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Gift of

REV. WILLIAM H. OWEN

A SHORT HISTORY
OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

J.nSTKAJ.ASIA

AGENTS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & « FIFTH AVBNUE. NEW YORK
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
fl05 FLINDERS Lanb, MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTO.
St. Martin's Housa, 70 Bohd strbbt, TORONTO
, MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
Macmillan Building. BOMBAY
309 Bow BAZAAR strbbt, CALCUTTA

ASHORTHISTORT OFTHE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND

BY

THE REV. J. F. KENDALL, MA.
SOMETIME EXHIBITIONER IN HISTORY, KINg's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

A

«:^^^

£a

^^

PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK
4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON

First published,, with sixteen illustrations in colour and
eight in black and white, square demy 8vo., cloth,
December, igio
This edition published in the Autumn o/ ig/4

Preface
When in a book of this size one has to deal with
so large a subject as that of the history of the
Church of England, it is obvious that much must
be left untold. For details of the events in the
long career of the National Church, the reader
must therefore turn to larger works. But behind
events there lie always the ideas and ideals which
led to them ; and it is simply the ideas and ideals
that have influenced, or in turn have been influ
enced by, the National Church in its long con
tinuous life which I have tried to describe.
My hope is that I have so far succeeded in my
attempt as to make it possible for my readers to
place the facts which they gather from elsewhere
in their true perspective, and thus to make their
study of the subject of real value to them.
J. F. KENDALL.
Jtdy 9, 1914.

Contents

CHAPTER PREFACE

PAQB V

I. EARLY DAYS ...
II. NORMANS AND ANGEVINS
in. MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES -
IV. WYCLIFFE ...
V. THE CRY FOR REFORM
VI. POLITICAL REFORMATION
VII. CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP .
VIII. GRADUAL SETTLEMENT .
IX. A HOUSE DIVIDED
X. RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION -
XI. FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS
XII, THE METHODISTS
XIII. NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH

1
24 43
61 68 85
102
113
131 147
160 185
193

INDEX

205

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS
Our earliest knowledge of the people who dwelt
in these islands comes from the records which
the great Roman General Julius Csesar kept
of his mUitary expeditions. He tells us that he
was led into undertaking the conquest of Britain
because he found that this island was a kind ol
harbour of refuge for the people who disturbed the
peace in the province of Gaul — i.e., roughly speak
ing, modern France. But although Julius Caesar
came to England twice, he did not succeed in
conquering it. As a matter of fact the conquest
was not a reality till at least 100 years later, and it
was probably only after Britain had then come to
be a part of the great Roman Empire that the
1

« HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Christian faith was brought to its people. But by
whose enthusiasm this bringing of the Faith came
about it is impossible to say. There is an old
legend that Joseph of Arimathea came with twelve
companions and settled at Glastonbury, and in the
ground there planted his staff, which budded and
grew into the famous Holy Thorn. That beautiful
story, however, is only first heard of many hundred
years after S. Joseph was dead. The cause which
most hkely led to the heathen Britons being taught
the faith was an outbreak of bitter persecution
which feU upon the Christians in South-Eastem
Gaul in the year 177. Just as we read in the New
Testament that by reason of the persecution of
Stephen, PhUip and others were scattered abroad,
so, too, in aU probability as a result of the persecu
tion at Lyons and Vienne, fugitives fled along the
great Roman roads to cross the Channel and hide in
Britain, as in an earlier day fugitives from the
rule of Julius Caesar had also done.
But whatever were the means by which the
faith was first brought to England, there is no
doubt about the fact that the Christian Church
was a living influence here by the beginning of
the third century, for TertuUian, the great Latin
Father who lived at that time, speaks of parts of

EARLY DAYS 3
Britain not yet reached by the Romans as being
subjected to Christ.
A hundred years later comes the story of the
death of the man who is believed to have been the
first martyr for the Faith in England. This was
S. Alban, said to have been a soldier in the
Roman Army stationed in Britain, and who in a
time of persecution sheltered a Christian teacher
and contributed to his escape by lending him his
own cloak, and afterwards, on being accused of
sharing the faith of the man he had befi:iended,
boldly acknowledged the fact and was beheaded.
Though doubt has been thrown upon the truth of
this story, there seems to be no real reason why it
should not be accepted, for we know that within a
hundred years of the date on which S. Alban is
said to have died, his memory was lovingly revered
in England as that of a martyr.
Ten years after the probable date of S. Alban's
death — that is, in the year 314 — we have a glimpse
of the reahty of Church life in Britain due to the
fact that, at a Church Council held at Aries in that
year, there were present three British Bishops
together witii a priest and a deacon in attendance
upon them. The CouncU had been summoned
mainly to deal with a bitter schism which had

4 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
arisen within the Church. It dealt also with
questions with regard to the observance of Easter,
and as to what made a valid baptism. But what
interests us here is not so much what the CouncU
discussed as the fact that present at it were these
delegates from the Church in Britain.
One other time in the history of this British
Church is also full of interest — namely, the coming
of S. German and S. Lupus to strengthen the
Church in Britain in its attempts to crush heresy.
This heresy had sprung originaUy out of the noble
efforts of a Briton to raise the standard of life
amongst Christians at Rome and elsewhere. The
man himself came to be called by his friends in
Italy by the Greek word ' Peiagius,' which repre
sented the Welsh word ' Morgan,' meaning bom of
the sea. Peiagius, as we may caU him, exhorted
all men to nobler living. He was answered that
no higher standard could be reached owing to
human weakness. To this Peiagius replied that
what a man ought to do he could do — that is, he
denied the truth of original sin and the necessity
that men stand in of receiving the grace of God to
live a holy life.
Pelagianism so deeply affected the Church in
Britain that the faithful few were compelled at

EARLY DAYS 5
last to send to Gaul for help. This took place
about the year 429. In response to their request the
Church in Gaul sent them S. German and S. Lupus,
and these men upon their arrival in Britain not
only successfuUy dealt with the heresy, but also
rendered signal help in a way altogether unex
pected. S. German, who was of noble birth and
who in his younger days had been trained to arms,
found on his arrival in Britain that the British were
being sorely harassed by an incursion of Picts and
Scots from the northern part of the island. Eis
military knowledge enabled him to dispose the
native forces in such a manner that they won a great
victory. He placed them in ambush on either side
of a narrow vaUey along which their enemies would
come, and then, when the heathen were weU
within the valley, at a signal from S. German,
they suddenly shouted out the Easter cry of
Alleluia (for it was Easter-time) and rushed forth
from their concealment. The enemy fled in terror
without so much as striking a blow, but the
Britons were either too feeble or too inexperienced
to foUow up their victory, and it was not very long
ere they were destined to suffer again and more
severely stiU at the hands of the same enemy.
Before the coming of S. German to Britain

6 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the country had ceased to be in any real
sense a province of the Roman Empire, for
troubles of so serious a nature were afflicting
the centre of the Empire that the legions from
the extreme parts of it were being called in
for the purpose of self-defence. These troubles
arose owing to the fact that vast tribes of people
who had been living beyond the Rhine and the
Danube — that is to say, outside the boundaries of
the Empire — were now crossing the boundaries and
threatening even Rome itself. The Roman Empire
had always known of the existence of these tribes,
and for many a long year had despised them, regard
ing their own great army and the Rivers Rhine and
Danube as barriers which could never be broken
through. But the period in which they had
despised them had been succeeded by a period of
anxiety, and this again by a period when it was
seen that the defences could not be trusted. It is
said that it was owing to pressure from tribes
dwelling in Siberia that the wUd races of Central
Europe began to seek a home within the Roman
boundary. Whether that is so or not, it is certain
that at almost one and the same time tribes were
crossing the Lower Danube into Turkey and
the Rhine into Belgium and France, and even

EARLY DAYS 7
finding their way through the Passes of the Alps
into Italy. This state of affairs explains two
things in our own English history. We can see
how natural it was that in a moment of such great
danger a province like that of Britain should be
left to take care of itself. And we can understand
also the coming of the English to Britain. These
English formed parts of the numerous races which
had been dwelling in Central Europe, and they too,
it seems, were being thrust westward, compelled to
seek new homes. In fact, the whole Empire of
Rome, including the province of Britain, was being
overrun at one and the same time by races bearing
strange names and speaking strange tongues, but
all of them made up of men possessed of a vigour
which the people of Rome themselves had long
lost. It is from these tribes that the various
nations of modern Europe have arisen.
The people that settled in England seem to have
consisted mainly of men of three different but
closely aUied families — Jutes, Saxons and Angles
The old chroniclers teU us that it was the Jutes who
first obtained a settlement in Britain, and they add
that this success was due to treachery on the part of
one of the leaders of the Britons— a man named
Vortigem, who for his own ends gave the hated

8 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
invaders the kingdom of Kent. We do not know
whether this story is true, but certain it is that not
only did the Jutes settle in Kent, but that also
within a space of another hundred years there were
kingdoms in Sussex, in Wessex (that is, Hampshire,
Wiltshire and Berkshire), in Essex, in East Anglia,
in Middle England (called Mercia) and in North
England (called Northumbria). The Britons re
sisted the invaders as well as they could, and the
more they were driven westward the fiercer did
the contest become. As a matter of fact, the
English never did conquer Wales, and only sub
dued Devon and Cornwall in the south-west and
Cumberland in the north-west many years after
they had made a home for themselves in the main
part of the island. In aU those western districts
the British lived on, though divided by the wedges
of EngUshfolk which reached to Chester in the
north-west and to the Bristol Channel in the
south-west. These English tribes were heathen — fiercely
heathen, indeed — and they destroyed almost every
sign of Christian worship in England. The Britons
took with them into their fastnesses their faith
and their worship, but the British Church, cut off in
this way from aU connection with the Continent

EARLY DAYS 9
of Europe, not unnaturally lost its power. For a
time it seems to have made an effort to live on
in spite of its isolation, for at Llanwit Major there
was a flourishing coUege attended at one time by
as many as 2,000 students. But this prosperity did
not continue. The one glorious piece of work which
the British Church might have engaged in — viz.,
the winning of the heathen invader to the Cross,
and thus conquering their conquerors — this they
never attempted.
This work of conversion was done by men
coming from altogether different sources. Some
where about 200 years after the day when the
EngUsh first began to settle in England a young
deacon named Gregory, passing through the
slave-market of Rome, was attracted by the sight
of some fair-haired boys being offered there for
sale. Their fairness stood out in striking con
trast to the darker skins of the unhappy captives
from Africa and the East. Gregory asked the slave-
dealer from whence he had got them, and was told
that they had been brought from England where
aU the people were heathen. Fired with missionary
zeal Gregory thereupon obtained permission to
come to evangeUze the English, and actuaUy
started on his journey. But he was not allowed to
2

10 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
proceed very far, for the people of Rome loved him
too well to spare him and insisted upon his return.
When, however, some five or six years later
Gregory himself became Bishop of Rome, he
showed at once that he had not forgotten the
English. He ordered his agents to buy such English
boys as were being offered anywhere for sale that
he might have them trained as evangelists to their
ov^m countrymen ; but without waiting till such a
scheme as that could become fruitful, he sent a
friend of his own named Augustine with a large
party of companions to carry the message of the
Church to the English. It seems that neither
Augustine nor his fellow- missionaries were possessed
of quite the intrepid spirit that stirred the Bishop,
for on the way across France they heard such terrible
stories of the ferocity of the English that Augustine
was sent back to Rome to ask Gregory to set them
free from their task. The Pope bade them not lose
heart, teUing them that no man who had put his
hand to the plough should look back. At the same
time he encouraged them by writing letters to
influential people on the route, and gave them
letters of commendation to King Ethelbert of
Kent and to his wife. Queen Bertha. So it came
about that at last the mission arrived. The date

EARLY DAYS 11
was some time soon after Easter in the year 597.
This is one of the notable dates in English history,
for it is the date of the first coming to the English
of that Faith which has done so much to make
English life what it is.
It was in every way natural that Augustine and
his companions should make for Kent. Not only
was it the nearest kingdom to the Continent, but
the Queen Bertha was herself already a Christian,
and Gregory rightly hoped that by her intervention
the strangers might receive a kindly welcome.
Their reception was all that could be desired. The
King Ustened to Augustine while he spoke of the
' merciful Saviour who had redeemed the world by
His own. agony, and had opened the kingdom of
heaven to aU beUevers,' and at the end of the
address told the strangers that the words he had
heard were beautiful indeed but sounded strange,
and he could not be expected to give up at once the
old national gods. He was wiUing, however, to
give them hospitality in his own capital city, and
to aUow them to win his people to their way of
thinking if they could. The new-comers met at
first with marked success. Attracted by the moral
beauty of their lives, many of the Kentishmen
became Christian, and when, within the year, the

12 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
King himself came to be baptized, there seemed
no reason why that should not be regarded as
a promise of much further success stiU. But with
the increase in the number of converts important
questions of administration arose, and it is clear
from Augustine's method of dealing vsdth them that
he was not quite the man for the work. Someone
was required possessed of much practical vsdsdom
and with a power of initiative. Augustine, how
ever, was not a man of that kind. He can scarcely
be blamed for that. Until he was sent to England
he had spent the greater part of his life in a
monastery where the days were governed by
routine and where men get little experience of the
rough and tumble of the outside world. Now he
was called upon to deal with a people whose
customs and habits were strange to him, and for
whom everything had to be done in the way of
building up a system of Church government and
worship. Evidently bevpildered, he wrote to
Gregory for directions. He wanted guidance
about the proper distribution of alms, about the
composition of the public service of the Church ;
also whether cousins might marry, or whether a
man might marry his stepmother. The replies he
received bring out in striking relief the practical

EARLY DAYS 13
ability of the good Pope. EspeciaUy interesting is
Gregory's advice as to the construction of a service-
book for the use of the EngUsh converts. There was
no reason, he said, why the Roman service should be
imposed upon the EngUsh people, but if Augustine
had come across other usages in Gaul or elsewhere
which he thought might be helpful to the English,
then he ought certainly to adopt them in pre
ference. But outwardly all things seemed to be making
for the success of the mission. A striking develop
ment took place when Edwin, the King of North
umbria, sought for a wife at the Kentish Court.
Ethelbert was by this time dead; so, too, was
Augustine. Justus had succeeded Augustine,
whUe in the place of Ethelbert his son Eadbold
was reigning, and it was Eadbold's sister Ethel-
burga whom Edvsdn desired to marry. On the
advice of Justus, the King at first refused to let his
sister be wedded to a heathen, but afterwards gave
his permission when Edwin not only promised that
the Princess should have full liberty of worship,
but that also he and his wise men would be
willing to receive instruction in the Christian
Faith. Here was the promise of a great opportunity in

14 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
a new part of England. With the Princess went
Paulinus, one of a number of men sent by
Gregory to reinforce the original band, and who
was now consecrated to the Episcopate. The
success which had marked the coming of Augustine
to Kent was repeated in Northern England.
Edwin was baptized on Easter Eve, 627, and very
many of his people with him. But Edwin was a
more important man than the King of Kent. His
kingdom stretched from the Humber to Edin
burgh (which is Edwin's Burgh) on the north, and
from sea to sea on east and west, whUst beyond
the boundaries of his own kingdom he exercised his
influence on behalf of his new Faith. The people
of Lindsey (Lincolnshire) and of East AngUa were
also made Christian. Then, however, came an
appalling catastrophe. The Christian Britons of
Wales in aUiance with the heathen English of
Mercia, or Middle England, made an onslaught on
Edwin, defeated and slew him, and overran his
whole country. Paulinus fled back to Kent with
the widowed Queen and her little chUdren, and
the work which had been so gloriously begun in
Northern England and which had spread so
rapidly seemed to be destroyed at a blow. Before
long, however, the work was revived, but this time

EARLY DAYS 15
by men of a stronger personal courage than that of
Paulinus, and possessed of a more intense personal
faith. Seventy years before the death of Edvnn there
had settled in lona, a little island off the western
coast of Scotland, a body of Irish monks under
the leadership of S. Columba. It is said that
Columba was filled with remorse at the thought of
the many who had died in a battle for which he had
been responsible, and therefore he had left his home
to win at least as many souls to the Faith as had
been kUled in battle. The mission thus founded in
lona became a wonderful centre of evangelizing
zeal ; the fame of it spread to England ; and at
the time of Edwin's death it was acting as a
harbour of refuge for men who feared Edwin's
power. Edvmi himself had been at one time an
exUe in East Anglia, having been dispossessed by
his brother-in-law, Ethelfrith, a man of great force
of character, but, as Bede described him, a ravening
wolf. When Edwin came to his own by the death
of Ethelfrith in battle, then Ethelfrith's children in
tum were driven into exile, and they found refuge
in lona. Seventeen years one of these chUdren,
Oswald by name, remained there. At last came his
opportunity. As heir to his father Ethelfrith, and

16 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
practically as heir to Edwin, for Edwin's little chU
dren had been taken into Kent with their mother,
Oswald fought and won the Battle of Heavenfield,
drove out the ravagers of his patrimony, and after
that reigned for the space of eight years. He was
an ideal Christian King. In him was seen the
strength and vigour of his father not lessened but
purified by the influence of the Faith he had
learned in his years of exile.
One of Oswald's first acts as King was to obtain
from lona missionaries who should do for his
subjects what lona itself had done for him. The
man who came, S. Aidan, was soon recognized to
be as noble a priest as Oswald was a King. Bede's
love for Aidan's memory is revealed again and
again in his account of the times. King and
Bishop worked hand in hand, the King oftentimes
acting as interpreter that his people might the
better understand the message. One incident in
the life of Oswald may serve as an indication of
his character. Dining one day with the Bishop
by his side, he was told that many of his subjects,
famished with hunger, had coUected outside the
haU. The King thereupon sent them his own
meat, and in addition gave an order that even
the silver dish upon which it had been placed

EARLY DAYS 17
should be broken up and the pieces scattered
amongst the crowd.
The work of evangelization, in this way so
splendidly renewed by Aidan and the others who
came from lona, spread in time beyond the borders
of the northern kingdom. As a matter of fact, the
different sections of EngUsh people owed much
more to lona than they did to Rome so far as the
actual work of conversion was concerned. But to
have been permanently linked up with lona rather
than with Rome would have been disastrous for
the grovraig Church life of the EngUsh people.
For though. lona stood for ApostoUc fervour, it was
rather to Rome that one had to look for statesman
ship and education. A young Church needs after
it has been founded to be trained and disciplined. It
is the glory of lona that it had a large part in the
one ; it is very doubtful if it could have done the
other. The acceptance of the Roman method of
calculating Easter and of other Roman customs
rather than those of lona was agreed to at a great
Conference which was held at Whitby in the
year 664, when Oswy, a brother of Oswald, was
King, and this decision meant, of course, commu
nion with Rome rather than with lona.
Four years after the date of this Conference

18 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
further help came to England from Rome. As
a result of a request made by the Kings of
Kent and Middle England, the Pope of the
time sent a certain Theodore, a Greek, to fiU
the vacant Archbishopric of Canterbury. This
Theodore was a man weU fitted both by character
and inteUect for his arduous post, but he was
already at the time very nearly seventy years of
age. He Uved, however, till he reached the age of
ninety, and during that long period of more than
twenty years of work he was able to exert an influ
ence for which the Church of England has constant
reason to be grateful. Under his wise direction
the various Christian communities in England
came to be organized into one whole. Large
dioceses were, indeed, spUt up — that was part of
Theodore's policy — but aU were made to realize
that a common bond bound them together. On
every side there was political anarchy, but vdthin
the Church there was unity. The Archbishop
also promoted the division of every diocese into
parishes each with its own resident priest, so that
the needs of individuals might never be neglected.
Moreover, for the better settlement of problems
which affected the people of the whole country, he
began the practice of summoning aU the Bishops to

EARLY DAYS 19
meet him at a common centre* and the people thus
witnessed the strange spectacle of Bishops, whose
main interest they had thought was the care of souls
in their ov^m dioceses, meeting together because
conscious that each diocese was, after all, only a
part of a larger Church. There can be no doubt
that the people laid this lesson to heart and applied
it later on to poUtical affairs. English people were
first taught to meet in Parliament by seeing their
clergy meet in Synods.
By the time that Theodore had done his work
the Church of England had obtained the organiza
tion and system which has marked it ever since.
What remained stiU to be done was that its teach
ing should mould the character of the English
people. Each part of the country was nominally
Christian now, but heathen practices and heathen
ideas lived on for many a long day. Yet as time
went by one can see how wonderfully the Church
did her work. Noble examples of this are to be
found in such lives as those of King Edmund of
East Anglia and King Alfred of Wessex. In each
of these men Christian ideals were worthily ful-
fiUed. Edmund, however, was killed by heathen
Danes, suffering death gloriously rather than be
false to his Church. To Alfred, on the other hand.

20 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
was given a wider opportunity. His story is one of
the few that Englishmen know amongst the many
that they ought to know. He gave proof of what
his training had been when he placed the Ten Com
mandments in the forefront of his Code of Laws,
and such an action was something much more
than an empty form, for those Commandments
said amongst other things that all human life was
sacred, while the old English customs had said that
the murder of any man could be atoned for by the
payment of a fine. So also the working man's
weekly day of rest only began first to be secured to
him when the obligation of these Commandments
came to be recognized.
The task of putting this Christian spirit into
the old national customs was carried on also by a
great Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan by name.
Dunstan was more than an Archbishop ; he was
the Prime Minister of the time, and there is little
doubt that the laws which bear the name of Edgar
his King owe their origin to him. These laws had
to do with the better preservation of the peace, the
pursuit of dishonest people, and the transaction of
business in the presence of witnesses whose word
could be trusted. But Dunstan was Archbishop
as weU as Prime Minister, and as Archbishop he

EARLY DAYS 21
had to deal with a great matter which was agitating
the English Church at the time, and we find him
dealing with it in the broad spirit of a statesman
rather than from the point of view of the narrow
ecclesiastic. The standard of life vdthin many of
the monastic houses had for a long time been a
cause for scandal ; whilst the clergy who served
the Cathedrals were men who, though belonging
to a Common Chapter, lived as married men in
their own houses, so that even where there was no
cause for scandal it was said that the Church
suffered because her ministers were occupied with
worldly cares. SimUar difficulties were being ex
perienced abroad, and there they were being met
by a new monastic rule far more severe than any
which had hitherto been adopted. Bishop Ethel-
wold of Winchester, one of Dunstan's contem
poraries, was eager that this new rule should be
adopted in England and was ready to enforce its
adoption at the point of the sword. Dunstan,
however, tempered this indiscriminate zeal as far
as he could, and in his own Chapter at Canter
bury the Secular Canons, as they were called,
Uved on undisturbed so long as he was Arch
bishop. Dunstan died in 988. Nearly eighty years after

23 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
— i.e., in 1066 — came the great Norman invasion.
That invasion marks the beginning of a new period
in English Church history. So far the English
Church had Uved on in a condition of complete
independence of the rest of Christendom. The
English Church was definitely national, and suffered
the limitations while enjoying the freedom of
such a position. It regarded itself as a part of a
great whole, but it settled its own affairs without
reference to outside authority. Once or twice
indeed the Bishops of Rome had tried to take
the position of an over-lord. On one occasion, in
the eighth century. King Offa of Mercia had for
his own ends welcomed the presence of a Papal
Envoy. He wanted to create an Archbishopric at
Lichfield, and so asked for outside aid against the
protests of Canterbury. But the normal attitude
of the English Church towards the Papacy was
that of independence. Thus, when Bishop Wilfrid,
one of the great Theodore's suffragans, had ap
pealed to Rome against the action of the Arch
bishop in splitting up his diocese, he was put into
prison by the King and Witan of Northumbria for
so daring to take the case abroad. On another
occasion Dunstan notwithstanding a Papal com
mand refused to withdraw a sentence of excom-

EARLY DAYS 23
munication which he had pronounced upon an
EngUsh noble who was Uving in sin.
We see there was freedom from foreign control,
but this freedom was not altogether for good. The
English Church was living in a kind of backwater,
scarcely at aU sharing in the movement toward
better things and toward the nobler civilization
which was then affecting the Continent. Its life
was becoming stagnant, and its influence for good
daily less and less. It was at this time that
the Normans came.

CHAPTER II
NORMANS AND ANGEVINS
The Normans were men possessed of a vigour,
spiritual and intellectual as weU as physical, which
was altogether new to English people. They
were in the forefront of every movement on the
Continent, and their coming to England meant
great things for the EngUsh Church as weU as
for the English nation. Their methods were often
rough and hard. They despised the EngUsh and
were hated in return. But in numbers they were
only as a handful in the measure. So they did
not destroy the English, but came and Uved
amongst them, and acting like leaven infused a
new life into every rank of society. The Church
became strong again. Vigorous Norman Bishops
first removed their sees from little country
places to the great towns in their dioceses, and
then began the building of their massive cathedral
24>

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 25
churches, and later on remodeUed the services
which were to be sung in them.
With this new life, however, came new prob
lems. The Church in Normandy had been in
close touch with Rome ; its leaders shared vdth
the great Hildebrand, the Pope of the time, in
his reforming zeal. Should there then be any
new relationship between the English Church and
Rome? This important point was settled by
the Conqueror himself. He said that no Pope
should be recognized as Pope in England with-
out the royal authority. He also defined the
relation between theChurch and the State by
declaring that the Church should pass no new
Canon or Church law without his consent, nor
excommunicate any one of his servants vidthout
his consent. Both these rules were very important.
The Canons of the Church at that time not only
might deal with purely Church affairs, but might
also treat of questions of marriage or of inheri
tances, and so might affect all classes of people.
Excommunication also in those days carried with
it serious civU consequences. A man under
excommunication could no longer claim the aUe
giance of his retainers ; by his excommunication he
was also outlawed. 4

26 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
We recognize that the Conqueror meant his
influence to be very real. Yet in another way
he gave the Church greater liberty than it had ever
had before. He separated the Church courts from
the civil courts. Hitherto, cases deaUng with
every breach of Church law had come before the
common court in which the Bishop had sat side
by side with the Sheriff and the Alderman, and
possessing only an authority equal vdth theirs had
sometimes been obliged to allow Church cases to
be lightly dealt with. But now WilUam laid it
down that the Bishops and Archdeacons should
have their own courts where they could administer
justice without let or hindrance, and he promised
that if any of his subjects dared to show contempt
for the authority of these new courts he would see
that they were punished. Yet by thus setting up
a separate set of courts within the kingdom the
Conqueror did a thing which was destined, as we
shaU see, to be the cause of most serious trouble
hereafter. William was succeeded upon the throne by two
sons in succession, and in the half-century during
which they reigned two other great questions
arose and received settlement.
One was caUed the Investiture Controversy.

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 27
Here the question at issue was whether lay persons
should continue to invest bishops and others with
the symbols of their office. The matter was one of
the greatest importance ; it involved the freedom
of the Church. If laymen could reaUy bestow
ecclesiastical office then men of the character of
the Rufus could foist whom they would into
the highest positions of the Church and practically
make the Church merely an instrument of their
oven tyranny. There would be small chance of
men of the stamp of John the Baptist being made
Bishops, whUe men Uke Herod might be Kings or
great nobles. The question was settled by a com
promise. On the occurrence of a vacancy in a
bishopric or abbey, the Chapter were to choose
someone in the King's presence, and the man thus
chosen was to do homage to the King for the
landed possessions of his new office, but he was to
receive investiture at the hands of the Church.
By this plan the King got all he could rightly
claim — viz., the aUegiance of the ecclesiastics in his
kingdom, and inasmuch as the election was to
take place in his presence he could usually secure
the election of his nominee. But he gave up his
claim to appoint whom he would and to give them
himself the symbols of their office.

28 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
The other question was originally purely a
national one and seemed at times, indeed, to be
only a rather petty quarrel between two ecclesi
astics ; but it was settled in a way that brought
infinite trouble upon the English Church. For
many years the Archbishop of Canterbury had been
trying to secure from the Archbishop of York an
acknowledgment of his precedence, and the case
had been referred to Rome for decision. The Pope
of Rome at the time saw in this question an
opportunity for making more real the power of
the Roman See over the English Church. The
great method by which the Popes made their
influence felt in different countries was by the
sending of Legates who, invested with Papal
authority, were able to bring to bear at any given
place and upon any given cause the whole weight
of Papal authority. Until weU on in the twelfth
century the attempts of the Popes to send Legates
to England had always been stoutly resisted ; but
in 1123 the King, Henry I., and the Archbishop of
Canterbury alike were false to the real interests of
the EngUsh Church. The Archbishop had again
complained to Rome of the contumacy of the
Archbishop of York, and the Pope had promised
that the case should be decided in England at a

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 29
Council over which a Papal Legate should preside.
The Legate came, and he was welcomed not only
by the Archbishop but also by the King. For
the King having lost his only son at sea was
endeavouring to secure for his daughter Matilda the
succession to the crown, and so received the Legate
in the hope that he might thus get the support of
the Papal influence in his schemes for his daughter.
The Papal Legate did many things, but he did not
settle the vexed question of the relative positions
of Canterbury and York, and the matter was again
referred to Rome, and finally, in 1126, was decided
in a fashion which while it bore unmistakable wit
ness to the astuteness of Rome bore equal witness
to the folly of the Archbishop. The Pope told the
Archbishop that there was a way out of the diffi
culty which would settle the question for ever in
favour of Canterbury, and that was that in future
the Archbishop should always be the Legate of
Rome in England. The Archbishop accepted this,
and by doing so gained his point with regard to
York but bartered away the freedom of the English
Church. We must not make too much, however,
of the cunning of the Pope or of the folly of the
Archbishop. Both were influenced to a degree
which it is difficult for us in these days to gauge by

30 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the so-called Decretals of Isidore. These Decretals
professed to be a collection of Papal decisions of
the first and second centuries, and had been put
forward during the ninth century by some un
known Continental writer. Some of them wfere
altogether false ; others were given a false impor
tance because they were said to belong to a far
earlier time than was really the case. But the
world accepted them all as genuine, and since they
all asserted in one way or another the sovereignty
of the Papacy over the whole of Christendom it
followed naturally that there could be no longer
any place within the universal Church for indepen
dent National Churches. To disobey a Pope or to
refuse to recognize his Legate seemed to be equiva
lent to opposing the revealed wUl of Heaven. It
was these decrees which made the medieval Papacy.
They were quoted by every Pope m succession as
he strove to extend the authority of his see, and it
was the beUef ui their genuineness which made it
always difficult for the EngUsh Church to assert its
independence of Rome. With these documents in
his hands a Pope could boldly claim to settle ques
tions deaUng either with precedence or with any
other matter, and an Archbishop, havmg read them,
might feel that to act as Papal Legate was the

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 31
highest office to which he could aspire. Neverthe
less the result was disastrous. Whatever authority
the head of the English Church might in future
exercise in England, it would always be possible for
the Popes to say that that authority was derived
from them and did not belong of itself to the arch
bishopric. The two sons of the great Conqueror were suc
ceeded by their nephew, Stephen of Blois. His
reign is spoken of by the chronicler of the time as
a ' dreary nineteen winters.' It was a time of
terrible anarchy, every man doing that which was
right in his own eyes. The machinery of civil
administration went to pieces entirely and the
Church courts were the only courts left in which
people could seek for justice. Hence of course
these Church courts widened the area of their
jurisdiction, and the people were glad that they
did so. It was better to have Church courts than
none at aU.
But when in 1154 Stephen died and Henry II.
was crowned King, the whole aspect of affairs
was changed. This Henry was the greatest
man of his time, and he came to the throne of
England with a resolute determination to put an
end to the disorder which existed throughout the

32 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
land. With his coming the foreign hired soldiery
disappeared like the morning mist ; the strong
castles of the nobles, which had been erected with
out royal permission and which formed a constant
menace to the poor folk near them, were destroyed ;
evU-doers of every sort found little mercy. The new
King had also to reconstruct the civU machinery
which had been begun by his grandfather, Henry I.
But so soon as he attempted to do this the whole
question of the jurisdiction of the Church courts
came into prominence. Two things were clear to
the King's mind. One was that these Church
courts existing within his own kingdom and deal
ing with his own subjects were acting in entire
independence of his authority, and giving decisions
based on a code of law which was not royal
law ; the other was that these same decisions
seemed oftentimes to be scandalously lacking in
severity. On both points the King was right, but
it was with regard to the second that the nation
felt most keenly. The practice of the Church
courts was that if a man accused before them and
found guUty of an offence could prove that he
held "Orders" in the Church, then he was
" unfrocked " for the offence— that is, deprived of
his Orders. But we need to remember that in those

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 33
days there were seven Orders in the Church —
namely, priests (including Bishops), deacons, sub-
deacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors (readers), and
ostiarii (doorkeepers), and that since the fact of
being in minor Orders did not in the least degree
interfere with a man's ordinary caUing in life a
large proportion of the male population were in one
or other of the minor Orders. Many people indeed
sought for these minor Orders knowing that in
this way they could claim the protection of the
Church courts, and if accused of a crime would be
tried by the same courts, and if convicted only
unfrocked. Thus, two men in the same neighbour
hood might be equaUy guUty of murder, but if one
had chanced to have obtained minor Orders at
some earUer date, he for his offence would simply
receive a sentence from the Church courts for
which he would care very little, while the other
would have to face the severity of the civil court.
Such a condition of things was intolerable.
Therefore, when in 1162 there was a vacancy in
the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Henry seized the
opportunity to secure an Archbishop who, he
hoped, would help him to put matters on a right
footing. The King's intimate friend and Minister,
Thomas Becket, became the new Archbishop. But
5

34 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Henry found at once that instead of providing for
himself an assistant he had given to the Church
courts a champion possessed of a will as strong
and as inflexible as his own. Misunderstandings on
various points arose and had created a breach be
tween the King and the Archbishop long before the
King brought forward the celebrated Constitutions
of Clarendon ; so that when the great question as to
the jurisdiction of the Church courts came to be
debated there existed a feeling of mutual suspicion
and hostiUty which made it impossible for either
man to see fairly the aims of the other. The King's
new suggestion was that if a man holding any
Orders within the Church was accused of crime he
should be tried as heretofore by the Church courts,
and if found to be guilty should be unfrocked by
those courts ; but that also, in future, a royal officer
should be waiting at the door of the Church court
to arrest the man — now, of course, a layman be
cause unfrocked — and carry him off to receive in
addition the punishment due to the offence from
the civil court.
As we look back we can see that the King's
proposal was an eminently wise one. The Arch
bishop, however, and many others were filled with
alarm. They dreaded this measure as being prob-

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 35
ably only the first of many attempts to limit the
authority of the Church. They feared any in
crease of lay jurisdiction, and when we remember
that the terrible days of Stephen had scarcely yet
come to an end, and that the unrighteous rule of
the Rufus was stiU a bitter memory, we can under
stand why it seemed to the Archbishop and his
friends that they had good cause for being anxious.
If there had been any friendliness between Henry
and Thomas there is no doubt that an agreement
could have been found without much difficulty.
Both men were possessed of real greatness of char
acter and both desired the common good. But it was
just that friendliness which was so conspicuously
absent. The King thereupon tried to coerce the
Archbishop, and the Archbishop fearing for his life
fied to France. Then foUowed six unhappy years of
mutual recrimination, during which time the Arch
bishop remained in exile. In 1170, however, the
quaiTcl was patched up, and the Archbishop re
turned to Canterbury. But he retumed appar
ently only to be murdered. On the evening of
December 29 of that year four knights, using some
hasty words of the King as a cloak for their oven evil
desires, made an attack upon the Archbishop veithin
the precincts of his own cathedral and finaUy slew

36 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
him. Such a deed proved the greatest possible hin
drance in the way of Henry's reforms. Nothing else,
indeed, was attempted with regard to the Church,
for the people looked upon Thomas as a martyr.
Consequently, the whole question of the rightful
jurisdiction of the Church courts was left unsettled,
and remained unsettled for several generations, and
there was continual bickering between the civil
judges who administered the King's law, and the
ecclesiastical judges who administered Church law.
But there were also other people in the time of
Henry II. who feared the effect of his other
reforms. The problem that Henry had to face was
how to make the central authority — i.e., the King's
authority — so strong that peace and good order
might be secured for rich and poor aUke throughout
the country. It was to this end that he directed
all his legislation. But it is clear that a central
authority if it were strong might prove to be a
tyranny in the hands of an unrighteous man, pro
ducing hardships greater even than those which arise
when there is an absence of a central authority alto
gether. This did actually happen in the reign of
Henry's son, John, and it was with the object
of securing definite limits to this uncontrolled
tyranny that Archbishop Stephen Langton and the

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 37
nobles of John's time compelled him to sign the
Great Charter. This event in English history is
one of those that are best known by people gener
ally, but the part played by Stephen Langton is
worthy of being mentioned again. It was he who not
only gave the Barons something definite to strive for
by recaUing to them the Charter of Liberties issued
by John's great grandfather, Henry I., but who was
also the constant means of keeping them together
and inspiriag their action. John himself realized
that the main strength of the opposition came from
the Church, and he tried to quiet the Church by
making promises to the Bishops that he would grant
them what they wanted. The Bishops, however,
kept loyaUy to their friends and refused to be dealt
with separately. In yet another way also the
great Archbishop made his influence felt. One of
the characteristics of the Great Charter is its
attempt to secure privileges for all classes in the
kingdom — i.e., for the smaU farmer who only had
his few agricultural implements, and for the
merchant who only had his merchandise, as much
as for the great baron and the great ecclesiastic.
This attempt was due to the great Archbishop, and
how reaUy and truly it was his work was seen
when on the Charter being re -issued in 1216

38 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
and again in 1217 (the years in which the Arch
bishop was in disgrace at Rome), many of the
clauses dealing veith the rights of the mass of the
people were either omitted altogether or seriously
modified. This time of struggle for poUtical freedom had
other and less happy consequences for the nation
from a Church point of view. To understand this
we need to go back somewhat. Nine years before
the signing of the Great Charter Langton had been
made Archbishop of Canterbury. King John,
however, had wished that a certain John de Grey,
Bishop of Norwich, should be made Archbishop,
and when he heard that Langton had been elected,
through the intervention of the Pope, he was
furious. The Pope of the time, however, was a
man who did not regard with much concern the
fury of Kings. This Pope, Innocent III. by name,
takes rank with the greatest of the occupants of
the Papal Chair. He combined a wonderful
patience in working and an untiring watchfulness
for opportunities with a striking boldness of action
when he felt that action was required. In recom
mending the monies of Canterbury to elect Stephen
Langton to the archbishopric he acted solely from
the highest motives, and when he found that King

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 39
John refused to receive him as Archbishop, he
proceeded to force the King into submission.
He began by placing England under an interdict.
This sentence, however, did not affect John very
much. It made his people suffer indeed, for they
were deprived of aU the public services of the Church
except those required by extreme necessity. But his
people's troubles were no trouble to John. In the
year foUowing the King was excommunicated, but
neither did that affect him. Then two years later
Innocent threatened to depose him and to use
PhUip Augustus, the powerful French King, to
make the sentence of deposition effective. At last
the King gave way, frightened, it is said, by the
prophecies which had been spoken concerning him
more than by the prospect of a French invasion.
But whatever the cause which led the King to
make his submission, there is no doubt about the
abject nature of it. Near Dover he met two
envoys from the Pope, and to them, as representing
the Pope, he surrendered his kingdom, and con
sented to receive it back as a tenant received
land from an overlord. The Pope now regarded
himself as the owner of England and the protector
of John, and the King hoped that in this way he
would save himself from the opposition of the

40 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Barons as well as from an invasion from France.
In neither case were his hopes fully realized,
though the support of the Papacy proved very
valuable to him. For a short while aU went well
for him, but in 1214 his forces in aUiance with
those of Flanders and the Empire were routed
at Bouvines in Flanders by Philip of France.
This so weakened John's power that he no longer
dared resist the Barons, but signed the Great
Charter in the foUowing year. But no sooner
had he done so than he appealed to Pandolf,
who was now Papal Legate and as such the
representative of the King's overlord, and asked
him for his protection. Pandolf, taking the view
that the Papal influence would be increased if
the Pope supported the King, sent a garbled
account of the recent events in England to his
master in Rome, and Innocent, relying on the
information sent to him, annulled the Charter,
excommunicated John's enemies, and suspended
Langton from his office as Archbishop. The Barons
thereupon took matters into their own hands,
and offered the crown of England to Louis, the
son of the King of France. This they did in the
autumn of 1215. Before the end of the year
French troops had begun to arrive, and Louis him-

NORMANS AND ANGEVINS 41
self came in the following May. The beginning of
a bitter struggle seemed in sight, but in October,
1216, John died at Newark, and at once the whole
complexion of affairs was altered. The English
Barons who had been supporting Louis did not in
reaUty desire a French King to reign over them ;
they had only regarded such an event as less in
tolerable than the continued reign of John. Now
that John was dead a large number of them readUy
jumped at any excuse by which they could justify
their desertion of the Prince whom they them
selves had invited to England. In these difficult
circumstances the Papacy played an exceedingly
important part. Gualo had succeeded Pandolf as
Papal Legate. There was a new Pope indeed at
Rome, for Innocent had died and had been suc
ceeded by Honorius III. ; but though there was a
new Pope there was no new policy, and Gualo,
realizing this, acted with great resolution on behalf
of John's son. Prince Henry, a lad nine years of
age. There is no doubt that the action of the
Legate saved England from civil strife. The
coronation of the boy-King was secured and many
of the Barons were won over.
The story of this troubled time needs thus to be
told with some detaU if we would understand the
6

42 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
history of the following fifty-six years during which
period this Henry was King. Throughout this
long half-century it is hardly surprising that Henry
never once offered any opposition to the Papal
encroachments. He owed his crown to Papal
action ; he was reared under Papal influence. He
never realized what he might have gained by
resistance. Resistance, indeed, seemed an impos-
sibUity, for the whole world of the time was wit
nessing the humiliation at the hands of the Pope
of Henry's brother-in-law, the great Frederick II.
of Germany. For the first twelve years of his
reign Stephen Langton lived on, and for the last
twenty-five years an uncle by marriage, a foreigner,
Boniface of Savoy, held the archbishopric, and
either the Englishman or the foreigner would have
taken part gladly in a policy of opposition to
Rome if only the King had given them a lead ;
but nothing was farther from his thoughts.

CHAPTER III
medieval struggles
Although the country complained bitterly of the
way in which it was drained of money to fill
the Papal coffers, it was forced to confess that
it owed much to the wonderful work done in the
name of religion in the early years of the thirteenth
century by the Mendicant Orders — Orders which
existed by Papal authority and which were aided
by Papal help. The first of these Orders, the
Dominicans, took their name from Dominic of
Spain and, Uke their founder, laboured to
suppress the heresies prevalent at the time.
The Franciscans, the followers of Francis of
Assisi, began with the idea of simply Uviug a Ufe
as nearly ChristUke as possible in the midst of a
naughty world ; they renounced all property and
spent their time in doing good works. The two
Orders came to be known in England as the
" Black Friars " and " Grey Friars," for the
43

44 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Dominicans wore a black habit and the Franciscans
a grey. Though originally quite distinct yet they
came into prominence almost at the same time,
and before long each borrowed the characteristic
mark of the other. The Dominicans adopted the
rule of voluntary poverty from the Franciscans,
and the Franciscans became diligent students of
theology. The effect of this combined movement
upon the life of the time was so great that it may
be said to have changed the face of Europe. A
new spirit seemed to be at work in society ; once
more life was believed to be worth living ; once
again men realized that it was possible to be happy
apart from material possessions. Both Orders,
however, owed much of their success to the fact
that from the first they were recognized by the
Pope, and thus it came about that they were loyal
supporters of the Papacy. As they grew they
came to include within their ranks men out of
every nation in Europe ; but it made little difference
from whence they gathered their members, since
almost every member lost all national feeling in an
enthusiasm for Rome. The two Orders became,
in fact, a kind of irregular army waging a constant
warfare on behalf of Rome against the claims of
independent national Churches. Their influence in

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 45
this direction, however, was only recognized at a
later date. In the early years of the thirteenth
century they were welcomed in all places without
reserve. If other countries owed them much,
England owed them more. Within forty years
they had revolutionized the land. In an age of
oligarchical tyranny they protected the weak ; in
an age of darkness they taught the ignorant ; in
an age of much moral corruption they lived lives
of holiness. They appealed to the common people
in a way that the monastic orders had never done.
The monk Uved in his monastery in order to
escape the corruption of the world, and so to win
a way for himself into Paradise. The friar lived in
the world in order, if possible, to lessen its corruption,
and so to help others to win a way into Paradise.
It is not to be wondered at that the friars made
religion popular as it had never been before. It is
equaUy easy to understand that while such men
were at work in the world it would be difficult to
struggle with the Papacy which they reverenced
and obeyed. Nevertheless, people in high position
did realize that the Papacy was coming to stand
more and more for extortion and corruption.
One of the thirteenth- century Bishops, Robert
Grosseteste, won for himself undying fame by

46 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
reason of his persistent opposition to Rome. He
was, indeed, on one occasion temporarily sus
pended from his office because he would not
admit an Italian to a rich benefice on account of
his ignorance of English. Yet this same Grosse
teste was an enthusiastic supporter of the Mendi
cants. He had been the first Rector of the
Franciscans at Oxford, and he supported them to
the day of his death.
The influence of the Mendicants as political
agents of the Papacy only began to be felt in
the reign of Edward I. Edward I. succeeded his
father, Henry HI., in 1272. He was anxious to
complete the work that had been begun so splen
didly by Henry II. He wished amongst other
things to define as clearly as possible the relative
powers of Church and State, and the better to
secure this end he endeavoured on two occasions to
get the Archbishopric for his Chancellor, Robert
Burnell. But the Papacy of Edward's time was a
very different thing from the Papacy of Henry's
time. On each occasion not only did the Papacy
put on one side the royal nomination, but also on
each occasion disregarded the choice of the monks
of Canterbury in whom was vested by canonical
right the power of election, and on the first occasion

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 47
KUwardby, a Dominican friar, and on the second
John Peckham, a Franciscan, was forced upon
the English Church. The motive for this action
on the part of the Papacy is clear. It was felt
that the Archbishop should be in future some
body who would uphold the Papal pretensions.
KUwardby disappointed the Pope from this point
of view, and he was therefore made a Cardinal so
that, inasmuch as Cardinals had to Uve in Rome,
he should resign the Archbishopric. Peckham
was a man of very different stamp. No one
doubted for a moment his honesty and his selfless
ness, but he was a rigid supporter of the Papacy
and possessed Uttle of the tact needed in a success
ful statesman. No sooner had he arrived in England
than he made it quite clear what his attitude
would be. He pronounced against the holding
of benefices in plurality ; he ordered the clergy to
put up in their churches a copy of the Great
Charter and told them to declare to their people
that those who broke the terms of the Charter
were, by such conduct, excommunicate ; and, further,
he proceeded in the exercise of his archiepiscopal
power to inquire in no sparing fashion into the
conduct of the Bishops of his province. In such
ways he stirred up opposition to himself in every

48 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
quarter; but the person who was most indignant
was the King, who saw in the action of the
Archbishop with regard to the observance of the
Great Charter a reflection on the royal conduct,
and he was not slow to retaliate.
In 1279, a few weeks after Peckham's ill-judged
proceedings, Edward secured the passing of the
Statute of Mortmain which declared that in future
no grants of land should be made to the Church
without the permission of the overlord of the
person making the grant. If the permission was
not first sought for then the land became forfeit to
the overlord. There is no question that the
Statute was a shrewd blow directed against the
Church, but it had its origin not merely in Edward's
resentment at the action of his new Archbishop,
but also in the very general feeling at the time that
some such check was really needful for the weU-
being of the State, since it was notorious that
many of the grants of land which had been made
to the Church were made merely in a fraudulent
spirit. A man who held land from an overlord was
bound by the conditions of feudal tenure to render
certain services to his overlord, and the overlord
had in addition certain privileges vdth regard to
that land which at any moment might become a

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 49
source of profit to him. Thus, for instance, he had
the wardship of the land if the heir of his tenant
was under age when the tenant died ; he had the
right of bestowing the hand of heiresses in marriage ;
and, moreover, if there were a failure of heirs, the
land escheated to him as overlord. But the moment
land came into the possession of an abbey or priory
the interests of the overlord were seriously en
dangered. It was far less easy to compel an abbey
to fulfU the services due than it was to compel an
individual. Moreover, abbeys and priories never
died and so there was no question in their case of
profits being made made out of wardship, or of
heiresses being bestowed in marriage, or of land
escheating to the overlord. It was under these
circumstances that the Statute was so welcomed
by the great lords. The principle of it, indeed,
has remained a part of the law of England until
this day, since a special procedure has to be
followed before land can be given for ecclesiastical
purposes, even for the buUding of a suburban
church. The quarrel between King and Archbishop did
not end there. Peckham stirred up again the
question of the rival jurisdiction of the King's
courts and the Church courts, and here also the
7

50 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
result was in the main a victory for the King, for
in 1285 Edward issued a writ caUed Circumspecte
Agatis in which the extent of the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction was defined as clearly and as narrowly
as possible. It was admitted that the Church
courts had jurisdiction in matrimonial and testa
mentary cases, and could deal with offences for
which penance was due and veith aU questions
relating to tithes, mortuaries, churches and church
yards, perjury and defamation ; but yet the writ
meant practically a defeat for the Church, for its
very definiteness made it impossible for the Church
in the future to attempt to draw into its courts any
cases other than those named.
Seven years later Archbishop Peckham died.
' Humble brother John,' as he was caUed by the
Franciscans, had all along kept the regard of his
King although King and Archbishop had differed
so widely in opinion. The vacancy was on this
occasion canonicaUy filled up, not indeed because
neither the Papacy nor the King had a desire any
longer to override the rights of diocesan chapters,
but because it happened that at the moment the
Papacy was vacant and the King had neither a
favourite ChanceUor nor other official for whom he
was eager to get the Archbishopric. The chdice of

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 51
the chapter fell upon Robert of Winchelsea ; and
it was significant that Winchelsea was neither a
Dominican nor a Franciscan nor even a member of
a monastic body. He was none the less, however,
a man weU fitted for the post. It is even said
that he was so well thought of at Rome, where he
had to wait twelve months for the confirmation of
his election, that it was supposed that he might
himself be elected Pope.
The new Archbishop found before long that he
had an exceedingly difficult part to play. The
Pope who confirmed his election had been compelled
to resign and was afterwards shut up in a pesti
lential castle, and died there. The new Pope was
Boniface VIIL, the man who was commonly
suspected of being responsible for the death of his
predecessor. This Boniface was a clever preten
tious man, and eager to play the part of a great
ecclesiastical statesman. He fancied he could be
another Hildebrand or Innocent III. He did not
see that the times had completely altered. Edward I.
of England was now quarrelling with PhiUp IV.
of France, and Boniface peremptorily ordered them
to put up their swords and accept his mediation.
This both the Kings refused to do, whereupon the
Pope endeavoured to compel them to obedience by

52 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
issuing the celebrated Bull Clericis Laicos in which
the clergy of the two kingdoms were ordered not
to pay any taxes to the secular power without the
permission of the Papacy. The BuU placed Win
chelsea and the clergy of England in a great diffi
culty. Edward was insistent in his demands for
money. What was to be done ? In January, 1297,
the Archbishop preaching at St. Paul's said that
the clergy had two lords to obey, the King and the
Pope, and if the question ever arose as to which they
should obey, there could be no doubt that they
must obey the Pope rather than the King. The King
was exceedingly angry and proceeded to declare
the clergy outlawed, and tried by acts of bitter
and sometimes rather petty hostUity to dragoon
the Archbishop into submission. Winchelsea, how
ever, remained immovable, and both he and the
clergy received much sympathy from the laity, not
indeed because the laity were pleased that the
clergy should hold by the Pope rather than by the
King, but because the laity themselves were smart
ing under the burden of taxation which had become
necessary by reason of Edward's foreign poUcy.
Discontent, in fact, was growing on aU sides, and
came to a head during Edward's absence in Flanders.
The Archbishop and the leaders of the Barons

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 53
compelled the Regency to reissue the Great Charter
with the addition of certain new clauses which
forebade the collection of taxes without the consent
of ParUament, and Edward was in such a position
that he had to accept this significant development
in constitutional principle.
This Confir-matio Cai^tarum, as it is called, is one
of the great landmarks in EngUsh history. Edward
himself had brought Parliament in its modern sense
into existence. He was the first King to summon
a complete representation of the different estates of
the realm to meet and consult on public affairs.
Now by giving up to it this control over taxation he
gave it its greatest power. Throughout the troubled
years which preceded this concession on the part of
the King it was the clergy, and especially the
Archbishop, whose example put heart into the
resistance against the King's arbitrary taxation.
Edward saw this clearly enough, and he came back
from Flanders fiUed with indignation against the
Archbishop. Winchelsea, however, for the time
was regarded as having championed the national
cause and so occupied far too strong a position for
the King to harm him.
Edward meanwhile nursed his anger, untU at
last came his opportunity for revenge. Boniface

54 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
died in 1303, and in 1305 PhiUp IV. of France
secured the election of Bertrand de Goth, Arch
bishop of Bordeaux, who took the title of Clement V.
The new Pope, who had been one of Edward's
subjects in Gascony, seemed almost as anxious
to please Edward as Philip. He absolved the
English King frorn his oath veith regard to the
Forest Laws, and added that the King in future
was never to be excommunicated without Papal
permission. But most significant of all, he listened
to Edward's complaints against the Archbishop of
Canterbury and summoned the latter to appear be
fore the Papal Court. When Winchelsea thereupon
presented himself to Edward to obtain his formal
permission to leave the country, Edward made it
clear how deeply he hated the Archbishop and how
he rejoiced at being rid of him. ' We gladly give
you permission to go,' he said, ' but we wiU never
give you permission to return.' Here, again, it is
evident how difficult a part the EngUsh Church
had to play. It formed part of the Catholic Church
and acknowledged, as aU men did then, that the
Pope was God's ruler of the Church on earth, yet
it could never really depend upon the support of
the Popes if poUtical considerations tempted them
to desert it. Clement V. acted simply at the wish

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 55
of a revengeful King, and Winchelsea suffered
because he had striven to be faithful to the Papacy.
But the Pontificate of Clement V. is chiefly re
membered for the fact that with him began what is
known as the ' Babylonish Captivity.' The discord
of parties in Rome, and indeed throughout Italy,
disturbed Clement so greatly that he took up his
residence at Avignon, a town situated in what is now
South-Eastern France but which was in Clement's
time a part of the possessions of Charles II. of Naples,
who was also Count of Provence ; but the town was
so near to the dominions of the French King that
the Pope feU naturaUy and immediately under his
influence. This residence at Avignon was destined
to have most serious consequences for the Papacy,
for so long as the Popes remained there it was
difficult for them to convince the world that they
were independent. To EngUsh people especially it
seemed that they were becoming little else than
tools in the hands of the French King. To the old
hatred of the Papacy as an extortionate pleader for
money was now added a new hatred because it was
believed to be using its spiritual authority to
advance the interests of England's enemy. This
new dislike found expression in one of the last
Statutes of Edward's reign — namely, the famous

56 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Statute of CarUsle passed in 1307. By this Statute
an endeavour was made to put a stop to the send
ing of money out of the kingdom by monks or their
agents. It is the first of the many anti-Papal
Statutes which have been passed by English ParUa-
ments. In the discussion which preceded its pass
ing many other grievances were brought forward,
such as the abuses of Papal patronage, the promo
tion of aliens, the reservation of first-fruits, and
other exactions. In a word, now that there was a
national Parliament in existence national feeling
began to express itself unmistakeably ; and the more
it came to be seen that the Pope had become Uttle
else than a French political agent the feeling of the
nation against his interference in EngUsh Church
affairs grew apace. ' Lord Jesus,' cried a writer of
the times, ' remove the Pope from off our backs or
curb his power.'
Yet the Kings when it suited their purpose were
as glad as ever to make use of their influence. Thus
when Winchelsea was removed, a certain Walter
Reynolds, a royal nominee, was put by Pope
Clement into the vacancy in spite of the fact that
another man had been elected by the Chapter. As
a matter of fact, by this time the diocesan Chapters
had lost almost entirely all control over the filling

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 57
up of vacant bishoprics. Hence we read of Bishops
who were quite unworthy of the position they held
but who had obtained advancement by bribery or
influence, and it soon foUowed that the national
Church sank lower and lower in the estimation of
the people, since ignorant and slothful Bishops meant
non-resident priests and neglected parishes. The old
monastic houses, moreover, seemed now to be merely
homes for men who tried to escape from bearing a
share of the public burdens. The common people
did not always distinguish between the good and
the bad. Bishop Stapledon of Exeter was put to
death by a London mob with a butcher's knife, and
the Bishop of Rochester of the time had to fortify
his manor-houses that he might live in comparative
safety. There were signs of a growing discontent
everywhere. AU other national troubles, however, sank for the
moment into comparative unimportance beside that
produced by the terrible pestUence which broke out
in the middle of the fourteenth century. This
pestilence, which has of late come to be called the
'Black Death,' was brought to England by the
saUors of a ship which had been trading at Genoa
where the plague was already in existence. Once
in England it spread with terrible rapidity. Two

58 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OP ENGLAND
hundred people died daily in London when it was
at its height, whilst so terrible was the scourge in
the city of Norwich that two people died out of
every three, and Norwich, from being the second
city in the kingdom, was reduced to being the
sixth. In the East Anglian diocese 863 fresh
institutions to benefices took place at this time, and
other parts of England could teU a similar tale.
The effect in every department of Ufe of a plague
so general and so fatal was of course tremendous.
The Church was influenced by it as weU as the
State, for among] the victims were many of the
best of the clergy, and for want of fit men to fUl
the numerous vacancies others altogether inefficient
were oftentimes appointed.
The pestUence, however, produced an even more
serious result than this. By reason of the many
deaths agricultural labourers became scarce, and
those that remained demanded higher wages for
their services. They cannot be blamed for this,forthe
price of food had risen enormously ; yet the people
who employed labourers, including as a rule the
clergy, tried to compel the labourers to work at the
old rate of wages ; the clergy, that is, were throw
ing in their lot with the rich as against the poor.
For the first time in EngUsh history the National

MEDIEVAL STRUGGLES 59
Church was taking up a Tory position. It had
groven strong originally because it had won the
love of the people and in a peculiar degree it
could claim to be a National Church. But in
the half-century preceding the outbreak of the
pestUence it had been losing its hold, and now it
quickly forfeited almost aU of what remained to
it of the popular regard.
As the fourteenth century drew to an end the
condition of the country only became worse.
Amongst the poorer classes there was much
grievous suffering, and out of this sprang a bitter
ness of discontent which finaUy brought about the
Peasant Revolt of 1381. Amongst the wealthier
classes there was a common absence of the sense of
responsibUity coupled with much wanton and osten
tatious extravagance. It was in the dark days of
the pestilence that Edward III. founded with great
display and expense the Order of the Garter,
a new order which was supposed to be a new order
of chivalry, but in which there was no real pursuit
of noble ideals. Noble ideals seemed to be, indeed,
forgotten. During the whole of this time scarcely
any great Churchman came to the front. The sad
ness of the age is seen in Langland's celebrated
poem of ' The Vision of William concerning Piers

60 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the Ploughman,' which complains bitterly of abuses
and corruptions everywhere ; the parish priests were
no true pastors ; the friars were wandering rogues ;
the law courts were debased by bribery and extor
tion ; the craftsmen were idle and dissolute ; and
impudent beggars infested the highways. Yet to
Langland the reform required was not a reform in
the social order or in the reUgious teaching of the
time, but rather a reform in the Uves of men
themselves. In this way he forms a striking
contrast to his contemporary John Wycliffe.

CHAPTER IV
WYCLIFFE
Wycliffe is the most striking figure in the
EngUsh life of the latter part of the fourteenth
century. Sprung from sturdy Yorkshire stock, he
was sent to Oxford and won there great reputation,
partly by reason of his extensive learning (he was
probably the greatest scholar of his day), but more
by reason of his personal character. He was
exceeding thorough in aU that he did and he was
transparently honest. In addition, he possessed in
a wonderful degree the power of imparting his
knowledge to others and of converting his hearers
into enthusiastic disciples. He first became popular
in the political world in connection with the ques
tion as to whether the payment of the tribute which
John had promised to the Papacy should be con
tinued. It was WycUffe who drew up the state
ment upon which it was finally decided that the
payment should cease. His position was that the
61

62 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Pope could not rightly claim the tribute inasmuch
as neither Christ nor His Apostles had held pro
perty, and even if the tribute could be claimed by
the Pope, then certainly in return the Pope ought
to do his best for the good of the country from
which the tribute came, instead of, as was reaUy the
case, constantly supporting that country's enemies.
Further, he said that people living in sin had no
right to authority or property of any kind. These
arguments Wycliffe afterwards worked up into
formal treatises, and it became clear to aU men that
to Wycliffe's mind the Church ought not to hold
property at aU ; and when Wycliffe was told that
the Church might proceed to excommunicate people
who accepted such views, his reply was that excom
munication need only be dreaded by men who were
living in sin, and that the position of a righteous
man towards God was not affected by any sentence
passed upon him by the Church.
This teaching with regard to Church endow
ments was greedily laid hold of by a large party in
the State who, under the leadership of the
unscrupulous John of Gaunt the third son of
Edward IIL, were eager to enrich themselves at
the expense of the Church. The Church for its
part was not slow to resist this attack upon its

WYCLIFFE 63
wealth, and WycUffe was accordingly summoned to
appear before the Bishops in S. Paul's Cathedral
in 1377. Nothing, however, came of this attempt
to suppress Wycliffe, for the whole proceedings
abruptly terminated in a scuffle which took place
in the cathedral itself — a scuffle which arose out
of the indignation of the Londoners who were
present at the insulting attitude adopted by John
of Gaunt towards their Bishop. In the confusion
Wycliffe was taken from the cathedral and the
matter was allowed to drop for the time.
In the following year an event occurred which
probably did more than all else to convert Wycliffe
into a bitter opponent of the whole Papal position.
In 1377 the ' Babylonish Captivity ' had come to an
end, and the Popes who had lived at Avignon for
seventy years returned once again to Rome. In
1378, however, on the occurrence of a vacancy in
the Papal Chair, two Popes were elected, and one of
them, the nominee of the French Cardinals, went
back to Avignon. Christendom now veitnessed the
shocking spectacle of rival Popes hurling bitter
anathemas one against the other. But while other
good men grieved sorely over this distressing
state of things Wycliffe was stirred into questioning
the very position of the Papacy itself— that is, for

64 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
him the question was not which of the two Popes
had most right on his side, but whether the office
which each claimed was one in accordance with the
wiU of God, From this time also he appealed
no longer merely to scholars but to the people.
Hitherto he had written elaborate works in Latin ;
now he began to vmte tracts in English, More
over, so that his doctrines might be carried far and
wide he organized a system of itinerant ' poor
priests,' and into the hands of these agents of his he
before long put an instrument far more valuable
even than his tracts — namely, the Bible in English.
So long as Wycliffe and his disciples taught
simply the necessity for a greater personal holiness
and only made attacks upon the Papal position,
they were, on the whole, generally popular; but
when Wycliffe began to attack the doctrine of
Transubstantiation by saying that whilst there was
a Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist there was
no change in the substance of the bread and wine,
he was met at once by a storm of opposition.
Even John of Gaunt deserted him. StiU, it is
doubtful how far he would have lost his popularity
had it not been that in 1381 there occurred the
rising of the peasants in Kent and in the Eastern
Counties. Some of Wycliffe's * poor priests ' were

WYCLIFFE 65
certainly connected with this movement, and it
became a common charge against him and his
foUowers that they were altogether responsible for
it. The rising seemed to be for a time exceedingly
serious, and the violence of it is seen in the murder
of Simon of Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canter
bury of the time.
The effect of it, however, was to unite all the
various conservative elements in the country.
Those who dreaded changes in the Church joined
hands veith those who feared social disorganization.
ReUgious questions and economic questions became
inextricably mixed up, and a condition of things in
ecclesiastical affairs out of which the English Church
might have come freed from the thraldom of Rome,
ultimately produced no good result whatever.
How strong was the desire to assert the indepen
dence of the National Church is to be seen in the
Statute of Provisors of 1390, which reinforced the
earUer Statutes of 1351 and 1362, and in the great
Statute of Praemunire of 1393, which forbade in the
strongest terms the carrying of appeals to Rome.
But this legislation was never reaUy effective, for
those who supported it most enthusiastically were
just those who came to be regarded more and more
as political agitators. These people — Lollards as
9

66 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
they were caUed — half religious, half socialistic in
their aims, roused the fears of the country nobility
and gentry quite as much as the dislike of the
Church. They seemed to be aiming at the destruc
tion of the whole social fabric as it then existed,
and it was to deal with them that the terrible
Statutes for the burning of heretics were passed.
The suggestion to make use of burning as a means
of stamping out agitators came first of aU from the
Church, but it was readily adopted by Parliament,
for Parliament was an assembly representing the
landholding interest. The eagerness of the laity
to suppress these disturbers is seen more defi
nitely stiU in the Statute of 1414, by which
the slackness of the Church in laying hands upon
them was remedied by giving power also to the
sheriffs to arrest for heresy.
Persecution which was thus approved of both by
the Church and the State kUled before long all
attempts at reform of every sort. The teaching of
Wycliffe became forgotten in England. It lived
on, however, in Bohemia whither it had been
carried by Bohemian students who had been taught
by WycUffe at Oxford, and in Bohemia it found
expression in the doctrines of Huss and in this
way later on it gave direction to the thoughts of

WYCLIFFE 67
Luther. But in England for a time every other
question was forgotten in the presence of the
glamour created by the great miUtary successes of
Henry V. over France, the old national enemy ;
whilst after the death of Henry V. battles, first
abroad and then at home, engrossed the nation for
nearly three-quarters of a century more.
But in spite of social disturbance and the
turmoil of war, a work which was to prove of the
greatest help in the national Ufe had its origin in
this time. William of Wykeham, Bishop of
Winchester from 1367 to 1404, buUt not only his
New College at Oxford, but also that school at
Winchester which has served as a model for all
the famous public schools of the country. It was
in imitation of the good Bishop's work that half
a century later Henry VI. founded the school at
Eton and his King's CoUege at Cambridge. The
aim of Bishop and King was one and the same —
namely, that by a true education the youth of the
land might be the better trained to serve God both
in Church and State.

CHAPTER V
THE CRY FOR REFORM
From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards
for 200 years Europe generally, as weU as
England in particular, was agitated to a degree
unknown before over questions of religion, and
when it is remembered that those questions dealt
with the very essentials of the Faith no one can
wonder at the disturbance they produced. The
general title for the period is that of the Reforma
tion, but such a title is not an altogether satis
factory one, for it implies only that something
was done that needed the doing ; that errors were
exploded and abuses rectified ; and it does not
even suggest that there was with the reform any
accompaniment of evil. And yet most assuredly
with the good that was done was mixed up much
that was bad. Not only was there great destruction
of things that were beautiful and of priceless worth ;
not only were methods which had proved helpful
68

THE CRY FOR REFORM 69
in the past rudely and thoughtlessly cast on one
side as being altogether useless — such mistakes
could have been remedied with comparative ease ;
but the movement produced also a fearful develop
ment of partisan spirit, with the result that large
bodies of Christians lost all continuity with the
Church of Christ, while the Church itself became
torn and rent asunder. Some of the great actors
of the time were ignorantly zealous, some were
timid and vaciUating, some were among the most
unscrupulous and worthless men that have ever
wielded the power of authority and whose im
perfections were as fruitful for mischief as the
splendid work done by the best men was pro
ductive of good. Something of all this wiU be
learnt hereafter, but the mention of it here will
enable us to use the title of the Reformation
as the common title of the period without being
bUnd to the fact that the Church came out of
the crisis in many respects maimed, and in
many respects weakened in its effectiveness as a
witness for righteousness against the powers of
evil. The period is reaUy a very long one. It began
with isolated cries for reform Uke those of
Wycliffe in England and Huss in Germany

70 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
uttered by members of the Church itself. Then
came years of intense unrest, during which there
was nothing so sacred that it was not argued in
the street, and no point of theology, however
difficult, that was not discussed in the tavern or
at the market fairs. StUl later, the Western
Church became rent asunder and its parts
waged war one against another. Then, lastly,
the English Church, by this time isolated from the
rest of Christendom, was forced to struggle for
its very existence and came out of the contest
only half triumphant, for its victory was accom
panied by large secessions from its ranks. Some
thing of the general European history of each part
of the period needs to be known if the final result
in England is to be understood.
The movement as we have seen began with
Wycliffe, who with unsparing vigour had exposed
the corruptions of the Papal Court and had
denounced many of the doctrines of the Medieval
Church, For a time, however, the question of
reform in England was put into the background,
owing first to its association with poUtics, and then
to the outbreak of those Wars of the Roses which,
while they lasted, occupied all the energies of the
ruling classes. But elsewhere the result was

THE CRY FOR REFORM 71
different. The marriage of Richard 1 1, of England
with Anne of Bohemia had attracted many
Bohemian students to Oxford, and these men we
know carried back with them Wycliffe's writings,
and found for them so warm a welcome at the
hands of John Huss and Jerome of Prague that
the authorities deemed it necessary to discuss the
matter at the great Council of Constance in 1415.
The result of that discussion, though, only proved
that so far there was no general cry for any
reforms in doctrine. The teaching of WycUffe
was condemned, and Huss and Jerome were both
burnt for refusing to recant. But it was impossible
that the matter should end in that way. The
Papal influence had eagerly sought for the
condemnation of the new views, yet to every
demand for the reform of the Papal Court itself,
or for any alterations in institutions which
ministered to its greed of power or wealth, it
offered a stubborn and persecuting resistance, and
it was because such treatment was uniformly
meted out to those who agitated for such
reform that men in general began to do what
Wycliffe had previously done by himself. They
began to question whether the Papal influence
need be maintained at aU, and as the authority of

72 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the Church seemed to be dependent upon that of
the Papacy they were inclined to throw that over
also, and to have recourse to the Scriptures as the
only reaUy trustworthy guide. Matters were only
made worse by the fact that just at this time, when
the Church most needed veise and true leaders, the
seat of the Popes was occupied by a succession of
Pontiffs unfitted in every way for their position.
Some of them were of infamous character, some
were utterly worldly, some weak and time-serving.
Never had the need of a central guiding-power
been so widely felt, and never had the claim of the
Popes to be such a power been put forward more
boldly, and yet never before had the Popes been so
unworthy. Yet we shall be altogether in the verong if we
imagine that at this particular time it was only
the personal character of the Popes which produced
the general cry for reform. That cry owed its
origin to other causes also.
First there was the discovery of the art of
printing, the art by means of which copies of
treatises are rapidly multiplied and enormously
cheapened. What telegraphy has done in our
own time for the world at large, printing did
in that age for Europe: it brought the different

THE CRY FOR REFORM 73
nations of Europe into close touch one with
another. Also, just at the time when this power of making
many books was invented, there arose throughout
Europe a new passion for knowledge due to the
coming into Italy of a continual stream of Greek
scholars, a stream which reached its fuU force
upon the capture of Constantinople by Sultan
Mohammed II. on May 29, 1453. To most of us
Constantinople is only the name of the chief city of
the Turkish Empire. But 460 years ago it was
the one great seat of Christian learning. It was a
Greek city, where the knowledge of the great
Greek authors had never been lost. When at last
it fell its scholars fled to Italy to earn a Uvelihood
by the teaching of their native language. They
did not come without good grounds for their hope
that they would be well received, but none of
them dreamt how great would be the result of
their coming. Through them the nations of the
West felt for the first time the power of Greek
thought, the loftiness of the best Greek morality,
and the wonderfulness of Greek beauty. But
though the things taught by the new teachers
produced great results, the spirit of their teaching
became even of more importance, since it was a
10

74 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
spirit of free inquiry making a claim for the fullest
liberty to discuss all subjects, even the most sacred,
and asserting that nothing should be taught or
held as an article of Faith which could not stand
the keenest scrutiny. Under the influence of this
spirit Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the age,
examined the Decretals upon which the whole
fabric of the Medieval Papacy with aU its far-
reaching claims had been constructed, with the
result that soon the world learnt that many
of those Decretals were altogether false, whilst
others, though not false in themselves, had been
given a false importance by being ascribed to
Bishops of Rome of the first and second centuries,
instead of to their real authors who had Uved in
far later ages. People found for the first time that
the Apostles and their immediate successors knew
nothing of the Papacy inasmuch as no Papacy
had been in existence then, and so their old respect
for the Papacy as an institution possessing
Divine authority began to vanish away, and they
came to regard its dominion as a tyranny based
upon usurpation, and therefore to demand its
destruction. So far England was at one with the rest of
Europe. But on the Continent a revolt from the

THE CRY FOR REFORM 75
Papacy was only too often accompanied by a
revolt from the Church as well. The claims of
Plato as a teacher were set up against those of
Christ, and the Christian Faith with its demands
upon conduct was openly disregarded. The New
Learning, however, did not have this latter effect in
England. EngUsh scholars welcomed it as a power
by means of which the Church's teaching would be
understood more thoroughly and the lessons of
purity and self-denial better enforced upon a
worldly clergy. WilUam Warham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas More, Lord ChanceUor, and
John Colet, Dean of S. Paul's, were all of them
notable scholars of the New Learning, and they
were aU devoutly-minded men. The spirit of the
new age in Italy showed itself at its best in Leo X.,
who became Pope in 1513. Encouraged by him,
the fine arts flourished in Italy as they had never
flourished before. But while he did this, Leo also
tolerated the open sale of indulgences and pardons
for enormous and disgraceful crimes. On the
other hand, the spirit of the new age in England is
seen in Colet, who devoted a fortune left him by his
father to the founding of S. Paul's School in London,
putting over the entrance of it the figure of the
ChUd Jesus with the motto ' Hear ye Him,' and

76 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
adding in his statutes that his intent by this school
was ' specially to increase knowledge, and worship
ping of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, and good
Christian life and manners in children.' To Leo
it seemed that the New Learning contributed to
the pleasure of life ; to Colet it was a means by
which life might be made more noble. For the
Italian it supplied the place of theology ; for the
Englishman it made theology the most deeply
fascinating of all studies. What is true of Colet
was equally true of his companions. Sir Thomas
More, for instance, was a man equally in earnest,
equaUy devout, equally zealous for the New
Learning. He was a man, his son-in-law was able
to say, ' of singular virtue and of a clear unspotted
conscience, more pure, I think, than the whitest
snow.' If his wife or any of his children had
been sick or troubled, he would tell them : ' We
may not look at our pleasure to go to heaven in
fether beddes — it is not the way. For our Lord
Himselfe went thither with grete pains and by
many tribulations . . . and the servant may not
look to be in better case than his Master.'
The character, however, of the followers of the
New Ijcarning in England is not our main con
cern. What we have to bear in mind is that

THE CRY FOR REFORM 77
just when printing was invented there was also a
notable increase in the number of the scholars who
could make use of the new art, and by the com
bined influence of this new art and this new race
of teachers, a wide public was being prepared by
the spread of a more accurate knowledge, especiaUy
of the Bible itself, to take part in the settlement of
religious questions.
Meanwhile another event took place which also
had its effect in the quickening of the pulse of
Europe. A new world was discovered when
Columbus sailing westwards found in 1492 the
West Indian Islands. The effect of this discovery
was startUng. Europe came into contact veith new
faiths and new races of men. It had been asserted
by men of old time that the Pope and Emperor were
like the sun and moon, and that they both had
been appointed by God to govern the world. Yet
Columbus made known to an astonished Church
that there were people in existence who had never
acknowledged any Emperor as overlord, and who
knew nothing of the faith of the Pope ; and men
soon began to ask one another what became of the
Pope's claim to be God's Vicegerent of all people
upon earth, and, further, that if the Papal claims
were seen to be without foundation in one direc-

78 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
tion, might they not equally be without foundation
in other directions ?
And how closely together in point of time aU
these events took place ! The art of printing was
invented in 1440. The city of Constantinople was
taken in 1453. America began to be discovered
in 1492. Is it to be wondered at that the whole of
Europe, England included, was soon in a state of
reUgious ferment ?
But England was also profoundly influenced by
yet another event. During this same period —
during this same second half of the fifteenth
century, the country was disturbed by a civU war
which had far other results than the mere slaughter
of some thousands of men.
The first battle of the Wars of the Roses was
fought at S. Albans in 1455, the last on Bosworth
Field in 1485. During those thirty years the
old order changed — ^feudaUsm disappeared ; the old
race of great territorial lords, each of them a small
King in his own domains, vanished away; and
Henry VII. found himself a King over a nation, if
not, indeed, of shopkeepers, yet of small squires
and merchants. NominaUy the Wars of the Roses
was a struggle between two branches of the royal
House of Plantagenet for the possession of the

THE CRY FOR REFORM 79
Crown. In reality it was an outbreak of feudal
anarchy, an outbreak which might at any time be
expected, and which, in fact, always did occur
whenever there might happen to be upon the
throne either a weak King or one whose title was
open to question. The struggle, moreover, showed
how little removed, either in power or in theory, the
King was from the great nobles around him. He
was a lord over lords rather than a King over
subjects. At the best he was only the greatest,
the most powerful Baron, while not seldom the
Barons surpassed him in splendour, and always
received within their oven domain a greater homage
than was ever paid there to their nominal sovereign.
It is evident that there could be no development
of national life so long as such powerful elements
within it remained imcontroUed.
The monarchy, however, was never called upon
to destroy the Barons, for the Barons destroyed
themselves. Every battle in the Wars of the Roses
meant the lessening of their numbers. If there was
an interval in actual fighting then there was many
a judicial murder, and when the end of the struggle
came in 1485 it came because the fighters were
dead. There was barely a castle which had not to
mourn the loss of its chief. The pettiness of the

80 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
rebeUions of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck
in the reign of Henry VII. is due far more to the
fact that the opposing leaders had been destroyed
rather than that the new King was especially beloved
or especially capable. For 100 years indeed from
the fighting on Bosworth Field there was no check
upon the sovereign power in England. The whole
of the sixteenth century was a period of pure
despotism when the government of the Tudors
was far more unconstitutional in spirit, if not
always so in form, than was ever that of Charles I.
or James II. It was a period during which there
was but one dangerous rising against the Govern
ment, for the noble class — that is, the class that
had been trained to face the royal power in open
opposition — had disappeared, while the new class —
the middle class of small gentry and business folk
and yeoman farmers, who, in the foUowing century
were to be seen opposing the sovereign power with
even greater vigour and with much more startling
success than the nobles had ever done — that class
had not yet risen into importance. The interest of
this fact for us now is that because of it Henry VIII.
and the Council of Regency in the time of
Edward VI. had an uncontroUed power to deal
with the affairs of the Church as weU as with the

THE CRY FOR REFORM 81
affairs of the State. If the Baronage had not dis
appeared, Henry VIII. might still perhaps have
put away his wife Katharine, but he certainly
would not have been allowed to dissolve the
monasteries, whUst the dark days of Edward VI. —
perhaps as dark as any through which England has
yet lived — would scarcely have arisen, for the un
scrupulous men of that time would have received
short shrift at the hands of the Barons. Parlia
ments, indeed, were called throughout the whole
period, but they were regarded merely as con
venient instruments for giving legal form to the
royal wiU, for masking tyranny under the forms of
law. The franchise in the boroughs was, as a rule,
in the hands of a very few ; bribery and intimida
tion were commonly resorted to if there was the
least danger of opposition to a candidate who was
known to favour the royal views ; and if, even
after the use of such means, a sufficient majority
seemed stUl to be doubtful, then enfranchisement
was extended to other places which could be
depended upon to return the kind of man required.
But the Wars of the Roses did more than
destroy the only class which could then offer an
effective resistance to the King. They also caused
the merchants and farmers to throw themselves 11

82 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
into the royal arms, since the turbulent Baron was a
terror to both one class and the other. To such
men civil faction meant ruin. It was impossible to
produce wool or corn whilst the land was being
overrun by armed bands of men, and yet without
wool and corn they were deprived of their chief
articles of exchange. Even in times of so-caUed
peace they saw Uttle of the power of the King, but
much of that of the great lords, and this latter was
sufficiently oppressive to make them wish to be
rid of it. A distant King, even with more
arbitrary power, might be an easier burden to bear
than a lord always in the neighbourhood veith a
disorderly body of followers at his beck and call.
So they longed for a strong Government which
would enforce the peace, and they were prepared
to pay a good price for it if it could be got. Hence
their joy when Henry VII. on his accession
married Elizabeth WoodviUe the Yorkist ; hence
their acquiescence in the rule of Henry VIII.
As a whole they had few ideals beyond that of
succeeding in business. If the King so ordered
public affairs that they could make money, well
and good ; they would then loyaUy support him.
The only reason why they dreaded the putting
away of Queen Katharine was that they thought it

THE CRY FOR REFORM 83
might have an iU effect upon the wool-trade with
Flanders 1 From such men it was not difficult to
obtain a House of Commons which would be
always duly subservient to the King.
We have now seen in outline what was the
condition of Europe generally and of England
in particular at the beginning of the reign of
Henry VIII. The reform in the Church, so
eagerly desired by all the best men of every nation
during the past hundred years, was surely nearer its
accomplishment than ever before. True, the great
obstacle was the Papacy itself, but people did not
despair of getting some Pope to summon a General
CouncU which should have authority to decide
questions of faith and morals. A hundred years
earUer a Pope had submitted to a General Council,
and why should not the sixteenth century be as
fortunate as the fifteenth century had been ? This
hope of better days was beginning to possess the
Church when quite suddenly Europe was startled
by the report of a matter which was recognized as
serious from the very first, and which, on reflection,
was seen to involve the prospect of many and wide
spread compUcations. The King of England, upon
whom the Head of the Church had only recently
conferred the title of Defender of the Faith, was

84 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
said to be at variance with His Holiness on the
question of his marriage. Henry declared that he
had scruples of conscience about the matter. In
reality he had become fascinated by 'the black-
blue Irish hair and Irish eyes ' of Arme Boleyn.

CHAPTER VI

POLITICAL REFORMATION

ge quest

It was the marriage question which was the
cause of Henry Testrangelneht with the Bishop of
Rome. We ought not to forget that the people
of England were devoutly attached to the Catholic
Church, and of no one was this more true than
it was of Henry VIII. himself. The Henry who
in 1534 secured the repudiation of the Papal
authority in England was the same, so far as
his reUgious views were concerned, as the Henry
who, thirteen years before, had written the attack
upon Luther. The King had not changed his
views — he had only been unable to secure from
the Pope a decree in favour of the nullity of his
marriage with Katharine. He was then, as before,
satisfied with the current teaching of the Church,
and he remained so practicaUy until his death.
And this feeUng of satisfaction he shared in
common with the best men in England at the
85

86 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
time. It is an error only too commonly held that
the repudiation of the Papal authority in England
was caused by a vast mass of Protestant feeling,
and that the Statutes of 1533 and 1534 were
carried on the crest of a wave of a great popular
enthusiasm directed against the doctrines that up
to that time had been taught by the Church.
Nothing could be more untrue. There was no strong
Protestant sentiment in existence in England then
at all. The repudiation of the Papal authority
was, indeed, on the whole very popular ; it had
always been desired by the English Church, whose
earlier history shows it in successful resistance to
Rome, and whose later history before the sixteenth
century records only its un wiUing subjection. But
the repudiation of the Papal authority was one
thing ; the rejection of certain parts of the then
accepted teaching of the Western Church was
quite another. No one who desires to understand
the sixteenth century must regard these as only
two names for the same thing. They are not two
names for one thing — they are two names for two
things. In other words, it was possible to break
with the Papacy without breaking veith the
CathoUc Church. But however glad the National
Church might be at the prospect of regaining its

POLITICAL REFORMATION 87
freedom from foreign control, it had little cause to
be grateful to the King through whose action the
freedom came. Henry took up the matter for
a purely personal reason : he desired to be rid of
his wife. One would gladly pass over altogether.
if it were possible, what is perhaps the most dis
creditable incident in English history. It is only
mentioned here because of its bearings on the
wider question of the day. Speaking strictly,]
Henry did not sue for a divorce, for to sue for
divorce means that the original legaUty of th^
marriage is taken for granted, but that something
or other has occurred since which justifies the\
appUcant, in his opinion, in asking that the originall
bond may be annulled. Moreover, a decree of
divorce would not have met Henry's case at all,
for such a decree carried with it no right to
marry again ; but to marry again was just what
Henry wished to do. His request was that the
original marriage contract veith Katharine might
be declared by a competent authority — i.e., by the
Bishop of Rome — to be null and void from the
very first. We need not stop to estimate the
degree of moral veickedness shown by Henry. We
need only remember that in those days appeals
were constantly being made to Rome for decrees

88 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
of nullity of marriage, and that such appeals were
seldom refused — scarcely, indeed, ever refused if
sufficient money were forthcoming to pay for them,
and it is certain that Henry was totally unpre
pared for any opposition to his wishes. Why,
then, was this appeal not granted ? Why was not
the course which had been observed in so many
other cases adopted here ? In the answer to these
questions lies the reason why the King forced on
the repudiation by England of the Papal Suprem
acy. The Pope did not grant the decree of
nulUty asked for because he was afraid of the
Queen's nephew, Charles V., the Emperor. The
Pope acted from political advantage, but the
poUtical advantage he thought of was not that
of England but that of the Empire ; and England,
reaUzing that the Pope was but a tool in the hand
of Charles V., resented his action accordingly.
EngUsh people, said the late Bishop Creighton, felt
that if dirty work was to be done at aU the dirty
work of the English King deserved doing as much
as that of anyone else. The Pope cursed Henry
in his heart, not because he had applied for a
decree of nullity, but because he happened to want
such a decree which, if granted, would infaUibly
bring the Papacy into conflict with the Emperor.

POLITICAL REFORMATION 89
So every possible delay was made use of. The
case was first tried in England, and then called to
Rome, whither also Henry was summoned to show
cause why his request should be granted. This
summons opened the eyes of the English people ;
they began to see that the Papal claims involved
the subordination of the National Sovereign as
well as that of the National Church, and they were
indignant that their King should be called upon
to go to Rome as an inferior and vassal of the
Pope. But what could be done ? Neither side wished
to bring the quarrel to a crisis, but as time went
on the King in various ways tried to compel the
Pope to give way. Thus in the spring of 1532
there was passed an Act for the restraint of the
payment of annates. These annates were fines
to the value of one year's income, which, by long
custom, were paid to the Pope by anyone newly
admitted to a benefice, and the Act gave the King
the power of saying that these should no longer be
paid. It is not difficult to see that the real intention
of the Act was to put into Henry's hands an
instrument by means of which he could coerce the
Pope into doing as he veished.
AU things at this time seemed to favour the
12

90 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
King's suit. Not only did a subservient Parlia
ment pass legislation as the King willed, but also
towards the end of the same year 1532 there
occurred a vacancy in the Archbishopric of Canter-
burj^ and the King secured the appointment of
Thomas Cranmer, a man who was known to be
on the King's side on the great marriage question.
To open a way for the new Archbishop to proceed
with the case, an Act had been passed deaUng with
appeals to Rome, which declared that aU causes
from henceforth should be settled within the King's
jurisdiction and authority ; and that if the Pope
should lay the country under an Interdict by
reason of this Act, yet the clergy were to take no
notice of any such Interdict under pain of imprison
ment and fine. So Cranmer, having fixed his court
at Dunstable as a place conveniently removed
from any great centre of population, cited the
Queen to appear, but she, of course, ignored the
whole proceedings. Then on May 23, 1534, it was
formally announced that in the opinion of the
court the marriage of the King veith Katharine
of Arragon had all along been invalid ; in other
words, that the King had during the whole of this
period been in a position to marry someone else.
Six days later it was further decreed that the

POLITICAL REFORMATION 91
marriage which Henry had already privately con
tracted with Anne Boleyn was a vahd and
legal one.
The King had achieved his purpose. He had
worked his way through aU obstacles by sheer
force of will. He did not, however, discontinue
his anti-Papal legislation. Such earlier Acts as
had been conditional were now made operative ;
provision was made for the election of Arch
bishops and Bishops without any reference to
Rome ; from henceforth it became treason for
any Chapter to appoint anyone to a vacancy
except such man as the King had recommended ;
and, lastly, by an Act dealing with Papal dispen
sations and the payment of Peter's Pence, England
was discharged finally from all financial relations
with the Papal See.
Great Statutes had thus been placed upon the
Rolls of Parliament with a startling rapidity, but
yet it must be carefuUy remembered that in all this
legislation Henry had so far not done anything
that was new, nor had he acted in a spirit different
from that which had shown itself before in the
English nation, nor had he endeavoured to create
a schism in the Church. The anti-Papal clauses of
the Statutes of 1533 and 1534 can be matched by

92 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
clauses in earlier Statutes of the realm. Then in
what, it may be asked, does the importance of
Henry's legislation consist ? The answer is that,
whereas the legislation of earlier days had, for one
reason or another, been inoperative, Henry's legis
lation was successful and became the permanent
policy of the realm. The action of earUer Kings
those earlier Kings themselves had often set aside
for the sake of their own interest, for though the
feeling of the National Church in favour of its
spiritual independence never changed, yet some
times the Kings found it convenient to ignore the
Statues of the realm and to make use of the
custom of appeaUng to Rome. But in Henry's
reign the royal interest coincided with that of the
Church, and the Papal Supremacy became a thing
of the past.
But though the King thus rid the Church of aU
foreign control he had no intention of giving it its
freedom. It was farthest from his thoughts that
there should be a kingdom within his kingdom. To
prevent such a result he reasserted that which had
always been the theory of the royal position with
regard to the Church, namely, that it was the duty
of the King to see that all his subjects were properly
governed, not only as members of the State, but

POLITICAL REFORMATION 93
also as members of the Church, since their persons
and their property were subject to his laws, their
souls alone being outside his control. Moreover, as
the King was not merely the head of the State but
also the eldest son of the Church and her recog
nized champion, he was therefore bound to protect
her ; and so the Act of 1532 said that the King's
highness as a good Christian Prince ought to
repress the exactions of the Papal Court. But
to the restatement of the old claims were added
new ones which threatened the very life of the
National Church. In 1534 it was declared that
although the Sovereign was not the channel of
spiritual grace, yet he was the source of aU juris
diction, as weU spiritual as civil, and that the King
had not merely the right to see that the spiritual
authorities exercised their jurisdiction, but also the
right to exercise that authority himself if he so
desired ; and, further, that the scope of the ecclesias
tical jurisdiction could not be varied in any direc
tion without the royal authority. Henceforth the
Church might issue no new Canons except with the
royal assent. The world might progress, the times
might change, but the Church was to remain
bound by its old rules unless the King decreed
that it might legislate for itself. It was soon found

94 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
that there might be a worse tyranny even than
that of the Popes of Rome. In the rough speech
of the time, it was said that Henry was ' a King
with a Pope in his belly.' But legislation of this
sort, bad as it was, was not the only hindrance
placed by this autocratic Sovereign upon the
Church's development. Care was taken that in
future only such persons should be promoted to
high office within the Church as could be depended
upon to acquiesce in the royal view of the Church's
position. There were never in future to be any
Anselms or Beckets or Langtons or Winchelseas.
The National Church was to do as it was told and
never to dream of giving expression to any views
unless such views coincided veith those of the
Crown. StUl Henry was not satisfied. He had married
Arme Bolejm ; he had secured the passing of very
definite anti-Papal legislation ; he had reduced the
National Church to a department of State. But
he knew that he had lost much of his old popu
larity. A women's riot at Great Yarmouth about
the marriage question, and the way in which the
women of London whenever they saw Anne Boleyn
would caU her by opprobrious names, proved to
him plainly that the common people were dis-

POLITICAL REFORMATION 95
gusted with him. He had been styled ' Defensor
Fidei ' ; he ought, rather, it was said, to be caUed
' Destructor Fidei.' So with characteristic energy
he tried to compel the people to be loyal ; they
as weU as the clergy were not to have opinions
of their own. Hence, in the same year 1534
ParUament was made to pass the Succession Act,
which not only declared that the marriage with
Anne Boleyn was good and agreeable to the law of
God, but also that all people should take an oath
to say that they regarded it as such. Tyranny
could scarcely go farther. Such legislation was
intolerable, and it is not strange that the best men
preferred to die rather than submit to it. Both
Sir Thomas More, the noblest spirit in Europe at
the time, and the saintly Bishop Fisher became
martyrs for conscience' sake. Their opposition had
been expected indeed, and so soon as they were seen
to be disobedient they were thrown into prison.
But in their case at least the King seemed afraid to
proceed to extremities. He hoped to the last that
they would yield, and his counsel tried every pos
sible means to secure their submission. Their fate
in the end was probably brought about by the
conduct of a new Pope, Paul IIL, who celebrated
his election to the Papal Chair by the creation of

96 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
seven new Cardinals, one of the seven being John
Fisher. Henry was angry at this beyond measure,
brutaUy declaring that Fisher should wear his
Cardinal's cap upon his shoulders, and with Uttle
more ado both Bishop and ex-ChanceUor were
put to death. Such action naturaUy increased the
King's unpopularity, but, as his unpopularity grew,
the King became more and more determined to
crush it. He knew that there was much murmur
ing, especially within the waUs of the religious
houses, and, therefore, making use of the powers
now vested in him by Act of Parliament, he
made one Thomas CromweU, a clever unprincipled
lawyer, his Vicar- General, and gave him instruc
tions to ' visit ' immediately the religious orders.
Visitation hitherto had meant an inquiry as to
how far a religious body was obeying its own
constitution. It now, however, gave absolute
power to the Visitor, acting on rules known only
to himself, either to reform a community or to
do away with it altogether.
This official visitation began in 1535, but the
result of it was determined upon ere it began
inasmuch as the King had resolved upon the
destruction of the whole monastic system. The
independent attitude of the monks irritated him.

POLITICAL REFORMATION 97
whilst their wealth excited his greed. But here
again the royal purpose was to be achieved by
process of law ; Parliament was to decree that
the religious houses ought to be done away
with. The first step towards this end was the
obtaining of a sufficiently bad report as to the
state of the houses, and this was duly furnished
by three Commissioners who had been carefully
chosen by CromweU as men Ukely to do this dis
graceful work in a fitting manner. Then, in order
that the ParUament might be induced to accept
the report veithout too close an examination into
its truthfulness, and upon it might pass the neces
sary legislation without opposition, it was loudly
whispered everywhere that the legislators would
be aUowed to share in the plunder. Such a pros
pect at any time would prove dangerously alluring,
but at that particular moment it was irresistible,
for many of the gentry were in as great a state
of impecuniosity as was the King himself, the
extravagant Court life of Henry's earlier years and
the lavish display at the Field of the Cloth of
Gold having reduced many a courtier almost to
beggary. So soon, therefore, as it became known
that the destruction of the religious houses had
been determined upon, letters of request for grants
13

98 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
of land began to pour in upon CromweU fi-om all
sides, and when the reports furnished by CromweU's
Commissioners were read in Parliament there were
of course cries of " Down with them, down with
them, even to the ground."
The whole monastic system did not, indeed, go
at once, the lesser monasteries being at first the
only ones affected. The Act compeUing their
dissolution said that the King was influenced only
by a desire for the true glory and honour of God,
and that because the greater monasteries, within
which " religion was right weU kept and observed,"
were not full, therefore the members of the smaUer
monasteries ought to be sent to them. From
beginning to end the Act is a monument of
hypocrisy. These proceedings led to a rebeUion on the part
of the people ; the King at last had gone too far
even for him, and civU war again seemed imminent.
Especially serious was the outbreak in Yorkshire
where an army of 30,000 insurgents had gathered
prepared to do battle for the religious houses.
The danger, however, disappeared almost as quickly
as it had arisen, for the rebels, trusting in the
promise of the King that their grievances should
be favourably considered, broke up their ranks and

POLITICAL REFORMATION 99
went home, only to see the King almost imme
diately afterwards proceeding to lay hands upon
their leaders and using their rising as an excuse
for the suppression of the greater religious houses.
Again was seen the same travesty of justice and
the same disregard for every principle of right
conduct. There still exists in Cromwell's own
handwriting the following note, with regard to
Abbot Richard Whiting, of Glastonbury : " Item :
the Abbot of Glaston to be tried at Glaston, and
also executed there ; " with another which says
that care was to be taken that the evidence for
the Abbot's trial was to be " well sorted."
The confiscation of the property of the monastic
houses was attended by gross wastefulness and by
a complete disregard for the value of everything
that could not be changed at once into money ;
priceless objects of art were destroyed ; the books
of the Ubraries were scattered broadcast ; even the
screens of the churches were used to make the
fires by which was melted down the lead that had
been stripped from off the roof. StiU more serious
were the results of this spoliation in other direc
tions. The old religious houses had been the chief
agencies for the relief of the poor and for the care
of the sick, whilst such education as existed then

100 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
was in their hands, and it was through them that
poor lads passed to the Universities ; but when
their destruction was accomplished all organized
effort for the care of the country people came to
an end, whilst the establishment of a few grammar
schools in the provincial towns was but a sorry
substitute for the many monastic schools which
they were said to replace. The poor in England
have never known so sad a time, either before or
since, as the fifty years which followed upon the
dissolution of the monasteries. Included also in
the confiscation were, of course, all those tithes
which of right belonged to the parishes served by
the vicars of the monastic houses, but which the
monasteries had been accustomed to keep for
themselves. The monasteries had acted as robbers
of parish endowments, and now the King and
his courtiers became the receivers of the stolen
goods. This suppression of the religious orders meant
the removal of the last hindrance to the tjrrannical
power of the King. The nobles had disappeared
in the Wars of the Roses. The mitred Abbots
and the great friars were now gone as well. The
King was left alone. The rest of his reign and
the reign of his son were years of absolute

POLITICAL REFORMATION 101
despotism, the darkest period in the whole of
English history.
As we look back we can see how harmful was
the result of Henry's policy upon the National
Church. She was maimed in almost every limb
by him who bore the title of Defender of the
Faith. It was not simply that he robbed her of
her money, nor yet that he tried to make her a
mere department of State. Worse than all else
he destroyed her best men. By his legislation
he had decreed that the Church of England should
stand alone and should decide matters of faith
and worship without reference to the rest of
western Christendom ; but by his tyranny he also
destroyed just those men who in such a crisis
might have guided her veisely and safely through
all the dangers that were bound to meet her.
Henry had sworn at his coronation in 1509 to
preserve his people's Uberties and to de end their
Church. Before he came to die his people were
wellnigh slaves and their Church was almost gone.

CHAPTER VII
CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP
When Henry died in January 1547 his son
Edward had but recently kept his ninth birthday.
When death seemed near the King showed his
distrust of the men into whose hands he had per
force to leave the care of his son by preparing a
wUl in which he carefully stated that no further
change should be made in either Church or State
until the young Edward should reach the age of
sixteen and should then be declared to be of age.
But these men, tramed by the example of Henry
himself to disregard every principle of honour, set
the King's wUl on one side immediately, made
Somerset Protector of the Realm, and proceeded
to deal with public affairs as it seemed best to
them. For more than four years Somerset
governed in the name of the boy-King, and then
his place was taken by Dudley, Duke of Northum
berland, who had been for a long time plotting
102

CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP 103
against his authority, and who finally succeeded in
obtaining his execution. The change of masters
was, if possible, a change for the worse. Somerset
had been a thief ; he had reaped much profit out
of the dissolution of the Chantries ; he had made
an attempt to puU doven first S. Margaret's,
Westminster, and then the Abbey, in order to
buUd his house in the Strand at as Uttle a cost
to himseff as possible ; and when his house was
built he robbed S. Paul's of its books to furnish
his library. But besides being a thief he tried to
be an autocrat and he feU because he kept himself
aloof from the remainder of the Council. Yet
Somerset was a respectable man in comparison
with Northumberland. Northumberland stuck at
nothing which could minister to his own selfish
ends — treachery, lying, robbery, judicial murder,
treason — ^he was guUty of them aU in turn.
ReUgion for him was a mere matter of policy. If
he had any belief at aU it was in the old ways
rather than in the new, and yet, when it seemed
to suit his ends, he posed as an extreme reformer
and made John Knox his chaplain. It was weU for
England that by the boy-King's death this man's
authority extended over only two years.
But under both Protectors the National Church

104 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
suffered grievously. Confiscation had grown almost
into a custom ; personal greed or the supposed
necessities of the nation were quite sufficient
reasons for laying hands upon ecclesiastical pro
perty. At last the order was given that even the
parish churches were to be robbed of their valu
ables, and it is still possible for almost every
parish in the land, however insignificant or remote,
to see for itself in the accounts in the Public
Record Office in what way the Royal Commis
sioners visited it and took away the beUs out of
the church-tower, and the vestments from the
presses, and stripped the altars of their hangings.
But there was other work done in the name of
religion in the reign of Edward VI. which was of
far greater consequence than the mutilation of the
fabrics of the churches and the confiscation of
their goods. Attempts were made to alter com
pletely the character of the worship enacted within
them. No changes had occurred in this direction
during the whole reign of Henry except that by
an Act of ParUament passed a few years before
his death the first step was taken to secure
a uniformity of worship throughout England by
ordering that the Use of Sarum should be the
Use for the whole province of Canterbury, in other

CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP 105
words, for what was then by far the more im
portant part of England. Other changes, however,
were known to be in preparation, and to understand
them a word or two is required to describe the
character of the worship which was then in exis
tence. It was commonly the custom for the parish
priests to say Matins in church at 6 or 6.30 a.m. ;
Mass, as the Eucharistic service was universaUy
caUed, was said at 9 or 9.30 ; and Evensong came
at 2 p.m., or thereabouts. Of these the services
which the parishioners themselves attended were
Mass and Evensong. The language in which aU
the services were said was Latin, yet, nevertheless,
the services were more helpful to the common
people than it seems possible at first sight they
could have been. The service of the Mass especi
aUy was filled veith symbolical acts the significance
of which was undoubtedly understood. The solemn
approach of the priest to the altar, the frequent
censings, the ringing of the sanctus bell at the Con
secration, the elevation of the Host, the passing
round of the peace board for all the people to kiss
— these were the things by which the worshippers
were taught what the service meant. Books also,
such as the 'Lay Folks' Mass Book,' contained
devotions in the English tongue for the use of
1-41 ¦ ¦

106 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the people at the time of the Celebration, like
the manuals which are so largely in use for a
similar purpose to-day. Yet, although the old
services were far other than meaningless forms to
the people, there was undoubtedly great room for
reform. Especially was it needful to make the
Mass a service in which the people should be
taught to communicate as well as one in which
they should meet for worship. This great end
was secured by the Order for Communion which
was put forth in 1548. In the foUowing year was
published what is knoven as the First Prayer-Book
of Edward VI. , and this completed the work of
the Committee appointed by Henry to deal with
the pubUc services of the National Church. The
object which that Committee had in view was to
maintain as far as possible the character and tone
of the old services, but to make them more simple
and to have them rendered in the vulgar tongue
so that every possible opportunity might be given
to the people to take an inteUigent share in them.
When, however, this Prayer-Book is compared
with the old Service Books one point stands out
with a significance which was unnoticed indeed at
the time but which has been realized later. The
old Service Books were prepared for the use of

CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP 107
the clergy and they are therefore full of the most
careful directions as to the way in which the
services should be performed. These directions
seem to us now to have erred in being too elaborate
and precise, but they did secure at least that the
services should be rendered with solemnity and
care. The new Prayer-Book, on the other hand,
was put forth for the use of the people, and con
sequently ritual directions for the officiating priests
scarcely found any place in it at all, the idea being
that the old customary ways would continue. But
as time went on the number of those who had
been educated in the old ways grew less and less,
and as their places were taken by others who had
received no guidance in the method of conducting
the pubUc services save such as were contained in
the Prayer-Book itself, the old customs almost
died out and were replaced by others which varied
with the prepossessions of each new incumbent.
It was ignorance rather than prejudice which thus
led to the disuse of the old ceremonial. In aU
other essentials the new Prayer - Book consisted
of the old services in a new dress. But even so
it was received with very little favour by the
nation. The people in the West, indeed, rose in
rebelUon against the attempt to enforce its use

108 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
upon them. Undeterred, however, by such signs
of popular feeUng, the Duke of Northumberland
on becoming Protector sanctioned the preparation
of a second Prayer-Book, doing so because he
needed for other ends of his the support of the
extreme reform party in England. This second
book when it was issued in 1552 was seen at
once to involve the most serious consequences.
The old religion was henceforth to be done away
with, and a new one representing the views of the
extreme Foreign Protestant party was to be
substituted for it. The most startling changes
were to be found naturaUy in the service of the
Holy Communion. Here the alterations involved
both a denial of the sacrificial aspect of the
Eucharist and also of the Real Presence. More
over, not in this service only but throughout the
whole book there was felt to be a new tone. In
the old services in the First Prayer-Book the
people were encouraged to come as chUdren into
the presence of their Heavenly Father to render
Him wiUing homage. In this new book they
were taught to come as servants conscious of the
many and grievous offences which they had com
mitted against their Sovereign Lord.
This Second Prayer-Book was the crowning

CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP 109
achievement of Northumberland's Protectorate.
What did the nation think of him and of aU his
works ? The answer to that question is to be
found in the tumultuous joy with which the
Princess Mary was welcomed as Queen.
Mary was known to be an ardent Papalist,
but, in spite of that, she came to the throne pos
sessing the devotion of her people to a degree
which few other Sovereigns have shared in. Yet
this accession of the daughter of Katharine of
Arragon presented the greatest difficulties to the
great mass of English Church people. They
abhorred the attempts of the extreme reformers to
cut the National Church adrift from the old ways,
and yet they were by no means desirous of being
brought again under the control of the Papacy.
No other course, however, seemed to be open to
them. To throw in their lot with the Protestants
involved the acceptance of a new Faith and rather
than do that they acquiesced in the revival of the
old Papal tyranny. That was, indeed, the lesser
evU of the two, but as a consequence of it there
were from that time onward only two parties in
the National Church, each being a party of
extremists : the great middle party — the party
which had rejoiced in the aboUtion of Papal

110 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
domination while retaining the old Catholic faith
and worship, and which had found its views
expressed in the first Prayer-Book — this party was
forced by the pressure of events to throw in its
lot with that Papalist party which untU now had
been comparatively unimportant.
Mary reigned tUl 1558, and when she died there
can be little doubt that the people were as glad to
hear of her death as they had been five years before
to hear of her coronation. She had begun her
reign by securing the repeal of all the great ecclesi
astical Statutes of her father and brother, and the
Houses of Parliament, in the name of the country,
had been made to seek absolution from the Papacy
for their recent conduct. Affairs were thus restored
to the condition in which they had been before 1534,
except that the Queen found, to her bitter dis
appointment, that it was impossible to get the laity
to surrender the Church lands of which they were
now possessed. Then came her marriage veith
PhiUp II. of Spain. The first news of such an
aUiance was received by her people veith marked
disUke, but the Queen hoped too much from it to
be thwarted in her project. To her it seemed the
means of making secure for ever the new aUegiance
of her people to the Papacy ; for if she should

CHANGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP 111
become by this marriage the happy possessor of a
son, that son would inherit a vast Empire every
part of which acknowledged the Papal supremacy,
and England would be part of a great confederacy
to uphold the true Faith. But it was just this
possibility of the country being swamped in the
great dominions of the Spanish King which made
EngUshmen dislike the match so much. Mary
herself was half Spanish, and any child of Mary
and PhUip would be three parts a Spaniard, and
would, it was feared, regard his English possessions
as a mere appendage of his great Empire. The
marriage, however, did not bring to the Queen
any of the happy results she had so fondly hoped
for. PhUip remained in England only a few
weeks, and even during that time treated his wife
with a coldness which touched her to the quick ;
while as the months went on it became evident that
she would never become a mother. With her
naturaUy somewhat morbid disposition she told
herself that these sore trials were the judgment of
Heaven upon her for her want of diligence in
destroying the heresy which she knew to be so
prevalent veithin her kingdom. To appease the
Divine wrath and to vein by acts of a deeper devo
tion the blessings she so ardently longed for, she

112 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
entered upon that course of persecution which has
made her reign so terrible a one in the annals of
England. The market-places of aU the great towns
were Ut up with the fires which burnt the heretics.
The more noble the personal character of the
heretic the more need that he should be put to
death ; and the greater the disUke of the people for
such measures was only a greater proof that such
measures were required. So things went on for the
remaining three years during which Mary's reign
lasted, and little as it is possible to approve of the
poUcy she adopted, it is yet possible to sympathize
with her in her loneliness. Neglected by the
husband she had welcomed so warmly, hated by
the people whose cheers at her coronation she stUl
remembered, and punished by the God whose anger
nothing seemed to appease, she died conscious that
she had failed in every direction.

CHAPTER VIII
GRADUAL SETTLEMENT
Mary was succeeded by Elizabeth, the daughter
of Anne Boleyn. The circumstance of the new
Queen's birth was of itself sufficient to create
serious dangers, for, as she weU knew, a great part
of the nation regarded her as the Uving witness of
her father's unholy passion for one of the women of
his Court; whUe those who acknowledged her
legitimacy were just those extreme reformers who
at Mary's death came hurrying back from exUe and
who, by their extravagant demands for a purer form
of reUgion, only increased the bitterness of party
feeling. Added to this, there was a possibUity —
even a probability — of an invasion from abroad.
Philip might claim England either as the husband
of the late Queen or as a descendant of John of
Gaunt, and the Pope might be reckoned upon to
support him by protesting against Elizabeth being
recognized as a laveful child of Henry VIII. In
113 15

114 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
France, too, there was Mary of Scotland, wife of
the heir to the French Crown, and who, by virtue
of her descent from Henry VIL, claimed to be the
rightful Queen of England, and whose claim aU
ardent PapaUsts beUeved in. From whatever point
of view the situation was regarded it was seen to
be fraught with the very gravest peril, and EUzabeth
therefore proceeded veith extreme caution. One
thing above all else was felt to be needful both
by herself and by the advisers whom she gathered
round her throne — namely, the adoption of a line of
policy which should bring together in as close a
harmony as possible the various parties in the
nation. Only a united England could hope to
resist with success any interference from abroad.
A beginning in this direction was made by dealing
with aU extremists in reUgion. On the one hand
a new Act of Supremacy was passed which, by
vesting all ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Crown,
defined the Queen's attitude to the Papacy, but
also, on the other hand, aU unlicensed preaching
was forbidden. Then came the issue and enforce
ment of a new Book of Common Prayer — a book
which in form was seen to be the second book of
Edward VI. , but which in its teaching was so
different from its model as to make it possible for

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 115
the National Church to accept it. In this matter
of public worship the Queen's wish in reality was
to get back to the condition of things which had
existed at her father's death, but she had the
wisdom to see that any attempt to do that at the
moment would only lose her the support of the
whole Puritan party. With her policy thus clearly
expressed, it only remained for her to find men both
in Church and State who would loyally carry it out.
Above aU there was need for a wise and moderate
Archbishop, and the Queen, knowing this, chose
Matthew Parker for the office, and compelled him
to accept it in spite of his manifest unwillingness.
In many ways Parker's antecedents especially fitted
him for his arduous task : he had been chaplain to
Anne Bolejm, and so was peculiarly bound to Eliza
beth ; as a friend of Bilney, Latimer, and Martin
Bucer, he was weU thought of by the Puritans ; as
a student, especially of the early Fathers, he had no
sympathy with the intolerance of the newly returned
exUes ; and, moreover, his character was equal to
his scholarship. During the sixteen years of his
Archiepiscopate — perhaps the most critical years
the National Church has yet experienced — he
fought against bitter Calvinism on the one hand
and equally bitter Papalism on the other, striving

116 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
all the while for the vindication of that middle
and yet Catholic position which is the glory of
AngUcanism. He desired, he said, to see revived
that ' most holy and Godly form of discipUne which
was commonly used in the primitive Church,' and
the measure of success which he achieved is to be
seen in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion which
were put forth whilst he was Archbishop and which,
in their present form, are mainly his work.
There was real need at the time for the English
Church to define her position, for it was evident
that the Papacy was being urged to deal decisively
with England. The Council of Trent had been
finally closed in December 1563. This CouncU
had been caUed by the Popes, not because they
wished for it in the first instance, but because they
were driven to it by the Emperor Charles V. It
was called to consider the demands of the
Reformers, but from the first it was either ham
pered from arriving at any decision at all, or was so
packed with Papal nominees that its decisions be
came a foregone conclusion. Then, after its doors
had been closed for ten years, it was stirred into
activity again by the influence of the new Order
of Jesuits ; and now, so far from trjdng to find
terms of accommodation which would be acceptable

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 117
to the Reformers, it created Roman Catholicism.
Roman Catholicism stands for autocracy in ecclesi
astical government and for certain doctrines in
theology, and both these things — Roman Catholic
government and Roman Catholic doctrines — found
their first formal recognition in the decrees of the
CouncU of Trent. Henceforward such members
of the Catholic Church as stiU held to the Papacy
were known as Roman Catholics, and for them
there was to be no thought of accommodation with
others but only an unflinching assertion of the new
position and an enforcement of it, if necessary, by
the power of the sword. Queen Elizabeth was
speedily made to feel the effect of this new policy.
On her accession in 1558 Pope Pius IV. had been
prepared to recognize both her legitimacy and her
Sovereign position if she on her part would recog
nize his Papal claims, but Pius V. in 1570 declared
her illegitimate and absolved her people from their
aUegiance; and Jesuits began to arrive preaching
both Romanism and treason untU reports of rebel
lions and plots harassed the Queen's Ministers day
by day.
But aU other efforts of the Papacy become insig
nificant when compared with the great Armada
which, blessed like the Crusades of old with the

118 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Papal benediction, was sent forth from Spain to
win England back to the true Faith. The story of
the coming of that Armada and of its ultimate fate
is happily too weU known to need telling here, but
we need to remember that the hostUity shown
towards England was only part of the policy
pursued by the new Roman Catholicism against its
opponents everywhere. Pope Gregory XIII. held
a solemn service of thanksgiving when he heard the
news of the terrible massacre of the Huguenots in
France ; a bitter reign of terrorism was instituted
in the Low Countries ; whilst WUliam of Orange,
the Stadtholder of HoUand, was assassinated by a
fanatical Roman Catholic partisan. A policy
marked by such a series of events was, from the
point of view of the real success of Rome, disastrous.
The very savour of the Papacy came to stink in
the nostrUs of the people.
The defeat of the Spanish Armada marks the
beginning of a new period in EngUsh poUtical and
religious history. Until then EngUsh people had
lived in a constant state of apprehension. The
power of Spain was knoven to be gigantic, and
there was a general feeling that all the elements of
the nation must unite against the common enemy.
But when there was no longer any foreign foe to

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 119
be dreaded, the internal disputes which had been in
existence aU along blazed out with a fierceness
unknown before. The doctrines, the ceremonies,
the threefold ministry of the Church, all came in
for attack. Once again, however, the English
Church was well served by her Archbishop. When
Whitgift was promoted to Canterbury in 1583 the
one condition Elizabeth made was that he should
govern the Church resolutely, and never once
during the remaining twenty years of her life had
the Queen reason to regret her choice. Steadily
and relentlessly Whitgift — her 'Uttle black hus
band,' as his royal mistress sometimes called him —
went on his way. Puritan doctrine he did not vex
himself veith for he was practically a Puritan him
self, but Puritan disregard for outward order found
no mercy at his hands. So he suppressed the
prophesyings, and instituted a strict censorship ot
the Press, and got the Church courts strengthened
so that they might deal the more effectively with
obstinate offenders. The Archbishop felt that the
clergy needed to be taught that liberty did not
mean licence, and he Uved long enough to teach
them their lesson so weU that they were beginning
to be conscious of their real unity, and were finding
out the strength that this knowledge gave them.

120 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
The death of the great Queen in 1603 did not at
once alter the ecclesiastical or political situation,
but it brought another Sovereign upon the scene
who, though speedily found to share to the fuU in
his predecessor's love of autocratic power, was also
seen to possess far less political sagacity and far less
power of winning the love of his subjects. But
whUe the failure of James I. as a ruler was thus due
in part to his own character, it was also due in part
to the fact that everybody expected everything
from him and everybody was consequently dis
appointed. The Recusants, as the Roman CathoUcs
were caUed, hoped for more lenient treatment
from the son of Mary of Scotland, whUst the
Puritans hoped that as he had been brought up
under Presbyterian influences there would be a
cleansing of the Book of Common Prayer of aU its
superstitious defects.
In the hope of securing peace within the
National Church, the King at the beginning
of his reign called a conference at Hampton
Court, and there all the various demands of the
Puritan party were presented. The result of the
conference did not, however, at all satisfy the
extremists. To the Catechism was added the
latter part which deals with the Sacraments of

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 121
the Gospel, a new translation of the Bible was
ordered, and a few minor changes were agreed upon ;
but in matters of ritual and of Church government
the Puritans gained no concessions at all.
With regard to the Recusants, the King found
himself in a position made the more difficult by the
action of the Recusants themselves. James wished
to be lenient towards them provided he could be
satisfied about their loyalty to himself. This
involved a denial on their part of the claim of the
Pope to set up or depose temporal rulers. Many
of them were disposed to make this concession, but
aU hopes of arriving at a satisfactory compromise
were ruined by the discovery of the Gunpowder
Plot — a plot in which the extreme Romanists,
rendered impatient and despairing by evidences of
the King's shiftiness, tried to win freedom by a
destruction of their enemies. The discovery of this
conspiracy only deepened the hatred of the mass of
the people for the Pope and for all those who
beUeved in the Papal claims.
From the point of view of the National Church
the Recusants, however, were not by any means
such a cause of serious trouble as were the
Puritans. The former were without her pale, and
could be left to be dealt with by the King, the
16

122 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Church only lending the machinery of her courts
for the purpose. The latter, however, were parts
of herself, and if, in dealing with them, she had
to rely on the royal support, her own true right
to jurisdiction would become obscured and her
prosperity would come to be bound up more and
more with that of the King. In such circum
stances only the very wisest handUng of the various
questions as they arose could insure success. Eliza
beth's great Archbishop, Whitgift, had died in
1604, and Bancroft, Bishop of London, had been
appointed to fiU his place, and, contrary to com
mon expectation, showed as time went on a real
power of winning the confidence and respect of the
various elements in the Church and by that means
of bringing them into closer harmony. But when
on the death of Bancroft in 1610 Abbot succeeded
to the chair of S. Augustine, the whole aspect of
affairs was changed. Bancroft had been a states
man ; Abbot was only a second-rate politician.
Bancroft believed that episcopacy was a Divine
institution, and, as such, an integral part of the
Church's system ; but Abbot was content to be
regarded as though he were merely a Crown official.
Such a change in leadership could only mean
disaster for the Church. During his long tenure

tiRADUAL SETTLEMENT 123
of the office — for Abbot was Archbishop for twenty-
three years — there never was a moment when there
was not need for the highest statesmanship, and yet,
with each succeeding year, the King became more
and more at variance with his subjects on great
constitutional questions, and, since in religious dis
putes he always took the part of the Bishops
against the Puritans, the people naturally came to
confound the Church with the Court. The National
Church came to be looked upon as the Church of
a party, and that the party opposed to popular
freedom. The political and religious questions
became mixed up in such a way that if a man
were loyal to the Church he was suspected of
being disloyal to the Constitution.
But aU the time that the divisions within the
Church were becoming more and more accentuated,
her place as an integral part of the Church Catholic,
and her fideUty to the teaching of the time before
schism was known, was being nobly vindicated by
scholars like Jewel and Hooker and Andrewes.
The work of these men had been sorely needed, for,
on the one hand, the new Jesuit movement within
the Roman Church produced a band of scholars
who championed the cause of the Papacy with
unfUnching courage, whilst, on the other hand, the

124 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
teaching of men like Calvin and John Knox
seemed to endanger the very foundations of the
Church. From both sides shrewd blows were
directed against the English Church, since she
refused to associate herself with either one party
or the other. But if she was to Uve something
more was required than a mere refusal to agree to
the position taken up by others. A vigorous life
can never be built up upon mere negations. It
was that which was positive in the statements of
Rome and Geneva alike which won for them the
enthusiastic support of their foUowers, and people
began to wonder whether the doctrinal position of
the EngUsh Church could be so stated as to vein for
her a devotion equally strong. It was not long
before such doubts were for ever set at rest. Before
the death of King James — that is, before the first
quarter of the seventeenth century had passed
away — the theological standpoint of the National
Church had been both clearly stated and splendidly
vindicated. The writers of that time are to the
English Church what the early Fathers are to the
Church Universal.
First of these in point of time came Jewel, Bishop
of Salisbury from 1560 to 1571, who in his ' Defence
of the English Church ' declared that in aU that it

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 125
had done it had only returned to the teaching of
the Apostles and of the old CathoUc Fathers.
Then in 1589 an equally definite position as
against the Puritans was taken up by Bancroft
(afterwards the Archbishop) in his famous sermon
at S. Paul's Cross on February 9. So far very
many within the English Church had said that
episcopacy was merely the most convenient form
of Church government, and therefore should be
accepted by both Church and State ; but Bancroft
asserted that there could be no true Church without
episcopacy, and said this so strongly that some
people complained that he had made an attack
upon the supremacy of the Crown.
Of far more importance stUl was the work of
Richard Hooker. Hooker combined great scholar
ship with a remarkable power of imparting his
knowledge to others, and yet his great work, ' The
Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,' had its origin only in
the fact that he found himself caUed upon to defend
himself from personal attack. In 1585 he had been
appointed Master of the Temple. The other candi
date was one Travers, a Presbyterian, and the
evening lecturer at the same church. Travers con
tinued in his position after Hooker's appointment,
and proceeded to contradict in the afternoon what

126 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Hooker had taught in the morning ; and it was the
sermons and other writings which Hooker com
posed in self-defence which were afterwards put
together in the ' PoUty.' In the preface (which he
verote ' to them that seek, as they term it, the
reformation of the laws and orders ecclesiastical in
the Church of England ') he declares that his intent
is to make it clear that ' for the ecclesiastical laws
of this realm we are led by great reason to observe
them, and yet by no necessity bound to impugn
them.' This intention of his he carried out with
most striking skill and yet with a great sobriety of
expression. The Puritan position with regard to
the authority of the Church, its assertion that
the EngUsh Church needed further purifying by
the doing away with such ancient rites and cere
monies as were stiU retained, and its opposition to
episcopacy, were aU dealt with in turn ; and by his
constant appeal to reason Hooker compeUed his
opponents to acknowledge the strength of the
position taken up by the English Church. There
were other great scholars who shared in this great
work of vindicating their Church, but it was the
' Polity ' of Hooker which made the greatest im
pression, and of which the Churchmen of the later
Elizabethan days were the most proud.

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 127
Meanwhile, during these last years of the great
Tudor Queen, another divine was rapidly attracting
to himself the notice of his countrymen, and win
ning their love by reason of the spiritual beauty of
his life quite as much as he won their regard for
the greatness of his learning. This man was
Lancelot Andrewes, the son of a London trades
man, born in 1555 in the parish of All Hallows',
Barking. Famous as a scholar at school and at
Cambridge, and equally famous as a great and
eloquent preacher, he might have become a Bishop
before Elizabeth's death if he had been veilling to
surrender a portion of the episcopal income, a
condition which was attached to his acceptance of
the office. When, however, James became King the
offer was repeated without any such unworthy con
dition, and he was made, though always unwiUing,
successively Bishop of Chichester in 1605, of Ely in
1607, and, finaUy, of Winchester in 1618, influencing
each diocese in tum by the holiness of his life even
more than by the greatness of his sermons. It was
always the man more than the scholar whom men
thought of and admired, and it is difficult to estimate
the importance of so saintly a life in the winning
for the Church and the Church's ways the reverence
of large numbers of men. But the needs of the

128 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
time compelled Andrewes to take up other work in
addition to that which feU to him as Bishop. In
the reign of Elizabeth the Church of England had
been called upon mainly to defend its position
against the attacks of the Puritans ; now in the
reign of James it was being assaUed veith equal
vigour and with greater scholarship by the Roman
ists who for this purpose had enlisted the services
of Bellarmine, the most notable controversialist
which the Roman Church has yet produced. In
reply to this new attack Andrewes not only boldly
asserted the CathoUc position of the EngUsh
Church, but also carried the war into the enemy's
camp by drawing attention to the fact that the
distinctive doctrines of Rome have no better origin
than that of medieval teaching and practice ; and it
is of interest to remember that Bellarmine never
attempted to continue the controversy further,
though he Uved for eleven years after the pubUca
tion of Bishop Andrewes' treatise.
With this work of Andrewes the task of defend
ing the theological position of the English Church
was complete. At the accession of Queen EUzabeth
half a century earlier no one, not even the Church's
own friends, knew exactly where she stood ; they
only knew that she was mistrusted and misliked

GRADUAL SETTLEMENT 129
by the extremists on either side. But now she had
found herself. CaUed upon, in answer to the attacks
made upon her, to defend her position, she had
responded with a definiteness which left little to be
desired. On the one hand, as against the extreme
teaching of the Protestants, she declared herself to
be truly CathoUc ; on the other hand, as against
the extremists of the Roman Church, she said she
could not but be Protestant.
There is one other point in the controversy with
Rome at this time which deserves notice. An
attack was made upon the vaUdity of English
Orders by a certain otherwise obscure Anglo- Irish
priest named Holywood, who invented what is
known as the 'Nag's Head Fable.' This man
declared that the Bishop of Llandaff of the time
had been called upon by Queen Elizabeth to conse
crate Matthew Parker as Archbishop, but that he
had refused to do so owing to the remonstrance of
Bishop Bonner, who was then in the Tower ; and
that, consequently, Matthew Parker and others had
met together at a tavern in Cheapside, called the
Nag's Head, and had proceeded to consecrate one
another. This tale was first put out in 1604 — that
is, forty-five years after the consecration of Matthew
Parker had actuaUy taken place — so that there was
17

130 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
little probability that any of the actual eye-witnesses
of the consecration were still Uving. There did
happen to be remaining, however, one such man,
namely, the Earl of Nottingham, and he at once
denied the truth of this new story. Moreover, it is
known that neither Pius IV., who became Pope in
the same month that Parker was made Archbishop,
nor Pius V., who issued the Bull of Deposition
against Elizabeth in 1570, ever uttered a word ques
tioning the validity of the English Orders. Holy-
wood's story, however, was greedUy believed, and
found a place in almost every Roman attack upon
the EngUsh Church until John Lingard, himself a
devout but honest Roman Catholic, gave it its
death-blow in his history of England which he
published in the early part of the nineteenth
century.

CHAPTER IX
A HOUSE DIVIDED
The twenty-two years of the reign of James I.
came to an end in 1625. With the accession of
the new King, Charles I., there was at once a
marked development in the growing conflict be
tween the Sovereign and the people, for the
ParUament broke with long-estabUshed usage by
voting the ordinary revenue to the Crown for one
year only instead of for the life of the Sovereign.
This the King indignantly rejected, complaining
that he had been condemned before being tried.
The Parliament felt, however, that it was only by
keeping tight hold on the purse-strings that it
could exercise any influence at aU, and it was also
especially disturbed at the time by reason of the
marriage of the King to Henrietta Maria, a
Roman Catholic Princess of France. It seemed
that constitutional and reUgious questions were
thus inextricably bound up with one another ; the
131

132 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
people that were fighting for liberty joined hands
with those who were opposing every appearance of
accommodation with Rome ; and as each year
passed by the leaders in the Church of England
were regarded with an ever-growing suspicion.
For the first eight years of Charles's reign Arch
bishop Abbot lived on, and had he been able he
would have kept party feeling from becoming more
and more bitter, but the King from the very first
made him feel that he was no longer to expect that
his advice would have any weight with his Sove
reign. This of itself alarmed the Puritans, but
there were other matters which disturbed them
stiU more. One Richard Montague, a Canon of
Windsor, and a man weU knoven because of his
skill as a controversialist, was censured by ParUa
ment for his High Church views and was placed
in custody. That Montague was in reaUty a
faithful member of the Church of England there
can be no doubt, but ParUament would have none
of him. Charles replied by making Montague one
of his chaplains. This was in 1625. A yet more
serious disagreement arose in 1627. A certain
Dr. Sibthorpe, a Northampton incumbent, had
preached a sermon asserting in the most extreme
form the doctrine of the Divine right of Kings and

A HOUSE DIVIDED 133
the subjects' duty of passive obedience. The theory
of the Divine right as now understood sounds absurd
in our ears, but none of the men who upheld it
at the beginning of the seventeenth century ever
dreamed that it would be pushed to such lengths as
it actuaUy was afterwards. Originally it was the
Protestants' defence against the Papal claim to
universal sovereignty, but it was quickly made to
serve against those who questioned the royal prero
gative at home. Dr. Sibthorpe's sermon was, of
course, denounced as soon as it was published,
but again Charles showed what he thought of the
matter by including the preacher amongst his
chaplains. Six months later another preacher, one
Roger Mainwaring, declared in the presence of the
King that if the Sovereign asked for money from
his subjects they were morally bound to give it.
Again there were loud complaints in Parliament,
and again the King showed his own mind by
pardoning the preacher and presenting him to a
benefice. Such teaching from the lips of the
extreme Churchmen of the time welcomed as it
was by the King could only result in an increase of
bitterness. Such teaching also helps us to see how
naturaUy the constitutional and the religious ques
tions came to be merged into one. Montague had

134 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
only dealt with doctrinal questions, but because his
views seemed to involve an understanding with the
Papacy they had a poUtical importance. But Sib
thorpe and Mainwaring had dealt with the question
of the King's prerogative ; they had said practicaUy
that men were bound to submit to their Sovereign.
These preachers were not very important men ; but
the King made it very clear that he approved of
what they had said ; and as none of the leaders in
the Church publicly disassociated themselves from
such views, it was naturally beUeved that they were
also in sympathy with them. Discontent grew apace,
but that was only a sign to Charles that there was
stiU greater need to enforce the laws of the Church.
He felt, however, that he could never do aU that
he desired to do so long as the Archbishopric was
in the hands of one who disagreed with him on
almost every point. But that difficulty was
removed when Abbot died in 1633. Long before
his death everybody had known that WUliam Laud
was to be his successor.
Laud was at this time sixty years of age. He
had been bom at Reading and educated at the
Free School there. Thence he went to Oxford,
and soon became a marked man by reason of his
fearless opposition to the dominant Calvinism of

A HOUSE DIVIDED 135
the time. In 1611 he had been elected President
of his coUege in spite of the opposition of Abbot
and others. In 1616 he became Dean of Gloucester,
and it was at Gloucester that he first showed that
side of his character which was destined to cause so
much trouble later on. He induced the Chapter to
remove the altar of the cathedral from the nave to
the chancel, but he took no pains to explain to
people generaUy the reason for the change, and such
action showed a lack of sympathy and a want of
power to understand the views of others. For Laud
it was enough if he knew that a thing ought to
be done. His very fearlessness made him con
temptuous of public opinion, and he failed to reaUze
that no reformation, least of all a reformation in
religious matters, can ever be truly brought about
without the approval or at least the acquiescence
of public opinion. To those who did not under
stand the reasons for his action the removal of the
altar seemed only a tjrrannical exercise of authority,
and Laud had only himself to thank for such a
misinterpretation of his action. Often in later
years his conduct in more important matters seemed
to partake of the same character. ' He did not
consider enough,' wrote Clarendon in his history,
' what men said or were like to say of him.'

136 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
It was Laud's independence of character which
first of aU won for him the favour of King James,
but later on that King valued him because he was
an enthusiastic believer in the necessity for the
enforcement of the Church's orders. So he had
been made Bishop of S. David's in 1621. But his
real influence in the national life began with the
reign of Charles. He preached at the opening of
the Parliaments of 1625 and 1626, and on each
occasion magnified the King's authority both in
Church and State. In 1628 he became Bishop of
London and from that time also the King's chief
adviser in all ecclesiastical matters. Laud's view
was that the enforcement of outward uniformity
was of the first importance because it would lead
ultimately to a real unity in beUef. His adminis
tration, therefore, stem and merciless as it seemed,
and as, indeed, it often was, was not the tyranny of
a despot who rejoiced in the mere making of his
power to be felt, but rather it was the rule of the
schoolmaster who would make his school efficient
by the unsparing use of the rod, or of the driU-
sergeant whose only thought is of the efficiency of
the soldiers under him. To carry out his plans he
made ready and fuU use of the King's support.
Equally opposed to Rome and Geneva, he tried to

A HOUSE DIVIDED 137
suppress the influence of both by means of the
royal authority, never apparently recognizing how
dangerous such an alliance between the King and
the Church might prove to be. It was natural that
before long he should come to be regarded as the
chief upholder of the royal tyranny ; it was equaUy
natural that he should be regarded as favouring an
understanding with Rome, On this latter point,
however, he was completely misunderstood, for he
recognized that the Papacy would never make any
concession at all. He told Charles on one occasion
that whoever wished to go to Rome would have
to go all the way thither, since the Pope would
take no steps to meet him.
Thus things went on for eight years from the day
in 1629 when Charles got rid of his third Parlia
ment. Then trouble arose from an unexpected
quarter, and from that time it began to be seen
that the only solution to the great controversies
would have to be found by the sword. In 1637 an
attempt was made to force upon the Scotch Church
a new Prayer-Book and a new set of canons.
Though Laud was not the author of either the
Service Book or of the Canons, he was regarded as
being responsible for them, and the great majority
of Scotch people not only refused to accept them,
18

138 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
but shortly afterwards in their Parliament declared
that they would not have Bishops in their Church
at all. Such conduct was intolerable to Charles,
and he determined to coerce his Scottish subjects.
His attempt to do this, however, was not only a
miserable failure so far as its immediate object
was concerned, but it also compelled him to caU
together another English Parliament, for he was
now so pressed for money that there was no other
course open to him. When ParUament thus met
in 1640 loud expression was given to the discon
tent which had been ever increasing throughout the
country during the eleven years' tyranny. Puritan
enthusiasts within the Church as well as constitu-
tionaUsts in the State felt that at last the day of
vengeance had come. The Archbishop was one of
the first to be dealt veith. In December, 1640, he
was impeached of high treason, and in March of
the following year he was sent to the Tower.
There he was left untU 1644, when the Commons
proceeded to impeach him before the House of
Lords, but finding that it would be impossible
to get the Peers to convict him of treason,
they resorted to a Bill of Attainder. Against
this the Lords also protested for a long time, but
at last, through fear of the mob, they yielded

A HOUSE DIVIDED 139
and passed the Bill. Nothing could exceed the
dignity of Laud's conduct during these months
of his so-called trial. Again and again he pro
tested his innocence. Though his diary and even
his Prayer-Book had been taken from him, yet
he said he was glad that he had been so treated,
for from such books, revealing as they did his
inner life, his accusers would see how true it was
that he had neither endeavoured to subvert the
laws of the kingdom nor to destroy the true
Protestant religion. No defence, however, avails a
man whose judges are also his enemies, and Laud
was executed on January 10, 1645.
But the execution of the Archbishop could not
do away with the results of his administration. By
putting him to death Parliament might express its
abhorrence of his principles, but the manner of his
death only brought those same principles the more
into prominence. His execution also helps us to
understand why the presentation in the sixteenth
century of the real position of the National Church
is associated with his name rather than with that,
for instance, of Hooker or of Andrewes. Laud
was neither so powerful a veriter as Hooker nor so
truly a saint as Bishop Andrewes. But it was he
who more than any other made the position of the

140 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
English Church known to the common people.
What Hooker had demonstrated the reasonable
ness of in a formal treatise, and what Andrewes
had commended by his life to those who knew him
personaUy, Laud enforced as the standard of Church
life and teaching, using for this end the power of his
office as Archbishop, and when the day of trial
came he was content to die rather than yield. He
had perforce to leave his work unfinished, and even
when later on in 1661 the things he had aimed at
received legislative sanction, a large section of the
people by their secession from the Church showed
that they still refused to follow his lead. But this
much is certain, that from Laud's time there never
was any doubt in the common mind as to what
the English Church stood for.
By ordering the execution of the Archbishop
ParUament made it quite clear what things it
refused to sanction. It was, however, by no means
equally clear what other things were to be put in
their place. In June 1643 a great committee,
consistuig of twenty members of ParUament and
four times as many ministers, and known as the
' Westminster Assembly,' was called together by
Parliament, and given authority to consider the
whole matter. But from the outset it was evident

A HOUSE DIVIDED 141
that there were in this committee differences as
great as any that had ever divided Churchmen.
The Presbyterians within it believed as emphatic
ally as the highest Churchman that there should be
one form of Church government throughout the
land, and that the Church ought to be independent
of aU State control ; the Erastians went to the
opposite extreme, and said that Parliament was the
Church ; whilst the Independents held the view
that each separate congregation was a Church in
itself and entitled to manage its own affairs.
ParUament naturally regarded the views of the
Presbyterians with but little favour, but so long
as the issue veith Charles was at all doubtful and
the aUiance with the Scotch army therefore a
matter of importance, it did not decisively reject
their claims. But soon there was a stronger influ
ence at work against Presbyterianism even than
that of ParUament. This was the influence of the
army under the guiding spirit of CromweU. ParUa
ment was mainly Erastian ; the Scotch allies were
Presbyterian to a man ; but the army was Indepen
dent. So soon, therefore, as the common foe — the
King — ceased to be of importance, the irreconcU-
able differences between these three parties became
open and avowed, and in the end Independency as

142 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
represented by the army triumphed over both its
former friends, and by its triumph, though EngUsh
Churchmen and Roman Catholics alike were denied
liberty of worship, yet aU other forms of religion
were tolerated. The famous Westminster Assembly
had thus failed to impose a system of Church
government upon the people of England. It
achieved, however, a striking success in another
direction. The Confession of Faith, which was
draven up by it in 1646, became at once, and still
remains, the authoritative standard of Scotch
Presbyterianism, and as such has been taken by
Scotchmen into every Colony of the Empire.
The long struggle with Charles ended at last in
his execution. To secure this the army had ex
pelled from the House of Commons all the mem
bers who were Presbjrterian and who were therefore
opposed to such a step. The remaining members,
fifty-three in number, and derisively caUed ' The
Rump,' declared that whatsoever they should
resolve upon should have the force of law, and
they proceeded to abolish the House of Lords as
' useless and dangerous,' and the office of King as
* useless, burdensome, and dangerous.' There fol
lowed eleven years during which the country was
governed in a way which was far more unconstitu-

A HOUSE DIVIDED 143
tional and far more out of touch with the majority
of the nation than had ever been the case in the
worst years of Charles I. During those eleven
years the Church of England was also regarded as
aboUshed, but it is needful to say something of the
ecclesiastical measures of that time if the reaction
which came about after the Restoration is to be
rightly understood. Before the execution of
Charles, ' The Rump ' had accepted from the army
a document knoven as the 'Agreement of the
People,' in which it was declared that the national
religion should be ' the Christian religion reformed
to the greatest purity in doctrine, worship, and
discipline,' but yet that this national religion
should be neither Popery nor Prelacy. People
who could not conscientiously accept this new form
might have liberty to worship in their own way, but
this Uberty, it was said, ' shall not necessarily extend
to Popery or Prelacy.' The Uberty granted in this
Agreement was made effective in the foUowing year,
1650, when men were set free from the obligation
of accepting the ' Solemn League and Covenant.'
Three years later ' The Rump ' was ignominiously
expeUed by CromweU, and its place was taken by
an Assembly of 139 men, who had not been elected,
but who had been nominated by the Independent

144 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
ministers and their congregations throughout the
country. Even this body, though so carefully
chosen, found it impossible to get on with the
army, and so it resigned at the end of five months.
Thereupon CromweU made it known that he would
rule the country in accordance with the terms of a
new document prepared by some of the army
officers. In this document, known as the ' Instru
ment of Government,' it was at last declared
definitely that neither Popery nor Prelacy should
receive toleration. Moreover, in 1654 a Committee
of Triers was appointed and to it was entrusted the
duty of fUling up vacant benefices with such persons
who had ' the grace of God in them,' and who were
' able and fit to preach the Gospel.' Such appoint
ments, however, were not to be construed as ' having
the character of any solemn or sacred setting apart
of a person to any particular office in the ministry.'
Later on other commissioners were appointed to
secure the ejection of ' scandalous ' ministers, in
other words, those who stiU clung to the old ways,
and then in the foUowing year the unhappy men
who had been thus removed were by a proclamation
also debarred from acting either as schoolmasters or
as domestic chaplains, or from performing any of
the offices of their ministry.

A HOUSE DIVIDED . 145
Meanwhile, so little was anyone satisfied with
the constitutional settlement brought about by the
Instrument of Government that, after barely more
than three years' experience of it, the ParUament
summoned under its authority presented to Crom
well the ' Humble Petition and Advice,' in which
they asked him to accept the title of King, and made
other suggestions which altogether amounted to a
getting back to the old form of government, only
with a new dynasty, but they added a request that
Popery and Prelacy might stiU remain forbidden.
CromweU at the desire of the army refused the
title of King, but in other respects accepted the
' Petition and Advice.' Fifteen months later, how
ever, the Protector died, and any chance this new
scheme might have had of working satisfactorily
died with him.
The Protector's death was succeeded by a period
of unsettlement during which it became more and
more evident that the only solution which would
satisfy the nation generaUy lay in inviting the son
of the executed King to take his father's place.
Exactly three years after Cromwell had accepted
the ' Humble Petition and Advice ' Charles landed
at Dover, and began a journey to London which
resolved itself into one long triumphal progress. 19

146 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
As in 1553 when the country showed its disgust
with the iniquitous rule of the Protector North
umberland by tumultuously welcoming Queen
Mary, so again now, a hundred years later, it spoke
its mind equaUy clearly with regard to the despotism
of the Protector CromweU. It was the misfortune
of CromweU that he found himself committed to a
system which could not be anything but despotic.
It is a question whether even he could have main
tained it much longer ; after he was dead scarcely
anyone attempted to maintain it.

CHAPTER X
RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION
The return of Charles meant, of course, a return
to the old constitution. With political questions
we have here but Uttle to do, but the settlement
arrived at in reUgious matters is of the greatest
importance. It must be remembered that the
King's return had been brought about not only by
the action of Churchmen, but also largely by the
influence of the Presbyterians, who hated the Inde
pendents even more than they hated Churchmen.
The hopes of this party were therefore high. They
knew they would receive toleration, for so much as
that had been promised to them as weU as to others
in the declaration which the King had issued from
Breda before his return. But they trusted further
that the Liturgy of the Church might be so
amended as to enable them to conform to it. The
King favoured this idea and caUed together at
the Savoy twelve Bishops and twelve leading
147

148 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Presbyterians to discuss the matter. The confer
ence, however, proved a complete failure ; the only
thing it could agree upon was to report to the King
that they could not agree upon any terms of com
prehension ; the Churchmen were but Uttle incUned
to make concessions, for they knew that they had
the majority of the nation with them ; whilst the
Presbyterians brought forward again aU the old
demands which had been made at the Hampton
Court Conference in 1604. So soon as the Confer
ence was known to be a failure. Convocation itself
appointed a committee to revise the Book of
Common Prayer. This Committee has put on
record in the preface which still stands at the fore
front of the Prayer-Book the principles by which it
was guided. It rejected many of the alterations
which had been suggested to it, either because
they were ' secretly striking at some estabUshed
doctrine or laudable practice of the Church of
England, or, indeed, of the whole CathoUc Church,'
or because they were ' utterly fiivolous and vain ;'
whilst, with regard to the alterations which it
did recommend, some, it said, were for the better
direction of the officiating clergy, some for the
purpose of removing doubts and misconstructions,
and some provided additional prayers and additional

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 149
services for special occasions. The general effect
of the alterations was to bring out more clearly
the CathoUc character of the Prayer-Book, whilst
of the additions the most notable were the
Prayer for ParUament and the Service for the
Baptism of Adults, which latter would ' be always
useful for the baptizing of the Natives in our
Plantations, and others converted to the Faith.'
The suggestions of the committee were readily
adopted by Convocation, and the use of the Prayer-
Book, as thus revised, was enforced by the Act of
Uniformity of 1662. This compulsory use of the
Prayer-Book with its deeper note of Catholicity
would probably of itself have made it difficult for a
great many of the holders of benefices to retain
their position. But the Act enforced other things
beside the use of the Prayer-Book : it declared that
every beneficed clergyman should be episcopally
ordained, and must renounce the Solemn League
and Covenant, and must also publicly declare that
he believed that the taking up of arms against the
King was unlawful under any pretext whatever.
The Act was thus to a large extent a political
measure, and it is not to be wondered at that a
large number of ministers — it is said nearly 2,000 —
resigned rather than submit to it. The situation

150 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
would have been hard enough if the Act had
merely enforced the use of the Prayer-Book; it
became impossible when it was seen that the Act
demanded conformity in politics as weU as in
religion. Most of those who resigned had, of
course, no real legal claim to the benefices of which
they were in possession ; they were there in the
place of the rightful occupants who had been
forcibly ejected in the time of the Commonwealth ;
but, nevertheless, the treatment meted out to them
was unnecessarUy harsh. The Act was the Act of
Parliament, especiaUy of the House of Commons,
and not of the Church. It is true that the leaders
in the Church did nothing to mitigate its severity,
but it is equally true that, if they had attempted
to do so, they would have met veith but Uttle
success, for the elections to the House of Commons
which had taken place in 1661 had resulted in the
return of an overwhelming majority of members
who were determined to purge the Church's worship
of Presbyterianism and the Church's pulpits of the
poUtics that then commonly went with Presby
terianism. Before it passed this Act, ParUament
had already passed another, namely, the Corpora
tion Act, which had made it impossible for any
but Churchmen to hold municipal offices, and as

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 151
the borough franchise was often Umited to mem
bers of the Corporations, the Act indirectly said
that Churchmen only should have the right to
vote for members of Parliament. Even so Parlia
ment was not content. Possessed with the fear
that this large body of ministers who had resigned
might attempt to preach another rebellion, it pro
ceeded in 1664 to pass the Conventicle Act, which
forbade any assembly for worship except such as
was aUowed by the Church of England ; and in the
foUowing year the Five Mile Act, which forbad
aU those ministers who refused to take the Oath of
Non-resistance to teach in schools or to live veithin
five miles of any corporate town. To lessen the
hardships entailed by such legislation the Lords had
desired that a dispensing power should be aUowed
to the King, but the Commons would have none of
it. The House of Commons was, in fact, more
episcopal than the Bishops and more royalist than
the King. It had already done much ; it now
proceeded to do more. It refused to forget
the past or to allow others to forget it, for
it ordered that January 30, the day upon which
Charles I. had been put to death, should be
kept as a day of fasting and humUiation, and
that May 29, the day upon which Charles II.

152 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
entered London, should be kept as a day of
thanksgiving. With such emphasis did the Commons thus mark
their loyalty to the King and the National Church,
and it is abundantly clear that the people as a whole
approved of aU that they did. But before many
more years had passed the same Commons had to
decide which had the more weight with them, their
loyalty to the King or their loyalty to the Church,
and without hesitation they proceeded to defend
their Church even against their King. The personal
character of Charles II. is too weU known to need
further description. He cared for nothing except
what ministered to his own selfish ends. Neither
Parliament nor people were ever in love with him.
He was simply welcomed at his Restoration because
in his person he embodied a constitutional principle,
and when as his reign went on he began to tamper
with that principle, he was actively opposed. So
far as he had any religious sympathies at all they
were in favour of Roman CathoUcism, and his real
reason for desiring toleration for the Presbyterians
in 1661 was that he hoped that such toleration
would also be extended in due time to the Roman
CathoUcs. The anxiety on this point which began
to be felt generaUy throughout the country early in

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 153
his reign, was seen to be only too weU founded
when in 1672 after the public reception of the
Duke of York, the heir to the throne, into the
Roman CathoUc Church, the King issued a
Declaration of Indulgence repealing aU the legisla
tion against Nonconformists and Roman CathoUcs.
From that date the Kmg lost completely the confi
dence of his people. So soon as Parliament met
in 1673, it compeUed the King to veithdraw the
Declaration, and then made him accept the Test
Act, by which aU persons holding any office under
the Crown had to take the Sacrament according to
the rites of the Church of England, and to make a
declaration against the doctrine of Transubstantia
tion. In its next session it passed resolutions
against a standing army, fearing lest such an army
might be used to enforce Roman Catholicism even
as it had been used a few years back under Crom
weU to enforce Independency ; and in the foUowing
year the Commons went so far as to reject a BiU
which would have made aU office-holders declare on
oath that they considered resistance against the
King to be unlawful. From this time for a period
of five years the relations between the King and
Parliament grew more and more strained, until
finally Charles dissolved the Parliament in 1681 and
20

154 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
ruled for the last four years of his life without call
ing another. He was able to act in this despotic
way because the opposition had at last become so
extreme that it had lost the support of public
opinion. Their violent attempts to get the Duke
of York excluded from the succession lost them the
support of some of their followers, but the plan that
many of them were known to favour of declaring
the Duke of Monmouth, a bastard son of Charles,
the next heir, lost them still more. So they accom
plished nothing, except that they made it possible
for the King to become more despotic than his
father had ever been, and for his brother James to
remain the heir to the throne ; and people desiring
the welfare of both Church and State could only
await the future with the deepest apprehension.
Yet when in 1685 Charles died, and James was
actually in possession of the throne, it seemed that
after all these fears had been groundless, for the
new King at once stated that ' he would endeavour
to maintain the Government, both in Church and
State, as by law estabUshed,' and that ' he would
always take care to defend and support the Church
of England.' He had, indeed, good cause to be
grateful to the National Church, for it was mainly
because it held firmly to the principle of hereditary

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 155
succession that the Bill for excluding him from
the throne had never been passed. Nevertheless it
was farthest from his thoughts to attempt to do
anything in accordance with his promises, for he
was determined to vein for himself a completely
despotic power. But he had set himself a task
which he personaUy could not possibly accomplish.
The thought of his brother's last four years of
irresponsible rule seemed to make him forget the
hostiUty with which he himself was regarded
because of his avowed profession of Roman Catholi
cism. Charles through all his despotism was wise
enough to leave the religion of the people alone.
James imagined that he would make his despotism
all the more real if he could only force his creed
upon his subjects. He forgot that he had to deal
with a naturaUy stubborn people who had most
stubbornly resisted aU dictation on this very point.
It was this side of the King's policy which aroused
the bitterest opposition and which finally brought
about his downfaU. For though he himself only
meant his policy in reUgion to subserve his general
aim to be despotic aU round, yet the nation
regarded him mainly as an agent of a hateful
form of faith who was endeavouring to use his
Sovereign authority to further the ends of his

156 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
master. Only a very able man could have suc
ceeded under such circumstances. But James was
the reverse of able, for he was not only a narrow-
minded bigot in religious matters, but also a com
plete fool in statecraft. He made the rebellions
which occurred at the opening of his reign to serve as
a pretext for increasing his standing army, and then
so ostentatiously officered that army with Roman
Catholics that people felt that an army nominaUy
raised to suppress unlawful rebeUion might also
be used to crush constitutional opposition. He
aUowed Judge Jeffreys to deal with the rebels them
selves in the ' Bloody Assizes ' in a way that made
him both hated and feared. He removed from the
Bench the judges upon whose subserviency he could
not depend and filled their places with creatures of
his own, and then obtained from the Bench as thus
constituted a declaration that he could act in dis
regard of the laws of the land. He devised a new
Ecclesiastical Court to deal with such of the clergy
as dared to oppose his policy, and by means of it
obtained the suspension of Compton, Bishop of
London, one of the most outspoken of the Bishops.
The King seemed to be possessed of an evil spirit
which was driving him on to his ruin ; many people,
indeed, said that he was mad. And while the

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 157
nation was thus learning what Roman Catholicism
in such hands might mean. Huguenot refugees were
pouring into England from France bringing with
them tales of the bitter sufferings which they had
been made to endure at the hands of a Govern
ment which was also acting in the name of Roman
Catholicism. It came to be a question with the
people not as to what the end would be, but when
it would be. The answer soon came. In May 1688
James ordered that a Declaration of Indulgence in
favour of Roman Catholics and Nonconformists,
which had first been issued in the previous year,
should now be publicly read by the clergy of the
National Church in their churches during the time of
Divine service. The Archbishop of Canterbury and
six Bishops thereupon presented a petition to the
King in which they said that such a declaration was
opposed to the law of the land, and that therefore
they could not issue directions to their clergy to
read it. The King was indignant and ordered the
Bishops to be committed to the Tower and to be
prosecuted for having published a false and seditious
Ubel. The excitement in London and throughout
the provinces became intense. People who cared
but little for religion felt a new regard for Bishops
who dared to fight for national Uberty ; while Non-

158 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
conformists who in their own way cared much for
religion and yet were made to suffer under the
existing laws, with splendid self-forgetfulness were
amongst their most enthusiastic supporters. Then,
in the midst of aU this excitement and whUst the
Bishops were stiU waiting their trial, came the news
that a son had been born to the King! Nobody
believed the truth because nobody wanted to
believe it. They had, it must be said, some ground
for their incredulity. The King had lost his first
wife seventeen years before, and had been married
to his second wife for fifteen years, and up to this
time she had borne him no children. It was the
fact that the King had had no son which had given
the nation a kind of patience. It knew that on the
death of James his successor would be his daughter
Mary, who was a devout member of the EngUsh
Church and whose husband was William of Orange,
the Protestant ruler of Holland. Such a prospect
was destroyed by the birth of the son, and the
common people in the bitterness of their disap
pointment declared that the chUd was suppositi
tious. Of more consequence however was the influ
ence that this event had upon the great men in
Church and State. They, dreading that a Roman
Catholic son might continue the poUcy of his

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 159
Roman Catholic father, invited William of Orange
to come over and help them in their struggle for
their constitutional liberties. On September 30,
1668 WilUam answered that he would accede to
their request. But James feared to await the issue
of events. Three months earlier the exuberant joy
veith which the acquittal of the seven Bishops had
been received had taught him something of the
state of pubUc opinion. Now two days before the
Christmas of that year he fled to France, and after
much debating in and out of Parliament it was
declared that James had by his flight abdicated the
throne, and the crown was then settled upon
WilUam and Mary.

CHAPTER XI
FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS
With the fUght of .lames and the accession of
William and Mary the political crisis was practi
cally at an end. It was far different, however, with
regard to ecclesiastical affairs. With the coming
of William a new chapter opens in the history of
the English Church. The Church, by the bold
front which it had presented to the late King, had
in reality made the Revolution possible, but so
soon as the Revolution was over it was seen that it,
at least, would suffer rather than gain under the
new order. This was due to two causes. In the
first place, WilUam III. had no love for the Church.
He had been reared as a Presbyterian, and had
grown up a Latitudinarian. Moreover, he had only
one object in life, namely, the destruction of the
power of Louis XIV. of France. To the accom
plishment of that object he directed aU his energies
and enlisted aid from every possible source. Hence
160

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 161
he regarded England merely as part of a great
European coaUtion, and in order to give that
coalition an additional strength he wished so to
Protestantize the EngUsh Church that it might
come into line with the Protestant forces on the
Continent, and thus make the war against Louis
a war of Protestantism versus Roman Catholicism
as weU as a war against the overweening ambition
of the French King. He would use religious
animosity to crush a political rival.
The other cause was that the ablest and truest
Churchmen of the time were just those who felt
themselves unable to take the new oaths of allegi
ance to WiUiam and Mary. James II. was still
their King, and his subjects, so they believed, had
no power to depose him. His conduct indeed
compelled his subjects to regard him as insane, and
therefore he could not be suffered to exercise the
authority of a King ; a Regency must be appointed
to act in his name for the rest of his life. WiUiam
and the Whig politicians who supported him might
have ignored these views inasmuch as James was
in exile and WUliam and Mary were actually
upon the throne, but, instead of doing so, they
made the taking of the new oaths compulsory.
WilUam, at any rate, looked forward with some-
21

162 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
thing more than complacency to the possibility of
many of the greater Churchmen refusing to take
these oaths, for if they refused to do so they would
be deprived of their offices, and their place would
at once be filled with men who could be trusted
to bring the English Church into harmony with
Protestantism abroad. When the oaths were ten
dered about 400 clergy refused to take them, at
their head being Archbishop Sancroft himself and
three of the other Bishops who had formed the
famous seven. It was a cruel fate that some of
those who had played so great a part in the vindica
tion of national Uberty should be thus amongst the
first to suffer under the new King. But it is of
more consequence to note that the effect upon the
Church was disastrous. Not only was it deprived
of its strongest men, but it began to be officered by
others who were not merely out of sympathy with
its general teaching, but were further pledged to
alter that teaching in its essential features. The
worst aspects of the government of Edward VI.
were revived : the National Church was to be used
for political purposes, and this end was to be arrived
at by the careful fiUing of its prominent posts veith
men who could be trusted to make the aims of the
Government their chief concern. This policy was

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 163
continued with but Uttle intermission by one
Government after another for nearly three-quarters
of a century. WUliam adopted it in order, as we
have seen, to make the aUiance between England
and the Protestant Powers as close a one as possible.
But when the Hanoverian Une of Sovereigns began
in 1714 there seemed to the politicians of those
days a greater reason still why the fUling up of
vacancies in the Church should be regarded as of
great political importance. For it was common
knowledge that no one welcomed the Hanoverians,
and that they were only accepted as a disagreeable
necessity : they were foreigners in their habits as well
as in their speech : there was nothing about them
to attract the loyalty of the people : ' the divinity
that doth hedge a King ' seemed gone for ever.
Yet every effort had to be made to keep George L,
and then George IL, upon the throne, for the only
alternative was to accept once again the line of the
Stuarts. So the pulpits were ' tuned ' again ; pro
motion was to be the reward for faithful political
service ; enthusiasm was to be discouraged relent
lessly lest it might lead to Jacobitism ; the election
to bishoprics was to become a farce ; and the
Bishops instead of being shepherds of the flock
were to become Government agents, representing

164 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
a policy which no one liked but which many hated.
The full consequences of this policy will be seen
later on. During William's reign they were
dreaded rather than felt. In the place of Sancroft
the King chose John TiUotson, a man justly
esteemed for the character of his private life,
but a Puritan by birth and training, and quite
ready to carry out, if possible, the King's plans.
More significant stUl, as indicating the new policy,
was the appointment of GUbert Burnet to the
See of Salisbury. Burnet was a Scotchman
who had spent much time at The Hague in the
Court of the Prince of Orange, and who had there
taken a very active part in promoting WiUiam's
expedition to England. William, therefore, owed
him a great deal for his political services, but
he valued him also because of his Low Church
views. Yet the very considerations which made
him acceptable to WUUam made him equaUy dis
liked by the clergy of his diocese. It is due to
his memory to say that he took up his work as
Bishop with rare zeal and devotion, treating with
equal courtesy enemies and friends, and labouring
in every way to approve himself to his flock, but
nothing really availed him as against his hated
political opinions. After his appointment as

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 1G5
Bishop he still continued to be one of the King's
most intimate counsellors. It was on his advice
that TiUotson was chosen to succeed Sancroft and
that Tenison was appointed Bishop of Lincoln;
and, further, that when TiUotson died in 1694
Tenison succeeded to the Archbishopric, Burnet
recommending him not because he was the best
man available, but because it was felt that the
arduous task of quieting the discontented and
distracted Church could most safely be entrusted
to him.
The great constitutional crisis of 1688 had been
produced, as we have seen, by the attempt of
James II. to introduce Roman Catholicism. In
that struggle the main body of Nonconformists had
been staunch aUies of the National Church, and this
co-operation in the pursuit of a common end had
brought about amongst both Churchpeople and
Dissenters a real regard for one another and a true
respect for each other's convictions. This better
understanding produced the Toleration Act of
1689 — an Act which also marks the beginning
of a new epoch in the ecclesiastical history of
England. The Act was by no means a complete
measure, for it did not grant liberty of worship to
Roman Catholics nor to any body of Dissenters

166 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
which did not hold the Trinitarian Faith. Neither
did it do away veith the civil disabilities which were
attached to Dissent, for the Nonconformist as such
was stiU unable to become a member of a Borough
Corporation or to sit as a member of Parliament.
Yet, nevertheless, the Act is of great importance,
because it embodied a new principle. For the
previous century and a half, ever since the time,
indeed, when the Reformation changes had begun
to be made, every party in the State had striven
for uniformity in worship throughout the land.
Henry VIII. in his legislation, the foreign Protes
tant party under Edward VI. , the PapaUsts of
Mary's time, the statesmen of Elizabeth, the
Laudian Bishops, the Puritan forces of the
Commonwealth, and the Cavalier Parliament, had
each and all aimed at enforcing their own ideals
upon the whole community. The Toleration Act
was at last a pubUc confession that uniformity had
become an impossibiUty, and that nothing better
could be done than to legaUze diversity.
It is recognized now that that was the only
possible solution of the matter, but the people of
the seventeenth century were slow to see it, and
many of them only accepted it with reluctance
when it came. From the point of view of the

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 167
Church itself, the Act was a proof of failure as
well as a mark of success. Henceforth the theo
logical position of the Church which men like
Hooker and Andrewes and Laud had each in his
own way constantly upheld becomes its recognized
position. So far the Church had triumphed. But
the triumph was acquiesced in by those who did
not accept the Church's teaching because they
themselves were now to be allowed to live their
reUgious Ufe apart from it.
WilUam signed the Act with real willingness,
though it did not express his own views. He was
one of those who stiU hoped that uniformity might
be secured. But this uniformity which he desired
was, as we have seen, of the kind that would have
reduced the Church to the level of the foreign
Protestant sects. In accordance with his wishes a
Comprehension BUI was introduced into the House
of Lords and passed by that body. The Bill met
with a very different fate, however, at the hands of
the Commons. They said that nothing of the
kind could be considered by them unless it came
to them with the consent of the Convocations of
the Church. WilUam was much annoyed at this
statement, but found himself obliged to acquiesce.
Convocation was summoned, and a committee was

168 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
appointed to prepare a scheme of such alterations
in the Prayer-Book as would satisfy the Dissenters
and enable them to come within the Church again.
The scheme was prepared and duly presented, but
its failure was certain long before it was submitted,
for it had become known that the suggestions
amounted to a complete revolution in the Church's
worship. Burnet, though veiUing to accept the
proposed changes, at once realized that they would
never be adopted. Everybody, he said, declared
that the Church was to be puUed down and
Presbytery be set up. Conscientious Churchmen
had indeed good cause for complaint. They had
accepted the Toleration Act, and by it had
admitted that those who did not Uke their methods
of worship might freely adopt some other; but
now they were to be further asked to give up their
oven ways. They felt that at least the Toleration
which had recently been extended to the Dissenters
might be granted to them also. Toleration and
Comprehension expressed indeed exactly opposite
ideas. If Toleration were right, then attempts to
enforce Comprehension upon un wUling subjects
must be verong; whUst if Comprehension was
ideally right, then the Toleration Act ought never
to have been passed. On every ground this

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 169
attempt on the part of WUliam to Protestantize
the Church was foredoomed to failure. As a
matter of fact, so definite was the opposition to it
that it was never actually discussed in Convocation
at aU.
The Dutch King never strove to secure by
personal influence what he had failed to secure
by means of Parliament. His reign marks the
definite recognition of the fact that in political
affairs the sovereign power had passed in reality, if
not in form, out of the hands of the King into the
hands of ParUament, and there were many people
ready to assert that the like authority in ecclesi
astical affairs had similarly passed to Parliament.
We are tempted to forget the importance of the
Revolution of 1688, because it was accomplished
veithout bloodshed; there was neither a Naseby,
nor a beheadal at WhitehaU; yet in reality the
Revolution which put WiUiam and Mary on the
throne was the beginning of modern England.
From that time the supremacy of Parliament in
poUtical affairs has been unquestioned, except for
the twenty years when George III. tried to govern
in the old autocratic way. From that time also
it is claimed that the power of the King in
ecclesiastical matters has also passed to Parliament. 22

170 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
That the interests of the Church might be seriously
affected by this change was seen when the House
of Lords was quite prepared to pass a Comprehen
sion BUI without any reference to the wishes of
the Church at aU. No harm was done then,
however, for the House of Commons acknow
ledged the right of the Church to deal with such
things in the first instance. Moreover, the
members of both Houses of ParUament at that
time were of necessity Churchmen. Since then
the doors of Parliament have been thrown open
to aU sorts and conditions of men, and it has long
been a serious question whether ParUament so
constituted ought to exercise the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction which had originaUy been vested in
the King himself.
With the passing of the Toleration Act, and the
consequent cessation of internal strife, there came
a marked development in the proper work of the
National Church in two directions, one a revival
of the work it had nobly done in an earUer day,
the other a new work imposed upon it by the
circumstances of the time : these were the educa
tion of the people and the evangelization of the
heathen. The spoliation of the Church in the sixteenth

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 171
century had grievously affected its educational
work. The monastic schools, which had existed
in every country district, had never been replaced,
for those who had confiscated the Church's
property had done nothing more than buUd some
few Grammar Schools in the more considerable
market-tovens, whilst the civil strife of the middle
of the seventeenth century had effectually pre
vented any real educational progress. At the
close of the century the general ignorance was
indeed appaUing. The father of John Wesley, for
example, said that in his great parish not one in
twenty knew the Lord's Prayer, and fewer stUl
the BeUef, and what was true of his parish was
true of the country as a whole. It was in part to
remedy such a state of things that the first of the
great Church societies was started — the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In May
1688 a devout clergyman, named Thomas Bray,
got together four communicant laymen, and with
them agreed to meet and consult as often as
convenient under, as they said, 'the conduct of
Divine Providence and assistance,' to promote
Christian knowledge. The Society, in spite of
opposition, grew with great rapidity. By means
of it charity schools were started for the clothing.

172 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
feeding, and educating of poor children, and so
great was the influence of the new movement that
within five years there were fifty such schools in
or near London. Schools for iUiterate adults were
also begun, and then in order that the people when
taught should have wholesome Uterature to read,
cheap and good books were printed for distribution
broadcast. This was the beginning of aU modern
elementary educational work, and for more than a
century the whole burden of such elementary
education as was being given at aU was bome by
this Society.
Not less important was the attempt that was
made by the same notable group of five Churchmen
to provide for the spiritual needs of English
settlers abroad, and for the conversion of the
natives who dwelt within 'the Plantations.' Up
to this time English people had been as a rule
sadly indifferent to the importance of foreign
missionary work, although amongst the schemes
of Archbishop Laud was one for the creation of
Bishoprics in North America. The neglect of the
English Church in this direction is in striking
contrast to the zeal of the Roman CathoUcs.
Before the end of the sixteenth century the
Jesuits had developed a regular missionary system,

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 173
and in 1622 the care and direction of the Roman
missionaries was taken over by the College of
Cardinals at Rome, and from that time the
missions have been part of the foreign poUcy of
the Roman Church, and have received the support
and invigoration which comes from the knowledge
that they thus represent their Church abroad.
Such a statesmanlike attempt to deal with a vast
undertaking appealed to the imagination of Oliver
CromweU, and he desired to establish a committee
which should in Uke manner take charge of
Protestant missionary effort, but the reUgious
difficulties which then divided English people
prevented any reaUy representative effort of this
kind being made. By an Order in CouncU issued
by Charles I. all British subjects abroad had been
placed under the care of the Bishop of London,
and in 1685 a certain Dr. Blair had been sent as a
Commissary to Virginia. But no real attempt to
deal with the problem took place untU Dr. Bray
was sent as Commissary to Maryland in 1699.
The society which Dr. Bray and his faithful friends
had then recently started had included in its
objects the provision of missionaries for the Planta
tions, and the good man had now an opportunity
of finding out for himself the real needs of the

174 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Colonies. Before very long he was back again in
England, and so inspired Archbishop Tenison and
the Bishop of London with his enthusiasm that
they secured from WiUiam III. Letters Patent
under the Great Seal creating a corporation by
the name of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, which should take in
hand the foreign work of the Church. This was
in 1701 — that is, little more than two years after
Dr. Bray first took counsel with his friends as to
what could be done for the cause of Christ both at
home and abroad. In such ways this faithful
priest, supported by four equaUy faithful laymen,
with a complete absence of ostentation and with
but little assistance originally from high quarters,
began the modern work of the National Church.
They rightly occupy a high place in the regard
of all EngUsh Churchpeople. But they also
illustrate how almost completely the Episcopate at
the end of the seventeenth century was indifferent
to, or at least ignorant of, the needs of the time.
Efforts which the Bishops ought to have originated
and guided were left by them to be undertaken by
the rank and file, and the result has not been
without harm, since these activities, which ought
to have been made fi-om the very first the official

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 175
concern of the whole EngUsh Church, came to be
regarded at the best as but laudable objects which
individual members of the Church might support
if they wished so to do. They were left to the
enthusiasm of the few, and even stiU are too
seldom regarded as the work of the whole Church.
WilUam IIL, ' the Dutch King ' as he was caUed
by some, ' the Usurper ' as he was caUed by not a
few, died in 1702. If he was but little regarded
by the mass of Churchpeople he had only himself
to thank. He was succeeded by his wife's sister,
the Princess Anne, and with the new sovereign
there came a great change in the ecclesiastical
poUcy, for whUst WiUiam had been a Calvinist,
Anne had always been a devout beUever in the
traditional position of the EngUsh Church. Yet
the change scarcely made for the real good of the
Church, for it only meant that the Royal Patronage
was now given to the High Church party instead
of, as formerly, to the Latitudinarians ; and the
High Churchmen of those days were just as eager
as their opponents to use the Royal influence to
further their own ends. Party spirit had never
been at rest ; it was now enormously increased by
the bitterness of those on the one hand who,
having been for ten or twelve years supreme, were

176 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
now in adversity ; and on the other hand by the
unconcealed exultation of those who were now
basking in the Royal favour. The extent of this
factious spirit is seen in the famous trial of
Dr. Sacheverell in 1710. SachevereU, who was
little better than a clerical wind-bag, had preached
two sermons roundly denoimcing the Whigs both
in politics and in the Church, who were according
to him ' conformists in faction, half conformists in
practice, and non-conformists in judgment.' It
was the party spirit which produced the sermons ;
it was the same spirit which made the House of
Commons take notice of them and impeach the
preacher ; and it was the same spirit which made
the Tories in poUtics and the High Churchmen in
the Church rejoice at the practical acquittal of the
offender. The trial, as a matter of fact, is only
worthy of remembrance at all because it produced
a great poUtical reaction throughout the country,
so that in the autumn of 1710, when a new
Parliament was elected, it was found to be over
whelmingly Tory, and this Tory Government
proceeded to pass violent reactionary measures
embodying the views of the narrowest of the High
Churchmen. Nonconformists, excluded by earUer
legislation from municipal life, had been for some

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 177
years accustomed to occasional conformity so as to
attain their ends. This was now distinctly for
bidden, and any infringement of the law was to be
visited by heavy penalties. Soon after came also
the 'Schism Act,' which forbade any Noncon
formist from keeping a school or acting as a tutor.
The effect of both measures was of course only to
increase in the minds of Dissenters a dislike of the
Church. But the party spirit of the time found its fullest
expression within the waUs of Convocation. During
the greater part of WiUiam's reign this body had
not been aUowed to meet at aU ; and when it was
summoned in 1701, it was seen at once that, owing
to the poUtical character of the King's appoint
ments, there was a wide divergence of views
between the Upper House and the Lower. This
produced during the reign of Queen Anne an
unceasing and oftentimes an unseemly strife be
tween the houses as to their relative rights and
powers. The Church was suffering grievously because its
fortunes for the time being were in the hands of
men who were only party leaders. This was almost
entirely true of the Bishops, and was also largely
the case with regard to the parochial clergy. For
23

l78 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the noblest spirits of the time were to be found
among the Non-Jurors, the people who had refused
to take the oaths of aUegiance to WUliam and
Mary, and thus, because of their attitude in political
affairs, were living in a forced isolation and
unable to have any influence over the course of
events. In their ranks were to be found such men
as Francis Cherry of Shottesbrooke, in Berkshire,
a pattern of what an English country gentleman
should be ; Henry Dodwell, the Camden Professor
of History at Oxford until he was deprived in 1691,
whose learning received the praise of Gibbon, and
whose character made Addison speak of him as a
parson in a ' tye-wig '; Robert Nelson, the author
of the 'Companion for the Festivals and Fasts
of the Church of England,' a work which had
deservedly a wide popularity, and who, beside his
literary labours, promoted the founding of theo
logical colleges, hospitals for incurables, and ragged,
or as he called them, ' blackguard schools '; and
amongst the clergy John Kettlewell of ColeshUl,
who was deprived in 1690, 'a perfect pattern of
quiet Christian devotion and of unfaUing charity ' ;
and Anthony Horneck, preacher at the Savoy, ' of
unsullied purity and unfaiUng courtesy.' But the
most famous of aU the Non-Jurors was Thomas

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 179
Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was deprived
in 1691, but who felt so keenly the evil of schism
that in 1701 he suggested to Bishop Lloyd of
Norwich, the only other remaining Non-Juror
Bishop, that they should both resign, and thus
make it impossible for anyone to question the
jurisdiction of the men who had been placed in
their sees. This good Bishop has secured for
himseK a more certain fame, however, by reason of
his devotional poetry. For the third edition of
his ' Manual of Prayers for Winchester CoUege '
he composed the hymns 'Awake, my soul, and
with the sun,' and ' Glory to Thee, my God, this
night ' — hymns which are now sung wherever there
is an EngUsh congregation. His declaration of
faith, as expressed in his veill, is also worthy of
record. He died, he said, in the Communion of
the Church as it stands distinguished from all
Papal and Puritan innovations. With his death
the Non-Jurors as a party may be said to have
ceased to exist, but the unhappy condition of the
Church at that time is the best proof of how much
the influence of these holy men had been needed.
Queen Anne died in 1714, and, in pursuance of
the terms of the Act of Settlement passed thirteen
years before, she was succeeded by George of

180 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Hanover. This arrangement had been made so as
to secure the exclusion of the son of James IL, but
it meant further difficulties for that great body of
Churchpeople who were committed to the doctrine
of hereditary succession. To destroy as far as
possible within the Church every antagonistic
influence to the new order of things became at
once the prime concern of the Government of the
new King, and in the hands of Walpole, his chief
Minister, this work was only too effectuaUy done.
The Church was too powerful either to be ignored
or to be opposed ; it was necessary, therefore, to
inoculate it. The bishoprics, as they feU vacant,
were filled by the supporters of the Hanoverians,
and by them only. The regard of such men for
their pastoral office was of the lowest ; enthusiasm
they had none ; zeal for the salvation of souls they
scarcely understood; their best efforts were directed
only towards the inteUectual defence of the Chris
tian Faith, but such work, however convincing it
might be to the mind, never stirred the heart.
And in course of time, as opportunities arose for
the exercise of the patronage which belonged to
their sees, many of the rectories and vicarages in
their dioceses came to be filled with men like them
selves. There was much discontent at first at this

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 181
condition of things, but that discontent was unable
to find articulate expression, for Walpole, with a
sinister insight, had quietly suppressed Convoca
tion. The opportunity for doing this had arisen in
1717 when the Lower House was openly and
violently challenging the opinions of one Benjamin
Hoadly, a man who had recently become Bishop of
Bangor. Hoadly had long been known as a strong
opponent of the Non- Jurors, and there was little
doubt that with the coming of the Hanoverians
he would receive high preferment. This anticipa
tion was fulfilled almost at once, for within a year
of the accession of King George he received the
offer of the bishopric ; and he signalized his promo
tion by writing a clever attack upon the Non-
Jurors and also by preaching before the King a
sermon in which he denied the existence of any
visible Church of God upon earth. The book was
sufficiently provocative, but the sermon, chaUeng-
ing as it did the opinions of a far larger number of
people, aroused veidespread resentment, and that
resentment developed into bitter denunciation when
it was known that the sermon was to be published
by the royal command. So intense was the feeling
that as many as seventy-four pamphlets deaUng
with the questions at issue were published in one

182 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
month alone. The excitement among Church
people generaUy was reflected in the Lower House
of Convocation where the Bishop's opinions were
condemned without a single voice being raised in
their support, and the Upper House was thereupon
requested to deal with the matter. It was at this
moment that the Government of the King, be- '
coming alarmed at the force of the attack which
was being made upon one of its chief supporters,
prorogued Convocation and thus stifled pubUc
discussion. Such a poUcy, when once adopted,
was found to be too convenient to be easUy
dropped ; moreover, the irritation which was in
existence in 1717 was certainly not less real in
1718 after an enforced silence of twelve months.
So Convocation after meeting for formal business
was immediately prorogued again, and this course
was adopted on every succeeding occasion for
132 years. For some time it was said that the
Church could not be trusted to express its voice
in its own constitutional assembly lest the welfare
of the Hanoverian succession should become
endangered. Afterwards, when the deadening
influence of the principles of the Hanoverian
Bishops had produced its effect, the Church itself
grew indifferent, and was content to keep within

FOREIGN KINGS AND THEIR WAYS 183
its mouth the gag which had originally been placed
there by its falsest of fi-iends. The wonder is that
dead as the Church was at the end of the eighteenth
century it was not then more dead stiU. - During
that century when questions of the gravest impor
tance were pressing for settlement, when a wise
handling of the movement started by the Wesleys
needed to be devised, when the shifting of the
population from the countryside to the towns was
causing serious anxiety, when the Churchmen of the
United States were asking for Bishops from the
Motherland from which they had just revolted —
during aU that time the mind of the Church as a
whole never found expression in Convocation, and
individual Bishops managed or mismanaged affairs
each in his own diocese or let them alone to take
their own course. The memory of such a time wiU
surely never cease to bring with it a feeling of deep
shame — a feeling which is only made somewhat less
bitter when it is remembered that this paralysis in
Church Ufe was not whoUy due to the Church itself,
but was rather produced by the action of a poUtical
party driven thereto by the consciousness of the fact
that they were in power in spite of the views of the
majority of the people.
The Bangorian Controversy, as the quarrel over

184 HISTORY OF TIIE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Bishop Hoadly's views was called, produced another
result besides that of the suppression of Convoca
tion. It led to the widespread dissemination of
the opinions which the Bishop represented, for the
people who ridiculed the idea of the Divine
authority of the Church found in those views what
seemed to them to be a logical basis for their
position. So it came about that amongst the
clergy generaUy the Laudian teaching which had
been the common characteristic at the end of the
seventeenth century, was scarcely heard at aU
at the end of the eighteenth, and this change
found practical expression in various ways : the
Rubrics of the Prayer-Book were disregarded
everywhere and on aU occasions ; the Sacraments
of the Church were less esteemed and therefore
less frequently celebrated ; and both the Bishops
and the clergy, regarding their pastoral office
lightly, found that their people came to regard it
Ughtly also.

CHAPTER XII
THE METHODISTS
Whilst such a change was taking place within the
Church a change was occurring also in the social
condition of England which had had no parallel in
all the previous history of the country. This change
was twofold : the population began to increase,
at first twice as quickly and later on three or even
four times as quickly as ever it had done before ;
and also the increased numbers, instead of being
evenly distributed over the country as a whole,
were found to be gathering together around a
comparatively few centres. There is no need here
to give any detaUed account of the cause of this
change. Briefly, it may be said that it came about
partly through improvements in means of com
munication, but chiefly through Watt's invention
of the steam-engine, which in turn led to the intro
duction of the factory system. The erection of
factories meant the massing together of the people
185 24

186 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
who worked in them, the people who hitherto
had lived in cottage homes in different viUages.
Furthermore, since the steam-enguie consumed an
immense quantity of coal, the factories became also
to a large extent grouped together in comparatively
smaU areas in the Centre and North of England
where the coal could be most cheaply obtained.
These changes led to an enormous increase in
the money wealth of the country, but for a
long time they involved also a very serious loss
of well-being to the mass of the people. The
conditions of Ufe under which the workers Uved
in these new districts were as unsatisfactory as
possible. People were herded together in new-
made towns hideous in their ugliness and lacking
even a pretence at sanitation ; the old personal
relation between master and man disappeared, for
the workpeople were henceforth only so many
' hands,' regarded by the capitalists merely as so
many necessary instruments in the production of
the goods out of which they made their immense
fortunes. Circumstances so brutal naturally brutal
ized the people, until it came to pass that in many
a case sin almost ceased to be sin because the
transgressor knew not that he was transgressing.
Never had there been greater need for the Church's

THE METHODISTS 187
ministrations ; never a greater need for a ministry
which would faithfully proclaim before aU men the
teaching of Christ, and which would especially
remind the rich men of the responsibility which
goes veith the possession of wealth. Yet the
National Church did next to nothing. In these new
manufacturing districts many a vUlage suddenly
became a toven, and such of the parish clergy
as troubled themselves about the matter at all
found themselves face to face with social problems
which their previous experience had given them
absolutely no capacity to deal with, nor as to which
could they expect to receive any help from their
Bishops. There was no discussion about these
serious matters in Convocation since, as we know.
Convocation was practically non-existent, and there
was no strengthening of the hands of the clergy by
the laity, for the laymen were as indifferent as
were their parish priests. At last, however, a
change did come, but when it came it seemed
as though the National Church could only give
further proof of the depth to which it had sunk.
For though the new Ufe had its origin within her
womb, she herself not oiUy did nothing to foster its
growth, but she would veiUingly at one time have
taken a part in putting it to death.

188 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Towards the close of the seventeenth century the
moral degradation in the national Ufe for which the
Court of Charles II, was almost entirely responsible
had so distressed the better men in the kingdom that
efforts had been made by them to create a counter
acting influence, and parochial associations, known
as Religious Societies, had therefore been formed
in many places for the deepening of the spiritual
life of their members. Attendance at Holy Com
munion and the observance of the Fasts and VigUs
ordered by the Prayer-Book had always first place
in their rules ; but reality in their private devotional
Ufe was equally insisted upon ; and special preachers
who would encourage such ideals became in great
request. The movement rapidly grew to be an
important one though the Bishops generaUy, and
especially such of them as owed their promotion to
WUUam III., did their best to discourage it. One
of these Societies was destined to be productive of
an especiaUy great result. A country clergyman
named Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth in Lin
colnshire, had formed a ReUgious Society in his
parish on the eve of the Festival of the Purifica
tion, 1702, and by means of it had done much
to raise the standard of Churchmanship amongst
his people. Of this good Rector's runeteen children

THE METHODISTS 189
one was the John Wesley who later on played so
wonderful a part in the revival of religion in
England. This son John, after being educated
at the Charterhouse and at Oxford, became or
dained and acted for a short while as his father's
curate. He then went back to Oxford and found
that his brother Charles, who was still in residence,
had started a ReUgious Society like t)he one with
which both the young men were familiar at
Epworth. He at once became a member of it and
by reason of his stronger personaUty became also
its leader. Encouraged by glad words of commen
dation from their father, the brothers went on their
way and before long were joined by many of their
University friends. One of these friends was
George Whitefield, at that time a poor student of
Pembroke CoUege, who as a lad had acted as drawer
of the beer for the customers of the Uttle public-
house kept by his mother at Gloucester, but
who later on was destined to become almost as
famous as Wesley himself. As the Society grew it
attracted the notice of the University generaUy
and, like aU such new movements, it had to face the
derision and contempt both of those who despised
it and of those who though approving of it in their
conscience were yet too weak to dare to join it.

190 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Out of the many nicknames given to it, one,
namely that of 'Methodists,' survived, and has
remained as the general title of the different divi
sions into which the foUowers of the Wesleys and
Whitefield have since grouped themselves. This
name was given to the first members of the move
ment because of their careful observance of the
directions contained in the Prayer-Book, and it
bears eloquent testimony to their fideUty in a
careless age to the teaching of the Church of
which they were members.
Five years after the formation of the Society in
Oxford John Wesley went as a missionary under the
auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel to the newly formed colony of Georgia in
America, and, during his absence, Whitefield by
his remarkable eloquence made the new move
ment known to everyone, both in the West of
England and in London. But success also meant
opposition. Many people had no desire to be
aroused out of their spiritual lethargy ; some saw
in the new enthusiasm dangers both to Church and
State ; many of the clergy were angry at what they
regarded as an intrusion into spheres which they
said rightly belonged to themselves alone ; many
others of them decried the movement because it

THE METHODISTS 191
only too plainly revealed their own lack of spiritual
earnestness ; whilst not a few saw the seeds of a
fresh schism in the ReUgious Societies which were
springing up everywhere. Here was a movement
new in its enthusiasm and to many new in its
methods. In spite of opposition it was spreading
every day by reason of the extraordinary devotion
and fervour of its leaders. But unfortunately there
was no one in authority who knew how to control
it so as to make it a force to awaken a slumbering
Church. On the great question as to whether there
was room veithin the Church for the Religious
Societies Wesley consulted the Bishop of London
of the time. ' Are they dissenting conventicles ?'
he said, ' I think not,' repUed the Bishop, ' but I
determine nothing ; read the Acts and laws on the
subject for yourselves.' What a reply from the
chief pastor of a diocese in which these Societies
already abounded ! The great Bishop Butler
of Bristol was more definite, but it was the
defiiuteness of opposition. He said to Wesley :
' You have no business here ; you are not com
missioned to preach in this diocese ; therefore I
advise you to go hence.' From that moment the
issue could not much longer remain in doubt. In
1739, within a year of Wesley's interview with the

192 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Bishop of London, he formed a Society under his
own control in London, and the Wesleyan move
ment as a movement distinct from the Ufe of the
National Church was begun. Of the subsequent
history of that movement we have nothing to do
here. It need only be said that, when it had finaUy
developed into religious organizations definitely
separated from the Church, it was found that the
Church had lost very many of its best chUdren,
since the ranks of Methodism were recruited mainly
from the trading classes and shopkeepers and the
better class of artisans and labourers — that is, from
those classes which make up so largely the back
bone of England.

CHAPTER XIII
new life within the church
Separation was not, however, the only result of
the movement which originated with the Wesleys
at Oxford. Many of the men who very early came
under the influence of that movement were content
to remain true to their Church and to labour on
within it in the beUef that it would once again
justify its position as the Church of the nation. To
their influence was due the revival within the
Church which is known as the Evangelical Move
ment. Their object was the same as that of the
Wesleys and Whitefield : they laboured to con
vince the world of the awfulness of sin, and to
make each man realize his own personal responsi
bUity before God ; but they laboured within and not
veithout the Church.
Of these men, perhaps the noblest was John
WiUiam Fletcher, for many years Vicar of Madeley
in Shropshire. Fletcher was of Swiss origin (his
193 25

194 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
name reaUy was De la Flechere), but he made
England his home. WhUe he acted veith Wesley
he did much by preaching to French-speaking
people in London ; and so great a regard had
Wesley for him that when in 1773 it seemed Ukely
that he, Wesley, would die, he hoped that the
leadership of the revival would be undertaken by
his friend. But it was as Vicar of his large country
parish that Fletcher did his best work. The in
difference of his people to aU holy things formed
only an additional incentive to him to devote his
energies to their welfare. He even adopted the
method of going round the parish at 5 a.m. on
Sunday mornings with a bell in order to rouse the
people and caU them to worship. He was also an
enthusiastic believer in what was then the new
system of Sunday-schools. His personal holiness
moreover was as remarkable as his zeal, so that his
visits to the new Theological CoUege at Trevecca
were regarded as the visits of an angel of God,
while a man who caUed to see him when he was old
and infirm said : ' I was told I should see a man
with one foot in the grave, but I found a man that
had one foot in heaven.'
Another of the leaders was John Newton, a man
who in his early years had been a wild and disso-

NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH 195
lute sailor, but later had come under the influence
of Whitefield at Liverpool. After that he was
ordained, and did exceUent work as curate-in-
charge of Olney in Buckinghamshire. But it was
as a writer of spiritual letters that men knew
him best, though now, like Bishop Ken, he is
remembered as a hymn- writer ; and two at least of
his hymns, ' How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,'
and ' Glorious things of Thee are spoken,' are
amongst the most loved in the English language.
A third man was Henry Venn, who, as Vicar of
Huddersfield for twelve years, was able to make
the Christian Faith a real influence in one of the
new manufacturing tovens of his time, and, later
on, as incumbent of YeUing in Huntingdonshire,
became spiritual adviser to many a Cambridge
student. By the influence of men of this kind there was a
new life springing up veithin the National Church
in many parts of the country. But the centre of
the movement was quickly recognized as being at
Clapham, a place which was then little more than
a viUage Ijong close to London. John Venn, a son
of the Vicar of Huddersfield, was Rector of
Clapham from 1792 to 1813, and amongst his
parishioners were included some of the noblest

196 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
laymen of the time. One of these was Henry
Thornton, a distinguished city merchant, weU-
known alike for his mtegrity and for his munifi
cence. Others were Zachary Macaulay, the father
of the historian, and Mr. James Stephen. But far
and away the most distinguished of a very notable
group was WiUiam WUberforce, a member of an
old Yorkshire famUy, who had begun his public
life merely as a popular member of Parliament, but
who later on became one of the most enthusiastic
members of what was already known as 'the
Clapham sect.' It is because the Evangelical
Movement possessed in this one centre such a
number of truly remarkable men that it was able
to become so effective for good. Each of these
men had they lived apart would have done much ;
Uving together they did perhaps a greater work
than any similar body of men has ever yet done.
It was not merely that the strength of the centre
gave constant encouragement to individual members
throughout the land, though that was much. Be
sides this the ' Claphamites ' inaugurated at least
two great movements, and gave such support to a
third as to make it finaUy successful. They started
a new Missionary Society which should supple
ment the work of the Society for the Propagation

NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH 197
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts by sending men to
Africa and the East. After a few years this
Society received the name of the Church Missionary
Society, and soon became what it stiU honourably
remains — viz., the most enthusiastic of all the
societies engaged in the work of the evangelization
of the heathen races. Subsequently the same men
started also the British and Foreign Bible Society
in order that copies of the Scriptures might be
furnished in abundance to aU who desired them,
and the work of this Society in publishing transla
tions of the Scriptures in practically every known
tongue has been of inestimable value to Noncon
formist and American Foreign Missions as weU as
to the Church's own missionaries.
But the cause into which these men threw more
energy stiU was that for the abolition of the Slave
Trade. Such a cause found in WiUiam WUber
force a leader, who, by his position in Parliament,
by his known friendship veith Pitt, and by his
general popularity, could have done much for any
object, but who, just because he was fiUed with a
deep religious enthusiasm and was whole-heartedly
supported by friends who shared his views, was
even able at last to persuade Parliament to put a
stop to the Slave Trade. This triumph was achieved

198 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
in 1807, and though slavery as a recognized institu
tion within the Empire did not come to an end until
the great Emancipation Act of 1833, yet it was felt
from the first that that would foUow. In addition
also to their efforts to suppress this terrible traffic
the EvangeUcals founded the colony of Sierra
Leone in the hope that it would prove the centre
of new influences for the improvement of the social
condition of the native races in Africa, an attempt
which was none the less noble because it proved
ultimately unsuccessful. In fact, every project of
the time which seemed to be designed for the good
of men at home or abroad, either owed its origin to
the " Claphamites " themselves or was sure of their
hearty support.
Nevertheless this EvangeUcal Movement did not
retain its commanding position within the National
Church after the death of its first leaders. It had
arisen in an age which was strongly individuaUstic,
and it partook of the character of its time ; the
movement was the work of a collection of individ
uals and not of a corporate body. It was also
narrow in its sympathies, refusing to have any part
in much of the life and recreation of the nation, and
this in spite of the broader and more genial spirit
of WilUam Wilberforce. Furthermore, its mem-

NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH 199
bers made little of the Sacraments of the Church ;
they met for Prayer - Meetings rather than for
worship and listened to sermons instead of par
taking of the Holy Communion. It was the Puritan
attitude of the time of Queen Elizabeth over again.
With this addition that the Puritans at the begin
ning of the nineteenth century were honourably
distinguished by their good works.
Meanwhile, there were great changes at work in
the minds of the people generaUy. The French
Revolution actuaUy took place in France, but it
fired the imagination of men far beyond the French
borders. In England there was widespread dis
content. So long as the great Napoleonic wars
lasted the burden of taxation was very heavy, and
so soon as they were over there was terrible distress
iu aU the trades which had been inflated by them.
ParUament attempted to deal veith the discontent
by passing severely repressive measures, but then
ParUament did not represent the great body of
working people. Hence there were riots in the
East of England and in London, and riots in the
Midlands and in the North. At length came the
great Reform Act of 1832, bringing social peace in
its train since by it the people were able at last to
make their voice heard and their influence felt

200 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
in the affairs of the nation. But by that time the
leaders in the National Church were either despised
or hated, for in the fierce struggles of the previous
forty years for poUtical Uberty they had been far
too seldom on the side of the people, and it was
natural that when at length the people triumphed
they should have but Uttle regard for a Church
which had so often opposed their aims. It was in
fact regarded as impossible that the National
Church would be aUowed to keep its position for
many more years. Yet once again it showed an
astonishing power of revival, facing boldly the
fierce opposition of its estranged members and
making greater claims than ever to their allegiance.
The spirit of the time was manifested in an
attempt made by the Government which came in
after the passing of the Reform BiU to suppress ten
of the Irish Bishoprics, as though the Church were a
mere department of State to be dealt veith accord
ing to the caprice of a temporary majority.
Against this cynical plan John Keble, the revered
author of the ' Christian Year,' protested in the
famous Assize Sermon which he preached at
Oxford on Sunday, July 14, 1833 ; and it was
this sermon which was always regarded by Newman
as the origin of the religious revival which is now

NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH 201
generaUy known as the Oxford Movement. The
first definite step, however, in the way of organiza
tion was taken at Hadleigh in Suffolk, where the
Rector, the Rev. H, J. Rose, a Cambridge man,
had called together a few High Church clergymen,
and with them had resolved ' to fight for the Apos-
toUcal Succession and the integrity of the Prayer-
Book.' It was the revival again of the old Laudian
teaching of the seventeenth century veith its asser
tion of the Church's position as a Divine institution
possessed of the right to decree its own services and
ceremonies. Shortly after this meeting at Had
leigh John Henry Newman, who was then Vicar of
the University Church at Oxford, began the writing
of the ' Tracts for the Times,' so that these views
with which he entirely sympathized might be made
more veidely known ; and at the same time he
began to use his pulpit also for the same
purpose. In the writing of the tracts Newman was aided by
Keble, Pusey, and others, and this Uterary side of
the movement lasted tiU 1841, when Newman pub
Ushed the famous ' Tract 90 ' in which he declared
that the Thirty-nine Articles were not directed
against Roman Catholic doctrine as rightly under
stood, but only against the popular misconceptions 26

202 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
of it. This Tract produced a storm of opposition,
and at the request of the Bishop of Oxford of the
time the Tracts were thereupon discontinued.
From that moment Newman ceased to be the
real leader of the movement, although he was not
formally received into the Roman Catholic Com
munion until four years later. His place was taken
by Pusey, who was then, and for more than forty
years afterwards, one of the Canons of Christ
Church, and Pusey's influence was so great that
• Puseyism ' came to be the common name for the
movement. Yet it was not until this new leader
was made to suffer persecution that the cause can
be said to have attracted the notice of the country
generally. In 1843 Pusey preached a sermon on
the Holy Eucharist which led to his being
suspended from preaching for three years. As
a result the sermon was on sale everywhere, and
Pusey himself became the recognized exponent of
the Catholic position of the English Church. In
every department of the controversy he exercised a
unique influence ; by his clear statement of the
doctrine of the National Church on the question
of Baptismal Regeneration he kept many a man
from seceding to Rome ; he taught the Real
Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist ; and

NEW LIFE WITHIN THE CHURCH 203
through his influence the practice of Confession
veithin the Church of England was revived.
The results of this movement have been even so
far exceedingly great. Reverence for the Church
as a Divine institution has produced a reverence
for aU things connected with it ; the buUding of
new churches and the restoration of old ones have
gone on apace, and the worship within them has
once again much of the dignity and beauty which
were associated with it in pre-Reformation times.
Even the form of the new buUdings is indica
tive of the great changes which the Oxford Move
ment has produced in the teaching of the Church
as a whole ; for in them it is always the sanctuary
with its Holy Table which is most prominent,
whUe the gaUeries, which were suitable indeed for
theological lecture-halls but not for places of
worship, have disappeared.
But the movement is doing more than that. In
response to the longing of men in these latter days
for a real brotherhood of man, it is teaching the
world to see that membership in the Church
implies that brotherhood, since the Church is an
organization founded by the great Head Himself
for the very purpose of providing the means by
which each several member shaU be able to obtain

204 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
the Divine grace to fulfU the better his duty to the
whole body.
The Church can indeed boast of a record of
which, in spite of its many sad pf-ges, its members
may be justly proud ; but there is a juster reason
still for pride in the fact that it is striving to-day
to make aU men realize that fellowship with Christ
means fellowship one with another.

INDEX

Abbot, Archbishop, 122, 134
Aidan, S., 16
Alban, S., 3
Alfred, King, 19
Andrewes, Lancelot, 123, 127, 139,
167
Anne of Bohemia, 71
Anne, Queen, 175
Anselm, Archbishop, 94
Augustine, 10, 11
Bancroft, Archbishop, 122, 125
Becket, Thomas, Archbishop, 33,
94
Bellflrmine, 128
Bertha, Queen, 10
BUney, 115
Blair, Dr., 173
Boleyn, Anne, 84, 91, 94, 115
Boniface VIII., Pope, 51
Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop, 42
Bonner, Bishop, 129
Bray, Dr., 171, 173
Bucer, Martin, 115
Burnell, Robert, 46
Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop, 164, 168
Butler, Bishop, 191
Calvin, 124
Charles I., 80, 131, 142, 151
II., 145, 151, 188
v., the Emperor, 88, 116
Cherry, Francis, 178
Clement V., Pope, 54
Colet, John, 75
Columba, S., 15

Columbus, 77
Compton, Bishop, 156
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop, 90
Cromwell, Oliver, 141
Cromwell, Thomas, 96
Dodwell, Henry, 178
Dominic, 43
Dunstan, S., 20, 22
Eadbold, Archbishop, 13
Edmund, King of East Anglia, 19
Edward I., 46
VI., 102, 162, 166
Edwin, King of Northumbria, 13
Elizabeth, Queen, 113, 166
Ethelbert of Kent, 10
Ethelburga, 13
Ethelfrith, 16
Ethelwold, Bishop, 21
Fisher, Bishop, 95
Fletcher, John William, 193
Francis of Assisi, 43
Gaunt, John of, 62, 113
George I., 163, 179
II. , 163
III., 169
German, S., 4, 5
Goth, Bertrand de, 54
Gregory the Great, Pope, 9, 14
XIIL, Pope, 118
Grey, John de. Bishop, 38
Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop, 45
Gualo, Papal Legate, 41

205

206 HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Henrietta Maria, Queen, 131
Henry I., 28, 32
II., 31
III., 41
v., 67
VL, 67
VIL, 82
VIIL, 80, 82, 166
Hildebrand, Pope, 25
Hoadly, Benjamin, Bishop, 181,
184
Holywood, 129
Honorius III., Pope, 41
Hooker, Richard, 123, 125, 139,
167
Horneck, Anthony, 178
Huss, 69
Innocent III., Pope, 38
Isidore, Decretals of, 30
James I., 120
IL, 80, 163, 161
Jeffreys, Judge, 160
Jerome of Prague, 71
Jewel, Bishop, 123, 124
John, King, 36
Joseph of Arimathea, 2
Justus, 13
Katharine, Queen, 81, 87, 90
Keble, John, 200
Ken, Thomas, Bishop, 179
Kettlewell, John, 178
Knox, John, 103, 124
Langland, 59
Langton, Stephen, 36, 40, 42, 94
Latimer, 115
Laud, Archbishop, 134, 167, 172,
184, 201
Leo X., Pope, 75
Lingard, John, 130
Lloyd, Bishop, 179
Louis VIIL, King of France, 40
XIV., King of France, 160
Lupus, S., 4, 5
Luther, 85

Macaulay, Zachery, 197
Mainwaring, Roger, 133
Mary, Queen, 109, 146, 166
Mary, Queen of Scotland, 114
Monmouth, Duke of, 154
Montague, Richard, 132
More, Sir Thomas, 75, 95
Nelson, Robert, 178
Newman, Cardinal, 200, 201
Newton, John, 194
Northumberland, Protector, 102,
108, 146
Nottingham, Earl of, 130
Offa, King of Mercia, 22
Oswald, 15
Oswald, S., 15
Oswy, 17
Pandolph, Papal Legate, 40
Parker, Matthew, Archbishop, 115,
129
Paul III., Pope, 95
Paulinus, 14
Peckham, John, Archbishop, 47
Peiagius, 4
Philip Augustus, King of France,
39
Philip II., King of Spain, 110
Pius IV., Pope, 117, 130
v.. Pope, 117, 130
Pusey, 201, 202
Reynolds, Walter, Archbishop, 66
Richard II., 70
Rose, Rev. H. J., 201
Sacheverell, Dr., 176
Sancroft, Archbishop, 157, 162
Sibthorpe, Dr., 132
Somerset, Protector, 102
Stapledon, Bishop, 57
Stephen of Blois, 31, 35
Stephen, James, 196
Tenison, Archbishop, 165, 174
Tertullian, 2

INDEX

207

Theodore, Archbishop, 18
Thornton, Henry, 196
TiUotson, John, Archbishop, 164
Travers, Evening Lecturer at the
Temple, 125
Venn, Henry, 195
Venn, John, 195
Vortigem, 7
Walpole, Prime Minister, 180
Warham, William, Archbishop, 75
Wesley, Charles, 189

Wesley, John, 189, 190
Wesley, Samuel, 171, 188
Whitefield, George, 189, 190
AVhitgift, Archbishop, 119, 122
Whiting, Richard, Abbot, 99
Wilberforce, William, 196, 197,
198
Wilfrid, Bishop, 22
William I., 25, 26
IIL, 118, 158, 160, 167,
176, 177
Winchelsea, Archbishop, 51, 62,
94
Wycliffe, 61, 69

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