Doom, p. 256. For an estimate as to how far Laud was a promoter of learning, see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. 3 Laud's Works, vi. pt. i. p. 61. 426 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XXVI. grace as the cause of all that went amiss." ^ But it may well be doubted whether his words were believed, and whether the Primate did not rather pity the ignorance of the outspoken young lawyer. Confident of having in great measure subdued the clergy, and broken down all manifest and open opposition to his will, the archbishop did not rightly gauge the strength of that feeling of angry dissatisfaction, especially in the minds of the lay- men which was hidden beneath the smooth surface of an outer con- formity, but was ready, on the least opening being made, to force its way into sight. The war which arose with the Scotch made this opening — a war which was due in no small degree to the same incapable and imprudent religious policy which had so embittered England. 1 Life of Lord Clarendon. TTorJcs, p. 932 (ed. 1843). NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE PURITAN SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ENGLAND. The first attempt to colonise New Eng- land was made in 1587 ; but this proved a failure. In 1606 a party of emigrants left England for the New World under the auspices of Chief-Justice Popham. They were inexperienced, and their measures were ill judged ; but few of them remained alive to welcome the expeditions which arrived afterwards. In 1614 a considerable body of settlers, being most of them men under censure for Puritanical views, emi- grated-to the same district ; and in 1620, Mr. Robinson of Leyden, a minister of Brownist views, finding his congregation rapidly melting away in Holland, induced some of the members of his church to sell their estates, and, making a common fund, to embark for the New World. They sailed from Delfthaven August 5, numbering about 120, and did not arrive in America in their little ill-found vessels till Novem- ber 9. During the winter they suffered terrible hardships, and the greater part of them perished. They succeeded, however, in founding the settlement of New Ply- mouth, which soon became a desired haven to those who were exposed to the sharp measures of Archbishop Laud's discipline. Individual ministers and laymen con- tinued to escape to them ; but, in 1629, another colony, consisting of six sail of transports, conveying 350 men, women, and children, reached the western shores, and founded the colony of Massachussetts Bay. These also sufi"ered greatly, but recruits arrived rapidly. It was in view of these rapid migrations that George Herbei-t wrote those lines : — " Religion stands a tip-toe in our land. Ready to pass to the American strand." Among the more famous persons who went to these settlements was John Cotton, Vicar of Boston, Mr. Chancy, Vicar of Ware, and especially John Elliot, who by his devoted and successful labours obtained the name of the Apostle of the Indians. In 1635 an attempt was made to stop the escape of Puritan ministers by an ordinance which forbade any save sol- diers, mariners, or merchants to leave the country ; but this had but little efi"ect, and the stream of Puritanical ministers continued to flow westward, and various offshoots of the original colonies were formed. Religious dissensions, intoler- ance, and bigotry displayed themselves in extreme violence among the settlers. Their treatment of the Quakers almost surpasses belief. " It would almost seem," says Mr. Marsden, " that their ambition was to excel their former tyrants in the act of persecution." — (Wilson, Neal, Marsden.) Chap. XXVI. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 427 (B) JOHN HALES AND WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. These two very able men were about the first in England to advocate what are now called Latitudinarian views. John Hales was born in 1584 at Bath. When at Oxford he displayed great knowledge of Greek, and was brought by Sir Henry Savile, then Warden of Merton, to a fellowship in that house. He assisted Savile in his famous edition of Chiysostom, became Professor of Greek at Oxford, Fellow of Eton, and chaplain to Sir D. Carleton in his embassy to the Hague. He thus ob- tained admission to the Synod of Dort, of which he has left some very interesting particulars. Hales Avrote his Tract on Schism for the use of his friend Chilling- worth. In this he takes the latitudinarian ground of dispensing with all tests. Laud disliked these views, but he allowed the Tract to be published, and in 1639 made Hales a Canon of Windsor. He suffered much persecution during the Rebellion era, and died at Eton 1655. William Chillingworth, a more famous man than Hales, and one of the greatest controver- sial writers of the Church of England, was bom at Oxford in 1602. Laud, then Fellow of St. John's, was one of his spon- sors. Chillingworth became Fellow of Trinity, and was converted to Romanism by the arguments of the Jesuit Fisher. He soon became dissatisfied with the Romanist teaching, and returned to the Church of England. In 1637 he published his famous work. The, Religion of Protest- ants a Safe Way of Salvation^ as a reply to a work of the Jesuit Knott. This has always been held one of the greatest works of English theology. As a confutation of his adversary it is complete, but it' has serious drawbacks in the constructive part. ChUlingworth was very unsettled in his religious views. At one time he appears almost an Arian. He was one of the coterie who met at Lord Falkland's house of Great Tew, near Oxford, and has been sketched by Clarendon in his Life, where he gives an account of that brilliant assemblage of wits and divines. He was an extraordinary master of dialectical fence, and few were able to hold their own with him in an argument. He was also a mathematician and experimental philosopher. An attempt to invent a military engine for the use of the king's forces mixed him up in the civil war. He died, rather unhappily, in 1643, at Chi- chester, where he was buried. (C) ARCHBISHOP LAUD AS A PRO- MOTER OF LEARNING. Archbishop Laud was an immense bene- factor to learning, spending large sums in the acquisition of MSS. and rare books, which he bestowed with great liberality on his College of St. John's and the Uni- versity of Oxford. He also founded the professorship of Arabic at Oxford, and spared no pains or expense to procure Arabic manuscripts for promoting the study of the language. To his professor- ship he appointed the famous Edward Pococke, the most distinguished Oriental scholar of his day, as first professor. He encouraged also the learned labours of many great divines, as Usher, Hall, Sanderson, and Jeremy Taylor ; but with all this it may be doubted whether Laud's influence was beneficial to learning. The narrowness of his mind, which did not allow him to tolerate more than one special view of a subject, and the severity of his discipline, which restrained the press, fined and imprisoned those who diflfered from himself, must have had the effect of silencing all free inquiry and research. 428 SCOTCH AFFAIRS. Chap. XXVll. CHAPTER XXVII. SCOTCH AFFAIRS THE SHORT PARLIAMENT AND CONVOCATION. 1637-1640. § 1. Summary of Scotch Churcli history from 1610. § 2. Preparation of Scotch Liturgy. § 3. Attempt to introduce it at Edinburgh. § 4. The Solemn League and Covenant. § 5. The Scotch in rebellion. § 6. Call- ing of a Parliament. § 7. Temper of the Parliament. § 8. Mr. Pym's speech. § 9. Conference of Lords and Commons on religious affairs. § 10. Parliament dissolved. § 11. Archbishop obtains license to make canons to cover previous illegalities. § 12. Objections to this policy. § 13. Parliament dissolved. § 14. It is determined to keep the Convo- cation sitting. § 15. Opinion as to the legality of this. § 16. Convo- cation changed into a Synod. § 17. Makes canons. § 18. Thee^ ccetera oath. § 19. Great excitement caused by it. § 20. Symptoms of ill-feel- ing towards the Church in the country. § I. The Scotcli bishops, after their consecration in London in 1610, had returned to their own land, and proceeded to exercise their powers conferred upon them. They had been constituted modera- tors in the provincial Assemblies, and, says Calderwood, "they were become so awful with their grandeur and the king's assist- ance that there was little resistance, howbeit great murmuring and malcontentment." ^ In the General Assembly, held at Aberdeen 1616, the bishops were authorised to draw up a form of common prayer for the use of the Church in Scotland. King James desired to have the English Liturgy, and in 1617 it was used in the chapel of Holyrood. But the Scotch bishops desired to have one of their own, and in the General Assembly of Perth, 1618, this was again voted, and, at the same time, five articles were settled to serve as the basis for the liturgy and canons. Of these the first enjoins kneeling at the Lord's Supper ; the second allows private communion in case of sickness ; the third, private baptism in case of danger ; the fourth enjoins catechising and confirmation ; the fifth, the celebration of holy days and festivals. The bishops now proceeded to draw up a service-book, which was submitted to the king, and approved by him. But James and his advisers saw that the temper of the nation was not fitted for its immediate introduction. The king himself afterwards said that Laud, then Dean of Gloucester, had pressed him to introduce it, but that he ^ Calderwood's Hist, of Church of Scotland, p. 614. 1637-1640. SCOTCH AFFAIES. 429 saw how impolitic sucli a measure would be. The matter was de- ferred. In 1629 it was again broached by King Charles. He desired, on Laud's recommendation, to have the English book ; the Scotch bishops, however, pleaded for more delay. § 2. On King Charles's visit to Edinburgh, accompanied by Bishop Laud, in 1633, the state of the Church was found to be most unsatisfactory. The king thought one great help towards raising its tone would be to introduce the English Liturgy. But the Scotch bishops again earnestly remonstrated, declaring that the national feeling would certainly set the people against it if nothing else did. They were then ordered to prepare a Scotch Liturgy. Such a book was actually signed by the king for Scotland, September 28, 1634.^ But it was thought best to prepare the way for it by publishing certain canons ; and, in 1635, a body of canons was drawn up for Scotland, and sent down to that country without any previous acceptance of them by the Scotch clergy, and resting on the sole authority of the king's prerogative. This caused a great ferment and discontent, and certainly did not pave the way for the introduction of the liturgy. The Scotch book after this under- went some more changes, and was then sent up for final approval, being submitted by the king to Bishops Laud, Wren, and Juxon. These bishops reviewed the book ; but Laud, ever constant to any idea he had taken up, was still strongly in favour of introducing the English book simply, instead of the Scotch book which had been prepared. Certain alterations were, however, suggested for the Scotch book, and when these had been considered by the Scotch divines, the book was again sent up to the king, and finally signed by him and ratified for use in Scotland, December 20, 1636. It was ordered to be used at Easter following, but for some unexplained reason the commencement of its use was de- ferred to July, which, perhaps, more than anything else, tended to bring about the disastrous results which followed. For those who were opposed to the introduction of a liturgy thought that they perceived in this delay symptoms of doubt, hesitation, and fear, on the part of its promoters, and they themselves had abundant leisure to mature their plans. It was busily reported and noised abroad that there was a deliberate scheme to introduce Popery among them ; that the Archbishop of Canterbuiy, having sold him- self to the pope and the devil, as his wicked practices in England testified, had determined to ruin pure religion in Scotland for ever. Nothing was done to disabuse the public mind of these suspicions, nor was any preparation made by the authorities to repress a possible disturbance. "Everything," says Clarendon, 1 Kennett's Complete Hist, of EnglaJvdt iii. 80. 430 SCOTCH AFFAIES. Chap. XXVn. " was left in the same state of unconcernedness as it was before ; not so mucli as the Council being better informed of it, as if they had been sure that all men would have submitted to it for con- science sake."^ The consequence of this combination of rashness and negligence was such as any prudent man might have anticipated. § 3. At the first reading of the liturgy in the Cathedral Church of Edinburgh, July 1637, by the dean, a furious riot ensued. A shower of stones, sticks, and other missiles was hurled at the officiating minister. The bishop ascended the pulpit, but was greeted With execrations, and made the mark for missiles. The chancellor called upon the magistrates to quell the riot, and the most noisy were thrust out of the church. The dean concluded the service ; while, outside the church, the mob yelled, smashed the windows, and battered the doors. The bishop, on endeavour- ing to make his way through the crowd, nearly lost his life. § 4. In order to carry on the war thus begun, a revolutionary committee was formed by the Scotch, designated by them " The Tables," and by this junto a document, called " The Solemn League and Covenant " — a document destined to be of terrible import in the history of the Church of England — was drawn up. By this the signers solemnly pledged themselves to endeavour, " without respect of persons, the extirpation of prelacy ; that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and com- missaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy," not only in Scotland, but in England and Ireland also. Thus, almost before the advisers of Charles apprehended any danger, the whole of Scotland was banded against them. § 5. It was, when too late, determined to try conciliation. The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Edinburgh. He was then told that if any minister ventured to read the English service, though in the king's chapel, he should die the death.2 The people de- manded the calling of a General Assembly. The king yielded. He sanctioned the Covenant, discharged the Service-book and the book of canons.3 The Assembly was allowed to meet at Glasgow. The king's commissaries endeavoured, craftily, to prevent its act- ing, and then to dissolve it. But the Assembly, under the guid- ance of Alexander Henderson, refused to be dissolved. It abolished Episcopacy, excommunicated those who favoured it, condemned the liturgy, the canons, and all the parts of the Church systems which had been so long in building ; stigmatised Arminiauism as anti- christian, and accepted the doctrine and the discipline of the Cal- 1 Clarendon, Hist, of Rebellion, p. 44. ' Sanderson, Hist, of Charles I. 238. ^ Nalson's Collections, i. 51. 1637-1640. THE SHORT PARLIAMENT. 431 vinistic model. Thus the work, so carefully and prudently carried out by King James, was in a moment overthrown by the rashness and incompetency of the advisers of King Charles.^ Scotland was in rebellion, and the king must now put it to the test how far the loyalty of his English subjects, who had been governed in absolutist principles both in Church and State for ten years, would avail to support him against the violent outbreak of the northern king- dom. In the campaign of 1539, success was in the hands of the English, but by incompetent mismanagement on the part of his agents the king gained nothing. The Scotch were still resolutely bent on treating Episcopacy as unlawful, and on enforcing the Covenant. § 6. The public feeling in England was strong against them. The king's advisers thought that they might trust to its strength to produce complaisant loyalty even in a Parliament, and a Parlia- ment was accordingly summoned, which met April 13, 1640. Bishop Wren was the prelate selected to preach to the assembled Houses, and Bishop Wren was the prelate of all others (if we except Laud) the most unpopular for his overbearing discipline and high-handed " innovations." § 7. The feeling prevalent in the minds of the members was scarce likely to be regulated by the oratory of the Bishop of Ely. The country gentlemen felt that they had been schooled, coerced, and affronted in religious matters by the same men who had preached up absolutism in the State, and the right of the king to impose taxes without Parliament. By a natural effect of the feeling of resent- ment, they embraced the idea that as the divines had taken upon themselves to settle matters of State, so they — the laymen — would settle matters of religion. The salutary changes in ceremonial and external decency of worship, which under other circumstances they might have welcomed, had been hateful and exasperating to them when thrust upon them by the Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber. The complaints of the Puritan as to unsoundness in the bishops' doctrine, which, under other circumstances, they would have derided, now they welcomed as a potent ally in the warfare they ^ That Archbishop Laud was absolutely incapable of understanding the commonest matters of policy, the following letters may serve to show : — " Indeed, my lord, the business of Scotland, I can he bold to say without vanity, was well laid, and that it should so fatally fail in the execution is a great blow. The errors were about the execution, not the direction. I am confident all had gone well if Traquair had but done his duty." — LavxL to Strafford. * ' Touching the tumult, I can say no more than I have said already, and the casting of any fault on your Grace and the rest of your brethren, as if the thing were done precipitately, I think few men will be- lieve that." — Laud to Archbishop Spotswood. Laud's Works, vi. 503. 132 THE SHORT PAELIAMENT Chap. XXVII. were determined to wage. They were even willing to commence Parliament with a fast, as that was the recognised manner of giving a Puritanical character to the assembly, and placing it at once in opposi- tion to the Church. They rejected with scorn Archbishop Laud's proposal that the Committee for Keligion should consist of members of Parliament and members of Convocation in equal numbers. i Im- mediately on the opening of Parliament, the anger excited by the religious policy of the archbishop showed itself. Mr. Grimstone said, " The commonwealth had been miserably massacred, and all property and liberty shaken, the Church distracted, the gospel and professors of it persecuted." ^ Sir B. Rudyerd denounced the " many disorders that had been committed by innovations in reli- gion, violations of laws, and intruding upon liberties." 3 § 8. On April 17 Mr. Pym made his charges in greater detail. He declaimed against the encouragements which had been given to Popery and " divers innovations in religion to make us more capable of a translation. Popish books published and used, and the intro- ducing popish ceremonies, as altars, bowing towards the east, pic- tures, crosses, crucifixes, and the like, which, of themselves consi- dered, are so many dry bones, but, being put together, make the man. We are not now contented with the old ceremonies — I mean such as the constitution of the reformed religion hath con- tinued unto us ; but we must introduce again many of those super- stitious and infirm ceremonies which accompanied the most decrepit age of Popery, bowing to the altar and such like. I shall observe the daily discouraging of all godly men who truly profess the Pro- testant religion, as though men coidd be too religious. Some things are urged by ecclesiastical men without any ground by any canon or article established, and without any command from the king either under his great seal or by proclamation.* The Parlia- ment ever since Queen Elizabeth's days desired the bishops to deal moderately ; but how they have answered these desires w^e all know, and these good men for the most part feel. I may not for- get that many of the ministers are deprived for refusing to read the book for sports and recreations on the Sabbath day, which was a device for their own heads, which book I may affirm hath many things faulty in it. Then the encroaching upon the king's autho- rity by ecclesiastical courts, as, namely, the High Commission, which takes upon itself to fine and imprison men, enforcing them to take the oath ex officio, and many like usurpations ; and the power which they claim they derive not from the king, nor from 1 Heylin's Laud, p. 422. ^ Rushworth, iii. 1129. ^ Ih. * This is noteworthy as directly bearing upon the work of Convocation which immediately followed. 1637-1640. AND CONVOCATION. 133 any law or statute, but they will immediately have it from heaven jure divino} Divers particular ordinaries, chancellors, and arch- deacons take upon them to make and ordain constitutions within their particular limits." ^ This indictment against the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline was followed by another speaker who de- nounced the doctrine preached by the clergy. " I am sorry," said Mr. Waller, " these men take no more care to gain our belief of those things which they tell us for our souls' health, while we know them so manifestly in the wrong in that which concerns the liberties and privileges of the subjects of England ; but they gain preferment, and then it is no matter that they neither believe themselves nor are believed by others ; but since they are so ready to let loose the consciences of their kings, we are the more carefully to provide for our protection against this pulpit-law by declaring and reinforcing the municipal laws of this kingdom." ^ § 9. On April 28 the Commons had a conference with the Lords on " Innovations in matters of religion." In view of what was then going on in Convocation, they declared that " they would be bound by no canons that are or shall be made upon any com- mission granted to the Convocation without their consent in Par- liament," and they set forth their complaints under the following heads : — (1.) The licensing of Popish books ; (2.) Eemoving the communion tables ; (3.) Setting up crosses, images, and crucifixes in cathedrals, churches, and chapels ; (4.) Refusing to administer the sacrament to any but those who will come up to the rails to receive it ; (5.) Making articles at visitations ; (6.) Molesting and depriving godly ministers for not reading Book of Sports; (7.) Enjoining to bow to the altar. Mr. Pym was appointed to manage the conference with the Lords touching these matters. The king, in vain, urgently pressed for " supply." The Commons were as determined on their part fully to go into their religious grievances, real or supposed. § 10. Hot-headed counsels prevailed, and the king dissolved the Parliament. The directors of the ecclesiastical policy must have marked, not without dismay, the strong and resolute tone which the House of Commons exhibited in religious matters. ^ About 1637 or 1638, the bishops, at the king's desire, began to conduct ecclesiastical proceedings in their own names, using their own seals for the processes in their own courts, which had been forbidden by a statute passed at the beginning of the lost reign. But the High Commission Court, which was not an ecclesiastical court, but a court erected by statute law and grounded on the royal prerogative, could never have been thus conducted. Mr. Pym is evidently alluding to the speech of Laud in the trial of Bastwick, when he argued for the jus divinum of episcopacy. 2 Rushworth, iii. 1133. ' lb. 1142. 2 F 434 THE SHORT PARLIAMENT Chap. XXVIl. Probably no one was more astonished at this than the king him- self. If he had judged at all by the reports presented to him annually by the bishops, the attitude of the House of Commons must have been a strange revelation to him. It is probable that the archbishop was also greatly amazed. In spite of the warnings given him by Mr. Hyde, and probably by others, he was, as it seems, strangely ignorant of the state of feeling in the country. Not that the archbishop could have come actually to the meeting of Parliament without being conscious of any discontent and ill- feeling in the land. The Scotch troubles, the opinions elicited at the elections, and other matters, must have partially undeceived him. Thus, when he spoke at the opening of Convocation, he delivered a long oration " bemoaning the distempers of the Church." ^ § 11. But that he altogether misjudged the state of things may be seen from the nature of the remedy which he thought would be sufl&cient to heal these distempers. Many, like Mr. Pym, were no doubt complaining that the "Innovations" had taken place without any colour of law, either statute or canon. How, for instance, when the statute law of the rubric allowed the holy table to stand either in the chancel or the body of the church, could it be legal to punish churchwardens for not removing it to the east end ? Awkward questions like this presented themselves ; but the archbishop had discovered, as he conceived, a way to get over all these difficulties. He had asked for, and obtained, from the king a license for the Convocation to make canons, and he would now, by virtue of their agency, cover by an ex 'post facto law all the doubtful proceedings of the last ten years. " For the pro- curing of this commission," says Heylin, " the archbishop had good reason, as well for countenancing and confirming his former actings, as for rectifying many other things which required refor- mation." ^ The same in fact is expressly stated in the king's Declaration in granting the license. " Forasmuch as we are given to understand that many of our subjects, being misled against the rites and ceremonies now used in the Church of England, have lately taken offence at the same upon an unjust supposal that they are contrary to our laws." Without admitting that they are thus contrary, the Declaration evidently implies that some of them are doubtful, and for removing of doubts allows the Convocation to make canons. 1 Fuller, Ch. Eist. xi. ill. 13, 2 Heylin's Laud, p. 424. On this subject we could have no better autho- rity than Dr. Heylin, who, as Laud's chaplain, and a member of this Con- vocation, himself drew u]^ most of the canons. Fuller also was a member of the Convocation. 1637-16^0. AND CONVOCATION. 435 § 12. It is evident that a Synod employed for such a purpose as this would be stigmatised by the enemies of the Church as an assembly of law-breakers, met together for the purpose of white- washing themselves for their past illegal acts, and saving them- selves from penalties, and hence their work ran the danger of being treated with but scant respect. This feeling would be rather increased than diminished by the strangely apologetical tone in which the canons enacted by this Convocation were drawn. There was also in the Convocation itself a large party which was strongly opposed to the policy advocated by the archbishop, and which thought the attempt to make laws under such circumstances could only be productive of mischief. The sentiments of this party are represented by the historian Fuller, who was a member of the Convocation : " Many suspected lest those who formerly had out- run the canons with their additional conformity (ceremonising more than was enjoined) now would make the canons come up to them, making it necessary for others what voluntarily they had prepractised themselves ; and these were ready rather to be censured for laziness and the solemn doing of just nothing, than to run the hazard by over-activity of doing anything unjust."^ § 13. When, therefore, the obstructive, or do-nothing party, heard on May 5 — before Convocation had actually passed any canon — that the king had dissolved the Parliament, some of them must doubtless have been pleased at having escaped a danger. For it was never doubted that the Convocation must needs expire with the Parliament, according to the almost invariable custom and usage of the kingdom. § 14. Instead, however, of dissolving the Convocation, the Government decided to preserve it intact after the Parliament had been dismissed. Who the author of this policy was is somewhat doubtful. Archbishop Laud says that the idea proceeded entirely from the king, who desired that the act of the clergy granting sub- sidies should be completed. Dr. Heylin, on the contrary, says that it was the suggestion of the archbishop, proceeding from a hint which he himself had given him that there was a precedent in Queen Elizabeth's time for such an arrangement.^ § 15. When the archbishop signified to the Convocation that their sittings would be continued, some in the Lower House took exception to the legality of the sessions.^ Laud then requested the 1 Fuller, Ch. Hist. xi. 111-114. ^ Laud's History of his Troubles, pp. 79, 80. Heylin's Laud, p. 249. ^ Fuller says some 36 (out of a House of about 120) " earnestly pro- tested against the continuance ; " but Avheu the judgment of the lawyers was given, they so far acquiesced that they did not withdraw from the House. —Fuller, xi. 111-116. 436 THE SHORT PARLIAMENT Chap. XXVII. king to order the judges to give a legal opinion on the subject, and the following opinion was given by the Lord Chancellor and six judges : " The Convocation, being called by the king's ■svrit under the great seal, doth continue until it be dissolved by writ or commission under the great seal, notwithstanding the Parliament be dissolved." § 16. This opinion, however, does not seem to have satisfied those in authority. It was decided to issue a new writ bearing date May 12, repealing the old commission and authorising the Synod to sit and act during 'pleasure. The same was done for the Convocation of the province of York. This was probably a mis- take both in law and in policy. Members elected to one body could not, without a new election, constitute another body, and the change of name from Convocation to Synod was likely to sug- gest suspicions and to arouse ill-feeling.^ In the precedent of Queen Elizabetli's days which was relied on, the Convocation was continued as such, and on the original writ of summons, and there is no reason to question the judgment of the lawyers that this was within the law. § 17. Tlie Synod thus exceptionally constituted proceeded with its work of making canons. The king, by a letter dated May 18, desired them to make a canon for restraining the growth of Popery, and of *' heretical and schismatical opinions," and re- commended them to devise some oath to be taken by the clergy pledging them to abide by the doctrine and discipline here estab- lished, and never consent to any innovation or alteration thereof. The canons agreed upon by the Synod are specially remarkable for their exjjlanatory and argumentative character, which evidently betrays the object for which they were devised. It was intended to explain away and smooth over the objections which had been made to the past practice and teaching of the Church authorities. Thus the divine right of kings is decreed in the most conciliatory accents, but nevertheless substantially, with the same fulness as had been preached by Sibthorp and Mainwaring. The canon ordering the altarwise position of the table, the railing it in, the coming up of the communicants to receive, the bowing towards the east, is liberal in its expressions, declaring these things to be ^ Wheu formerly Wolsey attempted to change the Convocation of Canter- bury into a Synod, the members resisted him, saying that they were elected as members of a certain body, and could not by virtue of that election con- stitute another body, and he was obliged to yield. The same objection applied to the acts of this assemblage. Thus, Sir E. Bering argued that no power could make it legal for *' those who were met upon other summons to be on a sudden translated into a national synod, without voice or choice of any man concerned. Speeches on Mattel's of Religion, p. 27. 1637-1640. Al^D CONVOCATION. 437 in their nature matters indifferent, but ordering them for the sake of decency and " the advancement of God's majesty." § 18. But all these careful attempts to recommend the work and make it palatable to the clergy, were completely overthrown by one unfortunate mistake made in drawing up the canon" which prescribed a new oath to the clergy, and which immediately gave rise to a senseless but furious outbreak, and the commencement of direct persecution of the Church. The oath prescribed by the 6th Canon was as follows : — " I, A. B., do swear that I approve the doctrine and discipline or government established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary 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 estab- lished ; nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, et ccetera, as it stands now established." The oath was not a popular one. Men dislike to be over and over again bound down by these solemn adjurations. It was intended, doubtless, as a reply to the Scotch Covenant ; but that did not make the English clergy like it the better. The general discontent at once fastened upon the un- lucky carelessness with which the oath was worded. What was the meaning of the et ccetera ? How could men be called upon to swear solemnly to that which was not specified or clearly known ? In reality, the d ccetera was only an abbreviation in the draft. It was intended, when the oath was engrossed, to specify " chancel- lors, commissaries, officials, and such like ;" but matters were being greatly hurried. The king, who was obliged to furnish a guard for the Convocation after the rising of Parliament, was anxious to get rid of the troublesome office of defending the assembled clergy, and in the hurry the d ccetera was allowed to remain in the corrected copy.^ § 19. A universal clamour at once spread through the country. The- London ministers began the agitation ; Kent, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Northamptonshire, followed with numerous petitions to the king. Everywhere the ministers refused to take the oath.^ Robert Sanderson, a proctor in this Convocation, and afterwards so well known as one of England's greatest divines, writes to Laud : — " Finding to my great grief the great distaste that is taken generally in the kingdom at the oath enjoined by the late canons, I held it my bounden duty rather to hazard the reputation of my discretion 1 Heylin'a Laud, p. 444. 2 Rev. A. Jackson to A. Bownest : — "My brother will send you the Book of new canons, wherein you will find an oath which, if God be with me, I hope I shall never take." — Court and Times of Charles I. ii. 287. 438 THE SHORT PARLIAMENT. Chap. XXYII. than not faithfully to give your grace some intimation thereof ; and I am much afraid that multitudes of churchmen, not only of the preciser sort, but even such as are other ways every way regular and conformable, will either utterly refuse to take the oath, or will be drawn thereunto with much difficulty and reluctancy. The peace of the 'Church is apparently in danger to be more disquieted by this one occasion than by anything which hath happened in our memories." ^ Some of the prelates, eager to show their zeal, had obliged their clergy to take the oath kneeling ; others, like Bishop Hall at Exeter, had been more prudent, and had not tendered the oath to any. The> king, seeing the storm, sent orders to the archbishop not to enforce the oath " till the next ensuing Con- vocation, which draws on apace." 2 It was perhaps supposed that the next Convocation would be able to complete more satisfactorily the work now begun. Little did either king or archbishop pro- bably anticipate what was in store for the " next Convocation." § 20. Already (May 9) the archbishop's palace at Lambeth had been assaulted by a riotous mob, and some damage done. After this it had been found necessary to protect the sittings of Convo- cation at Westminster with an armed guard. The Primate had retreated to Whitehall. One of the rioters had been executed, but this availed but little to stop the excitement. The country was convinced that the prelates and dignitaries of the Church were in a conspiracy against their religion and liberties. The unhappy et ccetera furnished an endless topic for senseless declamations against Popery. The High Commission Court, forced to retire from Lam- beth to St. Paul's for safety, was invaded by a mob of 2000 sec- taries, who tore down the benches in the consistory, and swore they would have " no bishop, no high commission." ^ Everywhere, in anticipation of the meeting of a new Parliament in the winter, the greatest excitement prevailed in choosing members, ''as also of clerks for the Convocation, when now the clergy were stirred up to contest with and oppose their diocesans for the choice of such men as were most inclined to favour an alteration." * Such were some of the signs of the attack which was in store for the Church in the famous Long Parliament summoned to meet on November 3, 1640. 1 Nalson's Collections, i. 497. 2 Laud to his Suffragans, — Laud's Works, vi. 584. ^ Land's Diary. "I like not," writes Laud to Usher, "this preface to the Parliament." — Laud's Works, vi. 586. •* Hall's Autobiography ; Wordsworth, E. B. iv. 296. 1640-1642. THE LOXG PARLIAMENT. 439 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CHURCH AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 1640-1642. § 1. Character of the feeling against the Church in the Long Parliament. § 2. The first attacks. § 3. The first retaliatory i^roceedings. § 4. Sir E. Dering accuses Archbishop Laud. § 5. His feeling towards the Arch- bishop. § 6. Bishop Williams released from prison. § 7. The London Petition. § 8. - Laud attacked in both Houses, and committed to Black Rod. § 9. Bishops Pierce and Wren impeached. § 10, The Convoca- tion melts away. § 11. Individual clergymen sent for to answer com- plaints. § 12. Parliament appoints Commissioners to alter the ornaments of Churches. § 13. Symptoms of reaction. § 14. A Committee of Re- ligion in the Lords. § 15. Lords refuse to take away Bishops' votes in Parliament. § 16. The Root and Branch Bill brought in. § 17. King assents to the BUI for taking away Star Chamber and High Commission Courts. § 18. Puritanical faction strives to intimidate Bishops. § 19. Compromise proposed by Bishop Williams. § 20. Controversy on Church Government revived. § 21. Small advance made by the Presbyterian faction during the Session. § 22. Want of judgment in the King. § 23. Appointments to Sees. § 24. Report from Committee of Religion. § 25. The Remonstrance voted by the House of Commons. § 26. Tumultuary proceedings against the Bishops. § 27. Their protest against Parliament- ary proceedings in their absence. § 28. They are committed to the Tower. § 29. Bill to take away their votes in Parliament carried. § 30. The country still in the main faithful to the Church. § 1. The violent outbreak against the Church which was wit- nessed in the Long Parliament is not to be attributed wholly, or even principally, to a repudiation on the part of the members of the two Houses of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. The country had not suddenly become Puritanical or Presbyterian. It is true that a wide-spread indignation had been roused against the administration of the Church, and the men who were respon- sible for it. The proceedings of Archbishop Laud had no doubt given much ground for anger and impatience ; changes had been forced on in an imprudent and reckless manner ; discipline had been harshly administered. But the religious policy and discipline of the archbishop was not the only cause of the ill-feeling against the Church. This was mixed up in the minds of men with the absolutist and unjust proceedings of the government in civil matters. The anger excited by these was brought to bear on religious ques- tions, and led away even fair-judging men to condemn the whole 440 THE CHUECH AND Chap. XXVIII. system, both civil and religious, without due discrimination. The clergy had preached up absolutism and the divine right of kings, and thus the clergy themselves, and the religious system with which they were connected, fell victims to the violent reaction against the enslaving doctrmes which they had unhappily advocated. The anger felt against special acts of administration both civil and re- ligious, and particular men who were responsible for these acts, was adroitly used by the Puritanical clique in Parliament, and by the Scotch deputies, to carry on a war against principles, and thus the Church and the monarchy were overthrown by the aid of men many of whom wished well both to Church and monarchy. § 2. Parliament was opened on November 3 (1640), and im- mediately petitions against grievances both civil and religious began to pour into the House of Commons. Members were allowed to speak in support of the petitions they presented, and thus violent attacks on the late proceedings in matters of religion were at once heard. Sir Benjamin Eudyard said : — " We well know what dis- turbance hath been brought upon the Church for vain petty trifles ; how the whole Church, the whole kingdom, hath been troubled where to place a metaphor, an altar. We have seen ministers, their wives, children, and families, imdone, against laws, against con- science, against all bowels of compassion, about not dancing on Sundays. . . . Their great work, their masterpiece now is to make all those of the religion to be the suspected party of the kingdom. Let it be our principal care that these ways neither continue nor return upon us ; if we secure our religion, we shall cut off and defeat many plots that are now on foot both by them and others." ^ " When I cast my eyes," said Llr. Bagshaw, " upon the High Com- mission and other ecclesiastical courts, my soul hath bled for the many pressures which I have perceived to be done and committed in these courts against the king's good people ; especially for the most monstrous use of the oath ex officio, which, as it is now used, I can call no other than carnificium conscienticej' 2 Lord Digby, speaking for the clergy of Dorsetshire, complained of the new oath imposed upon ministers, and of the requiring a pretended benevo- lence, but in effect a subsidy,^ under the penalty of deprivation. He violently attacked the proceedings of " that reverend new synod made of an old Convocation," and declaimed against the " bottom- less perjury of an et ccEtera." ^ Sir John Culpepper followed with a denouncing of " the obtruding and countenancing of divers new 1 May's History of the Parliament, p. 49. ^ Nalson, 1. 498. ^ The money voted by the late Convocation was called a benevolence, as from the Parliament's premature dissolution there was no time to make it a legal subsidy. * Nalson, i. 506, 1640-1642. THE LONG PAELIAMENT. 44 1 ceremonies in matters of religion, as placing tlie communion table altan\'ise, and bowing or cringing in towards it, the refusing of the holy sacrament to such as refuse to come up to the rails." Mr. Grimstone uttered a violent denunciation of the late Convocation.^ § 3. The first retaliatory act of the Commons was a vote that Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, the libellers, should be compensated by large sums of money to be paid by the Archbishop of Canter- bury and the other Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The first clergy- man formally accused before the Parliament was Dr. Cosin, Pre- bendary of Durham and Dean of Peterborough. Dr. Cosin had been complained of in a previous Parliament for his Book of Devotions. He had been carrying on a sort of war with Mr. Peter Smart, a Prebendary of Durham. Smart had denounced the ritual at Durham Cathedral in a violent sermon. For this he had been censured by the High Commission Court at York. He replied by bringing Cosin before the Courts of Common Law under the Act of Uniformity. The judges, however, dismissed the case. Now, eagerly seizing his opportunity, Smart petitions against Cosin to the House of Commons (Nov. 10). (Jan. 23) the Commons vote Cosin to be superstitious and scandalous, and order him to be impeached before the Lords. The impeachment, however, when it was tried, utterly failed. § 4. On November 1 0 Sir Edward Dering made the first attack on Archbishop Laud. He presented a petition from Mr. Wilson, a clergyman in Kent, who averred that he had been grievously persecuted by the archbishop. Li commenting on it he said : " I hope before this year of threats run round, his grace will either have more grace or no grace at all. For our manifold griefs do fill a mighty and a vast circumference, yet, so that from every part our lines of sorrow do lead unto him, and point at him, the centre from whence our miseries in this Church, and many of them in the Commonwealth, do flow."^ § 5. The attack thus made, which was the precursor of the more serious measures which followed, well illustrates what has been affirmed above as to the peculiar character of the opposition to the Church developed in the Long Parliament. Sir E. Dering was no Puritan, neither was he in reality unfriendly to the archbishop. He says himself two years afterwards : " I thank God my heart hath never yet known the swelling of a personal malignity. Non sic didici Christum. And for the bishop I profess I did (and do) bear a good degree of personal love unto him. I did not dream at that time of extirpation and abolition of any more than his 1 Nalsou, 1. 506. "^ lb. 516. Sir E. Bering's Speeches in Matters of Religion, 442 THE CHURCH AND Chap. XXVIII. arcMepiscopacy. A severe reformation was a sweet song then. I am and ever was for no more."^ § 6. But there were many others in the House who were not inclined to allow the archbishop to escape so lightly. It was thought by these that no man could be more useful in organising vindictive measures against him than Bishop Williams, who had been for some three years a prisoner, kept in durance, as was generally supposed, by Laud's revengeful temper. On November 1 6 an order was procured from the king for the release of Williams. The next day he ofi&ciated at Westminster Abbey, of which he was dean, being made the object of the greatest observance and 'flattery on the part of the Puritanical leaders. But Williams, whatever were his faults, was not without some feelings for his order, and regard for the Church. He refused to be made a cats- paw in impeaching Laud. He knew well that he had no real grievance against him, and that in fact he owed him much. He was ready, indeed, to be the leader of a new ecclesiastical policy, but not to rebel altogether against his Church. Hence, says his biographer, they soon wearied of him.^ § 7. Petitions continued to flow in to the Houses against Church ceremonial and individual clergymen. On December 11, Alderman Pennington brought up an enormous petition from London against the government of the Church by bishops, and the Church ceremonial, divided into 28 heads of complaint. § 8. On December 16 it was resolved by the House of Com- mons that " the canons made in the late Convocation were against the king's prerogative, the fundamental laws of the realm, the liberty and property of the subject, and contained divers other things tending to sedition and of dangerous consequences." It was also resolved that the Archbishop of Canterbury was the chief author of these canons, and a committee was appointed to inquire into all his former actions, and to prepare a bill against those of the Convocation who had subscribed the canons.3 On the same day the Scotch Commissioners presented to the Lords a long and minute charge against the Earl of Strafford and the Archbishop of Canterbury, charging the latter in particular with making novations in their religion, pressed upon them without order or law, contrary to the form established in their kirk ; with forcing upon them a new book of canons, and a Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer, which did also carry with them many dangerous errors in point of doctrine.* The archbishop being thus attacked simultaneously in ^ Preface to Speeches (1642). ^ Racket's Williams, ii. 140. ^ Heylin's Laud, p. 465. * Nalson, i. 681. Laud's History of his Troubles, p. 87. 1640-1642. THE LONG PAELIAMENT. 443 both Houses, a conference between the two Houses was held, and it was decided (December 18) that the Commons shoukl impeach the archbishop before the Lords. On that day, therefore, Mr. Denzil Holies came up to the Lords, and on the part of the Commons accused the archbishop of high treason. The Primate exclaimed indignantly that " not one man in the House of Com- mons did believe it in his heart." This excited some angry feeling in the Lords, and the archbishop was committed to the custody of Black Rod, being allowed first to go to his house to fetch some papers.-^ Thus was the first decisive blow struck, and the House of Commons deliberately committed itself to the policy of under- taking a religious reformation, and, which was far worse, of vindictive retaliation on those who had been instrumental in establishing the system which it disliked. § 9. Within a few days of the committal of the archbishop, Wren, Bishop of Ely, and Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, the two most prominent among the disciplinarian bishops, were also impeached by the Commons before the House of Lords, and bound in heavy bail to answer the charges which should be preferred against them. § 10. With the Primate in prison and the leading men in its body threatened with the same hard measure, the Convocation of the clergy, regularly begun with this Parliament, soon melted away. An attempt was made by one of the proctors, Mr. War- mistre, to induce the members of it to cancel the canons which they had made in the previous May. But this they were not pre- pared to do, neither is it probable that such a stultification of themselves would have saved them from the violent storm which was then raging against them. § 11. It now became the custom, when in any of the numerous petitions a clergyman was accused by name, to send for him to answer for himself before the House of Commons. The unsup- ported and ex parte statements of the petitions were taken for truth ; and much injustice was committed towards the clergy in obliging them to remain in attendance on the committees of religion to reply to the charges made against them.^ § 12. A more intolerable and unjustifiable outrage was the order made by the House of Commons (Jan. 23, 1641) that " Com- missioners should be sent into the several counties to demolish and remove out of churches and chapels all images, altars or tables turned altarwise, crucifixes, superstitious pictures, and other monu- ments of, and relics of, idolatry."^ They pretended to ground 1 Laud's Hist, of his Troubhs, p. 74. ^ Persecutio Undecima, p. 10 ^ Neal, ii. 318. 444 THE CHURCH AND Chap. XXVIII. this order upon tlie Injunctions of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, but these orders had no real relevancy to the state of things then ex- isting in the Church, neither had the House of Commons any right to put them in force, as they were not grounded on statute law but on the royal prerogative. They were made, however, the excuse for all sorts of tumultuary and sacrilegious proceedings. Encouraged by the order for the Commissioners to visit, the dis- afl^cted people took the matter into their own hands. " With extreme licence," says May, " the common people, almost from the very beginning of the Parliament, took upon themselves the reform- ing without authority, order, or decency ; rudely disturbing church service while the Common Prayer was reading ; tearing their books, surplices, and such things." ^ § 13. The rapid growth of the anti- Church spirit caused a reaction in the minds of some who were zealous Church reformers. Thus, onFebruary9,in the debate on the great London petition against Episcopacy, Lord Digby, professing himself a keen reformer, re- pudiated the notion of destroying the Church because of the faults of individuals, and Lord Falkland did not hesitate to pass a strik- ing eulogium on some of the bishops. The Presbyterian faction saw that it was necessary to proceed cautiously, and to confine their attacks to the most assailable parts of the Church system. § 14. On March 1, Archbishop Laud was conveyed to the Tower, fourteen Articles of Impeachment having been exhibited against him by the Commons, and (March 15) a Committee for Religion was named in the House of Lords. It was to consist of ten Earls^ ten Barons, ten Bishops. It was to have power to call divines to it for consultation. It was to review doctrines as well as cere- monies, and in fact was a Commission for recasting the status of the Church of England, and essentially a Presbyterian motion skil- fully disguised. The circular which it addressed to the divines summoned to assist it plainly declares its purpose. It stated that their lordships intended to examine all innovations in doctrine or discipline introduced into the Church without law since the Refor- mation ; and " if their lordships shall in their judgment find it behoveful for the good of the Church and State, to examine after that the degrees and perfection of the Reformation itself." - Bishops "Williams, Hall, Morton, and Usher, acted upon this Commission. No other bishops appear to have attended. The Commissioners met in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster, and had six sessions before their labours were interrupted. They condemned, in the first place, under the head of Boctrine, many things written by 1 May, History of the Parliament, p. 75. 2 Laud's History of his Troubles, p. 174. 1640-1642. THE LONG PARLIAMENT. U5 members of the Clmrcli of England. Under the head of Discipline they condemned canopies over the Holy Table, credences or side- tables, candlesticks on the table, the carrying of infants after bap- tism to the Holy Table to dedicate them to God. In the Prayer- Booh they agreed that the Scriptures used should be read from the new translation, that prohibited times for marriage should be taken away. They made many other objections to the Prayer-Book — " objections " says Hacket, " petty and stale, older than the old Exchange." ^ Under the head of Government the Bishop of Lincoln introduced a scheme of his o"ftTi, which was not, however, fully discussed, as the march of events in the Lower House soon over- whelmed this committee of compromise. § 15. At the end of March the Commons sent up to the Lords a Bill for putting out clergymen from the Commission of the Peace, and for disabling the bishops from voting in Parliament. The Lords resented this Bill as an invasion of their privileges, and at once threw it out.^ § 16. Upon this the aggressive party in the Commons deter- mined on a bolder move, and on the 20th of May (while the whole land was still agitated by the great tragedy of the execution of Lord Strafford) they induced Sir E. Dering, chosen as a moderate man, to introduce that Bill which was afterwards known by the name of the " Boot and Branch Bill." This provided for the utter abolition of bishops and all the officers depending on them, for the taking away of deans and chapters and the whole hierarchy of the Church. On May 2 7 the second reading of this Bill was carried. On June 1 5 the House voted that " deans and chapters, archdeacons, preben- daries, canons, etc., should be utterly abolished and taken away out of the Church." ^ So far the Presbyterian faction had triumphed ; but though the House was ready to assail the outworks of Episco- pacy, yet when it came to take into consideration the essential part it showed itself of another mind. Sir E. Dering, who had brought in the Bill without sufficiently considering, as he himself admits, its purport, declared his conviction that bishops " if not of apostolical institution, were yet of apostolical permission. For of and in the apostolical times all stories, all fathers, all ages have agreed that such bishops there were." Sir B. Rudyard, another zealous Church reformer, declared, " I am not of their opinion who believe that there is an innate ill quality in Episcopacy. Bishops have governed the Church for 1500 years, and no man will say but that God hath saved souls all that time under their govern- ^ Life of Williams, ii. 147. The alterations proposed may be seen in Cardwell's History of Conferences, p. 241. 2 Nalson, ii. 254. ^ Rushwortli, iii. 1. 283. Nalson, ii. 282. 446 THE CHUECH AND Chap. XXVIII. ment." Thus, too, Sergeant Thomas, another violent reformer : "I am not against Episcopacy truly understood, or a Church govern- ment rightly used." i The House of Commons was by no means Presbyterian in principle, though eagerly bent to redress what it thought to be abuses and excesses. § 17. On July 5 the king gave his assent to the Bills for taking away the Court of Star Chamber and the Ecclesiastical or High Commission Courts, and for making it illegal for any bishop or ecclesiastical person to use coercive jurisdiction or to tender the oath ex officio. § 18. But the Bill for destroying the Episcopate would not advance, and consequently the Presbyterian faction endeavoured to accomplish by intimidation that which they could not compass by the vote of the House. Articles of impeachment were carried up to the Lords against Bishops Wren and Pierce, who had been com- mitted to the Tower, and it was declared that thirteen other bishops were about to be impeached for their share in the proceedings of the late Convocation. § 19. Meantime Bishop Williams had been employed in striv- ing after his fashion to benefit his order. He had introduced into the House of Lords a bill of compromise, some of the pro- visions of which were, that a bishop was to preach every Sunday under a penalty of £5, that he was not to be a justice of the peace, that he was to have 12 assistants — four chosen by the king, four by the Lords, and four by the Commons. These on a vacancy were to select three persons, one of whom the king was to appoint bishop. Deans and prebendaries to be constantly resident ; sermons to be preached by them every Lord's Day ; a lecture to be pro- vided for Wednesdays ; all bishops and cathedral bodies to give a fourth part of their revenues to buy up impropriations ; double- beneficed men to pay half the benefice to their curates ; a body of canons to be drawn up by a committee of sixteen, six nominated by the king, five by the Lords, and five by the Commons. This attempt, like most compromises, did not please any one, and fell to the ground. § 20. The violent attacks made upon the bishops stirred up, as was natural, the controversy on Church government. Hall, Bishop of Exeter, than whom none of the bishops stood higher in public estimation, now published a Remonstrance, defending forms of prayer and diocesan bishops. He was answered in a treatise written by five Puritan divines whose united initials formed the word Smec- tymnuus.^ There followed a Defence of the Remonstrance and a 1 Nalson, ii. 299, 223. ^ Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew New- 1640-1642. THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 447 Vindication of the Ansiver. Archbishop Usher, solemnly appealed to by Hall to use his vast learning and talents in defence of his order, wrote a treatise called The Original of BishojJS and Metro- •politans briefly laid doivn} In the volume in which this was pub- lished were found also extracts from Hooker and Andrewes in defence of Episcopacy. John Milton, the famous poet, engaged eagerly in this controversy, and wrote no less than five treatises in support of the Smectymnuuan creeds. § 21. When the session came to an end the Presbyterian and Puritanical party had not made much progress in their assaults upon the Church. Individual clergymen had been harassed and oppressed. Three bishops had been committed under articles of impeachment exhibited against them. Divers illegal orders had been made by the Commons as to the interference with the Church ceremonial. These had served to encourage the disaiBFected and ill-conditioned people to great irreverences and desecrations, but they had not changed the laws. The Lords, invited to concur in them, distinctly refused, and referred the Commons to an order which they had made, " That the Divine service should be per- formed as it is appointed by the Acts of Parliament of this realm ; and that all such as shall disturb that wholesome order shall be severely punished." ^ An immense amount of petitions had indeed been presented to the Commons, some of which — as that called the London Petition, signed by 15,000 persons, and another called the Ministers' Petition, signed by 700 ministers — prayed for the extir- pation of Episcopacy. Bat, on the other hand, by the end of the session petitions began to pour in on the other side, containing, as is said, not less than 100,000 signatures, of which 6000 were those of nobility, gentry, and beneficed clergy. The coercive juris- diction of the bishops, through the High Commission Court, had been taken away ; but, on the other hand, the Lords had refused to expel them from Parliament, and the Eoot and Branch Bill could not be got through the House of Commons. § 22. In the autumn of 1641, had there been a wise head at the helm of affairs, all might yet have been well. But the king comen, William Spurstow. Hall's Treatise, Episcopacy by Divine Right, has been before mentioned. ^ Usher's views on Episcopacy are generally estimated by a little Tract called The JRedicction of Episcox>acy into the form of Synodical Govern- ment received in the Ancient Church. This was an attempt to reconcile Episcopal and Presbyterian government. It was never finished nor pub- lished by the Primate, but stolen out of his desk and surreptitiously pub- lished. It is altogether unfair, therefore, to treat it as expressing his deliberate sentiments. Elrington's Usher, p. 209. 2 Rushworth, iii. i. 386. 448 THE CHURCH AND Chap. XXVIIl. was absolutely without the power of governing aright, and there was no counsellor at hand to direct him, Charles alternated between senseless obstinacy, rash violence, and unseemly and dis- graceful concessions. In the latter mood he gave the noble Strafford to the block ; agreed to the Act which made it impos- sible for him to dissolve the Parliament without its own consent ; and now, in Scotland, in the autumn of 1641, assented to a Bill which declared that " the government of the Church by bishops was repugnant to the Word of God ; that the prelates were enemies to the true Protestant religion ; that their order was to be suppressed and their lands given to the king." i Of course this did not express the king's real sentiments. It was intended as a fine stroke of policy to detach the Scotch interest from the English Presbyterian party ; but, like other fine strokes of Stuart policy, it served only to encourage the enemies, and to dispirit the friends, of the Church. § 23. To give a practical proof that he did not wish the order of bishops to be taken away, the king now made eight Episcopal appointments. Williams was made Archbishop of York. Arch- bishop Usher, unable to return to Ireland amidst the horrors of the rebellion, was appointed to the See of Carlisle. Hall was trans- lated from Exeter to Norwich ; Brian Duppa from Chichester to Salisbury ; Westfield, King, Brownrigg, and Prideaux were nomi- nated for consecration. § 24. When the House of Commons met on October 20, Mr. Pym made a report from the Committee of Religion, which had sat during the recess, with regard to the declaration on ceremonial and ritual which had been made by the House on September 9. 2 Many ministers were complained of, either for having refused to read it in their churches, or for not allo^^dng it to be acted on, and several churchwardens were also informed against for having defended the fittings of their churches against the rabble who wished to tear them down. ^ As this order was altogether illegal, resistance to it was scarce to be wondered at. § 25. But the king's vacillation in Scotland, and the reports of the Irish massacres, attributed to the queen's influence, encouraged the Puritanical faction to try a bolder step, and by making use of the irritation existing from civil discontents, to obtain, together with a protest against these, that condemnation of the Church which they had failed to obtain by direct means. For this pur- pose a long bill of indictment against the policy of the Govern- ment in Church and State, called a Remonstrance, was drawn up, ^ Collier, viii. 219. ^ gge Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 3 Nalson, ii. 488-491. 1540-1642. THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 449 and, after violent debate, carried in the House by a majority of nine. In this the bishops are accused of " triumphing in the ex- communication and degradation of pious and Idiarned ministers, and in the vexation and grievous oppression of great numbers of his Majesty's good subjects." At the same time, the Commons express strict loyalty to the king, and declare that it is far from their purpose " to let loose the golden reins of discipline in the Church, and to leave private persons or particular congregations to take up what form of service they please." They only desire " to unburden the consciences of men of needless and superstitious ceremonies, suppress innovations, and take away the monuments of idolatry." For this purpose they desire that there may be a Synod of the most pious and learned divines in the realm, assisted by some from foreign parts. The king is prayed to take away the bishops' votes in Parliament, and to abridge the immoderate power which they have usurped over the clergy, and which they have grievously misused. This remonstrance could serve, and was intended to serve, no other purpose except that of exasperating the people against the king and the bishops. ^ § 26. Against these latter the popular fury was now fairly aroused, and they could only attend to their Parliamentary duties at hazard of their lives. Mobs surrounded them as they passed to and from the House of Lords, shouting " No bishops ! " " The oyster-women lock'd their fish up, And trudged away to cry ' No bishop ;' Botchers left old clothes in the lurch, And fell to turn and patch the Church. Some cried the Covenant instead Of pudding-pies, and gingerbread ; Instead of kitchen-stuff some cry A gospel-preaching ministry ; And some for old suits, coats, or cloak, No surplices or service-book." ^ It was in vain that the bishops in the House of Lords defended their ancient and unimpeachable right to sit there as one of the three Estates of the realm ; that they showed that their order had voted in the councils of the nation many hundred years before a House of Commons was known. The Lords only listened coldly to them, and wished them gone. The mob now surrounded the House, carrying arms in their hands, and threaten- ing to take their lives. § 27. At length, on December 27, the tumult became so threatening, that the bishops — some under the protection of tem- poral peers, some by secret passages and in disguise — quitted the ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 532. ^ Butler's Ricdibras, canto it. 2a 450 THE CHURCH AND Chap. XXVIIL House, and meeting togetlier at the lodgings of the Archbishop of York, agreed on his advice to draw up and sign a protest declaring all the proceedings of Parliament in their enforced absence to be illegal. A great authority pronounces this protest to be " abun- dantly justifiable by the plainest principles of law." ^ Nothing, however, could well have been more impolitic. It exasperated the Lords ; it delighted their enemies in the Commons ; it made it almost impossible for the king to protect them. § 28, The bishops had agreed to it, trusting to the legal knowledge and political skill of Archbishop Williams, but they soon had reason to regret the step they had taken. " We poor souls," says Bishop Hall, " who little thought we had done any- thing that might deserve a chiding, are now called to our knees at the bar, and severally charged with high treason, being not a little astonished with the suddenness of this crimination, compared with the perfect innocence of our intentions, which were only to bring us to our due places in Parliament with safety and speed, without the least purpose of any man's offence. But now traitors we are in all haste, and must be dealt with accordingly. For on January 30, in all extremity of frost, at eight o'clock in the dark evening, we are voted to the Tower, and the news of our imprisonment was entertained with ringing of bells and bonfires ; and men gave us up for lost — railing at our perfidiousness, and adjudging us to what foul deaths they pleased." 2 § 29. In the exasperation which prevailed against the bishops, and in the absence of their votes, the Bill for taking away their right of voting in the House of Lords, which had before been defeated, was now easily passed, and to this the king, after much hesitation, was induced to give his consent. This was another act of impolicy on the part of Charles, " The passing that Bill exceedingly weakened the king's party," says Clarendon, "not only as it perpetually swept away so considerable a number out of the House of Peers, which were constantly devoted to him, but as it made impression on others whose minds were in suspense, and shaken as when foundations are dissolved." 3 § 30. While the king was thus yielding to the enemies of the Church, the country did not cease to make its voice heard, to the effect that though reforms of abuses were desired, no constitutional change was wished for. Great masses of petitions reached the Parliament, all couched in this strain. " For the present govern- ment of the Church," says the Somersetshire petition, signed by ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 553. * Bishop Hall's Hard Measure. Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. iv, 299. 3 Clarendon's i2c&cZZ207i, p, 172. (Ed, 1843.) 1640-1642. THE LOISTG PARLIAMENT. 451 14,350 gentlemen and freeliolders, "we are most thankful to God, believing it in our hearts to be the most pious and the wisest that any people or kingdom hath been blest withal since the apostles' times." "Our pious, ancient, and laudable form of Church service," says the Cheshire petition, signed by 10,000 gentlemen and yeomen, " composed by the holy martyrs and worthy instru- ments of reformation, with such general consent received by all the laity, that scarce any family or person that can read hut are fur- nished vdth. the Books of Common Prayer, in the conscionable use whereof many Christian hearts have found unspeakable joy and comfort, wherein the famous Church of England, our dear mother, hath just cause to glory." ■•■ "I have a collection of these petitions," says Mr. Hallam, " now before me, printed in 1642, from thirteen English and five AVelsh counties, and all very numerously signed. In almost every instance I observe they thank the Parliament for putting a check to innovations and abuses, while they deprecate the abolition of Episcopacy and the liturgy." 2 The heart of the country was, in fact, sound towards the Church. Exasperated though men had been by the Laudian discipline, this had not yet made them revolt from the Church of their fathers. A busy Puritanical clique, the influence of the Scotch, and the support of the city of London, availed to organise a successful opposition ; but the sorry substitutes for the Church of England never obtained real acceptance in the country, nor, had there been more capacity on the part of the king, would they in all probability have obtained even this temporary success. 1 Nalson, ii. 726-758. ^ Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 527 (note). NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. DECLAEATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON RELIGION, SEP- TEMBER 9. "Whereas divers innovations in and about the service of God have been lately practised in this kingdom by enjoining some things and prohibiting others, with- out warrant of law, to the great grievance and discontent of his Majesty's subjects ; For the suppression of such innovations, and for the preservation of the public peace, it is this day ordered by the Com- mons in Parliament assembled that the churchwardens of every parish do forth- witli remove the communion table from the east of the church, chapel, or chancel, into some other convenient i^lace, and that they take away the rails and level the chancels as heretofore they were before the late innovations. That all crucifixes, scandalous pictures of any one or more persons of the Trinity, and all images of the Virgin Mary, shall be taken away and abolished, and that all tapers, candlesticks, and basins be removed from the communion table. That all corporal bowing at the name of Jesus, or towards the east end of the church, or towards the communion table, be henceforth for- borne. That the Lord's day be duly observed and sanctified ; all dancing and other sports, either before or after Divine service, be forborne and restrained ; and that tlie preaching of God's Word be per- mitted in the afternoon in the several cliurches and chapels in this kingdom, and that ministers and preachers be en- couraged thereunto."— RosHWORTH. 452 WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES. Chap. XXIX. CHAPTER XXIX. THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OP DIVINES— THE COVENANT AND DIRECTORY. 1642-1647. § 1. Open strife between King and Parliament. § 2. The Parliamentary Declaration as to Keligion. § 3. Presbyterianism forced upon the Parliament by the Scotch. §4. The " Eoot and Branch " Bill passed. § 5. Calling of the Assembly of Divines, § 6. Commencement of their work. § 7. They adopt and confirm the Covenant. § 8. The Episcopal Clergy displaced by it. § 9. They make temporary provision for ordina- tion. §10. Appoint a " Directory for Public Worship. " §11. Charac- ter of the Directory. § 12. The King forbids its use. § 13. The Independents and Erastians in the Assembly. § 14. The Directory for Ordination. § 15. The Scheme for Church Government. § 16. Only partially carried out. § 17. The Westminister Catechisms. § 18. The Confession of Faith. § 19. The Assembly melts away. § 20. Its Character. § 1. From the moment tliat the king quitted Whitehall on January 10, 1642, the open strife between him and the Parliament began. Both sides were preparing for war, and both strove to justify their position by appeals to law and precedent. " The two parties," says M. Guizot, " reciprocally accused each other of illegality and innovation, and both with justice ; for the one had violated the ancient rights of the kingdom and would not abjure the maxims of tyranny ; the other claimed, in the name of principles altogether indefinite and confused, liberties and a power till then unknown." ^ The principles of the struggle being thus doubtful, there issued forth from the press, as might be expected, a vast mass of pamphlets and papers discussing the position, and the two parties commenced the struggle by broadsides of declarations and rejoinders. § 2. A declaration issued by the Parliament with respect to religion plainly shows that the tone of a total repudiation of and revolt from the Church was not one that could be safely adopted even by those who desired to please the persons most opposed to the old order of things. It says, " They intended a due and neces- sary reformation of the government and liturgy of the Church, and to take away nothing in the one or the other but what should be evil and justly offensive, or at least unnecessary and burdensome ; and for the better effecting thereof, speedily to have consultation with ^ English Revolution (Trans.) p. 147. 1642-1647. THE COVEITANT AND DIRECTORY. 453 learned and godly divines ; and because that would never of itself attain the end sought therein, they would also use their utmost endeavours to establish learned and preaching ministers with a good and sufficient maintenance throughout the whole kingdom, wherein many dark corners were miserably destitute of the means of salvation, and many poor ministers wanted necessary provision." i Here there is no expression in favour of Presbyterianism or against Episcopacy as a principle. In fact something very different was contemplated by the Parliament. The majority of the members were no doubt of Erastian views, ^ They intended to reform the Church in their o-wn fashion. When they presented their ultima- tum to the king (June 2), they asked his Majesty to consent to such a reformation of Church government and liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise.^ § 3. But the Parliament was not to be left free to patch up a religious system of their own. They could not carry on the struggle with the king without the aid of the Scotch, and the Scotch required, as the condition of their aid, " that there might be one confession of faith, one directory of worship, one public cate- chism, and one form of Church government, and that prelacy should be plucked up root and branch as a plant which God hath not planted." * In other words, the Scotch insisted upon the acceptance of the Covenant and the Presbyterian platform. This was ex- tremely unpalatable to almost the whole House of Commons, which was in antagonism to the king. The king took care to inform the Scotch that the chief persons among them would not sooner embrace a Presbyterian form of government than they would an Episcopal, and that their pretences of zeal for the Covenant were utterly hollow.^ § 4. It was necessary that something should be done by the Parlia- ment to prove their sincerity. Accordingly the Root and Branch Bill, which had failed to get i^to committee in a former session, was passed by the Commons,^ (in September 1642), and, after four months' delay, was adopted by the Lords. Yet its provisions were not to come into operation for a year. " If," says Neal, " the two Houses had been inclined to Presbytery, as some have maintained, it had been easy to have adopted the Scotch model at once ; but as the bill for extirpating Episcopacy was not to take place for 1 Clarendon, p. 212. 2 "The most of the House of Commons are downright Erastians." — Baillic's Letters, ii. 265. ^ Rushworth, iii. i. 723. * Rushworth, iii. ii. 387. ^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 463. ^ It must be remembered that almost all the loyalist members had now quitted Westminster, and were with the king. 454 WESTMmSTEE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES. Chap. XXIX. above a year forward, it is apparent that they were not willing it should take place at all if in that time they could come to an accommodation with the king." -^ § 5. It was many months before anything further was done, nor indeed was it until the Parliament was in mortal terror from the successes gained by the king's troops in the north and west, and the aid of the Scotch was all important to them, that the ordinance "for the calling of an assembly of learned and godly divines, and others, to be consulted with by the Parliament for settling the governrdent and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindi- cating and clearing the doctrine of the said Chui'ch from false aspersions and interpretations," was passed, (June 12, 1643). The preamble of this document clearly shows that the Parliament was now in its necessities prepared to go considerable lengths to gratify the Scotch in religious matters. How far, however, it was sincere in its profession will abundantly appear hereafter. The preamble sets forth that many things yet remained in the discipline, liturgy, and government of the Church which required a more perfect reformation ; and it having been resolved by the Parliament that the present Church government is evil and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, and a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, it is to be taken away, and such a govern- ment settled as may be most agreeable to God's Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer in agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed Churches abroad. § 6. For this purpose certain '■^ godly and learned divines " had been summoned to meet at Westminster in King Henry VII. 's Chapel, on July 1, 1643, and to continue their session until dissolved by Parliament. They were to have power to treat of such things as should be proposed by either or both Houses of Parliament. The body was to consist of 131 divines and 30 lay- assessors — 10 lords, and 20 commoners ; commissioners from Scotland were to sit with them.^ On July 1, 69 divines appeared at Westminster, and the Assembly began. It was commenced with a fast, at which the " exercises " in extemporary prayer and preach- ing lasted over nine hours. ^ The first work assigned to the assembled divines was the revision of the Articles of the Church of England. The debates and orations of the divines must have "^ Neal's Puritans, ii. 465. ^ Of these, one was Robert Baillie, Principal of Glasgow University, who has left on record a fnll account of the proceedings of the Assembly. We have also a minute Journal of Dr. Lightfoot, one of the members. 3 Baillie, ii. 184. 1042-1647. THE COVENANT AND DIRECTORY. 4_55 b-een somewhat prolix, for tliey spent ten weeks upon the first fifteen articles. The changes recommended by them after this long discussion were not many. They explained in the sense favoured by the Puritans the doctrine of Christ's descent into hell, omitted the Article on the Creeds, and in the 11th Article declared that Christ's obedience was to be imputed to men. § 7. The review of the Articles was, however, merely intended to consume the time until the arrival of the Scotch Commissioners. When these came it was found that they were instructed to press, as the price of Scotch co-operation, the acceptance by the Parlia- ment of the Solemn League and Covenant. The Covenant was therefore referred to the Assembly of Divines. Some of them greatly disliked it.-*- They had been ordained by bishops, and they believed Episcopacy to be the most scriptural form of church government, although they objected to some of its accessories. How then could tliey undertake to extirpate prelacy ? It is lamentable to think that many of the Westminster Divines, and probably the great majority of the Lords and Commons, in con- senting to take the Scotch Covenant, acted against their consciences.^ Their need of Scotch help was, however, pressing. On September 25 the House of Commons and the Assembly subscribed to it. On the Sunday following it was ordered to be read in all the churches in London ; finally it was ordered to be taken by every person in England, above the age of eighteen, on February 2, 1644. Thus did a Parliament which professed to act in the sacred name of liberty, to resist tyrannical and illegal oppression, to champion the rights of conscience, deliberately inflict upon the country, and enforce, wherever they had power, a most tyrannical yoke and in- supportable burden. The forced recantations, which had been a just cause of complaint in the administration of Archbishop Laud — what were they when compared to this proceeding which forced a whole nation to recant, and even to revile their former con- victions ? Further, the most moderate of Churchmen says, " Churchmen cannot take this Covenant without injury and per- jury to themselves : — injury, by ensnaring their consciences, credits, and estates ; perjury, as, contrary to the solemn vow and protesta- tion they had lately taken, and oath of supremacy, swearing therein to defend all the king's rights and privileges, whereof his spiritual jurisdiction in reforming Church matters is a principal." ^ Among those men who were most opposed to the old order of things there ^ Calamy's Baxter, 1. 81 ; Lightfoot's Journal, p. 11 ; Neal's Puritans, iii. 56. 2 Hallam, Co7ist. Hist. i. 575 ; Neal's Puritans, iii. 57. 3 Fuller, Church Hist. xi. ix. 18. The Covenant was appointed to be framed and hung up in churches. 456 WESTMINSTEE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES. Chap. XXIX. were some whose coixbciences were revolted by tlie iniquity of im- posing this test. Eichard Baxter used all his influence to prevent its imposition. " He could never judge it seemly," says Calamy, '' for one believing in God to play fast and loose with a dreadful oath." He was as much revolted by the dexterous subterfuges which some used to excuse their consciences ia taking it, as by the arbitrary imposition of it by the authorities. He rightly treated the former as " juggling and jesting with matters too great to be jested with." ^ . § 8. It is to be hoped that only a small portion of the episco- pally-ordained clergy submitted to the degradation of taking the Covenant. Certain it is that this was used as the rough-and-ready weapon to dispossess from their preferments all who were suspected of malignancy (as loyalty and Church feeling were then designated), and, as it appears, with complete success.^ But it is said that " moderate " men, or men considered to be disafi'ected to the king, or men of Puritanical and Calvinistic views, were not subjected to the test ; so that, says Neal, " the beneficed clergy sufi'ered by the Covenant rather as parties in the war, than as friends of the hier- archy." ^ But though the application of the Covenant may have been confined to this class of the clergy, it is to be remembered that this was by far the most numerous class ; so that, in whatever part of the country the Parliament during the progress of the war obtained the predominant power, a vast number of clergy must have been ejected from their benefices. How great the number of the ejected was may be inferred from a passage in Baillie's Letters. After describing the various shifts used to fill the livings, he adds, " Even then some thousands of churches must valie for want of men." * § 9. The great desolation caused by the enforcing of the Cove- nant took place in the end of the year 1643, and for nearly a year from this period no provision was made to fill up the vacated churches. This, as Neal well points out, was a " capital mistake " on the part of those who wished to advance Presbyterianism. Sec- tarians of all sorts got possession of the churches, and could not be dislodged. September 18, 1644, the London ministers petition the Parliament to cause the Assembly, instead of disputing among them- selves, to expedite a scheme for ordination and a Directory for Pub- lic Worship ; and on September 22 they put forth a scheme of ordina- tion p'o tempore. Committees of ministers in London and the chief towns were appointed to examine the candidates for ordination, and to ordain them by imposition of hands. But there was also another ^ Calamy's Baxter, i. 104. ^ Neal's Puritans, ill. 66. 3 lb, iii. 67. ^ Baillie, ii. 224. 1642-1647. THE COVENANT AND DIRECTORY. 457 method used of disposicg of the vacant preferments. The divinea did not scruple to take the best of them for their own use. For this conduct they incurred the most severe reprobation from men of kindred principles. " The most part of them," writes Milton, " were such as had preached and cried down with great show of zeal the avarice and pluralities of bishops and prelates, and one cure of souls was a full employment for one spiritual pastor, how able so- ever. Yet they wanted not boldness, to the ignominy and scandal of their pastor-like profession, to seize into their hands sometimes two or more of the best livings, collegiate masterships in the uni- versities, rich lectures in the city, setting sail to all winds that might blow gain into their covetous bosoms." -^ § 10. Although some provision was made for ordination, there was as yet none for the service to be used in the churches, and on this point the greatest variety and confusion must have prevailed. Some used the old service, some used parts of it, some substituted " conceived " prayer. It appears that it was a custom for bodies of Puritans to resort to a church where decency of worship was cared for, and by suddenly striking up a psalm to interrupt the minister.^ Many of the clergy attempting to use the liturgy were obliged to hear it publicly stigmatised as a " mess of pottage," and their desk called the " calves'-coop," ^ and such like opprobrious terms. The Scotch stimulated to the utmost of their power the rebellion against the " great idol of the Service-Book." * The Assembly of Divines had agreed to a Directory for Public Worship w^hich was in effect the old form of Cartwright and Travers, in October 1644. But this had to be sent into Scotland for approval and to pass the General Assembly, so that it was not enacted for use in England till Janu- ary 3, 1645. The preface to this Directory declares that '' sad ex- perience hath made it manifest that the liturgy used in the Church of England hath proved an offence to not only many of the godly at home, but also to the reformed churches abroad ; that the many onprofitable and burdensome ceremonies contained in it have occasioned much mischief, by disquieting the consciences of godly Qiinisters and people who could not yield unto them, and by de- priving them of the ordinances of God which they might not enjoy without conforming or subscribing to those ceremonies. Prelates and their faction had laboured to raise the Prayer-Book to such a height as if there were no other way of worship of God but only the Service-Book. This has been made no better than an idol by ^Milton's Character of the Assembly (Prose Works). See Lightfoot's Journal, pp. 208-217. ^ Persecutio Undecima, p. 11. 2 Mercurius FMsticiis, p. 25 ; Mercurius Auliciis, Feb. 22, 1643 ; Baxter's Life aTid Times, p. 26. ^ Baillie, ii. 17. 458 WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIYINES. Chap. XXIX. many ignorant and superstitious people. It has encouraged the papists, who boast that the hook was a compliance with them. It has produced an idle and unedifying ministry, which contented itself with set forms. . . . For these and other weighty considera- tions we have determined to lay aside the former liturgy w^th its rites and ceremonies, and to adopt the Directory which follows." ^ Such was the case stated against the venerable liturgy of the Church of England, and such the order for its disuse. The order was followed by another (August 1645) prescribing penalties. Any one using the Common Prayer, either privately or publicly, was to be fined five pounds for the first ofi'ence, ten pounds for the second, for the third a year's imprisonment. Any minister not using the Directory was to be fined forty shillings for each offence.^ § 11. The Church of England was at that time happily fur- nished with some of the greatest of her divines. Were any of her children perplexed by the charges brought against the Prayer-Book and the commendations of the new book, their doubts might speedily be removed by reading Jeremy Taylor's Apology for Au- thorised and Set Forms of Liturgy, Henry Hammond's View of the Neiv Directory, and Robert Sanderson's criticism of the Solemn League and Covenant. But what a time of misery and rebuke was that for all sober-minded Christians ! The tedious and long-winded directions could ill supply the ignorant and self-satisfied " minister" thrust into the place of the old incumbent, who had been ejected for the crime of refusing the Covenant, with the power of conduct- ing the service with reverence and devotion ; nor could any amount of rules for preaching furnish him with the due requisites for that holy function. " Master Presbyter," says Judge Jenkins, " was left to do as his fickle brains would serve him." " The worship of God," says Jeremy Taylor, " was left to chance, indeliberation, and a petulant fancy." ^ It is not to be wondered at that the Directory never became popular. " It proved not to the satisfaction," says Neal, " of any one party of Christians." No service was now allowed at the burial of the dead. The observance of all holidays, and speci- ally of Christmas Day, was strictly forbidden. * The words of the old liturgy were indeed stilL heard in some churches. Some of the orthodox clergy who had escaped ejectment were able to use the prayers from memory. Thus Sanderson, Jeremy Taylor, and George BuU, ministered. But this was a rare and precarious privi- lege, and as the war proceeded and the Parliament's cause became 1 Neal, Appendix to vol. iii. ^ Husband's Collections, pp. 715, 716. 3 Jenkins' Scourge for the Directory. Taylor, Works, v. 235. *An ordinance of Parliament Avas passed, Dec. 19, 1644, appointing a solemn fast to be held on Christmas Day. 1642-1647. THE COVENANT AND DIRECTORY. 459 everywhere triumpliant, a general cessation of the use of the Prayer- Book, in favour of some " conceived " worship, either Presbyterian, Independent, or Sectarian, prevailed throughout the land. §12. By a proclamation issued from Oxford (Nov. 13, 1645) the king condemned and forbade the use of the Directory, declaring the Common Prayer to be a most excellent form of worship grounded on the Holy Scriptures, and a great help to devotion, commanding all ministers in cathedrals and parish churches to continue its use, and threatening with punishments all those who should lay it aside in favour of the Directory.-^ In such a dilemma were the unfortu- nate clergy of that period involved ! § 13. In April 1645, the Lords, not satisfied with the tempo- rary provision made by the Assembly for ordination, sent to the divines to order them to draw up a Directory for that purpose. The attempt to construct this brought out, with greater violence than before, the antagonism between the various parties of which the Assembly was constituted. There sat in it a party of divines, more considerable for their talent and energy than their numbers, who were the legitimate descendants of the Brownists of Queen Elizabeth's days, and held that " every particular congregation of Christians has an entire and complete power of jurisdiction over its members to be exercised by the elders thereof within itseK." ^ Hence they obtained the name of Independents. But they had improved on the views of the Brownists so far as to hold that " an offending Church is to submit to an examination by other neigh- bouring churches," and if it persists in error, communion with it is to be renounced. They professed themselves to agree in doc- trine with the Articles of the Church of England, and to hold multitudes of parochial churches, in that Church to be true churches, and their ministers to be true ministers. In this liber- ality of sentiment these divines were honourably distinguished from the Presbyterians, To these latter they were altogether opposed on the question of Church government, on which matter they were supported by the Erastians, whose numbers in the Assem- bly far exceeded that of the Independents, and who desired that all should be left to the civil magistrate, and that the function of the minister should be merely persuasive.^ § 14. Thus opposed, the Presbyterian divines could make but little progress. Forty sessions were consumed on the question of ordination, for which the Assembly at length agreed to a scheme 1 Neal's Pitritans, iii. 125. ^ Apologetical Narrative of Independents, Neal, iii. 112. The chief Independents in the Assembly were Goodwin, Wye, Simpson, Burroughs, Bridge. Baillie says there were ten or eleven in the Assemi)ly, many of them veiy able men. ^ Baxter's Life and Times, pp. 109-141. 460 WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES. Chap. XXIX. to be carried into operation when circumstances should permit, but for the present confirmed the temporary arrangement of entrust- ing it to certain committees of divines, to be established in Lon- don and other large towns, which were to act until a more complete system could be established.! § 15. A similar compromise was forced upon the Presbyterians in the matter of Church government. The difficulties with which the Presbyterian and Scotch party had to contend were indeed almost .insurmountable. " We have been in a pitiful labyrinth these ten days," writes Baillie, " and still stick in it."^ The Inde- pendents declared that Presbytery would prove as arbitrary and tyrannical as Prelacy. The Erastians, supported by the learning and genius of Selden and Whitelocke, argued that there was no Church government to be found in Scripture.^ At length, after thirty days' debate, the Assembly voted a Presbyterian scheme, in- cluding lay elders and deacons for each parish, and providing for congregational, classical, provincial, and national assemblies for Church government. This they declared to be of divine appoint- ment, but the Parliament refused to agree to this point ; nor would it consent to entrust to the presbyteries the power of excommuni- cation without reserving the right of appeal to themselves.^ The Presbyterians were compelled to listen to arguments for toleration from Cromwell, Vane, and others — arguments which seemed to them full of profanity and wickedness.^ The niodifi.ed scheme of Church government was finally voted June 6, 1646. § 16. An election of elders under this scheme took place in London in the following spring, and on May 3, 1647, the Provin- cial Assemhhj of London met in the Chapter House at St. Paul's. In Lancashire, also, the scheme appears to have been carried into execution about this time. In Coventry and some few other places attempts were made to carry it out.6 But the rise of the Independ- ents into power quickly overturned the elaborate arrangements of the Presbyterians, and the country was destined to be the prey of religious anarchy for many years longer. § 1 7. In addition to the labours which have been enumerated, the Assembly of Divines was occupied in drawing up two Gate- ^ See Neal's Puritans, iii. 216, sq., and Appendix iii. The great debate between the Presbytei'ians and Independents was whether eath congregation was to ordain its own ministers, or whether this was to be done by a number of chm-ches associated ad hoc. The arguments were published under the name of The Grand Debate. 2 Baillie's Letters, ii. 115. ^ Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 95. 4 Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 106 ; Neal, iii. 229. 5 Baillie's Letters, pp. 230, 328, 343. ^ Calamy's Baxter, i. 85, 86 ; Lathbury's Hist, of Prayer Book^ p. 303. 1642-1647. THE COVENANT AND DIRECTORY. 461 cJdsms — a Longer and a Shorter — tlie former of whicli, with the Scripture proofs, occupies 157 quarto pages, and the latter 40. The Shorter Catechism was intended for children, but its questions, turning upon abstruse and doubtful points, were altogether un- suited for the purpose. The doctrine of both Catechisms was, of course, Calvinistic and Puritanical. § 1 8. The last act in which the Assembly was engaged was the compiling the heads of a Confession of Faith, intended to supersede the Articles of the Church of England. This was presented to Parliament at the beginning of December 1646. § 19. Soon after this the Assembly began to melt away. The Episcopal divines, nominated to it originally, had never attended its sessions. Many others had been irregular in their attendance. As the Presbyterian interest became day by day weaker in the country, the regular attendants, whose presence was not now much desired by Parliament, began to betake themselves to the benefices with which they had been plentifully provided ; and, without any formal dissolution, the Westminster Assembly came to an end. § 20. No body of divines has been more vigorously abused than the " Westminster Assembly ;" but, assuming them to have conscientiously held their opinions, it must be admitted that they advocated them with learning, power, and fairness. The great blot of their work was the adoption of the Scotch Covenant and the sanctioning its forcible imposition. In this it is to be feared that some of them were guilty of perjury, and the whole body of persecution. As for their directories, catechisms, confessions, and schemes of Church government, they cannot, of course, be accept- able to those who reverence antiquity and catholic tradition ; but they appear to be quite equal in ability to other similar documents. 462 PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. Chap. XXX. CHAPTER XXX. THE PERSECUTION OP THE CLERGY. 1640-1649. § 1. Character of the Persecution of the Clergy. § 2. The Grand Committee for Religion. § 3. The Committee for Scandalous Ministers. § 4. Its Subdivisions. § 5. Proceedings of the Committees. § 6. Publication of slanders against the Clergy. § 7. The Committee for plundered Ministers. § 8. The Country Committees. § 9. The Earl of Manchester's Commit- tees. § 10. The nominal provision for the Wives and Families. § 11. The Bishops. Bishop Hall at Norwich. § 12. Prevalence of Sacrilege. § 13. Archbishop Laud impeached before the House of Lords. § 14. Attainted in the House of Commons. § 15. His Execution. § 16. Visitation of Oxford. § 17. The King's fidelity to the Churcb of Eng- land. § 18. His Death. § I. Throughout the period contained in the last two chapters, and the attempt to force upon the Church of England the greatest political and doctrinal changes, the individual clergy had to endure a persecution of the severest character, and of a unique and pecu- liar type. They were not only ejected from their livings, and deprived of maintenance, but they were assailed with the fiercest retaliatory attacks for that which was held to be their past mis- conduct. Sequestration of all their goods, imprisonment frequently under hatches in ships moored on the river,i these even did not constitute the whole or the worst part of the punishment inflicted on them. They were deliberately and designedly assailed with charges of the most frightful immorality, and the weapon of slander was profusely used to blast their reputation and to strike them down, so that they might never rise again. It will be attempted in this chapter to give a connected view of the persecu- tion, which a contemporary writer, who has chronicled some of its details, has not inaptly described as " the Eleventh Persecution of the Church." § 2. The House of Commons, greatly exasperated by the pro- ceedings of the late Convocation, and by the way in which discip- line had been administered and changes forced upon the country under the rule of Archbishop Laud, at once, on the meeting of Parliament, rushed eagerly to the work of revenge. On November 6 (1640), or three days after the opening of Parliament, a Grand Committee for Eeligion was established. To this committee all ^ Fell's Life of Hammond ; Wordsworth, E. B., iv. 363. 1640-1649. PERSECUTION OF THE CLEKGY. 463 those numerous petitions wliicli at once flowed into Parliament, charging individual ministers with various alleged misdemeanours, were referred. Great pains had been taken by the enemies of the Church to have these petitions in readiness. It was not necessary that they should be signed by a majority of the parishioners of any accused clergyman. The names of two or three, or even one, was sufficient. The accused was immediately sent for and examined on the charges, and if (as was almost invariably the case) he was held not to have established his innocence, he was committed to prison, his goods sequestered, and in course of time a successor appointed to his benefice. The charges made against a minister were sometimes those of immorality, but much more frequently, and, indeed, almost universally, even when others were also made, those of bowing at the name of Jesus, of causing the communicants to come up to the rails, of moving the communion table. § 3. So vast was the amount of petitions which were referred to this Committee, that, in order to facilitate proceedings, it quickly appointed various subdivisions of itself. On December 19 (1640), a sub-committee was appointed to consider the scarcity of preaching ministers, and to remove scandalous ministers. Of this latter body, Mr. John White, who was also chairman of the Grand Committee, was chairman. It has acquired an infamous reputation by its pro- ceedings, and its chairman, by the publication which he put forth, must be considered as one of the basest and most malignant ene- mies of the Church which even these disordered times produced. The Committee for Scandalous Ministers, as it was usually called, issued a sort of manifesto declaring its appointment, and inviting accusations against the clergy to be made before it. ■*• § 4. It is said that above 2000 petitions were soon before it ; and the business increased so fast that it was again subdivided into no less than four bodies, called, from their chairmen, ]\Ir. White's Committee, ^Mr. Corbet's Committee, Sir Robert Harlow's Com- mittee, and Sir E. Dering's Committee. § 5. The proceedings of these bodies — if we may at all trust contemporary accounts — were not conducted with any sort of fair- ness or impartiality. Ex jparte statements were freely adopted, and no rebutting evidence was admitted. Consequently the execution done upon the clergy by them was extremely rapid — some sort of ceremonial scandal, or if that failed, the vague accusation of popery, being easily made, and with difficulty disproved. ^ As the quarrel ^ Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, i. 64 (folio). ^ In White's Century we find that even in what were considered the worst cases, bowing at the name of Jesus, bowing towards the altar, removing the tables, etc., are quoted as crimes. 464 PERSECUTION OF THE CLEEGY. Chap. XXX. between the king and Parliament was 'developed, any exhortation of loyalty to the king was held amply sufficient to excuse depriva- tion. The accusations of the enemies of the Church were welcomed and at once acted upon ; but it does not appear that any regard was paid to testimonials from his parishioners in a clergyman's favour, however considerable. Thus, charges having been made against Mr. Squire, rector of St, Leonards, Shoreditch, 230 of the most respectable of his parishioners presented a memorial in his favour, testifying to his constant preaching and catechising ; to his con- tinual warnings and instructions against popery ; to his having .zealously laboured among his people, even in the times of the pre- valence of the plague ; and to his blameless and devout life during a ministry of thirty years. To this no attention whatever was paid, and Mr. Squire was at once sequestered.^ What the clergy had to go through in attending these committees has been vividly sketched by an eye-witness of their troubles. " Mine ears still tingle at the loud clamours and shoutings then made (especially at the committee which sat at the Court of Wards) in derision of grave and reverend divines, by that rabble of sectaries which daily flocked thither to see this new pastime ; when the committee members, out of their vast privilege to abuse any man brought before them without con- trol, have been pleased to call the ministers of Christ, brought before them by jailers and pursuivants, and placed, like heinous malefactors, without their bar — bareheaded, forsooth — Saucy Jacks, base fellows, brazen-faced fellows ; and in great scorn hath the cap of a known orthodox doctor been called to be pulled off to see if he were not a shaven popish priest ; and upon a parson's evidence for one of his parishioners that he was no papist, it was replied by a committer, ' Have you no evidence but a base priest ? ' " ^ "I have been present," says the same writer, " at a committee for religion, consisting of five or six tradesmen or merchants of London, and an ignorant lawyer in the chair ; yet these have judged doctrines by wholesale, executing ecclesiastical jurisdiction in an high act."^ § 6. But the greatest injury done to the clergy was the deli- berate publication of the basest slanders on their moral character, without any opportunity being afforded to them of refutation or explanation. In almost every one of the numerous orders made by the Parliament as to religion, it was openly asserted that great numbers of the clergy were of scandalous lives, and altogether de- praved.* And what was still worse, the parliamentary committees took care to publish the petitions and articles exhibited against the clergy, often full of the vilest accusations, and sometimes, as in the ^ Walker, i. 69. - Persecutio UndeciTiia^ p. 11. ^ Ih. p. 18. 4 Walker, i. 43. 16i0-1649. PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. 465 case of Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, they added sidenotes commenting upon the charges, and suggesting jeering taunts founded upon them. That this was part of the deliberate policy of those who were then attacking the Church, is shown by the publication, in 1643, by Mr. White, the chairman of several of these committees, of a book called lite First Century of Scandalous Ministers. In this he has selected a hundred cases of clergy accused before the committees, and has given publicity to the foulest accusations against them by name. These he prefaces with a general attack upon the clergy, in which he calls them " dumb dogs, ignorant, drunkards, whoremongers and adulterers, sodomites, men unfit to live, crawl- ing vermin, popish dregs, priests of Baal, sons of Belial, unclean beasts," etc. Such abominable accusations from a man in high place, vented against the clergy by name, and supposed to be sup- ported by irrefutable evidence gathered in the committees, were, of course, followed by open-mouthed railers of every sort, both clerical and lay, among whom one John Vicars obtained a bad pre-emi- nence. ^ The king, greatly to his credit, restrained the loyal party from retaliating in the same kind, and publishing scandals against the Puritanical ministers. § 7. At the end of the year 1642, in addition to the committees already named, another committee was appointed by Parliament, called " The Committee for Plundered Ministers." The work of this Committee was the providing for those ministers who, being well disposed to the Parliament, had been ejected or plundered by the king's forces, and the placing them in parishes lately occupied by the malignant clergy, as those well disposed towards the king were usually termed. This Committee was the means of working a great transformation in the Church of England. It brought Puritanical ministers from every quarter, many now returning from abroad, and established them in the benefices from which the malignant clergy were ousted. Informations from the country as to the poli- tics of the clergy were invited, and the Committee's work was felt even in the most remote districts, where the loyal clergy were driven from their homes to make way for intruders. As the first crop of victims fell before the accusations for immorality and ob- noxious ceremonial, so the second crop was reaped by this Committee on the ground of malignanctj.'^ When the taking of the Covenant was enacted, and the Directory established in the place of the Common Prayer, another large crop of clergy, who had survived both these previous tests, was gathered into the net of the destroyer. § 8. This was mainly effected by another agency springing out ^ In his book called Jehovah Jireh, an abominable, foul-mouthed rant. 2 Walker, 1. 73, sq. 2 H 4.66 PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. Chap. XXX. from and working in connection with the Parliamentary Committees. In order to make the work contemplated by the Parliament com- plete, it was necessary that local and special knowledge should be brought to bear, lest in the then imperfect state of communication, some remote districts should escape, and perchance some loyal and orthodox clergyman remain untouched. To avoid this, local com- mittees were formed in the various counties, the members of which were nominated by Parliament. These were sometimes described as the committees of such a place or county, sometimes the commit- tees of sequestration, and sometimes the standing committees.^ The ordinance under which they were erected was that for sequestering notorious delinquents' estates, and applied to the laity as well as the clergy (April 1643). These committees did their woik most tho- roughly. They found a short and easy method of proceeding with the clergy by offering them the Covenant for subscription, and whoever refused to accept this complete abjuration and renuncia- tion of his Church, was at once proceeded against as a delinquent, removed from his benefice, and plundered of all his goods. Walker computes that by the action of these local committees no less than two thousand clergy were sequestered in the various counties of England and Wales. ^ The committees nominated any person they thought fit to the vacant benefice, and although, according to the regulations of the Assembly of Divines, no one could be properly appointed to a living without having passed the examination which they had provided, yet it is certain that numbers were irregularly appointed and continued to hold benefices without any legal title, but by the very sufficient one of the support of the all-powerful committee. § 9. The most famous or infamous of these local committees were those which were nominated by, and acted under, the direc- tions of the Earl of Manchester, to whom the seven associated counties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Lincolnshire, were specially entrusted for purgation. This vigorous upholder of the Parliament himself ejected almost the whole of the Masters and Fellows of Cambridge, sequestered the revenues of the colleges, and appointed com- mittees in each of the counties to carry on the same work among the country clergy. In the instructions he issued to these com- mittees he complains of the backwardness of parishioners to make accusations against their ministers, and to obviate this, recommends the committees to use the service of informers, whose business it should be to find out any charges that could be preferred against all ministers and schoolmasters, and to inform the Committee of them. He also directs them not to allow the accused person to be 1 Walker, i. 87. ^ /j^ gg. 1640-1649. PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. 467 present when the accusation is made, but to allow him afterwards a copy of it in writing " if he will pay for it." The Commissioners are solemnly adjured to be earnest in their work, and to use the great opportunity now given to them of purging the Church from an " idle, iU-afFected, scandalous, and insolent clergy." ^ Under this pressure it cannot be doubted that the work went on apace. In one year, in only five of the associated counties, 156 clergy were ejected.^ § 10. England must now have been filled with destitute clergy wandering hither and thither for a maintenance with their wives and families. It is true that a provision was nominally made by order of the Parliament for the families of those who were ejected. They were to receive one-fifth of the benefice if they applied for it. But of this nominal provision it must be remem- bered that it did not apply at all to the "scandalous" ministers ejected by the committees of Parliament ; that the order to the country committees in 1643 only enabled them to make the allowance, but did not oblige them to do so ; and that the order made by Parliament in 1647 that one-fifth should be allowed, came far too late to save numbers from utter destitution. Neither had this order the force of law, being only an order of the Commons House, neither did it make any pretence of satisfying the claims for arrears.3 Upon the whole, therefore, it is hardly to be sup- posed that this arrangement had much real effect in alleviating the distress of the orthodox clergy and their families. Of the clergy themselves many were in prison. The bishops' houses were used as gaols, and were filled with those clergy against whom anything scandalous or malignant was considered to have been proved. § 11. Of the bishops, the Primate and the Bishops of Ely and Bath and Wells were in the Tower awaiting formal impeachment. The twelve who had made the famous protest against the proceed- ings of the House of Lords being conducted in their absence, had been confined to the Tower for some six months, though no formal charge could be made against them.^ At length they were liber- ated on bail, and returned to their sees only to witness their palaces occupied as prisons, and to have their property violently invaded. Bishop Hall, who has left us an account how it fared ^ Walker, i. 117-18. It is somewhat remarkable that the author of these disgraceful exhortations to persecution lived bitterly to repent of the part which he had played, and to become a loyal subject of the king, 2 lb. i. 119. 3 xj) i 99_ * Some of the Commons were anxious to impeach them of high treason, but a great legal authority told them they might as well impeach them of adultery. They were liberated on bail from the Tower by the Lords, but on the complaint of the Commons were again immured. Bishop Hall's Hard Measure ; Wordsworth, Eccl. Bioq. iv. 304. 468 PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. Chap. XXX with him at Norwich, declares that his lot was exceptionally good. Yet, as soon as the sequestration ordinance came forth (April 1643) everything was seized, " not leaving so much as a dozen of trench- ers or my children's pictures." His goods were exposed to sale, the rents due to the bishop, and even the arrears of former rents which he had forgiven to the tenants, were exacted from him. A fifth was promised to his wife, but it was never paid, and while the bishop was thus absolutely spoiled Qf all his goods, assessments were levied on him for the estate which they had taken from him ! Not only was the good )3ishop severely threatened for venturing to ordain, after the passing of the Covenant, but he had to witness the profane and sacrilegious spoliation of his cathedral church, and to be a spectator of that " hideous triumph on the market-day before all the country, when in a kind of sacrilegious and profane pro- cession all the organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had been newly sawn down from over the green-yard pulpit, and the service-books and smging- books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the public market- place ; a lewd wretch walking before the train in his cope, trailing in the dirt, Mdth a service-book in his hand, imitating in an im- pious scorn the tune, and usurping the words of the litany used formerly in the Church." ^ § 12. This profanation and sacrilege done on sacred things had soon to be witnessed throughout the land. Early in 1643 Crom- well " did most miserably deface the cathedral of Peterborough."^ The stately cross in Cheapside was thrown down and dragged through the streets with a mad uproar.^ At Canterbury, the " soldiers, entering the church and choir, overthrew the com- munion table, tore the velvet cloth from before it, defaced the goodly screen or tabernacle work, violated the monuments of the dead, spoiled the organs, brake down the ancient rails and seats, with the brazen eagle which did support the Bible, rent the sur- plices, gowns, and Bibles, mangled all our service-book and books of Common Prayer, and exercised their malice on the arras hang- ing representing the whole story of Christ." * Our churches still bear witness to the furious sacrilege of that day. § 13. But it was not enough for the Puritanical faction now in ascendancy to rob and pillage the clergy, to blast their characters with scandalous aspersions, to destroy with sacrilegious hand all sacred things. Something more was needed to make their ven- geance complete. They must have blood, and add judicial murder 1 Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. iv. 295-311. ^ M&rcurus Aulicus, April 28, 1643, ^ Evelyn's Diary, i. 55. ^ Mercurius Busticus, p. 185. 1640-1649. PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. 469 to their manifold crimes. Archbisliop Laud had been committed to the Tower (as has been stated) on March 1, 1641, on fourteen Articles of Impeachment exhibited against him by the Commons.i His estate had been mulcted by ruinous fines, sixteen thousand pounds having been exacted from him as compensation to Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, and twenty thousand for his share in the j)roceedings of the late Convocation. Prynne had visited him in prison and seized his diary and papers, and even his book of private devotions. This implacable foe of the archbishop was entrusted with the charge of getting up the case against him.^ But either from distrust of the sufficiency of the evidence, or from some other cause, three years had been allowed to elapse without the arch- bishop being brought to his trial. At length the necessity of grati- fying the Scotch hastened it on, and on March 12, 1644, the trial began. The archbishop was allowed the assistance of coun- sel, but he mainly conducted his defence himself, (of which the volume of his Trouhles is a record), and with so much vigour and eloquence did he perform his task that he gained the admiration even of his enemy Prynne.^ On each day of his hearing, the charges against him usually lasted till about two o'clock. Then he was allowed till four to prepare his defence. The House sat again at four, and his defence was heard, but his witnesses were not allowed to be sworn. One of the committee then replied to the defence, and the archbishop was conveyed back again to the Tower. The Lords were very irregular in their attendance, not one peer, with the exception of Lord Gray, having been present on every day of the trial. 4 The counsel opposed to him argued that though no one act of the archbishop's might be high treason, yet all his acts taken together constituted that crime. Upon this Mr. Hearne, one of Laud's counsel, retorted, " I cry you mercy, Mr. Sergeant ; I never understood before this time that two hundred couple of black rabbits would make one black horse." § 14. The trial dragged on its slow length throughout the summer, and as it was evident that it was breaking down before the House of Lords, it was determined to resort to that iniquitous method of getting rid of a troublesome opponent whom justice will not reach, and a Bill of Attainder was brought into the House of Commons. Against this the archbishop argued with great power, on November 11, in the House of Commons. "Mr. Speaker," he said, " I am very aged, considering the turmoils of my life, and I ^ The substance of these articles will be found in Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 2 Laud's History ofhis Trouhles, p. 216. ' Canterbury s Doom, p. 465. ^ Laud's Troubles, p. 218. 470 PEESECUTION OF THE CLERGY. Chap. XXX. daily find in myself more decays than I can make show of, and the period of my life, in the course of nature, cannot be far off. It cannot but be a great grief to me to stand, at these years, thus charged before you. Yet give me leave to say thus much without offence. Whatsoever errors or faults I may have committed by the way in any of my proceedings, through human infirmity — as who is he that hath not offended and broken some statute laws, too, by ignorance or misapprehension, or forgetfulness at some sudden time of action ? — yet, if God bless me with so much memory, I will die with these words in my mouth, ^ That I never intended, much less endeavoured, the subversion of the laws of this kingdom, nor the bringing in of popish superstition upon the true Protestant religion established by law in this kingdom.' " ^ But neither argument nor pathos could avail with the Commons, now completely under the sway of Puritanical and Scotch influence. The Bill of Attainder passed their House November 1 3, but not for nearly two months could the Lords be brought to give their adhesion to the Bill. At length (January 4, 1645) six peers pronounced their agreement with the Commons. It was allowed, as a concession, that the punishment was to be simply decapitation ; but no chaplain was to be permitted to the archbishop unless accompanied by two Presbyterian divines. § 15. On the morning of January 10 (1645), the aged prelate, now seventy -two years old, was brought to the scaffold on Tower Hill amidst some revilings of the mob, and proceeded to read, with won- derful composure, from a manuscript which he carried in his hand. " He had come," he said, " to the brink of the Eed Sea, but before he entered the Land of Promise the Passover must be eaten, and that with sour herbs. He would remember it was the Lord's Passover, and that men could have no power over him except it were given them from above. He thanked God that he was as quiet within as ever he was in his life. He believed his cause would look of another dye in heaven than the colour that was put on it on earth. He protested once more before God and the holy angels that he had neither desired to break the law nor to bring in popery ;" and then, after a prayer, in which he desired the people to join with him, he laid his head upon the block. His body was decently interred in All-Hallows Church, Barking, the burial-service of the Church being used over his grave. ^ Thus fell the prelate who had done so much to give energy, life, and decency of worship to the Church of England. It can scarcely be denied by any that he i Troubles, p. 439. 2 Rushwortli, iii. ii. 834, It appears that Dr. Sterne was present with the archbishop on the scaffold. ^ Rushworth, iii. ii. 835-839. 1640-1649. PEESECUTION OF THE CLERGY. 471 was imprudent, rash, impolitic, and somewhat stern and severe. His measures, both in Church and State, had raised him up many enemies ; his demeanour had raised up many more. But that he was influenced by unworthy motives or private ends, that he did not earnestly and zealously labour to advance that which, in his conscience, he believed to be true, and right, and just, not even his bitterest enemies have been able even colourably to establish. His execution was " the most unjustifiable act of these zealots," says one who regarded his character w^ith strong feelings of hostility.^ § 16. The part of England and the Church most entirely de- voted to the king, and most opposed to Puritanism, had, during the first three or four years of Puritan ascendancy, altogether escaped molestation. The king's head-quarters and court were at Oxford, and there he had gathered around him the most prominent of his supporters, and those members of Parliament who were utterly opposed to the doings at Westminster. The University was transformed into a great camp. The schools were converted into magazines. The colleges, denuded of their plate and valu- ables, served as lodgings for the king's officers. The students worked at the trenches, or received commissions in the army. But in June 1646 Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, and it was evident that the days of "purgation" for this hot-bed of loyalty had at last arrived. An ordinance, appointing a visitation of the University by commissioners, was passed May 1, 1647. The University did not quail or hesitate before the impending storm. It put forth as an act of its whole body its Judgment on the Solemn League and Covenant ; and in this paper, which was drawn up by Kobert Sanderson, it condemns in the most emphatic and thorough manner the imposition of this tyrannical pledge. The University, indeed, showed a contemptuous disregard of the Parliamentary authority, well calculated to provoke those who had the power in their hands. By the middle of 1648 the Commis- sioners had ejected from the various foundations about 600 members of them, including ten professors, and all the heads of colleges except two.^ Some of those thus ejected were men of the highest mark for learning and piety. Dr. Henry Hammond, the most devout and learned man of his day, was turned out of his post of sub-dean of Christ Church, and committed to ^Drison. Dr. Robert Sanderson, the Regius Professor of Divinity, who had so boldly written against the Covenant, was dismissed from the place which he so much adorned, but allowed to retire to his parsonage of Boothby Pagnel, where he ministered throughout the troubles. 1 Hallam, Const. Hist., i. 577. ^yfQod!& Athence Oxonienses ; Walker, i. 136 472 PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. Chap. XXX. With Oxford the last prop of the Church's influence was cut away, and the Church lay maimed and paralysed at the mercy of its enemies. Her temporal head was soon made to drink with her the cup of woe. § 1 7. Whatever faults of policy, rash imprudence, and want of political honesty may fairly be imputed to Charles I., the Church of England must ever regard him with reverence as one who honestly and firmly adhered to her cause when, by sacrificing her, he might have saved himself. Hence, without any attempt to canonise him as a saint, she may not unfitly regard him as a martyr. It is true that the king had consented, when the thing itseK was inevitable, to the abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland. It is true that he had agreed, on the urgent importunity of the c[ueen, to the taking away of the bishops' votes in Parliament. But this latter step he always bitterly regretted, although it did not touch the essentials of the Church. Further than this he could not be induced to go. "I am firm," he says, "to primitive Episcopacy, not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it. Nor was it any policy of State, or obstinacy of will, or partiality of affection either to the men or their functions, which fixed me ; who cannot in worldly respects be so considerable to me as to recompense the injuries and losses I and my dearest relations, with my kingdoms, have sustained and hazarded, chiefly at first upon this quarrel." ^ What the king risked politically by acting upon his principles in Church matters is evident. At Uxbridge, in 1645, he might have detached the Scotch from the interest of the Parliament if he had yielded to their religious policy. At Newcastle, the king, alone and unaided, combated all the arguments of the Presbyterian divines, and resisted the impassioned entreaties of his Scotch friends on one side, and the queen and his courtiers on the other, to yield in this matter and retrieve his almost desperate for- tunes. When in the power of the Independents the king was still the same. He was now not called upon to destroy the Church, but only to " disestablish " it, and to allow complete toleration. This, however, he could not bring himself to do, although all the leading divines of the Church of England signed a paper to the effect that toleration was, under certain circumstances, permissible. ^ In his imprisonment and sore peril in the Isle of Wight it was still ^ Eikon BasiliM, chap. xvii. Whether the king himself -wrote the Eilcon, or Bishop Gauden wrote it for him (as he declares in the letters pub- hshed by Todd), in any case it may be taken as expressing Charles's senti- ments. 2 TauTier MSS. (Bodleian), 58, 453. " In case of exigence of Church and State, a Christian prince hath a latitude allowed him, the boimding whereof is by God left to him." Signed by Bishops of Salisbury, Worcester, 1640-1649. PERSECUTION OF THE CLERGY. 473 the same. He said, " I have done what I could to bring my con- science to a compliance with their proposals, and cannot, and I will not lose my conscience to save my life." i He did, indeed, at length so far yield as to allow the establishment of Presbyterianism side by side with Episcopacy — a concession which, as it supplied a basis for the Presbyterians to treat with the king, hastened the action of Cromwell and the Independents, and quickly brought Charles to his trial and his death. § 18. In these last scenes, described with so much power and pathos by Sir T. Herbert and Sir P. Warwick in their Memoirs^ the ministrations of the Church, which he had so much loved and so resolutely upheld, did not fail the king. The good Bishop Juxon zealously attended on him to the last, and read to him " the lesson of the day," in which the Church might seem to have reserved to the last her highest and chiefest consolation.^ The murder of the king put the finishing touch to the overthrow of the temporal status and external life of the Church of England. The triumphant fanatic might now gaze round \nth. complacency and contemplate the ruin he had made. But there was an inward life of the Church which no persecution could destroy, and which con- tinued through the long years of trial which yet remained, to main- tain its vigour and power. How this was done, and under what difficulties and trials, will be told in the foUowing chapter. Exeter, London, Bath and WeUs, Armagh, Epchester; Drs. Sanderson. Holdsworth, Hammond, Jeremy Taylor (original signatures in MS.) 1 Wordsworth, £ccl. Biog. iv. 426. 2 Bishop Juxon, on the morning of the execution, read to the king the Church service of the day, in which Matthew xxvii. , containing the account of the Crucifixion, is the second lesson. The king was much struck, and asked the bishop if he had selected that chapter purposely. When told that it was the ordinary lesson of the day, he put off his hat and said, " I bless God that it has thus fallen out." — Sir P. Warwick's Memoirs, p. 345. 474 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XXX. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. (1) SUBSTANCE OF THE ARTICLES EXHIBITED AGAINST ARCH- BISHOP LAUD. 1. That he had traitorously endea- voured to subvert the fundamental laws of the realm, and to persuade the king that he might levy money without con- sent of Parliament. 2. That he had en- couraged sermons and publications tend- ing to the establishment of arbitrary power. 3. That he had interrupted and perverted the course of justice in West- minster Hall. 4. That he had traitor- ously and corruptly sold justice, and ad- vised the king to sell judicial and other offices. 5. That he had caused a Book of Canons to be published without lawful authority, and had enforced subscription to it. 6. That he had assumed a papal and tyrannical power both in ecclesiasti- cal and temporal matters. 7. That he had laboured to subvert God's true religion, and to introduce popish superstition and idolatry. 8. That he had usurped the nomination to many ecclesiastical bene- fices, and had promoted none but persons who were popishly afiFected, or otherwise unsound in doctrine and corrupt in man- ners. 9. That he had committed the licens- ing of books to chaplains notoriously dis- affected to the reformed religion. 10. That he had endeavoured to reconcile the Church of England to the Church of Rome ; had held intelligence with Jesuits and the Pope ; and had permitted a popish hierarchy to be established in this king- dom. 11. That he had silenced many godly ministers ; hindered the preaching of God's Word ; cherished profaneness and ignorance ; and caused many of the king's subjects to forsake the country. 12. That he had endeavoured to raise dis- cord between the Church of England and other Reformed Churches, and had op- pressed the Dutch and French congrega- tions in England. 13. That he had laboured to introduce innovations in re^ ligion and government into the kingdom of Scotland, and to stir up war between the two countries. 14. That, to preserve himself from being questioned for these traitorous practices, he had laboured to divert the ancient coui'se of Parliament- ary proceeding, and to incense the king against all Parliaments. (Laud's History of his Troubles.) Ten additional Articles were afterwards exhibited, which were somewhat more specific in their character 1649-1660. CHURCH DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 475 CHAPTER XXXI. THE CHURCH DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 1649-1660. § 1. The period of religious anarchy. § 2. Some clergy return to their work under The Engagement. § 3. Difficulties of their position. § 4. English clergy in France. § 5. Appointment of the Triers. § 6. Clergy before the Triers. § 7. Cromwell exhibits some inclination to favour the Church. § 8. He issues the persecuting edict. § 9. Its crushing effect. § 10. Dr. Gauden's Remonstrance, § 11. Leading Clergy take measures to save the Church from destruction. § 12. Jeremy Taylor's Prayer-Book. § 13. Edward Pocock before the Com- missioners. § 14. A congregation imprisoned for celebrating the Lord's Supper. § 15. Dr. Hammond takes measures to alleviate the poverty of the Clergy. § 16. Secret ordinations. § 17. Attempts to procure the consecration of Bishops. § 18. The beginnings of hope. § 19. The Declaration of Moderation. § 20. Death of Dr. Hammond. § 1. The Westminster Assembly of Divines had ceased to act long before the king's death, and the system of Church govern- ment and ordination which they had devised had never been fully carried out. From the rise into power of the Independents, the Presbyterian system, favoured by the Assembly, was of necessity overturned. The Independents, indeed, accepted the Westminster Confession, but the very essence of their system was the inde- pendence of congregations, and the right of each congregation to appoint its own church officers. Thus, from about the year 1648 till the year 1654 — when the Government was constrained to adopt some means of testing the qualifications of ministers — there was absolutely no Church government in England, no machinery for ordination. In consequence, the wildest religious anarchy pre- vailed. The strange sects i fostered and encouraged in the army, claimed as much right to furnish ministers to churches as the Presbyterians. Every wild and wicked opinion found an expositor, and was heard advocated within the venerable walls which had long echoed to far different sounds. Where the fabric of a vacant ^ Besides the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, there were numerous other sects, as Vanists, Fifth Monarchists, Seekers, Ranters, Familists, and Behmenists. Besides these, the followers of the strange enthusiast George Fox began now to be abundant. For some reason or other these fanatics were worse treated than the others. The gaols are said to have been full of Quakers under the Commonwealth. — Life of George Fox, p. 6. 476 THE CHURCH Chap. XXXI. churcli was not to be had (as would sometimes be the case through the action of a resolute patron), the fanatical sectary would gather his congregation in a private room. This was also frequently done when the living was occupied. The Presbyterian incumbent had to witness the abstraction of his congregation by the more popular sectary. But generally, in the case of vacant churches, when the congregation desired any minister, they were able, in those times when no one ventured to resist the popular will, to obtain their wish by the aid of the secular authority ; and thus the rights of patrons were over-ridden, and the qualifications declared necessary by the Assembly dispensed with. The pro- portion of Independents who obtained benefices is thought by good authority to have been considerable. ^ But as a mattei of fact, except in London and some parts of Lancashire, the Presby- terian incumbent was independent. There was no authority to control his proceedings, and he might conduct matters exactly as he pleased, so long as he satisfied the people, and did not get com- plained of to Parliament or the General. § 2. This state of complete anarchy was thought by some churchmen a favourable opportunity for again obtaining the power to minister to some of their afflicted countrymen. The Parlia- ment had abolished the obligation of subscribing to the Covenant, and had substituted for it a declaration called The Engagement. By this, all who ministered were simply called upon to swear that they " would be true and faithful to the Government established, without king and House of Peers." The right of a de facto government to claim obedience was generally admitted by church- men, and had been decreed in one of the canons of a late Convo- cation. Dr. Sanderson wrote in favour of taking the Engage- ment, and Baxter assures us that other Episcopal divines also did so, "pleading the irresistibility of the imposer." ^ The taking the Engagement was of course equivalent to abandoning the cause of the young king ; but many despaired of the restoration of royalty, and were unwilling to remain all their lives useless as regarded their office on the mere ground of sentiment. The Presbyterians most strongly opposed the policy which dictated the Engagement, and which in fact dispensed with religious tests altogether. To them the notion of a toleration was altogether shocking. A fierce strife raged between Presbyterians and Independents, and the former freely averred that they regretted the times of " Canterbury and the prelates." 2 But it was soon found that the new ruler of England was not to be trifled with. The execution of Mr. ^ Stoughton's Church and State, p. 6. ^ lAfe and Times, p. 65. ^ Edward's Gangrcena, Ep. Ded. 1649-1660. DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 477 Love, a London minister, for intriguing witli the Scotch, struck terror into the Presbyterian party, and when Cromwell reached complete ascendancy as Lord Protector of the distracted Common- wealth, the religious settlement which was agreed upon was one of toleration for all religious opinions, with the notable exceptions of Poperij and Prelacy} But this did not prevent such clergy as had taken the Engagement from ministering where they were accept- able to the flocks, though it barred the putting forward of any claim grounded on Episcopal ordination. § 3. The clergy who had undertaken to minister during this chaos of opinions must have done so under the greatest possible difficulties. The administration of the sacraments was scarcely tolerated. The liturgy could not be used except from memory. Dr. Sanderson composed a form for the use of the orthodox clergy, which, being very nearly identical with that of the Prayer-Book, he thought might be used with advantage. For doing this, and for countenancing the Engagement, he incurred the severe censure of his friend Dr. Hammond.^ Yet it seems that had it not been for the devotion of some men like-minded with him, the state of things must have been much worse than even it was. At St. George's, near Bristol, George Bull ministered in the same way a3 Sanderson, using prayers nearly identical with those of the Church from memory. Thus, too, did Dr. Bernard, Dr. Heylin, Bishops Duppa and Eainbow. Some clergy kept up in secret, and at great risk to themselves, the exact performance of the Church service. Thus did Dr. Wild and Dr. Gunning in London, and Mr. Fell at Oxford. Evelyn notes (March 5, 1649), " I heard the Common Prayer (a rare thing in those days) in St. Peter's at Paul's Wharf, London." (1652.) " I went to Lewisham, where I heard an honest sermon on 2 Cor. v. 7, being the first Sunday I had been at church since my return, it being now a rare thing to find a priest of the Church of England in a parish pulpit." (1653.) "There was now and then an honest orthodox man got into the pulpit, and though the present incumbent was an Inde- pendent, he ordinarily preached sound doctrine, and was a peace- able man, which was an extraordinary felicity in this age." " My child, christened by Mr. Owen in my library at Say's Court, where he afterwards churched my wife, I always making use of him on 1 "Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 557. Before, however, this settlement was reached, the Barebones Parliament had been within two of voting the confiscation of the revenues of all the livings in England, with a view of appointing certain itinerant preachers to take the place of the fixed ministers. This was actually done in Wales, 2 Harleian MSS. (Brit. Mus.), No. 6942. Sanderson's Liturgy has lately been published by Bishop Jacobson. 478 THE CHUKCH Chap. XXXI these occasions, because tlie parish minister durst not have officiated according to the form and usage of the Church of Eng- land, to which I have always adhered." i § 4. A considerable number of distinguished clergy were assembled in Paris, where the service of the Church was regu- larly performed in the chapel of Sir R. Browne, ambassador from England, and father-in-law of Evelyn. Here, also, ordinations sometimes took place.^ Dr. Hammond, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Prideaux, and others, continued during this period to write and publish some of their admirable theological works, so that the hopes of churchmen were not altogether extinguished. § 5. At length, the Government of Cromwell being now firmly established, it was thought requisite to take some steps for repress- ing the religious anarchy which prevailed ; an anarchy which was much more favourable to the Church of England than any regula- tions likely to be put forward by the men then in power. By an ordinance passed March 20, 1654, it was stated " that for some time past no certain course had been established for the supplying vacant places with able and fit persons, whereby many weak, scan- dalous. Popish, and ill-affected persons had intruded themselves ; " and it was therefore appointed that every person who should, after the 25th of that instant, be presented or nominated to any benefice or public settled lecture in England or Wales, shall be judged and approved by the persons after named to be a person, for the grace of God in him, his holy and unblameable conversation, as also for his knowledge and utterance, able and fit to preach the Gospel. Then followed the names of thirty-five commissioners, with Francis Rouse at their head, of whom five were empowered to approve, but not less than nine to reject. It was provided that this ordinance should have a retrospective power for a year. These commissioners were termed Triers. They deliberately undertook to ascertain, a man's spiritual state, and to discover what was called his conversion. Among these Triers, one of the most active was Hugh Peters, a boisterous and insolent fanatic, who had begun life as a stage-player, and had been guilty of many grievous immoralities, but was possessed of a ready tongue and unlimited assurance. To have to be examined as to his spiritual state by the members of a body in which such a man could find a place, was no trifling ordeal for a modest and humble man. It was also well known that the Triers had determined to sift out, if possible, all those Episcopally-ordained clergy who were again getting a footing in the Church. That the State intended that they should do this appears evident from an ordinance passed 1 Evelyn's Diary, s. I ^ lb. June 12, 1650. 1649-1660. DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 479 September 2, 1654, directing the Triers not to give admission to any such clergy until, " by experience of their conformity and sub- mission to the present Government, his Highness and his Council should be satisfied of their fitness, and signify the same to the commissioners." ^ § 6. In the impoverished state of the clergy, and with the willingness of many in the land, who still preserved their love of the Church, to help them by appointing them to livings, no doubt many Episcopal candidates presented themselves before the Triers. But their certificate of approval was a far greater difficulty in the way than the Engagement, now superseded, had proved. One of the unfortunate candidates for their approval has left us, in a work called Inquisitio Anglicana, a grapliic picture of the troubles of himself and others. One was asked what acquaintance he had with Jesus Christ ? What work of grace God had wrought in his soul ? What particulars he had of God's dealings with him ? This poor man, after seven weeks' attendance, was dismissed. Another was called upon to tell the commissioners precisely the year, the day, and the hour when he was called by the Spirit, and was rejected for indefiniteness. Mr. Sadler himself being asked to prove the work of grace in him, was mocked and jeered at by the commissioners for his answers. Some of them exercised their ingenuity by asking him such absurd questions as the following : — "What is the breath of the soul ? What is the heat of the sold ? What is the sense of the soul ? ^ Mr. Sadler was of course re- jected, and probably a considerable number of clergy already placed were ejected by the retrospective powers given to these fanatics. § 7. August 30, 1654, commissioners were appointed in each county for ejecting scandalous ministers. These commissioners were afterwards pronounced by the Parliament to be incompetent,^ and so much disgust at the wild sectarian license favoured by the Lord Protector, and such a leaning towards Presbyterianism was developed in the country, that Cromwell felt it necessary to take some decided steps. He dismissed the Parliament, and began to show some favour towards the Church, by way of intimating to the Presbyterians that he might, if he pleased, find an ally in the Episcopal clergy as against them. Brownrigg, Bishop of Exeter, and Dr. Bernard, Dean of Kilmore, were favoured by him with attention, and Archbishop Usher, a man whom for his learning and moderation all parties united in honouring, was summoned to an interview, to take counsel as to the support and spread of the Protestant religion. '^ Walker,]. 171. ^ Sa-dler' s Inqidsiiio AngUca7ia ; Walker,!, 172-178. 3 Goddard's Journal, p. 41 ; Burton's Diary, v. i. 480 THE CHURCH Chap. XXXI. § 8. But if any of the clergy augured from these exceptional acts of consideration that the Protector had any real inten- tion of extending justice towards them, he was quickly unde- ceived. Cromwell knew well the intense loyalty of the clergy, and the hitter feelings with which they regarded himself. Pro- voked, as is said, by some royalist movements in the country, he issued, November 24, 1655, an edict, which surpassed all others in these troublous times in its intolerance and cruelty. It was as follows : — " His Highness, by the advice of his Council, doth pub- lish, declare, and order, that no person or persons do, from and after the first day of January 1655(6) keep in their houses or families as chaplains, or schoolmasters for the education of their children, any sequestered or ejected minister, fellow of a college, or schoolmaster, nor permit any of their children to be taught by such, in pain of being proceeded against in such sort as the said orders do direct in such cases ; and that no person who hath been sequestered or ejected out of any benefice, college, or school, for delinquency or scandal, shall, from and after the said first day of January, keep any school either public or private ; nor any person who after that time shall be ejected for the causes aforesaid, shall preach in any public place, or at any private meeting of other persons besides his own family, nor shall administer baptism or the Lord's Supper, or marry any persons, or use the book of Common Prayer, or the forms therein contained, upon pain that every person so offending shall be proceeded against as by the said orders is provided."^ § 9. This edict fell with the force of a stunning blow upon the loyal clergy. Many of them, as has been said, had got back into benefices during the period when the Engagement was re- quired instead of the Covenant, and afterwards, when, the Engage- ment being done away with, Cromwell was exercising a sort of toleration. All such would now be summarily ejected. Many more of the loyal clergy had obtained appointments as tutors and schoolmasters, the gentry and nobility of the land being unwilling to trust their children to the public seminaries, in all of which fanaticism was predominant. These now were to be deprived of their occupation, and to be ejected from their offices. Again, many of the clergy had been in the habit of preaching occasional sermons, and had gathered congregations in private rooms to take part in the solemn offices of the Church. These were now to be carefully repressed. The penalties enacted by the Parliament in 1645 for the use of the Common Prayer had fallen into abeyance. The Parliamentary Committees, and the Country Committees which 1 Walker, i. 194. 1649-1660. DUR^G THE COMMONWEALTH. 481 depended on them, had long ceased to exist. But now the penalties were revived with increased force. Imprisonment was to be sub- stituted for fine, and in place of the Committee, consisting for the most part of local gentry, certain commissioners of a thorough- going fanatical type were to act, and thoroughly to exterminate all Church life. The Major-Generals also, appointed by the Protector to administer various districts of the country, were, equally with the commissioners, to have the j)ower of ejecting ministers and administering the edict, so that the persecution now reached its greatest intensity. § 10. Dr. Gauden thus pathetically remonstrates with the Pro- tector on the miseries which he had inflicted on the clergy : — " After these poor ministers had gained some little plank or rafter, possibly a little refuse living, or a curateship, or a school, or a lecture, or some chaplain's place in a gentleman's house, by which to save themselves from utter shipwreck and sinking ; they are now alarmed afresh, exposed to new conflictings, like Prome- theus bound alive with fatal chains to that mountain Caucasus, where, condemned to be idle, the vulture of famine and all worldly calamities must be for ever preying upon the bowels of themselves, their wives, and their children, being only suffered to survive their miseries as men hung aloft in chains, and forced with their rela- tions either to beg, steal, or starve." ^ " I went to London," writes Evelyn in his Journal, " at the end of December 1555, where Dr. Wild preached the funeral sermon on preaching, this being the last day, after which Cromwell's proclamation was to take place, that none of the Church of England should dare either to preach or administer sacraments, teach school, etc., on pain of imprisonment or exile. So this was the mournfullest day that in my life I had seen, or the Church of England herself, since the Reformation, to the great rejoicing of both Papist and Presbyter. So pathetic was his discourse, that it drew many tears from the auditory. Myself, wife, and some of our family, received the Communion. God make me thankful, who hath hitherto provided for us the food of our souls as well as our bodies. The Lord Jesus pity our distressed Church, and bring back the captivity of Sion." § 11. Under the pressure of the rigorous persecution which now affected the Church of England, it became necessary for the more influential clergy to iise every available means to prevent the utter annihilation of the Church. Very interesting details of the measures taken are preserved in the letters of Bishop Duppa, Drs. 1 Gauden's Petitionary Remonstrance, p. 4. 2 I 482 THE CHURCH Chap. XXXI Sheldon and Hammond.^ Richmond, where the Bishop of Lon- don (Juxon) resided, was the chief place for their meetings and consultations. They strove (in the words of Bishop Duppa) " that though the Church be stript of all her outward helps and ornaments, yet there may be a being left her." Dr. Hammond thus writes to Dr. Sheldon : " Your presence will be very useful at Richmond, where some of our ecclesiastical affairs are now afoot, and by what I hear concerning a report made to the Bishop of London by Dr. Jeremy Taylor concerning the clergy's sense to have the Common Prayer taken off and some other forms made, I cannot but wish you were there to interpose your judgment and authority. 1 heard also from the Bishop of Sarum (Duppa) this week, who much depends upon your coming." ^ § 12. The project which is here alluded to by Dr. Hammond, and of which he appears to disapprove, was in fact carried out. In view of the dangers which threatened those who used the Common Prayer, it was agreed that ministers might be dispensed from using it, and Jeremy Taylor drew up a form which might become a substitute for it during the present distress. In the pre- face to this form he says, " I pray God bless these offices to all those ends whither they are designed, and to which in their own nature they can minister ; and as I humbly recommend them to God's blessing, so do I submit them to the judgment of my afflicted mother the Church of England, and particularly to the censure of my spiritual superiors ; and I desire that these prayers may no longer be used in any public place than my lords the bishops, upon prudent inquiries and grave considerations, shall perceive them apt to minister to God's glory, and useful to the present or future necessities of the sons and daughters of the Church of England." 3 § 13. So thorough was the inquisition now established that the practice maintained by some of the clergy of using parts of the Prayer-Book in their ministrations, and that from memory was no longer safe. On this ground Edward Pocock, Rector of Childry, a man of world-wide fame for his Oriental scholarship, was brought before the commissioners sitting at Abingdon. It was objected to him that he had used "part of the Common Prayer ;" that he commonly began service with the words, " Almighty and most merciful Father ; " that a little after that he said, " Praise ye the Lord." Another witness charged him with the crime of using the whole Confession, and another declared that he used the substance 1 Among the TauTier MSS. in the Bodleian, and in a volume of the Earleian Collection (B. M.), No. 6942. 2 Earleian MSS. 6942. ^ Taylor's Works, viii. 575. 1649-1660. DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 483 of the Absolution. The offence, however, of the use of the exact terms of the Prayer-Book could not be substantiated, and the commissioners, unable to eject Mr. Pocock upon this ground, were about to do so on the ground of insufficiency. Upon this there was something like a commotion among the Independent doctors of the neighbouring University of Oxford. For Pocock was known as one of the first scholars in Europe, and a man of most devout life, and to eject such a man as incompetent seemed somewhat too ludicrous a proceeding. Upon the intercession of Dr. Owen and others, Mr. Pocock was spared.^ § 14. Cromwell, determined at all hazards to put down the worship of the Church, ordered the use of the most violent measures. Evelyn and a congregation of faithful churchmen, venturing to meet in London for worship on Christmas Day (1657), during the administration of the Holy Communion by Mr. Gunning, the chapel was surrounded by soldiers, and all the congregation carried away as prisoners. The soldiers did not inter- rupt their worship, waiting until it was completed ; but as " we went up to receive the sacrament, the miscreants held their muskets against us, as if they would have shot us at the altar." ^ § 15. Doubtless, in spite of all these dangers, the worship of the Church was still maintained in many private houses, but the clergy were utterly cut off from all sources of maintenance save such as the overtaxed liberality of churchmen could provide for them. Dr. Hammond exerted himself in this behalf with untiring zeal and generosity. He proposed to Doctors Sheldon and Hench- man that they should each make themselves responsible for ^200 a year for the indigent clergy abroad, besides what they were doing to aid those at home. " The truth is," he writes sadly, " unless some care be otherwise taken to maintain the communion of our Church, it is to little purpose that any write in defence of it ; it will soon be destroyed."^ One especial method of aiding the^ Church which this good man used, was the secretly paying stipends to promising young men, to enable them to resort to the Universities and study there, arranging afterwards with the few bishops still to be found in England to admit them to orders. § 16. This was a most necessary precaution in order to pre- vent an absolute collapse of the Church. We read of Dr. Skinner, Bishop of Oxford, who lived at Launton, Dr. Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, and the Bishop of Meath, thus secretly conferring orders. Some, of the English bishops who were abroad also ordained suitable persons. ^ Twells' Life of Pocock ., 151, sq. ^ Evelyn's Diary, s.l. 3 Harleiaii MSS. 6942. 484 THE CHURCH Chap. XXXI. § 1 7. But as the dark times of the Church continued, there was a danger lest the superior order itself should fail. Many of the bishops were old men, and their small body had not been recruited for some sixteen years. Sir Edward Hyde, in connection with his trusted agent in England, John Barwick, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, busied himself in trying to remedy this. But great diffi- culties stood in the way. There were no deans and chapters to elect, and many divines did not like to be consecrated without the legal appointment, in view of objections being afterwards raised.-"- • § 18. At length a gleam of hope came to the clergy of the Church of England through the death of Oliver Cromwell (Sep- tember 13, 1658) ; but when his feeble son had succeeded him, and the Kump Parliament was recalled, it was seen that no favour or consideration was intended for the Church. Under General Monk and the resurrection of the Long Parliament, Presbyterianism and the Covenant were again for a moment in ascendancy. But the assembly which succeeded the Long Parliament, was of a dif- ferent mind. It voted the restoration of the monarchy, and the Church heaved a deep sigh of relief. The danger, hoAvever, was by no means over. It was as yet altogether uncertain on what terms the king would return. It was certain that the old loyal and Church party could not of itself bring him back in the teeth of the Presbyterian and Independent interests. § 19. It was most important, therefore, that it should be shown that this party was not averse to compromise and amal- gamation with others, that it was not irreconcilable, and only anxious to exact vengeance for the past. With this view there was now drawn up and extensively signed a " Declaration of the nobility, gentry, and clergy that adhered to the late king in and about the city of London," in which they say, " We do sincerely profess that we do reflect upon our past sufferings as from the hand of God, and therefore do not cherish any violent thoughts or inclinations to those who have been in any way instrumental in them. And if the indiscretion of any spirited persons transports them to any expressions contrary to this our sense, we utterly dis- claim them." 2 This declaration, signed by all the chief clergy, tranquillised much the public mind, and greatly prepared the way for the return of the king. § 20. That auspicious event was, however, not to be witnessed by the man who had done most of all in England to support and uphold the Church in her day of adversity, and to bring her to ^ See the letters bet-ween Hyde and Bar-wick in Kennett's Register and A-ppendix to Barwick' s Life. ^ Kennett's Register, p. 121. 1649-1660. DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 485 the eve of a brighter morrow. Henry Hammond died at the house of Sir John Pakington, April 25 (1660). He had been selected for the bishopric of Worcester, but he did not live to reach his consecration. He died, to the profound regret not only of churchmen, whom he had helped by his alms, encouraged by his devout earnestness, and instructed by his excellent practical writings ; but to the regret of Nonconformists also, with whom, when they were really in earnest, he, though the highest of High Churchmen, could always readily work.-^ Multis fiehilis occidit. " He whose mild persuasive voice Taught us in trials to rejoice, Wh.Y comes he not to bear his part To lift and guide the exulting heart ? A hand that carmot spare Lies heavy on his gentle hreast : We wish him health : he sighs for rest, And heaven accepts the prayer. ^ ^ See Baxter's Life and Times, p. 208. 2 Kehle's Christian Year, hynm on "The Restoration." 486 THE RESTORATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXII. CHAPTER XXXn. THE RESTORATION SETTLEMENT — THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 1660-1662. § 1. The Presbyterians endeavour to make conditions at the Restoration. § 2. They find themselves without influence in the country. § 3. The concessions demanded by them. § 4. Richard Baxter. § 5. Joy of the country at the restoration of the Church. § 6. The Bishops who had survived the troubles. § 7. The new Bishops. § 8. The Worcester House Declaration. § 9. Character of the document. § 10. The Con- vention Parliament refuse to accept it. § 11. The Savoy Conference. § 12. Baxter's Reformed Liturgy. § 13. The petition to the Bishops, and their Reply. § 14, The viva voce discussion. § 15. Conclusion of the Conference. § 16. The House of Commons pass a bill for Uni- formity, with the Prayer-Book of 1604 annexed. § 17. The bill sent to the House of Lords. § 18. The revision of the Prayer-Book in Convo- cation. § 19. The character of the work. § 20. The amended Prayer- Book in the House of Lords. § 21. The Commons accept the amended Prayer-Book, and pass the Act for Uniformity. § 1. As soon as the countrj had unmistakably declared its resolve to have the king restored, the Presbyterian party endeavoured to take advantage of the situation, and to bring about the return of the king on terms favourable to themselves. This they probably might have effected had it not been for the adroitness of General Monk, who, though professing to act as their leader, nevertheless took means to assure Charles that he would in fact bring him back without conditions.^ On May 1 the Convention-Parliament re- ceived from Charles his famous letter from Breda, in which occurs the passage, " Because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions in religion by which men are engaged in parties and animosities against each other, which, when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of conversation, will be composed or better understood, we do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in ques- tion for 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 Parliament as, upon mature deliberation, 1 * ' This was indeed the great service that Monk did. It was chiefly owing to the post he was in, and the credit he had gained," — Burnet's Own Time. It is needless to say that Monk was guilty of great duplicity. 1660-1662. THE REVISION OF THE PEAYER-BOOK. 487 shall be offered to us for the full granting that indulgence." The Parliament decreed the king's return, and despatched commis- sioners to the Hague to conduct him back. Together with these went a body of Presbyterian divines, hoping even yet to bring about the Restoration on the conditions of Presbyterianism. The Scotch ministers addressed to Charles a letter to remind him of the Covenant which he had taken, and the English Presbyterians endeavoured to extort from him a promise not to allow the use of the Prayer-Book and the surplice on his return, even in his own chapel.i As the king indignantly refused this, they per- ceived that they must lower their tone. They were willing now to tolerate a moderate Episcopacy so long as they themselves were left free without oaths or subscription ; a liturgy, if they might use extempore prayers ; and the use of the ceremonial if it was not pressed on them.^ Baxter, preaching before the Lord Mayor (May 10), said that moderate men w^ould be easily satisfied. Eor the doctrinal part of the Prayer-Book, he could accept it all.3 § 2. But while the Presbyterian divines were talking placidly as to the terms which they would admit, it was suddenly dis- covered that they were not in the position to make any terms. They had absolutely no following in the country. James Sharp, employed by the Scotch divines as their agent in London, reports to his employers that their cause is altogether lost. " I know very few (he writes on May 29), or none, who desire Presbyterianism, much less appear for it ; and whoever do report to you or believe that there is a considerable party in England who have a mind to Covenant uniformity, they are mistaken." " I find the Presby- terian cause wholly given up and lost." * The country, indeed, was absolutely sick of all the grimaces of the modern systems, and thoroughly bent upon restoring the Church in its integrity. Soon the Presbyterian and Independent ministers, convinced of this painful fact, came to see that the question was not what terms they could dictate, but what considerate allowance they could obtain for themselves to stave off somewhat the impending ruin. On the restoration of the monarchy, and the replacement of law, the Church resumed as of right the position from which she had been thrust by a series of Acts, none of which had the force of law. § 3. But as peace was now desired on all hands, the intruding ministers were as yet gently treated. Nine of them w^ere appointed chaplains to the king, and in this capacity had the opportunity of ^ Kennett's Register, p. 140 ; Stephens' Life of SJmrp. 2 Morley to Hyde. Clarendon, State Papers, iii. 738. 2 Keunett's Register, pp. 126-142 ; Baxter's Life and Times, p. 218. * Stephens' Life of Sharp, pp. 49, 52. 4.88 THE RESTOEATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXII. preaching before him, and having frequent interviews, in which they did not fail to urge their claims for consideration. The king declaring himself anxious to promote unity, desired them to con- sult together, and to specify in one paper the whole of the demands of concession which they had to make. Upon this the leading men among them met from day to day at Sion College, and in about three weeks' time completed a draft of the concessions which they desired. There was, however, among them one man, who, though in many respects admirable, was yet a hopeless impediment to every scheme for conciliation or union. § 4. This was Richard Baxter, one of the most singular cha- racters to be found in the religious history of this or any other epoch. He was a man of great devotion, ample learning, ready power ; but so completely self-reliant, so entirely possessed with the notion that he himseK had grasped all truth, so determined in all things to take a line of his own, that it was almost impossible for him to agree with any other person on any subject. Thus he had opposed the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Sec- taries, as much as he had the Church ; and though no man talked more of union, or seemed more ardently to desire it, yet when it came to discussing the terms of union, his only notion of these appeared to be that his opponents should concede everything that he asked, and require nothing of him in return. The proposals now offered by the ministers, as well as the propositions made afterwards in the Savoy Conference, all bear the impress of the wonderful tenacity and extraordinarily sanguine views of Richard Baxter, and were of course from that cause destined to failure. § 5. For the country was now resounding from end to end with joy at the restoration of the King and Church. An Act had been quickly passed to replace in their benefices all those incum- bents who, having been illegally ousted in the times of the rebel- lion, still survived. Above a thousand were at once thus replaced.^ Those who had been irregularly appointed to benefices, the incum- bents of which were dead, were allowed for the present to remain, though numerous petitions came flowing in from the loyal clergy praying for their removal as "fanatics."^ Everywhere the ancient liturgy was again heard. The Universities were purged of their fanatical intruders ; the Cathedrals, in the midst of their ruins, again re-echoed to the sounds of the chant and anthem, and the roll of the Episco]3ate was made complete by the addition of 1 Kennett's Register, p. 148, ^ Great numbers of these are preserved among the State Papers. — Sec Stoughton's Church and State, p. 79, 1660-1662. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 489 some of tlie most honoured names from among those who had suffered in the period of troubles. § 6. Nine bishops had survived the era of the Rebellion. Of these, Juxon, though aged and broken in health, was of course advanced to the primacy ; his position as Bishop of London, his high character, and, above all, his attendance on the martyred king at the last, clearly caUiiig for his promotion. Besides Juxon there were also Wren and Pierce, who had survived the fierce enmity of the Puritans, which threatened to impeach them, and which had actually kept Wren a prisoner in the Tower for nearly twenty years ; Skinner, Warner, and Duppa, all of whom had done good service for the Church during the troubles ; Roberts, King, and Frewen. The latter was advanced to the northern primacy. § 7. Among the new bishops are found the names of Sander- son and Morley, Sheldon and Cosin, Walton and Gauden. All of these were distinguished men. Sanderson as a great casuist and an admirable divine ; Morley as the friend of Hyde and the most dexterous diplomatist in managing Church affairs at the time of the Restoration ; Sheldon as one who, in conjunction with Ham- mond, had done so much to support the suffering clergy ; Cosin, as the special object of Puritan rancour, the laborious chaplain of the English in France, and the most learned liturgical scholar of his day. Neither could Bryan Walton be fairly passed over, who had projected and carried out during the period of distress the great work of the Polyglott Bible ; nor Gauden, who had done such good service to the royal cause by the publication of the Eikon Basilik^, and by his other works during the time of persecu- tion— HieraspisteSy The Appeal to Cromwell, and the Sighs and Tears of the Church of England. To the list of bishops must be added Monk, who owed his promotion to the services of his brother, and Reynolds, the one Puritan who brought himself heartily to con- form, and accepted a bishopric, i Never, probably, at any period did the Church of England possess a more distinguished body of bishops than at the period of the Restoration. § 8. The list of bishops was not completed till the winter, and before that time the king had issued a very important Declaration in answer to the demands of the Puritan ministers. These demands had been of the most sweeping nature, the influence of Baxter sufficing to make his brethren ask for things which the better sense of some of them must have told them to be wholly imprac- ticable. They had desired the limitation of Episcopacy by a ^ Sees -were also offered to Calamy, famous for Ids preaching, and Baxter, "but they declined tliem. 490 THE RESTORATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXIL standing counsel of Presbyters ; tlie abolition of oaths and sub- scription of ministers ; the recasting of the Liturgy in Scripture phrase ; the abolition of the ceremonies, including the use of the surplice, and a provision against future innovations,-^ That is to say, they desired the concession of every one of the points on which Puritans had been contending with Churchmen ever since the Reformation. Naturally enough, when the king referred this modest paper to the Church divines they returned " a biting answer by way of reflection on the paper of proposals which had been made to his Majesty." ^ The only point on which they declared their concurrence with the Puritans was the desirable- ness of a review of the liturgy. But this was not intended in the sense in which the other party intended it. With the Church divines the review of the liturgy was designed to improve it, perhaps to give it a more decidedly Catholic tone. With the Puritans the conception of a review was an entire change, the introduction of Scripture phrases, the sacrifice of the old liturgical forms. The " biting answer " of the Churchmen provoked the polemical spirit of Baxter. He drew up a reply in so fierce and insulting a spirit that his own friends persuaded him not to pub- lish it.3 The quarrel threatening to become serious in the then unsettled state of public opinion, Lord Clarendon drew up, under the direction of the king, a Declaration, which it was arranged should be read to the two parties in the presence of the king, and after their comments were made, be altered in such manner as he should judge expedient, then to be issued as an authoritative settlement of the disputes. The reading and commenting upon this paper took place at Worcester House, where Lord Clarendon was then living, from whence it is generally known as the Wor- cester House Declaration. On one of the occasions when it was "being discussed, Clarendon produced a paper containing a request from the Independents and Baptists to be admitted to toleration, and said that it was the kmg's wish that a clause should be con- tained in the Declaration, giving permission to all persons to meet for religious worship " provided they did it not to the disturbance of the peace." It was thought that a toleration to Romanists was intended by this, and Baxter felt himself called upon to contend against it, on the groimd that some opinions were " tolerable," some *' intolerable." On October 25th the king's Declaration ap- peared. It referred to his manifesto from Breda as to " tender consciences," and to the evils of division ; promised to promote godly ministers ; to allow a large increase of suffragan bishops ; 1 Calamy's Baxter, pp. 141-2. - lb. i. 143. ^ Baxter's Life and Times. 1660-1662. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 491 to require a certain number of Presbyters to take part in Episcopal Acts ; to provide for confirmation implying a real preparation and instruction ; to make the rural dean and certain assistant ministers a body for settling disputes in each deanery, and for seeing tliat each clergyman performed his work aright ; to cause a review of the liturgy to be made, and some additional forms in Scripture phrase ; and in the meantime to leave ministers to use such parts of the Prayer-Book as they did not scruple, and to practise, or not practise, the ceremonies, as they pleased.^ § 9. It is evident that this Declaration was merely meant to quiet the Puritans for the time, and was not a deliberate conces- sion of these points. At the best it could only represent the lengths to which the king was prepared to go should Parliament vote them ; and it is most probable that Clarendon, when he drew up the Declaration, was well aware that Parliament would not con- sent to grant the terms which it set forth. In fact, there is reason to believe that he used his influence to defeat his own Declaration in Parliament,^ a proceeding which does him little credit, though perhaps he would have been equally deserving of blame had the Declaration been honest, for then it would have been outrageously insulting to the loyal and sufi'ering Churchmen. § 10. The Convention Parliament, which had a far stronger Presbyterian element in it than its successor, refused to adopt the bill to legalise the Declaration by 183 against 157, and thus the king and his ministers considered themselves absolved from their promises. When, at the beginning of the next year, a new Parlia- ment met, brimful of zeal and loyalty, it is evident that the most sanguine of the divines, who had been counting on favourable terms, must have despaired of their cause. There remained, how- ever, the Conference — the promise of which could not be held to be discharged by the adverse vote of the House of Commons, and in this perhaps some of them thought at any rate to establish such a case against the liturgy and ceremonies as to necessitate changes, and make the conformity with which they were threatened some- what more tolerable. § 1 1. The royal warrant for holding the Conference was dated March 25 (1661). It was addressed to twelve bishops and twelve Presbyterian divines, with nine assistants on each side to supply the places of the principals when they should be absent. It recited the Declaration of October 25, and set forth that in that the king had expressed his esteem of the Book of Common Prayer, but inas- much as he finds some exceptions taken to it, he is willing that it 1 Collier, Ch. Hist. viii. 398. 2 Stougliton, Church and State, p. 113. 492 THE RESTOEATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXIL should be reviewed and compared with the most ancient liturgies, and, if occasion were found, reasonable and necessary alterations and amendments be made in it. The commission to continue in force for four months, and to meet at the lodgings of the Bishop of London at the Savoy in the Strand. The Conference opened on April 15. The Church party were under the generalship of a dexterous man, who had well gauged the existing state of opinion and the temper of his opponents — Sheldon, Bishop of London. The Archbishop of York, the nominal president, having requested Sheldon' to speak as to the manner of proceedings, he at once declared that the Church party were well satisfied with the liturgy, and had no desire for alterations — it was for the party who wished for alterations to state their case, and to deliver it in writing. This, no doubt, was intended as a trap for Baxter, i § 12. He eagerly grasped at the proposal, though his brethren hesitated. He declared that written documents were most needful, lest they should be misrepresented, and induced the Puritan depu- ties to undertake to set forth all their objections in one paper, while he himself agreed to take in hand the proposed Additions and alterations. Retiring to a friend's house with his Bible, his Concordance, the Directory, the Book of Common Prayer, and L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices, Baxter worked assidu- ously for a fortnight, and at the end of that time presented himself at the Savoy with his Reformed Liturgy complete, containing offices for morning and evening prayer, celebration of the sacraments, and all the occasional offices, with directions for catechising, church discipline, etc. This he offered, not absolutely to supersede the Common Prayer, but to be used as a substitute for it when the minister pleased. It is couched entirely in Scripture phrase, and, if remarkable for nothing else, at any rate illustrates the ingenuity and talent of the compiler. § 13. The other divines had not completed their paper of objections when Baxter brought in his Liturgy, and so with inde- fatigable vigour he at once addressed himself to drawing this up also. So sharp and subversive were his criticisms that his brethren would not accept them, and soon afterwards (May 4) they presented their own in the form of a Petition to the Bishops. In this they call the Liturgy " an excellent and worthy work " for the time in which it was composed, but contend that as it was first of all drawn ^ See Professor Swainson's very clear and able account of the events of this period {Parliamentary History of the Act of Uniformity). The fullest account of the Conference and the subsequent revision is also given in Mr. Parker's valuable Introduction to the Revisions of the Common Prayer. Baxter, in his Life and Times, has left us a most exhaustive account of the Conference. 1660-1662. THE REYISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 493 up to " win upon Papists " so now it should be so altered as to win upon Presbyterians. They object to the responses, to Lent as a religious fast, to the observation of saints' days, to the exclusion of extemporary prayer, to the Apocrypha, to the reading of the second service at the commiinioii table, to the use of the word " priest," to the supposing all hearers to be in a state of grace, to certain obsolete words in the prayers, to the retention of the dedication of the Scriptures in the services, and to disorders of arrangement. They object to collects and short broken prayers, and would have one long continuous form, which shall have more imrticularity in it. They desire greater fulness in the Catechism. They desire that the three ceremonies — surplice, cross in baptism, kneeling at holy communion — may be optional. They gave in a paper of jDarticular alterations wished for, and requested the bishops to con- cede these things, which they themselves had declared to be lawful to grant. They were able to inflict the hearing of this long and " ungrateful " petition on the Church divines, but they could not induce them to send an answer in the sense in which they desired. The bishops first made a dignified and spirited defence of the Liturgy. They j)ointed out that the sober and attached members of the Church of England deserved at least as much consideration as those who were scrupulous ; that by these no alteration was desired ; that the Reformers had carefully compiled the Liturgy by the Word of God and by the ordinances and forms of the ancient Church. It was not fairly chargeable with containing super- fluities ; it had been approved and esteemed by many foreign Pro- testant divines. Responses and alternate readings were more devo- tional than long unbroken prayers ; and if the minister may be fitly joined with others in psalmody, why not in prayers ? Lent may certainly be used in an edifying and devout manner. Saints' days are of primitive use, and sanctioned by our Saviour's observ- ing the Feast of Dedication. Extemporary prayer is dangerous and unedifying — the very object of a liturgy is to supersede it. As to obsolete language, where it can be shown, they are willing to have it altered. The Apocrypha is read as being useful for instruction. The word " priest " is properly retained to signify the distinction from deacon. The addressing all the congregation as in a state of grace is what St. Paul does in his Epistles. The arrangement of the Liturgy follows the ancient models and is very admirable. The collects, by their brevity, are best suited to devotion. The confes- sion is best suited for public worship by being couched in general terms. As to ceremonies, God has given a power to his Church to see that things are done decently and in order, and of the governed it is said. " Ye must needs be sul)ject." At the end of this answer 494 THE EESTOKATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXII. the bishops gave a list of the concessions they were prepared to make. These amounted to fourteen, and chiefly touched the word- ing of some of the formularies, and some matters of discipline and ceremonial. They were not such as were likely to content the objectors. Indeed, the keen and vigorous defence made of the Liturgy offered but little hope to them that they would obtain substantial changes. But they were not inclined to leave it unanswered. The answer was entrusted to Baxter, who went out of town to Dr. Spurstow's house at Hackney for retirement, and in eight days drew up his answer to the bishops' reply. This paper is exceedingly voluminous, and in Collier's judgment is an able document,-^ although it contains much that is exceedingly frivolous and captious. Ten days now only were wanting to the time fixed for the termination of the Conference. From the temper which had shown itself in the House of Commons, it was evident that no future opportunity would be conceded to the objectors. It was all- important to them to use the short remaining time as profitably as possible, in order to extract some concession from the bishops, who as yet had offered none. § 14. They at length obtained from the Church divines the consent to discuss the points in question vivd voce. But under the able gene- ralship of Sheldon and Morley this did not avail them much. The Church Commissioners stood resolutely on the defensive, and could not be tempted by soft invitations, sarcastic insinuations, or pas- sionate appeals, to say one word either on Baxter's Eeformed Liturgy, or on the other papers of exception against the Common Prayer. " They had nothing to do," they said, " till the others had proved that there was a necessity for alteration, which they had not yet done." This determination on the part of the Church Commis- sioners put their opponents, as Baxter confesses, " in a very great strait." By thus assuming the position of judges and entrenching themselves within the bulwarks of their legal status, and the ad- vantage of possession, the bishops completely put an end even to the semblance of a Conference, and turned the meeting into a trial, in which the Nonconformists were to show cause why the Liturgy should not be enforced upon them. Three disputants were chosen on each side. Eight points were handed in by the Nonconformists, which they were prepared to prove absolutely sinful.^ The argu- ments were to be in regular form — one of the bishops acting as moderator. After a certain amount of skirmishing, the whole po- lemical battle may be said to have turned upon one point, vi& ^ Collier, Ch. Hist. viii. 409-421. ^ Tills was done at the suggestion of Bishop Cosin, and was a very skil- ful move on his part. 1660-1662. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 495 "Whether a command which enjoins a thing, in itself lawful, can be sinful ? Upon this point a fierce strife raged between Baxter, who maintained the affirmative, and Gimning and Pearson, who maintained the negative. § 15. The strife was by no means concluded when the term fixed for the expiration of the Conference had arrived, and thus this great meeting and much expected remedy for all the ills of division, came absolutely to nothing. The Commissioners agreed to report to the king, " That the Church's welfare, that unity and peace, and his Majesty's satisfaction, were ends on which they were all agreed ; but as to the means they could not come to an har- mony." The Nonconformists presented a petition to the king, lamenting the abortive issue of the Conference, praying him still to labour for reconciliation and peace, and requesting that none might be punished for not using the Common Prayer till it was efi'ectually reformed. § 16. But while the divines had been disputing at the Savoy, the Commons at Westminster had waxed very impatient and angry at their proceedings. The Parliament, which met in May 1661, was full of extreme zeal for Church and King, and possessed with a most bitter feeling towards the Nonconformists. There were few of the country gentlemen, rich citizens, and nobles who met then, who had not suffered in some way or other from the mob law or the military tyranny of the Eebellion era, and the great feeling which pervaded the House of Commons was a desire to take re- venge for manifold outrages. Thus the House could hardly be induced to consent to a bill of indemnity ; it passed an Act de- claring the authors of seditious pamphlets traitors ; no petition was to be allowed for alterations in Church and State unless ap- proved by three justices of the peace ; no one who had not received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to be allowed to enter the House. The bishops were now restored to their seats in the House of Lords, and it w^as declared that the Act abolishing the High Commission Court did not take away the ordinary powers of bishops and archbishops, nor impair the king's supremacy. Li such a tem- per the House of Commons was not likely to hear with patience of the violent attacks made upon the Prayer-Book by the divines at the Savoy. They dreaded lest the bishops should concede some- thing, and they endeavoured to anticipate the possible issue of the Conference by passing an Act of Uniformity, which should have reference to the old Prayer-book now fiercely assailed, and not wait for some possibly Presbyterianised edition. On June 25 (1661), it was ordered " That a committee be appointed to view the several laws for confirming the Liturgy of the Church of England, and to 496 THE EESTOKATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXII. make search whether the original book of the Liturgy, annexed to the Act passed in the fifth and sixth years of King Edward the Sixth, be yet extant ; and to bring in a compendious bill to supply any defect in the former laws, and to provide for an effectual con- formity to the Liturgy of the Church for the time to come. June 29. — The Bill for Uniformity was read for the first time. July 3. — The Bill for Uniformity read a second time, and, together with the printed Book of Common Prayer now brought in^ to be referred to a committee. July 8. — The committee recommend certain amendpients. The House agrees to the amendments, and orders the question of the obliterating from the Prayer-Book of two prayers inserted before the reading Psalms,^ be taken into consideration the next day. July 9. — The Bill for Uniformity read a third time, the prayers before the Psalms being first obliterated. Resolved that the said Bill, with the said Book of Common Prayer annexed, do pass.^ Thus, before the Savoy Conference was finished, the Commons had already decided the matter as to alterations as far as they were concerned, by enforcing in a highly penal manner the use of the old unaltered Prayer-Book. § 17. Tlie bill was brought to the House of Lords, July 10, but that assembly, which was not animated by the same impatient spirit as the Commons, and which was aware of the intention of the king to submit the Prayer-Book to the revision of Convocation, laid the Commons bill aside, and Parliament was soon afterwards prorogued till November 30. § 18. The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury had met on May 8, Dr. Henry Feme, Dean of Ely, being prolocutor. From that date until their prorogation on July 30, the two Houses of Canterbury were occupied in j)reparing a thanksgiving service for the 29th May, in reviewing the canons of 1640 and 1604 with a view to forming a new code, and in preparing visitation articles. Nothing was said as to any review of the Prayer-Book, nor were the king's intentions in this matter made public. But on October 10 the king's letters were issued to the Archbishop of Canterbury, ordering him to cause his Convocation to make a review of the Book of Common Prayer, and to make such alterations in it or ^ The original book of Edward VI. could not be found. The book ac- tually used was one printed in 1604, containing the last emendations. It is very probable that in ordering the book of Edward to be annexed to the Act, the House of Commons intended to imply that this was the only strictly legal book. The alterations in Elizabeth's Prayer-Book were without the sanction of Convocation. Those in James's Prayer-Book were sanctioned neither by Convocation nor Parliament. ^ What these Prayers were, or how they came there, seems uncertain. ^ Journals of the Commons, quoted in Parker's Introduction, pp. 84, 85, 1660-1662. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 4.97 additions to it as they should think fit, and to present and exhibit such alterations to the king for his farther consideration.^ Charged with this weighty office the Canterbury Convocation met again, November 21. Similar letters were addressed to the Archbishop of York, November 22. The York Convocation agreed to appoint certain proxies or delegates of the Upper and Lower House, who should have full power to act for and conclude their Convocation. The Canterbury Convocation at once appointed a committee of eight bishops, who were to meet each day at the Bishop of Ely's house, and to take in hand the review. This committee met at five o'clock in the evening of November 21, and prepared sufficient work that evening to be laid before the House the next day.^ The Upper House sat from eight to ten in the morning and from two to four in the afternoon of Friday, November 22, and on Saturday, November 23, it had got through sufficient matter to deliver a por- tion to the Lower House for their concurrence. From the 2 2d November to the 20th December, on which day the members of both Houses unanimously subscribed the amended book, the work continued with great vigour. The Lords, as will presently be seen, were very impatient for the book, and certainly the Convocation cannot be accused of unnecessary delays. § 19. The materials for the review, and the sources from which the alterations were for the most part taken, are now well known, and have been recently published.^ The principal source throughout was the collections made by Bishop Cosin, who had been employed more or less for forty years * in bringing together in various books every emendation or suggestion of value which he could hear of, or which had occurred to himself, and who was able, from having acted as librarian both to Bishop Andrewes and Bishop Overall, to produce the suggestions of those two great divines as well as his own. His notes were therefore a mine of wealth, and were duly appreciated by the Convocation. Bishop Wren's emendations were also very suggestive, and were not without their fruit. Cosin's friend and chaplain was William Sancroft, afterwards so great a ^ The copy of this document is preserved iu the State Paper Office. — " Domestic Entry-Books, vol. vi. p. 7. Ecclesiastical busiuess." 2 Although the Convocation Records have been almost entirely destroyed, a record of the proceedings of the Ujjper House at this important period has been happily preserved (see Cardwell's Synodalia, ii. 631, sq.) There is also a paper among the Lambeth MSS. iu Sancroft's hand giving a summary of the proceedings of the Lower House. 3 In vol. V. of Bishop Cosin's works, Mr. Parker's Introduction, Bishop Jacobson's publication of Bishop Wren's Notes, etc. * The lirst of Cosin's Annotated Prayer-Books bears date 1619. He was then twenty-four years of age. 2 K 498 THE RESTORATION SETTLEMENT. Chap. XXXII. name in tlie Englisli Churcli. It appears that Sancroft liad taken equal interest with his patron in the subject of liturgical review, having made a fair copy of Cosin's Annotated Prayer-Book. Sancroft acted as secretary to the Convocation, and every day carefully entered into a folio Prayer-Book of the date of 1636 the alterations and additions agreed to by the House. "When all was done, the whole was carefully transcribed, and the manuscript book having been collated with the original, the members of Con- vocation subscribed it December 20} § 20. The House of Lords was, as has been said, waiting im- patiently for the revised book. On December 16 a message was brought to the Lords from the Commons to remind them of the Bill for Uniformity. January 14 (1662) the Bill was read a first time in the Lords. January 1 7 it was read a second time. January 28 the Commons sent a message requesting despatch of the Bill for Uniformity, but the Lords could not despatch the matter, be- cause they were waiting for the amended Prayer-Book. February 13 their committee reported that they were stayed "until the other book had been brought in." The Bishop of London reported that the book would be shortly brought in. The book had left Convocation on December 20, but for more than two months it was detained by the king and Council. At length, on the 25th February (1662), it was brought into the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, with the king's full ratification. So impatient had the Commons become with this delay, that the king found it necessary to address them on March 3, telling them that he was as much in love wdth the Book of Common Prayer as they could wish, and that the only reason of the delay was the time required for the preparation of the new book. On March 13, 14, 15, the House of Lords was occupied in hearing the alterations made in the Prayer-Book by Convocation read. March 17 they agreed that this book should be the one to which the Act of Uniformity should relate, and not the book sent up by the Commons. On March 18 they accepted the amended Prayer-Book, and gave thanks to Convocation for their care and labour. § 21. When the Bill with the amended Prayer-Book was re- turned to the Commons, they desired (April 10) to see the book from which the annexed book had been copied. This would enable them more easily to judge of the alterations. April 1 6, they decided that the alterations and additions should not be debated, and afterwards they also resolved that they might have ^ The many interesting points connected with these books, which are hon<^ht out fully in Mr. Parker's Introduction, cannot he detailed here for want of space. The reader is referred to Mr. Parker's interesting volume. 1660-1G62. THE REVISION OF THE PRAYER-BOOK. 499 been debated had the House seen fit. Thus the House accepted the new Prayer-Book in its entirety, and finally, when the long discussions and conferences which preceded the passing of the Act of Uniformity were completed (May 19), this amended book was the one ordained by the Act to be used in all the churches of England on St. Bartholomew's Day next, August 24. It would be out of place here to attempt to discuss the large number of changes, amounting to over 600, made in the Prayer-Book of the Church of England at this review. They may be found detailed in the special histories of the Prayer-Book. Sufiice it to say that the general effect of the alterations was very greatly to improve the book, and to give it upon the whole a more catholic tone, getting rid of some of the marks of foreign Protestant influence. But certainly the changes made were not such as to make the book more acceptable to the Puritans. And this seems to be evidenced by the motion made by Lord Northumberland when the amended book was formally presented to the House of Lords (March 15). He desired that the old Book of Common Prayer might be retained, and the old Act of Uniformity remaining still in force might apply to it. For this, however, the time had now gone by.^ ^ For some other points connected with the review, see Notes and Illus- irationa. 500 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. Chap. XXXII. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) CHANGES MADE IN THE PRAYER- BOOK AFTER LEAVING CON- VOCATION. There is one point connected with the history of the review of the Prayer-Book at this time which it is necessary to touch, and that is the question whether any and what alterations were made in the book after it had left Convocation, subscribed by all the members. That some altera- tions were made is indeed certain. The manuscript copy of the Prayer-Book, which was attached to the Act of Parlia- ment, and which bore the signatures of Convocation, as well as the original book in which the alterations were first entered, and from which the annexed copy was made, have now both been discovered. i In the annexed manuscript book there are divers erasures and alterations, and as no mention of these occurs at the place where the names are signed, it must be presumed that they were made after the signatures, that is after the book had left Convocation. The date of this was De- cember 20; the date of the introduction of the book into the House of Lords was February 25. Wliat was done with the Prayer-Book in the meanwhile? It was doubtless being examined with more or less care by the king and the members of the Privy Council, and it was at this time in all probability that the alterations were made. The rubrick as to the position of the table stood in the book as it left Convocation as follows :— " The table shall stand in the most convenient place in the upper end of the chancel (or of the body of the church where there is no chancel)." This was altered to the following — " The table shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where morning and evening prayer are appointed to be said." The next direction originally was — " And the priest standing at the north part of the table." 2 This was evidently to suit the position of [the table implied in the previous rubrick, namely, altanvise, and involved the priest standing at the north 1 They were discovered a few years ago in a building which contains the ancient muniments of the House of Lords at Westminster. The Prayer-Book used by Convocation has been photo-zincographed and published. 2 In Cosin's notes, as in the Scotch book, "side or end." end. But the previous rubrick being altered, and so altered as to allow the position of the table being tailewise, the succeeding direction was also altered — "And the priest standing at the north side of the table." In both cases the position contemplated for the minister was facing southwards. Another change was the following :— As the book left Convoca- tion the Invitation before the Prayer for the Church stood thus— "Let us pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church of Christ. "3 This was altered, according to a direction written on the side of the book, into the words in which it stood before — ' ' Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth." Evidently it was held that the words adopted by Convocation might admit the doctrine of prayer for the dead, and this was now guarded against. These and several other less important alterations were made after the book had left Convo- cation. But it is not to be assumed from this that they were made independently of Convocation. On the contrary, we have a distinct record of a committee being appointed by Convocation, with full power delegated to it by both Houses to consider and accept, if it thought fit, certain alterations made hy Parliament in the Book of Common Prayer. Now there is no record of any alterations made by Parliament other than these of which mention has been made. Evidently, then, the expression "made by Parliament" means accepted by Parliament in the book as it came from the king, Convoca- tion gave its deliberate assent to these alterations, and they were written into the Annexed Booka,n6. the Convocation copy in the handwriting of Bancroft, who had acted as the Convocation secretary throughout. 4 One alteration, that of children for persons, in a rubrick of the baptismal oifice, was made by Convoca- tion itself on its own motion after the book had left its hands and was in the House of Lords. There is one other matter connected with the review deserv- 3 An alteration adopted from Cosin's Prayer-book. 4 See the full account in Parker's Intro- duction. I think his view more reason- able than that of Professor Swainson. It is probable that these alterations were, until they had been approved by Convo- cation and entered by Bancroft, written in a schedule. Chap. XXXIL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 501 ing mention. After the book had been carefully printed under the supervision of Dr. Sancroft, with Mr. Scattergood and Mr. Dillingham as correctors of the press, a certain number of printed copies were collated with the Annexed book, and then sealed, according to the directions of the 28th clause of the Act of Uniformity. These were sent to Cathedrals, the courts of law, and the Tower, to be preserved as memorials. The great majority of these books are still preserved, with their seals appended. (B) CHANGE MADE IN THE OENA- MENTS KUBRICK AT THE RE- VIEW OF 1662. There was one change made in the Prayer-Book at 1662 which needs especial notice on account of its bearing on modern controversies. That which is usually known as the Ornaments Rubrick stood in the Prayer-Book when it came under review in these words — "And here is to be noted that the minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, 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 the Sixt, according to the Act of Parliament set forth in the beginning of this Book." The words of the Act of Parliament to which reference is thus made were — "Provided always, and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use as was in this Chiu-ch of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. Until other order shall be therein taken by authority of the Queen's Majesty, with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and author- ized under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the metropoli- tan of this realm." The change made at the review of 1662 was in effect to substi- tute the wording of the Act of Parliament for the wording of the rubrick. The rubrick, as amended in 1662, was made to run thus :— " And here is to be noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof [at aU 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 the Sixt." The reason for this change pro- bably was that the rubrick of Elizabeth was defective in authority. It was not put in by the Commissioners who reviewed Edward's second Book. It was not in the Prayer-Book (or at least not recognised) when the Praj'er-Book was sanctioned by Parliament in the Act of Uniformity. It was probably added by the Queen in Councd as a note from the Act. The rubrick therefore depended for its authority immediately on the Act of Uni- formity, and not mediately through the sanction given to the Prayer-Book. Hence it was thought desirable at the last review to substitute the exact words of the Act as those words were the words which had authority, and not the others. That this was the object of the change we may be quite certain from the notes of Bishop Cosin. Tlie wording of the rubrick as it now stands was adopted verbatim from Cosin's copy, and at the end of the rub- rick, as it stands in Cosin's Annotated Prayer-Book, there occurs this note, " These are the words of the Act itself" (see Parker's Introduction, p. 129). We see then at once the ground of the change, but there remains the further question, Why was the rubrick thus changed rein- serted in the Prayer-Book in 1662, if, as is contended, it had become inoperative by reason of the further order mentioned in the concluding sentence quoted from Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity having been taken? There seems no rational way of accounting for this. But if it be the case that the further order had not been taken, then both the change to make it strictly law and the insertion of it in its changed form become intelligible. 502 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIII. CHAPTER XXXIII THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OP CHARLES IL 1660-1685. § 1. General character of the political history of the Church at this period. § 2. Passing of the Act for Uniformity, § 3. Provisions of the Act. § 4. Discontent of the Nonconformist ministers. § 5. They resign their benefices and refuse to conform. § 6. Difference in their views as to amoimt of conformity permissible. § 7. The kiug issues a declaration promising indulgence. § 8. The House of Commons protests against it. § 9. The clergy petition for the enforcement of uniformity — The First Conventicle Act. § 10. The king's project for selling toleration. § 11. The Five-mile Act. § 12. The Second Conventicle Act. § 13. The king's Declaration of Indulgence by virtue of his ecclesiastical power. § 14. Resolute opposition to it in the House of Commons. § 15. The king withdraws it and agrees to a Test Act. § 1 6. Toleration Bill passes the Commons, but is rejected by the Lords. § 17. The Church drawn to support the king against the Parliament. § 18. Political doctrines of the Church divines. § 19. The struggle of the king aided by the Church against the Parliament. § 1. The politico-religious history of the first eighteen years of the reign of Charles II. consists in a series of severe measures directed by Parliament against the Nonconformists, and a series of attempts on the part of the king to obtain allowance for the exercise of a dispensing power. In order to find a place for this, he alternately courts the Nonconformists to induce them to seek his aid, and encourages persecution against them to drive them to it. During the latter part of the reign the position of all the chief agents is reversed. Parliament, terrified by Romanist intrigues, makes com- mon cause with the Protestant Nonconformists, and directs its vigour against the pretensions of the Crown. The Church, influ- enced by a sentiment of romantic loyalty, upholds the Crown Against Parliament and the Dissenters. Thus in the first period it is Parliament which is the ally of the Church, while the Crown heaps slights upon it. In the second the Crown and Church are found in union, while liberty is outraged and Dissent is persecuted. It is hard to tell whether the Church suff"ers more from the patron- age of a persecuting Parliament or of an encroaching and unprin- cipled king. It is hard also to estimate whether the Nonconformists have the greater cause of complaint when the Parliament and Church persecute them in spite of the king, or the king and Church 1660-1685. DURING THE EEIGN" OF CHARLES 11. 503 persecute them in spite of the Parliament. It is in many ways an imwelcome period of Church history. But the bitter feelings shown against the Nonconformists were the natural products of their own excesses, and none of the oppressions which they had now to endure equalled, either in injustice or in severity, those which in their day of power they had inflicted on the Church. § 2. An " Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayer and Admini- stration of the Sacraments " was (as has been said) hurried through the House of Commons, with the Prayer-Book of 1604 annexed to it. It was brought in on June 29, and sent to the Lords on July 10 (1661). This eager haste shows the temper of the House, but it is probably impossible now to ascertain the exact form in which the bill left the Commons. The Lords did not take it into consideration until their winter session, and not until after they had been reminded by the Commons (December 1 6) of the import- ance of hastening it on. It was read the first time in the Lords, January 14, and the second time January 17. Delay arose when the bill was in committee, and on January 2 8 the Commons again sent a message to hurry on the Upper House. But no real progress could be made with it until the amended Prayer-Book was sent to the House. This was done February 25. On March 3 the king found it necessary to assure the House of Commons that he was not lacking in zeal for the Church, and that he had authorised an amended edition of the Prayer-Book. On March 17 the bill having passed through committee, was discussed in the House of Lords. The Lords made some important alterations in the bill. They inserted a clause giving a dispensing power to the king to exempt ministers who were in possession of their benefices on May 29 (1660) and had retained them since, from the penalties of the Act, " provided they were of peaceable disposition." ^ It altered the terms of subscription in the original bill to a declaration of assent and consent to everything in the Prayer-Book, at the same time allowing the king to dispense mth this also. It changed the term fixed for subscription from Michaelmas day to St. Bartholo- mew's day, vv^hich would have the efi'ect of depriving the minister quitting possession of his half-year's tithes. On the other hand, it inserted a provision for giving the fifths of a benefice to the family of an ejected minister. The chief points on which discussion arose in the Lords were the requirement in the bill that all incumbents should have received Episcopal ordination, and the form in which they were to declare that they abjured the Solemn League and Covenant. Both these requirements were added to the bill in the ^ These provisoes, which have not till of late been printed, will be found in NoUs and Illustrations to this chapter. d 504 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIII. Lords. When the bill came back again to the Commons, on April 10, that House refused to agree to the clauses allowing the dispensing power to the king, and to the allowance of fifths. It also added to the declaration required as to the Covenant, inserting words to make the declarator affirm it to be unlawful "to endea- vour any change or alteration of government in Church and State." In both Houses, therefore, the bill acquired additional sharpness. The Commons indeed limited the obligation to make the declara- tion as to the unlawfulness of the Covenant and its obligations, to twenty years ; but, with that exception, they do not appear to have softened the bill. A conference was held between the two Houses as to the amendments of the Commons, which the Lords finally accepted, and the bill received the royal assent May 19, 1662. § 3. By it all ministers were bound, before August 24, to read publicly the morning and evening prayer from the amended Prayer-Book, and to declare their unfeigned assent and consent to everything contained in the book. They were also bound to make the declaration against the Solemn League and Covenant,^ and, if not abeady Episcopally ordained, to obtain ordination from a bishop previously to August 24. The w:orst -feature of this Act seems to be the clause which obliges men to make a declara- tion that " it is not lawful, on any 'pretence whatsoever ^ to take up arms against the king." This doctrine is subversive of all liberty, and, had it been acted upon, would of course have rendered impossible the Revolution of 1688. The Act is also fairly open to censure for obliging men who had taken the Covenant to declare that it was an unlawful oath. Every object; aimed at would have been secured by making them declare that ■ they did not consider themselves bound by it. But as to the requirements of assent and consent to the Prayer-Book, and of Episcopal ordination, nothing less than these could have sufficed for the preservation of the Church in its integrity. Tlie proviso put into the bill by the Lords to allow the king to dispense, but rejected by the Commons, would have been, if fairly used and not taken advantage of simply to uphold Romanism — a valuable corrective to some of the bitter- nesses which this Act produced. A grant to the Crown by the Parliament of a dispensing power, is altogether a different thing from the assumption of a dispensing power by the Crown as inherent in itself. But the Commons were in too ill a temper with the Nonconformists to tolerate any loophole by which it was pos- sible for them to escape. They struck out of the bill the expres- sion originally inserted in it as to " the tenderness of consciences," and they showed a determination to make the Act as drastic and severe as possible. ^ See Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 1660-1685. , DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES 11. 505 § 4. Naturally, as soon the Act was known, "the Presbyterian ministers expressed their disapprobation of it with all the passion imaginable." ^ This, then, was the issue of the Declarations from Breda and Worcester House, of the Savoy Conference, and all the hopes held out to the ministers ! They were in three months' time to submit to a yoke far heavier than any which had been imposed even in the days of Laud, or to lose their benefices. Some declared that it was impossible for them to obtain a sight of the revised Book of Common Prayer before the time appointed. The book, indeed, was not issued till the 6th of August, less than three weeks before the fatal day. But those who tried to defend tkemselves on this ground had overlooked a clause in the Act which permits more time where there is a lawful impediment, to be allowed by the Ordinary. We have evidence that some Ordinaries allowed delay on this ground.^ The king made at least two deliberate attempts to induce his Council to sanction his use of the dispensing power. But there were some men wise enough, and bold enough, to tell him that he could not dispense with an Act of Parliament ; that it would cost him his crown. Thus there was absolutely no alternative left to the ministers but conformity or ejection. § 5. A very large number of them made up their minds to accept the latter alternative. Their consciences would not allow them to conform, and to their great and lasting honour they refused to put a strain on their consciences to save their benefices. About 1800 ministers, either incumbents, lecturers, or curates, according to Baxter, about 2000, according to Calamy and Bates,^ elected thus to leave their ministry rather than conform. Fare- well sermons were generally preached by them on August 17, and on the Sunday following they were no more seen in their accus- tomed places. Many of these ministers were very popular, and deservedly so. There were among them men of great power and true devotion. But though their special congregations deeply grieved over their loss, the country generally did not regret it. It was seen that this was the unavoidable nemesis of the triumph of those principles which these men had fostered and encouraged ; and an absolutely necessary condition for the replacement of the Church in its due position in the country. The treatment, how- ever, which the ministers and their flocks afterwards received at the hands of the authorities, was so harsh and unjustifiable that the work of St, Bartholomew's day, looked back to through the 1 Clarendon's Life, p. 1079 (ed. 1843). ^ Stoughton, Church and State, p. 290. ^ Other calculations make them 1400.— See Annals of Englavd. 506 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Qhap. XXXIIL vista of these hardships and oppressions, seems to many altogether to be reprobated and condemned. § 6. There was a difference of opinion among the ejected ministers as to the amount of conformity allowable to them. Some thought it better to practise occasional conformity, while they were diligent to instruct their people privately ; others thought that they were obliged to continue their ministrations as they could, — at any risk. Of the latter class many were soon thrown into prison for holding conventicles. It is said that the Romish faction did all they could to foment these troubles, in order to make it necessary for the king to interfere with his dispensing power. § 7. On December 26 (1662), Charles, although Parliament had refused to sanction this power, and although his wisest coun- cillors had advised him not to attempt it, put out a Declaration, renewing his promises of indulgence, and promising to Noncon- formists living peaceably that he would make it his special care to incline Parliament to make some such Act " as may enable us to exercise with more universal satisfaction that power of dispensing which we conceive to he inherent in us." The Eomanists were not to be excluded from the benefit of this Act, but they were not to expect open toleration. § 8. This Declaration caused a great ferment in Parliament, on its meeting at the beginning of 1663. The House of Commons protested against it on the ground of its establishing schism by a law, and making the censures of the Church of none effect, contra- dicting the Act of Uniformity, tending to increase sects, and to bring in Popery. •■■ The king was forced to yield for the present, but he by no means abandoned this his favourite project, and in the meantime he bitterly resented the opposition of the Commons, and of the bishops whom he believed to be the cause of it. § 9. The clergy throughout the land taking fright at the favour apparently designed for the Nonconformists, petitioned the House of Commons against " the strange prodigious race of men who laboured to throw off the yoke of government both civil and ecclesiastical. They pray for severe laws against the Anabap- tists ; for an increase of the fine for non-attendance at church ; for a more expeditious and cheaper method of collecting tithes ; for a more equal taxation ; 2 for the improvement of small livings ; 1 Parliamentary History, iv, 262 ; Parker's Commentaries, p. 55. ^ Just about this time (1664) the clergy, under the guidance of Sheldon, now Archbishop, agreed to abandon their ancient right of taxing themselves in Convocation, and to submit to the ordinary taxation with the laity. In an Act of Parliament, passed November 1664, for Supply, the possessions 1660-1685. DUEING THE REIGN OF CHARLES 11. 507 for an easier way of collecting cliurch. rates." ^ Thus stimulated by the clergy, the Commons, who of themselves, without any such stimulant, were eager enough for this work, passed (1664) what is known as the First Conventicle Act. This enacted that every person above sixteen years of age who should be present at any meeting under colour or pretence of any exercise of religion in other manner than is allowed by the liturgy or practice of the Church of England, where there are five persons more than the household, should be liable to fine and imprisonment on the con- viction of a Justice of the Peace. A^third offence involved trans- portation to the American plantations, the return from which without leave subjected to the penalty of death. This was, un- questionably, a fierce and vindictive measure. It allowed j)rivate houses to be broken into to detect conventicles, and the owner of the house was made guilty, even though not present. The putting the whole power in the hands of one Justice of the Peace was also a great grievance, many of the magistrates being illiterate and disreputable men, and violent partisans. Under this Act the Baptists and Quakers were the chief sufferers. The soberer sects enjoyed a comparative immunity .2 § 10. An ingenious device now occurred to the king. Parlia- ment had hitherto shown its opposition to toleration and the dis- pensing power. But Parliament might be induced to admit this if revenue were to be raised thereby. It was proposed, therefore, in the House of Lords to sell toleration to the Nonconformists. Clarendon and the bishops vigorously opposed such a degrading proposition, and it was defeated. But the king, who had set his heart on this project, withdrew his favour from Clarendon, and " from that time never treated any of the bishops with that respect which he had done formerly," but slighted them in public, and in private derided their preaching, and encouraged his licentious courtiers to scoff and sneer at them.^ § 11. Parliament, however, continued resolutely in its coercive policy. While the plague was raging in London it held its session at Oxford, and there it passed the Act against Dissenting ministers, known as the Five Mile Act, or the Oxford Act. All Noncon- formist ministers are required to take an oath " that it is not lawful, on any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms against the of the clergy were included ; at tlie same time two of the subsidies lately voted by Convocation were remitted, and a clause to save the ancient rights and privileges of the clergy was inserted. They then obtained the right to vote for Members of Parliament, which they had not before. — Kennett, Comp. Hifit. iii. 255. 1 Tanner MSS.; Bodleian, 282, 48. - Baxter's Life and Times, p. 436. =* Clarendon's Life, p. 1131 ^ed. 1843). 508 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIIL king, and tliat they abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those who are commissioned by him, and that they will not at any time en- deavour any alteration of government either in Church or State." Those who refuse this oath are not allowed to come or be (except passing by the road) within five miles of any city, town, or borough, or of any parish in which they have been ministers ; and if without taking the oath they do this, or if they preach in any conventicle, for every offence they are to be fined £4:0, and to be committed to prison for six months without bail. Some of the clergy, especially Earle, Bishop of Salisbury, are noted as having opposed this Act,i but Archbishop Sheldon and Bishop Ward eagerly promoted it, thinking it would be the death- blow of Nonconformity, the principal strength of which lay in the market towns. Under this Act Eichard Baxter found his way into prison, but was liberated on an informality of the warrant. But though the law was a bad one, it may be said on the other side that to those ministers who could bring themselves to take the required oath (and it seems that many could) it might give a recognised position, and perhaps shield them from persecution. § 12. The services confessedly rendered by the Nonconformist ministers in the Great Plague of London (1665) for a time sus- pended the operation of these penal Acts.^ It was the policy of the Court now to support the ministers, and the king in opening Parliament (1667) desired that some measures of relief for them might be passed. The Commons replied by petitioning for the more strict execution of the penal laws. In 1670 Parliament passed the Second Conventicle Act, which mitigated the penalties of the first Act in some respects, but was much more severe and searching in other of its provisions. Informers were to receive part of the fines ; prosecutors were to be saved harmless in any outrage they might commit ; a record of fact by a Justice was to be taken as a legal conviction. Yet Archbishop Sheldon was so much pleased with this law that he recommends h'is clergy to see to its diligent execution, as something which would be " to the glory of God, the welfare of the Church, the praise of his Majesty and Government, and the happiness of the whole kingdom." ^ § 13. The king was known to have supported and encouraged the passing of this Act, which he thought at length would lay a sufiicient foundation for the long-coveted exercise of his dispensing power. On March 15, 1672, he published his Declaration oj Indulgence. Recognising the ascendancy of the Church, and re- ^ Conformists* First Plea for Nonconformists, p. 39. '^ Baxter's Life and Times, iii. 22. ^ Neal's Puritans, iv. 353. 1660-1685. DUEING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 509 quiring exact conformity in all its ministers, it suspended all the penalties against all Dissenters alike, allowing the public meetings of Protestant Dissenters and the worship of Eomaidsts , in private houses. The dissenting ministers were encouraged, and even, as it is said, bribed, to express their thanks for this Declaration.! § 14. But the House of Commons received it sternly. By a majority of 52 they voted that " the king's prerogative in matters ecclesiastical does not extend to the repealing Acts of Parliament," and addressed him to recall his Declaration. The king answered the address by a remonstrance against their denial of his ecclesi- astical power. The House of Commons replied with spirit — " Your Majesty having claimed a power to suspend penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and which your Majesty does still seem to assert in the said answer ' to be entrusted in the Crown and never questioned in the reigns of any of [your ancestors/ in this we humbly conceive your Majesty hath been very much misinformed, since no such power was ever claimed or exercised by any of your Majesty's predecessors ; and, if it should be admitted, might tend to the interrupting the free course of the laws, and altering the legislative powers, which have always been acknowledged to reside in your Majesty and in your two Houses of Parliament." ^ § 15. The king, finding the opposition of the Commons was not to be overcome, abandoned and withdrew his Declaration, and agreed to a Test Act against the Eomanists, which obliged all offi- cers, civil and military, to receive the Holy Communion according to the rites of the Anglican Church, and to make an express declaration against transubstantiation. § 16. The Commons, however, now perceiving that the griev- ances of the Protestant Nonconformists were a source of strength to the Romish party, wisely agreed to a bill granting them full toleration in their worship, with only some slight checks which could give no reasonable ground for dissatisfaction. Had this bill passed the Lords the whole history of England might have been changed, but in the Lords it was strongly opposed by the bishops, and was rejected. § 17. That which recommended the Nonconformists to the Commons — viz. their anti-Pv,omish zeal — embittered the king against them, and persecution w^as now again more rife than ever. Baxter was again in prison, but again liberated on an informality. Under Lord Danby's administration the policy adopted w^as to court the Church and to oppress the Dissenters, the intention being to blind the nation to the dangerous Romanist intrigues w^hich were being carried on by the Court. The famous Romish Plot, ! Burnet's Own Time, p. 206. ^ Parliamentary Hist. iv. 551. 510 POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIIL and the madness which seized the nation, led to the proposal to exclude the Duke of York, who was an openly-professed Eomanist; from the succession. This, as it touched the doctrine of hereditary right — a favourite doctrine with the Church at that age — was the means of drawing closer the union between the Church and the Crown, while the Parliament and the Dissenters made common cause together. The positions of the chief political factors were thus reversed from those which they had occupied at the beginning of the reign. § 18. By their writings and sermons, by decrees passed by the Universities, and by all the influence which they could bring to bear, the Church divines strove to uphold the doctrine of an inde- feasible divine right belonging to the hereditary succession, while to the subject they preached the doctrine ot passive obedience — that he was bound to suffer all things in silence, and not to attempt resistance. § 19. The Parliament, on the other hand, began to imitate the proceedings of that of 1640. A clergyman named Thompson, who had preached against Hampden's refusal to pay ship-money, was summoned before the House of Commons, which voted his impeach- ment.^ In 1679 the king hastily dissolved the Parliament, and determined to govern without one ; and then arose a fierce strife in the country between what were called petitioners and ahhorrers, the former being those who desired the meeting of Parliament, the ahhorrers those who expressed their detestation of the principles of the others. Among this latter class was to be found the great majority of the clergy of the Church of England. The Short Par- liaments which satin 1680 and 1681 only increased and embittered the quarrel. They were still resolute for the Exclusion Bill, and the king was as firm to resist it. In 1681, after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, was published a Declaration, ordered to be read in churches by the clergy, in which the king censures the three last Parliaments for endeavouring to interfere with the suc- cession, but at the same time declares himseK a staunch friend of the Protestant religion. It is remarkable that Archbishop Bancroft should have counselled the publication of this Declaration in churches. The Nonconformists were now ruthlessly persecuted both by Crown and Church, being regarded as traitors both civil and ecclesiastical ; and the noble blood shed on the scaffold for what was called the Eye House Plot has covered with opprobrium the policy then triumphant. The Church was a valuable auxiliary to the Court. Another Declaration read in churches condemned the principles of resistance, and the country appears to have acquiesced in the doctrines thus inculcated. 1 Hallam, Const. Hist. ii. 136. 1660-1685. DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 511 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE PROVISOES SENT BY THE KING TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS FOR INSERTION IN THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. " Provided always that notwithstanding anything in this Act, in regard of the gra- cious offers and promises made by his Majesty before his happy restoration, of liberty to tender consciences, the inten- tion whereof must be best known to his Majesty, as likewise the several services of those who contributed thereunto, for all whom his gracious Majesty hath in his princely heart as gracious a desire of in- dulgence as may consist with the good and peace of the kingdom, and would not have a greater severity exercised towards them than what is necessary for the pub- lic benefit and welfare thereof ; it be enacted and be it therefore enacted that it shall and may be lawful for the king's Majesty, by any writing and in such man- ner as to his wisdom shall seem fit, so far to dispense with any such minister as upon the nine-and-twentieth day of May 1660 was and at present is seized of any benefice or ecclesiastical promotion, and of whose merit toAvards his Majesty, and of whose peaceable and pious disposition his Majesty shall be sufficiently informed and satisfied, that no suchlmiuister shall be deprived or lose his benefice or other ecclesiastical promotion for not wearing the surplice, or for not signing with the sign of the cross in baptism, so as he permit and bear the charge of some other licensed minister to perform that office towards such children whose parents shall desire the same, and so as such ministers shall not defame the liturgy, rites, or ceremo- nies established in the Church of England, or any person for using them by preaching, writing, speaking, or otherwise, upon pain of forfeiting the benefit of the dispensa- tion. And be it further enacted that such dispensation granted by his Majesty shall be a sufficient exemption from such depri- vations in the cases aforesaid ; always understood that this indulgence be not thought or interpreted to be an argument of his Majesty's indifl"erence in the use of Those ceremonies when enjoined, though indifferent in their own nature, but of liis compassion towards the weakness of the Dissenters, which he hopes will, in time, prevail with them for a full submission to the Church, and to the example of the rest of their brethren. Provided always, and be it enacted* by the authority afore- said, that it shall and may be lawful for his Majesty, under his sign manual, to appoint and order that any parson, vicar, or other ecclesiastical person or persons whatsoever, who shall by virtue of this Act be disenabled to continue in his or their parsonage, or vicarage, or other ecclesiastical promotion whereof they or any of them are now in possession, and of whose peaceable disposition he shall be informed from the archbishops and bishops of the respective dioceses, or otherwise, as his Majesty shall think fit, shall from and after the time of his or their removal from the same, receive and enjoy such part and portion of the profits thereof, not exceeding a fifth part, as his Majesty shall think fit for and during the natural life of such persons so disenabled, unless his Majesty give order to the con- trary, and that the said persons and every of them shall receive and enjoy the same accordingly, any statute, custom, or usage to the contrary hereof in any wise not- withstanding." (B) THE DECLARATION AGAINST THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND CO- VENANT PRESCRIBED IN THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. "I, A B, do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the King ; and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those who are commissionated by him, and that I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by law established. And I do declare that I do hold there lies no obli- gation upon me, or on any other person, from the oath commonly called ' The So- lemn League and Covenant,' to endeavour any change or alteration of government either in Church or State, and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath, and imposed upon the subjects of this realm against the known laws and liberties of this kingdom." 512 INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIV, CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES IL 1660-1685. § 1. Little excitement at the ejection of tlie Ministers. § 2. Notes as to the Conformists and Nonconformists. § 3. Rise of the Latitudinariau School. § 4. The attempt at comprehension by Wilkins and Baxter. § 5. Writ- ings on the question of Separation. § 6. Writings on the question of Civil Obedience. § 7. Mr. Boyle's labours in propagating the Gospel. § 8. Physical Science and the Clergy. § 9. Church Restoration — the building of St. Paul's. § 10. Great Divines of the Church of England — Hammond, Sanderson, Jeremy Taylor, Isaac Barrow, South, Gun- ning, Pearson, Bull, Cumberland, Cudworth. § 11. Nonconformist Divines — Owen, Baxter. §12. Drawbacks to the" Church in state of the country Clergy. §13. Sancroft as Primate. §14. Gradually dimin- ishing popularity of Nonconformity. § 1. It is certainly very marvellous that the ejection of so many ministers from leading positions on St. Bartholomew's day 1662, and the almost revolution in the Church which the enforcement of the Act of Uniformity involved, could have been accomplished with so little disturbance and opposition. This would seem, indeed, well nigh inexplicable had it been the fact, as some writers are fond of stating, that the Nonconformist ministers had everywhere large and attached congregations which bitterly lamented the loss of their beloved pastors. Had this been the case in anything like the number of 2000 churches, certainly some more traces of popular movement and excitement might have been expected. But of this there is little evidence. The country generally acquiesced content- edly in the change. Nevertheless it would not be fair to infer that there were no regrets, no discontent and repining. There were many, no doubt, ardently attached to the principles of the non- conforming divines, and these afterwards formed the congregations which worshipped in secret and in peril, until the happy days of toleration arrived. Some interesting facts, brought together by a modern writer, may serve to illustrate the state of things which succeeded what was known among the Nonconformists as the Blach Bartholomew ?■ § 2. We learn in the first place that there was no cessation of service generally on account of the change of pastors. Bishop ^ See Dr. Stoughtou's Church and State, chap. sit. 1660-1685. DUEING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 51S Sheldon had taken vigorous measures in London. " None (of the Nonconformists) preached on the 24th" (says a contemporary- diarist) " but Mr. Blackmore, Mr. Crofton, and Dr. Manton, between the Tower and Westminster, the bishops having provided readers or preachers for every place." A newspaper of the day, Mercurius Publicus, has its columns filled with tidings of the " care and pru- dence of the most worthy Diocesan of London " in filling up the numerous vacancies. At Northampton all except two or three conformed. At Gloucester there was scarce a man who did not subscribe. The city and county of Norwich generally conformed. At Chester there were four Nonconformists ; in the county of Northumberland only two or three, who were Scotchmen ; in the Isle of Wight of twenty-six parishes only two Nonconformists. From Taunton we have the account of a great gathering of the townsfolk and the neighbouring gentry in the grand church of St. Mary, when (Mr. Newton, the minister, having departed) Mr. James read the Church service on August 2 5 in his surplice, and baptized some children according to the Book of Common Prayer. " The whole town was present, behaving themselves as if their minister, Mr. Newton, had carried away with him all faction and noncon- formity. The mayor and aldermen were all in their formalities, and not a man in all the church had his hat on, either at service or sermon, which gave the gentry of that county great satisfaction." i The bishops were everywhere met by huge processions of the gentry of the county, and escorted to their cathedral towns amidst shouts of rejoicing, the discharge of guns, and general acclamations. In the general joy at the Eestoration, many ministers brought themselves to sacrifice somewhat of their opinions rather than mar the auspi- cious peace. We read of twenty ministers, all of whom had been strong Presbyterians, making up their minds to go in a body and subscribe ;2 of many after lingering awhile overcoming their scruples. Lightfoot, Wallis, and Horton, who had been Presbyterian commis- sioners at the Savoy, became Conformists. So did Conant and Gurnall, both known as scholars. The complaint, in fact, from the orthodox side soon was, that so many, whose principles were not really in accordance with the Church, had conformed. The bishops, in many instances, are noted as having endeavoured to keep men in the Church whose principles were really those of nonconformity. This is told of Juxon, of Earle, of Morley, of Sanderson, of Laney, of Wilkins, of Cosin, of Eeynolds. Sheldon indeed, who soon succeeded Juxon in the primacy, was of a difi'erent view. He desired, above all things, to keep men of a Puritanical temper out ^ I^etter in Mercurius Publicus, Kennett, p. 749. 2 Browne's Tour in Derbyshire, quoted by Stoughton, p. 350. 2l 5U INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIY. of the Churcli ; and Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, is said by Burnet to have been altogether of the same mind. Generally speaking, however, the bishops of the Restoration period were to- lerant, and some of them must have winked at things which were distinctly opposed to the law. Thus Heyrick, who refused to con- form, was allowed to continue warden of Manchester. Tilsey, an- other Nonconformist, continued to preach in his church in the diocese of Chester. The same is noted of Mr. Ashurst of Arlesley, Mr. Chandler of Petto, Mr. Swift of Peniston, Mr. Angier of Den- ton, Mr. Jones of Chadkirk, Mr. Billingsley of Blakeney. Kennett makes out a list of about twenty cases in which ministers ejected from benefices became chaplains in hospitals or prisons. Many also became curates to other ministers, and cases are recorded where in the same church a nonconforming and an orthodox congregation worshipped alternately.-^ It seems, therefore, hardly true to assert (as is done by Calamy) that "the ministers were not only excluded preferments, but cut off from all hope of a livelihood, as far as the industry and craft of their adversaries could reach. Not so much as a poor vicarage, not a blind chapel or a school was left them ; nay, though they offered (as some of them did) to preach for no- thing, it must not be allowed them." 2 § 3. The contention between Conformists and Nonconformists, and all the bitter trials which had been endured for the sake of opinions, gave birth to what was known as the Latitudinarian School. A class of divines arose who were neither Puritans nor High Churchmen, but who regarded the whole of the matters in dispute from an entirely different point of view. They dated the origin of their opinions back to John Hales and ChilUngworth, before the troubles, and soon after the Restoration they acquired considerable prestige and force. Henry More, Whichcot, and Worthington,at Cambridge ; Stillingfleet,Wilkins, Tillotson, Patrick, and Lloyd, in London — all of them men of learning and distinc- tion— belonged to this new school. " They were Platonists and Cartesians," says Baxter, "and many of them Arminians, with some additions, having more charitable thoughts than others of the salvation of heathens and infidels." They were opposed to the imposition of tests, and an attempt to exact rigid conformity. Hence, says Burnet, " men of narrower thoughts and fiercer tempers fastened upon them the name of Latitudinarians. " ^ The school thus commenced was destined long to reign triumphant in the English Church, and to it the deadness, carelessness, and indiffer* 1 Stoughton, p. 369. ^ Calamy's Baxter 1. 189 ^ Baxter's Life aoid Times, p. 386 ; Burnet's Own Time, pp. 127, 128, 1660-1685. DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 515 ence, prevalent in the eighteenth century, are in great measure to be attributed. § 4. One immediate effect of the rise of the Latitudinarian School was a serious attempt at comprehension of the Dissenters. The chief actors in this were Dr. "Wilkins ^ and Mr. Burton on one side, and Baxter and Manton on the other. These divines seem to have been agreed to comprehend all except Papists and Socinians. Baxter's proposals on behalf of the Nonconformists were essentially the same as those urged at the Savoy Conference. In the view of Wilkins all these demands might be readily admitted if they could be got to pass through Parliament. Finally he drew up a paper con- taining, at the same time, a scheme for comprehension and tolera- tion. Some of the Dissenters were to be included in the Church ; to others a toleration was to be extended.^ It was one of those well- meant but shallow and feeble designs, which were a real danger to the Church, and could not possibly have been productive of good. Concessions made to an opponent are apt afterwards to be resented and grudged by those who have made them, or, if not, a system which a man is ready to treat thus, he cannot regard with zeal and devotion. Comprehension is either fatal to earnestness, or else generates a wound which rankles in secret, and will sooner or later break out with increased venom. The concessions suggested by Wilkins, and accepted by Baxter, were thrown into a bill by Sir ■ Matthew Hale, with the intention of having them brought before Parliament. Bishop Ward obtained intelligence of what was pro- posed, and took effectual measures to stop it. The House of Com- mons came to the strange but very wise decision, that no bill having comprehension for its object should be received^ (1668). § 5. The Latitudinarians were not all so advanced in their views as Dr. Wilkins. Simon Patrick, who ranked as one of them, pub- lished about this time (1668) his Friendly Debate between a Con- formist and a Nonconformist, in which he is very severe upon the Nonconformists and their teaching. The following year came out Samuel Parker's Discourse on Ecclesiastical Policy, " who wrote," says Baxter, " the most scornfully and rashly, the most profanely and cruelly, against the Nonconformists of any man who ever assaulted them." This treatise is pure Erastianism or religious Hobbism. It claims for the prince an absolute and uncontrollable power over his subjects' consciences in matters of religion. Parker ^ He was brother-in-law of Cromwell. Had been warden of Wadham at Oxford, and master of Trinity at Cambridge. He conformed readily at the Restoration, and soon reached a bishopric (Chester). He is best known as one of the founders of the Royal Society. ^ For the details of this scheme, see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. ^ Birch's Life of Tillotsony p. 42 ; Farl. Hist. iv. 415 516 INTEKNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXl^V cannot, of course, be classed among the Latitudinarians, but some years after the appearance of bis treatise there came forth, from one who had been counted the greatest friend to the Dissenters, a trea- tise the most able and convincing of any that had been directed against them. This was the work of Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, who, in his Irenicum, published in 1662, had proposed con- siderable concessions. Now (1682) he published his work on Separation, in answer to Baxter, Owen, and others, who had attacked a sermon preached by the Dean reflecting severely on the Nonconformists. His Unreasonableness of Separation is a very able work, but at the end of it the Dean expresses himself as still in favour of some concessions, as allowing to lay objectors the disuse of the cross at baptism, and kneeling at holy communion. He is also disposed to favour another review of the Liturgy, and the substitution of a promise to use the Prayer-Book in place of the declaration of assent and consent. Much more wholesale in his concessions was Croft, Bishop of Hereford, in his work called Naked Truth; as also was the able writer of the Conformist's Plea for the Nonconformists, and Daniel Whitby in his Protestant Reconciler. § 6. There were the High and Low Church schools as regards the terms of conformity, and there were still more marked distinc- tions between these two parties on the doctrines of civil obedience. IVIr. Johnson, chaplain to Lord William Eussell, published a book called Julian the Apostate, in which, having laid it down that Julian succeeded to the throne by hereditary right, he then points out that nevertheless the Christians resisted him because he acted illegally towards them. Julian was answered by Jovian, from the pen of Dr. George Hickes, who maintains the exact opposite to these two propositions. It would appear to be the doctrine of this school that, provided a king had hereditary right, he had a commission from heaven to do as much wrong as he pleased. But to teach that an hereditary ruler might fairly call upon his subjects to do wrong for him was somewhat too monstrous. The doctrine in vogue with the High Church divines did not amount to this, but taught that his subjects were bound to sufi'er wrong rather than resist him. This distinction was brought out by Dr. William Sherlock in his Case of Resistance, and under the name of Passive Obedience was the generally received doctrine among Churchmen ; though some went much farther, with Sir Kobert Filmer, Parker, and Hobbes, and held that a subject was " bound to obey the king's command against law, nay, in some cases against divine law." ^ § 7. The Eestoration period was one of much activity, both intellectual and religious. It was also a period of much cpen vice 1 See Hallam, Const. Hist. ii. 155. 1660-1685. DUEING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 517 and profanity, but the counteracting influences were strong and vigorous. It was at this period that the Church began to recognise her duty towards heathen and alien races. A beginning had been made under the Commonwealth, when the famous John Eliot had gone out to preach the Gospel to the American natives. His suc- cess had been remarkable, and, under Cromwell's government, con- siderable sums had been subscribed for the work, with which estates were purchased of the annual value of .£700 or X800. At the Kestoration a scandalous attempt was made by those who had sold their lands to repossess themselves of them, on the ground of the illegality of the title of those who had acquired them. This was defeated mainly by the zeal of Robert Boyle, a son of Lord Cork, who had become distinguished for his earnestness in promot- ing physical science and religious knowledge. By his agency the first Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was constituted, over which Mr. Boyle presided for a period of twenty-eight years. This society supported John Eliot in his philanthropic work,^ and sup- plied other agents to assist him. Mr. Boyle was also one of the directors of the East India Company, then recently incorporated, and he felt it his duty to endeavour to propagate the Gospel in the East as well as the West. He pressed this work on his brother directors, who, however, were but little inclined to second his views. He also procured the translation of a great part of the New Testament into the Malayan language, and distributed many copies among the Malays. Another translation into the Turkish tongue was made by his means, and attempts were made to spread Chris- tianity throughout the Levant. Among his fellow-countrymen in Ireland Mr. Boyle laboured with the same ardent zeal to propagate the knowledge of Scripture truth. § 8. Second only to his zeal in spreading religious truth was Mr. Boyle's earnestness to advance physical science. The first association for this purpose owed its origin, as that for the propa- gation of Christianity had done, to the times of the Commonwealth. A few friends, devoted to physical investigations, began to meet together, first in London, and then in Oxford, to assist one another. Dr. Wilkins, then warden of Wadham, was their host in Oxford, and, when he was moved to Cambridge, the society met at ]\Ir. Boyle's house. They were known as the Invisible College, and among them John Evelyn, distinguished also like Boyle for his religious earnestness, was a leading member. At the Restoration the society was incorporated as the Royal Society, and became the parent of scientific physical investigation not only in England, but in Europe also. The king, who was fond of chemistry, patronised ^ See letters of Eliot to Boyle, appendix to Birch's Life of Tillotsoiu 518 INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIV. this society, but tlie clergy generally regarded it with, great sus- picion. Such divines as Eobert South and Peter Gunning openly inveighed against it. Dr. Stubbe wrote against it as subversive of all religion and morality, and it appears to have been a favourite topic of invective for the High Church divines. Thus early did the Church, much to its own loss and danger, assume an attitude of suspicion and opposition to physical science. § 9. In matters more strictly ecclesiastical there was also much activity during this period. The restoration of the cathe- drals, which had been greatly dilapidated and injured during the Civil War, went on apace. Among the bishops specially distin- guished for their zeal in this work are mentioned Hacket at Lich- field, Ward at Exeter, Cosin at Durham, Sanderson at Lincoln. But the most remarkable work of the age in building was the erection of the vast pile of St. Paul's Cathedral. The work of the restoration of the old Gothic church had been projected and com- menced before the Great Fire of 1666, and it is somewhat curious to observe that, at the instance of John Evelyn, the committee charged with the restoration had decided to erect a ciqjola in place of the spire, which since the disastrous fire in Queen Elizabeth's days had never been replaced. For nearly one hundred years St. Paul's had remained more or less in ruin, and though the zeal of Archbishop Laud had succeeded in restoring a great portion of it, it was still unfinished when the rebellion broke out. The ruin had been greatly increased during the times of trouble, and a vast work of restoration seemed to be before the committee, when the occurrence of the Great Fire reduced the whole to chaos, and it was evident that a new building from the very foundations would be required. The special form which it was decided to give to this was due, no doubt, greatly to the influence of Evelyn, who had travelled much in Italy ; while the science, skill, and taste of Christopher Wren, then a professor at Oxford, were made use of to give effect to his views. William Sancroft was then Dean of St. Paul's, and gave himself with great earnestness and liberality to the advancement of the work,i while the Goverimient of Lord Danby, whose policy was to court the Church, imposed a tax upon the coals brought into the port of London, for carrying on this great national undertaking. The first stone of the new church was laid in 1675, and the whole work was completed in about twenty-five years. § 10. While the cathedrals and parish churches were every- where regaining the beauty and decency which they had exhibited in the time of Laud, there were not wanting in the English Church ^ See D'Oyly'a Life of JSancro/t, i. 141, sq. 1660-1685. DURIITG THE REIGN OF CHARLES 11. 519 of the Restoration great divines and writers to re-establisli the reputation for learning enjoyed by her in the times of Andre wes, Morton, and Hall. Indeed, no period in the history of that Church was so fruitful in great divines as that of the Restoration. The death of Henry Hammond, the great pillar of the Church of England during the troubles, haa been mentioned as occurring just before the Restoration. But though he died thus prema- turely, his works survived. His Practical Catechism is said to have done more than any other work in stemming the tide of vice and profanity which broke loose at this time. It was the work of one whom every cavalier venerated as the most deter- mined upholder of the royal cause. It had been given by the martyred king as a dying gift to his son the Duke of Gloucester. His Parcenesis, penned, as he tells us, " first in tears, and then in ink," showed how a good man could advocate Christian love even in the midst of the sorest provocations, and draw holy lessons from all the trials of the Church. His various controversial works were a mine of wealth to those who had to contend against the disap- pointed Nonconformists, and in his work on the New Testament he founded a new school of exposition. By their conventional in- terpretations the foreign reformers had done more to obscure Scripture than to explain it. Hammond discarded conventional glosses, and endeavoured to ascertain the meaning of passages by investigating contemporary customs and facts, and by applying the rules of criticism to the diction, and he thus succeeded in a great measure in rescuing the exposition of Scripture out of the hands of Calvin and Beza. Hammond's friend, Eobert Sanderson, pos- sessed excellences as a divine of altogether a different character. He was admirable as a writer of English, in which Hammond was deficient, but less learned, less liberal in his views, and less eman- cipated from Protestant conventionalities. Hammond had suc- ceeded in inducing Sanderson to abandon his original Calvinistic opinions, and in his sermons, some of which were published with a bold preface in the midst of the troubles, we have probably some of the very best in the English language. As a writer on casuistry, Sanderson also occupies the foremost place among English divines. King Charles I. is said himself to have translated his treatise De Juramenti Ohligatione.^ In Jeremy Taylor we have a combination of the excellences of Hammond and Sanderson, together with a special power and vigour which are all his own. He is more diffusely learned, more strikingly eloquent, more full of the earnestness of devotion, than any other writer in the Eng- 1 Sanderson's casuistical treatises have lately been admirably edited in English by the Bishop of Lincoln. 520 INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIV lish language — perhaps, also, it is not too much to say than any writer in any language. He is perhaps best compared with the great Latin fathers Jerome and Augustine. It has been well said of him that " his conceptions and expressions belong to the loftiest and most sacred description of poetry, of which they only want what they cannot be said to need, the name and metrical arrange- ment." ^ Taylor's treatise, called The Liberty of Prophesying, pub- lished during the rebellion period, was the first formal and direct assertion of the duty of toleration made by a member of the Church' of England. The same liberal sentiments which ani- mated his first great work, the Liberty of Prophesying, appeared also in Taylor's last great work, the Dissuasive from Popery. This is probably the most able work written by a member of the Church of England against the Church of Rome. And as Taylor excelled all other English divines in this field, so he is certainly before them all in the richness of his devotional thoughts, as brought out in the Great Exemplar and other writings, and in his metaphysical analysis, in tbie Ductor Dubitantium. As a casuist, however, he is not so safe as Sanderson, and the orthodoxy of his treatise on Repentance is no doubt questionable. Great learning was united in Taylor, with a rich, eloquent, and difi'use style. In Isaac Barrow it is found in conjunction with a severe, exact, and unattractive style. Barrow has, perhaps, fewer blemishes than Taylor, but he has certainly fewer excellences. " He was not so extensively learned as Taylor," says Mr. Hallam, "but inferior even in that respect to hardly any one else." ^ These two writers may be placed, together with Richard Hooker, in the highest rank of English divines. Around them many more may be grouped. At Oxford Robert South was distinguished not only for learning, but for a vein of caustic wit and humour, which appears only thinly veiled, to suit the decencies of the occasion, in his famous sermons. Bishop Gunning was noted by Baxter among the bishops at the Savoy for his vast learning, and for the readiness with which he could meet every difiiculty. His book on the Lent Fast bears out his reputation. Bishop Pearson, still more honourably mentioned by his opponent Baxter, as not only learned, but candid and tole- rant, has given us a proof of his powers in his treatise on the Creed. George Bull, afterwards Bishop of St. David's, published in 1685 his great work called Defensio Fidei Nicmnce, a learned treatise in Latin, which establishes the antiquity of the Nicene faith as against the Arians.^ In 1672 Richard Cumberland pub- ^ Heber's Life of Taylor, p. 249. ^ Literature of Europe, iii. 269. ^ For a subsequent work on the same subject, called Judicium Ecclesioe Catholicce, Bull received the thanks of the bishops of France in Synod assembled. 1660-1685. DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 521 listed au able work on tlie Laws of Nature, and in 1678 Dr. Ralph Cudworth put forth his famous Intellectual System. These works, together with the well-known writings of John Locke, raise this period to a high rank in philosophy as well as in divinity — Thomas Hobbes, the atheistical philosopher, the advo- cate of absolutism and of mischievous theories in almost every department of thought, being the special object of their refutations. The Caroline divines, as they are often called, completed the work begun by Laud and Montagu, and completely put to flight Cal- vinism from the higher theology of the Church of England. But among Nonconformists this system had still powerful defenders. § 11. Among the Independents the most famous was John Owen, who had taken a leading part in religious history under Cromwell, had been Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and the man in highest repute for learning of all the Independent doctors. His great work is a Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, which furnished a complete armoury of weapons against the Socinians, but its intolerable prolixity greatly impairs its value. Prolixity and verbosity were the great faults of the nonconforming divines of that age, and especially of Richard Baxter. He is said to have composed about one hundred and forty treatises, many of them of great length. He is probably now best remembered by a few of his devotional works. What may be called sensational or experi- mental divinity was carried to the highest point by Baxter. His Saints' Everlasting Rest, written when he was a very young man, is perhaps the best known, as it is also one of the most striking and able of his treatises. § 12. But though the Church of this period was aided by the fame and labours of the great divines above mentioned, there were, on the other hand, in the great body of the clergy, many causes prejudicial to her advance. A sudden and large demand had been made for men in holy orders at a time when the Universities were scantily furnished, and few suitable candidates were to be had. Many thus obtained orders who were unsuited for their holy call- ing. Sermons began to be in vogue full of stilted phrases and ridiculous tropes and metaphors.^ The Puritanical style had been to overload the sermon with Scripture ; the modern fashion was to ignore Scripture and reason from the nature of things. In spite of the grand examples of real pulpit eloquence given in the sermons of Taylor and Barrow, the essay style of sermon began to obtain popularity. This was well enough in the hands of TiUotson and such masters of the art, but it became ludicrous when attempted by the country clergy without sufficient knowledge and power for 1 Causes of the Contemi^t of tlie Clergy, p. 38, sq. Birch's Life of TiUotson, p. 20. 522 INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH Chap. XXXIV. sucli compositions. Among the country clergy also an imedifying style of preaching was joined with a poverty and meanness of living which subjected the minister to the contempt of the thought- less and the scoffer.^ Livings of twenty or thirty pounds a year were esteemed valuable pieces of preferment, and the holders of these miserable appointments could not have been far removed from the condition of the day labourer.^ That amidst the trials and struggles incident to an impoverished condition, some clergy- men should have given cause of scandal is not to be wondered at. Nor were scandals confined to the lower clergy. A bishop was suspended by Archbishop Sancroft for immorality ; ^ an arch- deacon was convicted of simony. But in spite of these drawbacks it is incontestable that the Church of England made steady onward progress during the reign of Charles X — § 13. During the latter part of that period she was fortunate in her Primate. Juxon had been succeeded by Gilbert Sheldon in 1663, and after the severe political churchmanship of Sheldon there had come, as a welcome change, the earnest and devout churchmanship of "William Sancroft, Dean of St. Paul's, who was elevated direct to the Primacy, January 27, 1678. § 14. The Church was restored in a fervour of popularity, and though this fervour passed away she continued popular during this reign. Nonconformist views, on the other hand, instead of making progress (as religious opinions subjected to persecution usually do), very greatly receded, and dwindled away. Considering the large number of Nonconformist ministers ejected in 1662, and the general saturnalia of opinion in the previous years, it is very won- derful to find such testimonies to the advance of the Church as the following : — The Diocese of Norwich had been one of the most Puritanical in England, but one of the Norfolk members declared in his place in Parliament that he " knew not of a family removed, nor trade altered, and in the country a general conformity which grows daily on the people. In Norwich are twenty thousand persons, and not twenty Dissenters."^ Dr. Sherlock, in his Test Act Vindicated, calculates that in 1676 all the Dissenters in Eng- land, including Papists, were in the proportion to members of the Church of England as one to twenty .^ The Church might now ^ Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy, p. 89. ^ Gh&mbeTl&jne's Anglice Notitia, pp. 267-8. Causes of Contempt, etc., p. 94. ^ Wood, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. A very long and wearisome litigation arose between him and the Primate. ^ Parliamentary History, iv. 418. ' Calamy's Autobiography (ed. Rutt.), i. 80. 1660-1685. DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 523 well have agreed to a policy of toleration and oblivion. But that was not to be until those who had been most forward in upholding absolutist principles were made to see by a practical proof to what those principles led, and until the Church which had defeated the exclusion policy was herself made to feel what a Eomanist occupa- tion of the throne really meant. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. PAPER DRAWN UP BY DR. WIL- KINS, WHICH HE CONSIDERED MIGHT SATISFY THE DISSENTERS AND PASS THE LEGISLATURE. I. With regard to comprehension it was offered — (1) That such persons as in the late times of disorder had been ordained by presbyters should be admitted to the exercise of the ministry by the imposition of the hands of the bishop by this or the like form of words—" Take thou autho- rity to preach the word of God and to minister the sacraments in any congrega- tion of the Church of England where thou shalt be lawfully admitted thereunto." (2) That all persons to be admitted to ecclesiastical functions shall subscribe as follows :— " I, A B, do hereby profess and declare that I do approve the doctrines, worship, and government established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary to salvation ; and that I will not endeavour by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, to bring in any doctrine contrary to that which is so established ; and I do hereby promise that I will continue in the communion of the Church of England, and will not do anything to disturb the peace thereof." (3) That the gesture of kneeling at the sacrament, and the use of the cross in baptism, and bowing at the name of Jesus, be left indifferent or taken away. (4) That in case it be thought fit to review and alter the liturgy and cauons for the satisfaction of dissenters, that then every person admitted to preach shall, upon some Lord's day, solemnly and publicly read the liturgy, declare his assent to the lawfulness of the use of it, and promise to use it. With a view to the alteration of the liturgy it was proposed— to alter the baptismal service so as not to assert the doctrine of baptismal regeneration; to alter the confirmation service so as not to imply any special gift in. the laying on of hands ; to alter the burial service so as to express no sure and certain hope for the departed ; to omit the responsal prayers from the liturgy ; to use Pater Noster and Gloria Patri only once ; the prayer, Lord have mercy upon us, only once ; to omit the communion service when there is no communion ; the col- lects, epistles, and gospels, except on certain holidays ; to abandon the commi- nation service ; the service for the visita- tion of the sick ; the apocryphal lessons ; the old version of the Psalms ; the hymns in the ordinal ; and to make some altera- tions in the catechism. II. With regard to indulgence or toleration — (1) That Protes- tants should have liberty for public wor- ship in places to be built for themselves. (2) The names of teachers and congrega- tions to be registered. (3) Every one thuc registered to be disabled from public office, but to fine for offices of burden. (4) To be exempt from the legal penalties inflicted on those who do not attend parish churches. (5) To be exempt from confiscation and fines, provided they pay all public duties to the parish where they live. —(Baxter's Life and Times.) 52i STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXV. CHAPTER XXXV. THE STRUGGLE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AGAINST ROMANISM. 1685-1688. § 1. The beginning of James II. 's reign not unfavourable to the Church, § 2, Parliament refuses to sanction the infringement of the Test Act. § 3. Judges decide that the King may dispense with the Laws. § 4. Eoraanism openly practised. § 5. The Clergy boldly preach against Romanism. § 6. Apostasy of some. § 7. King orders Bishop of Lon- don to censure Dr. Sharp. § 8. The Court of High Commission, § 9, Bishop Compton suspended by it. § 10, King pixblishes his Declaration for liberty of conscience, § 11. Reception of the Declaration in the country, § 12, The King and the Fellows of Magdalen College, § 13. Anti-papal zeal in the Church. § 14, The King determines to order the Clergy to read the Declaration in Church, § 15, The order issued, §16. Measures taken by Sancroft to consult the Bishops and Clergy, § 17, They agree to petition against the order, § 18, The Bishops present their Petition. §19, Clergy generally refuse to read the Declaration, § 20. The Bishops before the Privy Council. § 21, Committed to the Tower, § 22, Brought up to plead. § 23. Their Trial, § 24. The Verdict of acquittal. § 1 . King James II. owed Hs throne entirely to the devotion shown by the Church of England to the doctrine of hereditary right. He proceeded to repay this obligation by a deliberate at- tempt to overthrow the Church which had given him the throne. He began his reign indeed by a declaration that he would always take care to "defend and support" the Church of England, i The clergy accepted the declaration with gratitude. The bishops, in an address to the king, said that it ought to be " written in letters of gold and engraved in marble." ^ The funeral rites of the late king were celebrated according to the use of the Church of England, though with a remarkable meanness which might be thought to show an intention of putting a slight upon the Church which ad- ministered them ; and at the coronation, though James refused to allow the holy communion to be celebrated, yet the accustomed prayers and ceremonies were performed by the bishops. The elections to the new Parliament were so carefully manipulated, that it was thought that a House of Commons was returned entirely devoted to the king's will. But in this well-prepared assembly, the king spoke again on the sense of his first declaration. The Church of England he held to be emiently loyal, therefore he would ^ Dalrym pie's Memoirs, i, 160. ^ Singer's Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 472. 1685-1688. AGAINST ROMANISM. 525 defend and support it. In the rebellion of Monmouth, which quickly followed, Bishop Mew gave active and energetic assistance to the royal forces,^ and Bishop Fell of Oxford also made himself conspicuous. As yet, though the king was known to be a zealous Romanist, it would seem as if all promised well for the relations between him and the Church of the land. § 2. The first attempt made by the king to legalise the Romish religion was made in the way of an assault on the Test Act of 1672. By this it was ordained that all officers, either civil or military, should receive the sacrament of holy communion accord- ing to the Church of England, and make a declaration against transubstantiation. There could be no law less defensible in prin- ciple, and the king might well regard it as the weakest place in all the defences of the Church of England. He informed the Parliament, on its assembling in November (1685), that he had appointed certain officers to posts in the army who had not quali- fied according to the Test Act. But the House of Commons, whose subservience had been completely counted on, voted an address to the king remonstrating against the employment of such officers. In the House of Lords, Compton, Bishop of London, moved for a day to take the king's speech into consideration, and declared that he spoke in the name of his brethren, that the whole constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, was in danger.^ The king prorogued the Parliament, and removed Bishop Compton from the deanery of the chapel and the post of privy counsellor. He then endeavoured by private mterviews, which obtained the name of closetings, to gain over separately the leading men. Among the bishops. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and Turner, Bishop of Ely, showed the most ready deference to his views. § 3. As the king^ had been checked in the Parliament, he de- termined now to endeavour to efi"ect his object by means of the courts of law. The Chief-Justice had given it as his opinion that the king might dispense with laws, inasmuch as he could certainly forgive the penalties for their infringement. ^ The judges were consulted on this, and a bench of those who agreed to the doctrine was selected to try a • case got up for the purpose. Sir Edward Hales, who had been made governor of Dover Castle without quali- fying by taking the Test, was informed against by his coachman. The judges decided that the king could dispense with the law, by virtue of his royal prerogative.* ^ He had been nominated to Winchester, but he appears to have been still in Somersetshire. ^ Dalrymple, i. iii. 63. ^ See upon this point, Hallam, Const. Hist. ii. 108. " June 21, 1686. Life of James II. ii. 81-83, Evelyn's Diary. 526 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXY. § 4. This perilous doctrine was immediately acted on. A Romanist judge was appointed. Four Romanist lords and Father Petre, the queen's confessor, the vice-provincial of the Jesuits, were sworn of the Privy Council. Three vicars-apostolic were consecrated bishops in partihus. The chapel of St. James' was openly used for the Romish worship, and a colony of Benedictine monks was set- tled there. The Jesuits were established at the Savoy, the Fran- ciscans at Lincoln's Inn, and the Carmelites in the city. Romish chapels were commenced in various places, and Romish processions were seen in the streets.^ Thus, within a very short time of the king's accession, it might seem that all the work of so many years was imdone, all the butcheries and intrigues of the Romanists con- doned, and that the system so hateful to the people of England was again to dominate over them. § 5. But the national Church was faithful to its principles, and sufficient at this crisis to save the liberties and the religion of the land. Bishops Ken ^ and Frampton had distinguished themselves in preaching against Romanism, and their example was so gener- ally followed by the bishops and clergy, that James had required the archbishops to publish injunctions restraining the clergy from controversial preaching. Sancroft, who throughout this crisis acted with far too great timidity, had done as he was desired.^ But the effect of his orders had been small. The clergy had continued to preach with increased vigour and power, and at no period did the controversy against Rome apjpear to be so completely on the side of the Reformed Church. § 6. It could, however, hardly be expected that the whole body of the clergy would be of one mind, and that no traitors would be found in the camp, when the temptations to treachery were so great. Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, Oxford, Edward Sclater, vicar of Putney, Nathaniel Boyse and Thomas Deane, Fel- lows of University College, declared themselves Romanists, and applied for dispensations to hold their preferments, which were granted to them ;^ and John Massey, a lay Fellow of Merton, was made Dean of Christchurch by special dispensation. ^ Life of James II. ii. 79. 2 Evelyn says, '* This sermon was the more acceptable, as it was unex- pected from a bishop who had undergone the censure of being inclined to Popery — the contrary whereof no man could show more. This, indeed, did all our bishops, to the disabusing and reproach of all their delators. For none were more zealous against Popery than they were." 3 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 220 (March 25, 1686). ^ See Evelyn's Diary. "We could not, he says, have safely passed these under the Privy Seal. It was done by immediate warrant, signed by Mr. Solicitor " {5th May 1686.) 1685-1688. AGAINST ROMANISM. 527 § 7. On the other hand, the king determined to exact penal- ties from those clergy who had made themselves conspicuous by preaching against Rome after the injunctions were issued. Dr. Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector of St. Giles', was the divine selected for the first attack, on June 14, 1686. The king sent a letter to Compton, Bishop of London, desiring him to proceed to the censure and suspension of Sharp for a sermon which he had preached. The bishop demurred, replying that Dr. Sharp was ready to give to his Majesty " all reasonable satisfaction." Upon this the attack was diverted from the priest to the bishop. § 8. The machinery brought to bear on Bishop Compton had been devised some months before, but had not as yet been used. The old Court of High Commission, which had been abolished by the Act of 17 Car. L, and by 13 Car. II. had been declared incap- able of being restored, was now (July 14) re-established by the king's sole authority. Evelyn says — "Was sealed at our office (Privy Seal) the constitution of certain commissioners to take upon them the full power of all ecclesiastical affairs, in as unlimited a manner, or rather greater than the late High Commission Court abrogated by Parliament ; for it had not only faculty to inspect and visit all bishops' dioceses, but to change what laws and statutes they should think fit to alter among the colleges, to punish, sus- pend, fine, give oaths, and call witnesses. The main drift was to suppress zealous preachers. In sum it was the whole power of a vicar-general." To this illegal tribunal were appointed as judges, Bancroft the Primate, the Bishops of Rochester and Durham (Sprat and Crewe), the Lord Treasurer (Rochester), the Lord Chancellor (Jefi'reys), the Chief-Justice (Herbert), the Lord President (Sunder- land). Sancroft declined to act, but he does not appear to have made any protest against the illegality of the court, although there remain in his handwriting elaborate arguments against it.^ Bishops Crewe and Sprat were still more submissive instruments. § 9. Before this Court the Bishop of London was cited (Septem- ber 8). There was no ofi'ence chargeable against him save that he had not lent himself to perform the king's arbitrary will. He was, nevertheless, suspended from his ofiice, the Bishops of Dur- ham, Rochester, and Peterborough being appointed to perform the duties of it. So arbitrary a proceeding against a man of such eminence was (as Evelyn tells us) " universally resented." § 10. The king having thus declared war against the Church of England, determined to have, if possible, the Nonconformists on ^ Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian. The sole reason alleged by Sancroft for not acting is his age and infirmity. (See his letters in D'Oyly's life. ) In his place was appointed Cartwright, Bishop of Chester. 528 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXV. his side as allies. They had hitherto made common cause with the Churchmen in their denunciations of popery, and as doing this, and also as having supported in the former reign the Exclusion Bill, they were hated by James with great intensity. A vigorous [)ersecution had been directed against them, under which Eichard Baxter again found his way into prison, where he remained for two years. But these dislikes might easily be laid aside if there was hope of making the Nonconformists an efficient body of allies against the Church. It was determined to attempt to effect this. • Mindful of the policy of the last reign, and of the gratitude with which a similar declaration had been received in 1672, the king determined to issue a declaration for liberty of conscience. On March 18 (1687) this was communicated to the Council. He had observed, the king declared, that the attempts made at uniformity had been ineffectual ; that Dissenters rather increased than dimin- ished ; it was, in his opinion, most suitable to the principles of Christianity that no man should be persecuted for conscience sake, for conscience could not be forced. -"^ In accordance with these sen- timents, on April 4, 1687, there appeared in the Gazette the famous Declaration for Liberty of Conscience. " We cannot but heartily wish," says this document, " that all the 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 decla- ration 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 pro- tect 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 established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all their possessions without any molestation or dis- turbance whatsoever." The execution of all penal laws in matters ecclesiastical is then declared to be suspended. All persons are permitted to hold any assemblies they please for religious worship without disturbance. The tests enacted in the last reign are dis- pensed with, as also the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. A pardon is granted to any who may have incurred penalties previ- ously ; and, lastly, an assurance is given that no disturbance of property in church and abbey lands shall take place. ^ § 11. Of this Declaration it may not inaptly be said, " Its wordi* ^ Kennett, ill. 463. ^ lb. iii. 463-4. 1685-1688. AGAINST EOMANISM. 529 were smootlier than butter, having war in its heart." No one for a moment failed to see the object that was in view. Some sixty- addresses of thanks were indeed presented from the Dissenters, but the more notable of them refused to concur in these addresses. Five bishops were found to thank the king for his tender care for the Established Church, but none of these five were men of any- character or influence.1 Parker, appointed to the See of Oxford, could get but one clergyman to sign an address. Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, declares that but two clergy in his diocese were found to sign it. The greatest exertions were used by the Court party to procure addresses of thanks, but all to no purpose. The Dissenters were now encouraged to attack and revile the Church, but Churchmen had the wisdom not to reply, being not desirous to widen the breach between themselves and the Protestant Noncon- formists in order to advance the designs of the king. All Protest- ants were gradually drawn together at this period, and no one " considerable proselyte " was made to the Romish faith. Bishop Ken preached, as if inspired, against the corruptions of Rome, and vast crowds everywhere hung upon his words. 2 § 12. In the summer of 1687 the king went on a progress with a view of bringing his personal influence to bear on the pend- ing elections for Parliament, and encouraging the presentation of addresses approving of his Declaration. At Bath he went through the ceremony of touching for the evil. The accustomed religious service was not now used, but in its place was substituted a new one appealing to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin ; and in the Abbey Church the altar was decked, and the Jesuit priests minis tered while the king performed the ceremony. At Oxford the king had to undertake the settlement of a matter of considerable importance. He had in April (1687) nominated to the headship Oi Magdalen College one Anthony Farmer, a Romanist in his opinions, and on other grounds not eligible for the post. The Fellows had refused to accept the nomination, and had elected Dr. Hough. Upon this the High Commission Court suspended Dr. Hough and two of the Fellows from the emoluments of their places. A great sensation was produced in the country. If this arbitrary court could thus dispose of men's freeholds, the liberties of England were 1 They were Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, from his neglect of his diocese, was usually described as " the Bishop of Buckden, who never saw Lincoln ; " Wood, of Lichfield, suspended by Sancroft for gross scandals ; Crewe, of Durham, remarkable for his slavish obsequiousness ; Watson, of St. David's, afterwards deprived for simony ; and Cartwright, of Chester, who was selected by King James, as it is said, because his character was so bad that any compliance might be expected from him. 2 Evelyn's Diary. 2 M 530 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXX"V gone. The king, on arriving at Oxford, sent for the Eellows of Magdalen, lectured them severely, and bade them at once elect Parker, Bishop of Oxford, as their President. This was the man of whom Burnet justly said, " It was a sufficient lampoon upon the age that he was a bishop." The Fellows refused to elect him. The king went away from Oxford meditating vengeance. Li two months time a sitting of the High Commission Court was held there, pre- sided over by Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, a man ready to lend himself to any iniquity. Dr. Hough, cited to appear, refused the jurisdiction of the Court, and appealed to the Courts of Westminster. His name was ordered to be struck off the college books, the lodg- ings of the President were broken open, and Parker installed by proxy. The Fellows refused to acknowledge him. The High Commission Court (November 16) deprived the whole of the Fellows except two.^ The country could now judge what sort of treatment those were to expect who ventured to oppose the king's arbitrary will. § 13 The manifest danger which now threatened the religion and liberties of the land gave an intense earnestness to preachers, and caused their words to be hung upon as they had never been listened to before. Under April 1, 1688, there occurs in Evelyn's Diary the following entry : — " In the morning the first sermon (at Whitehall) was by Dr. StiUingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's. The Holy Communion followed, but was so interrupted by the rude breaking in of multitudes, zealous to hear the second sermon to be preached by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, that the latter part of that holy office could hardly be heard, or the sacred elements be distributed, without great trouble. The princess being come, he preached on Micah vii. 8, 9, 10, describing the calamity of the Eeformed Church of Judah under the Babylonian persecution, for her sins, and God's delivery of her on her repentance ; that as Judah emerged, so should now the Eeformed Church wherever insulted and persecuted. He preached with his accustomed action, zeal, and energy, so that people flocked from all quarters to hear him." The prevailing excitement was greatly stimulated by the crowds of Huguenot fugi- tives from France who were daily escaping to our shores from the hideous cruelties following upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The most liberal collections were everywhere made for these distressed sufferers, and "the papists," says Evelyn, *'by God's providence, made small progress among us." ^ Parker died in the next year, then a still more flagi-ant outrage was perpetrated. " The king, " says the author of his life, * ' conceiving this col- lege to be forfeited into his hands, and by consequence at his disposal, made the Catholic Bishop Gifford President of it, and filled up most of the fellow- siiips with Catholics." 1685-1688. AGAINST ROMANISM. 531 § 14. Thus thwarted and withstood by the bold energy of the National Church, the king determined to strive to humble this for- midable antagonist, and by a refinement of revenge to make the body which denounced his policy itself instrumental in forwarding it. The ground on which he proceeded to make this attempt was in itself the strongest condemnation of his conduct. He was so firmly convinced of the loyalty of the Church of England to the Crown, that he thought even the most humiliating and degrading acts would be performed by that Church at the bidding of the Crown. He thus made use of the long-tried devotion of the Church to himself and his house to cause it to inflict a deadly wound upon itseK, and to exhibit itself to the world in a contemptible and ridi- culous light. A baser scheme of policy was never entertained, even by a Stuart prince, than that which James II. now attempted. The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience had been before the country for upwards of a year. It was sufficiently well known. Under the cover of it conventicles were everywhere held ; the Eomish religion was openly celebrated. Addresses of thanks had been voted to the king for his act. There could be no pretence, in fact, that the Declaration needed any further or more general publication. When, therefore, the order came forth, dated May 4 (1688), directing this Declaration to be published in churches, it must have been evident to every person of sense that what was desired was not the better making known of the Declaration, but the humiliation and punish- ment of the clergy. This document was, in their view, illegal. It was certainly intended for the establishment of an alien and anta- gonistic form of faith, held by most of them to be idolatrous and blasphemous. § 15. The order ran as follows : — "At the Court at Whitehall, May 4. It is this day ordered by his Majesty in Council that his Majesty's late gracious Declaration, bearing date the 27th April last/ be read at the usual time of divine service on the 20th and 27th of this month, in all churches and chapels within the cities of London and Westminster, and ten miles thereabout ; and upon the 3d and 10th of June next in all other churches and chapels throughout this kingdom. And it is hereby further ordered that the Right Reverend the Bishops cause the said Declaration to be sent and distributed throughout their several and respective dioceses to be read accordingly." ^ § 16. Archbishop Bancroft had shown considerable weakness and hesitation in his conduct during the earlier part of the king's illegal proceedings. His mind was thoroughly and entirely loyal ; 1 It had been republished April 27, 1688. * D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 251. 532 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXV. his disposition was humble and retiring. In the last reign he had readily lent himself to the publication of royal Declarations in churches, when he believed the contents of them to be legal and salutary. But the loyal mind of the Primate, ready to acquiesce completely in the doctrine of passive obedience, could not accept the obligation to do a positive act in defiance of the laws and liberties of the land. Loyal to his prince, he was still more loyal to his Church and his God. In this crisis he does not appear to have hesitated for a moment as to the duty incumbent on him. He despatched hasty summonses to his suffragans to repair without delay to Lambeth. He invited also the leading divines of London. On May 1 2th a partial meeting took place at Lambeth, and it was resolved not to comply with the order. Daily consultations were then held. On May 18 there was a meeting of seven bishops besides the Primate — namely, Compton of London, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, Trelawney of Bristol. Besides these the following divines were also present : — Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury ; Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's ; Patrick, Dean of Peterborough ; Tenison, Vicar of St. Martin's ; Sherlock, Master of the Temple ; Grove, Eector of St. Andrew's Undershaft.-^ The meeting was solemnly opened with prayer. The substance of their deliberations is printed by Bishop Kennett.^ The character of the Declaration was fully exposed. It was shown that its eflPect was " to dispense with all sorts of laws in cases contrary to the very design and end of making them. That if the clergy published it they would be held cowards or hypocritical time-servers, in pubKshing what they thought illegal. Men would see at once that it was not the publication which was desired, but the making the clergy parties to it ; for it was as much known before it was read as it would be after the reading of it, and therefore the making it known was not the thing intended." §17. They agreed, therefore, that it was not expedient that the clergy should publish it ; and, animated by a high and admir- able spirit, the bishops determined not to leave the responsibility of refusal to the clergy, which they might easily have done, but to take it upon themselves. They agreed to present a petition to his Majesty, which ran as follows : — To the King's Most Excellent Majesty The humble petition of William, Archbishop of Canterbury, and divers of the suffragan bishops of that province now present with him, in behalf of themselves and others of ^ The details of these meetings are chronicled in the Clarendon Carre- spmideiwe, ii. 171, sq. 2 Complete History, iii. 482. 1685-1688. AGAINST ROMANISM. 533 their absent brethren, and of the inferior clergy of their respective dioceses, Humbly Sheweth, — That the great averseness they find in themselves to the dis- tributing and publishing in all their churches your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience proceeds neither from any want of duty or obedience to your Majesty (our holy mother the Church of England being both in her principles and constant prac- tice unquestionably loyal^ and having, to her great honour, been more than once publicly acknowledged to be so by your gracious Majesty), nor yet from any want of tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom we are willing to come to such a temper as shall be thought fit, when the matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation. But, among many other consider- ations, from this especially, because that Declaration is founded on such a dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament, and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672, and in the beginning of your Majesty's reign ; and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to the whole nation both in Church and State, that your petitioners cannot in prudence, honour, or con- science, so far make themselves parties to it, as the distribution of it all over the nation, and the solemn publication of it once and again, even in God's house, must amount to in common and reasonable construction. Your petitioners therefore most humbly and earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be graciously pleased not to insist upon their distributing and reading your Majesty's said Declaration. This was signed by W. Cant. (Sancroft), W. Asaph (Lloyd), Fran. Ely (Turner), lo. Cicester (Lake), Tho. Bath and Wells (Ken), Tho. Petriburgens. (White), Ion. Bristol (Trelawney). The petition was written in Bancroft's hand.-^ § 18. As soon as it was fairly written and signed, the six suffragan bishops repaired at once with it to Whitehall. Tlie Primate did not accompany them, as he had been forbidden to appear at Court since his declining to act on the Ecclesiastical Commission. It was ten o'clock at night. The bishops of Chichester and St. Asaph went to Lord Sunderland requesting him to receive the petition and acquaint the king with its purport, and ^ The first draft, with numerous erasures, is among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian. A facsimile has been published by Dr. Cavdwell. On the draft there are the following additional signatures, with their dates : — Approbo : H. London, May 23 ; William Norwich, May 23 ; Robert Gloucester, May 21 ; Seth Sarum, May 26 ; P. Winchester ; Tho. Exon, May 29. 534 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXY to procure for them an interview that they might present it. Lord Sunderland would not read the petition, but he went at once to the king, and an interview was immediately accorded to the bishops. The king expected an address from them, but one of a very different character.^ The Bishop of St, Asaph handed him the petition. He observed pleasantly, " This is my Lord of Can- terbury's own hand," and opened and read the document. Then his face darkened. He folded up the paper and said, " This is a great surprise to me. Here are strange words. I did not expect this from the Church of England. This is a standard of rebellion. This is a sounding of Sheba's trumpet, and all the seditious preach- ings of the Puritans in the year '40 were not of so ill consequence as this." 2 The bishops eagerly disclaimed all disloyalty. Ken was by far the most outspoken. He said, " Sir, I hope you will give that liberty to us which you allow to all mankind." " The reading of this Declaration is against our conscience," said the Bishop of Peterborough. " I will have my Declaration published," said the king. "We will honour you, but we must fear God," said Ken and Trelawney. " I will be obeyed," said the king. " God's will be done," said the bishops. Then, telling them that he should keep the paper, and that if he saw fit to alter his mind he would send for them, he dismissed the bishops. Within a few hours the bishops' petition was in print, and on the following morning the memorable events of the previous evening were known throughout the city. § 19. The next day was Sunday, the first on which the Declar- ation was to be read. Would the clergy follow the bold lead of the bishops, or would they timidly succumb ? Crowds thronged the churches to witness the result. In the city of London the Declaration was read in only four churches. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was Dean of Westminster. As soon as he began to read, the congregation sprang to their feet and hastened from the church. The Dean's voice was drowned, and his hand shook so violently that he could scarce read the words. By the time he had finished only the choir and the scholars remained in the church.^ London had begun well ; if the country should follow its lead the cause would be won. Lord Halifax, who wielded the most dexterous pen in England, came to the aid of the Church. His Reasons against reading the Declaration were spread broadcast over the land. 1 Bishop Cartwright had told the king that they meant to address him to the effect that such sort of orders were properly addressed to their chancellors. 2 A minixte account of this memorable scene is preserved in Bancroft's own hand. — Tanner 3ISS., vol. xxviii., printed in appendix to Clarendon Correspondent. ^ Clarendon's Diary, ii. 172. 1685-1688. AGAINST I10MA2TISM. 535 These convincing Reasons determined the waverers where there were any. The result was that not more than two hundred clergy in the whole country read the Declaration. In the diocese of Nor- wich, out of twelve hundred churches, it was only read in four. In the dioceses of Oxford, Lichfield, and Hereford, only four or five clergy in each read it.^ The clergy emphatically refused to accept and approve the illegal act of the king. Many of these men held the doctrine of passive obedience. Many of them showed their attachment to the principle of hereditary right by afterwards becoming nonjurors. But no fear of the consequejices could lead them to sin against their consciences by becoming active partici- pators in an illegal act, and lending themselves to the conspiracy against their Church and nation. § 20. It was now to be seen what steps the king would take with regard to this open disobedience. James was known to be a man of obstinate temper. Nor was he ordinarily given to hesi- tation. Yet for a week no sound proceeded from Whitehall. Perhaps he waited for another Sunday to see if there would be any yielding or hesitation on the part of the clergy. But on the second Sunday the refusal was still more general than on the first. Some who had read the Declaration once declined to read it a second time. Then at last a decision was taken. On the evening of May 27 the archbishop received a summons from Lord Sunder- land, President of the Council, to appear on June 8 before his Majesty in Council. Similar summonses were sent to the other bishops who had signed the petition. The bishops appeared at the Council board about five o'clock on Friday, June 8. The Lord Chancellor took up a paper lying on the table, and asked the archbishop if he acknowledged it to be his petition. The archbishop declined to answer. Then, being commanded by the king to answer, he read the paper over, and owned it as the peti- tion. Other questions which were put to them, both he and the bishops, acting under legal advice, declined to answer. They were then told that they would be tried in Westminster Hall, and bid to enter into recognisances. This they refused, having been specially warned against it by their counsel. The king and his advisers were at their wits' end. § 21. Every effort was made to induce the bishops to yield, but in vain, and so the Council was constrained to commit them to the Tower. The whole city was in the highest state of excitement. As the bishops passed in the barge conveying them to the Tower, the banks of the river were crowded with people, who kneeled 1 Details may be found in Life of Ken, by a Layman ; Memoirs of Bean. Cornier ; Life of Bean Frideaux ; Burnet's Own Time ; etc. etc. 536 STRUGGLE OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND Chap. XXXV. down and asked their blessing, and offered prayers for them.i The next day their prison was attended like a royal court. Lord Clarendon, the king's brother-in-law, was there. Lord Halifax came to proffer his services. John Evelyn, to congratulate them on their constancy. A large body of Nonconformist ministers came to offer their sympathy.^ § 22. On June 15, when they were brought up to "Westminster to plead, there were the same enthusiastic crowds soliciting their blessing. They were indicted for having written, " under pre- tence of a petition, a certain false, pernicious, and scandalous libel," and having pleaded not guilty were allowed to go abroad on their own recognisances. In the interval between the commitment and the trial, the greatest efforts were made to induce the bishops, or any one of them, to yield and sue for pardon, but they aU. stood firm. § 23. On June 29 they came into the court attended by half the peers of England, and the trial proceeded. The prosecution proved their signatures by the evidence of the clerk of the Council, who had heard them acknowledge them, and attempted to prove the publication by the evidence of Lord Sunderland, to whom the bishops had communicated the substance of their petition. The counsel for the bishops boldly denounced the illegality of the king's dispensing power, and at the same time showed the absurd- ity of designating a petition privately presented to the king, according to the manifest right of the subject, as a malicious libel. All now depended on the judges. Two of them (Wright and Allybone) pronounced it a libeL Two (Powell and Holloway) ruled that it was no libel, and that the king possessed no such dispensing power as he claimed. § 24. The jury remained locked up aU night. At ten o'clock in the morning of June 30 they came into court and announced that they had agreed on their verdict. The judges assembled, the bishops were brought into court, and a stillness like death settled on the vast assemblage. The foreman pronounced the words Not Guilty. " As the words left his lips, Lord Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At that signal benches and galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout which made the old oaken roof crack, and in another moment the innumerable crowd without set up a third huzza which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gunpowder was heard on the water, and another, and so in a few ^ Burnet's Oiun Times, p. 469 ; Evelyn's Diary. 2 Reresby's Memoirs, p. Ml. 1685-1688. AGAINST ROMANISM. 637 moments the glad tidings went past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, market-places and coffee-houses, broke forth in acclamations. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the mul- titude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation."^ The popularity of the Church was at its height. The portraits of the bishops were eagerly sought for, and carefully cherished,^ and abundant congratulations were poured upon them from all quarters. ^ Macaulay, Hist, of England. * Life of Ken, 11. 443. 538 TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. Chap. XXXYI. CHAPTER XXXVL TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 1688-1689. § 1. The king 'blind to Ms danger. § 2. Being warned, he sends for the bishops. § 3. Their advice. § 4. They refuse to sign an Abhorrence of William of Orange. § 5. William not cordially received by the Eng- lish clergy. § 6. Flight of James ; the Guildhall meeting. § 7. Bancroft refuses to act in public affairs. § 8. Clergy generally in favour of a Kegency. § 9. The new oaths of allegiance. § 10. Toleration neces- sarily following on the change of Government. § 11. Danger of a Com- prehension Scheme. § 12. The Bill for Union. § 13. The Commons reject it. § 14. They pass the Toleration Bill. § 15. The King deter- mines to consult the Convocation. § 16. Commission to prepare a scheme of alterations. § 17. Tillotson's programme of the work to be done by it. § 18, They agree to a scheme of alterations. § 19. Great excitement among the clergy. § 20. Meeting of the Canterbury Convo- cation. § 21. Lower House insists on alterations in the Address. § 22. The Comprehension Scheme not submitted to Convocation. § 1. The vehement rejoicings of tlie country at the acquittal of the bishops (June 30) do not seem to have opened the eyes of King James to the suicidal nature of his policy. Orders were sent to the Court of High Commission to procure the names of those clergymen who had refused to read the king's Declaration. July 12, the Commission issued an order to all chancellors, arch- deacons, and officials, to make these returns by August 16. On that day, no returns being forthcoming, they extended the period to November 15.^ On August 13 the king issued an order to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls' College, Oxford, to admit John Cartwright, of Trinity College, Cambridge, to the vicarage of Barking, in their gift, " any statute, custom, or constitution, to the contrary notwithstanding." ^ But though the king was thus blind, others who had acted with him were more keen-sighted. Bishop Sprat now writes to resign his office of ecclesiastical commissioner, declaring that he cannot with a safe conscience sit as judge upon so many pious and excellent men, with whom, if it be God's will, it rather became him to suffer. " I protest," he says, " sincerely what I did was to no other end but that I might preserve the king's favour towards us, and thereby the enjoyment of our reli- gion according to his gracious promise, nor did I conceive his 1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 318. 2 Tanner 3ISS.; Bodleian, 28, 160. 1688-1689. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 539 Majesty's command for reading the Declaration did any way require our approbation of it." ^ Another bishop also, Croft of Hereford, who had distributed the Declaration, now wrote to Archbishop Sancroft to apologise. § 2. About the middle of September James was warned by the King of France that the coming over of William of Orange was imminent. He then (September 24) sent for the bishops to aid him with their counsels. Sancroft did not attend. Several other bishops responded to the summons, but they were taken unpre- pared, and had no word of counsel ready. On October 3, having duly weighed the situation, they asked for another audience, which was accorded to them. § 3. Sancroft, now with them, produced and read a paper, advis- ing the king to dismiss those civil officers whom he had illegally intruded into the corporation ; to dissolve the Court of Ecclesi- astical Commission ; to restore the Fellows of Magdalen ; to re- strain Romish ecclesiastics from the invasion of the privileges of those of the Established Church ; no longer to attempt to exercise a dispensing power ; to appoint fitting men to the vacant bishop- rics ; to call a Parliament " wherein the Church of England may be secured according to the Acts of Uniformity ; provisions may be made for a due liberty of conscience, and for securing the liberties and properties of all his subjects ; and in the last place that his Majesty would be pleased to allow the bishops to endea- vour to convince him to return into the bosom of the Church of England." ^ The king thanked the bishops, and proceeded to carry out some of their recommendations. He dissolved the Ecclesi- astical Commission. He ordered the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor, to reinstate the ejected Fellows of Magdalen, and he pub- lished a proclamation restoring to the corporations their ancient rights and privileges. The nation, thoroughly alienated from the king, immediately began to regard with jealousy the bishops who had consented thus to act with him. Some of their number, in- deed, were now almost every day at the palace. § 4. The Primate, at the king's desire, drew up a form of prayer against the danger of an invasion.^ On October 16 the king was urgent with them to meet together and agree to a decla- ration of abhorrence of the attempt threatened by the Prince of Orange. The Church was in extreme peril of being committed by its leading men to the justly doomed cause of the falling king, 1 Tanner 3ISS. 28, 167. ^ D'Oyly's Sancroft, 1. 339-344. 3 These prayers remain in the Tanner 3ISS. It seems impos-sihle to acquit them of a studied ambiguity. They might be used by those who desired the Prince's coming, as well as by those who desired the contrary. 540 TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. Chap. XXXYI. and tlius altogether losing the sympathies of the nation, which had lately been so entii^ely with it. But the bishops could not be induced to draw up the paper of abhorrence. Most, if not all, of them desired the coming of the Prince of Orange, not as king, but as regent, with power to rectify all abuses, and to raise effectual barriers against the encroachments of Eome.^ Farther than this their doctrines of hereditary right would not allow many of them to go. The king was determined to press them to the uttermost. In fact, his only hope now lay in their aid. Again and again did he urge them to reply to the declaration of the Prince of Orange, which asserted that he came over by invitation of the lords spiritual and temporal. The bishops were driven to grievous shifts. One of their number, Compton, Bishop of London, had in fact signed the invitation to the Prince.^ Another, Sprat, Bishop of Kochester, had been so deeply compromised by acting on the Ecclesiastical Commission that his only hope in the future was now to withdraw from the king's cause. Sancroft, probably, would have yielded to King James's request, but the Primate was very desirous that the bishops should act as a body. The conclusion of their reply, as Bishop Sprat informs us, was that " as bishops we did assist his Majesty with our prayers ; as peers we entreated we might serve him in conjunction with the rest of the peers, either by his Majesty's speedy calling a Parliament, or if that should be thought too long, by assembling together with us as many of the temporal peers as were about the town. This was not hearkened to, and so we were dismissed." ^ The bishops thus escaped the danger which menaced them, and through them the Church, and the rapid march of events soon put it beyond their power to exer- cise a distinct influence on the history of the period. § 5. The Prince's Declaration set forth that he came to provide for the security of the Protestant religion, and to establish a good agreement between the Church of England and Protestant Dissen- ters, but there was no special promise as to preserving the rights and liberties of the Church of England. It is hardly to be won- dered at, therefore, that he was not received very cordially by the Church. He brought with hitn as his English chaplain Dr. Gilbert Burnet, regarded by many as a dangerous intriguer, and not credited with any strong Church principles. When, therefore, after his landing at Torbay (November 5) William proceeded to Exeter 1 Kalph's Hist. ofEng. i. 1030. ^ He concealed this from King James, and seems to have scarcely acted honestly. ^ Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 501. The fullest details of these events will he found m this work. 1688-1689. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSIOK 541 Catlieclral to take part in a thanksgiving service, the bishop,^ dean, and canons fled, and in the uncertainty as to -what were to he the relations between the Prince and the King, but very few clergy showed themselves on his side. The bishops stood, as it were, on neutral ground. They addressed a petition to King James praying him to prevent the effusion of Christian blood, and to call a Par- liament regular and free in all its circumstances.^ King James, who had gone to Salisbury to put himself at the head of his troops, made an attempt to draw the Church of England nearer to him by taking with him a Protestant chaplain, Mr. Chetwood, and nomi- nating Trelawney, one of the protesting bishops, to the see of Exeter. § 6. But he soon found that his cause was lost, and in the night of December 1 0 he fled from Whitehall. Eegarding this as a crisis, in which some steps must be taken for securing the govern- ment of the country, the bishops in and about London met together with the temporal peers at Guildhall, December 11, and agreed to apply to the Prince of Orange to procure a free Parliament which might secure law, liberty, and property, and " the Church of Eng- land in particular, with a due liberty to Protestant dissenters." All things, as it seems, would have gone on smoothly had James not returned. But upon his sudden return the temper of the bishops and clergy appears to have changed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, and several other bishops, waited on him to congratu- late him. The explanation of this seems to be that at the Guild- hall meeting it became apparent to the Primate, and those who thought with him, that nothing less w^as aimed at than the com- plete exclusion of James from the throne, and this they were by no means prepared to sanction. § 7. The Primate, therefore, could not be induced to act any more in public matters. He was willing to let things take their course, but for himself, rather than consent to abandon what he held to be the sacred duty of loyalty, he was prepared to suffer. James finally quitted England on December 23, and the clergy were now thrown into the utmost perplexity. § 8. How far was it possible for them, with their principles of hereditary right, to support one who should intrude himself into the place of the rightful prince, even if the intruder should be accepted by the clearly expressed will of the nation ? They were all, or nearly all, prepared to go to the length of upholding a com- ^ Lamplugh. He had been one of the bishops who read James's decla- ration. The northern primacy was conferred on him just before the Prince's landing. He died Archbishop of York, 1691. ^ Echardi, History of Revolution^ p. 173. 542 TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. Chap. XXXVI. pulsory regency. " The bishops," says Evelyn, " were all for a regency." 1 In a paper remaining in Bancroft's writing he says " To declare the king, by reason of his principles and resolutions., incapable of the government, and to declare the commander custos regni who shall carry on the government in the king's right and name, is, I am clearly of opinion, the best way, and a settlement cannot be made so justifiable and lasting any other way." ^ But it was evident that there was a very strong party for more thorough- going measures, which would probably be victorious. To this some of the bishops soon signified their adherence. Among others, two of the famous seven, Trelawney and Lloyd. In the midst of this doubt and uncertainty the Convention met January 22. Arch- bishop Sancroft could not be induced to attend in his place in the House of Lords. Was this due to the fact that before the Conven- tion Parliament began, he had become dissatisfied with the expe- dient even of a regency, and was still less inclined to vote the ex- clusion ? As it was, the regency was only lost in the Lords by a majority of two. Twelve bishops voted for it, and only two — Compton and Trelawney — for the vacancy of the throne.^ § 9. When the government was settled by the Parliament in the new rulers (February 13), and new oaths of allegiance had to be taken, the perplexity of the clergy increased. In the House of Lords eight bishops refused the oaths. It was then carried after a hard struggle, that the taking of the oaths should be compulsory, and that any clergy who should not have taken them by August 1 (1689) should first be suspended for six months, and then, if they did not yield, be deprived. In the House of Lords it was long urged that the offering the oath should depend on the king's will. This was thought sufl&cient to constrain the clergy to good behaviour, and would be the means of saving the pressure on tender con- sciences. But the House of Commons, which had much of the rough-and-ready character of that which assembled at the Restora- tion, would not tolerate this scrupulousness, and finally the Act was passed which constrained all the clergy to take the oaths on pain of deprivation, the only concession granted being a power given to the king to reserve the third part of any twelve benefices for the deprived incumbents.* § 10. It was evident that on the accession of William and Mary, churchmen would have to face another diflSculty besides that 1 Diarij, January 15, 1689. 2 Tanner MSS. 28, 459. ^ Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 256, note. Bishop Lloyd's vote cannot "be explained, as he had expressed the most complete devotion to William.— Dalrymple, appendix to book vi. * 1 William and Mary, c. 8, passed April 24, 1689. 1688-1689. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 543 of transferring their allegiance. How far and in what way was the promise made in the Prince's Declaration to " endeavour a good agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dis- senters, and to cover and secure all those who would live peace- ably under the government from all persecution on account of their religion," to be carried out and redeemed ? A complete op- position to all concessions to Dissenters could now hardly be enter- tained by any body of churchmen. The bishops, in their petition, had professed " that they had no want of tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom they were willing to come to such a temper as should be thought fit when that matter should be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation." Archbishop San croft had before the close of the last reign been engaged -svdth Patrick, Sharp, "Wake, and Moore, in deliberating on the amount of concessions which churchmen could safely offer with a view to comprehension.^ § 11. It was certain that both toleration and comprehension would be attempted, and at no period of its history was the Church of England in greater danger from a plausible comprehension scheme than at this moment, when it seemed to all of the greatest importance to unite the Protestant interest against the dangerous intrigues of the Romanists. In answer to the addresses of the Dis- senters, and the speech of Dr. Bates exhorting him to bring about an union between his Protestant subjects on " terms wherein aU the reformed churches agree," King William had declared that he would do all in his power to obtain such an union. § 12. Yet scarce any one expected that within a few days of this assurance a bill would make its appearance in the House of Lords on so important a subject as that of " uniting their Majesties' Protestant subjects," and that, without any discussion by the clergy, any approval of Convocation, the whole terms of conformity, the whole status of the Church, would be assailed with a view to the satisfaction of Dissenters. This, however, was done. Side by side with the Bill for Toleration, a Bill for Union was introduced, and a measure for undermining and revolutionising the Church was allowed to pass through the Lords, where a greater care for the interests of the Church might have been expected to prevail. An attempt to get rid of the Sacramental Test was also made by intro- ducing a clause into the Act for altering the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. The Lords would not accept this, though they passed the Bill for Union — that is to say, they would not relieve Romanists, although they were ready to sacrifice the Church system to Dissenters. It seems impossible to excuse the conduct of the 1 Wake's Speech on Sacheverell's Trial, Life of Sancro/t, i. 328 ; Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 154, sq. 544 TOLEEATION AND COMPEEHENSION. Chap. XXXVI Primate for remaining moodily apart at this most important crisis, especially as some of those who thought with him on the matter of the oaths seem to have been playing somewhat of a treacherous part. Some of the bishops had supported the Bill for Compre- hension, evidently in the hope of gaining thereby consideration in the matter of the oaths.i § 13. Again the House of Commons, as in the last reign, saved the Church. " They were much offended," says Burnet, " with the Bill of comprehension, as containing matters relating to the Church' in which the representative body of the clergy had not been so much as advised with." They refused to discuss the bill. They voted an address to the king desiring him to continue his care for the Church of England, and to issue writs, according to the ancient usage and practice of the kingdom in the time of Par- liament, for calling a Convocation of the clergy to be advised with in ecclesiastical matters. " So much did the supposed danger of the Church weigh with those who had seceded in utter despair of the State," says Kalph,^ " that the Jacobite members crowded back to their seats to save it ; offering in this a contrast to the conduct of the bishops in the Upper House, and especially of Archbishop Bancroft, who cared not to contend for its most precious interests." § 1 4. That the House of Commons, which behaved thus nobly, was not actuated by blind bigotry against Dissenters, was proved by the ready way in which it passed the Toleration Act. This measure, much needed and too long delayed, received the royal assent May 24, and by it a crying grievance to a great portion of the king's subjects, and a sore stumbling-block and cause of offence to the Church, was taken away.^ § 15. When King William was thus pointedly reminded by the House of Commons of the constitutional necessity of consulting the state of the clergy before he legislated for the Church, he natu- rally took counsel with some of the divines in whom he placed confidence. Of these Dr. Tillotson, now Dean of St. Paul's, was the chief. Tillotson would, of course, inform him that the Con- vocation of the clergy was as much a part of the English constitu- tion as the House of Commons, that though, through the irregular summons by which the Convention Parliament met, no Convocation ^ Sir J. Keresby's Memoirs, p. 390 ; Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 163 ; Burnet's Own Time, p. 528. 2 Kalph, Hist, of Eng. ii. 74. "The Church party were by far the most numerous in Parliament," says Dalrymple, Mevioirs, 11. 125. Lord Macaulay, with his usual disregard of facts when they do not suit his theories, says that two-thirds of this Parliament were not Churchmen at all, ^ 1 William and Mary, c. 18. For an account of Its provisions, see Notes and Illustrations. J 1688-1689. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 5i5 could assemble, yet that certainly no measure, in which it might fairly claim to have a voice, ought to be carried in its abeyance. The Dean might also, perhaps, inform him that there was every probability that the Convocation of the clergy would agree to con- siderable changes in the Prayer-Book, and thus smooth the way for a legitimate Bill of Comprehension.^ At any rate, it was clear that the clergy would not be satisfied unless they were consulted, and the attempt to override them would only increase the ill-feeling which many of them entertained against the new rulers. It was determined, therefore, to summon a Convocation in the usual form with the next Parliament, and to submit to it the changes deemed necessary for a comprehension of Nonconformists. § 16. In the meantime, to ascertain what these were, and how they might be expressed in the formularies, a Commission was issued to ten bishops and twenty other divines to prepare matters for the consideration of Convocation. Among the bishops on the Commission was Gilbert Burnet, now consecrated Bishop of Salis- bury. Sancroft could not be induced himself''.to lay hands on this thorough-going political partisan and dexterous intriguer, but by a strange inconsistency, what he would not do himself the Primate sanctioned being done by others, and issued his commission for Burnet's consecration. On the Commission for alterations of the Prayer-Book also sat Stillingfleet, now Bishop of Worcester ; Patrick, Bishop of Chichester ; Tillotson, Tenison, both afterwards Primates ; Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York ; Beveridge, a man very learned in antiquity ; Grove, a leading London preacher, and afterwards bishop ; and two theological professors from Oxford, Aldrich and Jane. It was a very learned and very able body, but it is impossible to credit it with even a small por- tion of the wisdom, discretion, and taste which animated the last body of revisors in 1661. § 17. It would seem that the Commissioners entered upon their work, not so much to make a fair review of the Liturgy, as avowedly to formulate a comprehension scheme. Tillotson put upon paper a list of the changes " which would probably be made : " — (1) All ceremonies to be made indifferent. (2) The liturgy to be reviewed to take away all grounds of exception. (3) Assent and consent to be taken away ; a promise to submit to the doctrine and discipline of the Church substituted. (4) A new body of canons to be made. (5) Ecclesiastical courts to be reformed. (6) Foreign orders to be admitted. (7) A form of conditional ordi- 1 Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 165 ; Calamy's Autobiography, i. 209 ; Reresby's Memoirs, 375-391. 2 N 546 TOLERATION AND COMPEEHENSIOK Chap. XXX VL nation to be adopted.-^ This programme was sufficiently startling, and accordingly several of the divines named, seeing what was in- tended, declined to act on the Commission. ^ § 18. On October 3 (1689) about twenty of the Commissioners assembled in the Jerusalem Chamber, and their sittings were con- tinued almost daily for several weeks. There was much unanimity among them, and they agreed to recommend to Convocation a very extensive scheme of alterations,^ of which it is perhaps not too much to say that a more complete mutilation of the Liturgy could scarcely be devised. Among other sweeping changes it was pro- posed to re-write almost all the collects, which would have had the effect of substituting the vapid and frothy mannerisms of Patrick and Tillotson for the nervous simplicity of the old English. § 19. While the Commissioners were deliberating tranquilly on these extensive changes in the Church system, the greatest agitation and excitement prevailed among the clergy. It was believed generally that a scheme was on foot for Presbyterianising the Church and delivering it up as a prey to the Dissenters. The outrages perpetrated in Scotland on the clergy exasperated English Churchmen, and the news that nine bishops and over four hun- dred clergy had accepted suspension rather than take the oaths did not tend to calm them. Upon the Convocation, which was to assemble in November, the greatest issues were staked, and in con- sequence " great canvassings were everywhere in the elections of Convocation men, a thing not known in former times." * Various publications attracted attention. Dr. Sherlock, in a Letter to a Friend, denied the necessity for alterations in the Liturgy, and maintained that the Dissenters would not thus be conciliated. Dr. Tenison, in reply, contended that the Church had frequently made alterations, and that some were now much needed. Mr. Long, in a pamphlet called Vox Cleri, showed that every concession asked for was not to be granted simply because it was asked for. The Dissenters had now a toleration which the clergy could never obtain in the Civil War ; it was folly to attempt to gratify them further to the injury of the Church. This clever pamphlet was answered by Vox Populi, Vox Begis et Regni, etc., but it spoke pretty accurately the dominant feeling among the clergy. 1 Birch's Life of Tillotson, p. 168. ^ Bishops Sprat and Mew, and Drs. Aldrich and Jane. ^ A summary will be foimd in Notes and Illustrations from Calamy. The most complete information can now be had by consulting the facsimile of the original book of alterations published by order of Parliament, and Bishop Williams' Diary, also published by the same authority. Calamy ha<3 carefully inspected the altered Prayer-Book. ^ Burnet's Own Time, p. 543. 16S8-1689. TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. 547 § 20. The Synod of the Province of Canterbury met November 21 (1689), and the relative strength of the High and Low Church parties in it was at once tested by the election of Prolocutor. The party of comprehension put forward their best man, Dr. Tillotson, and the party of conservatism selected Dr. Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and Dean of Gloucester. Dr. Jane was elected by a majority of two to one. On being presented to the Bishop of London, sitting as president, the new Prolocutor " extolled the excellency of the Church of England as established by law above all other Christian communities, and implied that it wanted no amendments, and then ended with the application of this sen- tence by way of triumph — Nolumus leges Anglice mutari." i The Bishop of London, in reply, recommended concession towards Dis- senters, to which he said the bishops were pledged by their petition to King James. It was now discovered that the Royal Commission to the Convocation to review the Liturgy and make Canons, was defective, as not having the Great Seal, and the Synod was pro- rogued till December 4. In the interval efforts were made to win over the chief opponents of the comprehension scheme, but without success. On December 4 the Earl of Nottingham brought down the king's commission, and also communicated a message from his Majesty, in which he expresses his hope that the clergy will not " disappoint his good intentions and deprive the Church of benefit from their consultations." § 21, The bishops at once agreed to an address in reply to his Majesty, thanking the king " for his zeal for the Protestant religion in general, and the Church of England in particular." The Lower llouse, however, was not so favourably disposed towards the Pro- testant religion, if that ambiguous phrase was to be taken to in- clude the sectaries, who had persecuted the Church in times past and were now seeking her mutilation, and the Presbyterians, who were giving a strange example of tolerance by the cruelties which they were inflicting on the clergy in Scotland. They represented to the Upper House that they were the representatives of a formed Established Church, and that they could only recognise religion as the religion of a formed Church. The bishops amended their phrase, " the Protestant religion in this and all other Protestant Churches." To this the Lower House objected as putting them on a level with the foreign Presbyterian communities. They desired that the words this ayid might be omitted. The bishops yielded, and an address was at length agreed upon, which thanked his Majesty for his care for the Church of England, " whereby we doubt not the interest of the Protestant religion in all other Pro- 1 Keunott, iii, 552. 548 TOLERATION AND COMPREHENSION. Chap. XXXVI. testant Chnrclies, wMcli is dear to us, will be tlie better secured." The Lower House had thus proved its power to control the Upper, and it was evident that no scheme of concession would find favour with it. It was not only in itself distasteful to the members, but they saw clearly that it would be of most dangerous consequence in regard to the Nonjurors. The party which refused to take the oaths to the king would then formally separate from the Church on the ground of doctrine and discipline, and a large number of the clergy, not otherwise indisposed to accept the new government, would be added to the ranks of the^ dissentients, through their objections to the changes in the Prayer-Book. From this great danger the firmness of the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury saved the Church of England. § 22. So clearly manifested was the sentiment of the Lower House that the scheme prepared by the Commission was never even brought before it. Some unimportant matters were discussed, and then the Convocation was prorogued. The effect of the atti- tude of the clergy on Dr. Tillotson, when he became Primate, is thus described by a contemporary : — " When he observed with what resolution the body of them from the very first declared against any alterations, and how they fortified and strengthened their confederacies and combinations, he was convinced that the method he had been for was really impracticable as things then stood, and therefore was not for repeating the dangerous experi- ment, or having any more to do with Convocations all the while he continued archbishop." ^ ^ Calamy's Autobiography, 1. 210. ♦ 1688-1689 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 549 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. I (A) THE TOLERATION ACT. (1 Will, and Mary, c. 18.) This Act, designated "An Act for Ex- empting their Majesties' Protestant sub- jects Dissenting from the Church of Eng- land from the Penalties of certain Laws," was framed on the ground that "some ease to scrupulous consciences in the exercise of religion" maj' unite all Protest- ants in interest and affection. It accord- ingly exempts persons who take the new oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and also make the declaration against popery required by the Act of 1678, from the penalties incurred by absenting them- selves from church and holding unlawful conventicles ; it also allows the Quakers to substitute an affirmation for an oath in certain cases, but it does not relax the provisions of the Corporation and Test Acts, and those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity are excluded from its benefits. It requires a declaration of approbation of the thirty-six doctrinal articles from all preachers, and provides that all assem- blies for religious worship shall be held with open doors. (B) SUMMARY OF THE ALTERA- TIONS IN THE PRAYER-BOOK RECOMMENDED BY THE COM- MISSION.—(i^rom Calamy.) That the chanting of the divine service in cathedrals be discontinued. That some special Psalms be selected for Sunday use. That the Apocryphal lessons, and those from the Old Testament which are too natural, be abandoned. A new Calendar to be prepared, leaving out all legendary saints' days. A new Rubrick to be inserted signifjing that the cross is not essential, but only a decent ceremony, with allow- ance to omit it if desired. Kneeling at the Lord's Supper to be made optional. A Rubrick to be inserted declaring Lent to be best kept by devotion, not by distinc- tions of meats. Another Rubrick to explain the meaning of Ember days and Rogation days. The Rubrick bidding the priest to say daily the morning and evening prayers to be changed into an exhortation to the people to frequent those prayers. The absolution in morning and evening prayer to be allowed to be read by a deacon. Priest, wherever it occurs, to be changed into minister. The Gloria Patri only to be used at the conclusion of the Psalms for the day. Honourable, in the Te Deum, to be omitted. The Benedicite, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis to be changed for Psalms. The versicles after the Lord's Prayer to be said kneeling; all titles of the sovereign to be omitted. Prayers for the king and the clei'gy to be altered in their wording. The prayer, "O God, whose nature and property," to be omitted. The Collects for the most part to be changed for those the Bishop of Chichester (Patrick) has prepared. If a minister refuse the surplice, the bishop, if the people desire it and the living will bear it, may substi- tute one who will officiate in it. The whole thing to be left to the bishop. God- fathers and godmothers to be omitted if any desire it. A Rubrick to be affixed to the Athanasian Creed, declaring its threat- enings not to be restricted to those who deny any particular article, but to those who obstinately deny the Christian reli- gion. An amended version of the reading Psalms to be inserted, i In place of the Commandments in the communion ser- vice, the eight Beatitudes to be read with appropriate response. In the Catechism the duties to be broken into questions. An address to be inserted, to be used by the minister the Sunday before Confirma- tion, and an address for the bishop at Confirmation. The absolution in the visitation of the sick to be struck out. Commination service to be considerably altered. A conditional form of ordination to be inserted. Fuller information as to the proposed changes will be found in Procter's History of the Prayer-Book, where the summary occupies thirteen pages in small type. 1 It was left to the Convocation what this should be, whether the translation " made by the Bishop of St. Asaph (Lloyd) and Dr Kidder, or that in the Bible." 550 THE NONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE NONJURING SCHISM — THE CONVOCATION CONTROVERSY. 1689-1702. § 1. Difficulties of the question of the Oaths to the new rulers. § 2. The Nonjurors. § 3. Bishop Ken. § 4. Archbishop Sancroft. § 5. Uneasy feelings of those who had taken the Oaths. § 6. Archbishop Sharp. § 7. Tillotson's Erastian policy. § 8. The Convocation Controversy : The Letter to a Convocation Man. § 9. Wake's Authority of Christian Princes. § 10. Atterbxiry's Pdghts, Powers, and Privileges, etc. § 11. Wake's State of the Church and Clergy. § 12. Effects of the Contro- versy. § 13. Teuison as Primate. § 14. The Committee of Patronage. § 15. The Lower House of Convocation contend for its alleged rights. § 16. It refuses to attend to the Archbishop's prorogation. § 17. Quarrel between the tAvo Houses. § 18. Disputes in the following Con- vocation. § 19. The Societies for Eeformation of Manners. § 20. The Societies for Promoting Christian Knowledge and Propagation of the Gospel. § 21. Dr. Thomas Bray. § 22. Difference of opinion touching the Reformation Societies. § 23. Revival of Religion. § 24. The Abjuration Oath. § 1. The questions whicli the clergy had to decide, in connection with taking the oaths to the new rulers, were by no means simple and easy. If they were disciples of the doctrine then beginning to be in vogue, as to there being a mutual pact or covenant between the sovereign and the people to be broken or dissolved by the offensive action of either party, then probably the case would pre- sent few difficulties. But this doctrine was held by very few of the clergy. The majority of them regarded the sovereign as some- thing above the law, and under no special obligations save his responsibility to God. They held that this sacred ofl&ce was inti- mately connected with primogeniture and hereditary right, and that so indelible was its character, that even the act of the possessor himself could not evacuate it.^ In. opposition to this there was a numerous body, which, assigning almost as high qualities to the kingly office as the others, nevertheless held that its occupant could cede it ; that James had in fact ceded the Crown by his flight, and that therefore the de facto government which the country had accepted had a claim to their allegiance. The great difficulty with which those who held this view had to contend, was that it seemed to justify the claims of Oliver Cromwell to the allegiance of the clergy of his day. But it was pointed out that the two 1 D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, i. 418. 1689-1702. THE CONVOCATION CONTROVERSY. 551 cases were not really similar. Charles I. had never ceded his rights, but had fought for them. The nation had not deliberately accepted Cromwell by its legal representatives. But even suppos- ing the rulers now installed by the nation to be rightfully installed, could the obligation of the oaths taken to the dispossessed ruler cease ? How and by what could a solemn oath and pledge before heaven be dissolved ? And if the oath to James remained in full force, how could the oath to William be taken ? Some of the difficulties were got over by the form in which the oath to the new rulers was cast Nothing was said or implied in it as to their title ; it was simply, " I, A B, do sincerely promise and swear to bear true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary." It might seem that all men who rightly weighed the emergency of the occasion and the importance of the issues ; who considered that practically the obligation to allegiance must cease when no allegi- ance could be legally demanded ; that no undertaking, however solemn, could disable a man from acting contrary to it in every conceivable circumstance ; that there must be exceptions to every rule ; that no oaths could justify a man in committing a crime ; and that the upholding a ruler who was hostile to the liberties of his people both civil and religious was no less than a crime — it might seem that on some such grounds as these the clergy might very well make so simple a promise. Many, however, were unable to do so. § 2. When the new oath was taken by the Houses of Parlia- ment (]\Iarch 1689), ten bishops took it, but no 'less than nine steadily refused it,^ The Act of Parliament, which made it im- perative on all ecclesiastical persons to take the oath before August 1 on pain of suspension for six months, and then of de- privation, did not avail to bend the resolve of any of these bishops. Three of them — Thomas, Lake, and Cartwright — died before the time of deprivation came ; but of Bishop Thomas and Bishop Lake, it is recorded that they justified on their deathbeds the decision at which they had arrived. Of Bishop Cartwright's final views nothing is known, as he died abroad. Very few clergy, indeed, who incurred suspension on August 1 for refusing the oaths, altered their views between that period and February 1,1690, which was the end of the term of grace, and after which time their benefices were vacant in law, and might be filled up by the patrons. Dr. Sherlock, the Master of the Temple, and afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, was a notable exception. He had advocated the very 1 Archbishop Sancroft, Bishops Ken (Bath and Wells), Turner (Ely), Frampton (Gloucester), Lloyd (Norwich), White (Peterborougli), Thomas (Worcester), Lake (Chichester), Cartwright (Chester). 552 THE NONJUEING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII. highest notions of loyalty in his Case of Resistance, but having incurred suspension, he changed his mind, and published to the world his reasons for doing so in a work called The Case of Alle- giance due to a Sovereign Power. In this he declared that his accept- ance of the de facto government was greatly influenced by the publi- cation of the Canons passed by the first Convocation of King James, which had been lately made known for the first time by Arch- bishop Bancroft. 1 Six bishops, including the Primate, and about 400 beneficed clergy, were deprived by the operation of the Act of Parliament on February 1, 1690. Among these divines there were some of the greatest learning and power, but these were not the qualities in those who were deprived which constituted their chief loss to the Church. Learning and power might be found, also, among those who took the oaths. But the Nonjurors were, for the most part, men distinguished for their devotion to Church principles, and of this element there was soon proved to be a griev- ous lack in the Church of England. Among the more remarkable of those divines who refused the oaths, in addition to the six bishops, were John Kettlewell and George Hickes, both formerly fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford, and both known as scholars and writers of considerable power. Jeremy Collier, the famous Church historian, was also one of them, and Charles Leslie, one of the most acute and exact of the controversial writers of the Church of Eng- land. Among the laymen who refused the oaths were to be found Henry Dodwell, Camden professor at Oxford, remarkable for his learning and ftis eccentricity, and Kobert Nelson, for many years one of the most active and energetic advocates of all good and holy things in England. § 3. But the greatest loss to the Church of England was un- doubtedly Bishop Ken, whose holy and blameless life, striking powers of preaching, and boldness in contending for the truth, made him the most influential and valuable bishop of his day. It was not without great hesitation that Bishop Ken joined the Non- jurors, and brought himself to sacrifice his unrivalled capacity of usefulness in the Church to a romantic sentiment of loyalty. ^ Nor was he allowed to secede without the greatest efl'orts being used to retain him. The noble stand which he had made against arbitrary power in the king, and against the introduction of Popery into the ^ It appears that the work known as Overall's Convocation Book, which contains these Canons on government, had not been published till this date. Sancroft is said to have published it by way of advocating divine right, but Sherlock discovered in it certain Canons which are stronglfor de facto govern- ment. These were the Canons which so much displeased King James with the work of this Convocation. See Notes and Illustrations, chap, xxiii, 2 Bishop of Ely's Letter to Sancroft, Tanner MSS. 27, 16. 1689-1702. THE CONVOCATION CONTROVERSY. 553 Church, made it well worth while to labour for his retention. He was allowed a year's grace beyond the time prescribed by law, and when the Government was at last constrained to nominate a successor to his see, it was not easy to find a divine of eminence who would venture to thrust himself into the place of one so greatly revered as the good Bishop of Bath and Wells. The see was offered to Dr. William Beveridge, Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill, and Archdeacon of Colchester. Beveridge, however, declined the appointment, on the ground that the see was not canonically vacant. At length a successor to Ken was found in the person of Dr. Kidder, Dean of Peterborough. The tragical end which afterwards over- took this prelate, who, together with his wife, was killed in bed by the fall of a chimney in the great storm of 1703, was no doubt interpreted by many as a judgment, designed to reprove intrusion into places vacated by no ecclesiastical fault, but by mere politica] considerations. As soon as his successor had been consecrated. Bishop Ken, having delivered a protest against the intrusion, retired to the house of his friend. Lord Weymouth, at Longleat, where he passed the remainder of his life in devout tranquillity. Queen Mary settled a pension on him in grateful remembrance of his services as her chaplain. On Dr. Kidder's death. Ken made a formal cession of his canonical rights in favour of his friend Hooper, appointed to succeed Kidder, and did all in his power to close up the schism. Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, was of a like temper and similar views ; but there were others of the Non- juring bishops who were not like-minded with these good men, and by their agency a mischievous schism was long continued.-^ § 4. Sancroft's mind appears to have been shaken by the trials and anxieties which he went through in the reign of James. His disposition was eminently loyal. He owed much, personally, to the king, on whose recommendation, when Duke of York, he had been made Primate over the heads of all the bishops. He was inclined to push deference to the royal will to its utmost limits. Yet, by the circumstances in which he was placed, the Primate was obliged, first of all, to resist the king's will in the matter of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and then, in the matter of the famous petition, to take up a position of complete antagonism to him. His perplexities were still further increased when the king was demand- ing at his hands a declaration against the Prince of Orange, while he knew in his heart that the only hope for the country and the Church lay in the vigorous intervention of the Prince. His mental trials, added to his enfeebled state of health, may not im- ^ For an account of the clandestine consecrations and the history of the later Nonjurors, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 55 i THE CONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII. probably have affected his power of judging, for on that supposi- tion alone can his conduct be justified, in peevishly abstaining from all part in public afiairs when his presence was so much needed, refusing to consecrate and then giving a commission to others to consecrate for him, deploring the schism and then dele- gating his archiepiscopal powers to Lloyd, late Bishop of Norwich, with a view to the continuance of the separation.^ Of a piece with these vagaries of conduct was his somewhat childish refusal to quit Lambeth until removed by process of law. Once re- stored, however, to his native place, Fresingfield, in Suffolk, all his perplexities vanished. He lived contentedly on £50 a year, and died happily, November 24, 1693. § 5. It is not to be supposed that the loss to the Church of the services of over 400 divines of eminence for learning and devotion, could take place without a considerable convulsion, and without stirring up strife between those who felt themselves obliged to leave, and those who thought themselves justified in remaining. The whole of the clergy, in fact, were eminently uneasy and dis- contented. The secession of so many divines of weight seemed to testify against those who had remained in possession of their bene- fices, and who were contemptuously named by the seceders " a pack of jolly swearers." ^ King William, upholding Presbyte- rianism in Scotland, could hardly be regarded as likely to make a very orthodox head of the Church of England. Burnet and Tillot- son, his favourite ecclesiastical advisers, were men deficient in Church principles, and ready to consent to any damaging compre- hension scheme. The other prelates now consecrated had no special merits as churchmen. § 6. There was, however, one exception, which did something to reassure men's minds. The northern primacy was given, on the death of Archbishop Lamplugh, to Dr. Sharp, Dean of Norwich, whose powerful sermons against Popery had first moved the anger of King James. Dr. Sharp was an able man, and a zealous church- man. He made an admirable archbishop, and he soon became the leader and mainstay of the Church party as against the Latitudi- narian tendencies of the southern primates. § 7. Tillotson, dissatisfied and annoyed at the issue of the Convocation of 1689, which he had confidently expected would be favourable to change, determined to have nothing to do with Convocations during his primacy, but to endeavour to govern the Church by royal Injunctions, In the disturbed state of the Church at that time, and with such a king as William on the 1 D'Oyly's Life of Saner oft, ii. 31-33 ; Life of Kettl&iixll, p. 136. 2 Tovdmin's Mistory of Dissenters, p. 87, 1689-1702. THE CONVOCATION CONTROVEKSY. 555 throne, no policy could have been more mischievous. It is true that the royal Injunctions to the bishops,^ drawn up under Tillot- son's advice, but not published till the time of his successor (Feb. 15, 16.95), contained njthing in them that was not salutary ; but the idea of governing the Church by royal Injunctions, and caus- ing the bishops to make reports as to their administration of their dioceses to the king, was not suited to the times or to the person of the sovereign. An alien by nation and religion could scarcely be forced into the character of a personal supreme head of the Church of England by any such device as this. The matter became still more flagrantly incongruous in the eyes of churchmen, when the sovereign essayed to publish not only disci- plinary directions to guide the bishops, but also a paper of doctrinal directions to settle the Trinitarian controversy, and for " the preserving unity in the Church and the purity of Christian faith." These directions were indeed of a simple and practical character, bidding the preachers and writers confine them- selves to the language used by the Church, avoid public opposi- tion, and bitter and scurrilous invectives against one another ; ^ "but it did not the less vex the minds of the clergy that they should be treated so completely as royal pupils, to be instructed and lectured in their duties by royal edicts and court-made bishops, without having any opportunity of making their owti voice heard, or any care being taken to ascertain their opinion. The Parliament met and deliberated, but the Convocations, though formally summoned by writ, were not allowed to meet and deliberate. § 8. The uneasy feeling produced by these things at length found expression in the famous Letter to a Convocation Man, and what was called The Convocation Controversy. The writer of this letter was Sir Bartholomew Shower,^ who had been Recorder of London in the time of James II., and was of strong Jacobite views. He first set himself to prove the need for Convocation meeting at this time. " You cannot imagine," he says, " the mischievous effects which these various opinions and heresies of late published and vindicated have produced among the laity. They are such that a Convocation seems necessary, not only for the faith and doctrine of our English Church, but even to preserve the belief of any revelation." He then examined the question of right. Con- vocation is summoned by the king's WTit, but that, he contends, does not make it a precarious assembly, any more than the other 1 Kennett, iii. 684, 2 Kennett, iii. 714. For an account of the Trinitarian controversy of this periort^l, see Notes and Illustrations. 2 It is sometimes erroneously attributed to Dr. Binkes. 556 THE CONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXYII. writs under fhe great seal, which the law directs to be issued, make the matters to which they appertain precarious. The ancient writ addressed to the bishops to summon them to Parliament contains a clause directing them {^remonentes) to summon the clergy, and as this refers to the same persons who are members of and constitute the Lower House of Convocation, it follows of neces- sity that it was intended that Convocations should meet as often as Parliaments. Then as to the power of the Assembly to deliber- ate. *' The prerogative power of assembling them by writ doth not import a power of licensing and confining them in their debates, any more than it doth in the case of Parliaments, nor doth the writ of summon necessarily imply anything of this nature when fairly considered." " Were a Parliament thus sum- moned and adjourned before the Lower House had made a vote, or so much as chosen their speaker, I believe the members of that house would hardly allow this to be holding a Parliament. To confer, debate, and resolve without the king's license is, at common law, the undoubted right of Convocation." " If the Church of Ed gland has any rights, privileges, or liberties as a church, this we contend for is one and the first of them." ^ These bold views were in fact the counsels to the Church of rebellion against the new dynasty, and the policy which was seeking to muzzle and silence her. They were received with vehement approbation by the clergy, many of whom were ready now to forget the tyranny and oppres- sion of the banished king, in their extreme disgust at the Erastian and latitudinarian church policy of the present rulers. § 9. The Letter to a Convocation Man was answered by Dr. Wake in a treatise called The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods. In this he treats the subject generally, in the first place proving that from the very nature of their office Christian kings have power to convene or not to convene synods. Then he endeavours to show that this applies to England. In one part of his treatise Wake exposes a manifest error of the writer of the Letter. Shower had argued as though the parliamentary summons of the clergy through the clause in the bishops' writs was to be applied to the rights and privileges of Convocation. Wake proves conclusively that the assembly of the clergy called by the parliamentary writs, and the Convocation summoned by the Convocation writ and the orders of the archbishop, are two totally different assemblies. He goes on to say — " Though our Convocations as ecclesiastical synods have come to be for a long time summoned at the same time that the Parliament was to meet^ I do not see any reason there is to confine them so closely to such a season as to make it absolutely necessary for the king to call the ^ Letter to a Convocation Man. Lond. 1697, pp. 7, 35, 38, 41, 60. 1689-1702. THE CONVOCATION CONTROVERSY. 557 one whenever lie does tlie other." The Convocation, he contends, also, has neither a right to meet, nor when met to debate, without the king's license. Nor was the present time, according to this writer, an opportune time for granting such a license. " Whilst pride and peevishness, hatred and ill-will, divisions and discontents, prevail among those who should teach and correct others, and instead of improving a true spirit of piety and charity, peaceableness and humility, we mind little else but our several interests and quarrels and contentions with one another, what wonder if we see but little success of our ministry, and are but little regarded on account of it?"i § 10. Dr. Wake's book brought out a clever writer in reply — a divine destined to play, like his opponent, a prominent part in the Church history of the period. This was Francis Atterbury, student of Christ Church, already known for his assault upon Dr. Bentley's Epistles of Phalaris. Atterbury, in his work called the Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Convocation, endeavours to establish the point that the parliamentary summons of the clergy under the Premonentes clause in the bishops' writ, and tht* summons of the clergy to Convocation under the provincial writ addressed to the archbishop, were, in fact, one and the same thing ; that it was because the clergy resisted the summons to Parliament on account of the heavy taxes to which they were called to agree, that the writ was addressed to the archbishop to compel their attendance in a separate assembly ; that this assembly (the Con- vocation) though sitting apart from Parliament, was in fact as much a part of the legislature as the House of Commons, and that the clergy had the same inherent right to meet in Convocation as the laity had to meet in the House of Commons. Further, that the Act of Submission under Henry VIII. did not restrain the clergy from making canons, but only from promulging them, and enforc- ing them without the king's approval.^ In this latter position Atterbury was probably right ; in his former, as to the two writs being of the same purport, he was certainly wrong. § 11. He was answered by Burnet, Hody, Kennett, and at length by Dr. Wake in a very learned folio entitled The State oj the Church and Clergy of England in their Convocations historically deduced. Wake may be said fully to establish the main points of his book as to the radical difference between the parliamentary summons of the clergy and their summons under the archbishop's writ, and thus to prove that the Lower House of Convocation could not claim to be regarded on a par with the Lower House of Parlia- ment. But it must be allowed that Wake's vast parade of historical 1 Wake's Authority, etc., pp. Ill, 226, 229. 2 Atterbury 's Rights, Powers, etc., pp. 38, 41, 42, 43, 115. 558 THE NONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII authorities is not always trustv/orthy. His historical statements and inferences cannot, in fact, be accepted without a careful examination. § 1 2. The importance of this controversy was speedily apparent. In the first place, the clergy were so excited by it that it was not thought safe to attempt any longer to condemn them to silence, and Convocation was allowed to meet and deliberate (February 10, 1 701). In the next place, the remarkable strife M^hich at once developed itself between the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation was greatly due to the arguments which had been used by Atterbury and others as to the supposed inherent and independent rights which the Lower House of the Synod had, in common, as was thought, with the Lower House of Parliament. § 13. Archbishop Tillotson had died November 22, 1694, and had been succeeded, after an interval of only twelve days, by Dr. Thomas Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln. Stillingfleet was a far abler man, but he was more of a Churchman, and hence it was found convenient to assert that he was incapacitated by ill-health. Teni- son had been a leading clergyman in London, and an active and useful bishop at Lincoln. He was a man of popular manners and Latitudinarian views. He was probably somewhat more of a Churchman than his predecessor, but he was not likely to be troublesome to the Government in asserting over vigorously the claims of the Church. § 14. Almost immediately after his appointment as Primate occurred the death of Queen Mary. She had almost entirely disposed of Church patronage during her lifetime, and after her death William appointed a sort of committee of six prelates, to whom the patronage for ecclesiastical dignities was entrusted. To this clique, as they were called, of Whig bishops, who notoriously only promoted men of their own views, the feelings of the clergy in general were by no means friendly. When Archbishop Tenison, therefore, had to face the Convocation, at length, after an eleven years' interval, summoned and allowed to act, it was hardly to be expected that difficulties and heats would be avoided. The doc- trines of the Letter to a Convocation Man, and of Atterbury's book, were at once put into practical operation. § 15. The archbishop had customarily prorogued Convocation, the Lower House with the Upper. The advocates of the newly- discovered rights of the Lower House determined to resist this. The archbishop, they held, could no more legally prorogue the Lower House of Convocation than the Lord Chancellor could pro • rogue the House of Commons.^ They resisted, therefore, the arch ^ Hooper's Narrative of the Proceedings of the Lower House of Convo- cation (Lond, 1701), p. 8. 1689-1702. THE CONVOCATION" CONTEOVEESY. 559 "bisliop's prorogation, and after remaining sitting sufficiently long to assert their rights, the Prolocutor adjourned the House to the place of its own session, namely the Henry VH. Chapel in the Abbey, whereas the archbishop had prorogued them to the Jerusalem Chamber, where the Upper House sat. The archbishop, having reproved the Prolocutor for his irregular proceedings, was informed by him that the House had voted that it was the usage and right of the Lower House to be prorogued by its Prolocutor, and that the usage also was that it should be prorogued to the place of its own session, and not to the place where the Upper House met, and so be obliged to attend their Lordships before proceeding to business. The bishops sent a "copious answer" to this, examining the histori- cal precedents alleged, and denying the right claimed. The Lower House then demanded a free conference^ which was exactly to imi- tate the proceedings of the House of Commons. The bishops refused, declaring that the matter must be treated in writing. The next proceeding of the Lower House was to undertake a matter yrop-io motu, which should afterwards be sent to the Upper House as the House of Commons sends a bill to the Lords. They deter- mined to censure a book, and selected for this purpose a work by Toland, a freethinker, called Christianity not Mysterious. This book was easy to censure, and in passing the censure upon it and sending it to the bishops, the Lower House acted dexterously ; for if the bishops accepted and confirmed the censure they would seem to acknowledge the right which the Lower House claimed, but if they refused to entertain it they would expose themselves to the charge of encouraging Socinianism and infidelity. The archbishop, having taken legal advice, informed the Lower House that no canon or decree touching Toland's book could be made without a license from the Crown, and thus escaped from the dilemm.a. He then gave the Lower House a severe lecture, and adjourned it for a month. § 16. The Lower House decided to ignore this prorogation, and adjourned itself to a difi'erent day. On the reassembling of the bishops on May 8 the Prolocutor handed to the archbishop a paper which he described as the Act of the House, but which was, in fact, a reply to the archbishop's speech made at the prorogation. The President was informed that there was in reality no need of a license to condemn Toland's book, but that if a licence was neces- sary the archbishop might easily have procured it. The Lower House declared also that the bishops had been guilty of greater irregularities than themselves. § 1 7. The archbishop offered to appoint a committee of bishops to meet a committee of the Lower House, to examine into the regu- 560 THE NONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII larity of their proceedings. The Lower House replied haughtily " that they did not think fit to appoint such a committee." ^ Upon this the bishops declared that they would receive nothing from the Lower House until proper apology was made for this disrespect. The Lower House retorted by handing them a paper accusing Bishop Burnet of heresy. When particulars of the charge, however, were demanded, they were not able to produce them, and the mat- ter fell through. Soon afterwards the Convocation came to an end with the Parliament. § 18. In the Convocation which met with the new Parliament at the close of the year (1701) the spirit displayed was of a similar character. The House refused the good and learned Beveridge, who was put forward for Prolocutor, and chose Dr. Woodward, Dean of Salisbury, a man notorious for his violent principles. The strife again arose on the question of proroguing. The majority of the Lower House contended that their own chairman had the privi- lege of proroguing the House over which he presided. The arch- bishop maintained that he as president had alone the right of pro- roguing the Convocation, and that the Lower House had no separate existence and separate rights of its own, but was included in the general phrase, and must be bound by his acts as President of the whole body. In the midst of this unseemly strife the Pro- locutor died suddenly, and the archbishop, gladly seizing this opportunity of silencing a body so troublesome to him, refused to recommend the Lower House to choose another Prolocutor, but promising to call them together and allow a Prolocutor to be chosen should any emergency arise, prorogued the Convocation (February 15, 1702). The death of the king, which happened soon after- wards, was held to terminate the Convocation. § 19. It must not be thought that all the energies of the clergy of the Revolution period were absorbed in hot and contentious disputes and controversies. These, indeed, will be found to pre- vail in every period of active and awakened religious life, and that this period was such an one is abundantly clear. The immorality and licentiousness developed after the Restoration had reached a fearful head before the period of the Revolution, and, in particular, openly expressed profanity and blasphemy were heard on every side. In January 1692 the king issued a proclamation against vice and immorality, and to order the laws existing for their repres- sion to be put in immediate force ; and soon after an association was formed of certain gentlemen of good standing, to take care that the objects aimed at in the proclamation were not lost sight of, and to bring about the application of the laws against the open exhibi- ^ Kennett, ill. 840. 1OS9-1702. THE CONVOCATION CONTHOVERSY. 561 tion of vice and crime. This principle of association, to which modern society owes such infinite obligations, was soon further developed. The societies for reformation of manners had owed their origin to certain private religious associations or guilds, which began to be formed about the year 1678 under the influence of Doctors Horneck and Beveridge and Mr. Smithies. These guilds met frequently for devotional exercises, and systematically under- took certain good works. They were instrumental in bringing about more frequent celebrations of the Holy Communion in churches, daily services, the establishment of schools, the mini- strations to prisoners and the sick.^ § 20. The spirit fostered by them in private led to the forma- tion not only of the public societies for reformation, but also to the establishment of another public society which has done a work of incalculable value for the Church of England. Five men,^ ani- mated by a noble zeal for religion, agreed, in the year 1698, to form a society for providing gratuitous instruction to the poor, for furnishing at a cheap rate Bibles and religious books for distribution, and for attempting missionary work abroad. The king granted to the society founded by these good men a royal charter, to enable it to become the possessor of property, and to have a continuous existence ; and under the name of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, a title wide enough to embrace all its work, it soon began to flourish. Three years after its commencement it formed a branch society for missionary work in the American colonies. This also obtained a charter (1701) under the name of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. § 21. It may be said to owe its establishment almost entirely to Dr. Thomas Bray, one of the original five founders of the Chris- tian Knowledge Society, who, as commissary for the Bishop of London in America, had seen the great need of clergy and the pro- visions for Christian education in those rapidly-growing colonies. Dr. Bray also founded an association for providing libraries for the clergy, which has proved a very useful agency. § 22. The Primate, seeing the great value of the principle of association, encouraged and stimulated it among the clergy. In a circular letter, dated April 1699, he says : — " It were to be wished that the clergy of every neighbourhood would agree upon frequent meetings to consult for the good of religion in general, and to advise with one another about any difficulties that may happen in their particular cures ; and these meetings might be made a still 1 Dr. Woodward's Histonj of the Religious Societies (London, 1701). 2 Lord Guilford, Sir Humphrey Mackworth, Justice Hook, Colonel Col- chester, and Dr. Bray, the founders of the Christian Knowledge Society. 2o 5Q2 THE NONJURING SCHISM. Chap. XXXVII. greater advantage to the clergy, in carrying on the reformation of men's lives and manners, by inviting the churchwardens of their several parishes, and other -pious persons among the laity, to join with them in the execution of the most probable methods that can be suggested for these good ends." ^ But though the Primate was in favour of the formation of societies for reformation, or other kin- dred purposes, a very great jealousy was developed against these institutions in the country. There was, no doubt, a danger on one side lest these societies should become the means of weakening and overthrowing Church principles, inasmuch as Churchmen and Dissenters were usually joined in them. On this ground they appear to have been at first opposed by Archbishop Sharp.^ On the other hand, there was also a danger lest they should become Jacobite organisations. But though objections might be urged and dangers feared^ as regards the reformation societies, the great majority of earnest men, both clergy and laymen, gladly supported them as a valuable weapon against the immorality of the age. Eobert Nelson, well known for his devout book on the Fasts and Festivals, writes — " I know this work of reformation of manners, as under the care and management of a society for that purpose, lieth under some prejudices, even with sober and understanding persons ; but I believe it chiefly proceedeth from false stories, which calumnies and slanders having been too easily believed, have thrown contempt upon the whole work, so good in itself and so necessary for the weKare of the community." ^ § 23. Under the influence of these various associations, and the awakened religious life which they indicated, the beginning of the eighteenth century presents many of the phases of a religious revival. In particular, charity schools began to spring up every- where. In about eight years five hundred were established. In many of these schools the children were clothed and fed as well as taught. Special care was given to their religious instruction. The English charity schools became famous on the Continent. Accounts of them translated into German led to the formation of similar institutions in Germany and Switzerland.* Services were now mul- tiplied in the churches. The Holy Communion was administered very frequently ; while preparation lectures, procured and supported by the religious societies, did much towards forwarding a devout and reverent participation in the divine mysteries. ^ Keunett, iii. 776 ; Dean Comber's. 2 Life of Archbishop Sharp, i. 174, 183 ; Mcolson's Correspondence. i. 156. 3 iielson's Life of Bull, p. 312. * Woodward's History of Eeliqious Societies, p. 8 ; Secretan's Life of Nelson, p. 118. 16891702. THE CONVOCATION CONTROVEESY. 563 § 24. It was unfortunate that while she was thus developing her power of usefulness, the Church should have been still dis- tracted by the quarrels of High Church and Low Church, and by the division effected by the Jacobite secession. Many clergy, who had at first refused the oaths to William, would, on the death of James, in 1701, have been ready to swear allegiance, had it not been for the unfortunate policy of the Government which enacted the Abjuration oath. By this the clergy were called upon not only to renounce allegiance to the family and descendants of James, but to pronounce William to be rightful and lawful king. The enforce- ment of this oath produced a second crop of Nonjurors. Many whose consciences had not been altogether easy at having taken the oaths originally, now welcomed this opportunity of recanting. Others, who were quite willing to accept a de facto government, if it was called such, could not bring themselves to describe it as de jure. The policy which dictated this oath inflicted a mischief on the Church without any corresponding benefit. In spite, however, of the great loss it suffered in the Nonjurors, at the death of King William, in the beginning of 1702, the Church was in a far more vigorous condition than it had been at any time since the Eestora- tion. During the next reign it will be seen displaying an increased energy, while its clergy enjoy an extreme popularity in the land. 56i NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. CiiAr. XXXV 11. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. (A) THE LATER NONJURORS. The persons principally engaged in pro- pagating the schism of the Nonjurors were Lloyd, late Bishop of Norwich, and Turner, late Bishop of Ely. These, to- gether with White, late Bishop of Peter- borough, 'consecrated, on November 24, 1694, Dr. George Hickes and Mr. "Wag- staffe clandestinely to the Episcopate, under the titles of the suffragan Bishops of Thetford and Ipswich. Bishops Ken and Frampton disapproved of this step. Turner, late Bishop of Ely, was involv- ed in a plot for bringing back King James by aid of a French army, and nar- rowly escaped execution. Dr. Hickes was chiefly instrumental in continuing the succession of bishops. Wagstaffe, who had been consecrated with him, did not take any active part in the matter ; but Hickes, in 1713, applied to the Scotch bishops to join with him. and, together with Bishops Campbell and Gadderar, con- secrated Jeremy Collier, Samuel Hawes, and Nathaniel Spinkes to be bishops. In 1716, Collier, Spinkes, and Hawes conse- crated two more bishops, Gandj .^..d Brett. About this time a great dispute arose in the rapidly-diminishing Non- juring body on the subject of Ritual. One party among them, with Collier at the head, desired to revive the first Prayer- Book of Edward VI., with the Ritual and Usages which it presented. The other party, led by Spinkes, was in favour of keeping close to the Prayer-Book of the last review. They formally separated one from the other in the year 1718. The Usagers, as they were termed, drew up and published a new communion office. Both parties, by the aid of the Scotch bishops, among whom a similar dispute prevailed, consecrated more bishops to continue the succession. They were reunited in 1733, but again separated on other points, and continuing in disunion, gradually dwindled away, until tliey became extinct towards the close of the eighteenth century. At an earlier period (1G17-1725) the Nonjurors had carried on negotiations with the East- ern Church to be received into commu- nion, but the negotiations fell through. ^ very interesting account of this and other points in the history of the Non- jurors will be found in Mr. Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors. (B) THE TRINITARIAN CONTRO- VERSY OP THE REVOLUTION PERIOD. This controversy was commenced by Dr. John Wallis, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, who published in 1690 a pamphlet called The Loctrine of the Ever-blessed Trinity explained. Applying his mathematical notions to this mysteri- ous subject, the professor thought to make it intelligible by illustrating it by the three fundamental properties of solid bodies — length, breadth, and height. The effect of this treatise was to stir up men's thoughts on this matter, and to bring forth a number of writings. A tract called A Brief History of the Unitarians was answered by Dr. Sher- lock in a publication called A Vindi- cation of the Doctrine of the Ever-blessed Trinity. The dean's work introduced new terms and new definitions, and provoked an audacious reply, called A Clear Con- futation of the Doctrine of the Trinity, Dr. Sherlock was unpopular, as having changed his views on the question of the oaths ; and Dr. Robert South, the leader of the High Church party at Oxford, as- sailed his book in a witty and clever brochure, but with somewhat too great freedom of writing for such a subject. Dr Sherlock replied angrily, and Dr. South rejoined witli still more unseemly wit and levity. He accused Sherlock of sacrificing the unity of the Godhead and endeavour- ing to establish three distinct gods. Sher- lock, on the contrary, charged South with rank Sabellianism, in speaking of three modes, subsistencies, and properties. So fiercely did the quarrel rage that the learned Joseph Bingham, Fellow of Uni- versity College, was formally censured by the University and obliged to quit Oxford for defending Sherlock's views. At length a weighty and calmly-written work came forth from the learned Bishop Stilling- fieet, who takes occasion, in his preface, severely to reprove the bitterness and evil-speaking which had been so freely indulged in in this controversy. 1702-1710. CONVOCATION DISPUTES. 565 CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONVOCATION DISPUTES HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 1702-1710. § 1. Good prospects for the Cliurch at the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. § 2, Queen abolishes the Commission for Church preferment. § 3. Archbishop Sharp her religious adviser. § 4. Bill for preventing Occasional Conformity. § 5. Passes the Commons. § 6. Is rejected by the Lords. § 7. Queen in favour of it. § 8. Bill again before Parlia- ment, but fails to pass. § 9. Queen Anne's Bounty. § 10, Occasional Conformity Bill again rejected by Lords. § 11. The two Houses of Con- vocation again opposed to each other. § 12. The declaration as to Divine right of Episcopacy. § 13. The Lower House complain of scan- dals. § 14. The Representation of the Lower House. § 15. The Arch- bishop defends the Bishops. § 16. Charges made by the Lower House against the Bishops. § 17. Further complaints ; the Lower House re- fuses to be admonished. § 18, The Memorial of the Church of England. § 19. "The Church in danger." § 20, Resolution of Parliament that the Church is not in danger. § 21. Renewal of disputes in Convocation, § 22, The Moderate party. § 23, Convocation prorogued during the Union Settlement, § 24. Anger of the Clergy ; further prorogations, § 25, Controversy on the origin of government, and the duties of the governed, § 26. Dr. Sacheverell's sermon, § 27, Ordered by the Com- mons to be impeached; § 28. Trial of Dr. Sacheverell. § 29. His sen- tence. § 30. Effects of the sentence. § 1. The Churcli of England escaped a considerable peril at the period of the Revolution. Had the clergy as a body adhered to James, the nation, disgusted with his tyranny, might have visited the sins of the king on his clerical allies, and welcomed Presby- terianism. Had, on the contrary, the whole of the clergy favoured William, the changes in the discipline and ritual of the Church, and its comprehensiveness, so much desired by Tillotson and others, might have been attempted with success. But there was among the clergy a readiness to accept the new rulers sufficient to obviate any popular outbreak against them, and an opposition to change sufficient to make it unsafe for the government to attempt any- thing in the way of a Latitudinarian comprehension. The Church, having escaped these dangers, came to the new reign with increased vigour and power, and everything seemed to promise it a rapid advance and development. The Princess Anne was known to be a thorough Church woman. Against her the Jacobites had no dy- 566 CONVOCATION DISPUTES. Chap. XXXYIIl. nastic prejudices, and all, it was hoped, might be reunited under her rule. § 2. Her first act was to supersede the Commission for Eccles- iastical Preferments, which under William had given to a few Whig bishops the complete control of the Church, and had tended more than anything, perhaps, to excite the ill will of the High Churchmen. § 3. She selected as the preacher of her Coronation sermon, and her chief adviser in ecclesiastical matters, Dr. Sharp, Arch- bishop of York, a High Churchman, though not an extreme man ; and the tendency which the queen thus exhibited seemed to be zealously seconded by the country, which returned a Tory Parlia- ment ready to go into extremes against those favoured by the late king. § 4. The Test Act, which pressed heavily on the Nonconfor- mists, had been wont to be practically evaded by them by the device of receiving once the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as a qualification for ofiice, and then continuing to worship as Dis- senters. The Church party were now earnestly bent to stop this, which they considered an evasion of the law, and with this view they brought into the House of Commons a bill for preventing occasional conformity. § 5. By this bill it was attempted at once to compel the Non- conformists to serve those offices for which the sacramental test was required, and at the same time to refuse to acknowledge one recep- tion as a suflBcient compliance with the test. It was, in fact, a bold attempt to repeal the Toleration Act. It enacted heavy fines against any ofiicials who should attend a conventicl'fe, and held them incapable of office, until, by the reception of the Holy Communion three times in the year, they had qualified themselves. This bill quickly passed the House of Commons. § 6. In the Lords a milder view was taken. They would not agree to the attendance at a conventicle disqualifying from office, and they desired a milder fine. The Commons refused their amendments. A conference was held between the Houses. The Lords adhered to their amendments, and the bill was lost.-"- § 7. The queen had desired the passing of the bill, and she brought the session of Parliament to a close in a speech in which she freely professed her zeal for the Church, and that " upon all occasions of promotion to any ecclesiastical dignity she would have a just regard for those who were eminent and remarkable for their pietv, learning, and constant zeal for the Church." 2 1 Pari. Hist. vi. 61-93. 2 ji^ ^j' y^j 1702-1710. HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 567 § 8. Ill tiie next session (1703) the bill against occasional conformity was revived. The penalties were now somewhat lowered, and the definition of what constituted a conventicle made wider. It passed the Commons by a large majority, but when brought up to the Lords was opposed with great power by Bishop Burnet, who pointed out the disgrace and mischief which had been produced by the persecuting legislation of the Restoration period, and declared that the Act of Toleration had made the Church both stronger and safer. The Dissenters had lost a fourth or third of their numbers, but would soon become strong again if this measure passed. The bill was again rejected by the Lords, the majority of the bishops voting against it. In the country among the clergy and High Churchmen the excitement was intense, and the bishops were violently denounced. § 9. On the anniversary of her birthday (1704) Queen Anne sent a message to the House of Commons to signify that, out of her tender care for the Church, she desired to resign the right of the Crown to the first-fruits and tenths of benefices, and to grant the funds accruing from these payments for the use of the poorer clergy. She desired that a bill might be brought into Parliament to effect this. Upon this message a bill was introduced, which provided for the application of these funds in the way the queen desired, and at the same time repealed so much of the Statutes of Mortmain as to allow benefactions by deed or by will for the augmentation of benefices.^ This practical benefit to the Church ought to have convinced those of the clergy who were indignant at the failure of the attempt to prevent occasional conformity, that the queen at least had their interest at heart. § 10. Once more (1704) the occasional conformity measure was brought into the Commons, and a design was entertained of forcing it through the Lords by the device of tacking it to a money bill, in which, by ancient custom, the Lords can make no altera- tions. But this stratagem did not commend itself to a majority of the Commons, and the bill was passed separately. In the Lords its fate was the same as before, though the queen herself was pre- sent during the debate, and made her wishes in the matter plainly known. § 11. The acrimonious disputes which had appeared between High and Low Churchmen in Parliament were still more bitterly developed in the Convocation of Canterbury. The disputes of the last reign about the right of prorogation still continued. The Lower House insisted on their right to hold assemblies as an inde- ^ Boyer's Reign of Queen Anne, p. 119. For an historical account of first-fruits, etc., see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. 568 CONVOCATION DISPUTES. Chap. XXXVIII. pendent body. The Upper House refused to concede this claim. The Lower House desired that the matter might be referred to the queen, but were reminded by their Lordships that they were members of an Episcopal Church, which owed some sort of defer- ence to their fathers in God. The bishops declined to submit themselves to the judgment of the Privy Council. § 12. Upon this the presbyters sent up a declaration stating that it was a scandalous aspersion of them to say that they under- valued the ofi&ce of bishops. They believed the Episcopal office to be of divine apostolical institution, and they desired their Lord- ships to concur in this declaration, or to make such an one as would repress Arian and Erastian views. In doing this the Lower House knew well that they were throwing a bone of con- tention among the bishops, and putting them to considerable diffi- culty. They must either declare for the divine right, which Would be altogether opposed to the teaching of many of them, or seem to place themselves on a lower level than that which the presbyters, whom they were censuring, assigned to them. The bishops evaded the difficulty by saying that they had not the royal license to make canons, and that such a declaration, synodi- cally made, would be equivalent to a canon. § 13. In the winter session of Convocation (1703) the disputes between the two Houses continued. A paper was sent to the bishops reflecting severely on the scandals which were prevalent, and implying that the bishops were slack in the performance of their duty. It especially instanced the licentiousness of the press. § 14. After Christmas (February 4, 1704) a more formal and elaborate Representation was made to the Upper House as to the abuses and irregularities prevalent in matters connected with Church discipline, which the bishops might have remedied. " They drew up," says Bishop Burnet, " a representation of some abuses in the ecclesiastical discipline, but took care to mention none of which many among themselves were eminently guilty, such as pluralities, neglect of their cures, non-residence, and the irregularities in the lives of many of the clergy." i In this spirit of recrimination but little concord was to be hoped for. § 15. The archbishop in proroguing the Convocation in April (1704) made an answer to the Representation. He allowed the right of the clergy to complain, but observed that some of their complaints did not come properly under the power of the canons, or the authority ecclesiastical ; that the abuses complained of were of long standing, and had not been always neglected ; that there 1 Burnet's Own Time, p. 751. 1702-1710. HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 569 never were more frequent and careful visitations of bishops, more precautions and strict examinations before giving orders, or more solemn and orderly confirmations, than now ; that the bishops had promoted the good design of setting up schools for the poor, and propagating the Gospel in foreign parts, in pressing the frequent catechising of youth, and helping forward the conversion of Dis- senters by sound arguments. No doubt, he acknowledged, there were many abuses to be rectified, and he desired the earnest assist- ance of the clergy in attempting this.-^ § 16. The speech of the Primate was altogether conciliatory, but in the winter session of 1704 the clergy came together in a worse temper than ever with the bishops. Dr. Binks, Dean of Lichfield, one of the most violent men of the party, was chosen prolocutor in place of Dr. Aldrich. On December 1 a paper was presented to the Upper House full of recriminations against the bishops, declaring that the Upper House had all along been the great impediment to anything being done in Convocation, and that by their means it was falling into grievous contempt. The clergy complain bitterly of tlie hardship which they had to endure in ad- ministering the Lord's Supper to notorious schismatics, who only sought it as a qualification for office.^ In the meantime the Repre- sentation of last session had been published, with a preface strongly reflecting on the bishops. This was equivalent to open war, and the archbishop, in reply to the paper of (;omplaint, read the Lower House a severe lecture. § 17. The dispute continued with increased acrimony. On February 14 (1705) the Lower House presented another paper complaining of the encroachments of Dissenting ministers on the office and rights of the clergy, of their administration of bap- tism in private houses, of their keeping schools for the instruc- tion of the young. The Bishop of Salisbury was also speci- ally complained of as having violated the privileges of Convo- cation, in having severely reflected upon the Lower House in his charge to the clergy. Upon the Prolocutor appearing with this paper, he was asked if the Lower House had held any session since the last synodical day. He replied that it had. The president then informed him that this was very irregular, and an infringe- ment of his rights. A few days later the Prolocutor again pre- sented himself to inform the archbishop that the Lower House had taken his admonition into consideration, and held it to be uncalled for, and protested against it as null and void. When the Convo- cation was finally prorogued, the archbishop not only severely re- 1 Calamy's Baxter, i. 663. 2 Gibson's iJomplainer further Reproved ; Calamy's Baxter^ 1. 663, 570 CONVOCATION DISPUTES. Chap. XXXVIII. proved the Lower House, but added that if that of the next synod did not show a better temper he should be compelled to exert his authority.-"- § 18. The clergy returned to their cures furious against the bishops. Under the rising influence of the Marlboroughs, the ministers favourable to the Church were being dislodged from the queen's counsels. There arose a feeling that the queen had aban- doned the cause of the Church, and a panic — real or affected — showed itself among Churchmen. When men's minds were in this state of' uneasiness, there came forth from the press a singular pro- duction, called the Memorial of the Clmrch of England. This tract, written by Dr. Drake, a physician, was a violent attack on the queen's ministers for betraying the interests of the Church, not without many insinuations against the queen herself for her slack- ness in defending it. " There is a hectic fever," says the writer, " working in the bowels of the Church, which if not timely cured will infect the humours and at length destroy the very being of it. Dissent is increasing, evil advisers have alienated the queen's heart from the Church ; the bravest and most affectionate House of Com- mons that any prince ever had has been disobliged ; the bishops are traitors who preach indifference to the interests of the Church under the specious name of moderation," § 19. Thus fanned, the flame rapidly spread. The watchword of the " Church in danger " came to be in the mouth of everybody. Pamphlets came forth in swarms. " The clergy were generally soured, even with relation to the queen herself, beyond what could be considered possible." ^ The Parliament returned in the midst of Marlborough's victories was decidedly of a Whig character. The queen on opening it was made to speak severely of those who raised a panic about the danger of the Church, and when Lord Rochester ventured to assert his belief in this danger he was taken to task for his words, and a day was appointed for seriously dis- cussing— in the House of Lords — whether there was any ground for this alarm. § 20. Lord Rochester endeavoured to show the danger of the Church by pointing to the Act which established Presbyterianism in Scotland while it gave no toleration to the Church ; by remind- ing the House that the heir-presimiptive to the throne was not a member of the Church of England, and that it had again and again rejected the occasional conformity bill, in which the modest demands of the Church, backed by the strongly ex- * Calamy's Baxter, i. 663-669 ; Gibson's Complainer further Rex>roved; Lathbury's Hist, of Convocation, 394-7. 2 Burnet's Own Time, pp. 771-778. 1702-1710. HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 571 pressed approval of the House of Commons, had failed to obtain acceptance. The Bishop of London supported the assertion that the Church was in danger by reference to the vile books and wild theories set out by the press, some of which were even due to clergymen, instancing especially a sermon preached before the Lord Mayor by Mr. Benjamin Hoadly.^ The Archbishop of York declared that there was danger to the Church in the increase of the academies of the Dissenters. They were replied to by the Whig bishops, especially by Bishop Burnet, and the House voted that the Church was not in danger by 61 to 30. In this vote the Commons concurred. The two Houses addressed the queen, con- gratulating her on the Church being in a most safe and flourishing condition. A royal proclamation set forth the same to the nation, denounced the Memorial of the Church of England as a scandalous libel, and called upon all men to assist in capturing the printer of it, who had fled from justice.^ § 21. In the new Convocation the disputes between the two Houses again broke out. The Lower House refused to concur in the address voted by the bishops to the crown. They desired to imply that the Church was in danger, and they claimed a right to vote a separate address of their own, though reminded by the bishops that they did not really constitute a separate House, but were in reality the " council of the bishops, and obliged to give their advice and opinions when demanded." ^ § 22. But there was in this Convocation a more considerable body of moderate men than had found a place in the last. No less than fifty-one signed a paper protesting against the proceedings of the extreme section. Against this a majority of the House carried a vote of censure, and agreed to another representation to the bishops enumerating several scandals, and, among others, the nncensured utterances of Mr. Benjamin Hoadly.* § 23. But the bishops were now able to inflict a blow upon the rebellious Presbyters which they had not anticipated. On February 25, 1706, the queen was induced to address a letter to the arch- bishop " severely censuring " the diff'erences which had been kept up in Convocation, declaring that she was determined to maintain the constitution of the Church of England, in which presbyters were duly subordinated to bishops, and intimating that as the spirit of the Lower House did not seem to be of a fitting cast, it was better 1 For an account of Mr. Hoadly, see Notes and Illustrations to this Chapter. 2 Parliamentary History, vi. 479, 511 ; Burnet's Omi Time, p. 7S5. " Proceedings in Present Convocation (Kennett), p. 36. ■* Wilkins' CnnriUa, iv. T..'^?,. 572 CONVOCATION DISPUTES. Chap. XXXYIII. that Convocation should be prorogued. The Prolocutor and his assessors were summoned to hear this letter read. As soon as they perceived that they were to be prorogued, they rushed tumultu- ously from the room and proceeded to discuss the matter in their own House. They were obliged, however, after some attempt to save their dignity, to yield to the prorogation.^ By means of prorogations, Convocation was kept from expressing its opinion as to the union with Scotland and as to the proper safeguards to be devised for the security of the Church. The Act of Parliament (6 Anne, c. 8) was passed without consultation with the clergy. § 24. The effect of this enforced silence was, as might be expected, to exasperate the High Church clergy beyond measure. When Convocation next met, the Lower House voted a representa- tion to the bishops, declaring that never since the submission of the clergy under Henry VIIL, a space of 173 years, had the Con- vocation been so treated as to be prorogued during the sitting of Parliament. They demanded their ancient privileges, although they had humbly submitted to the prorogation. The queen was at once made to reply to this in very severe tones. She declared that such a representation was a plain invasion of her royal supremacy, and that as her repeated admonitions did not suffice she should proceed to use such measures for punishing such offences as were warranted by law.^ The archbishop pushed his triumph to the uttermost, and continued the prorogation of the Convocation during the whole of this Parliament. § 25. But such an extreme proceeding was altogether impolitic. The queen, who for a time had been completely under the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, now began again to return to her Tory predilections, and two strong Tories (Blackball and Dawes) were raised to the Episcopal bench. Blackball, selected to preach before the queen, enunciated the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience. To this sermon Hoadly wrote a reply, and was answered by Blackball. The controversy as to the origin of government and the duties of subjects, which had been stirring men's minds ever since the Restoration, was now again launched. To the dismay of the Wliig ministers, the country generally showed a disposition to side with the majority of the clergy, and to accept the Tory view of divine right and the duty of passive obedience. The cry of the Church in danger was again heard. The suspension of Convocation, the admission of Presby- terians to the English Parliament, the naturalisation of foreign Protestants, were all magnified into a deliberate attempt to subvert 1 Calamy's Baxter, \. fiPO ; Eover's Reign of Queen Anne, p. 228. ^ Wilkiiis' Concilia, iv. G35. 1702-1710. HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 573 the Chiircli of England. The violent addresses of the Tory church- men were eagerly listened to. Every sort of treachery and villany was imputed to the Whigs by these violent preachers, and the country, smarting under a ruinous taxation for the war, and the decay of trade, accepted all their accusations. Under these circum- stances, the Whig ministers of the queen determined to try the effect of terror, and by making an example of one of these danger- ous Tory ecclesiastics, to deter others from such attacks. § 26. The person selected for assault was Dr. Henry Sache- verell, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and chaplain of St. Saviour's. This divine had preached before the Lord Mayor and aldermen on November 5, 1709, a sermon which seemed excellently well suited for the purposes of a prosecution. It was a violent and scurrilous rhapsody, full of bitter and scandalous reflections, con- veyed in language of uncommon vigour and power. Sacheverell, though not an able man, had great gifts as a preacher. He had a fine person and an admirable delivery. He was bold enough to write the most violent statements, and able to set them forth when written with most telling effect. His sermon was at once published, and in a few days 40,000 copies of it were sold.^ It was on the text 2 Cor. xi. 26, "/7i perils among false brethren" It described with bitter irony and elaborate invective those who were entrusted with the management of public affairs as the false brethren, who now furnished the greatest peril to the Church, " who let her worst adversaries into her bowels under the holy umbrage of sons, who neither believe her faith, own her mission, submit to her discipline, nor comply with her liturgy. To admit this religious Trojan horse big with arms and ruin, into our holy city, the strait gate must be laid quite open, her walls and inclosures pulled down, an high road made in upon her communion, and the pure spouse of Christ pro- stituted to more adulterers than the scarlet whore in the Kevela- tion. Since this model of an universal liberty and coalition failed, and these false brethren could not carry the conventicle into the Church, they are now resolved to bring the Church into the conventicle, which will more probably and ably eflect her ruiu. What could not be gained by comprehension and toleration must be brought about by moderation and occasional conformity ; that is, what they could not do by open violence, they will not fail by secret treachery to accomplish." " And our false brethren are as destructive of our civil as of ecclesiastical rights." "In what moving characters does the holy Psalmist point out the crafty insidiousness of such modern volpones." ^ 1 SomerviUe's Queen Anne, p. 374. * The use of this nickname, taken from one of Ben Jonson's plays, 574 CONVOCATION DISPUTES. Chap. XXXVIII. § 27. On December 13 (1709), Mr. Dolben, in the House of Commons, complained against two sermons preached and published by Dr. Sacheverell, as treasonable and dangerous — viz., an assize sermon preached at Derby, and the sermon lately preached before the Lord Mayor. Extracts from the sermons were read at the table. The printer and Dr. Sacheverell were sent for. The doctor at once owned the sermons, and the House voted that he should be impeached before the House of Lords for high crimes and mis- demeanours. § 2'8. On February 27 (1710) the trial took place in West- minster Hall. The Commons exhibited four articles against the preacher, charging him — 1. With asserting that the means used for bringing about the Eevolution were odious and unjustifiable. 2. With condemning the toleration granted by law. 3. With asserting that the Church was in danger. 4. With maliciously asserting that her Majesty's present advisers were false brethren, and traitors to the constitution in Church and State. The managers for the Commons took four days in endeavouring to establish these articles. On the fifth day the defence was commenced by the able counsel retained by the doctor. It was maintained by them that the doctrines on civil government, advocated by the preacher, had Deen taught, in almost identical language, by all the great divines of the Church of England ; that there was, in fact, no toleration granted by the law of England, but only an indulgence ; that the Church recognised the sin of schism, and it was therefore lawful for a minister to condemn it and all schismatics ; that there was a sense in which it could not be denied that the Church was in danger, as blasphemous and infidel publications abounded ; that the doctor was truly loyal and devoted to the queen, and therefore could not have intended anything to disparage her ministers unduly. The defence was concluded by a speech from Dr. Sache- verell himself, which is generally thought to have been written by Dr. Atterbury. On March 16 the House of Lords took into con- sideration whether the Commons had established their articles. Some very able speeches were delivered, especially one by Dr. Wake, Bishop of Lincoln, who gave an interesting account of the negotiations as to comprehension in Archbishop Bancroft's time, which had not before been made known. ^ On March 20 the Peers again appeared in Westminster Hall, and Dr. Sacheverell was voted guilttj of the high crimes and misdemeanours charged against him, which Lord Godolphin specially appropriated to himself, is said to have been the chief cause of the prosecution of the sermon. — Examiner, No. 26 ; Swift's Works (ed. Eoscoe), i. 279. 1 Parliamentary Hist. vi. 860-73. 1702-1710. HIGH CHURCH ENTHUSIASM. 575 by 69 Peers against 52. Seven bishops voted against hini and five for him. § 29. The doctor was thus condemned, but now the absurdity of the whole proceeding began to reveal itself. What was to be his sentence ? Popular feeling had become strong and menacing. The queen was known to be on the side of the doctor. The ministers had indeed a most awkward criminal to deal with. After various attempts to arrive at a rational sentence, the House voted that Dr. Sacheverell should be suspended from preaching for three years. This was a virtual acquittal, as the proviso that he should be incapable of preferment for three years was defeated. The sermon, however, was to be burnt by the common hangman, together with the decree passed in 1683 by the University of Oxford as to govern- ment. AVith this impotent conclusion the trial came to an end, but not so the effects of it. § 30. During the whole duration of the trial the excitement and demonstration of popular feeling had been most remarkable. Vast crowds surrounded the doctor's coach as he drove in triumphal procession to Westminster Hall. Every passer-by was forced, at peril of his life, to shout for High Church and Dr. Sacheverell. Even the queen in her sedan-chair was surrounded and called upon to join in the prevailing formula. Meeting-houses were pulled down. The Guards called out to quell the riot showed unmistak- able sympathy with the disturbers. The mild sentence was no sooner known than the whole country became the scene of rejoicing similar to that which had celebrated the acquittal of the seven bishops. Bonfires and illuminations were seen all round London, and as the news penetrated through the land the same demonstra- tions of joy were exhibited. Addresses were voted magnifying the queen's absolute power, and denouncing republican and anti- monarchical principle. Dr. Sacheverell was embarrassed with con- gratulations and loaded with preferment. The queen gave him the rich living of St. Andrew's, Holborn. The living of Salatin, in Shropshire, was next conferred on him, and his journey to take possession of this benefice was like a royal progress. He held receptions and gave audiences, and for the moment was the most important power in the State. Neither was the effect transient. The queen dissolved the Parliament. A general election began. The clergy threw themselves into the strife Avith earnest vigour. A House of Commons was returned containing a vast majority of Tories and High Churchmen.^ 1 Burnet's Own Time, pp. 846, 857 ; Kennett's Life, p. 102 ; Swift's Works, i. 279, 281, 442 ; Somerville's Queen Anne, chap. xv. ; State 'Trials, vol. xv. 576 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAr. XXXVIIL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. (A) THE FIRST-FRUITS AND TENTHS. The first-fruits, primitice or annates, were the first year's entire profit of a benefice, claimed, by the popes, according to a valuation. The first valuation for the purpose ,of this assessment was made under the direction of Pope Innocent V., by "Walter, Bishop of Norwich, in 1254. The benefices were revalued under Nich- olas III. in 1292. This valuation pre- vailed till the time of Henry VIII., when the Parliament having granted the first- fruits to the king (1535), the benefices were revalued. Divers attempts were made in the time of Elizabeth to bring about an- other valuation, but the value, as it stood in " the king's books," is still the value which determines the amount due from a benefice for first-fruits and tenths. This latter implies a payment not of one year only, but a continual charge upon the living of a tenth part of its value. The tax which the Pope thus levied on all English benefices was frequently objected to by Parliament. An Act passed 6 Henry IV. calls it "a, horrible mischief and a damnable custom." Under Henry VIII. the Convocation petitioned the king to relieve them of it, and the Act to take away the payment of first-fruits and tenths to Rome was passed. But the clergy did not escape the impost. It was merely transferred from the Pope to the King. For a year they remained free, but by one of the Acts of the Reformation Parliament (26 Henry VIII., c. 3) the tax formerly paid to the Pope was given to the King. The tenths then amounted to about £11,000 a year, and the first-fruits —one year with another— to £5000. Queen Mary remitted this tax to the Church, but Elizabeth again procured its imposition, and, in fact, endeavoured to increase it largely. Queen Anne finally surrendered it for clerical pxirposes, for which it has proved a most valuable help. (B) BENJAMIN HOADLY. Benjamin Hoadly, the son of a Kentish clergyman. Fellow of Catherine Hall, afterwards lecturer of St. Mildred's, Poul- try, and in 1702 Rector of St. Peter-le- Poor, was already well known in the literary world by his defence of conform- ity to the Church of England against Mr. Calamy's tenth chapter of Baxter's life. In 1705 he was appointed by the Lord Mayor to preach before him, and the ser- mon which he then delivered was censured by Bishop Compton, and aftei-wards by the Lower House of Convocation. It was a bold and thorough-going attack on the principles of passive obedience, maintain- ing that the sole end and business of all governing power is to consult the good of human society, that there are no sort of governors endowed with any special pri- vileges, and that all ofiicers exist for this purpose only ; that if they neglect their duties it is incumbent on all good citizens to resist them ; and that passive obedience is a sin, inasmuch as it is a tacit consent to the ruin and misery of mankind. A reply was at once written to this sermon, which produced a reprint of the sermon with a preface defending its doctrine. Hoadly's powers as a controversialist were very great. He wielded a keen un- sparing logic, but he was by no means superior- io the use of manifest fallacies when it served his purpose. 1710-1717. CHURCH'S HIGHEST POINT OF INFLUENCE. .577 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AT ITS HIGHEST POINT OP INFLUENCE. 1710-1717. § 1. Church at its highest point of political influence. § 2. External devo- tion. § 3. Social condition of the Clergy. § 4. Able Avriters. § 5. Dean Swift. § 6. Humphrey Prideaux, William Wall, Joseph Bing- ham. § 7. Bishops Bull and Beveridge. § 8. The sermons of the period. § 9. Frequent services. § 10. Negotiations for a union with the German Protestants. § 11. Convocation ordered to discuss certain points. § 12. The case of William Whiston. § 13. Atterbury inter- rupts the proceedings of Convocation. § 14. The Declaration as to Lay Baptism. § 15. Zeal of the House of Commons for High Church views. § 16. The new Parliament passes the Schism Bill. § 17. Progress in Convocation. § 18. Interrupted by the case of Dr. Samuel Clarke. § 19. Death of the Queen ; serious loss to the Church. § 20. Feeling of the Church at the accession of George I. § 21. Hoadly's attack upon Church principles. § 22. The censure of the Convocation of Canter- bury. § 23. Prorogation and silencing of Convocation. § 1. In the year 1710 the Church of England was at the height of its power and influence. It had controlled the elections, and returned a Parliament devoted to its interests. The queen was its zealous friend and supporter. Its popularity among all classes was unbounded. The Nonconformists saw that their cause was hopeless. " So far are we," writes Dr. Calamy, " from any hopes of a coalition, that nothing will do but an entire submission." i Parliament voted the erection of fifty new churches out of public funds.2 The House of Commons declared that it would receive the recommendations of the Lower House of Convocation " with particular regard ; " and the clergy, with the exception of the bishops, became the ruling power in the State. § 2. And as the political influence of the Church grew, so did also its influence on the devotional feelings of the people. A strong development of external observance was everywhere to be seen. " Some would not go to their seats in church until they had kneeled and prayed at the rails of the communion-table. They would not be content to receive the sacrament there kneeling, but with prostration and striking of the breast and kissing of the ground, as if there were an Host to be adored." Services with 1 Calamy's Baxter, i. 725. 2 The duty of one shilling per chaldron on coaLs, which had been em- ployed for building St. Paul's, Avas given for three years to provide £350,000 ?or these churches. 52 P 578 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AT Chap. XXXIX. choral accompaniments were preferred to sermons, and " even pictures about the altar began to be the books of the vulgar." ^ § 3. The clerg)'- had not advanced much in social position since the Kestoration. They were still badly paid, and did not take rank with the gentry^ of the land ,2 but they had learned the power of combination. They met constantly in political coffee-houses ; their energies and thoughts were turned in one particular channel ; and thus, favoured also by other circumstances, they obtained an extraordinary influence. § 4. .Neither were they without political writers of great talent and power, or learned writers, the fame of whose labours added repute to the whole body. Of the first class was the famous Dean Swift. Of the second were Dean Prideaux, Joseph Bingham, and William Wall. § 5. Jonathan Swift was first known as the chaplain of Sir W. Temple, and as the assistant of his patron in his literary quarrel with Wotton and Bentley.^ In 1704 he wrote his Tale of a Tub, a profane but very witty satire on religious controversies ; and in 1710 he was employed in using his clever pen in the support of the Tory ministry. His satirical pieces, his historical sketches, his papers in the Examiner, his lampoons on Whig bishops, produced the greatest excitement, and were welcomed by the Tory and High Church party with intense delight. Swift would probably have reached the highest promotion had not Archbishop Sharp firmly opposed his claims, on the ground of the inexcusable ribaldry and profanity which are too apparent in his writings.^ As Sharp was the trusted adviser of the queen, the witty satirist advanced no farther than the deanery of St. Patrick's. § 6. Of the more learned writers of the clergy at this time, Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, produced his very valuable Connection of Sacred and Profane History, which was written in such a taking style, that it ran through no less than eleven editions in five years. William Wall, vicar of Shoreham, gave to the world a very learned and exhaustive History of Infant Baptism; and Joseph Bingham, driven from Oxford by his share in the Trinita- rian controversy, composed at Headbourne Worthy, near Winches- ter, that vast monument of erudition and labour — the Antiquities of the Christian Church. 1 Kennetfs Life, p. 127 ; Defence of the Church and Clergy of Eng- land, p. 59. 2 For an account of the social position and incomes of the clergy of this period, see Notes and Illustrations to this chapter. ^ Sir W. Temple waged a literary war against Bentley on the subject of the comparative excellence of modern and ancient learning. Swift wrote his Battle of the Books in support of Temple's view. ■* Life of Archbishop tSluirp, L 3aa. 1710-1717. ITS HIGHEST POINT OF INFLUENCE. 579 § 7. Among her bishops also at this period, the Church could number the famous Bishop Bull ^ and William Beveridge, one of the most learned of her theologians as well as one of the most devout of her preachers. § 8. The sermons of this period had been greatly improved by the influence of the school of Tillotson. They were no longer cumbrous disquisitions, overloaded with quotations either from the Scripture or the fathers, but compositions with some pretence to style, and some sense of the due proportions of the various parts of the subject. The admirable English of Swdft and Addison found its way also into the pulpits, and though there was much danger of the sermon becoming too sententious and merely moral, yet, at any rate, it was more of a character to attract and instruct than the ill-digested rhapsodies of a previous period. § 9. That the clergy were not desirous to spare themselves either in preaching or in services there is good reason to believe. " Within the cities of London and Westminster," says a writer of that day, " and the suburbs of them, in most churches there be constant prayers morning and evening." ^ In all the cathedrals there were weekly celebrations of Holy Communion, and in many parish churches also.^ Preparation lectures were commonly given. In the country churches there were usually services on the litany days.* Clerical meetings for the discussion of Holy Scripture and mutual counsel and assistance were not uncommon among the clergy ,5 and upon the whole it may fairly be said that at this period the clergy displayed a zeal for their profession, which is in great measure lost sight of as we advance in the century. § 10. The Church of England, indeed, presented at this time so fair an appearance in the eyes of foreigners, that overtures were made by the King of Prussia, through Dr. Jablonski, who had during a long stay in England become thoroughly acquainted with the formularies of the English Church, towards adopting the Eng- lish Liturgy and Articles. Archbishop Tenison was unaccountably cold in the matter, but Archbishop Sharp took it up warmly, and the queen was greatly interested in it. The Prussians w^ere in- formed that the one essential requisite for union was their accept- ance of episcopacy and receiving the apostolical succession from the English prelates. To this Dr. Jablonski offered no opposition, and in fact appears to have heartily desired it. Probably the episco- 1 George Bull was consecrated to St. David's 1705, and died in 1710. 2 Defence of the Clergy of England, p. 40 ; Pidcis Londinensis (1712). ^ Defence, etc., p. 45 ; Life of Dean Comber, p. 180. * Defence, etc., p. 57. ^ See Lives of Dean Cornier, Dean Prideaux, Archbishop Sharj). 580 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AT Chap. XXXIX. pate might have been given to Germany, but, at this moment, negotiations for extending the plan to Hanover (for which there were great and manifest reasons) caused a delay, and before any- thing could be arranged, new complications of political affairs car- ried away the attention of the men in power from this most important matter, i § 11. It would naturally be expected from the temper of Par- liament, the professed principles of the queen's present ministers, and the feeling of the country, that no imj)ediment would any longer be placed in the way of the action of Convocation. The queen's license to proceed to business was sent to the Synod of Canterbury, January 23, 1711, and on January 29 a paper was brought from the queen, stating the points on which the Convo- cation was at liberty to debate and decide. These were — 1. The growth of infidelity, heresy, and irreligion ; 2. The regula- tion of the proceedings in excommunications ; 3. The preparation of forms for the visitation of prisoners and condemned persons, for converts from the Church of Eome, for restoring those who had relapsed ; 4. For regulating the duties of rural deans ; 5. The making of Terriers for benefices ; 6. The regulating licenses for matrimony. § 12. The Convocation entered upon the consideration of these subjects with zeal, and there was some prospect of a useful prac- tical result being reached, when its labours were unfortunately interrupted by an exciting prosecution for heresy. William Whiston, professor of mathematics at Cambridge, had taken up the strange paradox that the Apostolical Constitutions — whose origin and date are at best but doubtful — were, in fact, of the age of the apostles, and of equal authority with the Holy Scriptures. Having been led by this strange theory into manifest heresy, Whiston was expelled from Cambridge, but he republished his book and dedi- cated it with a preface to the bishops and clergy in Convocation. Thus challenged, the Lower House examined the book, and reported on it to the Upper as directly opposed to the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. Upon this there arose a very interesting question as to the power of Convocation to sit as a court and try and censure a heretic. The matter was referred to the judges, and eight of them, together with the attorney and solicitor-general, pronounced that Convocation had such a power. The queen was desirous that it might be exercised. But difiiculties arose. Was the Lower House to take part with the Upper in holding this court ? Was the Convocation of York to be a sharer in the pro- ^ A full account of these negotiations will be fpiuud in the Life of Arch- Hshojp Sharp, i. 403-449, and vol. ii., Appendix. 1710-1717. ITS HIGHEST POINT OF INFLUENCE. 581 ceedings ? The matter seemed so full of difficulty, that the bishops decided, instead of trying the man, to censure the doctrine. As to the power of Convocation to do this there was no doubt. Both Houses concurred in a condemnation of certain passages from Whiston's book, but the paper being sent to the queen was by some inadvertence lost, and the matter came to nothing.^ § 1 3. At the next meeting of Convocation, the bishojDs desired to resume the consideration of the subjects mentioned in the queen's letter at the point where they had dropped, but the Lower House — under the guidance of Atterbury, now their Prolocutor — refused. Atterbury was desirous to assimilate the proceedings of the House over which he presided in every way to those of the House of Commons, and as the House of Commons commenced all its business each session cU novo, he claimed to do the same. This ambitious and unjustifiable claim stopped all business, and now another topic of dissension between High Cliurch and Low Church was developed. § 14. In view of certain questions about baptism which had been raised by Mr. Dodwell, Camden professor at Oxford, a majo- rity of the bishops agreed to publish a declaration to the efi'ect that baptism once administered with water in the name of the Holy Trinity is valid, and need not be repeated, whatever may have been the status of the person who performed the rite. 2 To this declaration some of the High Church bishops objected, as giving too much countenance to Dissenters. Thus encouraged, the Lower House of Convocation thought fit to oppose it also, and to refuse to condemn the unorthodox practice of rebaptization. They even went so far as to advocate rebaptization when the rite had been administered by an unordained person. It would thus seem as though the High Church clergy were ready to sacrifice a most important principle, upheld by the Church in all ages, rather than forego an opportunity of vexing their opponents.^ § 15. Meantime in Parliament the High Church party had obtained a great triumph. The bill against occasional conformity, which had been three times rejected by the Lords in the first Parliament of the reign, was now brought into the House of Lords and carried without a division. Being sent to the Commons, it was there received with the same general acquiescence, and at once became law.* A further demonstration of the principles of the ^ Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 646, 651 ; Johnston's Account of the Proceed- ings in Convocation. ^ Life of Archbishop Sharp, i. 372. ^ The whole question of lay baptism is exhaustively treated by the learned Bingham in his Scholastical History of Lay Baptism,. 4 Pari. Uist., vi. 1045. 582 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AT Chap. XXXIX. Parliament was made by a severe censure passed upon Dr. Fleet- wood, Bishop of St. Asaph. This divine had published some ser- mons with a preface in which he endeavoured to prove that " the doctrine of Scripture did not put men in a worse position, with respect to civil liberty, than they would have been had they not been Christians." The Commons seemed to think that the at- tempt to prove such a thesis was a very grievous heresy, and they ordered the book to be burned by the common hangman.i § 16. In the summer of 1713 the Tories were obliged to appeal to' the country for its verdict as to the Peace, and the Par- liament which met in November had a much larger admixture of the Whig element in it. Yet the first session of this Parliament is remarkable as exhibiting the political reaction against Dissenters, and in favour of High Church views at its extreme point. On May 12a bill was brought into the House of Commons, which was exactly similar in its character and provisions to some of the Acts passed in the first fervour of loyalty in the reign of Charles II. This Act provided that no person in Great Britain should keep any public or private school, or act as tutor, that liad not first subscribed the declaration to conform to the Church of England, and obtained a license from the diocesan, and that, upon failure of so doing, the party may be committed to prison without bail ; and that no such license shall be granted before the party produces a certificate of his having received the sacrament according to the communion of the Church of England within the last year, and also subscribed the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. ^ This was an attempt, by a summary law, absolutely to stop all Dissent- ing education in England. Yet this arbitrary measure passed the Commons by a large majority. In the Lords it was strongly op- posed, but some of the speakers in its favour endeavoured to show something like a conspiracy among the Dissenters to get the educa- tion of youth into their hands, and under the influence of these suspicions the bill was voted. It received the royal assent, but its arbitrary provisions were never put into force. § 17. In Convocation there was more hope of progress than before, as Dr. Atterbury, whosQ ambition had entirely paralysed the action of the last Convocation, was no longer Prolocutor, having been raised to the bench as Bishop of Rochester. The queen's Letters of Business were again given to the Synod, authorising it to treat on the subjects which had been before the last Convoca- tion. The joint committees of the two Houses agreed upon a form for regulating proceedings at excommunication — the principal point in which was that the contumacious person should be subjected to ^ Farl. Hist. vi. 1151. - Earl Stanhcfpe's Hist, of England, i. 80. 1710-1717. ITS HIGHEST POINT OF INFLUENCE. 583 the penalties which the law decreed against the excommunicate^ so that the necessity of proceeding to the last sentence was thus obviated. There was also a form drawn up for Terriers of glebe lands, a draft of canons for matrimonial licenses, a form for admit- ting converts from the Church of Rome, and an exhortation to be read in church previously to the sentence of excommunication being read.^ § 18. But now again the useful labours of the Synod w^ere interrupted by a question of heresy. Dr. Samuel Clarke had been chaplain to Moore, Bishop of Norwich, and two years consecutively Boyle lecturer. He was promoted to the rectory of St. James', Westminster, and a royal chaplaincy, and had distinguished him- seK in the literary world by writing against Henry Dodwell. Unfortunately, he was led into treating upon the deep and mysteri- ous subject of the Holy Trinity, and in attempting to bring this doctrine down to the level of the human understanding, he fell into manifest Arianism. Convocation, properly jealous of any undue handling of such high mysteries, proceeded to the examination of Mr. Clarke's statements. The writer, who, at this time at any rate, did not desire to contradict the teaching of the Church, sent a paper of submission to the Synod, and thus escaped a sentence of condemnation which otherwise would have certainly been passed against him. Thus the sessions of Convocation were con- sumed, and before it could meet again a great calamity had fallen upon it, and upon the Church of England generally, by the death of the queen (August 1, 1714). § 19. Queen Anne had ever been a faithful supporter of the Church, not merely upon political grounds, but because, like her grandfather, Charles I., she loved and venerated it. She had shown herself desirous to promote men eminent in their profession, and was ready to suffer political inconvenience rather than forego this just exercise of her prerogative. She had selected a true son of the Church for her religious adviser, and she ever displayed a devout and fitting regard for his admonitions.^ She had proved her liberality to the Church in a more effective manner than some of her prede- cessors ; and w^hile Queen Elizabeth had robbed the clergy, Queeii Anne had substantially aided them. Whatever fancies might for a time perplex them. Churchmen were in their hearts persuaded that the queen was truly with the Church in which she had been baptized and educated, and that she would never consent to any injustice being done to it. And when men thought of the successor destined to be advanced to the throne of England in her place, and considered how different were his antecedents, and how little in 1 Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 656-666. ^ j^^^^ of Archbishop Sharp, i. 317 584 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AT Chap. XXXIX. common with the Churcli of England there was in his views, they were disposed to regret the good queen the more. That fervour and earnestness in the worship and observances of the Church which, encouraged by the example of the queen, was so marked a feature of the days of Queen Anne, could hardly be expected to continue in vigour under a German prince of Latitudinarian views and immoral habits of life. On the other hand, the son of James was a disciple of the Jesuits, and committed to the worst principles of absolutism and tyranny. Great was the calamity, therefore, which now befel the Church of England. The Churchmen who now take a prominent place are for the most part of the shallow Latitudinarian school. The real Churchmen recede into obscurity, and leave the field open to the wranglers, the sceptics, and the politicians. § 20. The accession to the throne of England of a sovereign alien in birth, in language, and in religion, was certainly calculated to alarm the zealous members of the Church of England. The Jacobites endeavoured, naturally, to stimulate this alarm. " His Majesty," wrote a clever pamphleteer, " to qualify himself for the Crown, having been pleased to depart from his own religion, and to embrace one so different from it in many (and those essential) respects, it is no remote thought to apprehend that he may consent to an alteration of ours for a valuable consideration to himself." ^ To repress, if possible, the clerical alarmists. Directions were issued, bidding the clergy not to meddle in their sermons with affairs of State ; ^ but, on the other hand, Convocation was allowed to meet, and Letters of Business were sent to it, to enable it to continue the regulation of the subjects which had been submitted to it during the last reign. The Lower House now displayed a calm and prac- tical temper ver}^ different from that which had animated it under Binks and Atterbury. On some of the subjects sent to it for con- sideration agreement had been arrived at, on the others there was a fair prospect of accord ; and when, on the death of Archbishop Tenison (December 24, 1715), William "Wake, Bishop of Lincoln, a learned and moderate Churchman, was appointed to the primacy, fair prospects seemed to lie before the Church. § 21. This aspect of affairs was soon entirely changed by the intemperate utterances of one man, than whom none perhaps ever inflicted a more serious injury on the Church of England. Benjamin Hoadly, already mentioned as a controversialist, was in 1715 pro- moted to the See of Bangor. Soon after his promotion his attention was attracted to some papers of Dj:. Hickes, late Nonjuring bishop, 1 English Advice to the Freeholders of England, Somers' Tracts, xiii. 533 (Bishop Atterbury). 2 Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 666. 1710-1717. ITS HIGHEST POINT OF INFLUENCE. 585 wliich had been seized and made public. In these the Church of England was accused of schism. In answer to this Hoadly wrote a treatise/ in which he denied the necessity of being in communion with any visible Church whatsoever, and asserted that sincerity is the only necessary requirement of a Christian profession.2 He fol- lowed up these startling views in a sermon preached before the king (March 17, 1717), in which he impugned the notion of the existence of any visible Church, and scoffed at the maintenance of tests of orthodoxy, and the claims of ecclesiastical government. § 22. The Convocation of Canterbury immediately proceeded to consider and animadvert on these audacious views. A committee of the Lower House met May 3, 1717, and in a week had agreed on their report to the Upper House. It was to the effect that the doctrines preached by the Bishop of Bangor had a tendency to sub- vert all government and discipline in the Church of Christ, as well as to impeach the royal supremacy. This report was read in the Lower House May 10, and ordered, nemine contradicente, to be pre- sented to the bishops. § 23. Upon this the king's ministers, probably not fully under- standing the question, but regarding Hoadly as representing the Whig interest, and the Convocation as the representative of Tory views, ordered the prorogation of Convocation. It was prorogued to the 23d November following, and never again suffered to meet for the despatch of business, until quite modern times. To this gross outrage on the Church of England most of the mischiefs and scandals which impeded her progress during the eighteenth century are distinctly to be traced. The Church, denied the power of expressing her wants and grievances, and of that assertion of her- self in her corporate capacity which the constitution had provided for her, was assaulted at their will by unscrupulous ministers of the Crown, and feebly defended by Latitudinarian bishops in an uncongenial assembly. Her ministers might now give utterance to the most heretical, and even blasphemous teaching, without fear of censure, and there remained no agency for altering and adjusting her system to meet the varying requirements and opportunities of the times. With the abeyance of the corporate action of the Church of England a history of her progress naturally terminates, but there is subjoined a general sketch of religious matters during the remainder of the century, in order to indicate the sources from whence the renewed life and vigour of the Church in the nine- teenth century have taken their origin. ^ A Preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Nonjurorc in Church and State. 2 Hoadly's Worlcs^ i. 392-3-5. 586 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Chap. XXXIX. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE CLERGY IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ANNE. The incomes of the clergy had not as yet much advanced since the Restoration. There were at least ten bishoprics whose revenues did not average more than £600 a year. There were a great number of livings ranging from £60 down to £20. A reading curate received as ordinary salary in town churches £20 ; a chaplain might expect £30 and vails ; a lecturer or preach- ing curate in a town church, £60. Coun- try curates seldom exceeded £20, £25, or £30 per annum.— Swift's Works, Bishop of Lincoln's Charge, 1697. The recognised social position of the clergyman and his family was about that of the tradesman. He made no attempt to keep up the status of a gentleman. " The vicar," writes Dean Swift, "will probably receive pre- sents now and then from his parishioners, and perhaps from his squire, who, although he may be apt sometimes to treat his parson a little superciliously, may probably be softened by a little humble demeanour. The vicar is likewise gener- ally sure to find on his admittance to the living a convenient house and barn in re- pair, with a garden and a field or two to graze a few cows and one horse for himself and his wife. He has probably a market very near him, perhaps in his own village. No entertainment is expected by his visit- or beyond a pot of ale and a piece of cheese. His wife is little better than Goody in her birth, education, or dress ; and as to himself, we must let his parentage alone. If he be the son of a farmer it is very sufficient, and his sister may very decently be chambermaid to the squire's wife. He goes about on working days in a grazier's coat, and will not scruple to assist his workmen in har- vest times. His daughters shall go to service or be sent apprentice to the sempstress in the next town, and his sons are put to honest trades." — Swift, Essay on the Fates of Clergymen. SKETCH OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS. 587 SKETCH OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS DURING REMAINDER OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The first effect of the silencing of Convocation Avas to stimulate what was called the Bangorian Controversy. In this war of pamphlets the principles put forth by Hoadly were attacked and defended, often with excessive viru- lence and scurrility. The chief writers on the Church side were Dr, Thomas Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of London, and Mr, William Law, a nonjuror, the author of devotional works still extensively known and read. The number of jiublications in the Bangorian Controversy amounted to several hundreds. Probably, says Mr. Lathbury, "few persons have ever seen them all." ^ It is probable that Hoadly 's sermon against Tests was intended to prepare the way for the passing of the bill for " strengthening the Protest- ant interest," brought into the House of Lords December 13, 1718. This Act proposed to repeal the Act against Occasional Conformity and the Schism Act, and also certain clauses in the Test and Corporation Acts. So strong an opposition was offered to this latter part of it, that, after being carried in the Lords, it was withdrawn, and the bill, as passed, merely repealed the two former Acts. In another measure before the House of Lords (January 1722) the animus of the Government against the Church further appeared. This was the Quakers' Affirmation Bill, against which a petition of the London clergy having been offered, was voted a libel and ordered not to be received. ^ The condemnation of Bishop Atterbury by Act of Parliament for alleged correspondence with the Stuarts (March 1723), and his banishment for life, plainly indicated that High Church and Jacobite views among the clergy were not without danger. The favour and patronage zealously lavished upon the clergy of liberal views in religion stimulated the growth of Latitu- dinarianism of the extremest type. " Writers of high name and reputation were found to incline towards that laxity of principle which, scarcely acknowledging the obligation of contending even for the most essential and fundamental articles of faith, seemed to encourage a general indifference to religious truth." ^ This temper took two main forms. Either it contended for the right of subscribing Trinitarian formularies in an Arian sense, and using Trinitarian forms of worship with such alterations as to make them suit an Arian ; or else it inveighed against the dogmatism of the Prayer- Book, and called for its alteration, or at any rate for the abolition of sub- scription to it. (1.) Of the first sort of Latitudinarians were Dr. Sykes. who contended against Dr. Waterland (the great champion of the Church in those evil days) for the right of Arian subscription to the Articles ; Mr. Whiston, at Cambridge ; Mr. Wasse, of Aynho ; Dr. Chambers, of Achurch, and many others, usually known by the name of the "Conforming Arians. "^ (2.) Of the second were Dr. Samuel Clarke, who actually pre- pared an Arian prayer-book ; Dr. Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, who approved of it ; ^ Dr. Hutton, Archbishop of York ; Dr. Warburton, Bishop 1 Hist, of Convocation, 461. 2 Parl. Hist. vii. 938. 3 Van Mildert's Life of Waterland, pp. 43-87. 4 See Lindsey's History of Unitarian Doctrine, p. 468, sq. 6 Life of Gilbert Wakefiekl, i. 171. 588 SKETCH OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIES DURING of Gloucester ; Mr. Jones, of Alcon'bury, the author of Free and Candid Disquisitions ; and Francis Blackbume, Archdeacon of Cleveland, who may- be described as the ringleader of the extreme Latitudinarians of his day. So general, indeed, and so widely spread was the desire to reform the Prayer- Book on Latitudinarian principles prevalent about the middle of the eighteenth century, that nothing but political causes and the fear of the Ministry of throwing a portion of the clergy into the arms of the Jacobites, saved the Church from a most perilous attack. ■■• The effect naturally to be expected in the clergy from a disregard of solemn obligations and undervalu- ing the dignity of their office, was rapidly manifested. Secular employ- ments abounded. The clergy were "courtiers, politicians, lawyers, mer- chants, usurers, civil magistrates, sportsmen, musicians, stewards of country squires, tools of men in power. " ^ Non-residence and disregard of the claims of duty prevailed both among bishops and the lower clergy. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, lived in the Lake district, and visited Wales once in three years ; Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, never visited his diocese during his six years' occupation of it ; Warburton, at Gloucester, complained of the "inconvenience of that public station as hindering his studies;"^ while Seeker, at Oxford, looked upon his summer visit to Cuddesdon as giving him a "delightful retirement for his favourite studies." ^ In the view of states- men, some bishoprics were " preferments suitable for men of ability and learning, some mere places of ease, suitable for men of family and fashion."^ Nothing, perhaps, better illustrates the utter contempt into which the cleri- cal office had fallen at this period, than the enormous outcry raised upon Archbishop Seeker's attempt to send out bishops to the American colonies. Bishop Watson declares that the authors of this attempt "ought to be covered with contrition and confusion ;" ^ and Archdeacon Blackburne describes it as "a mere empty chimerical vision, which deserves not the least regard."'' Meantime, concurrently with this laxity among the clergy, con- troversies were continually raging on all the fundamental truths of Chris- tianity. The Trinitarian controversy, revived by Dr. Samuel Clarke, and carried on single-handed by Dr. Waterland against Clarke, Jackson, Whitby, and Sykes, was of this character. Still more destructive were the writings of the Deistical school — Shaftesbury, Collins, Woolstan, and Tindal — which strove to efface Christianity in favour of the religion of nature. Dr. Water- laud here, too, did admirable service in the defence of the truth, while the Deistical writings brought out one of the cleverest if not the most orthodox treatises in defence of the faith — Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses (1738). The most weighty and admirable defence of revealed religion was, however, due to Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, who, in his Analogy (1736), gave to the Church a work which has never been surpassed. An important controversy was also being carried on during this period as to the nature of the Eucharist. BishoiJ Hoadly, in his Plain Account, had explained it quite as a Socinian might, but he was ably answered by Dr. Waterland and Mr. Law. In the latter half of the century the attacks of the infidel writers, Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon, and Paine, were answered by Warburton, Leland, and Watson. The Church of England, thus assailed during the eighteenth century by attacks from without and by treachery Avithin, was able to effect but little against the flood of coarseness and profanity which prevailed to an alarming 1 Letter of Bishop Warburton, Doddridge Correspondence, v. 1G7. 2 Blackburne's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 3 Hurd's Life of Warburton, p. 86. 4 Porteous's Life of Seeker, p. 61. 5 Newton's Life, p. 154. 6 Watson's Autobiography, i. 104. 7 Blackburne's Works, ii. 19. REMAINDER OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 589 extent "both in the higher and lower classes. Its Prayer-Book, however, still happily remained as a witness for the truth, and there were among its mini- sters many bright examples of learning and devotion, such as were William Jones of Nayland and his friend Bishop Home ; Samuel Wesley of Epworth, and William Law ; and, in an eminent degree, the saintlike Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man. To William Law perhaps more than to any other man was due the preservation of devotional feeling and spiritual religion in England in the earlier part of tlie eighteenth century. What Hammond's Practical Catechism was for the times of the Rebellion ; what Tillotson's Whole Duty of Man was for the times of the Revolution ; this, and perhaps more, were Law's Serious Call and Christian Perfection for the times of the first Hanoverian kings. They brought the first religious influence to bear upon the ardent soul of John Wesley ; ^ they were the instruments in good Bishop Wilson's hands for the instruction and edification of his clergy ; ^ they reclaimed many scoffing freethinkers from the error of their ways ; ^ and they first convinced the powerful mind of Samuel Johnson, and gave it a direction which was so eminently valuable to the cause of religion."* And besides the labours of individual clergymen, there were certain organisations existing in England in the earlier part of the eighteenth century which did much for the preservation and spread of religious truth. These were the religious societies formed by Doctors Horneck and Beveridge about the time of the Revolution, which continued to flourish, not only in London, but in most of the principal towTis of England. The latest historian of Wesleyan- ism freely admits that it was from out of the bosom of these Church societies that the W^esleyan movement sprang. It was m their rooms and to their members that the Wesleys and WTiitefield first preached, prayed, and ex- pounded. It was these societies which furnished their first devoted followers to these new apostles, and ensured the success of that marvellous movement conducted by their energy.^ And it is to the energy and zeal of these men that the greatest share of transforming the religious England of the eighteenth century to the religious England of the nineteenth, must undoubtedly be assigned. It was about the year 1729 that the coterie which came to be called the Oxford Methodists, from their profession of living by rule, was first formed. John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College ; his brother Charles, student of Christ Church ; Ingham, of Queen's ; Morgan, of Christ Church ; Kirkman, of Merton ; Broughton, of Exeter ; Whitefield, servitor of Pembroke ; and about eleven or twelve others, chiefly undergraduates, formed themselves into a society, which met every night to review what each had done in the day, and to consult as to what should be done on the morrow. Their work was to converse with young students on religious subjects, to teach the poor and ignorant, to give religious instruction in the schools, the workhouses, and the prisons. They observed all Church ordinances with the utmost strict- ness— fasted on Friday, and communicated on Sunday. Living in the most rigid self-denial, they gave the whole of their superfluous means in alms. They proposed to themselves a high standard, and would seem in the main to have earned it out. They were of course ridiculed by the ungodly and profane, but no discouragement was given to them by the authorities of the University. They were'kindly treated by Bishop Potter, whose daughter had become a female associate of their society.^ John Wesley seems to have been induced to quit this most valuable 1 Wesley's Journal (an. 1728). 2 Keble's L\fe of Wilson, pp. 716, 752. ■> Dr. Byron's Diary (Cheetham Society). 4 Boswell's Life, of Johnson, p. 13 (ed. 1848) 6 See Life and Times of J. Weshy, by Rev. L. Tyenuan, i. 254. 6 Tyerman's Life of J. Wesley, i. 93. 590 SKETCH OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS DURING sphere of work by some ill-judged reproaches of his elder brother as to his not undertaking an actual cure of souls. Failing to obtain the living of Epworth on his father's death, he determined to sail for Georgia, a new colony then being formed by General Oglethorpe and other philanthropic men to provide a sphere of employment for poor debtors whose release from prison had been procured by their means. Wesley's work in Georgia was marred by a singular want of common sense and ordinary prudence, but he was badly treated by the authorities of the colony, and he abandoned his mission in despair. When he came back to England in 1738 (his brother Charles having returned previously), John Wesley found a general excitement prevailing from the sermons preached in London by George Whitefield. Whitefield had been ordained at the age of twenty-one by Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, and had soon found access into many of the London pulpits, producing everywhere most marked effects by his preaching. A thorough enthusiast, possessing great powers of voice and delivery, his matter and his manner were both a novelty, and his burning zeal and earnestness were eminently attractive. Yet Whitefield had but little learning and scant discretion, and it was pro- bably the painful evidence of these defects which led the London clergy gradually to withdraw from asking him to preach in their churches, while the same causes operated to make them also afraid of inviting the Wesleys. A rather disgraceful fracas at St. Margaret's, Westminster,^ determined Whitefield to leave London, February 1729, and betake himself to Bristol, and here he first began the practice of preaching in the open air. In this he was soon followed by the Wesleys, who thus were rendered independent of the refusal of churches and the opposition of the clergy, which soon began to be strongly developed. The Wesleys, on their return from America, had joined the Moravian Society, which held its meetings in Fetter Lane ; but both of them soon broke away from these dreamy enthusi- asts, who despised ordinances, and thought that the whole of religion con- sisted in " sitting still " and waiting for the grace of God to manifest itself in the soul. Both John and Charles Wesley were still decided Churchmen, and placed the highest value on the use of the means of grace provided by the Church. In the year 1739, during John Wesley's sermons at Bristol, were first manifested those extraordinary convulsions and physical phenomena which, more than anything else, brought discredit and disrepute on the Wesleyan movement. These convulsions being, in Mr. Wesley's judgment, connected with a change in the spiritual state, he did not think himself justified in con- demning, though he was greatly perplexed by them. It was remarkable that they were not seen during the preaching of Mr. Whitefield, or his brother Charles, but only during the sermons of himself, and only at or near Bristol. John Wesley seems sometimes to have thought them to be marks of the Spirit's work, sometimes efforts of the Evil One to mar the work.^ These views of the hysterical phenomena were due to the singularly superstitious mind which marked John Wesley. He allowed himself to think that he was the constant subject of miraculous manifestations, and that when his horse fell lame, or his head ached, a special interposition was wrought in his favour. He believed that people could be converted in dreams, or in visions to their waking senses ; that the will of the Most High could be ascertained by casting lots ; that it was an offence in the sight of God to use any diver- sion, and that though the Howers, the birds, and the insects are painted in most gorgeous hues, yet that human beings could not fitly wear anything 1 Tyerman's Life of J. Wesley, i. 226. 2 ib. i. 267. REMAINDER OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 591 bat sad-coloured garments. Yet with all these puerile notions he united much masculine common sense. Thus he threw aside, boldly and unhesi* tatiugly, the dreamy follies of the Moravians, and he took a noble and at".- mirable stand on the doctrine of the fulness, freeness, and universality of the grace of God. This led to the separation of the Wesleys from Whitefield, who had been attracted by the writings of the older Puritans to adopt Calvinistic vieAvs.^ Whitefield wrote angrily but feebly against Wesley, who, a far abler man, magnanimously spared him. There was still love between them, though a divergence in sentiment. Before the close of the year 1739, Wesley had begun to employ lay preachers to assist him in his work, had built his first chapel at Bristol, and converted an old foundry in London into a home for himself, and rooms for his ministrations. The movement once set on foot rapidly gathered form and substance. A system of mutual help and instifuction by classes and leaders was organised for the societies. In 1743, Wesley published the first edition of his rules for them. The members received tickets of membership ; and for any im- morality were at once expelled. In the year 1744 was held the first Wes- leyan Conference. Four clergymen besides the two Wesleys, and four lay preachers, took part in it. The whole question of the doctrines of grace was reviewed. It Avas decided that justifying faith is a conviction of personal salvation — that no person can be justified and not know it ; that this in- ward conviction is the proof of faith. This, and the doctrine of Christian perfection, may be regarded as the distinctive doctrines of the Methodists. The Conference also came to a resolution about discipline, whicli was very ominous of the future course of the society. They would obey the bishops in things indifferent. They would observe the canons as far as icith a safe conscience they could. They did not desire a schism in the Church, but they must not neglect the present opportunity of saving souls for fear of conse- quences which might possibly ov probably happen after they were dead.^ To protect the chapels from the interference of the law, licenses had been taken out for them as dissenting meeting-houses, and the lay preachers had been licensed as dissenting teachers. A further step soon followed. In the year 1760 three preachers at Nor- wich began to administer the sacrament of Holy Communion in their chapels.^ Charles Wesley was grievously vexed at this. He writes, "If the other preachers foUow their example, not only separation but general confusion must follow. My soul abhors the thought of separating from the Church of England. You and all the preachers know if my brother should ever leave it, I should leave him or rather he me." * Mr. Grimshaw, another clergy- man who had acted with the Wesleys, declared that now he must withdraw from them, for " the Methodists are no longer members of the Church of England. They are as real a body of Dissenters from her as the Presbyte- rians, Baptists, Quakers, or any body of independents."^ But John Wesley'gave no sign. He disliked separation from the Church, he constantly spoke in the strongest way against it, but he did nothing to hinder it. He allowed the machine which he had set in motion to take its course. He saw probably that that course was inevitable, and though he perhaps salved his own conscience by his protests against dissent, yet if Methodism was not to be had without dissent, he was prepared to accept it 1 Wliitefield became eventually the founder of the Calvinistic Methodists, though his biographers tell us that he was always extremely opposed to the notion of found- ing a sect. 2 Tyerman's Life of J. Wesley, i. 44. 3 Jh. ii. 381. 4 Ih. ii. 382. 6 16. 592 SKETCH OF EELIGIOUS AFFAIES DURING at this price. By and by he brings himself to the distinctly schismatical act of performing a mock consecration of bishops for America. The Methodists were strongly opposed to the Latitudinarian movement, and discountenanced all attempts to obtain relaxation from subscription, or to tamper with the Prayer-Book. Still more bitter antagonists were they to the Arian and Unitarian heresies. They brought out with great force the teaching of the Church on the doctrines of grace, and showed to many of the clergy a meaning of their formularies which they had not before apprehended. It is true that they added their own definitions to the Church doctrine, and introduced a strange and untenable doctrine of Christian perfection. But they led men to examine and weigh subjective truths which had been long almost entirely overlooked, and to understand more fully the language of Scripture on these topics. Neither can they be fairly accused of Antinomian- ism. When, in 1770, Mr. Wesley and his conference published their famous declaration as to the necessity of good works, a vast sensation was produced among those clergy of the English Church who were more especially inte- rested in the excitement then prevailing. A circular Avas addressed to all "the serious clergy," as they were called, by Mr. Shirley, chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, to ask their attendance at Bristol, where the Wes- leyan Conference was to be held, by way of checking the poison which it was thought Mr. Wesley's propositions instilled. Some sort of an agreement was for the moment come to between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Shirley, but the controversy between the Calvinistic and Arminian views soon broke out again, and raged for many years with great violeuce. Whitefield was now dead, but on the Calvinistic side there were Mr. Shirley, Mr. Toplady, vicar of Broad Hembury, Mr. Rowland HiU, and his brother Richard. John Wesley, who was overwhelmed with work, could but ill spare the time to answer these numerous assailants, but there came to his assistance an admirable writer, and a most devout and holy man, Mr. Fletcher, vicar of Maddeley. By birth a Swiss, by education a Calvinist, Mr. Fletcher threw ofi" for himself the trammels of this artificial system, and fought the battles of truth and mercy and free grace with excellent power and boldness. He appears to have been a man of the most enthusiastic devotion. He died, worn out by his labours, in the very act of administering the holy communion to his people. Among the clergy there were other itinerants besides the Wesleys and Whitefield. One of these was Mr. Berridge, Rector of Everton, near Cam- bridge, who made for many years a regular circuit through the counties of Cambridge, Essex, Hertford, Bedford, and Huntingdon, ' ' preaching in farm- yards and fields, and wherever he could collect a congregation." ^ A still more famous itinerant was Rowland Hill, the son of a Shropshire baronet, whose life at Cambridge had been somewhat similar to that of the Wesleys at Oxford. He became an itinerant preacher without waiting for Orders. This was naturally resented by the bishops. It was long before Mr. Hill could obtain deacon's Orders. He was never admitted to the priesthood. He settled down at length in Surrey Chapel, in London, the services at which were a sort of midway bet'A^een the Church and Dissent. The liturgy of the Church of England was used, but ministers of all denominations were admitted to preach. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a great increase took place in the number of those who were called the serious clergy. A distinct school arose, to which the name of Evangelical has been usually assigned. These divines were mostly Calvinistic, and so stood apart from the Methodists, 1 Sidney's Life of Rowland Hill, p. 48. REMAINDER OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 593 against whom they often vehemently declaimed. They attributed everything to sovereign grace, and spoke always in most desponding terms of the cor- ruption of human nature. They gave no promment place to the sacraments and ordinances of the Church, but they had no sympathy with the quietism of William Law and the Moravians. They supposed that each person, who was really a Christian, could tell the day and the hour of his coiiversion, agi-eeing in this with the Wesleyans, though they differed from them in almost everything else. Hence they were unable to accept the teaching of the Church as to regeneration in baptism. As they divided mankind into the converted and unconverted, so they divided all the employments and diversions, and all the circumstances of life, by a hard and fast line, one part being allowable to the godly, the other being interdicted. They were men full of self-denial and zealous in good works. Their sermons almost equalled in number those of Wesley and Whitefield, and were often protracted to great length. Some of the most famous of this school were Mr. Cecil in London, Mr. Conyers at Helmsley, Mr. Venn at Huddersfield, Mr. Milner at Hull, Mr. Simeon at Cambridge ; but there were numerous others of considerable mark scattered throughout England. Opposing the relaxation of subscription from their love of the Articles, and all tampering with the Prayer-Book from their fear of Arian and Unitarian tendencies among the great men, they helped to preserve uninjured those formularies, which, in fact, condemned many of their doctrines, but which they loved for the devout tone which breathed in them. By their sermons they exterminated, in great measure, the dregs of Socinianism and the vapid moral platitudes which had been too much in vogue for sermons, and setting forth to their hearers the grand truths of the Gospel, they excited a fervour in them which rivalled, if it did not surpass, the earnestness of the Wesleyans. Under their influence Sunday schools began everywhere to be established.^ An organisation was commenced, which, under the name of the Church Missionary Society, has done a vast work in carrying the Gospel to the heathen. ^ Other societies provided cheap Bibles and tracts, and numerous agencies were put in operation, all conducive to the reaction against indifference and irreligion which this century has witnessed. How great that reaction has been the extraordinary development of the Church of England which the nineteenth century has exhibited abundantly testifies. The religious societies struggling for existence throughout the eighteenth century have, in these latter times, advanced to immense propor- tions.^ The Church planted in America, now numbering nearly seventy bishops ; the Colonial Episcopate, of about the same number, which worthily upholds the Church of England in every corner of the globe, testify to the vast gi'owth of religious energy in the Church. The almost entire cessation of non-residence and pluralities among the clergy, the erection of many thousands of voluntary schools, the thirty millions of pounds expended within a short period on the restoration and building of churches, are all striking outw^ard manifestations of increased zeal. But there are still more thorough and unmistakeable tests of the life which is working in the Church of England than even these. The devotion everywhere shown to 1 These are said to have been first begim by Mr. Ralkes, a printer in Gloucester, and Mr. Stock, a clergyman in that city, about 1781. « The Church Missionary Society was founded in 1799 by Messrs. Venn and Simeon, and some others of like opinions. 8 The income of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at the beginning of the eighteenth century was £6437. It is now (1877) £136,906. That of the Church Missionary Society, founded just at the end of the century, is much larger. The amount annually contributed by the Church of England for missionary porpcscB probably considerably exceeds half a million. 2q 594. RELIGIOUS AFFAIES IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. good works ; the raising of the ministering to tlie sick, the sorrowing, and the sinful into the place of a privilege ; the banding together of Christian persons to give their lives to these ministrations ; the deep interest shown in everything connected with Church life ; the numerous services and fre- quent communions ; the special missions to towns and villages, to which all the most gifted clergy gladly contribute their energies — all these tes- tify in a way that cannot be mistaken, that, in spite of her shortcomings and defects ; her sins, her errors, and her dissensions ; God has owned, and is blessing in a signal manner, the venerable Church of England. 595 TABLE OF SUCCESSION OF ENGLISH KINGS, ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY, AND POPES. Date. KlXGS OF England. Aechbishops of Canterbury. Popes. Date. 1509 Henry VIII. 1509 1513 ... LeoX. . . . 1513 1522 Adrian VI. . 1522 1523 ... Clement VII. . 1523 1533 Thomas Cranmer . ... 1533 1534 PaulIIL . . 1534 1547 Edward VI. ... 1547 1550 JuHus III. . . 1550 1553 Mary . . . ... ... 1553 1555 ... Marcellus II. . 1555 1555 ... Paul IV. . . 1555 1556 ... Reginald Pole 1556 1558 Elizabeth . 1558 1559 Matthew Parker . Pius IV. . . 1559 1566 ... Pius V. . . . 1566 1572 Gregory XIII. 1572 1576 Edmund Grindal . 1576 1583 John Whitgift 1583 1585 SixtusV. . . 1585 1590 ... Urban VII. . 1590 1590 Gregory XIV. 1590 1591 Innocent IX. . 1591 1592 ... Clement VIII. 1592 1603 James I. . . ... 1603 1604 ... Richard Bancroft . 1604 1605 ... ... Leo XI. . . . 1605 1605 ... ... Paul V. . . . 1605 1611 George Abbot ... 1611 1621 Gregory XV. . 1621 1623 ... Urban VIIL . 1623 1625 Charles I. . ... 1625 1633 "William Laud ' 1633 1644 ... ... Innocent X. . 1644 1645 ... (The see vacant 15 years). 1645 1649 Charles II. . 1649 596 TABLE OF SUCCESSION OF ENGLISH KINGS, ETC. Date. Kings of England. Archbishops of Canterbury. Popes. Date. 1655 Alexander VII. 1655 1660 William Juxon 1660 1663 GHbert Sheldon . 1663 1667 Clement IX. . 1667 1670 j ... Clement X. . 1670 1676 Innocent XL . 1676 1678 ... William Sancroft . ... 1678 1685 James II. . ... ... 1685 1689 William III. ... Alexander VIII. 1689 1691 John Tillotson Innocent XII. 1691 1694 Thomas Tenison . 1694 1700 ... ... Clement XL . 1700 1702 Anne . . . ... ... 1702 1714 George I. ... 1714 1715 William Wake . ... 1715 1721 ... Innocent XIII. 1721 1724 ... Benedict XIII. 1724 1727 George II. . ... ... 1727 1730 ... Clement XII. . 1730 1737 ... John Potter . ... 1737 i740 ... Benedict XIV. 1740 1747 Thomas Herring . 1747 1757 Matthew Button . 1757 1758 ... Thomas Seeker Clement XIII. 1758 1760 George III. . ... ... 1760 1768 Frederick Cornwallis . ... 1768 1769 ... ... Clement XIV. 1769 1775 ... PiusVL . . 1775 1783 ... John Moore . ... 1783 1800 ... ... PiusVIL . . 1800 1805 ... Charles Manners Sutton ... 1805 1820 George IV. . ... ... 1820 1823 ... LeoXIL . . 1823 1828 ... WiUiamHowIey . ... 1828 i 1829 ... ... Pius VIII. . . 1829 1 1830 William IV. ... ... 1830 1831 ... ... Gregory XVI. . 1831 1837 Victoria . . ... ... 1837 1 1846 ... Pius IX. . . 1846 1848 .. John Bird Sumner ... 1848 1862 ... Charles Thomas Longley 1862 1868 ... Archibald Campbell Tait ... 1868 597 CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. A.D, 1509. 1512. 1515. 1521. 1523. 1526. 1527. »> 1528. 1529. 1530. 1531. >> 1532. 1533. 1534. 1535. 1536. 1536. Accession of Henry YIII. .... Marriage with. Catherine .... Dean Colet denounces the State of the Clergy- Convocation incurs the Penalties of the Praemunire Act Burning of Lutheran Books at St. Paul's King Henry entitled Defender of the Faith Cardinal Wolsey summons Legatine Synod . Tyndale publishes his Translation of New Testament Proceedings against Heretics under Cardinal "Wolsey Commencement of the Divorce Proceedings Mission of Foxe and Gardiner The Legatine Court at Blackfriars . Meeting of the Keformation Parliament Fall of Wolsey ..... Death of Wolsey at Leicester Abbey Sir T. More lays the Divorce Case before Parliament Convocation accepts the Royal Supremacy . The Submission of the Clergy Act to make Papal Annates illegal . Latimer censured by Convocation . Cranmer made Archbishop .... Pronounces the Divorce of Henry from Catherine . Act for restraint of Appeals .... John Fryth burned for alleged Heresy Act of Submission of the Clergy Two Acts of Supremacy . . . . Convocation petitions the King to allow the English Bible Papal Supremacy formally abjured by the English Clergy Execution of the Nun of Kent Publication of Coverdale's Bible Execution of More and Fisher Cnimwell appointed Vicar-General First Visitation of the Monasteries Act for Suppression of smaller Monasteries . Latimer preaches before Convocation Convocation assents to the Divorce of Anne Boleyn The Ten Articles . Abridgment of Church Holidays First Set of Koyal Injunctions 598 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. A.D. 1536. Breaking out of the Nortliern Rebellion 1537. Put)lication of the Institution of a Christian Man ,, Matthew's Bihle 1538. Crumwell's Injunctions ,, Rifling of Archbishop Becket's Tomb ,, Excommunication of Henry VIII. published ,, Negotiations with Lutheran Divines ,, Burning of Nicholson or Lambert . 1539. Passing of the Law of the Six Articles ,, Publication of the Great Bible 1540. Attainder of CrumweU , , Convocation pronounces Divorce from Ann of Cleves ,, Attainder and Burning of Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome 1542. Publication of the Necessary Erudition 1544. Law of Six Articles modified ,, Publication of the English Litany . 1545. Chantries, Hospitals, and Guilds given to the King 1547. Death of King Henry VIII. , , Bishops required to take out Licenses for their Jurisdiction ,, Royal Visitation of the Church ,, Conges d'elire abolished .... 1548. First Communion Office of Edward VI. 1548. Bishop Gardiner sent to the Tower . 1549. First Prayer-Book of Edward VI. established by Law ,, Second Royal Visitation of the Church , , Burning of Joan Bucher .... 1550. Publication of the First Ordinal of Edward VI. „ Altars ordered to be removed 1551. Hooper committed to the Fleet 1552. Second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. established by Law 1553. Publication of the Forty-two Articles „ Death of Edward VI. ,, Attempt to set Lady Jane Grey on the Throne ,, Cranmer committed to the Tower . ,, Repeal of the Reformation Statutes . 1554. Queen Mary's Injunctions .... ,, Deprivation of the Married Clergy . ,, Disputation at Oxford .... „ Arrival of Pole ; the Nation absolved 1555. Commencement of the Persecution of the Reformers ,, Burning of Ridley and Latimer at Oxford . 1556. Burning of Archbishop Cranmer 1557. Visitation of the Universities 1548. Death of Queen Mary ... , , Return of the Reformers from abroad 1559. Disputation in "Westminster Abbey . CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. 599 iuD. 1559. Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy . ,, Publication of the Queen's Injunctions , , Consecration of Archbishop Parker . 1561. Queen's order against Married Clergy 1563. The Thirty-nine Articles agreed upon and subscribed 1562. Bishop Jewel's Apology for the Cliurch of England 1566. Parker publishes his Book of Advertisements ,, First Formal Separation from the Church . 1571. Act of Parliament to enforce Subscription to the Articles ,, Renewed Subscription to the Articles 1573. Commission of Oyer and Termraer for Church Discipline 1575. Death of Archbishop Parker 1576. Grindal made Archbishop of Canterbury . ,, Suspended by the Queen .... 1583. Death of Grindal ..... ,, Whitgift enforces Subscription 1584. Richard Hooker made Master of the Temple 1587. Commencement of the Mar-Prelate libels . 1593. Severe statute against the Puritans . 1596. The Drawing up of the Lambeth Articles . 1603. Accession of King James I. . 1604. The Hampton Court Conference ,, New Canons published .... ,, Bancroft made Archbishop .... 1605. Disputes between the Primate and the Judges 1610. Consecration of Bishops for Scotland 1611. Publication of the Revised Translation of the Bible 1612. Burning of Legate and "Wightman . 1614. Case of Mr. Peacham .... 1617. Recantation of Mr. Selden .... 1618. Publication of the Book of Sports for Sunday 1621. Archbishop Abbot kills a Gamekeeper 1623. The first Romish Bishop appointed to England 1624. First attack on Mr. Montagu 1625. Death of King James I. . 1625. Commencement of Laud's influence with the King . 1626. Death of Bishop Andrewes .... 1627. Publication of Dr. Sibthorp's Sermon 1628. The Declaration before the Thirty-nine Articles ,, Violent attack of Parliament on Arminian views . 1630. Bishop Davenant censured by the King 1633. Laud made Archbishop .... ,, Republication of the Book of Sports „ Holy Table ordered to be set altarwise 1637. Bishop Williams convicted before Star Chamber . „ First reading of the Scotch Liturgy 600 CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. A.D. 1640. Summoning of Parliament and Convocation . ,, Convocation continued after Parliament „ The Et Cetera Oath .... „ Meeting'of the Long Parliament „ Archbishop Laud attacked in Parliament . 1641. Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission abolished 1642. Bishops Votes in Parliament taken away . 1643. "Westminster Assembly of Divines summoned ,, Enforcing of the taking of the Covenant 1645. The Directory ordered to be used . ,, The Common Prayer forbidden under penalties „ Execution of Archbishop Laud 1646. Surrender of Oxford .... 1647. The "Westminster Assembly disperses 1649. Execution of King Charles I. . . . 1654. Appointment of the Triers .... 1655. Use of Common Prayer in Private Houses forbidden 1658. Death of Cromwell ..... 1660. Eestoration of the Monarchy — The Declaration from Breda 1661. The Savoy Conference .... ,, Review of the Pra5'er-Book by Convocation 1662. Passing of the Act of Uniformity . 1664. First Conventicle Act .... 1670. Second Conventicle Act .... 1675. Building of St. Paul's commenced . 1679. Rupture between King and Parliament 1685. King James II. appoints Ofl&cers in opposition to Test Act 1686. Re-establishment of the Court of High Commission 1687. Publication of the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience ,, Ejection of the Fellows of Magdalen College 1688. Clergy ordered to publish the Declaration in Churches ,, Trial of the Seven Bishops for libel . „ Flight of King James II. . 1689. Passing of the Toleration Act . . . ,, Attempt to remodel the Prayer-Book ,, A portion of the Clergy refuse to take the Oaths 1694. Archbishop Tenison succeeds to the Primacy 1698. Commencement of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 1701. Commencement of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 561 1704. Queen Anne gives Tenths and First-fruits to the Church 1709. Prosecution of Dr. SachevereU 1714. Death of Queen Anne 1717. Bishop Hoadly's Sermon „ Convocation prepares to censure Hoadly „ Silencing of Convocation INDEX. 601 INDEX. Abbot, Archbisbop, accession of to the primacy 387 ; not well suited for the post, ib.; favours Puritanism, 389 ; in- fluence of checked by Essex divorce case, ib. ; writes to king against Romanism, ib. ; recovers influence, 394 : again loses it, ib.; encourages the opposition to Spain, ib. ; accidentally kills a gamekeeper, 397 ; attempts to con- vict him of irregularity, ib.; acquitted by Commission, i5.; refuses to license Sibthorp's sermon, 406 ; practically suspended, ib. ; recalled to Court, 410 ; holds a meeting of divines at Lambeth, ib.; death of, 418 Abridgment of Lincolnshire Ministers, the, 370 Abstract of Acts of Parliament, the, 331 Admonitions to Parliament, the, drawing up of, 297 ; Whitgift's answer to, 298 Admonition to the People in England, the, 335 Advertisements of Archbishop Parker, the, 289, ,290; clerical dress prescribed by, 290 ; never sanctioned by Queen Eliza- beth, 289, 300 Alienation between clergy and laity, causes of, 16 sq. A Lasco, John, liturgy of, 209 ; account of, 219 Aless, Alexander, present at a meeting of the bishops, 150 ; speech of, 151 Allen, Cardinal, measures of to uphold Romanism in England, 357; advocates the Spanish cause, ib. Altars, ordered to be removed by Bishop Ridley, 206 ; order of Council for re- moval of, ib. ; removal of regulated by Injunctions of Elizabeth, 266 Anabaptists, Dutch, condemned and burned, 103 ; the sect of, in England, 315 Andrewes, Bishop, chaplain to Whitgift, 354 ; his views on the Calvinistic doc- trines, ib., and note ; sermons of, 385 ; recommended by the bishops for prim- acy, 386 ; influence of, 395 ; discourages Laud's proposals, 404; death and charac- ter of, 407 Annates, papal, objected to by Convoca- ATTERBtJRY. tion, 78, 79 ; bill to take away brought into Parliament, 79 ; finally ratified, 83 ; account of, 576 Anne, Queen, accession of, 565 ; super- sedes commission for preferments, 566 ; adopts Archbishop Sharp as adviser, ib. ; objects to occasional conformity, ifc.; gives first-fruits and tenths to Church, 567, 576 ; censures Lower House of Con- vocation, 571 ; returns to Tory predilec- tions, 572; supports Dr. Sacheverell, 675 ; death and character of, 585 Appeals to Rome, statute for restraint of, 80 ; further regulated, 83 Ap-Rice, Doctor, advice of to Crumwell, 119 ; commissioner for visiting monas- teries, 122 Arthur, Thomas, trial and recantation of, 39 Articles (the Ten), drawn up by Henry VIIL, 145 ; accepted by Convocation, ib.; character of, 146, 147 ; (of the northern clergy), 149 ; (the Six), forma- tion of, 165 ; accepted by Convoca- tion, 166 ; enacted by Parliament, ib. ; sufferers under law of, 167, 172, and note ; law of modified, 170, and note, 173 ; (the Forty-two), drawing up of, 207, 20S, 214 ; sent by Cranmer to the Council, 214 ; laid before Convocation, 215 ; ratified by the king, ib.; subscribed by the clergy, ib. ; compared with the Thirty-nine, 220 ; (of inquiry issued in accession of Elizabeth), 267 ; (the Eleven under Elizabeth),273; (tlieThirty- nine), formation of. 278 ; subscription to, ib. ; bill to enforce subscription to, 293 ; stopped by the queen, ib. ; carried, 296 ; reviewed by Bishop Jewel, ib. ; sub- scribed anew by Convocation, 296, 300 ; the Declaration before, 410 ; (tlie Fifteen) passed by Convocation in 1576, 304, 305 ; (of 1585), i)assed by Convocation, 325 ; (tlie Lambetli), 352 ; anger of the queen at, 353 ; condemned by Lord Burleigh, ib. ; never adopted by the Church, 411, note Attainder, of Crumwell, 168 ; of Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome, 170 ; others in Parliament of 1539, 185 ; of Archbishop Laud, 469, 470 Atterbury, Bishop, his Rights, Powers, and 602 INDEX. Privileges, 557 ; Prolocutor of Convoca- tion, 581 ; made Bishop of Rochester, 582 ; condemned to banishment, 587 A-ssembly of Divines at Westminster, or- dinance summoning, 454 ; meeting of, ib. ; first work of, ib. ; Scotch Covenant accepted by, 455 ; scheme of for ordi- nation pro tempore, 456 ; members of grasp at preferment, 457 ; Directory for Public Worship dravm up by, ib. ; great dissensions in, 459 ; the Presby- terians in obliged to compromise, 460 ; the scheme of Church government of, ib. ; partially carried out, ib. ; the two Catechisms of, 461 ; the Confession of Faith of, ib. ; melting away of, ib. ; character of, ib. Augsburg, confession of, 146, 147 Augmentations, Court of, 131, 132 ; ap- pointed to deal with chantries and hospitals, 175. Aylmer, Bishop, presides in Convocation, 209 Bacon, Sir N., Lord Keeper, speech of in Parliament, 255 ; presides at disputa- tions in Westminster Abbey, 257 ; cen- sures Romanists, 259 ; induces Parker to accept primacy, 270 Bacon, Lord, conduct of in the case of Mr. Peacham, 391 Bagshaw, Mr., speech of at beginning of Long Parliament, 440 Bancroft, Archbishop, assists Whitgift, 328 ; sermon of on Churcli Government, 343 ; Survey of Holy Discipline of, 348 ; presides in Convocation, 1603, 367 ; appointed to the primacy, 368 ; ex- animo test of, 368, 369, 371 ; amount of success of, 371 ; complains to Pnvy Council of judges, 374 ; further contest of with judges, 376 ; orders suffragans to remedy abuses, 377 ; bill of for im- proving Church revenues, 387, and note ; death and character of, 383 Bargreaves, Dean, absolutist sermon of, 406 Barnes, Dr. , bears a faggot at St. Paul's, 33; writes on The Church, 98; denounces Nicholson to Cranmer, 157; attainder of, 170 ; execution of, 171 Barret, Mr., preaches at Cambridge against Calvinism, 352 Barrow, Dr. Isaac, literary works of, 520 Baro, Professor, opposes Calvinistic views, 353 ; censured by Whitgift, ^253, 254 Barton, Elizabeth (Nun of Kent), case of, 108 ; execution of, 110 Baxter, Richard, supports TJie Engagement, 475 ; declares for moderation, 487 ; im- practicable character of, 480 ; argues against Church divines, 490 ; contends against toleration, ib. ; draws up Re- formed Liturgy, 492 ; paper of objec- tions not accepted by his brethren, ih. ; imprisoned under Five Mile Act, 508 : again in prison, 509 ; negotiations of with Wiikins as to comprehension, 515-523 ; account of his writings, 521 ; in prison for two years, 528 Bayfield, Richard, execution of for heresy, 107 Basmham, James, execution of for heresy, 107 Beale, Dr., sermon of produces a riot, 25 Becket, Thomas, process against, 154 ; rifling of tomb of at Canterbury, 155 Benevolence voted to Crown by Convoca- tion, 340 ; agreed upon by bishops, 390 ; exacted from the clergy, ib. Berridge, Mr., his itinerant labours, 592 Beveridge, Bishop, refuses to succeed Bishop Ken, 553 ; fails to be elected Prolocutor, 560 ; founder of religious so- cieties, 551 ; made bishop, 579 Bible, the, translation of by Coverdale, 104, 105 ; by Matthew (Rogers), 152, 177 ; the Great, 153, 177, 178 ; reading of re- stricted during reign of Henry VIII., 173, 177, 178 ; the Geneva, 274 ; Parker's Revision (the Bishops), ib., 380, and note ; revision under James I., 363, 380, 381, 382 Bilney, Thomas, first trial of, 39 ; Recan- tation of, ib. ; self-reproach and retui-n to former opinions, 39 ; arrested as a re- lapsed heretic and burned, 40 Bilson, Bishop, his Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, 347 Bingham, Joseph, writings of, 564, 578, 5S1, note Binks, Dr., Prolocutor of Convocation, 569 Bishops, the English, renounce supre- macy of the Pope, 102 ; receive royal license to exercise jurisdiction, 119 ; ap- pointment of by letters patent, 192 ; deprivation of under Mary, 228 ; mor- tality among in 1530, 256 ; treatment of Romanists under Elizabeth, 263, 264 ; consecration of after accession of Eliza- beth, 271, 284 ; censured by Queen Eliza- beth, 287, 304, 326 ; by the Council, 295, 298 ; endeavour to procure Act for subscription to Articles, 294 ; order dis- continuance of the Prophesyings, 308 ; ordered to enforce conformity, 369 ; by Archbishop Bancroft to remedy abuses, 377; lowness of principle among in times of James I., 389, 390 ; agree to grant benevolence to Cro^vn, ib. ; un- popularity of in time of Charles I., 405, 409, 412, 423 ; instructions to issued by King Charles I., 415, 416; conduct ec- clesiastical causes in their own names, 433 ; Commons vote to exclude from Parliament, 445 ; Root and Branch Bill against brought into Commons, ib. ; at- tack made on in the Remonstrance, 449 ; popular fury against, ib. ; escape from House of Lords of, ib. ; protest of against proceedings in their absence INDEX. 603 450 : committal of to Tower, ib. ; Bill to exclude from Parliament passed, ib. ; liberated from Tower on bail, 467 ; dan- ger of losing succession of during Re- bellion era, 484 ; the nine who sur\'ived the troubles, 489 ; the new at the Re- storation, ib. ; oppose Bill for Tolera- tion, 509 ; mild treatment of Noncon- formists by, 514 ; the five who upheld policy of King James II., 529, note ; summoned by Bancroft to consult on King's Declaration, 532 ; the seven who petitioned King James, 533 ; interview of with king, 534 ; summoned before Council, ib. ; committed to Tower, ib. ; great respect shown to, 536 ; brought up to plead, ib. ; trial and acquittal of, ib. ; summoned to advise King James, 539 ; refuse to draw up a Paper of Ab- horrence, 540; anger of the clergy against, 570, 572 ; votes of on Sachev- erell's trial, 575 ; proceedings of as to rebaptization, 581 ; the colonial numbers of, 593 Bishops, the Scotch, consecration of in London, 382, 383 ; made Ecclesiastical Commissioners, ib. ; authorised to draw up a liturgy for Scotland, 428 ; declared to be abolished in Scotland, 430 Blackburne, Archdeacon, leader of the Latitudinarians, 588 Blackball, Bishop, promotion of, 572 ; controversy with Hoadly, ib. Bolevn, Anne, influence of, over Heniy VIII., 41, 44, 47, 48, 49; early life of, 64 ; date of marriage with Henry, 65 ; influence of on the Reformation, 106 ; divorce of from Henry, 144 Bolevn, Mary, connection of with Henry VIII., 45 ; note, 52 Bonner, Bishop, writes in defence of royal supremacy, 117 ; advanced by Crumwell, 168 ; alienates manors to the king, 177 ; restricts reading of English Bible, ib. ; committed to the Fleet, 191 ; liberated, ib. ; attempt of to Romanise the English Prayer-book, 199 ; ordered to preach at Paul's Cross in favour of new settlement, 200 ; deprivation of, ib. ; exults over his opponents, 225 ; proceedings of against married clergy, 235 ; not responsible for commence- ment of persecution, 238, 240 ; brought up under Supremacy Act, 281 ; pleads that Home is no true bishop, ib. Bound, Dr., book of, on Observance of Sabbath, 349 iJoume, Canon, sermon of, at St. Paul's, 222. Boyle, Hon. R., services of, to religion, 517 ; to physical science, i6. Bramhall, Archbishop, confers orders during Rebellion era, 484 Br3.y, Dr. Thomas, useful works of, 561 Breda, declaration of, 486 Bridges, Dr., his Defence of the Government of the Church, 332 Brinklow, Mr., complains of the robbery of Church property, 217, and note Browne, Sir B., service in chapel of, during Rebellion era, 478 Brown, Robert, founder of a sect, 314 Browuists, the, 314, 338 Bucer, Martin, criticises English Prayer- book, 208 ; account of, 219 ; process against after death, 248 Bucher, Joan, burning of, 200 Bull, Bishop, uses Common Prayer from memory during troubles, 458, 477 ; literary works of, 520, and note ; made bishop, 579, and note Burgess, Dr., answers Morton's Defence, 371, note Burleigh, Lord, corresponds with Dr. Guest as to the review of the Prayer- Book, 260 ; corresponds with Ai'ch- bishop Parker as lo the Advertisements, 288, 289 ; endeavours to induce Grindal to >ield to the queen, 308 ; dispute of with Whitgift on "articling" clerks, 321 ; makes severe reflections on bishops, 322 ; dispute of with Whitgift as to the mastership of the Temple, 322, 323 ■ opposes the petition of the Commons in the House of Lords, 324 ; dislikes the Lambeth Articles, and proceedings against Baro, 353 Burnet, Bishop, comes over with King "William, 540 ; Bishop of Salisbury, 545 ; accused of heresy by Lower House of Convocation, 560 ; speaks against Oc- casional Conformity Bill, 561 ; his cen- sure of Lower House, 568; again attacked in Convocation, 569 ; speaks in the debate as to Church in danger, 571 Burton, Rev. H., trial of, for libel, 423 Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 588 Calendar of Lessons, reformed under Elizabeth, 276 Calviu, John, opinion of on English Prayer-book, 208, 253 ; appealed to by English at Frankfort, 253 ; draws up a book for the English, 254 Cambridge, University of, Lutheranism in, 32 ; gives opinion in the divorce case, 83 ; renounces the supremacy of the pope, 102 ; proceedings in against Barret and Baro, 352, 353 ; state of dur- ing reign of Elizabeth, 356 ; " Purga- tion " of by Earl of Manchester, 466 Campeggio, Cardinal, sent to England in the divorce suit, 45, 46 ; holds the Legatine Court, 48 ; draws back from prosecution of the busmess, ib. Campion Father, mission of to England, 357 ; death of. ib. Canons of 1571, 296 ; of 1576, 304 ; of 1585, 325 ; of 1597, 341 ; of 1604, 367, 368 ; of 1640, 434, 435, 436 ; (the Scotch), 429 604 INDEX. CANTERBURY. Canterbury, Cathedral of, altar-plate of, 420 ; sacrilegious proceedings at, 468 Catechism (Poynefs), 215 ; (Nowel's), 215, 280, and note ; (Church), additions to, made after Hampton Court conference,' 363 Cathedrals, libellous attacks on, 332 ; im- provements in under Laud ; 421 ; resto- ration of after troubles, 518 Catherine of Arragon, Queen, married to Prince Arthur, 16 ; dispensation for, to marry Henry, 17 ; married to Henry, ib. ; told by Henry that she is to be divorced, 42 ; resists suggestions as to entering "religion," 47; before the Legatine Court, 48 ; divorce of, pro- nounced by Craumer, 61 ; reception of the news by, 62, 63 ; validity of mar- riage decreed by Pope Clement, 66 ; death of, 63 Capacities given to monks, 133 Cartwright, Thomas, procures drawing up of the Admonitions, 297 ; early life of, 301 ; preferred by Lord Leicester, 327 ; refused a license to preach by Whitgift, ib. ; brought before Ecclesiastical Com- missioners, 335 ; committed to the Fleet, ib. ; refuses to yield, ib. ; dismissed on intercession of Whitgift, ib. Cartwright, Bishop, appointed to High Commission Court, 527, note ; his bad character, 529, note ; presides in a court at Oxford, 530 Castro, Alphonsus da, his sermon against persecution, 237 ; his real character, 238 Chantries, hospitals and guilds, given by Parliament to King Henry VIII., 175 ; again given to the Crown, 188 Chaplains, mean condition of, 388 ; al- lowed only to noblemen and those qualified by law, 415 Charles I., King, his journey to Spain when Prince of Wales, 398, 399 ; rites of English Church performed for him, 399 ; accession of, 402 ; character, ib. ; marriage, ib. ; takes Laud as his guide in Church matters, 404, 416 ; ceremonies at his coronation, 404, and note ; orders Archbishop Abbot to license Sibthorp's Sermon, 406; supports Dr. Main waring, 409; publishes declaration before Thirty- nine articles, 410; Instructions of, to Bishops, 415; censures Bishop Davenant, 416 ; publishes Bonk of Sports for the 8unday,41S; consents to the Covenant in Scotland, 430; dissolves the Parliament, 433 ; continues the Convocation, 435 ; letter of, authorising it to make canons, 436 ; assents to taking away Star Cham- ber and High Commission Courts, 446 ; impolicy of, 448 ; assents to bill for taking away Bishops in Scotland, ib. ; makes appointment to eight sees, ib. ; assents to bill for excluding Bishops from Parliament, 450 ; forbids the use of the Directory, 459 ; loyal adherence of to the Church of England, 472 : rightly described as a martyr, ib. ; com- forted at the last by Church service, 473, note ; death of, 473 Charles II., King, declaration of, from Breda, 486; 'refuses disuse of the Prayer- book, 487 ; issues letters ordering re- view of Prayer-book, 496; assures House of Commons of his regard for Prayer- book, 498 ; policy of towards Noncon- formists, 502 ; issues declaration renew- ing promise of indulgence, 506 ; obliged to yield to the Parliament, 506 ; device of, for selling toleration, 506 ; publishes his Declaration of Indulgence, 508 ; withdraws it, 509 ; agrees to Test Act of 1672, ib. ; turns against Nonconform- ists, ib.; quarrels with Parliament, 510; supported by the Church, 510 Charterhouse, Monks of the, execution of, 113 Chasubles, not used under Elizabeth, 268, 290 Cheapside, Cross of, thrown down, 468 Chillingworth, William, his book on Re- ligion of Protestants, 427 Christian Brotherhood, the, 40 Church government, gradual progress of the controversy on,. 342, 343, 344, 348 Church property given by Parliament to Henry Vlll., 86, 175 ; to Edward VL, 188 ; seizure of by Somerset, 213 : by Northumberland, ib.; spoliation of, 216; commission to inquire after, ib. ; com- plaints of robbery of, 217 ; restoration of, by Queen Mary, 245 ; alienation and seizure of under Elizabeth, 263, 272, 304, 322 ; protection of under James, 361 Clarendon, Lord, advice of to Archbishop Laud, 425 ; draws up Worcester House Declaration, 490 ; causes its defeat in Parliament, 491 ; king withdraws favour from, 507 Clarke, John, brought from Cambridge to Cardinal College by Wolsey, 37 ; Luther- anism of, ib. Clarke, Dr. Samuel, his book on the Trinity, 583 ; censured by Convocation, ib. ; withdraws his statements, ib. ; his Arian Prayer-book, 587 ; controversy with Waterland, 588 Clement VII., Pope, proceedings of in divorce case of Henry and Catherine, 42, 45, 46, 4^, 55, 66, 71, 81, 82 ; sentence of in the matter of the marriage of Henry and Catherine, 66, 82 Clergy, the, secular employments of, 5 ; pluralities of, 6 ; ill-feeling of the laity towards, 16, sq. ; moral state of in six- teenth century, 19, 20 ; convicted under Praemunire Act, 72 ; jiardoned by king, 73, 74 ; bill of grievances against, 74 ; answers of, 75, 76, 77 ; submission of, 78, 87 ; Act to enforce, 82 ; marriage of prohibited, 104 ; law as to celibacy relaxed, 198, 199 ; ancient summons o£ INDEX. 605 to Parliament, 202 ; act to legalise mar- riage of, 213 ; deprivation of the married under Mary, 228 ; number of, deprived, ib. ; proceedings against, 235 ; number who resigned on the accession of Eliza- beth, 264, 357 ; vestou'e of under Eliza- beth, 2t52, 265, 267 ; marriage of regu- lated by Injunctions, 265 ; marriage of in cathedrals and colleges prohibited, 276 ; poor condition of m London, 277 ; irregular proceedings of in divine service, 287 ; attempts to promote learning among, 340 ; residence of enforced, ib. ; luxurious dress of, 377 ; impoverished state of, 888 ; instructed by King James as to preaching, 398 ; directed to preach political sermons, 405 ; obliged to de- fend themselves before House of Com- mons, 443 ; few consent to take the Covenant, 456 ; persecution of during Rebellion era, 462 ; treatment of by com- mittee for scandalous ministers, 463, 464 ; by committee for plundered min- isters, 465 ; by country committees, 466 ; slanders published against, 464, 465 ; various grounds for ejectment of, 465 ; numbers reduced to destitution, 467 ; some take the Engagement, 476 ; use Prayer-book services during Rebel- lion era, 477 ; disastrous effect on of edict of 1G54, 480 ; means used for keep- ing up succession of, 481 ; sign declara- tion of moderation, 484 ; replaced in benefices at Restoration, 488 ; alarmed at promise of indulgence to Noncon- formists, 506 ; abandon right of taxing themselves, 506, note ; admitted to vote for members of Parliament, 507, note ; uphold hereditary succession and pas- sive obedience, 510 ; support the Abhor- rers, ib. ; persecute Nonconformists, ib. ; vigorously oppose Romanism, 526 ; generally refuse to publish King James's declaration, 534, 535 ; hold back from Prince of Orange, 540 ; difficulties of their position, 541 ; ordered to take oaths to King William, 542 ; excited state of, 546 ; difficulties of, as to oaths, 550 ; irritation of against Whig bishops, 570, 572, 573 ; political power of in reign of Queen Anne, 578 ; low social state of, 578, 586 ; activity of, 579 ; directions to under George I., 584 ; scandals prevalent among, 588 ; the " Serious," 592, 593 ; general improve- ment among, 593 Clergy, Benefit of, 21, 22, 27 Coke, Sir E., character of, 389 ; rules that the king has no power to grant commen- darns, 31 '2 ; refuses to yield to the king, 392 ; suspended from his office, ib. ; his judgment on royal supremacy, 25, note; on attainders, 185 ; on subscription to the articles, 301 Colet, Dean, an educational reformer, 9 ; his sermon before Convocation, 19 College, Cardinal, foundation of, 36, 37 ; Cambridge men in, 37 ; the Controver- sial, 384 Collier, Jeremy, a non-juror, 562 CoUingwood, Dean, an educational refor- mer, 9 Commendams, held with bishoprics, 391 ; pron(mnced illegal, 392 Committees of Religion (of House of Com- mons), censures Montagu, 405 ; censures Mainwaring, 408 ; in short Parliament, 432 ; in long Parliament (of the House of Lords), 444 ; holds sittings in Jeru- salem Chamber, ib. ; recommendations of, 445 ; (of the House of Commons), Mr. Pym makes report of as to cere- monial, 448 ; the grand committee, 462, 463 ; sub-committee for scandalous min- isters, 463; sub-divisions of this, ib. ; treatment of the clergy by, ib., 464; committee for plundered ministers, i65 ; country committees, 466 Commission to revise canons, 82, 175, 201 ; ecclesiastical, under Marj-, 249 ; to review Prayer-book, 255, 260 ; to eject clergy, 479 ; to prepare comprehension scheme in 1689, 545, 546, 549 Commission, Court of High, established by Supremacy Act, 257 ; acts in pro- vinces of Canterbury and York, 264 ; censures London ministers, 288, 291 ; new commission obtained by Whitgift, 318.; defended by Whitgift, 321 ; deal- ings with Cartwright, 335 ; debates of at I Hampton Court, 363 ; opinions of the judges on, 369, 375 ; attacked in Par- liament, 376, 432 ; assailed by m.ob, 438 ; abolished by Act of Parliament, 446 ; re-established by King James II., 527 ; suspends Bishop Compton, ib. ; proceeds against Magdalen College, 530; dissolved by King James, 539 Commons, House of (see also Parliament), refuses to condemn Wolsey, 49, note ; measures against clergy in, 69, 71 : com- plains of Bishop Fisher, 70 ; presents Bill of Grievances against clergy, 74 ; op- poses Queen Mary's policy, " 229 ; or- dered by Queen Elizabeth not to med- dle in religious matters, 297, 326 ; adopts petition on Church grievances, 324 ; change in feeling towards Puritans, 336 ; complains of the bishops and clergy, 377 ; complains of Bisliojis Hars- netand Neile, o90 ; censures the bishops, 400; attacks Mr. Montagu, 403 ; appoints a committee for religion, 404 ; censures Montagu, 405 ; attacks Bishops Laud and Neile, 409 : censures Arminianism, 410, 411 ; the vow of, 411 ; has confer- ence with the Lords on " Innova- tions," 433 ; votes compensation to Prynne, Barton, Bastwick,441; censures Dr. Co.sin, ib. ; condenms the canons of 1640, 442 ; appoints a conmiittee to im- peach Archbishop Laud, ib. ; impeaches bishops before House of Lords, 443 ; sends commissioners to remove altars 606 INDEX. COMMUNION. and images, ib. ; votes the taking away of bishops' votes in Parliament, 445 ; votes taking away of deans and chap- ters, ib. ; will not advance Koot and Branch Bill, 446, 447 ; votes the Grand Remonstrance, 449 ; its declaration on religion, 451 ; passes Root and Branch Bill, 453 ; subscribes the Covenant, 455 ; appoints committees of religion, 462, 463 ; passes Bill of Attainder against Laud, 470 ; impatient of delay in Church settlement at Restoration, 495 ; violent against Nonconformists, ib. ; passes Bill of tiniformity with Prayer-book of James annexed, 496 ; accepts the Prayer- book as amended by Convocation, 499 ; passes Act of Uniformity, 499, 503, 504 ; refuses to accept king's declaration of indulgence, 509 ; passes a Bill of Tolera- tion, ib. ; checks King James in his at- tempt to override Test Act, 525 ; refuses concessions as to oaths to William III., 542 ; rejects the Bill for Union, 544 ; passes bills against occasional conform- ity, 567 ; votes money for church build- ing, 577, note ; declares that it -will sup- port Lower House of Convocation, 577 Communion office, first, of Edward VI., 193 ; wanting in Convocational sanction, ib. ; established by Order of Council, 194 Compton, Bishop, opposes King James II.'s policy in the House of Lords, 525 ; dismissed from offices, ib. ; cited before court of High Commission, 527 ; sus- pended from office, ib. ; one of the inviters of William of Orange, 540,; votes the vacancy of the throne, 542 ; presides in Convocation, 547 ; censures Hoadly, 576 Concealments, commissions of, 804, 312 Conformity, Occasional, bill against, 566, 567 ; rejected by Lords, 566, 567 ; passed, 581 ; repealed, 5S7 Conquest, the Norman, ecclesiastical character of, 2 Controversy, the Convocation, 555, 556, 557 ; the Trinitarian, 564, 588 ; the Bangorian,-587 Conventicle Act, the first, 507 ; the Five Mile Act, ib. ; the second Conventicle Act, 508 Convocation of Canterbury, sermon of Dean Colet before, 19 ; censures Dr. Standish, 23 ; held guilty of Prcemunire, ib. ; called by Warham, 26 ; sent for by Wolsey, 26 ; consulted as to Henry's divorce from Catherine, 56 ; consulted a second time by Cranmer, 58; addresses the king as to privileges, 69 ; offers a composition for the clergy convicted of Prcemunire, 72 ; king demands recogni- tion of his supremacy by, 72 ; votes the supremacy with a qualifying clause, 73 ; votes money compensation, ib. ; de- fends the ordinaries, 77 ; king's reply to, 77 ; consults Bishop Fisher as to terms CONVOCATION. of submission, 78 ; agrees to terms of submission of the clergy, ib. ; petitions against Papal annates, 78, 79 ; censures books, 86 ; petitions for translation of Scriptures into English, 86 ; renounces the supremacy of the pope, 102 ; Lati- mer's sermon before, 143 ; Dr. Petre presides in, 144 ; Crumwell presides in, ib. ; ratifies , divorce from Anne Boleyn, ib. ; makes complaint of blas- phemous and heretical books, ib.; re- gulates Church holidays, 146 ; votes an opinion on general councils, 146 ; agrees to the Six Articles, 166 ; pronounces divorce from Anne of Cleves, 169 ; ob- sequiousness of to Henry VIII., 176 ; employed to reform service-books of the Church, 182 ; declares in favour of giving the cup to the laity, 191 ; Lower House of, addresses Cranmer for concessions, 192 ; sanctions First Prayer-book of Edward VL, 196, note ; agrees to relax law of celibacy of clergy, 198 ; autho- rises review of the Prayer-book, 208 ; sanctions second Prayer-book of Ed- ward VI. , 212 ; sanctions the Forty-two Articles, 215 ; dispute in as to the doc- trine of the mass, 226 ; agrees to certain propositions on the eucharist, 230 ; absolved by Cardinal Pole, 232 ; peti- tions for confirmation of abbey lands to lay-holders, 232 ; makes demands of the Legate, 249; opposed to reforming views, 257 ; meeting of in 1563, 277 ; considers the Forty-two Articles, 278 ; authorises second book of Homilies, 279; subscribes Thirty-nine Articles, 296, 300 ; draws up a body of canons, 296 ; passes fifteen articles, 304 ; work of 1581, 310 ; passes canons in 1585, 325 ; sits after prorogation of Parliament, 326 ; review of its work from 1563 to 1586, 339 ; votes a benevolence to the queen, 340 ; occupied with reform of Church coxirts, 341 ; meeting of in 1604, 367 ; passes the Book of Canons, ib. ; its construc- tion of " Bishop Overall's Convocation Book," 386 ; votes large subsidies for James I., 400; work intended for in 1640, 434 ; parties in, 435 ; continued after dissolution of Parliament, ib. ; continuance of sanctioned by the judges, 436 ; changed into synod, ib. ; makes canons, ib. ; a guard appointed to defend, 437 ; melts away at begin- ning of Long Parliament, 443 ; meeting of in 1661, 496 ; first work of, ib. ; ordered to review Book of Common Prayer, ib. ; proceedings of, in work of review, 497 ; reasons for consulting at accession of William III., 545; excite- ment in election of members of, 546 ; meeting of, in 1689, 547 ; letters of busi- ness to, ib. ; dissensions between Houses of, as to address, ib. ; compre- hension scheme not submitted to, 548 • Tillotson determines not again to INDEX. 607 CONVOCATION. gummon, 548, 554 ; strife between two Houses of, 558 ; question as to right of proroguing, 558, 560 ; prolocutor pro- rogues Lower House, 559 ; Lower House demands " Free Conference," ib. ; acts propria motu, ib. ; opposes arclibishop, ib. ; refuses to appoint joint committee, 560 ; accuses Bisliop Burnet of heresy, ib. ; second meeting of, in 1701, ib.; death of prolocutor, ib. \ no new prolocutor appointed, ibr, renewed disputes as to prorogation, 568 ; declaratiQn of Lower House on Episcopacy, i?). ; representation oi'Lowtx House, ib. ; answered by President, ib. ; Dr. Binks, prolocutor, 569 ; increased acrimony of dispute, ib. ; the disputes break out again, 572 ; increase of moderate men in, ib. ; censured by queen, 571, 572 ; kept from expressing opinion on union with Scotland, 572, prorogued during whole session of Parliament, ib. ; meeting of, in 1711, 580 ; power of to censure a heretic, ib. ; censures Whiston's book, ib. ; Atter- bury, prolocutor of, 581 ; Lower House refuses to proceed with business, ib. ; Lower House sanctions rebaptization, 581 ; better temper of, 582, 584 ; censures Dr. S. Clarke's book, 583 ; meeting of, under George I., 584 ; Lower House censures Hoadly, 585 ; prorogued and silenced, 585; evil effects of this, ib. Convocation of York, simimoned by Wolsey, 26 ; consulted as to king's divorce from Catherine, 56 ; acknow- ledges royal supremacy, 73 ; compounds for offence against the praemunire statute, ib. ; renounces the supremacy of the pope, 102 ; pronounces divorce from Anne of Cleves, 169 ; joins with Canterbury Convocation in subscribing Thirty-nine Articles, 378 ; accepts the canons of 1604, 368 ; appoints proxies to act with Convocation of Canterbury in 1661, 497 ' Cooper, Bishop, his Adm.oniiio'n, to the People of England, 335 Cope, the, ordered to be used in all churches for Holy Communion, 268, 273 ; restricted to Cathedrals, 290 Corrodies on monasteries, 127, and note Cosin, Bishop, complained of by House of Commons, 409, and note ; Book of Devo- tions of, 408, 413 ; attacked in Parlia- ment by :Mr. Smart, 441 ; failure of Impeachment against, ib. ; made bishop, 489 ; furnishes materials for re\iew of Prayer-book, 497, and note ; Church restoration by at Durham, 518 Counterpoison, the, 331 Courts, ecclesiastical, abuses in, 25, 75, 274, 341, 375 ; attempts to reform, 25, 274, 341 Covenant, the Solemn League and, forma- tion of, 430 ; adopted by Westminster Assembly, 455 ; ordered by Parliament to be taken by all, ib. ; injustice of this, 455, 456 ; a ready weapon against the clergy, 465, 466 ; judgment of the University of Oxford on, 471 ; super- seded by the Engagement, 476 ; declaca- tion against, in Act of Uniformity, 504, 511 Coverdale. Bishop, translation of the Bible by, 105, 106, note Cowel, Dr. his Interpreter, 376; censured and imprisoned, 377 Cox, Bishop, a chief worker on second Prayer-book of Edward VI., 209 ; pro- ceedings of, at Frankfort in Clary's reign, 254 ; complains of Elizabeth's forbidding marriage of clergy, 276 ; writes preface to Homilies, 279 ; laments the increasing boldness of the Puritans, 303 ; defends the prophesy- ings, 308 Cranmer, Archbishop, Erastianism of, 12 ; first writer of good English, 13 ; advice of in the divorce case, 45, note, 62 ; treatise of on the divorce, 52 ; goes to Rome, 53 ; made Grand Penitentiary ib. ; consults foreign universities on the divorce, ib. ; appointed archbishop, 58; declaration of, as to the extent of his oath, ib. ; character of, ib. ; consults Convocation on divorce, 59 ; hears divorce case at Dunstable, 60, 61 ; pro- nounces for divorce, ib. ; pronounces validity of Henry's marriage with Anne, 63 ; cro^vns Anne Boleyn, 64 ; god- father to Princess Elizabeth, ib. ; early life of, 65 ; interview with Fryth, 95 ; issues book for preaching and bidding beads, 102 ; intercedes for Fisher and More, 112 ; advocates reforming views, 151 ; opposes Six Article Law, 166, 167 ; supported by King Henry, 168, 173 ; pronounces king's divorce from Anne of Cleves, 169 ; obtains modifica- tion of law against heresy, 173 ; attacks on, ib., 174 ; alienates manors to crown, 175 ; writes preface to great Bible, 177 ; evades Gardiner's attempt to revise translation, 178 ; persevering devotion to reforming views of, 173, 180, 184; amends the service-books, 182 ; transla- tion of the Litany, 183 ; nominated one of the sixteen councillors, 187 ; acts without regard to Convocation, 193 ; procures the burning of Joan Bucher, 200 ; in\ites foreign divines to England, 204 ; controversy with Hooper, 205 ; treatise of, on the eucharist, 210; varioui views held on the subject, ib. ; presses acceptance of the Forty-two Articles, 214 ; supports Lady Jane Grey, 221; per- forms funeral service for King Edward, 222 ; might have escaped after Mary's accession, 223 ; declaration of, as to the mass, 223 ; committed to the Tower, 224 ; tried for treason and pardoned, 227 ; disputation of, at Oxford, 230 ; condemned of heresy, 231 ; cited to 608 INDEX. Rome, 243 ; tried "before Bishop Brooks, ib. ; writes to the queen in defence, ib. ; condemned by Pope, 246 ; excommuni- cated and degraded, ib. ; various recan- tations of, 247 ; repudiates them pub- licly, ib. ; is burned as a heretic, ib. ; his character, ib. Crewe, Bishop, Lord, shows subservience to King James II., 525 ; acts on Court of High Commission, 527 Croft, Bishop, his Naked Truth, 516 ; re- pents having published king's declara- tion, 539 Cromwell, Oliver, attacks Bishop Neile in House of Commons, 412 ; made Lord Protector, 477 ; his quasi toleration, 477, 479 ; his edict of persecution, 480 ; his violent measures against the Church, 483 ; his death, 484 Crumwell, Thomas,- secretary to Wolsey, 49 ; sketch of his early life, 87 ; his in- fluence with the king, 100 ; draws up paper for Council, ib. ; stimulates the growth of reforming opinions, 104 ; pro- cures translation of the Bible, 105 ; detects Elizabeth Barton, 109 ; defends execution of More and Fisher, 115 ; appointed vicar-general in ecclesiastical matters, 118, 119; suggests suppression of monasteries, 121 ; is bribed by the monasteries, 128 ; presides in Convoca- tion, 144 ; calls ameeting of the bishops, 150 ; his Injunctions, 153 ; letter to Jus- tices of the Peace on the Injunctions, 158 ; brings about match with Ann of Cleves, 168 ; his arrest and attainder, 168 ; execution, ib. ; effect of his death on the Church, 169 Cudworth, Dr., his Intellectual System, 521 Cumberland, Bishop, his Laws of Nature, 520 Day, Bishop, refuses to remove altars 207 ; committed to prison, ib. Davenant, Bishop, cerwured by King Charles, 416 ; carries out Laud's orders, 425 Dawes, Archbishop Sir "W., promoted to York, 572 Declaration of moderation signed by clergy in 1660, 484 ; from Breda, 486 ; the Worcester House, 489, 490 ; rejected by Parliament, 491 ; of Indulgence by Charles II., 508 ; checked by House of Commons, 509 ; as to passive obedience read in churches, 510 ; by King James II. for liberty of conscience, 528 ; cha- racter of, 629 ; addresses to thauk for, ib. ; ordered to be published in churches, 531 ; of Prince of Orange, 540 Demonstration, the, written by Nicholas Udal, 334 De Dominis, Archlrishop, account of, 401 Dering, Sir Edward, makes the first at- tack on Archbishop Laud, 441 ; intro- ELIZABETH. duces Root and Branch Bill, 465 ; de- clares himself not opposed to Episco- pacy, ib. Digby, Lord, speech of, at beginning of Long Parliament, 440 ; speaks in de- fence of the Church, 444 Directory for Public Worship, the forma- tion of, 457 ; preface of, ib. ; penalties enforcing use of, 458 ; character of, ib. ; use of forbidden by the king, 459 Discipline, Book of, drawn up by Cart- wright and Travers, 316 ; hopes of ac- ceptance of, in 1584, 323 ; refused by Parliament, 324, 330 ; subscription, of the Puritans to, 331 Dispensations, for pluralities, made illegal, 69 ; Papal, forbidden by Act of Parliament, 83 ; to be granted by arch- bishops and king, 83, 84 Divorce, ca.-;e of Henry VIII., from Cathe- rine of Arragon, 41 sq. ; origin of, 41 ; Wolsey early engaged in, 42 ; the collu- sive suit in, 42 ; W^olsey's negotiations in, 43 ; employment of Dr. Knight in, 44 ; of Cassali, 45 ; of Gardiner and Fox, 45 ; the two commissions, 46 ; Cam- peggio sent to adjudicate in, 46 ; at- tempts to make the queen yield, 47 ; Henry's speech, 47 ; the Legatine Court, 48 ; Cranmer's work m, 52 ; oi)inions of foreign universities in, 53 ; opinion of Cambridge, 53 ; opinion of Oxford, 54 ; Parliament remonstrates with the Pope as to delay in, 55 ; brought before Par- liament, 56 ; Canterbury and York con- vocations give sentence in, 56, 59 ; book of the king with respect to, 57 ; Cranmer addresses the king as to, 60 ; Cranmer gives sentence in, 61 ; message con- veyed to Queen Catherine as to, 62 Dodwell, Henry, views of on baptism, 581 Dort, synod of, 394, 398 Douai, college of, foundation of, 357 Drake, Dr., writes Memorial of the Church of England, 570 Duppa, Bishop, work of during Rebellion era, 477, 481, 482, 483 Durham, puritanical disorders at, 303 ; Church Restoration at, 518 E Edward VI., King, anxious to have a con- fession of doctrine drawn up, 207 ; de- sires changes in the Prayer-book, 209 ; not responsible for the robbery of Church property, 218 ; desires to turn it to good uses, ib. ; death and character of, ib. Elizabeth, Queen, prudent conduct of, during reign of Mary, 250 ; views of on accession doubtful, 255 ; defends posi- tion of the Church of England, 259; ti eatment of the Romanist bishops by, 263 ; refuses to ci;rtail the ceremonial in her chapel, 271 ; seizes Church pro- perty, 273 ; forbids marriage of clergy INDEX. 609 in cathedrals and colleges, 276 ; delays to authorise Book of Homilies, 286 : makes changes in Thirty-nine Articles, ib. ; angry at the want of discipline, 276, 287, 394, 298, 326 ; refuses to put forth Parker's Book of Articles, 289 ; refuses to sanction the Advertisements, 289, and note, 300 ; stops the proceed- ings of the Puritans in Parliament, 293, 297, 325, 330 ; orders Archbishop Grindal to put down the prophesyings, 306 ; suspends Grindal, 307 ; writes to the bishops to forbid prophesjnngs, ib. ; Up- holds Whitgift's policy, 322, 223 ; keeps sees vacant, 322 ; orders punishment of the libellers, 334 ; displeased with the Lambeth Articles, 353 Eliot, Sir John, speech of, on Church matters, 411 Eliot, John, missionary labours of, 517 Engagement, the, substituted for the Covenant, 476 ; accepted by some Churchmen, ib. Erasmus, Desiderius, ridicule of pilgrim- age by, 4 ; of saint worship, 5 ; an edu- cational reformer, 8 ; his paraphrase ordered to be used by the clergy, 189 Erastianism, explanation of, 12 ; traces of in the Reformation movement, ib. ; in the policy of Laud, 415 ; in the Long Parliament, 458, and note, 459, 460 Episfolce obscurorum virorum, 4 Erudition of any Christian Man, forma- tion of, 180 ; character of, 281 ; legally established, 190, 191 Essex, Countess of, divorce case of, 387 Evelyn, John, remarks of on disuse of the Church services during Rebellion era, 477, 481 ; committed to prison for being present at Holy Communion, 483 ; influence of on the architecture of St. Paul's, 518 ; account of Bishop Ken's sermon by, 530 ; visits bishops in the Tower, 536 Excommunication, process of, made more easy by Parliament, 280 ; attempt to regulate in 1581, 810 Faculties, court of, 84, and note Fagius, Paul, account of, 219 ; process against, after death, for heresy, 248 Family of love, the, 315 FaiTar, Bishop, burned at Carmarthen, 239 Fenner, Mr., answers Dr. Bridges, 332; one of the Mar-prelate libellers, 333 Field, Dean, his Book of the Church, 385 Field, Bishop, censured for brokage of bribery, 397 ; twice preferred afterwards, ib. Fifths of clerical incomes, often not paid to the clergy in rebellion time, 467, 468 ; refused by House of Commons at Restoration, 504 2 GARDINER. Fineirx, Chief -Justice, opinions of, on royal supremacy, 23 First -fruits and tenths given to Henry "VIII. by Parliament, 86; restored to the Church by Queen Mary, 245 ; again given to the Crown, 263 Fish, Simon, writes Supplication of Beg- gars, 89, 90 Fisher, Bishop, an educational reformer, 8 ; his answer to Luther, 35 ; visited by Wolsey on the matter of the divorce, 42, 44 ; strong opposition to the suit, 48, and note ; defends clergy in the House of Lords, 69 ; complained of by the Commons, 70 ; constrained to apologise, ib. ; advice to Convocation as to the submission, 78 ; writes in defence of purgatory, 93 ; dealings with Nun of Kent, 109 ; convicted of misprision of treason, 110 ; refuses to take oath of Act of Succession, 111 ; committed to Tower,112 ; created a cardinal, 113; ex- amined as to supremacy, ib. ; indicted and tried, ib.; condemned and executed, 114 Fletcher, Mr. , supports J. Wesley, 592 Frampton, Bishop, preaches against Romanism, 526 ; a nonjuror, 551 ; de- sires to heal the schism, 553 Frankfort, troubles of, 253 sq. Friars, the, 4, 14 ; poverty of houses of, . 126 ; the observants suppressed, 131, and note Fryth, John, brought from Cambridge to Cardinal College by Wolsey, 37 ; joins Tyndale in Gei-mauy, ib. ; writes against purgatory, 93 ; comes to England and is captured, 94 ; writes on the eucharist, ib. ; moderation of, ib. ; condemned of heresy and burned, 95 Fox, Bishop of Winchester, an educa- tional reformer, 7 ; founds Corpus Christi College, 8 Fox, Bishop of Hereford, acts in the divorce business, 45 ; takes king's reply to Convocation, 77 ; sent on a mission to Germany, 115 ; advocates reforming views, 151 ; superintends printing of Institution of a Christian Man, ib. Fuller, Nicholas, contest of with the Court of High Commission, 375, 376 Fuller, Dr. Thomas, account of the Con- vocation of 1640 by, 435, and note Furness Abbey, surrender of, 131 G Gardiner, Bishop, acts in divorce case, 45 ; writes answer of ordinaries to the Bill of Grievances, 75 ; writes to king to defend his answer, 76 ; sent on a mission to France, 115 ; writes treatise on True Obedience, 117 ; persecutes Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome, 170 ; at- tempts to procure revision of English Bible, 178 ; intrigue of against Craiimer, 180 ; not nominated councillor by Henry GIO INDEX. VIII., 187 ; defends the old ceremonial, 189 ; opposes reformers' proceedings, 190 ; ordered to preach a reforming sermon, 195; committed to Tower, ib., and note ; deprived, 196, note ; restored to his see, 222 ; policy of, at beginning of Mary's reign, 229 ; preaches on the restoration of the Papal power, 232 ; not responsible for commencing perse- cution, 237; withdraws from Commis- sion, 239 Gauden, Bishop, connection of, with the Eikon Bcbsilike, 472, note ; Petitionary Remonstrance of, 481 ; made bishop, 489 George I. , King, accession of how viewed by clergy, 684; directions to clergy issued by, ib. Godstow, nunnery of, 126, and note. Goldwell, Bishop, sent by Pole with instructions, 229 Goodman, Bishop, sermon of before Charles I., 405 Gostwick, Sir John, attack of on Cran- mer, 174 Grace, pilgrimage of, 149, 159 ; doctrines of, taken from foreign sources, 351 Grantham, case of Holy Table at, 419 Grey, Lady Jane, attempt to set her on the throne, 221 Grindal, Archbishop, promoted to the primacy, 302 ; works of in the north, ib. ; carries Fifteen Articles in the Convo- cation, 304 ; holds a metropolitical visitation, 305 ; determines to encourage the prophesyings, ib.; ordered by the queen to forbid the prophesyings, 306 ; writes to queen refusing, 307 ; suspended from his office, 307 ; nature of his sus- pension, 309 ; licenses a Scotch minister to officiate in England, 810 ; makes a qualified submission to the queen, 310 ; suspension of removed, 311 ; death and character of, 311, 312 Gunning, Bishop, ministrations of during Eebellion era, 477, 483 ; at Savoy Con- ference, 495 ; opposes physical science, 618 ; his learning, 520 ; his Lent Fast, ib. Hale, Sir M., draws up a Comprehension Bill, 615 Halifax, Marquis of, writes Reasons against reading Declaration, 534 ; visits bishops in the Tower, 536 Hales, John, his tract on Schism, 425; his other works, 427 Hamilton, Marquis of, endeavours to con- ciliate the Scotch, 430 Hall, Bishop, his appointment as bishop, 407 ; is regarded with suspicion, ib. ; his work on Episcopacy altered by Laud, 425 ; refuses to administer the et castera oath, 438 ; acts on Committee of religion, 444 ; publishes Remonstrance, 446 ; takes part in Sniectymnuan Con- troversy, ib. ; translated to Norwich, HENRY. 448; his account of the expulsion of the bishops from Parliament, 450; his treatment at Norwich, 468 Hammond, Dr. Henry, his View of the Directory, 458 ; expelled from Oxford and imprisoned, 471 ; censures Dr. Sanderson for laxity, 477 ; his work in keeping up Church life during Rebellion era, 482, 483 ; his death and character, 485 ; notice of his literary works, 519 Hampton Court Conference, the, agreed upon, 360 ; puritan divines at, 361 ; proceedings at, 361,.362, 363 ; result of, 364 ; changes made in Prayer-book by, 373 Harding, John, his controversy with Jewel, 282 Harsnet, Archbishop, censured by Parlia- ment, 390 ; complaints against, 398 ; attacks Bishop Davenant, 416 Hearne, Mr., witty retort of in trial of Laud, 469 Heath, Archbishop, refuses to subscribe the Ordinal, 201 ; arranges for disputa- tion in Westminster Abbey, 259 ; exhorts Queen Elizabeth to imitate Mary, 263 ; deprived, 264 ; allowed to reside on his estates, ib. Henry VII., King, procures dispensation for his second son's marriage, 17 Henry VIII., King, his character, 6, 11 ; an educational reformer, 6 ; his accession 16 ; marriage to Catherine of Arragon, ib. ; hears argument as to clerical immunities, 22, 23 ; his judgment as to his supremacy, 24 ; publishes book against Luther, 33, 34 ; created Defender of the Faith, 34 ; cause of pretended scruples as to Queen Catherine, 41 ; informs her of them, 42 ; in love with Anne Boleyn, 44 ; makes a speech to the people, 47 ; appears in Legatine Court, 48 ; alienated from Wolsey, 49 ; receives Cambridge opinion as to di- vorce, 54; his anger with Oxford, 54; writes the Glass of Truth, 57 ; orders Cranmer to proceed in the divorce case, 60 ; his marriage with Anne Boleyn, 65 ; reopens negotiations with the pope, 81 ; his anger with Cardinal Pole, 116 ; appoints Crumwell his vicegerent, 118 ; contemplates suppression of monas- teries, 121, 122 ; squanders monastic pro- perty, 137 ; founds six new sees, ib. ; other benefactions, 138 ; how far a supporter of reforming movement, 162 ; draws up Ten Articles, 145 ; stands aloof from German Reformation, 147, 155 ; supports policy of German princes, 147 ; protests against Council of Mantua, 148 ; issues injunctions, ib. ; excommuni- cated by Pope, 155 ; procures passing of Six Article Law, 165, 166 ; divorce of, from Anne of Cleves, 169 ; maiTies Catherine Howard, ib. ; supports Cranmer, 174 ; absolute power of, 176 ; publishes Primer and ABC Book, 179; INDEX. 611 English Litany, 183; contemplates turning mass into a communion, 184; will of regulating succession, 186 Heresy, punishment of, 30, 31 ; Act to regulate proceedings in, 84 ; made offence against Statute Law, 166; old laws again revived, 233 Hermann, Archbishop, Consultation of, 194, 203 Herring, Archbishop, a Latitudinarian, 587 Heylin, Dr., his account of the canons of, 1640, 434, and note, 435 Hickes, Dr., his Jovian, 516; a nonjuror, 652 Hill, Rev. Rowland, controversy of, with Methodists, 592 ; preaching of, ib. Hilton, Thomas, execution of, for heresy, 106 Hoadly, Bishop, sermon ' of, before the Lord Mayor, 571 ; censured in Convoca- tion, ib. ; previous history of, 576 ; controversy with Blackball, 572 ; pro- moted to Bangor, 584; publishes heretical opinions, 585 ; censured by Convocation, ib. ; share of, in Bangorian controversy, 587 ; his negligence of his office, 588 ; Socinian \'iews of on eucharist, ib. Hobbes, Thomas, writings of, 521 Eolgate, Archbishop, alienates manors, 175 ; committed to the tower, 224, and note Holies, 'Mr. Denzil, accuses Laud of high treason, 443 Holydays, their number abridged, 166 ; Act for observance of, 213 Hooker, Richard, made Master of the Temple, 323 ; early life of, 329 ; position occupied by in the controversy on Church government, 345 Homilies, first book of, published, 189 ; wanting in Couvocational sanction, 193; second book of authorised by Convoca- tion, 279 ; ratified by the queen, 286 Hooper (Bishop of Gloucester), under influence of Swiss divines, 205 ; appointed Bishop of Gloucester, 205 ; refuses to adopt the habits, 205 ; com- mitted to the Fleet, ib. ; yields and is consecrated, 207, and note ; holds "Wor- cester in commendam, ib. ; tried and condemned to the stake, 238 ; burned, 239 Hooper (Bishop of Bath and "Wells), suc- ceeds to Bath and Wells, 653 ; Bishop Ken cedes rights to, ib. Home, Bishop, at Frankfort, 254 ; takes part in the Westminster disputation, 259 ; controversy of with Bonner, 281 Horsey, Dr., suspected of murder, 22 Hough, Bishop, elected President of Mag- dalen, 529 ; suspended by High Com- mission Court, ib. ; appeals to Courts of Westminster, 530 Hunne, Richard, case of, 21, 23 Images, those that have been abused ordered to be removed, 154, and note, 190 ; popular destruction of, 189 ; all ordered to be removed from churches, 194 ; ordered by injunctions of Eliza- beth not to be extolled, 265 ; generally removed at accession of Elizabeth, 266 Independents, the, in Westminster Assem- bly of Divines, 459, and note ; effects of the rise of, 460, 475 ; some made Royal Chaplains, 487 ; concessions demanded by at Restoration, 488 Injunctions, Royal, as to Church matters, of 1536, 148 ; of 1538, 153 ; first of King Edward VI., 189 ; second of King Edward, 199 ; of Mary, 227 ; of Eliza- beth, 265 ; of William III., 555 Institution of a Christian Man, formation of, 151 ; publication of, 152 ; review of, 170 ; compared with the Erudition, 181 Insurrection of 1536, 149, 159 ; of 1549, 198 a Interpretations, the, 273 Jablonski, Dr., negotiations of, with Eng- lish Church, 579 James I. , King, doubts as to views- of, on religious matters, 358 ; orders informa- tion to be procured on subjects of Mil- lenary Petition, 359 ; appoints a Con- ference, 360; proceedings of, at Hampton Court Conference, 361, 362, 363, 364; sentiments of, on religious matters, 365 ; character of, ib. ; writings of, ib., note ; defends Court of High Commission, 376 ; commends Dr. Cowell's Interpreter, 376 ; quarrels of with Parliament, 378, 390 ; anger of against judges, 392 ; Calvinistic in views, ib. ; treatise of against Vorstius, ib. ; complains of Mr. Sympson's sermon, ib. ; publishes Book of Sports, 393 ; sends English divines to Dort, 394 ; abandons the Cal- vinists, ib. ; doubtful as to promoting Laud, 396 ; issues injunctions as to preaching, 398 ; shows toleration to Romanists, 389, 390; sends chaplains to Spain, 399 ; death of, 400 ; his religious sentiments and character, 401 James II., King, promises favour to Church of England, 524 ; attempts to legalise Romanism, 525 ; checked by House of Commons, ib. ; dismisses Bishop Compton from Privy Council, if). ; consults the Judges as to dispensing jinwer, ib. ; encourages open practice of Riimanism, 526 ; requires bishops tore- strain preachers, ib. ; orders Bishop Compton to censure Dr. Sharp, 527 : establishes Court of High Commission, ib. ; courts the Nonconformists, 528 ; puts forth declaration for liberty of con- science, 528 ; goes on progress, 529 ; 612 INDEX. touches for the Evil, ih. ; proceedings of as to Magdalen College, ib. ; determines to call upon clergy to publish his declara- tion, 531; interview of with the bishops, 534 ; detenuines to bring them to trial, 635 ; infatuation of, 538 ; consults the bishops, 539 ; takes conciliatory mea- sures, ib. ; flies from Wliitehall, 541 ; returns and again flies, ib. ; excluded from the throne by Parliament, 542 Jane, Dr., elected Prolocutor of Convoca- tion, 547 ; speech of to President, ib. Jewel, Bishop,sketeh of religious aS"airs by at accession of Elizabeth, 264 ; early life of, 282 ; challenge to the Romanists, ib. ; Apology for the Church of England, ib. ; character as bishop, 283 Johnson, Mr., Julian the Apostate of,'516 Judges, the, issue prohibitions to Church Courts, 342, 374 ; opinion of, on the Court of High Commission, 269 ; send answer to Bancroft's complaints, 875 ; severely censure the Church Courts, ib. ; claim an absolute jurisdiction, 376 ; consulted as to the burning of Legate, 389 ; opinion of, as to the power to con- tinue the Convocation, 436 ; hold that king can dispense with laws, 525 ; opinions of, as to powers of Convocation to censure heretics, 580 Julius II., Pope, dispenses for Henry's marriage, 17 and note. Justices of Peace, circulars to as to re- formation of the service-books, 101 ; on execution of More and Fisher, 115 Juxon, Archbishop, ministrations of to Charles I., 473 ; meetings of clergy at house of, during the troubles, 482 ; promoted to primacy, 489 Ken, Bishop, preaches vigorously against Romanism, 526, 529, 530 ; remonstrates with King James II., 534 ; a nonjui'or, 552 ; great loss to the Church, ib. ; re- tires to Longleat, 553 ; desires to heal schism, ib. Kettlewell, John, a nonjuror, 552 Kidder, Bishop, succeeds Bishop Ken, 553 ; death of, ib. Kidderminster, Abbot, sermon at Paul's Cross, 22 Knight, Dr., acts in the divorce business, 44 Knox, John, 11 ; proceedings of, at Frank- fort, 253 ; early history of, 267 Kyme, Mrs. Anne, execution of, 172 Ladd, Thomas, case of, 375 Lamplugh, Archbishop, reads King James' declaration, 541, note; made Arch- bishop of York, ib. Latimer, Bishop, preacnes before king, 54, and note ; preaching of, at Cambridge, 99 ; censured by Convocation, ib. ; recants, ib. ; a second time censured and recants, ib. ; preaches as before, 100 ; resigns his see, 167 ; committed to ward, ib. ; preaches before King Edward, 217 ; complains of the robbery of Church property, ib. ; committed to the Tower, 224 ; disputation of, at Oxford, 230 ; con- demned of heresy, 231 ; tried at Oxford before Episcopal Commissioners, 243 ; degraded and excommunicated, 244 ; burning of, ib. Latitudiuarians, the, rise of the school of, 514 ; mischievous influence of, 514, 588 ; growth of opinions of, 584; difi"erent classes of, 587 Laud, Archbishop, early influence of, at Oxford, 387, note ; recommended by Williams for promotion, 396; King James prejudiced against, ib. ; conference of with the Jesuit Fisher, 398 ; influence of with Charles I., 404 ; makes a list of divines for the king, ib. ; desires to get decision of Convocation on the five points of the Arminians, ib. ; takes a prominent part in the coronation, ib. ; instructions of for " tuning the pulpits," 405 ; preaches before Par- liament, 408 ; complained of in Par- liament, 409 ; draws declaration pre- fixed to Thirty-nine Articles, 410 ; general estimate of work of, 412, 414 ; Erastian policy of, 415 ; Considerations as to discipline, ib. ; dissolves the col- lectors of St. Antholin's, 417 ; causes censure of Mr. Sherfield, ib. ; compels foreign communities of Christians to conform, ib. ; appointed primate, 418 ; republishes the king's Injunctions, ib. ; republishes the Book of Sports, ib. ; orders rails to be set up in chancels, 419 ; re- stores St. Paul's Cathedral, 420 ; his ritual at St. Catherine Cree, ib ; restores Lambeth Chapel, ib. ; provides com- munion plate for Canterbury, ib. ; anger against for raiUng in the holy table, 421 ; causes discontinuance of extem- porary prayer, 422 ; speech at the trial of Bastwick, 423 ; conduct of to Williams, ib. ; had no design of bringing in popery, 424 ; offered a cardinal's hat, ib. ; vigorous control of the press by, 424, 425 ; ascendancy of over his suf- fragans, 425 ; blindness of as to state of feeling, 425, 431, note, 434 ; promotion of learning by, 427 ; desires the English liturgy for Scotland, 429 ; plan of for getting rid of the charges against him, 434 ; obtains opinion of judges for con- tinuing Convocation, 435 ; palace of assaulted by the mob, 438 ; attacked in Parliament by Sir E. Dering, 441 ; heavily fined, 441, 469; committee ap- pointed to make out a case against him, 442 ; attacked by Scotch Commissioners, ib. ; impeached in the Hcuse of Lords, 443 ; committed to Black Rod, 448 ; INDEX. 613 committed to the Tower, 444, 469; trial of, before the Lords, 4(59 ; attainted in the Commons, ib ; Bill of Attainder passed, 470 ; execution and character of, 470, 471 Law, William, his part in Bangorian controversy, 587 ; writings on eucharist, 588 ; his devotional writings, 589 Legate, Bartliolomew, bui-ning of in Smithfield, 3SS Leicester, Earl of, opposes the bishops' attempt to enforce discipline, 294, 290, 303 ; promotes Cartwright, 377 ; at- tempts to overthrow Whitgift, ib. Leigh, Dr., commissioner for visiting monasteries, 122, 134 Leighton, Dr., entraps Bishop Fisher, 113 ; a commissioner for visiting monasteries, 122, 134 Lent, Act for observance of, 199 ; mar- riages not to be solemnised in, 304 ; letter of Archbishop Grindal as to, 309 Leslie, Charles, a nonjuror, 552 Libels, the Mar-prelate, commencement of, 331 ; due to various writers, 333 ; specimen of the language used in them, ib. ; seizure of the press in which they were printed, 334 ; punishment of those concerned in them, ib. ; answered by Tom Nash, 335, and note Licenses of bishops, 119, 120, 187 Litany, the English, 179, 1S3, 256, 261 Lloyd, Bishop, a nonjuror, 551 ; obtains commission from Sancroft, 554 Lou ion. Dr., commissioner for visiting monasteries, 122, 126, 128; conspiracy of against Cranmer, 173 Long, Mr., his VoxCleri, 546 Longland, Bisliop, charged with persecu- tion, 31 ; prompts Wolsey to censure the Lutherans, 32 ; writes to Wolsey about his college, 37 ; testimony of his register as to m.onasteries, 125, 126 Lords, House of {see also Parliament), effect of suppression of monasteries on, 136 ; law of Six Articles debated in, 165 ; rejects puritanical petition of Commons, 324 ; refuses to take away bishops' votes, 445 ; committee of re- ligion of, 446 ; bishops driven from, 449, 450 ; Root and Branch Bill passed by, 453 ; Covenant adopted by, 455 ; calls for Directory for ordination, 459 ; Archbishop Laud impeached before, 469 ; accepts amended Prayer-book, 498 ; passes Act of Uniformity, 498, 503, 504 ; refuses to accept Bill of Toleration, 509 ; votes vacancy of throne, 542 ; in- clines to concession as to the oaths. ib. ; passes Bill for Union, 443 ; rejects bills against occasional conformity, 567 ; votes that the Church is not in danger, 571 ; trial of Dr. Sacheverell before, 574 Love, Mr., executed for Presbyterian in- trigues, 377 Luther, Dr. Martin, character of as a re- M0NASTERIE8. former, 11 ; publishes his Theses, 31 ; his Babylonish captivity, ih. ; his writings find their way into England, ih. ; an- swered by King Henry, 33 ; by More and Fisher, 35 ; replies to King Henry, ib. ; answers to his reply, ib. Lutheran, divines in England in. 1538, 155, 156 M Magdalen College, Oxford, case of, under King James II., 529, 530, and note Mainwaring, Bishop, absolutist sermons of, 407 ; censured by Parliament, 408 ; makes submission and recantation, ib. ; the king supports and promotes him, 408, 409, 412 ; complained of by Crom- well, 412 Major-Generals, the, eject clergy under Cromwell, 481 Manchester, Earl of, doings of at Cam- bridge, 466 ; appoints local committees, ih. ; instructions of, to them, ib. Mansell, Richard, case of, 375 Mantua, Council of, summoned, 146, 148 Martyr, Peter, opinion of on the Prayer- Book, 208 ; work of at Oxford, 209 ; teaching of on the eucharist, ib. ; dis- putation at Oxford, 210 ; influences Cranmer, ib. ; account of early life of, 219 ; wife's body exhumed, 248 Martyrs, total number of under Mary, 240, 251 ; localities in which they suffered, 241 Mary, Queen, protests against refonning proceedings in king's minority, 191 ; treatment of, during reign of Edward, 220 ; accession of, not disliked by the clergy, 221 ; unpopularity of, 222 ; re- leases imprisoned bishoi)S, ib.; does not disguise religious sentiments, ib. ; issues Injunctions, 227 ; sends message to the pope, 229 ; to Pole, ib. ; married, 231 ; determines to persecute reformers, 237 ; liberality of to the Church. 245 ; re- founds abbeys, 248 ; issues commissions for effacing records of reformation, 248 ; resists the pope's proceedings against Pole, 249 ; death of, 250 Mary, Queen of William III., disposes of Church patronage, 358 Major, Dr., an educational reformer, 9 Memorial of the Church of England, the, 570 ; voted a scandalous libel, 571 Methodists, the, origin of, 589 ; doctrines of, 591 ; scliismatieal action of, ib. Millenary petition, the, 359, 372 Milton, John, takes part in the Smectym- nuan controversy, 447 ; censure of on the Westminster Assembly, 457 Ministers, tbe London, refuse to conform as to the vesture, 291 ; their declaration, ib. ; some of them resolve to sejiarate, 292 ; not encoiu-aged by foreign divines, 293 Monasteries, ceasing of foundations of, 4 ; suppression of by Wolsey, 36, note, 51, 6U INDEX. MONKS. and note, 131 ; renounce the supremacy of the pope, 103 ; king afraid to move in suppression of, 122 ; debate in Council on, ib. ; visitation of, ib. ; alleged im- morality of, 123, 124, 125 ; financial con- dition of, 123, 126 ; disciplinary state of, 123, 126, 127 ; corrodies in, 127 ; Act for suppression of, 129, 130, 139 ; previous suppressions of, 131 ; first resignation of, ib. ; commissioners of, ib. ; receivers of, 133, 140 ; sums obtained by the crown from suppression of, 134, 135, 136 ; exe- cution of abbots of, 134 ; surrender of, 134, and note ; pretended relics in, 134 ; Act to conform surrenders of, 135 ; num- ber of those suppressed, 136 ; mitred abbots of cease to sit in Parliament, 136; distribution of the lands of, 137 ; hardships of the members of, 130, 138 ; dispersion of valuable manuscripts of, 138 ; general effect of suppression of, 139 ; sketch of the dissolution of, 140 Monks, decay of discipline among, 4 ; pensions given to, 133 Montagu, Bishop, answers Selden on tithes, 393 ; his New Gag for an Old Goose, 400 ; his Appello Ccesarem, 400 ; proceeded against by House of Com- mons, 403; ordered to be impeached in the Lords, ib. ; king interferes for, ib. ; further attacks on, in Parliament, 404, 408 ; made Bishop of Chichester, 410 More, Sir Thomas, his Utopia, 8, and note ; an educational reformer, ib. ; his answer to Luther, 35 ; speech of on the divorce case, 68 ; incited to write against heresy, 91 ; his Snpplication of Soids, ib, ; con- troversy of withTyndale, 91, 96; his Dia- logue, 95 ; his Confutation, 97 ; writes against Barnes, 98 ; denies having used corporal punishment of heretics, 98 ; dealings of with Elizabeth Barton, 109 ; refuses to take oath prescribed by the Act of Succession, 111 ; committed to Tower, 112 ; examined as to the supre- macy, 113 ; indicted and tried, 113 ; condemned and executed, 114 Morley, Bishop, services of, during the troubles, 489 ; made bishop, ib. ; at the Savoy conference, 494 Mortmain, statutes of, 2, and note Morton, Bishop, his Defence of the TJiree Ceremonies, 370 ; Avrites at suggestion of Laud, 425 Mortuaries regulated, 69, and note, 76 W Nag's Head Fable, the, 271, 283 Neile, Archbishop, censured by House of Commons, 390 ; numerous preferments of, 390, note ; complained of by Oliver Cromwell, 412 Nelson, Robert, a non-juror, 552 ; defends reformation societies, 561 Nicholson (or Lambert), trial and execu- tion of, 156, 157 Nonconformists, the (see also Puritans), petition king after Savoy conference, 495 ; feeling against in House of Com- mons, ib. ; policy towards during reign of Charles IL, 502 ; eflfect of Act of Uni- formity on, 504 ; anger of at Act of Uniformity, 505 ; number of who quitted their benefices, ib.; ill treat- ment of, ib.; first conventicle Act against, 507 ; king desires to sell tolera- tion to, ife.; Five-mile Act, i?>. ; services in Great Plague, 508 ; second conventi- cle Act against, ib. ; encouraged to sup- p)ort king's declaration of indulgence, 509 ; Parliament becomes more favour- able to, ib. 509, 510 ; persecuted by King and Church, 510 ; little excitement at ejection of ministers of, 512 ; facts connected with ejection of, 513 ; after- employments of, 514 ; designs for com- prehension of, 515 ; courted by King James II., 528; support the seven bishops, 530 ; concessions to become necessary at revolution, 543 ; bill for union with, 543; rejected by Commons, 544 ; Act for toleration of, ib. ; despair of obtaining comprehension, 577 Nonjui'ors, the, danger of great increase of, 548 ; numbers of, 551 ; chief men among, 552 ; the second crop of, 563 ; account of the later, 564 Norwich, sacrilegious proceedings at, 468 ; general conformity in, 522. Nowell, Dr. Alexander, preaches before Parliament, 277 ; prolocutor of Convo- cation, ib.; his Catechism, 280; not fully accepted by Convocation, ib., and note • Oath of Succession Act of Henry VIII., 110, 111 ; of Elizabeth's second Act of Supremacy, 280, 281 ; of allegiance to James I., 379; the et ccetera, 437 and note ; of allegiance to William III., to be taken by clergy, 542 ; of abjuration, 563 Obedience, passive, doctrjne of, 516 ; con- troversy on revived, 572 Occasional conformity, question of, 560, 561, 570, 581, 587 Ochino Bernardino, account of, 219 Oldham, Bishop, advice of to Bishop Fox, 8, note Ordinal, the first, of Edward VI., 201; the revised of Edward VI., 212 ; estab- lished by Act of Parliament under Elizabeth, 281 Ordinaries in Convocation, 26, and note Osbaldiston, Mr., trial of, with Arch- bishop Williams, 423 Overall, Bishop, opposes Calvinism, 344 ; a leading divine, 356 ; writer of the latter part of the Catechism, 373 ; his Convocation book, 384 Owen, Dr., interferes on behalf of Mr. Pocock, 483 ; his writings, 521 INDEX. 615 Oxford, University of, Lutheranism in, 32 ; gives opinion in tlie divorce case, 54, 55 ; renounces the supremacy of the Pope, 102 ; state of, during reign of Elizabeth, 355; head - quarters of the king during rebellion, 471 ; surrendered to Parliament, ib.; expulsion of mem- bers of, ib. ; Judgment of on the Scotch Covenant, ib. Paris, Archbishop of, negotiations under- taken by, 81 Paris, George Van, burning of, 200, note Parker, Archbishop, selected for Primate, 269 ; character of, 270 ; consecration of, ib. ; angry with Elizabeth for oppos- ing marriage of clergy, 277, and note ; warns his suffragans not to tender the oath of supremacy, 281 ; ordered by queen to enforce discipline, 288 ; sum- mons London clergy to Lambeth, ib. ; draws up a book of "Articles," ib. ; changes it into a book of "Advertise- ments," 289 ; complains of the slack- ness of the bishops, 291 ; cites London clergy a second time, ib. ; deprives some, ib. ; difficulties of, in enforcing discipline, 292, 294 ; anger of at unjust attacks, 295 ; out of favour at court, 299 ; his letter to the queen, 299 ; his death, character, and work, 300 Parker, Bishop, his ecclesiastical polity, 515 ; failure of to get signatures to addresses to King James, 529 ; appoint- ted President of Magdalen College, 530 ; refused by Fellows, ib. Parkhurst, Bishop, slackness of, 276 ; obliged to act vigorously, 298 ; obliged to put down the Prophesyings, 306 Parliament (first of Henry VIII.), re- strains clerical immunities, 21 ; case of Hunne before it, 23 ; (of 1529), case of divorce of Henry VIII. before it, 56 ; pauses Acts relating to the Church, 67, 69 ; Acts of against papal annates, 79 ; for restraint of appeals, 80 ; submission of the clergy, 82 ; appointments to sees, 83 ; papal dispensations, ib. ; proceed- ings against heretics, 84 ; regulating succession, ib. ; royal supremacy, 85 ; first-fruits and tenths, 86 ; other Acts, 87 ; suppression of monasteries, 129, 139 ; (of 1539), meeting of, 164 ; passes the Six Article Law, 166; other Acts, 167; attaints Crumwell, 168 ; Barnes, Gerard, and Jerome, 171 ; other attainders passed by, 181 ; (of 1543), 173 ; (of 1547), 191 ; legalises communion in both kinds to laity, ib. ; passes first Act of Uniformity, 197 ; releases clergy from law of celibacy, 198 ; other acts of, 199, 201 ; (of 1552), 211 ; second Act of Uniformity, 212 ; other Acts of, 213. (First of Mary), repeals Acts of Reforma- tion, 225 ; strong feeling in it against papal supremacy, 229 ; (second of Mary), PARLIAMENT. 229 ; (third of Mary), 231 ; receives ab- solution from Cardinal Pole, 232) ; em- bodies in an Act Pole's di.spensation, 233 ; re-enacts the Lollard laws, ib. ; restores Church property held by the crown, 245. (First of Elizabeth), i>asses Act of Supremacy, 257, 258 ; Act of Uni- formity, 261 ; gives Churcli revenues to the crown, 263 ; (of 1563), 277 ; facili- tates process of excommunication, 280 ; second Act of Suju-eniacy, ib. • legalises ordinal of Edward VI., 281 ; attempt in it to pass Act for Subscription to the Articles, 293 ; (of 1571), puritanical feeling in, 295, 297 ; passes Subscription Act, ib. ; attempt in to revive the Re- formatio legzim, 297 ; the Admonitions to, ib. ; (of 1576), petitions the queen for reformation of abuses, 304, 309 ; refuses to attend to the recommenda- tions of Convocation, 310 ; (of 1584), attacks on the Church in, 323, 324 ,• the petition of tlie Commons to the Lords, ib. ; reproved by the queen, 326 ; (of 1593), severe law of, against the Puri- tans, 336. (First of James I.), orders ecclesiastical processes to run in king's name, 366 ; restrains bisho])S from granting leases to crown, ib. ; (of 1610), makes complaints against the Church, 377 ; (of 1614), indignant with some of the bishops, 390 ; (of 1621), 395 ; angry at the favour shown to Romanists, 357 ; (of 1624), Puritanical character of, 400 ; attacks Mr. Montagu, ib. ; (of 1625), 403 ; attacks on Montagu, ib. ; (of 1626), committee of religion in, 404 ; attacks on Montagu, 405 ; on Bishop Goodman, ib. ; (of 1628), 408 ; com- mittee of religion in, ib. ; censures Dr. Mainwaring, ib. ; speeches in, against Arminians, 409, 411 ; dissolution of, 412. (The short of 1640), 431 ; attacks on the Church in, 432. (The long), meeting of, 440 : attacks on the Church in, 441 ; petitions to, 440, 442, 443, 447, 451, 463 ; takes away Court of High Commission and Star Chamber, 446 ; takes away bishojis' votes, 450 ; com- mences strife with the king, 452 ; its declaration on religion, ib. ; passes Root and Branch Bill, 453 ; not really inclined to Presbj-terianism, ib. ; ap- points assembly of divines, 454 ; orders the general taking of the Covenant, 455 ; checks the work of tlie Assembly, 460 ; persecution of the clergy by, 463, 465, 466 ; Laud impeached before, 469 ; passes Act of Attainder again.st him, 470 ; resuscitation of under Monk, 484 ; (theConveiition)ineeti.ngof,486;(ofl661), passes Act of Uniformity, 593, 504 ; opposes king's promise of indulgence, 506 ; pas.ses First Conventicle Act, 587 ; Five Mile Act, ib. ; Second Conventicle Act, 508 ; Test Act of 1672, 509 ; makea common cause with Nonconformists, 616 INDEX. PARR. 510 ; censures Mr. Thompson, ib. ; (of 1G80 and 1681), 510 ; (of James II.), 525 ; (Conveution of 1689, 547) passes Toleration Act, 544 ; Act of Allegiance to King William, 542, 551 ; (of 1710) passes Act against occasional conformity, 581 ; Schism Act, 582 Parr, Queen Catherine, 172, 175 Patrick, Bishop, belonging to the Latitn- dinarian school, 514 ; his Friendly Debate, 515 Paul III., Pope, proceedings against King Henry VIII. by, 115, and note ; excom- municattJs King Henry, 155 Paul IV., Pope, receives the submission of England, 234 ; gives title of King of Ireland to English crown, ib. ; his Bull for restoration of abbey lands, 246 ; authorises retention of them in Eng- land, ib. ; condemns Cranmer, ib. ; refuses to recognise Elizabeth, 257 Peacham, Rev. E., case of, 391 Pearson, Bishop, at Savoy conference, 495 ; character of, 520 ; his work on the Creed, ib. Penry, Mr., one of the Mar-prelate libellers, 333 ; escapes at seizure of Mar-prelate press, 334 ; returns to London and is executed, 335 Persons, Father, his Three Conversions, 290, note ; sent to England on a mission, 357 ; advocates the Spanish cause, ib. ; his hopes of King James, 366 ; contro- versy with King James, 379 Perth, Hve Articles of, 428 Peters, Hugh, a turbulent fanatic, 478 Peterborough, Cathedral of, defacement of, 468 Peto, Friar, appointed Legate by the Pope, 249 and note Philip of Spain, his character, 237; re- sponsible for the English persecution, 237, 238 ; his plan to throw the odium on the English bishops, 237 Phillips, Thomas, case of, 84, 98 Philpot, Archdeacon, disputes against the doctrine of the mass, 327 Pierce, Bishop, active in causing the rail- ing in of the holy table, 421 ; impeach- ment of, 443, 446 ; committed to the Tower, 446 ; articles exhibited against, ib. ; slanders published against, 465 ; survives the troubles, 489 Pilkington, Bishop, 303, and note Pius IV., Pope, makes overtures to Queen Elizabeth, 357 Pius v., Pope, excommunicates Eliza- beth, 357 Pocock, Rev. E., brought before commis- sioners, 482 ; threatened with ejection, 483 ; saved by Dr. Owen, ib. Pole, Cardinal, early history of, 115 ; writes on ecclesiastical unity, 116 ; con- troversy with Tonstal, 117 ; made legate to England, 229 ; prevented from com- ing to England, ib. ; his attainder re- versed, 231 ; his arrival, 232 ; brings PRESBYTERIANS. license from pope to alienate abbey lands, ib. ; confirms abbey lands to lay- holders, ib. ; absolves the Parliament, ib. ; desires clergy to use lenity, 234 ; issues commission for trial of reformers, 238 ; becomes a persecutor, 241 ; an- swers Cranmer's letter to the queen, 243 ; summons a Legatiue Synod, 246 ; made Archbishop of Canterbury, 248 ; his character, ib. ; deprived of the office of legate, 249 ; reinstated, ib. ; death of, 250 Pope, supremacy of, formally renounced by Convocation of Canterbury, 102 ; York, lb. ; University of Oxford, ib. ; Cambridge, ib. ; the bishops, ib. ; the abbots and monasteries, 103 Popes, character of, in sixteenth century, 5 Potter, Bishop, 400 Prcevmnire, law of, 2, and note ; pleaded byHunne, 21, and note; Convocation in- curs penalties of, 23 ; Wolsey convicted under, 49 ; clergy and laity convicted under, 72, and note, 74 ; consecration of bishops enforced by, 83 Prayer-book, the English (first of King Edward VI.), finished by divines, 196, 202 ; approved by Convocation, 196, and note ; passes through Parliament, ib. ; commencement of use of, ib. ; character of, 197, 203, 212 ; papistical manner of using,- 198, 199 ; (second of King Edward VI.), how far influenced from foreign sources, 203, 209 ; drawing up of, 208 ; treatment of the Holy Eucharist in, 209 ; presented to Parliament, 212 ; approved bv Convocation, 212, 215 ; compared with the first, 212 ; (of Elizabeth), re- view of by commissioners, 255, 260 ; al- terations made in after review, 261 ; established by Act of Uniformity, 262 ; Latin translation of, 275 ; (of James), changes made in by letters patent, 364, 373 ; use of forbidden under penalties, 457, 458; review of in 1661, 497,498; accepted by House of Lords, 498 ; by Commons, 499 ; general character of alterations in 1661, ib. ; alterations made in after leaving Convocation, 500 ; sealed copies of sent to public bodies, 501 ; change in the ornaments rubrick in, 501 Prayer-book, the Scotch, drawn up under King James I., 428 ; under King Charles I., 429; reviewed by English bishops, ib. ; signed by the king, ib. ; its first use in Edinburgh, 430 ; condemned by Gene- ral Assembly, ib. Premone.ntes, clause, the, 556, 557 Presbyterians, the English, growth of, power of in Long Parliament, 445, 453, 455 ; diflficulties in way of, 459, 460 ; checked by the Independents, 475 ; op- posed to the Engagement, 476 ; regret the bishops, ib. ; endeavour to make conditions at the Restoration, 486, 487 ; INDEX. 617 loss of influence of, 481 ; ministers of appointed chaplains to the king, ib. ; paper of concessions demanded by, 488 Prideaux, Dean, writings of, 5V8 Primers, the first reformed, 105, 145, and note, 178; mediaeval, 107; ^Hillsey's, 178 ; King Henry's, ib., 201 Proclamations, against heresy, 92 ; against disputing on the Holy Sacrament, 103 ; to commend Book of Directions, 104; against married clergy, 15(5 ; against keeping of ceremonies, 157 ; Act to give them force of law, 1G7 ; 1548, forbidding changes in religion, 194 ; against sacri- legious proceedings, 195 ; of Mary, foi-- bidding preaching, 222 ; of Elizabeth, to forbid changes in religion, 256 ; to forbid defacement of monuments, 275 ; of James I., as to alleged abuses in the Church, 370 ; ordering conformity, 375, 378 Prohibitions, issued by judges to restrain ecclesiastical suits, 342, 374 Prophesyings, the, nature and origin of, 806 ; encouraged by Archbishop Grindal, 305; stopped in diocese of Nor\vich, 306 ; ordered by queen to be discontinued, 306, 307 ; ordered by Council to be encouraged, 311 Fro visors, statutes of, 2, and note Prussia, negotiations with, for union with English Church, 579 Prynne, William, trial of for libel, 423 ; compensation voted to, by Parliament, 441, 469 ; prepares case against Laud, 469 ; seizes Laud's diary and Book of Devotion, ib. Pulpits, tuning of the, 405, and note Purgatory, doctrine of, attacked in Sup- plication of Beggars, 89 ; defended by More, 92 Puritans, the (see also Nonconformists), origin of the name, 293 ; in the Parlia- ment of 1571, 295, 297 ; publish the Admonitions, 207 ; increasing boldness of, 3u3 ; adopt the Geneva discipline, 316 ; commence publishing libels, 320 ; expectations of from the Parliament of 1584, 323 ; plan of proceedings of, 324, 325 ; checked by the queen, 326, 330 ; offer to Parliament their Supplication and survey, 330 ; unpatriotic proceed- ings of, in 15SS, 332 ; severe law against, in 1593, 336; effect of the law, 337; emigration of, ib. ; treatment of, by the judges, 338 ; demands of at Hampton Court, 361 ; onlered to conform, 364, 365, 368 ; deprived under Bancroft, 381 ; emigrate to New England, 416, 426 Pym, Mr., brings in report of committee against Montagu, 403 ; his si)eech in Short Parliament of, 1640, 432; ap- pointed to manage conference with the Lords, 333 ; brings in report of the Com- mittee on Religion, 448 Q Quakers, the, severe treatment of under Commonwealth, 475, note R Rastall, Mr., writes in defence of Purga- tory, 93 Ratramn, book of, real origin of, 210, 220 Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, the for- mation of, 216 ; attempt to revive in 1571, 297 ; final disappearance of, ib. 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