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Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth

INTOLERANCE IN THE REIGN OF
Queen of England

By Arthur Jay Klein, Professor of History
in Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

m

boston & new york
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
M.DCCCC.XVII

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ARTHUR JAY KLEIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published February igij

PREFACE
In the preparation of this study the writer has attempted
to make the text interesting and intelligible to the average
reader. He has, therefore, relegated the dry bones and
paraphernalia of study to the footnotes and a bibliograph
ical appendix. The material for the reign of Elizabeth is
so voluminous, however, that footnotes and bibliography
are not complete. The footnotes do not represent all the
material upon which statements in the text are based, but
the writer believes that the authorities given amply sup
port the opinions and conclusions there expressed.
In selecting material for the footnotes from the vast
amount of published and unpublished source matter col
lected in the preparation of this essay, the author has con
fined the references for the most part to a few representative
men and collections of sources. The works of Jewel, Parker,
Whitgift, Hooker, and Cartwright, the Zurich Letters and
the Domestic State Papers, have, for instance, been chosen
as most representative and easily available to the general
reader. Unless otherwise noted, however, the author has
depended upon the manuscripts in the Record Office and
not upon the Calendar of the Domestic State Papers, since the
Calendar, especially for the earlier years of Elizabeth's
reign, is often so condensed as to give inadequate informa
tion. The representative sources selected have been given
so as to make as complete as possible, within the limits of
this study, the facts and opinions presented by them.
Other sources have been given whenever those chosen as
most representative were lacking or were not of sufficient
weight. The sources used consist of the laws, Parliamentary
debates, acts of Council, proclamations, public and private

vi Preface
papers, correspondence, sermons, diaries, controversial
works, and foreign comment. References in the footnotes to
secondary works have been reduced to the minimum for the
sake of the appearance of the printed page, but the writer
has tried to express his sense of obligation to the work of
others in the Bibliographical Appendix. It is hoped that the
Appendix will serve the further purpose of assisting the
American student, about to enter upon a study of Eliza
bethan ecclesiastical and religious history, to find his way in
the somewhat confusing mass of the literature of the period.
There remains the pleasant duty of expressing my
gratitude to the officials of the Public Record Office and
of the British Museum for their courteous and painstaking
assistance. To the Reverend Mr. Claude Jenkins, of the
Lambeth Palace Library, who took the time to teach an
American stranger how to read and handle the documents
of the period, I owe one of my most pleasant memories of
England and of Englishmen. To Miss Cornelia T. Hudson,
reference assistant in the Library of Union Theological
Seminary, I wish to express my thanks for friendly help
in excess of the official courtesy with which I have met in
all the libraries I have consulted. The mere acknowledg
ment of my debt of gratitude to Professor James T. Shot-
well, of Columbia University, and to Professor William
Walker Rockwell, of Union Theological Seminary, must nec
essarily express inadequately the value of the encourage-"
ment, the suggestions, and the hours of labor which they
have so freely given. The kindness of Professor Edward
P. Cheyney, of the University of Pennsylvania, in reading
and criticizing the completed manuscript, and the help in
reading the proof given by Professor F. J. Foakes Jackson,
of Union Theological Seminary, have assisted materially in
making the essay more readable.
Arthur J. Klein.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY

Vague conceptions of tolerance — Social nature of intolerance
— Intolerance manifested in all kinds of social activity — Intoler
ance of the larger groups of society — Religion intolerant because
its truths are revealed and positive — Historic causes of religious
intolerance — Extent of religious intolerance — Non-religious in
tolerance — Tolerance is not negative — This study deals with
Elizabethan England — It was a period of the formation of
parties — Importance of Protestant dissent for Elizabethan intol
erance.

II. POLITICS AND RELIGION ....
The death of Mary Tudor — England at the accession of
Elizabeth — Elizabeth's alleged illegitimacy — Catholics and
Protestants — Paul IV and England — The position of Mary
Stuart — The attitude of Philip II — The attitude of Scotland —
Importance of securing the Queen's political position — Caution
of the government — Religious tastes of Elizabeth — Religious
indifference of the nation — Tendencies of the Marian exiles
toward compromise — Compromise and the Catholics — Identi
fication of the Sovereign and the State — Catholic opposition —
Complication of the domestic with the foreign situation — Plans
of the government — The first Parliament — Freedom of dis
cussion ^Disputation at _ Westminster — Employment of mod
erate Protestants — CJiaraciet- of the Parliament — Acts of
Supremacy^and Uniformity — Other acts of the Parliament" —
Removal of the Catholic Bishops — The Royal Visitation —
High Commission — The choice of the higher clergy — The
character of the new clergy — The choice of the lesser clergy —
Elements of hope for Catholics — The foreign political situation
— Weaknesses of the ecclesiastical system — Act for the Assur
ance of the Queen's Supremacy — Act for execution of Writ de
Excommunicato Capiendo — Offenses that incurred excommunica
tion — Acts against prophesyings and conjurers — Similarity
of the new establishment to the old.

III. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHO
LICS  35
TheJenient_policy of the government — The Rebellion of the
North — ThedcTancr new nobility — Significance of the revolt
— The Bull of Excommunication — Its effect on the religious
situation — Elizabeth's reply to the Bull — Need for further

viii Contents
legislation — Act making further offenses treason — Restraints
upon the press — Act against the introduction of papal bulls~
and instruments — Fugitives beyond the sea — The Jesuit mis
sionaries — Foreign dangers — Statutes to retain the Queen's
subjects in obedience — Seditious words and rumors — Spanish
resentment and plot — P^lk^I^SLl^^^^^^0^":^
1586-87 — Mary Stuart in England^TEnglish policy and Mary
Stuart — England, Mary, and Scotland — England, Mary, and
Spain — The defeat of the Armada — Continued fear of the
Spaniard — Enthusiasm for the Crown — Legislation of 1593 —
The government and the Jesuits — Government policy in dealing
with the Catholics — The imposition of the death penalty —
Exile — Desire to keep Catholics in England — Exception in
cases of the Jesuits and the poor — Inability of the government
to imprison all Catholics — Fines and confiscations — Resistance
of the Catholics — Failure of the fines and confiscations to pro
duce an income — Later imposition of the pecuniary penalties —
Lenient administration of the laws against Catholics — Govern
mental influence to prevent execution of letter of the law — Fac
tions in the Council — Moderating proposals of Cecil — Educa
tional value of the government's tolerant attitude.

IV. CHURCH AND STATE  64
Formative period of Anglicanism — The Establishment an
experiment — Elements of patriotism and of moderation in the
Church — Political dominance determined these characteristics —
Relations of Church and State before Elizabeth — Caiises-for_po-
litical dominance in Elizabeth!s_reign — The supremacy of the
Queen — Erastianism — Legal extent qfCrown's Supremacy —
Exercise of supremacy by commission. — Preservation of regu
lar ecclesiastical jurisdiction " — High Court of Delegates and the
Royal Supremacy — Commissions of Review and the favor of the
Crown — The Council and the High Commission — Change in
the nature of High Commission activity — Council^ and Star
Chamber — Court influence and the lower ecclesiastical courts —
Justices of peace and the religious acts — Control of the Council
oyer the justices of peace — The logic of secular administration
of the Religious Acts — Use of the prerogative writs by King's
Bench and Common Pleas — Special privileges — The Peculiars
— The Peculiars added confusion to the system — The Palatinates
— Lesser franchises — System subject to the interference of the
Court at all points — Irregularity, causes and results — The
Queen's prerogative and coercive power — Dispensing power of
the Crown — Legality of the judicial acts of the Queen and Coun
cil — Extent of the activity of the Council — Need forxoordinat-
ing power — Inadequacy of the inherited machinery to deal with
new conditions — The success of the relationship existing between
State and Church — State intolerance imposed upon the Church
— Religious and ecclesiastical intolerance restrained by the
State — Influence of the union of the Church and State upon the
development of dissent — Political dominance and promotion of
tolerance — Personal influence of the Queen in this development.

Contents ix
V. ANGLICANISM  93
Lack of unity in the early Anglican Church — Causes of union
and elements of disunion — Ambiguous- nature of the standards
set up — Religious character of the Church — Caution needed in
formulating doctrinal and ecclesiastical standards — The Parlia
mentary doctrinal standards — The Thirty-nine Articles —
Further restraint on doctrinal formulation — Religious opposi
tion to the abuses of Roman Catholicism — Controversial char
acter of the period — The character of the clergy — Queen's
opposition to religious enthusiasm — Protestantism lightens the
responsibility of the ecclesiastical organization for the individual
— Non-religious interest of the period — Demands of ecclesiasti
cal controversy — Religious zeal developed by dissent — Need
for ecclesiastical apologetic — Basis of apologetic historical —
Papacy rejected upon historical grounds — Church not limited by
primitive church history — Recognition of the principle of his
torical development — Advantage to Anglicanism of this liberal
position — Importance of ecclesiastical theory in the develop
ment of intolerance — Restraints upon Anglican development —
Causes for development — English sources of the idea of apos
tolic succession of the bishops — Whitgift and the apostolic suc
cession — Anglican denials of the doctrine — Alarm of the
radical Protestants — Hooker and the apostolic succession —
Development of Anglican ecclesiastical consciousness — Changed
relationship between Anglicans and Continental Protestantism —
Anglican desire for autonomy — Jewel and Hooker — Jewel's
emphasis upon the unity of Protestantism — Hooker's defense of
Anglicanism as an independent entity — Hooker's distrust of
bare scripture — Jewel's confidence in the power of the Word —
Hooker's belief in the authority of reason and need for experts
— Hooker's exaltation of the episcopal organization — Position
of the Queen in Hooker's theory — Jewel's idea of the sovereign's
power — Hooker's lack of confidence in the secular dominance
over the Church — Changed attitude of Anglicanism toward dis
senting opinions — Early uncertainty and liberality — Develop
ment of ecclesiastical consciousness paralleled by hardening of the
Anglican spirit — Other causes for hardening — Early Anglican
ism intolerant of papal Catholicism — Changed basis of Anglican
strength — Moral condemnation of the Jesuits — Common
ideals of Early Anglicanism and other forms of Protestantism —
^Practical character of the early Church — Development of an
tagonism within the Church.
VI. PROTESTANT DISSENT  131
Complexity of dissent — Difficulties of classification — Loose
use of the term " Puritan " — Difficulty of distinguishing Puritan
from Separatist — Precisianists — Presbyterians — Genetic use
of the term "Congregational" — Anabaptists — Cleavage was upon
lines of ecclesiastical polity — The Fanatic Sects — Elements of
discord in the Church — Indifferent nature of the first questions
of dispute — Ceremonial differences — The sympathies of the
leaders in State and Church — Variety in the use of ceremonies —

x Contents
Parker's Advertisements — Legality of the Advertisements —
Parker's argument on the habits — The anti-vestiarian argument
— The determination of the Queen that the habits be worn —
Reasons for her insistence — Results of the vestiarian contro
versy — Bacon on the development of the quarrel between Angli
canism and Dissent — First Admonition to Parliament — Its
place in the development of dissent — Disregard of the Queen's
position — Circumstances preceding appearance of the First
Admonition — • Literary controversy over the Admonition — Ob
jects of the Admonition's attack — Protestations of loyalty —
Danger in the attack — Intolerance shown by the Admonishers
— Absolute autHority of the New Testament in ecclesiastical or
ganization — The Second Admonition — The purpose of the
publication — Spirit of the Second Admonition — Split in the
ranks of dissent — Controversy between Cartwright and Whit
gift — The work of Travers.

VII. PROTESTANT DISSENT {continued) . . 159
Presbyterian polity — Scriptural basis of the system — Basis
for condemnation of Catholicism — Ecclesiastical intolerance of
the Presbyterians — Presbyterian doctrinal intolerance toward
Lutheranism — Presbyterian attack upon the Anglican organiza
tion — Results upon Anglicanism of the Presbyterian attack —
Presbyterian attack upon Anglican doctrinal standards and its
results — Presbyterians and the fight for Parliamentary freedom
— Aristocratic character of Presbyterianism — Presbyterianism
to be established by the government ' — Presbyterian theory of
the relationship between Church and State — Legal basis of
governmental repression of Presbyterianism — Opposition to
repression on the part of officials — Basis of charges of disloyalty
— The attitude of Cecil and Elizabeth — Danger to the govern
ment's policy of leniency toward Catholics — Danger to cordial
relations with all forms of Continental Protestantism — Dissent
ing movements other than the Presbyterian — Rejection of
necessity of the union of Church and State — Idea of the Church
as a body of the spiritually fit — Narrow dogmatic standards —
Loose and ineffective form of organization — Religious earnest
ness of the group — Religious basis for condemnation of others
— Attempt to transfer basis of disagreement from unessential to
essential — Doctrinal and religious intolerance — Causes for
Elizabethan condemnation of the Congregationalistic groups.

VIII. CONCLUSION  183
Importance of the separation from the Roman Catholic
Church — The governmental policy of toleration — Modifica
tion of the governmental policy by reason of Catholic activity —
Modification of the governmental policy by reason of Presbyte
rian activity — Modification of the governmental policy by
reason of Anglican development — The idea that ecclesiastical
unity was essential to political unity — Development of Anglican

Contents xi
ecclesiastical intolerance — Presbyterian intolerance — Rejec
tion of the connection between Church and State by the Congre
gational group — The development of three strong religious
parties.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX . . . .191
N
INDEX  213

INTOLERANCE IN
THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Most of us feel that intolerance is an antiquated evil. We
hasten to enroll ourselves in the ranks of the tolerant, and
at least in the free world of hypothesis and speculation, we
experience, at little cost, the self-congratulatory pleasure
of thus reckoning ourselves in the advance guard of civiliza
tion. As a matter of fact, our conception of tolerance is usu
ally so vague as to entail no renunciation of our pet preju
dices : our renunciation is confined to the abandonment of
intolerant principles, moribund some centuries before our
birth. Men have probably always in this way proclaimed
their allegiance to the spirit and principles of toleration
without being seriously disturbed by their own intolerances,
and without voicing any earnest protest against the intoler
ance of their own time. We easily recognize the inconsist
ency between the utterances and the attitude of Elizabethan
Englishmen who insisted by means of prison and banish
ment that the forms of a Prayer Book be strictly observed,
and looked with horror upon the Spanish Inquisition. We
smile a superior smile over their boasts of tolerance on the
score that the number of Catholics killed by Queen Eliza
beth did not equal the number of Protestants killed by Queen
Mary, and we may even see the weakness of their modern
apologists who point with pride to the fact that Elizabethan
England had no St. Bartholomew's Eve. The examples of
such inconsistency are amusing and satisfying in direct pro
portion to their antiquity and their distance from our own
ruts of thought. When in England it became possible for all

2 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
religions to exist side by side, and men therefore proclaimed
themselves tolerant, there was still attached to Catholicism
and to all forms of Protestantism other than the particular
form known as Anglicanism the penalty of the curtailment
of political rights. Some Englishmen are still unreconciled
to the removal of divorce and marriage from the jurisdiction
of the Established Church. Some Americans still defend
Sabbatarian legislation enacted at the demand of a reli
gious prejudice which saw no intolerance in forcing the ex
treme interpretation of the Mosaic law upon Christian and
non-Christian alike. Like our ancestors, we leave suffi
cient leeway for the full play of our own intolerances and
with easy carelessness avoid the discomforts of exact
definition. Intolerance is essentially a social phenomenon based
upon the group conviction of "rightness." When mani
fested by the dominant group, it is both a dynamic and a
conservative force. It is occupied with the maintenance of
things as they are, and has for its purpose social unity.
It exerts itself to bring into line those individuals, or groups
of individuals, who are clinging to things as they were, and
attempts to restrain the individuals or groups of individuals
who are striving toward things as they shall be. Its relations
and its sympathies are closer to the past than to the future.
It bases its authority on accepted knowledge or opinion.
Opposed to it are the groups who cling to opinions already
rejected and the groups with opinions not yet accepted.
Intolerance is a phase in the development of social conscious
ness, a part of the process of whipping into shape unique or
diverse elements of the social group. It is a by-product of the~ '
process of social grouping. In so far as the various social
groups have conflicting interests or standards, and so long
as the existence of one or more groups is theoretically or
practically inconsistent with the existence of other groups,
antagonism or intolerance results. Since the social relation-

Introductory 3
ships of men are practically infinite in variety, intolerance
may be displayed upon any subject of sufficient interest or
importance to secure the adherence of a group, and may
manifest itself in an infinite variety of ways. Medical in
tolerance has shown itself in the persecution ofjhe advo
cates of anaesthetics and antiseptics. National intolerance
of the foreigner, legal intolerance of new conceptions of
justice, social intolerance of unusual manners, the intoler
ance of the radical for the slower-minded conservative in
politics, economics, law, or dress, — these intolerances may
vary in extent, nature, and results, and their history is
merely the story of the modification of the extent, nature,
and results of antagonisms.
Necessarily the intolerance displayed by the larger groups
of society is most conspicuous and receives the most at
tention, although from the standpoint of the progress of so
ciety such intolerance may not be of the most far-reaching
influence. Religion, for instance, which occupies the con
sciousness of groups of international size, has been given
so much attention by the writers on intolerance that it has
become necessary to resist its claims to a monopoly of the
word. Religion, however, is of great importance for the subject
of intolerance from other reasons than the mere size of the
religious groups. Religion is based upon bodies of opinion
that are regarded as more important and as more positive
than any of the other facts of human life. Starting with a
group of opinions which are positively and supernaturally
revealed, religion offers the greatest resistance to the at
tacks of critical reason and to the advance of the merely
human phases of knowledge. It insists with inflexibility upon
the truth of its tenets and the acceptance of them by all men.
Historically, also, the religious organization in Western Eu
rope obtained such a dominance over men that it succeeded
in subjecting to its religious and ecclesiastical control ele
ments of social activity which, as we view the matter now,

4 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
were only remotely connected with the acceptance of its
fundamental body of divinely revealed dogma. It suc
ceeded in adapting to this dogma almost the whole body of
scientific and social investigation. Chemistry, anatomy,
botany, astronomy, as well as law and government, all
felt the restraining force of ecclesiastical conceptions and
dogmas. Its supernatural elements were emphasized at the
expense of human progress. Claiming to be the most social
force, it became anti-social in so far as it made its ideal one
of otherworldliness. Obviously the students of intolerance
have a rich and important field in religion.
The Christian religion has afforded material for studies of
pagan intolerance of Christians, and Christian intolerance
of pagans. We have volumes upon Catholic intolerance of
Protestants and upon Protestant intolerance of Catholics
and of other Protestants. The study of religious intolerance,
bbth Catholic and Protestant, in the field of non-religious
activities is still rich in unexplored possibilities, so rich that
it is perhaps useless to attempt to call the attention of the
historians of intolerance to the fact that there is 'also a field
worth investigating in the groups of non-religious intoler
ance. A very interesting book, or series of books, even, more
useful than much that has been written about religious in
tolerance, might be compiled by some one who turned his
attention to the intolerances of medicine, of law, or of eti
quette. They might even repay the historian by displaying
a humorous ridiculousness that the solemn connotations of
theology make impossible in that field.
It is unfortunate that the study of intolerance has been
so largely confined to a record of punishments and penalties,
and has concerned itself so little with the development of
positive tolerance. The interesting and important thing
about intolerance is its decrease. It has usually been taken
for granted that decrease of intolerance has meant increase
of tolerance ; but this is not always true and tends to make
tolerance synonymous with indifference. Tolerance becomes

Introductory '5
at best easy amiability. Indifference and amiability are
negative and afford no basis for the self-congratulatory at
titude we like to associate with tolerance. Tolerance as a
force provocative of progress is positive. It implies a def
inite attitude of mind, an open-minded observation of diver
gent opinions, a conscious refraining from the attitude of
condemnation, and a willingness to adopt ideas if they prove,
or seem likely to prove good. Intolerance of heretical ideas
prevents progress. Tolerance welcomes the new, looks to
the future, has a supreme confidence in the upward evolu
tion of society.
It is the purpose of this essay to examine one very small
field of religious intolerance, that in England during the
reign of Elizabeth. Much has been done already. Catholics
and Anglicans alike have devoted volumes to the suffering
and disabilities of the Catholics. The subordination of re
ligious to political considerations which marks the step in the
direction of religious tolerance that came with the revolt
of the nations from the suzerainty of the Papacy and the
formation of national churches, has been repeatedly empha
sized. The importance of the period for the developments
in the reign of the Stuarts has been pointed out. But un
fortunately attention has been confined too exclusively to
the government and the Anglican Establishment. Of almost
equal importance are the rise of the dissenting Protestant
groups in England, particularly the Presbyterian, and their
attitudes and theories of relationship with the Catholics, the
Established Church, and the government. Elizabeth's reign
was essentially a period of the formation of parties and
opinions. During her reign Puritan and Independent came
to group consciousness, grew into awareness of themselves
as distinct from Anglicanism and from each other; the
Anglican Church rose, collected its forces, and transformed
itself from a tool of secular government into a militant ec
clesiastical organization. The ground for the later struggle

6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
was prepared; and if in the seventeenth century we find
distinctly different theories at the basis of intolerance, we
must seek the origin of the later attitude in Elizabeth's
day. Her reign is a time of beginnings, a period of prelimt
nary development, and partakes of the interest and uncer
tainties of all origins of complex social phenomena.
The purpose of this essay is to estimate and to call atten
tion not only to the intolerance of the government and the
Established Church, but also to the rising Protestant!
groups of dissent, and to indicate the way they conditioned
and influenced the attitude of both the government and
the Church and intrenched themselves for the future con
flict.

CHAPTER II
POLITICS AND RELIGION
Unloved and disheartened, Mary Tudor died on the 17th
of November, 1558. Her sincere struggle to establish the
old faith in England once more, her pathetic love for Philip
of Spain, the loss of Calais, the knowledge that without
children to succeed her the work done could not endure, —
all these things had made her life a sad one. Our imagina
tions have clothed her reign with gloom and blood, while
that of her successor has become correspondingly splendid,
intriguing, fanciful, swashbuckler, profane, — a living age.
We approach the study of Elizabeth's reign with the expec
tation of finding at last a period when life was all dramatic,
but, as always, we find that the facts are less romantic than
our imaginative pictures.
Life to the Elizabethan Englishman was not all a joyous
adventure. Famine and pestilence ushered in the reign.
An empty treasury confronted the new queen. The com
mercial and the industrial life of the kingdom declined.
War with France and Scotland made taxation heavy. The
army and navy were riddled by graft, and crumbling for
tresses indicated a lack of national military pride. The
officials of Mary's rule still maintained their power in
Church and State, objects of hatred to the people, and —
the greatest danger to the Queen's peaceable accession —
centers around which might gather foreign opposition to
the daughter of Anne Boleyn.
Elizabeth's alleged illegitimacy
In the eyes of her Catholic subjects Elizabeth rested
under the shadow of an uncertain title. The charge of ille
gitimacy had stamped its black smudge upon the brow of

8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the baby girl, followed her through young womanhood in
her uncertain and dangerous position during the reign of
Mary, and when death had removed Mary, strode specter
like across the joy of the nation. Upon Elizabeth's entry
into the City she was greeted with great demonstrations!
of joy by the populace, but the councillors whom she had
called around her x realized that within the kingdom, Cath-»
olic love for Mother Church and power, Catholic consist
ency, might unite a large party which, resting upon papal
condemnation of the marriage of her father and mother,
would reject her claims to the throne. Domestic dangers to
her position might also threaten from that anti-Catholic
party whose members had grown bitter under the persecu
tions of Mary.2 The domestic dangers became menacing
and real by reason of their complication with the projects
and ambitions of foreign powers.
From the fact of Elizabeth's illegitimacy in the eyes of
the Catholic world sprang two great foreign dangers, the
one to endure throughout the reign, the other to end only
with an act which has brought upon Elizabeth's name an
undeserved reproach ; the Papal See was hostile and Mary
of Scotland set up a claim to England's throne.
Neither Elizabeth nor her advisers, probably, expected
that a break with the Papacy could be avoided. The Pope's
attitude must necessarily be determined in some measure
by the pronouncements of his predecessor upon the marriage
of which Elizabeth was the fruit. It could hardly be ex-
1 Cecil, Parry, Cave, Sadler, Rogers, Sackville, and Haddon were summoned
to her at Hatfield. The old council was reorganized. Sir Thomas Parry became
Comptroller of the Household; Sir Edward Rogers, Vice-Chamberlain; William
Cecil, Principal Secretary in the place of Dr. Boxall, Archdeacon of Ely; Sir
Nicholas Bacon displaced the Archbishop of York as Keeper of the Great Seal;
while the Earls of Bedford, Derby, and Northampton, Cave, Sadler, and Sack
ville took the places of Mary's councillors. Pembroke, Arundel, Howard,
Shrewsbury, Winchester, Clinton, Petre, and Mason continued.
2 S. R. Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation in Eng
land, with an introduction by A. W. Hutton (London and New York, 1899),
Essays vi, no. ii ; vn, no. iii; viii; ix; x, quotes from Knox, Goodman, Whitting
ham, Kethe, Becon, Bradford, Ponet. ,

Politics and Religion 9
pected that the most compliant and peace-loving of popes
would heartily welcome to the family of Catholic royalty
the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Still less could it be expected
that Paul IV, energetic and uncompromising, would dis
regard that quarrel which had torn England from the fold
of the faithful. Theoretically, at least, — and it was chiefly
upon theoretical grounds that those closest to Elizabeth
had to base their policy, — Mary of Scotland must have
seemed to the Papacy the only logical and legitimate heir
to England's throne.
Mary recognized her advantage, and she was sufficiently
vigorous in her Catholicism and shrewd in her politics to
seize every weapon opportunity might offer. Although
Elizabeth was seated upon the throne and was supported
by the sentiment of the English people, Mary's hope of dis
placing her was by no means based on dreams alone. She
had married the Dauphin of France, who succeeded to the
crown as Francis II but a few months after Elizabeth's
accession, and upon the advice of the Cardinal of Lorraine
the new King and Queen at once added to their other titles
that of King and Queen of England. With France behind
her claim, and the Pope supporting her, Elizabeth might
have been crowded off the throne and England forced into
Catholicism, had Philip, the autocrat of the Catholic pow
ers, also thrown his weight into the struggle upon the side
of Mary. But Philip, with all his Catholic enthusiasm,
would never allow France and the Guises to attain that
dominance in European affairs which the addition of Eng
land to their power would have meant. Philip did not love
England, nor did he wish to see it become Protestant, but
at the first he had hopes that the country might still be
preserved for Catholicism and be made to serve his own
purposes against the aggression of France.1 Elizabeth
played with the offer of marriage which Philip made as long
as it was possible to avoid a decisive answer, and encouraged
1 Venetian Calendar, 72, April 23, 1559, June 11, 1559.

10 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
him to believe that the Council of Trent might accomplish
something to make reconciliation possible even though she
rejected his hand. Philip lent his aid in securing favorable
terms for England at the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis arid
relieved her from the embarrassment of his opposition at
the time when he could have done most harm to Elizabeth.
But Mary's purposes were not balked by the opposition
of Philip alone. She did not have the sympathy of her own
land, Scotland, either in the alliance with France, in her
desire to establish the Catholic religion, or in her opposition
to England. In Scotland the Reformation had established
itself among all classes, although the motives which inspired
them were not exclusively religious; for, in Scotland, as in
other countries, a variety of purposes inspired the Protes
tant party. Here, as elsewhere, it was not simply a religious
reformation, but a social conflict arising from political,
economic, and legal motives. The party formed in Scot
land in 1557 was made up of elements looking for the spoil of
the wealthy and corrupt Church, for the expulsion of French
influence from the country, the lessening of the royal power,
the establishment of Protestant doctrines ; and it was from
these diverse elements that the signers of the first Covenant
were drawn. Nor did the Covenant represent the extreme
Calvinism usually associated with the Scotch ; it demanded
merely that the English Book of Common Prayer be used,
and that preaching be permitted. Not until after the return
to Scotland of John Knox in May, 1559, was the stamp of un
compromising Calvinism placed upon the Scottish Church;
Mary could look for bitter opposition from her Scottish sub
jects if she tried, with French aid, to establish herself upon
the English throne and attempted to impose Catholicism
upon the English people and autocratic power upon Scot
land. In spite of these difficulties, however, the danger to
England was real. Any change in the situation which might
free Mary's hands, or any change in the attitude of Philip
which would cause him to abandon his hostility to France

Politics and Religion ii
and unite with that country in opposition to England,
might sweep Elizabeth off the throne and place the nation
in danger of foreign dominion. From this situation came
that succession of crises calling for the patriotism of Eng
lishmen which ended only with the death of Mary and the
defeat of the Armada.
the caution of the government
In these circumstances domestic considerations were of
primary importance in determining the character of the
changes in the religious establishment of England. Of first
importance, also, in any changes to be made was the per
sonal and dynastic safety of the Queen. The necessity of
making her position as queen secure took precedence over
all questions of personal or national religious preference.
Could her throne have been secured most certainly by con
tinuing the alliance with the Papacy by means of diplomatic
accommodations on both sides, doubtless this would have
been the method adopted. The personal attitude and charac
ter of Paul IV, and perhaps also French influence upon the
Papal See, the Continental religious and political situation
combined with the domestic situation to make such a solu
tion of Elizabeth's difficulties well-nigh impossible. Without .
voluntary concessions on the part of the Papacy,1 it seemed
to Elizabeth's advisers more dangerous to meddle with the
papal power in England than to abolish it altogether.2 Yet
the wretched condition of the military and economic re
sources and the uncertainty of national support made
dangerous a step so radical as complete separation from the
Roman Church.
1 Dixon (History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman
Jurisdiction [Oxford, 1902], vol. v, p. 88) has disposed of the often-repeated
assertion that the Pope offered to confirm the English Prayer Book if his
authority was acknowledged. But cf. Raynaldus, no. 42 (trans, in E. P.
Cheyney, Readings in English History, pp. 373-74), where the offer to sanction
the English Liturgy, allow the Lord's Supper in both kinds, and revoke the
condemnation of the marriage of Henry and Anne is printed.
8 State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. I, no. 68.

12 Intolerance' in the Reign of Elizabeth
The government advanced with caution. The exiles on
account of religion were allowed to return in great numbers,,
but nothing was done for them. In May, 1559, Jewel com-.
plained to BuUinger, " ... at present we are so living, as
scarcely to seem like persons returned from exile; for to
say nothing else, not one of us has yet had even his own
property restored to him." 1 All preaching was prohibited
until Parliament could meet to decide upon a form of ec-
clesiastical'settlement.2 The Queen herself received men of
all parties, wrote to the Pope,3 kept up her friendship with
Philip of Spain. The Council repressed the enthusiasms
of Catholics and Protestants alike. The government was
anxious to give neither Protestants nor Catholics hopes or
fears which would bring matters to a crisis until they had
formulated and arranged for the execution of the policy best
suited to secure the allegiance of as great a number of all
religious parties as was possible. Dictated by the desire
to make secure the position of the Queen, this policy must
necessarily be one of compromise and moderation, at least
until it was safe to disturb the delicate balance of the foreign
political situation which made England dependent upon
the friendship of Philip and freedom from the active hos
tility of the other Catholic Powers.
In entire accord with the moderation thus made neces
sary were the personal tastes and preferences of the Queen.
She did not share, she could not understand, the uncom
promising zeal of either Catholic or Protestant. If the
political considerations demanded a Protestant or anti-
papal establishment, she was willing that it should be set up;
yet her love for the pomp and forms of a stately religion and
her hatred of the extremes and fanaticism of Protestant en
thusiasm were real, and she stood ready to establish and
maintain the policy of moderation which left room for
some of the forms she loved.
1 Zurich Letters, no. xx.
8 H. N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (London, 1907), p. 23.
• Raynaldus, Ann. Ecc, Ann. 1559, no. 2.

Politics and Religion 13
The middle course could make little appeal to enthu
siasm. Zealous Catholics could not be satisfied thus nor
could the extreme Protestants be content with halfway
measures. "Others are seeking after a golden, or, as it
rather seems to me, a leaden mediocrity; and are crying 4
out, that the half is better than the whole." "Whatever
is to be, I only wish that our party may not act with
too much worldly prudence and policy in the cause of
God." x But Elizabeth and the men who were in her con
fidence were not extremists, they were not religious enthusi
asts; they represented the national state of mind and were
justified in their belief that the Queen could depend upon
the nation's support for a reasonable and moderate re
ligious settlement.
On the religious question the nation was, on the whole,
indifferent. Nor is it strange that this was true at this
time. England had been forced through change after
change in the religious establishment, beginning with
Henry VIII and ending with the proscriptions of Mary.
It had been trained for a quarter of a century to adjust
itself to a turn-coat policy in religious matters. As Lloyd
quaintly says of Cecil, "He saw the interest of this state
changed six times, and died an honest man: the crown
put upon four heads, yet he continued a faithful subject:
religion changed, as to the public constitution of it, five
times, yet he kept the faith." 2 During that period the na^
tion had seen England sink into insignificance in Conti
nental affairs and watched its internal conditions grow
from bad to worse. The extremes of Mary's reign and the
growing economic distress of the country repelled English
thought from purely religious quarrels and absorbed their
attention in more practical matters. Just as at , the Res
toration, following a period of political control by the ex
tremists in religion, there was a period during which re-
1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. xii, Jewel to Martyr; Zurich Letters, 'no.
viii, Jewel to Martyr, Jan. 26, 1559. 2 Nares, Burghley, vol. in, p. 326.

14 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
ligious enthusiasm languished and the country joyfully
proceeded to recuperate from the effects of religious re
straints, so now after Mary's persecutions there succeeded
a period of that indifference to religion, which, if not a
promoter of positive tolerance is a great check on intol
erance. The country needed the help of all in adjusting its
home affairs and demanded their loyalty to protect their
queen and themselves from another Catholic sovereign.
Their enthusiasm found vent in these things, not in religious
contentions. The policy of subordinating religious consid
erations to the political safety of the nation enabled the
Church of the early part of Elizabeth's reign to survive
the attacks from within and without the kingdom; the
Church was not itself an object of enthusiastic support, but
served as a standard around which Englishmen gathered to
defend principles to which they gave their deepest loyalty
and purpose, determination and love. Changes which ap
pealed to the loyalty and patriotism of the nation, and
which freed it from the wearisome persecutions and dis
tracting turmoil that characterized Mary's reign, were
certain of English support.
The policy of moderation, the halfway course, which the
religious indifference, the political situation, and the
Queen's preferences made the logical plan to secure the alle
giance of the kingdom, implied, of course, a departure from
Roman Catholicism in the direction of some form of Prot
estantism. The religious and ecclesiastical history of Eng
land under Henry and Edward furnished a precedent for
the change which could be made with the least shock to the
feelings of Englishmen.
The Church developed in the reigns of Elizabeth's
father and brother was of a character which of all the
forms of Protestantism departed least in belief, form,
and organization from Catholicism. Practically all of
Elizabeth's mature subjects had been living in the time
of Henry and Edward, and there existed a large party

Politics and Religion 15
within the kingdom accustomed to, if not partisans of
the Church, as it had developed in Edwardian times. The
right wing of this party had in Mary's reign become
stronger and its leaders had confirmed their predilections
by residence on the Continent, where they had associated
closely with the prominent figures of Continental Protes
tantism. On the Continent sufficient time had elapsed
since Luther's attack upon the Papacy to make less domi
nant the essentially political motives of the revolt from
papal control, and Protestantism itself had begun that
hardening of dogmatic and ecclesiastical standards which
resulted in a more oppressive spirit than had existed in
Catholicism itself prior to the Lutheran revolt; but this
development had not yet gone so far nor the Protestant
parties become so strong that anti-papal principles had
sunk into the background of sectarian propaganda. Thus
the English who had fled to the Continent during Mary's
reign were, with the exception of a few extremists hyp
notized by the Calvinistic system, most influenced by their
residence in the Protestant centers toward an anti-papal
rather than toward a narrow sectarian policy.
These men the government could use in carrying out its
plans, though it did not ask their help in making them.1
Many of the most able and practical were ready to make
compromises, either for the sake of introducing a modi
fied reform into the Church in England, or for the sake of
securing for themselves the exercise and emoluments of
clerical office.2 Papal Catholics could not compromise.
The theory of the Church forbade it, although it is perhaps
true that shame for the compromises of the past rather than
strict regard for the theory of the Church induced many
of them to stand firmly now upon the convictions registered
during Mary's reign.3 "For sake of consistency which the
» Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, nos. viii, x, xii; Zurich Letters, nos. xi, xiv,
xv ; Parker Correspondence, no. xlix.
1 Jewel, Works, vol. ii, p. 770; Zurich Letters, no. xlix.
• Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. xiv; Zurich Letters, no. xxvii; Burnet,

1 6 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
miserable knaves now choose to call their conscience,
some few of the bishops, who were furious in the late
Marian times, cannot as yet in so short a time, for very
shame return to their senses." x Lukewarm Catholics,
however, Catholics from policy, Catholics whose patriotism
exceeded their love for the Church, should not be driven into
opposition by extreme measures. With regard to the Prot
estants the government occupied the strategic position.
Any change from Catholicism could be regarded as a con
cession which, for the present, must perforce satisfy the
radicals, and win for the government the great mass of
reformers, already prepared to make compromises and to
rejoice over gains religious or financial.2 Necessity, not in
clination, may have made the changes in the religious es
tablishment veer toward Protestantism, but the govern
ment had little to fear from a national Protestant party
and could safely proceed in the direction made inevitable
by the attitude of the Pope and by the political situation.
The change was so moderately made, however, that Ascham
was able to write to Sturmius, "[The Queen has] exercised
such moderation, that the papists themselves have no com
plaint to make of having been severely dealt with." 3 -
The government, in depending for the success of a com
promise religious policy upon the party of reform and upon
the Catholics whose papal traditions were not so strong
as their English feelings, was strengthened by the circum
stances which made support of its religious policy clearly
essential to the safety of the Queen. Loyalty to the sover
eign was the greatest practical bond of national union in
sixteenth-century England, the first principle of national
patriotism. That such a spirit existed and would support
the Queen's religious policy was comparatively easy of con-
History of the Reformation of the Church of England (Pocock edition, Oxford,
1865), pt. m, bk. vi, no. 51.
1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. Ixi. Cf. ibid., nos. xv, xx, xxi.
, i Zurich Letters, nos. ii, xxvi, xxxiii.
' Ibid., no. Ixiv.

Politics and Religion 17
firmation during a time when the opinions of the great mass
of the population were negligible or non-existent. The new
nobles and gentry were sufficiently numerous and influen
tial to see to it that their dependents made no serious trouble;
their own allegiance was secured by conviction, or by pros
pects of place and profit.1
In England the Queen might depend upon practically the
united support of the reforming party and upon many luke
warm Catholics. The greatest dangers within the king
dom came from the older Catholic nobility, displeased at the
prominence of the new men as well as devoted to the old
Church, and from the clerics who had held high office in
Church and State during Mary's reign. The latter, alarmed
at the uncertainty of the government's policy, reasonably
certain that Papal Catholicism would not be established
as the religion of the State, and fearful lest the extreme
Protestants ultimately have their way and a system of per
secution be inaugurated, formed the party of opposition
to governmental plans for an ecclesiastical compromise.
Yet for the most part this opposition was passive, and was
accompanied by protestations of loyalty to the Crown,
and to the Queen.
This party would have been of little importance and
helpless in the grip of royal disfavor had not the policy
which the foreign complications forced upon the govern
ment been one of compromise and reconciliation of all loyal
Catholics. In so far as the clerical party was at one with
and in a sense dependent upon foreign, that is papal, poli
tics, it was dangerous to the government; but fear of alli
ance or intrigue with Continental Catholicism had to give
way before the more pressing danger that the suppres
sion or harsh treatment of the old leaders of the Church
would excite the sympathy, or arouse the antagonism, of
men who would otherwise quietly acquiesce in the moderate
proposals of the government.
1 Lee, The Church under Elizabeth (2 vols. 1880), vol. 1, p. 70.

1 8 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Elizabeth's first parliament
The details of the slow and cautious plans of the govern-.
ment would here occupy too much space and serve only to
confuse the purposes of this essay.1 They are to be found
in the histories of the period. Throughout the time between
the accession of Elizabeth and the meeting of her first Par
liament the plans for the religious changes were perfected
and the country carefully persuaded into an attitude of wait
ing for the settlement of the religious questions to be em
bodied in law by that body.2 In the mean time Cecil and the
other leaders arranged for the election to Commons of men
who would be amenable to the directions of the Crown,3 and
the committee of the Council, "for the consideration of all
things necessary for the Parliament" drafted the measures
thought necessary to be passed by that body when it should
assemble.4 Parliament was opened on January 25, 1559, with the
usual ceremony, and Convocation assembled, as was the
custom, at the same time. In the Lords the bishops and
one abbot took their usual places and were permitted a free
dom in voicing their opposition to all the proposed religious
changes that would hardly have been granted to lay oppo
nents of governmental policy.5 Convocation passed articles
asserting uncompromising adherence to the Roman Catholic
faith.6 The fairness of the government and its magnanimity
were ostentatious; the pleas of the clerics vivid and im
passioned, in spite of the fact that they knew their case was
1 State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. I, no. 69; vol. iv, no. 40; Strype,
Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 74-76, App., no. iv; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. in, no. 1, p. 497;
Dodd (Tierney's ed.), vol. 11, p. 123, and App., no. 33.
2 Zurich Letters, nos. iii, viii.
" For methods of influencing the elections cf. Council to Parker and Cobham,
Parker Correspondence, no. cclxxxvii, Feb. 17, 1570.
4 Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, App., no. iv; Dodd (Tierney's ed.), n, p. 123,
and App., no. 33; Dixon, vol. V, p. 22, note.
6 Strype, Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, App., nos. vi, vii, ix, x, xi; D'Ewes, Journals,
Elizabeth's first Parliament.
8 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 179.

Politics and Religion 19
Hopeless except as the vigor of their protests in Parliament
and through the Convocation might serve to modify or
soften for Catholics the terms of the settlement. They knew
that the government would go as far as it could to avoid
trouble and that it was willing to make as light as was con
sistent with safety the disabilities placed upon the Cath
olics. Elizabeth had shown this, when at her coronation, ter£
days before the assembling of Parliament, the Catholic
bishops, who had, with the exception of Oglethorpe, refused
to officiate,1 were allowed to escape any outward evidence
of her displeasure. In spite of a perverseness which often
drove the even-minded Cecil to distraction, Elizabeth some
times showed, when conditions demanded it, a proper re
gard for practical politics, even at the expense of her per
sonal feelings.
After Parliament had been in session for some time and
after the points of the settlement had been well mulled
over in both houses, the government reached the cul
mination, and at the same time the end, of its previous pol
icy toward Mary's clergy. Arrangements were made for a
great disputation, before the members of the Council and
the nobility at Westminster, between the representatives of
the Catholic and of the reforming parties. Governmental
show of fairness in choosing the subjects for the conference
and in arranging the method of discussion was perhaps more
seeming than real, but the indiscretions of the Catholic
divines, before the notable assemblage gathered to listen to
the debate, afforded the authorities sufficiently good grounds
for placing restraints upon their liberties. The refusal of the
Catholics to proceed had, if we may trust Jewel, another
effect, doubtless appreciated by the government. Jewel
wrote to Martyr immediately after the affair, "It is alto
gether incredible how much this conduct has lessened the
opinion that the people entertained of the bishops; for they
1 Dixon (vol. v, pp. 47-51) denies this, but does not seem to me to have
proved his case.

20 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
all begin to suspect that they refused to say anything, only
because they had not anything to say." 1
We have already had occasion to mention the impatience
of the Protestants, who had returned from exile or come out
of hiding, over their neglected condition and the slowness of
the government in making, provision for them. Their im
patience was aggravated by governmental permission of
dilatory tactics by the Catholic bishops. "It is idly and
scurrilously said, by way of joke, that as heretofore Christ
was cast out by his enemies, so he is now kept out by his
friends." "We manage ... as if God himself could scarce
retain his authority without our ordinances and precau
tions." 2 Since most of them were not admitted to the
counsels and purposes of the government in its treatment
of Catholics, nor capable of understanding the need for
caution and moderation, they were greatly discouraged over
their prospects. The moderate men of the reforming party,
however, who, like Cox,3 and Parker, were least fanatical,
were used by the leaders at court and given assurances of
favor, conditional upon cooperation in establishing a church
such as the government had in mind. Protestants preached
at court and were given employment upon the details of
arrangement for the changes contemplated, such as the
revision of Edward's Prayer Book and the compilation of
the Book of Homilies. With the progress of the work of
Parliament the Protestants had less cause for complaint
and were allowed greater expression of opinion so long as
they did not exceed the limits of discussion set by govern
ment policy. Forced, as the court was, to depend for sup
port of its anti-papal policy upon the reformers, it placed
confidence only in those who were in sympathy with its de-
1 Jewel, 'Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. ix (Zurich Letters, no. xii; Burnet, pt.
in, bk. vi, no. 49, p. 407). Cf. also ibid., no. viii; Zurich Letters, nos. xi, xix;
Burnet, pt. in, bk. vi, no. 47, p. 402 ; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. in, no. 52 ; Strype,
Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, App., nos. xv, xvi.
2 Zurich Letters, no. xiii. Cf. also ibid., nos. xi, xiv, xvii, xix, xlii.
• Hall, Elizabethan Age, chap, viii, "The Churchman," pp. 103-18.

Politics and Religion 21
sire to make no radical changes, and to conduct all things in
order and decency, with proper regard to the secular inter
ests of all concerned.
The carefully packed Parliament was significantly
enough characterized by the predominance of younger men
who had not had previous experience as members of the
Commons. They were for the most part of Protestant sym
pathies, but sufficiently in awe of court influence to submit
to the management of Cecil and the Crown. We find in this
Parliament little of that tendency to take the bit in its teeth
and direct its own course which later in the reign gave such
opportunity for the exercise of royal authority in restraint
of Parliamentary action. No serious obstacles presented
themselves in the Commons to the passage of the religious
acts determined upon by the government; but nothing was
done in haste, and the willingness of the Commons was re
strained by the greater experience of the Lords. Perhaps,
too, the government was willing to allow more or less
radical talk in the Commons to counteract the effects of-
Catholic protests in the Upper House. The history of the
passage of the acts through Parliament is somewhat tire
some, and significant only as confirming the care and super
vision of the court leaders. It will be sufficient here to name
and summarize briefly the provisions of the acts as they
finally received the signature of the Queen.
The most important of these were the Acts of Supremacy 1
and Uniformity.2 The Act of Supremacy repealed 1 and 2
Philip and Mary, c. 8, which had revived papal jurisdic
tion, and the statutes concerning heresy made in that
reign. Ten statutes of Henry VIII and one of Edward were
revived. It dropped the title "Supreme Head of the
Church," 3 although it retained the substance and pro-
1 Statutes of the Realm, I Eliz., c. I. ! Ibid., c. 2.
* D'Ewes, Journals, p. 38; Stubbs, in App. Ecc. Courts, Com. Report, Ses
sional Papers, 1883, vol. xxiv, p. 44: "the effect of omitting the revival of 26
H. VIII, c. 1, 28 H. VIII, c. 10, 35 H. VIII, c. 3, and 35 H. VIII, c. 1, sec. 7,
was the abolition of the royal claim to the title of supreme head as affirmed
by Act of Parliament."

22 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
vided for the exercise of a supreme royal authority by means
of ecclesiastical commissions practically unlimited by law
as to composition, number, and duration. The old juris
diction of the ecclesiastical courts was, however, retained.
The Act of Uniformity imposed an ambiguous Prayer Book,
designed to permit men of all faiths to take part in the serv
ices. Of laymen no declaration of faith was demanded;
outward conformity, signified by attendance upon the
service, was all that was asked ; and a fine of twelve pence
imposed for absence from the new services was intended to
secure attendance. Office-holders,1 both lay and clerical,
were required to take an oath acknowledging the Queen's
supremacy and renouncing all allegiance and obedience to
any foreign power, upon pain of loss of, and disqualifica
tion for office. Clerics who took the oath, but refused to
use the service and comply with the terms of the act, were
subject to increasing penalties culminating in deposition and
life imprisonment.
Besides the two great measures of establishment, which
virtually placed the Queen at the head of the English Church,
Parliament annexed the first fruits and tenths to the Crown;
declared Elizabeth lawful heir to the Crown,2 without, how
ever, affirming in so many words the validity of Anne's
marriage to Henry; annexed to the Crown the religious
houses which Mary had founded; and gave the Queen
power, with the ecclesiastical commissioners, to take further
order for the regulation of the cathedral and collegiate
churches.3 INAUGURATION OF THE establishment
After the completion of the work of Elizabeth's first
Parliament and its dissolution, the government had yet to
put the system devised into operation. Naturally the first
1 Cf. however, Span. Cal., 1558-67, vol. 1, no. 36, p. 76; Parker Corresp.,
no. lxxi.
5 Statutes of the Realm, I Eliz., c. 5. • Ibid., c. 22.

Politics and Religion 23
step toward the inauguration of the establishment was the
removal of the obstructionist bishops. This the Act of Uni
formity had made legally possible in the paragraphs which
provided that from the clerics an oath acknowledging the
Queen's supremacy might be demanded by such persons as
were authorized by the Queen to receive it. The Council, by
virtue of commission dated May 23, offered the oath to the
Roman bishops, and, upon their refusal to take it, deposed,
during the course of the summer, all except Landaff, who
took the oath and was allowed to retain his bishopric.
The removal of the lesser Catholic clergy throughout the
kingdom was accomplished by means of Commissions of
Royal Visitation formed during the summer months. Eng
land was divided into six circuits and commissioners, mostly
laymen, appointed to make the rounds,1 administer the
oath to the clergy, and inquire into certain articles of which
the most interesting are those concerning the late perse
cutions.2 The visitors carried with them also a set of royal
injunctions for the guidance of the Church. These were
copied after the injunctions of Edward VI, with an explana
tion added at the end setting forth the fact that the Queen
did not claim spiritual functions and a denial that the gov
ernment attached to the taking of the oath the acknowledg
ments! any such belief.3 Because of the extent of the ter
ritory to be covered by these commissions and because
of their limited powers, the results of this visitation are
hard to estimate. Anglican and Catholic writers, after
careful study of all available statistical information, differ
widely in their conclusions as to the number of the clergy
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. x, no. i; vol. vi, no. 12; Henry Gee, Elizabethan
Clergy (Oxford, 1898), pp. 89-93, 133-36; Cardwell, Documentary Annals,
vol. 1, 249; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. ni, no. 7, p. 533.
1 Articles printed in Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, pp. 65-70; Sparrow, Collec
tions. ' Prothero, Select Statutes, p. 184; Sparrow, Collections, p. 65; S. P., Dom.,
Eliz., vol. xv, no. 27; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. ill, p. 631; Collier, 11, 433; Strype,
Annals, vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 197; Jewel, Works, vol. iv, "Defence of the "Apology,"
pp. 958-1039; Whitgift, Works (Parker Society), vol. 1, p. 22.

24 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
who were deposed.1 The point is not essential. We know
enough to be certain that, while not thorough in its work,
the visitation accomplished practically all that the govern
ment hoped for or desired; the system was inaugurated and
its most fanatical enemies removed from the exercise of
their offices. The perfection of the system, and the sifting
out of enemies whom the visitation had missed and the
government desired to find, might safely be left to other
more permanent agencies of supervision.
The examination of the certificates of the royal visitors
and the completion of their work 2 were assigned by com
mission, dated September 13, to the central commission for
the exercise of royal supremacy contemplated by the Act
of Supremacy. This central or permanent body had already
been created and given extensive powers by commission
issued on July 19, although it probably did not meet until
the practical completion of the work of the royal visitors,
as many of its members were also visitors. Besides the busi
ness resulting from the work of the Royal Visitation, the
central commission had committed to its care the super
vision of the working of the Acts of Supremacy and Uni
formity throughout the kingdom, repression of seditious
books, heretical opinions, false rumors, slanderous words,
disturbances of, and absence from, the established services,
and was further given jurisdiction over all vagabonds of
London and the vicinity.3 "",— -.
The removal of the Catholic bishops, the work of the
Royal Visitation, and the creation of a central commission
were in large part merely repressive measures, providing for
proper policing of the country. It was essential to the work
ing of the system that the episcopal offices, made vacant by
the forced retirement of the Roman Catholic bishops, be
1 Gee, Elizabethan Clergy (Oxford, 1898); H. N. Birt, Elizabethan Religious
Settlement (London, 1907).
* 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vn, no. 79; Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, p. 141; Birt,
Elizabethan Religious Settlement, p. 183, no. 2. Cf. Parker Corresp., no. lxxx.
¦ 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. v, no. 18; Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 227-32;
Cardwell, Documentary Annals, vol. I, p. 223.

Politics and Religion 25
filled. There was no lack of candidates for the positions.
Protestants who from conviction regarded the abolition of
the papal supremacy as the essential element for the Na
tional Church; Protestants who hoped for further reform,
but were willing to take honorable office in the Church for
the sake of excluding persons less Protestant than them
selves, and for the sake of working from the inside for
more radical changes; Protestants whose convictions were
swayed by the knowledge that high offices in the Church
were not likely to be awarded to radicals — all more or
less modestly waited for preferment. And men from all
of these classes obtained what they waited for, some in
positions less high than they had hoped, but better than
exile or obscurity. The disagreeable bickerings of the newly
chosen clergy with the Queen over the exchange of parson
ages impropriate for bishops' lands, which delayed their
installation and consecration for some time, was not entirely
due to greed on the part of the bishops. "The bishops are
as yet only marked out, and their estates are in the mean
time gloriously swelling the exchequer," 1 Jewel wrote to
Martyr in November, 1559. Many felt, with Jewel, more
concern over the impoverishment of the Church by the
Queen's excessive demands than for their own loss of
worldly goods. Their greed at this time has probably been
considerably magnified because of the avarice of such men
as Aylmer, one of the least admirable of the Elizabethan
bishops. His conduct was the opposite of that which he had
demanded before he became a bishop. Then he had cried,
"Come of you Bishoppes, away with your superfluities,
yeld up your thousands, be content with hundreds as they
be in other reformed Churches, where be as greate learned
men as you are. Let your portion be priestlike and not
princelike." 2 As a bishop his greed became a coirimon
1 Zurich Letters, no. xxxv. Cf. Parker, Corresp., nos. lxviii, lxix; S. P., Dom.,
Eliz., vol. viii, no. 19.
2 Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation, p. 166; Strype,
Annals, vol. n, pt. 1, App., no. xxxi; Strype, Aylmer, passim.

26 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
scandal. But Parker, Jewel, Grindal, Parkhurst, and many
of the others were men of relatively high character, al
though better fitted perhaps for scholastic affairs than for
the complexities of practical ecclesiastical administration.
None of them had ability or training in ecclesiastical ad
ministration comparable to that of Cecil in secular admin
istration. Yet they were earnest and sincere men fitted to
give intelligent, if not brilliant, service in the establishment
of the Church.
The selection of the lesser clergy to fill the places made
vacant by the work of the Royal Visitation presented a much
more difficult problem. Secular influence in the selection of
these men was exerted by local magnates and nobles with
more concern for selfish advantage than for the welfare
either of Church or of State, and Parker wrote to Lady
Bacon : —
I was informed the best of the country, not under the degree
of knights, were infected with this sore, so far that some one
knight had four or five, some other seven or eight benefices
clouted together, fleecing them all, defrauding the crown's subjects
of their duty of prayers, somewhere setting boys and their serving-
men to bear the names of such living.1
The Queen herself did not realize the need for competent
preachers and pastors; the higher clergy were in too many
cases, even where competent men were available, careless
about securing their services, or as greedy as the laity to
secure cheap ones. Clerical service gave no dignified or
honored position in the community, and the financial
rewards were not enticing to men of ability. The tone and
character of the lesser clergy reached perhaps its lowest ebb
during the first years of Elizabeth's reign.2
In spite of the setting in motion of the machinery pro
vided by the religious acts, the Roman Catholics were not
entirely disheartened. There were elements in the situation
1 Parker Corresp., no. ccxxxix. l Cf. chap, v, p. 131.

Politics and Religion 27
which justified them in thinking that their case was not
hopeless. Although they had apparently lost power, the ob
vious conciliatory policy of the government gave them prac
tical assurance that they were in little real present danger
and led them to hope that a chance for rehabilitation might
present itself. That the organization and the services of the
establishment were not radically changed by the new order
was a subject for congratulation among Catholics. Parsons;
the Jesuit, at a later date rejoices "that the sweet and high
Providence of Almighty God hath not been small in con
serving and holding together a good portion of the material
part of the old English Catholick Church, above all other
Nations, that have been over-run with Heresie, for that we
have yet on foot many principal Monuments that are de
stroyed, in other countries, as namely we have our Cathe
dral Churches and Bishopricks yet standing, our Deanries,
Canonries, Archdeaconries, and other Benefices not de
stroyed, our Colledges and Universities whole, so that there
wanteth nothing, but a new form to give them Life .and
Spirit by putting good and vertuous Men into them. . . ." J
The work of the Royal Commissioners of Visitation had
varied with the character of the visitors and the sentiments
of the districts visited, and the institution of the new system
was by no means thorough. Catholic clergy were left, in
some sections at least, in "charge of their old parishes.
"... The prebendaries in the cathedrals, and the parish
priests in the other churches, retaining the outward habits
and inward feeling of popery, so fascinate the ears and eyes
of the multitude that they are unable to believe but that
either the popish doctrine is still retained, or at least that it
will be shortly restored."2 The most dangerous and rabid
of the papal adherents had been removed, but the impres
sion was given that this was all the government wished to
1 Parsons, Memorial of the Reformation of England, printed in part in Taunton,
English Jesuits, App., p. 478.
2 Zurich Letters, no. liii, Lever to Bullinger, July 10, 1560.

28 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
accomplish. Finally, there was much in the foreign polit
ical situation to give Catholics hope, and cause concern to
Elizabeth and her advisers.
Elizabeth's second parliament
Foreign events during the first four or five years of Eliza
beth's reign served to emphasize the need for the loyalty
of Englishmen and for the maintenance of governmental
control over the religious question.1 When Parliament met
for the second time, January 12, 1563, Philip had given up
his hope of regaining England for Catholicism by matrimo
nial alliance. Elizabeth had refused to send representatives
to the Council of Trent, and the labors of that body had
ended without accomplishing anything which tended toward
reconciliation. In 1562 the Pope, Pius IV, issued a brief for
bidding Catholics to attend the English services on pain of
being declared schismatic, and thus, in some measure, Eng
lish Catholics had been compelled to withdraw the assent
to the new arrangement which the moderate policy of the
government had won from them. Mary was back in Scot
land, forced to make concessions to the Protestants to
maintain her throne, but craftily intriguing to gain freedom.
She schemed and waited in the hope that a turn of the wheel
might seat her on the English throne and give her the means
to suppress the hated preachers. Her hopes were dependent
upon her uncles the Guises, and events in France in 1562
seemed to indicate that the time she awaited had come. The
year opened with the issue by Catharine of an edict of
toleration. Guise replied with the massacre of a Protestant
congregation at Vassy. He entered Paris and seized the
queen mother and the king. The Huguenot leaders took the
field and France was divided into two hostile and destruc
tive religious camps. Philip sent forces to Gascony to aid the
Guises. The Pope and the Duke of Savoy hired Italians
1 D'Ewes, Journals, Cecil's speech in the second Parliament. Cf. Zurich
Letters, nos. lxix, lxxii, lxxiii.

Politics and Religion 29
and Piedmontese to attack the Huguenots from the south
west. German mercenaries were added to the Catholic forces
in the north. The Huguenots seemed enclosed in the net
of their foes. Mary negotiated a marriage with the son of
Philip, strengthened her connections with the Continental
Catholics, and plotted the overthrow of Elizabeth and the
restoration of both Scotland and England to the jurisdic
tion of the Papal See. Success for the Catholics on the Con
tinent seemed to mean success for Mary in Scotland, per
haps in England also. Then came the battle of Dreux and
the virtual defeat of the combined Huguenot forces.
That the English Parliament in this situation should
strengthen the kingdom's defenses against its religious and
political enemies was inevitable; that it proceeded along
the lines of the weaknesses found in the system established
is evidence of conservatism and moderation not to be
expected from a radical Protestant body.
There is no question that the system had been proved
ineffective in some points by the experience of the past
five years. In the first place, under the arrangements made
by the Act of Supremacy for administering the oath, many,
both clerics and laity, who were in positions to hinder the
secure establishment of the system, had been able to escape,
either because the means for administering the oath were in
effective, or because they were not included in the classes
specified as required to take it. Thus we find disorders both
among the clerics and laity, particularly in the north where
the great centers of Catholic dissent were situated, and
where the need for a united front was especially great from a
military standpoint. Compared with the extent of the coun
try, the means of administering the oath to the clergy were
few, and where such means should have been sufficient
they were often hindered by the opposition or indiffer
ence of secular officials whose sympathies were with their
Catholic neighbors. The ecclesiastics were often forced to
make such complaints as Parker's to Cecil : —

30 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
I am here stoutly faced out by that vain official who was de
clared to have slandered Mr. Morris and some justices of the
peace, and purpose to examine the foul slander of Morris accord
ing to the request of your letters. The official seemeth to dis
credit my office, for that I am but one of the commission, and
have none other assistants here; and therefore it would do good
service if the commission I sued for to be renewed were granted.
There be stout words muttered for actions of the case, and for
dangerous premunires, and specially tossed by his friends, pa
pists only, where the better subjects do universally cry out his
abuses. If I had some advice from you I should do the better.1
Complaints of such hindrance were constantly sent to the
Council, because the bishops and other ecclesiastics were
without the power necessary to enforce their orders. Since
the real sting of excommunication lay, for the Catholics,
not in exclusion from the Church, but in the temporal pen
alties attached to that condition, failure to impose these
penalties took from the hands of the Church the force of its
most powerful weapon. Here, then, are at least two impor
tant defects of the system created by the acts of 1559: the
right to administer the oath of supremacy and the obligation
to take it did not extend far enough to cover all dangers,
and the ecclesiastical censure of excommunication could not
be rightly enforced because minor officials, particularly the
sheriffs and justices of the peace, failed to do their duty
and there was no generally applicable means of forcing them
to do so. These are obviously defects that needed correc
tion, and we find that Parliament's two most important
acts, the Act for the Assurance of the Queen's Supremacy
and the Act for the Better Enforcement of the Writ de Ex
communicato Capiendo, deal with these very things.
The Act for the Assurance of the Queen's Supremacy 2
had for its purpose the most effective administration of the
previous legislation concerning the royal supremacy and the
1 Parker Corresp., no. cclxxix; cf. Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. Ixxii; S.P.,
Dom., Eliz., vol. cclxx, no. 99; vol. cclxxiv, no. 25.
2 Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 1; cf. speeches against the bill by Browne,
Lord Montague, and Atkinson, Strype, Annals, vol. 1, chap. xxvi.

Politics and Religion 31
extension of such legislation to persons not previously reached
by its requirements, particularly the provision which com
pelled the taking of the oath of supremacy. The punishment
for maintenance of the papal power in England was in
creased, and the enforcement of the law was, for the first
time, brought under the control of a powerful and efficient
secular court, King's Bench. The minor officials to whom
the administration of the laws against Catholics had been
in great part entrusted, were made directly responsible to
it for the performance of their duty. The loopholes left by
the Act of Supremacy for escape from taking the oath of
supremacy were closed and the application of the require
ment was greatly extended. To those classes of persons
formerly required to take it, were added the members of
Commons, all lay and clerical graduates of the universi
ties, schoolmasters, public and private teachers, barristers,
lawyers, sheriffs, and all "persons whatsoever who have or
shall be admitted to any ministry or office belonging to the
common law or any other law within the realm." The agents
for administering the oath were increased in number. Every ,
archbishop and bishop was given power to administer the
oath to all ecclesiastics within his diocese, and the Lord
Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal was authorized
to issue commissions to any persons he saw fit, to adminis
ter the oath to such persons as were specified in the com
mission. Refusal to take the oath was punished by more
severe penalties.1
In the Act for the due Execution of the Writ de Excommu
nicato Capiendo 2 the ecclesiastical censure of excommunica
tion was made stronger. It had long been the custom for the
bishop, upon excommunicating an offender, to write to the
Court of Chancery for a writ de Excommunicato Capiendo,
1 Parker Corresp., nos. cxxvii and cxxviii. Parker, with the approval of
Cecil, took measures to see that these penalties were not too severely enforced.
Cf. Strype, Parker, 126.
2 Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 23. History of the act in Strype, Annals,
vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 460.

32 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
or capias. Chancery issued the writ to the sheriff for execu
tion, and that officer was supposed upon its receipt to ar
rest and imprison the person excommunicated. Under the
new establishment, however, the sheriff was often in sym
pathy with such offenders and failed to do his duty,1 and
there was, in cases of such failure, no way, by means of the
ordinary processes of law, to force him to perform his duty
because the writ was not returnable to any court. The new
act, probably drawn up by Parker and Grindal,2 provided,
by means of fines imposed upon the minor officials for fail
ure to do their duty, that the authority of the spiritual
censure be effectively enforced and that the personal lean
ings of the sheriffs should not prevent the execution of the
penalties involved in excommunication. Incidentally the
act specifies the offenses that incur the penalty of Excom
munication :
Excommunicatyon dothe proceede upon some cause or con-
tempte of some originall matter of Heresie or refusing to have his
or their childe baptysed or to receave the Holy Communion as
yt commonlye is now used to be recyved in the churche of Eng-
lande, or to come to Dyvine service nowe commonlye used in
the said churche of Englande, or errour in matters of religion or
doctryne now receyved and alowed in the sayd churche of Eng
lande, incontenencye, usurye, symonye, periurye, in the ecclesias
tical court or Idolatrye.
Parliament did not confine its work for the security of the
Queen and the realm to the enactment of these two acts. The
repression of that class of persons who pretended to fore
cast events, or to exercise magical powers, was looked to in
two special acts which imposed penalties upon witches and
enchanters. Such persons were regarded as dangerous be
cause of their associations with the old religion.3 The acts
were framed because the people were misled by seditious
persons dissatisfied with the religious establishment, who
1 Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, p. 19. * Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. I, p. 460.
* Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 15; Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. I, pp. 441,
465-66; Statutes of the Realm, 5 Eliz., c. 16.

Politics and Religion 33'
used prophecy and divination as excuses or incentives for
bringing about the Queen's death. The belief in magic,
possession, witchcraft, and similar supernatural manifesta
tions of power was shared by all classes and by all types of
religious faith. This somewhat curious persistence in Chris
tianity of an essentially dual conception of the universe and
supernatural forces has extended even to the present time,
and though the importance which all men of that time at
tached to such claims seems absurd to-day, the fear was
real and the danger imagined particularly hard to meet.
THE SUCCESS OF GOVERNMENT POLICY
In the establishment thus created by the first Parliament
and strengthened by the second, there was little to alarm
the great mass of the people. There was no change made
that on the surface could not be justified by some act of the
past, although, as is usual, Englishman's precedent applied
to a new situation might involve consequences utterly for
eign to the substance of past conceptions. The old machin
ery remained; the two provinces, -the bishoprics, and in
great part the same clergy still conducted the services.
The services were not so different as to shock religious sense,
or to arouse the opposition of the people, although iso
lated cases of Protestant violence arfd Catholic stubborn
ness might occur. For a long time the Queen retained,
much to the distress of her clergy, elements of the old wor
ship in her private chapel.1 The supremacy of the Queen
was maintained, but the title of "Supreme Head of the
Church," so offensive to Catholics, was not assumed, and
the national headship over all estates of the realm found
support in the patriotic sentiments of all Protestants and a
great number of Catholics. In the enforcement of the su
premacy no extraordinary j udicial bodies with which the peo
ple were unfamiliar were created. The Queen's commissions
1 Parker Corresp., nos. lxvi, lxvii, lxxii; Zurich Letters, nos. xxv, xl, xxxix,
xliv, xlviii, xliii.,

34 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
were similar to those of Edward and Mary, and the regular
and ecclesiastical courts exercised jurisdiction in establish
ing and maintaining the supremacy and ecclesiastical order
in much the same way that they had in the past. The pur
poses of the government had been to construct a Church
which would enable Elizabeth to retain her throne, which
would reconcile Catholics and Protestants, and which might
serve as a police force over the outlying districts of the
kingdom. The Church as established served as a protection
against Catholic dangers and in a minor degree insured the
avoidance of Protestant excesses.1 As a governmental tool
it accomplished its objects with as little friction and injus
tice as could be expected. In the hands of Elizabeth and
her government it came as near satisfying all parties as any
system that could have been, devised.
The years from 1563 to the end of Elizabeth's reign
brought no essential changes in the structure of the Church.
Details were adjusted and relationships changed somewhat
as new problems arose and as the Church itself developed
an independent ecclesiastical consciousness, but essentially
the structure given the Church in the first years of Eliza
beth remained unchanged. Of the adjustments and changed
relationships, so far as they concern the growth of an inde
pendent Anglican Church, and the development of various
phases of Protestant dissent, we shall speak in succeeding
chapters. They are phases of English religious and ecclesi
astical history which may be best treated after we have
reviewed the course of those events which, to the minds
of all Protestant elements in the kingdom, most closely
concerned the religious as well as the political integrity of
England. 1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vi, no. 22; vol. xiii, no. 32; Strype, Annals, vol. I,
pt. 1, p. 279; Collier, Ecc. Hist., vol. vi, p. 332.

CHAPTER III
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHOLICS
The Catholic danger was, during the whole reign of Eliza
beth, the one most prominent in English religious politics,
yet the lenient policy in the handling of her Catholic sub
jects, inaugurated at the beginning, was maintained by
Elizabeth and her government. Repression of disorder and
restraint of individuals whose activity might be politically
dangerous were in general the only purpose of that policy.
Nevertheless, we find considerable diversity in the thorough
ness with which such restraint and repression were exer
cised, and a growing severity in the laws enacted for dealing
with Catholic recusants. At times of great national danger
or of increased Catholic activity, laws were put in execution
with greater vigor and greater legal safeguards were erected.
A history of the reign in detail is unnecessary here, but a
resume of the chief events and situations in connection with
the Catholic problem will make clear the grounds for jDqliti-
cal fear of Catholic disturbance and the incentives afforded
for new legislation ; and a description of this legislation will,
in conjunction with other sources of information, afford
a basis for an analysis of the character and purposes of
governmental repression of Catholics.
THE REBELLION OF THE NORTHERN EARLS
From 1563 until 1570 there is little of striking interest or
importance to detain us. They were years of anxiety, it is
true, years during which the kingdom was least prepared
to meet the Catholic disorders within and attack from Cath
olic powers outside the kingdom, yet the wisdom of the
governmental policy of waiting, and the confusion of Con
tinental politics enabled the State to weather the minor dis-

36 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
turbances caused by the revolt of the nobles in the north
and the tempests of the vestiarian controversy. We are
for the present concerned only with the former.
The rebellion of Northumberland and Westmoreland in
1569 was not based exclusively upon dislike of the religious
changes made by Elizabeth and a consequent advocacy of
the claims of Mary Stuart, but was in part at least founded
upon the disgruntled feeling of the old nobility displaced
by "new men." The earls,' a remnant of the feudal nobil
ity, with many of the views and ideals of family position
which belonged to an earlier time, were jealous of the power
wielded by Cecil, Bacon, Walsingham, and the new families.
In their proclamation the rebels charged that the Queen
was surrounded "by divers newe set-upp nobles, who not
onlie go aboute to overthrow and put downe the ancient
nobilitie of the realme, but also have misused the queen's
majestie' s owne personne, and also have by the space of
twelve yeares nowe past set upp and mayntayned a new
found religion and heresie contrary to God's word." x In one
sense, the revolt of 1569 was a struggle between the old and
the new aristocracy, and it is easily conceivable that some
such strife would have arisen had a political situation other
than the religious one made the monarchy as dependent
upon the employment and preference of the new men as was
Elizabeth in the situation which had been forced upon her.
The revolt was easily quelled, and punished with a cruelty
in excess of the dangers that might justly have been feared
from such a poorly planned attempt upon the throne of
Elizabeth. The revolt of the north proved that internal
Catholic discontent could not serve as the primary force
for the overthrow of existing conditions, although it might,
under certain circumstances, form a powerful auxiliary to
foreign invasion should the international political situation
unite the enemies of Elizabeth against England. The fact
1 Lingard, Hist. Eng., vol. v, p. 113. Cf. Bull of Excommunication, par. 2;
Jewel, Works, vol. iv, pp. n 30-31.

The Government and the Catholics 37
that the parties of opposition were essentially foreign, papal,
Scotch, Spanish, won for Elizabeth the support of all who
resented outside interference in English affairs, and brought
her triumphantly through the succession of crises that con
fronted the kingdom.
THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF ELIZABETH
In February, 1570, the carefully laid and remarkably suc
cessful plans of the government to secure by a broad and
inclusive policy the adherence of Catholics to the estab
lishment were rudely disturbed. The question now became
whether the government's lenient policy during the years
preceding would bear good or evil fruit. Four years before,
Pius V, hot-tempered and pious in fact as well as name,
had come to the papal throne. In 1570 he issued a Bull
of Excommunication against Elizabeth.1 What its conse
quences might be it was hard to estimate. Catholics were
compelled to choose definitely whether they should withdraw
from the Elizabethan establishment that assent which the
leniency of the government had made possible, or remain
true to their loyal feelings and incur the censures of Mother
Church. Would the leniency of governmental religious pol
icy bear fruit in continued adherence of loyal Catholics at
so great cost? Or would they yield obedience to the Pope
at the sacrifice of personal comfort and safety, loyalty and
home? The Pope demanded the sacrifice of English loyalty
to ecclesiastical and religious zeal. Many hesitated, and
Elizabeth issued a masterly proclamation in which she dis
claimed a desire to sacrifice religious feeling to patriotic
feeling: —
Her majesty would have all her loving subjects to understand,
that, as long as they shall openly continue in the observation of
her laws, and shall not wilfully and manifestly break them by
their open actions, her majesty's means is not to have any of
them molested by any inquisition or examination of their con-
1 Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 260; Cardwell, Doc. Annals, vol. 1, pp. 328-
31 ; Burnet, pt. 11, bk. in, no. 13, p. 579. """*

38 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
sciences in causes of religion ; but to accept and entreat them as her
good and obedient subjects. She meaneth not to enter into the
inquisition of any men's consciences as long as they shall observe
her laws in their open deeds.1 *
The Bull was not popular with the reasonable English
Catholics, nor with the European princes.2 From this time
forth, until the final settlement of the danger to England
from foreign aggression, all parties in England felt that
however much they differed, there was need for a common
front against the enemy. In a sense it aroused the Protes
tants of England to a united loyalty to the Crown which
had not been possible before, not even ten years before at
the reorganization of the Church. The only point of dis
agreement was as to the severity of the measures that
should be taken in retaliation upon the Catholics who sub
mitted to the commands of the Bull.
The publication of the Bull of Excommunication was the
occasion for the most striking proclamation of governmental
determination to adhere to its fundamental policy of ab
staining from active interference with Catholics whose reli
gious beliefs did not involve them in political plots; but the
revolt of the northern earls and the dangers attendant upon
the imprisonment of Mary Stuart, in conjunction with the
publication of the Bull, led the political leaders to favor the
passage of more restrictive legislation by the Parliament
of 1 57 1. That element in Parliament which wished for
a more radically Protestant reformation of the Anglican
Establishment was more bitterly anti-Catholic than the
government, and heartily lent itself to the framing of severe
laws against the Catholics. An act, "whereby certayne
offences bee made treason," s attempted to counteract the
effects of the Bull by making treasonable the declaration in
any way that the Queen was not, or ought not to be, queen
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. lxxi, nos. 16 and 34.
2 Span. Cal., p. 254, Philip to Gueraude Spes; For. Cal., p. 291, Norris to
Eliz.; ibid., p. 339; Raynaldus, p. 177 (1571).
* Statutes of the Realm, 13 Eliz., c. I.

The Government and the Catholics 39
and the declaration that Elizabeth was a heretic, schismatic,
or usurper. By disbarring from the succession any who
claimed a greater right to the throne, and making the
maintenance of such claims treason, the act struck at
Mary of Scotland and her Catholic supporters. Not con
tent with this, severe penalties were attached to the publica
tion of books which, before any act of Parliament was made
establishing the succession, maintained the right of any
particular person to the succession. Another act made trea
sonable the introduction and putting into execution of Bulls"
or other instruments from the See of Rome, and subjected
the importers of articles blessed by the Pope to the penalties
of Provisors and Premunire.1 Catholics who had fled to the
Continent were, by still another act, commanded to return
home within six months upon pain of forfeiture of their lands
during life.2 These measures made clear the resolution of
the nation to protect itself and its queen. But Cecil wrote,^
"... there shall be no colour or occasion to shed the blood
of any of her Majesty's subjects that shall only profess de
votion in their religion without bending their labours ma
liciously to disturb the common quiet of the realm, and
therewith to cause sedition and rebellion to occupy the place (
of peace against it." 3 Since the severity of the enforcement
of the laws rested almost entirely upon the Queen and her
councillors. Catholics had littie to fear as long as they kept
their skirts clear of political intrigue.
" LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS FROM 1580 TO I587
The Parliament which reassembled in 1580-81 had to
meet a situation more complicated and alarming even than
that following the publication of the Bull of Excommunica
tion. The seminary at Douay, founded in 1568 by William
Allen to train Catholic priests to fill the vacancies in the
English priesthood caused by the death or withdrawal of the
1 Statutes of the Realm, 13 Eliz., c. 2. * Ibid., c. 3.
• Dom. Cal., Eliz., p. 391.

40 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
, Marian clergy, had prospered, and in I576 began to send
;its missionaries into the kingdom. The effect of their pres
ence was made evident by increased activity on the part of
the Catholic laity and more general refusal to attend the
established services. In 1580 the first of the Jesuit mission
aries, Campion and Parsons, landed in England and passed
from one end of the country to the other.1 Latent enthusi
asm for the old faith was roused by the earnest preaching of
Campion, while Parsons sowed the seeds of political discon
tent and gathered together the loose ends of Catholic plot
and intrigue. In the Netherlands Don John of Austria had
planned a descent upon England by sea, and so pressing
was the danger that in 1577 Elizabeth made an alliance with
the Netherlands and sent men and money to the assistance of
the burghers. In 1578 Philip's forces defeated the Dutch at
Gemblours, and the next year the Pacification of Ghent was
broken by the defection of the Catholic southern provinces.
In Ireland papal soldiers, headed by the Jesuit Sander,
landed in 1580 and aroused the Irish to rebellion, and at the
same time William Gilbert was sent to England to organize
the Catholics for cooperation with the Spanish forces of
Philip. Walsingham and his spies were active and success
ful in ferreting out and punishing recusants, yet the dan
gers in the situation and the panic fear of Englishmen
demanded that some more severe weapon than any yet in
existence be created for use against the Catholics.2
The Parliament of 1581 enacted in the statute "to retaine
the Queenes Majesties Subjects in their due Obedience"
that all "persons whatsoever which . . . shall by any wayes
or means . . . withdraw any of the Queenes Maties subjects
from their . . . obedience to her Majestie or . . . withdraw
them . . . from the relygion nowe by her Highnes aucthori-
tie established ... to the Romyshe Religion . . . shalbe ad-
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol.cxxxvn.no. 28; vol. cxliv, no. 65; Strype, Annals,
vol. m, App., no. vi.
2 Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. m, nos. 31 and 119; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. CXLII,
no. 33; vol. cxxxvi, no. 41 ; vol. cxxxiii, no. 46.

The Government and the Catholics 41
judged to be Traitors." * Any person thus withdrawn was
also declared guilty of high treason. The saying of mass
was punished by a fine of two hundred marks ; and persons
not going to church, as required by law, were to forfeit to
the Queen for every month twenty pounds of lawful English
money, and after one year of absence to give bond of at least
two hundred pounds for good behavior. An act against se
ditious words and rumors uttered against the Queen pro
vided the penalties of fine for the first, and death for the
second offense.2
From 1582 until 1585 the situation increased in difficul
ties for England, but came to no crisis. Spanish resentment
at the exploits of the English freebooters on the seas and
over the secret aid and open sympathy of the English for
the Netherlands grew in bitterness. Mendoza plotted with
Mary and was dismissed from England.3 Philip's fear of
French interference disappeared upon the death of Alencon
and the outbreak of the war of religion between Henry of
Navarre and the Catholics. The assassination of William of
Orange freed Spain from its most able single opponent in
the Netherlands and raised a panic of fear for the life of their
queen in England. Parliament in 1584-85 passed an act
banishing Jesuits from the realm,4 and sanctioned the as
sociations formed for the defense of the Queen.5
Antwerp fell, and in January, 1586, Elizabeth openly
broke with Spain and sent an armed force to the aid of the
Dutch. James of Scotland was induced, by his desire for rec
ognition as the next in succession, to form an offensive and
defensive alliance with Elizabeth. The Parliament of 1586-
87 made effective the law of 1581 levying a fine of twenty
1 Statutes of the Realm, 23 Eliz., c. 1 ; Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. m, no. 57; 5. P.,
Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxvn, no. 6; vol. cxxxvi, no. 15; D'Ewes, Journals, pp.
272, 274, 285-88, 293, 302.
2 Statutes of the Realm, 23 Eliz., c. 2.
• Strype, Annals, vol. ui, App., no. xxvi.
4 Statutes of the Realm, 27 Eliz., c. 2; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ccxvi, no. 22.
8 Statutes of the Realm, 27 Eliz., c. 1 ; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. 11, nos. 6 and 7;
vol. clxxiii, no. 81; D'Ewes, Journals, 285.

42 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
pounds upon Catholic recusants, by authorizing the seizure
of the goods and two thirds of the lands of such as evaded
or refused payment,1 and vigorously addressed itself to the
removal of Mary Stuart from the situation. The complicity
of Mary in the Babington Plot gave to Walsingham and
the statesmen who had long urged her death, grounds for
insistence, and the more decisive stand of England inter
nationally made the elimination of Mary a consistent and
logical step. After nineteen years of imprisonment Mary
Stuart was beheaded on February 8, 1587.
MARY STUART
The importance of this step as indicative of the new de
termination of English policy in meeting the dangers which
had confronted the realm from the beginning of Elizabeth's
reign, will be made more evident, perhaps, by a summary
showing the position which Mary occupied in national and
international affairs during the period of her captivity. We
have already spoken of her title to the throne of England
and its bearing upon the Catholic problem during the first
years of Elizabeth's reign, but until Elizabeth was definitely
excluded from the Catholic communion Mary of Scotland
must have felt that her claims to England's throne, in so
far as they were dependent upon Catholic rejection of Eliza
beth's legitimacy, had not received adequate support from
papal power. When the Bull of Excommunication was
finally issued by Pius V (1570), however, Mary was not
free to push her claims with vigor, nor had her course of
action during the years immediately preceding her con
finement in England tended to make real the political pur
poses by which she should have regulated her personal and
political action. We shall not here review the familiar story
of Mary, Queen of Scots, her difficulties at home, the flight
to England, her imprisonment and death. English treat
ment of the Scottish queen and Elizabeth's attitude toward
1 Statutes of the Realm, 28 and 29 Eliz., c. 6.

The Government and the Catholics 43
her, points which concern us closely, have been the sub
jects of bitter historical controversy and partisanship. The
motives which governed the English in their treatment of
Mary have always provided a rich field for disagreement\to
the controversialists. With the details of that discussion we
shall not meddle. We shall present briefly the considera
tions which to us seem to have determined England's atti
tude toward Mary.
In the eyes of the English political leaders of the time the
detention of the queen for nineteen years was not wise.
Barlow, Bishop of Chichester, wrote in 1575: "We have
nothing new here, unless it be a new thing to hold a wolf
by the ears, to cherish a snake in one's bosom ; which things
have ceased to be novelties in this country: for the queen of
the north, the plague of Britain, the prince of darkness in
the form of a she wolf, is still kept in custody among us." 1
They clamored for her death: "If that only desperate
person were away, as by justice soon it might be, the
Queen's Majesty's good subjects would be in better hope,
and the papists daily expectation vanquished. . . . There
be many worldings, many counterfeits, many ambidexters,
many neutrals, strong themselves in all their doings, and
yet we which ought to be filii lucis, want our policies and
prudence." 2
That they did not have their way was undoubtedly due
to the stubbornness of the Queen, her absolute refusal to
make a decision to do as they wished. For this conduct on
her part we have been offered the explanation that she was
unwilling that the blood of her cousin should rest upon her
head. Perhaps Elizabeth did have some such scruple, but
it may be as reasonable to believe that the delay which she
caused was due to a truly statesmanlike realization of the
consequences of Mary's death. It must be remembered that
1 Zurich Letters, no. ccvii; Parker Corresp., no. ccxlix.
2 Parker Corresp., no. ccciv, Parker to Burghley, Sept. 16, 1572; Strype,
Annals, vol. n, App., no. xiv.

44 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the years until the death of Mary were years of political
balancing and caution for England, years of inaction where
inaction was possible, careful and parsimonious decision
only when decision became inevitable, not alone in regard
to the fate of Mary of Scotland, but in foreign and domestic
policy in all other lines. Elizabeth with the men about her
realized that Mary alive must be the nucleus of multitudi
nous plots. Would Mary dead give greater safety to Eng
land? Probably not. Mary's plots with English factions,
papal emissaries, Scotch Catholics, and Spanish interests
were dangerous only if they could be developed in secret,
and it appears that nothing was hidden from the crafty
spies of Walsmgham and Cecil. In Scotland the Protestant
party evidently joined with the radical English in demand
ing Mary's death. Elizabeth could have surrendered Mary
and got rid of her easily had there appeared to her no good
reason for keeping her cousin under her own control.
Most of us find it difficult to think of the Scotch as anything
other than Presbyterian, but it must not be forgotten that
to Englishmen of Elizabeth's time it was by no means cer
tain that Catholicism would not once more gain the upper
hand in Scotland. Release of Mary might be the occasion
for an outburst of Catholic zeal and fury there. As long as
Mary was in English hands, England could count on Scot
land's friendship and dependence. If Scotland became Cath
olic once more, Mary alive in English custody was worth
more to England than Mary dead in the grave. Never
theless, Mary's life was more important to England from
the standpoint of her influence upon the question of the
Spanish attitude than of the Scotch. Many Catholics did
not see, Mary herself did not realize, but Elizabeth may
have understood perfectly that the interest of Philip of
Spain in the restoration of England to Catholicism had in
it a very large element of selfishness. Philip entered into
plots with Mary, he promised great aids, he sheltered and
pensioned expatriated English Catholics, he stirred up dis-

The Government and the Catholics 45
content in the country. But he would not invade England
to set Mary Stuart, a niece of Guise, upon England's throne ^
— not even for love of Catholicism. He waited as Elizabeth
hoped he would wait. He waited until Mary died at odds
with her Protestant son. He waited until those who had
been children at the accession of Elizabeth had grown to
manhood under her rule and under the influence of the
Church she had established. When Mary was killed Philip
was ready to act. He received as a legacy from the Scotch
queen the bequest of her claims on the English throne.1
Action by Philip now, if successful, would bring him the
selfish rewards which had always been essential to secure
his action. He sent the Armada. The Spanish party, which
for years before Mary's death he had tried to build up in
England with the help of the Jesuit Parsons, proved to
have no substantial body. All England, Catholic and
Protestant alike, rallied to repel the invader.2 Elizabeth's
policy had proved successful.
That Elizabeth foresaw all this is incredible; that she may
and probably did believe that the selfishness of Philip would
keep him out of England as long as Mary Stuart was alive,
is not difficult to believe; and it is easier to believe that this,
rather than Elizabeth's fear of the blood of her cousin, was
the reason why Mary's life was preserved for so many
years in the face of English opposition.
THE LAWS OF 1 593
The defeat of the Armada did not for the Elizabethan,
as it does for us, mark the end of the Spanish danger. It
seemed a great victory, a national and providential deliver
ance from the hands of Antichrist and the hated foreigner;
1 Cal. State Papers (Simancas), vol. m, pp. 581, 590, 645; Labanoff, Lettres
de Marie Stuart, vol. vi, p. 453; Record of the English Catholics, vol. 11, pp.
285, 286, paper drawn up by Parsons and Allen.
2 Pierce, Introduction to the Marprelale Tracts, p. 146; Cal. State Papers,
Dom., Add. 1580-1625, vol. xxxi, p. 14; Strype, Annals, vol. hi, App., no.
lxv, a paper drawn up to show the Catholics how they may assist in repelling
the Spaniard.

46 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
but the name and the prestige of Spain were still great, the
forces of the Papacy insidious and persistent; the throne
of the Queen and the independence of England not yet
safe. Partly as a result of the national panic over contin
ued dangers from the Spaniard and his "devils" the Jesu
its, partly as a result of her thirty-five years' reign, dedi
cated, as the nation felt, to the spiritual as well as the
political welfare and safety of England, enthusiasm for the
Queen burst into flame and loyalty to the Crown assumed an
importance that threatened to give to the monarchy a power
and authority equal to that exercised by Henry VIII. Prot
estant extremists as well as Catholic, all whose opinions
in the least threatened the safety of the State or the
disturbance of the established system, were dangerous and
should be crushed. In 1593 Parliament passed the most
severe anti-Catholic legislation of the reign.1 But it also
enacted statutes against Protestant dissenters hardly less
rigorous.2 At no time in the reign, however, would depend
ence upon the formal letter of the law give a more mislead
ing conception of the true spirit of governmental religious
policy. The obvious inference from the legislation of 1593,
that the Queen was taking advantage of a wave of national
feeling to inaugurate a system of relentless repression of
Catholics would be far from the truth. National loyalty
won victories and wrote statutes which gave the Queen
the mastery and might have supported a relentless perse
cution had the government desired it; but the government
did not. Elizabeth used her supremacy in more tolerant
fashion. After the harsh laws of 1593 a system of horrible perse
cution would have been set up in England had the will to
punish been as angry as the tone of the law. Fortunately
those who led, both in Church and State, directed their
efforts not to crushing either Jesuits or Catholics, but to
1 Statutes ofthe Realm, 35 Eliz., c. 2.
2 Ibid., c. 1, "An Acte to retayne the Quenes subjectes in obedience."

The Government and the Catholics 47
providing insurance against treasonable outbursts of their
enthusiasm. We find Bancroft, Bishop of London, with the
consent of Elizabeth and the written absolution of the
Council, going so far as to furnish the secular priests of
Rome with printers and protecting them in the distribution
of their books in order that the influence of the dangerous
Jesuits might be counteracted. He and the Court hoped
to win all loyal Catholics to peace by this practical evi
dence of immunity for those who confined their Catholi
cism to belief in the doctrines of the Mother Church and
kept their skirts clear of political intrigue. Catholics were
even led to hope for toleration of their religion. A Catholic
wrote to Cecil: —
England, I know, standeth in most dangerous terms to be a
spoil to all the world, and to be brought into perpetual bondage,
and that, I fear, your lordships and the rest of the Council will see
when it is too late. Would to God, therefore, Her Majesty would
grant toleration of religion, whereby men's minds would be ap
peased and join all in one for the defence of our country. We
see what safety it hath been to France, how peaceable the king
dom of Polonia is where no man's conscience is forced, how the
Germans live, being contrary in religion, without giving offence
one to another. Why might not we do the like in England, seeing
everyman must answer for his own soul at the Latter Day, and
that religion is the gift of God and cannot be beaten into a man's
head with a hammer? Well may men's bodies be forced but not
their minds, and where force is used, love is lost, and the prince
and state endangered.1
In 1 601 Bancroft went so far in that direction as to pre
sent a petition for Catholic toleration to Elizabeth and his
reproof was no more severe than the observation from the
Queen, "These men perceiving my lenity and clemency
toward them, are not content, but demand everything, and
wish to have it at once."
To quiet the alarm of Presbyterians and radical church
men who were frightened at the seeming kindness to the
Catholics, Elizabeth was forced to issue a proclamation
> Historical MSS. Commission, Hatfield MSS., pt. vn, pp. 363-64-

48 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
disclaiming any intention to permit a toleration in Eng-
land : —
They [the secular priests] do almost insinuate into the minds
of all sorts of people (as well the good that grieve at it, as the
bad that thirst after it) that we have some purpose to grant a tol
eration of two religions within our realm, where God (we thank
Him for it who seeth into the secret corners of all hearts) doth
not only know our innocency from such imagination, but how
far it hath been from any about us to offer to our ears the per
suasion of such a course, as would not only disturb the peace
of the church, but bring this our State into confusion.1
But the leaders dominated the situation and had no in
tention of abandoning the consistent policy of reconciliation
and moderation which the Queen had found so effective
during the period preceding the Armada. Bancroft did not
succeed, as he had hoped, in transferring from Jesuits to
seculars the influence over the Catholic laity, but he so
intensified the bitter dissension in the ranks of English
Catholicism that the danger of Catholic plot was for the
time reduced to a negligible factor, and the persecuting
spirit of the acts of 1593 grew cold during the last ten
years of Elizabeth's reign.2
ADMINISTRATION OF LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS
The penalties imposed by the statutes ran through
the whole range of punishments designed to discourage
crime against the State. Fine, imprisonment, segregation,
exile, or death, might legally result from failure to conform
to the established ecclesiastical requirements, but Eliza
beth and her government in the imposition of these penal
ties assumed pretty definite policies which modified con
siderably the purposes of the statutes imposing them.
The authorities were exceedingly reluctant to apply the
extreme penalty to all those who might clearly and easily
have been brought under the terms of the statutes. The ex-
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cclxxxv, no. 55.
2 Usher, Reconstruction, vol. 1, pp. 132-37, 156-59.

The Government and the Catholics 49
cesses of Mary's reign were fresh in the minds of the people
as a horrible example of papal cruelty which it was the pride
of the English to avoid. Elizabeth's hope of securing the
peaceable acquiescence of the nation to the new ecclesias
tical establishment was dependent upon abstinence, so far
as possible, from any action which would incite the fears
of Catholics or range the nation definitely upon the side of
the radical Protestants. Ecclesiastical censures, fines, short
terms of imprisonment, even if applied pretty generally,
would necessarily afford less ground for the development
of Catholic desperation than would even one death for
adherence to the old faith. Patience, care that pressure was
not applied to those persons who might, if pressed, persist
in opinions and actions which would subject them to the
extreme penalties of the law, a certain clear-sighted blind
ness to the violation of the law, enabled Elizabeth to rule for
ten years unsmirched by the blood of any Catholic subject.
When armed rebellion, papal absolution from obedience to
her rule, and treasonable plots against her throne and life
made it clear that some Catholics, at least, would not rest
content with the passive resistance which Elizabeth had
been well content to overlook, the policy of the government
in dealing with such persons was carefully formulated and
given the widest publicity.
The public utterances of governmental officials, the state
papers and writings of Burleigh, the~proclamations of Eliza
beth in reply to the Bull of Excommunication, made the
strongest possible declaration of the government's purpose
to abstain from interference with the religious opinions
and conscientious scruples of Englishmen, so long as those
opinions and scruples did not involve the commission of
open acts in direct violation of the law and dangerous to
the safety of the State. To be sure, such a statement might
mean little, since, under a less liberal interpretation, almost
any manifestation of Catholic faith could, without incon
sistency with the avowed policy, be treated as inimical to

50 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the welfare of the commonwealth. But with few exceptions
Elizabeth and her government were careful to seek and to
find evidence of clearly menacing purpose before proceeding
to the imposition of the death penalty.1 Legally much was
treasonable that was not punished as such, and the knowl
edge of Catholic activity in the hands of the government at
all times was used only when it seemed that a warning was
needed, or that the activity of some individual was actu
ally dangerous to the State.
Perhaps no closer comparison of the English govern
mental attitude toward Catholics can be made than with
the attitude of established government toward anarchistic
opinion in our own time. The attitude is distinctly one of
suspicion and supervision, but also one of tolerance and
abstinence from active interference, except when the ex
pression of opinion becomes clearly destructive of exist
ing institutions or manifests itself in acts of violence.
The comparison is also susceptible of extension to the
opportunity afforded in both cases for the manifesta
tion by minor officials, because of individual feeling or
desire for personal advantage, of an attitude less tolerant
than the one assumed by the government. The zeal of the
police in our own country sometimes oversteps the law, and
in Elizabeth's day it sometimes became necessary for the
government to restrain excessive zeal in the repression of
Catholics on the part of government officials. The central
ized authority of the Privy Council enabled the govern
ment to dismiss quietly harmless Catholics whom the zeal
of local officials had involved in difficulties. t
"The total number of Catholics who suffered under her
[Elizabeth] was 189; 128 of them being priests, 58 laymen
and 3 women." To them should be added — as Law remarks
in his "Calendar of English Martyrs" — thirty-two Fran-
» Strype, Annals, vol. m, App., no. xlvii, "That such papists as of late times
have been executed were by a statute of Edward III lawfully executed as
traitors. A treatise.''

The Government and the Catholics 51
ciscans "who were starved to death." x This is one of the
most recent Catholic statements. If the figures given are ac
cepted without question, one who is uninterested in proving
the diabolic activity of the Elizabethan government will be
impressed by the comparative smallness of the number who
suffered death during the forty-five years of Elizabeth's rule.
In this number are included Catholics who suffered because
of clearly treasonable activity as well as those who suffered
because of too great caution on the part of the government.
The number, therefore, who suffered death without having
been involved in what, to-day even, would be regarded as
treason, must have been relatively small ; so small as to af
ford little ground for the argument that the action of the
government against Catholics was inspired by a theory of its
duty to crush out that type of personal religious faith. It is
undoubtedly true that some Catholics were condemned to
death and executed who were personally guiltless of more
than adherence to their religious faith, but they were the
innocent victims of the treasonable activity of their fellow
Catholics, rather than of governmental religious intolerance.
The case of Campion is in point. Campion was himself sin
gularly free from political guile and suffered death, not for
his own intrigues, but for those of his brother Jesuit Parsons.
Many Catholic writers have either included in their lists
of martyrs every Catholic who died, no matter what the
cause, or have, with more seeming fairness, made the most
of every case where the evidence of treasonable complicity
is not clear. Anglicans have endeavored often to establish
presumption of criminal complicity in practically all the
cases, or have satisfied themselves by glossing over the
facts by vague, general statements about differences of times
and the cruelty of the age. To an impartial observer it seems
useless to try to distinguish in every case between the
justly and the unjustly condemned upon the basis of such
» W. S. Lilly, "England since the Reformation," Catholic Encyclopedia,
vol. V, p. 449.

52 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
remnants of evidence as remain to us. The important thing
is not the establishment of the justice or injustice of indi
vidual cases, but the determination of whether the policy
proclaimed by the government was the one which was in
fact adhered to in its treatment of Catholics. The evidence
is overwhelmingly in favor of the conclusion that it was.
The cases in which the death penalty was imposed without
definite political reason are so few that, though they may
excite compassion and regret, they are not of sufficient
weight to counterbalance the evidence which establishes the
unwillingness of the government to proceed to the death
penalty in its dealings with Roman Catholics. Elizabeth
created and maintained an illegal toleration of Catholics
of such extent that in the later years of her reign the Catho
lics were encouraged to hope that freedom of worship would
be granted them, and Elizabeth was compelled, by the fears
and bigotry of her radical Protestant subjects, to issue a
proclamation denying that she had any such purpose. Per- -
haps nothing more clearly indicates the success of the gov
ernment's Catholic policy. The most important hindrance
to-it during the last ten years of the reign came, not from
the excesses of the Catholics, but from the opposition of
the radical Protestant groups that had, during the first
thirty years of Elizabeth's rule, developed into parties of
consistent antagonism to the middle course in ecclesiastical
matters. Of these bodies and their attitude we shall speak
in a succeeding chapter.
Theoretically, the purpose of the death penalty is the
final removal of those subjected to it from the community
to whose peace and existence their presence is a menace.
From the standpoint of the State, the more merciful penalty
of exile is less effective than death, only because of the pos
sibility of a secret return to the community. Because of
the unwillingness of the English authorities to stir up the
emotional horror of the nation by condemning Catholics to
death, the policy* of exiling them would have been an ob-

The Government and the Catholics 53
vious one for the government to adopt had it desired to
rid the commonwealth of Catholics. But the circumstances
were such that the detention of Catholics in England was
less dangerous than forcing them into, or permitting them
to seek, exile.
In 1574 Cox wrote, "Certain of our nobility, pupils of the
Roman pontiff, either weary of their happiness or impatient
of the long continued progress of the gospel, have taken
flight, some into France, some into Spain, others into differ
ent places, with the view of plotting some mischief against
the professors of godliness."1 The aid which exiles might
give to foreign enemies was more to be feared than their
activity at home under the eye of the government.
We have noted the laws which attempted, by means of
confiscation of property, to secure the return to England
of such persons as fled overseas. Probably such laws were
not very effective in inducing those to return who had
already fled to the safety of the Continent, but they were
perhaps of use in causing Catholics who were still in Eng
land to remain in the enjoyment of their property even at
the expense of occasional fines, a regular tax, or short terms
of imprisonment; and this unwillingness to subject them
selves to the hardships of property loss and exile was en
couraged by practical assurance of the inability and un
willingness of the government to impose upon Catholics
who remained peacefully in England, penalties involving
hardships equal to those of exile.
There are but two exceptions to the consistent purpose
of the State to keep the Catholics at home. The statute
against Jesuits and seminary priests, passed in 1585,2 pro
vided for the expulsion of such persons from the kingdom
within forty days after the close of Parliament, and the act
passed in 1593 against Popish Recusants 3 provided that
1 Zurich Letters, no. cxcix; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clxxvi, no. 9; Strype,
Annals, vol. n, pt. 1, p. 495; pt. n, App., no. xl.
8 27 Eliz., c. 11. * 35 Eliz., c. 11, sec. v.

54 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
those who because of poverty lived better in prison than
they could if "abrode at their own libertie," should be com
pelled to adjure the realm. The provision of the act against
the Jesuits and seminary priests which required them to
leave the realm applied/ however, only to a small and, in
a sense, non-resident class, whose activity in England was
more dangerous than upon the Continent, and is no very
large exception to the general rule. Further the provision
which allowed Jesuits and priests to remain for forty days
after the close of Parliament was a merciful and politic
measure, for the laws already upon the statute books were
sufficient to condemn to death any Jesuit or priest caught
in England, and it was probable that the dread of Jesuit
machinations felt by the nation would have left no other al
ternative. The opportunity to leave, thus offered Jesuits and
priests, gave no such cause for Catholic alarm as would the
enforcement of previous law against those already virtually
in the power of the government. The other exception was
merely the logical consequence of the chief purpose of the
government in dealing with the Catholics, the purpose to
make them pay the expenses of supervision and, if possible,
a profit for the treasury. The class affected by the order to
leave the kingdom did not have and could not pay any
money toward its own support. The order to leave the
realm was in fact about equivalent to the expulsion of a
pauper class.1 Without money they could work little harm
on the Continent.
The imprisonment of Catholics who refused to submit to
the formal requirements of the law in regard to church at
tendance and outward conformity was not persecution in
spired by religious principle. The conformity which the gov
ernment demanded was little more than a pledge of political
loyalty to the Crown, and at first did not, to most Catholics,
1 See R. B. Merriman, "Notes on the Treatment of the English Catholics
in the Reign of Elizabeth," American Historical Review, April, 1908, vol. xui,
no. 3, for a project to send poor Catholics to America.

The Government and the Catholics 55
imply any renunciation of their religious faith. Imprisonment
was resorted to because it was felt that persons who would
not grant the easy pledge of loyalty demanded were danger
ously hostile and should be shut up until they were no
longer dangerous; that is, until they would submit them
selves and conform. The difficulty encountered, however,
in this method of dealing with Catholics was that there were
too many of them, — there were not enough prisons to hold
them all. Several methods of confinement were tried. Cath
olics were committed to prison at their own expense, they
were released on bond, they were confined to their houses or
neighborhoods, or placed in the easy custody of responsible
individuals.1 Segregation in such places as Ely and Wis-
beach was tried. But there was an embarrassingly large
number of Catholics, and to imprison them all, even by
these expedients, involved a great dealjaf expense that the
government did not like to incur. : —
Fines and confiscations of property were the penalties
that appealed most to the parsimony of Elizabeth, and best
fitted in with the purposes of the government to avoid plac
ing excessive burdens upon loyal Catholics.2 The fine of one
shilling for absence from church brought in little money,
however, and contributed practically nothing toward the
expense of supervision. In the early eighties, when Catho
lic activity became alarming, Walsingham found that his
vigorous efforts to cope with the danger were costing more
than the sum furnished by confiscations, the fine of one
hundred marks imposed upon those who depraved the serv
ices, and the fine of one shilling for absence from church.
The act passed by Parliament in 1 581, "to reteine the
Queenes Majesties Subjectes in their due Obedience," en
deavored to make up the deficit by providing that absentees
from church be fined twenty pounds a month. In Decem
ber, 1580, Mendoza had written to Philip, "The Queen has
ordered an inquiry into the incomes of the imprisoned
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxvu, no. 6. ' Ibid., no. 7.

56 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Catholics, which cannot fail to be considerable as their
number is large. It is understood that the object is to pass
an Act in Parliament confiscating their property if they do
not go to church. Their punishment hitherto has only been
imprisonment." x The statute was not so severe as they had
feared, however, and perhaps nothing so well serves to em
phasize the previous want of hardship imposed upon Cath
olics as their efforts to prevent the passage of this law. They
offered Elizabeth a hundred and fifty thousand crowns in
a lump sum as evidence of their loyalty and willingness to
contribute to her expenses, and their unwillingness to pay
such a tax.2 But, curiously enough, the act had neglected
to provide a means of levying upon the lands and property
of those subject to the penalties, and the first alarm of the
Catholics subsided as soon as it became evident that the
law would become inoperative if passive resistance and eva
sion were resorted to. A curious paper drawn up by a
Catholic to furnish directions on how to meet the law is
headed : —
A brief e advertisement howe to answere unto the statute for not
cominge to church both in law and conscience conteyning three
principall pointes. The first what is to be said in law to that
common demand, Doe you or will you goe to the Church, The
second whether the matter of the statute for not cominge to
Church can be found by inquisition of a Jury. Thirdly, if any
person .beinge denied the advantage of all exceptions by lawe
how to answere with most safety according to the duty of a
catholique.3 To many, imprisonment or the easy custody in which
they found themselves, was far preferable to the payment
of such a sum for their freedom.4 Further, the essential
defect of the act was hardly more responsible for the failure
to impose the large fine than was Elizabeth's attitude.6
1 Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. in, no. 57, p. 70. 2 Ibid., no. 79.
s S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxxvi, no. 15.
* Span. Cal., Eliz., vol. in, no. 109; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxxxvi, no.
17; vol. cxiv, no. 22.
6 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clv, no. 42.

The Government and the Catholics 57
The passage of the act had raised such alarm among Catho
lics and the crisis of 1581 had passed so easily that, dearly
as she loved money, Elizabeth felt it was dangerous to her
policy of compromise to permit its rigid enforcement. There
is no evidence that the government secured the regular in
come from the fines which might have been expected and
which actually did accrue, when, in 1587, the threatening
danger of Spanish invasion made the Court willing that the
defects of the act be corrected, and removed Elizabeth's
personal opposition to its enforcement.
Walsingham was dissatisfied with the act and with the
attitude of Elizabeth, for he well knew that had the Court
wished the law enforced, the minor defects of statement in
the law would have presented no insurmountable obstacle.1
When the contributions of recusants 2 in 1585-86, toward
the force raised for the assistance of the Netherlands,
showed that the failure of the act of 1581 was not entirely
due to the poverty of the Catholics, but to their unwilling
ness to submit themselves to such an excessive tax as the
law demanded, Walsingham seized upon this idea and se
cured a letter from the Privy Council to the sheriffs and
justices of peace, which had for its purpose such ease and
alleviation of the penalties imposed by the laws as would
enable the government to secure a reasonable tax from all
recusants.3 The proposal was that the local officials should
require the recusants "to make offer and sett downe every
man accordinge to his particular value what yearly sume
he cane be contented of his owne disposition to allowe . . .
to be discharged of the perill and penalties of the lawe
whereunto they may stand subjecte and liable by reason of
their recusancye." The income promised as a result of this
modification of the act was more than had been obtained
during the four years since its passage, but Walsingham was
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clvh, no. 51; vol. CLI, nos. 72 and 73.
2 Ibid., vol. clxxxih, nos. 15, 23, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 45, 46, 51, 53, 57, 61,
62, 71, 72; vol. clxxxiv, nos. 41, 45, 461 61.
3 Ibid., vol. clxxxvi, nos. 81-83; vol. clxxxvii, no. 45.

58 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
not yet satisfied with the returns.1 The recusants had just
made what they felt was a generous contribution to the ex
penses of the Dutch expedition, and did not wish to part
with any more money. The law of 1 58 1 had been a dead
letter so long that its perils and penalties did not inspire
them with much fear. It would have been well for them had
their response been more enthusiastic and liberal, for the
fears inspired by the foreign political situation in 1586-87
led Parliament in 1587 to provide for the enforcement of
the penalty by authorizing the seizure of two thirds of the
lands and all the goods of recusants who evaded or refused
to pay the fine.2
The administration of this phase of the law was now
taken out of the hands of the local officials, often incompe
tent or parties to its evasion, and placed in the hands of
court appointees, and the results were gratifying both to the
government and to those who shared with the government
the revenues forced from the Catholics.3 During the last
years of the reign, this method of taxation had become
so regular and dependable that the recusants' fines were
farmed out.
Curiously enough, in the face of statutes which made the
Catholic faith a crime, we find Catholics occupying offices
of trust in the kingdom, rich and powerful, giving whole
heartedly of their loyal service against the Spanish invader.
Their presence, in the face of the laws on the statute books,
would have been impossible had laws been consistently
enforced.4 Needless to say they were not. Within limits the
laws were consistently annulled. Loyal Catholics from
whom money could be extracted were left in comparative
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clxxxvii, nos. 45, 48, 49, 64; vol. clxxxix, nos. 2,
17, 47, 48; vol. cxc, no. 11; vol. cxciv, no. 73; Strype, Annals, vol. m, pt.
II, App., no. xiii.
2 29 Eliz., c. 6; D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 387-88, 415-17.
• 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ccxxix, no. 68; vol. ccxli, no. 66; vol. CLvn, no. 77;
vol. ccli, no. 53; W. H. Frere, English Church under Elizabeth and James I, pp.
214, 264-67, 337; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. cxxxii; no. xxxi.
* Parker Corresp., no. cccv, Parker to Burghley, Oct. 6, 1572.

The Government and the Catholics 59
peace. The laws stood on the books, witnesses to the world
of the loyalty and patriotism of the English people ; warn
ings against disloyalty; harsh correctors of treason when
need required. They were little more. They were intended
by the government to belittle more. However truly they
may stand to-day, and stood then, as the expression of an
intolerant religious spirit in the people of England, that was
not the purpose of the government in allowing their enact
ment, nor is it evident in the government's use of the laws
enacted. Had the rulers wished to use the laws in the spirit
of repression, persecution would have been more severe than
we find it, and the existence within the kingdom of any con
siderable body of Catholic believers impossible. The gov
ernment was not, however, seeking the extermination of
Catholics; it was seeking the safest policy for itself; it might
use the intolerance of religious fanatics to make its laws,
but it would use its own judgment in enforcing them. .^
It is hard for us to conceive of the innumerable influences
the Court could bring to bear, without cominglnto open con
flict with the statutes of Parliament, to annul the effects of
the legislation therein embodied, if such statutes interfered
with, or were contrary to, the policy upon which the govern
ment had determined. The Queen's prerogative was great.
The Council was practically unlimited by existing law or
public opinion in what it could do. The law itself placed in
the Queen's hands the means to make of little effect any
procedure of which she disapproved. The Church was abso
lutely under her thumb, and could not move to do its share
in enforcing these acts without her consent or even direct
order. The local officials were under the influence of the
gentry,1 and upon the local officials depended the enforce
ment of the acts to an extent little realized to-day; and their
responsibility to the superior power, while undisputed, was
not backed by an efficient series of connecting links or an
1 Parker Corresp., no. cc, Parker to Cecil, Feb. 12, 1565-66; S. P., Dom.,
Eliz., vol. xix, no. 24; vol. lxxiv, no. 22.

60 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
effective supervision. Further, the influence of the gentry
in protecting their retainers in office was greatly increased
during a time when the government feared to antagonize
any of their class because of the immense influence they had
upon their immediate neighbors, and the mass of unintelli
gent and otherwise negligible persons whp took their opin
ions and orders from the gentry.
Your Lordship knoweth that the people are comonly carried
away by gentlemen Recusants, landlords, and some other ring
leaders of that sorte : so as the winninge or the punishinge of one
or two of them is a reclayminge or a kind of bridlinge of many that
doe depend upon them.1
I would plainly prove this, that neither ye Papists number equall
their report, nor ye Puritans would euer fill up a long register, if
ye ministers and Recusants were not backed, flattered and en
couraged by Gentlemen in countries that make a good reason for
it, if private evil may justifie such formes, as keep oyle still in
yt Lampe.2
1 All these influences combined to make the acts of Parlia
ment less severe in practice than they were in letter. Nor
must it be lost sight of that the Parliaments from 1570 to
1585 were Parliaments containing a large anti-Catholic ele
ment which the Queen and the Church of England men
were anxious to keep under control because they were rep
resentative of a class which desired definitely to abandon
the government policy of leniency in religious matters.
Their statutes served as a means to keep down dangerous
conspiracies and as a testimonial to the Catholic powers
that the Queen was backed by the nation in her position of
independence. That they should be rigidly enforced, Eliza
beth did not desire.
This view is not entirely supported by the utterances of
those who surrounded Elizabeth and were supposed to be
in her confidence. But there were in her Court and Council
at least two factions, the one headed by Leicester and Sir
Francis Knollys, who represented the rabid Puritan oppo-
1 S. P., Dom., Jac. I, vol. xm, no. 25. * Ibid., vol. xii, no. 28.

The Government and the Catholics 6i
sition to all things Romish, in part from conviction, per
haps, but chiefly from desire to humiliate the second and
leading faction headed by Cecil and Bacon. The utterances
of the former may be dismissed for the present by classing
them with that radical element in Parliament whose pro
gramme of legislation served the useful purpose of warning
against conspiracy and foreign interference. The latter fac
tion felt that the Queen proceeded too moderately and
agreed, in part at least, with the anti-Catholic Parliamen
tary programme of the radical reformers. Their motives
were, however, entirely political and loyal, and not, as it
seems, personal or religious, and they agreed, that, if pos
sible, the policy of reconciliation was best. Cecil seems to
have continually entertained plans for preserving and mak
ing more effective Elizabeth's determination to make state
policy and not religious opinion the test of Catholic repres
sion. As late as 1583 we find him proposing that the oath of
supremacy be so modified that Catholics could swear their
allegiance without violating their religious convictions.
Therefore considering that the urging of the oath of suprem
acy must needs, in some degree, beget despair, since in the taking
of it, he must either think he doth an unlawful act, (as without
the special grace of God he cannot think otherwise,) or else, by
refusing it, must become a traitor, which before some hurt done
seemeth hard: I humbly submit this to your excellent considera
tion, Whether, with as much security of your majesty's person
and state, and more satisfaction for them, it were not better to
leave the oath to this sense, That whosoever, would not bear
arms against all foreign princes, and namely the-pope, that
should any way invade your majesty's dominions, he should be a
traitor? For hereof this commodity will ensue, that those papists
(as I think most papists wuuld7~that"gbotrrd-take-this oath) would
be divided from the great mutual confidence which is now between
the pope and them by reason of their afflictions for him ; and such
priests as would refuse that oath, then no tongue could say, for
shame, that they suffer for religion, if they did suffer.
But here it may be objected they would dissemble and equivo
cate with this oath, and that the pope would dispense with them
in that case. Even so may they with the present oath, both

62 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
dissemble and equivocate, and also have the pope's dispensation
for the present oath, as well as the other.1
The number of Catholics in the country was great and it
is somewhat astonishing and difficult of explanation, if one
believes that the government had deliberately set out to
suppress all Catholics, to find Cecil saying, " I wish no les
sening of their number but by preaching and by education
of the younger under schoolmasters." His proposal that
tenants be protected from popish landlords to the extent
"that they be not put out of their living" for embracing the
established religion, neither argues any general suppression
of Catholics nor any desire on the part of Cecil that they
be absolutely suppressed.1
It is clear that the anti-Catholic legislation, passed in
part because of dangers from Catholic enemies, in part be
cause of the influence of growing anti-Catholic sects, was
modified in the letter of its enforcement, primarily by the
conciliatory and positively tolerant purposes of government
politics, and secondarily by the unavoidable inadequacy of
the machinery of enforcement.
We have in this chapter traced briefly the course of Eliza
bethan religious and ecclesiastical politics, with especial
reference to the relations that existed between the Catholics
and the English government. We have shown that political
motives dominated the government in its organization of
the Church and in its repression of Roman Catholicism.
We have endeavored to make clear the fact that in spite of
penal legislation, in spite of pressure from within and with
out the kingdom, considerations of national safety made the
policy of the government throughout the reign one of con
ciliation toward Catholics. This conciliatory attitude marks
1 "A Tract of Lord Burleigh to the Queen," Somers Tracts, by Sir Walter
Scott, vol. i, p. 165 (13 vols. London, 1809). Quoted in Hallam, Const. Hist.,
vol. 1, p. 157.
2 Burleigh, "Execution of Justice," and Walsingham's letter printed in.
Burnet, pt. 11, bk. in, p. 661. Also Queen's proclamation after the issue of the
Bull of Excommunication. Spedding, Life and Letters of Bacon, vol. I, p. 97!
cf. for the Catholic view, J. H. Pollen in The Month, Nov., 1904.

,The Government and the Catholics 63
a perceptible advance in the direction of toleration by its
educational influence^ upon the people of England toward
the acceptance of the principle that state safety, preserva
tion of national political integrity, and not championship of
a particular form of salvation, was the reason for restraint
on men's religious practices, and that such restraint should
be exercised only when open and overt acts, or the expressed
determination to commit actual acts of hostility, arising
from such opinions, endanger the safety of the common
wealth. Unfortunately the acceptance of these principles
was not complete. The government had erected and main
tained a National Church that had yet to learn to apply
these ideas to all, and Puritanism had during the period
developed into complex groups of fanatical intolerance. It
is to the examination of the Anglican Church and the sects
of Protestantism that we must now turn.

CHAPTER IV
CHURCH AND STATE
It would be an interesting study in religious life and ideals
and in religious psychology to attempt to draw a diagram of
the complex motives which actuated the men who once more
set in motion the machinery of the Church of Henry VIII.
It would be an interesting and perhaps profitable study to
examine the mechanism they set in motion at the beginning
of Elizabeth's reign, when the Church was in its formative
period, and when the structural features of its organization
were in greatest evidence, and their character of greatest
importance in determining the nature of the English Estab
lishment. But motives and mechanics are closely connected.
The Anglican Church, like every other great institution
drawing its support from the love and emotion of a people,
never existed in mechanical form alone. The Church was
always a living body, not a structure artificially constructed
from the blue-prints of mere governmental politics. Men
built into the Church their motives, loves, hatreds, their
delusions and ambitions.
Yet the Church of that time was not the Anglican Church
we know, with its great body of traditions, its long history
and distinctive personality. Anglicanism had not yet won
for itself an allegiance which in devotion and in loyalty —
and occasionally in bigotry — has rivaled the feeling of
Catholics for Mother Church. The Church had not come
to look upon itself as an institution whose form and doctrine
had been determined by the ordinance of Deity. It had not
yet returned in search of apostolic authorization to the
dim infancy of a primitive church history of questionable
authenticity. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign the
Church did not demand from Englishmen their adherence

Church and State 65
upon these grounds; its appeal was to expediency and to
loyalty, rather than to divine right.
The new church system was an experiment, a part of that
general experimentation to find a modus vivendi and to meet
the untried difficulties by which Protestantism was every
where confronted. It was an experiment connected with,
and founded upon, the experience and organization of the
past, but an experiment nevertheless. Many who sup
ported it recognized its experimental character and hoped
that it would be but temporary, the vestibule to that better
and more truly Christian building whose plan they had
learned from John Calvin in the days of their exile. Many
failed to see that it was an experiment and felt surprise
when later experience proved this governmental tool unable
to cope with changed conditions. None believed possible,
few desired, a complete break with past ecclesiastical his
tory; but neither did any recognize the inadequacy of that
organization and that past experience for the new condi
tions. Between the elements which made up the new
Church conflict arose. Yet, as we search for the qualities
which have held for centuries the allegiance of Englishmen,
we find two still maintaining their sway, which lay at the
basis of the Church even in its foundation, the elements of
patriotism and of moderation.
THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE ESTABLISHMENT
How great has been the influence of these two factors
during the history of the Church, how important the r61e
they have played during its later development, we shall not
inquire; it is impossible, however, to comprehend the
Church of Elizabeth's day without understanding how there
was breathed into it a spirit which has made Englishmen
feel that the Anglican Church is peculiarly English, noble
and worthy the devotion and love of Englishmen, and that
it is neither rabid with the unreasonable and unreasoning
love of change, nor, on the other hand, cold and inflexible

66 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
and dead. We must understand the Englishman's loyalty
to the Church as a national institution and the English
man's pride in the safe, sane character of the Church's
government and doctrine, if we would understand the
structure which was given to the Church when England's
greatest sovereign sat upon the throne.
Fundamental in the creation and maintenance of that
moderation and inclusiveness, which have come to be the
particular pride of the Anglican Establishment, were the
close connection between Church and State at the beginning
of Elizabeth's reign, and the dominance of political interests
in that union throughout the forty-odd years of her rule.
The identification of the ecclesiastical and the religious es
tablishment of the kingdom with the political integrity of
England gave to the support of the Church a patriotic im
portance which has persisted through times when national
welfare demanded rejection of the claims of the Church. To
the dominance of State over Church in Elizabeth's time, the
Anglican Establishment owes those elements of character
and form which have made it an institution so distinc
tively national, and through which it still retains the alle
giance of the vast mass of Englishmen.
THE ROYAL HEADSHIP
In England the subordination of the Church to the will of
the sovereign was no new thing. From the time when Wil
liam the Norman had refused to render homage to Gregory
VII, and resisted all attempts to sink his power and the Eng
lish Church, into absolute subservience to the dominance of
the Roman See, kings of England had struggled to keep a
grip on the National Church, and Parliament had enacted
laws to maintain the independence which they believed an
essential characteristic of the Church in England. Conti
nental theory and practice supported the assumption that
the religion of the people should follow the religion of the
prince. The ecclesiastical changes undertaken by Henry

Church and State 67
had rested fundamentally upon this principle and, at a time
when the popular absolutism of the first Tudors had so
closely identified loyalty to the sovereign with loyalty to the
nation, the people of the kingdom accepted the theory al
most without question, and a book, written by Hayward,
which asserted that allegiance was due to the State and not
to the person of the sovereign raised a great stir because of
the novelty of the idea.1 The reigns of Edward and Mary
and the ecclesiastical changes which accompanied them
confirm the fact of submission to the idea, in spite of the
persistence during Mary's reign of a Protestant opposition
developed under Edward. As long as national life and loy
alty to the Crown were so closely identified, the connection
between Church and State would persist if the personal
safety or the dynastic claims of the sovereign made neces
sary the championship of any particular religious or ecclesi
astical establishment against the claims of foreign power.
The hostility of Roman Catholics and Roman Catholic
powers to Elizabeth made it necessary for the Queen to call
upon the nation for support of her ecclesiastical policy in
order that her right to rule, established by the Parliament
of Henry, might be maintained. >.
An ecclesiastical establishment, on any basis other than
that of the supremacy of the Queen over the Church as well
as State, was, to the Tudor Elizabeth, inconceivable. Eng
lish history and Continental practice made it familiar. The
political situation made it necessary. Elizabeth's desire for
the power which she believed essential to her dignity made
impossible any other arrangement. On such practical
considerations was based the royal headship, still one
of the distinctive characteristics of the English Establish
ment. Although Elizabeth's first Parliament had, in the Act of
Supremacy, dropped the title used by Henry, "Supreme
Head of the Church in England," so offensive to Catholics
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cclxxv, no. 28, no. 31.

68 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
and not entirely acceptable to some Protestants,1 the essen
tial fact remained. It is somewhat difficult to define just
what this headship involved, just what were its limits. The
act does not clearly define it. The men of Elizabeth's time
set few bounds. Elizabeth herself disclaimed the right to
exercise spiritual functions,2 yet it is difficult to see how
powers she undoubtedly did exercise are to be distinguished
from supreme pastoral office. The act, 8 Elizabeth, c. I,
declares that the Queen, "by her supreme power and au
thority, hath dispensed with all causes and doubts of any
imperfection or disability that can or may in any way be
objected" against the validity of the consecrations of the
archbishops and bishops already made. She sometimes as
serted powers equal to those of the Pope, and the leaders of
the kingdom, both in Church and State, were equally gen
erous. Cecil said that the Queen might do as much as the
Pope and that she certainly could exercise powers equal to
those of Archbishop Parker.3 Jewel asserted that the Eng
lish give to the sovereign "that prerogatve and chiefty that
evermore hath been due unto him by the ordinance and
word of God ; that is to say, to be the nurse of God's reli
gion; to make laws for the church ; to hear and take up cases
and questions of the faith if he be able; or otherwise to com
mit them over by his authority unto the learned; to com
mand the bishops and priests to do their duties and to pun
ish such as be offenders." 4 Bancroft granted that her
authority was equal to that of the Pope. Parker was more
cautious. He wrote: "It is one thing to discuss what is
done, in order or out of order, and commonly hand over
1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, Letters, no. xii; Def. of Apol., pp. 974-76; Zurich
Letters, nos. xvii, xviii; Burnet, vol. in, bk. vi, no. 52; Parker Corresp., no.
xlix; Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Amos, chap. vn. v. 13, "Erant enim
blasphemi qui vocarent eum [Henricum VIII] Summum Caput Ecclesiae sub
Christo." 2 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xv, no. 27; vol. xxvii, no. 40; Thirty-nine Articles,
on the Civil Magistrate.
' Parker Corresp., no. cclxx.
4 Jewel, Works, vol. hi, p. 167. Cf. also, ibid., vol. I, pp. 396-97, 410-n;
vol. 111, p. 98; vol. iv, pp. 976, 959, 903, 1036.

Church and State 69
head, and what is safely and surely done by warrant of law.
During the prince's life who will doubt of anything that may
pass from that authority? But the question is, what will
stand sure in all times, by the judgment of the best learned?
And here I am offended with some lawyers, who make the
Injunctions of the prince in her own life not to be of such
force as they make a Roman law written in the same or like
case." x And to Cecil: "Whatsoever the ecclesiastical pre
rogative is, I fear it is not so great as your pen hath given it
her in the Injunction, and yet her governance is of more
prerogative than the head papists would grant unto her." 2
Pilkington, who represented the more Protestant group
within the Establishment wrote: "We endure, I must con
fess, many things against our inclinations, and groan under
them, which if we wished ever so much, no entreaty can
remove. We are under authority, and cannot make any
innovation without the sanction of the queen, or abrogate
any thing without the authority of the laws: and the only
alternative now allowed us is, whether we will bear with
these things or disturb the peace of the church." 3
No party, not even the more radical Protestants,4 whether
Calvinist, Lutheran, or Zwinglian, questioned the necessity
of the union of Church and State, and a certain supremacy
of the sovereign over the Church. The difficulties were en
tirely over the extent of that supremacy and the nature of
that union. Theoretically, perhaps, the Established Church
of Elizabeth was founded upon a difference in kind of se
cular and spiritual matters, of government and church.
"A church and a commonwealth, we grant, are things in na
ture the one distinguished from the other. A church is one
way, and a commonwealth another way defined." 5 But
1 Parker Corresp., no. cclxx. 2 Ibid., no. ccclxix.
8 Zurich Letters, no. clxxvii.
4 The Anabaptists would have questioned the necessity for such union be
tween the Church and State, but it is very doubtful whether there were Ana
baptists in England during the early years of Elizabeth's reign. There were
certainly not enough to merit the name of party. Cf. Burrage, Early English
Dissenters, passim. , 6 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vin, chap. I, sec. 2.

70 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
mediaeval history had long before proved untenable the the
ory that supreme spiritual authority and supreme temporal
power could move each in its own distinct sphere. The
theory of the equality of the two powers had given way to
two opposing theories: that the secular power was inferior
in kind to spiritual power and therefore subject to it in all
matters over which the spiritual power chose to assert its
authority; that the secular power was divinely instituted
and therefore had control to a great extent within the spirit
ual realm. The political necessity for a strong secular ad
ministration in England and the complications of secular
with religious politics necessitated the negation of the theo
retical separation of the two powers. To all intents the
Church was founded and conducted upon purely Erastian
principles. This was the view of the Queen and was con
firmed by the action of the government, and in great part
also, by the statements of churchmen, however much they
kicked against the pricks of governmental domination in
individual cases.
The religious acts passed by Elizabeth's first Parliament
had vested in the Imperial Crown of the realm all spiritual
or ecclesiastical authority of visitation, reformation, and
correction of the Church,1 and had given to the Queen
authority to make ordinances and rules in churches col
legiate, corporations, and schools,2 and with the advice of
the Metropolitan to make changes in the order appointed in
the Book of Common Prayer or in the ornaments of the
church and ministers.3 Here certainly is extensive power,
and the means for its practical exercise were provided by the
authorization of commissions to be issued under the Great
Seal.4 The power of the Queen was not limited, by the
terms of the act, as to the time for which such commissions
should continue their existence, the number of persons in
1 Act of Supremacy, par. vii.
2 I Eliz., c. 22; Parker Corresp., nos. cv, cvii.
• The Act of Uniformity, par. xiii. Cf. Parker Corresp., nos. xciv and xcv.
4 Act of Uniformity, par. viii.

Church and State 71
the commission, nor the number of commissions existent at !
any one time. The only limitation placed upon her in their
appointment was that such persons as were appointed be
natural-born subjects of the realm.
In actual practice the Queen took full advantage of this
broad privilege to an extent usually given little weight in
the treatment of the ecclesiastical commissions during her
reign. Emphasis has most usually been placed upon the
central, more permanent ecclesiastical commission at Lon
don, commonly called the Hjgh^Xcaiujiissian, but other
commissions of wide jurisdiction and extensive powers were
created; commissions of royal visitation, provincial com
missions, diocesan commissions, and temporary or local
commissions were issued for special purposes, all exercising
according to the particular terms of the letters patent, as
provided by the act, a more or less extensive degree of the
power involved in the royal supremacy.1 It should be
noted, in passing, that the lesser and local commissions, the
commissions other than the High Commission, enabled the
Queen to keep a closer rein on ecclesiastical affairs than
would have been possible had she vested her authority in
one High Commission, which might have developed a ten
dency to become an independent body, exercising her pow
ers without reference to the Queen, in somewhat the same
way that the King's Court outgrew the control of royal
power. THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS
The extensive power involved in the royal supremacy
thus placed in the hands of the Queen, is by the acts appar
ently limited by the clause which saves the jurisdiction of
the regular ecclesiastical officers and courts, but this limita-
1 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. cxli, nos. 3, 28; vol. lxxiv, no. 37; vol. cvm,
nos. 7, 8; vol. cxix, no. 60; vol: lxxvii, no. 81; vol. xlvi, nos. 19, 20, 32; vol.
xxiii, no. 56; vol. xxvi, nos. 41, 42; Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 241, 240,237,
235> 232, 150; Gee, Elizabethan Clergy, pp. 37-38; Birt, Elizabethan Settlement,
p. 222.

72 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
tion is more seeming than real. The regular jurisdiction
of the ecclesiastical courts extended over matrimonial and
testamentary cases and offenses such as perjury, sacrilege,
heresy, and immorality. The censures they might impose
were penitential in their nature, culminating in exclusion
from the church — excommunication. Excommunication
was followed by the imposition of further punishment, —
fine, imprisonment, or death at the hands of the temporal
power. By the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy their
jurisdiction was extended, and the censures placed in the
hands of ecclesiastical officials were increased in severity.
Yet their relation to the temporal power was in general one
of subordination, subordination to the temporal courts and
to the Crown.
This subordination to the Crown, so far as the orderly
system is concerned, is best illustrated by the fact that the
highest court of appeal in ecclesiastical cases was a body
appointed by the temporal power and largely made up of
the laity. In theory ecclesiastical causes passed by a regu
lar system of appeals from the Archdeacons' or Bishops'
Courts, to final settlement, so far as the Church had con
trol, in the Archbishop's Court.1 But when the abolition of
papal power made necessary some substitute for appeal
from the national ecclesiastical courts to papal ones, Henry
VIII had provided 2 that appeals from the Archbishop's
Court might be made to the king and be determined by a
Royal Commission.3 Owing to the fact that these commis
sions were chosen from a regular list kept by the Secretary
of Appeal to the Lord Chancellor, it became in a sense a
permanent court and thus received the name of High Court
of Delegates, although a new commission was appointed for
1 The Archbishop's Courts were sources of confusion and corruption.
Cf. Grindal, Remains, p. 361, Letter no. lxxxiii.
2 25 Henry VIII, c. 19, repealed by I and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8, but
revived by the Act of Supremacy.
' Brodrick and Freemantle, p. lvii, n. 2, for a case which went through the
whole system.

Church and State 73
the hearing of each case.1 During Elizabeth's reign the
Court of Delegates was of little importance, for there was
one notable exception to the general rule that all ecclesias
tical appeals lay to this court. Because the High Commis
sioners were the Queen's delegates, with authority, by vir
tue of their commission, finally to hear and determine cases,
no appeal lay from their decision to the Court of Delegates,2
and litigants preferred to have their cases tried by the High
Commission rather than by the slower and more involved
process of the High Court of Delegates.
The supremacy of the Crown is further marked by the
fact that although the High Court of Delegates and the
High Commissioners were thus final and definitive courts,
it was possible, following the analogy of papal practice, to
secure further hearing by petitioning the Queen in Council
for a Commission of Review.3 Since such commissions were
not, according to Blackstone,4 " a matter of right, which the
subject may demand, ex debito justitice : but merely a matter
of favour," the power of the sovereign, at a time when sub
servient commissioners were always available, enabled the
Crown to enforce its personal will upon the Church by
perfectly legal process.
The dominance of the Crown over the system of ecclesias
tical courts was not, however, maintained by its position at
the apex of the system alone. Interference and dictation
from the Queen and Council extended down the line from
the highest to the lowest courts having to do with the eccle
siastical causes and the enforcement of the religious acts
passed during Elizabeth's reign, which so closely concerned
the political interests and purposes of the government.
1 Blackstone, Com., vol. II, bk. in, c. v, p. 65; Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. n,
p. 970; W. F. Finlason, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, p. 68; Brod
rick and Freemantle, Collections of Judgments, p. xlvi.
2 Brodrick and Freemantle, pp. xliii-xliv.
2 Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. 11, p. 971; Coke, 4 Inst., 341. Example of such
commission, Brodrick and Freemantle, p. xlii; cf. Justice Williams, Law of
Executors, vol. 1, p. 437 (3d ed.); Commission for Ecc. Courts (1832), p. 701.
4 Blackstone, vol. 11, bk. ill, c. 5, p. 67.

74 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
The chief of these courts, the High Commission, may be
regarded as somewhat out of the line of regular ecclesiastical
courts, in spite of its use as a, final court of appeal, for its
most important regular function was the handling of busi
ness arising from the enforcement of the statutes passed in
Elizabeth's reign, both in an appellate capacity and as a
court of original jurisdiction. During the early part of the
reign it acted as a sort of committee of the Council for con
sideration of cases committed to it by the Council,1 re
ceived its orders from the Council, and registered its deci
sions according to the wishes of that body. Toward the end
of thcreign, however, it was becoming increasingly a body
of ecclesiastical administration. "The commission itself e
was ordained for very good purposes, but it is most horriblie
abused by you, and turned cleane contrarie to the ende
wherefore it was ordayned." 2 But Cosin wrote in 1593, in
defense of its activity, "the device of the Commission Eccle-
siasticall was for assistance and ayde of Ordinary Jurisdic
tion Ecclesiasticall, and for rounder proceeding and more
greuious punishment at least (in these dissolute times) more
feared: then can or may by Ordinarie Jurisdiction be in
flicted." 3 As the Commission was used more extensively
for purposes more purely administrative, the Council or
Star Chamber attended to religious or ecclesiastical cases
which were of political importance. At no time, however,
was it free from the control of the Queen and her secular
officers. Such control, of course, was natural and intended,
since the Commission acted merely as the Queen's represen
tative, yet it was doubtless intended by the acts that the
jurisdiction exercised by the commissions was to be such,
1 Parker Corresp., nos. lvii, lviii, lix, lx, lxii, lxiii, lxx, lxxi, lxxiii; Privy Council
Register (New Series), xi, 315, 435; xviii, 362; xxiv, 317; xxv, 113, 211, 505;
xxvi, 179; xi, 137, 149, 174, 182, 212, 322, 362, 386; vii, 145; xi, 322; xii, 336;
xiii, 72; viii, 395; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xlvi, no. 12.
2 Marprelate Tracts, Epistle, conclusion.
2 Richard Cosin, Apology of and for Sundry Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ec
clesiastical (1593), pt. 1, p. m. Cf. Strype, Whitgift, vol. 1, p. 267; Calderwood,
History of the Scottish Kirk, vol. vii, p. 63.

Church and State 75
and to be exercised in such way, as was consonant with
legal practice in ecclesiastical courts, although in part cre
ated free from restraints in order that action might be ex
pedited. The illegality of some of the High Commission's
activity during the early part of the reign was made possible
by the pressing dangers which threatened and by the sub
servience to the will of the Queen of its members, who, in
other capacities, owed their preferment to their sovereign.
The increasing opposition to it by the secular courts toward
the end of the reign was due to the greater security of the
kingdom and to the fact that the Council and the Council in
Star Chamber gradually removed from it business of a reli
gious or ecclesiastical character which concerned the safety
of the State; although, on the other hand, the Council and
Star Chamber may have been compelled to assume charge
of such business because of the legal opposition to the High
Commission. The Star Chamber and the Council were not
so subject to legal restraints as was the Commission and
could deal summarily with cases which the Queen or her
advisers felt should be thus handled. The legal powers of
the Star Chamber were extensive and its close connection
with the Crown gave it power to exercise extra-legal juris
diction which at a later time the nation resented fiercely.
The activity of this court is, however, so intimately con
nected with the exercise of royal prerogative and a subject
of such dispute that we shall defer its consideration until
we have occasion to speak of that phase of the Queen's pre
rogative which partook of the character of administration
of justice.
Royal and secular influence upon the regular ecclesiastical
courts was hardly less direct and dominant. The Bishop's
Court, regularly a consistory court presided over by the
official of the bishop, had jurisdiction over all ecclesiastical
matters within the limits of the diocese. This official origi
nally held office at the pleasure of the bishop and ceased to
exercise jurisdiction upon the removal or death of the bishop

76 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
to whom he owed his appointment; but by Elizabeth's time
he had become entirely independent of the bishop for his
tenure of office. The control of the bishop was preserved,
however, by the fact that the bishop might reserve such
particular cases as he or the Crown desired for his own hear
ing.1 Further the diocesan court was inhibited from exer
cising jurisdiction during episcopal visitation of the diocese.
Appeal lay from the bishop to the Metropolitan Court.2
Although interference of the Crown with the courts of the
diocese, by means of its influence upon the bishop, was per
haps of little importance in actual practice, the dependence
of the bishop upon royalty for place and preferment sub
jected his episcopal jurisdiction to the constant influence, if
not the direction, of the Queen and those who surrounded
her. The courts of the bishops and the archbishops were
subject to interference by the Queen and Council chiefly by
admonition to try cases, or by reproof and punishment of
ecclesiastical officials who failed to do their duty, although
cases are not lacking in which their officials were ordered by
the Council to render particular decisions or punishments
in cases that came to the notice of the Council, or ordered
to send offenders, already before the ecclesiastical court, up
to London for examination by the Council. Such cases were
then usually committed by the Lords of the Council to set
tlement by the High Commission with directions to exam
ine further and report to the Council, or to proceed to such
penalty as seemed to them good, or to inflict punishment
according to the directions of the Council given with the
commitment. THE SECULAR COURTS AND THE CHURCH
The justices of peace, to whom were committed certain
phases of the enforcement of the religious acts, came most
closely in contact with the people and dealt with minor
1 Report ofthe Ecc. Comm. (1832), pp. 11-12, and for 1883, pp. 25-26.
2 Phillimore, Ecc. Law, vol. 11, p. 970.

Church and State 77
offenses at first instance. The justices held office and exer
cised power by virtue of commission from the Crown,1 and
were compelled to take the oath acknowledging the Queen's
supremacy besides the regular oath promising uprightness
in the discharge of the duties of office. Their jurisdiction
over offenses coming under the terms of the religious acts
formed the most intimate contact between the people and
the superior agents of ecclesiastical and religious control.
Cases too difficult, or too serious for settlement in general
sessions, were committed to the ecclesiastical commissioners
or reported to the Council. Subject as they were to the
supervision and the orders of the Council and the Star
Chamber, the justices of peace served in many capacities.
Because of their humble position and because of the fact
that they were not usually trained in legal lore, they came
in for a great deal of supervision. Failure of the justices to
do their duty, either of office or by conceding that degree of
religious conformity and zeal which were regarded as essen
tial, was reported to the Council.2 The justices of peace
were ordered to seize persons whom the Council wished sent
to them in London, and they were directed by the Council
to enforce the Queen's proclamations. Justices who refused
the oath of supremacy were looked after and the loyal ones
directed how to proceed in regard to offering the oath to the
others. They were sometimes required to determine cases of
religious offense without "further troubling the Council of
any such matters." The Council sent the justices to ex
amine Papists and directed them where to send the exami
nations already taken. There is hardly a point at which
their activities did not come in for the guidance of the
powers above.3
1 Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 144, 147, 149; Crompton, L'Office et Au
thority de Justices de Peace, p. 3. (ed. 1583); Middlesex County Records, vol.
I, p. xxiv (Middlesex County Record Society); Beard, The Office of Justice of
the Peace in England, New York, 1904.
2 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xix, no. 42; vol. xxi, no. 13.
8 Ibid., vol. vi, no. 29; vol. xvi, no. 49; vol. lx, no. 53; Acts of Privy Coun
cil, passim.

78 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
The placing of the administration of the ecclesiastical law
in the hands of justices of peace is not consistent with the
conception of the Church as a body having exclusive juris
diction over spiritual and ecclesiastical questions, but the
offenses with which the justices dealt were statutory of
fenses against the royal power; and their jurisdiction, and
the jurisdiction of the other secular courts over such eccle
siastical questions, is entirely consistent with the idea of the
Church as one means of securing the sovereign's supremacy
over all the subjects of the realm. I .
The chief points of contact between secular and ecclesi
astical courts, however, aside from such statutory relation
ships as were created by the religious acts are found in the
attempts of the secular courts, notably King's Bench and
Common Pleas, to preserve the common law from encroach
ment by the ecclesiastical courts and High Commissioners.
Such restraint was most usually exercised by means of pre
rogative writs.1 IRREGULARITY OF THE SYSTEM
It was characteristic of the time that certain rights,
acquired originally by way of grant from the Crown, or
possessed by virtue of long custom, were private property.
Thus there were a variety of jurisdictions, franchises, and
patronages which were treated as private property, and
gave the holders the power to hinder in many ways the regu
lar execution of justice and the enforcement of the laws for
religious uniformity. In the hands of the Queen were some
such rights which she held as private property, independent
of her sovereignty over the realm, and in such cases she had
a more effective means of control than that afforded her by
the laws of the kingdom. Various sections of the country,
various cities and institutions,2 were especally favored or
1 Blackstone, Com., bk. in, c. vn, pp. 108, m.
2 The Universities were especially important and very tenacious of their
charter rights. Parker Corresp., no. cdxiv, note 3; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xlix,
no. 29; vol. xix, no. 56.

Church and State 79
had, by right of custom, charter, or special grant, exemption
from the control of the regular courts to greater or less ex
tent; or were given special local courts to deal with matters
which ordinarily fell under the jurisdiction of the regular
courts. This characteristic of Tudor times is, in the ecclesi
astical courts, exemplified by the "peculiars"; those in the
realm of secular judicature may be grouped as the palati
nates and lesser franchises.
During papal times, as marks of exceptional favor or for
the purpose of curtailing the power of great ecclesiastics, the
Papal See had granted to various churches and districts
exemption from the jurisdiction of the regular ecclesiastical
superior. This irregularity was entirely in line with the
prevalence of special franchises and privileges in the secular
administration and continued until long after our period.
The churches or districts which held such exemptions from
the control of the regular ecclesiastical system are called
" peculiars." The subject is particularly intricate and irreg
ular, but wherever we find a peculiar court it means that
certain extraordinary rights of exemption from local juris
diction, or rights to exercise an independent jurisdiction out
of harmony with the regular system, have been granted as
special privileges, just as in feudal society it was usual for
large landholders to exercise a franchise jurisdiction which
displaced or paralleled the jurisdiction of the king's courts.1
The Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1832 shows
that there were many kinds of these peculiars, archiepis-
copal, episcopal, diaconal, prebendal, rectorial, and vicarial.
The way in which they curtailed the jurisdiction of the
diocesan courts — the privilege was often granted for this
purpose — may be seen from a report in the Episcopal Reg
ister of the Bishop of London, Grindal, made to the Privy
Council in 1563.2 We learn that out of a total of six hun
dred and forty-one churches in London, forty-seven were
1 Holdsworth, Hist. Eng. Law, vol. I, p. 370.
' * Phillemore, Ecc. Law, p. 927; Birt, Elizabethan Settlement, p. 443.

80 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
peculiars, exempt from his jurisdiction. Of these, thirteen,
including Bow Church whose dean was judge of the Court of
Arches, belonged to the peculiar jurisdiction of the arch
bishop, but some were exempt both from the jurisdiction of
the bishop and of the archbishop. Henry VIII provided
that appeals from peculiars, whose privileges exempted
them from the jurisdiction of the higher ecclesiastical
courts, lay directly to the King in Chancery, the- High
Court of Delegates. It would be a somewhat profitless
study to attempt to determine how far the existence of these
peculiars affected the regular and appellate jurisdiction of
the Bishops' and Archbishops' Courts, but that they con
tributed to the intricacy and confusion of the administra
tion of ecclesiastical law is evident.1
The palatinates were sections which were in a sense sepa
rate from the rest of the country and in which the king's
writ did not run. They had a local independence.
The power and authority of those that had counties Palatine
was king-like for they might pardon treasons, murders, felonies,
and outlawries thereupon. They might also make justices of
eyre, justices of assize, or gaol delivery, and of the peace. And
all original and judicial writs, and all manner of indictments of
treasons and felony, and the process thereupon was made in the
name of the persons having such county Palatine. And in every
writ and indictment within any County Palatine it was sup
posed to be contra pacem of him that had the county Palatine.2
They were subject, however, to the acts of Parliament,
and, owing to the nature of English government and to the
development of royal power, they did not continue an in
dependent development. Their legal system closely followed
that of the English system and English common law was
applied in their courts. Often the same officer acted as
royal judge and judge of the palatinate. Bacon describes
the judicial system of the palatinate as "a small model of
1 Phillemore, Ecc. Law, pp. 214, 441; Parker Corresp., no. ccxcvi; Grindal,
Remains, p. 150, item 11.
2 Coke, 4 Inst., p. 205. Cf. G. T. Lapsley, County Palatine of Durham; Holds-
worth, Eng. Law, vol. 1, p. 50.

Church and State 81
the great government of the kingdom," but the establish
ment of the Councils of the North and of Wales and the
work of Henry VIII extended the control of the Crown and
reduced their independence.1
The lesser franchises were of varying degrees of impor
tance and gave the holder different degrees of immunity from
the interference of the royal officials. Thus, some, like the
frankpledge, prevented the sheriff from inquiring into the
affairs of the neighborhood, and by this means the nobles
were often able to defeat, or delay, the purposes of the
Crown by preventing royal officials from carrying out their
directions within the liberties.
We have seen that, in the ecclesiastical court system, the
final appeal lay to a court dominated by secular interest and
directly dependent for its existence and power upon the will
of the sovereign. According to the strict system of ecclesias
tical court procedure, it would seem that there should be
little interference with the ecclesiastical courts until by
regular process litigation had brought matters to the point
where appeal was made to the Queen for the appointment
of Delegates. The strict system was not, however, the real
one, and still less was the independent working of the sys
tem so complete as it would seem. In fact, the ecclesiastical
court system did not exist independently, but was subject
to interference from the secular courts, and the Queen, and
the Queen's Council at all points. Secular courts had in
some cases original jurisdiction concurrent with that of the
ecclesiastical courts; the secular courts could by means of
the prerogative writs restrain the ecclesiastical courts from
hearing or proceeding to judgment. The Queen exercised
her authority directly by virtue of her prerogative, and by
means of the direct dependence of the ecclesiastical courts
upon her for existence and authority, or indirectly through
the identical interests of the court officials and the aristo
cratic class.
1 27 H. VIII, c. 24; 32 H. VIII, c. 50; 34 H. VIII, c. 26; 13 Eliz., c. 12. Ely
and Durham retained their own jurisdiction, however, until 1835.

82 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
The confusion of the system, the inextricable mixture of
secular and ecclesiastical power, must certainly be evident.
It is possible to take any one phase of the system and make
it appear fairly consistent and regular, but the overlappings
and cross-currents make the arrangement of the whole
scheme a somewhat chaotic one. This was, of course, due
in great part to the necessity of meeting emergencies, the
habit of using the commission, the undeveloped state of the
best established courts and their uncertain relations with
one another. The machinery for the enforcement of the law
was by its very complexity made inefficient and wasteful of
effort for accomplishing the purposes of the government,
administering the affairs of the Church, and coordinating
the activities of the government and Church.1 It was a
makeshift system, wheels and cogs were added, flexible
couplings inserted, power applied to meet temporary or
extraordinary emergencies until the least degree of efficiency
was dependent upon an arbitrary disregard of machinery
and the direct application of royal power to the task in
hand. Elizabeth wrote to Parker: —
If any superior officers shall be found hereto disagreeable, if
otherwise your discretion or authority shall not serve to reform
them, We will that you shall duly inform us thereof, to the end we
may give indelayed order for the same; for we intend to have no
dissension or variety grow by suffering of persons which maintain
dissension to remain in authority; for so the sovereign authority
which we have under Almighty God should be violate and made
frustrate, and we might be well thought to bear the sword in vain.2
The sovereign did not lack the power, nor did Elizabeth lack
the will to use it. THE royal prerogative
The extensive legal powers given by the acts were not
interpreted conservatively by the Queen or the men around
her. The extent of her rightful prerogative was not defined
\.Park?.. C°rresP- n°s- ccxxxix, cclxxxiii, cccvi, cccviii, cccxvii, cccxxxiv,
ccch, ccclm, App. 11, p. 485; Cheyney, History of England from the Armada,
vo1- l' P- f3°- 2 Parker Corresp., no. clxx.

Church and State 83
or limited. The temper of the Queen, the legal machinery
which was at her service in accomplishing illegal objects, the
political dangers which made men desire to avoid the delays
and complexities of legal procedure, united in procuring
from the nation assent to proceedings to which, at a later
time, it could no longer be induced to submit. The will of
the sovereign was absolute within the field where previously
delegated agents had not by consent or custom removed
power from her hands, and her influence over such dele
gated agents was so great that in a case of contest, not in
volving national feeling, she was practically certain of vic
tory.1 The control by the sovereign, whether directly, or
thrpugh her Council, may be classified as that which par
took of the character of legislation and that which partook
of the character of administration of justice.
The extensive control exercised by the Queen personally,
by means of letters and proclamations was in part based
upon the prerogative right, claimed and generally allowed
in Tudor times, that the sovereign could issue edicts having
the force of law concerning matters not contrary to the
statutes of the realm or the common law; and in part
founded upon the act of Parliament which gave the Queen
the ecclesiastical supremacy. It would be difficult, and is
unnecessary, to attempt to determine upon which of these
rights the various acts of Elizabeth were based. Sufficient
to know that her letters and proclamations were treated by
secular and ecclesiastical officials as having the force of law
and that the Council insisted upon the observance of her
proclamations as though they were statutory enactments.
"... The queen by her royal prerogative has power to pro
vide remedies for the punishment or otherwise of exorbitant
offenses as the case and time require, without Parliament,"
and such proclamations be firm and forcible law and of the
like force as the common law or an act of Parliament, de
clared the Council in Star Chamber.2
1 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xvm, no. 21; vol. ccvin, no. 15 and no. 34.
* Quoted in Cheyney, Hist. Eng. from Armada, vol. 1, p. 92.

84 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Of somewhat different character from this power of posi
tive enactment, is the dispensing power exercised by the
Queen, although it, too, is based upon the royal prerogative.
The dispensing power is a survival of that absolutism which
existed at a time when monarchy had not become consti
tutionally limited. Founded upon a similar basis, also, was
the interference of the Queen in the action of Parliament;
although it is true that in religious matters the Queen
might claim that until her ecclesiastical supremacy had
been repealed by the body which established it, if she
would admit the power of that body to establish it, Parlia
ment could have no right to exercise any part of the func
tions involved in the supremacy without her express
consent. It is not difficult to see how the power of legislative enact
ment was based upon the royal prerogative, but many writ
ers have hesitated or failed to recognize that the same prin
ciple is involved when the administration of justice by the
Queen and Council is concerned. Because this branch of the
royal power was so largely exercised by the Council, which
in turn was so closely connected with a court, the Star
Chamber, which at a later time was declared illegal, the
legal categories of a later period have been applied to this
phase of royal activity, and the true situation confused.
That the administration of justice was at one time a fun
damental duty of the sovereign is clear from the fact that
from this royal obligation arose the whole judicial and court
system of England. That the growth of the courts rendered
them to a great degree independent of the sovereign, and
limited the sovereign in the exercise of his administrative
duty, in so far as it concerned the administration of justice,
is equally clear from the history of English law. But that
in Elizabeth's time this growth of the courts had deprived
the sovereign of all, or nearly all, of these functions is an
unwarranted assumption and contradicted by the facts.
The facts show that to the sovereign still remained a con-

Church and State 85
siderable portion of the king's original right and duty to
see that justice was administered and enforced. Under the
Tudors this right was exercised extensively, and was not
confined to matters not cognizable in the established courts,
nor to the supervision of these courts, but included juris
dictions concurrent with those of both the secular and the
ecclesiastical courts. No one, so far as we know, denies
that the Queen or the Council actually attended to mat
ters which it was the regular duty of the established courts
to look after, but the foundation of these acts has been
often misinterpreted.
Though Finlason attempts to show that the Council never
had any "direct judicial power or jurisdiction original or
appellate, as to causes arising within the realm," and main
tains that the actual exercise of such power was an "abusive
and usurped jurisdiction" during the reign of Elizabeth,1
he admits that it did have the legal right to deal with cases
arising in dependencies without the realm — that is, Guern
sey, Jersey, and the colonies — by virtue of the " duty of
the sovereign to see that justice was administered in all his
dominions and to prevent a failure ofjustice." He admits
here, in other words, that the Council was the Queen's rep
resentative, in these cases to exercise the royal function of
administering justice. And he admits also that such func
tion was still held by the sovereign until a time much later
than that which we are considering. But he denies that the
function was legally operative in England where royal
courts regularly exercised the jurisdiction involved in such
royal power. The very fact that the Council did exercise
such powers in England refutes his argument, even though
it were not for the further fact that it was not until eighty
years after our period that the exercise of such powers by
the Star Chamber was abolished by act of Parliament, at a
time when the royal power was undergoing a violent curtail
ment. That the restraint of royal power in this direction
1 Finlason, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, pp. i6, 187, 690.

86 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
was one of the greatest benefits conferred by the contest
between the Stuart kings and the people, may perhaps be
admitted, but that this result of that contest has anything
to do with the legality of the royal prerogative during the
first years of Elizabeth's reign can be maintained only by
imposing on an earlier time the legal conceptions of a
period over eighty years subsequent. We must return to
what we actually find during the early years of Elizabeth's
reign and the only conclusion possible from those facts is
that the sovereign did, at this time, exercise, personally or
by means of her Council, a control which involved both the
right of legislative action and of administration of justice.
It is not necessary for us, perhaps, to distinguish the legal
from the illegal, or extra-legal exercise of royal power, since
our interest lies in the fact rather than in its basis. By vir
tue of her prerogative, her legal rights, or extra-legal powers
the Queen issued injunctions and orders for the regulation
of the Church, prescribed regulations for the press, issued
proclamations, maintained a close supervision over her
officials ecclesiastical and lay, enforced or created penalties
against offenders.1 The Council, as representative of the
Queen or on its own legal authority, handled much of this
business without attempting to distinguish carefully upon
what authority its action was based. It supervised both
secular and ecclesiastical courts, received petitions and
appeals, dealt with offenders directly, or gave orders how
they should be dealt with by other agents. It is difficult to
place any definite limits to their jurisdiction and their activ
ity.2 Probably none was placed at the time. Whatever
came to their attention as requiring correction or guidance,
1 Sparrow, Collections, p. 65; Cardwell, Documentary Annals, vol. 1, p. 178;
Strype, Parker, vol. 1, p. 442 ; Strype, Whitgift, App. iii, no. xxiv ; Prothero,
Select Statutes, pp. 168-72; Grindal, Remains, pp. 404-35; Camden, Annals,
(1625), bk. m, pp. 14-16.
2 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. in, nos. 52, 54; vol. xi, nos. 16, 25; vol. xxi, no. 7;
vol. xxiv, no. 24; vol. xn, no. 13; vol. xvi, nos. 49, 60; Acts of the Privy Coun
cil, vol. vn, pp. 127, 145; Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 139; Cheyney, History
of England from the Armada, vol. I, p. 80."

Church and State 87
they attended to in one way or another, directly or indi
rectly, and during this period we find no instance of protest
against their powers, certainly not from the ecclesiastical
officials. On the contrary, Parker's appeal to the Council,
"if you lay not your helping hand to it . . . all that is done
is but to be laughed at," was by no means rare.1 The feeling
was probably pretty general that the times were not settled,
that the new establishment was uncertain and in need of
support from all sources; no one cared to question the au
thority of the body which was so closely connected with
the safety of the Queen and with the exercise of her broad
and poorly defined prerogative, especially since the actual
force which the Council could wield, legally or illegally,
made opposition dangerous. To the exercise of royal power
and the activity of the Council was due whatever of unity
or efficiency there was in the workings of the complex ma
chinery. If it had not been for some overriding or directing
force which could solve problems without unnecessary ref
erence to the complex instruments provided by law, the
confusion would have been far greater than it actually was.
Strype has preserved for us a somewhat whimsical note,
made by an Elizabethan cleric, recording what "every man
that
hath cure of souls is infolded by his oath to keep and obey " ; I . The
sacred canonical word of God. II. The statutes of the realm.
III. The queen's majesty's injunctions, and formal letters pat
ent. IV. The letters of the lords of the Privy Council. V. The
Metropolitan his injunctions and articles. VI. The articles
and mandates of his bishop. VII. The articles and mandates-
of Mr. Archdeacon. VIII. The mandates of chancellors or com
missaries, sompners, receivers, etc. IX. The comptrolment of
all men with patience.2
The opponents of the bishops expressed their conscious
ness of restraint with somewhat less patience: —
... No preachers may withoute greate danger of the lawes,
1 Parker Corresp., nos. clxxvi, ccv, ccvi, ccxix.
* Strype, Annals, vol. i, pt. n, p. 132.

88 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
utter all truthe comprised in the book of God. It is so circum
scribed and wrapt within the compasse of suche statutes, suche
penalties, suche injunctions, suche advertisements, suche ar
ticles, suche canons, suche sober caveats, and suche manifolde
pamphlets, that in manner it doth but peepe out from behinde
the screene. The lawes of the lande, the booke of common prayer,
the Queenes Injunctions, the Commissioners advertisements, the
bishops late Canons, Lindwoodes Provincials every bishops Ar
ticles in his diocese, my Lord of Canterburies sober caveates in
his licenses to preachers, and his highe courte of prerogative or
grave fatherly faculties, these together, or the worste of them (as
some of them be too badde) may not be broken or offended
against, but with more daunger than to offende against the Bible.1
THE EFFECTS OF THE UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE
The Queen seems to have believed at first that all that
was necessary for the establishment of the Church and the
accomplishment of the government's objects, was the pas
sage of the laws and the installation of the officers of the
system to do their complex duty. She displayed an angry
impatience with her clergy, and charged them with neglect
and failure to do their duty when the Establishment failed
of itself to accomplish what she desired ; 2 yet her own will
fulness and greed were as responsible as more fundamental
causes in the failure of the ecclesiastical machinery. Parker
was moved to protest bitterly that all he could do amounted
to nothing unsupported by the Queen, or, what was worse,
that he was actually hindered in his work by her perverse
ness and her willingness to lend her ear to the plaints of
the enemies he made in doing her will. " If this ball shall
be tossed unto us, and then have no authority by the
Queen's Majesty's hand, we will set still."3 "And where
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." 4 He felt that the clergy were
1 Puritan Manifestoes, Second Admonition, p. 91.
2 Parker Corresp., nos. cvii, clxx, cclxxiii. » Ibid., no. clxxvi. ''
4 Ibid., no. ccix; cf. also, nos. cxiv, clxxviii, cciii; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol.
clxxv, no. 2.

Church and State 89
being used by the Queen to shield herself from the unpopu
larity which might result from the work she wished done.
"The talk, as I am informed, is much increased, and un-
restful they be, and I alone they say am in fault. For as
for the Queen's Majesty's part, in my expostulation with
many of them I signify their disobedience, wherein, because
they see the danger they cease to impute it to her Majesty,
for they say, but for my calling on, she is indifferent." " If
this matter shall be overturned with all these great hopes,
etc., I am at a point to be used and abused: nam scio nos
episcopos in hunc usum positos esse." x Aylmer bluntly said,
" I am blamed for not taking upon me a matter wherein she
herself would not be seen." 2 -.'
Yet, in spite of hindrances, in spite of the uncertainties of
royal temper and the discouragement of the clergy at times,
the results desired by the government were obtained. The
nation was won to regard for the Anglican Establishment as
a patriotic duty, the Church itself preserved from the narrow
sectarianism of the Continent. Of the lesser effects of the
connection of Church and State upon the spirit of Anglican
ism, of the compromise spirit of its standards, and the
practical character of its leaders, we shall have occasion to
refer in the following chapter.
The union of Church and State was of primary impor
tance in determining the degree of tolerance possible in
England during Elizabeth's reign. It is obvious that the
political purposes of the government were such as made
certain forms of Catholic and Protestant activity equally
intolerable. In so far as the desire of the government was
to repress such activity, its attitude was by its dominance
over the Church forced upon the ecclesiastical establish
ment. The Church reflected the intolerance of the State.
Yet this was of little importance as a factor in the promo-
1 Parker Corresp., no. clxxix.
2 Strype, Aylmer, p. 77; cf. also Parker Corresp., nos. cxiv, cxxvii, clxxviii,
cciii.

90 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
tion of ecclesiastical intolerance, for moderate and reason
able as was the spirit of the personnel of the Establishment,
ecclesiastics, by virtue of their narrow interests and per
spective, were more inclined to repress the religious ene
mies of the government than was the government itselfr
The policy of the government acted rather as a check than
an incentive to intolerance on the part of the ecclesiastical
authorities. We find the Church and its officers prevented
by their subjection to the will of the secular power from
exercising the force which they conceived their position
gave them, and which they felt should, from the standpoint
of the Church, be exercised. The instruments of the law,
however, were not in their control, and their own courts
and officials were so restrained at every point by the in
fluence of the Queen, the Council, and the secular officials,
that there was little opportunity to display that spirit of
compulsion which many of them would have liked to ex
ercise toward both Catholics and Protestants. The mod
erate and conciliatory policy of the State prevented the
development of doctrinal and ecclesiastical bigotry in a
Church which, unrestrained, would doubtless have devel
oped both.
In the union of the two, and the consequent mould in
which the Church was cast, lay also one of the principal
causes for the growth of dissent. The union between State
and Church determined the early character of this dissent.
Individuals found the restraints imposed upon them too
confining, and without daring to break the mould, itself,
without daring to direct their energies against the funda
mental structure of a Church backed by government pat
ronage, sought a greater freedom within the system itself.
Thus the vestiarian controversy was significant, not as a
protest against the system, but as a protest against one of
the small features within the system which it was felt could
be safely attacked without coming in conflict with the
government. That this controversy later developed into

Church and State 91
what amounted to a direct attack upon the particular type
of ecclesiastical organization, was due to influences of which
we shall speak when we come to deal with the development
of dissent.
There is no question that there is in the general lenient
policy of the government to let live in comparative peace
any who would take the essential vows of loyalty to the
Crown, and attend the services of the Church as pre
scribed by law, an advance in tolerance over the spirit of
the time. Government restraint prevented the Church from
demanding subscription to a particular set of doctrinal the
ories, and when subscription to a formula was demanded it
was subscription to no such system as that embodied in the
Augsburg Confession, but to a somewhat spineless collection
of polemic statements, that in only the slightest degree in
volved religious intolerance.1 It was the fault of the ar
rangement which so subjugated the Church to the State,
and the temporary character of the advance in tolerance
was due to this, that the peculiar form of ecclesiastical
organization made it inevitable that once established firmly
the organization would no longer be content to be so inclu
sive and so colorless. The good of the relationship, from the
standpoint of the permanent advance of tolerance, lay in
the opportunity it gave for dissenting opinion to become
powerful enough to resist with strength all later attempts
at complete suppression, so that in the end it became neces
sary to arrange some peaceable method for the existence of
varied phases of Christianity side by side.
To carry to its logical consequence the dominance of the
Queen over both State and Church, would lead to the con
clusion that whatever tolerance or intolerance we discover
manifested by either, was based, not on group consciousness
and prejudice, but upon the personal will of the sovereign.
Undoubtedly Elizabeth's personal prejudices modified pro- 1
foundly the groups which are for us the only index to |
1 Cf. Thirty-nine Articles, Arts, xix and xxii.

92 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
national feeling, but it would be absurd to ascribe an all-
powerful influence to the Queen. Intolerance of any im
portance is always the manifestation of a social attitude of
greater or less extent, however great may be the influence
of an individual in determining that attitude. In England
neither national, religious, nor ecclesiastical unity of feeling
had reached a high development, and as intolerance is the
outward manifestation of variant groups striving for social
cohesion the time was ripe in England for an outburst of
religious and political intolerance. Around the person and
the throne of Elizabeth centered the development of Eng
lish national unity, and it is to her glory that her great influ
ence made religion and the Church subservient to that
development, and was directed toward the moderation and
elimination of religious differences. She made mistakes, she
was unwise, but to her, and to a few men around her, is due
the fact that the tone of the government in religious matters
was more sane and reasonable than the spirit of the -men
she used to establish and serve in her Church.

CHAPTER V
ANGLICANISM
The men who made up the early Church of Elizabeth were
drawn from three parties, those to whom the compromise
Church was agreeable because of temperamental or intel
lectual convictions, Catholics who were loyal and felt that
the governmental Establishment was sufficiently right to
excuse the outward show of adherence which the govern
ment demanded, and the more radical Protestants who were
ready to make compromises and concessions for the sake of
securing an anti-Roman Church, and perhaps for the sake
of securing for themselves the advantages of position and
hoped-for power. Naturally those who would now be
called the Erastians were most acceptable to the Queen
and secured the most important positions. The direct
ing heads were not extremists, not religious enthusiasts.
They were reasonable men. They were cautious men.
Temperament and the desire to keep their positions made
them so. The antiquarian interests of Parker, and his dry-
as-dust researches, so far removed from definitely religious
views, are characteristic of the men who had the Church
in charge at the first of the reign. Parker, Grindal, Sandys,
and the rest were eminently practical men in a worldly
sense, good men also, but not religious enthusiasts, not
unreasonably pious. They were not men fitted to assume
a rousing captaincy of militant religion. The govern
ment was perhaps not utterly indifferent to religious
interest, but primarily fighting for self-preservation; the
Church itself was inspired by the same fears as the govern
ment and well satisfied with the alliance of the two. The
Protestant party also hated the common enemy with a bit
ter hatred and felt that for the present it could give up

94 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
cherished notions in order to present' a united front to the
foe. Any institution thus founded on the alliance of essen
tially different ideas in opposition to a common foe, or even
in love of a common object, is liable to rupture when the
danger disappears or the common object is obtained. Color
less and political as the Church was in the beginning,
founded upon compromise, there lay within it the seeds and
the causes for the growth of divergent opinions of well-
founded character, should the country once become free
from external danger.
the establishment as a compromise
The desire of the Church to compromise comes out clearly
in the standards which it set up, or attempted to set up.
Judging from these standards alone, the Church, apart from
its obtrusive patriotism, emphasized few aspects of religious
conviction. The only legal standard was for years the tak
ing of a purely political oath of loyalty to the Crown by the
clerics, and, on the part of the laymen, a purely formal ex
pression of allegiance to the established government by
attendance on the Church services. True there was an at
tempt by the Church to secure the adoption of a standard of
belief in 1563, but government policy secured the delay in
the necessary enactment of that standard into law until 1571,
when the political situation had been so changed by the pro
nouncements of Papacy that the government was willing to
permit the Thirty-nine Articles to be incorporated into the
body of ecclesiastical standards. But the Articles are them
selves so indefinite in statement, so merely anti-Roman,
that they but serve to emphasize further the compromise
and political character of the English Establishment. The
fact that the Church was established at, and according to,
the dictates of government policy resulted in a Church that
was a compromise. It was not simply a compromise be
tween Catholicism and Protestantism, but, more important
still, it was a compromise with itself. It was a conscious

Anglicanism 95
attempt to abstain from making definite statements of its
own position and justification of its position as a compro
mise Church.
You may see how he [Jewel] would mingle policy and religion
together. Surely he is wise and a good servant in this time.1 And
where the Queen's Highness doth note me to be too soft and easy,
I think divers of my brethren will rather note me, if they were
asked, too sharp and too earnest in moderation, which towards
them I have used, and will still do, till mediocrity shall be re
ceived amongst us.2
We find the clergy taking pride in its "mediocrity," al
though there could be little defense of the Church from that
standpoint.3 This was a condition which was bound to van
ish as soon as the dangers from foreign aggression disap
peared and the Church had acquired the sanction of age. At
first, however, the only clear thing about its position was
that it was not papal and that it was English, things, which,
in themselves, do not define a Church any more than they
define industrial or philosophical systems. That the Church
finally escaped from colorless compromise, and has, in gen
eral, become a deliberately tolerant and inclusive body, was
due to the men who directed its affairs in later years, to the
struggle with enthusiasts through which it passed, to the
essentially patriotic and national stamp placed upon it in
the beginning.
Yet the Church established by the government, Erastian
in form and conception, would have failed to become the
great Church we know, it could not have played the r61e it
has in the development of England, it could not have held
the allegiance of Englishmen, had it not been something
greater than a tool of secular politics. In the face of sincere
religious feeling, before the enthusiasm of Puritan earnest-
1 Parker Corresp., no. cxvi; cf. no. clxiv.
2 Ibid., no. cxxvii; cf. Strype, Parker, bk. I, p. 126.
• J. H. Newman's early defense of the via media would have been impossible
for one who lived in Elizabeth's day and adhered to the Establishment during
her first years of rule.

96 ' Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
ness and inexorable piety, It would have failed even to serve
the political purpose for which it was created, it could not
have continued its life and remained for centuries the
Church to which Englishmen have given their allegiance,
had it not been from the first something more than Erastian,
something more than expedient. It was religious. During
the time when its officers and its polity were most subservi
ent to governmental dictation, the English Church had, and
was conscious of the fact that it had, a function other than
that of serving merely as a cog in the governmental ma
chinery. Yet the connection between Church and State,
the essential subordination of ecclesiastical to secular policy,
was during Elizabeth's reign never repudiated by the Es
tablished Church; and the development of its religious life,
as well as the development of ecclesiastical and doctrinal
theory, was necessarily limited by that relationship. Oppo
nents charged that "common experience dothe prove, that
they doe for the most parte apply them selves to the time
and seeke rather to please and followe worldly pollicie, then
sincerely to promote Gods cause, and to publish his truth." x
FORMULATION OF DOCTRINAL STANDARDS
The moderate and conciliatory purposes of secular poli
tics made the formulation of an independent ecclesiastical
or doctrinal apologetic a delicate task. Any theory of the
ecclesiastical Establishment which too vigorously con
demned Catholicism would defeat the desire of the govern
ment to procure the allegiance of Catholics, and would not
be permitted. Any theory which antagonized the Conti
nental reformers would be equally distasteful to the gov
ernment. In doctrine and in religion, therefore, we find
little development during Elizabeth's reign over what had
existed from the first, largely because of the restraints
placed upon such development by royal taste and policy. By
1 Puritan Manifestoes, Second Admonition, p. 89. Cf. Burrage, English Dis
senters, vol. 11, p. 98.

Anglicanism 97
the acts of Parliament which erected the Elizabethan Estab
lishment, there was, appropriately enough, considering the
secular character of the parliamentary bodies, little empha
sis placed upon the doctrinal features of the new Church.
In the Act of Uniformity we find a limitation placed upon
doctrinal formulation, in entire accord with the historical
grounds upon which the repudiation of papal claims had
been made, and entirely in harmony with the essentially
political interest of the act establishing the form of ecclesi
astical service and government. The Apostles' and Atha-
nasian Creeds, the pronouncements of the first four General
Councils, and the Scriptures, are to serve as the standards
upon which charges of heresy are to be based. These are
indefinite standards, the interpretation of which may vary
with changed conditions of thought and government ; nor
can they be regarded as furnishing a proper doctrinal state
ment of the position of the English Church ; they are rather
the traditional inheritance of all Christians, Catholic as well
as Protestant, and are in no way distinctive or to be ranked
in the same class with the doctrinal formularies of the Con
tinental Reformed and Lutheran Churches.
The first real attempt to give to the Establishment a defi
nite statement of its doctrinal and ecclesiastical belief, was
that of the Convocation of 1563 when it passed the Thirty-
nine Articles. A detailed history of the Articles, or an anal
ysis of their contents even, would be out of place here, and
would require a treatment far beyond the limits of this
study. Essentially they were the Forty-two Articles of
Edward VI, modified in the spirit of compromise. They
were essentially polemic, in so far as ecclesiastical theory is
concerned, and conciliatory in regard to doctrine. "The
papists mislike of the book of common prayers for nothing
else, but because it swerveth from their mass-book, and is
not in all points like unto it. And these men mislike it for
nothing else, but that it hath too much likelihood unto it," 1
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. 1, p. 120. Cf. also, Zyrich Letters, nos. cix, cxii, cxx.

98 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
wrote Whitgift, and the same might have been said of the
Articles. They so far fail to embody what came to be dis
tinctively Anglican that a later English ecclesiastic could
say of them that they "are no more part of the Church of
England than the limpet which clings to the rock is the rock
¦itself." J Doctrinally there is nothing in them which could
not, by judicious interpretation, be accepted by any Prot
estant, or even by any Catholic. Yet so great was the
Queen's aversion to definite statement of the position of the
Church, apart from its Erastianism, or so anxious her con
cern that the way be left open for any move which the fu
ture political situation might make necessary, that even
this seemed dangerous and she refused the royal signature
necessary to give the Articles authoritative position. It was
not until nine years later,2 when all hope of reconcilation
with the Papacy was past, at a time when it might be sup
posed that the Church could afford to take a more decisive
stand than in 1563, that the Articles received Parliamentary
sanction and the assent of the Queen ; 3 and then in a form
whose interpretation, in so far as the ecclesiastical features
were concerned, was debatable.
The catechism, in both the longer and shorter forms pre
pared by Nowell, similarly avoided debatable doctrinal
statements and never received governmental sanction. The
Church, for the most part, gave the government hearty
support in repressing doctrinal discussion. The homilies
were prepared for this purpose, as well as for supplying
homiletic material for use by those incapable of preparing
their own sermons. Elizabeth and Cecil discouraged such
doctrinal debates as Parker and Jewel and the early prel
ates were inclined to enter upon, and so great were the
restraints imposed upon the clergy that many of them
1 Hook, Lives ofthe Archbishops, Parker, p. 353. Cf. Child, Church and State,
p. 196.
" 'Parker Corresp., nos. ccxxiv, ccxxv; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xli, no. 43;
D Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 133.
s 13 Eliz., c. 2.

Anglicanism 99
thought caution was being carried too far. "To be pre
scribed in preaching, to have no matter in controversy in
religion spoken of, is thought far unreasonable, specially
seeing so many adversaries as by their books plentifully had
in the court from beyond the sea, do impugn the verity of
our religion." : "What can I hope, when injunctions are
laid upon those appointed to preach, not to handle vice
with too much severity; when the preachers are deemed
intolerable, if they say anything that is displeasing?" 2
When Whitgift, in his zeal for the doctrines of Calvinism
and for the suppression of dissent, endeavored to impose the
Calvinistic Lambeth Articles upon the Church, the Queen,
through Cecil, promptly quashed both the attempt to give
Anglican doctrine a Calvinistic stamp, and the seeming
assertion of archiepiscopal authority in the realm of reli
gious dogma. the spiritual life of the church
Quite apart from any ecclesiastical theory or formulation
of doctrine, however, the Church looked upon itself as the
opponent of Roman Catholicism. This, of course, was in
part due to the trend of secular politics in opposition to
Rome, but the presence within the Church of influential
and sincere men whose political fear of the menace of Rome
was equaled by their moral and religious horror of the
abuses within that Church, gave to this opposition a
strength and determination which no mere loyalty to the
Crown could have done. In England, as on the Continent,
the purely secular motives of opposition to the papal and
ecclesiastical control enabled those whose religious or moral
motives led them to protest against abuses which shocked
and repulsed them, to express their opinions and to resist
suppression. In England, as on the Continent also, the
secular revolt, however, would have been immensely more
1 Parker Corresp., no. clxxv, Parker to Cecil.
2 Zurich Letters, no. xxxix, Sampson to Martyr.

ioo Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
complicated and have resulted in more distress and insta
bility than was actually the case, had it not been for ideal
istic notions of religion and the Church which afforded the
necessary emotional grounds of opposition.1 Following the
usual habit of men the English Church and its leaders
found at hand the material for the construction of an
ecclesiastical theory which allowed full play for their emo
tional condemnation of Roman Catholicism, but the emo
tional rather than the intellectual motive, determined the
spirit and attitude of the Church.
A superficial reading of the writings of the time would
lead one to believe that the only possible concern felt for
the souls of Englishmen was lest they be damned through
adherence to Romanism, and that the ecclesiastics believed
Rome the only religious danger which the Church had to
combat. Yet there were not lacking within the Church men
who felt that, independently of ecclesiastical or doctrinal
theory, independently of opposition to Rome even, the
Church had laid upon it the duty of proclaiming the gospel
of God's forgiving love to common men. The controversial
character of the period is, of course, much more patent than
this idealistic concern for the souls of men, and it often con
cealed the religious earnestness which really existed. The
pressing political aggression of the Papacy gave to the age
an essentially controversial stamp and many causes com
bined to prevent the development of Anglican religious
spirit. Within the Church were men more concerned over the
dignity and remuneration of clerical office than about the
spiritual duties connected therewith.2 Earnest and trained
men to take the lower, more intimate pastoral offices were
1 Fox's Martyrology, probably the most widely known of Elizabethan re
ligious productions, was little more than an emotional campaign document
intended to arouse the feeling of the English against Roman Catholicism.
2 Strype, Annals, vol. n, pt. I, pp. 331, 463, 467; Strype, Aylmer, p. 169;
Froude, History of England, vol. xn, pp. 4-7, 543; Dixon, History ofthe Church,
vol. v, p. 23; Parker Corresp., no. ccxxxiv; Usher, Reconstruction, vol. I, pp.
209-11; Pierce, Introd. to Marprelate Tracts, pp. 101 et seq.

Anglicanism ioi
lacking. Ignorant and illiterate artisans were, of necessity,
employed to perform the services. Parker admitted the
fact. . . . We and you both, for tolerable supply thereof, have here
tofore admitted unto the ministry sundry artificers and others,
not traded and brought up in learning, and, as it happened in a
multitude, some that were of base occupations.1
There was truth in the charge made, that
the bishops have made priests of the basest of the people, not only
for their occupations and trades whence they have taken them as
shoemakers, barbers, tailors, waterbearers, shepherds, and horse
keepers, but also for their want of good learning and honesty.2
Sandys wrote: —
The disease spreadeth for patrons gape for gain, and hungry fel
lows utterly destitute of all good learning and godly zeal, yea
scarcely clothed with common honesty, having money, find ready
entrance to the Church.3
The greed of patrons enabled the unfit to secure places.
Bishop Cooper could write truthfully: —
As for the corruption in bestowing other meaner livings, the
chief fault thereof is in patrons themselves. For it is the usual
manner of the most part of these (I speak of too good experience)
though they may have good store of able men in the Universities,
yet if an ambitious or greedy minister come not unto them to sue
for the benefice, if there be an insufficient man or a corrupt person
within two shires of them, whom they think they can draw to any
composition for their own benefit, they will by one means or
other find him out, and if the bishop shall make courtesy to ad
mit him, some such shift shall be found by the law, either by
Quare impedit or otherwise, that whether the bishop will or no, he
shall be shifted into the benefice. I know some bishops unto
whom such suits against the patrons have been more chargeable
in one year, than they have gained by all the benefices they have
1 Parker Corresp., no. Ixxxvi.
2 Supplication of Puritan Ministers to Parliament in 1586, quoted in Neal,
vol. 1, p. 317. Cf. also Parker Corresp., nos. ccxi, ccxxxix, cclxxxii; Jewel,
Works, vol. n, p. 1012; vol. IV, pp. 909, 873; Zurich Letters, no. Ivi; Strype,
Whitgift, vol. i, pp. 328-30; Grindal, Remains, p. 130; Whitgift, Works, vol. I,
p. 316-
• Quoted in Hunt, Relig. Thought, vol. 1, p. 77.

102 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
bestowed since they were bishops, or I think will do while they
be bishops.1
Political caution enabled disloyal parish priests who had
served under the Catholic regime to retain their livings,
much to the discouragement of the ecclesiastical officials.
This Machiavel government is strange to me, for it bringeth
forth strange fruits. As soon is the papist favoured as is the true
Protestant. And yet forsooth my levity doth mar all. When the
true subject is not regarded but overthwarted, when the rebel is
borne with, a good commonwealth, scilicet. When the faithful
subject and officer hath spent his wit to search, to find, to indict,
to arraign, and to condemn, yet must they be kept still for a fair
day to cut our own throats.2
All of these conditions combined to give to the lower
clergy, and too often to the higher also, a character little
provocative of spiritual life in the Church. A great part of
the nation was dead to the emotions that give religion vital
ity. Ideas of morality were loose among both clergy and
laity; 3 ministerial office, of the lesser kind at least, carried
with it no guarantee or expectation of respectability.4
There was little hope of immediate or rapid improvement.
The changing value of money, due to the increased supply
of gold from the New World, the changed agricultural and
commercial conditions, so reduced the already insufficient
remuneration of clerical office, that only the inefficient and
untrained were attracted to the ministry in its more humble
aspects. "For what man of reason will think that eight
pounds yearly is able to maintain a learned divine? When
as every scull in a kitchen and groom in a stable is better
provided for?" 6
1 Cooper, Admonition, p. 147, quoted in Hooker, Ecc. Pol., vol. II, bk. vn,
chap, xxiv, sec. 7, note '87. Cf. Hooker, Ecc. Pol., vol. 11, bk. vn, chap, xxiv,
sec. 7, p. 210.
2 Parker Corresp., no. ccxcvii. Cf. also Usher, Reconstruction, vol. I, pp. 35,
no, 111; 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. ix, no. 71; Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 313.
3 Hall, Elizabethan Age, chap, vn, "The Courtier"; App., pp. 242-50.
4 Cf. Spenser, Shepheard's Calendar and Mother Hubbard's Tale; Parker
Corresp., no. cc.
6 Strype, Whitgift, vol. 1, p. 534. Cf. also ibid., vol. in, p. 174; Usher, Recon-

Anglicanism 103
The Queen did not like the idea of religious zeal, she could
not understand the stern and unyielding religious convic
tions of either Catholic or Protestant. She feared the effects
of both. The growth within the Church of any great enthu
siasm for any kind of religious belief seemed to her danger
ous. She dreaded the effects upon the people of popular and
soul-stirring preachers. She preferred that the Church slum
ber a little. When Grindal, one of the most sincere of the
clergy and most deeply imbued with the spirit of piety, at
tempted to regulate the prophesyings in the interests of an
educated ministry, she absolutely commanded him to put
them down. He refused. His unwillingness to allow the
political fears, or personal dislike of the Queen, to interfere
with what he regarded as his spiritual duty,1 stirred the
Queen to wrath and she promptly suspended him from the
exercise of his office of Archbishop of Canterbury. When
one whom she personally had held in high regard, one of
such eminence in the organization which she had built up,
was thus suppressed for attempting to encourage a purely
spiritual exercise, it was not likely that less favored persons
and less eminent ones would meet with much consideration
at her hands. The growth of any considerable body within
the Church which attempted to place in the forefront the
belief that the Church was the repository of God's -truth,
and had, as such, a duty transcending its duty of obedience
to the commands of royalty, could not exist during Eliza
beth's reign.
In so far as Protestantism asserted the power and neces
sity of direct communion between man and his God, the
pressure upon the corporate Church to regard itself as re
sponsible for the individual was lightened, and, upon reli-
struction, vol. i, pp. 219-39; Collier., Ecc. Hist., vol. 11, App., p. 104; Hooker,
Ecc. Pol., bk. vn, chap, xxiv; Wilkins, Concilia, vol. iv, p. 283; E. F. Gay,
Royal Historical Society's Transactions (New Series), vol. xiv, pp, 258-62.
1 Strype, Grindal, pp. 327, 328, App., p. 558; Grindal, Remains, pp. 373, 374,
376-90, 467, 468, Letters, nos. xc-xcix, App., nos. ii, iii; Prothero, Select Stat
utes, pp. 202-06; S.P., Dom., Eliz., vol. XLI, no. 44; Strype, Annals, vol. 11,
pt. II, App., 'nos. viii, ix; vol. 11, pt. I, App., nos. xxiii, xxxviii, xxxix.

104 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
gious grounds, the demand of the Church that the individ
ual submit his soul to the Church lost force. Anglicanism
was under the necessity of securing universal allegiance
because the political situation demanded the adherence of
all Englishmen to the State Church ; this need, and the in
fluence of the Protestant idea of individual capability and
responsibility in the sphere of religion, weakened ecclesias
tical insistence upon, and concern for, the salvation of men.
Nevertheless, imbued as were many of its clergy with the
moral and religious ideas and feelings of a Protestantism
kept sane by governmental regulation and cool-headedness,
it was inevitable that they should have the spiritual welfare
of their charges thrust upon their consciousness. We find
them striving constantly to raise the standards, morally and
educationally, of both clergy and people. But with the death
of the clerics who survived from the reign of Mary, and
with the dying-out of such men as Parker, Jewel, Sandys,
and Grindal, when Whitgift and Bancroft, with their talent
for organization, took the places of the first clerics, the
Church was absorbed in the conflict with Presbyterianism
and with religiously earnest dissent; there were difficulties in
the way of the cultivation of the religious life of the Church.
Yet many men had been by that time educated under the
Elizabethan Church,1 and perhaps there was as much moral
earnestness and truly religious propaganda as exists in any
Church when men are busy with concerns more immediate
and practical than the salvation of their souls. Religious
enthusiasm sometimes serves as a substitute for other intel
lectual and emotional excitement, but seldom makes much
headway at a time so crowded with political, literary, and
commercial interest as was the reign of Elizabeth. During
Elizabeth's reign the consciousness in the Anglican Church
of its function as God's messenger of salvation never de
veloped into any great spiritual or religious movement.
There was too much need for the establishment of the
1 At Cambridge in 1568, 28 men proceeded B.A.; in 1583, 277.

Anglicanism 105
machinery of the Church, too great necessity for caution in
every pronouncement upon religious questions; there was
not, in the stress of papal controversy, time for the devel
opment of non-controversial religious earnestness. The
Church was, as was the rest of the nation, religiously quies
cent, until stirred into life by the agitation of a group of
emotionally religious men whose convictions, borrowed or
adapted from Continental Protestantism, brought them into
conflict with the constituted church authorities and the
government. FORMULATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL THEORY
Justification of the Establishment as an organization was
an immediate need, more pressing than the formulation of
its doctrinal theory or the development of its religious life.
The formulation of an ecclesiastical theory for the Church
was, of necessity, one of the first considerations of the men
who took office in the new Establishment. Obviously the
real political motives behind the organization of the Church,
the bare assertion of the Erastian principle, could not serve
as adequate apology for the Church in the minds of many
Englishmen, nor could it serve as a defense against the
attacks of its enemies.
The historical claims of Henry, reiterated by the Eliza
bethan religious acts, served as the basis for the develop
ment of a theory of the Church such as was required. His
torically, the preface to Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy
asserted, the jurisdiction of the Papacy in England was a
usurped and abused jurisdiction. The Act of Uniformity
asserted that the doctrinal standards of the Church were
primitive, pre-Roman. Thus the language of the acts indi
cates the justification of the Church which was in the minds
of the leaders in the separation movement. That the Eliza
bethan Church should continue the development of the
ecclesiastical apologetic chosen by Henry was natural. It
gave to the Church of Elizabeth a direct connection with

106 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the Church of her father under which most of her subjects
had been born. It was a return, beyond the unpopular reign
of Mary, to the golden times of her predecessors. The justi
fication of the Establishment upon historical grounds was
also entirely in line with the attempts of the Continent to
find historical basis for their separation from the Church of
Rome. Englishmen who during Mary's reign had retired
into private life or fled to the Continent, men like Jewel and
Parker, had imbibed their ideas from the separatist apolo
gists of Henry's and Edward's reigns; those who spent their
time on the Continent had used the opportunity for associa
tion with Continental reformers, to perfect their studies in
primitive church history ; a study based, it is true, upon un
critical use of the sources, but nevertheless adequate for
their purposes in spite of the Catholic charge, "Your own
opinion is the rule to esteeme them or despise them." 1
Parker the Archbishop was an antiquarian. His interests
and his tastes combined to make agreeable the defense upon
historical grounds of the Church of which he was the head.
Jewel, the first apologist of the English Church, was an om
nivorous student who sought and found, in his study of the
primitive fathers, abundant authority for the Establish
ment. Nowhere is the essential unity of thought upon the
Continent and in England shown more strikingly than in
the importance given to historical investigation of the first
four centuries of Christianity.
The historical apologetic had for its fundamental article
the idea emphasized by the preface to the Act of Supremacy,
the idea that the jurisdiction of the Papacy historically did
not reach back to the beginnings of Christianity.2 The
primitive Church knew no such papal power; it contem
plated no such hierarchy and universal dominion as was
maintained by the Romans. A natural corollary to this
1 Jewel, Works, vol. in, p. 176.
' Ibid., pp. 192, 233, 267; vol. 11, pp. 106, 85; vol. iv, pp. 1062-68, 1072;
vol. 1, pp. 338, 444, 3-25; Parker Corresp., no. lxxvii.

Anglicanism 107
fundamental rejection upon historical grounds, of papal
claims, was the rejection also of many of the rites and cere
monies and observances of the Roman Catholic Church.
Extreme unction, administration of the sacrament in one
kind only, the excessive use of saints' days, were rejected,
practically, because of the objections of the extremer Prot
estants; theoretically, because no authority was found for
their use in primitive times. "As for us, we have planted
no new religion, but only have renewed the old, that was
undoubtedly founded and used by the apostles of Christ,
and other holy fathers in the primitive church, and of this
long late time, by means of the multitude of your traditions
and vanities, hath been drowned." 1 Yet the association of
the Church with the government in the particularly close
relations which conciliatory politics made necessary, pre
vented the maintenance of primitive practice as the exclu
sive touchstone for organization and- ceremony in the Eng
lish Church.2 The subservience of the Church to the will of
the Queen made necessary the retention of ceremonies and
forms of organization whose persistence in the English Es
tablishment would have been hard to justify on the grounds
of apostolic precedent. A theory permitting a more liberal
practice than that laid down even by liberal interpretation
of the primitive history of the Christian Church was neces
sary. In essence, the basis for this theory, so far as it had a
Scriptural basis, was Paul's command to render obedience
unto superior powers. The leaders of the Church also
showed a common sense in their recognition of historical
development and change in external ecclesiastical organiza
tion hardly to be expected in the sixteenth century. No
doubt their contention that the form of the organization
and the ceremonies to be used in the Church were to be
1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, pp. 777, 1 123. The economic argument that such
profusion of saints' days interfered with labor was advanced, but during the
first years of Elizabeth's rule received little emphasis. It was a favorite argu
ment with the Presbyterians.
2 Ibid., vol. I, pp. 65, 75; vol. Ill, p. 177.

108 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
determined by the needs of time and place, was inspired in
great part by the necessity of finding a justification for cer
tain features of the English Establishment which could not
be defended upon purely historical grounds, but that this
defense took the general ground of reasonableness, rather
than some more narrow ground, such as the divine character
of the kingship, was due, in some cases at least, to a truly
liberal realization of the fact rather than to polemic difficul
ties.1 Practical common sense and practical needs produced
this liberal sense of historical development. "There was in
this position room for the necessary Erastianism of the
Church and no difficulty to reconcile with the acts of Par
liament and the headship of the Queen. The contention
that the external form of ecclesiastical establishment was a
matter of indifference and might, therefore, be changed and
accommodated to the needs of different peoples at different
times, served in a measure to blunt the reproaches of the
Catholics that Elizabeth's Church existed merely by virtue
of secular, that is, Parliamentary, enactment. To this
charge the reply was not a direct denial, but a counter
charge that Parliament had always debated concerning
ecclesiastical changes and that under Mary the Catholics
had a "Parliament faith, a Parliament mass, and a Parlia
ment Pope." 2 The refusal to claim for the English Estab
lishment any particular sanctity, or divinely given plan,
enabled the Church to avoid condemning Continental Prot
estantism and permitted the most cordial relations with the
most important forms of anti- Romanism. At the same time,
Parker's claim that the English Church was the truly
Catholic Church was given its full force in reconciling those
Catholics who could be brought to renounce the ecclesias-
1 Cf. the rather amusing instance, " In the Apostles' times that was harmless,
which being now revived would be scandalous; as their oscula sancta." Hooker,
Ecc. Pol., Pref., chap, iv, sec. 4, p. 137.
2 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, p. 904. Cf. ibid., vol. iv, pp. 903, 898, 902, 264, 166,
906; Whitgift, Works, vol. 1, p. 185; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vm, chap. vi.

Anglicanism 109
tical headship of the Pope. Hardly less important was the
fact that, with such a theory for the basis of an ecclesiastical
structure, there was not inevitably bound the acceptance of
any set of semi-religious ecclesiastical dogma. And finally,
such a basis gave encouragement to a great number of radi
cal Protestants to believe that entire freedom was left to the
Church to develop an organization and a service more in
accord with their extreme ideas than was the Establishment
already erected. This particularly was true as regards the
ceremonies of the Church, and led directly to the attacks
made upon the vestments and certain other ceremonies
which Parker was hard put to it to defend upon the grounds
of expediency.
We have indicated how few were the steps taken in the
doctrinal and religious development of the Established
Church during the reign of Elizabeth, and have shown some
of the causes which prevented further growth in those lines.
The same causes were, for the most part, operative in pre
venting development of ecclesiastical theory also, but there
was, nevertheless, a tendency here toward the formation of
a particular system. The development of ecclesiastical
theory is most important for the theory of intolerance in
Elizabeth's reign, for, contrary to the accepted belief, it is
in the realm of ecclesiastical, rather than purely religious,
divergence, that the greatest field for intolerance lies. The
emotional reactions which lead to intolerance may be de
veloped from any kind of divergence in views, even those
which often seem the most immaterial are capable of pro
ducing as strong reactions as those bearing directly on daily
life. But where belief is the foundation of social institutions
it is most likely to secure the defense of lasting intolerance.
It is the necessity for defense of the social organization for
religious purposes, rather than the necessity for the defense
of a particular type of strictly religious dogma, that affords
the greatest occasion for a display of intolerance. The
dogma which the organization has made official may serve

no Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
as the charge on which intolerance manifests itself, but the
supposed danger to the organization implied in the rejection
of the dogma of the organization, inspires the charges.
Nothing illustrates this more strikingly than the latitude
allowed to scholars by the Catholic Church in their specula
tions, so long as they did not so express or publish their
private opinions as to threaten the safety of the hierarchy.
In England the differences between dissenting Protestant
groups and the Establishment, which caused the greatest
friction, were differences of organization and ceremony
rather than those of religion. The political connection be
tween the Church and State accentuated the danger in
every dissenting tendency which attacked the form of the
religious social system established by the secular govern
ment. It was not the political danger to the monarchy, but
the ecclesiastical danger to the Establishment which led to
the development of ecclesiastical theory in the English
Establishment. It was in opposition to hostile champion
ship of the Presbyterian form of ecclesiastical organization
that the most important tendency to development of a new
Anglican ecclesiastical theory arose. This tendency was
toward the development of the dogma of the apostolic
succession of the bishops. '
The immediate sources of the idea of the apostolic succes
sion in England are difficult to determine, primarily because
the development in Elizabeth's reign did not become a clear
and consistent championship of the theory. The dignity of
episcopal, as opposed to the claims of papal, power was an
old subject of controversy, and it was but natural that it
should assert itself in the English Church, whose foundation
was opposition to the Papacy and whose episcopal adminis
tration was a survival from the old Church. The substitu
tion by Henry of his own authority for that of the Pope, and
the very personal exercise of that power by him, were not
conducive to the development of an independent episcopal
theory. Barlow, Bishop of St. Asaph's, said: —

Anglicanism iii
If the King's grace being supreme head of the Church of Eng
land, did choose, denominate, and elect any layman (being
learned) to be a bishop, that be so chosen (without mention
being made of any orders) should be as good a bishop as he is
or the best in England.1
Cranmer said he valued his episcopal title no more than
he did " the paring of an apple," and that " there is no more
promise of God that grace is given in the committing of the
ecclesiastical office than it is in the committing of the civil
office." 2 An ambiguous statement in the ordinal of Edward
VI suggests, but does not assert, the necessity for episcopal
ordination, and practice during his reign destroys whatever
force might be given to this seeming assertion of episcopal
dignity. Jewel, at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, con
fused the question of an apostolic episcopal succession with
the succession of apostolic doctrine in the Church. He re
fused to be definite, and certainly no apostolic succession of
bishops was asserted as essential. He implies that it was
not. " If it were certain that the religion and truth of God
passeth evermore orderly by succession and none otherwise,
then were succession a very good substantial argument of
the truth."3 The attempt of Whitgift to call in question
the validity of Travers's Continental ordination, and the
appeals made to the case of Whittingham,4 which concerned
the same question, indicate a tendency to interpret the act,
"that ministers be of sound doctrine," as excluding all who
had not been ordained according to the legal forms of
the Anglican Church, which, of course, required episcopal
participation. The act itself states that
Every person under the degree of a bishop, which doth or shall
1 Quoted in J. Gregory, Puritanism, p. 50.
2 Cranmer, Works (Jenkins ed.), vol. 11, p. 102. Cf. Cranmer, Remains and
Letters, p. 305.
3 Jewel, Works, vol. hi, p. 322. Cf. also ibid., vol. in, pp. 103, 104, 106,
309-10. 4 Cf. Maitland, Essays, "Puritan Politics," no. ii, pp. 77-98; Strype, Annals,
vol. n, pt. n, App., no. xiii; Strype, Parker, 156, App., nos. xxvii, xlvii.

112 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy word and sacra
ments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration,
or ordering than the form set forth by Parliament in the time of
the late king Edward VI or now used; shall in the presence of the
bishop or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese where
he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent and
subscribe to all the articles of religion, which only concern the
confession of the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the
sacraments.1The generally accepted opinion, confirmed by practice, was
that the act admitted of Presbyterian ordination.2 Whit-
gift's opponents, and some of his friends, interpreted his
attack as an expedient and illegal glorification of the
episcopal office.
. . . Let our aduersaryes looke unto yt how they account of the .
refourmed Churches abroad seing they have denyed such to be
suffycyent and lawfull Ministers of the Ghospell of Christ, who
have bene of those Churches allowed and ordayned thereunto.3
But there is little indication here of a theory of apostolic
episcopal succession. Whitgift undoubtedly desired a more
independent and autocratic episcopal authority, but the
most superficial thought discovered the obvious antagonism
of the theory of a divinely ordained episcopal ministry, to
that subservience to the political dominance which was the
essential characteristic of the Elizabethan foundation.
,, Dr. Hammond wrote to Burghley in 1588: —
The bishops of our realm do not (so far as I ever yet heard), nor
may not, claim to themselves any other authority than is given
them by the statute of the 25th of King Henry the Eighth, re
cited in the first year of Her Majesty's reign, or by other statutes
of the land; neither is it reasonable they should make other
claims, for if it had pleased Her Majesty with the wisdom of the
realm, to have used no bishops at all, we could not have com
plained justly of any defect in our church: or if it had liked them
to limit the authority of bishops to shorter terms, they might not
1 13 Eliz., c. 12.
2 Strype, Grindal, bk. vi, chap, xm; Cosin, Works, vol. iv, pp. 403-07, 449-
50; Bacon, quoted, p. 147.
3 Penry's Answer to Fifteen Slanderous Articles, Burrage, Eng. Dissenters,
vol. n, p. 67. Cf. also, Travers's Supplication, in Hooker, Works, vol. 11, p. 331.

Anglicanism 113
have said they had any wrong. But sith it hath pleased Her
Majesty to use the ministry of bishops, and to assign them this
authority, it must be to me, that am a subject, as God's ordi
nance, and therefore to be obeyed according to St. Paul's rule.1
A theory of divine right episcopacy implies an independ
ence and freedom of action for ecclesiastical officials far
beyond that contemplated by the ecclesiastical or secular
founders of the system, and Elizabeth could admit no such
theory, whatever its polemic advantages against Catholics
or dissentient Protestants. Whitgift and the others, on
whom is usually laid the charge of having introduced the
idea, made statements and used arguments which may be
interpreted as tending toward some such doctrine, but fear
of the consequences led them to disclaim hastily and em
phatically that they held such opinions. Bishop Cooper
said: —
That our Bishops and ministers do not challenge to holde by
succession, it is most evident: their whole doctrine and preaching
is contrary.2 Whitgift goes to great lengths in his denials: —
If it had pleased her majesty with the wisdom of the realm, to
have used no bishops at all, we could not have complained justly
of any defect in our church.3 If it had pleased her Majesty to
have assigned the imposition of hands to the deans of every cathe
dral church, or some other numbers of ministers, which in no sort
were bishops, but as they be pastors, there had been no wrong
done to their persons that I can conceive.4
Bancroft, in the sermon in which it is claimed he sug
gested the divine character of bishops, proclaimed that to
the Queen belonged "all the authority and jurisdiction
which by usurpation at any time did appertain to the
Pope."5 1 Quoted in Child, Church and Stale, p. 293. Cf. Lee, Elizabethan Church,
vol. 11, p. 124. 2 Cooper, Admonition (Arber ed.), p. 137.
' Quoted in Hunt, Religious Thought, vol. m, p. 298; Strype, Whitgift, App.,
no. xlii, Whitgift to Sir Francis Knollys.
4 Strype, Whitgift, vol. ill, pp. 222-23.
s Child, Church and State, pp. 237-38. On the other side, Hook, Lives oj
the Archbishops, vol. v, pp. 194-95.

114 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Nevertheless, their statements which showed the apos
tolic tendency excited the wrath of their opponents and the
condemnation of their friends. Knollys wrote in anger and
excitement to Cecil,1 that the superiority and authority of
the bishops rested upon the royal authority alone and that
Dr. Whitgift had, he believed, incurred the penalty of
praemunire by claiming for the bishops a divine right.
Bacon strongly disapproved of the implied condemnation
of their Continental brethren, and the clerics, who pro
pounded the theory in opposition to the claims of Pres
byterian dissent, themselves felt that it was a dangerous
doctrine whose implications they did not care to accept.
Hooker, who marks the most just and able presentation
of the Anglican view, and who had been foremost in con
tention with Travers,2 heartily defends the episcopalian
system of organization upon grounds of history and expedi
ency, and even hints that it might be strongly defended
upon a Scriptural basis.
If we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our
own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against
them were to hold even as they do, that there must needs be
found in Scripture some particular form of church polity which
God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth
to all churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to
respect ourselves, and by coming 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. Wherefore that which we take
to be generally true concerning the mutability of laws, the same
we have plainly delivered.3
He carefully abstains from asserting for bishops any apos
tolic authority not dependent upon the will of the sovereign
and the parliamentary establishment of the episcopal or
ganization, and admits that "we are not simply without
1 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. eccxxxni, no. 62; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. iv,
App., no. v.
2 Travers, Supplication to the Council, Hooker, Works, vol. n, pp. 329-38;
Hooker's answer to Travers, ibid., pp. 339-51.
1 Hooker, Works, Ecc. Pol., vol. in, chap, x, sec. 8. Cf. ibid., sees., 14, 18.

Anglicanism 115
exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apos
tles by continued succession of bishops in every effective
ordination." x
Apostolic succession of bishops was not a consistently
worked-out and defended system, however rich in argumen
tative material Elizabeth's reign may have proved to later
defenders of the theory. There are too many contradictions
and denials of logical conclusions, yet those who recognize
the illogical existence of contradictory opinions, side by
side in the minds of men, can understand that the idea was
not wholly absent. Because of assertions made by Eliza
bethan clerics, some have discovered a theory of episcopal
succession in the Elizabethan Church from the first ; 2 some
have, because of the contradictions and denials, refused to
recognize its existence at all at that date.3 Both are wrong.
The germs from which the theory was to develop and the
causes for the development of the theory did exist. A devel
opment did take place, but not a development which en
ables us to predicate an apostolic episcopal succession in
the reign of Elizabeth. It was a development of ecclesi
astical consciousness and dignity. Its nature is most strik
ingly shown in the changed attitude toward Continental
Protestantism, and the attempts of Whitgift and Bancroft
to strengthen the administrative machinery of the Church.
Considerations of personal friendship and of similar
ideals for the Church, and common enmity to papal power,
made the early Anglican Church tolerant and friendly to
Continental Protestantism, and in a sense dependent upon
it. But with the death of the Marian exiles there were no
longer influences of such importance and strength to hold
the two together. The Zurich letters present a somewhat
pathetic picture as the Continental and English friends
1 Hooker, ubi sup., bk. vn, chap, xiv, sec. 2, p. 175. Cf. also bk. in, chap.
II, sec. 2; Editor's preface, p. xxxiii, n. 49; Strype, Whitgift, vol. n, p. 202;
S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. vn, no. 46, for a later falsification of the facts in
accordance with later apostolic theory. Cf. Saravia's treatises.
2 Hook, Lives of the Archbishops (New Series), Grindal, vol. v, p. 41.
3 Child, Church and State, App., no. vi.

116 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
exchange letters telling of the death of former associates,
until, at last, the correspondence is taken up by a second
generation whose friendship is traditional rather than real.
The personnel of both the Continental and English churches
had changed. There was not that intimate personal inter
course and sympathy of the first years of Elizabeth's reign.
Naturally, as the Protestants within the English Church
had been disappointed in their attempts to make more
radical changes, the sympathy of the Continent shifted
from the Anglican Church to, that body within the Anglican
Church which set itself squarely for dissent. And in the
same way, the Anglican Church, while prevented by politi
cal considerations and pressure by the Crown from con
demning or breaking with the Continent entirely, as it
passed through the dangers of Catholic opposition, and
resisted the attacks of Protestant radicals at home, devel
oped a consciousness of unity and homogeneity which made
it less anxious for the approval of Continental Protestantism
and more confident of its own self-sufficiency. One would
hardly have found the early Elizabethan clerics writing as
did Hooker, "... for mine own part, although I see that
certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and
French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred
Scripture, I mean the government that is by bishops . . .
this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in
such case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes,
without any fault of their own may be driven to want that
kind of polity or regiment which is best." 1
As the Church gained this feeling of social unity and
ecclesiastical solidity, there was a tendency to resent the
too active interference of secular power in its affairs, a desire
for more complete autonomy. The hold of the State was
too strong to permit the development of an ecclesiastical
theory which would free the Church from the chains of
temporal politics and secular greed, but the practical tal-
1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. in, chap, xi, sec. 14.

Anglicanism 117
ents of Whitgift and Bancroft saw opportunity for permis
sible and necessary work in the reconstruction of the admin
istrative machinery of the Church. Whitgift, upon becom
ing archbishop, set vigorously to work. He enforced the
laws against recusants; caused the press censorship to be
vested in himself and the Bishop of London, and allowed
the publication of none but the official Bible. He saw to it
that the prescribed apparel was worn and that only priests
and deacons and those with special license were allowed to
preach. He would license no preachers without subscription
to the famous "Three Articles," acceptance of the Royal
Supremacy, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Prayer-Book
with the Pontifical prescribed. The Ecclesiastical Com
mission gave him the most effective means of working the
administrative machinery, and the oath ex officio mero, the
most hated and feared method of procedure in the Com
mission, was used by Whitgift persistently. When legal
opposition made necessary some other means of proceed
ing with the work he had undertaken, the Archbishop
turned to the Star Chamber and thus added his quota to
the burdens and sins of that court. Whitgift was in ear
nest, but royal jealousy and the inertness of an established
order prevented during Elizabeth's reign more than the
beginning of the reform needed in the ecclesiastical admin
istration. At the accession of James, however, with that
monarch's hearty cooperation, Bancroft was enabled to
bring about the changes which his experience in Elizabeth's
reign had shown him were desirable from the standpoint
of the ecclesiastical body.
It was not, then, in religious life, in religious or ecclesi
astical dogma, that the Church of Elizabeth made its most
important development, but in the creation of a church per
sonality. Starting with a fundamentally Erastian concep
tion of itself, yet with large elements of truly religious feel
ing also, the Church failed to develop much beyond the
initial stages either doctrinally or religiously. Ecclesiasti-

118 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
cally there was a tendency to give to the Church, as a de
fense against Catholic and Protestant, and, to a certain
extent, perhaps, as a means of freeing itself from the bur
densome restraints of royal control, an ecclesiastical apolo
getic which contained the germs of the dogma of apostolic
episcopal succession^ This tendency, however, was re
strained by the subservient position in which the Church
found itself as a result of the peculiar facts of its creation
and the circumstances of its continued existence.
A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST AND THE LAST APOLOGISTS
OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN
Perhaps no more illuminating summary of the change in
the Church could be made than a comparison of Jewel, the
first, with Hooker, the last, apologist of the reign. Jewel
defended the Church from the attacks of the Catholics,
Hooker from the Protestants. This difference of purpose
might seem to make a comparison of the two somewhat
difficult, but the very fact that the object of fear and an
tagonism had changed, is of great significance. Jewel felt
no need for defending the Church from Protestants, for the
bond between the English Church and the other varieties
of Protestant faith was close, and their dislike of the com
mon foe outweighed the unimportant differences among
themselves. By Hooker's time this unity of feeling had
broken down before the attacks of dissent and the develop
ment of Anglican ecclesiastical consciousness. In the Eng
lish Church itself the differences of opinion which Jewel
recognized as real were minimized and sunk from sight in
the unity of faith and hatred which existed among all Eng
lish Protestants. "Touching the dissensions in Religion
which ye imagine to be amongst us in the church of Eng
land, I will say nothing. It grieveth you full sore to see
that in all the articles of the faith, and in the whole sub
stance of doctrine we do so quietly join together."1 Jewel
1 Jewel, Works, Def. of Apol., p. 610. Cf. ibid., p. 623; Zurich Letters, no.
clxxvii.

Anglicanism 119
was in somewhat the same position, in relation to the
Catholics, that the Presbyterians occupied in relation to
Hooker and the Anglican Establishment. There is a striking
similarity between the reproaches Jewel cast upon the
Romanists, and the attacks of the Presbyterians which
Hooker had to repel. Inconsistency, greed, secularization
of spiritual office, retention of superstitious ceremonies,
aggrandizement of ecclesiastical office, charges which the
Church of Hooker's day had to meet from the dissenters,
were the old charges that Jewel had used as his chief justi
fication for the break of the Church in England from the
Papal Establishment. Cartwright's demand, "that they
remember their former times, and correct themselves by
themselves," 1 had in it the sting of truth. The fact that
during Elizabeth's reign the allies of her early Establish
ment had become the chief danger, to be feared more than
the Catholics, indicates a change in circumstances, and
necessitated a development of Anglican apologetic that
Jewel would never have dreamed of. Hooker was com
pelled to make a defense of the Church as an independent
entity, distinct from all other churches both Catholic and
Protestant. Jewel's doctrines and arguments would have
served as well for any of the Protestant churches as for the
Church of England. Because of this changed standpoint,
forced upon the Anglicans by the growth and attacks of
English dissenters, the attitude toward the Catholic Church
was different. In a sense it was more friendly.
The Church of Rome favourablie admitted to be of the house
of God; Calvin with the reformed Churches full of faults, and
most of all they which endevoured to be most removed from
conformitie with the Church of Rome.2
Instead of justifying the English Church upon the merely
anti-papal grounds of an experimental organization, Hooker
rested his case upon the dignity and worth of the Anglican
1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 37.
2 Hooker, Works, vol. 1, p. 123, n. 12, Christian Letter. Cf. also ibid., vol. I,
p. 86.

120 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Ecclesiastical Establishment. He raised the Church above
the attacks of Catholic and Protestant by glorifying its
polity, and tried to make its position impregnable, by means
of an articulated system of reasoning.
Where Jewel had emphasized the authority of truth and
the Scripture, Hooker was convinced of the incompetence
of both in the hands of the common man.
Thus much we see, it hath already made thousands so head
strong even in gross and palpable errors, that a man whose capac
ity will scarce serve him to utter five words in sensible manner
blusheth not in any doubt concerning matter of Scripture to
think his own bare Yea as good as the Nay of all the wise, grave,
and learned judgments that are in the whole world: which inso-
lency must be repressed or it will be the very bane of Christian
religion.1 The truth and the Scripture must be predigested by clerical
and ecclesiastical learning and be accepted by the general
ity upon that authority. For
In our doubtful cases of law, what man is there who seeth not
how requisite it is that professors of skill in that faculty be our
directors? So it is in all other kinds of knowledge. And even in
this kind likewise the Lord hath himself appointed, that the
priests lips should preserve knowledge, and that other men should
seek the truth at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the
Lord of hosts.2
Reason must interpret and organize, the reason of a class
"expert and competent in religion. Jewel, clinging to what
has been sometimes regarded as the fundamental principle
of the Protestant Reformation, would have asserted the
sufficient ability of all men to learn the truth from the
Scriptures, and proclaimed the uselessness of interposing
between them and the Bible the authority of experts. " In
human conceits it is the part of a wise man to wait for judg
ment and consent of men; but in matters divine God's word
1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. n, chap, vn, sec. 6, p. 213.
2 Ibid., Pref., chap, in, sec. 2, p. 130. Cf. ibid., chap, iv, sec. 4; bk. 11, chap.
vn, sec. 3; bk. in, chap, vm, sec. 13.

Anglicanism 121
is all in all: the which as soon as a godly man hath received,
he presently yields and submits himself; he is not wavering
nor does he wait for any other." x Jewel believed that the
Scriptures were sufficient to bring all men to unity in mat
ters of faith. Hooker knew this was untrue, and solved
the difficulty by interposing the authority or reason of the
Anglican Church, as Jewel's opponents interposed the Cath
olic. Hooker, however, based the authority of the Angli
can Church, not upon a theory of living divinity in the
Church with Scriptural authority to rule and interpret,
but upon the authority of reason. He, therefore, had a basis
for rejecting Catholic claims which Jewel had not had. This
was merely a development, it is true, of the idea of "order
and decency" and "fitness for time and place" which Jewel
and Parker had proclaimed, but it went further. In Hooker's
apologetic this order and fitness, the system devised by
ecclesiastical reason from the basis of the Scriptures, had
become static, solidified. Hooker did not deny the possibil
ity, or even some future desirability, of change, but he so
carefully legalized the process by which such change could
be brought about, that it became difficult, and remote, and
the field of change definitely narrowed. Nowhere is this
more evident than in his exaltation of episcopacy.
Let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if any
thing in the Church's government, surely the first institution of
Bishops was from heaven, was even of God ; the Holy Ghost was
the author of it.2 ,
This we boldly therefore set down as a most infallible truth,
that the Church of Christ is at this day lawfully, and so hath been
sithence the first beginning, governed by Bishops having per
manent superiority, and ruling power over other ministers of the
word and sacraments.3
... It had either divine appointment before hand or divine
approbation afterwards, and is in that respect to be acknowledged
the ordinance of God.4
1 Jewel, Works, vol. iv, pp. 1 12 1-22. Cf. ibid., pp. 897, 1162-88.
2 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vn, chap, v, sec. 10.
• Ibid., bk. vn, chap, in, sec. 1. 4 Ibid., bk. vn, chap, v, sec. 2.

122 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
He comes as near as he dares to the assertion of Scriptural
authority for that form of organization; in fact he has no
doubt but that it was established and maintained by divine
approval, but he avoids breaking with the previous Anglican
position in regard to the Continental churches, for "the
necessity of polity and regiment in all Churches may be
held without holding any one certain form to be necessary
in them all."1 He escapes the consequences of denying royal
authority over the Church, by admitting that, although
there is a divine authority for the episcopal organization,
there is no divine guarantee of its permanence.
On the other side bishops, albeit they may avouch with con
formity of truth that their authority hath thus descended even
from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and everlast
ing continuance of it they cannot say that any commandment of
the Lord doth enjoin; and therefore must acknowledge that the
Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to
take it away.2
The Church and the bishops are given an authority which
makes it somewhat difficult for Hooker to admit the royal
authority which Elizabeth insisted upon. Because of the
power actually possessed by the sovereign, he recognized
that the sovereign must be given a prominent and decisive
place in the system, but he wished to do so, also, because
he saw that by making the sovereign the ultimate author
ity, hence ultimately responsible, the attacks of the dis
senters upon the Church would be given an aspect of dis
loyalty which no previous charges had been able to bring
home to the Queen and to the dissenters themselves. He
identified the State and the Church by making them differ
ent aspects of the same national group.
We hold, that seeing there is not any man of the Church of
England but the same man is also a member of the common-
1 Hooker, ubi sup., bk. ui, chap, n, sec. I. Cf. also, ibid., bk. iv, chap, xiii,
sec. 7; Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 369.
2 Hooker, ubi sup., bk. vn, chap, v, sec. 8.

Anglicanism 123
wealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is
not also of the Church of England; therefore as in a figure tri
angular the base doth differ from the sides thereof, and yet one
and the selfsame line is both a base and also a side; a side simply,
a base if it chance to be at the bottom and underlie the rest ; so,
albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a
commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name
of a Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the self
same multitude may in such sort be both, and is so with us, that
no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the
other.1 At the head of this group was the Queen with authority over
secular and ecclesiastical affairs by virtue of irrevocable
cession by the people. Hence, the sovereign was superior to
the officers of the Church in legislation, jurisdiction, and
nomination to office, and changes could come only through
the will of the sovereign.2
Jewel had also given the sovereign an extensive authority.
He was fond of asserting "that since the strength of the
Empire is lessened, and kingdoms have succeeded to the
imperial power, that right, [formerly held by the emperor in
matters of religion] is common to Christian kings and
princes." 3 "We give him that prerogative and chief ty that
evermore hath been due him by the ordinance and word of
God; that is to say, to be the nurse of God's religion to
make laws for the church; to hear and take up cases and
questions of the faith, if he be able; or otherwise to commit
them over by his authority unto the learned ; to command
the bishops and priests to do their duties, and to punish
such as be offenders."4 But the power of the Emperor was
itself a debatable question and Jewel did not go further in
justification of the royal power over the Church.
Although Hooker proposed a theory of sovereign power
1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vm, chap. I, sec. 2. Cf. Whitgift, Works, vol. 1,
p. 388.
2 Hooker, ubi sup., bk. vm, chaps, vn and vm.
» Jewel, Works, vol. iv, "Epistle to Scipio." Cf. vol. m, p. 167.
4 Jewel, ubi sup., p. 1 123.

124 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
consistent with his ecclesiastical theory, it is evident that
he had less confidence in the beneficence of the connection
of the Establishment with the monarchy than did Jewel,
and was anxious to save for the Church and her officials a
dignified position. He would have preferred to allow the
Anglican Episcopacy to stand upon its own feet. ^
CHANGE IN THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARD
CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT DISSENTERS
The changed viewpoint and attitude of the English
Church, thus indicated by a comparison of the first and the
last apologists of the reign, was, in its development, paral
leled by changing attitudes toward those religious and eccle
siastical groups within the kingdom which diverged from
the Anglican Church in doctrine and polity. The basis for
governmental intolerance of dissent, both Catholic and
Protestant, did not change; the severity of its laws and its
actions increased until 1593; but the grounds upon which
such laws were passed and upon which governmental repres
sion of dissent was exercised, remained the same throughout
the reign. In the beginning, the Church, as a religious
organization, had little basis of intolerance apart from, or
other than, the basis of governmental intolerance, state
safety. This was, of course, due to the fact that it had not
yet developed a life and organization consciousness apart
from its life as an arm of secular politics. Its earliest de
mands, even as an ecclesiastical body, went little beyond
adherence to the Queen's supremacy and attendance upon
the services established, not by ecclesiastical or spiritual
authority, but by a purely temporal and only theoretically
representative national body. There was little concern ex
pressed or felt, at first, in the spiritual welfare or salvation
of the members of this Church, nor could there be much
emphasis upon this point when all parties agreed that the
form of organization of the Church, even the greater part
of the ill-defined doctrines of the Church, were not essen-

Anglicanism 125
tials of salvation, but were expedients, or the best conclu
sions of men, at the most, only human and likely to err.
Thus they felt that, while certain doctrines were better and
that all men ought to believe them, the Roman Catholic
even might be saved, believing as he did ; there could be
no great harm in demanding this state conformity from
Catholics. However, as the Church of England, with its
organization and ritual, was found to inspire love, and men
learned to respect the theory on which it rested and to
value its historical associations, Anglicans began to regret
the ties which an earlier policy had imposed upon it, and
to demand that the Church should be adhered to, not as
a political necessity, but for the sake of its own merits.
Not that they repudiated the pleas and the arguments in
herent in the political connection, but they regretted more
the restraints it placed upon them from punishing those who
did not like the forms and rites grown dear to themselves.
Her Majesty told me that I had supreme government ecclesi
astical ; but what is it to govern cumbered with such subtlety? l
It is (by too much sufferance) past my reach and my brethren.
The comfort that these puritans have, and their continuance,
is marvellous; and therefore, if her Highness with her council
step not to it, I see the likelihood of a pitiful commonwealth to
follow.2
And their transition to this position was induced from both
sides by powerful irritants. The Pope had excommunicated
their Queen, for, and by whom, their Church had been
reestablished; loyalty demanded that they expel, for safe
ty's sake, from the body of the new organization all who
retained their love for Roman Catholicism. The law of the
land reflected this loyal feeling and placed in their hands
the means of accomplishing their desire. The Protestants
whom Parker had called Precisianist, developed an ecclesi
astical theory antagonistic to the established organization,
and angrily hurled at the heads of Anglicanism reproaches
1 Parker Corresp., no. ccclxix. Cf. S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xciii, no. 8.
2 Ibid., no. cccxxi, Cf. ibid., no. cccxiii.

126 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
which their subservience to the government made it diffi
cult to escape. In the beginning the Church was in a de
fensive position ecclesiastically against Catholics only,
and the defense was not ecclesiastically intolerant, but
moderate. Religiously, in so far as the Church had any aggressive
religious consciousness, it regarded itself as the enemy of
the abuses of Roman Catholicism. This enmity afforded,
perhaps, something of the emotional fervor which is so
necessary to intolerance, and might have helped to make
more vigorously hostile the intolerance of the Anglican
Church, had it not been restrained by the necessity, im
posed upon it by its subjection to the State, of reconciling
Catholics to itself. The Church had not yet an authorita
tive and accepted apologetic upon which to base theories
of intolerance. Governmentally, and as a tool of secular
politics, its position was strong and well defined ; religiously
and ecclesiastically its position was indefinite, and the state
ment of its justification as an organization was not yet
crystallized into definite form. In so far as the apologetic
of Jewel and Parker was a justification for the Church's
existence, it did not serve as a basis for intolerance of
Catholics, but of the Papacy. The distinction is one that is
essentially superficial in view of Roman Catholic history
and theory, but to such men as Parker and Jewel, to Eliz
abeth and many leaders in England, the distinction was a
true one, and their hope of maintaining the government's
position was dependent, they believed, upon the recognition
by Catholics that it was a legitimate distinction. In so far,
then, as the primitive Church idea afforded a ground for
intolerance, it was the basis for intolerance of papal author
ity alone. And it was intended to be no more. This theory
was a defensive rather than an aggressive one. Had it be
come aggressive, or had it carried with it definite state
ments, or dogmatic definitions of the exact form of primi
tive, pre-Catholic doctrine, as did Presbyterianism, it might

Anglicanism 127
have served as the basis for intolerance of Catholic or
Protestant, according to the nature of the Church or belief
thus defined. Politics, if not the convictions of the early
leaders, prevented such definitions, however, and ecclesi
astically the Church was liberal.
The religious intolerance of the Church manifested toward
Catholics increased in intensity as it became a national
institution, dependent no longer for sustenance upon gov
ernmental strength, but upon the love of the English na
tion. Its religious intolerance was, in other words, the
result of its ecclesiastical development, from a hastily
gathered army for the defense of the sovereign, into a true
social religious group.
Aside from the increased love of the organization which
afforded in later Elizabethan days a basis for condemnation
and intolerance of Catholics, there was a practical reason
for development of intolerance of Catholics which had close
connection with, and in part was due to, the older Erastian
standpoint, but which was, at the same time, distinct from
and independent of that view. The increased activity of the
Jesuits in England, the foundation of Jesuit communities,
and the underground organizations of Jesuit missionaries,
the multiplication of plots against the Queen and nation,
filled Englishmen with terror; not alone because they feared
for the safety of the State, but because they gave credit to
reports of, and fully believed in, the extreme Protestant
conception of the Jesuit teachings. They believed that the
Jesuits stopped at no immoral, treacherous, or traitorous
act to accomplish their purposes. They believed thoroughly
that papal absolution, particularly in the case of the Jesuits,
was at hand to relieve from spiritual penalties any crime or
dastardly deed which was intended to promote the rule
of the Roman See. The Church, with other Englishmen,
heartily condemned both the Jesuits and the Church of
which they were a part, upon what they believed to be, and
what were in fact, high moral grounds.

128 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
The development during Elizabeth's reign of Anglican
intolerance of Protestantism may well afford food for
cynical comment to those who test the spirit of ecclesiasti-
cism by the life of the great teacher of Galilee. The clerics
of the early Establishment were the Puritans of the previous
reign, strivers for religious and ecclesiastical freedom.1 They
were the pupils and friends of Continental Protestants.
They disclaimed any particular sanctity for their Church.
Their Calvinistic and Lutheran friends were the champions
of a new temple of freedom where God might be worshiped
in the spirit of holiness and simple love. The new Estab
lishment was but one more added to the brotherhood of the
free churches of God in Europe. So the idealists of the new
English Church proclaimed.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, perhaps, the Church was
not exclusively idealistic. It was a practical compromise
between men who were half-heartedly Catholic in doctrine
but anti-papal, and men who were Protestant but moder
ate, distinctly anti-papal, and willing to accept compromise
in ecclesiastical organization and ceremony because, in the
situation, it was the best that, could be obtained. The
Church defended itself by the assertion that the form of the
ecclesiastical organization was a matter of indifference.
Justification of itself against the claim of the Catholics that
theirs was the only divinely instituted Church, as we have
pointed out, compelled that, and at the same time this
apologetic secured the allegiance of those who wished a
more distinctively Protestant form of organization, for upon
such a theory changes could be made when opportunity
offered. It is here that the influence of the Queen is most
striking. She did not wish, she would not permit, the radical
swing to be made, and she was able, by virtue of the power
given her by the Parliamentary acts, and by virtue of her
assumed or justly claimed prerogative, to carry out her will,
1 Maitland, Essays, "Puritan Veracity," no. ii, p. 17; Grindal, Remains,
p. 203.

Anglicanism 129
and also to prevent any modification of the power originally
placed in her hands. Political danger and the common
opposition to papal claims won the allegiance to the Church
of those more radical in doctrine and ecclesiastical theory
than the Establishment; political necessity and the compos
ite character of the personnel of the Church made it neces
sary, during the first decade of Elizabeth's reign, to deal
tenderly with such persons. The party which intended that
the Church should not change toward Continental Protes
tant forms of doctrine or ritual, but should continue its life
as the embodiment of "mediocrity," or, as they preferred
to put it, in the ideal form for England which events had
given it at the first, was strong and destined to survive. By
the time of Whitgift, however, dissent had become more
impatient, and consequently the tone of the Establishment
more brusque and insistent.
. . . Such insolent audacity against states and lawful regiment
is rather to be corrected with due punishment than confuted by
argument.1 Surely the Church of God in this business is neither of capacity,
I trust, so weak, nor so unstrengthened, I know, with authority
from above, but that her laws may exact obedience at the hands
of her own children and enjoin gainsayers silence, giving them
roundly to understand that where our duty is submission weak
oppositions betoken pride.2
It was dissent within the Church that aroused the loyal
party of moderation to begin that formulation of a theory
of church government which later developed into the Laud-
ian Church idea. Where both sections of the Church had
formerly agreed that its particular polity was a matter of
indifference, they now advanced diverse theories of gov
ernment, and each maintained its preference as though it
alone were right. Opposition developed on each side, until,
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. n, p. 188. Cf. also ibid., vol. I, pp. 170, 142, 122;
Strype, Whitgift, vol. 1, pp. 229-32; vol. in, pp. 81, 104-07; Pierce, Introd. to
Mar prelate Tracts, pp. 71, 72.
2 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, chap, vm, sec. 4, p. 304.

130 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
instead of discussing mere preferences and degrees of ex
pediency, each was violently defending a form of church
government as alone divine, right, and acceptable to God.
It is of this development that we shall speak in the next
chapter.

CHAPTER VI
PROTESTANT DISSENT
Dissent in the days of Elizabeth is of particular interest
because many of those great religious organizations, which
have taken such a prominent part in English religious and
political life during the last three hundred years, trace their
English sources to her reign. It was a period of the forma
tion of churches and church parties, and has the peculiar
fascination and at the same time the uncertainties of all peri
ods of beginnings. Dislike of the Establishment manifested
itself in almost every degree, from a simple, mild disap
proval of the ceremonies of the Established Church, to a
scathing denunciation of its forms, and a relentless deter
mination to destroy it. Because organizations had not yet
fully developed, because ideas were not yet crystallized and
embodied in ecclesiastical standards, "the classification of
dissent during this period is difficult.
The names we apply to ecclesiastical bodies or religious
opinions which began their growth in Elizabeth's reign,
cannot be applied safely, in many cases, to the groups from
which they developed. Contemporary names are inaccurate
and have, by later development and association, taken on
meanings utterly foreign to the thought of Elizabeth's time.
Puritan, Anabaptist, Barrowist, Brownist, Seeker, Familist,
were terms used variously, and inaccurately, to designate
men whose opinions were condemned by constituted author
ity ; x but will not serve for purposes of classification, even
in the cases where they represented more or less definite
1 Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, "The Epistle," p. 80. One of the conditions of
peace with the bishops is "that they never slander the cause of Reformation
or the furtherers thereof in terming the cause by the name of Anabaptistery,
schism, etc., and the men Puritans and enemies of the State."

132 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
types of opinion in Elizabethan usage. Many historians
have been accustomed, when speaking of dissent in Eliza
beth's reign, to use the term " Puritan" to designate all who
wished reform; while others have applied the name to all
within the Church who wished reform, and have called those
who attempted to accomplish their reforms outside the
Church, "Separatists." This classification, however, is in
accurate and unsatisfactory. Elizabethan usage of the term
"Puritan" does not sanction such a classification. We find
that Elizabethans applied the name to types of thought and
policy that are clearly Separatist. It was a loose term, at
tached in scorn or dislike to a variety of religious and eccle
siastical opinions, usually implying, at first, merely a desire
to change the rites and ceremonies of the English Estab
lishment, without implying attack upon its fundamental
organization or character. It was in this sense applied to
those whom Archbishop Parker preferred, more accurately,
to call " Precisianists," quibblers over minor points of wor
ship and ceremony, and was particularly distasteful to
those accused of Puritanism because it had for them all the
odium of an ancient heresy. "This name is very aptly given
to these men ; not because they be pure, no more than were
the heretics called Cathari; but because they think them
selves to be mundioris ceteris, more pure than others as
Cathari did." 1 Yet, with the development of organized dis
sent, it was with increasing frequency applied to all, except
Catholics, who differed from the Established Church in
their opinions as to the organization and character of a true
church. The use of the term for purposes of classification is
also confusing because we ordinarily use the name to desig
nate a type of thought, rather than a religious or ecclesi
astical party ; and the type of thought which we think of as
Puritan was a development of the seventeenth century, and
did not characterize any group of dissent in Elizabeth's
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 171. Cf. ibid., p. 172; Strype, Annals, vol. hi,
pt. 1, pp. 264-68.

Protestant Dissent 133
time. At the beginning of James I's reign the term was
taking on its later meaning.
The imputation of the name of Puritan is now growne so odious
and reproachfull that many men for feare thereof are rather will
ing to be thought to favour some vice or superstition than to
undergoe the scandall of that name, and seeing many who both
do approve and are verie desirous to obey his Majesties lawes and
government, (as well ecclesiastical as temporal,) yet only for
absteyning from or not approving grosse vices or profaneness or
for due frequenting publique exercises of religion or practicing
the private duties thereof in their owne familyes, are branded
with that opprobrious name.1
In Elizabethan usage, however, the name " Puritan" was ap
plied impartially to any and all who condemned the theory
or practice of the Established Church, and had no reference
to those qualities of character and mind which seventeenth-
century history attached to the name. Cartwright wrote,
in protesting against the application of the term to the
Presbyterians: —
What is our "straifness of life" any other than is required in
all Christians? We bring in, I am sure, no monachism or anchor-
ism, we eat and drink as other men, we live as other men, we are
apparelled as other men, we lie as other men, we use those honest
recreations that other men do; and we think that there is no good
thing or commodity of life in the world,, but that in sobriety we
may be partakers of , so far as our degree and calling will suffer us,
and as God maketh us able to have it.2
Further, the familiar division of English dissent into
Puritan and Separatist is inaccurate and unsatisfactory for
Elizabeth's reign, because it is difficult and sometimes im
possible to distinguish between the two. The degrees of
separation were so varied that what may by one be regarded
as merely Puritan, may by another with equal reason be
classed as Separatist. The sources of Separatism are so
clearly Puritan, and the development from one to the other
1 Report on the Rutland Papers, vol. iv, p. 213.
2 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. 1, p. no.

134 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
so gradual, that it is impossible to discover definitely a line
of demarcation between the two; a great part of the dis
satisfied can be placed definitely in neither class. The advo
cates of Presbyterianism, for instance, were recruited from
Precisianists or Puritans, were called "Puritans," and, even
after a long period of development, regarded themselves as
part of the Anglican Establishment. "We make no separa
tion from the church; we go about to separate all those
things that offend in the church, to the end that we, being
all knit to the sincere truth of the Gospel, might afterwards
in the same bond of truth be more nearly and closely joined
together." 1 Yet they condemned the fundamental structure
of the Anglican Church as it existed, and set up their own
unauthorized classes and synods which constituted a sepa
rate organization whose Scriptural character was proclaimed.
It may be possible to call some particular sections of the
Presbyterian movement "Puritan," but the term has no
meaning for the movement as a whole.
Because of these difficulties we shall avoid so far as pos
sible the familiar classification. We shall apply the term
"Precisianists," following Archbishop's Parker's usage, to
the quibblers who did not ally themselves with any of the
distinct groups of dissent in attack upon the fundamental
structure of the Establishment. Those who advocated the
Presbyterian form of church government are easily placed
in a class by themselves, and form the most important dis
tinct group within the ranks of dissent. To those bodies
which did not adhere to the Presbyteriafci polity, we shall
apply the contemporary names so far as possible, and group
them, with two exceptions, upon the basis of polity, under
the genetic name of " Congregationalists," although some
what inaccurately in some cases. To this group belong the
Brownists, Barrowists, and Anabaptists.
Of these the Anabaptists are least important, although
1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 102. Cf. ibid., vol. I, pp. 95,
104; Theses Martiniawe, Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, pp. 314-21.

Protestant Dissent 135
the term is frequently used in the literature of the period.
It was not, however, strictly applied, but, because of Ana
baptist radical, social, and economic theories and the excesses
at Munster, served as a term to cast reproach on all who
were irregular or fanatical in their religious opinions.
It is more than I thought could have happened unto you, once
to admit into your mind this opinion of anabaptism of your
brethren, which have always had it in as great detestation as
yourself, preached against it as much as yourself, hated of the
followers and favourers of it as much as yourself. And it is yet
more strange, that you have not doubted to give out such slan
derous reports of them, but dare to present such accusations to
the holy and sacred seat of justice, and thereby (so much as in
you lieth) to corrupt it, and to call for the sword upon the inno
cent, (which is given for their maintenance and safety,) that, as it
is a boldness untolerable, so could I hardly have thought that it
could have fallen into any that had carried but the countenance
and name of a professor of the gospel, much less of a doctor of
divinity.1 "Anabaptist " was used by Elizabethan Englishmen in some
what the same sense that highly respectable members of
modern society have used the term "anarchist," and, until
recently, the term " socialist." 2 Radical Presbyterians, Bar-
rowists, Brownists, Seekers, and Familists are all called by
the offensive name; but Anabaptism proper was of little
importance during our period and may be disregarded, ex
cept as other types of dissent, most numerous among the
Congregational group, represented, or were supposed to
represent, phases of Anabaptist opinion.
It is characteristic of those groups of dissent from which
the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches originated,
that their chief disagreement with the Established Church
concerned matters of ceremony and of ecclesiastical polity,
1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. i, p. 77. Cf. ibid., vol. 1, pp. 125-
36, 105 ; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xm, no. 36; Strype, Grindal, p. 181 ; Grindal, Re
mains, p. 243; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, p. 21; vol. I, pp. 64, 66.
2 Parker Corresp., no. cccxxv; Strype, Parker, bk. iv, chap, xxiv; Grindal,
Remains, pp. 297, 298.

j 36 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
| rather than of doctrine or essential matters of faith.1 The
Presbyterian adhered to the particular form of church
organization and theological dogma promulgated by Calvin;
but, of these tenets, the distinguishing one was the ecclesi
astical polity, not Calvinistic theological dogma, for the
Calvinistic theology was the accepted theology of the great-
. est number of loyal Church of England men, and of many
of the other groups of dissent. As Presbyterianism meant
the advocacy of the presbyterial organization, so Congre
gationalism was merely championship of a particular form
of church organization, one made up of independent local
groups controlling their own affairs and determining what
doctrines should be taught in particular Congregational
churches. Within Congregationalism, therefore, we find
the widest diversity of religious belief and management.
Of the minor sects that fall neither under the classifica
tion of Presbyterian nor Congregational, the most impor
tant was the Family of Love. These belong to a class by
themselves, to that peculiarly fanatic religious type which
bases group consciousness on a recently living leader, sup
posedly endowed with a new, divinely given revelation.2
Since this adherence to a divine message, given in the life
time of the believer, is a matter of actually controlling faith
and emotion, these sects afford some of the most interesting
phenomena of religious psychology; but, because of their
connection with the life of one or two prophets, they are
not usually of long duration nor of particular influence on
the thought of the time. In Elizabeth's reign they afford
the most striking example of persecution from religious and
social motives.
This classification of dissent, into Presbyterian, Congre
gational, and "fanatic," affords a basis for our treatment of
1 Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. lxix; Dean Bridges, Defence, Preface,^. 43,
quoted in Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, Introd., p. xxiii; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., Preface,
chap, in, sec. 7; ibid., note 57.
2 Hooker, Works, vol. 11, p. 61, note; Strype, Annals, vol. m, pt. 11, App.,
nos. xxv, xlviii, xlix.

Protestant Dissent 137
Elizabethan dissent. After tracing their common sources,
we shall speak of their opinions and their relations to the
Established Church, to each other, and to the government.
THE BEGINNINGS OF DIVISION
As we have pointed out in a previous chapter, the com
promise character of the English Establishment, and the
composite personnel of the Anglican, clergy , were sources of
disunion. Many of the clergy had spent their exile during
the reign of Mary in close association with the Reformers
of the Continent where they had imbibed Continental no
tions of ecclesiastical independence and hatred of the
Papacy. They took service in an Establishment which was
pledged to peaceable and friendly relations with the Conti
nental Reformers by little except common enmity to the
Papacy. Thus, within the Establishment, were men at
heart more extremely Protestant than the Church under
which they took service and office, and to which they ten
dered conformity. Some of them frankly told their Conti
nental friends, and were approved by them for so determin
ing, that, in accepting the Elizabethan Establishment and
employment under it, they were doing so in order to pre
vent less Protestant persons securing the direction of affairs,
and with the fixed determination to exert all their official
influence to bring about changes of a more radical nature.
It was enjoined us (who had not then any authority either to
make laws or repeal them) either to wear the caps and surplices,
or to give place to others. We complied with this injunction, lest
our enemies should take possession of the places deserted by our
selves. We certainly hope to repeal this clause of the act next
session; but if this cannot be effected, since the papists are form
ing a secret and powerful opposition, I nevertheless am of opinion
that we ought to continue in the ministry, lest, if we desert and
reject it upon such grounds, they insinuate themselves.1

1 Zurich Letters, Horn to Gualter, no. xcvi. Cf. ibid., nos. xxvi, xxxiii, xlii,
lxvii.

138 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
The lukewarm character of the government policy in reli
gious matters logically led, therefore, under the shelter of
the compromise, to the development of a large body which
wished to go to greater lengths in reform, and to give to
the Church a character more in accord with its own extreme
views.
' . . . Our religion . . . will strike its roots yet deeper and deeper; and
that which is now creeping on and advancing by little and little,
will grow up with greater fruitfulness and verdure. As far as I can,
I am exerting myself in this matter to the utmost of my poor
abilities: others too are labouring for the same object, to which
especially is directed the godly diligence of certain preachers, and
particularly Jewel, now elected a bishop, and your friend Park
hurst.1 Yet the questions which gave ground for the first dispute
were questions which both sides united in calling matters of
indifference. The most prominent of these, and the earliest
to come into dispute in any wide way, were questions of
ceremony. Differences in regard to rites and external observances
early manifested themselves, nowhere more strikingly than
in the Convocation of 1563.2 Proposals were there made in
the lower house, that saints' days be abolished, that the
use of the cross in baptism be omitted, that kneeling at the
communion be left to the ordinary's discretion, that organs
be removed from the churches, and that the minister use
the surplice only in saying service and at the sacraments.
These proposals were rejected by a scant majority of one,
and those voting in their favor were by no means of the
less able clergy. Many of the bishops themselves were num
bered in the party of those who were called Precisianists.
Jewel expressed his opinion of the habits in no uncertain
tone : —
1 Zurich Letters, Earl of Bedford to R. Gualter, no. xii. Cf. ibid., nos. ii, v,
vii, lx; Strype, Annals, vol. hi, pt. I, pp. 25 et seq.; pt. n, App., no. iii.
2 Prothero, Select Statutes, p. 190; Strype, Annals, chaps, xxix, xxx.

Protestant Dissent 139
As to what you write respecting religion, and the theatrical
habits, I heartily wish it could be accomplished. We on our parts
have not been wanting to so good a cause. But those persons
who have taken such delight in these matters, have followed, I
believe, the ignorance of the priests; whom, when they found
them to be no better than mere logs of wood, without talent, or
learning, or morality, they were willing at least to commend to
the people by that comical dress. For in these times, alas ! no care
whatever is taken for the encouragement of literature and the due
succession of learned men. And accordingly since they cannot
obtain influence in a proper way, they seek to occupy the eyes of
the multitude with these ridiculous trifles. These are, indeed, as
you very properly observe, the relics of the Amorites. For who
can deny it? And I wish that sometime or other they may be
taken away, and extirpated even to the lowest roots : neither my
voice nor my exertions shall be wanting to effect that object.1
Sandys also hoped that the habits would not be retained.
The last book of service is gone through with a proviso to retain
the ornaments which were used in the first and second year of
King Edward, until it please the Queen to take other order for
them. Our gloss upon this text is, that we shall not be forced to
use them, but that others in the meantime shall not convey them
away, but that they may remain for the Queen.2
Grindal and Horn wrote: —
Nor is it owing to us that vestments of this kind have not been
altogether done away with : so far from it, that we most solemnly
make oath that we have hitherto laboured with all earnestness,
fidelity, and diligence, to effect what our brethren require, and
what we ourselves wish.3
Pilkington and Parkhurst openly espoused the cause of the
radicals. Pilkington wrote to Leicester: — •
It is necessary in apparel to show how a Protestant is to be
known from a Papist. Popery is beggarly; patched up of all sorts
of ceremonies. The white rochets of bishops began with a
Novatian heretic; and these other things, the cap and the rest,
have the like foundation.4
1 Zurich Letters, no. xxxiv, Jewel to Martyr. Cf. ibid., nos. xv, xxxii.
2 Parker Corresp., no. xlix, Sandys to Parker. Cf. Zurich Letters, no. xlviii.
• Zurich Letters, no. cxxi. Cf. Parker Corresp., nos. clxxv, clxxix, ccxiii,
ccxviii; Grindal, Remains, pp. 211, 242, Letters, no. lxix.
4 Strype, Parker, bk. 11, App., no. xxv. Cf. Parker Corresp., no. clxxix.

140 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Parker complained of Parkhurst: —
The bishop of Norwich is blamed even of the best sort for his
remissness in ordering his clergy. He winketh at schismatics and
anabaptists, as I am informed. Surely I see great variety m min
istration. 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
Nor was it in the Church alone that the differences between
the radicals and the conformists became the subject of seri
ous difference of opinion. Sandys wrote to Burghley: —
Surely they will make a division not only among the people but
also amongst the Nobilite, yea, and I feare among men of highest
calling and greatest authorite except spedy order be taken therein .2
The nobles were actuated, not only by conviction, but by
motives of policy and even of greed.
Another sort of men there is, which have been content to run
on with the reformers for a time, and to make them poor instru
ments of their own designs. . . . Those things which under this
colour they have effected to their own good are, I . By maintain
ing a contrary faction, they have kept the clergy always in awe,
and thereby made them more pliable and willing to buy their
peace. 2. By maintaining an opinion of equality among ministers,
they have made way to their own purposes for devouring cathe
dral churches and bishops livings. 3. By exclaiming against
abuses in the Church they have carried their own corrupt deal
ings in the civil state more covertly. For such is the nature of the
multitude they are not able to apprehend many things at once,
so as being possessed with dislike or liking of any one thing, many
other in the meantime may escape them without being perceived.
4. They have sought to disgrace the clergy in entertaining a con
ceit in men's minds, and confirming it by continual practice, that
men of learning, and specially of the clergy, which are employed
in the chief est kind of learning, are not to be admitted, or spar
ingly admitted to matters of state ; contrary to the practice of all
well governed commonwealths, and of our own till these late
years.3 1 Parker Corresp., no. cvii. Cf. Zurich Letters, nos. lxv, cxvii.
2 Puritan Manifestoes, App., p. 152.
' George Cranmer's letter to Hooker, App. 11 to bk. v of Ecc. Pol., vol. 11,
p. 64.

Protestant Dissent 141
Of Leicester Parker wrote to Cecil: —
I am credibly informed that the earl is unquiet, and conferreth
by help of some of the examiners to use the counsel of certain pre
cisians I fear, and purposeth to undo me, etc. Yet I care not for
him. Yet I will reverence him because her Majesty hath so
placed him, as I do all others toward her. And if you do not pro
vide in time to dull this attempt, there will be few in authority
to care greatly for your danger, and for such others. They will
provide for themself , and will learn by me in my case how to do.1
Walsingham appointed the Puritan Reynolds to the di
vinity lecture at Oxford founded to discredit Romanism.2
Knollys, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Walter Mildmay wrote
an extraordinary letter to Parkhurst desiring him to allow
the exercises called " prophesyings " to continue, although
Parker was at the time making vigorous attempts to sup
press these training schools for Puritanism.3 Even Cecil,
who headed the opposite faction in the Council, was not
altogether favorable to Parker's procedure, and took care
in many cases that those affected by the orders in regard to
the ceremonies and vestments suffer a minimum of incon
venience.4 As a result the ceremonies were not everywhere observed.
The minister's taste often dictated whether he should wear
the habits or not, and determined the posture of the con
gregation during communion. Forms of baptism varied.
The sign of the cross was sometimes used, sometimes not.
Many of the clergy held the prescribed habits up to ridicule.
The Dean of Wells, Turner, even made a man do penance
for adultery in a square priest's cap, much to the scandal
of his more dignified brethren.5 But in 1565, under pres-
1 Parker Corresp., no. ccclxvii. Cf. ibid., nos. clxxix, ccxviii, ccxix, cclxxvi,
cccxi, cccxii, cccxxviii.
2 Hooker, Works, vol. I, p. xxx.
* Parker Corresp., p. 457, note 2. Cf. also, nos. eccl, cccli, cccliii.
4 Ibid., nos. clxxviii, clxxix, clxxxiv, clxxxv, clxxxvi; Grindal, Remains, Let
ters, no. lxxvii; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. clxxh, no. I. Travers, Hooker's oppo
nent at the Temple Church, was Burghley's chaplain and tutor to his children.
6 Parker Corresp., no. clxxxii; Zurich Letters, no. cviii.

142 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
sure from Elizabeth, Parker issued his famous "Advertise
ments," which were designed to do away with all such irreg
ularities, and proceeded to enforce conformity to the habits.
There was some uncertainty whether he could legally
proceed to the deprivation of ministers who refused the
test he intended to offer, and neither the court, nor the
great lay lawyers, would back him up; some of them
through sympathy for the views of the dissenters, some
through question as to the legality of such procedure. The
test was made by Parker and Grindal on the London clergy
and most of them submitted. The rest were suspended at
once and given three months to consider before the bishops
proceeded to deprivation. Grindal did not like the work nor
did some of the other commissioners. Parker had printed
his articles without the Queen's authorization, although on
the title-page, he had endeavored to create the impression
that they had that sanction by proclaiming that they were
issued "by virtue of the Queen's Majesty's letters" com
manding the same.1 Had Elizabeth given them her sanction,
they would have had the authority of law as provided by
the Act of Uniformity empowering the Queen, with the
advice of the Metropolitan, to take further order for the
ceremonies and ornaments of the Church, as was the im
pression conveyed by Parker's clever title-page. The "Ad
vertisements," however, did not settle the question as
Parker hoped, but aroused much alarm at the prospect of
compulsion, and occasioned much of the opposition to the
bishops and the Establishment which now began to develop
everywhere. Parker's proceedings mark the real beginning
of the split in the Anglican Church.
We may regard Parker as most clearly representing the
official Anglican position; and even Parker did not hesitate
to say that these were matters of indifference in themselves.
1 Parker Corresp., nos. clxxv, clxxvi, clxxviii, cciii, ccix, ccx; Wilkins, Con
cilia, vol. iv, p. 247; Cardwell, Annals, vol. 1, p. 287; Prothero, Select Statutes,
p. 191; Gee and Hardy, Documents; Sparrow, Collections; S. P., Dom.. Eliz .
vol. xxxix, no. 14.

Protestant Dissent 143
" Does your Lordship think that I care either for cap, tippet,
surplice, or wafer-bread, or any such?"1 He argued that
the habits and the ritual were not essential matters, in the
sense that the Catholic Church made them essential, but,
because of the order and decency lent by them to the church
service and the ministerial person, were worthy of observa
tion, even had the law of Parliament and the will of the
sovereign not ordained that within the English Church such
habits and ritual should be observed. In no sense were
other Protestant churches condemned for not using them,
for there was nothing sacred in their use or character. "The
Queen hath not established these garments and things for
any holiness' sake or religion, but only for a civil order and
comeliness: because she would have the ministers known
from other men, as the aldermen are known by their tip
pets," etc.2 Why should Christians squabble about such
matters and give to Catholics opportunity for reproaching
the Protestants for their lack of unity, and, at the same
time, by such quarrels make Continental friends believe
that the English Church tacitly condemned them because
they did not use the habits? The law commanded all to use
the habits — what was the profit in fighting about them?
On the other hand, those who objected to the habits pro
claimed with equal certainty that they were matters of
indifference. Few made the actual wearing of the hab
its a matter of conscience. Such men as Dr. Humphrey3
argued: in this indifferent matter of the wearing of the
habits why give the wearing or not wearing of them such
importance that refusal or dislike of them entails dismis
sal from the ministry of the Church?4 Many devout and
1 Parker Corresp., no. ccclxix. Cf. conclusion of the Advertisements.
2 Grindal, Remains, p. 210.
3 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xxxvi, no. 64; vol. xxxix, no. 63; Zurich Letters,
nos. lxxxv, ci, cix, cii; Strype, Annals, vol. I, pt. 11, App., no. xxvii; Strype,
Parker, bk. n, App., nos. xxx, xxxi.
4 It seems curious to find Whitgift's name among those who took this posi
tion. Cf. Strype, Parker, bk. m, chap, in, p. 125, and App., no. xxxix; 5. P.,
Dom., Eliz., vol. xxxvm, no. 10; Strype, Whitgift, App., no. iv.

144 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
serious young men, who are heartily loyal to the Queen and
deeply attached to the Church now established, feel that
they cannot take service under her because they are obliged
to wear a costume which they look upon as a badge of
Romanism. Why not leave it, in the present dangerous,
unsettled, poverty-stricken, and preacherless condition of
the Church, to individual conscience? We shall thus secure
the whole-hearted service of the able men whom we need so
much. They agree on all else, why exclude them from be
coming one of us, or eject devout and worthy preachers
who are already within the service of the Church, because
an indifferent matter is made into one of vital importance?
If we insist on the outward observances of Catholicism, we
give our Continental friends the idea that we are not truly
Protestant, but still cling, or will soon return, to images,
crosses, and tapers. Humphrey held that there was nothing
wrong in the habits themselves, but that insistence upon
them was a restraint of Christian liberty ill fitted for a
Church in the position and of the character of the Anglican
Establishment. He held up the threat that if the habits
were insisted upon, the Church would lose the support and
service of many who would otherwise give hearty allegiance.
At root the differences were largely temperamental and
matters of taste.
Parker would have been glad to give in ; he grew tired of
insisting. The Queen's Majesty willed my lord of York to declare her
pleasure determinately to have the order to go forward. I trust
her Highness hath devised how it may be performed. I utterly
despair therein as of myself, and therefore must sit still, as I have
now done, alway waiting either her toleration, or else further aid.
Mr. Secretary, can it be thought, that I alone, having sun and
moon against me, can compass this difficulty? If you of her
Majesty's council provide no otherwise for this matter than as it
appeareth openly, what the sequel will be horresco vel reminis-
cendo.1 And must I do still all things alone? I am not able, and
1 Parker Corresp., no. ccxv.

Protestant Dissent 145
must refuse to promise to do that I cannot, and is another man's
charge. All other men must win honour and defence, and I only
shame to be so vilely reported. And yet I am not weary to bear,
to do service to God and to my prince; but an ox can draw no
more than he can.1
But neither the opposition of a great part of her clergy, nor
the influence of councillors could secure changes which the
Queen did not desire. And she did not desire these, although
she would not come out openly with support for her clergy
in enforcing the things she wished. She did not like the
barrenness and extremes of Continental Protestantism, and
she did like form and pomp. Had there been any real, imme
diate danger to the Church, and hence to the government,
from the dispute, it is probable that she would have given
way as she did in other cases, but she sensed the situation
too well to feel that it was necessary to give way. She felt
that she might continue to maintain her absolute sway over
the Church in this respect in spite of some factious individ
uals. To Parker's objection "that these precise folks would
offer their goods and bodies to prison, rather than they
would relent," Elizabeth replied by ordering him to im
prison them then.2 Several considerations in the situation
made her insist that the habits and ritual be strictly ob
served. In the first place, it was the law, and the law must
be enforced. In the second place, she felt that the question
was not of enough importance to alienate any large body
of the clergy. And her opinion was correct. Grindal wrote
to BuUinger: —
Many of the more learned clergy seemed to be on the point of
forsaking their ministry. Many of the people also had it in con
templation to withdraw from us, and set up private meetings;
but however most of them, through the mercy of the Lord, have
now returned to a better mind.3

1 Parker Corresp., no. ccxiii. Cf. also, ibid., nos. cxiv, clxxvi, cciii, cccxxi.
2 Ibid., no. ccxiii. Cf. also, ibid., nos. clxx, clxxi, ccxcii.
* Zurich Letters, no. cxi. Cf. also, ibid., no. cxxi; Parker Corresp., no. ccvii.

146 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
They would not give up their lately won places because of
the mere wearing of a habit. Further, she was not so keen
for preachers, devout and able, as was Humphrey.1 She
preferred that the Church slumber a little. A large body in
the Church liked the habits and the forms; they did not
desire, and some realized the inexpediency of making such
radical changes that the service would seem unfamiliar to
the people as a whole. Few of the Protestant officers of the
Church felt it worth while to make any vigorous protest
against their use in opposition to the wish of the Queen,
and many condemned the agitators for stirring up discus
sion and controversy over the question. Nor did the Conti
nental Reformers stand back of the extremists or take the
view they were expected to take. They felt that opposition
to the government Church was not worth while on such
matters when the government was apparently so whole
heartedly opposing the Papacy. BuUinger wrote to Horn : —
I approve the zeal of those persons who would have the church
purged from all the dregs of popery. ... On the other hand, I
also commend your prudence, who do not think that churches
are to be forsaken because of the vestments. . . . But, as far as
I can form an opinion, your common adversaries are only aiming
at this, that on your removal they may put in your places either
papists, or else Lutheran doctors and presidents, who are not
very much unlike them.2
And to Humphrey and Sampson the same divine wrote : —
It appears indeed most extraordinary to me, (if I may be al
lowed, most accomplished and very dear brethren, to speak my
sentiments without offence,) that you can persuade yourselves
that you cannot, with a safe conscience subject yourselves and
churches to vestiarian bondage ; and that you do not rather con
sider, to what kind of bondage you will subject yourselves and
churches, if you refuse to comply with a civil ordinance, which
is a matter of indifference, and are perpetually contending in this
troublesome way; because by the relinquishment of your office,
you will expose the churches to wolves, or at least to teachers who
1 Cf. Elizabeth's letter to Grindal, Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. 205, 206.
2 Zurich Letters, no. xcviii. —

Protestant Dissent 147
are far from competent, and who are not equally fitted with
yourselves for the instruction of the people.1
Elizabeth had her way. A few men lost their preferments,
but the habits were worn. In itself the vestiarian contro
versy is an exceedingly dry, and, like so many of the discus
sions which have engaged the controversial genius of Chris
tianity, silly, discussion; but its significance, as one of the
breaking-points between the two wings of the Church, can
not be overemphasized. This controversy lies at the root
of the matter. Added to the natural temperamental differ
ences of taste, the discussion about the vestments dug up
arguments, and stirred up feelings, and prepared the way
for opinions, which, when developed, made continuous
union impossible. But for a time the question slumbered.
It never died out entirely; and the arguments used in this
controversy lay at hand when the increasingly radical
opinions of the discontented compelled them to diverge
still more widely from the Established Church.2
That there should develop a more positive opposition
was inevitable. That antagonism between the Church
Established and Church Militant should grow sharp and
bitter was in part the result of controversy and in part the
result of the character of the men who carried on the work
of the Anglican Establishment and of the opposition to the
Establishment. It was a growing quarrel, increasing from
these small beginnings to irreconcilable differences. Bacon
has well described the nature of the development of this
antagonism. It may be remembered, that on their part which call for refor
mation, was first propounded some dislike of certain ceremonies
supposed to be superstitious ; some complaint of dumb ministers
who possessed rich benefices; and some invectives against the idle

1 Zurich Letters, no. civ. Cf. also, ibid., nos. xlii, xlvi, clvii, clviii; Strype,
Annals, vol. I, pt. I, App., nos. xxiv-xxvii.
2 Parker Corresp., no. ccxii; Zurich Letters, nos. cix, cxii, cxxii, cxxix, clxxiii,
clxxiv, clxxv, clxxvii.

148 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
and monastical continuance within the Universities, by those
who had livings to be resident upon ; and such like abuses. Thence
they went on to condemn the government of bishops as an hier
archy remaining to us of the corruptions of the Roman church,
and to except to sundry institutions as not sufficiently delivered
from the pollutions of the former times. And lastly,_ they ad
vanced to define of an only and perpetual form of policy in the
church; which (without consideration of possibility or foresight
of peril or perturbation of the church and state) must be erected
and planted by the magistrate. Here they stay. Others, (not able
to keep footing in so steep ground) descend further; That the
same must be entered into and accepted of the people, at their
peril, without the attending of the establishment of authority:
and so in the meantime they refuse to communicate with us, re
puting us to have no church. This hath been the progression of
that side: — I mean of the generality. For I know, some persons
(being of the nature, not only to love extremities, but also to fall
to them without degrees,) were at the highest strain at the first.
The other part which maintaineth the present government of the
church, hath not kept to one tenor neither. First, those cere
monies which were pretended to be corrupt they maintained to
be things indifferent, and opposed the examples of the good times
of the church to the challenge which was made unto them, be
cause they were used in the later superstitious times. Then were
they also content mildly to acknowledge many imperfections in
the church: as tares come up amongst the corn; which yet (ac
cording to the wisdom taught by our Saviour) were not with
strife to be pulled up, lest it might spoil and supplant the good
corn, but to grow on together until the harvest. After, they
grew to a more absolute defence and maintenance of all the
orders of the church, and stiffly to hold that nothing was to be
innovated ; partly because it needed not, partly because it would
make a breach upon the rest. Thence (Exasperate through con
tentions) they are fallen to a direct condemnation of the contrary
part, as of a sect. Yea and some indiscreet persons have been
bold in open preaching to use dishonourable and derogative
speech and censure of the churches abroad; and that so far, as
some of our men (as I have heard) ordained in foreign parts have
been pronounced to be no lawful ministers. Thus we see the
beginnings were modest, but the extremes are violent; so as there
is almost as great a distance now of either side from itself, as was
at the first of one from the other.1
1 Bacon, Letters and Life (Spedding ed.), vol. I, pp. 86-87.

Protestant Dissent 149
Bishop Cooper's statement is more explicit, but essen
tially the same : —
At the beginning, some learned and godly preachers, for private
respects in themselves, made strange to wear the surplice, cap,
or tippet : but yet so that they declared themselves to think the
thing indifferent, and not to judge evil of such as did use them
[Grindal, Sandys, Parkhurst, Nowel, 1562]. Shortly after rose
up other [Sampson, Humphrey, Lever, Whittingham] defending
that they were not things indifferent, but distained with anti-
christian idolatry, and therefore not to be suffered in the Church.
Not long after came another sort [Cartwright, Travers, Field]
affirming that those matters touching apparel were but trifles,
and not worthy contention in the Church, but that there were
greater things far of more weight and importance, and indeed
touching faith and religion, and therefore meet to be altered in a
church rightly reformed. As the Book of Common Prayer, the
administration of the Sacraments, the government of the Church,
the election of ministers, and a number of other like. Fourthly,
now break out another sort [Brownists], earnestly affirming and
teaching, that we have no church, no bishops, no ministers, no
sacraments; and therefore that all that love Jesus Christ ought
with all speed to separate themselves from our congregations,
because our assemblies are profane, wicked, and antichristian.
Thus have you heard of four degrees for the overthrow of the
state of the Church of England. Now lastly of all come in these
men, that make their whole direction against the living of bishops
and other ecclesiastical ministers : that they should have no tem
poral lands or jurisdiction.1
It is characteristic of the first stages of this development
that the leaders of the opposition tried to bring about the
desired changes by what they conceived to be regular and
lawful methods. The first important literary effort to secure
the adoption of changes advocated took the form of an
appeal to Parliament. The "First Admonition to Parlia
ment," written by two ministers, Fielde and Wilcox, was
not a proclamation of independence in religious and ecclesi
astical matters, but an appeal to civil authority to correct
the abuses within the Church, and to change it in accord
ance with Scriptural models. Its authors believed that the
1 Cooper, Admonition, p. 16, quoted in Hooker, Works, vol. 1, p. 129, note 40.

150 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
national representative body had the right to alter the fun
damental structure of the Church by statute. Their belief
was justified by the fact that the acts of Parliament had
undoubtedly created and given legal form to the Estab
lishment which existed. They had not been able to carry
their reforms in Convocation by the regular and ordinary
means created by statute for ecclesiastical lawmaking and
they, therefore, went behind Convocation to Parliament.
In this belief and appeal, however, they disregarded the
position of the Queen in the system and her determination
to maintain it. She looked upon such appeal to Parliament
as an infringement of her rights of supremacy over the
Church. Parliament had vested the control of ecclesiastical
affairs in her. She was determined to keep that control, and
throughout the reign insisted, with more or less success,
that Parliament keep its hands off ecclesiastical matters,
even when the proposals were not those of malcontents.1
Such an attitude on the part of the Queen was not calcu
lated to satisfy the appellants, nor did it soothe the dignity
of the Commons, but the fact remains that Elizabeth was
able to make good her position and that the appeal of the
"First Admonition" was punished as seditious.
The circumstances immediately preceding its publication
made it doubly obnoxious to the Queen. In the Parliament
of 1572 a bill was introduced in the Commons which pro
vided that the penalties imposed by the existing religious
acts for not using the prescribed rites and ceremonies
should be in force "against such persons onely as do or shall
use anie maner of papisticall service, rites or Ceremonyes,"
or who "use the same forme so prescribed more supersti-
ciouslie" than authorized.2 It also provided that, by per
mission of the bishop, any minister might be free to omit
all, or any part, of the Prayer Book, or to use the service of
the French or Dutch congregations. These drastic changes
1 D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 133; Parker Corresp., nos. ccxxiv, ccxxv.
2 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. lxxxvi, nos. 45, 46, 48; Puritan Manifestoes, App. i.

Protestant Dissent 151
were disliked by many, and a committee was appointed to
frame another bill. The second bill restricted the penalties
to those uses of the book which were Popish or superstitious,
and gave some further liberty to the preacher. Speaker Bell
stopped proceedings, however, by signifying "her Highness'
pleasure, that from henceforth no more bills concerning
religion shall be preferred or received into this House unless
the same should be first considered and liked by the clergy." x
It was immediately after this session of Parliament that
the "Admonition" appeared.
They did not only propound it out of time (after the parliament
was ended), but out of order also, that is, in the manner of a libel,
with false allegations and applications of the scriptures, oppro
brious speeches, and slanders.2 For if you ask of the time; the
Admonition was published after the parliament, to the which it
was dedicated, was ended. If you speak of the place; it was not
exhibited in parliament (as it ought to have been), but spread
abroad in corners, and sent into the country. If you inquire of
the persons; it came first to their hands who had least to do in
reforming.3 It was not strange that Elizabeth, already annoyed by the
attitude of the Commons, should regard it as an attack
upon her authority, and believe that it partook more of the
nature of a seditious appeal to the people than an appeal to
Parliament. Wilcox and Fielde were lodged in prison, but that did not
prevent the "Admonition" from becoming popular and
widely circulated. A lively literary contest resulted. Bishop
Cooper of Lincoln refuted the pamphlet in a sermon at
Paul's Cross a week after Parliament closed. An anony
mous reply to Cooper appeared almost immediately, and.
in spite of the efforts of Archbishop Parker to discover the
secret press,4 within three months after its first appearance,
1 D'Ewes, Journals, p. 213; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. lxxxvi, no. 47.
2 Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 39.
3 Ibid., p. 80. Cf. also, D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 160, 161; Zurich Letters, no.
clxxxii. 4 Parker Corresp., nos. ccciii, cccxiii; Sandys to Burghley, Aug. 28, 1573;
Puritan Manifestoes, App. vi.

152 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the "Admonition" was twice printed in a second edition,
while Fielde and Wilcox were still in prison. Closely con
nected with the "Admonition" were two treatises which
appeared as one publication in September or October of the
same year, "An Exhortation to the Byshops to deal bro
therly with theyr Brethern," and, "An exhortation to the
Bishops and their clergie to aunswer a little booke that
came forthe the last Parliament." Shortly after the appear
ance of the "Admonition," its opponents compiled "A
Viewe of the Churche that the Authors of the late published
Admonition would have planted within this realme of
England, containing such Positions as they now hold against
the state of the said Church, as it is nowe." We have no
copy of this tract, but its contents are made clear by an
answer which appeared not earlier than September, 1572,
under the title, " Certaine Articles collected and taken (as it
is thought) by the Byshops out of a litle Boke entituled An
Admonition to the Parliament with an answere to the same."
This series of attacks upon the Establishment represents
the first stage of the Presbyterian movement. This stage is
midway between the early Precisianist attacks upon the
ceremonies and habits of the Church, and the active propa
ganda to establish the distinctive ecclesiastical organization
of Presbyterianism. As in the case of the opponents of the
vestments any resemblance to the practices of the Roman
Church is sufficient basis for condemnation. But there is
an advance from the early vestiarian position. The chief
object of attack is not the ritual, but the organization and
the spirit of the Church and the clergy. While the "Ad
monition" does not minimize the importance of abandoning
the ceremonies which are copied from the ceremonies of the
old Church, the chief and most telling part of its attack is
directed against the church organization itself, because it is
similar to the hierarchy of Rome, with its grades of rank,
its ecclesiastical nobility, its courts, and faculties, officials
and commissioners, its dispensations and licenses. The

Protestant Dissent 153
likeness to Roman organization inevitably stamps its organi
zation as wrong; the fact that it does not follow the New
Testament pattern irretrievably damns it. They find in the
proceedings of the bishops and other clerics who exercised
secular functions, not simply, however, the externals of Ro
man, non-Scriptural organization, but the very spirit of papal
episcopal rule and anti-Christian superiority. The Church
deals more hardly with true Protestants like themselves,
who are loyal to the Queen and to Christ's holy religion,
than with the traitorous and anti-Christian Romanists.
In spite of the fact that they must have recognized that
such arguments were covert attacks upon the connection
between Church and State, they proclaimed their loyalty
to the Queen and the government. They warned the Queen
that such resemblance to Rome, such a Roman hierarchy
within the kingdom, afforded the greatest encouragement
to her Papist enemies. They pleaded that they were more
truly her loyal subjects than the bishops who maintained
such a state of affairs. Yet there is a note of rebellion
against the secular dictation as represented by the Queen.
In ancient times "nothing was taught but God's work and
now Princes pleasures, mennes devices, popish ceremonies,
and Antichristian rites in publique pulpits defended." 1
"The pope's canon law and the will of the prince must have
the first place, and be preferred before the word and ordi
nance of Christ." 2 The Queen could not have relished the
demand that Parliament see to it that "the statute may
more prevaile than an Injunction."
The appeal that poor men may study the matters in dis
pute is a return to what is traditionally regarded as a funda
mental principle of the Protestant revolt, the right of every
man to judge his own soul's problems. To such a liberal
as Sandys even, their position seems dangerously anti-
aristocratic and democratic.
1 Puritan Manifestoes, p. 12.
2 Cf. "Parte of a Register," Grindal, Remains, p. 205.

154 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
It may easely appeare what boldenesse and disobedience theis
new writers have alredy wrought in the mynds of the people and
that agaynst the Civill Magistrate whome in words they seme
to extoll but whose authoritie in very dede they labor to caste
downe. For he seeth litill that doth not perceyve how that their
whole proceedinges tend to a mere popularitie.1
* In spite of a seeming democracy and love of liberty, in
spite of the fact that they enter the plea which is now recog
nized as one of the greatest arguments against intolerance,
the plea that persecution does no good,2 these writers were
not tolerant even within the narrow limits of Protestantism.
If divergent, they would have all opinions suppressed ex
cept their own. They would substitute for the authority of
the early Church fathers and antiquity, in matters of eccle
siastical organization and discipline, the authority of the
New Testament. And when they said New Testament,
they meant the verbally inspired text. Inasmuch as this is
an absolute and more restricted authority, it necessarily
implies a greater intolerance of all divergences. Yet as the
New Testament does not cover so much ground as "antiq
uity," — that is, tradition, — they freed the Church from
many "precepts of men," thus seemingly increasing the
sphere of freedom. This greater freedom was, however,
largely neutralized by their insisting that nothing should
be done in the Church for which there was not a clear com
mand of God.
In the autumn of the year in which the "First Admoni
tion" appeared, Thomas Cartwright wrote and published
the "Second Admonition to Parliament." Led by Cart
wright, Presbyterianism now entered upon that long and
wearisome literary conflict with the Anglican Establishment,
which, even to-day, has not entirely fallen into the desue
tude it deserves. Although a cluster of lesser lights sur
rounded them, the controversy centers about the works of
Cartwright and Dr. John Whitgift. The two had clashed
1 Puritan Manifestoes, p. 154. 1 Ibid., p. 71.

Protestant Dissent 155
before, and over substantially the same questions when
Cartwright was Lady Margaret Professor at the University
of Cambridge and Whitgift Master of Trinity College.1 In
that contest Whitgift -succeeded in expelling Cartwright
from the University, and Cartwright had gone to Geneva,
where he had been confirmed in his opinions by his associ
ations with the fountain-heads of Presbyterianism. He re
turned in 1572 at an opportune moment to take up his
old quarrel with Whitgift. Excitement over the "First
Admonition " was great. It was read on all sides. Whitgift
had under way the construction of the official reply, "An
Answere to a certen Libel intituled An Admonition to the
Parliament," and Cartwright brought out the "Second
Admonition" in time to receive his share of the worthy
doctor's condemnation. - -
The " Second Admonition " may be regarded as marking
a new stage in the controversy between dissent and Angli
canism ; it marks the transfer in essential interest from con
demnation of abuses to advocacy of a particular form of
church polity, the Presbyterian.
The other bokes are shorte (as it was requisite to present to
you), and therefore they have not so muche tolde you how to
Reforme, as what to Reforme. They have tolde you of many
things amisse, and that very truely, they have tolde you in gen
erali, what were to be restored, but howe to doe these things, as it
is the hardest pointe, so it requireth, as themselves saye, a larger
discourse. I meane therfore to supplie . . . something that may
make to the expressing of the matter, so plainely, that you may
have sufficient light to proceede by. . . .2
Unfortunately for those who are compelled to wade
through the vast mass of literary polemic that resulted, the
method of procedure presented in the ' ' Second Admonition ' '
was not so clear that the force of truth compelled its imme
diate acceptance. Cartwright's work is less interesting than
1 Grindal, Remains, Letters, no. lxv, and note 4; Strype, Whitgift, vol. I, p. 19;
Strype, Annals, vol. 11, pt. 1, App., nos. i, iii; S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. LXXI, no. 1 1.
2 " Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 90.

156 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the "• First Admonition." Its tone is less earnest in that it is
an intellectual, rather than an emotional, attack. In it we
find the narrowing and hardening that almost inevitably
accompany attempts to give practical organization to
idealistic or moral theories. The emphasis shifts from
moral and religious indignation, on a relatively high plane,
to an intellectual presentation of a definite ecclesiastical
polity. The "Second Admonition" and the development
of the propaganda under Cartwright's leadership mark a
distinct departure from the ground of the "First Admoni
tion," as that work marks a breaking-away from those who
merely desired reforms in the English ceremonial. The
"Second Admonition" marks out the lines of development
for a distinct and peculiar form of dissent, the Presbyterian.
Not all dissenters followed that line of development. Cart
wright succeeded in causing or forcing a division in the
ranks of the reformers. Many who were most ardent in the
struggle still further to modify the English Establishment
toward Protestantism, particularly in regard to ceremonies,
refused to follow Cartwright's extreme statements and posi
tions.1 Some of these contented themselves with remaining
in the Church as churchmen with Precisianist tendencies,
some withdrew in time to form churches more consonant
with the spirit of Christianity than that proposed by Cart
wright. Of these we shall speak more in detail after we have
presented the course and the results of the Presbyterian
development. The "Second Admonition" and the Presbyterian move
ment logically developed from the opposition to Roman
Catholicism manifested by the Vestiarians and the authors
of the "First Admonition," but, more important, the
"Second Admonition" developed the attack upon the
Established Church organization and created the form and
machinery for putting into operation the church organiza-
1 Zurich Letters, nos. clxxxii, clxxxvi, cxcii, cxciii; Strype, Annals, vol. m,
pt. n, App., iio. xlix.

Protestant Dissent 157
tion based upon Scriptural model which the "First Admo
nition" suggested.
By the consent of all, evidently, Cartwright was now re-
garded^as the head of the opposition, and the controversy,
so far as it was a Presbyterian controversy, was left pretty
largely in his hands. He wrote at once, "A Reply to an An
swere made of Doctor Whitgift," and then escaped to the
Continent in time to avoid a warrant issued for his arrest
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.1 Elizabeth's procla
mation against the two "Admonitions" 2 made that a safe
vantage-ground to occupy. Whitgift followed him with a
"Defence of the Answere," and at long range Cartwright
discharged two more shots, "The Second Replie" in 1575,
and "The Rest of the Second Replie" in 1577. To these
Whitgift did not reply, evidently considering that his mas
sive work, made available to the modern reader by the
Parker Society, had said all that was desirable. He now
trusted to less intellectual means to suppress his opponents.
As Hook expresses it, "It is not necessary to pursue this
controversy further, especially as it passed from the hands
of Whitgift to those of Bishop Aylmer, by whom Cart
wright was several times committed to prison." 3
In the mean time another Presbyterian work, of more
real importance than a great deal of the work of Cartwright,
had appeared. Walter Travers, whom we have met before
in connection with the question of ordinations, wrote, while
on the Continent, a Latin presentation of the Presbyte
rian system, " Ecclesiastiae Disciplinse . . . Explicato." This
Cartwright translated and published as, "A full andplaine
declaration of Ecclesiasticall Discipline owt of the word of
God and off the declininge off the church of England from
the same." The " Book of Discipline," as it is familiarly
1 Zurich Letters, no. cciii. Cf. Soames, Elizabethan History, p. 141.
2 S. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xci, no. 47; Zurich Letters, no. cxc; Puritan Mani
festoes, App. v; Strype, Parker, vol. 11, p. 320.
' Hook, Lives of the Archbishops, vol. v, p. 152 (New Series).

158 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
known, is a consistent and logical presentation of the Pres
byterian system, and formed the party platform.1
From this series of works, and from minor, incidental
tracts and letters, we derive the essentials of Presbyterian
ecclesiastical polity in England, its attitude toward Catho
lics and Continental Protestantism, its relations with the
Anglican Establishment and the government. We shall
examine these things in the order mentioned.
1 Dr. John Bridges answered Travers's book in Defence of the Government
Established in the Church of England for Ecclesiastical Matters. Aylmer had
been offered the task, but declined. Parker Corresp., no. ccclxviii; Grindal,
Remains, Letters, no. lxxviii.

CHAPTER VII
PROTESTANT DISSENT (continued)
The familiar Presbyterian form of church organization is
midway between the aristocratic Episcopalian and the
democratic Congregational forms of ecclesiastical polity.
The unit of the organization is the presbytery, made up of
the ministers and elders of the local churches. Presbytery
appoints and inducts the ministers and is the court of appeal
for the local congregations. Local management is vested in
a consistory session made up of the ministers and elders,
subject in some respects to the wishes of the congregation,
but, in effect, exercising practically its own discretion. The
English system contemplated, also, provincial and national
synods to serve for the consideration and settlement of
church problems with which the local presbyteries were not
competent to deal finally.
For this organization Scriptural authority was claimed.
The pattern thus found in the Scriptures was the only right
pattern for a Church of Christ; the New Testament made
necessary the acceptance and the use of this particular
organization.1 There was no place for any other form, no
authority equal to the Scriptures for the use of any other
ecclesiastical organization. Presbyterian adherence to a
particular form of organization, and assertion of a binding
Scriptural obligation for its use, resulted in important con
sequences for the theory of relationship between various
churches already existing.
Sharing with the Anti-Vestiarians, the Precisianists, and
the authors of the " First Admonition," a hatred for all that
was Roman Catholic in ritual and form, this theory, that
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. ii, pp. 6, 60, 195, 259; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. ill,
chap, v, sec. 1 ; chap, vn, sec. 4.

160 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
the New Testament commanded the use of the Presbyterian
organization and condemned all others, gave to the adher
ents of this party a basis for condemnation of papal organi
zation and Catholic ritual which the Anglican Church and
the predecessors of the Presbyterians in discontent in Eng
land had lacked. The papal organization and the rites of
the Roman Church were damnable and anti-Christian, not
simply because of corruption and abuses, but because Christ
had established another form of organization and other
rites. They applied the test to the Church of England and
found it base metal, for the Church of England likes "well
of popish mass-mongers, men for all seasons, king Henry's
priests, King Edward's priests, queen Mary's priests, who
of a truth, if God's word were precisely followed, should
from the same be utterly removed." 1 It thus gave ground
for a more thorough-going opposition to, and a more utterly
irreconcilable intolerance of, all that pertained to Catholi
cism. There was no need for Presbyterianism to appeal to
political policy and national patriotism in justification of
its opposition to Rome.
Inasmuch as the command of the New Testament to them
entailed a religious duty or implied one,2 since anything not
there authorized was, to the Presbyterian mind, unsavory
in the nostrils of the Lord, Presbyterianism became the
advocate of an intolerant and exclusive theory. It substi
tuted, within the sphere of ecclesiastical organization, the
authority of the Scriptures for the authority of reason,
drew "all things unto the determination of bare and naked
Scripture." 3 The sphere of religious tolerance narrows and
expands directly in proportion to the number of things that
are added to, or removed from, the sphere of religious
1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 317. Cf. ibid., vol. 1, p. 115.
In later editions " King Edward's priests " was omitted. Cf. Cambridge His
tory of English Literature, vol. in, p. 403.
2 Zurich Letters, no. clxxvii; Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 26, note 3; pp. 180,
183; Hooker, Works, vol. 1, p. 227, note 61.
• Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. 11, chap, vii, sec. I.

Protestant Dissent 161
necessity. In so far as ecclesiastical polity is brought into
the forefront of religious propaganda, it becomes narrow
and intolerant. Anglicanism removed ecclesiastical polity
from the list of things religiously essential; polity was a
matter of indifference to be regulated and changed in
accordance with the needs and circumstances of time and
place. "... That any kind of government is so necessary
that without it the church cannot be saved, or that it may
not be altered into some other kind thought to be more
expedient, I utterly deny," wrote Whitgift.1 Anglicanism
may have been intolerant of diversity in matters of polity
and ritual, but it was an intolerance based, not upon a
theory that these things were religiously important, but
upon the belief that the legal establishment of certain forms
by national legislation and the safety of the kingdom neces
sitated their observance. Apart from the religious question,
reason may well decide that enactments by a national as
sembly based on political necessity are more justifiably
insisted on than any dogmatic consideration. By this test
Presbyterianism represents a backward tendency in the
development of toleration.
The results of this theory of a divinely originated pres
bytery were not confined to the additional basis given for
condemnation of Catholics. All forms of Protestantism not
following the New Testament model were open to the same
.condemnation as the Catholic Church. Lutheranism and
Anglicanism were equally detestable. Cartwright went so
far as to say, "Heretics" — and by heretics he meant those
not Calvinistic — " ought to be put to death now," and he
backed his extreme statement by the assertion that, " If this
be bloody and extreme I am content to be so counted with
the Holy Ghost." 2
... To say that any magistrate can save the life of blasphem
ers, contemptuous and stubborn idolaters, murderers, adulterers,
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 184.
2 Cartwright, Second Reply, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 1 16, note I.
Cf. also ibid., vol. 1, p. 386.

1 62 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
incestuous persons, and such like, which God by his judicial law
hath commanded to be put to death, I do utterly deny, and am
ready to prove, if that pertained to this question, and therefore,
although the judicial laws are permitted to the discretion of the
prince and magistrate, yet not so generally as you seem to affirm,
and as I have oftentimes said, that not only must it not be done
against the word but according to the word and by it.1 «
It is, however, in connection with the condemnation of
Anglicanism that the results of the Presbyterian ecclesias
tical polity are most significant. The Anglican Church did
not claim that it followed apostolic practice in church organ
ization; it admitted that it did not. It said the form of
organization was not an essential matter. Cartwright's older
contemporaries in dissatisfaction were in substantial agree
ment with the Anglican Establishment upon the essential
indifference of ecclesiastical polity, but in so far as they
attacked the organization at all, maintained that the Angli
can organization was inexpedient. Cartwright united with
them in attack upon the resemblance of Anglicanism to
Rome.
Remove homilies, articles, injunctions, and that prescript
order of service made out of the mass-book. . . . We must needs
say as followeth, that this book is an unperfect book, culled and
picked out of that popish dung hill, the portuise and mass-book
full of all abominations. ... It is wicked, to say no worse of it,
so to attribute to a book, indeed culled out of the vile popish
service-book, with some certain rubrics and gloses of their own
device, such authority, as only is due to God in his book. . . .
Again, when learned they to multiply up many prayers of one
effect, so many times Glory be to the Father, so many times The
Lord be with you, so many times Let us Pray? Whence learned
they all these needless repetitions? is it not the popish Gloria
Patri? 2
He attacked the wealth and pomp of the Anglican ecclesi
astics, but departed from the position of the Admonishers
by maintaining that the Anglican Church was wrong in its
1 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 270.
2 Cartwright, Second Admonition, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 119,
note 6.

Protestant Dissent 163
very essence.1 New Testament authority necessitated an
other form of organization, and for the establishment of the
new, the Church already established must give way. Theo
cratic, exclusive Calvinism must be substituted for the
merely expedient and comprehensive Episcopalian Estab
lishment. The Anglican Church was an attempt to nation
alize the religious organization, with loyalty to the Queen
as its fundamental article. The Presbyterian programme
was an attempt to create a narrow, national, sectarianism
founded upon exclusively Biblical authority. Political needs
were a secondary consideration, although it is true that
their antagonism to the Papacy served as a strong argu
ment for the observance of that political policy which they
deemed most wise for the nation and royal safety — abso
lute suppression of all Catholics.
From the Presbyterian opposition to Anglicanism, thus
based upon Scriptural authority, resulted important con
sequences in Anglicanism itself. Anglicanism began the
formulation, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter,
of a divine right theory of episcopacy to meet the claims of
Presbyterianism. It abandoned the old basis of its apolo
getic, expediency and antiquity, and substituted other argu
ments. This shift took two directions. First, a return, with
the Presbyterians, to an exclusively Scriptural authority
where authorization of the Episcopal form was found ; and
second, the development of an entirely new line of argu
ment which based the authority of Scriptures and of religion
itself upon reason. The Scriptures could be used by An
glicans in defense of their peculiar organization as force
fully as in defense of the Presbyterian. This appeal was
made at first with desire simply to refute the Presbyterian
argument that Anglicanism had no Scriptural basis, without
implying that, when found, Scriptural authority should be
used to maintain an exclusively Episcopalian polity as the
1 Cartwright himself did not believe in, or practice, separation from the
Anglican communion, however.

1 64 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Presbyterians maintained an exclusively Presbyterian one;
but it was perhaps inevitable, in the face of Presbyterian
attack and argument, that Anglicanism should make, with
Presbyterians, but in opposition to them, the logical step
to maintenance of a divinely instituted and exclusive form
of ecclesiastical polity. This logical advance was not made
decisively in Elizabeth's reign. A theory of divinely ap
pointed Presbyterianism or Episcopalianism was antago
nistic to the political dominance which the Queen insisted
upon maintaining,1 and to which, for the sake of self-
preservation, the Church was compelled to assent. Angli
canism, however, was turned toward the theory of an apos
tolical episcopal succession, and as soon as governmental
opposition was withdrawn by the death of Elizabeth, it
proceeded to develop within its ranks a sectarianism as
contracted as that of its enemies.
The suggestion of Hooker in his "Ecclesiastical Polity,"
that reason had to rule in all cases even though arguing
from a basis of verbally inspired Scripture, served as better
ground for the apologetic of a Church so subservient to
royal power and political policy as was the Anglican Es
tablishment. That the rule of reason was, however, as op
posed to Episcopalianism as to Presbyterianism, was a
fact which neither Hooker and his party, nor the party
of opposition, recognized until many years after our pe
riod, when men began to ascribe their conversion to Ro
man Catholicism to the teachings of the "Ecclesiastical
Polity." Of less real importance than the advocacy of a particular
form of church polity by the Presbyterians, was their oppo
sition to Anglicanism upon doctrinal grounds. Presbyterian
polity was inseparably linked with the extremes of Calvin
istic doctrine. Anglicanism was, as we have pointed out
1 Had Elizabeth set up claims to rule by divine right, as did her successor and
the French mbnarchs, there would have been no necessary antagonism between
a divinely appointed Episcopal organization and her dominance. But Eliza
beth s power was not based on "a divine right" theory.

Protestant Dissent 165
above, tied to no articulated system of dogma; its stand
ards were indefinite and theologically inclusive. This gave
adequate grounds to Presbyterians for condemnation of
Anglican belief, independently of their condemnation of
Anglicanism on the score of polity. Accusations of Luther
anism were not relished by many of the bishops. Most of
them classed together, "wolves, Papists, Lutherans, Sad-
ducees and Herodians,"1 and asserted that, "as he [the
Devil] is unable to restore popery altogether, he is endeav
ouring, but imperceptibly and by degrees, to bring us
back to Lutheranism."2 They were for the most part
Calvinistic themselves, but, from the standpoint of tolera
tion, it is fortunate that their Calvinism did not express
itself decisively in the creeds and articles of the Establish
ment. Whitgift's attempt to impose the Calvinistic Lam
beth Articles upon Anglicanism fortunately failed. We
have Elizabeth to thank for this, however great be tiie
reproach we may feel justified in casting upon her for less
beneficent exercise of her royal power. The liberality re
sulting from this freedom from dogmatic exclusiveness, gave
occasion for some of the most strikingly intolerant utter
ances of Presbyterianism. They felt that the Church was
too generous, too broad, its charity too closely allied to lack.
of zeal in the Lord. They objected that some of the prayers
of the English Service were too charitable in view of what
could properly be asked of the justice of God. "They,"
the Radicals said, "pray that all men may be saved with
out exception; and that all travelling by sea and land may
be preserved, Turks and traitors not excepted ... in all
their service there is no edification, they pray that all men
may be saved." 3 Undoubtedly some men should be damned.
The doctrinal opposition of the Presbyterians did not result
in an increased hardening of Anglican dogmatic standards
1 Zurich Letters, no. cviii.
2 Ibid., no. cxxx. Cf. ibid., nos. cxxiv, cxi, cxxi, ccxv.
8 Nares, Burghley, vol. in, p. 348. Cf. "First Admonition," Puritan Mani
festoes, p. 29; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, chap, xxvn, sec. 1, p. 346.

166 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
comparable to the increased rigidity of its ecclesiastical
polity. We even find in Hooker statements which indicate
that the prevalent Calvinism was too uncompromising for
the Anglican Establishment.
Incidental to Presbyterian defense of an exclusive New
Testament ecclesiastical polity, insistence upon Calvinistic
theology, and attack upon Anglicanism, Presbyterianism
has some points of interest deserving of mention. One of
the most insistent and important claims made for Presby
terianism is that it is in general, and was in particular dur
ing the reign of Elizabeth, the champion of liberty and
democracy. Were this true, minor considerations of narrow
theology and polity would sink into oblivion, when com
pared to the great service thus rendered to the cause of
toleration. The justification for these claims is found,
ordinarily, in the fact that in Parliament the chief defenders
of the liberties of Parliament in opposition to the absolutism
of Elizabeth were also found in opposition to the Estab
lished Church.1 The questions which gave rise to the
greatest assertion of Parliamentary right were, during the
time when the Presbyterian controversy was at its height,
questions of ecclesiastical polity and reform. The union of
the question of national liberty with the question of eccle
siastical dissent was natural. Further, it is obvious that
during this period the champions of national liberty were
champions also of ecclesiastical dissent. But the obvious
fact does not state the truth quite accurately. The greatest
champions of the liberties of Parliament took occasion to
voice their claims as questions of any sort gave them occa
sion to do so. During this period the questions of Church
abuses, and the right to consider them, were the ques
tions about which the conflict with the government and the
Queen centered. At a later time these topics had sunk into
the background, and the fight for Parliamentary liberties
went on over the question of patents and monopolies. In so
1 Whitgift, Works, vol. i, pp. 42, 262; vol. 11, pp. 264, 398.

Protestant Dissent 167
far as ecclesiastical dissenters were the champions of liberty,
we would not deny to Presbyterians their fair share in any
glory that may be derived therefrom. But they have no
exclusive claims. Alongside of Presbyterians in this oppo
sition were those within the Church itself, by no means
advocates of Presbyterian doctrines, those whom we call
Precisians, those actuated merely by desire to embarrass the
bishops, lovers of liberty to whom the religious questions
merely gave occasion for opposition to encroachments upon
it by the sovereign, other types of dissent more truly demo
cratic in their religious and ecclesiastical theory than the
Presbyterian.1 Presbyterians were allied with these oppo
nents of royal absolutism ; that was the only possible escape
from the consequences of their religious and ecclesiasti
cal principles; but their championship did not arise from
the liberal character of those religious and ecclesiastical
opinions. Presbyterian principles of ecclesiastical organization were
not democratic, but aristocratic. Appeals to fears of Eng
lishmen that the bishops were seizing, or would seize,
excessive power similar to that possessed by the Catholic
bishops might touch a real danger, but were not consistent
with proposals to set up a governing ministry like that of
Scotland or Geneva. Arguments against concentration of
wealth in religious men's hands, to the deprivation of the
poor, arguments against religious rank and lordship, as
contrary to Scriptural example, have in themselves nothing
to do with championship of democracy and came with bad
grace from those who proposed to establish such an aristo
cratic and exclusive system as the Presbyterian. An eccle
siastical system of standards which would limit church
membership to those who accepted a dogmatic theological
doctrine so precise as that of Calvin, is, in the last analysis,
as undemocratic as its theology. However aristocratic is the
1 Parker Corresp., no. cccxxi; Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. I,
p. 390.

1 68 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Episcopalian form of government, it was one of the glories
of Anglicanism that it was inclusive and liberal in its theo
logical requirements. Outward conformity to established
forms it may have demanded; submission of the private
judgment to the confines of a theological system it did not.
Even subscription to the doctrinal articles which it asked
was made liberal by the indefinite character of those articles,
an indefiniteness which admitted of interpretation conso
nant with a whole range of theological opinion. Presby
terian Calvinism certainly fails to satisfy one of the most
important requisites of any democratic system, individual
freedom. To one unprejudiced by adherence to any sect it must
be hard to see the justice in Presbyterian claims to cham
pionship of civil and religious liberty. Presbyterianism was
not tolerant; it was not democratic in ecclesiastical or
theological theory. Its purpose was the substitution on
a national scale of theocratic, exclusive Calvinism for po
litical inclusive Episcopalianism. Ecclesiastically it was
exclusive, theologically it was intolerant. Nor can we see
in its theory of the relationship between Church and State
any great contribution to the principles of liberty and tol
eration. Condemning as they did all other forms and all other
doctrines, upon the basis of Scriptural truth, it might have
been expected that Presbyterians would advance the toler
ant suggestion that such obvious Scriptural authority be
left to work conformity and uniformity by its simple pres
entation in preaching and teaching. As we have seen, how
ever, they felt that the force of truth works but slowly, and
that the need for acceptance of Presbyterian ecclesiastical
and theological dogma was urgent. They proposed that the
government compel the acceptance of both at once. The
relations, therefore, between Church and State were not to
be severed, but to be made closer, in order, not that political
needs might be served by the Church, but that political

Protestant Dissent 169
power might do the will of God as interpreted by the
Presbyterians.
They would beare men in hand that we despise authoritie, and
contemne lawes, but they shamefully slaunder us to you, that so
say. For it is her majesties authoritie we flye to, as the supreme
governour in all causes, and over all persones within her domin
ions appointed by God, and we flie to the lawes of this realme,
the bonds of all peace and good orders in this land. And we
beseche her majestie to have the hearing of this matter of Gods,
and to take the defence of it upon her. And to fortifie it by law,
that it may be received by common order through out her
dominions. For though the orders be, and ought to be drawne
out of the booke of God, yet it is hir majestie that by hir princely
authoritie shuld see every of these things put in practise, and
punish those that neglect them, making lawes therfore, for the
churche maye keepe these orders, but never in peace, except the
comfortable and blessed assistance of the states and governors
linke in to see them accepted in their countreys, and used.1
The Queen was not to dictate to the new Establishment as
she dictated to the Episcopalian one.
No civil magistrate in councils or assemblies for church matters
can either be chief moderator, overruler, judge, or determineer,
nor has such authority as that, without his consent, it should not
be lawful for ecclesiastical persons to make any church orders
or ceremonies.2 Church matters ought ordinarily to be handled
by church officers. The principal direction of them is by God's
ordinance committed to the ministers of the church and to the
ecclesiastical governors. As these meddle not with the making
civil laws, so the civil magistrate ought not to ordain ceremonies,
or determine controversies in the church, as long as they do .not
intrench upon his temporal authority. 'T is the princes province
to protect and defend the councils of his clergy, to keep the peace;
to see their decrees executed: and to punish the contemners of
them: but to exercise no spiritual jurisdiction. "It must be
remembered that civil magistrates must govern the church ac
cording to the rules of God prescribed in his word; and that as
they are nurses so they be servants unto the church ; and as they
rule in the church, so they must remember to submit themselves
1 "Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 130. Cf. Theses Martiniana,
Pierce, Marprelate Tracts, p. 309. '
2 But cf. the Act of Uniformity on this point.

170 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
unto the church, to submit their sceptres, to throw down their
crowns before the church, yea, as the prophet speaketh, to lick
the dust off the feet of the church." 1
Rhetorical as this language undoubtedly is, it is strikingly
similar in sentiment, as well as expression, to the language
of some of those great bishops of Rome whom the Protestant
Reformers denounced so heartily. This presents clearly
enough the relationship which it was proposed should exist
between Church and State when Presbyterianism was
established. This was essentially the true position of
Elizabethan Presbyterianism, although we find the point
obscured by numberless protestations of ministerial humil
ity. They were loyal inasmuch as they were whole-heartedly
opponents of her most dangerous enemies, the Papists.
They acknowledged her supremacy in temporal things, and
over spiritual persons in temporal matters.
If the question be, whether princes and magistrates be neces
sary in the church, it holdeth that the use of them is more than of
the sun, without the which the world cannot stand. If it be of
their honour, it holdeth that, with humble submission of mind,
the outward also of the body, yea the body itself, and all that it
hath, if need so require, are to be yielded for the defence of the
prince, and for that service, for the which the prince will use them
unto, for the glory of God, and maintenance of the common
wealth.2They were humble and unpretentious inasmuch as they
were suppressed and felt their lack of power. In spite, there
fore, of these protestations the Presbyterians came into
conflict with the government and were subject to suppres
sion by the government.
The religious acts intended primarily for the suppression
of Papists afforded the legal basis for the prosecution and
the Presbyterians protested that "lawes that were purposely
(i l Quoted in Madox, Vindication of the Church of England, p. 122. Cf. also,
" Second Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 93; Cartwright, apud Whitgift,
Works, vol. 1, p. 390; ibid., pp. 27, 377; Zurich Letters, nos. clxxxvii, cxciv.
2 Cartwright, apud Whitgift, Works, vol. 1, p. 20. Cf. also, ibid., vol. I, pp. 21 ,
79, 82, 105.

Protestant Dissent 171
made for the wicked, be made snares by you to catch the
godly." x Until the drastic legislation of 1593, the provision
of the act,2 which demanded that all clerics below the dig
nity of bishop should subscribe to "all the articles of reli
gion which only concern the confession of the true Christian
faith and the doctrine of the sacraments" comprised in the
Thirty-nine Articles, served as the legal basis of restraint
upon the nonconformists. The phrase was interpreted by
the bishops to mean that by the act subscription was re
quired to all the Articles, those relating to the government
as well as those relating to the doctrine of the Church.3
The opponents of the bishops interpreted it as meaning
that subscription was required by the act to the articles of
religion only. Under the leadership of Whitgift the Church
proceeded, by means of the Ecclesiastical Commission and
the oath ex officio, to subject the dissenters to great hard
ships. In this course Whitgift had the support of the
Queen, although he was impeded sometimes by the oppo
sition of members of her Council. For the most part, how
ever, this unofficial governmental opposition was not
exercised because of favor to Presbyterian principles, but
because of dislike for the ecclesiastical aggrandizement of
the bishops and their harshness. A great deal of the severity
shown during this period was due to the personal character
of the men in charge of ecclesiastical affairs, men like Whit
gift, Bancroft, and Aylmer, rather than to a consistent
regard for the principles of the Establishment. The oppo
sition to their proceedings by Cecil and other men of influ
ence was excited by humanitarian principles, rather than
by intellectual or religious sympathy with those who
suffered from the proceedings of the bishops.
1 "An Exhortation to the Byshops to deale Brotherly with theyr brethren,"
Puritan Manifestoes, p. 67; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, Illustrative
Documents, p. 21.
2 13 Eliz., c. 12.
2 D'Ewes, Journals, pp. 132, 160, 184; Strype, Whitgift, bk. in, App.,
no. xvi.

172 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
Convinced as they have been of the injustice of charges
of disloyalty made against the Presbyterians, defenders of
that system have usually dismissed the charges as having
no other basis than the vindictiveness of the bishops, with
their cry of "Disloyal to the Church, Disloyal to the
Queen." 1 Without holding a brief for the ecclesiastics, we
find more reasonable ground for the prevalence of these
charges on the part of both ecclesiastical and secular lead
ers, and for their acceptance by the Queen. Elizabeth was
not so subject to the influence of her bishops that she would
permit them to impose their merely ecclesiastical hatreds
upon her. The men supposed to have the greatest influence
upon her personal opinions were not subservient to the
bishops nor in sympathy with them ecclesiastically.
To a man like Cecil, with his high conception of the royal
prerogative and power, the ecclesiastical conditions in
Scotland were sufficient reason for rejecting Presbyterian
ism. The Presbyterian theory of the relation between
Church and State would subordinate the Queen to the
clergy.2 That the advocates of such theories should be sup
pressed and restrained by the Queen was inevitable. She
had a high conception of her position and she was deter
mined to maintain it. The statutes of the realm gave her
the advantageous position in such a contest; she could
legally suppress such variations. But had this not been
true, it is certain that she would have used her prerogative
in spite of law; interpretation of an ambiguous phrase in the
statute of 1 57 1 was by no means the full measure of the
lengths she would have gone had it been necessary. Yet
there is in her attitude little that suggests religious intoler
ance. Such measures as she took, or were taken at her
1 Parker Corresp., nos. cccxxv, cccxxvi, cccxxxi, cccxxxiii, ccclxix; "Second
Admonition," Puritan Manifestoes, p. 92; Whitgift, Works, vol. 1, pp. 20, 393,
423, 466; vol. 11, pp. 263, 399; Usher, Reconstruction, vol. 1, p. 45, note 2.
2 Zurich Letters, nos. xxxviii, note 3; clxxxv; Strype, Annals, vol. iv, no. xciv;
Hooker, Works, App., no. ii to bk. v of Ecc. Pol.; Cooper, Admonition, p. 86;
Parker Corresp., no. lxii.

Protestant Dissent 173
direction, have in them nothing of the spirit of religious
persecution. Elizabeth was influenced by no religious nar
rowness in her treatment of any of the bodies of dissent;
political policy was the absolutely controlling motive in
her suppression of nonconformity in all its phases. This
may seem an extreme statement in view of the measures
taken by her ecclesiastical officers, evidently at her direc
tion; but the degree of coercive power she placed in their
hands was determined by the political necessity she felt
for maintaining her supremacy over the ecclesiastical
establishment of the realm, not by the positive ecclesias
tical intolerance of spirit which actuated some of the bishops
who administered that power. In the case of the Presby
terians, rabid anti-Catholic propaganda, appealing to
national sentiments of detestation for the Papacy, threat
ened not only the stately forms and ceremonies which she
loved, but, more important still, it endangered that policy
of conciliation and moderation toward non-political Cath
olics which she felt compelled to maintain in the face of its
unpopularity with some of her closest advisers, and, during
the last twenty years of her reign, with a great body of the
best educated and most conscientiously loyal of her sub
jects. The extreme, uncompromising attitude of Presby
terianism toward all that savored of Catholicism was riot
to her liking. She preferred the old forms. The Church
of England was sufficiently compliant, and there was room
in its policy for such winking at Catholicism as secular
politics made necessary. Elizabeth was willing to use the
radical element as a means of keeping political Catholicism
in check, but did not intend that the extremists should so
gain the upper hand that loyal and merely religious Cath
olics should be forced into opposition to her.
Similarly, the exclusive ecclesiastical polity of the Pres
byterians and their mathematical system of theology,
which carried with them active condemnation of those Con
tinental churches which were not Genevan in form and

174 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
doctrine, might be supposed to threaten the friendship
which she wished to maintain with all forms of Protestant
ism, Lutheran as well as Calvinistic. There is little direct
evidence to prove that this aspect of Presbyterianism was
given much consideration, but the conclusion that this may
have in part influenced the attitude of the Queen, is at
least reasonable, in view of her desire to be regarded as the
champion of all anti-papal movements. That repression of
Presbyterian leaders and thought would alienate their Con
tinental sympathizers, may have in part determined the
fact that it was not against Presbyterian dissent that the
most severe and persistent repression was directed, but
against those types of nonconformity which originated in
England itself and were, therefore, not representative of a
wing of Continental reform.
With the assistance of the bishops, Elizabeth was made
to feel the full force of any possible arguments that could
be urged against the Presbyterians on the score of disloy
alty. Absurd as such charges were from the standpoint of
the personal feelings of the representatives of the move
ment, there was, nevertheless, that in their theory and their
writings which might easily be interpreted as more disloyal
than was mere condemnation of the Established Church.
NON-PRESBYTERIAN DISSENT
In regard to the opinion and practice of the nonconform
ing Protestant movements which did not ally themselves
with Presbyterianism, and have a different development,
and other theories of relationship to the Established Church,
to the State, and to the other religious communions, it is
difficult to generalize. There developed from the early op
position to the Anglican Establishment a variety of minor
movements and sects, other than the Presbyterian. The
most important of these, though marked by the widest di
versity, belong to that group of ecclesiastical and religious
sects from which the Congregational theory and system of

Protestant Dissent 175
ecclesiastical organization developed. We include under the
genetic name of Congregational the Barrowists, the Brown-
ists, the Anabaptists, and with reservations the opinions of
Penry, Greenwood, Robinson, and the writer or writers
of the Martin "Marprelate Tracts," and individuals who
share the essential characteristic of the group, but who are
not to be classed definitely with its main divisions. Our
interest is not primarily with the minutiae of the ecclesias
tical or religious beliefs of individuals, and it is not neces
sary to regard minor phases of dogma and practice in the
opinions of individuals which seem to separate them from
the leaders of the Congregational movement.
The idea at the root of all the somewhat heterogeneous
groups of religious opinion thus classified was the idea that
the Church should not be an inclusive body whose stand
ards of belief and admission to membership were dictated
by state policy.1 Current opinion required that all men
belong to the Church ; hence kindliness of heart and of judg
ment required that all men be admitted easily or even com
pelled to enter the ecclesiastical body established by law.2
This opinion the Congregational groups rejected. They
would have no easy application of the parable of the wheat
and the tares so far as church membership was concerned.
Barrow in the Fleet Prison in 1590 wrote: —
Never hath all kinds of sinne and wickedness more universally
raigned in any nation at any time yet all are received into the
church, all made members of Christ. All these people with all
these manners were in one daye, with the blast of Q. Elizabeth's
trumpet of ignorant papistes and grosse idolaters, made faithful
Christians and true professors.3 [The Church of England is com
posed of] all the profane and wicked of the land, Atheists, Pa
pists, Anabaptists, and heretics of all sorts, gluttons, rioters, blas
phemers, purgerers, covetous, extortioners, thieves, whores,
1 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. II, pp. 29, 32.
2 Cardwell, Doc. Annals, vol. 1, pp. 321, 383, 387; Strype, Whitgift, vol. in,
p. 71.
• Barrow's examination, printed in Arber, Introd. to Marprelate Controversy,
pp. 41-48.

176 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
witches, connivers, etc., and who not, that dwelleth within this
land, or is within the Queen's dominions.1
Free from the State and all outside control, the local church
should be made up of individuals conforming to, and judged
worthy by the standards of belief and practice determined
upon by a group already accepting and living according to
those standards. Browne defined the church as
The Church planted or gathered in a company or number of
Christians or believers, which, by a willing covenant made with
their God, are under the government of God and Christ, and keep
His laws in one holy communion. The Church government is the
lordship of Christ in the communion of His offices, whereby His
people obey His will, and have mutual use of their graces and
callings to further their godliness and welfare.2
Thus their idea of a church was that of a body of spiritu
ally fit persons united for worship together and for com
munion with God. Because the local church thus stood by
itself, self-sufficient and with full authority to create its
own machinery of administration, and to formulate its own
doctrinal standards, within the ranks of Congregationally
organized churches we find great diversity of opinion and
practice. The standards are usually as narrow religiously as those
of Presbyterianism, for the ideal to be reached was absolute
truth and holiness of life, and in the pursuit of absolute
truth, men of ability or of spiritually earnest zeal, though
often unlearned, in that day sought to express their spirit
in the statements of dogmatic theology, rather than in the
formulation of the broad principles essential to the reli
gious life. They felt that these religious truths might be
formulated by the unlearned as well as by the learned and
1 Barrow, Brief Discovery of the false Church, vi, 9. Cf. Whitgift, Works,
vol. 1, pp. 382, 385; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. m, chap. 1, sec. 7; Works, vol. u,
p. 63, note 18.
2 Cf. Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 11, pp. 60, 139; Hooker, Works, vol. II,
p. 63, note 18.

Protestant Dissent 177
attacked the Presbyterians for emphasis on an educated
ministry. These Reformists howsoever for fashion sake they give the
people a little liberty to sweeten their mouths and make them
believe that they should choose their own ministers, yet even in
this pretended choice do they cozen and beguile them also, leaving
them nothing but the smoky, windy title of election only, enjoin
ing them to choose some university clerk, — one of those college
birds of their own brood, — or else comes a synod in the neck of
them, and annihilates the election whatsoever it be.1
This contempt for the aristocracy of learning and this demo
cratic confidence in the people may have been promoted by
the fact that lay readers were employed in the services of
the Established Church. Mechanics and artisans took part
in, and conducted parts of the services of the State Church,
and hence the people saw no great incongruity when men in
humble circumstances assumed independent leadership.2
Browne, who is usually regarded as the father of Congre
gationalism, had a hard time to find enough men to accept
his formulation of rules of faith and practice to make a
churchTand parted with his congregation in anger because
some would not agree to the rules he laid down. It is char
acteristic of the local church principle, however, that each
local church recognizes the other churches, whatever their
polity, Congregational, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, as
true churches of Christ, although Anglicanism and Presby
terianism might be regarded as corrupted by mistakes and
condemned for unchristian refusal to practice the principles
of religion as the Congregationalist understood them.
And in' the meane tyme (as yt becometh us to iudge) we are
perswaded that her Maiestie and many thowsandes of her Sub-
iectes (who as yet differ in iudgment amongst themselves and
from us in many thinges) are the deare Children of God, and
heyres of saluation through faith in Christ Ihesus, etc.3
1 Barrow, quoted in Dexter, Congregationalism, p. 239.
2 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, p. 29. ,
8 Ibid., p. 69. Cf. also pp. 67, 84, 104.

178 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
_Congregationalists make a great deal of the ecclesiastical
liberalism of Congregational principles, but neglect the facts
of withdrawal upon religious grounds from communion with
English and Continental Protestants.1 Religiously Congre-
gationalists were more precise and intolerant than either
Anglicanism or Presbyterianism, but ecclesiastical narrow
ness and intolerance are foreign to the principles upon which
the system of local churches is based. Owing to the narrow
ness of accepted religious principles in almost all of the
Congregationalist churches, this ecclesiastical tolerance did
not extend to the individual. Churches were regarded as
the units and were to be permitted a freedom and looseness
of cooperation that appeared anarchistic in Elizabeth's day.
Yet, as it was thus more individualistic and democratic, so
it was a less effective form of organization than Presby
terianism or Anglicanism.
Presbyterianism had an orderly sense consonant with its
propaganda to establish a particular form of church gov
ernment; it attempted, with a reasonable degree of success,
to keep within the letter of the law.2 The groups of Congre
gationalism were not allied to any one form of ecclesiastical
organization, strictly speaking, nor indeed to any one form
of theological doctrine. They lacked, therefore, the sense
of organization cohesiveness. Hooker summed it up in the
statement, "Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom
in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men
would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men,
but in some wilderness by themselves."3 Congregationalism
did not undergo that institutional hardening which made
the Presbyterian movement at least capable of under
standing Anglican concern at divergence, and patient to
1 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. II, p. 83; Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, App.
no. ii, p. 63, note 16; bk. in, chap. 1, sec. 10, p. 224; Strype, Annals, vol. IV,
no. lxii.
2 Cf. Strype, Whitgift, vol. 111, pp. 262, 283, 284; vol. 11, p. 84; Usher, Pres
byterian Movement, pp. 92, 93, 31, 36, 38.
3 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. 1, chap, xvi, sec. 6.

Protestant Dissent 179
use intelligent and orderly methods of displacing it. The
lack of unity, ecclesiastically and dogmatically, in Congre
gationalism, moreover, prevented the concerted action
which Presbyterianism was able to bring to bear in the
attack upon the Established Church.
In spite of the inadequacy of its ecclesiastical organiza
tion, or perhaps because of it, the whole group is charac
terized by a religious enthusiasm and intense religious fer
vor that are foreign to the Anglican Church, and in great
part to Presbyterianism also. It is this intensity of religious
feeling, as distinct from intellectual conviction of the truth
of theological dogma, rather than the championship of their
own Congregational polity, that lies at the basis of their
condemnation of others. Toward Catholics this antagonism
goes to great lengths. The expressions of denunciation and
invective reach a heat even more fervid than that of the
most enthusiastic Presbyterian. "That most dreadfull
Religion of Antichrist, the great enemye of the Lord Ihesus,
and the most pestilent adversary of the thrones of kinges
and Princes"1 was so much an object of horror that lan
guage seemed to fail to express the depth of their abhorrence.
Here, too, lay essentially the cause of their denunciation
of the Anglican Church. Although their attacks, like the
attacks of Presbyterians, are directed against the cere
monies, the government, the officials, the courts, and the
abuses of the Church, there is in their polemic a note of
burning zeal that sometimes almost reaches the height and
earnestness of the most fierce denunciations of the prophets
of Israel.
This emotional intensity is interesting. It is the very
stuff from which religious intolerance is made. Curiously
enough, and unusual in the history of religion, it is a fervor,
however, which is essentially liberal and tolerant as com
pared with contemporary religious opinion.
1 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, p. 82 ; Waddington, Penry, pp. 1 1 3 , 1 14.
Cf., however, the language of the Second Scotch Confession of 1580 (Schaff,
Credo in, pp. 480 et seq.). Luther too went pretty far in this way.

180 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
... It is to no purpose that her Maiesties subiectes should be-
stowe their tyme in learning, in the study arid medytation of the
word, in reading the wrytinges and doinges of learned men and
of the Jioly Martyrs that have bene in former ages, especyally
the wrytinges published by her Maiesties authorytie, yf they
may not without danger professe and hold those truthes which
they learne out of them, and that in such sort, as they are able to
convince all the world that will stand against them, by no other
weapons then by the word of God. . . . Imprysonment, yndyte-
mentes arraignmentes yea death yt selfe, are no meet weapons
to convince the conscyence grounded upon the word of the Lord,
accompanied with so many testimonies of his famous seruantes
and Churches.1
Whether one agrees with the religious opinions of Browne,
or indeed with Christianity itself, one must recognize an
earnestness here, even in their anger against other forms
of their religion, which is comparable to the anger of their
Master against the scribes and Pharisees. The spirit of
Christ's "Woe unto ye scribes and Pharisees" was in the
utterances of those Congregationalists, who denounced their
fellow Christians as He denounced his fellow Jews for the
abandonment of the true principles of religion, truth, and
uprightness, and substituted rites and ceremonies and the
incidents and unessentials of organization. It is sometimes
difficult to tell whether Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, and
even Catholicism were most concerned about diversity from
the truths which they believed religiously essential or about
diversity from their particular form of worship. Congrega
tionalism was intolerant of such substitution of form and
ritual for the truths of the religion of Jesus Christ as they
saw them. Because this was true, the attacks of Congrega
tionalists were directed against the ecclesiastical organiza
tion of Anglicanism, and against the connection between
the State and the Church which had established and main
tained the Anglican organization; and the grounds of that
attack were religious, not merely ecclesiastical, as some
1 Penry's "Confession and Apology," Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n,
p. 87.

Protestant Dissent 181
writers maintain. Congregationalism was not fighting
essentially for the creation of a new form of ecclesiastical
organization. Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism as we
know them in the United States would not have been exter
minated by Congregationalists, nor would Catholicism it
self, except as it claims to be the only agent of salvation
upon earth. Their tolerance, however, did not extend to
the permission of life and the protection of the State for the
agnostic and the atheist, or those who denied such essential
elements of the Christian faith as the Triune character of
the Godhead and the everlasting damnation of sinful men.
Their zeal made them more intolerant of such crimes against
traditional Christianity than was Anglicanism, for their
religious feeling was of primary importance and had not
sunk into the background of an ecclesiastical system.
Congregationalists were chiefly subject to condemnation
by the government, the Establishment, and the Presby
terians because they attacked the current theory that gov
ernmental unity was dependent upon ecclesiastical and
religious unity. This position necessarily undermined the
favorite doctrine of the age in regard to the headship of the
sovereign over the Church.1 Such tenets were, to the minds
of the average Elizabethan Englishmen who occupied posi
tions of trust in Church and State, utterly irreconcilable
with political loyalty to the Queen and to the nation. Prot
estations of submission and loyalty 2 could not convince
them. Further, the Congregational system of church organ
ization was essentially democratic and brought Congrega
tionalists in for a persecution more relentless than that
directed against the followers of Cartwright;3 monarchical
and aristocratic antagonism to democratic sentiments re
garded them as more dangerous. The development of an
1 Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. vm, chap. I, sec. 2; Parker Corresp., no ccl; Bur
rage, English Dissenters, vol. I, p. 101; vol. n, pp. 28, 63, 64, 78.
2 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. n, pp. 78, 79.
8 Elias Thacher and John Copping were hanged in 1583 for "dispersinge of
Browne's bookes."

1 82 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
economic and intellectual aristocracy, interested in for
warding social and economic movements antagonistic to
its own supremacy, is a matter of comparatively recent
growth. In Elizabeth's day and for long after, religious
and secular aristocrats were opposed on grounds of eco
nomic interest to all movements which looked to the pop
ulace for the creation of a church.
A second fault is in their manner of complaining, not only be
cause it is for the most part in bitter and reproachful terms, but
also because it is unto the common people, judges incompetent
and insufficient, both to determine anything amiss for want of
skill and authority to amend it.1
Congregationalism could hope to win from the powers of
the realm no such freedom of worship as was granted to the
foreign congregations in London and elsewhere,2 for Con
gregationalists were not so important commercially, indus
trially, and politically as were these refugees;3 and could
not, it was thought, safely be allowed exemption from laws
binding on all Englishmen.
1 Cranmer's letter to Hooker, Hooker, Ecc. Pol., bk. v, App., no. ii, p. 65;
cf. Whitgift, Works, vol. I, p. 467.
2 5. P., Dom., Eliz., vol. xxm, no. 67; Parker Corresp., nos. cxii, cxcvi, and
note i, ccxlv, ccxlvii, cccxxii; Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. II, p. 118.
3 Burrage, English Dissenters, vol. 1, p. 118.

CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION
The reign of Elizabeth is not altogether an encouraging
field to the idealist seeking in the past for the first rays of
the light of tolerance. Catholics were fined, imprisoned,
suffered death. Protestants who refused to accept the ex
isting regime endured hardships no less severe. Govern*-
ment compelled adherence to its own Church and that
Church stood for no great principle of religious freedom.
In the realm of religion no commanding personality stands
as the leader or the embodiment of his age; still less as a
beacon light to the thought of succeeding ages. Two ecclesi
astics alone, Fox and Hooker, are known to-day outside the
halls of theological learning : the one as the author of a work
which has perpetuated religious and theological bitterness
founded upon falsehood and bigotry ; the other remembered
for the literary style of his prose, but for no great contribu
tion to religious thought or feeling. No single voice was
raised to free the minds of men from the restraints of theo
logical and ecclesiastical dogma. The sovereign herself
stood for no heroic principle of power or right. Her vices
even were not impressive. Her genius for deceit gave her a
certain distinction even in a Christendom skilled in lying;
but Elizabeth's accomplishments were so petty in positive
statesmanship demanding bold imagination and vision as
to excite no wonder by their courage and audacity. No
statesman under her formulated a bold and striking na
tional religious policy which left his name impressed upon
the institutions of his creation. Bickerings hardly worthy
the name of religious struggles ; an expedient policy so ab
ject as almost to deny the existence of principle; repression
without the excuse of a burning faith in an abstract ideal ;

1 84 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
these are the superficial characteristics of the age. Yet the
importance of the Elizabethan age in the history of tolera
tion stands upon a sure foundation.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne of England more
than a generation had passed since Luther had stirred the
souls of men by his proclamation of revolt. His call to arms
as it echoed over Europe had roused men of all nations to
range themselves in fighting mood upon one side or the
other. Religious enthusiasm, national feeling, a new vision
of moral and intellectual life had stirred Catholicism and
Protestantism alike to the very depths. No longer were
ideas and ideals to be passively received and held; they
became banners to lead armies by, the standards for which
men joyfully flung away their strength. Hatred, unreason
ing and unreasonable, obscured high purpose and lofty aim;
in the name of religious faith both sides descended to unex
plored depths of savagery and cruelty. But such sacrifice
could not continue. Here and there in Europe evidences of
returning sanity were seen. Vicious combat brought desire
for peace, and the realization that ultimately an adjustment
of its religious quarrels must be made if European civiliza
tion was to endure manifested itself in the first vague grop-
ings for some basis of settlement. In Germany a certain
basis of toleration in a small territorial setting was offered
by the Peace of Augsburg. In France the wisdom of L'H6pi-
tal attempted to secure an adjustment upon humane prin
ciples only to be defeated by the militarist elements which
broke down the first slight barriers of moderation and left
us the memory of St. Bartholomew's Eve. In England the
same groping took form in a policy which may appear petty,
but which, at least in the maturing consciousness of the
national State, created a national Church. The pettiness
of England's compromising religious policy may be for
gotten and forgiven in the wider significance which that
policy has as one phase of a general European adjustment.
That the withdrawal of England from the jurisdiction of

Conclusion 185
the Papal See afforded no occasion for dramatic declaration
of principles makes no less important, in the history of reli
gious toleration, the character of that withdrawal and the
attempted adjustment of the religious questions of the age.
It is true that the history of intolerance as well as the his
tory of tolerance during the reign of Elizabeth is largely the
story of the problems raised by the Catholic question. It is
true that all the elements in the English religious situation
reflect in their spirit the fact of the Catholic presence. But
the fundamental fact that rises above all confusing issues is
the unmistakable one that the government formulated and
proclaimed a policy designed to meet the dangers of papal
politics, not by more persecution but by less.
Primarily the complexities and difficulties of the political
situation at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign defined the
nature and extent of governmental toleration. The Queen
and her officials plainly declared, and their actions backed
up the declaration, that the consciences of men should not
be violated by interference with their purely religious be
liefs so long as conscience was not made the shield and ex
cuse for opinions so depraved as to involve the Queen's
subjects in acts of open violence against the State. Such .
was the degree of toleration made possible by the patriotism
and the religious indifference of the nation and by the per
sonal character and convictions of the nation's leaders.
The association of English Catholics with the ambitions of
Mary Stuart, with the schemes of Philip of Spain, the ac
tivity of Jesuits upon the Continent and in England aroused
in the nation and in many of its leaders a sense of danger
and a strong enmity which threatened this policy. Presby
terianism advocated the extermination of all who adhered
to the Roman Catholic faith, and although itself subject
to governmental restraint, added strength to that element
in the kingdom which upon other grounds opposed the
lenient attitude toward the most active religious enemies
of the Queen and the nation. Anglicanism also, to a lesser

1 86 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
degree, as it developed an independent ecclesiastical con
sciousness sometimes displayed a desire to force Catholics
into the fold of the English Establishment more insistent
than was compatible with the purposes of the Queen and
her councillors. The aggressive measures of the papacy com
pelled the abandonment in part of the liberality at first
proclaimed and maintained. Yet the incentives to more
drastic measures, whether from Catholic excess and treason
or from Protestant prejudice, were never so powerful as to
force the government to substitute for the policy it had at
first assumed a policy of Catholic extermination.
The fundamental defect in carrying out the government's
policy of toleration, however, was not the opposition of the
Catholics, not the activity of the Presbyterians, not the
ambitions of Anglicans, but the retention of a state ecclesi-
•astical establishment and the idea that ecclesiastical unity
was essential to political unity. It was upon this basis that
the adjustment proposed by the Elizabethan government
rested and it was foredoomed to ultimate failure. The con
formity of all men to one ecclesiastical organization, how
ever liberal its doctrinal standards and however formal the
degree of conformity demanded, implies a simplicity or a
hypocrisy of which men are not so universally guilty. Cer
tainly such a programme could not succeed in an age that
had developed two forces so antagonistic as Catholicism
and Protestantism. But that the government should have
abandoned the accepted belief of the times and permitted
complete freedom of worship by no means follows. The
religious forces with which it had to deal were themselves
too intolerant to enjoy freedom or to employ it intelli
gently. Freedom would have defeated its own ends; free
dom would have brought religious strife utterly beyond the
control of the forces of order. Modern tolerance may regret
the failure of the Elizabethan attempt, it may clearly recog
nize the causes of that failure, but only fanatical love of an
ideal not yet universally understood in our own time will

Conclusion 187
refuse to do homage to the measure of success which, with
the material at its disposal, Elizabethan England was able
to attain.
Elizabethan ecclesiastical and religious bodies reacted to
the Catholic danger and to the governmental policy, but the
attitude of all toward the spirit of tolerance was also de
termined by their reactions upon one another and by char
acteristics peculiar to themselves.
The Elizabethan Establishment was the work of men
temperamentally opposed to extreme theories of church
government and was from policy fundamentally tolerant
as well as inclusive. The doctrinal standards which were
set up and the form of the organization itself were such
as would imply the least strain upon the consciences and
prejudices of the Englishmen whose formal allegiance to
its Establishment the government demanded. The polit
ical purposes of the Establishment were clear and the
function of allegiance to the Church as a test of loyalty to
the Crown most evident. Conformity at the first to most
of Elizabeth's subjects meant little more than this, but as
Catholic opposition became more uncompromising and as
Protestant discontent with the religious and ecclesiastical
features of the State Establishment became more pro
nounced and clear-cut, Anglicanism developed an ecclesi
astical consciousness of its own worth and excellence in
only a minor degree dependent upon its position as an arm
of secular politics. The vigorous attack of Presbyterianism
upon the Establishment aroused it to defense of itself, not
by appeal to its political and national functions alone, but
also by championship of the desirability of the Episcopalian
organization for its own sake. More radical Protestantism,
both in England and upon the Continent, was regarded
with less brotherly warmth, and arrangements which had
at first been borne as mere expedients became the objects
of earnest defense.
Presbyterianism, which was the most persistent and

1 88 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
irritating Protestant enemy Anglicans had to face, presented
in Elizabeth's reign few aspects of tolerant spirit. Its lack
of power and the necessity, imposed upon it by its weak
ness, of assuming the postures of petition, were responsible
for whatever evidence of Presbyterian tolerance may be
discovered. The insistence upon a New Testament ecclesi
astical polity and the importance given by Presbyterianism
to the form of the ecclesiastical organization as a part of
the gospel were more mediaeval in tendency than was the
retention by Anglicanism and by the government of the
idea of national conformity to a state ecclesiastical estab
lishment. Further, the close connection of the Presbyterian
form of organization with the cold and precise theology
of Calvin made Presbyterianism dogmatically, as well as
ecclesiastically, intolerant of all other forms of the Chris
tian religion. Anglicanism developed its own peculiar
ecclesiastical organization and doctrinal standards and
built into them a spirit that has at all events the virtues
of humanness and practicality. English Presbyterianism
adopted ready-made a system of church government and
the carefully articulated process of reasoning or argument
upon which that system rested. It adopted, too, the most
consistent and mathematically exact system of theology
that Christianity has developed, — Calvinism entire as it
was laid down by its creator. Presbyterianism was thus
furnished with an ecclesiastical and dogmatic pattern to
which it insisted that all organized Christianity must con
form. All its direct influence was toward greater intoler
ance. Of the ecclesiastical and religious movements developed
during the reign of Elizabeth, the one which contained most
possibilities of adjustment to modern ways of thinking was
the Congregationalist, but it was of least influence upon
Elizabethan thought and action, and in her reign developed
little beyond the initial stages. The group was religiously
and morally fired by intense earnestness and inspired to

Conclusion 189
righteous indignation and intolerance of the abuses and
shame of scholastic Protestant ecclesiasticism. It proposed
to destroy the strongest bulwark of national and ecclesi
astical intolerance, the connection between Church and
State, but, except as a forerunner and a source of later
development, the Congregationalists are of no importance
for the history of tolerance in the reign of Elizabeth.
Political considerations caused the formulation and pro
mulgation of the one definite theory of religious toleration
that the reign of Elizabeth offers us, and political causes
also prevented the theory being carried to its logical con
clusion, but the success of Elizabethan politics, our judg
ment of the character of Elizabethan policy, is not to be
determined by its religious effects alone. Whatever the
success or failure of the attempt at religious adjustment the
policy which dealt with the religious situation dealt also
with greater things. It was in the days of Elizabeth that
the England of to-day was taking shape in commerce, in
literature, in national policy. Labor was being faced as a
national problem, the theories and the practice of finance
were becoming modern, England was entering upon its
period of commercial expansion. In response to this new
wealth and enlarged outlook England was reveling in the
creations of a released and profane imagination. Govern
mental policy not only for the time freed England from the
more savage manifestations of religious hatreds and thus
released her energies for development along these lines, but
the religious aspects of governmental policy also directly
contributed to that development by giving to the nation a
great church in which centered much of high national pride.
Society transforms itself slowly, irrationally, with curious
inconsistencies. Social groups form alliances and antago
nisms rationally impossible. Tolerance and intolerance exist
side by side. Tolerance in Elizabeth's reign did not in the
ory keep pace with national economic, literary, and patriotic

190 Intolerance in the Reign of Elizabeth
development. The reign had weakened but not cast off the
hold of Roman Catholicism upon the nation. Anglicanism
had become a great national force with a strong hold upon
the affections of Englishmen. Presbyterianism had formed
a compact ecclesiastical group. A few, ill-organized cham
pions of church freedom and religious liberalism had begun
to make their voices heard in the land. Greater bitterness
and more savage quarrels would interfere with the free
development of the national spirit, but already was visible
the ultimate triumph of that sounder principle of national
unity which recognized the element oi variety in a har
monious whole — a principle which only the modern world
has realized. In this field, therefore, as in others, the age of
Elizabeth is the threshold to our own.

the end

Bibliographical Appendix

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX
Two purposes have controlled the preparation of this biblio
graphical appendix : the wish to lighten the foot notes, and the
desire to provide a bibliography that may prove useful to other
American students. Completeness is impossible; rigid selection
would have excluded many works here mentioned. The mention
of less reliable works with critical comments will perhaps assist
American students who are venturing into this field. The atten
tion given to pre-Elizabethan and general works is necessary to
a preliminary understanding of the topic and period. In this por
tion of the bibliography many omissions would be serious were
the purpose other than that of providing introductory material
for the study of Elizabethan ecclesiastical and religious history.
The manuscripts of the period of Elizabeth are, of course, not
available in America ; but the American student who has an oppor
tunity to spend some time in England will find great collections
opened to him and every facility for work offered at the Public
Record Office, the British Museum, and the Lambeth Palace
Library. For the student who is familiar with considerable detail
of , the reign of Elizabeth the best introduction to the manuscripts
is undoubtedly the collection of State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth,
in the Public Record Office. These are conveniently bound and
represent every phase of the Elizabethan age, so that the student
who intends to specialize in this field will be abundantly repaid
by reading the whole series. Other series of papers have been
arranged and catalogued or calendared so that their use presents
few difficulties to the beginner. Unfortunately, however, great
masses of manuscript material exist, particularly those under the
control of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, which have never
been prepared for use and are, furthermore, not opened under
ordinary circumstances to examination by foreign students.
Many great collections of printed sources are available in
American university libraries. For such material consult, E. C.
Richardson, Union List of Collections on European History in
American Libraries (Princeton 1912; Supplement: Copies Added
1912-1915, ibid., 1915; A. H. Shearer, Alphabetical Subject Index,
ibid., 1915).
The Calendar of the State Papers, Domestic, for the reign of

194 Bibliographical Appendix
Elizabeth has been published by the Government and may be
found in several of the larger American libraries. For the student
without access to the documents themselves the calendars serve
as a very fair substitute, although the Domestic Calendar forthe
earlier years of Elizabeth's reign is too summary in character to
be entirely satisfactory. The later volumes are much more com
plete. The Foreign Calendar, the Venetian Calendar, the Calendar
of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs preserved in
the Archives of Simancas, and the Calendar of the Carew Papers
assist in making access to the documents themselves less impera
tive. The Statutes of the Realme (printed by command of His
Majesty King George the III, 1819) is, of course, essential to
any study of English- history. Simonds D'Ewes, Journals of all
the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, both of the
House of Lords and House of Commons, revised and published by
Paul Bowes (London, 1682), is necessary for the study of Parlia
mentary history during the reign. Tudor and Stuart Proclama
tions, 1485-1714, calendared and described by Robert Steele, under
the direction of the Earl of Crawford (vol. 1, England, vol. 11, Scot
land and Ireland, Oxford, 1909), is a work required constantly for
that phase of Elizabethan administration, and makes access to
H. Dyson, Queene Elizabeth's Proclamations (1618), less impor
tant. J. R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council of England (New
Series) , throws much light on many topics and is essential for an
understanding of the activity and importance of the Council in
Elizabethan government. In the Reports from Commissioners,
Inspectors and Others (35 vols., London), the MSS. of the Duke of
Rutland comprise four volumes and contain much of interest and
importance. Thos. Rymer, Foedera conventiones literae et cujusque
generis acta publica (20 vols., London, 1726-35), is indispensable.
Other collections of first-rate importance are Spencer Hall,
Documents from Simancas relating to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
(London, 1865); P. Forbes, Full View of the Public Transactions
in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (2 vols., London, 1740-41); State
Papers of Sir Ralph Sadler (ed. Clifford, Edinburgh, 1809); Sir
Henry Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History.
Several smaller but very useful collections should be found in
every college library. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitu
tional Documents (Oxford, 1898); A. F. Pollard, Tudor Tracts,
IS32~I5S8 (An English Garner, Westminster, 1903); Pocock,
Records of the Reformation (2 vols., Oxford, 1870).
Printed letters, papers, and writings of Elizabethan statesmen
available are, W. Murdin, Burghley State Papers (London, 1759);
Samuel Haynes, Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in

Bibliographical Appendix 195
the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary
and Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1542 to 1570 ; transcribed from
the original letters left by Wm. Cecil, Lord Burghley (London, 1740) ;
The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, Including all his Occa
sional Works (ed. Spedding, 7 vols., London, 1861-74).
Biographical works sometimes quote largely from the sources,
but are usually of little assistance to the historical student be
cause of inaccuracy of quotation and the tendency to make a hero
of the subject of study. Further, biographies are often written
without a clear understanding of the age, and tend, therefore, to
produce distorted estimates. These defects are more usually
found in the older books. Edward Nares, Memoirs of the Life and
Administration of the Right Honourable, Wm. Cecil, Lord Burghley
(3 vols., London, 1828-31), is, for instance, almost useless. M.A.S.
Hume, The Great Lord Burghley ; A Study of Elizabethan State-
craft (New York, 1898), on the other hand, is the work of a mod
ern scholar thoroughly familiar with the sources for the whole
reign of Elizabeth. Of similar importance is Karl Stahlin, Sir
Francis Walsingham und seine Zeit (Heidelberg, 1908).
Of the great biographical collections the Dictionary of National
Biography is indispensable as a guide, but will, for the special
student, serve as little else, for its summary character gives it
rather more than its full measure of the disadvantages of all
biographical material. Such collections as Arthur I. Dasent,
Speakers of the House of Commons (London and New York, 191 1) ;
John Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of
the Great Seal of England (10 vols., London, 1868); E. Foss, A
Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England (9 vols., London,
1848-64), may sometimes prove helpful if used intelligently.
For English constitutional and legal history the classical his
tories remain useful, although extreme caution should be exer
cised, for statements of fact are often wrong and theories anti
quated. Henry Hallam, The Constitutional History of England
from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II with a
continuation from George III to i860, by Thos. Erskine May (5
vols., New York and Boston, 1865), is a convenient edition of this
old work. Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead, English Constitu
tional History from the Teutonic Conquest to the Present Time (5th
ed., revised by Philip A. Ashworth, London and Boston, 1896),
should be checked by other histories and special articles. The
only contemporary account of the English Constitution is that of
Sir T. Smith, De Republica Anglorum (London, 1583). Sir W.
Stanford, Exposition of the King's Prerogative (London, 1567), is
well worth examining.

196 Bibliographical Appendix
Of the histories of the English law, W. S. Holdsworth, A His
tory of English Law .(vol. 1, London, 1903), is the most readable.
J. Fitzjames Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England
(3 vols., London, 1883), is not entirely satisfactory, but has its
uses. Sir Edward Coke, Institutes (many editions, the one used
was that of London, 1809), and Sir William Blackstone, Com
mentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books (ed. by Thos. M.
Cooley, ad ed., 2 vols., Chicago,*i876), are necessary works.
James Dyer, Reports of Cases (London, 1794), presents much of
value. The student of the working of the law will also find much
of interest in The Middlesex County Records, vol. 1, Indictments,
Coroners Inquests, Post-mortem and Recognizances from 3rd
Edward VI to the end of the Reign of Elizabeth (ed. John Cordy
Jefferson, published by the Middlesex County Records Society).
Miscellaneous special works and articles of use are D'Jardine,
Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England
previously to the Commonwealth (a pamphlet; London, 1837);
Crompton, L 'Office et authorite de Justices de Peace (ed. 1583);
George Burton Adams, "The Descendants of the Curia Regis"
(American Historical Review, vol. xiii, no. 1); Dicey, The Privy-
Council (Oxford, i860); Conyers Read, "Walsingham and Burgh
ley in Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council" (English Historical Re
view, vol. xxviii, p. 42) ; Record Commission Publications, vols.
I— in : Cases before the Star Chamber in the Reign of Elizabeth; C. A.
Beard, The Office of Justice of Peace in England (New York, 1904).
For ecclesiastical law and administration the classic is probably
Sir Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of
England (2d edition by his son W. G. F. Phillimore, 2 vols.,
London, 1895). Felix Makower, The Constitutional History and
Constitution ofthe Church of England (trans. London, 1895), is the
only work covering that field, but it is inadequate in many re
spects. Richard Burn, The Ecclesiastical Law (8th ed. by R. P.
Tyrwhitt, 4 vols., London, 1824), is an old work, but for the stu
dent of the Tudor period, not a specialist in the ecclesiastical law,
forms a convenient book of reference for terms and processes. Of
primary importance is the Report of the Royal Commission on
Ecclesiastical Courts (London, 1883, 2 vols.). G. C. Brodrick and
W. H. Freemantle, Collections of Judgments of the Judicial Com
mittee of the Privy Council in Ecclesiastical Cases relating to Doc
trine and Discipline (London, 1865), contains much historical
material of value in the introduction, although written in defense
of a particular theory. W. F. Finlason, The History, Constitution
and Character of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Con
sidered as a Judicial Tribunal; Especially in Ecclesiastical Cases

Bibliographical Appendix 197
(London, 187-), is representative of a type of partisan discus
sion. For the study of Parliament several works of varying degrees
of excellence exist. The old Parliamentary History of England,
from the earliest period to the year 1803 (36 vols., London, 1806-20,
vols. 2-12; William Cobbett's Parliamentary History from thd
Norman Conquest to the year 1803) will not prove inviting to the
modern student. Edward and Annie G. Porritt, The Unreformed
House of Commons, Parliamentary Representation before 1832
(2 vols., Cambridge, 1903), is a modern work that should not be
neglected. C. G. Bayne, "The First House of Commons of Queen
Elizabeth" (English Historical Review, vol. xxiii, pp. 455-76; 643-
82), is a special study of an interesting Parliament.
For the Council and administration, besides works already
mentioned, special studies should be consulted, such as Conyers
Read, '.'Factions in the English Privy Council under Elizabeth"
(American Historical Association Annual Report, 191 1, vol. 1,
pp. 109-20), for a brief summary. Other articles will be found in
the English Historical Review. Charles A. Coulomb, The Admin
istration of the English Borders during the Reign of Elizabeth (Uni
versity of Pennsylvania Series), deals with one of the most inter
esting phases of administration.
The political histories of the Tudors are legion, and because of
the political character of ecclesiastical and religious history dur
ing the period, they treat that phase in considerable detail. A. F.
Pollard, Political History of England from Edward VI to the Death
of Elizabeth (sixth volume in the series, Political History of Eng
land, edited by W. Hunt and R. L. Poole), is one of the best
more recent introductions. The opinions and interpretations
offered by J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey
to the Death of Elizabeth (12 vols., 1863-66), should not be accepted
as authoritative, but his work remains the best detailed account
covering the whole period. Green, History of England (many edi
tions), is interesting reading. Some works covering sections of the
Tudor period are more useful than the general works. E. P.
Cheyney, A History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to
the Death of Elizabeth (vol. 1, New York, 191 3), deals with a period
somewhat neglected by historians and will do much to correct
the current impression that Elizabethan history ended with the
defeat of the Armada.
For Henry, Edward, and Mary the following are of first-rate
importance: Mqberly, The Early Tudors (Epoch Series) ; Pollard,
Henry VIII (London, 1902); J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII,
from his Accession to the Death of Wolsey (ed. by J. Gairdner, 2 vols.,

198 Bibliographical Appendix
London, 1884); A. DuBoys, Catherine d'Aragon et les Origines du
Schisme Anglican (Geneva, 1880, trans, by C. M. Yonge, 2 vols.,
London, 1881); N. Harpsfield, Treatise of the Pretended Divorce
between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon (ed. N. Pocock,
Camden Society, 1878) ; Paul Friedman, A nne Boleyn, a Chapter of
English History, 1527-1536 (2 vols., London, 1884); Literary
Remains of Edward VI (Roxburghe Club, ed. J. G. Nichols, 2
vols., London, 1857); Sir J. Hayward, Life and Reign of Edward
VI (London, 1630) ; P. F. Tytler, England in the Reigns of Edward
VI and Mary (2 vols., London, 1839) ; Chronicle of Queen Jane and
Queen Mary (Camden Society, London, 1850); J. M. Stone, The
History of Mary I, Queen of England, as found in the Public
Records, Despatches of Ambassadors, in Original Private Letters,
and Other Contemporary Documents (New York and London,
1901); Zimmerman, Maria die Katholische (Freiburg, 1891);
Friedman, "New Facts in the History of Mary, Queen of Eng
land" (Macmillan' s Magazine, vol. xix, pp. 1-12).
For English life and thought during the reign of Elizabeth:
Rye, England as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth and
James (1865); E. P. Cheyney, Social Changes in England in the
16th Century (Philadelphia, 1895); Mandell Creighton, The Age
of Elizabeth (Epochs of Modern History, New York, 1884) ; H. D.
Traill, Social England (vol. in, New York and London, 1895);
Harrison, Elizabethan England (Camelot Series); Hubert Hall,
Society in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1886), an excellent correc
tive for poetic views ; Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft
in England from 1558— iyi8 (American Historical Association,
Washington, 1911), a remarkable study; Payne, Voyages of
Elizabethan Seamen (First Series, Oxford, 1893); Saintsbury,
Elizabethan Literature; J. W. Burgon, Life and Times of Sir
Thomas Gresham (2 vols., London, 1839).
For economic history: W. J. Ashley, Introduction to English
Economic History (London, 1892); W. Cunningham, The Growth
of English Industry and Commerce; David D. Macpherson, An
nals of Commerce (4 vols., London, 1805); J. E. T. Rogers, The
History of Agriculture and Prices (vol. IV, Oxford, 1882); W. A.
Shaw, History of Currency (London, 1895) ; R. Ruding, Annals
of the Coinage (3d ed. by Aherman, 3 vols., London, 1840);
S. Dowell, History of Taxation (2d ed., 4 vols., London, 1888).
For the life of Elizabeth: Frank A. Mumby, The Girlhood of
Queen Elizabeth told in Contemporary Letters (New York, 1909);
Wiesener, The Youth of Elizabeth, 1533-1558 (English trans., 2
vols., London, 1879); M. A. S. Hume, The Courtships of Queen
Elizabeth (New York, 1896, London, 1898); William Camden,

Bibliographical Appendix 199'
The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess, Eliza
beth, etc. (London, 1675); J. Stow, Annates, continued to the End
of 1631 by E. Howes (London, 1631); E. S. Beesly, Queen Eliza
beth (London and New York, 1892; Twelve English Statesmen);
Mandell Creighton, Queen Elizabeth (New York and London,
1900) ; Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, a series
of letters of distinguished persons of the Period (London, 1838);
Collins, Queen Elizabeth's Defence.
For the European situation: Arthur Henry Johnson, Europe
in the 16th Century, 14Q4-15Q8 (Periods of European History,
London, 1900); M. Philippson, Westeuropa im Zeitalter von
Philipp II, Elisabeth u. Heinrich IV (Oncken Series, Berlin,
1882); Henri Forneron, Les dues de Guise et leur Spoque (2 vols.,
Paris, 1877); and by the same author, Histoire de Philippe II
(2 vols., Paris, 1881-82) ; J. W. Thompson, The Wars of Religion
in France, 1559-1576. The Huguenots. Catherine de Medic, and
Philip II (Chicago, 1909). Cf. also M. A. S. Hume, Philip II of
Spain (Foreign Statesmen, ed. by J. B. Bury, London, 1897);
State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (ed. by
J. K. Laughton, vol. 1, 1894, Navy Record Society Pub.).
For Scotland and Mary Stuart: David Calderwood, The His
tory of the Kirk of Scotland (ed. by Thomas Thomson, vols, i-vi,
Edinburgh, 1842-45), one of the older histories of considerable
importance. J. Spottiswoode, History of the Church and State of
Scotland (Spottiswoode Society, Edinburgh, 1851; ist edition,
London, 1655); Thomas Wright, History of Scotland (3 vols.,
London and New York, 1856); Peter Hume Brown, History of
Scotland (Cambridge Historical Series, ed. G. W. Prothero, 3
vols., Cambridge, 1899-1909); Mathieson, Politics and ReUgion,
a Study of Scottish History from the Reformation to the Revolution
(2 vols., Glasgow, 1902) ; P. Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of
England (London, 1875); David Hay Fleming, The Reformation
in Scotland, Causes, Characteristics, Consequences (Lectures deliv
ered at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1907-08, London, 1910) ;.
State Papers of Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, Calendar (voL
1, Edinburgh, 1898); Antoine Louis Paris, Negotiations, lettres, et
pieces diverses relatives au rlgne de Francois II (in Collections de
documents inidits sur Vhistoire de France, vol. 19, Paris1, 1841);
Prince A. Labanoff, Lettres, instructions et memoir es de M. S.,
reine d'Ecosse (7 vols., London, 1844); J. H. Pollen, Papal Nego
tiations with Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish History Society Pub.,
vol. xxxvirp Edinburgh, 1901); H. Machyn, Diary (Camden
Society, London, 1847); J. Anderson, Collections relating to the
History of Mary Queen of Scotland (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1727-28) ;

200 Bibliographical Appendix
R. S. Rait, Relations between England and Scotland (London,
1901) ; Agnes Strickland, Mary Queen of Scots, Letters and Docu
ments connected with her Personal History (3 vols., London, 1843) ;
The Bardon Papers, Documents relating to the Imprisonment and
Trial of Mary Queen of Scots (edited for the Royal Historical
Society by Conyers Read with a prefatory note by Charles
Cotton, Camden Society, 3d Series, vol. xvii, London, 1909).
Printed collections of sources for ecclesiastical history are
numerous. D. Wilkins, Concilia Magna Britannia (4 vols., Lon
don, 1739), is indispensable. Anthony Sparrow, A Collection of
Articles, Injunctions, Canons, Orders, Ordinances and Constitutions
Ecclesiastical with Other Publick Records of the Church of England
(4th impression, London, 1684), contains many things of value.
Edward Cardwell, Documentary Annals of the Reformed Church of
England from 1546-1716 with notes historical and explanatory
(2 vols., Oxford, 1839), is sometimes inaccurate, and the historical
notes are of little value, but is a convenient collection. Gee and
Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History (New
York and London, 1896), is the best of the more recent collections.
W. H. Frere, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period ofthe
Reformation (3 vols., London, 1910), has superseded all other texts.
Among the publications of various societies will be found prac
tically all the works and writings of Anglican divines. The publi
cations of the Parker Society especially give easy access to great
quantities of such material. Among the most important works of
this character published by the Parker Society are: The Corre
spondence of Matthew Parker, comprising letters written by and to
him from A.D. 1535 to his Death A.D. 1572 (edited by John Bruce
and Thomas T. Perowne, Cambridge, 1853); the Works of John
Jewel (edited by John Ayre, 2 yols., 1848-50) contain "The
Apology of the Church of England," "The Defence of the Apol
ogy," "The Epistle to Scipio," "A View of a Seditious Bull,"
"A Treatise of the Holy Scriptures," "Letters and Miscellaneous
Pieces"; the Works of Sandys (London, 1842); Edmund Grindal,
Remains (edited by William Nicholson, Cambridge, 1843) ; Works
of Whitgift (edited by John Ayre, Cambridge, 1851) ; Zurich Let
ters, or The Correspondence of Several English Bishops and Others
with some of the Helvetic Reformers, during the Reign of Queen
Elizabeth (trans, and edited by Rev. Hastings Robinson, 2d edi
tion chronologically arranged in one series, Cambridge, 1846).
The works of Cranmer, Coverdale, Hooper, Latimer, Bale, Brad
ford, BuUinger, Becon, Hutchinson, Ridley, and Pilkington also
have been published by the Society. For further information see
the Parker Society's General Index (Cambridge, 1855).

Bibliographical Appendix 201
The Anglo-Catholic Library contains considerable material of
first-rate importance, and the Camden Society publishes many
things not easily procured elsewhere. Lists of the publications of
these series should be consulted. Camden Society publications of
great value, not conveniently mentioned elsewhere, are: J. Fox,
Narratives ofthe Reformation (ed. J. G. Nichols, 1859) ; John Hay-
ward, Annals of the First Four Years of Queen Elizabeth (edited by
Bruce, 1840); Mary Bateson, A Collection of Original Letters from
the Bishops to the Privy Council 1564 (Camden Miscellany, vol. ix,
London, 1893).
The older biographies are worth consulting for the documents
they incorporate, although their accuracy cannot be depended
upon. The labors of John Strype (died 1737) produced several
lives, published in the Oxford edition of his works (other editions
are available in some of the larger libraries), among them the
lives of Parker, Grindal, Whitgift, Aylmer, Cheke, Smith, Cran
mer, all with abundant collections of sources.
Other collections of works and biographies are Thomas Cran
mer, Remains and Letters (Jenkyns ed., 4 vols., Oxford, 1833),
which should be used in connection with Pollard, Thomas Cran
mer (1903) ; Henry Geast Dugdale, Life and Character of Edmund
Geste (London, 1840); the works of Richard Hooker have been
published in whole or part many times, but the edition of Rev.
John Keble, The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr.
Richard Hooker, with an account of his life and death by Isaac
Walton (2 vols., 3d American from the last Oxford edition, New
York, 1857), contains much valuable supplementary material.
The writings of Bancroft have not all been reprinted, but his
Dangerous Positions and Proceedings published and practised
within this Island of Brytaine under Pretence of Reformation and
for the Presbyteriall Discipline (London, 1593) was reprinted in
1640 and in 1712 and large extracts are given in Roland G. Usher,
Presbyterian Movement as illustrated by the Minute Book of the
Dedham Classis (Camden Society Pub.). Other works of Ban
croft are noted elsewhere. Ralph Churton, Life of Alexander
Nowell (Oxford, 1809), is a life of one of the less conspicuous of
the Elizabethan divines.
W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (New Series,
7 vols., 1868-76), contains much material, but is written from the
standpoint of a vigorous and somewhat narrow ecclesiastic; it
serves rather to throw light upon the opinions of latter-day
Anglicanism than upon the period with which it deals. F. O.
White", Lives of the Elizabethan Bishops of the AngHcan_ Church
(London, 1898), is another collection worth examining.

202 Bibliographical Appendix
First and early editions of Elizabethan ecclesiastical and reli
gious literature are not readily available in America, but some
good public collections exist. That of the Prince Library, now
incorporated in the Boston Public Library, contains among other
things three copies of Bancroft's Dangerous Positions, possibly
the only copies in America. The McAlpin Collection in the
Union Theological Seminary, New York City, is probably the
most complete in this country and contains much not to be
found in any other American collection, both of the works of the
Elizabethan Anglicans and of their opponents. The collection is
now being catalogued by Dr. Charles Ripley Gillett and it is to
be hoped that the catalogue will soon be printed. In the mean
time it is difficult to say just what will be found there; but the
writer has seen A Brief Discours off the troubles begonne at Franck-
ford in Germany Anno Domini 1554, in an edition of 1575; Bucer,
On Apparell (1566); Coverdale's Letter (1564); Parker, Advertise
ments (1564) ; The Judgement of the Reverend Father Master Henry
BuUinger (1566); Grindal's Visitation Articles (1580); Penry's
Defence (1588); Thomas Bilson, Perpetual Government of Christ's
Church, etc: (London, 1593); [Bancroft] Conspiracie for Pretended
Reformation, viz. Presbyteriall Discipline; R. Cosin, Hacket, Cop-
pinger, etc. (London, 1593); Thomas Cooper, An Admonition to
the People of England (London, 1589); J. Lily, Pappe with an
hatchet. Alias A figgefor my God sonne or Cracke me this nut (1589) ;
Richard Bancroft, A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse the o of
Februarie anno 1588 (London, 1588); J. Udall, Demonstration of
the truth of Discipline (1589) ; Whip for an Ape and Marline; John
Davidson, D. Bancrofts Rashnes in Rayling against the Church of
Scotland (Edinburgh, 1590) ; The Execution of Justice in England
for maintenaunce of publique and Christian peace, etc., by William
Cecil (London, 1583). Other early editions available in America
are Matthew Sutcliffe, Treatise of Ecclesiastical Discipline (1591) ;
also Sutcliffe, De Presbyterio (about 1590) ; Christopher Goodman,
How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects (Geneva,
1558) ; John Bridges, Defence of the Government Established in the
Church of England for Ecclesiastical Matters (1587) ; Richard Cosin,
Apology of and for Sundry Proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesias
tical (1593); Sir John Harrington, Brief View of the State of the
Church of England.
There is some tendency on the part of modern students to
neglect the older historians on the score of their undoubted preju
dices and inaccuracy; but the student who does so will deprive
himself of valuable assistance. The prejudices of the older histo
rians are by no means craftily concealed, and with the number of

Bibliographical Appendix 203
printed sources and calendars available inaccuracies can rather
easily be checked. With care in regard to these things the modern
student will find much of interest and profit in many of the fol
lowing: J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials . . . of the Church of
England (3 vols., Oxford, 1822), and the same author's Annals of
the Reformation and Establishment of Religion and other various
occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's
Happy Reign (7 vols., Oxford, 1824), both abundantly supplied
with collections of papers, records, and letters. Gilbert Burnet,
The History of the Reformation of the Church of England : a new
edition carefully revised and the records collated with the originals
by Nicholas Pocock (7 vols., Oxford, 1865), includes Wharton's
Specimen of Errors. Both Strype and Burnet write from the
standpoint of Anglicans. John Lingard, A History of England
from the First Invasion of the Romans (5th ed., 8 vols., Paris,
1840), is the work of a Catholic of considerable breadth. Jeremy
Collier, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain Chiefly of Eng
land from the First Planting of Christianity to the End of the Reign
of King Charles the Second : with a Brief Account of the Affairs of
Religion in Ireland (ed. by Francis Barham, 9 vols., London,
1840), from the standpoint of a strong Tory and Jacobite at the
period of the Revolution of 1688. C. Dodd [H. Too tell], Church
History (ed. M. A. Tierney, 5 vols., London, 1839-43), Written
by a Catholic priest as an antidote to Burnet. Peter Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata, or the History of the Reformation of the Church
of England (ed. by James Craigie Robertson and printed by the
Ecclesiastical History Society, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1849), and
Thomas Fuller, Church History of Britain (ed. J. S. Brewer, 6vols.,
London, 1837), were written by clerics of the English Church who
adhered to Charles I and to the High Church Laudian party.
W. Corbett, Protestant Reformation (ed. F. A. Gasquet, 2 vols.,
London, 1896), with which it may be interesting to compare
Charles Hastings Collette, Queen Elizabeth and the Penal Laws,
with an Introduction on Wm. Cobbett's "History of the Protestant
Reformation." Passing in review the Reigns of Henry VIII, Ed
ward VI and Mary (Protestant Alliance, London, 1890). Henry
Soames, History of the Reformation of the Church of England
(4 vols., London, 1826-28), and the same writer's Elizabethan
Religious History (London, 1839), are less interesting than the
older works.
The examination of more recent writers on the Church, cover
ing the whole or parts of the Tudor period, will convince the
careful American student, unprejudiced by national and ecclesi
astical sympathies, that in some respects even greater care is

204 Bibliographical Appendix
required in their use than is the case of the older historians.
Documents and sources are used more accurately, there is little
or no conscious polemic purpose, and prejudices are less obvious,
but the student who compares the equally scholarly work of a
modern Anglican cleric, a modern Catholic priest, and a noncon
formist scholar will often find widely divergent conclusions equally
honest. Religious and national prejudices are so difficult to escape
that the student should be on his guard constantly, both in his
own work and in estimating the work of even the most conscien
tious of modern scholars.
Richard Watson Dixon, History of the Church of England
from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (6 vols., of which
vols, v and vi were compiled from the notes and papers of Canon
Dixon by Henry Gee) , is one of the fairest written by an Anglican
clergyman. It is frankly stated that the writer's standpoint is
that of a Church of England cleric. James Gairdner, The English
Church in the 16th Century (1902), and the same author's History
of the English Church from Henry to the Death of Mary (1902),
covering part of the same period, while not entirely free from
faults, are most excellent. W. H. Frere, The English Church in
the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I, 15 58-1625 (in the History of
the English Church, edited by W. R. W. Stephens and W. Hunt,
London and New York, 1904), is a scholarly introduction to the
period, although Frere's patience with the Puritans is not always
unstrained. John Hunt, Religious Thought in England from the
Reformation to the Last Century (3 vols., 1870), is a somewhat
older work deserving examination. To the same class belongs
John Henry Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England (2 vols.,
New York, 1882). Henry Gee, Elizabethan Clergy and the Settle
ment of Religion, 1558-1564 (Oxford, 1898), is a scholarly treat
ment of one phase of the subject, but this Anglican treatment
should be compared with the study of the same subject by a
Catholic scholar, Henry Norbert Birt, The Elizabethan Religious
Settlement ; A Study of Contemporary Documents (London, 1907).
Gilbert W. Child, Church and State under the Tudors (London and
New York, 1890), is as clear-sighted as any work the student can
wish to^ examine. On the same topic as Arthur Elliot, The State
and the Church (London and New York, 1896), a great deal of
literature of historical value will be found arising from the recent
attempts to bring about disestablishment. Roland G. Usher,
The Reconstruction of the English Church (2 vols., New York and
London, 1 9 10) , is a brilliant work written by an American scholar.
S. F. Maitland, Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation
in England (reprinted with an introduction by A. W. Hutton,

Bibliographical Appendix 205
London and New York, 1899), is the work of one of the most able
of the older English scholars and deals with early and pre-Eliza-
bethan topics. These essays should be studied carefully. Bishop
Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Mediaeval and Modern
History (Oxford, 1900), is, naturally, scholarly and suggestive.
Histories of particular dioceses are published by the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge in a series called Diocesan
Histories. Of particular interest are J. L. Low, Durham (London,
1881); R. H. Morris, Chester (London, 1895); H. W. Phillott,
Hereford (London, 1888); R. S. Ferguson, Carlisle (London, 1889).
For the Universities consult J. B. Mullinger, History of the Uni
versity of Cambridge, and Anthony a Wood, Historia et antiqui-
tates universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxoniae, 1674). Thomas Baker's
History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, has
been edited by J. E. B. Mayor (2 vols., Cambridge, 1896). Among
the many local histories published by local history societies and
antiquarians William Watson, Historical Account of the Ancient
Town and Port of Wisbeach (Wisbeach, 1827), will be very helpful.
For Convocation, T. Lathbury, History of the Convocation of the
Church of England (ist ed., London, 1842 ; 2d ed., London, 1853) ;
F. Atterbury, Rights and Privileges of an English Convocation (2d
ed., London, 1701). G. Nicholsius, Defensio Ecclesia Anglicana
(London, 1708), has an interesting section on "homiliarumin nas-
cente Reformatione usus," and some material on the same topic
will be found in J. T. Tomlinson, The Prayer Book, Articles and
Homilies (London, 1897).
On the Prayer Book there are several works of first-rate im
portance, but the following will prove particularly useful: F.
Proctor and W. H. Frere, New History of the Book of Common
Prayer (London, 1901); Nicholas Pocock, The Reformation and
the Prayer Book (London, 1879) ; F. A. Gasquet, Edward VI and
the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1890); J. Parker, The First
Prayer Book of Edward VI (Oxford, 1877); N. Pocock, Troubles
connected with the First Book of Common Prayer (Papers from
the Petyt MSS., Camden Society, London, 1884) ; L. Pullan, His
tory of the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1900) ; H. Gee, The
Elizabethan Prayer-book and Ornaments (London, 1902); E. C.
Harrington, Pope Pius IV and the Book of Common Prayer.
For the Thirty-nine Articles cf. E. C. S. Gibson, The 39 Articles
(2d ed., London, 1898); C. Hardwick, History of the Articles of
Religion (Cambridge, 1859).
For the liturgies: Liturgies of Edward VI (Parker Society, edited
by J. Kelley, Cambridge, 1844) ; Liturgies set forth in the Reign of
Elizabeth (Parker Society, edited by Clay, Cambridge, 1847).

206 Bibliographical Appendix
For episcopacy and the apostolic succession consult: Bishop
Hall, Episcopacy by Divine Right Asserted; E. E. Estcourt, Ques
tion of Anglican Ordinations (London, 1873); Stubbs, Apostolical
Succession in the Church of England; John BramhaU, On Apostolic
Succession of the Church of England , in Works (ed. by A. W.
Haddon, 5 vols., Oxford, 1842-45); Samuel F. Huiton, The Pri
macy of England (Oxford and London, 1899); Francis Johnson,
A Treatise of the Ministry of the Church of England; Pierre Frangois
Courayer, Dissertation on the Validity of the Ordinations of the
English and of the Succession of the Bishops of the Anglican Church;
with the proofs establishing the facts advanced in this work (Oxford,
1844). The works of Saravia should be examined, especially De
diversis gradibus ministrorum (London, 1590). He defended the
episcopal forms and the succession during the last years of
Elizabeth's reign and had considerable influence upon the
Anglican divines. There are long quotations from sixteenth-
century Anglican writers in A. J. Mason, The Church of England
and Episcopacy (Cambridge, 1914).
For an understanding of what Erastianism is, cf. J. N. Figgis,
"Erastus and Erastianism" (Journal ^of Theological Studies,
vol. 11, p. 66).
The older histories of the nonconformists and dissenters are
many of them prejudiced in the extreme and misrepresent facts
and motives, but should be examined as carefully as the Anglican
histories of the same class. Neal, History of the Puritans, should be
read in connection with Madox, Vindication of the Church of Eng
land against Neal. Benjamin Hanbury, Historical Memorials
Relating to the Independents (1839-44); Marsden, History of the
Early Puritans; Samuel Hopkins, The Puritans or the Church,
Court, and Parliament of England during the Reigns of Edward VI
and Queen Elizabeth (3 vols., Boston, 1859-61), a common book,
but of little value; Benjamin Brook, Lives of the Puritans (3 vols.,
London, 18 13), is little more than a series of brief biographical
sketches, sometimes useful in locating particular men, but of no
historical value. John Brown, The English Puritans (Cambridge,
1912, Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature), is a good '
recent introduction to the subject. Henry W. Clark, History of
English Nonconformity from Wiclif to the close of the 19th Century
(vol. 1, 191 1, deals with the period up to the early Stuarts; vol. 11,
London, 1913, The Restoration). Champlin Burrage has written
and published much on various phases of English dissent and all
his work is worthy of examination, some of it indispensable. Of
his writings the following are important: The Early English Dis
senters in the Light of Recent Research, 1550-1641 (2 vols., Cam-

Bibliographical Appendix 207
bridge, 1912. Vol. 1, History and Criticism; vol. n, Illustrative
Documents, many of them hitherto unpublished) , is a most schol
arly treatment from the factual standpoint, and the introduction
contains a valuable discussion of the literature. Cf., also, Cham-
plin BurrageN, The True Story of Robert Browne, 15 50-1633, Father
of Congregationalism (London, 1906); The 'Retraction' of Robert
Browne, Father of Congregationalism, being a Reproof e of certeine
Schismatical persons [i.e., Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood and
their Congregation] and their Doctrine, etc., written probably about
1588 (London, 1907); The Church Covenant Idea; Its Origin and
its Development (American Baptist Publication Society, Phila
delphia, 1904) ; John Penry, the So-called Martyr of Congregation
alism as revealed in the Original Record of His Trial and in Docu
ments related thereto (Oxford and London, 19 13); Elizabethan
Puritanism and Separatism. The work of Henry M. Dexter is also
important, although of somewhat different character and perhaps
not so accurate as that of Burrage. Cf. Dexter, Congregationalism,
What it is, Whence it is, How it Works, etc. (Boston, 1865) ; Con
gregationalism as Seen in its Literature (New York, 1880); The
True Story of John Smyth, the se-baptist as told by himself and his
contemporaries (Boston, 1881). For the Congregational and Bap
tist development: R. W. Dale, History of English Congregational
ism (London, 1907) ; John Clifford, The Origin and Growth of the
English Baptists (London, 1857) ; Thomas Crosby, A History of
the English Baptists from the Reformation to the Beginning of the
Reign of King George I (London, 1738); and for the Anabaptists,
H. S. Burrage, The Anabaptists of the 16th Century (American
Society of Church History Papers, vol. in, pp. 145-64, 1891);
John Waddington, John Penry, the Pilgrim Martyr, 1559-1593
(London, 1854), may prove of some assistance.
For the Martin Marprelate controversy: William Pierce, An
Historical Introduction to the Marprelate Tracts, A Chapter in the
Evolution of Religious and Civil Liberty in England (New York,
1909), and the same writer's Marprelate Tracts, 1588, 1589, with
notes historical and explanatory (London, 191 1), are the best
books on the subject. William Maskell, A History of the Martin
Marprelate Controversy ; Edward Arber, An Introductory Sketch
to the Martin Marprelate Controversy (English Scholars' Library) ;
H. M. Dexter, Martin Marprelate Controversy, present the views
of older scholars. Many of the original tracts, and some of the
replies as well, are in the McAlpin Collection in the Union Theo
logical Seminary Library. For detailed literature see Pierce,
Introduction, and Tracts.
Other writings of the dissenters and nonconformists will be

208 Bibliographical Appendix
found in various collections and libraries. W. H. Frere and C. E.
Douglas have edited Puritan Manifestoes, A Study of the Origin of
the Puritan Revolt. With a reprint of the Admonition to the Parlia
ment and kindred documents, 1572 (Society for Promoting Chris
tian Knowledge, in the Church History Society Publications, vol.
lxxii, London and New York, 1907). Arber, English Scholars'
Library, contains many things and the list for that series should
be consulted. It contains a reprint of Brief Discourse of the
Troubles at Frankfort ; J. Udall,^4 Demonstration of the Truth of
Discipline ; Udall, Diotrephes, Pappe with a Hatchet, is printed in
Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, edited by George Saintsbury.
For the Presbyterians and their leaders in Elizabeth's time,
there is abundant source material, but few works of first-rate
importance. Benjamin Brook, Memoirs of the Life and Writings
of Thomas Cartwright (London, 1845), is still, so far as the writer
knows, the only life of that eminent and vigorous Presbyterian,
and it is to be hoped that a new one will soon take the place of
Brook's work. Roland G. Usher, The Presbyterian Movement in
the Reign of Queen Elizabeth as illustrated by the Minute Book of the
Dedham Classis, 15 82-1589 (Camden Society, 1905), presents
an interesting theory with considerable backing of fact. W. A.
Shaw, " Elizabethan Presbyterianism " (English Historical Review,
vol. in), is worth reading.
Three works touching the Familists are the chief source for the
English group: Henry Nickolas, An Introduction to the holy under
standing of the Glass of Righteousness ; J. Knewstubs, Confutation
of certain monstrous and horrible heresies taught by H. N. 1579; and
John Rogers The displaying of an horrible sect of gross and wicked
heretics, naming themselves, the Family of Love ; with the lives of the
Authors etc. (London, 1578).
For the Catholics in England during the reign of Elizabeth a
great deal of material has been published, much of it unfortu
nately, whether written by Anglican, Catholic, or nonconformist,
not very reliable. Arnold Oskar Meyer, England u. die Katholische
Kirke unter Elisabeth u. den Stuarts (vol. 1 unter Elisabeth, Rom,
191 1 ; translated, St. Louis, 1916), is a scholarly work by a Ger
man who has carefully studied the documents. Ranke, Analecte
in die Romische Papste (translated in the Bohn Library) is still a
very useful work. F. G. Lee, Church under Q. Elizabeth (2 vols.,
1 880) , is a work by no means fair, but suggestive in many respects.
Nicholas Sander, Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, pub
lished 1585 with a Continuation of the History by the Rev. Edward
Rishton (translated with an introduction and notes by David
Lewis, London, 1877), is an excellent example of contemporary

Bibliographical Appendix 209
Catholic writing. Catholic Tractates of the 16th Century (ed. T. G.
Law, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1901), gives further ma
terial of somewhat the same character. Raynaldus, Annates
Ecclesiastici, should most certainly be used although on many
points not to be depended upon. For the Council of Trent the
old classical histories of Sarpi and Pallavicino remain the best
works. For the Popes: W. Voss, Die Verhandlungen Pius IV mit den
kaiholischen Machten (Leipzig, 1887); an article by Maitland,
"Queen Elizabeth and Paul IV" (English Historical Review, vol.
xv, p. 326); Mendham, Life and Pontificate. of Pius V (London,
1832; supplement, 1833).
Works of value in the study of the treatment of the English
Catholics are: Phillips, Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy (Lon
don, 1905) ; T. E. Bridgett and T. F. Knox, The True Story of the
Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth (London, 1889);
T. F. Knox, Records of Anglican Catholics under the Penal Laws
(London, 1878); Bishop Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests
and Other Catholics of Both Sexes that have suffered Death in England
on Religious Accounts from 1377-1684 (ed. T. G. Law, Manches
ter, 1878) ; Charles Buller, Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish
and Scottish Catholics since the Reform (3d ed., 4 vols., London,
1822) ; Cardinal Manning, Calendar of Martyrs of the 16th and 17th
Centuries (London, 1887); T. G. Law, A Calendar of the English
Martyrs of the 16th and 17th Centuries (London, 1876) ; Pollen and
Burton, Lives of the English Martyrs, 1583-1588 (1914), is the
latest. All these works must be used with considerable cau
tion. The work of J. H. Pollen, a modern Catholic scholar, deserves
the highest consideration. Cf. especially his Unpublished Docu
ments relating to the English Martyrs (vol. 1, 1584-1603, Catholic
Record Soc. Pub. v, 1908); Acts of the English Martyrs hitherto
unpublished (London, 1891), and various articles in The Month.
Especially "Religious Terrorism under Q. Elizabeth" (March,
I9°5); "Politics of English Catholics during the Reign of Q.
Elizabeth" (1902); "The Question of Queen Elizabeth's Suc
cessor" (May, 1903).
Consult also the following : F. A. Gasquet, Hampshire Recusants,
a story of their troubles in the time of Elizabeth (London, 1895);
J. J. E. Proost, Les refugies anglais et irlandais en Belgique a la
suite de la reforme religieuse StabUe sous Elisabeth et Jacques I;
Guilday, English Catholic Refugees on the Continent (vol. 1, 1914);
M. A. S. Hume, Treason and Plot, Struggles for Catholic Supremacy
in the Last Years of Q. Elizabeth (new edition, London, 1908) ; the

210 Bibliographical Appendix
article by R. B. Merriman, "Notes on the Treatment of the Eng
lish Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth" (American Historical
Review, vol. xiii, no. 3), is by an American scholar and exceed
ingly fair.
On the Bull of Excommunication two of the most interesting
contemporary pamphlets are Bulla Papistica ante brennum contra
sereniss. Anglia IFrancia et Hibernia Reginam Elizabetham et
contra inclytum Anglia regnum promulgata Refutatio, orthodoxaque
Regina et Universi regni Anglia defensio Henry chi Bullingeri
(London, 1572), and A Disclosing of the great Bull and certain
calves that he hath gotten and specially the Monster Bull that roared
at my Lord Bishops Gate. (Imprinted at London by John Daye.)
On the same topic see M. Creighton, "The Excommunication of
Q. Elizabeth " (English Historical Review, vol. vn, p. 81).
For the Jesuits consult : Robert Persons, The First Entrance of
the Fathers of the Society into England (ed. J. H. Pollen, Catholic
Record Society, Miscellanea, vol. n, 1906) ; Henry Foley, Records
of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (8 vols., London,
1877-83) ; Ethelred L. Taunton, The History of the Jesuits in Eng
land, 1580-1773 (Philadelphia and London, 1901); T. G. Law,
Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars in the
Reign of Queen Elizabeth with a Reprint of Christopher Bagshaws'
'True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbich' (London, 1889).
Biographical material: Richard Simpson, Edmund Champion, a
Biography (London, 1867); The Letters and Memorials of Wm.
Cardinal Allen, 1532-1594 (edited by the Fathers of the Congre
gation of the London Oratory, London, 1882); Morris, Life of
Father John Gerard (London, 1881).
For the student particularly interested in the development of
toleration and liberty the following books are suggested: James
Mackinnon, A History of Modern Liberty (3 vols., London, 1906-
08, vol. II, The Age of the Reformation, and vol. in, The Stuarts).
Sir Frederick Pollock, "The Theory of Persecution," in Essays on
Jurisprudence and Ethics; Schaff, Religious Liberty (in Publica
tions of the American Historical Association, 1886-87); Mandell
Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance (Hulsean Lectures, 1893-
94, London and New York, 1895) I J- O. Bevan, Birth and Growth
of Toleration (London, 1909); Sir James Fitzjames Stephen,
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. One of the best studies is A. A.
Seaton, Theory of Toleration under the Later Stuarts (Cambridge,
191 1), and it has an introduction of primary importance. Cf.,
also, C. Beard, The Reformation of the 16th Century in its relation
to modern Thought and Knowledge (London, 1883). H. T. Buckle,
History of Civilization in England (2 vols., New York, 1891, from

Bibliographical Appendix 211
the 2d London ed.), takes a view now somewhat antiquated, but
worth considering. The intellectual aspects of the develop
ment are ably presented by J. B. Bury, A History of Freedom
of Thought (Home University Library), and in greater detail by
J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Freethought (2 vols., New
York, 1906).

Index

INDEX

Act for the Assurance of the Queen's
Supremacy, 30.
Act for the Better Enforcement of
the Writ de Excommunicato Capi
endo, 30.
Act of Supremacy, 21-24, 29, 67, 72,
105.
Act of Uniformity, 21-24, 72, 97, 105,
142.
Acts of Parliament, religious, 70, 73,
80, 82, 97, 150.
Advertisements, Parker's, 142.
Agnostics, Congregationalists intol
erant of, 181.
Anabaptists, 69 n., 131, 134, 175-
Anglican Church, 5, 64, 142. See also
Established Church.
Anglicanism, 93-130, 161, 180, 187,
190.
Answere to a certen Libel intituled An
Admonition to the Parliament, An,
155-
Anti-Vestiarians, 159.
Apostolic succession of bishops, 110-
15-
Ascham, 16.
Atheists, Congregationalists intoler
ant of, 181.
Aylmer, Bishop, 25, 157.
Bacon, 80, 114, 147.
Bancroft, Bishop of London, 47, 68,
113. H7-
Barlow, Bishop, 43, no.
Barrow, 175.
Barrowists, 131, 134, 175.
Bell, Speaker, 151.
Bible, publication of official, 1 17; pri
vate interpretation of, 120.
Bigotry, 90.
Bishops, opposed religious changes,
18; refused to debate with reform
ers, 19; removal of Catholic, 23;
selection of Protestant, 25; courts
of, 76; apostolic succession of, 110-
15.

Blackstone, 73.
Book of Common Prayer, 10, 1 1 »., 70,
97, H7. 150; of Edward VI, 20.
Book of Discipline, 157.
Book of Homilies, 20.
Bridges, Dr. John, 158 w.
Browne, 176, 177, 180.
Brownists, 131, 134, 175.
BuUinger, 146.
Calendar of English Martyrs, so.
Calvin, 65, 136.
Calvinism, 10, 99, 165, 188.
Campion, Jesuit missionary, 40, 51.
Capias, Writ of, 32.
Cartwright, Thomas, 119, 133, 135,
154, 160-65, 181.
Catechism, Nowell's, 98.
Catholicism, Roman, 9, 14, 125, 173,
186.
Cecil, Sir William, 13, 18, 21, 61, 98,
141, 172; quoted, 39, 68.
Ceremonies, religious, 109, 141; a
cause of dissent, 135, 138, 152.
Chancery, Court of, 31.
Church, a, Congregationalist idea of,
176.
Church, the, and the secular courts, 76.
Church and State, 64-92, 122, 153,
168, 172, 180, 189.
Church of England. See Established
Church.
Clergy, removal of Catholic, 19, 23;
required to take oath of supremacy,
22; selection of Protestant, 26; in
competent, 26, 95, 102; restraints
on, 98; illiterate, 100; lack of mor
als of, 102; opposed use of habits,
142-45.
Clerical offices, desire for, 15, 100.
Commissions, Ecclesiastical, 70; of
Royal Visitation, 23, 27; of Review,
73-
Common Pleas, Court of, 78.
Confiscation of property for absence
from church, 55.

2l6

Index

Conformity, 22, 54.
Congregationalism, 135, 174-82, 188.
Congregationalists, 134, 135, 174-82.
Continental Protestantism, 15, 1 15,
128, 137, 145-
Convocation, 18, 150.
Cooper, Bishop, 101, 113, 149, 151.
Copping, John, 181 ».
Cosin, 74.
Council, the, 12, 18, 74, 77, 84-87.
Court of Arches, 80.
Courts, 84; ecclesiastical, 71-82; sec
ular, 76.
Covenant, the, 10.
Cox, 20, 53.
Cranmer, in, 182. .
Crown, power of the, 72-76.
Defence of the Answere, 157.
Democracy of Presbyterianism, 166.
Disloyalty, Presbyterian, to Queen,
172.
Dissent, 116, 129; causes of, 90;
Protestant, 131-82.
Doctrinal standards, Anglican, formu
lation of, 96-99.
Ecclesiastics Disciplina . . . Explicato,
157-
Ecclesiastical apologetic, 117.
Ecclesiastical polity, 135, 161, 164.
Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker's, 164.
Ecclesiastical theory, formulation of,
105.
Edward VI, 14.
Elizabeth, Queen, 5, 183; alleged ille
gitimacy of, 7 ; attitude toward the
Pope, 8; attitude on the religious
question, 12-16, 33, 57; her first
Parliament, 18-22; and the clergy,
25, 88, 145, 147; second Parliament,
28-33; excommunication of , 37; the
royal prerogative of, 59, 82 ff.;
power over Church, 59, 67-71, 82,
92, 165; opposed religious zeal, 98,
103; attitude toward Presbyterians,
172-74; stood for no heroic prin
ciple, 183.
Enchanters, repression of, 32.
Episcopacy, exaltation of, 121.
Erastianism of Established Church,
70, 93, 108.
Established Church, 93-130; under
Henry and Edward, 14; inaugura

tion of, 22-28; excommunication
from, 31 ; and Catholics, 35-63, 185;
success of, 33; compulsory attend
ance, 41, 54, 94; national character
of, 65-66, 88; a compromise, 94,
128; justification of, 105; desire of,
for autonomy, 116; and Protestant
dissent, 131 ff.; and Presbyterians,
135, 188; and Congregationalists,
135. I79-8I.
Establishment. See Established
Church.
Excommunication,' 30-32, 72; of
Elizabeth, 37.
Executions of Catholics, 50.
Exhortation to the Bishops, etc., 152.
Exiles, Protestant, 12; Catholic, 52.
Familists, 131.
Family of Love, 136.
Fielde, 149, 151.
Finlason, 85.
First Admonition to Parliament, 149,
155, 159-
Foreign dangers to England, 8, 9, 28,
45-
Forty-two Articles of Edward VI,
97-
Fox, 183.
Franchises, 78, 81.
Frankpledge, 81.
Gentry, influence of, 59.
Government, intolerance of, 6, 186,
189, 191; caution of, on religious
question, n-17; moderation of, 14,
29; and the Catholics, 35-63.
Greenwood, 175.
Grindal, Bishop, 79, 103, 139, 142,
145-
Habits, controversy over use of, 138-
52-
Hammond, Dr., 112.
Hayward, 67.
Henry VIII, 14, 67, 72, 80.
Heresy, 21, 97.
High commission, the, 71, 74.
High Court of Delegates, 72, 80.
Historical apologetic for Established
Church, 106.
Hook, 157.
Hooker, 114, 116, 118-24, 164. I78i
183.

Index

217

Horn, 137 «., 139-
Huguenots, 28.
Humphrey, Dr., 143, 146.
Imprisonment of Catholics, 54.
Indifference, religious, 13.
Intolerance, definition of , 2; varieties
of, 3; religious, 3-4; checked by
religious indifference, 14; checked
by government, 90; Elizabeth's in
fluence on, 92 ; ecclesiastical theory
a cause of, 109; Anglican, 124, 128;
Presbyterian, 154, 159-63; Congre-
gationalist, 178.
James, King, 117.
Jesuits, 46, 47, 127, 185; banishment
of, 40. 53-
Jewel, 106, in, 118-124, 138; quoted,
12, 13, 19, 25, 68, 138.
Justices of the peace, religious acts
enforced by, 30, 76.
King's Bench, Court of, 31, 71, 78.
Knollys, Sir Francis, 6o, 114, 141.
Knox, John, 10.
Landaff, Bishop, 23.
Laudian Church idea, the, 129.
Laws against Catholics, 39-42, 46;
administration of, 48-63; against
Protestant dissenters, 46.
Leicester, Earl of, 141.
L'H&pital, 184.
Loyalty to the Queen, 14, 16, 46, 54.
Luther, 15, 179 »., 184.
Lutheranism, 161, 165.
Marprelate Tracts, 131 «., 175.
Martyr, 19.
Mary, Queen of Scots, claim of, to
throne, 8-1 1, 28, 42-45, 185.
Mary Tudor, 7, 13. &*)
Mass, saying of, prohibited, 41.
"Mediocrity" of Anglican clergy, 95;
of Anglican Church, 129.
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 141.
Ministry, educated, opposed by Con
gregationalists, 177.
Moderation of Anglican Church, 65.
National character of Establishment,
65-
New Testament, authority for Pres

byterian organization in, 153, 159-
63, 188.
Nonconformists, 171.
Northumberland, Earl of, 36.
Nowell's catechism, 98.
Oath ex officio mero, 117, 171.
Oath of supremacy, 23, 29-31, 61, 77.
Oglethorpe, 19.
Organization, church, Anglican form
of, no, 128; Congregationalist form
of, 136; Presbyterian form of, 159.
Palatinates, 79, 80.
Papacy, attitude toward Elizabeth,
8, n, 98; historical claims of, re
jected by Protestants, 106; Protes
tant opposition to, no, 126, 137,
146.
Parker, Archbishop, 31 «., 88, 93, 106,
140-45, 151; quoted, 26, 29, 68,
101.
Parkhurst, 139.
Parliament, 40, 67, 70, 83, 150; Eliz
abeth's first, 18-22; Elizabeth's sec
ond, 28-33.
Parsons, the Jesuit, 27, 40, 51.
Patriotism at basis of Anglican
Church, 65.
Paul IV, Pope, 9, 11.
"Peculiars," 79.
Penalties, 41, 48, 55, 72.
Penry, 175, 180.
Philip of Spain, 9, 12, 28, 44, 185.
Pilkington, 69, 139.
Pius IV, Pope, 28.
Pius V, Pope, excommunicated Eliz
abeth, 37.
Politics and religion, 8-34.
Pope, attitude of, toward Elizabeth,
8, n, 28, 37.
Prayer Book. See Book of Common
Prayer.
Preaching prohibited, 12; licenses
for, 117.
Precisianists, 125, 132, 134, 138, 159.
Prerogative writs, 78, 81.
Presbyterianism, and Anglicanism,
104, 119, 134, 152, 187; opposition
to Catholics, 126, 159, 185; intol-
- erance of, 154, 159-63, 168, 181;
form of organization of, 159; based
on authority of the Scriptures, 160.
Presbyterians, 5, 47, 159-64.

218

Index

Press censorship, 117.
Priests, 27, 53, 102.
Prophesyings, 141.
Protestant dissent, 131-82.
Protestant dissenters, attitude of
Anglicanism toward, 124.
Protestantism, 14, 103, 186.
Protestants, 20, 38, 93, 118; return of
exiled, 12 ; Elizabeth's attitude to
ward, 12; impatience of, with gov
ernment, 12, 20; candidates for
clerical offices, 25; in Scotland, 44;
did not oppose union of Church and
State, 69; Anglican intolerance of,
128.
Provincial commissions, 71.
Puritans, 60, 125, 128, 131-34.
Reason, the rule of, in Anglicanism,
163.
Rebellion of the Northern Earls,
35-
Recusants, 42, 53, 57, 117.
Reformation, the, 10.
Religion, intolerance in, 3-4; and
politics, 8-34; of England, changes
in, 13; indifference in, 14.
Religious houses annexed to Crown,
22.
Religious liberty, 166.
Reply to an Answere made of Doctor
Whitgift, A, 157.
Report ofthe Ecclesiastical Commission
• of 1832, 79.
Rest of the Second Replie, The, 157.
Reynolds, 141.
Rights, special, 78.
Rites and ceremonies, 107, 150.
Robinson, 175.
Roman Catholics. See Catholics.
Royal Commission, 72; of Visita
tion, 23, 27, 71.
Royal headship of Church, 66-71,
122.
Royal prerogative, the, 82.
Royal Visitation, Commission of, 23,
27, 71.
Sandys, 93, 101, 139, 153.
Scotland, 10, 44, 172.
Scripture, authority of, 120; for Pres
byterian form of organization, 159;
for Episcopal form of organiza
tion, 163.

Second Admonition to Parliament,
154-56, 169.
Second Replie, The, 157.
Second Scotch Confession, 179 n.
Secular courts and the Church, 76.
"Seekers," 131.
Segregation of Catholics, 55.
"Separatists," 132.
Smith, Sir Thomas, 141.
Spiritual life of the Church, 99-105.
Star Chamber, the, 74-77, 84, 117.
State and Church. See Church and
State.
Strype, 87.
Sturmius, 16.
Supremacy, Act of, 21-24, 29i 67, 72,
105.
Taxation of Catholics, 53, 57.
Thacher, Elias, 181.
Thirty-nine Articles, the, 94, 97, 117,
171.
"Three Articles," 117.
Tolerance, hope of Catholics for, 47;
advance of England toward, 63,
91; effect of union of Church and
State on, 89; defects in govern
ment's policy of, 183, 186; success
of government's policy of, 189.
Travers, Walter, in, 114, 157.
Turner, Dean of Wells, 141.
Uniformity, Act of, 21-24, 72, 97,
105, 142.
Universities, 78 n. ; graduates of, re
quired to take oath, 31.
Vestiarian controversy, 90, 141-47,
156.
Vestments. See Habits.
Viewe of the Churche that the Authors
of the late published Admonition
would have planted, etc., 152.
Visitation, Commission of Royal, 23,
27, 71.
Walsingham, 40, 45, 57, 141.
Westmoreland, Earl of, 36.
Whitgift, Dr. John, 98, 113, 117, 129,
143 n., 165; controversy with Cart
wright, 154-57.
Wilcox, 149, 151.
Witches, laws against, 32.
Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo, 31.

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
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YALE UNIVERSITY

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